Eloi
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Eloi Chapter Thirty Six
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *sends boys with
scrapers to finish the wallpaper*
InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and
wondermous for archiving/hosting.
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ProPhile: Soon, really! Morgan: *pokes with stick* Hello?
it’s important! *nods* Smut next chapter.
Paige never thought she could *feel* light… She wondered if this is what
Jono felt like, if she could touch him without his yards of special bandages
protecting her from his power. She felt
warm and perfect, as if she had been made from the stuff, as if she were
radiant and pure. No more pain, she thought.
battered. Nothing burned as it healed,
her skin did not itch and peel away in layers where the heat of the blast had
seared her.
throat and arms and other places earlier, and no amount of trying had made her
able to ask the doctor or nurse to remove them.
She knew Jono had been there, and she knew Sam was likely still there,
but she could not tell for sure now. She
felt too good, too whole to pay attention to such mundane things.
come right up out of my body… That’d be kinda
fun. Mom would kill me though
more of the golden white light surrounding her.
She had no form, she realized. It
felt nice. She had never noticed how
heavy and thick the human body was before…
It had been weighing her down for almost twenty years and that rather
annoyed her. A sharp pain drew her
attention, such as it was, downward. She
had a hand again, she noticed. It
disappointed her. _Stop it, _ she
thought agitatedly. _That’s hurting
me! _ The pain
came again and again, separate jabs coming faster and faster until it was just
all one long pain, one sharp and cutting sensation that made the brilliant
light fade a bit.
embedded under Paige’s skin. He did not
know her name but he knew her for what she was.
The ‘guards’ stationed at her door, such as they were, attested to that
fact. He did not want for her to die but
at the same time, he knew that she was his example, the one who would show the
world that the Morlocks would not be
manipulated. The needle pulled free of
her vein and skin with an almost inaudible pop, a tiny bead of blood welling to
the surface before he pressed his thumb against the wound.
against his fingerprint and he sighed.
_What am I doing? I’ve gone
insane… _
owing in part to his own natural ability to be stealthy and in part due to the
human tendency to ignore that which one does not want to see.
door and the sitting man, neither looking at him as he moved past,
pushing a cart laden with equipment he knew little about.
body. _Isn’t that what
we want? _
_Where’d
the light go? _ Paige
felt thick again. She felt as if she
were weighted down by something inexorably heavy, like she was being
drowned. _Stop it, _ she repeated, her
body aching. _I hate you! Stop
this! _
not. Things were in her skin, fluid
moving through her that made her cold and made her burn at the same time.
painful but she knew that she was not alone.
to know that the girl before him was coming awake.
sheets, and her body black and blue with burst vessels and veins.
of him wanted to give it to her. _This
is wrong. But there is no other way that
Callisto will see… that any of them will see
thoughts, and his fingers curled around the edge of the bed frame.
The nurses would be coming soon,
as soon as one of them noticed the increased heart rate.
see her come awake, and then chaos would reign and he would be lost, his cause
would be lost, all would flee his grasp.
Caliban had always thought of himself as a
peaceful man, someone who would not cause harm unless he could not help
it. He knew now that he would have to be
wrong. He would have to cause this girl
harm, not necessarily physical but he would need to bring her pain so that she,
all of them, really, would understand. Working
quickly, he pulled the needles from her arms and hand.
would have to wait… He could not manage it on his own, not without possibly
killing her should he move too quickly.
The machine would squeal his perfidy but he could not manage to jimmy
the wires now. Not enough time, he
thought. She was lighter than he
imagined, and not as hard to maneuver.
He stuffed her under the cart, in the space reserved for large pieces of
equipment, and slid the metal door closed.
He had to move fast, get her out so that he could make sure she was
still breathing. He passed the sentinels
at the door, passed the nurses station, turned at the elevator bank, then ran,
the cart clattering before him. The voices
were raised behind him in the hall and he knew he had no time left.
cart before him. “But this is for the
best…”
Eloi Chapter Thirty Seven
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *yawn* No glued cats? InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: I think I killed it… or at least wounded it… Morgan: *glomp* Readers/Reviewers: Just a warning, this chapter after this one is going to be kinda wonky… In a good way, but wonky!
