Here's the next chapter, to any one out there who actually cares.
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Scott walked over to his dark haired boyfriend and looped his arms around his shoulders, holding him back into his own body and resting his chin on the other's shoulder.
"How's the head doing?" He asked quietly into Lance's ear.
Lance made a face.
"Feel's like I got kicked in the head. funny that. Considering, I did."
Scott just chuckled at Lance's sarcasm and kissed the joint of his neck and his shoulder gently. Leaving his head in the crook of Lance's neck, breathing in his smell, Scott just sighed.
Lance finished taking the aspirin that he had got from the medicine cabinet and just stood looking at his boyfriend hanging over his shoulder. Who would have thought that the two leaders of the rival gangs of mutants would one day be leaning against each other in solace, heads bent gently towards each other in peace and breathing together in love. Who would have thought that he, Lance Alvers, could ever fall in love with the upright, uptight Scott Summers? Him, the original poster boy for high school rebel? Some things never made sense. Like the massacre of a high school full of children whose only crime was to be born with a different gene.
Scott felt the muscles in the shoulders beneath his head tense and stepped back a bit, looking into Lance's face reflected in the mirror. He saw the angry pain in there and knew immediately what Lance was thinking about. he thought about it all the time too.
"Come on." He said, pulling back from Lance and gently taking his hand. "Let's see of we can't massage that headache away huh?"
Lance smiled back at his lover and turned to follow, thanking God that some things, at least, still made sense in the world.
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Adelaide was growing more and more concerned for the boy's mental health by the minute. She was beginning to feel convinced that the bizarre things he was telling her were a result of some kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She decided to try and lead him to realise reality through careful questioning.
"If you want to get changed, then maybe you could answer some questions. We might be able to find out what happened to you, hm?"
He gave her a look that clearly said 'I KNOW what happened' but he decided to humour her. There was no point in him giving her too much information, so he'd only tell her what she asked about and what he thought she needed to know. He took the clothes and stared at her, watching him impatiently.
"What? Oh! Woops, I'll just go then shall I?"
She grinned and left the room as he gazed stonily at her. When she had left, he began getting changed. As he took the white pajama top off, he took the opportunity to check out the damage done. The bruises that he had seen forming before he had lost consciousness were practically gone, and he felt little pain from his ribs. That woman really must be a healer. He saw the wounds on his wrists and knew that they'd forever be a reminder of what he had gone through in those dungeons. He suddenly didn't want to look at his body anymore, and pulled the black T-shirt over his head. The sleeves came to his elbows, the collar hung so low that his collarbones were exposed, and the bottom of the T-shirt came down to his mid-thigh. He took the pajama bottoms off, pulling the jeans on as fast as possible, almost immediately after. He shuddered again and had to hold himself around the stomach as unseen but half-felt memories flitted through his head making his insides roil. He didn't even think about that. The jeans were surprisingly slightly too tight for him, even though the legs were too long. He rolled the cuffs up at the bottom so that he wouldn't trip on them. He folded the pajamas and sat back on the edge of the bed, thinking about what he was going to tell the doctor when she came back.
There was a knock on the door.
"Are you decent?"
"Yeah."
Adelaide came back in and ran a critical eye over him. He felt very uncomfortable suddenly, and moved himself into a defensive posture.
"Oh dear. That T-shirt's way too big for you. How are the jeans?"
"They're a bit tight." He said.
"Damn. Well, we'll obviously have to go get some new clothes for you later. Anyway, back to business. Lets start with your age. How old are you?"
"'Bout 15 I think."
Oljannie felt her stomach twist as she remembered exactly how he had been tortured, and wondered what kind of sick people would do something so brutal to a child. She hid her disgust carefully and continued.
"Ok. Where are you from?"
"I think I was born in Siwell, in Emaht, but I moved around a lot after that." He sounded bored.
Adelaide hadn't heard of either of those places, and made a mental note to ask the Professor if he had. Now for the difficult question.
"Okay. Now, you don't have to answer this question if you don't want to. Just tell me if you're uncomfortable ok, and we'll move onto something else."
He nodded and she continued.
"Can you remember who tortured you and how you ended up in the alley?"
It was a heavy question, and when Daqyrii was quiet for a long while, she began to worry that she had pushed too hard too fast. It wasn't uncommon for rape and torture victims to go catatonic after the event. Luckily, he eventually responded.
"I was caught by a troop of Queen Mellyar's followers. I don't s'pose you've heard of her either?"
