x_muses | "Step one, you say, 'We need to talk...'" [with chillfactor]

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"Step one, you say, 'We need to talk...'" [with chillfactor]

Sean had been good and mad for a couple of days now. He hadn't even slept in the room he was sharing with Bobby these days the last two nights, instead opting to sleep in one of the unoccupied guest rooms. It was probably the worst fight he and Bobby had ever had, and they hadn't even really fought all that much, aside from when Bobby was drunk. Sean had, instead, locked himself into passive-aggressive bitch mode with a side of silent treatment, and Bobby was pretty much left wondering what had even been said, because Sean wouldn't even tell him that much.

But after another night of sleeping alone, Sean was feeling altogether fed up with it. The words of his friends from the day before were sinking into his mind and heart, and he knew without a doubt that he had to go talk to Bobby -- Bobby, who, at five AM, was probably still asleep, but this couldn't wait anymore. He made his way stealthily down the hall, not wanting to wake any of his teammates, though from the sounds of things as he passed Warren and John's room, some of them were still awake. And when he reached the door to his own room, he balked just a little. But a deep steadying breath was all he allowed himself before he reached out to gently knock on the door, hoping like hell that Bobby wouldn't tell him to go fuck himself.

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Generally, Bobby was a heavy sleeper, which likely could be factored down to sharing a residence with a pile of mutants, all with varying degrees of powers that could often be extremely noisy. Ever since the argument with Sean, however, he hadn't slept as well, until he tossed and turned so much, he exhausted himself into reluctant slumber. Life was never not complicated. That was a common factor with a lot of mutants from the time their powers manifested, and even then, some prior to that. Sure, they could be out doing their superhero thing, they could be in combat, in training. That was their life. But beyond that, they still had relationships, they still had social lives, they still had all the things that made life worth living.

And Bobby had been so sure he had finally gotten it right with Sean after a very doomed relationship history. At least, he had until they had a huge fight over things Bobby didn't even really know because he had been drunk after a chill-out with Remy. A knock at the door would always wake him because it could mean anything, and had meant some severe things in the past. He threw the covers back and stumbled out of bed haphazardly, still half asleep and unlocked his door. He shielded his eyes against the light in the hall, face twisted up and covered in creases. "What th'fuck you knockin' for?" he mumbled huskily.

In that moment, when Bobby was standing at the door, clad only in his boxers and with that sleepy look that told Sean he'd woken him on his face, all Sean could do was ask himself if it was worth it missing a couple nights with his boyfriend when they probably could've talked this whole thing over to start with. Fuck, Bobby was adorable when he was sleepy, and Sean was forcing himself to turn his thoughts from the over all cuteness that was Bobby Drake to focus on the serious discussion at hand. He'd been so angry, but now he was pretty much down to just hurt and lonely and tired of being angry.

"I... I don't know," he admitted, walking into the room and shaking his head. "It's five in the morning... I don't know what I'm doing yet. I just... I needed to talk to you... We... We have to talk about something, because I think there might've been a misunderstanding more than anything really being wrong, and I just..." He was rambling... He knew it, too, and the more tired he was, the more his thick Irish accent hugged every word. "Bobby, I need to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with me, because it's been on my mind for days now."

Bobby just gave a sleepy blink as Sean stepped into their room and he closed the door over. This whole past week had been a really confusing and trying time. It was probably the worst falling out they had. It wasn't uncommon for mutants trying to have a relationship together to just clash because, by default, they were usually very different to each other, from very different pasts that had shaped who they were. Sean and Bobby were no exception. They didn't clash as frequently as John and Warren did, but they could rub each other the wrong way sometimes. This whole time had just been different and because he didn't know what it was he did or said to flare up the situation, he was just bewildered. Hurt, bewildered and lonely. Probably to the point he had been a pain in the ass asking everyone else if they knew what he did wrong and bemoaning the argument. But they put up with each other. They were a team. There was never a sense of being told to piss off and whine elsewhere because their own problems were more important than yours. That's what Bobby cherished about his friends the most.

It was five in the morning? Bobby swore it only felt like he got an hour or two sleep. The fact that he was still half asleep was making what Sean was saying confusing because he was pretty sure there had been something wrong - something very wrong - because they weren't even sleeping in the same room and hadn't conversed in days. "Okay..." he finally replied, though it was hesitant and uncertain. He was pretty sure Sean was here to ask him to back off because he wanted them to split for good. He didn't want to face that. He wasn't ready to. But he was tired of fighting, so he just relented.

Sean took a seat on the side of the bed, shifting so that one bent leg was entirely on the bed while the other hung lazily off the side. With a soft sigh, he patted the spot next to him on the bed so that Bobby would come over to join him. He could almost sense the worry and the uncertainty from his other half, and he felt bad that Bobby was already so on edge about this conversation. Though, if he were being honest, Sean was pretty on edge about it, too. The last thing he wanted to hear was Bobby saying that he still loved Rogue... That he wanted to be with her deep down, and was with Sean instead because there was no chance of getting what he really wanted. Sean loved Bobby with every fibre of his being, and the last thing he wanted was to discover that he'd been a consolation prize. Deep down, he didn't really believe that could be true, but the obsession with Rogue's evaluation of his sexual skills from Bobby had definitely hurt Sean's confidence on some level. He needed to hear from Bobby himself what he was thinking, and maybe it was a weird time of day for this, but Sean wasn't sure he could wait anymore.

