Spiral: Chapter 19
Title: Spiral
Author: lux_apollo
Rating: R for language, mild violence.
Pairings: Bobby/John, Justin/Aleks
Summary: John wakes up.
Notes: Thanks to sarahlu81 and miss_bushido for beta. This fic is cross posted at x_slash and fiery_snowstorm. Okay, here's the next chapter. Still not back to the regular weekly schedule, but at least I'll be posting still! Next chapter will probably be up in another couple weeks. Gotta get through midterms right now... Oi.
[ Prologue | Chapter 1 - NC17 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 - NC17 | Chapter 13 - NC17 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18]
Chapter 19
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
John shivered and opened his eyes.
Out of focus. Grey and silver. Metallic. Soft beeping.
In focus. A room. A table. A machine.
Cold.
John shivered again.
Where the hell was he?
He tried to sit up, moaning. The room started to spin. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. Something tugged at his left arm. An IV drip.
Not a good sign.
He looked around, fighting the lingering disorientation. A lot of high-tech equipment was scattered about the room. Some of it looked kind of medical.
Justin.
Magneto-
Shit.
John felt himself waking up quickly as the panic set in.
They had been caught. What had happened? John remembered getting shot at, and Justin getting them both out of the way at the same time. Justin took a bullet in the shoulder. John’s lighter flew away. And then- What? Mystique screaming. Justin had empathically attacked her. And then, and then…
Pieces of siding ripping off the building next to them and slamming into Justin. John swearing. Justin unconscious, bleeding from the head. Bleeding from the side. Then Magneto was there. Gloating.
An argument. Magneto calling him a failure, a betrayer. Fucking Judas Iscariot. And he was right. But John didn’t care. He couldn’t be part of that, couldn’t be just someone’s fucking weapon anymore. He was done being used.
John had ran at Magneto then. He remembered feeling the anger, the fury, the rage, the hate… It was boiling up inside him. He remembered getting hit by several different things, but he didn’t stop until Magneto wrapped him up in a piece of metal siding and suspended him in the air in front of him.
“And now, St. John Allerdyce, you are going to die.”
“Fuck YOU!!!!!”
John remembered feeling like he was exploding, like his rage had taken on its own life. He remembered seeing bright, furious scarlet orange yellow and then… and then…
He moaned and rubbed his temples, his vision swimming for a second as a wave of nausea passed over him. What had happened?
“Johnny?”
St. John Allerdyce froze. That voice- what the fuck was going on?
“…B-Bobby?”
John turned his gaze. There was Robert Drake, standing in the doorway giving him that unsure-but-trying-to-hide-it-and-be-macho concerned look that John had never thought he’d see again. John shivered again, realizing to his internal embarrassment that he was half-naked and clothed only in a flimsy light blue hospital gown.
Bobby quickly crossed the distance between them, hesitating for a second before stepping to John’s side.
“God, I was so worried about you. Are you okay? Does anything hurt? Do you need anything?” Bobby started to babble.
John just stared at Bobby, wide-eyed with disbelief.
He wasn’t a prisoner of the Brotherhood.
He knew this place.
He was home.
“Johnny? Are you-“
John pulled Bobby into him and kissed him deeply. A couple hot tears were streamed down John’s face. This was, this was-
Bobby tensed, bringing John back to his senses. John pulled away immediately, suddenly feeling the urge to retch. Bobby looked shocked.
“Bobby, I- I’m sorr- Fuck,” John swore, cutting off his own apology. He slammed a fist down on the examination table, clenching his teeth in a vain effort to pull himself back together. He looked away, looking anywhere but at Bobby.
“Johnny, what-“
“I’m fucking in love with you Bobby,” John whispered with hollow disgrace, raising his eyes to meet Bobby’s confused gaze with the bitter, empty rage he felt at his own pathetic weakness.
Looks like Justin had lied after all. What the fuck had made him any different than anyone else? Why the hell had John bothered trusting him? Another mistake, another fucking betrayal.
John felt an emptiness open up in the pit of his stomach and the rage fell away, quickly replaced by a feeling that was much worse. Despair. He trembled, but letting his gaze drop down to his pale, ugly exposed feet. His voice took on a cold, bitter desolation, sharp enough to cut like fractured glass.
“I’m a fag, and I’m in love with you. Just forget it. I’ll be out of your life again as soon as they’ll let me get out of here, and¬-”
John was silenced by a hand touching his cheek, a thumb briefly crossing his lips and then wiping the remains of his tears away. He looked up into Bobby’s eyes. The look of disgust he expected to see, it wasn’t there. The anger, the humiliation, the hate… It wasn’t there. There was surprise and something else written on the face of Robert Louis Drake. Something good. Something much better than good.
It was love.
“Shut up and kiss me, you just surprised me.” Bobby whispered, pressing his lips back against John’s. John inhaled sharply, tensing for a moment before a choked, keening half-sob escaped his throat.
He leaned into the kiss, his hands grabbing fistfuls of Bobby’s shirt and pulling him hard up against his body. Bobby’s arms wrapped around John, holding him tight in a way that made something break loose in John.
It was rapture.
It was Bobby kissing Johnny, and it was for real.
More hot tears began to fall from John’s mutinous eyes, his breath flowing unsteadily and raggedly in and out of his nose. For a moment, John felt himself going dizzy again, but Bobby was there, his strong arms supporting John, holding him up.
After a moment, Bobby broke the kiss. He blinked twice, staring into John’s dark, azure eyes with a look that flowed from bliss into utter confusion and disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Bobby seemed even more freaked out than a minute ago, and started shaking his head.
“Johnny, I- I can’t believe this! You really love me? This isn’t some sick joke, is it? I’m going to wake up in a just a minute, aren’t I? You’re going to be sitting here laughing at me, and I just- I…” Bobby trailed off, looking genuinely lost. It was cute and frustrating and so completely Bobby Drake.
John raised his eyebrows, giving Bobby that smug, confident look that he knew would drive the blonde nuts, as it always had in the past. “If kissing wasn’t real enough for you, how about this?” John said, dragging one of Bobby’s hands down over his body and onto his hardening cock.
Bobby’s eyes widened and his ears began to burn a bright orange colour. “Oh.”
“Oh, you say?” John smirked. “That real enough for you?”
