Pyro's Massive Invasion of Privacy
By The Bubbles
Summary- Left to his own devices, Pyro sneaks into everyone's rooms and reads their diaries.
Disclaimer- Pyro, in all his awesomeness, is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes I am not worthy to tie the laces of. I'm not worthy!
A/N- It's Sabretooth's diary this week. I've been debating constantly whether to make Pyro a part of the story, and then I remembered that I had to explain Pyro's intimate knowledge of the combustibility of cleaning products, and… voile! Oh, and the Brotherhood makes an appearance, hoorah, and I make continuous references to the fact that Sabretooth and Mystique used to be together. I've sort of developed a morbid curiosity about this that borders on disturbed obsession.
Anyway, I need to ask a question of my reviewers. Should I write a chapter with Mastermind? He is one of the Acolytes, after all, but I don't really know enough about him to think of something to fill a whole chapter. Besides, he doesn't seem like the type to put up with Pyro's antics like Gambit and Piotr and even Sabretooth. If enough of you want a chapter about Mastermind, I'll write one, and if you don't, I will go ahead and post the chapter about Magnus.
Snap- Where there will be Mygneto!
Bubbles- No! No Mygneto!
(o.o.o)
//Denotes thought//
(o.o.o)
Chapter 3- On the Combustibility of Bleach, and Why Sabretooth Hates Movie Night(o.o.o)
Sabretooth's room took some time to break into. If Magneto was paranoid about having a thief in the house, it was nothing to how Sabretooth felt. He had about eight locks, not counting the two that had come with the door. Pyro managed to pick all of them, and pushed the door open to the cleanest room in the entire base.
Pyro took even longer to find the wild man's diary. Sabretooth kept his room neat, but that didn't change the fact that he had lots of hiding places in his room. He finally found it attached to the inside of a lampshade, and settled down on the floor to read.
(o.o.o)
If there are two things I hate as much as Wolverine, it's movie night and Pyro. And Saturday mornings, and shopping, which is a real pain in the butt.
(o.o.o)
Despite the hectic nature of the week, Saturdays mean only one thing.
Actually, depending on which Acolyte you ask, they mean many things, but to each Acolyte they mean only one thing.
For Gambit, Saturdays mean stalking Rogue. Actually, for Gambit, every day means stalking Rogue. Even when they went on missions, the X-Men stopped them, and then he would just use it as another chance to stalk her.
For Colossus, Saturdays mean grocery shopping. Every on of them had their own tastes in food, and all of them being selfish, Colossus was the only one of them to buy a rounded menu that made them all happy.
For Pyro, Saturday is the only day that he voluntarily wakes up before noon. Every Saturday morning at around 4:45, he goes downstairs to the kitchen and fills a large mixing bowl with seven types of cereal (emptying the cupboard, he always says) and then drowns that cereal in so much milk and sugar that it resembles little more than a load of soggy brown stuff. This finished, he plonks down on the couch in front of the TV and watches Saturday morning cartoons until noon, when he doses off until four and runs upstairs to Mastermind's room to remind him that it's time for movie night.
For Mastermind, Saturday means locking himself in his room until four, when Pyro runs up and reminds him that it's time for movie night.
And for Sabretooth, Saturday is a day for cleaning.
He had gotten roped into being the housekeeper for the base (that would be basekeeper, though, wouldn't it?) shortly after the others arrived. They annoyed him, and he wanted them dead. Pyro, Gambit, Colossus, Pyro, Mystique (but he had a history with her, so he couldn't very well kill her, now could he? Well, yes, he could, if he wanted his salary to take a huge cut.), and Pyro had become the bane of his existence. But Magneto, being the excellent boss that he is, had decided that it would be best if his subordinates were alive. Sabretooth disagreed.
Wanting to keep the peace between his Acolytes, Magneto had suggested that Sabretooth take on a new way of getting rid of his aggressions. And, since the base was pretty much a pigsty, what with there being four men living in it, he had suggested that Sabretooth take up cleaning.
The rest was history.
