A Brotherhood Christmas

By Michiru

Lance --> Pietro

Lance's whole world was shaking. He was tossed to and fro with an evil rudeness.

The worst part of it all was that HE wasn't the one shaking stuff up.

He cracked an eye open at the movement, and looking over the mound of patched and hole-ridden,

threadbare blankets. Just in time to see Todd bouncing back down.

"Todd, what're ya doin? There's no school today, right?"

"Nope!" Todd laughs. "It's Christmas eve, yo?"

"So what?" Lance snuggled back under the blankets. It was damned cold. The electricity had

been turned off the day before.

"It's snowing!"

"Oh, great," Lance snapped irritably. We have no electricity, and it's just gotten cold. Great.

Some damned Christmas.

"Don't be so crabby, Lance," Todd hopped off the bed. You're as bad as Pietro this morning."

"Yeah, well maybe he has a few more brains than I gave him credit for," Lance said, pushing the

blankets onto the floor.

The cold hit him hard. "Damn, I can see my breath," he snarled, pulling on his robe.

"Don't bother goin to the bathroom, yo. The toilet's frozen up. Fred did it out the window!"

Todd laughed.

"Kill me," Lance sighed. He proceeded to put on several layers of clothing before heading down

the stairs.

"Good morning, Lance," Tabitha called from the kitchen.

"What do we have left, Tabs?" he called out to her from the entrance.

"You mean in general, or in food?" She called back, not quite as cheerful.

"How about just in general."

"We have nothing," Pietro appeared beside him. "We have two bottles of water left. You know,

the stuff we steal from people's garden hoses? Can't get more now that we can't boil it. Not that it matters. People've turned the water off cause of winter," Pietro said in his normal rapid speech.

"We don't have much food either, Sir Lance-a-lot," Tabitha teased. "Basically a box of Saltine's

and a loaf of rock hard break. We can feed that to Fred, but the rest of us are going to get mighty tired of crackers."

"Hell," Lance sighed, pushing his fingers through his hair. "No water, no food, no freakin'

HEAT."

"No money, either," Tabitha sighed. "Guess it's time to pop some pay phones and parking

meters."

"I'll go to the grocery store," Pietro offered. "I'll get the biggest turkey... well, I can dream. No

electricity, no turkey. I hate Christmas," Pietro's grey-blue eyes looked dark and stormy.

"Those X-geeks are probably putting up a huge tree and sitting by a nice fire with their roasted

chestnuts and holly decorating everything," Tabitha sighed. "I was there once."

"Kitty's gone home for Hanukkah," Lance pulled on his sneakers. "The only ones there would be

Scott and Rogue, I guess."

"Bully for them," Pietro snapped. "We're here freezing and starving. They're snuggled like bugs

in rugs. Big whoop."

"Hey, relax, Pietro," Lance smiled. "We'll get a Christmas. We'll put up a tree, and make a fire.

Which is a good idea. We'll start living downstairs where we can use the fireplace."

"Where will we get the WOOD?" Pietro frowned.

"We'll have Fred break logs apart. We'll get some food from the store and have a Christmas feast.

We'll get some presents, too. Like everyone will buy something for someone else. Buy being a general term," Lance grinned.

"Sounds cool!" Tabitha grinned. "Should we draw names?"

"Why bother," Pietro sniffed.

He looks like a funny sausage, Lance thought with amusement. All bundled up in sweaters and a coat, with a hat on his head, a scarf wrapped around his neck...

"Because it's Christmas, and families do stuff like this on Christmas."

"My father never bothered to do dick all on Christmas," Pietro pouted.

"Never heard you talk about your family before," Tabitha looked like a vulture, about to pounce

on a juicy tidbit of gossip.

"That's because I haven't and I never will again, either. If we're going to do this, we'd better go

now," Pietro zipped upstairs.

Walking down the snow lined sidewalks, Pietro held onto the slip of paper that held Lance's

name. None of them were to tell what name they had chosen -- Tabitha's rules -- and had all gone in separate directions to do present hunting.

Also, they had jobs to do. Pietro's job was simple. Go into the grocery store, load a cart up, and

run out the door.

Getting a gift would be harder. He just didn't know what to get. Anything he thought about

seemed too.. well, extravagant. He couldn't get something that ran on electricity. And some things were just too crappy. A Discman, maybe. With lots of batteries, and a couple CDs...

Nothing seemed good enough, though. Not for Lance, at least.

He knew he had it bad. He was known as a "Ladies' Man". And that was fine. But the real truth

was a little harder to for himself to swallow. He was never good at lying to himself, no matter how excellent he was at keeping anything he didn't want his teammates to know secret.

For instance, his father. They didn't even know that Magneto was his father. Yet he couldn't lie

to himself; his father didn't love him, had no care in the world for him at all.

He hated Christmas. It reminded him how little he had. And how much he wanted.

