Of Zippos and Guilt
I don't own the X-Men and I'm not sad about it ;)
Rated T
"You're… alive."
The brown haired male snorted. "That's a shock to you, isn't it? Sorry, man, your head-butt gave me a concussion, it didn't kill me."
"I… I never…"
"Never what?" He asked mockingly, using the tone of his voice he knew was always reliable to piss the other seriously off.
The blond haired male warped his face in anger. "I never wanted to fucking fight you in the first place!"
"'Cause you're weak."
"I beat you," came the immediate retort.
"Not that kind of weak."
Now it was the blonde's turn to snort. "So it's weak not wanting to hurt your friends, Johnny?"
The shorter male's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't call me that."
"Why? You always hated it; you never told me why."
A smug expression on the other one's face. "I haven't, have I? Shouldn't that tell you something about our relationship?"
The blond shook his head. "You didn't tell me a lot of things when we still had been friends."
"That's how you wanted to view it."
The blonde's eyes flared in rage. "And how did you view it?"
The shorter male made a thoughtful face. "We were… acquaintances at times, I guess. Sometimes you were pretty useful to me as well."
His words were meant to hurt and the blond knew it, but he still couldn't help but feel his heart make a painful twist.
"Useful when I woke you from your nightmares and brought you hot chocolate to your bed?"
The shorter male shrugged, seemingly unaffected by the other's words. He had always been better in hiding what he was truly feeling. "As I said, sometimes."
The taller one shook his head. "You're such an asshole, Johnny."
"It's Pyro now!" He hissed.
The blond crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't care what you want to make the other's belief, for me you are John."
The brunette's eyes were mirroring flames. "John is dead, Drake, get it finally into your head! So is Johnny, though he even died years before John did!"
He took a step backwards and looked at the ground. He seemed to regret what he had just said. Revealing too much, so much more than he had wanted to. The other had always managed to make him do things he hadn't wanted to. That was why he was dangerous for him.
"John…"
"Fuck off, Drake. We're done here."
"We're done?! I just realized that you are still alive after two fucking years and you tell me we're done?!"
"What's the matter, Iceman? Couldn't stand the feelings of guilt having killed your former best friend? Wasn't your girlfriend eager to help you pull through it?"
The shorter male's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Which one was it by the way at that time? I heard you broke up with Rogue to try your luck with the little kitten but since she took the cure and you could finally touch her… wasn't that a spur to get things fired up between the two of you again?"
He smirked. "Or in your case melting the-"
"Shut up, John! God, you're such a… where's your Zippo?"
"Why? D'you think without it you can take better advantage of me?" The brunette asked grinning.
The blond rolled his eyes. Sometimes the other one could be so childish. "No, I've just never seen you anywhere without it and you don't have these other things on your wrist right now either, so…"
The shorter male made a whistling sound. "Oh yeah… those. You wrecked them, remember? Froze off both of my hands in the process. For a while I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to use them again."
A shadow of remorse hushed over the blonde's face. "How did you make it anyway? Getting away before Phoenix…"
"Blew the whole place to shreds?" He laughed. "Ah, can't exactly remember myself really, but as you know, you couldn't kill me with an axe… or something. But when I woke up, Mystique was there, so yeah, guess she had something to do with it."
The blond frowned. "Mystique? Why should she do that for you? The Brotherhood was just using you all along. I doubt they would have cared if you'd gone to waste. Just another victim for their cause!"
"And that just shows how narrow-minded you are, Bobby! But Mystique wasn't the one who had left me there to die!"
The blond blinked and just stared then to a point that was unnerving for the other one. Finally the shorter male snapped.
"What?!"
"You just called me Bobby."
The brunette's eyes widened. "No, I haven't," he denied immediately.
The blond smiled. "Have too."
"No, I have not!"
The blond just kept on smiling.
"You know what, Iceman? Go to hell." He turned around to leave but a cold hand grabbed him around the wrist and held him back.
"Let me go, Drake," his voice was dead serious.
"No," his voice was at least as determined.
"Just because I don't have a Zippo on me, doesn't mean I'm helpless."
"I know."
Silence. They just stood there for a moment. Frozen. The brunette didn't turn around, didn't want to look at the blond. The blond couldn't take his eyes off the brunette's back.
"Why do you hate it? Being called Johnny?"
More silence. The taller one sighed, having given up on the hope to ever get an answer to that question.
"Because my father had tended to call me Johnny, every time before he had beaten me black and blue."
The blond gasped and the brunette was able to use his moment of shock to twist his arm out of his grip. He turned around, grinning. "Just kidding, man, relax."
"You asshole!" The blond said sullenly but there was something in the brown haired male's eyes - he wasn't sure anymore.
"So, you're still with the X-Men?"
The blond ignored the ridiculing tone he had asked that with. "Partly, but I wanted some time away. They can call me whenever they need me, though. What's with you, John, you're not with the Brotherhood anymore, are you?"
The shorter male snorted but he didn't deny him calling him John anymore. If it was because he had finally given in or just didn't care enough, the other couldn't tell.
"Saw any unexplainable explosions lately in the news?"
The blond shook his head.
"Well, that should answer your question, shouldn't it?"
