Now what (nc17)

Loika carried a sleeping Mackenzie into the house. Of course Peter wasnt home again. She was exhausted and laid her little one on the couch. She looked through the mail and set the junk mail on the kitchen counter. She stopped when she saw a handwritten envelope with her name on it. She couldnt remember an anniversary or anything special. She opened it and read the letter slowly.

She felt like she was punched in the gut but she couldnt say she was surprised. Peter was gone. He left. He was tired of everything at the school, all of the mutant shit going down. He was tired of fighting with loika. He still loved them both dearly but he was moving on. Some girl from the hospital named Brigiet. They were both studying to be doctors.

She put down the letter and put her hand over her mouth. She couldnt hold back the tears as they flowed. She wasnt even sure why she was crying. It was like the weight of the day had finally crushed her. She cried as quietly as she could so as not to wake Mackie. Her damn cat however jumped up on the counter and nuzzled Loika. " Disgusting little beast. I dont need your pity."

After a long night and sleeping for numerous hours he woke up. Going to his room and took a shower. Changing his clothes and put on the shades. He wore jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket over that. He decided to go for a ride in his car. Somehow he ended up driving to check on Loika. She wasn't around the school when he looked and hadn't seen her the next morning because when she came back from Times Square. So he wanted to make sure she and Mackenzie were alright. Calling the number he'd been giving he found it was disconnected and laughed. "Should have guessed. That's fine...I wasn't really ready to date even months later again anyways." Shutting his phone right as he arrived where he wanted to go.

Stopping on the side of the road where the cottage was and turned his car off. Getting out and headed the rest of the way towards the cottage on foot. Once standing in front of the door he lightly rapped his knuckles on the door in case Mackenzie was sleeping. Loika would hear it right?

She answered the door in a pair of sweatpants that hung low on her hips and an old tshirt. Her long black hair was swept up in a messy bun. Her eyes were red like she had been crying. In her hand she held a whiskey glass with what was most likely whiskey. She cocked her head to the side. Her house was out in the woods off of the school. She liked the seclusion. It wasnt like some just accidently came out here. "Can i help you professor...."She knew he was a professor at the school but his name was escaping her. She had already put mackie to bed, soft music could barely be heard in the living room. She seemed to remember others were wolfy heated like she was and stepped aside. "Come on in."

Scott waited on her to answer the door. He ran a hand through his hair. Looking at her through the specialized shades of his. "Scott Summers. Just call me Scott. Or I will start the Miss Loika bit again." He said with a slight attempt at a joke. "We are both X-men right?" He added. Looking at her and waited outside until she invited him in. Walking inside and ran a hand through his hair. "I wanted to check on you and Mackenzie. Since by the time you got in earlier this morning I had been sent to get rest by Doctor Jean Grey." he said in a soft voice. Hearing something but just barely.

" I had a kid to put to bed. She don't really have a good sleep clock anymore but hell i can try right." She had been teased more than once that she was a little female version of logan.    She turned and walked deeper into the house. The house she had spent her inheritance from her father's death building. It only seemed right to put it to something lasting. Something she could leave to Mackenzie in the event that she herself died. It was unlikely though.

In the living room She went to a minibar and poured more whiskey into her glass. As a wolf girl her temp was higher. Because of that higher temp she really had to drink alot to feel it. She was determined to feel nothing tonight. She motioned towards the minibar before absentmindedly playing with dogtags around her neck. Her wedding ring used to be on the chain. Not anymore. " help yourself."

The first person he decided to pay a visit to had a little house in the forest near the Xavier Institute. His whiskey-drinkin' fellow lab-rat, and her smarty-pants daughter. He couldn't care less of what Millimeter Peter thought. It had probably been long enough that meathead had forgotten his face anyway. It was late, so he expected Mackenzie would be asleep. Better that way, he figured.

The child was so mature for her age, already been touched by death. She didn't need to hear everything that had gone on in the past month. Kas could practically hear her little voice in his head right now saying 'I'm gonna marry Adam'. It brought the pain fresh to the surface like the stitches of a wound being undone.

