The X-Men are the property of Marvel Comics.  If you didn't know that, you 
don't belong here.
This is Pryde and Wisdom piece that takes place after eXcalibur breaks up.


						Walls
						-----
	  				      by sydney
						-----
					       07/2001




	And I couldn't have stopped if I wanted to.  Cumming inside of her, 
like an animal.  Cumming inside of her, screaming, clawing, panting, inhuman.  
Inhuman again, like all those times before with her.  Cumming inside her, on 
her, with her, like a madman.

	We'd had the same conversation again, earlier that night, about getting 
married.  And we came to the same conclusions again, just like we always 
did.  We loved each other, no question.  But our work...  Our jobs, they 
were too much.  Too much commitment.  And she had her family and all, and I 
wasn't much for that sort.  I mean, I could be, if I tried, but I was tired 
of trying.
	But living without each other was worse than death.  It was pure denial 
of oxygen.  Leaving her, every time, I'd get this knot in my throat, a pit in 
my stomach, and this voice in the back  of my brain that tells me if I don't 
go back to her and work things out I'll go mad.  Mad.  Yes, become a madman.
	Come or go, leave or stay, I turn into a different man- more different 
than anyone I've ever been or had to pretend to ever be.  Rage or brood, it 
was never pretty.  And now it's just sweaty and hot and sticky and a tangle of 
sheets and limbs, and there is no cuddling tonight because we're so spent 
and disgusted with ourselves that we fall asleep, not even touching each 
other.
	Like animals who can't control themselves anymore...  Or perhaps, 
slightly more sophisticated animals who choose not to control themselves.  
A conscious choice to give into the urge, the desire.  Kicking the thoughts 
from my mind, I drift into the early morning haze that is fractured sleep.  
It doesn't matter right now.  We'll be guilty later.  We'll fight it out 
later.  Who's at fault, who controls whom.  Which one of us is really 
innocent because the other is a master manipulator, seducer, fucker.  
Pathetic, painful, and necessary.

	It's a controlled blood letting.  The slow, deliberate drain of life 
from the body shell.  All the intentions of death.  All the indications of a 
relationship on the brink.  Purely physical and everyone knows it.  You're 
just kidding yourself.  But what do you care; you're inside her.  You're 
cumming inside of her.  Your body is inside of her body.  You're about to 
cum inside of her and she's going to let you.
	Deliberate.
	You both drank too much.  You both took your own clothes off.  You both 
groped for the bed in the dark.  You both urged and held and moaned and 
pulled and moved and thrust and begged for more.  You can't blame each other 
no matter how hard you try, because you both came in each other's arms and 
you both loved it and if you hadn't done it you would have died.

	I think about sneaking out.  I'm not embarrassed.  I'm only a little mad 
at myself.  I'm in love with her.  I'm naked and half bent over searching for 
my clothes on the floor, stumbling over her shoes.
	I head for the shower, hoping that it won't wake her.  I know she always 
feels worse than me about things like this.  Though, I can't leave her 
alone.  So I backtrack from her bathroom and throw my clothes on a chair and 
get back in bed with her and I stroke her hair and lean in to kiss her, 
missing being able to do that when ever I want to with impunity.
	She wakes up and she looks in my eyes, and I realize what a mistake 
I've made, waking her up.  If she cries, I swear I'll never forgive myself.
	This delicious woman.  This creature of habit.  This ship in the night 
that keeps crashing back into my dock.  This brown haired brown eyed goddess of 
suns and moons and stars and undeniably my heart and whatever breath is left 
in my lungs and blood in my veins....
	Those brown eyes telling me what she wanted, didn't want, to tell me for 
the last God-knows-how-long.  Go.  Mistake.  Wrong.  Can't.  Over.  Done.  
Get out.

	Try to drive away.  Try to do anything but scream.  You'll fail every time. 
  Try to reason it out, or to try and put it behind you, and you'll explode 
in a whole new, unpleasurable way.  Screaming in your sleep, that's where 
you'll be.  That is, if you ever sleep again.  You remember those fragmented 
bits of sleep you got in her bed, in that house that shackles her tighter 
than chains of iron or steal.  You always came in second place, no matter 
how fast you ran.  Pushed yourself, clawed, begged, borrowed, and stole, you 
couldn't measure up to that old place.
	But that's the point, anyways, isn't it?  That house wins over you not 
because it's better or you're worse, but because it's got a stronger hold on 
her.  It's not really a choice she made.  She didn't write the rules.  She's 
just forced to follow them.

	Think of it this way-- You got out before you could get sucked under, too.  
You got out before that place could make you into someone you couldn't even 
recognize anymore.
	Right.  Like you wouldn't have let it if it meant being with her another 
day, another minute.  Like you wouldn't have given up your principles, your 
own mind, your free will, to wake up in her bed one more morning.
	The pounding in your head continues.  The farther you drive, the harder 
it pounds.  Pounding.  The pounding.  Those nights, in her room, in her bed...  
The moonlight slicing through the blinds.  The pounding of your hearts.  The 
pounding of your bodies.  Sweat-soaked hours upon hours.  Couldn't make it 
last forever.  The failure of a lifetime.  The useless fights, the begging 
and pleading.  The reasoning, the insisting.  What did it come down to?  
Pounding your head against a brick wall.  The brick walls of that house.

Thend