That was three years ago. When we sat on the side of the road and watched the sunrise. I would like to tell you we both got some big epiphany when first rays hit us. No. No realizations, no wows about eternal love. Come on! I felt like a ton of bricks would have fallen on me, and I don’t think kid felt any better.
I was literally falling to pieces. It was like Phoenix was tearing my mind a part from beyond the grave I put her in. Marie made it stop. Made me wake up. It was one of those nights we sat in the kitchen. We both had our little vices, and indulging to them was easier during the night. I’m not sure at what point exactly it turned from comfort to a habit. Every Wednesday night I would slug in some beer, and she would devour a carton of some god-awful goop of chocolate and cookie dough with some ice cream in the mix. Truth to be told I was starting to get worried about her teeth. That kind of amount of sugar can’t be healthy…
Anyway. There we were. Like every Wednesday. She was unbelievable jittery and skittish. Uncomfortable. Looking like there were hundreds of places where she would much rather be. And her ice cream was all wrong. No sugary goop, just plain vanilla. She fucking never ever ate vanilla after that night when I took her out.
There she sat, twirling her spoon in a half melted carton, eyes darting between it and the clock on the wall. And I started to have a feeling she was about to say something I don’t like. Like when she told me couple of weeks ago that she had started dating again. I didn’t like it, but in my opinion I hid that little pang of jealousy well enough. I wasn’t jealous about her. I was jealous that she had finally gotten over Bobby. And scared that our tradition would end. What kind of a man would let his girl spent her nights with another man? I sure as hell wouldn’t. She hadn’t told me who it was, and now I started to have a feeling she was going to say those words I had been expecting and fearing these weeks.
“Shit. This is all wrong…” She hissed, threw her spoon to the sink and stuffed her ice cream back to freezer. I nearly cracked the bottle I was holding, and she must have noticed it, because she came quickly back to the table.
“I know this isn’t the best possible time to tell you this…” She said and pried my fingers off from around that bottle, taking a pull from it. Now I started to get real worried. She doesn’t even like beer.
“I’m moving. I bought myself an apartment from the city.”
Not the words I had been expecting. Not even close. And somehow those words sounded even worse than those I had feared. She was really moving on. I snatched the bottle away from her and emptied it.
“That’s nice,” I managed to croak. What kind of a fucking friend does that? All I could think of was, that after she moved there would no more be nights with her in this kitchen. I wasn’t thinking about how much easier life would probably be out there, without every little corner and every person reminding her about what had once been. That’s nice? Fuck. Shows how selfish I can be.
“Yeah. Remy and me... We didn’t work out. I’m not like him. I’m not like any of you guys anymore. I’m a liability. Someone who needs constant protection on missions. No nifty mutation to use anymore. It’s best that I go.” Liability? Was that really how she saw herself?
“Have you talked about this with Ororo?” She was after all the headmaster now. And Marie had few months school left before graduation.
“Yeah. We agreed I would stay long enough to finish my school, and move after that. Gives me time to furnish my place in peace…” For that I had nothing to say, and we just sat there, her fingers brushing mine.
“I didn’t want to tell you this now… Not today. But I don’t think it would have made any difference if I waited.” Today? I started thinking what was so fucking special about today. Not anybody’s birthday as far as I could tell. Suddenly it hit me. Year ago today I had been standing in the eye of a storm, claws buried to knuckle inside of Jean. I hadn’t even thought about it in weeks anymore. My life had been focused around school and Wednesday nights. And now it looked like school was all I had left. She was as good as gone already. Couple months and she would start new life away from us muties. Just an ordinary girl among ordinary people. I forced myself to smile and squeeze her fingers briefly.
“I’m happy for you.” Then I couldn’t take it anymore.
