Pyro (controlledburn) wrote in the_next_step, @ 2009-05-24 22:24:00 |
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Current mood: | angry |
Leaving
Who: John & Bobby.
What: Bobby catches John redhanded
When: Afternoon/Early Evening
Rating: PG
Status: Complete & Closed
John had been serious when he'd talked to the Cajun, about leaving and getting out of this place. The more he spoke to people the more real his conviction became, finally overcoming the fear of the unknown by emptying his drawers of what meagre possessions he had and filling a tatty old rucksack (the same one he'd had the day his parents had offloaded him on the school) with them.
Fuck it, he'd figure something out.
He blew out a breath as he shoved a couple more t-shirts into the bag before doing the same with the scarce amount of money he did have, it wasn'talot, but better some money than no money.
Kids had run away before, he wouldn't be the first.
John pulled on a warmer top and shoved his lighter into his pocket before he turned on his heel and went through a couple more drawers as he wanted to be made sure he had everything that belonged to him.
It was hard rummaging with wounded fingers, but that didn't stop John from doing his damndest, slinging whatever he hadn't picked up into the rucksack. It had fitted everything before and it would again.
Bobby had been let out of the med-lab, finally, and despite Scott having asked him to wait, Bobby hurried up on his own, limp heavy in his walk but not as bad as it had been, cast itching like crazy. He headed straight up to the room he shared with John because damn if he was going to let someone else help him any more.
He'd done all that, let them fuss over him until they were all sure that he was alright and Bobby really wasn't in the mood to let them do it even more now that he was actually medically declared as fine and not just saying it himself. Whatever effect the collar had had was completely gone and the only thing left of that time were the memories and the bruises, both of which - Bobby hoped - would fade. Eventually. With time, and maybe counseling, but right now Bobby didn't want to go down that route either.
He would deal with it himself as much as he could do. As nice as the new councilor must be, Bobby knew she wouldn't be Xavier and he'd found it hard enough going through his own personal trauma with the man that could read his mind, let alone anyone else.
When he pushed the door to their room open and saw John with a bag on the bed, a sense of cold panic and dread landed in his stomach. He pushed the door shut behind himself and the temperature in the room dropped.
"What're you doing?" he asked, not sharply, more as if it was an actual question. John wasn't packing his bags (well, bag). Bobby's eyes were deceiving him. They had to be.
Fuck.
John looked up, but only briefly. Relieved that Bobby was on his feet and apparently not about to die anymore, but also annoyed because he'd planned to do this without anybody knowing about it. Wasn't that the point of running away?
"What does it look like I'm doing?" He asked, question for a question. He picked up a couple other things, shoving them into the bag. John didn't think he had that much stuff left to pack, he didn't have a lot of stuff after all.
"It looks like you're packing," Bobby said quietly, glancing back at the door before he moved closer, footsteps shuffling a little. His leg hurt. Hank had said it might take a little longer to heal just because he was using it all the time. There was little point trying to confine a lively soul like Bobby to a bed. "It looks like you're packing to leave."
He shook his head, a note of panic having crept into his voice. "But that can't be right 'cause you- You can't leave, Johnny." He looked at his best friend, eyes wide and vulnerable. "Not now, I mean- not- It-" He sat down on his own bed, scratching at the skin just above his cast.
"Got it in one, Bobby." John shoved a couple more things into the rucksack and then closed the main compartment, meaning he didn't have a whole lot more to pack. "You know as well as I do I've been putting this off for years."
He only paused in his packing when he detected the note of panic in Bobby's voice. "And why not? I figure I leave now, everybody's happy."
"Well, what's putting it off another six months? Or another year?" Bobby asked, unashamedly looking and sounding panicked. The idea of John leaving now of all times? Hell, even the idea of John leaving was one that had terrified Bobby over the years. Especially as they became closer and closer friends.
He shook his head and frowned, "How would everybody be happy if you left? They'd be devastated! I'd be devastated.""
John bit out a sharp laugh at the idea of anybody being devastated that he'd left. "No, they wouldn't, they'd be glad 'cause I'm not here to rain on their parade." He tightened his hands around the straps of his bags and clenched his jaw, hating how Bobby's expressions and voice were beginning to have an effect.
"Bobby," he said with a shake of his head. "You'd get a new room-mate, maybe somebody who actually likes your emo-tastic music and bad jokes."
