Chapter 2
Day Seventeen
Jono cracked an eye open and saw that the bed beside him was empty. He had fallen asleep curled beside Remy, and his sleep had been pleasantly interwoven with Remy's subconscious presence.
Remy stood by the window, now, standing in low-riding sweatpants and tank top, smoking out of a small crack in the window.
For a moment, Jono just looked at him, standing in the morning light looking like something out of a magazine. There was a frown on his face.
"S'cold out," Jono said finally, "Close the window, yeah?"
Remy turned, noticed that Jono was awake, and smiled apologetically. He went over to sit down on the bed next to Jono, "Mornin'," he said.
"Didn't Kavita tell you ter stop smoking?"
"She said t' cut down, not t' stop. 'Sides, I ain' abou' t'quit cold turkey."
Jono rolled his eyes. "Wot time is it?"
"Ten," Remy said. He stubbed out the cigarette and laid back down, wrapping his arms around Jono's waist. "Logan came by dis mornin'. Said dey found de bodies an' showed me dese driver's licenses. Never seen dose men in my life." He let out a deep sigh and buried his face into the crook of Jono's neck, stubble scratching at Jono's skin.
"It's not yer fault, whatever 'appened," Jono said. "They kidnapped you. Who knows wot they would've done?" His words shook loose his own memories and unbidden, he thought about the day Jubilee and Angelo had been taken, all those years ago and he remembered their crucified bodies, arms outstretched and heads lolling against their chests. He shuddered internally.
Remy seemed to have picked up on his fear, whether through the psi-link or through his empathetic abilities, Jono wasn't sure. His arms tightened around Jono. "Been kidnapped a couple o' times now," he said lightly, "S'always worked out fo' me in de end,"
Jono sighed, wanting to say something like I know, but- or It still kills me a little- but he couldn't find the right words to voice his fears and his worry, so kept it to himself. He ran his hand along Remy's back absently, tracing his spine. "You 'ave breakfast yet, Rem?" he asked.
"No," Remy didn't say anything else for a moment, but then—
"Did you just purr?" Jono said, incredulous. The low noise in Remy's chest had definitely been a—
"No," Remy said at once, "Was not a purr, Jono."
"You purred," Jono insisted gleefully. "Cat burglar," he whispered.
Remy grumbled another denial and pulled away, "M'gettin' somethin' t'eat," he declared, but Jono didn't miss the way he was blushing a little and he wished he could kiss Remy, then, and it wasn't that he hadn't thought about it before, but he'd never been so overcome with the want of it, and so disappointed by the impossibility.
"I love you," he blurted out. "Fuck me, I love you a lot, Remy. Don't even know why, half the time, but I do."
Remy paused, looking startled, and then he grinned and it lit up his entire face. "Love you, too," he said, and pressed a soft kiss to where Jono's mouth was meant to be.
He lingered, but it was Jono who pulled away. "Rem," he said, looking away, "Y'know I can't feel anything. There's no... point."
"Dat's a lie an' y'know it, Jono," Remy said, but he let it go. "C'mon," he took Jono's hand and pulled him out of bed, "Let's go downstairs, d'accord?"
Jono didn't say anything but he let Remy pull him out of bed and he stopped briefly at his own room to put on a change of clothes.
When they arrived in the cafeteria of the mansion, a couple people turned to stare and Jono had a brief moment of panic before he realized that they were likely watching Remy.
They sat in the corner at a table to themselves and Jono hid behind a paper he had no intention of reading while Remy ate, and that was perhaps why he didn't notice anyone had approached the table until Rogue, Jubilee, and Bobby were already sitting down.
"So you certainly gave everyone quite a scare yesterday," Jubilee said. "How're you feeling today, Remy?"
He waved a hand dismissively, still in the middle of chewing. He coughed a little, swallowed quickly and grinned sheepishly. "Don' worry 'bout me, fille. Y'know I've survived worse." he said.
She made a face. "It's thinking like that that gets us all in trouble," she grumbled.
Remy merely shot her a sly grin and winked, and Jubilee huffed loudly, as if fed up with his antics, but she smiled, too.
Around lunch, they parted; Remy was being summoned before the Fearless Leader to discuss what had occurred the previous evening, and it appeared that after having bummed around for a couple of days, Jono was being assigned some sort of job. He supposed it was inevitable; he wasn't on an active roster, and he had to earn his keep. Nothing had been expected from him on Utopia because it was a refugee center, in essence.
