Xmen is the trademarked property of Marvel, all Marvel Characters are copyrighted to Marvel, their characters are borrowed, for the purposes of the story.
This is a work of Gay fiction, containing adult situations between consenting males. If you are under the legal age in your country, DO NOT CONTINUE, otherwise, I hope you enjoy.
Weaver X
Chapter 4
A piercing blast of sound shocked Alex out of a sound sleep. Cursing and squeezing his hands over his ears, he struggled down the stairs in the direction of the sound. It got louder and louder, until finally, as he entered the kitchen, he thought his head was going to explode from the noise. Grabbing a tea towel, he wound it around his head like a turban, in a mostly futile attempt to keep out the noise.
Stumbling blindly towards the noise, he found a shelf in the pantry had swung open, revealing a door. Hurriedly, pressing his hands over his ears, Alex wove a ward against sound almost instinctively. Sighing at the relief, he cautiously moved down the stairs into a small room. Looking around he found a slit of light coming from under yet another shelf, evidence of a room beyond. After some searching, he found a partially hidden catch and walked into what was evidently some kind of waiting room for Dimitri's patients, most of them wouldn't have been able to walk down a street in full daylight, their mutations had altered their physical forms so. However, each of them lay on the floor, obviously the sonic onslaught had rendered them all unconscious.
Alex moved quickly, if these people were unconscious and that sound was coming from a patient. Moving across to a closed door, Alex flung it open. Dimitri was laying unmoving on the ground, and the noise seemed to be coming from a patient, also unconscious, propped up on an examination table.
Instinct seemed to take over and Alex, crossing the space between he and the patient, lay a gentle hand on her forehead, seizing his mutant abilities, wove them in an unfamiliar pattern. The moment the weave touched the patient, sensations of blockages and wrongness flooded through Alex's perceptions. This mutant was ill, seriously ill. Without thought the initial weave shifted into another and the mutant on the table began to thrash about, shuddering and gasping as Alex's weave sunk into her. Alex watched as the thrashing subsided and rewove the first weave, the one that told him about her health problems, the only sensation that arose from it was one of health.
Sighing Alex stood back slightly and unravelled his sound ward cautiously. There was nothing beyond the even sounds of breathing. Making sure that the mutant woman was still unconscious, although it seemed more like a natural sleep instead of unconsciousness, Alex bent over and examined Dimitri.
Turning the physician over he noticed blood pooling around Dimitri's head. Alex wasn't a doctor, but something in his memory told him that blood coming from someone's ears was never a good sign. Swearing softly, he touched a hand to Dimitri's unconscious form and wove the diagnostic weave once more. His injuries seemed to be more serious than the mutant who'd inadvertently caused all the trouble. Frowning, he formed the healing weave once more and let it sink into Dimitri.
Something felt different this time though. Alex stopped the weave and formed the diagnostic weave once more. Closing his eyes, he focussed on the sensations pouring through it. Sitting up he thought for a long moment and allowed his instincts to take over.
Almost all of the weaves that Alex knew were things he'd done instinctively. Hiding from a murderous mob of drunken idiots, he'd woven silence and invisibility wards without thought, lost in the sewers back home in pitch darkness, he'd woven a ball of light, another time, stuck as a tunnel collapsed, he'd woven a personal shield.after he'd done something instinctively, he could automatically replicate it, and it wasn't the only way he learnt how to weave things, some of the other weaves he'd gone and figured out for himself, but it seemed that everything he truly needed came from some place deep within him. And it worked once more.
Alex wove a constantly altering pattern of each of the elements as he healed Dimitri. Letting his instincts guide him, he almost lost his grasp on his power altogether when he noticed a fifth element in amongst the four he was used to. Holding his weave steady, Alex thought furiously. He couldn't ever remember there being a fifth part to his power...memory snagged, the fifth element, he'd used it in the diagnostic weave, and the healing of the mutant woman. In his worry and haste, he hadn't noticed it. A change in the feel of the weave notified Alex that the healing of Dimitri was complete, and he ran the diagnostic weave through Dimitri's still unconscious form. It came back just as positive as the mutant woman's had earlier.
