3.
Raien awoke after a few hours sleep to muffled words from Chimera. He was talking in his sleep.
"no..." he mumbled, his body jerking lightly. "please... no..." Raien gently shook his shoulder.
"Chimera, wake up, it's a dream. Wake up." he said softly. Chimera gasped the word 'mom' and sat bolt upright. Raien began to put the pieces together. They must have killed her. he thought.
"Shh, its okay, Chimera." Raien said, putting an arm around his shoulders, easing him back to the floor knowing that sudden movements wouldn't be good with that hole in his chest.
Chimera's body shook as he cried softly. Raien gently wiped the tears from his face. Chimera reached up and held Raien's hand to his cheek. For a while, they were content to lay there. Chimera soon sobered up, and looked into Raien's eyes.
"Thank you, Raien. Besides my mother," he said "you're the only one whose ever gone out of their way for a freak like me."
Raien winced "Freak? That's the last word I'd choose to describe you."
Chimera huffed and turned his head away from Raien. "I am though. What else would you call someone who looks like I do?"
Raien couldn't believe how low Chimera's opinion of himself was. He gently turned Chimera's head back, and looked deep into his blue eyes. "Unique, Chimera. And beautiful."
Chimera truly looked touched. The corners of his mouth turned upwards slightly and the tufted ears on top of his head didn't look quite as wilted as they had a moment ago. Raien looked into his eyes, and even though there was little light, they seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. He sighed.
Then he realized his hand was still on Chimera's cheek. Feeling awkward, he withdrew it, and sat up, looking embarrassed. "I... I'd better get us back on the road. Still going to make it?"
Chimera nodded. As Raien started the engine, he noticed Chimera staring at the ceiling, thinking about something. How could anyone hurt such a gentle person? This man wouldn't hurt a fly... Raien thought. It was obvious Chimera was a very caring person, and Raien admired that greatly. In the world they lived in that wasn't a common quality.
Raien drove for a few hours, and feeling hungry, they decided to stop at a Rest Area. They figured, still under cover of darkness that no one would really notice. Most of the money they'd taken from the two soldiers had been in twenty dollar bills, but there was about fifteen dollars in ones. Raien virtually emptied the vending machine, not that there was a whole lot in it to begin with. But, it was safer than trying to explain away his glowing eyes at a convenience store. As he returned to the truck, he saw the door open. Chimera looked around carefully making sure no one was around. He grunted, holding the side of his chest when his hoofed feet clacked onto the pavement.
"I've got to use the bathroom. I'll be fast." he said, running towards the men's restroom. Raien watched him gimp his way over, then smiled and returned to the truck. He stowed the food he'd just bought, and waited for Chimera to return. Headlights appeared behind him. A small car parked in front of the restrooms, and a woman got out, holding a small child in her arms. Raien had been worried, but she wouldn't be going into the men's room. Raien groaned as an eight or nine year old boy got out of the passenger side. This wasn't going to be good.
The woman went into the ladies room, and the boy went over to the vending machines. He looked dissappointed with the remaining goods. Raien opened the truck door just as Chimera opened the bathroom door. The boy turned. All three of them froze. Then he started screaming. Raien frantically gestured for Chimera to come back. The boy's mother came running out of the ladies room, child in hand, and screamed when she saw Chimera running back to the truck.
"Help! That monster was trying to hurt my son! Help!!" she screamed
For a while they drove on in silence. Chimera sat slumped in the passenger seat. Finally, Raien looked over at him. "You're not, you know." Raien said. Chimera looked up. "A monster, I mean." Raien looked back to the road.
"I scared them. You heard how she was screaming." Chimera said, sighing.
"They didn't know you. I've only known you for a few days, but you're one of the most compassionate people I've ever met." Raien said, patting Chimera's shoulder. "You're not a monster. You're not a freak."
"No ones ever said anything like that to me. No one but my mother. You should have known her, Raien." Chimera began, his eyes watering. "When I woke up one morning with hair all over my body, my father spat at me and left. I never saw him again." his ears wilted. "My mother hugged me and told me she still loved me, and that everything would be okay. She pulled me out of school that same day, telling them she'd rather home-school me. I didn't know how lucky I was to have her. By the end of that week I'd grown nearly two feet, and looked kind of like I do now. She became my best friend. My only real friend. I'd made some from the internet, but none really knew me or knew what I looked like. Years passed like that. I wasn't exactly happy, but I knew I was loved."
