Flashes of skin. Red. Blackness. He was asleep, he must be.
Marie. She was here. She was shouting at him, but he couldn’t hear her. Calling his name maybe.
Smell of skin. Her skin. Redness against pale cream. Lines, three of them. Fresh smell of salt. Rust. What smelt like rust? Blood.
This must be one of his nightmares. Unclear situation, danger, fear, blood and pain. Confusion. Hands flailing in front of his face. Unrestrained anger. Yes this was one of his nightmares.
He twitched and turned onto his stomach.
Opening his eyes, he was face down on the bed. His hands tangled in the sheets. His face shoved into the pillow. His senses slowing came back to him. The cabin, that’s were they were. They. Marie. Pushing himself up, he looked at the pillow and sheets. Torn, bloodied. He had blood on his hands, his chest and he could feel it on his lips, taste it in his mouth and down his throat.
Other smells were in the room. Fear, salt, but mostly blood and sex. Female cum. Cinnamon. Marie.
Holy mother of shit, what the hell happened? “Sniff.” Where did that come from? Marie. He turned and saw her in the corner. Noticing first the blood on her lips and right cheek. She was tightly hunched against the wall. Not crying, but very shaken. Naked, with a sheet wrapped around her. It was torn and bloody.
He bolted off the bed and ran to her. She flinched, immediately pointing a tranq gun at him to stop him. She tried to scramble backwards, but the wall stopped her.
“Baby, it’s me. Logan. Darlin’, please let me near ya.” He was on the verge of panic. He had lost it. Let him out. Let go. And this was the result.
She looked at his eyes, dropped the gun and bolted into his embrace. She sank in relief against his skin and held her arms tightly around his neck.
They sat on the floor. Holding onto each other. After what seemed like eternity, she pulled away slightly. She wiped her face and smiled weakly at him.
“What happened?” Because he really didn’t know. She stilled smelled of sex, and he forced himself to ignore it.
“Wolverine. He, um, kinda went nuts. I’m sorry.” She shifted again and was now sitting with her back to the wall.
“Marie, how the hell could this be your fault? I’m the one who should sorry.” She looked at him, and he registered her scent changing. Holding something back, not quite a lie, but guilt and regret.
She got up on shaky legs, holding the sheet around her. He held her arm, to stop her from moving away, but she flinched and moved away. “Don’t.” Pain, he could smell pain.
He gently held the edge of the sheet. “Let me see. Please.” She knew she couldn’t stop him, so she nodded and let him remove the soiled fabric. He sighed in hate at himself for what he saw. There were worse things than the split lip and teeth marks on her cheek; it made him feel sick.
Her upper arms were covered in bruises, she had teeth marks on her breasts, and as he moved the sheet away lower, he could see another set of teeth marks on her stomach and left thigh. As she turned, he saw more in the centre of her back. None of the injuries were serious, most just grazes, but they looked horrible on his precious girl.
She was shaking while he inspected her. This was her fault. She’d wanted him to lose it, wanted him to be like this, encouraged it. She had seen the change in him the minute it happened, but she had done nothing, bit his neck again, and pulled his hair.
She made this happen. It wasn’t rape, just ownership. She knew the score. She hadn’t said no, not once, but at the time she thought it was because she knew he wouldn’t stop. Now she wondered if she didn’t want him to. This was a reminder of who she really belonged to.
She knew the next question out of Logan’s mouth was going to be why. Why had she let him? Why didn’t she just drop him? Well, that was the twist: she’d tried. But it never kicked in.
It made sense really. She didn’t really want to stop him. Yes, he had hurt her, giving her marks and bruises. But she knew that wasn’t the point or the issue. She wanted to be owned, she wanted to know he wanted her this much. No one had wanted her: her parents, other kids at Xavier’s (her mutation was powerful but only if she got close enough to spit on someone), Bobby certainly hadn’t wanted her.
“Marie, I…I don’t know what to say. Sorry doesn’t even begin to touch it. I just…Shit! Why didn’t you say no or turn your…” He saw her turn her face away at the question. “Marie?” She moved away and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I tried. It didn’t work. My skin. Zip. Nada. Not even a tingle. I had to wait until he fell asleep before I could move to get the tranq. Sorry, I know the darts make you feel like shit after, but it was how you came back the last time, when Scott shot you.”
He grabbed his sweats from the chair and shoved them on. She couldn’t or wouldn’t meet his gaze, and she seemed to think that this was her fault. How could she cause this? What else was going on that he didn’t know about? He sat next to her.
For the first time since he had blacked out in the med lab, he really thought about why it happened. Wolverine wanted her: simple, but not really that simple. He wanted ownership; that meant blood, submission, control and possession. None of it was simple. Logan didn’t want to have to hold back to keep ‘him’ in check. He wanted to give Marie everything, all of him, the good and the bad. Which meant that he needed to find a central point between them, a crossroads. Somehow meet ‘him’ in the middle.
“Where did you get the gun?” Thank God she had.
“The Professor. Just in case.” He reached out and tucked her white streak behind her ear. He ran his thumb over her split lip, briefly wondering if he had hit her or bitten her, then deciding he really didn’t want to know.
