VI: WAITING & SEX
They hadn't actually had sex since the mission they found Jean Grey. For so long, she'd been denying it, not noticing. And then she hadn't known he'd want to. Fuck her. Anymore. Poison skin, injured leg, Jean back, them-not-talking and all.
But now she did.
Denial was a lovely thing. Now she was resentful and anxious and horny and bored; she might have done without the horny.
She'd forgotten how much she hated being left behind.
The students were never actually informed, but there was no denying that faculty members were gone. 'Conference', 'teacher's convention', 'recruitment effort'—that last, probably her favorite. How stupid did they think students were? How many 'recruitment efforts' resulted in injury, and the non-presence of recruits?
Rogue felt the telling thing was that no student ever asked the obvious questions, ever quibbled over the gaps in logic, just shyly welcomed their teachers back, blinked at their leaving. They were good kids, pretty used to it now, considering the number of mission this past year.
Hank in his med lab, nervous preparation. She hadn't really thought about it, but the med lab wasn't really set up for crash surgery… experiments, the occasional sick student. But Hank made the best of it: crash carts, specialized devices for certain mutations: a diamond-cutting saw for Logan, a set of oversized goggles for Scott, burn salves for Storm's lightning…gloves, body suits, for her.
She wondered if Jean would help this time.
Xavier was gone, the eastern grounds temporarily requisitioned, both to hide the absence of the helicopter and prevent injury when it returned.
The office was eerily quiet, the halls. Or maybe Rogue was reading into her own tension, but she wished she'd been able to suck it up and let Logan heal her already. It sucked being left behind.
She ventured out, determined to get out if only for a short while, and Logan must have said something, because as soon as she emerged, she found herself with company. Scott, and no longer trailing Jean, he had the time.
'Hey,' he called out, jogging a little from down the corridor to catch up. She shot him a glance from over her shoulder, murmured a greeting, and made for an exit, any exit, from the building. 'Going somewhere?' he asked meaningfully, and she paused and turned to him as she came upon the double doors.
She huffed. 'Taking a walk. On the grounds.' She couldn't stay in here anymore.
'I'll go with you,' he told her.
She whirled. 'Look, are you my keeper or something? Where's Jean, anyway?' He remained unmoved, and she regretted taunting him. With Jean, anyway. 'Look, did Logan—? I absolve you of responsibility, 'k?' She waved her hands –poof—at him. Be gone.
He tilted his head, quirked into a wry grin. 'Come on, Rogue,' he wheedled, little-boy appeal. 'I need the company,' and she was charmed in spite of herself; she had forgotten he could be like this.
She cocked a hip, chewed on her cheek. 'Fine,' she relented, and he beamed with that enormous dimple. 'But no talking, alright? I just need to…clear my head.'
He threw up his hands, backed off and held the door open for her, smiling out of the corner of his mouth again.
She threw him a last wary glance, but slid past and outside. Her leg ached, but she limped off willfully, wished almost immediately that she'd brought a stick. She lurched for about half a mile, grunted a little with the pain, and, when Scott threw her an amused look, she veered off the path, collapsed onto a bank of dry grass clumsily.
Scott hunkered down, too, found a small twig, absently threw it, and they stared at the sunset for a while. She rearranged her leg, wished for a distraction.
'Jean still mad at you?' she asked him.
'Yup,' he returned indolently. 'Logan still mad at you?'
'Yup,' she returned, tight laugh, and they exchanged rueful looks. 'Why he bothered to find a babysitter, I don't know,' she griped, eyeing her leg distastefully.
'Perhaps because he knew you'd do something crazy like walk half a mile off school grounds,' Scott returned meaningfully.
Rogue muttered, 'I'm gonna make it back.'
'Yes, you are, because I'm not carrying you,' Scott forewarned, pulling out blade of grass and peeling it. Logan would have chewed on it instead, and Rogue, sobering, wondered what he was doing now.
'Do you know what the mission is?' she queried.
'Let's not, Rogue.'
She didn't know what he meant, but she knew she resented it. 'What does that mean?'
'He didn't tell you for a reason. I'm not getting involved.'
'Excuse me? I—'
'He wants you to get better, control your skin. He thinks it might have something to do with stress, or—'
'Not knowing causes me more stress,' Rogue ground out. Because she didn't know much righteous indignation she could summon up for being treated like a child when she was, occasionally, behaving like one.
'Really?' He could be so prim.
'Stress, anxiety. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I don't like feeling out of the loop.'
