Running for Home - 78. April 23, 2022

April 23, 2022

We had a small funeral for Joanna yesterday.

Very small, and also very secret. It was just Bobby, Liam, Madeleine, William and me. Bobby and I didn’t feel bad about not inviting my real Aunt and Uncle, though. They were the ones who kicked Joanna out due to her carrying Ronnie’s baby. Their involvement with the Church of Humanity had precipitated all of this in the long run, so we didn’t think it was appropriate to contact them. We were worried that it would just open up another avenue of danger for our family, that they would contact the Purifiers who would be out for blood now that I had immolated fifteen of their members and they had only succeeded in killing one of us. We had Joanna cremated, as we are worried that were we to bury her body the bastards would find a way to exhume her and make some mockery of her corpse. We decided we will hold a memorial ceremony and inter her ashes at some later date once things have calmed down.

Liam has really been struggling. Bobby and I have taken turns looking up information on how to help a child deal with the death of a parent. He is grieving outwardly, with lots of periods of tears and generally low mood, but he’s internalizing it too - he’s had a lot of stomach aches and had trouble with his appetite. Liam has also had many nightmares over the last few nights, about his mom on the cross, about her in the hospital, and about me being taken away by the police. He has been very clingy with Bobby and me, even more so than he was when he first arrived at the School. He has asked me multiple times if the bad people are going to come for us or if the police are going to come back for me. He understands that killing people is bad and that people who kill other people go to jail, but no one had ever explained to him how acting in self-defense changes things in the eyes of the law before now. Bobby and I have reassured him that no, the police won’t be back for me - especially now that the dust is settling from the Globe and the New York Times pieces.

So yeah, there was that. The pieces provoked a big reaction. The focus was on the violence done, particularly to Liam - about how his entire life has been shaped by the prejudices, lies, hatred and violence spread by the Church of Humanity and the Purifiers. About how unfair it is for an innocent child to lose both of his parents and almost be killed himself just because he is a mutant. About how much of a disconnect there is between true Christian values and the values espoused by the Church of Humanity and their ilk. And about how wrong it is that the police immediately blamed me for protecting my family.

There has been a huge outpouring of support. Flowers and well wishes for Liam have filled the side of the street in front of the Drakes’ house, which was still taped up as a crime scene. There were protests yesterday in downtown Boston, in Manhattan, in Chicago, in Seattle and in LA in front of police headquarters over police mistreatment of mutants. Talk radio has been abuzz talking about the situation. I’ve been interviewed four more times, once by Howard Stern, once by CNN, once by MSNBC and once by PBS Newsworld. They have wanted to talk to Bobby and his parents, and to Liam as well, but Bobby has refused and the Drakes have not wanted to relive their experience beyond what they had to for the newspaper article. We’ve shielded Liam from it, of course. He’s not old enough to be dealing with this kind of attention.

Mystique is pissed at me. She told me not to get myself involved with the Purifiers, and now here I was making myself an even bigger target by making them an issue of national discourse on television. I told her to quit mothering me and that we’d be back to the safety of the School soon enough anyway. She reminded me that the Purifiers had attacked the School before, a few years ago, and there had been many casualties then. Did I want to give the Purifiers another excuse to attack?

That hit me hard. I hadn’t really considered that - the impact this might have on safety at the School. I knew Jubilee had barely survived the last attack, crucified on the front lawn along with several others who weren’t as fortunate. I didn’t even want to think about what could happen this time around, not if we really got them going.

Mystique told me she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The operation was going to move forward on Wednesday night. They were ready. They were going to strike multiple targets simultaneously both to eliminate the bioweapon threat and to try to cripple the Purifier’s infrastructure. It had turned into a bigger operation than she had originally wanted, but she believed that between the X-men and the Acolytes, they would succeed.

Mystique had one more request of me, though. Dom wasn’t cooperating. He told Mystique he couldn’t help her, that he deserved to just rot in that cell in the subbasement. Nothing she had said to him about Destiny’s predictions and his necessity for the operation to succeed made any difference. Mystique needed me to talk to him, to get him to see the light.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

I almost hung up on her, on the call.

Hadn’t I already done enough? A cascade of anger and other emotions flashed through me, but I managed to tamp down on things. I had to keep this shit in perspective. The Purifiers needed to be eliminated - that was more clear to me now than ever before - and if I had to talk to fucking Dominik Ioannis Petrakis to make that happen, then I would fucking do it.

