The Silence Gets Us Nowhere

Type of Story: Standalone
Rating: R (Abuse, Rape !!Not Detailed!!)
Characters: Most all from the X-Men movies.

Feedback: Emily_joyner@ureach.com (Please?? I love feedback!!)
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, I only play with them…

Additional Disclaimer: I’d like to think that I’m being original here, but more than likely I’m not. If anyone else has read anything like this, please let me know so that I can give credit where it’s due!

A/N: Once again, I believe I’m being original… But if I’m not, please let me know. There’s nothing worse that plagiarism!!

A/N: This is dark, and some may be offended by it. If you can’t handle child abuse of any kind, then please, don’t read this.

Song fic: For You by Staind

(Words in italics are song lyrics)

The pain is sometimes too much to bear. Watching them, observing, always from a distance. He can’t get too close, they’ll see him. But still, it hurts. To see life going on, perhaps better now, without him. Did they miss him? Did they think about him? Would they understand his decision? His insecurities? Could they comprehend his intentions, his feelings of unworthiness?

He sat there and remembered…

He remembered his parents. He missed them sometimes. But his skin would also crawl. They had their issues, their problems. He would never understand how they could do the things they had done to him. He remembered the almost daily beatings from his father. He remembered one time when his father had beaten him so badly, he’d ended up with a broken arm and a dislocated jaw… all because he’d forgotten to let the dog out and she’d wet on the hall carpet. He remembered his mother screaming at him on his forth birthday, yelling that he was useless and she should have had an abortion, all because he spilt birthday punch on her pants. He remembered all of the beatings, the insults and curses, all of it.

He remembered when his parents divorced after his eleventh birthday. Somehow, his father had gotten custody, even though he’d begged and pleaded to go with his grandparents. He remembered Joshua, the seventeen year old who “watched” him while his father worked. He remembered Joshua’s ring cutting open the skin on the back of his head from the beating Joshua gave him until he finally submitted and pulled down his jeans, allowing Joshua access. He remembered the horror of the rape. The rapes, since he did it all the time. He remembered standing in front of the mirror in his bathroom after Joshua had molested him in the shower, looking at himself and holding the razor blade. And he remembered wondering if somehow he was making Joshua think he liked it, if the screams of “NO!” weren’t enough. Was he giving off a vibe that he didn’t know about? Did this mean he didn’t like girls anymore? Why didn’t his father DO something?!

He remembered turning thirteen and Joshua being particularly brutal. He remembered running to his father, bleeding and crying, and telling him what was going on. He remembered his father sneering, saying, “I don’t want no fag for a son! Get the hell away from me!” He remembered Joshua running up to them, a smirk on his face.

He remembered the rage at the pain, the feeling of helplessness. He remembered watching his father light a cigarette and focusing on the flame from the lighter. He remembered feeling something shift inside of him, feeling the energy, the power, of that heat. And he remember focusing that awesome, pulsing feeling towards his father and Joshua.

The next thing he remembered were the charred remains of two bodies being taken away. He remembered someone saying they were sorry about his father. He remembered an officer telling him that his mother was refusing to come and get him. She said she had her own life now and this was just too much of an inconvenience and a disruption for her.

He remembered running the streets, desperate for food and shelter. He was always fighting off the advances of the other homeless men, protecting himself with the power within him. Some died, others merely wounded. And he remembered becoming almost lovers with the feeling of the heated power flowing through him.

He remembered the X-men coming for him. Offering him a place to learn control of his ‘gift’. He only went because he was tired of running. He was tired of worrying about where his next meal was coming from.

He remembered meeting all of the others. Bobby, Kitty, Jubilee, and later on, Marie. They all accepted him. No questions asked, no answers given. Sometimes he felt like he belonged, other times, he didn’t. They all tried to pretend that their mutations didn’t’ exist. He reveled in his. It made him better, stronger, this power that he had. And he was always being told to stop. Again, he was being controlled. They made him feel like he was wrong for being to protect himself.

He remembered making the choice and knowing that he could never take it back. He remembered the ridicule for missing them and for not wanting to harm innocent ‘humans’. He remembered Mystique’s derogatory comments about his inexperience and his abilities.

The pain is sometimes too much to bear. So, he watches. And remembers. He remembers it all. The insults, the curses, the pain, the acceptance, the feeling of belonging. But mostly John (no, his name is Pyro now) remembers his silence. The silence that got him nowhere.

For You

By Staind

To my mother To my father
It's your son or it's your daughter
Are my screams loud enough for
You to hear me? Should I turn this up for you?

I sit here locked inside my head
Remembering everything you've said
The silence gets us nowhere,
Gets us nowhere way too fast.

The silence is what kills me
I need someone here to help me
But you don't know how to listen
And let me make my decision

I sit here locked inside my head
Remembering everything you've said
The silence gets us nowhere,
Gets us nowhere way too fast.

All your insults And your curses
Make me feel like I'm not a person.
And I feel like I am nothing.
But you made me so do something.
Cause I'm fucked up because you are
I need attention, Attention you couldn't give.

I sit here locked inside my head
Remembering everything you've said
The silence gets us nowhere,
Gets us nowhere way too fast.

I sit here locked inside my head
Remembering everything you've said
The silence gets us nowhere,
Gets us nowhere way too fast.

A/N: Whew! That one was hard to write, but I just had to! I know that it’s somewhat A/U, but it’s what I think could explain some of his actions, if you only had the movies to go by.