I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and added Masochist to their favorite stories and story alerts. I really enjoyed reading every one of you're reviews and all I ask is that you keep on reviewing!
Again to my wonderful Beta, thank you so much for taking time out of you're busy life to clean up my grammar. You're the best sweetie. I love ya!
Chapter Two
Momma certainly was right when she claimed that I was 'Accident prone'. I'm in the mansion a whole two days before I almost kill someone.
I shake my head sadly as I take off my clothes and climb in my bed, my bed. A home – a real home with any degree of permanence since I ran away eight months ago makes me feel like a missing part of me was finally given back. Since then I've had to leave so much behind. Childhood. Innocence. Hope. I've even had to leave behind my own name.
Snuggling down I place my headphones onto my head and push the play button on my compact disc player. Sometime ago I burned off a whole CD of Chopin. It relaxes me and until touching Logan I never realized what a noisy world I live in. Maybe concentrating on one single noise will help to push out all the others and hopefully keep me from going on anymore midnight rescue missions. My last one didn't go over so well.
Things are getting better though, right? OK so after the events two nights ago I lost a little bit of the trust that I was building with my classmates but Xavier seems to understand and so do the others – The X-Men.
But things will get better sooner or later and the other students will learn that I'm not some evil maniacal mutant who enjoys hurting people. They just need some time. They just haven't gotten to know me yet that's all. I can wait. I still have hope.
Wait – hope?Is that what that is?
"I'll be damned." I giggled to myself starting to drift off to sleep as the soft, sad nocturne plays on.
It's cold. That's the first thing that I notice, the cold. But then I open my eyes and know why, my clothes are gone and I am strapped down to some kind of metal slab. A table. A touch. Someone is touching me and when I look, I see that it's a woman. Her hair is tied back into a tight bun and she's wearing a white lab coat. Oh no, it's a lab.
A mutant testing lab. Just like the ones I heard about while I was on the road. But how did I get here?
"When it starts," the lab tech is speaking to me. She almost looks like there is some pity in her eyes, "try to think about what you're doing this for….ignore the rest. Maybe it will help."
"I've been through worse."
Wait, that isn't my voice. It's a man's. Logan. This can't be right, why am I dreaming this about Logan?
"No you haven't." I look up at the lab tech and smirk.
What is she talking about? What's about to happen? Oh – Oh God the table is moving, I can feel the vibrations beneath me as it's sinking lower. Water. Oh fuck it's cold, ice cold against my bare skin and it's sinking lower and lower. I almost forget how to breathe but then I am breathing, there's a tube down my throat. So they aren't planning on trying to drown me, that's a good sign. Isn't it? My eyes are wide open as the needles begin to sink into the pool coming closer and closer to me and then they stop. I can feel my heart racing, it's pounding against my chest so hard I'm afraid it's going to fly out. Oh shit they're vibrating now, the needles and their coming close – GAAAAH FUCK! It hurts, it hurts so goddamned bad that I'm screaming, writhing against the pain but I'm strapped down and I can't budge an inch. Why are they doing this to me? I want them to stop. I can't take it. I can't. It hurts so fucking bad but there is something else and it actually hurts worse than the needles, a memory of a face I don't know nor can I make it out clearly.
It's burning. I can feel it now like searing hot lava inside of my head, in my bones, all over my body. They're burning me and as if that isn't enough the water temperature has risen and the water is boiling but it's OK because, because it doesn't hurt me. I'm healing, old skin being replaced by new skin simultaneously. The pain is still there but it's starting to fade. I'm not sure if it's because I'm starting to pass out or because they've stopped.
Blackness. It's so dark. But it's nice here...better. There isn't any pain, any sadness or worry…. everything that means anything is just gone. Is this Heaven?
Voices, I'm hearing voices now but I can't clearly make out what they are saying.
"Erase his memory."
NOOOOOOOOOO!
Screaming I spring up in bed, the headphones being yanked off of my head with the force of my movements. My CD player clatters to the floor and lands with a loud crash and a cracking sound. It's broken, I know it before I can look. But I don't care.
Oh God it was so awful. They did that to him, but who? I – I can't remember what they looked like, who they were, it's all fading so fast, everything except for the pain and I flinch turning the light on. Looking at my skin, I expect to see his arms, his chest and torso, but I'm me again. Nothing but clean, creamy pale skin. Deadly skin.
I must have screamed, yes that's right I had to have for I can still feel it in my throat. Oh my throat, it's so sore that it actually hurts to swallow. Someone is running down the hall. I can hear feet pounding against the carpet in the hallway and then the door handle moves and I scramble quickly. They're coming for me. They found me. I can't let them take me away again! And then the doors are thrown open and I blink in fright as I stumble backwards. The back of my legs hit the bed and I fall flat on the mattress slipping on the sheets and my butt falls onto the floor landing on my compact disc player and that hurts. Why? Simply because something sharp is stabbing my left butt cheek.
