driftfleet | first one to make that doctor who joke loses

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first one to make that doctor who joke loses

Who: Everyone! All of you!
Broadcast: Maybe!
Action: Definitely!
When: Anytime during the toxic moon event!

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[boy oh boy, isn't everyone just so excited to explore this... charming... place...?

this is a game-wide mingle and the timeframe isn't super-important, so throw in with whatever you want! play war games, go shopping for gas masks, get lost in the wilderness, hide up in the Iskaulit and refuse to set foot on the moon, anything goes.

here's the main event info post for reference! have fun!]

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[He sees the widening of her eyes and smirks. Which part exactly is she surprised about, the zombie bit or that a unicorn let him anywhere near it? A heartbeat later it occurs to him what she might assume, and Kurt has to tighten his jaw not to start snickering.]

I'll allow it, but only because a gentleman should never argue with a lady. Particularly one that could probably exsanguinate him. [There's no shame in admitting how much more powerful his version of her was, even with the woman having permanently absorbed Polaris instead of Ms. Marvel. Kurt starts by ordering a beer when the bartender's near ('not particular as long as it's stout') and then motions with his tail for Rogue to do the same.]

[Rogue orders her regular in circumstances when she actually drinks: Whiskey and Cola. It's not Pepsi, much to her sadness, but that's what ends up happening when you're in another universe.]

Can't see I've got any cause ta start findin' out. [Flattering as the compliment was, she'd rather get to the point than be dancing on the edge of wondering how things were going to fall out. She tilts her head slightly, regarding him.] I don't rightly know how to start this. It's pretty clear that ya were raised by Mystique, but ya sound like you're from Germany and ya ain't surprised that I don't sound like that at all. How does this work out?

[No matter how many years he's known Rogue, the different versions still manage to take him off-guard with their directness when he least expects it.]

If you're asking me how we're going to work out, hell if I know. I'm not Irene. [His expression doesn't change, but he watches her closely for her reaction to the name. Destiny was very important to his mother in his world; how so in others?] If you're asking how it worked in mine, Mom met Rogue after she'd already left me with the X-Men. They weren't together long, but they bonded quickly. And, well, Mom always wanted a daughter. [There's no bitterness there where once, when he was much younger, Kurt had very briefly been insanely jealous of his new sister. It was a long time ago, and Kurt had quickly taken to the girl once they were on the same team.]

[Rogue's expression flickers faintly at the mention of Irene, because she doesn't particularly like to think of the other woman who raised her like a mother just to use her and abandon her, even if those memories remain somewhat less vitriolic than the ones attached to the woman who shares both their last names. But she doesn't particularly recognize it as baiting, which is perhaps a fortunate thing for both of them. Instead, she shakes her head - no, this isn't about the future. It's about his past.

...left him with the X-Men, what now?

With the X-Men?

She listens quietly - bonded quickly - probably much older, maybe with her mutation already manifested? likely, in Kurt and Kitty's world - always wanted a daughter.

What would it have been like, knowing?

That wasn't important now. Instead, Rogue focuses on Kurt.

Quietly, no judgement in the tone, an observation leading to an invitation to confirm or deny:] Ya sound like you were close.

[With his mother.]

[So she does know her, and well enough to be conflicted. He can understand it, he and Irene were never close (though given circumstances Kurt can't blame her for being distant), but what happened between them to cause that reaction in Rogue? His never knew their mother's.. dear friend.

Kurt inclines his head in silent answer to the question, but words follow, quick and soft.] She's different, where I'm from. One of Magneto's first X-Men, ferried humans to safe haven [And charged them all their worldly goods to do it until Kurt had confronted her about it.] when she retired from active duty.

[He pauses, glancing out at the bar while combing his brain for an example to differentiate his mother from the other version he'd met.] When I was in that other world, I met his mother. I was injured fighting her comrades; she aided me, and patched me up after the battle. We spoke of how she came to be separated from her son. She threw him over a waterfall to keep him from the hands of a mob chasing them both. His file told a similar story, but that she'd shifted into a local man and tossed him to save her own skin.

In my world, my mother was running toward the cliff to jump with me when help arrived.

[The only real 'gift' Rogue felt her mutation ever gave her was to listen without judgement. So she did, leaving herself open to experiencing a wildly alternate perspective.

It's strange to hear those stories, both his and another Kurt's entirely. She still remembers experiencing what had happened to her Mystique, to her Kurt. Hearing what happened to him, and to this other world's Kurt made her want to share the differences in her own world... but that wasn't her story to tell.]

That's... a pretty big difference. I'm glad for you.

I am too. Many of the choices Wagner made in his life.. [His lip curls in a sneer that he learned from his mother, waving with his tail as though to chase away a foul smell.] That's neither here nor there.

[Quiet for a second, his expression settles into a thoughtful one, his attention half a lifetime away.] She wasn't perfect, you know. Mom could be thoughtless and cruel without meaning to be, and she had a temper that went off like a powder keg sometimes. She loved the way she hated, and sometimes there wasn't a lot between it. From the time I was little, she taught me the world was more vicious than the forest, and that people were the cruelest animal of all. But never did she breathe a word of how strange I looked, or that it would frighten other humans. I don't know how she expected to keep that a secret; perhaps she intended to keep me locked away forever. I could see it, she was selfish like that. Also a bit of coward, but never in battle.

