Rush: Prodigal Son

[x-ricochet.livejournal.com]

The welcome isn't exactly warm at the home of Darren's girlfriend.


Johnny wished the trip had been longer, but Aubrey Gilmore's apartment building was only separated from their house by a short trip on the subway and they were soon making their way down a long hallway to the appropriate door. The afternoon spent with his roommate and his closest friend since grade school, Eddie McDonough, had taken his mind off the impending visit about as well as anything could, but the white-haired teen still followed his father at a distance, walking beside Victor and exchanging uncertain glances with him every now and then. Darren stopped in front of the the apartment and his son watched him straighten his collar and attempt to tidy his hair with his fingers before looking back at them and finally lifting his hand to knock.

The door was opened by a muscular teenager a head taller than Victor. Though their arriving guests had taken some effort to clean up for the meeting, the boy was in a layered t-shirt and frayed jeans. He looked about as thrilled to see the three of them as most people would be about getting root canal work done.

Darren forced a smile. "Good to see you, Ritchie. How's Aubrey tonight?"

Ritchie narrowed his eyes. "Mom's fine, Darren. Who're these freaks?"

Inwardly, Victor bristled, but as much as he wanted to let this guy have it, he kept a lid on it. Johnny was already miserable enough without Vic getting into a fight with this guy and making it worse. Mr. Beaubier would just have to forgive him for smiling and taking it. "Hey there, I'm sure Mr. Gallo's told you all about Johnny," he said smoothly as though the taller boy had expressed any interest whatsoever in being at all friendly, hooking a thumb in his roommate's direction. "I'm Johnny's friend Victor. We go to the same school."

An unfamiliar woman he would have to force a tight smile for was expected, a glowering, muscular teenager playing bouncer at the front door was not. Johnny recoiled faintly, staying silent as his companion and his father tried to address the young man with equal civility and equally little success. His nerves already wound tight, he wasn't certain he trusted himself to say anything at all.

The older boy shrugged, still blocking the doorway. "Yeah, he said he shipped the kid off to mutie school or something. They let him out early for good behavior or what?"

"Johnny is attending a school for gifted children." Darren's polite smile had faded and his attempt to keep a level tone wasn't successful. "I asked him to come home for the weekend so that he could get to know you and Aubrey. Could you tell her we're here?"

Ritchie snorted and the words "make me" could practically be seen forming on his lips when he was interrupted by a woman's voice calling from within the apartment.

"Ritchie, is that Darren? Let them in already, honey. I can't leave this on the stove."

Grudgingly, the boy moved aside to let them in, frowning.

Johnny couldn't help but look up at his father as the man made the distinction between mutants and 'freaks' with resolution. It held his attention for several moments while he thought of his mother and the rumors and the distant disapproval Darren had shown him after his own mutations had become apparent. Even if everything else really was fake, this wasn't and he knew it.

Aubrey's voice from the kitchen broke his encouraged ponderings. Ritchie was now standing back just enough to let them in and he followed his father forward, finally feeling strong enough to meet the taller boy's gaze and to feign the politeness Victor and Darren had already been struggling to maintain. "...Thanks."

Vic exchanged glances with Johnny as they made their way into the apartment, jamming his hands into his pockets so that he could clench them into fists with impunity. He followed Darren and Johnny to the kitchen, never losing track of where Richie was.

At least the food smelled good.

---

After everyone sits down for dinner, things quickly go from bad to worse.


The only word that really seemed to describe Aubrey was "nice".

She'd greeted Darren with a bright smile and a warm hug (forgetting the spoon in her hand and dripping pasta sauce on the shoulder of his jacket as result). She'd been nothing but welcoming to Johnny and hadn't even batted an eye at Victor, and Johnny almost found himself wishing she was younger or prettier or anything that would give him a reason to be just a little more suspicious of what she was doing with his dad, who hadn't dated in well over a decade.

At least there was Ritchie to keep the whole relationship from seeming too good to be true. He hadn't stopped giving any of his mother's guests the evil eye since they'd sat down to eat.

Not that Johnny was entirely grateful for the fact. Even if Ritchie gave him a justification for his tightly-wound nerves and the knot in his stomach that would have lingered no matter how things had turned out, the young man made him uneasy at best. He eyed them all, particularly Darren, sharply and his hands were wrapped about his utensils as if they were weapons being carted into battle rather than tools for the meal he was picking apart. The white-haired teen felt a restless flickering in his synapses and was almost certain that even his danger sense was reacting to the vicious mood.

Still...he was doing his best to be pleasant and providing the necessary small talk and the answers to the questions the adults were leading himself and his roommate through. He had supplied stories about Xavier's and about their classes and the faculty, including Jean-Paul and the trip the two had taken to Montreal back in June. It seemed to make his smiles a little more genuine. "Victor and Mr. Beaubier and I might go back again in a few months to see one of our friends. She lives up there now," he finished, beginning to sip at his soda again and looking at Aubrey, who seemed to be enjoying the story.

