Post MoR: Jay, Kyle, Paige, Yvette, Forge & Logan

[x-icarus.livejournal.com]

With Jean gone for a brief meeting, Kyle brings food for Jay and they talk about what's going on in Jay's head. But Jay can't explain and unknowingly, predatory instincts escalate beyond self control.

Holding his text book in front of his chest, Jay bounced on the balls of his feet until the door opened. "All right. Ah need help with my homework," he started. "And Ah'm wantin' words with you. So either way, you gotta let me in okay?" Jay asked in a firm tone that said he wouldn't be taking no for an answer. "Ah'll bribe you with whatever you want - might be making a mistake for promising that but oh well - and you just stop being mad at me. That's if you're mad at me." Jay stopped for a second and leaned forward, his wings bracing against the door. "You are mad at me right?"

"Dude, I'm not mad at you, I just think you're dumb." Kyle waved Jay into the suite, and shut the door against the potential attempts of Escaping Shamu. He ignored the 'wantin' words with you' long enough to identify the textbook as the one from the history class that he and Jay shared, and laughed. "At least you've got a couple weeks to catch up. I can throw you my notes, they'll help."

Kyle crossed past the kitchenette and settled into one of the mismatched chairs at his equally is matched kitchen table, and propped his feet up on one of the others. "So, words?"

"Okay well, Ah guess dumb is better than you being mad at me." Jay walked in and plunked himself down in a chair, flipping open his text book. He propped his leg up on a chair, mimicking Kyle's posture and absently forgot his book in his lap, or the page he had intended to flip to.

"Yeah. Ah know we have healing factors, but the more Ah get to watch you on the field, the more Ah think you're out to prove somethin'. Okay," he held up his hand, gesturing to silence the argument he knew was coming. "Not what Ah meant. Not prove somethin' but yanno, you gotta admit, you don't act like you're thinkin' a whole lot when you jump right into it."

"So like jumping in to keep Jubes from getting squashed?" Kyle asked. He shrugged and raked his fingers through his hair. "It's not... it's not that I'm not thinking, it's that sometimes I have to make a decision fast. Jubes is small and squishy, and I'm not. Sometimes it's stupid of me, like jumping in the river, and sometimes, not so much."

"Okay, Okay," jay said, holding up his hands in defence. "Ah ain't judging. Ah'm just worried is all. You're a little bit important in mah books, so Ah like to see you in one piece, if you don't mind."

"Dude you're not -wrong- either." Kyle explained. "The jumping in the river thing, pretty stupid on my part. The jumping on whatshisface to keep Jubes from being squashed, debatable." He was glad Jay hadn't seen the fight with War. The conversation would be a -lot- more awkward. "So, uh, basically sometimes, yeah, I am dumb. Sometimes not so much. It's sort of situational."

"Yeah, but maybe think about it. Okay, no, Ah know you're thinking about it, but think harder? Or try not to die in the process. You know how messed up Ah would be if you got squished because you were doing somethin' stupid and Ah wasn't there to swoop in and unsquishy you?"

"I'm not gonna -die-." Kyle wasn't entirely sure what would kill him. His heart stopping hadn't, technically. And it wasn't a subject he liked to think about. "I'm not gonna go up and beat on anyone like, I dunno, Magneto or whatever. Hell, I'm not even gonna fight Sabretooth, and I mean, if I was gonna fight anyone in a stupid way, he'd be it." Another subject he really didn't like thinking about. "So, yeah, no anything that's gonna likely make me dead."

"Just be careful, it's all Ah'm askin'. Ah wasn't tryin' to knock you down or nothing. Ah'm just having a lot of problems with what went on over there. Ah watched everyone and it sorta revived a lot of stuff that Ah went on with Tommy back in the day. Makes me wonder how many people Tommy beat before me. You know? but Ah was still able to forgive him. Even sympathize with him now because he's one of us and not what he thought, which was one of them. You know? It just brings around a whole lot of ugly that Ah didn't expect."

He killed a man. The man he had sympathized with. He'd tried to explain it to Kyle, to Pete over the journals. To everyone who responded to him and yet, he was the one that had taken the life.

He knew he should be questioning it, grieving, scared like he had been when he witnessed all his friends attacking Apolocalypse. But he wasn’t. His mind was on his loss. His wings. He was in-between minds, of someone he was and someone he didn’t know. He couldn’t think beyond what was on his back now and what had been before. He mourned for his beautiful red wings.

