Title: Control 7/?
Author: sharonmjl47
Rating: NC-17
Category: Movieverse.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and no one. Sad, isn’t it!
Feedback: Please, bad or good. If no one tells me it’s bad, I won’t know!
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It had been dark when Logan had taken her to her room, so he hadn’t bothered to pull the curtains. Now bright sunlight beamed through the window and shone on Marie’s face. She opened her eyes and smiled at the clear blue sky outside her window. A soft snore to her right made her head snap round. Logan.
He was next to her on his stomach, was still fully clothed apart from shoes and socks, facing towards her. His face was calm and handsome. She stared at him. She should be reaching out and touching him. She should be smiling, giggling like a complete girl because he was in her bed, but she wasn’t.
She thought his face was the same. His face was always the same, but the man underneath was different somehow. How different she didn’t know. What was she to expect from him now? How was she supposed to be around him, face him? She looked at him one last time. She just didn’t know him anymore. For some reason, that thought made her search her mind for the switch for her skin, wanting to flip it on.
She gently rose from the bed and padded silently into her bathroom, not letting out her breath until the door was shut behind her and locked. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy, her bottom lip had a small split in it and she had a burn on her left wrist from Jubilee’s blast, other than that it was just her.
After a quick shower, she brushed her teeth. She felt dirty somehow and wanted to scrub every part of her that she could. By the time she finished, she had scrubbed so hard her gums had bled.
Once she had rinsed her mouth out, she brushed her wet hair. She hadn’t brought any clothes into the bathroom with her, so she just put on her thin silky white robe and went back into her bedroom.
Logan was awake and sitting on the edge of her bed. His shirt open, his chest as bare as his feet. He looked tense, but he smiled at her as she walked in. She didn’t have time to smile back when her phone rang.
“Hello? Yeah, Hank. Ok, later on this afternoon if that’s ok. I want to get a little organised. Yeah… thanks.” She put her phone down and sat in her giant chair. “Hank and the Professor want to see me in the med lab after lunch.”
“I’ll go with you.” His voice was still gruff from sleep.
“No. There’s no need.” She rose and opened her closet, taking out black jeans and throwing them over the chair. Then she started searching for a top. She felt numb, empty, hollow somehow.
“Marie…?”
She didn’t turn to look at him. “Yeah?”
“Are you ok?”
The chuckle escaped before she could stop it, and she turned her head and gave him a cold look. “What do you think?”
He stood up and put his hands on his hips, looking her up and down. Her head inclined his way slightly. She knew he had stood up; he also noticed the change in her scent: nervous, cautious… scared.
“Marie, are you afraid of me?”
She turned around and threw the top she was holding into the chair along with her jeans, resisting the temptation to say, ‘Well, duh!’ “Would you mind? I want to get dressed. Go over a few things on my own. I have about a million and one questions, and none of them are gonna be easy to sort through.” She looked at his face and thought he suddenly looked old somehow, weathered, eroded by all the worry.
Her gaze dropped to her feet, and he knew the answer. Taking a step towards her, he put his hand out to touch her arm, and she jumped back, her gaze never leaving her feet.
“Don’t.” She was looking at him now, into his eyes, and he saw the pain in her, the unshed tears building up making them glisten.
“Marie… I… please don’t shut me out.”
Her voice was a whisper when she spoke. “What was it you said, ‘at least it would her’? You said you didn’t care if I never spoke to you again, but at least it would be me. Did you mean that? You would rather have me hate you than not be here at all?”
“Yeah, I meant that.”
She nodded. “That’s how its gonna have to be for a while, because I can’t do this. I don’t think I can be this close to you.”
“Marie, please…” His voice was pleading. This was what he had feared, this was what he’d been most afraid would happen - that Carol would be right.
She ran her hands through her hair, her anger at him and the whole situation coming to the forefront. “What did you expect? That I’d wake up and we’d be back to normal? Did you honestly think that I would be able to look at you and still see my best friend?”
