An Offer They Can't Refuse
Feb. 4th, 2017 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katleeptTitle: An Offer They Can't Refuse
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: X-Men
Character/Pairing: Jubilee, Husk
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
1_million_words Weekend Challenge: Disney Quotes and halfamoon Day 3: Home
Warning(s): Spoilers
Word Count: 1,811
Date Written: 4 February 2017
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Marvel Comics and Disney, not the author, and are used without permission.
"Do you want fries with that?" Paige drones like a recording yet again on another dull and lifeless night five miles from her home.
"Yeah," a voice she instantly thinks she recognizes answers, "but hold the cheese. I need blood these nights."
The blonde's head jerks up, her blue eyes widening with surprise. "Jubes?!"
Her former class mate grins broadly back at her. "The one and only. Hayseed, I knew you needed a break, but I didn't expect for you to be pushin' fast food!"
"Ah do what Ah need ta -- " she starts to explain.
"Yeah," Jubie cuts her off. "About that, I got a offer fer ya that ya can't refuse."
Paige lifts a brow. Jubilee's smile vanishes, and in all sincerity, she adds, "Seriously."
The customers behind Jubilee are beginning to grumble their complaints. "Come on, Chink," one guy says, "and make yer order!"
"Where'd you even come from any way?"
"Didn't you hear? She knows Guthrie. Must be one of those mutie freaks she went to school with."
"Yeah. Some special school -- "
The group behind Jubilee sniggers. She whirls around in a flash of yellow, and when her blood red eyes cut up at them, they fall abruptly silent, suddenly reconsidering their safety in their own hometown. "I'm not a mutant any more," Jubilee acknowledges, "but that doesn't mean I can't kick your ass and fry 'em like Colonel Sanders' chicken!"
"There's a cure?" one of the girls asks in surprise.
Jubilee's dagger-filled glower hushes her. She slides closer to her boyfriend as Jubilee looks over her shoulder. "So how about it, Hayseed? Can you take a break?"
"Maybe in a little while," Paige murmurs, embarrassed.
Jubilee nods. "I'll wait, but skip the food. It doesn't taste the same any more." What she doesn't say is that it's one of very many things she misses about being a mutant, about being her version of normal. She misses her days in the sun -- artificial sunlight and even the special lotions that have been developed to keep her new people from burning in direct sunlight just aren't the same as feeling its radiant heat beating down directly upon her flesh. She misses her carefree days at the mall and as the youngest member of the X-Men, although the latter wasn't as much carefree. She misses her friends -- those who have been killed or otherwise died, those who have left the mutants-saving-a-world-who-will-always-hate-them fields, and those who simply no longer trust her now that she's a Vampire. Worst of all, she misses her family, her Wolveroonie who, after surviving so many impossible things, still had his life cut short; Everett, who was the first of their class to fall and who always managed to be somewhere between a brother and her first love; Angelo, who really was the love of her life; and yes, even Paige, who was sort of like the nerdy sister or cousin she never actually had.
She takes a corner booth, fully aware of the locals watching her. Part of her thinks she shouldn't have come alone, but the other part argues that she doesn't want to make this too hard on Paige -- or on herself if Paige declines the offer Jubie keeps trying to tell herself is impossible to be declined. Nothing's impossible, she knows, and that goes for both good and bad things. The deal she's set to offer her old friend is a once in a lifetime chance, something she thought she could never give the girl or her family. It's something so many people would jump for, but that doesn't mean Paige won't still turn her down.
Still, if she does, Jubilee knows from the way Paige's wide, blue eyes directly met hers moments ago, it won't be because she's afraid of her or no longer trusts her, as so many of the other X-Men have become. It won't be because of anything Jubie herself doesn't or doesn't do. This move is up to Paige. It's all about what she wants or doesn't want for her future. Jubilee just hopes her old friend is ready to come home.
But then, the former Californian wonders as she waits, her brown eyes casting glances around her at the small fast food joint, what is home? This is Paige's home town. These people, as callous as they are with their hate-filled and dumb remarks, are the people she grew up with. She wasn't like Jubilee. She didn't grow up alone. She already had a family when the X-Men came calling for her brother, Sam. That family is the reason why she moved back, and if she decides to stay with them, Jubilee can't really blame her. Still, the girl deserves a chance. They deserve a chance.
Jubilee fidgets in her booth, but true to her word, she waits. She waits through the Friday night crowds of high schoolers heading to the local game and blue collared workers dragging through after getting off and just trying to grab an easy bite for their families. She waits as Paige takes order after order, gets cussed at, gets fussed at, and gets flirted with by members of the opposite sex that Jubes is pretty certain no girl in her right mind could want. She waits as the night grows late, as hunger pulls at her, persuading her at last to buy a cup of water, dump the water out when no one's looking, and fill it with a vial of blood from an inside pocket on her yellow trench coat.
