Chapter 7- Blood is Thicker than Water
The yummy smell of homemade pancakes and hot syrup weren’t noticed by Wanda as she sat absently at the kitchen table. She was dreamily thinking back on last night. Ever since that first kiss with Evan, things had spiraled together so fast.
She’d never felt this way about another boy. Of course, there had never been another boy, but something about this relationship seemed too real. After their first kiss, they’d been together for three weeks. They never got to see each other as often as they wanted.
A lot of times, Wanda felt that the relationship was so Romeo and Juliet. Of course, neither the Brotherhood or X-Men knew about the relationship, but if they did…she was often scared what would happen if Pietro ever found out. She had no doubt he would be just like Juliet’s hot-blooded cousin, Tybalt. He would kill Evan. She didn’t understand why the hatred between Evan and her brother was so intense, and Evan hadn’t been able to explain it to her. But hatred at that level of animosity must have lost its roots along the way until the hatred was completely irrational and then driven for reasons unknown between the two enemies. That, of course, devoid the hatred of its reason, but emotions never seemed to stay on reason anyway.
Whatever the reason, Wanda couldn’t ignore her feelings for Evan. It wasn’t even infatuation. They’d known something was between them that first day they’d met. As ignorant as she was on relationships, she knew that the relationship wasn’t infatuation. It was Fate. It just had to be. Wanda sighed happily.
"Uh, I’m glad you’re enjoyin’ the pancakes, but you might want to eat them sometime, yo."
"Hmm?" Wanda was jerked out of her thoughts as she smiled dazedly at an amused Todd. "What’d you say?"
He just raised his eyebrows. "I think Fred ain’t the only one wit his head in the clouds this mornin’." He nodded over at Fred, who was flipping pancakes and humming cheerfully to himself.
Wanda giggled. "Why’s he so happy?"
Todd rolled his eyes. "Who else? That Chelsea chick. They met at the BCC."
"Oh yeah, the poetry class? I know! It’s so romantic!" Wanda smiled.
"You would, yo." Todd grinned wearily. "All chicks think it’s romantic when guys turn all zombie-like around their girls."
Wanda giggled. "It’s called love, Todd."
He grimaced. "You think it’s a good thing? I ain’t complaining if Freddy’s gonna wake up early to make pancakes for us. It’s just him I’s worried about."
Wanda grinned. "I think Fred’s all right."
"Ow!" There was a loud bang from the hallway, then a string of swearing as Lance stumbled into the kitchen. He’d apparently tripped into something.
"Tsk, tsk. Watch that mouth of yours, Lance." Todd chided.
The older boy just scowled as he collapsed into one of the chairs. "This is gonna be a bad fucking day and I am just so fucking-," Lance paused as Fred set a stack of hot pancakes in front of him. His eyes widened in shock. "You-, you make these, Freddy?"
"Yeah, happy breakfast. Now what were you saying about a bad day?"
"Uh…" Lance started in on the pancakes. The other three exchanged grins.
"You might want to start in on yours, yo. We gotta leave soon." Todd told Wanda.
She realized she hadn’t even started eating. "You’re right." She was about to take a bite when she remembered her brother. "Hey! Pietro never woke up."
"You better wake him up, yo. Otherwise we’ll be late for school." Todd couldn’t help noticing that neither Lance or Fred commented on Pietro’s absence at the table and suppressed a sigh.
Meanwhile, Wanda was nodding. "You’re right, I better go." She pushed back her chair and left the kitchen. Running up to Pietro’s room, she paused at the closed doorway. Knocking softly, she called, "Pietro?"
When there was no response, Wanda opened the door. She was overcome by the stench of alcohol. "Pietro?" He was just sitting on his bed and staring blankly at the wall. Oddly enough, he was wearing flannel pajamas, even though it was summertime. He took a swig from a liquor bottle as she came in.
"Um," Wanda walked cautiously into Pietro’s room. The floor was littered with clothes and miscellaneous items as though he’d been throwing things around. There was a random shirt draped over one of the crooked lamps, and beer cans poked out from underneath the clothes and papers. "Pietro…" She stared wordlessly at her brother. "What-, what are you doing? You have to get ready for school."
Not looking at her and continuing to stare at the wall, Pietro slowly shook his head and said thickly, "I hate my life."
"What?" Wanda stared at her brother in shock. His face was pale and sagging with exhaustion. There were bags under his eyes. She hadn’t realized how much drinking had affected him.
"Wanda, you coming?" Lance called from downstairs.
"Um," Wanda twisted her head toward the doorway. "Go ahead without us. We’re staying home."
