Back In the Saddle... Sort Of (Forge, Laurie, Wednesday night)

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

A late-night text message brings Forge out to the stables to meet Laurie. Some actual talking is done, and a confession is made - although not the one expected.




Forge glanced down at his phone, the text message blinking on the glowing blue screen.

STABLES? -L

Jamming a knit cap down over his ears, he stepped out onto the back patio and winced slightly at the chill wind. Although the snow was light, the wind chill made Forge's cheeks redden almost instantly as he ducked his face into the knit scarf Clarice had made for him the year before.

Feet crunching through the snow, he stopped to reach into his left pocket, fingers tearing a small hole in the lining to reach the surface of his prosthetic and disconnecting the temperature sensor. No use having two cold feet, he thought, shuffling off towards the sound of horses shifting in their stalls.

After a minute or so, he made his way up the snow-covered path to where he could see Laurie under one of the bare lights of the stable, feeding a handful of oats to one of the horses.

Laurie reached up and ran her hand down the nose of Lardbutt, smiling as he wuffled at her and took the oats from her hand. They really were beautiful animals, and Laurie had enjoyed the lessons with Julio.

She looked up as she heard the noise at the door and smiled at Forge shyly. "Hey."

"Hey," Forge replied. A small awkward moment of silence followed until he held up his phone. "I got the, uh... well, obviously since, well, here and stuff." He winced at the obvious rambling and opened his mouth to speak again when his hat was plucked off his head by a reddish-brown mare, who held it clutched between her teeth. Forge jumped in surprise, a quick look of startled astonishment crossing his face as he stepped back.

"These things scare the hell out of me," he admitted, cautiously reaching for his hat from - Ginger, he recalled. That horse. His wrist hurt just remembering it.

Laurie tried not to smile as Ginger pulled the hat up out of Forge's reach. She was one of the ones that liked to play games, and especially seemed to know when a student wasn't comfortable around them.

"Ginger." Laurie said, a note of censure in her tone. "Give Forge back his hat."

Forge plucked his hat back, scowling at the horse, then giving Laurie a smile. "Give her an inch, and she'll try and take another limb. Demon steed, that one."

"Oh?" Laurie replied, humor more then evident in her gaze. Ginger definitely suited her name, with a very energetic nature but Laurie wasn't sure she deserved 'demon steed'.

Forge obviously had a thing with horses, a fact that Laurie filed away in her 'book of Forge' that she'd started mentally keeping, she had one for everyone she met. It was sort of a mental filing system, made it easier to remember things like birthdays, and what colour people were most fond of.

With a sheepish look, Forge shrugged his left arm out of his parka, rolling back his sleeve to show the striated metal of his prosthetic arm. "Used to be just the hand," he explained, turning his arm over to watch the metal fibers twitch and contract. "Decided I was going to teach myself to ride on Ginger there, and she had other ideas. Pitched me off, and I landed on my arm wrong. Snapped like a twig." He winced slightly in memory, tucking his arm back inside the coat. "It turned out to be lucky, actually. The doctors found some bone problems that had gone unnoticed after my original accident, and ended up having to take the rest of the arm to keep it from spreading further. Built a new one, and the rest..."

He reached out to absently scratch the horse under her long neck. "Even still... I'm too scared to try and get back on one. I'll stick with wheels and engines, thanks."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd had an accident with a horse." Laurie said, walking over to where Forge was standing. "Would it be...Could I see?"

She'd known Forge had been in an accident but she'd never really been close enough to get a good look. She hoped he didn't think it weird that she'd want to look.

Flushing slightly, Forge slid his jacket over his shoulders. While it was freezing outside, the sheer mass of the horses in the stable along with the subtle electric heaters under the floorboards kept the building acceptable, if not exactly warm. "Well, it wasn't originally the horse," he said with a wry grin. Pausing for a moment, he unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and slid it back from his shoulder. Around the demarcation of where metal met flesh, even the surgical scars were gone, a subtle gift from Marius after Masque's assault. The raised callus around the edge of the prosthetic, though, clearly showed where the human met the machine, and the subtle motions of the myomer muscle under his skin outlined where the steel fibers intertwined with natural tissue.

Oblivious to the fact that he was in a stable with his shirt half-off in front of a girl who'd shown an irrational yet intense attraction to him, Forge's brain snapped into analytical thinking. "See, the myomer - that's the artificial muscle - contracts like biological tissue does, more efficiently even. There's actually a carbon-graphite polymer skeleton under there. Of course, it heats up when it's used, which is why each little strand has a coating of heat-dispersing solution. I mean, the metal doesn't sweat, so it has to radiate heat occasionally through venting."

At that point, however, Forge realized that his skin was feeling about as warm as the prosthetic, and it definitely had nothing to do with the climate.

