st. john sits on the railing of his ship, nails picking at the peeling paint. it’s been docked for almost a week now, but he still spends most of his time on board. for the first year, every docking meant st. john combed settlements and cities for anyone he knew before. but he’s long since accepted that most of his friends & family are gone, one way or another. lost to the anti-life equation or gone to another earth. there’s a sigh, then a forced grin.
“ some rumble about a telepath sending out a distress call somewhere in south america -- i didn’t hear it, but a couple of the crew were swearing up and down. somethin’ about a shared dream. hell if i know, but i think we’re gonna go look into it. wanna come ?? ” he needs a couple extra pairs of hands; a couple regular crew members have decided to disembark after the last close call.
pausing, steve turns back to the young man, a frown already wrinkling his face. he’s seen them before - st. john’s been hard to miss over the past three years, with his mobile safe haven floating around. steve can’t deny he’s been doing good work, helping out where he can. and if the past three years have taught him anything it’s that arguing with this particular person is pretty pointless. “maybe i’ll hang around until you get back there, then. just to be safe.” he says with a sigh, turning back to face him. “you don’t - have to call me that, by the way. really. you know if you need help getting supplies out to your boat we can arrange something. less risk involved.”
a few years ago, st. john woulda given anything to be hard to miss. hell, he was then, too. st. john’s been a fucking spectacle since he was fifteen years old. a one-man circus, a pratfall of clowns ensconced in one man. he wears notoriety like a second skin. but now? fuck, he’d give anything to be nobody. to just -- fuck off to an island for the rest of his life.
“ don’t mind the risk, keeps me on my toes. ” still -- he can’t explore a death wish until he’s sure his people aren’t going to die off. “ i didn’t mean it respectfully ; i was imagining a pageant where they paraded a bunch of jacked dudes around in starred and striped speedos and finally crowned you the winner. that how it happened? ”
@alerdyce
“but for real, if you’re ever in need of an apocalypse pirate that has no skills other than beating the tar out of people that deserve it, i’m your girl.” a bit of a break from land sounded nice. a break from worrying about the anti-living around every corner sounded extra nice. “the pirates of the caribbean were absolutely my favorite fucking thing when i was a kid and i have no shame.”
looking up from the tank of kerosene he’s been fiddling with, st. john narrows his eyes and regards steph for a few long seconds. “ fine skill to have, ” he concedes, looking away for a moment to snap a piece of fishing wire between his teeth and go back to tinkering. he’s smiling now though, sharp-edged but not mean.
“ that movie fucking rocked. -- i can always use another set of hands, yeah. the crew won’t give you too much shit, but they’re not exactly a pro-human crowd. ” it’s a petty distinction, nowadays, as much as it twists st. john’s stomach to admit. but, as he always has, st. john brings extreme personalities to him like moths to a flame. “ if you got a lighter to bring, i’ll EVEN make you security officer. ”
“it’s not safe out here.” steve says quickly, already making his way to the nearest shelter he can remember. it’s not safe to stay on the surface for too long - anyone who’s been on earth for the past three years would know, but if they’ve just returned.. well, he doesn’t know what they faced out there, but it’s probably not been anything like it is here. “c’mon, i got somewhere safe nearby. you can tell me what you’re doing out here to begin with.” he doesn’t intend to sound harsh about it, but it’s been a long three years. he knows what lingering out here will bring.
st. john makes no move to follow. he taps the last cigarette out of a crumpled box and lights it with a flick of his lighter. free hand pushes back his hood for a better look. “ guess we never really ran in the same circles, huh ?? ” he glances at the watch on his wrist, then shakes his head. “ no can do, mr. america. i’m leaving port in two hours. ” he jostles his backpack for emphasis -- “ just gotta drop off a few supplies before that. don’t you worry -- fuck all’s getting near me, alright ?? you can go about your day. ”
▹ formerly : the brotherhood of mutants , unwilling government 'agent'
▹ best-selling novelist, baby !! ( back when books were a thing )
▹ earth - 616 based ⋙ some xmcu influence.
