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Chapter Text

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Disclaimer; This story is written with the permission of fanfiction writer Nixa Jane. You can find her work on here and her Bobby/John stories on her livejournal site. I can't post a straight link to the work unfortunately, just type in nixa_jane livejournal into google and it should be the first result that comes up. Nixa Jane is a really great writer so if you have never read any of her work, please check it out. I was never a fan of Bobby x John slash until I found her stories. Thank you again for letting me do this.

The first chapter is based on the author's story 'Heat Always Rises.'

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"The thing is," John began to explain, "I can't burn."

Fire goes around or into him, but it doesn't betray him. It's the only thing that never has. John had never even gotten a damn sunburn, not that he spent much time outside these days. He was grounded, more often than not due to getting in some kind of trouble at the school. John has never had a fever or has ever caught a cold because of his high body temperature that came along with his mutation.

Sometimes John tried though. He tried to burn himself. Holding his hand steady over a flame, feeling the warmth soak him to the skin. There's never any pain, and sometimes, sometimes John wished there was. Wishes he could feel it more than he did. 

"I can't burn," he tells Bobby again, "I can bleed, though. But you know that already, don't you?"

There's a brief change in the air, a quick chill that's gone almost before Bobby can recognize it. John slipped back along the bed, kicking the comforter a few feet more down towards the end.  The eyes staring back at him are angry and uncomprehending. It's always been strange to him how they can have so much in common and be nothing alike. He forgets, every time and expects it to suddenly be different.

"Don't you ever just want to be cold?" John then asked. "Doesn't it bother you at all that you can't?"  Bobby's coiled tight at the foot of the bed across from him now, fingers balling into fists and then stretching out again. He looked ready to start fighting, and that kind of stance from him, of all people, is more than a little unsettling.

When he got no response, John's expression then turned angry before speaking again, his tone of voice knackered. "I don't know why I thought you'd understand. I don't know why I always think you will."

"Give me the knife," was all Bobby said, and he held out his hand like he was Scott, or the Professor and John's been caught playing with his lighter again in class. John's lighter being taken away had to be the reason why he was acting like this right now, Bobby figured.

Thankfully, John handed it over without a fight. He was saving all his battles for another day.

"It's not like I would have made it that deep." He shrugged.

When they take John's lighter away, he always clenches his fists until blood starts to leak from the four crescent moons his fingernails have left on the palms of his hands. It's never very much, but it gives him something to do. John liked to watch it well to the surface in tiny little beads, perfect for a moment before the tension snaps and it collapses and spreads. He gets that it's morbid, he just doesn't care.

He likes blood kind of how he likes fire. Hot and warm and red and burning through his veins-half the time, he can't tell the difference.

And sometimes, John wondered what Bobby's got in his.

XXXXXXX

Living with John Allerdyce was not going to be easy; Bobby learned this from fairly early on. He remembered the pitying glances from other students were the first clue, the ones he got the very moment the Professor told him who he would be bunking with. "Sorry, man," some kid with strange white pupils says. "Sucks for you."

"John's been through three roommates just this month," Jubilee then explained to him. "He almost set the last one on fire."

Bobby really didn't know what he was expecting after the stories, but when he opened the door to his room and saw the quiet teenager sitting on his bed, docilely reading Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, it seemed more than a little out of place. He looked young and harmless, and that was probably Bobby's first mistake. John didn't even look up as Bobby dropped his bag onto the empty bed. Bobby fidgeted a little, and John flipped to the next page.

"I'm your new roommate," Bobby finally spoke. "My name is Bobby Drake."

John still didn't look up. "Well," he says, "isn't that nice for you."

Over the next few days, Bobby started to notice some things about John. Such as, he never put things back where they belong. John had a chair that he used for a hamper, and he used the underside of his bed for everything else. Bobby is very careful not to let any of his own things stray towards his side of the room, lest he should never see them again. Another thing about John that he learns from Jubilee is that he doesn't like uncomfortable silences.

Yet, as day by day went, John never said one word to him and finally it's Bobby who cracks under the awkward tension.

"Do you talk at all?" Bobby demanded. From what he's been told, he had half expected threats or acts of violence from the other mutant, but now he's starting to think it's the silence that drove John's other roommates away.

"When I have a reason," John finally spoke. "But you're not a good enough one, so fuck off."

"Ha," Bobby said with a half-smile. "There, you just said something to me. Maybe I'm worth it after all."

John just snorted and rolled his eyes. However, Bobby thought he looked almost amused. Bobby had always been able to make friends easily. He always had the answers for the latest homework assignments, and he always listened to what people say. Bobby has got that good boy charm down to a 'T' and that hadn't failed him yet. The thing is that John doesn't do his homework, he never says anything, and he's got the bad boy charm that kind of cancels Bobby out.

That seems something of a theme with them.

Fire melts ice. Ice starves fire. It's a small wonder Bobby doesn't feel eclipsed every single time John walks into the room.

A little over a week in is when Bobby finally decided that John was going to be his friend, but he knew it wasn't going to be easy. Bobby thought of it a little like trying to tame something wild, and there's an art to drawing John into a conversation. He made his first big mistake when he offered to help John in math, because while John is failing it, and failing it on purpose. Apparently, for whatever reason John wanted to keep it that way. He could also pass English with flying colors because he was great at coming up with stories and such, but the essays he does write John rarely ever turned in.

"Are you purposely trying to get held back?" Bobby asked after John turned his offer of help down. 

"It's not like I have anywhere to go," John simply shrugged.

He had actually run away from the school three times before he was fifteen; before Bobby showed up.

Before, he'd had no reason to stay.

Contrary to popular belief, John had remarkable self-control. If he didn't, the school would be ashes and John would probably be dead. It took everything he had to hold off the inferno that was fighting its way out of him, power enough to end the world if it's unleashed. It's like a pressure valve, a quick thin slice across the forearm to let the heat out slowly before it exploded.

He's not like Bobby, who just lets the ice encase him whole. At some point they went from reluctant roommates to best friends. The weird thing was that though Bobby had been trying for that the whole time, in the end it probably surprised him even more than John.

It was curiosity at first. It was a charity case, even, though he'd never admit it to John.

But Bobby was the one that ended up being helplessly co-dependent. John was his vicarious life. John said the things he couldn't, wouldn't say, did the things he wouldn't dare. It would be trouble later, he knew, but for now it was what he needed to keep sane.

"You need someone looking after you, Drake," John once told him. Everyone else seemed to be under the impression their relationship worked the other way around; but Bobby knew John was the one that had it right.

Another thing about him was that unlike other kids who had come to the school as runaways, John wore his past like a badge of honor. He never looked for sympathy from anyone, he looked for respect. It's in his eyes.

"I survived, you bastards," John's stare seems to say, "deal with it."

People like that didn't need any protection, except maybe from themselves.

Bobby knew he didn't have the experience of John and Rogue, that he was sheltered, still an innocent. John's family had never taken good care of him from what Bobby had gathered. John mentioned in passing once that his father used to lock him in the basement for days at a time as punishment; until John had lit a match and burned the whole place to the ground. Rogue had a regular life and was just a regular girl until her powers kicked in and her parents started looking at her like she was a monster.

Bobby isn't sure which was worse. Having the perfect life and losing it or having nothing to lose. John only shrugged and said he's one of the lucky ones when Bobby asked him.

"I'm alive, aren't I?" John answered. Bobby couldn't meet his stare and John snorted. "Save your pity for the dead, Drake. I don't need it."

Despite what some may have thought, John hasn't had it that bad. Not really. It's not like he would trade in his powers for the good life, or for anything, for that matter. He had been normal once, and John hadn't been impressed with it then, either. He thought it probably should have hurt to leave home more than it had.

To watch Rogue, you'd think having to run away was like the end of the whole fucking world.

John never has had much patience for people like her. He had to run away too, and he was a hell of a lot younger than her when he'd done it. Rogue was just a classic damsel in distress, he supposed.

He on the other hand was just a survivor; all he cared about is living until tomorrow. He never really gave a damn how he managed to do it.

"We should go, get out of here, just keep going until we're far enough we can stop," John once said to Bobby one time, always the poet when it was just the two of them, when there was no one else around to hear. Bobby didn't know it then, but he could have probably avoided what ended up happening at Alkali Lake, had he only agreed to go.

Instead, Bobby did what he always does and let John act for the both of them.

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When John pressed the button that lowered the ramp of the jet, Bobby reacted like he was going to take a header off the mansion roof. John figured that just goes to show how spectacularly Bobby doesn't get it. If he was looking to off himself it would be done already, that's not what he's doing at all.

John wanted proof of life. He wanted a longer list of things he's survived. Most people get weak from pain, but it just made him stronger.

The air is cold when it comes in the open hatch of the chopper Magneto and Mystique had commandeered. Cold has never really bothered him. John couldn't have tolerated the years of bunking with Bobby if did, and it's kind of nice anyway, having a constant element to remember him by.

He highly doubted he'll be seeing Bobby in person any time soon, and probably never as a friend again.

It's okay. John had known this was coming eventually. Heat always rises, you can't fight that forever. John held it off as long as he could with the actions Bobby used to call self-destructive, but as usual Bobby just didn't get it.

He's not self-destructive.

John could burn anyone but himself.

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Bobby and Rogue were currently sitting in the Professor's class. It was so surreal as they only had a few more weeks as students. After they graduated, they were going to start training to be officially become members of the X-Men. Himself, Rogue, Jubilee, and Pitor. There would be a fifth person, but he was absent from the group. John walked off the jet and didn't come back. That was his version of goodbye.

"You have to imagine," Xavier continued, "that the Fisher King had been waiting there for years—a wounded king in a waste land, a virtual prisoner of his own castle. Just waiting for the Grail Knight to come to him, notice his injury, and say the words: 'What ails thee?' All he needs to be healed is for the right person to care that he's hurt, and to say so... the simple reaction of human sympathy."

"And that's it," Kitty asked. "The knight doesn't have to fight any dragons... win any duels... if he just says the magic words, then everything's all right?"

"Even when you're a knight in shining armor, not every problem can be solved by looking for something to hit. Treating others with kindness and respect can often obviate the need for violent conflict. I feel certain I've pointed this out to you on some previous occasion."

"I think you might have mentioned it," Rogue said, smiling.

"But Percival has learned to guard his emotions. We all do that sometimes, but you might say he lacks balance. He mistakes reticence for wisdom. It isn't that he doesn't feel compassion. But at the critical moment, he fails to speak. He holds back, and the king and his land remain unhealed. In some versions, it's Percival's failure that causes the blight on the land in the first place."

"But he gets a second chance," Bobby said, without raising his eyes from the floor. "He gets to go back? To say what he never said?"

"Exactly," Xavier began. "When they do meet again, it turns out that it isn't too late—"

Then Bobby looked up, and something in his gaze. Something about the dark circles under his eyes, which had been getting steadily worse since Alkali Lake, made Xavier forget what point he had been going to make. He looked down at his book, stalling for time, but couldn't recapture his train of thought.

"Yes, well," Xavier spoke vaguely. "It's only a story."

Chapter Text

John could feel him somewhere close by. It was that strange drop in temperature that tipped him off every time.

He smirked and turned another corner while playing with his lighter. John wasn't too worried because he had always been better than Bobby at this game, because Bobby was too damn nice and honest for his own good. It was always just Bobby; John didn't know if they send him because they think Bobby can bring him in without a fight, or if Bobby's just the only one left who cares, which if John was being honest with himself, was certainly more likely.

Either way, it's always only him.

John slipped into an alley to get off the streets. There was a chain link fence at the end of it, but he could hop over it, no problem. Xavier's had made him a little soft, but it hadn't taken long to remember what life on the streets was like and running because he was late to class had never provided quite the same motivation as running for his life.

He was about to wrap his hands around the metal fence and vault himself over when he sees frost creeping down the walls. The holes in the fence all fill in with ice and John stepped back with a slight smile on his face, because that was good, he had to admit. He hadn't expected that because Bobby hadn't gotten this close before. John turned around and there was Bobby standing against another wall of ice on the opposite side. It had made the alley their own personal arena.

John smirked and which caused Bobby to frown.

"I could just melt that, you know." John said casually, referring to the wall of ice behind Bobby and flicked his lighter open, and closed again.

"I'm taking you back." Bobby responded as he tilted his head up like the hero he had always wanted to be. John never understood why Bobby wanted it, that stupid uniform, the noble self-sacrificing trade. What John was now doing with The Brotherhood was just as dangerous, sure, but he had a hell of a lot more fun. He wore his bruises like badges of honor instead of disgrace. John shook his head.

"The only way I'm going back is dead, and you're not going to take things that far. I know you, Bobby."

"I bet you're counting on that."

John then watched ice build at Bobby's feet, spreading out across the asphalt and right towards him. He jumped up, bracing his feet and hands on either side of the alley, to keep from having his shoes frozen to the ground.

"You're starting to piss me off, Drake," John snapped. He dropped down, his boots landing heavily on the two inches of ice covering the ground. He can feel his blood heating, near boiling as his body temperature was starting to go up and the ice around his own feet had already started melting. He can feel his boots sinking towards the ground.

'Good.' Bobby thought to himself. 'You always make mistakes when you're angry.'

It was finally time Bobby accepted he would have to get just as aggressive as John. It wasn't going be just a simple talk, it was going to have to be a fight. They had their tests of strength before, and John had always won. He knew in order to win Bobby had to get that lighter away from John; he had to cut off that power source.

John sparked a flame with his lighter. Bobby's hands clenched, and his eyes narrowed even further as he started marching across the icy space between them. John grinned, because Bobby's given him the upper hand by making the first move. He set the ground at his feet on fire which begins to melt the ice and it feeds off the ground. Bobby stopped short, held back by the heat.

"Let me by if you don't want to get burned," Pyro warned.

"Give it your best shot!" Bobby yelled back.

"Have it your way then!"

John then lets the fire free and straight at Bobby. Bobby throws up his own hands, stopping the fire's progress with ice, something they had done over a dozen times before. Every time at the mansion John always won, without fail, not because they weren't evenly matched but because John never held back. He never had the worry in the back of his mind Bobby might actually get burned the way he knew Bobby always worried he might get frozen.

There was something different about it this time.

John quickly realized Bobby was being much more forceful than before, like the concern that he could accidently hurt John when they had done this in the past was gone. John could feel the ice edging in, pushing back as good as he gave. He put everything he had into focusing the fire, pushing it forward, didn't notice Bobby quickly take on hand away from the stream of fire he was keeping back, and shoot a separate stream of ice straight at John's lighter.

"Shit!" John cursed.

It slipped from his hand. He still had fire, but Bobby was freezing it flame by flame, and before he could focus enough to urge it on, Bobby already had him. John was sent flying backwards as his own frozen fire slammed back into his chest, and he hit the ice-covered ground hard.

Things go black for a few seconds as John blinked before things clear and can see the sky again. Bobby then appeared in his line of vision before he drops down to straddle John, grabbing his wrists, looking down at him with those big innocent blue eyes. Bobby might not have known this, but he was letting his defenses down far before he should.

"Are you okay?" Bobby asked him.

John felt dizzy, but he's hit his head worse than this before. Three deep breaths and he would be fine.

"Go fuck yourself, Drake," he grits out, when he has enough air in his lungs again to speak, and he tried to pull away, but Bobby's grip is solid, and John couldn't get very far.

"I'll take that as a yes," Bobby responded wryly.

John went limp in Bobby's grasp, because he knew the benefits to giving in, at least until you can get out again. "What the fuck do you want from me? Why are you tracking my every fucking move?"

"You know where Magneto is."

John laughed, leaning his head back against the ice, he could feel his heat slowly melting the ice beneath him. "You didn't come here for Magneto. You came for me."

"You're so damn full of yourself." Bobby snapped, his fingers tightening around John's wrists nearly enough to bruise; but only nearly, because it was Bobby, and Bobby doesn't like to leave bruises, not even on him.

"If this was about Magneto, they wouldn't have let you come alone."

"I can take you without any help, Allerdyce. I've always could."

"Who's full of himself now?" John asked, still not fighting the grip as he's just waiting for Bobby to forget he's supposed to be holding him down.

Bobby snorts.

"Well, who's on top? At least I'm able to back up what I say. You've always been all talk."

"Oh, that's just fucking unbelievable, coming from you," John snapped back. "I'm not the one that's all talk. I wasn't the one laying down when we thought Logan was dead and we were next, so don't even go there. You won't like where it leads."

Bobby stiffens at the reminder of Boston and glared down at him. "I know why you left."

"Drop it. You don't know anything." The switch in conversation might have thrown John if he didn't know Bobby as well as did. John had to fight the urge to struggle again, he didn't want to give Bobby a reason to tighten his grip.

"Rogue told me everything," Bobby responded

John kept his eyes open as he couldn't look away. He had a sinking feeling this wasn't a bluff. "Rogue doesn't know anything either."

"She's got you in her head," Bobby whispered. "She knows more than you ever trusted me enough to tell."

"It's an imprint, a ghost," John says. "That's all. She doesn't know anything."

"She knows it all, John. You left because of me."

"It was never because of you!"

John couldn't stop himself from trying to sit up, but Bobby slammed him back down. The world fades out and right back in as his head hits the ground again. "Jesus. You were too clueless to be worth my time. I wasted years at that school. It's my only regret."

"You're lying," Bobby hissed, leaning closer. "You were jealous. I was paying too much attention to her."

"You really think that?" John snapped. "Then you still don't get it. It's not about you, Drake. It's never been about you. I didn't fit in at Xavier's, you know that. I never will."

"You never tried!" Bobby snapped back. "You were always looking for reasons to play with fire, John. A reason to be pissed off, to get angry. You don't want to be happy, because then you'd have no reason to lose control."

John glanced to the side, at the wall, shivering a little as the ice beneath him started to sink into his skin. "This is starting to get boring Drake. Are you going to talk me to death or are you going to finish me off like a man?"

"You know I'm not going to kill you," he says. "I want you to come back, okay? Come back."

"Now you're asking?" John said incredulously. "Christ. Fuck off, Bobby."

"We can forget everything. We can start again."

"Forgetting things just leads to making all the same mistakes." John responded. He had learned that a long time ago and hadn't forgotten anything since.

"I'm not just going to let you go, John." Bobby simply answered back, eerily confident and John only barely manages to hold off a wince. "You don't just get to walk away."

"Is that supposed to scare me?" You've never scared me, Drake, so don't bother trying."

