Hey to all you guys! I keep getting a lot of complaints that my chapters
are too short. Sorry, but I don't think they're about to get any longer.
As it stands, I'm about half way through writing the epilogue, and I hate
it. Oh well. If I can't think of any better ideas, I'll just finish and
post it with a warning or something.
Reviews: Miracle Chick, to answer one of your earlier questions, this takes place during the time Mystique is MIA from the Brotherhood house. That's why she didn't rescue them. And Magneto really didn't keep close watch on the Brotherhood at this point, did he? As for the dream symbolism thing, most of it *is* just creepy imagery, but there are a few insights into Lance's character kind of symbolism, which I'll write about at the bottom of this chapter for all who want to see.
Ahra, I never really thought about it like that. Yeah, I guess to the Brotherhood that kind of thing would seem pretty silly, but it does strike me as the kind of thing the X-Men would do, if Kitty organized the idea, of course. But the X-Men *did* really help them out, so I don't think it's inane.
Rex, good to know you wont kill me. Now I guess I can forget about that restraining order.
Charmedfan03, I think you'll see that you and Lance are on the same page when it comes to that dream.
Sierra, Logan wanted to blow it up. The Professor told him to think "lower profile".
On With the Show!!!! - -
Over the course of the next week, the atmosphere of the infirmary changed dramatically for Lance, particularly on the third day when Pietro decided that he was going to talk again (Lance himself finally gave up the silent treatment the day before, figuring that it was a hell of a lot easier to get a glass of water in this place if he asked for it directly). Scott still pissed him off regularly, but now that Pietro seemed far less disturbed than he had when he woke up, Lance could finally stop worrying so much about him and concentrate on recovering.
The day after Pietro began talking again, Dr. McCoy made Lance get up and spend some time out of bed in order to help him regain his strength. At this point, Lance's weakness had dissipated to a dull tired dizziness and a strong stomachache. Unfortunately, all of Lance's clothes were back at the Brotherhood house and Lance spent the day watching TV on the couch in a spare pair of pajamas. Scott and Kurt were given the task of going to the Brotherhood boarding house and picking up some of Lance and Pietro's stuff. "That place is gross," Scott informed Lance as he handed him a suitcase full of clothes. "There were cockroaches crawling all on the kitchen counter." Lance, though he would have given his left thumb not to, shuddered at the image. He hated cockroaches.
After a few days of spending his time lounging on the couch and waiting for Pietro to finally get the hang of using his crutches, Dr. McCoy decided it was probably time for the boys to move out of the infirmary and up stairs with the rest of the house.
"So this is where you'll stay," Logan said as he showed Lance to the same room that Lance had stayed in the last time he had come to live at the Xavier Institute. "We were thinking of bunking you and Pietro together, but he's been doing so well since he started talking again that the Professor thought it might be counterproductive." Lance nodded offhandedly, looking around the room. The first time he had seen it, he had thought it looked much nicer than any room he had stayed in before. Now all he could think about was how it was much too *big* for comfort. And how *creepy* that big closet would seem at night. Somehow his psychology had switched back to that of a seven year old.
"So, you should be comfortable here," Logan said.
"Sure," Lance lied. Logan left.
Lance took a moment to re-familiarize himself with the room. It was just as it had been last time, but at the same time it was entirely changed. The last time he was here, the room had not filled him with such a sense of dread, he was sure of that.
("--- he's been doing so well since he started talking again---")
'Maybe he has, but what about me?' Lance thought. 'Don't I matter? Don't my nightmares matter as much as Pietro's?' He felt sick to his stomach again and he lied down on the bed; and for the first day of many he began to dread nightfall.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lance met up with Pietro in the kitchen later on after everyone else had already eaten. Someone had ordered pizza for dinner, and the two boys were re-heating a few slices.
"So how's the leg?" Lance asked as he poured himself a coke.
"It sucks," Pietro moped. "Thanks to these stupid crutches, I move like a snail." Lance knew what he meant. The other day he had watched Pietro attempt to hobble down the stairs, his teeth gritted in frustration, probably thinking about how he used to clear a flight of stairs at the speed of sound.
"Is that *all* you're going to eat?" Pietro gestured to the one slice of pepperoni pizza on Lance's plate. He had seven slices himself.
Lance shrugged. "I'm not hungry."
"You're still feeling sick, aren't you?"
"Not really." In actuality, there was almost never a time when Lance *didn't* feel sick to his stomach, but there was no reason to tell Pietro that. No reason to make him worry about it. "Hardly ever."
"Well anyway, it's kind of nice to get out of that hospital bed, huh? We finally get to sleep in our own rooms."
Lance's stomach flipped a bit. He didn't want anyone reminding him that he would be spending his night alone in the dark. It was all so *stupid* of course, but he couldn't seem to really convince himself that he was safe. "Yeah," he said shortly.
