prodigalflame: (Default)
'John'. Just 'John.' ([personal profile] prodigalflame) wrote2016-08-13 07:51 pm

[for Bobby] Break up, and break down.

These days, the evening meal was quiet in the Allerdrake household. There were the usual, half-hearted attempts at conversation, a cursory 'how was your day?', while John poked at his food and pretended to not notice what Bobby was eating. Or pretended not to hear about what a great workout he'd had at gym.

The evenings were like that too, more than most, and the days stretched, filled in by uncomfortable silences that even John didn't want to interrupt. When they had sex, or cuddled, or brought a sudden, impulsive smile to each other's lips, it felt good, so shockingly good and rare and true that for John at least it threw the other, dreary-dull-polite times into stark contrast.

While John had never, could never, would never do the crazy vegan thing, he wasn't doing a lot of frying or roasting. Instead, he was making a lot of salads: mostly with grilled haloumi, or chicken tossed through, or couscous and roasted vegetables, stuff like that. It was the closest he could come to a compromise. And salads seemed to suit the summer.

Besides, Bobby was judging him well enough, for not being ridiculous in his culinary habits, so John sat at the table in muted silence and speared a cube of cooked haloumi with his fork.

Some nights he could across at the living room and almost pretend he was alone at the table, alone in the house.
cold_blueeyes: (Default)

[personal profile] cold_blueeyes 2016-08-14 08:53 am (UTC)(link)
Bobby, for his part, did his best to convince himself and John both of how happy he was with the new lifestyle he was living. It hurt that John didn't seem to understand, or even want to, it felt like a rejection of sorts. And when Bobby was hurt, he did what he did best: plastered on a smile and buried the hurt down deep. And kept trying to make John understand why this was so important to him, why he hated that John didn't want to follow him into this better, healthier lifestyle. Which only seemed to widen the chasm between them these days.

His salad contained no haloumi, of course. Just greens, lots of dark, leafy greens, some raw nuts for protein, a light vinaigrette that was more vinegar than oil, and some freshly cracked black pepper. He'd been starving, so he'd made a huge bowl of it, but even halfway through it he started to feel like a pig with so much food in front of him. Maybe he would put the rest away for lunch tomorrow, although salad was never as good the next day, wilted and lacking that wonderful, green crispness.

He set his fork down and looked at John for a long moment, trying to figure out what was happening between them, why doing something so good for him seemed to be an affront to John, fracturing their relationship that had been fairly good up until the start of this year. Then he sighed softly and gave up, at a loss for how to fix things (other than going back to his old eating habits, a thought that made him physically ill enough that he had to swallow a few times to keep what he had managed to eat down.

With a scrape of chair legs, he rose, picking up his remaining food to dump it into a storage container. "I think I'm going to do a cleanse," he announced, hoping that even though his heart hurt, if he could get feeling physically better at least, maybe he could keep going on like this. A juice cleanse for a few days usually left him feeling energized and in mastery of his own body, although the last one or two hadn't been quite as effective as before. Maybe this time he'd do it for longer: a week, maybe.
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[personal profile] cold_blueeyes 2016-08-14 09:14 am (UTC)(link)
Bobby turned on his way to the kitchen, frowning. "...Can't do what?" he asked, confused. It wasn't like he'd asked John to do the cleanse with him. He'd given up on that mission months ago.
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[personal profile] cold_blueeyes 2016-08-14 09:23 am (UTC)(link)
Bobby just stared at him for a long moment, trying to process the words. "You're--what? Are you kidding me?" This couldn't be happening. Yeah, they were going through a rough patch, but...so John was just gonna give up? After everything they'd gone through to get to here? After everything he'd forgiven John for, moved past, found peace with--now John was dumping him? "Why?"
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[personal profile] cold_blueeyes 2016-08-14 09:49 am (UTC)(link)
Bobby knew John was wrong. He didn't know why he insisted on blaming all of their problems on Bobby's new diet, new lifestyle, but clearly that was the plan, and it pissed him off. It was healthy, that was the whole point of it, and if Bobby had pushed himself too hard at the gym a few times and not remembered to make up for the extra burn with a protein shake, and had subsequently had a little trouble in the bedroom (half the time was an exaggeration), so what? He was still figuring things out, still working to find the balance. He wasn't perfect, he was gonna get it wrong sometimes.

(And the fact that his powers already had taken a little more effort from time to time was none of his damn business, especially not now.)

He'd sat when John had said the words, but now he was back on his feet, face flushed with anger because it was easier than the soul-deep hurt that lay below it. "You know what? Fine. I'll get out of your way so you can be happy," he snapped before his throat closed up, the end of the sentence rough and strained with emotion.

He wanted to shove it all away, box it up and ignore it, calmly go upstairs and pack a bag and figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do now, but he didn't dare let the scorching anger go, didn't trust that when it went he'd find the calm he wanted. And he sure as fuck didn't want to break down in front of his--well, ex-fiance now, apparently.

As that last thought seared through his mind, he scooped up the bowl of salad from the table and threw it at the opposite wall, bowl shattering and spraying wet greens across the wall's surface. Then he turned on his heel and pounded up the stairs to start throwing whatever he could grab of his into a bag. If John wanted him gone, then fine. He'd get gone. He'd go to Hex's, see if he could crash on his couch for tonight, and...and figure out tomorrow tomorrow.
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[personal profile] cold_blueeyes 2016-08-14 10:07 am (UTC)(link)
So now he was sick? Bobby's hands shook with renewed fury as he half-blindly emptied his clothes from the dresser. "Bullshit," he spat, not even looking at him. "There's nothing wrong with me. I don't know what your problem is." He turned to the closet, grabbing a few things from there. He'd have John ship the rest of his stuff to...wherever he ended up, or something.

"I don't know if you're jealous, or if you just don't like what I'm doing, like, if you're offended by it, or--fuck, I don't know. I've been trying to figure the answer to that out for months." He looked up, his gaze now as icy as if he'd used his power to freeze it. "But don't blame me because you can't deal with your shit." He couldn't entirely get the zipper on the duffel bag to clothes as it was fairly full, but he tugged it far enough that things weren't going to spill everywhere and shrugged it onto his shoulder.
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[personal profile] cold_blueeyes 2016-08-15 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm not running away, you're kicking me out!" Bobby yelled. And how dare he bring up Rogue?

And then there were tears on John's cheeks, which only made him angrier, because he didn't want to see John hurting right now, it made his own pain threaten to crack open and spill over. He clung to John's words, words that once again suggested there was something wrong with him just because he wasn't the same old boring Bobby anymore. It was enough to keep the anger stoked, keep the pain at bay.

"Don't hold your breath," he growled, pausing to wrench the ring from his finger and slam it to the top of the dresser before shoving past John to head down the stairs. "Have a nice life, Pyro."