[The Doctor]
"Come on in, Rogue."
I followed her, my eyes on the gentle sway of her hips. Something about her smelled so good. The faint scent was tickling a place deep in my brain. What the hell was that?
{Arousal.}
What?! Ugh.
I couldn't imagine her stopping off for a quickie with Scott with everything else that was happening tonight.
Logan's smug chuckle annoyed me. {Nah. It ain't like that. Scent's too weak. Just a trace. She just came down from givin' me a full exam. Touchin' me all over and tuckin' me back into bed… That's where I'd put my money.}
Gross.
He was remarkably sanguine about it. {Touchin' me gets her hot. It's not the first time, either. Smelled it on her when I first woke up in the lab, too. It's just a physical response. She can't control it any more than you can, kid.} That he seemed to accept female interest as a matter of course spoke to how often it came his way.
I was stunned speechless.
{You can't hide in here anymore than I can. I smelled it on ya at the bar in Laughlin after you watched me fight and I caught it again tonight. Just why was it you were in my room?}
You were having a nightmare! Jeez, Logan.
{And just what were you imaginin' was gonna happen after you woke me up?} I could feel a little tickle of male amusement there, but something else under it made me really think about my answer.
Nothing! To be honest, I hadn't even really thought past waking you up. You saved me. We're friends. I like you.
Something warm spread out from him.
{Nobody likes me. Lotsa women want me, but none of 'em like me.}
I do.
{You're a weird kid, you know?}
Did it escape his notice I was having a conversation with him in my mind? Hello?!
Yeah, and you're just an average claw guy.
He laughed into my head; this time it was rich and warm.
I just wanted to help you stop hurting. It wasn't anything more than that, I swear. I just didn't expect… you were—
This time he pulled the images from my head. {Moanin' and sweaty with my shirt off?}
I could feel my face flame.
Yeah. I— I had a pretty active fantasy life before I manifested… and after…
If he looked hard enough, he'd find it, I was sure. He probably wouldn't even have to look all that hard. I've always been sorta passionate, even if it was just in my own head. Just fantasy. I'd never been that close to a grown man I was attracted to, though, especially not one shirtless in bed. I guess my reaction surprised us both.
{That the first time bein' near a man made your blood run hot, darlin'?}
It was and he knew it. Ah, God.
{You don't gotta be ashamed, kid. It's real nice. Sweet. Flatterin'. I'm real sorry it ended the way it did, but you know I wouldn't have—}
I know. You're safe, remember? A good guy. I know you wouldn't have—
I could tell I'd shocked him deeply.
{I ain't a good guy. Not even a little.}
You are with me.
He fell silent as I followed Jean deeper into the lab, past the glass cabinets of supplies and the scanners and equipment that frankly scared the crap out of me.
My eyes darted away from Jean's hips before she noticed, but I was aware of it and it was enough to make my steps slow noticeably.
"There's no need to feel shy, sweetie. We've all been there."
Oh, really? How many of them had nearly killed a man and had him lodged in their heads, after? I knew she was trying to put me at ease. I could even tell she genuinely meant what she said. It just wasn't working. To be honest, I'd felt this way even before I'd had Logan in my head. She was very nice, helpful to a fault, and really went out of her way to try to make me feel comfortable. All of which made me feel like even more of a bitch for not liking her. I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was something about her that just didn't ring true. Something under the surface that I couldn't see but that gave me the heebie jeebies all the same.
"Somehow I doubt that, Jean."
She looked at me sharply. What? She didn't like me calling her on it or she didn't like me calling her Jean? Sorry about that, sweetheart. That was Logan's idea, not mine.
"Dr. Grey, please, Rogue."
Even her rebuke was soft and delivered with a warm smile as she tucked her hair behind her ear. It was sleep-tousled and a little wild. Logan approved. My hands went to my own tangled hair. It didn't give him the same warm feelings.
"Sure. Sorry. I'm a little shaken up still. There's a lot of Logan still left in me, I guess. Sorry."
She was looking at me a little more curiously now. Crap. A drawer opened behind her and Jean turned, pulling a pair of blue latex gloves from a box. "Don't worry, Rogue. I'll be careful. The last thing you need is my gifts on top of his."
To be fair, she actually sounded like she was more worried about hurting me than she was about me hurting her. That was something, I guess, especially after she'd just had a live demonstration.
