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uc_xmenTitle: "Family Never Forgotten"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary:
Warnings: Slash, Established Pairing, Het, Alternate Universe
Word Count: 2,648
Date Written: 29 January, 2012
Challenge: For a Aphrodite's Blessings Yuku forum's weekly challenge
Disclaimer: Robert "Bobby" "Iceman" Drake, Dr. Henry "Hank" "Beast" McCoy, Jubilation "Jubilee" Lee, all other characters mentioned within, and the X-Men are © & TM Marvel comics and Disney, neither of which are the author, and are used without permission. Amazon is © & TM Amazon, also not the author, and is used without permission. Everything else is © & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Logan growled. His hot breath washed across the trembling lawyer's terrified face. He'd already picked the scrawny man up by his collar, and now his claws unsheathed. His deadly blades stopped just short of the human's neck. His heart was lodged in that throat now, and Jubilee could hear it beating from clean across the room. "Sign the dotted line, punk," Logan growled. "Make it official, or I'll rip out yer heart and feed it to my girl."
My girl. It had been so many, seemingly almost endless years since Jubilee had last heard her beloved Wolveroonie call her his girl. She turned over on her side, and her red eyes opened to look around her. She wasn't in an office. She wasn't even with Wolvy. She hadn't been for longer than she liked to admit.
She watched the shadows elongating in her bedroom. The sun had not yet started to sink well. She shouldn't be awake, and yet she could not sleep for more than a few fitful moments at most. She wasn't Wolvy's girl any more. She wasn't even an X-Man, or a mutant, or even a human. She didn't want to be a human. She hadn't wanted to be one since she'd learned she could shoot fireworks out of her fingers. Yet she also did not want to be what she was.
She was a monster, and though her former friends did not admit the truth to her face, she knew they nonetheless thought it of her. Even Storm gave her a wide berth, and they all looked at her with terror in their eyes. Wolvy had come to her for a short time, but then he'd left her alone again. There didn't seem to be a place for her in his new life. He hadn't even called her when he'd decided to reform the school.
Jubilee blinked back the tears welling in her inhuman, red eyes as she remembered her dream. There had been a time that she and Wolvy had been inseparable, and although he'd never officially adopted her, every one who had known him had known that she was his daughter. X actually had his blood running in her veins, but still she and Wolvy had been closer together than he'd ever be with her. He had been her father, but yet now she was an orphan again.
Her dry lips twisted in sardonic amusement at that thought. She hadn't been a child in years, and yet she was still not an adult. She'd never be, officially, an adult now for she'd never have another birthday. The tears started to flow from her eyes, but she wiped them angrily away. Vampires didn't cry.
A knock on her door startled her. Jubes twisted in her lonely bed and looked at her door. Who would be knocking on her door at this time of the day? Who even wanted to be around her? Out of all the X-Men, the only ones who didn't fear her were Logan, Remy, and X. Remy and X had their own thing going. They didn't need her interference, and Logan simply didn't want her. "It's unlocked," she called, her fangs glimmering in the afternoon shadows.
Of all the people she might have thought would come calling on her, it was one of the last she expected to see again who popped his head in the door. He smiled broadly at her. "Yup. She's in here, all right, Blue. Told ya she would be. Vampires sleep in the day time just like mall babes eat chili cheese fries."
Jubilee gave a snort of laughter. "Haven't heard that line in a long time, Drake," she said, sitting up. "Whatcha want?"
His eyes met hers. "You."
"Huh?"
Bobby stepped into her room, and behind him came a massive, blue mutant who still made most humans scream and flee from him in horror with just one look. Jubilee's red eyes twinkled sadly as she supposed that she and Hank were now much more alike than she'd ever thought they'd be. She remembered bounding through the school and across the hilly lawns there on his back. She recalled some of the jokes they had shared with Bobby and the pranks the three of them had pulled together on the X-Men, and it was almost enough to make her start crying.
The only thing that kept her tears from falling was the reminder that she was not alone at this moment. They might have loved the girl she had been, but they had stayed away from her since she had left them to join Generation X. They didn't want her, and they'd surely be scared of her now that she was a Vampire. Practically everybody was, after all.
