wrong in the eyes of the unwell and unwise: the backstory meme in 5 easy to swallow pills
V.
He'll have stopped smoking by the time he's ready to leave because in front of that blank shuttered look all the crooked little gaps in him creak wide open. By the time he's ready to leave, he'll wonder how exactly Erik did it, that curious, distant and then disorientingly personal charisma. He'll take a look back to those moments he can't get rid of, blunt and unexpected as a knife between the ribs: he'll wonder how Erik got right up underneath his skin.
At the moment, the thought of quitting smoking has not crossed his mind. John has had enough family to know the dozens of ways adults fuck kids up. These evenings on the porch are a calm antithesis, unafraid to be different, incapable of disappointment. Everyone in the house smokes the way volcanoes try to keep themselves from erupting. Even Henry. Especially Henry. Winter doesn't deter them. They just bundle up and watch the ghosts stream away. It's no wonder he'll quit before he goes. There isn't any other porch in the world he could feel at home on anymore.
IV.
There was a time when doing simple, small fire tricks on the sidewalk was an okay way to get spare change. These days it's more likely to get him killed. So now this, which he's done before, warily and without disgust though he's not quite sure why. Somehow, the money seems more honest.
He does not, after all, have the face for this. He doesn't put on an act, unless you count the zippo, which personally, he doesn't. It's not so much a matter of dignity as it is lack of necessity. If the spark is there, he can control it with just a little attention. If he's loitering outside a bar and someone's watching him, all he does is stare back. Shame has its own peculiar language. All it needs to be fully expressed is a lack of judgment. In all honesty, John should probably be a little more grossed out. But it's ... funny. He has the feeling he and Mystique would've smiled. Because he hasn't lied once this entire time. He can practically see them watching now as he looks over at a man who's taking his time with a cigarette. (In a few months, Liz will ask him why he left and he won't be able to answer.) "Hey," John says, smiling a little. "Wanna see a trick?"
III.
Their apartment is high above the city, all wide windows, concrete floors, metal walls. If he's making up for the plastic prison, he couldn't have done much better.
John's always cold in there, but he's okay with that.
All the rooms are filled with machinery, plans, charts, graphs, and complicated technology only rivaled by stuff he's seen back at the mansion. They never tell him not to touch anything, they never tell him not to go anywhere, and if he asks them a question, they always answer. Sometimes he helps them build things, or goes on weird errands for them.
He's met Toad. They don't get along.
Here, John has his own room, which was bare for a while but has gradually filled up with things he needs although he never asks for anything. Leaving all his shit at the mansion doesn't faze him. For a while it's a mild irritation, the abandonment of recently acquired objects like the CD Kitty finally returned or his favorite t-shirt. But he's left favorite t-shirts behind before and more besides. Everything always gets replaced. He doesn't mind, even when he realizes the shirt Bobby lent him is gone.
II.
He's not allowed to have his lighter out in class. He makes do with a pen, slow, quiet taps against his bottom lip as he watches them instead of Professor Munroe.
Bobby, John decides, has the observational prowess of cotton fluff. This does not count against him. Nor does John blame him, exactly. Rogue -- and she will be Rogue to him for a very long time -- is a pretty distracting girl. You wouldn't think so at first. He didn't. Yeah, there's the hair and the curves and the smile, but nothing else. Empty, banal sweetness. That, however, is a defensive manuver she's used so long it's become as much a part of her as the white hair and gloves. Everybody's power ends up defining a part of their personality one way or another, John believes. The same way he knows just by walking past the boys' bathroom whether somebody's smoking in there or not, he knows there're sparks inside Rogue.
The question is, does Bobby know? They keep playing with that line, he can tell how much Bobby wants to touch her for real. John doesn't plan on pissing either of them off to find out what it'd be like to have his essence sucked out through her fingertips. And her big brown eyes would go wide with tears over it, even though they're wary of each other and not really friends at all yet. No, John doesn't want to find out what it feels like, but he'd bet anybody anything: he bets it feels good to her. Just like the time she steals from him, the time she eats up with Bobby: she'd look hurt if he ever said anything about it, but she liked it all the same.
Of course he never will say that. Bobby has the observational aptitude of a sea cucumber. Bobby is also the best (and first, if he's being honest) friend he's ever had. John will at least half-heartedly try not to piss him off. But he's not going to be a silent third wheel to this sad little scene. If he can make a little fire for them, then that's exactly what he's going to do.
I.
John's dad is not an idiot, although most people do take him for one, the same way they think of John. That similarity has never really endeared them to one another. The fact that John has just made his father's cigarette and thus the better part of his face burst into flames (the reasons why are irrelevant) will probably not help them bond either.
John will never feel the need to recount this, the story of the first manifestation of his fire manipulation powers, to anyone. He won't need to say a word to Professor Xavier, who will look at him with coiled iron in his eyes and tell him he can stay but that there are rules. He won't know what he looks like, expecting every adult's silence to be his father's wordless threat: go. Which, in time, he will appreciate, standing on the porch of Bobby's house and sitting on a roof in Vegas -- that at least his dad was completely truthful, that even if they never shared any relationship at all they shared that one moment of perfect understanding. Go. So John goes.
