18: nightmares & visions

The first time Bobby came home with an arm lasered off, I thought I was going to throw up. Hank managed to talk him through reattaching whatever ice was left, organic ice doesn't melt like normal ice-tray cubes, thank God. I got called down to watch him slowly work himself back to flesh and blood, dutifully being the boyfriend, trying not to freak out. I managed, his arm was fine, just some deep cuts that needed stitches but it didn't fall off.

'Dude, what the fuck?' I asked him and he just shook his head, sitting up and wincing as Dr. McCoy sewed him up.

'We were out doing a routine recon mission – there's been some rumours of Magneto, or at least Brotherhood members, stirring up trouble a few towns over, and then this huge robot shows up out of no where. It can sense mutants, John.'

'Jesus.'

Hank finished up and then gave Bobby the cursory instructions, don't be too hard on it, don't turn to ice unless you absolutely have to, and take care of the other cuts and sprained ankle and twisted elbow, and I helped him back to my room, because it's closer to the stairs and it's easier than lugging the guy back to his room.

He grunted as I lay him down on my bed. 'I never figured you'd keep the bed made here. Sure as hell couldn't manage it back in Cali.'

I laughed a little and got him a towel to freeze for his ankle.

'So, you think it was a trap?' I needed to be cool, to be nonchalant, but it just wasn't happening.

'Maybe.' Bobby awkwardly tried to pull himself out of his uniform, and I ended up doing it for him, stripping off the leathers til it was just skin and his X-underwear. I pulled the blankets over him and he just sighed. 'I don't think Magneto set it up though.'

'Oh. Uh.'

'I think you should call him,' he said.

'Uh. Fuck.'

'Seriously. I've seen the phone, okay? I'm not completely brain dead here.'

'If I talk to Storm about this am I going to die?'

Bobby smiled. 'Probably. But you're here now, you chose us now. You could change your mind maybe, but I doubt this'd be how you'd do it.'

It hadn't really been thinking at the Drake's family home. Not well thought out, well planned thinking. It was simply a reaction. Who were they, those cops, those parents, his parents, who were they? What right did they have to ask him to lie down on the ground, like a dog? Like something that deserved to be shot, put down.

Pyro was not often allowed to make fire. Well, he couldn't make fire then, maybe he would never be able to, Cyclops said. Maybe he simply had control, said Professor Xavier, who then assigned more meditation, more focus, more tiny details. But he wasn't often allowed to rule fire, to expand it, to feel it.

Fuck that.

A bullet in Wolverine's metal skull was enough for him. Fuck this cop, with his gun and his shaking hands. Fuck Bobby's brother, fuck his mom, and his dad, and fuck Bobby for having a family that's first reaction was to let him know, they still loved him.

Fuck those police cars, and oh god fuck Rogue because suddenly, his thoughts were being sucked out. For one split second before she let go he felt…chilled.

St. John Allerdyce had never been in love, but Pyro had mistaken a lot of things for love in his time. The feeling he had of blowing up a car, the brightness that settled in his chest as flames grew at his command, Pyro thought, must be love. Must be better than love. Was as good as sex, which was something Pyro had never, ever confused with love.

Until Magneto.

Maybe Pyro didn't think it was love, exactly, not that time in the woods. But Magneto made his heart thrum with power, his chest feel light. Made him feel powerful. Let him be powerful.

Let him be more powerful than them, the world, the humans around him.

"They want to kill us to be safe, so we must fight," Magneto had said. Had said. Magneto took lives, but had never made Pyro take one. Never forced him to at least.

"You're right, this isn't how I'd do it."

Bobby grinned but I didn't smile back. Bobby would never kill a human to save a mutant, I knew. To him, they were innocents, not competition, not out for blood. It was hard for me to come to grips with the fact that maybe, I would have spent my whole life running, thrumming with power and trying so hard to build what Magneto wanted. Or I could take what I had: Bobby, this mansion. Where the mutants already lived, were protected.

I took a deep breath and let go.

Author's notes: This chapter is more of a merge between some of my earlier style and the more plot-y movements. The next couple chapters are more plotty, so. Let me know if you have a preference for more introspective past St. John moments. (Also, hey all you lovely people who are watching this story! Introduce yourselves!)