That was why on that fateful Saturday morning, at around eight, Victor Creed was seen stalking downstairs with a scowl on his face and a broom slung over his shoulder like a rifle. (1)
He could see Pyro in the living room, waving around a spoonful of Sugar-Frosted Zombie Flakes (now with ten times the brain chunks!) and yelling something at the TV. Sabretooth couldn't tell which cartoon he was watching, because they all kind of looked the same to him, but he could tell that Pyro would be occupied for a while, giving Sabretooth a chance to do some hard-core cleaning.
He did the dishes first. They had been sitting in the sink for days, because he had been out, and no one else in the base knew how to clean dishes. He had to scrub really hard to get rid of the rust, because Magneto insisted on having metal dishes. (He also insisted on having metal doors, metal furniture, and metal bindings on the books. That man had control issues- no wonder his kids were psychos.)
The dishes finished and put away, Sabretooth decided that the floor needed a good scrubbing, so he grabbed a bottle of bleach only to discover that it was empty. He headed over to the supply closet for a refill, passing by Pyro on the way and receiving a spoonful of Fruit-Loops ™ in the side for blocking the TV.
In the supply closet, he found that he was out of bleach. In fact, he was out of quite a lot of cleaning supplies. He would have to go to the store for more.
This presented a problem for the feral Canadian. He always volunteered on Saturdays to baby-sit Pyro, because being glued to the TV or asleep made him very easy to watch. He couldn't just leave him alone, unless he wanted to come home and find the base in ruins, which meant that he would have to take him along, which was just as bad. Pyro didn't take kindly to being dragged away from his shows.
On the other hand, Sabretooth needed Pyro's car, since his bike wasn't sufficient to carry all of his supplies, and besides that, he also needed an alibi on the off chance that he ran into Wolverine, who would very likely laugh himself sick at the thought of Sabretooth cleaning.
In the end, there was only one choice.
Pyro yelped as he was picked up and carried bodily to his convertible.
"I'm missing Spiderman!" he yelled, kicking a bit. "He's fighting Doc Oc! He's my favorite villain, I can't miss it! Oof!" He grunted as he was dropped into the driver's seat.
"Quit your winin', Runt." He climbed into the passenger side seat. "I need cleaning supplies and you're comin' with me."
"Why do I have t' come? S'not fair!"
"Because I need your car to carry everything I'm getting. I suppose I could just drive myself to the store…"
That did it. Pyro never let anyone drive his precious car if he could help it. He grumbled to himself as he dug out his keys and started the engine.
"Did ya' remember t' lock up, Sabby?"
"I told ya ta quit callin' me that. And no, I didn't lock up."
"But what if killer badgers come to try an' destroy the place like before?"
"I told you already, Runt, that was just Mastermind playin' with your head. There aren't any killer badgers around here. Just bears and the occasional mountain lion. Nothin' ol' Fuzzy Brow can't handle."
About five minutes into the ride, Pyro reached over and switched the radio on. Immediately, some song that Pyro knew the words to started playing, and he started singing along.
"Paint the town, take a bow, thank everybody…" (2)
Sabretooth reached over and switched the radio off, earning him a glare from Pyro.
"I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you sing, got it, Runt?"
Pyro wrinkled up his nose but said nothing. He didn't really want to get on Sabretooth's bad side- or at the very least, farther onto his bad side than he already was- and singing would probably send the cat into a mad killing rampage, and Pyro would be the first to go.
(o.o.o)
He pulled into the parking lot of the store a little while later and was about to run off when Sabretooth grabbed the back of his shirt, nearly choking him before he stopped trying to run.
"You're not goin' anywhere, Runt. You're gonna stay right here with me, so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you don't break anything that I'll end up havin' t' pay for.
The young Australian stuck his tongue out at him and stalked off. He stopped a few feet away and glared impatiently. Sabretooth, to spite him, took his own sweet time making sure his list was in order.
On the way through the door, Sabretooth grabbed up a basket and shoved it into Pyro's hands. Pyro, muttering about slave drivers and horrible cat people from Mars, had no choice but to follow behind and hope that Sabretooth didn't load him up with too much stuff to carry.
(o.o.o)
"Let's see, should I get Pine Scent or Lemony Fresh?"
