The bar is dark and nondescript and she's not even sure of where she is. She's been sitting here for hours and her drink, barely touched, is sweating heavily onto the bar. It's very warm in the small, crowded room, and loud with the obnoxious voices of the very drunk and very stupid. There's a cage that takes up most of the room, tall chain link metal that looks very cheap and like the fences around trailer parks back home.

The man beside her is a fighter, undefeated and has probably won tonight more money than she's had in some time. She's been watching him all night.

Looking at him makes fingers itch. She wants to close her eyes. She wants to imagine.

The slide of sheer nylon against soft and resting skin, the ripple of his veins under his own when she touches him.

The thought is delicious. She might have licked her lips.

She has not touched, has not taken, in so long. She is starving for it. Her left hand flexes against the marked wood of the bar. There are no more thoughts to keep her company, it has been too long and she only has her own thoughts to echo through empty space. No room for conscience, however, which only seems to fuck things up. Once or twice she has absorbed one and found it to be a nuisance. Now she avoids those types of people.

Do cage fighters have a conscience?

He is tall and hard, all angles and jutting bones and corded muscle. Her hand flexes again.

He looks her way; not from the corner of her eye, as other men might do, but straightforwardly. With both eyes. He does not blink.

Yes, yes, he would be so delicious. It could be so quick.

He pulls a shirt on that might have been clean once, and she feels a vague disappointment tugging at her temple.

He begins to leave, and as he walks behind her, a swish of warm air and sweat-smell, she turns around on the stool that is rusted and squeaks, and stares. This time, she does not blink.

"Can I get a lift?"

---

He shifts a little, though not uncomfortably, and she takes him in. He is so much larger than her, and she wants to laugh when she thinks of him beneath her, helpless, gasping.

He is a cage fighter. She would have known it by sight, by instinct, passing him on the street. The set of his shoulders, the slight arch of his back, the evasive smirk. So sure of himself and his place in the world. Though maybe not the world of others, she thought. Maybe just his own.

She plays with the vent, turning the flow of the lukewarm air, though she is never cold. It seems to be something they have in common. It is cold outside, freezing, probably below, and she wears only a tight black minidress with black stockings and sheer opera length gloves. She has on black heels. A few times she has watched him looking at her legs, which she doesn't mind, and more often at her gloves, which she doesn't mind either.

Let him wonder.

She thinks of the last one. A young woman, pretty, blonde, petite. Could have been anywhere from 16 to 20. She usually never looked that closely. She'd had on bright red lipstick that caught the eye. She'd met her in the Wal-Mart, picked her up, smooth and easy like sweet tea in July. The blonde liked her accent. She'd never been with another woman before.

-'Don't worry. I'll be gentle.'

She was always gentle. It was more fun that way. That way, they never saw it coming.

-'Can I take your shirt off?'

A nod, no words, and she was glad, because she liked the voices better once they were inside her head, tempered with her own dark cynicism.

Light touches, slow, and she was careful not to mess up that pretty blonde hair or the perfect lipstick. She liked the lipstick.

She left the gloves on for awhile this time. Sometimes she did not. Perhaps she preferred this one-this lipstick lady. She had smooth, tanned skin.

She never hesitated anymore. Never wondered what this would be like-this tasting, this taking-if it were different. If the slide of her own smooth, pale skin over another's weren't such a destructive force. It if didn't serve only to feed the hunger that grew and thrived in that empty place.

She kissed the woman's breasts through her white shirt, pleased to find that she wore no bra. She took a nipple against her tongue, heard the woman's startled moan. The mouth of a woman was so familiar, and yet different. She remembered.

-'I...'

She was somewhat confused, wondering about the gloves and about this woman who had barely spoken two sentences. Wondering about what to do, because she had never, ever done this before. Never like this.

-'Let me show you'

And this time, she kept on waiting. She pulled a sheer scarf from her hair, let the silky mass of it tumble down around the blonde's face, trapping them together. She put the scarf over those red lips, and she kissed her. Soft and then harder, harder, until it was all tongue and teeth and she heard the woman muttering, muttering, and she didn't want to hear. She wanted to feel. She wasn't supposed to feel. Not this good.

