Amidst the Ruins

[Pyro]

”Well, this is more fucking like…” he starts before a brick wall slams into his chest, stealing the rest of the words and leaving him reeling as he’s not quite quick enough to totally elude Bobby’s – no, Iceman’s – mad lunge, somewhat distracted by the apparent change in his power (out of pure interest and some sort of self-preserving instinct, of course… nothing to do with his clothes shattering, or anything).

Iceman’s mutation does work slightly in his favour, however, slippery pre-natural flesh (is that the right word for something so obviously inhuman?) making it easier to shift out of his hold enough to ensure he can spark his lighter (sufficient concentration to maintain the fireball he had been tossing while being tackled naturally being something of a problem) before the floor decides to rush up and get in on the flesh-pressing. He knows full well that the flame probably won’t trouble Iceman too much – he didn’t melt last time, and it seems that Bobby has been spending time working on those powers since Alcatraz, so who knows what he’s packing now? – but whatever. Working it up to a flare with such intensity that seems to scorch the very air – and would more than scorch any normal flesh - comes naturally, after all. He can survive it, he knows – provided he maintains concentration, and consciousness – and so it’s just as easy to turn it on his opponent and envelop both tangled forms. No regrets, no holds barred… right?

Powers are easier than punches... for the moment, though he fully plans to launch a more physical barrage. Becuase obviously the fact that's so much more personal and direct is a good thing when you're trying to kill someone?

[Bobby Drake]

> "Well, this is more fucking like --"

Their collision forces the breath from John -- no, Pyro's -- lungs as the last of Bobby's street-clothes fall apart into brittle fragments, but he hardly notices through his armor. He scowls as he follows through, slamming his opponent into the floor: is it really going to be that easy?

Well, great, he thinks. Easy is good. And when I'm done here maybe it's time for the X-Men to go after the new, headcount-reduced Brotherhood. I bet whatsisname, the new telepath, can find out their HQ from Johnny-boy's head.

That had been their mistake, he realizes. Not just after Alcatraz, but before... and before Alkali Lake, too. They just sat back and waited, and trained, and waited some more. All defense, no offense. The Professor and Magneto used to be friends, according to Institute scuttlebutt... maybe that's why he never went after them... but things are different now.

(A small voice in the back of his head tries to remind him that defense isn't just a tactic, it's an ethos... and that the willingness to go on the offensive is exactly what separated Mageto's Brotherhood from Xavier's X-Men. He isn't listening.)

Then the bar explodes around him, around both of them... a conflagration that consumes the furniture and chars the air itself, and he can feel his armor evaporating away in the superheated air. Just for a second, before he calls it back around him, but that's long enough to drop him to the ground, make him lose his grip.

"Oh, good." He hardly recognizes his own voice, scalded by the air and twisted by rage (though, where did all that rage come from, anyway? wasn't he trying to convince Johnny not to fight, once upon a time, a few minutes ago? The same little voice tries to warn him that he's running perilously close to the edge, and may be about to do things there's no undoing... but he already knows that.)

"Not gonna make it easy after all... gonna make me work for it? Great." The fireball had put him down, but it wasn't nearly enough to take him out. Even if his powers still need a second to recharge, he's got all he needs to wipe that smug grin off Johnny's face without them. He doesn't even get up, doesn't spare the wind for any more banter, just lashes out with an ice-booted leg at his opponent's crotch. Smooth, hard, fast, just like Logan taught him.

Sure, powers are great... but sometimes skin against skin is just more satisfying.

[Pyro]

The flame shatters as yet again he loses the ability to breathe (for slightly longer this time) and for a moment or two, if his attention was not focused elsewhere, he’d have remembered what fire was like for everyone else. In the movies bad guys get kicked in the nuts and just smile as the hero’s foot is crippled… but this is real life, where anyone other than 96-year-old, blind, Kung-Fu masters is reduced to a squealing bitch (the ironic thing is, about 4 years after they acquire the skill of being able to absorb nut pain, they die, only proving that developing your brain to the point where you can over come nut pain isn’t natural) and Pyro is definitely not a 96 year old Kung-Fu master… though the blindness isn’t too far from the truth, because nothing much exists other than how much it fucking hurts, given that he didn’t just get a nice soft human foot to that area…

He doesn’t notice the floor rushing up again, for example, or the dull thud of contact which will probably be more of a problem in the long time once he gains enough consciousness to notice something minor like a concussion next to far more important impairments.