"My dear Jubilation," Hank rumbled, closing the door behind him, "it has come to my attention that my beloved Robert and I have sorely neglected one of our dearest friends. It has been said many times that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I fear, in this particular case, that absence has instead left the heart bleeding and crying and, for one of us, no longer beating."
Bobby glanced at his love and then looked back to Jubilee. "What Hank's trying to say, Jubes, is that we're sorry we ditched you. We thought you wanted a life away from the X-Men, so we tried to give it to you."
Her red eyes darted between the two of them. She could hear their hearts beating a frantic rhythm, and her own dead heart panged inside of her unbreathing chest to know that these two of her oldest friends were also scared of her now that she was a Vampire. It was kind of funny, she admitted to herself sadly, and definitely ironic. As a Vampire, she wasn't supposed to be able to feel any longer, and yet she had been hurting since being abandoned and left alone worse than she had ever hurt before in all her life except for when her beloved Angie had been killed. Her red orbs again glittered with unshed tears as she wondered, yet again for the countless time, why they'd had to take his life instead. Why couldn't they have taken hers and let him live? At least, he wouldn't have become the monster she has.
Bobby sighed, strode forward, and plopped himself down onto her bed uninvited. He had to know sitting right next to her gave her a good look at his jugular, and yet her senses told her that he was no more afraid of her now than he had been when he'd first entered her room. "Thing is, Jubes," he admitted, turning to look at her, "what we're trying to say is that we're sorry."
Hank inclined his furry, blue head in a grave nod. "Had we only known what would come to trespass, our dear friend, we would never have left you alone."
"Yeah, well," Jubilee rolled her eyes and tried not to face either of them directly, "what's done is done."
Bobby reached out and took her hand. "Don't give us that Labyrinth line," he told her, "when we're trying to make up to you. We really are sorry, Jubilee, and we're even sorrier that Logan's got his head up his butt and not being here for you when you need him."
Jubilee looked at him in surprise. Then, in a soft voice, just barely above a whisper, she warned, "You know I could kill ya right now."
Bobby shook his head. "But you won't."
There wasn't room enough left for Hank to join them on the bed, so he came to crouch down in front of her on the floor instead. "Being a Vampire, Jubilation, is what you are, but it no more defines who you are than having an active, or inactive, X-gene." He reached out and took her other hand in his massive paw; she'd forgotten how soft his fur was until it caressed her flesh. "You're still our friend, Jubilee, still the girl who we came to love years ago as a little sister."
Her surprise was growing with each passing second. She looked at him through wide, moist eyes and blinked the tears away again. "I thought ya'd forgotten 'bout that."
"Never," Hank said, and both he and Bobby squeezed her hands that they held.
"We also didn't forget that you told us that you wished Logan would adopt you," Bobby spoke up.
Jubes' head whipped around so that she could eyeball him again. "Ya didn't tell him," she hissed, and he smiled placidly and reassuringly.
"Duh!" he said with a grin.
"Of course we did not, Jubilation, but we adopted you long ago as our little sister. We could not make it official at that time as we did not want to interfere with anything Logan might later do."
"Hmph." Jubilee snorted. "He doesn't want me." The words were out before she could stop them, and she regretted her admission instantaneously. "I -- Hum -- That is -- " She withdrew her hands from their grips and looked away. "I ain't that girl any more."
"You are still the same young woman," Hank's deep voice rumbled as he spoke reassuringly to her, "who first entered our lives with your jovial exuberance and love for life. We may not be the same family we were once, but with your admission, we would like to try to achieve that part of our shared dreams again. We can still be a family, Jubilation, and nothing will give my beloved Robert and I more pleasure than to welcome you, officially, into our family."
"What are ya sayin', Hank?" Jubilee snarled doubtfully, looking back at him. Her red eyes flashed in anger. "That ya wanna adopt me?"
