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NOTE: Logan’s nightmare: death of Remy. - Some characters from Neil Gaiman’s Sandmanwere adapted to some Xwomen and some were taken as they are. The landscape is the Sandman! 217;s. Alisa is the creation of Nicole Wagner. NOTE 2: Ask before putting in other archives, thank you. Feedback is the air authors breathe. We are odd so we welcome with open arms any kind of negative feedback too. THE LOGAN TAPES – Interlude – MOONCHILD DEATHCHILD I didn’t know where I was or why I was there. It was no place I had
ever seen before. It didn’t look like a place *anyone* had been in before. It
had that pellucid quality of the dawn of the world that says: ‘Here there be
dragons and many manners of beasts and monsters. Men there be not’. It had the crystal clear air of childhood, where everything is clearly
defined and tense, like a goblet ready to shatter. To tell the truth I scarcely knew who I was. I had an idea of me as a compact strength and a receiver of sense impressions. I got plenty. The smell… was complicated. Hard to read even for me. It was young and
vibrant and quiet and brooding, in a sense. Like a chick still inside the egg,
all potentiality, but no actuality. It was the smell of something almost ready to
manifest, waiting for the right moment. The sound was a slow humming vibration permeating everything. Life
wanting out. The air tasted like winter the day before it becomes spring. There was all this blasted immanence around me and I scarcely knew who
I was. I started to walk, only because standing still had become a burden, but
I didn’t know where I was going, or even if there was a where to go to. Things were changing as I walked, not in appearance, but in my
perception of them. Winter became spring and spring summer and still the life I felt
brooding had not broken its shell. The air became oppressive, the smell miasmatic, the sounds a vibration
that impeded breathing. I had to stop and nothing had changed around me, only my perception of
it. I extracted my claws, not afraid, no, but so wary I had to have them
out. I could do nothing but wait. Breathless. And then the white clad Ororo with the voice of a child, her white hair
riding hard the mighty wind that can change the shape of the world chanted: “Nightborn, Moonborn” Then Jean spoke, fiery sparkling
standard of womankind: “Darkborn, Fireborn” Then Rogue, but she was old but she was young but she was a hag of
darkness: “Earthborn, Streetborn” And all three of them started to weave in and out and over and down and
I couldn’t stop looking at them fascinated and, now, afraid. “Come to me now, Moonchild” “To my open arms, Wildchild” “Into my dark womb, Deathchild” I knew at that word I had to stop them, to stop the chant, because it
was a deathsong that would reeve me from my heart, but I didn’t know whom they
talking about. “Here where all is silver peace” “Gentle sands and lulling seas” “Warm and moist, here hide you tears.” But it was my soul, my very life they were ravishing away and I started
yelling “NO! STOP IT GIRLS! NO MORE! NO MORE! I had better screamed at the sky for all the attention they gave me,
their dance was implacable and impersonal as fate, their dance was something
outside them, they were there to perform it, not to guide it. “Here I’ll wash away your pain” “With my heart-tears’ tender rain” “Come to rest in my domain.” And they disappeared and for the first time a measure of peace came to
me and I thought ‘Dream. This is just a dream. Weather it out if you can’t wake
up, Logan.’ And I knew who I was. Logan, the Wolverine, worried about his kid and dreaming to sieve the
bad thoughts out. Okay, this I could stand. I was no stranger to dreams and nightmares.
