Running for Home - 31. December 1, 2021

December 01, 2021

Today I shackled myself with a set of essays that I know are going to be complete shit. How do I know they are going to be shit? Because almost none of the students in either of my Lit classes understood the reading I assigned them yesterday at all. A good chunk of them didn’t even do it in the first place. Hell, the ones that did read it probably only skimmed it. Pissed me off, so about a quarter of the way through class I decided they were getting a quick essay to write as a punishment. I told them I was lopping a chunk off the weighting of their independent study project and reassigning it to this, so they’d better do a good job because these were going to have a big impact on their final grade. The things I do to myself just because I’m pissed at my students, sigh. To be honest, I don’t even know if I want to bother marking them. I know they are going to be shit. I know their grammar is probably going to be horrible. I know there is going to be no actual sense of structure, just stream of consciousness ramblings on the topic with very little support with examples from the text.

Sigh. Mega sigh.

I shouldn’t take this so personally. It’s a busy time of year. I’m trying to not increase their workload with projects, since I know they have shit due over the next two weeks in their other classes before some of the other staff lay off so they can study for the end-of-quarter exams. It really isn’t fair for me to punish them for being overwhelmed. But I’ve kind of shot myself in the foot now. I can’t go back on my word. It would undermine the credibility of my authority. Then again, maybe I should have had a more heavily-weighted spontaneous writing assignment in the curriculum for this course anyway. Yeah, the Lit course is more about analysis and understanding as opposed to writing for writing’s sake, but that doesn’t mean that I should refrain from evaluating their ability to synthesize thoughts and communicate them clearly within a short time frame. That should be a pedagogical goal of any language arts course, in my opinion anyway.

Ugh. Maybe I should mark them and then decide what to do afterwards. If they somehow manage to scrape by with okay grades then maybe I’ll just leave things be. Maybe I should ask Emma or Sean about this. This isn’t a university course, so the syllabus shouldn’t be regarded as a sort of strict contract between the instructor and the students. I should have some leeway to change the way the students are being evaluated for their final grades. At the same time, though, is it fair to do so in a way that would bring their grades collectively down? A collective grade raise is something the students would cheer, of course, but I doubt that will be the result of this debacle.

Instead of marking them right away, I decided to go downstairs for my Danger Room time a bit early. I knew there was no one normally scheduled for right then, and I figured that if it was in use I’d just lift some weights in the gym until it was my scheduled time. The Danger Room was free, though, so I suited up and got to it. Oh yeah, I guess I never mentioned that Emma got me a custom suit of personal armor in black with dark red detailing. I was pissed when she told me she was doing it, but when it came it had none of the X logo bullshit on it so I can live with it. She said it was for emergencies around here and that she wasn’t expecting me to come on missions with them. I’m not sure if I believe that or not. In the end, there’s no harm in having it. I have to admit, though, that when I put it on I feel incredible. Maybe not invincible, but definitely powerful. And sexy. Dead sexy.

I started my powers workout with some basics like target practice at varying distances, both with and without obstacles in the way. I did some work with my vision, identifying ‘humans’ behind walls vs. other objects, with different thicknesses of barriers between me and the target. I started being able to see things in terms of their heat some time in my early twenties, and now I’m getting to the point where if I really concentrate I can identify people throughout a medium-sized building depending on the opacity of the walls to different infrared wavelengths. More recently I’ve found that I’m starting to be able to use my heat vision to see down at smaller and smaller scales – like the differences in burning patterns you can find between the different structural tissues within a single piece of wood. When I was bored with that, I got a splint and sparked a flame at the tip. I concentrated, concentrated hard, willing the fire to shrink down, shrink farther, smaller, more minute, so small, so much smaller until I couldn’t control it anymore and the fire winked out of existence. I did it again and again. Then I tried to do it with multiple splints, multiple burning points at the same time. Control, control, control.

