The Afterlife

They don't have anything left to say to each other. It's all a distant past now, and it's like it's been a thousand years ago. So, when she finds him quite by accident, sitting alone in a dark and dingy alleyway full of grey and dusky shadows of the night, looking like he's never once been the person she knew those many months before, she sits with him wordlessly; doesn't make a sound. The only acknowledgement she gets is a look of fleeting surprise and well, nothing more but hardened reserve, for he turns away and mutters a pronounced but darkly whispered curse.

Marie doesn't mind in the least. It's the very reaction she expects out of him anyway. But she still feels a small pang of dejection somewhere deep down when he turns his head away like she was the turncoat, not the other way around. But she flicks the momentary feeling away without a second thought. At least he's not getting up and leaving just because she's somehow back to square one here with him. At least he's not moving away.

It feels like they have a million miles of empty space between them as they sit there beside one another; a million miles of empty space never to be filled again by anything other than more hatred and more longing and even more meaningless silence.

There are no sounds around them, just deep, deep quiet. And the night sky is cloudless and starless and only just a black and bitter abyss of ink. They are both wrapped in bleak, stagnant darkness that only gets more sinister and foreboding as the time passes.

And she's deeply surprised that she's the one who initiates the talk. It's no more than her slight inhalation and a tilting of the head towards the sky that sends John bristling.

"So…" she starts, trying to keep whatever emotions she has at the moment hidden behind her indifference.

And his expression turns into one of fleeting anger. She's broken the silence and he hates her for it. Now comes the inevitable talk, he thinks to himself knowingly, that will most probably make everything go to hell. At least when they don't say a word, he can fucking pretend. Pretend that they aren't strangers; aren't fucking enemies right now. At least when it's silent, he can pretend that everything's right and nothing's wrong and that they were still the Johnny 'Dyce and Marie D'Ancanto of the past.

And then she starts the damn talk and he so badly wants to slap her for not realizing what she's started.

But he doesn't slap her. Only replies with a scathing murmur.

"You have some nerve."

And his tone is scornful and hard and not like how she remembers it. It's not the good-humored, silver-tongued voice she's used to. But she isn't surprised.

She looks at him, carefully arranging her face into a look of contemptuous dislike. But searching his face all the same like a mother would a child. He wasn't even looking at her.

"Sorry?" she returns, her voice almost as hard as his.

He makes a noise like he's irritated and says nothing more.

She struggles inwardly, not knowing whether to hit him or to try again.

"John…" she begins, and he sends her an icy stare.

"PYRO," he corrects loudly, his glare murderous.

Marie wrings her hands in unhidden exasperation.

Her restlessness catches his eye and he looks down at her gloveless fingers. He snorts and looks away abruptly, flashes of the meeting he had with Drake at the clinic sparking in his mind like fireworks.

"Traitor." And it's almost a whisper.

"You're one to talk," she retorts on impulse, knowing that his hate for her decision to rid herself of her mutation was fueling his anger.

"You're one of them now," he bites, "Homo sapiens."

"And of course, you hate them. You hate me."

And he just shuts up and looks away again. She knows he wants to say more, but he doesn't. The heat emanating from him tells her all she needs to know.

"You do hate me," she murmurs, feeling empty all of a sudden.

He looks at her for almost a full minute, eyes unreadable and expressionless.

"You know what?" she says, unnerved by his silent gaze, "I don't care anymore. Hate me all you want. You – you, all of you! You and – and Bobby just do as you please and walk out on me. And you know, I don't think I care anymore!"

"Walk out on you?" he blazes with renewed heat. "Excuse me, but you were the one who came in from out of nowhere acting like a fucking saint, turned my best friend into your boyfriend, expected me to remain a tag-along third wheel while you two share stupid secrets and hold hands… and you wonder why I WALKED OUT ON YOU?!"

He's breathing heavily now, and it seems as though it was something he's always wanted to say to her.

"So it's MY fault, now?"

Once again, she's met with silence. And this one stretches on for so long that Marie thinks she'll explode with impatient rage.