"It sounds like a great trip, Johnny," she said, leaning forward a bit in her seat. "We used to do a family roadtrip every summer -- Neal and I and Ritchie, that is." Her smile widened and her next words were touched with laughter. "It wasn't always the smoothest way to vacation. We decided to go to Branson back when Ritchie was just a little..."

"Mom!" The word wasn't delivered with the mortified whine one might expect out of an embarrassed teenager. Ritchie had almost growled. "Don't talk about it, OK?"

Aubrey looked surprised and a hint of color touched her cheeks as she gave her son an irritated glance that suggested he had about worn out her patience, but she changed the topic. "What about you, Victor? Does your family travel much?"

"We did," he replied after politely swallowing his mouthful of food. "My parents are both teachers, so we always spend summers traveling and camping. As of this summer I've been to all of the lower 48 states except Oregon and Washington." He smiled, although Ritchie's obvious irritation meant it was more reserved than it would have been otherwise. "We had our fair share of mishaps, too. But I got to see a lot of things."

"Washington's not that great," Johnny teased as best he could after another uneasy look at Ritchie, though it was a joke that only he and his roommate would understand or, at least, find any humor in. Whether or not Darren knew any of the details about his kidnapping after talking to Scott several months before, he wasn't entirely sure and he certainly wasn't thinking about it now. He smiled at Victor, "I say aim for Oregon next summer."

"Well, why don't we just do that?" Darren's offer was just a little too chipper for his enthusiasm to be entirely sincere, but it was still enough to nearly floor Johnny. The fact that he'd never been out of New York until the trip to Canada hadn't been because Darren was off taking long trips away from home without him. Johnny's expression must have given him away, because Darren kept on. "No, really. Aubrey and I can take some time off this summer, and you and Ritchie will be out of school, it'll be the last summer before Ritchie heads to college...we can pack up the car and take a trip together."

Ritchie let out a harsh bark of derisive laughter. "Are you fucking kidding me? Just who the hell do you think you are?"

"Ritchie, that's enough." Aubrey rose out of her seat...and her son stood up in tandem, eyes narrowed and fists clenched, facing her down.

"Yeah, it is enough! He is not my dad and you can't make me pretend that he or his mutie kid are ever going to be family!" Ritchie's breathing was picking up, his head bowed slightly as veins began to stand out along his neck and forearms. He seemed like nothing more than a bull preparing to charge. "Dad's dead and maybe I can't stop you from jumping in bed with the next hump to come along..."

Darren was on his feet in a moment, moving to get between them.

Ritchie was faster.

It didn't even seem as if he'd shoved the older man all that hard, but Darren's feet hit left the floor with the force of it. He crashed against the far wall hard enough to leave cracks where his head, shoulders, and hips impacted. The entire room stood frozen for a moment as Darren, staggered away from the wall, groping blindly before he collapsed. A large, red stain was smeared across the paint where the back of his head had hit the wall.

Again, Ritchie was faster, bolting for the door before anyone could move toward him.

It had all happened so fast. Raised voices and flaring tempers and now Darren was sprawled on the carpet with blood pooling slowly beneath his light hair. "Dad!" Johnny's voice was pure panic and he flew from his chair almost quick enough to leave it on its side as he rushed to where Aubrey stood aghast over his father. He dropped down beside him, for a moment feeling helpless and sick and utterly lost as he looked into the man's unconscious face. "Dad...!" It was just like seeing Jean-Paul in the infirmary. Just like his mom. And he couldn't do anything.

...But it wasn't like that. It wasn't over and he wasn't helpless. Johnny swallowed hard and looked at Aubrey, already pale and digging through her purse for her phone. His voice trembled. "...Call the paramedics. And the cops. Okay? We'll...Vic and I'll make sure he doesn't get far." He looked at Victor.

Of all of the dinner guests, Victor was the only one who'd kept his seat. He blinked at his roommate for a moment, stunned and pale, before clambering to his feet. "Um." Darren was stirring slightly--or maybe just twitching--and Aubrey was bending over him now, and Ritchie...His hands balled into fists at his side. Ritchie was clearly out of control. "Let's go," he said, nodding towards Johnny with a determination he didn't quite feel.

Johnny remained by his father's side a moment longer, touching his arm, unable to move until Aubrey had settled beside him. She was already on the line with the emergency dispatcher, struggling to be calm as she offered the necessary details. Her free hand, shaking, wrapped around Darren's. There was nothing more to do here and whatever was wrong with Ritchie wasn't going to disappear just because he had. The boy pulled himself up, giving Victor a grateful and resolute glance. "...Let's go."

