When I work with a character, even in passing, I make it a point to get into their head. I have to know what they'd think in just about any situation, or I simply avoid using them. One character I've had trouble with is Pyro. St. John Allerdyce is, for some reaeson, very difficult to understand. You very rarely see him really look inside himself. I'm sorry if that statement offends anybody, but I think that there is more to Pyro than everyone gives him credit for. And I think that there is more to his powers and fire than just the flames he controls.
Disclaimer: Tainz does not own St. John Allerdyce, but she wishes she did so she could give him to her best friend Amieva, to whom this fic is dedicated.
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More Than Flames
There is smoke all around me, remnants of the fire that I controlled just a few moments ago. The fire that died. The fire I used to help protect you. Smouldering debris remains and I could restart the fire from the embers, but it isn't worth it to watch it go out again when the fire department comes back. The smoke and steam are hot, but not like fire. They can't hurt me from the outside. They're only dangerous if I breathe them in. You're already out of sight, off on your own mission. You never even stopped to wonder where the fire came from. You just saw that it was helping you and continued on your way.
I'd like to say that I am like the flames. That my strength is as great as the fuel I am given and that I can destroy nearly anything. I'm not. I'm more like the smoke that lingers around me. You can see me and I can hurt you, but you can't feel me touch you. I'm a passing heat that will dissappear with the breeze.
I'm sure you've decided that I am dangerous. I'm sure you've been told that I'm crazy or evil. Maybe it's true, but I'm not sure. I know that I can hurt you, or anyone else if I so desire, but in that I'm only human.
I'm only human? I am a mutant, homo superior. I will inherit the earth one day, or my children will, once the flatscans are gone. But true as that may be, I still have the same hopes and fears as the flatscans.
Maybe you didn't know this, love, but I'm a published novelist. Pretty good for an eighteen year old Aussie, huh? I actually write romance novels about flatscans. I get decent praise for it, too. The heroes in my stories are strong, like my flames. Like fire has water though, they have a weakness. Usually, it's the girl of their dreams. I wish I could be like them. They know what to tell the girls they want and they always win in the end.
I'm not like that. I only know what to tell my fire, not the girls. I speak to it, and it listens to me. No matter what I say, though, it will never talk back and tell me what I need to hear. The smoke tells me more. It chokes me up so I can't talk. It tells me to shut my mouth and listen. The smoke hides me when the fire's gone. It doesn't listen to me and, though I listen to it, I can't hear what it's trying to show me.
Sometimes I think I hear something in the hissing and sizzling of the water as the fire is drowned. I don't know what it says, but I know it wants me to find out. I'm sure it's imagination, just me looking for something. Just an extension of my own mind, trying to come forth. I'm not crazy. I'm pyromaniac, but that's not craziness. That's just how my powers made me. I don't actually hear voices or any of that. I wish I did, though. It might explain to me who I am and what I need.
Everyone thinks I'm insane because of how much I love fire. I'm not. I'm just lonely. I've been lonely so long. It's all I have.
My parents were terrified of me, you know. When they first saw what I could do. My powers are pretty easy to hide and I'd had them for awhile. I got bored one night while my dad and I were cooking steaks on the barbie and I made the flames form a bird. I didn't think about what I was doing. I just held out my hand and a bird flew up from the barbie. I thought my dad had his back turned to me. I thought wrong. He screamed and I lost control of my little bird. It hit a bush by the back of our house and I didn't know how to use my powers to put fire out yet. We lost three rooms of our house completely.
We didn't know that I was a mutant, of course. My parents thought it was witchcraft of some sort. They were always a bit superstitious, but my powers made them more so. They were terrified of me. I lived with them for a month after the fire. I wasn't even sixteen yet when they threw me out.
I had no money and nowhere to go. I managed to scrape together enough money to survive by busking. I could juggle fireballs, no problems. If I didn't give them too much detail, I could even make fire sculptures without anyone thinking I was some kind of demon or sorcerer. That's where I learned how to do my horses, you know.
I'd been out on the streets nearly a year when Mags came and found me. He offered me a place in the outback to train and live until I could do anything with fire, even put it out. It's lonely in the outback. The only company I had was my fire. When I'd learned, he brought me to America. He gave me another home with enough food and new clothes. He taught me what I was and what our destiny is. If it had been Xavier who'd found me first, do you think I'd be who I am? It'd be interesting to see.
I wonder what you see when you look at me. Do you see me as anything more than one of Magneto's lackeys? Sometimes I think that title defines me. Powerful enough to be worriesome and have my own weapons, but too weak to be my own person. I'll never be the one you see as dangerous. I'm only smoke, not the flames. No one ever thinks about how dangerous the smoke is. It kills more people than the fire does, but the fire hurts more.
Maybe that's where my strength lies. The fact that no one sees me as truly dangerous. Everyone thinks that I'm helpless the moment you cut off my flamethrowers. I'm not. I can fight nearly as well as Gambit, but I've grown so dependant on my fire that I sometimes forget that.
Have you ever wondered about me? Will you ever wonder about me? Do you even notice me? You're so beautiful and so angry. You're not like that girl Gambit wants, Rogue. You don't want to keep everyone away, only your family. I can respect that.
I wish you'd come back and see me here. I know you have things to do with your life, but I wish you realised that I was the one that saved you just now. Those police officers would have had you in an instant, had I not come along. Well, maybe not. But you would have had a fight on your hands. I kept you from having to do that.
I just want someone to talk to. Here I am, standing in the rising smoke, talking to you in my head. It's the only way I ever get to talk to you. I'm the only one who takes me seriously, aside from my publishers. But my publishers have never met me. You have, in passing. I wish you could look at me and love me like I love you.
I do love you. I'm just too scared to say it.
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I don't know if I captured his character very well. I just thought there had to be a reason as to why he's so obsessed with fire and I had a request from my best friend to do some Jonda. Although I never said it directly, Wanda's the girl I was picturing him thinking about when I wrote this. I suspect there will be a second chapter from Wanda's perspective, if you want it.
Please review!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Tainz