Title: Fire of Justice
Author: Cassandra West
Rating: PG-13 for language
Fandom: X-men Pairing: Jono/Remy (slightly)
Feedback: candrawestfastmail.fm
Word Count: 818
Dates: Originally written July/August 2002, edited and cleaned up 16 August, 2004
Notes: Part of a series called Insights that looks at particular moments in the character's lives. Originally written as part of an X-men slash RPG
Main character listing: Jono Summary: Jono yells at Rogue about the hypocrisy of leaving Remy to die in Antarctica when the X-men have given second chances to people who did much worse.
Author Notes:1) This opens from the same premise as "Who am I?", that Jono has joined the X-men, somehow got his face back, and is involved with Remy. 2) Essentially, Jono was unable to sleep and decided to take advantage of having his face back to have some tea. While he was in the kitchen, Rogue came in. In the interest of living together peaceably, he asked her what had happened in Antarctica, how she could leave him to die. The Rogue player gave this explanation: "Ah can't answer for anyone else, but Ah couldn't live wit' someone who took part in dat, even if he done no killin'. And neither could the Remy dat was still in my head." Rogue tapped her forehead again, in illustration. "He told me to leave him dere. Dat he didn't deserve love or affection. Dat's why Ah did." This is Jono's response. 3) I know that Hemingway and Leech were not a the Massacre in canon, I chose to place them there. Also, the reference to reverting to childhood is because in spite of knowing that Leech was very young and small when he ran into Kitty in the Morlock tunnels, I still remember him as taller and older. So in my personal universe, he actually physically and emotionally regressed after the Massacre.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to my dear friend and adoptive brother, Star for the advice on the story and corrections on punctuation and grammar.
Disclaimer:Jono, Rogue, Remy, and all things X-men belong to Marvel, but the story herein is mine alone. I make no money from this.

"You... you couldn't... couldn't live with someone who did that? You? Did I miss something here?" Jono stood abruptly, knocking over his chair, and began to move away from the table, trying to put enough distance between himself and Rogue to avoid doing something stupid. "You couldn't live with someone who doesn't have it in him to deliberately hurt anyone, but you have no problem living with Mystique... Terrorist extraordinaire... or Destiny? You didn't have a problem sharing a house with Sabretooth for fuck's sake, the original homicidal maniac from hell! You were bloody fucking Joseph, back when you all thought he was Magneto, the man who wants to kill 95 of the earth's population... But you couldn't live with Remy?"

He tried to get a handle on his rising voice, tried to stop himself projecting telepathically, but couldn't. He was shouting now, both with his voice and with his mind. /"You? The former terrorist? The person who permanently stripped another mutant's powers? The former member of the Brotherhood? The person raised by the woman responsible for Moira McTaggert's death and the Legacy virus killing humans as well as mutants? You couldn't live with him but you're sharing a fucking house with two of Apocalypse's horsemen... both of them signed on with him of their own free will. And the house you live in is owned by someone who killed all of the world's superhuman heroes until Franklin brought them back."/

He stopped, gasping harshly, desperately trying to reign in his outrage as his psi-fire flared with his anger: feeling the return to his usual state speeding up as the unconscious control he'd been exerting all day started to slip. /"Warren bloody consented to help Apocalypse take over the world! I know he was torn up about the loss of his wings, but he still made the choice... His sodding wings. You're talking about the Morlocks. You left Remy to die in Antarctica for that. You said yourself that Remy didn't kill anyone down there, but you didn't have a problem with that butcher Creed living here!" He took a breath and closed his eyes, gathering himself, before opening them and continuing softly, "I spent the last two and a half years being mattress, pillow, friend, confidant, protector, and bleeding big brother to one of the survivors of that Massacre... So fucked up by it that he reverted to the childhood he never had to cope with it. Had me a front row seat for his nightmares about it... And those were the times we were lucky, because I could get into his head and help him wake up. Rest of the time he'd lose control of his powers and I couldn't do anything but hold him, and hope he'd wake up... Couldn't even call for someone else to wake him, because without me powers I couldn't talk. Saw the things that Creed did down in those tunnels. Gambit ruddy saved one of the Morlocks. Know that because she attacked Emma in New York, when they went to pick up Leech and Artie for the school. How could you live in a house with Creed, and not with Rem? How could you decide that Rem deserved to die for what he did, and let Creed live?"/ He looked at her in disbelief, shaking his head in sorrow and confusion.

He continued, entirely telepathically now, still going through the motions of vocal speech: but the returning psi-fire had swallowed his lungs, leaving him unable to produce sounds. He could feel flickers of energy rising to his mouth as he 'spoke'. /Seen Leech's memories... snippets of things he saw past Hemingway's bulk... I know what the Marauders did down there. If anyone ever deserved to die, it was them... but X-men don't kill, so instead of giving Creed a fraction of what he deserved, you lot tried to rehabilitate him, and ended up letting him escape to kill more people. Funny how you forgot that little detail of 'X-men don't kill' when you appointed yourself Judge, Jury, and Executioner with Gambit. Tell me how what Rem did was any worse than what you did, or your mum, or the Prof, Logan, Warren.../

He trailed off, finally realising, now that his tirade was over, that he was losing his face and chest again. /Second thought, don't! Not sure how much control I still have, and didn't fight to protect this house and me lover just to blow it up, because me powers are going wonky. Gonna go somewhere that damage will at least be minimal if I do lose control/ he sent, and slipped out the back door and into the garden.

Unconsciously working out his blast radius, he moved away from the house. He kept going until he was certain that the house was out of range before he collapsed onto a rock and put his head in his hands.