xmutanthigh | [OPEN POST] NEW BRO'HOOD

[John freezes when he catches sight of Mortis' slim figure, her pale, ethereal skin. The fire warms it, gives it color; John's eyes lift further to find hers and follow them as she sits.

His expression changes: now there is nothing pensive lingering on his features, in his eyes. There is only a steady, watching stare, infused with distrust and hatred.

Almost like old times.]

There something you want?

Edited 2011-02-21 17:54 (UTC)

[She wants to continue ignoring him, wants him to simply not be there, wants the night and the fire to herself as she's had so many nights before.

Not to freeze to death, you imbicile.

Right now, Mortis' only interest is bringing feeling back into her fingers and she holds them close to the fire. She couldn't care less if Pyro was there, and a thread of annoyance runs through her at the knowledge that he seems to think she's sought him out. She's not surprised; Pyro was always an arrogant, self-important bastard. She wants to let his question lie, but she's never been good at resisting the urge to antagonize him.]

Just what I've always wanted, [Her face doesn't change, her voice is distant, the taunt half-hearted.] to make your pathetic heart skip a beat.

[And John's never been good at ignoring taunts, and this one stirs up old memories and a scowl that quickly morphs into a heartless smile; he chuckles beneath his breath in the belittling way only he can, looking off to the side, away from her, away from the flame.

The simper lingers as he returns his attentions to her, tonguing his flashing teeth. With a careless swipe of his hand he throws the fire at his fingertips back into the blackened pit. Ash rises and the flame flares up momentarily, as if beckoned by his amusement.

The truth is, even when he was high and mighty in the place, John tended the fire most nights. Found it soothing. That's why there's something familiar about reaching over to grab some twigs and wood by his side and throw it in, unknowingly giving Mortis exactly what she came out for - well, part of it anyway. John's not going anywhere, not yet.]

That's cute. Bet you say that to all your fucks.

[Tendrils of black energy start to rise from her open palms, threaded with veins of red. This is her gift, what causes things around her to die. She knows that she could reach these long, deadly fingers across the campfire to still John's heartbeat. She's more than capable, has cleared a room of people in an instant, like one fell swoop of a reaper's scythe. Her control is shaky at this distance though, she could just as easily breed enough of this energy to eradicate the entire camp. Cease Porter's jumping, silence all the Madroxes. End Longshot's lucky streak...]

Some of them like the feeling. [For all the smoky, languidness that she allowed her energy field to rise, it is gone in the blink of an eye as she calls it back into her fist as she snaps it closed. She smiles to herself, thinking of how Longshot would often pit his gift against hers, how often she let him live simply because she knew, every night, he would die for her a little more.] Some men like to buck the reaper's odds.

[John's lips slowly drop at her display, but laughter still dances in his eyes; he's not intimidated. Mortis was always a bit in love with her powers, a bit in love with showing off the deathly wisps that could strangle and wring the life out of anybody, perpetually needing to let everyone know she could kill them on a whim. Just her constant pathetic plea for attention and play for control.

Not that it isn't something to behold: of course it is. Seeing it again, the tendrils reaching towards him under the fire and framed by the dark of night... it's violently beautiful and awful all at the same time. It's the only thing he ever appreciated about her.

She's a vessel for death.

His brow raises; John looks down the fire, leans over to poke a piece of wood closer to the building flame.]

Yeah, and some men really don't give a shit.

I never make the mistake of wanting them to.

[Lois blinks, the heat of the fire drying her eyes. She's not sure if he can hear her murmur, it doesn't matter to her either way. Mortis doesn't care for much, nor is she cared for. She has no illusions about what place she has in the world, and she likes it that way. No one to love, no one to be loved by...it is how she can exist in a living world as a harbinger of death.

She scoffs, watching the flames lick the sky, and turns Pyro's question back on him.]

There something you want, Pyro?

[He does hear her murmur, and he merely laughs quietly and shortly at it - she's right, she doesn't. Just crawls into someone else's - pretty much anyone else's - sleeping bag when she's in the mood to mess around.

John sits back on the log again, content with the wood feeding the flames. Maybe someone taking a quick look at John might say his smile is friendly, but it's the farthest thing from it. It's mocking, bemused, smug.]

The usual. World peace. Save all the puppies.

Edited 2011-02-22 06:39 (UTC)

I kill puppies. [Mortis flashes her teeth (http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/6/63638/1180068-x_nercrosha_the_gatahering_003z3_copy.jpg) in a vindictive smile.] Been teaching your buddy Wither to do the same; he's got a knack for it. Animals, anyway.

