WARNING: NC-17 rating for sexual content and themes of rape. If you are a minor in your area or find such themes offensive, I would recommend not reading this chapter.
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. VI .
Rogue inched closer to the fire, spreading her hands out to its warmth. There were days when, despite her newfound control over her powers, she would wake up suddenly fearful that their dominance had returned, for no other reason than that her hands or her fingers would be cold. Other times she would suddenly freeze over a simple household chore, inexplicably convinced that a simple case of pins and needles was evidence of her mutant abilities taking over. It was a peculiar situation, for she knew she had no real cause to fear anymore – on the other hand, she was aware that in many ways the old fear still ruled her, still dictated so much of her life. She still dreaded baring any more flesh than was absolutely necessary, still often recoiled instinctively from the touch of others, whether they be friend or stranger. It was only with great patience that she had learnt to control the paranoia that ran so deeply inside her, only for it to return at times such as these. Times when she was sad, vulnerable, confused.
But above all those things she felt a horrible sense of guilt, born of the shameful knowledge that she had cheated Remy, out of concern for him yet more out of concern for herself. It had never once been her intention to hurt him. She had broken it off between them, telling herself that it was for the best, that if they remained together they could only fall apart. But the only thing she saw now was her own selfishness. The brutal truth was that she had really been afraid of hurting her own self. She had wanted to spare herself the grief of loving him, loving him while not being able to touch him after the intimacy they had shared for those few short months.
Still, she had never meant to injure him. She had truly believed that her actions had been with both their best interests at heart. It pained her to know that she could not have been further from the truth. And now she wanted to be alone. She wanted to feel the way he thought she should feel; guilty and shamed and disheartened, but most of all alone.
That was why she said nothing when he returned, nor could she even bear to turn and acknowledge him. That he continued to torture her with his presence confounded her all the more. She would have done anything – even sacrificed herself once more to the loneliness that had so encapsulated her her whole life long – to make reparation for all the wrong she had done him. And yet still he came back to her, even when all she could give him was her silence.
“Wanted to ‘pologize,” he spoke at last, when she made no move to speak. “De t’ings I said…I didn’t mean dem. I’m sorry, chere.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Remy,” she answered softly, staring into flames. “Everythin’ you said was right. Ah was selfish. Ah deserved t’ hear what you told me.” She paused, finally turning and looking up at him quizzically. “Why’d you come back? Ah thought, after everythin’ that happened…”
In the half-darkness his face was motionless yet somehow ominous. His red eyes shifted.
“Didn’ want t’ leave you, chere,” he spoke after a short pause. His tone was taut, like a wire strung too tight; yet he stood with all the easiness of one who might fit into shadows, of one who had done so all his life. Their eyes met. A dread impulsion lay beneath his glance. Whatever had brought him back to her, she now saw it in his gaze yet could not read it. “I never did. All de time we spent apart, I still couldn’ stop t’inkin’ ‘bout you. I still figured dat somehow you could be my redemption. Some t’ings don’t change, chere. Even now. Does dat still qualify me as crazy?”
The more he spoke the lighter his voice became. It was almost as if he were ridiculing himself for still being so hopelessly drawn to her. He had always been self-deprecating in his own little way. But what she heard now was something different, cold and embittered.
“It makes you stronger than ah could ever be,” she returned at last. All this pain and still she loved him. Still he loved her. Their love hung between them like a dying thing. Their love clawed at them, at their throats, at their hearts, begging desperately for sustenance.
“S’ got nothin’ t’ do wit’ strength, p’tite.” He told her, almost cryptically. “In fact, jus’ de opposite. Maybe, if I was stronger, I woulda walked away from you by now.”
He did walk then, towards her. In the time it took him to cross the room she thought that he would kneel down beside her, put an arm round her shoulders, pull her to him and hold her, if only because he realized that he had nothing left. But instead he sat down next to her, neither touching nor even looking at her. His eyes were where hers had been, on the fire. Why, after everything, was he still so compelled towards her? Was it tempting fate, to believe that he still loved her, just the way he always had?
“Tell me about it,” she asked him at last, gently. “About Sinister. About the hurt.”
He looked at her then, searching her eyes. He was more than just measuring her intentions. She could feel it. He was assessing her, the curves and angles of her face, what they had once meant to him. There was an intentness on his face that half-frightened and half-intrigued her. She could not tell why it was that he looked at her in that way, so intense, so questioning.
