The following is the first story in a series I've been working on since October. Perfectionist that I am, it's taken me this long to get this into a form I actually feel comfortable displaying in public. Let me know what you think. But be warned, it's told from the POV of two different characters.
Disclaimer: David Haller and company belong to Marvel Comics. Jessie Cameron is mine. No money is being made from this. I'm only borrowing Legion to show the poor boy the respect he deserves.
Feedback is welcomed. It is permissible to archive this fic. Just let me know you want to do it.
Dedicated to Al Schroeder and his son Jamie (1983-1999).
Why wouldn’t they listen? That’s what I can’t figure out, why they wouldn’t listen to me. It wasn’t like I thought Magnus was a bad man - I didn’t. Peeked inside his head. Saw about the camps and Magda and Anya. Magnus isn’t bad, just really angry. Trouble is he doesn’t know who to be angry at, other people or him. That didn’t mean I thought he was bad. It just meant he had to die.
If Magnus lives, he’ll become Magneto. And Magneto scares people, especially humans. That’s why lots of people hate us so much, mutants I mean. They think we all might be as scary as Magneto and maybe we’ll hurt them. And Dad’s dream won’t work if people think stuff like that.
No. I thought it all over. Magnus had to die. If he wasn’t there to fight Dad’s dream, then it ‘d come true. Humans and mutants wouldn’t fight. They wouldn’t have to. And Dad would be happy. And maybe, if he wasn’t so busy all the time with the X-Men and stuff, maybe he could come see me every once in a while. Maybe. But only if I could stop Magneto. Couldn’t talk Magnus out of it. Dad tried. Couldn’t make him forget it about it either. Dad tried that too - mind wiped him. But Magneto was getting better. I could feel him waking up before I left. So killing him was the only thing that would work.
Course, I didn’t want to do it, not really. Never really killed anybody before, not that I meant to, anyway. I don’t remember when those guys broke into our house and shot Uncle Dan, but I know I killed them. That was to keep them from hurting me and it doesn’t count. The only other person was Destiny, and that wasn’t really me. That was the others, the Legion people. Jack Wayne, Cindi and Jemail. Well, mostly Jack and Cindi. Jemail didn’t like to do stuff like that anymore. They’re all gone now. There’s just me. And I didn’t want to do that. But it was for Dad. Dads do anything for their kids, right? So kids should do anything for their Dads. And if I did it, Dad would know I loved him. I would be important.
But the X-Men messed that up. They showed up in Israel and followed me back here. All they did was yell at me and fight me. And they don’t even like Magneto anymore, not like they did when he lived with them. I could understand them getting mad then. But he’s fighting them again. And they still wouldn’t let me do it. I think they were just jealous. If I had made Dad’s dream work when they couldn’t, he’d like me better. They didn’t want that to happen.
Still coulda beaten them. But that Bishop guy showed up. He’s new, so I didn’t know him. He was really mean. Made me so mad I hit him with my psychic-knife thing to make him stop. Found out too late his power lets him take in energy and throw it back out again, only stronger. I hit him as hard as I could, but all it did was make my powers go all funny. I couldn’t stop them. My head started burning, and the time gate I made opened up again. I tried to close it, but it was sucking me in. Nothing could stop it. But the worst part was what Dad was thinking. He knew who I was then, that I was his son, or was going to be. But he didn’t care that I was hurt. He was just glad Magnus was okay.
Just like he really didn’t care that the Shadow King hurt me, as long as his X-Men were safe. It wouldn’t be enough to make his dream come true. He’d always love them best. Even his enemy meant more than I ever did.
I stopped fighting the pulling then. Just couldn’t stay there anymore more. It hurt too bad. No, it just hurt period. I hurt, everywhere, really badly. Maybe I was dying. And I didn’t want that. It’s the last thing I can remember thinking - I just wasn’t ready to die yet.
I’m a light sleeper. Always have been. Before I ran away, the sound of the garage door opening next door was enough to wake me. Now that I’ve spent three years on the streets, that skill has improved. All it takes is the sound of someone walking carefully through the junk downstairs. The floor creaks and I’m out the window and on the fire escape. It’s a valuable talent out here. Keeps me alive.
That was my first instinct when I heard the noise coming from the room next to mine, to grab my stuff and run. I knew this warehouse pretty well. There were only 6 habitable rooms and each one had squatters. I was the only one living up here, my room the only one without holes in the roof or floor. None of the other kids trusted the stairs as much as I did. And none of them had pets to wander about the place. That ruled out the possibility of it being one of my "co-habitators." It was a stranger. Had to be. That was bad news to street kids in most cases.
I probably should have followed my instincts and made a run for it, but whoever was in there was moaning. Not your typical "damn, this floor is cold" moan either. Someone was hurting, badly by the sound of it. That moan was what got to me. I’m a healer. Ever since those powers came in, I’ve found it nearly impossible to ignore another person in pain. I kept telling myself it was probably some drug addict who’d crawled in here to die. Didn’t help. Just knowing I might be able to save this stranger was enough to make me take a look next door.
It was a kid. Now I don’t mean a little kid, say 5 or 6 years old. The guy I found huddled in a corner was probably older than me. Still there was something very childlike about him. Maybe it was those big Bambi eyes watching me as I crept into the room. He wrapped his arms all the more tightly around his legs as he rocked back and forth, moaning every few seconds. This was a kid, no matter how old he looked. A lost little boy with no place to go.
Carefully, I picked my way around the holes in the floor to get closer to him. "Hey, are you okay?"
He didn’t answer, only ducked his head into his knees, whimpering again. Damn, he must be hurting something awful. I couldn’t see any injuries, not that it meant anything. With only the street lamp outside for illumination, his throat could have been slit form ear to ear and I wouldn’t have seen it. Besides, he was huddled up so tightly that I couldn’t get a good look at him. I needed to get him back to my room. I had an oil lamp and a couple of flashlights. That would let get some idea of what had happened to him and what I needed to do in order to help.
