Summary: It's the second hour of being trapped and Rogue's starting to feel bored…
Pairing: Well, it's mainly ryro. So yeah, don't flame me if that's not your cup of cocoa, though from the reviews I got, it looks like I got ryro fans as my audience anyway. Rogue's relationship with Bobby still exists though.
Disclaimer: Gonna make it short. Nothing except the plot is mine. Don't sue my sir-mix-a-lot-approved-ass.
A/N: Wow, I'm blown away by the reviews. Thanks folks!!! You really brightened my day *insert girly squeal, modest sniff, and regulatory 'awww…' here* But really, I am really flattered that some of you said my characterizations are good. It's kinda hard to inject humor when the canon characters don't seem to be very humorous (I thought they're not properly-developed in the movie). Anyway, 'hope y'all enjoy the second chapter here. I was actually going to write more, but couldn't decide how I wanted it to end. So I thought, better cut it in half, post this before the peeps lost interest, and save that as-yet-to-be-decided ending for chapter three. Tell me what you think!
A/N2: Forgot to mention this earlier, tho bright as you all are, you've probably figured it out: things in italics are characters' thoughts, things in *asterisks* are actions, and things CAPITALIZED are emphasized (esp. in speech).
Chapter 2: Offer and Impressions.
By their second hour of being trapped, Rogue was feeling restless. Her earlier optimism that she was going to escape soon (and with enough time to have some quality moments with Bobby) was diminishing with each minute passed. She couldn't believe that a group of highly powerful mutants (who in several occasions had come close to obliterating humanity) could not take down a stupid damn door (considering the purpose of the facility though, she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised if the place was rigged with the best anti-mutant technology).
In addition to that, Rogue was also feeling increasingly hot. The air-con had stopped a long time ago and the slight flow of air that circulated through the tiny vent on the ceiling was only enough to keep them from suffocating. Rogue had considered using the vent as an escape route, but it was obvious that the opening was way too small to fit either of them. So the only thing she could do was sit still, curse her incredible bad luck, and wait for the rescue party. Oh, and boil inside her leather suit while she's at it.
Sure, she loved that damn uniform, and sure, she looked good in it, but at that moment, all she wanted to do was rip it to shreds (Wolverine-style, if she could). Owing to the nature of her mutation, Rogue was normally uncomfortable at exposing bits of her skin, but considering how hot she was feeling at the moment, she thought, what the hell!
The relative silence of the room was broken by the sound of a zip being pulled down. Carefully, but hurriedly, Rogue shed the top part of her uniform, revealing a grey tank underneath. Then, she bent down and took off her boots, letting her bare feet touch the cool concrete floor. She relished at the feel of air on her damp skin.
While she was doing this, she also managed to sneak a peek at John. Although he was being cool about it, Rogue did notice the glance that he threw at her as she took off her jacket. He had this teensy tiny appreciative smile on his lips before he returned his gaze to the zippo in his hands.
Rogue frowned. She wasn't John's biggest fan at the moment. Out of all the people to be stuck with…
Actually, if she were to be honest with herself, she'd found that she didn't really mind being trapped with John. He had been one of her best friends, after all, before he joined Magneto. And although she didn't like to acknowledge it, she'd always had this tiny, harmless crush on John ever since she came to the school. She'd been somewhat fascinated with him after seeing him form that fireball in his hands on her first class. There was just something about him that drew her. But, of course, Bobby was so nice and sweet to her afterwards that she was delighted to be his girlfriend. She'd never let her curious attraction (was it attraction?) to John get in the way of her relationship with Bobby. She even managed to become friends with the pyromaniac, both loving and hating his cocky 'devil may care' attitude. Seeing him now, she found that he hadn't really changed.
"Hot?"
Rogue looked up at John. He was sitting calmly on the ground, flicking his zippo, and not in the least bit looking hot. Rogue found that annoying. "Yeah. Aren't you?"
"Not really."
"How come?"
John shrugged, "'Comes with the gift, I guess. Makes me more tolerant of high temperature."
"Lucky you. Can't you do something to make it less hot? Like suck the heat to your body maybe?"
John chuckled, "You're asking the wrong guy, Rogue. Cooling things off is iceballs' thing." He turned to look at her, "I bet you're desperately wishing you were here with him instead of me, aren't you? What do you think you guys would do, if you were stuck together like this?" He raised his eyebrows for emphasis.
