Persistence of Memory
folder
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
57
Views:
7,919
Reviews:
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Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
57
Views:
7,919
Reviews:
68
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own X-Men Evolution, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.
15
Persistence of Memory Chapter Fifteen (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta, I’ve got it figured
out. Joaquin glued Billy to the box and
took off with Alan and my sparkley things.
This can’t be good. InterNutter,
TC and Maxwell Pink are super wonderful and twirly for archiving. ProPhile, I’ll send some Southern muses up
so you can verify the rumors for yourself.
;) Readers/Reviewers: First, a
mini-rant…I was in the grocery store today and I realized, with some horror,
the music they were playing was Jimmy Eat World. JIMMY EAT WORLD. In a
grocery store. I thought it was law
they had to play Muzak or something. * sigh * I feel old now. Second.
Big, huge, smushy duck kisses for reading and reviewing and be sparkley
and all that… J
“Sometimes,”
Warren opined, flicking his cigarette butt into the trashcan from the garage
roof, “life just kicks you in the ass.”
“Comin’ un
ange[1],”
Remy muttered, “that’s kinda disturbin’.”
Warren
snorted and took the bottle of schnapps from the Cajun. “Where’d you get this anyway? Technically, I think I should confiscate
this.” He took a swig, grimaced, and
passed it back. “Peach? Why not peppermint? Peppermint goes better with cold weather.”
“It’s not
that cold,” Todd replied, stretched out on the roof next to Remy. “And you can’t confiscate it. Remy’s legal. Right?”
Remy
shrugged. “Do it matter?”
“Guess
not.” Todd took the proffered bottle
and took a gulp, half sitting up.
“Lance?”
“Peach?” he
asked dubiously, taking the bottle and peered into it, shrugged, and downed a
mouthful. “That is so nasty.”
“You don’
gotta drink it den,” Remy said selfhteohteously, though he did not drink any
more himself just then.
Warren
twitched his wings and leaned back carefully, sighing as he stared up at the
sky. “Women?”
“Yep,” Todd
sighed.
“What gave
it away?” Lance offered Remy, then
Warren his pack of cigarettes.
Shrugging at their refusal, he tucked them back into his pocket and
continued, “I don’t get it…Amara seems fine, but she’s all…controlling…you
know.”
Todde a e a
choking noise that might have been a laugh.
“Amara? Controlling? Never!”
“Shaddup,”
Lance snapped, kicking Todd’s ankle. “I
mean…you know…in, um…in bed.”
Silence fell
for a long moment before Remy snorted and Warren laughed aloud. “Well, that’s…hmmm.” The angelic looking man shook his head and
glanced over at Lance. “Well, so long
as it’s consensual…”
“It’s not
that,” Lance sighed, now very embarrassed, “I just wonder if she’s gonna flip
on me one day because of what happened, and there’s gonna be nothing I can do
about it.”
“Why
not? Unless your hands were tied, you
could…oh.” Todd turned bright red. “Geez, Lance! Not in our room right?”
“What would
it matter?”
“I’ve got
the headboard and you don’t!”
“Anyway,”
Lance said loudly, “I couldn’t hurt her, evenselfself defense…”
“Have you
tried talking to her?” Warren asked, taking the bottle from Remy’s loose
grasp.
“She says
it’s none of my business,” Lance sighed.
“Said that’s what she goes to…other places for.” He knew he had erred but trusted, however
blindly, that none of the people on the roof would spill Amara’s therapy
secret.
“Well, when
she’s ready, she’ll talk. It only just
happened and even though they didn’t rape her, it’s still as traumatic.”
Lance
assayed Warren with a sharp glance. “And
you know this how?”
“I’m a
fucking angel[2],” he
drawled.
“Good
point,” Remy said, slurring just a little around the edges of his words.
“So what’s
with you?” Todd took the proffered bottle and finished it, glaring at the peach
on the label. “Nasty.”
“Y’all
notice anythin’ weird wid Jubilation lately?”
“Other than
the rainbow hair?”
“The lack
of bubble gum?”
“The late
night studying?”
“Did I
mention the hair?”
“She just
dye de tips, homme,” Remy sighed. “She
been forgettin’ me lots lately.”