"No, I know I don't, because nothing's ever scared you, John. And I feel bad about that, I really do, because fearless is just another word to describe desperate, pathetic, people with nothing left to lose."

John smirked.

"And what have you got to lose, Drake? A girlfriend you can't touch, a job saving people that want you dead, and a family who never really knew you."

The mention of his family at the end was able to distract Bobby as he shifted his eyes and looked away from John and that was all the other mutant needed. John planted his boots on the ground, and lifted his hips, launching Bobby over his head before immediately setting himself into motion and following after him in a quick, rolling tumble that ended with their places reversed.

Bobby was beneath him now, and John lifts up only enough that he can spread his legs and drop back down with his knees on either side of Bobby's hips. Bobby still has his wrists gripped firmly in his hands though, and his fingers felt frozen. Bobby looked impressed, and John smirked once again.

"I guess Summers has been going light on the training since I've been gone."

Bobby sighed. 

"I never was able to figure out how to do that move." He sounded a little shaken, but he wasn't completely off his balance, because he used his hold on John's wrists to tug him down closer, so they're nearly face to face. "You could have broken my neck."

"But I didn't," John snapped. He continued to glare down at Bobby, seconds ticking by like minutes before finally John leaned in just those few inches closer and kissed him.

Bobby let him without any hesitation at all, because John knew that he has thought about this too. John had always known it, and that's what Bobby and Rogue didn't get. He could have had Bobby without hardly any effort at all, because Bobby needed to be needed, John needed to be saved, and no one wanted to save John more than Bobby.

John just didn't want to be saved. People just didn't seem to get that and that's why John really left.

"Wait, John, we can't-" Bobby said, when John pulled back to breathe.

"I thought Rogue told you what I wanted," John said as he rested his forehead against Bobby's. "You've always been easy to read, Drake. I've always known what you wanted without having to ask the girl that's got you in her head." John kissed him again, and he felt Bobby's grip relax, along with the last of his resistance. With his hands free, John wraps them in the collar of Bobby's jacket as one of Bobby's hands goes to the side of his neck, hesitantly, like he's forgotten that it won't kill him to touch.

"All you ever had to do was tell me," Bobby whispered. But he didn't understand. He just didn't understand that some people don't want to be saved.

"You never said anything either," John reminded.

"I thought you'd kill me," Bobby responded, and he laughed, like he thinks this is their happy ending.

He was so naïve. This would be so much easier if only he weren't so fucking naïve.

"I probably would have."

John slides his hands between them, and unlatched Bobby's belt. Most of the ice on the fence behind them had melted, and as he kissed Bobby again, he reaches up to thread the belt through one of the links. Bobby was so focused on kissing John he wasn't even paying attention to what John was doing.

"We can't do this here," Bobby said desperately, "Come back with me, John. We can-"

Bobby's hands have come to rest on either side of John's neck, and John reached up and grabs his wrists, before pulling them away, and slamming them down over his head. Bobby winced at the unexpected impact, but he doesn't figure out what John's doing until after John's already latched the belt tight around his wrists. His eyes widen in a kind of sick realization, and John felt a little sick himself. His heart is pounding in his ears, and his head is throbbing, making him dizzy again as gets up off of Bobby.

"When are you going to stop trusting me?" John sighed heavily while reaching down and grabs his frozen lighter, but his hands are numb enough already that he barely notices the cold.

"John," Bobby finally says, his eyes still wide and disbelievingly as he pulled himself into a seated position. "Don't do this."

"Stop following me," John said, and it took work to make his voice sound that casual, but he's had practice. "It's getting a little creepy and stalker-like, you know, so just...stop it."

"John, wait," Bobby tugged at the belt. John realized Bobby could have just frozen it and it would had snapped off, but he wasn't thinking because Bobby hadn't taken his terrified eyes off of him. Bobby wasn't like John, he didn't file away every advantage like it might mean life or death, because Bobby hasn't needed most of his yet. He was still at the kid's table; Bobby still didn't have a clue of what he's up against out in the real world

John hopes this teaches him to be a little more guarded, if nothing else.

"You can't do this to me," Bobby demanded. "Not after-"

"Just listen," John tried to calm the other. "I wouldn't be good for you. You are better off without me, you know that."

"Don't tell me what I know," Bobby snapped, raising his chin, striking the hero pose again. "And it's certainly not up to you to decide what I'm better off with-"

John stuck his lighter in his pocket, and hopes it thaws out soon. It's the last thing he has.

"Say hi to Rogue for me, will you?" 

With that, John climbed up over the fence. Bobby called after him and John could hear the fence rattling as he walked away so he decided to move a little bit faster, and he doesn't dare look back. John knew he should be getting warmer the farther from Bobby he got, but he couldn't stop shaking.

It feels a little like its winter in June. Right then, John wondered maybe he's not so fearless after all.

Chapter Text

That night, Bobby twisted and turned in his bed as he tried to fall asleep, replaying the fight and what happened afterwards over and over in his mind, asking himself question after question that kept him from drifting off to sleep.

How could John do this? Why would John do this? Why wouldn't he allow himself to be happy? How could he think he wasn't worth being saved?

The more questions Bobby asked himself made him think that maybe he has misjudged this whole situation, maybe John was damaged more than even Bobby had realized. The worst part about John leaving was that Bobby said it himself a hundred times any time John complained about being at the school.

"Then why don't you just leave, John? What the hell are you still here for if you're so unhappy? No one's forcing you to stay."

And John would just smile that strange tight smile and respond; "I'm just biding my time, Drake."

Bobby then would think to himself, 'yeah, right, you're not going anywhere.'

He never thought for one moment John would actually leave. It was so incredibly naïve now looking back at it, but Bobby thought he was enough of a reason for John to stay, even after he started ignoring him in favor of Rogue's attentions.

Or maybe not so much naïve as completely and utterly self-centered.

"He's the enemy now," Scott told Bobby when he brought John up, and meant it as a comfort, but Bobby already knew it. That wasn't the problem. The problem is what he used to be. John had never been Professor Summer's favorite student. Not like Bobby had been. Just another thing the two boys were opposite in.

Bobby doesn't have fun when John's not there to drag him into trouble, he doesn't take breaks when John isn't there to remind him that he doesn't have to do everything all the time.

Finally, Bobby turned to lay on his left side and stared longingly at John's empty bed. A lot of other students had left the school after Stryker's attack, so the Professor had told him he didn't need to have a new roommate anytime soon. He was glad of that because Bobby didn't think he could handle living with some interloper at the moment, especially right now, and because Xavier knows everything, he probably picked up on that.

Throwing the covers off himself, Bobby got up and went to sit on John's bed and after a few minutes of just staring at nothing, he laid down on it, placing his head on what was once John's pillow. His scent still lingered, the only sign that John was still present in the room.

For some reason, that gave Bobby so sort of comfort that caused his eyelids to become heavier and was able drift off to sleep.

XXXXXXXX

"Bobby?"

Bobby turned when he heard a voice and knock on his open door. He just finished showering and changing his clothes when Ororo Munroe appeared. "Bobby, your parents are here."

His eyes widened in shock. What could they want? What else could possibly go wrong? Honestly, Bobby never expected to hear from them again. Were they here to formally disown him?

Ororo proceeded to guide Bobby down to the office of Professor Xavier and he immediately froze in the doorway once he saw his parents sitting in chairs opposite of Xavier's desk. Scott Summers and Logan were standing on either side of him. Once she realized her son was in the room, Madeline Drake got up from her seat and walked over to hug Bobby, much to his own surprise. He thought he would never be hugged by his parents again. 

"Mom? What are you doing here?"

Madeline let go of him and looked Bobby in the eyes.

"Pack your things, Bobby. We're taking you home."

Bobby blinked.

"What? Home?" Bobby then looked to his father who nodded in confirmation. "But...I've been here for almost four years. I'm going to be graduating in a few more weeks." He then looked to the Professor, his eyes silently begging for help.

Xavier frowned as he began speaking to William Drake.

"Mr. Drake, I understand that you are upset-"

"That's an understatement," William interrupted. "You lied to us, Mr. Xavier. My wife and I had every right to know what this school really was. We should sue you. Not only for misleading us, but also for the damages done to our house that was caused by one of your students."

"I will gladly pay for your home repairs." Xavier assured.

"That was Ronny's fault!" Bobby suddenly yelled, getting the attention of everyone in the room, including a look of incredulous from his father. "He shouldn't have called the police."

"He was scared," William stated. "And as it turned out, he had every reason to be." William turned his attention back to the Professor. "So, you even take in mutants who can blow up cop cars?"

"We take in all kinds of mutants," Xavier explained. "We try to help them control their powers. Unfortunately, we're not always successful. And as far as why we keep the true nature of our school a secret, I think your reaction to your son being a mutant is all the explanation I need."

William jumped to his feet.

"We love our son! That's why we're taking him out of here!" William then walked towards the door and looked at his oldest son. "Pack your things, we'll be waiting in the foyer."

After his parents left the room, Bobby slowly sunk into a chair by the bookcase, now looking hopelessly and utterly lost. 

"Bobby," Scott Summers addressed one of his favorite students, one he actually believed would someday take his place as leader of the X-Men. "You know you don't have to leave if you don't want to. You're eighteen years old, you're old enough to make your own decisions."

Bobby shook his head.

"No, I do have to leave. They would probably disown me if I didn't." Logan frowned but didn't say a word as Bobby got to his feet. "Thank you, Professor Xavier, Professor Summers, Professor Munroe, Logan. Thank you for everything."

"You're welcome, Bobby." Xavier smiled. "Remember, you will always be welcome here."

Nodding, Bobby walked back to his room and began packing as quickly as possible. He wasn't in a hurry to leave, he just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. The longer he stayed, the more it was going to hurt when his parents drove him away from the school. After getting his clothes out of the closet Bobby turned his head and saw John's leather jacket hanging up. Taking it off the wire hanger, Bobby just stared at it for a few seconds before shoving it into a suitcase.

"Bobby?"

It was Rogue.

Bobby sat down on his bed as he looked over at her.

"Is it true? Are you really leaving?"

"Believe me, it's not my choice." Bobby then let out a bitter laugh. "But I've got no choice."

He then got up and moved to the doorway.

"What are you going to do?" Rogue asked.

"I don't know." Bobby responded. For the first time in his life, he had no idea of what he was going to do. He then took a note from his pocket and handed it to Rogue.

"Could you do me a favor?" Rogue nodded and he continued, "Can you give this to John?"

Rogue took the note, now looking puzzled.

"John?"

"It's the address to my parent's house in Boston. I know he won't remember it."

"Bobby..." Rogue began, giving him a sad look.

"He's coming back."

"No, he's not."

She would probably know. She's got John in her head, and Bobby was desperately, sickly envious of that. He wondered if he was the first person to ever envy Rogue's power, and he wondered what she would think if she knew that.

"Goodbye, Rogue."

She gave him a sad smile. 

"Goodbye, Bobby."

Bobby then turned away and began walking down the hall, Rogue watching him all the way until he turned a corner and was out of sight.

XXXXXXX

Four Weeks Later...

John had been sleeping in the abandoned warehouse they had been using as a hide-out. It was funny. The mansion was a shelter, a sanctuary, a safe haven. Now John was spending all his time in hide-outs and metal cave lairs and abandoned warehouses. Because of the fact that Magneto was a known, wanted terrorist they couldn't exactly check in to a Holiday Inn.

Last night he had been out on his first mission as part of the Brotherhood. The three of them had broken into a pharmaceutical company for Mystique to steal some documents. Magneto easily ripped the place apart and Pyro's job was to scorch any guards that came their way. He had gotten four. John didn't understand the mission, although he didn't ask any questions about it.

Magneto had told John that he was now a revolutionary, soldier, a freedom fighter now, but John really didn't feel like one.

He felt like a terrorist.

If they had gone out a freed a bunch of captive mutants being held somewhere against their will, that would have been one thing, but attacking a pharmaceutical company just to get one vanilla folder? John just didn't get it.

They soon found an abandoned church that was being used as a sanctuary for another group of mutants led by a woman named Callisto. She had the ability to locate other mutants, which Magneto thought would come in handy, so he allowed the group to join them. 

At the mansion, with the Professor, Bobby, Rogue, it had been his home…sort of. And while he didn't necessarily love being there, but he was finding out very quickly he didn't like being with the Brotherhood either. John wished he could find someplace where he did truly feel he belonged. If not at the school, and not here, then where?

He never had a mother, but he remembered being fourteen, angry, snide, and how he opened up to Professor Grey. John kinda wished Jean was still alive as she had treated him better than anyone else at the school.

After Bobby, that is. 

'Dammit, I don't want to think about that!'

John sat up in bed and suddenly felt his father's presence sitting right beside him, a cigarette dangling loosely from his lips.

"Got a light?" His father asked.

"You're dead." John replied out loud. "I watched you die."

"You gonna give me a light or not?"

The pyromaniac sighed as he took the lighter out of his pocket, lighting his father's cigarette. His father sucked the cigarette more fully into his mouth, than took a long drag off of it. "What are you doing here?" John persisted, accustomed to his dad being quite dead.

"Maybe I just want my lighter back."

John put his lighter back in his pocket.

"It's not your lighter. Bobby bought it for me at a street vendor last summer."

"But the reason he bought it was 'cause you said you liked it and the reason you liked it was 'cause it looked like mine." His dad flashed his own lighter at John. The whirling hammerhead shark was embossed on the side, under the words 'Feeding Frenzy'.

"Why'd you need a light from me if you had that?" John asked.

His father placed the lighter back in his pocket and patted his son's knee.

"Ain't nothing works when you're dead. Enjoy it while it lasts, boy. You're coming down here soon. People don't get away with the things you've been doing, trust me."

John shook his head vigorously.

"No... Magneto is the one they are after. I haven't done anything."

That was an obvious lie. A bad one, and his father saw right through it, like always. 

"My son, the genius," his dad responded. Death hadn't diminished the sarcasm in his voice. Oh, how it hurt. "You're a born loser, Johnny. You're his fall guy. Just a pawn to be moved against those boys in that fancy mansion you ran away from-"

"Ahh!" John sat up so fast that he ended up tumbling off the makeshift bed he set up.

"Jesus," he muttered as he took several deep breaths to get himself to calm down. His heart rate was going so fast that could hear the pounding of it in his ears. John got up off the floor and walked outside.

Looking up at the stars, John took out his lighter and began flipping it open, lighting it, closing it, repeat. He couldn't help it, but his thoughts drifted to that alley and how he ended up running away from Bobby.

John couldn't help but wonder...if he might have been wrong.

XXXXXX

Author's note; chapter is based on 'The Drafts', written by Nixa Jane.

Chapter Text

Bobby has had a lot of his firsts with John Allerdyce.

He was his first crush. Bobby had been drawn to him because he was everything Bobby wasn't; John was all carefree studied indifference with a Bic lighter and a cocky smirk. John never seemed to actually care, though, not about him, not about anything or anyone, so Bobby tried to stop caring about him too. He started chasing after Rogue, and tried to forget that John was the first person he had ever fallen in love with, not her. 

Everything Bobby knew about love he learned from his parents. Then after they took it all back, he slowly learned what John's known all along: love doesn't matter, because it never lasts.

Luckily, what he and John had together was something else entirely.

Bobby remembered vividly how John had come back into his life. It all started with the announcement of a cure for mutation. And even though John was dangerous, even though the cure may have been a necessary evil for some mutants at least, when the time came...

Bobby still moved in front of John.

He had lost track of the days since he arrived back to his home at Boston, so Bobby didn't even know when it was he wandered into the living room to see a news broadcast his mom and dad were watching. A geneticist named Dr. Cecilia Reyes was on the screen, and she began to address a crowd of reporters, along with the entire world who had tuned in.

"They've been called saints and sinners. They've committed atrocities and been the victims of atrocities themselves. They've been labeled monsters, and not without reason. But these so-called monsters are people, just like us. And we want to help them."

Ronny then walked into the room, but Bobby completely ignored his presence. They hadn't said one word to each other since Bobby's return.

"My mentor, the late Dr. Kativa Rao researched for years what she called 'Project Hope'. When I took over after her death last year, I vowed to finish her work for her. Thanks to generous funding of Warren Worthington, I and my team at Rao Labs have finally found the solution mutants out there have been looking for. As I said, mutants are people like us. People with a disease. The mutant gene is nothing more than a corruption of healthy cellular activity."

Bobby continued watching the television, wondering if everyone at the school was watching the same broadcast as well. "Ladies and gentlemen…we have found hope," Cecilia said. Bobby's gaze intensified as Dr. Reyes held up a test tube with a glowing liquid inside of it. "Finally, we have a cure for mutation."

Madeline took a deep, relieved breath.

"Thank god."

Of course, his parents just expected him to take it. They just assumed he would want to.

Silently, Bobby slowly turned around and walked out of the room as his parents began to discuss whether or not their health care would cover the cost of the cure or if they would have to pay for it out of pocket. Just as he walked past his younger brother, Ronny bit his bottom lip, looking like he wanted to say something to him.

Maybe an apology perhaps?

Bobby didn't even give Ronny the chance as he just continued on until he reached the staircase to head back up to his bedroom.

XXXXXXX

"Pyro!"

Magneto's voice reverberated through the Brotherhood's underground hideout, echoing through the empty metal corridors. John's eyes flew open from his restless nap, curled up on his mattress in front of a radio. He sluggishly rubbed his eyes as he stumbled up to his feet, listening for Magneto's voice again in the hope of pinpointing where he was exactly. They had recruited a few new members, and their base was becoming crowded, so John now spent most of his days in his room.

Then sure enough, Magneto's voice once again bellowed through the corridors. "Pyro!"

"Jesus, fuck." John muttered to himself while rolling his eyes as he began heading in the direction of what was considered Magneto's office. "Stop shouting, I'm not deaf." This place was slowly starting to remind him more and more about the school and why he finally decided to leave.

Inside of the room, Magneto was pacing back and forth, his face twisted with anger. John raised his eyebrows in surprise. The leader of the Brotherhood definitely didn't look happy, and John had never seen Magneto lose his composure like this before.

"Mystique just called," the older mutant began, not even look at the pyromaniac. "They've developed a cure. A mutant serum. They want to turn us back into homo sapiens."

"A cure?" he asked slowly, his brain slowly coming to terms with the concept. "How?"

"Mystique is looking into that as we speak," Magneto replied, calming slightly. "Once we find out, we will destroy this cure at it's very source. Now get yourself ready, Callisto has told me where we can find more recruits." 

