Fic: The Fever Burns
E-mail: violet147@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-14.
Warnings: Cursing. Referral to sexual acts.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Pairings: John/Marie, implied John/Bobby
Summary: John sometimes think the heat is going to scar him, but he's not alone.

You'll never feel the heat of this soul
My fever burns me deeper than I've ever shown...
To you."
-Never Is A Promise, Fiona Apple


John really, really wants to hate her, and he wants to feel it in every bone in his body. There’s something about the way she looks at him, and something about the way she looks at Bobby, that makes him seethe. And God knows he has every reason to despise every molecule on that untouchable body of hers. He belonged to Bobby first, not her. He was the first person who went down on Bobby, he was the first person who made Bobby come, he was there first.

But all it had taken was one bat of those pretty little dark eyes, and Bobby was gone. No, he really wasn’t gone, and that was what made John’s blood boil. Bobby wasn’t gone; he was still there, but he wanted to be John’s friend, which is the biggest slap in the face John can possibly think of. Sometimes he thinks his cheek is still stinging from it.

And it’s so easy to hate her, because getting to know her was even more infuriating. No one with as much baggage as she has should be so disgustingly perfect, like she is. She’s soft-spoken and compassionate, and she lets you copy off her English papers, and if someone falls asleep on the couch late at night she brings a blanket and tucks them in, and it’s nauseating, really. He just wants to punch her in the face and destroy that perfect milky skin on her face.

And it only eats John up more inside, because he knows that punching her won’t have the effect he’s going for. It’ll only end up hurting him, not her. It’s almost maddening, but not as maddening as when she suddenly decides to befriend him. He doesn’t know if she knows about him and Bobby, or if she feels bad for him, or if she thinks she can save him, but he knows what she’s really doing, he knows that she thinks he’s below her. He’s a charity case in those pretty little dark eyes.

Stupid bitch. Who did she think she was? He was named after a saint, and she was just a little girl who sucked the life out of anyone who came near her. Who’s beneath whom? So when she starts saving a seat for him in the cafeteria, he squeezes in between Jubilee and Peter on the other side of the table. He smirks at her from across the table, feeling like a god as he soaks up the hurt in her eyes. She’s not the only one who has the ability to suck life from others, and he doesn’t even have to lay a hand on anyone. Who’s beneath whom again?

But he can’t dwell on it for long, because she always bounces back, much to his chagrin. She always smiles back, and she still saves a seat for him, as Bobby sits on her other side, glowing and perfect and in such denial, John would pity him if it didn’t make him so angry. They’re just the perfect couple, they compliment each other so well, and god, his blood is literally on fire, he’s so angry. He hates her. He hates her so much, and he can’t do anything about it.

When he eventually decides to talk to Bobby and accuse him of being in the closet, he’s a man on a mission. Not even Peter can stop his stride as he walks to Bobby’s room, but all it takes is one look in Bobby’s room and seeing her on his bed, and John comes to a dead stop. This is just makes it all better, it figures that the moment he decides to speak the truth she’s sitting on Bobby’s fucking bed. And when she looks up at him, he can feel it; the pity, the scorn, the superiority. God, it’s burning him alive, she’s burning him alive, and she’s not even touching him.

“He’s not here,” she says.

“Obviously,” he snaps, and he turns to walk away, but suddenly there’s a hand on his arm. He tries not to flinch, she’s wearing gloves, but he does. He’s sort of embarrassed, but when he looks up at her, she just looks sad.

“You think I don’t understand?” she asks.

“Understand what?”

“You.” She pauses for a moment, those eyes trying to burn a hole in his head, and John almost starts to tell her that she’s not the one who can burn things, he is, but he doesn’t. “I don’t look down on you,” she says.

“Right. You’re just a saint, aren’t you?” He can’t help but be snide and catty, he thinks his hate is going to blind him as he looks at her.

She just looks down at the floor, and she looks so sad, but when she looks up, John doesn’t see the pity or the scorn or the superiority; he sees the beginnings of a flicker. “You could be,” she tells him, and it takes him a moment to realize what they’re talking about.

“No. I’m not Bobby,” he says.

“No,” she agrees. “But that’s not a bad thing. No one ever said you had to glow like he does.”

And for some reason, it just sets John off, and he can’t stop himself from screaming at her. “Can you just stop with the psycho babble bullshit? Can you just take a step down from your moral high horse and pretend you’re not the fucking martyr of the mutant race and could you please just go away and could you please….” Somewhere along the way he loses his thought, and he’s losing control. He’s hysterical now, and this isn’t good. He can’t let her see him like this; he can’t let her see that he’s beneath her now.

He tries to turn away, but she grabs him by his shirt, and her eyes are blazing now. “You just…I don’t even know…who do you think you are?” she yells back, although she’s not really yelling, she’s so soft-spoken. She doesn’t give him the chance to speak. “You’re the one who thinks he’s above everyone, and if you just opened your eyes for a second you’d see what’s going on, you’d see Bobby, you’d see what I’m trying to tell you…”

“Maybe I don’t want to hear it!” he snaps back, and it’s so childish, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to walk away, but he knows that with one false move, she could kill him. So he’ll settle for throwing another insult; maybe it’ll hurt her like his fists can’t. “Not everyone gives a shit about you and what you have to say, least of all me,” he sneers.

She just smiles. “I know you don’t care to listen. I’m going to have to show you,” she says, and suddenly she leans forward and kisses John, her lips so soft and sweet and not at all like Bobby’s, which are chapped and thin “Do you see?” she murmurs.

“No.” John tries to pull back while he’s got the strength to pull back, but she holds him tight in her hands, and she’s not going to let him. She’s never going to leave, not like Bobby. She’s going to stay right here.

He’s waiting for something. He’s not sure if he’s waiting for pain, or death, or both, but when it doesn’t come, it confuses him. What does come, though, are things he never expected; he sees flashes in his head, images of flames climbing high upon the walls, and somehow, through her lips, he knows that the flames aren’t just flames, but they are deep inside of her, just like the flames are inside of him. And something happens that he doesn’t quite expect; he feels his hatred dissolve, as if it’s on fire, and as soon as she pulls away, he realizes that all that’s left of his hate are ashes.

The kiss, he realizes, only lasted five seconds, but she doesn’t completely pull back, her lips are merely centimeters apart from his, and she smiles at him. And for the first time in months, seeing her smile doesn’t set him on fire. He understands now, just like she said he would, and for the first time in months, he feels calm. And when she opens her mouth, he will listen, and she will set those pretty dark eyes on him, and he will see the fire that rages in them.

“You can’t afford to lie, St. John,” she says, and she lets go of his shirt and walks out of the room, leaving him to think, to ponder and decide. Later he will catch her eye in class, and he’ll get a hot flash of the fire that they now share, and she will smile, and he will smile back, and he will realize how foolish he was to hate her. She was not the enemy; she is the only one who’s not against him, for she feels what he feels too, the heat of what he thought was his soul alone.

He thought he had hated her, but he realizes now, but he’s too smart to mention it to anyone, especially Bobby, who can not only manipulate ice but is frozen right down to his heart. Not like John, who sometimes thinks the fever’s going to scar him. Not like Rogue, whose fever burns deeper than she’s ever shown to anyone…with exception of John.


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