All characters are trademarked and copyrighted to Marvel Comics.  They are used without permission and no money is being made on this work.

I'm in a mood.  That's my warning.  There's some foul language, strong themes of sexuality, but it's the mood that I'm warning because it's strange.  I don't know why I wrote this, why I had to splurt my brain onto paper like this, but I won't question it.  I'll just accept that I have this story and I'm posting it.  Now.  Not later.  Now.  (Whoops, sorry, inner-dialogue making it into print!)

Oh, and it's a Jubilee fic.  Go figure.  Pre-slash, if anyone's wondering, a coming-of-age story really.  This is the beginning of my foray into f/f slash, which is something I understand infinitely more, but it's really not slash, not at all.  It's just a story about a girl.

Feedback would be appreciated, flames can kiss my arse, especially for this story. If you *really* need to flame me, read something else I've written and attack it.  I've even given you the URLs to my pages.  Thanks. :)

Continuity?  Um, I'm taking GenX as it was around, let's see, issue four and fast-forwarding, so nothing spectacular has happened, no one has died, things went according to happily-ever-after plan.  I like my version better.

Oh, and I really am disappearing offline for a time after this.  School. Blah. :)

A Moment of American Beauty

By: Tangerine

  I don't really know when it happened, when I suddenly clued in and said, like, hey, girl, will you open your eyes and *see* the world, please?  The real world, I mean, and not that one you've spent eighteen years trying to believe.

  Because it isn't true, you knew it then and you know it now.

  But the funny part of this story is that even when I knew it, I didn't really.  It's, like, you see something, and it's totally real to you, but you don't associate yourself with it.  And it?  It's out there, far from you, waiting for you to finally connect the two points.

  I was watching a bag blow in the wind, total _American Beauty_ moment, and I kept thinking about it, where it was going, why it just didn't float off into space.  Paige and Monet were around, reading books I had no interest in.  I was totally stuck on this movie and this scene that had jumped from the big screen to right in front of me, acting it out with such amazing grace.

  Do you understand what it's like not to be captivated by the words everyone else reads?  Those harlequin romances they waste their brain cells on, boy meets girl, everyone in love, world is perfect.  Like, cool, right?  Man and woman make babies, get a mortgage, get divorced, die in car accident.  I said this to Paige once, and she just shook her head with pity, saying I obviously couldn't understand the allure if I was going to think like *that.*

  Paige is right too often, but I like it best when she doesn't know she is, when it's a private joke only I understand because then I feel like the smart one, like I'm in control of my own little world.  I'm not really, because if I was, my whole life would be a lot easier than it is.

  So they're reading their books, right?  Idling away time as big, blond hunk settles between doe-eyed brunette's legs and they start going at it, having sex, panting like dogs, the whole nine yards.  And Paige is sighing, because it's oh so romantic, and Monet is shaking her head, convinced the woman should be on top.

  And I'm sitting there, watching this bag and remembering this movie.

  I'm remembering what it felt like to finally see beauty.

  It's hard to say, you know?  Even to yourself.  That *moment* when you look at your hands and think, these are *my* hands, part of *me*.  And because I'm different, so are they, strange hands unlike any other you've met so far.

  And it's *fucking* terrifying, you know?  Like, that moment when you can finally think without this cloud around your head and you know you're seeing the truth and it's scary and you're not sure if you can handle it, but it's there and it's huge and it makes you feel nauseous you're so nervous about what it all means.  Because things have to have meaning, they *have* to, or it all just sucks too badly and you begin to lose hope.

  I'm losing you, right?  I'm trying to tell you what I'm thinking and it's going over your head, but that's all right, okay, it's fine.  Because I'm not ready to say it any louder.  I *afraid* to even whisper it.  Because it's real.  And it's here.  And it makes me want to cry.

  I'm sobbing at a plastic bag in the wind.

****

  "Jubes!"

