Travis Hedge Coke
Patricia Highsmash
Five Scenes Where X-Men Meet and Have Nice Talks
by Travis Hedge Coke
We all have scenes we would love to see, conversations we know in our hearts and headcanons would happen and why don’t the comics give them to us? Some are deep in our hearts, fulfilling the angst of decades of implied and anticipated story. Some are passing daydreams that made us laugh.
What follow are works of parody protected under the law in most nations, five dialogues between X-Men characters that we are unlikely to ever see in real actual X-Men comics, but which I would wager you would want to see, and I assume you would want to see go just like this:
Maddy Pryor and Jean Grey
Maddy: Why do people think we’d hate each other? “Oooh, but they met once and she was soooo mad.” Oh my god, they’ve never gotten mad before?
Jean: To be fair, you were mad, not me.
Maddy: You were so mad. Of course, Scott was lying to you, too. “Oh no, I’m Scott Summers and I don’t have a wife and child hum hum hum. I would never have sex because I am waiting for my dead teenage girlfriend to come back to life someday, fellas back me up! X-Fraaaaat!”
Jean: He does not talk like that! He thinks like that, but he doesn’t say it. And, he basically bullied them into playing along.
Maddy: This is why we would not fight all the time. We are two of the select few who know exactly what the most efficient thought for “Scottgaddammit” is and how to make an open face and half-smile and keep our arms low while we think it so he won’t think we’re being too confrontational while he’s telling us we should retire.
Jean: We have more than that.
Maddy: But, that’s the fun part.
Jean: Usually when there are alternates, there is a good and an evil, a behaving and an unrestrained. For every Beast, a Dark Beast. For every Charles Xavier three or four cosmic-level nightmares
Maddy: Who all have a crush on us.
Jean: Okeh, that is creepy. But, the alternates aren’t evil because they wear a pith helmet
Maddy: Aren’t they?
Jean: The alternates express something that is within each other them, just as the core person presents first something which is also in the alternates. Clones. Psychic projections. Alternate reality versions. They are roads not taken, but they are on the same map.
Jean: You and I don’t just diverge vvvvvvp! one in each direction. We go in and out and in and out
Maddy: “She’s playing all night! And, the music’s alright!”
Jean and Maddy: “Mama’s got a squeeze box and Daddy never sleeps at night!”
Annie Ghazikhanian and Polaris
Polaris: All the advancements of Krakoa, a waiting room is still a waiting room.
Annie: This isn’t the worst I’ve seen. The magazines are all out of date, but there’s some good smut.
Polaris: Like porn?
Annie: I wish. Can I ask you?
Polaris: Mm?
Annie: You have a doctorate right? Does your alma mater ask you for money every semester even though we live on a post-scarcity island without moderated income?
Polaris: At least once a year. And, why do you live on mutant island?
Annie: You know. To give the gossip columns something to write about.
Polaris: We have gossip columns?
Annie: Heh. Sorry. No, it’s just my joke. We do have them though. And, message boards for it. And, there’s a private Discord.
Destiny and Mystique
Mystique: You cannot imagine how hard it was to convince them.
Destiny: I knew. I always know, I just have hopes.
Mystique: Hopes.
Destiny: I know the future. I rely on you.
Mystique: I am not reliable.
Mystique: I let you die. Look what I do to my children.
Destiny: Rogue and Kurt are great. They are fantastic.
Mystique: We use mutant names. Nightcrawler.
Destiny: I know. Your children – our children are fantastic.
Destiny: You can’t be ashamed. Not of mental illness. Not of poor memory. Of anxiety or emotion or survivance. You and I are the grand narrative of this whole tapestry. You and I are beautiful and good. Making mistakes cannot ruin that. Regrets cannot stain that truth.
Mystique: Why do you always hold back and then you never hold back?
Jessie Drake and Egg
Egg: No one laughs at Egg. They laughed at Gold Balls, but nobody laughs at Egg except you.
Jessie: You’re a guy. You learned you produce viable eggs and you changed your name to Egg.
Egg:
Jessie: I guess you had to be there.
Jessie: I’m trying hard not to Teen Jean you. I know I’d hate that and I don’t want to be that.
Egg: But…
Jessie: I am trans, because I’m a woman. Tempus is trans because she’s intersex. Rahne is trans because she’s nonbinary. I think Mystique is nonbinary but she’s scary and I’m not going to ask. You found out about yourself and you
Egg: Are you hitting on me?
Nightcrawler and Daytripper (and Shamrock)
[Translated from German.]
Nightcrawler: My beloved sister! I have missed you so much! I brought presents and beer!
Daytripper: God!
Nightcrawler: Don’t blaspheme.
Daytripper: I jammed my finger. And, we are in Hell. Or, Hell-adjacent.
Nightcrawler: I saw S’ym on my way in.
Daytripper: We keep him around to laugh at.
Nightcrawler: You and Shamrock?
Daytripper: Molly.
Nightcrawler: Can we talk about that?
Daytripper: So help me, Kurt, if you tell me my sexuality is a sin I will skin you!
Nightcrawler: OMG, Amanda, I have to tell you! I am officially dating Logan. The others know.
Nightcrawler: But, I want to talk to you about you and Molly.
Daytripper: Yeah?
Nightcrawler: Are you exclusive? Or, can we all? I mean, I’m here, you’re here, she’s here, we’re all sitting on comfortable sofas. She has the power of lucky.
Shamrock: Guise! I speak German. I’m right here.
Nightcrawler: You’re right here. That is what I am saying.
Daytripper: I think it’s weird because I’m your sister.
A Thousand Displaced Mortalities of War Who Live Inside and Around Shamrock: No, it’s not.