[for Bobby] Break up, and break down.

[prodigalflame]

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.

Comments

[cold_blueeyes]

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.

[prodigalflame]

That fury, that...rejection dragged something out of John, something ugly and bitter. "Why the fuck would I be jealous of you? You're a fucking mess," he snapped. "You run away from everything, from everyone, from your life,from the X-Men, from me. Don't think I haven't heard what happened with Rogue. That was happening to us, sweetheart, and you weren't doing shit because you don't like to deal with anything. And now you're running again. Good for you."

John wound his arms tight around his chest, rocking a bit back and forth on his heels. He wasn't sure if he wanted to fight or to fall apart, and there was too much for him to feel to be easily contained. He was gonna cry. He was gonna fucking cry. God, he was fucking crying.

"When you feel better - and you will feel better, someday," it was something of a prophecy and a threat, John blinking away tears as he spoke. "You can call me. Because there will never, ever, ever be anyone else for me. And that's the shit I have to deal with." He held onto Bobby's gaze for a few moments before it was too much and he stared down at the carpet.

[cold_blueeyes]

"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."

[prodigalflame]

John snorted at the old nickname. He'd chosen it for himself in spite, adopted it in scorn, and dropped it out of guilt. But it was enough to bring him out of his reverie, reduced to wiping the tears from his cheeks and feeling things like some kind of dork.

His life in a wreck around him, John stuck his jaw out and crossed to the balustrade to loom over and gaze down at the departing figure with growing contempt. This was why a part of him had always loathed Bobby, why they'd always been different. John fought for things because he gave a crap: Bobby only fought if backed into a corner, and most of the time he fled.

"...Oh, that's rich, coming from the guy who got off on my hair, Iceman." John had done the bleach job to make him happy, he'd compromised and changed and tempered himself, all to get along with the guy, to take his place in a world that he hated and who hated him in turn, and there was Bobby, running off again. "Yeah, you're just fine, no damage here."

Pausing, he hollered as he came down the stairs, determined to let this be his last word even as he all but chased Bobby out the door: "Your Mom will set you up with the nicest girl. You'll have a perfect life. Enjoy the lack of actual feelings, and go fuck yourself, Frosty."