Who: John & Gambit.
What: Avoiding Bobby, a drunk John crashes in Gambit's room.
When: Late night through to the next morning
Rating: Nc-17
Status: Complete & Closed
Warnings: Uh, adult content in the form of sexuality. And it's long (8555 words).


John was drunk.

He had swallowed three quarters of the bar's alcohol after all, varying his tastes from the lighter easier to handle alcoholic beverages to the stronger more intense ones, the sort of alcohol that knocked you on your ass.

It was a miracle he was still upright.

Yay for having a high tolerance to alcohol, something he'd either inherited from his father or it was another quirk of having the power that he did, John didn't care. How he'd managed to slip back into the mansion without waking everybody was... an act of some unknown force, clearly somebody was watching out for him on this particular night.

He stumbled after a moment and slumped against the nearby wall, snorting quietly to himself. Whoops, he'd totally forgotten that there was a step there, his bad. The firestarter tipped his head back and pulled his lower lip into his mouth before he did his best to compose himself, knowing he needed to make it to his room without falling over, again.

John's hair was in slight disarray and his jacket was a little out of sorts given that one side had slipped lower than the other and there might have been blood on his collar, he may or may not have gotten into a fight.

The other guy looked a whole lot worse.

( Not So Quiet )


( The Best Hangover Cure )

Tamsin knew it wasn't the most responsible thing on the planet for her to be getting a student drunk -- and she had a feeling John was going to need it as opposed to just a single drink -- but she'd never done things the easy way or the right way, so like she was really going to start now?

She had left notes and/or voicemails for Kitty, Terry, Julian, and a couple other people, though, so she at least couldn't be accused of not telling people where she'd gone. She didn't have a backup, but she'd have John if anything went wrong. And never mind what people had said about him, she knew there was more to him than just disgruntled badassery. If anything happened, he'd back her up. Of course, then he'd heckle her mercilessly all the way back to the Institute for needing his help in the first place, but hey. That was John for you.

She got there first and took up a spot against the bar, leaning against it as she looked around at the crowd and waited.

Who: Amara and OPEN
What: hanging outside avoiding the craziness inside
When: early afternoon saturday
Rating: TBD
Status: Incomplete

Amara leaned on the back wall outside the institute. She had been one of the people who had stayed behind during the mess of rescue mission and was therefore unscathed and unsure of what she could do. As soon as everyone came rushing in off the jet to the medical ward she was instructed to give them all some room. Amara felt a bit uselsess and wished that there was something she could do that could help them.

Sighing she leaned back against the wall with her lacuna coil cd blaring and began to conjure fire in her hand and then put it out again as quickly as it had come. On, off. On, off. Over and over to pass the time.

Narrative

It was a cold night, but John barely felt it.

He'd slipped out of the window in the shared bedroom with Bobby sometime after his confrontational communication with both Adelaide and Jubilee and found a place to sit. It was suitably dark and he could be left alone, not even wolf-boy would find him out here.

The events of the last week or so weighed heavily on his mind, how Bobby had been slipping away in front of his eyes, and how everybody else had been hurting in one way or another. It wasn't that he didn't care, he was just... afraid of caring, because rejection was inevitable.

( Cut for a lot of mentions of self harming. It's not pretty under here. )

Narrative

John was a trouble-patient, the sort of patient that never did as he was told and refused to sit still and be treated. He'd even point blank refused x-rays even though the only way to determine how bad the cracks in his ribs were was by using an x-ray.

The reason behind his refusal was simple: his bones told his life story and quite frankly he didn't want anyone knowing about that, not even Hank. Not that objection had gotten very far, given that Hank was the doctor and eventually the x-ray had taken place.

Every bone, it didn't matter how big or small, had some sort of break or fracture, badly set and some had clearly never been treated. John had simply avoided eye contact and gruffly excused himself to the bed he'd been stuck in since he'd passed out in the Blackbird. What? He'd made it all the way there, he didn't think passing out right at the end was something to be ashamed of. In fact he thought he'd done super fucking well in comparison to everybody else who sort of... well, he wasn't about to say it, people knew how things had gone down. It had been a fucked up situation.

Blood loss. Cracked ribs. Multiple cuts and bruises. Electric shock. Burns. Puncture marks. Spinal fluid loss. Malnutrition. Fatigue.

