Disclaimer: I sadly do not own anyone portrayed in this little piece of fiction. Nor am I making any money off of it. So basically I am a sad little girl with no mutants to call her own. The poem "Fire and Ice" is by Robert Frost and it is also not mine. Naturally.
A/N: This is my first X-fic. I have other works, yes, but none of this fandom. If I'm getting things totally screwed up, then I'm more than open to corrections. And this will be slash of the Pyro/Iceman variety, so please, if you're offended, take your business elsewhere. You have been duly warned. This'll more than likely just be a little one shot thing, two or three chapters, tops, so have no great expectations of it. I just got bored and decided to pen something real quick. I even borrowed my sister's laptop to write it and everything. gags Anyways, read on, o valiant reader!
Fire and Ice
Chapter One
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
- - -
There was nothing sweet about it. It was feral and unsophisticated and completely perfect.
He had always heard that feelings sang though people's veins, alighting with joy on lips or words, but his were different. He was different. Instead they tore him apart from the inside, shrieking and howling their way to an even angrier surface. A surface that basked in the red hot glow of the personal hell he had created solely for himself. He was too raw, too primal, too sexual for any of them to even begin to comprehend. He was a god.
He could feel the flames. He could feel every single lick of fire in all its uncontrollable fury and it left him breathless. His hands began to shake as he let the inferno rage on, letting it map its own course. He had caused this, this destruction. And he reveled in it. His soul was purified by the screams radiating along with the heat from the building. It was pure terror and it was all his fault. It consumed his every thought as he let his senses writhe along with the rapidly climbing temperature. His mind followed it as it ripped down hallways, destroying everything it touched. Just as he had always done. Nothing was safe from it, from him. Not even himself. Especially himself. There would be nothing left by the time anyone came to try and stop it.
It was just so easy to lose control. How can you keep tabs on the truly unexplainable? How can you tamp something that steadily refuses to be killed? The only thing he'd been taught at that damned school was how to reign himself in, how to make himself not quite so explosive, so dangerous, so utterly ideal. It was always, 'Put it out, John,' or 'Stop showing off, John,' and he was sick of it. He would have no more of a lifestyle that he could not match. Would not match.
That's why he had left. The Brotherhood had never once told him to control. If he wanted to burn someone alive for the sole pleasure of seeing them engulfed in flames there was no one to impede his whims. No one at all to tell him to stop, he might hurt someone if he continued down this path. Because that's what he really wanted. He wanted to hurt people. And not just the ones that had hurt him, no, he didn't care who he caught in the cross-fire. The more, the better. Deep down, he had never once been a good person. Why would he care about those who didn't care about him?
It was a permanent world of letting go, of just being. Never had he been told to slow down, to not push himself farther than he had before. He could do what he wanted when he wanted to do it. There were no rules to be followed, just a principle. Wreak havoc, spread the word. It was so simple, yet so complex.
The fire kept on. He wasn't about to let it go out. Not yet, not so soon. He needed this. It was his release. And there were so few that he had to keep them close, had to keep them lit for as long as he possibly could. There was nothing so arousing as a naked flame. It could heat the blood or burn you from the inside out. Fire excited not passion, but desire. Passion led to things like love and tenderness, two of the most laughable concepts he'd ever come across. Desire was raw and unbridled, more like himself than anything in this world. Love made one weak and soft while lust made you tougher than diamonds and got you exactly what you wanted.
That's why practical lessons in school had always been such a problem for him. It wasn't because he was less powerful than any of the other students; on the contrary, really, his power was only rivaled by one other. He could just never focus because his mind was on other things. Things that he shouldn't have been thinking about during class. That was one of the perks of having an ice man as your roommate, the shower was always set as just below frigid. But even that didn't help a lot of the time.
The first time he'd ever had any sort of sexual encounter, the place had burned down. He was only fourteen and he'd been a drifter even then. It was so easy to tell people you were seventeen or eighteen when you were all alone on the streets. Easy to convince them that you knew exactly what you were doing though you didn't have a clue. No one cared about the boy in the ragged clothes with the wicked grin so long as he stayed out of their way and fended for himself. It had been the first time he knew that he was even remotely different from anyone else. There had been a kerosene lantern in the corner and when he came it had burst into flames. The whole seedy apartment complex had burned to the ground with him in it.
It was almost religious, the experience of being engulfed in the flames. At first he thought he was going to die, but then he began to realize that it was exactly the opposite, that he was being born again into an entirely different church.
He had tried again only a short time later with much the same results. But this time he focused more on the candle on the dresser than the sex itself. As more sweat dripped into his eyes, the more wax dripped from the growing flame. He saw his very soul in that candle. And he liked it.
It became something that he grew more and more accustomed to as he began to experiment with the fires alone. He would feel the flames coming on faster and harder than he would feel his own orgasm. And it was glorious. A physical feeling can end, it can be washed out of the system and be forgotten, but flames were constant. They were all consuming.
An almost smile quirked at the corners of his lips at the memory. This building was a far better spectacle than that first one had been. He just wished that he could be inside to experience it firsthand. He shifted in the metal chair he was currently occupying and tried to distract himself by taking a sip of whatever it was that he had ordered. It tasted stale in his mouth and didn't work to still his thoughts. One of his hands drifted longingly towards the button of his jeans, his eyes never leaving the conflagration before him, yet he stopped it with a frown. It wouldn't do to be arrested and detained for indecent exposure when he had just committed a terrorist act.
A terrorist act. He glanced around him, taking in the people. They were huddled together in groups, hysteria making their words almost unintelligible or they were standing completely alone, staring wide-eyed at something they thought to be impossible. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever created. He'd affected so many lives with such a simple action.
Throwing a few dollars on the table of the café he'd been calmly sitting at while the fire trucks across the street tried in vain to put out a seemingly magical fire, he began to make his way back to the hotel. It was only a short walk and the smell of the smoke would keep him company for quite a few blocks. He just needed to get back quickly, he needed to be completely freed. No inhibitions. He stopped moments later though as he felt a sudden chill in the air that was more than a bit out of place.
An incredulous voice carried the brief distance from the newcomer to his ears.
"Johnny?"
