Disclaimer: This is a work of fan-fiction. The here fore used characters belong rightfully to Marvel and I just borrowed them. The only profit I hope to achieve with this is the pure pleasure of the reader, so no copyright infringement intended. Please do not sue me, I don’t have money and won’t be getting some from this story.

 

Author’s notes: This story shows the thoughts of three different X-Men (Nightcrawler, Rogue and Gambit) concerning certain things that are important to them.

 

Feedback and Distribution: I’m a feedback addict, so please feed me. Let me know what you think of this story. Loved it; Hated it; Want it for your site? Please email me at zebra-three@web.de

 

 

 

A tale of belief, love and trust

 

by Belladonna

 

 

You cannot believe in somebody without trusting him or to loving him.

You cannot love somebody without believing in him or to trust him

And you cannot trust somebody completely without loving him and believing in him.

 

 

I have always been a very believing man, I always had faith in God, at least as far as I can remember back. The belief in church and in God has always given me strength and hope and I consider my belief still the important power that leads me in my life, that drives me forwards. The belief in that there is a God who watches upon all humanity so full of love, who leads us and protects us, one who takes us as we are like He has created us.

 

It is said that God has created humanity in His image, and I believe strongly in this, then we are all equal, all the same, no matter what outer appearance we might have. We are all children of God and He is so full of love for us the way we are for it is the way He had wanted us to be. I am thoroughly convinced that also my appearance had been destined to be this way by Him and I have learned through my faith in Him to take it as myself, to accept it even when other people are lead to believe because of it to see a demon if not the devil himself in me.

 

It may be true that my whole body is covered with dark fur, that my ears are pointed and I only have three fingers on my hands, not to mention my feet, added to this are my yellow eyes and my fangs as well as my tail that ends in an arrowed shape.

 

But this is only my appearance, what I look like on the outside and people who will only see this in me will never be able to truly see or recognize me underneath it. They also forget that I am as human as they are and that besides my looks I do not differ from them. I am not different, for I am human, too. They don’t know it better, in their fear of the strange and unknown they even hate me for what I am and represent through my appearance.

 

I am a mutant, but no creature of the devil or spawn of hell but a creation of the same God like they are, that had created them as well.

 

I can understand them, can understand that they are afraid of me, they simply have the natural fear that all beings have of the things they cannot understand and to this also belongs mutation. Even the best geneticists couldn’t discover the origin or reason of the mutation of DNA although there are the world’s best and finest researchers among them.

 

For me it is the will of God, for He has created man and He does never anything without reason. One says that the ways of the Lord are inscrutable but that is not true. This is only said by those who don’t bother to think closer about it. He has always a reason for His doings, we only have to learn to understand them, to understand in general.

 

Most of the people alas are not capable of doing so but I have understanding for them, too. They are lost souls and it is our duty to lead them back to the right way, to give them support, offer comfort and our love. We have to show them our trust and that they are still, despite their prejudices they might have, as human as we are, and that they are allowed to make mistakes like we too make mistakes at certain times.

 

In front of the Lord all people are the same and He loves us for what we are and for who we are, it doesn’t matter to Him how we might look like. He loves us mutants the same as He loves all the other people, if only those who hate us could understand that as well. Do they hate us only that strongly because in truth we the same just like they are? Do they fear us, because we are so much like them that they’d rather not want us to be? Are they reminded of themselves, of things they don’t want to see in themselves when they see us sometimes?

 

The mighty Lord up in heavens is a merciful God, only though his mercy we exist, live and when we will die one day He will embrace us with wide open arms, for we are after all His children. Our God is so full of mercy and forgiveness, he gives it away to all the sinners who repent and to all of them who have not been able to recognize their misled ways as well as he gives it to them who seek repentance.

 

I have faith in God for it is Him whom I love the most as he loves me as well. He sees me truly as I am, has taken me for what I am and for whom I have become. He is the one, whom I have given my trust for he is deep within my heart and how can I not trust myself. This way He is in all of us.

 

Only because of Him I can forgive these others their fear and ignorance they’ve displayed so many times to me. I can do it for God does it too, we are all brothers and sisters of humanity in the end. My belief helps me not to confront these poor people, who do not know or do not see, with the same anger and hate they bring towards me, my faith makes me stronger and leads me on my way through my life. Because of my belief I have found the courage and strength not to despair of my life, of being hated and shunned for my appearance. In my faith and beliefs I find strength, for He offers me comfort and support when I threaten to fall in this desperate situation that my life sometimes becomes.

