Originally posted by pr1983
All that is down to me?
I have a Marrow thing dancing around in my head too. It's maybe a little darker, definitely a little more metaphorical, and either a lot more or a lot less smutty, depending on what direction I take it. That's assuming I get time. I got three projects going and that's not counting, you know, the whole...Guardian of Freedom and the American Way of Life gig.
Originally posted by Genosha
I have a Marrow thing dancing around in my head too. It's maybe a little darker, definitely a little more metaphorical, and either a lot more or a lot less smutty, depending on what direction I take it. That's assuming I get time. I got three projects going and that's not counting, you know, the whole...Guardian of Freedom and the American Way of Life gig.
Indeed...
Sorry, guess I'm picky, but I prefer a heavier brow....He's too...smooth? I like my angels a little more ...what's the word...scary. Divine power, instrament of God, Holy smiting.
Somthing about this guy says to me 'Here, buy this watch.' or 'Doesn't this jacket look great on me?'
He SHOULD be saying 'Mercy? Not really my thing. I do wrath.'
Yes. Of course. Poor little rich kid turned superhero on account of being born with wings.
If anything the mixed symbolism of looking like an angel but being a mutant, emphasizes my argument.
Anyway, as far a the look goes, it's just personal prefrence. I'd like an Angel who can pull off pretty boy, but with a little more of an edge.
...I'm seeing brows a couple shades darker than the blond of his hair. blue eyes, with a little bit of steel in them. A strong, but clean jaw under a smile...it can do a grin with dimples or the other kind. The one with too many teeth to be considered friendly.
I don't know, to my Angel as a character is more of a symbol than a personality, so his look should reflect the message.
You could debate what the message is, but of course I'm sure I'm right 😄
Originally posted by Genosha
Sorry, guess I'm picky, but I prefer a heavier brow....He's too...smooth? I like my angels a little more ...what's the word...scary. Divine power, instrament of God, Holy smiting.Somthing about this guy says to me 'Here, buy this watch.' or 'Doesn't this jacket look great on me?'
He SHOULD be saying 'Mercy? Not really my thing. I do wrath.'
Originally posted by Les yeux clos
You do know who Angel is, right?
😆
Originally posted by Jury
... Oh so a lot happened in X-Men nowadays... no updates in here... ❌ like the Sinister and Gambit issue... Oh my...gambit12 mon ami
sinister and gambit? bah... sinister and cyclops is how its meant to be...
Uh...a little soppier than I was really going for, but I ain't got time ta fix it. Anyway, as promised...or threatened...
You’re hunting tonight. If you wanna get picky, it’s daylight somewhere above, but if you wanna get picky, it’s always daylight somewhere. But not here; never here. You wade through the sludge, ankle deep and reeking powerfully enough to blind your nose. The solid, clogging stench of things unwanted by Man, stuffed back into the womb of his Mother. Super Man sends his unwanted things here too.
But today, or tonight, he’s asking for their help fighting his war. So you skulk in the darkness, ears and skin alone giving you the shape of the world. You hunt the dragon in its lair, not to pierce its heart as it sleeps. No, you’re gonna wake it up and try to convince it to eat your enemies instead of you.
Diplomacy is not what you do best, but Chuck was confident that your brand of persuasion might succeed where others would have their throats cut...Might end up like that for you too, but you’ll probably get over it.
You find a place, a crossroads of a sort, where your prey or someone who will lead you to her will have to pass through. Then you wait. You open your ears wider, not physically; you make them hear the things that the human part of your brain ignores. You notice the shuffle of tiny things on four legs-some of them not so tiny- and the alien cadence of things that scurry on six…or more. You count drips. You locate their source. Some are steady and predictable while others consistently fall too early or too late.
The sewer sings for you and you listen, but more important you understand. It’s not what you’re known for, but of all the things you do, it’s one of the ones you take the most pride in. Because it’s a skill, honed over decades of effort and use, not an accident of birth, not something shoved inside of you in a lab. It’s something you had to learn, and relying on things you’ve learned reminds you that you’re still just a man after all.
You’re patient and it pays off. It doesn’t bring light, its feet make no sound, but it creates a man shaped void in the music of caverns and dankness. Drops fail to land, scurrying claws change direction. You watch it with your ears as it moves past you. It stops. It listens, but it doesn’t hear the wrongness of your silence so it continues past.
