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Post by Pyro on May 9, 2007 18:03:59 GMT
After Bobby's miraculous return from the dead< Negative> Well, John muses, downing another shot (a voice uncomfortably like Ororo’s reminding him about bringing drink into the Danger Room… but hey, since when did he give a fuck about the rules?) it wasn’t as if it was ever going to be ‘positive’, not something this fucked up. So there’s no Bobby sim on the system - though the DR helpfully informs him that there’s a Jean and a Scott and a few other earlier ones lurking in by-now ancient reruns (and for a moment he entertains the idea of running through Alkali, seeing whether not leaving the jet would have made any difference… but the past is the past and either way, whether it changes things or, which is more likely (and somehow more scary and painful), it makes bugger all difference in the grand scheme, it’s fucking pointless), and, far more importantly, that it can construct one for him if it cross-references something-or-other with something-else… which he toys with more seriously until it points out that it would be an approximation, because he knows full well he’d pick out the differences in a heartbeat and they’d drive him an entirely different sort of insane to the sort this exercise is meant to… because yes, it’s definitely insanity… … though it’d probably be nearer his Bobby than the one back there, wouldn’t it? The one Josh and… fuck, and Rogue who should know better, should realise what this is doing to him, but hey, maybe he’s set his expectations too high, treating what they’ve got like a proper relationship are hanging off, treating like some great miracle and not like the failure, the… fuck, the traitor he really is. He’s still their hero, poor stupid fucking fools. Well, sooner or later they’ll realise that theirs is a sad and lonely god who pays fuck all attention to their prayers and goes for the cheap fucking thrill and the drama over what the faithful want and need from him, and inwardly that provokes a small dark smile because guess who’ll have to pick up the pieces then? It’s an odd mix, this, giddy and enraged and terrified and ecstatic and flattened all rolled into one, too full and at the same time totally, crushingly empty… … fuck, he has to burn something. John flicks through the holo-menu, trying to find something worth destroying.
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Post by Bobby Drake on May 9, 2007 18:58:32 GMT
It doesn’t take very long to find John. Bobby didn’t expect that it would.
Really, the most time-consuming part was deciding to finally end the pleasant part of his return (and talking to Rogue and Josh really had felt like a “return,” like he’s come back home from a trip to some alternate universe full of people who used to be friends but had somehow been transformed into incomprehensible emotional cauldrons) and start looking for him.
Because, while he still doesn’t get what the hell is up with John (and, now that he thinks about it, it doesn’t feel very different from the “alternate universe” he thought he’d escaped from), he knows they’re going to have to hash it out and that it’s not going to be pleasant, and he’s dragging his heels.
He might not even have checked the Danger Room, obvious a place to look as it is, if he hadn’t felt the flare of heat from inside it… and walking through the softly whooshing blast doors feels almost exactly like walking into the burned-out husk of Mimi’s did last year… the same combination of irresistible drive and growing fear. Man, we really have come around full circle, huh? Granted, he’s pretty sure John’s not going to try to kill him this time, and that they’re not going to end up humping on the floor… but he’s just about as sure that they are going to end up hurting each other. It seems to be what they do.
John’s busy burning something, Bobby can’t tell exactly what, and is clutching a half-empty bottle, and Bobby laughs a cold sour laugh that never actually leaves his throat. Both, then. Called it. He wishes he could remember exactly what John had said back at Mimi’s, when he first appeared – using the same line would be all dramatic and stuff – but it’s probably just as well that he can’t. Instead he calls up a control menu and selects “Priority Shutdown.”
"Would you mind telling me what the fuck that was all about back there?"
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Post by Pyro on May 9, 2007 20:33:29 GMT
Whatever it was when he started burning it (John’s failure to remember part not really caring as long as it burns and part not giving its unburned state long enough to register and part the decreasing levels of blood in his alcohol stream) it’s… not that any more. Fire’s good like that, takes away all the details and the complications and strips everything back to just a black, featureless mess… and then further to a smear, and still further into nothingness - though he’s not in any hurry to get to that point, savouring the blank canvas stage where he can pretend it’s who-or-whatever he likes and enjoy taking his time. Maybe it ought to scare him more, that he still enjoys it this much after everything that this sort of destruction’s come to mean, where it ended up taking him (to say nothing of how much it definitely should disturb to think about what it is he’s destroying – not the matter of the thing, because that’s nothing, but what it is to him… which is why he, predictable as always, doesn’t think, just does) but it feels good, and he’s not going to apologise for that and not going to be made to; this is him, baby, complicated and dangerous and far from nice. Up to the rest of the world to deal with that, and fuck, it’s far less of a re-arrangement of reality to see him like that than for someone to go from alive to dead and back again.