I took off. Stood up, left her there, sitting at that table and walked out. At first I didn’t have a clue about where I would go, but my legs carried me to garage. Waited there for a while, sneaked back to kitchen and luckily she had left. Took that carton of ice cream she hadn’t finished, stuffed it to the saddleback of Scott’s bike with a spoon and drove to that rock we had been sitting on nearly a year ago. Finished that carton, got nearly sick over it. Apparently ice cream and beer don’t mix so well. Waited until the sun had risen and drove back home.
She had been in my room. I could still smell her scent. Brief visit, but long enough to leave a hint of vanilla and peppermint floating in the air. There was a small slip of paper on my desk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Friends?” And suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Like somebody replaced my windpipe with a straw. I fell to my knees and that paper floated to the floor in front of me. Friends? Fucking-a-yes! I wanted to go to her. Just walk in to her room, wake her up and tell her yes. Yeah. We were friends. Didn’t do it. Would have been too corny. Like from those cheesy harlequins… What? I do read. Sometimes even those trashy harlequins if I can’t get my hands on to something better. How else you could explain my luck with the ladies? They’re not all after the bad boy, you know…
No. I didn’t go to her. Had to wait until the next Wednesday. She had already finished all my classes, and was kind of avoiding me. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye while walking to my room, or she would be sitting in the garden with her friends when I went to have a smoke. I let her be. It was quite apparent she didn’t want to talk with me.
Next Wednesday came. It was a busy day. Couple of the teachers Ororo had hired a year ago decided that they had gotten enough. Had to juggle between math, English lit and self-defense, all at once. At the end of the day I was dog-tired. Ready to find a big rock, crawl under it and die. Some of the older students had been helping us, but if you ask my opinion, they had only managed to add chaos on top of otherwise awful day. I would have probably gutted half of the kids if Ororo wouldn’t have taken over my combat class.
I was just going to grab myself couple of beers and go to my room. That plan went to hell when she stumbled in, all wrapped up to her old cloak, carrying a duffel bag and bawling her eyes out. I knew she had been at her apartment; she had taken a day off so she could get some work done in there.
“What’s the matter?” Now I’m not cuddly, huggable type, but something makes me want to hug her at any given opportunity. So I went to her and tried to give her a good, comforting squeeze. She nearly bolted back out.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” That kind of hurt. I pulled back. Couldn’t smell any injuries on her, but she was absolutely terrified. I could tell she had been crying quite some time already.
“What is it? Has something happened?” She threw the duffel to the corner, walked to the freezer and pulled out a carton of ice cream. Laid it on the table. Dug up a small mountain of chocolate bars from her pocket. Placed them next to ice cream. Then she turned and brought out the big guns, putting a kettle of water to boil for a cup of tea.
“It wasn’t permanent. Found out today.”
Uhh… Okey-dokey. What wasn’t permanent? I took my beer and sat opposite her. She was still wearing her cloak, but had pushed the hood down.
“Today, exactly three past twelve cure wore off. I nearly killed my neighbor’s cat. And according to my neighbors not to be I’m not welcome to that building again.” I wanted to laugh and dance with her. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to kiss her.
“So… Does that mean you won’t be moving out anytime soon?” I asked instead. And God, did I hope I didn’t sound too pleased.
“I guess I will be staying. Have to sell that apartment. It’s quite popular building, so there shouldn’t be any problems to get rid of it… Fuck.” She stuffed generous spoonful of ice cream to her mouth and started unwrapping a chocolate bar. I couldn’t help wondering her metabolism. She ate like that all the time. How the fuck did she kept her figure so fucking sexy?
“Good.” And I really wasn’t going to say that out loud. But I said it. And she looked like she was preparing to stab me with that chocolate bar.
“My whole fucking life went just down the drain, and that’s good?”
“You may not need this anymore, but I do. I need these Wednesdays. And somehow I got the feeling we wouldn’t be having Wednesdays anymore once you moved out. So, yeah. This is good for me.” She didn’t stab me. No death by chocolate. Instead she collected her ice cream and candy, stood up and walked out. After couple of minutes I heard the door of her room opening, then closing.
“I need you.” Three little words that I should have said while she was still here with me.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000