Disclaimer: not mine
A/N: I called out of work today and wrote this. Well, I called out because I'm sick, this chapter is just a result.
John had been gone for three days and she missed him like an amputee missed a removed limb. She would wake up in the middle of the night or walk in from her shift at the hospital and look around in confusion when she found that he wasn't sprawled haphazardly on his side of the bed, snoring lightly next to her or perched on the open window sill of the living room, melting glass into little figurines for her. Then she would suddenly realize with a pang and a lurch that he was gone and had been for one, two, and now three days. And would be for another two.
The subject had been broached at the 8th monthly dinner, somewhere in the range of their 11th month together (the fact the one year was quickly approaching wasn't lost on her, but she refused to let herself think he would make anything of it. Honestly, if she wanted something momentous, she wouldn't be with him at all). Bobby kept pausing and generally looked ashamed of himself the entire time he made his case and eventually Kitty had to finish the proposal for him.
"It's just a fishing trip, Johnny," she said with exasperation. "You know, male bonding and all that. All I'm saying is: go out into the woods, catch some damned fish, beat the hell out of each other for all I care. Just come home in one piece and for the love of God, resolve some of your issues."
There really was no getting out of it, Marie had known. Even though she had the feeling the trip had less to do with conflict resolution and much, much more to do with whatever John had refused Storm the week prior. She's pretty sure John knew it to.
But he agreed and she supported him like a proper little girlfriend and she watched him with amused eyes as he struggled to figure out what to pack for a fishing trip that wasn't really about fishing.
"Is this where I start making inappropriate 'Brokeback Mountain' references?" she giggled out. His only response was a fained glare before he got up and tackled her into their bed.
"What are you doing!" she squealed.
He laughed so genuinely she felt something profound shift in her stomach and she wondered why she hadn't seen it sooner. He's happy. I'm happy. "Proving how wrong those references would be."
That was three days ago.
But even now she still feels his presence like a phantom hand at her back. He's scent, grass and fireplace, is in their bed and in the shower. When she turns on the TV, it's still on ESPN. His dirty clothes are everywhere but the hamper and she trips over his ratty running shoes whenever she stumbles to the bathroom. Sometimes she thinks that if she turns around fast enough, she'll catch him standing there, grinning and flicking open his lighter seductively. But just like a war veteran who reaches down to rub an aching leg, there's nothing there to bring her comfort.
And that's why it takes her several seconds to understand that there is something very wrong with the noises coming from the kitchen.
She doesn't bother with pants. She's remained in top fighting condition even though she's not a part of the squad anymore, and a carefully aimed swing to someone's head with a baseball bat works just as well without bottoms as with. She just barges into the room, scuffed Louisville Slugger at the ready, completely unprepared for the sight of Bobby standing at her stove top making tea, at least for all appearances. She starts to say something to the effect of a blunt, ' What the fuck?' but there's something off about him that strikes her immediately.
He's not as tall as he was the last time she saw him. His muscles aren't as defined. His hair is shorter and his clothes are all wrong. Then it dawns on her like a cool, chilling wave that rises from her feet. He looks seventeen.
She lowers the baseball bat in says in a voice that betrays all her fear, "Shouldn't you be out convincin' school girls to run away to train stations or somethin'?"
Bobby chuckles condescendingly and pairs it with the home boy grin of his that used to make her knees weak. The combination leaves her nauseous.
"I made tea." He steps forward to hand her a mug but pauses when she recoils, readjusting her grip on the bat, and shrugs, placing the ceramic cup on the counter.
"If I wanted to kill you, Rouge, you'd be dead already," he tells her, looking modest and vicious at the same time.
She shivers. "Excuse me if that's not really a comfort. How do I know you're not like, I don't know, a killer whale, you know?"
