Wanda and Jake and Tentacles

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

One of these days, Wanda will use Jake's front door. Today is not that day. She comes over with a present and finds Jake has one of his own.



It had been a rough night - not, perhaps, surprising considering her visit to the mansion. But Wanda decided it was in her best interest to get some comfort on some level. So it was still early when Wanda slipped into Jake's apartment, though not as god awful early as the last time. She had paused outside, though, to double check if he was actually alone this time. She doubted his new boyfriend would be enthused about her entering so early a second time.

She probably could have waited until a slightly better time but when she'd gotten back, Wanda had discovered that Jake had drawn amusing, if bawdy, messages on her bathroom mirror. This was simply revenge.

Which was why when he woke up, it was eyeball to tentacle as Wanda held his gift from Tokyo an inch away from his face.

"Wha--AUGH!" Jake's eyes widened nearly to saucer size as he scrambled away from the tentacle-thing and from Wanda, ending in an inglorious thump as he ran out of bed and fell to the floor. "Ow..." he whimpered after a moment, sitting up and blinking at Wanda. "I see you found it?"

Stretching out on the bed, Wanda's head popped over the side of the bed so she could smirk down at him. "Found it?" she responded. "I mean, I had hidden it in my purse of doom and almost forgot about it, if that is what you mean? I got this for you in Tokyo. All things considered, it seemed appropriate on a number of levels."

He tilted his head, confused. "Did I already give that to you? And you're giving it back?" At her uncomprehending look, he glanced over to his dresser--and saw a twin of the garishly-colored tentacle-thing toy Wanda held in her hand. "Oh. OH." He started to snicker, pulling himself up off of the floor, and crossed over to the dresser. He picked it up, then flopped on the bed next to her. "I got you a present," he said solemnly, holding it out to her before dissolving into giggles.

Wanda wasn't far behind him. She buried her head in her arms as she caught his case of the giggles. "We're quite the pair," came the muffled response to finding the exact same gift. She lifted her head and wiped at her eyes. "You know, at least I had reason. Tell me you didn't run you into anything that remind you of this."

She poked him in the chest. "Or did you simply think I'd enjoy the tentacles?" she laughed.

He quirked an eyebrow, still laughing. "I don't know--did you? Now I'm intrigued, as you seem to have a story." He stretched out next to her on his side, propping his head up on an elbow and putting on his most over-the-top Attentive Listening face.

"Oh, the stories I could tell you." All inappropriate and half of them he'd heard while they'd both been pissed to the winds. "And I thought only good little boys got to hear stories? Well, suppose you did bring me a gift." Amused, Wanda rolled onto her side as well but pillowed her head instead of propping it up. And she filled him in on the Hand and attacking ninja; how Amanda's powers had gone a little bit odd, again, and they'd ended up being flung around by building made tentacles.

"And that, children, is why Japan is very, very odd."

He shook his head, greatly amused. "And here we only got shot at and chased. I'm jealous--no one ever flings me around with construction-tentacles these days." He lifted his head from his hand so that it would be free to make one of the little tentacle-things dance on the bed between them. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you." He walked the tentacle-thing up Wanda's arm until it perched on her shoulder.

She eyed it as it remained perched there. "I think I would have gladly traded being shot at for ninja's with magic on top of a falling building," Wanda remarked. "Do you think we should name them? It is going to be hard telling these two apart. I still cannot believe we got the same thing for each other..."

"We are not putting little sweaters on them," Jake declared firmly, dancing the second one up to perch next to the first. "Too...domestic and weird." He pondered, looking at the pair where they rested. "Not Heckle and Jeckle," he decided, George Tarleton's words still fresh in his mind. "And we definitely can't name either of them Shiro--they're far too happy and not nearly suspicious enough for that." He stopped talking, aware that the last had come out more bitter--and more revealing--than he'd intended.

"Have I somehow missed something?" Wanda drawled slowly, wondering if this had anything to do with Shiro's slightly odd behavior in Japan.

Jake squirm-shrugged. "We...ran into each other before he left for Japan. He seemed to take offense at me being in Jean-Paul's room and wearing his pajamas." He rolled onto his back, the better to have his arm free for waving the subject away, with the added benefit of making it easier to not look Wanda in the eye. "I don't think he likes me very much, or likes me hanging out with Jean-Paul at all."

The creatures were plopped down onto his chest as Wanda rolled back over onto her stomach to give her arm a bit of a break. "Mm, sounds like you disrupted someone's crush," she said, not unkindly. "It'll either pass or you'll end up with your picture on his dart board." That, actually, didn't much explain Shiro's erratic behavior and she filed it away for later.

He snorted at that. "If he's so interested, why doesn't he do something about it? It's not like Jean-Paul and I are serious or anything." Just making vacation plans together. It didn't even sound all that convincing to Jake. He draped his arm over his eyes, upsetting the tentacle-things enough that one slid off of his chest and onto Wanda's shoulder.

"Mmmhmm." She squirmed closer and lifted herself on her elbows so she could peer down at his face. Her hair fell around him as she tried not to fall over on him and thought that was all he needed - suffocation due to hair. "And does Jean-Paul feel the same way?" Wanda asked innocently. "You might not care if Shiro made a move but I doubt Shiro believes he can."