“Turn your skin on, baby. Let me fix this.” She turned to look at him sharply, anger rising.
“Why, so you can gloss over it again? I know what’s been going on in your head. I don’t need to touch you for that. I’ve noticed that every single time you touch me, it’s soft, caring, gentle, and *completely controlled*. It’s great and perfect, and I love you but…I need the other stuff as well, and so do you…”
“Marie…I can’t…”
“Fuck, Logan, don’t you see? You say you can’t, so he’s doing it for you. I’ll admit that this went a little far this time. I know I should have said no, but he doesn’t listen to that, and I want….I don’t know. I…” She got up again and leaned against the wall, looking at him.
“He doesn’t listen to that? What, no? Did you say no the last time?” He stood up and faced her. The other day, shoving snow in her top, her yelling no and thrashing around, that was familiar. But no, he couldn’t have. Her face gave nothing away, and she looked at the floor.
“It wasn’t like that.” Her voice was a whisper. He grabbed her upper arms and shook her to him.
“Did you say no or not?” A tear slid down her perfect face, and he knew the answer.
“Yes, but not like that. I didn’t really mean it.” She was panicking. He let go and took a few steps away. She followed him and tried to get him to face her. “Logan, it wasn’t like that, I swear. I wanted him to. I wanted him, I wanted you, but he… it was forced but not like that. Logan, look at me, please.”
“How many fucking ways are there, Marie? You say no, you mean no. I don’t understand. Why would you want him? I’ve tried to show you how much *I* love you.”
“I know. I’m not right. I know that, and I’m sorry. But I like the feeling of being wanted that much. Being that important. He pushed past you, everything, for me. He makes my skin hum, burn, and I like it. You make me happy, special, and completely loved. But there’s no balance. I’m selfish, I want it all, I want to feel loved and special, but I want to feel possessed and marked at the same time. I need both sides of you, Logan, and I think if you’re honest, you like it, too.”
It was true: he couldn’t deny that. He had bitten women before, pulled hair and split the odd lip with his teeth in the past. But not Marie. She wasn’t like those women, and he knew he shouldn’t want to be that man anymore. He should want to be someone who was worth giving your life for. Someone who you would choose rather than play with until you got home to your decent, law abiding, good-natured man.
“I don’t like waking up and finding you covered in your own blood. I don’t like seeing your face marked like that. *I* don’t want *him* to hurt you. Because if we carry on like this, he will. You don’t know all of it, Marie.” He sat back down on the bed and looked at his hands.
“So tell me, because I’m thinking I should leave. I obviously have issues that neither of us can deal with. I think my idea of sex is more than a little off. I do this to you. I make him come out. You don’t like it, and you don’t want it.”
“He’s the product of them. He’s what they played on to get me to do their biding, their missions. Not the ones I choose to go on as an X-Men. He’s not something I like to acknowledge, let alone let near you. I wanna find that balance too, but I don’t know how. If I’m completely honest, when it comes to you, I want the same things. I want possession, I want control, your submission, and I want you to wear a mark that shows everyone you’re mine. But you’re not like that, and neither am I anymore.”
“Logan, has this not told you anything about me? Look at me.” He raised his head and met her fiery brown eyes. “These marks, they’re nothing. I could have said no, but I didn’t. Not because I thought he wouldn’t have stopped, but because I didn’t want him to. My skin, another useless reason. If I really wanted it to work, don’t you think it would have? I shot you with the tranq gun because I thought that was the right thing to do. I feel guilty because you’re blaming him for his actions, when he didn’t really do anything wrong. Yeah, I was scared, scared he wouldn’t stop, but every time it tipped me over the edge. I’m sorry that’s not what you want to hear. Maybe I’m sick, I don’t know.”
He stood up and closed the gap between them. “Who do you want?” She touched his lips and kissed him gently. It was such a tragic question, he just didn’t get it.
“I want you. But the you who used to be there, before Alkali. The you who wasn’t so afraid of what people thought, what they said. Their actions were their own and nothing to do with you. I want the man who would rather wing it, than think about his lesson plan. The man who drinks, smokes, enjoys a good fight, and doesn’t step back and assess the situation. Most of all I want the you that’s not restrained or holding back all the fucking time. You don’t look before you leap: why should you?”
“I’m not that man. What’s wrong with wanting to be a teacher, decent? Make a living? Help people?” He was getting angry. How dare she? He’d changed for a reason, didn’t she know that? This was about Wolverine. He was the issue here, not Logan. Logan was fine. Wolverine was the one playing games in his head and messing with his girl. “Maybe you should leave because I’m sick of being told who I was. I learned a long time ago who I should be.” She knew he didn’t mean to shout.
She knew this had to be said. Her whole life came down to this. She hated it, her life revolving around this, but there was no way around it. If she wanted Logan to be his own man, the one she’d found all those years ago in that bar, she had to say it. She had to rip it out of the back of his mind and shove it in front of his face.
“She wasn’t your fault.”
**************END OF PART FOUR
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