Breathing hard, Alex straightened and eyed the woman on the examination bench. She still seemed out of it. Quickly, Alex walked out of the examination room and closed the door behind him. A cursory look over the patients still waiting reassured Alex that they were all just suffering the effects of sonic overload, and once Dimitri woke up, he'd be able to take care of them all. Hurrying, he scaled the stairs and heard the sounds of the doorbell.
Cursing under his breath, and reminding himself to tell Dimitri to get some sort of super sound proofing done, he mussed up his hair, trying to look like he'd just gotten out of bed he opened the front door to two stern looking cops.
"Can I help you?" Alex made his voice rough, trying to imitate the sounds of the freshly woken.
"Sorry to disturb you sir, but the neighbours were complaining of a loud noise coming from the house. Is everything ok?" The first cop, a good looking Mediterranean man asked politely, while his partner, who glared at Alex with piercing blue eyes, stood slightly behind and beside him.
Alex feigned a yawn and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "I'm sorry?"
"Your neighbours complained about a piercing, loud sound coming from the house." The second officer repeated.
"The only piercing noise I noticed was the doorbell." Alex said dryly. "But then again I could sleep through a jackhammer going off next to my head."
"I see." The Mediterranean officer said in tones just as dry as Alex's. "Do you mind if we take a look around?"
Alex raised an eyebrow sardonically. "Sure." He swung the door open. "Help yourselves."
"Thankyou." The Mediterranean officer, walked in, taking his cap off, followed by his partner. "I'm Officer Parkman and my partner is Officer Lewis."
"I know." Alex looked pointedly at his name tag and closed the door behind them. A quick glance at the clock revealed the time. "If you need me for anything, I'm going to make some coffee. Kitchen, lounge, dining room and laundry are all on the ground floor, bedrooms are all on the second and third, knock yourselves out."
Parkman looked mildly surprised. "Thanks." Nodding to his partner they walked up the stairs and out of sight.
As soon as they were gone, Alex walked swiftly into the pantry and slid the shelf/door closed. Sighing and leaning his head against a shelf for a moment, he gathered his nerves. People living on the street and/or engaging in the oldest profession in the world quickly learnt to be wary of cops, right now, Alex needed to be calm and put on the best show in the world. Straightening up, he grabbed a can of instant coffee and set the kettle to boil.
No sooner had the kettle finished boiling than the two cops entered the kitchen, their search over. "Would either of you like a coffee?" Alex asked, as he poured the hot water into his own cup.
"No thanks." Lewis said in a soft voice. "Parkman?"
"I will, if you don't mind." Parkman replied, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
"How do you have it?" Alex asked, cursing himself internally for speaking without thinking and reaching for another cup, the last thing he wanted was for the cops to stick around.
"Milk and two sugars." Parkman sat back in his chair and watched Alex head to the fridge for the milk. "Thanks for letting us take a look around and sorry for the inconvenience. It must have been some kids or a mutant messing around."
Alex stirred the coffee and handed it over to the waiting police officer. "Please sit down Officer Lewis." He invited abstractedly. "Do you have a lot of problems with mutants messing around?" He asked dryly.
"You could call it that." Lewis muttered darkly.
Parkman looked at his partner sharply. "Sometimes, it isn't a really big deal most of the time." He took an experimental sip of his coffee and grinned. "I needed that." He sighed appreciatively.
Alex nodded thoughtfully and took a mouthful of his coffee. "I wouldn't have thought that there would be too many problems with mutants and normal people in a city famed for its accepting ways." He said neutrally.
Parkman set his cup down on the table carefully. "Some mutants just want to cause problems, just like some humans, that means we've gotta get involved and that's where it gets a lot more difficult. A man with a gun, that's one thing, a man who doesn't need one, just needs to think and we're all goners, that's a problem." His eyes bored into Alex's eyes.
Alex put his cup down slowly. "I'm not a mutant, but wouldn't it work if you had some on the police force, just to deal with troublemaking mutants, I mean." He shrugged eloquently. "At least they'd have a defence against whatever was happening."
Lewis coughed violently. "Better get going." He muttered to Parkman.
