Disclaimer: No characters here are mine, but the writing is.

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It's very dark here in Hell.

Not like that's a difference. It's either dark or blinding anywhere I go. Trade one hell for another. Go with Magneto, live with guilt. Stay with Xavier, live held back. Either way, little John Allardyce loses.

At least it's better now. At least I don't have Rogue's sneers of disgust at me, Bobby giving me those damn stupid hurt looks, Jean Grey's sighs and Logan's hypocritical remarks. Shouldn't have hurt those cops. That's all they ever think about me. The teachers failed to correct my rash behavior, my 'friends' thought I was someone that I wasn't, that damn German learned that I was dangerous and irresponsible before he even knew my name. Doesn't do to regret, though. Hell knows I don't regret it, not an instant. But I gotta make choices, and the people who I disappointed all too much were not in my plans.

Hell, do I even have a plan?

Not like Magneto's that much of an improvement. "Follow me and I shall give you meaningless compliments". That's all he's good for. No one really cares about John at all. Xavier and his loonies care about 'the dream', Magneto spends half his time plotting his little 'mutants-only' society. He doesn't get it. It's never gonna happen, not his way. He's smart enough, sure, but he's got next to no followers. Because of that, I'm valuable, at least for the time being. Can't afford to lose his little henchmen, he's only got two.

Even so, I lived for a little while with the guilt of it all, leaving the X-Men behind to drown. I thought they were dead after I realized the dam had ruptured, but by then we were miles away. I'm not heartless. I just made a choice, maybe the wrong one, I don't know.

Turns out they weren't dead at all, just Jean Grey. Took me a goddamn month and a half to find that out.

Sitting in my cot after such, I wondered why the hell I bothered. All that disappointment in me, didn't make a difference by the time I was gone. They probably couldn't even bring themselves to care about my absence. I'd be surprised if they had even said my name.

But Rogue? I'll miss her. She was the only one that made my eyes well up. For the first two nights when I thought she was dead, I'd lie in that damn cot and cry. For God's sake, I didn't want to kill her. Anyone could have died but her. I would have taken her with me if she wasn't so caught up in her goddamn 'Bobbee'. Sure, she thought I was a jerk. But I didn't mind. Out of everyone, she could be the only one who would see it my way. All because of one little touch while flaming the coppers.

Tell me, Rogue, what makes you such a hero for stopping me? I was never thanked for all those years I held back, since I was twelve. I had to stop myself. You know what it's like, you were me for that instant. You know what it's like to want to feel it all, to have to try so hard to keep that power back. It just can't be kept cooped up forever, not when the whole world is so close to being yours. It's tempting, I know. I guess we are similar in that respect. We're all about restraint, too dangerous to be ourselves. We have to have a pretty little disguise, holding back who we really are. We aren't thanked for holding back, even though it's killing us inside. And when the walls fall, even just for one goddamn minute, suddenly the whole world is on our shoulders about it.

We could have been two of a kind. I'd have made you my Inferno. Inferna, if you wanted. My Inferna.

And no one else will ever understand. And when they don't, I can't allow myself to be disappointed. I can't raise my expectations. Nothing will ever change. I'm here till the day I die, stuck in this hellhole I call a life.

My trusty fire as my only friend. Do friends bring about this much trouble? If it's a friend, how come it ruined me? It's only a friend because it obeys, but only when I tell it to. It still burns me. I used to love my gift. Now I understand why everyone hates their own powers, because I hate mine.

Doesn't do to regret. Gotta move on with life, whatever may come. I'm a survivor, that's certain. Too heartless to care about anyone but myself, stuck in too much shit to be cared about. Haven't been there for the people I thought I could call friends, haven't proven myself as anything more than a traitor, haven't lived as anything more than a lost cause for everyone. No one's gonna cry at John's funeral. Probably five people will attend, and that's just to make sure I'm really dead. Poke my dead body with a stick and see if I twitch.

Maybe Rogue and 'Bobbee' will come. I'd like Rogue to come, even if she had to act like she was sad. Of all the people in this world, she's the only one who can see what I really did and why I did it. But she isn't gonna cry. My life doesn't matter to her anymore. It doesn't matter to anyone anymore.

Even fire doesn't let me cast a shadow in Hell.