Ma Soleil
Chapter Eight: The Repercussions of a Vivid Dream
Disclaimer: All Marvel Characters are the property of Marvel. This is a work of fanfiction, not an attempt to infringe on Stan Lee's personal arsenal of hotties. I can wish all I like, but Sabes is never gonna show up to collect me, and that's that. Oh, yeah, I'm making zero profit off this and if you want Beck, just ask.
Continuity? What's that? This is an AU fic. Just remember that. Alternate Universe, loud and clear, eh?
As always, the lifeblood of the fanfiction author is reviews. I will respect constructive criticism, but flames are sincerely unappreciated. My e-mail address is seraph_taurus@thekeyz.com. Thanks for your time and God bless.
XXX
Flashback: Eleven Years Ago
Rebecca POV
"Hey, frail." Victor pulled himself off the floor and lumbered toward me, the golden muscles in his bare legs knotting with every step he took.
"Don't call me that, Vic. You know I'm not." I pumped a single shell into the chamber of my sawed-off shotgun, my mind protesting at giving such a predictable retort. My hair dropped into my eyes, and I blew it away ineffectually.
"Of course," He raised his hand and tucked it behind my ear, very gently, the calluses on the tips of his fingers just scarcely brushing the erogenous zone there.
"Stop that." I pulled away slightly, sending my thick bangs back into my eyes. I set my mouth in a firm line. I didn't want him inside me, but I did want him to touch me.
"No. Yer mine. I want ya." His voice was thick, rough with desire.
"If I'm yours, you've already got me. Let's leave it at that." I drawled sarcastically, attempting to subliminate the primitive instincts he was arousing in me. Suddenly, he jammed his hand between my unclad thighs, then swiped it across his nose.
"His stink's all over ya." He growled, referring to my latest lover. "It's muckin' up yer scent. It's pissin' me off"
"Fuck that. You don't even CARE!"
"I care. Ya belong ta me. I don't want ya ta be anyone else's." his lips were drawn back from ivory fangs in a snarl that only made me want his body against mine in ways I never thought I would. Why? When I detest him so? He ruined my life, took away so much of my free will. Controlled me for years. Made me obsess over him when I should have been too young to even consider looking at him in the way he was forcing me to.
"Well, it's not your call, all right? My life is mine. My own. You don't care about me, and you never will, and neither of us have a problem with that. So why don't you just let me GO and find yourself a pretty whore to bed down with tonight." I turned away from him, not wanting to meet his eyes, knowing he could smell my desire as thickly as he could tell that another man had been between my legs.
"Ain't one o' them ladies pretty as m' wife." He got up in a haze of contracting, hardening muscles. When neither of us wore anything, everything was that much simpler. Besides, it wasn't like I did anything that required clothes. And it wasn't like either of us had any secrets from one another. To us, or to him, at least, going about nude was not about degradation, nor was it about pride. It was about trust.
"Well, you aren't getting anything from me." I shook my head lightly from side to side, denying to both of us that I was ready for him. Damn.
"Why do ya say that?" he left the room and came back with two beers, tossed one to me. I uncapped the bottle and pressed the icy chill between my breasts, if only to have some frigid pain to concentrate on, as opposed to thoughts of body heat and big, golden, callused hands running over my skin like. . .Snap the fuck out of it, you stupid little fantasizing child!
"Because I don't want you. That's all." I gulped the beer down, set it on my nightstand beside a lovely antique parlor lamp.
"An' why don't ya?" his smile was hungry, all-knowing. He KNEW I wanted him, but he wouldn't say anything until I admitted to it.
"Because you bore me, perhaps that's why?" I gave a complacent shrug, tossing my hair gently, then pulling it back so that instead of falling into my eyes, it hung down over my shoulders.
"Was that a challenge?" a feral glint pierced through his present semblance of humanity.
"Anything but," I tossed the shotgun across the room, and settled it telekinetically into the gentle embrace of a beautifully carved mahogany shelf, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. "Now, are you going to find a woman? Because if you aren't, I am occupying the bed tonight. I don't intend to use the couch if I don't have to. The damn thing has lumps in it."
"If ya'd quit bein' so damned opinionated, I'd buy ya another one."
