DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters, I just manipulate them and occasionally dream about them, draw them, and imagine them in compromising positions. There is nothing wrong in that.
(This is my Thank You to the following fabulous reviewers who keep this show on the road: Laceylou76 who, if I owned anything, I would share Remy with in Saturdays and you can't say fairer than that!; anon goddess who deserves a cookie for being so lovely; Agata93 who correctly said that this story need more reviews so I suggest all you lurkers get BUSY damn you! jesus may not be coming but that's no excuse!; and Bloodypassion who ws kind enough to review again, and should have gumdrops for her troubles! You lot are fantastic and you make me want to update when you review. Hint Hint, not that you seem to need encouraging! ^^)
~*******************************************************************~
~Scarlet Letter ~
Of Lunatics And Ladies
" – and she let him live?"
"I know, crazy, right?"
"Ya know I prefer the term 'mentally unstable', mate," Pyro said dryly, passing the doorway to the kitchen with a long black coat slung over his shoulders, and Pietro raced after him, stopping him just beyond the mantle and poking him in the chest.
"How come my sister didn't kill you earlier?" he demanded, an unattractive look of jealousy contorting his fine features. The Australian rolled his eyes.
"Maybe because I treated her like I'd treat any sheila I'd only just met instead of actin' like she was a bloody time bomb," he suggested, batting away Pietro's hand as though it were something annoying to be swatted at will. This naturally served only to infuriate the arrogant mutant and he raised his voice accordingly.
"If you knew my sister at all you'd know why we act the way we do! Why the hell did she agree to letting you stay here anyway – I'd have thought she'd had enough of frea – " Lance and Fred who were watching from the kitchen door swore afterwards that they hadn't seen it coming at all, so it could only be assumed that either they weren't paying enough attention or the diagnosis of Pyro as 'mentally unstable' was severely lacking an add-on in the form of 'and lethally fast'. In spite of all that, the next thing anyone knew was that the speedy annoyance commonly known as Pietro was face-down in the middle of the hallway, Pyro knelt on his back on Pietro's unsurprisingly delicate wrists as though this were prime-time TV and the Wrestlemania finals were on, hissing into the other mutant's ear.
"If I were you mate, I'd be careful what I went shoutin' about in a house where the only female inhabitant happens to be a former asylum inmate but just doesn't know it yet and who hates the f-word just as much as I do because," here he paused for an almost gleeful chuckle, "las' time I had a chat with our friend Mastermind, he wasn' sure how much longer it'd be 'til all those pretty little mem'ries of that hole you let your ol' man throw her in started popping up again. And when they do, I reckon you'll want as much evidence in your favour as possible – and screamin' the place down with language like that ain' gonna get you much more than an early grave."
Pietro wriggled, wide-eyed but unable to speak. Pyro's knees were pinning him in a way that was constricting his lungs, effectively silencing him if he wanted to avoid asphyxiation.
"Now, if I were you – an' thank God I'm not because I don' much fancy your hair – I'd never use that word again. And I'd let people go about their business instead o' pouncin' on 'em because I'm pissed off that my sister didn't maim them for bein' nice." He got off the now-gasping Pietro with a pleasant smile and nodded at Lance and Fred before leaving them, the front door clicking shut behind him as they stood there with total shock painted all over them. Pietro got up shakily, clutching at the wall for support, and Lance emitted a long, low whistle.
"Think it's alright to use the term 'really mentally unstable?'" he asked with ill-concealed mirth, and Pietro glared at him.
"He was right," Fred said calmly. "You shouldn't be so down on people. Wanda wouldn't like it." The giant teenager turned and walked back to the kitchen where his pizza was waiting, and Lance stifled a laugh as Pietro went completely red in the face and started to rant.
"Did you see what that fucking lunatic did?! When I tell Wanda his ass is so over! She'll bury him so deep no one will ever find him and who the fuck would even want to?! The guy's insane! Maybe we should have him committed against his will!" Lance just rolled his eyes at the irate speed-demon and said,
"Get over it man. There's pizza in the kitchen with your name on it and it's getting cold. And Wanda doesn't find out about this – think she would laugh if you told her you got whupped by someone who probably knows the theme song to Teletubbies?" Pietro's face darkened.
"You suck," was his witty come-back as he stomped into the kitchen to eat his dinner, brooding over possible ways to take his revenge on the pyromaniac who'd actually dared to tell him to behave like a normal human being. The nerve.
~*******************************************************************~
"Y' still wanna live there now y' know speedy's out t' get y'?" Remy asked, taking a swig of his beer, and St. John shrugged.
"I honestly don' care what he's out t' get. He's pathetic. You'd 'a' cried if y'd seen how easy it was ta floor 'im, the stupid bastard." Remy looked at him pointedly.
