Practical Joke

by Lise

"--dude, it's Gambit. and Scott. The world is ending."

"They merely went for pizza, my overly rambunctious friend," Hank answered, as Bobby paced back to his lab counter. He surreptitiously moved a stack of files from where Bobby was about to smack his hand down, then tried not to grin as Bobby rubbed his palm, face pained. "I assure you, an apocalypse is highly unlikely."

"But." Bobby paced back to the desk chair. Hank watched him sit down, spinning with a frown on his face. "It's Gambit. And Scott." Hank just raised an eyebrow. Bobby pursed his lips. "Okay, so maybe it's not reign of fire, time to hide in the bomb shelter basement dire yet, but what if they start having in-jokes or something?" His eyes went wide, and Bobby goggled for a minute. "Man, I don't think I could handle that."

Hank continued to stare at Bobby, eyebrow raised. "Do you think that's likely to happen?"

Bobby rubbed his forehead wearily, still looking more than a little concerned. "If it does," he said, "I'll see you downstairs. Underground."

Hank looked around, surveying his lab. "We are underground."

"Dude," Bobby answered, "In-jokes? This won't be deep enough."

~

When the two of them came back with the pizza, Bobby and Jean were waiting in the kitchen. Scott said, "well, we could always join a club," to Gambit. "You know, secret handshake, sunglasses."

Remy snorted. "An' the sunglasses would have to be red-tinted," and he started snickering, then laughing, and Scott joined him while Jean looked slightly bewildered at the table.

Bobby grabbed two slices of ham and pepperoni pizza, and marched downstairs. He grabbed a flash-light on the way down. Just in case.

~

"-not that weird, you know," Bobby heard Scott, saying from down the hall. "It takes some getting used to, but then it gets easy."

Gambit's voice floated down to Bobby as well. "Well, don' know if I could do it. Y'think?"

"Sure, here, I'll--" but Bobby missed what Scott was doing or wasn't going to do, because he went to go make sure the sky was still blue.

~

"-and they were joking," Bobby said. "At dinner, you saw."

Hank was peering into a microscope. "Dinner?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "You know, the meal before you go to bed but after the sun goes away?" He paced his usual path on the floor. "And I heard Scott giving Remy advice just now."

"Mmmm?" Hank said. He clicked something on the microscope, and wrote something down on the pad beside him.

"And you know that they can't stand each other! The sky is still blue," Bobby went on, "I checked, but who knows what else might be out of orbit! Oh, god! the moon might be gone. I gotta remember to look tonight."

"Mmmm," Hank said.

~

"-if y'just tilt y'jaw like this, an'--"

Bobby goggled at Gambit and Scott sitting on the couch, altogether too close for comfort. Like, not with a cushion and a half worth of space between them. And Gambit was like. Gesturing. About.. something.

"Hey Bobby," Scott said, quite normally and friendly. Bobby goggled some more. Scott's utterly guileless greeting made the whole thing worse, like Bobby hadn't just walked in on something strange and unnatural and weird and.

"Hi," Bobby croaked.

"You want to watch a movie with us? We're going over training tapes."

"Uh," Bobby said. He couldn't quite tear his eyes away from Gambit's knee, that was almost touching Scott's knee. and like. their hands. were. close.

Gambit said, "Scott asked my opinion on th'excercise tomorrow." He grinned wide. "Gon' be fun. Break and enterin' for all you that ain't got any experience."

"Uh," Bobby said again. His mouth was open a little. Scott's legs were sprawled out on the couch, and Gambit was leaning comfortably. But they were so. they were sitting, so, like. close. "Huh," Bobby said. "Um," and he found himself backing out of the room.

"We'll see you at dinner, Bobby," Scott said.

Bobby blinked rapidly. Dinner. "uh," he said.

~

"-completely giving off vibes, man," Bobby said. He swung around in the chair Hank kept for his amusement. "Like. Their hands. were close. and everything."

"Are you suggesting that you detected a hint of sexual tension between Scott and Remy?" Hank said naturally.

Bobby swung around, flailing around desperately, falling backwards as the chair tilted. "Uhhnggh!" and he righted himself, trying to secure his seat again. "How can you say that so, casually?"

"Well," Hank said. He was comparing two different charts, this time, one with red squiggles and blue writing and one with red writing and blue squiggles. "I find it highly unlikely, but should what you sensed actually be there, it's not entirely unfounded."

