Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They were roommates. Bobby because he was new, and John because no one wanted to be his roommate. 

Fire and ice, they didn't get along very well. It was a recipe for disaster.

John had been at the institute as long as anyone else had. Longer than most. A runaway. He wasn't very good at making people like him. He pranked the other kids too much, he laughed too loudly, his voice was weird, he always smelled faintly of ozone and gasoline, and he didn't like to blindly follow authority without a few dozen annoying questions first. All his questions made the teachers hate him. Everything else he did made the students hate him. He couldn't win at anything could he. 

Bobby had only been there a week until their first fight. It wouldn't be the last. 

Neither of them remembered what it was about. Neither of them won (John swears he came close though.) They were brawling in the hall between classes, fighting nasty and dirty, biting and calling names.

John got a black eye and a busted lip, Bobby was left with a bleeding bite on his hand that would scar. 

Jean separated them, forcing a telekinetic wall between them. 

They were sent to Professor Xavier’s office, scolded harshly, immediately grounded from all activities and put on extra chore duty for the next month. 

Bobby hated it. John expected it. 

He was used to being more in trouble than not. 

“You'll get used to it.” John blithely says once they're back in their room, not permitted to leave till dawn.

“I'm not talking to you.” Bobby grumbles facedown on his bed.

“Come one, it was fun.” He smirks to himself, flicking his lighter. On and off. On and off. On and off. 

A cold shock hits his hands, numbing them instantly and dropping the lighter. 

“Hey, now you're getting it!” He says gleefully and picks up his lighter.

“What's your problem?” Bobby flips himself over and glares at John.

“Why do you wanna know?” John asks.

Bobby shrugs. 

“Trial by fire.” He dramatically holds his lighter aloft, as though it's a sword.

“Ah of course.” Bobby nods like he understands. 

“I'm testing you. To see if you're best friend material.” he flicks it on and produces a long stretch of flame, imitating a lightsaber, sound and all as he swings it around. 

Bobby sits up and concentrates a moment, before a long icicle shard of ice grows in his hand. 

They both stare intensely at one another before Bobby makes the first move and swings his ice sword at the flame.

Steam covers the room.

After the ensuing second fight of the evening, they lay on one of the beds, soaking wet and trying hard not to giggle. 

“So, what is this best friend material? Something inflammable I hope?” Bobby's got a smile on his face, a real one. Not something John has seen on him once he first arrived.

“Something like that.” That joke makes John cackle so hard he rolls off his bed.

“You laugh like a maniac!” Bobby bluntly says, also laughing.

“I thought you weren't talking to me anymore.” John teased in betweens his hyena laughter.

“Oh...Right.” Bobby's laughter stops abruptly.

Why did John have to open his stupid mouth and say things. He fucked up like he always does. 

They sit in silence. John has always hated silence. Too quiet. He holds himself as still as he can, sitting on the hardwood floor leaning over on his bed and trying his very best to hold his breath and not explode into a million pieces. 

At long last Bobby speaks up again, “Well, I guess maybe we can call it a truce, at least until we're allowed out again.”

He releases a long shaky breath. Ok he can work with that.

“You're going to regret that, mate.” John warns him. 

“I'm sure I will.” Bobby laughs again.

And he did. 

-

“Aye, you wanna see something cool, Frosty?” John asks, bored out of his skull. They're in one of the many libraries, studying for a big test in a couple hours. At least they are supposed to be. John has his feet kicked up on a table and is flicking his lighter, notebooks nowhere to be seen.

“Depends.” Bobby grumbles, eyes glazed over from looking at his notes. They're going to kill him. He's going to fail and they're going to kill him.

“Check this out.” John flicks the lighter on and manipulates the flame in the shape of a swan.

“Ok?” he glances up for a moment before looking back down at the same sentence he been rereading for hours. 

“Look!” The swan spreads it's wings turning into a phoenix, screeching out fire that forms into a dragon flying across the room.

“Woah.” Bobby stares 

“Right?” John laughs that cackle of a laugh. 

“Isn't it beautiful?” Bobby says softly.

“Yeah. It is.” Bobby was staring at the fire, entranced. And John was staring at him, much the same.

His heart felt like it was on fire.

Fuck.

-

So.

John wasn't jealous of Rogue. He wasn't. Really. He just didn't get her. She was weird. He didn't get why Bobby liked her so much, other than that she was a girl who smiled at him and laughed at his dumb jokes and. 

Well, John did that too but. That didn't matter. Because he wasn't jealous of her.

He wasn't.

One time, ok twice, ok maybe more than twice, they had kissed. But it wasn't gay or anything. It didn't count. It was just practice, for when they got their own girlfriends and stuff. They were supposed to imagine kissing some girl they liked. 

John told himself every time that it didn't count. It didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. 

Even though Bobby's icy lips made him feel the most alive he ever had, and he never imagined kissing any girl, not like Bobby with Kitty, or Jubilee, or now with Rogue. He didn't imagine anything at all. 

It didn't mean anything. 

It couldn't. 

It couldn't.

-

Bobby always liked the heat. And John always liked the cold. It made these powers more useful, in those times. No one needed a fire in summer, but everyone could use some ice cubes. Same with fire, a toasty campfire was nice in the cold.

They were complimentary. They worked together well. They understood each other.

Until they didn't. 

-

John fucked up. Again.  And people got hurt. 

Again.

And Bobby isn't talking to him again. Because he got them in trouble, because he sent everyone in their car to the infirmary, because he fucked up and everything blew up, because he can't do anything right, again.  

So, even though he's supposed to be confined in their room, John is wandering down the halls. The early morning light making the flame on his lighter glow brighter and brighter every time he flicks it. On and off. On and off. On and off. 

He stops short hearing muffled voices in the study.

Quietly, he shuffled closer and pressed his ear to the door. 

“-don't know what to do about it. He's too dangerous. We need to talk to Xavier about making sure he can't hurt anyone else.” Scott firmly says.

“I'm not sure how to have him get control. It's not that his powers are uncontrollable, it's that he is. He doesn't listen to us.” Jean says, mystified by this problem.

He really hopes they aren't talking about him.

“John's a bad influence on them. Especially to Bobby. He's got so much potential, I don't want to see it get wasted.” Scott gripes. 

Ah. So they are talking about him. 

“I know. I just, I can't reach him, no matter what we do, he just isn't receptive.”

“Hey, it's not your fault, Jean. We might have to cut our losses. Face it, he's a lost cause.” Scott said so frankly it must be true. It must be. 

He's a lost cause. 

They think he's a lost cause.

They must be right.

Jean's voice echoes in the empty room, “We can't help him if he won't let us.”

“We should focus on prioritizing the other kids. They can be reached at least. Taught. All our work won't go to waste on them. It's not like they'll burn the house down if they don't get their way.” Scott snipes.

“Scott, I'm not sure that's fair, it was an accident .” Jean sighs.

John almost cries in relief.

“Just because this time was an accident, it doesn't mean the next time will be. Accidents do happen, but this is a pattern.” Scott interrupted his relief. 

“It's not his fault he's like this, he just can't help it. Some people just can't be helped if they don't want it. And he doesn't want to. I think he likes being like this, seen as some dangerous bad boy instead of just a kid.”

“If he doesn't want to be treated like a kid, then he should stop acting like one. Kids don't get away with this stuff. He's got to be held responsible for his actions. Consequences, like if we let him stay here or not when it happens again. He's too immature to handle his powers. He's going to get someone killed.” Scott sounded more exhausted than mad now. Like he had already prepared for this eventuality.

Like it was all that was going to happen.

Like all John would ever do is fuck up.

Like he could never do anything right, or good, or worth their time.

Well, that's not something you want to hear. That it's inevitable that you'll fuck up again and they expect you to and are more prepared to deal with that than anything good from him.

The X-men saw the good in just about every mutant, though that wasn't always the case. 

Clearly. 

Every mutant except for him apparently.

He's just too much.

Well, shit.

-

Being on the run from people who want to kill him isn't that weird. A good part of his life until finding the Institute had been like that. He was used to it. 

He wasn't used to the happy family portraits that covered the walls of Bobby's Boston house. They were smiling. 

It was weird. 

He had never had any of that. No happy smiling family. No mother and father who loved him. No annoying little siblings to bother and tease. Nothing. 

He had nothing. 

Then they came back, Bobby's loving family. Only to turn out not so loving as they called the fucking cops on them. 

Fuck family. 

The cops shot Logan. He was dead. Right in front of him. And they were next. They were going to die. They are going to kill them like they just killed Logan. 

He's going to die. 

He flicks the lighter. On and off in and off on and off. 

On.

When he comes too, he feels drained. He doesn't remember much except a harsh cackle of flame and laughter mixed together. It was the most beautiful sound he's ever heard. 

He wants to hear it again.

And again and again and-

-

Magneto was nothing like they said he was. 

They said he struck terror into the hearts of those who opposed him. They said he was too radical, that he was a menace.

Too dangerous.

They said he was uncontrollable.

They never mentioned he was funny. 

No one has ever told him that his powers were something that could be like this. Different, his own. They never said his powers were something to be proud of. Too destructive, too uncontrollable. 

Too much.

They never said that was anything but a bad thing.

They never said John wasn't a bad thing.

He was tired of being treated like a little kid with a lighter. He left with Magneto. It was the only option. He couldn't stay in one place forever. He couldn't. Not with Rogue and Bobby. Not with Jean and Scott.

He couldn't stay. He had to do something. He had to. 

He has to. 

And so he leaves. And he doesn't come back.

John never wanted to leave. But he couldn't stay not like this. Not as John.

Pyro walks away. And Iceman stays. 

Chapter Text

Pyro bleached his hair again. Almost immediately as soon as he could after he left. At the Institute, he'd bleached it before, but let it grow out for a while, a year or so before the urge to do something terrible came over him. So he did something. 

Not like he can do anything worse than running again.

He got too complacent with them. With him. 

Fuck.

So he cuts and bleaches his hair in a gas station bathroom with stolen materials when he's got a moment away from their cause. And he tried very hard not to think about the lost little boy staring back in the mirror. He doesn't even recognize himself anymore.

Good.

He remembers years and years ago, doing a similar thing in a similar gas station bathroom a few weeks after he'd run away from the house he grew up in. It wasn't home. Not anymore. Not after he-no no no he stopped himself from that disastrous train of thought by fumbling the old lighter he had on and staring entranced at the flame. He'd flicked it off. 

He'd tippy toed up at the mirror with the most scowly grin he could muster. It still looked more like a snarl. 

He flicked his stolen lighter on and off, on and off, on and off, and tried very hard not to burn the whole world to the ground. 

It was a hard impulse to ignore. 

He's always been good at making himself unwantable. It's not hard to be unlovable. If there's something he's always been good at, it's that. Better to give people a head start before they leave anyways. Or he leaves them, whichever happens to happen first. 

And it always happened.

No one stuck around for him. Why would they.

-

Magneto finds him some sort of discreet flamethrower thing, possibly made for special effects or something. Pyro doesn't know, he's just glad he is still useful. That he's not being tossed aside so easily. He works with it, to incorporate it seamlessly into his outfit and make it look like his mutation is creating fire, not just controlling it. And it works. 

Even as this renders his old shark faced lighter obsolete, he keeps it tucked away in his pocket safe and sound. Just in case. You never know when you might need it. He'd earned that lighter. It was his, the first thing he'd ever stolen. 

Well, second thing really.

-

After the ‘cure’ is announced, they go to some mutant rallies to try and gain fellow supporters for the cause. 

Pyro feels special because he's the only one that Magneto brings. He's the only one he has. Mystique intentionally got captured, to gather information, so he's the only line of defense for their leader. Not that Magneto can't defend himself, he certainly can, but there's strength in numbers. To show the fellow mutants they are strong. 

They gain a few more people. And Pyro gets to threaten a couple people, so it's a good day spent.

-

They get one of their new mutant followers to find Mystique, and he asks her if she can find someone else for him. 

And the first step of the plan, rescue her and get the information she found out.

He feels weird going on his own after they rescue her, but Magneto seems to understand. 

He's got to go. 

-

Fire and ice meet again.

And fire says some dumb shit. About Bobby's family loving him again if he goes for the cure. 

But Bobby still isn't talking to him. So he keeps going. 

He always hated the sound of silence.

“Same old Bobby. Still afraid of a fight!” Then he started to lose the fight. Then he talks bad about Rogue and blows up a whole building. 

Great.

Maybe he went too far. 

Maybe he always has gone too far. Maybe he's always been too far gone. 

He never has known when to quit. Especially when he's ahead. And even more so when he's been left behind. 

And they fought for the first time since he left. It was nasty, like it always was, it left bruises and scars, like it always did, and Pyro left, like he always does now. 

He doesn't know what else to do in this. There's nothing else to do. He has to leave. 

Pyro does what he's good at, and runs. He leaves.

He's never been good for much else. He doesn't know how to make someone want to follow behind and bring him back. No one's ever wanted him back after he fucked up too bad and ran. 

No one ever has. 

-

He's scared to go back to Magneto, that he fucked up so incredibly bad, that he knows he escalated everything so bad now, and now the military is gearing up for a viscous and brutal take-no-surviors war. 

He doesn't have anywhere else to go though. 

But, Magneto isn't mad at him. He's proud. Of him. For fucking up. 

Pyro doesn't know what to think, but he takes it in stride. Yeah, he totally meant to do that. He was just doing what he had to do. 

Yeah. 

What he had to do.

-

Sometimes he thinks about what it could have been like if Bobby- Iceman, he's Iceman now, had left with him. If they had left together. Of course, it never would have happened. Iceman's too much of a goody two shoes to ever do it, but it's a nice thought when he's all alone. 

He asks Magneto about it once, why he doesn't just kill Xavier when he has the chance. He's the only one who stands in his way, it would be so easy to.

“Could you do it? Kill your best friend?” Magneto asks, and Pyro knows the answer he's looking for. But.

Pyro thinks about it. About everything. 

Yeah, he could do it. It would be easy. Just a little flame and Iceman would be gone. A melted puddle on the floor. And then Pyro wouldn't last much longer after that. He'd burn out. It was always going to be a mutually assured destruction.

“Of course I could.” he scoffs easily.

“Then you're a more dedicated man to the cause than I. Think about what comes after you kill him.” Magneto draws out in a solemn way.

He did think about it. And nothing is the answer. He can't see himself outliving Bobby. 

“What does that mean?” Pyro grumbles. He just doesn't get old people. Why can't they just get to the point, why do they always have to dance around it. 

“I could never kill him. I've lost my own battles, just to save him. Sabotaged myself when he needed me. I can never escape him.” he sounded more wistful than bitter. He was always sounding more wistful these days. 

Pyro nodded along. He'd done the same things, so did that really mean he couldn't kill his rival?

“I…I value him more than I despise humanity.” Magneto says like it's breaking his heart having the words said out loud. 

“Oh…” Pyro doesn't say anything else. 

He doesn't know what else there is to say with that revelation.

He thinks they might just be pretty fucked. 

Then Xavier does get killed and that's really the last straw. 

Then they use the ‘cure’ as a weapon when they go to rescue Mystique (and then he blew up that building of course that didn't help calm things down any) and here comes that war they've all been salivating for. 

And Pyro's not sure any of them will live to see the other side of it. 

- 

Always too eager to go to violence, he stupidly says, “I'd have killed the Professor myself if you gave me the chance.” to Magneto. That was going to far. (Then again he always has.) He paid the price. He doesn't say anything like it again. 

Magneto didn't want Xavier to die, he realizes. So what does he want?

What does Pyro want?

He doesn't know what he wants. Magneto certainly knows what he wants. Mutant liberation. Or something. 

Pyro just wants to blow shit up. That's all he's ever really wanted. The world to explode. Everything around him to go down in flames and he can laugh and laugh and laugh as he finally burns out for good.

-

The other fight, the big final one at the lab on Alcatraz, he thinks he might win. So he loses. Because of course he does. He doesn't know if it was on purpose. Did he not want to hurt Iceman? Did he not want to win? Did he not want to lose? 

He doesn't know. 

He just can't seem to stop thinking about it. Before, when he went back to Magneto, having burned up the building with all those people in it. He can still hear their screams echoing in his ears, ringing with his own mania fueled cackling of laughter. 

Such a familiar sound.

He doesn't know how to stop. He doesn't know if he wants to. He's too far gone after all. He always has been a lost cause. He's either going to burn out or fade away. And knowing him, he's never fading away. 

Burning out it is. In a fantastic blaze of glory. 

He thinks they probably all are a lost cause after all. 

Not a single one of them are getting out of this unscathed. 

Pyro's starting to think they're in a losing battle. 

Only one way to end it all. 

-

Same old Bobby. Still afraid of a fight. Then he blew up a dozen or so cars and finally got to fight him. 