It’s raw, and wild, and essential, and spawns a snarl when everything fades away and he’s denied the satisfaction of a clean kill ending… though that all makes sense when he turns to confront the intruder. Because Bobby wouldn’t give him that, would he? Not that complication in itself is a problem – hell, he’d be even more of a hypocrite if it were – but… just not from Bobby. Bobby’s clean cut and secure and stable and doesn’t do shit like this. Not to him.
Except that now he seems to, and it fucking stings.
Extinguishing the instinctual fireball he’s almost surprised to find himself holding (again refusing to think too much about what that means, though whatever that might be is far more welcome than any of the other reactions fighting their way out, because striking first is better than making the same mistakes again and ending up burned) he half-smirks at Bobby, smile and tone both a grotesque parody of charming-and-welcoming, his head tilted to the side in mock-obliviousness to the situation - ”What what was about, Drake?” – before reverting to a more accusatory direct stare, though his tone retains that fake warmth – ”Or is it Robert, or Bobby, or what? Fucked if I know any more… If you don’t mind I was kinda in the middle of something here. Can’t all be jumping to your tune, can we? Life doesn’t revolve around Bobby fucking Drake and his constant… no, fuck that, inconsistent and fucking confusing life-or-death-or-life drama.” He waves Bobby away - a patronising, dismissive buh-bye wave – and calls up the holo-menu again.
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Post by Bobby Drake on May 9, 2007 21:19:13 GMT
Bobby stares at John for a while, trying to make sense of the puzzling tirade, trying to ignore how that dismissive tone pools in his gut and burns there. And then he does laugh, because he’d thought he’d learned better than to fall for this.
"Oh, come on, John – who do you think you’re talking to? That whole ‘See how much I hate you?’ routine stopped working on me somewhere between Westchester Park and that midnight showing of Brick. You’ve gotta step up to the plate here if you wanna chase me away." He doesn’t quite manage the tone he wants – his voice catches a couple of times, quavers where it should be steady and amused – but it’s OK, he’s catching the rhythm now.
He circles John as he talks, getting closer with each wary loop. "Besides, you’ve lost all your best ammo, haven’t you? You can’t give me shit about being an X-Man, not while you’re wearing that outfit… you can’t make me feel guilty about Alcatraz after what you did to me at Baker… you can’t even pull your little ‘I’m so exhaaaaausted from fucking Rogue’ routine after letting me know it was a scam -- and God only knows how fucked up I had to be to fall for a story like that in the first place!"
That last comes out angrier than he’d intended, breaks his rhythm; he tries to recover. "So how ‘bout you cut the crap and tell me what’s actually gotten under your skin? "
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Post by Pyro on May 10, 2007 2:30:36 GMT
He almost, almost smiles at the references… but that turns into another sneer, because how the fuck dare he bring that up? None of that seemed to matter shit before, did it? And sure, maybe that was down to the MGH and not Bobby’s fault and bla bla bla… whatever. Bollocks to that. If it wasn’t enough to bring him back, then why should it be anywhere near enough to let him crawl back into something he was that quick to disregard now he’s deigned to make a reappearance?
Peeved at himself as he is for letting those get through, it’s nothing next to how much he hates himself for what the part about pushing Bobby away does… because he thought he’d done that already, and for the merest second of a moment something tugs in his chest (and, erm, lower) because maybe things aren’t fucked to all hell… Except that they are, because it’s too fucking late and regardless of whether or not Bobby’s moved on the rest of them haven’t had any other choice and it’s just not an option, so that whole speech merits another snort, though this is less disparaging and more disbelieving and embittered.
”Still don’t know when to back down… same o” – and there he stops himself again, because that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Not. The. Same. Even if all evidence points to the contrary, he still can’t concede that they were right because that makes everything he’s done since that night very, very wrong and no, he can’t accept that. ”Too fucking stupid to realise when you can’t win…Golden Boy Drake always gets his way, doesn’t he? You’re such a fucking brat, Icicle.”
