St. John Allerdyce (worst_one) wrote in academy_x, @ 2010-05-09 23:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | pyro, secret origins |
Who: John, NPC sibling [narrative]
When: November 11, 2005
Where: Flat Iron district, New York
What: Secret Origins! Being a mutant kinda sucks. A lot, actually.
The deets: John has just turned 13, and his powers decide now would be as good a time to show up as any.
John had been pretty tired for the past couple weeks, and in the last few days he'd felt like he was coming down with a nasty cold. He couldn't seem to control his body temperature anymore, perhaps a side effect of the low grade fever he'd also been running lately. He hadn't slept soundly for several nights, and last night he didn't sleep at all; he couldn't cool down despite the fact it was the middle of November and there was no reason for him to be so hot. Yet he still found himself waking up at random intervals, soaked with sweat, his sheets and blankets all kicked off into the floor. He hadn't actually felt that bad, which was probably the only reason why his foster mother hadn't forced him to see a doctor yet, but John was also good at hiding things. As far as his guardians knew, he was just feeling slightly under the weather but could still function normally, so there was nothing to worry about. That, of course, was a supremely bad idea, as was John's well-intentioned consent to babysit his younger foster sister while their parents went out for the evening.
It was only six o'clock, but John already felt like crawling into bed and blocking out the rest of the world. There was no way he was going to do that, though, with a hungry five-year-old pestering him for dinner. Right, like he knew how to cook. Still, he'd agreed to watch her for a few hours so it was up to him to at least make sure she didn't rat him out for the terrible babysitter he was.
"I'm huuuuuungry!"
John rolled his eyes but tried to put on a happy act, even if he didn't feel like it; he actually really liked Lizzie, probably even loved her, though he wasn't sure he even knew what that felt like. He'd never stayed in one place long enough to find out, had never let himself get attached to anyone, so it could just be genuine fondness rather than actual love, as far as he knew. But he tried to be a good older brother anyway. He liked having someone look up to him, liked the way Lizzie giggled when he told her whatever lame joke he'd heard lately, liked getting into trouble with her when they went tearing through the house in search of aliens or robbers or the invisible enemy of the week. So he could at least make dinner. That wasn't asking too much.
"I know, Liz, I'm working on it," he muttered, forcing a tiny smile and then making a shooing motion with his hand. "Go watch TV. It'll be done in a little bit."
"But I'm hungry noooow!"
And then she was pouting at him, hands on her hips and bottom lip thrust out like she was three seconds away from either bursting into tears or kicking him, and John sighed.
"Hey, come on, cut me some slack here. I don't feel so hot, okay? Here. Take this," he continued, handing her a fun-sized Kit-Kat bar from the bowl of leftover Halloween candy on the counter, "and go play or something. I'll come get you when dinner's ready, alright?"
The girl didn't seem too convinced, but she finally nodded and turned to dash off out of the kitchen and, John assumed, to her room. Thankfully. When she was out of sight, he rummaged around in the cabinets until he came up with the bottle of Lortabs his foster mother stashed away for a recurring back problem. Right now, everything ached in John's body, especially his head, which felt like it was going to crack open and let his brain drop out to the floor. He downed a couple of the painkillers and made sure to put the bottle back exactly where he found it lest anyone get suspicious, then sat down to fold his arms on the kitchen table and lean his forehead against them, closing his eyes against the light and hoping that a few moments' rest would ease the discomfort.
He hadn't meant to fall asleep. In fact, John wasn't even sure how long he'd been asleep at all, but it must have been at least a fair amount of time considering he was having difficulty peeling his eyes open and getting his brain to focus on what that shrill beeping noise was. The moment he finally figured out that it was the smoke detector, he gasped and inhaled a plume of smoke that left him choking for air and struggling backwards out of his seat. The pan he'd been cooking in had caught fire, and John didn't think, just reacted, and swore under his breath as he filled another nearby pot with water and dumped it. To his surprise, the fire seemed to shoot out in all directions, hot grease splatters landing and igniting everywhere and turning what had been a relatively small fire into a respectable blaze.
Still coughing, and panicking now that he realized he'd made things so much worse, John stepped back into the living room, eyes going wide when the fire seemed to follow. Every time he glanced around, the fire spread, taking its cues from his gaze and engulfing whatever he looked at, and that was . . . that wasn't right. Fires didn't work that way. They could spread quickly, he knew that much, but not like this.