His body began to tremble. "Then they came." he said, his nose wrinkling "Mother told me to stay in the basement. I could hear her yelling at them upstairs. She was saying she didn't know what they were talking about." He paused, looking out the window into the starlit night. "Then... I..." he choked. "They shot her, Raien."
Raien pulled the truck off to the side of the road. There wasn't any room to do anything else, so Raien sat on Chimera's lap and hugged him. Chimera paused for a moment, and returned Raien's embrace. Raien felt tears fall from his cheeks.
"She must have been an amazing person." Raien whispered.
Chimera smiled. "She was." He said. "You have her strength, Raien." He pulled back and looked into Raien's eyes. He started to say something else, but was cut off.
Tires squealed as someone turned around. Raien and Chimera froze. They heard doors slam. Slowly, Raien got up, and looked in the side mirror. FoH arm bands. Chimera looked on the verge of panic. Both knew he couldn't run far with his injury. Raien had to protect him. He couldn't stand the thought of Chimera in their hands again. He felt something else too, but he couldn't give it words. He shrugged off the feeling, put on a pair of sunglasses, and stepped out of the truck.
"Excuse me..." Raien said, hoping they weren't out looking for Chimera and himself.
"We got a call. Some lady seen a monster 'bout two hours west of here. Seen anything?" the soldier asked roughly. One of his men whispered to him and he got another look on his face. "Also said something about a truck wit' no trailer..." While the man was talking, Raien quickly assessed his situation. Seven men. All armed. He removed his sunglasses.
"Maybe..." Raien said. Then his blue fire erupted around him, and he launched himself into the middle of the group, spinning, kicking, punching. One man had drawn his gun, Raien's elbow crashed into the man's throat, sending him gagging falling to the ground. Raien landed. Hearing someone stand behind him, he spun on the ball of his left foot bringing his right into the man's jaw. He quickly looked around, all of them were either out cold or terrified. He opened the truck door, his aura still burning around him.
Chimera looked at him, relief washing over his body. Suddenly a loud bang sounded and Raien's expression changed. He started to fall. Chimera quickly got out of his seat, barely grabbing Raien's shirt, and dragged him into the cab, letting him fall to the floor. The aura around him dissappeared. Raien had a confused look on his face. Chimera got in the drivers seat, and threw the truck into reverse. He floored it, slamming into the vehicle behind them. Putting it back in forward, Chimera floored it again, the tires squealing on the pavement.
Raien was holding his stomach. Where the bullet had sunk into mostly muscle for Chimera, this one had landed in a much more dangerous place, and gone completely through his body. Raien's aura returned weakly, helping to get him into the passenger seat. Falling into it, he strapped himself in.
Chimera started to slow down so he could stop and tend to Raien's wound. "No. Don't stop. We've got to get out of here." Raien groaned. "X-men. Westchester." He started to sag in his seat. "New York..." then he lost conciousness. Chimera reached around Raien's body, and reclined the seat, allowing him to lay down. They'd already been driving for a few days. The next sign Chimera saw told him he was only about four hundred miles out of New York. Suddenly he realized he had no idea where this Westchester was.
Chimera drove for about twenty minutes before getting off the highway. He couldn't let Raien's wound be. Leaving the truck running, and locking the doors just in case, Chimera rose from the drivers seat, and grabbed the first aid kit. He remembered what Raien had done with his own bullet wound. Though for some reason, Chimera's body healed very quickly, he didn't think Raien was the same. The wound on his own chest had already closed, and the pain was less and less every hour.
Blood soaked Raien's shirt and stained the seat a dark crimson color. Chimera used the scissors inside the kit to cut the shirt off. He didn't want to risk moving Raien. He flinched when he saw the wound. He used the remnants of Raien's shirt to wipe the blood away. He took Raien's hand in his own, and poured the hydrogen peroxide over it to sanitize it, as Raien had done for him. Something compelled him to stitch it shut, and he bound it together with the thread in the kit. He gently rolled Raien onto his side and did the same for the wound in his back. He hoped it might buy Raien some time.
