Breakfast Time (Kitty)

[Piotr Rasputin]

Piotr was often surprised by how many of the Xavier student snored while they slept. It seemed to him to be an unnaturally large number; if asked to give an estimate he’d put it as high as half of the students. He knew that he himself was one of the snorers as his little sister Illyana had no hesitations about describing the volume and intensity of his snores, which she was intimately familiar with, having spent the first half of her life with nothing more then a tiny cloth partition between their bedrooms. But even though he knew that he himself was a star contributor to the noise that filled the hallway each night, he was still surprised every morning when he emerged from his room to find the hallway filled with the rumbling and grunting of 30 odd noses.

The snoring did have the surprising feature of allowing him to leave his room at early in the morning without having to worry about waking the other students. No one who could sleep through that racket was going to be disturbed by his walking up and down the hall; ear plugs and noise machines were too popular a purchase.

This was his second trip down the hall. His first had been at 4:30 that morning, when he’d headed down to the gym for what had become his daily morning workout. This was a new habit, and one not widely known at the Institute since few people other then him were awake at that hour. He preferred working out in the morning though, when the gym was empty and quiet and he could have his pick of weights without people asking him how much he was lifting and why. After that he’d headed back upstairs for a shower, tossed his gym clothes into his laundry basket, and headed back downstairs at 6:00 for breakfast.

He glanced at Kitty’s door as he walked passed, the old brown wood covered in the familiar decorations and girlish script, but didn’t stop. He’d already checked it at 4:30 that morning, along with his sister’s room, listening carefully to make sure that both girls were safely in their rooms sleeping and not missing or hurt or awake doing homework, or any of the other troubles that tormented them in his nightmares. Lucky enough for him, both Kitty and Illyana were included in the abnormal number of snorers at the Institute, despite the fact neither would admit it, so it was easy to reassure himself that they were fine and his worries were unfounded.

He wasn’t sure if it was funny or not that that 4:30 bed checks was probably the most he’d see of his girlfriend today. It was probably one of those things that people said were funny but really weren’t, since he couldn’t imagine anyone thinking it was truly funny. He probably only seen Kitty a dozen time in the last month, most of which had been across the room or in class, and while he had no clue what she was thinking about it, he certainly hoped that “funny” wasn’t one them.

Leaving Kitty to her sleep, and whatever other things she was doing to keep herself busy and away from him, Piotr headed downstairs towards the kitchen, where two large pots of coffee were already waiting for him. As the first person to show up for breakfast in the morning, it was his responsibility to turn on the coffee machines when he came in. He took this responsibility seriously, as he did most things, and every morning without fail, two large pots of black, inky tar were waiting for whoever felt they needed them. He made his coffee strong on purpose, partly because that was how he drank his coffee and partly because the other students filled their’s with so much milk, sugar, and foam that there wouldn’t be any coffee taste to them if he didn’t make it strong. He told them time and time again that if they stopped filling it with extras he wouldn’t need to make it so strong, but they never seemed to understand it.

Grabbing a mug from the kitchen counter, he filled it up with coffee, and went to work on breakfast. Most of the students went straight for the boxes of cereal that lined the cupboard pantry, but he’d never been able to get used to them. He ate it sometimes, but secretly found it like their coffee, a bit too sugary and milk, hard on his stomach and not filling. He was hungry again a hour later. No, he needed something heavier and more filling to keep him going, which is why he headed straight for the freezer and the giant family-sized box of frozen Eggo waffles.



^{OOC: It's not a great post, but it has the benefit of being written, unlike the amazing, wonderful post in the back of my head which seems to be stubbornly staying in the back of my head and refusing to be written. So we shall go with the okay, but not great post for now and hopefully the amazing, wonderful post will get jealous and decide to pop out.}

[Katherine Pryde]

Kitty hadn't been sleeping well as of late. Actually, she couldn't remember the last time she'd slept through an entire night. Sometimes she only woke up once in the wee hours of the morning, other times she tossed and turned and in the end only managed an hour or two of actual sleep. She knew precisely why she had such trouble sleeping -- it was a recurring issue that happened whenever she found herself enduring stressful times. She hadn't slept well for months after her parents divorced, or after the professor died, or after the fight at Alcatraz.

