Strong Poison
I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him.
That's the first thing you need to know. It's the literal truth. Logan saved my life, more than once, and that's all there is to say about that.
Of course I adored him.
The first time he left me, it was with a promise to come back and a token to hold onto. And I never doubted him, not for a second. When I told him that I didn't want him to go, all the things I couldn't put into words were wrapped up in that one short sentence. I thought he understood them, though, because he gave me that dogtag to hold, and even then I knew that it was the one single thing he had from his past. It meant something to him. I held onto that too. It was another truth.
Then he came back, and the world just went to hell. Nothing ever feels safe again, not after you've woken up to soldiers with guns breaking down your doors, wanting to drag you away to secret prisons. But Logan saved my life that time too, mine and Bobby's and John's, getting us out of there. But it was different. I saw in his eyes that he'd have stayed right there, faced down that whole army just for the chance to find out more from that man who'd called his name. But I still believed in what he'd said, and I used that against him, calling him away.
He didn't want to go. I felt a cold knot of a different kind of fear in my stomach as soon as I saw him turn away, so reluctantly, from that wall of ice that was standing between him and the answers he wanted. But I told him we wouldn't make it without him. So he came.
He didn't look at me as we drove away. He had his eyes fixed on the road, his jaw set, and I felt sick with what I'd done. I could feel the chain of his tag still wrapped around my wrist, and instead of comforting it just felt hard and heavy against my skin. I wished he'd look at me, even for a second, just give me one glance and maybe half a smile to tell me we were going to be okay. But he didn't, and it was partly just to make him acknowledge that I was there that I unwrapped the tag from my wrist and held it out to him. This is yours, I said.
I was trying to call him back, I know that now. I really thought he'd smile at that, the way he had when he'd given it to me, tell me I should hold onto it. But he just took it, looked down at it for a second, and then put it away. I just stared straight ahead through that whole long night as we drove toward Boston, with John playing lousy music on the radio until Logan finally turned it off somewhere in the middle of Massachusetts. My hands felt bare and cold and I couldn't do anything except sit there twisting them in my lap to remind myself that I didn't have gloves on and I had to be careful. And the thing is, it was all a lie.
We could have run on our own. Bobby knew the way through the tunnels. I don't know what we'd have done, but even if we'd run the exact same way, gone straight to Bobby's parents' house just like we did, I don't think things would have happened the same way. I don't think Bobby would have told his parents about being a mutant, about all of us, and his brother wouldn't have given us away out of hate or prejudice or jealousy or whatever it was.
It was Logan being there that gave him the strength to do that. Bobby always says it's a good thing. Better to know who you can count on and who you can't, he says, and he does talk to his parents now, once in a while. But he's never been quite the same since that awful weekend, and I know why.
Those are people who are just supposed to love you, no matter what, and finding out that that isn't true isn't something you ever really get over. How can you ever make sense of the world, after that?
I can barely remember the next couple of days. Everything happened so fast, and suddenly we were mixed up with the two people I hated the most in the whole world, having to work alongside them just to survive. I wish I could forgive John, even now, for walking away from us and going with them. I might have been able to forgive Erik Lensherr for trying to use me in that machine-some people are just obsessed, and they think whatever they have to do is justified somehow. I almost believed he was sorry, that night on the Statue. But in the plane, when he and that bitch Mystique made fun of me, I knew it wasn't like that. He just didn't give a damn about anything any more, and I was just something he could use to spew that hatred across the whole world, spraying poison over all of it. All of us.
Sometimes I think I know how that feels.
Logan was better than that, better than them. There was something he wanted, something he'd been looking for for fifteen years, and he gave that up to stay with us and fight the good fight. But it wasn't what I thought it was. That night we camped in the woods, I saw something I knew I wasn't supposed to see. I couldn't sleep, and I opened my tent and looked out, hoping someone else was awake. And I saw Jean going into Logan's tent.
I never told anybody that. I just lay back down and stared at the roof of the tent until the sun finally came up and I heard people moving outside, hoping against hope that there was some other explanation, some excuse or reason why she needed to see him.
But I know there wasn't. I saw Logan's face when Jean gave up her life for us, getting the plane off the ground and holding back the water, and it told me everything I needed to know. Everything he'd given up-the reasons for it washed away in that flood of water, and nothing I could say was ever going to call him back again.
I didn't try.
