The Shape of Water
by Cailleach Bheur
Summary: Pre Uncanny X-Men #444, Rogue and Bobby have a heart to heart.
Disclaimer: I own neither the characters nor the concept of the Marvel Universe.
Author's Note: For the purposes of this story, I'm going with the assumption that Sage reactivated her original absorption powers and the flight, invulnerability and super strength she took from Ms. Marvel.
Also, please note that for all intents and purposes, this fic is AU due to one little detail. Everything up to UXM#444 has happened the same as in canon, except that Annie and Bobby never had that conversation about Jean Paul the night before the wedding. Its my sincere belief hat Austen has never read the issues of New Defenders where Bobby is dating Cloud, because nobody whose girlfriend sometimes randomly changed into a guy would react that way to finding out somebody was gay. (Note: this is not to say Bobby is gay, just that he has experience with the complications involved in people's perceptions of male/male relationships.) This really is a minor quibble, but its been nagging at me, so in typical fanfic writer fashion, I've done something about it. And since I wrote this before X-Men #157 came out, its pretty obvious that this is actually all AU now.
Special Thanks: To Beaubier for being superbeta (even though....ok yeah, she knows what I mean), Caliente for first reader input, and Sue, because well sharing in the Bobby love is always noteworthy.
The midnight hour painted the sky with dark hues and shades of black. Silver specks of starlight dotted the ebony canvas in haphazard arrangements, and the moon hung full and bright, high overhead. Chill night breezes stirred the air, driving a few scattered clouds and faint puffs of fog through the ether.
Rogue had always had an irrational hatred of the night. Too many occasions of being compared to vampires had soured her towards anything associated with the nocturnal creatures, no matter how much she might pretend otherwise. Still, even she couldn't deny the almost otherworldly beauty of the late hour.
Moonlight filtered through the trees surrounding her, as she made her way through the forests behind the Xavier Institute, preferring to walk rather than fly. With the broad, raking branches for a lattice and the sturdy oak trunks for a loom, it wove veils of silver and purple for her hair and cast a chiaroscuro crazy quilt of dappled shadows across her path. Gentle winds played with the edges of her leather jacket and denim skirt, an unusual ensemble for a late night walk. But then, Rogue was never one to opt for the conventional.
Her breath fogged the air when she broke free of the cover of the trees and made her way down to the lake. The planks of the ancient dock creaked uneasily beneath her feet, the echoes of her footsteps winging softly through the silence. Rogue stood for a long time at the edge of the wooden framework, her arms clasped tightly across her chest as she stared out across the calm surface of the water. Midnight had tinted the usual blue-green waters pitch black, and the moon granted its surface the silver sheen of a mirror, marred only by the occasional ripple.
She scowled.
"Bobby Drake, I know you know I'm here. Now get your ass up here where I can see you!"
Her only answer was the rhythmic melodies of water lapping gently against the underside of the dock.
"Bobby, I mean it, get…"
Water geysered up into the sky, a furious eruption of liquid shadows that cut her off in mid threat and drenched her with spray. An undulating column of water towered above her, its surface boiling with motion. It wove unsteadily in the air before flowing into a vaguely human shape. Murky green shades defined a powerful chest and shaped arms the width of tree trunks. A head the size of a small car glared down at her with features so harsh they could have been shaped rom granite, for all their fluid consistency.
"What do you want?" It wasn't his usual voice, but a low, echoing rumble that was somehow reminiscent of waves crashing on the shore, although that might have been due to the image he presented. Imposing, threatening, powerful; a force of nature granted human form.
She wasn't impressed.
"Sugar, I've been fighting sixty foot killer robots since I was seventeen. You're going to have to do better than that if you want to intimidate me. Now get down here. I want to talk."
He glared at her for a while longer before sliding back down into the water as swiftly as he had emerged. The liquid of his body melded seamlessly back into the rest of the lake, a few slight ripples the only indication of his presence. Eventually the water's surface parted once more, small waves rolling back as he rose again from the lake, this time formed fully of ice, his face and upper torso more easily recognizable. From the waist down he remained a single column of ice upon which he flowed, serpent-like, through the air.
"Fine, talk," Bobby grunted.
"Do you have to be like that?" Rogue asked with a sigh. "I just haven't seen much of you since I've been back. You're never around the mansion these days."
