Hi. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed. I've gotten some awesome response. To Cruz: the pyro's gender really hasn't been revealed. That game theory thing isn't proof. Some people strongly think pyro is male, others strongly female. I'd be open to either, but I'd like to think it's female so that's why it is in this story. I'm glad you like the story, but sorry that the language is getting to you. I just imagine the pyro as a potty mouth so... yeah.

Sorry this chapter is so long, I had to cut some things out.

~The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up.

~Joseph Wambaugh

The first two times my parents visited, I was asleep and missed them. The third time they visited, I leapt out of the hospital bed and probably gave them the biggest hug I'd ever given them. I regretted it soon after. It hurt. Hurt a lot. My father had to help me back into the bed, like I was an old lady with glass bones and paper skin.

I asked if either of them had any cigarettes or matches, they didn't of course, so I sat back down and waited for all the questions. There's always questions. Mom was a wreck. She kept staring at the bandages wrapped around my head and blinking, as if next time she opened her eye's they'd be gone. Dad wasn't that much better, in fact, that was the only time in my entire life I can recall him crying.

We all pretended not to notice. I don't like seeing him cry. I try to forget it ever happened.

The next thirty minutes were probably rather normal considering the situation, full of hugs and nice words and all that shit, but then my father handed me the newspaper with an article on the accident.

Gas stations don't just blow up. Of course it didn't, that shit doesn't happen. I tried to read the explanation but all of the words swirled together. Focusing on the newspaper print damn near impossible and after five minutes of staring at it my mom read it out loud.

The newspaper stated that someone cut the gas lines, and the station was just one big ticking time bomb for however long it took for some guy to drop a cigarette. The newspapers were calling it a tragedy. Eleven people got caught in the explosion. I was one of the three who lived.

Left an odd taste in my mouth. A dizzy feeling in my gut.

The thing that got me though, was that the gas lines were cut. They don't cut themselves. Sabotage. Arson.

The only thought in my head was the possibility of another arsonist in town. In my town, where I should be the only one. I felt oddly territorial, as if setting fires was mine. No one else's hobby, but mine. No fucking way I could do shit about this other arsonist though.

Then my dad asked if I was the one who did it, and he sounded near tears again.

I looked him in the eye and said no. It was nice not to have to lie for once. "I swear I didn't do it."

He nodded. Then he asked me if I started the fire a night before the accident, the fire at the racetrack.

"..."

"Did you?" My heart flipped flopped.

I knew both of them were looking for me to say no, and they might've believed me if I did, however I never was very good at telling lies. I told them I did start that fire, and I'm sure they heard the damage reports so I didn't need to tell them I killed a man too. They already knew.

I didn't have the courage to ask who died.

Mom cried, I whimpered, and Dad yelled. His voice was like ice shards. Blades. every word hurt. So none of the nurses or other patients in the clinic would understand, he yelled in Japanese. My Japanese is only so-so, hadn't spoke it in years, so about half of the lecture I missed. However, I got the gist of it.

"I'm sorry." I meant it.

~Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

~Helen Keller

In the burn unit, the nurses recognized that people got bored, mostly because you couldn't leave. They wheeled me out into the rec room, which may be one of the most depressing places on earth. Everything was a pristine white and the walls were covered in windows that let us see outside to the beautiful weather that none of us could enjoy. I saw people who had been melted like a candle in there, people with no chance of ever leading a normal life and might as well hide their faces in paper bags.

I was lucky, said the nurses, the damage done to my face wasn't actually that bad. Compared to these guys without so much as two identifiable eye slits, it was great. Luckily, those patients often didn't journey into the rec room.

In that room, I also met my best friend. He had the most offensive red hair and skin unnaturally tan for a ginger. Couldn't have been more than twenty, but the wrinkles around his eyes were plain as day. Old eyes. Dull eyes, even. Dense bandages wrapped around his head and part of his face concealed some ugly scalding. I had suspicions that he right bit of his face wasn't there.

And god was he a pansy. The best pansy I ever knew.

He, my friend, was always in the rec room. And everyday, I would be wheeled or limp over to him, and we'd be left to our own devices.

For the first week and a half the only bits of conversation we had were pained grunts and moans and complaints. We were both too drugged to do so much as talk about the weather outside. It took me a week and a half to even learn his name. The only reason we even persisted to sit next to each other, was the fact that we both suffered facial injuries and if need be could express how much it sucked to each other.

The first real bit of conversation we had went like this: "What's your name?"

I answered and asked him back. He answered.

"This place sucks."

"Yep."

The second piece of conversation went like this: "I always wondered how you turned out." His voice was charming, if not a little gruff and raspy, and he spoke about near everything like he was speaking of the weather.

It took me a minute to realize that was a weird thing for him to say. I shrugged and waited for him to continue.

He turned to me, looking hopeful. "...Do you recognize me?" I stared at him for a full two minutes before shaking my head no.

I couldn't tell if he was disappointed or not. He hummed a familiar tune and we sat for another few minutes before he quietly said something like "I expected that much" or "I assumed so."

I'm not sure weather I was hearing any of this right. "Should I?"