-'Your name?what's your name?'

Stupid, stupid woman. Who wanted to remember?

-'I don't have a name. I haven't had a name for a long time.'

She looked confused again, her eyes wide and shifting around, lose in their sockets. She had violet eyes, and they were very beautiful. The woman above her closed her own, shutting away the image.

She teased the woman, kissed her again and did not allow her to make any more noises, any more questions. She pushed up the short skirt and worked her hand under tiny silk panties, in between the soft wisp of probably-blonde curls. She felt the woman's stunned warm stickiness through her nothing gloves, and she thought she might cry.

The blonde lipstick woman came in an anonymous rush, muttering senseless nothings because there was no name in the forefront of her consciousness in the place where one would normally belong. Her eyes were closed, and her blonde hair was tousled from her thrashing. Her red lipstick was faded and smeared, some onto her chin and against the edges of her lips, onto her cheeks. Her white shirt had two big wet blotches that were not quite stains. The other woman took off one of her gloves and slid the hand, the deadly skin, the long, graceful fingers, under the blonde's skirt again. She wanted to take this-the bliss of post-orgasm, the thoughtlessness, the white rush of suddenly being nobody and nothing.

---

"You got a name?"

"Do you?"

He cracks his neck, loud and metallic, and it makes her stare.

"Wolverine"

She raises an eyebrow, waiting.

"Logan. Do you ever answer a question straight?"

She shrugs her shoulders.

"What's your name?"

"Rogue"

He tries her own tactics on her--glances over, raises a considerably bushier eyebrow.

"Sorry, sugar, but that's all there is."

She can almost hear his thoughts, the mulling over of them, trying to figure out who she is and where she is from and what the hell kind of a name is Rogue.

"Alabama?"

"Mississippi"

He doesn't respond, and it makes her wonder if he's ever been. Not that he'd remember. It is a perfectly forgettable hell.

"Where are we headed?"

"Don't know. I don't usually have a plan."

Almost makes her want to smile again. Almost.

"Good."

She leaned back against the seat and this time she does close her eyes, not wanting to remember but knowing she will anyway. It always comes back when she closes her eyes.

---

-'Such a pretty little thing. Such perfect skin'

A touch, fleeting, and she barely felt the pull.

-'I could eat you for breakfast'

She felt herself shudder, involuntarily. She did not want to be afraid.

The woman touched her again, longer this time, and she didn't even seem to mind the abyss that tried to suck her in.

Terrified. She was terrified.

-'I'm not afraid of you'

Her voice trembled. The woman smiled. She was at least a foot taller, muscled, long red hair that brushed the sides of her breasts. Shimmering green eyes.

-'You know you're not one of them, don't you little girl? No matter what your dear professor tells you, you never will be. They hate you. Every last one of them. Because that's the thing they do best. They hate.'

-'Not all of them. Some of them accept...'

The woman laughed, and it was long and brittle and hurt her ears.

-'Accept? You think that any of them accept you? Look at you! You can't touch anyone or anything without killing! No one is safe within a foot of you or that skin. Who do you think would accept that? Not even the other mutants will come near you.'

-'That's not true.'

-'You want to know a secret, little girl? I'm not afraid of you. Not at all.'

She had stripped her, taken even her gloves, and she thought that maybe if she still had those that she would not feel so naked.

The woman licked her neck.

Even later, she would not be able to remember exactly how it happened. It had only taken seconds, without thought, and then it was over. The red hair, the skin that had little freckles all over, had been so close, and she had leaned into her, into the woman that tortured her without pain.

She bit the tender flesh of her cheek and held on.

When they finally found her, she was sitting on the purple sofa next to the fireplace, still staring at the redhead who lay on the floor, who perhaps was dead.

The professor touched the woman's neck, gently and the girl thought that she didn't deserve that. Her boyfriend rushed over to her, his eyes knitted together. She wondered if he was going to cry. Hoped that he would not.

