Rogue went on a scouting mission. She had stayed at the lake house on occasion before, but she’d never had the place to herself. Jean and Scott had always snagged the master suite.
Yowza, she had no idea what she was missing. Situated right off the main living room area, the master bedroom was huge, with a wall of windows and a french door out to a back deck overlooking the lake. The bathroom was probably the size of her room at home, with a giant rainshower and a huge separate soaking tub. Probably a good idea, not having to try to wrestle him past a shower curtain.
She started the water running, checking the temperature from time to time. This thing was going to take awhile to fill. In the meantime she found a cabinet full of fluffy towels and pulled out a good supply. Another cabinet held quite a variety of soaps and shampoos. She sniffed a few, finally settling on the mildest-smelling soap -- lemongrass, she thought -- and a baby shampoo that had no scent at all, at least to her. She didn’t actually have high hopes that he’d allow her to get him in the tub, let alone give him a good shampoo, but she figured she’d take the most optimistic approach.
The tub was almost full when she saw him at the door to the bathroom, apparently having followed the sound of the water and the scent of her. “Good timing,” she said. She went to him and took his hand, but his eyes were on the tub, and he was looking frankly terrified. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s good. Warm. Clean.” She tried to draw him closer, but after a step or two he pulled back.
He began to shift nervously from side to side, again resisting as she tried to draw him closer. “It’s okay, I promise,” she said. She tried one more pull, and he suddenly released her hand. She tried to stifle the wave of hurt feelings she felt at that. She hadn’t realized how important to her his tacit trust had become.
She took a deep breath, trying to regroup. She felt like she was committed to this now, she didn’t want him to be always on edge, thinking that this was some torture she had planned that she was only putting off temporarily. Now that she had started, she had to repair the trust between them. He was looking back and forth between her and the tub anxiously, and began to make a high, keening sound that made her heart wrench. “Jesus,” she said softly. “What did they do to you?”
She took his hand again, but this time took a step away from the tub. His eyes showed both uncertainty and relief. “Let’s go back a step,” Rogue said. “Do you have a name?” She didn’t really expect him to answer, but surprisingly he seemed to be giving the question consideration. His brows drew together, and he looked at her and then somehow through her. She couldn’t tell if he didn’t understand the question, or if he simply didn’t know the answer.
“I’m Marie,” she said, surprising even herself. Marie was her own secret name, no one at the mansion called her that. For some reason, though, it felt right. “Marie,” she said again, bringing their clasped hands towards her chest. She put their clasped hands on his chest then, and looked at him.
He seemed thoughtful again, but ultimately moved their hands back towards her. “Ma--” he said, and she felt the smile spread across her face. He looked at her, and for the first time she saw him smile too, an adorable little quirky half-smile that made him look suddenly quite young. “M’ree,” he said. “M’ree.”
She didn’t know how long they stood there, smiling foolishly at each other, until she snapped back into focus. “Right,” she said. “I’m Marie, and you can trust me. I won’t hurt you, okay? Watch.” She toed off her boots, and stripped off her socks. Finally, she shucked the leather pants of her uniform, ending up in her black tank top and underwear.
She stepped into the tub, and then kneeled down. “See?,” she said. “Nice. Warm. Clean. I promise.” She made a few splashing movements, pretending to enjoy herself immensely in the tub, feeling like a total idiot. Then she stood up and held her hand out to him again.
He took a hesitant step forward, and then another. He reached down and touched the water, and then looked at her again. He seemed surprised by the warm water, and again she wondered what they had done to him and what he had been expecting. Finally he put his hand back in hers, and she let out breath she hadn’t realized she was holding in a sigh of relief.
He allowed her to guide him to step one foot in the tub, and then another, and then they knelt down together, facing each other. Figuring she’d start with safe territory, she soaped up a washcloth and rubbed his hands again. They seemed so large in comparison to hers. She soaped and rinsed his arms, and then across his shoulders.
He made a rumbling noise and relaxed under her hands, closing his eyes. She shifted to the side a bit, water sloshing at their waists, and reached around to rub down his back. She shifted back to rub up his strong neck, and then gently over his face. She ran the washcloth across his high brow, and then gently wiped his closed eyes, and then down his strong nose. She spread the washcloth on her hand and wiped each cheek, feeling the stubble through the thin fabric of the washcloth as he nuzzled his face up into her hand a bit.
The situation felt a bit dreamlike to Marie. The only sounds were their breaths and the occasional slosh and plink of water in the tub. Time seemed to have slowed and the world narrowed until there was nothing except them, and this odd ritual they were creating. She took advantage of his closed eyes to look her fill of his chest. It was a magnificent chest, she had to admit. She let the washcloth stray there, pressing harder until she felt his heartbeat slow and steady against her palm through the wet cloth.
Suddenly he opened his eyes, and she felt a sudden return to awareness as if a spell had been broken. She turned around self-consciously to fidget with the shampoo, pooling some in the wet washcloth. He allowed her to soap his head, rumbling a bit more as she ran her fingers through his hair.
His hair was shaggy but not overly long, and she wondered when it had last been cut, and if that could prove to be a clue as to how long he had been imprisoned in the lab. She rinsed the shampoo out, leaning in to look more closely. On a hunch, she held out a lock of hair from his temple, and then leaned forward a bit more to hold out a lock from the nape of his neck. They were roughly the same length. His hair hadn’t been cut, it had been shaved to the scalp, and then allowed to regrow. It must have taken months, if not years, and who knows how many times they had done it.