"Time to face the music." he knew Loika would probably freak on him, kick him in the balls, or slap him at least.. and he deserved it.
He closed in on the cozy little house, hovering in mist form like a ghost while he listened to the sounds inside, wondering if anyone was still awake. The light in the front room was still on, but that didn't mean much. 

There were voices talking inside. A man and a woman. He couldn't hear the words but assumed this was Loika and Peter having a quiet conversation. Rather than knocking like a normal person, he stayed in mist form and leaked inside through cracks around the doors. Loika would know he was there without much trouble as soon as the ozone smell entered the room. There was no lying to her enhanced senses. 

This 'ghost from the past' would stop barely inside the door, noticing it was not Peter she was talking to, but one of those Xavier Institute goody-goodies. Not wanting to interrupt their conversation, he just loomed there, staying incorporeal.

Loika smelled a familiar scent. A scent of someone she had not heard from in a long time. " I'll be right back Scott." She drank the full glass of whiskey in her hand and poured herself another glass before going to the entryway of the house. She froze for a moment when she saw Kelly. She hadnt seen him or Eve since last year sometime. It felt like so long ago. She knew she probaby looked like shit. Her eyes red and puffy. She wiped her eyes with her hoodie sleeve and tried to force a smile but it only make her sniffle and hold back a sob. " Kelly...." She rushed up to him and hugged him tight without spilling a drop of her drink.

As soon as Loika stepped into the front room, he dropped out of mist form and smiled a little. It felt like the first time he'd done that in ages. It probably looked like he hadn't showered or shaved in ages, either.
She didn't ask anything, but rushed over and threw her arms around him, and he held her tightly, glad to have this moment of feeling like a living person again.
"Loika. It's nice to see ya." Her eyes were already red, so the tears that were there hadn't been from seeing his ugly mug. There weren't many people that could lie and get it past him.
"What's wrong?"

She released him from the hug and took a step back. " Hell has opened up in new york. Thats whats wrong. Jason and Sara... Professor X is back and i guess they didnt feel needed anymore. I just came home a little bit ago from a mission. MRD is cracking down on the city and we had to go get some kids before the MRD did." She had already been drinking since before scott got there. It was finally starting to kick in and give her a light buzz. She rubbed her face with her and and while doing so pushed some loose hair from her face. " Peter left a note. He left me for a fellow med student at the hospital. Guess im not needed anymore either." Loika wasnt generally one to cry but she burst into tears in front of Kelly.

Kelly listened, taken aback by the whole explaination of things. Professor X was alive. Jason and Sarah were gone. MRD was rounding up kids and making things more miserable than usual..
and Peter left.

"That fuckin bastard.." he cursed under his breath, keeping an arm around Loika's shoulders while she broke down into tears. She was the toughest woman- hell, the toughest person he knew. She'd been through the kind of shit only experiments like them understood. She'd been loved and left. She endured capture and abuse, coming out teeth bared. She saw her father and boyfriend die and her little girl turned into something completely twisted, and weathered it.

After all of that struggle to try and have a 'normal' life with her husband and child, now it was something so simple that would turn everything sour again. Sounded pretty familiar!
Hopefully, with time, she could weather this too. Her little girl needed her mom.

"I'm so sorry, Loika." he shook his head, letting her cry it out as long as she needed.

" S-shoulda seen this comin. A-all we did was fight a-anym-more. He was o-only s-stuck with m-me because of m-mackie. H-he w-was m-mad when i f-found out i was p-pregnant. Tried to l-leave. J-jason made him s-s-stay." Her sobs came out and broke up any chance of her trying to talk clearly. Kelly was the only person who knew anything about her besides Logan. She felt alone and hurt even though she felt this coming. Kelly knew her past and all of her dark secrets. He'd helped her stop stripping and he'd helped her when she was hurt by sabre tooth. He was the only person right now besides Eve that she felt anywhere near comfortable crying in front of. She cried hard into his shirt.

ooc: after you post we can wait for scott to respond

Fighting all the time, feeling stuck, now that sounded familiar too.
"None of us knows what's coming, Loika. You can't blame yourself."