"Nope."
"She's Mab's High Priestess. Mab's the sister goddess of Daiya, but that's another story. They unarmed me 'n hexed me 'n dragged me back to her castle, the middle of their territory. They had me... interrogated for information. I refused to tell 'em anything, so the Queen ordered me executed..."
Adelaide interrupted.
"Executed? Why, you're only a kid!"
Daqyrii looked at her with a sceptical look.
"Because. I was dangerous t'her and I would serve as an' example to the other rebels and her political adversaries. And I'm not a kid. She." He swallowed hard and looked down at his knees. It was obvious that this was difficult for him to talk about.
"She th-threw me to her guards after the interrogation and let... let them have their way wi'me." He shuddered all over. "She kept me in the prisons 'til I was too weak to use my power against her, and then sentenced me t'death by magic, execution at her sorcerer's hands."
His voice faded off slightly, as he recalled the events that he had forgotten up until now.
"I woke up tied to th'post... so I must've been unconscious when they brought me out... then I saw the magical build up about t'release above me, so I did a catalyst spell." He thought for a while. "It must've interacted with the execution bolt 'n sent me here."
He looked back up at Adelaide and some of the fearful confusion had disappeared from his gaze. Adelaide, however, still looked blank.
"So... an unplanned magical interaction dropped you here?"
The boy shrugged. "Far as I know."
"I still don't understand why this Queen person thought you were a threat."
Daqyrii sighed in annoyance.
"'Coz I'm one of only a handful of people who are willing to use magic in a harmful way against her. There aren't many magic users who're willing t'become soldiers y'know."
He watched her face crease in surprise and denial.
"But you can't be a soldier! You're only fifteen!"
"So? I can hold a sword and wield magic. It'd be selfish o'me not t'help in the resistance. Besides, I'd rather fight on the side of the rebels than on her side any day. "
Apparently the doctor was having trouble with this idea.
"But_ but they can't expect you to be a soldier. You'd have to kill people."
Adelaide felt cold as she suddenly realised that the boy must have been telling her the truth, even though it sounded like a fantastic story. The way he answered her brooked no allowance for disbelief.
"Yea so? There's always deaths in war. Most of the kids on our side've learned to fight as soon as they're big enough to be able to lift a sword. And I can use magic. Whatever happened to me back there is nothing compared to what would have happened if I told her anything about my side. I'm expendable. The cause is not."
Adelaide looked at Daqyrii in horrified fascination, feeling sick. While her realisation that this boy's childhood was spent with a gun in his hand sickened her naturally mothering spirit, the purple haired boy remained stoic. His expression was granite.
"Y-you, you can't just..." She trailed off, trying to grasp the concept in her head. "How many people have you killed?"
Daqyrii shrugged.
"I dunno. I can't count whole armies."
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Kitty sat with her legs curled up under her, listening to the radio through her headphones and flipping aimlessly through a miscellaneous magazine. Kurt opened and shut the door behind her, and she felt the bed depress as he sat down.
She took her headphones off and turned to kiss him.
"Hey." She said softly. "My turn to watch the new guy?"
"Nein." He said. "He'z voken up, Frau Oljannie is vith him."
"Oh? What's he like?" She asked.
Kurt thought back on his first impressions of the new recruit.
"He'z short, violet hair, slate blue eyes. I didn't talk to him much after he voke up, but he seems pretty dizturbed. He vas screaming ven he voke up, and he reminded me of something. like. a cat, you know, vun of those stray cats ven a car goes by."
Kitty laughed, nothing like the bubbling of her giggles of the time before, but a sound of amusement nonetheless.
"So, he's like a cat is he? If I didn't know you so well Kurt, I'd think you were, like, slightly obsessed."
She laughed louder as Kurt grinned at her evilly.
"So," He began, tail swinging high behind him, to and fro. "You think I'm obsessed huh?"
She laughed crazily as he attacked her, tickling with his three fingered hands on one side, and with the tip of his tail on the other. She was soon in paralyzing hysterics on the bed, tears running down her face in mirth as Kurt himself laughed at her non-serious attempts to stop him. Eventually, she phased down through the bed, escaping his grip.
"Keety, that's not fair!" Kurt mock-wailed, stopping to shriek himself as she reappeared behind him and jabbed her fingertips into his furry sides, tickling him back.
Their room rang with the noise of shouts and laughing as their game continued, but the noises eventually settled into a contented silence as they indulged in a fight of another kind.