John just continued to look on in disbelief as Magneto exited the room swiftly.

A cure?

They didn't have a fucking disease...how could they possibly make a cure?

Before he turned to leave, John looked over and saw the folder Magneto had him steal. Curiously, John picked up and put it in the inside of his jacket before going after the older mutant. 

XXXXXXX

About a week later, William and Madeline left the house to go to an attorney's office. They were still going ahead with a lawsuit against Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, much to Bobby's dismay. His parents had told him that eventually Bobby would have to give his own account of the school. Suddenly, his cellphone started going off. Bobby saw that it was Rogue calling. It was the first time he's heard from her since he left the institute. He assumed Rogue was calling to talk about the cure.

However, it ended up being about something much more important.

"It's John." Rogue began to explain. Worthington Industries, the financial backer of the cure had set up several 'cure clinics' over areas close to each other. One was in Manhattan, one was in Washington D.C., and the third one was in Boston. Countless other samples of the cure had been sent overseas to numerous countries. 

John was on his way to that clinic.

The Brotherhood was getting ready to attack all three at the same time. The X-Men didn't have enough members to defend all of them at once. Bobby didn't even understand why they were trying to stop them. Wouldn't the X-Men want a cure for mutation to be destroyed as well? He then started wondering, if only for a brief moment, if he was on the wrong side. Bobby couldn't dwell on that though, he needed to get to John before he hurt someone or got himself hurt. 

Bobby stole his mother's car. It was a twenty-minute drive from the house to the clinic's location.

He made it in twelve and a half.

Downtown, a large crowd formed on the opposite side of the cure clinic. Security stood in front of the building with weird looking guns as a great number of mutants had lined up for when they finally opened their doors to make what they called, 'hope serum' available. Across the street, another group of mutants had gathered together to protest against the cure. John blended in with them as he attached the wrist lighter Magneto had designed for him. 

They began to chant;

"We don't need a cure! We don't need a cure! We don't need a cure! We don't need a cure!"

That's when once again, John felt strange. It was like someone was penetrating his mind. There was only one person with an ability to do this, and it was Charles Xavier. Right then, John knew the Professor must have been using Cerebro.

"He found me." John muttered. If that was the case, he was going to have company soon. He needed to get done what he was sent here for, and quickly. Magneto had told him to only target the clinic and get out, as quickly as possible. No other causalities, if it could be avoided. Magneto wanted John to have anonymity for as long as possible in case he needed to be sent to other places to blow up. 

Meanwhile, after ditching the car about a block away, Bobby was continuing to push his way through people and looking around widely for his former roommate. He quickly scanned the line that was in front of the clinic, looking up and down trying to find him.

But he was too late. 

John released a large stream of flame at the clinic. The building exploded on impact and immediately caught fire as the mutants lined up screamed and began to run away, as did the protestors that John had stood among. That's when Bobby saw him. 

"John!" He shouted.

Before he could run off, John froze when he heard the all too familiar voice. He should have known that Bobby would be the one sent here. John turned back around as Bobby was slowly approaching him. He didn't know if this was going to turn into a fight, and John had to figure that the iceman couldn't have been sent alone. They continued staring at each other until Bobby suddenly noticed a small green light on John's chest. A guard had his gun pointed at John.

"No!" Bobby shouted as he lunged forward, shielding John's body with his own.

He was then shot, not by a bullet, but by a needle.

Without hesitating, John shot a torrent of flame towards the guard that had fired, instantly turning him to ash. John spun back around to see Bobby pull a needle from his chest before slumping to the ground. His eyes widened in shock as Bobby began convulsing on the ground.

"Fuck!" John shouted as he grabbed Bobby and tried to hold him still. What the hell had he been hit with? After a few more seconds, Bobby stopped as John picked up the needle. It was then did he realize.

They were using the cure in guns.

"You saved me." John said in disbelief. Bobby had been cured. 

That's when the sound of sirens could be heard. Cops were coming. The other guards that had been in front of the clinic began coming towards them. Once Bobby was able to regain his composure, he looked up and saw John's face. But it was no longer John. 

It was Pyro. 

"John...don't."

His plea went ignored.

All Pyro's eyes could see was red as he sent out another steam of fire, taking out the rest of the guards. As the cop cars arrived, Bobby could only watch helplessly as a scene that was reminiscent of what had happened on the porch of the Drake home unfolded, only much, much worse. This time there was no one there to stop John. One after another, Pyro blew up police cars along with nailing cops with streams of flame that scorched them alive. 

Bobby lifted up his hand and stared at it. He attempted to form some ice but as hard as he tried, nothing happened. His powers were gone. 

Just like his parents had wanted. 

Despite the fire that was surrounding him, for the first time in a while, Bobby felt the chill of cold. 

XXXXXXX

Based on the story "Ten Steps Closer to Hell" by Nixa Jane.

Chapter Text

Rogue's first encounter with John Allerdyce was nothing like her first encounter with Bobby Drake. Bobby is the kind of boy from storybooks, fairytales and the like-fair haired and gallant. He entered her life like the white knight he is.

She first saw John while he's setting fire to the lawn.

He was writing his name out with fire, scorching the grass and leaving it burnt in the ground, with a "was here" etched in ash beneath it. She remembered him laughing, and barely sparing her a glance. There was something dangerous about John, as there always was in people with passion left unchecked. Rogue only fell in love with one of them at first sight, and it isn't the one it was supposed to be. She loved Bobby later, slower; it's gradual and a hell of a lot safer.

Rogue was fairly certain no one could be the focus of Bobby's attention without falling in love with him, except maybe John; but John is an exception to a lot of things, and a complication she really didn't need. She's on the outside enough already that she didn't want to add to it by associating with the black sheep of the school, but learned fairly early on that John and Bobby are a package deal.

No one without the other.

Almost every time Rogue and Bobby did something or went out to get something to eat or go to a movie, John was right there along with them. Honesty, she never minded. John was funny and could be charming when he wanted to be.

There were a lot of stories about those two, and how they met, more than there are about her meeting anyone else at the institute. There were lots of talks about fights with fire and ice, but Rogue knows what really happened because Bobby was the one who told her, and he never lied. He and John had sat next to each other in class one day, they bonded over the pointlessness of the latest assignment, and haven't left each other's side since.

It was all very calm and civil, and Bobby would only realize later that he was the first-person John had actually talked to in his nearly four months at the school, before Bobby had ever arrived. The fights between the two didn't come until much later, and there was always more fire than ice.

Rogue also wasn't deluded. She knew John never noticed her until Bobby did. Competition was building between them even then, and so when John started smiling at her and flirting, she wasn't fooled. He just wanted to best Bobby at whatever he could, and she had decided to be over John within five minutes of meeting him.

Only it isn't that easy, of course. Because nothing with John ever is.

First off, John was never afraid to touch her. None of the hesitancy she always caught lurking deep in Bobby's eyes could ever be found in John's. He threw his arm over her shoulders, grabbed her gloved hand, ushered her through the halls and made her late for class, multiple times. There's a recklessness to him that's catching, except maybe for Bobby.

Bobby was an exception to a lot of things, too; but then, they weren't all together by being status quo.

Something that no one else knew was that John was the first to kiss her of the two. He waited until Bobby and everyone else was asleep, then he dragged her outside to the fountain and dared her to jump in. She did it, only to see the look of surprise of his face, because she loved not being what everyone expected. Then she pulled him into the water with her when John offered his hand to help Rogue up out of the fountain, even though he must be expecting that.

They were both soaking wet and it was pitch black and freezing, but John was warm to the touch, and his temperature always seems so much higher than hers, or anyone else's for that matter. He took her hands to warm them, and then suddenly kissed her without warning. Rogue's the one that pulled away because he wouldn't, even though it was draining him of everything he had. He laughed when she does, pale and out of breath, and still, he's only laughing. She was too concerned to be upset with him.

He told her it was worth it. It's the most romantic thing Rogue would ever get out of John, and he forgot it soon after.

But he gave Rogue a piece of himself for her to keep, if only for the briefest time. She didn't think of it as stolen for once because John knew what he was doing when he kissed her. He got out his lighter and placed the fire in her hands afterwards, because his power is inside her-she plays with it for almost an hour before it finally got hot enough to burn.

Once the flame flickers out, she's cold again, and John was gone from her head.

John ended up telling Bobby exactly what happened the very next day, even though Rogue had meant to take it to the grave.

"I kissed your girlfriend at the fountain last night," he said, just like that as they sat at a table in the library, researching a science project together.

Rogue froze in shock, waiting for the fallout. The angry screams from arguing, the fists to be thrown, but Bobby just kicked him under the table and called him a jerk. He didn't believe John, maybe, or maybe he just didn't care. "Try to have some restraint, will you?" Bobby then asked. "She's way too good for you, anyway."

"We can't all be wound as tight as you," John responded to him, and then winked at her.

Once they were by themselves, Rogue asked John why in the hell he would tell Bobby that, he merely shrugged. "I can lie with the best of them. But it's so much easier to tell the truth, because they'll just think I'm lying anyway."

It's actually a neat concept, and Rogue wondered if it would work for her. Chances are it wouldn't, because she lies to herself all the time, and didn't trust herself to find the truth in anything. Rogue couldn't blame Bobby for not knowing the difference when she couldn't find it herself.

"John and I are going to run away together some day," she told Bobby the very next night. She didn't know which one of them she was testing, but Bobby only laughed in return, and she's fairly certain that's not the reaction she was searching for.

"I hope you send me a postcard," he smiled.

XXXXXX

Rogue had just arrived back at the mansion with the rest of the team. This had been her first mission, and it had been a disaster. Scott and Ororo had both been injured and all three cure clinics were destroyed. Logan had actually voiced opposition to even going in the first place.

"Let Magneto take them all down," he spoke. "Isn't that what we want too?" 

The Professor responded that Magneto's actions would have catastrophic consequences for mutants everywhere. Just another reason for ordinary people to hate and fear them. 

She called Bobby to see how things went, but she got no answer. Rogue was concerned but there was nothing more she could do at the moment. She just wanted to take a shower and go to bed. Rogue walked through the hall when suddenly a door opened up and she was grabbed from behind. A gloved hand was placed over her mouth as Rogue was pulled into a bedroom. 

Frantically, Rogue tried to elbow her way out of the grip whoever had her in. 

"Relax, it's me!" 

Rogue pulled away and when she spun around, she saw to her shock that it was John. It was only then did she see that it was his and Bobby's old room that she had been pulled into. 

"Don't scream," John told her. "I'm not here to hurt anyone." Although he damn well wanted to. "Where is Bobby? Why is our room completely empty?"

After getting over her initial surprise of seeing the pyromaniac again, she was able to find her voice. "He's in Boston." Rogue figured that perhaps Bobby arrived at the clinic too late and hadn't even seen John there at all. 

"What? He went back home already?"

"No, his parents came and got him a few weeks ago." John now looked totally confused and Rogue shook her head as she remembered. "Let me go get something." Reluctantly, John let Rogue leave to go to her room that she shared with Kitty Pryde. Once she came back a few moments later, Rogue handed John a piece of paper.

"Bobby gave it to me right before he left, in case you ever needed help, or anything else. What is it you want? What have you gotten yourself into that Magneto can't get you out of?"

John narrowed his eyes at her. He didn't want to tell Rogue that he had been kicked out of the Brotherhood. Magneto had told him that he had gone too far, that he had brought on a lot of unwanted attention on himself, something that Magneto specifically told John not to do. John just didn't think he meant that. Who would have ever though that a mutant terrorist would have limits?

"Why the hell was Drake sent there, anyway?" John then demanded. "All by himself?" He would have much rather been arrested and thrown in jail. Anything would have been better than what had actually taken place. 

Rogue stiffened. "So, you saw him then? Is he alright?"

He also didn't want to tell Rogue then Bobby had been cured. 

John doesn't seem to hear her. He was looking at the ground. "Is he okay?" Rogue asked again. "I know you probably don't care anymore, but I-"

"I'm sure he'll be fine," John snapped, sounding irritated as he looked at the paper. It had an address and a phone number written down on it. He then looked up at Rogue and wondered if this would be the last time he would ever see her. He should at least tell her goodbye or something like that, but John was never that sentimental. "Look, just don't tell anyone I was here, okay?" 

Rogue then watched as John went climbed out the window, something he had done hundreds of times while he was a student. Against her better judgement, Rogue never did tell anyone that John had been here. 

XXXXXXX

A couple of days later, Bobby heard his phone buzz. He sighed, thinking it was Rogue again. However, it was a message. 

The corner of Mason and Cross, 10:00 PM on Monday.

That was it. 

For whatever reason, Bobby wasn't surprised at all when he reached the corner that night and saw John standing there. He was leaning against the wall of an apartment building with a look of hesitancy in his eyes. 

"You're late. I thought maybe you weren't coming." John then walked a few steps forward, beneath the streetlight, strangely shadowed as he sucked in ash and burnt air from a cigarette.

"Traffic was a bitch." Bobby joked as he stepped up on the curb to stand in front of the other teen.

John's lips quirk upwards. "You must have spent too much time with Logan, Drake."

"I spent too much time with you," Bobby countered easily.

Bobby never used to be that quick to respond. It used to be he stumbled over his sentences and apologized before he'd done anything wrong.

They were both quiet after that. The seconds uncomfortably ticked by until John finally spoke again.

"You shouldn't have done that." John actually sounded guilty about what Bobby has lost, even though John never would have wanted him to do it. Not in a hundred years. "I'd jump in front of a real bullet for you, or anything else," John then whispered, almost like a confession. "But not this. Never this. And you shouldn't have, either."

Bobby's mind was scattered, in too many places at once. Not even sure of what day it even is. Because he had been trying to cope with the idea of not being a mutant anymore. It doesn't really matter, because at the moment, he was just Bobby, and John was just John. They weren't Iceman and Pyro.

John then approached Bobby more closely and shoved a slip of paper into his right hand. It was his own number. Then he was gone, and Bobby was left alone.

But it would end up being okay, really, because as it would turn out, the cure wouldn't last either.

Nothing ever does.

XXXXXX

Based on the story 'Temperature Changes' by Nixa Jane.

Chapter Text

John didn't know why he went to Boston to see Bobby. Maybe he wasn't as changed as much as he liked to pretend, but either way, there's no point turning back now that he has come all the way here. John had burned his bridges, with the X-Men and Magneto alike, so he'd thought maybe he'd head out to California, or maybe even Texas when he was done here.

Somewhere else, it didn't really matter where. He's been on his own before, but not like this. The one thing John did like about being with the Brotherhood was that he's never had that freedom to do whatever he wanted without being judged, because the people he was with have all done things that were far worse than what he could he even imagine.

They didn't look at him like he was the bad kid for once, because he wasn't the worst one in the room.

And that's freedom.

It was probably why Bobby used to keep him around so often; his halo always seemed a little brighter when he was standing next to John. The messages between the two had continued over the next couple of days. This time, it's Bobby asking to meet John again at the corner of Mason and Cross at 10 PM.

"I don't owe you anything. I didn't come here to pay a debt." John wrote in a text message.

"You never pay your debts." Bobby answered back.

"That's because I take I what want, and don't let people give me anything. You keep trying to break all of my rules."

It was stupid of him to come back to this spot, to act like the last month or so had never happened, that nothing has changed. John sighed and ran a hand down his face before igniting his lighter and lighting up a cigarette. There are no cars driving by this late, but there are still a few lights on in the building windows. There were always a few people that never went to sleep in any given place. He took a seat on the curb just as a figure stepped out on the shadows and slowly took a seat next to him. 

"How's life on the run?"

"I'm not running from anything," John answered, and he leaned back, planting his hands on the sidewalk. He got right to the point. "Why'd you message me, Drake?"

"Why'd you give me your number?" Bobby responded instantly, slightly defensive, but a little curious all the same. "Why aren't you with the Brotherhood?"

John laughed and glanced away, down the street.

"You got me kicked out."

"I got you kicked out?" Bobby asked, indignantly. "How did I get you kicked out? Why would you get kicked out?"

"I was just there to blow up the clinic and leave. Quick and easy. I wasn't there to blow up a dozen cop cars. Naturally, I couldn't tell Magneto why I was so upset at the time, so he just thinks I'm a loose cannon. Too much of a liability, than an asset." John shorted. That was the story of his life. Also, Magneto was angry about the folder from his desk going missing, but the other boy didn't need to know about that. 

There were still cure clinics out there, they had been opened in other countries so John figured that Magneto would have needed him to help take those down too, but apparently not. 

"I guess the Professor and Magneto are more alike than I realized." Bobby kicked a rock at his shoe. "You're really disappointed, aren't you?"

"I didn't belong to him. I don't belong to anyone. I don't do anything I don't want to."

"So you say. But it was easier when I told myself Magneto must have some kind of power over you."

"Well, he doesn't," John snapped. "I thought he was a good man. That's all."

"A good man?!" Bobby then shouted as he got to his feet, standing in front of John and looking down at him. "He's a murderer, John. He nearly killed Rogue and then he took you-"

"He didn't take me, Bobby," John says, slowly so hopefully he'll finally understand. "I left. There's a difference."

Bobby turned away with a strange sound low in his throat and placed his hands on the streetlamp. He leaned his forehead against it. "Why did you come? I told you why I called. Why did you come?"

"You asked to meet me. Here I am." 

"And why did you leave the school to begin with?" Bobby stepped closer again, and glances at him sideways. "The truth, for once."

Exhaling heavily into the tranquil night, John gave the other teen the simplest answer he could. 

"Because you let me."

"It's not that simple, John. You can't put this all on me," Bobby spoke angrily. "You left. You're the one that left."

"Right. It's always me. Whatever, Drake. Think what you want." John threw away his cigarette as he got to his feet. "You should be happy. I'm out of the Brotherhood and you're cured, just like mommy and daddy wanted. Don't call again."

Bobby grabbed his arm when he turned to leave and sent them both crashing into the nearest wall. John's head slammed into the bricks behind him, and he got dizzy for a moment, before the feeling fades, and the cold blue eyes glaring at him come into focus.

"Well," John began. "I guess you did learn something at that school after all. If you want a fight, then you've got one."

"I don't want a fight," Bobby growled, but his hands were still twisted in John's jacket, and he showed no signs of letting go. "I'm sick of fighting."

All fighting had done was gotten them both here, with nothing to show for it. 

"You haven't even started yet."

But when John reached for his lighter Bobby grabbed his wrists and slammed them onto the wall beside his head.

"Just listen! For once in your life, John, listen."