He removed his own shirt, undid the seatbelt and very gently lifted Raien from the seat. As Chimera looked at his sleeping form, something warmed inside him. "I won't let you down, Raien." he said, then tenderly pressed his lips to Raien's forehead.
With renewed vigor, Chimera returned to the drivers seat. He got the truck moving again, but realized they were very low on gas. The truck's massive tank had been full when they'd began their journey, but now it was nearly empty. Panic began to creep its way into Chimera's heart. He looked back at Raien, and the panic fell away. He didn't really understand why, but Raien made him feel strong. Most people in his life had always either made fun of him or had been terrified of him. Even his mother, loving as she had been, had never said he was beautiful. No one had ever treated his mutation as anything but a curse. Raien made him feel not like a normal person, but better.
Chimera had an epiphany. The feeling in his breast, the strength he felt when he was around him, the very way he'd felt when he was around Raien these past few days suddenly all made sense. Love. Finally the feeling had a name, and Chimera didn't care that Raien was a man. Love had never been something Chimera thought about. He just assumed it was something he would never have. Chimera looked down at his fearsome looking body, and smiled.
"A monster, am I?" he said, pulling into the gas station. He simply got out of the truck, and began filling the tank. When it was full, he strode into the convenience store, and laid three twenties on the counter. The clerk was terrified. He started to reach for the phone. Chimera growled, a low menacing sound, and totally obliterated the phone with his right fist, taking the corner of the table off with it, sending bits of the phone and chunks of the counter crashing to the floor.
"Keep the change. Seems like you need a new phone." Chimera said, turning. His feet clacked on the dirty floor as he exited, started the truck up, and left. He smiled to himself, and looked at Raien. The man unconscious on the seat next to him had given his life purpose. Chimera felt for the first time in his life, the strength his body had always possessed. His hoofed foot stepped on the gas pedal. He was going to get Raien to this Xavier school if it killed him.
Raien awoke after a few hours sleep to muffled words from Chimera. He was talking in his sleep.
"no..." he mumbled, his body jerking lightly. "please... no..." Raien gently shook his shoulder.
"Chimera, wake up, it's a dream. Wake up." he said softly. Chimera gasped the word 'mom' and sat bolt upright. Raien began to put the pieces together. They must have killed her. he thought.
"Shh, its okay, Chimera." Raien said, putting an arm around his shoulders, easing him back to the floor knowing that sudden movements wouldn't be good with that hole in his chest.
Chimera's body shook as he cried softly. Raien gently wiped the tears from his face. Chimera reached up and held Raien's hand to his cheek. For a while, they were content to lay there. Chimera soon sobered up, and looked into Raien's eyes.
"Thank you, Raien. Besides my mother," he said "you're the only one whose ever gone out of their way for a freak like me."
Raien winced "Freak? That's the last word I'd choose to describe you."
Chimera huffed and turned his head away from Raien. "I am though. What else would you call someone who looks like I do?"
Raien couldn't believe how low Chimera's opinion of himself was. He gently turned Chimera's head back, and looked deep into his blue eyes. "Unique, Chimera. And beautiful."
Chimera truly looked touched. The corners of his mouth turned upwards slightly and the tufted ears on top of his head didn't look quite as wilted as they had a moment ago. Raien looked into his eyes, and even though there was little light, they seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. He sighed.
Then he realized his hand was still on Chimera's cheek. Feeling awkward, he withdrew it, and sat up, looking embarrassed. "I... I'd better get us back on the road. Still going to make it?"
Chimera nodded. As Raien started the engine, he noticed Chimera staring at the ceiling, thinking about something. How could anyone hurt such a gentle person? This man wouldn't hurt a fly... Raien thought. It was obvious Chimera was a very caring person, and Raien admired that greatly. In the world they lived in that wasn't a common quality.
