Canadian Nights: The Story of the Blind Mutant Chapter 1 by Mo
Sequel/Series: This is a 15-part story series. It's a sequel to the 10-part "We're Not What You Think" which is, in turn, a sequel to the 7-part "I Know What You Are".
Scenario: The Movie Universe. I have borrowed concepts and characters from assorted Marvel comic book titles as well but have not tried in any way to make the stories consistent with the comic books (as far as I can tell, Marvel has despaired of making the comic books consistent with each other). Similarly for the novelization of the movie and for other X-Men books. I've looked on all of those resources as fodder for ideas but have felt bound only to be consistent with what is presented in the movie and with the previous stories in this series.
Disclaimer: The X-Men and Alpha Flight belong to Marvel. The movie belongs to Fox. I do feel like Scott and Logan are a little bit mine since I've been borrowing them for so long.
Notes on locations in the stories: Except in the first series, which all takes place at Xavier's school in Westchester, my characters move around a lot. All of the locations, save one, are genuine and described as realistically as I can manage. I have been to some, but not all of them. The one invented location is one I was stuck with by Marvel - there is no town in Westchester County called Salem Center, although there is a North Salem. But, if there were a Salem Center, the way to get there from New York City would be by taking a train from Grand Central Station, as Scott does in this series.
Acknowledgements: Much thanks to SW and LS, who beta read these stories, helped me with the research for them, and provided many suggestions and corrections, improving them greatly.
To: clawguy@hotmail.com
Subject: Keeping in touch and Past lives
Thanks for calling the other day, Logan. It was good to hear your voice. I'm really glad you took on this assignment of Charles's - both for your sake and for ours. There's nobody else we have who could do it. You know that part of the country better than anyone else on the team. And I'm glad things are working out well with you and 'Ro working and traveling together. Glad, too, that you said it wasn't the same as traveling with me. I'd be kind of disappointed if it were.
You said you wanted to hear more about my pre-X-Men days. I think I should say up front that I've had some misgivings about what I've told you already. I never said a word to Jean or anyone else about how I managed when I was on my own. I'm sure Charles never said anything, either - he's pretty much the apotheosis of discretion. So, nobody knows about my somewhat less than virtuous past but you and him. Oh, and a couple hundred men, of course. Well, they don't know who and what I am now and I think it's safe to say that none of them would recognize the kid they picked up in Cyclops, Field Leader of the X-Men. Of course, it's likely that none of them would have touched me back then if they'd known I was a mutant.
It's not the kind of adolescent experience I'd recommend, in general. I really haven't thought about that time in my life in ages, but I've been mulling over it since we spoke. It seems like a million years ago and so far away. You know, "but that was in another country and besides, the wench is dead." Well, at least that's how it feels from this vantage point, thinking about what it was like to have no home, no family, no place in the world. I was afraid pretty much all the time. Prostitution is a scary way to make a living, or at least I found it so. My current job isn't exactly danger-free, but somehow it's considerably less frightening. Or maybe I've just become more accustomed to living with fear.
Although, truth be told, a lot of what was scary about that time wasn't specific to the work but was just the consequence of being on my own on the streets of New York City at the tender age of fifteen. I had lived a pretty sheltered life up until that point and really was ill-prepared for life without adult protection, all that Boy Scouts "Be Prepared" stuff notwithstanding.
Some of what was frightening was due to trying to hide out, trying to pass as normal, or close to it. I had just come into my powers and the only way I could manage to keep the fact that I'm a mutant hidden was to pass as blind. Well, I was blind, really. No ruby quartz glasses back then, no idea that there even was such a thing. So I was trying to pass as just an ordinary blind guy. I had really dark glasses and just kept them on all the time and kept my eyes tightly closed behind them. Had all sorts of invented excuses for that if anyone took the glasses off and noticed they were closed. Got myself a white cane. Did my best to blend in, not to let on that my eyes were deadly weapons I couldn't control.
So, yes, I was a rent boy, as you put it. Well, at fifteen and without vision or much of an education I didn't have a lot of marketable skills other than sex, Logan. I was thankful I had one. And thankful that there were plenty of men who were willing to pay for it. It was hard, though. Some of them took advantage of me. Pretty easy to cheat a blind boy and there are always those who like taking what is easy. Not so easy to beat up a blind boy - or at least this one. Not as easy as some of them thought it would be. That's when I really learned how to fight.
Some of them were pretty nice to me, though. The nicest was this one guy who put me up in an apartment for a while. Kept me, I guess. He lived somewhere out in the far 'burbs but had a pied-a-terre in Manhattan. And he'd tell his wife he was working late and stay there with me during the week. It was just a tiny studio apartment, but it felt like paradise after being on the streets and not knowing where I'd be each night. And he even let me stay there during the day while he worked and on the weekend when he was home with his wife. He was the only one who ever did that, ever let me be somewhere of his when he wasn't there. I saw myself as Scheherazade - just concentrated on keeping him happy one more night. Yes, melodramatic, I know, but I was fifteen and somewhat prone to melodrama.
