Chapter 30: “Just Who You’ll Meet in the Dark (X2)”
It lay just below the surface. It wanted out. A rage grand enough to ignite the world. But John could handle it.
When had this whole mess started? And you can keep your smart answers about the day he was fucking born. No, it had started in the cafeteria at the Museum. Then it was Summers grinding him underfoot like the ten-millionth last-ever cigarette. Followed by the whole fucking mansion versus St. John and the brutal HAHA irony of the commando raid, as if his own subconscious had puked up the camouflage fuckers in revenge. It was Bobby’s baby pictures, his mother’s brittle bigotry, and his father’s silent smolder. It was Wolverine taking a bullet in the head and the almost erotic thrill of leveling a squadron of cops. Yeah, that part had been almost good. It was Rogue’s sickening touch, and then seeing her ejected from the back of the plane. Then all of them spinning to earth without hope of rescue. And as they’d plunged towards certain death, he found himself thinking, Eat me, T. S. Elliott! It ends with a bang!
No, John could handle it all. As long as no one got in his face. Because he was this close to losing his shit. And if they pushed him, Smokey the Bear better fucking be on patrol in this forest, or else.
Not that anyone was thinking much about him. They were all skulking around the woodland clearing like a starving pack of junkyard dogs, eyeing each other suspiciously, forced together by the extremity of their condition. After dinner (freeze-dried ravioli from the Blackbird’s emergency supplies), John climbed an embankment at the edge of their makeshift camp and watched from the shadows the way everyone glared and stared.
Jean, Ms. Monroe and Logan had fought against Magneto and Mystique, and they were openly watching the pair for signs of betrayal. Bobby had fought them, too, at Turcott’s clinic. The Master of Magnetism didn’t appear to remember Bobby from the battle, but Mystique made it clear that she did. (“Has Scottie taught you how to break out of basic holds yet, Icicle?”) Bobby was almost comically nervous of her.
Rogue, far from being afraid of the pair that had tried to sacrifice her for the greater good of mutantkind, seemed ready to tear Magneto apart. If looks could kill, as they say. Ms. Monroe had to spend a long time talking with her down by the creek, calming her, making her see the bigger picture.
No one better try calming me down, John thought.
He was also aware of eyes that steamed with covert longing: Logan for Jean, Mystique for Logan. Even the Nightcrawler guy for Storm. Heh, they’d make an interesting pair.
This confusing brew of hard feelings and hidden agendas made for a night of tenuous détentes. In that spirit, John was keeping the peace by steering clear of Bobby and Rogue. When they’d all boarded the jet back in Boston, the school’s favorite couple had made it plain they thought his actions had been irresponsible. Well, fuck you, Mickey and Minnie! Their ingratitude stunned him. He thought again about his show of force on the Drakes’ front lawn. Maybe blowing up the squad car had been a bit… dramatic. On the other hand, if you want respect, you don’t pass out cupcakes. They were in trouble and he’d handled it. He was still furious at Rogue for draining him. He shuddered at the memory of his life-force passing through his skin into her. He hoped it gave her heartburn.
The adults had been in pow-wow around the campfire for a while and John shifted nervously on his hillock. He wasn’t afraid of a fight, but he hated not knowing what was going to happen next. When the meeting broke up, John watched Magneto head for the flatbed trailer on the four-by-four he and Mystique had arrived in. He was pretty energetic for an old man. What was the real story of him and Xavier, he wondered.
John noticed Logan slipping into the woods, and felt a lurch in his crotch. He imagined hooking up with the guy deep in the night forest, spun around to lean against a tree, pants pulled forcefully down…
He watched Jean climb the steps into the Blackbird where she was working on the ailing engines; Monroe and Wagner stayed by the fire in low conference. John realized he had lost track of Mystique. Maybe Bobby was right to be nervous — she was fucking slippery. He strained to see into the darkness…
Oho.
John spotted Logan making his stealthy way along the edge of the camp towards the jet. Jean came back down the steps to meet him. Had she telepathically felt his approach? John wondered whether they might finally get it on, now that Summers was missing in action. He wished he could hear what they were saying. He leaned forward, ear to the wind, but to no avail. Wait! Were they kissing? Holy shit, he wished there was someone he could share the moment with. Suddenly, he was aware of yellow eyes shining in the darkness. Mystique! All but invisible in the dark, herself a witness to the kiss. John jumped to his feet nervously, but then stuck his hands into his back pockets, trying to look nonchalant. Evening, bitch, he thought. You don’t scare me. He walked down the hill to her. She tilted her head as he approached, barely acknowledging his presence, and they watched together as Logan left and Jean climbed back into the plane.
“Hmm, I was hoping for a bit more of a show,” John ventured and she smiled coldly in return, saying nothing. “So, listen, you think I could maybe talk to your boss sometime?”