She waits until she's almost ready to give up, thinking that maybe Paige is no longer a girl of her word and she's just trying to outwait Jubilee. Just as she's getting up to leave, Paige finally appears. "Ah'm sorry," she apologizes instantly. "We've just been so busy."
"It's okay." Jubilee shrugs it all off and sits back down, gesturing for Paige to slide in across from her.
Paige does so. Jubilee opens her mouth to begin, but seeing the warring expression in Paige's blue eyes, she quiets again, having at last learned that sometimes she needs to let others talk. "Ah'm surprised," Paige comments honestly, "ya came all this way ta look me up."
Jubilee's lips lift into a small, almost sad smile. "We were family, weren't we?"
Paige smiles. "Ah used ta like ta think so," she admits. She pauses for just a moment before adding softly, "Ah miss you guys."
"Then come back."
"It won't be th' same. Sam's moved on ta th' Avengers -- Ah still don't believe he chose ta go wit' 'em! --, an' Ev, Angie -- " Her voice breaks.
Jubilee reaches across the table, takes her hand in hers, and squeezes it. "I know we've lost a lot."
"Is it true . . . ?" Paige asks, her blue eyes slowly lifting to Jubilee's brown orbs. She doesn't need to finish her question for Jubilee to know what she's asking, but when Jubie hesitates to answer, Paige tries to elaborate, "Is Wolvy . . . ?" She breaks off again at Jubilee's answer in a small, pale, and sorrowful need. "Ah'm sorry!"
Jubilee tries to grin, but her heart's no longer in the facade. "Hey, you lost your dad a long time ago. Wolvy lived a good life. A long life." Her bottom lip trembles; tears fill her eyes.
Paige darts from her side of the booth to Jubilee's. She wraps her younger friend tightly in her arms and holds her hard. "That's part o' th' reason Ah left," she admits finally, whispering against Jubilee's short, dark hair. "Ah didn't think Ah could take th' death any more."
Jubilee nods her understanding. "That's why Angie an' I skipped out for a while, an' I -- I won't blame you if you don't come back, Hayseed," she says, trying to sound stronger and more confident than she feels while dabbing at her eyes with the back of one hand, "but Wolveroonie left me a good bit. He had more squirreled away than I thought he did. An' I know he wanted to use it to help people. I also know the other part o' the reason you left was to help yer family after yer mom's death an' all."
Paige nods slowly, pulling back and watching Jubilee through her wide eyes that Jubes can now see also look so tired. "What're you sayin', Jubie?"
"I'm sayin' I've got enough you can come home. Well, ta yer other home any way. An' yer family'll still be looked after."
"Ah -- Ah can't just a take a -- a hand out like that -- " Paige manages to protest through her obvious shock.
"Don't look at it as a hand out. Look at it as a loan. Ya can get a job back in New York. Yer'll make more money there than yer'll ever make here pushin' burgers. An' ya can work on repaying me. Repaying him." Her red eyes glisten again with tears, and Paige understands. Jubilee didn't just come to her tonight looking to help her.
She wants her to come back not just for Paige or Paige's kid brothers and sisters. She's looking to get something out of Paige's return for herself. She misses their days as Generation X, their days as a family. Paige has spent so longer trying to help her blood siblings that she didn't even realize things had gotten so bad for Jubilee, that she was needed back at the X-Mansion almost as badly as she was needed here before Elizabeth and Johnny graduated and got jobs. What Jubilee says is right: She can better support her family from New York. Not only that, but she can help to save the world again, too, and to make it a better place for all of them. And maybe she can even help mend Jubilee's obviously broken heart along the way.
"You were right," she says softly after a few, long moments of watching the girl before her, who was, after all, the youngest member of their team once and one of Paige's first friends when she left home. She was also the love of Angelo's life, and Paige had never had, and never will, she knows, a more cherished friend than Angie. He'd want her to come home. He'd want her to help Jubilee.
Jubie blinks pass the tears she refuses to let fall and cocks her head to one side, watching Paige with an intentness in her red, almost predatory eyes that would scare some people but doesn't scare Paige. "'Bout what?" she asks softly.
Paige grins. "'Bout it bein' an offer Ah can't refuse." She embraces Jubilee tightly, and this time, she doesn't let go for a long time to come. "Thanks, Jubie," she whispers in her ear, feeling truly needed again at long last. "Of course Ah'll come home."
