Plot: Shadow King - Vive le Roi.
Feb. 5th, 2008 10:17 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
x-farouk.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsThe fall of Amahl Farouk.
Madripoor. February 6th, 11:17 am.
(Westchester NY, USA. February 5th, 10:17 pm.
-------------------------------------------------------
The dark blues dominated the interior of the Hospice, a welcome change as far as Farouk was concerned, from the insipid pastels that seemed to have become the color of choice for most medical institutions.
He sighed, and patted his gown irritably, determined not to dwell on the fact that he was now qualified to compare and contrast the décor of hospitals across most of the globe.
He shouldn’t complain, he knew. With his money and connections the medical care he has received has been top-notch. He needed only to look around at the subdued and austere, yet subtly tasteful private room to remind himself of that.
On the other hand he was dying by inches and complaining was making him feel fractionally better. So fuck it.
He sighed again, the air escaping his pursed lips with an exasperated, whistling sound.
The damn gown refused to stay closed and was apparently designed primarily with the goal of providing perfect airflow to the patients’ neither regions.
And, unsurprisingly for a building erected in the 16th century, the Hospice was drafty enough to make traveling through its halls, while wearing the pre-surgery attire, an adventure.
The Jesuits were among the first European on the island and in those days they built for defense. They improved and updated the old edifice, but apparently some things remained beyond even the Society’s ability to paper over.
Unless, of course, it was all in his head.
He grimaced, looking fixedly at the wall clock. One didn’t have to be a self-analytical genius to recognize that his jitters went well the past normal anxieties of being in a hospital or even phobias of going under the knife.
No. He was on the brink of complete breakdown, because this was his last chance. The end of the line.
So far the every other effort simply to determine the cause of his problem, much less to fix it, proved futile.
He had had great hopes for the Mansion. But…
But.
Grey, still made periodic check-ups, but by and large, in his opinion, has consigned his problem to a neat little box labeled 'Charles's problem now.'
There too the situation also quickly and unerringly found a dead-end. The head of the school hasn't yet confronted Farouk directly but both he and Amahl were aware of the problem.
Too many secrets were piled in the corners of his brain, for Farouk to be as relaxed and open as the sessions with Xavier needed to be.
The other psi was unquestionably stronger and could no doubt force his way through Amahl's defenses - but Farouk wouldn't give his permission for that. And, in addition, the consequences of the brute force approach could be drastic, since the cause of the problem remained unclear.
So the two men had remained locked in an increasingly frustrating process of incremental reconnaissance of Farouk's mind, as Xavier carefully navigated his way through the maze of Amahl's both deliberate and subconscious defenses.
The situation couldn't last, of course, and eventually Xavier would, willy-nilly, be forced to make Farouk choose.
A choice between allowing the other telepath an unfettered access to his mind or facing the continuing steady deterioration of his powers....
Some choice.
The growing desperation has driven Farouk to investigate a variety of increasingly esoteric anecdotes about similar problems, and he was uneasily aware that his continuing visits to the MedLab were beginning to border on stalkerish.
Still, it paid off, when Grey commented absently on some interesting experiments being done by a Dr. Gossett.
Dr. Gossett turned out to be father Raymond Gossett, lately of St. Ignatius Hospice.
Days and weeks of feverish research followed, digging up everything he could on the clinic and pulled every string imaginable, called in every favor owed to get on the waiting list.
And so here he was.
Probably on another wild goose chase.
And if so - the last goose chase, for it was clear now that he was rapidly running out of time to grasp at any other straws.
Farouk bared his teeth in a fleeting, silent snarl, shook his head and opened the door.
They were waiting patiently for him. On fact have been waiting patiently for him for some time now as he indulged in his dramatics. One of the orderlies offered Farouk the wheel-chair and he accepted easily enough. False pride was never one of his sins.
Esteban lurked down the corridor, in the soft conversation with one of the mercenaries.
Amahl shrugged irritably. The dock riots had been limited completely to the LowTown and from what he has been able to glean, the security services acted rapidly enough. Assisted, it seemed, rather generously by the local underworld.
Still Trotsky had been on edge for the last week, and Farouk has long learned to trust the younger man's instincts. So he had not made an issue of the additional protection.
