Put That Out And Look At Me (X-Men, Bobby/John)
I really don't know why it took me that much to finish this thing. But ugh, I'm so glad it's done with, even if I rather like it.
Title:Put That Out And Look At Me
Pairing: Bobby/John
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Bobby has never liked to be touched, but he doesn’t mind it as much with John.
Word Count: 1540
Author Notes: Set pre X-2, mild spoilers for X-3. Written for the Fight challenge at xmenflashfic.
Bobby thinks it must be normal, having John’s arm thrown around his shoulders in that male-bonding fashion he has never been able to truly understand, John’s fingers drumming on his arm a tune that he doesn’t recognize. Bobby’s thumbs are inside his pockets, and he tries to look nonchalant, as if he’s not bother by the contact.
John’s smoking, putting the fire out and then lighting it again after every drag, just for kicks. He closes his eyes every time he inhales, opens them slowly as he exhales. He looks perfectly comfortable for someone who’s ditching school, and Bobby can’t help but wonder if Professor Xavier already knows they’re just standing at the bus stop miles away from the mansion, getting a bit chilled from the cold.
“Relax already, man, it’s not like we’re robbing a bank, or something,” John says after a while, finally turning to look at him, but Bobby can’t relax, can’t even imagine to when he has St. John Allerdyce touching him so easily.
“I am relaxed,” he says (lies), and John snorts.
“Whatever you say.”
John stares at him for another second, long enough for Bobby to turn and ask a quick What?, but then he’s looking away and the bus comes and it’s time to go to the mall and play at being normal kids skiving off classes. Bobby thinks it must be normal, having John’s fingers at his back at he pushes him to get on the bus.
That doesn’t stop it from being uncomfortable.
---
Bobby has never liked to be touched.
That’s why it shouldn’t surprise him that he ends up dating the only girl he can’t touch without getting killed in the process.
---
Bobby thinks it must be normal to stay up all night long with John while tinkering with their powers, laughing in the semi-darkness as Bobby builds an airplane with ice, as John melts it and Bobby builds an ice boat out of the water in the wooden floor. It must be companionship and maybe even friendship and all that jazz, Bobby figures as they share a bottle of vodka Professor McCoy had had hidden in the kitchen for Lord knows what reason.
He thinks it must be normal to scold John from smoking in the garden and for John to blow the smoke on his face, thinks it normal to lay on their room’s floor and kick each other’s feet away on lazy Sundays.
But then he sees the way John cringes whenever Piotr taps him in the shoulder to tell him something, the way he’ll waltz around Jubilee just so she won’t be able to take his lighter (The way he prefers to reach out with flames than with his fingers).
Then, Bobby starts thinking that maybe it isn’t that normal to be the only person John ever touches.
But then again, just when has ‘normal’ happened at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters?
---
Bobby has never liked to be touched, but he doesn’t mind it as much with John, and there’s an annoying voice inside his head telling him he really doesn’t want to know why.
---
Enter Marie, and Bobby truly likes her; likes the hopeless look she has on her first day of classes, likes the strength and confidence she develops after a few months. And if he still doesn’t like her as much as he likes John’s free spirit, well, he doesn’t think about it much. So his heart does beat harder when Marie’s around, and he figures dating shouldn’t be such a daunting thing after all.
So he spends an awful lot of time with her, kisses her stomach through her t-shirt in that hidden alcove under the stairs, and everything’s all right until he realizes John fumes in that particular way of his - being obnoxious and loud and generally stupid.
He corners him a few weeks later, just at the edge of the school grounds as if pondering to get out of not. “Going somewhere?” he asks casually, and John says nothing, keeps on staring at the street on the other side of the door through the heavy iron bars. Bobby sighs.
“What’s wrong with you?” Bobby says, and it comes out with much more frustration that he intended.
John suddenly turns, looking furious. “What’s wrong? What the fuck’s wrong with you, Bobby!” John gesticulates wildly, the smoke from the cigarette that’s still resting between his fingers curling around his arms.
John’s just infuriating when he’s like this. “Then, John, pray tell me in whatever way I’ve wrong you, because I sure don’t know!” Bobby steps closer, trying to use his height as a way to intimidate John, but he doesn’t really succeed.
(He almost never does, not when John’s involved.)
John throws the cigarette to a particular large puddle in the grass, where it hisses as the light is put out. Then, Johh hits him, square in the jaw, and Bobby reels back a bit with the impact and the surprise before he gets his wits back.
“What the hell was that?” He yells at John, furious, his skin already swelling. Instead of answering, though, John is already moving into another attack position, and Bobby does the same by inertia (thanks to all those ‘secret’ late-night sessions in the Danger Room that he knows the Professor is aware of), right foot moving to a more advanced position than his left and his knees flexed, arms in front of his chest. He makes a grab for John’s arm coming towards him, deflects the hit swiftly and punches John in the eye, just for good measure.
John growls, Bobby pants, and they both launch against each other again, hitting whatever skin they can get. It’s not until they’re rolling on the wet grass and Bobby has a handful of John’s hair trapped in his fist, and John is pulling his ear that he realizes just how childishly they’re fighting.