“I- Yeah…” Bobby’s face turned an interesting shade of scarlet. But he didn’t pull his hand away, not right away. Not that John minded. Bobby’s colour soon returned to its usual fair shade and he gave John a trademark dopey grin. No, Bobby didn’t seem to mind either.
“Who… did Justin?” Bobby half-asked, blinking.
“Yeah,” John murmured. “He told me… I didn’t know what to think at first, but… Fuck, it was enough…”
John didn’t know what else to say, so he didn’t say anything. He leaned forward again, this time resting his forehead on Bobby’s strong shoulder. Bobby’s embrace tightened around him. God, he could smell Bobby. It was that same subtle musky sweetness that had driven John nuts the last year he had lived here. And it was driving him insane now.
But there was so much, so much John needed to say. There would be time for that kind of intimacy somewhere else. Fuck, at any other time, in any other situation John would have probably ripped off Bobby’s clothing and claimed him right here on this examination table, but for some reason his entire mind was working twisted opposites and upside downs.
He needed to tell Bobby everything, needed to just blurt it all out and get it over with and out in the open. Why he loved him. When everything had started. Why he left. Why he stayed with Magneto. Why he came back, and what he believed in. And importantly, why he thought Xavier and Magneto were both wrong.
“Bobby, I don’t know where to start, I-“
“Shh. There will be time for that later,” Bobby murmured into John’s ear. “We both have a lot to talk about, I’m sure, but not now. If we start talking, it’s going to involve thinking, and you know just how well I go with thinking. I really don’t want to think or question any of this right now, so please… Later. I have everything I need just like this. It’s that simple and it’s all that matters to me right now.”
John felt a hot flush rushing up to his cheeks. Bobby was right, of course. Fucking Boyscout Bobby to the rescue. For the moment, this was enough and for some reason that made John feel more happy, more content than he ever thought possible. He relaxed in Bobby’s arms.
God, it was just a fucking hug but John felt almost weightless. It had been so long, so fucking long since he’d had any kind of physical contact that actually meant something like this. Something so sincere, so accepting, so fucking whole… John trembled, trying not to let his emotions overwhelm him again. He took a deep breath, using Bobby’s solidity like a grounding to bring himself back under control.
After a minute, he found his voice again. “What happened to me? How long was I out?” John asked quietly.
“I don’t know what happened, exactly. You’ve been unconscious for just over a week. You were already passed out when I found you. You-” Bobby stopped, stumbling over his words and blushing mildly. “Well, you were naked and surrounded by these intense, powerful flames in the centre of a huge inferno. It took a heck of a lot of power to overcome it.”
John blinked. “I was surrounded by fire? And naked?” John pulled back a bit and gave Bobby a quizzical look. Bobby smiled softly, chuckling.
“Yeah. Whatever it was Magneto and Mystique were doing to you before you passed out, it was nothing compared to the fire you made. Magneto was pretty damn burnt up. The Brotherhood got there just after I found you, and Quicksilver had a fit. He sounded like wanted to kill you, but Scarlet Witch just asked for Mystique and Magneto in return for a temporary peace. Cyclops agreed handed them over, and Scarlet Witch ordered a retreat. I wouldn’t have ever thought people like Sabretooth and Toad would listen to her because they were all pissed, but damn! She just turned and gave them a look, and her hands were glowing and they all shut up about it. They all were acting like they are scared shitless of her!”
“Yeah, well they should be. Wanda’s not someone to mess with. When she’s angry, she’s about as dangerous as they come. Even I know well enough not to mess with her when she’s having a bad day.”
“Anway, what do you mean I was in a fire? Bobby, I didn’t have a source. I couldn’t have made that fire! Magneto took my lighter before I could use it, he¬-“ John stopped, shaking his head.
He took a breath, continuing, “That wasn’t mine. It couldn’t have been. There wasn’t a single flame in the area when I passed out. Magneto was crushing me in a piece of siding, and I was desperate. If there was a source of any kind nearby I would have felt it. But there wasn’t. It was just me, Buckethead and that damned siding.”
“John, it had to be you. You were lying in this pool of liquid metal when I found you and you weren’t burned from touching it. Heck John, your body temperature must have been over 600 degrees! If I wasn’t the coolest guy in school, we might not have been able to get anywhere near you until you lost some of that heat,” Bobby said, getting serious.
John frowned. “Bobby, that’s ridiculous. How…?”
“I don’t know, John. I’m just telling you what it was like when I got there. Maybe you can superheat your body or something. A secondary mutation, like mine or Dr. McCoy’s. It would explain why you were naked at least. If you got hot enough you might have set your clothing on fire, providing the spark for that inferno. We can ask Dr. McCoy about it later. I’m sure he’ll have a better explanation for it than I could ever give. All I need to know is that whatever it was, it was powerful and it kept you safe.” Bobby’s hand came up to hold John’s cheek. John leaned into the hand, feeling lost.
This was fucked up news. John didn’t really know how to react to it. He would have thought he would be ecstatic that he may have made a fire on his own. But for some reason, John couldn’t feel anything but a strange thrill of fear.
Pyro was someone who walked the line. He was someone who was always flirted with the edge, someone who took the risk of completely losing touch with reality while using his powers. At times, he had almost become lost in the fire, with the fire controlling him instead of the other way around.
Yeah, Pyro liked it. Loved it, even. He liked the danger of it. He liked the feeling of letting go. It let him exist on another level. Everything was different when he let go, when he crossed the line. His perceptions, his mood, his mind, everything changed and it gave him a sort of existential high. But looking back over everything, where had that gotten him? He had nothing but failures to show for it. Everything he did resulted in failing the people who relied on him, hurting the people he cared for or almost getting himself killed. Over and over again.
A long time ago, John wouldn’t have cared. Back then he thought that all he needed was himself. He didn’t need anyone else for anything. Other people couldn’t be relied upon for anything, anyway. John had been his own man, free of the bonds of love and completely aware of the sickness of society.
But he couldn’t last like that.
Even he wasn’t that fucked up.
Things had changed for him, slowly. Bobby and later Wanda had done something to John, something that he had never thought possible and never had expected. There had been a lot of hurt, misunderstanding and a good helping of angst along the way, but in the end John was beginning to see things in a different light.