Bobby barely looked to be awake at this point, but Sean had no more time to waist. He was driving himself entirely bananas trying to figure this whole thing out, and if he didn't do what he needed to do now, he wasn't sure he'd ever get the confidence up to try again. "I need to ask you... Fuck... I just need to know the answer to a question, and regardless of what your answer is, I'm not going to hate you. It just... It might make a difference in things, and I just need to know." He was rambling. Definitely rambling, and it needed to stop, but this was a hard question to ask the person that you were in love with. "Bobby, are you still in love with Rogue?"

Maybe they were sort of an unlikely couple. Bobby had moved on a lot over the years, let the experiences he had face shape him. He let himself act on the mutual attraction with Sean and it hadn't even been a big deal at the time. There had been no big defining moment of his sexuality. He had moved on from loving Rogue to beginning a relationship with Sean down the track. So all this had floored him and he didn't quite know how he was supposed to deal with it. Talking and communicating would have been the best start, but Sean had seemed so angry with him that he had just been waiting for the inevitable break-up. He had no desire to hurt Sean or complicate things more for him, so he hadn't even put up a fight.

He sat heavily on the bed and was folding his arms over in front of him defensively. For a few moments, he felt like he was on one of those reality TV shows where they announced who was getting booted out that week, but not before this huge long suspenseful pause before opening the envelope. There was part of him that wanted to just shove Sean off the bed and onto the floor out of sheer frustration over this whole thing. When he finally did get to his point, Bobby's mouth dropped open and he was blurting out an affronted, "What the fuck? Are you... you... did you seriously..." He didn't finish the train of thought before was getting up to pace, needing a bit of momentum to try to figure out how he felt about this question.

It was obvious that his question had struck a nerve with Bobby, but not in the way that he was really expecting it to. He couldn't read Bobby very well right now, but he was getting a feeling of anger off him on some level... Anger that Sean would even suggest something like this. And maybe hurt, too, because at this point, thinking about his question, Sean realized just what it suggested -- a total lack of trust in Bobby and in all of the things he'd told him since they first hooked up. They had been so happy in their relationship, at least, as far as he could tell, and asking this question was probably far outwith the realms of what Sean should've been doing here to try and patch things up after a fight.

Bobby was pacing in front of him, and Sean knew he'd made a mistake in asking that question. But he was desperate to somehow try and make Bobby understand why he asked in the first place. "Bobby, listen," he said softly. "I'm not saying this to be an asshole. I'm asking you because the other night when you were drunk, all you could talk about was how Rogue said you were vanilla in bed, and you just kept going on about it. I told you that you're amazing in bed, that I love making love with you, that you make me so fucking happy that I feel like my heart's going to explode most of the time, and you just... You just kept saying maybe there was something wrong with you, and what was going to happen when I got sick of your vanilla sex, and it was just... You were drunk, it didn't all make sense, But I know that you used to love her, and it was like... Like what I said about you as a lover didn't matter, because Rogue called you vanilla."

"Because I was worried I wasn't good enough for you!" Bobby fired back, and there was a mix of anger and sheer hurt behind his snappish response. He was usually a good guy, laid back and chill (pardon the pun) but he could have a quickfire temper on him when he was defensive. He knew that his powers, in comparison to a lot of the others, were pretty average and boring. So Rogue's vanilla comment along with Warren and John calling him Elsa (because, let's be real, he really did have the same friggen powers as a Disney princess), his ego had taken a bit of a beating and he was self-conscious. He hated himself for it, but that was how he had been feeling lately. He had even been questioning his position on the team, whether he offered any real value in their battles.

He shook his head and shot Sean a glare. "Why the fuck were you trying to reason with me when I was that drunk? Hey, you used to love people too, you know! Do you see me accusing you of still being in love with them? Things ended with Rogue ages ago. And you know why? Because she never fully loved me. She's always been in love with Remy. She got bored of me, I wasn't enough for her. Things ending with her was enough to make me feel like I was boring and not good enough. Then you came along, and I never once felt like that. At least, not until now."

"When have I ever once made you feel like you weren't good enough for me?!" Sean replied, trying like hell to make Bobby understand why this had hit him so damn hard. "Bobby, I love you. You're not... You're not vanilla to me, and you're not boring or plain or not good enough. You are everything I ever wanted, and I never gave a damn what anyone else thought of you. To me, you were amazing. I didn't think you questioned that with me. And then there you were telling me how Rogue said this and that and the other thing, and I couldn't get you to focus on anything but what Rogue thought!" Sean had a fiery hot temper himself, but as much as it kept coming out in flashes, he genuinely didn't want to fight with Bobby. That was the whole point of this conversation -- to figure things out and stop fucking fighting. But here they were fighting, and he didn't know how to make it stop.