[Yeah, John has a bleeding heart over the puppies and squirrels and wildlife Mortis has been given to Kevin for practice. The little confession and her predatory, creep-as-fuck smile merely result in a raised brow; is that interest on his otherwise disinterested face? Hint: no, he's faking it.

John simply reaches into his pocket and pulls out a flask ~~he totally swiped from Logan during a pit stop what~~, uncapping it and taking a swig of the burning alcohol.]

Really? Shit, kid's got a knack for killing?

[Mortis sighs, shaking her head. Pyro's patronizing glance pathetically illustrating how little he really understands Kevin or his gift. She reaches deep into her pocket, extracting a cigarette and a zippo lighter, puffing blue smoke.]

He doesn't just kill... [Her voice is thick with envy, a rare emotion for her. There is a longing that emerges from the pit of her black soul. To think that so much power is left in the hands of someone so reluctant to embrace it is sheer torture for her. She whispers her next words reverently, the closest thing to a prayer that's ever left her lips.] He decimates.

[Just because John has a flippant attitude about most things (read: everything) doesn't mean there isn't a crapton more going on beneath the surface. Oh, he understands Kevin, a lot more than Kevin understands himself in a lot of ways. He can even grasp the overwhelming urge to take life, to be capable of it.

John feels his smile fade away at the envy written across Mortis' pale face, too jagged at the points to be truly beautiful. But his eyes gleam with cruel opportunity at what he finds there - she's jealous. It's a double-edged sword, he knows. He'd bet any amount of money Mortis hates Kevin for this, not that John thought the mutant particularly liked him or anybody at all.]

Jealous (http://i56.tinypic.com/2vcvtw6.gif)?

Edited 2011-02-22 07:40 (UTC)

Indescribably so. [That longing again in her voice, her answer crisp and honest as she imagines what she could do with Kevin's power. She takes a drag of her smoke and presses her thumb to her lips, smiling dreamily against it.] He can purge the ground itself.

[She peers at Pyro in the flickering light, wonders if he understands. Oh, she knows he's taken lives, watched his amateur attempts at slaughter, smelled the char of burning flesh in his wake. But that is only puny mortal lives, human death from a human mind. Even her own lethal practices can't compare to what she's seen Kevin reap.

Mortis speaks as if she almost wants him to understand, as if she wishes she could show him the wasteland Kevin created and have someone--even John--to marvel at it with. She shakes her head, almost a little sad.]

It's...beautiful, Pyro. Primal. If only he could see.

[That, at the very least, the imploring, needful, almost sultry look in her gaze and tone of her voice diminishes John's amusement - her reverence is palpable; his lips part. He's seen it. Seen what Kevin can do, witnessed that decimation. She's right - as much as he's always hated admitting it. Kevin doesn't kill, no. Kevin is a force all his own - Kevin takes life and there's a big fucking difference.

He holds Mortis' gaze a moment, then tips his head up to drink another mouthful of alcohol. It burns, warms him all the way to his gut. His tongue darts out to lick a drop and he cracks his neck.]

Give him time. He'll come around. We all did.

No. He's too afraid of it. [She shakes her head, taking a last drag of her cigarette before pitching it into the fire.] I watched him waste an acre of land, you know. He placed his palms to the earth and commanded it to die.

[She looks down between her knees, black curls falling over her bowed face. The notes in her voice are low and lingering, hanging in the night as if suspended from the canopy of stars.]

I could see how he loved it, the very feel of it, his power. But when he opened his eyes to see what he'd done... [She meets Pyro's gaze once more and it's near impossible to tell why her eyes are shining so brightly, but the almost imperceptible crack in her voice betrays the glaze of tears she's holding back.] He was so ashamed, John.

[He can't help but hang on every word, his breath shallow and shaking just slightly. It's not even what she's saying, it's not about Kevin, it's about the way she does - so vulnerably, her gaze wide, her voice full of despair. In a way he's never witnessed before - but there's that ardor in her still, that adoration for destruction clinging to every syllable.

His chest nearly caves in with a heavy exhale when she murmurs his given name; he's never heard it from her lips before, and the sound of it - of her speaking to him of such things... He's filled with the desire to share this empty, harsh love with her; it presses, hungry and insatiable, against the bars that hold his control in place, against his burning and violent hatred for her. He knows what it is that he feels: brutal and dark affinity. The one and only thing he couldn't help but feel for her.]

