#fhopen

[proud-poliosis-blog]

Why’d Ya Have T’ Go? || Rogue & Storm

She was done her shopping for the day. Marie had found something suitable for her date with Remy. What a horrible idea that was. She wasn’t sure why she agreed, but she could watch him first hand try and charm her pants off and fail. That had to be worth something. She shakes her head at herself. “It was a stupid thing t’ do, and you know it.” She mutters to herself. In an attempt to make herself feel better she was looking at the rows of chocolate bars on display, one or two…likely three or four would be coming home with her today. She had to have something to ease the bitterness and foul mood she’d be in after that dinner. Three of her choices are in her hands when she sees a familiar head or hair pass at the end of the aisle. Marie shifted her shopping to follow that familiar looking woman. Was it? Could it really be? She truly hoped that she wasn’t dreaming things. She wanted to see her friend again. “Ro? Hi.” There’s a long pause before she continues. “Ah missed ya.” It was a big admission for Marie to make, as someone who enjoyed the solitude she forced on herself. It was true though. The mansion wasn’t the same without her. Neither were Logan, Kitty, everyone. No one was the same, too many things were happening all at the same time for things to still be normal.

[kitkatpryde]

Can't Go Home Again II OPEN

It wasn't safe to go home. Kitty had gone home for Hanukkah every winter since starting at Xavier's, over ten years! And now her mother was saying it might not be safe for Kitty to travel by herself. And the worst part was, Kitty wasn't calling her crazy. So she hadn't booked a ticket and all the planes and trains were full. No latkes, doughnuts, or dreidel. No late night service with tons of annoying synagogue ladies and Disney movies after. And no mom. So Kitty was a little on the grumpy side. Apparently so grumpy that people were actively avoiding her. Well she wouldn't declare rock bottom until people started comparing her to Ellie. 

 So now Kitty was in one of the side rooms in her Hanukkah sweater. She had bought a tiny menorah on Amazon and swiped birthday candles from the kitchen. Lighting the first candle she said a quick prayer then checked her phone. Services had already started. Damn she thought she would never be this homesick. 

 Walking into the kitchen she dug into the back of the pantry until she pulled out the box of rugelach and dreidel cookies. At least there was still this. Bakeries in New York might actually be a little better than Chicago. Nibbling on a cookie Kitty heard someone in the doorway. "You want one?"

[angie-jones-firestar-blog]

Comfort and Joy | Angie and [open]

Angie lay under the tree and stared up through the branches. It was beautiful. Like being in another world full of colour and light, that smelled like snow and pine. She could stay under here forever. Ostensibly, she was watering the tree, but she’d accomplished that already and just wanted to stay. It reminded her of being a child and lying under their tree at home. The tree had been smaller, but so had she.

The world outside, out from under the tree, away from the mansion, was becoming an uglier place by the day. She wanted ... comfort. 

She wasn’t used to being comforted. That was something she did for other people. She was a teacher, a hero, a bit of a bitch sometimes, but usually in defense of other people. She wasn’t sure how to ask for hugs, only give them. She was afraid, right now, for the people she loved, and even for herself, and she wanted someone to tell her it was all going to be okay. But that was a child’s wish. Adults didn’t really get that. 

Pulling herself out from under the tree, she brushed pine needles out of her wet hair and off her pajamas. It was early, she didn’t think anyone was up yet. She was wrong. Looking over, she saw a face and jumped up. “When did you get here?”

[kitkatpryde]

All Dressed Up (Charity Gala) II OPEN

This...was entirely out of her league. In fact Kitty wasn't sure she was playing the same sport. Giant galas, fancy food, and really famous people. Nope. Definitely not the same sport. Kitty ran her hands over her dress and smoothed out the imaginary wrinkles. Of course anything Ginny made would never have wrinkles or stains but she was nervous. Better safe than sorry. Kitty was in the classic little black dress with a nice cutout in the....chest area. Kitty had very stupidly blurted out "holy crap I've got boobs!" When Ginny had done the final fitting. Plus she had found black shoes with gold sparkles on them, on sale, and she had let a little more of the curl in her hair, that she had left down. In other words it was the most grown up she had been in ever. Kitty was more of the jeans/leggings and sweatshirt type. But this was the kind of place you wore a little black dress and made polite chit chat and didn't trip in your heels. Grabbing some champagne from a passing waiter Kitty tried not to be too obvious in gaping at the room. It was so huge and fancy, marble and gold and all the other fancy people. Taking a small sip of her drink she walked over to take a closer look at a hanging picture.