“As in ‘Who
are you and why are you naked in my bed?’ or ‘Damn it, was our date tonight?’ There’s a difference.” Warren stubbed out his second cigarette and
dropped it to join it’s friend in the trashcan below.
“De second,”
Remy replied, staring straight ahead, unwilling to meet the interested looks
pointed in his direction.
Todd sat up
finally and responded into the silence, “Maybe she’s just stressed out. It’s been a weird summer for her…maybe it’s
all catching up with her.”
“But she
forget when we got dates, she forget when she promise she gonna do somethin’, she
even been forgettin’ to eat. De one
damn ting she is rememberin’ is dat she gotta go to what she call study group
an’ gymnastics practice.”
“Well,”
Warren began carefully, “maybe it’s subconscious. She’s putting school first and forgetting dates and such without
realizing it.”
“Ya think,
Sherlock?” Lance snorted. “Jubilee
wouldn’t forget Remy on purpose.”
“Unless,”
Remy said, sounding terse, “she got someone else on her mind.” “You’re
being an ass,” Warren pronounced. “She’s
not cheating on you. Look, you just got
done running around to pass your GED.
She’s doing the same thing, just for a regular diploma.”
“Graduation
ain’t till May,” Remy grumbled.
“So? She’s in all honors courses.” Warren shrugged. “It takes a lot of work to keep that up.”
Remy fell
silent and produced another small bottle from an inner pocket of his coat. “Damn handy,” Todd muttered, picking idly at
a shingle. “Pass it, yo,”
Remy took a deep swig and
passed the bottle of amber liquid to Todd, bypassing Lance. “What’s wid you?”
“Nothin’.”
“He’s
jealous,” Lance sighed, stretching out.”
“You’re
high as a kite, aren’t you?” Todd accused.
“Can’t keep your damn mouth shut when you’re high.”
“Haven’t
smoked since June, thank you very much,” Lance snapped.
Todd made a
whip-cracking noise and meowed. “You
are so fucking whipped.”
“When’s the
last time you ate a fly?” Lance challenged.
“Shut up.”
“Children,”
Warren intoned, smirking to himself.
“I’m not
jealous,” Todd said after another pull on the bottle, passing it back to
Remy. “I’m just…annoyed.”
“About
what?”
“Nothin’.”
Lance
sighed again and popped his ankles in the silence. “She’s not in love with Pietro or anything, you know.”
“Shut up!” The shingle came away in Todd’s hands. “Shit.”
“Well,
kids, it’s been fun, but I think we need to call it a night,” Warren
sighed. “I’ve contributed enough to the
delinquency of minors for one evening.”
He stood and flexed his wings.
“Hey! Watch de head, mon ami!”
“You can’t
duck giant white wings comin’ at you?” Todd snorted. “You must be drunker than I thought.”
Lance stood
next, trying very hard not to look down at the concrete driveway below
them. “I’m goin’ to bed. Fuck this A.P. shit. If I can’t get it fixed tomorrow, I’m comin’
back here.”
Todd gaped
at him. “You’re kidding!”
“No,” Lance
said, half laughing. “Why would I be?”
“Amara…”
Remy yawned
widely. “What she got to do wid him
comin’ here?”
“Don’t you
care that you won’t see her all day?
That she’ll be at Bayville with…” Todd almost said ‘normal people,’ but
stopped himself in time.
“Unlike
you,” Lance said snidely, already heading towards the low slope of roof on the
other side of the garage, “I’m not jealous.
She won’t fuck around on me.”
Remy yawned
again. “Dat’s it. I can’t stay up an’ wait for her no
more. I’m goin’ ta hit de hay.” He dropped over the edge of the roof almost
silently, landing in a crouch out of long borne habit before disappearing
around the side of the house.
“You can
make it down, right?” Warren asked kindly, already backing towards the edge of
the roof.
“Hell yeah…” Todd leapt off the roof, caroming off the
oak tree nearest the outbuild lan landing in a neat heap on the ground. “No problem!”