"What have you been doing then?"
"Oh, this and that. Nothing I could talk to you about I'm afraid, keeping in mind that you have such a sensitive soul." He smirked nastily.
"And you still need to always talk big."
"No one forces you to stay, Drake; you can always just walk off, y'know."
The taller man flared his nostrils. "Like you have walked off on us – on me?"
He could finally admit to it. Mainly he hadn't been angry at John because he had decided to desert the X-Men – even if he had told that himself over and over – he had been angry because he had deserted him.
The brunette scoffed. "That's so typical of you, always seeing yourself as the damn victim. Poor Bobby has been left by his best friend John, because he was so jealous of him and his perfect little life."
"Was that the reason?" The blond asked frowning. "You were jealous - just that?"
The brunette cocked his head to the side a little, showing white teeth. "Wouldn't you die to know that?"
The blond was trying to capture the other's eyes. "I really would like to know…"
For a moment they just stared at each other.
"Well," The brunette began to finally talk again. "In that case… sorry - can't remember anymore. You see, there are important things I have to think about right now, no sense wasting my time with vanities."
The taller male balled his fists, a layer of ice had started to cover them and the air had gone cooler.
The brunette looked at him almost triumphantly. "Want to hit me now? Finish the job you couldn't the last time? Just go on ahead then."
It was like a switch was turned in the blond male's head. He relaxed his body again, suppressing his powers until the skin on both of his hands returned to it's normal color. "You're not making me fight you again, John."
The brunette shrugged but the blond was sure he had seen a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. "It wouldn't have had much of a fight. As you already noticed - I don't have my Zippo."
He took a look around the area. "And in this whole district, I can't even feel any fire. Shit, you'd think there would at least lie around some smoldering cigarettes but no chance, man. Not even with that."
It was then that the blond reached into his pocket and took out a lighter. Nothing fancy. Just an old plastic thing – but it would do. He held it out to the shorter male.
Said person just looked at him questionably in a suspicious way. "Why would you do that?"
"I don't want you to feel threatened. "
"I don't feel threatened by you, Bobby. " The brunette said curtly but took the lighter nonetheless, immediately starting to fiddle about with it with the fingers of his right hand but he didn't lighten it.
Just the knowledge that it was there had a strange, calming effect on him.
The blond watched the familiar play and didn't want to disturb the kind of truce they had reached just then, provoking the other again by pointing out to him that he had called him Bobby for the third time now.
"You don't dye your hair anymore. " The blond realized the triviality of his declaration the moment it had slipped out.
The other didn't seem bothered by that. He ruffled through his hair once with his left hand for the right one was still occupied fumbling with the lighter. "Yeah, it's brown again. Back to the roots, that's how the saying goes, isn't it?" He asked, grinning.
The blond had watched his movement and suddenly felt the need to repress a strange urge to touch the other one's hair himself. That was just so pathetic.
"Yeah, sometimes going back to something might not be the worst of decisions."
The short male caught the hidden meaning of his words instantly and in answer sent him a glare. "I'm not going back."
He knew it was fruitless to argue about it but he felt stubborn like a three-year-old child. It was as if John was deserting him all over again.
"Why not? You said you're not with the Brotherhood anymore! Of course you would have to make up for the things you did but you know them, John, in time - they would give you another chance. They would let you stay if you'd just prove that you're different now; that you understand what you did wrong and try to-"
"Fit into their idea of a responsible adult .Thank you very much but no."
The blond shook his head angrily. "That's so… you, John! Always alienating others. Never taking responsibility."
A flame appeared at the end of the lighter for the first time. "If you know me so well, why did you even bother trying to convince me?"
"Maybe I just hoped you'd prove me wrong for once but you're still the most selfish person I know!"
"I am selfish?" The brunette snapped. "I'd rather say you are the selfish one of the both of us! As long as everything went the way you wanted it to, you didn't care! Just when I had enough of getting tossed to the side whenever you weren't in need of me, you started to feel personally offended!"
"I never tossed you aside!" The blond yelled fiercely.
"And I say you fucking did!" The brunette yelled back at him, clutching the lighter in his fist. Then he calmed himself down again, shaking his head smiling self-deprecating.
"But after all it's not important anymore, is it? We're just not meant to be friends, we're too different, Bobby, always were. I knew but you didn't want to see it and I let you live inside your illusion, that was my mistake, I guess. Too late for regrets. Things simply are as they are now."
"I don't want to believe that."
"But this isn't about what you want or don't want, Iceman," He sighed, chuckled and then pulled a straight face again. "It's getting late, I'm leaving. It was kinda… nice seeing you again, I guess. At least somehow. Take care, Drake."
With that he turned around and started to slowly walk away but his steps had a sudden heaviness to them he couldn't explain – didn't want to.
And whilst the blond stood there frozen, watching the brunette's retrieving back, he realized the biggest of his mistakes for the first time in all its hurting intensity. And this time, instead of staying behind, watching his best friend – or maybe, maybe even more than this – leave him behind again – he followed.
And when he finally fell in step with him, John sent him a fleeting glance but he didn't object and Bobby knew that this time, he had made the right decision after all.