Marie gnawed on a well-worn nail, chipped polish from a forced pampering session with a visiting dynamic duo (Jubilee and Kitty) peeling back and falling to the cold, tile floor beneath her feet. The raw, red fingertip, contrasted by the pale pink nail polish, oozed a thin crescent of blood that drip, drip, dripped down the side of her hand to land on her faded blue jeans.
She stared at the blood. Silently cursing as the nail’s cuticle reformed, sealed itself, and the nail grew to an appropriately modest length before deciding it was pleased and ceasing its outward expansion.
“Fuck,” Marie snarled, sitting on her hands, feet kicking in frustration as her eyes glanced towards the prone figure of her husband, ventilator strapped on to his face, IV’s steadily dripping into swollen injection sites. Marie’s gift had almost drained Logan completely.
Just the thought made her mouth run dry with fear.
And, while Logan may have been comatose for the past ten, long, agonizing days, the Wolverine in her head was not.
He was snarly, upset, and generally, completely, bamboozled with her. The beast inside of the man, that indefatigable, unstoppable force that Logan miraculously managed to control by a hairsbreadth, didn’t understand her anymore. Of course, the Wolverine knew that Logan didn’t quite understand females, no male truly did, but he was quite certain the feral, virulent male that all women wanted couldn’t be better epitomized by a specimen such as himself.
Yet his mate now spurned him.
Thought him to be abhorrent.
Once, she had responded to his advances, preened as he flattered and stroked, cajoled and coaxed her into willful submission, into the admission that she would be his and only his. The Wolverine hadn’t been angry that the cub had taken so much of her attention away. They, he and his mate, were happy. The man, Logan, was happy. He had been content to prowl in the shadows of Logan’s psyche, always vigilant, constantly on alert, the alpha male protecting what he rightfully saw and claimed as his.
But how does a beast protect against something uncontrollable?
Marie trembled at the base, raw emotions overwhelming her as the Wolverine skittered angrily around the corners of her mind, his rage like an open wound, pulsing, lifeblood leaking across hallowed halls, untempered by Logan’s psyche, as he had been all those times they had touched, skin-to-skin, before she had taken the cure.
The Wolverine could not fight this, cancer. He spat the word into her head, like poison from a wound.
Cancer.
Fucking hell.
Adamantium claws could not cut out what a keen nose could smell. The cub’s body, rotting away from inside. The man, Logan, could not accept it. He was desperate to save the cub, the cub was the only thing, the only thing keeping the female with them. He, Charlie, was the glue that forged the bond, a mistake that had blossomed into something unexpected, beautiful, and yet, fragile.
A memory flashed through her mind.
The Wolverine, returning from a mission, that animal lurking inside her husband. His blood-stained fingertips stroking the cheek of their balding, dying cub. A good sire would end, should end the suffering of a wounded cub...
Marie clasped her hands over her mouth, eyes tightly shut. She could hear the steady, slow beep of Logan’s heart monitor like white noise behind a horror movie streaming through her head. It was the only thing tangibly tying her to the present - her mind was elsewhere.
His claws shot out, unbelievably quick, to hover inches above the cub’s face. It would be quick, painless, effortless.
No more suffering that he couldn’t stop, or control.
Chaos. His whole life had been chaos. No memories, cruelty beyond comparison. He deserved to be able to control what happened now.
Didn’t he?
Keen night vision glanced down into the bed.
The cub’s tiny chest rose and fell, exhaling the soft sweet-as-honey smell of the female, Marie, and the man, Logan.
He should do it. He would end the cub’s suffering.
But a light came on at the top of the stairs, and soft feet padded, thumping step-by-step, towards him. He sheathed his claws, turning to greet his mate. She was outlined by a halo of light, standing in the doorway, a ragged blanket wrapped around an old, white t-shirt that reeked of him.
He growled appreciatively, but the tiny hands that could do such marvelous things clenched a ragged tissue, and further inspection revealed a reddened, raw nose and weeping eyes.