This time the whole reason she had trouble sleeping could be summed up in one word: Piotr. She barely saw him these days, and they spoke even less. How long had it been since they'd had an actual conversation? Or even spoke a sentence to one another, for that matter? A month? More? She couldn't really remember at this point...the days tended to blur together to leave her dazed and wondering where all the time had gone. It wasn't like she wasn't busy, after all. There were classes to attend, of course, Danger Room training for herself and the team she was expected to turn into cohesive fighting unit, not to mention her own hobbies and pastimes that she used to reduce stress and keep mind and body fit. As if classes and the Danger Room weren't doing that already.

It had been one of those nights where she tossed and turned, practically tying herself up in her own bedclothes, although she only woke up once before her alarm went off. When it did go off -- promptly at six -- she groaned half-heartedly as she slapped her hand down on the button to turn it off. It was obscene how little time seemed to pass between the time her head hit the pillow and the time that darn clock started buzzing in her ear. It was just flat-out wrong.

Rolling over onto her back and throwing an arm over her face, Kitty waited for the entirety of her consciousness to return from the land of unremembered dreams. So many things she needed to take care of today, but that was the norm for her now. First things first -- she needed to get some breakfast. After that would come some dancing practice and/or some gymnastic exercises and then a shower. About time to get started, she supposed, as loathe as she was to move from her current spot.

She did, though, just as she did every other morning, dressing in one of her dance unitards and throwing a large t-shirt on over it. One of Piotr's shirts, actually; she'd stolen it from his room some time ago, when they'd first started seeing less of one another. It didn't smell like him anymore, but it still gave her some small measure of comfort to wear it. Very small, but it was better than nothing.

Slipping through her bedroom door as she twisted her curly locks back into a messy bun, the phaser padded her way towards the kitchen trying to think of nothing but what she wanted for breakfast. She could go for something filling like eggs or waffles, or go for the sugary energy-boosting cereals. Actually, the cereals were probably the better bet, the way she was feeling today. And some coffee. A lot of coffee, with more sugar than coffee in the cup. She knew already that today was going to be a long day.

Of course, she hadn't counted on seeing her boyfriend digging in the freezer.

Her soft steps came to an abrupt halt upon recognizing the bulky body that was currently facing away from her. There was a sharp intake of air as well, hardly believing that after all this time a meeting between the two of them came so...effortlessly. Who would have thought that coming down to breakfast would give her an opportunity to find out the answers to all those questions that had plagued her recently. Were they still a couple? Had he found someone else or was this distance between them the product of something else? Now that the moment was here, though, Kitty found herself afraid to ask the important questions. She had to say something though, or she was going to look like a really big idiot. "Uh...morning, Piotr."

[Piotr Rasputin]

"Uh...morning, Piotr."

The sudden appearance of Kitty’s voice into the silent kitchen caused Piotr to snap to attention, jerking up from his crouched position over the freezer so quickly that he slammed his head into the top of the fridge and dropped the box of Eggo waffles on the floor.

Not normally prone to swearing, he nearly give in to the desire and let loose with a few. It wasn’t the pain of hitting his head that bothered him so much as the embarrassment of the situation. That was not how cool and suave boyfriends were supposed to react when surprised by their girlfriends; they were supposed to look up, smile, and say something incredibly smooth and romantic, not jerk around like an oversize bull in a china shop.

Pressing one hand to the bruised part of his skull, he turned around to face Kitty, accidentally kicking the box of Eggo Waffles under the fridge as he did so. She was standing in the doorway looking at him, and he could feel his face light up into a smile as he look at her. Not the romantic, sexy smile that Drake and the other boys used on their girls, but one that was, in his opinion, entirely goofy and uncool looking. It was funny how this tiny, little girl could so knock him off his feet. Normally he was such a steady and focused person, but these day, all he had to do was catch sight of a brown curly pony tail and he’d suddenly feel like all the wind was knocked out of him. He’d never worried about being thought of as cool or uncool till he meet her, and now he couldn’t seem to think of anything else.

He realized that he’d been standing there staring at her without speaking, and his face immediately flushed. Two more uncool acts to add to the list he was wracking up that morning, three if you counted the fact that she’d caught him wearing his decidedly un-cool gym clothes, and he mentally kicked himself a few times before coming up with something to say.