"Not much for me to do there," he said with a shrug, the shadowed turquoise of his body shimmering slightly with the movement. "Not much point hanging around my room when I don't need to sleep anymore. Don't need to eat, so it's not like I have to be there for dinner, and I just make everyone cold anyways. It's better if I hang around out here."
She studied him carefully, mentally cursing the crystal planes of his face for being so hard to read. "That their opinion or yours?"
He just shrugged again, blue-white ice melting into darkly tinted liquid until he was fluid again, riding a swell of water back and forth above the lake.
"Talk to me Bobby," Rogue sighed. "I'm worried about you."
"I'm fine." He dipped back into the lake and reformed seconds later on the other side of the dock. She turned to pin him with her stare once again, but he easily avoided her eyes, rolling through the air in loops and spirals, an intricate dance of liquid grace.
"Right," Rogue drawled slowly. "You're stuck as ice, living out here in the damn lake, and you expect me to believe you're fine? Try another one, hon, I ain't buying it."
"I am fine," Bobby insisted, without pausing his movements. "It's not a big deal really. Sure, this doesn't do wonders for my love life, but its not like it was that great to begin with."
"Self pity ain't your color, Bobby."
"Oh that's right, it's yours," he shot back.
She flushed, but refused to rise to the bait. Instead she just watched as the wave he rode above the lake froze into a pillar of ice, without forcing his body to shift from fluid to frost. He perched on the miniature glacier, the liquid substance of his body somehow retaining human shape through his bizarre mutant alchemy. Still studiously ignoring her, he hunched over his hands as water flowed from the surface of his fingertips in the shape of a ball, which he then proceeded to mold as though it were a lump of clay.
"You know, there was a time you would have done anything to have this kind of control with your powers," Rogue said softly, fascinated by the ease with which he sculpted the liquid into solid shapes that retained their cohesion long after he formed them.
"Be careful what you wish for, huh?" Bobby asked distractedly, still intent on his creations. Abruptly he dropped his hands to his sides, his liquid art splashing back down into the lake. He sighed, and between one moment and the next his shape swirled and remolded into the semblance of a giant wolf. "It's not like I couldn't have done all of this years ago. I was just too afraid of not being able to get back to my real form to experiment with turning to water and stuff. At least I don't have to worry about that anymore."
His form blurred again, swelling up and outwards until he was a large dragon, giant bat-like wings beating noisily at the air. Another blur, and he collapsed into the shape of a horse, rearing into the air before melting into a bear, then an eagle, a large man with wings, a wolf again, a seven headed hydra, another bird, flowing so swiftly and easily from one shape to the next, it was nearly impossible to define when one ended and the next began.
"That secondary mutation of yours come with a sudden aversion to standing still?" She asked, with more than a little bite to her words. His constant motion was making her dizzy, not to mention worried.
Bobby paused in mid change, before reshaping into the familiar visage of human flesh-turned-ice with practiced ease.
"Occasionally I like to remind myself that I'm more than just a statue," he said acidly.
"Suppose I didn't think of it like that," Rogue conceded, expelling the breath she hadn't even realized she was holding. "I'm sorry."
He waved her off. "Don't worry about it."
"That's not what I meant. I meant I'm sorry I wasn't here for you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was leaving in the first place," she apologized. He turned away, but she continued, her voice rising in unconscious compensation for the lost eye contact. "And I'm sorry I was off playing at being normal with Remy while you were dealing with this stuff, and I couldn't even bother to give you a call."
"I said don't worry about it," he snapped.
"Bobby, we'll fix this," Rogue said firmly. "Hank, the Professor, Sage, they'll figure out a way to turn you back."
"Yeah, sure thing Rogue," his back still turned, "by the way, how's that touching other people bit working out for you?"
"Look at Warren!" Rogue shouted, abruptly furious with this gulf he seemed intent on creating. She reached out over the water and grabbed at his arm, fully prepared to force him to turn around and listen to her, if that's what it took. Instead he shifted to water at her first touch, and her hand went through him without anything substantial to hold on to. Still she continued, "He's got his real wings back, and even his original skin color. Or what about Kitty? She spent years living like a ghost, after the Massacre. Hell, even Petey was stuck in his metal form all the time we were in Australia, and he got turned back to normal just fine."