The End
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: X-Men
Character/Pairing: Jubilee, Husk
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt:
1_million_words Weekend Challenge: Disney Quotes and halfamoon Day 3: HomeWarning(s): Spoilers
Word Count: 1,811
Date Written: 4 February 2017
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Marvel Comics and Disney, not the author, and are used without permission.
"Do you want fries with that?" Paige drones like a recording yet again on another dull and lifeless night five miles from her home.
"Yeah," a voice she instantly thinks she recognizes answers, "but hold the cheese. I need blood these nights."
The blonde's head jerks up, her blue eyes widening with surprise. "Jubes?!"
Her former class mate grins broadly back at her. "The one and only. Hayseed, I knew you needed a break, but I didn't expect for you to be pushin' fast food!"
"Ah do what Ah need ta -- " she starts to explain.
"Yeah," Jubie cuts her off. "About that, I got a offer fer ya that ya can't refuse."
Paige lifts a brow. Jubilee's smile vanishes, and in all sincerity, she adds, "Seriously."
The customers behind Jubilee are beginning to grumble their complaints. "Come on, Chink," one guy says, "and make yer order!"
"Where'd you even come from any way?"
"Didn't you hear? She knows Guthrie. Must be one of those mutie freaks she went to school with."
"Yeah. Some special school -- "
The group behind Jubilee sniggers. She whirls around in a flash of yellow, and when her blood red eyes cut up at them, they fall abruptly silent, suddenly reconsidering their safety in their own hometown. "I'm not a mutant any more," Jubilee acknowledges, "but that doesn't mean I can't kick your ass and fry 'em like Colonel Sanders' chicken!"
"There's a cure?" one of the girls asks in surprise.
Jubilee's dagger-filled glower hushes her. She slides closer to her boyfriend as Jubilee looks over her shoulder. "So how about it, Hayseed? Can you take a break?"
"Maybe in a little while," Paige murmurs, embarrassed.
Jubilee nods. "I'll wait, but skip the food. It doesn't taste the same any more." What she doesn't say is that it's one of very many things she misses about being a mutant, about being her version of normal. She misses her days in the sun -- artificial sunlight and even the special lotions that have been developed to keep her new people from burning in direct sunlight just aren't the same as feeling its radiant heat beating down directly upon her flesh. She misses her carefree days at the mall and as the youngest member of the X-Men, although the latter wasn't as much carefree. She misses her friends -- those who have been killed or otherwise died, those who have left the mutants-saving-a-world-who-will-always-hate-them fields, and those who simply no longer trust her now that she's a Vampire. Worst of all, she misses her family, her Wolveroonie who, after surviving so many impossible things, still had his life cut short; Everett, who was the first of their class to fall and who always managed to be somewhere between a brother and her first love; Angelo, who really was the love of her life; and yes, even Paige, who was sort of like the nerdy sister or cousin she never actually had.
She takes a corner booth, fully aware of the locals watching her. Part of her thinks she shouldn't have come alone, but the other part argues that she doesn't want to make this too hard on Paige -- or on herself if Paige declines the offer Jubie keeps trying to tell herself is impossible to be declined. Nothing's impossible, she knows, and that goes for both good and bad things. The deal she's set to offer her old friend is a once in a lifetime chance, something she thought she could never give the girl or her family. It's something so many people would jump for, but that doesn't mean Paige won't still turn her down.
Still, if she does, Jubilee knows from the way Paige's wide, blue eyes directly met hers moments ago, it won't be because she's afraid of her or no longer trusts her, as so many of the other X-Men have become. It won't be because of anything Jubie herself doesn't or doesn't do. This move is up to Paige. It's all about what she wants or doesn't want for her future. Jubilee just hopes her old friend is ready to come home.
But then, the former Californian wonders as she waits, her brown eyes casting glances around her at the small fast food joint, what is home? This is Paige's home town. These people, as callous as they are with their hate-filled and dumb remarks, are the people she grew up with. She wasn't like Jubilee. She didn't grow up alone. She already had a family when the X-Men came calling for her brother, Sam. That family is the reason why she moved back, and if she decides to stay with them, Jubilee can't really blame her. Still, the girl deserves a chance. They deserve a chance.
Jubilee fidgets in her booth, but true to her word, she waits. She waits through the Friday night crowds of high schoolers heading to the local game and blue collared workers dragging through after getting off and just trying to grab an easy bite for their families. She waits as Paige takes order after order, gets cussed at, gets fussed at, and gets flirted with by members of the opposite sex that Jubes is pretty certain no girl in her right mind could want. She waits as the night grows late, as hunger pulls at her, persuading her at last to buy a cup of water, dump the water out when no one's looking, and fill it with a vial of blood from an inside pocket on her yellow trench coat.
