Post by Pyro on Dec 5, 2006 18:24:33 GMT -5
John had not slept at all well, waking from a nightmare drenched in his own sweat and shivering violently. He couldn't even remember the specifics of the dream, but whatever it had been had left him feeling weak, vulnerable, a little afraid and more than anything, lonely. He'd gotten so used to Mystique in his bed, comforting him silently if he woke in the night that when he realised she wasn't there, the feeling of loneliness intensified.
He padded down to the office and tried to get his emotions sorted out by writing something, but even creativity didn't take away how he felt. And he couldn't quite figure out how that was. Displaced, he thought. The dynamic on the island had changed again and the sense of threat he felt from Lucas' presence was clearly bothering him more than he openly admitted.
It was not quite dawn when he headed outside to walk on the beach.
Dharma sat in the form of a small black primate on the corner post of the temple he had recently completed. Busily eating a tiny citrus fruit, his gloss-black eyes watched Pyro move out of the main compound and onto the sand path headed to the beach.
“Good evening, Pyro.” The smooth, deep voice of the man they knew as Dharma came evenly through the mouth of the black monkey overhead.
Holy.
Crap.
The monkey was talking to him.
In his semi-awake, lost in thought self, Pyro wondered if this was it, that he had finally lost his tenuous grip on reality completely. That he would be doomed to spend eternity jabbering away in some made-up monkey language. However, his more...rational self...kicked back in and he realised that the voice didn't belong to the monkey at all, but to Dharma.
The moment of panic fled and Pyro couldn't stop the sigh of relief that escaped his lips.
"Evening, morning, I don't even know what time of day it is half the time," he said, with a smile. "Hi, Dharma. Things are coming along well here. Uh. How've you been?"
“I am,” he said simply. “You are agitated again. Would you like some company?”
"Am I really that damn obvious?" It was a rhetorical question, and Pyro ran his hand through his hair. "D'you, know, I would like some company."
He moved across and sat down, cross-legged on the sand. "Damn, I'm so tired," he muttered. "Messes with my head when I can't sleep, Dharma. Makes me less able to focus."
The Dharma monkey jumped down from the roof and landed in the sand with a soft thud. In its place sprouted the tall figure of Dharma the man, black robes shot through by the scarlet length of silk around his waist. He looked at Pyro, and turned towards the temple’s doorless entry, stepping up the wooden stairs. “Come, we’ll have tea.”
Sand shifted over the green-brown wood, the stone and jade idol against the back wall, soft pillows placed here and there, and a small table near a stone fireplace, all details simple, yet carefully hand carved into traditional designs.
Dharma put an iron teapot on the table and ran his finger around the lid. Smoke suddenly drifted from its spout, and he opened a tin of tea to spoon several mounds of flaky black leaves into the pot.
“What is it that has changed since last we spoke?”
John followed Dharma inside the temple, taking a seat amidst the pillows. He watched the other man prepare tea, finding the simple act oddly calming to watch. When Dharma asked his question, he considered his answer carefully.
"Many things have changed," he said, thinking of them in his head. "I left the island and went back out into what we should loosely call 'the real world'. Mystique is...not here again and that's unsettled me. I brought back a couple of old friends...and acquaintances. Everything just feels...different, y'know? Guess I don't do so well with change."
Dharma sat across from the young man with his legs crossed, and rested his hands on his knees, regarding Pyro with his peculiar brand of gaze; placid, calm as ever, asking nothing and communicating nothing.
“It seems to me your life requires rapid adjustment to change. You have three choices.” He didn’t expand, moving two small porcelain cups to either side of the small table and slowly pouring them both tea.
"Three choices?"
John reached forward to accept his tea with a brief murmured word of thanks and sat back. "OK, I'm tired and out of sorts. Enlighten me, would you?"
Dharma sipped his own tea, the cup perfectly nestled in the curve of four long fingers. “In any circumstance, you have three choices. You can change the situation to suit you, you can change yourself to suit the situation, or you can do nothing.”
