July 2012

Burn woke as if out of a bad dream, feeling the imprint of something awful but unable to grasp what it had been. His arms wouldn't move the way they should. It took too much effort to raise them toward his head —

Tunk.

His elbow knocked against something hard and slick.

He wrenched his eyes open and found himself lying under a curve of glass.

Where am I?

He struck out and pushed — his arms still wouldn't work right — and tried to think. The last thing he could remember was Keith looking at him with hard eyes, ice everywhere — they'd been fighting —

Faces appeared on the other side of the glass. He heard buttons being pushed; the glass pivoted up. He threw himself over the edge onto his feet, but his legs wouldn't work, either, and he clung to the bed for support as they collapsed under him.

He didn't recognize anyone around him. They reached to pull him up and took his arms.

They were Psychiccers. When they touched him, his mind grabbed onto them as instinctively as his hands might, seeking support, answers.

— Infirmary — NOA —

Had he lost the fight?

— Two years and he picks now —

— Sedate him! —

"Like hell you will!" Burn struggled against their grip. He didn't have the strength to get free — What's wrong with me? — but somehow he had to find the strength. He couldn't let let himself be knocked out again.

Keith needed him. Had he picked that up from their minds, or did he just know?

Whoever these people were, they weren't going to stop him. He lashed out again with a burst of will — and a plume of flame sent them all jumping back.

Burn's muscles didn't seem to work, but his powers did. With Psychic energy he steadied his shaking legs and darted away, skimming inches above the floor.

He didn't have to settle for running; he could fly.

A thought-fragment echoed through his mind as he went — two years — but he didn't believe it. He didn't seem to recognize anyone he passed in the corridors, but he didn't have time to wonder about that. He just flew on, ignoring their stares in his haste to get to the room he knew he had to find.

Keith was waiting, all alone, in that thronelike chair. He sat with his head leaned back, eyes closed, and somehow just seeing him told Burn everything. Suddenly he believed it had been two years. Suddenly he thought it must have been longer. Keith looked much older than nineteen.

Burn lowered himself to the ground. The sound of his boots on the steel floor echoed in the cavernous chamber.

Keith drew in his breath, lowered his face, opened his eyes, and smiled. That smile made him look a hundred years old.

"Burn. I've been waiting for you."

"Keith…" He didn't know where to start. "What the hell happened?"

"You've been sleeping, Burn. For two years. Ever since…"

"…Ever since what?"

He didn't answer. Burn wouldn't know without touching his mind — without touching his skin — but when he took a step closer, Keith stood, and Burn sensed him preparing to back away from any touch. Could he feel Keith's mind even from here, or just read it in his body, as if he were dealing with some wary animal? Pain and danger seemed to be written in the smallest changes — a cloud passing over his eyes, a slight lift of his chin…

"And now you've awakened… To finish what we started."

To finish the fight.

"What!?" Burn shouted. "Are you still stuck on that Psychiccer Utopia crap!? Wake up already! Look at you — how long are you going to go on like this?" He'd been going on like this for two years and the toll it had taken was clear. As bad as Keith had been before, he was much, much worse.

"How long?" Keith answered. "As long as it takes. When are you going to wake up, Burn? How else do you think someone like— How else do you think Psychiccers are going to survive?"

"Bullshit!" Burn snapped. "You don't even really believe that yourself!"

Keith started back, and Burn knew he'd hit the mark. Now his friend's face was hardening against the attack, but he had already seen it — what he hadn't seen two years ago. Keith was vulnerable now, vulnerable where it counted. He had a chance to break through.

"You're not going to save the world like this, Keith," Burn told him. "You're the one who needs saving — and I'm gonna be the one to do it."

"You don't even know what you're talking about." The calm in Keith's voice was a brittle shell of ice.

"If I don't know," Burn said, "then show me."

He stepped forward, eyes locked on Keith's face. That was what he had to reach. Keith was in a different costume this time, but still one that closed him off against the world; his face was the only bare skin, the only open place where Burn could touch him.