Logan was suddenly interested. I felt a hot spike of something best left unnamed as he wondered what it might be like to have a mental version of Jean in my head all to himself.
Asshole.
No. Fucking. Way. You can forget that right now, cowboy.
He tried to keep it from me, but I could feel his excitement at the idea of a Jean he wouldn't have to share with Scott. One who was free to do whatever she wanted with him. It was a selfish, fleeting thought. He'd never do anything to hurt me, but the idea appealed to him all the same. I suppose we all have our little fantasies. He wasn't trying to be cruel. We were both still adjusting to sharing the same headspace.
I dropped into a nearby chair because the cold steel of the exam table was making my skin crawl. The walls were beginning to close in again and the sharp, medicinal smell was making my stomach churn.
{Just breathe, kid. Breathe and thinka somethin' good.}
I imagined walking right up to him on that snowy road and kicking him in the balls as hard as I could.
I almost fell out of the chair as his sharp bark of laughter rang in my head.
{Jesus. Bloodthirsty little thing, aintcha?}
I am.
He approved. Liked it, even. I was surprised.
Jean was busy pulling the necessary items from a nearby cabinet. A stethoscope. A penlight. A gown. My file, too. I wondered what it said.
"Can— can I please have some water?"
"Of course." Without stopping what she was doing, Jean floated over one of those little paper cups that holds maybe two swallows. I felt like an idiot, filling it up a dozen times at the sink before my thirst was manageable. The water tasted good, clean and pure but it only made me feel hungrier. My stomach growled as I sat back down, nervous as hell and on the edge of bolting.
She didn't have to be a mind reader to see that. I wasn't too worried though. The Professor couldn't even really read my mind. He said my mutation was unique, in that my brain seemed to automatically switch frequencies too quickly for him to identify and connect with one before it was gone. He said it was sort of like if every page out of every book in a library was ripped up, pasted back together in pieces and out of order, and put back together in one massive volume. You could open it to any page, but all you'd get was a few lines from one story before it randomly switched to something else.
To have the world's most powerful telepath tell you that your brain was pretty much the weirdest one he'd ever come across was pretty sobering. He didn't say it in so many words, but I could tell that I was a frustration, an enigma, and a challenge to him all at once. I don't think he knew what to make of me. I don't think I knew what to make of him, either. Thankfully he didn't give me the same vibe Jean did. She'd tried to read my mind in the lab during my first exam. It had made her dizzy and given her a nosebleed. I am ashamed to say I kind of enjoyed that more than I probably should have. The memory made me feel like running even more.
"We don't have to do the exam right away, Rogue." She sat on a stool and wheeled closer. "Maybe we could just have a little chat about how you're feeling." Um, no.
"Crappy."
"Physically or…?"
Hmm... How did I feel? Physically, I actually felt pretty good. No, great. God, I really, really did. I was a little tired and hungry, but I didn't have any aches or pains. Even the pinch in my neck I'd felt after Logan's camper had wrecked was gone. I felt strong. Powerful. There was a wildness thrumming just under my skin that made me feel like I could do anything. Anything I wanted. Man. Did Logan feel this way all the time?
{Pretty much.}
Well, thank you, Captain Obvious.
"Um, I feel fine, you know, physically." My inarticulate rambling was the antithesis of her calm, cultured words, so carefully measured to put me at ease. Instead, I was dorky and awkward and everything she wasn't. Even with a decade on me, I'd still never have her poise. I'd still be in my twenties though and she'd be in her forties. That's something, right? I sighed. She was probably the kind of woman who'd still look amazing at sixty.
"What about emotionally?"
"I'd rather talk about Logan, if that's okay."
Her lips thinned slightly. "I'm afraid I can't give you any details about his condition any more than I could share yours with someone else." She seemed to realize I was about at the end of my rope. "I can tell you he's resting comfortably now and that the Professor is with him. It doesn't appear as if there will be any lasting damage."
Relief flooded me. "Good. That's good."
"That's quite a gift you have," she said softly, with a touch of awe in her voice. Yeah, the little girl who almost killed the Wolverine. I bet she wouldn't think that if she saw how I'd hurled my guts out afterwards.
"Gift? You can return a gift." Logan agreed. It still made Jean smile.
"Yours is extraordinary." What planet was she on? God!
"It sucks."
She smiled. "I know the feeling."