There’s no need to bother remembering turns and twists and double backs. If things go well, you can be guided out. If they don’t, you probably won’t need to be. Your prey takes a snaking, indirect route to its destination. It stops frequently to listen. Habit? Or does it feel you behind it? Once it even moves toward you, but it must be mostly person because it decides you aren’t really there and resumes its trek. People are the only thing in this world with the power to imagine being hunted, so they’re the only thing willing to doubt the feeling.
It leads you deeper into the labyrinth. It leads you to dryer places where unloved things might be able to sleep if they huddle together and whisper soothing words to each other to keep the darkness from seeping into their heads.
Your ears loose her, as your nose –no longer strangled by stench –picks her up. You know it’s a her, because you can usually tell for one, but mostly because you recognize it as HER. Your target, the one the others are listening to this week or however long she can last. Your recognition isn’t because you know her that well. But you’ve met, and it’s a scent that’s hard to forget. She smells inside out; things that should be underneath thrusting out into the open air. You smelled something like it on yourself once upon a time.
You don’t wait, you pounce…“Hey girl, we need to talk,”…sort of. Of course, you’dve been surprised if it’d been that easy.
You’re not surprised by a bone javelin flying in your direction…well a little surprised, because it actually grazes you even though you aren’t where she should think you are. You’re less surprised that she’s not where you think she is.
So, you’re ready for the knife in your back and you shove yourself backward to meet it. The blade twists, hurts like hell, but it’s good news; means there’s a hand attached. You spin, grabbing the arm attached to the hand and use your momentum to slam her into a wall. Full force…The gloves are off, but the claws are in for now.
She bounces off and straight back at you, and it’s on. The two of you don’t dance; this isn’t a date, it’s a goddamn train wreck. You meet her charge, leading with your fists and ignoring the chunks of herself she rips off to stab you with. Bone clubs break under your blows leaving splinters in your knuckles. Blunt spears shatter against adamantium ribs, a few thin slivers sinking deeper than the rest. The tips of knives break off in your abdomen. And you wade through it all blocking out the pain and knocking attacks aside to lay hands on the flesh behind the wall of weapons.
A hand finds a neck. Yours on hers. And you squeeze; not to choke, but to cut off the blood flow to her brain. It should only take seconds, but in those seconds, an attack slips under your guard. A ragged shard slices through tissue, sliding between ribs to lodge in the lump of muscle that that keeps YOUR brain supplied with blood.
“Die upworlder.” She snarls, punctuating with a final shove of the blade.
Your claws unsheathe unbidden; a grating scrape of metal against bone that scuttles up your spine and sets your teeth on edge. You meet her eyes. You can’t see them, but you know where they are. Your free hand shoves hers away and tears the offending spike back out, reopening the already partially healed wound.
A wound which knits closed as you flick your blood onto her face so she understands. “It’s a little harder than that.”…But not much. “But it hurts like hell,” you send the blade clattering off of a near by wall. “Don’t do it again.”
“Life hurts, X-man.” She hisses the word, and spits on it, her contempt repiercing your heart. You’ve been hated, you’ve been disdained, but you’ve always thought you were on the right side. Her disgust cuts deep because it reflects your own doubts.
This is a story. One of the old ones, so important that it echoes across time. The Mother created her consort because she wanted something to love, and he rent his bride asunder to build his house on her bones. And when his seed spawned ugly things on her, he stuffed them back inside so that he wouldn’t have to see them. Then his beautiful children, the ones he kept and let play in the sun, called them from the pit to fight their wars. They made themselves kings with the blood and sweat of their brothers…and put them back again when they were done…
She knows what you are. She knows WHO you are. She knows she’s outclassed. She knows she looses this fight. But she fights anyway, because she knows she’s right. Her foot ramming into your armpit breaks your hold on her throat, and she crashes into you. She comes at you from above, adding gravity’s strength to her own as she slams her head onto yours.
You can see the stars because their on the inside. You stagger some but pretend more and she takes the bait pressing in. You let her take you to the ground pulling her with you, and the two of you become a rolling mass of muscle and blood and skin and bone as each of you grapples for dominance.
