LAST SEASON
Bobby is lying next to John trying to catch his breath, and somehow even though what they're doing is terrible it's all right.
Bobby isn't quite sure why it's terrible, and he definitely doesn't know why it's all right, but it's both at the same time and that makes it exciting. He overheard one of the older girls telling Rogue that all teenaged boys wanted was excitement, and although the guilt is thick and heavy in his stomach, a little bit like lead, the girl was kind of right. He likes excitement, and adrenaline, and the feeling of freefall, and he gets the former two with John and the last with Rogue.
John is exciting because he's unpredictable. Bobby can never tell what he's thinking or how he's feeling; he flickers on the verge of wildness sometimes and that's exciting, but it, like so many things in Bobby's life, is terrible, too. Terrible because Bobby really does like to know what people are thinking, because not knowing sometimes makes him insecure and he -hates- feeling insecure. Terrible because all he has to go by are long glances in the hallways and sometimes an hour or two in the supply closet.
John thinks it's terribly funny that they have to come out of the closet to get back to the dorms late at night. Bobby thinks he's crazy. The supply closet smells like Windex and Pine Sol and the blankets in there get dirty and it's always Bobby who sneaks in and washes them out late at night, because he's sure as hell not going to put up with dirty blankets, even if John doesn't even notice. Bobby irons his clothes and thinks that only gay men do that, but he's seen some other guys do it, too, so maybe it's not gay, just neat. He likes things to be clean.
His problem is that so many things in Bobby's life have been predictable that he's not quite sure which of them he likes, because he likes John's unpredictability and he likes Rogue's sometimes-predictability, even if she's a girl and he sometimes thinks they're an alien species sent specifically to confuse him. His parents like predictability; they think he's at a prep school and he knows that they'd freak out if they found out that he was a mutant.
He kind of hates that word, too, even if Professor Xavier thinks it's all right. He'd prefer something more politically-correct, like people of heightened -- something. John likes the word mutant, too, and Bobby wonders sometimes if he's a sub-par person of heightened something for not liking the word. When he was a kid, he used to watch TV shows like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and he was the biggest fan of Donatello ever. Now he's just glad that his stupid powers haven't turned him into a stupid turtle, because as much as he loves and resents the school, he'd probably just want to die if he was a turtle.
He thinks about stupid things like this and he thinks people guess sometimes, like when he's sitting in class and the teacher calls on him and he's not quite sure what to say.
Iceman, John calls him sometimes, but it's not really true. Ice is cold and harsh and it can save or it can kill, but he's not like that. He's careful and he has proper handwriting. Ice is just a part of him, like lying next to John in the supply closet on a pile of old blankets and feeling guilty and terrible and exciting all at once. His powers don't really define him at all; he isn't like the older team, the ones everyone looks up to (and the ones who the younger girls sometimes write elaborate fantasies about, starring them as ultimate saviour -- though Professor X put a stop to that once he found out).
He's just solid, more like a rock than like ice. Or a tree stump. Bobby the Tree Stump, the Teenage Person-of-Heightened-Something Ninja Tree Stump. Except he's pretty sure that tree stumps don't feel guilty or excited, and they definitely don't have the fucked-up lovelife that Bobby has, so he's probably just Bobby, Iceman, teenager of indiscriminate fashion sense whose parents are too rich. (There are benefits to the parents, though. His mom stays at home and bakes cookies to send him twice a month, which he shares with the guys in his dorm room, and his dad works all day and gives him money twice a month to buy things like clothes and whatever else he wants, which once included flowers for Rogue.)
He's just Bobby, and that makes it worse, because if he was really Iceman he'd tell Rogue everything and then he'd go home and tell his parents about everything, but what would he say?
"So, Rogue, John and I are planning a little midnight meeting, want to join in?" No.
"Hey, Rogue, those opera gloves are pretty sexy, think John can borrow them while we -- " -Definitely- not.
Or the parents. "Hi, Mom and Dad, I'm a gay mutant! Please accept me into your upper-class suburban lifestyle." Not so much.
Maybe he could write them a letter. "Dear Mom and Dad, I'm having so much fun at this prep school. On Monday, I shagged this guy I know four ways from Christmas in a supply closet. On Tuesday, I learned how to make ice sculpture, which is so much easier when you can make ice with the powers of your mind. Hope everyone's having as much fun at home as I am at school! Love, Bobby. P.S. Could you send more of those cookies you make with Grandma's recipe? The kids here loved them, especially the kid with the forked blue tongue. Thanks."
