Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. This piece of fiction is for entertainment purposes only, no copy right infringement intended.
A/N: This was a little piece that came to me while watching an episode of 'Heroes.' Mentions child abuse, so be warned.
Bad.
I've always had it – the burning. It was slow at first, nothing more than a pleasant, ever present heat that meant I didn't get cold in the winter and a fever that puzzled the doctors until they shrugged and said something about a 'high core temperature, it happens'.
I wasn't afraid of it back then. I was too young, I guess, to notice the way my parents would whisper behind my back as I sat staring at the fireplace for hours at a time; worried that I seemed to look forward to the slightly cooler months – June, July, August – instead of Christmas, simply because it would be used then. We couldn't really afford central heating.
No I wasn't afraid. I didn't really notice when, over the years, the heat turned into itching and then pain, like a nasty case of sunburn. The shift was so gradual I got used to it before I even noticed it.
I wasn't afraid.
It hadn't even occurred to me that there was anything wrong until the day my Mommy yelled that word at me for the first time.
I didn't know why, or even what it meant back then.
I had just been trying to help. Her wedding ring had slipped off her too-thin finger and into the pot of boiling water on the stove. She didn't pick it up, just started crying and shaking. She kept whispering 'he'll kill me, he'll kill me,' rocking back and forth on the floor, her hands covering her eyes, like the world was coming down around her ears, like she was scared.
I did know the ring was important. It was Expensive, and Expensive things were important. I knew my Mommy was crying and she wasn't supposed to cry during the day. It was Con-spi-cu-ous.
I knew things that were Con-spi-cu-ous were bad; I knew Daddy would get mad, he got mad a lot.
Mommy had to stop crying before he got home. Daddy had to be not-angry today, because I had just gotten my report card, and it wasn't good. Teacher said I was Bad, and absent-minded and a De-lin-quent.
I didn't want to be Bad. I didn't want Mommy to cry and I didn't want Daddy to be angry.
I wanted to be Good, and Good people helped other people. It said so in the Bible.
I didn't know I wasn't supposed to reach into the water and get the ring out, I didn't know that it was wrong. It didn't feel wrong, itched a little – didn't really hurt.
But the screaming, that hurt; that and the slap. My Mommy never hit me before.
Looking back, I think she was just scared that I'd gotten hurt. At least, that's what I'd like to believe. Never mind, it doesn't change the fact that two days before my eight birth day, my mother slapped me and called me 'freak' for the first time, and it doesn't remove the scars that came later.
I wasn't afraid of fire, before they made me connect it with pain.
I wasn't afraid of myself before they made me afraid.
TBC?
A/N: In my 'verse, John lived in Australia before coming to the Mansion, like he did in the comics. As I understand, the summer is cooler than the winters, there.
A/N2: I'm thinking about turning this into a series of short glimpses into the less-than- sunny childhood that helped shape the Pyro we all know and love. What do you think? Please review!
Ebon Hush