He, in fact, did not stop his manic animal cry all night long, or whatever time of day it was. But after what she assumed were hours he finally did stop throwing his massive body against the bars of his cell. No, cage, not cell. And without the continuos vibrations of all the metal she managed to will herself back to sleep. Except for it was restless and shallow, she just couldn’t get over the shame she felt at choosing the guards’ side against the mutant’s. Or that she still felt that way.
Frustrated, she sat up with a loud huff. Her hand came up to rub her head but it stilled in the air. The action had brought the bar code and numbers tattooed on the underside of her forehead right into her face. 759-83-6521.
The arm feel limp into her lap and she laid her other hand to cover the offensive marking. She could remember when she was younger, probably about thirteen, begging her mom to let her get a tattoo. She wanted a cross, right between her shoulder blades, with a rose vine and angel wings wrapped around it. A number and a series of dashes just didn’t have the same poetic feeling. Or maybe it did.
A noise to the side of her made her jerk her head around. Her heart instantly jumped into her throat as the low, slow shuffling went on. It was coming from the cell next to her but she couldn’t see very far into it, the only lights in the whole room were in the center walkway and her cell. It had to have been a rat or something— Surely she would have known if they’d brought another mutant in, even if it only made half the noise the other did. She wasn’t that hard of a sleeper.
Her legs moved of their own accord, slowly moving her off the cot. She managed to stop them just as she stood in the middle of her cell. The shuffling stopped–so did her breathing.
“...Hello?” She whispered uncertainly. Nothing. She glanced up quickly at the light hanging above her head. If only she was a few feet taller she could bend it towards the cell, see what was inside. As it was it shined brightly down on her and left everything else in darkness all around her.
Her feet moved her another careful step forward. She was so tuned into the cell, listening for any hint of what was in it, she didn’t even hear the cries of the beast-man anymore. Her ears could pick up nothing but her own heart pounding in her chest and the ever so faint movement just behind the bars.
Another step and she couldn’t help feeling how utterly naked she was. It was silly, of course, because she hadn’t worn any more than the bathing suit-ish test suit for years. But somehow it didn’t feel like it was enough anymore. She felt just as she did when her mutation had first manifested, like she couldn’t put enough layers on.
Still she moved forward, pulled by her own curiosity. That should have been warning enough, her curiosity had been what got her trapped into this life in the first place. But she learned her lesson the last time and stopped a foot away from the bars.
“Hello?” She asked again, willing the shake in her voice away. “Is someone in there?”
Her scream was vastly delayed this time. Mainly because she didn’t see the hand shoot out from behind the bars until it already had a hold of her calf. It tugged hard, pulling her leg out from under her and sent her falling back down to the floor, which was when she finally coherent enough to shriek.
With the one hard tug it pulled her leg straight through the bars, dragging her across the floor of her cell. She screamed out in pain when her knee collided with the bars, making her body come to an abrupt halt.
“Stop! Stop!” She managed to yell through the tears and sit up enough to put a hand to her throbbing joint. The pulling stopped but the tight, death grip the hand had on her leg didn’t relax in the least.
“Please, please jus’ let me go,” she begged, not even trying to hide her fear.
And then there was a face. Not blond hair and black eyes, jet black hair, stuck up at wild angles and piercing deep blue eyes that made her involuntary try to jerk her leg back again. He didn’t release her, instead his mouth turned up, flashes bright white canines as he growled at her.
Where the beast-man from yesterday had long blonde overgrowth all over his face, he only had thick side burns and stumble across his chin and cheeks. A man. He growled and snarled at her like an animal, but there were no sharp claws digging into her calf, just a hot, damp hand. His arms and chest were covered with a thin layer of dark hair but he was wearing clothes–a white tank top and black shorts. A man.
“Ahm...ahm sorry ah don’t know ya name,” she decided to try to speak to him. It was difficult to sit all the way up with the angle he had her leg pin down but she manage to turn on her hip and push up with one hand. “If ya could just gimme mah leg back...”
He snarled again, his lip curling up further.
“Okay, calm down.” She wasn’t sure who she was talking to. The beast-man from the other night must of heard their ruckus because he was now back to throwing himself against his cage.
“Ahm Marie,” she introduced. “They call me Rogue, but that’s not mah name. Its Marie. What’s yours?”
