19 February
Flood. -n. 1. a great flowing or overflowing of water, especially over land not usually submerged 2. any great outpouring or stream: a flood of emotions; a flood of requests; a flood of patients 3. the Flood a universal deluge recorded in the Bible, believed to have occurred in the days of Noah 4. the rise or flowing in of the tide 5. a floodlight 6. Archaic.a large body of water
"Your emotions are palpable." Betsy slid into the chair beside Rogue at the table. Rogue hadn't heard her come in. Until Betsy revealed herself, Rogue had thought she was alone.
Rogue sniffed in surprise, but otherwise remained fixated on the sandwich she'd made for herself. It sat untouched on a plate, as if she could devour it by osmosis.
"I don't have to be a telepath to know something is on your mind," Betsy prompted further.
"But ya are one. Can't ya just sus it out?" Rogue asked. She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. "Sorry. Ah don't mean ta be cross. Ah … have a lot on mah mind."
"Really," Betsy deadpanned. "And for the record – no. I won't dive into your head because you're having a rough time. Would you like to talk about it?"
Rogue pressed her lips into a line. She didn't know Betsy all too well, but she'd been nice to Rogue so far. In the game of hide and go seek tag Friday morning, Betsy didn't try singling Rogue out because she was an easy target. She made it quite clear that her game was tagging Kurt, but settled for a ruffled Warren instead, bypassing Rogue entirely.
"Ah dunno. It's embarrassin'."
"We're teenagers, Rogue. Our lives our embarrassing." Betsy leaned her elbow onto the table, resting her head into the palm of her hand. Her blue eyes bore into Rogue, but Rogue refused to meet them. Eyes were the window into the soul, though Betsy didn't need any help with that.
"Ya know Ah can't touch no one," Rogue said quietly, trailing off to nothing as she gathered her thoughts. They were unruly, but marginally manageable.
"Yes," Betsy eventually prompted. Rogue hadn't realized she'd been waiting for her to acknowledge what she'd said until it was done.
"Ah'm havin' dreams of touchin' Remy," Rogue whispered, her voice barely registerable over the air as it left her lips. "An' of him touchin' me. In mah dreams, Ah can touch. Ah don't – Ah'm not sure why it's happenin'."
"Sex dreams?" Betsy asked in an incredibly level voice. "That's actually pretty normal. You've been spending a lot of time around him lately. You like him?"
"You like Remy?" A new voice entered the conversation. Rogue nearly threw her plate and sandwich to the ground. If the chair didn't have a back, she'd have fallen to the floor. Alison stood in the doorway, her hand on her hip and attention zeroed in on Rogue. "Like, like like Remy? Sure, he's hot as fuck. But he's so weird. And creepy."
"Ah'm not sure why you think it's such a good idea to pick on me," Rogue said. She'd meant it as a threat, to get Alison to stand down.
"You make it pretty easy, sugar." Alison turned up her nose. "I don't like you. I don't trust you. Putting yourself up with the sketchiest guy here doesn't help that image."
Betsy sighed hard enough to cut through Ali's snide commentary. "That's enough, Ali. She's your teammate. You'd best learn to trust her."
Alison's piercing gaze immediately switched to Betsy, narrowing. "And your teammate is Remy. When do you think he's going to end up stabbing you in the back because it benefits him, huh? Even you said that you can't read his mind if you try. He's hiding a lot more than he lets on."
"It's never come to that and I doubt it ever will. Good thing you don't have to worry about it!" She tapped her fingers on the table, drawing the attention, before making a fist. Pink light erupted at her knuckles. The total manifestation of her psychic powers, into a weapon she called a psychic knife. "Now if you don't have anything constructive to say, please move along."
Alison glared at Betsy, motionless, for a couple heartbeats before physically shrugging her offense away. Standing up tall, she strode over to the fridge, plucked a bottle of water from inside the door, and stalked off without another word. Betsy watched her all the while, her icy eyes watching her silently as she moved.
"Ah get the impression she don't like our entire team," Rogue commented once she was sure Ali was out of earshot.
Betsy waved her hand, the threatening aura of her knife vanished and forgotten. "That's her problem. By all rights, she probably belongs on my team instead of Kurt, but the rest of us aren't exactly leader material. I can mentally link us and keep us sychronized, but I'm not taking the mantle of leadership. The other two, well … they're just not cut out to be leaders."
"How would she work better on your team?" Rogue asked. Even if only for a brief distraction, she was a little curious as to the reasoning behind Betsy's proposition.
"We're more brawlers. Bobby is extreme frontal attack with decent defensive capabilities. Remy is terrifying hand-to-hand or long distance. I'm great at standing my ground and keeping it. Alison can have very strong attacks. Kurt doesn't fit. He's more subterfuge, like your team. Of course, Ororo and Sean have very strong presence in uniform, much like Ali."
Rogue had a difficult time seeing Remy as terrifying. She'd all but forgotten the altercation in the alleyway a month back, where Remy was set on her as a surprise attacker. But as they spent more time together and got closer, Rogue couldn't see him the way Ali did. Rogue wanted him to handle her, even if she knew it could never happen.
"Right. Remy," Betsy commented in a tone flatter than her usual melodious English. "Like I was saying, what you're feeling is normal. It's nothing to be embarrassed about." She paused, temporarily lost in thought. "I know you can't touch him, and I'm genuinely sorry about that. But you can touch yourself."
"Oh mah Gawd."
"I know. Sorry. But you're kind of an emotional bomb right now. I think you needed something outside of the usual 'have you talked to him' kind of advice." She smiled softly. "Because I know you haven't."
"Ah thought you said you weren't readin' mah thoughts," Rogue accused.
"I'm not. I promise. But like I said, I don't need to be a telepath to know - " she swiveled her hand in the air, gesturing at Rogue " - something's going on." Betsy pushed herself up and stood. "You should eat your sandwich," she said with that same gentle smile.