Rogue couldn't help but blush, "John, that's really none of your business. For your information, I was planning to spend some time with other people beside Bobby during these eight hours."
"Yeah, sure… I certainly doubt that you guys would just sit around and kill time for the next eight hours though."
"Well, what do you suggest we do?"
"I've got some ideas off the top of my head, but you probably wouldn't go for those…" John smirked and Rogue frowned. "So here's what I think we should do. Just to show you that I'm not such a bastard… You said you wanted to do things with other people, right? How about you pretend that I'm them and go do those things with me?"
"Are you serious?"
"What else do you want to do? Sit around looking all miserable while I go click-clacking my zippo all night? Besides, this is going to be a one-time thing, right? You really shouldn't waste it just because you're pissed off at me."
"I'm not pissed off at you," Rogue said quietly. Despite that though, she gave no indication of whether she was going to agree to John's proposal. She stayed quiet for several minutes.
"Rogue?"
No answer.
"Okay…" He started to flip his zippo again.
Rogue, meanwhile, was taking in what John was suggesting. It really couldn't hurt, she thought. Immediately she could hear John-in-her-head, who had finally regained consciousness, cheering. She felt inner Rogue raising the baseball bat (mental bat?) threateningly at him. That shut him up. She also felt inner Bobby sulking at some corner of her busy brain. Apparently, his hope for a quick rescue was dimming and he wasn't very happy that John got to spend all that time with her. Wolverine-in-her-head wanted them to continue hammering their way out, while Magneto just didn't care. In the end, she listened to inner Rogue: You have been craving for this moment for such a long time! You shouldn't let it go to waste. Even if it is with John…
Surprisingly, she wasn't alarmed by that little train of thought. Rogue turned to look at John. She let her gaze focused on parts of his skin that were exposed and found herself wishing that she could run her hands across them: His hands that were tracing the metal of his lighter, the expanse of his neck where his Adam's apple was slightly bobbing up and down as he swallowed, the skin of his face which looked so smooth and warm… She found every crease fascinating. It wasn't hard, really, for a girl who'd been so deprived of touch.
Rogue made up her mind. She definitely wasn't spending the rest of her time here obsessing over John's skin. She got up, walked over to John, and extended one hand at him.
John looked up at her and curiously took her hand. He let her pull him up.
She smiled upon feeling contact with John's warm skin, "I decide that I don't want to hear the clicking of your stupid lighter all night."
"Of course," He smirked back at her, gazing at their still enjoined hands. He felt her holding firmly to his hand. Rogue noticed that too and promptly released his hand, looking a bit embarrassed.
John went to put away his lighter. "So what do you want to do? 'Got any preference on who you want to touch first?"
"Um… Professor X?"
"The professor? Really?" John shrugged, "Can't say that he'd be my first choice, but it's your call."
Rogue punched him on the shoulders playfully, "Shut up. I respect the guy, okay? I just want to shake his hands."
"Oh, okay. Sure." He cleared his throat, "Let me do this first." He smoothed back his hair, contorted his face to look all wisdom-y, and spoke with a mock English accent, "'Hello, Rogue. I can read minds so I already know why you need to see me today. You want to tell me that you think my fight for humanity is a load of garbage and that you'd like to join the formidable Brotherhood. It's a disappointing choice, my child, but I won't stand in your way. Good luck with Magneto and his dashingly good looking protégé Pyro.'"
John managed to say all of that with a straight face that Rogue could not help but laugh. "John, you're such an ass sometimes."
"Play along."
"Oh okay… 'No, professor, that was last night's thoughts. I was delirious. I think Remy might have spiked the chocolate milk. I would NEVER dream of going with the EVIL Magneto. And Pyro is so WIMPY…"
"Hey!"
"…that I would never follow his footsteps! No, professor, I came here today to shake your hand. I think you are doing a fine job, housing and schooling all these mutants, and maintaining the X-men with their hot uniforms…"
"Amen to that!"
"…and their state-of-the-art jet! Magneto ain't got nothin', really, compared to you. So, yeah, thank you professor.'" Rogue suppressed a giggle and offered up her hand to the professor-AKA-John.
