Disclaimer: Again, the boys aren't mine.
A/N: I just wanted to say thank you to the beautiful reviewers from the last chapter. Lennister: my friend, you make me smile and I can't wait to keep reading your HP, akari-hayashi: thanks for the compliment, you have no idea how much I appreciate it, Pyrrhic Lotus: I truly hope you like this chapter as much as the last one and you sound very happy, I like you, and mysterious-muse: you live up to your name, I'm glad you're watching and I hope you're pleased. Thank you guys so much and hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner than this one was! If there are any problems, as I'm beta-less, please let me know so I may correct them.
And holy shit, I just found a fic with the same name as this one and they used the Robert Frost poem as well. So if Obsidian Kiss or anyone who knows them is reading this, I totally had no idea theirs was out there and I'm so terribly sorry if you're pissed at me. I guess they say that great minds think alike and all that jazz. So I hope that you're forgiving!
Fire and Ice
Chapter Two
He had always felt alone.
Though he was constantly surrounded by people he was never one of them. It was as if he could barely see them standing around him. They could see him, they could talk to him, but they weren't really there. Rather, he wasn't really there. It was almost as though he were a shadow of a person that was almost standing next to you, but wasn't fully operational. He was a ghost.
He couldn't find the energy to interact normally anymore. It had always been a struggle, but now it was next to impossible. He was just too tired, the days were just too long. Even if he'd wanted to be a part of it all, he couldn't have. There was no way. People were too loud, they were always in your face when all you wanted was five minutes to yourself, five minutes to simply be and not have any interruptions. Was it all so much to ask for?
He had never been allowed to be real. Not even to his own family. They had never met their son, their brother, whatever the hell he was. They hadn't even looked at him in months. He was everything that they stood against and nothing that they could ever come to love as one of their own. He had grown up with an appallingly cold family; it really came as no surprise when his exterior began to match his thoughts. On the outside he might look the part of wealthy suburbanite, but on the inside he was left more bitter than they could ever know.
He couldn't show his actual face to anyone, it wouldn't be accepted. There was no chance of that; it was one of the few absolutes in his life. And if there was one thing that Bobby Drake had to do it was be accepted. He had to fit in. The first time he'd realized his power he had nearly had a coronary. Yet on the outside he remained calm and collected, his mask fully in place as he handed back the previously warm drink that he had pressed to his lips only moments before. At first he hadn't understood, but then it had become all to clear, all too painful for him to come to terms with.
The cold was an almost tangible thing, coiling snake-like around his heart and not wanting to let go. He could control and shape it to do as he bid, but it would never leave him. Not for one moment would he have peace from the icy shards that constantly pierced through his mind. They poked and prodded and turned him into little more than a machine. They were frosty and calculating and perfectly logical. And he was sick of it. He was so tired of not letting anyone get close to him for fear of them becoming just as cold as he was.
He wasn't like the rest of them. That alone was enough to almost kill him. For so long he had tried to be one of them. Looking around at the people that surrounded him now he almost didn't understand why he had wanted it so badly. They were scared, panicky creatures, all running from what they didn't understand. But so was he, in a way. He had never known exactly what he was doing. He had lied to everyone about every aspect of his life and this was just adding another secret to the rapidly growing pile that he had stashed away in the dark recesses of his mind.
And the sad part was that he didn't even care anymore. He was used to living his life in the dark while masquerading in the light. On the outside he would be happy, carefree Bobby Drake, straight A student and upcoming member of the X-Men, but underneath he was growing more and more brittle as the days passed. And when ice becomes too brittle, it shatters.
So here he was, alone again, feet pounding the delightfully hot asphalt of the San Francisco streets as he struggled to come to terms with something he really couldn't care less about. He was here to find her. Marie, Rogue, whatever the hell she wanted to call herself. He really didn't have time to deal with this.
Everyone had said that it was his fault that she had gone, that he had pressured her too much, that he hadn't been understanding, and every other kind of bullshit thing that people say when they need something to blame besides their own stupidity. Anyone with half a brain could see that it wasn't for him that she did anything. It was all for her precious Logan and no one else. He didn't really fit into the equation anywhere.
And ever since John had left… well, it had all gone downhill from there. When he had been there, everything had looked a bit more interesting. Simple things weren't quite so simple as he had assumed and life had been looking up for once. Despite the fact that they couldn't have been more different, he had found someone who understood him. Someone he could actually relate to. At least, he thought he could.
He had tried so hard to understand. To get into the mindset of someone he had totally misconceived wasn't the easiest thing to do and he had spent more than a few sleepless nights simply staring at the empty bed his best friend used to inhabit. It was strange, really, that he could have been so wrong about someone he thought he had known so well. They had been like brothers, or how he imagined a brother to be, not finding his to be at all adequate in that area. They knew what the other was thinking and exactly what to say and then it had all been kicked in the fucking head when John left.
He wasn't even going to pretend he wasn't angry. John had just up and gone without one word of warning and that was unacceptable. You didn't do things like that to your best friend. You didn't pretend to go for a stroll in the snow and then defect to the other side. You just didn't. But he knew John was temperamental, he knew that he was a time bomb, and he had let him walk away. He was angrier at himself than he ever would be at his friend.
He still considered him that, a friend. After all he'd done, all the lives he'd destroyed, even as Bobby walked past the wreckage of John's latest conquest as it burned on, he was still his friend. That would never change for him. He didn't think that John could be turned, his powers of persuasion weren't that strong. He had just wanted to see him one last time before the cops found him or he was killed or he simply disappeared forever. It wasn't all that much to ask for, but it was all he hoped to accomplish. He knew it was foolish and sentimental, that it would never happen, so he closed his eyes against the fire and turned his back to it, determined to not let it sway his decision.
He just wanted to find that damned girl and go back home. There was nothing for him here, but just the same, he reasoned, his steps almost wavering, there was nothing for him there. He was just so confused. The mansion couldn't be home so long as, well, so long as it was empty. Only ghosts of happiness walked the halls now and he was tired of being one of those. He came to a standstill in the middle of the street as the fire raged behind him, realizing that he didn't want to go back there. He was more comfortable here with the blaze than he had ever been at school.
Yet all pretenses of finding Marie disappeared when he caught a glimpse of the back of a person he could never mistake.
He pushed his way through the people separating them and quickly became absolutely certain of their identity, regardless of how much they had changed, how much had happened between them.
"Johnny?"