She waits until she's almost ready to give up, thinking that maybe Paige is no longer a girl of her word and she's just trying to outwait Jubilee. Just as she's getting up to leave, Paige finally appears. "Ah'm sorry," she apologizes instantly. "We've just been so busy."
"It's okay." Jubilee shrugs it all off and sits back down, gesturing for Paige to slide in across from her.
Paige does so. Jubilee opens her mouth to begin, but seeing the warring expression in Paige's blue eyes, she quiets again, having at last learned that sometimes she needs to let others talk. "Ah'm surprised," Paige comments honestly, "ya came all this way ta look me up."
Jubilee's lips lift into a small, almost sad smile. "We were family, weren't we?"
Paige smiles. "Ah used ta like ta think so," she admits. She pauses for just a moment before adding softly, "Ah miss you guys."
"Then come back."
"It won't be th' same. Sam's moved on ta th' Avengers -- Ah still don't believe he chose ta go wit' 'em! --, an' Ev, Angie -- " Her voice breaks.
Jubilee reaches across the table, takes her hand in hers, and squeezes it. "I know we've lost a lot."
"Is it true . . . ?" Paige asks, her blue eyes slowly lifting to Jubilee's brown orbs. She doesn't need to finish her question for Jubilee to know what she's asking, but when Jubie hesitates to answer, Paige tries to elaborate, "Is Wolvy . . . ?" She breaks off again at Jubilee's answer in a small, pale, and sorrowful need. "Ah'm sorry!"
Jubilee tries to grin, but her heart's no longer in the facade. "Hey, you lost your dad a long time ago. Wolvy lived a good life. A long life." Her bottom lip trembles; tears fill her eyes.
Paige darts from her side of the booth to Jubilee's. She wraps her younger friend tightly in her arms and holds her hard. "That's part o' th' reason Ah left," she admits finally, whispering against Jubilee's short, dark hair. "Ah didn't think Ah could take th' death any more."
Jubilee nods her understanding. "That's why Angie an' I skipped out for a while, an' I -- I won't blame you if you don't come back, Hayseed," she says, trying to sound stronger and more confident than she feels while dabbing at her eyes with the back of one hand, "but Wolveroonie left me a good bit. He had more squirreled away than I thought he did. An' I know he wanted to use it to help people. I also know the other part o' the reason you left was to help yer family after yer mom's death an' all."
Paige nods slowly, pulling back and watching Jubilee through her wide eyes that Jubes can now see also look so tired. "What're you sayin', Jubie?"
"I'm sayin' I've got enough you can come home. Well, ta yer other home any way. An' yer family'll still be looked after."
"Ah -- Ah can't just a take a -- a hand out like that -- " Paige manages to protest through her obvious shock.
"Don't look at it as a hand out. Look at it as a loan. Ya can get a job back in New York. Yer'll make more money there than yer'll ever make here pushin' burgers. An' ya can work on repaying me. Repaying him." Her red eyes glisten again with tears, and Paige understands. Jubilee didn't just come to her tonight looking to help her.
She wants her to come back not just for Paige or Paige's kid brothers and sisters. She's looking to get something out of Paige's return for herself. She misses their days as Generation X, their days as a family. Paige has spent so longer trying to help her blood siblings that she didn't even realize things had gotten so bad for Jubilee, that she was needed back at the X-Mansion almost as badly as she was needed here before Elizabeth and Johnny graduated and got jobs. What Jubilee says is right: She can better support her family from New York. Not only that, but she can help to save the world again, too, and to make it a better place for all of them. And maybe she can even help mend Jubilee's obviously broken heart along the way.
"You were right," she says softly after a few, long moments of watching the girl before her, who was, after all, the youngest member of their team once and one of Paige's first friends when she left home. She was also the love of Angelo's life, and Paige had never had, and never will, she knows, a more cherished friend than Angie. He'd want her to come home. He'd want her to help Jubilee.
Jubie blinks pass the tears she refuses to let fall and cocks her head to one side, watching Paige with an intentness in her red, almost predatory eyes that would scare some people but doesn't scare Paige. "'Bout what?" she asks softly.
Paige grins. "'Bout it bein' an offer Ah can't refuse." She embraces Jubilee tightly, and this time, she doesn't let go for a long time to come. "Thanks, Jubie," she whispers in her ear, feeling truly needed again at long last. "Of course Ah'll come home."
The End