Pietro took another bite. "It would be better if --- you know, it really *were* our rooms. I haven't seen my room since --- I guess I kind of miss it. Um --- Lance, do you --- miss them?"
A bright anger flashed in Lance's eyes. "Do I miss them?" he said in a flat voice. "Of course I miss them! They *were* my close friends and all, Pietro."
"Ok, jeez, I didn't mean anything by it!"
Lance instantly regretted his little outburst. "Sorry," he muttered. He just didn't want to be reminded of that building, or
("C'mon Lance, you're the leader, so lead!")
the guards, or the cell.
"Listen, I'm gonna go watch some TV, alright?" Lance tossed the remainder of his pizza into the trash and walked off. "Talk to you later," he called over his shoulder.
As soon as he was out of the kitchen, Lance leaned against the nearest wall and placed his fingers to his temples. He was getting one hell of a headache. Hopefully a half hour of the Simpson's would help to dissipate all these
("You guys, we have to get out of here!")
bad memories.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Nepo mih tuc."
'Please God, not again,' Lance thought to himself in a panic when he heard the voice. He was back in the hospital that resided deep in the bowels of hell, and the demon doctors once again held the rusty knife just above his abdomen.
"meht rof yrc" one growled in a voice that sounded like Wolverine with laryngitis. "meht dellik uoy."
"No," Lance whispered in a high-pitched whine.
"Meht rof yrc,"
("Cry for them")
"Meht dellik uoy."
("You killed them.")
"No," Lance whispered again.
"Nepo mih tuc."
Lance could only lie still and watch as the demons lowered the scalpel to his belly and sliced an incision. Fire spread across his stomach and Lance screamed at the top of his lungs, pleading with them to stop. As they always did, the doctor demons paused and the fire went away and was replaced with a sharp tickling sensation as dozens of cockroaches scurried out of the cut and spread all over his body. Lance began to scream and panic again, trying to get them off of him, but with his arms and legs strapped down he couldn't, and they were *everywhere*, all over his body, and they were eating him alive---
With a muffled shriek, Lance sat up in his bed. He was gasping for breath and his heart was pounding. Just a nightmare. Same as the night before and same as the night before that.
It was Lance's third night alone in his bedroom, and every night he had the same awful dream, always ending with the roaches. Each time he had it, he would try so hard to cry, but he could not find tears for his dead friends, and so he must be punished.
'Why can't I cry?' he thought. 'I want to cry---'
Without giving it another moments thought, Lance reached into the bedside table drawer and pulled out the X-acto knife he had swiped from the art room two days prior. He grabbed the elastic waistband of his boxers and slid them to his knees. 'I want to cry---'
He didn't feel it as much as he should have. There was some dull pain, a far away burn as the cold steel of the knife sliced into the soft flesh of his thighs. What he *could* feel was the blood running out onto his skin, mimicking the tears that he couldn't make run down his cheeks. It hurt, but it was not enough.
'Maybe if I cut off my balls---'
The though horrified Lance, but also fascinated him in a kind of morbid way. 'I'm sick,' he thought as he brought the knife to the top of his scrotum and applied a light pressure. 'I'm really sick for even thinking this.' He grit his teeth and shut his eyes tight, trying to work up the nerve. 'Trying to work up the balls,' popped into his head, and he laughed humorlessly. It wasn't really funny.
Lance sat this way for almost a minute before he took the knife away. 'Can't even do this right,' he bemoaned. 'Can't even punish myself right.' In a fit of rage and self-loathing, he brought the knife to his stomach and hacked at it twice, leaving two short but deep cuts side by side, like tally marks. The blood ran down over the twin cuts he had made the night before, and the two from the night before that.
For the rest of the night, Lance lie awake. Same as the night before, and same as the night before that.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Ok, like I promised Miracle Chick: Lance feels a lot of guilt about Todd and Fred's deaths. He was the leader, and when the moment came to act (in the first chapter, when the room was filling with knockout gas), he panicked and because of it, his friends are dead. Now, he believes that he deserves the worst punishment he can think of (Hell, cutting, cockroaches), and who better to administer that then the gaurds? (Remember, the demons look like the gaurds dressed as doctors.) You mentioned the number of the guards in your review, so I'll tell you. The reason Lance couldn't see how many there were is because he was delirious. The poison was giving him a fever.
As for the eyes sewn shut, well, I wanted to show Todd and Fred as kind of crossed out. You know, like how dead characters in cartoons always have X's for eyes. Part of it really was just atmosphere though. I saw something like it in an episode of the X files when I was younger, and it freaked me out.
BTW, if anyone wants to know, in my story, Lance is a little freaked out by cockroaches. So am I. In fact, the idea for this came to me one night when I was listening to CD's and refusing to go back to sleep because I'd just had a dream that I was in a room *filled* with cockroaches. They were on *everything*.
