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ax_mainEileen attempts to be comforting in her very particular Eileen way, after Pyro gets chewed out by Magneto.
Pyro was a fucking idiot, and that was that. He'd trusted her, as if you could ever trust anyone who wasn't your team. As if someone would be interested in him without a hidden motive. Fuck him for being so stupid. He deserved to be confined to the club, and he only wished he could give Magik a piece of his mind. But he'd do as Magneto said and not contact her, give the high school fuckers a chance to infiltrate them.
What the fuck ever.
And the place where that bitch from the protest had shocked him was starting to burn, as if his body agreed that he had been a dope and conspired to help punish him. Fucking brilliant. He got the first aid kit out and set it down on the kitchen table, then went through it until he found something for burns. Here he was, in the middle of their kitchen, desperately needing to burn something - preferably that fucking school - and treating a burn on his arm. A burn. On him. There were tears of rage and humiliation in his eyes, but when he heard someone approach, he wiped them away hastily. No need to add even more humiliation to his state of mind.
He'd heard Eileen coming mostly because she'd wanted him to--her feet hardly ever touched the ground these days, if she could help it, so the fact she was planted on terra firma at that moment probably meant she'd made a deliberate effort not to sneak up on him. But as soon as Pyro turned around, her eyes lit up again, and she tucked her legs up under her until she was sitting lotus-style in mid-air. The scowl which normally creased her otherwise reasonably pretty face was absent, at that moment. Her expression was, if anything, peculiarly unreadable.
"Hey, fucko," she greeted with a wave. "I heard about what happened. You wanna start, or should I?"
Pyro sighed, not looking at her as he put away the cream before, hopefully, she noticed what it was for. There was no hiding the small burn on his arm, but he was angling his body so it would be harder to see, at least. "Have at it, whatever."
"Hey, I could float her all day and rant about what a giant goddamn idiot you were, goin' out there without even the possibility of backup," she told him, but she didn't sound particularly angry, just then. "Hell, I thought about it. But I think Magneto probably hit on all the main points durin' your debriefing. So I'll just say I'm sorry it blew up in your face--I kinda wanted to think those guys were cool, too. Also, if you ever do anything that ass-stupid again, I'll yank your colon out through your nose using only internal muscle-spasms."
She floated forward. "C'mon. I'll show you where we keep the good burn cream. And you can tell me how that even happened." Seriously, in all the time Eileen had known Pyro, for all his bordering-on-creepy love of fire, she'd never seen him burned before. She wasn't sure why, but the sight of the discolored skin made her angry.
Fuck everything, seriously. Why did Eileen of all people have to go and be nice to him? Now? They wouldn't even have known about the tracker if it weren't for her, and then everything would've been even worse. "Maybe I don't fucking deserve the better burn cream, okay?" Pyro muttered, closing up the first aid kit.
"Oh, boo-fucking-hoo," she returned, without a trace of compassion. She moved to another shelf and began rummaging; organization of incidental stuff like this wasn't exactly the Brotherhood's greatest strength. "You got played. It sucks, but it happens. We'll all get played, as long as we keep hopin' other mutants will be friends--or, at least, allies. Until they prove us wrong, I'd wanna give 'em the benefit of the doubt. Next time we'll be smarter, that's all. But if you need to go through this whole mopey teenager angst bullshit, you go ahead and do you."
Eileen held out the cream to him. "Still waitin' to hear how that happened," she said, pointing at the burn.
Pyro sighed, then grabbed the cream from her. "You know that bitch from the protest who put up the video this morning? Like she's the center of the fucking mutie-verse?"
Her brows went up, the fountains of color sputtering from her eyes widening. "I saw the video, yeah. She's with them, then?"
"And she thinks she's God's gift to mutantkind or something," Pyro confirmed, applying the cream on the burn. "I wasn't impressed, so she shocked me. They're awesome people over there."
The lights in the kitchen dipped slightly, as occasionally happened when Eileen was perturbed and started yanking reflexively on ambient harmonies. "Sounds like," she said. Glancing again at his arm, she added, "I'll keep that in mind. So they all just ... sucked then? Goddammit. First mutants we meet outside the Brotherhood in ever, and they're a buncha dicks."
He shrugged. "I thought Magik was cool." Clearly he'd been fucking wrong. He closed the cream but didn't hand it back to her; he had every intention of taking it to his room while he still had to treat that fucking burn.
"I thought she was cool, too," Eileen admitted. Granted, that was based on a couple minutes of conversation under not-so-great circumstances, but still. She usually considered herself a better judge of people--in that she normally expected them to try to fuck her over at the first opportunity. Magik hadn't really given off that kind of feel.