Sabretooth was trying to decide on the scent of the all purpose bathroom cleaner and Pyro was sitting on the floor counting specks in the floor tiles when Sabretooth's sharp ears picked up on a familiar voice.
"Get what you need and be quick about it. I don't have all day to baby-sit you twerps."
And then there was another voice, much nicer than the previous one.
"Logan, stop being horrible to the children. You know as well as I that we have all the time we need."
"What? You think I don't got a life outside the Institute?"
"Oh, great." Sabretooth shoved both bottles into the shopping basket. "Hey Runt, wake up, I've got a job for ya."
Pyro jumped up.
"What is it?"
"I need you to look around the store and find out how many of those X-Twerps are here."
"Can do, Sabby!" He took off before Sabretooth could yell at him for calling him Sabby again.
He scooted back onto the aisle several minutes later.
"There's twelve kids, mate, plus that bloke you're always scrappin' with an' the Sheila with the lightning bolts."
"Sabretooth…" It looked like Wolverine had sniffed him out. "I thought somethin' stunk about this place. What are you doin' here?"
"What are you doin' here?"
"I asked you first."
"No, I asked you first."
"No you didn't."
"Are you sure?"
"What?"
"What?"
All of this was not quite as random as it seemed. Sabretooth was just trying to distract Wolverine while Pyro moved the shopping basket, or until he could get an interruption that made Wolverine forget he was there.
"C'mon, Chere, just a little kiss. What could it hurt?"
This interruption, which sounded like it was taking place on the next aisle, was immediately followed by a shouted obscenity, a thud, and the high-pitched whine that Sabretooth and Pyro had learned to associate with Gambit's powers. The shelf of chemicals began to glow. Sabretooth, realizing that he had maybe two seconds before it exploded, grabbed Pyro and dragged him over the nearest shelf to the next aisle, leaving Wolverine to deal with it himself. (But he'd probably survive, the jerk.)
The explosion rocked the entire store, but Male Student #3 put a wall of ice around it, making it so that nothing else was damaged (which made Pyro very disappointed. He wanted the store to catch fire.) However, the distraction proved to be just what Sabretooth had been hoping for, because not only was Wolverine distracted from his foe, but now he would never know which aisle Sabretooth had been on, and, Sabretooth had also managed to get everything on his list before the shelf exploded.
//Looks like someone up there likes me.//
Hoping to get away before he was noticed, he shoved some money and the shopping basket into Pyro's hands and pointed him in the direction of the register, then went to where the X-Twerps were all gathered around an unconscious Gambit.
"Ah told him not to," Rogue was saying. "It's 'is own stupid fault. I just hope his powers wear off soon, cause I want him OUT of mah head."
Sabretooth was laughing at this, and would have left Gambit to the mercies of the X-Men, had it not been for the fact that Magneto, as has previously been mentioned, liked his subordinates alive; besides, he kind of owed him for the distraction.
He slung him over his shoulder, and glared at Wolverine.
"If I didn't have to baby-sit, I'd stick around to smack you up a little. As it is, I've got better things to do than look at your ugly mug."
Wolverine snarled at him, and he growled right back, earning him a laugh from Female Student #2, who, it would seem, spoke Wild Animal-Person.
"He certainly told you, eh, Mr. Logan?"
(o.o.o)
They got back to the base at around 11:30, and Pyro immediately sat down in front of the TV as if he'd never left.
"Everyone shut up," he said, even though no one was talking. "Jackie Chan Adventures is on and I don't want to miss it." (3)
Sabretooth chose to ignore him. He dumped Gambit onto the chair and stalked into the kitchen to start cleaning again.
He was cleaning out the refrigerator when Colossus came in, a large bag of groceries in each hand. Sabretooth took one look at them and called into the living room,
"Pyro! Wake up Gambit and help Colossus get the groceries in!"
Pyro stuck his head into the kitchen.
"But, Sa-ab-by! Jade's about to give Dao Lon Wong the smackdown! I-"
He didn't get farther than that. Sabretooth grabbed him and tossed him through the back door.
"I said, help Colossus get the groceries in."
"You know, Victor, you did not have to do that. I have no problem carrying the groceries on my own."
"I know. I just like interrupting his cartoons."
