Subject: [OTL]: [Kitty, Pete] The Ties that Bind
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 00:15:44 -0700

I hate memories that don't go away.  Marvel characters, supposed to be after
'Nameless, Now and Then', though the only thing you need to know is Pete and
Remy had a short affair.  This was, honestly and truely, written by all four
of us.  I'm posting because I asked if I could.

Seeing as how it follows a story where Remy and Pete had a short affair,
naturally this has mild slash themes.

===========================
The Ties that Bind
By Lise, Falstaff, Trisha and Mel
===========================

Why is it that every time I think I'm free of ghosts, eight hundred more
come up so very, very easily?  He taught me about ghosts, the bastard.  He
was the teacher that opened the flood gates.  He's gone, now.  So why can't
I get them to go away once and a while?

Better question, why can't I rid myself of them for good?

My eyes slide to the telephone, without my permission.  I want him to call
again.  I want him to call very, very badly.  I don't know why I want to
hear his amused, cigarette smoking ass telling me personal things about his
relationships with other people, but I do.

God help me, I do.

I want to drink with him again; lose control and feel those ties that bind
us, feeding off each other and never letting go.  His are always so much
stronger in the morning, and I can't, I just can't, let mine reach him.  We
have too much to lose, and too little to win.

I want to drink, and forget that.

I want to stay away, and forget that.

I'm sitting here instead, not looking at the phone that is silent, and
remembering.

The ghosts are humming in my ear, telling me to remember his flat when I
drive past it, telling me to pay attention to them, their smiling faces, and
enjoy the memories.  I don't enjoy the memories.  We drove past his flat
just last night, and I got such a pang I wanted to cry.

I didn't cry. I got stronger than that.

After seeing the street where he lives, seeing the living reminders of the
us that isn't anymore, we went past the first place I saw him.  Lord, it was
a painful night.  I almost didn't see, almost stared out the window right
past, but the ghosts wouldn't let me miss it.  They tickled the back of my
mind, and startled my conscious thought into realizing just where we were.

And they ache, too.

The ghosts like to stick around, you see. What I wouldn't give to placate
them enough to just leave me alone.  They're not going to do that, of
course, not any time soon.  I can't get over him; I don't know if I ever
will.

I don't really want to, and that's the problem.  God, I miss the
being-with-him part the most.  I never thought anyone, ANYONE could make me
feel that way.  Either during, or... after.

The after part is something I'm not enjoying much.

I just-- I can't get away from seeing these ghosts.  Even when I close my
eyes, they're behind my eyelids, creeping around and saying *remember*.
Damn my photographic memory, anyway.

The ghosts carry teeny little photo albums with them, of each and every
single night we spent together.  Each... Hell, I can still feel his lips.
It's like they call out to me, whether I want them to or not.  I picture
them, cigarette dangling carelessly, stubble drowning his face in scratchy
bliss.

I knew what making love was when I kissed Pete.  I *knew*.

Maybe he never did.  He said it far more than I ever did, that he loved me.
Maybe he was less careful at knowing whether he meant it, maybe he really
did feel more moments in love.  Maybe I hurt him less than he hurt me.

Everything that hurt, it rippled.  Everything that didn't, rippled too.  It
left those wave marks on me.  But it was wonderful, and that joy and, yes,
even that pain, joined him to me.  I can't help it.  It's been so long, and
I still can't help it.

I still feel those ties that bind.

* * *

The memory of you sings in my soul.

I wrote that once.  It was what I called my favorite painting of you, back
when I could paint, back when it was real.  But it wasn't, was it?  Not for
you.  You were too young to understand the depth of my feelings, and I was
too foolish to realize how truly young you were; you were, as you are, so
articulate, so intelligent, that I would always forget...

And I am not the madman who beat Pete Wisdom.  I will never live the shame
of that night down, fool that I was, lying to myself, thinking that... I
do not know what I was thinking.  Likely I was not thinking at all.

And now you are old enough, but... but... Oh, I don't know.  First you
were with Wisdom, and I rejoiced for you because I saw you were happy.  And
then he broke your heart, and I wanted to kill him all over again.  Not out
of jealousy or incoherent rage, this time, but because he had hurt you.

Which was not fair, I know.  It was you who broke his heart.  But I could
not see that, the day on the beach at Muir,

But... I know you are not the child you were.  Now you are a woman, and
though I love you still (I will admit that to no one, not even Logan, not
even Kurt) I know you do not think anything of me.

I am Piotr.  I am your 'best friend.'  You say often that you love me, but I
know you don't mean what you used to mean.  Not even that frail
approximation of woman's love.

I am the unbreakable man, I am steel, I am Strength, like the rodina itself.

And you break my heart every time I look at you.

And I will never look away.

* * *

How can people who have such broken hearts as these stand to look in the
mirror?

I want to ask it, but then I get incredible urges to smash the glass in my
bathroom.  And if I do that, I'll have to replace it.  I can't shave if I
don't have a mirror.

I can't look at myself, either.

Haven't looked in a mirror, not more than glanced at the unexpected
reflected movement as it caught my eye, in so long.  I can't bear to see
what stands there looking back.  Without those bright eyes shining back
something worthwhile, I don't want to see.

She wants to be friends.

Kitty likes to think that facing yourself is healthy, that knowing is power,
and power is strength.  She told me, "You have to face yourself eventually.
It's a part of survival."   I thought survival required we slant our eyes
away from ourselves.  Or we break our mirrors.

I think she's hurt that I shacked up with LeBeau.

I think she's got a right to be.

I called her the other day.  She didn't really ask about it, and I didn't
want to know why.  Maybe she's in love with someone else already.  The
Ruskie would never hurt her, I know it.  He'd treat her like a goddess the
rest of her life.  She knows that too.  I think that's why she'll never
touch him again.

She's not doing too well, from the sound of her voice.  Neither am I,
though.

I miss LeBeau, even though I don't have a damned thing to say to him.  I
want to call *him*, more than I want to call her -- but I left him,
remember? And that means that I have to get the courage to face that I was a
bloody coward in his direction.

I went to the store today, bought a bottle of whiskey.

Went and got me some fags, and wandered for a bit.

It'd be really stupid to say that every where I went reminded me of her, but
there you are.

I ended up at the monkey cage at the zoo, standing there with a bottle of
whiskey in one hand, an unlit fag on my lips wondering, "What the hell am I
doing?"

What the hell *am* I doing? I called Pryde, want to call LeBeau, am staring
at a couple of horny monkeys, on a cold day in February.  There's nothing in
these ghosts that I haven't seen a thousand times, but each time they come
round, I can't run move fast enough to get out of the line of sight.

Bloody hell, but I can't sort this all out on one bottle of whiskey.
Pryde's hanging about, LeBeau's shucking his clothes in a corner--

People are teasing me all over the place.  I just can't win.

I'm getting more to drink; this just isn't working.  One lousy bottle of
whiskey and a phone call from a friend that broke my heart, well, it isn't
going to change the world.  Not my world, not anymore.

The world doesn't swivel on a pound note.  I don't mend just like that.
LeBeau, he's--

Definitely need more to drink.  I might feel a pull.  I might feel the old
ghosts settling in.  It might be cliche to admit to it, but the ties that
bound us together were pretty damned strong.  All of us.  We're pretty
tight, them and I.  Don't know what it means, but I feel it.  I know that
something's aching, pulling.

I just don't want to look in the mirror.

Is that better or worse?