Fic: "Cruel Summer Day" by Eliyes
Title: Cruel Summer Day
Author: eliyes
Summary: On a trip to the beach, a friendly gesture backfires.
Author's notes: No, the title isn't a give away of the lyrics that inspired this, it was just the best title I could come up with. ^^; eta: Inspirational quote now at the bottom of the fic.
Okay, so maybe it was a little mean. In his defense, he hadn't meant it that way.
It happened on a fine and sunny day, when a number of the students of The Xavier Institute of Higher Learning had been on a school trip to a picturesque strip of ocean beach, with an unusually large number of chaperones. Several of the active X-Men had invited themselves along. No matter how mainstream mutants were supposed to be these days, it was still nice to relax out of the public eye. Since Warren owned the beach privately -- and had good security -- they weren't likely to get many gawkers trespassing. The school's environs were nice and all, but it was good to get out now and then.
Besides, they worked for a telepath. It wasn't like it was hard to get a hold of them in case of emergency.
So: a nice day, a nice beach, people having fun and no doubt a few teenage dramas underway that Bobby didn't particularly care about. He kicked some butt at volleyball, he tossed around a frisbee, and he made more than few snowcones. But the biggest draw was the wide expanse of the ocean. All that water made him feel alive.
He wasn't the only one feeling the siren song of all those waves. Even though Kurt had a hell of a time getting the salt and sand out of his fur, he was leading a game involving a search for pirate treasure. There was a sand castle of bizarre configuration and epic proportion being built a safe distance from the volleyball net. Some of the older kids were doing something involved with a small flotilla of inflated inner tubes.
As for Bobby, he was floating, far enough out that he had a good view of everyone on the beach, when he was facing them. Mostly he rolled and bobbed. One advantage of being ice full time was automatic buoyancy on salt water, it seemed.
Of course, buoyancy had its downsides.
Maybe he'd been drowsing, because Sam's sudden whoop was the only warning he had before a massive wave dunked him under, out of time with the tide's rhythm -- followed by another, and another. He felt like a capsizing dinghy. He barely had enough time to right himself and figure out what was happening before they came back for another pass.
Sam was leading a small handful of other fliers -- students, mostly -- in strafing the water, flying fast enough that when they dipped into the waves, they left a long furrow. Water splashed up like a wall on either side. The crew on the tubes were far enough from the action that they were affected only by a bit of choppiness, no worse than a speedboat passing by.
Bobby, on the other hand, was practically in their path. His eyes widened as he saw the fliers loop high, clearly planning to come back. He wasn't entirely sure they'd spotted him out here -- though considering the flash of Sam's grin he caught, maybe they had. Still, he dove down and surfaced inland of the "main drag". By the time they came down a third time, he was up on a surfboard of ice. He let their wave propel him a ways towards shore and swam the rest.
When he waded out onto the beach, feeling the drag of gravity after so much floating, Northstar was standing on the wet sand where the water could just lick his feet. Bobby grinned at him sheepishly, wondering when he'd got back; the moment they'd got there, Northstar had flown far, far out until he was just a spec, diving into the ocean well beyond where Sam and Storm decided to put the safety markers. He was back and dry. Maybe Bobby really had dozed off.
Northstar was clearly watching Sam and the others' antics. Bobby walked up beside him -- not too close, hopefully not enough to chill him -- and answered Northstar's glance and questioning lift of eyebrows with one of his own.
"Why aren't you out there with them?" Bobby asked. He gestured at the sleek black swimsuit the Canadian wore, saying, "It's not like you'd have to worry about losing your shorts. I bet Sam's blast shield is the only thing between him and accidental skinny-dipping right now."
Northstar gave him a strange look before fixing his attention once again seaward.
"I am too fast," he said. He pointed to the group who were once again looping up to gain momentum. "You see, they all keep together. I would ruin their timing." He shrugged and crossed his arms. "I am not so good at flying with others. It is natural, up there, to want to go fast."
"You seem to be doing okay with the flight class," Bobby offered, "and given how often your speed saves lives, I don't think anyone's complaining." There was something like sadness in Northstar's face that made Bobby want to reassure him.
