Title: The Boy Who Tempted Fate
Fandom: X-Men (movies)
Characters: Pyro/Rogue
Summary: John finally wakes up after the incident at Alcatraz. Unpleasant surprises follow.
Author's Notes: Post-X3
John Allerdyce could still remember what the mind-numbing pain in his hands and his fingertips had felt like. They'd been frozen solid, and in the split second before the world went black, he'd been surprised to realize that they felt as though they were on fire. A cold sort of fire, nothing like the warmth and comfort he felt when he held flame in his palm. But a prickly fire that was like having nails driven into his hands.
When he came to, John felt almost pleasantly numb. But he remembered the pain. Worse still, he didn't recognize his surroundings.
No big surprise there: there was hardly anything to give him a clue about where he was. What he knew was that it was white, blindingly white, and that he was lying down. In fact, he seemed to be strapped down. Moving his arms and legs only resulted in his limbs meeting resistance. And he was too exhausted and weak to struggle for very long anyway. Or at least to struggle physically for very long, though his mind, as it began to clear, was still fighting to figure out just where he'd woken up, how he'd gotten here, and what the hell he was supposed to do next when he was clearly tied down.
John had always had a hard time figuring out when to stop fighting.
It slowly became apparent that he was in some sort of hospital room. The rails on the bed, the humming and beeping sounds of nearby machines, the curtain enclosing the space he occupied. That was where all the white came from: the white ceiling and the white curtain.
But a hospital room… that had to be bad. His last memories were of seeing Bobby morph before his eyes, from flesh and blood to solid ice. And then there was blinding pain. And then there was darkness.
Then he was here.
So, wherever here was, it couldn't have been good. The Brotherhood didn't have a medical wing like this, never mind a doctor, so John somehow doubted that Magneto had swooped in to save him, bring him back to their hideout, and nurse him back to health. In fact, after the way Magneto had left Mystique behind in the prison transport, John couldn't imagine Magneto taking the time to help any of his fallen soldiers.
The other possibility was that he was in some sort of prisoner medical wing; that seemed more likely. He'd been picked up when the fight had ended, imprisoned and shackled so that he couldn't escape. Christ, that would be verybad. The thought of being locked up like a common criminal, without his lighter, or his igniters, or any source of flame that he could use to defend himself, sent a cold stab of fear down his spine.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was not the way things were supposed to turn out. He was supposed to be one of Magneto's most valued soldiers, earn his place in the Brotherhood, eventually work his way up until he was as feared or esteemed - depending on who was making the assessment - as the Master of Magnetism himself. They'd been trying to destroy that stupid, goddamned cure. A cure; they called it a cure, as though a person's x-gene needed curing by the same ignorant, pathetic homo-sapiens who were too stupid to realize that they were just one rung too low on the evolutionary chain to be worth a damn thing.
And now he was being held captive by them. In some cold, white, unforgiving prison where, he swore to god, he'd slit his own damned wrists and splatter the fucking walls with red and take a few of the bastards with him before he let them throw him in a cell and throw away the key and…
"You're awake."
At the sound of the voice, John's head snapped to the side so quickly that it made his vision blur. He hadn't heard this particular voice - laced with what was still the faintest trace of a Southern accent mixed with the dulling of the soft dips and lulls in her inflection that came from living in New York for awhile - in a long time. But he recognized it immediately.
Of course he did. It was another one of those things John remembered that he couldn't drive out of his memories.
He hadn't expected to hear it here, though. Which made him wonder if maybe he was in an entirely different place than he'd thought. Maybe this was heaven. A fucked-up version of heaven, but heaven all the same.
While his own blue eyes met her brown ones, then trailed over her face, down her body, to her hands, noticing with a sort of sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that she wasn't wearing gloves, he had, for the briefest second, an almost vulnerable expression on his face. As though she'd caught him off guard (she had), as though he couldn't help the fact that he was happyto see her (he was), as though he was perfectly free to jump up out of bed and resume life right where he'd left off (as a futile tug of one leg proved… he wasn't).