"Oh really?" I had a hard time believe that. "You're gorgeous. You have a really cool, useful mutation. You're engaged to the black leather Prince Charming." I ignored Logan's growl of disdain. "You can touch him and he can touch you and someday you'll probably have the most adorable redheaded kids ever. You don't have to worry every second of every day that if you slip up, someone's going to die— "
There it was in her eyes, for just an instant. A flash. That strange whatever-it-was that weirded me out so much.
"I have features too big for my face, a crappy mutation that's completely impractical — painful for me and deadly for anyone else. I can't touch anyone, ever, and if all of that wasn't awful enough, I get gifts I can't control and voices that linger in my head after the dust settles."
Shit. I hadn't meant to add that past part, I'd just kinda been on a roll. I'd avoided mentioning that during my last exam. I normally wasn't a put it all out there and share it around kinda girl. Old habits die hard. I guess this whole thing had rattled me more than I first realized. Great.
I could tell I'd shocked her.
"You have telepathic ability?" She sounded way too interested. I'd forgotten that she'd told me that researching and exploring mutations was a hobby of hers.
"No."
"No? Then how do you hear voices?" There was a gleam in her eye that I didn't like at all.
"I don't read minds. My skin just takes them." You should be afraid. I could reach out even now and—
{Marie!}
Who was he trying to protect? Me or her? Me I guess, because a minute ago he'd been pretty keen to have her up here with him. A love nest where Scott could never find them. Hurl.
The misery must have shown on my face. Her expression softened instantly.
"It's awful, isn't it?"
That time I was the one who looked at her sharply.
"Knowing all those things. Thoughts inside your head that you can't control. Personal, private things you don't want to know or hear."
I think my mouth hung open.
"I was eleven when my mutation manifested. I heard everyone. Everything. Everything," she said again and I knew just what she meant. "I almost went crazy. I spent six months in near solitary when I first came to the school. The Professor helped me control it and in time taught me to help others to do the same."
It was a nice sentiment and I could feel for what she'd gone through, but she didn't really get it.
"It's not the same thing. You heard external voices that you learned to tune out. I have other people in my head, whole other people with thoughts and feelings and memories of their own. My own personal peep show that never sleeps and never stops. I know what they know. I feel what they feel. Their memories are my memories. I don't get a choice and neither do they. They bitch and argue and have their own opinions about everything. They fight with me and each other and influence me, sometimes when I don't even realize it. I can't turn them off. They aren't ever going to go away. I can't touch people and I'm never going to be alone again. There's a certain irony there that I just can't bring myself to appreciate."
She was definitely shocked now. Good.
I could feel Logan prowling along the edge of my consciousness like he did when I was upset and he wanted to offer comfort without being too intrusive. Yippee. He could be taught. He gave me the mental equivalent of a one claw salute. Screw taking the high road. I gave him the finger right back. Mess with the bull, you get the horns, sugar.
"Why didn't you tell any of this to the Professor?"
God, did she read his records too? I didn't like that.
"Why would I? He thinks I'll be incapable of physical human contact probably for the rest of my life. That didn't really inspire a lot of hope he could help me with anything."
Jean sucked in a sharp breath.
"I'm sure he didn't— "
"Give it a rest, Red."
"It's Dr. Grey, please." There was some heat this time. She was obviously flustered by the lingering Logan in my head and his interest in her. Welcome to the club, sister.
"Sorry," I mumbled. It wasn't exactly a basket of kittens for me, either.
Picking up the stethoscope, she warmed it in her palm and rolled closer. That twitchy feeling got exponentially worse. "Let's just take a second to get on the same page and then go from there, shall we? I'll just take a quick listen and do your vitals and then you can change and I'll do the physical exam."
Uh...
"He got you on right side, is that correct? Six punctures total? Three in the front, three in back?" I'm skinnier than his claws are long. That's strange. I could still feel his knuckles against my breasts. I don't even know how I feel about that yet.
How could she talk to me and listen to my heart at the same time? I shivered, not because of the cool stethoscope but because of her scent as she drew nearer. Oh, God. I was acutely uncomfortable, some bizarre blend of disgust and desire.
"Um. Both sides. Twelve total." Both lungs. They'd both burned like fire when they reinflated. The healing had actually hurt worse than the initial injury.
{Yeah.}
There was a wealth of pain in that one, short word.
"Breathe in for me."
I did and my head spun. That scent was killing me.