He echoed the same words that he tried to tell Eve, so many times.
It felt empty, though he had the faint hope he could do something right and at least try to be there for his friend who needed him now. That wouldn't make up for the year he didn't call or visit, but it was a small step in the right direction.

"Petard will realize one day what kind of a dumb pissbucket he is, leaving two beautiful ladies behind.. and when he tries to come crawling back, you can feed him his nuts." he pointed out in attempt to lighten the mood a little.

Scott looked at her a bit. Nodding his head. "Yeah." He said with a chuckle. He walked over where she told him to but didn't help himself to a drink yet. He sat down and he sensed someone else there but the way Loika rushed over to them he assumed it was a friend of the family. Kelly? Did he know that name? He couldn't place it. Ah well. He didn't care either. He moved to go and lean against the wall by where they were. Listening a bit. Frowning a bit as he wanted to kick Peter's ass. Then again he dug his own grave in a similiar way with Jean. Not exactly this extreme. He moved to where he was leaning against the wall. "If Peter does come crawling back I imagine he will have more than a few obstacles in his way. By how close you seem with Loika I imagine you would be one of those obstacles in his way." He fell silent after that. He ran a hand through his hair. "It isn't Loika or anyones fault but Peter's."

OOC: sorry loika. the handler was out cold due to insomniac crash and a new medication I'm refusing to take anymore LOL

Loika pulled away from him in embarrassment and wiped her eyes hard on her sleeve. "S-sorry S-scott. Kelly has been my friend since before my daughter was born. He helped me take her to the hospital when she had the flu. He and his wife are my best friends." She looked up at kelly. "Speaking of, dont make them wait in the car. I dont care how nasty i look. I wanna see the baby. Hes gotta be so big now."

The words of Mr. Ruby Shades made Kas smirk a bit.
"Obstacle would be and understatement."
That's if Loika didn't get to Pissface first, because there wouldn't be anything left.

Kelly only listened while Loika explained how long they had known one another, shoulders slumping as she mentioned him and Eve being her best friends. Some friend he was..
Her next question made his stomach knot up. How could he explain?

"uhm.. well.."
There was no car, no one waiting.
"We shoulda visited more often."
because Loika would have so few memories of Adam, and now that was all that was left of him.
"They're... gone, Loika." 
He looked down at their feet, rummaging for something in the pocket of his jacket while clenching his jaw, holding back tears that threatened to cloud his vision. Kas pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to a few photos.

"Here. The last pictures we took of Adam. He was running all over the place and stripping his clothes off, got into that whole 'mine' thing. When we showed him pictures of you and Mackie, he could tell us you were 'Auntie Leeka'. I heard from Eve about a month ago. We check on each other every so often. She's got a good modeling gig in Cali."

While he handed the photos over to Loika, he sighed, managing to hold it together while remembering the last day he got to play with his baby and hold Eve close. When they still smiled and laughed, pined for each other and never wanted to part ways. When they used to talk about everything the future could hold and act out mushy scenes from Shakespearian plays. The connection they once had was like a dream that he wished sometimes would fade away.. but wished more that it would always be there.

"'Oh, injurious love, that respites me a life, whose very comfort is still a dying horror'.. Sorry. I must seem pretty pathetic!" he remarked, taking the billfold back. Just what one of Xavier's people needed to see. Loika's 'best friend' was a hair from a mental breakdown, and the two of them would probably drown themselves in liqour as soon as he was out the door.

Scott looked at the man she called Kelly. "Nice to meet you Kelly. I'm Scott as Loika stated." He said with a serious tone. Listening to them and noticing the tension in the air he walked over to the mini bar. Loika had told him to help himself. So he would. Pulling out two glasses and the bottle of whiskey. He poured the whiskey into all three still listening to them. Filled up to an inch from the rim he picked up both glasses and held one ofthe cups outwards so that Kelly could take a glass. "You both seem like you could use a drink. I think I'll join in as offered a few moments ago." After that he fell silent.