Jono followed Emma's telepathic instructions and ventured to the garage, where he was surprised to find Bobby Drake, Jean-Paul, and a girl with pink hair and wings. He vaguely recalled her as one of the X-Kids, a couple years younger than Jubilee.
"Hullo!" she sang, surging forward to meet him with an outstretched hand. "We haven't had the chance to meet yet. I'm Megan, Pixie on the field."
He blinked, stopping short to stare at her. He was clearly overdue for a trip back to the Isles, because even her vaguely familiar accent made him ache for England. He blurted out, "Welsh?"
She laughed. "I am," she said. "You're the first to make that distinction in quite some time."
Jono shook his head. "Right, sorry. I'm Jono. Chamber." he said. He shook her hand quickly.
"Wonderful," Megan said, grinning.
Behind her, Jean-Paul cleared his throat. "Shall we get going?" he said, holding up car keys and jingling them obnoxiously.
Bobby grabbed them from his hands smoothly and said, "What's the rush, JP? Gonna run off on us the second we get out there?"
"If I wanted to run away from you…" Jean-Paul gave up on his retort and settled for just rolling his eyes and following Bobby toward a dark van.
"When did you come over?" Megan asked, falling into step with Jono.
He snorted. "Years ago. Mutated. Went ter Academy X fer Emma's new class."
Megan's face lit up. "Right! You're Jubilee's age, aren't?"
Jono shrugged, "Bit older." Christ. How old was Megan? The X-Kids couldn't be more than seventeen or eighteen. Remy was right. They were old. The 'X-Business', as it were, seemed to be taking the kids younger and younger all the time.
"Yeah?" Megan said, raising her pink eyebrows.
They climbed into the backseat of the van and it occurred to Jono to ask, "So, er, where are we going?"
"You're coming with us on a charity run, kiddo," Bobby said, even though he was the same age as Jono, if not younger.
"Charity run?"
"Community service," Jean-Paul said, eyeing Bobby with suspicion as he backed the car out of the garage with hardly a look backward.
"He makes it sound like a chore," Bobby sighed. "But, uh, X-Men do have a community service quota we have to fill per week. It's not bad –most of us have abilities to expedite the work process anyway, and that makes everyone happy enough. Plus, our publicist says it makes us look good and she has a list of which of us needs a better public image."
"You lot need a better public image?" Jono says.
"No," Megan says, "Just you and Jean-Paul,"
"I'm a homosexual," Jean-Paul said drawling and waving a hand dismissively in a way that suggested to Jono that perhaps he wasn't being serious about the reason for his presence, "And apparently my blatant gayness in 2012 is putting off a couple of momgroups that missed the giant memo in my memoir. I'm fairly certain I dedicated a chapter to it, I don't know how it went unnoticed." he said.
Bobby snickered. "Yeah, that's why. Anyway, all the moms like me and the kids think Megan's the coolest thing next to the coolest thing, so…"
"And there's you," Jean-Paul said, "No one's quite sure what to do with you."
"Oh,"
"Jono," Bobby said loudly, shooting Jean-Paul a glare, "I apologize in advance for JP being a total ass."
"Don't call me that," Jean-Paul said sharply,
"What, an ass?"
"No, the other –but don't call me that, either," Jean-Paul snapped, "And watch where you're going, oui?"
"Oh oui, of course," Bobby muttered, taking a particularly sharp turn at the next light.
Jono left them to their bickering, and turned to look out the window, at the city passing them by. He'd moved out to the West Coast over a year earlier, right around the time most mutants were fleeing to San Francisco, and one of the things he never quite got used to was the weather –the constant heat, the perpetual midday sun. It was pleasant weather that Jono, born and raised in London, had never really grown accustom to, but generally appreciated, anyway. Today, though, the good weather just put Jono –whose thought were occupied by what Remy and Scott could be talking about in regards to what had happened –on edge.
"So Jono," Bobby spoke up, interrupting his thoughts, "We haven't really had a chance to really talk yet, but we're all a little curious. How long've you known Gambit?"
Jono blinked. "Oh. Er. Reckon it's just been a couple o' weeks. Met when 'e came back t' California."
"Really?" Megan said, looking over at Jono curiously, "You haven't, like, worked together on a mission before?"
