Disclaimer: If I owned them, not only would I be stinkin' rich, but also this gift would have been given much sooner!
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Water crashed in around her. Her attempts to breath left her lungs burning. Her nostrils ached in protest as she tried to force the liquid out of her body and drag in oxygen. Her limbs failed as she tried to swim. But the life-liquid was too vast, to heavy.
Suddenly, the water dispersed. The female plummeted through space until her body crashed into ground. The land around her resembled the baked mud of a savannah water hole in the dry season. Marie pushed the water from her lungs in a few desperate coughs creating a pool of mud around her bruised cheek.
She struggled to pull herself up to her knees. Unblinking she glanced ahead of her. Heat distorted her vision in every direction. Through the temperature waves she distinctively saw an all to familiar figure.
"John!" She shouted out, stretching an arm towards the figure of her friend. The boy only stared at her, flicking the top to his lighter open and close compulsively. With a final switch of the cover off, and a slip of the thumb, a small yellow flame sprang up. The mutant allowed the flame to grow and take the shape of a dome, enclosing Marie.
"No! John, stop!" Marie pleaded as the circle came in closer and closer. She whimpered as the ground beneath her feet began to sizzle. The mud she had created began to bubble. The skin of her hands turned red and blistered before blacking and crumbling away before her eyes...
"NOOOO!" Sweat drenched and quivering, Rogue flew up in her bed only to feel a pillow hit her in the face.
"Geez, Marie!" One of her roommates whined. "Why don't you just tell someone about this so we can get some friggin' sleep for once!" The sleepy girl huffed, her judgment clouded with exhaustion from rather intense training.
As she lay back down, Marie sent her fingers down to her wrist. She mentally slapped herself when she realized that the chain she had worn there was gone. She had given it back.
The teenager was used to nightmares. She could never shake them. Horrors were always with her. None of them usually were this intense or apparent, though.
There had been a time right after Liberty Island when they had become nearly unbearable. Fear of being called weak forced her not to go for help. Instead she would lay back down and breath deeply. Marie would raise the ragged dog tag over her head and swing it back and forth, letting the moonlight from the windows highlight the letters on it one by one. She would focus solely onto those letters until she could feel her shoulders relax.
Then came the harder part. Marie would close her eyes, and let each muscle of her body turn to mush as she sank into a form of mediation. This only had one downfall. Doing this left her feeling available. When that happened, her mind always drifted off to the same spot.
Her eyes would run over the one time she had felt completely safe. The night she had run away from the School and ended up on the train. True, that night ended in disaster. But for a few moments, when she had been in Logan's arms, she had felt at peace. He, who knew what she, could do without wishing to first hand, had kept her close despite everything around them. For the first time, she hadn't been shunned.
Marie's eyes watered now. Forcing her eyes closed cut off the waterworks, but not the frustration. Taking another breath she swung out of bed and crept out of the room quietly. There was no need to wake anyone else up this evening.
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The building was still as she made her way to the kitchen. It appeared that she was the only one who wasn't finding sleep this evening. Not even the kitchen had an individual sneaking a midnight snack.
Turning to the stove, she put on a kettle of water. She thought of nothing except what her hands were doing as she opened up one of the cupboards in search of the tea bags. Marie couldn't help think of how Bobby would roll his eyes at her and tell her she was turning into an old maid as he did every time she drank tea.
But Bobby wasn't here now. For some reason, she was glad. When John had left them, and Jean disappeared underneath the lake, he had clung onto her. She had done her share of clinging as well, but Marie had always liked a little space to figure things out for herself. If she didn't...well… she had been anticipating the nightmare that had hit her tonight.
"Do you usually roam at three in the morning?" Rogue was pouring the steaming water into a mug when the voice made her freeze.
"Hey! Watch out there." She blinked several times as a pair of rough, wide; hands took the kettle from her right before the boiling water came to the mug's rim.
Shaken, she looked up at the man who had intruded in on her thoughts. She was just grateful that she hadn't sent the kettle to the floor to greet her bare feet. Marie couldn't explain why she felt frozen now, but her body felt as if it had been shaken back into the real world from a dream far to fast.
"Hey, kid...You okay?" Logan frowned as he put the teapot down onto the burner guards.
"Ye..yea." She cleared her throat. I was just thinking to hard, I guess." She shot him her normal smile. Suddenly she was extremely conscious of the sweat-lathered tank top she harbored and how pleasant that must smell to his overly sensitive nostrils. "Oh, uh, I'm sorry... I would have taken a shower..."
She was surprised when he made a sound that laid somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. He just shook his head and grabbed another mug. Switching some of the water into the new cup and adding more from the kettle, he plopped in two of the tea bags she had fetched.
"Don't worry about it. I've smelled much worse." Logan shrugged casually. "Grab some milk will ya? And put your eyes back into your head. If we had anything a lot...er...stronger than this, I'd be choking down that. But since we're in an... educational environment," he noted sarcastically, "I suppose doses of caffeine will have to do."
To anyone else he would have bluntly blabbered, "you reek." But not to her. Besides, it wasn't so much the scent of the sweat that bothered him. It was how her skin was still crawling, and how her heart hadn't slowed down from an adrenaline rush. And by her distraught mannerisms, he would guess that it wasn't from a pleasurable rush.
