om_main | Curtis/Melissa and Pietro, backdated to 15/06/2013

Curtis and Pietro both need to get out of their heads for various reasons, cue the hash brownies the Curtis mentioned a while back. Much giggling, intensely important discussions and silliness occurs. Also bad netflix movie.

Well, Curtis said he had the brownies, and that was an offer Pietro couldn't refuse any day, let alone one like this. He was trying not to think about how it had been four weeks, now.

Four. Fucking. Weeks.

But it was hard, honestly. It was hard, and he was sad. The difference between now and four weeks ago, however, was that after he finished with everything Tessa had for him tonight--and double-checked, just because he couldn't help himself--Pietro hadn't wanted to sit there and triple and quadruple check.

He'd wanted to be with someone else. God bless Curtis.

Or Melissa. Or whoever was behind the door. Pietro knocked and waited as patiently as he knew how to find out.

Curtis, or rather pretty boy Curtis aka Donovan, was moving slowly and wincing as he crossed to the door. The training squad idea of a paint-balling exercise had seemed so great that morning but now his body was protesting it big time. It was almost impressive that balls of paint could actually hurt as much as they did. Almost.

Dressed in jeans and the dark green shirt from his first day of CS and freshly showered to get rid of the pin crap, he hadn't been expecting visitors so it was mainly curiosity that made him open the door. At the sight of Pietro standing there looking so defeated, he changed into his original form

"Come in, mate." He said almost gently, stepping back to allow entrance.

Pietro offered a little smile--both for the pretty boy and the (also very pretty, in fact his favorite) regular boy--and gave Curtis a firm hand-clasp as he accepted the invitation. "You look as excited as I feel. What's up, man?"

"Nothing much, squad training consisted of paint-balling and the lovely but not very tactically gifted Aurora was in charge. My bruises have bruises." But he shrugged and waved a hand because so wasn't a big issue, not in comparison.

"What about you? You wanna talk about it or really not talk about it?" Because knowing that upfront affected everything that followed, right?

Pietro was smiling from the idea of Jeanne-Marie getting everyone paintballed (no, he didn't really peg her for a tactical genius), and he nodded. "It's okay, yeah. I'm to the point where I'm not trying to curl up in the fetal position every time it comes up, which is a good sign, right?"

Curtis nodded a little "That's something." He wouldn't say good because nothing in this situation was good. Instead he moved over towards the fridge where the promised brownies were. Best way to keep them from looking suspicious was treat them like normal brownies, right? "Am I right in thinking these'll help right about now?"

"So much." Pietro threw himself into the spare desk chair and sprawled almost bonelessly. "Eames and Ali gave me fruity cocktails, Lil gave me straight vodka, I think it's time to move on to the big guns."

"Generally or today?" Curtis was neither judging nor about to deny brownies, he just wanted a good idea of Pietro's current intoxication levels. Seemed the sensible place to start.

When he stood he had a plate of hash brownies in one hand and two cans of fizz in the other.

Pietro accepted a can and a brownie. "Generally. Today I am sober as a--sober thing. And I am not okay with it." He took a bite with one hand and cracked open the soda with the other. "So what's the new girl's story?"

"The sobriety we can fix." Curtis promised, grabbing the other desk chair for the moment though once start on it, scooted over closer to Pietro.

"I'm guessing you mean Alisha though she ain't the only new girl. You've figured out she's from community service right? Drunk driving charges if I remember right. Very flirty though very bitchy if crossed." He'd lost a fair bit of the enthusiasm and excitement he'd felt when he'd first found out she was at the school though. Now he felt tense and sick when he thought about it. Four out of six, what if...

"Sounds okay to me so far," Pietro admitted (flirty, bitchy, hey, he was on board!), but carefully, noting that Curtis's reaction was a little off. He knew the guy well enough by now to tell, just not well enough to read him like a book, or anything.

