The new kid was beginning to get on Lance Alvers’ nerves. Always zipping around, speaking at annoying speeds, following him around when he wanted to be alone. His intense desire to hit the other boy was subdued only by Mystique’s orders.

“Take special care of him.”

Special care. Lance scoffed. What he wanted to do was catch the little speed demon, smack him silly, ravage his tender lips, tear his clothes off and--

No! he reminded himself as a frustrated groan escaped his mouth. You do not find him attractive. He is not attractive. He’s an obnoxious little pest with a nice ass-- ARGH!

*thud* Ow. *thud*

“Lance?”

“What?” he mumbled irritably.

“Why are you hitting your head against the table?”

Shrug.

“Something botherin’ you?”

“We’re out of cereal.”

“So you’re bangin’ your head?”

“Yes. Anything else you wanted to ask, Todd?”

The other mutant blinked. “Well, I just came in to make some breakfast. Um... wanna help?”

“Sure.” That oughtta take my mind off of Pietro and his stupid cute ass.

Silence.

“Umm,” Toad started nervously. “So you gonna get up?”

“Huh? Oh. Okay.” Lance got up from his seat and walked over to the fridge. “So, what’re we having today?”

“I dunno.”

Lance groaned. It was going to be a long day. He could already feel a headache forming, and mentally reminded himself that banging his head against a table was not a good way to deal with his bothersome feelings.

“These eggs suck,” Rogue mumbled as she poked at her breakfast.

Lance frowned. “Well then, you make breakfast next time.”

“Ah will then!” she snapped back defensively.

Girls. PMS. Wonderful. Muttering obscenities under his breath, he sipped his coffee and waited for complaints yet to come. At least Freddy appreciates our cooking, he noted as he watched the massive teen help himself to another serving of fresh-out-of-the-toaster waffles. Todd munched happily on his food, as well. And Pietro...

“Where’s Pietro?”

The others shrugged.

“He never showed up for breakfast,” Toad said helpfully.

“Argh!” Lance growled. Lance growling became a very characteristic occurrence ever since Pietro showed up.

“What’s your problem?”

“Him!”

“Well, calm down before you get a hernia,” Rogue muttered, scowling ever so pleasantly.

Damn him! Damn him for being so damn cute! And... and.... cute! And argh!

“Lance, you’re... um, making the house shake,” Toad reluctantly pointed out.

“Huh?” Abruptly, the house’s convulsions ceased as Lance realized what he was doing.

“Hey, I’m trying to sleep!” came a quick voice from upstairs.

It’s him! Grr!

“Sorry, Pietro,” Lance called in a strained voice, trying to sound as nice as possible. For a little adrenaline nut, the slender boy was remarkably sluggish in the morning. In fact... “I’m gonna wake him up,” Lance announced to the other three mutants, a sly grin pulling at his lips.

“Whatever, man,” Freddy said carelessly, silently hoping that Lance would take just enough time for him to grab another helping. The puny waffles weren’t enough to keep him satiated for long, so the more he had-- the less he had to share with Pietro and the others--, the better.

“Take yer time,” from Rogue.

“Have fun,” from Todd.

And thus, Lance departed, intent on snatching the newest addition to the Brotherhood and give him a wake-up call.

Wait a minute! What exactly was I planning on doing? Lance thought as he entered Pietro’s room. He saw the slim figure wrapped in blankets and his mind went blank. Well, not totally blank, it was more like this: Cute. Yummy little body. No! Bad Lance!

Yes, he was reduced to a zombie-like state and began thinking about Pietro’s body, even though he couldn’t really see the other boy’s form very well.

Now I remember.

He shook his head to clear his mind and set his goal in sight. He was going to kiss Pietro Maximoff. He was going to prove how much he didn’t lust after the speedy little punk by kissing him. How would this work? Well, first, when Lance kissed Pietro and felt absolutely nothing, he would be certain that there were no feelings that he carried for the white-haired sophomore. Also, he would scare Pietro in the process, and that would be a plus. It’d be like saying, “Not only do I not like you, but I’m gonna scare the hell out of you by making you think that I do like you!”

Sometimes, Lance amazed even himself with his logic.

So, he gathered up his courage (it didn’t take very long to do) and walked towards the bed. He stopped and stared at Pietro’s peacefully sleeping face.

I’ll fix that, he thought, smirking. Time to wake Sleeping Beauty up. No, wait! Not beauty! Whatever! He was tempted to run a hand through the sleep tousled hair, noting how (No! Not!) attractive it looked. Not attractive not attractive-- Ah, to hell with it.

And so, Lance Alvers leaned in to snatch the youth’s unsuspecting lips in an awkward kiss. The fifteen-year-old stirred almost immediately, and Lance awaited his moment of victory; the moment that he would finally prove to himself that he, indeed, had no feelings for Pietro Maximoff. So, he waited for Pietro to push him away and get pissed off.

