Her body was completely limp in his arms. He held her tightly to him to reduce jarring her as he ran through the maze out of hell. Some how he instantly knew which way to turn, which way to go, but it was still taking too long. She hadn’t made a noise in some time. At first she quietly moaned or groaned if she bounced too hard in his arms. Now she was just silent, along with everything else around him. Everything but his own blood pounding in his head.
Later rather than sooner he pushed the heavy metal door open with his back and reintroduced her to fresh air. The tress were still now, the wind completely dead. He sniffed the air, unsure what he was looking for. Mainly he could only pick up the pine surrounding them and the faint tinge of gunpowder mixing with her blood. He tried to push the smell back, it clogged his entire being and made him just want to fall to the ground and howl. But he needed to think straight, needed to get the girl some help.
He adjusted her carefully in his arms and concentrated. He had to push the trail of god damn squirrels and the like out of the way but he could finally pick up exhaust and aluminum. The truck.
Hee barreled through the trees and tried to block her body from limbs as best he could but figured it was the least of either of their worries.
Sure enough, blatantly in the open, sat the old camper. How none of the military men came by it he couldn’t figure out. And fuck if he gave a damn right now. He had to get her in the car, get her to a hospital.
“Shit,” he swore as he jerked the side door open. He couldn’t take her to a hospital. Stryker said she was wanted in three states. They would just patch her up then throw her in jail. And they’d be back to god damn square one.
He carefully laid her across the front seat. A strangled cry broke out of him when her hand slowly fell off the seat and dangled lifeless just above the cab floor, mocking him and his efforts.
“Come on, darlin’,” he crawled into the car, squeezing his massive body between the seat and the glove compartment. “I ain’t done getting into trouble yet, kid. Not by a long shot. Whose gonna save my ass if you leave me?”
His fingers were caked in mud and her blood as he trailed them down the white streak in her hair. Their path continued down her body til they rested on the matching stain on her soiled ‘Rally Tire’ shirt.
“Please, Rogue,” he pleaded quietly into her hair. “Please. I still need you. I still need a guardian angel. You’re it, kid. I don’t think I’m gonna get another.”
“God damnit!” He screamed when she remained unresponsive to his commands. “You said you were on my side! You said whatever side I was on, you were on my side! Well, guess what, darlin’? My side is alive! So get your fucking ass over here!”
His face was flushed and his body began quivering, but she was unimpressed. He finally broke and his heavy head fell to her chest. Hot tears flowed out of him and burned his eyes. Her shirt eagerly soaked them up just like all the other fluids she was covered in, uncaring of the impact of them.
Flashes of Rose played behind his clinched eyelids. It was sick, disgusting joke that everyone died because of him but he never could. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the girl’s face again, not with Rose's image fresh in his mind. He didn’t want to mix to the two together, they both deserved their own hole in his heart. Rose had been an accident, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Rogue fucking died for him, made sure she was in the god damn wrong place at the wrong time. He’d never believed in God, not after his parents. Not after Rose and sure as hell not after Stryker. But something sent this angel to him and now was taking her back, whether he was ready or not.
Then, just when he thought there could be no pain worse then the rail wedge in his head and the churning vortex in his chest convulsing lighting began shooting through him. His muscles became infected with it and he could feel the veins in his arms swell well beyond their normal size yet his blood stopped flowing.
He managed to make the muscles in his neck move his head. Her shirt had rode up slightly, bringing her cold skin to his flaming. The pain and the fight to force his lungs to work was so intense it took a second for him to register the moving flesh under his palm.
He choked both to force some air into him and in astonishment. He could actually see it, the hole in her side closing, new skin pushing sluggish blood out of the way. His mutation, it had to be. She didn’t heal. He guessed her skin was looking for life or something, since it could no longer get it from her.
“That’s it, kid. Take it.” He forced out, relishing in the pain that formally only his demons had been able to inflect on him.
“You hear that?!” He suddenly had the strength to scream. “You can’t fucking have her back---” His remaining air rushed out of him in one foul swoop. The muscles in his entire body seizured as the blackness crept up around him. He managed to get one more look at her face, at the tainted white locks that shined through the muck even brighter before the black cocoon engulfed him.
**********
Claustrophobia slowly began eating at his sensitive nerves. His instinct was to spring into attack but his body had no spring in it. And his arms felt hollow, which meant the claws were already out. So all that was left to do was open his eyes and face whatever he was destined for.
Trees. Glazed over a slightly blurry, he could make out trees, their limbs rustling slightly in the wind.
“Ya awake.”
The soft sigh made him turn his head. The girl. She was curled into a tight little ball, facing him on the other side of the car. The car. He was still in the truck.
“Am I dead?” He found himself asking. She didn’t look quite right for him to be alive. Paler than normal, flecks of color in her big green orbs that shouldn’t be there. Worse off, timid and tired and now no filthy gloves but instead her entire body.
“No.” She replied, still very quiet.
“But your skin,” he countered, “It kills.”
She shrugged and ran a hand through the dominating white markings in her hair, stripping the brown. A gesture he’d never seen her do before. “An’ ya heal.”
“There’s no healing from being dead, darlin’.”
“Ya’ve neva been killed by me before.”
He finally mustered enough strength in his arms to pull his body up and firmly sit upright in the seat. “You’re crazy,” he felt he had to point out.
She nodded with another little shrug of her shoulders. “‘Lil bit.”
A smirk spread across his lips. Then he noticed the thick mass laying over him. It had slid off his chest and pooled on his lap when he sat up. His fingers curled into the soft worn leather, careful to keep the claws away from it. “What...what’s this?”
She giggled, it was muted and flat, but still the song of an angel that made him jerk his head up to look at her.