He didn’t say anything just adjusted himself so he was kneeling closer to the bars. She gawked at his legs, they had to be the biggest thighs she’d ever seen. In fact, all of him was huge. She quickly began to panic again, but remembered not to try and pull her leg away.
“Ahm like ya.”
That didn’t appease him like she thought it would. Instead his growl deepened, and his face became more menacing as his thick, black eyebrows pitched together, casting a dark shadow over his blue eyes. One of the soldier’s words came to her brain, how they had to be separated. Maybe he didn’t like other animal like people?
“Ah meant ah’m a mutant too,” she quickly spit out. “That’s what ya are, right? A mutant? Ya bein’ kept here against ya will, like ah am, right?” That got no reaction out of him, but at least it didn’t piss him off anymore.
“Do ya think ya could let mah leg go, please? Ah don’t mean ya any harm, ah promise. It jus’ mah knee, it hurts, so if ya could let me go...”
He stopped growling and his mouth closed, hiding his formidable teeth and now just a man in front of her. But his eyes still bored into hers and as much as she refused to look away she couldn’t help but fidget under his glare.
His nose twitched, one nostril flaring once and then twice and then a third time. She breathed a small sigh of relief when the hand loosened its grip. He didn’t remove it from her though, but instead ran in down the rest of her leg to her ankle. She watched the hand glide across her skin, mesmerized, tempted to turn her mutation on to see what he was thinking.
Before she could give it anymore thought he stood up, his hand leaving her skin. She watched as him came up from his crouch. He looked much taller than he actually was, especially with the way he looked down on her.
Her senses finally came to her and she decided she had better get her leg out of his cell before he changed his mind. There was no way she could just pull it out, she could fell how swollen it was, bending it probably wasn’t a good idea.
“Thanks,” she said to him softly as she carefully scooted her whole body back until she could leaned against her cot. Completely in the light, she winced when she saw the damage. There was a purple, black, and yellow ban stretched from the center of her knee wrapping all away around to the inside of it. And of course it was swollen almost twice its size, which accounted for the tight feeling of a rubber band being around it.
She carefully rubbed it, more out of habit than to make the contusions any better. When she looked up she found him still watching her.
“Its fine. Ahm sure it ain’t broken.” She shrugged, although she wasn’t really sure he cared a stitch about her injury. “Ya neva did tell me ya name.”
He said nothing. And then beast-man further town the hall roared again, making him turn his head in that direction. She looked too, just as a reflex. They both turned back to face each other at the same time.
“Do ya...Do ya not have a name?” She asked. He only narrowed his eyes at her. “How ‘bout ah call ya Bill?”
He flinched back and she actually smiled at his reaction. “Don’t like Bill much, huh? Okay, its just that mah daddy loved tha wild west stuff, ya know? Anyway, he had this poem he always quoted ‘bout Buffalo Bill. ‘Jesus, he was a handsome man. And what ah want ta know is how do ya like your blue eyed boy, Mister Death.’” She looked back into the blue eyes starring at her and swallowed. “Ya jus’ remind of that, ah guess.”
His face didn’t soften in the least and she sighed. Maybe the guards were right, he didn’t understand a word she said. But he had flinched when she called him Bill, so he had to understand some things.
Well, she might as well figure out what he did know. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do. “Ya do understand me, dontca?”
He huffed, an actual snort, and turned away from her.
“Hey, wait!” She yelled from her position on the floor but he walked away, disappearing into the darkness of his cell.
Another few hours passed much the same as the hours before. The mutant down the hall continued yelling and roaring at the top of his lungs, she sat on her cot, the pillow still tucked up under her now fully inflamed knee, this time on purpose. The third champion didn’t make much of a difference to the events, he was silent and didn’t move around much. She had tried to talk to him again once or twice but he didn’t so much as grunt at her. So one was a ragging lunatic and the other was a silent one, great, she thought.
Then the blessed sound of the elevator door opened and she almost cheered. Its was only one soldier, the new guy from last night, Simon. He was pushing a wobble grey cart and she wondered why it wasn’t green.
“Food,” he said when he stopped in front of her cell. He grabbed a covered tray from the cart and slide it just under the door. She smiled.
“Thanks, but ah--” She tucked the messy white mass behind her ear and pouted at him. “Do ya think ya could bring it to me? Please?”
He looked at her skeptically. “No...”
