For once, the nightmare was her own. Hands grabbed her from behind, gripping her arms painfully. Her knees hurt where the gravel and dirt of the alley ground into them. Suddenly she was spun around and looking up into stormy grey eyes. Long blond hair framed a face that was attractive, not beautiful, while pale lips were pulled back in a sneer.
“Don’t worry. You’ll like it, bitch,” the woman above her said.
Rogue felt the fear inside her build as the woman reached out a bare hand to touch her face. The scream ripped from her throat felt as if it would never end, even as the hand came closer. Manicured nails and soft skin met the smooth surface of her cheek, and the pull began. Rogue’s scream grew louder.
“Marie! Wake up!”
Rogue looked down at the lifeless body at her feet. The hair shone in the streetlights, spread out over the ground in a silky pool. Lifeless grey eyes stared up at her, and the mouth was open in shock. Then a stiff hand reached up and grabbed her bare one, and those dead eyes stared into hers.
“Mine,” the corpse said.
“No! I didn’t want this!” Rogue shouted, trying to push Carol’s body away.
“Rogue! Wake up now!”
Rogue’s eyes popped open. The panic and terror from her dream faded as she recognized the two people in her room, leaning over her bed. Their worried expressions eased only a little as she sat up, pulling the blanket around her to cover her bare shoulders.
“Did I wake up the whole mansion again?” she asked wryly, letting an eyebrow tilt up.
“No, just us,” Logan said, sitting down at the edge of her bed.
Rogue grinned at him to hide how shaken the dream had left her. “Well, between the two of us, I’m sure we could do it if we tried. What d’ya say, Logan? Tomorrow night we try for some really terrifying screams? I think it’s close enough to Halloween to get the kids good and scared. We could start claiming the School’s haunted. They’d love it,” she said, taking his gloved hand in hers. He’d come prepared, it seemed.
“I don’t think it’s something we can plan, Marie, but it sounds fun anyway,” he replied, giving her fingers a squeeze.
“Was it Carol?” Ororo asked, stepping forward. Rogue’s relationship with Ororo was still somewhat strained because she couldn’t quite forgive the older woman for refusing to understand her need to take the cure, but they had an uneasy truce of sorts.
“It was. Keeping her under control is tough. I think she chooses to keep most of her strength for my dreams, though, where she can really fuck with my head,” Rogue said slowly, some of her bitterness seeping out.
Ororo and Logan exchanged a glance. “We’re trying to find a telepath who might be able to help you, Rogue, but it seems that most telepaths are driven mad by the voices in their heads if they don’t get help with control from early childhood. Xavier was the only one who trained himself, so far as we know, and the others that he found all turned out to be too old when he started training them to keep them from going completely insane later in life,” Ororo said. Left unspoken were the words “like Jean.”
“The mental exercises he taught me help, but I think I’m just different enough from a telepath that they’ll never be completely successful. I don’t hear voices from outside; I hear voices that are already residents inside my head,” Rogue said with a twist of her lips that might have been called a smile, if the observer was feeling generous.
The nightmares began the night after Rogue absorbed Carol. They didn’t appear every night. She had managed relatively peaceful sleep three nights out of the last week. The dreams were never the same, with one exception: each time, Rogue killed Carol and then was taunted by her dead or dying body.
“We’ll keep looking, Marie. We’ll find someone,” Logan said confidently.
Rogue nodded to reassure them, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath. It was looking like she would be stuck with a strong “alternate personality” in her mind for the rest of her life. The Professor mentioned something like that to her once; if she drained someone to the point of death, she would get more than just a few memories. It was starting to look like he’d been close to the truth. His only mistake was in assuming that the physical death of her victim would be the catalyst for the personality and powers to become a permanent part of her.
“I don’t think I’ll be getting back to sleep any time soon,” Rogue said, changing the subject. “Anyone want to join me downstairs for a midnight snack?”
Ororo shook her head. “I’d better get back to bed. The mornings start too early these days,” she said, although she looked reluctant to leave if Rogue was still upset.
Rogue smiled at her, feeling better now that the nightmare was fading into the mists where dreams belong. “If you need help, ‘Ro, let me know,” she said.
The older woman agreed with a considering gleam in her eye as she quietly slipped out of the room. Logan looked at Rogue and shook his head.
