Subject: [aliciafic] [Psylocke, Cable, PG] Salle, 1/1
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 20:10:35 -0800 (PST)
From: Alicia McKenzie <antiochene@yahoo.com>


DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel, and are
used without permission for entertainment purposes
only.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written in response to a fic request
from Sevenall that asked for things that begin with P:
namely, Psylocke, psionic surgery, psimitars,
painkillers, pissed-off Cable and Prokofyev. Vaguely
Revolution-era, as I needed a telekinetic Betsy and a
particularly pissy Nate. As for why it's in
second-person... good question, there.

***

SALLE
by Alicia McKenzie

***

"It's not a bo staff, Braddock." His voice is harsh -
deliberately so, you think - but his hands as he
adjusts your grip on the psimitar are almost gentle.
"Don't make that mistake," he continues, stepping
back. "It's an extension of your mind, not your body."

"But it's a physical thing," you say, irritated at how
enigmatic he's being. The whole situation has you
somewhat off-balance. His offer to teach you how to
use his weapon had been unexpected, to say the least;
he is not prone to random acts of generosity. You
still wonder at his motives.

Yet you couldn't let your doubts prevent you from
accepting. Your telekinesis is still a wild thing,
your control erratic. You need whatever edge you can
get.

He watches you for a moment. Warily, as he seems to
watch everyone these days. That iron control is no
longer so perfect, not since the day he knelt on the
sand and held his father's shattered visor in his
hands. At times there is something of the trapped
animal about him. At other times, you think he is
merely trying to accustom himself to a new cage.

"The psimitar itself is a weapon," he says finally,
the hint of an accent you don't recognize edging his
voice. It has always intrigued you, how smoothly not
just his accent but the whole cadence of his speech
can shift. The residue of too many languages learned
telepathically in his travels through the centuries,
you suppose. "But it's also just a representation."

"But a dangerous one," you point out, the words coming
out almost as a taunt as you sweep the psimitar from
side to side in a lazy arc. The lights of the Danger
Room glint off the blade and you feel a sudden,
vicious urge to push a little harder. Just to see if
you get a reaction. "Representations don't generally
kill. I'm sure this one has."

"Oh, yes," he murmurs, his eye glinting gold. "It's
been well-blooded over the years. Keep it up and we'll
be feeding it more today."

"Why, that sounds like a threat," you retort sweetly,
beginning to enjoy yourself. "An idle one, too. I'm
the one holding the sharp object, remember?"

He smiles at you, that one golden eye flashing
brighter for a moment, and you bite back a curse as a
jolt of power comes through the weapon in your hands,
nearly knocking you off your feet. You manage not to
fall, but the psimitar clatters to the ground.

"You were saying?" he drawls as you glare at him.

"Bastard." You hadn't realized he could do that, but
the possibilities are rather exciting. Even if he
could have chosen a less forceful way to make his
point.

"Pick it up," he instructs, the amusement gone from
his expression. "And stop wasting my time."

***

That night, you dream of him. The two of you are in a
forest where the huge, twisted trees meet the sky. A
psimitar in either hand, he smiles at you and invites
you into a circle drawn in ash. When you join him and
take one of the psimitars, the ash springs up into
flame. And you fight, psimitar against psimitar, until
he drives you back into the flames and smiles as you
scream.

You are less than kind when you find him at the
breakfast table the next morning. "Stay out of my
head," you warn, sending his coffee cup flying with a
telekinetic slap. Anger is good for focus, you've
discovered.

He gives you the same smile from the dream. "Why would
I be in your head, Braddock?" he asks calmly, picking
up the coffee cup and rising to refill it. "It's a
dull place these days. Lightless and dull. To be
honest, I spend enough time in the dark."

You freeze for a moment, but then turn and force
yourself to walk slowly out of the kitchen.

***

It isn't a bo staff. The forms are far more beautiful.
He has you practice in slow motion, drilling you until
they become second nature. You pick them up quickly;
he is a surprisingly good teacher in some ways. In
others, his lack of patience is all too noticeable.
Your constant stream of questions in particular seem
to irritate him.

"I still don't understand what you mean when you say
this is just a representation. Why spend so much time
learning to work with it, then?"

"Thought follows deed," he says curtly, reaching out
to adjust your grip on the psimitar again. "You need
to form new patterns. Shake the bad habit of taking
the world literally."