“So what is it you see?”
“I don’t know. I… feel like I don’t know you anymore. I’ve always been so honest with you, completely open. Laid bare to you. Granted I never actually told you about my feelings, but you know absolutely everything there is to know about me, how I feel about things, love: life, sex the whole lot. You probably know me better than I do. But… but you - you’ve held all this ‘stuff’ back, shut ‘me’, out and it’s like I don’t know this person that you’ve got tucked away in there. And it scares the shit outta me, that it’s been there all along and I’ve never seen it. And I’m sorry, I really …am, but I don’t know how to deal with that. How to deal with this person, with you.”
“Marie, you don’t have to ‘deal’ with me. I’m still the same guy.”
“The same guy? Really, ‘cause the Logan I know would never have backed an abused and scared woman against a wall and threatened to RAPE HER!”
“I wouldn’t have done it! It was just a threat. I wouldn’t have hurt you, you know that.”
“Do I? Do I really? Because I’m not so sure anymore, Logan.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “She told you I lie to you everyday, but I don’t actually tell you a lie, I live a lie. Yes, I love you. I’ve been in love with you for… for forever, but… I just resigned myself to the fact that you would always want something I don’t have, that I would never be enough for you, and… and I was right!” She sat down in her giant chair. “Carol had it, didn’t she? Whatever it is that you want, what you ‘like’, she had it.”
“The only thing that woman had that I wanted was you! Don’t you get that?”
“No, Logan, I don’t. Because in all this time, you’ve never acted like that toward me. You’ve not once made any kinda attempt to… to be with me. So why now, why would I believe you now? How do I know that it was all nothing more than another shit-stirring episode to get at Carol.”
“It’s the truth. I love you! Have done for a while, but I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. I was scared, ok? Scared that you really wouldn’t want me. And as for Carol, I…”
“Would you have raped her? Honestly, tell me the truth.” She had her legs tucked under her and was biting her nails. Her scent still held nervousness, but the fear was slowly ebbing away.
“No. Never. It was just something to try and hold over her, stop her from hurting you, but she called me on it in the end.”
“So why kiss her, lick her, rub yourself against her? You can’t deny it, Logan. You wanted her. I mean, God, Logan, I feel like you’ve been fucking my best friend behind my back. That’s how this feels, like betrayal!”
“Alright!” She jumped when he shouted, backed into the chair a little. The fear in her shot up again. “It’s a dominance thing, ok? I want control, that’s all. The dark part is there. I don’t like it, but it’s there. And I meant what I said about that too: no way would I ever be like that with you.”
“And what if that’s what I want? What if, I like that kinda stuff, sex games roughness, what then? What if you can’t control ‘it’? What if that’s just how we’re supposed to be? What then?”
“That’s not what we’re supposed to be, you don’t want that, Marie, there’s a difference between games and violence, and I would never let it happen. I wouldn’t.”
“How the fuck do you know what I want, Logan! You’ve never asked, never taken the time to find out.” She rubbed the tears out of her face and stood up, realising that she didn’t know what she wanted either, a lot had changed. “Can you please leave now?”
“I’m not going anywhere till we sort this out.”
“What’s to sort out?”
“This is me and you, Marie. We need…”
“There is no me and you! We’re friends! The last time I checked, I was your friend, nothing more. Now all of a sudden, you’ve decided that you’re in love with me. It doesn’t work like that, Logan. I’ve never said that I don’t love you, and let’s face it, you can’t tell me that you haven’t known that I’ve been in love with you for years, but I can’t just wake up and be you lover, or girlfriend, or whatever the hell it is you want.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against her desk. “You said that there’s part of you that wanted to hurt her, tear, scratch her skin, take pleasure in her, and in her pain and suffering. Is that what you want now? When you look at me now is that what you see?”
“Darlin’…”
“Answer me.”
