Of The Bonds That Bind

Abby Ebon

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Disclaimer: I do not own DNAngel or X-Men. Bit of a Oedipus twist here (if you are a Rogue/Remy fan), and chapter ten is the end of this story.

: Dark's Thoughts:

-Daisuke's Thoughts-

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The Royal and the Street-Rat

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-Hello, Krad. – Daisuke greets, as if he expected to be seen and recognized within Rogue's own mind and body by this winged man. Krad's own cold golden eyes widen in surprise, as it's clear he somehow…hears.

"And who might this be, Magneto?" Krad asks softly, touching Rogue's cheek with a white feather – his own, tucked into his knuckle, feather light and fleeting – an offering she understands isn't for her to feel, but for Daisuke. It's an offering of kinship and protection; for them. Not her. For a moment she's a jealous of them as she is glad to have gotten here.

"Rogue, she will be of help to me, as her power is to take the power of others." Magneto answers, for both he and Krad had seen Rogue flinch from the feather and her eyes flick about as her cheeks burn. She hates how they act as if she isn't really a person. They don't really care about her, she knows, she's a tool to Magneto and she has Daisuke's mind within her own as far as Krad might be concerned.

Krad nods, thoughtfully, and looks back to his manor; the tallest center of it is a dome of glass that shines like diamonds. A room too far away to see clearly, but Rogue imagines that if anyone looked out from it, everything would be clear.

Krad turns away; his back to her, his white wings spreading out as if he might fly away and never return.

"Krad, sir, I – Dark, he needs your help." Rogue blurts it out, fearful that she might be forgotten and overlooked if she doesn't say something to Krad now. Rogue reaches out to him, as he goes aloft and tosses her a look over his shoulder, stunned with surprise.

"He can't wake up." 'And I did it to him.' Rogue thinks, but dares not say. If Krad's brother is Sleeping Beauty, Dark is the poisoned Snow White and Rogue was the witch and the apple all in one. Krad looks to Magneto, who seems to understand that asking glance, and nods.

Krad goes, up and up and then when she thinks she'll never see him again, Krad comes down like a hawk upon prey – and takes Rogue up with him. Up to the domed window room, where one window was left open. A window only Krad or someone else who was winged could have gotten to.

Krad sets her down, and she agrees with Toad, that the boy in the bed is a Sleeping Beauty.

-Satoshi…- Daisuke's thought becomes her own, and for the first time in her life Rogue feels as if her body isn't her own. Krad sees the shift, the way that Rogue holds herself in standing becomes someone else's, the way that body, so strange, but the movements so familiar, as it walks to Satoshi's side and leans over his brother's face.

The kiss is brief and jolting, for at the end of it his brother's blue eyes are open for the first time since his precious bond had been taken, twisted and near broken.

"Daisuke…?!" Satoshi speaks, confused at the sight of a lady's face, her eyes flash teasing ruby. She blinks at him, her eyes naturally green – she bolts away as quickly as any startled baby fawn.

"S-sorry!" Rogue stutters out, flushing prettily.

Krad laughs and it booms through the glass like thunder. It startles Rogue into looking for an exit, but there isn't one. This glass dome has no exit or entrance for someone who does not have wings. Rogue turns wide eyes upon Satoshi, who touches his lips with a frown as his brother laughs.

"Sorry? Sorry she says! No, no, dear girl, thank you." Krad means it, saying the words like he's never meant them more than before now.

"What's going on?" Satoshi demands of his brother, his brother who he recognizes despite how much Krad has aged. His voice is strange to his own ears. He touches own face, with a measuring stillness that speaks of careful study.

"How old am I?" It's a faint question that dreads to be answered. Krad's eyes are warm and golden upon him, shining.

"You are fourteen, little brother, it has been seven years." The words are like a stone thrown into a lake of memory between the three of them, ripples both hurting and healing. It's clear even as Krad speaks that he had feared that Satoshi would never wake, would one day slip from a coma sleep into death.

"Daisuke, where is Daisuke?" Satoshi demands, as any child might. His face – his own brother's changed features, aren't enough proof. He has to see more. See how much someone who had been his own age had changed.

"He's safe! In a way, he's here in me – but Dark and he, they're trapped." Rogue taps the side of her head, not her heart, because she doesn't want Satoshi to think that Daisuke is dead. She hopes with all her heart that what she's doing is going to prevent that from happening.

"By Remy?" Krad asks the name of the other mutant as deadly as any blade. Something in Rogue dreads to hear that name threatened by Krad, by anyone. She protests to protect him, and doesn't know why she does it.

"No, they…it happened that I was trying to help a friend, his mutation are these metal coated bones that come out of his hands – he's also a healer. I wasn't thinking about that. He was a friend, and helpless, and having a nightmare. I was only trying to help him." Rogue looks down to the floor, which is marble and not glass. She's glad, because she'd be nervous about standing on glass, that it might break under her weight and cut her feet.