We drove back to the School this morning. As we were leaving the Boston city limits, Liam asked if we could never come here again. Bobby nodded and told him he would be happy to never go back. Well, as much as I would have liked to join in, I will have to be back in Boston whenever my lawsuit moves forward through the courts. Somehow I doubt the police will settle, and there is part of me that doesn’t want them to. I want them publicly fucking humiliated for what they did to me. Emma told us she had uncovered something in her digging and reconnaissance, though I had a sinking suspicion that she manipulated things in order for the right evidence of the wrongdoings to appear. I wouldn’t put it past that woman to ensure that our goals are met. Vange is working on things, now, but it will take months for this all to work its way through the system, months before things actually come to court.

Emma gave us a more immediate concern to deal with as well. She wanted to know what we wanted to do with Joanna’s house in Idaho and its contents. Emma was worried about it being potentially vandalized or burned to the ground by the people who were stalking Joanna around her home if we left things too long. Liam would likely want to have some memories of his time there, perhaps some of his clothing, books and toys. From what Bobby and I have read, something that a lot of people recommend for children who lose a parent is to create a memory box with things that they cherish about their parent and about their relationship - some items, some photographs, some stories written down. If it wasn’t the middle of the semester and I wasn’t recovering from that beating we would drive right there and deal with it, but we had jobs to take care of and beyond that there was the danger element to consider. It made us reticent to visit Idaho with Liam any time soon. Bobby and I discussed hiring X-factor to pack up the house for us and have things shipped back here, if they would do that sort of thing. We could trust them, and if the Church of Humanity or the Purifiers tried anything they would be better equipped to handle it than some random movers.

Yeah, I’m avoiding talking about it - what Mystique asked me to do.

But I did it.

After we arrived back and we got Liam settled in, I told Bobby I was going to see Dom. He was concerned, but he knew I didn’t want him coming with me. This was something I had to do alone. I doubted I would be able to get through to Dom with anyone else around.

The trip down to the subbasement was agonizing.

I entered the brig, a place that usually held no one, but now there wasn’t just Dom there. Quentin was in there too. I held back a shudder. Quentin’s cell was closer to the door, but it looked like he was asleep. I let out a big breath and walked over to Dom’s cell. He was reading a book - fuck, one of my books. I felt something thick grow in my throat and I had trouble swallowing.

I knocked on the glass barrier. Dom started, then looked at me with surprise before a deep pain crossed his face. I used the panel on the wall to open the barrier and stepped in. He swallowed thickly, setting the book down, pages splayed.

“So you’re reading my books now?” I asked.

Dom bit his lip, nodding. “Yeah… something I should have done a long time ago.”

I shook my head. “Gothic romance really isn’t your thing.”

“Maybe not, but I should have… I was so fucking selfish. I took you for granted, never gave you the support you deserved. And you are good. You are so fucking good at this, John. I was so stupid and I never saw how fucking good you are at this.”

I nodded. “Well, it’s my calling. My real calling, not being a soldier like Magneto convinced me back when we were younger. I’m making a difference for us now in a way that’s positive and helpful, not making us feared and making us seem like something that needed to be exterminated.”

Dom looked away, nodding. “I always knew you were better than me. That I didn’t deserve you. I always thought you would be the one leaving me, not that I would…”

“You weren’t making rational decisions, Dom. The virus had you in its grip.”

Dom shook his head. “Shouldn’t have mattered. I should have found a way to have faith in you, in us, but I couldn’t. Those goddamned fucking dreams…”

I closed my eyes, swallowing. “I wish you had told me I was having them, about how they made you feel. I didn’t realize it. It was just something stupid from the past, not something I ever thought would happen.”

“But it did happen, didn’t it? Mystique told me you are with him now.”

“Yeah, it did. To my infinite surprise, it did.”

“You would have left me for him eventually. Somehow.”

I shook my head. “I loved you, Dom. And part of me still does love you. If you hadn’t left, if you hadn’t cheated, if you’d told me about the bar and about your daughter, none of this shit would have happened.”

Dom started weeping, quietly. “I know. I know that now. But it was so fucking hard to see that, to see that there could have been a future for us. I knew, I just knew that if you found out about Helena before I had my shit together, before I was actually fucking contributing something to our relationship that I’d be out on my ass and completely fucked. And I fucking ruined everything anyway. I would give anything, anything to take it back. To fix this.”

