"Its...Ah can't think of what ta compare it to, but it feels amazing."
Describing cashmere to him was harder than she thought. First she tired to say it was like velvet, only better, but he didn't know what velvet was either. So she had to describe velvet to him, which was a lot like trying to describe cashmere.
They had been talking forever. Well, she had been talking and occasionally he would respond with a one or two word sentence. Some how they eased into their current position, on the floor, facing away from each other, pressed back to back against the bars. The bars were cold and sort of dug into her back, but his skin was warm and he was talking. She had nothing to complain about.
She told him about home, her dad and how crazy her mom was. How she was born in the States, Georgia, but grew up in Mississippi. He said he could tell and she smiled. After prying and poking him a bit he relinquished that he didn't remember anything but being in the army.
"Were ya born here...do ya think?" She asked in a coarse whisper. She could feel the shake of his head from the movement of the muscles in his back. Still, she started telling him about some of the people in the labs, some that were born there. And how that wasn't that unusual of a thing and it didn't mean there was anything wrong with them.
He asserted more forcefully that he wasn't born there. That he just didn't remember.
Feeling the tension in his back she decided to concede and moved on to how much she liked the color blue. She used to like blue and green, any of the cool colors really, but being here had quickly stripped away any affection she had for that color. So she told him her favorite was now most definitely blue and that she thought his eyes were pretty. He said nothing, and she wondered if he knew what the word pretty meant, at least he didn't seemed offended.
Just to get him to talk she asked which color was his favorite even though she was fully aware how ridiculous the conversation was. He said he didn't have one. And then he surprised her by elaborating that he didn't like yellow, though, it hurt his eyes. To which she teased him about being too sensitive. He said he had strong senses, his mutation. The teasing went on as she asked him how many mutation he had, anyway? He just grunted at her.
"That really cool, though," she told him. "So like ya hear and small things stronger too?"
He nodded then willingly offered, "You don't smell good." He said it without judgment or any emotion, really, and it made her sigh.
"Yeah, ah didn't figure ah did."
It went on and on like that, her talking about any random thing that popped into her head. Even when he didn't participate it was okay because it physically felt like he was listening to her. She never really got much about what he liked out of him, but if he didn’t like it he’d share that. He didn’t like being hot, he didn’t like water, he didn’t like onions or beats. The last one was a suggestion by her and he readily agreed.
Eventually, though, the conversation had to invariably veer to cashmere. How much she wanted it, missed it, needed it. He asked her if it was some kind of meat and she nearly passed out. Up till now she managed to get him to comprehend that it was a type of fabric, like his shirt, like velvet. What she was still trying to get across was how important it was, which he just wouldn't understand.
"Cashmere," he repeated the word, although apprehensively.
"Yeah. An' when ah find a way outta here ahm buyin' a drawer full. Trust me, ya'll love tha stuff."
There was silence for a bit and she wondered if he had finally tired of her and her mouth. Then a deep, tentative “How?” came from the other cell.
She turned her head sideways towards him. “How what?”
“How find a way out?”
Her teeth clenched down on her bottom lip. She really didn’t know. At the labs there was always people moving, in and out, employees getting people, bringing food, carrying things. None of that was here. “Ah don’t know,” she admitted with a heavy sigh and faced back front. “But ah will. An’ ah promise ta get ya out too when ah do.”
He was quiet for a few seconds again. “What if I don’t want out?”
Her head wiped back to the side in shock. He--? “Ah don’t care,” she hissed, her old anger at his compliancy flaring up again. “Ahm getting’ ya out of here whether ya want ta go or not!”
“Why?” he asked, still no emotion in his voice.
She turned her body around to face him. He turned too when her weight left his back.
“Why?” she echoed. “Because ya don’t belong here, ya don’t deserve this.”
Clear blue eyes remained transfixed on her. It was amazing how she still wasn’t use to it and they sent a chill up her spin.
“Your mutation,” he finally said. “You’re poisonous.”
“Not exactly,” she shrugged. “Ah absorb people’s life force through mah skin; Thoughts, memories, mutations, everythin’.”
He nodded, which she thought was a weird reaction to what she just told him.
“That’s why they want you,” he stated, like he finally understood. Why did he think she was here in the first place, she thought, punishment for unpaid parking tickets?
“Maybe, but they ain’t got no right ta have me,” she said sternly, making sure her eyes were on his then added, “Us.”
He shook his head, black hair falling all over his face and she quickly cut him off. “Listen ta me, Wolverine, ah know ya don’t remember anythin’ but this, but ya don’t *belong* here.”
“I do,” he argued. “I kill.”
She stilled for a second as fear took a fleeting grip of her throat. She willed it back down, surprised that she had any naivety left. Colonel Sie was right about one thing, this wasn’t the labs. So he wasn’t a guinea pig, that’s what labs have. The military has weapons.
“No, sugah,” she didn’t stop to think where the term came from. “Ya don’t kill, they do. They’re jus’ usin’ ya ta do it. When we get out nobody will use ya for anythin’.”
Something akin to laughter came out of him as he turned back around. She actually shivered at the dark noise. It was eerily similar to Sabretooth’s, except this time he was laughing at her.