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby blinks as his kick strikes home and Pyro's eyes roll up into his head, and the thought Wow. Logan's right, that really does work! flashes through his head, before the fireball shatters and a wall of heat strikes him.

Without an active will directing it it's nowhere near as strong as the first one, thankfully, since Bobby's ice-sheath hasn't had a chance to harden all the way. Another blast like the first one would have left third-degree burns all over his body, and as it is this one is enough to sublimate his armor again and knock him on his ass.

He panics for a moment at the thought of Pyro following up the advantage, scrambles to his feet quickly through the sudden cloud of steam. The last few fragments of his brittle sneakers fall apart in shards as he backpedals, and he tries to suppress a scream as a two-inch-long splinter from the bar's wooden floor drives deep into the heel of his right foot. He isn't entirely successful -- it hurts like a sonofabitch, after all -- but the idea of screaming at getting a splinter while going toe-to-toe against the Brotherhood is just too absurd to consider.

A moment later, Bobby stares incredulously through the fading steam as Pyro bounces off the bar floor, HARD. He doesn't think about it before following through instinctively, pinning the lighter-bearing arm to the floor with a spray of ice as he straddles the semiconscious Pyro and cocks back a fist to finish this, just like he did back on Alcatraz.

Just before he handed his best friend over to the government.

And suddenly it's Johnny lying there, because Pyro doesn't whimper like that, Pyro doesn't lose control of his flame enough to singe his own hair and clothes. And Bobby just can't do it again, not now that he knows, and the fist drops to his side.

"Fuck, John... how did we come to this?"

[Pyro]

Eyes roll back out of his skull and… fuck. Every inch (*ahem*) is screaming serious genital trauma… There’s a strange cold pressure on his wrists… and Bobby (semi-naked Bobby, all wide-eyed and dishevelled like the hero of a bad romance novel) is straddling him…

”Handcuffs, Bob?” he grins darkly (the debauched villain of the piece, no doubt), his words slightly slurred (hmm… is he drunk? That might explain things) ”Should Rogue be worried? Or do all the bad guys get this treatment?”

But he’s still fully clothed… sort of…

Fuck.

He tenses, ready to throw Iceman off, though he can’t because he’s still pinned between those legs. They were fighting, weren’t they? That explains things. He must have hit his head along with everything else…

Now the restraints make sense… though the rest of him isn’t quite listening to his head. He can’t claim anything as pure and noble as the heart is directing his actions either, really… though wherever it is in control he has no doubt it is an upstanding citizen…

Yep, upstanding. Which is sickening, because Pyro’s never done the vulnerable thing like this (John has, though those experiences hardly make this less disturbing for whichever of his personalities is currently in charge) and it’s not meant to be Bobby screwing him over literally or metaphorically.

Well, he might be at Drake’s mercy, but damned if he’s going to be helpless along with it. Not his style. Given Bobby’s reaction to his earlier, far less direct, references this isn’t a bad plan, really… hopefully he’ll panic and make a mistake, so they can get back to fighting. Because obviously working himself free is the more desirable outcome. ”Which part” John – dark eyed runaway John, who’s next meal depends on nailing wantonness enough to successfully and safely nail something else – asks, grin darkening still further, sliding as far as he can and forcing his hips up into Bobby Iceman’s to drive the point home (necessary, he tells himself. A necessary sacrifice. Yes) ”are we talking about, Bobby? Which point in this whole sordid fucking tale have we come to, exactly?”

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby tenses as John returns to consciousness, not sure what happens next. Sure, his lighter is safely bound away... but the walls are still smouldering, and that might be enough for him to use.

He tries to be ready for anything. John attempts to struggle free, and Bobby keeps him pinned with his legs.

Ready for anything.

Except he's not ready for those eyes... or that smile... certainly not ready for --

That did not just happen.
John did not just --
That isn't his --
He isn't --
I'm not --
No.

John had tried that trick once before, to distract him. He was just... escalating.
That's all.

And Bobby isn't responding.
He isn't.
He's just. Excited. Because of the fight.
That's all.

