Lost in the Dark

The only reason I stayed at home was because seeing Bobby and Rogue would just be too awkward. I knew that they would sit me down and try to get me to come back to the institute. I missed them a lot, but at the same time, I was glad to be away from them. They made me feel like the odd man out. I know they didn’t do it on purpose, but they were a couple, and I was just Bobby’s friend. Rogue would try to set me up with some of her friends, so that we could double-date, but things just never seemed to work out. They were all essentially the same, just with different names and different powers.

And they all said the same thing.

John, put the lighter away.

I’ve had it since I was thirteen, and there’s no way in hell I’ll ever give it up. It’s like a security blanket. I feel…comforted by it, for lack of a better word. It’s the source for my power. I just don’t feel right without it, like I’ve gone outside without underwear. No one can see that, but I can feel it, and it’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world. I’m helpless without my lighter. I’m human without it, less than my full potential. Being without it makes me feel inferior, and I hate that feeling.

Erik, Raven, and Vic left quickly. Erik scribbled down a bunch of phone numbers that I already knew. I had a vague idea of what had happened; there was another member of the Brotherhood who was badly injured, and, for some reason, he was getting medical attention from the institute. Erik didn’t bother asking why I didn’t want to go and didn’t waste his breath trying to make me. He just left in a hurry with Vic and Raven, leaving my alone with four hours of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and my lighter.

I don’t remember falling asleep, only ng ung up.

“I will fucking kill them if I ever find them!” Vic was shouting.

“They’re all dead,” said Erik coldly. “Charles has even checked Cerebro for survivors.”

I started to sit up, blinking rapidly. The TV was still on, and I muted it so that I could hear them better. I had the vague knowledge that this wasn’t something for my ears, and it wasn’t because of Vic’s colorful language. Erik’s voice was icy and so angry it sounded metallic and emotionless. It was almost scary. That alone made me want to sit there and gobble up each word they exchanged. The scariest things in life are the most interesting; there’s nothing more thrilling than watching a horror flick through your fingers, feeling your own scream of terror culminating inside until it just has to break out. I knew, of course, that I couldn’t do any screaming now; it sounded as though Vic would tear me limb from limb if he knew I was listening in.

“Hey, Charles thought Mort was dead, and it turned out he was just comatose,” snarled Vic. “I’m not taking any chances. I’m going to Canada to finish them off.”

“No,” said Erik, his voice bursting out in a single, sudden syllable. “No, you can’t.”

“The hell I can’t!” shouted Vic. “I will kill every last one of those motherfuckers – ”

“You’re needed here,” said Erik, his voice softer. “Mortimer needs you.”

I heard a few frustrated grunts from Vic over the thudding of his combat boots as he paced back and forth. He said something I couldn’t understand; it came out too fast, the words tripped over each other. I thought I heard the words ‘rape’ and ‘love,’ though not in that order of in conjunction with each other.

“You should know what’s happened.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had been sitting side-saddle on the couch, my back to the door, my ear against the wall. I hadn’t heard Raven enter. I nearly fell off the couch trying to turn toward her. The look on her face frightened me even more than the way Erik’s voice had sounded. She glided towards the couch and sat down beside me.

She looked as if she’d been to a thousand funerals, each one for someone she loved dearly. Her eyes were glowing hollowly, like something inside of her had been crushed. It hadn’t died; it was still alive, but in excruciating pain, with no hope of recovery like a terminal cancer patient. She looked at me with those half-dying eyes, and I was unable to look away, even though I wanted desperately to.

Apparently, Vic was gay, and he had a…boyfriend, I guess. It feels too strange to say ‘partner,’ that just sounds too formal, like a business arrangement. ‘Lover’ is too intimate, and ‘boyfriend’ just feels strange when I’m talking about a guy. But anyway, he was dating (man, it’s weird to talk about a guy dating another guy…) this other mutant named Mortimer. Mortimer’s code name was Toad; everyone had thought he was dead after he’d gotten in this fight with Storm and she’d fried him. Apparently he survived, but that bastard Stryker got a hold of him and kept him in that creepy Alkali Lake place.

And apparently, all of the soldiers there had taken turns raping him.

I didn’t know how to feel about that anymore than I knew how to feel about Vic being gay. I mean, Vic’s the butchest guy I’ve ever known; he lifts weights and watches sports and thinks those Queer Eye guys are fuckin pussies. I knew what rape was, and I knew that it could happen to men, though the mental image of male rape in my mind was connected with maximum-security prisons. I mean, in a prison, where you can’t leave and where there aren’t any chicks, I can sort of understand why you might start eying your fellow inmates. But these were soldiers, who could leave, who could go home to their wives or girlfriends. Oh hell, they could get hookers if they wanted to, chicks dig a guy in uniform. Why would they want to screw some guy who’s skin was green, for Christ’s sake, when they could get all the pussy they could possibly want?

I didn’t say any of this, but Raven seemed to sense that I was thinking it and took a deep breath. I’ll never get over how old she looked during those moments. She still had that young, energetic body that drove me crazy, even though I’d never admit it to her, but her eyes looked sad and tired and old. Like she had seen every kind of tragedy in the whole entire universe, and she’d seen all of them happen over and over again.

“Rape isn’t about sexual attraction,” she said after a long pause. “It’s about power. Raping someone is a way of showing them that you are more powerful, that you are in control of their body, and that you don’t regard them as a living thing. The men who did this weren’t attracted to Mortimer; they probably weren’t even horny at the time. They wanted to show him that they were in control.” She paused, swallowing. “They did it in the cruelest way imaginable. They’re monsters.” She was talking more to herself than to me. Her voice was a thin, acid-laced whisper, and I knew that she wanted the bastards dead just as much as Vic did. I suddenly didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I wasn’t sure I’d wanted to talk about it much in the first place, but all of a sudden I just wanted the topic to be over and done with, never to be discussed again.

Raven rose, sensing my sudden unease. She was almost dog-like in her ability to tell if a person was scared or nervous or uneasy. That wasn’t something I’d ever tell her, though. She’d probably take it the wrong way. She stared at me helplessly, wanting to make my uneasiness go away and not being able to.

“Mort’s coming home tomorrow,” she said finally, unintentionally making it more awkward. “I’m here if you need to talk, John. So is Erik.” I nodded and mumbled something I can’t really remember, and she left, slinking out of the room, an old pair of eyes in a young body.