“Déjà vu.”
Rogue opened her eyes. She’d been sleeping on Wolverine’s chest, tucked against it, his arm around her sheet covered form. After he’d healed and she’d cried herself into exhaustion he’d tucked her under the sheets, lain on top on them and scooped her to him, nestling her face into his chest, which he had covered with a flannel. The sun was coming up.
Rogue looked up at him with puffy eyes. “That’s not funny.”
She still cringed at the memory of when she’d attempted to wake Wolverine from a nightmare a few days after they’d arrived at the mansion. In a start from the horrors in his mind, he’d plunged adamantium claws into her chest and she’d touched him for the first time and drained his healing factor. She’d take his power again at Liberty, again almost killing him, again healing herself at the expense of her friend.
This time she’d hurt him with his own power, not hers. It was like God was punishing her for some unknown offense. Maybe because she was born. Everything she had inside her seemed to be made for the sole purpose of hurting the one person who cared about her, not in spite of her mutation but because of it, the one person who understood was it was like to lose everything because of what you were.
“Not supposed to be funny.” He looked down at her, hazel eyes serious. “Just seems like everything comes full circle with us. I hurt you, you hurt me…”
“We both bruise too easily” she finished, and they both laughed softly. One of Wolverine’s deepest, blackest, most forbidden secrets was a love of Simon and Garfunkel. Rogue would never tell anyone. Even though she knew Wolverine would never actually kill her, if Cyclops knew about that little tidbit Rogue was quite sure Wolverine would make sure she wished she were dead. She’d probably beg him to finish her off.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, curling her hand into flannel. They hadn’t moved for hours, both needing rest after her violent, albeit unconscious, attack and the physical and emotional drain it had taken on both of them.
“I know. I am too.” He cleared his throat. “I should have tried harder to explain to you what might happen...after. You have my memories and, like my healing factor and enhanced senses, they’re a lot stronger for you than before.” In the past his tortured mind had faded from hers quickly, leaving only an echo she had filed away in the back of her mind with Xavier’s help, and she hadn’t had his dreams. Now they appeared to have taken up strong residence in her mind, just as the claws had take root in her body.
“I should have let you." She sniffed. "ButI was too busy enjoying all the good things about having you in me to pay attention,” she signed. “Do think it’s permanent...all of it?”
He let the brief thought of being in her in another way flash through his head, then turned back to the matter at hand. “I don’t know…maybe.” It had been many days since he’d last touched her skin and nothing was fading. If anything everything was that his was manifesting in her more readily.
Wolverine couldn’t bring himself to think he’d done this to her forever. Even though his intention had been to save her life, the fear of what else he’d poured into her had been there every time he’d done laid his hands on her to mend her broken body.
“Look, Rogue...I...I've been through this. Xavier taught me how to control the nightmares and to a degree, this animal inside me...not let it take over except when I need it.” He closed his eyes and his forehead scrunched at the memory. “Before him it nearly drove me crazy...I won’t let that happen to you," he said firmly and gave her sheet covered shoulder a tight squeeze, determined she would not suffer the way he had: the years of wandering, living only to eat, fight, fuck, only existing and never truly living until she got into his trailer outside Laughlin City.
“Is Xavier the only one who can help me?” Rogue buried her face in his chest again and closed her eyes to ignore the sight of his blood. She took in the smell, however, the coppery tang that was all Wolverine. “Do we have to go back now?” Rather than disturbing her, the scent was like a balm to her tattered nerves, and she felt covered in his protection even as evidence of her own carnage was pressed against her cheek.
“No.”
She looked up at him, deep brown eyes boring into his hazel ones, wanting to understand.
“No. I’m going to help you. I don’t think..." Wolverine chose his words carefully. "I don't think it will be as bad for you. The way you’ve adapted my mutation...everything is a little less than what I have. I understand it…I know how to work through the uncontrollable...to something else on the other side.” He squeezed her again, tighter this time. “Xavier taught me how to lock down the worst, keep it shut in the back of my mind...like he’s done for you...so it can’t come out at the wrong time. I don’t think you have it as much as me.” He sighed, “I hope not anyways. But I’m gonna try.”
Rogue sat up, curling her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She tilted her head onto her knees. “Ok...thank you.”
With an expected bounce Wolverine hopped out of bed and said gruffly, “Alright, lesson number one!”
Rogue tensed, afraid this was going to involve some sort of scary exercise that involved bearing her claws again. “What?”
“You’re cleaning up this mess while I take a shower.” He stripped off his flannel and filthy t-shirt and winged then right into her face, then went downstairs, leaving her to huff and strip the bed caked with his blood and her own soiled clothes to them wash in the lake.
It wasn’t a fun chore by any means and every second reminded her of the damage she had done to him and the fear she felt as she watched him almost bleed to death at her hands, and all she’d been able to do was watch and cry over what she had done. She was snapping his t-shirt over the railing with frustration when he strolled onto the porch, first beer of the day dangling from one hand. He watched for a few minutes, aware she was studiously ignoring him while she lashed out some of the upset he knew washing his blood out would create. She finally finished and stood up straight, stiffening her back as she glared at him, swiping one sweaty strand of white hair our of her face.
“Lesson two: there’s consequences when you lose control,” he said grimly. “Sorry, kid, but it’s gonna have to be this way.”
She huffed, blowing a white streak out of her face, and nodded. “And what’s lesson three?”
“Hygiene. You fucking stink. Hit the shower.” He tipped his beer at her before taking a slug.
