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Slaves to the Cause: Scene 12"Are they still messing with those supplies?" Indigo asked sulkily to no one in particular. Logan and Stifle exchanged glances. Damn this super-hearing, Logan swore, trying to ignore what was occurring on the far side of the jet. Damn the pair of them too, leavin' me babysitting the boyfriend while they…
"I think so." Stifle replied to Indigo without even a hint of discomfort as she lied. She knows what's going on too, Logan surmised. Not a slow one, this Stifle. "I suggest leaving them to it. We'll have to make an early start tomorrow."
"Whatever." Indie shrugged, messing up his hair with his left hand. He and Stifle got to their feet and headed off to different tents. Logan watched them go, then leant forward, put his chin in his hand and for a long while just stared at the fire. Eventually though, he too went to bed.
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Indigo woke as the first light of dawn was starting to poke its fingers through the membrane of the tent. He was alone and cold, having somehow managed to wriggle free from his sleeping bag. Blaze's was untouched, rolled up by his head. There was no sign she'd ever come to bed. Slowly he sat up and stretched muscles that were aching and unresponsive after sleeping on the ground. He tugged on his shoes clumsily, and then on all fours he undid the zip on the tent's door. He emerged into the dewy mist that had descended to clog the landscape.
In the fog, Blaze's previously bubbling campfire had died to a patch of black and sodden ashes. The exterior of the four tents were covered in crystalline drops of water. The X-Jet loomed like a great grey monolith, its uppermost portions invisible through the cloud. Indigo walked through the tents with his arms ramrod straight by his sides. There were only four tents, if Blaze wasn't in his, then she had to be in one of the others. He doubted that she'd be bunking with Stifle, which left either Wolverine or Gambit. And if she thought she could cheat on him, he'd soon change her mind about that… His hand closed around the flick knife he carried, and he moved towards the other men's tents silently.
Wolverine's tent was closest. Stood at the foot of the shelter, Indigo steeled himself and focused his powers. He'd lied to Blaze about the extent of his abilities. Yes, he was more talented at reading and drawing off the emotions of others through touch. But he could still work the skill remotely if he wanted to, at least from a short distance away. He would find out if his suspicions were right, and ties deeper than supposed comradeship existed between Blaze and these strange men. If Blaze were cheating on him, she would pay. He was not above slitting the throat of a sleeping X-Man. The knife in his hand was testimony to that.
Wolverine was alone in his tent. Indie established that in seconds. The feral mutant was twisting and writhing in his sleep, beset by nightmares. Even as Indigo tired to pull away, tendrils of the dream grabbed at him, made him privy to Logan's torment. Submerged in a tank, writhing in agony, a man's face grinning at him insanely, a man named Striker. Envy over a redheaded woman who would never be his, holding hands with another man as he taught a class about a motorbike. That same woman's death, sacrificing herself to save her friends, washed away in a raging torrent of death and the helplessness that had consumed Wolverine.
Infuriated Indigo swatted the feelings away, until a woman with intense predatory blue eyes turned and pinned him with a wolf-like stare. This dream seemed to calm Wolverine, so Indie pushed down on it and him, forcing him to stick with the emotions it gave him. Pulling his power back, Indigo moved to Gambit's tent, feeling sick inside.
Jealousy spawned in the pit of Indigo's stomach, just as tension trickled down his throat. His fingers were tight like talons around the knife. Yet somehow he resisted the temptation to charge in like a battering ram with his empathy. Biding his time, he closed his eyes so eyelashes brushed his mist-dampened cheeks. He pushed his power into the tent gently, and found… nothing.
Remy was sleeping deeply and without dreams, lying on his back with his limbs spread-eagled in every direction. The Cajun X-Man was alone, his feelings muted to Indigo by layers of thick slumber like several feather quilts could effectively mute sound. Indignant at his fears being so obviously unfounded, Indigo spun on the spot. Lashing out he flung his knife away, teeth bared in a silent snarl. The blade lodged in the wet grass and stuck there like a tombstone. Still, nothing stirred.