One blond brow arched as she suddenly thought of something. "Are you sure she was the one who planted the tracer on you? I mean, you were at a whole school full of teleporters, speedsters, and fuck-knows-what-else. Shit, Pietro or Pam could probably plant something on you now, if they wanted to be total dicks."
"I don't know shit, okay? It's sort of the moral of this entire mess." And yeah, his voice was short, but he was pissed off. Not at her, but it didn't mean his anger wouldn't show in his voice. "'Pyro knows fuck all.'"
Her eyes narrowed. "Look, do you want me to track them down and knock out all their portable electronics, or something? Because I'll do it. Christ, if this is your new normal, I might just do it anyway." She hovered over to the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk, pointing it at Pyro. "The moral of this story is don't go alone into a place full of strangers who want something we've got. But it wasn't a total loss, either way. Why else would Mags tell me to leave the tracer active?"
She'd wanted to short the thing out as soon as she'd felt it, but she'd told Magneto first. Good thing she had, since he seemed to want to take advantage of the situation. Get the drop on whoever was trying to get the drop on them. This was probably why he was in charge.
"Because he's smart," Pyro replied, not sounding any less pissed. "Christ, am I allowed to be in a pissy mood for a couple of days after completely screwing up? This is what you sound like when you're in a good mood, and you don't see me complaining."
"Because that's me," she returned, and helped herself to a healthy chug of milk from the carton. Eileen wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she finishes, and stifled a burp--that would have ruined the mood. "Pyro is a smug, cheeky, confident-to-the-point-of-certifiable bastard. That's how I know him, and that's how I like him. But, yeah, if you wanna go ahead and be pissy, rock on with your bad self. As long as you get you're just making yourself look goddamn ridiculous. Like you were the first one ever to fuck up and get raked over the coals for it."
"I already look goddamn ridiculous," Pyro bit out, and turned to head the fuck off. Back to his room, of course, it wasn't like he was allowed to get out of here.
"Only 'cause you wanna," Eileen called at his back. "When you get tired of all the bullshit moping, I'll have an 'I told you so' waitin' for ya."
It was only the very last thread of a survival instinct that hadn't yet been overrun by Pyro's mood that saved him from flipping her the bird. Instead, he kept going, getting his lighter out after slamming his door shut and throwing the cream on his bed. Except he couldn't open the zippo, try as he might, and it took him a few seconds to realize Magneto must have magnetized it shut.
Fuck everything.
Pyro was a fucking idiot, and that was that. He'd trusted her, as if you could ever trust anyone who wasn't your team. As if someone would be interested in him without a hidden motive. Fuck him for being so stupid. He deserved to be confined to the club, and he only wished he could give Magik a piece of his mind. But he'd do as Magneto said and not contact her, give the high school fuckers a chance to infiltrate them.
What the fuck ever.
And the place where that bitch from the protest had shocked him was starting to burn, as if his body agreed that he had been a dope and conspired to help punish him. Fucking brilliant. He got the first aid kit out and set it down on the kitchen table, then went through it until he found something for burns. Here he was, in the middle of their kitchen, desperately needing to burn something - preferably that fucking school - and treating a burn on his arm. A burn. On him. There were tears of rage and humiliation in his eyes, but when he heard someone approach, he wiped them away hastily. No need to add even more humiliation to his state of mind.
He'd heard Eileen coming mostly because she'd wanted him to--her feet hardly ever touched the ground these days, if she could help it, so the fact she was planted on terra firma at that moment probably meant she'd made a deliberate effort not to sneak up on him. But as soon as Pyro turned around, her eyes lit up again, and she tucked her legs up under her until she was sitting lotus-style in mid-air. The scowl which normally creased her otherwise reasonably pretty face was absent, at that moment. Her expression was, if anything, peculiarly unreadable.
"Hey, fucko," she greeted with a wave. "I heard about what happened. You wanna start, or should I?"
Pyro sighed, not looking at her as he put away the cream before, hopefully, she noticed what it was for. There was no hiding the small burn on his arm, but he was angling his body so it would be harder to see, at least. "Have at it, whatever."
"Hey, I could float her all day and rant about what a giant goddamn idiot you were, goin' out there without even the possibility of backup," she told him, but she didn't sound particularly angry, just then. "Hell, I thought about it. But I think Magneto probably hit on all the main points durin' your debriefing. So I'll just say I'm sorry it blew up in your face--I kinda wanted to think those guys were cool, too. Also, if you ever do anything that ass-stupid again, I'll yank your colon out through your nose using only internal muscle-spasms."
She floated forward. "C'mon. I'll show you where we keep the good burn cream. And you can tell me how that even happened." Seriously, in all the time Eileen had known Pyro, for all his bordering-on-creepy love of fire, she'd never seen him burned before. She wasn't sure why, but the sight of the discolored skin made her angry.