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Next bit coming when I've finished writing it
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Scott walked over to his dark haired boyfriend and looped his arms around his shoulders, holding him back into his own body and resting his chin on the other's shoulder.
"How's the head doing?" He asked quietly into Lance's ear.
Lance made a face.
"Feel's like I got kicked in the head. funny that. Considering, I did."
Scott just chuckled at Lance's sarcasm and kissed the joint of his neck and his shoulder gently. Leaving his head in the crook of Lance's neck, breathing in his smell, Scott just sighed.
Lance finished taking the aspirin that he had got from the medicine cabinet and just stood looking at his boyfriend hanging over his shoulder. Who would have thought that the two leaders of the rival gangs of mutants would one day be leaning against each other in solace, heads bent gently towards each other in peace and breathing together in love. Who would have thought that he, Lance Alvers, could ever fall in love with the upright, uptight Scott Summers? Him, the original poster boy for high school rebel? Some things never made sense. Like the massacre of a high school full of children whose only crime was to be born with a different gene.
Scott felt the muscles in the shoulders beneath his head tense and stepped back a bit, looking into Lance's face reflected in the mirror. He saw the angry pain in there and knew immediately what Lance was thinking about. he thought about it all the time too.
"Come on." He said, pulling back from Lance and gently taking his hand. "Let's see of we can't massage that headache away huh?"
Lance smiled back at his lover and turned to follow, thanking God that some things, at least, still made sense in the world.
*******************************************************
Adelaide was growing more and more concerned for the boy's mental health by the minute. She was beginning to feel convinced that the bizarre things he was telling her were a result of some kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She decided to try and lead him to realise reality through careful questioning.
"If you want to get changed, then maybe you could answer some questions. We might be able to find out what happened to you, hm?"
He gave her a look that clearly said 'I KNOW what happened' but he decided to humour her. There was no point in him giving her too much information, so he'd only tell her what she asked about and what he thought she needed to know. He took the clothes and stared at her, watching him impatiently.
"What? Oh! Woops, I'll just go then shall I?"
She grinned and left the room as he gazed stonily at her. When she had left, he began getting changed. As he took the white pajama top off, he took the opportunity to check out the damage done. The bruises that he had seen forming before he had lost consciousness were practically gone, and he felt little pain from his ribs. That woman really must be a healer. He saw the wounds on his wrists and knew that they'd forever be a reminder of what he had gone through in those dungeons. He suddenly didn't want to look at his body anymore, and pulled the black T-shirt over his head. The sleeves came to his elbows, the collar hung so low that his collarbones were exposed, and the bottom of the T-shirt came down to his mid-thigh. He took the pajama bottoms off, pulling the jeans on as fast as possible, almost immediately after. He shuddered again and had to hold himself around the stomach as unseen but half-felt memories flitted through his head making his insides roil. He didn't even think about that. The jeans were surprisingly slightly too tight for him, even though the legs were too long. He rolled the cuffs up at the bottom so that he wouldn't trip on them. He folded the pajamas and sat back on the edge of the bed, thinking about what he was going to tell the doctor when she came back.
There was a knock on the door.
"Are you decent?"
"Yeah."
Adelaide came back in and ran a critical eye over him. He felt very uncomfortable suddenly, and moved himself into a defensive posture.
"Oh dear. That T-shirt's way too big for you. How are the jeans?"
"They're a bit tight." He said.
"Damn. Well, we'll obviously have to go get some new clothes for you later. Anyway, back to business. Lets start with your age. How old are you?"
"'Bout 15 I think."
Oljannie felt her stomach twist as she remembered exactly how he had been tortured, and wondered what kind of sick people would do something so brutal to a child. She hid her disgust carefully and continued.
"Ok. Where are you from?"
"I think I was born in Siwell, in Emaht, but I moved around a lot after that." He sounded bored.
Adelaide hadn't heard of either of those places, and made a mental note to ask the Professor if he had. Now for the difficult question.
"Okay. Now, you don't have to answer this question if you don't want to. Just tell me if you're uncomfortable ok, and we'll move onto something else."
He nodded and she continued.
"Can you remember who tortured you and how you ended up in the alley?"
It was a heavy question, and when Daqyrii was quiet for a long while, she began to worry that she had pushed too hard too fast. It wasn't uncommon for rape and torture victims to go catatonic after the event. Luckily, he eventually responded.
"I was caught by a troop of Queen Mellyar's followers. I don't s'pose you've heard of her either?"
"Nope."
