When the man emerged from the master bedroom, he was wearing the sweatpants. Marie blinked in surprise, realizing she must have dropped them by the bathroom door. Again she wondered if his mind was clearing, or if it was just wishful thinking on her part.
He was looking at her somewhat uncertainly, and she gave him an encouraging smile. “We should go to bed now,” she said, and then blushed. “I mean, we should go to sleep. Sleep. You can sleep in there. Here, I’ll show you.” She walked him back into the bedroom, and turned back the covers. She sat him down on the bed. “You can lie down here, okay? Sleep.” He lay back, and she pulled the covers up over him. “I’ll be right outside, on the couch, if you need anything. Goodnight.”
________
Marie was tied down to her cot again, and she knew what that meant. “No,” she sobbed. “Please, no. I don’t want to.” She pulled at the metal shackles, accomplishing nothing except the bite of pain where they dug into already torn skin. She heard the scrape of the guards’ boots outside her cell.
She knew the moment when the mutant they were bringing to her saw her. He started protesting and struggling, but she knew it was no use. They opened the door of her cell, dragging him forward, his bare feet scuffling to find purchase on the floor. “No,” he begged the guards. “Stop, I’ll do anything.” Still they dragged him relentlessly forward, and now he started to beg her instead, panicked white-rimmed eyes locking on hers in his pale face. “Please, don’t do it,” he said. “Please.”
She shook her head uselessly. “I don’t want to,” she cried. “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” The guards heaved the man on top of her, his bare chest pressing into her face, and within moments she felt it begin. She gasped shuddering sobs into the man’s chest as he screamed, first into her ear and then inside her head, the terror washing through them both. “I don’t want to,” she sobbed, even as her skin avidly sucked his life inside hers.
He began to convulse on top of her, smashing her down into the cot, chest mashing her face until she thought she would die this time for sure from the screaming in her head and the snot and tears and weight of him choking her mouth and lungs. But she didn’t die, her body gasping one involuntary breath after another, the smell of the dying man choking her lungs and the anguish of him choking her mind, as she heard the heart pressed against her ear slow and then stutter and then stop.
________
Marie came awake with a jerk, up on her feet ready to run before she was even fully aware. She was disoriented for endless seconds, her heart racing, a cold sweat prickling all over her body, stomach clenched tight over a pit of nausea. She finally got her bearings, and sat back down on the couch. Lake house. Prisoner. The lab was years ago, she thought. She forced herself to take slow deep breaths, willing her heart to stop racing in her chest. She hadn’t had one of those dreams in awhile, she had forgotten just how much they sucked.
She stood up to get a glass of water, and then she heard it -- thrashing and muffled yells coming from the man’s room. She had vaulted the couch and was scrambling through the half-open door before she realized it. From there things seemed to happen in flashes. She saw him thrashing in his bed, in the throes of a nightmare. A blur of motion and he was coming towards her, roaring, claws out. Another moment and she felt the impact of his body into hers, feeling the wrench of her ankle as it twisted underneath her and the painful crack of her head as it hit the door behind her. She tasted copper in her mouth from where she had bit her tongue, and realized she was pinned to the door by his body, uncertain if the claws had gone through her or not.
It was too soon after the nightmare, and she felt the memory overwhelm her as his heaving chest pressed against her face. She felt the control of her skin slipping away from her for the first time in years, and she closed her eyes and scrabbled desperately through her head, trying to maintain it. She could feel it slipping, slipping away, and she knew she was going to hurt him.
“No!” she said out loud. Casting desperately through her mind, she identified a trace of Piotr from when she had brushed against him in training. She clutched at that trace frantically, feeling her skin cool. It was his strength that she wanted, though, as she placed both palms on the man’s chest. “No!” she said again, shoving him off in a burst of power so strong he flew halfway across the room, landing on the floor by the bed. She slipped through the door and closed it behind her, limping from the pain in her ankle, making her way shakily back to the couch.
She sat down, her mind clicking through her options. She didn’t have many. She knew that he hadn’t meant to hurt her, he was as vulnerable to the nightmares as she was. He must have moved his claws aside at the last minute, she had felt them scrape out of the door on either side of her head as she pushed him away, had glimpsed the six long gouges as she fled through the door.
Now that she had hurt him, though, how would he react? She couldn’t outrun him under normal circumstances, let alone with a sprained ankle. She had one option left, her dreaded ace-in-the-hole. The only reason Scott had ever agreed to let her watch the prisoner alone. She heard his parting words of advice clearly in her head. “If he makes one move towards you, suck him dry and run like hell.” “I don’t want to,” she said miserably to herself. “I don’t want to.”
The bedroom door opened, and she stood up to face him. His figure was in silhouette against the moonlit windows of the bedroom, all she could see was the slow approach of his dim form. She heard his breath rasping in his chest as he came closer and closer. Her heart racing, her whole body trembling, she braced against her instinct for both fight and flight, trying to get a sense of his intent. The claws were no longer evident, and that gave her the courage to stand still as he approached within a step of her.
Suddenly he fell to his knees before her. He pressed his forehead against her belly, nuzzling her, producing that high keening whine of terror she had heard only once before. She felt relief wash over her, weakening her knees. He wasn’t going to hurt her, and she wouldn’t have to hurt him. She reached out a trembling hand and brushed it through his hair.
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re okay. It was just a dream.” He stopped whining but continued to nuzzle her desperately, pressing his face into the fabric of her tank top. She rested a hand on his shoulder, and felt the shudders running through his lean body. “Shhhh, it’s okay,” she said. “I’m not mad, it’s okay.”
She gingerly lowered herself to the couch, and he crawled up next to her, curling his feet up with his head still in her lap as she threw an arm over him. She continued stroking his hair with her left hand while the right stroked down his bare back. She felt the shudders slow and then stop as she continued her stroking and hushing. She found the edge of the blanket she had been sleeping with on the couch and pulled it over him. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re okay. Sleep.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, I am officially addicted. Updated last night at 2 a.m. and here I am ten hours later with another one. :-) But, there were other people posting at 2 a.m. so I don't feel *quite* so weird. Hope you enjoy this one.