“You're in over your head Bobby. Maybe you should go back to school.” He snarks as his flames overtake Bobby. This is ending one-way or the other with one or both of them dead. And seems like Pyro's finally going to be winning a fight for once. Even while the world around them is falling a part, their fucking short sighted plan going to pieces as their army drops like flies, like the pawns they always were, he could still win one last fight before they all get killed. 

But then, Bobby turns to solid ice. He's always had a magnificent control over himself that John's never managed, he can become ice and still survive. John can't become fire and survive, he doesn't have that kind of immunity to his own powers. If he sets himself on fire, he just dies. 

Burns out. 

“Maybe you never should have left.” And that unexpected regret in his voice is the last thing he hears before he's knocked out cold.

Then he doesn't feel anything at all. 

-

Pyro doesn't expect to make it out alive anyways. Might as well be killed by the hand of his former best friend. What a fitting way to end his story. 

-

But then, he wakes up. And he's not dead. 

Chapter Text

Of fucking course they lost. John gets taken into custody after the fighting is over and they've all lost. Magnto-Erik now, left him behind like they left Mystique behind after she became powerless. After Erik became powerless. Left behind like everyone ever has ever left him. They lost.

And he's not dead. 

He just sort of assumed it was all or nothing. He didn't think about what would happen if they failed. He assumed they'd just be dead. It seemed like a good enough deal, they can give their all to the cause, and if it doesn't work out it doesn't matter, because they'll be dead. 

Win win. 

And now he's not dead. 

He doesn't know why he's not dead.

-

“Just shut the hell up and don't say anything, you fucked up a lot but, for some reason, he doesn't think you're a lost cause.” Logan growls to him on the other side of the table that Johns handcuffed to in the tiny room before the court case happens. 

He's reading the papers on the table, John's entire life on display. 

Just looking at them, spread out and neatly categorized, it made him feel sick. Woozy and vaguely nauseous. He didn't want to think about any of that. Soon, it will be all anyone will talk about. 

He didn't want to hear it. 

From running away from his fucking stepdad after his mom left them and he decided to blame and take it out on John at age 9, to a burnt up house ‘no surviors’, getting arrested for numerous arsons at 11, 12, and 13, being sent to various shitty bottom of the barrel foster homes, running away, getting arrested for stealing and arson and sent to juvi, running away and the cycle repeats, and then Xavier finding him, all the record of times he's fucked up there, and then the shitty and horrible everything he did with Magneto. The serial killings. A lot, lot, of burnt to crisp corpses.

It was all a pretty shit defense.

It's bad. He knows it's bad. There was no way he'd be getting out of this one. It was laughable to even try. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, kid.” Logan couldn't stop himself from saying as he scanned over the papers. 

“Do-”

“Shut it.”

John bit the inside of his mouth to try and keep quiet. He was actually trying. He just wanted to know where his lighter went. His hands felt empty and naked without it. His fingers trembled as he went through the frantic motions of flicking his missing lighter. But it's not right because it's not his lighter because they fucking took it and probably for good reason so he didn't burn the entire courthouse with everyone inside it down.

They actually took everything of his when they first arrested him, and it's been a while since he'd been stuck in a tiny jail cell completely unaware of how much time had passed, before they suddenly transferred him to the courthouse and told him he was going on trial.

He was scared to ask how long it had been. He wasn't sure he'd like the answer. 

“I shouldn't even be doing this shit right now, but Storm's busy with the school, and Hank's fucking late, and everyone else is…ugh, so. Me. Fuck,” He grumbles under his breath, “Fuck.”

“Then why are you-” John asks. Logan's never stuck around before. They're alike in some ways, they leave people. But here he is, still here. 

“I said shut up.” Logan snaps at him and goes back to reading.

And to his credit, John stays silent for a couple of minutes, a new record for him. 

He snaps his fingers, trying to get the sound right. But it's wrong, and he can feel himself falling apart at the seams.

Over a fucking lighter. 

“Fucking fine.” Logan slams the papers down, fumbled in his pockets for a moment before pulling out a brightly colored cheap plastic bic lighter.

“It's not the same but will it do?” he held it out to his hands handcuffed to the table.

“Are you sure you should-” 

“If you start anything I can fucking handle it. But I'll need it back before we leave the room.” 

And then John took it. He stares at the piece of plastic in his hands and does not turn it on.

He could do it. He could burn everything down so so easily. He could at least burn up himself, Logan could never die.

He looked up from it, and Logan was back to reading and grumbling vague curses under his breath. 

They haven't trusted him like that in a very long time. 

No one has.

Ok, fine. Fine. He takes a deep steading breath and holds the borrowed lighter in position.

The calm that floods him as soon as he flicks the lighter on is absolutely ridiculous. He's pathetic. That fucking lighter had been with him since the beginning. 

Most people are addicted to the cigarettes lighters are for. He's addicted to the lighter.

He flicks it off. Then on. Then off. And he feels normal again.

Logan leafs through the papers scattered on the table, his entire life. Soon all of this will be in front of a judge. Soon, too many people would know of his many fuck ups. Soon, they'd all know how lost he really was. 

“God fucking dammit.” Logan's still reading while he mumbles and puts a hand to his eyes and rubs at them.

“But, I don't get it, why, what are you doing all this for?” he blurts out. 

“Because, yeah, you fucked up pretty bad, but. It's what the Professor would have done.” Logan nods to himself, sounding pleased with that decision.

John scoffs at that. 

“Fine, got something to say about that, firecracker?”

“You know, they were giving up on me, said I was a lost cause, I was too uncontrollable for them. Too much.” he says like he's trying to convince Logan of that as well. 

“Well, tough fucking luck, we ain't them. You deserve another chance. But you're only getting one second chance. So don't fuck this up.” Logan warns. 

“But why?” John pleads. He always asks too many questions when he should just keep shut and be grateful.

“You're a kid.” he bluntly says.

“I’m not -” he argues.

“Look. You were a kid, and the adults in your life failed you. Badly. So, you get another chance. Now shut the hell up and take it.”

So. He shuts up and takes the chance.

They say it's the furry blue mutant who's got some important position in the United Nations or whatever that he should be thanking. He convinced the fucking President of all people to pardon him. They get him out of prison and on community service and parole and then fucking therapy and fucking treatments and goddamn meds, on the grounds that he's still a teenager, just a kid, technically, even if he had killed more people than even Magneto had, but they claimed he was manipulated by Magneto, that he was mentally unwell, and traumatized by shit that happens ages ago, and not entirely in control of his himself, and that he deeply regrets his actions. 

It's such fucking bullshit.

He knew exactly what he was doing the entire time. Totally.

He goes to interrupt the courts proceedings to inform them of this little fact. 

But, since Bobby's behind him coldly glaring right at him with such a pissed off warning look, he clamps his mouth shut, puts on his least maniacal smile and tries very hard to look regretful. 

Somehow, it all works. 

Because next thing he knows, he's got to do a shit ton of community service, to be overseen by one of the fucking X-Men.

And guess fucking who it is that has to do that. That actually volunteered for it. 

Fucking Logan. Of all people. 

He just didn't get it. 

Later on, Hank tells him the real reason they had to get him out of prison and on trial as soon as they could is that they were going to pin everything on him. All of it. And yeah, he did do a lot of the bad shit, but he didn't mastermind anything. 

But they couldn't catch Erik, so. Him. 

And they were going to try and put him under the death penalty. For everything. It would have incited so many more worse things. It would have started a terrible precedent. The governments state sanctioned killing of mutant kids, it would have started riots in the streets. It would have started another whole war no one would win. 

So, this was the compromise. Fucking house arrest in the mansion, only leaving to go do community service. 

Great.

-

One of the many stipulations was he couldn't be around any sort of fire. And then they took his fucking lighter away. 

Because of course they did.

And he definitely didn't have a completely pathetic public breakdown at that. His one fucking thing he had kept with him all this time. 

Bobby somehow ends up with it actually. He comes up with the idea to empty the lighter fluid out of it, and it still flicks the same familiar sound. 

“Why didn't you tell me?” Bobby asks before he gives it back to him. 

“Oh, you're finally speaking to me now? How nice of you.”

“Come on John.”

“What?”

“Don't play dumb, why didn't you ever say anything?”

He laughed, and it's noticeably more dull than his usual one. “What do you want me to say? I didn't want anyone to know. Only the Prof knew and he read my goddamn mind, and look how all that turned out. He was going to get rid of me anyways. They always do. Better to leave than be left.”

“You really think that?”

“Of course.”

“Then you're a fucking idiot.”

“What else is new.”

And then Bobby isn't talking to him any more. 

At least he got his fucking lighter back. Even without the flame, it's still something familiar.

Still better than nothing at all.

Chapter Text

It's been a few weeks, and John still hasn't been outside for more than a few minutes. He's hardly even left his own room, only to do his long list of assigned and supervised chores, eat, and go do his designated community services. He finds it kind of funny that they gave him the same punishment for fighting in the halls as for multiple terrorisms and serial murders. Cleaning. Like that'll do anything. 

He still hasn't talked to Bobby since he got his empty lighter back. 

He also has a goddamn annoying ass ankle bracelet he has to wear at all times. He has free reign of the house for chores and stuff, technically, but his lack of wanting to see other people means he's mostly confined himself to his new room with fancy new locks on all the doors and windows. 

At this point, he'd rather be dead than have to deal with all this. 

These goddamn consequences. 

-

John asks if he's allowed to go outside. They say no, that's what house arrest means. And he doesn't have more cleaning or anything else planned for the day. So. He's stuck inside the fuckin mansion. 

And essentially, he's stuck in his fuckin room. 

And he's bored out of his fuckin skull. 

The things to do in this room include a bed, a desk, and a dresser. None of which he has anything to do with. He could take a nap, but he doesn't want to. He doesn't have any paper on which to write on, and all of his clothes now are Xavier's school for the gifted brand. 

He's laying back with his feet kicking hard enough to hurt against the headboard of the bed, tap tap tap, for a lack of anything better to do. 

He's started humming a tune to go along with it, something loud and obnoxious, when he hears a voice.

“Knock it off, jerk.”

He twists his head around, and now he's looking upside down at the wall.

“Who said that?” he glares at the empty wall.

“Me, idiot. Look up.” And Kitty was glaring right back at him, partly phased through the wall near the ceiling. 

“Ohh. I see.”

“Yeah. My room’s on the other side so stop kicking my wall or I'll put your legs through it.” Kitty threatens. 

“Hey, you've got a balcony right?” He sits up.

“Yeah?” she looks at him suspiciously.

“Can I just sit on it? They won't let me go outside.” 

“For good reason I bet.” she snorts. 

John pouts at her. 

“Hm. Maybe. What will you get me in return?”

“Uh…” he pats at his pockets. Nothing but his lightless lighter, “What do you want?”

Kitty smirked an evil grin at that. 

Oh no. He was going to regret this wasn't he?

She pulled him through the wall.

-

The clouds lazily pass by overhead, a soft breeze wafts the trees, the sun burns bright. 

And he's still bored. 

“I miss smoking.” John complains, absently flicking his empty lighter. 

“I thought you didn't smoke?” Kitty says.

“I miss pretending to smoke.” he clarifies. 

She laughs at that. At least, John pretends her scoff is a laugh. They're sitting on her balcony, his ankle alarm phased out of his leg and sitting vacant in the doorway. He's sitting on the floor with his legs swinging through the poles of the railing. She's on the floor next to him, back leaning against the railing, legs kicked out in front of her. Neither are very comfortable.

“You know, I think I might get in trouble just for talking to you. You've got a shit reputation now.”

John shrugs, “That's nothing new.”

She takes a long drag from her vape pen.

“Here, pretend to smoke this.” She passed him her bubble gum flavored vape. 

“Ugh gross, this shit is tame.” He takes the bright pink contraption and looks at it. 

“Then don't take it, asshole.” she went to grab it back and he held it out of her reach. 

“No, no, I'll take it. I just miss weed.” he takes a hit of the vape and coughs out a cloud made of pure cotton candy.  

“Me too.” Kitty grumbles, “because of you we aren't allowed to smoke here anymore.”

“We've never been allowed to smoke here. Prof would get pissed when we do, remember?”

“Yes, but we could still do it. Now we really aren't allowed to. No lighters around you.” she points at him like it's somehow his fault. Because it is. 

“You do know you don't have to smoke weed right?” he sneakily says. 

-

They're going to get in so much trouble. But it'll totally be worth it. Totally. 

John remembers some of his more illegal shit he'd store under the floorboards of his and Bobby's old room. As Kitty sneaks them both that way, quietly phasing through the walls till they get there, he wonders if Bobby left his stuff there or if it was moved. 

His room is at the opposite end of the hall from Bobby's (now single) room. 

He doesn't know what he wants. 

They get to the thankfully empty room, and it looks different. He pauses as they make it through the wall. It's different. He looks around, for any trace of himself in there. 

And nothing. 

All his stuff is gone, the stuff he'd gathered for years, his posters, his clutter of random junk taking up the whole desk, his clothes. All of it was just. Gone. 

Like he'd never been there. Rather, like there was something there, but it was gone now. And abscess? No, an absence. That was the right word. 

Everything he'd ever been. Gone. 

“Where'd all my shit go?” John can't find a single trace of himself left. 

“I don't know, gone.” Kitty shrugs.

“What?”

“What did you expect? You left . Of course it's all different now.” Kitty laughs a harsh sound. She's not very good at laughing right. But neither is he. 

He gulps back the lump growing in his throat. 

“I just…I don't know. I. Uh.” He stumbles forward to the floor. 

“Where's your secret shit?” she kneels and starts rooting around, hand phasing through things. 

He had chosen the hiding place strategically, partly out of convenience when he noticed the loose boards, and partly out of reference for an old short story he thought about more often than not these days. 

“Under the floorboards, here.” He absently moved aside the rug and pointed at a crooked board under what used to be his bed. A part of the story that lodged itself within his heart and always stuck with him fills his mind.

Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! –and now –again! –hark! louder! louder! louder! louder! –

“Gotcha.” Kitty phased her hand through and pulled out a little empty baggie. 

“Come on!” he groans and collapses back on the floor as he was interrupted from his internal recitation. 

“I think we might have some words with Bobby.” Kitty muses. 

“No way. He's not really talking to me right now.”

“Bullshit.” Kitty called. 

“You, Storm, and Beast are like the only people I've talked to here. Logan doesn't even talk to me on community service anymore.”

“I mean, you were one of the bad guys for, like a while. Of course we still don't trust you.” she says.

“Yeah.”

“Could be worse though, you could have been in prison instead.” she says.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Even executed.”

“Yeah, I know, Kitty.”

-

After their disappointing attempt at finding drugs, Kitty deposits him back to his room and leaves to do homework.

John convinced himself not to ask her to stay. 

He's sure she wouldn't agree, and he doesn't want to think about the rejection.

-

His now semi-regular therapy sessions have been going nowheres. He didn't want to talk about it. About anything. 

Especially not with Hank, he knows the guy doesn't really care about anything John has to say.

“Just to assess where you're at at the moment, John, before we can move on to other things, such as medication and treatment, we first have to get a sense for what your baseline is right now, then to go forward with resources and tools to help-”

“I don't need to get a sense of anything. There's nothing wrong with me, ok.” he snaps.

Hank's eyebrows shot up on his blue furry face as he scribbled some things down. 

“And how-” Hank starts.

“Does that make me feel? Uh, angry. Angry and pissed off that I have to be here and be wasting my time with this shit.”

“You believe therapy to be unproductive?”

“No shit. More like counterproductive.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because it is. There's no point in talking about shit. It doesn't change anything.”

“On the contrary, I'd say it can change many things, an outlook-”

“It doesn't matter.”

“If that's what you feel-”

“I'm fucking done here. This is stupid.” He kicks his feet at the desk.

He doesn't want to be here. Back at this school that doesn't want him that he left. But he doesn't want to be back with the Brotherhood who left him. At least with them he could do whatever he wanted, even if he was constantly vying for a place and proving he belonged, at least he wasn't so suffocated by everyone else's perfection that showed he was never going to be good enough. And he doesn't have very many options. He feels like he doesn't have any options. 

“John-” Hank attempts to say as he leaves. 

“It's such bullshit.” He slams the door on his way out. 

It's starting to feel less like he's home and more like he's in a one man prison.  

He supposes that it makes sense. He was going to end up in prison anyways, no matter what he did. He always has. It feels like he dodged a bullet and a cannonball took its place. 

How long was he going to be stuck here for. How long was his sentence? He tried to remember if anyone had said how long he would be here for, but he couldn't.

He didn't know. 

Chapter Text

John waits outside of the headmaster's office like a dumb little kid in trouble. But for once in his life, he actually isn't.

It's early the next morning, and as much as John doesn't want to talk, they really really need to. 

He's realizing they never told him a lot of things. And he needs answers.

He's nervously bouncing his leg as he watches the hall for a head of white hair. His hands are tightly clasped together with his forearms leaning on his knees, to avoid messing with his lighter. He's afraid he'll break it. He doesn't touch anything. He sits slouched forward, and waits. 

