Going through some severe sibling withdrawal. Who'd have thought?

Just ain't used to not being woken up by the little ones shrieks and screams as they go tearing out of the house.

I'm sure this will subside over time.


An' in other news: co-leading Rogue's team. I'm feeling vaguely grown-up.

The sun feels different in Westchester. The summer air smells different than back home in Cumberland County as well. The mansion provides the noise Paige is used to with the students unable to return home for the break making their presence known. But it's not quite the same as being woken early by her brothers and sisters or by the smell of pancakes cooking on the stove. Not even on the days when there is the scent of pancakes as she walks into the cafeteria does it ring the same. It's not Lucinda Guthrie who has woken before the sun rises to fix breakfast. There is something that leaves her unsettled and she can't quite figure out what, no matter how hard she tries.

It dawns on her when she's in the middle of a diagnostic report on the Danger Room; fixing a few dents the room has taken during the training exercises from earlier in the day.

She misses home.

( I grew up in a pretty house and I had space to run And I had the best days with you )

RP for ticktabby, littlepaffs, hayseed_sam, warmersummers and guthrie_jaybird

Thursday Morning


Paige woke up at five thirty because of a constant poking in her side. As much as she loved her baby sister it had taken a lot of energy not to smother the little girl who had tried to look innocent as she hopped out of bed. A quick glance showed Jubilee and Tabitha still sound asleep. They looked peaceful. Paige wanted to go back to looking that peaceful.

"Mama's cookin'!" Hannah whispered, her voice still too loud for that early in the morning. "Can ya smell it? Ain't it great?"

Paige wiped the sleep from her eyes and pulled her hair into a messy ponytail. "Uh huh." She needed coffee if she was going to be anywhere near coherent. Her little sister didn't seem to notice and tugged, pulling Paige out of the room.

"We're gonna make pie an' potatoes an' green beans an' sweet potatoes an' salads an' corn an' turkey!" Hannah's voice rose in volume with each word. "But Ma says this turkey ain't got a name an' I'm supposed ta tell ya that. It's just a turkey. Wasn't no one's pet."
( Read more... )

ooc: Takes place early in the summer and based on the the Poptopia arc in X-Men.

She was not going to fling the stereo out of the house.

No matter how much pleasure it would give her to see the little black box drop from the sky and shatter into a million pieces, effectively cutting off the awful, screeching that was blaring from the speakers. Okay, so the music wasn't that bad. The guitar intro was decent, the drums were okay and the singer's voice wasn't anything worse than what Paige endured whenever she decided to accompany the family to church but that wasn't the point. Didn't any of them hear the lyrics? The sappy crap that was a lie and made no sense when the words were strung together?

Sugar-walled heart? Please. Paige would like nothing more than to rip that heart to shreds. Of course that wasn't going to happen and it wasn't even the young woman singing it that Paige had a problem with. No, it was the young man currently on every tabloid and magazine with her that was pissing Paige Guthrie off.

Never forget me, right.
( Oh, and it rains in your bedroom, everything is wrong It rains when you're here and it rains when you're gone )

1. NO frogs in beds (this goes for other bugs/reptiles/amphibians NO ANIMALS PERIOD)
2. NO 5 am wake-up calls
3. NO baby photos!
4. NO singin' the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song
5. KNOCK before enterin' a bedroom
6. NO home videos
7. NO stories!
8. PANTS are our friends Jeb an' Lewis. At ALL times.
9. NO PRANKS (of ANY KIND)
10. I swear ta gawd, if'n ANY of ya try an' play Sugar Kane while we're there I will smother ya in yer sleep.



Let me know if'n anythin' else should be added.

ALSO, Sammy an' Jay (MOSTLY SAMMY) this list APPLIES ta both of YOU.

I love my younger siblin's.

Sammy an' Jay, Ma sent me the younger one's Halloween pictures. I got 'em hangin' up in the room if'n ya wanna see them. An' Hannah drew pictures for ya too. The twins costumes were adorable. An' Jeb was tryin' for the goriest costume award. I think he beat out any of Sammy's previous ones. Ain't at all surprised.

I need ta send Ma the ones I got of us at the Halloween party.

( My sister, the aspirin' artist, picture )

Freak ain't usually a word most people would associate with me. Blond hair, blue eyes, cute as a button an' plenty of people think I ain't seen any of the horrors in the world. Life must be roses.

But if'n ya were ta go down ta Cumberland an' mention the Guthrie name most people in that town are gonna mutter that word. I hate that word. It's meant ta put someone down, ta make ya feel like yer about two feet tall an' nowhere near as good as the person sayin' it. It's meant ta hurt.

