Broken Silence
Title: Broken Silence
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Retreating from your fears doesn't make them go away.
Pairing: Bobby/John
Warnings: Character death (again)
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He felt an arm creep under the table, a hand running up his thigh and so, smiling broadly at their two friends, he inconspicuously slapped it away. He then proceeded to step on his best friend’s foot, making him yelp in pain.
“What’s wrong, Bobby?” he asked innocently.
“Nothing John, just a leg cramp I guess,” the ice mutant replied rubbing his toes on the inside of his shoe, trying to make the pain subside.
“Oh, okay then,” John quickly dismissed him, throwing a quick glance his way before doing so. Bobby had learned to know that look over the years. Those mesmerizing eyes were clearly saying: I’m glad I make you horny, but not here. Not now. Later…
However, their two friends, on the opposite side of the table, were oblivious to what that look meant and just took another sip of their drink, blaming their behavior on best friend/room mate strangeness once again.
“I think we need to get going, guys,” Marie said, looking at her watch. “It’s almost midnight and we have to get up early tomorrow; get the kids to kindergarten.”
“Yeah, and I promised Kitty I’d take her to work since her car has some bugs that she didn’t get to fix yet,” Piotr added.
John raised an eyebrow, the way he always loved to do, and nudged his lover.
“I’m so glad we’re not tied down,” he said. “Unlike some people…”
“Always told you it was a bad idea,” Bobby continued, looking from Marie to Piotr. “You just can’t get any extra benefits from getting married.”
“Some of us actually prefer stability. You know, having someone to go home to at night.”
“Not wonder around the clubs, searching for our next lay...”
“Then sending her home the next morning, not even giving her a kiss goodbye.”
“And the children…” John continued, not being interested in what the two had to say. “They just kill the sex moods with all that crying and stuff, don’t they?” He took a sip of his mojito and stared at them, expecting an answer, daring them to tell him that he was wrong.
“There are other things in this life more important than sex, you know.”
“Keep telling yourself that when you’ll have your fourth orgasm during the same night. Then, maybe, just maybe, I’ll believe you,” Bobby retorted to his former partner in crime.
“Come on, we’ll walk you out. Maybe head down town to the new place,” John said finishing his drink, getting up from the table and walking over to the bar, paying for their drinks.
Bobby made his way outside together will their old friends and just before pushing the door, to get outside, he felt a familiar hand glide effortlessly in his. He didn’t have to look back to know that it was John, so he just squeezed said intruding hand and walked on to the sidewalk. He frowned when he heard the lighting and looked up to the sky to see where the leaking was coming from. It was raining cats and dogs; his least favorite kind of raining of all the types that existed.
“Shit…”
“Wait here Johnny and try to keep dry; I’ll go get the car,” he said pulling his hand out of his lover’s and running through the rain to the other side of the street, where John had parked his car.
Bobby blinked twice, getting the drops of water out of his eyes and on the third go a loud honking horn broke the sound of raindrops falling.
A scream and a loud thud resounded from the street and the drops of water seemed to turn red before his eyes. He blinked again and, through a weird twist in time that nobody seemed to notice, everything slowed down. He heard an echo of a scream and two familiar voices shout out his lover’s name into the night.
He felt someone grab his hand and pull him towards the van that had stopped abruptly in the middle of the road, its driver walking out onto the street holding his head in his arms, sobbing. Maybe sobbing, he couldn’t realize since it was raining that hard. His legs were moving without his control and he didn’t know who the person dragging him was. Probably Piotr, because he thinks he sees Marie just a foot in front of them, shock etched on her features.
He then found himself stopping in front of the van and kneeling down next to a body that looked just like his Johnny‘s. He saw the mirror image of his lover lay sprawled on the wet concrete, his arm bended in an unnatural way, the bone sticking out of it, a pool of red around him, the rain washing away the gushing blood from his forehead. His chest didn’t rise and fall in its usual way any more and his neck was twisted in the wrong way.
He softly touched the boy’s face as he heard Piotr call an ambulance on his cell phone and then, the entire world stopped in its tracks. The rain lay motionless in mid air and people were looking funny as they got caught in mid step. Bobby bent over his best friend and pulled his head in his lap, brushing the rebel strands of hair out of his face. People would scold him for acting like this, probably, but he asked himself over and over again: how is one supposed to act when one dies? Because that was just what happened when the van hit John. Bobby died.
~*~
“Are they sleeping yet?” Marie asked picking the tens of toys sprawled on the room’s carpet. She looked interestedly at one of them and shook her head in dismay. What were they going to think of next?
Piotr glanced at the three kids out cold in the bedroom and closed the door behind him, smiling at his friend.