The wall he was facing drew up images in his head and his posture tensed, arms crossed, sitting in a chair. He couldn’t help but stare. Focus. On what? Not the door. The wall next to the door, because it was better than staring at the door. He wasn't locked in here. Jean didn't do that. She understood, he could see that. She didn't bother him, or try to coax him away from where he sat. She didn’t try to take away Kevin’s sketch book that Sam had given him earlier, the very sketchbook that sat open nearby, three feathers sitting inside. His old feathers from his old wings.

Goosebumps rose up on his skin, crawling down his arms and over his back, causing his wings to shift and abruptly jerk. As if they could shake off that foreign feeling, that.. that... sickening feeling that churned his stomach every time he felt the pull against his flesh, beneath it and the movement of the muscle around the metal. The ends of the wings lifted, the longest point that could shift down, make itself smaller stuck out in front of him and the wings carved a pair of steady lines down the wall, causing a faint groove in the metal. He leaned forward, placing his head in his hands and brushing them over his eyes, closing them, but it did nothing to drown out the sound of metal against metal, nor the movement every time the wing climbed to make another line in the wall.

The handle on the door turned and the wings stopped as Jay looked up, arching back in one swift movement and stood up at the ready. For what, he didn't know. It wasn't like he was going to be attacked here, but the nature of things made him ready despite that. That was when it hit him, not the person before him, but the smell and his gaze dropped to the Tupperware holding the food.

Kyle had some idea of what to expect, he'd seen the metal wings during the fight, the blue skin, heard that screech, it wasn't any of those things that made him stand in the doorway mouth half-open, with a pair of disposable Tupperware containers in his hands. Jay's expression, the wary look in his eyes, and the way his shoulders and legs tensed, it was something Kyle was intimately familiar with, because he felt it every time he got into a fight.

It was wrong on the body of his ex-boyfriend. More than wrong, it was somehow obscene. Jay knew how to throw a punch, but there was a difference between that and moving like a .. predator. He couldn't help but wonder if this had been what Laurie had seen, and almost understood her panic. . Kyle shook himself out of his thoughts, and forced himself to lean casually against the doorway and not mimic the fight-ready posture. "When you're upset you don't eat. And ain't no way not eating is gonna help, so you get southern fried steak and mashed potatoes and white gravy."

His wings rose up, stilling in the silence that drew out between them. They fell with every exhale, calculating, judging distance, time, efficiency until the scent smacked him and his senses dropped down ten notches. His wings settled and his shoulders fell slightly but they still maintained a faint amount of tension as a foot shifted and recognition came over his features for the first time. "Kyle," he spoke the name, though it was different from the way he use to say it. Deeper in tone, hoarse almost to the point of being sandpaper dragged along a rough surface and he ran a hand self-consciously through his red hair.

The wings folded up abruptly and disappeared into his back as he turned around, fetching the hoodie and folding it on his bed. He wasn't sure why he was doing that, but he felt the impulse to fix something. With his back to Kyle, but eyes never off his friend, the two plates of his wings stuck out in a half moon, lined next to his shoulder blades and the intricate external spine rested in between, nestled deep in his skin and disappearing into the small of his back. For every breath he took, the metal spine moved in time to the subtle movement of his back and he turned around. There was a tension in Kyle's body language that he couldn't read very well, but it set him on a edge he was unfamiliar with his exboyfriend.

Kyle set the containers down, nudging them towards Jay, and then returned to leaning against the wall, giving both of them space - enough space to back away, retreat - and enough that Jay could see that no matter how tense Kyle was, that his hands were flat, open-palmed, claws in, and he was standing straight, deliberately leaving his stomach and groin unprotected. Even if he couldn't relax, he could try to show that he was not a threat, would not attack Jay. "You wanna talk about it?" He asked, none of the lazy slacker drawl to his voice, but neither was it the growled tone that Jay would've heard on the very rare times he'd seen Kyle fight. It was just..Kyle.

