The meeting with the real wolverine is lively and messy and Johnny hears himself laugh for the first time since he doesn't know when. It seems to make Gabby warm up to him QUITE a lot as she starts re-telling how the animal came into her life and asking Johnny questions. Mostly about her siblings. They sit on the couch, the animal between them, happy to be petted and cuddled.
Said siblings are in the kitchen. From the couch they can see them puttering about. Laura is making coffee for him, Johnny knows. He doesn't mind; he burns caffeine as easily during day than around midnight. Daken is handling his own new pot of tea, apparently. He followed her even though Laura said she didn't need him to boil water. Her brother had just huffed. Johnny thinks Daken is trying to avoid him, but he lets him get away with it. For now. Baby-steps.
As for Johnny, he sneaks looks from afar at Daken, who is leaning against the counter and glaring at the kettle. This tall quiet man in elegant clothes that he doesn't recognize, who wears metal rings in his ear, who is watching him like a stranger (or hardly an acquaintance if you're feeling generous). But Johnny has lost too many people. His misses his family like a part of him is gone, like the air in is lung. It is nice to have one person back. His friend who liked to share book recs or quirky trivia is still in there somewhere; he has the picture on his phone of an actual wolverine to prove it.
When Laura comes back with tray and drinks and an assortment of four cups and mugs, and snacks, she simply sits on the floor in front of the couch. Her little sister decides to leave her seat and joins her, pointing that "the couch is for the guests". Daken sighs but decides not to make a fuss and takes place just beside Johnny. Mug in hand. The perfume wafts to him.
"Not your usual blend for nights," Johnny notices. It's an odd thing to remember, but he knows at once. Daken holds his gaze a second, his surprise showing.
"What's his usual blend for nights?" Laura asks, and it seems like it bugs her not to know.
"It doesn't matter, Laura," her brother tries to say, while Johnny lets go of a nervous laugh:
"I wouldn't know. This one is jasmine, he used to have it when we ate Chinese, but the other was more like…" But Daken cuts him, glaring:
"Please, Johnny, stop making my sister feel like she doesn't know me as well as you do. That's just rude."
Johnny flushes, can't help but break eye contact with Daken, and glances at Laura who looks thoughtful. He reaches for a coffee cup to busy his hands.
"Sorry," he says softly.
"Is Daken a tea snob?" Gabby asks. She is reaching for sugar and cream for her coffee. Johnny thinks Sue would have a conniption if she saw that, but neither Laura nor Daken seem to intend to ban the girl from the caffeine.
"No," Daken answers, the moment Laura says "Yes, apparently. But it's good to know." Which seems to surprise Daken once again.
Johnny wonders why he looks amazed people would want to know what he likes.
Jonathan tries stealth a bit later to get to one of the biscuits also on the tray but gets thwarted in his efforts by Laura. (By way of impaling the poor biscuit with a claw, stealing it first.)
"Damn, I would have liked a picture of that, too," Johnny comments. Also, time to try to engage Daken directly: "Now, it was funny, I liked it, the picture you've sent. Is that really a wolverine, like, it's really called that as a specie or is it just a family joke? And I maintain it: you're as ridiculous. You've borne the name too. And you didn't even know what you were masquerading as. You never wondered." (Johnny is rambling. He knows. There was a time their conversations were not that clipped. Perhaps Johnny thinks the fastest he will talk, the less likely Daken is going to tell him to shut up and leave.) "Seriously, lame! Wait till I tell Ben, he—"
"Breathe, Johnny. Please." In spite of Daken's light tone, it's meant to cut.
He is making a fool of himself, babbling like that, Johnny realizes. He chances a look towards the sisters. Laura holds his gaze; he could swear her slight smile is an encouraging one. In spite of her beverage, Gabby looks like she is almost dozing off, her head on her sister's thigh. But a tiny glint between her eyelids lets him know she's still more or less awake.
OoOoOoOoO
What he learns, tonight? Daken's tongue is razor sharp. He smiles less easily. He never lowers his eyes, when he talks to him, which was a quirk Johnny had found endearing. He is different from the Daken he remembers: there's a hardness, edges. (It doesn't seem to bother the girls.)
But he is not that different. Not as different Daken thinks he is from the man who was Johnny's friend. It feels like having sparred with someone for months only to realize that person was pulling their punches all this time, but it's still the same way of fighting, right? Johnny is not fragile. He is not; he can take anything Daken throws at him. (Maybe. He hopes.)