There were secret moments every now and then -often after a near disaster- when John had been thankful that he couldn’t create the fire himself. They were few and far between, but they were there nonetheless. His limitation was what kept him under control, what kept him in check. Sometimes he even wondered if it was also the only thing guarding his sanity. What would happen if he really could make his own fires now? What would happen to him now if he ever really and truly lost himself in the fire?
John was glad Bobby was with him now. He needed the support, the touch. Bobby had always found a way to keep John grounded. It would be okay. The fire was probably a freak accident. There had probably been a spark somewhere nearby. A cigarette lit in a house, or something like that. Something small but hot enough for him to harness by instinct in the desperation of the moment. That had to be it.
“Hey, you okay?” Bobby asked, breaking the silence. He had concern written all over his face. “I thought you’d be kind of excited to hear that.”
“Yeah, I thought I would have been too. I don’t know Bobby. I just don’t know,” John said, sighing. Even in this vulnerable but safe place here in Bobby’s arms, he wasn’t sure if he could explain how he felt about this new development. It was complicated.
Time for a subject change. “How’s Justin doing?”
Bobby’s face darkened slightly, and his weight shifted. John could tell immediately that this wasn’t going to be good news.
“Justin… He’s alive, but he’s not doing too well. Kitty and Logan found him trapped under a huge mass of metal siding against a house. His face was mostly spared but he had a lot of 2nd degree and a couple small 3rd degree burns from being near the edge of that inferno, but his biggest problem was the wounds he had taken from the siding and the bullet they found in his shoulder. Justin lost a lot of blood and he’s still unconscious. He stabilized after they got him here, but-“ Bobby swallowed, biting his lip. “Doctor McCoy doesn’t understand why he hasn’t awoke yet. The Professor told me that it would be okay, but- God, I don’t know John… I’m sure he’ll be okay if the Professor said so. ”
John closed his eyes. He had done his best to get them out of there safely. They couldn’t have found a better opportunity. There was nothing more that John could have done, right? John couldn’t feel bad for this. For once he had done the right thing. Too bad it seemed that even when he did the right thing, he failed.
“Ahem.”
John’s eyes fluttered open. Dr. Grey was in the doorway, her lips pursed into a small, intrigued smile. Bobby looked like a deer caught in headlights. He quickly took a step away from John, a look of fear passing over his face.
“Uh, Dr. Grey! I mean Jean! Err, hi! Umm, I was just about to- uh, call you. John’s awake.” Bobby stammered.
John sighed. Oh fucking great. Bobby’s a closet case. Or embarrassed of being with John. Or who knows what else. Could anything else happen to complicate their relationship any further before it even started again? Bobby was probably going to go have a panic attack or do something equally lame.
“I need to do a check up on you, John, to make sure everything is all right. Bobby, since you are free for the afternoon, could you go find our patient some other clothes? He might be a little cold in this hospital gown. I think you may have some things lying around that might still fit.” Dr. Grey smiled, winking at Bobby. Bobby blushed furiously, and then nodded. He scampered off, leaving John alone with the redheaded telekine.
John eyed her suspiciously as she walked over to a movable table and retrieved a chart, a stethoscope and a few other medical instruments. It was weird seeing her walking around here. The Brotherhood had heard the news of her reappearance in the months after the San Francisco disasters, however John couldn’t help but feel more than a little freaked out. The woman had died twice for Christ’s sake! There was something just a little too unnatural about that, even if she was a mutant. It didn’t help that the last time John had been anywhere near her, she was a psychobitch who disintegrated anyone or anything that pissed her off. He was lucky someone had dragged him off Alcatraz before she’d really gone fucked and started tearing the place apart.
“How do you feel, John?” she asked, regarding him with the concerned smile that he remembered from years before. It wasn’t one he’d ever seen on the Phoenix.
“Fine. I had a bit of a headache when I woke up, but it’s passed,” John muttered. Dr. Grey nodded, writing a couple of notes onto the chart.
“I need to take your blood pressure, heart rate and temperature,” Jean explained as she handed him a digital thermometer. “Put this in your mouth.”
He felt fine. Why the hell did she want to do this crap now? John opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. “It’s either going in your mouth or in your rectum. Take your pick, and trust me, you don’t want to make me pick for you.”
“Fine,” John said resignedly, slipping the bulb of the thermometer under his tongue. Dr. Grey began to wrap the cuff of the sphygmomanometer around his arm, slipping the stethoscope underneath to listen to the blood pulsing through his brachial artery. After a few moments, she indicated she wanted the thermometer back and wrote his body temperature onto the chart. His usual 41 degrees Celsius.
“So, you and Bobby?” Dr. Grey queried as she began to pump air into the cuff of the sphygmomanometer. She began to take his blood pressure. John glared at her. She was a fairly powerful telepath and she walked in on them. Playing stupid wasn’t impressing him.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“About fifteen minutes, maybe.”
“Oh.”
“What the hell did you think, that I’ve been talking to him since Alkali Lake?”
“No, John. Just wondering. I thought I remember something from before… from when you came back after destroying a cure clinic-”
“Whatever.” John shook his head, looking down at his feet.
He had no fucking idea what she was talking about. He sure as hell hadn’t said one word to her when she was with the Brotherhood. Unless she’d been eavesdropping on his thoughts, she couldn’t have known anything. John had never said a damn thing to anyone about Bobby until he met Wanda when the Brotherhood began to recover from San Francisco.
Yeah, he remembered thinking about Bobby after the encounter at that cure clinic in New York. He’d jacked off in his tent, wondering what would have happened if Bobby had the guts to fight him right there in the middle of that crowd. The bitch in front of him had to have been telepathically eavesdropping, then.
John fixed her with a withering look.
Dr. Grey began letting air out of the cuff, staring him down through her dark-rimmed, high fashion glasses.
“No, John. Not whatever. I’m asking because I care about what happens to Bobby, and-.”
“I should leave him alone. Yeah, fuck you.”
“That’s not what I was going to say!”
“But you were thinking it,” John fumed. Back to reality. He was at Xavier’s. The place he left. The place where they couldn’t care less about him, where he’d be a fucking pariah until he got his ass out of here.
