Release, Part Sixteen

by Tangerine

Touch, the act of touch, to feel it stung and burned. To be touched was to be violated. To be touched was to be raped. To be touched was to die, but to be stroked, to feel gentle hands upon sore and weary flesh, was to be saved. He could feel the tender gesture before he was awake. In his dreams, he felt the movement of delicate fingers across his face, caressing like a soft breeze. It was almost heaven. It would have been, if he had died. If...

The pain was there before he even recalled what pain felt to the senses. Instinctively, he knew where he was and why he was there, though he wished the knowledge away. He remembered his brief moments of consciousness before convincing himself he was dead. Bobby must have come for him; Bobby must have saved him. He was salvation...

His eyes opened slowly, painfully to a cruel world, and it was like emerging from the womb, like being violently forced from it. He had been so close to that sweet place of oblivion, so tragically close to a never-ending state of peace and freedom, but as always, his mortal life begged to be lived and could not be denied.

"Warren?" The voice of an Angel carried on sweet lips of passion and love. It hurt to hear it, and he wished the sound to leave, to let him die in peace, to leave him deaf and protected. "Warren, luv, I'm here."

As much as he wished her away, he knew the pain would be far greater if she left. To be without her, was to be without his arms, or his eyes, his mind, his soul. To cleave them was to destroy a whole. He wanted so much now to speak to her in response, to assure her of his love, but the words would not come to his parched lips.

Her hands swept over his face, brushing golden hair away from his angelic face. Her fingertips grazed his lips, and his kissed them softly. She paused in her journey, her head swooping down to kiss the side of his face. "I love you, Warren, I love you."

She straightened her body, resuming her petting. He grew tired and wearied once more as the drain on his system increased. It hurt so much to be alive, but right now, cradled in the arms of his lover, he could wish for nothing else.

* * *

When Bobby returned home, it was late morning and a day later. The mansion was still abandoned, and Gambit was nowhere to be found a whole two days after the fact. Bobby hadn't expected anything more from him. The Cajun had the tendency to be missing for days when he was needed.

Bobby wanted nothing more than to eat, take a shower and sleep. The last couple days had been long and torturous. Candy was buried where she should have been, a huge ice shovel taking care of the deed in only minutes. In his opinion, it was a stupid use of his power, and he had felt like a graverobber doing it, but he could think of no other way to go about it. It had taken hours more to clean the loft, to scrub it pure of all the evil and despair that festered and grew there, and yet, he knew he would never clean his soul of what he had viewed there.

Travelling into the quiet house, he walked immediately to the kitchen to retrieve some food before falling asleep. He peered out into the vast yard, and the sight he was confounded with stunned him. Warren was there with Betsy, and together they sat in basking in the sun. They weren't speaking. They were simply sitting, arms entwined as if it hurt to be apart but bodies separated as if it hurt to be together. It was obvious something was terribly wrong with them.

Quietly, he went out into the morning sun, stepping up behind them. Betsy looked his way, her eyes inviting him over. In the sunlight, she looked so pure and beautiful, but he had seen what ugliness the shadows had brought to her. He could never forget that horror.

"We're going to England," Betsy said, staring out across the small lake as it glistened in the light of the new day. It seemed wonderfully protected from the harsh darkness of the last few nights. "We both need time to heal."

Bobby nodded slightly, catching Warren's eye. His skin, once blue and vivid, was now a dull grey. His eyes were still cold, still beautiful, but something drastic had changed. They no longer held the joy life in them. Even his golden locks seemed changed, for they hung without spice over his eyes, messy and dishevelled.

"When are you leaving?"

"Now," Warren whispered with a cracked voice, leaning away from Betsy's body as if he suddenly feared her touch. Bobby noticed how carefully he moved, how straight he sat as if he feared arching his back. The pain was probably incredible.

"What am I supposed to tell the others when they return?"

Betsy frowned, looking to the ground. It became obvious to Bobby that this had not been her idea originally. "Nothing."

Bobby's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Nothing?"