You’re both earth, but where you’re solid, she’s molten. She spews burning curses -‘Surface Dweller’, ‘Sun Worshiper’, ‘X-man’ - while you try to pin her to the ground and pound reason into her. She flows out of your hands leaving searing wounds in her wake. Her rage is volcanic, raining blows on you in rapid succession while you remain unmoved. Her strikes barely release a trickle of sand, the thrusts of her blades cause only a subtle shifting of gravel.
So it comes down to who f_s up first. You’ve both been doing this most of your lives. But you’ve been alive longer. You can hear the rising impatience in her grunts and shrieks. The frustration is tangible in her movements. She gets tired, not physically, but mentally. You let her get you on your back and, thinking that she finally has an opening, she scrambles to take the top. And you’ve got her.
You get your legs around her waist and lock your ankles behind her. She’s on top, but you’re in charge. She recognizes it for what it is; the mistake of a novice. She’s angry at herself, and flings that rage at you. You catch her wrists just as she stabs toward your thighs with twin shards torn from her shoulders.
“You do that and it just pisses me off.”
“I’ll kill you, surface-scum, if I have to suck your demon brain out through your nose and chase it with acid.” To emphasize her point, she pushes off of the ground trying to get closer to your head snarling and gnashing her teeth as she does. Cute.
You oblige, yanking her toward your face; close enough drive home who’s calling the shots, but not close enough for her to attack. You hold her off balance and suspended above you with no leverage to pull away or fight closer. She struggles anyway, trying to twist, trying to gain enough of a foot hold to push out.
So, to emphasize YOUR point, you apply pressure to her wrists and growl in the voice, low and menacing, that’s moved hardened fighters, sapiens and superior, to beg for mercy; sometimes appealing to you, other times to the divine. “You ain’t like me girly, I snap your wrists and you’re outa commission long enough that somebody else takes your place. Ain’t why I’m here, but doesn’t put me out none to do it.”
You’re more than half expecting to have to take your threatening up a notch, maybe even make good on it, but she went completely still while you spoke. Still and silent. For the first time in this encounter, blindness is more than an inconvenience.
“Why ARE you here X-man?” Her tone is unreadable when she speaks, but she is talking. And she’s not fighting.
With any luck, maybe she’s listening. “I’m here to talk…” supplication is a calculated risk and you’re not sure it’ll fly, but something tells you she’d like to see you on your knees. “More like begging really.”
She sneers. “Your pretty things won’t touch you so you hope to satisfy your lust in the sewers? Your firestarters and weather witches kick you like a dog so you come begging for scraps?”
…She’s noticed what’s going on in your pants (as a matter of pride you’ve ditched the tights). You COULD tell her that it’s no big deal (…big enough, but that’s not really the point), that it happens, that the line between the lust of battle and the lust of the bedroom, sex and violence, creation and destruction…it ain’t as solid as people like to think. Not really solid at all now that you mention it. Things blend at the edges. Sometimes it’s predictable, like say…when you’re rolling around on the ground with a girl who’s not wearing much of anything despite the damp and the chill. Sure she’s trying to gut you, but YOU'RE not trying to gut HER and that can make all the difference in the world. Other times you don’t expect it, like when you’re ripping the fiber optic spine out of a cyborg; never mind the moral ambiguities of killing something that might still be part human. And yeah, it scares the hell outa ya first few times, but you deal…or you don’t.
You COULD explain all that, and you're seeing enough of yourself in her that if you don't end up killing each other maybe someday you will, but now's not the time. So you laugh it off. “That wasn’t what I was after either…but if you’re offering…”
She’s not in a joking mood. Her growl is low and menacing, and you imagine that hardened fighters might appeal for mercy when confronted with it. “Others have sought what you seek, lapdog,” as she speaks, you feel a stirring under your hands, “they were not happy with what they found.” Jagged spikes of bone grow from her wrists, pushing against and, when you refuse to release her, into and through your palms. It’s a slow, deliberate, agonizing penetration…like a forklift in the gut. Sweat falls from her face onto yours and her breath comes ragged. “Tame your dragon before he gets himself hurt.”
There’s another story, older than the other. Before the Mother made her God. Before she felt the burden of loneliness. Before she gave something of herself to make him, she was everything. She was a stalactite cave, a toothed womb. She was life and death, beginning and end, pain and pleasure.
It echoes here in these dark places, away from the God who punished her for giving him half of herself, who built his houses atop her corpse and tried to make his children forget her. It can be heard by someone who knows how to listen.