And when Storm finally sees him, he doesn't like the answers he finds out. 

“They never told you the ruling?” The new headmaster of the school asks, as they enter the office. 

It's weird to see her behind the desk in the Professor's place. John doesn't think he'll ever get used to this. 

He shrugs, “I wasn't there for that, apparently. And no one thought to tell me what it was, I mean Hank kind of did but, not really.”

“That's odd. Someone really should have told you after the case.” She quizzically looks at him, like she's trying to figure out if he's lying. Why would he lie about this? 

“Little late now.” He rolls his eyes and slouches down in the seat across from her. 

“You could have asked earlier.” She rifles through some papers.

“I didn't know I should have asked.” He was trying not to get frustrated, but it was hard. He didn't know he had been kept out of the loop on his own life.

“We, it was either this or the death penalty.” She seems to find whatever she was looking for and skims through the file.

“Yeah ok, I know that. But what's ‘this’ supposed to mean? How long am I going to be stuck here for?” He exasperatedly says. 

“Life in prison was the lighter of the two sentences, so it looks like you're stuck here for life.” She casually reads off.

Stuck here for life.

“What do you mean, here for life, isn't it just house arrest?” He really really wishes he could pull out his lighter, but he is trying to control himself. 

He was trying.

It wasn't working. 

“Well, no, they ruled that you would be held here, in the school, for life with no chance of parole.” Storm says, like that doesn't change his whole life in one fell swoop. 

He's going to be here forever. It's either life in prison (here) or death. 

Forever is quite a long time. 

Forever. That's…that's forever. 

The rising feeling that he needs to be doing one specific thing with his hands is growing on him more and more. 

On and off. 

He holds his hands tightly together to quell the urge.

It isn't working. 

“Well, that's pretty harsh.” he chuckles to himself. 

“John, you killed numerous people, and were an accessory to multiple terrorist plots. What you did was pretty harsh.” Ororo bluntly says. 

He frowns. She's not wrong though. 

“Ok yeah, point taken,” he crosses his arms and brings up a point of his own, “But that doesn't explain why I'm here for life? I know all that, but here? Why not just prison?”

“The only reason you aren't dead right now is because of us. The government didn't know how to control your powers, and all of their Cure was lost, so they wanted to say you orchestrated it all and put you down. Prison was never an option.” She stands from the desk, and goes to the window overlooking the new garden graveyard.

This really wasn't working at all. 

“And as much as I hate everything you did, I couldn't let them kill another one of us.” Storm's eyes drift to the graves outside.

His eyes do not follow.

“Oh.” He says to himself. 

And that was it, the reason he was here. The government couldn't suppress his powers, so they had the X-Men take him away forever. 

And deep down, yeah he knew that was probably the case. But he hadn't wanted to think about it. About the fact that he's never leaving this place, that he's going to be stuck here the rest of his life, that he's probably definitely actually going to die in his room. 

At this rate, forever wasn't going to be that long. 

-

Recently Bobby’s started seeking him out. Staking out his room, waiting for him. Maybe Kitty blabbed. Maybe not. 

John's unrelatedly taken to hiding out in the library. 

It's actually not the worst place to be stuck in. At least there's something to do here. 

It's just reading, but still. It's something.

Better than kicking at the wall and pointlessly praying for anything at all to happen. 

He's taken to reading whatever book happens to catch his eyes, and today it's Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. He hasn't gotten too far into it, but he sure isn't bored anymore. 

Staring at his constant companion, his old lighter, he's reminded of when he first got the new firestarter, that flamethrower, and he painstakingly painted a replica of his shark faced one on the hands of it. It was his now, so he was going to make it his own. It was his now. 

They couldn't let him keep that one for obvious reasons. Doesn't mean he can't miss it. 

And damn does he miss it like a limb cut off. 

Speaking of limbs cut off… 

“The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. ” He reads from the book, in between passages envisioning a mad scientist distraught at his own creation, at how it had once been so beautiful before being given life, but now that it's alive and real it's so very ugly and wrong for existing. 

And fuck, if that's not poignant as hell, what is. 

So, he stays cooped up in a library no one goes into, till he finishes most of the book.

“Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!” 

But he then finds he doesn't like the ending. 

-

So, he reads the book again. This time with a more critical eye. 

“Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.”

He still doesn't like the ending.

“You still owe me a favor.” Kitty interrupts their typically quiet time on her balcony. 

“Huh? What for?” John laughs as he almost falls off the ledge of said balcony. 

“I let you use my balcony, you owe me. Something, I dunno.”

“And let me guess, you still haven't figured out what you want.”

“I'll figure it out later, we've got time.”

“Time. Plenty of time for that. For anything,” he muses, “gonna be here for I don't know, ever.”

“Yeah.”

“How come you never said anything about it.” he snaps. 

She shrugs, “You never asked, and I didn't think it would matter. Or change anything. I mean, you had to know your punishment couldn't just be cleaning and shit. You killed people.”

“But I didn't know to ask, I thought this was all temporary.” He waves his hand at the mansion.

“Well, everything is temporary.”

“That's stupid.”

“It's true.” she pointed out. 

“Still stupid.” he grumbles. 

-

“But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.”

He probably shouldn't be feeling this level of kinship with Frankenstein's monster, but. 

It's hard not to. 

-

“I've seen you with that book for the last few weeks, John, how are you enjoying Mary Shelley’s fine work of classic literature?”

“I'm not fucking talking with you about anything, Hank. You can't trick me again.”

“I'm merely asking a simple question.” Hank goads. 

“Not. Talking.” John then mimed zipping his mouth shut, tossing away the key.

“If you insist. I just think it could be interesting to discuss her work in, perhaps not a group setting, but at least between two scholars. We don't even have to talk about anything else if you don't want to. I don't want to force you into anything.” he amicably proposes. 

“That's rich,” John laughs, “I'm forced to be here, forced to talk to you anyways, forced to do all this other shit too. I don't have a fuckin choice in anything.”

“Hmm.” Hank hemmed. 

“I'd like to have control over one fucking thing in my life, is that to much to ask?” He spats out.

“No, I do think that's a reasonable and sane desire. To have control over oneself and one's life is a gift that I think many take for granted. I certainly do.” Hank relents.

“Ok. Great.” John leans back, content to not say another word about the book or anything at all.

“Right.” he nods.

“Well…” John bites his tongue.

“Uh huh.” Hank gives a knowing smirk. 

“Yeah…” he muttered, wanting that to be the end of it, except, “God, Frankenstein’s such a dick! I mean, come on man.” He blurts out.

Hank laughs.

His bi-weekly court mandated therapy sessions run from abhorrent to tolerable as they talk about books instead of himself.

-

“Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel on the ice raft which brought me thither and shall seek the most northern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness. Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death? 

Where indeed, John muses. 

-

“Remember when you broke your arm and you had to have that cast on it the whole summer? How annoying it was to shower with a plastic bag and your arm hanging out of the shower? Yeah, this is so much worse because it's my whole fucking leg.” John petitions to Kitty. 

“You owe me another favor.” She concedes with a roll of her eyes and phases the ankle monitor bracelet off once more.

“Oh, come on.” He whines. 

-

“It is well that you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend!

He very nearly throws the book out the window reading that. 

-

“You knew.” John has never been very good at confronting people in a calm and measured manner. He always goes in too hard, too fast, too mean. 

And this time is no different.

“What?” Bobby says to him, flailing, the first thing he's said to John in weeks. And it's much more of a yelp than anything, because John snuck up behind him and Bobby iced up just a bit.

“You knew that I was stuck here forever.” John really really wants to laugh, perhaps cruelly, at how funny that was. But he refrains for once. He's trying to be serious and more in control of himself. 

A small chuckle slips through the cracks.

It isn't working. 

“I mean, yeah. I thought you knew too… Right?” Bobby, still off his game, stumbles to say.

“Well, someone forgot to fucking tell me that.” John snaps. 

“Oh.” he exhales out a breath through perfect gritted teeth. 

“Yeah. Oh is right. Everyone just forgot to tell me this very important thing that's going to change my entire life! What the hell.”

“You never asked.” He shrugs at him.

And that, that, is what sets him off. 

You never asked. 

Storm said the same thing. And Kitty. And Bobby. Everyone said the same fucking thing. 

You never asked. 

“How the fuck am I supposed to know to ask about something I didn't know about, that no one old me about. I thought, my punishment was to be stuck here, I don't know for how long, but I didn't think it was for life. ”

“That's a long time.” Bobby remarks.

“Fuckin, yeah. It is. It's better than prison, I guess. But still.” he huffs. 

“So, if you're supposed to be in prison here, how come you aren't kept locked up in a cell?”

“Do you see any cells around here?” John gestures to the elaborate halls of the mansion. 

“No, but there's always the basement.” Bobby suggests.

“I don't know, and I'm not gonna press my luck that Storm won't put me underground and throw away the key.”

“It would solve all her problems.” And when Bobby says it, he feels all the disdain start to melt, the bite just isn't there anymore. He says it like it's almost a joke, just a little ribbing between friends. 

Like they're almost friends again.

“I don't wanna give her any new ideas,” John shakes his head, “She's got plenty.”

Bobby laughs, and fuck if this is what coming home feels like, he hasn't heard him laugh in a year or so.

And John smiles back, like it's easy again. Like they're back on his bed years ago after getting in trouble. 

“She still making you clean the mansion, top to bottom?” he teases.

“And dishes.” John nods. 

“Dishes! What did you do to piss her off?” Bobby exclaims in a fake outrage. 

John looks at him like really ? But…

“Got in a fight.” He chuckles. 

“Some fight.” Bobby says, looking at him, and everything is almost right in the world.

“Yeah. I think I lost.” he leans back, arms crossed behind his head.

“Well, if you won I don't think you'd be in as much trouble.” Bobby muses. 

And that, that makes him pause. He had never thought about what could happen after they won. It didn't seem possible. 

“If we won…I can't imagine what would have happened if we won. It was only a matter of time before we got caught. Stupid fucking plan.” He bites out. 

“Gotta agree with you there.” Bobby shrugs again. 

And it finally feels like old times. Like before everything went wrong. Before this whole mess, before John fucked up, before he left, before. 

Before, before, before. 

But.

The thing is, it's not like it was before. 

They can't just go back, pretend one of it ever happened. 

“I just…I don't get why you left. Everything was good.” Bobby says with his soft eyes and a sad smile, like it's easy. 

And. 

And the thing is, John knows he doesn't mean anything by it. He knows he means the best, that's just who Bobby always has been. He tried to see the best, and trying to see anything good in John has always been a recipe for disaster. Bobby never has wisened up to it, that there's nothing good in him, that he's never going to find it. 

That he's a lost cause. 

It's just like last time. It's never going to change. None of them. 

His entire life it's felt like he's been locked in a cage, and the first time he felt free was when he left. But then it turned out it was just another cage.

And another. 

And another.

There was no end. He'd never escape them. He was stuck. Like he always was. Like he always would be. 

He could never escape it. He can't force himself to push back his instinctual fear of the cage.

Of being trapped with people who hate him. 

It's been beaten down into him as long as he can remember. 

Like a shark, if you stay still, you die. 

He can't stay still. He can't.

He doesn't know how to be like all the other kids, unquestionably obedient, tentative listeners, good students, he doesn't know how to force himself into that. Those things seem unnatural to him. 

He can't stop himself from being defiant, and questioning, and conflictive. He doesn't know how to sand down his razor sharp edges to be softer. To be like the other kids. The good ones. 

The ones he isn't , he can't be.

He doesn't know how not to bite. 

He always bites. It's how he survived. 

John can't help but burn back. That's what happens when you get too close to a flame, what did you expect? 

Comfort and not pain? 

Try to cage a fire and you will have a cage no longer.

“But soon,” he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.”

Maybe that's why he didn't like how Frankenstein ended.

It felt a bit too familiar. 

-

Chapter Text

-

“You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice.”

-

He should have known better. 

Logan leaves. 

Something comes up and Logan does what he's good at, and leaves. He doesn't say when he'll be getting back. If he ever does come back. 

And John fumes a bit more. 

He doesn't know who he's more angry with, Logan or himself. 

He should have seen it coming. He should have. But it blindsided him. He never does see the obvious coming. He knows people leave (him), he knows it's inevitable, he knows. 

But it still catches him by surprise every fucking time.

He should have known better.

Storm is miffed, to say the least, and Hank is pretty unfazed, as though he's expected this for a while. 

Storm puts his community service on hold for now, saying that it's the least of her problems at the moment. There are more important things. 

She's got an entire school to grapple with, and losing teachers doesn't help. The older kids, the younger adults now, pitch in to help with classes. 

Which just means that John is even more bored now that he's got nothing to do and no one to talk to. And he's found out the hard way, boredom and John are never a good combination. 

Hank himself had slowly stopped coming around every day, till it was twice a week, till he was only around a month or so. Till he just stopped all together. 

The supposedly mandatory therapy sessions/book talks he was supposed to be having with Hank fell to the wayside in lieu of his UN ambassador duties. 

He said they'd have to work out a solution later, there were more important things. 

There were always more important things. 

Something big was brewing, but John wasn't kept in the loop. That was fine. He was mostly fine with that, as long as it didn't involve him, he didn't really care. 

Whatever.

Whatever.

What-fucking- ever.

He didn't care that Logan fucking left him. He didn't care that Hank was too busy to stop by the mansion anymore. He didn't care that Storm had so many other students to worry about, that he flew under the radar. He didn't care that everyone else had their own stuff going on, so no one bothered to check in on him. 

He didn't care, because he was doing fine actually. 

Totally fine. 

(Ignoring the fact that he's totally fucking stuck inside, because of course no one will volunteer to take him to his mandatory community service now . Storm keeps telling him they'll have to figure it out later, but they're also having to cover Logan's classes on top of covering Scott and Jean and the Professor's classes. 

So, later could really mean never. 

Ignoring the fact that both Bobby and Kitty, really the only two people he's had a conversation lasting longer than 5 minutes with since he came here, are busy . They're all suddenly trying to cover teaching classes and going on covert missions to help find more mutants, doing what they're supposed to do, too busy to even talk to him anymore. Because Logan fucking left them high and dry again. 

Ignoring the fact that he feels like he's losing his mind. He pretty much has not left his room in weeks at this point, not talked to anyone in even longer, not been sleeping, not been eating well, not been doing a single thing other than reading and writing a little bit incoherently.)

Everyone else is busy. There are more important things. 

He definitely doesn't feel like he's spiraling out of control. 

So, pretty much they're fucked. 

Or maybe it's just him that is. 

Fuck.

-

He gets his hands on a composition notebook, one of those black and white ones, a classic school notebook. And in a stupid attempt to not be bored, he starts jotting things down. 

At first, it's just anecdotes of shit, things that piss him off, or lists, things to remember, anything. Eventually it turns into more coherent thoughts, then other things. Then vague ideas for stories. 

Then real ideas for stories.

Then he's got pages and pages and pages. 

Then he fills up the book.

And he gets another one. 

-

It's been a few more months of fucking nothing. But at least Bobby is sort of talking to him again so, not everything's terrible. 

Yeah, maybe he'll be stuck inside this fucking house for the rest of his life, maybe he's bored out of his mind every single day, maybe his entire life is utterly pointless now, maybe he is definitely going to die in his room, but at least he's got Bobby and Kitty, to a certain extent.

At least he's not alone. 

Sure, they don't get to talk or hang out as much, but at least they're around when they have time. At least there's that. 

At least they're still here. 

If he doesn't have a meal, at least he's got fucking crumbs. 

Then his carefully just barely stabilized incredibly fucking fragile life gets turned upside down and inside out all over again. 

Shattered to fucking pieces. 

“Bobby sure seems happy about it, huh.” Kitty sidles up to him one day, scaring him a bit by appearing through the kitchen wall right in front of him. 

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he yelps, “Can you stop doing that.”

“No, it's pretty funny.” She phases the rest of the way through the wall and goes to sit on the counter next to him.

“Bobby’s happy about what?” He adjusts the temperature dials on the toaster to be in the low middle. His toast keeps getting burnt, stupid old toaster.

Technically, he isn't even supposed to be in the kitchen unsupervised, gas range stove and all, potential for him to cause fires ect, ect, but he was starving and everyone else was in classes, so. 

He glances out the window. So. Everyone else was asleep. 

And he's just getting toast. 

“You haven't heard?” Kitty lightly kicks her bunny slippers against the cabinet door. 

“Heard what?” He grabs peanut butter and a plate from a cabinet, juggling them to get jelly from the fridge. Maybe a PB and J actually.

“Rogue. She came back.” She says like that doesn't absolutely ruin everything he's had going on.

His hand involuntarily twitches and he drops the plate (and the peanut butter). It instantly shatters against the tile (the plastic peanut butter jar bounces harmlessly). 

“Fuck.” His hand twitches again and it takes everything in him to clench his fists and keep his hands out of his pockets where he knows his lighter is.

He's trying.

Kitty gives him a very knowing stare. 

