Part Six – Would you have it any other way?
AN: thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far. This would be the last chapter, and longest by far. Hopefully most of the holes get plugged and the plot tied up, and most of all, hope you enjoy it.
A note to Fata Morgana – My knowledge of Canadian geography comes down to "Wow, you can by an island in Nova Scotia for £40,000! We could sell our house and have enough left to buy another one, as well as the island!" So I fold automatically to all your points about Quebec and Montreal (Montreal's in Quebec though, right), with one vague disclaimer: it was Bobby's PoV, and he strikes me as the sort of person to call any province of a country he's unfamiliar with as the middle of teat country, in the same way it would be the middle of nowhere.
At first he thought the footsteps where his own, but then they grew faster and out of time with his own plodding feet. They grew faster until he couldn't hear one from another and a hand grabbed his wrist and he spun, ready to attack. The man clinging to his wrist was bent over panting.
"I was worried I'd spent the last few days camped outside some stranger's house," Bobby blurted.
Jean Paul pulled himself upright, eyes slightly unfocused. "I didn't know I could go that fast," he managed.
They stared at each other. It began to snow again.
With Jean Paul's hand still clamped on his wrist Bobby de-iced as far as he could. He let his arm slip back, so that he was holding Jean Paul's hand. Ice was beginning to creep from under his nails, but at least for now he hold hands like a human. Jean Paul's fingers closed convulsively around his own, and he could feel Jean Paul's eyes on his ruined face. Right side almost entirely ice, neck and chin ice, right eye and nose ice. Just the left corner of his top lip remained of a once kissable mouth.
In Bobby's mind there would have been talking, and apologies, and getting to know each other. It would have happened slowly. It would have been too late by the time he was willing to let anything happen.
Jean Paul stepped in faster than the eye could see, wrapping one arm around Bobby's waist and yanking him in, and lowered his head to kiss Bobby with more passion than Bobby had ever known. His mouth fastened on that quarter of living lip, tongue tracing it and lips brushing it. When Bobby opened his mouth Jean Paul needed no further invitation. Bobby's hand clutched at Jean Paul's hair as he felt his legs go weak.
Jean Paul pulled away eventually, face almost smug. Bobby clung to him like a drowning child. A frozen tongue slipped out to brush the human part of his lips and he shivered at his own touch.
Even as they stood there Jean Paul's face began to fall. Bobby felt his non-existent stomach twist. Jean Paul forced a faltering smile and took his hand again, leading him back towards the far off house. Bobby squeezed the warm fingers as they walked, but he always stayed a step or two behind Jean Paul, letting the older man lead him. He was too deep in thought to lead himself.
The house was in sight when Bobby stopped. Jean Paul tugged on his hand. Bobby cocked his head to one side and looked at him.
"What did you expect, after the kiss?" he asked quietly. He had a pretty good idea, but he wanted to see if Jean Paul would admit it without too much prompting.
Jean Paul shook his head. "What do you mean?" He tugged on Bobby's hand. "It is cold out here, mon ami. Please, let us go inside."
"The cold doesn't bother me," Bobby said calmly. "Bothers you though, doesn't it?" His voice had an edge to it.
"Can we have this fight inside?" Jean Paul asked tiredly. "I know we're going to have it, but must we out here?"
"What did you think was going to happen when you kissed me?" Bobby pressed, hand tightening over Jean Paul's. They weren't going anywhere, and if Jean Paul thought he could drag Bobby somewhere he was in for a shock. If Bobby belonged anywhere, it was here.
"I don't know!" Jean Paul snapped. "Bobby, s'il vous plait!"
"You thought I was going to melt, didn't you?" Bobby raised his chin. "You thought, Jean Paul, that I was going to melt and be human and we'd live happily ever after."
"Don't you dare tell me what I thought!" Jean Paul snarled.
"It's not some fairy tale, Jean Paul. I'm dead."
Jean Paul stared at him then.
"I'm dead," Bobby repeated, more quietly. "I have no internal organs."
"Do you usually, when you take your ice form?" Jean Paul asked, surprisingly calmly.
"No, but I don't usually feel the intense pain of my heart giving out and my brain giving up," Bobby snapped. "You just flew away and I waited, and then I died. And I don't even know how long I was dead."
"Does it matter?"
Bobby blinked, taken aback. "I was dead," he repeated.
"Don't look it," Jean Paul observed coolly. "Though perhaps living people use their brains a little more often."
Bobby sniffed. "You're meant to be feeling incredibly guilty right now," he informed Jean Paul pettily. "You ran off and I died."
"I'd care more if you'd stayed dead."
"Why did you follow me?" Bobby's voice broke. "Why did you kiss me? What's going on here?"
"Always asking questions!" Jean Paul jerked his hand from Bobby's and stepped back, arms out and eyes rolling, head tilted to the heavens. Overly dramatic, Bobby thought, but the point was sinking in. "Have you ever accepted something for what it was?"