-'She's not dead. She's...in a coma.'

She saw him looking at her cheek, at the bloody hole.

-'Marie'

She didn't look up.

Bobby tried to touch her hair, he who was not afraid of her, and she thought of the woman's words to her.

-'Don't touch me.'

His eyes were still knitted together, and he tried to soothe her. He thought that she was in shock and that she didn't know what she was saying.

When she pushed him away, she watched, stoically, as he hit the wall on the opposite side of the room. No one spoke.

-'Oh my God'

For once, even the professor seemed shocked.

-'I can fly, too'

It was the last thing that she said to any of them.

She left the next day.

---

She has been sleeping for a long time. This is the first thing that she is aware of as she wakes up slowly, feeling in her muscles the need to move and stretch.

"Where are we?"

Her voice sounds sandpapery and unused, and she thinks that she should be embarrassed.

"Nowhere."

She seems content with this answer. She likes nowhere much better than somewhere.

"I need to get out."

He stares at her again, studying, revising.

"Okay."

When he stops she opens the door too fast, and steps out into the snow. There are trees, a forest, only feet away, and she thinks absently that she has never climbed a tree. She would be especially good at it now.

She begins to walk, raising her arms above her head and stretching out her back, knowing that he is watching and that he thinks that she is beautiful. Maybe he is turned on, because her dress is very short and men usually like the gloves.

He probably thinks she's a hooker, but that's okay too. Maybe in a way she is. They get what they want, and she gets paid. She gets exactly what she wants.

Before long she is tired of the snow and the silence and she climbs back into the truck. He takes off quickly.

"I'll stop in the next town," he says, and she feels the need to smile again.

"That's fine, sugar."

The next town doesn't come for another three hours, but they do not speak during the drive. She does not sleep anymore, and his eyes never leave the road. He is waiting now, biding his time.

When he pulls into the parking lot, she glances around. Seedy, but okay. She's been in worse.

"I'll go pay. You can stay here if you want."

She waits, like he says, wanting him to feel masculine and in control. Most men lose that feeling, the one they thrive on, when they find out that she can snap their legs.

He comes back for her, opens her door, but he doesn't help her down.

They are in room 8. There are only 10 rooms.

The carpet is an alarming yellow, and the walls might have once been white. They are stained almost orange from nicotine and filth. The comforter is blue.

She doesn't speak yet; instead she heads straight for the bathroom, walking slowly so that he can watch her hips, her ass.

She locks the door, strips off her gloves and then washes her face, her armpits, and pulls back her hair with a scarf that was around her neck. She takes off the black dress and the tights, leaves on the heels. She has on no bra, no underwear, to begin with. She pulls her gloves back on. She smoothes on red lipstick from a tube that was between her breasts and she thinks of the pretty blonde.

She can hear him pacing in the room. She unlocks the door. His pacing stops.

He is staring when the door opens, staring and his eyes are already focused, ready.

He is ready, and yet his breath rushes out in a jagged-edged sigh when he sees her.

She is so fucking beautiful.

He clears his throat. She stands still, not breathing, holding his eyes with that cold, unwavering stare.

"It'd be best if you left your clothes on, sugar."

He doesn't question her. She's holding a condom in her right hand, twirling it between the lithe fingers like a magician with a coin. She wonders if maybe he wouldn't mind doing it standing up, because she's developed a sudden distaste for the filthy bed.

He takes a step towards her.

"No kissing, either."

He takes another step.

She decides that he is moving too slow, that he is giving her too much time to think, which she hates, and she reaches out and grabs the blue flannel of his shirt. She pulls him against her, maybe too roughly, because he bounces a little and seems quite stunned.

"You're kinda strong for a girl."

And then suddenly she is laughing, rich and deep and Southern, and everything in her is giddy and confused. It is all so very wrong and ironic and he doesn't understand any of it, and perhaps she doesn't either.

"You have a nice laugh. Sounds like you don't do it too often."

