The sun is low in the sky when Xavier comes to tell her that they're ready in the surgery. Jean stands behind him, her face calm but her hands white-knuckled on the back of his wheelchair. Rogue doesn't turn around right way, afraid of what she might do. She's been unnaturally still all day, but just now, as his voice traveled into the silence and tore it open, she feels as though she might faint. Saliva fills her mouth, she sweats under her shirt, her gloves, her slacks, her boots. Every part of her hums. Xavier is surprised by the sharp reverb of her fear, but he doesn't comment, only turns the chair around and leaves her for her moment of terror before she follows. Jean wants to say something, but doesn't. Rogue smiles at her. It's time.
In the OR, she climbs onto the metal table, remembers what it was like to have Magneto's power inside of her, wonders if she could make the edges of the table curl up around her like a blanket. Jean slips the needle in quickly. Rogue barely feels it. Xavier leans over her, asks her if she needs anything before they begin.
"A cigarette."
Then the darkness rises up and falls around her. She dreams of Mississippi, of sitting on the edge of her old bed in her old room, nervous about having a boy in here.
"What if Mama comes in?" She doesn't look at him, chews her lip. His fingers brush across her back, sending angry bees of desire down her spine and through her hips.
"She won't. She's gone to the store." His voice, that voice, low and ancient and terrible. An animal lurks in his voice, raking its teeth along her awareness.
"How do you know?" He doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. He knows everything. Under her shirt now, one hand travels along the flesh peeking above the waist of her jeans. She has to stop this. She can't remember why, but there's something...
"Wait." She shakes her head. "We can't."
His claws slide out, they hiss at her like a cat, the tips grazing her rib cage. The seams of her pretty blue top split without resistance and now the heavy Delta air is running its tongue all over the skin of her belly, her breasts. She wears no bra. He knew that too.
"We can." His other hand comes up and turns her face so that they are eye to eye. The coarse hairs of his sideburns scrape the flesh of her cheeks. His eyes are brutal, unrelenting. In his presence she is nothing at all. He swallows her whole. She leans into him, winds her arms around his neck. A faint, nickering growl creeps out from his throat and just like that they're kissing, openmouthed, nipping, sucking, battling for control and in this thing, this one thing, she may conquer him.
She twists her legs around and straddles him, small but insistent against him. His dark T-shirt rubs against her nipples, and from far off a voice whispers, "I don't think it's working, I don't think it's taking," but she ignores it and pulls his shirt over his head, forcing his hands and claws to abandon her, but only for a moment. His lips leave hers as he turns his attention to her neck.
"Marie," his incisors rake across her breastbone, catching on the chain her of dog tags, his dog tags. "Marie."
"Not Marie." She inhales the woodsy scent of his hair. "Rogue."
"You're not a thief, Marie." Those claws, those claws poke through the denim covering her crotch and gently demolish her panties. "You're..."
That voice again, "...coming around..."
"You're..." The flat edge of one blade slides into the folds of her sex. She squeezes her eyes shut and curls her nails into the thick muscles laid over his shoulders. "You're..."
"...going to be okay, Rogue. Can you hear me?"
She squints through her lashes; bright silver spots dance in front her, flickering and playful. She can't breathe; a chill grows around her. He is fading, she is almost alone again, but still his voice lingers. "You're going to save me, baby."
The silver spots blossom into the glare of fluorescent lights, and she is lying elevated on a cot, Jean and Xavier hunched over her, sad but trying, God always trying to be cheerful.
"Did it work?"
Of course it didn't. Her body had rejected the organic plastic sheath. A vivid rash of swollen capillaries covers her flesh. And worse, a thousand times worse is the ache between her legs. She wonders if either of them looked into her mind while she was under, if they saw Wolverine's mouth and hands and claws all over and under and inside her.
If they did, they do not say.
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