Logan was not alone in the darkness. She was there. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her.
“You tried to fuckin’ kill me!” he growled at her.
He imagined he heard the tinkling of laughter.
“No!” she hissed back at him.
He could hear her through the darkness too.
“Not kill you. I only wanted a taste.”
“A Taste!?” The animal was roaring at her now, claws itching to be released. “I’ll give you a lot more than a damn taste bitch!”
She was hissing and spitting at him now, a hell cat ready to scratch out his heart.
He couldn't find any physical form, but he hurled himself in her direction, bent on destruction. She met him eagerly as they collided. He reached out with hands that were not there, grabbing at her, wanting to lock her down, crush her against him, drive a fist through her, and drive himself deep inside her.
She latched on, wrapping herself around him. He clawed at her; she snapped back and tightening her hold, pulled him towards the surface.
*****
Logan blinked, trying to block out the harsh fluorescence of the med-lab. He knew where he was, even in a state of semi-consciousness. Same antiseptic smell, cold and detached no matter how homey they tried to make it; he hated the fucking place.
He felt hands on him; massive paws but steady nonetheless. Hank. He caught a distinct scent close by, a complex blend that changed continually but with a lingering thread of citrus. The Professor.
Then he caught a whiff of someone else. She was there. Close by. She was heavily covered with synthetic smells and a myriad of other, conflicting scents, but it was her alright. Rogue. He'd know that scent anywhere.
Logan groaned audibly.
"Easy Logan."
That was Chuck - but was he speaking out loud or inside his head?
~In your head Logan.~
~What the fuck is going on?~
~I said, take it easy Logan.~
~You take it easy, old man. What the hell happened? What's wrong with her? She was gonna kill me.~
~We don't know that for certain.~
~Well it sure as hell felt like it. Where is she?~
~Wake up Logan. See for yourself.~
He forced his eyes opened, squinting against the brightness. Turning his head to the side, he looked directly into the face of Charles Xavier. The calm, and sometimes stoic, founder of the X-Men actually looked shaken as he nodded towards the bed on the other side. Logan rolled his head over to see Rogue lying within five feet of him. Much like him, she'd been cleaned, dressed cotton pants and top, attached to sensors, and covered in a blanket from the waist down. The difference being, she was restrained. Metal cuffs locked her wrists to the bed while a thick belt, strapped across her waist, secured her middle. She appeared to still be unconscious and the thin collar remained around her neck, winking its one red eye.
Regardless of what had transpired, Logan wasn't crazy about seeing her treated in a way so similar to the hell hole from where they'd rescued her.
"What's with all the hardware?" he managed, coming fully alert and more pissed off by the second.
"She tried to attack Dr. McCoy when she regained consciousness," the Professor Xavier said coolly.
Logan rolled his neck as he sat up and watched Hank McCoy remove her sensors. "She doesn't know who her enemies are - that's why she attacked Hank."
"And you as well?" Xavier asked carefully.
He was answered with an angry glare that told him decisively to drop it.
~And don't try diggin' around in my head either.~
"Can't you get a read on her, Chuck? Find out what the hell she's thinkin'? I mean, isn't that what you do?" he asked, sarcastically.
Xavier's attention shifted to Rogue. He looked lost in thought before taking a deep breath. "Physically she is stable...but her mind... her thought patterns aren't cohesive, her emotions are too tumultuous..."
"What are you tryin' to say?" Logan's patience was beyond gone.
"At this time, I cannot actually find Rogue anywhere in there," he bit off quickly, moving away and towards the other bed.
He reverently brushed a stray strand of platinum away from her forehead before he settled his hands on either side of her head. Logan and Hank looked on as he closed his eyes, trying desperately to reach out to one of his X-Men. One of his lost children.
Flashes of light reached him and burned behind his eyes. Images in white, then gray, finally black. Thoughts of midnight, eternal darkness; desperation grew then exploded into extreme elation.
~Rogue? Rogue!~
So many voices, so many emotions. The elation blurred and molded itself into peace and warm contentment. The warmth heated into something volcanic, orgasmic. The hungry heat cooled to solitude and loneliness.
~Rogue-answer me! Push towards me! You have to fight! Fight for what is rightfully yours!~
Xavier's ears were pierced with a vicious, deafening cry. He jerked his hands away from her and up to his own ears.
"What!? What happened? What'd you get?" Logan demanded, now on his feet.
"Nothing," Xavier answered, shaking his head. "There are too many voices, conflicting emotions, opinions and judgments. There's no tangible, logical thought process and then something - or some things pushed me out."