And then he realized, just as the THC from the two bites so far was noticeably rocketing through him--or what the fuck ever. Nathan's arrival had set Curtis off in the first place--not necessarily because he knew that asshole Rudy (which Pietro had just assumed was a thing), but because he reminded Curtis of him... but still, it was all related. "Oh shit. Is she, like, friends with...?"

"They went to sixth form together before community service. From what I know they fucked one time ages ago but she'd didn't really give a shit about him. " Curtis explained before talking a huge bite of brownie.

"My worry though, my wory is that over half of us have turned up here, what if the other two do? I mean, logically he's this dick guy I could totally take in a fight but not logically...well."

Pietro had a really hard time imagining anyone fucking a guy like that, for so very many reasons but ooookay. Anyhow, he was far more concerned about the rest. "Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, the odds of all six of you being mutants can't be possible, but how could you not think of it?

He wanted to say his old man would not actually let a sex offender live in the house, but, well. He and X both knew what happened with Anders and Noriko, right? Fuck. "If he turns up, we'll find an excuse to nail him to the wall. But I bet he doesn't."

"Knowing my luck he will." Three quarters of the first brownie was already gone. "But, nah, shouldn't worry right? Might not even be here when that happens."

Pietro's brownie was in a similar state, and he was starting to feel a little... Slowed down. Not really, but his perception was changing noticeably, now. He slumped in the chair. "You're thinking of leaving after graduation?" He didn't bother trying not to sound like the idea made him sad.

"I dunno, I got a lot of choices. I could even be a teacher here if I wanted." At that he couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. Him a teacher? "Would you miss me if I did go then?" He wasn't sure if he was just allowing himself to be distracted or if he as just more distractable now that they'd started on the brownies. Either way, he felt better than before Pietro arrived for sure.

"Dude, of course I would. Your music and your pretty faces and your brownies." Pietro sighed at what was left of his, then polished it off. He made a thoughtful face when he raised his gaze back to Curtis. "You'd be a good teacher. Like Phys Ed, training, you know all that stuff."

Curtis knew it was snobbery to look at a teaching job as failing but what else could he think of it as? He was Olympic standard. He kept remembering that old saying 'Those who can't, teach.' He was worth way more than this but, thanks to Sam, his options were seriously limited now.

"And I keep you from being too sober." He added to Pietro's list before frowning. "That'd probably have to stop if I took the job. That'd suck."

Pietro looked as horrified as he could with his eyelids getting heavy like this. "Oh my god, that would suck. No, no, man, I'm sneaky, we just won't get caught. That's my specialty."

"Or I could go to college...or study for college here...I dunno mate. Decisions." He gestured vaguely before shoving the last piece of brownie in his mouth. "Not making any yet."

"No, like, you have some time, right?" Pietro waved and grabbed for his drink. "College is a good idea. I guess. If there's a thing you want to study. Is there a thing?"

That seemed like something important to know about your friends. Why didn't he know that about Curtis? Maaaaan.

"Not really, no just..." He used his feet to steer the wheely chair closer to Pietro and the other desk. Opening a draw he pulled out a bunch of ribbons and a couple of medals. He'd told a few people he'd been competing again but hadn't mentioned he'd been winning, a lot. In fact most of the seconds were deliberate seconds. Ok, all of them. And there weren't too many seconds in the mix.

He let a silence fall to give Pietro's slowed brain a moment to register what that meant, a moment that he took to polish off the brownie. "Scouts saw me. Offers have been made."

Pietro's eyes widened as he scanned the blues sprinkled with reds, plus all the shinies. He wasn't surprised, he'd seen Curtis run, after all, but... He looked up at Curtis. "That's hard to refuse."

For a lot of reasons, Pietro was sure. Curtis had it taken away from him the first time. This was like a second chance, right? New face, new country, new opportunity...

"Yeah. So fucking hard..." Curtis agreed with a half nod "But it would mean giving up a lot too. Freedom to use my powers. Can't make the decision right now so instead decided to live up to my rap sheet." He helped himself to another brownie and held one out one to Pietro too. "You and me, mate. We need to get off our faces, I reckon." He could already feel the effects of the first brownie but it wasn't enough.