Dr. Grey sighed, shaking her head. “Bobby isn’t the only one I’m worried about. Just because you left doesn’t mean that we all decided to just forget you, John.”
“Spare me this bleeding heart bullshit, will you? I did what I thought I needed to do, and no one laid down a finger to try and stop me. Don’t try and tell me about how much you people cared. It’s a fucking insult to my intelligence that you think I’m that naive.
“I knew how it was going and I did what I thought was right, and for a while I believed in Magneto’s idealistic crap just as much as you people believe in Xavier’s. You were there with us when I believed it the most, in San Francisco. Not that you really seemed to be paying attention to all that much back then. I’m not going back to the Brotherhood, and I never intended to stay here either. The only reason I’m not walking out that door right now and giving you one huge-ass middle finger is because I have shit to take care of here first.”
“And that ‘shit’ involves someone that we all care deeply about. I’m not telling you to get out of here, St. John -not that you’d listen, anyway. I just want you to be careful. I don’t think any of us expected Bobby to- well, fall for another guy, but sometimes things happen that no one could have foreseen, like you leaving because you felt unwanted. And it wasn’t the case at all. Maybe I was too busy to see what was happening with you and how unhappy you were. Maybe I should have noticed what was really going on with the dynamic between you and Bobby before Alkali Lake. But we’re all human, John, and we all make mistakes we wish we could have prevented.
“I’m not saying that your relationship is good or bad; that’s for you two to find out. What I want is a promise from you that you won’t get him caught up in something with you, only to have you decide that you need to disappear somewhere or rejoin the Brotherhood. It would shatter him.”
“Like I said, I’m not going anywhere yet,” John repeated coldly. Why the fuck was he getting a lecture from her about something she had no business talking to him about. And why the fuck did she think she should be able to do it right after he fucking woke up?
Jean sighed, shaking her head and continuing. “It’s that ‘yet’ that I’m worried most about. Bobby’s not a person who really thinks of things in the temporary sense, and he doesn’t take well to big changes and hurts. Everything that happens in the now is forever to him.
“I’ve known you for six years now, John. I know that you have a good heart, even if you don’t show it often. I saw how you felt about what Magneto did to Mystique after she was cured. I saw a lot of things about you that you try to hide when I was with the Brotherhood, a lot of things I wish I had realized when you were still a student here. You might think that we all just forgot about you or hated you for making your choices, but a lot of us… we felt like we lost you. That it was our fault that you left. And really, I know it was. I can’t ever tell you how sorry I am for that.
“But there is one person who is even more sorry. Bobby. He’s never forgiven himself. He’s a lot more like you on the inside than a lot of people would like to think. He puts up a strong face, but the wounds still cut deep on the inside. He beats himself up on the inside over things he regrets just like you do. Bobby’s going to need to be able to turn to you for unquestioning support when he’s hurting, and you are going to have to be there for him unconditionally or you’ll lose him. Do you understand how big of a commitment that is, John?”
“You have no idea,” John replied, scowling.
“Don’t play around with his heart. You have to give yourself to him, all of you. Even the things you think should never see the light of day. For people like the two of you, nothing can be held back or it will never work. If you are serious about this, both of you, then you have my blessing,” Dr. Grey offered.
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my entire life,” John stated confidently, meeting her soft gaze with a challenging glare. She nodded, and a silence fell between them.
John didn’t know what to think of this -conversation? Lecture? Frankly, he didn’t want to think it was, even. He had enough shit to deal with just between Bobby and himself. He didn’t have time to care about what everyone else thought right now.
Dr. Grey pulled the cuff of the sphygmomanometer open and levitated it back to the nearby stand, and then set to work at removing the IV from his wrist. After swabbing the small puncture wound with alcohol, she wrote a few more things onto John’s chart and then looked up at the pyrokinetic.
“So, what’s the verdict? Am I fine?”
“It seems that way,” Dr. Grey replied with a tired sigh. “We think you were unconscious for so long because of the metabolic strain you put on your body fighting off Magneto the way you did. All that heat had to come from somewhere, and your body must have just given out from the metabolic shock.”
“So, you think I manifested a new ability too?” John asked, curious.
“Maybe. You’re baseline body temperature has always been higher than normal, and your normal increased baseline resistance to heat would suggest some sort of a linkage. You always used to heat up when you were using your powers heavily more than we expected for your physiological profile, but never anything like that. If you are up to it, Dr. McCoy would like to do a new genetic profile and a few other tests sometime soon.”
“How much will that tell you?”
“It should at least give us a better idea. If your x-factor gene cluster has undergone some form of change since we last profiled you four years ago, it might help explain a few things. If you remember from class, some mutants continue to undergo mutation, especially after their powers emerge. I don’t think anything unstable is happening, so I’m not going to force you to stay here for now. But the second you start feeling different or something weird starts to happen with your powers I want you to call for help, both vocally and mentally. No matter what, the safety of everyone else here is of prime importance. You know better than just about anyone what can happen when things get out of hand.”
“Yeah,” John said, rolling his eyes. Like he hadn’t heard this speech a billion times before when he was a student here.
“The Professor will want to see you later today. He’s teaching right now, but I’ll let him know that you are awake. Though, I’m sure he already knows,” Jean said, walking towards the door. “Once Bobby’s back with your clothes, you can head upstairs. We’re giving you free reign to wander about upstairs, but you have to stay inside for now. I’d keep a low profile, though. Not all the students will be as -um, welcoming- as Bobby has been, as I’m sure you’ve already assumed.”
John frowned slightly. They were letting him wander around? Were they on crack? Whatever. John wasn’t about to complain. But, he did have something else to worry about now, even if John didn’t feel like he should.
“Dr. Grey?”
“Yes John?”
“Can you please not tell anyone about Bobby and I? I get the feeling that he’s not ready for that just yet,” John asked quietly, looking down at his feet.
He didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought, but Bobby? Hell, John had never considered this problem until Bobby’s reaction a few minutes ago. Why would he have? He didn’t give a shit what other people thought of him. If they didn’t like it, they could kiss his ass.
Dr. Grey smiled with understanding. “Of course. You should know by now that I’m discreet about personal things like this. Besides, doctor-patient confidentiality dictates that what happens in the med lab stays in the med lab,” she said, heading for the door. “And John?”
“Yeah?”
