I wish I knew
SacredMacha
notmysight at aol.com
Rating : R for language
Summary:
Genre :songfic
Category: AU
Archive: You really want it? Just tell me, and you can take it!
Disclaimer : I wish I owned stuff. Like the Characters. But I don't.
I knew I shouldn't have done it. I never should have let Chuck talk me into going on that little fact finding mission for him. I knew why the guy did it, of course, I understood that it required a lower profile than Scott would have, or Hank, and the girls would have attracted more attention and blown any sort of low key undercover feel Chuck was shooting for.
But the hour after I left the mansion, hell five minutes on the road, I had a sinking feeling. I tugged the scarf Marie had slid into my pocket out, letting the scent of her left from the fabric to fill the cab of the truck. My thumb and forefinger toyed with a corner of it, remembering how I had given that scarf to her a few weeks back, just so I could run it over her cheek, kiss her through it. I was hellbent on Marie's working on her control, but even I was aware I had to be patient. She was mine now, at least where it counts, even if we were holding off on the physical. Though we'd come up with some interesting ways of driving each other crazy. Just seeing her trying on gloves is enough to get me hard, these days.
Those sorts of thoughts saw me through the drive to Wyoming. Yep, Wyoming, one of those states people tend to forget about when you mention it. There was some sort of big population explosion going on there, oil and such they'd found. So I was posing as a former Detroit auto worker, but I wasn't looking at one of the laborer's jobs. There was a new little government center going up on the outside of town, and I got a job as a security guard for the place. Boring as hell, and all they gave me was a flashlight, a cell phone, and pepper spray, for if anything *did* happen.Never realizing they let the 'enemy' in, with a smile and a promise of a paycheck.
Idiots.
So, after a while of adjusting, letting the guys who worked there get to trust me, being friendly while I roamed around. I met up with various guys at the bar, or one of the local diners. I sort of let it lay that I had a girl, but she'd had to go back east to be with her family, especially since I didn't know how things were when I came out here. The guys accepted that, but I never used the phone in the trailer I rented, instead buying a prepaid phone card and driving to various spots to call back to Chuck, who would make sure to have Marie on hand to give the phone over to. Calling once a week, and talking until the card ran out, it was never enough. It was to the point I hated having to tell her I had to go, the card was almost out, even as I could feel my stomach tightening while she whispered.
" Keep yourself safe now. Ah'll be waitin' for ya." Then that soft sigh, click of the phone before it went to that buzz, severing what connection there had been. Then I'd give a groan, hang up the phone, and quietly shred that phone card and head home.
I was getting more chummy with the brains of the place. I heard things they let slip, about plans for a mutant sort of prison, a rehab for criminal mutants, and various ways to 'cure' different kinds of mutations. I did my best to keep my face looking bored and blank whenever they realized I might be in earshot, but I had to admit, at times, it was a bitch. I just wanted those files to see what they'd do for someone like Marie, see if it was feasible for her to do it if it would help her learn control. Okay, so for her to learn control, and to let us touch. My girl wanted it as much as I did, if not more. I think that was why we were holding off on the big finale. She wanted it to be just me, and just her, nothing in between our skins. I was a patient guy, but if I could find a way to help expedite the process well... hey, I'm still a man. I'm a man with one helluva gorgeous girlfriend, with big brown eyes I wanted to watch widen when we could touch skin on skin, and soft, creamy skin I wanted to take my time with and savor on my tongue. Don't think anyone can blame me there.
I guess someone picked up on my interest in their shop talk. I noticed they were starting to watch me some, and no one seemed as at ease with me, after I had worked so hard, and yes it was hard, to make them feel that way. I had to be social and chatty and all those things Scott is and I'm not.I did my best to carry on like nothing was different, but they still were watching. It made me itchy, to the point that after work one day, I finally flipped open the cell phone Chuck had given me when I got back to my dinky trailer. I didn't dare do it before, but now I felt going to a payphone would be even more suspicious. I filled Chuck in pretty quick, I'm good at summing up the situation. He mulled it over for about 30 seconds, and as much as he thinks I'm hyper aware to the point of being paranoid at times, he told me to follow my instinct.
So I went in for a last day of work, told them things were going bad for my girl's family, and she needed me to come to her. Gave apologies, turned in keys and stuff. Went back to the trailer and started tossing my meager wardrobe into my duffel.
I should have knowing it wouldn't be that easy.