"If you'd shut up every once in a while, I'd be able to hear myself think." I covered my temples and ears with my palms, trying to block his voice, his scent, the way watching how he moved affected my self-control in hideous ways.
"Yeah, you an' half the fuckin' city." He muttered, just loud enough that I would hear both the random comment, and the thick desire in his voice.
"Please, PLEASE, shut UP!"
"Whatchya gonna do, darlin'? Tear yer own husband?" he loomed over me, tall and wide, six and a half feet of muscle and bone and blood.
"I just might, if you refer to yourself as my spouse again tonight."
There was a long silence in which I turned down the bed and slipped beneath the down comforter.
"Beck?"
"Yes,"
"I ain't sleepin' on the couch."
"Then join me, by all means. But be sure that you do not touch me, or I'll be forced to retaliate."
"What if I make sure ya like gettin' touched?" his voice was lower than usual, and the proposition sounded far more inviting than any I'd ever heard, and I'd heard a lot of propositions. His hand slid across the bed and his fingertips, like molten sunlight, grazed my shoulder blade.
"Just don't, Victor. I'm really not in the mood to be flirted with when there's no point to it." Because I was too much of a coward to wish to trifle with desire so strong it might constrain me to lose yet more of my heart to someone so heartless, I scooted away from his hand.
"There is too a point."
"That's right. There IS a point. Forgive me for not recognizing a man chasing after sex when I see one. Seriously. Please, I don't want to argue with you, either. You couldn't give a damn, and neither could I. Could we JUST please go to sleep?" that was the last thing I wanted to do, and the first thing I wanted to do was so far beyond naughty that even the Black Queen herself might have blanched in terror at the pure, banal carnality of my thoughts.
"An' YOU want rest cause ya've been busy all day doin' WHAT?!" the rage, the possessive, unspoken cry of "MINE!" tore into my heart through his eyes.
"Oh, come now, it isn't like you're the sole wage-earner. I was out busting my fucking behind making sure two little INTERPOL shites who think they're the Creator's gift to female-kind stayed off my track and hit on some do-gooder superhero women. Now why don't you just roll over to your side of the bed and let me get some rest?"
"I wanna talk."
"When the HELL do you ever REALLY want to talk, Victor? You want to fuck?"
"Not now."
That shocked me. I turned back toward him and propped my head up on my arm, my body now nearly flush against his. "What's wrong?"
"Why should YOU care?"
"Because this isn't like you. You're behaving oddly."
"And what effect does that have on YOU?"
I shrugged my shoulders in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. "Not much, I suppose, but if you're going to be moody and I want to be perky, that damages my schedule a little, don't you think?" I smiled a little, finally, and trailed the tip of my index finger down his nose. "Victor?"
"I just ain't feelin' right. An' ya know how I make a point o' relyin' on my instincts?"
"Nine times out of ten instinct is all you need to keep you alive, and the tenth time you back up instinct with explosives. I know, I know."
"Seems like I ain't taught ya nothin', huh, darlin'?"
"I'm not your darling, Victor. If you'd only stop calling me that." I turned away from him once more, but I had not the heart to struggle when he wrapped a powerful arm around my waist. He was warm, and I could feel his pulse, beating strongly and rapidly, just a little to the left of my navel. It was comfortable, the contact, his scent surrounding me, just breathing him in like this, knowing that I filled his senses, just as he was filling mine. But before I drifted off, I heard his hoarse, gentle whisper feathering against my ear.
"Ya ARE mine, Beck. More'n ya'll ever know."
XXX
Present Day:
"Natty?"
"Rebecca? What the bloody hell are you DOING, calling me at this un-GOD-ly hour?"
"I need some help."
"What? Isn't the divorce going all right?"
"Yes, it's fine. It came through perfectly well, and I'm still in New York State."
"Then what's wrong?"
"I don't know that what I'm doing is right."
"Have you, then, finally changed your mind for the better and agreed to acquire the Summers Family genetic material for me?"
"No. I mean in my personal life."
"Can't let go of him, can you?"
She paused for a moment, then sighed. "No, I can't. I know he's happy with her, but did I miss my boat in not making him happy with me?"