Raien drove for a few hours, and feeling hungry, they decided to stop at a Rest Area. They figured, still under cover of darkness that no one would really notice. Most of the money they'd taken from the two soldiers had been in twenty dollar bills, but there was about fifteen dollars in ones. Raien virtually emptied the vending machine, not that there was a whole lot in it to begin with. But, it was safer than trying to explain away his glowing eyes at a convenience store. As he returned to the truck, he saw the door open. Chimera looked around carefully making sure no one was around. He grunted, holding the side of his chest when his hoofed feet clacked onto the pavement.
"I've got to use the bathroom. I'll be fast." he said, running towards the men's restroom. Raien watched him gimp his way over, then smiled and returned to the truck. He stowed the food he'd just bought, and waited for Chimera to return. Headlights appeared behind him. A small car parked in front of the restrooms, and a woman got out, holding a small child in her arms. Raien had been worried, but she wouldn't be going into the men's room. Raien groaned as an eight or nine year old boy got out of the passenger side. This wasn't going to be good.
The woman went into the ladies room, and the boy went over to the vending machines. He looked dissappointed with the remaining goods. Raien opened the truck door just as Chimera opened the bathroom door. The boy turned. All three of them froze. Then he started screaming. Raien frantically gestured for Chimera to come back. The boy's mother came running out of the ladies room, child in hand, and screamed when she saw Chimera running back to the truck.
"Help! That monster was trying to hurt my son! Help!!" she screamed
For a while they drove on in silence. Chimera sat slumped in the passenger seat. Finally, Raien looked over at him. "You're not, you know." Raien said. Chimera looked up. "A monster, I mean." Raien looked back to the road.
"I scared them. You heard how she was screaming." Chimera said, sighing.
"They didn't know you. I've only known you for a few days, but you're one of the most compassionate people I've ever met." Raien said, patting Chimera's shoulder. "You're not a monster. You're not a freak."
"No ones ever said anything like that to me. No one but my mother. You should have known her, Raien." Chimera began, his eyes watering. "When I woke up one morning with hair all over my body, my father spat at me and left. I never saw him again." his ears wilted. "My mother hugged me and told me she still loved me, and that everything would be okay. She pulled me out of school that same day, telling them she'd rather home-school me. I didn't know how lucky I was to have her. By the end of that week I'd grown nearly two feet, and looked kind of like I do now. She became my best friend. My only real friend. I'd made some from the internet, but none really knew me or knew what I looked like. Years passed like that. I wasn't exactly happy, but I knew I was loved."
His body began to tremble. "Then they came." he said, his nose wrinkling "Mother told me to stay in the basement. I could hear her yelling at them upstairs. She was saying she didn't know what they were talking about." He paused, looking out the window into the starlit night. "Then... I..." he choked. "They shot her, Raien."
Raien pulled the truck off to the side of the road. There wasn't any room to do anything else, so Raien sat on Chimera's lap and hugged him. Chimera paused for a moment, and returned Raien's embrace. Raien felt tears fall from his cheeks.
"She must have been an amazing person." Raien whispered.
Chimera smiled. "She was." He said. "You have her strength, Raien." He pulled back and looked into Raien's eyes. He started to say something else, but was cut off.
Tires squealed as someone turned around. Raien and Chimera froze. They heard doors slam. Slowly, Raien got up, and looked in the side mirror. FoH arm bands. Chimera looked on the verge of panic. Both knew he couldn't run far with his injury. Raien had to protect him. He couldn't stand the thought of Chimera in their hands again. He felt something else too, but he couldn't give it words. He shrugged off the feeling, put on a pair of sunglasses, and stepped out of the truck.
"Excuse me..." Raien said, hoping they weren't out looking for Chimera and himself.
"We got a call. Some lady seen a monster 'bout two hours west of here. Seen anything?" the soldier asked roughly. One of his men whispered to him and he got another look on his face. "Also said something about a truck wit' no trailer..." While the man was talking, Raien quickly assessed his situation. Seven men. All armed. He removed his sunglasses.
"Maybe..." Raien said. Then his blue fire erupted around him, and he launched himself into the middle of the group, spinning, kicking, punching. One man had drawn his gun, Raien's elbow crashed into the man's throat, sending him gagging falling to the ground. Raien landed. Hearing someone stand behind him, he spun on the ball of his left foot bringing his right into the man's jaw. He quickly looked around, all of them were either out cold or terrified. He opened the truck door, his aura still burning around him.
