night terrors (nc17)

Loika had been letting kelly stay at her house. Ever since the night she got drunk and lost it, she shared her bed. Nothing but innocent sleeping. Peter was barely around before but now she needed someone there more than ever just to be there.

Her breathing was deep and even for a while. She started to frown in her sleep. Thats how it started. She started fidgetting in her sleep. She was having nightmares of the labs she grew up in. She had these before but it was never something peter could understand. The night terror came on full force as she started to cry and yell in her sleep. She clawed at the neck of her nightgown like something was choking her.

Generally speaking, Kas was a light sleeper. He couldn't remember the last time he had any dreams, or nightmares. Recently sleep was more of a pattern of getting shitfaced, then getting comfortable and letting his mind run itself down dark and winding roads until the rest of him followed. Noise or even movement going on in the room would bring him out of the blank void, and his senses would pay attention long enough to know it wasn't dangerous before sinking back to the nothingness.

This was significantly changed by being at Loika's house. Her and her kid had to get to sleep in time to be rested for what he considered an early morning these days. With no job and no family, he'd been up to no good. Contributing to the criminal elements of the city during the nights and sleeping most of the day. It meant he couldn't be awake at 4 am getting wasted and having brilliant arguments with the people on TV who couldn't hear him anyway.
He kept Loika company, which was more important at this time than keeping up an appearance as a desperado.
Kas drifted off while reading an e-book on his phone, lying on Peter's side of a kingsize bed that could easily fit two more people. His shirt and shoes were piled on the floor and he would probably trip over them on the way to the bathroom in the morning.

A female voice made it to his ears and he absently rolled to the side, though didn't open his eyes.
"huh hotness?" He could have sworn he heard Evelyn saying something, but didn't catch the words.
Kelly's brain dealt him a mental nutpunch. Oh right, dumbass. Not Eve.
It sounded like whimpering and.. choking?
"Loika?!"
He immediately sat up, sending the room spinning from the hangover effects of all the vodka he put away. It would be fine in the morning.
"Hey, wake up!" he leaned across the bed and shook her a little, still being quiet enough that hopefully Mackenzie wouldn't hear in her room.

The clawmarks she left on her neck healed about as fast asshe made them. She screamed louder when kelly touched her and struggled against him. Her eyes shot open and she made a very deep growl. She was instantly in a crouch and backed against the headboard. She breathed hard and her eyes glowed.

She looked around the room like a caged animal, sweat was making her tanktop cling to her skin. She was slowly realizing she was in her bedroom and not a lab. "The labs...i was there a-and..." She scratched at the barcode tattoo on the back of her neck before the sniffling started. "Did i hurt you?"

When his best friend jumped up like she was about to start shredding things, Kas waited, hoping he wasn't going to be trying wolf-wrangling this early with a hangover. That really didn't seem like a fun prospect.
Loika seemed a little dazed, but calmed down. Her question brought on a hollow chuckle.
"Nice of ya to ask, but no, I'm fine. Are you okay?"

Kelly could consider himself lucky that his memory of Area 51 was so faded. Whether it was the conditioning they put his mind through, or his own reckless behavior thereafter, he could only get distorted pieces of the whole time he was raised there like a science project in genetics.

"It hasn't ever completely gone away for you, has it?" he wondered, thinking back on all the time he's known Loika. "That feeling.. like you're trapped and they're going to come back to get you."
It was when they did come back to take you out of your cage that fear was the worst. He still remembered that much, at least.

She walked back to the bed in defeat where she sat down. Her head dropped down and her hair fell down to almost completely hide her face. You would think she was praying until her shoulders started to shake and a sobbing sound came out of loika. "Im there always. If i didnt have mackenzie i wouldnt be here." She said very softly.

"But you need to be here for her." He stated, scooting over next to Loika. Kas didn't know what to really do to comfort his friend. Loika wasn't like other girls he knew. Her and Eve were alike in that. Generally girls would cry for all kinds of reasons, one major reason being to simply get their way.

