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Entry tags:
fic: comics, Pete Wisdom, Lost the Grip Long Ago
disclaimer: not mine
fandom: Marvel comics, specifically Captain Britain and MI13 with references to the Pete Wisdom LS, the original Excalibur comic (still the best) and one of the X-Men books (I don't care which, they're all pretty equally crap).
characters: Pete Wisdom, mainly. references: Kitty Pryde/Pete Wisdom, Scott Summers, Alistaire Stuart, some others, and Brian Braddock.
length: 1300+
set: er... between the first and second arcs in Captain Britain and MI13. Don't have a clue where it falls in current X-Men canon.
rating: mostly PG, with a couple sex references, some drinking and some swearing.
notes: written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kali921, though I'm not sure this is exactly cheering. I totally blame Something for Kate. Title is bastardized Zita Swoon lyrics.
Lost the Grip Long Ago
by ALC Punk!
Pete convinces himself he's mostly over Kitty when he goes from thinking of calling her once every few days (better than every single day, but still a bit to go). He totally doesn't miss her. Not when he's on the run, or clawing his way to the top of MI13. Not when he's kissing his way south on any woman he can pick up in a bar--
Not like he was celibate before Pryde, obviously. This is nothing new.
When she goes from being an 'every few days' thought to 'once a week', he's good. He's happy. He calls her sometimes, and they talk like real people. Friends who aren't quite sure how they connect anymore.
It's good for him. He likes to think it's good for her, that they're not holding onto the past (not even after Maureen and her blood on his hands, Kitty's voice a calm thread of stability as he talks it through). She tells him things she probably doesn't tell the others, wistful notes as she mentions the loss of Munroe, the distance of Wagner.
They don't talk about the Russian, except once, and Pete doesn't actually say a damned thing (one broken spine was enough).
He gets on with his life, she gets on with hers.
Then one week, Summers calls. His voice is almost toneless, like he's got no emotion and no interest in finding any (Pete's read his file, he figures this is Summers' "I'm trying to be nice, because this is going to hurt in a moment and I don't like hurting people and I'm bloody tired of life, did you know that?" voice. Summers has suffered more than Pete, but he's twisted differently round than Wisdom ever was.)
Pete doesn't tell Scott Summers that he should have fallen in with a bad crowd like he had.
Not when Summers is telling him that Pryde...
There's a pub Pete still loves. It's not The Crown, not by a long shot, and it's not even that nice a place. It's changed hands six times since he was there after that day in Culley's flat. He's inside, sitting in a corner booth (avoiding the window at all costs was a plan he was willing to suffer, despite the too-thick haze of smoke that choked him up), drink in his hand before he really starts to think about it.
"Damn." The glass didn't break, but his fingers hurt as though he's been gripping the watered-down shit too hard.
Not thinking is a better plan, and Pete gazes wistfully at the passing waitress, her cigarette hanging off her lip even as she shouts an order over the counter.
He used to be able to do that--fuck, he used to be allowed to do that. It would be so easy to go back to the smokes. On top of the booze and the women, they were sure to see him in an early grave. Pete'd always thought that was what he was destined for. Having a plan, a mission, being organized had changed that.
And, fuck, if he were honest, Stuart's out-look on life had changed it, too. That boundless enthusiasm for the unknown would be enough to make anyone give in just a little.
He can hear Pryde mocking him even now.
Or she would be.
The fifth glass goes all the way down before he manages something approaching a thought that isn't about tits and pretzels.
A bullet, Summers had said. Something so encompassing, so huge... It was just like that stupid Yank to do this. To walk into the fire and not come out again, putting the lives of people she didn't know ahead of her own.
Used to be, Pete'd wake up, half-certain he'd roll over and find her curled next to him as though she'd never left.
Fantasy was all he'd had for years.
Now he can't even have that.
More alcohol starts to blur his brain until it stutters to a halt about the time the bouncer throws him into the gutter for trying to start a fight. Pete doesn't bother explaining the etiquette of not picking on the man with the dead (ex) girlfriend, but ends up laughing himself sick and shaking against the side of a building a few doors down.