Fuck everything, seriously. Why did Eileen of all people have to go and be nice to him? Now? They wouldn't even have known about the tracker if it weren't for her, and then everything would've been even worse. "Maybe I don't fucking deserve the better burn cream, okay?" Pyro muttered, closing up the first aid kit.
"Oh, boo-fucking-hoo," she returned, without a trace of compassion. She moved to another shelf and began rummaging; organization of incidental stuff like this wasn't exactly the Brotherhood's greatest strength. "You got played. It sucks, but it happens. We'll all get played, as long as we keep hopin' other mutants will be friends--or, at least, allies. Until they prove us wrong, I'd wanna give 'em the benefit of the doubt. Next time we'll be smarter, that's all. But if you need to go through this whole mopey teenager angst bullshit, you go ahead and do you."
Eileen held out the cream to him. "Still waitin' to hear how that happened," she said, pointing at the burn.
Pyro sighed, then grabbed the cream from her. "You know that bitch from the protest who put up the video this morning? Like she's the center of the fucking mutie-verse?"
Her brows went up, the fountains of color sputtering from her eyes widening. "I saw the video, yeah. She's with them, then?"
"And she thinks she's God's gift to mutantkind or something," Pyro confirmed, applying the cream on the burn. "I wasn't impressed, so she shocked me. They're awesome people over there."
The lights in the kitchen dipped slightly, as occasionally happened when Eileen was perturbed and started yanking reflexively on ambient harmonies. "Sounds like," she said. Glancing again at his arm, she added, "I'll keep that in mind. So they all just ... sucked then? Goddammit. First mutants we meet outside the Brotherhood in ever, and they're a buncha dicks."
He shrugged. "I thought Magik was cool." Clearly he'd been fucking wrong. He closed the cream but didn't hand it back to her; he had every intention of taking it to his room while he still had to treat that fucking burn.
"I thought she was cool, too," Eileen admitted. Granted, that was based on a couple minutes of conversation under not-so-great circumstances, but still. She usually considered herself a better judge of people--in that she normally expected them to try to fuck her over at the first opportunity. Magik hadn't really given off that kind of feel.
One blond brow arched as she suddenly thought of something. "Are you sure she was the one who planted the tracer on you? I mean, you were at a whole school full of teleporters, speedsters, and fuck-knows-what-else. Shit, Pietro or Pam could probably plant something on you now, if they wanted to be total dicks."
"I don't know shit, okay? It's sort of the moral of this entire mess." And yeah, his voice was short, but he was pissed off. Not at her, but it didn't mean his anger wouldn't show in his voice. "'Pyro knows fuck all.'"
Her eyes narrowed. "Look, do you want me to track them down and knock out all their portable electronics, or something? Because I'll do it. Christ, if this is your new normal, I might just do it anyway." She hovered over to the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk, pointing it at Pyro. "The moral of this story is don't go alone into a place full of strangers who want something we've got. But it wasn't a total loss, either way. Why else would Mags tell me to leave the tracer active?"
She'd wanted to short the thing out as soon as she'd felt it, but she'd told Magneto first. Good thing she had, since he seemed to want to take advantage of the situation. Get the drop on whoever was trying to get the drop on them. This was probably why he was in charge.
"Because he's smart," Pyro replied, not sounding any less pissed. "Christ, am I allowed to be in a pissy mood for a couple of days after completely screwing up? This is what you sound like when you're in a good mood, and you don't see me complaining."
"Because that's me," she returned, and helped herself to a healthy chug of milk from the carton. Eileen wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she finishes, and stifled a burp--that would have ruined the mood. "Pyro is a smug, cheeky, confident-to-the-point-of-certifiable bastard. That's how I know him, and that's how I like him. But, yeah, if you wanna go ahead and be pissy, rock on with your bad self. As long as you get you're just making yourself look goddamn ridiculous. Like you were the first one ever to fuck up and get raked over the coals for it."
"I already look goddamn ridiculous," Pyro bit out, and turned to head the fuck off. Back to his room, of course, it wasn't like he was allowed to get out of here.
"Only 'cause you wanna," Eileen called at his back. "When you get tired of all the bullshit moping, I'll have an 'I told you so' waitin' for ya."
It was only the very last thread of a survival instinct that hadn't yet been overrun by Pyro's mood that saved him from flipping her the bird. Instead, he kept going, getting his lighter out after slamming his door shut and throwing the cream on his bed. Except he couldn't open the zippo, try as he might, and it took him a few seconds to realize Magneto must have magnetized it shut.
Fuck everything.