“Marie, I think we…”
“You can’t, can you? What is it, Logan, can’t you tell me the truth? I know you can’t lie to me, that much I know about you.” He took a couple of steps towards her, and she raised her hand to him. “I said don’t.”
“Touch me.” Another two steps, and he was in front of her, close enough that she could feel his breath on the top of her head.
“Logan, I don’t want…”
“Turn your skin on, and touch me. See for yourself how I feel about you. See for yourself that I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll open up, I’ll be laid bare for ‘you’, I’ll tell you how I want to control you, dominate you, posses you, own you. See all sides to me, know me Marie, please!” He grabbed her wrist in desperation and raised her hand to his face. She didn’t try to pull away; she was just frozen to the spot. “Turn it on, Marie.”
“Logan…”
“Turn. It. On!” He snarled his words at her, and tears slipped from her eyes again.
“I CAN’T!” She yanked her hand away easily and turned her back to him, breathing heavily. He was still close to her. She could feel the heat from him on her back and his breath on her neck. She sobbed her words out. “I’ve… I’ve been trying to turn it on ever since I woke up. I can’t. The switch or whatever, I can’t find it. It’s gone. Everything’s gone. There’s nothing there, no voices, no advice, no comfort. You’re not growling, Eric’s not lecturing, nothing. Just me, and I can’t remember the last time it was just me up there.”
Her shoulders started to shake as she sobbed. Logan put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around gently, his anger ebbing away at seeing her upset. He pulled her to him and stroked her hair, much the same way that he had with Jubilee. She didn’t put her arms around him or make any attempt to touch him, and he noticed. She just shook and sobbed.
Logan’s hands on her hair felt heavenly, and before he knew what he was doing, his fingers had laced through the warm strands, his face pressed against her cheek, lips brushing the edge of her ear. He kissed her ear, then her cheek, jaw, trailing to her neck. The grip in her hair unconsciously got tighter and tipped her head back, allowing him to lick her throat. He was so engrossed in the taste of her, he missed her strangled moan.
One hand left her hair and pulled the top of her robe to one side. Her tears still rolled down her face as he let his sharp canine teeth graze over her exposed collarbone. Reddening the skin, but not breaking it. She hated the fact that this was waking her, easing the numbness, making her feel. As her tears stopped, she realised that this shouldn’t be happening, but she wanted it to so badly.
She pushed on his chest and turned her back, re-arranging her robe. “I need time, Logan. The trust we had is… it’s not gone, but it’s fucked up. And before you say it, it’s not all your fault. Carol is to blame as well. She trawled through all my memories, my feelings, and latched her hate and pain onto you.”
He sat in her giant chair. “Why?”
She sat on the edge of the bed facing him. “She didn’t just go through my memories, Logan. She went through yours and Magneto’s as well. She saw what happened to you, what Stryker did, and felt that you should be like her. You should be in pain, suffering, because of what they did to you. But you’re not. Your life’s not perfect - whose is? - but you’re not like her. You held onto your sanity, self-respect, your morality, all of that whereas she wasn’t able to. She hated you for that, hated me because you wanted someone like me, someone she saw as weak in comparison to her.”
“I think I should leave.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I need to get organised and…”
“No, I mean *leave*. Get away for a little bit and give you some time.”
“Run away? Logan, that won’t achieve anything.”
He stood up and paced as he spoke to her. “You said you need time. I’ll give that to you. Fuck, I need time ok!” He got up and paced in front of her. “Fucking hell, Marie, I’ve gone from being so sure that I would never take advantage, that I would be able to control it, to… to not hurt you, and what happens? Five seconds after I touch you, I’m so far gone I can’t think past being inside you. I‘m standing here right now in this room, and I can smell our combined scents, arousal, sex, and that’s all I can think of, Marie, having you. I’m struggling to keep my hands of you!”
