Disclaimer: See chapter one.
Tabula Fucking Rasa
Chapter 12: And I Feel Fine
Last time on Tabula Fucking Rasa:
Pyro threw his hands in the air in frustration. "Everything is all fucked up. I can't think straight. Right now, she's having a hell of a good time showing me stuff I don't want to know, seeing if I'll break down cryin' or something. It's like she's testing me… I don't know," he trailed off.
But I do Logan thought.
"She wants to establish dominance over you," he explained.
Well, bring it on bitch. I'm good at this shit.
…"ignore the fucker and get some ice cream!"
Adopting her most pronounced Southern Belle accent she batted her lashes at him and said: "Would ya like some Java and a croissant with that, Mr. Allerdyce."
Is she flirting with me?
Finally he seemed to reach a conclusion, and with a 'fuck it' shrug he planted a kiss on her cheek.
"I missed you, babe."
I missed you too, John. I think I always have…
And now, the continuation:
September 8th
8.15 AM
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, downstairs kitchen.
The kitchen was quiet. The whirring of the refrigerator and the sad, half-hearted attempts at birdsong from the willow outside the window were the only sounds to break the silence. Bobby Drake had gotten up early - real early, for once.
The excitement and drama of the night before had left him with a multitude of thoughts and emotions that simply wouldn't leave him alone before they had been properly processed. So, of course, a good night's sleep had been out of the question.
He sat at the island-like table on one of the tall stools and slowly sipped a glass of iced tea, yawning every once in a while. For some reason, his eyes kept returning to the refrigerator door, where he thought he could still see the imprints of Logan's claws from That Night - the night everything had changed.
Even though the door had been replaced along with most of the interior, an ambience of violence and fear still lingered in the room. It seemed that the house wouldn't forget easily the death that had occured within its walls.
Noting that the ice cubes in his glass had melted, he absently refroze them and took another sip. Only a few years ago, he wouldn't have, for obvious reaons.
Things change...
His life had certainly become ripe with change ever since he came here.
At home he had been one of the popular boys. At school, he was on the team, moved in the right circles, he'd had the right friends. Except… they hadn't been his friends, not really. How could you have friends who didn't know the real you?
He'd spent months being terrified of anyone finding out; of his parents finding out. He hadn't had the faintest idea about what was wrong with him. Why did it get really cold when he was angry? Why would he wake up in a bed covered by a thin layer of frost after having strange dreams of whirling masses of snow? What was wrong with him?
In the end he'd been a nervous wreck, haunted by nightmares and afraid of getting close to anyone. He'd accepted the Professor's offer to come to the Institute in the hopes that he could make it all go away. He'd been so hopeful. One or two semesters at this 'Mutant High' and then he would be able to go home and be normal again.
Looking into the glas of golden liquid and swirling the cubes around a bit, a bitter smile appeared on his face.
I guess this is 'normal' now.
He'd feared being viewed as a freak, and that was exactly what had happened. Not even his family had been able to accept him...
To be perfectly honest, acceptance, let alone pride in his abilities had never entered his mind either, at least not until he met his new roommate.
Bobby shook his head and his smile turned genuinely amused, remembering his first day at the school and his first meeting with one St John Allerdyce.
Bobby snorted to himself.
If John was difficult at age eighteen, he had been hell at fifteen.
Sixteen year old Bobby Drake was clutching his duffel bag like a life line as he made his way along the corridors of his new home, following a white haired lady, who was apparently called 'Storm'. She was leading him to his new room in the boys' dormitories. He'd never stayed at a dorm before. Heck, he'd never had to share a room before.
Storm was telling him about the rules of the place: "No powers in the hallways or during classes. No discrimination is allowed, no food during class, no smoking in your rooms, and please remember to…"
He hadn't really been paying attention at the time– something had been itching in his mind since they had gone up the stairs, and it was getting progressively stronger the further down the corridor they went. He felt uncomfortable…
There was something in the air a familar smell… he felt his hands getting colder. He discreetly breathed in, trying to place the odour at the same time as Storm paused in her speech and said "Not again… That boy!"
Fire… it smells like fire! His instincts had screamed at him.
As they both paused in the corridor and Storm stopped talking, loud voices could clearly be heard from the room farthest down the hall.
A stern, male voice seemed to be plowing along a well rehearsed diatribe.
"John, you've been told again and again. You are not to use powers in the rooms without supervision! Look at this mess. It's coming out of your allowance and furthermore…"
"Oh, grow a sense of humour, Summers," a younger voice drawled, seemingly quite unimpressed with the sheer volume of the first speaker.
"Humour? Humour?!? You burned the curtains! The entire school could have caught fire!"
"Chill, man. It was under control, and, besides, those curtains were fugly!"
"That is completely beside the point… you're GROUNDED!" the first speaker thundered.
