Not
Myself
By Princess
Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com
Annie stayed home while the others went to the movies. Christy was sitting on her living room floor with the contents of the box that came today laid out all over her coffee table. The door was left open so Annie just leaned on the doorway and watched her for a moment. Christy was so intensely studying that she didn't even notice Annie watching her.
The feelings Annie had were so strong sometimes she just wanted to hide away from Christy so that she didn't have to feel them. Other times she just wanted to be nearby so that she could. It was torture. She'd worked hard to try and keep these feelings to herself, but the look Erik gave her when she said she'd rather stay home tonight made her think that at least he had noticed. She was starting to miss the time that it was just her and Christy in the house, but then she knew having the others there helped keep her from doing something really stupid. Which was why she really should have gone with them tonight. She was in her wanting to be close mood.
"Do you want anything to drink?" Annie spoke softly and could hear the affection in her own voice easily.
Christy looked up in a bit of surprise. "I thought you were going out?"
"I didn't like the movie they were planning on." Annie took a few steps into the room. "Thought I'd rather see this box of goodies you got." Christy smiled at her and cleared a place on the ground for Annie to sit. Annie moved quickly to do it.
"Well, she must have sent us everything she had. I've been looking and I never found any of this." Christy pulled out the magazine articles they had copies of. "I didn't even know they had a magazine like this. We'll need to see if we can get a subscription. Half of these articles came from it." Christy looked like it was Christmas. Every thing that they looked at made her more giddy. She hadn't looked like that during Christmas this year. Annie just glanced at the article while paying more attention to the woman that haunted her dreams and fantasies. Christy was just enough of a mystery to make Annie desperate to know, to be the one trusted enough. Annie was Christy's right hand man, and that was so special, but there was more Christy needed. Annie could see that.
They sat reading the articles while quietly listening to Christy's music. Annie's heart was beating just a little quickly as she tried to subtly shift so that her leg rested against Christy's. A small smile crossed her lips when she managed and Christy didn't seem to notice or object. She could feel the warmth of the woman's body and it was so nice. It was much harder to concentrate on the articles after that, but she tried.
After a few minutes Christy put her book down and put a piece of paper in it to hold her place. "I'm gonna go get some juice. Want any?" Annie was a little disappointed when Christy moved to get up.
"No, I'm fine. Thanks."
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Christy's smile fell off her face once she was out of her room. Annie was making a pass at her, and she didn't know what to do. "Oh God." She muttered quietly as she pulled a glass out to put the juice she didn't really want in. Awkward didn't even begin to cover this and her mind was freezing when she tried to think of what to do about it. She couldn't just say something and embarrass the girl. Christy had gone through her fair number of crushes and knew that being called on it would be humiliating.
She didn't want to push Annie away, but she didn't want to encourage her either. Christy felt her frustration eating at her. She took her glass and headed back down. She wasn't able to concentrate on the reading with Annie trying to snuggle up to her like this. She sighed. Distance, she'd just have to keep some physical distance.
After another tense hour and a half the door opened and her other teens were home. Erik came down shortly after that and Christy invited him in to look at the materials. He'd been too eager to go out and test the shields he did have before. After a while Annie slipped out to do homework, and Christy found that she still couldn't relax.
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Scott called the Professor from the hotel room Thursday night. It was definitely one of those houses. They'd stopped the three kids from robbing a jewelry store at night, and now had custody of them. Unfortunately the adult of the house fled. He was a mutant teleporter and got away, but the loot the kids had been stealing was still in the house. The look on some of their faces when that man just left them like that was painfully to see. They all felt betrayed.
After debriefing him the Professor had some news about that woman that called pretending to be Jean's friend. "Well, Ms. Taylor is a teacher. Everything seemed to add up until I had someone in the area check out her house. She's got four teenage mutants living with her."
"Oh no." Scott sighed. "You think this is another one?"
"It might be." The Professor sounded like he was hoping it wasn't the case as well. "I'm having Wolfsbane keep an eye on things until your team can finish up and go check it out."
"Alright, I'll let them know." Scott hung up. They had to go through the house and see if there was any clue about what was going on. This was far too organized, someone was behind all of this. It meant that Rahne was going to be on her own for a few days. It was a little surprising that she'd been called in on this. He didn't think she was in the country.
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Christy felt like she was being watched as she walked out to the mailbox. She glanced around but didn't see anything. Still it had her on edge.
After dinner Jon came in with a big grin on his face, "You've got to come see this." He opened the door wider and Christy just gave him a questioning look and followed him out. In the driveway Eric was petting a large red dog, it almost looked like a wolf. "She came out to see us." Jon turned to look at her and his expression reminded Christy of a young child. "Can we feed her? I've never seen her around here, she might have been just dumped." Christy sighed. A pet, that's what the boys wanted. They were just trying to talk her into it one step at a time.
"She got any tags?" She called over to Erik.
He reached out to look for a collar on her neck. "No, nothing."
"Well, we'd need to talk to the girls, but you can bring her in. I don't want her making it to the main street, she'll get killed." Christy noticed how well the dog walked beside Erik to go inside. She stopped in front of Christy and tried to sniff her for a moment before moving to catch up with the thin boy.
The girls were asking about keeping the dog before Christy even made it up the stairs. "We need to make an effort to find her family." Christy glanced at the red dog for a moment, "But if she behaves…"
"You'll take in any strays won't you?" Annie just smiled at her.
"Well, this completes my set." Christy grinned. "I've got five now, and the girls outnumber the boys dramatically. That's as it should be."
They sat at the dining room table and a plate was made for the dog and put on the kitchen floor. "We need to get some dog food. That can't be good for her." Christy commented as Jessi stood up and moved to sit at her place at the table.
