Christmas Blues

AUTHOR: Bedspace

RATING: PG-13 for mild slash. That's about it.

CATEGORY: Romance

SUB CATEGORY: General/ Slash

PAIRING: Pyro/Iceman a.k.a. John/Bobby

SUMMARY: This is Bobby Drake's first Christmas without anyone significant to spend it with. Will he be able to find some happiness amidst this dreary day? Read and find out.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, save the simple plot, of course. X-Men to Marvel Comics. Believe me, if I owned Pyro in real life, I would officially be the happiest girl in the world. Oh, and just so you know, this is my first ever completed slash fic in all my fourteen years of life. Just bear with it ;p

It was almost Christmas time not only in Xavier's School for the Gifted Youngsters, but for all the people in the world. In the school alone, everybody was enjoying their pre-Christmas day. The younger kids were mostly outside, happily making snow angels, snowmen, or having fun in the snow the traditional way, by means of snowball fighting. Most of the older teens had stayed inside, some kids trying to peek at their unopened presents, those with their relationships taking advantage of the boughs of mistletoe dangling from the roofs of the classrooms, and here and there. Those who had done neither were either having a delicious Christmas snack of turkey sandwiches and creamy cocoa in the kitchen, chatting with their comrades or lying quietly yet happily in their own beds in their own rooms. Of course, there was one exception amidst the happiness.

Bobby Drake lay in his bed, alone in the room, listening to his Discman and wishing the ceiling he was staring at would just collapse on him. It would've spared him the misery he was currently feeling at the moment, or for the past ten and a half months, at least. His roommates had tried in vain to convince him to have a good time, even just this Christmas. But Bobby adamantly refused to go anywhere but in his room or to the kitchen when he was feeling hungry. He had told his roommates to go and enjoy themselves.

So, with his roommates out in the snow having snowball fights, he had finally gotten the privacy he had sought. Bobby certainly didn't need it, but he wanted it.

There was nothing he wanted to do more than to make this his last Christmas. Dying would have to be better than going through life like this, he mused.

Without a family.

Without a best friend.

Without a significant other.

With no one.

It's been almost a year since Bobby's life had gone down to the pits. Nearly twelve months had passed when he lost everything that had mattered to him; that had made his life worth living for. Almost fifty-two weeks had gone by ever since his family had forsaken him upon hearing his confession, that he was no ordinary boy with a high intellectual quotient, but a mutant who had the power over ice. That he was Iceman, and not just their son or brother, Bobby Drake.

The day after that hadn't fared any better. One of the two people who could've given him the strength to get through the ordeal left him, as well as everybody going along Bobby's path. His roommate turned best friend, the great fire manipulator, John Allerdyce, had gone to join Magneto's Brotherhood. Their enemy team, of all the hundred thousand mutant teams in the world. Bobby had felt a deep, stinging hurt in him when Dr. Grey, his former now-passed professor, had said quietly that his friend had gone. But he was willing to face life after his former family and ex- best friend. As long as he had Rogue, he had thought once, everything would be all right.

But boy, was he ever so wrong.

Bobby should've known that their relationship wouldn't last from the start. The sad, painful realization only hit him like a thousand icy knives when she had broken up with him last August. She said that she was worried that she would hurt him with her absorbing touch, but he had a suspicion that there was more to her excuse than what she let on to him. Something like a new student named Remy LeBeau, maybe, he thought bitterly. Though they were still great friends, Bobby knew he definitely wasn't over Rogue, and he wouldn't be until he had found someone to fill in the hollow space that Rogue had left vacant in his heart and life.

Bobby sighed as the opening riff of his favorite song came up. He found himself humming along to Edwin McCain's "I'll Be". It used to be one of the many songs he had dedicated for Rogue, and even though that was no longer possible, he still loved the song. Unconsciously he began singing along, closing his ice blue eyes as he engrossed himself in it. He was so into the song that he hadn't heard the light knocks on his room door, nor did he notice a young boy about his age come, rather nervously, into the room. Bobby didn't see the unreadable expression on the visitor's face as he watched him singing, a mixture of fascination and an indescribable emotion.

"I'll be your crying shoulder and I'll be loves... loves..." Bobby trailed off as he had finally opened his clear eyes and was now staring in shock at the intruder. The other boy smiled sheepishly.

"You were doing great, man, don't let me stop you."

"John?!" Bobby gasped out, his voice a questioning statement with more than just a touch of surprise.

"Hey, Bobby," replied the other haltingly as he glanced at Bobby from head to toe, "it's been a long time. You look like an exercise buff now."

"Yes," Bobby said vaguely in response to both statements, "but... what are you doing here? You—went with—"

"Magneto?" the other prompted with a trace of weariness in his voice.

Bobby nodded, speechless. John instead, sighed. "I'll explain it to you, I promise. But first," he lifted a hand. Bobby became wary; thinking this was all a ruse to make him vulnerable. But instead John pointed to the bed next to Bobby, "is that bed still mine?"

The blond boy relaxed and nodded quietly, "It always has been and it always will be," he replied softly.