And he waited.

Even as the lanky arms wrapped themselves around him and the other boy kissed back, he waited.

Wait a minute... Where’s the repulsion?! Where’s the “Dude, get the hell off of me!”?! And why won’t this fluffy feeling in my stomach go away-- oh no.

Lance then came to a few horrific conclusions. He liked being kissed by Pietro. He liked kissing Pietro. Kissing Pietro made him and his groin very happy. Sticking his tongue down Pietro’s throat was a very pleasant experience...

And then Lance fully realized that he was kissing Pietro, and abruptly shoved the sleepy mutant away. He eyed the flushed cheeks, the widened blue eyes, the parted lips, and held back the urge to tackle his teammate.

“What was...?” Pietro gasped, sounding shocked and breathless.

“That was... uh....” Crap. He could feel his face redden. “I just wanted to test your reflexes! No, wait, that’s not it. I heard from... uh, Blob that you could only be awakened by a--”

“GetOutGetOutGetOut!”

It took Lance a few seconds to register that command, considering the speed at which it was spoken. Not that it mattered, since he was very quickly shoved out of the room by Pietro, and in a flash, the door was closed and locked.

Oh yeah. Lance had forgotten what Pietro’s powers were. They didn’t call him Quicksilver for nothing.

It was a few minutes before Pietro decided to grace the kitchen with his presence. His presence only lasted for a few seconds as he zipped down, grabbed some breakfast, and ran back upstairs.

Lance had the insane feeling that he was going to be avoided for a while.

“Man, what’s his problem?” Toad asked as he cleaned his own plate in the sink.

“Somebody needs to get that boy some sedatives,” Rogue noted, scraping the remainder of the “sucky” eggs into the trash-can and then handing the plate to Todd.

“Yeah, seriously!” Lance agreed, adding a very forced laugh.

The other three members of the Brotherhood stared at him.

“Uh... so what did you do to him?”

“Nothing!” Lance snapped. “Nothing at all! I just woke him up and he got pissy!”

He was still being stared at and he didn’t like it.

“Argh!” he snarled, kicking a chair for good measure. “You guys are acting weird! I’m going out for a walk!”

And with that, he stormed out of the house, making sure to slam the door just so that they had an idea of how angry he was.

“We’re acting weird?” Freddy asked, quite confused.

“Nevermind him,” Rogue grumbled.

“What a spaz,” Todd added, shaking his head sadly.

“IsHeGone?” Pietro called from his room.

“Huh?” replied the others. They were tired, and it was too early in the morning (for them, anyway) for them to translate “Pietro Speak” to “Normal Speak”. “Speak slowly.”

“Is. He. Gone?”

“Yes.”

Whoosh!

“So... what’s the deal with you and Lance?” inquired Todd. He was determined to get some answers, and it was rather obvious that Lance would never cooperate.

“I-- uh, he...” Stormy blue eyes darted around nervously. “He woke me up from this really awesome dream, so I’m kinda mad at him.”

“Was it about a chick?” Freddy asked, chuckling and nudging Pietro in the ribs the way that guys do.

“Uh... Yeah! ItWasAboutRogueAndSheWas-”

“Ah don’t want to hear about that! It’s sick!” She pointed a very threatening finger at Pietro and adopted her trademark scowl. “Don’t ever dream about me again, ya little freak!”

“Aww, come on, Rogue, baby! I can’t help my manly urges!” Pietro cheered inwardly. Thank God they believed his little alibi.

“Uh huh.”

Not convinced. Damn it all. He shot a glare at Todd. How could that little toad be so... so... Well, Pietro couldn’t think of a word for it, but when he did, that word would be what Todd was. (A/N: Did that make any sense at all?)

“What?!” Pietro snapped in his own defense.

“You wouldn’t be that mad if it was just about a dream. And Lance wouldn’t be acting so freaky,” Todd pointed out.

“You’d be mad, too, if your dream was as hot as mine,” Pietro retorted, crossing his arms over his chest to indicate that he would stay firmly with his current argument.

“Shut up, ya pervert!”

“Sorry, Rogue.”

“Whatever,” Todd said with a knowing smirk.

The fact that he was giving up so easily unnerved Pietro, who could think of no response other than: “Yeah!” And then: “You guys are lame! I’m outta here!”

Whoosh! and he was gone.

“Wow, those two are nuts,” the still confused Fred marveled.

Lance wanted to level the place. It was such a bright Sunday afternoon, and so a few happy couples were all flocking to the park like flies on rotting meat. They made him mad. He was miffed, to say the least. Didn’t they have better things to do than mock Mr. I-Just-Kissed-A-Stupid-Little-Sophomore-Boy-And-Liked-It with their happiness and their groping and their--

No, he would not bring himself to say “Argh!” this time. Instead, he was going to bring himself to say some punny sentence involving the word “rock” and wreak some major havoc. Yeah, that sounded nice...