While there was no visible relaxation in Jay, he hesitated holding his stance, studying Kyle. A standoff between the two held him in place until he was sure that he would have no challenge. When he did finally move, his eyes fixated on Kyle's until he had the food in his hands, crouching down and shovelling the food into his mouth. It was probably the only old side of him he felt that his eating habits hadn't changed the whole time he'd been gone, except he was more famished than before. He hadn't realized this until now, until the good southern food was put before him and it took him very little time to polish off everything, saving the tender meat for last.

He didn't answer Kyle until he was done, sedated by the food but not full. In fact, he could probably have done with another serving. Standing up, he set the Tupperware down in the mirrorless sink and stood in front of it, but didn't lean on it. "What do you wanna know?" he asked. "Ah can't say cause Ah wouldn't know where to start."

"Dude, did you even taste that food?" Kyle asked, fixated on the way the food disappeared. And people said -his- eating habits were scary. He considered warning Jay that the questions he had weren't exactly polite and were probably a hell of a lot nosier than anyone else might ask, but he wasn't sure who else would understand. Marius, maybe. "Whoever did all that... " he waved a hand, claws still in, at Jay. The blue skin, the eyes, the gravel-paved voice, the wings and the spine that was not. "Did stuff upstairs to you too, right?" Kyle tapped his own temple to indicate what he meant.

He felt his stomach sink and the food did a double flip making him sure that he had either eaten too fast or this sort of food wasn't settling with him too well. It was well done and he didn't want to admit that raw was what he craved. "Ah don't know. Maybe. Feels like somethin's wrong, but feels right. Ah don't know," he said. Jean had told him, but he didn't understand it so well.

"Ah killed with these," he gestured to the wings that were out of sight. "Killed and don't feel remorse. Ah know it's wrong, should be, but Ah don't feel it. Ah don't," he confessed. "Ah should, but Ah d-don't." Was it beginning to be a nervous habit to stutter? To repeat himself? He realized his hands were shaking and cupped one over the other, rubbing them together to still it or was he trying to cover it up from Kyle?

"Yeah, somebody fucked your brain pretty hardcore." Kyle said flatly. "Did you pretty much damn near get a hard-on getting into that fight too?" He didn't himself, not quite but it was close enough that he'd worried about it for months wondering if he was some kind of weird sex freak, and then he and Jay had hooked up and he'd stopped thinking about it for months, until they broke up and Kyle had to face the thought that he was not attracted to men. Just Jay Guthrie and Warren Worthington, and the two men only had one thing in common. Soft, feathered wings, like the birds he chased when he was bored, or hungry.

Wings that Jay didn't have any more, and Kyle again pulled himself away from his wandering thoughts. "Some of that might be just that you're probably pretty much still in shock, dude. I spent what, like, three months not feeling much of anything except pissed-off. I'm not saying it's the same for you, but Doc Grey, Nate, the Prof, they'll help you figure out what you wanna have up there, and what you don't and what you can learn to live with."

"Ah don't know what Ah was doing in the fight, only that all Ah could think about was blood. Wanting his scream. Ah wanted..." Jay started holding his palms up and looking down at his hands. His fingers flexed, a gesture he found himself doing more and more, and his red hair fell, kissing the blue cheekbones that was very much in Jay fashion. "Ah wanted more.." he whispered. "Ah wanted... Ah could taste it, Ah could breath him," he hissed, licking his lips and slowly, very very slowly, one feather came out, then another. Jay's breaths quickened. It was hot in here. Despite his lack of clothes, the temperature rose in his body and he stared down at his hands, blurring under his vision.

"Yeah, that's pretty much about what I get when I'm angry enough to hurt somebody." Not quite, not anymore, but Kyle'd spent years learning to ignore the urge to just keep going until whoever he was fighting was a bloody mess, and it seemed to him that Jay had gotten a couple extra doses of predator shoved down his throat all at once, with no time to adapt.

He didn't miss the wings shifting and expanding, he just chose to ignore it. As close as he was to the doorway, Kyle had every confidence that he could get out if he needed to, and he felt like it was much more important to stay. And not show fear. Jay was Jay and Kyle was not about to reflexively yield to him the way he had Sabretooth. It wasn't the same. "Dude, you're all.. " he pointed, only half-noticing that he'd stopped holding his claws in, and shrugged. "Subject change time. No more talking about fighting, I got my questions answered. " And then some.