He manages not to step in the puddle of his own vomit as he pushes off and heads for home.
The trip takes four times as long when he falls asleep on the tube, missing his stop and ending at the other end of the line--unfortunately, the conductor isn't fond of drunks who stink and Pete's not exactly diplomatic at the best of times.
In hindsight, walking down the tracks towards home was probably not the brightest of ideas.
(Wisdom was never known for his good ideas in the midst of a bender, though. Braddock had once regaled Tessa with quite a spurious account of their trips to the pub on MacTaggert land. Pete hadn't spoken to him for a week, though Tessa had looked almost impressed at the idea that Wisdom had danced on the tabletops.)
Two trains are enough to make him re-think the idea, especially when dodging the second one put him in a tunnel that had that 'disused' air so beloved of horror films.
His attempt to find his way back proves fruitless. He's nearly sober when he finally gives up and uses his phone, contacting HQ and getting better directions off one of the computer geeks who pulls up a map, pin-points his location via tracking device, and then nearly gets him killed when Pete turns a corner into the path of yet another oncoming train.
Trainees, he reminds himself as he flattens against the wall. This new batch working the night shift are Alistaire's ridiculously wet-behind-the-ears trainees, and he shouldn't be shouting at them over his mobile.
They probably can't hear anyway.
Pete Wisdom, he tells himself as he staggers out of the underground with dawn clouding the sky grey and red, is not a man who clings to the past. Not a man who dwells and angsts and acts like a bloody Summers.
He keeps telling himself that, as he goes through the motions of prepping himself for recovery from a bad night of debauchery. Pete likes those sorts of nights, he's got a lot of paraphenalia for help. There's already prepped bottles of liquid caffeine in his ice box (about the only thing that's in there, aside from moldering take-out boxes), and a large bottle of his current favorite pain killers next to it. The cap opens with a twist and he's downed half the bottle of cold whatever the hell it is before he notices Braddock slumped on his counter.
"The fuck do you want?"
Brian looks at him, his eyes bloodshot and an unopened bottle of scotch in front of him. "She was my friend, too."
The words would have made Pete laugh half an hour ago, but his feet hurt and his heart is heavy and Braddock doesn't drink. Pete tosses him another bottle of caffeine and slumps down in a chair. "My feet hurt," he mutters.
A moment later, the phone shrills, calling them both to duty. It's not the end of the world, but neither men exchange their usual banter. At the end of another fruitless forty-eight hours awake, they return to Wisdom's where he opens the scotch, Braddock opens a malt something or other non-alcoholic and they settle down.
They don't talk about her. They don't talk about anything.
When the next crisis comes, they're back to their old selves, sniping back and forth enough to seem normal. And maybe the truth is that they are. Kitty Pryde was a member of Excalibur and an X-Man. If there's one thing they both know about both of those designations, it's that death is not the end, and never will be.
-f-
fandom: Marvel comics, specifically Captain Britain and MI13 with references to the Pete Wisdom LS, the original Excalibur comic (still the best) and one of the X-Men books (I don't care which, they're all pretty equally crap).
characters: Pete Wisdom, mainly. references: Kitty Pryde/Pete Wisdom, Scott Summers, Alistaire Stuart, some others, and Brian Braddock.
length: 1300+
set: er... between the first and second arcs in Captain Britain and MI13. Don't have a clue where it falls in current X-Men canon.
rating: mostly PG, with a couple sex references, some drinking and some swearing.
notes: written for
kali921, though I'm not sure this is exactly cheering. I totally blame Something for Kate. Title is bastardized Zita Swoon lyrics.Lost the Grip Long Ago
by ALC Punk!
Pete convinces himself he's mostly over Kitty when he goes from thinking of calling her once every few days (better than every single day, but still a bit to go). He totally doesn't miss her. Not when he's on the run, or clawing his way to the top of MI13. Not when he's kissing his way south on any woman he can pick up in a bar--
Not like he was celibate before Pryde, obviously. This is nothing new.
When she goes from being an 'every few days' thought to 'once a week', he's good. He's happy. He calls her sometimes, and they talk like real people. Friends who aren't quite sure how they connect anymore.
