Holiday Ficlet #4: "Cosmic Joke" [X-Men/ER]
Title: Cosmic Joke
Fandoms: E.R./X-Men Movieverse - Allegiance 'verse
Characters: Ray, Jean, Charles, Hank
Wordcount: ~ 680 words
Summary: Ray at fifteen is always angry, at everybody, mostly at himself.
AN: For scribble_myname. Hank's quote is by Warren G. Harding.
Cosmic Joke
Ray at fifteen is just a little gangly, and hasn't started shaving daily yet although he really should, patchy auburn shadow covering his cheeks. He's always angry, at everybody, mostly at himself.
(Ray at twenty-six has perfectly smooth cheeks all around the goatee and pays more attention to his hair than, Dr. Carter claims, his patients. If something, anything pisses him off, he has the next gig to look forward to, maybe trashing someone else's guitar and definitely screaming "fuck" a lot. It's really pretty zen. No reason to be angry at anybody; there's always something to distract his mind.)
His earliest clear memory of the school is of Hank, as it it: Sitting on an exam table in a fucking high-tech med bay in a fucking basement, a fucking furry beast is coming at him with a syringe, rumbling about broken ribs. Both of them recoil when Ray barks to stay the fuck away from him, albeit for different reasons each. Hank has some demons of his own to battle, and Ray apologizes after he stops calling people freaks - six or seven months later.
(Ray receives an e-mail the morning of his graduation: "America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration." All the best for you again, my friend; I have never been surprised. Hank. He feels slightly ashamed about his relief that Hank, blue fur and fangs and all, didn't have time to attend the ceremony in person.)
His earliest memory of Charles Xavier is that of a man too infuriatingly comfortable about what he is, and too infuriatingly calm in the face of the bad language, too. Xavier's wheelchair insults Ray; it's a fortress, a disability of such a severity that he just can't make himself cross that line of mockery. Explaining to Ray that this is a school, not a prison, and Ray is not a freak, but a victim, in a patient voice better suited to talking to a child. "We prefer the term 'gift'."
("But that's a lie," his therapist points out to him at twenty-nine, "You lied to me just now," and Ray says, "Yeah, I did" and looks away. Because that isn't his first memory of Charles Xavier, nowhere close. He feels the metallic taste of adrenaline gathering in his mouth, staring at the ground. His first memory of Charles Xavier is that of a telepathic grip on his mind, an order to lower a force field, a warning that he's about to kill his... that he's about to kill. He can admit that now. The more Ray admires the Professor, the less he can stand him because he has seen.)
His first clear memories of happiness in Westchester are about Jean: one reproachful look by her enough to shut him up. She supplies him with cigarettes although none of the students are allowed to smoke, and never once suggests that he should try and let her read his mind. "What does it feel like to you, being here?" she asks and he says, "Big fat cosmic joke?" and she chuckles. It's weird - that he clicks with a chick like that, one who studies for med school of all things and never wears short skirts - but she still makes him smile, and he had almost forgotten what that's like.
(Ray at twenty-eight is back in Westchester and on Phoenix watch when Jean - Jean - opens her eyes in her stasis chamber, looking like she's aged ten years in five weeks. "It's you," she says, voice slurred as if she'd had a stroke, "I thought you'd left." And he takes a breath, deep and labored, and says, "Well yeah, but I've come back."
It still feels strange to say. But it's coming.)
Fandoms: E.R./X-Men Movieverse - Allegiance 'verse
Characters: Ray, Jean, Charles, Hank
Wordcount: ~ 680 words
Summary: Ray at fifteen is always angry, at everybody, mostly at himself.
AN: For scribble_myname. Hank's quote is by Warren G. Harding.
Cosmic Joke
Ray at fifteen is just a little gangly, and hasn't started shaving daily yet although he really should, patchy auburn shadow covering his cheeks. He's always angry, at everybody, mostly at himself.
(Ray at twenty-six has perfectly smooth cheeks all around the goatee and pays more attention to his hair than, Dr. Carter claims, his patients. If something, anything pisses him off, he has the next gig to look forward to, maybe trashing someone else's guitar and definitely screaming "fuck" a lot. It's really pretty zen. No reason to be angry at anybody; there's always something to distract his mind.)
His earliest clear memory of the school is of Hank, as it it: Sitting on an exam table in a fucking high-tech med bay in a fucking basement, a fucking furry beast is coming at him with a syringe, rumbling about broken ribs. Both of them recoil when Ray barks to stay the fuck away from him, albeit for different reasons each. Hank has some demons of his own to battle, and Ray apologizes after he stops calling people freaks - six or seven months later.
(Ray receives an e-mail the morning of his graduation: "America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration." All the best for you again, my friend; I have never been surprised. Hank. He feels slightly ashamed about his relief that Hank, blue fur and fangs and all, didn't have time to attend the ceremony in person.)
His earliest memory of Charles Xavier is that of a man too infuriatingly comfortable about what he is, and too infuriatingly calm in the face of the bad language, too. Xavier's wheelchair insults Ray; it's a fortress, a disability of such a severity that he just can't make himself cross that line of mockery. Explaining to Ray that this is a school, not a prison, and Ray is not a freak, but a victim, in a patient voice better suited to talking to a child. "We prefer the term 'gift'."
("But that's a lie," his therapist points out to him at twenty-nine, "You lied to me just now," and Ray says, "Yeah, I did" and looks away. Because that isn't his first memory of Charles Xavier, nowhere close. He feels the metallic taste of adrenaline gathering in his mouth, staring at the ground. His first memory of Charles Xavier is that of a telepathic grip on his mind, an order to lower a force field, a warning that he's about to kill his... that he's about to kill. He can admit that now. The more Ray admires the Professor, the less he can stand him because he has seen.)
His first clear memories of happiness in Westchester are about Jean: one reproachful look by her enough to shut him up. She supplies him with cigarettes although none of the students are allowed to smoke, and never once suggests that he should try and let her read his mind. "What does it feel like to you, being here?" she asks and he says, "Big fat cosmic joke?" and she chuckles. It's weird - that he clicks with a chick like that, one who studies for med school of all things and never wears short skirts - but she still makes him smile, and he had almost forgotten what that's like.
(Ray at twenty-eight is back in Westchester and on Phoenix watch when Jean - Jean - opens her eyes in her stasis chamber, looking like she's aged ten years in five weeks. "It's you," she says, voice slurred as if she'd had a stroke, "I thought you'd left." And he takes a breath, deep and labored, and says, "Well yeah, but I've come back."
It still feels strange to say. But it's coming.)