For a second I don't know who is standing there and why but then my vision clears away all the terror and I see him. It's Logan.
His eyes are wild, the claws, oh god the claws are out and he rushes into my room searching. He's looking for an intruder. Throwing the curtain away from the window he looks out, his chest is heaving and then he turns around and looks at me. His eyes are calming down. Our enhanced sense telling us both that there is no intruder, the mansion is silent. Everyone is sleeping. No one else heard my scream, no one but him.
*SNIKT *
And just like that the claws are gone, his breathing is slowing and everything starts coming back to life. The clock on the dresser starts ticking again and I can feel a sharp pain in my backside.
"Are you okay, kid?"
Dumbly I nod my reply as I slowly get my legs under me and stand up wincing.
"You're bleeding." I can tell in the sound of his voice that his sense are on high alert again.
Reaching behind me, turning at the waist I can see a little piece of the portable CD player. It's just a little shard of plastic that broke when it fell off the bed. It had landed in my leg when I too fell off the bed. Reaching back I pluck it out and rub my butt slightly before I realize that I am standing in front of him in nothing but a t-shirt and panties. I quickly sit down and pull the sheet over my legs.
"I'm OK." I finally speak feeling a hoarseness in my voice that wasn't there when I went to bed. "Could you hand me my gloves please?" I ask pointing towards the chest.
He picks them up looking at them for a second before carefully handing them over.
"What happened?"
Shaking my head I tug my gloves on quickly feeling miserable that this is the second time I've been in a bedroom with him terrified.
"I- nothing. It was a nightmare." I reply picking at the fingers of my gloves. I don't want to look at him. I can't. It's so sick of me to be thinking this right now but he really is gorgeous. This is the second time I've seen him with no shirt and it's not that easy not to look. Like Adonis, he's perfect in every proportion.
"Nightmare."
It's not a question, it's a statement and I glance up to look at his face and something in his eyes has darkened and has caused all the gold he has left in them to suddenly disappear. There's nothing left but a deep sad darkness in them now.
"I was in a lab...they put me under water." I mumble softly my eyes drifting back down from his face over his torso before I look into my lap again, my hands are now limp.
Shivering, I pull the covers up higher covering my shoulders, not only from the sweat that's turned cool but because no ones ever seen me bra-less well...really bra-less but I know maybe because of the Logan in my head (or maybe just because of his presence ), I know he wouldn't hurt me. Not on purpose.
"Underwater." he murmurs reaching up and running his hands through his already messy black hair. "Fuck." his eyes are clenched shut like he's afraid to open them and for such a big man he looked so helpless right now. His hands sliding over his face emphasized the broadness of his shoulders and the narrowing of his torso and hips. For a second it looks like a strong wind could just blow him away forever.
"I'm sorry."
God I feel so stupid because that's the only thing I can think of to say around him. I used to think that I was pretty smart, but around Logan, all I find myself doing is apologizing.
His hands drop away from his face and there is something so pitiful in his eyes it make me want to cry. They hurt him so badly, tortured him and that's what he was dreaming about the other night when I tried to wake him up. He was dreaming about the lab, about what they did to him.
"Oh God, I am so sorry." my eyes are getting blurry from the tears that are starting to pool up and I can't stop them, so I don't. I just let them go in a completely overwhelming surge of emotions. It's all there inside of my head; the pain, the helplessness…. I can't believe anyone could survive that but he has and he's standing right in front of me. "Those bastards." I spat the words out but it would be a miracle if he understood. After all, girl cry is often very hard to make coherent.
"They," I gasp trying to get control of all these emotions. "they did that to you." It sounds like an accusation when I say it and I don't mean it to sound that way but it's the only way I can think to say it. They did it to him.
Closing my eyes I let my head tilt back with the full ferocity of those tears and they fall so hard that I think I might choke and die if I don't get them all out. Suddenly, I hear the door close and I think he's left me to my own devices but then I feel the bed shift and I open by eyes and look at him sitting there on the side with his head in his hands. He looks – broken.
Gulping back my tears I reach forward letting my blankets fall from my shoulders and take his hand. He probably doesn't appreciate me coming into his personal space but I want him to know that he isn't alone.
"You didn't deserve what they did to you Logan, you're not an animal."
Logan's head snaps back to look at me and there, once again is that poker-face and I can tell already that he is testing my sincerity. He doesn't know if he should believe me and I can't tell what he's thinking. Just then (and I'm not sure if I am imagining it or not), he squeezes my hand.
"Logan," I pause looking down at his hand in mine, the contrast between sizes almost astonishes me, but I can't back out now so I ask. "When they come out...does it hurt?"
Pulling his hand away he examines his knuckles for a second before rubbing them.
"Every time."
