Rogue stood outside of Pyro's fireproof glass prison and watched him. The little confined cell had no windows to look out of, but he stared off into nothing like it didn't matter anyway. It probably didn't. St. John never did have much aesthetic appreciation.
The very first time Rogue met Pyro, he offered her fire. Sometimes, not often—when people weren't trying to kill her, or kill each other, when she wasn't too busy trying to stop them—she still remembered.
She remembered his hands daring what no other dared. His kisses, quick and burning on her oversensitive skin. His eyes, mocking her, then going dark with passion. She remembered him rough and fearless, sad and wanting, mocking and joyful.
She remembered that, back then, she'd wanted more, and fire just hadn't been enough.
"You don't love him," he whispered into her skin, his teeth grazing her flesh until she shivered beneath him. "You think you should love him, but you don't."
"I don't love you," she whispered back, even as she moaned and wrapped her legs around his waist.
"And I don't want you to," he said. "But everyone belongs to someone."
She arched up and twisted her gloved fingers in the back of his hair, forcing him to meet her eyes. "If I belong to you, then who do you belong to?"
Pyro didn't have an answer for that. Not then.
When Logan came back empty-handed from Alkali Lake, he'd seen Bobby, but he'd smelled the scent of another on her skin. She wanted him to be jealous, but he wasn't. He shook Bobby's hand and found Bobby and the entire situation vastly amusing.
Rogue could see why now. She sometimes found it amusing herself.
Bobby was sweet; the kind of boy a girl took home to meet the parents without being afraid he'd make some faux pas like putting his elbows on the table or using the wrong fork with his salad.
Pyro, on the other hand…well, sometimes Rogue wondered if he even knew what a fork was for. Or if he cared.
But Pyro trusted her enough not to flinch from her hands when she touched him, and Bobby…didn't. So she supposed she could overlook elbows and salad forks for that. She could overlook a lot for that. And Rogue liked being touched. She craved simple human contact and wanting to love Bobby wasn't enough for her to give that up completely. Not when she didn't have to.
Pyro liked to watch her playing with fire after she'd taken a little of his power from him. He liked to watch her struggle to control it—to fight to do what he did so easily—and then lose it.
He liked to fuck her on Bobby's bed with the door unlocked. The chance that Bobby could come in at any moment and catch them was one hell of a turn on.
Rogue liked it too, but she never told him that. She didn't have to. He knew.
She knew why he'd left Xavier's little school, and it wasn't because of Magneto's flattery like everyone else believed. He'd left because his was the kind of power that those like Xavier, who insisted on control above all things, had no use for. He'd left because he wanted to burn, and with Xavier, he wasn't allowed to. Xavier was a man of peace, and his ideal world had very little use for fire.
Rogue had seen Pyro's face that day at Bobby's parent's house and she couldn't remember ever seeing him look happier. Never. And it wasn't about the people running away from him or looking at him in horror and fear; it was about the fire itself. It was always about the fire. It was what he was made for.
He'd gone to Magneto because Magneto would not only let him use his power, he would encourage it. Still, Rogue knew it hadn't been a choice between Xavier and Magneto. It was a choice between burning and not burning. It was as simple as that, really.
"What are you thinking when you look at me like that?" Pyro asked softly, drawing her out of her thoughts.
Rogue looked in at him and shivered at the blank look in his eyes. "I was thinking that…I might have lied to you once."
He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound at all. "Only once?"
She ignored that. She had to ask what she'd come here to ask before she lost her nerve completely. "St. John?"
"What?"
"Who do you belong to?"
He met her eyes and held her gaze for a long, drawn-out minute before he looked away from her.
"St. John?"
"Rogue…"
"Yes?"
"You wouldn't be able to sneak me a cigarette, would you?"
/End/