Standard Disclaimer: Marvel characters and universe appear here in a work of non-profit. Stee and Orlus are mine.

Notes: For TangleToy's Morlock Self-Insertion Challenge. Oh come on, you knew I couldn't resist. Guess who I am in this. Betcha you can't! Betcha you can't!

Rating: R for bad words, adult imagery and violence.

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Stee, by Ratmist

She crawled into the dusty alcoves behind him, privately disgusted with herself. The words in her mind flowed like her favorite candy over her lips. Inside, she pushed away the thoughts that threatened to bring on the tears.

The single candle lit the tiny space as tattered clothes fell from Stee and her lover.

"I do love you," Stee informed her lover, who shrugged. Stee snorted and rolled her eyes to hide the resignation within her heart. Not even a nod of acceptance this time from her lover. Orlus said nothing.

Stee stared absently at the colors above her in the gentle curves of the sewer alcove. Green moss of differing shades melted into yellow scum, and the browns of dying algae cast shadows with the help of the candles. Her breasts exploded in sensation as Orlus leaned into the short distance between their bodies, suckling.

Inside, Stee barely contained her tears. She lost her heavy thoughts as she stared at the colors above her. She wondered silently about the engineers of New York City that had bothered to place an alcove, gently curving, underneath a city which would never appreciate it, only for a Tunnel-raised Morlock to admire colors the pretty people could never truly see.

She was used to Orlus' silence. He was a mutant, hardly a reason to be Morlock, but his powers were strange. No amount of meditation, teaching, or research had refined his voice within him the slight nineteen years he had spent upworld. His speaking voice was so strong, it would cause vibrations within others brains, effectively melding the soft tissues to the roof of the skull. Once, in a fit of frustration, he had mindmelded an entire floor filled with people at New York City University's Central Library. A few whose heads had been too close in whispering conversations had melded at the foreheads as well. Not a pretty sight for the police arriving on the scene.

Orlus had come to the Morlocks then, fleeing from everyone who pursued. Callisto nearly left him to be buried by those who were seeking him, the risk so great, but Stee had begged.

"Please, Callisto," she said. "He could help me." And with tears that brimmed but did not fall, the leader of the Morlocks consented for a fortnight only.

When the police had been trapped in many of the Tunnels' traps, the search for the mutant was abruptly ended, and Orlus took permanent residence in the Tunnels.

If any heads melted this time, it would be crocodile, the police had thought foolishly.

She wondered if her lover's 'voice' could even penetrate the thick skulls of the sewer crocodiles that lurked deep within the tunnels, and she wondered what colors, if any, would splash upon some lonely alcove in an arc of blood.

It was these gruesome thoughts that pervaded her mind as he nuzzled her navels, his passionate caresses lost upon her.

She was lost within her own blessedly simple thoughts, thoughts that were cleared from thinking of herself, the Morlock Ma Jane's new pregnancy, and most importantly, the communications she already felt forming within herself.

She was tired of speaking with the unborn, both within herself and within the few other pregnant Morlocks.

As her lover plunged within her, she withheld her tears she longed to release with relief. Her mind was utterly clear from everything, including the passion with which her body responded. As her body surged with its more base natures, her mind was achingly clear. It was for this that she chose the silent Orlus. She ignored the voice that reminded her Orlus was the only man within the sewers she had, up until that point, *not* chosen.

She made no sound, and neither did he, save for the slapping between their thighs. Not even a sigh escaped his lips, so profound his control over his own mutation.

She ignored the tiny wooden cross around her neck which had slipped into the hollow of her throat. She concentrated on the colors above her, greens of so many shades. Beautiful greens, some tinged with brown, a few tinged with red. That was probably rust, she thought.

As she felt his release within her, she finally kissed his forehead, and felt a wave of gratitude laced with infinite regret. She could not love him, and never had. She used him, just as surely as he used her.

She chose not to see the tears in his eyes, chose to believe those big brown eyes could not possibly express what could have been said in words. She chose to feel no comfort he radiated with patience and understanding. Truly then, no words or love was lost between them. Only a rapidly ignored friendship.

She nodded once to him as she arranged her three navels more comfortably. Stillborn triplets, every time, every three years, despite celibacy, deliberate wanton sex, or self mutilation to her triple wombs. She was profoundly grateful she didn't have three faces or six breasts for nursing which would never occur. Apparently her body had known from birth what had been concealed from all until her fifteenth year.

The children she bore were always dead two weeks prior to delivery, always only half of what they could be. She had long since stopped trying to understand why she was only allowed exactly eight months and fourteen days to know her own flesh and blood within her mind. To question God would break her forlorn heart even more, and she knew could not bear to lose her faith too.

The candle threatened to gutter, and she quickly grasped it, not caring what Orlus thought of her actions as he continued to look at her. Still within her, he rested his weight upon his arms, content to comfort belatently through a connection she refused to feel.

The flame stilled and the light returned as brightly as possible in the alcove. She looked through her wet lashes at her lover, who only looked in compassion and tenderness of a friend.

Not a lover now, just a friend in need of the same things she craved but neither possessed.

As she burst into tears, she felt an odd movement within her central womb, one she had never felt before. Floods of one something newly created information filled her mind, while the far more familiar waves of two half created somethings chattered at her confused soul.

She dared to hope as she added tears, salty as a deep blue ocean, colors as countless as the green scum and moss above her as a halo. The dusty hearts within the lonely alcove rested as a light, full of colors Stee had never known and Orlus only sadly remembered suddenly pierced their minds.

Bright and simple, complex and twining, the light chose to fill Orlus' mind first, touching his inner rooftops in apology, before fleeing into Stee's broken, repressed heart to awaken an emotion Stee thought had been only half created as the other two jabbering within her mind.

Orlus, reaching awkwardly over his right shoulder, gently traced his index finger into the thick wet moss above them.

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end
Something less twisted please,