Author's Note: I am warning you now that there are horny teenagers mucking about in this chapter. I thought it would be unnatural not to explore what is, whether you agree with it or not, a natural part of the high school years and teenage development.
Elizabeth didn't spend as much time as she had with the Brotherhood anymore. She rarely spent time in the boarding house. She would go shopping with Tabitha and Scarlet from time to time. She and Todd would eat lunch with Lance and Fred when those two elected to join them instead of eating with Jason and Pietro. They'd gone on a couple of double dates with Lance and Kitty when those two had dated for a while. She spent absolutely no time with Jason or Pietro. Todd wasn't on speaking terms with Jason and Elizabeth wasn't entirely sure why. Pietro and Todd's relationship was still somewhat strained but Elizabeth had hope that Pietro would come around.
Although Todd was Junior, a year ahead of her in school, she was taking English Honors courses and he was taking a remedial English geared toward students with learning disabilities. When they studied together Todd would visit her at the Institute on weeknights. He didn't talk much to most of the students but he got along with Scott, Kitty, and the Professor. He and Kurt still harboured a rivalry that Elizabeth didn't entirely understand. If anything, she'd have thought that the two of them sharing mutations that were written all over their skin would have helped them to bond.
It was July 4th in Salem Center, New York. The boarding house was empty. Fred had gotten his grades up high enough to try out for football this year so he was playing. Both the fireworks and the chance to support their friend had lured the Brotherhood out of the house. Elizabeth had mentioned that she wasn't interested in the football game. She'd told Todd that she had more fun watching the cheerleaders during intermission. Todd had laughed and told her it was called halftime. After the last cheer they'd lit out. They would be able to watch the high school's fireworks from the boarding house. Elizabeth was nothing if not a planner. They had some time before the game would be over and the fireworks show would start.
Todd made as if to turn on the television but Elizabeth demurred.
"Hey, can I see what sketches you're working on now?" she asked him.
"Sure," he said, and took the stairs two at a time. She followed at a more sedate pace behind him.
"Um," he said, when she followed him into his room, "There's only the one thing that's been commissioned but I have a couple of originals in progress."
"Cool," she murmured as she checked out his desk. It was a small workspace, dedicated to his art rather than his schoolwork. The desk was covered in pencils, in containers and out of them. There were piles of empty art pads to one side and full ones to the other. Elizabeth picked up one of his practice sketches, drawn on lined school paper rather than the professional white paper. It was a sketch of her, laying across the page in an oversized sweater.
"That's not," he stumbled over his words, "I mean, that's… That's not for sale."
His yellow eyes were wide and he took the sheet from her. Smiling at him, she let him take it back and hide it in a drawer. When he turned around again she hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder.
"You know," she whispered, "I used to be upset that I was so short. But not quite five foot one is the perfect height for a boyfriend whose only five three."
"I love you," he told her, gently stroking a hand over her hair, "We weren't made for each other though. You're so damn beautiful and people call me frog face. We're not exactly a matching set."
"They wrote a fairy tale about a pair like us once," she countered in a teasing tone, "My toad prince."
"The story was the Frog Prince," he corrected, gently, "In the original Grimm version he turned back into a man when the princess threw him up against a wall. Once upon a time I thought love worked that way."
"Well, I'm glad you know better now," Elizabeth tilted her face up to his, expectantly.
"You want me to kiss you," he murmured, and asked as he often did before they kissed, "Is this real life?"
"Yes," she whispered back, "and yes again."
The delicate meeting of his lips on hers wasn't their first kiss or their last. For Todd's part, part of his feelings toward her was something like reverence. He held her delicately, a thousand times more gentle with her than he was with anyone or anything else in his life. He slid one hand into her hair and his other arm around her waist. She was so damn tiny. Muscles all over Todd's body tensed when she slid her hand up beneath the back of his shirt. He pulled his mouth away from hers.
"I'm not going to break," she pulled back to murmur against his mouth, "I promise."
"I know," his eyes closed as her fingers danced lightly over his skin.
"Are you okay?" she asked, eyeing him speculatively.
"This is bliss," he told her, resting his forehead against hers.
"You know," she said, "This would be easier if you'd lose the shirt."
He was so used to doing what she asked, he'd pulled his shirt up a good few inches before he really thought about what he was doing and paused.
"Is this a good idea?" he asked her, his shirt still lifted.
"Why wouldn't it be?" she asked. Her eyes were big, green, and innocent as they stared up at him. He let his shirt fall back down. He knew her "I'm so innocent" face when he saw it. He also knew it meant she had plans. This woman could plan a guy into a rock and a hard place.
"We're alone, in my room, because you followed me in here" he said, thinking aloud, "The entire house is empty because everyone else is at the game. You knew that would happen. We have time before the fireworks… Because we rushed out as the halftime was finishing up. That was your idea. Most likely, no one will be home until after the fireworks show and they'll get stuck in the ridiculous traffic of everyone leaving."
He gave her an assessing look, "Just how much of this evening have you had planned out? What are you up to?"
Elizabeth sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed, "I planned most of it. I'm trying to seduce you."
"Oh," he stuffed his hands in his pockets, "Well."
"Is that okay?" Elizabeth asked, "I didn't want to tell you because I wasn't sure that I wouldn't chicken out, you know, at the last minute."
