9/20/02
::Authors Notes:: A random fic. The song is Dashboard Confessional-The Good Fight. Um….please read Paris in Flames! Cause…it would make me really happy. It's about Pyro…………
Does it comfort you to know you fought the good fight? Basking in your victory, hollow and alone to boast your bitter bragging rights to anyone who'll listen.
The Good Fight
By asheniel
The sun set.
Scott was dead and they had buried his remains alongside the others: Professor Xavier, Jean, Lance, Evan, and Kitty. It was a poor monument to all those that had lost their lives in hopes of saving mankind. But no one would ever know because that was the reason that they called it The Good Fight. The Good Fight was a victorless fight, at least for them. No one would thank them. No one would come to visit their graves one hundred years later and feel sorrow for the heroes that had fallen.
It was hollow, broken, scraped of all but the malignant lack of passion. Emotion got pushed over the edge and out of feel in fights such as these, and Todd snuck a glance at Kurt. He wasn't crying. He had stopped crying when they had buried the third person. By then they had all fallen upon the inevitability that The Good Fight was no longer worth fighting. It wasn't cowardice, it was acceptance.
Scott was a coward. He couldn't accept the truth and maybe in his eyes he was martyr to the Cause, and that was why he kept on going. But in the end he had been broken, broken and left to die by his own selfish pride. Too jaded to see past the glory in what he was doing. He had never let go of The Good Fight. He had told Kurt some things as he died, fragmented sentences about never losing hope. Todd wondered if Kurt had even heard him. Scott hadn't bothered to address Todd, and though he didn't regret it, the younger boy bitterly wondered if The Good Fight was meant to be divided. In any case, ominous noises in the brush had warned them that danger was close at hand. Todd had gone, because he had never believed in things such as the honor of sacrificial loyalty and duty to one's fellow soldiers. Kurt had remained for several seconds, looking through Scott. Whatever passion he had had in The Good Fight was faded now and he teleported away, leaving Scott undefended. He was not a coward, though Scott or Jean or Professor Xavier may have though him one. He was merely bound by the acceptance that The Good Fight had died long before any of them had ever lived. He was not willing to die for a blind cause. And there was nothing he could do for Scott since he was.
Todd stared at the mound of dirt before him. Kurt had gone back and gotten Scott after the Sentinels had gone, a gesture which illustrated the goodness that still remained. Todd wouldn't have done it. Scott deserved no grave, he thought. He was no martyr. He was a simpering, ignorant little boy eager for the trophies of combat.
Pietro had died first. His grave was amongst a pile of burnt rubble from a collapsed building. His remains were ash. He deserved the godly treatment more than Scott did. He had never been fooled, he had known what would happen and he had fought against it. Scott had fought for it. Persecution, or something like that.
But no one seemed to realize what Pietro had done for them. Scott had merely said that they would not be endangering their lives for the remains of a traitor. But who was the traitor here? For boundaries should never be drawn in The Good Fight. Maybe in a war, but Scott had told them many times that this was no war. Not when the enemy is helpless and ignorant. (Or so Scott had decided) In any case, The Good Fight wasn't supposed to be measured by past hostilities. Why hadn't Scott seen that? He was a hypocrite, one that preached the honor and loyalty but couldn't even bring himself to follow. And it was then that Todd had lost any vestige of faith he may have possessed in The Good Fight.
Even when Lance had died, Scott had questioned his burial among the X-Men. He never fully fought for us, he had said, he should be buried somewhere else.
But why? How had Lance been any less worthy than the others?
Fred had left soon after, followed by Ororo, Beast, everyone. Perhaps they had all lost faith in The Good Fight as well.
Todd looked up to see Kurt walking away. Not words, no excuses. He just walked.
Todd started to follow him, but then changed his mind. The Good Fight would not affect his decision in what would become of him. He walked The Other Way.
The sun set lower.