"I knew it!" Pyro was standing in the middle of the doorway, seven bags of groceries slung over his scrawny arms. He dropped them onto the table. "How dare you interrupt my cartoon watching for your own sadistic pleasure?"
Colossus, ever the peacemaker, interrupted what promised to be a good fight. He steered Pyro back into the living room.
"Watch your cartoon, Pyro, I do not need any help. Sabretooth, go back to cleaning. I will need to put these things in the fridge soon."
"Y'know," Pyro said as he walked out, "I wouldn't 'a minded helpin' if ya'd jus' waited on a advert break."
(o.o.o)
As with every other Saturday, Pyro fell asleep on the couch after his shows, Piotr took out his diary and began to write, and Gambit headed upstairs to breathe heavily into Rogue's phone, which he always did when he couldn't get away to harass her in person.
Once, he'd been distracted by Pyro's yell of 'All right, I'm the best, who da man, who da man?' and didn't realize that Wolverine had been the one to answer the phone. His string of threats, mingled with curses and snarls, could be heard throughout the building, and Pyro had nearly wet himself laughing so hard.
In the quiet lull, he managed to get the base practically shining. He was sure that if he were to look, he would be able to see his reflection.
At about four, he was just finishing on the toilet when Pyro skidded into the bathroom (literally- the floor was still wet). He grabbed the sink to regain his balance.
"Whaddya want, Runt?"
"Ya gotta get ready for movie night, Mate. C'mon, go rinse off and help Gambit with the popcorn!"
Sabretooth simply rolled his eyes and took his arms out of the toilet. He turned to Pyro, but Pyro was already gone. Sabretooth smirked and listened for the telltale sounds of Pyro bugging Mastermind.
He wasn't disappointed. Several seconds later, he heard pounding as Pyro knocked on the door, muffled yells as Mastermind yelled at Pyro for disturbing him, then the thud of metal on metal as Pyro knocked the door in, and clearer yells as Mastermind yelled at Pyro for knocking his door down, and then protests as Pyro dragged him downstairs.
Sabretooth finished rinsing off and made his way downstairs. He arrived at the same time as Mastermind, who sat on the couch and sulked. Piotr was pulling the couches and chairs around the TV for prime viewing. Gambit was carrying a bowl piled high with popcorn, and Pyro was shoving movies around on the shelf, searching for the first movie they would watch. Sabretooth sat down beside Mastermind to wait.
Pyro finally straightened up and showed them the movie in his hands. It was a Sci-Fi movie called Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Gambit groaned.
"Are you really gonna make us watch that, Pyro?"
"Yup!"
He hit the open button on the DVD player. It didn't open, so he hit it again. Still nothing.
Sabretooth could see where the scene was going, and quite frankly, he felt that one explosion a day was enough for him. He pulled Pyro away from the stubborn bit of technology.
"Sorry, Runt, looks like we won't be watching any movies tonight. Oh well. Maybe next week." He tried not to look too happy by this, but failed miserably.
Pyro frowned, and sat on the floor to think. He thought while the others munched on popcorn and watched him.
"This is better than any movie," Gambit whispered to them after a while. "How long do you think he can keep it up?"
"I just had a thought!" Pyro exclaimed happily.
"Was it lonely, mon ami?"
"Oh, ha ha." He stuck out his tongue at the Cajun. "Anyway, my thought was this. Jason, weren't you just at the Brotherhood House a few days ago?"
"Yes, I was, but why-?"
"Did they have a working DVD player still?" He asked. "Or has that witch Sheila destroyed it?"
"Yes, I see where you are going." He scratched his chin, trying to remember. "Yes, I believe they do still have a working DVD player."
"Good!" Pyro jumped up and pointed dramatically at the door. "To the Brotherhood!"
(o.o.o)
The Brotherhood was sitting around eating Chinese take-out when Colossus knocked their door in.
"Oops. Heheh." He looked sheepish and put the door back once the others were in.
"Hey, what's the deal, you guys?" Blob said, standing defensively in front of his friends- and his food.
"Yeah, yo, what do you want?" Toad jumped up onto his back and looked angrily at them. "Go knock your own doors down, yo!"