"I don't want them to know," Warren murmured, closing his azure eyes. "I don't want them to know why we left. I don't want them to know I . . . lost the... wings again. I don't want them to know anything."

Bobby paled as he gaped in shock at the ridiculous plan. "You can't possibly hope to hide this from them! You can't stay in England forever, and when you come back, they're going to realise something's up. This is wrong, Warren, they deserve to know!"

"No," Warren responded softly, shaking his head painstakingly. Despairingly, he turned his lifeless blue eyes to Bobby. His face held no emotion, but within his eyes was held the suffering of the world. "They deserve nothing more than what I have given them, and... I... will not be coming back, Bobby."

Bobby wished he could close his ears to those terrible words. He knew death, not intimately, but he knew of it. Warren had died once before, and he remembered how it felt to have somebody he had known for years to be viciously sucked away in an instant. It was a horrible feeling, something he wanted never to feel again, yet here it was again, knocking at his door, and he realised he could never escape it. "Don't say that, Warren, please."

"Anything else would be a lie."

Bobby wanted to scream at his rational response, but he mustered a simple, "then lie to me. I don't want to know! Everybody else gets to live without knowing the truth, but what if that's what I want, too? Huh? What if?"

"I can erase your memories if you wish it," Betsy said quietly, her accent soft and gentle, and it calmed Bobby somewhat, but he still felt as if he would burst. "Bobby, you have got to understand, essentially, this is for the best. It would only hurt them to know anything else."

"And it doesn't hurt me?" Bobby asked with a hushed voice, and suddenly, for the first time in years, he was cold. Shivering, he pulled his sweater close to his freezing body. To be cold alarmed him greatly, no, to be cold terrified him.

"No, I don't want to forget. Forgetting would be worse. Forgetting would be far, far worse."

* * *

Hours later, Bobby stood outside in the late-autumn night, still cold and shivering because of it. He wore several sweaters and a coat, but he could not stop shaking. Betsy was too busy to notice, packing Warren's town car full of bags and suitcases. Warren sat on the bench out front, staring at the ground with blank eyes, leaning slightly forward with his hands places firmly beside him. Bobby walked over and sat beside him.

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

Warren nodded slowly, closing his eyes.

"I think this is so wrong, Warren, so, so wrong," Bobby muttered, but Warren refused to give any recognition to the words, and Bobby knew he was beyond caring. He cocked his head slightly, staring straight at the pale man he had known for almost eight years.

Warren hadn't changed much since that innocent time. He had not grown taller nor had his voice deepened nor had he grew into a man before Bobby's eyes. Warren had come to the school a man at eighteen and had, in turn, witnessed Bobby's grow to maturity.

Back then, there had been such a radical difference between the two, so much so that they used to bicker constantly. Bobby had never hated him, disliked certainly, but there was never any malicious intent involved. It was nearer to sibling rivalry as both had grown up as single children in unsteady households, Bobby's a life of bigotry and hate, Warren's a life of apathy and ignorance.

They had seen so many things together. They had travelled to other planets, other solar systems and dimension. They had suffered through pain and sadness together, both helping the other without even realising it. They were not the best of friends, but Bobby thought that if he was to have an older brother, he'd like him to be like Warren.

Though Bobby knew Warren was suffering in silence, utterly lost in despair, he also knew Warren could live through it, would be able to push beyond everything again and realise that who he was hadn't been lost or killed because Warren was, after all, a survivor.

But he wasn't going to survive this. He was going to die.

"I'm never going to see you again, am I?" Bobby asked rhetorically, but a part of him wanted the real answer, too. He needed to hear it from Warren's mouth, to hear one of his oldest friends admit his time was ebbing away, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Warren shook his head and looked to Bobby, the blue eyes that had survived and seen more than Bobby could imagine, staring at him. "No, you won't."

The words were whispered through a raspy voice, and Bobby turned away from Warren, brining a hand to shield his face. It was stupid of him to be crying at this. There was nothing these tears could do for Warren anymore.

