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31_days2005-08-04 10:06 pm
alyxbradford.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-08-04 10:06 pm
[4 August] [X-Men -- Rogue] Runaway
Title: Runaway
Day/Theme: 4 August -- She left her life on Monday
Series: X-Men
Characters: Rogue, Cody
Rating: PG
She had always hated Mondays. Like Garfield the Cat, she just plain had an aversion to the day. She'd been born on a Monday, born with downy auburn hair, and she was sure she'd die on a Monday. It didn't surprise her at all, then, that It happened on a Monday.
Well, no. That wasn't entirely true. That it happened at all surprised her out of her very wits, but upon later -- much later -- reflection, she did at least possess a sense of humour sharp enough to appreciate the irony.
She was eleven, a bright and precocious girl. Everyone in quaint Caldecott thought that she'd be sure to go to college -- and not just some community college, either, a real university. To do what, no one seemed quite sure, but they all thought she'd be off to do great things. She had emerald eyes that seemed a little too bright, especially in the sun, wild auburn curls, and a smile that could win over the hardest of hearts.
Except her father's. But then Jackson had always been a hard man, everyone knew that from the way he treated his wife up until she died. The girl never showed bruises, though, so mostly no one worried, and the neighborhood mothers were always happy to keep her over for dinner. "Scrawny little thing," teased Mrs Robbins one afternoon, tweaking one of the girl's pigtails.
"I'm sure some'a your famous fried chicken 'll fix that," the girl replied, grinning.
Mrs Robbins laughed, and waved her son and his best friend out the back door. "Go on, now. Dinner won't be ready till after seven, you know that well enough. Go get some'a that energy out."
Cody chased his friend all the way to the creek behind his family's property, nestled in a thicket. "Push me, Cody!" she demanded playfully, hopping on the rope swing that hung over the water. Grinning, Cody obliged.
"Your daddy's gonna tan your hide if you fall in the water with that dress on," he said, giving her a hard shove and laughing as she swung far out over the creek, then back towards him.
"Well, then we'll just hafta make sure I don' fall in, now won't we?" she shouted back. "An' if I do, I'll just sneak up through the window and change before he sees me. Or--" she added, as he pushed her again, "I'll get your momma to let me borrow one of Anna-Louise's dresses. She's about my size, ain't she?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Cody said. "You're prettier 'n her, though."
She rolled her eyes, twirling about on the swing. "That don't matter when it comes t' her dress."
Cody shrugged. "Still true."
"Y' shouldn't say that 'bout your own little sister," she replied, winking at him. "You're s'posed t' think she's the prettiest little girl in the whole world, an' tell her so all the time." She gave a melodramatic sigh. "I wish I had a big brother t' tell me that, anyways."
"I'll tell ya." Something in Cody's voice made her look at him strangely. It wasn't his usual teasing tone; he sounded quite soft and quite serious, and he continued, "I do think you're the prettiest girl in the whole world, sugah."
That definitely earned a strange look. She brought herself back to the side of the creek and slid off the swing, standing beside her friend. She was about four inches taller than him when she stood straight up, and she put her hands on her hips, saying, "You ain't never called me 'sugah' before, Cody. What's got into you?"
"I-- well, I--" Cody's face scrunched up a little bit, and he narrowed his blue eyes slightly, as though making up his mind about something. Then, before she could do anything about it, he went up on his tiptoes and kissed her, right on the mouth. She was so startled for a moment that she couldn't react. Then it occurred to her that she probably ought to kiss him back, but she didn't have the faintest clue precisely what that meant, or what she ought to be doing with her hands, or how long this was supposed to go on, and before she could work any of that out, It happened.
It felt, at first, like a jolt of electricity passing between them, a faint buzz between their softly pressed lips. Then Cody made a noise of fright and discomfort, and she heard a voice in her head that was most definitely not her own. It was male, and young, and scared. She wanted to move, wanted to get away, but whatever force had made It happen wouldn't let her move, had frozen her limbs. Then the flood began, memories that weren't hers, of vacations in Texas, of new puppies born in a box under the stairs and the little one that didn't make it through the night, of scary stories told by flashlight by older cousins, of a camping trip out in the backwoods that would've lasted for a week it if hadn't started raining, of tripping over shoelaces on the first day of school and feeling so foolish, of meeting her for the first time and knowing right then at seven years old that was the girl to marry...