He smiled and allowed his own fangs to show in his smile. "Affirmative." She barely stopped her jaw from dropping open. "If you would have us as your family again, Jubilation, it would please us greatly. The three of us can return to the school and once more fill the hallowed halls and hillsides there with rambunctious fun and mischievous pranks. Just because we are older and have seen more pain, hardship, and heartache than any one has a right to does not mean that we can not still be the way we were. If you would have us, we would even like to adopt you, and we've a friend waiting not far from here at all to make our union as a family official if you choose to join us."
"We would love to have you back at the school; however, that it is not necessary if you would like to join us but perhaps live a different life altogether. That also can be done. We only want to be the family again that we once were and hope you will join us, but yet we also understand if the grievous sins we have committed by not being there for you as we should have been can not be forgiven."
He tried to reach for her hand again, but she pulled away, balling into a corner on her bed and refusing to look at either of them. "Very well," Hank spoke, withdrawing his paw, "but know this, Jubilation. You are no more a monster than I, my dear girl. We await your decision when you are ready to grant it." He stood and walked out, leaving her alone with Bobby.
Bobby stared at her, trying to catch a glimpse of her cold face, though she refused to look at him. "I know what it's like, Jubes, to be alone with a mess load of people around you. I was alone for years until Hank and I got together. It's been wonderful being with him, but the best part of that time was when we had you in with us." He grinned at her though she still wouldn't face him. "We three were unbeatable. We could be again, ya know, but that's up to you. We'll be outside."
They waited, and while Hank and Bobby paced outside and reminisced about all the good times they had shared with their little sister, Jubilee milled about in her room, waiting for the sun to sink, and remembered those same moments and all the heartache and misery she'd been put through since leaving the X-Men. In a way, a part of her thought that leaving the team that had been the only real family she'd ever had had been one of the worst decisions she'd ever made, and yet she would not have given her days with Generation X up for anything in the world for that was how she had met the love of her life. Angelo was gone, however, and he wasn't coming back.
She missed having a family with a burning ache in what was left of her heart and soul, a heart and soul that she was supposed to no longer possess but yet which still hurt her, a part of her that only Hank, Bobby, and Logan had admitted fully to knowing was still there. Wolvy'd told her it was still there, but he'd proved how little he wanted to do with her when he'd left her behind to restart the new school. Now Hank and Bobby had come for her to complete their family.
It almost seemed too good to be true, but part of being a Vampire was the ability to tell when some one was lying. Her friends were not lying. They were still her friends, still her family, and wanted to include her forever more in their lives. They regretted having left her to her own devices over the last many years, but she had not given them much choice, she realized now. She had been the one to choose to go to Generation X herself, and she had been the one who had refused to let her adopted family comfort her when she'd lost Angelo.
Finally, the sun sank, and Jubilee left her dark room and went to the bright moonlight that cascaded down over the shore. Hank and Bobby were sitting now, curled together, Hank holding Bobby in his big, fuzzy arms. She cleared her throat, forcing her tears down, and asked softly a line she hadn't spoken since she'd first caught them together, "Is that a private hug, or can anybody join in?"
They were on their feet in an instant. She grinned, the tears she'd fought to keep from falling all day finally slipping from her eyes, as they bounded to her, threw their arms around her, and hugged her tightly. Another figure emerged from the shadows. She was tall, lean, and green.
Bobby grinned down at Jubes. "Ready to make it official, or should we send the lawyer away?"
The men waited with bated breath for their little sister, soon to be daughter, to answer the question they'd been pondering for months. She faced them with a happy grin. "Do I have to call you dudes Dad?"
They glanced at each other, and her grin grew. They'd not anticipated that question. They were a family, and though being fathers and daughter would be new to them, they were all eager to make that fact a reality. "Negative," Hank murmured.
They faced her again. "Only if you want to," Bobby added.
"It's about time we got our family back," Jubilee announced and hugged them both tightly. She Hulk moved in to file the necessary paperwork, and the three mutants rejoiced. They raced across the beach the rest of the night, Bobby sliding on his makeshift ice bridges, and Jubilee hugging her blue father's back. She could race even faster on her own power now, but clinging to Hank's furry, bounding back was too much fun to deny herself. By the time the sun rose again, it was official. They were a family, and nothing would ever break them apart again!