Logan stayed at the Mansion for a while after that. I saw him, once in a while, usually with the Professor or Scott, and there was never anything soft about his expression any more. If he noticed me, I might get a nod or a muttered greeting, but that was worse than if he hadn't seen me at all. So mostly I made sure he didn't see me.
I did notice he didn't wear his tag any more, but it wasn't for a long time after that that I found out why. I was reading in the library and some of the younger kids were talking, outside the window, and I heard this little boy, one of the kids who'd been rescued at Alkali Lake, telling his friends about his big adventure. He said Logan was carrying him to the plane when he'd seen Stryker chained up and left to die by Erik and Mystique. He said Logan had taken off his tag and thrown it at him before he left him to die too.
I guess it didn't mean that much to him after all. But I'm sure he was sorry for that afterwards, when what he'd thrown away that chance for was gone too.
The thing I really didn't understand was the change in the way Logan and Scott Summers were together. From the moment they'd met, they'd just hated each other. I guess it was different, after Jean died. They couldn't both have had her, but they'd both lost her, even if Scott didn't know the truth about when exactly that had happened for him. But after we got back, they were, well, if not exactly best friends, certainly friendly.
And eventually Logan left, for a while. He didn't tell me; there was just one day that I walked down the corridor and saw that the door to his room was open and it was empty, like no one had lived there in years. And that was it. I knew that whatever it was that made him promise to come back didn't matter to him any more, and I didn't really expect to see him again.
But he did come back, maybe six months later, just as unexpectedly. I came downstairs one day and there he was, having coffee with Storm in the kitchen, just as though he'd never been gone. He actually did smile at me when he saw me that time, but I made myself smile back and just keep walking.
By then I was on the team, so I saw him more often. He seemed to have decided that it wasn't such a bad gig, wearing the leather and trying to save the world. I think everyone sort of expected me to fall all over him, go back to being his little pet project, but there was nothing he'd have hated more than for me to ever try to use whatever protective impulse he'd once had toward a scared little girl to attract his attention, ever again.
I was glad he was back, but I hated myself for feeling that way. I tried to forget all those things there had once been between us, the promises he'd made me. They didn't count any more-he'd more than made good on all of them, and they were gone.
I couldn't forget him, not ever. I used to have nightmares the way he did, after I touched him when he stabbed me. He never knew that, and I'd have died before I told him. But somewhere in the time he'd been gone, the nightmares had changed into other dreams, dreams where I saw him again the way I had the very first time, a shirtless brawler in a cage. But in my dream he'd turn around and see me, he'd see me standing there and start towards me.
And I'd wake up, sweating and gasping for breath, and lie awake for the rest of the night hating my traitorous subconscious for keeping that alive.
We weren't supposed to be together on this last assignment. Logan was supposed to go with Scott to meet these people who claimed they had some information about a government project that involved mutant training. The new administration hadn't been very forthcoming with the Professor, and all those old insecurities were stirred up, so when a contact came in they had agreed to meet with these potential moles in Chicago.
And then Scott got called away at the last minute, something he couldn't get out of without raising suspicion. He was the new face of the Good Mutants, an almost-normal, good-looking and well-spoken man who could testify in front of Congress and keep his temper if people lobbed insulting questions. Ororo had classes to teach, everyone was busy. So it was me they asked to go, and I couldn't say no without an explanation I didn't want to give.
So we went. We drove, since Logan was not ever going to be able to fly commercial, not with that amount of metal in his body. And we did it in one day, nearly sixteen hours of all-but-silent driving, because there really wasn't anything to talk about once we'd gone over the assignment.
When we got to Chicago, I was as exhausted as I've ever been in my life. That's the only reason I can give for not turning around and walking out when the hotel told us that no, the reservation hadn't been changed, and we were still booked for one room. And no, they were sorry, but there were three conventions in town, and they were totally booked, and so was every other downtown hotel.
So screw it. It was a big room, two king-sized beds, and we were only going to be there one night, just long enough to meet up with the contact and then back to that interminable drive home. So even though Logan said we could go, get further out of town, we'd be sure to find something, I said no. I was tired and I just wanted to get some sleep.
That was my first mistake.
We got up to the room, and I dumped my stuff on one of the beds and went to take a shower. When I got out, Logan was sitting in one of the chairs with an open bottle of Jack Daniels in front of him, on the coffee table. I took one look, turned around and went back into the bathroom to get a glass for myself.
