Disclaimer: This story involves the New
Mutants, which belong
to Marvel. And while the events of this story
are referred to in my
'Facing The Music' series, you don't
have to read that
to follow this.
Warning: I know some of you may think
that this story needs
a warning due to it's slashy themes, language,
and religious discussions.
For those of you who think that way, I've told
you. Personally,
I'm more likely to warn that my understanding of
Two Spirited-ness
and of the Cheyenne culture is lacking. And for
any mistakes I've
made, please know I made them honestly.
Thanks: To Luba, Em, and especially
Samy. A special thanks
to AtlantaCon, since this story has it roots in a
discussion we had on QueenB's
dining room floor.
Fifteen-year old Rahne Sinclair
did her best to hold
back the tears as she climbed the stairs to her
bedroom. Another D
on a test that she had studied hard for. Her
period was coming.
And none of the guys liked her. Life wasn't
fair.
And Dani had Amara and
Berto in her room, her
nose told her. Oh well. This time they
would have to leave.
She wanted to curl up on her bed and pig out on
chocolate. They were
going to be the ones to leave the room, she thought as
she opened the door.
A spilt second later, she
slammed it shut and
fought to catch her breath. Dani and Amara and
Berto were all naked
in the room. Not a stitch on. And Amara
had Berto ... his thing
in her... and Dani had been ... with her mouth on
Amara's...
Rahne started to blush, trying her hardest not to
think about what she had
seen, trying her hardest to just breathe.
No. No. No way
could her best friend have been down there. No
way in a very hot place.
There had to be a simple
explanation for what
seemed to be going on. It had been hot.
The air conditioner had
broken. Mind control. Something.
Anything. Please
dear Lord, let there be an explanation for what she
had seen. Not
an orgy... not a reason that Dani had been wearing
Amara's scent for
the past month or so. Just a simple trip and
fall... Her friend
couldn't be a homosexual. Homosexuals were
evil. Her friend was
nice. Dani was good. Not evil. Not
going to go straight
to hell. There was no way that Dani could be a
homosexual.
Rahne looked at the doorknob again and
shook her head, trying
to blink back her tears. This could not be
happening.
**
It took the sound of the door slamming
shut to make the threesome
realize that someone had entered the room.
"Shit!"
Dani muttered as she closed her eyes.
"Tell me that..."
Berto nodded. "It was
Rahne," he confirmed
as he felt the moment being shattered.
"She saw everything."
Quickly Dani started to find a complete
set of clothing.
"Shit, damn, fuck, hell!" she whispered as
she slipped on a top.
"I--"
Amara nodded, understanding exactly what
the woman was thinking,
but her fear was different. "She'll
tell, won't she?"
Her first thought was self-preservation. If
Xavier knew that his students
were having sex, he'd find a way to send her
back to Nova Roma, where
her father would declare her unmarriageable.
Which meant she'd
end up in a brothel, a place normally reserved for the
lower classes, the
Incas and the poor, or sold to some senator as a
mistress, which meant she'd
have no control over her destiny.
Dani shot her lover a deadly look.
"She won't tell.."
she predicted. "She'll just hate
me." It was
a given in her mind. The second that Rahne had
seen what was going
on in their room, her upbringing by Craig kicked in,
and she automatically
labeled what she saw as evil. Their friendship,
one of the best points
of being a New Mutant, was over.
Berto started to say something, but bit
his tongue as Dani
raced out of the bedroom.
**
"Rahne!" Dani called
out as she tracked her
friend down to the lake. "I can
explain."
Even if she had managed to come up with a
perfectly logical,
totally fictional and one hundred percent believable
excuse for what her
friend had stumbled onto, it wouldn't have
mattered. "Leave
me alone!" Rahne shouted at the woman.
"Jist leave me alone!"
Dani didn't heed her friend's request and
started to catch up
with her. Once she was even with the smaller
woman, she grabbed her
arm. Rahne jerked it away. "I have
nothing to say ta ye,"
the red head hissed venomously. "A donnea
know ye."
She looked at her friend with deadly cold blue
eyes. "And A don't
care tae."
Rahne instinctively shifted into her
wolven form and started
to run off. Dani closed her eyes and tried to
mentally reach out to
her friend through their empathic link.
"Can't we even
talk about it?" she begged. "It was
unbelievably stupid
of us to use my room... I should have thought
about you catching us..."
It was as close as she could come to begging.
All she got in response was silence as
Rahne locked Dani out
of her mind.
**
Sam Guthrie was no stranger to
women. He had grown up
with a mother, two grandmothers, three sisters, ten
aunts, and more female
cousins than he could shake a stick at. A long
time ago, his father
had taught him to track the menstrual cycles of those
women he shared a house
with. So he really didn't think too much
of Rahne's sullen
silence at the dinner table that night, or the tension
that was present in
the room, so thick he could cut it with a knife.
What did bother him
though was the fact that he, Illyana and Doug were the
only ones to try to
talk, and when they did try to bring something up, it
was quickly shut down.
Something had happened between Dani,
Rahne and Amara.