“I always hated Sinister, chere,” he answered, after a long moment of silence. “Jus’ like I always hated myself. None of dis is about hatin’ Sinister. I don’t hate him any less den I did already. If anythin’, I hate myself more for what I am to him.” He paused, glancing sideways into the fire, his mouth twisting, his voice soft. “Am I evil, Rogue? Is the wickedness inherent inside me? What if it’s a part o’ me, an’ I can't help it?”
“It ain’t true, Remy.” She shook her head fiercely, furrowing her brow. “You know it ain’t true.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked, looking back at her, that odd, penetrating look once more on his face. “You don’ know what’s been goin’ on in my head since I found out de truth, Rogue. You don’ know how much I’ve been fightin’ wit’ myself, day in, day out, night after goddamn night.”
“Remy,” she answered slowly, trying to reassure him. “None of what you did means that you’re bad. Ah felt the same way, after Irene died. Ah felt like ah’d killed her with mah own bare hands. Raven hated me for what ah did. She made me suffer for it, an’ deep down, ah knew ah deserved it.” She clasped her knees tight, remembering, gazing into the fire. “It weren’t so hard then, t’ believe ah was wicked. Ah would’ve gone crazy, if it weren’t for the Professor. He helped me t’ see it wasn’t b’cause ah was bad, but b’cause ah was just scared…scared of who ah was, an’ what ah was capable of.”
He turned to her, a light shining in his dark eyes, and she could not tell whether they shone of their own volition or in the reflected light of the flames.
“What if de t’ings we’re capable of are in our nature, chere?” he questioned, with a strange kind of desperation in his voice. “What if it ain’t just our fears an’ our hurts? What if it’s just us?”
She glanced at him, at once surprised and troubled by his tone.
“Remy, you ain’t wicked.”
“How do you know, chere?”
She didn’t understand why he persisted. Why was he being so stubborn? Foreboding crept into her heart, cold and subtle. She wanted to reach out to him, but even as she did so her hand faltered. “D’ you think if that was the truth ah’d care for you the way ah do?”
Something in his face contorted. Anguish, bitterness…more than that she could not read. Something in his expression moved her. Only then did she reach out to touch his shoulder, and this time he did not repulse her. Nevertheless his body stiffened; he closed his eyes in sudden pain.
“Rogue…” he breathed, his voice suddenly trembling. “You don’t know how much…I want to hold you…”
She inhaled, lightly. In his admission he had placed himself before her, and yet there was such agony in his voice, and she did not, could not understand. Against all her heart craved, she resisted drawing her arms about him and she did not know why.
“Why are you so afraid to?” she asked, her grip on his shoulder slackening, tightening again, uncertain. “Is it ‘cos ah hurt you?”
“More than that,” he answered quietly, not looking at her.
“Ah understand that you’re hurt…That ah don't deserve you…That maybe this is punishment…Mah punishment…”
“Punishment?” He turned, his voice suddenly strangled. “Chere, d’ you know what punishment is? To feel dis way, t’ look at you now an’ t’ feel dis way?”
There was that look in his eyes again, haunting, burning. She wanted to flinch but couldn’t. There was so much longing in his eyes, so much of the thing she had felt during the lonely hours when she had wavered, when she had wished him back, when she had known regret. It was the reason they were both still here, together, when he could have walked away the moment she asked him back. Somehow she suddenly knew. She knew what it was he wanted. She knew but she could not resist, because she had suffered the same loneliness, and because it was the only way to end the cycle of pain they had wrought for one another.
“Ah only know the way ah’m feelin’ now, Remy,” she murmured, gazing back into the flames, the heat spreading to her cheeks. “T’ sit here beside you, an’ to remember what it was once like to be with you. Ah’ve been playin’ it over in mah head for so long now – everythin’ ah’ve lost, everythin’ ah’ve missed. Some days ah would’ve done anythin’…anythin’…just t’ feel you touch me again.”
She summoned the courage to look at him then, into the gaze that so mirrored hers; and for the first time in months that invisible barrier between them was gone, replaced now with something more. Her passion, laid bare now, for both of them to see; and somehow it changed everything. All fear and contrivance had slipped away. As he caught her eyes the star suddenly burst open within her and her limbs thrummed with the drumbeat of something more than just the pain of want, of need. She could feel the emotion rise like a tidal wave inside her and conquer each of her parts – her throat tightened, her eyes dulled, the heat within her swelled, she shifted her legs unbidden. Minute, eloquent. Her lips were suddenly dry.
