Persistence of Memory

Persistence of Memory Chapter Twenty Five (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…remind me to tell you
about the green fire if I haven’t already.
InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink get musekibble because they
archive. ProPhile is a shiny happy
smutmuse. J Morgan gets extra huge Remy kisses for a
major idea…she knows. ;) Readers/Reviewers: Millions of duck kisses for each of you. Thank you soooooooooo much!!!

 

 

 



Pietro
moved as silently as possible through the dark halls of his father’s
house. Silently, he seethed, unable to
suppress a feeling of entitlement and envy as his bare feet sank into plush
carpeting or slid across cool polished floors, as he passed works of art
gracing the walls and even something as simple as a sink that did not
constantly drip and a bathroom not riddled with spiders. He was nearing furious that evening, seeing
his father’s money spent on creature comforts rather than the Boardinghouse,
the housere ere his son lived. Magneto
had insisted that Pietro and Tarot spend the night, but would not say why. Now, Pietro knew. He had seen the evening news, sitting in a well-appointed den
facing the vista of a sloping forest with the requisite deer munching the
verge. He had seen the “breaking news”
from Bayville, how some teenagers seemed to manifest some strange powers… What
did this mean, the newscasters marveled. Some stations brought on scientists to
explain logical reasons the tape from the security camera showed these things,
some stations claimed it as a hoax and brought in people who had perpetrated
crop circles or other seemingly supernatural phenomenon to explain the methods
behind such things. The remaining
stations merely glossed over it as “strange occurrence in upstate New York
leaves many people wondering…are mutants among us?” City Councilman Kelly was on television, ranting about the
students from the Xavier Institute were always causing trouble. Pietro was
actually glad for that. If people
believe Kelly, maybe they’ll forget about the mutant thing and we can all be
left alone. As he paced the halls,
he thought of going back to Bayville and what he might find there. Is it going to be a witch hunt? Are they
gonna burn down the Institute or something?
Shit, what about Mystique? Did they
catch her?

“No, they
didn’t,” Psylocke said softly from the end of the hall, her bright form barely
visible in the dark.

“How do you
know?”

She cocked
her head to one side and the corner of her mouth curled up in a false
smile. “This debacle is the fault of
your father, you know,” she continued as if she had not heard him. “He wants too much. He moves forward without thinking it
through. All he sees is the prize at
the end. He does not see the many paths
there.”

“Why’re you
talking like some new age book?” Pietro
advanced on her, but she held her ground.
“What the fuck are you doing here, anyway? You don’t sound like you
really believe in what he’s doing.”

“I don’t,”
she sighed. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Why not?”

“You would
not understand,” she said quietly. “Help
me.”

“Why should
I?”

“Do you
always need a reward?”

“I don’t
have any reason to help you. Magneto needs
you to run his machine and you want to leave?”

“Yes,” she
said shortly. “Help me. Help Firestar.
We need to leave here and cannot.”

“Why?”

Psylocke
stiffened as if shocked. “I can’t…I
have to…” She frowned and closed her
eyes, then spoke as if each word were an effort. “I have to go to bed now.
Good night, Pietro.”

“Night,” he
said, somewhat startled. Psylocke
turned sharply and strode down a side hall, disappearing into a wood paneled
chamber just out of his line of sight.
He knew now that she shared a room with Firestar and the other woman was
somehow part of Magneto’s plan, too.
What Pietro could not understand is why they did not want to be
there. Magneto wouldn’t choose
someone who was going to defy him…why doesn’t she want to be here?

“Pietro?”

“Tarot,” he
started guiltily. “I was just looking
for the kitchen. Got thirsty.”

“You were
brooding,” she yawned, somehow less than her usual self once in her night
clothes with her hair disheveled and sleep in the corners of her eyes. “You’re jealous.”

“I am not,”
he said, though so flatly as to be ignored.


“If he gave
you all this,” she said quietly, padding towards him, “what would you have to
aspire to? It would make you lazy, make
you complacent. This way, at the
Boardinghouse, you will fight to get better, fight to leave.”

“Did he
tell you that? It sounds like something
he would say.”

Tarot
smiled sleepily and slid her arms around his waist. “No…Great minds do think alike, though.”

That’s
what I’m afraid of. “What’re you
doing up?” he said instead. “And all
the way down here? Our room is on the
other side of the house.”

“I was
watching the late news. I was wondering
what would happen when we go back and realizing why Magneto wanted us to
stay. Media backlash.”

“If they
even connect the Boardinghouse with any of them.”

“Lance and
Toad were hat hat tape.”

“Good
point,” he sighed. “Damn it.”

Tarot
stepped back and smiled silkily. “And
since I was up, I wanted to take a little walk…downstairs.”

Pietro
stared at her for a moment before hazarding, “You wanted to see what that thing
was, find out how it worked, didn’t you?
See if you could figure out why it made us all…weird…earlier?”

“Something
like that,” she allowed. “Are you with
me?”

Pietro
groaned inwardly. “I guess so,” he
replied, knowing he did not really have a choice and not trusting Tarot on her
own. “But don’t touch anything!”

“Don’t be
such a child, Pietro!” she said over
her shoulder as she started down the hall.
He gave in and ned ned aloud then.