"You've got a minute," John responded, going pliable in Bobby's hands, "and then I'm blowing up the third story of the building behind us, because someone up there has a fireplace going."

"You wouldn't," Bobby tightened his grip.

"You're wasting time."

Bobby fell against him with something between a sigh and a sob and rested his forehead against John's. "You said you left because I let you. Now I'm trying to stop you, but you don't want to be stopped, John."

"I just don't want to go backwards," John now looked somewhat startled, the way he always did whenever Bobby showed all his cards, made himself vulnerable. He should've learned by now not to; John has known it since before he was ten. "And your time is almost up."

"You're always testing everyone. Always pushing people until they push back; don't you ever quit, John? Aren't you tired of it yet?"

"Do you get tired of trying to save everyone?"

Bobby shook his head. "I've never managed to save anyone."

"I said try," John tells him mercilessly. Bobby let go of him and backed away like he's been burned.

"You're a bastard, you know that?"

"It's not exactly breaking news," John tossed back, and stuck his hands in his pockets. Bobby shook his head, like maybe he's just now remembering what John was like, why he left in the first place, and why they always had more fights than civil conversations during the last few months of John's stay at the institute. Bobby then asked;

"What are you going to do now?"

"What, like you care all the sudden?" 

Bobby flinched, and then looked up to glare at him. "I never fucking stopped, caring. I was never the one with issues about caring for someone, that was all you."

"Right. Because I'm the one that found the only person in the school that couldn't be touched to fall in love with."

"Why does it always come back to Rogue with you?"

"Everything always comes back to her." John answered with a shrug. "Did you miss the memo? The world revolves around Rogue and her poor little tortured life."

"I went to that clinic because of you, you asshole," Bobby snapped. 

"And you got yourself fucking cured in the process!"

John hated the fact that he still felt guilty about this. He should have chalked it up as the consequence of Bobby always wanting to play the role of hero but couldn't. Bobby felt his shoulders sag as they remained silent for the next minute.  "I left, you know. I left the school. My parents came and got me. Right after what happened between us in the alley."

John bit his tongue, flicked his lighter open, then closed. He wanted to forget about that. 

"Same old Bobby. Still doing what you're told."

"Even if I still had my powers," Bobby continued, ignoring the jab. "I'm just not right for the part. I can't be in the X-Men. It was different before, but when you left-"

"Christ, Drake, you really do blame me for everything, don't you?"

"Maybe it just took you leaving to realize my world used to center on you. You balance me out, John, always have. I've been off kilter since the moment you left."

"I've been fine," John said with a shrug.

"Have you really?"

"You shouldn't admit to weakness, Drake. Not everyone needs a counterweight to function."

"I took that dart for you. Do you realize that?" Bobby demanded. "Does that mean anything to you? Does what happened in the alley mean anything to you?" Of course it did. Bobby had done something that nobody else would ever do for him. John just didn't know how to process that. When John didn't answer, the other teen continued on. "You're not heartless, John, you never were. You can be cruel, I'm not stupid, I know what you're capable of, but I also know your potential-"

"I haven't got any potential." John interrupted with a harsh tone. "I've listened to people tell me that for years, and you know, it's never done me any good. The Professor, Scott, Jean, even Magneto told me. Well, he was just as wrong as the rest of them, in the end, wasn't he?"

He knew John would never admit it, but Bobby could tell from his voice that John was upset, that he was hurting. Bobby was hesitant with his next choice of words; afraid almost that he might make a single mistake and send John over the edge

"I'm not giving up on you." 

John let out a humorless laugh.

"Everyone at the school said that too. They said they wouldn't, but they did, they gave up on me, I watched them, one by one, just like every other time-because I'm the bad kid, the lost cause, and you gave up on me too, Bobby. That's why I left. It was what you wanted." John now looked almost near tears as he let all this out, which frightened Bobby more than if he'd pulled out a lighter and lit a flame. 

"I never wanted this," Bobby insisted, but he knew John was right, right about everything but the fact that Bobby wanted him to leave.

That was the last thing he had wanted, and it still was, even after everything.

He had given up on John, though, Bobby could see that now. For a while he'd given up on his best friend in the world, just sat and watched him slip away, because he was too busy with the girlfriend he couldn't even touch to be bothered with him.

"Well, it's what you got," John took a deep breath, and Bobby watched, amazed, as that's all it took for John to pull himself right back together. "Whether you wanted it or not, it is what it is, and there's no going back now."

"I won't do it again." Bobby promised as he put a hand on John's shoulder. "Give up on you. I won't do it again."

Bobby had been right about one thing. John was always seeing how far he could push them until they stopped pulling him back. To be completely honest, he was getting tired of it as he thought about their situations. Bobby couldn't be with the X-Men anymore. John couldn't be with the Brotherhood. For once, they were kind of in the same boat. John now looked a little terrified, which Bobby thought was odd, because John could face down entire police squadrons without being scared.

"I'm not staying in Boston forever." John told him as the wind tears at his overheated skin, though it's not entirely unpleasant, but it brings back a lot more memories he'd rather not drag up. "It's too fucking cold here." 

Bobby let out a small laugh.

"Yeah. I've noticed." He had no reason to stay here. Bobby then pulled John closer to him. "I can be with you when you leave."

XXXXXXXX

Based on Corner of Mason and Cross and In Reverse by Nixa Jane.

Chapter Text

Sometimes Bobby thought he's always been in love with John. From the first moment they met, there was something broken about him that Bobby desperately wanted to fix; but the thing about most broken people is they're well past wishing they were whole.

Rogue was one of the exceptions, but Bobby hadn't been able to fix her, either.

They left in the middle of the night. Earlier that evening his parents had told Bobby that their lawyer needed to get a statement from him tomorrow, but Bobby merely told them he's going to leave. It's not without warning, but he promised to stay until the next day, because they wanted to talk it over, they all wanted his reasons. William and Madeline don't expect their son to break his promise because he never has before, but there's a first time for everything. Bobby didn't know why people always seem to forget that.

Packing didn't take much time; Bobby just grabbed the bag he had brought home from the school. He's barely taken anything out of it. As he walked out the front door with the duffle bag in hand that contained both his and John's things, Bobby felt an odd kind of tingling at the back of his neck.

Bobby stared at the walkway, the porch, and he could hear the gunshot, the sickening thud as Logan hit the ground. And fire. So much fire he can feel the heat sink into his own veins that once ran ice-cold.

He stuck close to nine hundred dollars in his back pocket, birthday money from his parents that stopped coming at seventeen, mostly, with some money saved up from before even then, too, because he had somehow known even years ago that the trust fund his parents were always talking about would never be his. He tried not to think about all the damage Ronny will cause with two of them.

He didn't tell John about the money, because he's afraid John might take it and disappear. The only thing John had with him was a backpack. There still wasn't any trust between them, not on either side. Bobby just hoped that they'll start to regain it after they're far enough away from this place.

"What are we doing?" Bobby asked.

"We're hitchhiking," John answered, as if it should have been obvious. "Christ, Bobby, haven't you even done that?"

"Of course not!" 

John arranges him on the side of the road, dusted him off, pulled at his jacket, and then smirked. "Good," he says. "You look like some nice boy on the side of the road. Some minivan is going to come by, and they just won't be able to resist picking you up." John then dropped to sit on the ground and glanced up at the sky. He knew he looked like trouble, so he did his best to keep out of the unsuspecting driver's line of sight. "Stick out your thumb, Drake."

A woman with a "world's best mom" bumper sticker picks them up two hours later and wanted to know what they're doing out so late on a school night. "It's dangerous, you know. Just look at the news, and what happened to that clinic a few days ago," she began. "What would your parents think?"

"They're dead," John told her, affecting this look of a lost young boy that Bobby had never seen him use on purpose before. John wasn't usually one for hiding his motives, and this gentle kind of deception is new. "We're foster kids, ma'am, but it was a bad situation, so we're moving on."

"Oh, you poor boys," she says. "What kind of bad situation? Are you both alright?"

John looked out the window. "He beat us." The answer is deadpanned like it's the truth, and she thankfully, doesn't ask anything else. The woman leaves them at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and gave them twenty dollars each, and like a flip switch, John was John again. He took out a cigarette and lit it up with his shark lighter.

"If she'd said another word about that clinic, I would have killed her."

Bobby glances back the way they came once her taillights disappear, but nothing looks familiar. It's just like John to want to outrun the past instead of talk about it, but it isn't like Bobby at all, so he doesn't know why he thinks it will work too. They were back to walking. Along the way, Bobby would say things like; "I hope the school is doing okay" or "I hope my parents don't go there looking for me" or "I wonder if Scott is handling everything alright."

"You don't have to be here," John responds when he does. "It's not like I kidnapped you."

The first few times, Bobby replied with something like "that's not what I meant" or "I want to be here" or "don't you think I know that?" But after a while, he got tired of explaining himself.

Even to John.

They continued on six more miles down the road until they came across a Motel 6, sixty dollars a night, flashing 'vacancy' in bright garish lights.

Bobby paid and thankfully John didn't ask where he got the money, just held out his hand for the key the moment he comes back outside. John planted himself in front of the television once they're inside and started flipping through the channels. Bobby sat on the bed, watching him. It feels familiar, he thought, only now John is searching for any news about Magneto, if he had started targeting any of the other cure clinics, or the off chance that his own picture has been released instead of searching for some movie with enough action to hold his attention.

Magneto's whereabouts were still unknown, and there's no mention of John by name but there was footage of the havoc he caused at the cure clinic. Fortunately, there were no close-up shots of him from the news cameras that had been there. The only thing they have on John is in a file somewhere in a Boston police station, sitting forgotten on some desk with a report written by officers who had survived, giving a vague description of the pyromaniac because they had been too terrified of the incident to remember anything correctly.

Bobby told him to turn it off and get some sleep.

Rolling his eyes, John got up from his seat and curiously looked into Bobby's now open duffle bag. After shuffling some things around, he found his brown leather jacket. John couldn't help the slight grin that came over his face.

XXXXXXX

It was early the following morning, a little after six AM. After checking out of the motel they were back to walking until coming across some cars parked on the street. John stopped beside an old Volvo, wrapped his hand up in his jacket, and before Bobby could ask what he's doing, he's broken out the window.

"A lot of people go for the flashy cars," John began, like this is some kind of tutorial on the shadier side of life, and then he crawled inside and leaned under the steering wheel. "But that's a mistake. This car, for instance; the owner of this piece of shit would probably thank me for taking it off their hands."

"I doubt that." Bobby responded. "John, we shouldn't do this."

"We? I don't see you helping out."

"We can hitch another ride." It sounds empty, like he's already given in. Maybe he could stop John if he really wanted to, but they both know that it will take more than words to do it. The only thing he had left were fists, and it hadn't come to that yet. "This isn't right."

"You're with the wrong person if you want to live the straight life, Drake." John then started the engine up. After that, he turned the radio on. He's brushed the glass off the seat and the wind was coming in through the broken window, cold and sharp. The last time Bobby was in a car with John, Rogue and Logan were in the front seats and they were running for their lives then, too.

"We'll ditch it next stop," John told him. "If we take the plates chances are they'll never even know it was stolen. People just don't care that much about Volvos."

"Where'd you even learn to hotwire a car?" Bobby asked, almost resentful for reasons he can't quite pin down. "Magneto teach you that, too?"

John strangely smiled, kind of sad, but proud more than anything. "My dad taught me when I was seven." John sometimes let little things like that slip, little pieces of his past, and Bobby never quite knew what to do with them. They're so different from his own. After a moment went by, Bobby spoke up again.

"Your world is a scary place."

"Think how I must have felt when I was trapped in yours."

Bobby sighed heavily. 

"I didn't come along with you to be your accomplice. I came to keep you out of trouble."

"You're doing spectacularly so far." John turned up the radio. The song wasn't catchy, it's almost vulgar, but John didn't seem to mind.

"Fuck off, Allerdyce," Bobby reached over to change the station. He could see John's smirk out of the corner of his eye.

"You should do that more often."

"What, tell you to fuck off?"

"Say what you mean. This good little soldier boy veneer might have been necessary at Xavier's, but you don't have to be perfect with me."

And that, Bobby thought, is the real reason why he had gone with John. Bobby would tell him that, but he had a bad habit of never being able to say what he really means. He just responds with, "whatever" instead, and John just grinned. 

They still rented another room at the local's version of Motel 6. John is apparently all about the low profile, these days. Bobby called the institute at a payphone. He was two blocks from the motel at a Seven-Eleven because John wanted cigarettes, and he just needed a minute to breathe.

"Hello?" Scott answered, but Bobby said nothing. "Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?"

And then he hangs up and bought John some Nicotine gum.

John is just drifting near sleep by the time Bobby made it back. He closed the door to room behind him and slipped off his shoes. He then crawled into the bed, shoving John a little closer to the wall.

"There's two beds in this room," John complained, half-asleep.

"Maybe I don't trust you not to run off," Bobby says, and pulled the covers over them both.

John laughed. "I would have done it while you were gone. Where are my cigarettes?"

Bobby slapped the gum onto John's chest.

"What the hell is this?" John asked as he took it. "Tell me you didn't buy me that fucking gum."

"Cigarettes aren't good for you," Bobby replied. He lets his head drop onto the pillow and closes his eyes.

"Why do you think I started smoking?"

John then tossed the gum to the floor. A few minutes went by, and Bobby was about to drift to sleep when carefully, John leaned forward and kissed him. It was gentle, and not like John at all, not fearless the way Bobby expected.

"What are you doing?" He asked when John pulls slightly back.

"This is what you want, isn't it?"

"Then why now?" Bobby demands, pushing John a little away, so that he can meet his eyes. "Why not at the alley?" If it had been a couple of weeks ago, they could have avoided all of this. 

"So I have issues," John sighed. "This isn't news."

"You don't have to do this," Bobby then sat up, because it's what he always said to Rogue, when she got scared to get too close; and Bobby knew that John had been almost as untouchable as her.

"You're too fucking nice," John snapped while sitting up as well. He kissed Bobby again, harder this time, like he actually meant it, and like maybe he wasn't not so scared anymore. "Stop being so fucking nice."

"One of us has to be the responsible one," Bobby answered when they pull back to get a breath. "And it's certainly not going to be you."

"It doesn't always have to be you. You're going to snap one of these days if you don't loosen up."

"I think it may have happened already."

Bobby laughed, for the first time in what feels like forever, as everything, even being powerless was gone from his mind. He pulled John in for another kiss; and this is how it should have been from the start. Way before the alley, way before Alkali Lake, and way before Rogue had arrived. If only John hadn't been so terrified, and Bobby hadn't been so clueless.

Still, Bobby thought that maybe it wasn't too late.

XXXXXX

Author's note; based on the story "Drive" by Nixa Jane.

Chapter Text

When they were sixteen, John once dragged Bobby from the mansion in the middle of the night so they could make bonfires in the forest behind the school. Bobby went because John was the kind of guy you wanted to be like and would never be like. It was kind of fun for someone as sheltered as he had been to see things through John's rather jaded gaze.

John nearly burnt the whole forest down that night, and Bobby thought he probably knew, even then, what John was truly capable of.

Back at the motel they had stayed at, by the time Bobby woke up, John was up already and sitting on the other side of the room, stuffing a few more things into his backpack while chewing a piece of gum. Bobby smirked. "Is it helping at all?" He asked, curious.

"Fuck you, Drake." John glared at him. "It's not even the nicotine I want. I just like them because they burn well."

"Just keep telling yourself that, Allerdyce."

"I bet no one ever gives Logan a hard time about his cigars."

"When you have claws coming out of your knuckles," Bobby sighed, "you can smoke whatever the hell you want."

John took his shower first, and packed the room while Bobby took his. He had forgotten that John is all coiled up energy, waiting to be let loose, and was impatient to get back on the move again. John tapped his foot on the floor and toyed with his lighter the entire time Bobby got dressed.

"Do you need some more gum, or something?" Bobby asked while putting his shoes back on.

John just rolled his eyes while throwing his backpack over his shoulder while Bobby picked up his duffle bag off the floor. "I need a cigarette," he hotly responds, "but someone didn't get them for me the other night."

Giving him an innocent grin, Bobby snatched the keys from John's hand. "I'm driving."

They don't know exactly where it was they were going, but once they were gone from the Boston and then the Manhattan area, they stopped caring so much. No one was coming to look for them, no one's counting on them for anything, and they don't have to think past midnight. It was kind of nice, Bobby realized. He could almost understand why John left in the first place. They made it to the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania when John tells him it's finally time to ditch the Volvo.

Bobby didn't argue as they left it on the side of the highway. John took off the plates first, then blew it up. He probably would have stayed there all night just to watch it burn, but Bobby got them moving again.

They were walking alongside a backroad taking in the afternoon air when Bobby finally asked the question.

"What's the plan here? Are we just going to do a fifty-state tour?"

"You'll just have to wait and see." John then grinned slyly.

It's the grin John always gave when he's hiding something, and it set Bobby on the edge. John had to know this, so he tried to keep up a conversation to try and lure him into a false sense of security. He wanted to take Bobby's mind off it.

"When I was a kid, I think I was five or six, we had a dog. And the dog was old, he couldn't even get up and walk anymore. One day my dad looks at me and said; "That dog has been such a good dog for so many years for us, but he's not gonna make it anymore. I want you to take this hammer and go beat the dog to death."

John looked slightly over at Bobby, and he had to bite his tongue not to burst out laughing from the look of horror on his face.

"Anyway, I didn't want to do it, but my dad said he would make me wear a dress if I didn't." John continued. "So, I grabbed the hammer and started pounding the dog with it. There was blood all over me, and when I went back over to him, all proud of myself, and my dad said to me; "That wasn't even our dog, that was the neighbor's dog."

"Please tell me that story isn't true." Bobby almost pleaded, now wide-eyed.

"Then he and I split a beer. And on that day, I knew that I was in the right family."

John then started to laugh which caused Bobby to shake his head and begin to laugh with him. He had almost forgotten what John used to do when he was bored. He would make up the most outrageous story just to entertain himself and leave the other person wondering just how much of that was actually true.

Eventually, their laughter then died down. Eventually, they were able to hitch another ride, in the back of a truck this time. Bobby doesn't know how he managed it, but John slept throughout the whole ride, lying back in the truck bed, windblown and silent. The man who had given them the ride dropped them off after they cross state lines into West Virginia. They were back to walking as they entered another town when they were suddenly hit with the smell of fire, smoke, ash, and metal. 