Somehow he doesn't think so. He wishes they'd take it like proper liberal parents, but his dad's a Republican and his mom votes what his dad votes.
He only adds the gay part when he's with John, because it feels right. When he's with Rogue, he's a different, non-gay Bobby, and he hopes it works like that. When he's with Rogue, though, John is different too -- John is dangerous when he's with Rogue.
He thinks it's different to kiss John, because John isn't really aggressive, not really so hard and fast as you'd think. John is slow and warm and teasing, and it's a little bit like being cooked if you want to fire metaphor. John isn't a flash of heat and screaming nerves; John is the heat of a too-warm summer day. He thinks John would be too much for him if he were the other way. Sometimes he's the aggressive one, the one who pulls John into the supply closet and presses him against the door and kisses him like there's nothing else, unbuttons his shirt --
Bobby feels his ears burning, but that could just be the wisps of fire that are floating in the air. Sex makes him flustered and sometimes clumsy -- well, all the time clumsy -- and the only thing that keeps him okay is that John is clumsy too. He wasn't John's first. John was his, though. He doesn't mind.
John isn't asleep, but they never ever talk when they're like this. John lies there and plays with his lighter, shapes the flame into things that Bobby can never discern, and Bobby lies there and feels guilty and all right.
He hurts for Rogue when people make the inevitable sharp comments about ice queens and ice men, because it's not fair to her that she can't touch him, and it's not fair to her that he goes somewhere else. The lead goes thicker when he thinks about her that way.
Then again, neither is this. He knows it's worse when you do a bad thing if you know what you're doing. He knows what he's doing isn't fair to anybody -- not to Rogue, not to himself, and certainly not to John, who doesn't have any attachments. He knows that life is fair if you make it fair. He believes in justice. He believes in it so much sometimes that he makes the kids turn off the news, because he didn't have to see anti-Bobby riots when he was eight, and these kids shouldn't have to see anti-mutant riots at all. He knows one of the boys in his dorm sometimes cries in his sleep and has nightmares all night.
He knows because they all get the kid's nightmares when they happen. He can't imagine what it would be like to be that kid; the projected nightmares are blurry and not very strong, and it's more like you're watching a vague impression of a Van Gogh painting than anything else. They don't get the kid's good dreams, but the nights when the whole room makes up slightly panicked are getting to be less, and he's glad. It's something you learn to deal with, living with all these kids and adults.
He's glad it's not prep school. He went to a boarding school when he was younger and hated it.
John turns onto his side next to him. They're both wearing underwear -- both wearing boxers, actually, although John's have 'hot stuff' printed all over them and Bobby's are just plain green. John thinks it's weird to lie around naked in a supply closet. Bobby kind of agrees, but he agrees because he doesn't really want anyone to find them like this, or like anything (especially not like -that-) -- because then he'd have to tell Rogue, and her Logan isn't back yet for her to throw herself into, and there are a million other reasons why, but the main other one is that he really likes her, likes her like a girlfriend, and it's just that he can't even kiss her --
There the guilt goes again.
And as he lies there he sort of hopes that eventually this will all end one way or another. He doesn't want to tell his parents. He definitely doesn't want to tell Rogue.
Moreover, he doesn't want to face -any- of the older guys, especially not Logan if he ever gets back from the wilderness, because as much as they're all freaks, he doesn't want to be a noticeable freak. He doesn't want to be freak number one, or, well, freak number two -- John with that lighter and the wild eyes would definitely qualify as number one.
When he grows up, he kind of thinks he wants to be a doctor, except that he knows his parents would want him to go to the best schools, and he doesn't think those schools would even accept him, considering he hasn't even taken his SATs and with all the mad saving-the-world-and-shagging-John-in-the-closet action he hasn't exactly had time to keep his 4.0.
Maybe he only wants to be a doctor because he'd get to leave everyone here and go to university. The thought it frightening and terrible and exciting, kind of like John, kind of like adrenaline.
"You think too much," John says, flipping his lighter off and thinking the fire out and plunging them into darkness. When John starts talking, it means he's bored, and when John's bored and they're in the supply closet, well --
Bobby stops thinking too much, and turns over.
FIN.
A/N: Okay, okay, so I don't usually write boyslash, but Bobby and John are just so -cute-. And Bobby is so definitely a Good Boy that I wanted to see what he was like when he was bad. Besides, the 'coming out' scene in X2 was fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. This is entirely movieverse, as I've never even picked up an X-Men comic book and only watched the cartoon briefly as a child. Feedback would be most appreciated.
