Title: Hazard to Myself
Author: Autumn
E-mail: dyslexic_crisco_penguin_fiend@hotmail.com
Archive: DDFH
Rating: R
Summary: I'm my own worst enemy… Rogue POV. Set about six months after X-Men.
Disclaimer: The X-Men belong to Marvel, Pink owns the song 'Don't Let me Get Me.'
A/N: This is an AU tale of the movie universe. It is the sequel that follows 'The Dark Heart' series. However, this takes place 'before' 'The Dark Heart.' There will be one more instalment afterwards that wraps up the poem and 'Hazard to Myself.' This storyline features a much more jaded Rogue than the one we saw in the movie, but after eight months on the road, by yourself…well, anyway. Here it goes.
********************
Never win first place, I don't support the team
I can't take direction, and my socks are never
clean
Teachers dated me, my parents hated me
I was always in a fight cuz I can't do nothin'
right
I wish I was Jean. I wish I was Kitty. I wish I was anybody but my own damn self. We're all mutants, but I'm the only one who's really alone here. I'm not even physically close to anybody, I'm shut out pure and simple. Story of my goddamn life. My parents never wanted me. That was obvious since I was dumped in foster care when I was four. I don't remember anything about them except I never met my mom; she skipped out when I was born, and my dad never let me have any toys. I was four and I'd never played with a Barbie. What a start.
The Klancey's took me in for two years, and I was shuffled around to eight different foster homes until the Gordon's took me in. I spent the first two years of high school in Meridian Mississippi. It was pure hell, for the most part. My only friend was David. He was like me; he hated sports, and didn't give a shit about country music or church. We were close, and more than once I'm sure it was he that saved my life.
Glen, my foster father didn't talk to me, ever. His wife had convinced him fostering was a quick paycheck with no output involved. Mary Ellen was worse, she didn't leave me alone. Nagging was her specialty, and not the affectionate kind of mothers. Her brand involved telling me how sluty such and such skirt made me look, or how stupid I was not to make an appearance at the high school football games. Church was a subject we just plain avoided. I was a heathen and headed straight for hell in a hand basket. Oh well, couldn't be much worse than Mississippi.
All that aside, I was doing all right for myself. I was doing pretty well actually. I was 16 and I'd be out of the system in two years, and I had a plan. Alaska. Might not sound like much of a plan, but to me it was everything. It was far enough away from Mississippi to be heaven. It was cold, and mysterious and it was my goal. Alaska stood for independence for me. It was all I wanted, the freedom to run my life the way I saw fit without the damn state telling me where I could and could not live. No caseworkers, no counsellors, nothing but me and millions of miles of snow.
Everyday I fight a war against the mirror
I can't take the person starin' back at me
I'm a hazard to myself
Needless to say, I never made it to Alaska. It began with a kiss, not even a real 'fireworks and parade' type either. It was barely more than a light pressing of lip to lip. It was David; I hurt the hell out of him. I kissed him and I couldn't stay to see what happened to him. I was so sure I'd killed him. He was my best friend, and I'd just murdered him, what the fuck was wrong with me?
I don't know what it was that happened but his life sort of sponged into my skin. It felt like my skin was on fire, but I was too paralysed to even scream. His fall to the floor woke Mary Ellen and Glen. They glared at me, which I know I deserved and told me to get lost. I can't blame them for it. Who wants a murdering little bitch in their household?
I disgust myself. Even after everything that's happened. No matter what they say, it's something wrong with me. I'm untouchable, instant death, there has to be a reason for it. Nobody else has what I have, poisonous skin. They have telepathy, or telekinesis, or the ability to control fire or the weather or whatever. What the hell can I do? Kill people, that's pretty much it.
Maybe that's why my parents didn't want me. Hell, I am me, and I don't even like myself. I killed my best friend, I deserve what I get. Logan says I'm too hard on myself, but I know he knows what it feels like. To hate yourself so much even your reflection sends bile to your throat. I miss Logan; I wish he'd come back soon. He promised he would. Meeting Logan was one of the few highlights in my pathetic life.
He helped me, he didn't have too, but he did. He's decent like that.