Moving from her ball to her knees she closed the distance between them so she too could run her hand over the bundle. “Its tha jacket ah got ya. Ta replace ya otha one. Ah neva got a chance ta give it ta ya before, but... Anyway, ah know ya like tha brown leatha but they only had black. But its got tha stripes on tha arms like ya otha one did! And...and tha panelin’ is pretty much tha same and tha same kinda colla. But this one has tha vents in it that zip open an’ close. There’s two in tha front, one unda each arm an’ two in tha back. Ah figure that way ya could still wear it in tha summa an’ not get too hot.... Oh!” She took the opportunity to finally take a breath as she moved the jacket around on his lap and opened it up. “Tha guy said there’s a deep inside pocket unda tha right arm, right there, ta hide a gun. Ah told him ya didn’t like guns, though, an’ he said it works pretty good for wallets too. So there’s that.....”
He didn’t look at the jacket at all as she rambled on. His eyes were locked onto her face, lost in the emotions that played across it. Excitement, apprehension, longing, eagerness, joy and a million other things as she went on. And he was so disappointed in himself, that he couldn't find in himself a little bit surprised that she’d actually bought him a new jacket to replace one she had no fault in destroying. He couldn’t even give her that.
“Ah..” She went on, her glazed still locked onto the mass of fabric. “Ah even ran it ova with tha truck a few times. Ya know, for tha street credit. Ah figure ya too much of a badass, sugah, to be walkin’ ‘round with a shiny new jacket.”
She finally brought her eyes up to his face as she sat back on her knees, relinquishing her grip on the jacket. Now that he could get a closer look at her she really did look like death. A death any man would willingly walk into and he tried his damnest to. It seemed not only would they not let each other rescue the other, they were blocking the other from dying for them too. And they were both exhausted and trounced from the circle.
“Ya scared of me,” she stated, breaking the silence. There was no question in her thick and slightly hoarse voice.
Her eyes shifted slightly, obviously conversing with his voice in her head. So there was no point in denying it. “I’m scared that I don’t know who I am when you’re around.”
Her head dropped for a second before leveling back with him. “Who are ya when ahm not around?”
The question came from her dried full lips. Like it was so simple to say and it should be so simple to answer. He thought about it for a second, looking at the claws jutting out between his knuckles before forcing them back in. It really was simple. “A loner. With a dead past and no future, whose always on the run. And is only alive because dying is just too fucking damn hard.”
She shifted closer, laying her bare hand on the back of the chair behind him. “Don’t ya get it, sugah? That’s exactly who ah am. A loner with a dead past an’ no future, always runnin’. But not when ahm with ya--” She stopped and tried to reign herself back in. She took a deep breath then continued. “Ah don’t wanna be a bitch in a bar or a slut on tha road or a satanic spawn or all tha otha shit ah am ta tha people ah’ve touched. When ahm with you....Ah want ta be ya angel.”
He was lost in the haunting emerald eyes all but asking his permission as her words washed over him. “I don’t deserve an angel,” he admitted.
“Ah don’t deserve ta be one,” she quickly countered, flashing a smirk before it died too soon on her lips.
“Nah, darlin’. I’d say you’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty,” he said softly. She pulled back slightly when he raised his hand, but his dark blue eyes pleaded to her as well. Tentatively she relented, moving closer to him. He lightly laid his hand in her hair, running his fingers slowly through the clumped mass.
“Ya can’t kiss me,” She pointed out breathless.
His hand continued its movement until it gripped the back of her neck, protected by her hair. His thumb rubbed lazy circled on to her neck as he pulled her forward, making the distance between them minimum. “That just *proves* you’re an angel, darlin’.”
The End
Two songs played one after the other one day and inspired this fic:
Billy Idol- Rebel Yell
Last night a little dancer came dancin' to my door
Last night a little angel Came pumpin cross my floor
She said "Come on baby I got a licence for love
And if it expires pray help from above"
In the midnight hour she cried- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell she cried- "more, more, more"
In the midniight hour babe- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell- "more, more, more"
More, more, more.
She don't like slavery, she won't sit and beg
But when I'm tired and lonely she sees me to bed
What set you free and brought you to be me babe
What set you free I need you here by me
Because
[Chorus}
He lives in his own heaven
Collects it to go from the seven eleven
Well he's out all night to collect a fare
Just so long, just so long it don't mess up his hair.
I walked the walk for you, babe
A thousand miles with you
I dried your tears of pain, babe
A million times for you
I'd sell my soul for you babe
For money to burn with you
I'd give you all, and have none, babe
Just, just, justa, justa to have you here by me
Because
[Chorus]
More, more, more.
Oh yeah little baby
she want more
More, more, more, more, more.
Oh yeah little baby
she want more
More, more, more, more.
Aerosmith - Angel
I'm alone
Yeah, I don't know if I can face the night
I'm in tears and the cryin' that I do is for you
I want your love - Let's break the walls between us
Don't make it tough - I'll put away my pride
Enough's enough I've suffered and I've seen the light
[Chorus:]
Baby
You're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
Come and make it all right
Don't know what I'm gonna do
About this feeling inside
Yes it's true - Loneliness took me for a ride
Without your love - I'm nothing but a begger
Without your love - a dog without a bone
What can I do I'm sleeping in this bed alone
[Chorus]
Come and save me tonight
You're the reason I live
You're the reason I die
You're the reason I give
When I break down and cry
Don't need no reason why
Baby , Baby
[Chorus]
You're my angel
Come and save me tonight
you're my angel
Come and take me allright
Come and save me tonight,
Come and save me tonight,
Come and save me tonight,
Come and save me tonight,
Come and save me tonight
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Aw, I'm going to miss these two.