He'll have stopped smoking by the time he's ready to leave because in front of that blank shuttered look all the crooked little gaps in him creak wide open. By the time he's ready to leave, he'll wonder how exactly Erik did it, that curious, distant and then disorientingly personal charisma. He'll take a look back to those moments he can't get rid of, blunt and unexpected as a knife between the ribs: he'll wonder how Erik got right up underneath his skin.
At the moment, the thought of quitting smoking has not crossed his mind. John has had enough family to know the dozens of ways adults fuck kids up. These evenings on the porch are a calm antithesis, unafraid to be different, incapable of disappointment. Everyone in the house smokes the way volcanoes try to keep themselves from erupting. Even Henry. Especially Henry. Winter doesn't deter them. They just bundle up and watch the ghosts stream away. It's no wonder he'll quit before he goes. There isn't any other porch in the world he could feel at home on anymore.
IV.
There was a time when doing simple, small fire tricks on the sidewalk was an okay way to get spare change. These days it's more likely to get him killed. So now this, which he's done before, warily and without disgust though he's not quite sure why. Somehow, the money seems more honest.
He does not, after all, have the face for this. He doesn't put on an act, unless you count the zippo, which personally, he doesn't. It's not so much a matter of dignity as it is lack of necessity. If the spark is there, he can control it with just a little attention. If he's loitering outside a bar and someone's watching him, all he does is stare back. Shame has its own peculiar language. All it needs to be fully expressed is a lack of judgment. In all honesty, John should probably be a little more grossed out. But it's ... funny. He has the feeling he and Mystique would've smiled. Because he hasn't lied once this entire time. He can practically see them watching now as he looks over at a man who's taking his time with a cigarette. (In a few months, Liz will ask him why he left and he won't be able to answer.) "Hey," John says, smiling a little. "Wanna see a trick?"
III.
Their apartment is high above the city, all wide windows, concrete floors, metal walls. If he's making up for the plastic prison, he couldn't have done much better.
John's always cold in there, but he's okay with that.
All the rooms are filled with machinery, plans, charts, graphs, and complicated technology only rivaled by stuff he's seen back at the mansion. They never tell him not to touch anything, they never tell him not to go anywhere, and if he asks them a question, they always answer. Sometimes he helps them build things, or goes on weird errands for them.
He's met Toad. They don't get along.
Here, John has his own room, which was bare for a while but has gradually filled up with things he needs although he never asks for anything. Leaving all his shit at the mansion doesn't faze him. For a while it's a mild irritation, the abandonment of recently acquired objects like the CD Kitty finally returned or his favorite t-shirt. But he's left favorite t-shirts behind before and more besides. Everything always gets replaced. He doesn't mind, even when he realizes the shirt Bobby lent him is gone.
II.
He's not allowed to have his lighter out in class. He makes do with a pen, slow, quiet taps against his bottom lip as he watches them instead of Professor Munroe.
Bobby, John decides, has the observational prowess of cotton fluff. This does not count against him. Nor does John blame him, exactly. Rogue -- and she will be Rogue to him for a very long time -- is a pretty distracting girl. You wouldn't think so at first. He didn't. Yeah, there's the hair and the curves and the smile, but nothing else. Empty, banal sweetness. That, however, is a defensive manuver she's used so long it's become as much a part of her as the white hair and gloves. Everybody's power ends up defining a part of their personality one way or another, John believes. The same way he knows just by walking past the boys' bathroom whether somebody's smoking in there or not, he knows there're sparks inside Rogue.
The question is, does Bobby know? They keep playing with that line, he can tell how much Bobby wants to touch her for real. John doesn't plan on pissing either of them off to find out what it'd be like to have his essence sucked out through her fingertips. And her big brown eyes would go wide with tears over it, even though they're wary of each other and not really friends at all yet. No, John doesn't want to find out what it feels like, but he'd bet anybody anything: he bets it feels good to her. Just like the time she steals from him, the time she eats up with Bobby: she'd look hurt if he ever said anything about it, but she liked it all the same.
Of course he never will say that. Bobby has the observational aptitude of a sea cucumber. Bobby is also the best (and first, if he's being honest) friend he's ever had. John will at least half-heartedly try not to piss him off. But he's not going to be a silent third wheel to this sad little scene. If he can make a little fire for them, then that's exactly what he's going to do.
I.
John's dad is not an idiot, although most people do take him for one, the same way they think of John. That similarity has never really endeared them to one another. The fact that John has just made his father's cigarette and thus the better part of his face burst into flames (the reasons why are irrelevant) will probably not help them bond either.
John will never feel the need to recount this, the story of the first manifestation of his fire manipulation powers, to anyone. He won't need to say a word to Professor Xavier, who will look at him with coiled iron in his eyes and tell him he can stay but that there are rules. He won't know what he looks like, expecting every adult's silence to be his father's wordless threat: go. Which, in time, he will appreciate, standing on the porch of Bobby's house and sitting on a roof in Vegas -- that at least his dad was completely truthful, that even if they never shared any relationship at all they shared that one moment of perfect understanding. Go. So John goes.