offthebeatenpath

If Bobby had gotten out of the conversation while the going was good, John suddenly felt the desire to join him. The Brotherhood was something he really didn't want to think about, because it lead to Alcatraz and everything after. And as for everything else: the States getting 'really bad'? Genosha? Mutants working for the government? London and Edinburgh under threat?

Gathering his scattered thoughts, John chewed on his lower lip before saying: "I don't know what to say to any of that. It sounds so utterly different," he admitted, quietly, and looked uncertain as to how to properly respond. "There was only ever about four members of the Brotherhood," he murmured, not looking at her. "Not much of a long-term threat." Erik's plans had never depended on the supremacy of numbers. "And the X-Men were a small bunch, too. The only former one I've ever met is - well," he smiled a little at Em, but it was a tired, worried thing, "the one I'm dating. I'm glad you got out okay. I'm sorry you had to leave everyone you cared about behind."

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"I went and dumped a whole lot on you at once, and I don't know. In some ways that makes it sound a lot worse than it was," and Em was still doing a bad job explaining. "Day to day, for me, things were pretty good. I got to live my life - which just happened to include letting the right people know if I foresaw trouble coming, and training for how to defend myself when it did. But now, even if I meet mutants I knew before, they aren't the people I knew. I'd probably be a lot worse off if I hadn't known people who'd gone through the same kind of thing."

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"You did dump a whole lot on me at once," John agreed, but not unkindly. What she'd said still left him more than a bit confused. This was a regular occurrence? The multiple reality thing? And in what she'd said about meeting mutants she knew before...well, that was John and Bobby right there, wasn't it.

"...Bobby and I probably confuse the hell out of you, just by being who we are. If there's anything you want to know about the backstory-" because of course John saw things in terms of stories and narratives and histories and dramas "-you can ask me. I mean, if it helps you to put some distance between what you knew and what is, now." He wasn't able to rake over everything just for the sake of it, but it wasn't like he had that much to hide from someone who knew about half of it already.

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If Em really wanted to know more of John and Bobby's backstories, she would probably ask the tarot. Sort of an invasion of privacy, and it would probably lack context at least in places, but she felt more comfortable with that than asking them directly. But she wasn't going to tell John that.

"I was telling Bobby, while he gave me the tour, it was kind of like a cognitive dissonance, even though I know you're different people. Distance between what I'm used to and who you are here, isn't really a problem most of the time. But if you ever feel like I'm making wrong assumptions, let me know, okay? I try not to, but sometimes I may not even realize I'm doing it. With how my precog works, I'm more prone to drawing parallels and predicting patterns than most people."

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"I don't think I've ever lacked bluntness, so I'll definitely let you know. Still, I'm just glad someone's making any assumptions about me. It's weird - really, really weird - to be plain and simple John with a plain and simple backstory." And while most people would probably be glad they didn't have the whole 'ex-terrorist killer thing' hanging over their heads, John was decidedly not most people. He was John, sure, and not Pyro, these days: but what he had done defined him, and he didn't like letting it go so easily.

"How do your powers work exactly?" He wondered, changing the subject with a raise of his eyebrow: "Like - it's related to tarot, right? Can you use other symbols, too, or just one deck...?" Sure, there was genuinely friendly curiosity there - and a little probing for weaknesses, too.

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"For the precog?" she asked, not sure how much he knew about her abilities. "I can get visions from any deck. Even playing cards." Which made poker interesting, but very few people would play with her more than once. For some reason. "Although I do have some prejudice against 'oracle' decks. I'm something of a traditionalist. And occasionally I'll pick something up from a non-tarot image, but I'm not entirely sure how or why that happens. But there's always an image of some kind that triggers it, whether it's a tarot card or something else."

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John was pretty sure Bobby had told him about her abilities, and that was a) second hand information from b) someone who wasn't exactly tactically minded. (Sorry, sweetheart.) So in many ways Em was still a bit of an enigma to him, and John had never been one for puzzles.