"No! Certainly not!"
"Really, Natty,"
"Probably,"
"Seriously."
"Yes, almost certainly. I don't think you'll ever be able to have a healthy, exclusive, requited romantic involvement with Creed again. But there are always ferries. One doesn't have to take the steamboat."
"Thanks for the delightful analogy. Who's the ferry?"
"Who knows? Perhaps one of those charming Summers boys?"
"Oh, please! Drop your fucking obsessive genetic plotting and give me some serious advice. I haven't anyone else, unless you wish to abandon me to the counsel of the unscrupulous Lady Vertigo?"
"Oh, God! No! Anyone but HER!" Sinister's deep voice crooned over the telephone. "I, of all people, should know that she is the most promiscuous Marauder ever to walk the face of the earth, and I don't just mean of the females. I am quite certain that she gets more than even Riptide."
"I knew that. After all, she WAS something of a. . .a nanny to me."
"I wouldn't precisely put it that way."
"Well, that's why I added the word 'SOMETHING.' I pity the fool who is her ultimate subordinate."
"Would you pity him were he male?"
"Of course. Because she is, as I said, unscrupulous."
"What do you want to hear?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe there's a clone somewhere to dildo St. Croix with while I get my husband back?"
"Unfortunately, there isn't. I never had to clone the man, as he was always up at arms before any of us knew he was injured. But would you really do that?"
"Probably not. I'm still not sure whether I'm completely UN-happy about this new infatuation he seems to be having with St. Croix?"
"Then WHY are you calling me?"
"I'm a mess, Nathaniel. I look horrid. When is the last time you saw me looking horrid?"
"I. . .ah. . .I'm not sure. It could have been that time you broke every bone in your ribcage and nearly severed your spinal cord,"
"The point is, you don't see me looking bad very often. And it takes a lot to get me there."
"Yes, of course. You were always so concerned with your personal appearance."
"Yes, I was. But that's not the point."
"Isn't it?"
"No, it isn't. My point is that simply from having a vivid memory dream, my psyche has been so shaken that I have not exited my room in ten days. TEN days!"
"Because you look badly?"
"Yes."
"Have you eaten well? Has your weight dropped?"
"No, it hasn't, because I moved into Xavier's and someone, leaves a plate of chili on my desk while I'm sleeping."
"Whom do you think it is?"
"Well I don't know. Especially when I consider how many people can pick locks without damaging them in this rotten household. It could be any number of people, but the amount of spice in it suggests LeBeau."
"Old habits die hard."
"Are you referring to his fraternal interest in my nourishment or his lingering practice of thievery?"
"Well, both. He WAS, after all, the one who cared for you when all other X-Men shunned you."
"He thought perhaps someone who had been your genetic thrall for twenty-some years might still be capable of emotion."
"How DARE he? His experiences were far from traumatic."
"No? You only duped him into leading you into the slaughtering-pits of the Morlock tunnels."
"See? You still use MY terminology for the eradication of those antediluvian scum."
"Damn it, Nathaniel, why do you insist on pushing my patience to the limit?"
"You HAVE patience, patrie?"
"Stop calling me that."
"You used to laugh so much when I called you that, when you were a child."
"Because that was my CHILD name. It's not my name any longer. Please, you're deviating."
"What's the point of this call, my love?"
"I'm confused. I didn't know who else to talk to. I'm sorry. I'll go now."
"If you were anywhere but the Mansion, I would accompany you in your grief, but I know that as soon as I set foot in their hallowed halls, I would become target practice for every weapon known to man, from now until three thousand years in the future."
"Aren't we the optimist? Maybe I can go somewhere else, to meet you?"
"Central Park, the usual spot?"
"When?"
"Now. As soon as you can get there."
"Why don't you pick me up? It will only take a moment."
"Because there is not only one feral in the house, there are three. Logan, Creed, AND that younger one, Gibney."
"Kyle's away. With Bishop. They're on some kind of pilgrimage to Shard."
"Oh?"
"Mm-hmm. So, I guess I'll just jump into the old Jag and meet you down there in a couple of hours."
"All right. I'll see you then."
"Bye."
"Bye."
