Kate's Alley
by Ana Lyssie Cotton
First off, just so you all know, Lynx is going to kill me. There. It's said.
Second, this fic is an answer to Luba's Excal 103 challenge.
Third, without Brooke, it would not be finished, as she sat there and nitpicked. *sigh* *grumble* I hate creating, maintaining and explaining alternate universes...
Disclaimer: Kitty, Kurt, Piotr, The X-Men, Maddie, etc, are all owned by Marvel comics. No profit is being made.
She woke up and immediately began coughing drearily. It was a phlegmy cough that rattled the chest and produced a small amount of mucous. She doubled over, the cough dragging her into a ball shape. Around her, the pile of papers and random food wrappers resettled as the cough subsided.
If Kate had been able to smell, the stench of garbage and old alcohol would have been overwhelming. As it was, she could only dimly sense that things stunk. Including herself.
The alley she called home was a dreary place, nearly wall-to-wall with discarded waste. They'd been living there for two months, now. Kate thought Kurt might have gotten a po box for them, but wasn't sure. Somewhere in the haze of her brain, she knew he needed an address for his paycheck to go to.
The pile of trash next to her moved and a dark head peered at her, "Katya?"
"I'm fine, Piotr." She sneezed as if to prove that point. Her nose ached from being blown it on whatever was handy. Kate shifted again, trying to get comfortable. The haze was beginning to lessen and she wondered if there was anything left in the bottle she still clutched instinctively.
There wasn't. "Damn."
"Katya, rest. Kurt will be back soon."
"I can't." She tossed the bottle away, watching listlessly as it rolled down the slope and shattered on the sidewalk. People walking by ignored it, as they always ignored the two drunkards in the trash.
Piotr heaved his large body from the pile and moved towards her. "You hurt again."
"Yeah." She groaned and closed her eyes as the fog lifted completely and the headache came back, full force. Ever since the X-Men disbanded after the deaths at Dallas years before, Kate had been in pain.
Not always constant, but there, throbbing. It was the result from over-straining her mutant power at a critical moment, really. The headaches were remeniscent of the ones she'd gotten at 13, before her powers kicked in. Except they were ten times worse. Excruciating pain that was only alleviated by drinking herself into oblivion. She'd tried everything else, until it got too expensive. Now she just subsisted on cheap liquor.
The buzz never lasted long enough, she thought hazily. Pain was beginning to eclipse everything else. Even her nose didn't hurt anymore. And neither did the part of her that used to want to be a famous computer technician. After the disbanding, she'd tried so hard to go back to school. And she'd failed so easily.
"Piotr?" The voice came from the street and Kurt stepped into their little sanctuary. "How is she?"
"Bad."
"Ack. I've brought medicines. And more vodka."
"Give me the fucking booze." Kate staggered up and swiped the bag from Kurt, nearly falling over with the pain in her head.
"Careful, katchen." Kurt sounded very worried as he caught her and lowered her to the ground.
It was cold on the ground, the grimy bricks leaching the warmth from her rapidly as she fumbled out the bottle and tried to open it. The other items in the bag spilled onto the street. A small box, a bag of apples, several other things that were probably food. She didn't care.
A cough racked her and she doubled over, pain shooting through her head like knives. When it was over, she spit out the yellow and red liquid and turned back to the bottle.
Kurt had opened it, and silently held it out. She grabbed it and drank deeply, praying, waiting for the haze to descend again. To wipe away the pain for a while.
They were all hurting with the loss of their surrogate family. Kurt had sustained massive injuries on his leg and side. The wounds had healed, but the scars still ached in the cold. He'd tried once to go back to the circus, and couldn't. Not with the memory of Amanda fresh in his mind. The demons they fought when Madelyne opened the gateway to Limbo had forever changed them all.
Piotr would never again be able to assume a metallic form. The fight had been beaten from him.
Both had found solace in the bottle with Kate.
Except that Piotr had also found solace in blood. His own. He didn't do it often, not unless the nightmares had been particularly bad. Then he'd wander off for a while and then come back, cuts littering his arms and legs. Sometimes there would be needle marks and cigarette burns. Kate never asked what they were from. Or where the money he'd bring back with him came from.
Kurt was the only one of the three who had a job of any sort. He cleaned toilets at the local Wal-Mart. The money he earned was the only reason they had stayed alive over ten years of pain. He would turn white-lipped when Piotr would appear in that state. But he would take the money and use it for food and booze. Always booze.
He'd had to work and open a po box when the places he tried refused them help. Churches wouldn't touch a Jew, a demon and an atheist. The YMCA and like places would only keep them for a few months, and couldn't fuel Kate's addiction to alcohol.
Kate shivered as the alcohol hit her empty stomach. The haze would come soon, even if she wanted to be sick. Curious, suddenly, she picked up the little box and read the back. It was some sort of cold medicine. She laughed.
"Katya?"
"Says here I shouldn't be takin' these drugs if I drink." She laughed again, laughed herself right into a massive couging fit that left her gasping for breath and curled up on the bricks.
"Here, katchen, you must take this." Kurt carefully helped her to a sitting position and pressed two long yellow beige pills into her hand.
She shuddered and carefully placed them on her tongue. A shot of the cheap vodka drowned them down her throat. "There. Hope they work damned soon." Her hands shook as she corked the bottle. Some had spilled during the coughing fit. It was a loss.
Cold from the ground caused her to shake more. Not that she ever stopped shaking. Not really. Sometimes the shaking was from the cold running through her. Other times from the need for more booze to dull the pain. The pain made her shake, too.
Kurt carefully picked her up and set her back in the nest of newspapers. "Sleep, katchen."
The haze was finally beginning to fog her mind again. The pain receded to something that didn't make her want to bash her head in. Kate closed her eyes. And prayed that the nightmares would stay away.
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-=finis=-