Hey everyone! Pity me, because I have to get my wisdom teeth out today.
That's why I'm updating so early in the morning, cause this afternoon, I'm
going to be in a world of hurt.
Yea! Rex isn't going to kill me! Yea!
Marye, I would be truly honored if you wrote about my fanfic.
Thanks Lost Angel
Miracle Chick, the fact that you call my fic believable is one of the greatest complements an author can get. Thank you. As for Lance getting help, well, I think you're right, *someone* needs to get through to that boy, wink wink. Oh, and the thing about the Professor sensing Lance's duress, I figure that Lance is always worst at night, when the Professor is asleep and not really reading anyone's mind. Otherwise, he's just kind of depressed, which is to be expected in his situation.
Charmedfan03, well, we're all a little crazy sometimes.
Ice Princess, I think Pietro's doing a little better than Lance, but really this isn't his story. I really like your idea for a memorial, and actually planned to put a chapter like that in. Sadly, I couldn't find a good place to put it. I'll see what I can do about semi-happy endings and non-creepy psychologists (though neither are a guarantee!)
On with the show! -
"Seven --- eight --- nine --- ten!" Lance grit his teeth as he lowered the bar back onto the weight machine. Even though only two weeks had past since the two boys had gotten out of the hospital wing, Pietro's elevated system had already succeeded in healing the fracture in his leg. Now that he was out of his cast, Scott was in charge of making sure Pietro exercised his leg every day. Pietro, of course, hated this. Which is why Lance agreed to take over Scott's duties for him and follow Pietro down to the weight room each day. And as long as he was there, he might as well tone up.
"Hey Pietro, how's the leg?" Lance asked. It had become something of a joke between them, as Pietro never had anything but complaints.
"It HURTS!" he moaned. "This sucks, I hate lifting leg weights!"
"Oh, stop your whining," Lance said with a laugh as he picked up a barbell. "It could be a lot worse. You almost had Scott Summers as your personal trainer." He puffed out his chest and mocked a salute. "Alright soldier! I want five sets of ten lifts, and make it fast because after this you're giving me fifteen laps in the pool!"
Pietro laughed. "That guy *is* an asshole. Doesn't he ever get on your nerves?"
"Summers? Yeah, but you kind of get used to him. Besides, some of the people here are Ok. Wolverine's actually *nice*, in a distant, I'm- gonna-tear-you-a-new-one kind of way. I can take a little Summers."
"Well, not me. Man, I can't wait until we get out of here."
Lance paused his curls. "Really? Where are you planning to go?"
"Where do you think? Back to the Brotherhood house, with you."
"Going --- what?" Lance furrowed his brow. "Pietro, I'm not *going* back to the Brotherhood house. It's over."
Pietro sat up on the weight bench. "Wait a second. You're not going back?"
"That's right."
"So you're just gonna live with the X geeks forever?!" Pietro exploded.
Lance scoffed at him. "Of course not. Don't be stupid. I turn eighteen in a couple of months. I'll get myself a job, find myself a place- you know, pretend that life is normal."
A dark scowl crossed Pietro's face. "What about Mystique? Are you just going to forget about her?"
Lance grabbed the nearest towel and stormed over to Pietro's bench. "Me forget about her? Pietro, she forgot about us! She sent us on a mission and left us to be tortured and beaten and *killed*! To hell with Mystique!" Lance's face softened a bit. "Besides, do you really want to go back to that? She was only using us, training us so we can kill humans for Magneto later. I'm sick of being used by them."
"Well yeah, but ---" Pietro's eyes held a glint of disbelief, as if he couldn't see what was making this so hard for Lance to understand. "Don't you *want* to get rid of the humans? After what you've seen them do to your friends? After what they did to you, for God's sake! They poisoned you and took your powers away!"
Lance sat down on the bench next to Pietro and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. "Look, it's not that I subscribe to all the pacifist bullshit that Professor guy dishes out, I just don't really want to kill anyone. You know, I've kind of seen enough cruelty and death to last me a lifetime."
"You're a traitor."
"Hey, I'm not the one who --- Look, I don't want to get into any arguments right now, alright? Let's just say that I don't know what I'm gonna do yet."
Pietro considered this. "Ok, but promise you'll at least think about coming back."
"Sure, I'll think about it," Lance said, as he headed off to the showers. He didn't really want to admit it to himself, but he felt sort of guilty. After everything he and Pietro had survived together, it seemed a little wrong to lie to him.
