Guardian
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Beep.
The machine's lights sounded off with a regularity that some would call comforting. After all, it meant that the person connected to the machine was still alive, right?
Bobby thought the beeping was eerie. He'd listened to that rhythmic sound more times than he could count. It reminded him of sterile rooms, of pale skin on bleached sheets, and of that odd lemony hospital sanitizer smell. It reminded him of death.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Bleak funerals flashed through his head and the beeping changed to the ringing of churchbells. Having a place as one of the founding X-men was both a blessing and a curse. Yes, Bobby had been privileged enough to watch generations of mutants grow and flourish, but he'd also watched them fade. Monuments are truly cold comfort when you've lost a friend.
Sometimes he envied the ease with which the others could detach themselves. Sure, he had stacks of resignation letters in his drawers and there was a bag in the back of his closet that was packed with his necessities. He could leave whenever he wanted too. But he didn't.
He himself was entangled in this school, a bead caught in the very centre of the dreamcatcher that was the school, and the dream always pulled him back.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Bobby envied the children. They knew with all the certainty of the innocent that death wasn't permanent, not when it came to super heroes. The X-men had a 'get out of death free' card.
Bobby could not bring himself to remind them of the grey-skinned boy who had been crucified on the lawn or of the honest young man who had taken a bullet for his teammate. And he would never bring to mind the fragile little girl who had slowly wasted away of disease or the scared little boy whose uncontrollable mutation had truly been a death-sentence.
He would let someone else teach the kids that sometimes people don't "get better". Maybe Emma. She'd be good at that kind of thing.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Instead, Robert Drake would be the one to stand guard over the man whose life was so easily taken for granted. He would note the shadows of fatigue that stained Jean-Paul's face and watch the slow rise and fall of the too-thin chest, burning every detail and nuance into his brain.
Twice we die: once when our bodies perish, and then when we are forgotten.
Bobby would never let Jean-Paul suffer that second death. He had failed at safeguarding the body, but he'd be damned if he let go of the soul.