“What about?” she said and her metallic voice seemed to insinuate itself uncomfortably into the spaces between his teeth.
“Well, uh, I got through all his writings this summer. I’d love to discuss some of the more interesting points.”
“Magneto is busy preparing for the coming ascendancy of our kind. You’ll have to finish your little book report without him.”
“No, you don’t get me! I’m serious about…” He trailed off, realizing he wasn’t going to get past her superior attitude. He brushed his hair back off his forehead. “Okay. Just tell him he’s got some good ideas, but he needs a fucking editor.” He turned on his heel and walked away, half expecting her to bean him with a rock from behind. He met Wagner coming up the path and, in the mood to sow more confusion, gave him a wink and said, “The blue lady told me she thinks yer hot.” John moved on, chuckling to himself as he passed the Blackbird.
*John?*
The voice in his head caught him by surprise and he sputtered, “Huh? Who?” into the night before he realized the telepathic voice was Doctor Grey’s.
*Would you come up and talk to me?*
He immediately wondered how he could get out of it. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up telling her what he really thought of her missing boyfriend, how he hoped he was hanging by his balls over a pit of crocodiles. But she had always been decent to him, so he pulled his shit together and climbed the ramp.
Dr. Grey was sitting on an upended packing crate, examining some inscrutable piece of machinery whose casing was dented and black with soot. She looked up at him and smiled. “How are you doing? Been quite a day, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” was all he could reply. He thought she looked tired, older than usual.
“I sensed you walking by, and I thought maybe we could talk. Why don’t you sit down?” she indicated a small bench by the wall to her right. Reluctantly he moved there, not liking that she was between him and the door. It felt weird to be scared, but he had seen what the new Jean Grey was capable of. In his mind, he could still hear the horrifying sound of her voice in the Danger Room footage that Jones had shown him, speaking a language so foreign, even Doug couldn’t place it.
He didn’t want her picking up any of these thoughts, so he quickly spoke up. “Hey, it’s swell you want to talk, but aren’t you supposed to be fixing the jet so we can go do whatever it is we’re supposed to do next?”
She held up the charred component. “Do you know what this is?” The forlorn tail of a severed cable hung limply from its underside. Whatever it had done to keep the Blackbird in the air, it sure wasn’t doing it now.
“Not a clue,” he said.
“Neither do I. I mean, I’ll figure it out, but right now my brain needs a break.” She put the unknown object on the floor with a small “clunk” that echoed in the cold, metal room. “John, you and I haven’t talked in a long time, and I’ve been concerned about you.” He felt a creeping anxiety. Was it worse to be trapped in here with some mysterious force that spoke mystery languages or with someone who was concerned about him?
“Shit, everyone’s always so worried. They think I’m going to go psycho and fry the mansion in the middle of the night.”
“That’s not what I meant, John. Though, I’ll admit, you weren’t exactly a model for responsible use of powers at the Museum yesterday.”
“Yeah, yeah, and today I actually crossed the line and went after the fucking police!” He stood up, searching for the courage to cross in front of her and leave. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what —”
She reached out a hand. “John, I’m not upset with you. I don’t think anyone can fault you for what happened in Boston. The police used lethal force against Logan. You had no way of knowing if you were the next one to get a bullet in the head. Or Rogue. Or Bobby. Please sit down.”
He sat cautiously. He wanted to trust her, but his supply of trust was running low. “Well, good. I’m not sure your boyfriend would see it the way you did.”
“You met with Scott after Storm and I left, didn’t you? I’m guessing he didn’t go easy on you.”
John smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “He has my balls locked up in his desk in a little jar.”
She lowered her head and laughed quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine, yuck it up, doc.”
“No, I’m sorry the two of you can’t get along better. I wish you could see each other the way I see you both.” She went quiet and gave him a searching look, full of sadness and compassion. He thought of how kind she’d been to him when he came to the mansion. He had been angry and scared, sure they’d throw him out once they knew all about him. But Jean had accepted him despite knowing that he’d been a hustler. She’d spoken to him with rare respect.
“John,” she said. “This isn’t something I’m supposed to say, because I’m part of the faculty and we’re supposed to always...” She searched for the words. “…show a united front. Even more so because we’re the X-Men. But I think you’re smart enough to hear this and understand. I want to apologize for the way Scott treated you last year because of your relationship with Bobby.”
Again John felt the urge to leave. Discussing Bobby was not safe. No, if he wanted to keep his cool, he should get up and walk. But Jean Grey was uniquely free of bullshit. Maybe he could take the chance with her. “It doesn’t matter now, Doc. It’s all water under the bridge.”
“It can’t be easy for you. You have to interact with him everyday. And with Rogue.”