It's good for him. He likes to think it's good for her, that they're not holding onto the past (not even after Maureen and her blood on his hands, Kitty's voice a calm thread of stability as he talks it through). She tells him things she probably doesn't tell the others, wistful notes as she mentions the loss of Munroe, the distance of Wagner.
They don't talk about the Russian, except once, and Pete doesn't actually say a damned thing (one broken spine was enough).
He gets on with his life, she gets on with hers.
Then one week, Summers calls. His voice is almost toneless, like he's got no emotion and no interest in finding any (Pete's read his file, he figures this is Summers' "I'm trying to be nice, because this is going to hurt in a moment and I don't like hurting people and I'm bloody tired of life, did you know that?" voice. Summers has suffered more than Pete, but he's twisted differently round than Wisdom ever was.)
Pete doesn't tell Scott Summers that he should have fallen in with a bad crowd like he had.
Not when Summers is telling him that Pryde...
There's a pub Pete still loves. It's not The Crown, not by a long shot, and it's not even that nice a place. It's changed hands six times since he was there after that day in Culley's flat. He's inside, sitting in a corner booth (avoiding the window at all costs was a plan he was willing to suffer, despite the too-thick haze of smoke that choked him up), drink in his hand before he really starts to think about it.
"Damn." The glass didn't break, but his fingers hurt as though he's been gripping the watered-down shit too hard.
Not thinking is a better plan, and Pete gazes wistfully at the passing waitress, her cigarette hanging off her lip even as she shouts an order over the counter.
He used to be able to do that--fuck, he used to be allowed to do that. It would be so easy to go back to the smokes. On top of the booze and the women, they were sure to see him in an early grave. Pete'd always thought that was what he was destined for. Having a plan, a mission, being organized had changed that.
And, fuck, if he were honest, Stuart's out-look on life had changed it, too. That boundless enthusiasm for the unknown would be enough to make anyone give in just a little.
He can hear Pryde mocking him even now.
Or she would be.
The fifth glass goes all the way down before he manages something approaching a thought that isn't about tits and pretzels.
A bullet, Summers had said. Something so encompassing, so huge... It was just like that stupid Yank to do this. To walk into the fire and not come out again, putting the lives of people she didn't know ahead of her own.
Used to be, Pete'd wake up, half-certain he'd roll over and find her curled next to him as though she'd never left.
Fantasy was all he'd had for years.
Now he can't even have that.
More alcohol starts to blur his brain until it stutters to a halt about the time the bouncer throws him into the gutter for trying to start a fight. Pete doesn't bother explaining the etiquette of not picking on the man with the dead (ex) girlfriend, but ends up laughing himself sick and shaking against the side of a building a few doors down.
He manages not to step in the puddle of his own vomit as he pushes off and heads for home.
The trip takes four times as long when he falls asleep on the tube, missing his stop and ending at the other end of the line--unfortunately, the conductor isn't fond of drunks who stink and Pete's not exactly diplomatic at the best of times.
In hindsight, walking down the tracks towards home was probably not the brightest of ideas.
(Wisdom was never known for his good ideas in the midst of a bender, though. Braddock had once regaled Tessa with quite a spurious account of their trips to the pub on MacTaggert land. Pete hadn't spoken to him for a week, though Tessa had looked almost impressed at the idea that Wisdom had danced on the tabletops.)
Two trains are enough to make him re-think the idea, especially when dodging the second one put him in a tunnel that had that 'disused' air so beloved of horror films.
His attempt to find his way back proves fruitless. He's nearly sober when he finally gives up and uses his phone, contacting HQ and getting better directions off one of the computer geeks who pulls up a map, pin-points his location via tracking device, and then nearly gets him killed when Pete turns a corner into the path of yet another oncoming train.
Trainees, he reminds himself as he flattens against the wall. This new batch working the night shift are Alistaire's ridiculously wet-behind-the-ears trainees, and he shouldn't be shouting at them over his mobile.
They probably can't hear anyway.