"Yeah, I'm the man who took you out of that burning building over a year ago." He said nonchalantly with a raised eyebrow.

Oh. Ohhh. Why hadn't I seen it earlier? I felt like a fucking dope. This was the firefighter that saved me from that burning night club over a year ago, the one with the painted gas mask and lopsided smile (extra lopsided now).

I didn't reply quick enough, so he continued. His voice deadpanned. "I was also the man who got to hold you still while the police confirmed your rape case cos' the ambulance was taking forever to show up and you were bleeding and-"

"Shutup." I really wished he hadn't said that. It left a bad taste in my mouth. "I don't remember that."

Suppose you wouldn't, you were pretty out of it at that point, but come on. You have to remember me." His eye (only one was visible) searched mine for any sign of recognition, nearly begging for it.

"I remember you."

He nodded and we both fell silent again. He picked a lighter from his pocket and played with it. I wondered where he got it because I really wanted one. I almost asked for it.

"You started that fire, the one I took you out of, right?"

I nodded. I expected the fireman to scold me or something, and in a way, he did.

"That was very amateur you know. You should've been out of there the minute you lit the place."

I didn't like him calling my work amateur, and I felt like defending it, but instead I just stared at his scarred up hands fidget with the lighter. My mouth felt oddly dry.

"Be more careful with your fires, you don't want to get caught in them."

Well duh. Of course I don't want to be caught in them. I would've told him that was the worst piece of advice ever, but he continued.

"Just get smart about it and you'll stay out of this place a lot more."

"I'm not in here cause I burned myself, it was someone else's mess." I huffed.

His face paled, but only for a second. "So you're not totally useless at starting fires?"

"Fuck no. I'm good at it, I've just had off days."

He nodded to show he understood. "Suppose without you, I wouldn't have a job." He pocketed his lighter.

I nodded and we both settle back into a comfortable silence. I, an arsonist, a pyromaniac, should feel uncomfortable or guilty, or something bad when with a firefighter, right? But I didn't. He didn't look at me like I was a monster, or a scarred freak, or even like some sort of convict.

And that's why we became friends, if at first you could even call it that.

The next day I asked him why he was here. He licked his lips and opened his mouth a few times and then closed it uselessly. He resembled a gaping goldfish. After a minute he spoke up. "An accident at the racetrack... Support board fell when I was checking to see if anyone was in there."

Ha. Ha ha. Hilarious. A great fucking coincidence. And wait, it gets better.

After gapping and spacing out for a minute, and then another minute of shaking knees, I found the courage to tell him I started that fire. He just laughed it off. He laughed a lot of things off.

"It was a good fire."

I might've felt proud. "Thank you."

"Now, what did you do to yourself this time? Why are you here?"

"I was one of the unlucky bastards caught in the highway explosion." I said.

His face fell a few shades lighter till it was as white as peered around to see if anyone was listening. "You're fucking joking right?"

"Nope."

"'Cause I sabotaged that place."

We gave each other sideways looks before I asked him a bunch of questions. my fireman was an arsonist too (a damn good one at that), responsible for several fires throughout that state.

The irony was simply too much.

~Give a man a match, and he'll be warm for a minute, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his short life.

~unknown

My new friend (for various reasons I will not tell you his name) told me of a bunch of fires he's had the pleasure to extinguish over the years, and I'd tell him which one's I'd lit and which ones weren't me.

He told me which ones were ridiculous, which ones were good, and how much damage each one did. It was a wonder to us both how I hadn't been caught yet.

I asked him why he was a firefighter if he was also an arsonist, and he just shrugged and said that sometimes he likes to play the hero and the villain. It didn't make much sense, but he was enough of a poet that it sounded nice out of his mouth.

I nodded along even though I knew I could never be the same. I would always get to play the bad guy, but I didn't really mind it.

I asked him why I don't see much of his work in the paper or on the news, and he gave me the most important advice. He said that he tries not to make a habit of starting fires where he lives. 'Don't shit where you eat' he said. He would travel far out of town to start his fires, and he said that the gas station was a 'one in a dozen' and he really shouldn't have done it for it was just fucking dumb. It was too close.

"Don't shit where you eat, it makes it easier for them to find you." At one point, I used that like it was law.

Most of the days in the burn unit, we would sit by each other and no words would be exchanged. Sometimes we would pass his lighter back and forth, and sometimes we would just stare at the hallucinations the pain meds gave us. Correction. I would stare at the hallucinations the pain meds gave me. He would just watch concerned.

The more the days went on, the more the hallucinations happened. It started small, like seeing an extra person in the room that wasn't there. Then the people got faces. Once they started talking, I got really freaked out. Soon I started doubting what was real. After expressing this to the nurses, they got quite freaked out. They flipped my prescriptions upside down.

Then, a week into the odd visions, I saw him. The plague of half my dreams, possibly the very linchpin of my suffering. I saw the same greasy motherfucker I ran into at fifteen. He was just sitting in the corner of the rec. room, blending in among the crowd by playing chess with an old man. I didn't know how to deal with it, and thus things went poorly. Somehow, in a fragmented conversation, I told what I saw to my friend and I swear his skin turned five different shades of green.