---

Johnny manages to track down Ritchie, but things don't go as planned.


Johnny had never run so hard in all his life, but adrenaline and the tangle of panic and anger and fear that had taken hold when Darren had collapsed were more than capable of pushing him beyond what he believed to be his limits. None of them knew what had happened, even Ritchie himself it seemed, but he was dangerous and letting him slip away unnoticed before the police could arrive after what had just happened wasn't an option. He looked at the phone gripped tightly in his hand. No word from Victor. Not yet. He had to keep looking. He navigated increasingly alien side streets and alleys, looking and listening and waiting as he continued his search.

A familiar voice, saturated with rage, caught his ears and he followed it to spy the volatile teen standing alone in an empty lot, the remnants of a recent demolition site full of upturned dirt and broken concrete and collections of twisted metal that had yet to be carted away. He watched Ritchie grip one muscular arm hard and swear at nobody and flinched, ducking behind a collection of shrapnel as the young man kicked a cement slab and cracked it and sent the pieces scattered along the dirt. It took the white-haired boy a long moment to remember his task. It was time to call Victor, get the police. He opened the phone and quickly began spelling out the location, the movements of his fingers along the keys almost silent. Almost.

Maybe it was the quiet clicking of the text keys, or Johnny's faint, frantic breathing, or even just Ritchie's own desperation and rage bleeding over into paranoia, but a chunk of concrete the size of Johnny's head crashed against his hiding place a moment later.

"I know you're out there!" he yelled, his voice ragged. He charged forward, scaling the pile instead of turning aside. "Fucking little freak...you think you're going to spy on me?"

Johnny's eyes widened at the sound of the sudden impact and almost before he could even jerk his head up, Ritchie seemed to be looming over him. The sensation at the base of his skull was a quick, frenzied tingling that guided him as he sprung back from his kneeling position and onto his feet in one rapid, awkward flip. It was the only thing that saved him from the older teen's grip as he descended from the heap of rusting metal, lips still pulled back in a snarl, but it also sent the cell phone tumbling from his grip. The message, unfinished, acquired a few additional scattered characters before being sent to his teammate. Wherever he was. "Ritchie," he breathed quietly, trying to keep hold of his resolve as fear bubbled up in him. It wasn't supposed to go this way. "You've gotta calm down. The cops are on their way, your mom's scared out her mind. My dad..."

"Your dad's dead. So what, are we supposed to bond over that now?" Ritchie leapt the remaining distance to the ground, landing heavily as he made a grab for Johnny. "He shouldn't have gotten in the way! None of his fucking business anyhow! No one needed him!"

Your dad's dead. Johnny paled. He wanted to protest that Darren was being taken care of and that Ritchie didn't know what he was talking about, but all he could do was think about the blood pooling under his father's head. His sixth sense pulled him from his thoughts just in time to for him to jump back another step...but the older boy caught him by the forearm and jerked him back hard enough to leave his limb throbbing at the socket. He stumbled, caught unprepared by his sudden grounding. He was fast. How could he be this fast? The white-haired boy did his best to pull back. "Maybe your mom needs him!" Just like his dad needed her.

There wasn't any time to linger on this small realization; Ritchie's hold transferred to the front of Johnny's shirt and lifted the smaller boy off of his feet to shake him like a doll.

"SHUT UP! You don't KNOW anything. Why the hell am I even wasting time with you?" He drew his arm back, clearly intending to knock Johnny's lights out.

The smaller teen released a tense, stiff noise as he was yanked off his feet, arm still throbbing. Ritchie raised his fist and Johnny's additional sense lit up anew and he twisted, slamming his knee hard into his attacker's face and taking the same moment to try to work the front of his shirt free from that Herculean grasp.

The attack drew no blood, but Ritchie cursed in pain. Instead of dropping Johnny, he threw him hard against the ground, knocking the wind out of the already dizzy boy. Johnny just managed to roll out of the way as his furious attacker stomped down on where he'd been sprawled a moment before, leaving a crack in the bare slab, but the bigger kid just kept coming. Johnny dodged frantically and Ritchie pursued, becoming visibly more frustrated at each swing or stomp that missed its mark.

Even as Johnny made it to his feet, he was gasping for the air that had been pushed out of his lungs and his reflexes were slowed enough to make each dodge impossibly close. He ducked and maneuvered from side to side and sprang clear over the shots, each seeming to miss him by a smaller and smaller margin...until Ritchie's fist caught him in gut and sent him sprawling back, where he hit the dirt with an audible thud and rolled to gradual stillness. His head was reeling and his ribs throbbed with the heat of a break. He couldn't find it in himself to get up, even as he saw the furious older boy snatch up a bent length of rebar from among the discarded materials and approach him without hesitation, lifting it over his head.

