Duet

by Alicia McKenzie

The city was almost beautiful from up here. A shimmering, jewel-studded, magical place, almost surreal. Only from here, though. Only at a distance. If you got closer, you could see the shadows. The filthy alleys of huddled human refuse. The darkness, that no light touched.

"Having trouble sleeping, kid?"

Nate Grey whirled with a snarl, instinctively drawing on his telekinesis, ready to hurl whatever came to hand at the person who dared to intrude on his solitude. But as he saw the tall, silver-haired man sitting in the corner of his bedroom, his shoulders slumped, a whimper of hopeless defeat escaping him as he let go of his TK.

"Go away." It was a plea, not a demand. "Please--just leave me alone."

Cable leaned forward slightly, expression thoughtful as he regarded Nate. "Or you'll what?" he inquired, mildly. Almost gently.

"I--I'll--" Nate's voice broke and he turned away, back to the view of the city. "I don't have to listen to you. You don't know--you don't understand--"

"What's to understand?" Cable rose, joined him at the window. "I hate this place," he murmured, staring down at the city. "Always did."

Nate opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again, helplessly. He had always thought of the city as a wonder. A dream. Something that never would have been possible, in his world.

"Right," Cable murmured wryly, glancing down at him, his left eye glowing fitfully in the dark. "Paradise. You don't have the life experience to make that sort of judgement. Just shows how naive you really are."

Nate bristled, turning away. "How dare you?" he snarled, reaching up to push his hair out of his eyes. "You don't--" He trailed off, stricken, as he saw what was on his hands. Smelled it.

He barely made it into the bathroom before he threw up. Once he'd managed to stop heaving, he dragged himself to his feet and turned on the taps, scrubbing his hands frantically beneath the cool water. The water ran red for what seemed like an unnatural amount of time, but he kept scrubbing, desperately, almost feverishly.

"I don't think I ever realized how--overly excitable you were, before," Cable said. Arms folded across his chest, leaning against the doorframe, Cable's reflection in the mirror studied Nate impassively. "It's only blood, Nate."

The water was finally running clear. Still trembling, Nate splashed some water on his face, as well, and then straightened, staring at Cable's reflection. In the fluorescent lights, Cable seemed paler than usual, shadows beneath his eyes as if he hadn't slept for days. His eyes, however, were pitiless.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Nate," Cable murmured. The corner of his mouth tugged upwards briefly. "You're supposed to laugh."

"Why?" Nate demanded breathlessly. "Because it's funny?"

"No," Cable said, his voice perfectly even. "Because it's true."

Nate froze. The blood on his hands. Cable in his apartment. Something was wrong here. He forced himself to turn around, reaching out with his telepathy towards his 'twin'.

Nothing. Cable smiled sardonically. "You look surprised," he said softly, tossing the words back over his shoulder as he turned, heading back out into the bedroom. "What, have you blocked it out or something?"

Nate followed, numbly. "I don't understand," he whispered, hoarsely, and then stopped, swaying in shock. Only half his bedroom was here. On the other side was a ruined building, and another him was kneeling there amid the debris. The other him was soaked to his skin, the tears pouring down his face undistinguishable from the rain, but Nate could hear himself sobbing, see his own shoulders shaking as he cradled a still, lifeless form in his arms. A motionless, battered body with blood-matted silver hair, wearing the remains of a blue and gold uniform.

"I'm so sorry," the other him was repeating, over and over again. "I'm so sorry--I didn't mean--don't be dead, please--"

Nate managed to tear his gaze away from the tableau, and stared, aghast, at Cable. Cable shrugged. "I guess not," he said with another faint, sardonic smile. "Nice to see there's at least something of me in you. That was what always bothered me about you, you know--you never seemed to want to take responsibility for your own actions."

"That's not true!" Nate started to protest. "I--do, I--"

"Bullshit. With you it's always been blow things up and ask questions later. Oath, it's not as if I'm any less destructive, but at least I usually have a REASON. I don't just react out of fear and confusion." Cable smirked. "Self-control is really something of a non-issue with you, isn't it?"

"I'll kill you!" the other Nate shrieked. Nate whirled, his breath coming raggedly as he watched himself standing in an alley, facing a towering, laughing External who batted away the dumpster he telekinetically tossed at him with casual, contemptuous ease. "This is the last day of your life, Apocalypse! I'll make you wish you'd never been born!"

"Nate!" It was the other Cable. On his feet, alive, rushing towards them from somewhere behind Apocalypse. The look on his face was as close to panic as Nate had ever seen it, but his otherself didn't seem to care, or even notice. "Nate, NO! You don't know what you're doing!"

But Nate watched himself glowing like the sun, psionic energy building around him to a dangerous level, power like he'd never drawn on before right there at his fingertips. "DIE!" his otherself shrieked, blasting Apocalypse.

Who somehow--shifted out of the way, too fast for the eye to follow. The telekinetic blast passed right through the space where he'd been, and hit Cable head-on. A groan burst from behind Nate's clenched teeth, echoing his otherself's anguished scream of denial as the force of the impact threw Cable back through the air for almost twenty feet, and right through the brick wall of a building. The gaping hole was enough to destabilize the structure, which immediately started to collapse in upon itself--and on Cable.

The nail in the coffin.

