The Story of a Wave Unfurled [Rogue, Scott - PG]
Title: The Story of a Wave Unfurled
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Author: tartanshell
Summary: Sometimes, the biggest decisions don't seem to matter. Rogue and Scott have a talk at a pool party.
Recipient: handyhunter
Request Used: Rogue talks to (or is talked at by) Storm and later has a conversation with Logan about taking the cure; what if she had talked to Scott, as well, about having uncontrollable powers?
Rating/Spoilers: PG for language. Spoilers through X3.
Word count: 1400
Notes: Title and cut-tag text are from "After All" by Dar Williams.
It was a long time before she was able to talk about it. After she came back. After she started wearing her gloves again. After it was complete--she could feel it, like lightning hunger in her hands--and after everything got back to something almost normal. The Professor was back. Scott was back. Erik was back. Even Jean was back, though now she was in a coma, and the Professor wasn't sure how long it would take for her to fully control the Phoenix and wake up, if she ever could.
It was a gorgeous, bright afternoon, the first truly warm day of summer, and just about everybody else was outside enjoying it. Storm was kneeling by one of the flowerbeds, wearing a big hat and pulling weeds. Most of the kids were having fun in the pool, and the girls who weren't were stretched out on towels, sunbathing in shorts and tank tops or swimsuits. Piotr was the only guy not in swim trunks, but he'd taken off his t-shirt, leaving his shoulders getting a little pink in the sun as he bent over his sketchbook. Drawing Kitty, of course, laughing with her hair in a damply curling ponytail and her big sunglasses and blue tank suit.
Rogue was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a thin scarf, and her gloves. Shoes and socks. And it really was damn hot, and she wanted air and sunlight on her skin. Wanted a tan. Wanted bare feet baked on cement, brushed by cool grass, splashing in the water. And she could. Could do some of it. If she wanted.
She could get up off the bench and stop watching and go inside, too. If she wanted to. But the first day it was warm enough to swim had sort of turned into an unofficial yard party, and Logan had muttered something about putting some steaks and hot dogs on the grill, and even the Professor had said he might take a dip. It was too nice of a day to be inside. Despite everything.
It was too nice of a day to sit and think about all the things she could've done, if she'd wanted to.
She glanced at Bobby, playing water tag in the shallow end with the little kids and Hank, right as he surfaced in an explosion of droplets and slapped Hank's bicep. "You're it!"
Hank grinned, fur sleek and dripping, and dove, and the kids shrieked, scrambling and dog-paddling practically on top of each other to get away. Wet skin sliding against wet skin, and she looked away only to see Kitty rubbing sunblock on Piotr's back. It was white and thick, and Rogue could almost feel the grease beneath her own fingertips.
It had been four months or so since the day she knew it was back for good, back and strong enough to kill somebody. She hadn't cried in awhile. Hadn't dreamed about killing any of her friends in awhile. She was how she was, and she was okay with that. Shit happens, life goes on, and she was okay with that.
That's probably why it surprised her so much that she started shaking and feeling like she was going to throw up when Piotr scooped Kitty into his lap.
"Hey," Scott said, kneeling down beside her on the grass, out of nowhere, "Rogue. You okay?"
She opened her mouth to say, 'I'm fine,' but that would have felt a little too much like throwing up, too. She looked at the burgundy silk of her gloves. They made her wrists look small. "Sometimes, I want to die," she said instead.
"God!" he exclaimed. "Where did this come fr--" But then his lips clamped shut, and he sat down all the way, hooking his arms over one knee. He was wearing jeans. Faded ones, and a black t-shirt, and he looked hot and sweaty, too, with dust on his shirt and a faint black line of engine grease under his fingernails. He looked at her for a minute, and when she looked up, Rogue could see herself reflected in the mirrored red lenses. At last, he nodded. "You know, sometimes I did, too."
She wasn't expecting that. Scott didn't seem like the type to even drink a beer when he was depressed, let alone think about anything darker than how to torture them all in pre-calc. "You did? Why?"
"Because I had this power, and couldn't control it," he said, touching two fingers to the side of his glasses and surprising her again. "I couldn't control my own body, and I didn't know what I wanted, and...I was pretty messed-up."
Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Because you couldn't control your beams without the visor?"
His jaw flexed. "Because of a lot of things. Why do you want to?"
"Why do you think?"
Scott sighed, shifting on the grass. "This is about Bobby, right?"
"Oh, my God." She almost stormed off, but settled for giving him a disgusted look instead. "You think this is about Bobby? About sex? If this had ever been just about Bobby--or sex--do you think I would've done it?"
"So. Why?"
She shrugged. "Doesn't matter now, does it?"
"If you want to kill yourself, then yeah, it matters."