"Look, Rogue, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but just stop, ok? I want to be left alone."
With that, he shot into the air on a jet of water, his shape losing definition as he rose, until he was little more than a stream of mist, spiraling upwards towards the clouds high above them.
"Like hell!" She spat under her breath, kicking off the dock and arrowing through the sky in pursuit. She'd been gone too long if he thought she was just going to leave him like this. She threw her voice after him, her words carrying clearly through the surreal stillness of the night sky. "You can't cut yourself off from us like this. You need your friends, and we need you."
He didn't answer as he vanished into a bank of clouds, and Rogue plunged in after him, blindly fumbling through the air as the dense fogs obscured her vision, the winds of her own passage whipping her hair into her face and filling her ears with a dull roar.
"I'm made of ice, Rogue, or didn't you get the memo?" The crackle of shifting glaciers cut across the sky like a knife, its edge made all the more sharp by its very lack of emotion. "I don't need anything."
"Dammit Bobby, stop this," she shouted in frustration. "You're acting ridiculous. 'Shit happens,' isn't that what you always used to say? Ob la di,ob la da, life goes on, sugar. You pick yourself up and you either fix things or you move on. You don't just stop living."
"Depends on your definition of living," he answered coolly. "If it involves eating, sleeping, fucking, shitting, tasting, touching, or smelling, there's not much I can do about that."
Bobby's voice fractured the clouds like thunder, seeming to reverberate all around her, but Rogue closed her eyes and focused, trying to pinpoint its place of origin. She dove through the air, tracking it back to its source. Winds tore at her face with increasing violence, cold fronts and arctic currents that would have chilled her to the bone, were it not for her natural immunity to temperature extremes. Moisture masked her eyes, the equivalent of a pounding rain, and the clouds around her blackened with tempestuous fury, the first hints of lightning raking across their underbellies. She suspected Bobby had more than a little to do with the sudden and drastic weather changes. She idly wondered if he even knew he was doing it, if he even knew he could do it.
"You can still laugh, can't you?" She growled at him. His emotionless façade was beginning to really piss her off, as utterly at odds with his normal good humor as it was. "You're not a damned ghost, no matter what you're trying to prove with this fucking spook act of yours."
"I'm not trying to prove anything."
His reply came a little too swiftly, and it brought an enraged gale in its wake. She smiled in satisfaction. Apparently there was a little crack in that ice armor of his after all. The rising tempest struck her head on then, pushing her backwards until she found enough strength to anchor herself in place. A livid nor'easter battered at her, trying to force her down and away, but she held firm.
"Sorry, Otterpop, but I've had a little more practice with my immovable object act than you have with this irresistible force shtick you've got going on here," she called out with forced cheer. The winds died down then, just a brief lull, but it was more than enough opportunity to shove her way up.
Rogue burst through the uppermost layer of clouds, opening her eyes in relief as soon as she felt the worst of the winds and rain die away. She gasped as she saw him then, and treaded air, gaping soundlessly.
He hovered in the sky just above her, a wraith wrought of mists and moonlight. His features were indistinct amongst the barely substantial fog of his body, and the moon's luminescence shone directly through him, alternately tinting him shades of green and blue as he turned the prism of his body, solidifying somewhat as he did so, until he was something between ice, water and mist, somehow simultaneously all three. Saffron hues and a deep vibrant red glimmered at the edges of his form, as though he glowed with an inner light.
"What?" He scowled at her when she continued to stare without saying anything.
"You're beautiful," she whispered at last, clarifying when he raised a crystalline eyebrow in bemusement. "Like you're made of rainbows."
He snorted. "Don't tell Jean-Paul. He'll try and make me a mascot in the next Gay Pride parade."
She reached up a hand towards him, and this time he let her, freezing just enough to give her something to touch. His eyes flickered as she caressed his cheek, and he sighed, a flurry of indefinable emotions flitting across his face. He pulled away and began to drop back towards the ground, the burgeoning thunderclouds having dispersed as suddenly as they came. The fragile mists of his body swept outwards, forming the shape of wings at some inner whim, and he
glided down through the sky, his pearlescent feathers shimmering in the starlight.