  "Ange!"  I reply in an equally excited voice, turning around to regard the Latino with a smirk.  He's got that look in his eyes, the 'I need your homework' look 'because I didn't do mine.'  I don't know why he always comes to me.  Probably because Frosty won't think anything of it if both of our work is less than perfect.  Angelo and I, we're not perfect people.  "What do you need, dude?  I didn't do the bio stuff."

  Angelo winces, the look morphing into a 'I need a smoke' look.  "Fuck, man, that's what I needed.  Frost is gonna roast my ass."

  "Kinky."

  "Pervert."

  "Takes one to know one, big man," I shoot back, and Angelo gives me the finger, this long, grey thing that lingers there, in front of me to remind us both that we're not quite normal, not really.  "I got the math done."

  "I need that, too."

  "I know."

  In the end, I give him all my books and make him promise on penalty of castration to rewrite everything so well Emma will never suspect we're cheaters.  She knows, of course, because she's a telepath and they know everything, but she has this rule that unless she can prove it physically, it didn't happen.  She's cool like that.  Sometimes.

  So this my life.  School.  Hanging out with friends.  We're close, all of us, because we're all mutants and we know what it's like to be the one that doesn't quite fit in, so we all fit together like a puzzle, each piece there to form the whole.

  I love them all, though I'll never say it out loud because that's not my style at all.  Instead, I'll just think it everyday and thank whatever powers exist for putting me here, in this place of extreme understanding, because I think that's what helped opened my eyes in the first place.

****

  "Jubes?"

  I sit around a lot and think, far away from people because it sucks to be interrupted, but hell, it's Ev, so I hardly mind.  He's, like, my bestest friend in the whole wide world.  I just want to hug him to pieces sometimes because he's so wonderful.

  And if you'd ask anyone at this school, they'd say I like him, like *that*, but I don't.  I just love him with all my heart, in a friendly sort of way, though he's a good cover so no one suspects the secret that I'm not quite up to sharing.

  And if you know, well, keep it between us for awhile, okay?

  "Yeah, Ev?"

  "What're you doing?"  He asks, sitting down next to me without being invited because he doesn't need an invitation.  It's open field for him, and I've made sure he knows it.  You don't get friends like this often, so I give him a lot more than I give the others.  "Thinking, Jubilee?"

  "Don't sound so surprised, smart ass," I retort with a smile.

  We've known each other for three years now.

  "Angelo's copying your homework.  I don't know why you let him."

  "Gives him more time to do whatever it is he does instead of all the junk Frosty gives us to learn.  I'm being nice.  And I'm nothing if not nice," I add, all ominous and such, foreboding.  Everett laughs, seeing the irony in it, appreciating the sarcasm, because I'm not really nice at all.

  When you're hiding things like I am you become a bit jaded, see the world slightly darker than everyone else.  And it's not like you mean to do it, it's just your way of keeping people at a distance, so they don't get too close and start to see the truth.

  "What do you see when you look out there?"  Ev asks, staring at the world.

  "Things," I confess softly, "that make more sense than the stuff in my head.  Grass is green.  Sky is blue.  Birds fly.  Trees stand.  Stuff like that, Ev, I like stuff like that because it's obvious and doesn't need a lot of explaining."

  "I wish you weren't so sad all the time."

  I look at Ev.  Until he said that, I had wondered if anyone had noticed at all.  Because I *feel* sad, all the time, because I know I'm lying to them, if not to myself anymore.  I see Paige and Jono, trying to make things work, and I want to cry.  I do cry, but when it's dark and everyone else is sleeping, because that isn't me.  It won't ever be me.

  "Jubes, if you ever want to talk, if you ever need anyone to listen and promise on threat of death to never repeat a word of it, you know I'm here, right?"

  "I know."

  And that's why I love him more than anything else in this world, because he's the greatest friend I'll ever have and every time he says stuff like that I remember why I thought so in the first place.

  And when I tell people, when I let them know, he'll be the first one to hear it.

  Right after I say it to myself.

****

  "I've noticed you've lost interest in school."

  I look up at Emma, arching an eyebrow.  "Have I?"