"Yeahdudes, didDadsendyouhere?"
Pyro grinned at them. Wanda groaned.
"Whatever it is, it can't be good."
"We need to use your DVD player," Gambit said. "Does it work?" He started fiddling with the buttons. It opened. "Perfect!"
"Yo, what gives?" Toad asked. "Why d' ya need our DVD player?"
"Ours is broken," Pyro answered. "On movie night too. So we came here to watch our movie!"
Avalanche stepped forward angrily. "Well what if we had plans for our DVD player, did you ever think of that?"
"You'll get over it, Earthquake," Mastermind said. He sat down on the recliner. "But if you want to stop Pyro from watching a movie he wants to watch, be our guest."
"That's Avalanche," the boy said grumpily.
"What movie is it, yo?"
Pyro held up the DVD triumphantly. "Mystery Science Theatre 3000, mate."
Toad leapfrogged over Blob and grabbed the movie from Pyro.
"Dude, I love this movie, yo!" He took it out of the case and put it into the DVD tray.
He sat down on the couch and made himself comfortable, until Sabretooth grabbed him and dropped him onto the floor, taking his seat. Wanda, Blob, and Pietro took seats around the living room while Gambit made popcorn. Avalanche glared at them all.
"Are you guys really gonna just let them come in and take over?" Avalanche asked angrily. "I mean, they just came in without knocking and didn't even asked if we wanted to watch a movie with them."
"Shut up, Lance," Wanda said. She used one of her hex bolts to knock him into a sitting position on the floor. "I love this movie and I haven't seen it in ages."
"Yeah, man, and it's not like they don't work for the same person as the rest of us, yo."
Toad hopped up to the back of the recliner Wanda was sitting in. She either didn't notice or didn't care, because she ignored him, although about halfway through the movie she did get tired of him because she picked him up and threw him through the far wall.
Colossus had taken a seat on the floor with Blob, a large bowl of popcorn between them, and Avalanche sat with them. Pyro was sitting on the couch between Sabretooth and Gambit, an equally large bowl of popcorn in his lap. He didn't have to share, either, because both Gambit and Colossus had eaten their fill of popcorn while watching Pyro think earlier. Pietro had run to the store (quite literally) to get soda, because the Brotherhood was all out, and he wanted to be a good host, or something.
While the previews played, Sabretooth took a look around. The last time he'd been in the boarding house was before there were any kids living there, and it had taken quite a beating since then.
The wall behind the TV had several holes in it that had been covered in two-by-fours to block out the elements. Another wall had scorch marks on it and stuck to it was a substance Sabretooth did not want identified. A third wall looked as if it had been completely destroyed, then rebuilt by an amateur using second-hand materials and stolen equipment. Gambit was also looking at the wall.
"Glad t' see y' got dat fixed," he said, receiving a slime-shot from Toad, which he easily dodged.
The ceiling of the living room had several holes in it. He could see into the rooms, and was able to make out what terrific slobs the kids were. Clothes littered the floors and grime covered the walls, a Toad shaped imprint was on one wall of a relatively neat room, and as if that wasn't enough, the rubble from when these holes had been made had yet to be cleaned.
The worse part of the entire mess was that large portions of the floor looked as if they had been completely ripped up, and these portions were currently lying far from their original location- as if someone had taken them purposefully, probably for the purpose of hurting someone.
Gambit seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Sabretooth and decided to ask the question on all of their minds.
"Say, p'tites, which one of you made the holes in the walls? And the ceiling and the floor?"
Without a word they all pointed at Wanda. She looked around at them.
"What? It's not like I do it just for fun. I do it to put a little 'fear of Wanda' into you. Is that so wrong? I wouldn't have to if you all didn't insist on making me mad."
Sabretooth snorted. He'd heard that excuse before. Of course, Graydon hadn't been that destructive. Granted, that was probably because he wasn't a mutant, but if he had been a mutant, he probably wouldn't have felt the need to act out. Or maybe he would have. Sabretooth didn't know, and thinking about it made his brain hurt, so he took the easy way out and didn't think about it.
"All right, everybody shut up, the movie's starting."