He had no real energy for senseless arguments, in any case. And it was clear that Esteban wouldn't be moved on that point.
Dismissing the matter from his mind Farouk closed his eyes, and as the nurse wheeled him toward the OR, began to count down in his head, slowing his heartbeat, attempting to find his equilibrium.
But the calm escaped him.
The detachment that he had cultivated throughout his life deserted him now, remaining elusive as he was brought into the operating room, as he was glad-handed by the doctor, even as the heavy, drugged sleep took him into the warm abyss.
It even eluded him in dreams.
***
The cramped, dirty, loud streets of the Shatila refugee camp drew down oppressively on the 8-year old and he grasped tightly his mother's hand.
Lebanon of 1969 was an exciting place, heavy with Fate and History moving their unseen fingers across the lives of multitudes, preparing for the conflagration that would overtake the country only a few short months later.
The tensions between the sects were growing, militias were arming and the death count was beginning to rise.
His father was uneasy, but Mama insisted and so, this Saturday, like every other, they had set out for camp, to visit his grandparents.
Amahl fidgeted, the new footwear pinching his toes and hopped a little one foot, grasping at the other shoe.
He began to mutter an elaborate curse he had heard his Grandfather use but quailed in mid-word under Shirin's glower.
He didn’t think it was fair, really. It was her father that said it first, after all...
Somehow, however, Amahl didn't think that Mom would find that particular argument convincing and he did his best to look as meek as possible. Finishing the curse in his head, and adding a couple of flourishes.
His Dad winked at him, over Mom's shoulder. Growing blank-faced and stern again, as her head whipped cat-quick toward him.
Amahl sighed. Life was complicated when you were eight. He wished than his grandparents could live with them, like Lelo's. He hated the camp. So many people. And they seemed so angry, all the time. The sounds of it seemed to beat at him, hammering at his head, echoing deep inside like a
booming, screaming voice. It was horrible - the feeling of something scratching at the inside of your head, of deafening whisper that you could almost, but never make out.
On the last visit he even got a nosebleed.
He wished--.
Amahl had time only for an undignified squeak as he suddenly found himself being grabbed by his father and thrust behind his back.
And then the street dissolved into chaos and fire, screaming and blood.
Somewhere, deep inside, Farouk knew that this was wrong. All of it.
It was only years later, when he was an adult that he pieced together the events that the
child's mind locked away, protecting itself.
Yet now they were unfolding with perfect, aching clarity and his body tensed and shook, sending the monitors beeping in painful urgency as he suddenly looked back through the years and death, back into the all-to-human eyes of the not-quite-cat girl fleeing the mob.
Crying in hopeless desperation, screaming for her mother, running and then stumbling and looking at him for that one brief moment, looking into him and reaching out her hand....
And disappearing under the flood of human bodies armed with sticks and knives and stones.
Eventually the mob receded, slowly and reluctantly parting - revealing a clump of something wet and darkly glistening, something that couldn't possibly be human...
Farouk screamed knowing that it was all in his mind, that he couldn’t really be screaming, that he was still unconscious on the operating table, that none of this was real.
He screamed.
His scream mingled with the roar of the mob in his dream, and seemed to reverberate throughout his very being, making his bones vibrate, making his teeth rattle.
He screamed, feeling his throat tear and realizing only dimly that it was impossible, that he was dreaming, that he was...
“Shut up.”
The sudden silence was deafening, shocking. Like a pail of freezing cold water thrown in his face.
He opened his eyes, unsure suddenly - was he awake? Did the surgery...
“I said shut the FUCK up!”
The man appeared out of nowhere, literally - as Farouk realized that he was standing in the middle of desolation, nothing but cracked, dried earth stretching into forever, in all
directions.
The man was walking toward him, and yet his face remained indistinct, blurred even as he drew closer.
Astral plane. This had to be the Astral Plane! Somehow he pushed himself out to the...
“Jesus Bloody Christ... They just hang out PhDs to anybody these days, huh?”
His father loomed over him suddenly and Farouk gasped, feeling the bile rise at the visage of the burnt, peeling skin, the bleeding eyes peering out of cracked face, pus leaking from the unhealed wounds.
“What?” Monir Farouk asked mockingly, looking down at his son, “Surprised?”
