Cammie & Amara: Cupcakes and Poison

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

Cammie comes to retrieve the poisoned cupcakes from Amara and gets a bit more than she bargained for.

In the hours she'd been conscious since her return, Amara had spent a large part of it baking. And cooking. She was constantly hungry, and her time on Genosha had left her as skin and bones. She hadn't done anything to hide her bald head as yet, but she was hiding the skin and bones by wrapping herself in John's clothes. A business shirt that hung off her skinny frames, sweat pants that only barely hung on her hips.

She'd invited Cammie over, and she was now fidgeting in the kitchen, waiting. She hadn't wanted to start more cooking (though she was mentally calculating if she had the ingredients for muffins), but she was too restless to just sit. And then there was a knock on the door, and she froze. She was going to have to answer that, wasn't she? She was going to have to go near the door. Unlock it. She didn't want to do that. Her eyes darted towards the bedrooms, thinking that maybe she should get one of the guys to answer it.

The door didn't unlock right away and Cammie knocked again, "You know, if you want me to, I can unlock it myself," she called through the wood, "Though I don't think Angelo and your BF would be too happy with me. But you claim to have rat poison cupcakes."

There was a long pause, in which Amara started to move cautiously towards the door.

Standing arm's length for a couple of seconds, she hurried through the unlocking process, opening it a crack while she shielded herself behind it.

"Come in."

"Hey," Cammie said, pushing her way in, "Hanging in there?"

"I have cupcakes," Amara replied, closing the door behind Cammie quickly and locking it up again.

"And coffee. What would you like in your coffee? I think there's some bleach." Once the door was shot, Amara moved quickly towards the kitchen. Where once her movements had been efficient and a little graceful, she almost scurried now, her shoulders hunched.

"Yeah, bleach in coffee is okay," Cammie said, "But how're you doing? Because, that's kinda a bit more important and you don't look so... you."

"I look like shit," Amara supplied helpfully. "I lost about a million dress sizes and I have no hair." The answer was a deflection, because if she was talking about her appearance then she didn't have to talk about anything else. Like the flashbacks. Or the nightmares.

Or how she was having moments of not remembering who the fuck she was. She busied herself with pouring coffee, setting out a plate of cupcakes labelled "CAMMIE ONLY" and pulling out the bleach from under the sink.

"No, you don't look that bad considering," Cammie said, wishing they had chosen her instead of the normally very girly, peppy Amara, "Look, I brought some bandannas and stuff if you want to take a look at them. They're mine, so they might not be your thing but... yeah," she eyed the cupcakes. Those smelled good. Meant they were nice and deadly.

"Oh." Amara blinked a moment, and a ghost of a smile appeared on her face. "Thank you." That was the polite response, wasn't it? Yes. She had manners. Her mother had taught her manners. Which mother was it? She couldn't remember. She handed Cammie the mug she'd poured for her, before loading her own up with plenty of cream and sugar.

"We should... sit." Amara picked up the plate of Cammie-cupcakes, heading for the couch.

"Yeah, sure," Cammie said, following. Out of her bag she produced several bandannas, "I know this stuff isn't your usual style but what the fuck, right?" she said. The pieces of fabric varied. Some were black and plain. Some were brightly colored. A few were adorned with skulls. One still had an Invader Zim pin in it, "Here. Take 'em."

"Thank you." Amara put the cupcakes down on a coffee table, taking the bandannas as she settled on the couch. She pulled her feet in under her, glancing over them before placing them on the arm of the couch next to her.

"How have you been?" She asked, diverting the conversation. "Enjoying being back in potential weapon state?" Part of Amara missed being a mutate, missed the damage she'd been able to do. Missed being a weapon, because if you were a weapon then you could keep yourself safe. And everyone else.

"You know me, love being able to kill people with a tap on the shoulder," Cammie returned. Okay, this was kind of awkward, she rubbed the back of her head, trying to think of something to say, "You know, what happened to you was really fucking shitty. If you ever want to rant about it, I'm here to listen..."

"There is something I wanted to ask," Amara said directly, and a little ubruptly, ignoring the comments about what had happened to her. "I want to learn how to fight. Properly. Not the self-defense crap I learned at school or the shit I learned with the X-Men."

Cammie almost choked on the bit of cupcake she was eating, "You want to what now?"

"You heard me," Amara replied flatly, her expression or position not changing. She had her hands wrapped around her mug, not drinking the coffee, just looking at Cammie. She was oddly emotionless, and not in her usual zen, calm state.

"Yeah... I'm not really that great of a teacher," Cammie sat down her cupcake, "You want to know how I learned to fight? Less than a week after I ran away from home, outside Toronto, Canada, I got jumped by a bunch of guys. That's where I started to learn how to fight. Oh, this was also during the time I kept trying to find a way to kill myself. That was so much fun - but moving on - I'm really not a teacher. And I'm not even sure you want to learn for the right reasons, you know?"

"I was kidnapped and brainwashed. Again." Her face remained emotionless, though a fraction of her usual heat started creeping into her voice. "I thought quitting the X-Men would mean I could stay out of these kinds of situations. That I could be a mutant without having to use my powers to hurt people. Without being a weapon. But despite all of the power I have, despite following a path of non-violence, I still ended up at the mercy of a crazy sick fuck who decided they could mold me into something I wasn't, make me dance for their pleasure like a puppet. I refuse to be a victim again." So if Cammie wouldn't help, she'd find someone who could. She wasn't sure how, since that would involve leaving the apartment, but she'd work something out.

"Okay, I can get that, but seriously I don't know if I'm the best person to teach you to fight. I hit people. You lob fire," Cammie pointed out, picking up the cupcake again, "I go hang out with Kyle at mosh pits. You could take out the whole of it from a distance. The approach is kind of different. And fighting isn't all about hitting people first anyway. Logan taught me that. There's a way to do it. A way to think. A way to move. It's a fucking life style, you know that right?"

"That's what I want to learn," Amara replied stubbornly. "Burning people to a crisp is easy. I can do that. What happens if I'm depowered again? What happens if I'm fighting someone invulnerable?" Amara wasn't listening entirely to everything Cammie was saying, just what she did (or didn't) want to hear. Why was Cammie saying no to her? She didn't understand. She'd been trapped, locked up with Amara, furious and wanting to fight. How could she not understand?

Cammie sighed, if she wanted to do this she could maybe teach Amara a couple of the basic things but it felt wrong.

"Fine. Whatever. I can teach you some of the basic stuff, but you'll have to get an actual teacher because I don't want to fuck up your foundation too much. And if I teach you to fight you also have to go talk to someone, like a head shrink, okay?"

"I don't need to talk to a shrink," Amara snarled, her coffee mug abruptly being thrown across the room to shatter against a door. Thankfully it was empty, so there wasn't also coffee spilt all over the place. "And I don't give a fuck about my foundation. I need to learn how to fight." By the end of her words she was off the couch and stalking towards John's room, the door slamming shut behind her. If Cammie didn't want to help her, fine. She'd work something else out.

Cammie just shook her head, "Yeah, you're obviously completely stable right now," she muttered to the empty room.