LOG: Marius and Jennie, Monday Night

[x-roulette.livejournal.com]

Two old friends, at it once again.

Warning: talk of miscarriage.



He was out cold again, which was her signal to start. She slid the door open without a sound, the cart rolling noiselessly after her. All the chaos in the medical ward meant that her presence was an ocean of calm, collected and quiet. Her days as a medlab worker, and then simply as the bookkeeper meant that she was not shooed away by Voght, who seemed to appreciate her quiet helpfulness in the noise and confusion. Shelves were always stocked, bandages and creams were there when needed, and requests were filled quickly and efficiently. So the one allowance she was granted.

As far as Jennie knew, Marius never questioned why he was always clean, his hair never greasy or flaky. That was the way she preferred. In and out, not noticed. But still helpful. She waved a quick hand over his face. His eyelids fluttered, but did not open. A gentle snore escaped his parted lips. Hopefully he wouldn't wake again until long after she was gone. This was a ritual she had quietly performed the last few days since his return, with his body horribly misshapen. Her long knowledge of her friend's habits meant she knew certain things that mattered to him, but since both of them could barely give each other polite greetings while conscious, this was something she felt she had to do in secret. Jennie still felt tugs of care and concern that had been with her since they were both barely teenagers, but she wanted to avoid embarrassing him as much as possible.

Now, she said a quick prayer that he was under deep sedation, and gently eased a hand under his head.

He hadn't been sleeping well. Falling asleep wasn't the problem, not with his body so overtaxed. The real issue was the ever-changing horror-show of his nightmares. When he was lucky it was only images of rent flesh and gaping eye sockets. When he wasn't it was tactile, with smell, touch . . . and taste.

This was one of those dreams.

Something moved him, and instinct took over. Before his eyes were even open he had grabbed what vaguely registered as a forearm in an adrenaline-fueled grip. The mouth on his palm pulsed beneath the gauze, sharp and eager, and his mind was so scrambled he couldn't tell if the sensation was dream or reality.

The reaction was swift and brutal, instinct through years of training kicked in. The arm was wrenched from his grasp, the tiny teeth leaving the barest of scratches, like the tines of a comb dragged on skin. He was heavier than normal, but Jennie was still stronger than him, and much faster.

He roused fully to wakefulness to find his arms expertly pinned above his head, a thigh on his chest pressing him to the bed, and a head haloed by dark curly hair above his own. Familiar blue eyes stared down at him, not panicked, but firm and businesslike. The look students often received after Jennie issued her second warning to behave.

At this point Marius' brain finally made a belated entrance into the world of current events.

"Jen?" he blurted, so confused he couldn't even mourn the missed opportunity for any number of jokes that could be made about waking up straddled by a former classmate.

The first words that came to Jennie's mind were: "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" but as a couple of embarrassed seconds ticked by Jennie realized that no further attack would come. She carefully slid off his chest and then released her grip on his arms, so that he wouldn't be momentarily crushed by her weight. She eased herself off the bed, and then, when no more movements were made, perched on the edge near his feet, keenly aware of the cart next to his head, the one with warm towels, a bowl of warm water and small bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

She felt heat sink into her cheeks. "Marius," she said, sounding slightly strained, hoping that he would let her judicious use of jujitsu slide.

"I said no visitors." Jennie didn't have a monopoly on self-consciousness. Marius was acutely aware of how far his deformity had progressed; a whole side of his face was swollen now, and the arm he hadn't used to grab her was now misshapen to the point it was difficult to lift. The only reason he was subjecting himself to the Medlab was because he hadn't wanted to be seen.

"Remember that part where always I ignore you?" Jennie said, lifting her chin. Her hair was much longer, her face thinner, none of that baby fat, and her neckline was reduced to a simple v-neck t-shirt, but she could have been the Jennie of nigh-on a decade ago, sitting at the edge of his hospital bed. She sniffed. "I do so love the smell of tea-tree oil."

Marius glared at her. Unfortunately, as in their past history, so it was in their present: all he got in return was a starkly unimpressed blue gaze. And, just like so many times before, he broke first.

"What are you even doing?" he asked, trying to cover his humiliation with verbal ice. "With everything in my system you're lucky you've still got an arm."

"And yet, here it is," Jennie flexed a not unimpressive muscle. "Face it, boo-boo, no matter what, you can't hurt me now." Were they to face off in the woods again, there was no question about who would win. Even in a rampage, Marius would be down cold in seconds. She'd spent several years making sure of that.

"As for that other part, well," Jennie'a mouth twitched. "I was going to wash your hair. Like I've been doing since you got back."

