I meant to update sooner, but things got wild for a bit. Here we go for a lot of emotional hurt/comfort.
Clarice hesitates for a while before she hits the call button. She has no real reason to worry that John hasn't answered her half-dozen texts and her two phone calls today. Maybe his phone is dead, or he forgot it somewhere. They didn't talk about their plans for today−actually, for the first time in over a month, they haven't seen each other all weekend. But John seemed fine yesterday in his texts, even sending her a picture of Zingo playing with the new toy Clarice bought her, so there's no reason to worry, right?
"Stop kidding yourself," Clarice mutters to herself. It may just be her anxiety showing, but she won't settle down until she knows John is safe and sound. She might as well spare herself the worst case scenarios her brain keeps hitting her with, even if it makes her look like a fool.
She hits call on Marcos's number. She could have just headed over to the café, but it's closed for Memorial Day and showing up at the apartment unannounced is going a little too far.
"Hello?" Marcos answers at the third ring.
"Marcos, it's Clarice. I shouldn't be bothering you on a holiday, but−"
"What is it, Clarice?" Marcos says, sounding slightly impatient. Clarice can hear sounds around him, like he's in a moving car with an open window.
"I just...John isn't answering, and−"
"You want to know where he is."
"I'm just worried."
Marcos sighs. "We drove up to Canton. Been there all day. I think he has his phone off."
"What's in Canton?" Clarice asks, confused.
"The National Cemetery," Marcos answers.
"Wh−oh my God, Memorial Day. I didn't even think. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have bothered you."
"No, it's fine. It's just...been a hard day, for all of us."
"Of course. I'll...I'll leave you alone. Just give John a hug for me, okay?"
Marcos doesn't answer for a moment, and Clarice is almost ready to hang up, sick to her stomach, when he speaks again.
"John says you can come by the apartment. We'll be there in half an hour."
"Thank you," Clarice breathes.
She takes care to give them enough time to get back and settled before she walks over to the café, spending the whole forty-five-minute wait pacing around her kitchen table. How could she not think of it? Of course John would have a hard time on Memorial Day. And of course he would go pay his respects.
She removes her sunglasses before she goes to knock on the door to Lorna and Marcos's apartment. Marcos opens quickly, looking uncharacteristically solemn.
"Come on in," he says with a nod.
John stands up from the couch when Clarice walks in, grimacing. He's wearing a military uniform, the cap abandoned beside him. His wheelchair is sitting close, like he just transferred from there to the couch directly.
"Hey," he says, his voice hoarse. His eyes are red, though he looks otherwise perfectly composed in the dress blues, his hair tied back, ribbons and medals on his chest. Clarice doesn't know what most of them mean, but she recognizes the purple heart.
She makes a move to hug him, but he takes her arm gently.
"Maybe...not today," he says, biting his lip. "I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't even be there. I'll...go."
"Don't," John says simply, not looking at her. "Stay. If it's okay."
Clarice has tears come up to her eyes at this. "Of course," she says.
John sits back down on the couch. Lorna and Marcos have already taken the armchair, Lorna sitting on the armrest, so Clarice hesitates. John pushes his wheelchair out of the way and waves for her to sit beside him. They don't touch, but feeling his presence so close is soothing, however tense he is.
The atmosphere is sad and solemn and awkward all at the same time. Clarice feels like an outsider, she doesn't have a place in this grief. Lorna hasn't even acknowledged her, though she's watched all of her moves. Her eyes are red, too.
John unties his hair and passes a hand through it, tiredly. He undoes the top buttons of his uniform and of the dress shirt underneath. Silently, he digs his wallet out of his pocket and takes out a picture. He looks at it for a moment, his eyes shining, and passes it over to Clarice.
"What is this?" Clarice asks quietly, mostly because the silence is heavy. She can see it for herself. She can pick out John in the middle of the group of people, all wearing fatigues, a couple of them with highly visible mutations. They look happy on the picture, friends posing together on a background of military tents in the desert.
"My unit," John says. "That's Pulse," he points to a man beside him in the picture. Clarice looks at the smiling face for a moment, and when she looks up a tear is falling down John's cheek. He wipes it away quickly. "This was taken about a week before−"
"I'm sorry," Clarice murmurs. It sounds like a platitude, but she doesn't know what else to say.
"I'm the only one who's still alive," John says, his voice wavering.
Clarice offers him her hand, and this time he takes it, though he's careful not to squeeze.
"Don't let what his parents said get through to you," Lorna says.
John opens his mouth, and closes it again. Clarice gives Lorna a questioning look, but she's focused on John.
"They're not wrong," he says.
"Yes, John, they are. You are not responsible for what happened."
"Pulse's parents," Marcos explains. "They're not−" He makes a vague gesture, a grimace of distaste on his face.
"They're racist, homophobic bigoted people," John says. "They barely talked to their son after he manifested. Pulse never came out to them, so his parents only know me as his roommate. And his C.O who got him...killed. They hold me responsible. As they should."