"We really do." Pietro reached for another brownie and sighed. "Anyhow, you have a little time. Wherever you end up, I really hope it's not far. I feel--I feel like it's better if we're all together. I always have."

"That's what I said to Summers." Curtis confirmed just so Pietro knew they were on the same wavelength before changing the subject so that they wouldn't get too bummed out. "Hey, guess what today is. It's a big day for me, well Mel actually."

Pietro's metabolism meant he was already more than willing to be led. "Do tell." He nibbled at his second brownie just a little; didn't want to get too fucked up, just maintain.

"Her first birthday. Sort of. Realised this morning, been thinking I should do something." He said as he stuffed the ribbons and shit back into the draw. It wasn't that he wasn't proud of them, he just didn't want t have them all over the walls bragging either. It was only high school track and field, he had commonwealth game medals back home.

"Awww, happy birthday, Melissa." Pietro bumped Curtis' shoulder with his own. "You should definitely do something. We should do something. I don't think just getting fucked up counts as a birthday activity. Mutation-birthday. Whatever."

The first thing he did was change into Melissa, something that was harder than usual and had her giggling just a little. It felt weirder than usual to change, tickled more. She went for the pink and blonde dreads she'd come up with a few months back.

"Might as well be in the right body to celebrate. What should we do then, SB?"

Pietro giggled a little too and leaned one elbow on the desk, turning to face Melissa so his knees touched her chair. "There she is. Hi, birthday girl."

Which was funny, because Curtis was Melissa and he'd already said that, kind of. And. Ha! Haha! Pietro nibbled some more, because yep, this was the good place.

"Hi!" Mel giggled back happily before taking another bite of brownie. "You didn't answer my question."

"Oh right," Pietro blinked a few times and nibbled some more. "Hmm, we should. Umm. Shit, normally I would say we should go out or have a dance party or something, but right now all I can think of is eating a lot and watching something funny."

"Fuck, I'm hungry." Melissa agree before swallowing her mouthful of brownie and pointing vaguely "Oh, I got netflix over there." More accurately her laptop was lying on the bed, but near enough "Or there's a rec room."

"Ohmigod, yeah, Netflix. But not in the rec room. I won't stay high through a whole movie without continual brownie eating." And no getting caught allowed! Pietro stood and stretched, enjoying the weirdly pretend-slow mo feel of his muscles, like he could sense every little cell in them popping pleasantly. Which was so not a thing, but still. "I will go and retrieve all the snacks, if you find, like, a thing to watch. A funny thing. Possibly with musical numbers involved?"

"Perfect plan SB. I shall go on the hunt...and you will probably be back before I cross the room." And she was laughing again as she watched him.

Pietro saluted, giggled again, and then he was off to the kitchen in a blur.

"Whoa." The blur was even cooler after brownies.

Very very carefully, Mel took the two cans of drink and plate of brownies over to the bed before starting one netflix. Despite the short attention span, she eventually found a few viable options. Or rather looked at the first few on each page.

Pietro reappeared shortly with his arms full. He had a bag of yellow corn tortilla chips, a full thing of queso, a bag of Oreos, and the crunchy Cheetos, which were kind of the best thing ever. All of these he settled on the edge of the bed before grabbing the brownies (and nibbling again), then crawling up next to Mel. "What did you find... I'm the Slutty Boyfriend, what are you? Non-slutty Girlfriend?"

"I can be whatever you want me to be." She cracked up as soon as she send it, laughing hysterically "Why do I keep saying shit like that to you? OH! Cheetos? No way! You can still buy em here?!"

Giggling almost maniacally, Pietro still managed to point out, "Because you can say shit like that to me. And ohmigod yes we can still buy Cheetos. What is wrong with that island of yours? How can they outlaw radioactive cheesy goodness?" He tore the bag open immediately, somehow managing not to send powdery cheese goodness all over the bed, and held one out for Melissa to eat from his fingers.