John gave little laugh, but it felt like he had swallowed a thistle. “At least I get to beat up on them in practice sometimes.” Unbidden, the image appeared in his mind of Bobby at a training session, the sweaty boy pulling off his t-shirt and wiping his brow with it. His curls shone. His smile was brilliant and fatal.
John’s voice was suddenly husky and he had to force the words past the thistle. “I keep waiting…”
“Waiting for what?”
“For all the words that never got said. He never broke up with me. Never said the words.”
“‘It’s over.’”
“Right. God… fuck! Or even that it began. And I didn’t care, you know? All that ‘I love you’ crap and ‘let’s go steady;’ it’s all bullshit. Because I knew! I knew that he had rescued me and that he wanted me and…” He had to steady himself for a few seconds. “But then at the end, he thought he could get away without saying the words, too, you know?”
“Maybe he’s scared, John; scared what people would say, scared what he’d have to admit to himself. If he used the words.”
John sighed and it came out as a little sob. Fuck it. He sat himself up and ran his fingers through this hair. This was not the time to cry in his soup. “Whatever. You don’t always get what you want, right? That’s a song from your time.”
“More like my parents’ time. What do you want now, John?”
“I just want to sleep forever,” he said, but he saw by her reaction that she thought he meant suicide. “No, not like that. You know the coma couple?”
“The what?”
“This couple in California. Car accident just before their wedding. Now they’re in side-by-side comas in a hospital.”
“Oh, that’s so sad.”
“Sometimes I imagine that it’s me and Bobby. And nothing can come between us. No one can touch us.”
“But you can’t touch each other.”
“Yeah, like him and Rogue. Whatever.” Shit! He shouldn’t have brought it up. He thought she’d get it, but all he’d done was spread-eagled himself on the shrink’s couch.
Dr. Grey leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, bringing her face close to his. “John, maybe it’s time you talked to him. These unresolved feelings, I think they might be poisoning your life. We’re all watching you slide into anger and depression.”
John sat up very straight, trying to remain calm. “Look, we’ve said enough. I don’t want to talk about —”
“Please, John, hear me out. Forget about your fight with Scott. It’s up to you to take back control of your life. Maybe if you start by confronting Bobby —”
John’s whole body was tense now. “No, cut it out! I am not discussing my relationship with Bobby. He and I have nothing to do with each other anymore. It was a mistake. I was a total idiot to think that I could have something real with a kid like him. My bad. Now, it’s over and I just want to get on with my fucking life!” He stood again and this time he did walk around her. He needed to be alone or he’d fucking do something truly, terribly irredeemable.
She didn’t stop, though, and her words ambushed him from behind. “Can’t you see it? You’ve been trying to bring your whole life down around you!” Despite himself, John stopped at the top of the ramp. He turned to face her, his face contracted in a grimace.
“Do you think I want everything to turn to shit around me? You think that’s how I get my jollies?!”
“Look how you sabotaged your writing! The Professor was so proud of you and your progress, but as soon as you and Bobby broke up —”
“Oh, no, you stop right there, Doc! Don’t you lecture me about the selfless charity of Charles Xavier! You know why I stopped working with him? Because I didn’t want to be his pawn anymore! He spent six months handing me a line about how my words were going to change the world! But he was the one who wanted to take all the credit. The selfless philanthropist who rescued the penniless whore and made him speak pretty words. I’m Eliza fucking Doolittle to him. Just like Summers and Storm. And you!”
She gasped. “That is unfair and ungrateful, John.” Hurt, disappointment, anger burned in her eyes. But he was St. John the Truthsayer! He was proud of himself. “The Professor took you in and nurtured your talent,” she said. “The same as he’s done for all of us.”
Bad. It was bad what he was doing. He marched himself halfway down the ramp before he turned back to her. “Jesus Christ, at least I woke up and realized what was happening! You’re so fucked up, you don’t even know you spend half the time as some sort of psychic Godzilla!”
Jean’s face drained of color. She looked liked she was trying to remember some forgotten nightmare. “Wh-what are you talking about?”
“Think! Don’t you remember when I found you in your office that time? Or what about blowing up the Danger Room on Thursday? You can’t possibly be so out of it —”
*CEASE!* The voice went through him like a knife. He was suddenly dragged back into the jet and lifted into the air by an unseen force that squeezed the breath from him, like the talons of an enormous bird of prey. He didn’t even have time to scream before he was slammed into a bulkhead. The talons released him and he fell to the floor, landing hard on his side, gasping for breath, gripped by abject terror as surely as he had been gripped by the telekinetic force. His head filled with noise. It was like the voice had left its spawn in his mind, and they were all babbling and hissing together in an unholy choir:
…free from the prison …blaze, blaze! …rr’frznakhii ’Atmnn! ’Atmnn! …the beckoning of worlds without end…
He whimpered and curled into a ball. But the light was growing brighter and brighter around him, red and terrible. He dared look up between his fingers and there was Jean, floating in the air above him, her hair a brilliant red and flowing wild as a flame around her, her eyes twin stars whose gravity threatened to pull him in and tear apart his soul. The voice spoke: *YOU MUST NOT AWAKEN JEANGREY TO THE MAGNIFICENCE! I-I AND I ALONE MAY DO THAT!*
John found himself whimpering, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please, I’ll be good!”