“Ah felt so empty,” she tried to explain to him, not knowing why she did so. “Every night mah body would ache – ah used t’ think that that was mah punishment, y’know. Ah used t’ wish with all mah heart that you were there with me, an’ it only made the loss even worse, but at the same time it filled in the gap. For a while, until it was all over an’ ah was alone again in mah head an’ mah heart.”
She stopped, thinking she had said too much, thinking she’d done too far. But his eyes saw what she could not tell – ragged breaths and hands in the dark, cries of loss and shame and lust. And when he said nothing she knew that he had done the same.
“Only one way to atone for it,” he said at last, his voice thick, his eyes suddenly so dark, so hard, so greedy… With one hand he reached out, the way she always imagined he would, without fear, without restraint, fingers light yet firm, stroking her thigh. Her heart leapt within her. That touch, that touch and everything fell into place.
“Ah know,” she answered, her voice hoarse.
“D’you want t’ take de risk?”
There was danger in his eyes – there always had been, from the first moment he had walked back into her life. She had known it, instinctively. But in the past the risks Rogue had taken had rarely been so sweet. She hardly had to think before she had leaned in to kiss him, and he had taken her mouth without warmth, only heat; without gentleness, only raw passion. Her stomach lurched in that single exchange, seemed to surge from the depths of her and into her chest, sucking the doubt out of her. He reached for her with his free hand, cupping her cheek and her hair, pulling her closer into the tumultuous embrace, into the vortex from which nothing survived but their mutual hunger, their mutual need. With the deftness of some predator he held her, clinging onto her lips, challenging her to let go. Her only response was to kiss him all the harder, to spread her hands against the back of his head, to dare him to impose himself on her. He did so, grasping a fistful of her hair, jerking her head backward, pulling her into submission as he invaded her mouth; but she held on, fighting, only a fraction of her surprised at the desperation of their act. No tenderness, no sweetness, no compromise. They had waited for too long.
Giving up the struggle he released her, bending to bite her neck, so hard she thought he might draw blood, and she gasped in pain and shock.
“I want you, mon Dieu, I want you,” he muttered against her ear, and she suddenly understood his frustration, his anger, his fury, his need to love and yet destroy, to eliminate the hurt and pain she had inflicted on him. She felt it as he buried his face in the dip of her shoulder and bit her savagely, raking his teeth against her soft skin, salving it with his tongue and his lips. She could feel his want course through her as he touched her roughly, without hesitation or shame, his want to possess, to ravish, to cow, to expiate. So fearsome was his attack that she could say nothing, could only whimper, could only hold onto him as she would hold onto dear life.
But he heard none of it. Wordlessly he pushed her back onto the rug, tugged the zip of her sweater downward, pulled the material apart impatiently, not looking at her face, not once. She said nothing, did nothing as he unclothed her of her top and her bra, let him do it because she knew he needed to. He was like an animal, the way his eyes glistened as he appraised her naked flesh, almost a feral as Wolverine. With the fierce relish of the beast he feasted upon her, joining thought to action, owning her with his hands and his mouth and his teeth. She moaned, half with pain, half with pleasure as he ravaged her breasts without consideration for her, without guilt.
“Remy…” she called his name, knowing nothing else in his onslaught, only that he could do this to her, love her and rape her. But he heard her, from somewhere; he raised his face to meet hers, sudden pain in his red eyes.
“Stop me, Rogue,” he begged her.
“Ah wantcha to,” she answered breathlessly.
“Not like this,” he replied, kissing her cheek, her jaw, her lips. “I’ll hurt you.”
“Ah deserve it.”
“No more than I do.” He cupped her face in his hands, staring into her eyes, willing himself to. “I love you, I love you so much, but I’ll hurt you…”
She understood then, the meaning of this, of this risk. That they had hurt each other, that they loved one another, that they wanted one another to suffer for what they had done – that was their atonement. The penance for their lies and their doubts and their thievery, for the loneliness and desperation they had imposed upon one another, for the pointlessness of it all when the only thing they had needed was their love.