‘Dream on, Wolverine, be unafraid.’ A flight of multicoloured butterflies enveloped me, a laughter, a sweet
generous presence and I saw them. Alisa and Remy were playing in a meadow. She made butterflies and he touched their wings so they fizzed. Alisa laughed and made some more. Suddenly she looked at me and smiled. I was breathless with wonder, her face was clean, no scars, no nothing,
except her wide happy smile and a loopy hairstyle. “Logan!” she called and waved. So I went near them, all dream omens forgotten. “Logan!” she called clear and bubbly “Come see what we’re doing!” “Nice butterflies, hon.” I said and she smiled like the promise of
summer and gurgled “I can do froggies too.” Remy laughed and gurgled in her exact tones “Do froggies, ‘Lisa, do froggies for Remy!” I was happy, but also uneasy because his voice was too much like a
parody of hers. And froggies were suddenly everywhere, red, blue, yellow, green and
purple froggies. And they were laughter were tears were sleep were excitement
were sad. Alisa’s hair was shaved fuzz-short on one side, long and
green-red-blue-yellow on the other. She was so delicious I wanted to eat her… Ah. Well, not exactly, but she was butterflies and froggies and marzipan
and cider and fishes and a lot of other things that confused me to hell. I jumped back and she crooned sweet as honey, lethal as cyanide: “Logan,
dear Logan what is the name of the thing people do when they want to make some
other people safe?” For the life of me I couldn’t answer. “What *is* that name? It’s something quite scrunchy, but I cannot
remember.” “Help?” I rasped “Succour?” “Maybe” she sung moodily, and then she brightened “But
whatever-the-name-is do it for my brother, Logan, do it for Remy.” And suddenly I was in a room full of Remy. He was everywhere, wearing
all the paraphernalia of S/M. Corsets, dog-collars, chains, fishnet stockings…
he was so very sexy I thought I was going to cum right there and then. Except that there were far too many of him. Remy said: “He loved me in the slammer, but maybe I dreamed that.” Remy said: “I felt his man-arse all tight and unwilling open up for my
cock, but that was a dream.” Remy said: “I wish he would perform his Double Helix for me, but now is
not then.” Remy said: “That was just the slammer, where you do things in the dark
to forget solitude and fears.” Remy said: “Dahling, when God put teeth in your mouth, he ruined a
perfectly good asshole!” Remy said: “*Don’t* want me, then, see if I care…” And I was in a meadow and Remy was running for dear life and all he had
on was his duster and nothing else. ‘Wet dream?’ I thought, fleetingly, then
seeing what was after him I changed my mind. Running after my – not mine, unfortunately, never mine it seemed -
Rogue’s Cajun was a willowy sexy boy in a vest and jeans, a blinding smile and
two little mouths with pointed teeth instead of eyes. Nightmare then. Gambit was running throwing things at the monster that exploded in
coloured confetti. “Alisa!” I screamed, I was sure that could only be her doing, and she
was before me, smiling crookedly and singsonging: “What is the name of the thing people do when they want to make some
other people safe?” “I don’t know, love.” I said, meaning it “Would you stop this please? I
really hate to see your brother in danger.” “But he’s in no danger here!” she laughed and a shower of butterflies
danced around my head “He’ll be in danger there! And you’ll have to do the
thing which-name-I-can’t-remember-now that people do when they want to make
some other people safe.” Okay, so breathing was not an option, so I had to gasp “Where? Where, love, where is he in danger?” I couldn’t stop loving him, see? Even in a dream-nightmare. “There,” she pointed with a long and trembling finger “there, Logan,
see?” And all that was left of her were some aimlessly jumping frogs. Suddenly there was this girl before me. Her skin was white, not pale
white or pasty white, no, she was paper white, chalk white. All the rest of her was black. Black hair, black irises in snow white, black lips, black skimpy trendy
clothes and black boots. She was young and ancient as time, and though she wore the Egyptian
symbol of eternal life, I knew at once who she was. She tilted her head to one side, the same gesture that had splintered
my heart a hundred times. “Remy!” I cried out and she said severely: “What have you done to my son?” Bewildered I could only repeat “Remy…” “Yes,” impatiently tapping her foot “Remy, my son. What have you done
to him?” I hung my head “I could not go, I was detained… I looked for him, but
not enough…” “Yes. And then?” “Then I didn’t tell him I loved him.” “Yes, and then?” “When he came to the mansion I never mentioned the slammer.” “And why?” “Because…” I didn’t really know, I never really understood why, but I