“Welcome home.”
Author: lux_apollo
Rating: R for language, mild violence.
Pairings: Bobby/John, Justin/Aleks
Summary: John wakes up.
Notes: Thanks to sarahlu81 and miss_bushido for beta. This fic is cross posted at x_slash and fiery_snowstorm. Okay, here's the next chapter. Still not back to the regular weekly schedule, but at least I'll be posting still! Next chapter will probably be up in another couple weeks. Gotta get through midterms right now... Oi.
[ Prologue | Chapter 1 - NC17 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 - NC17 | Chapter 13 - NC17 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18]
Chapter 19
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
John shivered and opened his eyes.
Out of focus. Grey and silver. Metallic. Soft beeping.
In focus. A room. A table. A machine.
Cold.
John shivered again.
Where the hell was he?
He tried to sit up, moaning. The room started to spin. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. Something tugged at his left arm. An IV drip.
Not a good sign.
He looked around, fighting the lingering disorientation. A lot of high-tech equipment was scattered about the room. Some of it looked kind of medical.
Justin.
Magneto-
Shit.
John felt himself waking up quickly as the panic set in.
They had been caught. What had happened? John remembered getting shot at, and Justin getting them both out of the way at the same time. Justin took a bullet in the shoulder. John’s lighter flew away. And then- What? Mystique screaming. Justin had empathically attacked her. And then, and then…
Pieces of siding ripping off the building next to them and slamming into Justin. John swearing. Justin unconscious, bleeding from the head. Bleeding from the side. Then Magneto was there. Gloating.
An argument. Magneto calling him a failure, a betrayer. Fucking Judas Iscariot. And he was right. But John didn’t care. He couldn’t be part of that, couldn’t be just someone’s fucking weapon anymore. He was done being used.
John had ran at Magneto then. He remembered feeling the anger, the fury, the rage, the hate… It was boiling up inside him. He remembered getting hit by several different things, but he didn’t stop until Magneto wrapped him up in a piece of metal siding and suspended him in the air in front of him.
“And now, St. John Allerdyce, you are going to die.”
“Fuck YOU!!!!!”
John remembered feeling like he was exploding, like his rage had taken on its own life. He remembered seeing bright, furious scarlet orange yellow and then… and then…
He moaned and rubbed his temples, his vision swimming for a second as a wave of nausea passed over him. What had happened?
“Johnny?”
St. John Allerdyce froze. That voice- what the fuck was going on?
“…B-Bobby?”
John turned his gaze. There was Robert Drake, standing in the doorway giving him that unsure-but-trying-to-hide-it-and-be-macho concerned look that John had never thought he’d see again. John shivered again, realizing to his internal embarrassment that he was half-naked and clothed only in a flimsy light blue hospital gown.
Bobby quickly crossed the distance between them, hesitating for a second before stepping to John’s side.
“God, I was so worried about you. Are you okay? Does anything hurt? Do you need anything?” Bobby started to babble.
John just stared at Bobby, wide-eyed with disbelief.
He wasn’t a prisoner of the Brotherhood.
He knew this place.
He was home.
“Johnny? Are you-“
John pulled Bobby into him and kissed him deeply. A couple hot tears were streamed down John’s face. This was, this was-
Bobby tensed, bringing John back to his senses. John pulled away immediately, suddenly feeling the urge to retch. Bobby looked shocked.
“Bobby, I- I’m sorr- Fuck,” John swore, cutting off his own apology. He slammed a fist down on the examination table, clenching his teeth in a vain effort to pull himself back together. He looked away, looking anywhere but at Bobby.
“Johnny, what-“
“I’m fucking in love with you Bobby,” John whispered with hollow disgrace, raising his eyes to meet Bobby’s confused gaze with the bitter, empty rage he felt at his own pathetic weakness.
Looks like Justin had lied after all. What the fuck had made him any different than anyone else? Why the hell had John bothered trusting him? Another mistake, another fucking betrayal.
John felt an emptiness open up in the pit of his stomach and the rage fell away, quickly replaced by a feeling that was much worse. Despair. He trembled, but letting his gaze drop down to his pale, ugly exposed feet. His voice took on a cold, bitter desolation, sharp enough to cut like fractured glass.
“I’m a fag, and I’m in love with you. Just forget it. I’ll be out of your life again as soon as they’ll let me get out of here, and¬-”
John was silenced by a hand touching his cheek, a thumb briefly crossing his lips and then wiping the remains of his tears away. He looked up into Bobby’s eyes. The look of disgust he expected to see, it wasn’t there. The anger, the humiliation, the hate… It wasn’t there. There was surprise and something else written on the face of Robert Louis Drake. Something good. Something much better than good.
It was love.
“Shut up and kiss me, you just surprised me.” Bobby whispered, pressing his lips back against John’s. John inhaled sharply, tensing for a moment before a choked, keening half-sob escaped his throat.
He leaned into the kiss, his hands grabbing fistfuls of Bobby’s shirt and pulling him hard up against his body. Bobby’s arms wrapped around John, holding him tight in a way that made something break loose in John.
It was rapture.
It was Bobby kissing Johnny, and it was for real.
More hot tears began to fall from John’s mutinous eyes, his breath flowing unsteadily and raggedly in and out of his nose. For a moment, John felt himself going dizzy again, but Bobby was there, his strong arms supporting John, holding him up.
After a moment, Bobby broke the kiss. He blinked twice, staring into John’s dark, azure eyes with a look that flowed from bliss into utter confusion and disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Bobby seemed even more freaked out than a minute ago, and started shaking his head.
“Johnny, I- I can’t believe this! You really love me? This isn’t some sick joke, is it? I’m going to wake up in a just a minute, aren’t I? You’re going to be sitting here laughing at me, and I just- I…” Bobby trailed off, looking genuinely lost. It was cute and frustrating and so completely Bobby Drake.
John raised his eyebrows, giving Bobby that smug, confident look that he knew would drive the blonde nuts, as it always had in the past. “If kissing wasn’t real enough for you, how about this?” John said, dragging one of Bobby’s hands down over his body and onto his hardening cock.
Bobby’s eyes widened and his ears began to burn a bright orange colour. “Oh.”
“Oh, you say?” John smirked. “That real enough for you?”