"Yeah, whatever, man."
"For a month!"
"Oh come on!"
"And you're doing detention: extra training with me two times a week."
"But…"
"But nothing. Your new room mate will be here anytime now, and this is the welcome you're gonna offer him?"
The first voice had turned from anger to exasperation.
"John, you've been here longer than any of the other kids. You of all people should now better than playing around with fire like that. Now put it out and clean up this mess."
Bobby had looked at Storm in abject terror. Surely he was not expected to share a room with an obviously psychotic pyromaniac?
Storm had just shaken her head and with a firm hand on his shoulder she had pulled the boy behind her into the room, which was sweltering and smelly. The stench of burned fabric would stay with him for quite some time, he was sure.
Inside stood a tall, lean man with arms crossed and a scowl on his face. At least, Bobby thought he might be scowling. He wasn't sure, seeing as the guy was wearing sunglasses, red ones at that.
The object of his ire seemed to be a smallish, brown haired boy about Bobby's age, who was sitting on a bed, idly flicking a Zippo lighter opened and closed. The boy was returning the man's fierce scowl with an indifferent look of his own, one eyebrow raised and hazel eyes pleasantly blank.
Storm cleared her throat, and the guy with sunglasses turned around to look at her.
"Storm, I didn't hear you come in…" he said.
"Apparently not," she replied in a calm voice. Stepping aside so Bobby became clearly visible to the room's inhabitants, she continued. "This is Bobby Drake, the new student. Bobby this is Scott Summers, or Cyclops, and St John Allerdyce."
"John. My name is JOHN, woman!" was the only comment offered sullenly by the teen who hadn't even moved to get off the bed.
Bobby shook hands with the tall guy, Cyclops, and settled for nodding his head in John's general direction. No way was he getting anywhere near that guy. No sir.
"Can I talk with you for a moment, Scott? Let's leave the boys to get acquainted, shall we?"
Both adults ignored Bobby's terrified look and filed out of the room, closing the door behind them.
The instant the 'click' of the door had sounded, the boy, uhh 'John', dropped the disdainful look and sat up straight, eyeing Bobby with interest.
"So… what are ya in for?" he asked.
"In for?" Bobby repeated.
What was this place?
"Yeah. What's your damage, huh? What can you 'do'? I mean, you must be something else, if they placed you here… usually they keep people away from me." John seemed almost proud of that fact.
"I uhh… I can sorta make ice," Bobby said hesitantly, waiting for the dreaded alarm or fear to show up on the other boy's face. What he got was something quite different.
"Ice, huh? Well I there had to be some reason I could feel ya coming down the hallway. Guess I don't have to be afraid to barbecue you in your sleep then. That's cool."
"It is? I mean… what do you mean 'barbecue me'?"
John raised his eyebrows in exasperation.
"They didn't tell you, did they?"
"Tell me what?" he asked.
"I'm pyrokinetic."
"You are? So you like burning… stuff?" Oh god, they were actually putting him in a room with a maniac.
"No, man. Pyro-kinetic. Look I'll show ya."
John got off the bed and clicked his lighter open with a complicated flourish that seemed less rehearsed and more instinctual.
"Uhh… no man, that's alright. You don't have to…" Bobby said hurriedly, a small twinge of apprehension going through him.
"Don't worry about it, man. No trouble at all."
The brown haired boy flicked the lighter, a small flame appeared and with a graceful movement of his hand it rose to hover between the boys, completely independent of the lighter and any source of fuel.
Despite himself, Bobby felt a simmer of excitement at the sight.
John continued to manipulate the fire, his hands' movements not really hampered by holding on to the Zippo with two fingers.
The flame began to take the shape of a small bird that started flitting about the room, wings flapping and perfectly mimicking the real deal.
"Cool… But how do you do that?" he asked. "Doesn't fire need fuel?"
John called back the bird to hover over his shoulder and said: "Not really, but Fire doesn't know that. It's not a big deal, really. I just have to tell it to fuck fuel. Fire wants to burn, man…"
Before their conversation could go any further, the door slammed open again to reveal a very angry Scott Summers.
"Pyro! I told you to stop messing around! Put that out right now."
"God, Summers! You're such a wet blanket," John exclaimed, and reluctantly moved the bird to his hand and started to close his fist.
At that time, Storm's voice sounded outside the room, reminding Cyclops to make sure that Bobby knew what time dinner was served. Scott turned away from the boys to face her, and missed the bird blinking into the shape of a whole other kind of 'birdie' of the one-fingered variety just before John's hand closed completely.
When Cyclops' eyes returned to the room, he saw one smugly smiling John Allerdyce and one Bobby Drake, who was trying in vain to hide a grin.
