Days of Becoming, Chapter 42 of 44

[talktooloose]

Title: Days of Becoming, Chapter 42: “Ghosts in the Smoke”
Author: Talktooloose
’Verse: X-Men movieverse
Betas: mofic and lux_apollo. Thanks for enthusiasm and well-placed questions.
Disclaimers: Marvel and 20th Century own the X-Men, but often get it wrong. I own my original characters, for all the profit that brings. I also get it wrong, but I don't charge people for it.

Series Summary: This novel focuses mainly on the paths Iceman and Pyro take on their way to adulthood and how they discover and deal with their love for each other. It is a novel about what Joni Mitchell calls ”the dream's malfunction” and how we can learn to make our own dreams when our heroes fail us. Other X characters (including ones from comicverse and elsewhere) and OC's play prominent roles and the action begins before X1, continues through the events of X2 and X3 and concludes in the aftermath of that movie. This novel does not take X-Men Origins: Wolverine as canon.

Previously in Days of Becoming: The last time we saw Bobby and John, they were wandering around San Francisco in the wake of events at Alcatraz. They were looking for the missing and confused Charles Xavier (in his new body). They eventually found him holed up with Magneto, who was himself crippled by side-effects of the mutant cure. Then something happened.

I LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. Please use the comments link at the end of the chapter to bring you back here or drop me email to talktooloose CAT toothdemon FRAUGHT net. That oughta fool the spambots for now.

Here's the chapter!

Here's the DOB homepage for earlier chapters!

Comments

[luiskeln.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for update! It`s like a weekend once again :)

[lux-apollo.livejournal.com]

:-)

[(Anonymous)]

That was perhaps this project's best chapter yet. Richly dark and just right in so many places. Very impressed.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words. This one has been brewing in the back of my mind for years.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Heh, and my weekend was editing this sucker!

[luiskeln.livejournal.com]

But it`s worth it, admit it!

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was great fun. Editing (unless you realize you've really fucked up) is much more joyous than first writing, which is much more like tightrope walking.

Anyway, I'm off to write 43 now. I started last Friday. I want that posted by mid-February, and then the epilogue by end of Feb.

[luiskeln.livejournal.com]

Oh, i`m actualy eager to read those two chapters left, but at the same time i kind of don`t know how i am supposed to live when this fabulous journey with boys ends. Anyway, i totally understand that it must be a big deal for you to finish it and just let go.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Put it this way, I had thought I'd write the thing in a year and that seemed liked a long time. But you know what? Next week marks FOUR YEARS I've been writing this novel. No regrets at all, just surprised how long it's taken. I never realized I had set up something quite as ambitious I had. This is why I call this project my master class (or masters degree) in writing fiction.

I'm moving from DOB to a non-fanfic novel (contemporary horror-fantasy) which is already brewing nicely in my brain. I hope to begin actually writing that one in April. After I get enough chapters under my belt, I think I might start serializing it as a podcast. I'm addicted to the adrenaline of people waiting for the next chapter!

On the last chapter of DOB, I'll make up some sort of sign up for anyone who wants to follow what I do next.

[luiskeln.livejournal.com]

On the last chapter of DOB, I'll make up some sort of sign up for anyone who wants to follow what I do next.

That`d be great, `cause i`m totally reading anything you`re going to write.

i love this so much im jumping like an idiot.

[(Anonymous)]

i loved this chapter and im soooo like comsically excited. johnny got his flame his own natural flame!!!!! *squeel* im so happy. i love a john and pyro that can make his own flame. i was reading a stoory by hiril moon on ff.net and i think is was called eternity flame she hasnt updated in a while but your story and here's totally take the cake for bobby/john slash with your originality and the john/pyro getting his own flame. I LOVE YOU!!!!! WOOT WOOT YOUR STORIES ROCK!!!!!!

Re: i love this so much im jumping like an idiot.

[(Anonymous)]

OH I FORGOT TO TELL U IM NOT SIGNED ON BUT IM DEAD-ICE-ROSES XD kinda forgot didnt wanna appear annonymus and not have you know who i am.

Re: i love this so much im jumping like an idiot.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I think that's what my beta lux_apollo meant when he said this chapter had a lot of "fan service" in it.

loved it

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think I've commented before. I'm one of your lurkers. I've loved all that you've written, but this chapter was in another category altogether. I was viscerally suffering with John and Bobby throughout the ordeal! Really beautiful, powerful writing. Great job!

Re: loved it

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Thank you for delurking and saying these kind words. It was a hard chapter to write and I had to really get psyched up to go there. Hope you enjoy the final chapters, coming soon to an Internet near you.