"It doesn't matter," he mumbled, "You can change your mind whenever you want to stop. I just, I'm not prepared."
"Oh," she waved a hand at him dismissively, "I've been on birth control for years. Since I was about thirteen."
"Really?" he asked, baffled, "Why?"
She shrugged, "Birth control regulates my periods and helps me with my acne."
"You've never had acne, not really," Todd commented.
"You didn't know me back then," she reminded him.
"I still think we should wait," he stumbled over his words but he managed to get them out.
Elizabeth blinked at him, "I brought a condom. Dr. McCoy has given me a lecture or three about sex since we started dating and he stressed using more than one form of contraceptive."
"Birth control doesn't protect you from disease," Todd added, "That's probably why he wanted you to have condoms."
Todd rubbed the back of his neck. It was embarrassing to know that the X-men knew so much about his love life. He wanted his relationship with Elizabeth to be more or less a private thing. He was afraid anyone else would try to mess them up.
"Yeah," Elizabeth said slowly, "Is that something we need to worry about? I've never been with anyone like we've been together. I guess I just assumed you hadn't been with anyone else either."
He rubbed his hands over his face roughly. There was more than one reason why he wanted his relationship and the things she knew about him to remain just between the two of them. He'd been trying to deflect her with details but he should have known that wouldn't work on her.
"There's never been anyone closer to me or as intimate with me as you've been," he said, raggedly, "But my mother was a prostitute and a drug addict. That's why I was put into state foster care."
"I'm so sorry. I didn't know," Elizabeth resisted the urge to start wringing her hands together, "Does that have something to do with us, with this?"
"Certain STDs can be spread during labor and delivery," he said, his tone flat, "Especially when the woman either doesn't know or doesn't say she has an infection."
"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry," Elizabeth was upset but she knew Todd had to be even more upset.
He shrugged, "It doesn't matter. I figured we'd break up eventually."
"We're not breaking up," Elizabeth's eyebrows winged upward, "I don't know why you would even think that we would."
"We're not going to have sex," he pronounced, determined and a little terrified.
Elizabeth assured him, "We don't have to have sex if it scares you that much. However, just because we're not having sex doesn't mean we're breaking up."
"If this is the part where you tell me we'll always be friends, just skip it," his voice had turned acidic. He collapsed into the chair at his desk, his yellow eyes narrowed at her.
"Oh, hell, no," she laughed, "Not in a million years. I've never figured out how people who have been together can be friends afterward. The good doctor says that it takes maturity and time, and sometimes even then it doesn't work out."
He shifted in his chair and Elizabeth looked at him for a moment, really looked at him. He was still skinny and she thought he probably always would be lanky, like a swimmer. He was curled up in the chair almost the same way he crouched on the floor, with his sharply angled knees already wearing holes in his new jeans. He was all lean lines, sharp angles, and bravado. He was brilliantly, beautifully, completely himself. She just wanted to gather him close and squeeze him.
The leather bracelet on his left wrist she'd given him for his birthday last month and he hadn't taken it off since then. Behind various sketches, templates and inspiration, were pinned to the wall in a collage of paper and pencil. Usually the money he made from his art was mostly put back into more artwork but she could see his passion and his potential so for Christmas she was planning to give him more art supplies. She was written all over him, all over his life. Elizabeth liked to think she was a good influence on him.
"We need to work out our boundaries," she told him, all practicality, "But I'm not giving you up."
"What boundaries?" he asked, out of his depth.
"We need to tell each other what we are comfortable doing and what we are not comfortable doing," she explained, "I'm not comfortable having sex without protection."
"I'm not comfortable having sex, even with protection," he told her, immediately.
"So, we can rule out vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse," she translated, "Is that right?"
"Yeah," he rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans, "How do you know this stuff?"
"I read faster than any of the X-men, except for Dr. McCoy," she told him, smiling, "I read more than most of them, too. There's also some educational videos on sex available online. We can watch them together. That might be fun."
"That sounds," he trailed off, "Less like fun and more like dying of embarrassment."
She raised her hands, palms skyward, and shrugged.
"To each their own. We don't have to watch them together. I'd like to try it sometime," she flashed up eyebrows at him, "But more importantly there are probably some things you should know about boundaries and consent, with or without me."
"Okay," he agreed, knowing that some guys he knew would laugh whenever someone talked about consent. Todd had veered hard to the opposite end of the spectrum, whatever his reputation. There were plenty of people that figured he and Elizabeth had been sleeping together the whole time they'd been dating. A few others from the Institute figured she held him off with the threat of the X-men when they were alone together. He hated all of it but he ignored it. It wasn't their business and he didn't owe any of them an explanation.
"In the meantime, if you want to," Elizabeth continued, "We could just lie down and cuddle together. We can still fool around and make out until the fireworks start."
"Yes," he said enthusiastically, "That I can do."
"Just to be clear," she told him, "I do still want to have sex with you someday. I understand that you're freaked out about having sex ever. I'm willing to wait until we have a solution that makes both of us comfortable. I want you to feel safe and certain if or when we take that step together."
"But in the meantime," he said slyly, "You want to put your hands all over my hot, sexy body." His eyes were crinkled in the corner.
"I also," she whispered, sliding up against him, "want you to put your hands all over my hot, sexy body."
"Oh man, oh man," he exclaimed.