Chapter 11
Lance's tired eyes looked up at the now four assembled adults, Storm had appeared earlier with the clothes that Todd had found earlier. "Is there somewhere we could maybe sit before I go into this, I'm not exactly running at full steam here."
The professor gestured at Storm to go to the hospital wing and sort it out. The three older X-men noticed Lance rub his head and wince as if in pain, he even seemed to slump a little against Tabby, looking at him worriedly she escorted him to a small room at the end of the hallway with some couches and chairs.
Lance flopped on one of the couches, Tabby leaned over to whisper something in his ear and because of his hearing Logan was the only one who caught it. "You know what happens if you get stressed, or use your powers to much, where's the meds?"
Lance glared up at her halfheartedly the dark circles under his eyes really not making it much of a glare, "Tabby, I'm fi..."
Tabby cut him off with merely a look that suggested unless he fessed up right now she was going to beat him within an inch of his life. Slumping back against the cushions Lance's hand started to quiver, he swore and clenched them as they continued to shake, "upper inside pocket on the right of my coat; just bring the whole set, I need to take them."
Tabby shot a glare at the three older men in the room before she hurried off, warning them not to try anything while she was gone. Lance looked up at them grinning weakly, his smile pained as he clenched his hands, "She's a little overprotective."
Logan snorted obviously about to start interrogating the teen, but the professor held up a hand, he was in no condition to face Logan's brand of questioning, and they could hear Tabby clacking her way back down the hall.
She walked in holding a pill sorter (A/N one of those little boxes that has everyday of the week labeled on it and little compartments in it) as well as a separate pill bottle. She sat down next to Lance on the sofa pouring out about 10 pills from sorter, he quickly threw them in his mouth and swallowed them dry, Tabby grimaced "I will never understand how in the hell you can do that."
Lance smirked a little with a small bitter chuckle, "Practice TabbyCat. Did you grab...?" Tabby nodded a little and poured out four large white pills from the bottle into his hand, he swallowed those as well. Sighing Lance lay down on the couch putting his head in Tabby's lap, it was obviously a position they were in a lot. Tabby ran her hands through his hair as Lance looked at the three men, "You wanted answers?"
Beast was the first to respond, "Yes, what did you just take?" He had a suspicion what the pill bottle was but if it was then he was having a hard time believing he had just swallowed four of them.
Lance held up the pill bottle in his still slightly shaky hand, "These magic pills are Morphine, 100 mg a pop." Beast's mouth fell open as his hand moved on the pill sorter, "In there we have Anbien, Lexapro. Moxicilin, & Tricyclyne.
Logan didn't understand any of the other names, but he know Morphine and just how powerful it was, "Are you telling me we just watched you take 400 mg of morphine?! You should be higher then a fuckin' kite!"
He chuckled darkly, "I would be if I didn't have such a strong resistance to it, it takes this much to merely dull pain, you should have seen me beforehand."
Beast was still curious, "Why exactly are you taking all these drugs?"
Scowling darkly Lance looked at them, "You can thank our dear supporter Magneto for that, I'm sure you remember his little project on Asteroid M or X or whatever the hell it was, correct? The one involving your holier then thou Cyclops."
Tabby smirked at the nickname, she thought it fit perfectly but it probably wasn't a good idea to insult the leader of the group they were being forced to rely upon, she whispered just that in Lance's ear.
Before any of the X-men could comment Lance raised his hand and sighed, "I apologize, that was uncalled for, it isn't my place to insult anyone on your team."
Seeing the looks of stunned amazement on the faces of the X-men he snorted, "I am not the person you think I am, and circumstances can force you to grow up, we are going to need your help, it is idiotic and detrimental to our own well-being for me to insult your team."
Logan glared at the teen on the couch, not quite absorbing all that was happening, "Who in the hell are ya', there is no way that you are Lance Alvers."
"Really, and how would you know that? You have talked to me once, and already had your preset conceptions of who I was. There is nothing I can do to change your opinions so I won't try."
Shifting on the couch he continued, "Anyway, after that whole incident, Magneto decided he didn't want to give up his experiments, so Pietro and I became his new 'guinea pigs'."
Xavier interrupted Lance, "What about Fred and Todd?"
"Fred and Todd were both considered useless; as much as I hate to admit it Fred really is, he should have left by now, he has been planning to bail out on this town for a long time. He doesn't fit in with mutants or with humans, but he does fit in with freaks, and that's were he is headed, back home. Todd is not useless, in fact he has quite a few skills, he just prefers to act useless because as much as he participates, he hates fighting. Pietro and I didn't try to change Magneto's mind; it was better that way, he didn't have to suffer."
