X-Men: When I Am Laid in Earth

Disclaimer: The characters portrayed in the following are not mine and I did not create them.

*

When I am laid in Earth:

I had a dream and in it I was dead. I saw atop a hill my wife and son next to a sapling. The sun behind them, they stood on Pine Mountain where Tyler had been buried. On the horizon the Guthrie Farm was silhouetted in red and yellow hues that melted into the west.

I approached, padding barefoot through the bluegrass. A gentle wind was in my face; far off, the cry of hawks and sparrows.

Aliya met me half-way. She was in white, a gold band pinning her hair back the way I remember it. Her hand as soft and gentle as I remember it. She said: why are you here Nathan? Have you finished your long journey? And upon her countenance my tongue spoke no words. My wife, whose touch I have missed so much. Why are you so far off? Among the reeds and caked Earth of New Canaan you are, laid to rest.

Her gesture led me to my son, tall beside the frail Virginia Pine. He turned, his face benign. I left him with so much pain in life, hardship he never surmounted; another death in the family. I didn't know what to say. The wind was stealing my words. 'Isn't it beautiful, father?' He broadcast, his hand loosing a hundred thousand stars into the sky. 'Every one of them a light extinguished in our crusade. The followers of a war none chose but were all borne into.'

They glittered across the expanse of night, reflecting and refracting one another's twilight elegies. 'They are all that's left, father. Memories in your memories.' And the decay I feel gnaws at my insides. The guilt weighs heavy on my shoulders.

'But there is a choice to fight, Nathan.' Aliya says.

'Just like they made.' Tyler reminds me. 'In that world there are no options, but you provided them with one.'

'You have no future!' I scream at them. 'You are but dust and bones and I cannot go on any longer, sacrificing those I love for a destiny I cannot change.'

'Their deaths mean something because they tried, Nathan. That is the burden you must bear for leading them.'

'It's too much! How will I ever avenge them?'

'The honour is repaid in your constant struggle, father; by the hope you inspire in the new.'

The Guthrie farm drowns in moonglow. My time on this plane is coming to an end.

I look at my family for the last time, the roots of the sapling taking hold, ensuring their survival until my return.

As I slip away Aliya calls to me.

'It's not time for you to rest yet, Nathan! There is much to do before you can join us. But we'll be here, waiting.'

***

'Wake up Nate, wake up now...'

The glare of surgical lamps whitens my eyes. The tumbleweed in my guts has stopped its turning. I cannot quite recall what's just happened. Getting my bearings I realise I'm not alone here. Friends are with me, confidants, a lover, a man I've never seen. Franklin Richards is here too. His cheeks are red from exertion, he looks embarrassed. 'It's ok!' I say.

'He's trying to speak!'

'Give him some room!'

My vocal cords -- they aren't working proper?

'S'okay.' I mutter, trying to get up.

'Easy Nate! Easy. That's it. There you go.'

Domino helps prop me up against something cold and hard. Wind-battered metal and stone. Adjusting to the brightness I see about the room. Burnt-out and half-collapsing it's not long for this world. Must be the Baxter building.

Onslaught -- the alias branding itself in my memory, a hot poker at my temple. 'Where is he, what happened?'

The reaction is acidic. Scorn and anger scar their faces, even Franklin is catalysed.

'Cable. My name is Nathaniel Richards. I'm Franklin's grandfather.'

'...This can wait...' I hear Sam say.

'You were taken over by the virus in your body. The techno organics reached your frontal lobe... you may have seen things, felt things... we tried the best we could to separate the components...'

'But ya stitched yourself back together Cable sir! You had us so worried there, but you pulled yourself through --' Sam shouted.

'...Forgive me,' Nathaniel said 'I've suddenly become very weary...'

'Where's Onslaught? Somebody tell me!' I ask.

'He's dead.' Franklin tells. 'He's dead and he's not coming back. He took everyone with him.'

This is a kid saying this.

'Mum, Dad, Ben, Johnny.'

'All the Avengers, everybody.' Sam says. 'They all got swallowed up inside'a him.'

I get off the makeshift gurney. My knees stagger. The lack of pain, the lack of the stab is what's throwing me off balance.

'You're still not right Nate, will you please sit down!' Dom shouts.

'What about the X-Men?' I ask.

'Alive.' Storm replies. 'But with the devastation of New York, we have lost the war. Onslaught is dead, but the heroes are gone.'