"Ah ain't mad Kyle. Ah'm me. Ah just don't know who that is anymore." He didn't know how to say what he was thinking, what he wanted but Kyle seemed to understand, just like Jean, but differently. He hadn't thought that they would have more in common than before but they did, but he couldn't think of how, except for that animalistic instinct Kyle always talked about. "Ah'm all what?" he asked, looking up and stretching his fingers, then closing them into fists.

"Bristly. Only like whatever means bristly with wings." Kyle explained. "Your wings are all.. I dunno what they're doing but it's kinda weird. They're expanding or something." So much for trying to be discreet, but Kyle didn't feel much like talking around the subject anyway. It just wasn't something that the English language made words for. "I'm not sayin' you're mad, I'm just saying that dude, when I was getting used to all the grr-grr-argh, I didn't want a bunch of nosy questions. I just needed to know for sure if that was what was going on in your head."

"Kyle," Jay started and stopped, bending his head into his hands and letting his fingers slide through his hair until he was griping it when he finally looked back up. "Ah get what you're tryin' to do, like--" Jay's hands dropped to his sides. "You're tryin' to make it seem like it ain't such a big deal, or maybe you're tryin' to make me feel better by lettin' me know someone is there. Do you feel possession when you look at people?" Jay stalked closer and his wings loomed over him as he approached slowly. "Did you ever feel like you wanted to ripe somethin' outta yourself and say 'there, now ya don't have to worry about me'?" He stopped short of a foot and his wings crept up silently, though it was difficult to say whether the tremble came from them or it came from him. "Did you ever feel like ya wanna do terrible things to real nice people?" Jay asked quietly.

"Pretty much, yeah." Kyle explained flatly. "Jay. Mistra put a -thing- in my head. I'm not saying it's the same, I'm saying, yeah, I think I have some idea of what you're dealing with and so if you need to talk about it, to somebody who gets it, dude, you're not alone." He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked up at the wings. "Put those away, or sit down or something, because we do not wanna have clash of the predator instincts here."

"Ah never thought Ah was alone," Jay stated. His hand lifted and climbed up Kyle's arm, his yellow eyes dropping to follow it. Kyle looked like Kevin Cabot, reminded him so much of it that on top of all the anguish Kevin Ford caused him, he felt they had something together. Chemistry? The skin colours clashed and Jay's wings pulled back slightly, though he was clearly dominating Kyle's space.

"Just making sure you know." It was obviously taking Kyle a lot of effort to keep his voice even and calm, as there was a very long pause before he spoke. "Can you put those all the way away, dude? I mean, they're kinda..." Screw it, he thought, it was Jay and he'd never really needed to be super-tactful around Jay. "They're kinda fucking with my head, and not in a good way."

His hand recoiled from touching but an index finger remained, tracing down the forearm and leaving goose bumps in its wake. "Ah don't control 'em. Ah just listen to 'em," he said, but even as he spoke, it didn't make sense to him. The words flowed out of him, the meaning as natural as the level in his tone. He hadn't realized he'd said it, pushing Kyle slowly into the wall by his advancement. Jay's hand flattened against the wall by Kyle’s waist, he'd always been the shorter of the two, and his wings closed behind them like two beings watching, trembling with anticipation.

He couldn't stop watching the damn wings, and it wasn't at all like before. Before, when he was fascinated by them, it was because they were soft and full and moved with the slightest bit of air. Now they were solid and matte metal and heavy-looking and Kyle found himself warily tracking them like he would one of the drones from the Danger Room - or an opponent. He lifted each of his feet, one at a time, just barely off the floor and then looked down at Jay. "Jay. Move the goddamn wings. I don't care if you don't control them, fucking get them out of my face." And when he was ignored, he reached out and shoved Jay in the chest, pushing him away as hard as he could.

He stumbled back, momentarily shocked and hurt by the abrupt push. The sudden rejection hit him as hard as shove against his chest and old rejections surfaced, infuriating him. The point of his wings shot out, metal slicing through flesh and the screech rippled through his throat, pinning Kyle's shoulders to the metal wall. "You never loved me," he said breathlessly, holding Kyle's gaze before it shifted to the blood that wet his wings, licking his lips.