"Still," Northstar said, chin lifting to track the passage of a high and distant cloud. "The only ones who could ever keep up with me were Rogue, when she had borrowed my speed, and... ma soeur." And yes, right there, when he mentioned his sister -- that was definitely not a happy face.
Which was why Bobby said what he did next.
"How fast can you go in the water?"
"Pardon?" Northstar gave him a slightly puzzled look.
"You know, in the water?" Bobby moved one hand like a fish. "Can you swim superfast?"
"I can, yes, but it is more efficient to fly."
"What, underwater?"
"Oui."
"Hmm..." Bobby put his hands on his hips and circled behind Northstar to his other side, not missing the jerky little movements that meant he was being glanced at hyperfast. He directed his gaze out to the water. Sam and the others had finally settled down in the shallows, by the sandcastle, laughing and catching their breath. Bobby scanned the water for a landmark that would suit his purposes.
"There." He pointed to a spar of rock. If he remembered right, it was almost invisible at high tide, but the waves were moving out now. He half-remembered Scott nearly wrecking a sea kayak there once, tipping over when he could change course in time. Jean had rescued him.
He shook off the memory, coming back to the present where Northstar was asking him, "What? That's a rock, is it not?"
"It is," Bobby confirmed. "Wanna race to it?" He grinned cheerfully and waggled his eyebrows. "C'mon, I'm actually much faster in the water than you'd think. I know people don't associate me with speed, but my ice sledding beats running, any day. Well, most people's running."
"That is past the string of buoys."
"We can swim under that. You were already out further, right?"
Northstar gave him another strange look, this one more searching than the last, and Bobby countered with his best 'trust me, it'll be fun' smile -- a look long ago perfected on Hank and Warren.
And it worked now. Northstar narrowed his eyes in a fashion familiar to Bobby; that was the 'I'm humouring you to teach you a lesson' look he'd seen on at least a dozen faces. (There had been a time when he was convinced that Scott did that all the time behind his visor.) Still, a victory of sorts.
Bobby gestured to the water.
"I think we should wade in to where it's deep enough to swim, start from there," he said. Northstar nodded, and they went in.
"When I say go?" Bobby suggested. Another nod. "Okay... Go!"
The look of shock on Northstar's face when he surfaced to find Bobby already at the rock was a real Kodak moment. He didn't laugh, but it was a near thing.
"Again? Back to, lessee --" He eyed the beach. "Where Santo is standing in the water?"
"Fine," Northstar said, eyes narrowed this time in suspicion.
"And... Go!"
Bobby had just enough time to say hi to Santo before Northstar was there, demanding of the student, "Did Wagner teleport him here?"
"Uh. No." Santo answered, sounding perplexed. Having teachers appear next to you without warning could do that to a guy.
"Kurt's over there," Bobby helpfully pointed out, waving a hand at where the self-proclaimed Pirate King was picnicing with the kids that had joined his 'crew'. "Also, I'm not cheating. I came here through the water."
"Again," Northstar said, gesturing sharply. "Back to the rock."
"Okay."
"Santo, you say 'go'," Northstar ordered.
"Uh, okay? Go--"
This time Bobby barely reached the goal ahead of Northstar.
"Santo," Northstar said, and dove. They reached him at the same time.
"Rock," Bobby challenged, and got to it first.
" 'Ow?!" Northstar reared out of the water, one knee up and one foot still submerged, like a dolphin standing on his tail. He pinned Bobby with an angry glare, cheekbones flushed with spots of red. " 'Ow are you doing this?!"
Bobby grabbed Northstar's ankle, and then his calf, just below the knee. He really didn't think a thickening accent was a good sign, and the tension in the muscles under his hands seemed to support that. He tried to tug him down with his weight, saying, "Get back in the water and I'll show you."
For a moment, Northstar just hung there, with Bobby's no doubt uncomfortably cold hands pulling at him. Finally, he shook free and dropped into the ocean with a splash.
"Okay." Bobby smiled as encouragingly as he could. "Just -- stay right there. Don't move."
Northstar crossed his arms and glared, not even pretending he needed to tread water to stay put.
"Right. Um, I'll do it slow. Watch."