 

I don’t know where I would be today had I not found to my belief in the church and Him. I don’t know whether I could go with the same confidence and inner strength through my life if not for my strong beliefs, or if I would have been broken because of the people who hate me. Even my mother has abandoned me because I was born different than the child she’d probably wanted to have but I don’t hate her, don’t bring hate against her for she possibly had been full of fear of the people who still haven’t learned out of their mistakes and their past. I have forgiven her long ago, not only for my beliefs that every person deserves a second chance and the chance to repent their mistakes, to seek penance and forgiveness only we can give. I was able to forgive her because my beliefs taught me all this. They have taught me forgiveness, to forgive those who hurt us in their ignorance. He takes these lost sheep too, receives them with open arms and embraces them back to Him with all His heart.

 

I am glad to have my belief in the Lord and church for I don’t know who I might be without them or if I too would have taken a mislead way and would need now the forgiveness of others.

 

~/~

 

Love is such a wonderful thing. It binds people together, connects them stronger than any other connection would ever be able to do. Love is one of the strongest feelings, if not the strongest for me, for love enables us to reach things we otherwise wouldn’t have the courage to reach out for. But we do them because we love, because we trust and believe. We do them for a person we love, because we trust this person and believe in him with our hearts. And we are only able to do them because we have opened our hearts to this special person in our life, given him our love and trust.

 

When we love, we grow over ourselves, it makes us strong. For me love is a very special feeling, it touches me deeper than a person could ever muster with a simple touch. And it allows me to touch the ones I love equally deep and that is it what makes it so special to me for otherwise I could injure another person with the simple touch of my bare hands, even kill them.

 

My powers forbid me to ever experience human touch again, I cannot hold another persons hand without my gloves, otherwise I would steal their powers and memories, even their lives. But the feelings I have for others, the love I offer them allows me to touch them deep within. It is the only thing that allows me to break out of the isolation of my powers, to allow me to truly touch another human being.

 

But it is so much more. Because of the love I feel for Remy, I have found the man of my dreams, the one my heart belongs to and I can feel that he returns these deep feelings I have for him. This is the thing, that gives my life sense, it makes me so happy to love and to be loved and it is the one thing I have always wished for in my whole life. It allows me to forget the loneliness, that my gift can mean for me. And for I know that I will never be able to touch him with my bare hands, so I know that my love touches him far more deeply in his heart as his has touched mine.

 

But love can be a double edged sword, for to feel love means to feel pain. It is said that you hurt the ones you love and that it hurts when only one would be in love. And this is as true as it is also not for it can hurt so much more when both are in love.

 

It gives me always a deep sting in my heart when I see how the others show their loves and affection with tender touches and  kisses, and I know that I will never have that too, only through the safety of a piece of clothing.

 

Remy loves me without these “proofs of love” and I know that, and because I know this, I love him even more but he doesn’t know just how much I wished to feel his hand in mine without that this piece of cloth is between us, to feel his skin under my fingers. He doesn’t know that it pains me when he gently risks the touch although we both know that we will never be able to enjoy this freedom of our love.

 

Yes, love is a wonderful thing as it is painful if not tragic. For Remy I’d do anything, give anything I have. For him I would give my life and our love lets me forget all my sorrows. I’d die for him but it would kill me if he’d die, even more if he’d do it for me. I couldn’t live without him.

 

His love has made me strong, changed me in a certain way and despite the painful experiences it had brought me I would never want to wish for to forget this wonderful love. But it has made me vulnerable as well, because I cannot be without him. If something would happen to him, I’d truly die, so painful would be his loss for me.

 

Love is a strong feeling for me, it has not only made me stronger it also freed me. I don’t want to  miss all the wonderful memories and experiences we had together, never. I love him from the bottom of my heart and even if we will never be able to be unified in body so he has managed to touch my soul with his love, my heart. And this unites us more than anything else could.

 

If our love means that it will sometimes cause us pain then I will greet this pain and difficulties for I endure them for him and I know that it is not in vain because I endure it for love.

 

~/~

 

Trust is something that has always been a difficulty for me. It is difficult for me to trust somebody for I have been used too often in my past and my trust been misused and simply taken advantage of.

