A/N: This isn't my usual characterization, so I would appreciate your feedback.
Condiments and Reconciliation
You could do a lot in four years. You could finish high school, go from child to Young Adult, from singer/songwriters to post punk, from cooties to STDS, from runaway to bad boy. You could go to college, go from post punk to classic rock, go from girls to women and back, go from Young Adult to Someone Old Enough To Know Better. You could leave. You could become a terrorist for all intents and purposes, find and lose and find and lose a father figure. You could return to the runaway stage, figure out what the hell it was you wanted in the first place and languidly wallow in how you lost it at your leisure. You could make a million tiny fuckups no one would even care about in an attempt to even out the Big Fuck Up.
You could come back. You could grow up. You could come to terms with the Codename. You could get used to "John" again. You could learn to hang up Pyro now and then. You could learn to stop hating the both of them. You could come back. You could come back. You could come back.
"You can never go home again."
No shit. Home itself is objective enough as it is. What constituted home to an essentially homeless person? There was the house on the hill in New York City. But that was a long time ago. That was at least four personal reinventions ago. Four lifetimes, in essence. There was the mansion in Westchester, the one that had a Professor and a Dr. Grey and a Ms. Munroe and a Mr. Summers and a Marie and a Bobby and a John. There was the Batcave, the Erik Lair, the Big Metal Hole in the Big Metal Wall that had an Erik and a Mystique and scorch marks all over everything from when they'd taught him and hadn't minded. There were the million safe, dry places between there and Alcatraz Island. There were the millions of not so safe and not so dry places between there and here, places he ended up when he was simply unable to move anymore.
This was a Mansion. It was the Mansion. But it wasn't that Mansion. This Mansion didn't have a Dr. Grey or a Ms. Munroe or a Mr. Summers or even a Cyclops. It had a Storm. It had a Bobby and it had an Iceman. It had a Kitty. It had a Rogue. Hell, it even had a Wolverine. It had a…it had him. Now. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The same but different. This was a home now. But it wasn't Home. Home was a noun. A home was an adjective.
One thing you could not do in four years, however, was figure out how to Make It Right. Whatever "It" was. "It" was so many fucking things on so many fucking levels coming from all fucking sides. "It" could go fuck itself, he thought some days. Most days. Another thing you could not ever, under any circumstances figure out in four years was women. Woman. Her. Rogue. Marie. That One Girl He Came Back Quote Home Unquote To See. There had been other contributing factors, sure. But mostly her. In the four years it had taken for him to grow up and the blonde to grow out, he had at least learned how to be honest with himself. They had been a painful realizations: he loved Marie D'Ancanto, and he had really stupid hair. His one comfort (besides liquor – lots and lots of liquor) was that at least she had never seen the Blonde Phase in person. Thank God for small mercies.
He didn't know what to expect when he decided to come back to the Mansion (even if it wasn't the Mansion). He made a few phone calls to the Headmaster's office, made a few late-night visits to a few secluded restaurants, had many, many talks with Storm (Ms. Munroe…), and one very long bus ride. Bobby had been hurt and resentful and hopeful all at once in that way only Bobby could be. Kitty had been suspicious, but…open-minded. Piotr (Pete?) had been silent and very tall. Storm had been professional. But she hadn't been anything. She saw him walk in with a completely blank face and had refused to acknowledge him since. He half wished she'd reached out and sucked the life out him right then and there. Actually he about three-quarters wished it because then she would at least know how he felt. Or at least what he had learned. But then he remembered she couldn't, only to remember she could, or would be able to eventually. Screaming, tears, violence, a tap dance routine, anything. Hell, Logan's outright hostility was preferable to this.
But he supposed he deserved it. Or she thought he did, which was all that mattered. He refused to regret what he had done, because it had seemed right at the time, in that life, in that incarnation of the man formerly known an John Allderdyce. But he had left her, left her for Erik and Mystique, and he'd roughed up her then-boyfriend, and from her perspective, she was treating him like what he was to her: nothing. Being this understanding was really fucking tiring, he thought. It was amazing Bobby, Mr. Sensitive New Age Guy, was able to get up in the morning.
He thought he had a breakthrough one afternoon, around three o'clock. It was winter and the sunshine was almost blinding, reflecting off the snow and spilling onto the hardwood floor of this room. She had walked past his door and stopped and he all but got down on his knees and sang to the heavens. But instead of looking at him, she looked at his clothes on the floor, sneered, and kept walking. The look had said so much with so little. The subtle, snide curve of her cupid's bow upper lip had plainly asked how he could claim to be a new man when he still acted like the sixteen year old who couldn't do laundry and wouldn't out of principle. She had washed and folded his clothes out of desperation and a certain anal-retentive quality she possessed back when they were kids and this was Home and they still spoke. But she wasn't going to clean this mess up for him. He had fucked up royally and he should be able to fold a damn t-shirt at this point in his life. She had somehow managed to assess both his cleaning habits and his relevance as a person in less than four seconds and without actually looking at him. And she'd done it accurately, too.
Sometimes he really wondered why he even bothered. Oh yeah, because she had stopped in front of his door. It was nothing, just a momentary relaxation of muscles. But it gave him a glimmer, just a spark of hope. And as anybody could tell you, a spark was all Pyro needed.
Surprisingly, it was Kitty who first began the break the ice with him. "I've decided to give you a second chance," she had informed him, ever the queen of subtly, one day when they were both watching TV. "Because…I don't know, you used to be cool and even if you went all crazy and evil and stuff, you still ate lunch with me and everyone. And besides, I need all the good karma I can get," she finished and went back to eating popcorn and complaining about how it was only ever bad news. If either of them was relieved or uncomfortable, they didn't show it.