You do, “Life hurts,” and that makes all the difference in the world. You bring her hand to your chest, finding the tear in your uniform directly over your heart. You press her finger tips to your skin, whole and unscarred. “Hasn’t stopped me yet.”
There’s a stutter in the pulse at her wrist and you release her slowly to your chest. When she doesn’t try to strangle you immediately, you know you’ve cracked the shell, and you find her mouth with yours to taste the soft things inside.
The world above is descending into- or maybe returning to- chaos, but down here is quiet shared breath, mixed sweat, combined heat. Above, the Father rages, visiting wrath upon the beautiful world where important things happen. Down here the Mother slumbers with her ugly, unwanted things in her arms.
You came here because of that other world, but what’s happening down here means more. You’re retelling a story, THE story. You’re a god and you rend your goddess in twain to remake the world. And who knows, maybe this act will carry the echo a little further, maybe forgotten things will be remembered, maybe unloved things will be loved.
Genosha, Disgruntled Ninja of the Black Lotus Clan, give a sigh of relief. Her hand trembles slightly from fatigue as she sets the pen aside.
Done at last. She's put the Words on paper, now she can rest.
There's a sudden chill in the air behind her. A draft. But she knows it's something else.
"Please." She whispers. "I can't."
His voice deep but light. It's hollow, empty of feeling, empty of warmth. It echoes within itself. "You will." She tries to resist, but she's only human. She shudders and doesn't want to know if it's fear or...something else.
"There's no more." Her voice, she always thought it was a strong voice, quivers.
She feels him lean in behind her and closes her eyes, refusing to look at the hands braced on the desk to either side of her. Refusing to acknowledge the arms caging her in.
"You will make more. Our half will be told."
"It's too ugly. I'm happy now."
"You said you loved us. Make one of those neat little circles you like so much. Make it whole. Make it fit."
She knows that she's already consented, the pen is in her hand, but she makes a final plea. "Someone else could do it better, someone with more time, someone who doesn't need to sleep."
"You can sleep when you finish what you started, Genosha."
"My name's not Genosha."
"Really. Are you sure?"
"..." Her hand hovers over the paper. "How many?"
His voice is already cold, but it drops a few degrees. "I do NOT like to repeat myself. But...for love...Make it Whole."
A small sob escapes her throat and lands on the paper mixed with a few wet drops. Four...maybe five. It's too much, but...she's only a human. How could she be expected to fight the monsters. Make it whole, make it balanced, make it complete.
*sob*
That's all? I tear out a chunk of my soul and shove it into my computer, and all I get is a 'WTF?'
No curses, no critisim concerning the liberties I took with regard to Wolvie's religious affiliation? No 'Marrow's not in charge of the Morlocks and never has been'. No, 'how come she gives in all of a sudden?'
No 'please for God's sake Gen, give it a rest...btw you for got the 's' on gives a sigh of releif'?
Because I was told that it could never happen and it was horrible and wrong and not even funny …Muhahahahaha…. 😈
But um...maybe a wee bit ...heavy? We'll see.
You study your captive trying to understand how she functions. You brought her here to satisfy your curiosity. She has become a significant player against all probability, and that alone makes her worthy of some small interest. And of course, someone tried to tell you that you couldn’t.
It should have been a simple task; lab work, psychological and intellectual profiling, observation, dissection, complying and analyzing data. But your work is stalled. You’ve hit a brick wall of sorts. Things are not adding up. The equation is inelegant. She is imperfect. Psychologically damaged enough to be diagnosable, IQ an insignificant two standard deviations above the mean, carrier of several genetic defects, mutant abilities deserving of consideration- you’ve dampened them, but she barely ranks in the top 10% of mutants you consider worth your time, physically…adequate.
Due to this, you regard her- pathetic, weak, small, broken, asymmetrical- as she stands before you wearing her enigmatic smile and wonder why you are on knees. You know you are sitting back on your heels watching and waiting because this is what she demands of you. Why you obey her is the puzzle. She does not compel you; no one compels you. She makes you want it.
A logical explanation would be her psionic abilities or an uncataloged power, but you’ve checked and rechecked meticulously. Her powers are completely suppressed; she is utterly helpless, at your mercy.