"GodDAMmit, John, that isn't funny." The anger is easier to reach this time, and Bobby's fist is frosting over as he grabs the front of John's shirt, yanks him off the ash-covered floor.

He can feel heat leeching out of the shirt, crystallizing the fabric. Part of him wants to suck the heat out of flesh and bone, as well. Part of him wants to stop, remembering how the last time he reached for that anger it ended with John whimpering and bouncing off the floor in a way he doesn't ever want to think about.

He doesn't want to be there again. He doesn't. But the anger is cold and cleansing... or at least numbing... or at least distracting.

He'll settle for distracting. It keeps him from noticing what John is doing, and how it feels, and how much he wants to -- he yanks again harder, and John's shirt shatters in fragments in his hand, a deceptively gentle tinkling followed by a sickeningly familar thud as his head falls back against the floor... not so hard this time, but enough to remember.

And just like that, the anger is gone.
And John keeps. Doing. That.

"Stop it!"
And he's no longer sure which of them he's talking to, because he's doing it too, and he's not sure how long it's been... hours? Days? Surely long enough for John to free himself.
But he can't bring himself to care.

Dammit, it wasn't supposed to be like this, he thinks, and is horrified to hear the words coming out of his mouth, the same needy little voice he keeps thinking he'd drowned.

"It wasn't." He's moving in the same rhythm now, and the words come out of his chest like grunts, with every thrust.
"Supposed."
"To."
"Be."
"Like."
"Like..."

In the end he's not sure what the last words ripped out of his chest actually were, or even whether they were really words at all, and not just some kind of inarticulate sound.

It's better that way, really. Because if they're the words he's afraid they might be, and he heard them, he'd have to do something about it.

And he's not ready for that. And might never be.

So he just looks down at the flushed, sweaty face looking back up at him, knowing that despite being stronger, faster, and in better control of his powers, somehow he's lost the fight that matters. And he waits, exhausted and helpless and spent, for the blow that will end it.

[Pyro]

Fuck, no. Bobby’s not supposed to…

But he is.
No mistaking that
Oh fuck, is that his…?
He’s not supposed to…

That isn’t the response John wanted expected should have got. Bobby’s rock-steady when he should be a gibbering wreck, has fallen into the rhythm that should have sent him off the rails.

No matter. John’s just going to have to try harder, that’s all. Bobby’s got to have a breaking point… it’ll just take a bit more to reach it. Which is why he’s grinding back harder, pulling Bobby closer, digging claw-like fingers deeper. Why the friction is building, why he’s slick and filled with fire. It’s not about pleasure; it’s about obliteration, proving that Bobby can be broken and that he can still break him – anything less, he tells himself as Bobby shatters, anything other than that would be admitting he cared enough to stay his hand. This is the spoils of victory he’s tasting, not white light and stars dissolved in brine.

It’s solid enough reasoning for his needs, holds good for the few empty seconds and plugs the gap as the world recedes. After that it doesn’t matter, he’s beyond thought, any words that might contradict the lie lost as he buries himself in the flesh stretched above him, teeth drawing blood, hands fisting.

”Fuck”

It’s barely a whisper, the end snatched away in a laugh as he catches his breath. The laugh deepens, spiralling twisted and manic, because he’s pulled it off. He might have lost control, sure, but he’s won (and doesn’t letting go always produce the best result?), he’s actually fucking won.

That damn smile is still there as he slides against the shaking, spent husk of his opponent again – ”You’re sick, Drake.” – and this time drives his knees up, not caring what he hits as it’s the momentum that matters, knocking enough space that he can flip free…

… or, at least, end up on top.

Not, he tells himself, in the plan. No. Definitely not… which is why he’s stunned enough not to immediately react.

[Bobby Drake]

It's not that he didn't see the move coming, Bobby realizes as John drives his knees up, flipping them both over, slamming him against the familiar floor. He'd left an opening and John took advantage of it, and Bobby isn't surprised by that at all anymore.

And it's not that he's letting it happen, exactly. He is, but he doesn't remember deciding to, and that has to count for something, right?

It's just... happening.

> "You’re sick, Drake."

It's not the first time he's heard that in the last few months, but it's the first time someone else's voice has said it, and somehow that's different. Because on the one hand it's funny coming from John, who isn't exactly the poster child for mental health himself.

But on the other hand, it isn't really the coming from that's at issue here, is it?