"I used to," Bobby told him, "but then I learnt that nothing was what it was." Jean Paul raised an eyebrow. "I mean... I mean that things changed. I changed. I didn't want to. Why couldn't I-"
"Uh-uh," Jean Paul cut him off. "No more questions."
"I thought I knew who I was," Bobby struggled on, desperate to make Jean Paul understand. "And then I was a mutant who controlled snow, then ice, then water in all forms, then I could become it, then I could use it to practically teleport, and now I'm going to be water, forever. I've had gods using me, telepaths taking rides in my body, I've put myself back together from shattered pieces and I've put myself back together from nothing. I don't think there's a single molecule in this body that belonged to Bobby Drake."
"I thought identity crises were a teenaged thing," Jean Paul smirked.
Bobby hit him.
Since it felt good, he did it again.
Jean Paul blinked and brushed snow out of his hair. He hadn't expected the first punch, and he really hadn't expected the second. Who punched on impulse twice, for heavens sake? And Iceman stood a few feet away, more ice than man, hands on hips and a speculative look on his face. And even sitting in the snow, pride bruised worse than his face and burning with shame, Jean Paul thought that slightly screwed up pout was... cute.
"One last question, Jean Paul, okay?"
"D'accord." Jean Paul nodded, fighting the childish urge to accuse Bobby of just using that question.
"Who am I?"
They regarded each other for a long, slow second. It was still snowing, and Jean Paul focused on the individual flakes rather than the eyes of the man he'd thought he loved, for a short while. He couldn't answer Bobby's question, but he could ask himself the same one. He didn't much like the answer that swam in his head. It made him want to yell at Bobby and send him away and not care if the boy had died or if he would die again. It made him want to shut himself up in his tiny house or run to his apartment in Montreal and lose the memories in people. It made him want to quit on his sister.
"Someone I don't deserve," he said, voice faltering and halting. "Like every other person on this damn planet."
"I didn't ask for a sob story, Jean Paul," Bobby snapped. "You can't say shit like that and expect me to believe it, not after the way you've acted. You're the most arrogant man I know."
Jean Paul raised his head. "I don't want your pity, Bobby Drake. I was just pointing out what you know damn well to be true."
"I'm glad you think so," Bobby growled, stepping forwards to tower over Jean Paul. "I could have sworn I had some reason to come here."
"I don't know who you are, or why you're here," Jean Paul offered, slumping back in the snow. "But damn you're hot when you're angry."
Bobby snorted. Jean Paul looked up as the icy face crumpled with suppressed laughter. He reached down and pulled Jean Paul to his feet. They stood close and the electricity between them was palpable. Jean Paul bent in for another brief kiss, and Bobby obliged. Jean Paul smiled broadly against Bobby's lips and wrapped warm arms around the slender form.
"You're also pretty cute when you smile," he murmured, looking into dancing eyes.
Bobby accepted the hot chocolate with broad assurances than he wouldn't melt. Jean Paul still looked concerned, but frost was already spidering across the surfaces of the just boiled liquid.
"I suppose this is the part where we talk," Jean Paul said awkwardly, sitting opposite Bobby.
"I think we missed that part," Bobby sighed. "It probably should have come before the kissing."
Jean Paul rocked back in his chair, fixing his eyes on the dowdy ceiling. "I want you, Bobby Drake. I am not certain of much else, though."
"I don't understand how you can want me," Bobby sighed "I don't, any more. I'm not even sure if it's physically possible for me to have sex, and god knows what it would do to you if we tried."
"Do you know how long I've been single?" Jean Paul laughed bitterly. "I can certainly live without sex, Bobby Drake."
Bobby bit his tongue on another question hard enough to draw blood, or what passed for it in his body these days, and found some way to phrase his curiosity as a statement. "When you said you wanted me, I assumed you meant physically," he said cautiously.
"I find you physically attractive, very much so. But your company is also pleasant."
Bobby shook his head in confusion. "You mean you want to be friends," he hazarded.
"I mean I want us to-" Jean Paul cut himself off. Only ten minutes ago Bobby had been beating him into the snow. He didn't so much stand a risk of spooking Bobby as he did enraging Bobby and never seeing him again. Considering Bobby had been so adamantly straight for most of his life this was... this was emotional suicide. Jean Paul never took risks like this. His heart was battered enough from his sister's ministrations.
"I want us to be together," Jean Paul said slowly, still staring at the ceiling. "Forever. I do not care if we can not consummate our relationship. It will make these kisses the sweeter. I just want to be by your side."
"That sounded almost like a proposal," Bobby said, slightly overawed.
"You said you loved me." Jean Paul swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. "In the snow. I flew away and you came to find me. I locked you out and you waited for me. I was rude and cruel and arrogant, and you said you loved me."
"You haven't said it back yet," Bobby pointed out, voice tight.
"Is it stupid to say I know I want to spend my life with you, but I do not know if I love you?" Jean Paul managed.
