Wings to Fly, Eyes that Burn

Marshall woke up in a cold sweat. He'd been having a nightmare about his daughter Hailie. He tried to shake the image from his mind but her eyes seemed burned into his brain. "You're just as bad as they are." The phrase echoed in his head. It had been Mekhi's voice that his daughter threw back at him. Marshall looked down at the tattoo on his arm, Hailie's little girl eyes blinked up at him shining and happy. He reverently ran his fingers across the tattoo, the touch causing him to remember another dream. It had teeth. He dreamed that the tattoo of her had grown green scales and teeth and it had started to eat away at his flesh. When he went to Remy for help the green scales had sprouted all down his arm and his nails twisted into claws that seemed to have a mind of their own. He'd slashed at Remy's face, hacking and clawing until all that was left was his blazing eyes.



Marshall watched as a strand of redish brown hair slipped out from behind an ear and fell delicately in front of burning red eyes. It reminded him of his dream, he shivered slightly. "Where y' at boy?" Remy's voice cut into him and he felt questioning fingertips dance across his slightly stubbled chin. They were tucked away in one of the kitchen supply rooms that Remy had discovered since his forced employment there.

"I was just... thinkin' is all. Sorry I don't know, lot on my mind."

"Dis not 'bout what y' told m' before is it? All dat shit 'bout de Friends of Humanity? Cause Remy can handle dat, in fact I hope dey try an' mess wit me. I'm lookin' forward t' kickin' some ass."

Marshall didn't even smile. His eyes darted away from Remy's gaze and he shrugged nervously and bit his lip.

"Der's somt'ing else, isn't der? Y' want t' tell m' somet'ing but y' not sure if y' should." Remy read his body language like a book.

Marshall blinked at him surprised and unnerved by his perceptiveness. "It's not important. It can wait til... til after, ya know, it's cool."

Remy studied him carefully for a minute and then nodded his agreement. He pinned Marshall's opposite shoulder down and rolled over on top of him, "Good, cause we don' have all de time in de world an' I was really lookin' forward t' fuckin' y'."

As it turned out they scarcely had time to even finish that part before they were noticed by one of the cooks who promptly kicked them out.


It was a couple days later and they were in the library, a favorite spot of Marshall's because it was somewhat secluded and they could shoot the shit there unbothered. He, unlike Remy hated reading, said he was too ADD to be any good at it and was proud supporter of comic books. They both had agreed that batman was the shit and superman was a pussy in an earlier conversation on comic book heroes.

Today however Marshall was uncharacteristically quiet. They had been there for close to an hour, Remy reading his Ann rice book and Marshall pretending to be reading some detective novel.

Remy had just been getting to the gushy vampire sex when Marshall said; "Have ya ever had a kid before?"

Remy could sense something in his voice so instead of laughing his head off and saying 'who m'? A kid?! What de fuck y' smokin' y' cracked out moron?!' He said; "Non. No chiles for dis Cajun, crazy women was hard enough t' handle."

"Yeah, I hear ya. Amen ta that shit."

Remy laughed. "Da love o' m' life was dis girl Bella, she was a damn assassin, sworn enemy o' de T'ieves Guild. Y' c'n imagine how smoothly dat went over." Remy's smile faded and his eyes dulled with painful memories. "Women defiantly be hard 'nough."

Marshall nodded. "I was wit this girl, Kim, known her half my damn life, like since I was fifteen. She was my girl ya know? Drove each other damn crazy but I loved her like nothing else. When she got pregnant wit Hailie it changed my life." He paused and fiddled with the plastic wrapping on the detective book in his lap. Remy could see him psyching himself up to continue speaking. "Hailie was everything to me ya know? That girl was like my chance to prove that I wasn't a loser. I wanted to be the best father to her, like be the dad that I never had, you know what I'm sayin'? All that cheesy bullshit aside, but like my father left when I wasn't even a year old, never knew him and shit. Hailie was like my chance to make up for that somehow."

Remy nodded solemnly. "I never knew m' parents. Dey probably took one look at des eyes an' ran screamin' in de other direction. I lived on de streets til I was nine an' den I got adopted into de T'ieves Guild." His expression was blank but his hand flicked and tapped the tabletop. Remy wasn't a man of needless motion and Marshall's eyes immediately picked up on his hand movements. Marshall thought it may have been anger.

"You were born wit your eyes like that?" Marshall asked.

"Oui, was real fun gettin' de shit kicked out o' m' every t'ree seconds because o' m' eyes. Sunglasses at night became really fashionable."

"Hailie was eight when Kim got arrested for drug possession." Marshall pressed on with his story. He just wanted to get this over with, why did Remy have to make it twice as hard? "We was already divorced at that point but like, I still cared about her an' shit. It was really fucked up though cause suddenly Hailie didn't have a mommy anymore, not that she'd been that great of one, but'd 'd at least been there. Kim wasn't all bad. She just had problems. So then for a while it was just me an' my girl." Marshall paused again and ran his fingers across the smooth fake wood tabletop. "I loved her so much." He whispered.

Remy nodded carefully. "The tattoo."

"Yeah, I got it to remind myself that'd I'd done something right. I'd help create that little girl and so even if life was sucking and things was hard, I'd always have a piece of her wit me. When Hailie was about thirteen, ya know going through puberty and shit... She came home from school one day and... Her skin was flaking off. She was crying, saying it felt like her skin was on fire and boiling underneath. Man, it was so fucked up. It was like some fuckin' horror movie or some shit. She started growing fuckin' scales... She turned into a thing. I told her to get the fuck out, said I didn't know what she was. When she needed me the most I fucking turned my back on her. I was scared ya know? Scared outta my mind and I didn't want anything to do with her. I'd heard about them mutie babies but I didn't know that it could just manifest itself so suddenly like that. It was so fucked up. It took me like six months before I realized that I'd made a mistake. I went looking for her. I hired a detective an' shit ya know? The detective was a mutant too I think. I never asked her about it, but I dunno, I think she was. So after a couple more months she digs her up. Girl has been living in a sewer wit all these other mutants. The weird looking kind, the kind of mutations that can't blend in and pretend to be human. I go to her an' tell her I'm sorry an' I want her to come home. She basically tells me to go fuck myself. She hates me an' wants nothing ta do wit me. So then I leave. That's the last I've seen of her."

Remy's eyes flared with anger. "Why'd y' tell me dat?"

"You... You're a mutant too. I wanted you to know... what I did. What I did to my own daughter."

"Why? Do y' want m' t' hate y'?

"I... I wanted you too know. I thought you should know." Marshall stumbled over his words.

" Do y' want m' t' punish y'? T' hurt y' for fucking up?" Remy asked darkly.

"I... I don't... I don't know." The words came out forced and painful, his brow furrowed and he looked like he was holding back tears.

"I own y' boy. Y' can't get rid o' m' dat easily. Y' ain't no angel, I fuckin' knew dat from de beginning. At least y' knew y' fucked up an' y' tried t' fix it. Dat shit takes time t' fix though. Maybe she'll forgive y' someday, maybe not. Y' gotta not let it eat y' up inside. Yes it fuckin' hurts, an' y' t'ink o' her every day, but y' keep livin' in da past den y' jus' die."

"I'm not livin' in the past, I just..." He trailed off, unable to finish. His throat was burning and his eyes stung. "Fuck this." He got up and left.

*note from author: that feedback kicked, made my whole damn day :)