All characters owned by Marvel Comics.
Author's note: A little smuttiness in this chapter that barely advances the plot. If you don't like that sort of thing, skip down to Sam's POV.
Rogue
I nearly burst into tears when we pushed through the grass into a thicket of trees and saw that crystal clear pool with its very own waterfall. It wasn't along the main route of the river we had been following, more like an offshoot, but we had heard the roar of the falls and took a slight detour to investigate. It was like something out of a movie, the sun even shining through a break in the clouds to bathe it in a magical spotlight, the water tumbling down the cliffs of a rocky bluff. The bluff rose for a couple of stories, the rocks a sparkly grey lined with faint traces of rainbow shimmer like most of the stones we'd run across so far. A thick circle of trees set back a ways from the rocky shore of the pool at the bottom. It wasn't a deep, dark, old forest but more orchard-like, complete with flocks of singing birds, the trees thick with fruits and nuts we hadn't seen before. I avoided any awkward Adam and Eve comparisons and, needless to say, we decided to stay put for a while.
Our explorations unearthed a network of caves behind and around the waterfall. We poked around and Logan picked what he considered the best one in which to set up our camp for the next few days. We deposited our meager supplies onto the cool stone floor.
"You need to rest," he grunted, but the weariness was evident even in his eyes. We were both hanging on by our fingernails, pushing our bodies to the limit each and every day not knowing what the next sunrise would bring.
"What I need, sugar, is a shower," I laughed and untangled my hair from my treasured ponytail holder. "And that waterfall looks too damned perfect." We'd been staying clean as best we could in the river, but I've always been more of shower girl. Baths were for soaking in heaps of bubbles and reading a good juicy romance, not for scrubbing off the dirt of the day. The lure of water raining down on me was too strong.
He scowled, but I saw the corners of his mouth fighting a smile. "Water's gonna be pretty cold, darlin'," he said.
"Spoilsport," I stuck my tongue out at him. "I'd dump a bucket of ice water over my head at this point, getting real sick of squatting in the stream."
"Fair enough, darlin'. I'll check out the woods around us, get some firewood and scope out the food situation. Seems like there's some new eats for me to test, maybe some things we can carry with us for a little damned variety. I'll give you some privacy, but I'll be close. Holler if you need me."
I saluted and he grunted again, stomping off with his usual heavy steps. I dug through my poor beaten purse and unrolled the pathetic cake of soap I had managed to make out of some of the animal fat of one of Logan's suppertime victims and the ashes of our fires. I held it close and inhaled. Not exactly one of Remy's French milled lavender jobs in the fancy wrappers, but all things considered I did a hell of a job. No animal testing for my cosmetics company, I had Logan the guinea pig and his healing factor. Maybe if we came across a better fat for the saponification, some sort of plant oil? You'd think we'd stumble on a sunflower or olive-type plant. Oh, well, something to keep an eye out for. Main thing was the soap cleaned; it was my new best friend.
It occurred to me as I was kicking my boots off onto the cold cave floor that I would be putting my clean self right back into my stinky, crusty clothes. I stripped out of them, expecting them to stand on their own from the dirt and sweat caked on them. I grabbed Logan's discarded flannel shirt to use as a cover-up and twisted my hair into a bun, deciding, grudgingly, to wash my clothes first and heading for the rocks surrounding the pool. I waded into the shallow water at the edge of the pool, gritting my teeth in anticipation of the needle pricks of icy cold water. I sighed in relief. It wasn't cold, it was even sort of pleasant, downright warm. The sun was still streaming into the clearing, pouring its alien energy right down the waterfall and turning up the temperature of the clear pool, but the water was warm enough to make me wonder if the cave and falls were part of a hot spring system.
I washed my clothes with my new soap, using the rocks as a makeshift washboard. I laid them in the sun to dry and made my way back up to the waterfall, taking tiny, careful steps as I neared the slippery cascade. There was a cave directly behind the falls about halfway down, the water hit part of the ledge that served as the cave's entrance and then continued down the bluff. I stepped into the cave and unbuttoned the flannel shirt.
I paused for a moment, suddenly shy at the thought of getting naked in broad daylight, out in the open. Stop being silly, girl, I scolded myself. Who was gonna see me? Logan? The thought caused an unexpected warm tightness low in my stomach. The taste of his lips on mine briefly flared in my mind and part of me thought that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he did see me, that he should enjoy the show. I was being stupid, he had seen me in my bra and panties and couldn't care less. He was well off hunting and knew to give me my privacy, and so far we were the only humanoids on this stinking planet. I shook my head and slid the shirt off my shoulders, folded it into a dry patch on the cave floor and let my hair fall loose down my back.