"Lizzie!" he shouted, hoping his sister was somewhere close enough to hear him. "Elizabeth, get out of the house!" he continued to scream, eyes watering and lungs burning from the smoke that kept billowing out of the kitchen. The fire was coming closer now, swallowing everything in its path with much more speed and intensity than it should have, and at this rate the whole house would be reduced to ash in a matter of minutes.
"Johnny?"
John wheeled around, squinting through the smoke until he spotted Lizzie standing at the landing on the stairs. The instant he did, though, the flames lept up along the steps, sending the girl screaming and crying back up the second flight of stairs.
"Lizzie, no!" John couldn't explain, didn't have time to even if he knew what the hell was happening, but he knew he had to get to her somehow. "Don't go upstairs!"
"I'm scared!" she cried, sobbing, and John's orders couldn't stop her from instinctively backing away from the fire, higher up until she was again at the top of the stairs. They were both coughing violently now, and John knew he had to get them out of the house before the smoke overcame them.
He ran over to the side of the stairwell, grabbing every cushion and pillow within reach to form a kind of landing pad and then holding his arms out. "Jump, Liz, I'll catch you." She shook her head, and John waved his arms frantically like that was going to encourage her. "Dammit, Lizzie, jump! We've gotta get out of here! I'll catch you, I promise, now just jump!"
The girl continued to stare at him, obviously terrified and uncertain, but when the fire reached the top of the stairs she finally nodded and carefully pulled herself onto the banister, squealing as she let go; John was, though, true to his word, and scooped her up before she hit the ground.
"Hold on," he ordered, desperately trying to peer through the thickening black haze; he still felt sick and disoriented, and now he could barely see and had no idea which direction was which anymore, and he could feel his lungs starting to close up in protest as he kept inhaling large amounts of smoke. He couldn't move without the flames following him, the intense heat and light only further wrecking his senses and making him panic even further.
At last, spurred on by the fact Lizzie's crying was beginning to give way entirely to coughing, he decided to run through the first clearing he found, one which miraculously left the path to the back door wide open. He tumbled out onto the porch, sister still in tow, and made it to the alley before collapsing in the grass, gasping desperately for air and willing the rest of the world to quit spinning. The roar of the fire was still fresh in his ears, leaving him partially deaf and oblivious to the questions a helpful neighbor kept asking as he tried to help him to his feet. John shook his head and attempted to shake off the assistance, failing utterly at even being able to stand on his own. To his horror, he could feel the fire behind him, flames writhing and calling out to him as surely as any human voice, beckoning him, and instinctively, he wanted to obey. It felt . . . it felt wrong to ignore them.
Still on his knees, he crawled to face the house, now completely lost to the out of control blaze, and tried to shield his eyes from the blinding hot light; he'd never seen a fire burn that hot before, or that wildly, flames jumping from place to place, feeling totally out of control and yet, somehow, still under his direction. Which was insane, he knew, and probably the fever or whatever it was controlling him, but still.
That was when he noticed a small silhouette dashing back toward the house, something about "Max" getting through as his hearing slowly began to return. Fuck. The cat? Lizzie. Oh God, she was going back for the damn cat, no, no no no . . . John felt like he was watching in slow motion, or wading through chest-deep water as he tried to lunge forward, managing a few feet and screaming at Elizabeth to get back. He broke away from the neighbor's attempt to hold him back and took off after the girl, even though he could no longer see her through the smoke. The fire, uncaring, seemed to respond to him, reaching out to swallow him and reclaim him the closer he got. He could hear the cracking of wood as the house's structure began to collapse, and his throat was raw from the smoke and screaming, but he pressed on. They'd put him in charge. They'd trusted him, the only people who had ever trusted him, had left him alone with their daughter, and she was a sweet kid, a funny, charming little girl that John adored against his better judgment and who was always on his side no matter what, and he had to get inside, had to find her, had to push through the fire and the singed skin of his arms and legs, had to find her . . .
The last thing John remembered before his lungs gave out and before he lost consciousness was seeing the cat scurry out from a broken window in the basement, its fur covered in soot but otherwise unharmed.