"No, they have no right!" Lorna exclaims. "They didn't know anything about his life. It's not your fault, John!"
"I led them all onto a bomb, Lorna," John rasps out. "It was my call."
"You had no way to know it was booby trapped!"
"But I should have! I'm the one who's supposed to be able to see things from far away! I missed it, and now they're all gone!"
John is openly crying by the end of his outburst. He removes his hand from Clarice's, crossing his arms in front of him as if to protect himself. Clarice doesn't dare touch him again, but she doesn't know what to do, faced with his distress and self-hatred.
She looks over at Marcos, lost, but he just shakes his head. It's obviously not the first time he's hearing this. He and Lorna have probably been trying to convince John it wasn't his fault ever since it happened.
She feels too far from him. It isn't her place to come into this argument, not when she barely knows what happened. She's known about Pulse for less than a month. She keeps fighting the impusle to hug John, because that's the only way she knows to respond to his pain, but the last thing she wants is to violate his boundaries.
Lorna stands up and comes to kneel in front of John, not quite touching him. He still moves back slightly, curling up on himself.
"John, look at me," Lorna says sternly.
John looks up, his eyes not quite meeting Lorna's.
"Don't spiral out on us again. This is not on you. You can't keep blaming yourself."
John doesn't look persuaded, but his body seems to react to the conviction in Lorna's tone, and he sits up a bit. He looks around, slowly, at Marcos then at Clarice, and blinks like he's forgotten she was here. Clarice holds out her hand carefully, palm up, an obvious invitation but one that can easily be refused.
"I−" John starts, his voice hoarse.
"It's okay," Clarice murmurs when she realizes he's now trying to apologize for his distress.
John takes her hand and holds onto it like an anchor.
"You know Pulse was the one who made me realize that other people can't hear electricity?" Lorna asks, sitting back on Marcos's lap. The attempt to change the conversation to something lighter is obvious, but they all take it.
"I knew that people can't move metal, obviously, but I thought electricity flowing through cables and lamps was something everyone could hear, until Pulse used his power on me."
"I can hear it too," John whispers, like his voice can't come out louder for now. "Differently, I guess. He'd take that away, too."
"His power made me feel so cold," Marcos says.
"That's because you're a human radiator," Lorna laughs. "Your blood is literally boiling!"
"I don't hear you complaining when it's cold out."
"No, but sleeping with you when it's ninety degrees is like being in a furnace!"
"Do you think Pulse's power would have affected my appearance?" Clarice dares to ask. It's a gamble, because she doesn't want to put a damper on the conversation again, but they seem open to talking about Pulse, and she genuinely wonders. How many times did she wish with all her soul, as a child, that something could make her look normal?
"Probably not," John answers, his voice still low. "It didn't to the visible mutants in our unit. He said it had something to do with mutations' passivity."
"What does that mean?"
"It affected my body density because I wasn't born with it, and my body's system has some control over it even if I can't change it consciously, so I can still become stronger through training, or put on weight. But your face marks, or your eye color, they're completely passive. His power affected Shatter because his appearance is directly part of his power, but not Pedro, who was born that way."
"It didn't do anything to my hair," Lorna adds.
"Okay," Clarice nods.
"I wish−" Lorna starts, but she stops herself, biting her lip and looking at John. John looks back, tiredly but with determination, and nods to her. "I wish he was still here. That you could meet him," she finishes.
"I wish that too," John murmurs.
Clarice squeezes his hand. "I don't know why I didn't realize that he was your friend too", she tells Lorna. "Of course he would be."
"He was a really good friend," Lorna smiles sadly. "Always the life of the party."
"But compassionate, too," Marcos adds. "Really full of himself, but if we needed anything, even just to vent, he was always there."
Clarice can feel more than hear the hitch in John's breathing. "I miss him so much," he murmurs.
After that, they sit in silence for a long while, each lost in their thoughts. Clarice tries to make herself both comforting and unobtrusive, but she's not sure any of them even notice her. She doesn't share their grief.
John is the one who stands up first, probably because he's been sitting still too long for his back. He winces and massages his thigh discreetly, letting go of Clarice's hand.
"I need to move," he says. "I'll go walk Zingo. She's been cooped up all day."
"I have to get started on dinner anyway," Lorna says, standing up as well.
"Can I come with you?" Clarice asks John. She doesn't want to leave him alone unless that's what he needs.
"Sure. Just let me get my braces on."
Clarice nods as John disappears inside his bedroom. Lorna is banging pans around in the kitchen, which leaves Marcos, who still hasn't moved.
"It's probably a good thing that you came," Marcos says. "I thought John would want to be alone, since he didn't talk about today with you, but he probably just didn't want to bother you with this."
"Of course," Clarice nods. "I'm glad I came too. Do you think he'll be okay?"