Beast and Logan both seated themselves in some chairs located around Professor Xavier, Beast, the consummate scientist was set to start interjecting his own questions, "What exactly did Magneto do?"
Lance took a deep breath and pulled up the arm of the shirt he was wearing, on his elbow and running up his arm were countless track marks, it looked as though many of the veins in his arm were about to collapse. "He mixed different combinations of chemicals and genetics, different cocktails that he believed would enhance our powers, you don't want to know the chemicals floating around my body."
His hands shaking he rolled back down the sleeve, "He was successful, somewhat, his newest concoction did enhance our powers, however, it also came with some nasty side-affects. When Pietro runs every part of his body speeds up their specific function so he can survive at the rate he is running; however thanks to Magneto's nice mixture if he gets to upset, angry, really to emotional at all his heart will speed up to that rate, but the rest of his body remains normal. It is similar to panic attack except for the fact that panic attacks can't make your heart explode like his nearly can. Every time he has one of these attacks it puts a permanent strain on his heart."
"What exactly did you inject into him? What was the point?" Beast was the only X-man with an extensive scientific background so the other two allowed him to lead the questioning.
"As odd as this may sound, that is Achetomaphine; in a normal person it would cause their heart rate to speed up, maybe to dangerous levels, but because Pietro's heart is already far above that it actually slows it down; or at least that is what I have come to understand."
"And what about you Lance?" The professor threw this question out because it seemed he was purposely leaving out himself
Lance laughed weakly, "Me, well, I'm just fine and dandy."
Tabby gently smacked him across the head frowning, "Tell them, maybe Mr. McCoy can do something, so don't give that 'I'm alright and nothing's wrong' line again or I swear..."
He cut her off with a soft smile, "Only you TabbyCat, only you."
Turning to the X-men his face set a little harder. "Since I am physically stronger then Pietro Magneto gave me the stronger, more potentially serious mixtures. Again to his mind it was a success, because how we turn out doesn't matter as long as he gets the results. My abilities have been enhanced immensely, I no longer just tell the ground to move, I can form it, mold it, hell, it feels like I can communicate with it. However the problem is that his wonderful mixture worked hell on my nervous system."
Lance held up one still contained soft tremors, barely noticeable but still there. "This is the best it gets for me, if I had not taken the pills earlier it would have progressed until I was in a full blown fit; usually I am a lot more careful, but with everything going on you can imagine how it slipped my mind. The other side affect that has happened is that it seems if Magneto really didn't care what the chemicals did to our life span. Pietro's heart and nervous system will be lucky to last until he's thirty, unless we find better medication. And me, well, I have a tumor, nonmalignant for now, but it keeps growing so one day it probably will kill me. For the moment all it does is give me a permanent headache, if I use my powers it feels like someone drove an icepick into my head, for days."
He shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes, "At least when I go it will be fast and clean, brain aneurysms are notoriously quick; there are much worse ways to die out there."
Tabby scowled and poked him, "Stop talking like that! You're not dead yet, how many times have I told you! You should know better anyway after what you almost did...."
She quickly shut her mouth, obviously almost saying something that was supposed to be quiet.
Sighing Lance glared softly at her, "Since we will be staying for awhile it probably is best I get it all out in the open." Saying this Lance pulled off the gloves covering his hands and wrists. Once they were gone several vertical cuts on both wrists appeared, "These are from my time on the streets. I did things I am not proud of to survive those streets. I...I.. even resorted to selling my only commodity, myself. These scars are after a client got a little rough, but luckily I came to my senses and stumbled into an emergency room. They patched me up and social services sent me where I ran into you the same year."
Before Logan could actually listen to his brain the comment flew out his mouth, "So, you are a whore as well as the enemy."
Lance flinched imperceptibly, sighing as he climbed to his feet shakily, "Believe what you want, I will not deny my history, I am a whore, nothing more, nothing less." He quickly left the room to catch a few winks with Pietro.
Tabby stood up walking over to the taller X-man; Beast and Xavier watched as she raised her hand and slapped him across the face, hard, the sound ringing out in the room, "Are you one to be judging anyone?! How dare you think to know who he is. Do you know where he is going, even though he shouldn't be moving, even though his head is about to explode in pain? He is going to check on Pietro and Todd and then, maybe if he is lucky catch a few hours of sleep before the pain wakes him up. How dare you!" With this she stormed out of the room stalking towards the passage upstairs to seek out the two people she actually liked in the whole damn mansion, Rogue and Kurt
Lance's tired eyes looked up at the now four assembled adults, Storm had appeared earlier with the clothes that Todd had found earlier. "Is there somewhere we could maybe sit before I go into this, I'm not exactly running at full steam here."