 It was the horrid.

At least, to Bobby it was. To John, not so much. In fact, not at all. 

The smell was getting stronger as the two teens headed down the unfamiliar trail, and as they turned around a corner, both stilled in shock at what they saw there. 

Thick and dark smoke was pouring out from a nearby apartment on the other end of the street, flames visible from the closed windows signaling that there was a fire inside. It was clear the apartment was burning from inside out, and the stench of smoke was now overwhelming to Bobby's nose. The apartment's building seemed old and ruined, but it definitely looked like there was people living inside that place.

A crowd of people had gathered outside. The stood far enough not to be reached by the smoke, but close enough to be able to watch the flames dancing around behind the windowpanes.

Why wasn't anyone trying to help? 

He was human now, so there was nothing Bobby could do to help put out the flames. There was only one other person that could. 

That other person was wearing a satisfied expression, or at least something akin to sinful pleasure in watching the fire grow, and it didn't set well with Bobby. 

Bobby swore the flames reflected in John's eyes as he watched it. The flames then started rising higher, and hotter, and Bobby quickly shook him, not sure if he was doing it on purpose or if he really just can't help himself. John's always been different this close to this much fire, and Xavier used to say it was because the fire was controlling him, and not the other way around, but Bobby had to wonder if that really was true.

He used to think that John just got a little carried away due to having that much power right at his fingertips.

Bobby knew he had been living in a place of denial for a long while now, but he couldn't deny the look in John's eyes, that craving for destruction he's seen a few too many times by now to ignore. John doesn't even seem to hear the people screaming, or if he does, he just doesn't care. Bobby's not sure which would be worse.

"Put it out, John," he whispered.

John glanced at him, and then quickly back to the fire. "What? Are you crazy? I didn't start it."

"I didn't say you did." John just doesn't get it; he doesn't know what Bobby was really asking. "Just put it out."

"No way."

Looking down, Bobby saw that John's fingers are twitching to urge it on.

Bobby grabbed John by the shoulders, and turned the other teen to face him, because this is what he's been putting off, he knew that now.

"I'm willing to put up with a lot, but if you don't put that fire the hell out, I'm out of here, and I'm not coming back to find you." 

John blinked at him, still not understanding, not quite getting it, seemingly not about to put the fire out and Bobby thought that this was it. This was all for nothing.

Then...John slowly raised his hand, and all at once, the fire starts pulling back on itself, until it all disappeared. 

Bobby let out a breath he didn't know that he'd been holding, because John's eyes were clear again, and he looked like John again, not like Pyro. People are still screaming, but for different reasons, they're shouting about miracles and acts from God; they all start looking around for what had stopped the fire so suddenly, but Bobby and John just lean against a parked car, looking like tourists.

"Thank you," Bobby said quietly, with relief, because he knew stopping that fire probably cost John more than Bobby would ever understand; back when he'd asked him to stop on the porch of his house, when he was attacking the police, John hadn't even heard him.

"Yeah, well," John replied as he pulled out a cigarette, one he'd somehow gotten past Bobby. "We're not going to become some dynamic duo, off fighting the good fight, so don't even think it."

"I wasn't, I swear," Bobby responded, but he's grinning, and John's actually smiling back.

They ended up getting a room at a Days Inn. Once they got into bed John took his shirt off. He had scars on his back. They crisscrossed from one side to the other, spaced three inches apart almost perfectly, almost like art. He never said where he got them, and Bobby couldn't remember, thinking back, if John had them before he left the school. They look old enough, but he's not sure they'll ever really fade.

Deep down, Bobby knew it was wrong. This is no definition of love he's ever found, what they have. But they're together, and that's something.

He guessed he was just too tired to care enough to define it at the moment, so Bobby just pulled him in for a kiss, tracing John's scars with the tips of his fingers, and wondered at how upside down his world had become.

Because caring isn't supposed to hurt, and pain was never meant to be pretty.

After another kiss, John slightly pulled away and suddenly asked;

"Is it gone completely?" 

Right away, Bobby knew what he was referring to. 

"It's hard to explain." Bobby shook his head. "I can still feel it, but nothing ever happens."

It was so weird to not be able to create ice with just a thought anymore. He had tried every day since being cured. Bobby would just sit there concentrating and trying to call it up and nothing. John's eyes shifted away from his. He looked like an idea just came to mind, and Bobby immediately became tense, wondering what the pyromaniac was thinking about, and knowing that it was pointless to even ask.

Chapter Text

Every day was becoming exactly the same.

Steal a car, drive it for as long as they could, ditch it. Hitch a ride, rent a room. It was a routine that was becoming monotonous, and it was starting to take a toll on the mood of both boys. They were continuing their journey further west, and Bobby had to assume that they were heading to California.

As far as to why, John still wasn't giving up any details. That was fine, Bobby tried to tell himself. For now, at least. As long as John had some sort of plan. They were also starting to run low on money as Bobby only had a little over two-hundred bucks left. John had taken up stealing to make up for it, much to Bobby's chagrin. He would go to a bar, find the drunkest guy there, then follow him out once he was finally cut off, then jump him and take whatever money the guy might have.

By this point, they've tried to kill each other a few times now. Bobby should probably have been more surprised.

It's the sun off the blade that woke him one night, flashing in his eyes like a camera or light through glass. John was kneeling beside him, staring at a damn knife like his life depended on it, and maybe in his mind it did. Bobby sat up warily, because it's novel enough that he and John had managed to stay the entire night and wake with the other still there. The pattern usually went that one of them was gone, off doing something before the morning. John, usually.

"What are you doing?" He asked. John's eyes are clouded when they raise, and he doesn't answer. Bobby frowned and reached out a hand. "Give me the knife."

John laughed, like that's the funniest thing he's ever heard. He doesn't understand giving, Bobby remembered, only taking, so he lunged forward and pinned him to the floor, grabbing John's wrist. Bobby tightened his hold around it until the pressure finally caused John's fingers to loosen, and the knife fell from his hand, which Bobby quickly snatched up.

He never really knew for sure which of them John had been planning to hurt.

Bobby had seen a lot of movies where couples have love/hate issues, but at least most of them seem to have lines they wouldn't cross. However, John didn't have any boundaries, and even though they're on longer on different sides, John still wasn't going to hold back. Bobby wasn't even sure what started it this time. It could have been anything because it never took much lately.

One minute they were kissing and whispering to each other, and the next John was slamming him into a wall and yelling at him to fucking knock it off.

The two of them were rolling around on the motel floor beating the shit out of each other and neither really knew why. All Bobby knew was that John now had his lighter in hand and that was trouble. Before John could flick it open though Bobby knocked it out of his hand and under the bed.

"No powers you fucking cheater," Bobby remembered half-growling out before John flipped them over and slammed his head into the nightstand.

"Fucker!" John yelled as Bobby bit his arm hard enough to break the skin.

Bobby knew John had the upper hand as long as he was on top of them though and used up a lot of his leftover energy to flip them again. John cried out when Bobby practically crushed his wrists against the floor as he panted in exhaustion above the other teen. John took his chance and quickly lunged up, slamming his forehead against Bobby's.

Bobby yelled out in pain, and John jumped back on top of him, forcing him on his stomach and twisting his arm behind his back.

John was breathing heavily and unevenly. His eyes were wild. He's like a cornered animal in times like this, so Bobby is a little taken aback that holding him to the floor actually calmed him down and brought him a little closer back to sanity. When John finally let go of him, Bobby turned himself over, so he was laying on his back. He then reached out and traced the bruises that had formed around John's wrists, wondering if maybe John has unlocked something in him that would have been better off left untouched.

XXXXXXX

John had a temper.

That wasn't exactly a secret, and Bobby had now taken to hiding John's lighter. It solved a few problems. Nothing gets burned and John can't leave to go out to do whatever it was he did at night until he had it back. It also created a few new problems, because John absolutely hated not being without it. Bobby wasn't being as nice as he used to be, and some part of him liked having John just as powerless as he was.

John searched the whole motel room, calling Bobby every horrible name he can think of, including a few new ones he probably picked up in the Brotherhood. He grabbed things and hurled them behind him, nearly hitting Bobby with a lamp and a shoe and vase holding cheap plastic flowers that scattered across the floor.

It's almost funny, so Bobby started laughing like he can't stop. He's gotten used to settling for almost, and really, he just needs a reason.

"You're dead when I find my lighter, you fucker," John tells him, but he's almost smiling.

And almost is enough.

Upon finding his lighter underneath the boxspring of the mattress, John was out the door. Bobby watched television for the next several hours before growing bored and took to pacing the small room. He noticed John's backpack tucked into the dresser drawer and noticed one composition notebook sticking out of it. He knew John was a great writer, but he would never let Bobby read anything he wrote. Curiously, Bobby pulled it out, opened up the notebook where a pen was stuck in the page and began reading.

Much to his shock, it was about him.

Bobby-

So, you know, it's been great and all, but I can't live here anymore.

Bye and all that.

John.

Short and to the point. John had written this while he was still at the school. The next passage read;

Bobby-

You were probably the only person that didn't decide right off I wasn't worth your time, and

That line was crossed out. Underneath it where the words;

This is stupid. You probably won't even notice I'm gone.

The next passage;

Iceman-

I guess you were right. No one is forcing me to stay, and I've got no reason left not to leave.

I'll try and send you a postcard or something.

Pyro.

As it went on, the handwriting became more maniacal.

Bobby, Iceman.

I keep trying to think of something to say to you, but it's getting harder and harder to pretend you even care. Let's just try this: I'm leaving. I hope you and Rogue are very fucking happy together.

Pyro.

However, the next few lines the handwriting was as neatly written as a typewriter.

Bobby.

I've put this off long enough. The thing at the food court was just the last straw. I don't blame you exactly, for helping the bastard out, it's just that it keeps hitting me that we're not really on the same side anymore.

I'm not going to say I loved you, because I didn't, and while I'm a lot of things I'm not a liar.

I will say I think I could have.

Bobby swallowed the knot that was now in his throat. John was thinking about leaving even before Alkali Lake. He was sure that this was all written just for therapeutic reasons. John never meant for Bobby to see it. God, was he really that clueless as John had said?

There was nothing else written after that, so Bobby threw himself down on the bed and went back to watching television.

XXXXXXX

John didn't come back to the motel room until a quarter to four, a wad of tens and twenties in the palm of his hand and his hair sticking up in all directions. His right eye is darkening; Bobby could already see the bruise that will be there tomorrow, spreading out and up almost to the hairline.

"Where'd you get that, John?" Bobby asked. He congratulates himself on his calm, and he didn't even bother to clarify whether he's talking about the money or the bruise, because they both knew they came from the same place anyway.

In return, John only laughed at the question and tossed the money onto the only table in the room. "Where the hell do you think?"

"I told you to knock that off!" Bobby yelled as he got to his feet. "If we're going to work-"

"I don't see you bringing any money back!"

Bobby grabbed John by the shoulders and pulled him closer. "That's the last time you do that. You got that? We'll figure something out-"

"Fuck you, Drake," John interrupted, but he was smiling, and Bobby knew that for the other teen this still qualified as civil conversation. "You don't own me."

"You're right," he snapped. "No one does. I'm just wondering when you're going to wise up and realize it."

John just pulled away and glared at Bobby. Tomorrow it'll likely be the same exact thing.

Bobby had gone to bed angry and couldn't remember what time it was when he finally woke up. When he opened up his eyes, he felt different. He then noticed that the mattress was much harder than he remembered it being. Upon rolling over, to Bobby's shock, he realized the bed was frozen over and frost was creeping up the wall behind it. John was standing right next to the bed, grinning like a mad man. 

His mutation had somehow returned, and Bobby didn't know who was happier, him or John.

"It worked." John spoke.

"What?" Bobby looked at this right hand and saw the ice at his fingertips. "How...what did you-"

"Riling you up." Bobby's eyebrows furrowed with confusion, so John went on. "I've read that some mutants when subjected to weeks of torture to induce stress, that it could trigger latent mutant genes in the body."

"That's what this past couple of days has been about!?" Bobby demanded as he furiously got to his feet. "You've been driving me crazy and fighting with me on purpose to see if it could bring my powers back!?"

"You're welcome." John then took into account the odd look of mayhem on the other boy's face. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Good god, you're insane." Bobby shook his head.

"I know, isn't it great?"

Bobby stared back at John with incredulous eyes, trying to figure out what was going on inside that head of his. He should have been happy, his powers had still been inside of him somewhere. However, Bobby knew that there was going to be some sort of fallout from this.

Everyone was going to eventually find out that the cure wasn't permanent.

As it turned out, it would be sooner rather than later. 

Chapter Text

Sitting on the edge of the bed inside of their motel room, Bobby's eyes were transfixed to the MSNBC broadcast on the television. On it, from the view of a helicopter camera crew, hundreds of people were crowded around a large office building, trying desperately to get inside.

The text across the bottom of the screen red: CHAOS AT RAO LABS.

"-as hundreds of so-called 'cured' mutants are converging on Rao Labs across the country," the reporter was saying. "As of now, Dr. Cecilia Reyes refuses to comment on the situation. Warren Worthington, Jr., the founder of Worthington Industries, and the benefactor behind the cure for mutation, has called for a press conference at three pm this afternoon, in an effort to defuse the situation, which is growing uglier and more violent by the minute."

"I gave them my life's savings," said a mutant being interviewed, his face and upper body was covered by armadillo-type bone plates. "To get my problem fixed. It ain't no cure, I ain't fixed a thing. I'm even worse than I was before!"

"This is definitely bad," Bobby spoke up. "What do you think this means?"

"It means," John began. "That your old friends at school might end up having a lot of work on their hands."

"Those poor people. They thought they were going to be able to live again, to be normal and freely walk around the streets again."

On the television, the reporter began bringing up the subject of lawsuits against Worthington and Rao Labs.

"Yeah, such poor people." John sarcastically muttered. "Well, when you start playing around with the devil..."

"Warren Worthington isn't the devil," Bobby sharply responded. He knew about the man and watched an interview done with him. Worthington had a son that was a mutant that had once attempted suicide. "He was just trying to help people, to help his son."

"Yeah, well," John said, leaning back in the chair. "When you start fucking around with the natural order of things, it's eventually going to come back and bite you in the ass."

A couple of days and one stolen car and two motel rooms later, the two of them ended up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Despite all of Bobby's scoldings, John had been talking to someone in a chatroom on the internet. When the topic of sex was brought up, John asked whoever he was talking to, to meet him in a bar that was just down the street from the motel. The guy told him what kind of car he would be driving. 

John waited outside the bar until an expensive looking silver BMW pulled up in front of it. A middle-aged man in a nice suit got out of it and John smirked as he thought to himself;

Bingo.

XXXXXX

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen," John told him shyly, tilting his head up. This guy liked them young, John could always tell the type, and he can still pull off being too young, no matter how old his eyes got. The guy ended up not wasting any time, either; probably got a wife at home, three kids, and a dog in his perfect backyard. John really couldn't care any less, but they usually liked to try and talk away their guilt.

They got into his car and head to the guy's place. The whole way there, John noticed a taxi driving close behind them, but for whatever reason, he brushed any concern about it away. The apartment was a standard bachelor pad. No wife, no kids. John glanced around. Either this was a place he kept on the side, or John had misjudged this guy.

"I've never done this before," he says to John, while helping him out of his shirt after walking into the bedroom.

John fell back on the bed with a half-smirk.

"No one ever has."

In a flash, the man's eyes change, and that's when John realized he's really misjudged him. His cheek was stinging before he could block the strike, and there's another after that, then another, with a running commentary about how he's a whore, worthless, a fucking nothing, and that he doesn't know a damn thing.

John reached for his lighter just when the room suddenly got colder, and by the time his fingers close around the metal, to his shock, Bobby suddenly runs into the room. He pushed his hand forward, creating a blade of ice starting at his palm, and jammed it straight through the man's throat. The blood rushed out everywhere, deep red and warm, and a sickly cooper steam seemed to hover right where it melts the ice at the base of his neck.

Going quiet, the man collapses to the floor, hitting the carpet. And it's done.

"Holy shit," John gasped disbelievingly. "You killed him."

He looked up at Bobby like he didn't even know him, and Bobby wondered if maybe he doesn't. These days Bobby certainly didn't recognize himself when he looked into the mirror, but it's too late to change again now.

"What the hell are you even doing here?" Bobby demanded. 

"You know what I'm here for." 

It took a few minutes for the two of them to collect themselves before they took to searching the apartment. 

"This is wrong," Bobby spoke up.

Glancing over, John flashed him an incredulous look. "You kill the guy, but this is wrong? Those are some flexible morals you've got there, Bobby-boy."

He then started laughing, and Bobby could only wonder how he could do so. John had a bruise on his cheekbone as well as his left eye now, and he kept flexing his shoulder. Bobby has never understood why John didn't seem to ever mind pain.

"He was hurting you," Bobby snapped back harshly. "I wasn't going to-"

"What were you even doing following me?" John asked. "I told you, I don't belong to you." Bobby pressed his lips together and didn't answer. John just picked up the dead man's keys and shoved them into his pocket. "I had this guy all wrong, that doesn't often happen. I'm good at reading them, usually."

"That's some talent to have."

"Check this room and look for a safe," John responded, ignoring Bobby's sarcasm. "I'll go check the closet."

There's a row of pictures on the mantle. Bobby glanced at them, at the smiling happy figure that is nothing like the monster he'd found posed to strike John again, for the fourth, fifth, maybe even sixth time.

Right at that moment, Bobby hated that he's not sorry for what he had done.

They finally find the safe on the other side of a bad Monet reproduction. Haystacks. End of Summer. John scoffed at it. "Had this guy ever even seen the real thing?"

"When did you turn into an art snob?" Bobby snapped.

"God, you're such a bitch," John rolled his eyes before glancing over at him. "What's wrong with you?"

"We're committing a felony."

"What, are you new? Do you know us?"

"That was self-defense," Bobby insisted. "I was protecting you."

John leaned his ear into the safe and moves the dial until it clicks. He's glad his years at Xavier's haven't robbed him of all of his talents. "Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night."

The safe clicks open, and John grinned.

"Jackpot."

There are stacks of hundreds placed one on top of another and filling most of the safe. There must have been twenty or thirty thousand dollars in here. A thin manila folder rested on top, and John pulled it out and opened it up.

There were pictures inside of the governor of Oklahoma and he was with a woman half his age. John couldn't help but laugh. "If it makes you feel better," he handed the folder to Bobby. "He was a blackmailer, as well as a pervert."

