It Sounded Much Cooler in My Head
Summary Elizabeth Brooks' favorite color is green,he is green,surly they're meant to be.Too bad he's an insecure,unstable madman of a mutant who wants to end humanity and she's a human with an attitude problem.
Warnings: This story is going to contain coarse language, gore, violence, mentions of drug and alcohol abuse, and maybe sexually explicit content some day.
Memo: THIS STORY IS UNDER NE MANAGEMENT! I am MortimerToynbeeFan, and AOneWordStory has handed over her account and story to me. Please enjoy...AND READ THE STORY "FREE BIRD" IT'S AWSOME:3
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of X-Men, just my originals and this story.
Exalted Fans: Itsallaboutme11 // animebaby6 // Jinx of the 2nd Law // foxfire222 // Angeldustedthatfreak // Italia12 //Shostakovich // st.elmo-lover // GothikStrawberry
Chapter Nine: Hurt In More Ways Than One
Elizabeth wandered in what she hoped was the general direction of her room, her mixed emotions settling over her like a death shroud as she rubbed her arms uncomfortably. She was finally starting to really miss home.
The sound of heavy footsteps pulled her out of her moment of angsting, and she looked up to see Toad was making his way down the hall towards her, favoring one of his legs and clutching his right shoulder. He glanced up at her with a look of surprise, and quickly straightened up, putting weight on the leg he'd been favoring and dropping his hand from his shoulder. Looking past the glare he was now giving her, she saw that a split lip and black eye accompanied his other apparent injuries.
Her breath caught in her throat, "W-What happened to you?" She knew what had happened, punishment had happened.
"Wot do you care?" he spat.
She winced, "Here, just… let me help."
"I don' need your help!" he snarled, his eyes flickering with animalistic ferocity.
It scared her, he scared her, but she couldn't let him know that. She visibly shook herself and took a deep breath, "Look, just let me help you."
"Take your bleedin' 'eart somewhere else, I don' need it."
"What do you have against me? What have I done?"
"Funk off!" He all but threw her into the opposing wall. Elizabeth hissed at the sudden pain in her side, but made herself stand, keeping her eyes trained on him.
"Whoa, dude, whoa whoa whoa!" Eric said over and over, temporarily stripped of coherence at having just seen Elizabeth get tossed against the wall like a rag-doll, "Toad, you've already made Mags upset, do you really want to piss him off more?"
Toad turned his glare on Eric, "Tell 'er to keep 'er Bleedin' 'eart away from me then," that said, he continued on his way, and out of sight.
Elizabeth frowned, she knew he wasn't someone who would want pity, but how could she not pity him?
"Elizabeth, you really need to watch yourself, not the all guys around her are as kind and charming as I am," Eric stated plainly, "and I can't always be around to rescue you. You can't keep your freedom if you don't stay out of trouble, and out of harms way."
"You shouldn't have to save me!" Elizabeth half-shouted, severely upset as well as in pain, "Why? Why is he like that? What have I don't to him? He's hated me from day one!"
Eric recoiled a bit, "I… well… It-It's nothing you've done, not you personally at least."
"Then what is it?" she demanded.
Eric stared at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck apprehensively, "Have you looked at him lately?"
Of coarse she had!
"Well, he's been like that since he was born from what I hear; he's never exactly been treated well by……" his voice trailed off and his eyes found hers.
"By humans," she finished, "So that's why? That's what he's holding against me?"
Eric's green eyes gained a sudden playful glint, "If it makes you feel any better, the only thing I have to hold against you is myself," he joked, making her blush slightly. He wasn't trying to seriously come onto her, he was just messing around. Couldn't say that sad look she'd had hadn't unsettled him either though.
"Ahem….yes…um…I'm going to go back to my room then," she announced, starting off again.
"Do you know the way?"
She paused, 'Not really.' "I can find it." 'I'm not that terribly stupid, now shut up,' she'd just made herself feel insulted and bristled, 'Men are like big annoying dogs that stand upright and talk, I swear.'