Just waited for Kelly to grab a glass. Here was two people who had kids and a family. He still couldn't wrap his mind around why Jean wanted to hit that area. Just knew he could be there for other peoples kids but didn't feel he would be a good father. Just a teacher. Here he was seeing a man who had the family life and lost it...it was tearing this man up.

She took the picture and slowly walked back into the living room. She roughly turned off the cd player. She looked at the picture of the sweet baby. It sounded like eve was okay but..."You keep talking about him in past tense...adam...is he..."She couldnt seem to form the words or even look back at him. She couldnt bear to see the pain or tears in his eyes. She was so sick of their kind having to suffer so much for merely exsisting. She grabbed the whiskey bottle off of the minibar and sunk down on the couch.

Taking the glass offered by Scott, he nodded. "Thanks man. Guess you Institutey-types aren't all bad. I kinda had you pegged as the Cameron Frye of the bunch." he took a few big gulps of the alcohol like it was water, and went into the living room where Loika was sitting on the sofa, holding the bottle.

"Yeah. It's ironic, I moved us out of the city because I was so worried about MRD and all that shit. Keeping them safe, and being plain and boring so Adam didn't have to grow up all weird.."
It was like a cruel joke. Being the average family is what destroyed them in the end. 

"Me and Eve were arguing alot. Work didn't let me have much time at home, and Adam was getting to that difficult stage. We were both so burned out. We were trying so hard to make the 'normal' thing work. After a few nights of sleeping on the couch I told work I needed some vacation time. Two weeks shoulda been enough to fix things."

All joking aside, he tried to recount the night that life as he knew it ended.
"We were out on a date at this awesome lobster place. I asked a friend at work if her teenage daughter could babysit. We were having a pretty good time. It seemed like we were getting everything sorted out, starting to feel all lovey-dovey like before."

Relationships are not the simplest thing in the world. They needed constant attention. Kelly was still realizing that, too late.
"The babysitter left him in the bath to play. She just went to check on dinner, she said. When she came back.." he stopped there, choking back anything further with another drink.

Scott moved away when Kelly took the glass. Tilting his head to the side. "Cameron Frye of the bunch? What gave you that sort of impression?" he asked. Slightly amused, slightly confused and extremely curious. Taking a few drinks from his glass as he went to the mini bar and grabbed another bottle since Loika was hugging onto hers tightly. He figured Kelly was going to need a refill. Logically speaking. Wondering silently what he meant by them institutey types but figured it would eventually make sense. Right now it didn't matter.

He walked over to a seat and sat down. Putting the bottle on the coffee table before them. Taking a gulp to finish it off he poured himself a refill then set the bottle down in case Kelly needed a refill. "Way I see it there is two old friends and the third wheel. Talking and having a drink." he said simply before silently drinking again. Even if really the other two were talking and the man seemed to let a load of his chest. He wondered if there was a red moon...all these couple fightings and breaking up.

"Im so sorry Kelly. It looks like both of us have lived through hell and only come out scorched. You are welcome to stay here to tonight. Its too late to get a hotel." The thought of loosing so many people at once was weighing so heavily on her. She put the glass down and went ahead and drank straight from the bottle. At least peter wasnt here to yell at her for drinking. Funny how these things happened.

She glanced up, a soft drunk look in her eyes as she looked at scott. "Welcome to the hell the xmen left behind."

"Third wheel, huh?" Kas couldn't help but smile a little over that. Once upon a time he was the one watching all the couples making out in the diner and such. "Nah. You're alright. It's good to know somebody was here to check on the wild one here. Last time her man left her alone, she ran all the way to Canada before anyone caught up with her." Maybe Scotty could redeem the X-dorks, in Kelly's eyes. 

He nodded at Loika who offered her condolances and a place for the night.
"It is what it is. I was stupid to think people like us would ever have a chance at a regular kind of life." and by 'people like us' he meant labrats. The mutants that had been bred and raised like show-dogs or work horses, with one intended purpose in mind. He was feeling a buzz and talked despite who was in the room.