Pyro. [His corrects her quietly, his voice low, his gaze steady.]

[She presses her lips together at his admonishment; she hadn't even realized she'd used his human name. She eyes John's flask and licks her lips, not wanting to stoop so low as to ask him to share, but wanting nonetheless. She spoke absently, perhaps rattled by Pyro's reappearance, perhaps shaken by the thoughts of her sister he's apparently brought back with him. She hates that he, of all people, has this affect on her, but remembers something similar when Kevin first arrived. It will pass...

And then again, her thoughts come back to Kevin. The confusing swirl of pity and envy and sadness that always comes when she thinks of him washes over her, and she speaks lowly, angrily as she leans closer to the fire.]

God, what did those monsters do to him at that school?

[Her eyes flash, then, with her more usual animosity, an accusatory look fixed squarely on John. Her words drip with hate and betrayal. Not betrayal of her, or the Brotherhood, or anything so paltry. Mortis finds herself enraged at how John betrayed himself, willingly wearing a power neutralizer, letting the X-Men put his fire out. She can't imagine him ever doing such a thing, and for all she's hated him in the past, she wishes she could kill John for him for the things he's done to the Pyro she remembers.]

How could you ever go back there? How could you let them do that to you?

[John sees where her eyes roam, but doesn't offer - that would be too much like being nice to her, too much like extending an olive branch. Instead he looks down at the stolen goods, merely brings in to his lips, tips it up for another taste.

He realizes she hadn't meant to call him John, that she had slipped in the heat of the moment, and he tucks that away. His gaze, now slackened from its intense and intent pursual of her despaired features, drop down to see her eyes flash, her familiar hatred like an old, warm cocoon.

Her words - so spitting and dripping with venom - barely register for him. Maybe it's the lull of the alcohol, maybe it's because he's exhausted, but he feels nothing at first. A year ago, he would be filled with rage at the thought of his old home and the people in it. Even months ago he would have felt the same. Now it takes a moment for the resentment to brew up inside him, yet it's not entirely for the X-men, no.

It's for her, Mortis, and it's not only resentment. He feels... pity. Disgust. She's pathetic, even in all her ghastly beauty, belittling him. She can't see, can she? She can't see that this place is a cancer; that the Brotherhood is just as bad. Even, John can now admit quietly to himself, worse than the X-men. She's a fucking pawn with nothing of worth to call her own. She's a shell.

He scowls, trying to push back his rising indignation, but it spreads, infuses into his very bones. The truth is John has no home. He has no family. He never has, even when he was here. But this time, at Xavier's, he's found... peace. And that's more than he's ever had.]

Because they're a bunch of bleeding-heart retards. It was play nice and put that fucking thing on or I might as well have put on a bow instead and dropped myself off at the damn White House. You think anyone else would be stupid enough to give a mutant terrorist asylum?

Edited 2011-02-23 04:17 (UTC)

[Mortis, Lois, she can sense this is a lie. The vehemence with which he bites back at her, the weakness of the argument, the one obvious thing he's overlooking:]

I know you, Pyro. Intimately. If you wanted to, you could disappear. Asylum doesn't apply to people like us, so long as we stay strong. [She quirks an eyebrow at him, patronizing.] Maybe the kid is right. Maybe you have gone soft. [Her smile softens and she speaks kindly, a contradiction to the words that leave her lips.] Maybe you were just soft from the start; domesticated animals can't survive in the wild. Can't reintegrate properly. [She cocks her head to the side, her eyes filled with genuine curiosity.] Is that what happened to you?

[Only she can do this to him. Can irritate and bully him into snapping, into not caring one fucking bit about keeping control. The violence in John - the anger, the hunger for destruction - he hides it under a bored mask, lets it simmer and sometimes brim beneath the surface. But Mortis - every word she says grates on him, makes him shudder on impact, as if she knows which ones to say to insult him the most. His scowl deepens as his lips part to suck in breath, his eyes wide and furious, flashing in the hot heat of the fire.

It's telling how the fire isn't his first plan of action - what he wants from the moment she accuses him of being soft is to wrap his hands around her slim neck and strangle the life from her. Everything she says after that he merely processes through rage-tainted senses.

He's on his feet just as she asks her last question, stalking around the fire and roughly grabbing her by the neck, tugging her face up to his as he bends over her. The feel of her warm skin is jarring; the underside of her jaw is soft under his bruising thumb.