Amahl felt icy, heavy calm settle on him suddenly as he strengthened, “You got the eyes wrong.”
“No, I didn't.” Monir chuckled, stretching, his uniform crinkling around the wide shoulders. “But good try. You are catching on.”
Farouk thought back to Esteban, a fleetingly and incongruously reveling in the irony of it all. Trotsky was a human, but Amahl should have seen this coming. Why attack him physically, if they could take advantage of the fact that he was...
Monir giggled, a high-pitched sound transforming suddenly into a hacking cough and he spat, a ball of wet flesh hitting the ground next to Amahl's foot.
“Ew. Well that'll happen when you are burned alive, I guess...” Monir shrugged and turned back to Farouk, sizing him up mockingly. “Bubballah, I don't need to take over your mind. It's been mine for the taking for years now. Just waiting for an opportune moment so to speak. This is mostly a courtesy call.”
“Oh?” Farouk cast obliquely toward his consciousness, already judging how much he could draw on his reserves, and yet remain under anesthesia. But something was wrong...
“Problems?” The man wearing his father’s face asked solicitously, “Yeah, hate it when that happens. But, back to the point - thanks, sonny.”
He grinned, baring the blackened stumps of his teeth and sketched out a mocking bow.
“God DAMN, you are dumb,” Monir laughed out suddenly as he straightened, the derisive sound dying quickly but the echoes of it remaining, dancing in the blood pools of his eyes. “You still don't get it, do you, little Amahl? I am not some rival trying to 'get you.' I AM you.”
He shrugged slightly, and smoothed down his shirt, “Well… an updated version. Come on, come on...”
His voice dropped into cajoling wheedle, “Think back now, son... You can do it. Remember the shape-shifter girl? Remember? You must, I just showed it to you... and by that way, you are welcome. I could have ran the entire reel and reminded you of how you pissed yourself.”
Farouk quirked his eyebrow sardonically. “That's really where you're going take this this? You are going to try to take my mind by calling me a bed-wetter? Classy.”
“Well, it's the childhood memories, that you want to treasure, innit? No? Maybe you are just concentrating on the wrong parts, then...”
Monir scratched his chin, the skin coming off in patches, “ Hey, I know... want to see it when they fired me up? Good stuff. No, you’re right. That'd be gauche. Well - how about when you made me?”
The other man snapped his fingers and Farouk had only the time to squint painedly at the melodramatic theatricality of it all before the darkness him like a hammer to the chest and send him tumbling back.
Back again to that nightmarish day, back into his father's arms screaming as he tried not to SEE the body of the mutant girl, back there when the panic ate him, took everything he was, when fear became his world and all that mattered was being safe.
“Awww. So cute. Little Amahl, so terrified of being mutant, of ending up in messy little pieces on the street. So scared that he decided to not be a mutant.”
His father's voice, the voice that comforted and succored him on that day, the voice that kept away the demons for night afterwards... The same voice was smoothing him now, slashing at him, amused and malicious.
“But couldn't quite mange it yourself, could you? Needed a little help. Needed a little imaginary friend. Needed something to help you lock away those nasty, horrid, ever-so-scary abilities. Right?”
But he manifested! Eventually, spurred by another hell, his self-imposed blocks crumbled.
Surely...
“What? I was supposed to just fade away? Fuck you, asshole! I like it here. I figured, I'd stick around.”
The darkness settled on his chest now, pushing him down, the weight of it growing steadily as he suddenly struggled to breathe, to get up, to think.
“And thanks to you, I had all the tools I needed.”
The chuckling, gleeful voice slithered through Amahl's mind, like a trail of slime.
“You'd be surprised how easy it was to go from guarding the lock-box of the power you so desperately feared, to a taking it for myself. A little at a time. Just a bit to give me form, at first, from you. Then branching out to your colleagues, whom you so helpfully located for me. Ohhh... you have no conception, of what I have become. No idea of the power I have, of the hooks I've seeded into dozens of telepaths, all across the world. All feeding ME.”
The blackness was surrounding him now, stifling him, moving in on him from every side.
“And you'd be amazed the things I picked up over the years. If you could see them… But, so sorry - it's time for you to go to sleep.”
Amahl Farouk felt himself loose something, something important and then he fell, fell forever...
