John is angry a lot. Sitting in classes that waste everybody's time. Getting told again and again to sit down, shut up, put that away, don't touch, don't burn. Watching Bobby and Marie almost-kiss, their lips so close John knows she can feel the chill coming off Bobby's skin.

He's heard nasty words and seen kids on the street get beat up for being mutants, but it's not until there are windows breaking and kids running from soldiers with guns that he really understands that humans hate them. And why isn't everybody he knows angry all the time about that?

Bobby is pretty, with eyes that make girls giggle and stare. Bobby is rich; he shrugs when he rips his sweater or John sets his notebook on fire. Bobby and Marie sit a few inches apart on the couch holding gloved hands, and people smile at them like there's something special about two kids who want to get it on. Bobby knows all the right answers, the ones that make them relax and smile at him and believe he's not dangerous. Bobby is good at playing the game.

John won't ever be Bobby, and maybe he's getting tired of trying.

When Bobby eats ice cream, John wants to lick it off the corner of his mouth, sweet and cold. He hates wanting that when he's sitting at the kitchen table where Dr. Grey or the Professor could walk in. He hates living around telepaths, knowing that the only way to keep them from knowing things is to shove them down deep in his head and concentrate on being the kind of kid they want, innocent and good.

There's the sound of wheels out in the hallway, and John thinks hard about ice cream, all sweet and cold. He's so hungry.

Bobby gets checks every month. There's no point in stealing checks. John watches Bobby get back from the movies with Rogue and knows he'll have cash. John waits for him to go to sleep, goes over to the closet, pulls out Bobby's jacket. Slips the bills out. Opens the fold and slips a five out from between a ten and some ones. Folds them again. Shoves the bill in the elastic of his sweat pants.

Then he jerks it out and pushes it back into Bobby's pocket and closes the door and gets back into bed. He's just playing around.

John hates getting hard this much. He does just going through the halls, when people bump up against him, touch him. And there's always Bobby, shirtless or in class with a hard-on of his own when Marie's bent real low over his desk or making the bed creak at night when he thinks John's asleep.

And John has to, then, and he doesn't bother to be quiet, because it's Bobby's fucking fault.

And one night he's jerking off and Bobby says, real quiet from the other bed, "John?"

And he says, "Shut up, Drake," and Bobby doesn't say another word.

At the shelter, John told Xavier to fuck off; he didn't want another foster home, and he wouldn't stay. Xavier said it was a school, not a foster home, one for kids who were special. John liked how that sounded. He told Xavier he wouldn't suck dick, and if teachers hit him he hit back. Xavier said that was entirely reasonable.

He's older and wiser now, but he still knows he's special. And he knows you hit back. Because if you don't, people look at you like they look at Xavier in his wheelchair sometimes, like you're not even there.

Sometimes on Saturday morning John isn't hungry enough to get up for breakfast, and he'll lie there and pretend he's still asleep. It's warm, with the sun coming in from the window and lying over him like a blanket. He can see red behind his eyes.

He can hear Bobby's breathing. He knows it like a CD he's played over and over. He doesn't want Bobby to wake up and talk about Marie or take his shirt off or do something else that makes John want to hit him. He wants them to stay just like this, quiet, together, breathing.

*******

Bobby feels weird every time he pulls out his wallet and someone looks away. It's not like they should be ashamed to be broke. It's not their fault that the professor gave them an allowance but they've spent it on notebooks and jackets and shoes.

It's easier with Marie, because he can buy her the sweater she's been looking at in the mall for weeks, and he's just being a good boyfriend. He can buy her dinner and it's taking her on a date. If he buys John something, it's charity, and John thanks him with ashes in his mouth.

Bobby doesn't go to church on Sundays because John thinks it's stupid. Marie talks about going sometimes, but then she always comes up with reasons why she can't. Bobby wonders if that's her, or the shadows he can see sometimes moving under her skin, the times her face falls into expressions that aren't her own.

Sometimes Bobby thinks about having to stand between mutants and the kind of hate Marie dreams about (knocking on his door in bare feet, curling up silent under his arm in the hall), and he prays, because he's so afraid he won't be strong enough.

Marie always sits so close. She'll stand with just a few inches between them and move like he's touching her, swaying as he moves. She'll lean in so they almost kiss.

She doesn't seem to notice when it stops being fun. He's a guy, so he can't say no. She gets her knee between his legs in the library and he nearly comes in his pants, and it makes him want to shake her until she screams.

"What?" she asks, leaning down so he can feel her breath.

He breathes out.

"I just want you," he says, with a smile.

Bobby wakes up at night to a choking sound that's John crying.

"Hey," he says, kneeling down by John's bed.

"Oh, fuck," John says, and rolls over away from him. "Go away, Drake."

Bobby climbs into the bed instead, and John rolls over and hugs him, scarily hard, muttering something under his breath that's mostly "fuck, fuck, fuck." Bobby doesn't know what to do except hang on tight.

Eventually John pushes him away. "Get off me, you fairy."

Bobby laughs. "I couldn't resist you."

"You wish."

Sometimes Bobby's crying and he hopes John will wake up, but he never does.

Bobby's decided how to handle it if his parents say something bad about mutants. "It hurts people when you say things like that," he'll say. Or, "you know, I have friends who are mutants, and they're not like that." Or, "if . . . if I were one, would you say that about me?"

He imagines it, clearly, sitting at the breakfast table while his father talks about property taxes going up. His mother's eyes slide over a headline about mutants beaten up in public schools, and he draws in a breath to speak. But she doesn't say a word.

They're in the mall, and Marie's off looking in store windows, and John is playing with his lighter, clicking it open and shut.

"Why don't you two kiss?" John says.

Bobby shrugs. "Because she could kill me?"

"She didn't kill Logan."

"No."

"Pussy."

"Screw you."

"You wish," John says. "And, hey, at least it wouldn't kill you."

"You don't think I'd wind up dead?"

"Try it and see," John says, smirking.

He punches John on the arm, and John punches him back, hard.

Bobby wants to hit back just as hard, but there's too much around here that might burn.

They're supposed to be at the mall, but instead John's paid some guy to buy beer for them, and Bobby's watching John and Marie get drunk on the post office steps. They look like they're having fun. He's supposed to be the responsible one, just like always.

"You should totally kiss Bobby," John says to Marie.

"What, so you can watch?" Marie asks.

"Fuck you," John says, but he's smiling.

Marie grins and tosses her hair. "You wish."

"You're trying to make me jealous," Bobby complains, and Marie looks up at him and smiles, and John frowns and looks away.

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