"Yes. Today's a bad day, but he's healing, and not just physically. I think your relationship is going a long way toward helping him move on."
"Then it's a good thing. Sometimes I worry that I'm pressing him into something he's not ready for."
Marcos shakes his head with a smile. "From what I know about you, I doubt you're pressing him in any way. Don't worry. You're doing good."
"Thanks," Clarice says. "It's good to hear. Though I'm not the one who's supposed to need comforting today."
"Go be with him. Lorna and I will be fine. We have each other."
"Yes we do," Lorna says, poking her head through the kitchen door. "Clarice, are you staying for dinner?"
"I don't know. I don't want to impose, and it depends on John."
"You can stay," John says from the bedroom. Of course he heard everything. Clarice curses herself for forgetting again.
"Then yes, if it's not too much trouble," Clarice says to Lorna.
"It's fine, I'm just making pasta. I'm not in the mood to cook more than that."
"Pasta's good," John says, coming out of his bedroom. "Zingo, come on girl, we're going for a walk."
He attaches the young dog's leash, and Clarice stands up to follow him.
"I'm sorry about what you saw earlier," John says quietly, once they've crossed the road and entered the park. It's surprisingly empty for a holiday, but the weather seems to reflects the day's mood for John and Clarice: gloomy and sad. They pass a few people who give them looks, and Clarice realizes that they must seem strange, John in full uniform and her with sunglasses on a rainy day. For once, she doesn't feel self conscious about it.
"What do you mean?" Clarice asks, sitting down on what's almost become their bench, while John lets Zingo run free.
"I shouldn't have gotten into that, not in front of you. It's just...still so hard, and this was the first time I talked to Pulse's parents since I got out of the hospital. They still blame me and it hit me harder than it should have."
Clarice wants to say that they have no right to blame him, but that would just be baiting John to disagree−she knows he will. Harping on about it again, when John's still in such a dark place mentally, will bring no good.
"They never knew anything about your relationship?" she asks instead.
"Pulse never spoke a word about it, because he knew how they'd react. He didn't hide it purposefully, he just didn't really talk to them. I actually met them for the first time at the Purple Heart ceremony. I wasn't there for the funeral, I was still in the hospital up in D.C."
"And they blamed you?"
"I was the only one who wasn't receiving the medal posthumously," John says, looking down at the Purple Heart pinned to his chest. "It wasn't a hard conclusion to reach."
"It's still a really shitty thing to do," Clarice sighs.
"They asked me to move out of the apartment we shared the same day so they could end the lease, even though I was still inpatient three states away and it was on the third floor without an elevator. Marcos and Lorna had to move all my things in a hurry and leave everything that belonged to both of us behind."
Clarice blinks. "Wow. I had no idea. That's the most callous thing I've ever heard. Even if they didn't know you were together."
"They'd just lost their son. But yeah, it was...hard. And today, they tried to tell me that I had no right to be there and it felt−" John's voice breaks. "Lorna shut them up, but−"
Nodding in compassion, Clarice opens her arms. This time John accepts the hug, even leans into it. It's not romantic, only a comforting embrace that he seems to need badly.
"Thank you," he murmurs. "I didn't know if I should tell you what we were doing today, or even ask you to come. I couldn't think. I'm sorry I worried you."
"You have nothing to be sorry for. I'm sorry I didn't realize what today meant to you. I'm not sure I could have been any help over there, but I'll always be there to support you when you need it."
John looks up at her. "You're a lot of help now," he says.
"Do you want me to stay tonight?" Clarice asks.
"I don't know," John hesitates. "Yeah, I think I'd like that. If you're okay with just...sharing a bed."
"Of course. Whatever you need."
"You're good with staying here even if Marcos and Lorna are here?" John asks. That's a boundary they haven't crossed yet, but it doesn't matter to Clarice tonight. This isn't about sleeping together as a new couple, this is sharing a bed for comfort. The same thing that Marcos and Lorna are probably going to do, tonight.
"I'll even sleep on the couch if that's what's best for you," Clarice answers.
"No, no. I just…I don't think I can handle an empty bed tonight. But I don't want you to feel like you're...filling up for him."
"I know I'm not. But you're grieving, and today is especially hard. I understand that."
"I'm sorry," John murmurs.
"You have nothing to apologize for."
John nods curtly, not looking at her. "I probably won't sleep, but having you here might help," he says.
Ah, that's why he doesn't seem worried about hurting her in his sleep, like he has been since his flashback. Clarice winces internally. John doesn't need insomnia on top of everything he's dealing with, but of course that's not how things work.
"Then I'll be here," she says.
So I actually wrote maybe half of this chapter before and on last Memorial Day. It's not celebrated or anything where I live, so I wouldn't have thought to include it otherwise.
John is slowly healing, and Clarice is good at comforting. Next chapter will be quite a bit lighter, and in the one after that we're off to Westchester for X-Men time!