I stare from a window where once there was glass and a desk.

'What happens now?'

At 2.43 the rain comes.

The sky cracks open and the heavens rage.

It does not cleanse the ground; Onslaught and the end of the age of wonders has angered god. This is a flood to purge us miscreants. This is spite.

All about are the signs of destruction's passing. Mutilated billboards, upturned cars, spurting fire hydrants, wounded pipes spewing flame. The battle of Megiddo.

'How can life be so cruel?' I ask Domino, under the refugee shelters. Stretchers ferrying the missing and killed roll by, doctors and medics operating on a thin line.

'I don't know. But these people will be out for blood. We've got to go underground now.'

I tell Storm that we'll see them soon, when the dust settles. I'm scared this is the flashpoint.

***

Mount Mansfield, outside Underhill, Vermont. 32'37" North, 48'51" West.

Ten p.m.

Two days later.

We got out of New York in time; they were closing the tunnels and imposing a curfew. State of emergency.

Up here, you can taste the air. No scent of open sewer, no pollution. No billowing smoke borne on the eastern winds. There is hoarfrost on the treetops. The purr of our engine the only noise the forest heard in weeks. I have a safehouse here, kitted out for the North and hidden from the Adirondack Mountains just in case.

America, land of the free.

Not this week.

I click the radio off, continuous reports streaming hardline vengeance for mutant terrorism and the murder of our national icons. No more Captain America, no more Iron Man, no Thor, no Reed Richards or the Human Torch. Just pests the media can get its teeth in. Spider-Man. The X-Men. Hulk. Monsters and genetic anomalies the world welcomes the Sentinels for. Xavier has now committed more globally harmonious retroaction than any one of the million enemies we have. Things cannot get any worse.

Domino emerges from the bathroom, towel around her, hair wet. As if reading my mind she says: I think the shower's clogged.

I don't want to roll my eyes. I haven't the energy. The virus may be at bay but I think this is my lowest point. That weight I dreamt of is like a giant tin can being crushed at my back.

'Don't think that it's responsibility you're feeling.' She says.

'What is it then?'

'Anger and frustration. Paranoia. Fear.'

I face her. The water drips from the tips of her hair onto white shoulders.

'I'm not afraid.'

'You're scared this is the endtimes for mutants. If it's not Magneto or Apocalypse that leads us to the meatgrinder it'll be regular humans we try to shield. Irony; and the paranoia that it'll all turn out to be one giant shitstorm. You did your part, Nate. You couldn't do any more. Don't try and blame yourself for those who're dead.'

I open my mouth.

'It's not your fault. They didn't know you, they didn't care for you. They didn't follow you, they didn't love you. Wake up to that.'

And all the rage like butter in the pan bubbles and boils and goes brown. 'I'm going in the FUCKING SHOWER!'

She sidesteps and I barrel through ripping the shirt off buttons everywhere slamming the door. One great big huge deflating football of curdling ugliness the world wears such a hideous face that rears and eats you and kicks you in the balls when you're down. Suckerpunch. Kneejerk. Blowback.

Seven years bad luck for my loss of control.

I shovel the shards into the bin in the bathroom.

She calls out from beyond. 'You alright?'

Goddamn it. Goddamn.

Water comes on, falling on my neck. Runs through my hair. Pushes all the grease and mud out. I go for the stuff she's just used, this is my first proper clean for... three, four days? It's not there. Just my luck. I turn around, face up worshipping the stream. It splatters my cheekbones, wets the beard. Feel it cascading down the skin and running off the chassis-like rivets of the techno-organics. Should really be in a carwash. I pick at scabbed over bits and pieces -- the ones that I can see. Searching behind, I run up against something stuck in-between wires. I pull and don't even bother to look. Down the plughole. I turn around again. I try not to swallow the rivulets, but take a mouthful and spit. A pool has formed at my feet. The shower is clogged now. It wasn't before, but I'm guessing whatever I put down there's obviously to blame. Typical. Not thinking and this is what happens. So angry right now. I lower to explore the pipe. I can't see anything, but that never mean's everything's ok. Probably a rock or a grenade lodged in my back, that's what it was. Probably an ICBM, the State of Kansas military address. My finger hits a blockage, and there's the gutter-chugging croak to signal an open airway. Standing up sudden pain, and a spasm in my neck when I hit the back of my head on the soap dish suspended from the shower bracket. I lose my balance and clatter down on my ass in a space no wider than Clark Kent's phone booth. The chill of the water comes on immediately, the dial knocked. Pain! More pain! I scream!