"Damn you, Warren. Why the hell did you do this in the first place? Why the hell did you have to care so much about those damned wings?" Bobby demanded suddenly, and Betsy looked up sharply from the car, glaring at the harsh words, but Warren continued to stare ahead. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Yes," Warren muttered, and he turned to Bobby, grabbing his head in between his greyish hands, forcing him still with his thumbs. It became obvious to Bobby that it pained Warren even to speak, for the suffering was pooling deep in his eyes. "Bobby, I don't want to die, I never did. It was a horrible mistake. A mistake that, if I could, I'd take back. It was never supposed to happen this way."

Warren paused, gasping for breath as sharp stabs of pain darted through his body, but he retained his hold on Bobby, refusing to let go. "On my computer, the password mental butterfly, is the complete story. I want you to read it and know everything, to know every secret I was always so afraid to tell anybody. Promise me, you won't forget it. This must never happen again, to anybody."

Bobby attempted to hide his shock, but he failed miserably. Unsure of what Warren wished him to say, he simply nodded, and, in an action that both stunned Bobby and moved him to actual tears, Warren kissed his forehead. It was the strangest thing Bobby could have imagined, but it was an apt goodbye.

Betsy helped Warren to his feet, supporting his meagre weight as they walked slowly to the car. Bobby watched as the doors shut, and Betsy started the engine. Bobby waved weakly, his frame icy and cold. He hated the feeling that had somehow invaded his system, but more than anything, he feared it because he knew it was never going to go away, for it was the feeling Death left in its wake.

The window rolled down as the car drove slowly past Bobby. Warren's head appeared, and he smiled the most authentic smile Bobby had seen from him since Apocalypse. "See you later, Bobby, it's been fun." The window rolled up again, and the car lurched as it sped forward into the future.

Watching it, Bobby suddenly laughed at Warren's final, if not prophetic, words as the car drove out of his sight and screamed out, "someday, Warren, someday!"

Bobby laughed and laughed until his laughter was drowned out by his soulful, ragged sobs, and he collapsed on the lawn, weeping for what had been lost, pounding the grass in anger at what has been taken, and he whispered to the increasing wind:

"Someday."

* * *

The grandfather clock, left to Xavier by his grandfather, chimed as it hit midnight. Bobby sat in a large chair, quiet and alone in the darkness. A picture of the original X-Men sat on the table beside him, the light of the moon reflecting off the smooth glass.

The floor behind him creaked loudly, and Bobby turned his head slightly at the surprise of being disrupted, but his surprise quickly turned to anger. "Gambit? You fucking bastard, is that you?"

A cold, deep laugh resounded in response, and Bobby could not help but think of Jabba the Hutt as he heard it. The sound itself made his skin crawl and his blood run cold, and it did not take a genius to guess who it was.

"He isn't here," Bobby said to the darkness, remaining in place.

Bobby heard the pause, the contemplation. So the fucking madman didn't know his bird had flown the coupe. Some threat he was, some threat indeed if he couldn't track his own game. Bobby laughed bitterly, spitefully, and swivelled his head to smile at the hated enemy.

"He isn't here, Apocalypse, so why don't you just leave before I take it upon myself to kill you." Apocalypse didn't move, but simply stood there in the darkness, looking menacing. Bobby wasn't going to fall for it, so the cold crept slowly upon his body, swiping flesh for ice.

"My son has run away, has he?" Apocalypse laughed again, a dark, heartless chuckle, and the hate rose in Bobby's stomach, begging to be freed. "Does he honestly think he can escape me? Does he honestly think it is not within my power to retrieve him?"

"Do you honestly think he'd ever return to you?" Bobby challenged, rising from the chair, his breath haloing his head like smoke. "You don't give him enough credit, Apocalypse, he's stronger than even you realise. Accept that you have lost."

Apocalypse smiled, his blue lips stretching across his mechanical face. Bending his head in mock surrender, he turned from the young X-Man. "Make no mistake about it, Robert Drake, he is mine. He will always be mine."

Bobby growled deep in his throat, but in a blink of the eye, Apocalypse was gone, provided he had even been there in the first place. Bobby returned to the chair, reverting to human form once again. He sat down and stared at the clock as time continued to slip slowly away.

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