Hallelujah: God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen (Strong)
Strong doesn't like sleep. In sleep, the bad dreams come, the bad dreams where Strong isn't super mutant but puny metal man.
In the bad dreams, Strong the puny man has laser gun and wears metal suit like robot. He fights with other metal humans with bright red blasts of laser fire around them. Other metal men fall and die, and Strong feels sorrow, but why? Metal men weak, not strong. Metal men fall in fight because they do not share burdens.
When Strong wakes up, it's inside the cage again. Around him is gust of winter wind; small white flakes of cold blow into cage. Puny cage human cowers in corner, curled in ball and whimpering in cold. Strong has urge to smash him, to show him true pain.
Cold is one way to show humans how weak they are.
But Strong is in cage with human. Is Strong weak as human?
No, his brothers put him here because -
Well, Strong isn't sure why. Something lurks behind that thought, a question posed by the weak man he used to be, a small human called Franklin. Franklin wants to know why Strong is locked in cage if he a brother of other mutants.
Other mutants say it's because Strong too curious about milk of human kindness. Strong try to explain, he wants strength of humans, but they don't listen. They lock him in cage and every day he thinks of eating cage man.
The feeling of his bones in Strong's mouth would be good. Would make him feel like super mutant again.
Might keep bad dreams away, too. Human meat does that.
Strong eyes the cage man, looks at the whiteness of his skin in the cold. This is no way for human to die; there is no honor in freezing to death at the top of human tower. Even stupid, weak cage human has right to fight for death, to have good death in fight.
So Strong reaches out and rattles the bars of the cage, then waits for Fist to stomp over.
Fist is big super mutant; Fist is strong. Strong think he can take Fist in fight, but why fight brother? He just want out of cage.
Want to be with brothers, fighting and eating.
"Fist!" Strong yells, pounding his fist on the gate. "Fist! Let Strong out!"
Fist grunts; Fist does not think Strong worthy.
"No. You still want milk of human kindness?"
Strong does. Inside him, the voice of the tiny metal man yells at him to be quiet, but Strong can't stop nodding. "Yes."
"Then you stay in cage with metal man." Fist stomps away, growling under his breath.
"I don't know why you bother," cage man says, voice quiet under wind. "That'll never work."
Listening to cage man gives Strong headache. Sometimes he wants to break cage man over his knee. It would be easy, crack of bones and then delicious man flesh.
"Strong don't understand puny human."
A laugh from cage man. "Of course not," cage man sighs. He lifts head, looks around. "I think it's Christmas."
Strong has small memory of this Christmas. There's fire and heat and laughing with other metal men. A bottle in his hands, and the burn of whiskey in his throat.
"What is kreest-mas?"
Cage man shakes in wind. "CHRIS-t-mas," he says. "It's a...holiday people used to celebrate. Back before the war."
All Strong knows is war. He does not understand when cage man talks about war; war is fighting, war is constant.
What Strong does know is cage man is dying. He is weak human and he makes Strong mad, but Strong feels something deep down. He can't let cage man die like this. He walks across cage, kneels beside cage man.
Wraps his green arms around cage man's body. Cage man shakes, then leans into him.
"Thank you, Strong," cage man says. His skin very cold.
Strong grunts. Hopes no brothers walk by and see him helping cage man.