Warren
smirked and took to the air, circling the property as casually as a man with
giant wings could, taking the first night watch. He had thought he would be bored or annoyed when Remy came up on
the roof to join him, even more so when Todd and Lance climbed up half an hour
later, but instead he found himself genuinely enjoying the time with the three
younger men. This on the heels of
Banshee’s sudden confidences… At
this rate, I may end up staying here…
Theresa was
cold. She wanted her heavy jacket that
the red head had taken from her and put in a closet somewhere in the house the
night before. She wanted her clothes,
she wanted her shoes, and she wanted to go home. She had not heard movement in the hall for almost an hour and
decided it was safe to come out, so out she came, clad in one of Jean’s old
night shirts and a pair of Kurt’s thick socks that he thought Kitty had in her
drawer so never looked for them.
Theresa padded down the hall in the direction of what she thought were
the stairs only to nearly run into a wall.
“Damn it,” she hissed. Before
she could turn away, the wall slid open to reveal a bald man, slightly
befuddled, sitting in a wheel chair and staring up at her.
“Hello,” he
said warmly before she could recoil. “I
seem to be a bit lost in my own house.
I’m looking for the kitchen. It’s
not where I left it.”
Theresa
blinked at him for a moment, surprised to say the least. “It’s not where you left it? How’d that happen?”
“I seem to
be having a bit of a blip in the memory,” he sighed. “It should pass, from what they tell me.”
Theresa
nodded as if she understood. “I’m
lookin’ for me coat. I’m going to leave
here.”
“I had the
impression people were tying to get in here, not the opposite, he
chuckled. “This elevator goes down to
sublevel ten, it says…I think the kitchen is somewhere between there and
here. Shall we look for it? You can have some cocoa before going off into
thed dad dark…”
Theresa
nodded cautiously. “Okay.” She edged onto the elevator and let him push
the down button. They rode in silence
to the selected floor and she followed him down a carpeted hall and a marble
foyer before he paused. “What?” she
asked sharply.
“I think it’s
this way…” He turned to the right and
disappeared into a dark room. Theresa
felt she had not choice but to follow.
She found him past the dark room in a kitchen with one light on, the dim
yellow of the bulb over the stove barely highlighting the chrome of his
chair. “Found it,” he said
happily. “Now, the cocoa is…” he
rummaged through a low cabinet. “Aha! Here we are!”
Theresa
politely opened the refrigerator and retrieved the milk before sitting at the
table. The Professor efficiently prepared
the cocoa and they say in companionable silence as she sipped and he
contemplated. Finally, she yawned
widely. “Where am I?”
“New York,
unless my memory is worse than I thought.”
“New York?”
“State, not
city. You’re in…Bayville. Yes. Bayville.
At a school for the gifted.”
“Gifted…right.” She snorted bitterly. “That’s not what I’d call me.”
“Now,
Theresa,” he began softly.
“I didn’t
tell ye my name!” she snapped. “How’d
you know my name?”
“I’m…not
sure. Someone must have told me,” he
said, frowning to himself.
Theresa was
honestly tired and her anger was sapping out of her in the warmth of the
kitchen. “I’m leaving.”
“If you can
wait until the morning, I’ll have Logan drive you wherever you want to go. Much warmer. And you’ll have pants.”
She snorted
briefly. “You promise?”
“If you
want to leave in the morning, you may.”
“Right. Okay then.”
She drained the dregs of her drink and nodded firmly. “I’m off to bed then.”
“Do you
remember the way back?”
“Yes…”
“Would you…ah…mind
leaving the lights on as you go, so I can make sure I’m heading in the right
direction?”
She eyed
him curiously. “Yeah…okay.”
The Professor
sat for nearly a half hour more in the silent kitchen, staring at the now-cold
cocoa. Why don’t I know simple
things? And how did I know her
name? A glance at tlocklock told
him it was time for more medication. Meds
then bed…I wish I had my own mind back…
He wheeled through the rec room only to pause at the sight of a thick
purple binder on the coffee table. “Photos—Institute and Bayville.” Hmm…
He picked it up curiously and flipped through the first few pages,
familiar faces mingling with scenes he felt he should know. This might help quite a bit…
[1] An angel
[2] “I’m a
fucking demon!” from Dogma.
Azrael says it towards the end.