“What the fuck? Why'd she even come back? What the fuck is she doing back here?” He seethes, staring at the mess all over the tile. Fuck, now he's got to clean that up too. Fuck. Fuck. 

Fuck. 

Fuck.

“Her powers started to come back. She had nowhere else to go,” she tilts her head like that's supposed to mean something, “that, and Bobby.”

“Fucking Rogue of course.” He hisses, kneeling down to pick up the peanut butter and scoop up some of the larger ceramic pieces to the trash. And trying and failing to pick up the little pieces because his hands won't stay fucking still .

“I'm pretty sure he isn't doing that,” Kitty snides, sticking her entire hand through the peanut butter jar and taking a lump of peanut butter out, and starting to eat it, “fucking her I mean.”

Bizarre.

And gross.

“Yeah, we all know that's what you want to do.” He gives a mean laugh. Squinting at the shiny floor for more of the fragments, he's realizing he probably needs to get a broom.

“Hey! Fuck you, asshole.” She punches him down in the arm. For such a small girl, it really fucking hurts. Also, now he's definitely got peanut butter on his shirt.

“I'm pretty sure you don't want that.” Viscously, his laugh crackles alite as he falls over, cutting his hands on the little broken shards of plate scattered. 

His hands won't stop shaking. 

“I know exactly what you want.” She bites back at John, the impact of her words a little buffeted by the fact she has a mouth full of peanut butter she's currently licking from her hands. And now it's all over the hem of her long-sleeved sweater.

“You don't know shit.” He bites ineffectively back. He's too rattled by, well, everything to have a properly cruel response. 

He's on the floor bleeding a little bit and his shirt has peanut butter on it. He's not really doing too hot. 

Haha. Hot. 

“No, I do know. We're in the same boat, motherfucker.” Kitty then flicked the rest of the peanut butter off her hands. 

Right into his face. 

Her powers just let her do that. 

Ok.

Fine.

“Eh, I never stole another girl's boyfriend, so no, I don't think we are.” He gets right up to her eye level. 

There we go, that's a better response. His head is back in the game. Fucking gross peanut butter all over his whole face and all.

“Well, at least I've never fucked my best friend, you know platonically. Multiple times. That you still have a fucking stupid crush on!” Kitty says, viscously stomping all over the words he clings to. 

“I told you that in secret!” He hisses.

“And I told you my shit in secret. You know it wasn't like that .”

Ah. Head right back out of the game.

“Look, I told you. We-we didn't fuck, that's just hands and stuff, it doesn't really even count, ok.” He loudly insists, looking away from her now.

“Do you even hear yourself right now? Yes, it fucking counts. You're so pathetically stupid, I'm baffled you've survived this long without anyone putting you out of your goddamn misery.” She throws the half empty peanut butter jar at him. 

“Hey, I may be stupid, but I'm not a catty two timing bitch that's an alcoholic at 17! Yeah, you're not fucking subtle, I've seen the bottles. You can't use Logan as your cover anymore.” He spats out, all cruel and brutal truths. Tossing the jar to the side, he slowly opens the jelly.

“Fuck off Aller- dick .” Kitty smirks at her own…pun is too generous. But it's not really a joke either. 

And he scoops out a lump of jelly and throws it in her hair.

Kitty's eyes go wide as she hasn't had the chance to phase through the attack. She shakes her head in an attempt to phase the jelly off but it is thoroughly stuck.

“Never heard that one before.” He actually hadn't.

“You're just a repressed, neurotic basket case-” She states, phasing partway through the counter and grabbing something.

“I mean, you kind of are too-” he interrupted.

“And a dick that's fucking killed people on purpose!” Kitty snaps, as she snaps open up a jar of pickles over his head.

He sputters under the waves of vinegar and brine.  

“Legally, it was more so under duress.” He coughs out, soaked in pickle juice, peanut butter, and flecks of jelly. 

“We both know that ruling was bullshit.” She drops the jar, it shatters, joining the mess on the ground and she grabs something else. 

“So why the hell are you still here? If I'm so bad, then what are you doing here with me, what do you think that says about you?” He yelps out, slipping back and falling down, catching himself with his forearms and palms on the broken glass. Ouch. 

John looks around frantically for some other food to throw. And only finds the pickles on the floor with him.

He throws a few at her, as she phases through them easily. 

He's starting to think he may have made a big mistake.

“I don't even know anymore,” she sighs, emptying the loaf of bread on the floor next to him, “I don't fucking know, John.”

She sounds fucking exhausted. 

“You don't know?” He insists, hating himself for asking. Why can't he just shut the fuck up. 

“I don't have to do all this. I'm trying so fucking hard, I've been putting up with your shit for a while now, and half the time you're the least tolerable person, but out of everyone else, you just. God. You're such a fucking asshole, you know?” Kitty phases herself through the counter and on the wet gross floor next to him, kicking away glass with her plushy slippers.

“Yeah, I know. But so are you.” He pulls his knees up to his chest.

“I'm not as bad as you.” She shakes her head.

Looking at the war zone around them, he thinks he disagrees. 

“So, why are you still here then? What do you get out of this, feeling like less of a mess in comparison? Hero complex? Trying to fix me? What is it?”

“I'm trying to be nice to you, dick.” She growls.

He laughs at that, “You? Nice?”

“I've been trying to be your friend . But you're so fucked up, you can't just accept it, you need to think I'm trying to get something out of it. Well, trust me, I'm not getting anything from this.”

“You gotta get something from it, come on.” John goads.

“I wish I did.”

“Nah. I think you're like Bobby, you totally get off to seeing other people do worse than you, so you keep them around so when they inevitably fuck up you can say ‘I told you so’ and get to feel all superior as you make me feel like shit for existing.” He ripped into her. 

“You couldn't be more off.” She laughs that dull non-laugh of hers. 

“Everyones just trying to get something out of everyone else. It's the way the world works. You either get fucked over or you fuck others over first.” He laughs his own odd laugh next to hers. 

“I'd love to know what goes on in your fucked up brain to make you think things like that, but I don't have the time or patience for it to deal with you right now.”

“No one ever does.” John childishly grumbles. 

“Look, I've got classes in the morning, can we just do this later?” Kitty tiredly says.

“Sure, let's schedule it say five months from now. You think you'll be available then, or should we push it back a couple years from now?” the sarcasm bleeds from him before he can think to stop it, “Or will you even stick around this shithole that long, the rate people fuck off around here has gone up a bit. Think you'll be next or you'll end up like the others and die a pointless death-”

Kitty cuts off his tirade with a punch to the mouth.

“Fuck!” He yelps. 

“Fuck off John. I keep on trying, but clearly you're a lost cause.” She gets up off the floor and walks away.

He's stunned into silence for the first time in a while. 

Damn. 

“Good fucking luck with the rest of your short shitty life, you'll fucking need it because no one is going to put up with your bullshit for that long. Bobby sure as hell didn't.” Kitty slams the door behind her. 

Well. Fuck. 

He's never seen her use a door before. 

Maybe he definitely went too far.

He wishes Rogue never fucking came back. 

But really, he wishes he never came back. 

-

Just a couple years ago, it was late at night and all of them were up having an impromptu sleepover in one of the living rooms. 

“No, I don't wanna say.” Kitty mumbled through her hands covering up her face.

“Come on Kitty, everyone else did it!” Rogue pestered.

“Yeah, spill it.” Piotr joined in. 

“Well, I haven't. Had my first kiss yet.” She looked like she wanted to disappear into the ground. And knowing her, she actually could.

“Oh, that's not so bad. I haven't had mine yet either.” Bobby said, to comfort her. 

“Honestly, it's not all it's cracked up to be.” Rogue said with a grimace at Bobby. 

All in all, it was a mostly forgettable moment. But John was still stuck on one thing. 

“What did you mean, you haven't had your first kiss?” John cornered Bobby later.

“I haven't.” Bobby said it like that was supposed to make sense. 

“What about…” He gestured to, well everything.

“Oh. Well...it doesn't count.” Bobby shrugged.

“It doesn't count.” John blankly repeated.

It doesn't count. 

“Not really,” he said and his nose scrunched all up like he smelt something rotten, “it didn't mean anything. It's not like we're together. ”

“Oh.” and John felt something inside him snap as he laughed, “Ok. Yeah.”

-

John is still sitting on the floor, surrounded and stunned by the aftermath of his and Kitty's fight, when Bobby stumbles in. 

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he says, “I heard some things break, is everything ok?”

Then he gets a good look at the disaster zone. Food and broken glass, all over the floor and John in the middle.

“Oh shit. Uhh, want a hand?” Bobby offers.

“Uh. Sure.” He blinks into awareness and takes his hand as Bobby pulls him up.

John is shaken from his former stunned state by coming into a new stunned state at the sight of a mostly naked boxer-clad Bobby in front of him.

Well, someone sure got ripped. 

“Are you ok?” Bobby frowns, looking at the little specks of blood intertwined between their hands.

“Yeah, just a flesh wound.” John softly chuckles.

“So…what happened? I thought I heard Kitty and you but…” Bobby is still holding his hand.

“But what.” And John just can't bring himself to pull (or look) away. 

“I heard the door slam. What the hell happened here?”

John shrugs, “Doesn't matter.”

“Well, I mean it kind of does.” He gestures with one hand to the mess. 

“Drop it Drake.” He hisses. His hand twitches to escape.  

“Why should I?” Bobby insists, holding his arm as he pulls away.

Then he sees her, pale as a ghost, in a flowing nightgown and permanent frown. 

Rogue. 

John wrenches himself from Bobby's icy grasp and flees like he always does, “ That's why.”

-

A few times before Rogue had showed up, John and Bobby would occasionally smoke weed together, usually on the floor of their room. 

Bobby was absolutely tragically bad at it. Coughing and choking on every attempt. 

And John could not stop laughing. 

“How are you so bad at this?” He said through his wheezing. 

“Not everyone's a natural ok!” Bobby sputters in his defense.

“There's nothing natural about what you're doing, you're holding it like it'll bite you!” John took back the joint that Bobby was holding out like it's a terrifying bug. 

“It won't but you sure will,” he grumbled, holding up his hand with the pale scar on it, “asshole.”

“Damn right.” John flicked the joint in the impromptu ashtray, an old Beastie Boys CD case, CD missing since long before John had even been here. 

“I'll never get this.” Bobby put his head in his hands and lamented next to him.

“Fine, today imma teach you the easy way,” John said, “shotgunning.”

Bobby looked at him as though he'd gone insane, “What?”

John waved away his concern, “C'mere I'll just show you.”

He takes a long drag, placing the joint in the CD case and holding his breath in, leaning in towards Bobby.

Eyes locked, he lines up their noses, lips inches away almost touching. 

Bobby breath catches in his throat. 

“What if someone sees?” Bobby looked nervously around at the open windows.

John shrugged, moving forward an inch. 

It's kind of hard to hold it in for this long. 

Lips ghosting over each other, just barely touching, and Bobby flinched back. 

“Give me a sec.” Bobby muttered as he scrambled back and closed the blinds, keeping the windows open for some sort of ventilation.

John thought, oh this is what suffocating must feel like. 

After a long, torturous moment Bobby came back, sat down stiff straight in front of him, and took a few deep breaths. 

Somewhere in him, John felt the familiar pang of jealousy. 

“Ok, I'm ready now.” Bobby said eyes squeezed shut and lips pursed.

John grabbed his collar and pulled them together, down to the same level, awkwardly sitting across from one another and leaning so far forward they're about to topple over. 

And their lips met. John pushed all the smoke in his lungs and cheeks into Bobby's mouth. Wet and sloppy and tasting absolutely vile, John tilted his head again and they went from shotgunning to an open mouth makeout session. 

They end up laying on the floor, Bobby on top of him.

“How's that supposed to be the easy way?” Bobby said after they pulled away to breathe again.

John shrugged, “It worked didn't it.”

“I dunno,” Bobby conspiratorially said, “maybe we should try again. You know, see for sure.”

“Ok,” John chuckled, “just one more experiment.”

It never was just one more. 

-

Sitting on top of the toilet, locked in one of the downstairs bathrooms, John has a half empty first aid kit he found in the cabinet open in his lap. 

He's attempting to pick the glass and ceramic out of his hands with the world's most ineffective tweezers. 

Fucking Kitty.

Fucking Bobby. 

Fucking Rogue. 

God. 

His hands go from a shaking, somewhat bloody mess, to much worse after his numerous failed attempts to dig the stubborn glass out. 

Throwing the tweezers to the ground, he leans his head hard back into the wall with a hollow thud.  

This isn't fucking working. 

Nothing is. 

Deciding to just deal with it all later, he takes a quick shower to get all the food and shit off himself (making sure to keep the ankle monitor outside, as he doesn't think Kitty would appreciate him asking for help at the moment). 

And he still has the whole kitchen to clean up. 

Fuck. 

And his clothes are still covered in food. 

Fuck. 

He did not think this all the way through. 

He never really does. 

He securely ties a towel around his waist, dirtied clothes in hand and books it to his room. It's sometime well past midnight, so everyone should be sleeping. He just has to get up to his room, get changed, get downstairs, clean the kitchen, and get back upstairs in a couple hours and that's it. 

Easy peasy. 

John opens his door to find a still just boxer-clad Bobby sitting on his bed, twiddling his thumbs. 

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” He closes the door and moves to the dresser, digging till he finds something passing as pajamas. 

“I…” he chews at his lip, “I wanted to make sure you're alright.”

John snorts, “Like you care.”

“I do.” Bobby insists with a tight frown. 

“I dunno. The last few weeks begs to differ. Hell, the last couple of months or years maybe. When did you ever start to fuckin care about me?” He throws the dirty clothes on the floor. He'll deal with it later. 

“I do. I always have.” Bobby says so earnestly it hurts. 

John laughs hard at that. 

“I'm not so sure that's been the case, Bobby.” He shakes his head.

“John, if you'd just let me-” Bobby reaches out.

“Let you what, fucking leave me out to dry? Let you forget about everything we did… Let you go? Because trust me, I've been trying to. Really.” He pulls back. 

“I…” Bobby presses his eyes into his knees and looks lost. He looks like he did that shit show of a day when his parents found out he was a mutant. 

He looks like he's trying his hardest not to cry.

“What the hell are you doing here Bobby.” The fight drains from him in an instant.

“Marie is using my room. Because you're in her old room.” 

“So why aren't you in there with her then?”

“She wants her own space,” Bobby looks at him quizzically, “why would I be there?”

“Aren't you her little boyfriend?”

“I…oh my god…Did I never tell you that we broke up?” He groans as he puts his head in his hands.

“What? No, you didn't.” This was news to John.

“Yeah. After she came back from getting the cure, we talked, and she left again. And that was it.” He leans back, lying eagle spread onto the bed. Still just in his boxers. 

“I thought…” He doesn't know what he thought. 

That she left yeah, but not that they broke up. He doesn't know where his head has been. Mostly, he's been trying his hardest not to think about her or he'll explode. It's not her fault Bobby's been as dickish as he has been in the past, but her arrival hadn't helped matters any. Even as much as they'd mess around, Bobby insisted it didn't matter, it didn't mean anything, they weren't together. Even as he'd wish he could do the things they've done together with her instead. And it sucked.

That really fucking sucked.

“Thought what?” Bobby asks.

“Oh, uh nothing.” He lies.

“So, we're good?” He sits up and asks, all hopeful and shit.

“I mean…” they weren't, not really but, “yeah, it's fine.” John sighs. 

“Ok, great. Because I'd like to get to sleep at some point before morning classes start.” He snatched the whole comforter and bundled up on one side of the bed.

“Oh shit I still have to clean the kitchen.” John groans. 

“No, no I'm asleep I can't hear you, good night.” Bobby closes his eyes and feigns sleep.

“At last put some pants on Jesus Christ.” John throws some sweatpants at Bobby's head, as he finally gets dressed himself. 

“It gets too hot.” Bobby whines.

“My God. I'm going to fucking kill you.” He puts on some Xavier's school for the gifted t-shirt and pants. He needed a new wardrobe stat.

He was sick of being branded.  

“Um…maybe wash them first.” Bobby throws the pants back to him.

“What?” He catches them and then he sees it. The fucking blood from his hands was still staining everything he touches. He forgot to bandage them up. 

Fuck.

“Shit. Lemme just…I” He tossed them aside and held his hands tightly together, so as not to touch anything else. 

He hadn't even noticed it. 

“You've made it worse, haven't you?” Bobby sighs, unrolling himself and getting up from the bed, going to him, “I should have known. You never do leave well enough alone.”

“I was just trying to get all the glass out.” John grumbles. He doesn't want to pull away, but he can't help his flinch back when Bobby grabs his hands. 

But Bobby just turns them over and examines the tiny glass embedded cuts. 

From this angle, the light hitting the glass making it shine and glisten like glitter, the blood casting interesting colored shadows on his marred skin, and Bobby's cold hands holding his, he could say it was almost beautiful. 

Almost.

