Galatea

Galatea Chapter Forty (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUESIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta... it's the return of the weird midnight Loganish-howl! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, and Dracena get a huge pile of muse cookies for archving/hosting. ProPhile, your smut-ness has kicked in! Readers/Reviewers: Sorry for the delay. I think I have The Plague...


Rogue was still not used to her reflection yet. She would find herself glaring every time she passed a shiny surface, alternately annoyed that someone was crowding her or annoyed that she looked like that. Todd was dragging her, almost literally, through the warren of streets that used to be the town center back in the day but were now consigned to antique shops and random stores selling knick knacks that no one really ever needed. "Stop lookin' at yourself, yo," he said with a slight hint of amusement.
"I'm not lookin' at myself," she snapped, blushing.
"I just nearly ran you into a pole an' you didn't even notice."
"Fine, I glanced in a window... Todd, were are we goin'?" She tried to pull free but found his grasp much stronger than she realized, succeeding only in chaffing her wrist under her gloves.
"If I tell you, what fun would that be?" He stopped on the last corner before the town faded into a small neighborhood, slipping down towards the back side of the bay where it gave way to empty fields and thin stands of trees, trickling from the thick woods near the Institute.
"Todd..."
"Shush. I have to remember... Ah. Okay. Come on." He let go of her wrist and headed determinedly down the last street of Bayville, whistling under his breath.
Rogue frowned, debating just going back to the mansion or following him. She was irritated with his secrecy and had the distinct feeling that he had forgotten about their date until the last moment, leading to this random amble through town. She sighed, seeing how far ahead he was now. His long-legged stride had put him far enough ahead that she had to jog to catch up. "If you'd tell me where we're going..."
"If I tell you, it won't mean anything," he said just loud enough for her to hear.
She pressed her lips together in mute frustration and remained silent for the rest of the walk. They stopped just outside of the town limits, the thin stream that would turn into the river a few miles to the east was barely flowing, chocked with debris and some chunks of ice left over from the melt upstream. "You made me walk out here to freeze me, didn't you?" she sighed, attempting levity. "Todd honey, I'm from Mississippi...I'm allergic to snow."
He snorted. "Sit." He waved her in the direction of a low stump, worn smooth by years of being used as a makeshift seat for anyone who came to this spot.
She raised a brow and, pulling her coat even more tightly around her, did as she was directed. Todd seemed to be measuring off distance in strides, counting under his breath and shaking his head before starting over, this time taking bigger steps. She was about to ask if he needed any help when he brightened and began pushing dead grass and old snow aside with the side of his foot. He was shivering visibly, his toad-like metabolism making him feel the cold especially keenly, but he did not seem to actually notice as he smiled faintly, uncovering the remains of an old standpipe. "Um, Todd? You sure you should be sticking your hand down there?"
He let a potential perverted joke pass and just nodded. "I know what I'm doin', Marie..." She sighed and huddled in on herself, wondering if she would ever regain feeling in her nose. His sharp cry of triumph made her look up suddenly, finding him shaking ice cold water off his hands as he trotted over to her. He dropped to the ground and sat cross-legged, regardless of the damp and cold, blotting absently at the plastic bag with his sleeve. "This," he said finally, "is everything I ever got from my father an' the two things that didn't suck my mom gave me."
Rogue stared at him for such a long moment that he averted his eyes, keenly uncomfortable. She took the proffered bag and switched her gaze to it. "Why'd you hide it out here?"
"Didn't want to see it all the time, ya know. An' Pietro was a snooper." He rose to his knees and pulled the bag open. "Here, look..."
Rogue blinked rapidly, confused as he poured out a handful of birthday cards, a note and a cross on a slightly tarnished chain. "Todd..."
"These are from my dad. I never met him, but he knew 'bout me. Sent me cards sometimes." He shrugged and pushed the cards aside with one finger. "This is from my mom, before she got too nutty. For my first communion."
"You're Catholic," she said, the idea not having really occurred to her.
"Recovering," he grinned.1 "She gave me the card an' the cross when I was seven."
"Why are you showing me this?" she asked after the briefest pause.
"Dunno. Maybe cause I don't tell you much about me before I came here. Even when we lived at the Boardinghouse, we avoided each other, ya know?" He rocked back and sat on his heels, frowning. "You went and got all weird on me the other day cause I wouldn't talk about my mom. I didn't want to say nothin' cause she was...was..."
"Awful?"
"I'll go with that. She ain't been part of my life since I came here, ya know?"
Rogue looked at the slightly damp, warped cards and the cross, splayed on her lap. "You don't have to tell me anything about her. I was just...worried."
"I know," he sighed. "But she's been dead to me for years, yo."
Carefully, Rogue replaced the items in the bag and regarded Todd with an intensity that made him blush and look away. "You make no sense sometimes, but I love you."
He made a noise that could have been a snort or a laugh.
"You make me walk all the way to BFE, you show me this stuff..." She shook her head. "There's easier ways..."
"Yeah but it got us out of the house, right?"
"Point."
"And besides..." he looked around, smiling a little. "I like this place and wanted you to see it."
Rogue looked around, following his gaze. "It's not too bad...just fucking cold."
"When it gets warmer, there's all sorts of butterflies an' dragonflies an' stuff..." He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Holdover, ya know? When you ain't got groceries..."
"Butterflies? Dragonflies?" She shook her head. "At the risk of sounding girly, donat tat those, please?"
He ducked his head. "For you, sure." He glanced up from under his fringe of sandy colored hair and added hesitantly, "Um, there ain't no good way to say this but... Are you gonna keep your hair that color?"
"It's brown."
"I kinda miss the white part. An' the goth stuff."
"If I recall, you said you didn't like me dressin' like that because it got too much attention," she said stiffly.
"Well, I'd rather you dress how you want an' act how you want that lookin' an' actin' like a soccer mom, ya know?"
Rogue blinked. "Did you just call me a soccer mom?"
"Uh..."
"You really don't wanna get laid any time soon, do you?" she asked, smirking slightly.
"Hey now!"
"You got two more days to make it up to me. C'mon," she added, smiling and tucking the precious bag into heat pat pocket, "I'm freezin' my tits off."
"There's such a shortage of perfect breasts in the world. It'd be a shame to waste yours."2
"That's it. Your brain froze. C'mon."
"As you wish..."
"Gah!"
1 Tori Amos made that famous (heh a rhyme...) when she wore a t-shirt proclaiming herself a Recovering Catholic when she gave a concert. Now a popular phrase all 'round, lol.
2 Stolen directly from The Princess Bride.