Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters…they belong to Marvel…not me.
Author’s Note: Inspired rather loosely by the song “Better Then Me” from Hinder. I’m a RoLo (Ororo/Logan) and Kyro (Kitty/Pyro) shipper and the one thing that strikes me about both pairings is how similar they are. In many ways Kyro is RoLo in teenage form. This is a movie-based fic set somewhere shortly before the beginning of X3. There are some spoilers for X2 for those out there who haven’t seen the movie. I know the set up is kind of odd but I hope you like it. Regular type is Logan’s thoughts and Italics are Pyro’s thoughts. Read and Review if you like, Flames will be ignored! Thanks!
Better then Him
Silence was something he had begun to hate. When the lights where out and the weather was calm there was nothing to stop him from thinking. Sometimes his thoughts took him down normal trails, his past, his future, the school, even Jean sometimes even though the pain of losing her had lost the sharp edge it had used to hold. Those were all safe trails, trails he was supposed to venture down, trails he was expected to wander on. However lately his thoughts had been forming new trails, ones that inevitably lead him to Her in the end.
Silence and darkness…his two biggest enemies at the moment. Given the life he had chosen to lead one would think that his enemies were the X-Men or the government, not two normal acts of nature. However, lying on his cot in a bunker that he couldn’t remember the name of, just the location, staring into the void that hid the cold metal ceiling and listening to the sounds of nothing gave him too much time to think. And thinking normally led him to the one place he couldn’t go back too, the one place he was supposed to avoid above all else. His thoughts, always treacherous and betraying, normally led him back to Her.
He knew he was treading dangerous ground when he thought about her; even let himself dream about her on the off night that he let his guard down slightly. At first she was a welcome change from the nightmares of metal tables and unrecognizable faces but as the monsters in the dark became less common he began to realize just what a dangerous game he was playing. She was untouchable, some kind of goddess that decided to favor earth with her presence for a short amount of time. She was too good for a man like him.
He supposed it wasn’t right for him to be thinking about a member of Xavier’s school, not after the huge knife he had just plunged into their collective back. Even if he ever did see her again the only thing he could expect to receive from her would be a right hook to his jaw. And he’d deserve it too. Still she was more pleasant to think about then some of the other things he could recall from his past which was both too short and too long at the same time. She would never have to know that he thought about her. She was too good from a screw up like him anyways.
She deserved a man who could give her the world on a sliver platter, a man who had everything good in this world and none of the faults. He didn’t really know her inside and out yet but just by looking at her face he would bet she already had an address book full of men who would give up their left arm just to take her to dinner. What did he have to offer her? A couple of claws, a bad attitude and a missing past, that was it. Hell…he’d even done his best to break up the engagement of two of her best friends. Not exactly the best way to endear yourself to a woman he decided with a bitter grin.
She deserved a nice guy, he decided, moving his arms so that the lighters on his wrists wouldn’t bite into his shoulders so hard. She deserved a guy like Peter or Bobby, the kind of guy who would open up doors for ladies and never pressure them for a kiss. She didn’t need a train wreck like him that acted out to get some kind of attention and then got frustrated because he was in trouble all of the time and treated like a little kid. He’d done nothing to endear himself to her that much he was sure of.
Still she must have seen some spark of something in him; she put up with him and kept extending an olive branch of friendship though he never seemed sure of how to accept it. She kept coming to him when everything in the school got too much and she couldn’t support the world on her shoulders alone anymore. He sometimes wondered why she didn’t go to Scott or the Professor, they had known her longer. But she didn’t, she sought him out and tried to make a place for him at the school. Nice gesture, he decided again, and she seemed to go about it the right way too. She never made him a teacher or ever put him in a position where he’d have to spend too much time with the kids. Instead she asked him to do jobs that he could handle, she asked him to repair things and change oil in cars…things that he could do without having to deal with too many people. Maybe she did understand him better then he gave her credit for. For some reason he liked the thought.