Something serious, he realized as she dithered over
the dishes, trying her
best to stay out of the same room as the other
women. He finished with
the pans in half the time she took to clear the table
and wash the dishes.
Sam looked up from setting the table for breakfast and
tried to talk to her.
"What's new?"
"Nothing." Rahne
answered succinctly.
"Nothing A wanna talk about."
He shrugged. "Ah can't
believe you're
letting Amara hog all the hot water
tonight." Normally, Rahne
made a point to get in the showers before the other
woman started hers.
"Trust me..." Rahne
whispered, "She and Dani
can have all the hot water in the world."
"Whatever happened between the
three of y'all,
it can't be that bad." Sam said
soothingly. "Ya
should hear how Joelle and Paige can carry on at
times..."
Rahne shot him a dark look as she
finished setting the silverware.
"A'm not talking to them."
"Okay." Sam said as he
went back into the
kitchen. "Why don't we pop some
popcorn and watch some
TV?"
Doug walked into the room, overhearing
the last bit.
"I ..." he smiled sheepishly.
"I bought 'The
Little Mermaid' this afternoon," he
admitted. Rahne squealed
happily as he said that. "Thought that
might make your night,"
he said as he opened the door to the living area.
The door swung back in time to shut
squarely in Sam's
face.
**
Even though Dani was starting to feel
that it was a lost cause,
she still sat up late at that night, waiting for Rahne
to come in and want
to talk. Every gesture she had made had been
rebuffed by the red-headed,
self-righteous, pig-headed seemingly former friend of
hers. And the
sad part was that Dani really couldn't blame
Rahne for her initial
response to discovering that Dani's sexuality
fell outside of what
Rahne considered natural and normal.
Truthfully, Dani had never intended for
Rahne to find out the
truth about herself. And the younger woman
wouldn't have had
if the three of them, in their eagerness to do what
Amara had suggested,
had stopped to think that Rahne might walk in her own
room. Or if Dani
had thought about locking the door.
In some ways, the fact she was bisexual
wasn't a big
deal and didn't shape who she was. She was
still the same person
that loved to ride horseback, shoot arrows, study
history, and draw.
Yet... it was also everything too. It shaped who
she was, who she found
attractive, what she did around those people.
And it hurt. It hurt when Rahne
talked about her latest
crush and Dani had to keep her mouth shut. It
hurt when she saw a group
of girls whispering about which movie star had the
best butt, and she wanted
to talk about which one had the best breast.
Keeping a part of herself
secret had become an invisible wall between her and
her peers, one that she
didn't know how to tear down... or whether she
wanted to.
As a Cheyenne, her grandfather had raised
her to follow her
dreams, believing that dreams could be visions from
the Gods, even when she
confessed that she dreamed of being both man and
woman. He wanted her
to follow her natural instincts when it came to who
she was, respecting that
she preferred to mingle with the men, doing their
work, enjoying their lifestyle.
To his traditional way of thinking, a child's
sex did not mean their
gender. As he taught her about the old ways, he
taught her the stories
that celebrated females who hunted, led war parties,
and became chiefs.
He taught her to celebrate the fact that she was
Two-Spirited.
Two-Spirited people, he told her, had a
special connection
to the Gods because they were both male and
female. In the past, the
elders would beg the Gods to send them to the
tribe. And more realistically,
she had come from a tribe where women could outnumber
men two to one, and
the addition of one who felt that she was a male was
something to be grateful
for.
Her parents were a different matter,
having been educated in
Catholic mission schools, more or less forced to cast
off what remained of
their traditional beliefs. They tried their
best to raise Dani to
be a white woman, with the typical beliefs and
traditional gender roles,
even though she didn't fit into them at all.
They saw her bent
towards her heritage as a symptom of her natural
rebellious nature, and did
everything they could to correct it.
If they ever found out, it would shatter
them. Not only
because of her sexuality, but because it would be
irrevocable proof that
she had rejected everything that they had tried to
raise her to accept.
She could never feel ashamed of who she was-- she
believed that being
who she was allowed her to have the best of both
genders-- but she was
ashamed of the lies she had to tell to be accepted by
those she loved the
most.
**
Rahne smiled as she cuddled next to Doug,
wiggling her way
under his arm. This moment was as close to
heaven as she'd ever
known, sitting next to a guy who liked her as much as
she liked him.
In fact, a second ago, he'd even brushed his
lips against hers... her
first kiss! She was nearly floating on air.
Yet, thoughts of Dani threatened to ruin
the moment.
She couldn't understand how her former friend
could think about kissing
a woman, much less... Rahne frowned as she closed her
eyes, trying to block
the mental image of what she had seen. It was
right, natural and normal
for women to like men. It wasn't right for
them to like other
women.
Rahne bit her lip, knowing she
couldn't even tell Dani
about her first kiss. She wasn't
comfortable telling Moira.
And Sam still brought up confusing, conflicting
feelings, and she couldn't
dream of telling him. She balled her fist and
blinked back her tears,
angry that she couldn't tell anybody what had
just happened.
It wasn't fair.