"I haven't laughed in a thousand years."

"You can't be more than twenty three or twenty four."

"Twenty one. But what does that mean, really?"

He only nods his head, because he understands what it's like to be so old inside a young body.

Her laughter, his questions have made her vulnerable, and she has not felt that way in years. Not since Carol.

She can see it in his face that he wants to touch her, that he is going to, and she backs away.

"You can't touch me."

She is the only one allowed to touch. She has to be in control. When she touches, she takes. When someone touches her...

"Why not?"

"I don't like to be touched."

Cocks his head to one side, takes another step and she feels her back against the wall. Literally.

"Please."

She feels like he has broken her. He is different and she doesn't understand why, but somehow she knows that she will never be able to take him, that he won't be so easy.

"No."

And then he touches her. Not like sex, not like anything but a touch, gentle in spite of his strong hands and rough skin. His fingers are splayed against her cheek.

She watches the shock of his face as he feels it. She watches his veins and they are not so delicious. She thinks of the first boy that she kissed, David. She pushes him away, and he falls easily, a metallic clang as he hits the cheap carpet.

She thinks that he might already be dead, that he should be, and she feels relieved and terrified and like her whole world is horribly fucked up.

"What the hell was that?"

But he is not dead. He is quite alive and sitting up, rubbing his head, cracking his neck again. He stands up, taking his time, a little shaken.

"Tell me what's going on."

"I told you not to touch me."

"What's wrong with your skin?"

"I'm a mutant."

"No shit."

"My skin kills people. Takes out their life force, their power."

He doesn't seem very surprised.

"Tell me what happened to you," he says, and she shakes her head. She will die and no one else will never know.

"Tell me why you hate so much," and she thinks that this is a good question.

She almost cannot remember, although it lingers at the edges of every conscious thought she has.

She hates because of what she is, and what she is capable of.

She hates the world because she hates herself.

And yet it is what keeps her living. The power. The pull. The hunger, and the eventual satiation.

She thinks that maybe he has seen right through her.

"I hate because I am."

And he thinks that he knows exactly how she feels.

But he doesn't tell her this; he does not speak at all. Instead he touches her again, touches her hair where this is safe.

"I haven't been a good person for a very long time," she says.

"I've never been one. So we're even."

His hand, heavy with its metal, tangles in her hair. He smells her arousal. With his free hand he unzips his pants, frees his arousal, takes her gloved hand and pushes it against himself.

She doesn't know who she is, and wonders why he seems to. She has stolen so many identities that she has lost her own, somewhere, and she thinks that maybe he's had it the whole time.

She rips open the condom that is still in her hand and rolls it onto him. The paper falls to the floor unheeded.

"Look at me."

She does without thinking and his eyes make her want to cry. He has green eyes, green like Carol's who still sometimes talks to her.

He slides into her. Her world goes white and then black behind her eyelids and she wonders if the broken moan she hears is coming from her.

He is moaning too, chanting something, pounding into her and she feels without pain her back hitting the wall with each thrust. She cannot remember when she wrapped her legs against his waist.

"Rogue," he says, and she realizes that he is chanting what she told him is her name.

"Marie," she murmurs, because she has just now remembered.

He doesn't stop or slow down, but she knows that he hears her.

"Marie," he says in the next breath, and she thinks she might fall.

Before she knows it she comes hard and she is biting his neck through his button-up and screaming his name and her voice is pain-soaked because her heart might be breaking.

She feels him come, not wet because he's wearing a condom but oh-so-warm. He keeps on moving for a few moments, grunting a little, breathing hard. She is slack against him.

She lets her legs unwrap and feels, as if at a distance, her feet touch the ground. She wonders if she will be able to stand when he moves.

He holds her up for a little while, not touching her with his hands although his whole body is pressed against hers.

When he is sure that she can stand he leaves long enough to throw away the condom and tuck himself into his pants. He comes back and she is on the bed, sitting up, staring ahead at the blank orange-filth walls.

"Marie?"

"I'm not supposed to feel. I don't feel."