… shit, no. Good as it feels to be playing this game again it’s the wrong sort of good, because this is how it always used to go – just like Bobby said, bastard, the ‘see how much I hate you?’ routine, the blurring of I love you and I want to destroy you into one beat – and if it keeps going… no, it can’t keep going. Like he said, nothing to make him doubt his conviction.
He shifts uncomfortably as Bobby circles him, and realises it and checks himself, turns the flinch into a casual shoulder roll, feigning like he’s keeping his eyes off Bobby because he doesn’t have to look at him and not because he can’t let himself.
”Y’know, you’re right; I haven’t got any of that any more.” – and he almost does a double take himself because admitting Bobby’s right is… inconceivable. He doesn’t disappoint himself, though, because it’s a backhanded concession, a tactical surrender of a pawn or two to claim a far larger prize, and if the next bit it more self-pitying than he’d like then he consoles himself knowing it’s totally justified; Bobby’s fucked him over, and if he wants to ‘cut the crap’ then that’s what he’s going to have to be told. And fuck, there’s no shame in admitting that it stings like hell. ”And I can’t play the villain of the piece, and I can’t ride off back to ‘my people’, fuck, I’m totally screwed. An’ why is that? Oh, right. Because I gave all of that up to come back here. With you. What a fucking idiot, eh?”
He half-laughs, humourless and indignant, covering up the stumble in his stride because yes, he was a ‘fucking idiot’ to trust in anything as fragile and flawed and short lived as… whatever they had (he still hesitates to call it love) as a survival mechanism when he had so much more going for him elsewhere.
”So what’s gotten ‘under my skin is you taking all that, and fucking off and leaving, and then coming back once I’ve moved on instead of when I needed y..” – and he stops again, the words balling hard and heavy in his throat, refusing to come up smoothly nor go back down. Because that’s uncommonly honest, isn’t it (and he’s not thinking about how only Bobby can provoke that sort of honesty. Definitely not)? – ”One stupid fucking thing, Bob. That’s all. And it’s too much to ask? After, fuck, after all that? And then you come back and fuck with my head an’…” – he stops again, for a different reason, because it’s the polar opposite of a dilemma, words coming too thick and fast, too easy, before he can think them through properly. And hands which have been trying, and failing, to find pockets to bury themselves in fist in vain, and suddenly the floor is very, very interesting… for the second or two it takes for him to get pissed off at himself to being this weak and pathetic, and to lift his gaze, all venom and flame, because he’s never the one who gets burned, not when there’s someone else to vent the flame at.
”You remember it being a scam, you’ll remember what I said next” And the shame of remembering that little outburst is totally eclipsed by knowing that, if Bobby remembers, then… then he was there, sort of, and it was a choice not to come back, and he’s perfectly justified taking that as a slight and feeling like this (fuck the contradiction of seeing that and simultaneously accepting that Bobby was dead, because John and logic have about as flexible a relationship as John and the truth, and he’s feeling uncommonly truthful so something else has to bend a little more to balance it out).
He doesn’t mention Rogue, not yet – it makes sense to keep something in reserve (whether to wound Bobby or, which is probably more likely than he wants to admit, to remind himself of if Bobby manages to challenge his conviction again). No point delivering the killing stroke if wounding the beast’ll do.
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Post by Bobby Drake on May 10, 2007 4:36:41 GMT
Bobby suppresses the urge to interrupt, to correct, to argue individual points… he’s been at this long enough to know that’s not how it goes with John. Fight him on one point and he’ll sidestep, spin around, come at you with something unrelated while you’re pulling your fist out of the tar.
So he doesn’t object that he’s not trying to win anything, doesn’t argue that John was the one who dumped him after leaving the Brotherhood, doesn’t try to defend himself. Instead he tries to listen for the big picture, to understand what’s at the core of this rant.
It’s hard, though. He’d wanted it to be like it was with Rogue and Josh… only better, because it was John. He isn’t ready for this, isn’t prepared to stand there and take body-blow after body-blow, and it’s taking its toll.
> " what’s gotten ‘under my skin’ is you taking all that, and fucking off and leaving, and then coming back once I’ve moved on instead of when I needed y-- "
Did he really just say that? Bobby’s torn between exultation and indignation. On the one hand, “I needed you” coming from John falls firmly into the Too Much To Hope For bucket. On the other hand, John accusing him of leaving makes him mad enough to spit ice. But ultimately it’s the “I’ve moved on” that gets him like a punch in the gut.