She took it from him, laughing as he did because eating from Pietro's hand was fucking funny. "They used to but they lost out to wotsits which are same but not. These are fucking awesome snack choices, mate."

Using her barefoot, she pushed the laptop with her selected choices closer to him as she finished up her second brownie.

"Oooh Monty Python. That's good singalong stuff." Pietro leaned over his own lap, reaching for another Cheeto for himself. "What's this--It's a Boy Girl Thing?"

Pietro cackled as he read silently and then stuffed a cheesy snack into his mouth. "Oh my god, "ancient Aztec statue"--never a good sign--"makes preppy girl and jock boy switch bodies. We should totally watch it."

Of course this was the choice Mel had expected him to go for. "Perfect for today. Let's watch and cringe." Play was pressed before they could change their minds and then she sat up and lent across him after the cheetos.

Pietro put the bag between their thighs and made himself comfortable, leaning against the wall as the credits start. "Let's play count the horrible stereotypes."

"Sounds like a great drinking game." She settled back too, happy again now that all the snacks were in arms reach. "You know, if we weren't already fucked."

They toasted to that with their sodas and sat through the first few minutes of the movie, lazily heckling and making each other giggle at what was already a terrible, terrible movie. The real giggle fit didn't hit until the two main characters woke up in each others' bodies; the preppy girl had her first morning wood, and the jock boy couldn't figure out how to get a bra on.

Pietro had to pause it because he was laughing so hard it actually hurt, if not for the right reasons. While he had already had the bra conversation with Melissa, still, "Ohmigod. Ohmigod, there's no way it's that hard to get one of those on. This is terrible."

"Fucking awful." The English girl agreed when she could finally breathe enough the speak while laughing. Her nose burnt from snorting whilst drinking soda but it was worth it. The movie was so shit it was glorious. "Oh God, that just...wow. Totally not what happens!" No girl would ever wear them if it was!

"How did every girl who watched this movie not throw things?" Pietro said, clutching at his side with one hand and reaching deep down into the Cheetos bag. Already. He held one up for Mel first. "I mean yes, everyone hates bras, but what the hell."

Sober Mel would have probably just taken the food normally but she wasn't sober and had already decided that hand feeding was awesome coz it meant she didn't have to move much. "Bras are evil but get good results. Sometimes."

"True story." Pietro grabbed himself a Cheeto. God he was going to be so sad when they were gone. He might even cry. His mouth dropped open when he looked back to the screen, then. "Is she seriously trying to get rid of an erection by hitting it with, like, cutlery now? What is that? Ow oh my god, movie, you make me, like, hurt."

"Has she never heard of a cold fucking shower before?" Mel snickered, cringing a little from sheer embarrassment for the characters. Who the hell wrote this? Who the hell actually decided to film it? "This movie makes me feel kinda normal, you know?"

"Ugghhhhhh," Pietro said by way of agreement--though he did manage a lazy nod, too, before he stuffed more brownie into his mouth.

And then there came the scenes of them trying to do typically "girly" or "boyish" things. "So... according to this movie... girlish things include 'being smart', which, okay, I can get behind that idea, or being slut-shamed constantly, which I cannot get behind, obviously, as your Slutty Boyfriend." He held up one hand, which still held what was left of a third brownie. "But boyish things include 'playing football' and 'cheating on your girlfriend'.

"Am I offended on behalf of boys, or girls? Or just, you know, humanity?" Deep questions, man. Questions that needed answers.

"I'm offended for both because I am both...or am I? I'm all girl right now but brain still boy. I think. Maybe...hmmmm. I think humanity and Curtises. That works." Her head turned to Pietro's with a look of utter thoughtfulness. At some point after starting her third brownie she'd ended up slumped down even more, leaning against him heavily.

Pietro nodded sagely, fixing her with the most serious look he could muster just then. "Yeah. Humanity and Curtises. And Melissas. And Dons." He giggled there. Don, that trickster prettyboy!

"You liked Don." Was sing-songed as she tapped his nose playfully.

