Chapter 2: Toad
Keep me together
Let me go, no! never
If you ever waver
I'll die all alone.
Eden held his hand in hers, balanced it gently. The burns were raw. The skin was dead and brown. The tips of his fingers were sizzling. His palms were scorched. She applied the disinfectant gingerly and he barely winced.
In the silence, only their breathing was audible. Magneto watched her apply the balm, bandage his burnt hands. She said nothing, asked nothing. When she was done, he took her hand in his, the white bandages enveloping it.
"How is it that when I'm here with you, what ever else happens doesn't seem to matter?"
She lifted her eyes to his and smiled. "I don't know," she whispered.
He stared at her for some time, observing her simplicity and gentleness and he knew not what else. Her eyes were like a lagoon, deep and green and endless. Hypnotic, and soothing. He wondered briefly if that were a part of her powers. He blinked and let her go.
"It works." He answered her question so she wouldn't have to ask it. "But I cannot use it, without it killing me. We need the girl."
"What can I do?" Eden asked.
He shook his head. "There's nothing for you to do. Mystique is going to the school, to try to get her to leave its confines. We can't get to her while she's in there."
She frowned. "With Cerebro, you'll have a hard time getting her anywhere."
"The rest of us will take care of that."
She was quiet for a moment. A shadow clouded her beautiful eyes. "I wish I could be there, to help."
Magneto thought for a moment and realized something that should have been obvious to him. "I do have something for you to do, actually. Toad will help you. It's in regard to your very special abilities."
Eden smiled, glad to be useful. Her services had not been needed in some time and she was probably afraid of becoming useless and unneeded. "What do you need?" she asked eagerly.
Hold on to me dearly
Never let me fall
Keep me, all
Of me, body and soul…
"Here. Bite into this."
Toad handed her a sterile sponge. Magneto stepped forward. "Just enough to knock her out, fast."
She nodded. "This will make her unconscious in a moment. She'll have just enough time to feel the needle going in and that's it."
Magneto nodded, approving. "Good. Good."
Toad watched her bite into it. The poison in her teeth seeped through and the white sponge filled with a slightly greenish liquid. After a few seconds in the open air, it turned a blood red. Toad took the sponge and squeezed the poison into a syringe.
It was while he was sealing it that he noticed something. Eden, staring at him, watching his every move. He locked eyes with her and she did not turn away. She maintained contact, longer than he could. He looked again and his breath quickened, it seemed all sound and sight disappeared.
Magneto said something to Eden and she smiled, never looking away until she turned her back and left the room. He finished what he was doing and handed it to Magneto.
"When we get word from Mystique, you'll fly the helicopter to the rendezvous point."
He barely heard him. "Yeah. Right. Got it."
Toad left the room, not sure what he had agreed to. He followed Eden's scent to the pools outside.
Her clothes were by the water, and almost without thinking, he picked them up and placed them farther from the water's edge. He crouched down at the edge of the pool and watched, waiting. The water shifted and moved. She was swimming under there. In that freezing water.
She surfaced and stared at him. She said nothing. All he could do was look at her, all he could think of was what it would be like to be there with her, in the water, naked, with her. He took off his shoes and socks and his shirt and his undershirt and his pants and his boxers. He dove into the water. She disappeared in its depths.
He searched for her. His eyes saw more clearly in water than they ever could on land. But this water was dark and she was lithe and fast, like he was. And she was small. And she blended in. A true snake.
He searched for a while and surfaced again. It was dark outside now, the stars were laughing at him. How had he lost her?
There she was, back on the land. A cloth wrapped around her, no modesty in it, she was not afraid, she was cold. And for as cold blooded as he could be, he was warmer now than he had ever been in his life! He would warm her! Fixing his eyes on her, not letting her get away a second time, he leapt out of the water and landed next to her. He put one hand on her leg and the other behind her head and kissed her hard, passionately, forcefully, desperate for the taste of her.
She touched him. She held him. She pulled his hair. He made love to her everywhere, kissed her all over her body and she did the same. Her long, forked tongue drove him mad! It was frenzied! It was crazy! Nothing else in the entire world mattered but right here, right now!
And when he couldn't stand it anymore, when he thought he would die with the pleasure of it, he put himself between her legs. She leaned back, breathing faster than was probably good for her. Seeing her like that, he made himself stop. She saw this, and looked questioningly at him.
"Tell me," he gasped, "if I hurt you."
"I will," she replied.
And everything that followed was awesome, incredible, terrifying, wonderful and altogether the most exciting sex Toad had ever had.
Will you wait for me
Even if I die?
Will you wait for me
Hold your tears! Don't cry…
The night passed and neither of them slept and neither of them spoke. Not a word passed between them. He could not think of a single thing to say.
What was she? Who was she? And who was he that she should give herself to him? She was …
"Good," he blurted out.
And she laughed. "What?"
He leaned over her, looking into her eyes. "You're good."
It seemed she blushed, her greenish skin reddening. "You're not too bad yourself."
"Yeah, well," he huffed, lying back down on the ground beside her. "I don't get too much practice."
She laughed again, more quietly this time. Then she sat up, and looked down at him. There was no expression in her eyes, it just seemed as though she were studying him, dispassionately. Then she smiled and ran her fingers through his hair, gentle, gentle…so hypnotic. "Sleep," she said.
"I can't sleep…" he murmured.
"You need your energy for tomorrow," she responded.
He closed his eyes and her fingers moved across his head like a breeze, she was barely touching him. It was all he could feel…her fingers in his hair… "Yeah…tomorrow…" he whispered. "I've got to fly the helicopter. I can't sleep…"
"Do you trust me, Toad?"
Toad opened his eyes in a flash. "What?" He was taken aback by her question. "Yeah, I…guess."
Eden leaned down and kissed his neck. "Then sleep…" she said. He felt her teeth go in, painlessly. Sleep came over him instantly. It was the first night in a lifetime of nights that he slept in total, unaltered, dreamless, sleep.