Sabretooth turned to Pyro, intent on teaching him some 'fear of Sabretooth' for talking to him like that, only to realize that it wasn't Pyro who'd said it. He looked around, curious, and then realized that it had been Wanda. He decided to let it slide- not even Sabretooth was crazy enough to tell off a chick with reality-warping powers.
Especially when her dad signed his paycheck.
The movie wasn't so bad- at some points Sabretooth wanted those robots to shut up so he could watch the real movie, and it annoyed him no end that Pyro, Wanda, Toad, and Mastermind seemed to have the entire movie memorized and were quick to prove it, and Pyro and Pietro seemed to be having a contest to decide who could drink the most soda, which didn't bode well for the Acolytes or the Brotherhood.
After the movie ended, the Acolytes agreed unanimously to stick around the boarding house until Pyro's sugar high wore off, so that any damage he caused would be to the house instead of the base. Somehow they ended up playing Go Fish (the only card game every one of them knew), and after convincing Pyro that a game of strip Go Fish with eight other guys and a psycho girl was not a good idea, they got to it.
Gambit began shuffling the two decks together. (Ten people time's seven cards to a hand are more cards than there are in a deck.)
"I forget, are aces high or low in dis game?" He asked. The others stared at him.
"Dude," Pietro answered, "They don't have values. You just have to get pairs."
"Pairs?!" Gambit looked shocked that a game could be so simple. "What about a flush, or a full house?"
"This isn't poker, Gambit! It's Go Fish! It's like the easiest card game in the world! Haven't you ever played?"
Gambit loomed over the white-haired speedster.
"Of course Gambit has played Go Fish!" he bellowed. "Gambit has played every card game known to Man, and a few known only to dolphins! He simply has not played Go Fish in a very long time, so forgive Gambit if he can't remember how to play!" He sat down, breathing heavily. "Now den. Who goes first?"
Playing cards with the Brotherhood and the Acolytes proved to be quite the learning experience. All of them (excluding Colossus) cheated.
Pietro was the worst, because he was running on caffeine high and would run around them and look at all their card before they'd even noticed. Pyro made people look away and then peeked at their hands when they did (Toad was the only one to fall for this, and oddly enough, he kept falling for it.) Gambit, an experienced card shark from way back, was probably cheating, though they had no idea how. Avalanche drew two cards every time he went fishing, and would look at them before they made him put one back, which meant he got the best of the two. Toad, the dealer, kept dealing from the bottom of the deck, and Mastermind was of course reading their minds. Wanda had the biggest stack of pairs of the lot of them, so she was probably cheating as well. Blob had given up about halfway through the third round and was now sitting at the table watching them and eating a tutti-fruity ice-cream bar while he watched the rest. Sabretooth was cheating as well, but he knows that Pyro is reading his diary and isn't going to tell how.
(o.o.o)
Sabretooth had left a note at this point.
Hey Runt. Scary how I always know, isn't it?
"You're tellin' me, mate." He shuddered and went back to reading.
(o.o.o)
Wanda won the first game, which was, as Avalanche put it, probably for the best. Gambit wanted to start another game, but the others refused, and so he was left playing Spider at the table while the others found other ways to entertain themselves.
Except Blob and Avalanche. They both went upstairs to sleep because the Authoress is getting bored with them. There are enough characters to keep up with in this story as it is, thank you very much.
Piotr pulled out his diary and began writing in it again. Pyro was having a staring contest with a fish on the wall; Pietro was running off some of the caffeine from earlier by darting from room to room; Wanda was doing a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle across the table from Gambit's game of Spider. Toad and Sabretooth were watching Whose Line is it Anyway? Or rather, they were both sitting on the couch, staring at the TV, and Whose Line? just happened to be on.
After a while, Sabretooth realized that Toad was staring at him.
"What do ya want?"
"You uh, you used to get it on with the boss lady, right?"
Sabretooth sighed. He knew if he hung around Mystique's charges long enough, sooner or later one of them would ask.
"I'm not exactly sure I would use the phrase 'get it on,' but yes, we did have a physical relationship once."
