Rogue dragged her brush through her hair roughly, promising herself for the millionth time she wouldn't let it happen again. She was losing herself to it, and she knew it.
Twelve long years had gone by since Alkali Lake, and the mansion had seen some changes. //Okay, a lot of changes.// Sure, life had gone on, but the men of the mansion hadn't been the same since Jean died.
The Professor had been as caring and supportive as he ever was...and that was what frightened her the most. He didn't grieve, he didn't cry after they'd landed. He'd told the students, but it was like he'd known some secret the rest of them didn't. She'd always had her suspicions, but she'd never voice them aloud, not at Mutant High. //Lord only knows who'd hear.// The entire student body seemed spooked, despite the Professor's best efforts to make them feel safe. Voluntary enrollment had slowly dropped off since, making the class composition almost exclusively orphans and unwanteds, and those mutants who were a danger to themselves. //Like I was.//
Her brush strokes paused as she considered herself in the mirror. Her jaw clenched as she remembered the long and tortured hours spent gaining control in that year after Jean died. She'd had to scream down the demons of her past and all her fears, and sort through the Magneto in her head. She smiled grimly. The Professor was an extraordinary man. He'd supported her through her struggle, and had sheltered her as she'd screamed and cried in German, even accepted her questions about his love affair with Erik. In the end, she'd become intimately aware of her body and had trained herself to regulate her skin. //Maybe it would've been better if I hadn't...//
She shook the thought off and resumed brushing her hair and remembering. //Scott was the worst to watch...He just fell to pieces...// The Fearless Leader had fallen, and in his place had risen a cold and broken man. He'd mourned for years, unable to do anything beyond the most basic daily routine. Rogue hadn't noticed at the time, but no one had reached out to him. Except for Ororo. 'Ro had helped Scott take the first steps to living again, and then completed the journey to loving again. The two of them were each other's strength, and it seemed right. Two powerful strong people like them belonged together. Jean was never forgotten, but her ghost didn't haunt the two of them.
//Haunted. I'm the one who's...// She turned away from the mirror, carelessly dropping the brush on her vanity. She didn't want to think about being haunted, didn't want to remember the depths that she'd sunk to...
She could still hear his voice, that first night eleven years ago. The anniversary of Jean's death. He'd come to her door, so quietly...
Eleven years ago...
Rogue sat up abruptly in bed, unsure what had woken her. Glancing around the room, she took quick inventory -- window closed, no alarms going off. She ran her hand through her hair, sinking back into the sheets when she heard it again.
Knocking, so softly, on her door. Throwing off the covers, she slipped into her robe and opened the door.
"Marie..." Logan stood there, framed by shadows, but none deeper than the ones in his eyes. "I just...can I...?"
She stood aside and gestured for him to come in, closing the door behind him. Flicking on the soft bedside lamp, she stood looking at him standing awkwardly in the middle of her room. "Logan, pick somewhere to sit down, will you? You're making me nervous." He nodded, sitting at her windowseat. "Thank you," she said as she joined him. "Now, shall I just guess, or will you actually talk to me this time?"
He sighed. "I'm sorry, Marie...it was just hard to talk about it..."
"For a year, Logan? You've been brushing me off for a damn year."
"I know, and I'm sorry."
She smiled softly. "It's okay. I understand."
So softly, he replied, "I know...and that's why I came to you." He met her gaze for the first time since entering the room. "I don't know how I feel about her anymore, and that...I don't know what to do with that."
The familiar sting settled in her heart as she resumed her role as sexless best friend. "What do you mean? I thought you were so in love with her." The words felt like venom on her tongue. //Lords, Logan, the things I do for you...//
"And I was. But she...she chose him, damn it, and I don't know what to do about that. I can't even change her mind."
"Logan, that doesn't make you a bad person. You just wanted her to love you." She looked out the window at the night sky as she continued. "You wanted someone to look at you and see right through to the core of you, to see the kind of person you are and to love you for it. To make you feel worthy, and precious. And safe and cared for. Protected. Accepted. You wanted someone to hold you at night and help chase the demons out of your head...someone who wouldn't be scared..."
She shook herself. "You thought she was your chance, and she's gone, and part of you hates her for leaving before she told you you're an okay guy." She met his gaze. "Am I right?"
This time, he looked away. "Yeah, I guess you are." He shook his head. "Pretty pathetic, huh."
"No," she said firmly. "Human."
He nodded, staring out at the stars.
"Better?" she asked.
"Mm-hmm."
