(A/N) So, I have no idea where this fic came from, but it popped in my head one day and badda bing badda boom, I had to write it. The lyrics below just happened to be the lyrics that inspired this fic, so take the time to read the verses. This fic is rather angsty which is in direct contrast to the song. You'll understand once you've read it. Anyway, without further ado, here is "Family Tradition."
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"So don't ask me Hank
Why do you drink?
(Hank) Why do you roll smoke?
Why must you live out the songs you wrote?
Stop and think it over
Try and put yourself in my unique position
If I get stoned and sing all night long
It's a family tradition."
-Hank Williams Jr.
"You listening to Hank Jr. again Taris?" I puffed on my cigar and blew a ring out into the night air. The chill bit at my skin, but I determinedly ignored it. Behind me, Jubilee sighed before sitting beside me on the porch swing.
"One of these days those cigars are gonna kill you." I turned my blue eyed gaze to match hers and watched her freeze for a moment before she relaxed. After all these years of marriage, she's still surprised to see my father's eyes staring at her. The physical similiarities still freak her out at times.
"I swear Taris, you get less chatty every year." I ignored the urge to comment on how she got more chatty. I felt her slump at my side, so I wrapped my left arm around her ad pulled her close. I heard a shuffling in the bushes and took a deep breath. I automatically tensed before the wind drifted my way and I could smell our old coon hound creeping our way. There was a wet, bloody smell coming from him as well, so I knew he'd found himself a late night snack.
"Are we old Taris?" Jubilee's soft question made me cast a look her way. She had a guarded look in her eyes, so I distracted her by running a hand through her slowly graying hair.
"I mean seriously. Are we old?" I remembered running at her side as an X-Man. Facing off with criminals like Magneto, the Blob and Mystique had been everyday things. Of course, we had aged and slowed down along with those criminals. Erik Lenshrr had passed many years ago, Fred Dukes was busy serving a lift sentence in the Vault and Raven Darkholme currently lived in an assisted living home in upstate New York.
"The world feels so quiet now." My wife whispered. She quieted after speaking and I assumed she had finished her thought. Her sobbing made me change my mind.
"I hate this Taris, I hate it!" She screamed before throwing herself from my arms. "It's not fair. How could this happen to us?" Her words brought back the memory of just two weeks ago. Sweet, little Jesse, our seven year old daughter, splayed in the rubble of a sentinal atack. An innocent victim caught in the unfortunate aftermath.
"She was just a baby! She hadn't even lost all her baby teeth yet!" Jubilee collapsed in the grass and sobbed harder. I pressed my cigar into the ashtray and rose from the porch swing. I stepped up to my wife and kneeled at her side. I grabbed her chin lightly and lifted her head to face me.
"She died so others wouldn't have to." Jubilee's normally soft blue eyes sharpened before she threw my hand from her.
"Don't give me that bullshit Taris! She died because some bigoted asshole in the white house blames mutants for his son having green skin!" I waited for her to realize that she had answered her own question. Recognition hit her and she fell into my grasp.
"I hate this Taris, I hate this feeling in my heart." I scooped her up into my arms and carried her back to the porch. I took my spot on the swing and helped her lay down beside me. I could hear Zeke moving around just inside the house. Wisely, he stayed in the kitchen and left us alone. Belatedly, I wondered how the 17 year old was handling the death of his baby sister.
"I miss her." I almost couldn't hear my wife's whisper she was so quiet.
"I miss her too Jubes." The scene felt so familiar to me that I felt my mind drift away to another house in another time.
Logan was standing at the base of the mansion's porch, Jade limp in his arms. Tears streaked down his face only to drip onto the prone form of my sister. My father, Victor Creed, stepped forward to take her into his arms. He cradled his oldest daughter in his arms and had to bite his lip to prevent the tears.
"Jade?!" The scream came from JJ Lionell, Jade's lover and best friend. He nearly ripped the door off it's hinges when he came tearing out of the house. He stopped right in front of my father and collapsed to his knees. "Jade?" His voice broke and his eyes went wide. He gently lifted one of her pale hands to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to it. He closed his eyes before letting the hand fall away.
Father slowly sat down on his porch swing and let her body slip to the floor. Someone came to take her away, but my eyes were trained in my father. He pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. The hours drifted by, but father remained at his post, puffing away. It wasn't until late that night after mother had screamed herself senseless that he had put the cigar down.
I watched from the kitchen, just like my son did now, as the strongest man I had ever known broke down and cried.
"Taris?" I looked down at my wife in confusion. On her index finger was one, distinct, little droplet of salty water. As if to mock me, another tear joined the first. I was crying.
"Oh Taris." She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight, but all I could hear was the end of the song that had played earlier.
"I'm just carrying on the family tradition."