“It looks like most of the bleeding is still coming from the forearms and wrists, the bits in your hands weren't too bad, but all your digging just buried them deeper. So, it was just a flesh wound till you got in there.” Bobby softly poked at his palms, running his fingers across his scrawny wrists and up to his elbows.

He was being held so gently. 

It hurt. 

“Um,” John gulps, very aware of just how close they were, “yep.”

“Ugh, you're lucky I'm not on the morning schedule tomorrow.” And Bobby is still holding his hand. Gently. And pulls him along out of his room.

“Uh…where are we going?” He just can't pull away.

Bobby's face twists up, like he hasn't thought about that till just now. 

“Infirmary? Yeah, there's like doctor stuff in there.” He nods to himself.

“Oh. Ok.” 

And they head down to the basement, hand in hand. 

John lets Bobby play doctor, or rather terribly inefficient nurse, as he patches his arms up.

Gently cleaning out his scrapes of glass and debris, then lathering on some ointment over them, and finally bandaging them up. 

“You're not as bad at that as you used to be.” John jokes. Bobby used to be horrible at first aid. 

“Eh, I've had some practice.” He looks away from John. 

Oh.

“Ok, now I can go to sleep.” Bobby yawns when they get back to the ground level.

“Yep.” John stops at the kitchen and sighs. All this shit to clean still. 

“No… I forgot,” Bobby groans, “let's just leave it till morning, come on.” He pulls John's bandage wrapped hands.

“It already is morning.” John points out, looking at the glaring rising sun. He stays in place amidst all of Bobby's pulling.

“When did you go and get all…responsible and shit?” Bobby lets go.

“Ororo'll have my ass if I don't,” John complains as he grabs a broom and mop and gets to work, “what's it to ya?”

“No, nothing. It's just, it's nice, you know.” Bobby defensively says.

“Right. Not like I've got a choice in any of this.” He huffs, taking the mop and pushes around the glass ridden, pickle juice covered, peanut butter and jelly splattered, soggy breaded mess on the floor. 

The smell alone was horrendous. If he left it any longer, it would only get worse. 

“Yeah.” Bobby yawns, slumping over the counter. 

“You don't have to stay.” His eyes snap over to the movement. 

“Well, uh, technically you're not allowed in the kitchen alone. So…maybe I should stay.” Bobby says like he's trying to convince himself. 

“Well, if that's the case, you can hand me a bucket? Supply closet by the door.” He continues to amass everything into one disgusting pile to toss, then he'll clean it with soap and water. That should be good for now. 

“Fine.” Bobby grumbles and does as he's asked. 

John gets the mess in a trash bag and rinses out the mop in the sink. 

Then he gets some soap and water in the bucket and mops up the rest. 

“There. That's good enough for now.”

“Now can we go to sleep.”

“You could have left any time”

“No, I had to stay.”

“Ok.”

They get back to his room, Bobby still doesn't put pants on, John decides this isn't his problem. 

Bobby flops down on the entire bed and immediately falls asleep. 

John pushes Bobby's gangly limbs away, and tries to get comfortable.

He can't. 

He hasn't been able to do a while.

He can't sleep. Bobby's next to him, taking the entire comforter, quietly snoring away. But John can't seem to sleep. He's still replaying his and Kitty's fight in his head. 

He fucked up. 

Fuck. 

-

“Oh, it is not thus—not thus,” interrupted the being. “Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory .”

-

Chapter Text

Lighter flicks on.

John is a live wire. A ticking bomb. A lit cigarette next to a full oil drum. 

And off.

In other words, he's fucking on edge. 

On.

Everything's too sharp, everything he says cuts deep, everything around him is livid and hungry. His skin is prickling and in constant goosebumps. 

Off.

Any moment now, and he is going to explode and take down everyone with him. 

On.

The urge to burn everything down, ruin his own life, do something terrible you can't take back is so strong it's palpable.

Off.

Bobby appears mid sentence in the doorway of his room. 

“-me and Rogue are going out for Chinese inna bit, if you wanna come-” Bobby says like he's underwater, all muffled and bubbles. 

Lighter flicks on, and he stares at the dull little flame the spark emmits. He urges it to stay, be there, even as tiny and near invisible as it is. 

“Third wheeling with you and Freak girlfriend central sounds like hell, so I'll pass.” John hadn't noticed him there till now. Lighter flicks off. He wasn't sure how long Bobby had been standing there talking, but it seems like a while. 

He wasn't so sure of anything. It's taking everything in himself not to implode in a thousand pieces.

Lighter flicks on.

“She's not my girlfriend.” He enters the room and stands over John who is apparently sitting on the floor. He wasn't too sure how he got there either. 

“Oh right, that's Kitty.” John amended. He's just goading Bobby now. He doesn't know when to fucking quit. Lighter flicks off.

“I don't have a girlfriend.” Bobby insists with an annoyed frown and that little scrunch by his eyebrows that say John is about to be decked if he doesn't shut up. 

“Ok fine, two girlfriends.” John concedes. He wasn't even trying to be subtle. Shut the fuck up. 

Lighter flicks on.

“God John, are you really going to be like this all the time now?” Bobby's scowl dropped. He sounded so tired of him. That's two of them. 

But that's not the fighting words he needs. Bobby's still playing too nice. 

“Actually, it's Saint John,” He bites, lighter flicks off, “stupid I know.”

“You really aren't going to come?” Bobby pouts. 

Lighter flicks on.

“I will if you ask nicely.” John lewdly says looking up at him with a smirk, hooking his legs around Bobby's and pulling .

Maybe he doesn't need fighting words.

Bobby blushes so easily. 

“I…” he gulps, crumbling on top of John.

“We'll be quick, well you will be.” But he's still going to try the fighting words.

“Hey-” Bobby's outrage at that insult was covered with a sloppy messy kiss.

Bobby pulls back and pins him hard to the floor, all that strength and muscle from Alcatraz present in a soft sweater. 

John feels his breath, sense, and lighter get knocked right out of him. 

Although, what sense?

John chokes out a laugh. 

“You know, I've always loved your laugh.” Bobby murmurs in his neck, biting down hard, then cooling it with his freezing breath. 

And God if he doesn't feel the most alive he has in months.

“I missed you the whole time,” The truth spills from John's lips unprompted, “I tried to hate you, I did for a while. But it's really fucking hard.”

“Me too.” Bobby mumbles against his neck.

John laughs at the incidental innuendo.

They both ignore the lit lighter burning away the scenery in the background.

He pulls Bobby's head into a rough kiss, all lips and teeth hurting and clacking against each other. 

The flames grow behind them, hungrily consuming everything.

“I'm so glad you're home now.” Bobby softly says over him as they break apart. 

Home.

And that stops him cold in his frenzy. Colder than Bobby's powers ever would.

The fire rises.

This place isn't home these people are not your friends they will not keep you safe no where is there is no such thing as home there is no such thing as safe get real and wake the fuck up John.  

This isn't home it's a fucking prison.

The fire consumes them both. Bobby still looks at him with those same soft eyes.

“Yeah, me too.” John lies instead. 

And then he wakes up. 

He wishes he never did at all.

*~*

There's a sharp silence as he leaves the dream. Or nightmare. Whichever it was, he didn't much care for it. 

The stupid boner that dream had given him at first is completely overshadowed by the impending terror that hits him like a ton of bricks. 

He comes to in the dark empty room with his breath caught in his throat. It's a frustratingly familiar feeling. The deep well of anxiety he usually pushes and shoves and forces down into condensed anger rises too fast for him to do anything about it. 

It's too late. 

All he can do is close his eyes tight and wait for it to pass. The one good thing about the overwhelming lack of anything getting through his choked up throat, is the lack of sound he makes. He was used to keeping this quiet. And still. He kept himself as close lipped and tightly drawn in as he could. 

He couldn't risk waking Bobby up. 

He didn't want anyone to see him like this. So pathetic, weird, and useless, and weak, and crying like a little girl, and pointless. He didn't want anyone to see him like this, like he really was. An absolute mess masquerading as something slightly less of a mess. 

This is normal, he told himself, this is how everyone feels all the time. This is fine. Everyone else is just better at keeping it under wraps. It's just what happens after bad dreams or regular dreams or screwing up or doing nothing or whatever. The shakiness and exhaustion and endless fear and everything overwhelming him was a semi-regular, albeit unwelcome, occurrence. 

He didn't know how to be anything else. 

John had been like this since he was a kid, he's always hoped it would just go away on its own, that maybe he finally conquered his own fucked up head, but then it came raging back in full force and vengeful as ever. 

But it never did go away. It seems to have only gotten worse after Magneto. 

This annoyance was never going away. He'd be like this forever. 

Usually, it was easier when he had his powers readily available. He'd just flick his lighter continuously, and stare at the little fire. Sometimes, he'd have the flames grow and destroy something, sometimes turn them into art, sometimes burn at his palms.

But now, he couldn't do any of that. 

He was trapped. He can't even do his usual schtick of turning the fear into anger, there's no one around for him to turn it around on. There's Bobby but... 

He just got him back. He'd rather not.

It felt like hours and hours later (he couldn't really tell) until his body finally gave into the bone deep exhaustion eating at him. It couldn't sustain the incapacitated state any longer, so it just gave up. 

Bobby's snoring next to him breaks the detested echoing silence. 

John's limbs, all sore and cramping from being held together for so long, scream as he rolls over, Bobby snoring next to him. Bobby had discarded the blanket off the side of the bed at some point in the night. He was starfished out all over, while John had curled into his customary tight ball, as far away as he could get on the tiny twin sized mattress. 

He knows he shouldn't get any closer. 

He shouldn't. 

He does anyways. 

John floppily tugs the sheet over them both and curls up in the little bits of space Bobby left. He tries to contort himself in a shape that will fit in the nooks and crannies without touching Bobby. But it's impossible. The bed is just too small for two. 

So, he gives in and places his cheek on Bobby's cool chest, the rest of his body pressed up against his side. If he didn't know any better, he'd say he was as cold as the dead. But it felt nice. John was more acclimated to the heat, and Bobby to the cold. It's just how they've always been. 

Bobby instinctively wraps an arm around John and holds him close. He sleepily mumbles some nonsense into John's greasy hair. 

Then, with John still in his hold, Bobby rolls over into him and starfishes over him. It's almost like being covered in a cool weighted blanket, if that blanket was a 170 pound sleep-clingy former mostly naked best friend. 

And there's that fucking boner again. 

Great. This is exactly why he didn't want to share a bed. 

And John does what he should have fucking done in the first place, and shoves the dead asleep weight of Bobby off of him and onto the floor. Bobby wakes up with a groggy start, kicking and punching the empty air, before squinting up at John.

“Wha happen?” He mumbles, rubbing at his head as he slumps the front half of his body on the bed.

“I…” John freezes up, immediately regretting his haste actions and runs from the room.

Of course he ran again. Of fucking course. 

What else is he good for. 

*~*

Bobby doesn't get why John has suddenly been avoiding him for the past few days. And John isn't saying shit about his little dream and subsequent freak out to anyone. 

That's the best thing about no more telepaths being around, he can have secrets again.

Of course, everyone being as busy as they are don't notice. Even though they're sharing a room again, Bobby still didn't really start to notice he was keeping a distance till about a week had gone by.

He won't get close to him. Not again. 

He can't.

He refused to examine the reasons why. It didn't matter, none of that had mattered. Bobby had made that very clear in the past. 

But…the feelings from that dream lingers like a particularly persistent burnt smell. 

He still feels that urge to ruin writhing under his skin. He still feels the same way he always has about Bobby, fucking complicated . He still feels trapped in the place he has never been able to call home . 

Most of all, he feels like shit. 

In the past, that slurry of feelings would culminate in him burning shit in a rage, or getting his face busted in a stupid fight he can't win, or pulling some equally idiotic stunt. 

Like running off again. 

Now he can't do any of those things. Well, he's proved by now he can still make bad decisions. He already has gotten his face punched by Kitty. He can't burn shit though. And running…he doesn't know where he'd go. If he was given the chance, he can't say for sure he wouldn't just go for it. It always seems like the easiest way out. Even when it isn't. 

But avoiding everyone is like running away emotionally. Kinda.

Luckily, his now nocturnal schedule has made it so he doesn't see much of anyone anymore. John insists to himself this is a good thing and what he wants. He hasn't seen Rogue once in the week she's been here. It's been a little trickier actively avoiding Bobby, what with them now sharing a fucking bed and all . But lucky for him Bobby's always been a heavy sleeper, so he doesn't usually notice John sneaking in at all odd hours of the night.

And the one person has been trying not to avoid, he hasn't seen. 

He knows he's bad at it, but for once in his life, he feels the need to apologize to Kitty. He said some fucked up shit, and she, rightfully, punched him in the face for it. 

But every time he happens to find Kitty to try and apologize, she up and vanishes through the wall, or floor, or one memorable time right through Pitor. So, he figured he'll give her some time and space. 

He still wants to show her that he's trying, so he writes a letter and slips it under her door. 

“I'm sorry and I owe you three to four favors now (or however many you want).”

He doesn't expect anything from it, he always has been a little too good at burning bridges. 

Before, he wouldn't have even recognized that he should apologize, so at least he's doing better in that regard. 

He's trying.  

-

Instead of doing his usual cleaning duties, he's been locking himself into the library to edit his notebooks on the computer. Rewriting all the more coherent nonsense into the semblance of a story. It starts off as some thing about some kids growing up in a fucked up world, and it ends with all of them fucking dead. And he just doesn't know the middle bits, the hows of it all. That's the part he's all stuck on. 

He's biting the skin off his lips, deep in thought.  

Maybe he should take a break. And do what though? 

Walk around? He can't go outside and he's avoiding everyone.

Make food? Look at how that went last time.

No. John starts pacing around the room, circle after circle. Each more frantic and erratic than the last. 

He just needs to turn his stupid brain off for one fucking second so he can think. 

God, what the hell is he even doing here. 

He stops in the center of the room. Really, really, what is he even doing here. 

-

Chapter Text

It's nothing that really causes it. One day he gets to his limit. And that's it. 

John is lying on the floor of the library and wonders how in the world he got to where he is now. It's some point in the middle of the day, maybe. And he feels a sharp buzzing under his skin. He knows what this means. And all his attempts to distract himself, to contain it, to keep it at bay have all failed one by one. 

This prison has never been home. Nowhere has been ever since he was 8 years old and waiting for his mom to come back and she never did. She never would. 

Since he had been stuck in hell with a vengeful stepdad who didn't want him. Since he finally got fed up with John and nearly killed him. Since John snatched his lighter and let loose all those things that had built up in him, in a raging inferno. Since the place he grew up in was a pile of ashes. 

Nowhere has been home. 

He ran. From the fire he made, from the mess he caused, from the life he had once had. 

He ran. With just a lighter in hand and nowhere to go. 

He ran. Because it's all he ever could do. It's all he knew how to do. 

John ends up running around with some other street kids states away, they steal shit and try to get by without getting arrested or CPS involved, but then they get caught. Picked off one by one and sent to juvie or foster homes. He was with a couple other kids when they got caught, and he stupidly used his powers to try and get away, and when he looked back to them, they screamed and ran from him. He got caught but they didn't. They left. They were scared. Good. They should be. 

That got him a little stint in juvie, for burning down an abandoned building, and a couple others. Accidentally. But he says he did it on purpose. And juvie wasn't so bad. It was tough, but it was three square meals a day and a roof over his head, more than he'd had in a while. He was around 10 or 11 now. He'd stopped counting at some point.  

Obviously they didn't let him keep the lighter. But it really was fine. It sucked that he was stuck there, but after a couple months he got his lighter back and was gone. 

He was supposed to be going to his first foster home, but snuck away from the social worker at the gas station bathroom and booked it. 

He spent a few months on his own, spending a lot of time reading books in libraries during the day and picking pockets at night. That is until he picked the wrong pocket and found himself right back in juvie. 

His second foster family was…nice. The couple were kind to him. He didn't know what game they were playing at. It freaked him out. Just how nice they seemed to be. They had one other foster kid, an older high school girl that got caught shoplifting. They said they had been rehabilitating ‘bad’ foster kids for years. They had weekly game nights. And made dinner together. And showed up for the kids events at school. 

He had been a little scared that he had fallen behind in school, having not been in school for a while now, but apparently all his reading had paid off. Because he was in the higher level gifted classes, for English and literature. It was way more work, and he hated all his uppity classmates and snooty teachers, and the assignments were total bullshit, but he was good at it. He had gotten really good at it. 

What he hadn't gotten good at, was controlling himself. His temper was still wild and unpredictable. It took everything he had not to snap. And most of the time did. At his teachers, classmates, foster family, everyone. They had all wanted him to open himself up. 

He hadn't wanted to do that. 

He was standoffish and aggressive and rude for a reason.

He couldn't be like them, good and nice and kind and trusting and oblivious and ignorant and stupid. 

He couldn't do it anymore. 