He really doesn't know what he was expecting. Hell, he doesn't even know what he got... that laugh, that smile, the way John moved, it all seemed to mean something, but none of it seems to mean the same thing, even from moment to moment.

It was like one of those stupid stereohologram posters in the mall... nothing much there when you look at it normally, but if you throw your eyes out of whack just so and stare long enough you see something that might not even be there at all.

He remembers a quote from a Heinlein novel he read a long time ago: "It's amazing how often mature wisdom resembles being too tired." Well, Bobby knows he isn't mature or wise, so maybe he's just too tired. Because all of a sudden he's not trying to defend himself anymore, and he's not trying to reach out to an old friend who may or may not even exist. He's just there, willing to experience whatever's about to happen next.

"Yeah... I think I might be." Not for the first time in the last however-long-it's-been (his brain is offering suggestions ranging from 'about two minutes' to 'the better part of a lifetime'), Bobby is surprised by his own voice. It's not the needy voice he's been embarassed by so many times, it's not angry, it's not bitter. It, too, is just there.

"So tell me, John: what's your excuse?"

[Pyro]

“Excuse?”

The smile is gone, replaced by an uneasy confusion; the wary quality of a wild animal disturbed mid-kill by a human, all downcast darting eyes and stunned silence from lips frozen at the instant before speech. What the hell is Bobby on about, and what, more importantly, can he say to that?

In the end – and it feels like an age, though the reality can only have been at most a few seconds – John reacts the way he always does to things which confuse him; reduce everything down to simple declarative lines, stop thinking and just burn away. Or in this case, slice, his hand reaching not for his lighter (a move that he’ll probably regret later, once he starts thinking in anything beyond instinct again) but the less familiar switchblade, which he brandishes with a sharp flick before pressing the blade to Bobby’s throat, teasing enough of a crimson bead that he’ll remember without a permanent reminder being written up. Their faces are now just inches apart, though John's attention seems less on Bobby than focused with a childlike intensity - bit tongue and everything - on the blade itself. Because fuck everything else, this ends now. And if it has to end, intimate and messy just seems appropriate.

I’m the Bad Guy here, Bobby-boy. Don’t need any grand reason to fuck a little hero over”

[Bobby Drake]

Still a bit woozy from the flame and the fall and... everything, Bobby just watches John's face, trying to make sense of the cascade of expression on it. At least that irritating smirk is gone, and that's got to be a point in Bobby's favor, right?

Not that anybody's keeping score, he thinks to himself, despite knowing perfectly well that John so is.

So he doesn't notice what John's hands are doing until there's already a sharp cold prick at his throat and John's face is inches away from his. Bobby's not exactly sure what it is, but it feels an awful lot like a knife, and from the fascinated expression on John's face and the pain in his throat, Bobby's guessing there's blood on it.

His blood.

Shit, he might actually kill me! It's an absurd thought, considering John's already tried more than once, but somehow it's different this time. This time it's just Bobby lying half-naked and filthy on the floor of a burned-out bar, and John's weight pressing him down with a knife at his throat, and there's nothing in the least bit fantastic about any of it and somehow that makes it much more real, and Bobby's scared in a way he's never been scared in his life.

He's pretty sure if he tries to dodge or armor up that knife will slice him open before he gets half-started. And somehow he doubts the stunt John used to distract him when their positions were reversed would work, even if he had any fight left in him, which he doesn't.

So it's a bit of a surprise to him when his mouth opens, and even more of one to hear himself echoing John's sarcastic comments of a few minutes earlier: "'Bad Guy', John? 'Hero'? Has your new bucket-headed Daddy been telling you this is real?"

He can't believe he's egging on a man with a knife to his throat, it's the kind of thing he'd expect Logan to do. Of course, Logan has that convenient healing factor, not to mention the indestructible pants. When Bobby dies, he's pretty sure he stays dead. But he still isn't shutting up.

"'Hero.' Jeez. You think a real hero would've... would've done what we just did? You think a real hero would be ready to piss his pants right now from fear? Try going after Logan like this, see how far you get. "

It occurs to Bobby that spitting in John's face right now would be appropriate... isn't that how these scenes always go in movies? Or at least look John straight in the eye, or at least if he could stop shivering and crying and straining to pull his chin away from that knife like a squealing pig. That's the thing, really... characters in movies aren't so soulcrushingly scared.

