xp_logs | Jay & Forge

Jay brings pizza to his suitemate during his recovery. Their conversation shortly turns heavy, and they disclose their most guarded secrets about their lives before Xavier's to one another.

Jay shouldn't have been surprised to see Forge "recovering" by tinkering around at his desk. "Aren't'cha supposed ta be in bed after surgery?" he asked as he entered his suitemate's room, holding a box of pizza in one hand. "And abuse one of those big red buttons that calls the nurse?"

Forge glanced up over the top of his glasses to see Jay balancing the pizza. "Hey, pizza..." he croaked, throat still hoarse from his extended sleep and recovery. "Well, I figure if I'm within arm's reach of my bed, it still counts as 'in bed'." He gestured with his good arm at the sling that completely encased his left, holding it to his chest. "It's weird," he admitted. "Like I know it's there, but it feels like a big numb weight."

Jay briefly glanced over his shoulder at his wings, still immobilized, and nodded. He'd started to regain feeling in them about a week ago, but for the most part, they just felt like twenty pounds of feather, muscle, and bones weighing him down. "Surgery was a success and all? Good ta hear. The idea of ya havin' ta get a new arm is kinda freaky."

"I don't think about it that much," Forge admitted, running his hand over the sling. "In a way, it's sort of... more than I had before, I guess. Before? The prosthetic was a replacement for something I'd lost - but it's like giving someone a bicycle after they've lost their car. This..." he mused, "I don't know, in a way I feel more whole. Or I will, once I can actually move and feel it."

"Ya never did tell me how ya lost it in the first place," Jay said, setting the pizza box down on top of a small pile of books on Forge's desk. "Ya don't have ta now iffn ya don't wanna. Ya know Ah ain't one ta push." With a shrug, Jay opened the box, took a slice of the pizza,and sat down on Forge's bed to eat. Forge had been so reluctant to tell Jay the last time they'd brought up the subject, and Jay couldn't figure why. Had he done something so stupid that he was embarrassed to appear foolish in front of Jay?

Forge sat in silence for a few moments, trying to think of how to put it. "Remember when I said I knew what it felt like, being on the outside? Singled out for being different? And I told you that you had a lot more strength than me? Well, you do."

At Jay's questioning look, Forge hung his head. "Even before I knew I was a mutant, before anyone knew, I was the scrawny, tiny, shy brainy kid who everyone loved to pick on. Because I couldn't do anything. Wouldn't even tell anyone about it, because I knew that'd just make it worse. I stayed quiet about it for six years. Through grade school, on into high school, being the butt of jokes, the kid that got pushed around to make everyone else feel better about themselves."

"Then I got tired of it," he said with finality. "Figured my parents wouldn't understand, teachers wouldn't understand, none of my so-called peers wanted to understand - so I'd show them." He took a deep breath, holding it for a while, trying not to let his voice quaver. "I built a bomb, brought it to school. Went off in my locker, and instead of making a big statement to everyone, it only hurt me."

He remained quiet for a moment, just looking down at the carpet beneath his feet. "So there it is," he whispered.

Jay's eyes were fixed on Forge. Nothing until that final admission had stunned him. He'd witnessed bullies picking on the little kids back at school in Kentucky as well. He'd only been spared by the virtue of being a big enough guy that he looked like he could do some damage himself if he was bullied. The fact that he was best friends with the only black kid in school didn't hurt either. Sometimes racist stereotypes had their places, Jay had thought wryly.

But upon mentioning the bomb and Forge's intent to hurt - no, to kill - Jay was floored. The half-eaten slice of pizza literally fell out of his mouth and onto the floor. He stared at Forge, his mouth agape, for a few moments until he realized that Forge was done speaking. Now it was Jay's turn to talk.

"Ah . . . Ah never . . ." he stuttered. He was unable to come up with anything appropriate. "A bomb?" he asked in disbelief. Maybe he'd misheard.

Forge nodded quietly. "I can't say I didn't know what it'd do, because I made it myself." He looked up and met Jay's eyes. "You understand? My power, what I do - I can't try and say I didn't know what it'd do. And I thought it was justified."

He leaned back, sighing deeply. "I don't anymore. And not just because of what happened to me. Because I know I'm not alone - I didn't know that then. I didn't know that there were places like this, people like you guys. People who'd listen, who wouldn't judge, who knew what it was like to be different." He slowly rubbed his prosthetic through the sling, wishing his gut could feel as numb as his arm right now.

