Author:
grit kitty
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Date Posted: 21:15:44 07/01/04 Thu
*
Bobby chooses meeting places John doesn't like. John wonders if he picks them because he finds them familiar, or he wants to throw John off guard because John never was comfortable in middle-class suburban environments. John tips his white Starbucks cup, contemplates the hole in the lid. Venti latte, just to blend in -- he has learned more than contempt from Mystique. His lighter is confined in his pocket, and he presses his palm against the heat of the cup. No cup sleeve. Caution: contents hot.
It's a mall. Bland people, bland music. He would love to fry Coldplay, slowly, for their influence on alternative music, though his intentions about the shoppers walking around are less vicious. He understands Magneto's disdain for humans, but not the hatred, and most of the time he thinks of mutants and humans all as people. He's matured enough to recognize he picked up that attitude early. From his grandmother. Professor X. Bobby. The play fountain irks him less than he thought it would. He remembers running through an open hydrant on hot summer days. The splat of water on concrete is the most genuine thing here.
There are holes for Chinese checkers in the tabletop. Some of the tables have chessboards or bat gammon triangles, but no one plays. No one has any game pieces. John certainly has no marbles. Children play nearby, though. They run through the fountain. This is a fancy mall, a Fashion Square, build a half-dozen years ago when this particular model was trendy. Open to the air. Live jazz. The play fountain, surrounded by speakers disguised as rocks. John read in the paper they have a snow machine for the holidays. The kids probably like that. They sure like to run around in their swimsuits or street clothes, shrieking like rusty swing sets as they leap through the jets. Their mothers and fathers look on, calling out warnings to stop running, be careful, stop teasing your brother, come dry off and we'll get ice cream. The same mothers and fathers who would recoil in horror if their child suddenly levitated, spouted fur, or burned his mother's car because he didn't want to go to his father's house that month.
Bobby walks up to the table. "Want some company?" His hand rests on the back of the empty chair, waiting to pull it out and sit if he's invited. He's dressed like Scott Summers. He's holding his own Starbucks latte in the other hand. Iced. And it looks natural, as if he likes the taste of Starbucks lattes.
"I'm not here for the scenery." John would respect Bobby more if by meeting in malls Bobby has been trying to rattle his cage, because he likes to think there's more to Bobby than blowjobs and an X-Men uniform. In the past few years Bobby has dropped a few hints he runs deeper than John ever guessed. On good days John tells himself he's taking core samples to find out just how much more there is to discover. On honest days, he knows he comes to fill his simple animal need for sex. Lately he is curious why Bobby keeps their meetings. He doubts Professor Xavier would approve either the association or the sex.
"Look," says Bobby.
Two boys play over the central fountain jet. John guesses they're twelve or thirteen. One sits on it so when the water sprays the boy appears to piss as if his dick were a fire hose. John can just hear him. "Oh, a wedgie! Oh! Oh!" The other boy laughs and laughs.
"Is this your idea of a porn flick to set the mood?"
Bobby frowns at him. "That would be about your speed, apparently."
"Let me guess. You were going to deliver some platitude about equality of humans and mutants for the good of the children, courtesy of Charles." John fakes a British accent as he says the professor's name.
"No, I wasn't," says Bobby. "I was going to make a sentimental observation about how when we were kids, we used to fart around just like that. And then I was going to ask you if you wanted to get out of here."
Bobby looks good. John might scorn the casual young upper-crust mutant look, but it suits Bobby. Obviously he's been somewhere tropical because he's toasted dark. Even his hair is sun-bleached, buff rather than yellow. The deeper coloring makes his eyes that much more striking, and John can see he's looking right back. "Yeah," says John. "I wanna get out of here."
In the far parking lot they climb into the back seat of John's Expedition where John straddles Bobby's lap and kisses him. No preliminaries, dives right in, and he catches Bobby's lip between their teeth. Bobby doesn't complain. He never does, not even when John fucked him in an alley two years ago with John's spit and his own come and nothing else for lube. John wonders if Bobby was trying to prove something then, biting his lip and making no noise. Taking the pain like a man, maybe, though he came again -- John remembers that part vividly. He's taking it now, and there is no pain he doesn't seem to want.
Bobby is toasted dark all over. He makes soft, wet noises when John fucks his mouth. They separate and maneuver into different positions on the bench, which takes strength, but John's ready for it; age and experience have given him muscle in the past few years. Lanky power, good for a runner like him. Bobby's body is sculpted, and John remembers the equipment at Xavier's, remembers watching Bobby work out as he opens his mouth. John loves the taste of his dick, and he's grateful it overwhelms the coffee lingering on his tongue.
They are sweating with sex and the thick atmosphere of John's truck, hot in the afternoon and dark from the black-tinted windows. Once they met in a hotel and had sex on a bed, with sheets and pillows. They had wrestled playfully, laughing. There had been tenderness. Before that, before the alley, before the stairwells and taxis and parks, there was the first time they'd met, a year after John ran away with Magneto. Both sides had wanted to contact a new-discovered mutant on the east coast. The X-Men found her first. Magneto made a grand speech to Xavier, and John got Bobby alone long enough to kiss him, consequences irrelevant since they weren't friends or allies anymore.
Bobby didn't ice him over. He just said, "It was kind of significant that I picked a girlfriend I couldn't even kiss, wasn't it." And John blew him, quick, before anyone could find out. After that John knew they might not be allies, and maybe not even friends anymore, but they were something.
Now John wishes he had more than a truck for this. Wishes for that hotel room. A bed. Maybe even some tenderness. Instead he shoves in, hears Bobby grunt, shoves in deeper. They come in minutes.
"That fountain would feel good now," John says after.
Bobby circles his finger, and frost creeps along the inside of the windows. He says, "You'd be the kid sitting on the water jet."
"When was I ever a kid?" John dresses. Never know when Magneto might call. Or Xavier, for that matter.
"You've always been a kid. You're still a kid," said Bobby. "I know, because I've been waiting for you to grow up, but you haven't."
"That's rich, coming from the Summers-wannabe."
Bobby shrugs into his shirt, and he doesn't meet John's eyes. "And that's pathetic, coming from an X-Men wannabe. Don't talk about stuff you know nothing about."
"Why the hell would I want to be an X-Man? I left," says John, indignation swelling in his chest, "I'm on the winning side."
Bobby is buttoned up. He still reeks of sex, but he looks only a little disheveled. "I don't want to argue."
"Who's arguing?"
Bobby opens the door. The sunlight waters John's eyes. Before he leaves, Bobby says, "I hate you a little, sometimes."
"Only sometimes?" Old habits won't die. He wants to bicker like the kids they once were. He's a grown up, but only for Magneto.
"Only when I know I can't have what I want."
John fastened his jeans. "Oh, so does that mean you hated Rogue?"
"No. I never really wanted her."
John smiles. "So nice to know I'm hot."
Bobby looks sad, even with the sun on his mussed hair. "Goodbye, John," he says, and shuts the door.
The cool air doesn't linger. John goes back into the mall. He tells himself he wants a bottle of water because he's thirsty after sex, but he turns left out of Starbucks' door, not right. He watches children splash in the fountain with their parents looking on, and he hates every last one of them.
*
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