"Speaking of hell.. My cousin sent me a text a week or two back, saying there was some kind of counterstrike effort against MRD in the works. That yuppie mutant elitist group was planning something. I'm grandfathered in, so even though I'm not some rich pissbag who punches down, I'm thinking of tagging along for whatever it is. The HellFire Club has real power. They've changed things in the past. It might be a good idea to get in now while the offer still stands. Maybe I can make things better for the 'little people'."

Scott looked up at her as she looked at him. "Trust me Loika. The hell never left...it just got worse." He said as he drank more. Way worse. He looked to Kelly as he spoke. "Yeah. Two friends and the stick in the mud...the latter being myself." He said with a slight chuckle. Listening as he spoke. "Just wanted to make sure she was alright. After saving those kids and the long night." He said. Finishing his glass off and refilling it. Feeling a buz himself. "Mutant elite group sounds like brotherhood. The new ones aren't as bad as the old timers." He shrugged a bit. "Whatever is said here stays here. Not my place to say anything." He said with a shrug. Sipping at his refilled glass. Kelly had a real way with words...he would give him that.

Loika picked up the bottle of whiskey and threw it violently at the fireplace. What very small amount was left flared up in the fire. Her blue eyes glowed and her skin shivered like she was going to shift. " IM SO SICK OF THIS SHIT! IM SO SICK OF ALL OF US SUFFERING BECAUSE OF WHAT WE ARE. I JUST WANT TO LIVE MY FUCKING LIFE GODDAMMIT!" Her teeth already had naturally longer canines but they were starting to change. Being drunk was making her ability to hold off the change more difficult than normal. Being drunk was also making her more aggressive.

As the nearly-empty bottle of Jack went flying and met its firey end, Kas winced.
"Shhhhush! Yer gonna wake up th' runt, then we'll all hafta listen to a lecture from a kid."

Although he could totally understand where she was coming from. Even though it was normal problems that lost him Adam and broke him and Eve apart, they would never have had to run a state away and try to pretend they were just a regular young couple if not for the whole war on the X-gene thing. They could have been themselves, and been comfortable in their own skin instead of feeling scared and stuck in a world they didn't belong to.

He looked over at Scott, gauging his reaction to seeing one of the younger X-Men having a meltdown like this. If he knew what was good for him, he'd start running right about now. 
"Hmm, sorry ta say I think th' party's over. I'm gonna take ya at yer word and trust there ain't gonna be an intervention or some bullshit when she gets back to the school."
It could go without saying she probably wouldn't be there tomorrow.

"I'll get her ta bed, I dun think I'm gonna be sleepin much."
As an afterthought, he realized how that might have sounded and facepalmed.
"I meant I'll be awake, an make sure she don't get sick or anything.."
Not other stuff, dammit. That was the last thing they needed rumors about..
"Sorry 'bout all this. I sure can pick a good time to drop by."
He offered Scott a departing handshake.
"Was good meetin' ya anyway. Maybe next time we can do this without all the tears and explosions."

Scott looked at Loika as he finished the class off. She was having a hard time. This was just another sign how a gene that gave them powers didn't change at the end of the day they were still human too. Compared to some of the breakdowns he had seen this was mild. It wasn't any the less upsetting. He just got more serious and set the glass down. "So am I." He looked at him as he spoke. "To do an intervention would require being a hypocrite." he said with a slight smile. "I'm not ready to admit I'm developing a problem." He said with a shrug. He blinked a bit and listened to him. Rubbing the back of his head a bit. He chuckled a bit.

Reaching out and shook the man's hand. "Perhaps. It was good meeting you too. Think I will find my way to the hanger bay." he started towards the door. "Kelly...Loika doesn't need intervention. She is one excellent X-men and one of the strongest females I've seen in a long time. She will be alright. Women like her and Jean...they can bounce back a lot faster than some of us men can. Thank you for being here for her." he headed towards the door and let himself out.