The X-Men Camp -- and not in the Ian McKellen way...

[x-coldhands.livejournal.com]

So, some development on the campfire scene.

Characters, in alphabetical order: x_coldhands, x_jeangrey, x_pyromaniac, x_rogue, x_snikt and x_storm. As the BBC says, "other characters were played by members of the cast". There's no particular reason why the IM names are removed apart from the fact that I am a prat and search-and-replace is not undo-able. *blush*



It's past sunset now, the last rays of daylight having fallen an hour ago. Magneto and Mystique are off in their lodgings, a ways off from the circle of tents arrayed around the Blackbird. Kurt is taking a much deserved rest.

It's just the six of them, now; oddly balanced between teenagers and adults, everyone sitting around a campfire courtesy of Logan's skills. Over the last of the marshmallows, Storm finally breaks the /very/ uncomfortable silence.

"... all right. What happened?" Oddly enough, that's directed at John. It seems like she's interested in his side of the story.

John bristles, because it's one thing he does well and pokes at the fire with a stick. "You saw the cops."

"The /burning/ cops," Bobby puts in.

Storm's blue eyes flick over to Jean, then Logan. "We did. We didn't see what happened. So, tell us. Each of you. In turn."

John grins, somewhat sickly. "Who goes first?"

Logan shrugs. "Sorry, I was dead."

"Where do you want us to start?" Bobby asks, cracking his knuckles.

Rogue winces and bites her lip, hugging her knees to her chest.

Blink. Blink. "You were what?" Storm asks, raising an eyebrow. "Wait... no, later. And start at the beginning."

John raises his hands. "Weren't my house. Or my folks that got all purity of the genome on us."

"Okay. We left the School in Cyclops's car and drove to my house." Bobby raises an eyebrow as if to ask if that's early enough.

Storm inclines her head in approval. "Right. Go on."

"My parents were out, so we cleaned up, showered, and posted to the journals. They got back, and...we had the talk." Bobby closes his eyes, not wanting to remember.

Rogue puts her arm around his shoulders.

Logan glances at Bobby, nodding somewhat sympathetically. It was rough. And his parents were fuckwits.

"Now there was a Kodak moment."

"Fuck off, St John."

Jean's eyes soften. "I'm sorry, Bobby. We'd hoped that... that your parents would be more accepting."

Biting her lip, Storm nods and holds back a wince. "I see. And John -- enough, please. You'll get your turn soon enough."

John's eyes flick over to Rogue for a second before looking down between his feet.

Rogue glares at John, eyes hard and angry.

Bobby sighs. "It went real badly. Mom was all 'have you tried not being a mutant', and I think my brother called the cops on us."

Storm can't help but sigh, and starts rubbing at the back of her neck. "Shit. I'm sorry, Bobby. ... then what?"

"Then...we tried to leave, and there were like barricades and cop cars, and they yelled for Logan to put the knives down, and then one of them shot him in the head."

Rogue is rather pale, she nods.

Storm blanches just a little bit, but doesn't question it beyond that. She's seen weirder things, anyway. "Right, so... Logan was dead. I take it whatever happened next was in self-defense?"

The tone of her voice suggests it /better/ have been.

Bobby just looks at John, eyebrows slightly raised and mouth a thin line.

"They'd just shot Logan cause of his claws, right? They just shot him. And I don't think they were just going to let us go." John speaks quietly, gazing into the fire, sounding /certain./

Logan looks at John. "They shot me because I was /armed/, kid." His voice is quiet, but not harsh.

Jean's eyes are wide. The thought that Logan had been dead, that John had toasted police officers -- human police officers -- and that the world was falling down around their heads...just wasn't sitting well with her.

John shrugged. "To them, we're all armed. Just a pack of muties."

Lips pressed together, Storm stares into the fire for a very long time, then looks up -- straight across, into John's eyes. "All right. Fair enough. And?"

Bobby sighs. "And...yeah. John flamed the cars and the police officers. Em grabbed his powers, and she and I put out the fires."

Rogue nods. "I'm sorry," she says in a small voice. "I didn't know what else to do."

Logan looks at Marie in surprise. He hadn't expected her to do it voluntarily.

"No, you did good, sweetie," Bobby says, stroking her knee.

"Yep. I go all sputter-sputter like a car out of gas, and trouble's sorted."

She looks rather sick. "It was just... awful."

Bobby tentatively puts an arm around her shoulder.

Storm glances over from trying to catch Jean's eye and smiles faintly at Marie. "Don't apologize. You did what you thought you had to..." Pause. "... and so did John."

"And now I can never go home." Bobby says it without thinking.