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At 3:25am that Friday night, a loud but brief shriek bounced and echoed down the second floor hall of the Xavier Institute. The only person in the house who was a big enough insomniac to already be awake was on his feet and down the hall in a few seconds.
Logan was sure the sound had come from just to the left, probably Lance or Pietro's room. Pietro's door was shut, but Lance's was wide open, and Logan could hear him tossing and turning in his sleep. 'Must be having a nightmare,' he thought as he entered Lance's room. He walked up to the bed and shook him.
"Wake up kid, you're dreaming."
Lance gasped and shot up in bed. "Stop it!" he yelped, sweat pouring down his forehead in rivers.
Logan drew his hand back quickly. "You were yelling in your sleep, so I woke you up," he explained, and then crinkled his brow. The boy seemed awfully warm. Logan placed a hand on Lance's head. "You're burning up, kid," he remarked.
A soft knock came from the doorway, and Logan spun around to see Scott, half asleep. "Did someone scream?" he asked.
"Scott, run downstairs and get me the cold compress."
Scott slumped his shoulders. "Logan, it's 3:30 in the morning."
"Lance is sick."
Behind his sleeping goggles, Scott rolled his eyes. "Well, if it's an emergency---"
"Stop being a comedian and go get it," Logan sneered.
Scott left and returned dutifully with the ice. He was greeted with a rather interesting sight- Logan, who had turned on the bedside lamp, was sitting beside Lance on the bed. In Lance's mouth was a thermometer. Scott couldn't help but smirk a little. Logan didn't exactly strike him as the mothering sort. "Here you go," he said, tossing the bag of ice onto the bed. "Is that it, or would you like me to fetch you something else?"
Logan ignored him and pulled the thermometer from Lance's mouth. He glanced at it with a frown.
"What does it say?" Scott asked. Logan tossed him a sideward glance.
"I thought you wanted to go to bed?"
Scott scratched the skin behind his ear. "Yeah, well, I was just wondering."
Logan glanced back to Lance who was silently shivering. He had sweated through his nightshirt. "I'll tell you," Logan said gruffly, "if you go into his top drawer and get him another shirt."
Scott mock-sighed, and went to the dresser. Logan turned his attention back to Lance. "Take your shirt off, Scott's getting you another one to change into."
"W-wh-what's my temperature?" Lance asked through chattering teeth as he pulled the shirt over his head.
"104.6," Logan answered. "You got one hell of a bug there, kid."
"Here you go," Scott broke in, handing Lance his shirt. He glanced down at Lance's belly and raised an eyebrow. "Where'd you get those?" he asked, nodding his head at the cuts across Lance's abdomen. "Did they give you those in that SHIELD place?"
For a moment, Lance had no clue what Summers was talking about, but then realization dawned on him and he self-consciously pulled the quilt up to cover his scars. " 's nothing," he claimed.
Logan frowned and reached over to move the quilt back. "Hey!" Lance protested, but it was 3:30 in the morning and he had a high fever, so he offered little resistance. Logan took a good look at the bright red cuts and furrowed his brow. "Scott, go to bed," he ordered.
Instead, Scott leaned forward to get a better look. "Those are new," he announced. "He did that to himself, didn't he."
"SCOTT!" Logan growled.
"Hey, none of my business," Scott threw up his hands in surrender and backed up. "Maybe I'll go to bed---"
"Good idea," Logan said, and as soon as Scott was gone, he turned his attention back to Lance. "Alright kid, level with me. Have you been cuttin' yourself up?"
Lance froze. There was no good lie for a situation like this. Maybe the best thing to do would be to say nothing at all. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it on over his head, lied down on the pillow, and refused to say a word.
This really might have worked with anyone else, but Lance didn't have much experience dealing with Wolverine. Logan grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pulled him back into a sitting position. "Nope, sorry kid, but you're not going to bed until you answer me. Did you do this to yourself? I already know, but I want to hear you say it."
Something in Lance's brain went frantic. This wasn't fair, he was tired and he was sick and a guy named Wolverine was interrogating him in the middle of the night. This kind of thing never happened to normal people. His whole world seemed to be crashing down around him and he could never get enough sleep and --- oh God, he wasn't about to cry, was he? Please, God, don't let him cry in front of this guy.
Logan sat waiting at the end of the bed, watching Lance bow his head down towards his lap. What was this kid doing anyway, hurting himself like that? A soft sound escaped from the kid's mouth and --- Oh wait, was he crying? Logan sure as hell hoped not. He didn't know anything about how to deal with crying kids.