Even if Kyle's attention had been on Jay's words, he might not have responded. But he didn't even register them, paying more attention to the metal pinning him through the meat of his shoulders, and the pain as he shifted, trying to pull away. Without the use of his arms, which were hanging heavy and almost useless, he didn't have much purchase to get away. Pulling one leg up, he kicked, more like a shove with his foot than a real kick, trying to again push Jay away, to try to get unpinned.

Jay fell back, his balance lost at the hit, but his hands efficiently fastened around the other ankle, glaring. Yanking his wings out of the wall, he let Kyle fall fall to the ground, releasing the leg as he went. His wings arched back behind him, quivering in obvious satisfaction. Glancing at the open sketchbook, the feathers taped inside stared back at him and he knew what he needed to do. Kyle didn’t love him because of his wings. No one did and everyone would reject him. Jay looked down, curling his lip back and a foreign sound churned and rumbled deep down in his throat as a warning not to follow. He wanted his old wings and he wanted them now.


Kyle didn't respond - he was doing his best to ignore the urge to attack Jay and make him pay. He looked up, and snarled out something unintelligible that showed his fangs and didn't sound like it started out as words at all. For a moment, he stopped moving, barely even breathing, the tremors of pain fading from his arms and neck. And then, using the wall for support, he backed away, mentally bellowing for Jean or Nate or anyone who might be listening to get their ass over here because Jay'd gone nuts.

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Leaving Kyle, Jay goes to Paige's lab and confronts his sister about his wings.

“WHERE ARE MAH WINGS?!” Jay threw open the door, bouncing it carelessly off the wall. “Ah want mah wings. What’d they do with ‘em?” he demanded.

“Uhh. What now?” Paige asked, blinking at him slowly. “Now. Talk again and make sense.”

“Mah wings. The red ones, the ones that were ripped from mah spine and put somewhere. Where are they?” Jay demanded. “You’re always into this bullshit science, what’d they do with them?" he advanced on her, wings out and metal feather tightened against each other.

“Ah want mah wings,” he said with conviction.

“You...” Paige trailed off, frowned at him, and stood up, her log books abandoned. She crossed the room and opened a metal locker, pushing aside several coats, mislabelled magazines, and reaching in to pull out a red clay vase, corked at the top. She placed it in front of him, the glazed finish making a melodic clink against the sterile steel of the examining table. “Wings. Would you like fries with that?”

“What the Fuck?” Jay gaped. “You burned ‘em?? Ya fuckin’ ruined ‘em?? How could you? Is there any part of me yah thought to leave for me in case Ah came back?” He snatched up the container and turned to throw it but instead, cupped the container to his chest.

Her response was quiet, contained, making a fist in her coat, the cotton wrinkling at the pocket. “You were dead, kiddo. We. We had to grieve. I’m sorry.”

“You burned them!!!? How could you! How could you!!! YOU!” In one sweeping motion, Jay smashed the red vase into her microscope and whirled around, throwing it against the wall. “HOW COULD YOU!?!!”

“Jay.” Paige swallowed hard, her nostrils flaring at she fought hard. Hard to be considerate, to be patient, when her baby lay in pieces on the floor. “I’m sorry, Jay. I really am. It’s no excuse, but we needed some way to come to terms. I wish I could. I’m sorry.”

“You thought Ah was dead, was that it? Already come to terms with it even though there wasn’t a body? What’d you think?” His brow creased and his wings stretched out, dominating the space around them. “But mah wings? Because you couldn’t get mah body, you burned mah wings??” He stalked towards her, his expression angry. “How could you?”

Stepping over the shattered pieces of her station, glass, metal and pottery, crunching under his shoes, Paige watched him. Watched him, her throat tightening, her neck tendons pushing towards her shoulder. “Oh, fuck you.”

It was all the warning she gave. One hand reached for the other and removed the skin there like a glove, revealing shiny steel, before it drew back and clocked him square in the jaw. Jay fell into her outstretched arm, waiting, then waivered as she pivoted back and landed a sharp kick to the abdomen.

Crashing through the lab door Jay fell against the floor to the unexpected hits. He groaned and then his body stilled. A moment passed before he moved an arm and placed the flat of it against the cool, crisp floor that chilled him and he pushed up into a standing position. His wings shifted out and he arched them back in one sweep, fists at his side.

His screech broke through anything he would have said further and in a fury, he ran down the hallway, intent on getting his wings back. He wanted his wings. He hated these ones. He will grow them back. There was just one problem. He had to get rid of the new ones.

