Early Morning Confusion

By Rachel2

Disclaimer: Kitty, Marrow, and all other X-men and their universe belongs
to Marvel, I'm only borrowing them. No profits are being made from the
posting of this story.

Warning: Language, and pondering of an f/f relationship.

This story is based on the poem "Early Morning Bloodshot Mindfuck" by
Alestar, reposted here with the permission of Alestar213@aol.com

Archives: Please ask permission if you wish to archive this story at your
site, so I can send any more chapters to you.

Feedback: Please send any feedback to rachel12@tampabay.rr.com 
Also let me know if you like to see any more.

About the Author: I've written nine storied based on the Xena universe, this
is my first based in Marvel's. Which I was forced to write after reading's
"Early Morning" a couple months ago, I simply could not forget it. Because 
I wondered just how a Kitty/Marrow relationship could happen, and if it's
believable.

Early Morning Confusion

She paused at the top of the stairs wondering if she was there, wondering if
Marrow was listening for her steps, wondering if the mutant was confused at
her stopping at the top of the staircase.

It had been an accident, her finding the poem.  The team was waiting to
run their latest training session and like normal Marrow still had not
shown. So Bobby asked her to phase up to the mutant's room in the basement
and get Marrow going. Of course, when she phased through the floor into the
basement room,  Marrow was already gone, just another demonstration from her
that she's independent from the rest of the team, Kitty guessed..

She still didn't know what made her pick up the torn scrap of paper, maybe
because it was the only thing that had writing in the messy room. Maybe she
was curious as to what Marrow would read, that was one trait she shared in
her code name, and cats were curious.

"So here I am. Fuck this. Fuck it. Fuck walking on air.
Fuck waiting around for your footsteps on stair.
Pretty Pretty got lots waiting around for her there.
Boys
and glass slippers
and other pretty things.
Fuck.
Boys bend and cum and fall asleep.
Glass slippers shatter.
Pretty things wither in winter in shadow in hardship.
Not me.
I wait for soft footsteps. I wait under the stair.
I wait for the chance to put stars in your hair.
You're a cat, right? That's your theme. That's your thing.
And I'm a sewer rat that found light when it sprouted a wing
and came up through the cracks with its heart in a sling.
Literally.
Your wind-riding pal
ripped my heart out.
Trend.
Damn, isn't that romantic?
The play on words there? Fuck.
Why can't you be bloody like everything else?
Like me.
Then I could reach you down here, without wing
instead of trying to prove that even sewer rats sing.
Because they don't, not really. They borrow what people flush
down their fucking commodes. Hope and slush.
They sure as hell never stare into brown eyes with awed hush.
Light's
affecting my brain.
Seratonin poisoning.
Antidote
is simple. I need the darkness.
I want the darkness in you.
Or, better yet, I want you to want the darkness
in me.
That's the only reason to go under the stair,
right? Must be crazy to seek out the sewer rats' lair.
So I'll ruffle your feathers, make you fall from on wing,
down to the sewer, from the light that you cling.
And maybe you won't be the same in the slush,
But at least you'll be mine. The sewer rat's lush.
Fuck.
I wouldn't do that to you.
So I let you pass over the stair, keep my hiding place,
like Billy Goat Beautiful
over a troll's bridge.
A pink troll.
Like those stupid fucking fluffy hair trolls. With the jewels in their
bellies.
Damn.
I really should stop all that sniffing of glue.
I need to loose some of my reason in you."

Kitty knew in the first two lines it was a poor attempt at a poem, it broke
all the rules she learned in English class. And Emily Dickinson certainly
never used such language! She was confused at first, and then lightheaded;
a hand was needed on the wall to help keep her upright, as she started to
understand what Marrow was saying.

Coming out of her stupor, Kitty started down the stairs, listening for the
faintest sound that Marrow was under the stairs. Yet only silence greeted
her ears. All too soon she reached the bottom so, instead of turning for the
kitchen to join her friends at breakfast, she turned and walked to the
window next to the door leading down to the basement. Halting, she looked
outside the frosted grass plates, to the snow covered grounds of the
mansion. She always liked winter, walking at night in the falling snow away
from the roads. It was so quiet, and beautiful, that her thoughts always
drifted away, to a fine inner peace.

Why was she doing this, she wondered, as her fingers caressed the frosted
glass? She was not into women at all... sure she loved Storm, but that was
more of a motherly feeling, even if at times she felt like kissing her
mother to show her friendship. Then there was Rachel, god she missed her,
and there were times that she felt as if part of herself disappeared along
with her friend. And of course Illyana, but fumbling under the blankets with
her former roommate and experiments in kissing were just practicing for boys.

Of course there'd been boys. Peter was her first love, she even offered
herself to him when it looked like they were going to die in outer space.
But he refused her, which turned out for the best, since only a few months
later he dumped her for some dead alien healer. That hurt -- not that Peter
dumped her, she was already guessing that maybe it was not to be with him.
But to be cast aside for a dead woman, she already was self-conscious, but
that nearly destroyed her. Then while with Excalibur there was a parade of
young men that she felt interested in, yet they all had eyes only for her
Rachel.

Kitty blinked suddenly at her thoughts, then smiled, shaking her head. No,
she thought, nothing there; she just used a term of endearment for her lost
friend. And of course Pete Wisdom showed up; he made her into a woman, and
she did love him. But something was missing, her stint in S.H.I.E.L.D. showed
that, so the relationship ended with pain on both sides.

Running her hand through her now short hair Kitty wondered what she was
doing. No sound came from the basement and, if Marrow was watching her, what
did that mean, why was she curious about it? Was this another way to show
her friends that she'd changed? Many of them were already voicing their
opinions about her new hairstyle, Bobby even saying that it made her look a
bit butch. Which promptly got the Iceman a kick in the rear from an outraged
Jean.

"Darkness within her," that's what Marrow wrote in her poem, would she want
the darkness in Marrow? Then with an abrupt shake of her head, Kitty told
herself it was an open question, would she want the darkness in any person?
She loved Logan like a father; he'd ticked her off at times, yet she loved
him. Pete, she loved him more it seemed when he was so abusive about his
past, yet when he showed his tender side she drifted away from him.

"KITTY, BREAKFAST!" a voice she instantly recognized as Bobby's called from 
the kitchen.

Still shaking her head in confusion, Kitty turned away from the window and
walked towards the kitchen, not seeing the silent form exiting from the door
underneath the staircase.

Marrow stared at the departing Shadowcat, wondering what the young woman had
been thinking while gazing out the window. Turning her head, a gasp escaped
the mutant's lips, as she stared at a drawing Kitty had scratched into the
window frost. A small heart, with 'Marrow' written in the center.

--

Take Care

Rachel

"Just sitting here, watching our barren lives pass us by. Oh look, a
cockroach."

Willow - Buffy, the Vampire Slayer