"You know, Nathan, I suspect you're dumbing this down
for me. What am I not ready to know yet?"

"...fine. You want the big secret? You find the real
edge on the shadow of the psimitar, Braddock. Not the
psimitar itself."

It always turns into a philosophy lesson when you push
too far. Always. It infuriates you, the way he
retreats to his proverbs, his vague inanities. It
makes you want to push even harder, to smash his
control just to see what he's hiding. Just to hurt. He
has a remarkable capacity to bring out the worst in
you.

"Oh, that was enormously helpful." The words flow from
you seemingly of their own accord, driven by
frustration. "Does your philosophy keep you warm at
night, Nathan? Is it a comfort, when you wake up
dreaming about your father?"

He turns white, paler than you've ever see him. You
raise the psimitar automatically at the look in his
eyes, but he doesn't move towards you. You know
instinctively that you would have lashed out at him if
he had.

After he turns and leaves, moving like a sleepwalker,
you put the psimitar somewhere safe. And then you go
and try to get quietly drunk.

***

He's back the next day at the normal time, stony-faced
as ever. Even so, you can't help but notice the signs
that betray either a sleepless night or an attempt to
drown his sorrows. Sorry has no meaning, you remind
yourself, or you would try to apologize.

"Enough messing around," he says harshly, handing you
the psimitar. "Time to see if you can use this the way
it was meant to be used."

You grip the psimitar tightly and give him a curt nod.
"What do I do?"

"Direct your TK through the psimitar." You give him a
questioning look, and he sighs. "I can't hold your
hand for this part, Braddock. Just shut your flonqing
mouth and try it."

You frown at him. "Helpful as always," you say acidly,
and direct the psimitar in a safe direction. You feel
foolish for a moment, unsure of what to do. Your
memory supplies you with how it felt when he sent a
charge through the psimitar on that first day, but
you're not sure how he did it.

You close your eyes and reach into the psimitar with
your telekinesis, getting the feel of it. It is more
complex than you imagined. There are strands and
spirals--circuitry? You've never asked him how the
psimitar was made. An oversight, definitely.

You try and push power into the psimitar. It sparkles
along the spirals, spinning in your mind, and you feel
a moment of exultation, of pure exhilaration.

But nothing happens.

"Don't worry," he says mockingly. You open your eyes
and stare hard at him, wondering if this has all been
some sort of elaborate joke. "That's what usually
happens. You're not supposed to be able to make it
work the first time."

"Then why did you have me try?" you ask coldly. His
sense of humor leaves much to be desired, you reflect,
not for the first time.

"Just to see if you could," he responds with a shrug.
"There are exceptions; I was one. I suppose it was
because of the T-O virus. I had the level of control
needed, even if it was unconscious."

"How lovely for you." You have the urge to throw the
psimitar at his feet, but that would be childish, and
probably far too satisfying for him. "So how do I make
it work, Nathan?"

He reaches out - for the psimitar, you assume - but
instead of taking it from you he puts his hands over
yours, mimicking your grip on the staff of the weapon.
You stiffen, but manage not to recoil as he reaches
into your mind.

It has been strange, the feel of another telepath
touching your thoughts, since you lost your own
telepathy. This is even stranger; he doesn't speak to
you, but leaves behind an awareness, a set of
impressions impossible to vocalize or describe.

Suddenly, the psimitar feels right in your hands,
familiar in a way that the acquaintance of two weeks
can't explain. He lets go, taking a step back, and you
blink at the cryptic smile he gives you.

"Try it now," he suggests, almost lightly.

You close your eyes, submitting to an instinct that
you know is borrowed. This time, you see how the
strands and spirals fit together into a greater
pattern, how the pattern reflects the lines of force
your telekinesis naturally takes. And you understand,
finally, what he meant when he called the weapon
itself a representation. The focus isn't provided by
the weapon; it comes from within.

There is a flash of rose-pink light from the
psimitar's blade, and you lose your balance, sitting
down hard. "Well," you say a bit breathlessly,
surprised at how fatigued you suddenly feel. The
exhilaration is there again, though, and you can't
help reveling in it, even as you wonder at it. "That
was--"

"Not bad for a first try," he says, offering you a
hand up. You take it and can't help a gasp as he uses
the brief contact to take back what he gave you. "Now
let's see you do it on your own."