Gaze flicking across to the sliding door, John frowned briefly. It shouldn't take too long to get the bacon out and rummage around for a beer: Bobby was probably lurking and deliberately avoiding the conversation, which, fine, John had explicitly given him a reason to stay out for longer by asking for a beer, but the trouble was John wasn't entirely sure what the boundaries were in terms of the 'grown-up conversations' his boyfriend wanted to ardently to not be a part of. Maybe asking Em about her powers was enough to make Bobby stay away, in a certain context.

"Thanks," John nodded: he'd never really met any precogs before so it was beyond interesting, interested in both how things worked and what she could do. "So....it's just a feeling, right? Even with the image? I mean, the stereotypical image of the tarot reader is the cryptic read, it's never enough information to be entirely clear." He spoke like an expert in the tales, mostly because he was part-way to being one. "Which is very useful, I didn't mean to disregard that."

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Pyro believed what Em could do was fucking amazing. His words, she rarely saw herself that way, but she reminded herself of it now. And even though she was often frustrated by how much she didn't see, Nathan and Alex and the rest of Excalibur who'd weighed in had said how much she helped them. And she knew her own gifts had some advantages compared to Nina's - just not in the middle of a fight.

"The cards are vague and mysterious?" she quoted slyly. It was about the only thing she remembered about the Simpsons.

Then, without the sharpness some people would use, "The stereotypical tarot reader is adept at cold reading - beginning with the traditional tarot interpretations and vague or universal messages and developing from there based on the querent's microexpressions and other input. And I've known fortune tellers who are incredibly skilled at it. I'm a mutant." Who'd also been taught cold reading, and she wasn't sure how she felt about what she could see from John.

"I wonder if Bobby's fallen into the freezer," she said, thinking maybe it was time to change topics, and he had been gone longer than needed to get bacon and a beer.

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Okay, that was definitely Bobby's cue to stop lurking and rejoin the conversation, especially since the topic had moved onto more comfortable ground by his measurements. He ducked back outside with the package of bacon and three literally frosty beers, tossing the frozen meat onto the table to start thawing as he passed out the beers to everyone. "Sorry, had trouble finding it," he said with a chipper smile for Em, deliberately avoiding looking at John. He knew John knew what he'd been doing, and he'd probably get shit for it later.

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John saw that avoidance, and reached out to brush his lips against Bobby's cheek even as he grabbed a beer with the other hand. If he was more affectionate than normal, it was because he felt Bobby needed it.

"Thanks."

Taking a breath, he forced a tired grin for Em, and went back to tending the BBQ. "This should be done soon." Nodding to Bobby, he continued: "Em was just explaining what she could do. It does sound pretty amazing," he acknowledged, realising he probably hadn't been properly effusive. He wasn't one for praise much, these days.

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Knowing how Pyro felt about her - even when she didn't see herself the same way - meant she could avoid taking John's forced if not false praise to heart. "I'm just a fortune teller," she said, where she hadn't before. "Nothing cool or hot about me." A shy smile flashed briefly before she lifted her beer for a sip.

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"And I'm just good at barbecue," John told her, Em's words having woken up an old, still nagging wound that ever quite closed. "You can do things, Em, you can do things great and incredible. And you're not reliant on a lighter." His praise might have been more for himself than Em, but it was still heartfelt. If he thought someone could be awesome, then they were. And if he thought someone sucked, well, he didn't give a damn.

Pausing, he checked the meat by pressing on it with the tongs: it was around medium-rare, which was how he liked it. "Maybe Frosty here would like to get our fortunes told," he said, leaving the decision up to Bobby, and reached for a dish to start piling the meat in, and then a separate one for the grilled vegetables. "I'd say yes, but I can't actually decide things for the both of us, can I sweetheart?" He passed one of the dishes to Bobby, a well-oiled cooking routine.