[angie-jones-firestar-blog]

Pardon me while I burn | Charity gala (open)

Angie looked good, she had to acknowledge that. Ginny had done a pretty spectacular job of dressing her, despite her friend’s pouting about Angie’s refusal to wear a gown. Dresses, she could do. Not gowns. Fuck gowns. Fuck stupid heels that you couldn’t run in too. If anything went wrong, she’d literally have to fly to deal with it. At least the champagne was good. And the music wasn’t bad, though no one was listening to it. New Yorkers were kind of awful. Angie still hadn’t adjusted, and she’d been here over a decade. 

She glanced up and noticed someone about to ask her to dance some horrible waltz or something. Probably the Latverian national dance, who knew? Whirling around, she blindly launched herself into a conversation with the first person she saw, not even taking time to notice who it was. “Say something really interesting, quick, before I have to make a break for it.”

[kitkatpryde]

See The Math of It II OPEN

“Okay lets go over this again.” Kitty picked up her pencil and flipped the student’s notebook to a clean page. “Basic properties and formulas. If f (x) and g (x) are differentiable functions, which means the derivative exists, then c and n are any real numbers.” Quickly she wrote out the functions ( f g ) = f (x) +/- g (x)  “Which then brings us to the product rule....and then the power rule and the chain rule.” Again she matched formula to words. “This...is pretty easy, come on explain it back to me.”

At the blank stare Kitty sighed and resisted the urge to rest her forehead on the textbook. “Okay ten minute break. Go get a snack or something.” Once the kid did run off she did rest her head on the table. Why did the whole world not see how damn easy this stuff was? She gave her head a few thumps just for good measure. 

Probably not the kid’s fault her head just wasn’t in it. Plus the curriculum made them teach this stuff. Personally Kitty did not ever see her use of applied calculus helping her in the real world. Except for computer hacking, but she wasn’t supposed to encourage that. Politics were everywhere in this school. Made her antsy. Like people were coming out of the woodwork to take them away. Absently she fingered her Star of David. 

A shadow fell over the table, but she didn’t bother to sit up. “That was a fast ten minutes.”

[lucillebrass]

Sneezed On The Beat (And I Got Sicker) || Lucille & Open

Lucille was a wreck. She was sick, and she didn’t know with what.

It had come on unexpectedly. There hadn’t been anyone sick in her office, as far as she knew, and even if there were, she’d implemented a policy of a week of paid sick leave each calendar year -- which was separate and different from family leave, which was another week, and vacation time, which was two weeks for a full year of working.

So she was sick and she didn’t know what caused it. 

She’d had a nasty cough for a few weeks now -- one that wasn’t going away with over the counter medication -- and she’d been coughing long enough and hard enough that it was now messing with her chest -- which had a constant ache -- and her throat, which she’d been tearing up with her coughing, to the point that there was a light pink spray on her tissues today. 

So she figured she’d picked up bronchitis somewhere, and she really needed to get it checked out.

Normally, this was the sort of thing that she had a personal physician for, but her regular doctor was out of the country -- on a goddamned sabbatical, of all things -- and she didn’t trust his business partners well enough to let them come to her house to treat her.

And getting the car to come around would take much more time than just taking herself there.

Lucille bundled herself up, making sure that she slipped a surgeon’s mask over her face -- a holdover from when she was scared of getting ‘mutant’ flu -- and slipped out the door.

By the time she was at the bottom of the elevator, she felt infinitely worse. The pressure differential had fucked with her head, making her both queasy AND lightheaded, and when her hand had brushed against her head, she felt feverish to her own touch.

Goddamnit, what was wrong with her?

[sullenandsnarky-blog]

Mall Hell II OPEN

Stupid fucking powers, stupid fucking clothes, stupid fucking people. If Ellie had to pick a power she would've chosen something like telepathy or healing, or something that didn't destroy nearly everything she owned! And now she was supposed to go on this stupid group shopping trip, and she couldn't even look to Colossus to get her out of it because the girl he kept insisting he wasn't in love with but TOTALLY was, was running it! Even if Pryde had promised her a soft pretzel. She didn't want to be at the mall. All the pastels made her feel itchy and all the other girls were loud and annoying. She could just order clothes online. It had always worked before. But nooo it always had to be about socializing. So Ellie sat slouched in one of the chairs near the fitting room, munching on her soft pretzel and glaring at any of the salespeople who gave her a look at having food near the precious clothes. Music blared in her ears from her headphones and she sighed. They had been here for two hours and her battery only had another hour and a half left. A shadow fell over her and she took her time to flick her eyes up to look at it. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."