had to try because her gaze on me would not let me evade the issue “Because he
was… Because he went after Rogue, he was always after the women and I thought…” “He called you monsieur.” And she tilted her head again studying me. “I thought he didn’t want to remember, that he was just making sure I
would not mention it.” She mulled a bit on that and I could see she was really trying to see
my point of view. “But you have given him back to me with that.” She said, finally, and
her voice was sad and compassionate so I could not even get enraged. “Lady…” I murmured and she laughed lilting and impersonal “Not me, Wolverine.” And her mouth tilted in a half grin that I knew
only too well, the secret ironic tilt of a witty brain. “I am just myself. I am the ending of pain. I am the friend to the
lonely. “I am. “Wolverine, I just am.” What could I say to that? “I don’t want him dead, please…” “And how could you save him?” there is no humour or pity now, just the
essence. “With my own life” I breathed. And the three hags were chanting again, flying again, filling again the
air with their inevitability. “Nightborn, Moonborn” “Darkborn, Fireborn” “Earthborn, Streetborn” “Come to me now, Moonchild” “To my open arms, Wildchild” “Into my dark womb, Deathchild” “Here where all is silver peace” “Gentle sands and lulling seas” “Warm and moist, here hide you tears.” “Here I’ll wash away your pain” “With my heart-tears’ tender rain” “Come to rest in my domain.” I couldn’t see, couldn’t smell, couldn’t hear anything but the
deathchant, the moiraichant, the femalechant that would doom all I held dear in
the world to ashes. And… I saw him calling his power forth, more and more and more, and I
blanched. ‘Don’t do it kid, don’t do it, can’t you see they’re using you again?
Ain’t nobody cares for you but me, kid…’ did I say it aloud or not? Who cared,
I started to run to him but he was so far away… My legs are so short but I
pumped pumped pumped my short legs to get to him in time. He was there, his tender body his kid body spreadeagled like the
sacrificial victim he is. The evildoers were using him to destroy the planet,
the good guys were using him to save the planet, ‘*good* guys? They’ve set him up to die! What’s he to them all? A tool,
a doll to play with and throw away when bored’ “DON’T DO IT, KID!” this time I screamed it good and loud, a shout fit
to raise the dead that nobody heard in the tempest of crackling roaring energy
that was pouring forth from him “FUCK THE PLANET!” I screamed “FUCK THEM ALL, KID, SAVE YOURSELF!” But he did hear because he turned his crimson-hot head in my direction
a bit and smiled at me. I *knew* he was smiling at me even consumed in the
blazing furnace of his power. ‘I’ll never get there in time but I must try, if my lungs burst I must
try, to die in his flame, if nothing else.’ But I was too late. When I got there he was lying like a rag doll with
its stuffing out, bloody and broken and dying. He’s saved your fucking planet so rejoice. I threw myself by his side and cupped his nape in a shaking hand. He
was not dead yet, I could see that, but he was almost there. ‘Can he hear me? I have to tell him, God knows why I didn’t tell him
before, how fucked up can you be, Logan?’ But that was not the time to think on my shortcomings or my stupid
timidity, I had to tell him this and hoped he’d still be able to hear. “I wanted to come and pick you up, kid, I had it all ready for you and
me together, but we had problems on that sodding mission and it took me two
weeks to get back and it was too late, you had gone and I couldn’t find you,
kid, but I was gonna pick you up…” His remaining eye fluttered open and he looked at me. He shocked me
into silence and breathed “… monsieur…” “I’m here, kid, don’t die on me now…” But I knew he was dying and he knew it just as well. “I love you kid, always loved you kid.” I could see he was lucid and
gathering what strength he had left to say something so I waited
breathless and still not to disturb him. “… j’vous aime, monsieur …” it’s almost all air, this voice like spider
thread, impalpable and unbearably sweet. I didn’t really have to hear it to know what he was saying, but I head
it nonetheless and it pierced my heart “… I love you with all of my heart …” I bent to kiss his lips and kissed his death. He died in my mouth, I
felt his last breath in my mouth, and when I knew he couldn’t feel pain
anymore, I could clutch him to my heart and kiss kiss kiss kiss… - ‘My black sun is ashes, my red moon is rust, keep your fucking
planets and your fucking universes, slap your backs and jump up and down
because you’ve won the day, there’s no day to be won, no light left to see by,
the seas are dust and the lands are cinders and all is burnt to nothing. Keep
your fucking planets and your fucking universes, my universe is dead.’ THE END |