"Because it hurt like hell for you to ask me what was wrong with me and why I'd want someone like you. I know you were drunk, Bobby, but what you say when you're drunk is usually what you think when you're sober, but can't get your courage up to say. It just felt like what Rogue said meant more than what I said. And I know we're not each other's first loves. I didn't ask to be your first. But I never throw my wife's opinion of things about me into our conversations. She's gone. She was my first love, but you... You're the one I want to be my last, and the only person whose opinion of me as a lover or a boyfriend matters? Is you. You've always been more than just good enough, Bobby. I love you like crazy, and I don't want us to be about what anybody else thinks." He wasn't trying to talk so much, but once he'd started, it had all rushed out before he even got a chance to stop for air.

Bobby actually almost growled in frustration. "Never! But that doesn't negate my own personal insecurities, which I was under the impression you're supposed to support each other through when you're in a relationship!" In fact, this was one of the prime factors in the breakdown of his relationship with Rogue. They both had a lot of insecurities at the time and it wasn't a firm foundation for a relationship. She was scared of hurting him with her touch, he was worried he wasn't good enough for her in the wake of Remy. It got messy, but luckily they had remained friends after their breakup, and close friends at that.

"Well, I'm sorry I can't pre-empt how my insecurities are going to hurt you or not! I'm not the friggen telepath around here! It's not what I think when I'm sober at all, though this past week? Yeah, totally thought it. Over and over again until I thought I was going mad! What Rogue said did mean a lot, because I was offended and I was hurt, and it made me starting doubting myself all over again. Then you were in a constant bitch fit and wouldn't talk to me, so how the hell was I supposed to even know how to fix it? I can't believe you took all that and translated it into me still being in love with her when you now how crap the relationship ultimately made me feel. It didn't work, we weren't meant for each other! Goddamnit," he finally mumbled, losing his steam as he went over to the window and rested his hands on the sill, looking out over the sprawling grounds of the mansion.

Bobby's words hit Sean like a one-two punch in the gut, and he stood up from the bed to follow his boyfriend over to the window. "I've always tried to support you... and you've always supported me, whether I was right or wrong," Sean replied, his tone quiet now... calmer, but still hurt. "I didn't ask you that because I wanted a fight. I just... I wanted to know, because that's how it came across to me -- like her opinion was more important than anything. I love you, Bobby. I don't want to fight with you, and I certainly don't want us to break up over this. I just needed to ask. And maybe that's me being insecure."

"No... No, babe. I'm sorry. I should've known better than to hold you to some sort of weird higher standard when you were drinking. I just... I don't want anyone to make you doubt yourself, and when they did, I took it the wrong way. I don't want to fight anymore, Bobby. I want to fix this, because I love you and that's the whole damn point. I..." He paused, realizing how much he was focusing on what he wanted and he thought right now instead of showing Bobby that he loved him and focusing on how Bobby felt. "You're right, babe. When you were upset, it should've been my first response to try and focus on what you were saying and figure out where it was coming from. I took it personally instead. You... You've got nothing to be insecure about, you know. You're an amazing lover, an even more amazing person. You make me incredibly happy, and you're a valuable member of this team. You get teased, sure, but we all tease each other. That doesn't mean anyone thinks you don't deserve to be part of the team, and it doesn't mean that you're not a great boyfriend and lover, either." He paused, swallowing hard. "Bobby, can we fix this?"

"I was drunk," Bobby reminded Sean, his words tight as he kept looking out over the expansive grounds. It wasn't to excuse anything, but it was at least an unbalanced argument because everyone was victim of doing or saying stupid shit when they were drunk, and a lot were guilty of doing or saying it, and not remembering it. "How is it being supportive to hold something against me that I don't even remember? The only reason I even know is because other people told me. Other people, Sean. Not you. If you're insecure about that, what the fuck are we even doing here?"

He was just tired. He had never been a morning person, so that was a downside, but these days on end in an argument that wasn't even really an argument had been exhausting. More exhausting than three days straight in a mutant battle. He rested his forehead against the glass. He didn't know whether to feel hurt, or angry, or regretful, or just plain give up on it all. Maybe it had been doomed from the start? He never wanted to think like that, but it was hard not to right now. The track record for mutants going long-term in successful relationships wasn't that promising. "I don't get how you can think I'm still in love with her when I was barely even happy with her, when I haven't once thought about anything like that between her and me since we got together. Rogue and me? We barely slept together. I'm serious. I can count on one hand the amount of friggen times we did, and most of those times there was this constant fear of what her powers could do. Was I vanilla in bed with her? Yes, I fucking was, because if anything ever happened, I didn't want her carrying it around on her conscience that she hurt me. So I held back. A lot. You can't tell her any of this, I never fucking told her. I don't know if we can fix it. I don't know anything anymore."

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"Step one, you say, 'We need to talk...'" [with chillfactor]

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