There was gore, flying body parts of varying shapes and sizes, and blood. Absolute buckets of it.
Quicksilver wrinkled his nose at the poster, "I'm don't really want to see this, guys."
"Yo, it was your turn last time, and we had to watch some 2 hour bullshit about penguins." Toad hopped up and down in place with excitement. "This week I get to pick so get ready for 'Zombies Eat Your Face'! YEAH!" He hopped again and high fived Fred.
"Aw right, bring on the zombies!" Lance clenched his fist with excitement and the sidewalk shifted under their feet. Several people stumbled and the crowd muttered, looking around with worry.
Pietro shot a speedy elbow into his friend's side. "Cool it, Lance!" he hissed, "Don't bring the house down." The brunette gave a half-hearted shrug as he ambled over to the concession stand and pushed his way to the front of the line, ignoring the yells of "Hey, no cuts!" and greeting others with glares that shut up the complainers.
Halfway through the movie, Pietro was positively contorted in his cramped theater seat, rocking back and forth with one leg tucked up him, the other drawn up until his chin rested on his knee, with one arm wrapped around him holding himself tightly. His free hand squeezed his sugar-free, caffeine-free, taste-free soda so tightly he was in danger of crushing the cup.
He hate, hate, HATED scary movies.
When the zombies tore into their first victim he'd squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made the squishing, ripping, and slurping noises blaring from the surround sound that much worse. He tried to plug his finger in his ears while keeping his eye shut, but Fred and Todd pulled his hands free, insisting he was missing the best part. If by best part they meant the high-speed anatomy lesson splashing in front of them in IMAX clarity, then he would have been thrilled to miss it.
Pietro alternated between strained swallows as he tried to keep down the popcorn that wanted to make reappearance each time intestines went flying, and clenching his teeth to keep the shrieks of fright that bubbled up from his gut each time the undead burst through a wall to throttle another victim.
Lance, seated between the silver haired teen and Toad while Fred took up most of the row behind them, shot a side glance at his friend. Pietro's huge pale eyes were glued to the screen as a scantily clad girl ran down a dark alley as he muttered, "Don't go in there, don'tgo inthere, don'tgointheredon'tgointheredon'tgointhere." He was positively trembling with anxiety and the effort to smother the urge to scream as a shambling figure missing at least two limbs pursued the fleeing girl.
Lance elbowed Tolansky on his other side then jerked his head at Quicksilver, mouthing, "Watch this."
Lance kept one eye on the screen and the other on his teammate, as the girl realized she was trapped and the zombie staggered closer. The music wound up to a fever pitch and Pietro's eyes were as wide as saucers. He chanted"Lookuplookulookuplookupstupid!" and the hand holding his drink trembled. Another zombie dropped from the ceiling onto the terrified girl who let out a deafening blood curdling screed, the audience screamed, and Lance grabbed the blonde's knee and shouted, "RRRRAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!"
Pietro jumped straight into the air with a high-pitched shriek, arms and legs flailing, and dumped soda all over himself and Lance. Despite the soaking, Avalanche and Toad collapsed with laughter as Pietro stood in the aisle, shivering and stark white with surprise. His hummingbird-speed heart rate skyrocketed from the shock until all he could feel was a pounding buzz that thundered in his ears. He glowered at the two idiots he was forced to live with, an ugly look passing over his normally smooth features. He grabbed the giant tub of popcorn from Fred and upended it over Lance's head, showering him in kernels and synthetic butter. He then jammed the bucket down on the laughing brunette's head and gave it a few solid thumps before he rocketed out of the theater to return home for a shower. Sprite soda was surprisingly sticky and by the time he sprinted to the restroom he thought he might have some kind of friction burn from running in wet jeans.
Pietro cursed and muttered to himself as he showered, "Stupid asshole, going to kill you, $10apopseehowfunnyyouthinkitis!" He tried his damnedest to run out the hot water but after 5 minutes in the shower, 4:30 longer than he normally took he couldn't take it any more and stormed to his room, utterly waterlogged. He wore a track in the carpet down to the padding as he paced in anger, thinking unimaginable tortures to visit upon the unluckiest rocktumbler in Bayville.
Plotting and scheming took a lot out of a mutant apparently because Pietro woke up to the sound of his housemates as they crashed noisily into the house after the movie. Cursing them, Pietro yanked a pillow over his head and tried to ignore that the 3 boys made only slightly less noise than a rampaging herd of rabid buffaloes. The pounding on his door only made him burrow his head further under the pillow.
"C'mon Pietro, you're not still pouting in there, are you?" Lance's voice sounded from the other side of the door.
"I am NOT POUTING!" Quicksilver cringed at the whiny sound of his voice. "Just leave me alone!" He flung the pillow at the door with enough speed that it burst with a flurry of cheep stuffing.
"Whatever, man, you just can't take a joke." Lance sounded impossibly amused and the chuckle that followed him down the fall grated on Pietro's nerves like a thousand nails on a chalkboard.
At the sound of the shower and Lance's happy humming in the bathroom, an evil smirk crossed Pietro's face. If Todd or Fred had found that malicious expression directed at them they could have beaten even Quicksilver's speed for crossing state lines. The silver teen darted down to the kitchen and was outside the bathroom door in a flash.
Listening to his housemate's unconcerned humming stoked the flames of Pietro's anger even higher. Make a fool of Quicksilver, would he? We'll see.
The bathroom door proved no obstacle, thanks to Tabitha blasting the lock out months earlier. He pressed one eye to the crack and saw a billow of steam spill over the top of the shower curtain and heard his teammate's oblivious humming as the boy cleaned up, unaware of his impending doom lurking just feet away.