Pete Wisdom, he tells himself as he staggers out of the underground with dawn clouding the sky grey and red, is not a man who clings to the past. Not a man who dwells and angsts and acts like a bloody Summers.
He keeps telling himself that, as he goes through the motions of prepping himself for recovery from a bad night of debauchery. Pete likes those sorts of nights, he's got a lot of paraphenalia for help. There's already prepped bottles of liquid caffeine in his ice box (about the only thing that's in there, aside from moldering take-out boxes), and a large bottle of his current favorite pain killers next to it. The cap opens with a twist and he's downed half the bottle of cold whatever the hell it is before he notices Braddock slumped on his counter.
"The fuck do you want?"
Brian looks at him, his eyes bloodshot and an unopened bottle of scotch in front of him. "She was my friend, too."
The words would have made Pete laugh half an hour ago, but his feet hurt and his heart is heavy and Braddock doesn't drink. Pete tosses him another bottle of caffeine and slumps down in a chair. "My feet hurt," he mutters.
A moment later, the phone shrills, calling them both to duty. It's not the end of the world, but neither men exchange their usual banter. At the end of another fruitless forty-eight hours awake, they return to Wisdom's where he opens the scotch, Braddock opens a malt something or other non-alcoholic and they settle down.
They don't talk about her. They don't talk about anything.
When the next crisis comes, they're back to their old selves, sniping back and forth enough to seem normal. And maybe the truth is that they are. Kitty Pryde was a member of Excalibur and an X-Man. If there's one thing they both know about both of those designations, it's that death is not the end, and never will be.
-f-
no subject
Now I'm all angsty and I need to write for fanfic100 and I've already written too many angsty fics...
Siiiigh.
Thank you. :)
no subject
Thank you. ;]
I will take hate as well as love. AND YOU KNOW HE WAS ANGSTY. We, uh, just didn't get to see the bits where he Dwelled. a lot. And so was Brian.
no subject
Thank you. :-)
PEE ESS: I WOULD NOT BE AVERSE TO PORN, EITHER. <3
no subject
;]
no subject
Now he can't even have that.
Oh, Pete. This is exactly how I feel. Except, you know, from a third person, non-involved, shippy POV and all. ;)
I love this, especially the end, and just...this is lovely angst, and the ending, for some reason? Is the most heart-breaking bit of it because it means that they never move on, not completely. <3
no subject
dude, they can move on! I think. I just... sort of left it open-ended for the canon, because the next arc had Pete angsting about her s'more (Brian was all about Meggan, who will show up eventually and kick him I hope).
Otoh, they're both people who don't exactly deal with shit. They like shoving it in a corner and pretending it isn't there and Going On Stoically (until someone beans Braddock with a bottle and Pete's drunk again, or something).
no subject
I thought Meggan was back already?
I just... sort of left it open-ended for the canon, because the next arc had Pete angsting about her s'more
Hmm, why am I not reading this series already? I should.
no subject
Hey, if TEN YEARS OF NOT SPEAKING TO EACH OTHER EVER IN CANON can't kill their love....
(suddenly, my lack of worry about Kara and Sam makes sense)
Meggan has... been and gone, if that makes sense.
And you should read it, if only so I can have someone else to squeak about Faiza's awesome to.
no subject
I worry more for TV OTPs because comics totally delude you into thinking anything is possible. I possibly need a comic series about the New Caprica missing year, but that won't ever happen, will it? Sigh.
Oh, Faiza. I...sort of stopped reading after the first issue because I had issues with her? IDK. They are totally shallow issues that I can probably get past, but I was prepared to be amazed by her and then felt that he went to a bit of a stereotypical place with her, which annoyed me. Of course, it's nothing I can't get past if the rest of her is well written, which seems like is the case.
no subject
no subject
And Ellis was AWESOME for that sort of thing, yes. It was possibly why I fell so in love with his Excalibur. And Cornell (and to a lesser extent, Claremont and the other dude weren't bad, either. Claremont was mostly shit, actually, but the writer whose name I'm blanking on and wanted to beg BACK to the book was good at their sort-of-friendship thing).