The End
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary:
Warnings: Slash, Established Pairing, Het, Alternate Universe
Word Count: 2,648
Date Written: 29 January, 2012
Challenge: For a Aphrodite's Blessings Yuku forum's weekly challenge
Disclaimer: Robert "Bobby" "Iceman" Drake, Dr. Henry "Hank" "Beast" McCoy, Jubilation "Jubilee" Lee, all other characters mentioned within, and the X-Men are © & TM Marvel comics and Disney, neither of which are the author, and are used without permission. Amazon is © & TM Amazon, also not the author, and is used without permission. Everything else is © & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Logan growled. His hot breath washed across the trembling lawyer's terrified face. He'd already picked the scrawny man up by his collar, and now his claws unsheathed. His deadly blades stopped just short of the human's neck. His heart was lodged in that throat now, and Jubilee could hear it beating from clean across the room. "Sign the dotted line, punk," Logan growled. "Make it official, or I'll rip out yer heart and feed it to my girl."
My girl. It had been so many, seemingly almost endless years since Jubilee had last heard her beloved Wolveroonie call her his girl. She turned over on her side, and her red eyes opened to look around her. She wasn't in an office. She wasn't even with Wolvy. She hadn't been for longer than she liked to admit.
She watched the shadows elongating in her bedroom. The sun had not yet started to sink well. She shouldn't be awake, and yet she could not sleep for more than a few fitful moments at most. She wasn't Wolvy's girl any more. She wasn't even an X-Man, or a mutant, or even a human. She didn't want to be a human. She hadn't wanted to be one since she'd learned she could shoot fireworks out of her fingers. Yet she also did not want to be what she was.
She was a monster, and though her former friends did not admit the truth to her face, she knew they nonetheless thought it of her. Even Storm gave her a wide berth, and they all looked at her with terror in their eyes. Wolvy had come to her for a short time, but then he'd left her alone again. There didn't seem to be a place for her in his new life. He hadn't even called her when he'd decided to reform the school.
Jubilee blinked back the tears welling in her inhuman, red eyes as she remembered her dream. There had been a time that she and Wolvy had been inseparable, and although he'd never officially adopted her, every one who had known him had known that she was his daughter. X actually had his blood running in her veins, but still she and Wolvy had been closer together than he'd ever be with her. He had been her father, but yet now she was an orphan again.
Her dry lips twisted in sardonic amusement at that thought. She hadn't been a child in years, and yet she was still not an adult. She'd never be, officially, an adult now for she'd never have another birthday. The tears started to flow from her eyes, but she wiped them angrily away. Vampires didn't cry.
A knock on her door startled her. Jubes twisted in her lonely bed and looked at her door. Who would be knocking on her door at this time of the day? Who even wanted to be around her? Out of all the X-Men, the only ones who didn't fear her were Logan, Remy, and X. Remy and X had their own thing going. They didn't need her interference, and Logan simply didn't want her. "It's unlocked," she called, her fangs glimmering in the afternoon shadows.
Of all the people she might have thought would come calling on her, it was one of the last she expected to see again who popped his head in the door. He smiled broadly at her. "Yup. She's in here, all right, Blue. Told ya she would be. Vampires sleep in the day time just like mall babes eat chili cheese fries."
Jubilee gave a snort of laughter. "Haven't heard that line in a long time, Drake," she said, sitting up. "Whatcha want?"
His eyes met hers. "You."
"Huh?"
Bobby stepped into her room, and behind him came a massive, blue mutant who still made most humans scream and flee from him in horror with just one look. Jubilee's red eyes twinkled sadly as she supposed that she and Hank were now much more alike than she'd ever thought they'd be. She remembered bounding through the school and across the hilly lawns there on his back. She recalled some of the jokes they had shared with Bobby and the pranks the three of them had pulled together on the X-Men, and it was almost enough to make her start crying.
The only thing that kept her tears from falling was the reminder that she was not alone at this moment. They might have loved the girl she had been, but they had stayed away from her since she had left them to join Generation X. They didn't want her, and they'd surely be scared of her now that she was a Vampire. Practically everybody was, after all.
