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Post by Rogue on Oct 15, 2006 0:46:51 GMT
”Other than all that?”
She nodded slightly, unneededly, and took another bite of her ice cream as he looked at her with that look she'd come to recognize after seeing it many times.
”Wait.. you don’t need to ask, do you? You can just read through my mind, can’t you, Rogue? It’s all in your brain now, isn’t it?”[/color]
She sighed slightly, pausing in mid-scoop of the ice cream, looking at him for a moment. "I could, if I want'd t'; if I tried t'." she responded, "It's there, yeah, but I don' jus' look through it all f'no reason... Not if I know someone ain' gonna to want me pryin'. Y're a private person - I don' think y'd like me seein' everythin' up there."
That, and the fact that what she'd gotten had a bad feel to it. She didn't think she wanted to experience it, firsthand, like that.
"An' b'sides, tha' totally screws up th'point'a conv'sation, don' y'think?" she added in a slightly lighter tone with a smile, taking another bite of ice cream.
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Post by Pyro on Oct 15, 2006 1:08:52 GMT
< It's there, yeah, but I don' jus' look through it all f'no reason... Not if I know someone ain' gonna to want me pryin'. Y're a private person - I don' think y'd like me seein' everythin' up there."[/color] The answer intrigues him further, but is more than enlightening enough, telling him two important things. First off, she has to *try* and see into the memories (which is somewhat reassuring). Second, she still understands enough about him to know he wouldn’t want her to try if he wasn’t so drunk… hell, scratch the still. The fact that she at any point in their relationship understood that much is still, in some fucked up way (because he’s sure *normal* friends are meant to do these sorts of things anyway, without thinking about it), a surprise, and a pleasant one at that. If he wasn’t afraid passing comment would swing the schizophrenic mood still further he’d have said it was turning out well.
Though it’s an answer which should make him happy – and sort of does – he does sober, slightly, directing his attentions back to the ice cream as if awkwardly apologizing for the question through body language alone, eyes downcast and prodding sullenly with the spoon (it’s starting to melt, he notes, thinking where’s Bobby when you need him? before realizing that having Bobby here would really spoil things in some way he can’t understand but can’t ignore either).
< b'sides, tha' totally screws up th'point'a conv'sation, don' y'think? He grins, nods, grateful that she’s lightened the mood. ”Well, there is that… though hey, Little Johnny might be a better partner for you, ‘cos I’m shit at small talk”
Bringing it up again – way to go, John, absolutely fantastic – of course only sparks more questions, ones he should be smart enough not to ask. But hey, he’s not going to get this chance again, and the worst she can do is walk away (neither of those things should worry him anywhere near this much, should they?). ”How does that work? Is it like..” – he makes the stock crazy gesture – ”voices in your head, or what?”
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Post by Rogue on Oct 15, 2006 1:36:38 GMT
At first, he seemed to become quieted, as if whatever she was saying to him reuired thought. Then there's a grin - a grin - and he seems to be returning to what passed as 'normal' for John, the John she was used to. Hopefully he wasn't just pretending, for her sake - though why he would do something like that was beyond her.
”Well, there is that… though hey, Little Johnny might be a better partner for you, ‘cos I’m shit at small talk”
She laughed slightly, shaking her head a little. "Tha' makes two'a us."
”How does that work? Is it like...voices in your head, or what?”
Rogue sighed slightly, not really upset at the question - he has a right to be curious, after all - just a little uncertian of how to answer it.
"It's...complicated..." she started, pausing slightly. "It's like havin' seperate li'll people up thare, who c'n all see an' hear everythin' I do, an' talk. A lot..t'everyone - eachothah, me...tryin'a talk t'people outside'a me, sometimes..."
She too took to absently playing with the ice cream, as he'd done earlier, but her eyes stayed on him, for the most part, occasionally flicking about the room.
"I don' really know why, o'how, they stay there, though... Why they get trapp'd up thare, an' can' get out. Xavier tol' me I could get rid'a them - kill them, basically - in m'mind. But...I can' do tha'. Ev'n if they ain' ''real'', I jus' can'."