“Please, ah had an accident,” she carefully rubbed either side of her knee. “Ah stood by tha bars ova there an’ he grabbed me an’ tried to pull me through. Ah was so scared... Ah jus’ don’t think ah can walk.”
“So crawl or don’t eat,” Simon snapped.
She frowned and looked down into her lap, still rubbing her knee. Then she tried her damnest not to smile when she heard the long groan.
“Fine,” Simon relented, reaching for the keys in his pocket.
He opened the cell door and picked the tray up off the floor as he stepped in. He walked quickly over to her, obviously in a hurry to get out. When he stopped beside the cot she pointed down to the floor and he grunted again before bending down to set the tray down. She switched off the control to her skin and quickly pressed her hand flat against the side of his face.
A strangled scream came out of him as his energy drained into her. As soon as she moved her hand away he fell to a twitching lump on the ground. She smiled down at him and gathered her nerves for standing up. Her knee crumbled at the first attempt, making her fall back onto the cot. But the second time she managed to put enough weight on it to limp to the open cell door.
She got one foot stepped into the hall when she heard the yell. “Hey!” She swore at her foolishness. They other guards were evidently there too, standing just outside of the elevator door.
She took off in the opposite direction. Limping was getting her no where so instead she hopped on her one good leg. The up and down jarring shook shock waves through her knee and up her leg but at least she was moving faster.
“Stop! God damn it, I said stop!”
The whole place revived up in a furry of noise from the guards yelling and their boots pounding on the floor to the beast man’s growls and thrashing about. But she didn’t turn to look at it at all and kept hopping, trying not to fall over.
But the rows of cells ended in a green cement wall. She cried out both from pain and frustration and just collapsed against it. Not seconds later gloved hands grabbed at her and hauled her to her feet. Her knee immediately buckled under her and she crumbled to the floor at their feet. She couldn’t see, she kept her eyes clinched shut in an attempt to fight the pain and keep the tears somewhat at bay.
“Fucking hell!” Alvin swore, that was Alvin.
The hands were back, turning her over onto her back. Two of them grabbed her arms, pushing them down firmly to the floor when another one grabbed her leg. She tried to jerk away but instantly regretted the action and screamed out.
“Shit,” Alvin swore again. “Her knee’s completely busted. Help me pick her up.”
The hands were all over her and she felt herself being lifted and moved. She was dumped back on her cot in what seemed like no time, mere seconds to get what ended up being just a short distance.
She finally opened her eyes to see them drag the unconscious Simon out through the door. It finally made sense on why there were so many hands, there was five guards, not two, standing outside of her cell. One of them was screaming down the corridor for the beast-man to shut up.
Something made her turn her head to find the man in the cell next to hers by the bars again. He looked briefly at her before turning his attention to the soldiers. While he watched them fuss about Simon she watched him. She desperately wished she could read the expression on his face.
Her attention was pulled away from him when Alvin stepped into her cell. “Touch me and these boys will shoot so many tranqs into you, you won’t wake up for a month,” he warned.
She wanted to roll her eyes at him, instead she sniffled and wiped the fallen tears off her cheeks.
He approached closer and looked down at her leg. He turned it inwards with a gloved hand and she cried out again.
“Go tell the Colonel what happen,” he said over his shoulder to one of the other guards. He then turned to the other cell. “This your handy work, Wolverine?”
She turned her head too but he gave no response, although his eyes were firing straight into Alvin.
Alvin seemed unimpressed by the stare down. “I asked you a question, mutie. Did you do this?” The one he called Wolverine growled lowly at him.
“Fuck, you’re gonna get it this time, Wolverine. Colonel Sie had a mission planned for her. She’s fucking useless for God knows how long now!” Alvin screamed at him. This time it was Wolverine’s turn to not be impressed.
“And you!” Alvin whipped around back to her. “Did you think it’d be THAT easy to get away from here? And. Stay. The. Fuck. Away. From. The. Bars. Fucking mutants, dumb as shit. All of them.” He continued mumbling as he stalked out of her cell and slammed the door shut then locked it.
All the soldiers filed out after him, carrying Simon with them. When the elevator closed the unbelievable happened.
“Prick,” Wolverine sneered under his breath after them and all she could do was gawk at him.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Incase your counting this will make six guards. And yes, (even though it doesn't say it in the story) the other three's names are Hughy, Dewy, and Louy. :D