Johnny smiles. Wide and warm and sudden. Just because if Daken is right here, it can reach him. That's the point. His friend is not lost in fucking space, there's a fighting chance. It's only a question of putting the effort in.
He can as well settle for the long haul. So he kicks one sneaker off, helping along with the tow of the other, and then repeats the process with the other foot. He goes to crowd Daken a little more on the couch, sitting too near, putting his feet under the mutant thighs. He's done it dozens of times. Before. Daken always used to take it in stride, one of his hands falling on an ankle in the course of their conversations, sometimes to emphasize a point or squeezing it to call Johnny on some on his bullshit. This Daken only pointedly looks at him as if he were a heathen. But he doesn't move.
So, time to go over some hurdles, now. Wounds that get ignored fester. Johnny takes a deep breath.
"Look, let's get this straight. You've stabbed Reed and thrown him off a roof," he says.
Daken straightens up a little, his expression is knowing, as if he expected the subject to come up sooner or later.
"Daken?" Laura asks.
"And I had drugged him first." Daken replies to her, not him. He shows his teeth. It's not a smile. "I'm surprised Logan didn't tell you that." He's not rising up yet, but reaches blindly behind him for his coat, still holding his sister's gaze.
"The problem with Logan was that he talked as much as he listened. Which is not much and certainly not enough," Laura says. There is an ounce of exasperation in her tone.
"I'm not going to talk, Laura." Daken's face sobers somewhat. "I'm not going to apologize for who I've become either."
"I wouldn't dare ask," she acidly retorts.
Johnny notices that her hand, which was put on the head of the definitely-sleeping-now-Gabby (because Johnny can't imagine her no to react to the conversation otherwise) has shifted slowly to cover the visible ear, just in case. Which is silly. Neither sibling seems to want to break this new silence.
"Listen to me," Johnny decides to plough on. "That's not my point. My point was… Reed still liked you anyway. He tried to reach you before it was too late and Heat killed you even after that. He saw you with your father. He mourned you more than I was able to at the time." Daken's gaze clouds over when he mentions Reed. Johnny doesn't exactly know how to interpret this change. "I'm not trying to assign blame or giving you another chance. I'm asking you for one."
At that, Daken visibly starts. "I didn't see that one coming," he admits. His eyes are narrowed to slits, considering. Johnny has felt the mutant's attention switching to him entirely (at last!) during his tirade; the weight of it is familiar.
"I'm full of surprises." Johnny can't help the sass in his voice. It's not like he expects a reply straight away. Even before, the mutant never was friend with direct answers. Daken doesn't disappoint:
"Yhea, like showing up uninvited. It's Laura's home. It's her little sister's home. It's not just any place you can barge in because you think you have business there. It's not even polite."
"I'm sorry?"
"Loose the questioning tone when you say it and I might forgive you. Laura doesn't seem too upset with you."
"I'm not," Laura confirms.
"Yes, she has too much to do with you, obviously," Johnny retorts. (Can't help himself.)
One second to the next, he eats one of the sofa's cushions, thrown to his face, courtesy of Daken. That's so… juvenile. (It's wonderful.) Johnny squints above the offensive item and cracks a smile.
"She has," Laura agrees. She can't do sardonic for shit; her face is too fond. But still, Daken's eyes grow.
"Et tu, Brute," he tells her. Then, turned to Johnny: "You are infuriating."
"You like him anyway," Laura mutters in her coffee cup.
"Will you stop it!" Daken hisses to his sister, "He'll believe you!"
"Ben says that too, that I'm infuriating."
"He always has had more sense than you, never really liked me."
Johnny stares a moment, then ignores the sentence altogether.
"It was always easier to talk about you with Reed than with Sue, you know."
"Reed may be a genius but Sue is the smart one obviously," Daken comments without missing a beat.
"Give me some credit, I got the message the first time. You think you're a bad guy."
I think? Daken mouths. It's a cold hard fact, as far as he is concerned.
"Consider me warned, OK?" Johnny adds. "Now, move on. We move on with our lives."
"We." Daken has this way of saying this… W-e. It's long, there's no real accent or inflection. It's a lot of skepticism for a single syllable.
"I'm alone now, Daken. And sometimes—"
"Please – and I can't believe I'm saying this, it physically pains me to stand for him – but you have the big lug. I'm pretty sure that counts for something."
Johnny sucks a deep breath. "It does. You're right; I'm being unfair to him. But I'm angry at him too, even if I shouldn't be." It's the first time he admits it to someone. Bizarrely, he sees understanding in Daken's eyes.