Once he went too far and gave the foster sister second degree burns through, they didn't want him back. 

Good.

And then they put a note in his file that he was a mutant, but not what type. Because he refused to tell them anything. 

He got stuck back in juvie for assault, and arson. Again. 

After that he was sent to another foster home and this time they knew better than to let him run. He met the foster parents, who were just in it for the childcare money, if all 6 of the hungry foster kids were anything to go by. By week 3 he's had enough and sets fire to the house. 

He ran again. And he kept on running, never looking back till he was far away. 

John gets stuck with a street gang next. He shows off his powers with them, and they like it. They rob some places, set fire to shit like cars and buildings, and run rampant all around. 

It doesn't last very long. They get too big and blow up some important government buildings.

They catch him before he has the chance to run again.

They finally got smart.

Then he was sent to an ‘alternative correctional facility’ in the middle of nowheres. That was worse. With his record already tarnished and stained, no good family had wanted him, and he ran from all the bad ones, and clearly juvie wasn't sticking. So he got stuck with a halfway house somewhere till they could find someone to take him in. 

The house was for bad kids, problem children and delinquents. Sent here to fix them, get them in line, make them good for society and whatever.

It just fucked them all kind of up.

He'd much rather take juvie again. It was so much worse than that. Juvie was a breeze compared to that. They were controlling and obsessively watchful and suspicious and abusive of their power. 

It was like the Stanford prison experiment if it was 10 times worse and not an experiment. 

The kids there weren't allowed to talk. The ones who were promoted, had power to talk to each other, but if you were low ranking, you talked to no one. They got the smallest grossest portions at mealtimes. It was a pile of shit on the tables for them to all grab at, but if you were low on the food chain, you had to sit and wait till everyone else went before you could get crumbs.

And if they screw up at any point in the day they don't get food for the day. 

John screwed up a lot.

Corporal punishment was not just encouraged, but required. Everyone had a partner and if you or your partner fucked up someone would notice. Everyone was watching at all times. 

It was paralyzing. 

John could feel himself losing his mind every day he had been stuck there. He ran the first moment he could and found out the hard way that this wasn't going to be easy. 

Guards patrolling around the house and in the woods, people watching everywhere, and everyone was looking out for themselves. Snitching on others got you cred with staff, so everyone did it. You got punished if you didn't do what everyone did.

John found himself getting punished a lot. For his mouthiness, for his defiances, for his attitude, for every single little fucking thing.

He refused to play by their rules. He was stubborn. He wouldn't do it 

And they didn't like that. He spent a lot of his time there in trouble for something or other. 

He didn't like to just give in and fall in line. 

If you were always in trouble, you weren't allowed to go outside. At all. It was a privilege. So he had not been allowed to go outside pretty much all of the time had been there. 

The house was big, loud, and echoey. Everyone could hear every single thing. You never had any sort of privacy, with your buddy watching you at all times. 

The staff at the house placated parents by sending them prewritten letters from their kids, telling them everything was great and the program was working. 

It was working as intended. To keep bad kids in line. Well behaved. Quiet. 

It was maddening. 

He knew he couldn't show his hand at his powers early, or else. So he had to come up with a plan of escape. 

He was there for so long the months bled into each other before he finally got his chance. 

He got out by keeping his nearly empty lighter hidden in his socks and shoes. He had one shot at this. He started by strategically blowing up the gas burning stove in the kitchen to create one distraction for everyone in the house, and burning down half the forest around them for a second for everyone outside it, and hot wiring a car and blowing up all the other cars, so no one could follow. It was fool-fucking-proof. 

Of course, the only problem was he didn't know how to drive and crashed the car as soon as he hit the main road. 

Then the next thing he knew he was groggily waking up handcuffed to a bed in a hospital with a weird bald guy watching him.

That's where he met Professor X. 

At least he wasn't wasting away in that fuckin house any more. 

“Hello John. I hear you've been in trouble lately.” The bald man in the wheelchair smiles at him, like it's a little inside joke between the two of them. 

“What's it to you?” John snorts, eyes searching for the exit. If he can just find his lighter, burn off the cuff, then get out easy. No reason to panic. 

Just go.

“I have a proposal for you.” The guy says in a haughty British accent.

“Not interested.” He fumbled in his pocket for his lighter. Empty.

Shit. Now he starts panicking a bit more. 

“I think you will be when I tell you that you're not going back to that place, juvie, or foster care.”

That makes him pause.

“Ok, I'm listening.” He says suspiciously, eyeing him. It certainly sounds too good to be true. 

“My name is Professor Charles Xavier, and I run a school for the gifted in New York. I think you should enroll.” 

“You think I got money for a fancy private school? You're out of luck buddy. I'm not falling for your scam.” John laughs. The nerve of this fucking guy.

“I know it sounds too good to be true, but it's not. It's real. It's a safe haven for people like us.”

“People like us?” He slowly says. Now what could that mean…

“Mutants.” John hears inside his own fucking head. 

Ah. He's finally losing his mind. Took long enough. 

John starts laughing uncontrollably.

“I promise you are still as sane as you ever were. I was simply trying to show I am also a mutant . ”

“Ok, but what do you want with me?” John crosses his arms. 

“I believe you to have a strong mutant ability, and one we can mold into something more productive for society as a whole, for example, a firefighter, rather than a common thug. Dissolve fires before they're a threat with minimal property damage. Show the world that mutants are not a threat, but perhaps a good thing.” The speech the man spouts sounds rehearsed. 

John snorts, ok he gets it, “I'm not just going to be your fucking soapbox prop, so you can throw me away when you're done with me, ok?”

“You wouldn't, no of course not,” Xavier says in a calm level voice, giving nothing away, “we would provide you with room and board, food, schooling, training, and all the tools and resources you would need to succeed.”

“Yeah, I've heard all that before. Don't trust it. What happens when I get out of line? Cause problems? Don't keep my head down and comply with every little fuking thing?” 

“We don't have any problem students.”

“Really? I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, most of our students want to be there to do well and succeed. So, they have no reason to cause any problems.”

“What about those that do? What happens to them?”

“Those that do act out…we allow them to think about their actions and consider whether or not they still want to be a part of the Institute, and discipline them accordingly. If they decide it's not a good fit, they're free to leave.”

John snorts. Ah, there it is. 

“You can't just train everyone like a dog and put down those that don't serve your purpose anymore. When they get unmanageable and bite back.”

“Young man, listen here, I'm helping mutants-”

“You're not helping mutants, you're using them.”

Xavier clenches his hands tight against the arms of his chair. 

Right on the money, John thinks.

“If that is what I must do to secure our future in the world, then so be it.”

“At least you're being honest now.”

“And do you really want to go back to the foster homes where you don't fit in, the cold and lonely streets, get sent back to that house? Because this is your only option.”

His heart stops and his stomach drops. He doesn't want that. If he did…he's pretty sure he'd be there forever. They wouldn't let him get away with the same trick twice. 

“I'm not fucking going back.”

“Then come with me.”

“I still don't trust you.”

“How about a show of goodwill first then?”

“Like what?”

“How does sending the CPS, FBI, and a swat team to that house sound?”

“Pretty fucking good.” John says out loud with a wild grin. Finally some payback

Chapter Text

Of course, John joins Xavier's school, not by a desire to be there but by a desperate need to be anywheres else, and it's just another one of the shit show chapters in his never ending shit show life. At least Bobby was there, that had been kinda nice. But then, Bobby wasn't there, not for him. So he screwed everything up and left with Magneto, stupidly thinking he could actually change something in his life. And everything was in the past now.

He always did burn too fast and too bright and too much.

But it all built up, the pressure, to a ticking ready to implode time bomb.

John always has been one. It's just a matter of when he'll implode.

He couldn't stay in that fucking perfect school any longer. Being an outcast among the outcasts was tolerable when he had someone there with him, but once Bobby was with Rogue all the time, well. It was like eating rusty nails for breakfast. There were only so many bites he could take before swallowing it down tore inside so much it killed him.

And here he is serving the same dish for breakfast all over again.
Eating his own damn words again.

He can't stop staring at formerly the libraries, now his own copy of Frankenstein. He had annotated every inch of blank space around the pages, dog earmarked, and highlighted. He has made it his own.
His own book sat on the boxy computer screen glowing bright in the darkness of the room.

It's incomplete.

His very annotated book. His incomplete book.

It's incomplete.

They keep dying in the end. He can't get them to stop.

He just. He can't do it. He can't make anything good, he never had been able to. He's tried and it's always always gone to shit.
He's never been able to stop. Picking at his open wounds and scabs and lips and cutting his teeth into something worth staying for. He's never known how to not be abrasive and crude. Picking away at his relationships like they're old wounds that will never heal up right. Picking at it, gnawing at his own limbs to be free.

He's stuck in a bear trap. In something that isn't going to give. In a prison cell in a cell in a cell in a cell.

He is stuck and trapped and unable to stop biting at the bars on the wall. He got a taste for iron and he can't go back to the fake stuff now. Not when he'd been fed nothing but lies all along.

Rusty nails have never tasted so sweet in comparison.

The iron in his mouth comes from biting his tongue off. The iron in his chest from the smoke. The iron in his hands from clinging scratching fingernails at anything he can grasp.

He's never known how to let go without leaving a mark.
And yet. He's still here. And he doesn't know why that is.

This is it.

He finally sits up in a daze, notes scattered around him like he can find them in order again. He can't do this anymore.

Not again.

Not with Rogue back, not with Kitty not talking to him, not with Bobby exactly the fucking same as he always has been. Not in this school, not with these people who just don't get it. They never have.

They never will.

He grits his teeth and bites his tongue and shuts his mouth but.
None of this will ever change, none of this will work. It's the same thing all over again. He has to do something terrible that he can't take back in order for it to be anything.

He has to. There's no other way around it.

He is going to explode.

Nothing will survive him.

He has always been a little too good at burning bridges.

Everything is falling apart.

This almost good thing he is clinging onto will not last.

Not if he can help it.

John scrambled together his notes. He just can't do this anymore.

This is it. It's nothing that really causes it. It's everything that does.


-


He can't run.

He can't stay here.

He can't run

But he can't stay here.

And he can't run.

He can't stay here.


-


Ororo eventually figures out he's been shirking his cleaning duties off, but it still took everyone a good couple of weeks to even fucking notice he had been.

She drags him into her office to berate him, and asks in her typical judgmental way, “Is this really what you want to do your whole life? Clean?”

“Obviously not.” He slouches low in the chair, crossing his arms and kicking his legs out at the carpet in front of him, mind a million miles away.

“Then what are you going to do about it?” She stands above him, palms flat on the desk in front of her, demanding an answer he doesn't have.

“What do you mean?” He bites at the loose skin on his lips some more and tastes iron.
She sighs, and he knows that was the wrong thing to say, “Your future John.”

Her shoulders sag as she says it, like even contemplating a future for John was too exhausting.
She wouldn't be wrong though.

“What future.” He huffed out a laugh like he was choking and maybe he was.

And he has never really thought about the future. He never thought he'd live long enough for it to matter. And now it seems like he is. Might. Is. Might. He doesn't know yet.

He doesn't know how to deal with that. A future. What future?

Ororo purses her lips tightly at that, “Exactly.”

“I'm lost.” He really is.

“You don't think we have a future.” She stalks back and forth behind the desk.

“Well, unless we do some things that you guys don't want to do, then we don't. So.” He shrugs. Not his fault they're all soft on the humans still.

“You mean things the Professor didn't want to do. I'm not him.” Ororo pointed out.

“Clearly.” He rolls his eyes.

“I honor his memory, I keep this school open for him, but I'm more realistic. I have to be, because he wasn't and it got him killed. He thought the best of people. I know better.” She says practically.

“That's…” he tilted his head thinking of a word more fitting than brutal, “cynical.” he landed on.

Brutal still fits better.

“Yes, well. It's kept me alive this long.” She continues.

He shrugs again. He's not sure what else there is to say.

“But we can't survive on pure cynicism alone. Not forever.” The way she looks at him, like there's something in him that is worth looking at. Like he can be useful. And god, if he doesn't crave being useful again.

“I can't keep them safe the way we have tried to in the past. Always on the defensive. Sometimes we have to take action before they do. Before it's too late,” she stops in front of him,

“I want to give you a chance. Don't make me regret it.”

And John already knows he's going to.

He doesn't have a future like she seems to think the rest of them do. He already squandered what little good will he had with everyone else. There's nothing good for him now.

Never has been, never will.

Chapter Text

A few more months pass and it's been a year since John's been trapped here. 

A whole year. 

It's been a year . He hasn't done shit. It's not as though he's been keeping track. He couldn't say what day of the week or months it was, he hardly looked outside now. He'd been locked up in his room as long as he can remember. He didn't want to be around them, and they didn't want to be around him. 

And somehow Bobby is still hanging around him like this dead decaying corpse he's dragging around behind himself. 

He just can't seem to get rid of him. He doesn't know if he even wants to. 

They're still sharing a bed, something that he will never get used to. 

He can't get used to being so horribly close to him again. He can't. It won't last. Not with him, not about them. 

Nothing will. 

The urge to ruin everything is buzzing and thawing and biting and eating and gnawing and tearing through him. 

His words keep biting too sharp and his teeth keep clawing too tight and his anger keeps eating right through Bobby. It's bubbling up and boiling him alive, at first slowly but now too quickly he can feel that he's losing bits and shards of himself but he can't bring himself to even care anymore. What's the point. 

He can't stop it. He doesn't want to. He does. He doesn't. 

He's tired. 

He's just so fucking tired of this. 

Everything. 

He's gone through this year in a haze of anger, regret, and apathy. He daydreams about setting fire to everything and running, he absently make futile escape plans in his spare time that he has no real intentions of acting out, he thinks about everyone at the school dying, himself included. He keeps himself occupied and entertained with his own morbid and mildly destructive thoughts. It's all only thoughts after all. 

They can't judge him on those now . 

It's the new year soon and before that is Christmas and before that is Thanksgiving and before that is Halloween and before that Kitty was still talking to him and before that Bobby wasn't and before that Logan and Hank hadn't left yet and before that he had only just arrived and before that he was in Jail and before that he was with Magneto so. It's just been a long fuckin year. 

Time slips away from him like smoke in the wind. 

He can't really remember where he was going with this. 

The point. 

The point is that all he has to show for this entire year is an unfinished novel. That's it. 

Well, that and a couple of burnt bridges. 

Kitty was still pissed with him months later it seemed. He wasn't sure how to fix it. He'd never tried so hard at fixing a bridge he accidentally burnt. He'd never had to, never had the chance to. Guess staying in one place for so long does have some advantages. Disadvantages. 

He's still avoiding Rogue.

She and Bobby are laughing, huddled together on the couch by the fireplace at the thrown together New Year's party. He can't seem to stop the jealous feeling growing in him like mold consuming everything, he never has been able to. 

He drops a glass of punch off the balcony, just to watch it break. 

“What the hell are you doing Drake?” John mumbles to himself.

He's leaning so far back on the railing of a balcony, one swift breeze and he'd soon fall right off. 

“Making an ass out of himself,” Unannounced, Kitty's voice comes from next to him, “much like you.”

He jumps, losing his already precarious balance and nearly topples over the edge. Kitty grabs his wrist before he can and pulls him down.

“Like that's hard.” He snarks in lieu of thanks. 

“Idiot.” She scoffs a laugh instead of a welcome. 

Kitty's taken to wearing a black button up and slacks for the party. He looks around, noticing for the first time that everyone at least had attempted to dress up, except himself. He had thrown on an old tee shirt and sweatpants. It's all he had after all. 

“At least we can bond over bitching about this now.” Kitty rolls her eyes at the two of them now sort of dancing to some sappy bright pop music together. What the hell are they doing. They look so stupid. The words “Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your girlfriend! No way, no way, I think you need a new one!” come out the speaker set up and through the open door.

“You haven't taken your complaints to anyone else?” He asks, surprised she's even here with him. 

She snorts, “No one else gets it like you do. They all wanna fix it. You wanna ruin it, it's not the same.”

“I guess.” He shrugs. 

“You need to do something with him. I'm sick of him complaining to me. It's seriously annoying.” Kitty pointedly looks towards Bobby and Rogue dancing badly and laughing together. 

“What do you expect me to do?” He sputters.

“Fix it. Talk to him or something.”

Like talking ever really works. 

“Tell you what, if you take your own advice, sure. I'll do it.” He shakes his head at Rogue and Bobby, gesturing to Rogue for good measure.

“Alright, fine, whatever. I'll talk to her . Only if you talk to him.” She grumbles.

“Deal?” John holds out his hand to shake.

“Deal.” Kitty slaps it like it's a high five. 

“I've missed this. You and me, complaining about whatever.” John tentatively smiles in earnest. 

“Your own fault. You could have kept your mouth shut and you'd be fine but no, you never fucking do.” Kitty rolls her eyes. 

“What can I say, it's part of my charm.”

“I don't think I'd go that far.”

“Of course you wouldn't.” 