"So when you say we should make an effort to find her family, what are you thinking of?" Erik asked and his tone of voice made it clear he was looking forward to not finding them.
Christy looked around. "Do you think two weeks of putting up some posters would do it?" Two weeks should be enough time for someone seriously looking for their dog to call.
After dinner that all sat in the living room, and the dog curled up in front of the fireplace. Erik stared at the dog for a moment. "We can't just call her dog. She needs a name."
"How about Red?" Jessi said as she leaned back on the couch.
"Okay, you aren't allowed to name anything." Christy smirked at the girl. "Why don't we call her Furry, or Fluffy?" She was chuckling and Jessi just shook her head in mock disgust.
"We could go with Bitch." Erik started to grin.
"Here Bitch… Come here girl." Christy addressed the dog and got nothing but a lazy glare. "Okay, she doesn't like that one. Wonder why?"
"Thank God. I am not going to take her to a park and call that out with all the kids running around." Jon's face was just a little red as he grinned.
Annie stared thoughtfully at the dog. "She doesn't look like a mean dog. Maybe something like Hope or Faith?"
"Eww." Jessi grimaced. "Why not add Charity or Chastity to the list. I don't think so."
"I think she looks kinda like a wolf." Jon said and they were surprised to see the dog's head rise. Was that her real name?
"Wolf." Christy said it while studying the dog's reaction, and the red animal got up and walked over to her. Christy just looked at her students with a slightly surprised expression. "I think she's Wolf." What were the chances of hitting the dog's real name? She looked over at Jon, "You have some sort of animal telepathy you never told us about?" She grinned at him.
"Nope."
"No, he's just a Monkey Boy." Erik ducked the mock punch aimed his way. "That would be a good code name don't you think?"
"If anything, I'm a Monkey Man." Jon managed to say with a straight face while resting his fists on his hips. Jessi reached out with a hand and rested it on his once his fake pose was done. Christy just watched it for a moment. She'd figured out pretty quickly why Jon wanted to move in, but they were keeping their slowly budding relationship from overtaking the entire house. They were both over eighteen and if they decided to start having sex it would be awkward, but Christy wasn't about to lay down rules about her student's sex lives. She'd just make sure they were using protection, and she wasn't looking forward to that talk, but from the looks of things she'd better have it with at least one of them soon. Maybe they should have a class about it, so she wouldn't have to do it four different times.
"You know, you use that and people will think you're a shapeshifter." Christy moved to rest her back on the arm of the couch so she could face all of them, while pushing the latest problem out of her mind.
"What is with those codenames anyhow?" Jessi shook her head. "I mean why tell your enemy exactly what you can do?" Her voice got deeper as she pretended to be a man. "I am Aquaman!" it returned to her normal voice, "So you fight a guy like that you keep him away from water. It's in the name."
"Oh, so you weren't planning to go with Clusters or Bubbles?" Erik teased. Jessi grabbed the pillow next to her and hit him with it. Before he could retaliate Christy spoke.
"No rough housing in the house." Still it was nice to see Jessi playing. She'd come out of her shell since that talk Christy had with her about abusing power.
"So we have a Monkey Man and a Bubbles." Annie grinned. "What are we gonna call Erik?"
"I'm Empath."
"That's advertising your powers stupid." Jessi rolled her eyes.
"Actually that name is taken." Christy spoke softly, "And he's an ass. You don't want to share it."
"You know him?" Annie asked and Christy could see all eyes on her again. These kids seemed to zoom in on any hint that she knew other mutants.
"I've heard of him." They looked disappointed when she didn't elaborate. The conversation wasn't as teasing after that.
"How about MentalCase?" Jessi suggested, but she made sure to grin at Erik and he didn't seem to take offense. Of course the pillow did hit Jessi in the stomach, and no one touched it.
"Oh that's a good one." Annie grinned. "You three will strike fear in the hearts of old ladies."
"Oh yeah, can you just see them standing in the middle of a street with their hands on their hips. 'I am MentalCase and these are my companions Bubbles and Monkey Man." Christy was almost laughing too much to say it. "Give that candy back to that baby you fiend."
"And then the five year old kicks them in the shins and gets away." Annie added while chuckling.
"Listen here Sprout." Erik grinned at Annie. "I can see you chasing that child with a can of green beans and telling him the Jolly Green Giant likes them better than candy."
"Sprout?" Annie looked over at Christy.
Christy smiled at her while hoping to keep her from feeling bad about being teased because she was green. "We could make you a leaf skirt, or maybe we should just die your hair red and call you Poison Ivy." Annie grinned at her.
"I think the comics would sue me if I did that." Annie blushed a little at the attention.
"So what about you Christy? Any special names?" Jessi smiled at her.
"I'll take Bitch since Wolf didn't like it." Christy grinned.
"No…" Annie kicked her foot out and hit Christy's. "Something that kids can say."
"Kids can say that." Erik raised his hand in the air and mock screamed, "Bitch.. help me Bitch…"
"We could just go with Teach, but that's so dull." Jon leaned back further and rested his feet on the coffee table.
"Well, that pretty much fits me doesn't it?" Christy gave them a grin to let them know she didn't mean it. The teasing air in the room seemed to deflate as all her students got quiet and were obviously trying to think of something.
"What about Lezbo, kinda like Rambo, and you are a pretty good shot." Jessi's face was blushing deep red before she even finished saying that.
"Hey!" Annie looked like she was insulted for Christy, but Christy just started to chuckle.
"Let's just face it, I defy description, and if any of you call me any of those names I will kick your ass. I don't care how strong you are." She pretended to glare at them.
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