Just as I was heading out the door to everything over to the shifty looking guy I was renting the dump from, I flinched when I thought I heard something behind the shed I parked my truck in front of. Duffel tossed into the back of the truck, before I was walking quietly to check it out. There was a sharp stab of pain in my neck, before graying dizziness dragged me down to the ground, and then went black.
I woke up, my hands covered in things that looked like boxing gloves, heavy, and weighing me down more than the chains at wrist and ankle. Examining the situation, back against a concrete wall, a couple of lingering aches where someone had gotten in shots while I was down. From what I could see, though, I was pretty whole. Stuck in some dank, damp cell, but whole.
Then someone came in, a guard, waving Marie's scarf like some sort of matador's cape. It worked, I tried to unleash the claws.. only to have the gloves stop them. Lined with adamantium, and it was a painful jolt up the arms that strained chains holding me down. He waved that scarf in my face, filling my nose with Marie's scent tainted by his own.
Fucker was gonna die.
They wanted me to talk. Who was I working for, why did I want to know about the mutant program, who else had I told... I didn't say much, and they kept working me over pretty good. Subjecting me to a lot of tests I don't want to remember, and some things I can't remember. Made me sick more than once, but eventually they gave up and hoped to use me for bait. I was grateful I'd only made the one call to Chuck on the cellphone, and when they knocked me out, one of the guys kicking me around busted it to bits, rendering that useless. Thanking the god Marie told me she believed in, because if they couldn't find Chuck, my girl was safe from this. Safe from the burning hot needles prodding into me, the screaming pain inside as they tried to peel my skin off of me. I couldn't break, couldn't give in.. because they'd do this or worse to Marie, to the people I cared about, admit it or not.
It took a few months, three I was told later, though that put no real time reference on the stretch of hell I'd been immersed in.Three months for them to be able to get Jeannie and Chuck to get a fix on my head, and let it lead them to me, on top of the two and a half I'd been gone before hell broke loose. I'd never been so happy to see Scooter in my life. Only thing that worried me, was when we finally got me out of the cell I was in, the guard who had taunted me with the scarf promptly gutted as I had promised myself, was that I couldn't scent Marie. She wasn't there, not in the facility, not on the plane, only a faint trace of her scent lingered in the blackbird.
"Jeannie, where's Rogue? " I asked, letting her poke at me and check me over, humoring her. I saw eyes flick sidelong to Hank, the big blue bear who was fixing up a slice in the arm of Scott. I even felt a jerk in Ororo's usually smooth handling of the plane. The scent of nervousness, guilt, even sorrow was sudden and overwelming. My hands closed around Jeannie's wrists, probably tighter than was comfortable. I stared at her face. " Jeannie.. where's Rogue?" Doing my best to keep myself restrained, even as I felt her pulse race.
" We thought it best she not come, Logan. She's been... well.. " She sputtered and stuttered a moment, until Scott came up and put a hand on her shoulder, silencing her.
" Rogue was understandably upset when we found out you'd been taken. She got belligerent, demanding to go when we thought we'd found the lead. You weren't there, of course... and she got.. well she behaved like you do in a rage. Problem was, her gloves were off, and she got caught up in a fight. Nasty character, he could throw something like bone shards that were inside him and then he ripped out. She drained him as a last resort.. she.. well she hasn't been the same since. She can't seem to put him away, as she says. It's made her.. unpredictable. We didn't dare bring her. "
"Unpredictable?" My hands dropped from holding onto Jean, even as I slid to my feet with a jerk. " What happened to her, Scott? " Standing to to toe with him, eyes glaring into the reflection in his visor. I could hear him swallow, aware that he was in easy killing range.
" She's distanced herself from us, Logan. She felt like she was outcast, and having the new... presence in her head.. she just.. she wanted away, and Xavier gave it to her. She's in the little house out by the lake. We all thought it best, and we didn't dare tell her we were coming to find you... in case you weren't there, or it was a dead end again. " I could tell he was telling the truth, just by his scent. He was feeling guilty, nervous as hell, and.. sad, about something. Well, Scott always had that sort of big brother concern about Marie, especially when she'd had to touch someone. As far as I was concerned, it was one of his few redeeming qualities.
But being concerned, didn't quite mesh with how uptight everyone had gotten when I asked after my Marie. Something wasn't right, and as soon as we touched down, I was going to find my girl and find out what.
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