Sometimes it was a really good thing that Bobby couldn't control his emotions around John. He shook his head, "That's not true, John, they care about you. Jubilee came down to tell me how worried she was about you 'cause you guys had had another fight or something like that... but it- she- she cares. What about the staff? Scott cares. He said so. And Mr Grant, he cares. He really likes you." He paused, softer, sadder, "And what about me? I-"
He swallowed, not ducking his head. His eyes were swimming with emotions. So many he couldn't put a word to any of them. "I don't want a new room-mate, John. I want you. No oneelse'd put up with my randomly freezing the walls at night, or wake me up from a nightmare or-" He looked at the bag, twisting the fingers of his non-broken arm in his shirt, taking in a slow breath trying to control himself but not doing very well.
John looked away as Bobby threw all these words at him and he hated them, hated that words stood for absolutely nothing in the face of his fears, his insecurities and his own self loathing, which was deeper and darker than anybody could ever imagine. Maybe his past didn't explain everything away, but it's effect on him: the mental and emotional damage, that did, it clung to him and weighed him down.
"Trust me you'll be better off with me gone." And he truly believed that, his head was that twisted up that he truly believed that this place and Bobby would be better off without him.
Bobby was on his feet again. "No I wouldn't." he said seriously, frustration welling up inside him and he kicked the foot of the bed hard enough to send a shock through him. Then he could pretend the tears in his eyes were from that rather than from the fear at the thought of John leaving him. Because that was what it felt like.
John wasn't leaving the mansion. John was leaving him. And that? That Bobby didn't know how to cope with.
"Look at me, John," Bobby said, his voice shaking and eyes a little too overbright. "Please look at me?"
John really didn't want to look at Bobby, he really didn't. He busied his hands with the strap of the bag then clenched his jaw, finally lifting his eyes to look at Bobby. John ignored the way his stomach twisted at the sight of the other boy's visible emotion.
He itched to do something and look away.
"Does this look like someone who'd be better off with you gone? This is just the thought of you leaving and I-" Bobby's voice cracked, but he didn't look away. He was going to blame the painkillers he'd been put on for the fact that he was so emotional, and that he'd just kicked the bed and it hurt and that John was leaving him. In that order. Totally.
He shook his head, "I know you never believe me when I ask you this stuff, to try and get it through that thick skull of yours, so I'm not gonna bother making a question of it. You might not think it, but you're important. You're important toJubes , to Ethan, hell even to Scott and Logan. But most of all, you're important to me. You're my best friend, John, I can't just let you walk out of here and away from me. I- I can't do it."
He swallowed, that tremor back in his voice, eyes shinier than ever. "You can't leave, John, 'cause I need you."
It was a massive admission and a massive weakness - as far as John would have been concerned - for Bobby to admit that. But it was the truth. He needed John. "And not, before you even think it, to make me look like the good guy."
John's hands flexed restlessly around the straps of the bag, as if his mind was desperately trying to tell his body that he needed to move, right now.
"You need me?" He repeated. "I find that hard to believe, Bobby. I'm a fucking asshole and everybody here loves the ground you walk on so why the fuck would you need me?" John pushed his hand into his hair and looked around for his lighter.
He struggled with the notion that Logan gave two shits about him, the man hated him.
"You are an asshole, that's true enough," Bobby agreed, finally lifting a hand to scrub angrily at his eyes. "But only 'cause you're getting some kick out of everyone hating you. Does it make it easier?" He asked, "Being mean to everyone so they don't like you?"
He tipped his head, "Newsflash, they like you anyway. You frustrate the hell out of them, but your 'I'm an asshole' routine got lost somewhere along the way. Besides, I'm still here,Jubes is still here. Hell, from what I heard you picked up couple of kids that are idolising you and stalking the corridors with a patented John swagger." He tensed. "You heard me, I need you. Believe it or not it's up to you, but it's the truth."
It was accompanied with an unapologetic shrug, but it was clear in his eyes how vulnerable Bobby felt. It was that moment when the butterfly landed in your palm and you could choose to crush it or just hold it carefully.
John's eyes narrowed and for a moment they darkened with an unreadable emotion, an emotion that Bobby had probably never seen directed at him before. "You done telling me what a dick I am? It's always great to hear, but I think I'll skip it this time around." He'd heard it enough the past couple of days. He got a kick out of everybody hating him? Oh, yeah, totally, he loved being the focal point ofeverybody's hatred. It was tons of fun!
