X-Calibre Trilogy: Long Hard Road Out of Hell

I woke feeling more relaxed than I had in a long time. I was warm and comfortable and had a beautiful woman lying next to me, still blissfully asleep. I smiled a little and kept my eyes closed, taking in the feel of her body next to mine. Seeing her so painfully thin had bothered me so I’d made sure we had enough food to be well, and I made sure she got enough in balance to make her healthier. She’d put on weight rather rapidly and it was in all the right places; oh, she’d been building muscle, certainly. I had to slow down a little to accommodate her but she didn’t mind the pace we’d been keeping as we went north and she never complained about the hiking we did. But with all that muscle had come some nice soft curves; she’d gone from what looked like a starving child to what was obviously a woman. Then I realized what that line of though was doing to me in combination with the waking surge of testosterone and made myself think of something, anything, else to settle down again.

I settled on mentally replaying songs I remembered and was halfway through Bob Segar’s “Turn the Page” when I felt Miriam stir. My stomach had butterflies inside as I wondered if last night had been a fluke or if it had really meant anything and I decided to test the waters a bit. I slid my fingers from her hair and caressed her shoulders, earning a drowsy sigh, so I increased the pressure a little and then a little more when she cuddled closer to me. A good sign . . .

“Guten abend, liebling [Good evening, dearest love],” I whispered the endearment to her, the butterflies getting more hyper as I said it. She moaned softly in answer and I began to really massage her back, smiling as I did so. Her fingertips caressed me as I touched her, my fingers sliding down her spine. “Does that feel good?” I already knew the answer and she confirmed it as she cuddled into me again. I moved my hands slowly down her back, and she moved to accommodate me when I held her closer to reach her lower back. “Did you sleep well?” I spoke again and she murmured that she had and asked about me. “Like a baby,” I answered truthfully – it had been one of the best night’s rest I’d had in a very long time. I uncoiled my tail from her leg and had it join my hands; she moaned her approval again as I did this and told me just how good I was at what I was doing. “I know,” I smiled wider, feeling sufficiently confident to make a move towards more intimacy. I found the hem of her shirt and danced the tip of my tail over her bare, warm flesh. “I’m good at a lot of things.”

She immediately tensed and sucked in a hasty breath; my confidence fled and I made my body do the same. As I let go of her I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me. Stupid, stupid, stupid!! What on earth had I been thinking? Of course she wouldn’t want me like that . . . who would truly want me looking as I do?

“Nightcrawler?” Miriam raised herself to look at me. She frowned a little when she caught my eyes, just as I reminded myself harshly that I was Nightcrawler to her for a very good reason. “What’s wrong?” her voice shook a little.

“Nothing, Fraulein,” I lied and adopted the formal address to signify more to myself than to her that last night had been a one-time occurrence that would not be repeated. I shifted and she moved away from me completely; I straightened up quickly and headed for the door. “I’ll be outside.”

I didn’t wait for her answer. I threw open the doors of the abandoned church and stepped outside, sucking in several hasty breaths of air in an effort to calm down. I was pacing about when she joined me, worried confusion etched onto her face.

“What is it? What did I do?” she tried to get me to look at her as she held out my rucksack.

I took it from her wordlessly, my lips pressed tightly together. Even without any introspection I’d known right away that I was so angry with myself, not her, for what had just happened back there. She’d been acting as most people acted, as any virtuous woman should act when propositioned by a demon – she’d been horrified by my advances and immediately gone into fight-or-flight mode. But I should have known better than to expect that it could be any other way. Between her repeated inquiries on what had caused my sudden withdrawal from even basic conversation I berated myself for my idiotic, hormone-laden thinking. I wondered now how I could have thought for even a minute that she could find me even the least bit appealing. And, to make matters worse, my stewing thoughts mingled with my memories of Ororo and what she’d done to me. It had been almost a year now, but I was still having trouble dealing with her duplicity and her back-stabbing. It still hurt each time I thought about it, how she’d gazed into his eyes as though nothing else in the world existed, how she allowed him to kiss her lips in a way I thought I had the monopoly on, and how even after she knew beyond doubt that I was aware of what was going on she still wouldn’t acknowledge it. Overnight, it seemed, it was as though we’d never slept together or confided in one another or even been friends. I’d fallen from the goddess’ graces and become a pariah . . . would the same thing happen with Miriam now? And why did I care so much if it did?