XXXXXX

They were out of there the very next morning. John and Bobby decided to take the dead guy's BMW and drove it all the way to Tucson, Arizona. They now had enough money to stay in the penthouse of the Hilton, which was a nice break from all the cheap motels they had been staying in. 

It was going on nine o'clock Thursday morning when John went down to the gas station to buy some cigarettes. Suddenly, it started raining and John didn't even flinch. People all rushed for their umbrellas, in greens and blues and reds, opening one after another like some strange choreographed production; they've all been warned by the morning weather report. John didn't bother to turn on a television himself, so he just pulled up his hood of his jacket and didn't do much past that.

Rain was kind of fitting anyway. He stuck his hands in his pockets, leaning in against the wall of an alley to light a cigarette. He ran his right thumb over the chilled metal of his lighter inside his pocket, that one single connection he'd never quite been able to bring himself to break. He'd thrown away a lot of things without thinking twice, but he'd be holding onto that damn lighter until he was dead.

Bobby had bought the lighter for him. 

It was the only sentimental thing John owned. 

Heading back inside of the Hilton, John took the elevator up to the top floor. As reached his room but before he could grab the doorknob, the door opened up and standing there was Bobby, wide awake. 

"Where have you been?" Bobby asked softly, and then he surged forward, grabbing John by the front of his shirt and slamming him into the nearest wall.

The kiss was unexpected and too forceful, like it was supposed to bear the weight of all their unspoken conversations. John let it go on, anyway, not bothering to fight it, and when Bobby pulled back, breathing heavily, John spoke. 

"Why, Mystique." He smirked. "You're looking well."

Something flickered in Bobby's eyes, fading them gold and back to blue, and he pushed away irritably. Mystique grabbed the lit cigarette hanging limply from John's lips and took a drag while turning back into her usual appearance. 

"You got all dressed up like this for little ol' me?" John then asked wryly.

Mystique shot him a slightly resentful glare.

"My games never did work on you," she said, and her voice was somewhere between indignant and impressed. John knew that tone well. Bobby used it on him all the time. Mystique was quickly working her way through the cigarette, sucking in smoke through her lips like it was air. It looked obscene, to John, because it was something Bobby wouldn't ever do.

"Don't take it personally," John waved his hand. He drew fire from the end of the cigarette right into his hand, and let it run across his fingers. "I'm naturally suspicious of everyone."

"I'm not surprised you didn't last. Being Magneto's lapdog never really suited you." she said lowly, dangerously, and John knew she couldn't have managed to be more intimidating if she tried, but John's not who he was when he joined the Brotherhood, and he just doesn't give a damn.

Not that he ever really had.  

"That's funny, 'cause it always looked so damn good on you." John then lit up another cigarette for himself. "How'd you find me, anyway?"

"Callisto, remember?"

Vaguely, John recalled the woman mutant they recruited not took long before the incident at the cure clinic occurred. It was only then did John notice the shower running. They only had a few minutes before Bobby was done, and the pyromaniac knew that this was hardly a social call.

"What do you want?"

"Worthington is preparing a new cure, much stronger than the previous one." Mystique explained. "Worthington's main office is located in San Francisco. We need that building destroyed before it can ever be released." 

"How is this my problem?" John asked. 

"Magneto wants you to do it."

"No thank you." 

Smiling a little, Mystique slowly changed her appearance to Rogue. 

"I don't know where you're getting the impression that I'm asking." Rogue said. "You're going to do it." 

Wincing, John twisted his lighter in his hand. 

"Do you have to be her?"

Rogue smiled and moved far too close to him. "I can be whoever you want, but in the end it doesn't really matter. You're going to give me what I want."

"Magneto told me to get lost," John then snapped.

"He was angry. You fucked up. Things have changed. He needs a favor."

"Callisto should have no problem locating another mutant. Magneto can find someone else."

"Because you're doing so well without his protection?" Mystique then used Rogue's hand to lightly trace the bruises on John's face. "Baby, you need us." 

"Go fu-"

In a flash, Mystique reached out and grabbed John around the throat, slamming him against the wall again. The expression in her eyes, on Rogue's, meant that she was serious. "You're going to do this. Or Bobby's going to be met with an accident."

Lightly coughing, John ripped her hand away, then slightly chuckled which only pissed Mystique off even more. "You and Magneto have a real flair for drama, you know that?"

She glared at him, then morphed back into herself. "This isn't a game."

John just shook his head, because that's exactly what it is. However, the only thing he took seriously was the threat she made on Bobby.

He didn't really think that they would go through with their threat. Magneto never killed mutants unless it was absolutely necessary. He's still planning, after all, for the day they would be the only ones left in the world. However, John wasn't willing to take the chance. 

"Fuck." John sighed heavily when he heard the shower shut off. "Fine, I'll do it."

"I know you will."

After Mystique gave him the rest of the details he would need, John started getting them ready to take off. He had stolen plates off another car to put on the BMW so they could drive it a little while longer. Once Bobby was all dressed and came out of the bathroom, John, without telling him about the visitor they just had or the task that was given to him, told Bobby they were taking off to head for San Franciso, California.

"I figured as much." Bobby responded. "What are we going to do when we get there?" 

John only gave the other boy his trademark smirk.

"You'll see." 

Chapter Text

Bobby was fascinated with his scars. John has never understood it, but he guessed that it had something to do with the fact that Bobby didn't really have any of his own.

At the moment, the two of them were lying in bed together when the ice mutant broached the subject again. "What about this one?" Bobby asked, kissing the faint brown slice down John's right collarbone. John remembered being twelve years old when he got that; a knife at his throat, and someone behind him; a drug haze and pain. 

He slightly pulled out of Bobby's grip. "Got it in an explosion. A window broke apart and cut me."

Bobby believed him, because he always did.

"Look, I'm going out for a walk, okay?" John got out the bed and pulled on his jeans, his boots. He made sure his lighter was in his front pocket before bothering throwing on his shirt.

Watching him with wary eyes, Bobby bit his bottom lip for a second before saying; "John--"

"I'll be back before it gets too late out."

"You're not going to..." Bobby trailed off. "Because we have some money now, and I really think--"

"Jesus, loosen up," John then snapped. "I just want some goddamn air."

And Bobby should believe that too, because he always did. Except John seemed to forget that trust is usually lost along with everything else, when you end up where they've been. John waited outside beside the hotel they were staying at for a couple of minutes, seeing if he felt the strange drop in temperature that would alert him to Bobby's presence. Apparently, the other boy had learned a couple of things from John about how to follow and track people.

When five minutes went by and the pyromaniac continued not to sense anything, John finally took off to the location of the place Mystique had told him about. 

XXXXX

Bobby knew he shouldn't have let John take off like that. He should have learned that lesson at Alkali Lake. 

John just seemed so agitated. They had been in bed together kissing and the usual stuff, but John just wasn't into it as he seemed to have a lot on his mind. Bobby checked his watch for the umpteenth time. Now, the pyromaniac had been gone for three hours and Bobby tried to push the worry and concern from his mind as he turned the television on. He flipped to CNN to see if they had any more news on the cure and that's when he saw it. 

The new Worthington Research Center that he been built right here in San Francisco, for a better, longer lasting cure-- was blown all to hell.

And It's not hard to puzzle out who could have caused that.

The newscaster began to explain that police could find no detonation device, no bomb remnants, and they wouldn't, because it was pure untraceable fire. Bobby wondered briefly how many people were in the building at the time, and jumped out of bed to start pacing, admitting, if only to himself, that he was only concerned whether or not one person made it out of the fire alive. The news said they had no suspects as of now, and no one had been apprehended, but they weren't above a cover-up. These days, Worthington was trying to get mutant support, and it would send his cause back another year or two to let it get out that a mutant was the one trying to stop him.

It's another hour later when John finally showed back up, holding a hand to his blood-soaked side, and Bobby is too weary to be caught off his guard.

He couldn't take John to the hospital or dial 911 out of the risk of the explosion being traced back to John, and things stopped working the way they were supposed to long before now. Bobby carefully helped the other boy lift his shirt off and then helped him lay back on the bed. Bobby was far too worried about John's condition to ask him what the hell he was thinking and quickly grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom. It was a good thing they had started staying at the Hilton, because the kits don't always come standard with the seedy motel rooms they had previously grown accustomed to staying at. 

Bobby spread everything out across the stained floral comforter, with the kind of precision that used to have John call him anal.

He was saying nothing now.

Fortunately, the bullet went straight through, one side to the other, and John's breathing was labored but constant, so he was hoping it missed the lung. Bobby cleaned away the blood and then sprayed on the antiseptic, before stitching up the skin with a spool of blue thread he found in an old sewing kit.

"I'll fucking kill the bastard that did this."

It should have been John saying that, but Bobby was startled to recognize his own voice.

XXXXXX

John had told Bobby that it shouldn't be hard to find a drug dealer on the streets of San Francisco, but even he was impressed when Bobby came back to the room with bottle of pain pills in less than forty-five minutes. Bobby wasn't going to tell John that he had to freeze a homeless person in order to get it. 

"This is getting to be habit," Bobby snapped as he watched John take a two oxytocins. 

"What is?" John asked.

"Saving your ass. As soon as you're feeling better, we're getting the hell out of here. I can't do this any longer. I can't."

"We're doing fine," John assured him.

While they fought semi-regularly about any number of things, they rarely say anything of importance at all. Their relationship thrived on the unspoken and the ignored, the compromises and all those times of looking away and pretending everything's okay.

There's no coming to blows this time, because John can barely stand, let alone throw a punch.

"We are doing fine?!" Bobby demanded. "Jesus Christ, John, just look at yourself!"

"Calm down. Besides, where do we have to go? There's nowhere. It's not getting any better, Bobby, so let's focus on keeping it from getting worse."

"Sound advice."

Knock. Knock.

Immediately, John's head whips up at the knocking at the door, and he gripped his lighter tightly. Bobby narrowed his eyes as he carefully got up and carefully approached the door. Slowly, he opened it up and what both boys saw next made their jaws drop. 

It was Rogue.

She walked into the room without saying a word, Bobby looked like his eyes are about to pop out of his head, like he was starting at a ghost, but John was quicker at figuring it out. He had dealt with her enough to know. "Mystique," he said warily, and he could feel Bobby's surprise give way to tension.

"Magneto and I'd like to thank you." Mystique began as she turned back into her blue, scaley self. "This goes above and beyond. In addition to this, I just learned that an ally of Worthington's was killed a couple of days ago. We had no idea that the high and mighty Iceman was getting his hands dirty, these days."

Bobby's hands clenched to fists, then relaxed. "We're done. You got it? Don't come back."

"You're giving me orders now?" Mystique asked coyly.

Bobby isn't the only one to flinch.

"You really don't want to start something with us," Bobby growled. He sounded sure and dangerous. John glanced at him, slightly disbelieving. Last time he saw Bobby and Mystique interact was on the X-Jet, and Bobby had been so scared he wouldn't even get ten feet of her. 

Mystique's grin went cold, but she sounded almost impressed when she says, "You're getting better at this, Iceman."

"Why don't I think that's a compliment?" Bobby asks

"Only you wouldn't," she responds, and then backed away, giving him a small wave before changing into someone else, and disappearing out the front door. 

Once she was gone, Bobby turned his head back to John. For some reason, John couldn't meet Bobby's hard stare as he took out his lighter. Before he could flip it open, he said in a voice just above a whisper;

"Mystique threatened your life if I didn't do it." 

XXXXXX

Bobby was packing by the time John woke up the next morning, saying something indistinct like, 'with or without you' that neither one believes for a second. Anyway, John figured Bobby wouldn't get far without him. They didn't have a class on hotwiring cars back at Xavier's, and John hadn't taught Bobby that much since they've been together.

"John, I mean it," Bobby snapped.

It used to be kind of cute, the way Bobby would insist on things, but John was glaring at him now. It's not so cute when Bobby expected him to do as he's told, like he was a dog. "I like it here."

"Oh, yeah. It's great. You get to rob people and blow-up buildings and get shot, and--"

John reached for his lighter instinctively. Open. Close. Open. "But you're a saint, right?"

"We have to get out of here," Bobby repeats to him, and for a minute, Bobby sounded just like he used to. He sounded scared; and John was fascinated Bobby could still feel that emotion. "Please."

John will never admit it, but it's the please that does it.

"We'll go as soon as were done here." 

Lowering his eyes to stare at his feet, Bobby stated;

"I traveled across the country with you because I thought you had some kind of plan, or idea of what we're going to do." 

With a wince, John got up from the bed and leaned down to grab his backpack. He pulled out the vanilla folder and held it out for Bobby to take. 

"I stole this from Magneto." Bobby began to scroll through the folder, seeing multiple pictures of the same guy. He was tall, close to seven feet and he had long silverish hair. A scar over his right eye. "This mutant calls himself Stryfe." 

"Why was Magneto interested in him?"

"An alliance maybe, who cares? All that matters is that this Stryfe guy is loaded." John grinned. "Millions upon millions of dollars. We take him down, steal his money. Then, we're set."

"That is your big plan?" Bobby demanded. 

"What more did you expect?"

"Too much, as usual." 

Bobby crossed his arms as she leaned against the wall. John frowned before he continued. 

"I did a little more digging into this guy, looked him up on the dark web. It says he does experiments on humans." Bobby looked up after he said that. "Trying to turn them into mutants. Believe me, this guy deserves to die as much as William Stryker did. So, not only will we be rich, but we'll be taking down a bad guy in the process. We'll be heroes, just like you always wanted." 

A hero?

Bobby had given up on that a long time ago. 

Taking a deep breath, Bobby slowly approached John. "If we do this, John, if. You need to promise me that this is it. We can't keep surviving day to day with no plan on when to finally settle down and have an actual life. It's no way to be. Not on the long-term." 

John nodded. Thankfully, he did seem to have understood.

"If we do this, there's no place we can't go." John smiled. Not his usual cocky smirk, but a genuine smile. The one that usually only Bobby ever got to see.

Without another word, Bobby put his hand on the back of John's neck, carefully tugged him the few inches closer and kissed him. They meshed together well as John's breath was warm just as Bobby's was cold as a feeling of ecstasy went through them both.

"Is that a yes?" John whispered. "You're with me on this?"

Bobby rested his forehead against John's. 

"I'm in it with you." 

Chapter Text

It was a cool, breezy night in July and the moon was partially hidden by the darkened clouds, but its light still shone brightly into the office room of a large mansion through the bay windows. Sitting at a desk was the mutant known only as Stryfe. He had a focused look on his face as his sapphire blue eyes swept across his laptop screen, scanning through the numbers of Worthington Industries accounting information. An associate of his had helped Stryfe steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the company and funnel it to an untraceable offshore account. 

"Thank you for financing the cure, Mr. Worthington." Stryfe quietly muttered to himself. 

Once he was sure all the I's were dotted and T's were crossed, Stryfe closed his laptop before folding his hands behind his head, happy to be done for the day. Then of course, the phone rang. Stryfe glared at it for a moment, compilating not picking it up. Though he really wasn't in the mood, whoever it was may have some important information from him. 

Snatching it up, Stryfe put the phone to his ear.

"Speak."

"Mr. Stryfe. The mutant who blew up Worthington Labs, the one you asked me to watch over is currently in your restaurant." The voice belonged to Stryfe's right hand man, David North. "An off-duty cop was in here, I'm pretty sure he recognized him. If he did and you don't get here in time the boy might be arrested." David sounded smug and matter of fact. It irritated Stryfe greatly, but he held his tongue. 

"I see." He then sarcastically followed with; "What would I do without you, Mr. North?" 

The restaurant that Stryfe owned was called 'Quince', and John was sitting at the bar area drinking a club soda. He had been scoping the place out, hoping that Stryfe might drop by here tonight after John had been told that the owner came in here almost every other day. However, John had now been in here for almost three hours and was growing more bored by the minute.

When John got bored, he got dangerous. 

John started flicking his lighter open and closed again, which now began to irritate a man who was sitting three stools down from him. He and his girlfriend had been waiting forty-eight minutes for a table and were growing more and more impatient. 

"Hey chief," the man suddenly spoke up, "you mind putting away that lighter?"

John ignored him, continuing to play with it. 

"You deaf?"

'Snap, click.'

'Snap, click.' 

'Snap, click.'

The guy slammed his fist on the top of the bar. "That's it!"

As he got to his feet, John focused his attention on the two candles standing perfectly next to each other, on the bartender's side of the bar. The flames almost danced together before they violently shot upwards, nearly hitting the roof before John settled them back down. John shifted his gaze on the man, silently giving him a warning.

The pyromaniac was sure that would cause the guy to take a hike but a sudden and painful shocking of every nerve in John's body caused him to fall to the floor, seconds away from convulsing before it came to an abrupt stop. John laid on the floor, slightly quivering for a moment before taking in a gasp of air, looking up to see the man standing over him smirking. He lifted his index finger and a spark of electricity jumped off of it. 

"You're not the only one with powers. Next time you want to do something stupid, remember that."

John let out a laugh. 

"Boy did you pick the wrong guy."

The flame from the candles shot out again, this time setting fire to the other mutant's left arm. That caused the mutant's girlfriend to scream as John got to his feet. As the mutant was in a panic, waving his arm around in a vain attempt to put himself out, John made a fireball and threw it up at the ceiling. That made the rest of the people in the restaurant get up screaming as they headed for the exits. John then watched as the guy's idiot girlfriend threw what she thought was water but was actually a glass of vodka onto her boyfriend's flaming arm, which only made it worse. 

"You're sitting at a bar you dumb bitch."

The mutant ran screaming from the bar area and to the front exit, knocking into some people along the way which inadvertently caught an old lady's dress on fire. Under any other circumstances, John would have thought the scene that just unfolded in front of him was funny as hell.

Ash and ember began to rain from the ceiling as John quickly hurried to the bathroom, remembering that it had a window large enough for him to fit through. Once he was out, John ran to the front of the restaurant, only to freeze in his tracks once he saw what was waiting for him. 

A troop of about a dozen cop cars on the street, officers all with their guns drawn on him.

"Well, damn. That was fast." John muttered. 

The off-duty cop had altered them that he believed the mutant responsible for the explosion at the Worthington Research Center was here. 

"Hands in the air!" A cop then shouted. John did nothing. "Hands in the air!" 

Once again, John didn't comply. 

"This is your last warning."

"Never did listen much to warnings." John answered as he flicked open his lighter, but just as a fireball formed in his hand, they all reacted in sudden burst of confusion, not fear. 

