Characters: Rogue and Pyro Location: Brotherhood HQ Timeline: Present -- After John meets up with Gambit Description: Rogue confesses all she's been hiding to Pyro.
After leaving Remy's apartment once he was sure the coast was clear John hadn't bothered going home to change his top and had simply continued onto headquarters.
"Pyro," Magneto greeted as he met the young pyrokinetic at the door. "I trust things went well?"
Aside from getting shot in the arm, not that John voiced that out loud. "Got what you needed and something extra."
Magneto lifted an eyebrow, tipping his head curiously as he watched John, waiting to see what his Brotherhood member had for him.
"Everything you wanted to know about the jailed mutants," John explained as he handed over the USB stick. "And everything Remy has on Mystique." The envelope was handed over a second later.
Magneto took both. "Very good." He offered John a pleased smile. "I'll be in touch so don't go too far." He left John there and John watched him walk away before he headed that much further into base.
Hopefully the medbay had painkillers because he was going to need them before the day was out.
Switching over the new security proved to be a daunting task. In fact it would have taken much longer than previously estimated, if it weren't for the fact that Magneto pushed his return to sooner. But Rogue, with Amara's help, busted it out and the two were able to successfully get the new system in place.
However, there wasn't much else to do since then and Rogue kept mainly to herself. She spent many hours in the gym, sharing the occasional meal with Amara and mostly just retreated into her room. Magneto would call upon her if he needed. She couldn't help but feel sort of useless, but at the same time grateful for some much needed down time.
Amara was out at the moment (it seemed), so it wasn't usual that she was spending her meals at the HQ alone. She was in the kitchen finishing up her dinner. She was about to wash the dishes but she was enjoying a post meal cup of coffee and cigarette.
John located a bottle of painkillers and he headed into the kitchen to get a glass of water to take a couple with. He could probably dry swallow them but he didn't really want to.
His hair was still loose around his features, completely different to how it was normally and all his clothing was wrong. It had been a concentrated effort, to look different from the Pyro the authorities knew him to be.
He noticed Rogue as he came into the kitchen and he greeted her before he rummaged out a glass and began to fill it with water.
She was leaning against the counter, her eyes focused on the accumulating ash at the end of her cigarette when the door swung open. Rogue looked up and almost had to double take at his appearance. It was unusual and it caused her to wonder if it had been that long or if her mind was just playing tricks on her. Her expression seemed to perk thought and she stood away from her perch to allow him access. "Pyro," there was a hint of a smile in her voice that could be detected even though his back was turned to her.
It felt like forever since she had last seen her comrade. The most recent to receive a berating from their faction. She scrubbed a naked hand through the back of her wild hair. "I haven't seen you in forever..." Captain obvious. Her brows furrowed at her astounding conversational skills. "Are you okay?"
John shook out a couple pills into the palm of his hand and he tossed them back to his throat before swallowing a couple mouthfuls of water.
Mmmm, fuck, he hated taking pills. He really did.
"It's been a while," he agreed as he turned on his heel and he reclined back against the nearby counter. "I've been busy." His shirt was darker in the area where the shot had caught him, but it was easy enough to ignore. "How're you?"
Rogue could tell it was a wound he was nursing, but they had known each other long enough that she didn't take it as unusual sight. They had survived being beaten and cut and stabbed and they both knew what the other was capable of walking away from.
Hmm...busy. It was disappointing that he couldn't elaborate. It made her feel closed lipped about her own problems. Especially when he asked her how she was doing, she wanted to open up and just let it all out - everything that was going through her head for the last month. Rogue held her tongue for a moment. "M-me? Yeah, y'know..A-Ah'm okay," she said with a couple nods up and down. It was the subtleties in her expression that told a different story.
John merely lifted an eyebrow and he pushed away from the counter, walking over to grab a seat. "That's a lie and you know it." He offered her a smirk before he rummaged out his cigarettes and he lit one up.
He exhaled smoke after he'd taken a drag and reached out for an ashtray so he didn't drop ash all over the place.
She barely laughed at his frankness. Rogue really appreciated it because she so desperately wanted to tell someone something...anything. And John seemed like the only person in the world right now who would half way understand.
She nodded in agreement that it was indeed a lie. "Ah, um, not good," she said more truthfully. "Ah'm kind of freaked out right now a little bit, John." She waited until he was done lighting his cigarette and she looked at him, her own eyes stormy.
John left his cigarette between his lips as his hands unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and his fingers folded the sleeves up towards his elbows.
He leaned forward again and took the cigarette between two fingers. "Freaked out?" John asked, tipping his head to look at Rogue. "About what?"
n the meantime, Rogue had crossed the kitchen sitting at the table and leaning her back against the wall. She gingerly took the coffee cup that had been sitting their in her hands and just stared into its dark surface. She hazarded a glance upwards. "Ah don't know..." Whatever it was it, the sassy, southern belle was pretty shell-shocked. "With my powers..." She gave a small nod and then searched his face for understanding.