"Oh, god!" she finally yells. "What is your problem, John?" And she feels like she's having a one-sided conversation with a wall when he doesn't respond until half a minute later.

"Nothing," is his mechanical reply, and his voice is so flat and so dead that she knows he's not telling the truth. Any indication that he had been screaming at her before is now nonexistent.

He's back to his emotionless self.

She eyes him warily now, her anger dissipating the moment his lifeless answer left his lips.

"John…" she says, softer this time, trying to get him to understand and listen.

"Don't call me that!" he snaps wildly.

She recoils, but doesn't stop. "John, what's the problem?"

And she feels guilty because she isn't even curious. She only asks because she suddenly feels so, so sorry for him and feels so, so upset about everything that's happened to him since he'd left almost nine months ago.

"Why do you care? Weren't you just yelling at me about 'walking out' on you?"

"John - "

"Stop with the fucking John shit, dammit."

" – I just want to know…" Want to help, she wants to add, but it just dies in her throat.

"WE'RE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE, MARIE," he snarls.

And she feels like she's been slapped in the face. Her eyes narrow dangerously. "I think I already know that, Johnny," she hisses. "Doesn't mean you can't answer my fucking question!" And she knows her anger is not hers entirely. Pyro is rearing his ugly head within her own and she wants to fucking burn something. She was so very wrong when she thought the Cure would also erase the people and memories in her head.

Hell, Rogue. You are stupid. "You – have – misunderstood - me," John grinds out. "I ANSWERED YOUR BLOODY QUESTION. THAT WAS MY ANSWER."

John, what's the problem?

We're not friends anymore, Marie.

She almost suffocates in the darkness; feels it pulling at her. It's now that she understands why he's acting like such an angry kid in front of her. Their friendship had crumbled to dust. Once upon a time, there was something there. Something. Now, it's been gone for a long time.

"We can't go back to that ever again, can we?" she says finally with quiet reserve. There's a tightening around her chest.

"I've fought my battles, you've fought yours," he replies simply, coldly. "We've gone different ways. You, me, even Drake, from what I gather." And he looks almost pityingly at her. Almost.

"Yes."

"He moved on, I take it?"

"I shouldn't have taken it," she says, ignoring his question.

"What?"

"The Cure."

"No. You shouldn't have."

He isn't surprised that she's feeling ashamed for what she did.

"Kitty," she murmurs unconsciously, her mind unfocused and blurred.

He raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment. Maybe he knows what's going on, maybe he doesn't. But he knows he's past the point of getting involved. He's no longer one of them.

She looks over at him tiredly, snapping out of her reverie.

"So, where're you gonna' go now?" she asks.

He gives her a half-shrug.

They lapse into silence once more.

This time, it's only just a contemplative silence and no longer a hateful silence full of crackling tension.

It isn't like there's any point for him to tell her that he had missed her (and maybe even Drake) while he'd been gone. It isn't like there's any point for her to tell him he shouldn't have left; to tell him he should come home. It's stupid telling each other the things they wanted so very much to hear so very long ago. The time is long gone now and they both know it.

They were stuck here, not unalike, and the world around them isn't moving; and still they don't know where to go.

And then, he stands.

Her eyes follow him, but she doesn't rise from the pavement.

"Well, goodbye," he says abruptly, turning away. "Hope we never meet again."

And she blinks and struggles for a moment before managing a wry smile. "Yeah… I hope so too," she replies, voice soft and serene and much gentler than she ever remembers it. Because she knows damn well that he's lying and he's faking and he doesn't want that at all. She knows this. And he knows that she knows this. And so he doesn't mind that she's smiling. As long as they're both lying to each other, he thinks, it should be just fine.

And he saunters off into the darkness, leaving her alone.

She only stays there for another hour in the alleyway, her mind oddly blank, before getting up and making her way back to the mansion. And she's still smiling, knowing – somehow knowing – that she is still being watched from somewhere out there within the veil of shadows, ensuring her safe passage home.