“Give me your first answer, without thinking it over. Which would you do?”
"My first answer?" Pyro shrugged. "Change myself to suit the situation - but like you said, that's without thinking it over."
He didn't like giving that answer, but it was his gut reaction.
He sipped at the tea and felt the calmness of Dharma's presence start to filter through to him.
Dharma nodded slowly, the motion ebbing away after a moment, and he sipped his tea.
He’d answered from his gut and had chosen what seemed like the correct answer. Dharma knew the true and only answer was to do nothing. It was only Pyro’s reactions to the situations around him, not the situations themselves or Pyro’s actions that were the problem. He had only to release himself from the labyrinth of his ego to see that come or gone, living or dead, the people around him and himself were the same fundamentally from one moment to the next. Pyro need do nothing to change his situation- only to see it for what it was.
Dharma remained silent, allowing the ritual of shared tea bring its own conclusions.
The silence initially made John uncomfortable, and then he realised that Dharma was giving him the opportunity to think about the question. He sipped at his tea and closed his eyes briefly, trying to remember all the meditation lessons Dharma had given him, trying to find his inner balance. Right now, his inner balance was haywire, but as he concentrated, slowly he came back towards some sort of equilibrium.
"Do nothing," he said eventually, softly. "It's hard, though, Dharma. Things don't feel...I don't know. They don't feel right somehow."
He had listened to Dharma in the past, it seemed. But Pyro was so far from slowing down enough to realize the truth in his answer that Dharma did not pursue it further.
“You lack an organized mind. You put all of what you perceive is good and all of what you perceive is bad in the same bowl. How can you then see how one outweighs the other? It becomes gray, all of it.” He tilted his head a bit and looked at Pyro.
“Has it come to your mind that perhaps it is only your perception of events, and not the events themselves, that are the problem?”
"That, or..." John considered. "Maybe having Dom and Gracie here has just brought back a lot of memories that I'm still not..." He swallowed. "I'm still not well enough to face up to. You know yourself how much of my past life I've deliberately sealed up, how much Emma Frost corrupted...."
He dropped back into silence and finished his tea, closing his eyes again. "I'm feeling Mystique's absence," he said, softly. "She's been...more help to me than anything I've ever known. It just feels odd being alone again. Between you and me, being alone has never sat well with me. Y'know? Not just alone, but lonely. Even at the children's home, where there were always loads of other kids around, I was lonely."
“Love is an emotion that changes us greatly,” he began, refilling both their cups with tea. “You have learned what that can be between two people. A certain amount of careful trust. People who know you, not just know of you.”
“So you have changed greatly since coming here, since knowing Mystique. And these people who have come here are from your past. You are seeing both sides of yourself, polarized. You feel you need to reconcile them.”
“Do you believe Emma Frost’s work with you is impeding that process?”
Love.
There it was, that word that he had such difficulty with. Was it so hard to say the words out loud? That he loved Mystique?
He knew he could never tell her, that he was too afraid of her reaction.
At the mention of Emma's name, John scowled briefly. "I don't know. I can't criticise her Dharma, not really - she stopped me from losing my mind altogether. But it's like...she's locked away parts of my memory in inaccessible areas. And I'm almost...afraid to open those doors, scared of what will come out."
He thanked Dharma for the tea and drew the cup to him. "How is it that you help me see myself so well?"
Dharma had heard the question many times. “Because I do not put my own ideas onto the reflection you see. I only help you see the path you’ve already put beneath your feet.”
“I don’t believe you should fear those places, Pyro. Neither should you open them wide. You must grow to understand what is here and now for what it is- neither good nor bad, simply here. And move about them with that understanding. You are not accustomed to the control you now possess. But you must become so. You know this.”
"I have been much more settled of late," said John, quietly, after a few more moments thinking. "And maybe that is why new people arriving, the way things suddenly got more crowded and busy...it's just knocked me off course. All I have to do is put myself back into that feeling, back into the sense of being settled and in control..."