When she passed him the milk he simply nodded to her and poured a measure into both cups, not asking if she liked it in hers or not. He didn't really seem to care. He was concerned, and that was consuming his thought too much for courtesy to sneak through.
"Say, the couch is free and the room's empty for once. Why don't we go in there, sit down?" He tried to sound casual, but he couldn't tell if it was working. No one would ever say that Wolverine was the best people person there ever was.
When the two made their way into the couch, they simply sat there. Marie curled her legs up to her chest as she sipped on the hot beverage. Logan sprawled out to his satisfaction.
The experimentally formed mutant stared down at his cup. He sure as hell didn't know what to say. Should he confront her about her state? But was it really his place?
"You don't have your tag on anymore." He turned his head to see Marie staring at his accessory-less upper chest.
"That? Oh. I let it go with the scumbag it came with. Got rid of some bad memories." He growled, taking a long sip from his own cup.
"Oh..." Marie fell quiet again. The male tried to ignore the twinge of disappointment he thought he detected in her voice.
"So...You and Bobby, huh?" He tried to quickly change to subject to something that might be a bit more cheerful.
"Yea...I guess." Marie gave a half smile that contained little to no sincere ness in it. She just fiddled with her cup. Her silence was driving him nuts.
"How can ya' guess?" Logan's eyebrows shot up with curiosity. "Or is he more sure of you two then you are?"
"I guess you could say that..." She gave him another short response.
Logan sat his cup down onto the stand in front of him and let his head roll to the side. He observed Marie for a few minutes while she seemed oblivious to his glance. Her own eyes were fixed on the discarded cup.
He took in her now greasy hair, her crumpled pajama bottoms, and wrinkly top. He chuckled at the fresh silver paint on her toe and fingernails. They almost looked like little claw nubs. As he looked at her nails, he noticed how tightly she was clutching onto the mug by the white of her knuckles.
Leaning over he pried her fingers away from the object and sat it down beside his. Her irises widened in fear, like a child who's security blanket had just been ripped away.
He hated that look."What's wrong? Don't try to bull shit me, either." He couldn't put up with anyone dancing around things with lies.
Marie dodged his gaze and looked to her feet. She shrugged her shoulders, exhaling. She could feel him about to speak, so she forced everything out in one breath.
"Everything's so screwed up. I can't stop these dreams I've been having. Everyone's scared. They just don't want you to see it. The little kids wake up crying, too. It's not just me who has nightmares. But we're all so independent we can't move past our stubbornness."
"They're all afraid that more people will disappear. They're scared that John isn't going to come back, that he's really going to turn on us. And if he does, who's to say more of us won't? And that will mean this place really ISN'T a safe haven. It's just a third division."
"And then there's Cy—Scott." She continued on in one enormous ramble. "He won't talk to us. Can't he see that he's not the only one who misses her? He wasn't the only one who stood there and couldn't do anything! What good is any of your abilities if we have to watch a friend die!"
"And Bobby, ha! Ya' know, I kissed him that day at his house?" She told him nonchalantly. " Yea. First attempt was great. Second I almost turned him into a corpse! He's so frustrated, but he tries to hide it. I can't TAKE that, Logan! It's not fair to him, but what makes me feel worse, is I don't even CARE."
"With so much happening, I can't afford to feel ashamed of my inability to control my power. I can't feel bad about not being able to be an ideal girlfriend. I just can't be perfect. I'm breaking, and it feels like no one can see it! I don't want them to. I've depended on too many people already!"
Tears were flowing down her face freely now. She had begun to choke on her words after her third breath of rambling. Marie clung to her knees and tried not to rock back and forth. It was making her sick to think that she was openly crying.
Logan frowned deeply as he listened to the teenager talk. He had been so caught up in the past few days that he had been negligent to the one he had promised he'd protect. Guilt rippled through him.
"Hey, hey, hey..." He whispered, scooting over closer to her and pulling an arm around her. "It's okay, it's alright kid. C'mere." He whispered to pull her towards him again.
Pushing aside how miserable this whirling of emotions was making her feel, she sank into Logan's chest, careful to keep her palms inwards to her own body. She didn't care how weak she felt right now. She needed this. She needed to be held, to be protected.
"Marie...You can't blame any of them that you mentioned. We're all a little scared of what might happen' with your friend. You can't blame Bobby, he is a teenage boy ya' know." His eyes sparkled a bit when he heard her snort at that comment. "And Scott...Hell, he lost the love of his life. You can't expect him to..."
"You can't..." Logan stopped. "Aw hell! When did I start becoming all motherly? Ack. All of these rug rats are rubbing off on me!" He joked, glad to see her smirk slightly.
Marie's eyes went wide for a moment. It had just hit her. She looked up at Logan with clear eyes.
"...I'm sorry, Logan." She whispered.
"For what?" He crinkled his nose at her.
"...I...I know how you...how you...felt...about Dr. Grey." The words sounded like she had to cough up a cactus to say them. "And, I know how hard going to that facility was. I'm sorry that I poured all that stupid shit out to you. I didn't even stop to think...That...That your hurting, too."