John looked at him with an unreadable yet pleasant look, perhaps as a gesture of silent thanks. He walked to the bed and without bothering to take off his shoes, lay down. He sighed and smiled contentedly as he hugged the soft bedsheets. The other boy watched him all the while, observing his actions and basically everything about him.

He noted that his companion, who left two inches shorter than himself, had grown taller. He seemed to be Bobby's old height now, but still not as tall as the other boy was. The biggest change in John, though, was his hair. It was still ash blond as it was before, but it was much longer now, the longer part just brushing against his shoulders. In order to take his eyes off the boy he was gazing at, he cleared his throat and looked adamantly at his Discman. The fire manipulator sat up abruptly, and looked apologetically at Bobby, who still refused to meet his eyes.

"Where was I?" John asked sheepishly.

"You were... um... going to tell me about Magneto," Bobby replied hurriedly.

"Oh... yeah," the other agreed. A long pause was triggered upon his reply, and both teenage boys began to feel very uncomfortable. This hadn't been the silence that either had remembered from the past, where it could be compared to the warmth of the flames that John manipulated from his trusty lighter, which, Bobby remembered, he had given to John for his first Christmas gift five years ago. This silence, instead, was as icy as those rare times that Bobby had become furious, mostly because of John doing some prank like burning up a two-foot essay Bobby had worked so hard on the previous night, thinking it was a love letter to some classmate of theirs.

Finally Bobby parted his lips to speak. "Well... on with it, then," he said as nonchalantly as he could, risking a glance at John.

John raised his hazel eyes to meet Bobby's own blue ones. Even in their younger years John had always managed to reveal his emotions through his actions, but never through his eyes. Now, though, it was another case. Bobby still couldn't read his roommate's true feelings, but one thing was evident in his eyes, and that was warmth, not unlike the warmth he'd seen whenever he told John his pain and anxieties.

"It's simple, really," John replied quietly, "I was given a year to decide whether I wanted to commit to the Brotherhood. I didn't want to commit, so Magneto let me go, unscathed, of course," he added hastily as he saw Bobby's face contort in worry, "He couldn't do anything to me; this month was only my eleventh month, so going was acceptable. Had it been past a year... well..." John trailed off, "let's just say I wouldn't be going anywhere."

An involuntary shudder shook Bobby, as he thought of what John's life would be if he had decided to stay with the Brotherhood. But John's briefly concise answer had not fully satisfied Bobby yet. Another question was still lingering in his mind.

"Why, though?" he asked, "what made you decide to come back?"

For a long time there was silence once again. It seemed that John was pondering on the question, but he never broke eye contact with Bobby. When he seemed satisfied with his answer, though, he sighed, and finally he spoke up.

"I came back because I thought about everything here," he began, "at first I was ready not to, because I told myself that I would learn how to live without them in time," John twirled his long fingers nervously, but his expression was as neutral as ever.

He continued in the same explanatory manner, "But I thought about the last thing on my mind, but perhaps the most important thing to me. I thought about the only person who ever made me feel the family I never really had, and the only one who became my first real friend. I was reminded that this person was the only one who ever understood me, and understanding is something I definitely need," he concluded, a warm light now in his hazel eyes as he looked directly at Bobby.

Bobby gulped as he took it all in as he watched John stand up to walk over to his bed. He suppressed a soft cry that was aching to be heard as the other boy sat next to him. He pretended to be interested in looking for a new CD as John continued to gaze unflinchingly at him.

"Anyway," Bobby said in plastic cheerfulness, "I'm glad you're back," he said, still refusing to glance at the other boy. Where is that damned CD holder? He thought angrily to himself.

"Bobby," John said quietly yet firmly, which forced Bobby to look him in the eyes. Bobby gulped silently as the other boy's mouth parted. He seemed to want to say something else, but he changed his mind, and instead, leaned over to press his lips gently against Bobby's own. As Bobby did nothing in shock, he realized that inside of him, he began to feel more complete than he'd ever been before as John's warm lips coaxed his own open. Just when he was beginning to feel himself fall in sync with the other's lips, John broke away his face a tinge of light red.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, not looking at Bobby, "I shouldn't have done that. You can just—"

"Don't," the other gasped, "stop."

"I just did, and I'm really so—"

"No," Bobby said again, his shortened breathing emitting trails of icy breath, "don't stop."

A blazing fire suddenly became present in John's eyes, but they weren't of anger nor of hatred. In his eyes Bobby saw the warmth, the longing, the lust, and above all...

The love.

Love, unmasked and completely pure, was what Bobby felt as John closed up the little space left between them. Love was what he felt in the other's tender lips over his own.

And love was what Bobby never wanted to end.

He felt the smaller seventeen-year-old's arms encircle his waist as he reached to put his longer arms on the other's shoulders. The pressure of the intensifying kiss led them to fall back into Bobby's bed, but neither of them noticed anything but the comfort of the other's body upon his, and the incompleteness that was finally unmade.

Finally, they parted. Bobby took a few labored icy breaths, which blew some strands of John's ash blonde hair. They smiled at each other, neither really knowing what to say or do next. And neither of them caring much for that.

Christmas blues? Bobby thought to himself as John stood up and offered his hand to help him up. I don't think so.