Bobby tilts his head to the side and shoots her that beaming smile again and nods with approval, "Playing with their prey before they eat it, you mean?" Marie nods and it's almost a relief when Mystique finally sheds her teenage Bobby guise and stands there in her natural form. Maybe it's all in her head, but after her last comment, it's like she's passed some kind of test. Like Mystique has decided to cut her some slack and tone down the intimidation as long as Marie knows she wouldn't last a minute in a fight with the woman. All the threat has fled the situation. Mystique gracefully hops up to sit on the edge of the counter and sips her tea. Marie follows suit at the table, awkwardly balancing her weapon against the side of her chair.
"If this is about the X-men, I don't know anythin'; I haven't been a part of the team since I started nursin' school."
"It's not," the older women says simply. The detached part of Marie's brain that is not working overtime to come up with a way to get the infamous Raven Darkholme out of her apartment as quickly as possible marvels at the surrealistic nature of the scene. Drinking tea. Black tea. Drinking black tea with Raven Darkholme in the middle of the night whileI'm wearing nothing but one of John's faded band tees and underwear.
"Then this is about John?"
Mystique cocks her head and studies Marie in a disturbingly reptilian manner. She gets the impression that the only reason she is still alive is because the shape shifter still finds her somewhat interesting.
"He loves you," she states matter of factly.
Mystique's words are like an electric shock, the unaffected piece of Marie's mind finally snaps back into place with the rest of her consciousness. The setting is no longer surreal, but sharply focused, like cure needles along her back. She swears she can even hear her blood travel through the tiny capillaries of her eyes.
John loves her. She thinks that she probably knew that already, but when she looks back on this moment she's never quite sure. No, he had never said it, but he showed it. He proved it. He never ran away. He stuck around. He held her as she cried every three months when she tore her heart past her ribs, wrung it out a few times, and then shoved it back inside her chest.
"You broke into my home wearing the face of my ex just to tell me that?" Marie whispers
"I did."
"Can you please respond with somethin' more than two or three words, Ma'am?" Mystique sends her an annoyed look at the usage of the word 'Ma'am,' but obliges her anyway.
"When he was with us, when I trained him, we would spar. I would be someone else so he could become accustomed to fighting that person without...hesitation." She doesn't need to specify who she would impersonate. Marie grimaces at the thought, but is somewhat comforted by the fact that John needed to practice battling his former allies before he could actually do it.
"But he would never fight you. When I was you, he would always walk away. He didn't even try to make up excuses like he sometimes did when I was the Iceman. He would simply walk away. That's when I knew it wasn't the life for him."
"Will you show me?" Marie doesn't know why she asks. She doesn't think she really wants to know." Will you show me how you looked for him?"
Mystique's lips turn into a small frown and if Marie didn't know any better, she'd think that the shape shifter hadn't expected that response. But she slowly slips off the counter top and lithely walks to distance between her and the younger girl. In an instant she's kneeling next to Marie in the shape of herself as a teen, complete with green trench coat with the hood down and white gloves with little pearls on the cuffs.
"Why did you leave?" the voice is pitched perfectly, a little higher than her voice now, the southern lilt a little thicker. "Weren't we enough for you, Johnny? Me an' Bobby, we just wanted to take care of you. Johnny, come back with me, everyone will forgive you. Please Johnny, just let me take care of you. Ah...Ah think Ah love you, Pyro."
It's too much for Marie to take, she refuses to cry and she refuses to tell Mystique to stop, but something in her face alerts the assassin that this act is over. Mystique moves back a few paces and shifts quickly into her blue skin.
"If you've said what you needed to say, I think it's time for you to leave." Marie murmurs, quite obviously distraught.
Mystique doesn't respond, she simply changes into an unremarkable looking blonde woman and turns to leave. She stops at the doorway and says,
"He can be everything you want him to be. You both can have all of it, and I mean all of it. But you're going to have to fight for every inch he gives you. You're going to have to be in this for him, and only him."
"Done." Marie whispers.
"And if I even get the smallest impression that you're going to fuck him over..." Mystique swivels her head around, her eyes flashing bright yellow before changing back to a totally ordinary brown.
"Killer whale?"
"Killer whale."
And I thought my mother would be hard to deal with.