She looked him up and down. He was tense, and she could tell that he wanted her by the slight bulge in the front of his jeans. She did need time because she was still scared of him, but she didn’t want him to leave. She would have to push it aside, hide it. If he did leave, she would just get angry and bitter at him. She needed to do something to make him stay, something that would show him what happened was all right, and that he wasn’t the monster he made himself out to be.
He picked at the buttons on his shirt, his shaking hands trying to do them up, but she put her hands on his to stop him. “I don’t want you to go. How can we work this out, get the trust back, if you’re not even here? It’s ridiculous Logan.” She almost laughed at how quickly things had swapped between them, now she was the one trying to convince the other to work things out and he was the one wanting to run and avoid.
“Marie…”
“I don’t want to hear it. You’re not going anywhere. I’m just as bad, Logan. I told you to leave twice, but I also told you not to touch me, and then I was as lost as you were! And you can’t blame my wanting you on you being in my head anymore because you’re not there. No one is.”
Her hands went to his bare chest, letting them slid down to his perfectly sculpted abs, then slowly wound around his waist until they came to rest in the dip of his back. “You were right. This is me and you. I need to learn to trust you again, and you need to have a little faith in yourself. Stop taking the blame all the time.” She shook him a little in her arms. “Leave some guilt for the rest of us!”
He gave a little chuckle. “You know me. I don’t like to share.” He kissed the top of her head. “I don’t want you to be scared of me.”
She pulled away from him and sat on the bed again, tucking her legs under her. “It’s not that I’m scared of you. Logan, look this is gonna sound really harsh, and I don’t want it to, but…”
He sat sideways on the bed so he could look at her. “Just say it, darlin’.”
“Its like someone’s smashed my rose-coloured glasses, and I can see you, really see you and for the first time. I can see what you’re capable of and that’s what scares me, Logan. I know you’re dangerous. I’ve always known that. You’ve never hidden it from me or tried to make out that you’re something you’re not, and I have to admit it adds to the bad-boy appeal, but… this is different. It’s just that I know you could hurt me, I’ve always known that, but it whether or not you ‘would’ that I’m not sure of anymore.” She fidgeted a little before she carried on. “I don’t have your memories anymore, but I did, and I can remember the way you were with women: rough, demanding…”
“Sex, is that what this is about?”
“No, Logan, it’s not about sex. It’s about trust. Well, it is about sex, but not like that. It’s whether I can trust you with my body. The things you said to her, did to her, the way you touched her. You hit her. Is that coming to the surface just with Carol, or other women as well?”
“Marie, it’s not like that. I was never gonna rape her/you! I can’t believe you would think that I could hurt you like that.”
“You can’t deny that you hit her. You hit her, and then you were kissing her, groping her. You threatened her with it. So do the two go hand-in-hand with you?
“No.” He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “No.”
“Who are you trying to convince? Me or you!” She stood up and went to her dresser, wanting to find a band to tie her still-damp hair out of her face.
“Don’t get fucking snippy with me, Marie.”
“Why? Gonna give me a smack for it?”
She heard him growl behind her but didn’t hear him move. His hand quickly closed around her upper arm and spun her round, and then he had hold of both her upper arms in a tight grip. “I may be a fucking asshole. I may be rough when I fuck. I may like to scratch and bite, but I like it, and, fuck, a lotta women like it too. To be honest, I always figured you for liking it.” He noticed that her face flushed a furious pink colour when he said that, and he knew instantly he was right. “I also may be possessive, demanding, scary and a little on the violent side, but I would never, fucking never, have sex with a women without her consent. Do you fucking understand me?” He shook her one last time and let her go, turning away and breathing heavily.
He could smell her fear, but also her arousal. She was wet, and it was calling out to him. “Show me.” He turned to see her pink face was completely serious. “Show me what you’d be like. I want it. I want to know.”
*****************END OF PART SEVEN
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Summary: “Sex, is that what this is about?” “No, Logan, it’s not about sex. It’s about trust…”