At some invisible threshold of distance, Keith took a step back. The Psychic energy that was still supporting Burn's legs carried him forward to press the advantage, skimming over the floor. Keith dodged back into the air. Warning spikes of ice shot up from the ground and Burn flew back to avoid them.

And the fight was on, again.

Burn chased Keith through the air. If I could just get hold of him — but every time he began to get close, Keith fleeted away or drove him off-course with jagged spears of ice. There was no gentle way to do it. If I can just stun him — and Burn started throwing force against force, fire against ice, trying to melt through or buy himself an opening, but no matter what he tried, Keith was one step ahead.

Realization seethed up inside him, of something he hadn't realized when they'd traded blows before. A fight like this was still something new to him, but it wasn't new to Keith at all. He was a novice up against an expert.

It was almost more than he could stand. In sheer frustration he charged at Keith with a battle cry in his throat and flames blazing around him, but in the end it just left him lost somewhere in the air. He couldn't see Keith, couldn't see anything but blank steel walls —

Before he could turn around, a mass of ice hit him in the back and took him flying into the wall for a stunning impact. He tried to recover, stop himself falling — but he wasn't falling. The ice had seized the wall with a frosty grip and pinned him there. Before he could muster the heat to melt or shatter it, it shattered on their own as it hurled him back again. He barely managed enough of a force field to soften the blow as he was dashed against the floor.

"Give it up, Burn. Go home," Keith commanded.

"Heh! That's my line!" Burn picked himself up, stoking the coals of frustration into a blaze of defiance as he turned to face Keith again. He could find him by the sound of his voice — and by the sound underneath it, trembling and fierce. He'd never heard that tone from Keith before, and it told him his opening had widened.

I'm not taking my eyes off you again! With fresh determination, Burn charged at Keith, over and over, and with each failed attempt to get close the fire inside him blazed hotter, brighter, stronger, until flames spilled over into the air. It had to work. It had to be enough power to get through, to reach across the distance —

Burn stretched out his hand — and across the distance, an echo of his hand was written in flames. Its giant fingers curled around Keith, hemming him in from behind. I'm not letting you get away!

Keith did escape the flaming grasp, barely, but the surprise broke his form, turned him around. Burn dashed through the air toward him — closer — so close!

He was within feet when Keith turned again and saw him coming — close enough to see the blue of those eyes for one instant before they vanished, sealed away by a shell of white armor that lashed out into spikes. Burn was flying too fast to check himself. Pain streaked across his chest as one of the points grazed him. Ice smashed over his head and shoulder, and somewhere in the tumbling confusion he felt Keith's body against him — felt it more cruelly than he felt his own wound. The cloth of the uniform, the warm body underneath it — there for one moment, gone before Burn could get a hold.

"Keith!"

When Burn got his bearings amid the ringing hail of broken ice hitting the floor, he found Keith on the other side of the room again, a tiny, distant figure looking down at him across the expanse of cold steel. He'd been close — so close! — and now…

How can I get through to you!? Somehow he had to. He couldn't let it end like this. Fire coursed through him. He felt it in the wound across his chest, in heat that came surging up behind his eyes. Beyond thought or plan, he poured his power outward with all the force of his desperation and will to get through, driving it to find its own shape.

Flame pulsed and flourished around him, swept out at his sides —

Wings.

At the same time, Keith had summoned a twisting column of ice that writhed like a living thing, glittering with blade-crystals like scales. The head of it split open into fearsome jaws lined with icicle teeth.

That thing's not gonna stop me!

Burn drove his breath out in a cry of determination, and the bird-shaped flame — the phoenix — took flight, its wings churning gales of heat through the air. The ice dragon veered away from Keith and came flying to meet the phoenix head-on — force against force —

You're not gonna stop me this time!

Cutting past the clash, driven only by the need to get through, the phoenix dipped sideways in its flight, just raising a gloss of meltwater on the dragon as the two passed side-by-side on their parallel paths.