And he gets it, Daken really does. The mutant thinks of Laura on Mystique's ship. Sometimes he resented her so much just for being whole, when he lay crippled and useless. And unwittingly flaunting it to his face. And he knows about some of Johnny's stunts since the rumor of his family's disappearance. Daken has kept track. Who knows, really, what is happening under the rock, but Ben seems functional enough in comparison, and Johnny, with everything he has lost, can't even fathom how Ben can be, Daken guesses.
"And sometimes," Johnny goes on, "sometimes I'd like to let loose the fire. I'd like to make the world feel how horrible I feel. I want to incinerate it… You make sense to me, now," he slowly says.
A shiver runs down Daken's spine. This is not right. But why should it affect him so much, that Johnny Storm would hate the world, when he himself does? It still bugs him. The picture is not pretty.
"It's not like you. Your sister would be ashamed." Johnny looks like he just got gutted. "You sound like me. It is a pestilent place, right. I can't see it the way you usually see it. I remember you trying to show me, once. But I don't. (Daken doesn't sound sad, or resigned, just devastatingly matter of fact.) But I do know you. You're not like that. Or are you a liar too?"
Laura saves him, focusing on herself her brother's attention with her next remark:
"Then why give me a chance to be family?" Daken considers her question, gravely considers her. "If there's nothing good, why?" she presses.
"Still asking myself the question. It's totally getting out of hand. By the way, I didn't."
"I don't understand."
"I didn't give you a chance. You were just always there, and it's not like I could leave, could I? We were not exactly free; we were stuck with Mystique. I just got used to you being here."
"Reed would say you make it sound like an inoculation," Johnny comments, wry.
"Your analogy sucks, Daken snaps. "Inoculation is supposed to give your body more defenses, not less."
"I'd defend you," Laura answers without missing a beat. Johnny is not sure she remarks how her words seem to hit Daken.
OoOoOoOoO
One day, Laura thinks, she will tell her brother of that time she has almost run. How she had seen Siphon with his hand around Daken's throat, sucking him off his energy, and her first reaction had been to leave him there and run away. She is going to tell him how close she had been not to come back for him. She is going to remind him that after the monster left he didn't notice right away his wounds weren't healing because he was kneeling at her side checking if she was all right.
One day, she is going to tell him how he was the brother she wanted almost from day one. Not right now, though, because she is still too scared to tell him she almost ran.
(She still doesn't realize how cheap Daken really is. She doesn't know that coming back was already enough. She can't fathom how much of a wonder it is to him that she stayed at his side even after Sinister, whatever denial he will sprout about their forced stay on Mystique's ship. She will learn.)
How different her life would have been, had she run away from him? If she had run from Gabby's plea to stay with her?
"It's like you've told me in Madripoor. You still feel connections are a weakness," she then muses. "Is it really a bad thing to get attached? For you?"
"I mean, look at her," her brother replies, a vague gesture of his hand in the direction of Gabby. He is annoyed. "How can't she see it? How is she even alive? She is just sleeping here. She doesn't know me, she doesn't know him, to be fair she hardly knows you, Laura, or knows just enough that she should realize any of us could break her in two before she knows. How is that not a weakness?"
"Wow, is this the way you always think? Constant threat assessment?" Johnny blurts out.
Daken arches an eyebrow and very deliberately elaborates: "Threat and gain." He is daring him to understand. To realize on what was based their relationship back then. Johnny will at last get it. That it was all a manipulation.
"My god, he was right!" Johnny suddenly exclaims.
And here the penny drops, at last, Daken thinks.
But, "Reed had a theory," the blond continues.
Daken hears the past tense, the hurt behind it, but he wouldn't know how to ease it anyway, it's not in his nature. So he pushes back. "Only one?"
"Daken!" Johnny chides. It feels like their old rhythm, if more barbed. It's disconcerting. "Reed had one theory about you," he gamely keeps on. "I think he felt guilty that he might have proved you right, the first time we met, about the way you see people, about the way people only use each other and give fancy feelings' names to that." Johnny sighs. He has to steady himself a bit for what follows. "The Fantastic Four, we were a family. The epitome of it. And a family of heroes, even. An epitome of goodness. Don't think we don't know what most people project on us. But, whatever your reasons were back then, when you asked for our help, Reed shook your hand and asked for a compensation."