Finally, her body decided to respond to her mind's command, and with a shriek of terror, she pushed Cody away from her. He looked ill, no, worse than that, he looked like he was dying. All the blood had drained from his face, so that his skin shone translucent, veins visible and barely pulsing. His cornflower-blue eyes had lost their spark, weren't twinkling with mischief anymore, but just lay open, lifeless, unseeing. He collapsed to the ground, without so much as a reflexive jerk to break his fall, and she stared for a moment before screaming again, and running straight for the house.
As soon as she got within a few feet of the porch, she started screaming. "Mrs Robbins, Mrs Robbins, Mrs Robbins, it's Cody, I don't know what happened, he's sick or he's hurt or something, Mrs Robbins, quick, we've got to help him, call the doctor, call somebody or he's like to die, I never seen anybody so sick, Mrs Robbins!"
She burst through the screen door and let it slam shut behind her, despite all the time Mrs Robbins had told her not to let the thing bang like that. But when she reached the kitchen where Mrs Robbins was making dinner, the mother of her best friend was staring at her the same way she'd been staring at Cody a moment earlier. "Mrs Robbins, what're you starin' at, we've gotta go help Cody--" She turned to gesture towards the backyard, and in the motion caught sight of herself in the little wooden-framed mirror that hung next to the kitchen clock.
Everything was just the same, aside from a generally disheveled appearance and the sheen of sweat that had come about from racing from the creek to the house as fast as her scrawny legs would carry her. Everything was the same, except for the shock of white hair running a streak through the auburn curls.
Mrs Robbins still hadn't said anything, but if even if she had, the girl wouldn't have heard it, not over the thundrous racing of her heart, and the still-louder voices, the echoes of memories, tumbling about in her head. Unable to take the horrified stare of her best friend's mother, she turned and ran, down three streets and up a hill to her own house, place of small comfort though it was. She climbed the tree and crawled in the window to her room, and threw herself down on her bed. Clutching the quilt up to her face, she sobbed into it, for lack of knowledge of what else to do, sobbed and cried and fell asleep.
It took until Wednesday for people to sort out what had happened, and realise that Cody, before falling into his coma, had last been in the presence of his best friend, that bright-eyed girl everyone had always liked so much. At first they thought she was just scared, but when no one could find her, when she didn't turn up to school and didn't answer the phone and wouldn't come to the door, they started thinking she was feeling guilty about something.
It took until Friday for someone to first speak the word "mutant".
After all, what other explanation could there be? No normal, human power could have done something like that to poor Cody, and with the boy still in a comatose state and no doctor able to figure out how to revive him, the anger and grief had to focus somewhere.
Jackson heard that rumour at the bar Saturday night, and when he got back, he gave the girl the beating of her life, shouting about bringing disgrace on the family, about being worthless just like her mother, about making him look bad, about being disgusting and a sin against God and nature. She was smart, and quick, though, and it didn't take her too long to trip him up long enough to make her escape. She prowled about the streets, hoping her father would drink himself into a stupor and forget what he'd been angry about, and spent her time trying to avoid being seen. The town's reaction to her had gone from skeptical glances to wary murmurs to downright insults by Sunday afternoon.
"Why'd ya do that to Cody? What'd he ever do but be nice to ya?"
"Filthy mutie, ain't fit to share the same space as honest folk..."
"Least the devil gone and branded her when he gave her that unholy power, makes her easy to spot--"
"Better be careful, mutie-girl, or we're gonna do you like you done Cody Robbins--"
She never retorted, never answered these insults, too bewildered at how her life had changed so suddenly to even register most of them. She couldn't understand what she'd done to deserve all this, how her friends had turned against her so quickly, how the mothers who had fed her and sheltered her from her father could honestly think she was devil-marked or dangerous or vicious.
It was when they started throwing things that she knew she had to get out. That Monday, a full week after It happened, she left. She waited until she knew her father was asleep, or at least intoxicated into unconsciousness, and then she snuck back into the house. Taking the shotgun out of the shed, what food she could scavenge in her kitchen, and the quilt from her bed, she left in dead of night, and headed for the woods. She wasn't fooling herself; she didn't have the faintest idea how she was going to survive on her own, or how long she'd be able to evade the vengeful, or what she'd eat or where she'd sleep. She just knew she had to get away.