“Stop it!” he yells at the other boy, trying to kick him away. “This is just stupid,” he says as he tries to get on his feet.
“You’re stupid,” John claims in a tone that shows every bit of childish urges that he had been denied of, just before he throws himself at Bobby, tackling him to the ground again. Another punch, and they’re at it again.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Bobby mutters after a while, and he frosts John’s arms just so he can finally get away. The frost is so thin that it gets washed out just with John’s sweat. They glare at each other, half-lying on the grass, breathing too hard. “Jeez, John, why are you being like this?”
John stays quiet for a few seconds, his jaw tense. He chuckles darkly, then, eyes closed. “Well, if you’re so desperate to know…” He leaves the words hanging in the air, and then he’s closing the space between them, muddy hands from the grass are holding Bobby’s face in place, and suddenly, unexpectedly, and somewhat scarily, John is kissing him with a quite aggressive tint to it.
(And a lot of things fall into place.)
John lets him go after only a moment, and they stare at each other’s eyes. Bobby’s mouth doesn’t quite close from the surprise, and John takes advantage of it when he kisses him again, deeper and less violently, and Bobby figures he didn’t start it so why not. He kisses back, a bit, but then John’s letting go of him and sitting next to him.
“That’s why,” he says slowly, and they fall silently.
They sit together in the grass, watching the sky turn deep indigo by the second. They’re still not looking at one another, keeping their eyes glued in the sky (and the grass, and their hands, and their pants, and everything that’s not quite other boy’s flesh). “Now you get it, then?” asks John after a while, and Bobby can see him being John again, seemingly indestructible.
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Good. Can we go and drink ourselves to sleep, then? The grass is fucking wet, man,”
“Yeah, I guess we can.”
Things between them shift back into normalcy as they enter the mansion through one of those secret passages John discovered in his second week in there, and it still feels like friendship, only with something rash and compelling crawling under their skins. They break into Logan’s stash of tequila, knowing full well he’ll be able to know it was them, and they sing to Metallica at the top of their lungs as they jump on their beds as if they were ten years old.
The professor makes them clean all of the mansion’s bathrooms as punishment, but the way they lean close to each other every time they’re in the same room makes up for it.
---
The next time they kiss, Rogue is human, John is one of America’s most wanted and Bobby is wearing a leather uniform that marks him as an X-Men. There’s nothing left of the childishness that was always there between them, and both of them feel too adult, too old and world-weary for twenty years old.
So they kiss, and they try forgetting the number of times they’ve almost killed each other.
Title:Put That Out And Look At Me
Pairing: Bobby/John
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Bobby has never liked to be touched, but he doesn’t mind it as much with John.
Word Count: 1540
Author Notes: Set pre X-2, mild spoilers for X-3. Written for the Fight challenge at xmenflashfic.
Bobby thinks it must be normal, having John’s arm thrown around his shoulders in that male-bonding fashion he has never been able to truly understand, John’s fingers drumming on his arm a tune that he doesn’t recognize. Bobby’s thumbs are inside his pockets, and he tries to look nonchalant, as if he’s not bother by the contact.
John’s smoking, putting the fire out and then lighting it again after every drag, just for kicks. He closes his eyes every time he inhales, opens them slowly as he exhales. He looks perfectly comfortable for someone who’s ditching school, and Bobby can’t help but wonder if Professor Xavier already knows they’re just standing at the bus stop miles away from the mansion, getting a bit chilled from the cold.
“Relax already, man, it’s not like we’re robbing a bank, or something,” John says after a while, finally turning to look at him, but Bobby can’t relax, can’t even imagine to when he has St. John Allerdyce touching him so easily.
“I am relaxed,” he says (lies), and John snorts.
“Whatever you say.”
John stares at him for another second, long enough for Bobby to turn and ask a quick What?, but then he’s looking away and the bus comes and it’s time to go to the mall and play at being normal kids skiving off classes. Bobby thinks it must be normal, having John’s fingers at his back at he pushes him to get on the bus.
That doesn’t stop it from being uncomfortable.
---
Bobby has never liked to be touched.
That’s why it shouldn’t surprise him that he ends up dating the only girl he can’t touch without getting killed in the process.
---
Bobby thinks it must be normal to stay up all night long with John while tinkering with their powers, laughing in the semi-darkness as Bobby builds an airplane with ice, as John melts it and Bobby builds an ice boat out of the water in the wooden floor. It must be companionship and maybe even friendship and all that jazz, Bobby figures as they share a bottle of vodka Professor McCoy had had hidden in the kitchen for Lord knows what reason.
He thinks it must be normal to scold John from smoking in the garden and for John to blow the smoke on his face, thinks it normal to lay on their room’s floor and kick each other’s feet away on lazy Sundays.
But then he sees the way John cringes whenever Piotr taps him in the shoulder to tell him something, the way he’ll waltz around Jubilee just so she won’t be able to take his lighter (The way he prefers to reach out with flames than with his fingers).