Once Eric was out of sight, she sat down, putting her head in her hands. She sighed, that was the only reason she was so hated around here, because she was human. She thought about Toad, at a glance, he was sort of… ugly? No… that word was too strong, regardless, once you looked a bit closer, the majority of his features were quite attractive; a nicely shaped face, a very good body from what she could tell, and his eyes were astounding, if a bit… unusually large.
Despite what she saw, there was no denying that his life must have been hell. Elizabeth was a normal-looking human and she'd always had it pretty hard in school; few friends, no boyfriends, no real social life, she was your typical high-school loser in the end, nothing terribly dramatic really. Not that she was trying to compete with what she was trying to understand about him.
She let out an exasperated sigh and raked her hands through her hair in frustration, resulting in a mess of faded green streaks and deep brown. What was she supposed to do? Well, so far she'd done few things any kidnapped person half in their right mind probably would have. She was supposed to be contemplating escape, not worrying about the well-being of her kidnappers. Shaking her head as if to physically dislodge her thoughts, she stood and continued her way back to her room; she needed her bag.
Much to her own surprise, she actually recognized the way back, this was a considerable feat since nearly every hall looked exactly the same. 'Ha, told you I could make it back, Eric. And here you probably expected me to get lost for a week and starve to death or something. Well in your face.' she celebrated mentally.
Her bag lay on the floor next to Eric's discarded rollerblades. 'I should probably take those back,' she thought, looping her bag over her head, and picking up the skates. She was headed back there anyway after all, and this time she was going to win-out over Toad, he wasn't going to scare her off again, and she wouldn't need Eric to run to her rescue.
With her new bout of resolve, she let herself smile and started back the way she had come.
She knocked on Eric's door first and it took him all of half a second to open hit. The sudden rush of air made her lean back slightly with a somewhat surprised look, "Were you waiting for me?"
"Um… no?" His face wasn't readable so she couldn't tell if it was a joke or not. Most likely was.
"I came to… uh… give you these." She held out his skates to him, barely suppressing a blush when his hand brushed hers as he took them.
"Wow, thanks."
She shrugged nonchalantly, "It was nothing."
He gave her a half smile, "Then thanks for nothing. Wanna come in?"
"Nah, I've grown sort of fond of the stone floor of my room," she said, half-sarcastically she had grown accustomed to it to an extent.
"Alright, your loss. Tell you what, I'll see if I can get you a bed tomorrow, okay? It's kind of late."
"Okay, cool." It was late? In a place with no windows and with an irregular sleeping schedule, it was hard to keep up with these things. The batteries had been taken out of her phone as an obvious precaution so she couldn't even use the clock on it. "I'll… uh… see you later then."
He nodded, "Tomorrow, bright and early. You wanna eat with us?"
Us? Us? Did he mean what she thought he meant? 'Us' including the others like Sabertooth and Mystique us? "N-N-No!" How could he even ask that? No way, that was too freaking scary a thought. Contact with them one at a time was sometimes more than she could handle depending on who it was.
"Well… you seemed not to mind too much, I mean…Ah, never mind, sorry I asked," he apologized, "I should have known better."
"No, it's not your fault, I just…" she sighed, unable to spit out the right thing without sounding like a royal ass. "Bright and early then?"
"Bright and early," he agreed, "Night."
"Night."
He shut his door and Elizabeth's eyes went to the one next to it, the one leading to Toad's room. She eyed it for a moment with what was practically a look of suspicion, as if she expected it to bite her. She gnawed her lower lip, a show of anxiety. Why was this really so hard? How honestly hard was it to just open a door?
"Oh…. Fuck it," she swore, she totally lacked the nerve. Taking her CD player out of her bag, she plopped down against the wall, determined to build up the courage to open that damn door, even if it took all night.
Can't change this feeling,
I'm way out of touch,
Can't change this meaning,
Well it means too much,
Never felt so lonely,
Never felt so good,
Can't be the only one misunderstood,
Cause I remind myself of somebody else…
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Next chapter, ALL Toad-related goodness, I swear. I'm the new author, so give me a break if I'm not getting Elizabeth quite right. Heh, this one's longer than any of the other chapters, I checked! Celebrate all!
Artist: Lifehouse - Album: No Name Face - Year: 2000 - Title: Somebody Else's Song