"Where the hell he'd go!?" The cops began looking around widely, as if John had disappeared into thin air. "He just vanished!"

The pyromaniac began waving his hands around. 

"I'm right here, you idiot!" 

They still paid him no attention. Fine, maybe they'll see this. Just before he was about to throw a wave of flame their way;

"That will be unnecessary, Mr. Allerdyce." A deep male voice then spoke.

Right then, the mutant John only knew from photographs casually walked right up to him like it was nothing. "Don't worry, they can't see us, they can't hear us." It was Stryfe himself. By his side was another mutant with skin that was as white as milk, as was his long hair and his eyes. "My associate sees to that. Thank you, Mr. Fade."

Fade nodded wordlessly as the cops kept searching. 

"And who the hell are you?" John asked as he addressed the much taller mutant, faking ignorance.

"You can call me Stryfe. And at the moment, I am your savior."

"Is that so? What do you want?" 

"It would be better to hold this conversation elsewhere. Wouldn't you agree?" Stryfe motioned his hand to a black Mercedes-Benz parked nearby on the curb. John glanced at it before looking behind him at the cops who still looked like they were trying to find their ass with both hands. 

"Fine."

John felt uncomfortable as Stryfe sat in the backseat with him. "Unfortunately, we will not be able to speak for as long as I would like. I have an important meeting tomorrow morning, so I'll need my beauty sleep." The other mutant explained but John didn't respond. It was about another ten or twelve minutes before they arrived at a mansion. 

Now sitting in a large, elegant room, John glanced around his surroundings curiously. He couldn't help but feel envious. It was confirmed to him by all the personal effects around John that this guy was living large. It was the kind of place that John could only dream of living in. Expensive painting on the wall, a chandelier, nice furniture. John could only sneer. He'd never gotten on well with the rich. 

After a brief moment in the other room, Stryfe walked in and took a seat on the couch across from John. 

"How do you know me?" John asked.

"I had a mole in Magneto's Brotherhood. I always make sure to cover all my bases." Stryfe answered. "I believe you have met this man?" An Asian mutant walked into the room and John slightly remembered him from Callisto's group of mutants that Magneto recruited. "His name is David North, but he prefers to go by the name 'Zero'. 

John eyed the other mutant.

"You must have very low self-esteem."

That caused Stryfe to laugh but Zero didn't look amused. Stryfe then began to speak again.

"I've been monitoring you for some time now, Mr. Allerdyce, and I must say that you impress me. I would like to offer an invitation to you, to join me and my Acolytes."

"That's why you brought me here? To ask me to join your side?" 

"I realize that the Brotherhood didn't work out like you had hoped. But I think deep down you know that being Magneto's pawn wasn't for you. After all, Magneto would have only brought you into his war and used you to his liking. Eventually, you would have ended up dead or in prison along with him."

John scoffed.

"And you won't do the same?" 

"No." Stryfe assured. "The decision to join me is entirely up to you. I am honest and upfront with my associates. They're like partners, not minions. They can do as they please, and they get paid."

That caused John's eyes to flash for a moment before he continued on with his bored look. Stryfe got to his feet and John could tell by his body language that this meeting was over.

"Anyway, take all the time you'd like. The invitation is always open-"

"I'm in." John shrugged as now Stryfe had a pleased look on his face. "What the hell? I'm in." 

"Excellent." Stryfe extended his hand which John shook. "Come back here tomorrow night and nine o'clock. I'll fill you in on just what it is we do."

Fade drove John back to his hotel. He kept one hand on his flipped open lighter the whole way. Obviously, John didn't trust his future 'teammate' at all. Once he opened the door to his room, Bobby immediately jumped to his feet as John rolled his eyes.

"Where have you been?" He demanded. This was getting old, Bobby acting like his mother and John had been out too late past his curfew. 

"Stryfe owns a restaurant. I went to stake it out."

Bobby frowned, wishing John had taken him. 

"We don't want to blow our cover. Be careful not to get too close."

"A little late for that." John sighed. "He found me."

"He found you?" Bobby asked, incredulously. "How could he find you?"

"I'm a popular man that many people seek."

"Alright. Time to come up with plan B." Bobby exhaled. 

"There is no plan B. This is it. Now, unless you want to spend the rest of your life going from hotel to hotel, we have to do this."

Bobby gave John a wary look. 

"This has nothing to do with Stryfe torturing humans, trying to turn them into mutants. Does it? I'm starting to think this is something you made up just to get me on board."

Now highly irritated, John went over to his bag and took out the folder.

"You didn't look through the whole thing, did you?"

He then removed the pictures of the experiments Stryfe was doing and threw them down on the table for Bobby to see. Admittingly, he knew that making this seem noble was the thing that John needed in order to get Bobby to agree to his plan, but it didn't make what Stryfe was doing was any less horrific.

The look of horror Bobby now had on his face as he stared at the photos actually made John happy. Despite everything, Bobby was still the same guy he was back at the institute. His descent into this kind of life was something that John actually felt bad about, because John was the only thing that could ever make Bobby go through with it. 

Bobby had gone dark because John was not about to go light again. If he ever really had been.

On the flipside, Bobby had always been one of those kids that when asked what he really wished for, the first thing on the tip of his tongue would be 'world peace'; the difference had always been that Bobby actually meant it. John's honest if he's anything, and everyone at the school knew he was in it for himself. Bobby wanted to believe there's still a chance for redemption.

John didn't even believe that before all of this.

"Alright." Bobby finally spoke. "Let's do this." John quickly pushed the photos out of sight before telling Bobby what had happened and how he agreed to join Stryfe. He could tell that Bobby had concerns about it, so John leaned forward and kissed him. It was light at first, hesitant actually. Their lips brushed against each other like a painter's brush on a canvas; delicate and gentle. It was so unlike John. 

"This is our way in." John told him as he looked into Bobby's eyes. Bobby could feel his heart hammering in his chest. "I'll find out where he keeps his money, then we're home free."

Chapter Text

Shaking away any guilty thoughts that threatened to make him lose sight of what they've come here to do, John continued on alongside Bobby with their unwanted task. After a solid hour, they finally finished digging three holes in the backyard of the Drake house.

One for William Drake, one for Madeline Drake, and the third hole was for Ronny Drake.

Bobby roughly brushed the salty moisture from his cheeks; he would not be distracted. After another hour their bodies were covered, the two teenagers then found stones so they could mark their graves. John didn't know Bobby could summon so much anger within him as he knocked his shovel against the ground, leveling the dirt over his brother's grave, he looked colder than he did when covered in ice.

"What should we do now?"

Unlike all the other past times, it was John who was asking this question.

"I say we kill that son of a bitch," Bobby growled, letting the shovel drop to the ground. John didn't say a word as Bobby stormed past him, because he knew that killing Stryfe at this point would accomplish nothing.

Gazing upon the three stones that marked the graves, John then spoke the words; "Rest in peace."

He was actually a little startled to realize that he meant it. John didn't even like them, but no one deserved to die like this, so he hoped the Drake family had peace coming.

John walked across the street to catch up to Bobby at a nearby lake. Out of the corner of his eye, John saw an elderly couple sitting on the porch of another nearby house. They were sitting next to each other in rocking chairs, both dead. It was creepy. This nice, suburban neighborhood was like a ghost town. John sat on a large rock and with a snap and a click, he had his lighter out. John lit a cigarette for himself before offering one to Bobby.

He accepted it.

They smoked in silence for a few minutes before Bobby finally spoke.

"I guess you're probably pretty pleased with yourself."

John had been waiting for this. He knew it was coming. The sun was hovering in the distance half-mast, orange that close to the surface of the water, and the world looked very ordinary from this spot. You could almost pretend nothing had changed.

"I don't know what you want me to say," John answered.

"I want you to admit you're happy. Because this is what you've always wanted, John, isn't it?" Bobby demanded as he folded his arms over his chest. John took a deep breath, pulling in smoke and the fresh smell of the lake before closing his eyes tightly.

When he opened his eyes again the sun's gone red and the water's almost purplish and it's a little harder to act like the world was still the same.

"Yeah, well, you know what they say. Be careful what you wish for," John sighed, as he flicked his cigarette into the air; making sure to burn it to ashes before it can hit the water and go out.

Bobby liked to pretend that wasn't really happening; he liked to think that no one was capable of something like this.

John's always known what people were capable of.

XXXXXXX

Three weeks earlier...

John was ready to head out to an abandoned building that Stryfe had been using as a laboratory. His hair was considerably lighter, and he was dressed better than usual. John traded in his boots for sneakers, and after he left the bathroom Bobby was sitting on the bed and noticed belatedly that he's cut his hair. John still has it spiked a little, but it's darker at the roots.

"When did you do that?" Bobby asked, nodding at the nearly blonde pyromaniac.

"Last night," John answered. "Apparently they have a vague description of me on the news that includes my hair style, but it shouldn't be a problem." It was just dumb luck that no one had captured any useful footage of John yet. He then put a pair of sunglasses on as Bobby wondered if John had actually slept at all last night.

He didn't bother to ask, so Bobby just shrugged. "Well, I like it."

"Glad you approve." The tone indicated John didn't really give a damn as went for the door before he noticed Bobby getting up to follow him out.

"I don't like you going in there alone." Bobby stated. "I'll be waiting outside, give me a buzz if you suspect any trouble." He had gotten new cellphones for the both of them the other day. John wasn't going to try to dissuade the other mutant and let him follow to his destination.

Fortunately, the building was not too far from their hotel. John walked through the doors and into the main lobby while Bobby sat down on a bench in a park across the street. There was nothing special about the place. Nothing out of the ordinary. Stryfe was waiting for him and lead him to another area. He pushed a button and thick metal sliding door opened up to reveal a horrific sight.

Laying on the floor were over a dozen bodies. Thin, emaciated, broken blood vessels and wide-open eyes. John was thankful that he hadn't eaten anything yet because the stench made him want to gag.

"Do me a favor and burn these bodies." Stryfe directed. "Burn them all to ash."

John did what he was asked, heating up his flame and igniting the bodies until there was nothing left of them. Once he was finished, he headed back to the lobby to find Stryfe. John found him, and standing with the tall mutant was Zero, Fade, and a blonde woman with six fucking arms and a sword in each hand.

Stryfe motioned to her. "You haven't been introduced to Spiral yet."

John said nothing. The mood had grown heavier, if that was possible.

Something was wrong.

"I know why you're here, Mr. Pyro." Stryfe stated. "I know what you want."

"What are you talking about?"

With a smirk, Stryfe tapped his right temple with his index finger.

"Telepathy."

'Fuck.'

John had no idea what Stryfe's actual power was.

He looked over the group of Acolytes again, but he was mostly unconcerned. He had lost the sense of fear years ago, and whatever was left of it disappeared completely when he walked away from both Xavier and Magneto. John didn't want to die, but he was a realist. John honestly never even expected to see his thirtieth birthday, much less his twenty-first.

"Relax." Stryfe held up a hand. "I'm not angry." He certainly didn't sound like it. "You've got guts, Mr. Pyro. I like that. Tell me, what is it you think it is I do?"

"You experiment on humans." John began. "You've been trying to turn them into mutants."

Stryfe let out a short laugh. "Well, you're half right. I have been experimenting on them, but I have no interest in them becoming one of us. I'm not Erik Lehnsherr." Stryfe then pulled a test tube from his pocket and John recognized what was in it immediately. It was the cure.

"You just used the cure on them?"

"It's not a cure, Mr. Allerdyce." A female voice then spoke. Then, Dr. Cecilia Reyes herself walked out of a room the joined the group of mutants. "It's a virus. A highly contagious respiratory syncytial virus." Not caring about being outnumbered, John flipped open his lighter.

"You infected mutants with a virus!"

Zero pulled out a gun and pointed it at him but Stryfe grabbed his arm and forced him to lower it.

"It is safe to us, of course." Dr. Reyes assured. "It suppresses a mutant's power only temporarily, as you have seen. Their mutations returning is the mutant body's way of rejecting the virus. However, it is deadly to humans. Uncurable."

Stryfe could see that John was confused so he elaborated. "Cecilia, here, has the ability to generate viruses. Create and mutate them to her will."

She was a mutant. A wolf in sheep's clothing to Warren Worthington.

"Any mutant that has taken the cure has infected any person they have come in contact with. Every cough, every breath, every touch has spread it. And once a human catches it, they spread it to another human. Then those humans spread it to another, and so on and so forth. And what you just saw in that room, is the end result."

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed as John took all this in. This couldn't be true.

"There's no way to save them?" John surprised himself with the question. Why should he care? Did he actually care?

"No." Dr. Reyes answered, sounding almost proud. "Very soon, it will begin. They will become sick, and they will start to die. Ultimately, the human race will be extinct." 

Stryfe then took her hand.

"I, we, have done something those two old fools could never do." He said, referring to the Professor and Magneto. "Not in a hundred lifetimes. They were so busy fighting each other, while we stayed hidden in the shadows. Now, our kind, will truly be free."

"Why are you telling me all this?" John then asked.

"Stay with us. You and your friend waiting outside. All mutants will be free to live as they please, but make no mistake. The Acolytes will be the ones in charge."

John shook his head.

"I'm not into the group thing."

And he knew Bobby would never agree to it. 

To his surprise, Stryfe simply nodded.

"I respect your decision." He wasn't going to bother forcing John to stay. Stryfe had done what he had set out to do, so despite John's very useful power, one more follower wasn't going to mean that much when in time, Stryfe would have a world filled with waiting disciples, distraught and ready for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do next. "Mr. Zero, Mr. Fade, would you?"

John got into a defensive position, but the two associates picked up two heavy duffle bags off the floor and approached him with them. The pyromaniac couldn't help the small grunt he let out due to the weight when they dropped them in his hands.

"Your pay for your services today."

Looking down at the bags for a moment before looking back at Stryfe, John responded; "If what you say is true, then this money will be meaningless."

"No. I'll the keep the currency the same. It'll make it easier for everyone." Stryfe then stepped aside and motioned for the others to do the same. Carefully, John walked forward the passed them out the door, but not before Stryfe placed a hand on his shoulder. "A new day is coming. The era of the mutant is here." John couldn't walk across the street fast enough. A car beeped at him as it had to slam on his breaks to avoid hitting John. Bobby immediately jumped to his feet.

"What happened?" He asked. Bobby had seen John look all kinds of ways, but this was the first time Bobby ever saw John pale and shell-shocked.

"We need to go."

"What's that?"

"Money, what do you think?" John then held out a bag for him to take. "Here, carry one of these damn things."

Bobby took a bag as John moved as fast as he could back to their hotel, Bobby trailing behind him the whole way. Once they got to their room they threw the bags on the bed and opened them up. Bundles of hundreds were stacked inside. It's more money than Bobby has ever seen at once. "There has to be hundreds of thousands in these bags," he says incredulously. "Maybe more."

"I told you."

"How did you even get it?"

"Stryfe gave it to me."

"He just gave you the money? Just like that?" Bobby demanded. "He just handed you the cash and said, 'take it, it's yours'."

"Bobby-"

"What about the humans Stryfe is torturing?"

"I was wrong about the whole thing." John shook his head. "I can't explain."

"John...what happened? What's wrong?" 

"We just need to go." John then looked Bobby in the eye. "Please."

That certainly was a first.

He sounded just like Bobby when he had told John they needed to leave. Now it was John who sounded scared, and it frightened Bobby greatly as he knew something was very wrong. But he knew John wasn't going to tell him, so like he did every step of the way since Boston, Bobby followed John's lead.

They needed a new car, so the gathered enough money in a separate bag and headed down to a dealership. John picked out a red and black Chevrolet Camaro. If the world really was going to go to hell, he was at least going to buy something he always wanted first.

"Do you take cash?" He asked the salesman. They got the expected requisite suspicious glance, but before Bobby could open his mouth to explain, John was off and running. "It's not what you're thinking, I promise." He then pointed at Bobby. "Bobby here just got his trust fund. Now we're running off to get married in Massachusetts to spite his vindictive parents."

The salesman took the money and handed over the keys. "I hope you're very happy together."

Bobby wondered if Mystique was the one who taught John how to so easily become someone else, but he would never ask, because they don't talk about that sort of thing. "I guess we should head East. Back to where we came from."

"Considering if we go any more West we'll land in the fucking Pacific, that's probably a good idea." It's on the tip of John's tongue to tell Bobby they can't outrun anything, but he didn't. He didn't know how to.

"So does this mean we're really going to Massachusetts?" Bobby asked with mock-sweetness, trying to lighten the mood.

John snorted.

"I can kill you, you know. One flick of the lighter and you're nothing but ash. Just keep it up."

Bobby just laughed at him, and John let out a short laugh as well as he relaxed, trying to give the other teen a false sense of security. They went back to the hotel to grab what little stuff they had, along with the rest of the money before taking off to go on the road yet again. It was a bitter reminder to John that their lives won't change with their location. He remained quiet until they reached a new hotel.

The two of them didn't have a cause anymore, and at this point John was fully prepared to sit back and watch the world go down in flames; to hell with all of them all anyway.

Chapter Text

The center for disease control was calling it HX-N1, also known as Contagion X.

It started off slow, just like Dr. Reyes had said with the news reporting a slight increase in emergency room visits. The virus was a mystery to them all, no one could pinpoint its origin. Where it came from or what had caused it. Speculation ran that it was possibly created in a lab somewhere, or maybe it was a biochemical weapon used by some terrorist organization. People were urged to remain calm, stay home, wash their hands frequently, the usual thing when some kind of outbreak occurred.

Then the deaths followed.

People, humans, started dropping like flies. Hospitals became overwhelmed, especially when the nurses and doctors themselves became sick. Grocery stores, department stores, drug stores couldn't keep anything of use on the shelves as they soon started to get looted. Delivery trucks were being hijacked. There was rioting, vandalism. It was something straight out of an apocalyptic movie.

They tried quarantines, but it did nothing. Even President McKenna fell ill. Dr. Henry McCoy, a former member of the X-Men tried working desperately for a vaccine, as thousands began dying each day. Before Dr. McCoy could even remotely make any progress, his lab was attacked by an Acolyte and Hank was killed.

After three weeks, it turned into tens of thousands per day and rising rapidly. The United States had been the initial hotspot, but it soon spread to Alberta, London, Geneva, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, Tokyo. Nowhere in the world was safe from the invisible enemy.