“Dobroye utrah Katya.” He said, in Russian, using the old nickname he’d given her when he’d first come to the Institute and hadn’t been able to stay her name correctly. He hadn’t meant to speak in Russian, but it had come out of it’s own accord, instead of his heavily accented English. He wondered if the Russian could be counted as cool, or if that was another thing to add to his growing list.

“I like your shirt.” He added, this time careful to speak English instead. So focused on speaking English, he almost added the fact that she looked good in it, and that she should wear his clothing more often, but at the last time he swallowed it and quickly asked her if she wanted coffee instead: “You want some coffee?”

When he had started going out with Kitty, the other guys on the floor had taken it upon themselves to give him a lot of confusing advice about how to keep a girl happy. Bobby Drake had been at the forefront of it, and while Piotr had been hesitant to take advice from what had effectively been one of Kitty’s ex-boyfriends, he had to admit the iceman did have a way with women that he himself was definetly lacking. Bobby was cool, and not prone to knocking his head into the top of the fridge unless Jubilation Lee was standing behind him with a cap gun.

One of the main things that the guys had convinced him off, in addition to the importance of being cool, was that American girls did not like it when you got possessive about them. You were supposed to let them be independent and do whatever they liked, even if it wasn’t with you or something you wanted them to do. You weren’t supposed to make them spend time with you if they didn’t want too, you weren’t supposed to make them choose between you and their friends or hobbies, and you weren’t supposed to tell them what to wear or do. And you certainly never referred to them as belonging to you. It was a hard for him, possible even harder then being cool, since Piotr couldn’t help but wanting to be possessive about Kitty. He wanted her to spend time with him, to prefer him to her games and friends, to wear his clothes if she wanted. He wanted to think of her as being his, belonging with him some how. But the guys had been absolutely clear on that matter. Girls might forgive you for being uncool if you were cute enough, but they would never forgive you for being possessive.

So Piotr swallowed the desire to tell Kitty she should wear his clothes, or saying anything about her clothes that might be considered as him telling her what to wear, and stayed with the safe, un-possessive topic of breakfast foods.

“I was going to make waffles.” He added, glancing down at the floor near his sneakered feet. “but I seem to have lost the box.”

[Katherine Pryde]

"OhmyGod!" The words accompanied a noticeable jump, thanks to the painful sound of his head impacting a much harder object, and her hands flew to her mouth and stayed there as she peered at him with giant, apologetic eyes. She ought to have known better than to surprise him when he had his head buried in the freezer! The entire incident was so over done in movies and television that the phaser ought to have known not to say a word until he had gotten whatever he was looking for. It was such a shame sometimes that the minute she and Pete were in the same room her big brain tended to just shut itself off. Frankly it was amazing that she managed to do anything more than drool.

Had this been another time, a time when things were normal between the couple, Kitty would have immediately laughed and gone over to kiss it all better, teasing him about his clumsiness. But things weren't normal between them, so she fidgeted instead, dropping her hands from her face only to tuck them behind her back where the fact that she was picking at her cuticles would go unnoticed. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think...do you need some ice or...or something?" He was standing right next to the freezer, though, so he probably would have gotten some ice if he thought he needed it. She felt like such a goose.

“I like your shirt. You want some coffee?”

Considering it was his, it was a rather good thing that he liked it, huh? Or maybe he meant that he liked it on her, the consideration of which caused her to flush slightly. That was a good sign, right? As was the fact that he wasn't demanding it's return...although really Piotr was far too much of a gentleman to do something like that. "I would love some coffee, actually. I was just coming down to get some. The alarm rang a little too early for me." She tried out a smile, hoping that it didn't look too strange on her face. It was just too weird, all this acting like things were perfectly normal when they weren't! But until she figured out how to ask what was really on her mind Kitty wasn't sure how else to act.

“I was going to make waffles, but I seem to have lost the box.”