 

 

Amara was
curled into a tight ball on her side, her knees almost touching her chest, dead
asleep. Lance sighed and shut the door
softly behind him, looking down at her in the twilight streaming through the
window. In the faint purple light of
early evening, she looked much more vulnerable than in her waking state. As he looked down, she shifted, turning onto
her back and flinging one arm over her head as she sought comfort in her sleep. She murmured in Latin and sighed, her brow
furrowing softly. “This sucks,” he said
quietly, kneeling by her bed as he spoke.
“I hate being scared,” he told his sleeping lover. “And I hate you knowing I’m scared. But if I don’t tell you that, you’d never
trust me, would you? You’d think I was lying when I said I didn’t care about
today, that it didn’t bother me…because it would be a lie. A big one.
Amara, I was so scared I almost cried.
I saw all of us…I saw you…” He
paused, feeling childish for wanting to cryn ann and there, just remembering
the fear. “I never talk about my dad,
do I? Kitty knows all about him, but
she knew me when I was a kid. She met
him. Couldn’t hide the old man from anyone
in that side of town. He was a drunk,
you know…Do you have drunks in Nova Roma?
He was mean. He used to his us…Me,
my mom…he hit her after my little brother died. SIDS.[1]” Lance closed his eyes.

He had never told anyone about
Matthew before. Not even Kitty really
knew. Once she had asked what happened
to the baby that had been at his house but he told her it was his cousin who
went home. Being six, Kitty did not question the story and they went on with
their lives, such as they were. It felt
raw and new as he said it to Amara, even though she was asleep and he did not
think she could hear him. His eyes
pricked with tears and he found himself crawling into bed to lay beside her,
not touching her but relishing her warmth and the scent of her surrounding him
as it rose from her sheets. She murmured
softly and shifted a leg, but otherwise remained still and silent. “Matt died when I was five or six. Just…died.
My dad said it was her fault, and then he hit her. A lot.
I used to take her tea and things I found like pretty rocks or some flowers. She said I was brave and good for not
telling anyone, for not breaking up what was left of the family. I wanted to help her, I wanted to make her
run away. He hit her so much…He hit her
so much that she couldn’t talk one time, she couldn’t get out of bed. I hated him. I wanted to make the ground swallow him whole. I wanted it so bad I got a headache that
made me sick for days. I was about ten
then. My mom got so quiet, so hurt, she
never left the house. He had been
beating me up for years by then and I didn’t care so much because it meant he
couldn’t hurt her if he hurt me. I
thought I was protecting heeepieeping him from her if he hit me.” He froze as Amara shifted again, one arm
sliding across his chest. Her breathing
stayed deep and even, her eyes closed, so he was sure she was still asleep. “I finally got my earthquake when I was
eleven. Almost twelve. It was just before Kitty’s…thing. My dad sta pic picking on my mom again
because I was bruibruised to hit.
People noticed. The school had
sent someone out to check on me. He
thought she’d called someone to come get me and he got mad. He dragged her by her hair…he…he…hit her
with this stupid bowling trophy thing he had…
I wanted it so bad… I was so
happy when this huge hole opened up in the floor, when he fell in and…and there
was so much dirty and rocks and everything was shaking. I was so happy because I was protecting her,
I was keeping him from her.” He
swallowed hard, forcing himself to go on.
“The real kick in the ass? He
made it. He crawled out of the fucking hole and made it alive. My mom died because of me. She died because I couldn’t protect her.
She let herself fall…sometimes I think she jumped in…she let herself get
buried. She…fucking hell. She said she loved him.”

“What happened then?” Amara
murmured sleepily.

Lance froze. He had hoped she would stay asleep but had
resigned himself to this course of events.
Carefully neutral, he said, “Well, the country said it was a sinkhole
that opened under our house and my mom died in a hble ble accident. My dad is still there, in a not-as-nice
house, drinking his three squares a day.
I ran away. I tried to go to
Kitty’s house but her parents hated me.
Before I got far, Magneto found me.
He got to me before the Professor could.”

“Why do you want to tell me this?”

“I wanted to protect you today, I
wanted to help you. It was like that
day all over again, though. I was
afraid for you, I was afraid because of me.
I was so sure…I was sure you would die because of me.” He swallowed a rising crack in his
voice. “I saw that crack open in the
floor…I was so suru feu fell in…”

“You were afraid that your
earthquake would kill me?” She sounded
almost amused. “I have survived a river
of molten lava, I have survived the journey from Nova Roma to here, I have
survived attempted rape, suicide attempts and Kitty’s cooking. I think I can survive you.” She leaned up just enough to kiss his
jaw. “I am tired. I am going to sleep. You’re welcome to stay but I will not have
sex with you this evening.”

Lance gla at at the clock and saw
it was not even eight o’clock. “I’ll
stay,” he murmured. Amara nodded as if
to herself and snuggled against him, oblivious to the vague smile on his
face.



[1] Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome. They think it
can be prevented in part by making sure the baby sleeps on their back and the
crib is free of obstructions such as loose sheets and bottles. Sometimes, babies just die and they don’t
know why so they call it SIDS.