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy
Its bad when you annoy yourself
So irritating
Don't wanna be my friend no more
I wanna be somebody else
I wanna be somebody else, yeah
Rapid City North Dakota is somewhere I'll never go back to. But who the hell wants to go to North Dakota anyway, unless it's to look at some dome rock with four dead guys. I absorbed my second person there. A trucker named Ralph Emerson, kinda ironic if you think about it. Unlike his predecessor, this guy couldn't recite a line of eloquent speech unless you count 'sumbitches,' and 'fuckin' cockrockers' as poetic idiosyncrasies.
Good old Ralph didn't think he was being paid back properly for his generosity in giving me a lift from the northern part of Wyoming on up. I was thankful yes, but I offered him gas money, he took it. A deal is a deal. It didn't matter that the money was stolen, the previous owners were back somewhere in Ohio anyway. I felt bad about it at first. Point is, Ralph got his money, and I got a ride. I wasn't about to give him anymore than what we agreed on. Besides, even if I had wanted to screw him, which was a rather detestable thought, I'd kill him. I wasn't looking to add another name to my 'done' list.
He leaned in to kiss me, and when I pulled away, he slapped me. The slight contact with my skin made his veins pop out, like David's did, and he started convulsing. I took off into the night and hitchhiked for three miles before an older woman picked me up. She drove me up to the border and even bought me a dinner at Denny's. All I wanted was a bed and a solid day of sleeping. I was drained from my encounter with Ralph, and had a pounding headache from his voice shouting at me inside my own head.
LA told me, "You'll be a pop star,
All you have to change is everything you are."
Tired of being compared to damn Britney Spears
She's so pretty, that just ain't me
I decided to lay low in a small town called Montecido. Running short of funds certainly influenced my decision, and I applied at a small grocery store for a clerking job. The owner was willing to pay me under the table and not ask too many questions. That was fine with me since at the time I was still 16, and not legally an adult anywhere. Living in Canada had the bonus that it was already cold in the late fall. So being bundled up in thermals wasn't unusual. I explained the gloves by saying my hands were having a terrible time adjusting to the cold and kept cracking.
Nobody asked questions, and that was the way I liked it. The days passed quickly, and I grew restless again. I didn't want to chance running into Ralph again, and I'd overheard that there was a small truck stop about 2/3 of a kilometre away. As 'Foreman's Grocery' was the only general store around, chances of Ralph stopping by if he needed anything were very high. This made me nervous enough to consider skipping town soon. I was smart about it though. I said I'd heard word from an elderly aunt in Laughlin City that she was ill and needed care.
Of course, I'd never heard of Laughlin, I just happened to see it on the map, and it would put enough distance between me and Monticedo to be comfortable. I paid the modest fair for a Greyhound ticket and left the next day. It turned out to be one of the best moves of my so-called trip.
Doctor, doctor won't you please prescribe
somethin
A day in the life of someone else?
Cuz I'm a hazard to myself
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy
Its bad when you annoy yourself
So irritating
Don't wanna be my friend no more
I wanna be somebody else
The ride to Laughlin City was noisy and smelly, like all Greyhound trips. I spent 12 hours next too a punky little kid who wouldn't stop with the 'pull my finger' gags. I finally got rid of the clown when we reached the Laughlin bus station. It just happened to be a bar. By the looks of it, it was a don't ask, don't tell kinda place. Perfect for a young mutant on the run.
I took a seat at the bar and ordered the bar special. Greasy hamburger and soggy fries. It was the best greasy hamburger ever. Finally satisfied, I turned my attention to my surroundings. Irate Canadians were crowded around what appeared to be a metal cage. I found a spot near the raised stage, which looked like it hadn't been occupied in years and got a look at what was going on.
Two men, one quite a bit larger than the other, and tattooed were inside the enclosure, apparently trying to kill each other. The smaller guy went down, but it didn't look like he was hurt too badly judging by how quickly he jumped back up and delivered an extremely hard punch to the big man's head. The inked one went down fast. How did that guy do it? He was lean and well muscled sure, but the man he'd been facing had to have him outweighed by at least 50 lbs. Nobody could do that. Well, no human could.
As if he'd sensed me looking at him, his eyes flashed towards me and studied me in the same tactical defensive manner I myself employed. I knew he was like me. Something in my gut just told me. And judging by the way he looked, he knew it too. He was trustworthy, it was that simple. Which was funny considering I'd just seen him whoop major ass. For the first time in months, I'd finally met someone who I thought I could trust. Someone like me. It was a terrifying thought, and I ran.
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy
Its bad when you annoy yourself
So irritating
Don't wanna be my friend no more
I wanna be somebody else