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Post by Pyro on Oct 15, 2006 1:54:06 GMT
John listens, watching her sidelong with just the right balance between intent and casually interested. His reactions too seem to be just about right – the understanding nod, the slight smile, the involuntary shudder as she mentions killing them. In fact it’s all very... polite, in his own clinically disinterested way. Which is odd, really. It doesn’t feel fake, per se, but it’s clear he’s making some sort of effort for her benefit, a fact he’s choosing to ignore rather than analyze because it doesn’t really make much sense.
It’s probably best that he’s being this way, seeing as how now he can’t quite stop himself firing off any and every question which occurs to him.
”So there’s me, an’ Bobby, and Logan… Bet that’s fun” he says, the non-speech of thinking out loud… because he’s still trying to get his head around it. It’s an interesting image, if you ignore the fact that it’s taking place inside a girl’s mind and therefore really fucked up.
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Post by Rogue on Oct 15, 2006 2:17:25 GMT
”So there’s me, an’ Bobby, and Logan… Bet that’s fun”
She laughs a little, with a wry smile. "Fun" definetly wasn't the word she'd use, but she was pretty sure that was a sarcastic "fun".
"Makes f'an interstin' bit'a arguements ov'r the weirdes' things, tha's f'sure. Usually end pretty quick once Logan gets out the claws... But y'all ain't the only ones, there's a few othahs. Magneto's in thare...Creepy nightmares fr'm tha' guy, but 'e stops Logan fr'm guttin' "Li'll Johnny"..."
She takes another spoonful of her just-above-slightly melting ice cream, and lifts one shoulder in a small absent shrug, before speaking again.
"It sounds more entertainin' than it is, o'course. It gets old fast."
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Post by Pyro on Oct 15, 2006 12:13:18 GMT
He blanches at the mention of the claws – having no doubt that, yeah, that’s how it would end in real life, shiver – colour returning with a slight non-smile (the wierd, slightly sad smile which suggests amusement isn’t the whole story) as Erik enters into the equation. Fuck, he’d forgotten that, somehow. He wonders whether the John in there teams up with Erik on his own, which would be some sort of justification for what he’s done as if it was all just nature, or whether it’s his influence, whether it’s him as he is now or as he was back as Boston (hardly, in retrospect, his finest hour or, unless in some wierd vindictive ongoing punishment to remind her what she’d done to him, the image he’d want to linger), whether that last touch has changed anything. But the tone of the conversation is sobering him, slowly, as much as having something other than burbon in his stomach is, and he manages to check the instinct to let only of those questions out, settling on a strangely eloquent ”Shit”
... although he’s not totally sober, it seems, because what happens next is... odd. Impulsive, which is an instinct he should no doubt check around Rogue, given what happened last time he let drunken reasoning rather than good sene rule. He leans in slightly, as if to share a conspiratorial whisper, and addresses his next words as if speaking to the voices inside her head. ”Knock knock... hey, Mini-Me, play nice, ‘kay?”
[OOC: Hey! Nicely done on the tense-thing, by the way]
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Post by Rogue on Oct 15, 2006 18:17:34 GMT
She laughs slightly at his first response, amused, somehow, by just the simple word. Then he leans in, and she resists the urge to withdraw, because she's sure he's not going to touch her again - right? There's no reason for him to, now that he knows better, so it should be okay.
”Knock knock... hey, Mini-Me, play nice, ‘kay?”
Psyke-John retorts with a fairly snide, rude comment back to John, and she laughs again, grin staying on her face afterwards. This is strangely like old times, almost, except for the general moments of discomfort and awkwardness. They never used to be this awkward, but just that things are heading bck to normal is really, really good.
"He's a li'll crabby righ' now. I'll leave what 'e said to th'imagination...'M sure y'can guess."