The door flies open and Dom shoots in, stopping in her tracks as she sees me. I must look like I'm in traction already.

'Jesus! I thought you were under attack!'

'Will you quit staring and pull me up!'

The glass door is rippled so all I can see is her shape grabbing the handle.

Her eyes are averted, she presents her forearm and I grab it, putting a lot of weight on her. She's got muscles though, and it's been many a time she's had to hold onto me.

'Thanks.' I grumble.

'Yeah.' She steps lightly over to the cabinet above the sink, the cracks in the glass clear.

'Nice,' she says 'nice to see you've got all the control you ever had.'

'Just give me the shampoo!' I growl, playing with the shower dial.

A hand with a bottle pops in. I rest it on the soap dish. I can't find the soap now. 'Dom,' I sigh 'where's the soap?'

She passes it through to me.

'You cleaned up all the glass?'

'Yes.' I reply, trying to reach my back. My neck contorts, painful. I can't go on.

'Nate.'

'... yeah?'

'Do you want me to do your back?'

'... yeah.'

I relax my arms and rest my forehead on the tiles, resigned.

There is a rustling. The curtain of the water parts as Domino steps in. Somewhere far off I feel a nervous energy radiating.

She squirts some of the shampoo mixture onto a scrunchy sponge. It's applied to my shoulders first, my rubbing them with a fist interfering in her movements. The ooze smothers my skin, then polishes on the metal, rough but thorough. She says 'stop it' as my hand falls away from my neck and is replaced by hers. I don't know why I'm not ashamed of my nudity. I didn't even think to ask if she was naked. What would she be wearing in the shower that she wouldn't mind getting wet?

My body reacts to those thoughts by tensing.

'What's wrong.' She says.

'Nothing.' I reply. Too quickly.

'Stop tensing.' Her soapy hands go lower, down my back, over my buttocks and then she must be kneeling as the backs of my legs feel the scrape.

I can hear her breath through the pitter-patter of water droplets. Her presence...

'Are you going to turn around?' She asks.

I'm aroused. This is embarrassing.

'I don't think...'

'I'm wet now Nate. You wanna make this all for nothing? Turn around.'

My feet shuffle. The glass is steamed up thick. I can't meet her eyes. When I do I see them travelling from somewhere and then staring back at me. I can't help thinking there she is.

'... God, you're a mess.' And her hands thud in a frothy foam over my chest, soaping the hairs, running over my nipples. I try to stare at her face, but she's naked in front of me, less than a foot separating us.

'Dom...'

She runs her hands lower, eyes following her movements, hair tweaking slightly as her head shifts. She is trying not to look?

'...What?'

Her hands slow to a stop; a glob of the foam lands in my crotch. My mind lets go.

I take her by the wrists and hold her in place, searching those eyes. One white, one black. Skin white, hair black. She is like porcelain. We kiss suddenly but the move is slow. The lean-in tentative but the release immediate. She tastes clean, brand new. She smells of the vanilla in the soap.

I feel her hands pull out of mine and roam over my chest, not exfoliating this time, but exploring, hunting down my skin to caress and smooth.

Her tongue flicks out and wets my lips; I brush strands of long hair out her eyes and behind her ear as she nuzzles my bearded neck. She whispers in my ear and strokes down my back, clutching after a long trail at my ass. There's a pressure on my abdomen as she decides whether to take this further or not. A lot of steam in the cubicle makes it a heady experience. The rain keeps coming, I'm in her thrall.

Domino places a hand on my cock, hard from her ministrations earlier. I gasp but she swallows it in her mouth, biting and kissing and licking my lips. I feel her stroking me. The puddles of foam soak down to my groin; she uses them to smooth and lubricate my cock, her loose fist snug but free. I shiver despite the heat. My own hands are holding onto her waist, lowering to the front of her thighs and a mannered moan leaking out from her side of our kiss. She shakes, presumably a shiver, and I tweak on her nipple, cupping her firm breast as my other hand snakes past her mound and into the little bush of hair between her legs. A growl makes it all the more intense, her fist tightening as my fingers help part the thin fleshy folds of her labia and smooth and surf along the internal canyon of her pussy. My name comes out her mouth, and I hiss in response as she tugs aggressively on my cock. 'Dom...'

