"Two Princes" by Alicia McKenzie (PG)

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

Fandom: X-Men Comicverse
Pairing: No romantic pairing; story features non-romantic relationship between a young Cable and Stryfe
Author on LJ: aliciam
Author Website: Alicia McKenzie at Comicfic.net
Why this must be read: Alicia McKenzie is the writer who single-handedly turned Cable from a character most fans considered more or less a joke into a fanficcer favorite. Here, she takes the most tragic yet irredeemable villain in Cable's history and writes an AU that offers him the possibility of redemption. Her take on the characters, their emotions and behavior, seems completely realistic -- and the two boys in this story are just so darned *cute*. For a freedom fighter and an emotionally damaged murderous bastard, anyway. :-)



The Paladin blinks, shifting uneasily as the sound of shouting and distant klaxons intrudes on the stunned silence. "Where will you go?" he asks the boy beside him. The child has just informed him, calmly, almost numbly, that he intends to destroy what Apocalypse wrought, to erase his legacy.

"Don't know. Away from here." The boy looks up at him, face still emotionless. Not at HIM, Ch'vayre realizes with a cold surge of something that feels uncannily like fear, but at the boy he holds. At his 'twin', however inexplicable the resemblance is. "I don't think it should just be me, either," he says. Flatly, as if trying to discourage any argument.

Ch'vayre's eyes narrow as he stares down at the boy. There is no trace of the anguish that was there when the man and the woman vanished into thin air. Not even a flicker of loneliness. The shock is still there, but fading, receding into the background--or being pushed. The boy is thinking, Ch'vayre realizes. Not just thinking, but planning, with a sort of calm logic that seems out of place in such a youngster. "I told you, boy, I can protect him--"

"Maybe you CAN protect him," the boy says bluntly. "But if you don't mind me saying so, just protecting him isn't going to do him any good."

"What do you mean?" But Ch'vayre already begins to understand, and while part of him rejects the idea violently, part of him knows the boy is correct. And yet--

"I was inside his mind, you know." The boy's eyes are hard, uncompromising. "You take him away, make sure he's safe, he's just going to keep on right like he started. Might even be worse than Apocalypse, in the end--"

"And you think you can do better?" Presumptuous boy. But determined, Ch'vayre can see--

The boy smiles, a faint cold smile that seems far too adult. "There's a whole world out there he doesn't know anything about," he says. "Don't you think it's time he learned?" Those gray eyes go distant, saddening. "He's me, somehow--I don't know how, but he is. And Redd and Slym--" His voice breaks a little, but he continues, stubbornly. "They'd want it this way."

Ch'vayre holds the boy's gaze with his own. "He's very dangerous," he says crisply. "Very powerful. He might--"

"He won't kill me," the boy says, bitterly. "Otherwise, he'll be alone. And he won't want that. We're not THAT different, you know."


Two Princes