Rogue followed his unspoken lead and drifted downwards, watching the way he slid out of the sky, her own landing jarring and ungraceful compared to his. He looked so natural, the way he flowed from one environment to the next, seeming completely at home in both. He coalesced into his usual ice shape, and his wings wisped into nothingness the moment he touched the sandy lake shore. His every motion was fluid and graceful, and she felt a momentary twinge of envy.
Neither spoke for a long time, and eventually Bobby turned and began to wander aimlessly down the shore. Rogue slipped off her shoes and followed him, the damp sand pushing up between her toes. He slowed until they were walking side by side, but he still avoided her gaze, instead looking out across the lake where the moon scattered silver coins atop the wavelets.
"Have you ever read the Iliad?" He asked at last. She frowned, not sure what to
make of the apparent non sequitur.
"That's about the Trojan war, right?" He nodded, and she shrugged. "No, I mean, I know the story, and Hank's obsessed with it, so I've definitely heard him talk about it enough, but I've never read it myself. Why?"
"The Professor made us read it back when we are all just going to school here," Bobby answered.
She nodded silently and studied his face out of the corner of her eye, not sure where he was going with this. He was oblivious to her scrutiny, his gaze intent on the ground beneath his feet, his thumbs hooked at his waist, as though he had tried to stick his hands in his pockets and didn't know what to do with them when no pockets were to be found.
"And?" Rogue prodded gently, when he seemed hesitant to continue.
He looked up at her and opened his mouth to speak, but then just frowned and closed it without saying a single word. He turned around in a kind of half circle, as though he couldn't remember where he was, but she suspected he was merely trying to delay the subject. Then he just sighed and lowered himself clumsily to the ground, and the natural grace of moments before was gone, like he had completely forgotten how to move. After a brief pause she settled herself down beside him and leaned against his shoulder, despite its temperature.
"It's one of my favorite stories," Bobby finally continued. "It's got everything, really, its got battles, heroes, gods and monsters, the whole deal. I mean I love all the epics, the Odyssey, the Aenead…"
"Star Wars," she interrupted with a small chuckle. He shot her an annoyed glance.
"I'm serious, Rogue."
"I know," she said quietly. "Damn shame, too."
He ignored her and turned his gaze back to the lake, as though he were scrying for some hidden truth in its depths. "It was the first real war story, but it was the best one too. Think about it, here we are still talking about it, thousands of years after it was written, and we can still relate to it, because Homer did such a good job of catching the essence of war. He wasn't talking about specific events or people, really, he was talking about types of events and types of people. They say you can fit the story to just about any real war in history, just substitute the names of the people and switch the place names around."
He exhaled and mist streamed from his mouth, weaving itself into a flotilla of ghost ships that floated away on a tide of moonlight. Her first thought was that it was a very pretty sight. Her second was that she didn't have the faintest idea what the hell he was talking about. Damn obscure metaphors, but it wasn't that surprising. William Drake's son didn't talk about his feelings, after all.
"We've always talked about what we do as fighting a war, you know? Like, sure, we're not fighting a country or anything, but we're fighting against prejudice and certain ideologies. So the story applies to us too."
"I don't know that I like the sound of that," Rogue frowned. "I mean, like I said, I've never read the thing, but didn't the Trojans eventually lose? Sounds pretty pessimistic to me."
"Who says we're the Trojans?" Bobby countered, looking more animated than she'd seen him all night. "It might seem like that, since it always seems like we're the smaller force, but if you think about it, the Trojans eventually lost because they had no where else to go. They wer holed up inside their city with no reinforcements. In a way, we're fighting a social war, like Martin Luther King Jr. Black people in general are a lot better off now than they were forty years ago, and if we do our job, forty years from now it might be a lot better to be a mutant, exactly because prejudices are the equivalent of being holed up in a city. It's a stagnant way of thinking, one that shuts you off from alternatives and new ideas."
"Plus, they're the ones who have Helen. Helen isn't a who, she's a what. She's symbolic; she's not really a character, she's a catalyst. No woman's gorgeous enough to launch a thousand ships, and if you read the parts where the Greeks actually ask for her to be given back, they spend as much time asking for their other stolen possessions too. The Greeks started the Trojan War because the Trojans took their pride, not because they took Helen. Today, when someone's labeled a mutant, they lose their freedom to..to be an equal I guess, or to be seen or live as just another person, distinct even without their mutation. Nobody's just going to give that back to us, unless we're willing to fight for it."