The dragon hurtled toward Burn with nothing to stop its fangs, but he didn't flinch. If I can just get through—!

Jaws of ice blotted out his vision — then, within feet of his face, the dragon lurched as if to check itself and swerved off. Cold, searing pain ripped across Burn's arm as the ice-teeth opened a gash over his bicep.

He just had time to see Keith. Even at this distance Burn could read something in his face — stunned, open — this time it would go through!

The phoenix reached Keith.

It didn't stop.

For a moment Burn saw a blazing tangle of blue and orange, black and white, and then Keith resolving as a dark shape backlit against the flames.

The phoenix disintegrated as Burn lost his hold on it. It was as if all the passion of the moment before had been blown out like a candle, leaving only a smoke-curl of surprise. He didn't know what he'd been expecting the phoenix to do, but that wasn't it.

He didn't even know what it had done. Keith was drifting back, face clenched, bracing himself. A swath of his uniform was blackened — or had that part been black before?

"Keith?" Burn called, gliding toward him.

Keith dodged away, unsteadily. With an "ngh!" he flung out a hand.

Ice roared up from the floor in frost-hoary, half-formed crags and spires. A solid wall of it drove into the ceiling, cutting the room in half — and walling the two of them off from each other.

Even after all that, there was still a wall of ice between them. Burn lowered himself to the floor. For a moment he just stood there, staring at the silent mass in front of him. Finally he cried out and threw a gout of flame against it, but the blazing determination had left him. Those coals of frustration had finally burnt down to ash, and it stung in his eyes when he saw the ice standing unscathed. He felt like a child pounding on a door with no real hope that it would open — and nothing else to do but keep pounding.

He stood there throwing half-hearted blasts of fire against the ice-wall. A second one, a third… The third time was always the charm in the fairy tales Keith used to read, but it didn't work here.

Burn sank back against one of the ice spires. For the first time, he actually felt cold, but that wasn't the reason his hands were starting to shake. The weakness was creeping up on him again. If he gave up and released his hold on his powers…

Nothing else to do… He threw a fourth fireball.

The ice shrank back, smooth and watery as normal ice eaten away by a flame. Burn caught his breath. In moments, he'd melted through a smooth-sided hole.

It could be a trap. If Keith was waiting on the other side ready to attack, Burn would be an easy target — but he didn't care. He glided through the gap, feeling cold bleed out of the ice and onto his skin. No attack came. The other side was just the same cavescape of blue-white.

"Keith?" Echoes of his own voice faded, answered only by the crystalline crackling of the ice. He hovered around its corners and columns, searching, until through a narrow vertical gap he saw a flash of bright blue low to the ground. "Keith!"

As Burn darted forward, he instantly knew that it wasn't a trap. Keith lay on a bed of ice, and something was wrong. Something was wrong with the way his legs lay. Something was wrong with the way his chest moved as he breathed. When his face came into view behind the last white crag, it was the wrong color. Somewhere — maybe in Keith's books — Burn had heard phrases like "pale as ash," but he'd never realized that people would actually turn that color.

"Keith! Hang on, Keith!"

He took Keith up into his arms, powering through the twinges in his own wounds. He cradled his friend's head on the crook of his elbow, and Keith's cheek settled against his arm, skin against skin, finally —

Pain.

Burn braced himself against it as if against a sudden blizzard gale. He might have been ready for the lancing pain of burns, but not for this: a vast, crushing weight as large as a glacier. It felt like the ice in news footage of buildings Keith had brought down, broken crags dirty with rubble and smoke and blood. This time it felt like it had come down on top of him.

Burn had to pull himself back to the surface and cling to physical reality for support. He gathered Keith's body closer to his, bracing again for the reflected pain of his hand on his friend's burned skin — but just as he crossed the line where his touch began to sting, sensation simply vanished, as if his hand had gone off the edge of a mirror. The uniform broke in black flakes under his fingers. In one terrible moment, he realized what he'd done.

