Death wish, everyone says. Which is funny, because they all know he can’t die.
She’s taking a walk through the garden, drinking a beer, when he comes lumbering out of the darkness. He presses an adamantium claw, still warm from the heat of his skin, against her neck.
“You left me for dead,” he snarls. He is covered in mud, and his hair stands up in wild spikes. It must have been hard to climb out of that mud pit she threw him in.
Marie calmly tosses the beer bottle away, listens to it smash somewhere, ignoring the razor at her throat.
“You fucking bitch, you left me for *dead*.” His anger radiates against her like a furnace.
She wants to correct him; she left him on the *brink* of death- she knew he would recover. But what would be the point? She doesn‘t look at him, doesn‘t acknowledge that he managed to come back to life after she drained him mostly dry. She only nearly killed him, she *did* pull away at the last second.
Undoubtedly Logan wants to know why she did it.
She would tell him if she thought he would listen. It all boils down to one thing: she’s tired of watching him die. She hates it so much it leaves a constant bitter taste in her mouth. Watching him choose to butt his head at the blank slate that was his life over and over again, tending to him each time he is brought home broken and bleeding and yet still ready to run right back out to the battlefield, to die, to be burnt, get shot, stabbed, hung, drowned, over and over and over again…
If he wants to die that badly, she figures she ought to help him. She is, after all, the only person on the face of the planet who could.
Because she can, because she knows how drained he is right now, she grabs the hand that is holding a claw to her throat, and twists it behind him. His strength is hers for the time being, although he does manage a quick slice that stings and bleeds down her collarbone onto her white tank top. She has him in a loose choke hold, where he swears at her like she were Sabretooth instead of a thin, pale, twenty-year-old girl. He struggles pitifully for the great Wolverine, but it’s not his fault-she really did drain him dry.
Marie touches her neck. Her fingers come away red. She ‘tsks’ him in her best motherly tone, and whispers in his ear: “I’m only going to take a little.” It is the first thing she’s said to him from a place of caring all day.
She pulls a tiny piece of his energy, just enough to knit the edges of the wound together. She tries to keep the drain as shallow as possible, tries not to delve deep enough to see the twisted, hated image he must have of her now.
She used to love this. It used to be about sharing and love and friendship. She used to think it meant he cared about her so much he’d rather see himself dead than lose her. She loved knowing things that he never told anyone else.
Like how he really felt about her.
She’d been surprised and nervous and elated all at once in a rush of emotion that had threatened to implode her stomach when she found out how much he wanted her. She thought it would finally happen, she’d finally get to be with the man who’d held her heart since the first time she’d laid eyes on him.
How wistful. How romantic.
How childish.
Nothing changed. She expected him to declare his love, instead he left in the middle of the night without saying good-bye. They brought him back three months later strapped to a bed in the back of the Blackbird, his arm still attached to his body by only an adamantium-encased shoulder bone. It healed, yes, but the sight of all that blood and muscle and the sounds of his howling still made some kids so nervous they have to sleep with nightlights on.
It kept happening. Over and over and over again. And each time he chose a temporary death over her, a part of decayed.
It is almost as if she retains whatever fantastical wound he heals from. Only her wounds stay. Grow infectious.
Logan fell to his knees, his eyes swimming in his head as she shut her skin down, like shutting down a computer.
“Thanks,” she says, a smile on her lips that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Marie…” he whispers in a raw voice. She knows he is trying to sound scary. He only sounds broken.
She is standing over him, and in one smooth motion she lifts the bloody shirt over her head and throws it into the bushes. A whisper from a zipper, one more movement, and her jeans and panties are in a pool of denim and silk in the grass. He flinches away from all her bare skin. She notices and is sad; he’s never flinched from her before.
But her skin is off and she is simply a gun whose chamber is empty, and before he can muster the strength to protest she pushes him onto his back on the lawn. He’s weak, and she manages to get his jeans unzipped and off his hips without too much trouble. She straddles him, her breasts flattening against his muddy chest as she rubs her tongue across his teeth and then deeper.
He raises his hands and grabs her by the hips, tries to push her off but he’s still too tired; all he can do is weakly knead at the smooth skin there. It feels like the touch of a lover, and Marie moans against his unwilling tongue. It is, however, the only part of him that seems to be unwilling; she can feel his cock rise and fill against her thigh. Good.
The entire scene is methodical and unromantic, her mouth is set in a hard line even as she nuzzles his neck, and her hand is between his legs stroking him even harder. He wants death and he wants her and today, she is giving him both. No asking on Logan’s part, and no begging on hers.
She rises up on her knees, her hand holding his cock in the right position for her to impale herself. He places a hand on her chest, right between her breasts, the only protest he manages. She pauses for only a second before she draws in a deep breath and sinks down onto him.
There is no declaration of love, there are no endearments, there is only her wincing in pain as she tries to pull him in deeper despite the fact that he is aroused and she is not. It is a tight fit.
Eventually her body realizes it is enjoying itself even as her heart is breaking. Her sex responds to his, suddenly there is a wet friction, and her thrusts are easier. She rakes her nails down his chest, watches the red lines disappear over and over again as his healing factor kicks in. She sees him snarling below her, looking more like an animal in heat than a man in love. He’s not staring up at her, hoping to find a connection with his lover- instead he squeezes his eyes shut, as if to deny it’s even happening.
She closes her eyes, too.
“…why…” he chokes from beneath her, and it starts off a series of hot sparks in her belly. She starts to ride him faster, her teeth clenching, and finally she answers him in the breathy tone of a woman being rigorously fucked.
“You want me,” she moans, “and you want to die. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’,” she rasps.
Logan regains some strength and he takes control of the thrusts, his grip holding her hips in place as he slams up into her, shoving the both of them toward release. She grinds against him, wants this both to never end and be over as soon as possible.
She loses control for a second as she climaxes, and this time she does pull deep, pulls his animal lust and the hot swelling of his orgasm before she is overwhelmed with his bitterness and anger. She’s already drained him once today, enough to still have him rattling around the cage inside her head that she’s locked him into, but right before she closes the connection, she sees something that he’s managed to keep hidden from her all this time.
*She’s* the reason he keeps leaving to die. And not because he loves her, no-
She is an invasion. They *all* are, everyone at the mansion. He wants to be alone. He wants to not care, like he used to before she dragged him into this life. He wants to be left alone, but they keep coming to his rescue. They are the chain that is wrapped around his body, he is sinking, and he is too much of a coward- of a good guy -to save himself.
He grunts once, twice, when he comes, his hands falling onto the grass, weak once again from her skin.
Now that she knows what he wants, what he *really* wants, she will help him. She loved him too much in the past not to.
She climbs off of him silently and gathers her clothes. Her thighs are sticky, but she doesn’t bother to wipe herself off.
Instead, with a dying heart, she forms his future for him with a quiet promise.
“I will tell Charles that you raped me, and you will no longer be welcome here. From now on, you are on your own.”
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Story Notes:
After I read Random's Deathwish, I 1) had to run out and read a fluffy fic and 2) write this puppy. I read "Deathwish" while listening to Rob Dougan's "Furious Angels" and the next song to pop up was "You Left Me For Dead" It was so angsty, so bitter, and so Logan, and next thing you know my muse was already two pages into this remix. I've never done a remix before. I've never WANTED to before. So kudos, Ransom, you ROCK! Thank you to Ransom, for her beta work and her permission to let me use her story. Also thanks to Taryn, my other beta.