The professor gestured at Storm to go to the hospital wing and sort it out. The three older X-men noticed Lance rub his head and wince as if in pain, he even seemed to slump a little against Tabby, looking at him worriedly she escorted him to a small room at the end of the hallway with some couches and chairs.
Lance flopped on one of the couches, Tabby leaned over to whisper something in his ear and because of his hearing Logan was the only one who caught it. "You know what happens if you get stressed, or use your powers to much, where's the meds?"
Lance glared up at her halfheartedly the dark circles under his eyes really not making it much of a glare, "Tabby, I'm fi..."
Tabby cut him off with merely a look that suggested unless he fessed up right now she was going to beat him within an inch of his life. Slumping back against the cushions Lance's hand started to quiver, he swore and clenched them as they continued to shake, "upper inside pocket on the right of my coat; just bring the whole set, I need to take them."
Tabby shot a glare at the three older men in the room before she hurried off, warning them not to try anything while she was gone. Lance looked up at them grinning weakly, his smile pained as he clenched his hands, "She's a little overprotective."
Logan snorted obviously about to start interrogating the teen, but the professor held up a hand, he was in no condition to face Logan's brand of questioning, and they could hear Tabby clacking her way back down the hall.
She walked in holding a pill sorter (A/N one of those little boxes that has everyday of the week labeled on it and little compartments in it) as well as a separate pill bottle. She sat down next to Lance on the sofa pouring out about 10 pills from sorter, he quickly threw them in his mouth and swallowed them dry, Tabby grimaced "I will never understand how in the hell you can do that."
Lance smirked a little with a small bitter chuckle, "Practice TabbyCat. Did you grab...?" Tabby nodded a little and poured out four large white pills from the bottle into his hand, he swallowed those as well. Sighing Lance lay down on the couch putting his head in Tabby's lap, it was obviously a position they were in a lot. Tabby ran her hands through his hair as Lance looked at the three men, "You wanted answers?"
Beast was the first to respond, "Yes, what did you just take?" He had a suspicion what the pill bottle was but if it was then he was having a hard time believing he had just swallowed four of them.
Lance held up the pill bottle in his still slightly shaky hand, "These magic pills are Morphine, 100 mg a pop." Beast's mouth fell open as his hand moved on the pill sorter, "In there we have Anbien, Lexapro. Moxicilin, & Tricyclyne.
Logan didn't understand any of the other names, but he know Morphine and just how powerful it was, "Are you telling me we just watched you take 400 mg of morphine?! You should be higher then a fuckin' kite!"
He chuckled darkly, "I would be if I didn't have such a strong resistance to it, it takes this much to merely dull pain, you should have seen me beforehand."
Beast was still curious, "Why exactly are you taking all these drugs?"
Scowling darkly Lance looked at them, "You can thank our dear supporter Magneto for that, I'm sure you remember his little project on Asteroid M or X or whatever the hell it was, correct? The one involving your holier then thou Cyclops."
Tabby smirked at the nickname, she thought it fit perfectly but it probably wasn't a good idea to insult the leader of the group they were being forced to rely upon, she whispered just that in Lance's ear.
Before any of the X-men could comment Lance raised his hand and sighed, "I apologize, that was uncalled for, it isn't my place to insult anyone on your team."
Seeing the looks of stunned amazement on the faces of the X-men he snorted, "I am not the person you think I am, and circumstances can force you to grow up, we are going to need your help, it is idiotic and detrimental to our own well-being for me to insult your team."
Logan glared at the teen on the couch, not quite absorbing all that was happening, "Who in the hell are ya', there is no way that you are Lance Alvers."
"Really, and how would you know that? You have talked to me once, and already had your preset conceptions of who I was. There is nothing I can do to change your opinions so I won't try."
Shifting on the couch he continued, "Anyway, after that whole incident, Magneto decided he didn't want to give up his experiments, so Pietro and I became his new 'guinea pigs'."
Xavier interrupted Lance, "What about Fred and Todd?"
"Fred and Todd were both considered useless; as much as I hate to admit it Fred really is, he should have left by now, he has been planning to bail out on this town for a long time. He doesn't fit in with mutants or with humans, but he does fit in with freaks, and that's were he is headed, back home. Todd is not useless, in fact he has quite a few skills, he just prefers to act useless because as much as he participates, he hates fighting. Pietro and I didn't try to change Magneto's mind; it was better that way, he didn't have to suffer."
