None of the Marvel or DC characters mentioned within belong to me. All characters not of the Marvel or DC universes were created by either friends of mine or me, so read my other two stories with Touch in the title to get an idea of his character, and visit Dragonbreath if you'd like to know more about the X-Tremes (the other characters mentioned). And see if you can catch the Tenacious D reference.
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Not many people went into the city to seek tranquility, yet Touch always seemed to find it there. There was something about being alone, or in a small crowd, that just made him feel like a target. Places like these let him think his own thoughts and be himself without worrying about what other people thought. It was a place where people were to busy making their own judgments to even give him a second thought. It was pleasant.
However, getting into the city proved to be a lot trickier. Xavier had apprehensions about any of his students going into the city by themselves, especially Touch. When he was asked why, he told Touch that it was because he had more therapy to attend to before he could go out on his own. The reality of the situation was the professor had always had trouble keeping a hold on the youth's mind, even in close proximity, and without having somebody with Touch at all times, there was no way he could keep track of his actions. Either Dinah or Rebecca were always happy to accompany him, or even Liz if she could drag Pip along, so getting there always happened if he needed to get away. The 'lost in the crowd' feeling, however, was never the same. Rebecca had to meet up with Scott in the danger room for her weekly individual training session, so Dinah decided to take Touch out to lunch and maybe get him to talk.
"What did you mean when you said you didn't know?" Her voice was cautious to speak, but she figured this was as comfortable as he was going to get.
"Wait." He walked into a restaurant that she had never seen before. The outside was incredibly shoddy, almost decrepit, with neon letters flashing only a few letters out of the name of the place - Zanzibar. Dinah cautiously stepped though the door, first noticing the mellow sounds of jazz music waft in her direction. The inside revealed an incredibly rich atmosphere with a live band playing at one in the afternoon – a rarity anywhere in New York. Immediately, a waiter walked up to Touch and showed him to a table for two. He pulled out the seat for Dinah and then sat across from her, then held up two fingers to the waiter. As the waiter walked away, Dinah just stared at him.
"Is this another one of those things you just know?"
"Oh no, I found this place when I was with the Hellfire Club. They called it plebian because Emma hates jazz or something like that. The streets aren't the best place to talk."
The waiter came back with two glasses and a bottle of wine, and a plate of appetizers.
"Beats dealing with hotdog venders too."
She could not help but smile at his simplicity sometimes. Everything else about him was so complicated that it was scary, but his actions rarely had to be explained in more than one breath.
They ate in silence, just listening to the music while nibbling on the food in front of them. Dinah had gotten lost in the atmosphere and forgot her question until Touch had finished his wine.
"I don't know."
It took her half a second to register just what he said, let alone figuring out
what he meant. The realization pulled
her back into reality rather quickly though, and she tried to think of some
sort of intelligent response.
"But… there has to be a way you know."
"No there doesn't. Or else I would."
"Please Touch, just think for a sec,"
"I think about it all the time."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know." He sat up slightly in
his seat upon saying this again. He was
clearly becoming frustrated with the conversation, but Dinah refused to let up.
"Then why do you do it? Give me
something to go on, or I can't help you."
"You don't know what it's like to be a shell of person. It's not like what X says. I'm not half thug and half old guy. I have pieces of them in me, but I am all
me, and I don't know what that is." He
shot up from his seat, and placed his face in front of hers. "Wake up one day and be all these things,
but something else that's my personality, my life, but nothing else. You won't even know if you exist."
He tore through the door of the restaurant and walked into the streets. As much as Dinah wanted to run after him and try to apologize, she could not see how it would make the situation any better. Her head fell into her hands and just laid her head down. She could not remember any time she had been so angry, and yet so guilty at the same time.
* * *
Touch stormed deep into the city, moving away from the slums
that he had slightly led Dinah into, towards the more tourist-surrounded area,
and finding himself right on the edge of the two worlds. There was a flight of stairs leading up to
an apartment, offering a relatively good place to just stop and ruminate over
the thoughts that had been plaguing him for as long as he had been… well… what
he is. How could he explain to her how
he is this kid, and that old man, and everything else he had ever been before
that? But most of all, how could he
explain to her that all of this was him, and yet his essence was still
Touch? He could not even explain it to
himself.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a back of cigarettes. It had been common practice to get yelled at
for even carrying them around (smoking was not an addiction for him, as he had
full control of his mind); just one of the many irritations that he had been
dealing with.
He took a cigarette out of its package and patted his side
to find a lighter or matches.
Nothing… damn it…
He looked up to stop someone walking by to ask for a light
just in time to see a deep blue cloak flow by him as its owner ran past. Within a few seconds, two guys chasing her
pulled the same close running stunt, these ones towering over the other
figure. It was in his instincts to let
something like this go, but time with the X-Tremes instilled the need in him to
help out somehow.
The two guys hunting down the cloaked figure tackled it into the trunk of a
taxi, sprawling their prey over the back of the vehicle. One of them pulled a knife out of his coat
pocket and used his other hand to grab the person by the neck, pulling them off
of the car. The hood on the person fell
off to reveal the face of a young girl, her head rolling to the side as if her
entire body lacked the life in it to control any of its movements.
The second of the thugs grabbed the knife away from his
friend and placed it next to the girl's neck.
"No one screws with out business…"
As sadistic and cruel as his voice sounded, the amount of enjoyment he seemed
to be getting out of it only slightly offset the anger in the eyes of him and
his comrade. His arm threw back behind
his head and slammed the knife down with every ounce of strength in his body.