Logan moved to the edge of Rogue's bed. In disbelief he stared down at her closed eyes. While lying there, she actually looked peaceful. There was no indication of the torrent the Professor spoke of; so maybe the old man was just wrong. But he felt the harsh truth too, smelled it on her. Rogue was there, Marie was there, but she wasn't alone. He didn't know what those bastards had done to her, but whatever it was, it altered her at the core. A sudden flashback made Logan squeeze his eyes shut. Marie would never intentionally try to drain him - make that seduce him and then drain him. His Marie would have never straddled his waist and ground down on him in a hallway.
He opened his eyes, shaking off the image. Her hair was now brushed out straight and neatly fell just past her shoulders. Obviously Hank had cut a good portion of it off rather than battle with the tangled mass. Logan took the opportunity to inspect her collar more closely. It was locked around her neck, flush against her skin and there didn't appear to be a catch or opening.
"It's embedded into the back of her neck," Hank spoke up, standing on her other side. "A flexible attachment from the collar goes right into her spinal column and from there it interacts with her entire nervous system. It appears to control her main mutation...but not all of them."
Logan shot the blue doctor a suspicious look. "What do you mean 'all of them'?"
****
He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing over her, watching and waiting. Xavier's and Hank's words played over and over in his head long after they'd left the medlab. It was like a CD track in his head, stuck on repeat.
Apparently, she'd been a test subject. Her unique mutation allowing them to see how many personas they could force on her. The doctors had tested a hypothesis: she could assimilate multiple mutations; if they could combine and solidify them, they could turn her into whatever they wanted. Their restraints and injections were meant to contain her because they couldn't control what they'd created. Some absorptions seemed permanent; others flickered off and on, seemingly beyond her control. Scott had knocked her out and pulled her off of Logan in the hospital. In the Blackbird they'd had to sedate her before she hurt herself with an escape attempt. She was still under heavy sedation and Hank couldn't remove the collar, for fear of the unknown.
Giving into temptation, Logan stretched out a finger and caressed the cold surface of the tiny collar; a dot of red flashing at him, a reminder that she was safe to touch. She was safe from herself...so long as she remained unconscious.
He was a little stunned at the protective streak he still felt for someone that had attacked him. Connived, seduced and attacked him, he reminded himself. It played in direct opposition with his self preserving instinct to throttle her senseless for what she'd done.
Marie was still there though, Logan knew it and had assured the Professor. But should she be held responsible for actions that may not be hers? Xavier said there was the possibility, with time, that she could control what happened to her...but she'd have to let them help her. And if she didn't? Logan couldn't imagine that all that would remain was the hostile and unpredictable she-demon from the hospital.
He cringed inwardly at the idea of Scott, along with the rest of the team, finding them that way in the hallway, both in the grasp of such intense eroticism while one simultaneously had his life sucked out. But even more afflicting was that they'd seen Marie like that, writhing on top of him; relentless with primal desire rolling off of her in waves. That wasn't for them to see. Logan wasn't even sure if Marie was the one responsible for it. No one else should've ever seen that...but if they hadn't, he could be...
Logan shook his head in a quick jerk. "Damn it - Goddamn it! Wake up!"
He found himself shoving on her shoulder, shaking the bed to try and rouse her. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew his behavior was childish and probably a terrible idea, but he wanted an answer. He deserved to know what was going on and she was sure as hell going to tell him. Fuck her, she wasn't going to snooze her way through this.
"Wake up Marie!" he hissed into her ear. "I know you're in there. You're still in there somewhere... Now get out here and talk to me. Right. Fucking. Now."
Without so much as one blink or one solitary bat of eyelash, her dark gaze skewered him.
"Well good morning sunshine," his sardonic greeting.
Her eyes widened, their enormity emphasized by the dilated pupils that stared back. They were bottomless pits of midnight that beckoned; a siren's call, luring a victim like Logan to fall into their depths - and never be seen again...yet they were carefully honed, calculating every movement he made.
Rogue moved to lift her arm. Realizing she was still restrained, she tensed immediately.
A familiar look crossed her face then, sincere fear of capture and confinement, panic. Her eyes began to dart around, her head swinging from side to side. That open display of weakness blew through Logan's battlement. He'd never be immune to the sight of her in any real distress.
"It's okay," he tried, calm reassurance not being his forte. "You're...safe. Nobody's gonna hurt you, just relax."
She continued to flail, her arms and legs jerking making the bed shudder and Logan realized she was restrained at her ankles as well.
"Stop it," he ordered her. "You're gonna hurt yourself - just stop moving!"
He pressed both of his hands into her shoulders, holding her down. "Calm down! You're at the school, you're at Xavier's."
She pushed against his stronghold on her shoulders. He could only look on while she tugged her arms so violently that the metal at her wrists bit into flesh, bruising her...then healing almost immediately.
