"You can feel the stars and the infinity of sky, since life, in spite of
everything, is a dream."
-Vincent van Gogh
John has not slept for a full night in a month. Every morning after two, maybe three hours of sleep (if he's lucky) he makes a small notch in his wooden bedpost with a pocketknife he took from a store when he was ten. The action makes him wonder what hell is like, if this isn't it- this thickness behind his ever-dry eyes that feel stuffed with cotton, this notion that his skin is falling off without his notice or consent. He finds ways to amuse himself each night so he doesn't spend hours staring at his ceiling or at the water marks on the wall from Bobby freezes things in his sleep. The downfall of having a room next to the Ice Man. When he awakes, or when the sun rises he makes sure he's the first to reach the coffee - he drinks pots before the others stumble in, stained and chipped mugs waiting for ready hands.
He spent two hours in a downstairs shower once; trying out the scented liquid soaps he pilfered from the other's rooms, while everyone else slept away the warm, early summer night. Rosemary with citrus extracts, basil and lemongrass, raspberry melon with cucumber to volumize and strengthen his color (peroxide) treated hair, watermelon, mint. He returned them with pruned fingers before anyone awoke; the wet bottles making puddles on dressers, in drawers, went onto the roof to let his hair dry in the faint breeze and full moon; he fought the urge to howl like the wild dogs he used to hear sometimes when he couldn't sleep in Australia. Jean, Ororo, Kitty, Marie, Bobby.
All his thoughts kept coming back to Bobby. Wonder why. They had arrived at Xavier's about the same time, within hours of each other. Like twins. By all reasoning they should be close. They were- in their own way. Had drunk Logan's beer together, eaten bar food together (because the bar tender refused to serve them until after the bar almost emptied- they had passed the time by throwing peanuts in other people's glasses, then only drank a beer each), had been awake at the same time together, even talked during some of those times. Fought together, fought each other. John remembers the fight three months ago sometimes, the feeling of rolling around the Danger Room's metallic floor, the way Bobby had felt under him, over him, how the fight started over a botched training exercise where they were supposed to cover each other and had failed- it was still Bobby's fault.
John was the older twin- perhaps that was the reasoning by the protective feelings that surged in him every time he looked at Bobby when his guards were down, when he wasn't making jokes- when he missed home, or grew angry that he was so different from his family. When they watched horror movies together and Bobby would be lulled into sleep by the screams of the actors- how the tube would screen black and white slides on Bobby's closed eyelids, and John would spend the rest of the film watching the movie play upon Bobby's face. It was times like those that John thought he could easily kiss Bobby, he could easily lie down next to him, squeezing his body between the couch and Bobby and fall asleep listening to Bobby's arteries beat. He could easily do a lot of things but he does none of them.
Some nights he runs his fingers through his mother's jewelry box for hours on an end. That was what he had left of her. Some lipsticks, a few photos and postcards she had written and received, the post marks different on each. John wears one of her silver rings on a hemp chain he wove around his neck. When he takes off the necklace the ring leaves the impression of a cross upon his skin. Though it has a cross engraved on it, she was never religious. Not in the church way. She believed in angels, karma and Buddha. When she would tell him of religion, she would never tell him of hell, saying instead that he was his own judgment. John still isn't quite sure what that means but he doesn't think it's Christian.
He spends his time flicking his lighter on and off, flick, flick- it's how he thinks things out, through, something to move with his fingers. His mother used to tell him that every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings. The night of her funeral, he ran and ran and ran from his window, off the garage roof and hit the ground, clutching every bell in the house, stolen from every Christmas ornament they had, the clappers muffled by the tissues he had stuffed inside. When he reached the graveyard he found her grave and rang the bells. Rang them until the cop came and took one look at his tear wet face and sat a few yards away on a graying and cracked stone bench dedicated by the Tschida Family in Loving Memory, watching, until John's arms could ring no more. Until John got up from her hot (the dirt was still warm from the heat of the day, the overcast sun, the 75% humidity), now-damp grave and stopped sobbing, rubbing at his face with dirty fists. John doesn't like to remember that night. The memory was too old and cherished to be hated, too young to be forgotten.