Bobby stared at him.

Hank added, "our lives are very different circumstances than other people's, and thus we adapt and cope with them differently than other people."

Bobby stared at him, idly swinging back and forth.

"Though," he said, and ticked something off. "I doubt you were reading the situation correctly, Bobby." Hank finally turned to address him directly, instead of his charts. "You have been known to be off the mark in such matters. And I've never seen any previous behavior in Scott that would suggest he might be interested in men."

Bobby stared at him. He was starting to feel like he'd woken up through the looking glass or something, some weird Matrix metaphor for why everything was so fucked up.

"It's possible, however," Hank said, turning again to his work. "And Remy has always appeared more fluid in such matters than average men."

Bobby stared at him.

~

"-and then y'jus' click the lever," Gambit said, demonstrating. "Easy as pie."

Scott actually thought it was a good idea for them to learn a few of the things that Remy knew about breaking and entering. Not for breaking and entering, just in case they were likely to have to avoid security. Remy had already been most amenable in demonstrating the easiest ways to trip alarms and be seen by video monitors.

Bobby squinted at Scott. So far he'd been totally normal, letting Remy show them the thing, then giving them the usual pre-run explanation, pairing them up. The two of them weren't even standing near each other. "All right, let's start."

"Wait, y'want --"

"No, let's," and Scott nodded, pursed lips. Remy nodded too, looked at Jean, looked at Scott again. Scott said, "right," and then the two of them moved away from the rest of the group, leaving Jean to sort them out.

"Did you see that!" Bobby hissed, but then it was time to do the thing, and he totally sucked at it. That was probably because he was staring up at Remy and Scott, standing in the control room together, matching frowns.

~

"-like they'd timed it, Hank!!" Bobby said. For once, Hank wasn't working. He was eating. "Like they'd had a whole system worked out, about what was going on and what wasn't going on, and then they had that whole non-verbal thing going and-"

"Robert," Hank said around a mouthful of sandwich, "sit down."

Bobby sat automatically, absently stealing half Hank's sandwich. They were the only two in the kitchen. "It's just. It's Gambit and Scott. Okay, them being friends was weird enough. But they keep being all."

Hank swallowed, then replied, "intimate?"

"Argh!" and Bobby's face contorted. "Don't say that!"

"I apologize, but that was what you meant, was it not?" Hank kept eating calmly.

"Well." Bobby scratched his head, feeling more than a little bewildered. "It's just so. so unlikely. I mean, if Scott was going to find. someone. else." He coughed. "You'd think it would be."

"Who?" Hank asked delicately.

"I don't know!" Bobby put the sandwich down in frustration. "Not Gambit, that's all." He licked mustard off his hands. "It's just weird."

Hank swallowed again, and looked right at Bobby. He said seriously, "would it be so bad, Robert?"

Bobby stood up. "I don't know!" he said.

~

"-but Jean said two anchovies, ham and pineapple, and a half-cheese, half-mushroom," Scott said. "We have to comply, Remy."

Bobby glanced into the front hall from where he was watching television. Seeing Scott and Gambit actually getting along was almost normal, now, but he hadn't just called Gambit--

"Scott, y' sure Jean ain' pregnant?" he asked, picking up car keys. "Two anchovy pizzas?"

Bobby saw Scott wince. He winced himself. "Please don't say that, Remy," Scott said, "I'm liable to have a heart attack."

"C'mon, y' don't think it'd be fun t'have a few lil' kids runnin' around th' Mansion?" Gambit said, grinning. Bobby ducked, in case either of them saw him. "A redheaded five year old, gettin' into mischief?"

"Remy."

"I'm sure y' more than capable o' handlin' it," Gambit said, and Bobby almost hit his head on the doorframe. Gambit nudged Scott. "Hell, I know y' are. So."

Scott covered his eyes - or rather, he covered his visor. "Please, let's go." Gambit shrugged, opening the door for Scott. Bobby watched them go.

~

Bobby decided that this nonsense had gone on long enough and he was going to have to Do Something about it. He just hadn't figured out quite what, yet.

"What do you think?" he asked Hank. "Do I tie them up? ask Jean to telepathically scan them? Set up video equipment to try and catch them in the act?"

Hank continued stirring whatever he was cooking on the stove carefully. "Act of what?"