Lance really tried to fight it. He did *not* want to cry, he could *not* cry, not in front of Logan, but there was really nothing he could do about it now, and before he knew it, he was sobbing and a torrent of tears was running down his face. This was easily the most humiliated Lance had ever been in his life.
Logan, to his credit, tried to hide how awkward this whole situation felt to him and placed a tentative hand on Lance's shoulder. "Kid," he started, then stopped and began again. "Lance, I know that--- being in a place like that can really mess you up. I've been there. But this --- hurting yourself is only going to make it a lot worse in the long run." Lance only continued to cry, and Logan wondered if his words were having any effect on the boy at all. "Lance, where do you keep it?"
With a hiccup, Lance pointed to the bedside table drawer. He knew what Logan was referring to immediately. Logan reached into the drawer and pulled out the knife. "Look at me, kid," he said, and pulled Lance's head up until he could see his eyes. He then took the blade of the X-acto knife and broke it in half. "I don't want to catch you doing this again," he said firmly. "If you feel like doing it, you go talk to me or Xavier or anyone. There are a lot of people in this house, I'm sure you can find someone."
By now, Lance was about done with his tears and was back to shivering. "Oh--- sorry, I forgot," Logan said, and handed him a couple of Aspirin and a cup of water. "This should get that fever down, anyway."
Lance swallowed the pills and choked on the water. Logan slapped his back. "You ok, kid?" he asked.
"I-I-I," Lance hiccupped. "I don't want any more nightmares."
To Logan, Lance looked like a little boy just then, his eyes bright with the high fever and his long brown hair sticking up in all directions. A rush of sympathy washed over him. After all, who knew more about nightmares induced by human cruelty than Logan? "Don't worry, kid," Logan assured him. "I'm gonna sit here with you for a while, alright?"
Lance hiccupped in reply.
Logan wound up staying by Lance's bed until almost dawn.
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It seemed so right that Logan should be the one to help Lance, since they've both been through similar events (though Logan's was quite a bit worse). I really worried a lot about this chapter because I was afraid to make Logan too sappy or care too much, when he's not really that kind of guy, but I *think* it came out alright. If I'm wrong, please (gently) tell me so that I might learn from my mistakes.
Please Review? Please?
Yea! Rex isn't going to kill me! Yea!
Marye, I would be truly honored if you wrote about my fanfic.
Thanks Lost Angel
Miracle Chick, the fact that you call my fic believable is one of the greatest complements an author can get. Thank you. As for Lance getting help, well, I think you're right, *someone* needs to get through to that boy, wink wink. Oh, and the thing about the Professor sensing Lance's duress, I figure that Lance is always worst at night, when the Professor is asleep and not really reading anyone's mind. Otherwise, he's just kind of depressed, which is to be expected in his situation.
Charmedfan03, well, we're all a little crazy sometimes.
Ice Princess, I think Pietro's doing a little better than Lance, but really this isn't his story. I really like your idea for a memorial, and actually planned to put a chapter like that in. Sadly, I couldn't find a good place to put it. I'll see what I can do about semi-happy endings and non-creepy psychologists (though neither are a guarantee!)
On with the show! -
"Seven --- eight --- nine --- ten!" Lance grit his teeth as he lowered the bar back onto the weight machine. Even though only two weeks had past since the two boys had gotten out of the hospital wing, Pietro's elevated system had already succeeded in healing the fracture in his leg. Now that he was out of his cast, Scott was in charge of making sure Pietro exercised his leg every day. Pietro, of course, hated this. Which is why Lance agreed to take over Scott's duties for him and follow Pietro down to the weight room each day. And as long as he was there, he might as well tone up.
"Hey Pietro, how's the leg?" Lance asked. It had become something of a joke between them, as Pietro never had anything but complaints.
"It HURTS!" he moaned. "This sucks, I hate lifting leg weights!"
"Oh, stop your whining," Lance said with a laugh as he picked up a barbell. "It could be a lot worse. You almost had Scott Summers as your personal trainer." He puffed out his chest and mocked a salute. "Alright soldier! I want five sets of ten lifts, and make it fast because after this you're giving me fifteen laps in the pool!"
Pietro laughed. "That guy *is* an asshole. Doesn't he ever get on your nerves?"
"Summers? Yeah, but you kind of get used to him. Besides, some of the people here are Ok. Wolverine's actually *nice*, in a distant, I'm- gonna-tear-you-a-new-one kind of way. I can take a little Summers."