Indie found himself walking, the jeans he was wearing damp, cold and stiff around the hem from the sodden grass. He pushed his plastered hair back from his brow and rubbed damp eyebrows on his sleeve. Running a hand along the underside of the X-Jet he left a water trail on the somewhat drier paintwork of the machine's belly. With his empathy he searched for Blaze, throwing out a net of power as though fishing for her presence.
"Looking for someone?"
Indigo nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning on the spot to catch sight of the speaker. Blaze, dressed in her X-uniform, was leaning with her back against a landing leg of the craft. She pinned Indie with an unabashed stare, hands behind her back, lips pursed. Indie barely registered her suggestive body language. He was still recovering from hearing his lover before he had sensed her. To his mutation Blaze was almost absent, a void in the night. "Blaze?" He asked softly, moving to her hesitantly. "I… Why can't I sense you?"
"I thought you said your mutation only works on contact?" Blaze challenged, already aware that he'd lied to her. He just looked at her with incomprehension written on his face. She didn't owe him an explanation but she gave him one anyway. "If I kept my powers pretty much completely subdued for years, I can keep an empath with as much control as some of the ten-year-olds I've taught out of my head."
Indigo didn't rise to the insult; perversely fascinated with the walls Blaze had built around herself. He threw his powers against the barriers that kept Blaze separate from the world around her. Whatever he tried he found them made of adimantium. Even reaching out to touch her while she just looked at him with her eyes hard and laughing, he couldn't get through. He could only ask "Why?"
"Because I want to." Blaze challenged him wryly. "This relationship's hardly been fair on me Indie. I just wanted to see if you'd still be as keen if you couldn't tell what I was feeling. If you had to work a little harder."
"I've worked hard." Indigo argued, at the same time stroking Blaze's neck gently and silently cursing as no tattoo sprung up. "You know I have."
"But you don't know anything yet Indigo." Blaze whispered, a smile playing over her lips. "I've got something that'll make it all worthwhile, I swear. You've got no idea what I can do for you."
"No?" Indigo asked, gulping. "Like what?"
"Like this." Blaze replied, pressing her lips to his and kissing him sensuously. Indigo tasted her sweetness, felt the touch of her flesh and the caress of her warm breath. Maybe for normal blokes it would be enough, but not for him. He broke the contact definitively.
"What's got into you?" He demanded. Blaze smirked, totally nonplussed as she answered, "You don't want to know."
"I came looking for you 'cause I thought you was cheating on me, but this is nearly as bad Blaze."
"Really?"
"Look, I don't like these X-Men mates of yours. I don't like what they've done to you. You're freaking out on me and…" He paused, examining her placid expression quizzically. The penny dropped with a thud. "Blaze?" She nodded slowly, still smiling cruelly. After all it wasn't the first time she'd gone with Gambit behind the back of either one of their current partners.
"I cheated on you Indie, deal with it."
"No!" Indigo shouted, taking Blaze by the shoulders and shaking her roughly. "I claimed you! I marked you! Are they blind! Can't they see the tattoos! You're mine!"
"You only want me 'cause you get a kick out of my emotions, out of twisting them and sucking them out of me!" Blaze challenged. "You're nothing but a leech Indigo! You sunk your festering mouthparts into me the same as you did the gang. You don't really care for them. You like keeping them around you because you need to be in control and looked up to. They make you feel better about yourself because you know you can make them adore you, just like you did with me!"
"That's not true!" Indigo roared, catching Blaze across the mouth with a backhanded slap.
"Then prove it!" Blaze spat back, glaring at him as she pushed him away. "Help them build real lives, not just waste their futures surviving day to day on the streets…"
"Why don't you just shut up?" Indigo grabbed Blaze by the forearms and whirled her around, throwing her to the ground. He raised his clenched fist ready to punch her, chanting "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"Make me!" Blaze snapped, steeling herself as she sat on the ground for the attack she knew was coming. Her powers were getting away from her now. Orbs of fire kept bursting into reality for brief moments around her. The flickering flames on the air checked Indigo much better than any other defence Blaze could have made. He dropped his arm, but didn't help her up. Turning away he stormed off, not looking back once. Indigo was gone.