"Okay, so we're the Greeks," Rogue said slowly. She was genuinely intrigued now, and more than a little heartened by his viewpoint. Even when sullen and depressed, Bobby was still the eternal optimist. Except in regards to himself, of course.
"Right," he confirmed. "And the Greeks had a lot of leaders in their camps, right? Because a lot of them were kings of different countries or city-states. But they had two leaders who stood out among the rest, Agammemnon and Achilles, and we're the same way. We have a lot of different factions, slightly different ideologies, but there are two big ones, Magneto and Xavier. Magneto's Agammemnon, and Xavier is Achilles –"
"Now you're losing me. Magneto ain't on our side, last time I checked, and Xavier ain't a fighter."
"True, Magneto's not on our side," Bobby explained patiently. "But one of his goals is the same as ours, he wants the world to be safer for mutants. Agammemnon and Achilles were only on the same side, superficially. Yeah, they both wanted to beat the Trojans, but they were really more rivals than allies. And Xavier's not a fighter, but that wasn't the point of Achilles' character. He was the Greek's champion, the one they rallied behind. And its not a perfect
fit, of course."
"So, what makes Erik Agammemnon and the Professor Achilles?"
"Because Magneto is a lot more ruthless than Xavier," he shrugged. "Agammemnon sacrificed his own daughter in order to get his fleet to Troy faster, and you can't tell me that Magneto isn't an ends justify the means kind of guy."
Rogue winced, wishing she could refute the analogy, but he had a point. She wasn't sure which she liked less, the accuracy of it, or the fact that her reaction meant that even now she still had a soft spot for the man.
"I don't remember hearing that Achilles was that great a guy, either," some perverse desire made her point out. "He did his fair share of killing, even went pretty crazy at some point, right?"
Bobby stared at her for a beat, raised his eyebrow. "Onslaught?"
"Right," she flushed, but then she thought of something she vaguely remembered hearing Hank mention once. It had stuck out, unusual as it had seemed, and for days she had insisted Hank was trying to pull her leg. "Achilles was gay though, right? Wasn't that Patricles guy supposed to be his lover?"
"Never read the Iliad, huh?" Bobby questioned skeptically.
She shrugged and pulled away from him, leaning back to rest on her elbows. "Hank talked about it a lot when we were in Spain. He kept trying to convince Storm to take a detour to the Greek Islands. Claimed it wasn't that far off our route."
"Yeah well, they probably were lovers, but that doesn't mean they were gay. At least not the way you mean the word," he replied, accepting her explanation. "It was a lot more common for guys to sleep together back then. Different culture, it didn't mean the same thing as it does for us now. A guy could be attracted to a woman because of her beauty, and attracted to another man because he respected him, or valued him as a comrade in arms."
"And his name was Patroklos by the way," he tacked on almost as an afterthought. "And if Xavier's Achilles, then Patroklos would be Scott. Yeah, Patroklos and Achilles were lovers, but that doesn't have to be sexual, it could be a father/son kind of love too. And it's more important that Patroklos was his confidant, and that he was loyal to Achilles to the point that it clouded his judgement at times."
He shifted and bent forward, drawing his legs in close and wrapping his arms around them. An ant crawled up atop his foot, a small imperfection amidst the seamless translucency of his body. "Point is," he continued softly, "there are so many characters in the Iliad, so many different types of warriors, all with different ideas of honor and glory and all that, you can pretty much take anyone involved in any war, and sub them into the Iliad somewhere."
She had a pretty good idea where this was going now, as he lapsed into silence and just stared off into the distance. "So which one are you?"
"No clue," he answered at last, and his voice was so low it was almost drowned out by the gentle break of the waves against the waterline. A slight tilt of his head, and his profile was a white silhouette against the silver backdrop of the moon, a sparkling diamond making its way down the sculpted landscape of one frozen cheek. "Two months ago I could have given you an answer, that I was the one who fought because it was the right thing to do, even when I had more to lose than to gain. Now I've lost it, and I'm not even sure if it was worth it."
She stared up at the sky as she contemplated this, wondering if there was any truth to the ideas of astrology and divination, and the stars really did have all the answers.
Then she smacked him on the head.
Hard.