Chimera looked at him, relief washing over his body. Suddenly a loud bang sounded and Raien's expression changed. He started to fall. Chimera quickly got out of his seat, barely grabbing Raien's shirt, and dragged him into the cab, letting him fall to the floor. The aura around him dissappeared. Raien had a confused look on his face. Chimera got in the drivers seat, and threw the truck into reverse. He floored it, slamming into the vehicle behind them. Putting it back in forward, Chimera floored it again, the tires squealing on the pavement.
Raien was holding his stomach. Where the bullet had sunk into mostly muscle for Chimera, this one had landed in a much more dangerous place, and gone completely through his body. Raien's aura returned weakly, helping to get him into the passenger seat. Falling into it, he strapped himself in.
Chimera started to slow down so he could stop and tend to Raien's wound. "No. Don't stop. We've got to get out of here." Raien groaned. "X-men. Westchester." He started to sag in his seat. "New York..." then he lost conciousness. Chimera reached around Raien's body, and reclined the seat, allowing him to lay down. They'd already been driving for a few days. The next sign Chimera saw told him he was only about four hundred miles out of New York. Suddenly he realized he had no idea where this Westchester was.
Chimera drove for about twenty minutes before getting off the highway. He couldn't let Raien's wound be. Leaving the truck running, and locking the doors just in case, Chimera rose from the drivers seat, and grabbed the first aid kit. He remembered what Raien had done with his own bullet wound. Though for some reason, Chimera's body healed very quickly, he didn't think Raien was the same. The wound on his own chest had already closed, and the pain was less and less every hour.
Blood soaked Raien's shirt and stained the seat a dark crimson color. Chimera used the scissors inside the kit to cut the shirt off. He didn't want to risk moving Raien. He flinched when he saw the wound. He used the remnants of Raien's shirt to wipe the blood away. He took Raien's hand in his own, and poured the hydrogen peroxide over it to sanitize it, as Raien had done for him. Something compelled him to stitch it shut, and he bound it together with the thread in the kit. He gently rolled Raien onto his side and did the same for the wound in his back. He hoped it might buy Raien some time.
He removed his own shirt, undid the seatbelt and very gently lifted Raien from the seat. As Chimera looked at his sleeping form, something warmed inside him. "I won't let you down, Raien." he said, then tenderly pressed his lips to Raien's forehead.
With renewed vigor, Chimera returned to the drivers seat. He got the truck moving again, but realized they were very low on gas. The truck's massive tank had been full when they'd began their journey, but now it was nearly empty. Panic began to creep its way into Chimera's heart. He looked back at Raien, and the panic fell away. He didn't really understand why, but Raien made him feel strong. Most people in his life had always either made fun of him or had been terrified of him. Even his mother, loving as she had been, had never said he was beautiful. No one had ever treated his mutation as anything but a curse. Raien made him feel not like a normal person, but better.
Chimera had an epiphany. The feeling in his breast, the strength he felt when he was around him, the very way he'd felt when he was around Raien these past few days suddenly all made sense. Love. Finally the feeling had a name, and Chimera didn't care that Raien was a man. Love had never been something Chimera thought about. He just assumed it was something he would never have. Chimera looked down at his fearsome looking body, and smiled.
"A monster, am I?" he said, pulling into the gas station. He simply got out of the truck, and began filling the tank. When it was full, he strode into the convenience store, and laid three twenties on the counter. The clerk was terrified. He started to reach for the phone. Chimera growled, a low menacing sound, and totally obliterated the phone with his right fist, taking the corner of the table off with it, sending bits of the phone and chunks of the counter crashing to the floor.
"Keep the change. Seems like you need a new phone." Chimera said, turning. His feet clacked on the dirty floor as he exited, started the truck up, and left. He smiled to himself, and looked at Raien. The man unconscious on the seat next to him had given his life purpose. Chimera felt for the first time in his life, the strength his body had always possessed. His hoofed foot stepped on the gas pedal. He was going to get Raien to this Xavier school if it killed him.