A/N: This is part of a series that, with recently-remembered prodding from Lilsara723, I have finally written the second part to. You might want to read the previous one, entitled Beautiful, also on this account (duh)
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Loffs to Pyrassion, Eirwen55 and Lilsara723, who reviewed my last X-men fic. Shnuggles and cookies in advance!
Golden
John awoke screaming.
Not aloud, of course. John screamed only in his mind, terrified almost to the point of insanity but no sound passed his lips. Any sound would be the last thing that could happen, for that would wake up Mother, Hannah, Sarah and Jimmy. It would wake Mrs Pattersen and Mr Gonsavoti, Old Miss Haverstock and the Vasvlos family. But most of all, it would wake Father, and that was the reason, the real reason, that John remained silent. His mind was in torment, images flashing across his eyes as though he was still there, living it again. And then he remembered. There was no Mother, no brother, no sisters.
He was alone.
Well, not quite alone. He still had Father. Father, who had done – that awful thing. Father, who had always been right and to whom John owed so much debt. Father, who had shown him what he truly was. Father was always with him, for he lived on in John's mind, tormenting him. Even now, when John had come so far from that terrible night, he still found him. His life had been reduced to a twisted, sadistic game of hide-and-seek. Except that it wasn't a game any more. It had gone way past that, and John was scared. He wanted it to stop, wanted the nightmare to end, but still the face loomed before his eyes, the laugh still ringing in his ears.
He clamped his hands over them, but it made no difference. The laugh was still there, bouncing off the walls of his mind and there, there was the burning pain that John had come to associate with that laugh. Then the throbbing which seemed to press at his temples, crushing his skull, blinding him with pain and red-black light. Tears fell, hot and wet down his face as he pushed his hands harder against his ears, as if forming a vacuum seal would break the spell, wake the nightmare, end the game. It was, as always, no use. If anything, the laugh grew louder, filling the space inside his head and forcing itself against the confines of his skull. The pressure was unbearable, but still John made no noise. For to cry out was to be weak, and to be weak was to be worthless. And he so badly wanted to be worth something to Father, to mean something, to be more than the pathetic, freakish thing that he was.
The blackness loomed around him, like some huge monster of legend, menacing and all-engulfing. Once, John had wished that it would take him, if it meant an end to the endless screaming that pervaded his every waking moment, and his constant sleeping being. Not that John got much sleep nowadays. People were commenting in it, how he looked so much paler. But he didn't tell them. He knew better than that, knew better than to squeal, for he knew the else would be worse than what he was currently suffering. He could stand the pain, the fear, the insomnia. He had for years, and his body had grown adjusted to it.
He would survive. But he would be alone.
John had never told anyone about his past, about what Father had… done. That was his personal business, his private affairs. The Professor no longer attempted to enter his mind, and he had burned that other one, who had no control. He had not burned physically, for that would be to show himself, to reveal how it got to him, this invasion. No, he had burned her on her turf, on her own ground, had burned her mind with the waves of hate and anger and pain that he sent across. He had learnt that from him.
Pain. It was all-encompassing, and it did not become more bearable for time, as it said in those books. With each passing moment it became more intense and stabbed deeper. Barbed and poisoned, it spread like slow-burning fire throughout his head, down his throat, into his chest. It tore at his lungs, ripped at his heart, rent at his stomach with savage glorifying oneness, not differenciating between his heart and his head. It was never-ending torture, and Father was there through it all, seeing out his work as he always did.
Someone was shouting, far away. They were grabbing at his hands, pulling them away from his head. The pressure seemed to increase until John thought his head would split, as if his hands had been the only thing stopping it wrenching itself in half. Light filtered its way in through the darkness, and he could see. What could he see? He stared upwards, view fogged through tears and the pain-induced darkness. A light pierced the darkness, blinding him, searing through the shroud. Another, just a pin-prick, but more came, and more, shredding the darkness into pieces.
John looked up into the face of his angel, whose blue eyes were filled with such concern. Then he was being held, held as he could only remember being held once before: by his mother after his father had left. Here, he was safe. The darkness lingered still, flickering at the corners of his vision, but it held no power here. He looked sideways, out of the window through Bobby's hair. His sight was still blurred by the tears that he had not yet brushed away, not needing to, not here. Weakness didn't matter here. He looked through the rainbows of his tears, and all he could see was golden.