In the end, it wasn't much like Scheherazade - I didn't get anywhere near a thousand and one nights.
Thirty-seven to be precise. Yes, all these years later I still remember just how many nights. Paradise ended when his wife wanted to come into the city for the weekend - shopping and a Broadway show. He said I could come back on Monday, but he lied. Or maybe he just got scared off over the weekend with her. Maybe she found something out or guessed something. Anyway, the doorman told me I couldn't go up when I showed up on Monday. I called him at his office again and again, but he never took my calls. I was back on the streets. And stayed there until Charles found me, about a year later.
And the work itself? Well, sometimes it was fun. More often than not, though, I just pretended to enjoy it. Provided service with a smile, but it wasn't a sincere one, generally. I was pretty sure by then that I preferred men to women, but I didn't usually find myself attracted to the men who were my clients. And I found the whole thing kind of degrading. Well, that was the appeal of it for some of them, I think. Bending me to their will, feeling like only what they wanted counts, getting off on the power. That whole power and control thing can be a fun game sometimes, a turn on sometimes, as you know well. It wasn't a game with those guys, though. Or at least I didn't feel like I was playing. It was all about survival to me, and I was willing to do whatever it took to have food and a place to sleep for another night.
So, it wasn't a real great introduction to working life, or to independent living, or to life as a mutant. We often get kids at school who've been through something similar. I don't tell them that I was once where they are - I guess I'm just too much of a coward to do that. I do try to tell them, though, that it will get better, that they are somewhere safe now, somewhere with adults who will take care of them. They're just too young at fifteen or sixteen or seventeen to take care of themselves entirely. I was too young, too. And I can't go back in time and give fifteen-year-old Scott a sense of safety, but I can do it for these kids. I've found that helping them has been healing for me, too.
I do have to say that I learned something from almost every man I was with during that time, so I got something lasting out of the experience. And let's face it - you're the beneficiary of what I learned from them, Logan. Or at least you have been and you will be again if you come back here. If you still want me.
Scott
P.S. So, we both have times in the past we're none too proud of. I don't think trading sex for money or food is the sum total of who I am. You know what I mean?
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From: clawguy@hotmail.com
To: scott@mutant.org
Subject: Reply to: Keeping in touch and Past lives
You said, in part:
>You know that part of the country better than
>anyone else on the team.
Don't push it. I agreed to do this one assignment, not to join your team. I wore one of your uniforms, Scott, when we went against Magneto (Hey, I guess that was the first time I got into your pants) but I'm not one of your X-Men.
I think we have a couple of good possibles for spots for the new school and center. We're looking for places that aren't just defensible but also where we can build in a way that won't look like an armed camp, where a defended center can be built fairly inconspicuously. I think not being noticed is going to be our first line of defense. Well, there are plenty of places not to be noticed in Western Canada. Cold places, though. I'm thinking the weather is going to be a bit of an adjustment for transplanted New Yorkers. Maybe better to move the first residents up in the summer. We're a long way from that point, though. 'Ro and I are going to call the professor and talk about the two locations we have in mind and see how he wants to proceed.
What you told me about your early days was very different than what I expected. I didn't know - or maybe didn't remember - that you were so young for all of that. I guess I was thinking more about hearing some sexy tales, not something about a kid just trying to survive. I'm sorry for that. Those men who used you are right up there with the Weapon X people for me - I can't understand them at all. In my books, adults using kids for sex are committing an unforgivable crime, a capital crime. Tell me the name of the studio apartment guy and I'll find him. And make sure he knows why it's happening before he dies. I don't know if I've ever said this to you, but I do think that what you and the others are doing in giving mutant kids a safe place to live and learn is a great thing.
I hope you aren't regretting too much telling me about that. Hey, you can trust me to be discreet. You know that, don't you? I haven't told any of your secrets, ever. I don't talk a lot, anyway. It's not hard for me to keep mum about stuff. And no, I don't think it's the sum total of who you are. I don't think it's even something you did - I think it's something fate, or circumstances, did to you. And, as you said, some good came out of it. You learned how to fight. You learned how to give great blow jobs. And yes, I know, I've benefited from both of those skills of yours.
I miss you, Scott. I miss the sex - a lot. Not just the sex. Talking to you, listening to you. Being with you. When things start feeling kind of tough I can hear you say to me "We're a damaged people in a hostile world, but we can help each other." You've helped me a lot, and I thank you for it. I'm not really looking beyond this project, but I'm glad to have the project now. Glad to have you, even if only as a pen pal.
Logan
P.S. Tell me a story, Scheherazade. Give me something to think about when I wake up in the middle of the night.
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