Outside, he could hear Storm, her voice raised in alarm. “John? Is that you? Jean, what’s going on?!”
The terrible light was pulsing through all the colors of the rainbow, and when he dared look again at the Phoenix (for that, he suddenly understood, was its name) she was smiling. *Yes,* she said. *You will be good, little fire. You’ll be very good indeed!*
He couldn’t scream, so the world screamed for him.
…
“I’m sorry the two of you can’t get along better,” Dr. Grey said. She bent to pick up the charred component, turning it absently in her hands as she spoke. “I wish you could see each other the way I see you both.”
She went quiet and he felt regret for the pain and frustration he was causing. He didn’t want to hurt her; he just wished she wasn’t so damn naïve. “Look, Doc. Me and Summers… Mr. Summers… we are who we are, and you can’t change that. If I leave the school —”
“John, you don’t have to leave the school. We can —”
He put a hand up to stop her. “If I leave the school, just remember that I appreciate everything you did for me.” He became aware of an ache in his left side. He touched his ribs and hissed at the pain.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“Yeah, probably back in Boston. Didn’t notice till now. It’s nothing.” He stood and walked to the ramp.
“John,” she called and he stopped. “You remember that I’m here for you whenever you need me.”
He was about to thank her when she got the strangest look on her face. “What?” he asked.
She held up the component. “I know what this is! It’s a flow regulator for the axial stabilizers. Yes, I can see the whole thing in my head! I know how fix this sucker.” She grinned and gave the floor a whack. “Scott would be proud of me!”
“Heh, bolt from the blue,” he said and suddenly a shiver ran through him. He looked around the room as if trying to remember something, like the fading reverberations of a bad dream. “Uh, I’ll leave you to it, Doc. Thanks.”
“Get some sleep, John. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day for all of us.”
He ran down the ramp, suddenly desperate for some fresh air. As he approached the campfire, he passed Ms. Monroe.
“Time for bed, John,” she said. “The tents are already up. We’ll wake you at dawn.”
He nodded silently, struggling in vain to remember.
***
Peter walked alone through the main floor corridors of the mansion. The journey was sad and disturbing. Everywhere, furniture and priceless knick knacks were overturned. He bent to pick up the broken remains of an antique porcelain diorama. The shepherd’s leg was broken and Peter couldn’t account for two of the missing sheep. He soon gave up, leaving the pieces on a side table. He felt the wind whipping down through a hole in a leaded glass window high up on the wall. They’d have to fix tomorrow. It broke his heart to see his second home so violated. While it was easy to conjure the carefree memories of the last year at school, the dark stain of the day’s violence would never again be washed from the bricks and stone.
He came out of the corridor into the foyer and found Dr. McCoy, on his cell phone as usual. He had a pleasant, manly face, and if you didn’t notice how big his hands and feet were, you’d never realize he was a mutant. Peter had noticed how Dr. McCoy tended to hold his hands behind his back when talking. Maybe even someone from the Department of Mutant Affairs was nervous about being identified. He saw Peter enter and raised his eyebrows by way of greeting. He closed his phone and pocketed it. “Ready?” he asked.
“Yes, let’s go,” Peter answered and turned on the flashlight he was carrying. They headed down the front stairs and marched purposefully along the drive toward the front gates. “Have you heard any news, Dr. McCoy?”
“Nothing good. Are the children all settled?”
“They’ve eaten, they’re in bed. I don’t know if I’d say settled.” They walked past the darkened gardens, eerie and dim. Peter kept turning the flashlight beam from the path to illuminate alarming shadows in his peripheral vision. He needed to focus on the task at hand and stop spooking himself. Nonetheless, when he spoke, he found himself whispering. “What bad news?”
“The Air Force engaged the Blackbird off the New England coast. The fighters were knocked out of the sky by cyclones which just suddenly appeared out of nowhere.”
Peter smiled. “So the X-Men got away?”
“The Blackbird took a hit and went down in the woods. My contacts have no further information. I’m guessing that means the military doesn’t know where they are either.”