It’s not the line itself, really – John says things like that all the time, usually with a little twist to his voice like he wants the knife to go in, wants to make sure Bobby doesn’t miss it. Bobby’s learned to recognize that thrust as a lie, a sign that John’s just trying to chase him away to prove that he’s right not to trust anyone. (Who says aberrant psych texts are useless?). But this time it’s not like that… it’s slipped out, accidental, just like the “I needed you.” He’s not even sure John realizes what he just said.
The next few seconds are lost in the roaring in Bobby’s ears, the tears he tries to hide, the struggle to keep from falling through the floor when that’s all any part of him wants to do. When he finally regains his focus, he realizes John has been silent for some time… just in time for John to finish the combination: " You remember it being a scam, you’ll remember what I said next " (Which Bobby does. At the time, it was just a puzzling request. But it’s branded in his memory now, a livid sigil seared into dead, frozen psyche.)
"You told me to die." It comes out in a tone of amazed wonder, like it’s one of the great mysteries of the universe revealed, and for a moment afterwards Bobby doesn’t know what to say.
So it says itself: "Moved on to what?"
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Post by Pyro on May 10, 2007 7:56:30 GMT
Watching Bobby suffer – because it’s clear that he is, he’s never been able to hide it properly, not from John… and it’s odd seeing that in anyone when he and Rogue have been playing the deception game so long and so eloquently – is an odd, and totally different, sensation to the game he’s gotten used to without Bobby around. It feels like hell, sure, twists and stabs and tears at his chest like it’s trying to claw its way out and take as much of his core, of his heart, as possible with it… but it’s also a strange muted sort of thrilling – not the thrill of seeing how far he can push, not that, but something different, the mere fact that he can get that sort of reaction only falling short of intoxicating because he strangles the sensation with words like betrayal and rejection and renders it the illusion it is rather than a genuine tug of affection.
< You told me to die
John shifts again, unable to decide how exactly to respond to that and ending up with a grab bag of options, from which several escape and spill out before he can think better, spiralling from an embarrassed (and simultaneously indignant at being made to feel ashamed) ”Yeah, well” into a more flippant ”Hardly my proudest moment there” before accusatory settles and takes over again, because it’s easier making this about Bobby’s failings than admitting his own… and fuck, Bobby’s still feel like absolute monsters. ”Though fuck, you couldn’t even do that right, could you?”
< Moved on to what?
… ah. That’s the question, isn’t it?
In an ideal world, this isn’t how it would come out (except that at the same time it totally is, because right now he’s fixated on wounding Bobby in some petty punitive revenge for the various perceived slights… but were that not the aim…); Rogue at least doesn’t deserve to be fucked over like this (because even if they both know full well it’s about using each other and not about anything real or true or comfortable there’s a difference between knowing, and admitting, and flaunting…) and somehow admitting to it seems to cheapen the whole thing, make him less sure that moving on was the right thing to… No, fuck that. It was right, was the only option…
”To fucking her sideways, and not missing you.” Is that sharper and blunter than need be? Probably. It comes out on instinct more than anything else, as far as anything in a situation this artificial and weird can be instinctual (though it's cold, and measured, and in that much better than railing at Bobby because he's so damn casual about it and that's got to infuriate, right?) everything he wants to say distilled down to a few words which don’t capture any of it and yet hack away with all the energy of what they don’t say, determined to carve out a wound to match the one they’re seeping out of. ”And having not touching her make me feel a hell of a lot more alive than waiting on you ever did”
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Post by Bobby Drake on May 10, 2007 17:44:40 GMT
> "You told me to die"
> "Yeah, well, hardly my proudest moment there. Though fuck, you couldn’t even do that right, could you?"
He can’t help but flinch at that, at the idea that John would prefer him gone. It’s just John, he tells himself, it doesn’t really mean what it sounds like That’s just what he does when he’s hurt, he lashes out with the most hurtful thing he can come up with.
Bobby knows that perfectly well. It still hurts, though, and he’s done nothing to deserve it. Another time, another place, he’d let it go, or shout back, and either way they’d move on. Another time he might even take it as progress; at least John isn’t claiming he’s still dead anymore. But here and now it’s just one cheap shot too many, and he refuses to let this one go by.
"Guess not." It doesn’t take more than a second for Bobby to call up a small fire from the Danger Room’s holomenu, though he wishes his hand didn’t tremble so much as he did it. "Guess you’ll have to do it yourself if you want it done right."
