~ flashback~
-thought-



Flashes of light



~ I feel like she almost killed me..~
~If she’d held on any longer, she could have…~

It was cold up here, wind whipping over the torch, ruffling her hair, seeping through the holes and tears in my uniform, chilling my flesh.

I was cold from the inside out, the metal I knew now coated my bones radiating chill into my muscles… even as I tugged my glove off with my teeth. I kept thinking over and over again about her face when she’d been dangling off the end of my claws, with the scent of her blood mixing with the more familiar scents of my sweat and fear.

Chuck’s words playing again and again in my head.. I’d wanted death for so long, so many times, torturing myself, using my claws to try and end the empty madness my life had been for the last fifteen years. Yet finding out that Rogue could end it, could make that deathwish a reality had made me step back from the edge. She could end it, and that was very forefront of my mind, along with her softer, drawling voice that had explained on the train, what seemed a life time ago… she could feel me inside her head.

~Ya promise?~
~Yeah, I promise~

I’d promised her I’d protect her, and I was one of those kind of guys who never made promises. It had even felt good about that promise, the look she’d given me with that challenge in her dark eyes, the hint of a smile,… how could I not have made that promise?

But now, I was holding her, too still, literally pale as death in my arms, seeking any sort of sign of life, some flicker that would save me, keep me from the edge.

There was nothing.

The Wolverine in me wanted to howl, to cry out, something in me defeated by this. I knew no one would blame me, if I scooped her up in my arms, and carried her down like this, white streaked hair sliding over her closed eyes. Eyes that would never look up at me again, never be that fixed compass point for my soul.

Eyes that would knowingly offer me the death I had once wanted, that open offer gleaming there in espresso dark irises. She knew, and if I left it like this, she would be the only one who knew the shameful secret of the Wolverine. The biggest badass walking, had tried to take his own life rather than face another day not remembering ones years past.

But even knowing that refraining from effort would harvest me no blame, no recrimination.. a promise of protection hadn’t meant I would trade my life for hers.. I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t let her go, let her slip into the embrace of darkness I had myself hoped for so many times. Even knowing she might welcome it, might feel it would free her from the prison of her life and skin, I couldn’t let the one pure light in my life be extinguished.

I couldn’t let go of the girl who had loved the wildness inside of me, and trusted the man to keep it in check. I couldn’t let her go, she had to stay.. without her, where would I go? There’d be no direction, no promises, nothing to anchor me and keep me from the darkest hours.

“C’mon kid.. you can’t go.. can’t leave me..” I barely breathed, hand pressing along her cheek. It had only taken me seconds to think all of those things, to remember flashes of light that were memories that held Rogue. Even the nightmare of seeing her impaled on adamantium, scenting her blood, held a light, a shine to it that other memories lacked.

Rogue was the candle to the lost moth of my soul. I couldn’t let the light go out.


Lips pressing to her forehead, scent of her hair in my nostrils.. no scent of death.. she can’t be dead, she doesn’t *smell* dead. Death is a bitch of a mistress, and I know her perfume well. There wasn’t a trace on Marie.. not yet.

Then suddenly the light flared, blinding me, burning me like fire, until I was transfixed, held by the force of need for fuel the light screamed for. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t make a sound. All I could do was feed the candle, and pray there was enough of me to keep it lit.

-That’s it, kid. Don’t let me down easy. Take what you need, darlin’, because otherwise none of it matters.- I thought it into the light, feeling it disappear into the heart of it, making it brighter still.


Then the light stirred, prying me away from it, and I slid into the darkness. Instead of agony and blood.. my escape was greeted with a smile.