"She's Mab's High Priestess. Mab's the sister goddess of Daiya, but that's another story. They unarmed me 'n hexed me 'n dragged me back to her castle, the middle of their territory. They had me... interrogated for information. I refused to tell 'em anything, so the Queen ordered me executed..."
Adelaide interrupted.
"Executed? Why, you're only a kid!"
Daqyrii looked at her with a sceptical look.
"Because. I was dangerous t'her and I would serve as an' example to the other rebels and her political adversaries. And I'm not a kid. She." He swallowed hard and looked down at his knees. It was obvious that this was difficult for him to talk about.
"She th-threw me to her guards after the interrogation and let... let them have their way wi'me." He shuddered all over. "She kept me in the prisons 'til I was too weak to use my power against her, and then sentenced me t'death by magic, execution at her sorcerer's hands."
His voice faded off slightly, as he recalled the events that he had forgotten up until now.
"I woke up tied to th'post... so I must've been unconscious when they brought me out... then I saw the magical build up about t'release above me, so I did a catalyst spell." He thought for a while. "It must've interacted with the execution bolt 'n sent me here."
He looked back up at Adelaide and some of the fearful confusion had disappeared from his gaze. Adelaide, however, still looked blank.
"So... an unplanned magical interaction dropped you here?"
The boy shrugged. "Far as I know."
"I still don't understand why this Queen person thought you were a threat."
Daqyrii sighed in annoyance.
"'Coz I'm one of only a handful of people who are willing to use magic in a harmful way against her. There aren't many magic users who're willing t'become soldiers y'know."
He watched her face crease in surprise and denial.
"But you can't be a soldier! You're only fifteen!"
"So? I can hold a sword and wield magic. It'd be selfish o'me not t'help in the resistance. Besides, I'd rather fight on the side of the rebels than on her side any day. "
Apparently the doctor was having trouble with this idea.
"But_ but they can't expect you to be a soldier. You'd have to kill people."
Adelaide felt cold as she suddenly realised that the boy must have been telling her the truth, even though it sounded like a fantastic story. The way he answered her brooked no allowance for disbelief.
"Yea so? There's always deaths in war. Most of the kids on our side've learned to fight as soon as they're big enough to be able to lift a sword. And I can use magic. Whatever happened to me back there is nothing compared to what would have happened if I told her anything about my side. I'm expendable. The cause is not."
Adelaide looked at Daqyrii in horrified fascination, feeling sick. While her realisation that this boy's childhood was spent with a gun in his hand sickened her naturally mothering spirit, the purple haired boy remained stoic. His expression was granite.
"Y-you, you can't just..." She trailed off, trying to grasp the concept in her head. "How many people have you killed?"
Daqyrii shrugged.
"I dunno. I can't count whole armies."
*******************************************************
Kitty sat with her legs curled up under her, listening to the radio through her headphones and flipping aimlessly through a miscellaneous magazine. Kurt opened and shut the door behind her, and she felt the bed depress as he sat down.
She took her headphones off and turned to kiss him.
"Hey." She said softly. "My turn to watch the new guy?"
"Nein." He said. "He'z voken up, Frau Oljannie is vith him."
"Oh? What's he like?" She asked.
Kurt thought back on his first impressions of the new recruit.
"He'z short, violet hair, slate blue eyes. I didn't talk to him much after he voke up, but he seems pretty dizturbed. He vas screaming ven he voke up, and he reminded me of something. like. a cat, you know, vun of those stray cats ven a car goes by."
Kitty laughed, nothing like the bubbling of her giggles of the time before, but a sound of amusement nonetheless.
"So, he's like a cat is he? If I didn't know you so well Kurt, I'd think you were, like, slightly obsessed."
She laughed louder as Kurt grinned at her evilly.
"So," He began, tail swinging high behind him, to and fro. "You think I'm obsessed huh?"
She laughed crazily as he attacked her, tickling with his three fingered hands on one side, and with the tip of his tail on the other. She was soon in paralyzing hysterics on the bed, tears running down her face in mirth as Kurt himself laughed at her non-serious attempts to stop him. Eventually, she phased down through the bed, escaping his grip.
"Keety, that's not fair!" Kurt mock-wailed, stopping to shriek himself as she reappeared behind him and jabbed her fingertips into his furry sides, tickling him back.
Their room rang with the noise of shouts and laughing as their game continued, but the noises eventually settled into a contented silence as they indulged in a fight of another kind.
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Next bit coming when I've finished writing it