Peter felt himself start to sweat. He shivered and zipped his coat up to the top. McCoy’s cell phone rang again (his ringtone was the scherzo from Beethoven’s 7th, Peter noted). McCoy listened to the caller, grunting small unsatisfied responses, until he exploded, “Oh my stars and garters! All right, I’ll need hourly updates.” Peter wished the man would keep his voice down. He looked nervously at the shadowed groves that flanked them. He heard his father’s teasing, Russian-accented voice in his head: Still seeing monsters in de voods, Piotr? His internal father had a point: he couldn’t spend the rest of his life skulking around, afraid of his own shadow. Anyway, the previous night’s invaders hadn’t exactly been ninjas. If they were planning another attack, he’d know it by now.
McCoy ended the call and quickened their pace, leaving the driveway for a small cobblestone path. “More trouble?” Peter asked, deliberately loud.
“Yes. Magneto’s escaped.” Before the severity of the news could settle, they reached the fence. “All right, Peter, shine the light on the security panel there.”
They began a meticulous assessment of Forge’s surveillance system, making their way around the inner security perimeter, station by station. On the fourth stop, Dr. McCoy bent suddenly. He pulled out a pair of electric cutters and rose again holding a small device that looked not unlike a slim mp3 player. “Good heavens! The little leprechaun was right!”
“What is it?”
“It’s exactly what Jones said we’d find. The security system works by comparing states. Every few seconds, it sees if all the parameters — open doors, electrical circuits — are the same as they were in the previous interval. This device,” he said, holding up the component, “in effect, told the system that time had stopped. It just kept waiting for the next interval and, thus, ignored the arrival of a full platoon of commandos.”
“If Jones knew the system had a hole, why didn’t he tell anyone?”
McCoy sighed, examining the machine somewhat wistfully. “Hayward doesn’t really understand that events have weight. To him, everything from football scores to nuclear armageddon are just interesting factoids.” He walked to the control panel, entered the pass-code and set time in motion again. “Well, there we go. The system thinks it’s still the middle of last night, but we can fix that later. It’s at least working again. Let’s head inside. I’ll stay on guard duty until 4:00. Then you can take over.”
Despite his lingering anxiety, Peter felt a palpable relief returning to the mansion’s world of light and companionship, and he felt better still as he stepped into the cafeteria where the population of the mansion was gathered for the night. It had been Peter’s idea that the students might feel safer all together until the X-Men returned. Dr. McCoy had also pointed out that it made more sense from a security standpoint.
It had been good therapy for the students to move aside the tables and haul in the mattresses and bedding. With food in their stomachs and something to do, the kids could forget their trauma for a few hours. It was almost midnight as Peter returned, and half of the students were asleep, the rest clustered in little groups, talking through the events of the previous night for the hundredth time. One group was listening to Sam tell tall tales of his superhero exploits in Kentucky. Peter was fairly certain that none of them had ever really happened.
He found Rahne stroking the hair of one of the youngest girls at the school, who had fallen asleep with her head in her lap. “How are you doing?” Peter asked her and Rahne smiled back sweetly, though she was pale with fatigue.
“I’m okay, Peter. Thanks. But I haven’t seen Kitty in a while. Do you know where she is?”
He wandered up to the third-floor dorms, taking a left into the girl’s wing. Kitty’s door was open and the light shone from it into the dim corridor. As he approached, he could hear her voice.
“Hi, this is Kitty Pryde. From Westchester. I guess you’re already asleep. Maybe I shouldn’t leave this as a message, Mike, but…” her voice trailed off as Peter approached. He stood in the dark corridor and watched her. She had her back to him, and a cell phone to her ear. “But I thought someone should tell you. We were attacked last night. Some government agency sent in soldiers. And, uh…” her voice had started shaking. “And they took some of the students. They took Jubilee, Mike. She fought really hard. She’s not dead! I don’t believe she’s dead, no way! But… we don’t know where… and-and the X-Men are gone, too. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. She told me to fight them, to take their guns and I-I just… I was too scared. I’m so, so sorry.”
She closed the phone and started bawling. Peter felt his heart break and he moved quickly into the room. She gasped as he touched her shoulder, but then fell into his arms and sobbed against his chest. He touched her hair gently, feeling huge and awkward and unsure what to say. She was so small in his arms, so delicate and beautiful. More than anything, he wanted to take care of her and to take away her pain.
He looked around at damage the room had sustained: the chair smashed, the door with a piece knocked out of it. After a minute, he felt Kitty’s shaking subside. “Are you feeling better?” he asked.
She didn’t answer him, but pulled away and went to sit on her bed. She held up the cell phone for him to see, her curly hair half covering her face. “It’s Jubilee’s. I found it lying on the floor. I realized Mike was the last number called, so I hit redial fast before I could change my mind. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it.”
Peter came and sat beside her. He wanted to reach out and hold her hand, but he was suddenly unsure. “This is all new for us. It’s hard to know what’s the right thing and what’s the wrong thing to do. But I do know you have nothing to apologize for, Kitty.”