Sighing, long, metallic fingers picked up a nearby Blackberry, clumsily trying to type with her pinkie finger. "Security. Forge? Yeah, we're going to need to, uh. Whatever security does with people who are going to be dumb to the building. To Jay. Yeah. Shut up, I didn't do anything! Okay, maybe I kicked him but. He broke Sally. See, I knew you'd understand."

----------------
School is out and Yvette runs into a crazed Jay, who wants nothing but her strength and power. Forge intervines and Yvette gets away. Jay and Forge scuffle, but finally, Yvette brings Logan, who drags Jay to the Danger room.

School was finally over and she had the rest of the day off to herself, something Yvette looked forward to. Hefting her book bag higher on her shoulder as she climbed the stairs, she wasn't really paying attention to things. However, when she heard the bang behind her she whirled, dropping her bag, eyes widening at the sight of Jay stalking down the hall, metal wings flared out and yellow eyes fixed on something beyond her. It was like he hadn't even seen her.

"Jay..." she began, not sure if this was a good idea.

"What?" he hissed. He was transfixed on one thought and one thought alone - getting rid of the wings. He had to get rid of them, he had to be normal, knew that the only person that was holding out on him was one of his friends. The only one who could help. His mind reeled in an instant replay, over and over, passing other students in the halls. It was the first time he'd ever come out in daylight, first time he dared to break out of his cover of comfort and shed any worry for caution.

His eyes flickered to her, fastening on her shorter form and Jay's wings loomed behind him, practically shivering with excitement. Something passed over his expression and it was as though two people were within him and the cold obsession stepped out at the sound of her voice, only to be replaced by Jay himself. His gaze broke and hope filled him. "Yvette--" he bent down, suddenly seeming to be overly nice and pleasant. "You can rip stuff up right? Cause Ah need these taken out, pulled off, would you mind?" he asked, his tone light but the sharp look in his eyes told a different story.

"What?" Yvette's English had improved vastly since she'd come to the school, but for a moment it was like those early days, when words were put together in ways that just didn't seem to make sense. "You want me to cut off your... the wings?" For it seemed the metal appendages were dilled with a life of their own, far too violent for Jay himself, even with his strange blue skin and staring yellow eyes and distorted vocal tones. "I cannot do that, Jay. I don't want to hurt you..."

"Hurt me?" Jay laughed and a subtle underlying screech came out beneath every 'ha' that fell from his lips. He ran a hand over his red hair and the same habit of that hair fell down, touching the sides of his cheekbones, that lifted into a smile. "You couldn't hurt me. Ah heal faster. Just, all ya gotta do is pull em out." It was so simple.

"Jay..." Yvette backed away slightly, more disturbed now than she could express. "I will not do this thing. Please do not be asking me."

"What do ya mean you won't do it?" Jay asked, his smile fixed in place but the light in his eyes darkened. He moved forward, matching her steps away from him. "Ah've seen you do stuff, Yvette. Ah know what you can do," he said more seriously.

"Just because I am able to be doing such a thing does not mean I should. Your wings... I cannot be cutting them off. It is not right... Perhaps if the doctors were saying it was all right, but I cannot do this myself." She bit her lip, trying not to show her fear even as her hair and fingers and toes began lengthening into long spikes. "Jay, I do not like this. Please stop."

"Please?" Jay pleaded and his hand reached out, grabbing at her own but catching the glove instead and pulling it off. He advanced on her, "Just rip 'em off! Yvette!" The glove was dropped and she pulled away from him, but he made for another grab and caught her hand. Immediately he started bleeding, gritting his teeth and pulled her towards him. "Yvette--"

"No!" The sight of the blood clarified things in a strange way - suddenly Yvette remembered her mother in one of her strange rages, smashing crockery and screaming at her daughter that she should never have been born and then later sobbing her eyes out and begging for forgiveness. Jay wasn't himself - more than his physical changes, something had broken inside of him, and he needed help. Help that she wouldn't be able to provide. Yanking away her hand, fully aware of the damage to Jay it would do, Yvette backed away further, trying to meet his eyes and make him listen. "Jay, you must be listening to me. I will not cut off your wings and you must not ask me again. Let me go and fetch the doctors."