The phoenix he'd formed out of his desire to get past Keith's guarded surface, to get through to him — when it hit him, it had gone through, searing flesh and nerves all the way.

It might as well have sliced him in half.

Burn felt time shudder to a stop.

What started it again was the impossible sound of Keith's voice.

"I really was… waiting for you…"

Keith was looking at him. Somehow he was able to look up out of the wreckage in his mind, out of that ruined body.

"Keith…"

"Burn… I…"

Burn caught one of his hands. The glove on it was still pristine white, but as Burn pulled at it, it wouldn't come off. "Shush. It's gonna be okay," he said — desperate, useless words. How could this possibly be okay? "This is all… You've been having a bad dream…"

"Will you… ever forgive me…?"

"What's to forgive?" Burn forced a smile. "We're best friends, right?"

Keith's eyes widened, glistened, then he closed them again and settled onto Burn's arm with something like contentment on his face — that hundred-year smile. "Thank you… Just like back then…"

Burn didn't want thanks. He wanted to see Keith's blue eyes again.

He pulled harder at the glove, finally managed to strip it off and pressed his fingers into the bare skin. More contact… Keith's mind still felt like wreckage. He tried to make his way through it, holding on to Keith's thoughts.

You were always the one… With you, I could just be… I always knew that you'd save me.

Burn choked out a laugh. "You call this a rescue?"

An answer floated up from beneath the debris. Burn felt it as a stomach-tilting lift against gravity. It was wrong, all wrong — a terrible, thousand-faceted yes.

I don't have to carry this weight anymore.

I don't have to watch my people die anymore.

I don't have to be afraid anymore.

Yes, he did feel this as a rescue.

Burn heard a distant echo of his own voice. You don't even really believe that yourself! And now he could see — it had stung because he'd been right in the most awful way. It had been two years since Keith really believed that the story could have a better ending than this. Duty and pretenses of hope now lay in ruins, broken open to the truth so long imprisoned, and what emerged into freedom was relief that it was over. Burn felt wisps of it floating around him, slipping through his grasp like breath-mist in the cold. It was all wrong, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

I don't have to be a monster anymore.

I can stop making you hate me.

"Stupid!" Burn cried. "I was never gonna hate you!"

The answer he got was the same. Just like you, Burn… Thank you…

To hell with thanking me! He didn't want gratitude. He didn't know what he wanted. To have Keith angry and screaming at him would be better than this.

'Rage against the dying of the light,' eh? Keith's mind replied, but it was just a quote from somewhere. The "light" was just a word.

It was all wrong. What can I do to make it right? What can I tell you? What can I give you? And with so little time! Burn pressed his face against Keith's cheek, sobbing. His tears landed on his friend's skin and slid off. His thoughts, his need to make it right, just slid off in the same way. It wouldn't soak in the way he wanted it to.

I'm sorry, Keith thought. You've been through so much because of me…

It was worse than being thanked. "Shut up! Shut up!" Burn was so close that with every word he felt his lips brushing Keith's face, his lips against Keith's lips —

— Never another chance —

Burn saw an opening, and he took it without hesitation in a sudden blind push toward that unnameable "right." He crushed his lips against Keith's before he even realized what he was doing.

When he did realize, it came as a sudden impact, a sudden settling, as if some part of himself that he hadn't even realized was out of place had found the gap that fit its own perfect shape and fallen into it. It was completely unexpected, and yet nothing could have been more natural, because the matching pieces had been there all along. All these years, he'd been revolving his life around having Keith in it, having Keith taken away, wanting him back, wanting him back right… And now he found himself face-to-face with the reason he'd come this far, and it was the simplest thing in the world.

I love you.

He raised his head to look at Keith face to face.

Keith's eyes were open again, staring at him, but then they tightened under anguished brows. I'm sorry. I'm sorry… He just thought it was tragic.

And it was, but it was more than tragic. Come on, is that all you can see? Burn kissed him again and again — on his lips, on his cheeks, on his furrowed brow, trying to make up for lost time, trying to get it through to him.