He shrugged, unconcerned. 'None of us do.' Yeah, she bet so.
She eyed him balefully. 'I think I liked you better two years ago, when you and Logan weren't so chummy with each other. This band of brothers shit is seriously annoying.' She wished for a stick to poke him with. To walk back with.
'Two years ago, Logan would never have asked me to go with you,' he pointed out.
'I invited you along,' she retorted, 'a decision I'm already regretting. Your appeal was so fleeting.' He grinned boyishly again, and the charm was back with the dimple, tiresomely winsome. Blech!
There was another pause, and Scott was contemplative, listening to the katydids and songbirds, but Rogue had been alone enough, heard her own thoughts and silent rooms and night noises enough to be bored and sick and tired. So she prodded, a little ill-temperedly, 'So are there any Logan-approved conversations we can have, any topics you can square with your conscience, or do we sit here together and consider the lilies of the field, the birds of the air?'
Scott chuckled dryly, all his chuckles were dry, but answered, 'I was thinking about Jean. About three years ago and now.'
'Oh,' she returned softly, retreating, because that was a conversation she was pretty sure she shouldn't have, with Scott, with anyone.
But he mused on. 'I was wondering if she's ever going to love me again.'
'Scott—?' warning, regret, plea.
'Doesn't look so good now she won't talk to me,' just enough cynicism running through it that it wasn't a whisper. 'Do you know why?' he continued, features hardening. 'Well, I tried to help her, tried to get her to deal with her incarceration. And now—' with a sour chuckle—'Xavier is doing all that, and she's letting him, talking to him.'
She would embrace, she would leap upon, she would smother with kisses a lilies-of-the-field discussion now. But his expression was so warped with gall, she couldn't help the dismay, 'Scott, you can't be jealous of Xavier.'
'She'll take help from anyone else…'
'Maybe she can't take help from you,' Rogue castigated. 'Maybe you're too close; she needs someone with a little distance.' He grumped, and she drew back, continued with some displeasure. 'And he's forcing her, pushing her. Do you want to be that guy?' She rearranged her leg, grimaced.
Scott was scowling, nearly pouting. 'She won't even talk to me.' Definitely whining.
'You were invading her privacy!' Rogue exclaimed, torn between anger and bemusement.
'Privacy,' Scott grumbled, 'never used to be an issue.'
Rogue sighed. 'Well, a lot of things have changed.'
Scott fidgeted, twitched, and she decided to let him be. She didn't know what to say, didn't want to say, anyway. But where Logan would have calmed down in the silence, Scott seemed to grow more agitated. And after moments of increasing tension, he spewed out, 'So what the HELL am I supposed to do?!' And he was rising and heaving and beginning to pace, but with such addled energy, she was a little concerned.
She really wished she knew this better, how to calm him down. She propped herself up on one hand, tried to rise, but, feeling the weak tremors of the muscle, knew that was a bad idea. Voice only, then. 'Scott,' it was quiet, firm. That was about all she had.
He stalked away, maybe five paces, halted, shaking, tensing every muscle, and she darted a quick glance around, wishing there was someone ambulatory in sight. But he huffed out a breath, repeated in a tight but less volatile tone, 'What am I supposed to do?'
She didn't know, and that was all she could think. So, 'I don't know, Scott,' she replied unhappily. 'I'm sorry.'
He pivoted to look at her, twisted round, and he was eerily calm again. 'What should I do?' and it was clipped, demanding.
She took a moment to answer, because she wasn't sure of him, of the evenness of his temper, the state of his mind. And she didn't have answers, didn't want to be involved. 'Scott, I'm not exactly unbiased,' she stated. 'I don't—'
'You know. You could give me something,' he responded tightly, narrowly, stepping one step closer, towering above her that much more.
She didn't appreciate it, though she didn't think he did it to intimidate precisely. But she was uncomfortable, a little resentful, felt the prickle of hurt, thread of guilt in there, too, especially since his position was so close to her own. And because she could question the purity of her motives in this case, and because she had done what he had, just hadn't been caught, and because, big picture, she didn't know what would happen.
'Scott.' His name had held that ring of warning pretty often recently. 'I don't think there's much to do.' He blinked, deflated, so she went on in resignation, 'We just have to wait. Wait for her to deal. Wait for her to choose.' She eyed the ground absently, tacked on testily, 'Support her in the meantime.'
'That's it?' he rocked back on his heels.
She threw her own bitter laugh. 'That's it.'