And yes, in those days, the situation with Osborn had them kind of cornered, but Johnny knows that when they had left Daken broken and bloody in goddam Osborn's tower and flew, he had felt sick. He remembers Reed's haunted gaze when they got home. He remembers how hard they tried, later, to make up for it, when the damage was already done. Johnny wants to think the friendship he subsequently bestowed on Daken wasn't only an apology. He had liked every single one of their little talks, every one of their meets. He had liked Daken. But in retrospect, what ground had Daken to trust it (him), anyway?
"You do realize it was just a manipulation. I didn't actually need you. I wanted to use you against Osborn," the mutant says. There, it's in the open, Daken thinks.
And Johnny willfully still ignores it.
"It doesn't matter. It's not my point. We failed you. We failed to show you better."
Daken sighs like it's no big deal, when it means so much for Johnny. "This is how it is," the mutant says, flippantly. "I don't see why it eats away at you: it just means your family was no different." (Which might be the cruelest thing to say to Johnny, of all people, who idolized them, but…) "No one cares."
No one cares. Something in the inflexion of Daken's voice troubles him. No one cares. Like a universal truth, like words heard again and again. A motto, a mantra. A lesson learned.
"Who TOLD you that," Johnny hisses like flame meeting water. He wants to kill them. It's blinding and hot, this hate. Who ingrained this belief so deep into Daken, that they were robbing him of his friend before he had even met him?
"Romulus." There's something vicious in Laura's voice even though it's not raised.
"Please, don't say his name. It's…" Daken hears his own voice as if from afar. This collision is too much. She already knew the name in Madripoor. What had Logan been telling her…? Dammit, the association Romulus-Laura in the same thought stirs something too painful for words, now that he knows Laura better. That this name should touch hers… She is everything that Romulus is not. She is the opposite. They can't exist in the same space of Daken's mind.
He feels sick. He feels cold. He wants to fold on himself, but as soon as he realizes his body's instinctive movement, he just shuts it out. Everything. Don't show weakness. No one cares. The lesson is carved in him; the mental process that has protected him for so long has become easy over the years, too easy. One breath to the next, as if nothing had happened, he bottles it all up. It all lasted less than a few seconds. He straightens up.
Johnny and Laura are staring. Laura is half raised, as if she would have jumped from her sitting position on the floor if Gabby's sleeping form didn't pin her down. Johnny's hand hovers above his arm as if he was about to touch him.
"What," he states (not asks) flatly.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" Daken can even summon the veneer of annoyance to sell it, now. But it must come out a little more aggressive than he thought, because Johnny raises his hands as if to placate him.
"We were not trying to gang up on you, OK? We were just worried for a moment, that's all."
"I'm. Fine," he grinds.
"Yes, you are. You are more than fine." It's sometimes hard to tell with Laura, but here, it's evident she feels strongly, saying the words.
Somewhere in the flat a clock softly chimes 2 a.m.
"It's getting late," Daken comments after a little stretch of silence, the usual smoothness is back in his voice. "You're not going to spend the whole night on the floor as a pillow, Laura."
Laura lets go of an uncharacteristic little snort. "My leg fell asleep long ago," she says. She gives a little bounce with her knee. Gabby's head rolls a little.
The kid mumbles something, blindly reaching for Jonathan, stretched not far from her in its own slumber. The sudden contact startles the animal awake. For a reason which makes sense only to it, the wolverine decides to run under the couch. Daken, shifting to the side, lifts his legs just in time to avoid collision with him. Johnny's feet get out from under the mutant's thigh, he puts them on the floor and in spite of being the frigging Human Torch, he misses the body warmth at once.
"Hm, yhea, I'll get off your back, Laura," Johnny apologetically says, leaning forward to pick up his sneakers. "I'm not sure I intended to stay that long." Finds one, not the second. He stares at the floor around the couch, puzzled. Even throws a hand under it, just in case…
"Hm, Daken, have you seen my other shoe?"
"What?" The mutant is already standing up, reaching for his coat. He sighs, as if something just occurred to him. "Laura, does your pet like shoes as much as socks?" Johnny notes Daken's elegant diction and his utter seriousness make the sentence weirder and funnier.
"More," she says, unperturbed by the fate of Johnny's footwear. She looks more displeased by the fact her brother prepares to leave, the blond can see it.
"Not good," Gabby pipes up, sounding half asleep, from where she was drowsing on Laura's thigh… She straightens up, unfocused eyes blearily darting about her. Her little pink hair clip stays attached only by miracle. She's devastatingly cute. "Jonathan?" she calls, a little bit more lively.