" Except you aren't near ready for that, are you John? Because a real 'bad guy' would've killed me by now, would plunge that knife in and enjoy my blood gushing all over his hand, don't you think? Wouldn't just be staring at his knife like that. It just isn't that easy, John... this here is just a scared little kid stupid enough to fall for the wrong guy, and if you think it's some kind of hero/villain thing just because we have mutant powers you're even more screwed up than me."

It does occur to Bobby that at least he's talking a good fight, even if he is sorta babbling mindlessly. Logan might be proud of that. Of course, he probably wouldn't be saying any of this if he thought he had a chance of surviving.

Besides, it's not like anyone's going to know what my last words were anyway, he thinks. Except John

[Pyro]

< Bad Guy', John? 'Hero'? Has your new bucket-headed Daddy been telling you this is real?
He doesn’t need to hear what Bobby has to say just now. Not when he’s doing so well. Because he know he could end this now, he could. Really. He’s just… taking his time, that’s all. Savouring the moment, or something. Which is why when the blade slides free of Bobby’s neck for a moment it’s not a fumble, just, erm, repositioning. Why the sudden slight intake of breath at that slip, as the cut widens beyond his careful thread, is not born of concern or shock but of disappointment that he’s not done it quite right first time (which makes sense. For a first time, he’s doing well. He just wishes he didn’t need these stupid pep-talks, which for some reason all come out sounding like old Bucket Head). It’s all real. The blade, the blood, the fact he’s half naked and fully spent and the things they’ve just done which are the reason for that. It’s all real (and he’s not going to admit that it’s the reality which scares him).

< Hero.' Jeez. You think a real hero would've... would've done what we just did? You think a real hero would be ready to piss his pants right now from fear?
He doesn’t want to listen. Because the lines are still there, and nothing Bobby can say will make any difference. Nothing. There’s a barbed wire fence along the line. A big one. One that can’t be torn down. Not even by ice. Especially not by ice. And Bobby deserves everything he’s getting for straying into that wire. It’s himself he’s crucified… John’s just hammering in the nails. As is only right and proper because that’s how things work (what they don’t tell you is that sometimes things don’t work. Some things are just broken, and don’t ever do what they should. Some things are fucked up beyond repair)

< Except you aren't near ready for that, are you John? Because a real 'bad guy' would've killed me by now, would plunge that knife in and enjoy my blood gushing all over his hand, don't you think? Wouldn't just be staring at his knife like that. It just isn't that easy, John...
… Okay, maybe he could listen. Not because he wants to stop, but, erm, because it gives him… the edge. Yeah. Because although he doesn’t need driving on (hmm.. maybe he should have rephrased that, same way Bobby shouldn’t have mentioned gushing all over his hand… And no, that’s, erm, bloodlust doing.. that. Not any other sort of excitement. Definitely nothing to do with Bobby gushing) – because he is going to kill Bobby, to end this all right here, right now, in the ashes of everything they ever were, so to speak – it can’t hurt to let the things Bobby says steel him a little, make him all the more determined to do the damn deed already, both to prove to himself that Bobby doesn’t know him at all even though he’s pretending (yep, clearly pretending. No truth in the matter whatsoever) to be getting inside his head and everything… and because everything he says makes John hate him more because he refuses to accept that he’s not the boy Bobby thinks he knew, never will be, and probably never was (And no, dammit, he’s not sorry. Doesn’t regret a thing. Why the hell would he want to be something special for Drake?). It’s the same thing Magneto does with his memories, same thing he’d want Pyro to do with his time at the DMCD… and somehow comparing Bobby to that helps, because those aren’t really images which inspire what they so nearly just did.

Bobby’s right about one thing though; this isn’t easy. Bashing the hell out of each other with superpowers was simple, because no matter how well-adjusted they both were to the ‘reality’ of superpowers / metahumans / homo superior / whatever it still didn’t feel real. Whereas this… no escaping how real it is, how raw and visceral (which, he tells himself, is definitely a good thing. A proper close, knowing for real that Bobby is dead and the old John along with him… if he can just make himself take that step). How blurry the edges become when you haven’t got teams and costumes and…

Fuck, John. Stop it. Just hold yourself together until this is all over…

< this here is just a scared little kid stupid enough to fall for the wrong guy
So much for holding things together, because Drake has outdone himself. That, my friends, is an a-bomb and a half.

