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Slaves to the Cause: Scene 2"How'd you do that?" The young man asked softly, touching a scabby looking wound on the belly of the girl besides him. She sighed, unclenching her fist against the pillow. Her curly red hair was like a fiery halo around her face. Her brown eyes were fixed on a point in the middle distance, below the ceiling of the trendy city apartment.
"Fighting Juggernaut on a New York subway train." She answered finally. It all seemed worlds away now, Westchester and her life with the X-Men. She was numb to it, due in no small part to the touch of the tactile empath she was with. When Indigo didn't say anything, Blaze glanced at him, "What?"
"You've loads of scars." He stated needlessly, touching a mark on the front of her shoulder. As happened every time the Mancunian mutant touched someone else's skin, a tattoo-like pattern started to form. The tattoos were unique to every individual. Blaze's were like henna lines, a tangle of flames, barbed wire and English roses. Currently they covered most of her petite form. She had only Indie's word that they would not be permanent. "What's this one?"
"Gunshot wound." Blaze informed him. "See the exit scar on my back?" She rolled slightly away from him, showing the much larger scar.
"I hadn't noticed that…" Indigo frowned. "You wear make-up to cover it up or summot?" Blaze nodded, rolling flat onto her back again. "You were lucky not to die?"
"Very. Professor Xavier was watching me with his telepathy. He saw what happened and sent the X-Men. His daughter Ilehana is a doctor. She pieced me back together. That's when I joined the team." Blaze's voice sounded strange to her, being totally without emotion or inflection. Indie didn't seem to notice.
"What about this one?" He asked, taking her left arm and stoking a clean, thin line from her wrist down the underneath of her forearm. Blaze felt the brief flow of emotion as the feelings that particular scar brought up leapt from her to him. "Another war wound from being a hero?"
"No, I put my fist through a TV screen." Blaze closed her eyes, concentrating on not letting Indigo or herself feel the insanity that had claimed her that day she overloaded.
"Muppet." Indigo teased, kissing Blaze softly. He seemed oblivious to Blaze's deeply hidden madness. "Let me guess, the one on your ankle is an unidentified drinking injury?"
"No, just a badly placed tackle. I used to play football for my school, a very long time ago." Blaze opened her eyes again, echoing Indigo's smile for no reason except she couldn't think why not to.
"What position?"
"Right wing. I was the best attacking midfield player in the school. Until I got kicked off the team for fighting, and expelled for skiving."
"Now you're a teacher?"
"I was. There's no school anymore so I guess I'm not much of anything anymore…" For a moment there was silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Indie stroked Blaze's stomach and she basked in the peace he brought her, stretching like a cat against the sheets.
"How do your powers work?" Indie probed eventually. "You can make things burn out of nothing, like?"
"I create and control fire." Blaze confirmed.
"You must be something mega in a fight." Indigo speculated. "Not like any of the gang. We're all just freaks, none of us is any good at scrapping with our powers."
Blaze didn't say anything as she left Indigo's embrace and sat up. Running her fingers through her long red curls to diffuse the bed-hair, she waited for Indigo to follow his own train of thought.
"I told you I'd tell you what happened to the others, wot none of us ever told Stifle." He spoke carefully as if pained. "I think they're all dead. I hope so anyway. I know I wouldn't want to live if what happened to them happened to me.
"There's a thing with ordinary humans," he continued, "That mutants aren't really people, right? Maybe they reckon that justifies it, taking mutant kids off the street and selling 'em. Some go for scientists to test on, some for work as bodyguards or target practice. There's a sport now, mutant baiting, making mutants fight mutants while humans bet on whose going to win. And if I don't look after Stellar and Carly, you know what my bonny cousins are gonna end up doing for a living, don't you?
"That's what we live with Blaze. Nobody wants us, nobody gives a toss. We're just picked off by slavers and sold to keep evil people entertained…"
After a few minutes of just staring at her lover without a way to put words together to express what she thought, Blaze finally made an attempt to articulate herself.
"Indie… Why didn't you tell me this earlier? Why didn't you tell Stifle? This… It's terrible, awful. It would have warranted a full X-Men mission to get your friends back and shut down whoever's running it, but now…"
"The X-Men are gone." Indie was ruthless. "Besides Blaze, you know I'm not very trusting. We've tried to act on our own. We know who's doing it and where they're based. But it only got more of us dead or captured, so we stopped fighting back and started hiding better."
"You know whose running the slave ring?" Blaze challenged, staring deep into Indigo's purple eyes. "Now I get it, you want me to go after these people? Because my powers are more aggressive than any of yours, or Stifle's."
"Blaze you're putting words in my mouth." Indigo sat up, leaned over and kissed her, stroking her leg until she kissed him back. "Would you though? Help us I mean?"
"Can it wait until…" Blaze began, thinking of Gambit and Wolverine on their way here right now to regroup. Indigo shook his head.
"They don't come to Manchester that often. All I know is that they'll be here tonight. Blaze if you don't do this, the gang is gonna try again. I can't make them leave it. Some of 'em will get hurt."
"Oh Indie." Blaze sighed sadly, letting him wrap an arm around her waist and resting her head on his shoulder. "I don't have a choice, do I?"