Jake sighed, lifting his arm from his eyes and promptly getting a faceful of hair. "Gack!" He tucked her hair behind her ears in a vain attempt to keep it from trying to kill him. "Despite what everyone seems to think, we've talked about it," he said finally. "We're not...I don't do relationships."

Wanda blew a strand that Jake had missed out of the way so it was no longer hanging down right between her eyes. "I knew there was a reason I liked you," she teased before sobering. "At least there was a talk - the last time I want to do is have to go speedster baiting because he was getting too clingy. I got rather proficient at it when my brother was hanging around."

"Ooh, speedster baiting," he replied with a smirk. "Sounds fun." He trailed his fingers down her back idly. "Enough about my love life--tell me you have some gossip?"

"Do I ever," Wanda replied, shoving the gifts further down so she could use his chest as a pillow, relaxing under the soothing touch. "It appears Mr. de la Rocha has become rather acquainted with your special friend. And I call Cammie special for many, many reasons - namely that she talks a great deal about various parts of your anatomy." The girl had her unique quirks, that was certain.

He groaned. "I made the mistake of telling her she couldn't kick me in the balls." He toyed with her hair. "And I have bad news for you--I not only already knew that, I almost walked in on them." He shuddered at the thought. "Managed to get an eyeful of Cammie, though."

The vibrations from Wanda's sudden laughter bled down into his chest. She was laughing hard enough to shake him with her movement. "Oh you poor thing," she choked, hiding her face in his chest. "I cannot even be mad that you knew the gossip before I because that is, just - ahahaha!" And she was gone again.

He grinned, waiting until she was mostly under control before speaking again. "At least I didn't see de la Rocha. Random and unexpected naked cleavage is one thing--random and unexpected naked Spaniards quite another." He walked his fingers up the ridges of her spine. "She's not bad, though--certainly not as bad as she wants you to think she is," he mused. "I took her out for donuts."

She lazily smacked his stomach in response to the first thing he had said. "He was still a student when I was there," Wanda groused, even as she felt her back start to unclench as he played with her back. The amount of stress in her life sometimes meant she had substituted muscles for steel cables. "But with Cammie, I figured. The number of people, especially the young, who start out with that kind of shield when they first get to Xavier's is astounding."

He'd reached the top of her spine, and he switched to rubbing her neck absently, working gently at the tension there. "Angelo said something like that," he remembered. "That she reminded him of what he was like when he'd first gotten here."

For a moment, her only reaction was a heartfelt groan as she reached up to move her hair out of the way. "They're wounded," Wanda said after a moment of pure bliss. "Some more than others. But the school takes them all in, no matter the spit and fury they put up."

He shook his head. "I have never understood that," he said honestly. He yawned then, not bothering to lift his hand from Wanda's neck to stifle it. "They could burn that mansion to the ground, and someone would hand them a hammer and tell them to get to work rebuilding it."

"Mm, I'd like to see them even try," she retorted, wondering what time it had gotten to. But then she decided she really didn't care all that much. "Who's in favor of going back to bed for a few hours?" Wanda asked as she stifled her own yawn into Jake's chest.

"God, I thought you'd never ask," he replied, stretching sleepily. He lifted his head to peer at the toys resting on his stomach. "They're not sleeping with us, are they?"

She chuckled as she climbed up to her knees. "No, I think they'll be sleeping on the nightstand," Wanda replied as she scooped them up in one hand. It took some effort to not get tangled up in the sheets as she shuffled to the front of the bed but she somehow managed it. As she dropped the two gifts down on the nightstand, she spotted something else and picked it up.

"Well, these look interesting," Wanda remarked dryly, shaking the bottle of pain pills as she leaned against the headboard.

Jake glanced at her, attempting to look nonplussed, as he climbed up the bed to settle next to her. "Crazy arm-stealing mad scientists don't stop being crazy arm-stealing mad scientists just because you interrupted their plans to kidnap you," he sighed. "It was okay for a while, but they've...started again."

Wanda frowned as Jake settled and she distractedly slipped under the covers next to him. "Jean prescribed these," she said, her voice warm in distracted approval. "Well, at least you went and saw someone about it." She put them back where she'd gotten them before snagging his hand in hers. "How often?"

He shrugged, his fingers tightening in hers briefly. "It was fine for a while, actually. I was surprised--I thought they would've done something in retaliation for us getting away, but it's only been the last week or so that it's started to be an issue again." He tucked his head under her chin. "Not that that's all that comforting."

"Maybe they were busy," she suggested as she sank into the pillows from a combination of his weight and gravity. "After all, George was fairly beaten up by Logan and I did something to those transporters." Wanda frowned. "Regrouping, though, you are right in that is not comforting in the least." Now it was her turn to brush her fingers up and down his spine in a comforting motion.

He snuggled against her, one arm draping itself across her stomach, fingers splayed across her hip. "Can we kill them?" he asked sleepily.

"Of course. Let's just call it an early Hanukkah present." Wanda glanced at the clock and decided that, no, she was not going anywhere for quite some time. Not with Jake offering cuddles and a comfortable bed . The rest of the world could go bugger itself for a while.