I love my family more than anythin' in this world. We're a tight-knit bunch an' were long before our Pa died. I'm sure the loss of him made us closer than before but growin' up like we did kinda made it that the only people we had were one another. An' that was it. When yer family ain't as well off as all the others in town it's amazin' what people'll say about ya. Also amazin' how when ya grow up an' fill out nicely in a dress they suddenly forget all those nasty things they yelled at ya as a kid. Course they simply start mutterin' other words that ain't so nice either. Don't wanna try an' figure out how many hometown boys I've given black eyes ta for implyin' I'm easy.

Like I'm really gonna be lettin' ya take me ta the Homecomin' dance when I know ya've been pickin' on one of my younger brothers. Sometimes people are really very stupid.

I ain't normal. I don't wanna be normal. I'm a mutant an' I'm a Guthrie an' I wouldn't wanna be anythin' else.

Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take. -Peter McWilliams



Paige should have called her mother at least two days ago. It had become almost a ritual to talk to the family once a week and she usually called on Wednesdays. the best time to ring was right after dinner and before eight o'clock, that way she could speak to each of her siblings still at home before getting passed off to her mother. Except she hadn't called this week, or the week before, and Paige has been stalling since Wednesday night. She wasn't even sure why she was stalling. There was nothing particularly upsetting going on in her life, nothing that she was ashamed about. She was, however, unsure how to broach the subject that she was dating with her mother and if she spoke to the woman on the phone that topic of conversation would come up.

Lucinda Guthrie always knew when something was occurring with one of her children. Paige swore it was her mutant power, this keen ability to tell when one of them was hiding something. Or maybe it was mother's intuition. Whichever it was, it was freaky and not calling her mother because of it was beginning to make Paige feel awful. Her earlier conversation with Jubilee already had her feeling guilty and the combination wasn't one she wanted to deal with much longer.

It took about five minutes of searching through the mess of books and plans on her desk in order to find her cellphone and another two to clear off the chair before she dialed her home number. Waiting for someone to pick up the phone at the Guthrie homestead gave her time to examine her toenails. It was definitely time for another shade.

( Read more... )

Havin' ta list the three people that mean the most to me is hard. An' just by my number one alone I'm cheatin'.

1. My family, the Guthries. Yeah, I know my family consists of more than one person but there ain't no way I can just pick one of them or even three of them ta be the most important in my life. They all mean the world ta me an' I am who I am today because of each an' every one of them. So they're gettin' clumped together inta bein' my first 'most important' person cause I ain't about ta pick only one of them.

2. Jubilee. She's my best friend an' without her I'm pretty sure I'd have stayed stuck in my room studyin' instead of doin' anythin' worthwhile with my life. Ever since we met she's been there for me an' I'll always be there for her well discountin' the bit where we couldn't stand each other for awhile.An' if'n she doesn't stop tryi' ta annoy me with her music I'm gonna go inta her room an' break her radio.

3. Jono. First boy I ever really loved liked an' my boyfriend. I could list all the things I like about him but I've blushed enough for the day.



I need ta go over Kitty's lesson plans for next week. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

My home is not a place, it is people. -Lois McMaster Bujold

When people are watching over your shoulder as you try and complete a task it can drive a person crazy. The constant pressure of doing something wrong can be nerve wracking. Paige Guthrie thrives on it. She's always been a competitive person and never one to back down from any kind of challenge, let alone one her siblings threw at her. Especially not when it involves a computer.

Not five minutes after she'd entered the house Joelle and Elizabeth had begun hounding her to make the new technology work properly. Which for the two of them meant access the Internet so they could be online like their friends. Paige understood the need to fit in, the urge to be like the rest of the kids at school. She'd thought that way for a few years and tried to fit with the other kids in their town. After giving little Billy O'Shea a black eye in the third grade because he had referred to the Guthries as poor white trash Paige had stopped trying so hard. She still understood the appeal though; no one wanted to be an outsider.

( I'm only up when you're not down. Don't wanna fly if you're still on the ground. It's like no matter what I do. Well you drive me crazy half the time; the other half I'm only trying to let you know that what I feel is true. And I'm only me when I'm with you. )

People hate what they don't understand, what they fear. An' some people just hate cause that's what they've been taught. I don't know why the Cabot family hated mine. I don't know why their Daddy taught them to despise us an' make every day at school an' in town a livin' nightmare for us. I don't know why he slowly poisoned my family's drinkin' water. Maybe he wanted our land? I think that's how it all started. Easier to try an' get rid of the lot of us than buy it, not that my parents ever would've sold. It was our home, had been in the Guthrie family for generations, ain't exactly somethin' that ya can just part with.

He used any excuse to hate us. The fact that a good deal of us turned out to be mutants. Cause Ma decided to date Raymond.

I don't remember him always bein' a mean man. I think there were times when I was really little that I remember him an' my daddy bein' friends. Somethin' had to have happened, I just don't know what an' now he's dead an' Daddy is too so I guess we'll never know.

I hope the feudin' can end now. I hope his remainin' sons can go on livin' their lives an' my family can go on livin' theirs.

I ain't stupid enough to believe that is what will happen.

Hate's roots grow deep.