"Oh. Uh…" Toad looked uncomfortable. "Wwwwhyyyyy? Uh, I mean, I guess if you find blue skin a turn on, but…"
Sabretooth rolled his eyes. "Not that it's any of your business, Frog-boy, but if you must know, I beat her until she shape shifted into my kind of hot."
"Oh, I see." He still looked uncomfortable.
"And we were drunk."
"Oh, now I see!"
He continued to stare, and then,
"So was it a one-time thing or- Yaaaaah!!!"
Wanda hexed him away just before he landed on the table. He changed course and sailed through the wall.
"I told, you, Toad," she said without looking up from her puzzle. "You can't go bugging people with the ability to throw you through a wall. We're running out of wood for repairs and I don't feel like stealing more."
Toad climbed through the new hole in the wall and hopped over to the chair, clutching a gash on his head.
"That hurt. I think I need stitches, yo."
Pyro laughed. "Don't be too offended, mate. Sabby never talks about when he was with Mysti. We think she broke 'is heart. Yaaaaah!"
Pyro climbed threw the new Pyro shaped hole in the wall, nursing his arm. Wanda looked up from her puzzle to observe his handiwork.
"Nice," she said. "Sideways and everything."
And then she went back to her puzzle.
(Several minutes later…)
"Why is there a Pyro-shaped hole in the wall?"
The Acolytes plus Wanda (Blob and Avalanche were upstairs asleep and Pietro had run Toad to the hospital to get stitches in his head) all looked up as Mystique walked in.
"And why are the Acolytes in my living room?"
Pyro shrugged.
"Dunno, actually. The movie went off ages ago. We shoulda went home by now. Hey what gives with that?"
This last part was directed at Sabretooth, who just shrugged without taking his eyes off of the TV. That is, until Pyro started talking again.
"Say, Mystique, maybe y' can clear something up for us." Sabretooth's head snapped around. He growled at Pyro, who ignored him "We were just wonderin' who it was who ended it between you and Sabby here."
Sabretooth lunged at Pyro, who jumped out of the way and hid behind Mystique.
"Hey, c'mon, don't be like that mate!" He peeked around her at the cat-man. "I'm not askin' for details like Toddles was! I just want to know who it was and since you ain't talkin' I figured Mystique might!"
Mystique gave Pyro a look that suggested he would stop hiding behind her if he knew what was good for him. He moved. She opened her mouth to speak, then thought of something else and turned to Sabretooth.
"Toddles- crap, I mean, Toad- was asking questions?"
"Yeah. S' why I threw 'im through a wall."
He pointed at the Toad-shaped hole in the wall. She admired it.
"Huh. I though that was Wanda's handiwork."
"Nope. He's at the hospital now getting stitches." Wanda frowned at the puzzle piece in her hand. "Wait, this isn't from this puzzle."
Mystique looked from Wanda to the hole in the wall to the wild mutant in her living room.
"You put him in the hospital? I'm these kids' legal guardian, you know! I'm the one who has to pay their hospital bills! And Magneto and Xavier cut off my supply of Nazi gold! Where do you suggest I get the money from?"
She looked furious. Sabretooth hadn't seen her look that mad since the night she left him. He decided to cut his losses and jumped through the opposite window to freedom.
He could hear her yells all the way down the street and wondered who was catching the brunt of her anger.
(o.o.o)
The fact that Mystique cares more for her money than the well being of her charges says a lot about her parenting skills. It's no wonder her kids all turned out screwed up. Of course, Graydon is the most screwed up, so I guess I don't have a whole lot of room to talk.
(o.o.o)
Sabretooth spent that night in a tree. It wasn't that he was afraid of Mystique, or anything, it was just that he didn't feel like listening to her yell at him. Besides, trees make great beds when you're half cat.
He woke up around three to find himself staring into a pair of crazed brown eyes covered by an orange visor. With a snarl he shoved Pyro out of the tree. He could hear the 'oof' as he hit the ground and jumped down after him.
"Why do you always insist on waking me that way?"
Pyro shrugged. "I dunno. Just seems like fun, I guess."
Sabretooth scowled. "What do you want?"
"It's time to go home. The others asked me to find you and ask if you were comin' with us."
"I'm just gonna stick around here for a while. I'll come home later."
