“Fever Dreams” – Westchester, 2024, Revised Timeline
A down blanket. Feathers packed and compressed, hot and heavy over her limbs. Tissues gracing the surface of the newly-purchased nightstand. A thermometer, still warm from her tongue. A bottle of cough syrup, still opened and cap lying haphazardly among the rest. And his breath near her ear, where was that? The scent of him close, but missing all of the sudden. The sheets were barely used, too new, and with her throat on fire and her nose congested, she had lost his essence in the feelings of hot and throb and ache. Rogue moaned into the pillow, frustration mounting with each passing moment. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. She knew that boxes still stood stacked around the place. She knew that the drawers in the dresser were still partially open, the conversation of what to put where now on hold. This room was a blank slate, all those marks, all the evidence left behind in their old rooms in order to soldier forth in this new life together. A life shared. But, right now, also a life stalled. All she could do was lay in bed. Damn this fucking cold.
Last night they had finally moved their things in, staring at each other like giddy teenagers as he had set down the last of the boxes. They had shared take-out, dim sum, and they had watched Donnie Darko until the movie got blurry, and her joints had started throbbing, and then came the miserable fever, and she remembered his soft murmurs into her hair, his fingers stroking her back, as he picked her up and lay her down gently in the bed they hadn’t yet used, hadn’t yet moved together in. She wasn’t sure when she had fallen asleep, but through waves of waking consciousness, she remembered asking him to cover her classes today. She remembered the worried look in his eyes, the lingering warmth of his body.
Another groan. Another sneeze. Rogue managed to bring up a hand to her forehead, only to find it hot. All she could feel was the fever in her bones, the weight in her lungs, her mind weighed down, tethered to all the rest. Her lover never fell ill—What was that like? To never be sick?—but she wondered if perhaps he experienced something like it, all the same. Did illness bring you closer to your visceral self? The self with lines and boundaries, unlike the mind, a self where you began and ended? A body, the animalistic base, a thoughtless, instinctual core. Weren’t they all desperate? Hard up and pleading for another dump of dopamine, a simple, physical reaction the body lorded over a whirling, overreaching mind. Her body demanded attention, and when she was sick she felt it. Maybe he felt like that all the time, the tug and the pull, always susceptible to something deeper, to the promises that the senses of taste and smell and feel provided.
She had now run her fingers over both sides of the same coin, back and forth. His two selves: one rutting and possessive and pure instinct, eager to fill her in every sense, and the other all consideration and calculation and cunning thought, but also more empathetic and loving and tender than most people would give him credit for. She didn’t need to guess to know that it took a lot for him to share both selves with her, particularly the animal that he kept so tightly tethered, especially when he had tried so hard to nurture more of the man for her, but, still when he shared both…when he did, oh how he did.
Two selves, but also now two different men she remembered, one before the jump and one after. The man whose knuckles she had murmured a secret into, a gentle goodbye to someone she had used to know. And when she had taken in this new version of him? When she had seen things, glimpses of memories of that life he had left behind? I would have feasted on you. Whispers in the night, dark in underground bunkers, the world on fire. And what else had he seen with those eyes? What had he witnessed that had emblazoned a permanent fierceness there, even more wild than before? She knew that her different self had betrayed him somehow. He still trusted her, deep down she knew he did, but, sometimes, in the deep dark of night, she wondered if his heart wasn’t still broken. The other Marie had hurt him somehow, and hurt him bad.
And even as this Logan and this Rogue now moved together, even as they now carefully lowered their cards closer to the table, slowly revealing their hands to one another, she understood that, in part, she was making up for something her former self had done or maybe had not done. And that scared her. Because, this love, this love, was a kind that was all-consuming. A love heavy like the down that covered her, like the ache in her bones, a love neither of them could truly comprehend, and yet a love that was now changing them both. And now here they were, on the precipice of a new chapter of a life shared together. A life with a potential future, and not one shaded, at least not entirely, by the past or their former selves.
Rogue turned over in bed miserably, head swimming as she struggled to breathe. She regretted asking him to cover her classes now. She just wanted him back. She hated being by herself, especially when she felt like this. Inhaling deeply, she searched for his scent once more. Where was it? Wait…just there. As her vision flickered in and out of focus, she finally zeroed in on a fresh mug of tea being set down amidst the Kleenex on the nightstand, and instantly his warmth was there again, his voice hovering just beyond her. He was back.