"I suppose it depends on how you define love," Bobby said philosophically.
"I love my sister," Jean Paul said firmly. "And I have loved many friends over the years. I know what love is."
"But you're here alone. You love them but you don't want to be with them, and you're saying the reverse for me. You don't want to see them right now. Or... you do not want them to see you."
"After what I did to you? I want to drop off the edge of the world!"
"So did I," Bobby shrugged. "But I said I loved you, and I meant it."
"But why?" Jean Paul stared at him. "I still do not understand this one thing!"
"There isn't a why. You just accept it for what it is." Bobby's faintly pink lips curved in a teasing grin, echoing Jean Paul's words back to him.
Jean Paul took a deep breath. "So what does this mean? Do you want to stay with me?"
Bobby thought for a moment. "Yes," he said.
Jean Paul frowned in surprise.
"Yes," Bobby said again, nodding to emphasise his point.
Jean Paul pulled Bobby in for another cold kiss, and was surprised at the damp warmth. Bobby was somewhat stunned to be pushed back into his chair by a beaming Jean Paul. And then the smile broadened further. "Bobby, your mouth!"
Still human hands shot to his lips, and Bobby made a sound normally associated with female Beatles fans and piglets stuck in barn doors. "Oh god," he managed. "Oh god, oh god."
"It is like a fairytale," Jean Paul managed, grabbing the younger man in his arms and swinging him around.
"No," Bobby pushed away to catch his breath enough to talk. "It's like before!"
"Like when?" Jean Paul stared at him.
"After a fight with this guy Post, ages back now, I had a chunk knocked out of my chest, and I couldn't reform it no matter how hard I tried. Eventually, after a long talk with Emma Frost, I realised that it was because I was still moping over Opal and my father and everything and who knew my gift was so tied in with my emotions?"
"You've been freezing over because you're upset?" Jean Paul stared at him.
"I don't know! Because I've not been myself, or because I thought I'd always be cold and lonely, or because I pushing people away, or something! Point is, it's going." Bobby bounced on the balls of his feet. "And we'll be able to have sex and everything!"
"What about your organs?" Jean Paul said tentatively, not wanting to ruin the festivities.
"We'll cross the bridge when we come to it," Bobby told him. "Annie or Hank or someone will be able to help."
"Do they even know yet?" Jean Paul asked.
"Oh, I'll tell them," Bobby waved a hand dismissively. "We're not done celebrating yet." He reached out to tug on Jean Paul's waistband. They stood chest to chest, both breathing heavily and in time with each other. "You can't take back what you said, Jean Paul," Bobby murmured as he snaked his arms around the older man.
"I don't want to," Jean Paul told him. "Forever isn't a word I use lightly."
"Good," Bobby nestled his head against Jean Paul's chest. "And you're going to have to be more patient with me than you are with the kids at Xavier's. I don't even know the mechanics of, you know, guy on guy sex yet.
"Sex sex sex," Jean Paul rolled his eyes. "Is that all regaining your body means to you?"
Bobby laughed. "You offered everything else regardless," he pointed out. "You don't know what that means to me. You want to be around me for something real."
"I think I need to be around you. You need to start rubbing off on me," Jean Paul commanded. "I'm not used to people who take rejection with a pinch of salt and are willing to prove how wrong the rejector was."
Bobby raised his head for another long kiss. "I'm too used to people who reject someone they want to be with, that's all. I mean, I was the second ever X-man. I've seen more convoluted relationships than you have snowflakes. Just look at Rogue and Gambit."
"Mmm, Gambit."
"Hey!" Bobby pulled away with a laugh. "You're my boyfriend now."
Jean Paul smiled fondly. "Je t'aime," he said quietly.
"I know," Bobby said. Jean Paul cocked an eyebrow. "I'm also used to people who have a hard time knowing how they feel, let alone saying it," Bobby grinned. "Again, I'm an X-man."
"As am I now," Jean Paul pointed out.
"You know what that means. Our relationship is never going to be anything approaching stable."
"Would you have it any other way?"
Well, had to end it on a question, obviously.
Honesty time? The further I got with this fic the less I liked it. It went from light and fluffy to major angsty in the first two chapters, and now it's gone and swung back the other way. I had a strong urge to end it on a depressing note. So at some point it may (a)disappear, (b) have the middle re-written or (c) turn into two separate fics. On the other hand, I haven't actually read the whole thing through, just in the chapters I've been writing it, so maybe on the reread I'll like it better. Apart from the tone changes, there's nothing I hugely dislike about it. And since this has something resembling a plot, they are kind of necessary. And I like thae Emma Frost point (you go digging around on uncannyxmen.net you turn up allkinds of useful 'we're resuing old plot in a new way' titbits).
I don't know. If it's here in a few months I've decided I liked it. Normally if I write something I'm not sure about, I don't post it. I've got a lot of fics like this that I've dissected into other fics and it's worked quite nicely.
Anyway, now I've gone and rubbished my own work, feel free to join in!