“Logan?” she asked, gently, and he felt the man stirring from the safe place he often disappeared to when things became too harsh to bear.
He knew then, he couldn’t kill the cub.
God she loved it so. It made her happy.
He had to make her happy.
Fingertips stroked the cub’s soft mane in passing, and he stalked towards her, scooped her up into his arms and dragged her upstairs to their den.
What could make her happy?
Maybe...another cub?
Marie railed against the memory, her eyes shedding uncontrollable tears. She sank into the cushioned chair and pillow Hank had moved from the rec room to the medical bay, unable to follow the continued primal onslaught from her husband’s doppleganger, which had degenerated into pictures, shattered images of her beside Charlie’s deathbed, wailing as the little cub breathed his last, Logan holding her, silent tears streaming down his cheeks as the glue melted away like sidewalk chalk during a hard rain. Fear crept through the Wolverine, almost like the same cancer that had stolen the cub, the child.
That last frantic lovemaking session blipped through her mind like a streaming video message, the Wolverine crashing through her own fractured memories of a sorrowfully passionate, desperate Logan. Love making became carnal rutting, the beast, breathing, growling, begging, “Let me take care of you, let me provide for you, let me help you.”
Marie’s eyes fluttered shut.
“Let me love you,” he growled.
Someone was shaking her.
Marie opened her eyes to see Storm’s frightened face. White gloves were on her long-sleeved t-shirt’s shoulders, Kurt and Hank peered at her, hiding behind Ororo. She had fallen from the chair and had been fumbling on the floor as if seizing.
“Rogue, are you alright?” she asked, genuine concern in her voice, so different from the disdain and hatred that had lingered there before. The sight of Rogue, a piteous heap on the bathroom floor next to a blue-in-the-face Logan had been shocking.
She had been begging him not to die.
That she loved him.
That she was sorry.
And Storm felt like a horrible witch.
“What time is it?” Marie whispered, glancing toward Logan’s bed. He was still asleep.
“Nine o’clock at night, little one,” Hank said, turning to fiddle with the instruments on Logan’s panels, “His heart rate has increased, has your healing power diminished? I believe it may be an indicator of when our sleeping beauty might awaken.”
Marie glanced at her fingernails, perfectly manicured, rolled up her sleeve and dragged one across the flesh of her lower arm. An angry welt puffed up.
And stayed angry.
“Fabulous!” Hank said, nodding to Ororo and Kurt, who disappeared as quickly as they came. He adjusted the ventillator, then pulled it completely away from Logan’s face. His chest rose and fell on its own, breathing steady and slow. His eyes flickered back and forth - perhaps he was dreaming?
“Rogue, I believe we can move Logan back to the Lake House now. With what he, and you, on occasion have told me about his past experiences with labs, I believe it would be more appropriate for him to awaken in the company of familiar surroundings,” Hank postulated.
“Of course,” Marie said, turning to leave. “I’ll go get the bed ready.”
“Wait, Rogue,” Hank called, one blue claw motioning for her to step closer. He held something silver in his hand, “Take this.”
“What is it?” she asked, pulling the silver bangle around her left wrist, her skin tingled suddenly, then the feeling disappeared.
“It’s a power inhibitor, it actively suppresses your mutant genes with no ill side affects.”
“You mean, I can still touch if I wear this?” she whispered, awe struck.
“Yes,” his big, furry hand taking her gloved one in his own, “When the light is green, your powers are null and void,” he continued, clasping the delicate metal band around her wrist. Touching a pale gray sensor on the side, the bracelet beeped five seconds before the light changed from green to blaring red, “This however, means that your powers are ‘on’ so to speak.”
Rogue nodded, toying with the bracelet and reaching to hit the sensor once more.
Hank stopped her.
“Rogue,” he whispered, “I would suggest you leave your powers on, at least for now.”
“Why?” she asked, puzzled, stepping away from him to gently palm Logan’s sleeping face through her leather-gloved hands.