Johnny's garbled text message had left Victor frantic, discarding caution in favor of speed. He saw the cell phone first, lying discarded on the sidewalk in front of the vacant lot, and then rounded a pile of debris to see Ritchie raise his makeshift weapon over Johnny's battered form. With a burst of speed, Vic closed the gap between himself and the pair, trying desperately to get there before Ritchie could do more damage.

"Hey!" he yelled, hoping it sounded more threatening than frightened. Ritchie paid him no mind, however, and the rebar reached its apex and started to descend. Not gonna make it--

In a last-ditch attempt born out of utter despair, Vic's tongue shot out and wrapped around the larger boy's wrist and pulled, just enough to send the rebar wide as he slammed into Ritchie. The other teen yanked his hand away in revulsion before Vic could let go, pulling the already extended tongue past its limit. Vic cried out in pain and stumbled back just as an elbow smashed into one ear. He quickly scrambled atop a pile of twisted metal and concrete, just out of reach of the rebar that he hadn't managed to dislodge from Ritchie's hand.

"Victor!" Johnny cried out, watching the scene unfold rapidly from his place in the dirt. His companion had appeared out of nowhere and the vicious strike against him and the fact that Ritchie was already pursuing him with the rebar in hand gave the downed teen enough will to pull himself up again, despite the insistence of his injuries. He grabbed a partially fragmented chunk of concrete and darted forward. "Back off, Ritchie!" He leapt just as the young man turned, slamming his own makeshift weapon into their attacker's head. It broke against his face, staggering him to one side, but the only other result was a scrape across the other boy's cheek and temple and an even angrier expression.

The white-haired teen landed at a skid beside his classmate, ribs aching. "Vic...are you okay? We've gotta be careful. He..."

Ritchie charged them both with a roar of fury, legs pumping, the tendons along his jaw and neck standing out as he bore down on them both, swinging his weapon in a wide arc, heedless of the deadly force behind it. Sweat had soaked through the layers of his clothing and his expression was crazed; if he saw anything besides the two boys in front of him, he wasn't showing it.

Vic froze, his injuries forgotten in the face of Ritchie's unadulterated rage. Fortunately his feet were faster than his brain. He ducked under another wild swing from Ritchie, then dove to one side, kicking out at his legs as hard as he could in an attempt to sweep them out from under the older boy. They had to take him down, get him on the ground. It was the only chance they had.

Johnny followed suit, diving to the side in a low, acrobatic roll that hurt far more than it should have. He sprung back onto his feet just in time to see Victor's attempted sweep and in the prime position to throw a strong kick into the older teen's side to help in the process. He doubted Ritchie would stay down long, even if they managed to get him there, but it would be a start.

The strength of Ritchie's last swing left him off-balance, and the double impact finished the job. He stumbled, seemed to get tangled in his own legs and went down hard, giving both boys ample time to get some distance between them and their attacker. Instead of surging to his feet, however, he rose only slowly and with obvious effort, his breath coming in broken, labored gasps. Johnny's bright shock of white hair drew his attention. He charged again but it was a clumsy, almost plodding attempt.

Victor plowed into him from one side, putting all his barely consequential weight into the hit. Only years of watching hockey with his mom and grandpa and the fact that all of the already-weakened older boy's attention was on Johnny allowed him to knock Ritchie down, and even still it was a sprawling, graceless tumble. Before their attacker could work free, Vic scrambled atop him and wrapped sticky fingers around the other boy's wrists, planting a knee in his back in an attempt to keep him down.

Ritchie threw himself onto his back, rolling, twisting and finally managing to scrape the green boy off, but he couldn't seem to regain his feet once he was free, only getting so far as his hands and knees before he began a series of deep, retching coughs. Even in the dim security lighting, the dark stains flecking the boy's lips were visible.

Johnny ran forward as Victor managed to tackle the wounded teenager, but was unable to reach them before Ritchie twisted free of the reptilian mutant's grasp and slammed him down unceremoniously into the dust. He grabbed his dazed friend by the forearm and pulled him onto his feet as the other young man attempted to rise and follow. They got a few quick steps in before their former attacker began to rasp and cough, droplets of blood soon appearing upon his lips. He was shaking, barely capable of holding himself up as he continued to gasp and sweat.

Still breathing hard, the white-haired teen swallowed tightly, continuing to hold protectively to his roommate's arm. "...what's wrong with him?" Whatever the cause, it wasn't external. They had barely managed to deliver any damage at all before Ritchie had begun to fall apart. There was no time for an answer. Police sirens, once the distant background noise of a large city, were now rolling close and the blue and red lights could be seen from the street even before two squad cars came to a halt in front of the lot. The teenager looked back, eyes squinting faintly at the bright, flickering lights. Hopefully they could convince them they were in need of a ride to the hospital, rather than the police station.