There was silence from downstairs. Lance said something Wanda didn’t catch, and then she heard the Brotherhood leaving the house, which was soon followed by the sound of cars starting up and backing out of the driveway.
With a sigh, Wanda turned back to her brother. "Pietro…"
He abruptly turned his head to stare at her, his bright blue eyes beseeching hers. "They don’t care about me." He whispered.
"What? What-, what are you talking about? Who?"
"Them." He gestured downstairs, where the Brotherhood had just recently been.
"You mean Lance and Todd and Fred?" She was so confused. "They don’t care?"
Pietro slowly nodded. "They-, they don’t understand why I drink. They think I’m just out to cause trouble and I’m ruining the Brotherhood, but it was ruined before then. And they’re blaming me for it." He looked up at her through pleading eyes. "Do you think it’s my fault?"
"No!" Wanda quickly sat down next to her brother. "It’s not your fault!" Of course it wasn’t his fault! Why would it be her brother’s fault if the rest of them were blaming their problems on him?
Pietro slumped his shoulders. "God! Life is just so fucked up and no one sees it." He took another long drink from the bottle.
Wanda wished she knew what to say, as she watched her brother in his misery. But she had no experience comforting others. Especially Pietro. He-, he’d always comforted her. It had never been the other way around. Wanda felt something unsettling within her at this abrupt role reversal. It didn’t feel very comfortable…
He turned to look at her. "You know," he hiccuped. "You-, you’re the only one I can count on. You’re the only one I can trust because you’re the only one that believes in me. And-," his bright eyes started to tear up, until they glimmered like sapphires, but he didn’t cry. "You’re the only person I love." He whispered. "And you’re the only person that’s ever loved me back."
"Pietro!" Tears flooded her eyes and Wanda hugged her brother fiercely. "Oh my God!" The two twins hugged each other tightly as they both cried, one silently and one openly.
"I-, I don’t know how I got along for two years without you," Pietro whispered. "It’s-, it’s all coming back now and it’s so hard! And I can’t stop!"
"I missed you so much then!" Wanda sobbed. "I love you, Pietro."
The twins sat in a crushing embrace for a long time. When they broke apart, Wanda had tears streaming down her face, but Pietro’s tears had dried. He smiled slightly at his sister’s woebegone face. "Here." He shoved aside the junk on his night table to reveal a tissue box and dried her face with some of them.
She smiled brokenly back at him. "We’ll help each other through this. I’ll be here for you, Pietro."
"You know I’ll always be here for you." Pietro told her back. "We went through Hell for a reason, but look where it’s brought us."
"Yeah, I know." Wanda smiled. She realized again that Pietro came first. He was the only one who loved her. She thought back to Evan and the past three weeks, and the weeks before that. Suddenly, she knew what she had to do.
* * *
"Evan!"
The black boy had been shooting hoops when he heard Wanda’s voice behind him. He turned around to see her running towards him. It was after school, and he’d been here for about an hour now. He grinned and waved an arm to her. "Hey!"
As she approached him, he put out his arms to grab her in a hug, but stopped when he saw the expression on her face. "Wanda?" He looked at her quizzically. Her face was set and looked scared and determined.
"Evan." She looked at him quickly before averting her eyes. "I-, I can’t see you anymore."
Evan blinked. "What?" He tried to look at her, but she’d bowed her head. "Where’d this all come from?" He dropped the basketball he’d been holding and let it fall behind him. "Hey, did Pietro find out about us?" He couldn’t think of any other reason for this to happen out of the blue.
She took a deep breath before looking at him. "No, he didn’t."
He stared back. "But then why else-,"
"Evan…" He saw the pain too clearly in her open eyes and her pale lips trembled. "Pietro-, he’s the most important person in the world to me and he’s my brother and I love him. It’s-," she sighed as she tried to find the right words. "He’s more than a brother. I mean, we’re twins. We have a-, a connection. I mean, there’s so much between us and I realized-," She hadn’t thought it would be so hard. "I realized that I can’t let our relationship get in the way of that." Wanda looked at Evan pleadingly, hoping he would understand. "We need each other right now, and if I kept on seeing you, I would hurt him too much."
"Wanda, I thought that our relationship, us, was going to work through this." Evan chose his words carefully. Was Pietro really worth all this? He couldn’t be that great of a brother.
She sighed, as tears started to glimmer her eyes. "It would be too hard and I can’t go through with it, Evan. Please-," her lips trembled. "Please make this easy for me."
