Hello, all! Time for another chapter of your daily dose of Kodd! Thanks for all the reviews, you guys rock!! In this chapter, since Kchuu can't play her beloved Kurt, she gets to play her beloved Pietro. And Sketchy, as always, is Todd. We hope you enjoy the machinations of the silver-haired speed-demon and Todd-trying-to-forget-he's-gay. Enjoy! Next chapter is the last one.
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Todd had managed his way home after Kurt abruptly left. His shoulder still hurt like hell, and he couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't noticed the pain when he had caught Fuzzy earlier, when the other boy had almost fallen. Todd kicked open the already broken front door of the boarding house, not bothering to close it, they had no AC to let out anyway. Taking a detour to the kitchen, Todd started the faucet with one still-cracked and bleeding hand. Fuzzy may have helped the problem earlier with his tongue, but he didn't solve it. Todd let the water run over his hands, giving a sigh of relief as they soaked up the moisture. He listened for any signs of the others, the floor creaking that Freddy's weight caused, or the pluck of guitar strings that Lance would play in his room, or that whoosh that was...Now coming his way...
Pietro's expensive running shoes screeched to a stop behind the bleeding boy.
"Hey what's up Toad?" Pietro said in his usual super-quick way. "I was just headed for the kitchen to grab my fifteenth cup of coffee this hour hey what happened to your hand, Toad?" The sight of Todd's blood in the sink caused the silver-haired boy to slow down his speech enough for someone to actually get a word in edgewise. "Did you get in a fight or something?"
Todd gave his over active teammate a sneer, "No, not a fight, I jus' had a disagreement with my good friend Mr. Dissect-me, just a stupid argument about bathing in formaldehyde."
"Oh yeah the bio classes were doing dissections today weren't they ... Hey I heard someone stole all the frogs from the remedial class, that you? Pretty impressive dude but if you had asked for my help I coulda done it in about a quarter of a second... If I felt like touching dead things or helping out a loser." Pietro jeered at the boy, half joking and half in his truly condescending manner.
Todd turned off the faucet, hands now fully re-hydrated, and turned to face the silver haired annoyance that was Pietro.
"Yeah right, you wouldn't even bother then. You'd freak out just by looking at one of those corp-GAH!" Todd clutched his left shoulder; the mere act of turning around had moved whatever muscle he had hurt earlier. To say the least, it did NOT feel pleasant.
Pietro looked quizzically at the groaning mutant.
"Hey what happened to your arm, man? Fell out of a tree? Got in a fight? Sports injury?" Pietro whizzed over to the refridgerator and back, too fast to see, and handed Todd an ice pack. "Nah no one wants to play sports with you so that one's out. So what was it, slimy? Or froggy got your tongue?"
Todd snatched the ice pack and pressed it to the pained area, slowly relaxing his tensed up shoulders.
"Nah yo, fell off a second story window. I woulda broke my fall just fine if I didn't hafta make a show of it for that damned biology teacher and her bio rejects."
"Hafta make a show? You always love being in the center of attention Tolensky don't deny it!" Pietro's eyebrow twitched slightly, and then his face broke into a doubting smirk. "Hey if you fell out of a building how exactly did you pull a muscle in your shoulder like that?" Pietro looked Todd's shoulder over quickly, and prodded it a few times with a delicate finger. He knew injuries, and this one seemed more than a little fishy for a fall. "With the way you pulled it it looks like somebody fell on top of you! I mean just last week our backup point guard Puckerman got flattened by this other guy and his shoulder looked just like yours..." Pietro's words faded into a babble about trivial details of that basketball game.
Todd smirked at Pietros 'center of attention' line. 'Tro hated it when anyone else had the spotlight. Todd was contemplating whether he should make a huge deal of the frog rescue to get under Pietro's skin, when the the speedy mutant poked the offending muscle and mentioned 'fell on top of you'. Todd froze up, he had thought that the shoulder thing was from the fall, not Fuzzy! He threw on his best fake smile and tried to bluff his way out of the situation.
"Dunno yo, maybe my shoulder's diffrent from yo' shoulder, dawg."
"Yeah well half-frog or not a shoulder is a shoulder and I know what one looks like when it's hurt. I mean of course no one is fast enough to foul me on court but I know it when I see it when someone's been fouled pretty bad so why are you getting so defensive, huh, Toad?" Pietro leaned even closer, his never-ending disregard for other people's personal space becoming more and more apparent with each passing sentence. "Who was it who fell on you? Something you don't wanna share?"
Todd couldn't help but try to shift away from the ever-invader of personal space that was Pietro. Taking a step back, Todd chuckled nervously,
"Well yah know, I needed sum help getting those frogs outta the classroom, so me an' my partner in crime ended up making a great getaway, and I guess we both kinda fell over one another." Todd realized a moment too late that he had yet to actually admit to stealing away the frogs.
Pietro laughed and took another step forward, enjoying the way his teasing was making the younger boy squirm.
