Btw, I love how everyone seems to be picking up on the vibes Logan and Rogue are giving off. They're only fooling themselves...

Author's Response: Not for much longer, I suspect! Glad you are enjoying the fic, and hope I'm delivering the fix you need!

Would send money if I had any, alas I was not the winner of the recent 161 million pound lottery, no matter how much I wanted to be! so…………sad as it may be, here are words as it is all I have x

‘Here be secrets, his instincts shouted.’ And I’m shouting back ‘Yes, and Jaq knows the answers while characters and readers are being fed little teasing bits along the way!!!’ which of course is exactly how it should be and is making excellent if at the same time frustrating reading :) I really was working on my impatient side but it seems it may have been non-existent to start with!

Great chapter with its own award and special mention going to the title which having finished reading had me chuckling at its aptness. Is looking forward to chapters ‘the shit hits the fan’ , ‘all is revealed’ and ‘everything falls into place’ :)

Author's Response: I think the chapter I just posted could be quite aptly described as "the shit hits the fan", though it may not have been the precise shit you were thinking of. "All is revealed" might be a little further away yet, and can everything ever fall into place in this nasty little dystopia? Sorry I'm trying your patience ... think of me as therapy. Week by week of grit-your-teeth, "she stopped THERE?" practice...

Ooooh I love the twists you have going on here!!! I thought Mystic was the one over looking the mansion but now I wonder. (I have vowed to go reread from the beginning to get what I might have missed.) I wonder what Jean is up to, why she would want to betray the X-men. And who is Logan after anyway? Again I thought he was there after Marie but...has he been sent there after Charles?

I am really hoping for a happy ending but now I am worried.

Author's Response: It was Mystique ... sometimes I can be a bit too oblique for my own good, I think! Things will all become clear eventually, but don't expect it to be straightforward ... think wheels within wheels. Will the ending be happy? Sort of. Possibly. Of a kind.

***flinging CDN Funds - RSP's, bonds, security box contents***

So the plot thickens (amongst other things...ahem).

That scene with Scott? So very, very hot. I love it because all I kept thinking as I read it was DAMN STRAIGHT. Jean ain't the only woman that can drive a man wild with desire, thank you very much.

And what the fuck was in his eye?

I knew there was going to be some heartbreak, but it won't be pretty.

Can I just tell you that the last scene made me all kinds of happy? More because it shows that good ole Chuck is more resourceful than some of us make him out to be. Lots of different players in your story.

I am SO hooked on this story. It's my dry martini of the day. :)

Author's Response: Ooh, all the pretty paper ... I'll accept cash too, you know ;) I'm glad you enjoyed the scene with Jean and Rogue - I wasn't sure how people would take it, but it had a logic in the context I couldn't deny. I wonder if Jean's as clueless as he thinks she is, though ...

:-D ooh kinky xXx

Author's Response: No. Wolverine and Rogue - not kinky AT ALL ;)

Oh my Ms Jaq, you spin quite a tale of rip'em, tear'em Wolverine sexy goodness. Is it okay for me to just absolutely love the brutality of his love"marking"?

I shall pick this line as my favourite since it pretty much wraps up to me how Logan is feeling towards the woman he is in love with:

“Mine. Whoever you are. Whoever you become. Always mine.”

Now pass me a swatch of that red silk scarf please. Pronto. :)

Author's Response: It's definitely okay. Isn't that the most basic appeal of the feral? That possessiveness, that potential for wildness? Not necessarily brutality, but an absolute loss of control? Glad you liked the red silk :D

Just wanted to say...I envisioned Logan rolling over to the control panel and being able to use his fingers so no worries about the handcuff thingee...

;)

*fans self*

soooooo hotttt!!!

“Wolverine. What am I going to do with you?”

Oooooh I could come up with a lotta things ;)

Author's Response: So could I. Too many to write, in fact :Drn

GAH!!!

My mind has just been blown away....waiting for it to come back.....

Pepper

‘What was that vibration between them, that endless tension that they'd all seen, and felt, and explained away as hatred? More than hate, certainly. More than sex, probably. Less than love? Hank sighed, and even to his own ears it sounded troubled. Whatever it was - it was a lie. A dangerous, oozing pustule of a lie that had the potential to burst all over the X-men's tidy existence, he suspected.’


Love Beast in this chapter, his thought process, his realization and finally his dilemma. Great insight into his character, his feral side often left wanting compared to Wolverine he sometimes seems to be depicted as nothing more than a cuddly teddy and it’s nice to see more depth to him.