He smiled, feeling much better for the first time since he'd woken, whimpering, bathed in sweat a couple of hours ago. "I can do that. And as for those...scary places...I'll deal with them one at a time."
He padded down to the office and tried to get his emotions sorted out by writing something, but even creativity didn't take away how he felt. And he couldn't quite figure out how that was. Displaced, he thought. The dynamic on the island had changed again and the sense of threat he felt from Lucas' presence was clearly bothering him more than he openly admitted.
It was not quite dawn when he headed outside to walk on the beach.
Dharma sat in the form of a small black primate on the corner post of the temple he had recently completed. Busily eating a tiny citrus fruit, his gloss-black eyes watched Pyro move out of the main compound and onto the sand path headed to the beach.
“Good evening, Pyro.” The smooth, deep voice of the man they knew as Dharma came evenly through the mouth of the black monkey overhead.
Holy.
Crap.
The monkey was talking to him.
In his semi-awake, lost in thought self, Pyro wondered if this was it, that he had finally lost his tenuous grip on reality completely. That he would be doomed to spend eternity jabbering away in some made-up monkey language. However, his more...rational self...kicked back in and he realised that the voice didn't belong to the monkey at all, but to Dharma.
The moment of panic fled and Pyro couldn't stop the sigh of relief that escaped his lips.
"Evening, morning, I don't even know what time of day it is half the time," he said, with a smile. "Hi, Dharma. Things are coming along well here. Uh. How've you been?"
“I am,” he said simply. “You are agitated again. Would you like some company?”
"Am I really that damn obvious?" It was a rhetorical question, and Pyro ran his hand through his hair. "D'you, know, I would like some company."
He moved across and sat down, cross-legged on the sand. "Damn, I'm so tired," he muttered. "Messes with my head when I can't sleep, Dharma. Makes me less able to focus."
The Dharma monkey jumped down from the roof and landed in the sand with a soft thud. In its place sprouted the tall figure of Dharma the man, black robes shot through by the scarlet length of silk around his waist. He looked at Pyro, and turned towards the temple’s doorless entry, stepping up the wooden stairs. “Come, we’ll have tea.”
Sand shifted over the green-brown wood, the stone and jade idol against the back wall, soft pillows placed here and there, and a small table near a stone fireplace, all details simple, yet carefully hand carved into traditional designs.
Dharma put an iron teapot on the table and ran his finger around the lid. Smoke suddenly drifted from its spout, and he opened a tin of tea to spoon several mounds of flaky black leaves into the pot.
“What is it that has changed since last we spoke?”
John followed Dharma inside the temple, taking a seat amidst the pillows. He watched the other man prepare tea, finding the simple act oddly calming to watch. When Dharma asked his question, he considered his answer carefully.
"Many things have changed," he said, thinking of them in his head. "I left the island and went back out into what we should loosely call 'the real world'. Mystique is...not here again and that's unsettled me. I brought back a couple of old friends...and acquaintances. Everything just feels...different, y'know? Guess I don't do so well with change."
Dharma sat across from the young man with his legs crossed, and rested his hands on his knees, regarding Pyro with his peculiar brand of gaze; placid, calm as ever, asking nothing and communicating nothing.
“It seems to me your life requires rapid adjustment to change. You have three choices.” He didn’t expand, moving two small porcelain cups to either side of the small table and slowly pouring them both tea.
"Three choices?"
John reached forward to accept his tea with a brief murmured word of thanks and sat back. "OK, I'm tired and out of sorts. Enlighten me, would you?"
Dharma sipped his own tea, the cup perfectly nestled in the curve of four long fingers. “In any circumstance, you have three choices. You can change the situation to suit you, you can change yourself to suit the situation, or you can do nothing.”
“Give me your first answer, without thinking it over. Which would you do?”
"My first answer?" Pyro shrugged. "Change myself to suit the situation - but like you said, that's without thinking it over."