His ears were assaulted with a haunting sound, something that registered in the recesses of his mind. The tearing of flesh wasn't drowned out by her pitiful scream. Logan jerked away from her to see a bloody set of bone claws protruding from each hand. Her body was twisting and contorting as much as the small prison would allow.
"Let me go!" she screamed. Her voice was still dry and raspy.
Her head swung toward him. "Logan! Let me go! Tell him to let me go!" she continued to scream.
He stood there watching, wanting to fight something. It was an enemy that he couldn't see or separate from the innocent...if she still existed. The thought of it made him want put his fist through something. Then he remembered, only a little while earlier he'd wanted to put his fist through her.
"They're hurting meeee! Logan! Help!" she wailed.
Without another thought, he released the claws, slicing through the belt and wrist restraints. He cut through the ankle cuffs and she fell off the bed onto all fours. She stared down at her hands, crying. Logan quickly knelt down beside her, not knowing what to do but wanting to comfort her in some way. As soon as his hand rested on her shoulder, the skeletal claws withdrew into her hands, healing upon entry.
Rogue remained hunched over, chest heaving, but mesmerized by what her own body had done. There was a small puddle of blood underneath her palms and she raised them, taking her time to inspect the front and back of each hand, wiggling her fingers. She leaned back on her heels, looking at Logan in confusion. He stared back at her.
"I - I think...well that one's from me," he said.
Carelessly, she wiped the blood down the front of her white shirt, then slowly reached out for Logan's hands. She gently held one in both of hers, stroking her fingers lightly across the back, carefully inspecting every inch. Lifting his hand to her face, she took a deep breath and rubbed it along her cheek. A small pink tongue flicked out and traced the groove in between a knuckle. He made a fist and tried to pull his hand back, but her grip held tight. She continued to taste each indention, stopping only to barely suck on the peaks. Logan swallowed hard and Rogue looked up at him, but didn't stop.
"Rogue," his voice now also raspy. "Marie. Stop it."
She dropped his hand and he sat back away from her, but his protests were insignificant.
Rogue crawled towards him, settling on her knees. Casting a look over her shoulder, she eyed the bed and the broken restraints and touched Logan's knee appreciatively. She didn't reach for his hands again, but watched him in anticipation. He watched her in return, taking in the tear streaked face, the long dark locks of her hair, the wide open eyes that were always terrible at hiding her emotions. Rogue still looked so much like the girl he'd picked up in Canada, part of him ached to comfort her, reassure her that everything would be okay. He'd make everything okay, somehow. But another part of him knew that right now, she wasn't that same girl. She was a victim of the hospital, but other than that, he didn't know what she was.
Aware that she was being appraised, Rogue came in closer. "Logan?" she whispered.
He watched her warily, the proximity making her growing excitement more obvious. Again, his senses were assaulted by the swift change in her chemistry. Logan sat helplessly as she moved over him, anchoring her knees on either side of his hips. Leaning in, rather than seductively moving against him like before, she laid her head against his shoulder, curling two fists into his shirt.
"Logan," she murmured again.
Frozen, Logan sat there with Rogue clinging to him. He could feel her heart beating steadily but loudly as she nuzzled deeper into his chest. Wanting to pull her closer, he settled for resting an arm around her shoulders. They remained that way until he felt her breath on his neck, soft and warm. Then a perfect pair of bowed lips made a scorching trail to his ear.
Logan tensed in pleasure, feeling the ache in his abdomen, the stir between his legs. Pleasure turned to provocation as he fought to control his body's reaction.
"Just stop it," he growled, gripping her shoulders.
She continued her attention to the sensitive outer shell of his ear until he roughly pulled her away.
"We're not playing that game again," he said through clenched teeth.
Rogue cocked her head to one side. "Why?" ~You don't trust me anymore.~
Logan tightened his grip painfully. "What the hell was that? You a fuckin' telepath now, too?" He jerked her forward, "Get out of my head."
"I'm not in your head."
A voice shrieked inside his skull. ~You're in mine!!~
Ignoring the sting in his brain, he shook her hard; strong fingers digging into unexpected muscle. "That doesn't even make sense, Marie. Stop this bullshit! You tried to kill me – so hell no I *can't* trust you! You stop this shit right now or I swear to God...don't make me hurt you!"
~I wanna watch you try it, old man!~ The voice slithered through his brain. ~You're the one that's trespassing - you're the one that's in the wrong mind! But we've got a part of you now...you couldn't shut us out if you wanted to. You belong to us!~
Rogue moved to lock her knees around him, but too quickly he threw her back towards the medical bed.
She landed hard, her head knocking against it. On her feet almost immediately, she quickly searched the room for a way to escape.
"Let me go, Logan," she said steadily.