"Good." She yawned. "Cuz I'm goin' back to bed. G'night, sugar." Matching deed to word, she crawled back into her bed and drifted off to sleep.
He sat at the window till dawn, watching the night bleed away into day.
--- end flashback ---
He'd kept coming back, night after night. Just talking, needing someone to listen. He was the same arrogant Wolverine by day, but by night, he was just as lost and lonely as Scott had been. They'd spoken of Jean often in those first days, of how he'd been drawn to her from the start. They'd joked of how Logan's inner bad boy had been drawn to her as the manifestation of the upper class girl he never thought he'd deserve. And somehow that joking had helped him through, until one night he didn't speak of Jean. In fact, he hadn't spoken at all as he entered the room.
He'd grasped Marie's waist and pulled her to him, kissing her passionately. And Marie had readily fallen into his arms.
They made love that night, and it was beautiful...all that she'd dreamed and more.
But he never said her name.
It should've tipped her off. She should've been more wary. But instead, all she saw and felt was the man she loved making love to her, and any nagging fears had fallen away, unheeded.
She liked to believe that it didn't start out the way it would end, but she knew better.
For Logan, it was sex. It was acceptance and caring the only way he knew how to get it. And she, fool that she was, gave it to him freely, mistaking it for love. Wanting so badly for it to be love.
But in eleven years, it hadn't changed. By night, they were passionate lovers...but by day, she was still just the kid, the sexless best friend, didn't matter that she was thirty years old.
She'd resolved not to let him in tonight. Promised herself that tonight would be the night she would reclaim her self-esteem and tell him to go.
It wasn't the first time she'd promised that. And every time she failed, she lost a little more of herself.
This time she knew how she'd keep her promise.
She checked the clock. //More than enough time.// She grabbed the glass of water she'd put on her nightstand, downed the bottle of painkillers she'd stolen from the MedLab, and locked her door.
Her own words to him so long ago haunted her -- "You just wanted her to love you." That's all Rogue had wanted, Logan's love. The sex could just go to hell.
He rolled off his bed, certain he'd waited long enough for everyone to be asleep. No one knew what he did every night, and he didn't want them to know. He wasn't proud of himself, but he took what he could get, just to feel alive for a little while. Jean had taken his chance at redemption with her when she died, so the best he could get was acceptance and comfort from Marie.
He knew it wasn't fair, making her second best, playing on her love for him. But he needed it, craved it. Somewhere in the softness of Marie's arms he could pretend it was all okay, that he was more than just a monster with claws.
He walked down the hallway to her room, avoiding the loose floorboards that he now knew by heart. His hand went to the doorknob as he unconsciously sniffed the air.
//Something's wrong. Door's locked.// He knocked softly. //Maybe she's sleepin'?// It had happened a couple of times. He smiled slightly. She'd always felt bad when she'd locked him out, and the sex had been particularly good afterwards. He sniffed again. //Holy shit.//
He smelled death.
//To hell with not waking up the neighbors.// ::Snikt:: He clawed the doorknob off and knocked the door in. "Marie!"
She lay on the bed, looking so peaceful, in his favorite black nightie, her hair shining and laid loose on the pillow. He ran to her side, laying his hands on the side of her face. He flashed back to their first night at the school as he screamed, "Help me! Somebody, help me!" //Her skin's so cold...Marie...// The pull refused to start, and he knew. He'd taken too much. He'd pulled her down into his despair and climbed out over her --
Footsteps pounded down the hallway...one of her friends..."Jubilee?" he questioned. The woman nodded. "Do you know...why she would...now...oh god..." Tears he never thought he'd shed spilled down his cheeks. Jubilee approached him, laying her hand on his shoulder as Hank McCoy, the doctor, entered the room. They backed away as Hank shook his head sadly. Logan laid his head on Jubilee's shoulder, inhaling the scent of a new perfume, dying a little inside as he held her.
He knew it was only a matter of time before he learned a new path to a new destination down the hall.
Haunted, Evanescence
long lost words whisper slowly to me
still can't find what keeps me here
when all this time i've been so hollow inside
i know you're still there
watching me wanting me
i can feel you pull me down
fearing you loving you
i won't let you pull me down
hunting you i can smell you - alive
your heart pounding in my head
watching me wanting me
i can feel you pull me down
saving me raping me
watching me
watching me wanting me
i can feel you pull me down
fearing you loving you
i won't let you pull me down
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Major X2 spoiler, so stay out if you don't want to know! Text in // // are thoughts.