“Oh God, I know. It’s just… It’s like if I’m sorry enough, it’ll all be erased and we can start again.” She pushed the hair out of her face and looked up at him. “You’d never guess I get good marks in Logic.”
“Everyone’s going to sleep now. Do you want to come down?”
She bit her lip. “No. I want to stay here.” She looked up at him and her expression was unreadable. Kitty was all layers — sometimes sensible, sometimes angry and impulsive. Peter usually had no idea what she was really thinking. He wondered if he’d even be able to draw her. He wouldn’t know where the lines of her beauty began.
“Should I go down, then?” he asked. “Leave you alone?”
It was she who reached out and took his hand. Her voice was calm, but her grip was almost painfully firm. “No, don’t leave.” She searched his face again. “Would you stay here tonight with me?”
“Kitty, what do you —?”
“Peter, I want to have sex with you.”
He couldn’t find the words. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry.
She looked away. “I mean, if you don’t think of me like that, I understand. I just thought —”
“No! I do! I mean, I always thought you were very… beautiful.” She smiled at the floor, but he could see she was as nervous as he was. “Are you a virgin?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. You?”
He felt his hand sweating, but letting go of hers was not an option. “No, I’ve been with two girls. Don’t tell my father.”
She laughed. “No problem.”
“Do you…” He inhaled some spit and started coughing. “Sorry. Do you have, um, condoms?” He was looking down at the rug, his eyes darting to and fro across the pattern of the weave.
“Yeah.” She reached into her nightstand and pulled out the little package. They both blushed as she handed it to him. “Jubilee gives them out to everyone, along with little safe-sex speeches. She’s pretty awesome.”
He coughed again and cleared his throat. He turned and looked into her eyes which were brown and large and wonderful. “Kitty, I’m really glad you want me to… but why now?”
“I-I’m not sure. I just need it, Peter.” She let go of his hand and stood, moving around the room, picking up books and cosmetics from the floor, putting them back on shelves and tabletops. He could suddenly imagine the girls in here fighting the soldiers, and it was his turn to feel guilty, as if he should have stopped them. Kitty said, “They attacked us in our home. The teachers… they couldn’t keep us safe. And now I see that it’s up to us. We have to be there for each other, you know? Peter, I don’t want to be a little girl anymore. I want to grow up.”
“Having sex doesn’t mean you’re grown up.”
“I know that. But yes it does! I’m sick of being an untouchable ghost! I’ve been hiding away all my life. I need to feel the world! I need to engage, Godammit! Will you help me?”
He stood and came to her. Bending, he kissed her cheek. She suddenly looked small and afraid, so he kissed her mouth. And she might have been a virgin, but she wasn’t without passion. The kiss was hot and everything he could have hoped for. He was hard instantly. Still, he pulled back and looked her in the eye. “If you’re sure, Kitty, then I’d be honored to make love to you.”
She nodded. “Good, let’s do it,” she said, as if they were going to launch a canoe or make cookies.
He closed the door, and when he turned she was sitting on her bed, undoing her blouse. He knew she was not considered a great beauty, but to him she was Boticelli’s Venus. “Kitty, I should warn you… I’m kind of, um, big.” He felt himself blush again.
She laughed nervously. “Shit, Rasputin, you’re the only guy I’ve ever met who’d apologize for that.” She lay down on the bed. “Just go slow, okay?”
As he climbed into the bed and took her in his arms, she looked up into his eyes. “I don’t love you, Peter. Is that okay? But you’re my friend and I trust you.” He hesitated only a moment and then nodded. Under the circumstances, it was enough.
***
“Knock, knock,” Bobby said as he unzipped Rogue’s tent and stuck his head in. His girlfriend was sitting on her sleeping bag in a black X-jacket, knees tucked to her chest, chin resting on her knees. He picked up the small stuff bag containing his sleeping bag, and began climbing into the tent.
“I didn’t say ‘come in,’ did I?” she said without looking up.
Bobby froze, one foot inside on nylon, one out on the forest floor. He looked around, embarrassed, but no one was nearby. Where’s John? He wondered. I haven’t seen him since dinner. “Rogue, honey,” he said quietly. “Are you okay?” Receiving no answer, he hesitated another second and then finished climbing in, zipping the tent closed behind him. He kneeled beside her and put a hand on her gloved hand. They were his grandmother’s gloves, and he suddenly remembered sneaking into his parent’s room to try them on as a kid. His dad had caught him and he’d had the presence of mind to say he was playing Batman.
He gave her a small kiss on the hair and began to lay out his sleeping bag beside hers. A small overhead light was built into the frames of all the tents, and as he worked, he cast strange, monstrous shadows.
“What are you doing, Bobby?” she asked tensely.
“Uh, I thought we could sleep together tonight. Here.”
She raised her head and looked at him sourly. “I don’t think we should do that.”