He had no idea what to do or say right now, given the amount of emotion Bobby was throwing at him and the look in his eyes. Part of him just wanted to put an end to all of this, say everything he didn't really feel and destroy Bobby, take him apart with very little remorse, he knew he was more than capable. Another part kept him from saying anything, kept his jaw tight, holding back his venom because he knew that it would be the end of the one true friendship he'd ever had and then he'd be completely alone.
Then he'd just be the asshole with no friends.
Bobby swallowed, taking the long silence as a good thing, that maybe his words were sinking in. It was entirely possible that John was just ignoring him, making mental notes of how much of a sentimental idiot Bobby was to throw it back at him at a later date, but Bobby was hoping for the best. He was good at that.
The silence stretched between them for a moment longer before he moved closer, not quite crowding John's space. He wet his lower lip and he felt a moment of electricity - not entirely sure why but it was there and it took his breath away.
"I'd be dead if it wasn't for you," he finally said softly, reaching up with one hand to touch John's chest, just lightly, hand resting over his friend's heart. "Theywoulda- if you hadn't- I owe you my life, John." He met John's eyes again, sincere and honest, that trust and affection clear.
John may have backed up a little when Bobby got too close, he had issues about people being in his space and getting too close. "What are-" He asked, suspicion in his voice, entire body readying to jerk away at whatever movement Bobby made next.
He tensed immediately when Bobby's hand touched his chest and he continued to regard the other teenager warily, still not trusting this situation completely. "You don't owe me anything," he said with a shake of his head. "I did what anybody else would've done." That was all, there as nothing more to it than that.
"Besides Hank was the one who nursed you back to health."
"Not true," Bobby said, feeling that stab of anger at John's family - or whoever he had lived with before he came to the mansion - for the way that John reacted to being touched, to the way he always reacted to it, even if it was just Bobby. Bobby who never in a million years would do anything to hurt John.
Not willingly or knowingly, anyway. "I remember the guards taking you when it was my turn 'cause you pissed them off, just so they didn't get to me." he said, chewing his lower lip, fingers flexing absently against John's chest. "You lent me yourhoodie and you took care of me when I was-" dying "-sick." He shook his head. "You're- How's that for not needing you. If you'd not been there, I wouldn't be standing here now."
He gave a small smile. "I owe you my life, John. I just- there's no way to repay that. And I know even after all this time you still don't trust me, not fully, but that's okay because I know that somewhere underneath all your- whatever, you do kinda care about me, just as a friend or whatever but I know that," sometimes, anyway, like right now, John hadn't punched him or burned him or used his vast knowledge of Bobby's innermost workings against him, "and I just-" He looked up again. There was another moment, at least on Bobby's side, where all he wanted to do was get closer to John and never move away.
He breathed through it. "Please don't leave." The 'me' was unspoken, but it hung clearly in the air between them.
John's jaw flexed at the mention of that place and all the things that had happened. He forced himself to look away, focusing his gaze on something far more neutral and ineffectual, the scarred flesh on the inside of one palm became his main focus.
"You don't know that," he muttered quietly, shaking the thoughts off a second later. His back straightened and even though his hands hadn't lifted the bag they certainly hadn't let go of it either. Clearly he was torn.
He'd had this all planned out, he'd pack and leave, never look back and forget about this place. Bobby had ruined it. "I can't-" His brow knitted together and there was a moment of crystal clear frustration before John simply expelled a breath, lifting his hands off the bag and stalking over to Bobby.
He gripped the other boy's shirt and all but slammed him into the nearby wall. The moment was intense, John's gaze was dark and his breathing was that angry sort of breathing that came out short and quick. "You're just lucky I actually give a shit about you." And just like that he was out of Bobby's space and out of the room, the door shaking on its hinges from having been shut so violently.
Bobby had flinched a little when he hit the wall but he just lifted his chin to meet John's eyes, seeing the anger but feeling nothing but bone-melting relief at the fact that John had just agreed to stay. He hadn't said as much, but he had agreed to stay, Bobby knew it.
The door slammed shut and Bobby sank onto the bed and he ran his fingers through his hair, ignoring the way that the adrenaline was making his hands shake.Goddamnit. He wet his lower lip and just swallowed, brushing his hands over his face and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.
No doubt, some poor, helpless student was going to get their head snapped off by accidentally crossing John.
But out of all of that? John had admitted something that would keep Bobby on cloud nine and feeling better after every argument: John gave a shit about him. And that was something to hold onto.