Lost in her musing, she had failed to realize the precarious position she had put herself in until she felt his hands, warm at her waist. She froze, forearms on his shoulders, and felt him lean in to inhale the scent of her neck. Careful, she told herself. She felt the rasp of his tongue as he tasted the skin right where her pulse beat strongest in her neck, and couldn’t suppress a shiver.
She slowly leaned back, until she could see his eyes again. “I’m sorry,” she said, not entirely knowing what she meant. Sorry for getting carried away by her own pleasure in touching him that she hadn’t really been thinking about how it might affect him? Sorry for what they had done to him? She lifted his hands from her waist, and gave them a squeeze before letting go. She stood up and got out of the tub, drying her legs and wrapping the towel around her waist, clearing her throat awkwardly. “I’ll just...find you something to wear. Come out whenever you’re ready,” she said, walking on somewhat shaky legs to the adjoining room and sitting on the bed, out of sight.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. She tried to figure out what she was feeling. She was used to knowing exactly how she felt -- afraid when she thought of her time in the lab, angry when she disagreed with Scott or Jean, happy at times when she was doing what she liked. She preferred to avoid situations that had the potential to elicit more complex emotions, and it was easy to do.
Her somewhat dramatic arrival at the mansion as a half-mad girl with poison skin had been sufficient to keep most people at a distance. Even after her work with Professor Xavier, the person she felt closest to of all, had helped her contain the voices and control her skin she still kept mostly apart from others. She had a generally collegial relationship with the other team members, and she cared for them. She had avoided any romantic relationships as a complication she didn’t want or need.
She held no illusions -- her poison skin had protected her from outright rape at the lab and she knew that was more than could be said for most of the other mutants there, but enough had been done to her to color any relationship she might have. Imagine starting a first date with, “Hi, I’m Rogue, and these are all the things you and I would have to get past before we can have a fighting chance.” It was easier to just wall off that part of her that yearned for a connection, and be happy with what she had in life.
Now those easy rules she had established to govern her life were suddenly all confused. She felt a tangle of emotions in her belly -- the shame of taking advantage of a man who was not even fully aware, the joy of the previously unknown freedom of being able to touch someone so completely, the confusion of this strange connection they seemed to share...
She gave herself a mental shake. She could sort her feelings out later, her job was to help this man as best she could. He must be exhausted. Hopefully he hasn’t fallen asleep in the tub and drowned while you are out here mooning over your relationship problems, Rogue, she snarked to herself. She went into the hall to retrieve the duffel that had been left for them, and found a pair of sweatpants in roughly his size. She stepped to the open bathroom door to check on him, and -- um...okay...and oh.
He was stretched out in the tub now, head resting against the back, and he was -- touching himself. It was not like she had never seen that before, in the lab sometimes the guards would do that, pulling her hair to force her to watch. This was as different from that as she could possibly imagine.
The man seemed totally unaware of her, eyes closed and face turned partly away. She watched his hands move over his body, causing him to shudder. Soft groans escaped his lips as he moved, rubbing up into his hand. She knew she was watching something private, but she couldn’t turn away. Her eyes were drawn to his face, and the expressions of fierce pleasure she saw there.
She suddenly imagined what it would be like to be the one giving him such pleasure -- her hands on his body, his hips writhing against hers. Her breath quickened. She watched a droplet of sweat as it traveled down his neck and landed on his chest, and the urge to lick it away was so strong she took a half-step forward before she caught herself.
She wheeled away and stepped out of sight, pressing her back to the wall next to the doorway, pulse racing, frozen between competing impulses to go to him or to get a good distance away so she could think. She heard a whispered breath from him, and it sounded like, “M’ree.” She pushed herself away from the wall and went into the living room.
Logan was confused. She -- Marie -- had been close to him. All the good things that she brought -- foodwarmcomfortclean -- were nothing compared to the feel of her hands moving over his skin. He could not remember ever feeling a touch to his body that wasn’t inflicting pain -- grasping, hurting, prodding. Her touch brought nothing but pleasure -- somehow both soothing and arousing him at the same time.
He wanted to bring her closer to him. She was his. He wanted to touch her, smell her, taste her. But it must have been wrong, because she had gone away when he had done it, and he didn’t know why. She hadn’t seemed mad, but she had gone. He closed his eyes in frustration and confusion, and leaned back in the tub, feeling the warmth on his skin and drinking in the scent of him and her combined.
At the bad place he had been he was usually restrained. At times his body would become hard and he would feel the pressure, and he would press himself against the cold concrete floor until it was relieved. Now he ran a hand down his body, and was shocked at the bolt of pleasure it caused. He thought of Marie, and the way she had smelled, and looked, and tasted. He moved his hand and shuddered and groaned with pleasure as vague, half-formed thoughts ran through his mind. Thoughts of tasting her more and deeper, pushing against her, rubbing his scent on her and hers on him, marking her as his. And he breathed, “M’ree.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, so here this is. Probably overly long and slow, tangential at times, and maybe mildly kinky. Sorry for all that. ;-)
Chapter End Notes:
I do have a plan, at least for the next few chapters, and I promise that Logan will be fully coherent soon and there actually will be some plot, so stick with it if you can.