 

When I was a child I wanted to trust, but if you grow up on the streets this is difficult. You have no one you can believe in, nobody who loves you but only yourself and there is nobody who would even want your trust. Who would want to be trusted by a street kid, nobody even wants something to do with these street rats who only bother hard working citizens and live out of their pockets if not steal.

 

The other kids who grew up on the streets like I did didn’t trust me but they wanted me to trust them so they could use me, only I didn’t know that then. The won my trust only to betray it afterwards, to use me and abused my faith in them, their honesty, if they were ever honest to me, was only to their advantage. That made it hard for me to trust somebody again, but I so much wanted to have somebody whom I could believe in, in whom I could trust again, somebody who would love me.

 

I wanted to trust my family, the family I had always wanted to have and finally found but they too used my faith in them, betrayed my trust and in the end exiled me. I was alone again and felt deeply hurt inside.

 

I vowed to never trust somebody again, I thought to have learned out of my mistakes. How wrong I was I should find out later when I made the mistake of trusting again, the mistake of offering my services to Sinister and naively as I was, offered my trust as well. But back then I only knew him as Dr. Essex.

 

Maybe I only wanted to have somebody to trust, to have someone who was worth this trust. I couldn’t have been wronger in my choice this time for it was another mistake, a bigger one than I could have ever  imagined. He too had only used me, tricked me to assemble his Marauders for him who then slaughtered almost all the innocent Morlocks who lived in the tunnels beneath the city. My in him unjustified trust is the reason that they had lost their lives in one of the most horrible ways I can imagine and it is all my fault. All the innocents have died because I trusted the wrong man, again.

 

I have realized that trust is only something that brings pain with it, either to me or to innocents who have nothing to do with it. My trust has often been disappointed and I have caused through it great pains to others who didn’t deserve it, whom I didn’t even know. Maybe this is the reason for it is so hard for me to trust somebody, to trust again. I fear to be disappointed and hurt again and to harm others, I have done and experienced it too often in my life to risk it again.

 

But as hard as it is for me to trust somebody, to really trust them unconditionally, as hard seems it to be for others to trust me. Most of the time the reason lies within my past or my profession for to trust a thief would be to put more gasoline into the fire. Thieves are not trustworthy, the moment you turn your back towards them, they disappear with your last shirt. I don’t deny that I am a thief, it is what I am, what life has made me and I chose to stay. I don’t feel ashamed of what I am even if it makes others uncomfortable to be with me.

 

But it is not the only thing that  makes it so hard for them to trust me, in my case added to this comes my past, and it is my past that weighs much heavier for not trusting me.

 

My mistake to trust Sinister, even if I could, no should have known better, is probably the main reason for the constant mistrust against me. They let me suffer for having given away my trust lightly. They cannot forgive me and never trust me again, although it isn’t as if they’d ever done it before. But I have lost the chance to ever win their complete trust or their complete belief in me and my honest and earnest intentions.

 

I think for them it is like with most the other people, when you trust somebody you have seen into his heart and soul before and seen that this person is worth you trust. I have never seen that in others, maybe I wanted so desperately to trust someone, that I have been too blind to see. But can you trust a person like me when you can see the fires of hell in his eyes, that should actually be the windows to his soul?

 

But I think the true reason that it is so hard for others to trust me and so hard for me to trust others is probably that I cannot even trust myself.

 

I fear to reveal too much to others for they could disappoint my trust in them. I recoil from opening myself up to them, they possibly could only use me again. And that have others done too often in my life to me.

 

I am afraid to be hurt when I want to trust anybody and offer my heart and soul to them.

 

I cannot trust anybody or believe in anybody because I cannot trust myself at times.

 

But the problem with this is that it is exactly what makes it impossible for others to trust me. It is a circle which knows no end. I have been too often betrayed and disappointed in my life I almost believe that I will never be able to trust anybody again, not even Rogue, the woman I love more than anything else in my life. I love her from the bottom of my heart but not even to her I have revealed everything. I could not do it but how can she love me then? How can I love her when I am not able to trust her unconditionally? I hadn’t had the strength to tell her everything but I know that I love her more than my life.

 

It is true that trust needs time, that time is needed to establish trust between people and before it can be developed. I will need time to learn to trust again, in myself and in others. Maybe then it will be easier for them to trust me.

 

~/~

 

The beliefs of a human being are a strong force, just like love they enable people to do things they wouldn’t have done without their faith and love or even dreamed of to do. But without trusting in both of these things and in themselves they probably will never be able to recognize or achieve this.

 

 

~fin~