“I wish I could fall asleep as fast as they do,” he said bending together with Marie to help her clean up the mess their kids made. “Play dates are more exhausting for us than then they are for them, I think.”
“We’re just getting older Pete. Even if we don’t want to admit it.”
“Yeah… Married… Never saw that coming really,” he said throwing the toys in their special enclosure and whipping his hands on his pants. His wife would scold him for that, but she wasn’t here, so he took advantage of that. “Want a drink?”
Marie nodded and followed him into the kitchen.
“Neither one of us did,” she said taking the drink the Russian offered her and opening it.
“I think John did. I didn’t really buy his comment that night. I think it was just for show.”
“John’s always had Bobby to rely on,” Marie noted, “so he’s never thought about marriage. He got all his safety from him, never needed a girl to make him feel loved. That’s why I think he wanted us to get married. You know, be as happy as he was.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think too,” Piotr agreed taking a sip from the beer. Chatting was hard right now, but silence would be even harder. Without the distraction that their spouses provided them and with their children out cold, they needed to keep the conversation going no matter what. It was the only thing that would keep them on the edge of sanity.
“You think he’s going to be okay? Bobby, I mean. It’s strange, not hearing him talk any more. It’s been a month already.”
Piotr shrugged and huffed gravely.
“I don’t know. He’s not going to be himself any time soon, that’s for sure.”
“I just hope he doesn’t try anything stupid…”
“What? Like suicide?”
Marie nodded and coughed in a strained way. She didn’t necessarily want to bring the subject up for discussion, for fear of actually making it a possibility.
“I don’t think he will, as long as we won’t let him. He needs to understand that, even though it’s not pleasant to know, he can’t change anything about what happened. He needs to move on with his life.”
“It sounds horribly awful. You know that, right?”
“I know, but it’s the truth… I didn’t think I’d get to this point of understanding life, but having kids helps you grow up, in the true sense of the word.” He pounded his fist on the table, making it shake a bit and swore loudly.
“Shit! You know I’d give anything to have John back, don’t you?”
Marie nodded and took her friend’s hand, shaking it reassuringly.
“Of course I do. And don’t worry, so does Bobby. He’ll be fine in a few months; he just needs time to get used to the new situation.”
“Then he’ll start talking?”
“Hopefully.”
Five years had passed since that conversation in the kitchen and Bobby had still not uttered a single word. After all, dead men don’t speak.
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Retreating from your fears doesn't make them go away.
Pairing: Bobby/John
Warnings: Character death (again)
-
He felt an arm creep under the table, a hand running up his thigh and so, smiling broadly at their two friends, he inconspicuously slapped it away. He then proceeded to step on his best friend’s foot, making him yelp in pain.
“What’s wrong, Bobby?” he asked innocently.
“Nothing John, just a leg cramp I guess,” the ice mutant replied rubbing his toes on the inside of his shoe, trying to make the pain subside.
“Oh, okay then,” John quickly dismissed him, throwing a quick glance his way before doing so. Bobby had learned to know that look over the years. Those mesmerizing eyes were clearly saying: I’m glad I make you horny, but not here. Not now. Later…
However, their two friends, on the opposite side of the table, were oblivious to what that look meant and just took another sip of their drink, blaming their behavior on best friend/room mate strangeness once again.
“I think we need to get going, guys,” Marie said, looking at her watch. “It’s almost midnight and we have to get up early tomorrow; get the kids to kindergarten.”
“Yeah, and I promised Kitty I’d take her to work since her car has some bugs that she didn’t get to fix yet,” Piotr added.
John raised an eyebrow, the way he always loved to do, and nudged his lover.
“I’m so glad we’re not tied down,” he said. “Unlike some people…”
“Always told you it was a bad idea,” Bobby continued, looking from Marie to Piotr. “You just can’t get any extra benefits from getting married.”
“Some of us actually prefer stability. You know, having someone to go home to at night.”
“Not wonder around the clubs, searching for our next lay...”
“Then sending her home the next morning, not even giving her a kiss goodbye.”
“And the children…” John continued, not being interested in what the two had to say. “They just kill the sex moods with all that crying and stuff, don’t they?” He took a sip of his mojito and stared at them, expecting an answer, daring them to tell him that he was wrong.
“There are other things in this life more important than sex, you know.”
“Keep telling yourself that when you’ll have your fourth orgasm during the same night. Then, maybe, just maybe, I’ll believe you,” Bobby retorted to his former partner in crime.
“Come on, we’ll walk you out. Maybe head down town to the new place,” John said finishing his drink, getting up from the table and walking over to the bar, paying for their drinks.