"Thinking about killing yourself and wanting to die are two different things, Scott," she pointed out. "And I don't," she added, drawing up her knees and talking to them instead of him. "I don't. I just...wanted to be normal again."
"You hate being a mutant that much?"
"No," she said levelly, "I hate being cut off from people that much. God! Why can't anybody get it? I don't hate myself, and I like being a mutant, and I don't think it's some goddamn disease! And that's the thing. I can borrow people's powers, but do you know what I would give to swap with somebody? To have somebody else's for real and still be me, and still be a mutant like everybody here?"
She shook her head, curling her hand into a fist. Her palm itched, and she felt somewhere between screaming and like she was going to cry. "I would give anything," she said, a little quieter, "to be gay, or scaly, or furry, or huge, or blind, or to hear people in my head twenty-four hours a day. I would rather be blue, or have claws, or have it hurt, or a wheelchair, or--anything. If I could touch people, and not be afraid that I was going to kill somebody, and not have my friends be afraid of me." Her lips were shaking, and she had to take a minute before she could get the next words out. "You know?"
Scott took a deep breath, hooking his fingers together. One of his knuckles popped, and he cleared his throat. The kids were still yelling and splashing, over in the pool, in water she could get into. She breathed the same air as everybody, didn't she? Sat on the same furniture? But they'd be afraid. Uncomfortable. Looking but trying not to look at her like that. Just the sight of her in shorts or a nightgown was enough to do that. Just washing her hands in the bathroom was. "You can't know how it feels for other people," Scott said at last.
Her lips twisted, which was sort of a bitter smile and sort of still trying not to cry. "But I know how it is for me."
"Would it help if I told you that it'll get better? That someday this won't seem like such a big deal, and your real friends aren't afraid of you?"
"No, because I'm not twelve," she replied, smiling a little for real as she looked at his face, full-on. She'd heard from Kitty, who'd heard from somebody or maybe had just made it up that his eyes were really blue. "And it won't get better, because no matter what, even if they make a better cure and I take it, I'll always be afraid of myself."
"So. What are you going to do?"
Rogue spread her hands, watching a sunbeam turn her gloves red. "Live with it," she said. "Get a glass of lemonade and have a hot dog. Go swimming later, when nobody's here. I don't really have a choice."
Scott shrugged, and stood, and brushed off his jeans before offering a hand to pull her up. "Sounds to me like you've already made one."
"Living with it's not much of a choice."
"It is if you've had to make it," he said quietly, as the two of them stood in their blue jeans, taking it all in.
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Author: tartanshell
Summary: Sometimes, the biggest decisions don't seem to matter. Rogue and Scott have a talk at a pool party.
Recipient: handyhunter
Request Used: Rogue talks to (or is talked at by) Storm and later has a conversation with Logan about taking the cure; what if she had talked to Scott, as well, about having uncontrollable powers?
Rating/Spoilers: PG for language. Spoilers through X3.
Word count: 1400
Notes: Title and cut-tag text are from "After All" by Dar Williams.
It was a long time before she was able to talk about it. After she came back. After she started wearing her gloves again. After it was complete--she could feel it, like lightning hunger in her hands--and after everything got back to something almost normal. The Professor was back. Scott was back. Erik was back. Even Jean was back, though now she was in a coma, and the Professor wasn't sure how long it would take for her to fully control the Phoenix and wake up, if she ever could.
It was a gorgeous, bright afternoon, the first truly warm day of summer, and just about everybody else was outside enjoying it. Storm was kneeling by one of the flowerbeds, wearing a big hat and pulling weeds. Most of the kids were having fun in the pool, and the girls who weren't were stretched out on towels, sunbathing in shorts and tank tops or swimsuits. Piotr was the only guy not in swim trunks, but he'd taken off his t-shirt, leaving his shoulders getting a little pink in the sun as he bent over his sketchbook. Drawing Kitty, of course, laughing with her hair in a damply curling ponytail and her big sunglasses and blue tank suit.
Rogue was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a thin scarf, and her gloves. Shoes and socks. And it really was damn hot, and she wanted air and sunlight on her skin. Wanted a tan. Wanted bare feet baked on cement, brushed by cool grass, splashing in the water. And she could. Could do some of it. If she wanted.
She could get up off the bench and stop watching and go inside, too. If she wanted to. But the first day it was warm enough to swim had sort of turned into an unofficial yard party, and Logan had muttered something about putting some steaks and hot dogs on the grill, and even the Professor had said he might take a dip. It was too nice of a day to be inside. Despite everything.
It was too nice of a day to sit and think about all the things she could've done, if she'd wanted to.
She glanced at Bobby, playing water tag in the shallow end with the little kids and Hank, right as he surfaced in an explosion of droplets and slapped Hank's bicep. "You're it!"