And I always thought it was weird they used the name of the Angel of
Death for that character, but meh.
Whatever, lol.
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta, I’ve got it figured
out. Joaquin glued Billy to the box and
took off with Alan and my sparkley things.
This can’t be good. InterNutter,
TC and Maxwell Pink are super wonderful and twirly for archiving. ProPhile, I’ll send some Southern muses up
so you can verify the rumors for yourself.
;) Readers/Reviewers: First, a
mini-rant…I was in the grocery store today and I realized, with some horror,
the music they were playing was Jimmy Eat World. JIMMY EAT WORLD. In a
grocery store. I thought it was law
they had to play Muzak or something. * sigh * I feel old now. Second.
Big, huge, smushy duck kisses for reading and reviewing and be sparkley
and all that… J
“Sometimes,”
Warren opined, flicking his cigarette butt into the trashcan from the garage
roof, “life just kicks you in the ass.”
“Comin’ un
ange[1],”
Remy muttered, “that’s kinda disturbin’.”
Warren
snorted and took the bottle of schnapps from the Cajun. “Where’d you get this anyway? Technically, I think I should confiscate
this.” He took a swig, grimaced, and
passed it back. “Peach? Why not peppermint? Peppermint goes better with cold weather.”
“It’s not
that cold,” Todd replied, stretched out on the roof next to Remy. “And you can’t confiscate it. Remy’s legal. Right?”
Remy
shrugged. “Do it matter?”
“Guess
not.” Todd took the proffered bottle
and took a gulp, half sitting up.
“Lance?”
“Peach?” he
asked dubiously, taking the bottle and peered into it, shrugged, and downed a
mouthful. “That is so nasty.”
“You don’
gotta drink it den,” Remy said selfhteohteously, though he did not drink any
more himself just then.
Warren
twitched his wings and leaned back carefully, sighing as he stared up at the
sky. “Women?”
“Yep,” Todd
sighed.
“What gave
it away?” Lance offered Remy, then
Warren his pack of cigarettes.
Shrugging at their refusal, he tucked them back into his pocket and
continued, “I don’t get it…Amara seems fine, but she’s all…controlling…you
know.”
Todde a e a
choking noise that might have been a laugh.
“Amara? Controlling? Never!”
“Shaddup,”
Lance snapped, kicking Todd’s ankle. “I
mean…you know…in, um…in bed.”
Silence fell
for a long moment before Remy snorted and Warren laughed aloud. “Well, that’s…hmmm.” The angelic looking man shook his head and
glanced over at Lance. “Well, so long
as it’s consensual…”
“It’s not
that,” Lance sighed, now very embarrassed, “I just wonder if she’s gonna flip
on me one day because of what happened, and there’s gonna be nothing I can do
about it.”
“Why
not? Unless your hands were tied, you
could…oh.” Todd turned bright red. “Geez, Lance! Not in our room right?”
“What would
it matter?”
“I’ve got
the headboard and you don’t!”
“Anyway,”
Lance said loudly, “I couldn’t hurt her, evenselfself defense…”
“Have you
tried talking to her?” Warren asked, taking the bottle from Remy’s loose
grasp.
“She says
it’s none of my business,” Lance sighed.
“Said that’s what she goes to…other places for.” He knew he had erred but trusted, however
blindly, that none of the people on the roof would spill Amara’s therapy
secret.
“Well, when
she’s ready, she’ll talk. It only just
happened and even though they didn’t rape her, it’s still as traumatic.”
Lance
assayed Warren with a sharp glance. “And
you know this how?”
“I’m a
fucking angel[2],” he
drawled.
“Good
point,” Remy said, slurring just a little around the edges of his words.
“So what’s
with you?” Todd took the proffered bottle and finished it, glaring at the peach
on the label. “Nasty.”
“Y’all
notice anythin’ weird wid Jubilation lately?”
“Other than
the rainbow hair?”
“The lack
of bubble gum?”
“The late
night studying?”
“Did I
mention the hair?”
“She just
dye de tips, homme,” Remy sighed. “She
been forgettin’ me lots lately.”