She must have seen something in him worth saving though, no other girl he knew there would have spent entire Saturdays coaching him in Physics and Math while he stared out of a window and tried to ignore her. The only thing she ever asked for in return was that he help her with English and Creative Writing assignments though he could never see why. He wasn’t that good a writer though she seemed to think differently. She always told him that if he kept up the writing he’d be famous someday. Now that he really had a lot of time to think about it he could probably say that she was the closest thing he had to a best friend there. People seemed to think that Bobby was his best friend but they weren’t. They were roommates and barely that, both tolerating each other’s existence and secretly loathing what the other one was. He still didn’t know what the Professor was thinking when he decided to assign them to the same room. No…the truth was she was his friend, she supported him and didn’t seem to think that the only thing he was cut out for was the challenging career of a jail bird. Looked like she was wrong though…but for some reason the thought of her being wrong hurt bad.
Maybe if he’d spent less time flirting with Jean and more time getting to know her then maybe, possibly they might have something now. It was too late for thoughts like that though, she had a new man in her life who seemed to be everything she deserved. All he could do really was hope he made her happy and move on with his own life. Still….he couldn’t help wondering about the ‘What ifs’ on nights like these when everything was too quite and even the sounds of the mansion itself were muted.
Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he’d stayed…he tries to console himself with the knowledge that if he stayed he’d still be the loser, the jerk and the charity student. He’d still be listening to Summers lecture about Algebra and how wonderful it was, he’d still feel that look that the Professor saved just for him when Xaiver suspected that something was going on and that he had something to do with it. He’d still be privy to Bobby and Rogue’s relationship which made most episodes of a soap opera pale in comparison. But not every memory was bad and the good ones came back in snatches on nights like these when Mystique was gone and Magento had locked himself in his rooms to lay his newest plans and there was no one around to stop him from thinking. Those were, at once, the best and worst memories because they made him doubt his choice; they made his loyalty to Magento and the Brotherhood waver for a moment. They made him question what he had done. He hated ‘What Ifs’.
There was that time he almost kissed her. To be honest they shouldn’t have even been in that position at all with her sobbing her heart out to him but they were, and she was, and he almost did. No one had ever warned him that a beautiful woman crying was the most powerful weapon of all and could make any man turn into jelly. It was in the aftermath of Jean after Scott had locked himself in his room and the entire mansion had died it seemed. She hadn’t cried at all that he had seen, not on the way back to Westchester and not even during the memorial service. But she was crying now, all alone in the med bay that he had to pass on his way to the Danger Room. He should have kept going, he should have heeded the signs that flashed Warnings in front of him but he didn’t and almost before he knew it he was hugging her and giving her back some of the support she had been giving so freely to everyone else. For one minute she had looked up at him, her eyes wide and shining and her cheeks wet. He almost bent down to kiss her but before he could unfreeze she had buried her face in his shoulder again. Even now, so many months later, he can’t decide if his hesitating was a good thing that saved a fragile friendship or their only chance for having more then a friendship that he had foolishly passed by.
He had kissed her once. Afterwards she had told him that if was the very first time she’d ever been kissed. For some reason that fact made him feel honored. Even now, when he thought hard enough on the memory he could remember what it was like. Some random moment out of a thousand ones he remembered when they were doing homework together, the thought of what she might do if he kissed her, and the crazy recklessness to which he normally surrendered himself. It was quick, a slight press of lips to lips but it was enough to leave her blushing and him fumbling for an explanation. None came and they never really talked about it again but it was understood between them from that point on that they had something with each other, something secret and wonderful and wholly theirs.
Why was he dredging all of this up anyways? The girl was as good as gone and now he wanted to get mushy and romantic? He needed to work on his timing. Logan sat up in his bed, leaning his head against the headboard and sighed heavily, willing any and all thoughts of Ororo Munroe to leave his head once and for all. She was in love with someone else and even if she wasn’t he didn’t have a chance in a million with him. She deserved so much better than him.
St. John Allerdyce hated his memory, why was it pulling all of this up now? He needed to sleep, in the morning Mystique was getting back with news on that Mutant Cure and he needed to be awake then, not now. Pulling his hands out from behind his head he pulled his one blanket up over his shoulders and rolled over, closing his eyes against the memory of Kitty Pryde; hoping that she’d stop haunting him. She deserved so much better than him.
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