( Easily Overlooked )

Who: The X-Men, abductees, NPC!Guards, NPC!Labcoats, Sentinels
What: rescue mission
When: Friday night
Rating: Gonna make this a strong R
Status: Open
Warnings: Rating is for violence, you know that'll happen in spades. It's going up now but don't feel like you need to tag in right away, while the action will only take place in the space of hours this'll be open all week to make sure everyone can get in and get their shit done.

Any questions? Shoot 'em our way.

((this post is extra-long because I tacked Brenna's torture scene on)

~~~~~

There had been no missions since the school had been rebuilt. It was almost unspoken that the X-Men needed to focus solely on their own after a time when so many of them had been lost inexplicably, and Logan had been loathe to break the status quo. Not really his usual state of being but his actions no longer affected just him.

( Read more... )



( Oh, was he begging? )

Who: John, NPC!Guards, NPC!Scientist & Bobby
What: John getting tested and causing problems
When: Morning
Rating: PG-13
Status: Closed
Warnings: Long, 7,555 words.


John had been hauled out of the cell by the scruff of his neck, quite literally.

He'd not gone easy, landing a couple good punches and managing to draw blood. Bobby slept like the dead, barely rousing as his friend created the most noise he could, John tried not to let that worry him as he fought against restraining hands and brutal pulls.

It took the two guards twice the time to get John to the lab than they'd had scheduled, grunting as the slight teenager continue to struggle. They were beginning to think they should have sedated him for this, the punch to his gut had barely slowed him down. The mutant had a scarily high pain threshold, apparently.

John murmured a few curse words as he continued to strain, jerking upwards the moment he was offloaded onto a bed, managing to take a nasty bite out of the nearby guard's ear, smiling a second later through a sheen of red as the man in question hollered in agony.

"Fuckin' mutie!" He snapped, forcing John back down with a hand around his throat. He closed his fingers, wanting to crush every smartass comment into the back of the mutant's throat, suffocate him with his own abusive sentiments.

John clawed at the guard's wrist, gasping and blinking his eyes hurriedly as his head began to spin. It was only when his struggles eased that the guard's grip loosened and a soft chortle could be heard. "Too bad that you gotta breathe just like the rest of us."

"Go... fuck yourself," John managed in a hoarse whisper.

( Mad Scientist )

[Thread OPEN to: Bobby]

After his rapid descent into unconsciousness it was a slow rise for John to regain the clarity that consciousness had to offer, although he could have done without the thudding in both his temples and the back of his skull. It had taken him longer than he felt was necessary to drag his limbs out from the awkward angles they must have fallen into when he'd gotten picked up and dragged to God only knew where. He licked his lower lip and grunted as he placed one palm, square to the ground, and lifted his weight.

Everything felt heavy, slow and uncoordinated.

It was through a swimming gaze that John registered the dank somewhat cramped conditions he found himself in. It didn't take him long to recognise what the bars meant, it was some sort of cell. He hissed in a slow breath as he finally pushed himself to his knees, panting slightly as that entire movement had taken way too much effort.

John turned his head and briefly looked around the cell, frowning as his eyes settled on a familiar figure still unconscious on the ground. "Bobby?" He said before crawling over, turning the other boy over, reassured that he seemed to be breathing, only to stop dead in his tracks when he noticed what was around Bobby's neck.

Huh?

It was then that John noticed an unfamiliar weight around his neck and he lifted callused fingertips to it, brow instantly furrowing as his skin met with cold metal, wrapped around his entire neck and pressed a little too tightly. "What the fuck..." he muttered before an onset of panic distracted him from wondering what the collar was for; something was missing. His hands sought his pockets for his lighter. It had to be here somewhere, he'd had it with him when he'd passed out, it had to be somewhere.

It took several minutes for the realisation that he didn't have his lighter to sink in and for a moment he was almost defeated, not that it lasted long as John's emotions boiled over quicker than a pan of water stuck on highest flame possible and a familiar surge of anger had the boy on his feet. He crossed the distance to where the door was and slammed his palm against it hard enough for the entire door to shake on its hinges.

"Hey!" He hollered. "Let us out of here, you assholes!" John kept hitting the door and even going so far as to slam his foot into it, not even flinching when he struck hard enough for bruises to form. "Hey! You can't keep us in here!" He growled deep in the back of his throat, continuing the assault on the door until he got some sort of attention whether it be bad or good.

Brenna had always had a thing for history, she was a bit of a nerd in that respect, so a trip to the history museum actually sounded like it might be fun. Granted, she'd have to keep an eye on some of the kids, but that was okay. And she actually enjoyed it when they asked questions and she found she could answer them; maybe there was something to this teaching thing after all? She'd never really been interested in that or kids before but a lot of things had changed since she'd come to Xavier's Institute.

The place was almost echoingly empty on a Friday afternoon, there weren't any other school groups exploring but theirs. It was rather nice to basically have the place to themselves.

She ended up taking a group of kids that weren't in Ororo's classes off to view the Egyptian exhibit. “Why did they wrap the bodies up like that?” Sarah asked, all but pressing her nose up against the glass to stare in at the sarcophagus. “And what's with all the weird pictures?”

“They wrapped the bodies to preserve them, the Egyptians believed in an afterlife where they'd need their bodies just like they did in life.” Brenna stepped up alongside the girl. “The pictures are their written language, they're called hieroglyphics. Each picture represents a word or a concept, usually related to the gods in some way; the Egyptians were deeply religious and included that in their every day lives.”

“I heard they stuck hooks up the dead guys' noses to squish up the brain so they could get it out,” Luke said, making a scary face.

Sarah wrinkled up her nose at him. “You're gross, Luke.”

“He's right, though,” Brenna told her. “Either that or they cut a hole in the back of the skull but they much preferred to leave the body otherwise intact. They also removed the internal organs and put them in canopic jars,” she said, pointing to a row of ceramic jars with various tops depicting gods like jackal-headed Anubis.

She looked around to do another swift head-count and immediately noticed two of the children, one being Jubilee, missing. “You guys seen Jubes or Frankie?” The other kids looked at each other and then at her, shrugging. “Go se,” she cursed in Mandarin. “Alright, let's go see if we can't find them.”

It wasn't until she turned as Sarah's hand was forcefully jerked out of hers that she realized something was terribly wrong. Her TK blossomed in her hands, crackling blue energy that was always there below the surface, but she didn't get a chance to use it. A cold metal collar clicked into place around her neck and the TK died along with the whisper of voices that was always shimmering just out of reach.

She felt the sharp prick of a needle and the last thing she saw before she went under was Sarah's pink hair, the little girl draped over the shoulder of a man dressed in black.

