Intruder (un)happy in the dark [Jorren&Pup, VDay]

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> Forgive me for not realising it might interrupt the fucking n’all, but hey, obviously my priorities are skewed.

Josh opens his mouth to continue the little verbal tennis match, but closes it without speaking. It was obvious that John felt awful. And while his little facade wasn’t fooling anyone, it wasn’t a good idea to give him crap for coming to them with a problem, however messed up and backwards, and well, utterly John his not-asking for help was.

> ”I have to turn up on your anniversary and you’re still - like this? I’ll throw myself out the window.”

A little smile works its way across Josh’s face, but again, he says nothing, simply letting his hand close around Warren’s on the rooftop. Fortunately, the move is hidden from John because of how they’re sitting on the roof. Probably only put him in a worse mood.

“Sorry, John, I didn’t mean it, really. Warren’s right - you just caught us at a really bad time.” A really good time, actually… but never mind. Josh looks over at John.

> So, please, just tell us what happened?"

> ”Chucked myself out, really. No longer inclined to share Robert’s living space, as it were.”

Josh’s eyes narrow slightly. “Right. But what happened? You waited around long enough to pet our puppy and eat our ice cream, there’s gotta be more to the story.”

[Pyro]

This is why being on the roof is so incredibly mind-blowingly stupid. Because he wants to be able to pace, or to punch a wall, or something, none of which are options when he’s stuck on the bloody roof, curled up into himself, where the only focus for that nervous hyperactivity is drumming first fingers, then palms and finally fists against the knees he’s hugged up to his chest… because… fuck, what’s he meant to say?

He glances over to the couple, and can’t keep looking at them for longer than a moment or two before he has to glance back down to his knees, taking a deep hissing breath before… no, not quite ready to start yet. And he scowls, and buries his head in his knees, and crosses his arms behind his neck, shielding his head, and takes another deep breath.

”There’s so fucking little… fuck, there’s nothing left of him. He thinks I’m… with Rogue and it means nothing, I tell him I’m not; nothing.” Uncurling, John sighs, and stares out over the Institute grounds. ”I want to fuck him senseless, nothing. I tell him to” – he clears his throat, and glances back down, because this is the bit which… he still can’t quite believe he said it, and admitting as much is raw – ”go away and just fuckin’ die already and… nothing[/u].”[/color]

[Warren Worthington III]

> "Fuck, there’s nothing left of him. He thinks I’m… with Rogue and it means nothing, I tell him I’m not; nothing. I want to fuck him senseless, nothing. I tell him to… go away and just fuckin’ die already and… nothing "

It takes Warren a few moments to convince himself that he’d heard that correctly. It’s not the outrageous “go away and die” part that throws him; he’s come to expect that sort of thing from Allerdyce… it’s that the explanation is both plausible and, as far as he can tell, completely emotionally honest.

Warren’s initial impression of Drake when he’d arrived at the Institute was of a potentially cool kid – no pun intended – who desperately needed to grow up. The kid’s little tantrum at his birthday party had done nothing to change that impression… but he’d actually seemed to be getting himself on track back before Thanksgiving (and, to give credit where it’s due, Allerdyce apparently had a lot to do with that). After the Brotherhood took him, though, Drake had been a mess. No surprise, really – being kidnapped and tortured and forcibly “cured” is a lot to cope with, and apparently things with Allerdyce had gone pear-shaped at the same time Allerdyce “with” Rogue? Heh. Obviously I haven’t been keeping up well enough with the local soap opera. – but still, things had seemed to be going in a reasonable direction.

But after that crazy stunt at the Baxter Building… well, in a lot of ways he wasn’t the same person at all. And apparently Allerdyce actually cares, and is willing to admit it… this isn’t just teenage hormones not getting laid. Dear Lord, he may be joining the human race after all. That it took a situation this extreme to make him take even a small step in that direction is less than admirable, but Warren has always believed in taking whatever advantages come out of unpleasant situations.

"Yeah…" he lets that come out on an extended breath, commiserating rather than sympathetic, "…nobody’s going to get much in the way of genuine emotion out of Drake in the state he’s in." He pauses for a moment, wondering if he should continue the thought, then takes a deep breath and plunges in.

"You’re right, it was a mistake to room you two together, under the circumstances. Hank tells me there’s no organic brain damage, but whole parts of his brain have shut down, like they would if he’d had a stroke or taken a bullet to the skull or something like that. He and Reed are working on treatments, but there’s no guarantee…. it’s a race against time, really. Drake might never recover."

Warren is careful to keep his voice neutral and free of his own personal judgments, as he continues. "And for a friend or a lover to stand by him in the face of that… well, that takes a special kind of relationship, and a lot of work, and a lot of pain. It’s asking too much of you. We'll separate you as soon as possible, and I apologize for letting the situation get this far."

The irony of the situation, Warren notes tiredly, is that he believes every word of that, but wishes he didn’t. He’s enough of a romantic at heart to have wanted Allerdyce to step up to the plate, declaring his undying love and devotion like the hero in a bad movie. And even though he realizes that’s totally unfair – he may be living a strange comic-bookish lifestyle now, but he’s still living in the real world, where most couples break up over much less than this – he can’t help feeling disappointed.