With a sudden surge of strength born from anger and regret she shoved his hands away, resisting him, pushing him away from her, wrestling him aside so that now it was he who lay at her mercy as she sat astride him. With tears springing to her eyes she ripped apart the buttons of his shirt, gritting her teeth as she did so, not caring about the state she left the garment in. Reaching out she placed her hands upon his bare chest, lust and violence pouring into her, the tears slipping hot and wet into her cheeks to course down her face. She hardly knew why she wept. Perhaps it was for them, for all the time they had wasted, for all those years of wanting and trying and misunderstanding.
“Why did you leave me?” she wailed, digging her nails like talons into his chest. “You should have stayed! Why did you leave?!” With a cry she dragged her fingers downward, leaving red welts down the length of his torso, dark and angry, and he hissed. No matter that she’d been the one to tell him to leave. No matter that he had only done what she had asked him to do. He understood that. He understood that as she drew the symbols of her rage and remorse onto him, so that he would know that it was so, so that he was one with both. This is how I feel, she was saying, and he could feel it on the tips of her fingers, digging into his flesh. It wasn’t his fault, he thought. She told me to, she didn’t want it, she shouldn’t have told me to, but she did, and I obeyed, like a fool.
Then she sobbed, pummelling his chest weakly, no longer asking why, and he thought, she is beautiful, goddamn I hate it, but she is beautiful. He hated it for she had no reason to cry, not after the way she had treated him. Suddenly angry again he caught her wrists, ending her tirade, meeting her gaze as she had his before, only for a moment before he released one hand and pulled her down sideways against him with the other. She lay there, one breast crushed against his chest, and he reached out to capture the other, squeezing it viciously, watching the pain on her face intently, that odd pain so mixed with dread lust and wonder. Her breath was coming hard and fast, the tears had stopped, the damp cheeks were flushed and framed with white locks of tousled hair. Despite it all, she was beautiful.
“Mon Dieu, Rogue, you make me want to take you now…” he spoke, his voice hoarse.
“Then do it,” she breathed, her own voice quavering. “Show me. Ah want t’ feel it. Ah want t’ feel you so bad…”
He looked at her, the eyes grown suddenly dark, the small hands on her pants, the perfection of her body, torn and bruised by him, the face stained by tears that had wept for him. He put an arm about her shoulder, rolling her on top of him so that her sharp nipples pressed into his chest and her face lay against his neck. Cupping her buttocks in his hands he pushed her against his hardness, pushed her with a strength that left them both gasping for breath.
“Dere y’ feel me, chere,” he hissed into her ear. “All de pain an’ promise we’ve given t’ each other, de punishment an’ de amends we pay for every moment we drove a wedge b’tween one another, for every stab we took, for every night we sacrificed alone while callin’ out each other’s name.”
“Please,” she whimpered, like a woman, like a child, so full of pain and desire, so full of courage and humility it made him want to weep too. But he couldn’t forgive her, not yet. With both hands he pushed down her drawstring pants, taking the panties with them, plunging his fingers into her damp slickness, showing her her own weakness, her own recurring nightmare of desolation, except now it was him and not her that dealt the hand of contempt, of degradation. Her lips were on his chin, the hot breath on his damp skin, her cheek rasping against his stubble, and she cried for him to stop but he carried on until she gasped and shuddered and moaned.
“Remy!” she called, suddenly struggling, her fingers knotting in his hair, pulling hard. “Ah’m sorry…Ah want… Please…!”
To take her would be to let go of all his rage, his guilt, his bitterness, yet to commune with them; to take her would be to compensate for her own flaws, her own frailties. It was the only logical resolution, yet for some reason still he held back, wanting to avenge the sorrow she had caused him, to tear her sweet body from her as she’d torn it from him. But he wanted her, his own body called for her, and most terrible of all he loved her with a passion that would not let him go. Every look, every movement, every word of hers entrapped him, governed him. From far away he seemed to recall the tenderness with which he had once loved her, the way they had made love, long and soft and slow, the way he had sought to protect her even from himself. He wanted it all back; he wanted to look at her again without feeling sore, to touch her again without inwardly flinching at the scent and feel of her. Gritting his teeth, growling in sudden frustration, he flipped her over, trapping her beneath him, tugging her fingers from his hair, not caring for the few strands she ripped out in the process. This was his moment, it was what he needed to do. With strong hands he pinned her arms above her head, and briefly he caught her green eyes with his own. For a moment, a short split second, he hesitated. A myriad of things he saw – love, grief, guilt, terror, trust. She knew, as he knew, that this needed to be done.