Beast and Logan both seated themselves in some chairs located around Professor Xavier, Beast, the consummate scientist was set to start interjecting his own questions, "What exactly did Magneto do?"
Lance took a deep breath and pulled up the arm of the shirt he was wearing, on his elbow and running up his arm were countless track marks, it looked as though many of the veins in his arm were about to collapse. "He mixed different combinations of chemicals and genetics, different cocktails that he believed would enhance our powers, you don't want to know the chemicals floating around my body."
His hands shaking he rolled back down the sleeve, "He was successful, somewhat, his newest concoction did enhance our powers, however, it also came with some nasty side-affects. When Pietro runs every part of his body speeds up their specific function so he can survive at the rate he is running; however thanks to Magneto's nice mixture if he gets to upset, angry, really to emotional at all his heart will speed up to that rate, but the rest of his body remains normal. It is similar to panic attack except for the fact that panic attacks can't make your heart explode like his nearly can. Every time he has one of these attacks it puts a permanent strain on his heart."
"What exactly did you inject into him? What was the point?" Beast was the only X-man with an extensive scientific background so the other two allowed him to lead the questioning.
"As odd as this may sound, that is Achetomaphine; in a normal person it would cause their heart rate to speed up, maybe to dangerous levels, but because Pietro's heart is already far above that it actually slows it down; or at least that is what I have come to understand."
"And what about you Lance?" The professor threw this question out because it seemed he was purposely leaving out himself
Lance laughed weakly, "Me, well, I'm just fine and dandy."
Tabby gently smacked him across the head frowning, "Tell them, maybe Mr. McCoy can do something, so don't give that 'I'm alright and nothing's wrong' line again or I swear..."
He cut her off with a soft smile, "Only you TabbyCat, only you."
Turning to the X-men his face set a little harder. "Since I am physically stronger then Pietro Magneto gave me the stronger, more potentially serious mixtures. Again to his mind it was a success, because how we turn out doesn't matter as long as he gets the results. My abilities have been enhanced immensely, I no longer just tell the ground to move, I can form it, mold it, hell, it feels like I can communicate with it. However the problem is that his wonderful mixture worked hell on my nervous system."
Lance held up one still contained soft tremors, barely noticeable but still there. "This is the best it gets for me, if I had not taken the pills earlier it would have progressed until I was in a full blown fit; usually I am a lot more careful, but with everything going on you can imagine how it slipped my mind. The other side affect that has happened is that it seems if Magneto really didn't care what the chemicals did to our life span. Pietro's heart and nervous system will be lucky to last until he's thirty, unless we find better medication. And me, well, I have a tumor, nonmalignant for now, but it keeps growing so one day it probably will kill me. For the moment all it does is give me a permanent headache, if I use my powers it feels like someone drove an icepick into my head, for days."
He shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes, "At least when I go it will be fast and clean, brain aneurysms are notoriously quick; there are much worse ways to die out there."
Tabby scowled and poked him, "Stop talking like that! You're not dead yet, how many times have I told you! You should know better anyway after what you almost did...."
She quickly shut her mouth, obviously almost saying something that was supposed to be quiet.
Sighing Lance glared softly at her, "Since we will be staying for awhile it probably is best I get it all out in the open." Saying this Lance pulled off the gloves covering his hands and wrists. Once they were gone several vertical cuts on both wrists appeared, "These are from my time on the streets. I did things I am not proud of to survive those streets. I...I.. even resorted to selling my only commodity, myself. These scars are after a client got a little rough, but luckily I came to my senses and stumbled into an emergency room. They patched me up and social services sent me where I ran into you the same year."
Before Logan could actually listen to his brain the comment flew out his mouth, "So, you are a whore as well as the enemy."
Lance flinched imperceptibly, sighing as he climbed to his feet shakily, "Believe what you want, I will not deny my history, I am a whore, nothing more, nothing less." He quickly left the room to catch a few winks with Pietro.
Tabby stood up walking over to the taller X-man; Beast and Xavier watched as she raised her hand and slapped him across the face, hard, the sound ringing out in the room, "Are you one to be judging anyone?! How dare you think to know who he is. Do you know where he is going, even though he shouldn't be moving, even though his head is about to explode in pain? He is going to check on Pietro and Todd and then, maybe if he is lucky catch a few hours of sleep before the pain wakes him up. How dare you!" With this she stormed out of the room stalking towards the passage upstairs to seek out the two people she actually liked in the whole damn mansion, Rogue and Kurt