“No one will know!” he protested, though in truth he was hoping they would know. “Besides, I can see you’re upset. After everything that happened to you today, I don’t think you should be alone.”
“I think you just want to try and have sex with me,” she said and dropped onto her sleeping bag, turning away from him. “This morning we managed to kiss, and now you want to see what else we can do.”
“No, it’s not like that, Rogue!” Bobby was hurt by the accusation, despite the fact that it was kind of true. The idea that they would come together under these trying circumstances struck him as brilliantly romantic. It would give him a chance to show he was the kind of lover he thought he kind of probably was. “But since you brought it up, maybe we could do some stuff. Maybe we’d both feel better. I mean, you were blown out the back of a plane today!”
“Yes, thanks, I remember,” she told the far wall.
“I was so scared for you! Not to mention the whole attack on the school.” He began smoothing out the sleeping bag and unbuttoning his shirt.
Rogue sat up and spun around. “Bobby Drake, get out of this tent now! I want to be alone! It’s not just the school or the airplane! It’s everything that happened at your parents’ house today! I touched both of you — you and John — and let me tell you, I felt some very strange stuff!”
Bobby froze, staring into her eyes in panic. “And what… What did you… feel?”
She dropped her head into her hands, rubbing slow circles on her temples. “Uh, I get such a headache after I use my powers. I don’t know what I felt. Not exactly. But you two… whatever your story is… it’s way more interconnected and messed up than I ever understood. I-I need you to not be here. I have to sleep this off. Just get out, okay? Please?”
Bobby began hurriedly gathering up the sleeping bag in his arms. “But where can I go? All the tents are taken!”
“I can’t solve all your problems for you, Bobby Drake. Just go!” Bobby unzipped the tent and backed out, hugging the crumpled sleeping bag to his chest like a huge, ungainly teddy bear he’d won in a midway game. “Bobby Honey,” she called after him. “I’m sorry. I love you… I just can’t…” She zipped the doorway closed and a moment later, the light went out.
He stood uncertainly in the moonlight that filtered through the treetops. He looked around the campsite, trying to figure out what to do. Across the clearing, a small light flared and Bobby saw Logan standing by his tent, lighting a cigar, watching him.
“Bobby,” called a voice behind him and he jumped. He turned and found Ororo, on guard duty, pointing a flashlight his way. Her breath was mist in the cold night. “This is not the time to be fooling around,” she said in the voice she used when her class was getting a bit out of hand. “We’re in the middle of a crisis. Leave Rogue be and go to sleep.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he muttered and turned in a frustrated circle before going the only place he could.
“What do you think you’re doing?” John demanded as Bobby unzipped his tent and crawled in, throwing his sleeping bag down.
“I’m sleeping here tonight. Shut up. There isn’t anywhere else. Just move your bag over all the way to the wall.”
With a frustrated snort, John put down the paperback he had been reading by the tent’s small light. “Wow, there goes my chance for a good night’s sleep,” he said, squatting to rearrange his sleeping bag.
“Trust me, I’m not thrilled at the prospect either.”
They shuffled around in the small tent, bumping into each other for a few minutes, cursing quietly, until they were settled. John picked up his book and lay back down.
“You shouldn’t waste the batteries,” Bobby said. “It’s supposed to be emergency illumination.”
Without looking up, John said, “I could just light you on fire and read by that.”
“What are you reading anyway?” Bobby squinted at the paperback’s cover. Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis. “Hey, did you steal that from my parents’ house?”
“Yeah, and it’s giving me a pain.” He threw it at the wall of the tent and sat up to pull off his shirt. “Let’s go to sleep.”
“You’re a piece of work, Allerdyce,” Bobby muttered and bent to untie his shoes. “You have no sense of boundaries.”
“Says the man who invaded my tent.” Lying on his back, John raised his hips off the ground and pulled down his pants. He was wearing no underwear.
“Jesus Christ,” Bobby said as he pulled his own socks off. “Do you have to?” He kept trying not to watch John’s dick flopping around as he got himself ready for sleep. “Are you at least going to get into your sleeping bag so I don’t have to look at that?”
John laughed. “S’matter, Drake? My manhood getting to you? I seem to recall a time when you were glad to see it whenever you could.” John lay on his back, hands under this head and closed his eyes. Bobby stared for another moment, ice floes twisting and cracking in his chest, before reaching up and snapping out the light. He stayed in his clothes. Neither got into their sleeping bags because neither ever got cold.
With the lights out, Bobby became aware of the sounds of John’s proximity. He heard the give and take of his breathing, and the swish of his naked flesh on the nylon. He heard him scratch his pubes. He could also smell John’s armpits. He turned his head a bit and took a deeper whiff. Damn. The comforting feel of John lying beside him was completely unnerving. Bobby cleared his throat. “Uh, what did you mean you won’t be able to sleep? It’s not like you’ve slept alone at all in the last year.”