Evan’s shoulders slumped. "I’m sorry Wanda, but what we had-, I mean have. It," he sighed as he tried to remember the past few weeks. "It’s not just gonna fade away. I mean, whatever happened, we can pull through, can’t we?"
Wanda sighed again and shook her head, hastily brushing away the salty tears that were starting to leak from her eyes. "No," she said quietly, feeling a lump forming in her throat. God, why did she have to do this? Just when her entire life was taking a turn for the better and she was finally starting to be someone, she had to rip it apart again…She bit her lip, tasting the acrid flavor of tears on her tongue. "No," she repeated again, hating herself, "no, we can’t."
Evan stared at her, his eyes void of the usual arrogance and replaced by a strange pleading shine. This couldn’t be happening. "Wanda…" He said softly, locking his caramel-flecked eyes upon her pale icy blue ones. "We can! We can make this work. Whatever’s going on with Pietro, we’re not gonna let it affect us, ok? Please?" He could hardly recognize the beseeching tone he heard in his own voice, but he brushed away his own pride. He wasn’t gonna lose her. "Please, Wanda…"
Wanda blinked, watching this pained boy in front of him. Why did it hurt him so much? Why did it hurt her so much? "Evan…" She felt a hot rush of tears overcome her and she was nearly hurled over by a tsunami of emotion. Somehow, she found herself enfolded in his strong embrace, wetness streaming down her cheeks in endless rivers and Evan’s soothing whisper in her ear. God, she felt so safe when she was with him…safer than she ever felt. Even around Pietro…Wanda pushed aside those traitorous thoughts and focused her mind on the coffee-skinned boy in front of her, the boy that cared for her, the boy that showed his caring in ways that Pietro never had, or would. "I love you," she whispered before she could stop herself. "I love you…we’ll get through…somehow." She smiled up at him, trying desperately to believe herself.
Evan smiled back at her, feeling her fragile body pressed up against his own. "I love you too," he said quietly, and bent down and kissed the fear, the pain, and the longing away from her salt-stained lips.
* * *
The sharp breeze bit at Pietro’s cheeks, waking him up. He walked briskly towards the park. After Wanda had found him that morning, the two had talked through the rest of the day. She’d left after Todd got home, saying she had to go out for an errand. It had given him some time to reflect on some things.
Looking at it in perspective, he knew that he was lucky to have Lance and Todd and Freddy. But the one who really mattered now was Wanda. He knew he had a problem with his drinking. And Wanda was the only one who could help him through it and understand that he would get better. No matter what the others thought, he wasn’t an alcoholic.
Pietro sighed to himself as he neared the park. In any case, he needed to get out of the house. He hadn’t played basketball in months and playing against himself might make himself feel better. In a sudden burst of excitement, Pietro zipped toward the park as he saw its entrance in front of him. Making his way to the courts, he saw disappointedly that some people were already there.
Looked like he couldn’t play in super speed, that would have used up his pent-up energy so much faster. Well, maybe they wouldn’t stay long. As Pietro neared them, he couldn’t help noticing that they looked rather familiar. He blinked slightly when the girl’s face turned in his direction. She didn’t see him, but he realized that it was Wanda. What was she doing here? Wasn’t she on some errand? And who was she with?
His face paled when he got a glimpse of the other boy. No, it couldn’t be. Pietro froze on the spot when he saw his worst enemy standing with his sister. Evan Daniels.
A thunderstorm of betrayed emotions flooded through the young speed demon, but not so overpowering that he didn’t notice the way their bodies were close to one another and that they were so absorbed in one another that the outside world was closed. Pietro gritted his teeth and the betrayal was quickly suppressed by something that came even more powerful than his anguish. His anger.
~ Pivotal chapter! Nothing will be the same, as we will see in Wanda’s 2nd choice, which is next chapter. I think I should make it clear. There are no bad guys here. All these people are ok people, just some of them will make bad decisions or bad and selfish choices and the consequences will play out later. On a more personal note, I learned a lot of tough lessons recently with some friends and I’m so thankful now I endured them because I came out so much stronger. But I learned a lot about human nature in the process. There’s some of us who will fight for what’s right, and then there’s others who will hide to keep things "okay." Watch who your friends are and if you’re one of those strong ppl, stay strong!!! Watch out for the ppl who aren’t as strong. And if you’re one of the ppl who hide, try to realize what experiences you’re missing. Telling someone what you really think of them and facing up to the consequences is hard, but it is so GOOD for you. I learned so much from this experience, and I felt like passing a bit of it on to ya’ll. You guys have all been awesome reviewers, and stay awesome ppl. Love ya all!