((Eee, thanks. ;D))
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Post by Pyro on Oct 15, 2006 18:34:08 GMT
”Yeah” he laughs, having a pretty clear idea – though it’s still beyond weird to try and get his head around her having a version of him, which isn’t him but also is, running around inside her brain (so he doesn’t. He just accepts it. Things work that way). ”I feel like I should apologise… only… fuck, this is weird”
He laughs again, and holy shit, it feels good. Just laughing, real laughter, not a knife or a shield but genuine amusement. Not much time for that, recently. Not much time, really, since back when he left the Mansion. Left Bobby and… hell, he can say it, left her, left the pair of them on the jet because he was sick of all that kid’s table shit and wanted to believe he really was a god among insects.
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Post by Rogue on Oct 15, 2006 18:46:20 GMT
”Yeah...I feel like I should apologise… only… fuck, this is weird” [/color]
She maintains the grin, as he laughs. She hasn't heard him laugh in awhile It's good to know he still can, because she was starting to wonder if that part of him was gone, or just buried. Obviously not gone, then.
"Nah, no need ta apologize, sugah. S'fine." And there's the "sugah" thing again. Why does she keep doing that? It's not normal. Not that any of this really is, if she wanted to get technical - it feels almost-normal, but it's obviously not. Not normal for now, anyway.
She glances at her ice cream, which is looking somewhat soupier than before. "Y'know, nex'time maybe w'should get somethin' tha' ain't gonna melt while w'talk." she comments with a wry grin, stirring at it. "S'mo' like a milkshake, now..."
She's not sure where talk of "next time" came from - because just that she got him to loosen up enough to come here this time is enough of an almost-miracle. A repeat performance of tonight was probbrably out of the question, unfortunatly. Unless maybe things changed after this. That would be good - she really has missed him, missed his friendship.
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Post by Pyro on Oct 15, 2006 19:19:59 GMT
He freezes slightly, for a split second, as she mentions a ‘next time’… only that shouldn’t scare him, should it? Because he does want there to be a next time, because this time has been… nice. Sort of. Weird, but in a good way. Just like old times and all.
It’s just… well, he can’t promise her a next time, can he? That’s not how he works.
He’s half-shocked, thinking about it, that she’s even proposing one, given how psycho / jerk-like / prying he’s been… but then again, she did say something about being cut off at the Institute – hell, she didn’t even know about Alcatraz, not really, which is fucked up when you think she lived through Liberty Island long before he (and Bob, and Kitty, and everyone else who was onboard for the Worthington siege) got involved in anything – so this is probably the best conversation she’s had in forever. He’s not sure, really, whether he was much more civil back before anyway, and even he has to admit that missing those days and wanting them back isn’t all that insane.
”Next time?” – a slow, small smile - ”So me n’ Mini-Me haven’t scared you off yet, then?”
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Post by Rogue on Oct 15, 2006 19:53:19 GMT
”Next time? So me n’ Mini-Me haven’t scared you off yet, then?”[/color]
She shakes her head slightly. "Nah, takes a lot mor'n' tha' t'scare me off." she responds, in a half-cocky, almost fearless tone, and half simply telling him the truth, somewhere between sincere and playful. After only a brief pause, she continues, but her tone is nearly entirely serious now. "'M not givin' up on ya that quick. On this tha' quick."
And she won't, she decides, because she wants to help him. Even if he won't accept help from the X-Men, from the Institute, maybe he'll let her help, just as a friend. It's not like he's the enemy anymore, not really, since he said there was no more Brotherhood, and she's on inactive status, not an official teammember, since she'd backed out on them to get cured.
Even if he never returned to thin Institute, she would be content with at least knowing he was alright. But she wasn't sure how any offer of help would go over, and at the moment, things are working fine. Maybe later, she'll mention that. Now, though, she takes another spoonful of ice cream, and throws on a witty grin.
"Wonder if they'll give us straws...?"