Bobby is lying next to John trying to catch his breath, and somehow even though what they're doing is terrible it's all right.
Bobby isn't quite sure why it's terrible, and he definitely doesn't know why it's all right, but it's both at the same time and that makes it exciting. He overheard one of the older girls telling Rogue that all teenaged boys wanted was excitement, and although the guilt is thick and heavy in his stomach, a little bit like lead, the girl was kind of right. He likes excitement, and adrenaline, and the feeling of freefall, and he gets the former two with John and the last with Rogue.
John is exciting because he's unpredictable. Bobby can never tell what he's thinking or how he's feeling; he flickers on the verge of wildness sometimes and that's exciting, but it, like so many things in Bobby's life, is terrible, too. Terrible because Bobby really does like to know what people are thinking, because not knowing sometimes makes him insecure and he -hates- feeling insecure. Terrible because all he has to go by are long glances in the hallways and sometimes an hour or two in the supply closet.
John thinks it's terribly funny that they have to come out of the closet to get back to the dorms late at night. Bobby thinks he's crazy. The supply closet smells like Windex and Pine Sol and the blankets in there get dirty and it's always Bobby who sneaks in and washes them out late at night, because he's sure as hell not going to put up with dirty blankets, even if John doesn't even notice. Bobby irons his clothes and thinks that only gay men do that, but he's seen some other guys do it, too, so maybe it's not gay, just neat. He likes things to be clean.
His problem is that so many things in Bobby's life have been predictable that he's not quite sure which of them he likes, because he likes John's unpredictability and he likes Rogue's sometimes-predictability, even if she's a girl and he sometimes thinks they're an alien species sent specifically to confuse him. His parents like predictability; they think he's at a prep school and he knows that they'd freak out if they found out that he was a mutant.
He kind of hates that word, too, even if Professor Xavier thinks it's all right. He'd prefer something more politically-correct, like people of heightened -- something. John likes the word mutant, too, and Bobby wonders sometimes if he's a sub-par person of heightened something for not liking the word. When he was a kid, he used to watch TV shows like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and he was the biggest fan of Donatello ever. Now he's just glad that his stupid powers haven't turned him into a stupid turtle, because as much as he loves and resents the school, he'd probably just want to die if he was a turtle.
He thinks about stupid things like this and he thinks people guess sometimes, like when he's sitting in class and the teacher calls on him and he's not quite sure what to say.
Iceman, John calls him sometimes, but it's not really true. Ice is cold and harsh and it can save or it can kill, but he's not like that. He's careful and he has proper handwriting. Ice is just a part of him, like lying next to John in the supply closet on a pile of old blankets and feeling guilty and terrible and exciting all at once. His powers don't really define him at all; he isn't like the older team, the ones everyone looks up to (and the ones who the younger girls sometimes write elaborate fantasies about, starring them as ultimate saviour -- though Professor X put a stop to that once he found out).
He's just solid, more like a rock than like ice. Or a tree stump. Bobby the Tree Stump, the Teenage Person-of-Heightened-Something Ninja Tree Stump. Except he's pretty sure that tree stumps don't feel guilty or excited, and they definitely don't have the fucked-up lovelife that Bobby has, so he's probably just Bobby, Iceman, teenager of indiscriminate fashion sense whose parents are too rich. (There are benefits to the parents, though. His mom stays at home and bakes cookies to send him twice a month, which he shares with the guys in his dorm room, and his dad works all day and gives him money twice a month to buy things like clothes and whatever else he wants, which once included flowers for Rogue.)
He's just Bobby, and that makes it worse, because if he was really Iceman he'd tell Rogue everything and then he'd go home and tell his parents about everything, but what would he say?
"So, Rogue, John and I are planning a little midnight meeting, want to join in?" No.
"Hey, Rogue, those opera gloves are pretty sexy, think John can borrow them while we -- " -Definitely- not.
Or the parents. "Hi, Mom and Dad, I'm a gay mutant! Please accept me into your upper-class suburban lifestyle." Not so much.
Maybe he could write them a letter. "Dear Mom and Dad, I'm having so much fun at this prep school. On Monday, I shagged this guy I know four ways from Christmas in a supply closet. On Tuesday, I learned how to make ice sculpture, which is so much easier when you can make ice with the powers of your mind. Hope everyone's having as much fun at home as I am at school! Love, Bobby. P.S. Could you send more of those cookies you make with Grandma's recipe? The kids here loved them, especially the kid with the forked blue tongue. Thanks."