[It was, she thought, a very good description of Mystique. Even when she'd raised Rogue as a normal human woman, "normal" deserved quotation marks. There were always little lessons buried in everything, lessons about observation or the hard aspects of human nature or nurturing Rogue's already fierce tendencies toward independence and stubborn determination. Cruel and selfish and -- well, cowardly. Cowardly now.

That's not a word she's ever thought about with Mystique. She almost didn't want to. It humanized her to a painful degree.

But in a way, it fit.

Goddamnit.

Quietly, because such a sharing seemed to demand some of her own -- and she couldn't tell Kurt's story, but she could tell hers, Rogue began rather haltingly.]

She adopted me when I was four. [I never knew my birth parents; my foster records said I was found a screaming in a garbage bin, she showed them to me when I asked about my parents when I was eight, who does that to an eight year old child?, and then asked me if I really wanted to find them.] But... not as ya know her. She was wearin' another face, a different name. It wasn't Darkholme.

[This is hard. She doesn't talk about this. Rogue glances down and wishes the bartender would make a precipitous, interrupting appearance. He doesn't, naturally, and she has to continue.] When I was twelve, she dropped me off at Irene's ta stay.

[There's a lot in that number, twelve for girls. The beginning of puberty, the beginning of when powers could manifest...

But this wasn't about that. Her stomach felt tied in nauseating knots.

She stares at her gloves.] She'd still come by an' visit sometimes, though.

[Not cowardly on the battlefield, no. In the middle of a fight his mother stood proud, full of fury and blood thirst. But when it came to facing disapproval or horror in her son's eyes, or the possibility that his love for her might fade, she ran. Every time she ran rather than face what she did to earn his anger, and her cowardice led to her die alone. He assumes she's dead, at least, after scouring the earth and finding no trace; nothing else could've kept her from seeing her firstborn wed or being there when Kurt buried his wife.

But this isn't about him right now. This is about his baby sister, even if she's not from his world. Kurt turns his head slightly, make it obvious that she has his full attention (as close as she can in a public area; there will always be part of him he can't turn off paying attention to the goings-on around them). His expression turns sympathetic as she talks, hiding a wince when she mentions being left with Irene. He can empathize all too well with that particular breed of abandonment. From long reflex he reaches out to curl his tail around her ankle, where cloth and shoes make it safer.]

Not often enough?

[She jolts a little, glancing up at him when she feels his tail wrap around her leg. Rogue isn't used to people reaching out to touch her, and her Kurt has never used his tail this way with her. She doesn't shake Kurt off, though, or tell him off - doesn't even think of it when his action is paired with that soft question. That - that lances an old pain, and not one that most pick up on if she trusts them enough to tell them this much of her past. Hearing it shakes her up as that old pain, a child's pain, really, sings through her with relative sweetness.

Rationally, looking at it from this end it had probably been a strategic move. Make her crave her mother's acceptance enough so that when Mystique finally revealed who she was and what they wanted of her, she'd have felt privileged finally learn what had happened and desperate to please. With the botched way Mystique had handled Rogue coming into her powers, however, she sure hadn't kept to that strategy -- if it had been one at all.

Maybe she just got tired of me.

Ridiculous, that such a thought would hurt. Rogue knew what Mystique was. It was insane for any part of her eto still reach for that connection. It didn't matter anyway. She glances back down.]

That's not important. Not in the light of everythin' else that happened.

[No. Not often enough.]

[When she jerks Kurt's tail loosens, prepared to pull away at the first hint of true discomfort instead of surprise. It never comes, and his tail never moves away. It tightens in a comforting gesture during the silence that follows, because that's answer enough isn't it?

So many worlds where his mother had children and cast them aside--but she'd done that in his own, too. Kurt has--had a brother, barely a year younger. His name was Graydon Creed after his father Victor, and somehow the man was utterly human. Whether his mother had known that when she left Graydon behind, or had just known he could pass for human, Kurt doesn't know. He never will.]

Remy mentioned a few things the first time we spoke. Mostly Erik, a little about Mom. A lot about something called the Brotherhood of Mutants? [From Gambit's description they hadn't sounded like much at all, but it's a topic change they both can live with. He'd rather not think of any version of his mother under Apocalypse's control.]

[A brief smile of wry affection flickered in and out of existence. She takes the reprieve for what it is and happily shifts focus for the moment.] That Remy - he's a talker.

[She leans an elbow on the bar and nods in thanks as the bartender drops off their drinks.] Three basic teams where I'm from - X-Men, Brotherhood, an' the Acolytes. The Brotherhood worked under Mystique, for a while, while she worked under Magneto. The Acolytes worked directly under Buckethead. [A quick flash of a grin.] My 'affectionate' nickname for him so we won't get 'em confused with yours.

[It wasn't a new nickname by any means, but if there was any reason to use it in polite company, it was now.

(It was strange that he hadn't let go of her ankle. People didn't touch her, as a rule.

It was even stranger that she'd said nothing, that she hadn't shaken him off.)]

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