In fact, he was going to do it, too, had he not noticed a certain hyperactive basketball player dashing across the court, playing what looked like a one-on-three game.

Oh, goody. Why must his luck always be like this? He leaves the house to escape Pietro and clear his thoughts, only to find the object of his hypothetical desire in the same place. In the same place, and playing basketball with them, no less. Summers, Daniels, and Wagner. Damn it all.

Why me?

It was a good question, but Lance could think of no logical answer. So, instead, he put on his usual crude demeanor and stalked over to the court.

“Pietro!” he called. “What the hell are you doing with them?!”

“Crap.” Movement ceased and the basketball was promptly stolen from his hands by the newest X-Geek. “Hey!”

“I took it fair and square, man, you just stopped in your tracks!”

“Yeah, well, it was his fault. He distracted me!” Pietro argued, pointing an accusatory finger at Lance. This only seemed to displease Lance more.

He didn’t like having his question ignored, so he said firmly, “Pietro, you didn’t answer me.”

“Oh, well, I just saw Daniels here and told him and his buddies that I could beat all of them at basketball. So, here we are. And I was kickin’ ass until you showed up.”

“You were not!” the German kid retorted.

“No? Well, what do you call all of those baskets I made?”

“You were cheating!” Evan insisted.

“Oh yeah?! You’re just saying that because you can’t handle losing to me!”

It was then that a spat broke out. Pietro and Evan yelled hotly at each other, and soon enough Kurt joined in. Summers simply stared at Lance, probably glaring heroically at him from behind those stupid sunglasses. Lance could feel the muscles in his face twitch. Great. He just got himself a tick.

“What are you doing here, Alvers?”

Ah, yes. Lance had forgotten that Summers was the self imposed dictator of the world. “I was... looking for Pietro!” Lance said quickly. “What are you doing here?”

“I was trying to enjoy my leisure time until your little friend showed up.”

Oh, how Lance wanted to punch the overconfident goody-goody. He could feel a blush creeping to his face in response to Scott’s words. “He’s not my little friend. Pietro! What are you doing, anyway, playing a friendly game with the enemy?!”

The heated debate halted. “Friendly? Whoever said this was friendly? I was just showing these X-Geeks how to play real basketball. There was no friendliness involved,” Pietro explained, and then shoved Evan to prove his point.

“Hey!”

Fighting would have ensued, had Lance and Scott not taken certain preventive measures. That is, they grabbed their respective teammates and held them back. Pietro’s pale face immediately turned a lovely shade of red and he pried himself from Lance’s grip.

“I can-- by myself-- yargh!” And he was gone.

Lance’s feelings that he was going to be avoided were confirmed. And wasn’t “yargh!” his thing? No, wait... “argh!” was his thing.

“What’s his problem?” asked Kurt.

Lance shot him one of his deadly glares and shook his head. “Well, it’s not me, if that’s what you’re thinking!”

He was met with blank stares. Lance really didn’t like being gawked at, and unfortunately it was happening more and more lately.

“It’s not!” he insisted. “Oh yeah! Well, I’m gonna rock-- no, boulder-- Oh, I can’t think of a pun outside of battle! Screw you!”

After the insane outburst from Lance, Scott was on the verge of losing his temper. Why? Because Avalanche, his nemesis, was annoying him and his friends. That, and Scott liked to find excuses to fight his Brotherhood counterpart.

However, Lance sensed this and as much as he wanted to pound Summers into the ground-- (I really hope that wasn’t an innuendo. I’m having a hard enough time dealing with Pietro thoughts, I do not need to add Summers to my list. Eww.)-- he decided it was best to sort things out with the adrenaline hyped Pietro. Yes, Lance was ready to prioritize!

Actually, what he really wanted at the moment was a slushie. He felt that he deserved a little treat before confronting Quicksilver. After the slushie, he would deal with his feelings and the object of them. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan. But first, he had to peacefully (Peacefully?! No!) resolve the situation with the X-Geeks/Freaks/Dorks/whatever other insult he could think of.

How do I avoid a fight that I obviously want to take part in? he wondered as his eyes locked on Scott threateningly. Well, I suppose I could do the unexpected...

Lance then broke into a big, stupid grin and waved at them. “Bye! Enjoy your day!” he cried cheerfully. He turned and walked away, wishing he could see the looks on the X-Men’s faces.

Oh well. After things were sorted out with Pietro, he would stew in the juices of creative revenge and come up with some awesome plots against the X-Men and think up more rock puns.

Wow, he was going to have a very busy day.

A/N: Chapter 1 is now over! Aren’t you happy? Blah. Okay, well this story turned out not the way I expected and... yeah.