Pietro crept as slowly and quietly as his normally fizzing reflexes allowed and stood at the end of the tub, listening carefully until the time was right. Lance was humming low and slow as the water pattered down in a soothing fall, curls of steam seeped through the cracks in the curtain, and the smell of Old Spice body wash wafting on the saturated air.
Slender pale fingers teased the edge of the curtain momentarily as Pietro waited for the right moment. Lance's hums burbled as he apparently ducked his head under the spray for a rinse. In a flash Pietro ripped back the curtain and raised the giant butcher knife high as he let out a piercing scream that shattered the mirror over the sink. "AAAAAAEEEEIIIIIIIII!"
Lance whirled in surprise, the hand that hand been grasping his cock flew up to cover his head as he saw Pietro lunging at him with the knife, the razor's edge flashing in the cheap fluorescent light. "AAAGGGGHHHHHH!" His other hand shot out for something to hold onto and grabbed the shower curtain just as his foot hit a patch of body wash under his feet. He went ass over elbows over the edge of the tub, tearing down the shower curtain in the process as he shouted, "DON'T KILL ME!"
Pietro clutched his sides in hysterical laughter as his friend scrabbled on the floor away from him, the shower curtain flailing around as it tangled with Lance's legs and one arm. Todd and Fred appeared in the doorway, took one look at Lance fighting the grimy curtain and doubled over with laughter. When Lance raised his head and shot them amurderous glare they quickly shuffled away, still snickering.
As the earthshaker clambered to his feet, cursing the stupid curtain as it refused to let go of his legs and caused him to hop on one foot ungracefully Pietro twirled the knife lazily between his fingers. He smirked as Lance finally kicked away the curtain with a final well chosen swear.
"You scared the shit out of me with the knife!" Lance shouted.
"Not so funny now, huh, rock head?"
"I could've bashed my brains out falling out of the tub!" he growled at the arrogant silver-haired teen eying him with undisguised glee.
"Would've needed something a lot stronger than tile to smash out those rocks you call brains," Pietro laughed again.
Lance kicked the destroyed curtain to the corner of the bathroom then leaned into the severely cracked mirror to eye the growing goose egg that was blooming on his forehead from where he'd banged his head. "Not funny Pietro!" he snarled at the fractured reflection of his teammate. He prodded the swelling lump with one finger and winced, then turned to shoot a dirty look at his friend. "That was so not the same as me scaring you in the theater."
"Oooooh, didn't know there were rules in a prank war," Quicksilver said sleekly as he eyed his disgruntled teammate. Then he EYED him, up and down, and flushed red. He coughed pointedly.
"What?" Lance thundered stalking towards Pietro, knife be damned, he was going to throw the little speed demon through a wall when he got his hands on him.
Pietro coughed again, "For god's sake, cover that up!" He flushed an even deeper shade of scarlet as his eyes unwillingly darted down once more.
Lance's eyes followed his and he looked down, the erection he'd had the shower having deflated significantly since the abrupt interruption of what had promised to be an overdue wank. He snorted and reached for the one towel that looked slightly less nasty than the others on the rack. He scoffed at Pietro as he wound it around his waist, "For a queer, you sure seem to have a problem looking at another guy's junk."
Pietro stiffened and the knife in his fingers stopped twirling. Lance took a half-step back as he remembered the knife. The silver-haired teen collected himself quickly and sniffed disdainfully, "I do not have a problem looking at guy's junk, just yours."
His embarrassment and anger combined into a rather lurid flush across his tanned face. "Hey, what wrong with my junk?" Lance flared.
"Oh nothing, nothing," Pietro said airily now that said junk was safely covered, although it still tented the towel somewhat. Before he could stop his always overactive brain, a flash of what he'd seen in the shower right before he'd screamed flashed before his eyes. Lance with one forearm braced against the shower wall, the muscles in his shoulder and back tense as his free hand circled and grasped the tan shaft. The thumb on top teasing the head as strong fingers toyed with the hard veins that ridged the underside. Lance's face upturned to the weak shower spray, dark wet hair smoothed back again his skull, lips slightly parted as he hummed in pleasure.
Pietro shook his head quickly to jar the disturbing mental image out of his brain. Then he gave Lance a special look he reserved for the X-men and dissections in biology class, one that resulted in his lip curling on one side. "It's just attached to YOU," he said with as much disgust as he could manage.
Another mental image swept over him before Pietro could school his thoughts. Tanned buttocks clenching and relaxing as the stroke carried up then back again, Lance humming deep in his throat at the sensation of his hands and the water sliding over his head, beading over shoulders before the drops traced lazy trails over bunched muscle as they travelled down to sink into the sharp V at his hip and disappear inward.
"Up here, dude," a deep, amused voice interrupted Pietro's little flashback. He wrenched his eyes up from where they had, against his will, meandered down to the cord of tendon and flesh at his teammate's hip where it disappeared into a towel that clearly needed more coverage capability.
Pietro looked up into the brunette's dark eyes that felt like that were burning a hole into him and swallowed audibly, before he said confidently, "I've seen better," not at all feeling as arrogant as he sounded. He resisted the urge to take a step back from the dark teen, suddenly feeling like his personal space was being crowded even though the other boy leaned back again the sink, one strong arm raised to ruffled his damp hair with another towel.
Lance turned his back to the silver-haired teen and started lathering shaving cream onto his stubbled cheeks. He caught Pietro's eye in the cracked mirror and winked. "Uh-huh, you just keep telling yourself that."