One night he went down to the dining room and wrote the word LOVE on the hard wood table, coated with the expensive varnish, with lipstick he had pilfered from a over filled T Shirt drawer, each perfectly folded and in even piles. Wisely Scott hadn't asked for it back. When everyone came down for breakfast that morning their nostrils stung from the cheap perfume John had poured onto the table, bought the day before when he had stood in the drug store staring at nothing for too long. Jean had looked at the color of the letters though and blinked, took a closer look. John heard her say to Ororo that that lipstick was the same coral pink shade she had lost 3 moths ago. Scott had flushed lightly under his visor and vacated the premise- John the only one watching him. Wondering. He knew what it was like to hold onto a memory, or a hope, by grasping objects, so he had said nothing to anyone. Everyone else took it as the mark of a Jaded lover, an ex girlfriend. John was no one's lover and certainly no one's girl friend. But that night John kissed Batman's face in every still; his lips bigger than the Dark Knight's head by a ten fold, his fingers running over Bobby's fingerprints, and slept with the comic under his pillow, the one place Bobby had never looked for it.
John had hated his father from as long as he could remember, before he knew what the word meant he remembered his father yelling at him for using it on the dog, pushing him into a corner and forcing John to meet his eyes when he had so wanted to hide under his bed and read comic books by the flash light. But his father kept yelling and pushing him back into the corner when John tried to squirm free, until his mother came into the room and placed one slim white hand on his father's shoulder. John always remembered the way his father had spit out the word, like hate was dirtier than any word that came out of his father's mouth when he yelled at the television. You're never to say that again. But John thought it. Hard. Would flip his father the bird when he wasn't looking, mouth the words "I hate you and hope you die. You should have died instead of her, You, You, You," at the walls that would stand between them, then run out of words to say, curses to mouth. Maybe it was just another stage of grief he would think sometimes, in the Institute when there were true miles between his sire and him, lying in his bed, reading comics he and Bobby passed between rooms, moving his mother's ring around and around his thumb. Again.
Four hours. That's how long it had taken to clean out the fridge. If he had stopped tasting the contents of each container, if he hadn't taken the two hour-long break to eat the strawberries and drink all of Wolverine's cheap Vermont beer, hadn't sat watching the fog drift out of the freezer or the ice cubes melt on the linoleum squares that reminded him of Tetris, then he surely would have finished and done much quicker. Nevertheless the next day the fridge was organized and when Remy opened the door to grab the milk he almost fell back in surprise. The group had gathered around the fridge and stared in wonder, even John, slightly proud of his handy work in the early morning sun. All eyes were upon each other's- wondering who had done this.
Bobby walked in on him one night, making a sandwich in the kitchen at 2 in the morning. Bobby had nodded, wordlessly saying 'I couldn't sleep either.' John had glanced up through his bangs and then ducked his head back down, motioning to the unopened turkey, his hand still clutching the knife that severed slices of sharp cheddar, careful to not make them too thick. Bobby had stood beside him, waiting- his bread piled with turkey cuts. John handed him the cheese and pulled slimy turkey slices off one another to layer. He stopped when he was done, placing the turkey back into the deli wrapper, and watched Bobby fold the aluminum around the block of cheese as if he was wrapping a present. John had taken the increments and opened the fridge, putting each in the drawers where they belonged. Bobby had reached passed him, his open hand glancing against John's sweat pant covered hip, then closing around the container of soda, his arm pressed against John's bare side, his skin lightly touching John's. John had looked up at him, craning his neck, still bent and Bobby had reached his head down and kissed him, chest pushing against John's shirtless back, standing back up as John did, pressing their tongues into the other's mouths, the warm caves of flesh, John wrapping his arms around Bobby and feeling his heart beat through his skin. Bobby stopped and broke his head away when he dropped the frozen bottle of soda, which smashed upon the floor and began to melt.