"Erm. Maybe. Not closely, though. 'Aven't been on any missions, y'know… Just been sort o' 'angin' about…Er, why?"
"These two," Jean-Paul said –and Jono could hear the eye-rolling that was happening in the front seat –"are merely trying to say that you and Gambit appear quite close."
"Oh. Yeah, I suppose. We hit it off."
Bobby laughed, "That's Remy for you, huh? Makes friends left and right."
"Red light, Robert!" Jean-Paul said, "Arrêt, arrêt –Oh, Mon Dieu. You're a menace."
"This coming from you is so hypocritical. And I was driving fine."
"I am driving back." Jean-Paul said darkly.
It soon became clear that their destination was some sort of demolition site on the outskirts of the city. There were a couple of orange-vest wearing workers on the scene as Bobby drove the van slowly over the ruined pavement of the parking lot.
"Wot is this place?" Jono wondered as they climbed out of the van.
"Old storage unit that a sector of A.I.M was using," Bobby said. "Place got pretty messed up last week during a raid –no thanks to our guys, I guess –so we're on clean-up duty."
"It's fairly simple," Megan told Jono, "Mostly, we get debris cleared out. You can use your powers to blast some of the larger pieces."
"Alright," Bobby said, "I freeze and shatter, you blast –Megan and Jean-Paul will take care of sweeping everything up. Let's do this."
The workers on the site directed them toward the parts of pavement and destroyed building that needed to be taken care of, and from there the work become rather mindless.
Jono was silent as he concentrated his psionic blasts on the building rubble, but everyone else bantered cheerfully around him. Bobby seemed to know most of the workmen by name, and they got along easily in a manner that was decidedly foreign to Jono of late. It wasn't that he was some sort of social recluse –although the development of his powers years ago had seemed like a good reason to go down that path.
It was just…Jono was sure that he'd always been somewhat prickly, though before his mutation, it'd managed to give him a sort of –of charm. He supposed it helped that his confidence had been atypically high for a teenager. He'd done well enough when he lost his powers after M-Day, after the initial shock of it all. The transition back to 'normal' had been the roughest, though in truth Jono couldn't recall much of it except for the hospital equipment and Scott and Beast bustling about, making sure life support was, well, supporting him.
Oddly, everything after that was even less memorable, though Jono was certain that he'd been as close to happy after the run-in with the Clan Akkaba as he'd been since the early days of Academy X. Or he should have been, anyway. Jono had a way of sulking even when things were plodding along to his advantage. It was easy to see that now, he supposed, when he'd lost everything once more, thanks to some sort of reality warp by Legion.
Yet another stint on a suicide watch (albeit, one cleverly disguised as a mutation observation) later, Jono wondered if he ought to start appreciating his current living situation a tad more.
If he could scowl, Jono would. As it was, he furrowed his brow and blasted the next block of cement and rock with more power than necessary. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate it, he thought bitterly. Of course, he fucking wanted to. There was just –it was like there was too much going on in his mind, anyway. Too much overthinking. Too much worry.
'And this thing with Remy,' he thought, 'It's too new to think about our –my –future. Who knows where it's going? How long it'll go on for?' Though he loathed to admit it, Jono was beginning to put his guard up, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Hey, Jono –turn down the blasts, huh? We're done here. No need to blow up more than necessary –save that for the battles."
Jono blinked, and looked at Bobby, who was standing near him in ice-form, his hand up in a stop gesture. There was a nervous grin on Bobby's face.
"Sorry," Jono said, letting out the extra energy in his chest. The psionic flames flared for a moment before receding to a manageable flicker in his chest and jaw, and Jono scrambled for the hanging pieces of his bandages, wrapping them over the cavities in his body hastily. He always felt bizarrely self-conscious doing it, as if he was scrambling to clothe himself. It didn't help that Bobby didn't react as most did, choosing instead to stare curiously at Jono as he took more time to carefully shape the bandages around his neck and jaw.
"Wot?"
Bobby blushed, "Oh, uh –sorry, dude. I was just wondering, like… how does it just –keep the shape of your face, I guess?"
Jono blinked. It'd been a while since someone had asked so bluntly. "Er… I guess, it's a bit subconscious. Been told a couple o' times I'm really just a ball of energy in'abiting a dead shell, but that's off putting, innit?"
Bobby's eyes widened, but then he let out a bark of laughter.