Second mistake.
I don't drink much. Technically I can't drink at all; not legal yet. But along with the nightmares and the stupid crush, something else Logan left me with was a taste for liquor, and every once in a while it would get the better of me. I should have just had that taste and gone to sleep, and if I had I probably wouldn't be here telling this story.
The thing about drinking is that the first thing that goes is your desire to stop. It makes you feel good at first, and I liked that and didn't want to let it go. I was too tired to notice how much I was actually drinking. Logan noticed. A couple of times, he said we'd probably had enough, but I didn't feel so tired any more, and I disagreed.
And the next thing that happens is you get sociable. We started to talk. That was most of the reason for what happened right there. We started to talk and the incredible rush of just being able to say things, to have him listen and to joke with me, all that uncomfortable silence suddenly a distant memory-it went to my head more than the alcohol.
I should have stopped then. But I didn't, I had one more drink. The next thing that goes is your inhibitions. And healing factor aside, he was putting away at least twice as much as me-I think by this point we'd finished the bottle and were on to the minibar. So when I got up, fairly shakily, to get another drink and he reached out to steady me, it was really easy to slide into his lap, and I guess it was just as easy for him to let me stay there.
I can't even think about what I said to him that night without feeling sick all over again. I told him about the dreams, not the nightmares but the dreams, and how I'd never stopped thinking about him. He tried once more to tell me I should just go to sleep. He was looking at me in a new way, nothing I'd ever seen before, but he didn't look remote and strange any more, it was like we were back in Canada with me sassing him and him being amused and little charmed by it. It was the familiarity that was so intoxicating, that made me cross the line. I was giddy with it. So I stayed where I was, and hand another little bottle of something or other, and then I said it.
I really want you to fuck me.
You're drunk, kid, he told me, and I laughed and said I'm not a kid, Logan.
His eyes changed again when I said that. Guess not, he said. Then he finished the rest of his drink and said Okay. If that's what you want.
It wasn't like I'd dreamed it. It was awkward, what with the problems with my skin and the fact that I didn't have the faintest idea what I was doing. He did it all, really. He got me onto the bed and pulled my pajama pants and underwear down, partway. He had condoms, and he didn't really undress. He couldn't kiss me, and I don't know whether he even realized it was my first time. I think I already knew what a mistake it was, even while we were doing it, but somehow I still didn't care. I had my gloves on, and while he was inside me, thrusting against me, I could run my hands over his shoulders and his chest, and I'd wanted to do that for so long. When he got close his head dropped down and I felt his mouth against my breast, and I held him there as he came, groaning out something that might have been my name but might have been anything, really. And I didn't care. It was enough.
And then it was over. He was gentle, then, and he pulled my clothes back into place and tried to stroke me there, but between the exhaustion and the whiskey and the excitement I was practically passed out already. I shook my head and told him it was all right, I was fine, and finally he just wrapped me up in the blankets. I remember feeling him brushing my hair back from my face, and I think he kissed my cheek, just lightly.
I woke up to a splitting headache and an empty room.
I made it to the bathroom and soaked my head with cold water, which woke me up enough to dig my cell phone out of my bag and call him. He answered on the first ring, and because we were on an assignment, the call was recorded, so I could look it up later. I didn't have to-I remembered every word-but I got Scott to erase it. Having it in the records was more than I could take.
“Logan? Where the hell are you?”
“I'm on my way to the meeting. The time got moved up.” He sounded tired. “Tried to wake you up, but you were flat out.”
“Goddamnit, I'm supposed to be with you.”
“Well, I couldn't exactly wait for you to sleep it off.” I heard a train in the background. “Don't worry about it. I'll tell Summers it was my fault.”
It made me absolutely furious. “I don't need you to make excuses for me. Now get back here. I'll be dressed in five minutes.”
“I'm almost there. It doesn't matter, all right? It's just an exchange of information, no big deal. Just get some more sleep and I'll see you in a couple of hours.”
“No. This is not the way it's supposed to happen.”
He sighed. “Look, kid-“
“Is that it? You don't want me there because I'm just a kid?” I remember standing there, in the middle of that hotel room, not seeing a thing because I was so blindingly angry. “Because I thought we already covered that.”