She lightly pushes him, not enough that he falls over, but enough that he stumbles. 

They make their way back inside to the world's most boring New Year's party. The spread is subpar chips and dip and little ham and cheese sandwiches, the punch is bland, the music is dull and the kids are mostly asleep. It's not even midnight yet. 

“I sure hope somebody spiked the punch.” Kitty drinks some of it, noting the overly strong cherry flavor and lack of alcohol. 

“If I didn't, I don't think anyone did.” John tastes hints of sprite and cherry flavored Kool aid. 

“Hm, you wanna do it then?” Kitty tilts her head at the boring punch bowl. 

“Fucking yes .” John immediately tossed the cup. 

“I know where Logan stashed something that wasn't watered down beer.” Kitty smirks a wild grin that just spells trouble. 

“I shouldn't be enabling you…but.” John ponders. 

“ But ?” Kitty eggs him on. 

“But…I'm bored, so fuck it.” John easily gives in. 

“This is about to be an actual party.”

And no one can stop them. 

Not having telepaths around does yield certain advantages.

They're digging through the garage where there's got to be a stash of something here.  

“Heard that Ororo wants you to help out, you gonna do it?” Kitty's passing through locked cabinets and storage like a hot knife through butter. 

“As if I've got a choice.” John is doing his part and struggling with picking the lock on a small safe. Fuck, he hasn't done this in a damn hot minute. 

“Sure you do, if you didn't she'd let you know.” Kitty stands on a step stool to reach around in any hidden compartments. 

“If she really trusted me she'd let me leave.” John gives up on picking the lock. It's probably not alcohol anyways. 

“If you trusted her you'd get she's just doing what she has to to keep the rest of them safe.”

“She just wants me gone.” They all do.

“If she really wanted you gone you'd be gone. She needs anyone she can get. Even if it's you.” Kitty shrugs, fiddling through the top of the cabinet grasping blindly for any sort of bottle. 

“Ah ha!” She exclaims as she holds up a couple unlabeled bottles and takes a swig of the clear mystery liquid in one and blanches at the taste. 

No one's ever wanted him. Never thought he could actually do something good. Had faith he wouldn't fuck it all up. 

It's terrifying, holding all that responsibility. Well, it's more so the fact she thinks he can handle it, that he's good for it. He doesn't want to fuck it up this time. But he also doesn't know how to do anything else. It's inevitable. He's inevitable. 

She holds out the bottle for him to try. 

He takes a drink. 

He gags at the taste. It really is kind of gross. 

He takes another drink. 

They drink a bit more of the terribly tasting bottle together before heading up to the party again. 

They end up sneaking a bottle or so of everything they find into the punch. Eventually someone notices the difference, but by that point it's already been too late. 

And now this teenage mutant high school party is really going off the rails, as drunk teenage mutants use their powers with reckless wild abandon. 

Ororo has her hands full just keeping track of all of them.

Luckily, all the younger kids had fallen asleep hours ago.

“Wow, this punch is really good!” Bobby says loudly right in his ear a bit later as someone sets off dangerous sparks behind him. It looks nice around him, the pretty lights. 

“Yeah, I know.” John pushes him away, he smells disgustingly like alcohol and whatever sickly sweet perfume Rogue wears.

“Almost like someone put something they shouldn't have in it, huh?” Bobby pointedly giggles into his ear as he drapes himself all over John.

Oh shit. Caught. 

“I don't know what you're talking about. You're crazy,” he doubled down, “it's just the sugar in it. And like the vegetables-I mean fruit. That. Not any alcohol. Not that.”

John was already more than a bit drunk. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kitty and Rogue talking too. Deals kept then.

“Hm, I dunno. Sure seems like something you'd do.” He leans forward and very much not adorably pokes him on the nose and then collapses them together into one of the couches.

“What's that supposed to mean?” John gives up on pushing away the incessant cuddling dead weight of Bobby. 

“Oh, you know, you're the hot bad boy and all. Ha, literally hot. Fire pun.” He badly pantomimes a fire. 

“Yeah, hilarious. Never heard that one  before.” John rolls his eyes.

“Really?” He looks so proud of himself for the stupid joke.

“No, I'm being sarcastic. I do the fire therefore I'm hot as hell, that's just basic ass science you idiot.” John says as Bobby's face falls and he attempts to poke Bobby's face back into a smile. 

“Yea but you don't have to be such a dick about it.” Bobby whines and grabs John's fingers to get him to stop rubbing at his face. 

“I'm not, I'm just an honest man.” John lies.

“No you're not, you're mean.” Bobby pouts.

“No you're mean.” John cleverly counters. 

“I'm not mean, you are, you won't talk to me anymore.” Bobby interlaces their fingers and pulls John closer. 

“We're talking right now.” John complains, failing to wrestle his arms away.

“No. You haven't been talking to me, like really talking, and I don't know what I did, but come on I can fix it, tell me how to fix it, and we can go back to how it was before you left.” Bobby, still gripping on him tightly, desperately says, like he needs him or something.

“It's…” he wants to just ignore all of it and say it's fine even though it isn't it hasn't been in a long time maybe it never really was, “It's just, it wasn't.”

John drops all his attempts to pull away.

“What?” Bobby pulls away first.

“It wasn't ok, you keep saying it was good, but it wasn't.” John untangles his arms and leans back. 

“What do you mean? Everything was going good before.” Bobby moves forward. 

John pushes back off the couch. Bobby follows.

“No, Bobby, it wasnt. It sucked it really fuckin sucked.” Another step back.

“What? Really?” Bobby says like this is brand new news to him. Another step forward, hand outstretched.

Now John is backed into a proverbial and physical corner. He does what he always does and bites hard enough to kill.

“Yeah. You barely tolerated me, and you didn't even notice. You acted like all I'd ever do is fuck up!” And here comes the inevitable explosion. 

“I wasn't, well-I didn't mean to!” Bobby spits out, hand flinching back. 

John pushes toward him now, “You still did . I don't know what I did to make you hate me like everyone else does, but-” 

“What?” Bobby frowns at him quizzically like he's some sort of unsolvable problem, “I don't hate you, we have our differences yeah, but I never hated you.”

“You never acted like it. You acted like I was this-this parasite, thing, eating you alive.” John crosses his arms over his stomach and doesn't look at him now. He can't stand to see that fucking look on his face anymore. 

“That's mean.” Bobby sounds sad. 

“It's true.” The wall has a scuff mark on it, right near the base. 

“Still mean.” Maybe more grumpy than sad. 

“Whatever.” John kicks his toe at the wall, leaving more marks in it.  

Bobby's clean white sneakers join his view of the ground. He had those same damn shoes the entire time he's known him. He's just sentimental like that. 

“I just, I don't get why you left…” He whines, more pathetic than ever, and John can't stand it. 

Bobby's shoe taps at his dirty old vans.

He can't do this. 

“I'm not doing this.” John says.

“You keep running away.” Bobby calls him out. 

“No Bobby, you do.” John pushes past Bobby. He's not running, he just needs some air. He can't breathe this stuffy room, that's all. 

Fuck.

He is running.

-

It's cloudy out, blocking out the stars and the moon. 

He's back on the balcony, clutching a glass like a shaking lifeline. If he dares to let go it's all over. 

He can't remember ever not hanging on by a loose and fraying thread. 

A damn cigarette would be nice. 

He flicks his lighter. Nothing comes out but the same sound. 

“Hey…” he hears the door close behind Bobby, blocking out the sounds of the party.

“What do you want?” John keeps looking at the growing clouds. 

“I just, I wanted to talk.” Bobby moves next to him. 

“Like before?” John warrily asks. He doesn't want to get dragged into an argument again. He doesn't want to start one again. But that's how it always seems to go with them. 

“No…I wanted to say sorry.” He mumbles.

An apology? That's new 

“What? You wanted to say what?” He teases. 

“I…you know. Sorry.” He says quieter.

“Speak up, I can hardly hear you.” John grins. 

“Sorry!” Bobby says louder then grumbles, “Fuck, I forgot how annoying you can be.”

“Look who's talking.” He laughs. 

“Whatever, man.” Bobby rolls his eyes. 

John lets his smile stay on his face. 

“You don't have to do it, explain why you left and all, I. It's fine. Not everything has to do with me.” Bobby says, hands raised in surrender. 

The smile drops. Back to the hard stuff, huh. 

“You know…” John gulps in a breath of air clutching the glass, this being a real person thing is fucking hard, “you were the first and only friend I ever had, you know that?”

“That can't be true, you must have had some friends before… um right?” Bobby laughs like he's joking. He doesn't believe him. 

“Not really. I didn't have anyone who cared about me at all until you sorta did. No one. Not a fucking family, no friend, just me . Just you,” he's trying to not say it all so bitterly, “and you were all I had and you didn't even like being around me.”

It's hard to be honest without the bitterness seeping through. The alcohol helps with saying the things they wouldn't otherwise. It doesn't help with the bitterness. 

“I…I did. Just, you're a hard person to like,” Bobby says, rubbing his neck and looking away, “but I did like you.”

“Never really seemed like it.” He bites his lip so more bitterness doesn't seep out of his gaping open wounds. 

“I know I was dealing with my own shit, and I didn't do everything right , and juggling between you and Marie was hard and all, but…” Bobby pauses, blushing hard against the cold, “she was my first girlfriend, of course she was everything.”

“She was your first girlfriend. You were my first friend. I just thought…hoped, I meant more to you than that. Then nothing. I should have known better.” John shakes his head. He should have never let himself get so pathetically attached to anyone. He never will again. He can't.

“Known what?” Bobby blinks at him. 

“That you were going to leave me behind anyways.” John bitterly says. 

“I wasn't.” Bobby says.

“You were.” John assures himself. Everyone always leaves. That's just how it goes.

“Well, it's not like you make it easy to stick around.” Bobby huffs, his cold breath crystallized in the air. 

John knows . He knows it's his own damn fault everyone leaves. 

He knows. 

“I'm not an easy person to be around. I'm mean, and I talk shit, yeah, but that's just me. I don't know how to be anyone else.” If he could set fire to anything right about now, he would. But he can't. So all his anger is bubbling inside of him, eating him alive. 

“Exactly, not easy. When you're easy, when you're like everyone else, everyone likes you.” Bobby says so matter of fact, he must believe it's true. 

“You would know Mr. Easy, you are so fuckin nothing, you aren't even a real person. Just a fake smile in a fake mirror in a fake fuckin life,” he snaps, meanly, “god, are you even real?”

“Hey! I've been myself more. Or trying to be myself more. It's hard.” Bobby snaps back.

“It's fucking hard to be a real person!” John shouts, “But if you're not real, what's the point?”

“I don't know. I don't know, okay!” 

The air around them gets so cold John can't feel his fingertips. He still refuses to go back inside. Not now. 

He presses on. 

“And then, Rogue comes around and you drop me like I'm hot garbage you can't wait to get your hands clean of.” he spits out like it's the only fire he can control any more, “That was fucking gutting.”

“You're blaming Marie?” The air gets imperceptibly colder with his glare.

“No Bobby, I'm blaming you . You did that.” John can't feel anything anymore anyways. He's too cold for that now. 

“I didn't-” Bobby argues. 

“You did, that's what you did. That's just what you do. You did it to me, to Rogue, to Kitty .”

“I didn't mean to. I was just trying to help.” Earnesty pours out of him, his sincere belief he was just trying to help. 

“You can't just take people in like strays and try to leave them when you can't fix them. You're not Xavier.” John bitterly laughs at that. 

Bobby's awkward silence speaks volumes. 

“I don't know what it is about me that people just seem to fucking hate, but at least I'm self aware enough to know something.”

“You keep saying that.” He notices. 

“What?” He's been repeating himself a lot, “You're gonna have to be more specific, mate.”

“I don't hate you, you get on my nerves sometimes, a lot of times sure, but I don't hate you. And I know the rest of the school doesn't.” Bobby says. 

“They do.” He said it so assuredly it must be true. They do. Or they should if they're smart.

“You know, you being you is what I liked .” Bobby shakes his head in disbelief. 

“What? Why?” He wrinkles his nose. That doesn't seem true.

“You were so different from anyone else, you did what you wanted and never cared what people thought. I was so jealous of that .” Bobby whispers with a fond smile. 

And that catches him off guard, that Bobby would be jealous of him

“I cared what you thought,” he manages to choke out though his closing throat, “I always did.”

What most people thought actually. He doesn't say all the horrible things he wants to. That he was so jealous of Bobby for well, everything really. Having a fun and easy power, dating Rogue, everyone liking him, having a family, teachers trusting him, it was everything. 

He doesn't say it all built up into him leaving. 

Being misunderstood, not even his only friend really bothered to know him, granted he never let him but well. He never let anyone know anything real and honest about himself. He didn't know how. Still doesn't know how to without it coming out too mean. Too much. 

Being an outsider amongst the outsiders, he was too much for them, too volatile and delinquent, too ruined to be good, too unmalleable to be shaped into what anyone wanted, too stubborn and callous and cruel to be kind, too used to fighting and biting and scratching his way to survive, too far gone before he even left. It was inevitable, him leaving. Being left. 

It always was.

He doesn't say that at least Bobby had a family. John hates that he had a family who at one point seemed to love him. But they hated mutants more than they loved him. Sometimes, he thinks what if it had been him instead of Bobby. What if he had a normal family and a normal mother and father and brother and cat and what if they hated him anyways. What about that. He resents Bobby for having it, them for taking it, himself for still wanting it. 

He doesn't say that he sometimes he thinks about leaving and never coming back. He did it once, he can do it again if he wants to. He wants to be able to do it again, to be bitter and cruel and mean and angry and do it all as big fuck you to everyone in his way. 

But. Well. Things are different now. Now, many of the kids he left are adults. Now he has to become one too. He's gotta grow the fuck up. He can't just do anything he wants to now, he has to have some sort of fuckin responsibility. Guess that's what all the cleaning the past year has taught him. He can't just see a mess and leave it now. He knows he's going to be the one to clean it up later anyways. 

It's infuriating. He doesn't get to childishly leave to run again. 

As much as he wants to run, he has to stay. 

For once, he has had to stay in one place long enough for grass to grow over his shoes enough, but not too much to pull him under the ground. 

It's hard. 

He feels himself becoming tethered dragged down to Bobby. He doesn't want to leave him again. He does, but he knows he shouldn't. He still wants to run, there's always this little part of him that is desperate to flee. But it's just the terrified and scared part of him that will always be there, not all of him. 

Bobby leans against him, shaking him out of his spiraling thoughts. 

John blinks back into awareness. 

It's snowing. 

The loud counting down from inside must mean it's almost 12. 

It's still New years. It's cold out on the balcony. Bobby's warm and John is cold but he's still warm. They're standing next to each other, arms pressed tightly against one another. The warmth passes easily through. He was cold, it had been so so long since he'd even used his powers, not for lack of trying. He'd gotten so cold inside. 

Maybe he'd always been. He always will be.

“Here.” Bobby precariously puts his cool glass in the rail of the balcony and grabs his hands and he holds them like they're something special. 

John hadn't realized he'd been shivering so much till his hands were held firm and steady. Granted, he had only been wearing a tee shirt so of course he was freezing cold. 

And of course Bobby's hands were the typical ice block cold, so this was actually the opposite of helping. 

“Jesus fuck! You do know that you're colder than Antarctica, right?” John pulled his hands away, they were warmer in the cold air than in his freezing hands. 

“Ah! Here, I've got a better idea then.” Bobby proclaims. Then he shuffled closer and put John's hands that he'd grabbed again, holding into his sweater pockets. 

“Hmm. This is kinda nice. Warmer” He mumbles, staring at their enclosed hands and not Bobby.  

“Yeah.” Bobby's freezing cold breath tickles his nose, inches away.

So close. 

A chill runs down his spine as he finally meets Bobby's eyes. 

The clock chimes 12. It's a new year. Goodbye 2007. Hello 2008. 

Fireworks go off in the distance. Raucous cheering from inside. 

And Bobby leans ever so closer, “Happy New Year.” 

They get closer and then their lips meet again and it almost feels like home. He tastes the cherry punch and alcohol spiked juice on his lips, sticky sweet and sour. 

It's soft and cold and like there's almost a fire in him again and then.

Bobby holds him too tightly and he feels like he's suffocating again. 

Again.

Bobby breaks first, and looks him right in the eyes, stumbling over his words, “I'm…I think I love you.” 

John flinches back as though struck by the words. And maybe he was. 

No one's ever said that to him so softly and meant it. 

“You're just saying that.” John pushes out of Bobby's too tight embrace, heart racing in a panic, stomach sinking with dread. He doesn't say it back.

This can't be happening. It's not.

“No really, I'm not just saying it. I think I-I do.” Bobby reaches forward, eyes wide like a deer trapped in the headlights, the world is ending and he won't stop looking at him like he's something worth looking at. 

“You don't.” John laughs like he's biting out the words.