I tried to shove the thoughts away long enough to do some grocery shopping but they were still there, in the back of my mind, and they distracted me sufficiently to not notice the infrared motion sensors in the back of the room until Miriam tripped one. I swore as people came thundering down the steps; I growled when I saw that they’d had forethought enough to have a camera with them. Miriam had been taken by surprise and was taking a bit of a beating so I helped her out; then I ripped open the camera and turned Miriam’s flashlight beam on the film to make sure none of it survived for development. I noticed she was bleeding and threw her some gauze before grabbing her and teleporting again, still silent and still pissed off about what happened in the church.

I took us out to the edge of town and then ‘ported a few more times until we were in the wilderness between towns. We chose to camp out near a river and we both knew that meant the prospect of having a proper bath. “Ladies first,” I bowed and got out of her way, opting to sit and meditate while I waited for her. My mind wouldn’t quiet, though, and after what I’d guessed was forty-five minutes I started to worry and went to find her.

And oh, I found her alright. She was taking so long because she was washing her clothes as well; I swallowed hard at the sudden lump in my throat when I saw that her figure looked every bit as enticing as it had felt before. The one saving grace was that she didn’t know yet that I was there. I had enough time to look away, distract my mind from other things, and come back around from the direction of the camp. With luck, she’d think it nothing more than good timing that I was here just as she was leaving.

She was more perceptive than I gave her credit for, however. She did jump in surprise when I appeared and she stammered that she’d just been coming to get me, which was according to my plan. What wasn’t according to plan was my uncontrollable embarrassment when I tried to be conversational by commenting on the scenery.

“How, um . . .” She cleared her throat and watched as I began to strip off my armor, her wet clothes draped over her arms. “How long were you here?”

I felt my face grow hotter and decided to tell the truth, even if phrased indirectly – I’d been around enough women to know that it was a prescription for misery to be caught in a lie by one. “Long enough to take in the beautiful view,” I said softly as I propped my breast- and back-plates against the trunk of a nearby tree.

Her face immediately turned scarlet and she went rigid with anger and indignation; she reared back and threw the soap in her hand at me as hard as she could. “Good thing you’re taking a cold bath!” she hissed, so incensed that even her ears were turning pink.

I should have apologized. I should have tried to explain, to convince her that I wasn’t a pervert or a deviant, but I could not. Despite my knowing better, I simply could not find it in me at that moment to take her seriously. I was used to people being frightened of me, and I was used to being about as tall as most women and shorter than most men. So it was like some kind of comedy routine to me in that instant for the almost dwarfish figure before me, hair loose and dripping water, dry clothes clinging to her form, and wet clothes bundled in her arms – for this tiny little girl to rage against me like this was one of the funniest things I’d ever witnessed. And I only made it worse by letting slip a comment about her being welcome to watch as I took care of my business so we’d be square. Her nostrils flared as she turned and stalked away, and she ignored me when I finally got hold of my senses and tried to explain myself.

I threw my head backwards to stare at the sky for a minute, sighing heavily as she left the area, before stripping the rest of the way and cleaning up. As I bathed I tried to come up with some kind of apology for her, and decided that more than an apology was needed. I needed to do something for her that would show my better intentions and regain her trust. I decided upon offering to teach her how to defend herself so that she would be even more self-sufficient once we parted ways in Canada – I forced myself to ignore the way my stomach churned at that thought – and even began to formulate the first few lessons in martial arts for her to work on with me. I threw on my clothes and armor again and went back to camp to find Miriam, fully intending to offer my apologies and make amends to her. She wasn’t on the ground anywhere though and I finally spotted her in the top boughs of a large oak tree, teleporting to join her.

“Do you know what occurs to me?” I greeted her with a small smile, my next planned words being about how she was of such quick wit and reflex that she would make a good fighter.

Her quick wit was quicker than I. “That neither sleep nor privacy are sacred with you around?”

“Ach,” I sighed, “don’t tell me you’re still so upset about that . . .” I grimaced. This wasn’t going the way I wanted it to go . . .

“Hey, I wasn’t the one trying to get a free show,” she glowered at me and tucked herself tighter into her coat.

“Look, it wasn’t intentional, first of all,” I sighed, spreading my hands before her. “I thought you’d be more startled if I let you know I was there earlier. And second, you’re very beautiful. Consider it a compliment.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed, letting me know I’d just dug the hole deeper. “You’re male – you’re biologically programmed to stare at anything with curves.”

“You really believe that?” I asked softly, studying her face intently, my tail absently swishing behind me for counter-balance on the branch. If she really believed that I would have a very hard time mending the fences because it would mean she saw me as nothing more than some kind of beast.

