Work Text:
Stop in the Name of Love
by bach2bach
"That’s it!"
“Where do you think you’re going?” Bobby’s words reflected his distrust of John’s sense of reason.
“I’m sick of this kid’s table shit; I’m going in there.” John grabbed his jacket and headed for the stairs without glancing in Bobby and Rogue’s direction.
“John, they told us to stay here.” Rogue’s words were futile, and she knew it, but years of obedience to authority figures won out against her inner Pyro.
Turning back at her abruptly, his face twisted in a sneer, John asked her “You always do as you’re told?”
Intuition flashed through her. ‘Oh, fuck! He’s going to take off! He’s going to go with Erik!’ and then the death knell tolled inside her and she knew that if he stepped off the jet she’d never see him again.
Unable to bear him walking out without knowing exactly what it was he was abandoning, Rogue made an involuntary move. She jerked forward and wrapped her arms firmly around his middle. Tightening her grip until he could no longer pull away, she pressed her face into his back and bit out the words.
“Don’t. Please stay with me, John. Don’t leave me.”
In that precise moment, Rogue could care less that her boyfriend and his best-friend was standing right behind them, watching with horror and shock.
Her hold on John was too controlling for him to move, but his body began to shake slightly.
“Christ! Why now? Why couldn’t you have just left it alone? Now I can’t go. Damn you, Rogue! Damn you.”
His voice faltered and cut off.
Her accent thick with passion, Rogue explained her actions as best she could.
“I couldn’t let you do it. I know you aren’t happy, John. I know you’ve got the short end of the stick your whole life. It ain’t fair. I know! But it won’t make it any better, going with them. I ain’t askin’ you to be a boy scout. I just wanted you to know that someone needs you, wants you. If you’re going to try and go, I have to tell you the truth now, before it’s too late for it. I love you, Pyro. Please, don’t leave me.”
Using his quote real unquote name was the only way she knew to emphasize that she loved him as he was, as he saw himself, as he wanted to be. It was the last card she had to play, and she prayed it would be enough.
There was silence and more shaking from John for several minutes; Bobby was either still frozen or he had come to accept that his girlfriend was trying to leave him for his best friend and he couldn’t bring himself to stop her. Rogue held on, pressing her body to John’s back, starting to think that this might be the last opportunity she would ever have to hold him.
A caress on her arm was the first sign that he wasn’t immune to her pleas, and then finally his voice broke the tension in the air.
“I’ll stay. Don’t ask for anything else now, but I’ll stay with you.”
It was enough.