And Apocalypse laughed. And laughed, and laughed--

"No!" Nate cried out, tears pouring down his face as he watched himself run past the External, ignoring him utterly. He hadn't even seen Apocalypse go, let alone thought to try and stop him. All he'd cared about was getting to Cable. "I didn't mean to--it was an accident!"

"Tell me something, Nate," Cable said calmly, not watching as Nate's reflection dug frantically through the debris. "Do you think I care?"

Nate turned back toward Cable, futilely trying to brush tears away. "It was an accident," he repeated desperately. He had argued with Cable, fought Cable--even been jealous of Cable, on more than one occasion, but he'd never wanted him dead. Never. Not even that tiny little part of him that bridled at not being 'unique' in this world had ever dreamed of actually doing him harm. The man had saved his life, more than once, and beyond the jealousy, there was a sort of admiration, even if he was unwilling to admit it to himself. "I wouldn't--I didn't--I'm SORRY!"

"Sorry has no meaning." Cable hesitated for a moment, and then gave a mirthless laugh. "I have been waiting--half my life, almost, to be able to say that to someone and enjoy doing it." He shook his head slowly as he watched the other Nate pull him from the rubble. "I was dead as soon as that blast hit me, you know. Oh, sure, I may have lived until you pulled me out, but the blast broke most of the bones in my body on impact. I was bleeding to death internally before I hit the ground." Cable turned back to him, unsmiling. "But I was conscious. Right up until the last minute. You have any idea what it feels like? To lay there, feeling your body start to shut down? And then to have the last thing you hear be a selfish infant in a man's body blubbering about how 'sorry' he is for killing you?" Cable muttered something under his breath, what sounded like a profanity in that musical language of his. "I don't know why I'm bothering."

"Bothering to do what? Haunt me?" Nate abruptly went over to the balcony doors. "I'm leaving," he said wildly, a near-hysterical laugh escaping. "Be a good ghost and be gone when I come back. Go haunt Apocalypse or someone--keep HIM awake all night." He had to get out of here, away from these hallucinations!

The doors wouldn't open. He pulled on them futilely. "Let me out," he whispered raggedly, not sure who he was talking to. "Let me OUT!" His voice rose to a howl, and he threw every bit of his telekinetic power at the glass doors, thinking to break them. To escape into the fresh air, so that he could breathe again--

Nothing. Not even a crack in the glass. "You!" He whirled on Cable, panting. "You're not real, you can't be doing this!"

"Grow up, kid," Cable said with a bleak smile. "None of this is real. Not me, not you, not this apartment."

"But--" Nate stammered, not understanding. Was it a dream? A nightmare? Was that it? "But you--you're DEAD, and I--"

"Killed me," Cable said. "Yes." He leaned towards Nate, his smile getting sharper, brighter, acquiring a cutting edge. "But I took a leaf from an--old friend's book, you might say."

Suddenly, Nate could barely breathe. "What--what are you talking about?"

Cable laughed again, gesturing at the room around them. "Welcome to limbo," he said expansively. "A specially-designed little hideaway, just for you, right here inside your own brain. Or what USED to be your brain, shall we say." Cable's eye glowed fiercely. "It's mine, now," he said almost savagely. Nate started to back away, but Cable followed him, implacable, merciless, like a lion stalking its prey. "When my body died, my consciousness made the jump to your mind--just like Stryfe's did to mine, when we were lost in the timestream together. You may not be my clone, but you're close enough to me, genetically and psychically, that I could pull off the same thing." Cable stopped, smiling coldly. "Your body's walking around, Nate. Perfectly healthy, perfectly functional. It's just not you in the driver's seat."

Nate felt like there was ice water running through his veins, not blood. "You can't," he breathed. "It's not fair--this is MY body!"

"Life isn't fair, kid," Cable said, his tone casual, yet somehow brutal at the same time. "Right and wrong get a little blurry sometimes. Especially when I look at a self-centered loose cannon like you and think 'well, there's the last hope for the future'. All that power, Nate. So little discipline. A little depressing, if you ask me."

"So that justifies taking over my body?" Nate wanted out. He wanted out right now. This wasn't the Cable he'd known--that Cable wouldn't have done this, wouldn't have dreamed of doing this!

"Death has a way of rearranging your priorities," Cable murmured. "You killed me, Nate. You owe me. Not that I'd mind resting, but I wasn't finished what I was meant to do. So, I'm collecting on the debt. A life for a life, Grey."

He was fading as Nate watched, becoming transparent, ghost-like. The strange smile lingered, almost disembodied, for a moment.

#Don't worry,# Cable's voice continued in his mind. #You won't lack for company. I'm afraid I didn't make the jump alone. Always that bit of extra baggage--#

#Baggage,# a disgusted voice said. #I should gut you for that, Nathan.#

Nate turned, slowly, the moment seeming to drag on forever. No--this isn't possible. Not him--

Stryfe stepped out of the full-length mirror on the other side of the room, grimacing. "Bad enough to have been stuck inside HIS mind since that debacle on the moon," the Chaos-Bringer spat. "But now I'm forced to share mindspace with a child?" Stryfe, or the psionic fragment of Stryfe--Nate really wasn't sure what to call him--gave him a baleful look. After a moment, the glare dissolved into a smile that was considerably beyond the conventional definition of 'sane'. "Then again," he murmured, his thoughtful expression almost identical to the one Cable had worn earlier, "this might be--amusing."

fin

alicia's stories | [ARCHIVE] | comicfic.net