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Post by Pyro on Oct 15, 2006 20:37:50 GMT
< 'M not givin' up on ya that quick. On this tha' quick[/color] The tone of the conversation has changed, now they’re allowing admittance to big, serious issues (though, he notes, it wasn’t as if the whole question of Rogue’s psyche was small per se, just a different sort of big, one with less chance of getting to him), and it’s as if she isn’t the only one with loads of distinct personalities running around in her head (only, y’know, his are all sort of him… kinda) because Pyro’s itching to shoot back that she gave up pretty quick last time, that they all did after Alkali, no one even pausing to ask where he’d gone to except that it was *with Magneto*, as if that was some one of those universal laws Hank loved so much… but, John realizes, it wasn’t as if he thought of it as any less incontrovertible, and besides, Bobby and Rogue probably knew him well enough (as far as anyone could have known him) to have figured out that it didn’t matter whether they gave up or not, because he wasn’t coming back, period. And shit, that’s a big realization.
Another part of him wants to growl a warning, tell her not to bother trying to save him… because some things are just broken, and can’t be anything else. But she understands that gem as well as he does, after all, and he knows she’s not trying to be the one to stick his pieces back together, just holding out some vague hope that he hasn’t forgotten the one big thing she managed to teach him; broken doesn’t have to mean alone.
He prods idly at what used to be ice cream, blankly not-watching as it spills off the spoon. Stunned speechlessness is the only real response to big thoughts of the kind he’s been tossing around… but for some reason silence doesn’t seem to work just now, and he finds himself babbling – ”Well, a ‘next time’ would be good, y’know, only… I can’t promise anything. Not with everything the way it is.” – before lapsing into silence again, as if by demonstrating exactly how good he is at not saying anything he can make it as if those words didn’t slip out, because shit, what the hell was that?
< Wonder if they'll give us straws...?[/color] Just like that, the tone lightens again, and he smiles again, one eyebrow raised with customary sarcastic cynicism. ”Straws? Classy. Shit, Rogue, cheap bourbon, mind-rape and melted cream… you sure know how to show a guy a good time”
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Post by Rogue on Oct 16, 2006 1:30:38 GMT
”Well, a ‘next time’ would be good, y’know, only… I can’t promise anything. Not with everything the way it is.”[/color]
She simply nods in understanding, because that makes perfect sense to her. With the way everything was - uncertian, shifting and changing all over the place - she knew very well that it wasn't likely they'd just be out hanging out on the weekends, just being kids, like old times. It wasn't like that, and it probbably never would be.
"Y"don' have t'make any promises f'the future, o'anythin'. Jus' don' ev'r think we ain' friends. Ev'n if y'were still with th'Brotherhood, o'somethin'... Doesn' change it, not t'me."
”Straws? Classy. Shit, Rogue, cheap bourbon, mind-rape and melted cream… you sure know how to show a guy a good time”
She grins, glad the playful mood is picked back up, and batts her eyelashes at him. "Ah d'try, Sugah." she responds, purposly thickening her accent into the drawl she used to have as a preteen. The "Southern Belle" effect is, however, ruined when she sticks her tounge out at him childishly afterwards.
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Post by Pyro on Oct 18, 2006 15:44:31 GMT
John rolls his eyes as if he’s the adult here (which he sort of is, thank you very much, though he’s never thought of Rogue as a kid the way he does Josh, and used to Bobby) and in a position to judge her immaturity… the effect of which is kind of wrecked when, having shook his head and done that side of the act to a tee, he breaks, grins, and flashes the point of his tongue in return before breaking into laughter again.
”I’ve missed this… All this. Us.” It’s out before he can check it, and would normally be mortifying, because as a rule he never thinks stuff like that, let alone admits to thinking it… but somehow tonight it would be more wrong not to, so he flushes slightly and laughs it off. ”What’s next, sugah?”
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Post by Rogue on Oct 18, 2006 15:55:32 GMT
”I’ve missed this… All this. Us.” [/color]
Rogue's a little surprised that he returned the childish gesture, but more surprised at his words. She'd hoped that he had, but she'd not really expected him to admit to it, even though she's glad he did. Glad she's not the only one.
She doesn't say anything, since she knows he already knows she feels the same way, and she doesn't want to turn this back into a sentimental, sappy moment again, but she can't hide the happy grin on her face.
”What’s next, sugah?”
She's tempted to stick her tounge out again, but that would be overusing it, she reasons, and so she simply arches an eyebrow at him. "Y'mockin' me? ...I dunno...anythin' y'd like t'do?"
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