~~~~~~~~~

Jubilee had sneaked away with Brenna's group rather than pay attention to the Westward Expansion exhibit. American history had always bored her to tears, especially because she didn't consider it her history; even though thousands of Chinese immigrants had worked on the rail system out west, none of them had been her ancestors and she was much more interested in cool dead bodies.

After exploring the room with the Egyptian exhibit she'd hung around by the door, arms crossed over her chest while she blew bubbles with her gum. A hand tapped on her shoulder and she turned to find no one there. When she looked out into the hallway her eyes went wide but before she had time to shout or make another move she was already slumping down under the influence of some kind of sedative.

((You can either tack your posts onto this or make your own, it doesn't really matter.))

The kids had been waiting long enough, he'd been waiting long enough. Now that things were settled between him and Ororo and Scott, the equilibrium was balanced again and he wasn't ready to kill someone with little-to-no provocation, it was time to get things started.

The halls of the Institute were deathly quiet this early in the morning, everything dark and shadowed in the pre-dawn light just beginning to peek in through the windows. Logan had left Matty curled up in his bed (well, their bed now), grabbed a shower and a quick bite to eat in the kitchen on his way to issue an early-morning wakeup of epic proportions.

The door to the bedroom shared by John and Bobby flew open hard enough that it bounced back off the wall and was caught by Logan's hand before it could peg him in the face. "Rise and shine, ladies," he announced in a voice that was entirely too gleeful for the time of day.

[Thread OPEN to: Bobby & Gambit]

God only knew how many days had past since their "stunt" as the teachers liked to call it and still no punishment in sight. Not that John was worried, let them throw whatever they wanted at him, he wasn't going to apologise for a) having a mind of his own and b) standing up against a bunch of idiots. Not many people did that anymore.

He was currently stood outside of the school with Bobby after their last class of the day, cigarette clasped in one hand and lighter in the other. "Still can't believe Rogue ditched," John muttered around a mouthful of smoke, shaking his head. "Funny time to be sorting out her problems."

John flicked ash to one side and fell silent as he took another long exceedingly damaging drag of the cigarette, filter barely stopping any of the life threatening substances from getting into his lungs.

He was restless, more so than usual, feeling the school getting under his skin more than ever at the moment. It had something to do with being cooped up and another with feeling completely ill at ease, an outsider in what was supposed to be a place for likeminded people.