Laurie reached out, running her fingertips lightly over the line between metal and flesh, feeling the warmth of Forge's skin, and the slightly warmer metal. "How did, I mean, I don't mean to pry but, what kind of accident were you in?"

The combination of Laurie's touch and the question made Forge tense slightly, and he put one hand over Laurie's. "It's... not exactly simple. Well, it is, but it's not something I'm..." He sighed, stepping to the side to sit down on a bale of hay.

"Before I knew I was a mutant," he explained, "I was one of those kids at school that was kind of an outcast every way there could be one. The smart kid who was also the small kid who was also the quiet kid who was also, you get it?" At Laurie's nod, he looked down at the floorboards, gently nudging a lump of hay with his artificial foot.

"A lot of it built up, and I decided I wasn't going to be bullied anymore. So I did something stupid and..." He took a deep breath, not looking up. "I built a bomb. Brought it to school, put it in my locker. I was going to... well, you can figure it out. I was stupid. But something happened, and it went off early. Took my hand at the wrist, leg right below the hip, and a good chunk of some internal organs with it."

Finally, he looked up at Laurie, setting his jaw. "So that's who I used to be, and how I wound up this way, and here. And if... if you want to go, I understand."

He had wanted to hurt people, had not only wanted to but almost had. It wasn't what Laurie had been expecting and she stood there for a second, staring at him. Finally, noticing the fact that he was getting even more tense as her silence stretched she reached over and grabbed some oats and held them out to Ginger. It was something for her to do while she processed the new information.

"Why would you do something like that?" Laurie asked softly, wanting to understand.

From what little she'd seen of Forge, he didn't appear the 'kill everyone and let God sort them out' type. She wasn't sure what to say but she wanted to know what he thought about it all before she said anything.

Quietly, Forge tucked his arm back into his shirt, slowly fastening buttons. "I don't know," he started, then paused to correct himself. "No, that's a cop-out. I do. I just... I didn't see any other way out. I wanted to hit back harder than I was hit. I thought it was the way to scream out, 'hey, I'm not weak'. I didn't think it was the right choice, I just wanted to have a choice, even if it was the wrong one."

"Then, last year," he said quietly. "I spend some unwilling time as a 'guest' of Magneto. And for the first time, I got to see where that way of thinking leads. And that's what frightened me the most, I think. Not that he could have killed me with a snap of his fingers, not that he tried to use me to make some weapon for his agenda - but that I could have become him." He looked over at Laurie, then up to the rafters. "I got a second chance. And I use it to try and help people, in every way I can, because I have to. That's my choice, the one I make every day. I'm not saying I'm a saint, but... I want to be a good person. And I know it doesn't make up for things, but god, Laurie - I'm trying." Forge tried to keep his voice even, but despite the tightening of his jaw, the last words cracked a little. He'd tried to explain it to Jay, when his former suitemate had tried to understand.

It hadn't been any easier then.

Laurie hesitated for a second, thought for a second more and then walked over and sat down beside him, wrapping an arm lightly around him in a hug. "I can't say I understand why you thought blowing people away would solve anything. I wasn't there, and I'm not you. I can't say what I would've done in your place. But, it seems to me you're trying to do the right thing now. I'm just glad you didn't completely kill yourself, otherwise I wouldn't get a chance to get to know you now."

Forge looked over at Laurie, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. "That's not me now," he insisted quietly. He paused, then chuckled quietly. "You know, this is actually I think the longest conversation we've ever had, you realize."

Laurie blushed, and then laughed. "Well, it's a bit hard to talk when there's some very nice kissing in the way. It's nice though, that I can just talk to you as well."

Laughing with her, Forge did a small double take. "I... okay? Sorry, I'm just still boggled by the interest. Not complaining, by any means, I just... I'm not used to being thought of in that way, er, this way. And here I thought you were the shy one."

"Sometimes shy, sometimes not." Laurie replied, smiling. "I guess it depends on the person. You don't make me feel like I can't talk to you, or that you're judging me in some way before I even open my mouth. Not that other people would...just yeah, I'm weird. And you're good looking, you know. Even if no one ever mentioned it before. Maybe you just never gave them a chance to get through?"

The concept hit Forge like a racquetball upside the head. "I... never looked at it that way. I guess I spent so much effort thinking that nobody would bother, that in itself probably was most of the problem. And believe me, you're not weird. You're..." he searched for the word, then reached out to run a finger along the side of Laurie's jaw. "Complex," he decided on.

"Complex...I think I like that." Laurie replied, placing her hand over Forge's and leaning forward to brush her mouth against his for a second before drawing back again with a grin. "Now, you up to meeting some of the other horses? Or did Ginger scar you for life?"

"Scars heal," he replied, letting Laurie help him up to his feet. "Just don't expect me to hop up in the saddle anytime soon."