"Partner in crime? Dude who helped you pull this one off? Lance was with me all afternoon spray painting the wall beside the post office and if Freddy fell on you... let's just say that more than your shoulder would be hurting." Pietro cocked his head, a look of genuine interest on his face. It took a lot for him to keep standing there for so long, especially when he had just wanted some coffee and to get back to watching the Wizards game on tv. "So who's this new chick?" Pietro knew that Todd was awfully fond of assigning names to girls of interest, anything from "that blondie hottie" to "babycakes"... So who was this "partner-in-crime"?
Todd paused, deep in thought for a moment. Pietro thought it was a chick? Fuzzy sure was feminine some times but-. Todd's thoughts suddenly lept to how Kurt's rough tongue had been gently licking his hand less than an hour ago. Todd could feel his cheeks start to burn, and he decided that it might be for the best if Pietro just kept thinking it was a girl.
"N-no one you'd care 'bout, yo." Todd shifted his gaze to the floor. God he just wanted to get out of here. "It's over now anyway, so if ya don't mind, I'll just be goin' to my room now."
Pietro leaned down so his face was exactly Todd's level. So close, he was looking right into the frog kid's eyes. So close, their noses were almost touching. So close... Pietro's nose wrinkled. The smell was disgusting. Somehow smelling like a swamp, sweat, and too-strong cleaning chemicals. Oh, Pietro cared. He cared very much about what kind of self-respecting girl would get within a mile of this slimeball. "Oh no, Tolensky. You're not going anywhere until you tell me about this girlfriend of yours." He said with a grin. "I wanna know the chick who'll steal some frogs, fall out of a two story window and be unhurt.... and get within a 10-foot radius of YOU. This girl can't be normal!"
"I-I-" Todd didn't know what to say, he was stuck. Pietro wasn't gonna stop pestering him until he told him something. Who WOULD do that frog saving thing with him? Someone weird? Someone different? Someone that Pietro would have no interest in whatsoever would be nice. "I-It was that Risty chick! You know, the one Rogue hangs around with." That was close enough to weird, different, and Pietro-no-likey enough for Todd.
Pietro took a couple steps back, much slower than usual, which was still faster than average. A look of contemplation passed over his features. Within a few moments, however, the usual smirk was back.
"Ha, figures the only girl who'd hang out with you would be a dyke! Haha! Hahaha! Here I was thinking there could actually be a female--a person--who'd like our Toady boy here like that!" He whizzed two feet to his left and started dumping brown powder into a microwavable cup (instant's the fastest, but still too damn slow!) and laughed again. "Funny, though, I thought I saw her leaving with Rogue after school to go to the movies. Lance and I were gonna follow them and mess with 'em a bit but he had some spray paint and you can't just let a good wall go without an annotation or two from the brotherhood!" He jammed his cup in the microwave and pressed a few buttons at lightning speed.
The kitchen fell into an awkward silence for approximately 3 minute and 15 seconds. Pietro tapped his foot impatiently, and whizzed all around the house at random intervals. Soon, though, the timer beeped and Pietro withdrew his coffee. He blew on it to cool it off, and something occurred to him.
"Hey Tolensky, you like that chick? 'Cause you went pretty red when I was talkin' about her. Thing is, though..." He paused to take a gulp from his super-pumped espresso. "You've never acted that way about Risty before. Or about any other girl, for that matter. I mean you've talked to us about those hotties you'd tap if you got the chance but you've never reacted like that to us talking about something and plus when you just said the girls name you didn't react at all what''!" The coffee was clearly affecting him already, quickening his words and his thoughts
Todd could barely make out what Pietro was saying, but he got the basic idea that his lie hadn't worked. "Well, uh, ya see yo I.....Ah shit." Dropping the ice pack, Todd made a dash for the stair case. Not that Pietro couldn't catch him, but at this point Todd didn't really think of that as much as MUST GET OUT OF HERE NOW.
Pietro let the cheap mug fall to the ground with a CRACK! Suddenly he was in front of the toad boy on the stairs. "Can't outrun me, Toad, nomatterhowhardyoutry!"
Todd's mind raced, try to run and 'Tro would catch him, try to fight and 'Tro would beat him to a pulp, that left one option. Taking a deep breath and moving that certain muscle in his stomach, Todd heaved out a large blob of slime all over Pietros face (and hair).
Pietro fell backwards on the stairs, scrubbing at the slime on his face in vain. He tore his mouth free, yelling at the frog boy who was now a hop, leap, and a jump up the stairs.
"Ugh! Man that was fuckin' GAY! What are you running from anyway?! Is that it? Was it a dude?! Are you fuckin' QUEER, Tolensky?!"
Todd nearly tripped over himself when he heard that. He gave a quick, hateful glance down at the flailing speed demon. The frog-like mutant could feel his chest tighten with feelings he didn't dare let out anywhere near his teammates. Instead he turned the feelings into rage, and shouted at the top of his lungs
"It's called BISEXUALITY, asshole!" before he leapt to and through the door to his room, slamming it behind him.
Pietro grabbed the last gunk out of his eyes (though it would take four shampoos before the grey gook came off his silver locks) and looked up the stairs in wonder. He had said those insults to get under Tolensky's skin.... Who knew there could be some truth to them!! A wide grin crossed his face. So Todd swung both ways? Now there was only one thing to find out. Figure out this lover boy's identity, and Todd'd never hear the end of it!!