Day/Theme: 4 August -- She left her life on Monday
Series: X-Men
Characters: Rogue, Cody
Rating: PG
She had always hated Mondays. Like Garfield the Cat, she just plain had an aversion to the day. She'd been born on a Monday, born with downy auburn hair, and she was sure she'd die on a Monday. It didn't surprise her at all, then, that It happened on a Monday.
Well, no. That wasn't entirely true. That it happened at all surprised her out of her very wits, but upon later -- much later -- reflection, she did at least possess a sense of humour sharp enough to appreciate the irony.
She was eleven, a bright and precocious girl. Everyone in quaint Caldecott thought that she'd be sure to go to college -- and not just some community college, either, a real university. To do what, no one seemed quite sure, but they all thought she'd be off to do great things. She had emerald eyes that seemed a little too bright, especially in the sun, wild auburn curls, and a smile that could win over the hardest of hearts.
Except her father's. But then Jackson had always been a hard man, everyone knew that from the way he treated his wife up until she died. The girl never showed bruises, though, so mostly no one worried, and the neighborhood mothers were always happy to keep her over for dinner. "Scrawny little thing," teased Mrs Robbins one afternoon, tweaking one of the girl's pigtails.
"I'm sure some'a your famous fried chicken 'll fix that," the girl replied, grinning.
Mrs Robbins laughed, and waved her son and his best friend out the back door. "Go on, now. Dinner won't be ready till after seven, you know that well enough. Go get some'a that energy out."
Cody chased his friend all the way to the creek behind his family's property, nestled in a thicket. "Push me, Cody!" she demanded playfully, hopping on the rope swing that hung over the water. Grinning, Cody obliged.
"Your daddy's gonna tan your hide if you fall in the water with that dress on," he said, giving her a hard shove and laughing as she swung far out over the creek, then back towards him.
"Well, then we'll just hafta make sure I don' fall in, now won't we?" she shouted back. "An' if I do, I'll just sneak up through the window and change before he sees me. Or--" she added, as he pushed her again, "I'll get your momma to let me borrow one of Anna-Louise's dresses. She's about my size, ain't she?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Cody said. "You're prettier 'n her, though."
She rolled her eyes, twirling about on the swing. "That don't matter when it comes t' her dress."
Cody shrugged. "Still true."
"Y' shouldn't say that 'bout your own little sister," she replied, winking at him. "You're s'posed t' think she's the prettiest little girl in the whole world, an' tell her so all the time." She gave a melodramatic sigh. "I wish I had a big brother t' tell me that, anyways."
"I'll tell ya." Something in Cody's voice made her look at him strangely. It wasn't his usual teasing tone; he sounded quite soft and quite serious, and he continued, "I do think you're the prettiest girl in the whole world, sugah."
That definitely earned a strange look. She brought herself back to the side of the creek and slid off the swing, standing beside her friend. She was about four inches taller than him when she stood straight up, and she put her hands on her hips, saying, "You ain't never called me 'sugah' before, Cody. What's got into you?"
"I-- well, I--" Cody's face scrunched up a little bit, and he narrowed his blue eyes slightly, as though making up his mind about something. Then, before she could do anything about it, he went up on his tiptoes and kissed her, right on the mouth. She was so startled for a moment that she couldn't react. Then it occurred to her that she probably ought to kiss him back, but she didn't have the faintest clue precisely what that meant, or what she ought to be doing with her hands, or how long this was supposed to go on, and before she could work any of that out, It happened.
It felt, at first, like a jolt of electricity passing between them, a faint buzz between their softly pressed lips. Then Cody made a noise of fright and discomfort, and she heard a voice in her head that was most definitely not her own. It was male, and young, and scared. She wanted to move, wanted to get away, but whatever force had made It happen wouldn't let her move, had frozen her limbs. Then the flood began, memories that weren't hers, of vacations in Texas, of new puppies born in a box under the stairs and the little one that didn't make it through the night, of scary stories told by flashlight by older cousins, of a camping trip out in the backwoods that would've lasted for a week it if hadn't started raining, of tripping over shoelaces on the first day of school and feeling so foolish, of meeting her for the first time and knowing right then at seven years old that was the girl to marry...