Marius' comment that it wouldn't have mattered how much training she'd had if Yvette's mutation had kicked in and sliced her hands off was forestalled by that little admission. He'd spent the past few days so blinded by revulsion and self-pity that he hadn't thought to question why his personal hygiene hadn't lapsed nearly as much as it should have now that he had become a sweats-dwelling lifeform.

"I see you've not bothered taking any lessons in boundaries. Remarkable as it seems, did it not occur to you that perhaps in this particular instance I might value privacy over hair-care?" Marius painstakingly shoved himself into a sitting position. He heard the rudeness the moment the words were out of his mouth but couldn't seem to stop it. He'd spent days keeping up a balanced demeanor to Jean and the other staff. Now he was trapped, out of resources, and out of patience.

There was a brief flash of memory on Jennie's part, the same angry tone, the same lack of boundaries. But she had pushed, she always pushed, that was her problem. She rubbed her hand, the finger where a small gold ring used to sit. She couldn't help it, the same angry Marius, it made her smile.

"You push people away when you're like this, you always do," Jennie said, looking at a place Marius couldn't see. A glimmer of lights against rain, the rush of wind against a helmet as the bike banked a sharp corner, a dark place smelling of sweat and perfume. Blue eyes flicked back to him, with a look that stuck him fast against the bed.

"But as soon as it fades you push it away and ignore, while it's all the people who love you can do but sit and quietly wring their hands. After they've bandaged you and nursed you and soothed you when you had nightmares. You scamper off and everything's fine just fine until it isn't again. And the cycle repeats itself and nothing changes."

"But enough bullshit," Jennie said. "I think we're too old for that, yeah? You're hurt, you're going to a whiny grump about it--" She held up a finger to stave protests "--And I read all the files so you can shut right the hell up about it. I don't give two shits. We have both been there done that, have the ill-fitting t-shirt. I'm trying to help, because I haven't been able to, since, well, ever. I'm obviously shit at it, but that's where we're at."

His fingers worked against the sheets. It could have been shame. It could have been anger. Even Marius wasn't sure.

"You're lecturing me on pushing people away?" he asked quietly. He pinned her with yellow eyes. "What happened when you were gone, Jen? Because as I recall, somewhere between you leaving and our reunion in Budapest you fell off the map, an' I don't recall you ever seeing fit to enlighten any of us on that account."

"I did," Jennie said. Then sighed. "A bit. I'd send Kyle postcards from wherever I was touring with the ballet. You, well, you weren't around as much before I left. And I didn't think you much cared."

And the other stuff Jennie?

"And the other stuff," she reached in her shirt and absently fingered the gold ring. "It's complicated. I obviously didn't stay with the ballet. I found a place. my place. And then because I fucked something up I lost it," her heart pounded in her ears, she squeezed the ring. "It's a lot to talk about. And you're avoidy and you hate feelings, and this involves an ocean of feelings, so I just. Didn't think you cared. Again."

"I didn't care. Right." The words fell as flat as marble slabs. "I'm not good at feelings, I'll grant you that, but I fail to see how you could possibly believe I wouldn't take the time to listen had you shown the slightest bit of interest in speaking to me. As I recall you were front and centre for my monumental fuck-up, and so it baffles me that you could think that I, of all people, would neither know how nor care to relate. But you kept your distance, and so I operated on the apparently erroneous assumption that perhaps you simply wanted your space." Marius' flat tone gained a sour edge. "Apparently I greatly overestimated the universal value of privacy."

"Didn't want to talk about it anyway," Jennie said, swallowing and letting the ring fall against her skin. "Cause if I talked, then it was... real," she sighed and rubbed her palms against her jeans, trying to soothe herself with the texture of the denim. "As for you not caring, well. You had your human friends. And as much as I look it I'm not human, and I'll never be. And as soon as you're back on your feet you'll be back with them. Because no matter how much I want it, you're closer with them," she looked back up at the ceiling. 83 ceiling tiles. Such a weird number. "I remember a time when Xavier's was my place. When it was us against the world. Where we could be mutants and not be judged. It was like... breathing again when you hadn't even realized you were holding your breath." She could remember movie nights where they would be sprawled against each other on the couch. Completely and utterly unafraid.

"But then everything ...happened. And you were gone. You'd rather be with humans. I used to get the shit kicked out of me all the time when I was bouncing around in Vegas. I pass, but I'm still not human. And I hadn't felt that difference until I saw you once, out with them. You were in the park, in the spring. And you looked so happy," Jennie's shoulders sagged. "You don't look that way here anymore. And you never looked that way around me. I started holding my breath again. As angry and as upset as you were, you had a place to go. I had nothing. And the one person who could have understood me best, preferred to be around the same people who used to spit in my face."