And yet, here you are. The most reasonable course of action would be to admit to your…tendencies and assign the task to someone else. It would be justified. You have more important research, other projects that require your attention. But you find the idea of another man bending to her will distasteful. Your stomach rolls when confronted with the image of another’s hand tracing the impossibly fascinating curve of her calf. The thought of eyes other than your own watching goose flesh form on skin- pale and delicate as bone china-as his fingers caress the back of her knee… it makes your brain burn.
Yours are the only fingers- a surgeon’s fingers, possessed of a practiced sensitivity capable of testing the viscosity of bile- too slick, too water, too granular- with only a touch, capable of measuring the rate at which the blood on their tips cools in a 20 degree room- that can appreciate the paradoxical texture. Smooth and soft, firm and supple, a fragile layer of tissue protecting muscle and tendons underneath, warmed by the blood surging with steady, quiet regularity just below the surface.
And the possibility of any two other ears drinking the warm amber of her voice, of her tongue wrapped around some other name in gentle admonishment, “Nathaniel dear,” makes your chest ache, “where are your hands supposed to be?”
You look up to see her regarding you expectantly one blond brow arched asymmetrically over eyes a shade too dark to be considered pure blue. You pause, keeping your hand on her just long enough to remind her- and perhaps yourself- that you choose to yield, before returning it, palm down, to your thigh. “Forgive me My Queen.”
“Of course darling,” your eyes wander down her torso as she teases you with honey soaked words, “I know how difficult it is for you.” You want to slice her open from sternum to navel, peel her skin back, and crack and spread open her rib cage so you can pull out her organs and weigh them. The answer has to be in there somewhere. “You will try a little harder I hope.”
She runs a hand through your hair dragging her fingernails lightly over your scalp, and your head drops forward to give her the back of your neck. Your voice is normally coldly arrogant, hollow. Some might even describe it as apathetic and…ominous. But this frail, fleeting thing makes you purr. “I will My Queen.”
Perhaps tomorrow. You are your own master, your time tables are for your convenience. And of course, once you’ve extracted her heart and dropped it into a jar of formaldehyde, you will no longer be able to feel it beat faster under your hand.
“You’re a learned man, Nathaniel.” She says as she indulges your silent request by absently stroking the back of your head. There is comfort in submission. “I forget, what is the name of that woman?”
“Shahrazad.” You make a mental note to have the dampening field checked again while you scrutinize the graceful lines of slender ankles over white stiletto heels. “But she told stories to avoid the lust of her captor.”
“Details, dear…and you’ve already had a warning about your hands.” You bring them back to their place, but too late. You studiously observe her retreating hips sway in defiance of the laws of physics as she goes to the table to get…the rope. You growl in irritation. It requires more effort to not break the rope. “Please darling,” the click of her heels reverberates off of the metal walls of her cell as she returns, “if it bothered you that much, you’d be more careful.”
You add an addendum concerning recalibration to your note.
Swallowing your humiliation, you allow yourself to be tied and are rewarded for your compliance with the soft press of her chest against your back as she leans forward to brush her lips across your cheek…And it occurs to you that your ivory mistress is much like those ropes, and that there is perhaps something…rewarding in the exercise of restraint. You are certain that once you quantify that variable…
“Would you like to know what I enjoy most about my imprisonment, Nathaniel?”
You are fairly certain you could make an accurate guess. But feeling the seductive slink of her thoughts passing through her body to be breathed into your ear where they melt into your brain, becoming part of you… “Yes. Please.”… is so much more.
She stands and lightly tugs your head back so that you look up at her as she speaks; her fingers and eyes following her words. “It’s the softening of your jaw, the disdainful curl falling away from your lip, all of the measuring and calculating fading from your eyes until all that remains is need, pure and unclothed.” Her fingers saunter lazily back down to your mouth. “The only word you can remember in those moments is ‘Please’, and, Nathaniel dear,” Your lips part under her gaze without waiting for input from firing synapses and hers curl in an upside-down smile, “There is absolutely nothing in this world more delicious than a proud man begging.” Her eyes shift down to yours and she leans forward slightly. “Shall I tell you what he tastes like?”
You hate the cracks that appear in your obsidian-smooth voice, “Yes My Queen,” but you know she loves them, so you let them show.
“You’re not begging yet, my dear.” She smirks suddenly withdrawing and returning your head to upright. “What will my reward be, I wonder, if I am able to distract you for as long as our Miss Shahrazad was able to distract her prince?”