“I- Yeah…” Bobby’s face turned an interesting shade of scarlet. But he didn’t pull his hand away, not right away. Not that John minded. Bobby’s colour soon returned to its usual fair shade and he gave John a trademark dopey grin. No, Bobby didn’t seem to mind either.
“Who… did Justin?” Bobby half-asked, blinking.
“Yeah,” John murmured. “He told me… I didn’t know what to think at first, but… Fuck, it was enough…”
John didn’t know what else to say, so he didn’t say anything. He leaned forward again, this time resting his forehead on Bobby’s strong shoulder. Bobby’s embrace tightened around him. God, he could smell Bobby. It was that same subtle musky sweetness that had driven John nuts the last year he had lived here. And it was driving him insane now.
But there was so much, so much John needed to say. There would be time for that kind of intimacy somewhere else. Fuck, at any other time, in any other situation John would have probably ripped off Bobby’s clothing and claimed him right here on this examination table, but for some reason his entire mind was working twisted opposites and upside downs.
He needed to tell Bobby everything, needed to just blurt it all out and get it over with and out in the open. Why he loved him. When everything had started. Why he left. Why he stayed with Magneto. Why he came back, and what he believed in. And importantly, why he thought Xavier and Magneto were both wrong.
“Bobby, I don’t know where to start, I-“
“Shh. There will be time for that later,” Bobby murmured into John’s ear. “We both have a lot to talk about, I’m sure, but not now. If we start talking, it’s going to involve thinking, and you know just how well I go with thinking. I really don’t want to think or question any of this right now, so please… Later. I have everything I need just like this. It’s that simple and it’s all that matters to me right now.”
John felt a hot flush rushing up to his cheeks. Bobby was right, of course. Fucking Boyscout Bobby to the rescue. For the moment, this was enough and for some reason that made John feel more happy, more content than he ever thought possible. He relaxed in Bobby’s arms.
God, it was just a fucking hug but John felt almost weightless. It had been so long, so fucking long since he’d had any kind of physical contact that actually meant something like this. Something so sincere, so accepting, so fucking whole… John trembled, trying not to let his emotions overwhelm him again. He took a deep breath, using Bobby’s solidity like a grounding to bring himself back under control.
After a minute, he found his voice again. “What happened to me? How long was I out?” John asked quietly.
“I don’t know what happened, exactly. You’ve been unconscious for just over a week. You were already passed out when I found you. You-” Bobby stopped, stumbling over his words and blushing mildly. “Well, you were naked and surrounded by these intense, powerful flames in the centre of a huge inferno. It took a heck of a lot of power to overcome it.”
John blinked. “I was surrounded by fire? And naked?” John pulled back a bit and gave Bobby a quizzical look. Bobby smiled softly, chuckling.
“Yeah. Whatever it was Magneto and Mystique were doing to you before you passed out, it was nothing compared to the fire you made. Magneto was pretty damn burnt up. The Brotherhood got there just after I found you, and Quicksilver had a fit. He sounded like wanted to kill you, but Scarlet Witch just asked for Mystique and Magneto in return for a temporary peace. Cyclops agreed handed them over, and Scarlet Witch ordered a retreat. I wouldn’t have ever thought people like Sabretooth and Toad would listen to her because they were all pissed, but damn! She just turned and gave them a look, and her hands were glowing and they all shut up about it. They all were acting like they are scared shitless of her!”
“Yeah, well they should be. Wanda’s not someone to mess with. When she’s angry, she’s about as dangerous as they come. Even I know well enough not to mess with her when she’s having a bad day.”
“Anway, what do you mean I was in a fire? Bobby, I didn’t have a source. I couldn’t have made that fire! Magneto took my lighter before I could use it, he¬-“ John stopped, shaking his head.
He took a breath, continuing, “That wasn’t mine. It couldn’t have been. There wasn’t a single flame in the area when I passed out. Magneto was crushing me in a piece of siding, and I was desperate. If there was a source of any kind nearby I would have felt it. But there wasn’t. It was just me, Buckethead and that damned siding.”
“John, it had to be you. You were lying in this pool of liquid metal when I found you and you weren’t burned from touching it. Heck John, your body temperature must have been over 600 degrees! If I wasn’t the coolest guy in school, we might not have been able to get anywhere near you until you lost some of that heat,” Bobby said, getting serious.
John frowned. “Bobby, that’s ridiculous. How…?”
“I don’t know, John. I’m just telling you what it was like when I got there. Maybe you can superheat your body or something. A secondary mutation, like mine or Dr. McCoy’s. It would explain why you were naked at least. If you got hot enough you might have set your clothing on fire, providing the spark for that inferno. We can ask Dr. McCoy about it later. I’m sure he’ll have a better explanation for it than I could ever give. All I need to know is that whatever it was, it was powerful and it kept you safe.” Bobby’s hand came up to hold John’s cheek. John leaned into the hand, feeling lost.
This was fucked up news. John didn’t really know how to react to it. He would have thought he would be ecstatic that he may have made a fire on his own. But for some reason, John couldn’t feel anything but a strange thrill of fear.
Pyro was someone who walked the line. He was someone who was always flirted with the edge, someone who took the risk of completely losing touch with reality while using his powers. At times, he had almost become lost in the fire, with the fire controlling him instead of the other way around.
Yeah, Pyro liked it. Loved it, even. He liked the danger of it. He liked the feeling of letting go. It let him exist on another level. Everything was different when he let go, when he crossed the line. His perceptions, his mood, his mind, everything changed and it gave him a sort of existential high. But looking back over everything, where had that gotten him? He had nothing but failures to show for it. Everything he did resulted in failing the people who relied on him, hurting the people he cared for or almost getting himself killed. Over and over again.
A long time ago, John wouldn’t have cared. Back then he thought that all he needed was himself. He didn’t need anyone else for anything. Other people couldn’t be relied upon for anything, anyway. John had been his own man, free of the bonds of love and completely aware of the sickness of society.
But he couldn’t last like that.
Even he wasn’t that fucked up.
Things had changed for him, slowly. Bobby and later Wanda had done something to John, something that he had never thought possible and never had expected. There had been a lot of hurt, misunderstanding and a good helping of angst along the way, but in the end John was beginning to see things in a different light.
