After The Fall

He should probably go see Josh, but fuck he hated even the idea of asking for help...and he hurt too fucking bad to deal with it anyway. He just wanted to wash some of the blood off and lay the fuck down for a while, then maybe he'd go begging to the fucking X-geek. At least he wasn't one of the ones he'd known back home, that made it a bit better.

For now, though, he slipped carefully out of his shirt, hissing in pain as the motion tugged at bruised and abraded flesh. Fuck, he hurt. No one had managed to hurt him this bad in...hell, maybe ever. He considered a shower but his head was pounding and things were sort of shifting in and out of focus, which didn't really bode well for his chances of staying upright in the shower. Fucking asswipe, he'd actually concussed him.

Fingers stiff, he popped the fly on his pants and eased them down, staggering slightly and leaning against the wall for balance before managing to step out of them. Good thing he was close to the bed at that point and he sank down on the edge, fingers skimming carefully along the distorted swell of his jaw. Oh fuck, hurt so bad and he actually whimpered quietly as he laid back on the bed, stomach churning and head and jaw throbbing at the change in angle. He knew he should clean up, get dressed, do something so Wanda wouldn't see him like this if she came back before he managed to drag himself to see Josh, but the thought of getting up again was more than he could face and he closed his eyes against the light and the pain and was asleep almost as soon as he'd finished moving.

It didn't make sense. Tommy was crouched down a few feet inside the edge of the jungle, which rapidly thinned at the edge of the cliff. He was watching the surf some distance to his left, where the cliffs curved out into the sea. A thin strip of sand was visible, and the sand was littered with the remains of offerings and gifts. Offerings and gifts for his long-dead Grandfather, as if he was going to roll the iron-laced boulder from his tomb any day now and return to rule the world.

The incoming tide was battering something against the rocks, a small skiff or a box. He knew it shouldn't matter so much to him, but there was this nagging curiosity as to what it was. That was why Tommy was here, in uniform, waiting for the UN ship to move on down the coast or else for night to fall. They'd never see him on the beach, but, if anyone was looking at the beach through binoculars, they would certainly notice when things moved or vanished. So, he would wait - but not patiently.

She wasn't worried. Okay, well, she was refusing to admit that she was worried. It was just a stupid trip to get information. It wasn't like anything was going to happen. But she'd gotten used to being on the same team as Pietro. If he was going to be doing something that was potentionally dangerous, she would be, too. And she'd be right there, just in case.

But now she just had to sit there. And wait. And wait. And if he didn't hurry his ass up, she was going to fucking go look for him.

Okay, probably not really. But it was a possibility!

This was fucking ridiculous. Completely fucking ridiculous. Pietro was still fucking pissed about something and he was refusing to tell her. Which, fine. If he wanted to be a stupid, immature child and ignore it, then she'd just ignore it, too. It wasn't like she was the one irrationally pissed off about something.

And it wasn't like she kept trying to think of what it was, either. It definitely wasn't like she kept forcing her thoughts away from it and then went right back to thinking of things. It'd started after the clambake, so it had to be something there, but he had no fucking reason to be so pissed that she'd gotten along well with Tommy. He'd be fine with TJ. In fact, he'd had more interaction with TJ than she had. And TJ was the product of Kurt, who was definitely not high on Pietro's list of good people. He'd gotten over that fine, so Wanda had no fucking clue. What the fuck ever.

She didn't miss him. It didn't feel lonely, going from spending most of her time with him to only seeing him ocassionaly and not talking much or anything when she did and she didn't - oh, fuck this.

Wanda was going to fucking ask him what the fuck was the matter and he was going to fucking tell her even if she had to hex it out of him. She apparently fucking needed him, and that fucking pissed her off, and she was going to find him right the fuck now and - oh. There he was. And she was - not where she had been. And her hands were crackling with blue. She'd been more pissed than she realized. Which kind of pissed her off more, and she glared at Pietro.

"Okay, you are going to tell me what the fuck your problem is right now, because I'm so fucking sick of this."

Pietro was no where to be found. And by no where to be found, Wanda meant that he wasn't in their room, in the halls on the way outside, or outside on the way to the cove that Pietro had found. Which was kind of sad, because she was in a really good mood, and she wanted to do something. Of course, she could have actively gone to look for him, but meh. She was always easier to find than he was, just because he could find her in about a second. And somewhere along the way, she'd become confident enough to believe that he would find her. Most of the time. Especially on good days, like this one.

So she'd headed down to the cove, not even annoyed by the fact that it took much longer for her to get there by herself than it did when she made Pietro take her there. Well, not too annoyed. And the annoyance was gone by the time she got there. She set her make-shift bag down (which was pretty much just some food and a change of clothes wrapped up in what she was using as a towel) and kicked off her shoes, then rolled up her pants a bit and perched on a rock, kicking her feet in the water.

Joseph piled up whatever had been prepared to eat for the noon meal on a heavy stoneware plate. Petra was a remarkable talent with both her powers and her cooking ability.

He tried not to take more than one share from the food laid out, because there were others, such as Petra and Rogue who were sustaining other lifeforms, and the mutants with accelerated metabolisms.

But he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten and was ravenous. He'd been down below most of the last two days, double checking the wiring between the main computer and the main generator. It was tedious, exacting work and to say time had gotten away from him was an understatement.

It was Thanksgiving all over again. Except this time, Mojo hadn't provided them with the seeds for the crops they needed. And they didn't have nice, comfy beds to return to. Whatever. Wanda could deal. She'd slept on worse. And at least she was pretty sure they'd gotten away from Mojo.

And she hadn't run out of cigarettes yet. She wasn't a chain smoker or anything, and she'd had three packs, so that should last her for a pretty long time. Hopefully long enough that'd they get off this fucking island before she ran out. At least they'd managed to find some alcohol. But even though they weren't stuck in Mojo's prison, they were still stuck on the island. As of now, Wanda figured that was infinitely better, but it still meant they were stuck. And if Pietro'd gotten tired of being cooped up in a fishbowl, he'd probably get tired of being stuck on an island pretty quickly.

And the humidity was annoying. Not as annoying as if it'd been snowing or something, but still.

"I'm so tempted to chop off all my hair again," Wanda informed Pietro as she looked at her reflection in the broken mirror of their bathroom. Or the bathroom of the room they'd claimed as their own, whatever. "It refuses to stay tied back."

The hall was no longer the hall she had gotten used to over the years. It had turned into a rundown crumbling theater, and she was center stage as though someone out there was waiting for her to perform for them. Yeah, fuck that. There was no way that was happening. Ever. Illyana did not perform for anyone but herself. And she surely didn't take kindly to kidnappers.

Though she did have to admit some relief that there weren't purple monsters or anyone rushing from the corners to subdue her. Yet. There didn't appear to be any zombies, either.

Still. She needed to keep on her guard. Teleporting her Soulsword to her from Limbo, she turned slowly, watching the edges of the stage and peering into the overgrowth in the theater itself. This place had definitely seen better days.