Bracing myself, I slipped under the torrents of water. It wasn't cold, it was absolute heaven. I tilted my head back and stood still, letting the warm water pour over me, the pulsing pressure rolling over my body. It felt good, really good. It took me a few minutes to realize exactly how and where it felt good; just like the water massager back home. I swallowed and bit my lip, leaning back, enjoying what the trickling water was doing to me. I started breathing a bit heavier than I should have, and the warmth caused flutters of pleasure to roll up my body in waves. It had just been too long with too few private moments, and I started thinking all kinds of naughty, dirty things. In my mind, Remy's long strong hands ran over me, sliding down and into my…
I stopped myself, panting. How could I go from being afraid to strip down a few minutes ago to touching myself under the waterfall? My body reminded me how as another wave rushed over me, low and tight. T'hell with it, I thought. The way I was feeling, I would be done soon anyway. My hand took Remy's imagined path, but, thinking of Remy made me a little sadder than I wanted to be right then. My mind drifted to Logan, back to that kiss and the feel of his body pressed against mine. My stomach clenched and tingled as I started again, imagining his hands roaming over me, the feel of his skin on me, him in me…the pleasure pushed me over the edge in a shudder of fireworks.
Logan
The pool hooked up with our stream in a roundabout way, further on down. Trees were thick on both sides of the bottom pool. From the higher vantage point at the top of the falls it had looked like the trees would eventually thicken into dense forests, in the distance peaks of mountains complete with snow. At least, what I thought was snow. Who the hell knew on this weird ass planet? Could be cotton candy or something. But snow meant it could get cold, would get cold. We weren't going to be able to keep moving forever, if we were stuck here too long we might have to rest somewhere, wait out a season. Didn't really know what to think of that, if I made the right choice keeping us moving every day or if we should have stayed put somewhere and built up supplies, food, water, shelter. This waterfall would have been a good spot to hunker down.
I shook my head, reminding myself that, even though I couldn't see it from here, we could be fifty miles to a civilization. Didn't want to be stuck camping in the woods if help was that close. So far there had been no damned sign of anyone, not jet-wash or noise or garbage, no evidence of humanoids, no smells of chemicals or fuels or any other stink all kinds of people, alien or otherwise, seemed to bring. Had to keep us moving, for now, or we'd go crazy. Gave us something to do, to hope for. I'd find this spot again if I had to.
Was finally getting accustomed to the landscape, the plants and trees and sky had their own twisted beauty. Was even starting to be able to recognize smells and sounds, though it had taken a while. Of all the X-Men, I was actually thankful it was Rogue stuck here with me, even when she was bein' disagreeable. We had always made a good team, she was smart, listened when she needed to, put me in my place when she had to. Her being able to share my healing factor had been a real advantage so far, saved us a lot of trouble, kept her from being sick and injured for the most part.
She was a good match, would be in a lot of ways. My mind drifted to the smell of her skin, the feel of her breasts pressed up against my chest…I stopped myself. I needed to get this under control. We were alone together, stranded. We were each other's only human contact and the strain had started to show. We had been having a few moments lately, and had been coming close to crossing a line in our friendship. I cared about her and didn't want to take advantage of the situation, but, goddammit, one more time seein' her in the water in those lace panties of hers…I exhaled in a growl and took some deep breaths to calm the animal that had roared up in me. I needed to think of something else and started hauling firewood back to the camp. She should have been done with her shower by now, no chance of catching her without her drawers on. I hissed slowly and felt myself strain against the front of my jeans. Probably shouldn't do that, picture Rogue without her drawers on. The animal in me roared again, demanding, but I ignored it, kept working instead, gathered up a pile of firewood.
I neared the clearing surrounding the pool and just about dropped everything in my arms when I caught sight of her under the waterfall, still buck ass naked. I should have turned around, should have went back into the woods, but instead I set down the firewood and stared. Damn, she was beautiful, something I tried so hard not to see. Most people, living how we had been living, rough on the land, would have looked worn, sickly, but she was flourishing and my eyes drank her in like water in the desert. Dammit, you had known her since she was a smart-mouthed teenager, didn't seem right to think of her any way else. But there she was, milky white and naked, no mistaking she was a woman, curves swelling in all the right places. I should have turned and left her alone, but I stepped back into the trees so she couldn't see me, a throbbing ache in places I had been trying to ignore. I put my hand down the waistband of my jeans and exhaled, shaking. It felt good, real good. It had been too long with too little alone time, man had needs. I watched her and groaned when I saw what she was doing to herself up there. The animal in me couldn't get my fly down fast enough.