Have I mentioned lately how incredibly lucky I am? The thought, and the handsqueeze that accompanies it, is less a sentence than an acknowledgement of the rarity of the sort of relationship he and Josh have. If it were him instead of Drake, he has literally no doubt that Josh would do everything in his power to make the relationship work.

"There’s no reason for you to move out of your room, though. I think we’ll move Drake into the medlab; that’ll be more practical for his treatment anyway. I’ll talk to Storm about it tomorrow, and we can find you a spare room for tonight… will you be OK alone, or would you rather have company?" He winces at his choice of phrasing and adds hastily "I’m sure we can find someone who won’t mind a temporary roommate for a night." Privately, he suspects a lot of beds are going empty all over the Institute tonight, while others are being double-occupied, which should make the job relatively easy.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "Fuck, there’s nothing left of him. He thinks I’m… with Rogue and it means nothing, I tell him I’m not; nothing. I want to fuck him senseless, nothing. I tell him to… go away and just fuckin’ die already and… nothing "

Josh frowns at the explanation. Bobby’s gotten that bad? He thinks about it for a moment. Things had been busy for him the last couple months, with college applications, interviews, not to mention everything the X-Men had been doing - and spending time with Warren on top of it all. But he interacted with Bobby on a daily basis, and while things seemed bad, it didn’t seem that extreme.

Mmm. Most of your interactions with him have been awfully superficial as of late. It was true - passing in the halls, classes, that kind of thing. ‘Robert’ wasn’t particularly interested in dinner conversation… or social interaction of any kind. Factor in the two of them no longer rooming together, and he didn’t have a whole lot of chances to actually be with him. And frankly, seeing him downslide further each day didn’t encourage it. Josh hangs his head a little in sadness.

> You’re right, it was a mistake to room you two together, under the circumstances.

“Oh, John… I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about it that way.” That has to be awful. Josh bites his lip, looking over in the darkness to the other boy.

> Have I mentioned lately how incredibly lucky I am?

Josh squeezes Warren’s hand back. We both are. I can’t even imagine what going through this would be like. Love you.

After a moment, Josh lets go of Warren’s hand and scoots over to John, patting him on the back. “Hank and Reed will find something. They’ve gotta.” Oblivious to the health hazards, Josh wraps his arms around John in a hug.

[Pyro]

< Nobody’s going to get much in the way of genuine emotion out of Drake in the state he’s in
… sure, that helps a lot, doesn’t it? Not that Warren sounds especially sympathetic (and not that John needs or wants his sympathy, of course) but if there is some point to that John’s guessing it’s along the lines that he shouldn’t feel bad for failing, that it’s not really failing. But it rings hollow, because John’s not part of ‘everyone’, not where Bobby’s concerned… or at least never used to be. If anyone could ever have defied the blanket ‘Nobody’ then it should have been him… So yes, it still fucking hurts.

Warren starts talking science, which really doesn’t help either; first off, it doesn’t make any sense to John, who is not and never will be *sciencey*. And secondly… all this talk about how Bob might get better, is probably still underneath the whole *cyber* thing? Oddly enough, not what he needs to hear, because he’s screwed things up so much that the only thing that’s going to help is hearing that Bob’s gone for good and it’s okay to cut and run because he’s not ever coming back. And it’s pathetic that he needs someone to tell him it’s okay, because he’s John and he never needs that… except that he does, evidently. So he half-growls ”C’n you shut the fuck up, please?”, though both the objection and the unusual muted politeness are probably both lost as it comes out more of a shapeless mumble.

He’s dimly aware of Josh appearing next to him, and even more dimly conscious that he should protest or fight back, anything to break free because John doesn’t *do* hugs… but he doesn’t have enough ‘whatever’ left to break away, and so he just tenses for a couple of seconds. When the rest of him catches up and gets over the initial shock that he’s somehow okay with this, he seems to deflate and just tolerate it, only pulling away when Warren requires him to make a decision and, therefore, actually think about something, which prods him out of the blank numbness.

”I’d rather be alone” he says, flatly, before quirking a slight smile (though it feels like more of the imitation of a smile – a ‘really, I’m fine…’ sort of thing that probably fails to fool anyone). ”Besides, don’t think they’ll be queuing up to let the resident terrorist sleepover… hardly *popular*, y’know?”

[Warren Worthington III]

> "I’d rather be alone. Besides, don’t think they’ll be queuing up to let the resident terrorist sleepover… hardly *popular*, y’know?"

Warren isn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. It’s pretty obvious that Allerdyce won’t sit still for a serious conversation about his place in the Institute, but Warren is reluctant to let the statement go by unchallenged… the kid’s popularity, or lack of it, has much more to do with what he’s been doing while he’s here than what he did before.

In the end, he settles for a slight shrug of his wings and an offhanded "Do you want to be?", before returning his attention to logistics. “Anyway… suit yourself, then. We’ll put you up in one of the spare rooms for tonight, and move Drake into the medlab tomorrow."