Bobby thought, long and hard. "Right, okay, no, I don't want actual video evidence," and he shifted uncomfortably in his kitchen chair. Visual evidence of Scott and Gambit doing - whatever - was almost on the bottom of his list of things he didn't need to see. Ever. Right above that enema thing that Jubilee had forwarded to his email, and that he'd already seen so really--

"What do you propose to do, trick them into revealing their nefarious plot?" Hank said gravely, all the while wearing an apron with pink frill that said 'kiss me, I'm cooking!'

Bobby shot up. "That's a great plan," and he started pacing. "The question is, how?"

Hank sniffed his pot. "You could inquire directly."

Bobby looked doubtful.

~

It did, however, seem to be the most logical choice. Not that he didn't try to come up with something better - but the video camera, apparently, had been broken some mysterious way, and so he was fresh out of options.

He trapped Gambit in the den, where he was sitting, gravely making a card castle with a deck of playing cards. "Hi."

"Bon soir," Gambit answered. "Can I help y', Bobby?"

Bobby swallowed. "I." He couldn't look at Gambit - Gambit, whom Scott had suddenly decided was worth a real first name. Remy. "So. Why are you and Scott all," and he waggled his fingers. "Cause it seems kinda pod-people from where I'm sitting."

Remy shrugged very eloquently. "Man is a giddy thing," he answered, and very carefully placed another card on top of his tower.

Bobby studied the stack for a moment. It was weird, he realized suddenly, to see Gambit focused in on doing anything so mundane, since he rarely demonstrated focus on anything when anyone was around to see it.

It didn't seem like Remy was going to say anything else, so Bobby asked uncomfortably, "What does that mean?"

Remy shrugged, again feigning a kind of casual innocence. His card tower must have been nine stories high. Bobby couldn't imagine the patience to build something like that up so carefully, something that impermanent, which he could topple over with a carefully placed sneeze. It made him irrationally want to sneeze.

~

"Perhaps," Hank said, "there is nothing to be worried about." He measured the level of water in his beaker - or at least, that's what it looked like he was doing to Bobby - and typed a few keys on the keyboard. "Their relationship has simply shifted. It isn't the end of the world, Bobby."

Bobby absently spun around in Hank's chair, getting dizzy. "Not the end of the world? How can you say that? Remember when we had to pull the two of them apart because Remy made some comment about redheads being good in bed and Scott wanted to punch him? Remember that training mission where Scott purposefully put Remy against that thing, with the," - and Bobby waved his arms, causing the chair to tip dangerously - "tentacles? That kind of relationship doesn't shift."

Hank looked over at Bobby. "Careful, my friend," he said, "you're in grave danger of falling off that item of furniture. Again."

"Forget me," Bobby said, agitated. "We need to worry about the world. We're superheroes, we save the world. This is what we do. And we have to do something about this Remy and Scott situation."

"You're calling him Remy as well, you know, Bobby," Hank answered blandly.

"Gambit!! Gambit and Scott!"

Hank poured a little water out, and then measured the level again, tapping away at the computer. Bobby couldn't fathom why he needed to know what the water level was in a normal beaker, but he assumed it was very important. Hank said, "while I know you assume I never exit this lab to enjoy the splendors of the outside world, just yesterday I went for a nice drive." He tilted his head at the beaker, rearranging something carefully. "It seems very much in existence. I think we're fine."

"Okay, what about the two of them, then?" Bobby said. "They could be doing lasting damage to each other while we're not looking."

"How?" Hank asked. He leaned over to click something with the mouse, and Bobby thought it looked a little like very complex solitaire. But it couldn't be.

"Hey." Bobby pursed his lips, trying to joke all calm and rationally like Hank. Maybe the way to approach this was through joking it out of existence. He said, "I've seen the videos, it's all fun and games until someone gets poked in the eye with a dick."

"If they are engaging in any kind of sexual activities," Hank answered calmly, "I'm sure that both of them can perform admirably." He poured the water in the beaker out, finally turning to face Bobby. "Being their physician, I can confidently say they're both quite adept, and flexible."

Bobby waved his hands again, tilting the chair. "Okay, no, stop," he said, wincing. "I thought I could joke about this and it could maybe start getting as funny as everyone else thinks it is, but obviously not."

"What's wrong, Bobby?" Hank said.