John's eyes widen slightly, surprised, before he straightens up and tries not to smirk, the smirk fading. "You couldn't go home anyway. Unless you try not to be a mutant."

Jean looks at John intently for a moment, then shakes her head, glancing back at Ororo, brow furrowed. She can't tell. Too many thoughts, too much chaos in his mind, in the air.

"Maybe if someone had given them a chance, I could've."

"Since when did they give you a chance?" John stands, his anger snapping. "Fuck."

Jean sighs and stands with John, moving quietly around the outside of the circle. She stands just behind him, waiting.

Bobby's eyes blaze. "Since when did you let them? 'The mutation gene comes from the male, so it's your fault'."

Storm nods to Jean, frowns, and looks back between the boys. John, Bobby, John, Bobby. "/Boys/. This isn't going to be sorted out tonight. Give it a rest."

Rogue looks concerned. "Maybe we need to get some rest before we decide who to blame..."

"There is no blame to be placed here," Jean asserts quietly.

Bobby snorts quietly, but says nothing.

John yells back. "Well, /Christ/, Bobby, sorry for ragging on Daddy Dearest. You think I don't know what that conversation is fucking /like/?!" He moves to storm off.

Storm nods ageement with Jean, eyes unreadable. "We can't even /begin/ to work this out now. So we're going to have to trust you -- trust /all/ of you -- to be adults -- /JOHN/!"

A rich voice carries over from the tents set a short distance away. "Would it be too much to ask for you to keep the shouting children to a minimum, Ms Munroe?"

John keeps walking off into the shadows. "You can get back to me once you've all decided exactly how I'm fucking responsible for everything since World War II."

"Mister Lensherr, if it bothers you, I'd advise you that the accoustics may be much more to your liking under the lake." Storm grabs a stick and stabs one of the remaining marshmallows.

Her eyes flick over to Logan. "... you take this one?"

Rogue stands up. "I'll go talk to him."

She sighs heavily. "I should anyway." She starts walking away.

Logan raises an eyebrow at Storm, then shrugs, looking at Rogue. "Whichever. Doesn't matter to me."

Rogue looks over her shoulder. "It's not like I don't know what's in his head..." she says as she walks into the shadows.

Bobby hugs his knees, feeling very alone, and stares into the fire.

Jean frowns, looking after Rogue and sighing. "That won't be easy for her."

"... no, it won't. But I'm proud of her anyway." Storm sighs and glances over at Bobby. "And you, too."

Logan nods his agreement, looking at Bobby. "You did good today, kid."

Bobby's mouth turns up in something that's trying very hard to be a smile and not a grimace.

He looks over at Logan for a long second before dropping his eyes to the fire.

Pretending to be absorbed in her marshmallow, Storm's eyes eventually drift over to Logan. "... dead?"

Logan shrugs. "Yeah, a little."

She pauses, blinks, and then shrugs. "Kinky."

"They shot me. In the head. Least I could do was die for a while." He grins.

Bobby swallows and just stares at the fire, half wanting to blast it into nothingness with his powers.

Jean slumps down beside Bobby. "Are you going to be okay?" She reaches out, her hand hovering over his.

Bobby flinches, looking up at her. "I don't know," he realises.

Jean lets her hand touch his. "You will be." She sounds certain.

He blinks, looking over at Logan and Storm. "Um. Thanks."

Logan watches Jean out of the corner of his eye, and Bobby, too. Jean seems unconcerned at the news of his death.

Storm pries off the marshmallow, then gives a tight but genuine grin to Bobby. "You're welcome. Look..." She blinks a few times, trying to find words. "It may not be okay for a while, but it'll /be/."

"... which Logan can tell you is pretty preferable to the alternative."

Bobby gives a small smile. "I guess."

Logan laughs and it breaks through the silence. "Yeah. 's no fun, being dead. Too quiet."

Bobby can't quite wrap his mind around the dead bit. "Were you /actually/ dead?"

Storm smirks a little and pops the marshmallow into her mouth. "And there's not a lot to be said for the scenery."

Logan shrugs. "Close enough for government work."

"Oh," Bobby says in a small voice. "I'd guessed you were just, um, knocked out or something.

"With a bullet in my brain, kid?" Logan chuckles. "Hell, who knows? I wasn't around to take my pulse, so." He shrugs.

"I thought--Em said--your skeleton was adamantium..." Bobby looks confused.

"It is. I guess. But you didn't see the bullet go 'ting' off my skull, did you?" Logan raises an eyebrow.

"Um. No. I guess."