That fear is a lot like talking to these two about what happened. As if the floor might break under her weight and chew her up and swallow her and spit her out bloody and broken.

"He woke up and stabbed me." Rogue unconsciously touches where the skin is unmarred, remembering the pain and the hot blood coming out of her.

"He tried to help me, so did Dark…they, they both fell into a sleep we can't wake them from. A part of my power isn't just to take others powers, but a part of their personality too." Rogue hugs her arms about herself defensively. She looks to Satoshi and finds sympathy, and worry – and Krad, she just can't read his expression.

"You are sure you are not protecting Remy?" Krad asks, searchingly, as if he knew how she had felt in revealing what had happened – that it was her fault – in order to protect him. Rogue wonders if beyond the power to take and turn time to his liking, Krad has another power. She almost doesn't doubt it. Daisuke, if he knows – or not – is silent... he's just basking in the giddiness of seeing Satoshi sitting up, awake and aware.

A part of that has spilled over to Rogue and made her bold enough to tell them the truth, boasted by that sense of positive satisfaction.

"Why would she protect him?" Satoshi asks of Krad, and Rogue knows that if she had demanded it of the blond mutant, he would never have told her the whole truth. It's his brother that asks, and Satoshi is one of Krad's great weaknesses and strengths, so Krad tells his brother what he wouldn't have told to Rogue alone. She hears it, but it sinks in slowly.

"Do you not recognize their family resemblance?" It makes her feel as if the ground under her is glass after all, sharp and biting.

"Remy and me, we're related?" Krad looks to her with a tilted head, as if he's known her before this, and known her very well. Time to him is nothing; he's lived his life not just once, but many, many times. How many times did Krad remember meeting her? Knowing her? It made her angry, that he could remember and she couldn't – that all his memories were only bed-time stories that Daisuke barely remembered.

"Yes. He's yours." Krad told her, soft and sure of his words.

"Mine? My what?" Rogue was confused, was Remy her brother, a cousin? She shook away her guesses, and Krad spoke as if had been waiting for her to shake her head in just that way.

"Child." It made her sick with coldness.

"How? How can that be? I've never had a child! A-and he's got be my age!" Rogue's southern accent slipped into her words, drawling them out painfully.

-You forget what he can do. – Daisuke said, trying for a soothing tone.

Time. It seemed to stand still for Rogue, or it spun wilding around her and she was a cold stone center, a world watching it all turn.

"How dare you." Rogue understood, that Remy – her son-to-be, that somehow Krad had taken him from her future, if it was indeed still a future she could still have... Krad had stolen him, her baby, and had brought him here, to this time and place. To be raised by strangers, alone and thinking no one but his adopted family have ever loved him. Rogue was unsure about many things about herself in the future, but what she wasn't unsure about was that she'd love her son.

-Rogue? Rogue, no! – Rogue for the first time in her life reached for her power, embraced it, and strode toward where Krad stood watching her as wary as a crocodile with those cold gold eyes gleaming at her.

'I'm going to kill him!' Rogue hissed back at Daisuke, who struggled with her thoughts that leapt about like lighting and roared like thunder, this was what the word turmoil meant; a mind more like a tempest than some ordered tidy room.

-Rogue it hasn't happened yet – and, and you don't know why! What if you were dead when he took Remy? What if he did it to protect him? At least ask why, Rogue!- Daisuke struggled to speak, every word he spoke fainter than the last until she had to listen hard to hear him within her own mind. She realized with a sinking horror that he was fading – and what would she do if she'd gone through all this to fail, now? She wouldn't – could not, she could get revenge or answers later – but Daisuke, and Dark they would not have that time. If she wasted that time she would not forgive herself.

"Why?" Rogue choked out the word, the only word she must say face to face with Krad and all he could do and would do.

Krad did not cringe or flinch away, only looked her steadily in the eyes and she knew he had heard all that she had thought. He knew what she really asked.

"It was what you wanted." It was as simple as that, for more than that Krad would never say.

Rogue slapped him across the face, and the memories that washed over her weren't her own – but they were memories that Krad wanted her to have. He would not say, but there were other ways.

She saw Remy become Death, the puppet of Sinister and Apocalypse. That Krad felt helpless to stop this, only delaying what he felt was unavoidable – over and over again. It was inevitable that soon Remy might start to remember the delays. Only she could put an end to it, one way or another – it was her choice, and this was Krad's way of giving her the chance to change things and save her son.

Rogue blinked back tears, looking at Krad's solemn face and vowing this would be the last life he would have to do what he had done.

"Go save him." Rogue asked, and Krad's nod is agreeable. He lifts his white wings and flies away. Going to Dark, at whose side he belongs. Rogue lets out a sigh as she sits beside Satoshi on his bed; his lips form an awkward tilt. It isn't quite a smile, but a show of endurance and solidarity. He wraps an arm about her shoulders, his wings hovering over them protectively, not knowing what she knows now, but offering comfort.

It's just what she needs.