▹ played by markel williams.
———————————— ⋙ 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝. ( tw: mentions of death, killing, degenerative diseases )
st. john allerdyce spent his earliest years in melbourne, australia. growing up, his family was more or less average. he was a predictably rebellious kid, but for the most part it was an average upbringing. it wasn't until the sudden and uncontrollable manifestation of his mutant powers that things began to devolve in st. john’s life. it became clear quickly that his family ( and one-time friends ) feared him. perhaps rightfully so. the onset of his powers came with a noticeable difference in st. john's personality. he'd always been a opinionated, brash, quick-to-anger, but all of that dialed up to eleven in the course of a couple weeks.
it became clear, quickly, that he wasn't wanted at home, so he took off and ended up in america. for a while, st. john found a home at xavier's institute. finally with people like him, john thrived. in fact, he found a new passion for learning, too. but even at xavier's, the injustices he saw perpetrated against mutants, soured him to the experience. anger & violence won out, and st. john abandoned the institute and joined the brotherhood of mutants, specifically under the tutelage of mystique & destiny.
meanwhile, st. john also pursued a passion in writing. while his more serious books were critical successes, relatively speaking, the never sold well. it wasn't until he started writing tawdry romance novels that he gained public fame for his writings. he writes under a pseudonym, and he probably won't tell you what that pseudonym is.
in the years that followed, he made a name for himself as pyro. he was a notorious 'mutant terrorist' in his first life. at some point, he was briefly taken into custody by the US government, where he was forced to work as a government agent. after a month of forced service, the government abandoned st. john and his allies, in a war zone, leaving them to die. he survived by shortly thereafter contracted a particularly infectious strain of the legacy virus. he died roughly a year later. resurrected by selene in the ruins of genosha, st. john returned .
since the start of the mother fuckin’ apocalypse, st. john has been trying to get back in touch with his mutant friends & family. at the first onset of the virus, st. john was abroad and very nearly killed. after escaping with his life, st. john commandeered a boat and went searching for other, living mutants -- allies scattered to the four corners. ( i’m attempting to make st. john’s involvement w/ the marauders in recent canon interesting, organic, and sexy !! ) regardless, st. john still considers himself an extension of whatever remains of the brother.
———————————— ⋙ 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒
➺ fire manipulation -- st. john possesses the psionic ability to control fire. he can exert his mental control over any existing flame. he can increase it in size, change its shape, manipulate its temperature, and imbue it with ‘living’ properties. his creations take on a life of their own, so long as he keeps his attention on them. for example, he could create a creature from flame & let it loose to attack an opponent, seemingly allowing it to act of its own volition and free will.
hypothetically, st. john can control any flame that he can see and has not yet discovered an upper limit for the amount of fire that he can control at any given time. with further concentration, st. john can cause fire to take a solid form. creatures made of this solid flame could hypothetically pick up objects -- a wall would be near impenetrable.
➺ fire resistance -- st. john is entirely immune to any fire under his control. however, he’s vulnerable to any fire he hasn’t taken control of, just like any normal human.
➺ fire generation -- EXTREMELY UNCOMMON OCCURRENCE. under extreme duress, st. john has occasionally generated fire of his own creation. doing so as a defense causes him an extreme amount of pain and often results in a comatose state for several hours of recovery. when he was young and his powers were just manifesting, he woke up occasionally to his bedding on fire. similarly, when his powers were fluctuating while he had the legacy virus, spontaneous combustion happened on occasion.
st. john has no control over this. an observant person might notice that at times of intense emotion or a loss of control, st. john heats up to unnatural levels.
➺ psionic ramifications -- because st. john’s power is psionic rather than kinetic, his connection to fire is an intensely personal one. as such, his powers shape the way his mind works. he has been described by telepaths as ‘seeing the world as fuel.’ this influence on his mind is in part responsible for his violent tendencies and occasional outbursts. if he goes too long without using his powers, he becomes intensely agitated and disconnected from reality.