“Hanging in there, kid?” he murmured, lips barely brushing her ear. God, that voice. As she willed her vision to sharpen, his face finally came into focus. Pieces of dark hair across his forehead. His warm, hazel eyes laced with concern.
“I hate anyone who feels well,” she muttered. His laugh was electric. How perfect he was. How timeless. He was so certain he was somehow not otherworldly— not some kind of god, that’s what he had said— but…he wasn’t like the rest of them. The rest of the humans, or mutants even. For one, he looked the same. Apart from a few grey strands that graced his temples, he might as well have been the same, smug man offering her a beer when she had turned eighteen—I’m not old enough yet—and he had given her that telltale arched eyebrow of rebellion—Who gives a fuck? You gonna let some backassward law tell you how to live your life? Rogue’s eyes narrowed, a sudden, new wave of jealousy overwhelming her as she stared at him now, always the picture of health. Damn his perfection.
“And I especially hate people who have never been sick a day in their life,” she muttered. Logan offered her another guilty smirk, even as she struggled to sit up through a pout and he helped her do so. Then he was pressing a warm palm to her even warmer forehead, and she couldn’t help but close her eyes involuntarily.
“You’re flushed, darlin’,” he murmured, that same concern now back on his features. The perfect word to describe it. Flushed. Fevered. Love sick. She looked at him intently, and she knew he could smell her arousal on her, but his concern for her wellbeing seemed to overpower any other plans he might have had for her. Rogue sighed, discontent, as she finally noticed the books still in his other hand, recalling again what she had asked him to do.
“Did class go ok at least? Were you sure to bring up…bring up the themes of existentialism….in…in the…Ahchoo!” she sneezed, although she noticed he didn’t lean back to avoid it and offered her a fresh tissue instead.
“I gave ‘em the rest of the day off,” he mumbled.
“You what?” she said, rational mind now steadily rising to the surface as she realized what he was saying.
“Hell, Marie, you’re gonna work everyone to the bone around here, including yourself,” he muttered, plopping down the books on the edge of the bed and moving one hand to her other side so he was partially leaning over her. She wiped her nose with the tissue without the slightest bit of grace before miserably looking up at him once more.
“Maybe you’re right,” she finally muttered.
“I know I’m right,” he said.
“Mourn me at my funeral,” she grumbled, flopping back once more into the pile of pillows behind her. Again, that electric laugh, as he moved to squeeze one of her thighs slightly.
“No one’s dyin’ kid,” he practically growled, before just barely kissing her cheek.
“What about all this?” she gestured around the room, frowning once more. “We didn’t even decide which part of the closet was ours.” Another smirk from his lips.
“It can wait,” he muttered, just as she loudly sneezed once more. Again, the look of worry on his face. “Can I get ya something else though? Soup perhaps?”
“Ugh, no. I don’t eat any soup but the kind I make. I hate the canned crap,” she muttered. She could feel smile tug at his mouth at her obvious pomposity.
“Hey, I care about my family’s recipes. It was the kind my mom made me when I was little,” she defended herself.
“The same family that kicked you out?” he shot back, and she offered him nothing but a sharp, menacing glare.
“Alright, alright. Well darlin’, then you’re shit out of luck,” he sighed, looking around slightly, before she practically saw the idea bloom on his features. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” she asked, perking a bit in curiosity. He offered her a wide grin, before his arms were moving underneath her and he was scooping her up, blankets and all.
“Logan! What the hell are you doing?” she asked, even as something inside her settled, contently breathing his proximity in as he brought her closer to his chest.
“You’ll see,” he said, easily carrying her out of their room and down the hall. If she felt any less miserable, maybe she would have been embarrassed, but that feeling seemed beyond her and luckily no one seemed to be much around. And then, they were in the empty faculty kitchen, the mid-afternoon light muffled by the falling snow outside, and he was plopping her in a stool and her heart only ached a little from the feeling of him releasing her. He rubbed his hands together, smiling widely.
“Tell me what to do,” he said, eyes on fire.