Blue eyes flick over to Logan. Then Bobby. Then Logan again. Bobby, Logan, Bobby, Logan -- Jean, eyebrow quirk. "... C'mon Jean. We have a jet to fix."

Jean blinks, surprised, then stands up, letting go of Bobby's hand. "Right. Night, boys."

"Night," Bobby says, letting his hand slip down to his knee.

Logan looks over at Bobby. "You okay, kid?"

Bobby looks back and nods. "I guess."

Logan shrugs one shoulder. "Sorry if the whole 'dead' thing freaked you out."

"S'okay. Must have been kinda worse for you than it was for me."

Logan laughs quietly. "Not so much." He shrugs. "I didn't feel a thing."

Bobby blinks. "/How/?"

"How, what?" Logan asks. "How'd I not feel anything?"

"/Yeah/. It's a /bullet/."

"In my head, kid." Logan leans forward to prod the fire with a stick. "I dunno. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time, to tell the truth."

"Um," Bobby says, staring at Logan's knuckles as he pokes the fire.

Logan turns his face toward Bobby. "Yeah?"

"Nothing." Bobby blinks and looks at the fire again.

Logan sighs. "Right." He prods the fire again and it blazes brightly for a moment before dimming again.

Bobby sits in silence for a long moment, just gazing into the flames, saying nothing.

Logan watches Bobby, waiting. Jean and Storm left them here to talk, so they must think he can somehow help the kid through this. So, he waits.

"I mean," Bobby says suddenly, "I don't know who I am any more."

Logan looks at Bobby and nods. "Because of your parents?" He really has no idea what he's doing. He's not a people-person. And, to be honest, has no idea who /he/ is, either.

"I mean, I'd always thought that I'd tell them and they'd be like 'oh, um, okay' and everything would be fine, but it wasn't, and they didn't get it, and John's right and they called the cops on me, just for who I /am/, and I can't change it, and even if I could I don't know if I /want/ to." He blinks, looking surprised at himself.

If Bobby's surprised, Logan is shocked, but he tries not to show it. "John's not right. Your parents love you, they're just confused." He pauses, then, "Your brother is afraid of mutants."

"He's afraid of /me/."

Logan shakes his head. "All of us. Not just you." His eyes narrow and he looks at Bobby silently for a long moment. "Maybe not you at all. I don't know."

"Who else would he have been afraid of? Nobody else was using powers."

Logan merely raises an eyebrow, giving Bobby a chance to realise that the rest of them were obviously mutants, even if they weren't using their gifts, and that phobias aren't rational. Then he gives up. "Your art teacher, maybe."

Bobby snorts. "Right, because you were obviously threatening them with a dangerous-looking paintbrush."

"He was afraid, Bobby." Logan flops onto his side in the dirt, staring into the fire. "But he's still your family."

"I dunno if he is. I mean, you don't call the cops on your own family. You protect them from the cops. At least, you're supposed to..."

"Wouldn't know." Logan glances over at Bobby. "Just...don't soak in the hurt so much that you can't get clean."

Bobby's brow wrinkles. "Huh?"

Logan sighs. "My one attempt at being eloquent." He rolls to see Bobby a little better. "You're hurt by what they did, by what he did. Don't let it eat you up."

Bobby sighs. "It's just...it's like...I don't know."

Logan nods. "Time. That's what they say helps these kinda things." He doesn't sound like he really believes it, but he's trying.

"I guess," Bobby says, sighing again. "Sorry. I--I feel like I'm whining."

"Nah," Logan says, trying to sound reassuring. "I don't mind. I'll tell you if you start to piss me off, kid." He grins, wigging his fingers.

Bobby smiles and gives a quiet laugh, before the look in his eyes changes slightly. "I don't want to piss you off."

"You won't, kid. You won't." Logan chuckles.

"Cool." Bobby looks up to see John returning. "Um."

Logan looks up at John and doesn't /quite/ frown at him.

John steps into the firelight and warms his hands. "Hey."

Bobby studiously avoids asking John if he flamed Rogue. "Where's Em?"

John jerks his thumb in the direction of the tents. "Sleep, I guess. We had a little chat." He looks over at Logan, and grins.

Logan raises an eyebrow at John, but doesn't say anything.

Bobby almost snarls, "John, what the fuck did you say?"

"Nothing she didn't already know, Drake," John spits back at him.

"Fuck." Bobby jumps to his feet. "Where is she?"

"I dunno." John seems apathetic. "In one of the tents?"

Bobby mutters something incomprehensible -- or at least inaudible to everyone but Logan -- and walks off to look for her.

John stares into the fire, shoulders set, and doesn't speak.