Parkman nodded and stood slowly. "Thanks for the coffee." He said shortly and walked down the hall, Lewis following close behind.
Alex trailed them to the front door. There was a moment of awkwardness as Parkman went to say something, then thought better of it and walked over to the patrol car. Lewis hesitated.
"Be careful what you say." He muttered, then followed Parkman to the car.
Alex watched them leave, then closed the door with relief. Leaning against it, he took a deep breath.
"You're a good actor." Alex jumped at the sound of Eloise's voice.
"How long have you been there?" He demanded.
"I got here just after they did." Eloise stepped out of the darkness in the lounge. "Glad to see you didn't disappoint me."
Alex rolled his eyes at the implicit threat in her voice. "So now you know that I won't rat Dimitri out, do you want coffee?"
"No, I'm going to check that everything's alright with Dimitri." She paused. "What happened?"
"I don't know." Alex replied truthfully. "I got woken by that sound the cops were investigating. Someone must have done something, because it didn't last for too long."
Eloise looked at him oddly for a moment. "Well, at least you're not a liar kid." She grinned evilly. "Get going on that coffee, Dimitri will probably want some, and none of that instant crap, the good stuff's in the pantry, at the back."
Alex reeled with shock. Eloise could tell if someone was a liar? Thoughts raced frantically in his head for a moment...obviously, if she could tell if someone was lying, she couldn't tell if it was only partial truth, or not stictly the truth, something to be relieved about. Shaking himself to, he went back into the kitchen and prepared another batch of coffee.
As the weeks passed and the incident, as Alex took to calling it in the privacy of his own head, seemed to pass without comment, but Alex was becoming more and more frustrated with his inability to find work. Worse, once or twice he seemed to catch a glimpse of someone following him around the city.
Since the incident, he hadn't used his powers at all, not even to experiment with them. Somehow, it just seemed too risky. More than once, he thought of telling Dimitri what he was, but habit made secrecy to hard to break, so he kept his silence.
Alex walked slowly back to the house. Another day of interviews and no success made his feet like lead. Early in the morning, he'd counted his remaining money, enough to keep going for a little while longer, but not enough by far.
"Keep walking." A voice from behind him said suddenly and quietly. "Don't make a scene and don't even think about running away, it would go very badly for you."
Alex stiffened. "Who are you?" He hissed as he walked up the hill, frantically trying to figure out a way to escape the man behind him without resorting to using his powers in broad daylight.
"No one you need to worry about." The man said harshly. "Just keep going and don't get in the way."
Alex marched up the hill, trying to get a glimpse of the man in a window. He got nothing except for brief images of a dark haired man in a grey suit. Alex stopped at the gate. "What do you want?" He asked stubbornly, willing his neighbours to see him, realise something was wrong.
Something sharp pressed against his spine and Alex stiffened as the point of a knife sliced through his shirt and nicked his skin. "I want you to not make a scene, to walk into that house quietly and do what you are told." The man said, a smile in his voice. "It would be my pleasure to kill you, but if you do what you're told, I won't have to."
Alex felt ice pouring down his spine and did what he was told, his mind turning blank with fear. Together they walked up to the door and opening it, Alex was pushed in, the door shutting behind them. Alex fell onto the floor and stared at his assailant. Officer Parkman.
Parkman locked the door and smiled viciously at Alex. "Got the package." He yelled.
Alex heard footsteps and twisting, saw army men, weapons swaying lazily at their sides approaching. "What's going on?" He asked, frantically wondering what had happened to Dimitri. In the last few weeks he had grown to love the older man like the brother he'd never had.
"None of your business." Parkman snapped nastily and nodded to one of the men.
Alex turned his head in time to see a boot swinging towards his face, then everything turned black and red with pain...
AUTHORS NOTE: Ok, I know, asking for feedback is typical and gets to sound like a broken record. You all see it, all the time. The thing is, feeback is what lets an author know that his (or her) work is good, that people are interested and that they should continue on with the story. So, to the 13 people who've already given me feedback, thankyou!! This work is now dedicated to you, you know who you are =), I thank you for your words of kind encouragement. To the rest of you, let me know what you think, ok? =)