…There are nearly three billion women on this planet alone, and logic suggests that, if you were seeking a consort, it would be nearly impossible to not find several candidates better suited to your purpose and ambitions. But when she comes back to stand in front of you stripped of her meager powers and completely at your mercy, you see her cloaked in a power you are unable to quantify because she’s greater than the sum of her parts and you grovel at her feet.
“What ever it is your heart desires, My Queen.” Bowing until your forehead touches the floor.
The smile that spreads slowly across her face is filled with a glee that you could only describe as…sinister. “I’ve lost track, Nathaniel dear. How long before have to decide what that is?”
You match it with one of your own. “648 nights and a night, Oh Queen of mine.”
Sort of a sequel to the pete/kitty thing under x-men couples
“I’m not sorry. I refuse to be sorry.”
“I know but…neither am I.”
And then she’d had the nerve to look at you with pity. You told your self that you were done with it, that you’d put it out there and she’d walked away, that you couldn’t wait around for Pryde to realize that her quest for something more meaningful than sex is just…bloody f_ing stupid.
Course that doesn’t stop you from sulking in some pub –not your usual place, because technically you’re here on business –about three shots along on your way to getting pretty bloody f_ing stupid yourself. And it doesn’t stop you, two f_ing months later- from mentally rewriting the scene with a dozen different endings, any of them better than reality.
You signal your man for another as set the glass down and check your watch. If your contact is on time, you should be able to wrap things up before the alcohol hits your system. You tap a match book on the bar while you wait, trying to not feel twitchy; or at least not let it show as much.
Your ‘business’ is effectively goin ta shake the snow globe up a bit…A lot. And all the little elves and snowmen aren’t attached to the bottom. People are goin ta end up dead. A lot of people. Everything gets shuffled and redealt. You’d like to say that it’s for some greater good, that it’s not just because you’re burnt out and lookin to say a big ‘F_ you’ to the powers that be in the spirit of British anarchy. And you’d really like to think that none of it has anything to do with how things ended between you and Pryde. And yeah, they ended.
Of course, your luck being what it is, he’s late. You lost count somewhere around the sixth drink so you hold your hand up to see how pissed you are but forget why you’re looking at your hand and put it down.
“Hey mate,” you get the barman’s attention, “how drunk do I look?” He looks up from the sink and just shakes his head, so you splash some water on your face and try to rearrange it into an expression of sobriety. You’re a fair hand at faking it when you have to. “How am I lookin now, mate?”
He spares you a glance and even a couple of words. “Drunk. And wet.”
You grin. “Just how I like my w-“
“Watch it mate, this isn’t that kind of place.” You were pretty sure that it was, and your suspicion is confirmed when the man rolls his eyes in the direction a woman sitting at one of booths.
F_. “How long she been there?”
A shrug. “A while.”
You take a minute to study her while you absently pat yourself down for your smokes. She’s looking out the window, so all you see is red hair, and you don’t have any smokes because you quit again for some reason. She checks her watch while you buy a pack…make that two mate, and you get a look at her face. Well isn’t that a kick in the junk.
You’re surprised to see her, on this side of the pond for one thing, but you were pretty sure you’d heard she was dead…again. She notices you looking her way, so you give a nod. “She drinkin?” Your mate shakes his head. “Is now, two of…” you glance over at her catching eyes- a bright enough green that you can see the color from across a smoky, poorly lit pub- shifting back up from somewhere lower to meet yours. “Four of what you’ve been feedin me.”
You manage to get to her without spilling more than a few drops, and you only collide with one table. “You’re one of the last people I expected to be meeting here,” you say as you sit across from her slide the shots over offering a shrug and “I got a bit of a head start,” in response to her questioning look.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.” Her accent is that everyday American, particular to no region, but made common to all of them through the miracle of television.
“Not formally,” You half stand and extend your hand over the table, “Pete, you can call me Wisdom.” Her hand is unusually warm in yours, almost feverish, but her eyes are clear. “Is it Maddie or Madelyne?”
Her polite smile brightens a few watts. “Maddie’s fine. I thought you thought I was Jean.”
You scoff, if there’s one thing you’re careful about, it’s keeping straight the names women you wouldn’t turn away if they showed up on your door step naked. “The resemblance is entirely superficial. She’s…”you make a vague gesture with your hand. “And you’re…” You make a different, but equally vague, gesture.