“Oftentimes, when Logan has been severely injured,” Hank explained, “It is not the man who wakes up first, but the beast.”
“The Wolverine?” Marie pondered.
“Yes,” Hank replied, “And I warn you, he may be very unpredictable. As a feral mutant myself, I speak from experience.”
A shiver ran up Marie’s spine as the shadow Wolverine prowling the corners of her mind chuckled unexpectedly, “I think I can handle it, bub,” she snarked. Hands snapped up over her mouth, eyes wide.
“I see you have a bit of an animal inside of you now,” Hank smiled thinly. “Shall we call Piotr about moving Logan from the lab to the Lake House?”
“Sure thing,” Marie stammered, slightly shaken.
A few hours later, Logan was wrapped up warmly in their loft. Marie cupped a warm mug of coffee in her hands, inhaling the aroma. She was wrapped in a soft, chenile afghan, carefully tucked into Logan’s favorite sitting chair in the corner of the room. The blanket’s fringed edges trailed over fuzzy-socked feet, pale legs tucked into soffe shorts and a frayed-edged t-shirt over an old, motheaten sports bra she’d unearthed from a box in the closet.
Most of her clothes had been where she’d left them, in her top two dresser drawers. Things that had stopped smelling of her faster, such as the rarely worn, aged bra, had been tossed in the closet, the Wolverine had explained. Vague images of Logan brokenly clutching her faded track team hoodie from Mississippi, huddled beneath his flannel sheets as the animal inside him raged for release trickled through her mind slowly.
The Wolverine was fading - at least from her.
She warily glanced towards the figure on the bed, tossing and turning. She had ignored Hank’s warning - the bracelet on her wrist twinkled its neon-green light in patterns across the dusk-darkened floors. The pain of adamantium claws slicing clean through her sternum and internal organs held her back from climbing into the bed as she once had, to hold him tightly against her bosom.
They weren’t as familiar with each other anymore.
Oh, we could be, the Wolverine growled, faintly, I’m still very familiar with every...single...inch...of you.
She flushed wildly at the mental picture that careened through her head. Logan, shirt off, glistening in the sun as he fought with piecing together a tree-house fort for Charlie. His back muscles flexed and rippled from hips to shoulder blades.
She moaned despite herself, one hand uncontrollably sliding beneath the blanket to touch her most sensitive areas, guided by phantom hands that most certainly did remember what they were doing.
Even then, she didn’t need the Wolverine’s vivid memory to help her remember this day.
”You know, sugar,” Marie called, smiling from her perch on the screened porch swing “we don’t even know if it’s a boy yet!”
“You’re telling me that if you were a little kid, boy or girl, you wouldn’t wanna play in this thing?” he said, turning to face her. One hand was propped leisurely on his hip, the other held a sledgehammer, casually dangling towards the ground.
“I’dve loved to play in that fort,” Marie quipped back, “with you, sugar,” she added, quietly. The paper fan she’d made herself out of a Sunday morning church bulletin fanning faster in the humid late-afternoon summer heat.
“You said you wanna come play with me now?” he drawled slowly, the hammer now leaning against the oak tree as he walked towards her.
“Oh I’m not coming outside, it’s too hot,” Marie teased, swinging leisurely, cursing his over-sensitive ears as she flushed.
Logan’s gloves dropped to the ground. In ten steps, he crossed the side yard and jerked the screen door open. It slammed closed. Marie stood up and stretched, walking back towards the glass door leading inside. She brushed gently against the rough denim of his blue jeans and shivered delightfully.
“You coming on to me, darlin’?” Logan drawled from the doorway.
“I dunno, you coming inside?” Marie purred, one finger fiddling with the top button on her blouse.
“Inside of you,” he growled, darting forward to pin her back against the nearest hard surface, in this case the kitchen table. Sweaty hands pushed her skirt up around her hips, her legs slid up around his waist, fingers fumbling shakily with the buttons of his jeans.