"What's the joke?" Megan wondered as she and Jean-Paul approached them from where they'd been gathering the debris into a large metal bin at one end of the parking lot.
Bobby glanced at Jono, amusement still written on his face, but he just shrugged and checked his wristwatch. "Awesome," he said, "It's not even three yet. Anyone wanna stop for fro-yo?"
Megan's face lit up, but Jean-Paul frowned.
Jono turned for the van, pretending not to notice how Jean-Paul had glanced his way.
The ride back to the Greymalkin complex was indeed longer; they ended up stopping for frozen yogurt, where Bobby and Megan loaded up on so many toppings Jono was surprised their cups didn't end up weighing in over five pounds.
Later, they sat outside at a table under an umbrella, watching the foot traffic beyond the shop.
"So 'ow often d'yer all do this?" Jono wondered.
"Well," Jean-Paul said, "Robert actually does this most frequently. Once a week, I believe,"
"I can usually rope JP here into coming, too, because for someone who always complains he's busy, he never seems to be up to much." Bobby said, snickering. "Then, I take whoever's powers might be especially useful for what the job is, plus whoever wants to come, plus, y'know, whoever PR wants us to take."
"Like me." Jono said.
"Right. I mean, it's not that you have a bad reputation –honestly, and no offense, I don't think you have a reputation yet. But I guess PR thinks you might look a little"
"-Fright'nin'."
"-Unapproachable," Bobby said.
"It is utter shit, really," Jean-Paul remarked.
"Yeah," Megan said, frowning around another spoonful of her yogurt. She swallowed and proceeded to wave her spoon around in the air in front of her, saying, "I mean, like. Nobody really wants to deal with public relations, but things are still tense, y'know? Scott says we have to, as, like, the face of the mutant community. Et cetera. And it's not so bad. Sometimes it's really fun, actually." She beamed at Jono.
Jono looked around the table, taking in the expressions around him, which reflected various degrees of concern and reassurance. They were –trying to comfort him, he realized, dumbfounded. "'Course," he said eventually, "S'not so bad."
"Does this mean you'd be up to coming out for the job next week?" Bobby said, though, judging by the way his eyebrows lifted when Jono shrugged and nodded, he'd been joking.
"Awesome," Megan said, grinning. She finished off her frozen yogurt in a couple of calculated swoops of her spoon. "Are you guys ready to head home?"
'Home,' Jono thought, glad that everyone was too occupied with straightening up and heading back to the car to notice how the word made him cringe. It was peculiar, the way he still reacted to a word that had lost any real meaning long ago. Once, Jono might have been able to convincingly say that London was home, but he hadn't been back there in years, and after his experiences… he was reluctant to get comfortable enough to call any new place 'home'.
'Ain' it better t'love an' lose?' wondered a small voice in the back of Jono's mind. It sounded suspiciously like Remy.
'Maybe,' Jono told the voice, 'But I'm tired o' losing,'
"How are you feeling?"
He startled at the sound of Megan's voice and sat up, realizing that he must've given some type of audible sigh as he stared out the window. "M'alright," he said, "Just thinking, I s'ppose,"
"Anything ground-breaking?" Bobby asked, turning in the passenger seat. His tone was light, but there was a knowing look in his eyes that made Jono wonder what his story was. He would be surprised, given the X-Men tradition of hardship, if there wasn't one.
"Not particularly, no," Jono said, and then, out of some guilt for his reticent behavior, he added, "Er, rather… I've just been thinking about –about Greymalkin. Getting used to it, that is,"
"Ah," Bobby said, "I get it. Moving around all the time, am I right? It takes a little time, I guess. Come to think of it, I've only ever lived maybe four places, but what with the mansion getting destroyed all the time… It feels like a lot more. I got recruited right after I turned fifteen, you know. It feels like a lifetime ago."
The car grew quiet after that as everyone seemed to fall into their own thoughts.
Jono was weary of thinking so much, though, and so he shook away his doubts and cynical musings for once, turning to stare listlessly at the city flying by the windows. There was a breeze coming in through Bobby's half-open window, and there was some sort of bubbly summer pop-song on the radio that Megan was mouthing along to.
He closed his eyes and thought about nothing, disconnecting from his own feelings until he opened his eyes and took in the world flashing by and only thought about the way the sun reflected against tinted storefront windows and didn't feel a thing, not one thing but the wind against his face.