Bobby was…cold. At first. Which was understandable, considering. The glares and accidentally-on-purpose shoved shoulders in the hallways and the complete refusal to change the fucking channel when neither of them even like MTV, that he could take. The moments when Bobby actually forgot about the last four years and automatically turned a sidelong glance John's way at Logan and Storm arguing over Logan's Not So Secret Beer Stash were what killed him, because he didn't forget and every lapse on Bobby's part gave him hope that was continually yanked out from under him when the moment passed and the Human Ice Tray came back in full force. They happened to be in the Game Room together when "Light My Fire" had come on the radio and Bobby had grinned over at him like he always did when a Theme Song, as they called them, came on. John had shoved himself to his feet and screamed "Will you make up your fucking mind!" an inch from Bobby's face. Bobby had stared at him, jaw slack for a few moments before slugging John in the jaw.
It was enormously satisfying, hitting Bobby, and being hit back. Knowing that this was really all either of them wanted or deserved – to throw a childish tantrum and hit the person who made you mad and scream a lot. The fight was short. Neither of them had even thought to use their powers, and the fact that John was still kinda short and Bobby was still kinda scrawny had become painfully obvious – literally – and they both just sort of crumpled, bruised and bloody but much calmer, onto the couch.
"So," Bobby had panted after a moment, around a quickly swelling lip, "you wanna play some Foosball?"
"Sure," he replied, "just gimme a sec to get the feeling back in my hand."
"You can't feel yours either?"
"Nope."
"Wow," Bobby had half laughed, half coughed, "We're still pretty big pussies, huh?" They laughed for a solid five minutes, wheezing and groaning and crying and oh God, it hurt, but it felt so much better.
That night, right hand wrapped in a massive Ace Bandage, and sporting a gorgeous black eye, he had gone down to the laundry room and began experimenting. He read the label of the laundry detergent very carefully and spent the better part of twenty minutes just filling the cap up to the Fill line and wondering why he couldn't just use dish soap or shampoo. He stood on the cold linoleum in the two items of clothing he hadn't washed and his bare feet, waiting for the cycle to finish. He could've sworn he aged ten years, wondering if he had just managed to fuck even this up and thinking that maybe he shouldn't have used his entire wardrobe his first time around. He was pulling out a sopping wet, but seemingly undamaged pair of jeans when she came in. He froze like a deer in the headlights of a semi with 'Die, Antlered Scum, Die' written across the windshield. But she had simply walked over to the clothes line and pulled off a black shirt and red bra that he (surprisingly) hadn't noticed until then. He realized he was staring right around the time he realized that his Laundry Day Outfit consisted of a Milli Vanilli t-shirt he had apparently found funny once upon a time (stupid stupid stupid) and red-and-yellow plaid boxers. He really did want to die just then. He could paint a giant target across his chest, walk up to Logan, and insult his hair. Yeah, that'd get the job done. Snikt, snakt, the witch is dead. But then she paused for just a second. She didn't look at him, no, that was too much to hope for. But she looked at his laundry. As soon as she was out the door, John banged his head against the wall repeatedly and once with the wet jeans, just for good measure. But he was smiling.
The weeks crawled by slowly, but bit by bit they were adjusting. Logan had gone a full twenty-four hours without threatening him with death or dismemberment. He and Bobby were talking a little and playing Foosball a lot, and Kitty – well, he just couldn't get Kitty to shut up. Dr. McCoy was cool with him, but he didn't insult him either. Storm tolerated him. He could live with all that. But it seemed that if you asked Rogue, she would have told you that no, she hadn't seen John Allderdyce in four years and someone must have misinformed you, sugar, he most certainly was not in the Mansion. John kept quiet because he was raised Catholic. Because he knew about sinning and penance. He was still saying his proverbial 'Hail Mary's. Or 'Hail, Marie's, as was more appropriate. John had done a lot of penance in his day. He knew the drill.
It six-thirty in the evening on March second, the day it happened. He would remember the date and time until the day he died, he was sure. They had all just sat down to dinner, the group of them at the Teacher's Table, a fact which, if he was honest, still gave him just a bit of a thrill. They were having chicken, which they had a lot, and asparagus, which they did not. The usual mindless chatter and shop talk surrounded him, while John concentrated on how to cut up asparagus. Someone coughed across the table. It was a stupid vegetable, really. How was he supposed to know what was the proper way to eat it? The coughing came again. Maybe he wasn't supposed to cut it, but just nibble on the ends? The cough came again, louder this time, and he looked up – and promptly choked on the mouthful of asparagus he had just opted to shove in his mouth. She was looking straight at him. She was trying to get his attention. Four fucking months of laundry and she was trying to get his attention? He gagged again, but managed to swallow.
"Would you pass the salt?" she asked coolly, and God, he had forgotten just how beautiful a Mississippi accent could be. He wanted to go down to the state personally and thank her parents for bringing her up to use those heaven-sent inflections. 'Whouldya paaaassss the sawlt?" He could've sat there forever, just listening to her pronounce things. Wait, salt? Salt. She wanted salt, Sweet Jesus, she was talking to him like he actually existed and if she wanted salt then by God, she would have it.
He reached for the glass shaker full of white granules, and was deeply impressed with himself that his hands didn't shake. She didn't thank him, their fingers didn't brush. It was nothing, it was a condiment, for Christ's sake. But it was a start. It was that much closer to reconciliation. If you could learn nothing else in four years, you could learn to be a little patient. John smiled around a mouthful of asparagus.