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v. every whisper, it’s the worst
Bobby never understands the difference between fighting for what’s right and fighting for your life.
He’s a pacifist, he always believes in what’s right. The truth is the only thing worth falling for. Honor is more important than life. Justice is more important than love.
That’s the difference between Bobby and John; St. John has always been a survivor. The strain to fight for the sake of it is buried deep inside him, runs through his blood in a recessive genotype – and if he’d known his family for a longer time, he’d have understood who he got it from. It makes him a good fighter, a good survivor.
Not a good person.
And Bobby has always been a stickler for the truth, the good, what’s right. He’s angry for the use of violence, but he’d use it to stop more from erupting. He’d die to protect people he doesn’t even know. He’d starve and give his food to the weaker person. The knowledge of right and wrong runs through him like a knife. It makes him a good person, a good leader.
Not a good friend.
Later on, John will wonder if this was meant to happen, if this was written in their DNA and all it did was make them slaves to their biology. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as them being enemies; maybe it was just them being different. Maybe they didn’t have a choice.
i. so i’ll put my faith in something unknown.
Bobby is his first friend.
He is his first best friend.
He is the first person he shares a room with.
He is the first person he shares a bed with, properly, the whole night, in innocence.
He is the first person to hold him when he has a nightmare, and tell him it’ll be fine.
He’s the first person to like him, like St. John just the way he is.
John hates it, for a while. Hates how Bobby entered his life and took control, took everything from him, his attention, his soul, his worry, his anger and his pain, his love, all for himself.
In the end, Bobby’s also the first person to break his heart.
He wonders if he was Bobby’s first anything.
ii. it isn’t easy for me to let it go
When he stands against him near the medical facility, he’s burning. He’s being burnt alive, from the inside. He has been for a long time, and no one until Magneto ever noticed. The relief of not being insignificant so gratifying, St. John thinks he’d die for Magneto in return.
I’d have died for Bobby, he doesn’t think.
A long time ago, buried into the books he never let anyone see he read (apart from Bobby, because Bobby knew him best, just not enough -) he’d read somewhere, faded into print: it feels like I’m drowning and everyone around me is breathing.
When frost climbs up his nerves and the pain is too overwhelming to try overcoming, he recalls the words with a startling clarity that shocks him so stately, he wonders whether it was the hit to the head that really fell him.
iii. i’m tired of hope with nothing to hold
When he’s sleeping in the small underground tunnels near the woods with Magneto’s initial ragtag group, there is one memory that comes to him, again and again.
It is of his fourth year at the mansion, Bobby’s second. They’re sitting outside on the grass, after one of their practice sessions away from the general grounds. It’s the day after finals, and they’re happy with the relief of having it finished at last. It’s his birthday, but nobody knows about his birthday apart from him and the Professor, and the old man is far too steadfast in his belief in privacy from others to tell anyone.
Only John can still remember Bobby handing over this small book of poetry, old and worn-out, but obviously a collectible version. John doesn’t remember the conversation, or why they end up laughing, loud and uncaring, just remembers the laughter and the sharp spark of something he’d dare have called happiness.
When he’s sleeping in the cold, small, underground tunnels near the woods with Magneto’s initial ragtag group, this is the one memory that comes to him again and again.
iv. eat away this heart of mine
After, after, after, he’s arrested. He isn’t awake when they administer the shot, but he wonders if he fought it even when he was unconscious. He’d like to believe that. Powerless, his sentence is reduced to a pitiful ten months, and he spends those in the company of people just like him. He’d have liked to think he was unique, but by the time he gets out, he’s seen that empty look on far too many people to think it’s just one he sees in his mirror every morning.
When he gets out, he wonders what to do, for a brief moment. Wonders whether what he’s feeling is freedom or imprisonment, now that he’s out. Wonders if biology brought him here; wonders, wonders, wonders.
He doesn’t have much, just the book Bobby gave him and the clothes he’s wearing, that old lighter Magneto had let him keep. He realizes, as he thumbs the cover, it’s almost the same amount of things he had when he left home and found himself at Xavier’s.
He has ten dollars and change, and for some reason after he’s eaten a shitty granola bar at the nearest gas station, he finds himself yearning for a familiar voice, and he finds himself calling up the mansion. It’s stupid, he knows, the chances of it being him are too low, but he finds himself hoping nevertheless.
The call comes through and he finds himself silent when Bobby’s voice says, ‘Hello?’
John doesn’t even breathe. ‘Hello? Hello,’ the voice calls.
Suddenly, all John wants is to be away. The regret and exhaustion hit him like waves crashing against him at high tide.
‘Goodbye,’ he says, and cuts the phone.
It’s the first time he’s ever said goodbye to anyone.