Life of a Mutant (X Men fanfic)

LOAM - Chapter 27

I lay on my bed the next day, staring at the ceiling. The sound of Lucie occasionally turning the pages of her book filled the mostly silent room; a clock ticked, and shouts or sounds from the rest of the building occasionally floated through our door. Amy and Elsie had disappeared somewhere, Mark and Sam were shivering their way through football practise, and I was trying to avoid Peter at all costs; I'd even done my homework i was so bored! Sighing, I began twiddling my thumbs absent-mindedly.

"D'you wanna make something for the Breyers?" I turned to Lucie, who put down her book and shrugged in agreement. Together we set about collecting the things we thought we'd need: ribbon, glue and our collection of Breyers for fittings. After heaping everything in a pile we sat down and looked at each other.

"What shall we do?"

"I don't know."

I sighed in frustration and twirled a bright red ribbon around my fingers.

We were just waiting for the glue to dry on our new carriage harness when a loud wailing pierced the Sunday afternoon silence.

I looked at Lucie, feeling the panic rise in me. Lucie stood up, and tugged at my jumper for me to do the same. Once I had, I clung on to her tightly in fright as she calmly walked to the door and joined the crowd of people in the corridor outside. Together, we filed outside, our matron reprimanding those who screamed and pushed and ran; I just hung onto Lucie and whimpered.

Nearing the assembly point of the basketball courts, we all joined the rest of the school. Most were in own clothes, what with it being Sunday and all, but I could just make out the flashes of bright green football kits on the other side of the crowd. I sighed in relief and felt a surprising amount of my panic and worry subside.

People all around us were shrieking or laughing loudly in a disorganised mass, while teachers shouted uselessly at them.

Miss Dreames suddenly appeared and asked those of us in her form class to line up and quieten down, and as she passed us and noticed my panic, she smiled reassuringly before moving on down the line. Towards the back, I saw Sam and some of the other football players in our class had come over; I caught Sam's eye for a second, but he just glared at me and then turned away.

Not a second later, Peter fell onto my arm heavily; he was in pyjamas and looked incredibly pale.

"Peter? Are you ok?" I asked - he looked so ill I forgot about our terrible date. Peter just nodded feebly and leaned against me. I noticed Lucie raised a questioning eyebrow at me, but I just shrugged and turned back to Peter. "Why are you wearing pyjamas?" Now, he was holding on to my arm with both hands and staring around him, as if he couldn't see properly. He didn't acknowledge my question.

"Ouch, Peter!" I whined when his fingernails dug into my skin. He looked up at me, but his eyes were wrong; they went from brown to black constantly, swirling together as if his mind couldn't decide which he wanted to be. Peter's face contorted into pain, and he put one hand to his forehead.

"Peter?! Don't let it get to you, it's nothing to worry about - it's a stupid fire in the kitchen. Why are you in pyjamas?" I urged him, holding onto his shoulders. Lucie seemed to notice something was wrong and tried to calm Peter down, who was moaning and shaking his head. This must have been it, it was back again. How long had it been going on for? Peter looked crazed, and people were beginning to back away from us. As Peter groaned even more loudly, Lucie decided to go and get Miss Dreames.

"What's wrong? Peter, why are you here? You're supposed to stay inside. Thank you girls, I'll take care of him now.. Come on, Peter." she trundled him away out of sight behind some of the buildings before he could answer any of my questions, but that didn't mean I was saved from Lucie's.

"What was wrong with him? Is he ok?" she flung her arms around. I tore my gaze from the direction Peter had disappeared in and shrugged at her. Maybe it was time I told someone. The teachers were dismissing us row by row, as the alarm had finally stopped ringing.

"You know at the start of the year, when we were sorted into groups depending on our ability?" Our line began moving. "Remember Peter was in the 'unknown' group? That's because he doesn't have a... normal ability... Like the rest of us..." I said over my shoulder, but Lucie still didn't understand, and poked me to go on. "He has some weird mutation, even weirder than whatever gives us our abilities - it's like the gene mutated twice, or something. That means he has..well, two personalities, and both personalities have different abilities... You understand?" Our row had dispersed as everyone hurried back to their Sunday afternoon activities. I headed for our dorm building.

"So he has more than one ability? And he can just switch personalities?" she frowned slightly; I shrugged.

"He has more than one ability, yes, but he can't switch them, like that," I snapped my fingers as we climbed the stairs, "he doesn't have much control over them, although he does have a 'main' personality, so to speak..." I trailed off, worrying that Peter wouldn't like that I'd told Lucie. She nodded and shrugged, whilst opening the door to our room. As she walked in, I paused.

"I'm going to get a drink from downstairs, back in a min, okay?" Lucie nodded again and I hurried off.

In our common room I went over to the little kitchen area and got myself a cup and put some squash in it. Though my back was facing the door, I heard a group of other people come in.

"Oh hey, Kelly!" A sweaty Mark greeted me as he went to get himself a cup too. I turned the tap on to fill my drink.

"Hi, how was football? Or was it cancelled because of the fire drill?" I asked as Mark put his cup under the running water too. He shrugged.

"Cancelled, but the pitch was too slippery anyway after the rain last week. Still had a bit of a kick about, though." He took a slug of water. "Oh, hey Sam, was wondering where you'd gone." Sam appeared next to him and scowled when he saw me. Mark grimaced while I shuffled out of their way, towards the door. I was about half way when Mark called to me.

"Hey, what are you guys even fighting about, anyway?" He looked between me and Sam, who wouldn't even look in my direction. In a split second decision, I brushed against his mind,

What are we fighting about?

Sam just looked up sharply and stared at me. His blue eyes brought back so many memories from the last few months.

"I couldn't imagine living without horses. They're my friends. You are too you know, and I couldn't imagine living without you, either."

"I missed you, Sam. I really missed you."

"You said you loved me, for crying out loud! We've got to deal with this!"

"We had our chances and we both screwed up. Get. Over it."

"There, you done? Because I am. Get lost, Sam."

And that's when I realised...

...You can't fight with someone you're not friends with.

***

So this is on 13,001 reads which is amazing! I have some of the next chapter written up, but I doubt I'll get it done by 14,000. This is still huge though and something I never expected to achieve, thank you. :)