"Y' don' like de homme. Y' don' like 'im at all," he observed, and Pyro gave him a look.
"Alrigh', mon ami, Remy jus' makin' de observations, he won' mention it again – so," he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively in that special way of his that made it three ticks dirtier than when anyone else attempted the same manoeuvre. "De petit friponne readin' books?"
"She was readin' when I got there. An' your Sheila with the hair was there too. Said she'd gone there to borrow somethin'. Still don' get what the hell's such a big deal about their readin' habits. Either you're keepin' somethin' from a mate or you're just as cracked as me, and none of those are good options. Think stalkin' that Rogue Sheila's turned your head." Remy laughed and the Australian just sighed into his beer.
"Not that I don' get the attraction, mate, I do, I jus' think you're in over your 'ead wi' this one. She migh' be pretty as all hell on fire but to 'er you'll always be the bad guy. An' so will I." Remy mused over this.
"Remy will admit defeat de day y' admit dat fire-fighters do de world a favour," he said casually, and received a prompt and surprisingly well-aimed – due to all the beer they'd consumed over the two-hour period of their stay in this pub – punch on the arm.
"As you say, mon ami, let de games begin." He smiled to himself, ignoring St. John's obvious exasperation.
"Y' don' even have another date or whatever the hell what you two did last nigh' was – how d'you expect ta get ta see 'er when she lives with that psychotic pseudo-Sabretooth who actually showers, and fifty-odd mutant teens with more hormones than bloody brain cells?" he asked him, and Remy shrugged.
"Half de fun is makin' it work – Remy find a way." He looked sideways at his companion who drank up and shoved the empty bottle to one side where it joined their growing collection. "Y' sure y' wan' t' talk abou' brain cells, mon ami?"
"I'm a best-selling bloody author mate – I don' need 'em," St' John quipped, and Remy proceeded to fall off his barstool, stomach cramping from the laughter born of the solid truth in the statement.
"Y' got one ting righ' dere," he said breathlessly, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes and St. John Allerdyce smirked.
"I think I jus' solved your riddle."
~*******************************************************************~
Rogue was completely, totally engrossed in Pyro's stroke of literary genius accompanied by Alice Cooper on the stereo telling her just how much he wanted to taste her, when Kitty phased through her door, already talking.
" – won't believe what Lance just told me on the phone!" She sat up, beckoning the Valley Girl to come and sit next to her. This was bound to be good, Kitty's gossip always was. Rogue had yet to catch her using her amazing mutant ability to sense gossip forming, but she knew that must be the root of her ability to always know everything interesting even when no one else did or was supposed to.
"Why, what's going on? Is it good?" Rogue's full attention was on Kitty, who basked for a moment in the withholding of supreme knowledge before she had to give in or burst, and the dam broke.
"Okay, so: Earlier today, that Pyro dude like, came to see Lance about that ad they put out for that room they wanted to rent out? And like, Lance was all 'We gotta ask Wanda', right? And they went to ask Wanda and get this – Pyro called her 'love', and she totally didn't hurt him!"
Rogue gasped dramatically. "No!"
"I know, right? It's so weird!" Kitty glowed in the reaction Rogue had given her, perhaps knowing on some level that her friend was feeding her dramatic side, but not willing to admit it to herself.
"So, like, Pyro disappears after they've shown him around and everything – and we gotta like, find out what he does for a living now because Lance said he just, like, pulled five hundred outta nowhere! – and then Pietro comes home and the guys tell him!"
"How did he take that?" Kitty's blissful expression said it all, but Kitty being Kitty, she told her story anyhow.
"Lance said he went all big-brother and was totally jealous that Pyro, like, didn't get hexed or anything for doing that, and apparently he was getting really angry about it – so childish – "
Rogue nodded at that, "So childish," she agreed, and Kitty continued.
"I know, right? So then Pyro comes down to go somewhere and Pietro like, totally faces him and says something about how Wanda shouldn't have let him live there because she must be tired of crazy people, and Pyro like totally slams him into the floor and tells him off! How awesome is that?!"
Rogue really did gasp this time. "Oh mah Gawd!"
"And that's like, totally okay because Pietro was being a real prick, and Pyro like, told him not to call people freaks and said something about how Mastermind said Wanda's fake memories wouldn't last and how he should watch it with the crazy-jokes." Kitty looked at Rogue with huge, serious blue eyes, and Rogue said,
"Lahke, wow..."
~*******************************************************************~
Wanda had just finished the last chapter of the sequel to St. John Allerdyce's wonderful book and she was busy redoing her eyeliner where it had smudged during chapter sixty, which had been quite the emotional chapter, when she heard the front door slam open and the raucous singing. Intrigued, she opened her door and went to the landing, looking down at the tottering couple who were serenading her unwittingly with a heart-felt chorus of Alice Cooper's famous single Poison. She couldn't help a giggle, glad that they were obviously too sozzled to hear her over their song.