He threw himself back down in the grass with a huge sigh, one that might have been stagy at another time. 'So it's all her choice, huh?'
Rogue eyed him soberly, swallowed. 'You get a choice. You get to choose whether you wait, see if she chooses you, too.'
Scott rubbed his forehead dejectedly, huffed in exasperation.
'Yeah,' she returned sardonically. He shook his head, and she got the feeling he wouldn't mind dwelling on his misery for a while, but she couldn't take the silence. 'God, sometimes life needs a fast-forward button. But then I'm not sure I'd have the courage to use it, unless I got to use the rewind, too.'
He grinned amiably, gestured to her gloves. Boy, did he ever have that quicksilver temperament. 'Would you go back and not touch him?'
Rogue sighed, looked down at her hands with a twinge of melancholy. 'No, guess not. Save that for something I didn't do.'
'Really?' he sounded intrigued, but didn't pursue it, paused. 'Think it's permanent?'
'Switch is still there,' Rogue shrugged. 'Can't access it. Who the hell knows?' Now that he was back to semi-normal, she figured she'd better seize the opportunity to get back. She propped herself up, held out a questing hand in his direction, and he rose, pulled.
'All is well, it's for the best,' Scott chanted darkly, and he supported her for a moment while she winced, tried to work herself up to walking back.
She finally registered his comment, clutched at one arm as she limping painfully. 'Gotta get you out of freshman English classes,' Rogue sniggered, finding it easier to focus on him than the strain. 'Voltaire's probably the worst philosopher for you.'
'Oh, no, gives me perspective. And this too shall pass. And God doesn't care. In his heaven and so on. Lovely, life-affirming sentiments.' He grinned, supported more of her weight.
'You know, you're more charming when you're not morbid and cynical,' she grunted, but she was diverted, too.
'I'll have to remember that,' he slanted a wry grin at her, the one with dimples.
'See? Right there, flash those pearly whites, those boyish dimples at Jean every once in a while. Make her laugh while you wait.'
'I don't know if I can be charming and witty that long.'
Poor Scott, and Rogue chortled, despite the pain in her leg, despite the ennui and nerves and angst. 'I don't know if you can, either.'
Logan was gone for more than a day, 'bout a day, whatever. He was gone more than two.
School continued; the students had self-evaluations, peer-crits, a few videos in some classes to squeak by. Scott was busy, covering his classes, Logan's. Fine, reasonable, fine.
But Jubilee had disappeared, calls stopped coming in for Xavier. Jean no longer wandered the halls.
Something was happening.
And Rogue tried not to wonder if this out-of-the-loop business, this protect-Rogue-from-knowing business, would seriously keep her from knowing of someone's death or mutilation or…something…
The school was eerie, eerier somehow that the students hadn't really picked up on it, that their chatter was as frothy and unconcerned as ever. Rogue couldn't handle their ignorance, not when she was reading so much into her own. The third day, she spent nearly entirely in her room.
She didn't feel the change when they returned. She was gnawing on her nails while watching t.v., curling her toes into the floor. Then she'd heard it, the unmistakable clomp of Logan's stride in the hallway, his smack opening of the door.
She jerked to her feet.
He'd had time for a shower, was freshly shaved, even. It occurred to her that he might have stayed away, tried to heal up, before coming back.
But wherever he had been, whenever he'd come back, he was intent on coming in now, his eyes fierce, his movements agitated.
'Rogue,' he called, hoarsely. She could tell from his face that it had been bad.
He came forward a little haltingly. 'Logan?' she whispered, and he lurched for her again, hand outstretched.
'Please?' he asked, reaching for her. She flinched back, and he…his face fell, he looked absolutely crushed.
'No, Logan. My skin. I can't…I still can't,' she wanted to warn him.
And he reached out for her again. 'I'll be careful,' he pleaded: it was still a question.
'Yes. Okay. Logan. We'll be careful,' and she tried to shush him. She hadn't known that 'when I get back' meant right when he got back… She clasped his opposite forearm and made to go to the bed, to get her gloves, more layers, they'd never really had to deal with this, but his searching arm grabbed for her. 'Rogue?'
He made a grab for her, cupped her ass, pulled her into him. His hands clutched at her, pressing here, pulling there. 'Marie?' he whispered, and she could feel him trembling, all at odds with his handling of her.
'Yes, Logan,' she answered, pressing closer to him, giving him permission. They'd just have to be careful, because it didn't look like he was waiting.