"You think . . ." Marius laughed, sharp and bitter and with an edge of hysteria. This was sick, too sick, and he was too tired to care about keeping it inside anymore. "That place," he said, "community or brotherhood or whatever you care to call it -- I never had that. I'll never have it. I'm not a mutant, Jen. All I've ever been is a thing that preys on them. Even when the mouths went that never changed. So you're right, I favour the company of humans. It gives me less trouble in the same way staying out of a bar is less taxing for an alcoholic."

As if in emphasis the razor-teeth flexed in his clenched fists. Marius forced his fingers to uncurl before they started to draw blood.

"But if I seem different when I'm here," he continued, listening to the words coming from his mouth as if they were being spoken by a stranger, "perhaps it's because, to me, the school was never about bein' safe with other mutants. It was about bein' with a few people -- people who happened to be mutants -- who understood. People I could trust." His tone went cold. "And then they left."

Marius's comment about alcoholism caused Jennie to twitch, briefly. But she recovered.

"Because you didn't care," Jennie said, he voice breaking. "Or you didn't seem to. Remember when everyone piled on me about my ex because I kicked him in the nuts? I got pregnant, that's why. He knocked me up and left me in the cold, and apparently probability manipulators are not good incubators, so that took care of that. And I went through that alone. So yeah, I left. I left because I had been dumped for a group of people who if they saw the real you they might not have stuck around. I did. I was here, I was always here, to pick you up when you fell down. I never, ever was afraid of you. I was never afraid of the part of yourself that you seem to hate so much. Because the person you are mattered so much more to me. But when I needed you-- when I really needed you, you weren't there. Before, you always just seemed to know. You were always there. In spite of who you think you are, you were always there. But then all that shit happened and you were gone. The day after I-- The day after is when I saw you in the park."

Jennie took in a deep breath, shoulders squared. "So yeah, I did leave. I did it before I could break any further. I ran from this life and tried to make one of my own, not with any help from any one else. You think you're the only one who wishes they were normal? That they could have a normal life? I tried. This stupid life found me anyway."

Many emotions rolled over Marius in that moment: shock that she had gone through that and concealed it; guilt that she was right, that he hadn't noticed. And more, he realised he couldn't even clearly recall the period of time she was referring to. He didn't even know if he'd had an excuse for missing it. Nothing other than self-absorption.

So Marius did what came easiest. He settled on anger.

"You left . . . because I failed to read your mind?" he said quietly. "Because I could not detect a hugely personal and private matter?" His hands twisted the sheets on his thighs. "You lecture me about running away, but how do you handle things? You didn't bother telling me. You just let the hurt grow and grow til you ran away. And you're still running." He glared at her, accusing. "We may not talk but I do know you, Jen, and I know how you look when you drink. I know you've been doin' it since you got here. Not enough to slur or lose your step, but I know. It's in your voice. Right now I can even smell it on your breath. But you avoided me so I gave you space, and because I didn't want the professor or anyone else into it unless you wanted them to be. Now you're saying this, how much you're hurting and were hurting, and how you needed me, but you'd still rather be an alcoholic than come out and say something!" Somehow he had begun to yell, but toning it down at this point seemed pointless..

Wham, pow, right in the kisser.

Jennie looked away from Marius and put a hand to her face. He always knew exactly where to hit. It's why, even though she was in peak physical shape, she always threw the fitness test to become active team. It's why she barely socialized in the mansion, why she never even went near Kyle. It's why the kids had begun to snicker behind her back about how much more animated she was after lunch. It's why there were so many bottles hidden in her room.

Jennie Stavros was an alcoholic. She couldn't quit, even though she'd tried. The shakes would get too bad, the hallucinations would start, then there was that seizure.

She had become what she'd always feared, her mother.

When Jennie spoke again, her voice was wet. "I'm sorry," was what managed. "I'm sorry. I failed you. I got scared and I failed you. I couldn't take rejection so I ran. You're right. But then I failed. I failed over and over again. I failed to have a normal life. I-I failed to save them, I let them die, and I keep failing now. I failed because I wasn't there to help with the Fury. I failed to help with Genosha. I-I-" Jennie broke off, unable to stop the tears.

Unfortunately for his sense of self-righteousness, Jennie's tears did to Marius what his words did to her. In an instant all anger vanished, replaced with dismay. It didn't matter what he had or hadn't done years ago. What he'd said to her just then, right here -- that was inexcusable. He wanted to scream.

But he didn't.