Then, Bobby starts thinking that maybe it isn’t that normal to be the only person John ever touches.
But then again, just when has ‘normal’ happened at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters?
---
Bobby has never liked to be touched, but he doesn’t mind it as much with John, and there’s an annoying voice inside his head telling him he really doesn’t want to know why.
---
Enter Marie, and Bobby truly likes her; likes the hopeless look she has on her first day of classes, likes the strength and confidence she develops after a few months. And if he still doesn’t like her as much as he likes John’s free spirit, well, he doesn’t think about it much. So his heart does beat harder when Marie’s around, and he figures dating shouldn’t be such a daunting thing after all.
So he spends an awful lot of time with her, kisses her stomach through her t-shirt in that hidden alcove under the stairs, and everything’s all right until he realizes John fumes in that particular way of his - being obnoxious and loud and generally stupid.
He corners him a few weeks later, just at the edge of the school grounds as if pondering to get out of not. “Going somewhere?” he asks casually, and John says nothing, keeps on staring at the street on the other side of the door through the heavy iron bars. Bobby sighs.
“What’s wrong with you?” Bobby says, and it comes out with much more frustration that he intended.
John suddenly turns, looking furious. “What’s wrong? What the fuck’s wrong with you, Bobby!” John gesticulates wildly, the smoke from the cigarette that’s still resting between his fingers curling around his arms.
John’s just infuriating when he’s like this. “Then, John, pray tell me in whatever way I’ve wrong you, because I sure don’t know!” Bobby steps closer, trying to use his height as a way to intimidate John, but he doesn’t really succeed.
(He almost never does, not when John’s involved.)
John throws the cigarette to a particular large puddle in the grass, where it hisses as the light is put out. Then, Johh hits him, square in the jaw, and Bobby reels back a bit with the impact and the surprise before he gets his wits back.
“What the hell was that?” He yells at John, furious, his skin already swelling. Instead of answering, though, John is already moving into another attack position, and Bobby does the same by inertia (thanks to all those ‘secret’ late-night sessions in the Danger Room that he knows the Professor is aware of), right foot moving to a more advanced position than his left and his knees flexed, arms in front of his chest. He makes a grab for John’s arm coming towards him, deflects the hit swiftly and punches John in the eye, just for good measure.
John growls, Bobby pants, and they both launch against each other again, hitting whatever skin they can get. It’s not until they’re rolling on the wet grass and Bobby has a handful of John’s hair trapped in his fist, and John is pulling his ear that he realizes just how childishly they’re fighting.
“Stop it!” he yells at the other boy, trying to kick him away. “This is just stupid,” he says as he tries to get on his feet.
“You’re stupid,” John claims in a tone that shows every bit of childish urges that he had been denied of, just before he throws himself at Bobby, tackling him to the ground again. Another punch, and they’re at it again.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Bobby mutters after a while, and he frosts John’s arms just so he can finally get away. The frost is so thin that it gets washed out just with John’s sweat. They glare at each other, half-lying on the grass, breathing too hard. “Jeez, John, why are you being like this?”
John stays quiet for a few seconds, his jaw tense. He chuckles darkly, then, eyes closed. “Well, if you’re so desperate to know…” He leaves the words hanging in the air, and then he’s closing the space between them, muddy hands from the grass are holding Bobby’s face in place, and suddenly, unexpectedly, and somewhat scarily, John is kissing him with a quite aggressive tint to it.
(And a lot of things fall into place.)
John lets him go after only a moment, and they stare at each other’s eyes. Bobby’s mouth doesn’t quite close from the surprise, and John takes advantage of it when he kisses him again, deeper and less violently, and Bobby figures he didn’t start it so why not. He kisses back, a bit, but then John’s letting go of him and sitting next to him.
“That’s why,” he says slowly, and they fall silently.
They sit together in the grass, watching the sky turn deep indigo by the second. They’re still not looking at one another, keeping their eyes glued in the sky (and the grass, and their hands, and their pants, and everything that’s not quite other boy’s flesh). “Now you get it, then?” asks John after a while, and Bobby can see him being John again, seemingly indestructible.
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Good. Can we go and drink ourselves to sleep, then? The grass is fucking wet, man,”
“Yeah, I guess we can.”
Things between them shift back into normalcy as they enter the mansion through one of those secret passages John discovered in his second week in there, and it still feels like friendship, only with something rash and compelling crawling under their skins. They break into Logan’s stash of tequila, knowing full well he’ll be able to know it was them, and they sing to Metallica at the top of their lungs as they jump on their beds as if they were ten years old.
The professor makes them clean all of the mansion’s bathrooms as punishment, but the way they lean close to each other every time they’re in the same room makes up for it.
---
The next time they kiss, Rogue is human, John is one of America’s most wanted and Bobby is wearing a leather uniform that marks him as an X-Men. There’s nothing left of the childishness that was always there between them, and both of them feel too adult, too old and world-weary for twenty years old.
So they kiss, and they try forgetting the number of times they’ve almost killed each other.