Eventually my head started to feel a bit woozy from that kind of intense concentration, so I blew up the seven nanoflames I’d been working with. Yeah, nanoflames. I’ve been having the Danger Room’s sensors take measurements sometimes and I can shrink my fires down into the range of hundreds of nanometers now, if I want to. I want to push it further, as far as I can. I was talking with Rachel about it once, and she started to wonder what would happen if I could get my level of control down to the range of picometers. That’s a daunting prospect. But then she leveled with me that if I can get things down to the molecular level, I might be able to finally learn to generate my own flames by releasing the potential energy found in atomic bonds that only really escapes as minor thermal vibrations.

I still think that’s a pipe dream, since that’s four orders of magnitude lower than I’m currently capable of right now, and getting these nanoflames to hold their size and stay alive at my current limit is incredibly taxing.

Anyway, after I blew those flames up I just sorta let loose. For a while I just played around making huge structures of fire, increasing and decreasing their temperature, playing with the density of the plasma, using hyper-dense fire to lift and move objects, all of the usual stuff. Then I had the Danger Room start up some scenarios where I was being attacked. I actually got a second wind and was having a bit of fun, but suddenly my flames and the mech I was attacking were frozen solid.

I whirled around, pissed, and asked Drake what the fuck he was doing. It was my time and I didn’t invite him in on it so fuck off. He narrowed his eyes and told me it wasn’t my time anymore. I’d got so lost in things that I was actually a half hour past when I was supposed to finish. Bobby’s scheduled solo time was starting right now. I sighed and apologized and started for the door. Bobby looked a bit taken aback by that, like he was expecting some big argument or whatever. He was still standing there by the door watching me when I got there. “Johnny,” he started saying, but I shot him a glare. He sighed, shaking his head but a mischievous smile broke across his face. “Pyro, I could use some practice against someone that’s an actual challenge. Interested?”

I stopped dead in my tracks. I turned and looked at him again, frowning. I know Bobby, and I knew that look. He was dead serious, and he was daring me to take him on. My dick pulsed, straining in my suit. He knew I’d take the bait, knew it just as well as I did. I asked him if he was okay with getting his ass handed to him, and he snorted, saying there’s no way someone as out of practice as me would stand a chance. I flipped him the bird and he chuckled. “So, Pyro, which is it? Fight or flight?” Bobby asked, giving me this cocky grin that I remember all too well. It brought me right to full mast, even under all that tight leather and kevlar. Fuck. So not fair that even after all this time he can still have this strong an effect on me. Bastard.

I turned around and headed back into the Danger Room, telling Bobby he’d better have remembered to put on his diaper. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the duel we had, but I remember every single projection I did trying to knock him off his game, every fireball and fire wall, every super-dense plasma creature I made swiping at him and his ice creations, every single wave of cold and ice he sent my way, every single barrier he put up, the way he sped around the room sliding on those chariots of ice, every insult we shot back and forth at one another as we battled. I remember it all, so vivid and complete.

We’d decided going in that there’d be no hand-to-hand this time, and I was glad for that. I was tiring fast, since I’d already spent almost two hours in there and dinner time was fast approaching. I started making mistakes, and he almost got me a few times. I was starting to get a bit desperate for an opening because I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer and there was no fucking way I was going to let myself lose to him. And then it hit me, inspiration. I fired off three nanoflames towards him while attacking him with a giant flame-snake. He dodged and iced the snake and started to come at me, the floor around me freezing and the frost starting to creep up my legs as he closed in. Then, suddenly, it happened. Boom! Boom! BOOM! The three nanoflames exploded in rapid succession on all sides of him, buffeting him back and forth. Bobby fell to the ground from about twenty feet in the air. I got him. I got him good.

But he wasn’t moving. His ice form melted away, back into flesh and blood. I called out to Iceman, but he didn’t respond. I ran over there, but he had started coughing before I made it to him. He started to sit up but then let his upper body fall back to the ground with a thud. He groaned loudly as I made it to his side, skidding to a halt. He raised a hand to his forehead and asked me what the fuck had just happened.