"What about Jean?" Bobby asked quickly. "Should they be doing this to Jean? Don't we have a duty as her friends to figure out what's going wrong? If Scott's, y'know, then she should know. We have--"

"Bobby," Hank said.

"No," and he stood up, "you know what?" He headed for the exit rapidly. "Wake me when the world makes sense."

"Bobby," Hank said again, dully, but he was already climbing the stairs.

~

Bobby was eating breakfast when Jean came into the kitchen. "You're up early, tiger," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep," he said, shrugging. Jean rummaged around in a bottom cupboard, and finally emerged with what looked like cooking oil, except in a clear bottle.

Bobby stared at her as she smiled wryly, tucked her hair behind her ears, and then went out the back door. He stood, and watched her go back to the boathouse with said bottle.

Then he threw his cereal out.

~

Remy and Scott waved at him, arm in arm, from across the yard. Bobby kept raking leaves resolutely, but his jaw tightened.

~

"-like I'm never going to figure out what's going on," Bobby told Hank, depressed. "It's like everything has changed."

Hank fiddled with a knob. They were supposed to be doing a routine check of the Mansion security, which of course meant that Hank was doing a routine check of the Mansion security and Bobby was eating ice cream. "Is it possible," Hank replied, "that perhaps you have changed, Robert?"

"I don't know," Bobby said. He flicked a switch, and something started beeping. He flicked the switch again. "I just don't get it. It's like the whole world is playing some kind of joke on me, and I'm the last to clue in to it because no one's bothered to point out that I have an, I don't know." He shrugged. "An 'ice me!' sign on my back."

Hank wrote something on his clipboard. "If the world is, as you put it, playing some kind of joke on a cosmic level, it does seem like a lot of effort on Scott and Remy's part if the charade isn't, at least on some level, genuine." He grinned at Bobby suddenly. "After all, they have never made any attempt to get along before."

Bobby sighed. "It doesn't make any sense." He flicked the switch again, and a steady beeping came from the panel. "I just want Scott--" Boby said, frustrated.

Hank put his clipboard down, and turned around. He asked, very slowly and deliberately, "For yourself?"

Bobby ran a hand through his over-long hair, blinking rapidly. Something kept beeping at him on the panel. He examined his fingernails. "No," he finally answered, hopeless. At least that would be some kind of answer. He said, "I just want Scott, to be."

"What do you want him to be, Robert?" Hank asked.

"Different!" he said. "I don't know. I don't."

Hank watched him carefully, the Mansion security forgotten. "Different than how he is now."

"Yes?" Bobby said. He played with his spoon, his eyes darted all over the room. "I just. If Scott can change this much so quickly."

Hank said, "ahhh." It was a little exhalation of breath, a sad sigh. Hank said, "you want him to be like he was."

Bobby shrugged, helpless. "I don't know," he answered. "It's just, none of it makes any sense. And," he said, almost angry, "if Scott doesn't make sense, how can I makes sense?"

Hank leaned forward, and carefully said, "You can make sense, Bobby."

"but--"

Hank repeated clearly, "You make sense."

~

"-think they got togeth-," and then Remy cleared his throat, embarrassed, stopping mid-sentence. "Oh, good mornin', Bobby."

Bobby strolled into the kitchen. "Hey, you two." Scott and Remy were sitting together at the kitchen table, looking over a grocery list. Jean was making pancakes. "Can I steal your breakfast?"

Scott raised a hand. "Be my guest. Jean?" Jean put two pancakes off to one side for Bobby, and Scott gestured. "Feel like having a seat?"

Bobby leaned against the counter, studying how Remy and Scott were sitting. Their knees weren't quite touching, but they were sitting close enough to be suspicious - closer, definitely, than they ever would have before. "I'm good," Bobby said.

Remy tilted his head. "Y' seem like something's on y' mind," he said.

Hank came stumbling into the kitchen then, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Ah, Jean," he said, smiling, "my duchess in shining armor. I don't suppose you have concocted any coffee or tea to go with those amazing smelling pancakes, have you?" Jean waved her spatula at the counter Bobby was leaning on, and Hank said, "marvelous."

Bobby's eyes stayed on Hank as he came in, as he sat down, and as he bantered with Scott about who'd get to read the paper first. When Hank finally got up to get himself a cup of coffee, Bobby smiled. "I got it."

back to Lise's stories | X-Men archive | comicfic.net