There were secret moments every now and then -often after a near disaster- when John had been thankful that he couldn’t create the fire himself. They were few and far between, but they were there nonetheless. His limitation was what kept him under control, what kept him in check. Sometimes he even wondered if it was also the only thing guarding his sanity. What would happen if he really could make his own fires now? What would happen to him now if he ever really and truly lost himself in the fire?
John was glad Bobby was with him now. He needed the support, the touch. Bobby had always found a way to keep John grounded. It would be okay. The fire was probably a freak accident. There had probably been a spark somewhere nearby. A cigarette lit in a house, or something like that. Something small but hot enough for him to harness by instinct in the desperation of the moment. That had to be it.
“Hey, you okay?” Bobby asked, breaking the silence. He had concern written all over his face. “I thought you’d be kind of excited to hear that.”
“Yeah, I thought I would have been too. I don’t know Bobby. I just don’t know,” John said, sighing. Even in this vulnerable but safe place here in Bobby’s arms, he wasn’t sure if he could explain how he felt about this new development. It was complicated.
Time for a subject change. “How’s Justin doing?”
Bobby’s face darkened slightly, and his weight shifted. John could tell immediately that this wasn’t going to be good news.
“Justin… He’s alive, but he’s not doing too well. Kitty and Logan found him trapped under a huge mass of metal siding against a house. His face was mostly spared but he had a lot of 2nd degree and a couple small 3rd degree burns from being near the edge of that inferno, but his biggest problem was the wounds he had taken from the siding and the bullet they found in his shoulder. Justin lost a lot of blood and he’s still unconscious. He stabilized after they got him here, but-“ Bobby swallowed, biting his lip. “Doctor McCoy doesn’t understand why he hasn’t awoke yet. The Professor told me that it would be okay, but- God, I don’t know John… I’m sure he’ll be okay if the Professor said so. ”
John closed his eyes. He had done his best to get them out of there safely. They couldn’t have found a better opportunity. There was nothing more that John could have done, right? John couldn’t feel bad for this. For once he had done the right thing. Too bad it seemed that even when he did the right thing, he failed.
“Ahem.”
John’s eyes fluttered open. Dr. Grey was in the doorway, her lips pursed into a small, intrigued smile. Bobby looked like a deer caught in headlights. He quickly took a step away from John, a look of fear passing over his face.
“Uh, Dr. Grey! I mean Jean! Err, hi! Umm, I was just about to- uh, call you. John’s awake.” Bobby stammered.
John sighed. Oh fucking great. Bobby’s a closet case. Or embarrassed of being with John. Or who knows what else. Could anything else happen to complicate their relationship any further before it even started again? Bobby was probably going to go have a panic attack or do something equally lame.
“I need to do a check up on you, John, to make sure everything is all right. Bobby, since you are free for the afternoon, could you go find our patient some other clothes? He might be a little cold in this hospital gown. I think you may have some things lying around that might still fit.” Dr. Grey smiled, winking at Bobby. Bobby blushed furiously, and then nodded. He scampered off, leaving John alone with the redheaded telekine.
John eyed her suspiciously as she walked over to a movable table and retrieved a chart, a stethoscope and a few other medical instruments. It was weird seeing her walking around here. The Brotherhood had heard the news of her reappearance in the months after the San Francisco disasters, however John couldn’t help but feel more than a little freaked out. The woman had died twice for Christ’s sake! There was something just a little too unnatural about that, even if she was a mutant. It didn’t help that the last time John had been anywhere near her, she was a psychobitch who disintegrated anyone or anything that pissed her off. He was lucky someone had dragged him off Alcatraz before she’d really gone fucked and started tearing the place apart.
“How do you feel, John?” she asked, regarding him with the concerned smile that he remembered from years before. It wasn’t one he’d ever seen on the Phoenix.
“Fine. I had a bit of a headache when I woke up, but it’s passed,” John muttered. Dr. Grey nodded, writing a couple of notes onto the chart.
“I need to take your blood pressure, heart rate and temperature,” Jean explained as she handed him a digital thermometer. “Put this in your mouth.”
He felt fine. Why the hell did she want to do this crap now? John opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. “It’s either going in your mouth or in your rectum. Take your pick, and trust me, you don’t want to make me pick for you.”
“Fine,” John said resignedly, slipping the bulb of the thermometer under his tongue. Dr. Grey began to wrap the cuff of the sphygmomanometer around his arm, slipping the stethoscope underneath to listen to the blood pulsing through his brachial artery. After a few moments, she indicated she wanted the thermometer back and wrote his body temperature onto the chart. His usual 41 degrees Celsius.
“So, you and Bobby?” Dr. Grey queried as she began to pump air into the cuff of the sphygmomanometer. She began to take his blood pressure. John glared at her. She was a fairly powerful telepath and she walked in on them. Playing stupid wasn’t impressing him.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“About fifteen minutes, maybe.”
“Oh.”
“What the hell did you think, that I’ve been talking to him since Alkali Lake?”
“No, John. Just wondering. I thought I remember something from before… from when you came back after destroying a cure clinic-”
“Whatever.” John shook his head, looking down at his feet.
He had no fucking idea what she was talking about. He sure as hell hadn’t said one word to her when she was with the Brotherhood. Unless she’d been eavesdropping on his thoughts, she couldn’t have known anything. John had never said a damn thing to anyone about Bobby until he met Wanda when the Brotherhood began to recover from San Francisco.
Yeah, he remembered thinking about Bobby after the encounter at that cure clinic in New York. He’d jacked off in his tent, wondering what would have happened if Bobby had the guts to fight him right there in the middle of that crowd. The bitch in front of him had to have been telepathically eavesdropping, then.
John fixed her with a withering look.
Dr. Grey began letting air out of the cuff, staring him down through her dark-rimmed, high fashion glasses.
“No, John. Not whatever. I’m asking because I care about what happens to Bobby, and-.”
“I should leave him alone. Yeah, fuck you.”
“That’s not what I was going to say!”
“But you were thinking it,” John fumed. Back to reality. He was at Xavier’s. The place he left. The place where they couldn’t care less about him, where he’d be a fucking pariah until he got his ass out of here.
Dr. Grey sighed, shaking her head. “Bobby isn’t the only one I’m worried about. Just because you left doesn’t mean that we all decided to just forget you, John.”