A flash of brown, Jonathan-shaped, darts from under the couch, something red (in the shape of a sneaker) in his mouth. The wolverine almost breaks its nose on the bedroom's door that happens to be closed, then turns and tries to reach the entryway, trying to run with its prize. It paws the wood of the door with a pitiful mewling sound.
Gabby and Laura come behind the wolverine after a large a detour by the kitchen, Johnny faces it. The animal is cornered.
"Hey there, little buddy… It's mine, you know?"
The wolverine's claws – they look a lot sharper up close – almost get his extended hand. He's lucky for Daken's incredible reflexes. The mutant has grabbed his wrist just in time to jerk his limb away.
"Let go of the goddam shoe!" Daken booms. The mutant is losing his patience, as he advances on the wolverine. His lip curls over his canines, a hint of feral, eyes obscured by his brow and narrowed to angry slits. They all feel the change in the air. Even to Johnny and his deficient humane sense of smell, Daken's pheromones make danger around them taste like metal and ground glass on the tongue. It affects the animal the most, maybe excessively. It's the trigger to flight or fight response.
Good news is, Jonathan lets go of the shoe. Bad news is, the animal looks like it's ready to attack, not flee. Its little body balances from one side to another. With its little face contorted in fury, its fur spiking like mad, its razor teeth bared, it is a picture of killing rage. Without any warning Jonathan literally jumps at Daken's throat in his mad frenzy.
For Laura, time seems to slow to a crawl. Her brother doesn't pull his claws out (flash of relief, a tiny one). Doesn't even try to push back the animal with his good arm (first hint of unease). His face is serene, even when his weak arm betrays him a little and fails to swerve the mammal properly away. He is going to let Jonathan maul him, and that realization sparks the reaction out of her, an ark of cold, pure fright hits her, which has nothing to do with Daken's manipulation of feelings. And time takes its normal course back. She jumps forward.
Four hands run the animal into the ground. Laura realizes that her fingers are clutching Gabby's ones in the thick fur. They effectively pin the wolverine down, still screeching and clawing.
Johnny's fingers are buried in Daken's shoulders. He, too, had seen the catastrophe waiting to happen. Blood had rushed to his ears, like the mighty whoosh sound of roaring fire. He was standing just behind the mutant, all he had been able to do was reach for him, grab and haul him back against his chest, almost toppling them both over.
When Daken lowers himself down in the aftermath to kneel and put his hand softly on the still immobilized growling wolverine's head, Johnny thinks it's easier to just follow him to the ground. His legs were a little wobbly anyway. His fingers don't seem to want to unclench. All this for one stupid shoe, god, Daken… But he can't manage to get the words out just yet.
"There, there," Daken coos. He is petting the little head, his thumb rubbing the tiny cheekbone under the right eye. The air is cloyed with a subtle fragrance. The closest thing it reminds him of would be baby skin, Johnny thinks, remembering holding his nephews close when they were teeny little things. The memory would hurt more if the feeling the smell evoked weren't the one of feeling safe and loved.
Daken mutters something, then, a little disgruntled. "I might have overdone it a little earlier."
Jonathan yawns, eyes half-closed. Laura and Gabby release the wolverine. It simply sits on its haunches and starts licking its ruffled fur, as if nothing had happened.
"Ho, really?" Johnny can't help himself. It comes out muffled; his face may be slightly buried in the soft cashmere of Daken's pullover.
"That was scary," Gabby says. "Don't ever do that again. I'm talking to the both of you." Her eyes flutter between her pet and her brother.
"It's not its fault, I made Jonathan do it. And I heal." As he talks, Daken reaches for the discarded shoe between thumb and forefinger. His prize, now.
Gabby purses her lips and Johnny thinks she is going to say something more. And if she doesn't he will, because Daken regenerating himself doesn't mean he has to like see him get hurt. It reminds him too much of this day when he was ready to burn him, and burned Logan, and he still feels a little sick about it. He doesn't want to have to look at Daken in this kind of state ever.
"I see it now," Laura says, out of the blue, cutting their conversation short, "how it's a good namesake. Wolverine."
"All cute and hairy on the outside, killing machine on the inside?" Johnny guesses.
Daken shudders. Actually shudders, Johnny can feel it under his hands. Yup, his fingers still don't want to obey him and let go.
"Are you saying Logan is a cinnamon roll who can actually kill you?" he says and sounds so disgusted. But then again Daken had never really liked the type-of-personality memes Johnny remembers sending him all the time.