Alright, that's it for today. Review, por favor!
Reviews: Miracle Chick, to answer one of your earlier questions, this takes place during the time Mystique is MIA from the Brotherhood house. That's why she didn't rescue them. And Magneto really didn't keep close watch on the Brotherhood at this point, did he? As for the dream symbolism thing, most of it *is* just creepy imagery, but there are a few insights into Lance's character kind of symbolism, which I'll write about at the bottom of this chapter for all who want to see.
Ahra, I never really thought about it like that. Yeah, I guess to the Brotherhood that kind of thing would seem pretty silly, but it does strike me as the kind of thing the X-Men would do, if Kitty organized the idea, of course. But the X-Men *did* really help them out, so I don't think it's inane.
Rex, good to know you wont kill me. Now I guess I can forget about that restraining order.
Charmedfan03, I think you'll see that you and Lance are on the same page when it comes to that dream.
Sierra, Logan wanted to blow it up. The Professor told him to think "lower profile".
On With the Show!!!! - -
Over the course of the next week, the atmosphere of the infirmary changed dramatically for Lance, particularly on the third day when Pietro decided that he was going to talk again (Lance himself finally gave up the silent treatment the day before, figuring that it was a hell of a lot easier to get a glass of water in this place if he asked for it directly). Scott still pissed him off regularly, but now that Pietro seemed far less disturbed than he had when he woke up, Lance could finally stop worrying so much about him and concentrate on recovering.
The day after Pietro began talking again, Dr. McCoy made Lance get up and spend some time out of bed in order to help him regain his strength. At this point, Lance's weakness had dissipated to a dull tired dizziness and a strong stomachache. Unfortunately, all of Lance's clothes were back at the Brotherhood house and Lance spent the day watching TV on the couch in a spare pair of pajamas. Scott and Kurt were given the task of going to the Brotherhood boarding house and picking up some of Lance and Pietro's stuff. "That place is gross," Scott informed Lance as he handed him a suitcase full of clothes. "There were cockroaches crawling all on the kitchen counter." Lance, though he would have given his left thumb not to, shuddered at the image. He hated cockroaches.
After a few days of spending his time lounging on the couch and waiting for Pietro to finally get the hang of using his crutches, Dr. McCoy decided it was probably time for the boys to move out of the infirmary and up stairs with the rest of the house.
"So this is where you'll stay," Logan said as he showed Lance to the same room that Lance had stayed in the last time he had come to live at the Xavier Institute. "We were thinking of bunking you and Pietro together, but he's been doing so well since he started talking again that the Professor thought it might be counterproductive." Lance nodded offhandedly, looking around the room. The first time he had seen it, he had thought it looked much nicer than any room he had stayed in before. Now all he could think about was how it was much too *big* for comfort. And how *creepy* that big closet would seem at night. Somehow his psychology had switched back to that of a seven year old.
"So, you should be comfortable here," Logan said.
"Sure," Lance lied. Logan left.
Lance took a moment to re-familiarize himself with the room. It was just as it had been last time, but at the same time it was entirely changed. The last time he was here, the room had not filled him with such a sense of dread, he was sure of that.
("--- he's been doing so well since he started talking again---")
'Maybe he has, but what about me?' Lance thought. 'Don't I matter? Don't my nightmares matter as much as Pietro's?' He felt sick to his stomach again and he lied down on the bed; and for the first day of many he began to dread nightfall.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lance met up with Pietro in the kitchen later on after everyone else had already eaten. Someone had ordered pizza for dinner, and the two boys were re-heating a few slices.
"So how's the leg?" Lance asked as he poured himself a coke.
"It sucks," Pietro moped. "Thanks to these stupid crutches, I move like a snail." Lance knew what he meant. The other day he had watched Pietro attempt to hobble down the stairs, his teeth gritted in frustration, probably thinking about how he used to clear a flight of stairs at the speed of sound.
"Is that *all* you're going to eat?" Pietro gestured to the one slice of pepperoni pizza on Lance's plate. He had seven slices himself.
Lance shrugged. "I'm not hungry."
"You're still feeling sick, aren't you?"
"Not really." In actuality, there was almost never a time when Lance *didn't* feel sick to his stomach, but there was no reason to tell Pietro that. No reason to make him worry about it. "Hardly ever."
"Well anyway, it's kind of nice to get out of that hospital bed, huh? We finally get to sleep in our own rooms."
Lance's stomach flipped a bit. He didn't want anyone reminding him that he would be spending his night alone in the dark. It was all so *stupid* of course, but he couldn't seem to really convince himself that he was safe. "Yeah," he said shortly.
Pietro took another bite. "It would be better if --- you know, it really *were* our rooms. I haven't seen my room since --- I guess I kind of miss it. Um --- Lance, do you --- miss them?"