His gaze settled on her lips, and he leaned forward to taste…she pulled away, and he remembered, looking disappointed and uncertain how to proceed, and she stroked him through his shirt, tried to reassure.
Then he wrenched her T-shirt tight across her chest and devoured her nipples, bathing and tonguing them, using more teeth over the tough material. It felt incredible. She groaned. 'Rogue.' He almost panted, still clutching, licking, 'Rogue.'
His touch was familiar and shocking and hard, not rougher but clumsier than before, and it made her tingle, made him more human than before. Needy. She wanted. Racing her hands over his chest, recklessly in his hair, writhing, arching up into his mouth, his hands. She wanted—him, just whatever he wanted her to be. She could hear his heartbeat, pounding away, feel his jagged breath, and his hands were rough, unsteady. 'Logan. God, Logan,' she whispered.
Suddenly, he yanked her, up and against him, slammed her back into the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist, ground into his hot erection, and held on. He found her roaming hands, yanked clumsily at her upper arms where she was clothed, and she cooperated, so he could bracket them above her head, lean a forearm arm hard against them, and his breath was hot and rough against her face as he looked at her.
'Marie, I need—' his eyes seemed to be searching for something in hers, almost desperately, and he leaned more heavily on her arms. Her chest was heaving, she was flushed, and her brain wasn't working fast enough to know what it meant, so she settled on, 'Yes.' And he leaned in, attacking her neck with mouthed kisses and smart nips through her hair, and she tilted her head to accommodate him. Groaned.
She was getting small pulls from her skin as he licked his way across her neck, the hair only half a barrier. Not long enough to get anything real or to drain him, but enough that he let her hands go to clutch his shoulders and let the wall take them both. And enough to feel his needy desire wash over her. She moaned his name and forced shaky hands between their bodies to undo his zip.
She found him, hot and hard through his pants, and he reacted frantically, attacking her jeans and nearly dropping her to the floor to get them off, his grip rough against her injured thigh, but it felt good, it all felt so amazing and raw and now. She needed him now. He bit her shoulder to keep her still while he tore off her jeans, and she tried ineffectually to kick them off while he found the condom on the nightstand. He fumbled with it but got it on, and her jeans were still hanging off of one leg when he pressed her bodily into the wall again, lifted her, and slid up and in her, and they both stilled.
The denim was hard and scratchy, the zip chafed, and he was clutching too hard, too awkwardly at her waist, pressing heavily, confined to touch in certain places because they hadn't thought ahead. But it was him, within her moving, the pain somehow contributing to the pleasure. And when he pumped into her, slammed into her, she heard herself give a little cry.
Hard to establish a rhythm, daring to press so close with bare legs and arms and skin all wrapped around him. But there was also desperation and want and recklessness, a realization they'd both gone too far to stop, that neither wanted to. And so suddenly it was there, awkward, jerky thrusts and huffing loudly in her ear, fingers digging into her and screwing up his face. She could feel herself tipping over, back arched and tensed, every muscle groaning and she could just hear his shout as she splintered into orgasm.
She was aware of their irregular breaths first, and then the sharp-and-dull pull in her thigh, and then the discomfort of her back, where Logan's hands and their combined weight pressed in, and she slowly slid down to stand in front of him, still in his embrace, and hugged him to her as she reclined against the wall.
His breathing slowed, and he brought a hand up to gentle her hair. His eyes still held the glow from sex, but he leaned forward and, before she could react, kissed her, just a brush of lips, a swift sweep of tongue.
She…she'd missed that so much.
She felt the pull almost immediately, but he held her still, kissed her one more time before pulling back, almost staggering back, and then leaning heavily, into the wall again.
She murmured his name low and stroked his back, and a few minutes later, he drew back, tired but smiling sweetly. She took this opportunity to tug him toward the bed, kicking off her other pant leg as she went. 'Bed. Good,' she tried, smiling, and they flopped down together. She reached for a tissue, helped him dispose of the condom. He hauled her to him, few strokes to her hair, and soon afterward, she could hear the change of breathing that signaled he was asleep.
She sighed, trying to quiet the surfacing questions in her mind. The small dose of him she'd got wasn't enough to answer much…a few horrifying images of blood and char and stink, a few glimpses of her own face during sex (is that what I look like?), a torrent of emotions, more settled now. No real answers. Those she could get tomorrow. She closed her eyes and focused on his heartbeat, the patter of breathing, and curled up to him to get some sleep.