He'd stared at her all day. At breakfast he hardly broke eye contact to drink his juice. In training, he spent more time fighting defense for her than for himself. She skipped lunch, and for good measure, she stood him up for their private training session. He came looking for her.
When she heard the knock, she knew exactly who it was, not that anyone else ever visited her.
"Brought you a sandwich." He said, matter-of-fact from the doorway.
"Shouldn't you have waited for me to say 'come in'?"
He smirked, favoring his left side. It'd been a while since she'd seen that one. It relaxed her.
He stood in the doorway a while, and they just watched each other. He realized he was tense, the muscles in his face rigid.
"Are you going to give me the sandwich or?" she pressed. Looking at it, she realized how hungry she was. These years between Xavier's and the Brotherhood, she'd grown soft. She'd been a runaway once, but her gutt didn't seem to care.
He hesitated, his body initially moving away from hers. She thought he might leave the room entirely, but he found momentum, closed the door and moved toward her with even strides, sitting next to her on her bed. He was a little too close, and she considered moving away. Her sandwich was held hostage between his hands.
"You couldn't put it in a bag?" she asked, watching as his fingers pushed against the otherwise soft bread.
He let out a half-scoff, half-chuckle, looked down at his hands, and then turned his head toward her. Without moving, he suddenly felt even closer to her. "Rogue…" he started, but dropped off.
"John…" she teased back.
His lips tightened and his jaw tensed, but he kept his eyes soft. He stared right into her, not breaking eye contact during the long silence. She thought she felt a little cold under his steady judgement.
She reached her hand from her own lap toward his, keeping the eye contact steady, afraid to break it lest she miss something, a moment of vulnerability betraying his intentions. Her hand slipped between his to grab the sandwich. For the barest moment, her palm brushed one of his thumbs, and he jerked back so quickly her sandwich fell into his lap, skewing apart. A few pickles hit the floor. Eye contact had been split, and all she caught was the slightest bit of warmth from the taste of his power.
She brought over her other hand and picked up the sandwich from his lap. She brought it to her lips and let out a self-satisfied half-chuckle of her own. He watched her chew.
"We don't skip training." he stated simply.
She laughed a little, almost choking. "Do you always do what you're told?" She answered back in her best impression of him. But, then his eyes narrowed a little, his lips twitched, and he drew his head back a little. He looked a little hurt, she thought. "Come on, I needed a break. This place is a little…" The corners of his mouth turned downward as she finished. "...cultish.
"That's what you think of us?" his voice was deep in a way she hadn't heard since that day at Alkali Lake, and she realized her mistake.
"John-"
"My name is Pyro." his voice did not rise, but there was a tension in it that bordered on growl.
She let out an exhale just from the stress, and looked down at the sandwich she'd only gotten one bite out of. "I just needed a break."
"To do some thinking?" he suggested.
"Yes."
"About what? Going back to the X-Men?"
Now she was angry. "I missed one training." she said as she whipped her face back to meet his.
"And lunch." he returned.
She tried to remain somewhat calm, and took a moment to form her response. "Pyro, look. It's an adjustment, okay? Yes, I miss home."
"This isn't a vacation. You think you're going to come here and then just turn around and go back?"
"Is that what you think I'm going to do?"
"Oh, so you're staying?" he spat out, "You're going to stay here forever, but you're just avoiding me."
"Maybe I am!"
He scoffed, hard. "You admit it."
"What? You think you can just get into my head, manipulate me, make me feel like I want you, and what? I'm just going to fall in love with you and we can be terrorists together forever?"
He shook his head. "That's not fair."
"Isn't it? Isn't that the plan?"
"You're not trying to fit in. You can't skip lunch. You can't skip training." his voice was cutting, and he must have heard it too, because he pulled back from her a little. Two heartbeats hit, and he continued. "You can't get what you came for anyway, if you skip training. So, why are you still here?"
She thought he sounded a little insecure. "Pyro," she started, being careful and deliberate. "I understand the terms. I just-"
"Miss your boyfriend?"
"I don't have a boyfriend. I have poison skin." That seemed to relax him. His lips slipped back into smirk, but his eyes were still sharp.
"The Iceman step out when the cure wore off?" he asked.
"No." she answered quickly. "Honestly, he didn't mind so much. He didn't pressure me. He got used to holding hands through fabric. He kept telling me that, and…" She bit her lip. "At some point stealing quick kisses like teenagers just gets… frustrating." she admitted with a shrug, looking away. "He didn't want me to take The Cure. He wanted Rogue more than Marie. We broke up before it even wore off." she took a long, shaky breath. "But that doesn't make you an alternative." she added.
He looked at her a while, all defiant eyes and self-pity. He thought about telling her he was an upgrade, about pressing how The Brotherhood was more and not less cultish than the Xavier's, and then he thought about kissing her. He didn't move slowly. He didn't look into her eyes with vulnerability asking if it was okay. He didn't hesitate.
When his lips hit hers, she felt it in her teeth.
The draw of her powers started quickly, and came on hard. He half fell away from the sudden pain of it. He braced and reached for her hips for stability, and she reciprocated by crawling into his lap, her sandwich falling apart and away though neither noticed. He held onto her tighter for stability the second she settled on top of him, feeling light-headed, and he slipped his tongue between her lips while contemplating if he'd reached his limits. Her hand snaked against his neck, trying to hold him in place as he began drawing away to take hard breaths. He pushed away from her, landing on his back against her new recruit comforter, white. She descended after him, and he mentally called uncle while gasping. She kept her face far enough away to dart her eyes from his panting lips to the concerning fall and rise of his chest.