"Somebody just ruined cinnamon for life for Daken," Gabby singsongs. She has grabbed Jonathan around the middle in her arms. The animal looks like an oversized furry doll rather than a plushie and is trying to nuzzle her chin by bending its little neck backwards.
OoOoOoOoO
She'll be fine whether I do or I don't. It's a little tidbit Laura has heard from Daken's phone conversation earlier. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but after all her home is basically one open room. And now she keeps hearing the sentence over and over in her head. There was a point when it would have been true. But she's well past that. Only, Daken hasn't got a fucking clue, apparently.
And now he is about to leave, for God knows how long, and all she'll have will be semi-episodic phone calls, and it suddenly doesn't feel like enough.
Johnny is sitting on the floor to put back his newfound shoe (as if the couch wasn't only ten feet away…). Gabby is standing just in front of him, still cuddling the wolverine and trying to convince Jonathan to apologize to their guest (the animal seems clueless). And Daken has already his coat on. He crosses gaze with her and seems about to say something, make his goodbyes perhaps.
"We need to talk," she cuts before he can. Her hand grabs his sleeve and she drags him to the bathroom. He is oddly compliant, but gift horse and all that, Laura doesn't wonder why.
When she closes the door behind them, cuts Gabby's and Johnny's voices, the sudden silence surprises her a little. The room is tiny. They hardly fit in there together. She sits on the edge of the bathtub, he leans a hip against the faucet, waiting.
She has to collect her thoughts; she doesn't know exactly how to articulate what she needs to say. And it doesn't come to her. All of her body seems to deflate. Her elbows are on her thighs. Her head falls into her hands. A picture of defeat.
"It's okay, Laura. I won't come back anytime soon."
She feels herself blanch and raises her face again to glare.
"Or I'm missing something," he goes on, searching her expression. "You don't want me to come back at all. Bad influence for the kid and all that."
She FREEZES, this time, and she can see that she involuntarily makes Daken think he got it right, but she is so, SO… (shockedangrysad) that she is physically unable to contradict him. And she doesn't even know what scares her more. That it's really what he thinks or that he doesn't look like he cares.
"I've heard what you've said." It's the first thing she can let out.
"I've said a lot tonight. You've learned things you didn't want to know about me, didn't you? Things you didn't like? There was a few. You'll have to be more specific." There's a looseness in his body she doesn't trust. He could be as ready to bolt as to lunge.
"You think it makes no difference to me whether you're here or not." And if there is a clear accent of resentment in her sentence… Well. The more she thinks about it, the more she is pissed. So.
He looks puzzled. When? the narrowing of his eyes says.
"You've told Johnny, on the phone, and you had no reason to lie to him about that."
"So you admit I'm sometimes a liar." Somehow, it makes him, not exactly smile, but there's a shadow of approval in the curve of his lips.
"When one wants to know you, one tends to ignore half of what your mouth says," she mumbles. "Don't you see that's exactly why I should have more than phone calls to get to know you? Me and Gabby should get more."
"So you're saying… I got it wrong?" He is still not convinced.
"And don't get me started about the tea."
"The tea!?" And now he looks lost, when it makes perfect sense to Laura.
"You're my brother," she states.
"Biologically not true. But I'll let it slide. For the sake of your argument."
"Yes, do it, once and for all. I shouldn't have to repeat it for you to believe me. It's insulting."
OK. That shuts him up, she notices. She tenses when he moves, but he just sits near her on the bathtub's edge. He mirrors her stance – forearms on thighs, she doesn't know if it's intentional –, but entwines his fingers elegantly.
"I didn't mean to insult you," he quietly says.
"Good."
"But sometimes, it… bothers me that you're just like Logan in a totally opposite way."
"That sentence makes no sense at all."
"It does. I trust – for lack of a better word… Or I can bear easier? – people who see me for who I am. Not just, the son of… you know."
"Are there people who know you to this extent?" She tries to keep up, she really tries.
"A few? They usually don't like me much, but at least they usually have a reason and have fun at outwardly hating me." He sounds amused, like he's thinking of somebody in particular.
"Did you trust Logan better, then? Didn't he know you?"
"Ha, but Logan only saw what I wasn't compared to him and never really cared to learn what I wanted or needed." From him goes unspoken but is still heard. "And he couldn't accept that I refused to be fixed as he saw fit." It's unclear whether it's bitterness or anger in his tone, but the hurt is real.