“As in ‘Who
are you and why are you naked in my bed?’ or ‘Damn it, was our date tonight?’ There’s a difference.” Warren stubbed out his second cigarette and
dropped it to join it’s friend in the trashcan below.
“De second,”
Remy replied, staring straight ahead, unwilling to meet the interested looks
pointed in his direction.
Todd sat up
finally and responded into the silence, “Maybe she’s just stressed out. It’s been a weird summer for her…maybe it’s
all catching up with her.”
“But she
forget when we got dates, she forget when she promise she gonna do somethin’, she
even been forgettin’ to eat. De one
damn ting she is rememberin’ is dat she gotta go to what she call study group
an’ gymnastics practice.”
“Well,”
Warren began carefully, “maybe it’s subconscious. She’s putting school first and forgetting dates and such without
realizing it.”
“Ya think,
Sherlock?” Lance snorted. “Jubilee
wouldn’t forget Remy on purpose.”
“Unless,”
Remy said, sounding terse, “she got someone else on her mind.” “You’re
being an ass,” Warren pronounced. “She’s
not cheating on you. Look, you just got
done running around to pass your GED.
She’s doing the same thing, just for a regular diploma.”
“Graduation
ain’t till May,” Remy grumbled.
“So? She’s in all honors courses.” Warren shrugged. “It takes a lot of work to keep that up.”
Remy fell
silent and produced another small bottle from an inner pocket of his coat. “Damn handy,” Todd muttered, picking idly at
a shingle. “Pass it, yo,”
Remy took a deep swig and
passed the bottle of amber liquid to Todd, bypassing Lance. “What’s wid you?”
“Nothin’.”
“He’s
jealous,” Lance sighed, stretching out.”
“You’re
high as a kite, aren’t you?” Todd accused.
“Can’t keep your damn mouth shut when you’re high.”
“Haven’t
smoked since June, thank you very much,” Lance snapped.
Todd made a
whip-cracking noise and meowed. “You
are so fucking whipped.”
“When’s the
last time you ate a fly?” Lance challenged.
“Shut up.”
“Children,”
Warren intoned, smirking to himself.
“I’m not
jealous,” Todd said after another pull on the bottle, passing it back to
Remy. “I’m just…annoyed.”
“About
what?”
“Nothin’.”
Lance
sighed again and popped his ankles in the silence. “She’s not in love with Pietro or anything, you know.”
“Shut up!” The shingle came away in Todd’s hands. “Shit.”
“Well,
kids, it’s been fun, but I think we need to call it a night,” Warren
sighed. “I’ve contributed enough to the
delinquency of minors for one evening.”
He stood and flexed his wings.
“Hey! Watch de head, mon ami!”
“You can’t
duck giant white wings comin’ at you?” Todd snorted. “You must be drunker than I thought.”
Lance stood
next, trying very hard not to look down at the concrete driveway below
them. “I’m goin’ to bed. Fuck this A.P. shit. If I can’t get it fixed tomorrow, I’m comin’
back here.”
Todd gaped
at him. “You’re kidding!”
“No,” Lance
said, half laughing. “Why would I be?”
“Amara…”
Remy yawned
widely. “What she got to do wid him
comin’ here?”
“Don’t you
care that you won’t see her all day?
That she’ll be at Bayville with…” Todd almost said ‘normal people,’ but
stopped himself in time.
“Unlike
you,” Lance said snidely, already heading towards the low slope of roof on the
other side of the garage, “I’m not jealous.
She won’t fuck around on me.”
Remy yawned
again. “Dat’s it. I can’t stay up an’ wait for her no
more. I’m goin’ ta hit de hay.” He dropped over the edge of the roof almost
silently, landing in a crouch out of long borne habit before disappearing
around the side of the house.
“You can
make it down, right?” Warren asked kindly, already backing towards the edge of
the roof.
“Hell yeah…” Todd leapt off the roof, caroming off the
oak tree nearest the outbuild lan landing in a neat heap on the ground. “No problem!”