Lance was really gone on Kitty. HE was really gone on Lance. Merry damned Christmas.

"Maybe I'll get him a lump of coal," Pietro muttered, going into Bayville Mall.

I must be insane, he thought, meandering through the throngs of last-minute Christmas shoppers.

"Pietro?" a familiar southern voice interrupted his musings.

Looking over, he saw the pretty ex-Brotherhood member. "Hey Rogue. What ya up to?" Pietro

gave his customary smirk.

"Ah'm just shoppin," she smiled. "How bout you?"

"Lookin around, basically," he shrugged.

"Hey, how about a Christmas truce, huh? Treat ya ta coffee," Rogue gave him a cajoling smile.

"Hey, I'll never say no to a free anything," Pietro gave her a grin, and followed her into a coffee

shop.

"Where's the rest of ya?" Rogue asked as they moved into line.

"Oh, here and about," Pietro shrugged. "We're basically looking for presents for each other. We

did the name draw thing," he shrugged.

"Hey, that's a cool idea. We basically bought who we wanted to buy for whatever we wanted ta

get em. Kurt got me a really cool green skirt with some kinda black thing over it that looked like spider webs. Who'd ya pick?"

"Lance," Pietro said as blandly as possible.

"Oh?" Rogue arched an eyebrow.

Pietro was saved by them reaching the counter in record time.

They finally sat down, steaming coffee and warm buns in hand.

He sipped on his caramel cappuccino and sighed blissfully. "Mmmmm. Coffee. I love coffee. I

remember coffee. I miss coffee."

"Not that ya need it," Rogue snickered. "Pietro on a caffeine rush. You don't get coffee at your place?"

"We have nothing. No water, no heat, no food, nada, zip, zilch," Pietro said bitterly.

"Oh, my gawd!" she exclaimed, green eyes huge. "That's horrible!"

"Yeah, I guess," he shrugged and bit into the cinnamon roll. Her watched as parents walked by,

looking harried, while lovers strolled arm and arm, looking content, and starry eyes at the lights and decorations. He marveled at how slowly the world moved.

"Ah'm sorry," Rogue said seriously.

"It's ok. I'm actually a horrible person to be around at this time of year, Rogue," he smiled wanly.

"I hate Christmas."

"Because of your dad?"

He wasn't too surprised by Rogue knowing. She had absorbed him once, and had had his thought

and memories in her head. Who knew what she kept? He briefly wondered if she really DID have an idea how much he wanted Lance...

"My father was never much into Christmas. Hanukkah, actually," he sighed.

"He had a lot more on his mind," Rogue agreed, sipping her coffee. "Sorry."

"I guess I kinda wish I knew how he really felt about me, you know?" Pietro grinned. "Problem

with Christmas is that it's for families."

"Ah know. Ah'm glad Ah finally have one," Rogue nods. "But you have a family, too," she

added softly.

"Right," Pietro sneered. "A sister that I haven't seen in so long I don't remember what she looks

like, and a father who doesn't give a rat's ass about me."

"Ah don't know about Wanda," Rogue said, confirming Pietro's thought that Rogue DID

remember a few things, "but yer father Ah do know cares more about ya than ya think."

Pietro looked startled. "How-"

"Ah absorbed him last night," she said nonchalantly.

Pietro was floored. Rogue had seen Magneto- had ABSORBED Magneto only yesterday! "You did?"

"Uh huh. Right before he tried ta kill me. Yer Daddy's got a bit of an obsession, Pietro. And

unfortunately, obsessions sometimes come before all else. So while he knows he cared about ya, this obsession comes first."

"And I'm out of the picture."

"Sorry," Rogue apologized. "But when Ah said family, Ah meant yer new one. Lance, Todd,

Fred an Tabby."

"I never thought of that," Pietro murmured thoughtfully. He thought long and hard. What made a

family? People who cared about each other? Did a blood relationship matter? Not necessarily. After a second, he came to the conclusion that the Brotherhood were in actuality what the name implied. "You're right!" his face lit up in a smile. "We might fight and not always get along, but in what matters, we are a family!"

"That's the spirit," Rogue grinned at him.

"You give good advise," Pietro laughed. "Ever thought of going into the fortune cookie business?

You could make a fortune!" he laughed.

Rogue snickered. "Cute, Maximoff," she crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him. He

resisted the urge to grab at it.

"Thanks for the coffee, Rogue," Pietro said seriously, getting up. "I have to shop now."

"Yer welcome. Ah haveta go find Scott, anyhoo. He's lost and alone out in the mall. Good

luck," she smiled.

"Thanks," Pietro waved, and headed off at a sedate speed, moving around the slow people with

more Christmas cheer. He'd get Lance something great!

**Disclaimer**
I do not own any of the characters within this fic. This is just a fic, not gospel, and situations that may be within the show don't necessarily make their way here. And vice versa.