"Okay then." He turned and started jogging back to the van. "Bye, Sabby!"
"Quit callin' me Sabby!" he yelled, but Pyro merely waved. Sabretooth climbed back up into the tree. "I should maul him for that."
And he should. He had told Pyro a dozen times today alone to stop calling him Sabby. If he still did so now, he deserved to be mauled. So why wasn't he? Why was he sitting in a tree instead of putting some 'fear of Sabretooth' into the boy?
It was because he was Pyro, and somehow, beyond all logic and reason, Sabretooth had become attached to him. He liked him, because he kept things from getting too mundane, and against all odds, had managed to survive every cat-joke he'd ever made. No one else had ever survived to make a second cat-joke, and Pyro was reportedly writing a book of them.
This, of course, meant only one thing.
Pyro would have to go.
(o.o.o)
Sabretooth decided to walk home that night (morning, actually, because it was around five when he started walking) in order to clear his head. He had decided not to kill Pyro for two reasons. One, Magneto, as has been stated numerous times in this chapter, liked his subordinates alive, and always docked Sabretooth's pay for killing them. And two, without Pyro, the energy that Gambit and Colossus directed into baby-sitting him would have to be let out some other way, and this would of course cause it to be directed to him.
When he finally arrived home, he stalked into the kitchen, and who should be the first person he saw? Pyro, of course. The fire-wielder was sitting at the table in a white under-shirt and orange boxers, eating from a large bowl rice krispies © with a big pile of sugar on top.
Sabretooth snorted.
//All that sugar makes me glad that it's Gambit's turn to baby-sit.//
He passed by Gambit on the stairs. The Cajun was rubbing his eyes blearily and groaned when he spotted Pyro's breakfast. Sabretooth smirked.
//Good luck, Cajun. You're gonna need it.//
(o.o.o)
I haven't gone soft in my old age, I've just started thinking a bit more rationally before killing someone. Some people might be better off dead, but in some cases, it's better to leave them alive anyway. Also, because I know you're reading this, Pyro, don't think that because I let you off this time means I always will. You're still treading on thin ice.
(o.o.o)
"Ha! Comin' from Sabby, that was practically a compliment! Nice to know he likes me."
Pyro didn't bother putting the room back the way he found it. Sabretooth would smell his scent all over it and anyway, he seemed to know that Pyro would read his diary and wouldn't be surprised anyway.
John stepped out into the hall and looked at the remaining two doors. One belonged to Magneto, and the other to Mastermind. The next choice was obviously Mastermind, but the psychic had gotten his security updated since the last movie night, and Pyro still hadn't learned the combination for shutting it off. That would mean he'd have to crack the lock the old fashioned way, and Gambit was way better at that than him.
Maybe he should just skip over to Magneto's room.
(o.o.o)
A/N- Like I said, Mastermind is your call. If you think I should do on of him, I will.
On a slightly related note, so far it looks like Ace and Spade will be featured in the sequel, because I've got a total of… one vote, and that's for.
I would also like to point out that while I tried to keep Sab's in character, this is a diary, and so thoughts and feelings he doesn't normally express were thus thrown in.
And yeah, I do believe that both Wanda and Mastermind are the type to watch MST3K so many times that they memorize it.
Snap- I can't believe you. You refuse to write Mystique with Magneto and yet you'll write her with Sabretooth?
Bubbles- I didn't write her with Sabretooth, I made reference to a canonical pairing. Which brings me to my next point, there are no Mystique/Sabretooth fics on ffn, and that bugs me, because I've developed a sort of morbid curiosity bordering on deranged obsession for it. I figure if I can read just one good story about them, it'll snap me out of it and I can go back to the way things were. So, if you know a good one, recommend it to me so I can get this out of my head.
(1) This image of Sabretooth holding the mop cracks me up. Someone draw it for me and send it to me, and you'll get a cameo in the sequel. If lots of people do, there'll be lots of cameos! (And I can do that because of the nature of the sequel.)
(2) Lyrics from Then the Morning Comes, by Smash Mouth
(3) It has been a very long time since I got up on a Saturday morning early enough to watch cartoons. These are the ones I used to watch.