"Jen . . ." Marius pressed a fist to his face, then forced himself to drop it. "Jen, no. I'm sorry. That wasn't . . . you deserve better than that." Had deserved better than that. "You've no reason to apologise to me. You were right. I wasn't there for you when I should've been. I'm sorry. And -- the Fury and Genosha, that wasn't even . . ." He had no idea what he was trying to say. He'd heard the rest of it, but it had all come out in a rush, and while he was still tangled in an apology that should have come years ago he couldn't begin to process what to say to it.

"I let them die". What happened to her?

But she was still crying, and Marius was still out of words. At a loss, he finally leaned forward to where she'd curled at the foot of his bed and set a fisted, misshapen hand on her shoulders. He rubbed her back, clumsy but gentle.

"Je suis désolé," he whispered helplessly.

It took Jennie a couple of minutes to stop, fear and anger and sadness coming out of her in a teary mess. It wasn't supposed to be this way, she was supposed to be helping. But how could she---?

Perhaps the truth then.

Finally she sat up an looked at Marius, his face still a mess of tumors but his yellow eyes clear, and very concerned. The years fell away and she was staring at her best friend. The wall inside her fell away.

"You keep asking where I've been," she said, her voice still wet. She cleared her throat and reached in her shirt. A small gold ring hung from a fine chain. She reached around and unclasped it, holding the ring closer so he could see. The ring itself was plain, it was two hands holding a heart, on which a tiny crown sat.

"It's called a Claddagh ring," said Jennie. "The hands mean friendship, the crown loyalty, the heart love. Someone very important to me gave it to me. I--" she cleared her throat again. "When I was in England, I was with the ballet, but I didn't stay with it for very long. Turns out I hated it. Don't get me wrong, I loved the dancing, I loved the costumes, I love the travel. It was thrilling. But the ballerinas were, shall we say, heinous bitches." She rubbed the ring, and then placed it on the middle finger of her left hand, heart facing down. "One day, I had an accident. And I broke my foot. Bye bye ballet for Jennie."

She shifted her weight on his bed. "I was on crutches, living in a flat in Croydon, waiting for my foot to heal so I could get back to the ballet and keep my visa. And then one day these idiot kids tried to mug me," Jennie rolled her eyes, smiling at the memory. "I kicked their asses, but one of them saw me use my powers. Apparently, in Croydon, there aren't many resources for mutants, because this kid was one. His name was Winston. And he tracked me down-- because there's only so far you can go on crutches, and this kid. This fifteen-year-old from South London practically begs me to train him. He wanted to be a 'proper superhero'." Jennie affected his accent, and smiled at the memory.

Marius was still looking at the ring. He wasn't so clueless that he didn't note the way she handled it or the hitch in her throat. Tactfully, he chose to follow the thread of her conversation instead.

"I'm guessing that . . . . didn't go so well," he said carefully, not really feeling he needed to hear the answer. Or rather, feeling he already had.

"I failed to save them."

Jennie shook her head. "It was fine for a while, we even picked up this other guy, Donal. Used to heckle us in the park until we figured out he was a mutant too. And he started nagging me for lessons as well. It was like I'd started picking up stray kittens. But the problem when you teach someone with a hair up his butt about being a super hero is that... they go superheroing."

Jennie slid her feet out of her flats and pulled her knees to her chest. "We managed not to bungle it, may have even saved some people-- we caught a serial killer. 'The Croydon Cutter'," Jennie smiled at that. "But that got us noticed."

"Not by an adoring public, I take it?"

Jennie's lip twitched. "Between the CCTV cameras never working, us always being able to break in anywhere no matter what, and the fact that the killer-- who was some Lord's son-- they already had some stooge to pin the murders on. We--" Jennie ran a hand through her hair. "I got smug. I had a visit from a man named John Preston. He was from the government, secret agency type crap, and he threatened to pull my visa if I didn't stop. But, like, people were dying, and you know how I get when people tell me what to do. So I told him to shove my visa up my ass and me and the boys went to catch ourselves a killer."

She tugged at one of her toes, noticing the chip in the nailpolish with distaste. "It was such a simple thing, to catch him and expose him. Real Scooby Doo moment, 'I'll get you and your meddling dog' or whatever. So Winston, Donal and I show back up at my flat after busting the guy, and on my couch is John Preston, and the rest of his team is going through my cabinets looking for tea."

Marius snorted. "Perhaps you should've namedropped Pete Wisdom."

"What makes you think I didn't? Anyway, he wasn't there to revoke my visa. He was there to offer me a job. He was from a branch of the government that investigated, and I quote, 'weird shit,' and he needed someone like me to join his merry band."