XXX
Chapter Eight: The Repercussions of a Vivid Dream
Disclaimer: All Marvel Characters are the property of Marvel. This is a work of fanfiction, not an attempt to infringe on Stan Lee's personal arsenal of hotties. I can wish all I like, but Sabes is never gonna show up to collect me, and that's that. Oh, yeah, I'm making zero profit off this and if you want Beck, just ask.
Continuity? What's that? This is an AU fic. Just remember that. Alternate Universe, loud and clear, eh?
As always, the lifeblood of the fanfiction author is reviews. I will respect constructive criticism, but flames are sincerely unappreciated. My e-mail address is seraph_taurus@thekeyz.com. Thanks for your time and God bless.
XXX
Flashback: Eleven Years Ago
Rebecca POV
"Hey, frail." Victor pulled himself off the floor and lumbered toward me, the golden muscles in his bare legs knotting with every step he took.
"Don't call me that, Vic. You know I'm not." I pumped a single shell into the chamber of my sawed-off shotgun, my mind protesting at giving such a predictable retort. My hair dropped into my eyes, and I blew it away ineffectually.
"Of course," He raised his hand and tucked it behind my ear, very gently, the calluses on the tips of his fingers just scarcely brushing the erogenous zone there.
"Stop that." I pulled away slightly, sending my thick bangs back into my eyes. I set my mouth in a firm line. I didn't want him inside me, but I did want him to touch me.
"No. Yer mine. I want ya." His voice was thick, rough with desire.
"If I'm yours, you've already got me. Let's leave it at that." I drawled sarcastically, attempting to subliminate the primitive instincts he was arousing in me. Suddenly, he jammed his hand between my unclad thighs, then swiped it across his nose.
"His stink's all over ya." He growled, referring to my latest lover. "It's muckin' up yer scent. It's pissin' me off"
"Fuck that. You don't even CARE!"
"I care. Ya belong ta me. I don't want ya ta be anyone else's." his lips were drawn back from ivory fangs in a snarl that only made me want his body against mine in ways I never thought I would. Why? When I detest him so? He ruined my life, took away so much of my free will. Controlled me for years. Made me obsess over him when I should have been too young to even consider looking at him in the way he was forcing me to.
"Well, it's not your call, all right? My life is mine. My own. You don't care about me, and you never will, and neither of us have a problem with that. So why don't you just let me GO and find yourself a pretty whore to bed down with tonight." I turned away from him, not wanting to meet his eyes, knowing he could smell my desire as thickly as he could tell that another man had been between my legs.
"Ain't one o' them ladies pretty as m' wife." He got up in a haze of contracting, hardening muscles. When neither of us wore anything, everything was that much simpler. Besides, it wasn't like I did anything that required clothes. And it wasn't like either of us had any secrets from one another. To us, or to him, at least, going about nude was not about degradation, nor was it about pride. It was about trust.
"Well, you aren't getting anything from me." I shook my head lightly from side to side, denying to both of us that I was ready for him. Damn.
"Why do ya say that?" he left the room and came back with two beers, tossed one to me. I uncapped the bottle and pressed the icy chill between my breasts, if only to have some frigid pain to concentrate on, as opposed to thoughts of body heat and big, golden, callused hands running over my skin like. . .Snap the fuck out of it, you stupid little fantasizing child!
"Because I don't want you. That's all." I gulped the beer down, set it on my nightstand beside a lovely antique parlor lamp.
"An' why don't ya?" his smile was hungry, all-knowing. He KNEW I wanted him, but he wouldn't say anything until I admitted to it.
"Because you bore me, perhaps that's why?" I gave a complacent shrug, tossing my hair gently, then pulling it back so that instead of falling into my eyes, it hung down over my shoulders.
"Was that a challenge?" a feral glint pierced through his present semblance of humanity.
"Anything but," I tossed the shotgun across the room, and settled it telekinetically into the gentle embrace of a beautifully carved mahogany shelf, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. "Now, are you going to find a woman? Because if you aren't, I am occupying the bed tonight. I don't intend to use the couch if I don't have to. The damn thing has lumps in it."
"If ya'd quit bein' so damned opinionated, I'd buy ya another one."