A bright anger flashed in Lance's eyes. "Do I miss them?" he said in a flat voice. "Of course I miss them! They *were* my close friends and all, Pietro."
"Ok, jeez, I didn't mean anything by it!"
Lance instantly regretted his little outburst. "Sorry," he muttered. He just didn't want to be reminded of that building, or
("C'mon Lance, you're the leader, so lead!")
the guards, or the cell.
"Listen, I'm gonna go watch some TV, alright?" Lance tossed the remainder of his pizza into the trash and walked off. "Talk to you later," he called over his shoulder.
As soon as he was out of the kitchen, Lance leaned against the nearest wall and placed his fingers to his temples. He was getting one hell of a headache. Hopefully a half hour of the Simpson's would help to dissipate all these
("You guys, we have to get out of here!")
bad memories.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Nepo mih tuc."
'Please God, not again,' Lance thought to himself in a panic when he heard the voice. He was back in the hospital that resided deep in the bowels of hell, and the demon doctors once again held the rusty knife just above his abdomen.
"meht rof yrc" one growled in a voice that sounded like Wolverine with laryngitis. "meht dellik uoy."
"No," Lance whispered in a high-pitched whine.
"Meht rof yrc,"
("Cry for them")
"Meht dellik uoy."
("You killed them.")
"No," Lance whispered again.
"Nepo mih tuc."
Lance could only lie still and watch as the demons lowered the scalpel to his belly and sliced an incision. Fire spread across his stomach and Lance screamed at the top of his lungs, pleading with them to stop. As they always did, the doctor demons paused and the fire went away and was replaced with a sharp tickling sensation as dozens of cockroaches scurried out of the cut and spread all over his body. Lance began to scream and panic again, trying to get them off of him, but with his arms and legs strapped down he couldn't, and they were *everywhere*, all over his body, and they were eating him alive---
With a muffled shriek, Lance sat up in his bed. He was gasping for breath and his heart was pounding. Just a nightmare. Same as the night before and same as the night before that.
It was Lance's third night alone in his bedroom, and every night he had the same awful dream, always ending with the roaches. Each time he had it, he would try so hard to cry, but he could not find tears for his dead friends, and so he must be punished.
'Why can't I cry?' he thought. 'I want to cry---'
Without giving it another moments thought, Lance reached into the bedside table drawer and pulled out the X-acto knife he had swiped from the art room two days prior. He grabbed the elastic waistband of his boxers and slid them to his knees. 'I want to cry---'
He didn't feel it as much as he should have. There was some dull pain, a far away burn as the cold steel of the knife sliced into the soft flesh of his thighs. What he *could* feel was the blood running out onto his skin, mimicking the tears that he couldn't make run down his cheeks. It hurt, but it was not enough.
'Maybe if I cut off my balls---'
The though horrified Lance, but also fascinated him in a kind of morbid way. 'I'm sick,' he thought as he brought the knife to the top of his scrotum and applied a light pressure. 'I'm really sick for even thinking this.' He grit his teeth and shut his eyes tight, trying to work up the nerve. 'Trying to work up the balls,' popped into his head, and he laughed humorlessly. It wasn't really funny.
Lance sat this way for almost a minute before he took the knife away. 'Can't even do this right,' he bemoaned. 'Can't even punish myself right.' In a fit of rage and self-loathing, he brought the knife to his stomach and hacked at it twice, leaving two short but deep cuts side by side, like tally marks. The blood ran down over the twin cuts he had made the night before, and the two from the night before that.
For the rest of the night, Lance lie awake. Same as the night before, and same as the night before that.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Ok, like I promised Miracle Chick: Lance feels a lot of guilt about Todd and Fred's deaths. He was the leader, and when the moment came to act (in the first chapter, when the room was filling with knockout gas), he panicked and because of it, his friends are dead. Now, he believes that he deserves the worst punishment he can think of (Hell, cutting, cockroaches), and who better to administer that then the gaurds? (Remember, the demons look like the gaurds dressed as doctors.) You mentioned the number of the guards in your review, so I'll tell you. The reason Lance couldn't see how many there were is because he was delirious. The poison was giving him a fever.
As for the eyes sewn shut, well, I wanted to show Todd and Fred as kind of crossed out. You know, like how dead characters in cartoons always have X's for eyes. Part of it really was just atmosphere though. I saw something like it in an episode of the X files when I was younger, and it freaked me out.
BTW, if anyone wants to know, in my story, Lance is a little freaked out by cockroaches. So am I. In fact, the idea for this came to me one night when I was listening to CD's and refusing to go back to sleep because I'd just had a dream that I was in a room *filled* with cockroaches. They were on *everything*.
Alright, that's it for today. Review, por favor!