Finally, her body decided to respond to her mind's command, and with a shriek of terror, she pushed Cody away from her. He looked ill, no, worse than that, he looked like he was dying. All the blood had drained from his face, so that his skin shone translucent, veins visible and barely pulsing. His cornflower-blue eyes had lost their spark, weren't twinkling with mischief anymore, but just lay open, lifeless, unseeing. He collapsed to the ground, without so much as a reflexive jerk to break his fall, and she stared for a moment before screaming again, and running straight for the house.
As soon as she got within a few feet of the porch, she started screaming. "Mrs Robbins, Mrs Robbins, Mrs Robbins, it's Cody, I don't know what happened, he's sick or he's hurt or something, Mrs Robbins, quick, we've got to help him, call the doctor, call somebody or he's like to die, I never seen anybody so sick, Mrs Robbins!"
She burst through the screen door and let it slam shut behind her, despite all the time Mrs Robbins had told her not to let the thing bang like that. But when she reached the kitchen where Mrs Robbins was making dinner, the mother of her best friend was staring at her the same way she'd been staring at Cody a moment earlier. "Mrs Robbins, what're you starin' at, we've gotta go help Cody--" She turned to gesture towards the backyard, and in the motion caught sight of herself in the little wooden-framed mirror that hung next to the kitchen clock.
Everything was just the same, aside from a generally disheveled appearance and the sheen of sweat that had come about from racing from the creek to the house as fast as her scrawny legs would carry her. Everything was the same, except for the shock of white hair running a streak through the auburn curls.
Mrs Robbins still hadn't said anything, but if even if she had, the girl wouldn't have heard it, not over the thundrous racing of her heart, and the still-louder voices, the echoes of memories, tumbling about in her head. Unable to take the horrified stare of her best friend's mother, she turned and ran, down three streets and up a hill to her own house, place of small comfort though it was. She climbed the tree and crawled in the window to her room, and threw herself down on her bed. Clutching the quilt up to her face, she sobbed into it, for lack of knowledge of what else to do, sobbed and cried and fell asleep.
It took until Wednesday for people to sort out what had happened, and realise that Cody, before falling into his coma, had last been in the presence of his best friend, that bright-eyed girl everyone had always liked so much. At first they thought she was just scared, but when no one could find her, when she didn't turn up to school and didn't answer the phone and wouldn't come to the door, they started thinking she was feeling guilty about something.
It took until Friday for someone to first speak the word "mutant".
After all, what other explanation could there be? No normal, human power could have done something like that to poor Cody, and with the boy still in a comatose state and no doctor able to figure out how to revive him, the anger and grief had to focus somewhere.
Jackson heard that rumour at the bar Saturday night, and when he got back, he gave the girl the beating of her life, shouting about bringing disgrace on the family, about being worthless just like her mother, about making him look bad, about being disgusting and a sin against God and nature. She was smart, and quick, though, and it didn't take her too long to trip him up long enough to make her escape. She prowled about the streets, hoping her father would drink himself into a stupor and forget what he'd been angry about, and spent her time trying to avoid being seen. The town's reaction to her had gone from skeptical glances to wary murmurs to downright insults by Sunday afternoon.
"Why'd ya do that to Cody? What'd he ever do but be nice to ya?"
"Filthy mutie, ain't fit to share the same space as honest folk..."
"Least the devil gone and branded her when he gave her that unholy power, makes her easy to spot--"
"Better be careful, mutie-girl, or we're gonna do you like you done Cody Robbins--"
She never retorted, never answered these insults, too bewildered at how her life had changed so suddenly to even register most of them. She couldn't understand what she'd done to deserve all this, how her friends had turned against her so quickly, how the mothers who had fed her and sheltered her from her father could honestly think she was devil-marked or dangerous or vicious.
It was when they started throwing things that she knew she had to get out. That Monday, a full week after It happened, she left. She waited until she knew her father was asleep, or at least intoxicated into unconsciousness, and then she snuck back into the house. Taking the shotgun out of the shed, what food she could scavenge in her kitchen, and the quilt from her bed, she left in dead of night, and headed for the woods. She wasn't fooling herself; she didn't have the faintest idea how she was going to survive on her own, or how long she'd be able to evade the vengeful, or what she'd eat or where she'd sleep. She just knew she had to get away.