John exhaled smoke and watched as the tendrils first curled before slipping away into nothingness, swept away by the light breeze.

It started with a whimper. It always did. A whimper and a shiver and tossing and turning. Usually that was the extent of the night and the rest of the night was smooth sailing unless John had a dream that woke Bobby up. Not tonight though.

( No, tonight the temperature dropped. )

John was awaiting execution or as close as it got to the actual event with Storm and Logan's hands on the lever, wondering when the floor would open up underneath him and he'd feel the break as he plummeted or would he be spared that mercy and instead be subjected to suffocating?

*Snap, click, snap, click*

He watched the flame as it danced within the confines of its holder, wondering if he would ever really be able to manufacture them the same way Bobby did with ice or if he'd forever be confined to finding a source.

*Snap, click, snap, click*

It was in the moments alone that John's demons ate at him, the words his father shouted at him echoed in his skull, reminding him of things he'd rather leave forgotten, dead and buried. If only his father was the same way. He breathed through the momentary surge of self hatred and tipped his head back, closing his eyes and willing himself through the familiar dark recesses of his mind.

*Snap, click, snap, click*

He ruffled at his hair and brushed a hand over the bottom of his nose, flinching a little when a sharp pain went shooting up it and instantly rampaged over his right eye and then sunk into his temple. John knew he could be in his room right now, but he wasn't sure he could cope with Bobby's concerned eyes, not wanting to snap at the other boy when he was just worried about him.

*Snap, click, snap, click*

John was sat in one of the quieter corridors, away from prying eyes, curled up on himself with just his trusty lighter for company.

Rachel had found herself needing to let off some steam and some frustration, so she headed out to the levels of the Danger Room that the students were allowed to enter.

The things she had been seeing on the television had her temper near a breaking point and she knew that her losing her temper could be a dangerous thing for all of those around her. (She had taken to heart the things she knew about her mother, after all.)

Making sure that the level was cleared, she pulled up one of the newer programs that Kitty has installed into the computers. When the antagonists appeared, she focused her mind inward for a moment, before she stepped into the programmed setting.

[Thread OPEN to: Bobby & Rogue]

It was a lazy afternoon, a few precious hours of freedom inbetween classes. Both John and Bobby were in the lounge, Bobby on the couch and John sprawled out on the floor as the other chairs were littered with bodies as apparently everybody else had, had the same idea. Not that John minded, the floor was comfortable.

As always John had his trusty lighter and was continually playing with it - flicking it open to display the flame for an all of five seconds before snapping it shut again, only to repeat the process all over again. "So," he drawled, tipping his head back to look at Bobby from beneath a strand of hair. "Can I actually convince your sorry ass to skip class and go to town with me?" It wasn't like they needed to go to their last class of the day, it wasn't that important.

John shifted, curling one of his legs up towards his chest and as a result he opened a tear of denim across his knee. "It's not going to kill you to miss one lesson, Bobby boy. You gotta live a little." His fingers drummed out a beat on his knee whilst his other hand played with that lighter again. "You might even have fun you never know."

"Just one lesson."

You'd think that John would have learnt not to piss off his teacher to the point where they can't do anything but throw detention at him, you'd be wrong.

It's not because he happens to love detention or thinks wasting his weekends is a great way to spend his time, it's just... he can't help himself. Load of crock, right? John figures it's a handy excuse and he can't help it if it's as close to the truth as he's ever going to get. He gets some kind of thrill out of pushing a person's buttons, watching them get all worked up and flustered to the point where all they can do is yell and point the finger.

Maybe it helps him to avoid the touchy feeling lovey-dovey bullshit conversation that they might try to have with him if he hadn't pissed them off as much as he did.

He's got another weekend full of detention to look forward to, from a ridiculous time in the morning to a stupid time in the afternoon. The teachers can't enjoy it, at least he hopes they don't. Clearly he needs to stop thinking about his fate and start focusing on the empty sheet of paper that's been staring him in the face for the last... 6 hours? It's due tomorrow and yet he can't focus worth a damn, Bobby's emotastic-music isn't helping either.

He has on more than one occasion contemplated melting that boy's stereo.

John blows out another frustrated breath and directs his gaze to the blank sheet, scribbling a doodle in the corner that may or may not be a stick figure (that has an unsettling resemblance to the teenager drawing it) hanging himself, maybe he'll get some marks for artistic merit?

God, he hates classwork.