"But you don't always get what you need when you think you need it, right? Just means you need to appreciate it when you do get it."

A little voice in the back of Jay's head was yelling at Forge, calling him a murderer (or at least an attempted murderer) who was no better than filth like Tommy, who inflicted pain on people deemed less worthy for whatever reason. The worst part was that Jay nearly found himself agreeing with that voice, and that made him sick. Forge was many things, but a killer wasn't one of them. Couldn't be.

But despite these awful thoughts, Jay kept his eyes fixed on Forge's, unwilling to turn away. This was Forge's moment of weakness, and any sign of discontent or disapproval would ruin things between them irreparably.

"Yeah, Ah understand. It blows mah mind, Ah've gotta admit. Ah never coulda thought that'cha'd be capable of doin' somethin' so . . ." Awful, horrible, criminal, despicable. "So desperate. Ah'm sorry ya had ta go through that."

"If it'd worked," Forge said slowly, "I'd be a mass murderer. But even still - to know that for even a moment, that I had the intent?" He averted his eyes from Jay, staring out the window, "I don't think that anything I went through excuses it. You had it just as bad, and you stayed strong. I dealt with prejudice and hate, so I tried to strike back in kind."

He set his glasses down, rubbing his eyes with his hand. "Looking back, god, it hasn't even been two years. The only thing that lets me sleep at night thinking about it is that I've changed. I know better now. I see people who've had worse shit happen - Mr. Dayspring, Kyle, you - and you don't lose hope. You don't lose faith in yourself. All I wanted," his voice cracked with the admission, "was for someone to listen, someone to notice. Guess in my own way, it sent me here. And I got what I wanted."

In the movies, an admission such as this would have the two characters in each other's arms, kissing one another in between confessions of mutual affection. There were about fifty thousand things wrongs with that scenario in a case such as this, though, in Jay's mind. Not the least of which being the inevitable badness of locking lips with a straight guy.

Jay beat down the desire to reply to Forge in such a way, and permitted his lips to only move to make the sounds needed to utter words. "It's . . . in mah case, ya just learn ta live with it. Maybe because Ah've only had a coupla physical altercations. Ah can deal with people tellin' me shit like that Ah'm a 'selfish hedonist' or a sodomite or whatever. S'just words. But iffn Ah'd been in your shoes, Ah dunno what Ah'd've done.

"But when all is said and done, man, you're still mah friend. One of the best ones Ah've ever had. So Ah'm glad ya found your way here, even if it wasn't the best way."

"So long as you know the same goes for you," Forge replied, before sighing softly. "I know you had that... whatever it was Amanda did for you. Meant a lot to you, and I know whatever it had to do with is a part of why you're here, why you're the way you are - it sucks, I know it does. I wish you never had to go through any of that. I wish Dani hadn't married that son of a bitch Sheldon. I wish Kyle'd never been put in that room and had those guys mess with his head. I wish Catseye knew how to be a human instead of hiding behind the cat all the time. We've all had our broken roads that brought us here," he explained, wiping his eyes. "Can't change that, not until I build a time machine. What matters is that we're here now. We're here. Now."

Jay's hand automatically went to the golden cross necklace he wore, the one that used to be Kev's. "'Don't know where it goes, but it's home to me and I walk alone,'" Jay sang softly, fingering the cross. "Did Ah ever tell you exactly why Ah'm here?" he asked, finally noticing the discarded pizza of the floor and bending over to pick it up and toss it into the garbage.

"Your mom got the 'buy two, get one free' tuition special?" Forge joked. "Kidding. No, I know you don't talk a lot about what it was like back home for you, other than 'bad', so I figured that was pretty much it."

Jay scoffed at the rib and shook his head. "Naw. Ah didn't get mah wings until just after Ah turned sixteen, and 'cuz Ah didn't want ta leave home, Ah kept 'em hidden. From family, at least. The fellas in mah band knew. There was this place we played at, a restaurant called The View, and Ah'd have mah wings out when Ah played. Fooled folk inta thinkin' they were prosthetic. But Ah'm ramblin'. Anyway, there was this waiter who worked there. Kevin Cabot. Ah'd known him for years and was totally in love with 'im. We got together a couple months after mah wings grew."