He was okay. He was okay, thank god. The blood pounding in my ears receded a bit, but my heart kept on beating out of my chest. But I’m an asshole, through and through, so I painted the mirror image of his cocky grin from earlier onto my face and said “I just beat the shit out of you, Iceman. That’s what happened.” He looked up at me, shook his head and then started laughing. So did I.

I was laughing. Laughing along with Drake.

I pulled him up to sitting, and he stopped laughing abruptly. An incredulous look passed over his face. “J…Johnny, you just… you made flames!”

I shook my head, sighing. If only. I told him about my nanoflames. They were small enough to be practically invisible unless you were in near total darkness. Even so, Bobby was still impressed. He wouldn’t stop talking about it as we walked back to the locker room, asking me questions and making an ass of himself until I told him to shut up, that it wasn’t special, that I’m still just a good for nothing criminal and he should remember that. Bobby looked a little shocked by my sudden outburst.

There, I’d done it. We’d just had this moment, this time where everything had just melted away and we weren’t Pyro and Iceman but Bobby and Johnny, back in high school once again, back to being friends, best friends even, who did everything together and challenged each other and played pranks and served detention and… and… But that was then and this is now. Bobby hates me. He was just forgetting, so I reminded him without quite saying it.

There was silence between us as we stepped in front of our lockers to change. I was so glad his was across the room from mine. I wouldn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I started to peel off my suit, but stopped when Bobby gasped. It was my scars, he saw them. I was so caught up in my self-loathing that I’d let my guard down even further. Fuck. Bobby started stammering at me, asking what happened, moving closer to me. Staring straight ahead into my locker I told him they were just old battle wounds. In that moment there was nothing I wanted more than to get the hell out of there.

I finished stepping out of my suit and hung it up. It was a little cold in there to be naked, and a small shiver ran up my spine. I couldn’t wait to get into the shower and just slacken into the hot water and steam, away from Bobby’s questions and his prying eyes. I was reaching for my towel when it happened. He touched me. He fucking touched me, running his fingertips along the lines of the scars on the back of my shoulders. The place where they’d sliced ‘faggot’ and ‘whore’ deep into my flesh in gratuitously calligraphic Arabic. He said that these ones don’t look like they were ‘just old battle wounds’. I shuddered, jerking away from his hand like it was a live wire. My legs shook and nearly gave out as I sat down on the bench behind me. My heartbeat was starting to race. I was starting to flash back to that moment, to the blazing pain as they cut it into me with a red-hot knife that burned and sealed the wounded flesh shut right as they cut it into me.

Bobby had no idea what was going on, of course. He sat down facing me, legs splayed on either side of the bench, his X-men uniform half off and hanging from his hips. I was only half-aware of him, though, as different memories of hell flashed through my mind and crawled through my body. My breathing was becoming labored and I was starting to feel like I was drowning, I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I could feel that cold heavy cloth on my face, the water streaming down over it. I could feel it, feel the sharp, blinding pains of them cutting into me. I could feel the crushing power of their blows to my body. I could feel the cuffs digging into my wrists, hanging me in place. I could feel–

He called out my name. He called out my name and wrapped his arms around me, wrapped me up in his warmth and told me it was okay, that I was safe, that I was home and I was safe and everything would be okay. I was shaking, just shaking there, my breathing choked as tears streamed down my face. He’d broken me out of it, but I didn’t want this, not from him. Anyone in the world but him. I was so pathetic, though. I didn’t even have the strength to push him off me, to tell him to let me go.