"I'm not queer," Bobby had said, softly, like a child denying he had broken a window, still standing close. John had nodded, "I know." He moved back from Bobby and removed his hand from Bobby's cool white T Shirt, his skin burning. Breathing in, letting out, he controlled it, and grabbed his sandwich, stepped out of the light of the open refrigerator. Maybe just lonely he thought. Maybe just tired. He walked to his room and climbed out his window, onto the roof. Hanging his legs off the gutter he had turned when Bobby's window opened with a rasp, a figure crawling out to sit within John's reach, eating his own sandwich. When they had finished chewing they went into separate bedrooms, the stars beginning to fade a little behind them.
Since then John has kissed ever pair of lips in the house. It's better than watching TV, he realized one night. Marie had whimpered involuntarily underneath his touch, eyes still closed, caught in her dreams- it had taken him a moment to pull his mouth away, drained slightly, stood watching her sigh, her skin turning slightly darker for a moment as it adjusted to his pigment, then returning to a soft alabaster sheen. Remy had turned his head, breaking the slight touch, hand clenching into a fist, whispering, 'Mon chere'. Logan had moaned into his descending mouth, and for a moment longer than he had with almost anyone else John pressed his closed lips back, until Logan lost the tight look in his face that John had realized some people assume before crying.
John slipped quietly in and out of rooms, tasting, yet none had felt like cold tin foil, cracked and soft on his own. Even the Professor hadn't woken, surprising John. He had thought the telepath would be able to sense his presence. At least, his eyes remained closed. Lucky. John was sure if the Professor checked his security tapes he'd see who it was that wandered the halls late at night. He wouldn't find one night's slow survey of the kitchen though. John had that, thought back to the video that lay in his sock drawer every time he snuck into Bobby's room and watched him sleep, his mouth always slightly open, his eyes always closed tight. John could easily kiss him, easily climb into bed next to him and fall asleep. But things that were easy to think about weren't always the easiest to be done. So John watched and waited and couldn't sleep.
"At night, before I go to sleep, I often see the earth, floating majestically through the pure emptiness of infinite space." M.C. Escher
John has not slept for a full night in a month. Every morning after two, maybe three hours of sleep (if he's lucky) he makes a small notch in his wooden bedpost with a pocketknife he took from a store when he was ten. The action makes him wonder what hell is like, if this isn't it- this thickness behind his ever-dry eyes that feel stuffed with cotton, this notion that his skin is falling off without his notice or consent. He finds ways to amuse himself each night so he doesn't spend hours staring at his ceiling or at the water marks on the wall from Bobby freezes things in his sleep. The downfall of having a room next to the Ice Man. When he awakes, or when the sun rises he makes sure he's the first to reach the coffee - he drinks pots before the others stumble in, stained and chipped mugs waiting for ready hands.
He spent two hours in a downstairs shower once; trying out the scented liquid soaps he pilfered from the other's rooms, while everyone else slept away the warm, early summer night. Rosemary with citrus extracts, basil and lemongrass, raspberry melon with cucumber to volumize and strengthen his color (peroxide) treated hair, watermelon, mint. He returned them with pruned fingers before anyone awoke; the wet bottles making puddles on dressers, in drawers, went onto the roof to let his hair dry in the faint breeze and full moon; he fought the urge to howl like the wild dogs he used to hear sometimes when he couldn't sleep in Australia. Jean, Ororo, Kitty, Marie, Bobby.
All his thoughts kept coming back to Bobby. Wonder why. They had arrived at Xavier's about the same time, within hours of each other. Like twins. By all reasoning they should be close. They were- in their own way. Had drunk Logan's beer together, eaten bar food together (because the bar tender refused to serve them until after the bar almost emptied- they had passed the time by throwing peanuts in other people's glasses, then only drank a beer each), had been awake at the same time together, even talked during some of those times. Fought together, fought each other. John remembers the fight three months ago sometimes, the feeling of rolling around the Danger Room's metallic floor, the way Bobby had felt under him, over him, how the fight started over a botched training exercise where they were supposed to cover each other and had failed- it was still Bobby's fault.