It was only two days later, when Scott Summers turned up at Pyro's detention fifteen minutes late due to his shoes having been mysteriously filled with wet, icy sludge.
Ahh… good times, Bobby thought to himself, smiling into his glass.
John and he had quickly become inseparable. Pyro had taught him to be proud of his powers, constantly encouraging him to use them, to push the envelope. And he had reminded John of how to laugh.
And now John was back. His best friend, his partner in crime was back and Bobby would be damned if he let him leave again.
I need to talk to him. I need to find out why he left. Was it me? No matter what it was, it won't happen again! He promised himself.
He got up from the chair and went over to sink to wash the glass. He was so deeply buried in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice her until they almost collided.
"Rogue! Jeez… You almost gave me a heart attack. What's the rush?" he said, exhaling the startled breath he'd been holding.
The girl in question was holding a hand to her chest in obvious shock – a gloved hand, he noticed.
It had been a while since he'd seen her wear gloves and she must have caught his overly long glance at the garments in question, because she quickly lowered her hand again and smiled.
"Ice cream run," she explained.
"At this time of the day?" he asked incredulous.
"Yeah, I promised John ice cream in bed. Gotta fatten him up, before he disappears into thin air, you know?" she said in a low voice.
She looked down, abashedly, and pushed a strand of white hair behind her ear. The early morning sun highlighted her hair and made the auburn shine.
Bobby remembered one very late night, talking with John about her. It was before they had gotten together; Bobby had been in love and shy as hell, and John had suggested that he write her love poetry 'in the tradition of upper-class twits through the ages'.
"But what the hell would I write? I'm not Coleridge or Byron y'know…" he had protested.
"Oh I don't know…" John had said, gesturing grandly with a nearly burned out cigarette. "How about: 'Oh untouchable/ Would that I were a ray of morning's first fire / to caress thy hair with gentle fingers / bringing about the gleam of burnished bronze, silver lin'd / like distant clouds, illuminated by sudden gleams / would that I could bring about lightning in thine eyes' or something."
Bobby had laughed at him, a bit embarrassed (as most teenage boys were when faced with Romantic poetry).
"Trust you to bring fire into it," he had chuckled.
At that, Pyro had shrugged and said: "Or you could just go with: 'Roses are red, we live in a school / you're kinda hot, but baby, I'm cool.' Yeah, that would probably be more up your alley…"
Rogue was searching through the freezer. Coming up with a tub of 'Cookie Dough' ice cream, she opened only to let out an exasperated sigh.
"The damn thing's all melted! I guess the power didn't come back on properly yesterday…."
"Huh?" Bobby snapped out of his recollections and looked over at his ex girlfriend. She was looking mournfully at a nearly full tub of ice cream, or more precisely 'sludge-cream'.
"Ah, don't worry about it, give it to me," he said, holding out his hand.
She placed the half thawed ice cream in his hand with a grateful smile. Bobby focused cold into the container, taking care to bring it to the perfect consistency: kind of slushy, the way he remembered John preferred it.
He absolutely agreed with her mission to 'fatten him up.' His friend looked like something out of a documentary on famine.
"Here you go," he said, passing the now cold tub back to her. "Would you mind telling John that I'll be down later?" he asked.
"Sure," Rogue answered as she turned to get spoons from the drawer behind her. "But, Bobby, why don't you just come down there with me? I'm sure there's enough for three," she tempted, waving the carton in front of him.
"You sure? He wouldn't mind? I wouldn't want to crowd him or anything."
"Yeah, I'm sure" she reassured him. "John was mentioning something about going 'absolutely ape-shit in that boring-ass Hellhole' or something," she continued with the proper finger-quotation marks. "We could bring him some actual food as well, that is, unless you've already eaten?"
"Nah, I only got a glass of tea. Breakfast sounds like a great idea!" he said enthusiastically.
Working in perfect tandem, they put together a tray of food and drinks to bring to the infirmary. In less than ten minutes they were armed and ready to commence with Operation 'Fatten Up the Pyrokinetic' as it were.
TBC
A/N: So… a bit of useless filling between angsty chapters, to give you guys a breather. As you can probably tell, I don't really like Cyclops all that much, and I see him as a real stickler for regulations.
I wanted to give you guys a feel for the friendship shared by Bobby and John and some more Rogue/Bobby interaction.
I hope you like the poetry bit. I just did a semester on Romanticism, and I absolutely LOVED it! (And yes... it's original)
Hopefully we should see the reintroduction of Pyro to the school proper in the next few chapters.
I'm going with an instinctual awareness of fire/ice, heat/cold in the two elemental mutants, and I hope you're all aboard with that idea…
Please take the time to review and tell me your opinions and suggestions! I love hearing from you! (Preferably at length…)
Next on Tabula Fucking Rasa – Chapter 13: Come Full Circle