"Well, not me. Man, I can't wait until we get out of here."
Lance paused his curls. "Really? Where are you planning to go?"
"Where do you think? Back to the Brotherhood house, with you."
"Going --- what?" Lance furrowed his brow. "Pietro, I'm not *going* back to the Brotherhood house. It's over."
Pietro sat up on the weight bench. "Wait a second. You're not going back?"
"That's right."
"So you're just gonna live with the X geeks forever?!" Pietro exploded.
Lance scoffed at him. "Of course not. Don't be stupid. I turn eighteen in a couple of months. I'll get myself a job, find myself a place- you know, pretend that life is normal."
A dark scowl crossed Pietro's face. "What about Mystique? Are you just going to forget about her?"
Lance grabbed the nearest towel and stormed over to Pietro's bench. "Me forget about her? Pietro, she forgot about us! She sent us on a mission and left us to be tortured and beaten and *killed*! To hell with Mystique!" Lance's face softened a bit. "Besides, do you really want to go back to that? She was only using us, training us so we can kill humans for Magneto later. I'm sick of being used by them."
"Well yeah, but ---" Pietro's eyes held a glint of disbelief, as if he couldn't see what was making this so hard for Lance to understand. "Don't you *want* to get rid of the humans? After what you've seen them do to your friends? After what they did to you, for God's sake! They poisoned you and took your powers away!"
Lance sat down on the bench next to Pietro and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. "Look, it's not that I subscribe to all the pacifist bullshit that Professor guy dishes out, I just don't really want to kill anyone. You know, I've kind of seen enough cruelty and death to last me a lifetime."
"You're a traitor."
"Hey, I'm not the one who --- Look, I don't want to get into any arguments right now, alright? Let's just say that I don't know what I'm gonna do yet."
Pietro considered this. "Ok, but promise you'll at least think about coming back."
"Sure, I'll think about it," Lance said, as he headed off to the showers. He didn't really want to admit it to himself, but he felt sort of guilty. After everything he and Pietro had survived together, it seemed a little wrong to lie to him.
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At 3:25am that Friday night, a loud but brief shriek bounced and echoed down the second floor hall of the Xavier Institute. The only person in the house who was a big enough insomniac to already be awake was on his feet and down the hall in a few seconds.
Logan was sure the sound had come from just to the left, probably Lance or Pietro's room. Pietro's door was shut, but Lance's was wide open, and Logan could hear him tossing and turning in his sleep. 'Must be having a nightmare,' he thought as he entered Lance's room. He walked up to the bed and shook him.
"Wake up kid, you're dreaming."
Lance gasped and shot up in bed. "Stop it!" he yelped, sweat pouring down his forehead in rivers.
Logan drew his hand back quickly. "You were yelling in your sleep, so I woke you up," he explained, and then crinkled his brow. The boy seemed awfully warm. Logan placed a hand on Lance's head. "You're burning up, kid," he remarked.
A soft knock came from the doorway, and Logan spun around to see Scott, half asleep. "Did someone scream?" he asked.
"Scott, run downstairs and get me the cold compress."
Scott slumped his shoulders. "Logan, it's 3:30 in the morning."
"Lance is sick."
Behind his sleeping goggles, Scott rolled his eyes. "Well, if it's an emergency---"
"Stop being a comedian and go get it," Logan sneered.
Scott left and returned dutifully with the ice. He was greeted with a rather interesting sight- Logan, who had turned on the bedside lamp, was sitting beside Lance on the bed. In Lance's mouth was a thermometer. Scott couldn't help but smirk a little. Logan didn't exactly strike him as the mothering sort. "Here you go," he said, tossing the bag of ice onto the bed. "Is that it, or would you like me to fetch you something else?"
Logan ignored him and pulled the thermometer from Lance's mouth. He glanced at it with a frown.
"What does it say?" Scott asked. Logan tossed him a sideward glance.
"I thought you wanted to go to bed?"
Scott scratched the skin behind his ear. "Yeah, well, I was just wondering."
Logan glanced back to Lance who was silently shivering. He had sweated through his nightshirt. "I'll tell you," Logan said gruffly, "if you go into his top drawer and get him another shirt."
Scott mock-sighed, and went to the dresser. Logan turned his attention back to Lance. "Take your shirt off, Scott's getting you another one to change into."