There was a long pause, so long I almost thought he'd hung up. Then he said it. “Last night was a mistake, Marie. I'm sorry. I know that wasn't what you really wanted.”
“Don't you tell me what I want.” But already I was shaking and I could feel the tears pooling up in my eyes. “Now get back here.”
“Too late-I'm at the site and they're here.” There was another pause. “I've got to go. Just-I didn't mean for that to happen, okay? I didn't plan on that. You understand?”
“No. I don't understand a goddamn thing.” But I did. I understood it perfectly. I'd let myself get drunk just so I could bring myself to ask for something I wanted so much-and it meant nothing to him, beyond vague guilt at taking advantage of the poor drunk kid with the crush. It was nothing, less than nothing, just one more thing he'd taken from me just to throw it away.
“They're waiting.” He was about to say something else, I heard him take a breath, but then I heard the car door open. “Sorry.” And the line went dead.
I didn't even make it back to the bed. I just collapsed to the floor, my chest already heaving with the kind of sobs that are too deep for tears to flow. I lay there until I couldn't cry any more, and then I crawled into the bathroom and huddled on the floor next to the toilet, leaning my face against the cold porcelain and wishing I could just throw up, vomit it all out and never feel it again. I wanted to leave, to just get out of there before he came back and found me like that, but I couldn't even bring myself to move.
I was still sitting there when my cell phone rang. By that time I'd pulled myself together, at least a little bit, but I still didn't move to answer it. And I didn't answer the second time it rang either, or the third.
Then the room phone rang instead, and this time I did get up and stumble back into the other room. When I picked up the receiver-
Scott. Absolutely frantic. Where was I, where was Logan, what was going on and why hadn't I been answering? I didn't understand. I started to make an excuse about why I was still in the room, and then he interrupted me and told me.
It had been a setup, the meeting. They'd opened fire as soon as they were off the street, probably just a minute or two after Logan had ended the call. Scott said they'd still expected him, not me, so they probably weren't looking for me, but that I needed to stay where I was until he and Ororo could come and get me.
I could barely get the words out. What about Logan? But I knew. I knew just from the silence before he answered.
We don't know. But we haven't heard from him, and the building they went into was destroyed-they set a bomb. We'll do everything we can, Rogue, to find out what happened, but you have to stay where you are.
I stayed where I was. There wasn't anything else to do. After Scott got me to promise that and finally hung up, I checked my cell phone, but all the calls I'd heard were from the Mansion's number.
And I still don't know anything more than that. As I said, this government crowd isn't terribly forthcoming. Whatever they found, when they completed their so-called investigation of the 'industrial accident”, as the official determination would have it-they're not talking. That was all I ever knew. All I guess I'll ever know.
The worst part is that everyone is treating me like I have some special right to grieve. Scott, particularly, keeps asking me if I want to talk. I'll never be that drunk, I can tell you that right now. It's ironic, really: both of us, grieving the loss of something we didn't really have. Difference is, I know it and he doesn't.
But I would never tell him that. I just tell him that I know he understands, and that seems to satisfy him, and eventually people will stop walking carefully around me and they won't end conversations just because I come into the room and they'll forget.
I don't think I will. I don't have the dreams anymore, though. I think it's because that last conversation took away the last shreds of my make-believe world, where Logan might one day look up and actually see me. Want me.
He wanted something, that night. He wasn't as drunk as all that-I'm not sure he could be drunk enough to really not know what he was doing. I know he wanted something. I also know it wasn't me.
I was just a mistake.
But this is how pathetic I really am. I pretend, sometimes, that he's still out there somewhere, just gone away for a while again. Sometimes I even really believe it. I mean, it's Logan we're talking about, the Wolverine. In a way, it's harder to believe that they could take him down than to believe that he somehow escaped. Somewhere inside, I still hold onto that flicker of almost-hope and sometimes I fan it into flame, late at night when I can't sleep. I remember him, and I pretend.
The rest of the time, I'm Rogue. Untouchable. X-Man. Dangerous. I'll kick ass, fly planes and take no prisoners. It's just at night, when I'm alone, the Marie in me comes out. I don't want him to be dead. It doesn't matter any more, what he said, what we did, that it would never have happened again or meant anything real. Even if I can't have him, I want to live in a world he's in, somewhere. Because if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be here.
Maybe that's why, without him, I feel like I'm not really here.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Angst ho!