"You're not going anywhere."
~I don't want to hurt you.~ A soft voice tickled his conscience.
~Yeah you do.~ He replied.
~Yes I do.~ The voice hissed.
He lunged for her first, carrying them both to the far wall with his momentum. "Marie, I want to help you - but I'm not letting you go," he yelled, slamming her into the wall.
~You can't have her! We have her. She's ours!~
Rogue grabbed at Logan's wrists and wrapped her legs around him, constricting him until she heard the bones break. He dropped her to the floor. She moved past him, knocking him away and running for the door. Even in the heat of their battle, her arousal was was growing, filling his senses and perfuming the air.
Chasing after her, he knocked her off balance and dragged her down and underneath him. He positioned his weight over her, trying to pin her arms over her head.
"You can't run - dammit! This is...don't do this. Let me help you!" he ordered her. He was filled with the conflicting need to get her back and get back at her; take her away from whatever had control and a sudden desire to take her for himself, prove that he could. The animal wanted to prove dominance, punish her for what she'd tried to do; the man wanted to rescue her.
~Let me go. I'm not yours. You're mine. She's not yours. She'll never be yours.~
Dark eyes gleamed up at him with raw need while a cacophony of taunting voices deafened him. Logan's mind was filled with their continuing barrage, while all his other senses were attacked by her aroused state. She pressed her body up into him while still struggling to free her arms. He gripped both tiny wrists in one of his large hands and boldly cupped her sex with the other.
"You wish you were mine - don't you?" he pressed his forehead to hers.
Rogue glared at him, her legs spreading wider as her upper body still fought against him. Moving to grip both her wrists again, Logan pushed his growing erection firmly against her.
"Stop me," he taunted, but betrayed a hint of pleading. "I know you can stop me. You're stronger than me...aren't you?"
"Yes," she spat at him.
"No you're not," his reply was the animal's menacing sneer.
Removing his hands, he reached down and tore at the pants she wore. "Is this what you want?!" he barked into her face, running his fingers up her thighs to find her wet and ready. "Is this what you wanted in the hospital - or was that just away to suck me dry?! Was that you Marie or did you just need another absorption?"
She shocked him then by covering his hand with hers, pressing the heel of his palm against her.
"This...just this," she purred, looking up at him.
Logan tried to pull his hand away, a needling voice in the back of his head saying this had already gone too far, but Rogue's grip held him in place. She pulled herself up to look at him then.
~Give me this. This isn't what they want. I want this. Please. ~
Rogue pressed her hips towards his hand and Logan's finger slipped just inside her slick opening. He moved over her and heard a gasp when her hand stroked the hard length of his erection. Which one of them made the sound, he wasn't sure. Exploring her, he found the place that would drive her over the edge.
~Yes, Logan...~
It was the last thing he heard in his mind, the voices growing quiet, silenced by her quickened breathing. She whimpered as he continued to caress her; he could feel her reaching out for it, getting closer, her body going rigid beneath him.
He was overwhelmed with the need to bring her closer, draw her out, make her shatter into a million pieces then watch her come back together again.
Her eyes searched his face as if she couldn't focus on any on one point. The long column of her neck arched back and the softest moan escaped her lips.
"I know, Marie. It's okay."
He watched her bite down on her lip and her hips bucked against him hard as she cried out, the climax making her quake. Rogue leaned up, searing him with a look. Logan locked onto her lips with his, taking both her hands and curling them back into his chest, he held her there. He wanted to make sure her hands stayed too occupied to reach for the collar.
Together, they lay in the floor of the medlab, legs intertwined like clinging vines and mouths fused together.
~I'm not an ugly freak.~
"No," he broke away, responding immediately. "Why would you think....no Marie, you're not."
Shiny, chocolate eyes looked up at him before their lips met again. Already he sensed the stirring inside them both. Heat shot through his body as she tugged off his shirt, wanting to get closer. She was pulling at the waist of his pants when he pushed her arms back, needing to be the one in control. The fire began to roll inside her and impatiently she fought, wrapping her legs around him, wanting more.
"What in God's name is going on here?!!" a proper voice exclaimed.
Logan looked up to see both Dr. McCoy and Professor Xavier standing above them.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Special thanks to laenwyn for beta duty and tolerating my rambling! Any mistakes are mine, not hers. Also, thank you to those of you who read 'Bite the Hand' and wanted more - because apparently the muse had a lot more to say. This fic has 2 chapters, and then one last follow up story to round out the trilogy. Told you the muse was mouthy! Title inspired by another NIN song. Wrote the fic and then noticed the song seemed to fit it so well.
~Indicates internal thoughts/projections/telepathy~
~Indicates internal thoughts/projections/telepathy~