The skin on Jay's hand tore and he gasped, grasping the wrist. He had no pain tolerance, but he wanted this, wanted it so bad that he could taste it and he grabbed her again, pulling her to him with his free hand. "Ah don't want a fuckin' doctor, Ah want these wings off 'vette. Why can't you just do it? Why ya gotta be like everyone else?! Ah thought you was different?? Ah thought you were mah friend," Jay fought holding onto her and he stepped forward in her pull to get away from him. The points of his wings lunged into the floor, stopping her pulls and he jerked her into him.

"Let me go, Jay!" This time she didn't just yank, she slashed at him with her ungloved hand, a long raking blow diagonally across his chest. She didn't want to hurt him, but he was too far gone to listen to words and if he kept grabbing her, he'd be even more seriously hurt.

"Hey, asshole!"

The epithet got Jay's attention, enough to get him to turn and face Forge, who stood a few feet away, hefting a large wrench in one hand, pointing it at Jay with a look of mixed anger and fear on his face. "This is who you are now, Jay? Attacking your friends and family,
attacking kids? You want to pick on someone, pick on me."

Jay let go of Yvette, both hands wet with blood as he yanked his wings out from the flooring and turned to face Forge. Absently his hand brushed over the gouge on his chest, gritting his teeth to the mix of sting and tingling from the healing factor kicking in. The metal feathers in his wings rippled across in a wave of reflection and he narrowed his eyes, fixed on Forge in his advancement. Forge was the problem, the start of this, the first denial. "You wouldn't help me either," he said quietly. "Not you, not Kyle, not Yvette - no one."

Wide-eyed, Yvette backed off, eyes flicking from Forge to Jay. Forge would be hurt if Jay wasn't stopped - he was no match for him. But there was one person Yvette knew could help, who wouldn't be hurt. Without a further hesitation, she turned and ran, going to all fours for the speed and her bare hand leaving long scratches on the flooring.

Watching Yvette scamper away, Forge shook the wrench at Jay. Keep looking at me, asshole, he thought to himself.

"Help you?" he exclaimed aloud, "You're asking people to mutilate you, Jay. You don't know if your healing factor could compensate. And for what, because you think you're a freak now? Jesus, Jay, what were you before?"

Instinct turned his head to follow the fleeing, but the clink behind him pulled his attention briefly, long enough that the hesitation caused Yvette to get away. "Look, see?" he held out his hand for Forge to have a better look. "Healin' factor's still there," Jay's smile returned and his wings slipped behind him, arching back. "Ah just wanted alittle help. Ah can't do this mahself," he explained.

"You shouldn't be doing it at all," Forge interjected angrily. "What you should be doing is calming down, pulling the wings in, and walking back down to the medlab. Either you walk down yourself, or..." He took a deep breath and a step forward, holding the wrench in front of him
like a club. "Or I knock you the hell out and drag you."

Forge wasn't going to help him. No one would. He hated them, they burned his wings. They burned his soul and now they wanted him to bear this metal weight on his back. Forge refused to help him. Again!. Jay's easy going smile flattered, replaced by something much worse. "You can try." His wings thrust forward, out as a pair, carelessly trying to slice at flesh and screeched his anguish at the rejection, lunging at his longtime friend.

Ducking into a tight ball, Forge reversed the wrench along his forearm and covered his head as the edges of Jay's razor-sharp wings snapped forward like scissors. Sparks flew as metal scraped over metal, but after the screeching noise, Forge opened his eyes to find himself
unscathed.

Remembering what Garrison had taught him, Forge stepped forward, planting his shoulder in the middle of Jay's chest and pushing as hard as he could. Keep him off balance, stay inside the arc of those damn wings! he thought to himself as he kept his arms up protectively. "You don't want to do this, Jay," he insisted in a shaky voice. "Just back down and we'll get you down to medlab again where you belong."

The force of the shoulder into his chest cut off another screech and he slammed onto his back, skidding on the floor with Forge on top. He scowled from his spot, struggling and coughing heavily, trying to fill his burning lungs. "So what-- so Ah can be like you. You always hated Kevin, ya always made fun of mah wings--" His left wing cut out, kissing metal wing against metal arm while the other struggled beneath him, cutting into his own hip bone. A gurggling growl rolled up in his throat through his nasal passage and he ground his teeth together, sucking in a sharp breath at the stab of pain. Trying to roll to his left, he freed the wing and it darted out the joint to hit Forge across the head.