  "I think so.  There's something bothering you, Jubilation, and it's interfering with your day-to-day responsibilities.  You're keeping up with your school work, for which I am sure Angelo is grateful, but you don't participate in class anymore, smart-ass comments or otherwise.  Is there anything bothering you?"

  "Just going through some shit, personal stuff.  I'll work it out.  And Frosty?"  I wear my perfect cocky grin, just to infuriate her, just to put her mind elsewhere.  "You ever think that maybe I've lost interest because you're boring?"

  "Why, no, Jubilee, I've never even considered it."  Her voice is significantly less amused. Bingo.  "You're dismissed.  And don't say shit around me.  I like to pretend you are still an innocent who has never heard such awful language."

  Like I said, she's cool like that.  Sometimes.

****

  So what's the point, you know?  Why am I bothering to put myself on this search for the great truth about my life?  It's simple, really, I'm seeing myself now and I'm becoming afraid that I'm going to die alone because I just can't admit to myself that ...

  See?  I can't do it.  And the thought that I'll go back into the lie, that I'll be like everyone else in this world and die without ever having known what love felt like, what lust felt like, what it *all* felt like when mixed together, that thought is what's pushing me forward, forcing me to say the word I can't find.  I could marry Ev today and be happy enough with my life and our children and our house with the white picket fence, but I wouldn't *love* him, not like love is meant to be felt.  And I think about that, you know, and I just want to die because it's so horrible.

  I am so fucking scared of what this means.

  *This* wasn't supposed to me.  I was supposed to be just like everyone else.  In theory, I supported *this*, I stood up for *this* when everyone else didn't pay any attention to the plight, but that was because I was open-minded, you see, not because it affected me personally.

  When someone used those words in humour, when they laughed at the word 'fag' and used the word 'gay' to express dislike and called her a 'dyke' because she could beat him in a fight, I said *stop.*  I used logic as my backbone, said that someone out there might be overhearing and those words could hurt.  One in ten, I reminded them, any one of your friends could be gay.

  It might even be me.

  But that was far away, distant, because they all laughed and apologised and told me not to take it so personally.  And I shrugged and agreed, brushing it off, acting as heterosexual as humanly possible, liking guys because they needed me to like them.

  But I never picked the right ones.  I didn't know what the rights one were. All those faces.  Matt.  Ben.  Brad.  Just like paintings, you appreciate them for their value but your heart never stops and says, my god, is that what beauty is?

  So this is where the story begins to make sense, because I'm looking at myself in the mirror this morning and I'm not so blind anymore.  I had a dream last night, a great dream, the type where you wake up and your chest is heaving and you blink because you were so sure it was real and you're now coming to realise it's not.

  And I'm shaking, you know?  I'm looking at my face, and I'm not sure I recognise me anymore, but that's a good thing.  It's, like, I'm seeing for the first time, and there are all these colours that I've only heard about, these things of beauty I've only dreamed about, things like plastic bags in the wind and girls in bookstores that spare you a loving smile.

  And you're finally able to look at her and see it, to accept it and say, hey, it's a queer world after all.  And that's all right, you know?  It's just as beautiful as all those men and women mulling through life, never realising how lucky they are to be so utterly accepted for who they are without question.

  In the mirror, I smile and say, "hello, Jubilee, this is your first day being real.  Today, you look at yourself and you can finally say, I am a lesbian and I am proud of it."

  Because I *am* gay.  And that's all right, even if I falter when I first say it because it sounds so strange to apply it to myself, to personalize what I've always known.  It's a thing of beauty to be special like this, and even though others might not be able to see why, I know it is.  So I'm going to get dressed, like I always do, and eat breakfast, like I always do, and nothing's going to be different, not one second of it.

  And when I'm sitting out there, eating buttered toast, watching Paige and Monet read books that mean nothing to me, I'm going to be able to smile through the tears while I watch that plastic bag dance, remembering movies that are not as real as me.

  And I guess, when it all comes down to it, that's all that matters.

  Right?

fin.