Bobby sank into the water. He could feel Northstar's eyes on him and glanced up, waving a hand in warning. And then he melted, flowing into the ocean, discorporate but still himself. It had taken a long time to let himself learn this, because it was one of the scariest things he could do with his powers. He'd had nightmares about not being able to keep it together, ripping into a million tiny Bobby puddles he could never pull back together.
Here and now, he ignored that particular boogeyman. Instead, he moved forward, washing past the body that was so unnaturally still in the water. He reformed behind him, reached out and poked his shoulder.
"Hey."
Northstar whirled, eyes wide, and shivered.
"Sorry. I shouldn't've -- I didn't mean to make you cold."
They stared at one another for along moment. Bobby treaded water absently, stymieing the tide's attempt to suck him away from the shore.
"Impressive," Northstar said at last, after what looked like a struggle to regain his composure. "Is this a new skill? Something that your secondary mutation allows you to do?" He waved a hand, as though to indicate Bobby's body, though mostly he splashed them both.
"Well, yes and no. It's something I've been practicing lately, but I've known I was capable of it ever since Emma possessed me and did it." The sudden murderous look Northstar gave the beach prompted Bobby to add, "That was years ago! And she wasn't really in her right mind. We've both come to terms with it, more or less."
Northstar's face shuttered.
"You have known of this for years."
"Yeah, but I only recently really got good at it. Maybe the secondary thing does help, I dunno."
"You can match or exceed my speed in the water," Northstar said, his voice seeming to quiver, "and you only just now decide to tell me?!"
"I..." Bobby trailed off, at a loss. "It... never seemed important?"
"Never--!" Northstar bit off what he was saying after one outraged word, and then he was gone. The sound of a startled shout on the shore reached Bobby's ears, and he was sure it meant Northstar had grabbed his things and left altogether.
What a mess. He'd only meant to have a little fun. It had occurred to him that he'd been risking pricking the speedster's pride; he hadn't realised the guy felt lonely. He should have: between leaving his country, his former team, and his sister behind, of course he was lonely. If Bobby had realised having someone he could zip around with might have made it a little better, he would have shown this off a long time ago.
Yeah, it really had been mean. He felt like a jerk.
It had been such a nice day, too.
Inspired by the following song lyric:
Fast mover
You can't catch me
-- Lita Ford, "Can't Catch Me"
Author: eliyes
Summary: On a trip to the beach, a friendly gesture backfires.
Author's notes: No, the title isn't a give away of the lyrics that inspired this, it was just the best title I could come up with. ^^; eta: Inspirational quote now at the bottom of the fic.
Okay, so maybe it was a little mean. In his defense, he hadn't meant it that way.
It happened on a fine and sunny day, when a number of the students of The Xavier Institute of Higher Learning had been on a school trip to a picturesque strip of ocean beach, with an unusually large number of chaperones. Several of the active X-Men had invited themselves along. No matter how mainstream mutants were supposed to be these days, it was still nice to relax out of the public eye. Since Warren owned the beach privately -- and had good security -- they weren't likely to get many gawkers trespassing. The school's environs were nice and all, but it was good to get out now and then.
Besides, they worked for a telepath. It wasn't like it was hard to get a hold of them in case of emergency.
So: a nice day, a nice beach, people having fun and no doubt a few teenage dramas underway that Bobby didn't particularly care about. He kicked some butt at volleyball, he tossed around a frisbee, and he made more than few snowcones. But the biggest draw was the wide expanse of the ocean. All that water made him feel alive.
He wasn't the only one feeling the siren song of all those waves. Even though Kurt had a hell of a time getting the salt and sand out of his fur, he was leading a game involving a search for pirate treasure. There was a sand castle of bizarre configuration and epic proportion being built a safe distance from the volleyball net. Some of the older kids were doing something involved with a small flotilla of inflated inner tubes.
As for Bobby, he was floating, far enough out that he had a good view of everyone on the beach, when he was facing them. Mostly he rolled and bobbed. One advantage of being ice full time was automatic buoyancy on salt water, it seemed.
Of course, buoyancy had its downsides.
Maybe he'd been drowsing, because Sam's sudden whoop was the only warning he had before a massive wave dunked him under, out of time with the tide's rhythm -- followed by another, and another. He felt like a capsizing dinghy. He barely had enough time to right himself and figure out what was happening before they came back for another pass.
