Those Demigods
by Ratmist
Standard Disclaimer: Marvel characters portrayed here are the property of Marvel. Big yellow dude belongs to Fox and Matt Groening. Rating: PG13/R for the entire Bones series, this part is strangely G rated. Marrow was a good girl today. Feedback: co901dg@gold.ac.uk
Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men, sat in his study waiting. He had been waiting for this confrontation, but upon seeing one of his students lurking in the shadows around the immense cherrywood doorway, he felt a migraine hitting him unrelentingly. His thin, arching eyebrows inched up towards his bald head, his handsome face impassive.
"Hiya Chuckie," Marrow chirped. "Yoooooooou rang?" She was practically bouncing in front of him, her hands behind her back. He vaguely wondered if she was holding a boneblade there, waiting to strike.
Her voice mocked him, but Xavier kept his poker face. He had dealt with Sarah before, many times. Everything from Bobby's dead goldfish to feeding Maggott's symbiotes Drano had pulled this young woman to his study. He had to add strengths to his shields, however, to deal with the projected negativity she radiated despite her cheery greeting.
'Someday, I'll have to admit the sentiments are sometimes truly requited,' he thought sourly, but he pulled himself from this thought to address the issue at hand in an objective manner.
"Marrow," he replied, "I'm glad you could make time to see me. Please, have a seat." He gestured to one the pretty Victorian chaise he had chosen specifically for this meeting.
Sarah looked at the antique chair, and grinned. Her sharp bones protruding from the backs of her knees would shred the fuchsia pink velveteen, while her bone armory would take care of the wooden frame that served as the back of the chair. ~Bad choice, Chuckie,~ she thought without sympathy.
Charles heard the comment, but withheld his own remarks. He would not incite a violent confrontation if he could help it. And Sarah still had rights to her personal thoughts.
'Here we go.' This thought was actual mutual.
---
Samuel Guthrie, codenamed Cannonball, sat quietly in the Rec Room, the television the only sound aside from his munching.
'Mmmmm, paahhhpcorn,' he thought privately, very Homer Simpson-ish. He grinned and continued to happily vegetate in front of the Shi'ar modified big screen. Homer Simpson blundered through his life for all the world to see, while the Kentucky native contemplated his own life for a bit.
'Bein an X-Man ain't so bad once ya get past the totally random brushes'a death,' he thought, surprisingly without a trace of angst in the thought. His secondary family, the X-Men, had gone from teammates to loved ones to blood kin in the time it took to go through crazed adventures and weird dimensions. Samuel Guthrie knew his life was an anomaly at best, but he also knew it was not for the reasons the Summers clan claimed, nor the many teammates without a family beyond the X.
In truth, the young man had never really known an unhappy home. Even his father's untimely death had not taken away the shelter that had always been the Guthrie family farm. He had worked hard to make sure his younger siblings had a happy childhood, just as his father had given him, and it had not been an easy task for the then-young teen. But the sounds of his farm had always been punctuated with the pitter patter of little feet, usually resulting in an airborne launch into another sibling's arms. He missed his little ones, but the knowledge did not evoke sadness as much as it called forth a strange feeling of thankfulness. He had had his safety net, a strong pulse of old fashioned values filling a simple farming family, complete with grits and collard greens every Sunday.
This mutant human, codenamed Cannonball, was firstly one Samuel Guthrie, and he was a man sincerely thankful for his two families. He gave a brief nod of thanks heavenward not because he feared they would one day be taken from him, but because he knew that for this moment, he actually had them.
It was humbling.
His quietly reflective morning erupted with an angry slamming of a door across the foyer, and the clipping scrapes of someone crossing the wooden planks of the stairwell. He heard the front door open, then slam shut even harder than the first door. Worried, he turned off the television and made his way to the doorway of the Rec Room.
He saw a movement from the corner of his right eye, and turned to see Marrow outside the mansion through the Rec Room window. She was angry, but then again, when was she not angry? What was different about this spat, however, was that she had walked to the edge of the driveway, only to walk back towards the mansion. And back again. And again. Pacing like a caged animal, only without a cage. He put the bowl of popcorn on the table and headed outside after her.
He did not know what she was doing, or why. He did not know why she was extremely angry, and therefore extremely violent. But what he did know was that she was family. Reluctant, angry, frightening, and downright mean, but still family. Psychotic, murdering, sneaky, and selfish. But _still_ family. It was time she realized this unalterable fact if she was to live here any longer.
Even if she was going to reject it with all her heart, as he knew she would.
He walked outside the door, mentally steeling himself for a dark ride.
read the sequel Can't Not