Instead, I told him. I sat there naked in his arms while he held me, and I told him everything through a choked, tear-stained voice. Once it started spilling out, I couldn’t stop. I told him about being a government dog for six years, about being sent on missions that edged closer and closer to perilous failure. I told him about the mission to Kuwait and Iraq. About the gruesome deaths of three of my teammates at the hand of the Iraqi mutant special forces team Desert Storm, two that I’d witnessed directly. I told Bobby about how Frank got too bold taking on this sicko named Aminedi. I told Bobby how Frank started getting his limbs sliced off, one by one, by Aminedi's wind blades. I told Bobby how Martin had to be an idiot and ran in there to save Frank without thinking it through and ended up decapitated. I told Bobby about how Frank watched it happen, watched his best friend killed right in front of him as he lie there helpless, bleeding out. I told Bobby how I managed to fell Aminedi. I told Bobby how I cauterized the amputations, but by then it was too late for me to save Frank. I told Bobby how Frank had already lost too much blood from his severed femoral arteries and went in and out of consciousness calling to Martin. I told Bobby about how I tried to get him out of there, to bring him with me even though I knew he was dying and there was nothing I could do. I told Bobby how Frank died in my arms, telling me to run with his last breath. I told Bobby about being abandoned and disavowed, and then after a grueling week on the run being captured just before I made it across the border into Turkey. I told him about rotting in that secret jail, about the endless questioning, the humiliations, the mock executions, the waterboarding, the ‘rectal rehydration and feeding’ after they left me to parch and starve for what seemed like days. I told him about the increasing violence, how they started to break things, started to cut into me. And when that didn’t work, didn’t give them whatever fucking stupid information they wanted that I didn’t have to give, that’s when they started it. That’s when they took away my last shred of dignity.

I had never told anyone about this part of it before. No one but my therapist, but that’s because she already knew. I was damaged enough that the doctors in the hospital where I recovered knew exactly what happened to me. They never said it out loud, but they knew. I was raped, repeatedly. Gang raped. Raped while being beaten, while being choked, while being cut into. Raped so bad that I had developed fistulas and lasting internal scarring that needed multiple surgeries to fix.

I didn’t say this next part out loud, but when the rapes started, that was when I retreated into my mind and thought of Bobby. Imagined myself with him. Imagined how things could have turned out in another life where I’d never left and he’d never dated Marie and neither of us were straight. Imagined playing house with him. Imagined making love to him. It was all I could do at that point, imagine. It was all I could do to give me something happy, some small shred of good before they finally killed me. I was at that point right then, as they went from man to man, stuffing me at both ends with their disgusting cocks, taunting me in broken English. I was finally about to break, to lose it. I was out of it to the point where there was nothing else but me and Bobby in my mind, this surreal state. Even there, I still wanted to die. I wanted to die, but in my floating, dissociated state he held me. He held me just like he was doing right now.

Back in the present, I suddenly pushed out of Bobby’s arms and got up. He was looking at me all confused and worried. He started to ask me something, but I told him to save it. I told him I was done talking, done being a weak little pussy. I told him PTSD sucks, but sooner or later you just learn to let these moments of weakness roll off your back and move on with life. You just accept that the demons are a part of you now, for better or for worse. What else can you do? You can’t un-experience trauma. You do what you can to make things better, but you reach a point where there isn’t much left that you can do but just allow yourself to start living again. I had two years of intensive therapy and even longer on prescription drugs and monthly appointments to get it under control, and I didn’t have to pay for it thanks to the government. I probably have Mystique to thank for that. She must have threatened someone pretty high up to get that much money spent on me. I was much luckier than most people they send to die. Then again, they’d be up shit creek if I were to spill to the media the sordid details of some of the illegal activities they had their hands in domestically and internationally. I’d be as good as dead if I did that, though.

I grabbed my towel and toiletries and hit the showers. As soon as I had the curtain drawn and was under the hot spray, I practically collapsed. I started to cry again, but somehow I managed to keep myself quiet enough that I wouldn’t be heard over the running water. Why did I have to tell him all of this? Why couldn’t I have kept that shit under wraps, just like I had for everyone else? Just some vague mentions of things that happened, not the incredibly detailed recounting I’d just given Bobby. I’d talked for over an hour, and we missed dinner because of it. Because he listened, because he held me in his arms and for once, for the first time in so very long, I actually felt safe. Safe from the flashbacks, safe from my haunted past.

I hate myself for being so weak, and in front of him of all people.