elspethdixon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elspethdixon) wrote2006-11-08 03:43 pm
elspethdixon) wrote2006-11-08 03:43 pm
Entry tags:
X-Men ficlet.
X-Men ficlet set post X-Men 187 (or during, really, pretending there's some time lapse before Sinister shows up to make Gambit his bitch again). I know I butchered the Trinity quote, but I left my French-English dictionary at home, and babelfish refused to translate either "destroyer" or "destruction" for me.
It took Remy a very long time—most of his adolescence, in fact—to become comfortable looking at himself in the mirror. To look himself in the eye and focus on the fact that, demon-eyes aside, he was one damn fine looking man. Looking other people in the eye took a little longer, but figuring out that he could get people to do what he wanted if he made eye contact and thought about it hard enough was a pretty good incentive.
La Mort does not look in mirrors. Famine—Sunfire—thinks that physical appearance is an earthly vanity to be set aside, that it does not matter what the rest of the world thinks of them, because only a fellow horseman can truly see them.
Sunfire is, he sometimes suspects, almost as crazy as Apocalypse was.
It physically hurts to think things like that, to doubt his former master, but Death never lies, even to himself.
Except that isn’t true. Death lies to everyone; cancers hiding in remission, viruses lurking in the bloodstream, age creeping up like the cold, grinning skull and dancing bones and smoked glasses to hide the empty sockets of his eyes.
(je suis devenu la mort, qui détruit des mondes)
He lifted a pair of shades the first time he and Sunfire went out to buy groceries—because even Death and Famine have to eat—sliding them from the rack beside the check-out counter when the cashier wasn’t looking. He’d slid them on his nose as they left the store, shielding his eyes from the sunlight, and told Sunfire that all he needed now was a top hat.
Sunfire had stared back at him blankly. Rogue would have gotten the joke.
(ma coeur est sa coeur, toujours… Non, elle est morte à moi.)
He’d thought the shades might make people stop staring at him, but no such luck. They still darted nervous glances at him, still crossed to the other side of the street rather than walk past him.
Remy had been a fine looking man with shades on, but Remy was gone, and La Mort had skin the blue-black color of a blacksnake’s scales, blue-black even on the soles of his feet, and not remotely human-colored. Le diable blanc become le diable noir. Sunfire didn’t let them go out much, so it took more of those nervous glances than it should have for him to realize that it wasn’t the inhuman color of his skin that got him those looks, but the darkness of it.
He would have wondered if it was like that for Bishop and Storm, but he wasn’t supposed to think about them anymore. He’d left them behind—non, betrayed them—and Death had no team, no family. No home, either, because the thieves guild’s tunnels were drowned and he’d left the mansion behind, and Sunfire had expended considerable energy making sure he didn’t slip up and refer to either place as “home.”
Remy had been comfortable with mirrors, once, but La Mort had dark skin and white hair, like Stormy’s, and she was supposed to be dead to him, so it was easier not to look in the mirror now.
It took Remy a very long time—most of his adolescence, in fact—to become comfortable looking at himself in the mirror. To look himself in the eye and focus on the fact that, demon-eyes aside, he was one damn fine looking man. Looking other people in the eye took a little longer, but figuring out that he could get people to do what he wanted if he made eye contact and thought about it hard enough was a pretty good incentive.
La Mort does not look in mirrors. Famine—Sunfire—thinks that physical appearance is an earthly vanity to be set aside, that it does not matter what the rest of the world thinks of them, because only a fellow horseman can truly see them.
Sunfire is, he sometimes suspects, almost as crazy as Apocalypse was.
It physically hurts to think things like that, to doubt his former master, but Death never lies, even to himself.
Except that isn’t true. Death lies to everyone; cancers hiding in remission, viruses lurking in the bloodstream, age creeping up like the cold, grinning skull and dancing bones and smoked glasses to hide the empty sockets of his eyes.
(je suis devenu la mort, qui détruit des mondes)
He lifted a pair of shades the first time he and Sunfire went out to buy groceries—because even Death and Famine have to eat—sliding them from the rack beside the check-out counter when the cashier wasn’t looking. He’d slid them on his nose as they left the store, shielding his eyes from the sunlight, and told Sunfire that all he needed now was a top hat.
Sunfire had stared back at him blankly. Rogue would have gotten the joke.
(ma coeur est sa coeur, toujours… Non, elle est morte à moi.)
He’d thought the shades might make people stop staring at him, but no such luck. They still darted nervous glances at him, still crossed to the other side of the street rather than walk past him.
Remy had been a fine looking man with shades on, but Remy was gone, and La Mort had skin the blue-black color of a blacksnake’s scales, blue-black even on the soles of his feet, and not remotely human-colored. Le diable blanc become le diable noir. Sunfire didn’t let them go out much, so it took more of those nervous glances than it should have for him to realize that it wasn’t the inhuman color of his skin that got him those looks, but the darkness of it.
He would have wondered if it was like that for Bishop and Storm, but he wasn’t supposed to think about them anymore. He’d left them behind—non, betrayed them—and Death had no team, no family. No home, either, because the thieves guild’s tunnels were drowned and he’d left the mansion behind, and Sunfire had expended considerable energy making sure he didn’t slip up and refer to either place as “home.”
Remy had been comfortable with mirrors, once, but La Mort had dark skin and white hair, like Stormy’s, and she was supposed to be dead to him, so it was easier not to look in the mirror now.