"I couldn't blame you for wanting to put on nothing but a fur coat and run to the wilderness where you can just forget what being human feels like." which was strange concept to both of them; being molded into something else for most of their lives. Animals. 'Things' that were owned, trained, and expected to obey.

"If it counts, I think you're doing a good job so far." She wasn't having a break-down in front of her daughter, making the child think she was somehow to blame or that her mom was incapable of solo parenting. Mackenzie couldn't poke around in her mother's head and find this sense of fear she was always hiding.

He wanted to give her a hug and say everything would be fine, but Kelly knew that would be tempting fate. When things looked fine, it was a momentary lull in the chaos. There was no reason to think things would ever be 'fine'.

Loika shook her head. " I didnt mean here as in at the school. I meant here as in... Here. At all." She didnt look at him out of shame.  " Why am i here Kelly. Why was i born a mutant? Why did people like Styker have to exsist. Why did i have to loose my childhood before i had it? I never did anything to deserve any of this. Why. do it. have to be. So. Fucked. Up."

She looked up at Kelly.He understood more than anyone what it was like to carry this burden. Without thinking about it she leaned in and kissed him. She wasnt rough about it but she wasnt gentle either. After a moment she pulled away but didnt yet open her eyes. She was too afraid to see how angry he was.

Kas didn't have a good answer, at least not one that offered any comforting insight.

"Just gotta play the hand you're dealt, I guess.."
The idea that 'you are who you are for a reason' was a hollow mantra until you find what the reason is.
Some could think they had found it and be faced with realizing the last moment of their life they were wrong the whole time. Some could find it and lose it. Some could go on searching, not knowing they already had found their purpose in life. It was the philosophical question of the ages.

He didn't get much time to ponder the issue. Loika leaned in and gave him a kiss that meant something. He wasn't sure what she was expecting.
Kelly didn't seem mad in the least, though he did let the awkward silence persist for a bit. Putting a hand on either of Loika's shoulders, he nudged her forehead with his to make her look up. He gave her a kiss in return that was soft yet demanding. In a way saying she wasn't alone in how she felt.

"You know I'll help you in any way I can.' meaning whatever it sounded like 'but yanno.. It's probably better for both of us if we don't get totally attached."
People already had the wrong idea about him being here. Not that Kas gave a shit that someone might say he was taking advantage of Loika's loss, and hearing about Loika mauling somebody for daring to call her a slut would be funny until it bothered her.
"I think it probably goes without saying I'm not going to be around as long as it takes to make a real relationship work."
Though Loika could hypothetically outlive everyone she knew, even her daughter. So in the end, vows kind of lost their meaning anyway.

" Who says im capable of getting attached." Was all she said. She didnt know what else to say.  She did something really stupid. The last time she did something she ended up pregnant and almost alone. Oh wait she was alone.

She rubbed her face with hands and got out of bed. She was used to anytime she did anything that annoyed Peter, which was alot, usually a screaming match followed. She had no energy so she got up without another word and headed for the door of the bedroom for the living room. Something she did to avoid arguing with Peter.

"Right.." Kas quietly remarked when Loika got up and headed out of the room, not without a touch of dry sarcasm. That was the extent of his 'argument'.
He'd only slept a little before his friend's nightmares woke him, though didn't feel tired anymore.

Kelly thought it was fair to be honest before something that could have been meant as 'thanks for understanding' was misconstrued with something else.
As he saw things, two people could seek comfort and a certain amount of companionship in one another without it meaning more than a friendly hug. Sex wasn't the issue. It was the 'L-word'.

He cared about Loika, but he still wanted to hang onto that slim chance Eve might change her mind. Not that Loika had the same hopes of Peter- and she was right not to believe against the odds. As she put it; who wanted to be attached to anyone?

Choosing to be blind to an obvious chance at starting something that could turn out to be good, because you fear it could turn out bad.. probably not the smartest choice, though it was the safest.
Neither of them were going to catch a shot through the heart if they kept it well-guarded from everyone.