I nodded. “You tried, too. You were insane, but you tried getting me back. You really fucked me up, but I understand now what was going on. It’s going to take me a long time to heal from this, Dom, but I will heal. And I forgive you. I fucking forgive you, okay?”

Dom shook his head. “Somehow that hurts even more than you hating me for what I did, for not forgiving me.”

I closed my eyes, swallowing. “You are going to need to find a way to forgive yourself, Dom. If none of this had happened, you’d still be going downhill and going insane. If you hadn’t been dragged here, Emma never would have discovered the telepathic virus, and you’d still be fucked. Fuck, Dom, if none of this had happened and we were still together, I’d still have lost you within a year and it would be fucking worse, Dom. You’d be dead.”

Dom shook his head. “I don’t know how that would be worse.”

“I would have been devastated. And your daughter, she’d be without her father.”

“She was already without her father for almost her whole life. Things wouldn’t really have changed for her.”

“But they can change now, Dom. You can support her, you can get to know her. You can foster something meaningful with her. Was her mother going to allow you contact?”

Dom nodded. “She was, but I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

“Emma’s made sure your bar stayed open. She told me it was already on the road to becoming a success before you kidnapped me, and I am sure she’s told you it’s continuing to do well. Your bank account has been growing, and everything you owe to that woman in retroactive child support to help your daughter has been going there. Unless she’s a complete bitch, you have a leg to stand on in court if you want visitation rights.”

“Do I even deserve that?”

I stepped up to him, grabbed him by the shoulders. “Look at me, Dom. Fucking look at me!” He cringed, but turned his head towards me. “You deserve to have a relationship with your daughter. Yes, I experienced the worst of what you can be, especially recently. But I know you. I know how you can be at your best. And I know you have love to give, Dom, and that girl would benefit from having a loving father in her life.”

“You really think that?”

“I don’t just think it, Dom. I know it, deep down. If you can just get over yourself, you have something to contribute to this world. I know you do. Can you be a selfish hedonistic piece of shit? Yes. But I know you have more to give than that. You can make your daughter happy, Dom. You can help give her a fulsome life. And you can keep helping the mutant and queer community in LA have a safe space to meet and let loose with your bar. And there is something else you can do. Something big. Something you can do right now to fucking contribute.

“You are going to fucking man up, and you are going to get off your ass and get out of this cell and help Mystique solve the problem of the Purifiers once and for all.”

Dom shook his head. “I don’t deserve to be out of here.”

“This isn’t about what you do and don’t deserve, Dom. We didn’t spend all those years as terrorists and government assassins to have you waste all that training now when the mutant community needs you more than ever before. If you ever loved me, if you still fucking love me, please fucking do this for me. The Purifiers came after Bobby, Liam and me in Boston. They almost fucking succeeded in killing us. Those fuckers need to be dealt with, and I need you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and man up and fucking do this. Mystique says she needs you in order to succeed, that Destiny fucking told her so, and I believe her. If you don’t do this, they might fail and it might be the end of things for all of us because of that goddamned bioweapon. You don’t have a fucking choice, Dom. You have to man up, or we all could die. You need to stop being selfish for once and put your life on the line for us all, one more time. One more time, and then I will let things go. I will let you go back to LA and back to your bar and back to your daughter, because goddamnit I still love you and I know this wasn’t your fault and even if we can’t be together anymore, I want you to have a good life.

“So please, Dom, for me, for your daughter, for yourself, please fucking do this. Help Mystique. Help us all. Please!”

Dom closed his eyes, swallowed and nodded.

“Okay. Okay, I will help with this. But after, I-”

“No fucking buts, Dom. We can worry about the after part later, once the Purifiers are no longer a danger to us all.”

Dom nodded, sighing.

“You are going to go upstairs now and talk with Mystique. Help her plan this shit out. You know what you are good at, so do it.”

I offered him my hand to pull him up. He took it, standing up, close to me. A shiver went up my body. Sometime, a not so long time ago, this touch would have been electric. Would have made me swell with desire.

I’m not going to lie, I still did, a little. But I also ached. Deeply, devastatingly.

I pulled Dom into a hug. He stiffened, and then wrapped his arms around me, crying into my shoulder. We stayed like that for a few minutes, me holding him and also crying, myself. We were grieving for one another, for what we had lost.

But somehow, it felt better. Somehow, I felt like our futures were finally opening up before us. Somehow, I knew things would be alright.

For both of us.