She purrs, leaning on the tiles as I'm connected to her through fingers and wrist. She stretches to hold me, her other hand making an upside-down Vulcan sign above her clit. Her head tosses to one side, biting her grey lip while I go to town on her breasts. I suckle on the black nipples, tickle the underside, run fingers down to her pussy before she grabs hold of my hand and stares in my eyes and has her lip quiver and then kisses me fiercely and I feel her legs start to shake. She makes a repetitive noise, quiet, and I get on my knees, resting my forehead at her mound, tongue outstretched to lick and taste the flow of her cunt. Out the corner of my eye I see her fist trying to grab hold of something on the tiles that doesn't exist. I curl my speech up inside her, flicking the nub with each nod of my head and ploughing my index into her. I combine a little dual action in her ass as she supports on my neck and shoulders, flexing at the waist and salivating. 'Nate...! Unggghh, yess...'

'You gonna come, Dom?' I manage, mouthful of pussy.

She pants and unnnggghhh yes! her white legs vibrate inward, weak at the knees begging to reach the place I'm getting her to. And then a final tug at my neck and she spasms, banging her shoulder blades and the back of the head on the tiles, lifting one leg over my shoulder and thrusting into my mouth all at the same time. 'Fuck! Ahhhhh, oh fuck...!'

I raise myself, grinning and tasting the salt on my lips from her flow. She opens her eyes; head tilted and looks at me, mouth open, breathy laughter. She's a screamer. I turn off the shower, steam clouding the entire house by now. She pushes me against the glass savagely, giving me a mindbending kiss with both hands and legs entwining inside mine. We fall through the door and onto the bathroom floor, freezing cold surface giving me a jolt. 'Dom! It's freezing!'

She pins me to the floor with one arm, batting my struggle out the way and feeling behind herself as she straddles my waist. My cock jumps at her touch and I look at the widening grin, teeth showing. Eyes closed, she backs onto me -- feel myself sinking in -- and impales herself deep and full and thick. A groan echoes from her chest, her breasts plump and within hands reach. I am powerless effectively, she controls the rate and speed. Her movements start, rotating her hips to wiggle my cock deep inside her. I think I pass out for a moment. She supports herself on my knees, head back, hair dangling down, I feel it tickle my balls, and I reach forward to grope her tits. I rise and lay my mouth on them, pulling the nipples and licking all the way up her neck to hold her mouth and we kiss like animals. She is all spit and lust, dry mouth but tongue searching and desperate.

She rides me, cowgirl, bouncing up and down, pulling at my shaft with every stroke and rubbing her clit with a hoarse growl. I try to concentrate on the pull inside. Dom is milking me dry, her own pleasure fuelling each and every frantic movement as she gets closer to her own toe-curling come. I lend a hand, my thumb flicking over her most sensitive spot, a moan of my name spilling from her lips. She is close, I hear it in my mind. She is waiting to drop into the abyss. Loosing each finger on a rope dangling above infinity. I stroke up to her neck; she bites my index but I pull loose to pass over her breast, her head back again, one hand supporting, the other now sneaking over my ballsack and tickling just the underside of the perineum where I know and she knows will make me come very quickly. I can feel my cock jerk inside her now, and she laughs -- the laugh chopped up while she bounces up and down -- because she can feel it about to start. 'Yes! Yes! Ahhhhhhhh!' Her head shakes left to right, rattails whipping about, and hand rough and hard over my balls, my thumb never letting up on her clit she is about to explode and she's dragging me with her, taking me over the edge dick-first into that place where we can both be satisfied with one another and I'm almost there, she's going at it like a rabbit I'm almost there up and down sucking my cock inside her the look so pleased Domino cries out I'm coming I'm coming Nate come with me and then all of a sudden I feel this shot like sweet pain in my legs and my ass is clenching as she makes a grab on my nuts and I'm spurting into her pussy and her breasts are wobbling as she cries out fuck! Yes! Ahhhhhhh! and pistons up and down grinding my ass into the cold floor and having her cunt wrench my cock and she's coming on top of me. And then she slows to a stop, my eyesight returning and the feeling in my legs coming back in numb waves. 'God...!' She pants. Her hand smooths over my cheek, ruffling the beard; she kisses my mouth tasting the sweat and the satiated lust and says: I'm so glad you're here Nate, I'm so glad you're here you are the one I love and I hear myself saying I love you too Dom, I love you too.

You are the one thing left in my life I can rely on.