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Bobby resisted an eyeroll as John brought up the lighter thing. He really needed to get over that. Not being able to create the flames he could control in no way diminished how amazing what he could do was. He gave John a gentle thump on the arm with the back of his hand before taking the dish from him, a silent and gentle chide not to be an idiot about that.

"No, you can't," Bobby replied with a pleasant smile. He looked over at Em and shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe we should just focus on dinner, since it's ready." Because he hadn't heard her offer a reading, and he wasn't going to assume she was even willing. And if she was, he wasn't so sure he wanted to know what she would see.

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"Dinner, yes." Focusing on dinner sounded like a much better idea to Em, and she laughed only a little awkwardly. "I make a point of not doing couple-y readings for people I know. Privacy's important, and there are some things I don't need to see. Besides, you'll probably enjoy it more experiencing your life together than waiting for what I see to happen." She would've said the same to any friends, but considering it was John and Bobby, she had more reason for not turning to the tarot.

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"Then please step inside," John suggested as he slid the outside door open, turning from the topic of his future to something way more pleasant: his present. And while he shot Bobby a brief Look, he didn't comment on the thwap. Gracious was practically his middle name, fucker.

"Bobby here has kindly set the table for Chez Allerdrake," and there was a carafe of tap water on the table, and a bottle of wine in the refrigerator just in case. Shaking his head, he stepped through the door himself, to place his dish on a trivet on the table. "I really never thought I'd be one of those people," he muttered. Cutesy names were not really his thing. "But Bobby has brought out the 'annoyingly cutesy tool' side of me." He gestured at the spread on the table: not just what he'd been grilling, but a fresh garden salad, some bread rolls and butter just in case, and mustards and ketchup and sauces of all kinds.

"Help yourself, Em." John was busy pouring out glasses of water for each of them, and giving Bobby a quick peck on the cheek as he came inside.

Edited Date: 2016-02-10 09:32 am (UTC)

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Bobby was grateful for Em's answer, as they moved inside. "Wow, that one is so not on me," he protested at John, grinning. "You make fun of my puns and then come up with that?" He set down the dish John had entrusted him with before pulling out a chair for Em, ever the gentleman.

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Em couldn't decide if it was stranger hearing John use the phrase 'annoyingly cutesy tool' in reference to himself (and why) or having Bobby pull out her chair.

No. She could. It wasn't the first time this Bobby had done that for her, and even the Bobby she'd known might do it playfully with someone. Probably not Em, but maybe Sabine, who let him get away with a lot of the traditional or chivalric white boy stuff Dani would've punched him for trying. So not as strange as the things John was saying.

She grinned as she took her seat. "Shakespeare made puns," she said, using one of her world's Bobby's favorite arguments.

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John's lips thinned a little at Em's words, and the grin. "You're encouraging him," he grumbled, shaking his head a little, hair falling in front of his face so his own slight grin was somewhat hidden. "Practically ganging up against me, the two of you."

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"Yeah, Shakespeare made puns," Bobby repeated softly, grinning. He gave John's shoulder an affectionate squeeze before grabbing hold of his chair and pulling it out, although this time it was dramatically, playfully, with a sweep of his hand in invitation and an amused gleam in his eye as he looked at John. "And Em, you're welcome to join us for dinner whenever you want. Any defender of puns is a friend of mine."

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"Who do you think I learned that argument from?" A bit of familiar when through the looking glass was something to cling to. "Some things never change. You knew he was punny when you hooked up with him."

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"I knew," John said slowly, looking Bobby up and down as if questioning his sanity, then glancing at the chair, "he was punny way before I hooked up with him." Hell, he'd known it first day John had been at the school. "I knew a lot of things," he reflected, before sitting down in that chair, and pulling himself closer to the table.

"And you're right, Em: there are some things about Frosty here that will never change, thank God." That included the puns. Gesturing to the food on the table, he shook his head, keen to encourage some appreciation of his culinary talents. "But c'mon, eat already."

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