"Again, please."
I dragged another deep breath that smelled of strongly of Jean and faintly of arousal. Another shiver as I blew it out.
She moved the stethoscope. "And again."
It was torture. It was.
The stethoscope slid lower and her body moved closer. Just slightly. "One more time." She was nodding to herself. "Sounds good so far."
God.
When she pulled away, I realized I'd been rubbing a silky lock of her fiery hair between my fingers.
My face burned and I dropped my hands to my lap.
"I know it's difficult, Rogue, but I'm going to have to ask you to please keep your hands to yourself." She was very clinical about it. Calm and poised. Maybe I wasn't the first patient to ever come on to her?
"Sorry."
She bent to make a note in my chart and I saw down the front of that lacy scrap of satin she had on under her lab coat and robe. Her nipples were deep red, soft and small. To my horror, my mouth watered and a growl rumbled in my throat.
Jean looked up, startled.
Even the faint scent of arousal was killing me. I wanted to follow my nose, to put my face right there between her legs and chase after that thread of glossy heat; to feel those slim, strong legs wrapped around me. To taste her. To hear her call my name. Our name. Whatever.
"Oh!" Jean blushed scarlet. Jean never blushed.
Apparently she couldn't read my mind, but she had no problems if I projected. Perfect. The placid doctor persona wavered and I saw the woman she was underneath, strong and wild and a little bit dangerous. Logan's interest was hot and sharp and his blood burned under my skin even as I was mortified, and somewhat nauseated, by my reaction.
I wanted to die.
I stood up quickly, knocking the chair over.
"Rogue," she said sharply. "That is not appropriate. I—"
"Give it a rest, Jeannie. She's doin' the best she can."
What? Hey!
I didn't even know one of the voices could speak for me.
Stop that!
Jean's intelligent eyes narrowed and then widened slightly, incredulous. "Logan?"
"Jesus, woman. I've had fifteen years and it still gets away from me sometimes. She's had an evenin'. Cut the kid some slack already. It ain't her fault. Go find me and yell at me if you wanna. It ain't her who wantsta—"
Shut up! I put my hands to my head. "SHUT UP!"
Jean was staring at me, her mouth open.
Welcome to ClueTown, sunshine. Enjoy your stay.
"Rogue..."
"I'm sorry. I can't do this. It's not your fault he wants you. It's nothin' personal. It just can't be you..." Well, maybe it was personal. Really damn personal.
Jean was nodding, her hands up in the traditional 'I surrender' body language and she was backing away.
Freaking finally. But it wasn't far enough or fast enough to suit me.
"Rogue, you need help. You were stabbed through the lungs. You should really be examined. I can— "
"Not you!"
I don't know which one of us said that. Maybe both.
"I understand. I'm the only doctor the school has on staff, but Dr. McCoy is here visiting the Professor for a few days to discuss the Mutant Registration Act. He's an expert in the field of genetic research, a Ph.D. rather than an M.D. He's been in the political arena for some time, but he's perfectly competent to— "
"That's fine."
"I should warn you, his appearance can be a little jarring."
"Darlin', I don't give a shit if he glows in the fuckin' dark. Get his ass in here."
Logan!
"There's no need to be rude. I understand." She smiled. "Rogue, sweetie, I know it's not you." She'd be wrong. It was kinda me too. I'd reached my limit. "I get it and I'm sorry for any assumptions I made earlier about the nature of your gifts. I understand completely now what you were trying to tell me. My deepest apologies. I'll get Hank — Dr. McCoy immediately."
Well, crap. She didn't have to be so nice about it. She really is a good person. Oh, I still hate her guts. It's just now I feel even crappier about it. And she'd always be pervy Doctor Jean to me. So there.
{C'mon, Marie. It ain't— }
And you? What the hell was that?!
{Hey, you needed someone to look out for ya.}
I can do that myself!
{Hmph.}
He clearly disagreed.
Hey, I took the Wolverine down, didn't I? How many people can say that?
{Just one, kid.}
Just one.
Author's note: Okie dokie. For those with Jean issues (Me! lol) that's the last we're going to see of Jean. No worries. Logan's attraction to her is a part of his growth arc through this story and serves a purpose that will be revealed later on. I promise there's a satisfactory explanation down the road...
Next up: The Beast and then The Professor. That will wrap up the backstory bit and we'll jump straight into the crazy directly after. More soon!