“Oh, Logan,” Marie panted, his member throbbing at her moist entrance. Her hands grasped his biceps, fingernails dragging across broad shoulders. His breath huffed heavily against her neck, hips rocking back to...
But it wasn’t just a memory breathing on her skin.
Marie’s eyes shot open, a tiny scream slipping from between her lips. Her husband hovered over her in the chair, naked, his nose whuffing gently where her ear and neck came together. His hands grasped the arms of the chair tightly, his legs rested on the floor kneeling.
“Logan,” she gasped, her hands, suddenly shaking, reaching up to grasp his face.
“Hello, Marie.” Logan’s voice was heavier, raspier than normal.
His eyes met hers.
Cold eyes, calculating eyes.
“Wolverine,” she gasped, heart rate sky high and through the roof.
“You don’t smell like me, anymore,” he snarled, jerking his face away from her hands to pinch the skin of her shoulder in his teeth possessively. Pure arousal overwhelmed her senses, the smell of the two of them mixing together.
“I think we should fix that,” Marie whispered, and the Wolverine chuckled in dark approval.
“Oh, I agree,” he purred, his tongue now laving slowly along her collar bone, one claw slipping out a centimeter to slice her t-shirt and sports bra away from her skin.
Abruptly, he lifted her in his arms, dropping her on the bed stomach down. She yelped in surprise as he sliced her shorts off, then lifted her onto her knees. His nose and tongue licked and sniffed a line from the nape of her neck to the apex of her thighs, where the Wolverine paused to inhale deeply, rough hands grasping her rump and kneading it like dough.
He growled when she jumped, hips bucking wildly as his tongue wiggled in between her slick folds. She pressed back against him in abandon, hair strewn wildly about the pillows as her hands gripped them tightly, as if to anchor her down before she exploded into a thousand pieces.
“What do you want, Marie?” he growled, teeth tugging at her, nibbling and teasing until she was whipped into a frenzy of wanting and desire.
“I want us,” Marie choked out, and he slowed down, tense and trembling to press himself against her, erection sliding between her legs, listening, “And I don’t just want it,” she stammered, “I need it.”
“You need me?” the Wolverine scoffed, his cock slowly pressing against her teasingly, “If you needed me so much, why’d you leave?” he spat, somewhat maliciously as he ground against her, creating a torturously slow friction.
“I didn’t know how much I needed you then,” Marie managed to gasp as lightning bolts rocketed around behind her tightly closed eyelids, “but God, Logan, I need you now.”
In one smooth motion, Marie slid back against him, impaling herself on his thick length. He snarled in pleasure, one hand finding her hips and digging in tightly while the other slid beneath her stomach to massage her throbbing core.
It seemed like an eternity before they both collapsed, breathless, as wave after wave of mind blowing pleasure sent shock waves through their nervous systems. Tears slid down Marie’s cheeks as she was pulled into strong arms and spooned tightly against Wolverine’s firm chest.
“I need you,” he grunted into her ear, her long slim legs tangling with his own, fingers wiping tear stains from her cheeks “but not just now, I’m talking forever and always, Marie.”
“I’d like that,” she said, a soft smile on her face as her eyes began to flutter shut.
“Oh, you don’t have a choice in the matter,” Wolverine said, nibbling her neck once more, “You’re mine.”
“I love you too, sugar.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The final chapter :) Will Logan be okay? Will things ever get worked out? P.S. Meet the Wolverine in this chapter.
Plot bunny says stop wondering, read and find out silly! ;) I'm promising an epilogue as well! Let me know what you think when you're done!
It's a quarter after one
I'm all alone and I need you now
And I said I wouldn't call
but I'm a little drunk and I need you now
And I don't know how, I can do without
I just need you now
I just need you now
Plot bunny says stop wondering, read and find out silly! ;) I'm promising an epilogue as well! Let me know what you think when you're done!
It's a quarter after one
I'm all alone and I need you now
And I said I wouldn't call
but I'm a little drunk and I need you now
And I don't know how, I can do without
I just need you now
I just need you now