“Well put.”
Fortunately for you, you aren’t going to put much thought into the difference until later, but where Grey is one of those women who wears her beauty like a suit of armor, sort of intimidatingly stunning, Pryor’s look is more …attainable. Jean wears her face like she expects people to love her. Maddie wears hers like she expects people to be disappointed she’s not someone else.
And she looks like you feel. Burnt out and sort of brittle, like the foundation is crumbling. Even when genuine her smile is a little forced and her eyes don’t sparkle with mirth; they glitter with something your not sure you want to identify. The s**t life’s thrown at her has beaten her down, and it’s the kind of pounding that leaves you tenderized instead of toughened up…Like you said, good thing you weren’t thinking that right then. It’s generally not a good idea to tell the girl you’re hoping to convince to crawl into bed with you that she’s looking rough around the edges. Even if that’s exactly what you’re in the mood for; something with too little self respect to put up a fight…Lucky for you that you don’t think that until later either.
“I’m thoroughly sloshed.” You say by way of explanation for your ineloquence.”
“Might be better that way.” She glances down at the shot glasses. “So, business before pleasure?”
You spread your arms in a gesture of openness. “I’m all yours, Luv.”
There’s no foreplay; she forces herself into your mind without so much as a ‘Brace yourself’, and begins ripping out the information where she finds it. You asked them to send a psion because you didn’t want a paper trail…but you’re suddenly regretting your pragmatism. She has the face of an angel, but her brutality is staggering. Black claws scrape away at surface thoughts to get at the juicy bits underneath. A writhing jaundiced tongue slurps up the exposed secrets, and you have a lot of them. From the mundane to the mutant, and you’ve been hoarding them for an occasion just like this.
She tears through you, thrusting aside what she finds useless and taking what she wants. And when it looks like she’s gotten all there is, she burrows deeper dragging out all of those things you’d pushed down deep enough that you’d convinced yourself they’d been forgotten. Your personal stash. Then she pulls out abruptly and you can’t help feeling…used.
“Here.” She hands you a napkin.
You dab at the warmth creeping down from your nose and wince when you look. The fluid is clear, slightly pinkish. “Permanent?”
She shrugs. “Probably some, but no worse than what this crap does to you,” she replies absently as she lines up her shots.
You do a try to do a quick assessment, but, like walking into your apartment after it’s been tossed, it’s hard to tell right off if anything important is missing. So you light a smoke and offer her one, which she declines on account of having quit again for some reason. Then you make small talk. “So what brings you back to the world of the living, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“The powers that be.” When you use that phrase it’s accompanied by a vague gesture skyward. She gestures toward the ground.
“How much do you remember?”
“My masters are cruel.”
So…everything. “My condolences.”
She nods. “It sucks. Here’s an example.” She indicates the shot glasses she’s still arranging and rearranging on the table. “I was just, sort of absentmindedly, thinking that the last time I did shots like this was in college. And then for some reason that reminded me of Brandon Matthews, the guy I lost my virginity to and who didn’t talk to me all the next week even though we had three classes together, and who still expected to be able to hook up with me at a party the following weekend. And I was sort of half wondering whatever happened to the sorry SOB, if he knocked up that theater major he was dating and had himself a couple more kids and a divorce. And do you know what I thought next?” She looks up to meet your eyes and there’s pain in hers, the angry kind. The kind that makes you want to pick the world and shake it and leave the rest to fate.
“What’s that, Luv?”
“I didn’t go to college. I was built, memories and all, in a lab. And Brandon Matthews wasn’t even important enough to be given a false existence on paper.” She returns her attention to the table and knocks her shots back neatly. One. Two. Three. Four.
There’s nothing you can say to that. You can walk down the hall, knock on a door, and confront your most recent heart ache head on. And you really don’t want to try to imagine what it would be like to know that more than half of your life was bull**** and that some sick f_ thought it would be cute to make sure there wasn’t too much of sunshine and rainbows.
“Technically it was Scott.”
“I’m too much a gentleman to ask.” You make a note to knock a couple of the boy scout’s teeth out next time you see him, but then you remember that, he’ll probably be trying to kill you so you’ll have to do a little better than that.
“No you’re not.” She treats you to a wry smile that reaches her eyes, and you take a second to appreciate the subtly menacing glitter in them.