He didn't like giving that answer, but it was his gut reaction.
He sipped at the tea and felt the calmness of Dharma's presence start to filter through to him.
Dharma nodded slowly, the motion ebbing away after a moment, and he sipped his tea.
He’d answered from his gut and had chosen what seemed like the correct answer. Dharma knew the true and only answer was to do nothing. It was only Pyro’s reactions to the situations around him, not the situations themselves or Pyro’s actions that were the problem. He had only to release himself from the labyrinth of his ego to see that come or gone, living or dead, the people around him and himself were the same fundamentally from one moment to the next. Pyro need do nothing to change his situation- only to see it for what it was.
Dharma remained silent, allowing the ritual of shared tea bring its own conclusions.
The silence initially made John uncomfortable, and then he realised that Dharma was giving him the opportunity to think about the question. He sipped at his tea and closed his eyes briefly, trying to remember all the meditation lessons Dharma had given him, trying to find his inner balance. Right now, his inner balance was haywire, but as he concentrated, slowly he came back towards some sort of equilibrium.
"Do nothing," he said eventually, softly. "It's hard, though, Dharma. Things don't feel...I don't know. They don't feel right somehow."
He had listened to Dharma in the past, it seemed. But Pyro was so far from slowing down enough to realize the truth in his answer that Dharma did not pursue it further.
“You lack an organized mind. You put all of what you perceive is good and all of what you perceive is bad in the same bowl. How can you then see how one outweighs the other? It becomes gray, all of it.” He tilted his head a bit and looked at Pyro.
“Has it come to your mind that perhaps it is only your perception of events, and not the events themselves, that are the problem?”
"That, or..." John considered. "Maybe having Dom and Gracie here has just brought back a lot of memories that I'm still not..." He swallowed. "I'm still not well enough to face up to. You know yourself how much of my past life I've deliberately sealed up, how much Emma Frost corrupted...."
He dropped back into silence and finished his tea, closing his eyes again. "I'm feeling Mystique's absence," he said, softly. "She's been...more help to me than anything I've ever known. It just feels odd being alone again. Between you and me, being alone has never sat well with me. Y'know? Not just alone, but lonely. Even at the children's home, where there were always loads of other kids around, I was lonely."
“Love is an emotion that changes us greatly,” he began, refilling both their cups with tea. “You have learned what that can be between two people. A certain amount of careful trust. People who know you, not just know of you.”
“So you have changed greatly since coming here, since knowing Mystique. And these people who have come here are from your past. You are seeing both sides of yourself, polarized. You feel you need to reconcile them.”
“Do you believe Emma Frost’s work with you is impeding that process?”
Love.
There it was, that word that he had such difficulty with. Was it so hard to say the words out loud? That he loved Mystique?
He knew he could never tell her, that he was too afraid of her reaction.
At the mention of Emma's name, John scowled briefly. "I don't know. I can't criticise her Dharma, not really - she stopped me from losing my mind altogether. But it's like...she's locked away parts of my memory in inaccessible areas. And I'm almost...afraid to open those doors, scared of what will come out."
He thanked Dharma for the tea and drew the cup to him. "How is it that you help me see myself so well?"
Dharma had heard the question many times. “Because I do not put my own ideas onto the reflection you see. I only help you see the path you’ve already put beneath your feet.”
“I don’t believe you should fear those places, Pyro. Neither should you open them wide. You must grow to understand what is here and now for what it is- neither good nor bad, simply here. And move about them with that understanding. You are not accustomed to the control you now possess. But you must become so. You know this.”
"I have been much more settled of late," said John, quietly, after a few more moments thinking. "And maybe that is why new people arriving, the way things suddenly got more crowded and busy...it's just knocked me off course. All I have to do is put myself back into that feeling, back into the sense of being settled and in control..."
He smiled, feeling much better for the first time since he'd woken, whimpering, bathed in sweat a couple of hours ago. "I can do that. And as for those...scary places...I'll deal with them one at a time."