It surprises him somewhat to realize he’s scared… not that John will actually try to kill him, which he won’t, but of what he will do. He hasn’t done this very often, standing up and making John deal with his own spew; it’s a new direction and he doesn’t know the map yet. But in retrospect, he’s not sure why he hasn’t done it more often… it sure as hell beats lying there and taking it, that’s for damned sure.
Eventually, he turns off the fire. "Yeah. That’s what I thought. I don’t know what you want, John, but it sure as hell isn’t me dead. Time to shut the fuck up about that." He’s still too nervous and hurt and angry to achieve the proper dismissive command-tone, but he hopes he’s made his point anyway.
> "Moved on to what?"
> " To fucking her sideways, and not missing you. And having not touching her make me feel a hell of a lot more alive than waiting on you ever did "
And there it is.
It’s not as much of a surprise as it seems like it ought to be… the truth is, he’s had plenty of evidence, even if he wasn’t particularly paying attention to it at the time. (And that brings home more than anything else just how different he’s been these past few months, that he could know that and genuinely not care.) But still, it catches him off-guard.
And it hurts more than he expected it to, which is pretty stupid considering that he’s already been through this once. He looks away, pretending to be suddenly fascinated by the grid pattern on the Danger Room walls, even though he's squeezing his eyes shut so tight they hurt. He never was much good at hiding his feelings, and he's gotten even more out of the habit these last few months of not having any, and right now he feels like he's been kicked in the gut by a mule, so he doesn't wanting John to see his face.
“Oh." It's all he can come out with, the only thing he's sure won't twist in his mouth into some kind of screed that ends up revealing just how weak he really is. He learned his lesson about that when he broke down like a scared little kid in front of Magneto1; he's not going to do that again. Except… John isn’t the enemy… is he? He's surprised by how small and tentative that thought is, and by how furiously he squelches it, and by how familiar all of it feels.
"OK, then. Now I know." That’s not too bad, either… a little squeaky but basically controlled. He’s beginning to think he can get through this without breaking down, without giving John the satisfaction of seeing him cry. "You don’t… want… me. Right?" He hates the trembling hesitation, but at least he got through it.
"It’s for real this time, yeah? Not just poking to see which way I jump?" He doesn't really need to ask, but he wants to hear John say it, and he’s enjoying how much easier it’s getting to act like he’s OK with it.
It helps that he’s been through this once before, learned how not to jump at each kick. He remembers waking up in the medbay after his rescue2, how they'd slipped off to her room, caught up in each other, and left him behind. How he'd pretended not to care.
And he remembers the weeks after that, with John stumbling in from spending the night with Marie, night after night, pretending they were fucking, pretending he wasn't throwing it in Bob's face, and Bob pretending he was OK with that3.
Looking back on it now, he can't understand how he'd ever fallen for it, or why he'd put himself through that. Fuck, I didn't need Reed's damned serum… I was turning into a robot all on my own… tearing myself up inside and pretending everything was fine… just like…
(And this feeling is familiar, too, the stomach-dropping throat-stopping clench of fear that comes with running up to the edge of an abyss he doesn't want to look into, let alone jump, but knows he's about to anyway, because he's too stubborn not to.)
…just like I am now.
(He remembers the last time he felt this way, just before sending that email to John4 … remembers thinking that maybe this is how it feels to fly. It's not a bad feeling, really. Scary, but not bad.)
No… screw this. I know what not caring feels like, and this isn't it.
"So, I’m supposed to be a grown-up here and say I understand, it’s cool, we’re still friends, right? Well fuck that, John. I've been all the way down that road and I don't like where it goes. Maybe I’m not a grownup, but it’s sure as hell not OK." He's redfaced and angry and crying and he knows it, and in a weird way he's glad, because it's so much better than all that pretending. "Fuck, John, I was the best thing that ever happened to you and you, you screwed me over and walked away and left the mess for someone else to pick up, 'cuz that's what you do, but it’s fucking not OK."
1 – Winds of Change (http://100mtoanchorage.proboards98.com/index.cgi?board=torturex&action=display&thread=1163303226 )
2 – From Time to Time we all are Blinded (http://100mtoanchorage.proboards98.com/index.cgi?board=torturex&action=display&thread=1165630900")
3 – Tyranny of the Clock (http://100mtoanchorage.proboards98.com/index.cgi?board=teomeiaf&action=display&thread=1168051135")
4 – Bobby's got Mail
(http://100mtoanchorage.proboards98.com/index.cgi?board=frostflame&action=display&thread=1157737919")
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Post by Pyro on May 13, 2007 20:27:29 GMT
< Guess you’ll have to do it yourself if you want it done right
John’s instinctive response is to laugh – not amused, really, but totally disbelieving, a ‘yeah right’ sporfle. Because… well, that’s insane, right? And though it seems a bizarre time to be joking about… anything, let alone that… it has to be a joke, right? A throw-away line. True, this isn’t Bobby’s style – far closer to his – but… yeah, can’t be serious.