It's my time now. My kingdom is at hand.
Madripoor. February 6th, 11:17 am.
(Westchester NY, USA. February 5th, 10:17 pm.
-------------------------------------------------------
The dark blues dominated the interior of the Hospice, a welcome change as far as Farouk was concerned, from the insipid pastels that seemed to have become the color of choice for most medical institutions.
He sighed, and patted his gown irritably, determined not to dwell on the fact that he was now qualified to compare and contrast the décor of hospitals across most of the globe.
He shouldn’t complain, he knew. With his money and connections the medical care he has received has been top-notch. He needed only to look around at the subdued and austere, yet subtly tasteful private room to remind himself of that.
On the other hand he was dying by inches and complaining was making him feel fractionally better. So fuck it.
He sighed again, the air escaping his pursed lips with an exasperated, whistling sound.
The damn gown refused to stay closed and was apparently designed primarily with the goal of providing perfect airflow to the patients’ neither regions.
And, unsurprisingly for a building erected in the 16th century, the Hospice was drafty enough to make traveling through its halls, while wearing the pre-surgery attire, an adventure.
The Jesuits were among the first European on the island and in those days they built for defense. They improved and updated the old edifice, but apparently some things remained beyond even the Society’s ability to paper over.
Unless, of course, it was all in his head.
He grimaced, looking fixedly at the wall clock. One didn’t have to be a self-analytical genius to recognize that his jitters went well the past normal anxieties of being in a hospital or even phobias of going under the knife.
No. He was on the brink of complete breakdown, because this was his last chance. The end of the line.
So far the every other effort simply to determine the cause of his problem, much less to fix it, proved futile.
He had had great hopes for the Mansion. But…
But.
Grey, still made periodic check-ups, but by and large, in his opinion, has consigned his problem to a neat little box labeled 'Charles's problem now.'
There too the situation also quickly and unerringly found a dead-end. The head of the school hasn't yet confronted Farouk directly but both he and Amahl were aware of the problem.
Too many secrets were piled in the corners of his brain, for Farouk to be as relaxed and open as the sessions with Xavier needed to be.
The other psi was unquestionably stronger and could no doubt force his way through Amahl's defenses - but Farouk wouldn't give his permission for that. And, in addition, the consequences of the brute force approach could be drastic, since the cause of the problem remained unclear.
So the two men had remained locked in an increasingly frustrating process of incremental reconnaissance of Farouk's mind, as Xavier carefully navigated his way through the maze of Amahl's both deliberate and subconscious defenses.
The situation couldn't last, of course, and eventually Xavier would, willy-nilly, be forced to make Farouk choose.
A choice between allowing the other telepath an unfettered access to his mind or facing the continuing steady deterioration of his powers....
Some choice.
The growing desperation has driven Farouk to investigate a variety of increasingly esoteric anecdotes about similar problems, and he was uneasily aware that his continuing visits to the MedLab were beginning to border on stalkerish.
Still, it paid off, when Grey commented absently on some interesting experiments being done by a Dr. Gossett.
Dr. Gossett turned out to be father Raymond Gossett, lately of St. Ignatius Hospice.
Days and weeks of feverish research followed, digging up everything he could on the clinic and pulled every string imaginable, called in every favor owed to get on the waiting list.
And so here he was.
Probably on another wild goose chase.
And if so - the last goose chase, for it was clear now that he was rapidly running out of time to grasp at any other straws.
Farouk bared his teeth in a fleeting, silent snarl, shook his head and opened the door.
They were waiting patiently for him. On fact have been waiting patiently for him for some time now as he indulged in his dramatics. One of the orderlies offered Farouk the wheel-chair and he accepted easily enough. False pride was never one of his sins.
Esteban lurked down the corridor, in the soft conversation with one of the mercenaries.
Amahl shrugged irritably. The dock riots had been limited completely to the LowTown and from what he has been able to glean, the security services acted rapidly enough. Assisted, it seemed, rather generously by the local underworld.
Still Trotsky had been on edge for the last week, and Farouk has long learned to trust the younger man's instincts. So he had not made an issue of the additional protection.
He had no real energy for senseless arguments, in any case. And it was clear that Esteban wouldn't be moved on that point.
