a . t h o u s a n d . w o r d s

A Thousand Words
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG-13

Summary: "She knows she will never be drawn like this, stretched out naked and unprotected, all her secrets exposed."

Notes: This is an "outtake" from jenn's fabulous series On Love and Lust at Mutant High- it takes place in that universe, around the time of "Improper Thoughts" [either just before or just after]

Thanks so much to jenn, for letting me play with her toys. If you haven't read "On Love and Lust at Mutant High" go now and read it! Or I'll hunt you down and make you! And you know I could. *g*

Thanks to Terri, who turned me onto Akhmatova's poetry by using it in the Eighteens.

And thanks, as always, to my brave betas, who rush in where angels fear to tread: Jen, Pete, Dot, and Meg.

Go ahead, do a word count. <G>

Date: August 21, 2001

She's sitting in the dark. She feels likes she's always in the dark lately.

Things are happening -- her friends are fighting, her friends are fucking, her friends are fighting over who is fucking whom. She's never quite sure on any given day what new tumult she'll be sucked into.

And she's sitting in the dark, staring at a sketch. The dim afternoon light filters in through the blinds, dappling shadows over the paper in her hands.

She loves Rogue. She really does. But she's tired, so tired of all the drama surrounding her. She knows she will never be drawn like this, stretched out naked and unprotected, all her secrets exposed.

She hears someone enter the library and scrambles to hide the drawing, praying that the intruder is neither the subject nor the artist, both of whom would be pretty damn angry to find out that she's invaded their privacy.

"Katya, why do you sit alone in the dark?"

She blushes. Piotr. She wishes fleetingly that he'd look at her the way Johnny looks at Bobby, or Rogue at Logan. She wishes something in her life had that urgency, that heat, that solidity.

Piotr is, if nothing else, solid, and a girl who can phase through matter appreciates that more than most people think.

"Katya?" he asks again, and she realizes she hasn't answered him. Her crush on him, long-forgotten in the drama of the past few months, floods back, making her more nervous than she ought to be.

"Just feeling sorry for myself," she says, embarrassed at the husky whisper her voice has become.

"Why?"

She shrugs and tries to think of a way to explain. He's older than she is by about two years, already on the main team and commuting to college in the city. He studies art, she remembers suddenly, and a plan coalesces. Before she has time to second-guess herself, she blurts, "This," and waves the sketch under his nose.

He takes it and examines it dispassionately.

She knows that, regardless of whatever feelings he may have for Rogue (and if he's like the other males in the mansion, he no doubt has them), he is looking at the portrait as an artist, not a drooling, lust-crazed adolescent.

"It is very good," he comments after the silence stretches long enough to make her antsy. "The artist cares a great deal about his subject. You can see it in the line here," he indicates the curve of Rogue's cheek, "and here," the sweep of her hip. Another few moments of silence, then, "I did not know Logan had such a talent."

"How --"

He smiles. "Where there is Rogue, there is Logan, as night follows day. There is a poet from my country who speaks of love such as this. 'One goes in straightforward ways, / One in a circle roams: / Waits for a girl of his gone days, Or for returning home.'"

She nods. It is fitting. Before she has time to process it, or respond, he puts the picture down and reaches out, stroking her cheek with long, strong fingers.

"I would paint you, Katya of the shadows, if you'd allow it."

She blushes again. How does he know? Is she that transparent? She nods, too overwhelmed to speak. He tilts forward, his whole body this time, and his lips follow the path his fingers have traced. For such a large man, he's very gentle.

"Piotr." A sigh, a breath, nothing more escapes her. Part of her will wonder, later, if he is pitying her, but now, she simply leans into him, dropping her head back to allow him access to her throat.

"Come," he says, and she feels it more than hears it, his mouth still pressed lightly to her flesh. He takes her hand and leads her to his makeshift studio, a small room in the attic with a northern exposure and not much else -- some canvases, an ugly purple chair that resembles a throne, and some wooden crates.

He hands her a shirt and nods toward the chinoiserie screen set up in the corner. She inhales the scents of paint and turpentine as she slips out of her clothes before the rational part of her mind can kick in and stop her.

She peeks out from behind the screen to see him setting up a canvas he's had prepared, waiting for its subject to make itself known.

He smiles and she walks out, clutching the soft white cotton shirt around herself, self-conscious.

She knows she has nothing to be ashamed of. Class with Logan has shaped her body into taut muscle under sleek, peaches-and-cream skin. She sits gingerly on the edge of a crate, waiting for instructions.

"The chair," he says mildly, and she moves into the overstuffed purple velvet armchair, wondering how such a monstrosity made its way into Xavier's always tastefully appointed manse. "Be comfortable."

A hysterical giggle burbles up in her at that, but she suppresses it and does what he commands. She sprawls gracefully in the chair, shrugging the shirt off her shoulders as she leans back, her hands automatically moving to cover the dark curls of her sex. The movement pushes her breasts out, nipples jutting proudly from her excitement and the cool air of the room.

A thousand random thoughts flit through her mind. She worries about the mole above her heart, the scars on her knees from a clumsy childhood, spent falling and scraping, before her mutation manifested and she gained freedom from mere matter. She exhales loudly, thankful that she's shaved her legs. She wishes she'd let her hair grow long -- it would provide the coverage she finds herself longing for, even as she repudiates it.

His hands, large and yet so graceful, dance over the canvas. Suddenly, she sees herself in the charcoal lines as he sees her -- curves and angles, planes and hollows, shadow and light.

She is beautiful.

For the moment, she believes it.

Fin

~*~

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Disclaimer: All X-Men characters belong to Marvel and Fox; this piece of fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights "One Goes in Straightforward Ways" belongs to Anna Akhmatova, trans. Yevgeny Bonver, August 2000.