"My dear Jubilation," Hank rumbled, closing the door behind him, "it has come to my attention that my beloved Robert and I have sorely neglected one of our dearest friends. It has been said many times that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I fear, in this particular case, that absence has instead left the heart bleeding and crying and, for one of us, no longer beating."
Bobby glanced at his love and then looked back to Jubilee. "What Hank's trying to say, Jubes, is that we're sorry we ditched you. We thought you wanted a life away from the X-Men, so we tried to give it to you."
Her red eyes darted between the two of them. She could hear their hearts beating a frantic rhythm, and her own dead heart panged inside of her unbreathing chest to know that these two of her oldest friends were also scared of her now that she was a Vampire. It was kind of funny, she admitted to herself sadly, and definitely ironic. As a Vampire, she wasn't supposed to be able to feel any longer, and yet she had been hurting since being abandoned and left alone worse than she had ever hurt before in all her life except for when her beloved Angie had been killed. Her red orbs again glittered with unshed tears as she wondered, yet again for the countless time, why they'd had to take his life instead. Why couldn't they have taken hers and let him live? At least, he wouldn't have become the monster she has.
Bobby sighed, strode forward, and plopped himself down onto her bed uninvited. He had to know sitting right next to her gave her a good look at his jugular, and yet her senses told her that he was no more afraid of her now than he had been when he'd first entered her room. "Thing is, Jubes," he admitted, turning to look at her, "what we're trying to say is that we're sorry."
Hank inclined his furry, blue head in a grave nod. "Had we only known what would come to trespass, our dear friend, we would never have left you alone."
"Yeah, well," Jubilee rolled her eyes and tried not to face either of them directly, "what's done is done."
Bobby reached out and took her hand. "Don't give us that Labyrinth line," he told her, "when we're trying to make up to you. We really are sorry, Jubilee, and we're even sorrier that Logan's got his head up his butt and not being here for you when you need him."
Jubilee looked at him in surprise. Then, in a soft voice, just barely above a whisper, she warned, "You know I could kill ya right now."
Bobby shook his head. "But you won't."
There wasn't room enough left for Hank to join them on the bed, so he came to crouch down in front of her on the floor instead. "Being a Vampire, Jubilation, is what you are, but it no more defines who you are than having an active, or inactive, X-gene." He reached out and took her other hand in his massive paw; she'd forgotten how soft his fur was until it caressed her flesh. "You're still our friend, Jubilee, still the girl who we came to love years ago as a little sister."
Her surprise was growing with each passing second. She looked at him through wide, moist eyes and blinked the tears away again. "I thought ya'd forgotten 'bout that."
"Never," Hank said, and both he and Bobby squeezed her hands that they held.
"We also didn't forget that you told us that you wished Logan would adopt you," Bobby spoke up.
Jubes' head whipped around so that she could eyeball him again. "Ya didn't tell him," she hissed, and he smiled placidly and reassuringly.
"Duh!" he said with a grin.
"Of course we did not, Jubilation, but we adopted you long ago as our little sister. We could not make it official at that time as we did not want to interfere with anything Logan might later do."
"Hmph." Jubilee snorted. "He doesn't want me." The words were out before she could stop them, and she regretted her admission instantaneously. "I -- Hum -- That is -- " She withdrew her hands from their grips and looked away. "I ain't that girl any more."
"You are still the same young woman," Hank's deep voice rumbled as he spoke reassuringly to her, "who first entered our lives with your jovial exuberance and love for life. We may not be the same family we were once, but with your admission, we would like to try to achieve that part of our shared dreams again. We can still be a family, Jubilation, and nothing will give my beloved Robert and I more pleasure than to welcome you, officially, into our family."
"What are ya sayin', Hank?" Jubilee snarled doubtfully, looking back at him. Her red eyes flashed in anger. "That ya wanna adopt me?"