The expression vanished, quickly enough that John hoped that she hadn't noticed it. But he had seen the change in her expression when their eyes met. And he knew, without a doubt, that she'd seen the vulnerability there.
It was replaced with a mocking sneer, raised eyebrows, and the apparent air of someone who was irritated that he was being interrupted.
"Rogue."
She didn't answer him, just let the curtain fall behind her as she stepped further into his makeshift room. And her silence, the way she bit her lip, looking him over as though he was a hopeless case, all of that actually worried John. He'd expected some sort of remark on how wasn't this just a fine mess he'd gotten himself into. Or how he'd been an idiot and what had he been thinking? He was lucky to be alive.
John hadn't expected the hesitance that rolled off her in waves and it made his stomach lurch a little. Maybe she was just pissed off; that would make sense. He hadtried to kill her frozen asshole of a boyfriend, after all. But that wasn't anger or annoyance in her expression. He knew her expressions too damn well (too much time spent watching her in class without her knowing he supposed) to mistake the pity and sadness on her face.
"Rogue." He said it again, but, this time, it was more of a question. Why the hell wasn't she talking? "I heard you went to take the cure." His eyes flickered to her bare hands again. "Guess you actually went through with it. I'm disappointed. I thought you actually realized your mutation was worth more than a cheap fuck with Drake."
She looked up at him then - she'd been staring intently on the side of his bed - and he'd expected to see either hurt or anger in her expression. But, no. Still, there was that deep, all-consuming pity. "John -"
Something tightened in his chest and he cut her off, suddenly not wanting to hear whatever she had to say. "Let me up, would you? They've got me tied down like I'm some sort of fucking threat or something." He smirked, clearly amused with himself. "Imagine that. Hand me my lighter while you're at it."
She literally went white at his words, the blood draining from her face. "John -"
"And while we're on the subject, where the hell am I? What? Is this Xavier's again? Just can't get outof this damn place, no matter how hard I -"
"John."
He stopped trying to interrupt her then, but he kept a scowl firmly fixed on his face. No damn way he was going to let any sort of fear show through. "What," he snapped irritably.
Rogue hesitated again, then moved closer to his bedside, tugging down the blanket that had been pulled up around him to his chest and tucked around his body.
"The fuck are you doing? You think just because you can touch me that I'm going to let you have your way with me? Maybe later. I feel like shit right now."
"John, shut up." She didn't look at him when she said it though, just tugged the blanket down to his waist, then got to work on loosening the strap that had been tightly secured over his chest to hold him down. He figured that there must be a similar one holding his legs down as well.
"Storm and Logan wanted to make sure you wouldn't wake up and freak out and run off or something…" Rogue said slowly, the straps falling aside. But she quickly placed a hand on either of his elbows, to hold his arms down. "Look - Bobby carried you off of Alcatraz after the battle. And they brought you back here and did their best. But…"
She stopped, looking sick and as though she wasn't quite sure how to say what was right on the tip of her tongue.
"Just spit it out, Rogue," John snapped, her nervousness making him edgier than he already was. "What? I've got a fucking concussion? No big surprise there. Iceprick knocked me in the head pretty hard."
"No… John. They tried to save them, tried to keep you from losing them. They did. I was down here every day, making sure they were doing everything they could for you. I swear. But it was just… They said it was like an extreme case of frostbite." She stepped back, releasing his arms, finally letting him lift them up.
What he hadn't expected to see, when he lifted his heavily bandaged arms, were rounded off stumps at the end of each limb. It didn't register at first; he just looked up at Rogue numbly, staring at her, expecting some sort of plausible explanation that would make this better. But, when he really concentrated, John realized that he couldn't feel his fingers to move them. It was like they simply just weren't thereanymore.
The howl that came from his mouth barely sounded human and it was met by a contorted look of pain on Rogue's face. She tried to hush him, tried to console him, tried to calm him, but the sound of lumbering footsteps outside the curtain, and then the appearance of a blue beast of a man entering the room made her back up and let Dr. McCoy handle this.
There wasn't much she could do for John. Not for the boy who had tempted fate. The boy who had held fire in the palms of his hands and survived, only to lose them to ice.