"If you'd shut up every once in a while, I'd be able to hear myself think." I covered my temples and ears with my palms, trying to block his voice, his scent, the way watching how he moved affected my self-control in hideous ways.
"Yeah, you an' half the fuckin' city." He muttered, just loud enough that I would hear both the random comment, and the thick desire in his voice.
"Please, PLEASE, shut UP!"
"Whatchya gonna do, darlin'? Tear yer own husband?" he loomed over me, tall and wide, six and a half feet of muscle and bone and blood.
"I just might, if you refer to yourself as my spouse again tonight."
There was a long silence in which I turned down the bed and slipped beneath the down comforter.
"Beck?"
"Yes,"
"I ain't sleepin' on the couch."
"Then join me, by all means. But be sure that you do not touch me, or I'll be forced to retaliate."
"What if I make sure ya like gettin' touched?" his voice was lower than usual, and the proposition sounded far more inviting than any I'd ever heard, and I'd heard a lot of propositions. His hand slid across the bed and his fingertips, like molten sunlight, grazed my shoulder blade.
"Just don't, Victor. I'm really not in the mood to be flirted with when there's no point to it." Because I was too much of a coward to wish to trifle with desire so strong it might constrain me to lose yet more of my heart to someone so heartless, I scooted away from his hand.
"There is too a point."
"That's right. There IS a point. Forgive me for not recognizing a man chasing after sex when I see one. Seriously. Please, I don't want to argue with you, either. You couldn't give a damn, and neither could I. Could we JUST please go to sleep?" that was the last thing I wanted to do, and the first thing I wanted to do was so far beyond naughty that even the Black Queen herself might have blanched in terror at the pure, banal carnality of my thoughts.
"An' YOU want rest cause ya've been busy all day doin' WHAT?!" the rage, the possessive, unspoken cry of "MINE!" tore into my heart through his eyes.
"Oh, come now, it isn't like you're the sole wage-earner. I was out busting my fucking behind making sure two little INTERPOL shites who think they're the Creator's gift to female-kind stayed off my track and hit on some do-gooder superhero women. Now why don't you just roll over to your side of the bed and let me get some rest?"
"I wanna talk."
"When the HELL do you ever REALLY want to talk, Victor? You want to fuck?"
"Not now."
That shocked me. I turned back toward him and propped my head up on my arm, my body now nearly flush against his. "What's wrong?"
"Why should YOU care?"
"Because this isn't like you. You're behaving oddly."
"And what effect does that have on YOU?"
I shrugged my shoulders in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. "Not much, I suppose, but if you're going to be moody and I want to be perky, that damages my schedule a little, don't you think?" I smiled a little, finally, and trailed the tip of my index finger down his nose. "Victor?"
"I just ain't feelin' right. An' ya know how I make a point o' relyin' on my instincts?"
"Nine times out of ten instinct is all you need to keep you alive, and the tenth time you back up instinct with explosives. I know, I know."
"Seems like I ain't taught ya nothin', huh, darlin'?"
"I'm not your darling, Victor. If you'd only stop calling me that." I turned away from him once more, but I had not the heart to struggle when he wrapped a powerful arm around my waist. He was warm, and I could feel his pulse, beating strongly and rapidly, just a little to the left of my navel. It was comfortable, the contact, his scent surrounding me, just breathing him in like this, knowing that I filled his senses, just as he was filling mine. But before I drifted off, I heard his hoarse, gentle whisper feathering against my ear.
"Ya ARE mine, Beck. More'n ya'll ever know."
XXX
Present Day:
"Natty?"
"Rebecca? What the bloody hell are you DOING, calling me at this un-GOD-ly hour?"
"I need some help."
"What? Isn't the divorce going all right?"
"Yes, it's fine. It came through perfectly well, and I'm still in New York State."
"Then what's wrong?"
"I don't know that what I'm doing is right."
"Have you, then, finally changed your mind for the better and agreed to acquire the Summers Family genetic material for me?"
"No. I mean in my personal life."
"Can't let go of him, can you?"
She paused for a moment, then sighed. "No, I can't. I know he's happy with her, but did I miss my boat in not making him happy with me?"