It was hard for Marius to raise his eyebrows, but he made a noble effort.

"So essentially you left the mansion and became a ballet-dancing spy." He sighed. "Well, good to see your life continued along approximately the same ridiculous trajectory."

"Like I said, I tried to escape this life and this life just kept dragging me back," Jennie rubbed her eyes. She felt exhausted and wring through. "I refused to go without my boys, so they got recruited as well. I should have just let them go, but Winston was going to get himself killed the way he was going, and Donal was such an enabler--" Jennie sighed. "I thought they would be safer. So we became members of Clarent House. Cleaning up England's shit and letting other people take credit for it. Many adventures were had, much weirdness stopped, you know. Like being here. But with more tea and scones in the kitchen."

"But then Mother happened to us."

The X-Man waited. He knew the mother in question wasn't Jennie's. He'd attended the funeral.

Jennie swallowed, images of that day still burned permanently in her retinas. "Do you ever wonder what you would do, if someone got in here and just... slaughtered everyone? No mercy, everything done to cause as much pain as possible. Imagine coming come and seeing the professor strung up by his entrails like a pinata in the foyer. That's what they did to John. They--" Jennie squeezed her fists together, the tremor creeping back into her voice. "Mother is a demon, and has what we call 'Disciples,' they're very fast, very strong, and very hard to kill. They're like, unstoppable forces of nature. One is bad, but you might survive. Two is worse... three, forget it. One night, after we had finally managed to kill two of the bastards, she set the remaining eleven on Clarent House. No one stood a chance. They were all dead, save me and two others. All dead, including those two sweet boys I'd dragged into this life."

Marius thought of Scott's eyeless face and the mangled red mess that had been Fred's. He didn't need to wonder what that was like. Not anymore.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, like a wretched verbal tic that filled the void of a more substantial condolence he just couldn't formulate. "So in Budapest, when you were so rough . . . that was what you'd come off?"

"There's one more thing that Mother does.She always has 13 Disciples. No more, no less. When she falls short, she recruits. We had taken two of hers... so she took two of ours. It was only fair, they had said."

Jennie let that sink in for a moment, letting the background noise of the medlab filter in.

"The brightest lights cast the darkest shadows. What Mother does is take the darkness inside of you and makes it manifest. Every horrible thought you've ever had, every bad thing you've ever wanted to do. You become your shadow. She likes heroes. She likes idealists. Because they're so much fun to twist and break. You die and rise as thing... thing that is everything that was horrible about you. And as an act of loyalty, you sever your ties to the world by killing everyone you ever loved, and everyone they loved, and so forth."

Jennie swallowed.

"That bitch took Donal. And he found me in Prague."

Friends turned against her. He wondered why Jennie seemed to feel guilt about having missed Genosha.

"Have you told the professor about this?" he asked. "Or Wanda and them at Snow Valley?"

"Everyone who needs to know knows," said Jennie. "But can you understand a bit better now? At first I just couldn't, it hurt too much. And the drinking-- I was just scared, all the time scared. What if she found me? What if she did to this school what--" Jennie shook her head. "Then came shame, and the fear that you had stopped caring---"

Jennie leaned back, consciously avoiding his toes. She looked at him, blue into gold. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. Sorry I assumed instead of asking. And I'm sorry now."

Marius shook his head. "No. You were right, I could've made more of an effort. I don't care to push, true, but I can't deny it also happened to be the easier way out. It was . . . selfish." Exhausted now, Marius sat back in an unconscious echo of Jennie's posture. "All these years and I still end up pulling the same sort of behaviour that ends with a cinderblock to the head."

"Do you want to be alone now?" Jennie asked, conscious of how his requests for privacy usually were shame driven. If she still knew her friend like she did, she knew that more than anything else... he hated being alone in the medlab. Still, better to check.

Ten minutes ago Marius would probably have said yes, but there was a considerable difference between the offer of company and having company thrust upon him. Especially now that they'd actually bothered to speak to one another. Strange how that worked.

"Well," he said slowly, "You did go through the trouble of assembling various instruments of cosmetic improvement. I wouldn't want to be impolite."

That got him an eyeroll for the ages, but Jennie still slid off the bed and brought the cart over. "All right, but you're getting in a chair. Do you have any idea how hard it's been to keep from getting the sheets wet? Voght would have me hung half mast from the flagpole." She checked that the water was still warm, and draped a blanket around his neck. "And since I just spilled my guts all over you, I want all the stuff that's been up with you since, ever."

"And suddenly I feel the inevitable surge of regret . . ."