Pietro tried to look at her finger, then wrinkled his nose. Then giggled some more. "It was a good trick. Don is hot. Haha--hot like--" he was giggling too much to complete the sentence, in one go, though. "Remy says 'hot like gumbo'. Haha--he actually says that!"

"I've hear so much bout that dude..." Melissa told him thoughtfully before asking "What the fuck is gumbo? What does that even mean?"

Her attention was quickly drawn back to the screw, mouth hanging opening slightly in a clear 'what the fuck?' expression. Did that guy just threaten to go have sex while in the girl's body just to spite her? What the actual fuck?

Pietro was about to explain that he had no explanation for gumbo, though if it was half as good as Remy claimed, he probably needed some right now. Or possibly yesterday. But all other (molasses-slow) thoughts halted when he blinked and actually paid attention to the screen. "Oh. Oh my god. No way."

They watched in horrified silence for a few moments, Pietro munching once on his brownie because he really did not want to see this even slightly more sober. And sure enough, dude-in-chick's body was going around to some skeevy guy's house to try and "lose her virginity" just to fuck with her.

"I hate everything," Pietro whispered, incredibly seriously. And then dude-in-chick's body declared he couldn't do it because "This is so gay!" and Pietro looked at Melissa. As if imparting some profound wisdom, he said, "But not as much as I hate this movie."

For pretty much the whole horrible scene, Mel had had her face half hidden pressed into his shoulder and arm though slowly emerged "It's evil and must be destroyed." She agreed in the exact same tone.

"Oh, man. We gotta write a review. A really bad review." Except Melissa was still leaning on him and he wasn't sure he could move even if she wasn't. With her there it was a total impossibility, though. "Like, talking about how this movie is stunting the emotional growth of children everywhere. And should be destroyed. With fire."

"For crimes of sexism, slut-shaming, homophobia and....?" She looked to him to continue the list as she made a lazy grab for the cheetos.

Pietro nudged the nearly empty bag towards her. "And ableism. Oh, and the constant Romeo and Juliet references. Terrible. Okay let's--let's do it." He reached for the laptop but it was kind of far away. Ehhhhn.

"Later. Brownies now." She had made an active decision to ignore the screen as much as possible. As she finished off the last of that third brownie, that she'd totally forgotten about and oh my god there was more brownie right there on her lap so awesome, she told him"This is a fucking weird first birthday party..."

"Well, my dear Melissa, your guest list is as fucking weird as it gets," he pointed out, flattening one hand on his own chest to illustrate--one-star review writing well forgotten.

"Nuh uh, it's perfect." She corrected and it totally was. Because of all the obvious reasons they both knew well enough. "Perfectly weird and weirdly perfect. Don't you think?"

Yyyyeah," Pietro agreed with a dopey smile. He let his head rest against Mel's for a second, then, then said, "Fuck this noise, let's watch Monty Python. I wanna sing the Camelot song."

"Yes please." They so so so should have picked that in the first place. Melissa regretted ever finding this shitty movie. Bleh bleh bleh.

Pietro sat up, but turned back, smiled like a dope again, and lifted Melissa's chin up with one finger. "Don't be sad on your birthday. This was a learning experience. And now we'll go to Camelot. It's a silly place."

He giggled--ow, his face was starting to hurt, actually--and fumbled slowly with the laptop.

Melissa watched him as she tore into the bag of oreos. When he finally sat back the sweet, soothing sounds of Python were filling the room. Impulsively she leant into him a little more and kissed his cheek.

"Thank you." For everything.

Then flopped back into the pillows with her oreos.

Grinning even harder now, he flopped back next to her, making sure what was left of the brownies was well in reach, too. They'd save the quest for after. Shit was messy, anyhow.

He didn't really feel the need to reply, especially. She knew she was welcome, and words seemed sort of insufficient and sad to express the kind of emotion that was making him smile so hard his face really hurt.

He just leaned his shoulder against hers and the rest of him into the pillow. "How pissed will you be if I like, say half of the lines with the movie?"

"I'd be a hypocrite if I did, SB."