John took it up earnestly and covered it with his other hand. "'You're welcome, my child. Your praise of me is greatly appreciated, considering I almost wiped out humanity a few months back. I think my big mutant head is getting bigger because of your praise…"
"John, quit it!" Rogue managed to gasp through giggles.
"Couldn't help myself," He shrugged. "See how much more fun this is than just moping around?"
Rogue just nodded, still not letting go of John's hand. She had a tendency to do that, he noticed.
"So who's next?"
"Well, I was going to get this stupid makeover from Kitty but I don't think you can…"
"Oh, no, I love a challenge." He breathed deeply and produced a shrill sort of voice, "'Rogue, honey, guess what I just learned from the magazines today! Here, let me try it out on you…" He grabbed her face and started rubbing her cheeks with his hands, "…Yeah, see here, you need to EXFOLIATE at least once a week. I know that no one can usually touch your skin, Rogue, but that's no excuse for allowing all those dead skin cells to linger'."
Rogue was laughing, "That's almost scary! How do you know about exfoliation anyway?"
"Well, I'd like to say that Mystique – being a chic and all – has imparted me with her wisdom, but with blue scaly skin, I don't think she worries too much about dead skin cells. Nah, the Brotherhood's got some very interesting reading material lying around. Scary as it sounds, I can now tell you, with some confidence, the five easy steps to wax-perfect eyebrows. I think it's Magneto's way of keeping hatred for humanity."
They laughed silently for several minutes, suddenly realizing that John's hands were still cupping her face. Rogue gazed at him, not making any move to be released from his hold. To be completely honest, she was enjoying his touch. She loved the way heat transferred from his hands through his fingers to the cool surface of her cheeks. She could even feel his pulse through his fingertips, if she concentrated enough. And she could definitely feel her own heart beat accelerating. Rogue didn't want him to let her go, fully allowing herself to lean into the touch. She eyed his lips.
While all of this was happening, the occupants of Rogue's head had their own little reactions to it. Inner Johnny was rooting for Rogue to just smack one on him, while inner Bobby was reminding her that 'real' Bobby was loyally waiting on the other side of that door. He tried to nudge Johnny out of the picture (or out of her mind frame, in this case) and the two of them ended up pummeling each other on the ground. Logan sort of ignored them and told Rogue to do whatever she liked ("Hey, it's your life, kid."), while Magneto spared a passing glance at the squabbling boys and made one condescending comment: "Teenagers". Inner Marie just got a 'deer-caught-in-headlights' look and refused to comment.
Meanwhile, back in the not-so-schizo reality, 'real' John was finding it hard to stop staring at her. He seemed to be preoccupied with her eyes. In his head, he could hear himself shouting, Kiss her, you dumb-ass! Just lay one big one on her… He was moving his hands to brush away some white strands of her hair, and was about to lean in, when he somehow came to his senses and snapped back. On second thought, better enjoy this for a while, dude. Let HER make the first move. He promptly released his hold on her face, effectively breaking the moment.
The 'deer-in-headlights' look formally made its way to Rogue's face.
Acting as if everything was perfectly peachy, John gave her a clueless grin, "So, what do you want to do next?"
Rogue pretended to think while she calmed herself down. She chanted herself a mantra: Nothing was about to happen just then. You were just caught up in the moment. You wanted nothing to happen. So NOTHING is going to happen. Nothing…
After several seconds, she plastered on a smile, "Well, I've always wanted to strangle Jubilee."
John chuckled, "Who hasn't?"
"Can I do it then?"
He bared his neck to her, "Sure, go ahead. I'm not even going to TRY to do an impression."
Rogue beamed at him. Hmm, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe being stuck with John isn't such a bad thing after all…
A/N: Alright, don't kill me. I know, I know, nothin' much happenin', right? Well, the thing is, I kinda wanna build (or rebuild) their bond first, especially assuming that it had been severely damaged after John left. I hope that that wasn't too much fluff (coz not a big fan of fluff). And hope I didn't make John to be too nice. I just got the feeling that John would be someone who'd do impressions to make fun of people. Anyway, whaddya all think? Please tell me! I love listening to your thoughts and I can honestly say that your comments affect my writing (eg. some people said they like the inner-Rogue's head dialogue, so I put more here).
