Inviolate
Yes, it was coming. Slowly, furtively, but she only had to wait, and soon she would know. She would know enough, know too much, stop wondering and just understand...
She would stare at his hands. Strong, incredibly strong hands, fingers so quick and rough and possible of such selfless gentleness that she often choked when she thought of it. Hands filled with metal but looking like something too perfect, and when it came, she would know them. She would touch his fingers with her own, no cloth between, and that promise of ecstasy kept a smile hovering around her mouth. That somedaysoon kept her going, kept her hoping, dreaming.
And she saw it in his eyes, and it only made her more determined. If his hands moved in her direction, only for an instant, she knew that he was waiting for the time when he wouldn't have to hold back, remember himself. Once her unleashed power was kept under lock and key, then he could shed his ill fitting cloak of self-control, and everything could be right again. There were images in the way he said her name, the ironic way he flirted with other women, making sure she was watching, making sure she knew that he did it to entertain her while they perched on the edge.
If looking at his hands was overpowering, then touching them would be unimaginable. If hearing him say "Marie," in the most normal of circumstances made her lightheaded, she would barely be able to survive hearing him gasp it.
And when hands touched and he whispered her name-
It would all be worth it. Waiting, holding, trying.
Wanting.
Escape was imminent, she was getting out, getting free...
**
A girl with blonde hair and silver eyes was walking up the drive. The blood on her face was almost dry, and the purple bruises on her pale skin seemed to be formed in some complicated pattern. The violet streaks and splotches looked painted on, and the deep red sluggishly flowing from multiple gashes only made the color look lovelier, starker. With her blood so busy making art on her surface, it had drained away from her cheeks, which were as white as the moon that glittered in her metallic irises.
Her limp had been steadily worsening for the past few miles, ever since she had been forced to abandon her car. Apart from the everpresent pain humming through her body, she had escaped barefooted, and her bloody footprints were shining wet on the dark pavement.
Every step was agony, every breath was worse. She looked a very incarnation of misery.
But the smile on her bloodied mouth was triumphant, expectant. Almost mad in its incongruity on her ravaged face.
Then there were the words, quiet in the evening, echoing in her memory, treading the same measure as her jolting steps.
"Let me in let me in let me in let me in..."
**
It was only snatches of conversation, but they fell into Rogue's ears with jagged surfaces.
"...found out she was a mutant..."
She wanted to concentrate, because she was so close. Her skin was straining, hoping, but she couldn't focus over the sounds of footsteps running through the mansion halls, the horrified whispers that floated into her hearing.
"...lost so much blood..."
She tried to close her eyes, see his hands. Block everything out until she found the way.
"...she knew the men?"
Somewhere in herself, she was caring about what had happened, who was hurting. But if selfishness could fix her, save her from constant cloth, then she could wait to ache for someone else.
"...cut the ropes..."
Giving up her own room as a place for meditation, she walked into the hallway, looking around furtively. Creeping down the main staircase, she decided she would go out into the woods, where everything was natural and genetically conventional, and she would try to become the same. She needed to hold his hands, and if she had to ignore Scott's newly grim jaw to do it, she would. He was listening to Jean's weary words by the front door, and Rogue was determined to care later, after-
"...rape."
Her walls were not high enough, so she stumbled at the word.
Jean was coming closer, and Rogue's dreams of sensation would have to wait for another day, because this time the words were in her direction.
"Rogue? A girl came to the mansion for help last night."
She had only had metal inside her skin once, so it wouldn't hold her neck up as she listened with a bent head.
**
Blonde hair in moonlight again, but this time she was indoors, the light slanting down a midnight hallway. Blood could be washed but not forgotten, so she walked with just as much purpose as before. Purple and silver and remembered dread kept her footsteps quiet, but her breathing was shallow from sheer excitement. The words, however quiet, were unchanged.
"Let me in let me in let me in let me in..."
Slipping through the door, she sighed in relief. If only there could be safety like this for everyone who had suffered the same, the same promise of complete protection.
To think- to see hands, grasping, groping, grabbing, and know that they couldn't touch. They could never touch, not without knowing a pain more horrific than they could ever inflict. Corded muscles and cold eyes would keep their distance, and she would be inviolate inside new pale skin.
She walked to the edge of Rogue's bed, smiling down at the girl's sleeping face, unmarred by bruise or blood. Her white streak of hair was even brighter than her own blonde, and she would be inside, covered up, protected forever.
With a sigh she had been holding in since she heard them pounding on the front door of her house, she knelt beside the bed. Safety, blissful safety, forever lasting longer than fear. And with her knowledge, she could protect the young woman from ever knowing the same.
Her hand was hovering over Rogue's neck as her own face came closer to the other girl's cheek. All she had to do was hold on long enough, slip in before anyone could stop her, and then, oh, then-
She kissed Rogue's cheek tenderly, as her hand wrapped around her neck.
**
Rogue's screams rang throughout the mansion. Doors slammed open, footsteps ran in her direction, but her hysteria did not diminish.
When Logan finally slashed open the door, the first thing he noticed was the smell of death in the room. Blonde hair was fanned out on the dark carpeting, and the smile on the dead girl's face was as horrible a thing as he had ever seen...
...until he looked into Rogue's eyes.
At the sight of Logan, his beloved hands reaching in her direction, some new fear snapped inside her head. She backed away, eyes wide, screams unending, desire drowned in someone else's lust for protection. His fingers fell to his side and she felt a relief she did not want, a bitterness that tasted like the blood inside her mouth.
'Let me in,' had become "Get her OUT!" but there was nothing to be done, no way to evict a self from Rogue's overflowing mind.
"Marie," he gasped.
She could barely survive the hearing of it.