Bobby’s early declaration, which he’s spent half his time agonising over twisting into something else and half trying not to think about, didn’t have anywhere near as much force… and look where that got them. And while he wants to pass this off as one of those ‘hey, I’m going to die so I wanted you to know…’ things, because everything else so far has been easy enough to pass off as just one cliché after another, it’s just not working that way. (Irony, of course, has a hand in things; all night, it seems, he’s been mocking Bobby’s abject terror at the idea of them being ike that, and now that the tables are turned he’s absolutely fucking terrified).

This is all… wrong. Very very wrong. Definitely not supposed to end up like this, because people don’t ‘fall for’ Pyro. They might have fallen for a dark-eyed child who’s somewhere in the schitzophrenic mess he calls history. Someone might even have ‘dug’ the Institute’s resident Bad Ass… but now? No. People do not get attached to flame, only to flesh, cold dead grey stuff.

The blade’s clattered to the floor what feels like an age before, and it’s his fist which makes contact, trying to pound wet chunks of Bobby into the floor, though even then it’s just the one and he has no idea where it lands or if it even hits home because things are in some sort of turbo-fast-forward and he’s on his feet and, fuck, he’s actually pacing. Still there aren’t any words, which doesn’t exactly help matters because he’s not used to dealing with anything too serious to dismiss with a throwaway line.

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Feel free to take the last word, P, or you can leave it here if you prefer... either way, I think we can declare this thread wrapped. Dunno 'bout you but I think it rocked. Woot! ))

Bobby has wondered whether he'd die well. Morbid, sure, but when you're an X-Man it comes with the territory, especially lately.

Miss Grey hadn't. Sure, everyone talks about her heroic sacrifice and everything, and even Bobby isn't enough of an asshole to argue with them, but she could have let Storm lift her off the ground while she dealt with the water and the plane, the first time... and Bobby isn't sure the second time counts, but even if it does there's got to be better ways to suicide than making your teammate skewer you. As for the others, he hadn't seen it happen but his guess is Cyclops was hysterical and the Professor was calm.

So, one good death out of three... sucky odds. But somehow Bobby always thought he'd go out like he imagined the Professor had... calm and heroic. So when John's blade slices against his throat, and he learns just exactly how wrong he was, it's a disappointment. The least he could do is look John in the eye when it happens, right? You should look a man in the eye when he kills you, not shut your eyes and cringe.

But at least he's not pleading, not begging, not making little whimpery noises. That's something, right? Hell, he's even giving a defiant little speech, his mouth is going on autopilot, and how the hell is he even talking with his throat slashed open?

(A part of his mind, a cool rational part that sounds a little bit like Logan, points out that John missed. The rest of his mind puts off processing that information until he finds out what death is like. Later, when Bobby thinks about it, this will seem funny.)

> "this here is just a scared little kid stupid enough to fall for the wrong guy"

The words coming out of his mouth surprise him, but it's John's reaction that blows his mind, because all at once he thinks he gets it, understands what's going on behind those eyes. Understands that he's described more than just himself... but also understands, maybe for the first time, that while John isn't gone Pyro isn't just a name. And, much as he wishes it were right now, neither is Iceman. They're real people, but they're also playing roles, and when the chips are counted at the end of the evening maybe it's the roles that matter more.

John's punch comes as something of a relief, keeps him from having to think... but that doesn't last nearly long enough, and John doesn't follow up on it, and pretty soon Bobby has no excuse for lying on the floor like this. So he stands up. His hand moves to his throat, half-expecting to find it slit and disappointed to find nothing but a shallow cut. His hand comes back bloody, which somehow seems appropriate.

And then he's facing John, and all at once his voice works again. "When you get tired of drowning, John," he hears himself saying, his own voice sounding strange in his ears, "you know where I live." He touches John's chest for a second, leaving a red handprint there, then turns around and walks to the door.

He knows that next time, Pyro will probably try to kill him again. And he'll fight back. And some day the odds will catch up to one of them, or someone standing nearby. And he knows none of that changes what he said, or the fact that he meant every word.

It just means the most important word was "wrong."