“What?” she asked, looking blank.
“Right here, baby. A pair of willing hands. Tell me what to do with them,” he said through a smirk and lifted arms, and she couldn’t help but blush slightly through her already-flushed cheeks at his innuendo. God, how did he have the ability to turn her into a flustered school girl again? Get a fucking grip, Marie. Rogue. Whoever can pull you out of this fucking stupor.
“You’re intolerable today…” she muttered, before sneezing forcefully. He instantly slid her a box of tissues across the kitchen island she hadn’t even noticed he had snagged from their bedroom, and she offered him an appreciating smile, despite her wariness at his confounded plan. “It’s not that simple,” she murmured, and Logan’s eyes narrowed, sniffing out a challenge.
“Try me,” he said daringly.
“Ugh, ok. Turn on the stove,” she muttered.
“How high?” he asked, whipping around behind him to the gas stove, the same stove that she had attempted, and failed to make pecan pie on that sweet, fateful night.
“Put the flame on medium,” she said, but as she saw him crank it up, she muttered… “I said medium.”
“Well there are no numbers on this shit so how do you even know what medium is?” he muttered, a tinge of frustration in his voice, even as he turned the knob back towards the left and the flame died a little.
“That’s better,” she murmured.
“Ok what else?” he asked, excitement coming back into his voice.
Only ten minutes later, they found themselves surrounded by a myriad of vegetables, Logan dutifully chopping celery and garlic and tomatoes with a kitchen knife, oddly precise and repetitive in his movements. Marie couldn’t help but watch the muscles in his forearm tense as he moved the knife, even as she relished in the smells boiling from the broth on the stove. Vegetable soup was about all she might be able to stomach, even as they both knew she was here more for the mirth rather than the food. Then, she watched him grab a Vidalia onion off the counter, one of the few vegetables left to chop, and she tried not to hold her breath as he started cutting into it, skin and all, before stopping, quicker than most people might.
“Holy fuck,” he said, recoiling as he dropped the utensil and stumbled back a couple of paces. And then, just there, out of the corner of his eyes, tears. Rogue felt her mouth turn upward into a small smile. She had never seen him shed a tear, in any sort of capacity, involuntarily or otherwise, and her heart practically leapt in a strange sensation as she watched him wipe his eyes frustratingly.
“I can’t imagine how that feels for you right now, with those heightened senses and all,” she said amusingly. He growled at her teasing, still standing as far as he could from the enzymes the onion had released.
“It’s fucking chemical warfare,” he said, covering his nose with his hand. Marie smiled a little, despite how miserable she still felt, and motioned toward her.
“Hand it over. You work on the rest,” she said. He grimaced, pushing the cutting board across the kitchen island with a frustrated shove.
“You know,” she said, as she began chopping the onion quickly and from an arm’s length of distance, “If you hold a match between your teeth, you won’t cry,” she murmured through a small smile as an image of her mother in the kitchen doing that very thing filled her mind.
“I’m not crying. Hell,” Logan grumbled, wiping his eyes again. “I think it’s better if we just stay away from the fuckers from now on,” he added, even as he poured the rest of the vegetables into the simmering pot on the stove. Rogue only barely smiled, rhythmically slicing the vegetable in front of her, taking in the pungent aroma.
The kitchen was warm, steamy, as the soup boiled and Logan gently stirred, a certain grace in his movements she found herself silently appreciating. She knew he hated it, and she would never tell him, but she thought cooking somehow fit him. Such a physical act, sense-based. Everything so dependent on how something smelled or tasted or felt, an activity perfectly suited for his natural skill set. Marie smiled hazily at this, even as a new wave of misery from her fever flowed over her. The kitchen was hot, stuffy, intoxicating.
Logan had been preoccupied with the stove, staring at the pot even as Rogue found herself involuntarily laying her head down on the cool marble of the kitchen island, grateful for something cold to feel underneath her warm skin.
“Hey, how long is it supposed to fucking boil like this, because I feel like it’s gonna go over the edge….Rogue?” he said, and when she didn’t respond, he added, “Marie?” finally turning around.
“Just… let it simmer,” she heard herself groggily respond. Logan frowned as he stared at her slumped form, arms crossing at his chest in discomfort.
