The flames roared around me as I picked my way through shards of broken glass. The children screamed around, writhing in the flames, melting into the floor of what was once a play room. This was May field orphanage, this was home. I stumbled over the arm of a crying woman, one of the workers perhaps, she reached to me, and the acrid scent of burning flesh stole into my nose. Above me the roof was caving in, allowing starlight to break through this scene from hell. The ambulance couldn't get there fast enough.
I woke up in a cold sweat, twisted in my sheets, afraid to look around me…thinking I would be back there, in that hell for orphans.
I hadn't had that dream in a long time, not since I'd come to Xavier…I think it was the reason I'd forsaken sleep altogether, just to escape the melting faces.
I could never forget the faces.
I shuddered and curled into a ball. Around me it was silent, the walls a cold unfeeling glass held together by belts of steal; this was seclusion. Proffessor Xavier had me locked away like I was some sort of criminal…maybe I was.
I stared out the glass into the dark corridor. He'd put me in glass, I assumed, so they could keep watch of me. Make sure I didn't do anything -crazy. It would give me time to think he'd said, about what I'd done and how wrong it was.
That only works if you have some regret; I didn't have any. My only regret was that Storm lived, that Xavier had come for a brief while to report her condition…that he'd taken joy in the look of utter disgust on my face when he'd told me Kurt and Storm were engaged now.
Engaged. He'd confessed his love then proceded to propose to my enemy.
The thought crushed me, so I pushed it somewhere deep beyond me, and tried to think of something else, anything else. I needed to drown out the roar of my heart, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes.
He said he loved me, and I knew he wasn't lying; I saw the truth in his eyes-so why was he doing this to me?
This was the worst part of seclusion; the fact that I actually had time to think about what I knew they were doing late at night.
He was fucking her; when it should have been me.
It should have been Me.
Me.
And the thought made my stomach turn. Sometimes I pictured them all tangled up in his cotton sheets, sweating as they moved in rythym to their lust. It wasn't making love I know, it was fucking, but I didn't feel any better about it.
And then my thoughts would drift over to Pyro, my friend who loved me too much. Much more than I deserved. Why? I was always chasing Kurt, and yet he loved me, and he was sure of it.
Kurt was never sure of anything…he hid behind his rosaries as if they'd save him from the world…from me.
Pyro didn't hide from me…he was always so sure of his love for me; how could he be so sure?
I closed my eyes and tried to picture his face. His deep brown eyes that always seemed so naked when they looked into mine, all their guards down…down. He was beautiful that way, when he let me in…
"Markie." My eyes shot open; Pyro was pressed his hand against the glass, smiling that little half smile of his. I stood as if in a trance and walked over to where he was, pressing my hand against his.
"Hey you," I said through muffled tears, "I missed you."
And I did.