Thankfully it was the flat ridge of the wing that clipped Forge alongside the temple, but it felt like being smacked with a baseball bat. Dazed, he rolled off Jay and scrambled around, left arm still held protectively in front of him. "Enough with the whining and moaning," he growled at Jay as his head swam. "That's all you've ever done. You know what you are, Jay? You're a professional victim," Forge accused. "The difference between you and me is
that I decided to fight back. You? You play the martyr."

Levering himself to his feet and trying to ignore the room spinning, Forge raised the wrench weakly, barely holding himself up. "You think you can be like me? Get up and fight."

"Ah don't wanne be like you! Ah never did! Ah was always the victim cause ya made me into that Forge! You never took me seriously! Nothin' Ah ever did was good enough and now--" Jay snorted, that growl rising up again. "Now when Ah need you the most, you turn yer back on me and call me a freak. YOU LET THEM BURN MAH WINGS SO AH'D BE LIKE YOU!" He screamed and went to lung again, but something caught him by the back of the throat and threw him back, crashing him down into the floor.

"All right, kid, funtime's over." he said, keeping his grip on the kid's neck. "We tend to draw the line at attackin' folks around here. Trust me, I know. So why don't you just leave the geek alone and let Jeannie give you a look-see." he told the boy. If Jay continued to struggle, he'd keep the one-handed strange going until he passed out. With luck, it wouldn't come to anything worse than that.

Yvette appeared at Forge's elbow. "Are you being okay?" she asked, worriedly. "He was not hurting you? I went as fast as I could for Mr. Logan. He understands things."

"I'm...fiiiiiine..." Forge moaned, wavering on his feet, then leaning against the wall, still brandishing the wrench. "Gotta see if Logan needs help. Teammate needs... crap." He whispered the last before finally slumping down against the wall.

On his back, Jay's hands grabbed Logan's, momentarily disoriented. The chokehold tightened, forcing him to struggle against the grip and he gasped in a tight screech, his wings wriggling under the pressure. His feet lifted and the heel of black converse came down on Logan repeatedly until one of the wings slipped free. The organic metal bent over, the feathers thrusting out, looking to hook into flesh and bone.

Logan paid the wing no heed - his first priority was to disable Jay without killing him. Which would be why his own claws stayed firmly in his forearms, even though he had a powerful urge to pop them out, use them on the boy. He strove to re-establish his choke, using his own superior body-weight to hold the boy down, immobilize the four limbs he could get to. If he didn't - if Jay in his madness went free - a whole lot of people were going to get hurt. Starting with Yvette and Forge.

His feet slapped against the floor and his back arched, the external metal spine lifting him off the ground as he gasped for air. The tip of the wing jerked out, thrusting into flesh between the rib, rubbing organic against adamantium and cut outwards. All reason and logic completely washed out from his face and a wild eyed expression washed over him as he fought to get up.

Logan exhaled sharply as Jay's wing cut deep into his vitals. Blood bubbled around the cut with every breath - lung hit. Very bad. His body was already trying to repair the damage as Logan hung on grimly to his choke. Put the boy out, he should calm down nicely. And with his ability to heal, he didn't have to worry too much about causing Jay brain damage or loss of function. "Get clear!" he burbled, unable to shout loudly due to his perforated lung. And, for some strange reason, the whole cut along his side was going numb. Not a good sign.

Welcome back to the Mansion, Logan. Hope you survived the experience.

Jay's wings thrashed again, this time curling into where Logan's arm was, the edges cutting deep into flesh. He was desperately slowing now and his wings drew back, hammering down on that arm Logan's neck, anywhere they could cut, looking for more than just skin, convinced it was either him or Logan.

Logan was being cut into bloody rags, but his healing factor was stitching the wounds closed as best it could. His body was going numb along the lines of the cuts, thick and unwieldy. Still, he got to his feet and dragged Jay up with him, still trying to contain the flailing boy. "Get clear!" Logan said loudly to whoever might still be watching. The kid was a handfull, still flailing and struggling even though he'd been denied air for about a minute now. "Get Jeannie, tell her we're heading for the Danger Room." he said, beginning to stagger in that direction. "GO!"