Sam was leading a small handful of other fliers -- students, mostly -- in strafing the water, flying fast enough that when they dipped into the waves, they left a long furrow. Water splashed up like a wall on either side. The crew on the tubes were far enough from the action that they were affected only by a bit of choppiness, no worse than a speedboat passing by.
Bobby, on the other hand, was practically in their path. His eyes widened as he saw the fliers loop high, clearly planning to come back. He wasn't entirely sure they'd spotted him out here -- though considering the flash of Sam's grin he caught, maybe they had. Still, he dove down and surfaced inland of the "main drag". By the time they came down a third time, he was up on a surfboard of ice. He let their wave propel him a ways towards shore and swam the rest.
When he waded out onto the beach, feeling the drag of gravity after so much floating, Northstar was standing on the wet sand where the water could just lick his feet. Bobby grinned at him sheepishly, wondering when he'd got back; the moment they'd got there, Northstar had flown far, far out until he was just a spec, diving into the ocean well beyond where Sam and Storm decided to put the safety markers. He was back and dry. Maybe Bobby really had dozed off.
Northstar was clearly watching Sam and the others' antics. Bobby walked up beside him -- not too close, hopefully not enough to chill him -- and answered Northstar's glance and questioning lift of eyebrows with one of his own.
"Why aren't you out there with them?" Bobby asked. He gestured at the sleek black swimsuit the Canadian wore, saying, "It's not like you'd have to worry about losing your shorts. I bet Sam's blast shield is the only thing between him and accidental skinny-dipping right now."
Northstar gave him a strange look before fixing his attention once again seaward.
"I am too fast," he said. He pointed to the group who were once again looping up to gain momentum. "You see, they all keep together. I would ruin their timing." He shrugged and crossed his arms. "I am not so good at flying with others. It is natural, up there, to want to go fast."
"You seem to be doing okay with the flight class," Bobby offered, "and given how often your speed saves lives, I don't think anyone's complaining." There was something like sadness in Northstar's face that made Bobby want to reassure him.
"Still," Northstar said, chin lifting to track the passage of a high and distant cloud. "The only ones who could ever keep up with me were Rogue, when she had borrowed my speed, and... ma soeur." And yes, right there, when he mentioned his sister -- that was definitely not a happy face.
Which was why Bobby said what he did next.
"How fast can you go in the water?"
"Pardon?" Northstar gave him a slightly puzzled look.
"You know, in the water?" Bobby moved one hand like a fish. "Can you swim superfast?"
"I can, yes, but it is more efficient to fly."
"What, underwater?"
"Oui."
"Hmm..." Bobby put his hands on his hips and circled behind Northstar to his other side, not missing the jerky little movements that meant he was being glanced at hyperfast. He directed his gaze out to the water. Sam and the others had finally settled down in the shallows, by the sandcastle, laughing and catching their breath. Bobby scanned the water for a landmark that would suit his purposes.
"There." He pointed to a spar of rock. If he remembered right, it was almost invisible at high tide, but the waves were moving out now. He half-remembered Scott nearly wrecking a sea kayak there once, tipping over when he could change course in time. Jean had rescued him.
He shook off the memory, coming back to the present where Northstar was asking him, "What? That's a rock, is it not?"
"It is," Bobby confirmed. "Wanna race to it?" He grinned cheerfully and waggled his eyebrows. "C'mon, I'm actually much faster in the water than you'd think. I know people don't associate me with speed, but my ice sledding beats running, any day. Well, most people's running."
"That is past the string of buoys."
"We can swim under that. You were already out further, right?"
Northstar gave him another strange look, this one more searching than the last, and Bobby countered with his best 'trust me, it'll be fun' smile -- a look long ago perfected on Hank and Warren.
And it worked now. Northstar narrowed his eyes in a fashion familiar to Bobby; that was the 'I'm humouring you to teach you a lesson' look he'd seen on at least a dozen faces. (There had been a time when he was convinced that Scott did that all the time behind his visor.) Still, a victory of sorts.
Bobby gestured to the water.
"I think we should wade in to where it's deep enough to swim, start from there," he said. Northstar nodded, and they went in.
"When I say go?" Bobby suggested. Another nod. "Okay... Go!"