Wordlessly, he let go of one hand, no longer thinking about the logic of it. Belt, buckle, button, flies; with fluid impatience he overcame them all, not even bothering to pull down his jeans, freeing himself and groaning with lust and anticipation. He paused only to grasp onto her arms again, wanting her prostrate before him, as trapped as he had felt, to experience every delicious torture she had put him through. Only then did he drive into her, graceless, with no concern for gentleness, so hard that it took the wind out of her and she cried out in mingled pain and pleasure.
With a single-mindedness he proceeded to thrust into her, and there was an emptiness inside him as he did so, and he waited, waited for his resentment and anger to abate and end. But the anger only rose, and he lowered his head, afraid to look at her, rending her breasts with his teeth, scoring the length of her neck, tasting the salt of her sweat and her blood as he viciously kissed her jaw, feeling the reverberation of her cries in her throat, the pressure of her hands as she fought to free herself from his grasp. He could not bring himself to kiss her lips, to disrupt the song of her terror and her pleasure, and for a moment he listened, entranced; and then he looked at her as he impelled himself into her, that beautiful face etched somewhere between agony and ecstasy, glistening bright with sweat. He watched her watch him, the wordless words forming on her lips, the breaths trembling in her throat, the eyes burning as they held him, and he saw every moment of her punishment there, every second of her pleading and her begging and her silence because she knew she deserved it.
No more, no less than him. For all the times he had hurt her, she had borne it because there was no reason not to – he, after all, could never have touched her. For all the trust he had never earned, yet she had tried so desperately to give him. For all the love she had held for him, given him willingly when he had needed it, when he had coveted it. For all these reasons and more the hardness suddenly broke within him, and he almost choked on the sudden surge of emotion in him. With longing now he suddenly bent forward and kissed her, opening her mouth with his own, quieting her distress. She responded, not shyly, not uncertainly, not because he had forced it upon her but because it was what she wanted. He felt her warmth pour into him, thaw him, melt away the core of his anguish. And then it was all gone, lost; it didn't even matter anymore. Releasing her arms he sought to satiate the sudden urge to touch her, to commune with their kiss, caressing her, fondling her lightly. And when her arms went about him, drawing him closer, rubbing his shoulder blades and his back, he was no longer uncertain.
Pulling back he gazed at her, saying nothing, speaking to her only with his eyes. Gently now he held her thighs, pulling them up against his hips, offering himself to her. She accepted, twining her legs about him, meeting the strength of his strokes with her hips, joining him now, not submitting, matching the roughness of his rhythm with her own. Still he watched her, the pink cheeks, the dry lips parted for him, as she closed her eyes and her head tilted sideways, unmasking the depth of her vulnerability as he assailed her.
“Ngmmmmmm…”
The low moan emitted from her throat, a cry of a different note, single, solitary, dark and foreboding. Reaching out he placed a hand on her cheek, turned her face back to look into his, recognised the sudden far-away gaze in her eyes.
“S’all right,” he whispered to her, straining, searching for every last fragment of her shattered existence to temper it with his own. “S’all right, mon amour, jus’ one more moment, one more…”
She understood, gasping for breath, each time trembling as she did so, trusting him, never letting go of his eyes. She clutched onto him with a ferocity that challenged his own, jerking his jangling nerves towards her, to a place where she stood and waited, looking out over the edge into a nothingness only they could make their own. He groaned out loud as he joined her there, holding there deliciously, waiting for her, waiting…
Then she cried out, sudden, loud, quivering in his arms as he held her, triggering the chain reaction, drawing him into her and further. His release was as violent, gratifying and full as her own, and amidst it there was triumph in his call as he held her there in the moment, just as she held him there against her too. All hate, all resentment was splintered in that one crescendo, that one shuddering, reeling, rending climax that they shared. He lay, taut against her, senses burning, unable to tell what part of this whirlwind dance belonged to him, and which belonged to her. If there was one moment she had ever been his it was this one. If there was one moment where he had ever sworn he had belonged to her, it paled in comparison to this.
And strangely, when the tumultuous exchange was over, and the pulse of their desire had faded into nothing more than the mutual beat of their hearts, it was she who eased him back into reality, holding him close and smoothing his hair. There, in the cradle of her embrace, he closed his eyes and felt for the first time in months, the silence of their oneness, the brutal lust now stilled.
“Rogue, I’m sorry…” he breathed.
“No, Remy, darlin’,” she answered, kissing his forehead softly. “It’s okay, sugah, it’s okay.”
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