Author's Note: I've been trying to write a story based on the following song lyric for weeks now. This is what I have so far.
"Never really needed to know you, yeah, till I heard you sing to me at night." -- 8x10, Fefe Dobson
****************************************
Kitty Pryde was in trouble and she knew it. The twenty-two year old had hit a bad patch of weather over the British Isles (not surprising) that she shouldn't have, but her eyes had been blurring from lack of sleep. It had been two days since the X-men had called her in for some special research on a matter related to Nathaniel Essex. She hadn't slept, trying to absorb all the data she could. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Then her research led her to the idea of doing further study in England. She had begged to take the Blackbird, despite her suddenly dry throat and burning eyes, and she had been allowed to do so provided she took someone else with her.
She took Lockheed.
She felt hot and dizzy as she tried to keep the plane steady. Lockheed chirped at her, worried, as she trembled, her hands twitching on the controls. She tried to smile. "Any chance you know how to land a plane, too, miracle worker?"
Lockheed hopped down to the computer console and tapped on a few keys. The plane leveled off and started going down smoothly. Kitty sighed and relaxed in her chair. Good old Lockheed. Her head lolled back, her eyes closed, and she slipped into a dark dream.
***************************
He sat alone in his cabin in Scotland, reading a book. It was how he spent much of his time these days, now that he had rejected bending to the wills of others. "Bloody sot," he murmured, turning a page. Sauron reminded him, uncomfortably, of those who had taken his reins in the past. "And don't even get me started on Grima, either," he muttered. "Servile nutter."
He was so engrossed in his book, he didn't notice at first that someone was hammering on his door. When he did, he sighed. "Bloody salesmen."
He walked through his dark living room to his door, pausing to set his book down on the end table by his chair. He checked the small screen monitor of his laptop in the foyer. It showed pouring rain and a small something outside the door. A dog? About the right size, but not the right color. He dropped down and sat Indian style before the computer, enhancing the focus on the camera. The image sharpened and became a small dragon. Lockheed?
Well. This could end up being quite a pisser.
He carefully took a standard pistol from the gun rack by the door, clicked off the safety, and opened the door as the dragon flew up to beat against it again. Surprised, Lockheed flew into his house past his face, spattering rain over his carpet and into his mouth.
"What? Get out of here." He pointed to the door.
The dragon breathed a curl of fire at him in warning. He frowned. "Whatever you've heard about me is wrong. I won't succumb to threats."
Lockheed blinked, then ran over to his leg and pulled at his pants, then looked at the door. He sighed. "You want me to go out in the bloomin' rain for some shirty girl who's part of a group of people who bleedin' hate me, don't you?"
The dragon nodded once, crisply, then opened his eyes wide and tried to look pathetic.
He laughed bitterly. "Save it. I've done better than you in my day." He walked over to the closet and pulled out his slicker. He gestured to the dragon with the pistol. "Gonna need this, or no?" Lockheed shook his head no.
The man pulled out a hat, put it on, grabbed his car keys from the slot below the gun rack, closed up the rack again after putting the safety back on the pistol and putting it away, and mock-bowed to the dragon. "After you." The dragon willingly flopped out into the wet weather again and the man followed him.
***********************************
She was warm, almost too warm. A gentle English accented voice was talking soothingly in the background. "There now. All tucked in, nightlight on, monitor connected so's I can look in on you if you need it, and a dragon who'd never dream of setting the place on fire." The last part was said with an undercurrent of warning.
A warm weight settled on her stomach. It hurt. She groaned a little and turned toward the voice in hope. The voice laughed. "Lay off, there, you overgrown mutt." The weight shifted to lie against her left side, cuddled between her arm and her ribs.
Footsteps were going away. She turned toward them again. She wasn't sure why, but she felt near panic at the idea of being alone. "Please …" she managed through hot, dry lips.
"Yes?" The steps returned and a weight settled on the right side of the bed. She was on a bed.
"Don't go."
There was a pause. All she could hear was Lockheed's breathing and her own pulse in her head. "Sure you know what you're saying, Kitty?"
A tear formed at the inside corner of her right eye, sliding under her lid to the outside corner, then tickling out and down her cheek. She couldn't stop it. "Please."
The man's breath caught. He released it in an audible sigh. "Never thought I'd hear anyone say that and mean it. Sure. I'll stay."
His voice sounded familiar. Yet it was different than it had been when she'd heard it before. She knew that. Hm.
Something was dragged across the carpeted floor, probably a chair. "You mind a bit of music as you drop off?"
She smiled and turned away from him. Music was just fine.
"I'll take that as a yes." Soon, instrumental music was playing, and she was sinking deeply into the pond of sleep.
********************************
He sat, watching Kitty sleep in his bed. He'd never had a woman in his bed before, one who slept there, anyhow. One he hadn't needed to pay to get her in the door. He brushed a hand through his neatly groomed reddish brown hair, his deep brown eyes gentle for once as he saw her sigh and reach out to Lockheed.
The instrumental turned to the beginning of one of his favorite songs from Phantom. Quietly, not wanting to awaken either of his guests, he sang the words, noting the irony as he did.
"No more talk of darkness, forget these wide-eyed fears. I'm here, nothing can harm you. My words will warm and calm you …"
He'd never been much protection to anyone. Tried to lead the Brotherhood, but that didn't really work out. The only thing that seemed to work was hiding from everyone else. He'd been hated his whole life, even by those who used him.
But as he sang, he let a small spark of hope spring to life.
"All I want is freedom, a world with no more night, and you, always beside me, to hold me and to hide me. Then say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime …"
Right. His own mum and dad didn't want to spend a life with him, did they? How could any woman choose the Phantom over a rich, handsome man? He couldn't see it. Beauty never chose the Beast in real life, only in fairy tales. Of course, Phantom showed it the way it really was.
"Love me, that's all I ask of you …" he sang in a rich tenor, nearly sobbing it, as the music swelled. He grinned a little despite himself. "Move over, Michael Crawford."
****************************
She always had nightmares when she had a fever. In fact, she always had the same nightmare. In it, somehow, her fingers got pricked by a needle and she fell, fast, frightening.
The nightmare began as it always did. The needle was stretched out between her fingers horizontally. She brought them together reflexively, and it pierced her index finger and thumb. She started to fall, but a man caught her with his voice. Sean Cassidy?
No. She'd heard Sean sing. This wasn't him. It was soothing, though. She let him hold her, keep her from falling down into the darkness. No more talk of darkness. She concentrated on his voice, his words, his passion holding her up, making her float and fly.
She broke to the surface and opened her eyes as he turned away and said something about being Michael Crawford. In the dim lamplight, though, he didn't look like him. He looked like a cleaned up version of … the Toad?
She closed her eyes again fast. He did not react. She breathed evenly, trying to fake sleep, while she turned this over in her mind. The Toad had taken her in, saved her from her nightmare? She would never have imagined the Toad singing at all, much less singing so emotionally. She kept the memory close as she went back to sleep this time, a sleep free of nightmares.