“You’re never going to get rid of her now. She’ll find plenty of ‘chores’ for you to do,” he told her as he stood up and pulled her to her feet as well.
Rogue grinned as she pulled on a robe that matched her silky green pajamas. “That’s okay. None of the classes offered for the winter semester at the community college interest me, so I might as well find something interesting to do around here,” she said with a shrug.
Logan answered her shrug with one of his own. “Your choice, Marie. So, what’re you going to make for our midnight snack?” he asked as she led the way out of her room.
Rogue slid a sly glance back at him. “I’ll make the sandwiches if you get me a beer,” she said.
Logan slung an arm around her shoulders and said, “Shhh. Don’t say that so loud or ‘Ro might hear, and then you won’t get your beer.”
They made their way to the kitchen as silently as possible when traversing dark hallways. Rogue found the light switch as Logan headed unerringly for the refrigerator. He opened the door and began handing her sliced meat, cheese and condiments. Rogue took the items with amusement and went to the breadbox while he got out the beers and popped the tops.
“What, no tomatoes?” Rogue asked with a smile as she began to build the sandwiches.
“Nah, we’re out. Maybe ‘Ro will have you pick some up at the grocery store tomorrow,” Logan drawled as he sat down at the table with the beers.
Rogue rolled her eyes. “If she does, I’ll go. Now, eat your sandwich,” she said, sliding it deftly onto one of the paper plates stacked on the counter and plunking it down in front of him.
“So you really want to be the school’s errand girl?” he asked as she joined him with her own plate.
Rogue took a big bite as she nodded. She chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with a swig of beer before saying, “I don’t mind, really. I think ‘Ro might let me help with the administrative part of things, and I’ve got to admit that I like the thought of that, in a weird way.”
Logan shot her a skeptical look. “You want to be a secretary?”
Rogue shrugged. “Sure, why not? I don’t think many of the students would be comfortable with me as a teacher. We were all in school together not that long ago, and I haven’t even started college yet. ‘Ro would probably get in trouble if she actually let the parents know the ages of her new ‘teachers.’ I don’t want to teach, anyway. I never did. I would have offered to help ‘Ro after the shit hit the fan, but…I don’t think she would have accepted me back then. It’s taken her a week to allow herself to feel any sympathy for me because the cure didn’t work, and even then I think she’s just sorry that my mutation came back when it did,” she said wryly.
“You’ll have to give them time,” Logan said, being purposefully vague. “You shouldn’t have to, but you do. Just keep being yourself, and they’ll get over it.”
“Fine thing for the school’s most disliked instructor to say,” Rogue said with a laugh.
“Everyone knows that the phys ed teacher is a demon, darlin’, no matter what school you go to. It’s a good thing for me to be disliked. That means I’m doing my job. Only the masochists like the one pushing them to put themselves through more pain,” he said, pointing his bottle at her before taking a drink.
“Well, then, I guess that makes me a masochist, ‘cause I like you,” she said, giving him a smile. “Of course, with the invulnerability I have now, I don’t feel sore muscles, so maybe I’m just able to ignore that part of you.”
Logan sighed and shook his head. “A man doesn’t get any respect around here,” he said, then settled in to demolish the rest of his sandwich. Rogue followed suit. When their sandwiches were finished, they dumped the plates in the sink and their bottles in the trash can.
“You in the mood for a movie?” Rogue asked, hesitating at the stairs.
Logan shook his head. “You have to sleep sometime, Marie. I’ve learned that. C’mon, I’ll tuck you in,” he said, giving her a little push to get up the first step.
Rogue snorted. “Logan, you’d make a terrible nanny,” she said, reluctantly allowing herself to be prodded forward.
“I’ve never had any complaints by women I’ve put to bed before,” he said, giving her his most salacious grin.
Rogue rolled her eyes. “I’m not even going to think about that,” she said with a shake of her head and a soft laugh. They continued up the stairs to their respective rooms as quietly as possible.
“Good night, Logan,” Rogue whispered as she slipped into her room.
She barely caught the returned, “Good night, Marie,” as she shut the door.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
The sequel to "A Little Fun."
Disclaimers: Marvel and Fox own the characters. If they’d sell them to me, I’d buy them, but they won’t. Too bad.
Disclaimers: Marvel and Fox own the characters. If they’d sell them to me, I’d buy them, but they won’t. Too bad.