John was the older twin- perhaps that was the reasoning by the protective feelings that surged in him every time he looked at Bobby when his guards were down, when he wasn't making jokes- when he missed home, or grew angry that he was so different from his family. When they watched horror movies together and Bobby would be lulled into sleep by the screams of the actors- how the tube would screen black and white slides on Bobby's closed eyelids, and John would spend the rest of the film watching the movie play upon Bobby's face. It was times like those that John thought he could easily kiss Bobby, he could easily lie down next to him, squeezing his body between the couch and Bobby and fall asleep listening to Bobby's arteries beat. He could easily do a lot of things but he does none of them.
Some nights he runs his fingers through his mother's jewelry box for hours on an end. That was what he had left of her. Some lipsticks, a few photos and postcards she had written and received, the post marks different on each. John wears one of her silver rings on a hemp chain he wove around his neck. When he takes off the necklace the ring leaves the impression of a cross upon his skin. Though it has a cross engraved on it, she was never religious. Not in the church way. She believed in angels, karma and Buddha. When she would tell him of religion, she would never tell him of hell, saying instead that he was his own judgment. John still isn't quite sure what that means but he doesn't think it's Christian.
He spends his time flicking his lighter on and off, flick, flick- it's how he thinks things out, through, something to move with his fingers. His mother used to tell him that every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings. The night of her funeral, he ran and ran and ran from his window, off the garage roof and hit the ground, clutching every bell in the house, stolen from every Christmas ornament they had, the clappers muffled by the tissues he had stuffed inside. When he reached the graveyard he found her grave and rang the bells. Rang them until the cop came and took one look at his tear wet face and sat a few yards away on a graying and cracked stone bench dedicated by the Tschida Family in Loving Memory, watching, until John's arms could ring no more. Until John got up from her hot (the dirt was still warm from the heat of the day, the overcast sun, the 75% humidity), now-damp grave and stopped sobbing, rubbing at his face with dirty fists. John doesn't like to remember that night. The memory was too old and cherished to be hated, too young to be forgotten.
One night he went down to the dining room and wrote the word LOVE on the hard wood table, coated with the expensive varnish, with lipstick he had pilfered from a over filled T Shirt drawer, each perfectly folded and in even piles. Wisely Scott hadn't asked for it back. When everyone came down for breakfast that morning their nostrils stung from the cheap perfume John had poured onto the table, bought the day before when he had stood in the drug store staring at nothing for too long. Jean had looked at the color of the letters though and blinked, took a closer look. John heard her say to Ororo that that lipstick was the same coral pink shade she had lost 3 moths ago. Scott had flushed lightly under his visor and vacated the premise- John the only one watching him. Wondering. He knew what it was like to hold onto a memory, or a hope, by grasping objects, so he had said nothing to anyone. Everyone else took it as the mark of a Jaded lover, an ex girlfriend. John was no one's lover and certainly no one's girl friend. But that night John kissed Batman's face in every still; his lips bigger than the Dark Knight's head by a ten fold, his fingers running over Bobby's fingerprints, and slept with the comic under his pillow, the one place Bobby had never looked for it.
John had hated his father from as long as he could remember, before he knew what the word meant he remembered his father yelling at him for using it on the dog, pushing him into a corner and forcing John to meet his eyes when he had so wanted to hide under his bed and read comic books by the flash light. But his father kept yelling and pushing him back into the corner when John tried to squirm free, until his mother came into the room and placed one slim white hand on his father's shoulder. John always remembered the way his father had spit out the word, like hate was dirtier than any word that came out of his father's mouth when he yelled at the television. You're never to say that again. But John thought it. Hard. Would flip his father the bird when he wasn't looking, mouth the words "I hate you and hope you die. You should have died instead of her, You, You, You," at the walls that would stand between them, then run out of words to say, curses to mouth. Maybe it was just another stage of grief he would think sometimes, in the Institute when there were true miles between his sire and him, lying in his bed, reading comics he and Bobby passed between rooms, moving his mother's ring around and around his thumb. Again.