“Wolverine. What am I going to do with you?”


Well what a way to end! I’m sure we’ve all asked the question and I’m sure if you opened a suggestion box we could fill it full to the brim in about 1 min flat!


Great chapter as usual x

Author's Response: A suggestion box! What a great idea. We should do a fic challenge along those lines one day ... Glad you enjoyed it, and hope my ideas were as good as yours ;)

So Rogue's remember the smell of truth now, clear like a rain-washed sky? Glad to hear she likes it. Very interesting (and promising) that Prof X is the more powerful telepath compared to the Whitish Majesty - and that the Wolverine can actually be impressed by that. Not quite the stupid do-goody-do, eh, Logan?

Quite expressive little scene: "He wasn't sure what had shaken them more. His growl, or his manners."
Heh. Honour exerts an unexpected gravitation on Logan, doesn't it? Does he know that it's pulling him in, I wonder? Against his worst intentions, as it were? Quite intriguing.

Utterly surprising and opening not only an avenue, but a whole new landscape of a story is Hank's insight! Oh yes, he IS a Beast, after all, isn't he? Amazingly un-feral in his attitude, though. There Logan has put such a leash on his thoughts for the telepath's sake, and all it takes to sniff him out is one of his kind. How COULD he possibly forget? By being one of his kind, and detaching himself so muc, presumably.

I will also happily continue to congratulate you on your skill of aptly painting stage settings:"Charles shook his head silently ... Homicide didn't look likely right now" [I don't envy the Prof his job of keeping the Mansion together, doubtlessly a task that encompasses the emotional, intellectual and physical realms] "... he was reminding her of her obligations, and Rogue was generally quite professional...

“I need to see that fucking control room, right fucking now!”

… except when someone tried to give her orders. Oh dear. Hank stood stock still, then shook his head in puzzlement as Rogue refrained from hurting him." And here we see not only what everyday life at the Mansion takes, but also how well Hank at least knows Rogue. Does she realise it?

Good to see that Beast gets a role (an often needlessly neglected character), and how he suddenly comes into play - quite the background figure. I enjoy how the storyline echoes the character in this way. We also learn a lot about Wolverine's skills and ways of using them by listening to Beast here - the way he figures out a relationship by scents.

And yet he is so very different with his scientific mind and training. What is his "relationship" with the Beast-side of his nature, I wonder? And how does he keep it in check? He seems to have more "everyday" access to it, and he also seems less violent. Does that mean he needs less of the iron discipline that Logan uses to tie down his feral side, I wonder? So the Wolverine was sympathetic, and Dr. McCoy secretly wants to be more feral? Hm, that sounds a bit out of character now. To me anyway. It's true, though: McCoy's intellect is certainly sharper and clearer than Logan's, which makes it perhaps more difficult to give room to the Beast? But do all ferals actually enjoy a fight? Will McCoy slip down into the feral realm as Logan re-works himself into a truly honourable man? (Please note I avoid the term "decent" ;-)I am VERY much looking forward to Logan/Henry McCoy interactions!!!

The Wolverine might underestimate Dr. McCoy quite a bit, as he underestimated the Prof., perhaps relying too much on a fighter's assessment of people. An assassin needs to be single-minded, doesn't he? Now what's gonna happen with said assassin in a surrounding that demands a lot more foci on a huge variety of issues? Hm...
Oh yes, I am quite looking forward to your updates! :-D

Author's Response: Wow,what a review. It's the ultimate compliment when someone takes the time to think about what I've written, to question my thinking and the world building going on. Thank you so much! I'll confess that I don't actually KNOW a lot about Beast, not having read the comics and I haven't seen the new movie yet, so my assumptions are based on the little we saw in X1-3. AND all the thinking I've done about the nature of feralness. (Feraldom?) Hank's very mannered speech, his labcoat, immersion in science etc - these to me always spoke of someone keen to hide or ignore the feral side of their nature, to sublimate it. But sublimation is a bad strategy psychologically, because it denies a person a level of freedom and self-expression, and Hank is intelligent. He probably realises it is unhealthy, and being in contact with Logan shows him another possible path. Where the feral is not dominant - this Logan, in Sleeping Dogs, has it well controlled - but is not denied, either. And that would be quite appealing to a "closeted" feral, I would think. Not sure exactly how they will bounce off each other in future, but its bound to be interesting, I think.