Honey, I'm Home

[mystique]

Mystique took John by the wrist as they returned to Genosha, not speaking a great deal but obviously commandeering their worse-for-wear leader, even if she herself was limping and grunting her way back into the compound.

She said nothing as she ushered them both toward her room, shushing him as he began to speak. Nudging him through the door, she locked it behind them.

"Shower."

Peeling him out of his clothes, she turned the water on hot but not too much so. She knew it would sting like hell running over every cut and scrape still left after Nightingale healed her in the truck. It would just have to be dealt with.

Somehow she needed John there. Maybe not his words, but his presence. She could not be alone, but what was more, she could not be without him. His face was the one she had focused on so many more weeks than he would know. The future of the Brotherhood, of the mutant cause. Her future. And now in more ways than one.

Water poured over John's head, splashing onto her shoulders. He tipped his head back and she held her breath as water cascaded over her broken and torn palms. Bowing her head, it made long blood-coloured tendrils of hair drip from her forehead. The floor of the shower was a slough of dirt and plaster and blood.

She was beginning to feel the fatigue of the last few hours wear on her; the last of her strength was being used to keep from withdrawing into her own mind. Something was wrong, the piece of her so stolid, unyielding, it was gone.

Mystique began to realize that she'd lost something the day the 'cure' invaded her soul. Something she would never get back. Could there have been a piece of her innocence remaining after all these years? Had they found one last thing to take away?

Water streaming over her stinging eyes, drawing the day's waste away down her renewed form, she felt a year's worth of waiting impact her heart in one tremendous crash. Sucking in a breath, her shoulders heaved forward as the iconic super spy of the mutant era broke into heavy, racking sobs.

[Pyro]

The shower was both invigorating and agonising, washing away more than just the muck of a Baltimore warehouse. It washed away his exhaustion to a certain degree and he slowly began to ascend from the pit of despair that he'd been sliding down into during the flight home. Still in a semi-daze from the events of the attack, he didn't notice Mystique's tears until the sound of her sobbing made him snap his head forward.

For a few moments, he felt more helpless and uncertain than he'd ever done in his entire life. He'd been involved in street fights, witnessed all sorts of horrors and yet now, faced with the tears of the strongest woman he'd ever known, he felt that the world had just been turned on its head.

Should he comfort her? Or let the tears take their course and deal with it afterwards?

Pyro was different from Magneto in many ways. One of the biggest was the fact that he'd not yet managed to leave his compassion at the door when he came in. The sound of her sobbing wrapped its metaphorical fingers around his heartstrings and yanked viciously. He put his arms around her and drew her to him, almost fiercely.

Like this, with her in her natural mutant form, she was almost two inches taller than him which briefly disconcerted him, but he pushed the irrelevant thought away and focused on the now instead.

The unnatural heat of his body temperature warmed her through the water and his touch, whilst by no means expert, was soothing and gentle,

He didn't speak a word. He didn't have to.

[mystique]

Mystique let it go, cursing herself for breaking down when Pyro really should have been given the opportunity to reflect on one of the first major plans he'd carried out entirely on his own authority.

But she couldn't help herself. Raven needed John, even if she wouldn't admit it in a hundred lifetimes. Lifting her face, her lips against his were the sort of clean that erases everything that came before. Tears mingled with the water but she'd never let him know.

Let me be what I was before.

[Pyro]

Before Baltimore, he would have been hesitant about returning the kiss, although she knew he would have done so willingly - eventually.

Before Baltimore, he was happy to accept that she was by far the stronger of the two and that he would gladly accept her advice and suggestions.

Before Baltimore, if Mystique had found him difficult to read, it was only going to get harder.

Before Baltimore, John wouldn't have reacted with such passion to her kiss. He was confused and shaken, still struggling with the effects of his actions, but her lips on his pushed it all away for the time being and he revelled in the contact.

Before Baltimore, John would never have realised that he needed her as badly as he needed air to breathe.

But that was before Baltimore.

"You're still hurt," he said, in a husky voice when they finally broke contact.

[mystique]

Mystique nodded, opening her eyes.

"He got me good before... I changed." She laughed a bit, it sounded like a soft sobbing, but she smiled a little. She brushed wet hair off his forehead, the warmest, most emotional expression she'd ever let him see lighting her features.

"I thought... I'd heard you screaming. I thought..." she touched her forehead to his.

What are you doing to me.

[Pyro]

"I thought, too," he said, a brief smile flickering across his face. "When you said you were sorry..then seconds later.." His arms around her tightened slightly. "It was like my whole world exploded."

A pause.

"I lost control," he said, and his voice was shaking. "I didn't mean to. Guess it had to happen some time."

He lapsed back into silence and buried his head on her shoulder. His hair was longer now than it had ever been and the water plastered it to his head, making him look younger than he was. He had a couple of days growth on his chin which she felt against her skin. That was something else about Pyro. He was almost obsessively clean shaven.

"I thought I'd lost you and my world exploded," he said, his voice muffled by her shoulder.

[mystique]

Mystique closed her eyes, resting a hand on the back of his neck. She felt adrift, entirely unaware how to respond or even think about what he'd just told her.

It was one of those moments where the world shrinks to a very small space, and she was afraid to make eye contact, to speak or even to breathe. If she did this moment would be gone.

Running soap over his back and into his hair, she kept her eyes down, kept moving. It was how you survived.

[Pyro]

Eventually he realised that they would have to get out the shower or run the risk of turning into a couple of weary prunes. He reached over and turned the shower off and stepped out, locating one of the less-than-fluffy towels that served the Brotherhood well enough. He wiped the soap out of his eyes and offered a second towel to her.

"I need a hot drink and sleep," he said, and it was so unlike him to actually say that he needed sleep that it seemed bizarrely out of character. "Is there anything I can get for you? Make you feel any better? You should see Angie - Nightingale - she can fix you up properly."

His eyes, his voice were filled with nothing but concern and anxiety for her wellbeing. He had a headache starting, but he'd gotten so used to headaches over the past months that he didn't even think about it. He ran a hand over his jaw. He could shave tomorrow, despite the fact that he found stubble incredibly irritating, to the point of sometimes shaving three or four times a day.

Yeah. Tomorrow.

[mystique]

Mystique towelled off her hair, stepped out of the shower, and drew nearer to him.

"We both need sleep... and I don't need Nightingale." The flat gold of her eyes looked up at him, and she left it at that.

Stepping into the bedroom, she sat in her chair, moaning softly out of exhaustion. Smirking faintly, she rubbed her eyes.

"But you could heat up that coffee in the kitchen, and bring the bottle of Black Velvet to add in."

[end]