He freezes when Bobby calls up the fire, a moment of silent inarticulate ‘what the fuck?’ followed by a nervous flickering quirk of a not-quite smile, a ‘come on, you can’t be serious?’ which falls still further into an insistent, edgy ‘fuck’s sake, Bobby, this isn’t funny; stop it’…
… and he doesn’t, and John – no, Pyro, John couldn’t do something like this, while for Pyro it’s old territory, face to face with his arch nemesis just like last time… except that he and Bobby aren’t meant to be enemies now, are they? - shakes his head – fine – and calls the flame to him, letting it ball in the palm of his hand. He’s not sure which is worse, doubting whether he can do this or hating that on some level he knows he can’t. His glance darts from the flame, to Bobby, back to the flame, and…
”Fuck it” he growls, snapping his fingers together, killing the flame. ”Not real flame. Fucking stupid.” Ignoring that he’s, of course, perfectly capable of rectifying the situation… it’s not a defeat. Not at all. If he needed to he could have, no doubt. Not a second thought. Nope…
(And still he’s torn between hating the doubt and fearing the instinct to call that doubt a weakness).
< You don’t… want… me. Right?
It takes an age for Bobby to say anything, and another for him to reach the end of the question – an age in which John manages to look at everything other than Bobby, and pretend that those things really are interesting enough to hold his gaze almost as successfully as he pretends not to be hanging on every word. And when the question’s out there part of him’s screaming that it’s not that fucking simple, not a case of merely not wanting Bobby any more… it’s complicated, and he made a dumb choice back when he thought Bobby was no longer an option, and now he can’t back out of it… But the rest is oddly calm, and measured, as he replies with a blunt ”No, not any more. Not after… everything”
(It’s odd – surreal, so bizarre he almost wants to laugh – seeing the role reversal here, as if Bobby rediscovering emotion’s the cue for him to lose his, like they’re still in counterpoint, opposite ends of the spectrum, fire and ice. Except that he still feels everything… and a small voice wonders whether it was like for ‘Robert’ before a larger one reminds him that he doesn’t care regardless.)
< It’s for real this time, yeah?
John nods, the words sticking in his throat, because ‘real’ is… a complex issue right now. The way Bobby means it he thinks he can agree with, at least, because it’s not just something he’s pretending to be into to hit at him… but at the same time, is it any more ‘real’ than that in anything other than that they’re trapped in whatever it is? He shakes his head, slightly more emphatically, though still unable to look directly at Bobby, now once again seemingly fascinated by the floor, at the question about ‘poking to see which way he jumps’… though he can’t admit to not being intrigued as to whether Bobby will object and fight for him…
… except that that doesn’t matter, does it? It’s Too. Late. For. That. Now.
And part of that is why he squelches his heart as it leaps at the tears and the protestations, the other part being… well, it’s undeniably sick, isn’t it, to get off on seeing that sort of distress? No, it’s not something to be pleased about. It’s… pathetic. Yes. Pathetic and… stuff. Definitely not leaving him hanging on every word…
< I was the best thing that ever happened to you
… though even if he was, the turn comes now. ”Bullshit… how the fuck do you figure that one, Drake? Best thing that ever happened was getting the fuck out of here, away from you, because you... fudge things together, spin them round so they stop making sense. Make me forget that everyone fucks each other all the fucking time and all you can do it wait for people to turn around and stab you in the fucking throat because that's what people do.” – and yes, that stings, and he’s a slow-smouldering, dark, fists-clenched sort of angry in the face of Bobby’s bawling, which annoys him more because fuck, Bobby shouldn’t be able to make him feel like shit. Who is he to do that? … Yes, it hurts. But… he tells himself that’s only because it’s true, right? – ”You did nothing but screw me over… what the fuck was this, Project Save John From Himself? Newsflash, I like me. Or liked, at least, because I lost that. Became every fucking thing you[/u] wanted me to be…”[/color]
He pauses, clears his throat, tries to clear his head, because he’s rambling and it’s just shit, all of it, fucking stupid shit that doesn’t need to be brought up now… except that it feels good to get it out in the open, doesn’t it? Annoyingly good to try to wound Bobby with what he’s done, how much he’s fucked things up. ”Everything that happened? Not my fault. Look in the fucking mirror, Drake, because it’s down to you and your fucking stupid refusal to be anything less than the hero. You want to blame me for that, fine, s’what I’m here for after all. To be imperfect so when you screw up you can blame it on the bad people and not on your pathetic code being a crock of shit. Just don’t expect me to give a fuck... because truth is? It stings. That's all life is. Get used to it.”