She set the mug down without having sipped it. Rogue stamped out her cigarette and lit another one immediately afterwards. "Something not right is going on," she continued. "And..." she fell quiet and tapped her temple suggesting there was more to it all.
"As much as I like to think I know what goes on in people's heads, Rogue. I'm not a telepath, I can't read your mind." John flicked the filter end of the cigarette and ash scattered loosely across the bottom of the ashtray. "Spit it out, whatever it is you're trying to say."
He reached up and scratched at his shoulder, even though he knew that he shouldn't. Remy had said as much, but since when did he listen to what anybody said?
"What's going on with your powers aside from the obvious ability you have to fly now?" He lifted his head and looked at her through long strands of blond hair.
She took a deep breath in, he was right. Rogue needed to just get it out there. "Ah'm forgettin' stuff, John. All kinds of things..Amara was tellin' me things that Ah don't remember from Genosha...and Ah dont remember all sorts of things that happened before that. An' my powers...I killed Ms. Marvel," she said just like that. "Ah uh..." her brows furrowed together, "With my hands..and it wasnt hard." She took a long drag on her cigarette letting the smoke fill and burn her chest before releasing it. "And now, she's in my head...all of her. Ah'm fuckin' crackin' up, John."
John listened, smoking his cigarette down to the filter before stubbing it out. He reached for another as smoke escaped the corners of his mouth.
The revelation about Ms. Marvel didn't seem to cause a reaction. Killing wasn't an alien concept, not to John. He'd killed plenty. "Killing's not as hard as everybody makes it out to be." He shrugged. He should have been disturbed by how easy it was for him to kill people, to just switch off a part of himself and let the fire consume and destroy.
"So... you got Ms. Marvel's after you killed her," he muttered as he worked through what Rogue was telling him. "And did you start forgetting things before or after it happened?"
John was a killer, he had it in him. Rogue...not so much. She wasn't above cutting, shooting or maiming however. But this was different.... "Yeah, Ah know that...but how'd you feel if after everytime y'hurt someone they took up residence in yer head? An' Ah got Ms. Marvel bad...she's in there...she's alive." She drummed her fingers over her skull.
Rogue snorted at his question and gave him a look. "Y'know Ah'd tell ya if Ah remembered." Her smirk faded though and took his inquiry seriously. "Ah think Ah always had a hard time, but Ah think its gettin' bad...ah mean recently." John took a drag from the cigarette and reached up to scrub at his hair, beginning to contemplate cutting it again.
"So, she's in your head?" He asked, lifting his eyes to look at her. "You think maybe that's the problem?" John gestured to Rogue's head. "She could be one of the reasons you're forgetting stuff. You know... kinda like having too many people in the same room, gets confusing."
"Uh, y'think?" She said sarcastically. "That's exactly what Ah think is happening..an' its freakin' me out. And its causin' my powers to go all wrong.. like it'd take me twice as less time t'fully drain someone right now. Ah'm fuckin' scared." Rogue always took care to bundle up in that situation, but not it caused her to completely isolate herself from anyone and everything. "I'm super volatile right now," she concluded. "Ah need t'get her out of my head. Ah got..." she gave a low whistle, "There's a lot going on up there right now.. There's a lot of people."
Volatile, that was something John could relate to: he was a powder keg and could go off at any second.
"Sounds like you need a psychic," John concluded as he took another drag from his cigarette. "You talked to Magneto? He could probably find you somebody."
If Rogue couldn't keep the separate personalities apart by herself then she needed a helping hand. John had a lot going on his head, more than most people gave him credit for. He had voices, just like Rogue, but his didn't attempt to take him over.
m 3 3 s h 4: Rogue shook her head. "No," she muttered quietly. "Ah haven't talked to Magneto since his meetin' -- how could Ah have? Ah felt like y'all threw me under the bus pretty good with that one," her voice wasn't bitter she was too tired for that. No, it was what it was. "A psychic? Ah don't think Ah'd like that..." her brain was starting to look like Swiss cheese, letting a telepath in there seemed like not a good idea.
Rogue's voices were completely different than the run of the mills psychotic ones. Sure they were all of that, but they belonged to other people -- they were other people. Present company included. "How am Ah suppose to tell Magneto somethin' like that?" She let her head sag forward slightly, tendrils of brown and white shielding her face. Rogue inhaled deeply and relaxed against the wall again, letting her hair fall to the side. "Ah'm just tired John.'
"You ran out on us," John pointed out. "Jumped ship. We didn't know where you were or what the hell was going on. Plus you had an attitude." Then he paused to add quietly, "Also, just for the record I didn't throw you under the bus and Magma was worried about you." Pietro, well, he was just concerned about whether or not Rogue was stable. If there was one thing you could rely on John for it was the blunt honest truth, especially when it came to what he thought.