" – but your lips are venomous POISOOOOOON!"
" – you're poison running through my veins – "
" - you're POISON!"
"Ah' don' wanna break dese chaaains!"
"YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!" Wanda looked around her at this impolite interruption of their drunken performance to see her brother come flying in from left field to collide with Pyro, who side-stepped him using either fantastic reflexes or that unique luck some drunks appear to have, and causing Pietro to instead collide with the wall, which gained another few cracks. Pyro proceeded to pick him up, dust him off, and waltz with him in a highly undignified manner while Gambit leant against the opposite wall, apparently pissing himself laughing at the ridiculous spectacle of her twin being dragged about semi-conscious by a warbling Australian drunk. She had to admit, it was funny as hell. Until Lance showed up.
"What the fuck is going on here? Pyro? Gambit? What the hell you a-hole, what are you even doing here? It's three in the morning!"
"Gambit be enjoying de dancing," the Cajun managed between sobs of laughter, and Lance stamped in his impotent fury, causing the floor to ripple before Wanda swept her hand across the scene and yelled,
"Enough!" She stalked down the stairs regally, detaching Pyro from Pietro carefully, her twin looking at her with wide, frightened eyes.
"Wanda..? What happened?" he asked in a small voice, and she steered him over towards Fred.
"You were being a jack-off. Fred, take him to his room please, Lance, you too," she said to the boys, and Avalanche opened his mouth to protest.
"I didn't ask a question," she said with a slight growl at the end of 'question' that cowed him as effectively as if she had been swinging a whip and screaming. The boys faded away into the gloom as though she'd murdered them all and had been giving orders to their respective ghosts and, satisfied, she rounded on the two drunken disturbers of the peace.
Gambit looked at her with rapidly blinking red eyes, clearly trying to say something. She put a hand on her hip and cocked her weight to the right and he snapped out of it, his smirk firmly in place.
"Dere it was! Remy knew dere was a reason ma belle chere likes y', ma petit friponne," he said saucily, and she smiled at him.
"You're hopeless and you don't deserve to lick my boot," she said airily. The Cajun shrugged and grinned.
"Un homme can' argue wit dat logic," he said casually, elegantly stepping down to give Pyro his turn. The Australian turned cerulean eyes to the Scarlet Witch and fell to his knees in front of her. Even Remy raised an eyebrow. She just stood as if paralysed, not believing it.
"Oh, fair and lovely maiden, grant this poor, churlish fool your pardon, for he knew not what he did, and, if given the opportunity, would vow to devote the remainder of his existence to the doing of your will and yours alone – " Wanda's eyelashes fluttered and she actually let him take her hand at this point, which resulted in Remy's near brush with respiratory failure.
" – if only you would take pity on one who is so wholly unworthy as to be nothing in your perfect eyes..." Wanda's equally perfect lips parted, but not a sound escaped them until a little 'Oh' that could just as well have been an exhalation fell past them and Pyro took this as his cue to stand up and wink at her before he – in his not-so-serious everyday voice said,
"Righ' mate, party's over, give us a call when y' wake up tomorra an' we'll have a chinwag, yeah?" Remy just nodded, walking out with but one thought in the forefront of his mind. Surely there was somewhere open at this hour that sold brain disinfectant?
Once Remy had left, Pyro turned to Wanda who was just standing there, twiddling the rings on her right hand around over and over with the fingers of her left.
"I'm really sorry abou' all that, Wanda, nex' time I won' bring 'im back," he said reasonably, and she shook her head.
"You – you know I – ?" she left the question open and he smiled at her.
"Don' worry luv, I 'aven' been stalkin' ya. I saw the title of the one ya had your pretty little nose in earlier. Sorry." She went a delicate shade of peach as opposed to the untarnished milk her skin usually resembled and he assumed that was her equivalent of blushing.
"I didn't know you were the author until Rogue told me – I didn't know your real name, and she and I are always picking up books just o see if they're any good, I really didn't – "
He made a gesture that silenced her and said, "Don' worry, I won' ask if ya hated it. I'm flattered ya were int'rested enough ta get it in the firs' place. No worries luv. Sorry I disturbed you, I didn' mean ta make an entrance – well – " he laughed "Maybe not that big of an entrance anyhow!"
She just fiddled with a stray lock of flame-red hair that was dangling near her ear and looked the other way as he passed her. Thinking he'd already set foot on the stair, she turned only to find he was looking over her opposite shoulder, and she couldn't move at all when he tucked the lock behind her ear and said,
"Sweet dreams, Wanda..." before ascending the stairway to his own room, leaving her there in the hall, the square millimetre of skin on her cheek his bare finger had touched as he brushed back her hair burning as though he'd singed it.