He turns away there (because even if he’s definitely not crying he’s far more shaken than he should be, given the whole ‘not giving a fuck’ thing), calls up the holomenu again, flicks through lists of programmes without taking anything in, just to make the point that he’s done listening. ”Fuck off back to your fans, Icicle. Enjoy being this week’s bonafide miracle.”
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Post by Bobby Drake on May 13, 2007 23:17:55 GMT
> " Bullshit… how the fuck do you figure that one, Drake? Best thing that ever happened was getting the fuck out of here, away from you, "
And there’s no denying how much that one hurts, because there’s a part of Bobby that takes solace in the fact that however screwed up their… whatever it was… however screwed up they’d gotten, he’d still managed to get John back. He’d never admit it to anyone, but when he looks back on the last year it seems to him like he’s the hero of one of those trite morality-play fantasy novels where the hero has to sacrifice his love in order to prevent its destruction, or some such goofy martyrish thing. And yes, he knows that’s stupid and self-indulgent and everything, but it’s still there, and to have it thrown back in his face hurts more than he expected, or is ready to deal with.
> " you... fudge things together, spin them round so they stop making sense. Make me forget that everyone fucks each other all the fucking time and all you can do is wait for people to turn around and stab you in the fucking throat because that's what people do. "
"Right, John…" he can’t help but reply, his voice dripping with sarcasm, despite knowing how pointless argument is. "That’s all Professor Xavier ever wanted, really, was to screw all of us over… pity for him he died before his devious plan ever saw fruit. And Josh and Warren and Toni, they just risked their lives to rescue me so you wouldn’t get all the credit, right? They’re just waiting for their opportunity to screw me over, once I’m dumb enough to really trust them. Just like you did." That last part slips out without Bobby’s quite meaning for it to, and the sarcasm is suddenly gone.
“So yeah, John, or Pyro, or whatever you’re calling yourself now, I get it. It’s what 'people' do -- your people. You and Magneto and – " he stumbles over the next few names, unable to get them out of his throat, and takes a deep breath that’s only a little bit of a sob before continuing " – everybody. Not my people."
Except that last part isn’t as confident as he’d wanted it to be. Everyone had abandoned John after Alkali, after all… then again after Alcatraz… and they’d killed Dr. Grey… and she’d killed Scott, and the Professor… and the Professor’d put those mental shackles on her… and he’d walked away from Rogue, and she’d… and his own family had… and they’re all “his” people, or so he’d thought. Maybe John was right, and he is just kidding himself, trying to paint himself as some kind of hero because he’s too scared to see the world the way it really is.
> " Look in the fucking mirror, Drake, because it’s down to you and your fucking stupid refusal to be anything less than the hero. "
And for a moment it’s like John’s reading his mind, echoing his own self-doubts, and Bobby’s soul crumples under the attack, all anger and indignation lost. Faintly, in the back of his own mind, he feels himself protest that dammit, he had been a hero… but the words turn to ash in his mouth. Maybe he’s right… maybe this is just all some stupid game we’re playing, pretending we’re the good guys, tilting at windmills and everything. Maybe…
And John’s ignoring him again, and suddenly that hurts more than anything… that he isn’t even worth arguing with anymore, that he can be thrown on the trash-heap with all of yesterday’s junk.
> " Just don’t expect me to give a fuck... because truth is? It stings. That's all life is. Get used to it."
"Yeah… maybe you’re right. " He hardly recognizes his own voice, small and defeated, as he leaves John to whatever he’s doing and turns towards the door.
He turns back for a second, as if to deliver some withering parting shot, but nothing comes out of his mouth. No point, really… John had screwed him over, over and over, and would do it again and again, whatever Bobby said or didn’t say. That’s just the way it was. It was time to get used to it.
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