Dismissing the matter from his mind Farouk closed his eyes, and as the nurse wheeled him toward the OR, began to count down in his head, slowing his heartbeat, attempting to find his equilibrium.
But the calm escaped him.
The detachment that he had cultivated throughout his life deserted him now, remaining elusive as he was brought into the operating room, as he was glad-handed by the doctor, even as the heavy, drugged sleep took him into the warm abyss.
It even eluded him in dreams.
***
The cramped, dirty, loud streets of the Shatila refugee camp drew down oppressively on the 8-year old and he grasped tightly his mother's hand.
Lebanon of 1969 was an exciting place, heavy with Fate and History moving their unseen fingers across the lives of multitudes, preparing for the conflagration that would overtake the country only a few short months later.
The tensions between the sects were growing, militias were arming and the death count was beginning to rise.
His father was uneasy, but Mama insisted and so, this Saturday, like every other, they had set out for camp, to visit his grandparents.
Amahl fidgeted, the new footwear pinching his toes and hopped a little one foot, grasping at the other shoe.
He began to mutter an elaborate curse he had heard his Grandfather use but quailed in mid-word under Shirin's glower.
He didn’t think it was fair, really. It was her father that said it first, after all...
Somehow, however, Amahl didn't think that Mom would find that particular argument convincing and he did his best to look as meek as possible. Finishing the curse in his head, and adding a couple of flourishes.
His Dad winked at him, over Mom's shoulder. Growing blank-faced and stern again, as her head whipped cat-quick toward him.
Amahl sighed. Life was complicated when you were eight. He wished than his grandparents could live with them, like Lelo's. He hated the camp. So many people. And they seemed so angry, all the time. The sounds of it seemed to beat at him, hammering at his head, echoing deep inside like a
booming, screaming voice. It was horrible - the feeling of something scratching at the inside of your head, of deafening whisper that you could almost, but never make out.
On the last visit he even got a nosebleed.
He wished--.
Amahl had time only for an undignified squeak as he suddenly found himself being grabbed by his father and thrust behind his back.
And then the street dissolved into chaos and fire, screaming and blood.
Somewhere, deep inside, Farouk knew that this was wrong. All of it.
It was only years later, when he was an adult that he pieced together the events that the
child's mind locked away, protecting itself.
Yet now they were unfolding with perfect, aching clarity and his body tensed and shook, sending the monitors beeping in painful urgency as he suddenly looked back through the years and death, back into the all-to-human eyes of the not-quite-cat girl fleeing the mob.
Crying in hopeless desperation, screaming for her mother, running and then stumbling and looking at him for that one brief moment, looking into him and reaching out her hand....
And disappearing under the flood of human bodies armed with sticks and knives and stones.
Eventually the mob receded, slowly and reluctantly parting - revealing a clump of something wet and darkly glistening, something that couldn't possibly be human...
Farouk screamed knowing that it was all in his mind, that he couldn’t really be screaming, that he was still unconscious on the operating table, that none of this was real.
He screamed.
His scream mingled with the roar of the mob in his dream, and seemed to reverberate throughout his very being, making his bones vibrate, making his teeth rattle.
He screamed, feeling his throat tear and realizing only dimly that it was impossible, that he was dreaming, that he was...
“Shut up.”
The sudden silence was deafening, shocking. Like a pail of freezing cold water thrown in his face.
He opened his eyes, unsure suddenly - was he awake? Did the surgery...
“I said shut the FUCK up!”
The man appeared out of nowhere, literally - as Farouk realized that he was standing in the middle of desolation, nothing but cracked, dried earth stretching into forever, in all
directions.
The man was walking toward him, and yet his face remained indistinct, blurred even as he drew closer.
Astral plane. This had to be the Astral Plane! Somehow he pushed himself out to the...
“Jesus Bloody Christ... They just hang out PhDs to anybody these days, huh?”
His father loomed over him suddenly and Farouk gasped, feeling the bile rise at the visage of the burnt, peeling skin, the bleeding eyes peering out of cracked face, pus leaking from the unhealed wounds.
“What?” Monir Farouk asked mockingly, looking down at his son, “Surprised?”
Amahl felt icy, heavy calm settle on him suddenly as he strengthened, “You got the eyes wrong.”