Wolverine blinked several times, absorbing the shock that came from her words.
He had always tried to keep as closed up as possible. It didn't make sense to worry others. And though his affections towards Jean had been painstakingly apparent, he didn't think that Rogue would have commented on them.
In some way, he had liked to pretend that she didn't see what was going through his mind concerning the doctor. It was bliss to think that maybe Rogue still harbored a girlish crush on him. Those hopes had been shattered the moment Bobby had introduced himself to him. It still surprised him how he had been almost disappointed to hear it. That thing he wouldn't admit.
As for the discovery of who he was 'made' by, he hadn't told anyone much about it. But, it seemed that rumors spread fast. With the intensity of the past few weeks, he wasn't that surprised. He only wondered what had been said.
"Don't worry about me." He said simply, brushing away her white bangs from her face. "I heal quickly, remember? Besides, she liked the 'good guys' as she called 'em."
Logan's mind drifted back to that night. In the same evening Mystique had tried to seduce him, taking the form of Jean, and then flashing the forms of the other two faces of the females present. He nearly shivered as he recalled the imitation of Marie hovering over him.
"Besides...The cut wasn't that deep." He cleared his throat before straightening up a little. "And, I still got my best gal' here." He nudged her playfully, making her eyes smile.
"...Ya' know...When the back of the jet was ripped out," His mood turned serious,
"I don't know if I was more scared for. I didn't know to be afraid for us or of the fact that I almost lost ya' again. I guess I'm not doing my job of being a guardian to you very well, am I?"
Marie didn't laugh at his attempt of a joke. She didn't find it funny. She found it touching. That coming from Wolverine was the closest thing to a sentimental comment you were probably going to get.
Logan didn't comment on her silence. He just flipped away the straying hair that had fallen back from where he had placed it. This time, he tucked it behind her ear. When
He was done he rubbed his thumb across her eyebrow and forehead thoughtfully.
"Promise me one thing, kid." He finally whispered. "Don't ever hold anything back
from me this long again. You shouldn't have to hold on to stuff that long. If ya' do, your eventually burst. And I don't want to be picking up pieces of you. And we'll never get the stench out of the rug."
Rogue smiled and nodded her consent.
"Good."
He stopped caressing her skin. His eyes fell across her face thoughtfully. At this proximate he could hear her heart pounding in his ears. It had calmed down. Her breathing was soft and normal. She seemed to be fine.
Logan dropped his hand slightly to cradle her jaw in his fingers. Gently, he pulled her up to him. He could hear that same heart speed up and feel her try to pull away, he wouldn't have it.
"Logan..." She cautioned him with a quaky voice.
"Nuh-uh." He placed a finger on her lips. "It will be okay. Just focus. Don't be over confident."
He took the finger away and gingerly replaced it with his lips. His mind was screaming at him that he should stop. He was not only being reckless, but he was taking advantage of her confusion. In other words he was being a genuine bastard. He simply told that little voice to shut up.
A mix of relief and pride filled him, when he didn't feel the tingling pain that he had experienced when she had drained him before. All he could feel was her soft lips captured between his own, and her falling into his weight. He held her for that long moment, pressing his mouth more firmly against her's.
He reluctantly released her, knowing that if he let himself go any future he would be pushing his luck. He wouldn't chance ruining what had just happened. Besides, by the heavier breathing on both their parts, they had obviously needed air.
"See. You did it." He moved his hand back to run through her hair. He wasn't sure if she had been learning that well, or if she had suppress her gift with the supreme terror of hurting someone again.
"...I...I did... Why couldn't I be—" Marie tried to question what had just happened, but Logan shushed her again.
"Did anyone tell you that you talk to much?" He joked rather heartily.
Logan didn't stop to let his conscience trouble him. He knew what it would say. It would tell him he was encouraging her, that he was encouraging himself. It would tell him that it was shameful to even think of kissing her. She was only a young girl! Well, nearly a
woman, but who knew how old she was compared to him?
"Why don't you get a shower?" He suggested when the moment collapsed into an awkward silence. "And then try to get some rest. They're dragging you on another field trip tomorrow. Just, don't tell any of the others. It's supposed to be a surprise, something' to let the other kids loosen up a little after what happened and all."
"The secret's safe with me." Marie slipped out of Logan's lap.
When Rogue disappeared out of his view, Wolverine fell back onto the couch and closes his eyes. The same hand that went through Marie's auburn strands now ran by his own head. For an uncounted time he just sat there, thinking to himself.
"Why do you get yourself into these things, Logan..." He whispered to himself
Marie had immediately headed towards the bathrooms. It wasn't until she was safe under the water's steamy waves that she allowed herself to touch her lips. A bubbly feeling rose up in her chest, threatening to burst open and rip her apart.
The remainder of the shower, she let herself play over the moment. In the morning it would end. She knew that Logan would act like nothing happened. She'd let him. In some odd way, she felt like she had broken several unspoken rules.
Guilt could wait. For what Marie cared, the whole world could! For the first time in months, she knew whatever sleep she got tonight would be uninterrupted.