It's a cruel portrayal, but Laura is not sure she can deny it as far as Daken is concerned. And it pains her.
"Both of you don't know me," Daken resumes after a beat. "You think you do, because you know things about me. You both base your appreciation of what I am, what you expect from me, more on your own experiences than anything else, and that colors your judgment. I'm not you, I'm not him. I'm not a fundamentally good person which was bent out of shape by what happened to them and regains the freedom to be true to their real, good, nature," he says, leaning his shoulder against hers for a second, "and I'm not the mindless monster Logan once was and hated so much afterwards he saw it in me all the time. Maybe I'm a monster, but not that kind of monster. But anyway, it can't end well for me. He'd never have expected anything from me, hence is everlasting disappointment, and you'll expect too much, sooner or later, hence yours."
"You think I'm not objective." She frowns. "Then, what do you need from me?"
"Nothing, Laura." She glances at him and sees him roll his eyes, a tad self-deprecating: "Shocking, I know." And then, more seriously: "I thought you knew." To somebody who doesn't know Daken, it wouldn't sound very encouraging. For people who know him, Laura guesses, who are aware of his manipulative ways, his habit to get things from people by getting close to them, it is something special to hear him admit that he would stick with you without expecting anything in return.
"Would you hear what I need from you?" she finally enquires.
Laura looks at his face. There's a hint of fear, here, that she doesn't understand, because ulterior motives is not the way she thinks. (It's his. And it hurts to think she might wnant him around for a reason.)
"Yes, it's a commitment, I'm asking," she adds, oblivious. "And it's not something… limited in time. You can come back any time and tell me when you're ready to hear it. Maybe I care to learn and me not being objective shouldn't be held against me. I want you. Like I want Gabby."
She lets her head fall on his shoulder. He lets her stay like that without comment, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
"For now," she resumes, "let's just say, you make a difference. In my life. A good one. You should know that." She sadly smiles and adds: "I thought you knew."
She is not sure but thinks she feels the faint pressure on his lips on her hair and closes her eyes a minute. She feels the peace and quiet surrounding her. It only lasts a handful of seconds.
"Your bathtub is damn uncomfortable," Daken comments out of the blue. "No more heart to heart in bathrooms."
Laura snorts.
"I'll find a nicer place next time I attack poor unsuspecting you with my feelings," she replies.
"Ch'. And here I thought it was my special power, attacking people with feelings." There's something wrong with the levity he tries to infuses in the words, like it doesn't strike the intended note. It feels like he aimed for banter, but fell short, assaulted by a stray thought. She's about to ask, but then, somebody bangs the door with insistence.
"Quit hogging Daken! I need a hug!" Gabby is shouting through the wood panel.
As they get out, Gabby launches herself at Daken; he hasn't much choice in embracing her back.
"My first brotherly hug," the girl mumbles, face buried in Daken's coat. He grips harder. Leaning into it.
"Let's make it count, then," he softly says, bent forward to reach her ear. When they're done, Johnny is looking expectantly at Daken.
"Don't even think about it," the mutant says.
Laura sees the blond raise his hands in capitulation, assuming the most harmless air. She doesn't believe it for one second. Does she feel smug as she rises on her tiptoes to claim her own hug? Yes, she does. Gabby was right, she thinks. Practice makes perfect.
OoOoOoOoO
Johnny actually walks Daken to his car. The mutant doesn't comment, content to practically ignore him.
"It was nice meeting you," Johnny says. To all intent and purposes, he is serious. It kinda felt like a first time.
"Beg your pardon?" Daken answers, distracted. He is about to put his key to his car door. Then the words catch up with him. He locks eyes with Johnny, disbelieving.
"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. You never learn, do you? You spend a few hours with someone and you think you've got them all figured out? Again?"
Suddenly Daken is in his space.
There's the pin prick of a claw Johnny didn't even see come out; just under his jaw, right to the jugular. It doesn't pierce skin but is impossible to ignore. Johnny can feel his blood pulse against it. The mutant rotates his wrist a little and the other claw on the hand plays a little with a strand of blond hair.
"I could drop you dead, right here and right now. Wouldn't even break a sweat. Wouldn't even shed a tear. Think you could flame on before I did?" He has a breathy laugh, a cloying sound like too heavy a fabric on skin. "Wanna try?"
Liquid grace and strength, dizzying.
Suddenly Johnny is neatly pinned against the car.