***

You see him go down, the front of his uniform smoking
from where the energy blast caught him square in the
chest. The psimitar falls to the floor of the
warehouse, and as you launch yourself in that
direction you tug at it telekinetically, bringing it
straight to your hand.

You channel force through it as soon as you have a
secure hold on the staff, and send the Neo woman
flying into a stack of packing crates before she can
deliver the coup de grace. The fight closes in around
you before you can even catch your breath, and you
have all you can do to defend yourself, even with the
psimitar.

But today is a day for bucking trends, it seems; this
time, the battle goes in the X-Men's favor. As the Neo
retreat, you leave it to the others to follow them,
and turn to go to his side. Seeing him dragging
himself back to his feet, you smile in relief.

"Nathan," you start, "are you--"

He crosses the distance between you, his features
twisting in a snarl that wouldn't have looked out of
place on Logan's face. Spitting something
incomprehensible at you, he reaches out as if to
wrench the psimitar away.

You take a step back, instinctively. He hisses
something else at you in that unknown language -
Askani? - and the air around him starts to shimmer
golden.

There is no recognition in his eyes as he looks at
you, none at all, and as he steps forward again,
reaching for you, you react on instinct once more.

You only mean to push him away. But you forget the
residual charge left in the psimitar.

***

Jean spends two hours unscrambling the mess the Neo's
blast had made of his mind. You expect to hear harsh
words from her - she has been noticeably
overprotective of her son since losing her husband -
but she merely reassures you that Nathan will be fine.

You intend to leave the psimitar leaning against the
wall beside his bed and leave him to sleep off the
psionic surgery, but yet you find yourself sitting
down. Keeping watch.

Jean, doing the same, merely looks amused.

***

"I'm sorry."

"You know how I feel about apologies, Braddock," he
growls, turning his head away from you and staring at
the opposite wall of the infirmary. "Besides, there's
no need. I was--it was better that you knocked me
out."

Not missing the hesitation, you manage a faint smile.
You almost ask what he remembers, what he saw when he
looked at you back in the warehouse, but perhaps you
don't really want to know. "I was actually apologizing
for the concussion."

He looks back at you, smirking. "I haven't had one for
six months. I was due. I'm more pissed about the
cracked ribs, although I suppose I can't blame them
all on you. That Neo bitch could hit like a truck."

You can't help a snort. "Were you born this difficult,
or did you have to grow into it?"

"A little bit of both, I think."

***

Your little 'accident' in the warehouse serves to
convince him that you need more lessons with the
psimitar, or so he claims. You have your suspicions;
at times, after all, he almost seems to enjoy teaching
you.

You broach the subject of reciprocity one morning. "I
feel like I owe you something for all of this,
Nathan."

"Don't worry about it, Braddock. Buy me a drink
sometime if you want."

"I was thinking about taking you to a concert,
actually."

In the middle of showing you a particularly
complicated shielding technique with the psimitar, he
stops, his concentration obviously broken. "A
concert?" he asks with a frown more thoughtful than
annoyed.

You give a shrug that's not nearly as diffident as it
looks. "I have ticket to a performance of Prokofyev.
Aleksandr Nevsky. I thought perhaps--"

"Why not take Worthington?" he asks sharply. "Or
Bright Lady forbid, the Sharra kid. You would probably
make his decade. Or have you not noticed him sniffing
after you?"

It takes a great deal not to snap at him. "I'm asking
you," you point out as evenly as you can. "Even if you
are a mannerless bastard."

He bares his teeth at you in what is clearly supposed
to be a smile. "You say the sweetest things,
Braddock."

"Is that a yes?"

"I suppose. I've always had a weakness for the Russian
composers."

***

The concert is magnificent, passionately and
flawlessly performed for an appreciative audience. You
find yourself missing your telepathy again; before,
you could have shared the enthusiasm of the
performers, the excitement of the crowd, on a much
more profound level.

But then, this way has its benefits as well. The
reactions you feel are yours, simple and
uncomplicated. You can focus solely on the music. No
need to filter out extraneous input. No distractions.

Well, perhaps one. You steal a sideways look at your
companion every so often, trying to decide whether or
not he is enjoying the performance. It's difficult to
judge. For most of the evening, he's wearing his usual
impassive facade.