“Watch as I resist saying, ‘Case in point.’ I just meant I was looking forward to some alone time, okay? It’s been a pretty shitty day.”
“‘Pretty shitty,’” Bobby giggled. “Listen, you’re still a poet!”
“Ha and ha.”
“A poet and you don’t know it. I’m sorry I barged in on you. I wanted to sleep with Rogue, but she wasn’t into it.”
“Her you listen to. Heh, ‘sleep with Rogue.’ Talk about unsafe sex.” They were silent for a minute before John said, “How can you seriously be with someone you can’t touch?”
“I love her, asshole. Why don’t you understand that?”
“Okay, putting aside the utter implausibility of that statement, I still have to ask: really? How can you love someone you can’t touch? I mean, at least you and me always had that.”
Bobby wanted to defend the purity of his love for Rogue, but for every argument he formed in his head, he could hear John’s refutation in advance. So he just replied, “You wouldn’t understand what we have.” The silence returned, but Bobby knew sleep wouldn’t be coming any time soon. He rolled onto his side, facing John’s shadow form. “I guess you don’t have any complaints, right? Fucking that Remy guy all the time?” The vulgarity sliding off his lips made him feel a little wild.
“Oh yeah, we’re the hottest couple in Soho. You should see what we do with his trapeze equipment.”
Bobby’s heart started to beat faster. He found himself gripping a handful of sleeping bag. “Yeah? You’re a couple of fucking monkeys? Banging all night? ‘Oh, Remy, harder!’” he minced in a falsetto. The rage had blown out of nowhere and Bobby felt like a small boat, tossing in the surge.
“Drake, cut it out!” John snapped. “What the fuck?”
But Bobby’s brain was spinning up a vortex that consumed all in its path. “What about Peter?” he hissed.
“Peter? What about him?”
“Your big ol’ jerk off buddy, right? You still get off with him? How many guys you need to keep you satisfied, Allerdyce?”
The shadow suddenly moved and Bobby was thrown onto his back, his shoulders pinned to the ground. “That is enough out of you Iceboy!” Bobby could just see the furious eyes above him in the dim light. He could smell the ravioli on John’s breath as he panted. “I don’t need to keep secrets from you, Drake. You’re not that fucking important. Peter and I got off once last winter and that was it. And you want the truth about Remy LeBeau? He fucking dumped my ass last night.”
“What? You’re lying!” Bobby said, which was pretty pointless.
“Yeah, first your buddy Summers kicked my ass around the mansion, then LeBeau dumped it.” Bobby struggled to flip John off him, but he was held by the boy’s weight, somehow weightier for its nakedness. “So don’t you dare be high and mighty with me, asshole! You have everything going for you now. You got rid of your loser friend and picked up the mysterious and beautiful Marie instead. You’re king of the mansion again while I’m going down in flames.”
Bobby felt John’s grip weaken, and took the opportunity to turn the tables. He got a leg under them and used the leverage to flip them, putting himself on top. John thrashed like a mongoose, snarling and grunting, and Bobby struggled to stay in control. John shook his hand off and Bobby reached to find a new grip… discovering John’s hard-on in the process. They froze there a second, both panting like dogs, before Bobby dropped his head and began devouring John’s full lips, hungrily. Their tongues pushed into each other’s mouths as if continuing their battle. John’s hands were pulling up Bobby’s shirt and forcing themselves down his pants, and in the mysterious mechanics of long-time lovers, the clothing soon disappeared until skin could talk to skin, the dark unknowns of night pierced by the bright light of desire.
God, and everything was right again as he licked the sweat off John’s neck, as his hands gripped the lean muscles (firmer than before with all their recent training), as his hips thrust their hard dicks urgently over and under each other. Then there was a moment when Bobby was aware of crossing some line. He could have just gone on thrusting and kissing until they came and it would have just been a runaway train, a momentary slip, a brainfart. But when he lapped his way down the torso, when he met John’s dick against his chin, lifted it, licked it with all the art he had, when he took it into his mouth with a horny sigh that said, “where the hell have you been?…”
Well, then he had really done it, hadn’t he?
John up above saying, “LeBeau’s got nothing on you, Bobby. Fuck, you have the best mouth in the world.” He didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want any words. The thickening boner in his mouth was rebuke enough, and the orgasm, proof of intent — a smoking gun. Ditto his own orgasm, flowing hotly beneath him. Please label this puddle “People’s Exhibit #1.”
The embarrassed silence after was the most damning evidence of all. Wiping up with his boxers (he would toss them into the woods before they left), mumbling good night, climbing into his sleeping bag because he wanted protection from scrutiny, from the possibility of fucking up again.
Cursing in despair, What the fuck is WRONG with me?!