Sick of Losing Soulmates | Steve Rogers

[08] the good ol days

What he lacks in height he makes up with in personality, though, because Steve still seems a bit shy.

Ilyas is not worth being intimidated by. To rectify this, Ceres gestures to him and says to Steve, "Like I said before: this is my roommate, Ilyas Ravel. He's an asshole but he's the only person who understands what it's like to be like us."

Maybe that last part isn't true since Logan Howlett is also an old man trapped in a younger person's body, but she'll be damned if she can contact him, and he isn't one for talking or being helpful, anyway. She's already got a lot on her plate by introducing Steve to one immortal dickbag.

A meow causes all of them to look for the source: Ilyas's cat, who pads around the kitchen counter and into the entryway to see what the commotion is about. She rubs against Ilyas's calves before doing the same to Ceres, mewling in greeting.

"That's Chris," Ilyas says.

Steve's brows furrow. "You named your cat Chris?"

"No, I named my cat Anti-Christ, but we call her that for short."

Steve shrugs as if to say, Fair enough, bends into a crouch, making himself smaller, and holds his hand out for Chris to sniff. She does, thoroughly investigating his knuckles, and then gives him a stamp of approval by ramming her forehead into his fingers. He gives her a gentle scritching behind her ear while she stretches her hind legs.

Ilyas glances at Ceres and points to the positive interaction with wiggled eyebrows and a thumbs-up, mouthing, "Chris likes him."

Ceres shakes her head and mouths back, "Shut up."

He makes a heart with his hands.

She allows light to burn under her skin, turning her fist orange, a silent warning.

Steve stands up and the two of them quickly face him as if nothing had transpired while he was introducing himself to Anti-Christ. He seems more comfortable in their chaotic living space, looking beyond the two mutants to see the details of the apartment: Ceres's potted plants placed on almost every spare surface, a record player on a shelf with hundreds of albums stacked below it, hints of decor from every decade from their seventies-print lamp to the yellow eighties wallpaper in the kitchen,  posters of Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, and Blondie that decorate the wall behind their rust-colored sofa.

Finally, his gaze slides back to Ilyas. "So, Ceres told me that you guys were part of some sort of team back in the day?"

"Oh, she already started the whole X-Men spiel?" he asks, wandering back to the sofa to continue tuning his guitar. "Yeah. I'm one of the founding members, but there are only four others left— they're called Charles, Erik, Hank, and Alex. We gave ourselves that name because it's an unknown X-Factor gene that causes our mutations."

As he explains, Ceres quickly slips into her bedroom to dig through her boxes of journals and find an empty one for Steve. She eventually locates a pocket-sized notebook with a rustic cover. It seems to fit Steve's vibe, so she pulls it free from where it was crammed into the bin and retreats into the main living area.

Now, Steve is sitting in their armchair, listening to Ilyas with rapt attention. It's a sharp contrast to the careless way Ilyas recalls his memories with the team and gives a summary of what the early days before Ceres were like. He recounts the details as if being a part of the Cuban Missile Crisis wasn't a big deal.

Oh shit, does Steve know about the Cuban Missile Crisis? She opens the journal and writes its first entry with her pen: Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).

"Here," she says, passing the notebook to him. "I wrote something already— hope that's alright."

"Thank you." Steve accepts the gift and opens it to read her writing. He nods. "I'm indeed not very familiar with that."