Disclaimer: I don't own the X-men movies or comic book franchise and I don't own the characters. No monetary profit is being made. Alas!
Two Syllables, Six Letters
She comes looking for Bobby but it's John that she finds instead; John sitting huddled under a mountain of blankets and used kleenex, red-eyed and red-nosed and sniffing every so often in a manner just between pathetic and irritated, as if it's some personal affront that he, of all people, should have caught a cold.
She knocks twice on the door, just with her knuckles, and the gloves muffle the sound even more than her own shyness and uncertainty, and John calls come in, croaky-voiced.
"I'm dying," he tells her and sneezes twice, violently. "Bobby's in the shower. Wanna wait? You'll probably catch it." He's looking at her every so often, quick, darting looks like sips of water, fiddling with his fingers, with the blankets, with the mug full of something that smells a lot like Lemsip but sweeter.
"Thanks," says Rogue. She stands there uncertainly, twisting her own hands together, not really sure whether she should look at John or make a pretence of studying the posters on the wall. She'd feel better if she could sit down, as if the reduction in stature makes her somehow less conspicuous, but the desk chair is covered in a mound of laundry and she can't quite bring herself to sit on Bobby's bed.
"Did you bring a card?"
She looks up to find John's eyes on her again. His mouth has curled, sly, mocking, not mean. "What?"
He coughs into the crook of his arm and then gestures at his chest with a thumb, "For me."
"I..."
"No card, no grapes, no chocolates, no flowers, no fruit basket," he sighs and it makes him cough again, shoulders shaking. "You're a shitty visitor, Rogue."
"Sorry." she squints at her hands. She's not used to this anymore, she thinks, this banter, this teasing; the edge in John's voice which falls just short of sharp or cruel. Solitary is a concept she's become used to, not without bitterness, solitary, untouchable, and different even from the other students who are different from the rest of humanity.
It's hard to adapt that concept and to shape around it this moment, standing here, with St. John Allerdyce assuring her that he's dying and that her sympathy is lacking and Bobby in the shower before he meets her for coffee and poptarts downstairs because, I make a mean poptart. It's all in the way you put it in the microwave, you know. Okay, so I can't cook, but... and Rogue smiling, shy, helpless, hopeful, saying, No, that sounds cool. ...I like poptarts.
She looks up from her hands and says, "I guess I missed the bulletin."
"About cards? It's standard visiting procedure-"
"About your imminent death," she says, the shape of the words unfamiliar in her mouth and that deadpan tone one that she remembers from what feels like a long time ago, from before. "Otherwise I woulda brought pineapple."
"Yeah? Well, I prefer mangoes, but I guess pineapple would've been alright." John gives her a vaguely baleful look, sniffing again. "If you'd actually brought it. Which you didn't."
"It's the thought that counts," Rogue tells him, astonished that her voice can be this calm when her heartbeat is skipping in her chest, when she can feel her pulse in her fingertips and face, because trying for this normal feels like leaping for something unknown. "Right?"
"Nope," John replies. "People just say that to get out of giving decent presents. If you'd brought fruit, that would've counted. My head feels like Dr. Grey sneezed in it."
"That's really gross, John," says Bobby, coming in behind Rogue. She turns round, startled, pleased, faintly guilty for a reason she can't quite define, the heat rising warm in her face. He's grinning, beautiful, t-shirt and jeans and barefoot, towel around his neck and hair all wet and sticking up. If Rogue could touch like normal girls, she'd reach out to brush her fingers through it, to rearrange it not because it looks bad, but because she could.
But Rogue can't touch like normal girls, so she smiles and keeps her hands clasped together in front of her, gloved fingers tight against each other.
"Bite me, Iceman," retorts John. "Your girl forgot to bring tribute. I say we kick her out or at least make her clean for us."
"You clean," Bobby replies, putting a casual hand against Rogue's back (she can feel the heat of it through her clothing, the firmness of his palm, his fingers, no fear in his touch and that goes right through her entire body like a rush, a tingle, a sudden fierce and aching want) as he steps around her to rummage through that massive laundry pile, "it's your mess."
"I'm dying, Iceman. Have some fucking sympathy." John turns his gaze onto Rogue again, mournful, wounded, something else like a vague glitter underneath everything else, something sharp and dark, "You could at least fluff my pillows."
"Fluff your own goddamn pillows," Bobby says, grinning, half-amused, half-annoyed, because John's delaying tactics are good that way, his utter refusal to step back and let two be two. Rogue shrugs and steps carefully over piles of books, socks, dirty tissues, porn, and John's gaze is waiting and weighted on her as she turns his pillows over, fluffs them, straightens his quilt and steps back.
"You coulda done that yourself," she observes, still with the imprint of Bobby's hand to the side of her spine, aware of her own skin, her own self, like the moment just before her first kiss, just before Cody's mouth met hers, just before her world changed forever.
"Dying, remember." John raises eyebrows at her, smirking slightly, sliding down in the bed and displacing most of the tissues. "You're a regular Florence Nightingale, Rogue, baby," and that smirk widens a little more, sharper, more mocking, and Rogue's not sure if its edge is meant for her or for Bobby standing at the door, waiting for her. "You two kids have fun now. Don't do anything dangerous or wild."
Bobby looks like he's about to say something, but then Rogue joins him at the door and he just grins, half-grin crooked, and shakes his head. "Seeya, John," and Rogue can feel John's eyes on her like a brand but not as much of one as Bobby's hand when he puts it back on her shoulder to steer her through the door, and its an effort to take it casually when she wants to pull away and tell him that this, this is dangerous, when she wants to lean into him and into that touch and tell him that this, letting him put his hand on her shoulder and microwave her poptarts, letting him in, this is wild.
No matter what John says. No matter what John thinks.
This is fun.