“What?” The force of his words at him finally make Bobby blink and take a step back. 

“Don't be so fucking stupid Bobby, come on man.” John flicks his forehead hard, hurting himself on Bobby's thick head. 

“Hey dude! What the fuck?” Bobby grabs his forehead and conveniently covers his big sad doe eyes. 

“You can't,” he hisses and backs away, “you can't just say that now. ” 

Not now, not after fucking everything. 

His eyes wide and wild as a cornered animals are. And maybe he was, maybe he is, and maybe he always will be. 

Just the small terrified animal part of him ruling his fucking life. But even the coherent decisions he makes aren't very sound, so it's just a lose 

/lose loose cannon scenario over here. 

How could he say that, after all of everything. After he refused to admit they were ever anything at all, after how they had treated each other, after all the cold shouldering and burning words, after everything, after all of that. 

How.

God. 

How dare he.

How fucking dare he. 

“Geez, alright I'll drop it. Whatever. It's cool , get it, haha?” Bobby's embarrassed flush covers his whole face as he rubs viciously at his eyes. He puts his hands up in a surrender motion, letting out a pained forced laugh and a bit of frost from his hands. 

“I'm…” And he can't take it anymore. And he turns too quickly to run. Like he always does. 

And the gentle glass on the balcony comes crashing down, his elbow at just the wrong angle to hit it. Shattering on the stone, the cherry red liquid splatters across Bobby like bloodstains.

Bobby looks down, suddenly teary eyed at his old formerly white shoes.

“Aw man, these were my best sneakers.” His voice breaks as he squats down to scrub at them with the sleeve of his sweater. 

And John pushes past him and scatters. The crowd around him cheers. 

What John doesn't say is please don't leave when you realize I can't say it back.

And he runs.

He fucking runs.

Chapter Text

It's quiet. 

The endless urge-need-desire to ruin everything finally shuts the fuck up. For the moment. 

It will come back again soon, like it always does. But for now he is numb and nothing and empty and empty and empty. 

For once, it is peaceful.

Quiet.

The thought makes him nauseous .

He has to get out of here.

John can't go back to sleep in his-their- his room. Bobby might go back there. He's such a goddamn coward. 

Always has been. 

Running. 

Always will be.

Run run run. 

What else can he do. 

He pushes his way through the cheering crowded room, every brush against everyone shocks his exposed cold skin. A rush of panic flares to his head. He is a live wire rearing and hungry. 

There's too many people.

He has to get out of here. 

Leaving Bobby behind is like pulling teeth all over again. A familiar pain.

He can't imagine being around him right now. He has to get away. 

He can't think he can't breathe he can't do anything. Except.

Run run run run run run. 

He bursts out of the crowded room into the echoing hollow hall.

It's still too much. It's not enough. He stumbles away. 

John stuffs himself into the first small hollow crevice he can find. He needs some quiet. It's too loud. 

He clutches his head with his hands covering his ears as tight as he can. It still doesn't block the sound all the way out. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, he holds his breath. His heartbeat thrashes and rushes in his ears, until it's all he can hear. 

Letting go, he can finally hear the silence. 

But.

Now it is too quiet. His aching head is ringing. All woozy and lightheaded, possibly from everything. 

It's nothing. It's everything. It's nothing. 

It's too much. It's not enough. It's too much. He's so tired. 

He runs. 

Again.

He has to get out of here.

He runs. 

-

He is 10 years old and punching and laughing. There is a bonfire burning around him. He is free for the first time. He gets caught. 

He runs. 

Last year he is in the city. The heat is a record high. He is overheating. He already runs hot and it's too hot. The metal structure is burning hot. It's melting him. Outside is hot. Deliriously he misses Bobby. 

He runs. 

The class is at a museum. In the modern art exhibit there is an ever burning flame. It isn't real. It doesn't say anything to him. It looks real. But it is quiet. Flames are never quiet to him. It scares him. 

He runs.

His hands have always had little burns and blisters on them. He doesn't think about it. A kid at the school asks him how come if he can control fire then how can it burn him. He meanly snaps at the kid. He doesn't think about the question. 

He runs. 

He punches Bobby in the face. His fist is on fire. Bobby's is an ice block. They meet in the middle. Bobby clocks him out cold. He wakes up trapped. 

He can't run. 

He flicks his lighter on. He leaves. Bobby and Rogue are in the plane. He can't stand still doing nothing. He can't be stuck like a fuking kid waiting for the adults to get back. What else can he do. He flicks his lighter off. 

He runs.

Cigarette smoke. He is very young. He hates the smell. It makes him nauseous. It makes him angry. The ash litters the ground. His stepdad smokes in the house. He hates it. So. Much. 

He runs. 

A burning building. Ambulance lights. Firetruck sirens. He did something bad didn't he. 

He runs. 

In circles in place in a hamster cage he runs and runs and gets right back to where he started every single time he runs and runs and can never outrun the one constant in his life. 

Himself and the flame. 

-

He comes too with the vague sensation of an immense pressure in his now aching head. He has his head in his hands sitting against the front door of the mansion. Choking back a scream he realizes. He can't leave. 

His eyes focus in on a shape in front of him. 

Across from him, in the middle of the floor, sits Rogue. She's sitting slouched over, cross legged, and setting out playing cards in a game of solitaire. She's only playing with half a deck.

Next to her, is a box of matches.

He flinches. 

Rogue looks up at his sudden movement, “There's something really wrong with you, you know.”

“Takes one to know one.” John meanly quips, noticing his throat is sore. The words come out scratchy and harsh.

“No really, you should see a doctor or something.” She actually sounds concerned about him.

“What? Why?” He's almost worried now. 

“Your power. It burns.” She strikes a match and carefully moves the little flame to set a playing card on fire. It turns to ash in her palm. 

“You fuckin touched me?” He yelps, scrambling back further.

“I had to. You wouldn't stop screamin. Would you rather I knock you out and give you a concussion?”

“Yes!” He throws his hands up and yells. The shout reverberates in his skull and he winces. He doesn't even have it in him to be embarrassed over everyone hearing him scream his head off over something or other. He's too tired. 

“I can still do that if you want.” She sweetly offers.

“Uh, nope! I'm good.” He hastily declines.

She leans back and strikes another match.

He stares at it, entranced. He hasn't seen a flame in for so so so so so so so long. He listens for it. He instinctively reaches out to it. Calling to it. 

It says nothing.

He begs it to respond. Anything please. Anything. 

It is silent. 

His gut swoops with nausea.

His hand nearly touched it. And it won't move. 

It isn't moving to him. It is staying still. 

The flame is not his.

Rogue looks him in the eyes and extinguishes the flame with a blink, “I've found that going so long without using your powers has some nasty side effects. But, what you're feeling right now is probably just me. I still got your powers, so you're not gonna have ‘em for a bit.”

“How…how long is a bit?” He gulps out. 

“It depends. Sometimes it's just a moment, if I touch you for a second, sometimes it's longer. It took me a while to get you to shut up, so it's gonna be a bit . Maybe an hour.” She shrugs. 

He might actually throw up now.

“Thanks for…all that, but you can leave now.” He spits. He doesn't want to be around her or her using his powers right now. It's unnerving and makes his skin crawl. He can't control the flame now. 

“I can't. I really don't want to be here either right now. But seeing as how, for one thing or another, you've pissed off everyone else, I gotta be.” Rogue says in her usual bored drawl, going back to playing solitaire. 

“Whoop-de-fucking-do.” He bites back bile. Why the fuck won't she just leave him alone.

“So, whatever your problem is, I don't give a shit. I just want you to stop making Bobby sad and pissing off Kitty. You are really good at doing those, you know.” She shakes her head.

“I know.” He groans in a dull voice. 

“Good. Then stop it.” Her sharp words cut through him. If he knew how, he would.

“I can't. ” He hisses out.

“Figure it out then,” she shrugs, “it ain't my problem.”

He bangs his head back against the solid door. 

Fucking Rouge . 

“Yeah, that'll help with the headache,” she rolls her eyes, “I don't want to be here dealing with your stupid fucking toddler tantrum antics, just get your shit together.”

“And how exactly do you propose I do that?” For once, he is genuinely asking, even if it does sound sarcastic. 

“Go.” She says like it's easy.

“Just…go?” He slowly parses out, “I physically can't just go , I have to be here.”

“And when has that ever stopped you before, John?”

He shuts up. She's right.

“You know…Logan told me a while ago, if I wanted to leave, I could. But. I had to do it for myself, because I couldn't live like that anymore. Unable to touch…It's horrible,” she stares in bitter contempt at her gloved hands, “it still is.”

He stays silent, still waiting on an explanation that makes sense. 

“Are you going to get to the point or?” He interrupts her musing. 

“Fine,” she rolls her eyes at his impatience, “look, we aren't friends, never will be, but I'll tell you what he told me. That you can leave and I ain't gonna stop you. As long as you're sure it's what you want.”

What does he want.

“And you ain't doing it over some stupid boy.” Rogue says with a knowing look. 

“I'm not.” He says, unsure what he's even talking about. 

“Not what?” She asks with a teasing smirk.

“Not sure, about anything. Everything.” He tried to make it make sense. His brain is all kinds of fried, scrambled, and burnt right now, for some reason. 

“Ok?” Her voice sounds confused, but there's only so much he can explain when he just doesn't know himself. 

“If I don't get out of here I'm going to fucking do something I'll regret. And I've already done a whole lot of bad shit that I don't regret.” He can feel it. He is a ticking time bomb. 

“Maybe, you already have done something you'll regret.” Rogue's right about (more than) one thing. 

“I can't fucking do this anymore.” He complains. He can't. He can't. 

“Tough luck. You have to. Or ya know, just leave and never come back. Fix all our lives.” Callously, she says. 

He can't help but agree. 

“I…I do. I want to leave but can't. It's growing inside me, like a goddamn cancer. I feel sick. It's like this mold in me. This pressure is going to build into an explosion.” He tightly holds his stomach. 

“Looks like it already has.” She says pointedly.

He fucking knows, “I fucking know ok? I fucked up. But I don't want to fuck up Bobby any more than I already have.”

“Little too late for that.” She snarks.

“You're not helping.” He groans, leaning back again the door.

“Not trying to.” 

“Clearly.” He rolls his eyes. Of course she's just here to rub it in his face that she's doing so much better than him. 

“You aren't uniquely horrible, you're not the worst person in the entire world, just like Bobby isn't uniquely ‘perfect'. He's not the best guy ever, he screws up all the time.” she says in a carefully neutral tone, “We're all just fucked up people that are trying our best, and you have to accept that at some point.”

He can't help but laugh at her stupidity, “No one is ever ‘trying their best’, everyone is just out for themselves. It's a dog eat dog world. They're just waiting to fuck you over if it'll help them.”

He can't just accept that. It goes against everything he's learned his whole life.  

It just doesn't track. 

Rogue shrugs, “I mean, most people really aren't. Pretty much everyone else could care less. They're all living their own lives, they're too busy to be always thinking about how best to fuck you specifically over. That's just ridiculous.”

“That's fucking stupid. Obviously everyone is out to get me. Duh.”

“Oh my god. No, they aren't.”

“Ah, if they aren't, then how come my life is so shit?” Gotcha. Check and mate.

“Because it's your fucking life, dipshit,” she says like he's stupid, “the only person who can fuck up your life this bad is yourself idiot.” 

“It can't be. It has to be everyone else. It's their fault.” He shakes his head. 

“Think about it. It's always been you. You can't blame everyone else for your problems. They're your problems.” Rogue lays it out. 

“It's not my fault-” He attempts to argue.

“ You're the one who fucked it up with Bobby. You're the one who pissed off Kitty. You're the one who's hurt people. And you're the one whose fault it is.” Rogue pointedly states. 

“Ok, I did do that, but-”

“But nothing. No more excuses, John. Fix it or leave. That's all you can do now.”

“I… I just. I think it's too late. I fucked up too much.” He mumbles in his hands.

“Bobby will forgive you for just about anything at this point, Kitty, I'm not so sure about.” She snorts. 

“What did I do to make her mad at me again? So soon?” He asks.

“I dunno. But you better figure it out. Don't leave it to fester. Again.” 

“I've got my work cut out for me then.” 

“It's great and all that you're trying to take responsibility for your screw ups now-”

(He's not)

“-but, accepting that everyone has flaws and is just trying… It's really the only way to live. For so fucking long I hated myself for having this power. But I had to learn, while it's not my fault I'm like this, it's who I am now, and if I want any peace of mind I have to accept it and deal with it . It's fucking hard to do. And most times, I don't want to do it. I hate it. But goddamn, if I'm going to let them win. I won't let any more of us die, not now.” Rogue says in the most gentle tone she ever has with him. 

Wait.

“I don't…” He doesn't hate himself. He just doesn't. He doesn't. He just. 

He just. 

Thinking about it makes his chest hurt.

So he doesn't think about it. Ever.

The phantom urge to ruin crawls up his stomach and latches onto his throat.

The nausea returns in full force. He blanches. 

He doesn't hate himself, he hates everything else, he just knows he's fundamentally unlovable, he's hard to love and easy to leave. It's just a simple boring fact about him. 

Just something he's known his whole life. 

It's nothing important, that he is so completely ruined beyond repair that what's the fucking point to even try to do anything good. That's just who he's been his whole life.

It's fine. 

It's normal . 

It's who he is. It's all he has left. 

“I'm just…” His face scrunches up in disgust. He's avoided thinking about it for as long as possible. 

The thought of him being lovable makes him sick. 

He doesn't know how to be. He never has before. He hates the way he grew up he hates how he was and wasn't raised he hates the way he was treated by humans and mutants alike he hates how he was left he hates how he left he hates what was and wasn't done to him he hates that he had to survive on his own he hates that he has to rely on others he hates to think about how he's never been loved and he never will be. 

It's just all this hate burning inside him.

He can't. 

That's who he is, he can't be. He fights being loved like a dog chained to a porch. 

He wants to run.

He wants to bite back against it hard enough to draw blood. 

He wants to fucking hurt.

To be loved is to be lied to. 

He can't be.

But.

If he even is lovable then. Then why. Why couldn't he. What did he do wrong. Why couldn't they. What the fuck did he do to deserve it. The bad and the good. The everything and the nothing. 

If he is capable of being loved, then why the fuck couldn't anyone ever love him before. 

(Why did it hurt so much that Bobby said he loved him?)

Rogue continues on, like his little realization hasn't happened, “And thinking everyone is out to get you, and no one can possibly love you, and the self sabotage of your relationships just to prove your point, that you're right. No one can love you, if you don't let them. It's very easy to be unlovable”

Suddenly, he feels very nauseous. Maybe it's just all the alcohol he'd had coming back up. Maybe something else.

“When the hell did you get all perceptive and shit?” He spits back into the conversation. The bile comes back. He is going to spew all over the hardwood floors and then have to clean it up himself too. 

“You learn a thing or two on your own,” she shrugs, “like how wallowing in self pity helps no one.”

“Ha.” He shouts a laugh. 

Maybe they're not so different. More similar than either realized. 

Maybe that's why they can't fucking stand each other so much. 

“Anyways…It's late and I want to go to sleep. So, if you're done out here, I don't really care what you do. Just don't fucking make Bobby come crying to me again.” She gathers up the cards and the matches, and stands stretching out to pop her back. 

“Gottcha.” He replies, still on the floor with no intention of getting up.

“Here. Should help once you get your powers back. When you go too long without feeding the fire, it fucks up your head.” Rogue tosses him the pack of cards and the box of matches. Both half empty. 

“You shouldn't…” His hands shake. 

“I can feel it too. It's screaming. The fire, it has to burn. Whether it's yourself or everything else is up to you.” She says.

He hastily stuffs it in his pockets. It's no use to him now anyways. 

Rogue walks away without a goodbye. 

He clutches his empty lighter. John looks at the door like it'll provide an easy answer. 

It doesn't. 

He looks again. 

It still doesn't. 

He clambers upright, legs full of jello, and lurches the door open. 

A chill wind shoots through the door. It's winter, right. It's stopped snowing a while ago. It's still freezing cold. In the soft glow of the porch light, it looks lovely. A beautiful winter scene. 

He takes a step forward. The snow crunches softly underneath his foot. He keeps his other foot inside. He really really doesn't want the alarm to go off and alert the entire school. He just wants to see. To make sure. To look. To feel something. 

He inhales a deep breath, the ice burns his nostrils and sharpens in his lungs. 

The freezing cold goosebumps his bare arms, he feels his teeth start to chatter uncontrollably. His eyes start to water from the cold. His breath is coming out in puffs like clouds. Everything is so cold. 

He feels. Warm.

His hands start to go numb. 

He wants to take another step. And another and another until he is gone. 

But he won't

He won't.

He can't just leave anymore. He can't run. He can't go. 

John has to stay. Even as much as it kills him to. Even as much as he doesn't want to. Even as much as he hates it here with every fiber of his being. 

He has to stay. He can't leave. 

And he doesn't fucking know why.