All the hot air escaped her as she pushed up off the ground. She made as much noise was possible so to ensure he knew she didn’t think he was very funny, if he even understood things like girls storming off. Probably not, but her butt was killing her from sitting too long on the concrete floor, so it was time to move anyway.
Pacing around the cell helped loosen her stiff muscles. She tried not to think about how she never paced in the labs. Or even consider that he ‘companions’ could be rubbing off on or affecting her.
Not that they were bad people. Okay, Sabretooth scared the shit out of her and she didn’t want him within a tri-state area of her. And she was starting to think Wolverine was seriously lazy, but he was okay. She could see the small light of humanity in him. He interacted like an animal with the soldiers because they treated him like one. When she treated him like a man he usually responded like one, right down to telling her to be quiet.
There were still things she couldn’t talk him out of his animalistic tendencies. Sometime during their talk-feast she realized she was hungry. It was a weird feeling; she hadn’t been hungry in forever. Usually the labs had to ram things down her throat.
And it’s not like she was kidding herself when she asked if he had any food left, she knew the chance of getting food from him was slim. He had told her no, but a few minutes later she heard him chewing. The funny part was she never considered calling him out on it. She just kept on talking.
Except if hunger was foreign to her before she was now very acquainted with it. Next time they bring food she’d have to discuss that with him. Hopefully she could get enough scraps out of him to last her till she could get out of there.
She stopped her pacing and looked at him. He really did look pretty lazy slumping back against the bars like that. His eyes were closed but she knew he wasn’t asleep and for some reason that made her smile.
Her smile faded when she heard the sound of the elevator door opening. She looked quickly to Wolverine, but not a muscle in his body moved and his eyes remained closed.
A whole military precession was coming down the hallway, right down to Colonel Sie at the front, leading the pact.
Her feet started moving her backwards, back to the farthest wall of the cell. She looked again at Wolverine checking to see if he was panicking as well. His eyes were still closed.
“Rogue,” Colonel Sie said, but she ignored him. She was trying to concentrate on the uniformed men behind him, trying to count how many there were.
The sink came up on her before the wall did, though she barely noticed it pressing into her lower back.
“It’s time to play outside for a bit,” Sie said. “There is a man, an officer that has gone AWOL . We need you to find out what he knows, who he’s told, and then get rid of him.”
“No,” she barked loudly, half hoping it would make Wolverine move. “Not only no, but hell no.”
“That’s cute,” Sie weekly applauded. “But let me make sure you understand what’s going on here. I’m being extremely nice and giving you one last chance to do this one your own. Otherwise we will make you.”
She snorted, pulling out all the false bravado she had. “Mah momma couldn’t make me eat mah vegetables and ya can’t make me kill a man.”
“Actually, I can,” Sie said, his eyes sparkling with pride. “Boys.”
Men rushed into the cell in a green wave coming right at her. She didn’t waste time with screaming and just charged them, hoping to cause enough chaos to be able to get through the open door.
The plan never had a chance and immediately backfired. There were too many of them so she just ran right into their completely covered arms. The grabbed her, at least six of them did, and she finally screamed out as they forced her down to her knees.
She had to flip her hair back out of her face to see Sie and he could see the scowl on her face.
“Ya already had me caught, dumbass,” she spat at him as she tried to jerk her arms away. She caught a movement behind Sie out of the corner of her eye but refused to take her glare off the old man smiling down at her.
“Sir, try and stay away from the bars,” Theo’s voice came out from somewhere in the mass.
A strangled laugh actually popped out of her. “Is that all ya can say?”
“Everyone shut up!” Sie yelled, his whole face turning bright red. “Bring him forward, damn it, we don’t have all day.”
Her eyes went wide as the crowd parted. Sabretooth. He was heavily chained, arms pinned down to his side under the metal. Except for there wasn’t much covering him besides the metal chains binding him, only a pair of green and brown shorts. He wasn’t even fighting them, he was just grinning at her. She didn’t even have enough air left in her lungs to scream.
“We just need to make a few personality adjustments,” Colonel Sie said as he brought Sabretooth forward.
With each of his massive steps her twisting and kicking increased. As well did the pressure of the soldiers on her.
“Ah have control!” She screamed because the noise of everything around her much louder in her head than actuality. “Ah won’t absorb him!”
Sie didn’t respond just gave a strong nod and Sabretooth was pushed forward, colliding with her. Rough, leather skin connected firmly with hers, right up to his scratchy cheek laid flush against her smooth one.
Her fights and screaming intensified even though she was trapped between the two immobile forces. The gripping hands of the soldiers dug into her flesh, easily bruising it while the held her practically still against him. He rubbed his coarse body up against her, seemingly edged on by her screams to the point he bit down hard on her neck, than running his huge tongue along her skin, licking up the blood.
“The labs shared an interesting tidbit with me, firefly. You know what it was?” Sie asked though he hardly had an ounce of her attention. “They said that an electric shock jump starts your mutation every time.”
His words cut through everything to get to her ears and it still took a second for her brain to process it through the terror. Wolverine’s name barely managed to tear out of her mouth before a metal rod was shoved into her side and her skin was hungrily pulling Sabretooth in.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm not sure if I like how I wrote this chapter, but its getting up anyway. I REALLY wanna finish this thing. Love ya's!