"Jeez, Rogue," he yelped, lifting his hands to ward off any further attacks. "What the hell was - "
"That's what this is all about?" She interrupted him furiously. She leapt to her feet and waved her hands ineffectually in the air, alternately clenching her fists and aiming more backhanded swipes at his head. "That's why you're out here moping in the lake, why you're acting all pissy and stupid and making me listen to cockamamie bullshit metaphors about gay guys who aren't really gay? Bobby Drake, you are a complete and utter imbecile!"
"Thanks a lot..." Bobby began, but she leaned down until her face was inches from his and her breath threatened to melt his eyebrows.
"You answer me this, and you say it straight, none of this roundabout 'I'm a manly man, look at me, I don't talk about my emotions' crap! Which is more important: some innocent stranger's life, or counting numbers at some dumbass accounting office?"
"Someone's life," Bobby answered impatiently. "Rogue, I'm not saying..."
"Oh, I know what you're saying, Bobby Drake! I listened to that whole pile of crap you just spewed and you didn't once say what we're doing ain't worth fighting for. Oh you're suuuuuure that's worth it. What you're saying is whatever you've done ain't worth shit."
"No, I..."
"If you were off counting sheep or whatever when Bastion's cyborg Sentinals were out flying around, would Doc Reyes be walking and talking right now? Nope, she'd be deader than shit, and you saying she's not worth it? If you were dicking around at your high school prom when ole Big, Blue and Butt Ugly had Warren calling himself the freakin Angel of Death, would he be in the house over there making warm fuzzies with Paige? No, he'd still be brainwashed and flying around shooting people full of holes with those stupid metal feathers of his. He's your best friend, you saying he's not worth it?"
"Someone else would have..."
"Someone else didn't!" Rogue bellowed in exasperation. "You did! Get your head out of your ass and take a look around! We don't keep you around cuz we need a team mascot!"
"I didn't say.."
"No, of course you didn't, hon," she said with false sweetness, before nailing him with another openhanded smack. "All you said was you don't know who you are. Well Whoopidee- Freakin - Doodah- Day! You're just in the same damn boat as every other twenty four year old on the flippin planet! Ain't like there's some schedule you're lagging behind on, but I know one thing, you're sure as hell not gonna find yourself out here in the damned lake!"
"Are you done now?" Bobby asked when she paused for breath. His tone was neutral, but his jaw was tightly clenched, and she narrowed her eyes at him and planted her hands on her hips.
"Depends. Are you done being an idiot?"
He glared at her, but she glared back and ice statue or not, he still looked away first.
"Bobby, you..." she sighed and shook her head, started over. "You're not worthless, sugar. You ain't never been worthless and you ain't never gonna be worthless, least, not unless you keep insisting on staying out here all alone like this. Being ice or being water or being made of metal or having blue skin doesn't have any thing to do with that, and you know it. The rules don't just apply to everyone but you, hon. And this..what you're doing out here? What the hell is this? This ain't you. Least, not the Bobby I know. Thing I've always admired about you is no matter what, you always bounce back. Take a lickin and keep on ticking."
She stopped then, because if there was anything else to say, she didn't know what it was. He didn't even look up or acknowledge her words, not even to rebutt them, but just kept staring at the ground, until she was half afraid he'd turned into real, unliving ice just to tune her out. She was about ready to give up and go back inside when his voice reached up from his seat on the
ground, sounding unusually subdued.
"As long as we're handing out ego trips, I've gotta admit I've always admired your ass."
She stared at him incredulously, her mouth gaping open and shut like some demented fish.
"You..you..."
He looked up at her at last and grinned an impish grin that made her want to smack him all over again, but instead she just laughed and laughed, because really, there was nothing else to do. And he laughed with her and it made no difference that he had ice instead of lungs, because it was that same old Bobby laugh, that odd mix of bass chuckles and a boyish giggle all fumbling clumsily together in a muted roar. She laughed so hard she fell over right on top of him, sending them both sprawling in a tangle of flesh and frozen limbs. He was so cold that even she shivered, but it didn't matter, because he was laughing.
"Jerk," she grumbled when she had enough breath to spare for speech. She rolled off of him and spilled onto the sand by his side, and they just lay there for awhile, words no longer needed. "You're an idiot you know that?"
"So I've been told," he deadpanned, and she giggled, even though it really wasn't that funny. She looked over at him and her expression sobered.
"You gonna be okay?"
