Title: 'A Developing Amity...'
Author: Dancing Turtle
Disclaimer: The Turtle owns crap.
Main Character(s): Rogue. Pyro. It's a Ryro. Well, sort of...
Fandom: X-Men (MOVIEVERSE) AU
Rating: K
Status: One-shotComplete
Timeline: AU, so any time period really.
Summary: Calculus and Zippos. Both objects of Rogue's frustration. And John isn't exactly helping things, either...
A/N: WRITER'S BLOCK CURED!!!!!!YAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

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In slightly mild frustration, Rogue brought her two fingers up to her temple and started massaging to ease away the constant niggling brought to her by St. John's productfull clicking. She looked up from her calculus homework, expecting to see his pale face bearing the usual smug expression bordering on insolent. Instead, his current method of entertaining himself by shutting and closing his Zippo lighter with an amusing shark pattern was still in process, but with a slightly more sombre look on his face, as if he was mulling something over in his mind.

She looked back down at the straying papers in front of her with mad calculations and scribblings on them, a determined effort to crack the code of Pythagoras Theorem…but with graphs! Mr. Summers had tried to be helpful by sitting down with her at the end of the lesson and trying his best to explain the mind boggling procedure to her, but despite his efforts after nearly a whole hour and five bottles of energy drinks later, Rogue had decided it would just be easier to nod along and saw how she finally got it after all, and that she couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before.

She now wanted to tear up the papers in mad fit and throw the pieces all over the study room in a frustrated and livid fashion.

Sighing loudly, she gave John a blatant and frustrated look, foolishly hoping she would catch his attention and he would get the hint.
The clicking incessantly continued.

Hopeless.

"Um…John?" she tried. He pretended not to hear her the first time, purely to annoy her.
He grinned when he heard her sigh for a second time and slam her pen down on the table irritably.
"Something wrong?" he asked innocently, sitting up slowly from the futon with a smile on the right side of his face.

"Well…it's just that…" she tried to be nice, after all, she didn't exactly know him very well, or make much of an effort to get to know him properly, but then again, nobody else did. Not that that made it ok, it was just that Rogue got the idea he was someone who was more comfortable being on his own. To tell him to shut the hell up would have been like crossing a boundary that was only open to friends on a basis of comfortably knowing each other for a long while…something she felt she didn't have with someone like John. She only knew him through Bobby, and even so she didn't see what Bobby really saw in John. He was cocky, snarky and often took pleasure in seeing somebody else getting into trouble or messing up.
Somebody that Rogue did not want to be associated with, if she completely honest.

She looked at him now, her half-sentence lingering moronically in the middle of the air, she realised. Snapping herself out of her thinking stance, she looked at him straight in the eye and decided to get it over and done with.

"Well, it's just that, I've gotta hand in my math homework later, and, well, your um, lighter seems to diverting my attention."

Now that didn't sound too rude, but at the same time, it didn't exactly put her in a place where she was trying to act like something that she wasn't to him. That couldn't offend him…

He frowned and sat up straight.

Well, at least she thought it wouldn't offend him…
He held up his lighter to his face and stared hard at it. "This can't possibly be disturbing you. It's so quite," he ended softly with a sly smile.

She knew what he was trying to do. He wanted her to blurt out to him exactly how she felt about his incessant clicking, but he knew that she wouldn't because of her tolerant nature. He was teasing her.

She could feel her patience wavering and her resentment raising.
She was bothered.

She took one quick glance down at her math work. This had to be in at 3 pm today... and it was already 2:30! She could sense he was waiting for her to say something back, yet she didn't know how to get around this. She felt trapped between 4 tight walls, that were not moving in, but at the same time not going anywhere either. Frustration bordering on anger, that's what this was. She could feel the blood run to her cheeks.

Perfect. Now she was flushed.

Quickly, she stole a glance at him.

He was grinning now.
Like a Cheshire cat that knew where the cream was, how to get it, and the best possible way to have fun with it.

Goddamn him! she mused.
Another stolen glance.

He was still grinning!

Right.

Well, two could play at this game, she thought.

"I want you to shut the hell up."
He raised an eyebrow at her in mild surprise at her choice of language. At that moment, a sly grin drew itself across the side of Rogue's fair face. Her expression was good-natured. That of someone who was teasing, yet with the right amount of dryness for someone who was just barely a mere acquaintance, whilst politely translating what she wanted to achieve.

Slowly and cautiously he got up from the futon and made his way over to the desk. When he got there, he stood in front of her with his hands in his pockets. Waiting silently, she expected some cocky comeback, the least that could be expected from someone like John. Instead he stood there looking at her with the same dazed, but surprised expression.

"You want me to shut up?" he asked in non-resentful way, yet in a clear and ordered tone. She knew she could sense humour somewhere in his tone.
Bingo!
She got him.
He was playing along.

"Yes," she replied quirkily with a perky head nod.

A little hint of mockery never hurt anyone…

The air between them felt like a pane of clear cut glass, no haze, but no clarity either.
She tried a nervous smile, just to make sure she hadn't gotten the wrong end of the stick and made a complete idiot of herself.

"OK," he simply said. With that he grinned and turned to leave the room.

OK?!

Now, that was something Rogue sure as hell wasn't expecting. Maybe this was something else altogether? A new game? A different way of provoking her?!
OK...

Whilst Rogue mused over this, John turned back once to look at her. She was still in shock.
He shook his head in amusement and carried on. But he walked away with a new attitude towards Rogue and what he would have previously treated her like.
Almost like a new found sort of respect…and a reminder that she wasn't as timid as he thought her to be...and someone to steer clear of in a confrontation in the future...

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A/N: this isn't the first Rryo I've ever written, but it's the first one that i actually think i didn't do too bad on, so if you enjoyed it, please leave a review. Many virtual hugs & kisses!

x DT