“Spare me this bleeding heart bullshit, will you? I did what I thought I needed to do, and no one laid down a finger to try and stop me. Don’t try and tell me about how much you people cared. It’s a fucking insult to my intelligence that you think I’m that naive.
“I knew how it was going and I did what I thought was right, and for a while I believed in Magneto’s idealistic crap just as much as you people believe in Xavier’s. You were there with us when I believed it the most, in San Francisco. Not that you really seemed to be paying attention to all that much back then. I’m not going back to the Brotherhood, and I never intended to stay here either. The only reason I’m not walking out that door right now and giving you one huge-ass middle finger is because I have shit to take care of here first.”
“And that ‘shit’ involves someone that we all care deeply about. I’m not telling you to get out of here, St. John -not that you’d listen, anyway. I just want you to be careful. I don’t think any of us expected Bobby to- well, fall for another guy, but sometimes things happen that no one could have foreseen, like you leaving because you felt unwanted. And it wasn’t the case at all. Maybe I was too busy to see what was happening with you and how unhappy you were. Maybe I should have noticed what was really going on with the dynamic between you and Bobby before Alkali Lake. But we’re all human, John, and we all make mistakes we wish we could have prevented.
“I’m not saying that your relationship is good or bad; that’s for you two to find out. What I want is a promise from you that you won’t get him caught up in something with you, only to have you decide that you need to disappear somewhere or rejoin the Brotherhood. It would shatter him.”
“Like I said, I’m not going anywhere yet,” John repeated coldly. Why the fuck was he getting a lecture from her about something she had no business talking to him about. And why the fuck did she think she should be able to do it right after he fucking woke up?
Jean sighed, shaking her head and continuing. “It’s that ‘yet’ that I’m worried most about. Bobby’s not a person who really thinks of things in the temporary sense, and he doesn’t take well to big changes and hurts. Everything that happens in the now is forever to him.
“I’ve known you for six years now, John. I know that you have a good heart, even if you don’t show it often. I saw how you felt about what Magneto did to Mystique after she was cured. I saw a lot of things about you that you try to hide when I was with the Brotherhood, a lot of things I wish I had realized when you were still a student here. You might think that we all just forgot about you or hated you for making your choices, but a lot of us… we felt like we lost you. That it was our fault that you left. And really, I know it was. I can’t ever tell you how sorry I am for that.
“But there is one person who is even more sorry. Bobby. He’s never forgiven himself. He’s a lot more like you on the inside than a lot of people would like to think. He puts up a strong face, but the wounds still cut deep on the inside. He beats himself up on the inside over things he regrets just like you do. Bobby’s going to need to be able to turn to you for unquestioning support when he’s hurting, and you are going to have to be there for him unconditionally or you’ll lose him. Do you understand how big of a commitment that is, John?”
“You have no idea,” John replied, scowling.
“Don’t play around with his heart. You have to give yourself to him, all of you. Even the things you think should never see the light of day. For people like the two of you, nothing can be held back or it will never work. If you are serious about this, both of you, then you have my blessing,” Dr. Grey offered.
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my entire life,” John stated confidently, meeting her soft gaze with a challenging glare. She nodded, and a silence fell between them.
John didn’t know what to think of this -conversation? Lecture? Frankly, he didn’t want to think it was, even. He had enough shit to deal with just between Bobby and himself. He didn’t have time to care about what everyone else thought right now.
Dr. Grey pulled the cuff of the sphygmomanometer open and levitated it back to the nearby stand, and then set to work at removing the IV from his wrist. After swabbing the small puncture wound with alcohol, she wrote a few more things onto John’s chart and then looked up at the pyrokinetic.
“So, what’s the verdict? Am I fine?”
“It seems that way,” Dr. Grey replied with a tired sigh. “We think you were unconscious for so long because of the metabolic strain you put on your body fighting off Magneto the way you did. All that heat had to come from somewhere, and your body must have just given out from the metabolic shock.”
“So, you think I manifested a new ability too?” John asked, curious.
“Maybe. You’re baseline body temperature has always been higher than normal, and your normal increased baseline resistance to heat would suggest some sort of a linkage. You always used to heat up when you were using your powers heavily more than we expected for your physiological profile, but never anything like that. If you are up to it, Dr. McCoy would like to do a new genetic profile and a few other tests sometime soon.”
“How much will that tell you?”
“It should at least give us a better idea. If your x-factor gene cluster has undergone some form of change since we last profiled you four years ago, it might help explain a few things. If you remember from class, some mutants continue to undergo mutation, especially after their powers emerge. I don’t think anything unstable is happening, so I’m not going to force you to stay here for now. But the second you start feeling different or something weird starts to happen with your powers I want you to call for help, both vocally and mentally. No matter what, the safety of everyone else here is of prime importance. You know better than just about anyone what can happen when things get out of hand.”
“Yeah,” John said, rolling his eyes. Like he hadn’t heard this speech a billion times before when he was a student here.
“The Professor will want to see you later today. He’s teaching right now, but I’ll let him know that you are awake. Though, I’m sure he already knows,” Jean said, walking towards the door. “Once Bobby’s back with your clothes, you can head upstairs. We’re giving you free reign to wander about upstairs, but you have to stay inside for now. I’d keep a low profile, though. Not all the students will be as -um, welcoming- as Bobby has been, as I’m sure you’ve already assumed.”
John frowned slightly. They were letting him wander around? Were they on crack? Whatever. John wasn’t about to complain. But, he did have something else to worry about now, even if John didn’t feel like he should.
“Dr. Grey?”
“Yes John?”
“Can you please not tell anyone about Bobby and I? I get the feeling that he’s not ready for that just yet,” John asked quietly, looking down at his feet.
He didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought, but Bobby? Hell, John had never considered this problem until Bobby’s reaction a few minutes ago. Why would he have? He didn’t give a shit what other people thought of him. If they didn’t like it, they could kiss his ass.
Dr. Grey smiled with understanding. “Of course. You should know by now that I’m discreet about personal things like this. Besides, doctor-patient confidentiality dictates that what happens in the med lab stays in the med lab,” she said, heading for the door. “And John?”
“Yeah?”
“Welcome home.”