The look of shock on Northstar's face when he surfaced to find Bobby already at the rock was a real Kodak moment. He didn't laugh, but it was a near thing.
"Again? Back to, lessee --" He eyed the beach. "Where Santo is standing in the water?"
"Fine," Northstar said, eyes narrowed this time in suspicion.
"And... Go!"
Bobby had just enough time to say hi to Santo before Northstar was there, demanding of the student, "Did Wagner teleport him here?"
"Uh. No." Santo answered, sounding perplexed. Having teachers appear next to you without warning could do that to a guy.
"Kurt's over there," Bobby helpfully pointed out, waving a hand at where the self-proclaimed Pirate King was picnicing with the kids that had joined his 'crew'. "Also, I'm not cheating. I came here through the water."
"Again," Northstar said, gesturing sharply. "Back to the rock."
"Okay."
"Santo, you say 'go'," Northstar ordered.
"Uh, okay? Go--"
This time Bobby barely reached the goal ahead of Northstar.
"Santo," Northstar said, and dove. They reached him at the same time.
"Rock," Bobby challenged, and got to it first.
" 'Ow?!" Northstar reared out of the water, one knee up and one foot still submerged, like a dolphin standing on his tail. He pinned Bobby with an angry glare, cheekbones flushed with spots of red. " 'Ow are you doing this?!"
Bobby grabbed Northstar's ankle, and then his calf, just below the knee. He really didn't think a thickening accent was a good sign, and the tension in the muscles under his hands seemed to support that. He tried to tug him down with his weight, saying, "Get back in the water and I'll show you."
For a moment, Northstar just hung there, with Bobby's no doubt uncomfortably cold hands pulling at him. Finally, he shook free and dropped into the ocean with a splash.
"Okay." Bobby smiled as encouragingly as he could. "Just -- stay right there. Don't move."
Northstar crossed his arms and glared, not even pretending he needed to tread water to stay put.
"Right. Um, I'll do it slow. Watch."
Bobby sank into the water. He could feel Northstar's eyes on him and glanced up, waving a hand in warning. And then he melted, flowing into the ocean, discorporate but still himself. It had taken a long time to let himself learn this, because it was one of the scariest things he could do with his powers. He'd had nightmares about not being able to keep it together, ripping into a million tiny Bobby puddles he could never pull back together.
Here and now, he ignored that particular boogeyman. Instead, he moved forward, washing past the body that was so unnaturally still in the water. He reformed behind him, reached out and poked his shoulder.
"Hey."
Northstar whirled, eyes wide, and shivered.
"Sorry. I shouldn't've -- I didn't mean to make you cold."
They stared at one another for along moment. Bobby treaded water absently, stymieing the tide's attempt to suck him away from the shore.
"Impressive," Northstar said at last, after what looked like a struggle to regain his composure. "Is this a new skill? Something that your secondary mutation allows you to do?" He waved a hand, as though to indicate Bobby's body, though mostly he splashed them both.
"Well, yes and no. It's something I've been practicing lately, but I've known I was capable of it ever since Emma possessed me and did it." The sudden murderous look Northstar gave the beach prompted Bobby to add, "That was years ago! And she wasn't really in her right mind. We've both come to terms with it, more or less."
Northstar's face shuttered.
"You have known of this for years."
"Yeah, but I only recently really got good at it. Maybe the secondary thing does help, I dunno."
"You can match or exceed my speed in the water," Northstar said, his voice seeming to quiver, "and you only just now decide to tell me?!"
"I..." Bobby trailed off, at a loss. "It... never seemed important?"
"Never--!" Northstar bit off what he was saying after one outraged word, and then he was gone. The sound of a startled shout on the shore reached Bobby's ears, and he was sure it meant Northstar had grabbed his things and left altogether.
What a mess. He'd only meant to have a little fun. It had occurred to him that he'd been risking pricking the speedster's pride; he hadn't realised the guy felt lonely. He should have: between leaving his country, his former team, and his sister behind, of course he was lonely. If Bobby had realised having someone he could zip around with might have made it a little better, he would have shown this off a long time ago.
Yeah, it really had been mean. He felt like a jerk.
It had been such a nice day, too.
Inspired by the following song lyric:
Fast mover
You can't catch me
-- Lita Ford, "Can't Catch Me"