Mark tapped his fingers rapidly against the window ledge. It was nearly one a.m. and he was wide awake, not even a hint of sleep crossing his thoughts. He knew Mystique was missing and he knew that Magneto was being extremely tight-lipped about it. _If I had to lay odds, I’d say he doesn’t have a clue… _ Mark pushed himself away from the window and it’s view of the nightscape outside and began pacing the library. _Since day one, this place has been batty. Kidnappings, bomb threats, food fights, that weird green goo that shows up on the sofa after Todd and Rogue are in the rec room and I don’t even want to *think* what that could be… This is insane. And I’m missing papers. Important papers… _ His eyes strayed to the locked desk drawers where his stash of information, not quite private but certainly not for questioning, was kept. _My own fault, really, leaving things out like that. But sane people don’t just take things off of desks! Oh, who’m I kidding? Yes they do… _ He sat heavily in the desk chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the headache throbbing behind his eyes grow stronger, threatening to send him running for the pain killer and something to slap around. He did not have too much time to dwell; the library door swung open, Logan filling the entry. “Yes?” Mark asked tiredly. “What do you need?”
“You need sleep,” Logan replied, not moving from his spot in the doorway. “Long day ahead of us tomorrow and you’ll be useless if you’re up till dawn.” His eyes flicked across the surfaces in the room, long habit making him aware of the subtle nuances of the other man’s existence. “Your case is unlocked.”
Mark did not look away from Logan. He simply nodded and shrugged. “I know. I was looking through the books earlier.” He did not expound on his reasons, just leaned back in his chair and fixed Logan with a bland look. “I’m an adult, Logan, I know my limits. I appreciate your concern and no doubt Storm’s, because it was her that sent you, wasn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow at Logan’s lack of an answer but did not press forward with that line of conversation. “Is that Magneto person still here? I thought he was a persona non grata at the Institute.” His stomach roiled in protest of the sip of cold coffee he took to appear nonchalant and Mark regretted not making fresh. When Logan did not respond, he sighed. “For the record, the strong and brooding type doesn’t appeal to me.”
Logan snorted, his eyes fixed on one spot: the window. “You smell like dust,” he said softly, his voice almost a growl. “Dust, leather, sweat, soap and your own special little mix of pheromones. I know every stink in the mansion, from the smell of the lake just before dawn to the smell of that freaky little kid with the three eyes. Everyone has their own smell. It’s like a fingerprint.” He walked slowly towards the window, passing Mark in his creaking chair. “It’s annoyin’ sometimes. You people don’t realize the smell of fear is like acid. Sex is musk but sweeter, almost sickening. And I can tell when someone’s maskin’ their stink from me.” He stopped a few feet from the window and tapped his finger on the same spot Mark had tapped earlier.
Mark leaned forward in his chair, wincing slightly as it creaked like an old man. “Does this tangent have an origination point tonight or is this merely something you’ve been dying to say for a while now?”
“Someone’s here,” Logan replied, his voice so low that Mark almost had to strain to hear it. “Someone who doesn’t belong.”
“I get that feeling a lot lately,” Mark sighed, rising as quietly as he could, given the age of the chair. He moved closer to Logan and raised a brow as if to say ‘now what?’.
“You may wanna keep your secrets ‘round everyone else,” Logan murmured, turning away from the window, his eyes scanning the room again, this time more intently, “but I don’t care. You’re hidin’ somethin’ useful and the best thing for you to do right now is use it.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Mark licked his suddenly too-dry lips and tried to appear confused, which was not that difficult given the circumstances. “No one is in here but me. I’m the only one with the key, the alarm has been on the window for hours, since the last time I was in here, and the only way in or out, sans the window, is through the door. Someone would have had to come in and past several of us to make it all the way down to this room.”
“Not if they were in here the whole time,” Logan murmured.
Mark frowned. “Logan, there is no one in this room but us. I think it’s you that needs some sleep. I’ve been over this library from top to bottom since the bomb threat and we found out about Paige… There is nothing in here that does not belong.”
Logan finally turned cold eyes on Mark. “It’s empty now but someone’s around. Keep an eye open…and shoot to kill.” He slapped Mark on the shoulder and headed for the door. “I’m gonna be in the Danger Room with Chuck and Maggot… find me there when you find your little friend.”
Mark’s jaw dropped before he could stop himself. “What the Hell was that all about?” he breathed, staring after Logan.
“Most likely,” a soft, familiar voice said behind him, “me.”