His voice is hard and firm, nearly a whisper, and filled with brutal promise as he sneers down at her, the words punctuated by vicious yankings of his grip.]

Shut the fuck up. You don't know shit about me. Say one more fucking word and I'll prove just how wrong the kid is.

[John is so close his breath is hot in her face, the smell of whiskey and burning filling her nostrils. She stares up at him, not even bothering with defiance, her hands empty of the death the could command, one resting gently on his wrist as her grips her throat.

She smiles, her eyelashes fluttering, almost ladylike as she parts her lips and laughs. It vibrates into Pyro's palm, the dismissive mirth unnerving.]

And what, Pyro? Kill me? I'm not afraid to die.

[Her eyes taunt, adding Not like you are. Her eyes glow red, like a cinder, her whole body giving rise to those familiar black tendrils. They reach out toward Pyro hungrily, but Mortis holds them back, matching his threat with her own. If he feels his chest tighten, a triphammer set into his heart, it shouldn't be a surprise.]

I am death.

[She laughs again and waits for his move.]

[The dark shadow on his expression deepens at her taunts, at the casual, intimate way her slender fingers curl over his wrist. His vision, his thoughts, his entire fucking being is still vibrating with the urge to destroy her fragile beauty and snuff out that awful, awful melodic laugh. He'd just like to shatter her into pieces, would just like to throw her into the pit of fire next to them and watch her skin flay out her bones.

But he's not surprised, even through his murderous rage, that she reacts this way - it's the way she always has with him. So flippantly, so unintimidated. His chest does tighten; his heart does skip a beat. This is the moment, like so many other moments. The moment he could crush his lips against hers and take out all his frustrations on her body, as if it could drain him of all the terrible feelings and impulses inside him, with hopes that when it's over, they will be gone. With hopes that maybe she would perish with them.

It's a split second choice, and he makes it. A different John from a different time would give in, but this time he merely viciously shoves her away, watches her fall back, and straightens, his labored breath evening and his eyes glaring steadily down at her. He swallows heavily and turns wordlessly away, scooping up Logan's discarded flask.]

[Despite being cast aside so violently, somehow Mortis manages to land gracefully in the snow. Her legs tucked under her, arms splayed behind her, spine arching just a little as she tilts her chin to fix him with a curious expression, one brow raised in curiosity.

The reaction is unusual, but it doesn't phase her at all. She shifts gracefully so that her bare hands are no longer buried in the damp, cold snow, and tips forward to knees with her hands by the flames. She isn't afraid of the fire, just as she isn't afraid of Pyro. She never has been. He was never one for a kill where you could see the light go out of someone's eyes.

She watches him stalk back to his place across from her, watches him drink, watches him seethe. She's always amused at how easy it's been for her to get such reactions out of him. It was one of her few amusements for a long time. She cups her palms together and brings them to her lips, blowing warm air between them, covering a soft, throaty chuckle. Her smile can be seen from behind her hands that same dismissive, bemused grin.]

Like I said...

[He nearly growls, licking the whiskey from his lips, turning his head to set his gaze on her. The hatred lingers, but he's back in control. John closes the flask and slips it into his back pocket, his upper lip curling up just so into a sneer.]

You're not worth it.

[He states the words plainly; he doesn't even mean them as an insult, not entirely. Because she's not. She never has been worth anything to him. Worth the anger or the effort. She's not worth anything alive, or dead, or writhing with him under the cover of night and their own darkness.]

Never have been.

Edited 2011-02-23 06:02 (UTC)

[She shrugs, nonchalant, unaffected by his disowning words. Her eyes catch the light of the fire; they do not leave him, nor does the intensity of her gaze soften.]

I was never the one who needed to feel worthy.

[She casts the statement aside, carelessly. It's a matter of fact in her mind. Her worth has never come from outside; it's never been about who she bedded, whose life she took. Her only concern was that it was she who did it. Her choice, her power, her life.

It's all she's ever wanted, to be herself.]

[He breaths out a humorless laugh at that, his sneering lip tugging up into a smirk. No, she never did. And as a result she's worth just so much, benefited and blossomed into such a good life.]

No shit.

[He says this dryly, reaches a hand out to quell the flames, put them out simply because he can.] Try not to freeze to death. [He stuffs his hands in his pockets and leaves, done with the conversation.]

MADROX - Kayt ---- I hope you don' tmind playing with Jamie too...

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