"No! Certainly not!"
"Really, Natty,"
"Probably,"
"Seriously."
"Yes, almost certainly. I don't think you'll ever be able to have a healthy, exclusive, requited romantic involvement with Creed again. But there are always ferries. One doesn't have to take the steamboat."
"Thanks for the delightful analogy. Who's the ferry?"
"Who knows? Perhaps one of those charming Summers boys?"
"Oh, please! Drop your fucking obsessive genetic plotting and give me some serious advice. I haven't anyone else, unless you wish to abandon me to the counsel of the unscrupulous Lady Vertigo?"
"Oh, God! No! Anyone but HER!" Sinister's deep voice crooned over the telephone. "I, of all people, should know that she is the most promiscuous Marauder ever to walk the face of the earth, and I don't just mean of the females. I am quite certain that she gets more than even Riptide."
"I knew that. After all, she WAS something of a. . .a nanny to me."
"I wouldn't precisely put it that way."
"Well, that's why I added the word 'SOMETHING.' I pity the fool who is her ultimate subordinate."
"Would you pity him were he male?"
"Of course. Because she is, as I said, unscrupulous."
"What do you want to hear?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe there's a clone somewhere to dildo St. Croix with while I get my husband back?"
"Unfortunately, there isn't. I never had to clone the man, as he was always up at arms before any of us knew he was injured. But would you really do that?"
"Probably not. I'm still not sure whether I'm completely UN-happy about this new infatuation he seems to be having with St. Croix?"
"Then WHY are you calling me?"
"I'm a mess, Nathaniel. I look horrid. When is the last time you saw me looking horrid?"
"I. . .ah. . .I'm not sure. It could have been that time you broke every bone in your ribcage and nearly severed your spinal cord,"
"The point is, you don't see me looking bad very often. And it takes a lot to get me there."
"Yes, of course. You were always so concerned with your personal appearance."
"Yes, I was. But that's not the point."
"Isn't it?"
"No, it isn't. My point is that simply from having a vivid memory dream, my psyche has been so shaken that I have not exited my room in ten days. TEN days!"
"Because you look badly?"
"Yes."
"Have you eaten well? Has your weight dropped?"
"No, it hasn't, because I moved into Xavier's and someone, leaves a plate of chili on my desk while I'm sleeping."
"Whom do you think it is?"
"Well I don't know. Especially when I consider how many people can pick locks without damaging them in this rotten household. It could be any number of people, but the amount of spice in it suggests LeBeau."
"Old habits die hard."
"Are you referring to his fraternal interest in my nourishment or his lingering practice of thievery?"
"Well, both. He WAS, after all, the one who cared for you when all other X-Men shunned you."
"He thought perhaps someone who had been your genetic thrall for twenty-some years might still be capable of emotion."
"How DARE he? His experiences were far from traumatic."
"No? You only duped him into leading you into the slaughtering-pits of the Morlock tunnels."
"See? You still use MY terminology for the eradication of those antediluvian scum."
"Damn it, Nathaniel, why do you insist on pushing my patience to the limit?"
"You HAVE patience, patrie?"
"Stop calling me that."
"You used to laugh so much when I called you that, when you were a child."
"Because that was my CHILD name. It's not my name any longer. Please, you're deviating."
"What's the point of this call, my love?"
"I'm confused. I didn't know who else to talk to. I'm sorry. I'll go now."
"If you were anywhere but the Mansion, I would accompany you in your grief, but I know that as soon as I set foot in their hallowed halls, I would become target practice for every weapon known to man, from now until three thousand years in the future."
"Aren't we the optimist? Maybe I can go somewhere else, to meet you?"
"Central Park, the usual spot?"
"When?"
"Now. As soon as you can get there."
"Why don't you pick me up? It will only take a moment."
"Because there is not only one feral in the house, there are three. Logan, Creed, AND that younger one, Gibney."
"Kyle's away. With Bishop. They're on some kind of pilgrimage to Shard."
"Oh?"
"Mm-hmm. So, I guess I'll just jump into the old Jag and meet you down there in a couple of hours."
"All right. I'll see you then."
"Bye."
"Bye."
XXX