And with those kisses he found the shape of what stood in the way. You don't believe me.

I believe you… He thought he did, but he didn't. He didn't know what it would mean to really believe it.

Let me show you.

Burn brought his fire in his mind, burning brightly like a torch to shine into the dark place where Keith couldn't really believe him, and its light revealed what was there.

It was the image of Keith from all those newscasts, the blue figure in his fearsome costume raising a hand to a building, ice gripping it out of nowhere until it collapsed under the weight, people screaming…

You don't love that.

You still don't get it. Burn pressed further. He turned the fire against the obstacle. It was harder than he would have thought. Fire had to take it in to burn it. He had to totally take it in in a way he never had before. That really was Keith in those pictures, he really was the one who did that… But he did take it in, and it burned. It wasn't destroyed or forgotten, but it turned into light. It let him pass through.

Beyond it was more darkness, then another image. Now it was Keith huddled against a steel floor, steel walls, all alone for who knew how long without another human face, without so much as a blanket to hide him from his captors' hidden camera eyes and mechanical steel claws. He was trapped there, snatching desperately at any scrap of power or control but always finally helpless, like a caged animal being harried to make it vicious…

You can't love that. Pity, maybe, but not love.

Burn did love, and pity, too, but it wasn't right, it wasn't enough. He had to take it in — this is what happened to Keith and I wasn't there — burn deeper…

The next image was one already stamped into Burn's memory. He was back in his parents' living room. His dog was dead on the floor. The men in black suits lay still in blood-streaked crags of ice. He remembered it all — how could he forget? — but now it was all dizzyingly unfamiliar. For the first time he saw it from another side, from behind Keith's eyes. In the memory, Keith staggered back against a wall, his hand still stretched out toward the dead men as if he'd never be able to move that arm again. He was seeing his own life lying broken there, too. His breath came fast and ragged. His heart pounded out my life is over my life is over — they're going to hate me — they should hate me —

And Burn realized: This is the moment when I lost you.

That was when Keith had stopped believing him. That was where he'd picked up that twisted gratitude — for things he thought he didn't deserve. That was where he'd gotten the idea that he had to save the world to justify being in it.

And he had never let anyone see it. When Burn had taken him and run, he'd locked it away where Burn couldn't see it. He'd spent every sleepless night alone with it…

Burn saw himself asleep in a motel room bed. He saw the back of the door and Keith's hand on the handle, turning it slowly, quietly…

That was how Keith had disappeared.

If they'd taken you because of me… I couldn't let—

"YOU IDIOT!" Burn screamed. Did you think I wanted you to do that!? I wanted to be the one to protect you—! The force of it almost sent him flying. It took all of his determination to hold on to it — it burned.

He was sacrificing himself to protect me. Somehow that was what he'd been trying to do all this time.

Taking that in felt like burning — like a fire passing through him and searing all the way until his flesh came off the bones of I wanted to be the hero, I wanted to protect you — but Burn held on, until it turned into light.

In that light, he saw the old days, together. He saw his mother with the camera and felt his own arm around Keith's neck as they posed by the scooter. He saw Keith's face light up when they brought home the cat — supposedly a Valentine's Day gift but actually for Keith, for his birthday. He saw himself and Keith in the little hidden room they'd made in the attic, with homework, with video games, with hours just talking. He saw Keith's hands between his, Keith's mind asking him to warm them…

Yes, I know you love this person.

But it still wasn't right. There was an echo of nostalgia underneath it — It's been so long since I was this person… If Burn said "yes" to this, he'd be saying "I love this you" and not the others.

This had to burn, too.

He didn't want to do it. It hurt to even think of it. He wanted to leave that time just the way it was, forever, but if it stood between him and Keith…

Keith resisted. He didn't break Burn's hold, but his mind pulled back in surprise and fear. You can't mean to take that—? There won't be anything left—!