Somehow he doesn't think so. He wishes they'd take it like proper liberal parents, but his dad's a Republican and his mom votes what his dad votes.
He only adds the gay part when he's with John, because it feels right. When he's with Rogue, he's a different, non-gay Bobby, and he hopes it works like that. When he's with Rogue, though, John is different too -- John is dangerous when he's with Rogue.
He thinks it's different to kiss John, because John isn't really aggressive, not really so hard and fast as you'd think. John is slow and warm and teasing, and it's a little bit like being cooked if you want to fire metaphor. John isn't a flash of heat and screaming nerves; John is the heat of a too-warm summer day. He thinks John would be too much for him if he were the other way. Sometimes he's the aggressive one, the one who pulls John into the supply closet and presses him against the door and kisses him like there's nothing else, unbuttons his shirt --
Bobby feels his ears burning, but that could just be the wisps of fire that are floating in the air. Sex makes him flustered and sometimes clumsy -- well, all the time clumsy -- and the only thing that keeps him okay is that John is clumsy too. He wasn't John's first. John was his, though. He doesn't mind.
John isn't asleep, but they never ever talk when they're like this. John lies there and plays with his lighter, shapes the flame into things that Bobby can never discern, and Bobby lies there and feels guilty and all right.
He hurts for Rogue when people make the inevitable sharp comments about ice queens and ice men, because it's not fair to her that she can't touch him, and it's not fair to her that he goes somewhere else. The lead goes thicker when he thinks about her that way.
Then again, neither is this. He knows it's worse when you do a bad thing if you know what you're doing. He knows what he's doing isn't fair to anybody -- not to Rogue, not to himself, and certainly not to John, who doesn't have any attachments. He knows that life is fair if you make it fair. He believes in justice. He believes in it so much sometimes that he makes the kids turn off the news, because he didn't have to see anti-Bobby riots when he was eight, and these kids shouldn't have to see anti-mutant riots at all. He knows one of the boys in his dorm sometimes cries in his sleep and has nightmares all night.
He knows because they all get the kid's nightmares when they happen. He can't imagine what it would be like to be that kid; the projected nightmares are blurry and not very strong, and it's more like you're watching a vague impression of a Van Gogh painting than anything else. They don't get the kid's good dreams, but the nights when the whole room makes up slightly panicked are getting to be less, and he's glad. It's something you learn to deal with, living with all these kids and adults.
He's glad it's not prep school. He went to a boarding school when he was younger and hated it.
John turns onto his side next to him. They're both wearing underwear -- both wearing boxers, actually, although John's have 'hot stuff' printed all over them and Bobby's are just plain green. John thinks it's weird to lie around naked in a supply closet. Bobby kind of agrees, but he agrees because he doesn't really want anyone to find them like this, or like anything (especially not like -that-) -- because then he'd have to tell Rogue, and her Logan isn't back yet for her to throw herself into, and there are a million other reasons why, but the main other one is that he really likes her, likes her like a girlfriend, and it's just that he can't even kiss her --
There the guilt goes again.
And as he lies there he sort of hopes that eventually this will all end one way or another. He doesn't want to tell his parents. He definitely doesn't want to tell Rogue.
Moreover, he doesn't want to face -any- of the older guys, especially not Logan if he ever gets back from the wilderness, because as much as they're all freaks, he doesn't want to be a noticeable freak. He doesn't want to be freak number one, or, well, freak number two -- John with that lighter and the wild eyes would definitely qualify as number one.
When he grows up, he kind of thinks he wants to be a doctor, except that he knows his parents would want him to go to the best schools, and he doesn't think those schools would even accept him, considering he hasn't even taken his SATs and with all the mad saving-the-world-and-shagging-John-in-the-closet action he hasn't exactly had time to keep his 4.0.
Maybe he only wants to be a doctor because he'd get to leave everyone here and go to university. The thought it frightening and terrible and exciting, kind of like John, kind of like adrenaline.
"You think too much," John says, flipping his lighter off and thinking the fire out and plunging them into darkness. When John starts talking, it means he's bored, and when John's bored and they're in the supply closet, well --
Bobby stops thinking too much, and turns over.
FIN.
A/N: Okay, okay, so I don't usually write boyslash, but Bobby and John are just so -cute-. And Bobby is so definitely a Good Boy that I wanted to see what he was like when he was bad. Besides, the 'coming out' scene in X2 was fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. This is entirely movieverse, as I've never even picked up an X-Men comic book and only watched the cartoon briefly as a child. Feedback would be most appreciated.