The Violet Hour (X-Men AU)

14: Reconciled Chaos

Was it safe to wonder what went on in his mind? I kept thinking about it as he sped us to that little place just off that majestic lake where we'd hung out before. It hardly bugged me before, only really getting to me in the moment, but since that little moment in the alleyway, that 'deciding' look in his eyes was still bothering me. I needed to figure out what he was thinking about. 

    He was stretching in the light of the sun, reaching down to his toes while I sat and thought about it, vaguely aware of the string of forget-me-nots I had tied together while trying to piece things together. There was something I was missing, I could feel it. 

     "You promise you're not still angry with me? You're doing that thing you do when you're about to either yell at someone or you're thinking really hard." Peter sat cross-legged in front of me. There was no decision in his eyes at the moment as he plucked a few forget-me-nots and added them to the small pile I had on my knee. 

    I ran my tongue over my teeth, "No, I'm not still angry, I'm just thinking." 

    "About the whole record thing or something else?" He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees to set the hands that rested under his jaw. "I'm sorry about... that. I won't stop being sorry about that." 

     He cared a little too much. Perhaps I cared just as much because I felt bad too."We both lost our minds in the store and outside of it, so there's no reason to be sorry." I tied off the string of flowers into a large circle. "I don't lose my head much but with everything going on now, I've just been fed up and overwhelmed. I don't mean to yell at you when I do, I just don't know what to do when these things happen because it's all never happened before." 

    "It was only fair and besides, I needed the wake-up call." He was being genuine, he was smiling. "Losing your head is supposed to happen, you're human. Well, not really, but lucky for you, you look good while you lose your head."

     I smiled a little in response but thought back to losing my head when Peter came over for dinner. That was a different type of lost head. "Not when I'm crying, though," 

     "Yes, when you're crying." He looked at me like I was crazy, which wasn't expecting. "I know you own a mirror, I've been in your room." He plucked a few more forget-me-nots from the patch I sat next to and tucked them behind his own ears. But I froze in a delayed response, rather than accepting his hiding compliment. I went from wondering what was unsaid to what was just said. 

    "What do you mean I'm 'not really,' human, Peter?" I spoke slowly, raising my head up at the same pace. I wouldn't have normally questioned something like this, but he said it in a certain way that seemed like it was just a fact, rather than a harmless joke. 

      "What?" He tilted his head as I pointed my finger at him almost accusingly so that he'd spit it out. He covered his mouth, "Oh shit, you don't know about that, do you?"

      My mouth was open, filling itself with the confusion I then swallowed dry, "What is it I don't know?" This wasn't a joke, I wanted to know what the hell he meant. My reaction was delayed at first but now my reaction was ahead of itself. 

     Peter just laughed, "I'll tell you, I'll tell you, but you have to stay calm and ask questions afterward. You're pale." Stay calm? He was telling me to stay calm as if he was about to break the biggest news to me and he didn't want me out of control. There was something I didn't know about myself and finding it out would make me... not calm?         

        The most I could do was give a slight nod, "Got it." My heart sped and my head swam. What the fuck did he mean I wasn't human? I had to admit, I was a little scared about how serious he was being aside from the anxieties of the words, 'stay calm'.