I crouched down beside him on the floor and reached out to touch his shoulder. Poor guy jumped back a good foot the second my hand made contact. His head slammed hard against the wall behind him. Even I flinched.
"It’s okay," I said, trying to keep my voice as soft as possible. "I’m not going to hurt you."
That didn’t help. He wasn’t so much breathing hard as he was panting. I could feel his pulse racing under my hand when I reached out to touch his shoulder again. This guy was scared, real scared. One sudden shock and he’d jump out of his own skin. Or have heart failure, which was a more realistic possibility. So, I cheated a little.
I used to travel with this evangelist a few years back, a Benny Hinn wannnabe. He’d hold tent revivals and I’d do a little "faith" healing. Basically I chanted a few Bible verses, smacked the twerps on the forehead and healed them. No one ever realized my "laying on of hands" was nothing more than a mutant power. And the guy I traveled with never knew half the people I "healed" were really just hysterical. I just calmed them down. By the time I left the preacher, I was good at doing that, lowering their blood pressure and heart rate, easing their breathing. It’s what I did to this kid now, slowly pulling his panic down bit by bit, counteracting his adrenaline. He just blinked at me, those big, sad eyes of his going a bit wide at first, then closing. Before I knew it, he was sound asleep.
I slipped his arm over my shoulder to ease him up. Not an easy task for me. I’m pretty small, tiny in fact, short and hopelessly skinny. I halfway expected him to be way too heavy for me to carry. He wasn’t really that bad. I managed to half drag him back to my cot next door, even if I did have to pull him by the legs for the final few feet.
Flicking on one of my flashlights, I got my first good look at him. Did I say I was skinny? Hell, this guy had me beat. At least I have some muscle tone to my body. He had the weirdest hair too. I could have sworn it was sticking straight up when I first saw him next door. Taking a closer look at him though, it looked fine. Didn’t even seem long enough to have been sticking up a foot above his forehead. It must have been the shadows, which was possible, given how back his hair was. Either that or I imagined it, and I’m not exactly a creative person anymore.
As for his clothes, he was dressed in hospital scrubs, sleeveless ones at that, far too short for a Toronto night like this. I checked for a name on the scrubs, thinking maybe he’d escaped from one of the local hospitals or mental institutions. There was a stamp on the waistline, but damned if I could read it. It was in an alphabet I’d never even seen before. This from the girl who could read Gaelic and runes!
There was no blood on his scrubs. No bruises on the skin under it either, nothing that would explain why he was moaning that way. But internal injuries aren’t always visible, not to most people anyway. So I looked deeper, the way I always do when I want to heal someone. There’s this jerk inside my mind, and then I’m seeing things no one else can.
About a year ago, I’d run into a street kid with cancer. Her own body was producing cells which were destroying it and her along with it. That’s a bit like what this kid looked like. His body was putting off this energy, but it was bleeding strength from him. At the same time, it seemed to be crushing him, snuffing the life right out of him. It was as if it were eating him away, bit by bit. Anyway, it was killing him. At this rate, he’d not be seeing another sunrise.
His head wasn’t in much better shape. It looked like a stained glass window which had been shattered and repaired improperly. Connections I knew should be there between memories and thoughts were gone. The new ones were so haphazard I’d be amazed if the kid could string two sentences together. No wonder this energy was going out of control. Even if he knew how to manage it, he wouldn’t have had the wits to do it.
Great, I thought. Probably meant the guy really did escape from a local psycho-ward! But those injuries of his were the weirdest things I’d ever seen, energy practically rushing out his pores, leaving him too weak to stop it’s effects on himself. This was definitely not your average mugging.
I did what I could, for the energy bleed at least. Injuries like these aren’t exactly familiar to me. Most of it I had to improvise, closing off the openings the energy was using one by one and making them stay closed. The residual build up was another matter. I’m not one of those mutants who can process or redirect energy. All I could think of doing was just forcing it away from him, a little at a time and praying he didn’t need it to survive. But leaving that near him was just too big a risk. Necessary or not, it had to go.
It worked. Or seemed to work, at least. All the tension in his body vanished. And he was still breathing. I took that as a good sign. Originally, I’d intended to work on that jumbled mess in his head too. No chance of that once I was finished with the rest of him. I was way too tired.
Okay, now I will admit I own a Tigger doll from Disney’s Winnie the Pooh line. My grandfather had sent it to me from Scotland when I was 5. Except for my guitar and a couple changes of clothing, it was the only thing I took with me when I ran. As silly as it sounds, I fell better if I have it with me when I sleep. I’m not completely without a home, in some way. And I wouldn’t leave it for anything in the world.
The problem was, as soon as I finished healing him, the kid opened his eyes and blinked at me. Then he saw Tigger. Before I could grab it, he pulled it close to him and snuggled his face down into the somewhat dingy fur. I halfway expected him to start sucking his thumb as he quickly fell back into sleep. Yep, there was definitely something odd about this kid.
My right mind was screaming at me to grab the rest of my gear and run. Just leave the guy there. That cot had only cost me twenty bucks at the local Salvation Army. I could pick up another one in a couple of weeks. Blankets were cheap there too. But he had my Tigger, damnit! It was stupid, beyond stupid, but I just couldn’t walk away and let him have it. It was mine. Papa gave it to me. It meant too much. Besides, I didn’t think he could put up much of a fight, not against me anyway. If he did, I’ll just put him to sleep again and grab my Tigger. Better to wait until he woke up before leaving.
Still, I’d have my stuff packed up before I went to sleep. Just in case.
End.