“Hey. You not up for this anymore?” he mumbled.
“Mmmmm?” she asked, murmuring into the cool marble, the room now spinning around her.
“Hell, kid. C’mere,” he said, and she heard the snap of the burner turning off and he was walking around the kitchen island again to where she was, and she couldn’t help but lean into him as he picked her up again, feeling his warmth, soothed by the constant hum of his body, always moving, senses alive and aware and good and right, just underneath his skin.
“S’okay,” he murmured into her ear, and she smiled slightly, even as he walked them out of the kitchen. She felt her legs dangling as he carried her up the stairs through the empty hallways. As finally he made their way to the door, and despite the lacking nuptials the symbolism was still not lost on her as he carried her through the threshold. And then they were inside the mostly-empty room, things still packed up and waiting to take their place in this new life, a paranoia came back to her.
“You really want to live with me?” she was murmuring, voice quiet and unsure, as he gently set her down on her side of the bed. Always the left. When they walked next to each other, it was the same way. Always she on the left, and he on the right. When had they fallen into that pattern?
“There’s no other way I would want it, baby,” he muttered.
“But…what about all the little things?” she heard herself say.
“Whatcha talking about, kid?” he asked quizzically, even as he brushed a strand of her hair from her face and tucked it back behind her ear. Fever. Flush. Feeling. Force.
“My hair’s long,” she found herself moaning. “When it sheds it clogs the shower drain. I leave half-empty glasses of water all over the place, and I’m not in the habit of picking them up again. And I have a nasty pattern of losing hair ties, and they appear in random places all over the place later.” She heard himself chuckling slightly as he shifted to the right side, sitting on the bed next to her.
“Well, in that case…” he trailed off through a laugh.
“I mean it,” she barked back, snapping her eyes open and trying to sit up a bit. “I’m being serious.” She looked into his eyes, and he held her gaze more carefully.
“I know,” he mumbled, leaning closer to her and murmuring the rest. “But don’t ya see, darling? That’s just another layer of you. Another way in.”
“You really wanna know all that stuff?” she was saying, and she heard him growl low and deep in response, and a quiver of something feeling like want shot through her belly and then downward.
“There’s nothing about ya I don’t want to know, kid,” he muttered.
“What about you?” she was whispering next to him.
“I think you’ve had a closer look at what my baggage is than I've had of yours,” he said through a small frown, even as Rogue was already shaking her head.
“No. That’s just…an echo. Not how you are here, now,” she said, biting her bottom lip slightly, before adding, “You can’t get sick.” Even as the words escaped her mouth, sure wasn’t sure why she said this. They both already obviously knew it, but it somehow felt daring, provocative even, to utter the words out loud.
“Nope,” he said to her simply.
“What’s that feel like then?” she asked, despite herself. She could feel him frowning a bit again, although he still remained close.
“Marie, I can open myself up, split the skin from inner wrist to upper arm, and it wouldn’t matter,” he muttered, a little too bitterly.
“You’ve done that before?” she barely whispered. He hesitated, as he cast his eyes downward.
“Yes. More than once,” he murmured truthfully. Marie was now the one frowning.
“And how does that feel?” she asked.
“Fucking hurts,” he murmured through a small smile, and she couldn’t help but grin a little in return at his macabre humor.
“You know, I’d like to think…” she stopped, thinking hard about what she wanted to say. “I know it doesn't work that hard to keep going just for me, but boy do I sure as hell benefit,” she mumbled through a blush.
"Hell, kid. It might as well be for you. Don't know what else I'm still around for at this point anyway," he muttered.
"Good," she murmured. She looked at him intently, and his dark eyes matched hers, round and knowing. "Because I do want it all for me. I want every morsel. Every goddamn drop. Every tiny piece of you. Does that make me selfish?" she whispered, but he didn’t respond with any sound that was traditionally human. His hands were on her body then, a growl in her ears, and she had him, won him over again from caretaker to lover. Love sick. Flushed. That right kind of ill, ill for him, ill for a life she wanted, even that she now had.
And then it was the feel of his breath on her, hot and warm, hands gripping her as he slid the silk of her nightgown off her shoulders and then her body, the ambient cold nipping at her breasts, making the nipples turn up, ribs harshly sucking air in, and he practically purred as he watched her transform underneath him.