"Who said I wasn't?" He shot back with a smirk, and she grumbled 'jerk' again and slapped his arm halfheartedly.
"I'm serious."
"I'm an idiot, but hit me over the head enough and I eventually get it," he grinned, but then he turned serious. "But yeah, I'm cool."
"Bad pun," she smacked him on the arm again.
"Stop hitting me!"
"Stop deserving it!"
"I'm not! I didn't even mean to make the pun, its not my fault half of English slang is off limits to me."
"Oh boo hoo, poor Bobby."
"Damn straight. I get no respect."
"Sugah, please tell me that was not meant to be a Rodney Dangerfield impersonation."
"Hey! What's with the abuse? I do a good Rodney impersonation."
"Sure you do," Rogue drawled noncommitally. She propped her head up on one elbow and reached over to rub his frozen hair. "You know they'll find a way to turn you back someday."
"I know," Bobby assured her. "I mean, no I don't know, but everytime you turn into Miss Mopey, I have to keep telling you they'll find a way to let you touch people. I'm already an idiot, so I can't be a hypocrite too, can I?"
"You could, but then we'd have to call you Alex."
He snickered. "Hooray for Alex bashing. I missed you, Stripes."
"Don't make fun of the hair," she said reflexively. "I missed you too, Vanilla Ice."
"Hey! Now I'm a wannabe rapper/poser/has been? What is this, National Pick On Bobby Day?"
"Told you not to make fun of the hair."
"Fine, I take it back," he grumbled. He lifted himself to his elbows and met her eye to eye. "But I'm serious, you know. Somebody'll find a way to turn me back from ice and make it so you can touch, and then you can ditch Remy and I can ditch...my porn magazines and we'll run away together and have hot nekkid mutant sex and make crazy mutant babies."
"Sounds like a plan," she agreed sleepily, and yawned. Bobby looked at her in concern.
"You should probably go get some shuteye, you know. All you unfortunate little people not gifted with my extraordinary non sleep requiring ice mutant physiology still need..well, sleep."
"Brilliant deduction, Einstein. Clearly all your time spent in Hank's presence has left you with some of his intelligence via osmosis," she snorted and rolled her eyes as she climbed to her feet.
"I do have a brain of my own, you know," he huffed indignantly.
"I know you do. I'm still trying to figure out half of what you were talking about with the symbols and the substitutions and the damn whatevers. You should show it off more often, that's all I'm saying."
"I try not to lord my superiority over others," Bobby smirked. "Its called humility."
"The fact that you just used the word humility in regards to yourself proves you don't have a clue what it means," Rogue chuckled. She began walking back along the shore, and called back over her shoulder: "Alright, I'm turning in. I doubt there's anyone using the T.V. in the rec room right now. You coming?"
Bobby stared at the lake for awhile, before turning to her with a mischievous grin. "Nah, that's okay. I've been meaning to try out that water teleportation stunt Emma pulled when she possessed me way back when. I think I'm going to go play in the Mediterranean. Maybe visit the Parthenon or something. Write Bobby Was Here with big old piles of snow."
Rogue laughed and rolled her eyes. "You do that, sugar. Just don't go starting an international incident or anything."
"Yes Scott."
"Hush ya mouth," she chided with a good-natured swat. "Go play. I want to hear all about it in the morning."
"Again with the hitting," he pouted, and she just laughed again, making her way back along the shore to where she had left her shoes.
"Hey, Rogue."
Rogue turned and looked back at him where he stood next to the lake in his original ice form. Just a normal sized human made of ice, the usual two legs and two arms, and that old familiar lopsided grin. It was good to be home, she decided, even as he said, "Thanks for remembering I was out here."
"What are friends for?" She asked with a smile. "Good night Bobby."
She looked up at the sky as she picked up her shoes and headed for the trees, savoring the serenity of the moment. The grass was moist beneath her feet with the first sprinklings of dew, and faint traces of an early morning mist coiled around the trees. The wind picked up, blowing her hair back into her face, and a sudden frigid draft whipped her skirt up in the air. She let out a startled shriek and tried to hold it down with her hands, but then just smiled resignedly. Looking up into the branches overhead, she wasn't at all surprised to see them silvered with an unseasonable coating of hoarfrost, as they shifted in the breeze and the echoes of his laughter.
FINIS