Hank grinned, fur sleek and dripping, and dove, and the kids shrieked, scrambling and dog-paddling practically on top of each other to get away. Wet skin sliding against wet skin, and she looked away only to see Kitty rubbing sunblock on Piotr's back. It was white and thick, and Rogue could almost feel the grease beneath her own fingertips.
It had been four months or so since the day she knew it was back for good, back and strong enough to kill somebody. She hadn't cried in awhile. Hadn't dreamed about killing any of her friends in awhile. She was how she was, and she was okay with that. Shit happens, life goes on, and she was okay with that.
That's probably why it surprised her so much that she started shaking and feeling like she was going to throw up when Piotr scooped Kitty into his lap.
"Hey," Scott said, kneeling down beside her on the grass, out of nowhere, "Rogue. You okay?"
She opened her mouth to say, 'I'm fine,' but that would have felt a little too much like throwing up, too. She looked at the burgundy silk of her gloves. They made her wrists look small. "Sometimes, I want to die," she said instead.
"God!" he exclaimed. "Where did this come fr--" But then his lips clamped shut, and he sat down all the way, hooking his arms over one knee. He was wearing jeans. Faded ones, and a black t-shirt, and he looked hot and sweaty, too, with dust on his shirt and a faint black line of engine grease under his fingernails. He looked at her for a minute, and when she looked up, Rogue could see herself reflected in the mirrored red lenses. At last, he nodded. "You know, sometimes I did, too."
She wasn't expecting that. Scott didn't seem like the type to even drink a beer when he was depressed, let alone think about anything darker than how to torture them all in pre-calc. "You did? Why?"
"Because I had this power, and couldn't control it," he said, touching two fingers to the side of his glasses and surprising her again. "I couldn't control my own body, and I didn't know what I wanted, and...I was pretty messed-up."
Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Because you couldn't control your beams without the visor?"
His jaw flexed. "Because of a lot of things. Why do you want to?"
"Why do you think?"
Scott sighed, shifting on the grass. "This is about Bobby, right?"
"Oh, my God." She almost stormed off, but settled for giving him a disgusted look instead. "You think this is about Bobby? About sex? If this had ever been just about Bobby--or sex--do you think I would've done it?"
"So. Why?"
She shrugged. "Doesn't matter now, does it?"
"If you want to kill yourself, then yeah, it matters."
"Thinking about killing yourself and wanting to die are two different things, Scott," she pointed out. "And I don't," she added, drawing up her knees and talking to them instead of him. "I don't. I just...wanted to be normal again."
"You hate being a mutant that much?"
"No," she said levelly, "I hate being cut off from people that much. God! Why can't anybody get it? I don't hate myself, and I like being a mutant, and I don't think it's some goddamn disease! And that's the thing. I can borrow people's powers, but do you know what I would give to swap with somebody? To have somebody else's for real and still be me, and still be a mutant like everybody here?"
She shook her head, curling her hand into a fist. Her palm itched, and she felt somewhere between screaming and like she was going to cry. "I would give anything," she said, a little quieter, "to be gay, or scaly, or furry, or huge, or blind, or to hear people in my head twenty-four hours a day. I would rather be blue, or have claws, or have it hurt, or a wheelchair, or--anything. If I could touch people, and not be afraid that I was going to kill somebody, and not have my friends be afraid of me." Her lips were shaking, and she had to take a minute before she could get the next words out. "You know?"
Scott took a deep breath, hooking his fingers together. One of his knuckles popped, and he cleared his throat. The kids were still yelling and splashing, over in the pool, in water she could get into. She breathed the same air as everybody, didn't she? Sat on the same furniture? But they'd be afraid. Uncomfortable. Looking but trying not to look at her like that. Just the sight of her in shorts or a nightgown was enough to do that. Just washing her hands in the bathroom was. "You can't know how it feels for other people," Scott said at last.
Her lips twisted, which was sort of a bitter smile and sort of still trying not to cry. "But I know how it is for me."
"Would it help if I told you that it'll get better? That someday this won't seem like such a big deal, and your real friends aren't afraid of you?"
"No, because I'm not twelve," she replied, smiling a little for real as she looked at his face, full-on. She'd heard from Kitty, who'd heard from somebody or maybe had just made it up that his eyes were really blue. "And it won't get better, because no matter what, even if they make a better cure and I take it, I'll always be afraid of myself."
"So. What are you going to do?"
Rogue spread her hands, watching a sunbeam turn her gloves red. "Live with it," she said. "Get a glass of lemonade and have a hot dog. Go swimming later, when nobody's here. I don't really have a choice."
Scott shrugged, and stood, and brushed off his jeans before offering a hand to pull her up. "Sounds to me like you've already made one."
"Living with it's not much of a choice."
"It is if you've had to make it," he said quietly, as the two of them stood in their blue jeans, taking it all in.