"Great." she said bitterly, her voice hitting the gutter. "I'm backsliding."
He was grateful to catch his breath, to escape the onslaught, but his ego took a hit too. "Yeah. We were making progress before... " he started "Unless you were trying to hurt me." he accused.
She rolled her eyes. "I wasn't." she said, and he could practically feel the disappointment vibrate in his own blood. "Try again?"
He nodded, sure.
He raised himself on his elbow, but then faltered. She saw his hesitation, and felt ashamed that he must be feeling afraid of her now. But he was hot inside her, and she had his reckless instincts in spade, even if he himself had spent his own courage. She lowered close, very close, just close enough to not be touching. She teased him brushing his lips with her own quickly, nudging his nose with hers, and then she pulled back, blew a warm breath on his face, and pulled him up with her by a handful of his t-shirt. When he settled his hands on her back again, touching her through her clothes, she lifted her hand and rested it on his cheek. His expression had softened, and he closed his eyes and pushed his cheek into her palm as their skins touched, but her own face remained hard, her jaw tight. Her eyes narrowed as the viens lifted from underneath his paling skin with quickness that she thought she'd left behind her. She felt his hands tightened against her hips and then released before pulling her closer with his whole arms wrapping around her. His lips were parting in harder breaths again. She felt reassured that he was holding her tightly, still resting his own face into her palm. His eyes opened and looked right into her, unwavering. She felt herself soften against him, and guilt started to sneak in. She could hear him in her mind asking for forgiveness, listing off the regrets of a man relieved at realizing his fears were unfounded. His breath began to steady, and she pulled away from the shock of it.
He took a few more beats to catch his breath completely, and she wondered if he noticed what she had, if she'd made it up. She was lost in that thought, hands in her lap, when he kissed her again. She deepened it again, knowing only how the angry beat of him had turned sure and slow. She drew back word for word to ask him to let her know when her powers kicked in, when they overwhelmed him, when they hurt him. They sat like that for a long time before he felt himself getting too excited, and shifted her off his lap hoping she hadn't felt it too. She looked back at him all disheveled hair and swollen lips, and she turned her body to lay underneath his, and kissed her for as long as he could stand without pushing it further, never feeling the pull of her powers at all and wondering how quickly she'd leave now that she had control. Though leaving didn't cross her mind at all.
"I think we should probably stop now." he said.
She enjoyed the warmth of his breath until he moved away, and she was satisfied with how his scent lingered. "That was new." She was very happy, a little surprised, and half tired out but vibrating.
He turned from his seat at the edge of her bed and caught her staring at him intently. "I really missed you." he admitted.
"Then why'd you leave?"
"I like it better here." he answered bluntly.
She wondered what he meant by that, a sinking feeling sneaking into her gut that she tried to ignore. "It happened so quickly. I kept thinking you'd come back, first to the jet and then… We kept a bunch of your stuff. We threw out your notes first. Then we gave away your clothes. Then the rest slowly. Your lighter fluid didn't last long though. I got pissed early in. Part of me knew you weren't coming back. I threw it out the window as soon as we got back. Bobby kept saying you'd come back, that sometimes I went off… He said I always came back. Logan always came back. But, you never did. I knew first, but Bobby stopped waiting before I did. I think he felt betrayed. I just kept thinking that if maybe we could have said the right thing..."
He listened uneasily, having missed her but never thinking she'd missed him at all. He had steeled himself against all of them, understanding that the X-Men made it a point of being an obstacle against the cause. "I know this all feels new to you, but you'll see, The Brotherhood will feel like home. Xavier's was just a waystation. You'll be you here in a real way that you've never been before. I never thought about going back for a second."
"Not even a second? But, we were your family. You said you missed me."
"It works both ways. You didn't exactly come to find me either."
"Because you would have come home if I had?"
"No. But, it would have been nice to have known that I meant something back then."
She frowned deeply on one side, not liking to hear that he'd felt … what? Overlooked? She searched his psyche for the answer, but it had faded away while they'd made-out.
"Did you really pine after me?" she said, trying to lighten the mood. He smiled and looked away from her, a little embarrassed. "You never said anything."
"You were in love with my best friend." He rolled his eyes, looking back at her, lying on her bed, clothes wrinkled, hair teased out, lipstick mostly worn away from having let him touch her.
She shrugged. He was right. "He was a really good first boyfriend."
"Low bar. He's a dick." he said, and she remembered that they didn't exactly get along anymore.
"You know what, I'm starving." she said to change the subject.
"You skipped lunch."
"I did."
He got up, and reached his hand to help her. "You shouldn't skip lunch. Pawns skip lunch."
She laughed, not realizing he was giving her the sort of advice that separates the live from the dead. "I think we should play hookie."
"It's almost dinnertime anyway."
"I think we should play hookie and go out to eat."
She was looking at him with a sensuality he didn't exactly want to discourage, shimmying up the bed and taking his hand while biting her lip, and so he agreed. "Okay. You pick." he said, bringing her body close to his with his hands on her hips.
"Perfect. Just wait outside while I get ready."
He nodded, slowly drawing himself away. He stepped on a slice of tomato on the way out. She cleaned the food off the floor and smoothed out her sheets.