“Logan…” she breathed, but then she was feeling his mouth take one nipple in, his lips and teeth making contact with the sensitive flesh, and he was sending waves through her spine. When he finally let go, she heard him barely murmuring a “just lay still for me, ok?” through gritted teeth, as he moved upward once more, lips grazing the side of her neck, teeth gently sliding over her pulse, the beat, the rhythm hot and steady and loud, pulsating through them both. And then he was flicking a sheer scarf that had been hung off of somewhere, running it over her skin with his hand.
And then, he was moving downward—down, down, down— his tongue magnetized, knowingly settling itself between her legs, and she could feel his beard making contact with her own curls ther as he licked upward, finding his path to her center, and then he was undoing her, desperately murmuring his silent prayers in between her legs, whispering his transgressions as she quaked around him. She could hear herself whimpering, a quiet “sugar” escaping her lips, as he licked her thigh, nipped her clit, invaded her gently with his tongue.
“Quiet,” he stopped momentarily to murmur into her, and that was the last time he spoke. The rest seemed to be understood without the words. You have it, same as me. Let it take you.
And then, the scarf, a thin, barely-there barrier, tongue licking her through its threads, she knew what he was inviting her to do, what he was truly saying. It’s safe. You’re safe. Tongue dampening the fabric immediately, texture and saliva and wet and rough as it ran flush with her sex, her heat, and she practically bucked underneath with the pressure as he hit that spot, relentless, again and again.
And then that metallic hiss, that tantalizing slide. The warm feeling of a drop or two of hot liquid, he unable to stop his own blood dripping onto her abdomen from his hand. He was giving her something she rarely asked for, but wanted more than she’d care to admit. Her hand reached out warily, fingers gracing the dull side of one of the blades, a mixture of awe and lust threaded into her every fiber, as then, slowly, a dull, flat edge of the blade ran down her body, and she shuddered. He drew them lower, down the flat planes of her empty stomach, up and over one thigh, and then between her legs, and oh god there…and she was spiraling out of control.
The feel of warm metal over skin, liquefying, melting, becoming one with her in every way possible, the feeling of transcendence… her gasps ragged and uneven as she struggled to take in air, as he practically forbid her to breathe, the mere notion of taking another breath too selfish to even consider.
Dancing voices, spinning images, all the dreams of a life other than hers. Marie was there typically, soft gentle Marie, who liked books and sandalwood and the smell of men. Simple Marie. Little Marie. But it was Rogue who held the cards, Rogue who decided to set them down finally on the green felt of that poker table they called life. Logan summoned Rogue sometimes and the strong woman, the woman deep inside her, always responded.
The buzz waxed and waned, her control slipping even more, as Rogue willingly let the wall crumble in front of her very eyes, even as Marie cried out in warning. Rogue reassured her. He can handle it. He can handle anything. The feeling of flickering, sputtering out, as his free hand tightened on her leg and the metal pressed harder between her with the other, and then the feel of her skin on, now alit, the song she kept in her head forgotten. Her body now demanded attention, starving to regain its power in order to match his own strength. And it was all that she needed, all she deserved, and there was nothing left but the feeling of metal on skin, the sharp against the soft, the unnatural against the blood-born, and then the empty, full feeling of release.
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse. Rhythm, rhythm. Forever in tune. Now: a different song. Natural and all-consuming. His mind forever hers, his body all inside her, all of them now one. Lord, lord. Please help them both.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Smut Warning: This one’s pretty sexually mature in content. Again, no sexual scenarios other popular authors writing this ship haven’t already explored, but you’ve been warned.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading, folks! This one will continue to be updated, but I wanted to let ya know the status of a couple of new longer fics I'm working on, both coming soon.
"Twelve" - A sequel to Fray, taking place pretty much right after the end of the original story
"Engines" - A Rogan AU that's a bit faster paced and grittier
Both will have first chapters posted next week. :D Until then, be well!
"Twelve" - A sequel to Fray, taking place pretty much right after the end of the original story
"Engines" - A Rogan AU that's a bit faster paced and grittier
Both will have first chapters posted next week. :D Until then, be well!