"W-wh-what's my temperature?" Lance asked through chattering teeth as he pulled the shirt over his head.
"104.6," Logan answered. "You got one hell of a bug there, kid."
"Here you go," Scott broke in, handing Lance his shirt. He glanced down at Lance's belly and raised an eyebrow. "Where'd you get those?" he asked, nodding his head at the cuts across Lance's abdomen. "Did they give you those in that SHIELD place?"
For a moment, Lance had no clue what Summers was talking about, but then realization dawned on him and he self-consciously pulled the quilt up to cover his scars. " 's nothing," he claimed.
Logan frowned and reached over to move the quilt back. "Hey!" Lance protested, but it was 3:30 in the morning and he had a high fever, so he offered little resistance. Logan took a good look at the bright red cuts and furrowed his brow. "Scott, go to bed," he ordered.
Instead, Scott leaned forward to get a better look. "Those are new," he announced. "He did that to himself, didn't he."
"SCOTT!" Logan growled.
"Hey, none of my business," Scott threw up his hands in surrender and backed up. "Maybe I'll go to bed---"
"Good idea," Logan said, and as soon as Scott was gone, he turned his attention back to Lance. "Alright kid, level with me. Have you been cuttin' yourself up?"
Lance froze. There was no good lie for a situation like this. Maybe the best thing to do would be to say nothing at all. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it on over his head, lied down on the pillow, and refused to say a word.
This really might have worked with anyone else, but Lance didn't have much experience dealing with Wolverine. Logan grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pulled him back into a sitting position. "Nope, sorry kid, but you're not going to bed until you answer me. Did you do this to yourself? I already know, but I want to hear you say it."
Something in Lance's brain went frantic. This wasn't fair, he was tired and he was sick and a guy named Wolverine was interrogating him in the middle of the night. This kind of thing never happened to normal people. His whole world seemed to be crashing down around him and he could never get enough sleep and --- oh God, he wasn't about to cry, was he? Please, God, don't let him cry in front of this guy.
Logan sat waiting at the end of the bed, watching Lance bow his head down towards his lap. What was this kid doing anyway, hurting himself like that? A soft sound escaped from the kid's mouth and --- Oh wait, was he crying? Logan sure as hell hoped not. He didn't know anything about how to deal with crying kids.
Lance really tried to fight it. He did *not* want to cry, he could *not* cry, not in front of Logan, but there was really nothing he could do about it now, and before he knew it, he was sobbing and a torrent of tears was running down his face. This was easily the most humiliated Lance had ever been in his life.
Logan, to his credit, tried to hide how awkward this whole situation felt to him and placed a tentative hand on Lance's shoulder. "Kid," he started, then stopped and began again. "Lance, I know that--- being in a place like that can really mess you up. I've been there. But this --- hurting yourself is only going to make it a lot worse in the long run." Lance only continued to cry, and Logan wondered if his words were having any effect on the boy at all. "Lance, where do you keep it?"
With a hiccup, Lance pointed to the bedside table drawer. He knew what Logan was referring to immediately. Logan reached into the drawer and pulled out the knife. "Look at me, kid," he said, and pulled Lance's head up until he could see his eyes. He then took the blade of the X-acto knife and broke it in half. "I don't want to catch you doing this again," he said firmly. "If you feel like doing it, you go talk to me or Xavier or anyone. There are a lot of people in this house, I'm sure you can find someone."
By now, Lance was about done with his tears and was back to shivering. "Oh--- sorry, I forgot," Logan said, and handed him a couple of Aspirin and a cup of water. "This should get that fever down, anyway."
Lance swallowed the pills and choked on the water. Logan slapped his back. "You ok, kid?" he asked.
"I-I-I," Lance hiccupped. "I don't want any more nightmares."
To Logan, Lance looked like a little boy just then, his eyes bright with the high fever and his long brown hair sticking up in all directions. A rush of sympathy washed over him. After all, who knew more about nightmares induced by human cruelty than Logan? "Don't worry, kid," Logan assured him. "I'm gonna sit here with you for a while, alright?"
Lance hiccupped in reply.
Logan wound up staying by Lance's bed until almost dawn.
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It seemed so right that Logan should be the one to help Lance, since they've both been through similar events (though Logan's was quite a bit worse). I really worried a lot about this chapter because I was afraid to make Logan too sappy or care too much, when he's not really that kind of guy, but I *think* it came out alright. If I'm wrong, please (gently) tell me so that I might learn from my mistakes.
Please Review? Please?