There will. Trust me. Burn knew that much. He knew it to the bottom of his heart, and it gave him the strength to bring the fire.

It burned through, deeper and deeper until there were no more images to see by it, only the fire itself and the light from the embers of everything it had touched. The heat was so pure it felt cold. The light was as clean and dazzling as sun-fired snow.

Pure, blazing whiteness…

The place where ice and fire meet.

And Keith was still there.

He was still there, with no blue-and-black uniform, no sweater and sneakers, no crimes to judge, no charms to adore. Or maybe with all of it at once — containing everything, defined by nothing. Just a person, an essence of self. He was still there. He was still Keith.

Finally, it was right. Finally it had burned through to the truth.

This is the you that I love.

Keith's mind moved, as if he were testing for himself that he was still there, and he hesitated at what he found. This is… me? The darkness still held on, deep inside the ice. This is what I could have been; this is what I lost—

This is what you are . You're right here, silly.

Slowly it radiated through, all the way to his heart. Slowly the darkness melted away. The movement of his mind grew more confident and free. He almost seemed to dance, like the creature of beauty and grace that he was always meant to be — and always had been, but now, purified of so much, the truth that had been there all along felt fresh and new, like a gift.

What Burn felt from him this time wasn't gratitude. This time it was something better: wonderment, joy, a freedom that moments ago had seemed impossible.

This is what I wanted, Burn realized, for you to see yourself the way I see you.

This time, when they kissed, there was no apology, no tragedy, just the two of them, together at last.

The moment was broken by a shot of pain, like a sudden crack across flawless glass.

It was the sensation of reality breaking in: the moment they had shared could restore mind and soul, but not body, and Keith's body was still burnt through, still doomed.

And now he didn't want to die.

He started to struggle. Between ragged breaths, he started to cry.

Burn held him closer, shuddering himself with the pain of it. This was the way it should be, better than letting him go quietly, with that sick sense of relief — but this way hurt so much more.

Burn rubbed Keith's trembling hand, warming it the way he used to. It's okay… it's okay… He was back to useless words, with nothing left but to try to ease the pain. Like back then, huh? I'll hold you while you go to sleep.

I don't want to! Keith cried in his mind.

A moment later, his shoulders shook with a burst of breath that sounded more like a laugh. Dammit, Wong. I want to stop time right now…

Burn managed a sad laugh, too. That would sure be nice, wouldn't it? Even if there were some way back from here, Burn admitted to himself that it wasn't that simple. It was the same world back there waiting for them. Going forward was even worse. He would be going into that world alone, and Keith…

He had stopped struggling.

"Keith!?"

His eyes were wide open, still but alive, looking into the distance as if he'd seen something that suddenly captured his full attention, something that Burn couldn't see. Then, he relaxed and closed his eyes with a small but luminous smile.

A sigh escaped him, and as it did, Burn felt Keith's mind sweeping over him, around him — it seemed to flow out around the ice and fill the whole towering space of the room. It felt huge, all-embracing, and yet it was a very personal embrace, surrounding Burn in a wordless I love you, too, warm as skin, white as snow, cold as winter. It was like nothing Burn had ever felt.

No, there was something. It felt like Christmas — just that kind of warmth within cold, wide as the air and close as family, full of love, hope, anticipation…

Anticipation of what?

Keith drew in his breath. The smile held, but behind it his teeth chattered. …So cold…

Burn squeezed him closer again, thinking to warm him, but instead of Keith's soft skin or fluffy hair, his cheek touched something hard and slick.

What the—!?

He started back to see what was happening and found Keith suddenly encased in ice — and the ice was expanding. It billowed outward in fluid shapes as clear and smooth as glass. Burn was shoved back as Keith was lifted from his arms and carried away as just an image rippling black and blue and white through layers of flawless crystal.

"Keith!" Burn tried to melt through and reach Keith again, but the ice was expanding too fast. It wouldn't let him through, it wouldn't take him in — a wall forming between them — again —

"KEITH!"