"I saw that." Her smile felt a little more normal now, and she only hesitated for a second or two before she forced her feet to carry her over to the freezer. It wasn't like standing closer to him was going to change anything, after all, except maybe give him the chance to hear the way her heart was thundering in her chest. The brunette was surprised the sound wasn't already echoing throughout the room...it sounded something like a stampede of elephants to her own ears. "I'll get it. Wouldn't want you to hurt anything else." Trying a laugh, she found that it didn't mix well with her imaginary elephantine footfalls and quickly stopped. Mentally berating herself, Kitty crouched down and reached a hand through the freezer door in search of the gap between the bottom of the appliance and the floor. All she needed was enough space to solidify the ends of her fingers so that she could get a grasp on the box and bring it back into the light, something she accomplished after a few moments of awkward fishing. Standing back up she held the box out to Piotr with a slightly breathless "Here."

[Piotr Rasputin]

“I saw that.” Kitty said, giving him a smile so beautiful and genuine that for a second his heart stopped. How did she do that? How did she make his heart do that? Why couldn't he do that to her?

Just when it started beating again, she moved towards him, and it stopped all over again. He relaxed that it wasn’t his heart so much as his breath, which he was holding as he waited to see what she would do next. He had an urge to reach out and grab her, pull her those last few inches so he could kiss her. It’d been weeks since he’d been close enough to kiss her. But he was pretty sure that grabbing a girl and kissing her fell under the “possessive” heading, so he just stood there and watched as she stopped just a few, painful inches from him.

"I'll get it. Wouldn't want you to hurt anything else." She said with a laugh, and Piotr silently damned the waffles for existing and himself for bringing them into the conversation. Forget the waffles, he almost said, what about my head? But he said nothing, and just watched as she bent down and slid her hand through the door of the freezer. A few seconds she stood back up, holding out the waffles towards him. “Here.”

“Thanks.” He said, talking the box from her and staring down at it, silently hating it. Turning slightly he set the box on the counter where he could punish it for it’s interference by ignoring it. (and yes, he did know it was a box of waffles and not a person, but Kitty had him so tied up and confused that the act of punishing it made him feel better for some reason.)

“And here you go.” He said, picking his own mug of coffee up off the counter and handing it to her. He could have just as easily walked over to the coffee pot and poured her her own cup, but now that he’d finally gotten the change to be near her he was reluctant to move away. “I only put a little sugar in though, so you’ll probably want to add the rest of the bag, yes?”

For a second he was proud of himself for coming up with a teasing comment, something that wasn’t always easy for him, even when things weren’t so strange between them. But then he remembered that the sugar was all the way across the room by the coffee pot, far, far, far, far, far, far away from where he was standing. Silently cursing the sugar and sentencing it to the same ignoring punishment he’d sentence the waffles, (Kitty had him really, really confused by this point), he cleared his throat and said the first thing he could think of to distract her from the sugar and keep her from walking over towards it.”

“You’ve been busy lately, I haven’t really had chance to see you.”

That wasn't too possessive sounding was it?

[Katherine Pryde]

She watched him stare -- no, glare -- at the waffles, and wondered if the bump to his head had been worse than she thought. Why else would he be trying to kill a box of waffles with the power of his eyes alone? He ought to know that was Scott's thing. Kitty almost asked him if he was okay again, but then decided against it. He hadn't really answered the question in the first place which probably meant he'd be fine, so she should just drop it. She didn't want to bother him. Okay, so she really did want to bother him, to hang on him incessantly like she used to, knowing he never minded even when he pretended to be exasperated with her. She missed those little things.

“And here you go. I only put a little sugar in though, so you’ll probably want to add the rest of the bag, yes?”

Leaving the waffles to defrost on the counter, he handed her his own coffee, prompting another small smile with the gesture as well as the comment. "You know me too well," she said softly, swallowing hard against the unexpected lump in her throat and keeping her eyes on the inky darkness of the coffee, lest he read something in her gaze that she wasn't quite ready to reveal. Piotr was better at reading her than anyone else, and that meant she had to work twice as hard to deceive him when something was wrong. When she wasn't seeing him such deception was easy...but now they were alone, together, with no one and nothing stopping them from laying all the cards on the table.

Despite her admission that she was going to need more sugar (a lot more sugar), the phaser didn't make any motion to move herself from her spot. It was admittedly ridiculous of her, but this was the closest she'd been to Piotr for a while, and now that the distance was eliminated, at least physically, she'd rather not give it up until she had to. And that moment, she was sure, would come all too soon. It always did. Then he cleared his throat, and she glanced up quickly as her heartbeat kicked up another notch. This was it, this was it, this was --

“You’ve been busy lately, I haven’t really had chance to see you.”