Four hours. That's how long it had taken to clean out the fridge. If he had stopped tasting the contents of each container, if he hadn't taken the two hour-long break to eat the strawberries and drink all of Wolverine's cheap Vermont beer, hadn't sat watching the fog drift out of the freezer or the ice cubes melt on the linoleum squares that reminded him of Tetris, then he surely would have finished and done much quicker. Nevertheless the next day the fridge was organized and when Remy opened the door to grab the milk he almost fell back in surprise. The group had gathered around the fridge and stared in wonder, even John, slightly proud of his handy work in the early morning sun. All eyes were upon each other's- wondering who had done this.
Bobby walked in on him one night, making a sandwich in the kitchen at 2 in the morning. Bobby had nodded, wordlessly saying 'I couldn't sleep either.' John had glanced up through his bangs and then ducked his head back down, motioning to the unopened turkey, his hand still clutching the knife that severed slices of sharp cheddar, careful to not make them too thick. Bobby had stood beside him, waiting- his bread piled with turkey cuts. John handed him the cheese and pulled slimy turkey slices off one another to layer. He stopped when he was done, placing the turkey back into the deli wrapper, and watched Bobby fold the aluminum around the block of cheese as if he was wrapping a present. John had taken the increments and opened the fridge, putting each in the drawers where they belonged. Bobby had reached passed him, his open hand glancing against John's sweat pant covered hip, then closing around the container of soda, his arm pressed against John's bare side, his skin lightly touching John's. John had looked up at him, craning his neck, still bent and Bobby had reached his head down and kissed him, chest pushing against John's shirtless back, standing back up as John did, pressing their tongues into the other's mouths, the warm caves of flesh, John wrapping his arms around Bobby and feeling his heart beat through his skin. Bobby stopped and broke his head away when he dropped the frozen bottle of soda, which smashed upon the floor and began to melt.
"I'm not queer," Bobby had said, softly, like a child denying he had broken a window, still standing close. John had nodded, "I know." He moved back from Bobby and removed his hand from Bobby's cool white T Shirt, his skin burning. Breathing in, letting out, he controlled it, and grabbed his sandwich, stepped out of the light of the open refrigerator. Maybe just lonely he thought. Maybe just tired. He walked to his room and climbed out his window, onto the roof. Hanging his legs off the gutter he had turned when Bobby's window opened with a rasp, a figure crawling out to sit within John's reach, eating his own sandwich. When they had finished chewing they went into separate bedrooms, the stars beginning to fade a little behind them.
Since then John has kissed ever pair of lips in the house. It's better than watching TV, he realized one night. Marie had whimpered involuntarily underneath his touch, eyes still closed, caught in her dreams- it had taken him a moment to pull his mouth away, drained slightly, stood watching her sigh, her skin turning slightly darker for a moment as it adjusted to his pigment, then returning to a soft alabaster sheen. Remy had turned his head, breaking the slight touch, hand clenching into a fist, whispering, 'Mon chere'. Logan had moaned into his descending mouth, and for a moment longer than he had with almost anyone else John pressed his closed lips back, until Logan lost the tight look in his face that John had realized some people assume before crying.
John slipped quietly in and out of rooms, tasting, yet none had felt like cold tin foil, cracked and soft on his own. Even the Professor hadn't woken, surprising John. He had thought the telepath would be able to sense his presence. At least, his eyes remained closed. Lucky. John was sure if the Professor checked his security tapes he'd see who it was that wandered the halls late at night. He wouldn't find one night's slow survey of the kitchen though. John had that, thought back to the video that lay in his sock drawer every time he snuck into Bobby's room and watched him sleep, his mouth always slightly open, his eyes always closed tight. John could easily kiss him, easily climb into bed next to him and fall asleep. But things that were easy to think about weren't always the easiest to be done. So John watched and waited and couldn't sleep.
"At night, before I go to sleep, I often see the earth, floating majestically through the pure emptiness of infinite space." M.C. Escher