TM Prompt 265 What did you dream last night?
His dreams are all memories.
wicked tongue
He has nightmares that stretch beyond that childish term, verging on true physical pain when he revisits those cold blue eyes, colder iron against his hands. He flinches at the thought of the man he was - bigoted, scared, human - and the memory of what they'd made him.
The rush of adrenaline, air around his body, water that batters and consumes him... Escape brings more fear than relief, and then a euphoria that scares him even more.
He survives, but he does not wake up.
we're not what you think
He dreams with his eyes open, feeling eyes behind his own, a perspective, a way of thinking that is so alien to him it makes him choke on air. Not just a voice in his head, but a man, making him see again, making him examine every moment, every angle, of his own torture.
He's tried everything to suppress even one detail, but Xavier's left him with everything. Every damn second.
He dies, and lives, and does not wake up.
where's the mutant?
He lives through someone else's nightmare, learns acutely what it is to be a mutant, what it is to be afraid. A human dies for him, and a mutant saves his life, and he can no longer tell the difference. In his mind, although he reaches for detail and for meaning, it remains a bloody smear.
He wants change, desperately, but he knows fear better than heroism. He knows the chill of those iron bars, the hatred in blue eyes.
He survives, but he does not wake up.
we've been better than this
He dies on the senate floor. In his nightmares, his blood is hot and thick and red, and not the water he knows it was. He struggles to live, to live as a mutant, knowing that his wife and his daughter and his baby son may already be dead. It is the longest day of his life, a day he could grow old reliving.
He comes back to them, to all of them, something less than a hero. Nothing has changed but the scar in his shoulder, and scars in his mind he can never erase.
He dies, and lives, and does not wake up.
not the one you want
He dreams of his children, of life, of a normality he's never had. He dreams of Beth drawing on the porch, inspiring the world with tales of superheroes even more valiant and daring than those she's met. He dreams of Dylan puzzling over his ABCs and growing up as much in the ocean as on dry land.
He dreams memories of refusing the greatest offer he's ever had, of knowing that it's not for him, of knowing, finally, what is.
Gradually, his eyes are starting to open.
wicked tongue
He has nightmares that stretch beyond that childish term, verging on true physical pain when he revisits those cold blue eyes, colder iron against his hands. He flinches at the thought of the man he was - bigoted, scared, human - and the memory of what they'd made him.
The rush of adrenaline, air around his body, water that batters and consumes him... Escape brings more fear than relief, and then a euphoria that scares him even more.
He survives, but he does not wake up.
we're not what you think
He dreams with his eyes open, feeling eyes behind his own, a perspective, a way of thinking that is so alien to him it makes him choke on air. Not just a voice in his head, but a man, making him see again, making him examine every moment, every angle, of his own torture.
He's tried everything to suppress even one detail, but Xavier's left him with everything. Every damn second.
He dies, and lives, and does not wake up.
where's the mutant?
He lives through someone else's nightmare, learns acutely what it is to be a mutant, what it is to be afraid. A human dies for him, and a mutant saves his life, and he can no longer tell the difference. In his mind, although he reaches for detail and for meaning, it remains a bloody smear.
He wants change, desperately, but he knows fear better than heroism. He knows the chill of those iron bars, the hatred in blue eyes.
He survives, but he does not wake up.
we've been better than this
He dies on the senate floor. In his nightmares, his blood is hot and thick and red, and not the water he knows it was. He struggles to live, to live as a mutant, knowing that his wife and his daughter and his baby son may already be dead. It is the longest day of his life, a day he could grow old reliving.
He comes back to them, to all of them, something less than a hero. Nothing has changed but the scar in his shoulder, and scars in his mind he can never erase.
He dies, and lives, and does not wake up.
not the one you want
He dreams of his children, of life, of a normality he's never had. He dreams of Beth drawing on the porch, inspiring the world with tales of superheroes even more valiant and daring than those she's met. He dreams of Dylan puzzling over his ABCs and growing up as much in the ocean as on dry land.
He dreams memories of refusing the greatest offer he's ever had, of knowing that it's not for him, of knowing, finally, what is.
Gradually, his eyes are starting to open.