"Way'ta think with the little brain, genius."
he chided himself with a fatalistic attitude that was becoming more typical, and picked up his phone and the nearly drained bottle of vodka beside the bed, resuming reading and giving Loika the space she desired.

Loika went out to the living room and put another log in the fireplace. The entire back wall of the house was glass. Her view was forest and a small clearing. Snow covered the ground and more fell from the sky. She plopped on the couch and curled up in a ball to watch the snow. How could she be so damn stupid and ruin the one stable thing in her life.

Kelly wasn't sure how long had passed. An hour or so?
Granted, he had a clock right there in his hands but didn't care to look at it as he finished the chapter of Midnight Rising, and clicked the phone's screen off, dropping it on the floor.
He got up, taking a blanket and meandering away toward the livingroom. Seeing Loika curled up on the sofa, he draped the blanket over her and went to go poke the fireplace. The flames were mostly dead now, though after rolling some of the coals over and creating a bit of of disturbance in the air to stir things to life; the fire sparked up and burned again. Snow was nice, for some people. Kelly could easily do without it.

For a while, if nothing was said, Kas would stay there crouched in front of the fireplace, staring in at the modest flames. What was he doing here? Was he -really- helping Loika get over her douchenozzle husband bailing; or were they both going to keep moping around?
He'd already been stuck in this pathetic rut for months. Loika couldn't afford to become a drunken waste of space like him. She still had a child to take care of.

"Sorry, I said something stupid." he said quietly enough that if Loika was asleep, it shouldn't wake her up.

Loika was falling asleep when she felt something on her shoulders. She flinched and jerked upright from her fetal position. She wrapped the blanket around her though she didnt need it necessarily. She watched him by the fire quietly until he spoke. "Obviously im the stupid one. Im the 19 year old with a kid and a man that left me for a girl with a trust fund. Im the stupid one and i keep ruining everything."

"Everybody makes mistakes."

Kas continued to stare at the fire. Despite it being the most destructive of elements, he found it both infatuating and somehow soothing. 
"You were lonely, Neal ditched you, Peter was there."
He'd heard the details after the fact, and was only taking them at face value.

"You've got a decent life here. A nice house. A pretty little girl who can make the bullies punch themselves in the face. People at the Institute care enough to check on ya.."
Here was the same kind of cold rationale he approached most everything else with. He figured Loika could deal with hearing this, coming from him.. and if not then she had every right to be pissed, and he was prepared for that. If anyone had a good vantage point to see what they were talking about here, then Kas figured he was the first in line.

"You aren't the only teenage single mom in the world, and probably not even the only mutant one. Everyone's got a sad fucking story if you dig deep enough."
That said, he shifted to look at Loika for a moment, wondering if she was about to throw something at him. He thought to take back one thing he said.

"I'm not calling Mackie a mistake, and I'm sure there were a few good times.. but the only way you get past a bad memory is to make a good one to take its place."
He shook his head and looked back at the fire.
"Says the hypocrite."

Loika continued staring out the window. He summed up two years of her life in a few short sentences and she had nothing to show for it. She had mack but she was still just a shell of a person she used to be. She listened to him quietly. Everything he was saying was all true. She couldn't deny it. She didnt move at all as he spoke. She only sat and stared.

"If I sound like a dick, it's just cus.. I dunno, I guess something kinda bugs me."

Since she wasn't saying anything, Kas kept blathering on. He didn't know if Loika was even paying attention, though if he wasn't right, he would have known.
The Loika he met; before Stryker and Stephen, her father's death, MRD taking her little girl and twisting her head, Peter abandoning his family.. that Loika would have told him to fuck off already, or punched him, or.. something? Something. Anything, other than just silence.

"I guess.. being here, seeing you sulking around made me realize how damn pitiful I am lately. It kinda makes me mad. But besides that, it made me see that I'm not helping you by being here."

She stood up and hugged him. She needed him here more than he knew. She needed space. She needed to think. She let go of him and went out the back patio door. She changed into a wolf and took into the snow storm. She knew kelly wouldnt leave mack alone. If he did she knew how to get to the school.and logan's number. She disappeared for a few days to think and hunt.