He smiled and allowed his own fangs to show in his smile. "Affirmative." She barely stopped her jaw from dropping open. "If you would have us as your family again, Jubilation, it would please us greatly. The three of us can return to the school and once more fill the hallowed halls and hillsides there with rambunctious fun and mischievous pranks. Just because we are older and have seen more pain, hardship, and heartache than any one has a right to does not mean that we can not still be the way we were. If you would have us, we would even like to adopt you, and we've a friend waiting not far from here at all to make our union as a family official if you choose to join us."
"We would love to have you back at the school; however, that it is not necessary if you would like to join us but perhaps live a different life altogether. That also can be done. We only want to be the family again that we once were and hope you will join us, but yet we also understand if the grievous sins we have committed by not being there for you as we should have been can not be forgiven."
He tried to reach for her hand again, but she pulled away, balling into a corner on her bed and refusing to look at either of them. "Very well," Hank spoke, withdrawing his paw, "but know this, Jubilation. You are no more a monster than I, my dear girl. We await your decision when you are ready to grant it." He stood and walked out, leaving her alone with Bobby.
Bobby stared at her, trying to catch a glimpse of her cold face, though she refused to look at him. "I know what it's like, Jubes, to be alone with a mess load of people around you. I was alone for years until Hank and I got together. It's been wonderful being with him, but the best part of that time was when we had you in with us." He grinned at her though she still wouldn't face him. "We three were unbeatable. We could be again, ya know, but that's up to you. We'll be outside."
They waited, and while Hank and Bobby paced outside and reminisced about all the good times they had shared with their little sister, Jubilee milled about in her room, waiting for the sun to sink, and remembered those same moments and all the heartache and misery she'd been put through since leaving the X-Men. In a way, a part of her thought that leaving the team that had been the only real family she'd ever had had been one of the worst decisions she'd ever made, and yet she would not have given her days with Generation X up for anything in the world for that was how she had met the love of her life. Angelo was gone, however, and he wasn't coming back.
She missed having a family with a burning ache in what was left of her heart and soul, a heart and soul that she was supposed to no longer possess but yet which still hurt her, a part of her that only Hank, Bobby, and Logan had admitted fully to knowing was still there. Wolvy'd told her it was still there, but he'd proved how little he wanted to do with her when he'd left her behind to restart the new school. Now Hank and Bobby had come for her to complete their family.
It almost seemed too good to be true, but part of being a Vampire was the ability to tell when some one was lying. Her friends were not lying. They were still her friends, still her family, and wanted to include her forever more in their lives. They regretted having left her to her own devices over the last many years, but she had not given them much choice, she realized now. She had been the one to choose to go to Generation X herself, and she had been the one who had refused to let her adopted family comfort her when she'd lost Angelo.
Finally, the sun sank, and Jubilee left her dark room and went to the bright moonlight that cascaded down over the shore. Hank and Bobby were sitting now, curled together, Hank holding Bobby in his big, fuzzy arms. She cleared her throat, forcing her tears down, and asked softly a line she hadn't spoken since she'd first caught them together, "Is that a private hug, or can anybody join in?"
They were on their feet in an instant. She grinned, the tears she'd fought to keep from falling all day finally slipping from her eyes, as they bounded to her, threw their arms around her, and hugged her tightly. Another figure emerged from the shadows. She was tall, lean, and green.
Bobby grinned down at Jubes. "Ready to make it official, or should we send the lawyer away?"
The men waited with bated breath for their little sister, soon to be daughter, to answer the question they'd been pondering for months. She faced them with a happy grin. "Do I have to call you dudes Dad?"
They glanced at each other, and her grin grew. They'd not anticipated that question. They were a family, and though being fathers and daughter would be new to them, they were all eager to make that fact a reality. "Negative," Hank murmured.
They faced her again. "Only if you want to," Bobby added.
"It's about time we got our family back," Jubilee announced and hugged them both tightly. She Hulk moved in to file the necessary paperwork, and the three mutants rejoiced. They raced across the beach the rest of the night, Bobby sliding on his makeshift ice bridges, and Jubilee hugging her blue father's back. She could race even faster on her own power now, but clinging to Hank's furry, bounding back was too much fun to deny herself. By the time the sun rose again, it was official. They were a family, and nothing would ever break them apart again!
The End