Warren
smirked and took to the air, circling the property as casually as a man with
giant wings could, taking the first night watch. He had thought he would be bored or annoyed when Remy came up on
the roof to join him, even more so when Todd and Lance climbed up half an hour
later, but instead he found himself genuinely enjoying the time with the three
younger men. This on the heels of
Banshee’s sudden confidences… At
this rate, I may end up staying here…
Theresa was
cold. She wanted her heavy jacket that
the red head had taken from her and put in a closet somewhere in the house the
night before. She wanted her clothes,
she wanted her shoes, and she wanted to go home. She had not heard movement in the hall for almost an hour and
decided it was safe to come out, so out she came, clad in one of Jean’s old
night shirts and a pair of Kurt’s thick socks that he thought Kitty had in her
drawer so never looked for them.
Theresa padded down the hall in the direction of what she thought were
the stairs only to nearly run into a wall.
“Damn it,” she hissed. Before
she could turn away, the wall slid open to reveal a bald man, slightly
befuddled, sitting in a wheel chair and staring up at her.
“Hello,” he
said warmly before she could recoil. “I
seem to be a bit lost in my own house.
I’m looking for the kitchen. It’s
not where I left it.”
Theresa
blinked at him for a moment, surprised to say the least. “It’s not where you left it? How’d that happen?”
“I seem to
be having a bit of a blip in the memory,” he sighed. “It should pass, from what they tell me.”
Theresa
nodded as if she understood. “I’m
lookin’ for me coat. I’m going to leave
here.”
“I had the
impression people were tying to get in here, not the opposite, he
chuckled. “This elevator goes down to
sublevel ten, it says…I think the kitchen is somewhere between there and
here. Shall we look for it? You can have some cocoa before going off into
thed dad dark…”
Theresa
nodded cautiously. “Okay.” She edged onto the elevator and let him push
the down button. They rode in silence
to the selected floor and she followed him down a carpeted hall and a marble
foyer before he paused. “What?” she
asked sharply.
“I think it’s
this way…” He turned to the right and
disappeared into a dark room. Theresa
felt she had not choice but to follow.
She found him past the dark room in a kitchen with one light on, the dim
yellow of the bulb over the stove barely highlighting the chrome of his
chair. “Found it,” he said
happily. “Now, the cocoa is…” he
rummaged through a low cabinet. “Aha! Here we are!”
Theresa
politely opened the refrigerator and retrieved the milk before sitting at the
table. The Professor efficiently prepared
the cocoa and they say in companionable silence as she sipped and he
contemplated. Finally, she yawned
widely. “Where am I?”
“New York,
unless my memory is worse than I thought.”
“New York?”
“State, not
city. You’re in…Bayville. Yes. Bayville.
At a school for the gifted.”
“Gifted…right.” She snorted bitterly. “That’s not what I’d call me.”
“Now,
Theresa,” he began softly.
“I didn’t
tell ye my name!” she snapped. “How’d
you know my name?”
“I’m…not
sure. Someone must have told me,” he
said, frowning to himself.
Theresa was
honestly tired and her anger was sapping out of her in the warmth of the
kitchen. “I’m leaving.”
“If you can
wait until the morning, I’ll have Logan drive you wherever you want to go. Much warmer. And you’ll have pants.”
She snorted
briefly. “You promise?”
“If you
want to leave in the morning, you may.”
“Right. Okay then.”
She drained the dregs of her drink and nodded firmly. “I’m off to bed then.”
“Do you
remember the way back?”
“Yes…”
“Would you…ah…mind
leaving the lights on as you go, so I can make sure I’m heading in the right
direction?”
She eyed
him curiously. “Yeah…okay.”
The Professor
sat for nearly a half hour more in the silent kitchen, staring at the now-cold
cocoa. Why don’t I know simple
things? And how did I know her
name? A glance at tlocklock told
him it was time for more medication. Meds
then bed…I wish I had my own mind back…
He wheeled through the rec room only to pause at the sight of a thick
purple binder on the coffee table. “Photos—Institute and Bayville.” Hmm…
He picked it up curiously and flipped through the first few pages,
familiar faces mingling with scenes he felt he should know. This might help quite a bit…
[1] An angel
[2] “I’m a
fucking demon!” from Dogma.
Azrael says it towards the end.
And I always thought it was weird they used the name of the Angel of
Death for that character, but meh.
Whatever, lol.