I started having trouble breathing. He screamed for a nurse, several came running, and they took me back to my room while my firefighter tagged along like a lost puppy.

And, I think that is the time I had my first panic attack. It was ugly. I cried alot, I broke things, and in the end my firefighter got to hold me still while a doctor sedated me.

...

At one point, my boss came to visit me. Now, the burn unit didn't really hand out bras, so of course I was showing what pathetic excuse for tits. My hair, which had grown a bit, wasn't slicked back like it normally was. Instead, it hung in awkward toughs in my face.

I clearly wasn't a the 18-19 year old Randy I was supposed to be.

He didn't care. He said I still had a job when I got out of there. I thanked him and he left after agreeing to say hi to the other guys at the shop for me. I liked my boss from then on.

My parents came to visit me a lot too, every other day at least, but we never really looked each other in the eye, and we barely spoke. They were ashamed of me. I knew it. They knew it. But so what. I didn't give a shit if they thought I was an embarrassment. I stopped fucking caring years ago.

~It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

~Garrison Keillor

Eventually the awkward wrapping around my thigh came off finally allowing me to see the new skin. And yes, the inside of my right thigh looked like someone attacked it with a flaming weed wacker. Next time I got with someone for sexual relations it would be one hell of an interesting scar to explain.

Then again, they all would be hard to explain.

Thanks to that specific injury, I was left with a bit of a limp. I still had that limp long after the wound healed up, but every time I'd realize I wasn't limping my leg would start hurting and I'd start limping again. It was a little limp, not always there, and almost like a waddle at times. It was something psychological, said the doctors.

It was also fucking embarrassing because in real life, I was limping for no real reason. I was imagining pain. However, despite the embarrassment, I got over the news of the limp fairly easily. A lot of people had one, and though it would look funny, I could still run. I brushed it off.

Then came the day I got the bandages on my face removed. He, the firefighter, got his removed too, just the day before, but I didn't want to see him till I got mine removed too. I didn't go in the rec room that day.

One of the nurses cut away the wrappings, and smiled at me. It was fake smile. I was very use to fake smiles. It wasn't too forced, so I remained hopeful. She handed me a beat up old mirror. "Take a look hon."

Angry red clouded around my eye and up past my ear like a puffy check mark. I had no eyelashes or eyebrow on the left side of my face, and the scar tissue that formed around my left eye made me always look... tired. Warn down. Older. My ear was a chewed up piece of hot wax, barely heard a thing out of it for awhile.

The nurse told me it really wasn't that bad, but oh, I thought it was. Just looking at it felt like a slap.

"It's really not that bad, honey."

"Okay."

"Really, it isn't."

"Okay."

...

I held myself together till I got to the rec room and sat down with the other arsonist. I looked him in the eye and twitched. His whole right side was obliterated, as if it was shoved into an oven and then carved like a pumpkin. Compared to him, I was lucky. Even so, that didn't make me feel any better.

He was playing with his lighter, and his face (the not burned side) was stock serious, not something he usually was. We sat next to each other in silence for a bit, the only sound was the other patients in the room that were watching the tele and the on and off of his lighter."..."

I sniffled. The redhead turned to me and gave a lopsided smile. "See you're not all that thrilled with your results either, huh?"

I nodded.

He grabbed my face, rougher than necessary, and made me look at him while he judged it. He took too long for my taste. "Now, it really isn't that bad, I mean, it isn't nice... but it's not bad." He ran his thumb over the sensitive scabs. "In a couple years who knows what it'll look like."

"You too."

"Now that's a lie."

"Yeah, but I don't give half a damn how you look."

He laughed and the serious moment was over. "You too."

...

Looking others in the eye grew to be a harder and harder thing to do. It was like the equivalent of jumping mountains. I just couldn't do it without wondering what they were thinking, seeing, and assuming about me.

...

After I was released from the burn unit, I returned back to work (for short shifts and easy labor) and everything seemed like normal. I had the same dwindling family relationship, the same job, and the same shed, just like how I left it. I left my friend. I went back to see him after a few days, but my that time he had already been released too.

I'd see him again and I knew it.

The day I got out of the burn unit I dusted off my flamethrower, borrowed my dad's car and I burned down a barn. It was about 10 miles out of town, so it didn't quite fit the 'don't shit where you eat' rule but I had needed to burn something for months so I didn't care. No shits given.

Even though roughly 40 percent of my body was covered in mismatching burns, I didn't fear the fire. I had half a mind to let it burn me down along with every other building I set a match to. I didn't of course, that would be silly. I left when the barn was still standing.

That fire didn't even make the newspapers. My father never found out.

I got home in the early early hours of the morning and curled up on my bed to go to sleep when I saw something laying on my dresser. It was a envelope. A new one. It wasn't there when I left. On the front it clearly said "CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION FOR MISS-" the rest had been scratched out with sharpie. Inside was a letter from RED, Reliable Excavation Demolition. It was a job offer.

I didn't give it a second look before tearing it to pieces and letting it smolder in my ashtray.

Do any of you fine people like the firefighter?

Thanks for all your support. Please drop me a review and have a fantastic day.

edited 05/08