Jay & Shiro

[x-icarus.livejournal.com]

Shiro walks in on Jay and Jay drops the bomb that he's joining the team. Shiro is not thrilled.

"Next time, you gotta knock Shiro," Jay said a little irritably, doing up the zipper of his jeans and combing his hands through his hair. He pausd to check the mirror one more time, running his bangs to the left, trying topush them aside. "Ah didn't know you was comin' - Jesus Christ, sometimes Ah hate mah hair - damn bedhead."

"Sorry." Shiro tentatively looked over his shoulder at Jay, since he'd spun around the instant he opened the door to Jay's room, blushing furiously. Now that Jay was decent, it was safe to face him. "I do not know if I should be jealous or turned on."

"Maybe both?" Jay straightened up and gave up on his hair. He hadn't expected Shiro to barg in on him, though he should have seeing as Dani did it sometimes, only with more subtley. "Maybe you was wantin' to catch me," he teased, walking around the side of his bed and throwing the cover aside. He was looking for a picture, lub tossed aside, trying to find it without seeming to be looking for it. "See mah shorts anywhere?" He never wore shorts and underwear was rarely on beneath the jeans.

"If I had wanted to catch you, then I would have joined in," Shiro replied, following Jay back into his room. It was odd how different their two rooms were; Shiro's orderly, clean and sparse, and Jay's littered with clothes and sheet music. It felt like stepping into another world which was, by itself, the feeling that Jay usually evoked in him.

He fished around and a picture of Kevin dropped away from the sheets along with a shirt and he tossed the blanket aside. "Huh," he said, reaching out to catch the picture but knocked off some music sheets hanging off the dresser in passing. "Damnit. Shit." He hated messing up his music, though it was hard to say whether or not it really was organized as it looked like a mess.

Shiro intercepted the music before they hit the floor and handed the papers back to Jay. A raised eyebrow met the photograph. "Straightening up?" he asked, picking up the shirt and folding it tidily.

"Somethin' like that," Jay said and snatched the photograph, tossing it into the wastebasket filled to the brink with crumpled up music sheets. "What're ya doin' here anyways?" he asked, straightening out his bedcovers which was almost a helpless effort.

"I am barred from the Danger Room for the duration of my suspension, and training was pretty much all that I had been doing since school ended." Shiro sat down on the bed, waving Jay's hands away so he wouldn't waste any more time setting the sheets. "I am bored."

"Huh," Jay said, but still busied himself with the pillow and otherwise, trying to clean up with Shiro here. He wasn't sure why he was doing that but he was. "Ah guess its a bad time to tell you Ah got accepted as a trainee? But Garrison's locked me outta mah trainin' sessions, so Ah can't do 'em without him or someone else up in the control room." Seemed they were both shit out of luck.

"Excuse me?" Shiro scratched his ear as if to clear it out. "You are a trainee? Uh, why? Didn't you try this once before and, anou, decide to not follow through?"

"Whaddya mean Why" Jay stopped and looked over his shoulder, through mid pick up of dirty shirts. When he was sure that Shiro was serious, he continued and chucked them into the already heaping laundry basket in the open closet. "Cause Ah need control and Ah know this is the way to do it?" The explination with Scott had been so mnuch better but that was because he had been caught up in the moment.

"It is? Can you not just receive intensive training from a faculty member instead? Being an X-Man, Jay . . . You will put yourself into danger regularly." Shiro stood up and put the shirt into a drawer. "Is the trade-off worthwhile?"

Jay turned around with another shirt in his hand and shook his head in disbelief, frowning. "Okay, what did we just do? You blew me to shit and you don't think that's dangerous? Have y'all looked at mah track record? Ah'm a little sick of the beatin's comin' to me. Ah ain't a victim," he said with conviction. "And that's dirty," he grabbed the folded shirt from the drawer and tossed it towards the laundry basket.

"That is the point." Shiro crossed his arms over his chest defiantly, but the expression on his face was one of worry. "You want to experience that again? And from someone who actually wants to hurt you. You will be putting yourself into harmful situations. Becoming the aggressor is not hoe you stop being the victim."

"Ah ain't being an aggressor and Ah ain't being the victim either, okay? Ah'm being somethin' in the middle. Yer forgettin' that Ah cut off a man's head, a man Ah felt bad for--" he snapped his mouth shut before he said too much and turned his back on Shiro, continuing to pick up his things even though Shiro didn't seem to care too much. "It don't matter anyways."

"Of course it matters." Shiro bent over to pick up the same shirt that Jay was reaching for and their hands met. "I do not think you have to prove yourself to anyone, if that is one of the factors in your decision. I just . . . want to ensure that you are making this decision for the right reasons. It is not about yourself, it is about saving the world."

Jay's hand instinctively recoiled from the touch, an action he hadn't meant to do and he straightened, looking Shiro in the eyes. "Ah'm a trainee, not on the team and besides, you can't save anyone til you've saved yourself first."

The poignancy of that comment nearly made Shiro choke. "You sound like a bodhisattva," he said mournfully. At Jay's confused look, he shrugged. "Someone who postpones their own enlightenment in order to guide others," he explained.

"So?" Jay asked and turned away. He didn't really understand what Shiro was saying but tried to dismiss it so he wouldn't look stupid.

"I mean that you have come to this realization sooner than I have, baka." The insult carried some affection behind its irritability. "Cyclops is sure to kick me off the team. If I cannot trust myself then how can the X-Men trust me?"

Jay tossed the heap of clothes in his arms into the closet and tried to close the door using both hands and a foot. "Ah ain't no baka," he said and turned his shoulder into the door, pushing on it. "And Ah dunno. Ah'm kinda there with you on that whole... trustin' ...thin'..." he grunted and gave the door one final push with Shiro's help. The door clicked shut but it bowed under the strain of so much inside.

"I am going to make it up to him, though," Shiro said with conviction, his gaze focused past Jay on nothing in particular. "I will show him that it was just a slip and that my place is with the X-Men. He and Storm and everyone else may doubt me and not believe in me, but they will learn not dismiss me so easily."

Jay slouched against the door and tilted his head back, adam's apple bobbling as he swallowed. He studied his boyfriend before pushing off the door and linking their fingers together, drawing him near. "No one's dismissin' you. They just ain't happy that we got a lil' carried away." Or more like a lot carried away, but still. He smiled faintly, wishing he had the same determination as Shiro did. "The broken hero," he sighed wistfully. "Someone should write a song about you. Maybe somebody did."

It took Shiro a moment to react to Jay's words, his attention still off elsewhere. "Please tell me that you are just joking," he said once he returned to reality, a little shocked and put off. Although quite romantic if he did say so himself. Not that he'd ever say such a thing out loud.

He stepped closer to Shiro, a crooked smirk replacing the smile and he brushed his thumb across Shiro's cheek, patting it before stepping away to clean up the rest of his room. "Maybe you'll find out one day. Maybe when you get back in your game."

Should that ever happen, Shiro thought glumly, before dispelling such pessimism in favor of tackling Jay onto the bed. Here was a game he was at least learning to understand.