Devil's in the Details
by
Serial Karma
Disclaimer: St. John and all the others belong to Marvel, not me.
Archive: Sure, just let me know.
Feedback: always welcome
Notes: Thanks to Jess and Heatherly for the read-throughs, but especially for the encouragement.
I know I'm hardly the first person to have come up with this concept.
All of the characters in this story are of legal age.
Warning: Minor slash themes.
It was the little details, always, that drew him back.
Strawberry ice cream, Bobby's favorite.
A pair of long white gloves in the window of a fancy women's dress store, pearl buttons at the wrist just like the pair Rogue was wearing that day.
The click of heels on polished wood floors, a quick cadence like Dr. Grey's purposeful stride.
A flash of lightning on an otherwise still night, or a sudden cloudburst on a sunny day.
The swirl of smoke from his cigarette that mimicked the icy breath Bobby would breathe out to cool their contraband beer, warm from its hiding place under a floorboard...
These are the things that jolt his memory, slam into him with no warning, no time to prepare. Sometimes (only sometimes) he misses them all so much he can't stand it. Then he goes out to the concrete bunker at the back of the compound and lets the fireballs fly. The others never ask him what triggers his fits of temper. He doesn't even know if they care. Mystique sometimes glances at him with her weird animal eyes half-closed, an almost-smirk curling her upper lip. She knows. Of course she does. He doesn't know if she's told anyone else. He suspects Magneto knows, because what Mystique knows, Magneto does too.
Which means that Magneto knows about St. John and Mystique's little game. The nights she comes to him wearing one of their faces. Sometimes she's Ms. Munroe--Storm. John always thought she was hot, especially when she was annoyed at him, and her eyes would frost over just that little bit. He could sometimes feel the spark of electricity in the air around him. A sensitivity to the movement of molecules, he suspected. Once she was Dr. Grey, to satisfy his curiosity about what fucking a woman who looked that model-gorgeous was like. Not bad, he decided, but nothing special--kind of a disappointment, actually. Several times she's been Rogue, naked except for the gloves, leather ones usually, and he thinks he's developed a serious kink for the feel of leather wrapped around his dick.
He avoids thinking about the other times she's come to him, icy blue eyes sparkling mischievously, mouth cool with the taste of strawberry ice cream. If he wasn't ready to deal with those feelings before, before everything got even more complicated (not that it could ever be simple, not when your name is Pyro and your best friend can freeze a cup of coffee with a touch and make ice roses bloom in his hand), he certainly isn't prepared to try and figure it out now. Besides, it doesn't matter anymore. He's made his choice, and he's sure of his path. There isn't anything left for him with them. Except for the details.
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