Bobby made his way outside together will their old friends and just before pushing the door, to get outside, he felt a familiar hand glide effortlessly in his. He didn’t have to look back to know that it was John, so he just squeezed said intruding hand and walked on to the sidewalk. He frowned when he heard the lighting and looked up to the sky to see where the leaking was coming from. It was raining cats and dogs; his least favorite kind of raining of all the types that existed.
“Shit…”
“Wait here Johnny and try to keep dry; I’ll go get the car,” he said pulling his hand out of his lover’s and running through the rain to the other side of the street, where John had parked his car.
Bobby blinked twice, getting the drops of water out of his eyes and on the third go a loud honking horn broke the sound of raindrops falling.
A scream and a loud thud resounded from the street and the drops of water seemed to turn red before his eyes. He blinked again and, through a weird twist in time that nobody seemed to notice, everything slowed down. He heard an echo of a scream and two familiar voices shout out his lover’s name into the night.
He felt someone grab his hand and pull him towards the van that had stopped abruptly in the middle of the road, its driver walking out onto the street holding his head in his arms, sobbing. Maybe sobbing, he couldn’t realize since it was raining that hard. His legs were moving without his control and he didn’t know who the person dragging him was. Probably Piotr, because he thinks he sees Marie just a foot in front of them, shock etched on her features.
He then found himself stopping in front of the van and kneeling down next to a body that looked just like his Johnny‘s. He saw the mirror image of his lover lay sprawled on the wet concrete, his arm bended in an unnatural way, the bone sticking out of it, a pool of red around him, the rain washing away the gushing blood from his forehead. His chest didn’t rise and fall in its usual way any more and his neck was twisted in the wrong way.
He softly touched the boy’s face as he heard Piotr call an ambulance on his cell phone and then, the entire world stopped in its tracks. The rain lay motionless in mid air and people were looking funny as they got caught in mid step. Bobby bent over his best friend and pulled his head in his lap, brushing the rebel strands of hair out of his face. People would scold him for acting like this, probably, but he asked himself over and over again: how is one supposed to act when one dies? Because that was just what happened when the van hit John. Bobby died.
~*~
“Are they sleeping yet?” Marie asked picking the tens of toys sprawled on the room’s carpet. She looked interestedly at one of them and shook her head in dismay. What were they going to think of next?
Piotr glanced at the three kids out cold in the bedroom and closed the door behind him, smiling at his friend.
“I wish I could fall asleep as fast as they do,” he said bending together with Marie to help her clean up the mess their kids made. “Play dates are more exhausting for us than then they are for them, I think.”
“We’re just getting older Pete. Even if we don’t want to admit it.”
“Yeah… Married… Never saw that coming really,” he said throwing the toys in their special enclosure and whipping his hands on his pants. His wife would scold him for that, but she wasn’t here, so he took advantage of that. “Want a drink?”
Marie nodded and followed him into the kitchen.
“Neither one of us did,” she said taking the drink the Russian offered her and opening it.
“I think John did. I didn’t really buy his comment that night. I think it was just for show.”
“John’s always had Bobby to rely on,” Marie noted, “so he’s never thought about marriage. He got all his safety from him, never needed a girl to make him feel loved. That’s why I think he wanted us to get married. You know, be as happy as he was.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think too,” Piotr agreed taking a sip from the beer. Chatting was hard right now, but silence would be even harder. Without the distraction that their spouses provided them and with their children out cold, they needed to keep the conversation going no matter what. It was the only thing that would keep them on the edge of sanity.
“You think he’s going to be okay? Bobby, I mean. It’s strange, not hearing him talk any more. It’s been a month already.”
Piotr shrugged and huffed gravely.
“I don’t know. He’s not going to be himself any time soon, that’s for sure.”
“I just hope he doesn’t try anything stupid…”
“What? Like suicide?”
Marie nodded and coughed in a strained way. She didn’t necessarily want to bring the subject up for discussion, for fear of actually making it a possibility.
“I don’t think he will, as long as we won’t let him. He needs to understand that, even though it’s not pleasant to know, he can’t change anything about what happened. He needs to move on with his life.”
“It sounds horribly awful. You know that, right?”
“I know, but it’s the truth… I didn’t think I’d get to this point of understanding life, but having kids helps you grow up, in the true sense of the word.” He pounded his fist on the table, making it shake a bit and swore loudly.
“Shit! You know I’d give anything to have John back, don’t you?”
Marie nodded and took her friend’s hand, shaking it reassuringly.
“Of course I do. And don’t worry, so does Bobby. He’ll be fine in a few months; he just needs time to get used to the new situation.”
“Then he’ll start talking?”
“Hopefully.”
Five years had passed since that conversation in the kitchen and Bobby had still not uttered a single word. After all, dead men don’t speak.