There are promises in those bright green eyes. “I was pretending to be.”
“Don’t.” Or maybe they’re threats. “Just be what you are, and I’ll either like it or I won’t.”
That’s probably one of the nicest things anyone has said to you in a while. “No need to bother chattin me up, Luv.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’d ask you if you really think you’re that smooth, but I already know you do.”
“So you know exactly what’s on my mind and you’re still here. Is that consent?”
You earn a laugh for your trouble. It’s a laugh that might send a chill up your spine if it were directed against you, but you stepped over a line tonight and that act put and her on the same side for now. It’s a laugh that smolders; a dark burning that sinks into and warms you like scotch, from the inside out. It’s a laugh that has been witness to and committed horrors unimaginable, and it gets your inner demons humming in harmony.
“Let’s call it serious consideration for now.” She slides over in the booth to make room for you next her, and you don’t wait for a formal invite. “You can ask me again after you’ve bought me a couple more drinks.”
You signal the bartender. “The lady’s playin catch up, mate. And for the record, she gave me permission to talk dirty to her.”
*** 😄 you wish.
Someone has driven a railroad spike into your head, and the bloody SOB is still pounding on it. You’re not unused to waking up with this sensation, but you remember more about how you got here than is typical. You try to turn your head, but it weighs a ton, so you feel for her. Disappointment, but not surprise.
You try to doze for another hour, but the incessant throbbing won’t let you. That and your mobile keeps ringing. You ignore it out of spite taking your time in the shower and brushing your teeth- too many mornings waking up face down in a pool of your own, occasionally someone else’s, vomit; you finally started planning ahead.
You find the note Pryor left.
Call me if anything new comes up…
Or if something’s just up.
Maddie
Left on the pad by the hotel phone like she didn’t give a f_ if you found it or not. You use your pencil to get a rubbing of the first note.
I can be reached at this number.
M.P.
Two different numbers. You pull out the disposable mobile you carry for emergencies and ring the number she wrote first. You smile as you hang up and dial the number she left for you. Her voice mail picks up. ‘If you’re calling, you know who I am. Give me an hour to get back to you before you start getting pissy.’
“Mornin, Luv. If you were in my philosophy class, I’d come sit next to ya. Don’t call this number, but I’ll be in touch.” You delete the call logs on the handset- which you do a factor reset on- and the SIM –which you melt down with the credit card you used to pay and its matching ID when you burn the note along with the pad and all - before pocketing to the handset to get rid of later.
You continue to ignore the ringing as you wipe down the room, paying particular attention to the dresser and the wall behind. Towels, toiletries, and trash go on the bed. You give thanks to the powers that be…whichever ones are looking out for you, when you find housekeeping in the hall and get a trash bag to stuff the linens and what not into.
You finally answer the phone while you do one last sweep of the room. “Wisdom.”
“Pete! I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I was asleep.”
“You didn’t come home…”
“I quite often don’t come home.”
“I think we should talk.”
“…”
“About us…”
“Sorry Pryde, you missed me moving on by about six hours.” You love the satisfying finality of the beep a mobile phone makes when you hang up. Like a little electronic F_ you. You switch off just as she’s ringing you back.
You know you’ve got no f_ing business feeling this good about yourself, and the self loathing will come crashing back down on you sometime in the next few hours. But for now you’re just savoring the electric tingle of an impending stor-
"Wait just a bloody minute! I don't belong in with this lot!"
Genosha looks up from the desk. "I think you swing both ways." She says with a shrug.
"Like hell I do! You need to fix this s_!"
"F_ you!"
"You wish!"
"Don't flatter yourself. All I'd get for my trouble is black s_ all over my sheet."
"Listen here you pen pushing little b_-"
"Back off inkstain! I've got nunchucks and no f_ing clue how to use em.
Wisdom takes a two dimensional step forward, and Genosha tucks and rolls to the side flinging her shuriken at him. Their just paper, but one of them catches him in the eye.
"Ow! I think it poked a hole."
"Sorry."
Quite you!
Besides, you're too late. I've got an obligation to...the powers that be, to put out two more. I'm in the middle of one that's promising to be too long. I don't even have an idea for the last...
Suggestions? Uhh, in case we're not tracking, I did four on the hero side, so I gotta do four on the villains side. I need one more pair of villains.
I'm thinking Magneto's out unless I get desperate.