-- not exactly what she thought was coming. She had expected him to open with 'Kitty, we need to talk' or some other clichéd line that preceded a break-up. But was this any better? Not having time to see her could mean a million different things. He could have meant that he'd been trying to break up with her for a while, but hadn't seen her long enough to do it. Or maybe it just meant that he missed her...but wouldn't he have just come right out and said so? 'Stop it,' she commanded herself firmly. She was thinking too much again, over-analyzing every little detail and putting the worst spin on it. And if this was to be the end of them Kitty was going to put on a brave face, at least.

"I'm not the only one," she said, somewhat sad, with just a hint of bitterness for flavor. If she was going to be brave then she shouldn't be afraid to move away from him either, so the brunette forced her feet to carry her to the coffee pot, where she proceeded to spend an obscene amount of time adding sugar to her coffee. It kept her hands busy, anyway, and concealed the fact that they had started to shake just a touch. "But I guess that's too be expected, with you getting ready for college and me --" missing you "-- training."

[Piotr Rasputin]

"I'm not the only one," Kitty said and Piotr knew instantly that something was wrong. Before she’d even turned to walk away from him, he knew that he had said the wrong thing. Again. What was it Jubilation always said? Open mouth, in with foot. He didn’t quite get the visual image, but the meaning was clear enough.

He watched her as she stood by the coffee pot, all her attention focused on the act of putting sugar in her coffee. For the first time since she’d walked through the door, the smile had been wiped off his face. The light, warm, jittery feeling he’d felt ever since he’d spotted her standing by the door was gone, replaced by a heavy, deep weight he couldn’t explain.

Something wasn’t right in this relationship. No matter what Drake said or how many movies he used as evidence, this wasn’t right. Anything that had him spending all his time away from Kitty, that had her sounding all cold and hurt, that kept her from touching or kissing him when he slammed his head into the top of the fridge, wasn’t right. And he had absolutely no idea what to do about it. The only thought he could come up with was walking over there, wrapping his arms around her, and holding her until the heavy weight went away and everything went back to normal.

It seemed to be as good a plan as any, although it did set off some possessive warning bells in his head, which he decided to ignore because he just didn’t have any other solutions at hand. But before he could move, Kitty spoke again.

"But I guess that's too be expected, with you getting ready for college and me training."

“I’m not going to college.” He said quickly. Although he would have preferred the solution that involved holding her, he was willing to take any option available that might make this strange akwardness and heaviness go away. “I’m staying to college. Western Connecticut State University. It’s a good school, Maybe not so famous as Vassar or University of New York, but takes fifteen and a half minutes to get from here to the campus. Logan's promised to teach me to drive a car and Jubilation's going to help - not my best idea now that I think about it.”

It was the first time he’d told anyone of his plan since he’d made it a week before. Even Logan and the eavesdropping Jubilee only knew that he wanted to drive a car, not what he wanted to drive it for. He’d been waiting to tell Kitty, and now that he had, he wasn’t sure what to say. Was picking your university on the basis of how quickly you could get home to your girlfriend at the end of the day considered being possessive?


“I couldn’t write the Vassar essay.” He admitted, defending his decision from any accusations and trying to fill up the heavy, empty air around them. Usually it was Kitty who did the talking, while he listened and nodded, but lately nothing was as it usually was. “It was too hard. And they only let three mutants in anyways, so who needs them. And New York University was just too far away. I’d only be able to come home every other weekend, and I miss you enough now and your just down the hall.”

Had he really just said that? It just sort of popped out of his mouth without any prior planning. He froze for a second, wondering if he’d just made the situation worse, but then he remembered that the situation really couldn’t get much worse. Kitty was staring at the bag of sugar and he felt like he couldn’t breath, in a bad way, not in a looking at Kitty way; and nothing he could say or do would make the situation worse.

Unless she dumped him, which would not only make the situation worse, but end life as he knew it. But if life was going to end, it might as well start with him admitting he missed her, instead of walking around trying to keep his big feet off the egg shells, or however that expression went.

Of course, while Piotr was the biggest student, he was by no means the bravest. Which is why if Kitty was going to dump him, he wasn't going to meet it straight on, but rather with attention on the frozen waffle box, which he picked up and stared at intently.