He smiled fondly as he remembered Kevin. It was a smile that he didn't wear often, if ever. "Our families hated each other. Ah swear, it was somethin' straight outta Shakespeare. Mah mama and his pop were always on each other's cases, so Kev and Ah didn't tell no one 'cept our good friends about us. But his pop eventually found out. They followed us one night." The smile faded immediately, and Jay couldn't help but shiver as he remembered that night in the clearing, made clearer by the flashback he'd had the night Tommy attacked him.

"Called us fags, called me a no good mutie freak, and he and Kev's big brothers did what Tommy did. Then they left. Kev, he . . . he thought Ah was dead, so he took me to the lake, a-and Ah think he said a prayer, and then he . . . he drowned us both. He couldn't live without me."

Jay bit his lip to stop himself from tearing up. As painful as these memories were, he refused to cry and be a sissy in front of Forge. It was bad enough that his story was a knockoff of Romeo & Juliet, he didn't need to add to the melodrama by crying. "But Ah heal. Ah didn't know Ah could, and neither did he. So Ah woke up at the bottom of the lake. But then it was too late for Kev. Ah tried ta . . . ta join him, y'know. Ah didn't want ta live neither. But Ah couldn't do nuthin' ta mahself. Ah just kept on healing. So Mama thought Ah should come here, that maybe someone here could help me out."

Forge just sat there, stunned. He'd known the briefest of details about Kevin, and that he'd died, and he'd suspected Amanda's spell had something to do with it. But the whole story was...

"Jesus, that's why what Tommy did... shit, Jay. None of it's your fault, you know that. Kevin couldn't have known you were alive, hell, if I hadn't known you could heal from something like that, I'd have thought you were dead out there in that alley. But now," he asked quietly, "I mean... that's what Amanda did for you, right? I know the spell she used, she asked my help to boost it a little. She made it so you could see him again, didn't she?"

"Ah don't blame mahself for Kev no more," Jay admitted. He was still holding the cross, so tightly that it was leaving an imprint on his palm. "Yeah, Amanda let me talk to him one last time. Told me that what's done is done and Ah can't live in the past. And that he'll be there, waitin' for me when Ah finally do get ta join him." A sad smile quirked at his lips. "It was strange, gettin' permission ta fall in love again, y'know? Kinda wish he hadn't. The stuff at the club probably wouldn't've happened if Kev'd said no."

The thought that Jay had come on to Tommy turned Forge's stomach. Not because he was another guy - he'd come to terms with that easily enough - but just for Tommy being who he was. "You're going to heal from that," Forge insisted, "and I'm not just talking about your wings. In time, it'll be another memory. But if you were still tied to Kevin like that, well..."

Forge stood up, moving to sit on his bed and grab a slice of pizza from the box. "I look at it this way, how Dr. Samson helped me see it. I can spend the rest of my life thinking about what I almost did, and what it cost me - or I can move forward and prevent it from happening again. Easy choice, when you think of it like that."

"That's easy for you ta say," Jay said, although his voice was more woeful than mad. "How can Ah prevent this from happenin' again? If Ah'm attracted to someone, Ah don't know nuthin' 'bout him or his family. Suppose Ah find a fella who's just great in every way, but his parents would put Jack Chick ta shame. Ah should just give up 'cuz of that? Or maybe Ah should just give up altogether. Celibacy can't be that hard."

"Some take celibacy as a choice," Forge quipped, "and others have it thrust upon them. Afraid that for all my genius, I'm as stumped as you are there."

Jay offered Forge a friendly and encouraging pat on the back. "Once you become a Nobel Prize winnin' scientist and hold the chair or whatever at MIT, you'll have all the grad students ya want who'll be all too pleased ta please you," he quipped as he moved to get another slice of pizza, one which he intended to finish.

"There's a thought," Forge decided. "Dating via abuse of position and power. It has its merits, I think..." He smiled, then finished the pizza slice, expertly maneuvering it to pick up the dripping cheese. "But as it stands, I think I'm with you on the celibacy thing. More grief I just don't need."

"Ah do like ta think that there's someone out there for everyone," Jay mused between bites, "And we all find him . . . or her," he added as a second-thought, "eventually. It's just the trial-and-error of findin' 'em that's a bitch."

"And sometimes, my friend," Forge replied, leaning back onto the bed. "The errors are too much of a trial. And that truly is, as you say, a bitch."