“No, I didn't.” Monir chuckled, stretching, his uniform crinkling around the wide shoulders. “But good try. You are catching on.”
Farouk thought back to Esteban, a fleetingly and incongruously reveling in the irony of it all. Trotsky was a human, but Amahl should have seen this coming. Why attack him physically, if they could take advantage of the fact that he was...
Monir giggled, a high-pitched sound transforming suddenly into a hacking cough and he spat, a ball of wet flesh hitting the ground next to Amahl's foot.
“Ew. Well that'll happen when you are burned alive, I guess...” Monir shrugged and turned back to Farouk, sizing him up mockingly. “Bubballah, I don't need to take over your mind. It's been mine for the taking for years now. Just waiting for an opportune moment so to speak. This is mostly a courtesy call.”
“Oh?” Farouk cast obliquely toward his consciousness, already judging how much he could draw on his reserves, and yet remain under anesthesia. But something was wrong...
“Problems?” The man wearing his father’s face asked solicitously, “Yeah, hate it when that happens. But, back to the point - thanks, sonny.”
He grinned, baring the blackened stumps of his teeth and sketched out a mocking bow.
“God DAMN, you are dumb,” Monir laughed out suddenly as he straightened, the derisive sound dying quickly but the echoes of it remaining, dancing in the blood pools of his eyes. “You still don't get it, do you, little Amahl? I am not some rival trying to 'get you.' I AM you.”
He shrugged slightly, and smoothed down his shirt, “Well… an updated version. Come on, come on...”
His voice dropped into cajoling wheedle, “Think back now, son... You can do it. Remember the shape-shifter girl? Remember? You must, I just showed it to you... and by that way, you are welcome. I could have ran the entire reel and reminded you of how you pissed yourself.”
Farouk quirked his eyebrow sardonically. “That's really where you're going take this this? You are going to try to take my mind by calling me a bed-wetter? Classy.”
“Well, it's the childhood memories, that you want to treasure, innit? No? Maybe you are just concentrating on the wrong parts, then...”
Monir scratched his chin, the skin coming off in patches, “ Hey, I know... want to see it when they fired me up? Good stuff. No, you’re right. That'd be gauche. Well - how about when you made me?”
The other man snapped his fingers and Farouk had only the time to squint painedly at the melodramatic theatricality of it all before the darkness him like a hammer to the chest and send him tumbling back.
Back again to that nightmarish day, back into his father's arms screaming as he tried not to SEE the body of the mutant girl, back there when the panic ate him, took everything he was, when fear became his world and all that mattered was being safe.
“Awww. So cute. Little Amahl, so terrified of being mutant, of ending up in messy little pieces on the street. So scared that he decided to not be a mutant.”
His father's voice, the voice that comforted and succored him on that day, the voice that kept away the demons for night afterwards... The same voice was smoothing him now, slashing at him, amused and malicious.
“But couldn't quite mange it yourself, could you? Needed a little help. Needed a little imaginary friend. Needed something to help you lock away those nasty, horrid, ever-so-scary abilities. Right?”
But he manifested! Eventually, spurred by another hell, his self-imposed blocks crumbled.
Surely...
“What? I was supposed to just fade away? Fuck you, asshole! I like it here. I figured, I'd stick around.”
The darkness settled on his chest now, pushing him down, the weight of it growing steadily as he suddenly struggled to breathe, to get up, to think.
“And thanks to you, I had all the tools I needed.”
The chuckling, gleeful voice slithered through Amahl's mind, like a trail of slime.
“You'd be surprised how easy it was to go from guarding the lock-box of the power you so desperately feared, to a taking it for myself. A little at a time. Just a bit to give me form, at first, from you. Then branching out to your colleagues, whom you so helpfully located for me. Ohhh... you have no conception, of what I have become. No idea of the power I have, of the hooks I've seeded into dozens of telepaths, all across the world. All feeding ME.”
The blackness was surrounding him now, stifling him, moving in on him from every side.
“And you'd be amazed the things I picked up over the years. If you could see them… But, so sorry - it's time for you to go to sleep.”
Amahl Farouk felt himself loose something, something important and then he fell, fell forever...
It's my time now. My kingdom is at hand.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}