He withdrew, back to his cigarette. "We're all tired, Rogue." And it was true. He was fucking exhausted, in more ways than one. Not that he'd ever let it show or let his feelings shine through the small cracks that had steadily been building since he'd been a kid. "You gotta talk to somebody, Rogue. Somebody who can do something to help. Talking to me is all well and good but I haven't got the right sorta power to help you. I blow shit up, that isn't going to help you."
John got to his feet and reclined back against the counter near her. "You think you can handle this by yourself?"
"Y'don't thing that has anythin' to do with what's goin' on in my head right now, Johnny?" Rogue was....hurt, especially now that he knew the circumstances about what has been going on with her. "Ah mean...sometimes...Ah just feel like Ah've gone off the deep end. Ah just want to feel whole again." Her mouth lifted up into kind of a small smile at his explanation of his powers. "Ah know you blow shit up...." she tapped her temple, "That Ah remember Ah think." Not to mention that John was one of the errant personalities floating around in the old gray matter.
Her expression was gripped by seriousness at what he asked next. Could she? She wasn't sure. Rogue just shook her head 'no.' "I don't know.." Her shoulder lifted into the tiniest of shrugs. Being by herself was the last thing she needed. She seemed to be okay, when she was talking with someone. Lucid in fact, it was all that time spent alone that was driving her nuts...
"I don't know...Does Magneto need anythin'?" Maybe there was.... a mission she could help with.
"Like I said before, we're not mindreaders." John shook his head. "Don't know what's going on unless we're told."
He took another drag from his cigarette and tipped his head back, exhaling smoke towards the ceiling. "I dunno, you'd have to ask him." John glanced at Rogue. "He's up to something but he hasn't been clear on what."
John lifted a shoulder up into a shrug. "And if you're worried about going off the deep end you ought to consider finding somebody who can help."
"Ah'm tellin' y'know, John," Rogue implored. She needed a friend right now. And what she needed was a hug, but she was obviously not going to ask for either. Not right now at least. A slow breath was inhaled and released and Rogue further relaxed against the wall. "I don't know any telepaths," she admitted. "Well, not ones I trust," she amended, recalling Charles Xavier and Emma Frost. She doubted that turning to them for help would be ideal.
"Hey, John," she said looking over at her comrade. "When did things get so complicated?"
John glanced at Rogue and caught her eyes for a moment before his gaze slipped away and focused somewhere more neutral. He took another drag and let the smoke linger and fester before pushing it back out of his lungs. "It's always been complicated," he assured her with a slanted smile. "Unfortunately."
He supposed that before Rogue had the security of the X-Men and of Bobby, with his enduring love and never-ending patience. She had... buffers before and now she didn't. Whatever, it was making his head hurt just thinking about it.
Rogue caught John's eye with her dark gaze, the request of wanting help on the tip of her tongue. But then he looked elsewhere and she was let off the hook. However, his comment drew a chuckle out of him. "Yeah, Ah guess," she concurred with a roll of her shoulders. "Sometimes Ah wonder what would have happened if Ah stayed in Mississippi...Ah'd probably still end up here, Ah reckon." It was certainly possible, if she hadn't become involved with Wolverine and the X-Men then she it probably would have just accelerated the process of joining up with the Brotherhood - would have saved a lot of heartache and strife, too.
Joining ranks with the Brotherhood also offered solitude. Rogue sought to isolate herself.
John flicked ash aside and turned his head to look at Rogue. "Anything's possible and weirder things have happened."
He reached around for something and his fingers snagged on a plate, using it to stub out the cigarette he'd just smoked to the filter. If somebody didn't get him out in the field then cancer would, this much he was convinced of.
"But if you really think you can't handle this by yourself, talk to Magneto." It made sense. And he was pretty sure Magento had a right to know when members of his Brotherhood weren't a hundred percent.
John was pretty much the go to guy, he spoke to Magneto when others couldn't and did a lot of missions that others wouldn't.
Rogue nodded. Then stopped. "Actually," she looked over and spied at John. "Could you...let him know that Ah want t'talk to him for me?" Her mouth pulled into a bit of a frown. Magneto always terrified her as far as she was concerned. She had A LOT of him inside of her mind and yet..he still spooked her. "Please?"
John tipped his head to catch Rogue's eyes as she asked that question and it was hard to keep amusement at bay. He managed. Somehow. "Yeah, sure. I can do that." Seemed easy enough and it wasn't like he hadn't done it in the past for other people.
Seeing John try and hide his smirk almost made Rogue want to grin. Almost. "Thanks," she said getting up and taking her coffee cup to the sink to pour whatever was left down the drain. "You need rest," she said after a long moment. "You should probably do that..." And I...should probably go back to my room... She came near. She was ready to give him a pat on th shoulder but thought better of it and left.