Current mood:

awake

Just Like Wuthering Heights
Author: ashe_frost
Beta: alfirin_kirinki
Title: Just Like Wuthering Heights
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Blah blah Marvel and Fox blah blah ownership blah.
Summary: In the end, Bobby chose Rogue.
Written for: andrealyn
Pairing/scenario requested: Bobby/John
Condition: No character death.
Warnings (if any): Also contains Bobby/Rogue (which I only let happen because I did my research.) and angst.
Archive: the_aa



In the end, Bobby chose Rogue. He chose her in the beginning, and every step along the way. He chose her when she told him she needed him, when she wanted to watch a certain program on TV, when she wanted to be alone with him. Bobby even chose her when her choice was between life and Logan, and that couldn’t have been easy for him because he knew Logan meant more to her than him. Bobby was her boyfriend and Logan was her hero, her savior, and her salvation. Bobby was John’s, and every time Bobby chose her, he wasn’t choosing him. She blamed herself.

She didn’t, at first. At first there was no blame, just three teenagers and millions of hormones. But at first she wasn’t Bobby’s girlfriend either. She wasn’t Bobby’s anything. She was just Rogue, and they all pretended John was just John and Bobby was just Bobby. But really, John was Bobby’s, and Bobby was John’s. Except John wanted to be his own, and Bobby wanted to be somebody’s, and Rogue was scared and broken and in need and there were cracks in John and Bobby, so she filled them up with herself until they were so full they exploded, and they were Bobby and Rogue when they were put back together again, and John was still shattered.

She thought about that, on the way to Boston. And about how easy and free Bobby and John were when they were together. How they always found a way to touch each other, even if it was just for Bobby to try to take John’s lighter. But the thing was, when their hands touched, they would look at each other and if Bobby asked nicely, John would put it away. And even as she watched through the visor mirror, John reached out to Bobby in his sleep, ended up completely changing angles to put his head on Bobby’s shoulder, and when he started murmuring and fidgeting, all it took to still him was Bobby’s hand on his cheek.

He woke up at that, and didn’t even hesitate to slide down Bobby’s chest until his head was resting in his lap. And she glared at Bobby’s reflection in the visor mirror because his arm had nothing to do but drape over John’s body. And there was John laid out before Bobby, and even if Bobby hadn’t glanced guilty at the back of her head before he did it, she knew his hand would’ve found its way to John’s hair, because it was soft and ungelled, and once upon a time Bobby had always been touching it, but once upon a time John was soft and ungelled, too, but he hadn’t been in long enough for her not be able to remember what it took to make him that way. She had a feeling it was Bobby.

It was Bobby, and she knew that, couldn’t deny the feeling, and it broke her heart a little, because she was the one who had taken Bobby away. She took something that didn’t belong to her and she wanted so badly to keep it even though it was wrong and it was eating her up inside. She clung on with dear life to every moment, and when she and Bobby kissed, it felt like her heart exploded. She had wanted it for so long and then she got it. She got exactly what she wanted, and when she got it she wondered why. Wondered if she wanted to kiss him so badly simply because she couldn’t, and then again simply because she could. Or maybe if she wanted to kiss him because it was love. But she wasn’t in love with Bobby.

John was, and she didn’t know how much until later that day when she sucked John up inside her, and for half an hour after that she loved Bobby more than she had ever loved anyone before. She was consumed by it, she was obsessed with it. It completely filled her up and she couldn’t even move with the intensity of it and when she was falling from the jet the only thought in her head was that she would never see Bobby again and that’s why she was screaming. It terrified her so much that she could hardly breathe, and she was shaking so hard when Nightcrawler caught her that she almost fell out of his arms.

Later it went away, when she had spent up all of John’s powers and John’s thoughts and John’s energy, and the only traces of John that were left in her were slimy residue clinging to the hidden parts of her brain. And he just sat there, doing nothing, while she and Bobby tried to start the fire. Just sat there staring into space and giving off loneliness in waves, sat there hurting and pining and doing nothing. So she yelled ‘You know, you could help!’ at him, but didn’t mean ‘with the fire’ so much as ‘yourself’, because if he would just fight for Bobby, she could fight back and win, and at least then it wouldn’t feel like this. Like she’d wronged them both and she was a horrible, selfish person because maybe she didn’t love Bobby as much as John and she knew that, but she did need him, and she couldn’t let go.

She couldn’t let Bobby go, but she could let John go. She let Bobby let John go, let him watch as John walked away towards the dam at Alkali Lake, walked away from her and Bobby and from all of his heartache, and into the arms of anything else. And part of her wanted to kill him for it. Wanted to kill him for giving up, for walking away, for not waiting patiently like a good little boy until she didn’t need Bobby anymore and Bobby figured out that John did. But he didn’t. He walked away and ruined it all, and when he went off with Magneto is was like signing his own death sentence, because there was no way he could be with Bobby after that and it hurt her. It twisted her heart into a mockery of its former self and made her want to scream and cry and throw things because it was all her fault and she was trapped and she couldn’t do anything about it.

It was just like Wuthering Heights. John was like Heathcliffe, full of passion and violence and hatred and fear and so much love that it tainted the rest of it, made him exist solely for it, made him both strong and weak with it, defined his character and kept him alive. And Bobby was like Cathy, quietly pining and hoping and wanting, loving and adoring and hurting and knowing it was wrong but not being able to stop himself anyway. Rogue couldn’t decide if she should be Hindley or Edgar, or maybe someone else. She just knew it that it hurt being wrapped up in this big, overwhelming, incomprehensible thing that could only lead to pain and suffering, because everyone was too wrapped up in following happily ever afters.

But there could be no happily ever after. Because in the end, Bobby chose Rogue. Bobby chose Rogue, John chose his pride, and Rogue chose herself.