"Sure you do."

"I'm not real. Don't you see that? I'm not real until I take someone...until I have someone to be."

"Why can't you just be you? Marie?"

"She's dead. She died a long time ago."

"No she didn't. She's sitting right in front of me."

She looks up at the man who wouldn't ordinarily seem like a sap, and she wonders if he is different because of her, too.

"I need to leave."

"Just stay. Ride with me some more. I'll take care of you."

"It doesn't work that way. I don't survive like that."

"You could try."

"What do you fucking know about it?"

She wonders why she is screaming, why she is suddenly so angry. She wonders if maybe Carol has come back, unexpected, or if maybe she is simply scared of what is happening to her.

But he doesn't care that she is screaming at him, doesn't even look angry.

"I know a lot about trying to be a different person than you are. I know everything about hating yourself, and about running."

"I'm not running. I'm chasing. I'm not afraid, Logan. I'm not afraid of what I am anymore. I know what I'm doing. I take, and it keeps me alive."

"Stop. Stop taking and just live."

"This is my life. There's nothing else."

"It's why you're so strong, isn't it?"

She stares at him.

"You absorbed someone...very strong. Right?"

"It was a woman. She had super strength. She could fly."

"She hurt you."

He is not asking, and he is looking straight at her. She doesn't shake her head at him like she should, for the sake of her own sanity.

"No one can hurt me."

"I think you're wrong."

"Why didn't I kill you when you touched me?"

He hesitates.

"No one can hurt me, either."

"Why?"

"I can heal. It's my mutation."

"You can't die."

"I can die. It's just very hard to kill me."

She thinks that she might like to have him in her head. Knows that she will never take him.

"There's something else, isn't there?"

"I have metal...grafted to my bones. In my whole body. In my hands. Like claws."

She stares at his hands, which seem so normal.

"Claws?"

He nods his head and, for her, he lets them slide out, closes his eyes through the pain of ripping skin.

She stares in awe at the nearly foot-long blades. And she knows.

"I'm tired," she says.

"You want to go to sleep?"

"Not that kind of tired."

He looks wary. His claws are still extended.

"I'll never be normal. I'll never be real. I'm tired of taking. I'm tired of living off of others like some kind of vulture."

He feels himself shudder because he knows what she is saying and knows that he will do whatever she wants.

"Please," and her voice is not whimpering or begging. Her voice is resigned.

"Let me kiss you."

She nods her head, watches him and thinks that this is the happiest she has been in such a long time.

He kneels down, lets his claws slide back in if only for now, and is careful to only touch the comforter on either side of her.

"I'm sorry," he says, and she wonders if he is sorry for what he is going to do or sorry that she needs him to do this so badly.

She doesn't say anything back.

When he kisses her she closes her eyes and then opens them again because she knows that she needs to see him when it happens. He is so rough and primal and yet she sees now that he is very beautiful, too. His eyelashes are long and dark.

She feels the pull and knows that he must feel it too, but he doesn't stop. His hands move and wrap around her waist, and they are strong and reassuring and perfect.

She feels the razor sharp pain of metal, cold and metallic, and it is deep inside of her so suddenly that her breath catches and holds.

The pain is exquisite.

His skin is shimmering and translucent and he is still kissing her, his strength fading, and she is dying and healing all at once as his thoughts rush into her head.

With whatever she has left inside of her she pushes him away, and the metal slides out of her and back into him, and she watches through hazy eyes as the wounds between his knuckles close a little more slowly than usual.

This is the way that it should be, because she has him in her head and she is almost gone, floating away and she doesn't even feel the pain of her torn-away sides anymore. He is lying on the floor, not dead but not conscious, and yet he is inside her, she is him because she has taken him but not all of him, just enough to keep her alive for one more moment. She is him and yet, for that one moment, she is herself, because he is the one person that she has taken that knows who she is and accepts it. And then the moment is gone and she dies, still holding her breath, her eyes still open. She dies and feels like she is flying, which is not such an unusual thing but is this time so very different.