Sam
"Are you ready, Samuel?"
Doctor McCoy's voice crackled through the speaker above me. I nodded, knowing he and Rachel were watching my every movement from behind the glass of the control room. I lay as still as I could, face up on the slab, cold and completely naked.
Hank continued. "Remember, Sam. Think of this as a glorified CT scan. The table will insert you into the resonance chamber where you'll be injected with the targeting isotopes. The treatment itself will be relatively short, but you must remain as still as possible during the process. Rachel is here to assist you and to help manage any…discomfort." Discomfort. Euphemism for pain so bad it melts your eyeballs. This was the fourth treatment like this I've had and each one had torn me apart. So far, Lila had only been strong enough for one.
I took a few deep breaths to steady myself as the machine whirred to life. The table slid into a tube, looking a lot like a CT scanner just like McCoy tried to remind me, but the treatment he and his fellow mad scientists had devised to combat the Purifier's wayward X-Gene hunting peptides was more like a radiation treatment on steroids. I was injected with a custom-made cocktail, a Stark special isotope, which in effect hunted the hunters, went after those Surge peptides loose in my system. It was explained to us that when the isotopes found Surge they caught the damaging peptides in essentially a cellular net, held them fast. My body slid into this fancy-dancy machine, custom built and calibrated to target and blast the ensnared Purifier peptides, frying those suckers right out of me on a microscopic level.
I felt myself starting to shake and balled my hands into fists at my sides. Multiple treatments, McCoy had said, were necessary because of how Surge attacked the mutant X-Gene. The blasted things played hide-n-seek in the cells of our bodies and apparently were only vulnerable to the treatment when they were in transit, at a particular point of cellular mitosis when they were moving to take over another cell. For a day before each treatment, Lila and I were forced to drink a pretty damn nasty medication that sped up the dividing of each cell, forcing the peptides out into the open by tricking them into thinking it was time to move on to their next target. This meant more of them were loose in my system when it was time for me to get microwaved. The CT-but-not- a-CT, it had a real name but no matter how many times the Doc told me I couldn't seem to remember it, some monstrosity with six syllables and some Latin thrown in just to be mean, was tuned to target the Stark isotope and anything attached to it. The pain was indescribably intense. I wondered if it was how a slug felt when you dumped salt on it, only from the inside out.
The Doc only let us do about one treatment a month, and even though I was worried sick about Logan and Anna and Lila, I was kind of glad he put that restriction on it. I wanted to hurry and get us well so we could find them, but I couldn't handle any more, my body wouldn't let me. It was really like going through a radiation treatment for cancer. My hair had started falling out in clumps; I had given up any pretense of vanity and buzzed it all off. My skin hurt, my mouth had sores in it. I could barely eat.
Lila's body hadn't been recovered enough for the kind of damage McCoy was inflicting on it. She had barely finished physical therapy before we began the first round of treatments. I felt like the whole team was pushing her too hard, too fast. I knew we all wanted to find our friends, but they needed to back off. Her first go round with McCoy's torture chamber had left her violently ill for days, and left her bedridden for nearly a week after. I wished I could help her, take the pain away. Hell, I couldn't even hold her hand during the treatment. Nobody could be in the room while the machine was working, for safety. Reassuring when you're the one strapped to the damn table.
I felt Rachel's mind-touch numbing my nerves like a cold wet towel draped over me. Robotic arms popped from the inner surface of the tube, ten different syringes loaded and targeted to specific points on my body to inject the Stark isotopes. With Rachel's help I didn't really feel the shots, sort of like getting Novocain at the dentist. I could tell the needles were in me, felt them holding under my skin as they emptied into me, but they didn't hurt. No, the pain came after. My bowels shimmied in nervous anticipation. My living telepathic tranquilizer couldn't block enough of the radiation sizzling my cells and they needed me awake for the big zap. I had to engage my powers during the last phase of the treatment to trigger the X-Genes, make an even more tempting target for the Surge peptides to try and latch on to.
"Go ahead, Sam." Rachel's mind brushed lightly against mine. "I'll do my best to minimize the pain."
My heart jackhammered in my chest and I clenched the fists I had never relaxed at my sides, digging my fingernails in until I drew blood. I pushed hard, blasting with my wobbly powers. A second later, McCoy activated his microwave and I got to feel like a frozen French fry felt when it dropped into the fryer.