Disclaimer: Still don't own the X-Men…

Rating: PG-13 (It's Lance. He's wallowing in self-pity. There's cursing.)

Summary: Lance's POV this time. Set right after he hangs up from calling Kitty. (Part two in the series "Is There a Place for Us?")

Author's Note: This story is semi-AU, meaning it isn't completely alternate universe, but it doesn't really go along with the show completely either. Basically, it takes place after "Hex Factor," and ignores anything that may come after it. (Which it sort of has to, seeing as at this current time, the two part season finale has not yet aired.) Anyway, it diverges from what is sure to be the path the show takes by having Lance leave town following the battle in the mall between the Brotherhood and the X-Men. (I just don't see the writers doing that…)

Surgeon General's Warning: Smoking is bad for you. So is sitting in a gas station feeling sorry for yourself. Don't be like Lance—just like Lance. *grin*

Feedback and Archiving: Please. Send all feedback and archiving request to addie_logan@yahoo.com or sign on AIM or AOL and IM ChereRogueMarie.

Shameless Website Plug: Be nice and go to my site: https://www.angelfire.com/scifi/addielogan

 

A Gas Station Soliloquy

By: Addie Logan

 

I hung up, sunk to the ground in front of the pay phone, and lit a cigarette. Living a long and healthy life was the last thing I cared about.

I'd never smoked before I left Kitty and the rest of Bayville behind. You'd think I would have, seeing as I worked so hard to be a bad boy, but I never smoked.

I don't even know why I started now.

I'm not sure what I thought Kitty would say when I called. Did I think she'd say that she loved me, and that I should come back for that—for her?

What I didn't expect was the answer she gave. It was too simple. Her words didn't even hold any feeling.

"I can't."

Two words. That was all it took her to throw away what we had.

But what did we have?

We would flirt, sneak around behind the backs of the people we called our friends, and spend nights talking on the phone until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer.

It wasn't anything, really. Just a fling. Quick and painless.

Then why did losing Kitty tear me up like this?

Cars drove in and out of the gas station and I watched, every once in a while taking a drag off the cigarette. It burned my lungs, and I welcomed the pain.

Reminded me I was alive.

"I can't."

I couldn't forget those words, no matter how hard I tried. I wanted to go to her and grab her, shake her, demand that she tell me just why she couldn't.

I stared out over the broken asphalt in front of me, realized something. I didn't need to ask Kitty why she couldn't give me a reason to come back. I knew.

I wasn't good enough for her. She came from a well-off family. In the small town in Illinois where me and Kitty grew up, everyone knew the Prydes. They had the typical suburban home. Heaven surrounded by a white-picket fence.

And everyone had known the Alverses, too.

Hard not to notice the town drunk, and that's exactly what my father was.

I threw the cigarette down and smashed it out with the toe of my boot. I hated myself, more then than ever before. How could I have been so stupid to think Kitty would ever love me? I was the kind of guy girls like that ran around with to see if it felt any different to hold on to a man who was wearing denim instead of silk. Good girls went for bad boys for a brief taste of the wild side.

Then got bored and tossed them away like the garbage they were.

And I knew that. I knew it from the moment Kitty first stated responding to my advances, but I'd been enough of an idiot to think maybe we'd beat the odds. Every time we'd been able to escape, even for a little while, and be together—just the two of us—it had been like paradise. Her kisses had tasted so sweet and pure, and I wondered sometimes that if I could hold her for long enough, some of her innocence would rub off on me, and I'd have a chance at redemption.

Instead, I let Mystique lead me into battle against Kitty and her friends. I'd placed misguided loyalty over love, and it made me hate myself even more. I had tried to get Kitty to leave, sure, but the other X-Men? Hell, I'd brought half the ceiling down on Jean Grey.

And when I'd stood there with the rest of the Brotherhood, beside Mystique and across from the X-Men, I'd looked into Kitty's eyes. Seeing those deep blue pools staring back at me with such hurt and betrayal had been too much. It had only been a few nights before when I'd told her I was in love with her, and then, there I was fighting with people who wanted to kill her.

God, I'm a bastard. A fucking bastard.

Of course Kitty didn't want me to come back for her. I was beneath her to begin with, she'd lowered herself to feel any sort of feelings for me whatsoever, and then I'd gone and betrayed her. Dammit, how much worse for her could I get?

She hated me.

And I deserved it.

I shook another cigarette out of the crumpled pack. They were the cheapest cigarettes the gas station had. Red, white, and blue, with a picture of an eagle on them. Brand name USA. My dad used to smoke the same kind. Said that way he could save money and be patriotic at the same time.

I wonder how patriotic he was being the few times he put them out on me.

As I took the first drag off my second cigarette, I could almost hear what Kitty would say if she saw me smoking. She'd probably take them from me, all the while giving me a lecture on the dangers of smoking. Sort of like what she did every time I ate red meat. She was always telling me I had to take care of myself, so I'd be around for a long time.

I used to remind her that only the good die young, so I was gonna live a while.

She'd laugh, kiss me, and tell me I was good, despite what I thought.

Somehow, I don't think she'd say that anymore. Hell, she might not even care that I was slowly killing myself with inevitable lung cancer.

On second thought, she might care.

She'd probably be against the slow death part. She probably want me to just hurry up and crawl in my grave.

At the rate I was going, that was probably going to happen soon anyway. I wasn't exactly taking care of myself. I don't remember the last time I ate a real meal.

Unless microwave hot dogs count.

I flicked the end of my cigarette, adding the ashes to the pile of garbage building around the pay phone. It was dirty, unclean. The sort of environment I belonged in.

And Kitty belonged in a mansion somewhere. Like the one she lived in, I guess. Comfort, cleanliness.

Home.

I deserved a gutter.

I wasn't sleeping anymore. Hadn't for days. I couldn't. Every time I tried, Kitty's eyes haunted me. The way they looked when we were wrapped up in each other's arms. The gleam they got when she was happy.

The accusatory pain when she had to look across and see me with the Brotherhood and against her.

It was the same look she'd had when I'd left the X-Men, after being blamed for all the new recruits' little "joy rides." Even after I had an apology I couldn't stay. My pride wouldn't let me.

Ironic that it was Pryde that made me want to stay all the same.

But she was never mine.

Never mine.

That fact became clear in my mind. Kitty wasn't mine, and she never had been. She was over me for sure, and I was sitting in front of a gas station pay phone, feeling sorry for myself. I got up and stamped out the rest of my cigarette. I need to move on. I needed to move past from Bayville and Katherine Pryde.

I got into my jeep and started a drive to nowhere.

I'd know home when I found it.