Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were, but they're not.
A/N: If you don't like the idea of two people of the same sex finding love and contentment with each other, please broaden your mind. Until you do that, please don't read this fic. Thanks.
"Iceman!"
"Yo!"
Jubilee tossed a fortune cookie into his outstretched hands, and then continued to hand out the rest that were in the basket to the students that surrounded her.
Robert Drake studied the small blue cookie in his hands, smiling. He peered around at the other guests at Jubilee's Chinese New Years party and noticed that everyone else's cookies were coloured either red or golden yellow. Feeling absurdly special, he pulled the plastic wrap off of it and broke it in two. The small slip of paper inside it was marked with a smiley face and a short message in Jubilee's bubbly handwriting.
Do not be afraid to love.
The smile fell from Bobby's face and he stuffed the fortune into his jeans pocket. He glanced up at Jubilee again as she sent the students off to their dorms, refusing plaintive requests for more fireworks.
"Geez. You'd think they'd never see fireworks again, with the way they were carrying on!" She came over and plopped down on the couch beside him after bidding good night to the last guest to leave.
Bobby moved to get up, prepared to make good on his promise to help with cleaning and taking down the elaborate decorations, but Jubilee sighed and flapped a hand at him.
"Aaahhh, leave it for now. I need a minute or two to recover," she said. "Sit with me for a bit. Can I see your fortune?"
Bobby sat down again after fishing the paper from his pocket. Jubilee ran the slip of paper absently through her fingers after a cursory glance. "Fortune cookies aren't really Chinese, you know. But the students would have been upset not to have them."
Bobby drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa and nodded. "Yeah. Your fireworks were really great this year."
"Thanks. I've been practicing that dog one for a month and a half." She performed it again. A tiny plasmoid puppy ran across her hand and leapt at Bobby, but vanished in mid-jump. The pyrotechnics she had treated them all with earlier had been on a much larger scale: a brilliant blue hound had loped across the sky before exploding with a near-deafening bang into a massive shower of bright white sparks which winked out prior to touching the ground. Jubilee picked Bobby's fortune up off of her lap and continued to fidget with it. They sat quietly for a moment until Jubilee suddenly reached down to her black brocade purse that had been lodged between her feet.
"Almost forgot." She handed Bobby a red envelope. When he looked at it curiously, she smiled. "Tradition. All unmarried friends get one. It's for good luck."
Bobby opened it, and was shocked to find a crisp new one-hundred dollar bill in it.
"I can't take this!"
"Yes, you can! I just was lucky enough one night last month to kick Wolvie's and Gumbo's asses at poker. It'll never happen for me again, but maybe it'll bring you good luck. You could take Jean-Paul out for dinner or something."
Bobby stiffened. "What do you mean?"
"Come on, Bobby," Jubilee said, "Everyone knows. We all know. We all still love you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Bobby said, immobile on his side of the sofa.
"Baloney! Wolvie says the two of you have been throwing off pheromones for weeks. He says you two had better get together soon, or he'll be driven batshit. He's taken Jean-Paul out drinking with they guys tonight, and is gonna give him the same talking to," Jubilee said.
"No. Jubilee, I – No. I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do! I've seen the way you look at him. No! Get your ass back here, now!" she pulled him back to the couch and placed a hand on either side of his face. She stared hard into his eyes. "I've seen how you act around him. You've changed since he's moved in. You've become a shell of your former self. You don't smile hardly at all anymore… I love you, Bobby, and I miss you!"
"Jubie-" His grey eyes shifted and he whispered, "I'm afraid, okay?"
"Of what? What people might say?" Her voice rose. "I'm gonna tell you what you should be afraid of. It's not what reactions you're going to get from other people; it's not fear of rejection. What you should fear is going on like you have been. You'll whither away. And then, after years and years of never knowing love, of being afraid of love, you'll die. All alone. And so will he."
"When did you get so old, Jubilation Lee?"
"I grew up a long time ago. And don't change the subject. You gotta tell him how you feel. What is the absolute worst that could happen? Really?"
She handed him back his fortune, and he re-read it before exclaiming "You planted this, didn't you?"
"Duh! Didn't you notice that yours was the only blue cookie?"
Bobby ran his thumb over the ink. "'What's the worst that could happen?' He could laugh in my face."
"He won't."
"What if -"
Jubilee cut him off. "What if? What if pigs fly? What if the sky falls?" she ranted, "What if you never take a chance and never tell him how you feel? He's not going to wait forever, Bobby! What if you never tell him? You'll regret it for the rest of your life!"
Bobby groaned and pressed his head back into the sofa cushion. "You're right. How can I tell him?"
"I don't know. Who do I look like? Dear Abby? Maybe just grab him and give him a big fat smoocheroo."
"He'd kill me."
"At least you'd die happy." Jubilee grinned at him. "But, you know, if you're really lucky, he'll already be waiting for you in the back yard."
Bobby jumped up as if he'd been stung. "What?"
"Haven't you heard me? We planned this! Wolvie was s'posed to convince him to wake up and smell the coffee, and if he did his job, Jean-Paul will be in the backyard by the skating rink. And if Wolvie didn't do his job," she added in a mutter, "I'll paf his insides."
Bobby did not hear her. He was halfway out the French doors.
Jubilee had said during her party that the Chinese Year of the Dog was supposed to be lucky for love. Bobby laid eyes on Jean-Paul and realized that she was right.