Until the soprano sings the lament from 'The Field of
the Dead'. Then, you hear his breath catch in his
throat.

You keep your eyes on the stage, this time, and allow
him what little privacy you can.

***

Much, much later that night, you come downstairs for a
glass of water and find him sitting at the kitchen
table, a nearly-empty bottle of scotch in front of
him. He has a certain reputation for having a high
alcohol tolerance - rumor has it that he actually
matched Logan drink-for-drink for most of a night and
still managed to make his way back to the mansion
under his own power - but he has clearly had a little
too much tonight.

Under other circumstances, you would leave him to it.
He has more than sufficient cause to drown his
sorrows, after all. But when he pulls the bottle of
painkillers Henry had given him after the fight in the
warehouse out of his pocket and starts wrestling with
the lid, you decide you need to say something.

"You probably shouldn't be taking those with alcohol,"
you point out quietly. He mutters something about his
metabolism and continues to struggle with the pill
bottle. You can't help a sigh. "Still having
headaches?" you ask, taking it from him and popping
the lid easily. You shake out two of the pills and set
them on the table in front of him, then pocket the
bottle.

He raises an eyebrow at you. "You're an interfering
bitch, Braddock," he says, his words slurred. "Here I
was going to down the whole bottle and see what
happened."

You give him a hard look. "Not funny."

"Not a joke." He gives you a wholly insincere smile.
"I have a hell of a headache."

You sink into a chair opposite him, eyeing him
closely. "The concert upset you," you venture.

His mouth twists. "Don't try and analyze me, Braddock.
You're not a telepath anymore; you don't get to
pretend you're insightful."

You sigh deeply and fold your arms together, resting
your chin on your arms. "How long do you think you can
hold it all together, Nathan?" you ask a bit sadly,
fatigue and concern making you more bold than you
might have been in the harsh light of day.

His eyes go flat. "I don't know what you mean."

"The cracks are showing. You're deluding yourself if
you don't acknowledge that."

He refills his glass with scotch, knocks back half of
it, and sits for a moment, staring vacantly into empty
space. "Do you have any idea how many people I've
trained to use a psimitar?" he asks finally. You shake
your head, and he smiles humorlessly. "Ninety-two,
over the years. All in the future but you, of course."

"I'm honored," you say softly, but he shakes his head,
looking distressed and angry at the same time.

"Don't be. All but a few of them are dead, Braddock.
In battle or--after, when they hunted us down. The
handful that survived are only alive by chance. Oath,
they may all be dead by now. I've been gone from that
era for a while now." A tremor crosses his features
and he stares down into his glass, as if avoiding your
eyes. "I keep seeing their faces when I'm working with
you."

You swallow. "You need to get some sleep," you say as
gently as you can.

He gives a ragged laugh. "I need to stop watching
people die, too. We don't always get what we want."

You could say it, could force him to admit that there
was more bothering him than memories of those he'd
trained and lost. But you suspect that mentioning
Scott would shatter the last of his control, and you
can't bring yourself to do that to him.

"Come on," you say briskly instead, getting up. You
touch his arm, ignoring the way he flinches, and urge
him up out of his chair as well. "Sleep will help.
Things will be less bleak-looking in the morning."

He laughs weakly at the platitude, but follows you
obediently back upstairs.

***

There is a note on your bedroom door the next morning,
cancelling your training sessions for the rest of the
week.

You don't see him at all for the next few days. Jean,
when you ask, tells you that he's working on
something. Henry mentions having seen him down in the
armory. You toy with the idea of going looking for
him, but in the end decide to give him whatever space
he needs. For now, at least.

On the morning of the fourth day, you wake up to find
a psimitar lying across the end of your bed. It is
several inches shorter than his and the blade has a
sheen that suggests it's never been used before. It is
weighted differently from his, as well, and it feels
so right in your hands as you lift it that you know,
without having to ask, that it was made for you. That
he made it for you.

The Askani inscription on the staff is different from
his as well. When you track him down to thank him, you
ask him to translate it.

"It says 'Happy graduation. Don't die.'"

"You're joking."

"Yes, I am."

You never do get a straight answer, but you do talk
him into regular sparring sessions. And the occasional
concert.

fin

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