She needed discipline…and she needed to run free and wild. The fine balance Wolverine tried to teach her over the following days was tricky, but it appealed to both the raw, feral side of his soul and the man that he’d taken so long to reclaim. So he trusted his gut that it would help her.
Tai chi in the morning, followed by mediation, before running the animals in them both ragged in the afternoons. Rogue enjoyed tai chi, the slow methodic motions, the concentration on form and flow, the slow unwinding of energy from their natural cores. She’d gotten better at it, Wolverine noted, his eyes watching her even as she focused on the positions and their purpose. His intense study of her was always from a lowered gaze, from the corner of his eye. He found it easier to keep his mind from baser thoughts during tai chi, even if the new suppleness of her movement distracted him from fully focusing the energy in his own form. It was definitely hard to move from his first chakra, the one settled in his groin, but at least he was able to keep from getting hard in front of her during sessions, barely.
Meditation proved more difficult for Rogue. She wasn’t a naturally centered or calm person, quick to anger and sarcasm, so the practice of emptying her mind was challenging to start with. Sitting on the grass with her eyes closed, she found herself falling into everything she could smell and feel, the sunshine on her skin, the scent of pollen in the air around her, the sound of small waves lapping at the lake shore. She simply didn’t have the willpower to push those wonderfully new sensations aside and empty her mind.
It didn’t help that she’d given up most of her own baggy clothes, with the exception of putting on her uniform to run in the later day and the gloves she always wore. She wore Wolverine’s shorts and t-shirts for their morning workouts. The prickle of the grass under her bare legs made her shift back and forth. It didn’t help him either as he faced her, eyes closed, talking softly as he tried to guide her through the steps of meditation.
Just like her, his enhanced senses were picking up everything, but Wolverine wasn’t noticing the mossy smell of the forest or the breeze shuffling the leaves. All he heard was her breath, the small hitches whenever she gave a small sniff, savoring the scents around her. All he smelled was the sweat from her body as the sun rose over them, warming up the day and her skin. All he could feel was the heat he was positive was radiating off her, even though he was several feet away, a safe range from her deadly skin.
Her smell, it was intoxicating, rich and earthy, with a hint of fresh citrus that made his head swim if he thought about it too long. It rolled through his nose as he breathed deeply and settled on his tongue, salty from her sweat and spicy from her natural aroma. It was visceral, the way it made him feel. Like this smell lingered in deepest recesses of his mind, naturally filling a void he hadn’t known was there until he recognized it had slipped inside. It made him feel complete.
“Wolverine?”
He grunted, keeping his eyes closed, still rolling the taste of her in his mouth.
“This isn’t working. I can’t shut it all out.”
He cracked an eye and saw she had done the same. He nodded. “Alright, maybe it’s a bit much to ask so soon. Just focus on one thing that’s at the forefront of your mind. Think about it, let it absorb you attention, memorize every detail of it, try to wrap all your senses around it. If it’s a smell try to figure out how it would feel. If it’s a sound, learn its taste.”
Shit, an I purring? Wolverine doesn’t purr damn it!
He cleared his throat. “Ok, do you have it?”
“Mmmmmm.”
What the fuck was that noise she just made?
Shit, focus you idiot.
“Ok…just let it roll over you and breathe. Concentrate on every aspect of it, let it go in your mind and observe.”
He did just that, taking slow and steady draws, inhaling more of her scent. He could already taste her clearly, so what did that smell feel like, beside insanely erotic?
Concentrate you fucking pervert..
Ok, ok. There we go. The scent…it’s soft but strong.
Like leather.
Shit, leather? That’s not relaxing!
Ok, ok, ok…fuck. Alright, leather it is.
Soft, supple.
Pliable but strong.
Protective yet aggressive.
Flexible but firm.
Raw energy of skin.
Pulse of life.
Present after death.
Feel it.
Under fingertips.
Skin stripped from flesh.
A hunt.
A long pursuit.
Scent the prey,
See it.
Stay out of its sight.
Don’t let it know.
You’re there.
Its end is drawing close.
Lunge, the chase.
It runs.
It’s afraid.
It knows you own it.
Fate.
Inevitable.
Natural.
The heat.
The catch.
Falling.
Slipping.
Torn.
Blood.
Escstasy.
Life.
Conquered.
Owned.
Tamed.
The hunter’s need.
Rogue gasped harshly, her eyes snapping open, her mind clouded from the stream of images, the feel of it all soaring through the bloodlust singing in her veins at the fantasy that had unraveled in her head in full Technicolor. Pulsing sound and feel, the smell, the taste of sweat and bloody flesh, lust roaring in her head.
Wolverine’s eyes had flashed open too.
They were panting, their vision dimmed by a final flash of tearing at a throat with bared teeth and howling in bestial satisfaction over the conquered body of prey.
Wolverine and Rogue had experienced powerful rushes of sensation and heat as they’d stalked each other in their minds and claimed dominion over the other in the most primal way. Neither was cogent of the unusual flow of thought and emotion that had flowed effortlessly between them, unaware that the scent of their own arousals had created the same dark fantasy in each other’s mind.
After a couple of minutes they both calmed down, but neither waa bout to tell the other one what they’d just been thinking, feeling, tasting.
Wolverine broke the silence first.
“Kid, it’s time you learned to hunt.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Rogue learns about what lurking inside her. And so does Wolverine.
Chapter End Notes:
Yummmmm. More to come.