Chapter Text
There is a power in silence. And Pyro had never had that power.
He remembers the day he learned about it.
He was a shithead 13-year-old and had failed his school test.
He usually sat in the back but since he was doing a make-up test, he had to sit in the front of the room.
"Yeah, I'm done." He drops it down on his teacher's desk. "So, can I go now?" He shoves his hands in his pockets.
The teacher rifled through the test. "You didn't answer any of the questions."
"And?"
"And you are my student, and I don't want you to flunk a test that you clearly can pass."
Niall shrugs. "I don't care."
"Why don't you care?"
"Because history class doesn't fucking matter, okay?" Niall bursts out.
His teacher is silent for a moment before- "Niall, can I show you something?"
Niall nods.
His teacher opens a drawer in her desk. She removes a false bottom and pulls out a photo. It's encased in plastic.
It's of a man engulfed in flames.
"This is Thích Quảng Đức." She says.
"He was a monk. He lit himself on fire to protest his government."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Just wait."
And so Niall waited.
"Did you know that burning is the most painful way to die?"
Niall shakes his head no.
"And Thích Quảng Đức didn't utter a single sound while he burned. Didn't move. He sat and burned to death." She looks at the photo and so does Niall.
The flames coil around the man like he himself controlled them.
He looks holy, and Niall is in awe of him.
"Why didn't anyone stop him? Why didn't anyone put him out?" His voice cracks and he shocked to realize that he's close to crying.
"Because he wanted to go this way. It was planned. A friend of his poured gasoline over him. No one could put him out."
She lets out a strange laugh.
"Imagine that, a man so strong of his convictions that he burns alive without a sound."
She looks at him.
"This is why history matters, Niall."
He runs his fingers over the picture. It crinkles as he touches it.
"History matters because of things like this. Because of people like him."
Niall stared down at it. There was some gruesome sort of beauty to it.
Niall had always talked too much. He doesn't know how much power is in silence.
Pyrocynical talks just enough, subtle pauses in his sentences to suggest double meanings. He will never truly know the power of silence.
Pyro will talk as much as he wants, but he values his silence as much as his words. Pyro knows the power of silence but he can never fully possess it.
Even though there is power in silence, that power is not always used for good. That silence can be oppressive, and we must use our voice. Sometimes silence is nothing compared to a scream.