The mutant is pressed to him, from thigh to chest. Daken's mouth so close to his they're breathing each other's air. Claws have disappeared but one hand his holding his throat, just shy of constricting. Daken's eyes are half closed, his chin jutted out; he is sneering and predatory.
"I could make you do things to me. I could make you want me bent down on this car, want to make me scream, right here and right now."
"Do you always go from zero to filthy in one second flat?" There's not much breath left in Johnny. His words are hardly whispered. A silent defeated laugh rakes his body. "And you wouldn't even have to make me want you."
Hm. I knew it, Daken mouths against the skin of his neck. Unashamedly smug. Johnny shivers under the sensation of these lips on his skin. He throws his head back, closing his eyes. Still, his next words are clear and distinct. A bit melancholy:
"I'm just not sure it's what you want. You'd do that only to prove a point, or get something. Not just because I'm me and you're you, right?"
Johnny is careful to telegraph all his movements as he engulfs Daken in a tight hug.
"What are you doing," Daken all but snarls. In spite of the fury in the tone, he seems frozen on the spot.
"Obviously you need more hugs." Johnny knows Daken can't see, so he allows himself a smile, fond and sad.
"What the hell are you talking ab— ho. I saw what you did here." And after a beat: "It feels like a very long time ago." There's a long sigh, and Daken seems to settle in the embrace the tiniest bit.
"Don't be a stranger. Please." Johnny squeezes one last time, just to show he's serious.
"I'll think about it. Now let go." The mutant's voice is muffled in Johnny's shoulder.
Daken pushes him a little. Damn, it's not that he's that strong but he knows where to apply pressure.
"Killjoy," Johnny teases, releases him, and Daken snorts. He doesn't lose any time afterwards getting into his car.
The blond watches the vehicle pull away and leave in the scream of abused rubber. Show off. He raises his arm as a goodbye, not sure Daken will bother to look back in the mirror, and hugs himself a minute. For a moment he had wanted so much, so much, to let Daken play his game to its conclusion. Whatever it would be.
When he turns on his heels, about to flame on and fly to whence he came from, he almost ("Wow!") bumps into Gabby.
"Bathroom window," the kid laconically explains. "Laura thinks I'm taking a bath. A long one."
"In the middle of the night? And she won't be suspicious." Johnny lets his dubiousness show.
"I'm supposed to be able to indulge now. She likes when I do." The look on the kid's face is fond. But then she goes on without transition: "Don't worry too much about Daken. I don't think you failed him. He doesn't realize it, but he trusts you're genuine, you know? Otherwise he wouldn't try to convince you he's bad for you."
"Look, I appreciate the sentiment, but it was your first time meeting the guy… How would you know, anyway? You've slept half the time I've been here," he teases.
"You totally fell for it!" Gabby sounds smug, but soon turns wistful. "I've had a lot of sisters," the girl adds. Johnny senses a longer story but doesn't call her back on it. "I was the littlest. They wanted to protect me. Do you know how many times I feigned sleep just to keep track of what was really happening in the lab that they wouldn't tell me? I like Daken, he reminds me of Bellona. He can do kind, he just has no idea what kind is. But Laura is a fantastic woman. She'll show him." She nods one time. Sure of her words.
"And you will too, I guess, " Johnny smiles.
"I'll call him an idiot every time he'll need to hear it," she agrees.
OoOoOoOoO
The door of the bathroom is open as she climbs back inside.
Ha, busted. Gabby winces.
Laura is waiting for her in the main space, absentmindedly leafing through a battered magazine without pity put on Jonathan's back who is curled on her lap.
"Last goodbye to Johnny?" she asks, not raising her eyes.
"We need to prepare for a shovel talk, we may need it," Gabby comments.
Laura frowns. "Has he made a move on Daken?" She doesn't sound particularly pleased.
"Daken made a move, for all the wrong reasons, and Johnny was smart enough to say no for now. Still, we might need one. Just in case they pull their shit together and Johnny tries something."
"Wait, shovel talk?" Laura asks.
"It's—"
"No, I meant, who needs a shovel with these?" Her claws pop with a sharp snikt. Her eyes are shining.
The younger girl scrunches her nose a little. "Hm, claw talk, I like that," she says. "Or Snikt talk?"
"Go to bed, Gabby," Laura gently admonishes.
Not ten minutes later, her phone pings. It's a text from Daken.
Nice evening. See you soon.
"Good night!" Gabby shouts from her bedroom.
"It was," Laura confirms, more to herself than to be heard. She is smiling at the tiny screen.
Better sooner than later, she types back.
The End