“Well, it’s that or you’re a chauvinistic asshole,” she confirmed my fear for me, attempting to stare me down. “Which do you prefer?”

I personally preferred neither of them, but if she insisted upon seeing me as an animal of some kind, that’s exactly what she was going to get from now on. I decided it was time for a long-overdue shift in the balance of power, a reminder to her of just who here was in charge. “I’ve been very charitable with you,” I reminded her softly as I moved fluidly into her personal space, utilizing the light to make my appearance more sinister. I saw her flinch and smiled a little wider; she was uncomfortable. Good. “Perhaps you’d like it better if I dropped you off at the next extermination camp we pass,” I purred in a mock-soothing tone, which really made her twitch.

“You wouldn’t,” she whispered, paling. “You need me to guide you.”

“I’ve seen enough and you’re a liability,” I smiled so that a hint of my canines showed. I reached up with my tail to touch her wounded neck. “You can’t defend yourself and you complain that I’ve taken one small liberty when anyone else would demand more from you.” I kept my eyes locked to hers, drinking in her growing fear as it welled up to be swallowed down nervously. I took in every little nuance of her fear – how her eyelids barely twitched, her pupils constricted in alertness, her lips faintly trembled, her nostrils flared in an unconscious reversion to primal instinct. I was a wild and dangerous animal within killing reach and she knew it plainly now . . . I felt adrenaline surge through me at the thrill of such conflict. I was, in some ways, my father’s son after all. Making her react like this was giving me a very heady rush. “You presume too much,” I smiled wider, reeling her the rest of the way in. “I can extract information from anyone I want and make sure they never speak of me. And you, my dear,” I taunted her with the endearment, “would not be missed.”

She seemed to be fighting for breath but managed to ask me why I was allowing her to tag along if she were such a danger to me. I didn’t answer her; I just kept starting at her before climbing down the tree. I hoped she was left with the impression that she should worry about why I would keep her after this rather than the fact that I really didn’t have an answer to that all of a sudden. I still had no intentions of raping her and really, if I didn’t need her for anything else, why else would I keep her company?

I heard something small and heavy hit the ground to my left along with her demand for me to answer her question. I took a deep breath and kept walking, genuine anger beginning to surface when another rock got thrown at me. At least she was a poor aim. “Why are you doing this?” she called after me as the second stone hit the ground. Then her aim improved in a way that bruised my right shoulder. I growled when she finally hit me and turned around, teleported over to her and grabbed her around her biceps, and teleported us both back to the tree where I thrust her away from me and into the trunk. “Why are you being such a monster?” she shouted at me.

A monster, eh? It wasn’t even a fully-formed thought at the time, but her choice of words combined with her choice of ammunition reminded me of several unpleasant childhood memories and I squeezed harder on her arms. She was so petite it really was a wonder that I didn’t snap her bones right then. “Don’t ever throw anything at me again,” I snarled, teeth bared.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked again, refusing to be distracted from her questions.

“I’m wondering that myself,” I answered truthfully.

“Then get rid of me,” her voice shook. “What are you waiting for?”

“Be careful what you ask for,” I tried to intimidate her again now that she was regaining her courage. I kept perhaps a centimeter between our faces as I spoke and considered forcing a kiss on her – merely to keep her on eggshells, I tried to tell myself, but as she continued to stare up at me I realized that her courage was quite appealing to me. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had stood up to me when my temper had flared like this, not even among the X-Men. Usually everyone stayed out of my way until I cooled back down; it had been considered a death wish to cross me when I was pissed off . . . And yet, the very thing that had been so intensely amusing only hours ago was almost too enticing to bear.

“You won’t do it,” she finally spoke, pegging me dead-on. “I don’t know what’s been bothering you and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. Just don’t take it out on me.” Her fear was gone now, replaced by irritated determination. It wasn’t even anger anymore! It was as though I were suddenly a small child and she was the disciplining mother who was unwilling to put up with another temper tantrum. And just as suddenly I was unable to maintain my own anger and I looked away from her, silently admitting that I was wrong. “I’m going back to bed, such as it is,” she continued firmly. “me kme know when I wake up if we should split up or what.”

And with that she shrugged out of my grip and climbed back up the tree to tuck in for the morning. I sighed and walked away, spreading out my bedroll and throwing myself down upon the covers. The only thing immediately cleo meo me was that I didn’t want her to go. Working out exactly why that was took a lot longer and involved a long walk while she slept.