Stryfe used the crisis and widespread fear as an opportunity to galvanize the mutant population to his cause. He incited his followers to believe that the humans were their oppressors, and they had this coming. Rallying them to "Fight for your future!" During one of his public speeches, he told them; "We were at war. Instigated by the oppression and killing of mutants. The humans brought this upon themselves! Stand with me, for I will lead you into a new era!"

"They're dying, they're all going to die," Bobby was prone to saying, like it hits again and again all the time and he just kept forgetting. Bobby kept a silver necklace with a small delicate cross in his pocket that he would take out and look at from time to time. It was his mother's.

John didn't have much use for idols.

The two of them weren't speaking very much as they drove. Bobby was still angry with John about not telling him about the virus, about what Stryfe had actually done. John told Bobby that it wouldn't have changed anything. They ended up driving to Westchester, pulling their car up in front of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

John could have laughed at the irony of the long road he and Bobby had traveled only to end up right back where they started. However, they weren't looking to stay for very long.

Bobby insisted they come here to pick a certain someone up to bring with them. It wasn't John call, but at this point he was in no position to argue. John really didn't want to go in, but Bobby gently but firmly took his left wrist and led him inside. When they walked through the doors, they were both accepted back instantly.

There weren't enough people left for them not to be.

Rogue gave Bobby and John both a tight hug before they gathered with the rest of the X-Men in the Professor's study, all of them voicing their opinion on what their next move should be.

John thought it was a lost cause. If ever there was a time to adopt 'every man for himself' as a philosophy, he figured this was it. He wasn't going to just leave, though. His other philosophy had always been safety in numbers, and John knew he would probably be dead if he went out alone. The Professor then began giving each of them a task.

"Bobby, Rogue," Xavier began as he got to them. "I want you to go out to Bayville, see if you can find anyone who needs help, and bring them back here, okay?"

John snorted at that, but the Professor ignored him. John didn't miss that Xavier hadn't asked him to go with them, either.

"You can't even help yourselves," he spoke, because John had never much liked just being ignored, and inciting anger was always the easiest way to get noticed.

He learned that fairly early on.

"Well, we're not in it just for ourselves," the Professor tells him with all exaggerated patience, and Bobby doesn't say a word. Bobby usually would have tried to put John in his place after a comment like that, but at the moment, he looked almost as though he agreed.

"It's fine," Rogue assured, snagging John's wrist to drag him to his feet from the chair in the corner of the room he had sat down in. "John will come with us, and it'll be fine." John let her pull him around, the same way he let Bobby do earlier, even though he could break out of her grip easy enough. He wasn't sure why he didn't.

They headed out on foot because they didn't want to use any gas that they didn't need to.

Bayville was like a ghost town, abandoned cars littered throughout the street, most of them had dead bodies inside of them. A couple of deserted ambulances with nothing useful inside. Rogue stood in the middle of the street, her face looking up at the sun like she couldn't believe it was still there.

She finally went inside of a deserted bookstore and that's when Rogue saw the group of refugees, mostly children whose parents had been purely human. They were now orphaned and saddled with a power they probably didn't know how to control.

Rogue approached them but they all collectively took a step back.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. I can take you someplace safe-"

The next thing Rogue knew her body smacked against the floor. Her head was ringing from being struck with something in the back of the head, and her hand comes back bloody when Rogue pushed her hair out of her eyes.

A woman was standing over her. She was emaciated, had yellow skin and bloodshot eyes. She had a semi-automatic pistol in her hand.

"Mutie freaks," the woman growled, her voice was filled with venom and hatred. "You did this. All these people are dead, and it's because of you. The government should have rounded you monsters all up and gassed you when it had the chance."

"Please," Rogue began, "we didn't do anything."

"I'll bet you thought humans were defenseless now," she continued, ignoring Rogue completely. "I'll show you how defenseless we really are-"

Suddenly her entire body went up in flames that quickly ate away at her flesh. The group of mutants inside the store scattered as the woman started running around screaming and yelling for help before collapsing in a fiery heap.

John was standing in the door's opening, his face showed no twist of guilt, no clench of fear, no twinge of remorse. Bobby was standing right next to him, not even bothering to put her out.

He later asked Bobby why.

"Politeness and good deeds aren't worth a damn and won't change the world, so there's really no point in bothering." Bobby answered.

It took him awhile, but Bobby's finally got life figured out. John just nodded and said;

"Well, yeah. It's about time you got that."

XXXXXXX

The trio arrived back at the mansion just in time to see that Stryfe had hijacked another news broadcast.

"I want him dead," Scott growled before throwing a book through the television screen. "We need to kill him."

John was very careful not to laugh, but found it kind of amusing that it was the good boys, Bobby and Scott who were out for blood. Logan looked a little like John, at peace in the chaos, probably feeling at home for the first time since he got here.

Guys like Scott and Bobby, they were always perfect and rule abiding, right up until it didn't suit them. John found that pretty hypocritical, but he wasn't exactly opposed to the thought of Stryfe going down for this, so he kept his mouth shut. Even John had lines he wouldn't cross, and for all of his big talk in the past, it turned out that wiping the entire human race out had been one of them.

It's even worse because now John knows the humans were kind of justified in fearing them.

Xavier was certain that Magneto would end up challenging Stryfe for control. They could only wait on the sidelines, sitting back to take down the winner. The damage had been done, but if this world was left in Stryfe or Magneto's hands it would never truly recover.

They didn't know that there were others out there. Emma Frost's Hellions. The Marauders, The Hellfire Club. All of them would vying to be ones in the charge.

Even with all the humans mostly eradicated, there was still going to be never-ending conflict.

That night, Bobby talked Rogue into leaving with him and John.

Surprisingly, it didn't take much.

XXXXXXX

The bodies were a problem. There were just too many of them, dead on the spot almost everywhere. By this point, Stryfe's got a mutant under his thumb for pretty much everything. He organized mutants with certain powers to take care of them, but the majority still ended up in the water.

John began to feel like he was trapped in a circle because they ended up driving back in California in their Camaro, to the farthest edge they could reach. He, Bobby, and Rogue would probably just keep moving as soon as they could get their hands on a boat. There's nothing to stay for.

He should have realized from the start that his plan of stopping Stryfe, stealing his money, and riding off into the sunset with Bobby to live happily ever after was just a fantasy.

There were a lot of mutants walking the Earth wearing an 'S' patch over their heart, spouting the virtues of the great mutant who had 'freed' them as the number of human casualties were starting to go into the millions. There were others, of course, that were nothing like that at all. They were outraged and horrified and fighting desperately for a change, for hope and honor and all of that stuff Bobby used to believe in.

They found a sailboat and some fishing rods and threw the previous residents overboard into the tide. Bobby knew how to sail as he had learned at summer camp when he was twelve. John would have given him a hard time about that, a year ago.

Rogue made sure to pack water and whatever food she could get her hands on because they don't know where they're going or how long it will take to get there. She's the practical one, nowadays. Funny because John thought it would have been Bobby, but he supposes he shouldn't be surprised, because looking back he realized Bobby had always been the dreamer of the group. John was the cynic, and Rogue, faithful to her power, was always whatever she needed to be.

Bobby didn't bring anything, and all John really needed were his cigarettes. He figured it'll be pretty ironic if they're what end up killing him, and John's always been one for a good joke.

John grabbed onto the sail and pulled himself up onto the bow of the ship. Rogue was steering with bare hands, gripping it tight enough she'll have slivers when she finally let's go of it. John guessed she probably needed that; proof she had touched something. John didn't know what it said about him that he was doing fine, probably better than before.

He liked to tell himself he's just as horrified as the rest of them, but he wondered, sometimes, because he's had dreams like this before.  Just him, Bobby, and Rogue in an empty world. Except the bodies never factored into any of his dreams.

Sometimes when John looked at either Bobby or Rogue they looked like they might give up.

John didn't know how to give up; he only knew how to survive.

Chapter Text

They tell me hold on
But pain like this he suffers so long
And truth be told
If we ever did, where would you be?

Where would you be?

It's just the blame that you aim to
Even all the times I sang to, just to keep you holding on

They were living in a penthouse at the Grand Wailea, a Waldorf Astoria Resort.

At night, John liked to stand on the balcony in the rain and watch the volcanoes. He can almost feel their heat, even this far away, wondering how much it would take to send them exploding. Wondered if he could do it himself. John never thought he'd end up in Hawaii, of all places. He also was surprised to find he didn't mind it at all. He's never really been comfortable surrounded by water in the past. Water had always been Bobby's thing.

He slides up onto the slick metal rail and sat. John could see flickering bonfires in the distance, hampered by the rain but still lit. Probably Stryfe faithful's. There was no telling how long they had before they'd have to move on again. They didn't know what was going on at the moment, how many more humans were dead, or how much in control Stryfe now was. The three of them were avoiding watching the news at all costs.

The last thing they saw was Magneto having a palace built for himself. The flickering news coverage showed it on the screen, eight stories tall and metal, every last bit of it and it was going up fast. John wondered just when and if Magneto and Stryfe would go at it in a battle for control like the Professor predicted. 

Gloved hands suddenly closed around his waist, tugging him backwards so that if he falls now, it won't be down the twenty stories his feet were dangling above. "You're going to get pneumonia, or slip," Rogue told him irritably, voice right at his ear, close enough he can feel the heat of her breath.

"I've never caught a cold in my life," John dismissively informed her. His high body temperature killed any germs or bacteria before they could ever make him feel even slightly sick.

"Bobby has gone missing."

"Yeah, what else is new?"

"John," Rogue sighed heavily as she tugged, sending John tumbling back and into her. She was stronger than she looked, as she still had a bit of Logan in her and managed to keep them both on their feet. "It's dangerous out there."

"You say that like there's somewhere left that's not," John spoke resentfully, but he headed back inside and grabbed his jacket. He was pretty sure he knew where to find him.

Bobby was one of the last few predictable things.

I wanna go back to the days in our car
Where we sang the loudest by far

Bobby was standing on the beach. He had turned the closest edge of the Pacific to ice, and the rain around him to hail. John stood at the edge of the storm, ice bouncing off the sand at his feet, and stuffed his hand in his pockets.

"Rogue's worried about you," he called out so the other boy could hear.

Bobby didn't even turn around. "Yet you're the one that's out here."

"I've got nowhere else to be. Rogue-"

"Let's not talk about Rogue."

The temperature dropped a bit more and Bobby's ice storm spreads further. John lowered his head and crosses his arms but doesn't back away as the hail started falling on him too. John didn't really get cold anymore, so he didn't even shiver as they pass them by.

"She'll get over it eventually," John tells him, lamely.

"No, she won't." Bobby frowned, his expression held deep regret.

John shifted his feet impatiently. "Are you coming back, or what?"

The hail falls in one more thick sheet before seamlessly turning back to rain, the Pacific's new ice breaking loose almost instantly, and washed away with the waves. Bobby finally turned around. His eyes were glassy, and he was soaking wet, looking frozen solid even though he's not. He's been this way ever since he buried his family.

John thought about the volcanoes again. Steam rising and then that heat, rising and slipping down, erasing everything in its path. He's not sure the lava would listen to him the way a flame did, but John craved it anyway, almost like an ache. He wondered if that's what brought Bobby down here almost every night, making ice from water and air.

"Things aren't going to get better." John tells him. "It'll probably get even worse. I suggest you enjoy what you've got while you've got it."

"Rogue would have told me everything's going to be fine," Bobby sullenly responded.

John spun on his heel and started walking back to the hotel.

"Yeah, but she's not speaking to you."

If you want it could be my fault
I could be your masochistic scapegoat lover
I tore us apart, no way we can take it back
I lose my part for nothing

With Rogue along with them now, John wondered if he was going to go back to feeling stuck in the middle. John had to talk to one of them on behalf of the other. He liked to joke that they're both using him as their personal heater, but they all knew the real reason. Rogue wasn't going to risk going near Bobby again. 

Not since that kiss.

It was before they even made it here, they were still camped out on the boat. The sky was black as could be except for the stars, nothing in the way of the view, and they had no idea which direction they were supposed to be going; it looked like it went on forever whichever way they chose.

They all argued out of frustration when suddenly from out of nowhere Bobby grabbed Rogue and kissed her.

It wasn't like the few times like he had done before back when they were dating. It was desperate, holding on, holding on far too long. He was blue by the time John forced them apart, and Rogue was pure white.

John had been taught CPR at Xaviers', so thankfully he managed to get Bobby breathing again. Rogue was sobbing over the edge of the boat, screaming for both of them to stay the hell away from her.

She nearly froze the whole ocean with her tears, and in the morning, they finally spotted land.

They walked the rest of the way there.

Lonely summers killing me because
There's still a fire when I think about you
I try to drown it, but I know it's no use
Nobody does it like the way we use to

Oh, whoa oh

It was still raining the next day.

Bobby was in John's usual spot, sitting out on the balcony, head against the glass door, staring out. The volcano in the distance was silhouetted by the sunrise behind it, and John didn't know its name. He didn't even know which island they were on. He narrowed his eyes at it, thinking he can almost feel it, bubbling, waiting, beneath the surface.

"Something's coming." Bobby then stated.

"Probably more of Stryfe's Acolytes." John responded, nodding in the distance. The horizon is moving, there were so many. "They might want to use the hotel as a headquarters. We don't need to worry, they aren't coming for us."

"How can you be sure?"

Stryfe had enough to worry about at the moment. Martial law had been declared but it didn't have much effect. Any member of the military who tried to challenge Stryfe was turned into one of his slaves via telepathy. Sick humans had gone to attacking mutants, trying to take as many with them before they died. The non-sick humans pleaded to Stryfe that they never hated mutants, never wished harm to them and to please cure them of this disease that had infected and killed so many, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. 

"Because we haven't done anything to go against him." John finally answered. "We haven't done anything at all."

"But you want to."

John fidgeted for a moment as he was about to reach into his pocket for his lighter but he managed to stop himself.

"I didn't want this." John tells Bobby, going back to the accusations Bobby made in Boston, about John being happy with what was happening to the humans. "I wanted to do something, but not this."

Then for some reason, John began thinking back to Alkali Lake when the Professor was forced to use Cerebro to try and kill all the mutants in the world. John had lived his life learning to deal with pain, learning to hide it, but that was nothing like anything he'd felt before. He thought it might be what it's like to burn alive, if it were possible for John to catch fire.

Then the pain stopped abruptly, and John backed away, hands slipping on the snow.

He staggered to his feet, blinking back the black dots still clouding his vision, and picked a direction.

John didn't remember which way he was going, and he doesn't remember which way will take him back, but he stumbled onto Magneto by pure blind luck, and managed to avoid getting crushed to death by the water pouring out of the dam. He spares a thought briefly for his friends, but pushed it away, painfully aware they probably weren't thinking of him.

"What did you want to do then?" Bobby asked. What did John think was going to happen when he boarded the helicopter with Magneto and Mystique?

"I wanted to fight; you know that. But Stryfe didn't play fair. It was over before I ever really got a chance."

Bobby climbed to his feet, staring at John intently. "So fight. Stop them," he whispered.

John looked at him.

"What?"

"You know you can. I know you can. You're burning up." John looked down at his hands to see there were sparks at his fingertips, flames lighting and going out at his nails. He didn't know where they've come from. "I want him dead," Bobby continued. "I want that bastard dead." He may have been estranged from his family at the time of their deaths, but they were still his family. It didn't help that Bobby indirectly played a big part in it, when he jumped in front of that cure dart to save John. 

John shook his head.

"There's nothing we can do."

"Don't you feel it? This power? We're strong, John, all three of us."

"So are they."

Bobby grabbed John, kissing him the same way he had Rogue, like he wanted to die like this, holding on to someone lethal. John felt the volcano explode as Bobby pulled away, hot lava rushing through his veins. He turned around and it's erupted, pouring down the sides. He sent the lava in the path of the Acolytes, blocking their way, and it goes so easily at his command, the same way that fire did.

A thought. That's all it took.

"They'll just go around," Rogue said from behind them, joining the two on the balcony.

"Good, let them," Bobby responded, and the rain turned to snow.

It's just the blame that you aim to
Even all the times I sang to just to keep you holding on
And all these moments with you that make me feel like I'm brave

I wanna go back to the days in our car, where we sang the loudest by far

Bobby finally apologized to Rogue, which thankfully she accepted after Bobby placed an ice-rose in her hand. It was what he had made her on Rogue's first day at class. That actually brought a much-needed smile to her face. They all then turned in for the night. John and Bobby were laying in separate beds in a room they shared. It felt like being back at the institute all over again.

"John?" he says, after a few minutes. "John, are you up?"

He heard a groan from a few feet away. "I am now. What do you want, Drake?"

"Was it like this when you were running with the Brotherhood? Or does it feel more like Xavier's?" 

After thinking about for a second, John answered; "It was never this nice. Either place. It was never this nice." A minute or so passed. "Are we done? Can I go back to sleep now, or do we have to bond some more first?"

Bobby laughed, and John was actually glad to hear that sound again. "Fuck you, John."

"Back at you, Drake."

Getting to his feet, dressed in a t-shirt and his dorky flannel pants, Bobby crawled onto John's bed, knees on either side of his legs, and slipped forward and forward until they're face to face. "I love you, you know," he says, sweet and wryly all at once. "I always have," before leaning down and placing a kiss on John's forehead.

John didn't know what to say to that at first, because no one has ever said that to him before.

"I love you, too," John whispered back, and he meant it. "No matter how much we both fuck up, I always will."

Reaching up and putting a hand on the back of Bobby's head, John pulled him down and kissed him, long and softly, letting go only to let out a shaky breath. 

John balanced Bobby out. Bobby wasn't whole without him. He was like a blow-up idol, a wind-up toy soldier, and John may like being broken but Bobby needed to be whole. Besides, some love is unconditional.

It's not a lesson Bobby learned from his parents, but it's something he's learned all the same. Bobby learned a lot at Xavier's. He learned to use his power for good. He learned to help those that need it. He learned that even the strongest people can give in, and that even good people can do horrible things.

I got the message, you got the message 
Now that we're all alone 
I got the message, you got the message 
You're never coming home

I wanna go back to the days in our car
Where we sang the loudest by far
I wanna go back to the days in our car
Where we sang the loudest by far...

Don't stop running and don't look back. These are things Bobby has learned from John. 

That, and fire was always such a lovely way to signify an end.

The End. 

XXXXXX

Lyrics are from "Winter Everywhere" by Slaves. 

Sequel is up; Breakthrough - Darkpurplelighter - X-Men (Movieverse) [Archive of Our Own]