A series by November

Chapter 81: Air and Space

"So familiar and overwhelmingly warm
This one, this form I hold now...
This body makes me feel eternal,
All this pain is an illusion..."
--Tool

That spring Rogue applied for a weapons permit. She purchased her own Glock and practiced daily at the shooting range.

“Damn, you’ve got a good eye,” Scott said as her paper came back to her with a cluster of twenty bullet holes where the heart should be.

“Thanks.”

“How ya doin’, Roguey?”

“Better. How are you guys?”

“Good.”

“Do you really think that this,” he gestured to the gun, “is gonna make things better.”

“Yes. Cause I won’t feel so damn helpless. Don’t give me shit about it.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are. You think I’m being foolish and rash.”

“Don’t tell me what I think, Rogue. It’s not true anyway.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think...I’m just so damn sorry about what happened.”

All the wind went out of her sails. She visibly calmed.

“Thanks.”

“I have an old lockbox I’ll give you. It’ll keep Maggie away from it.”

“Thanks.”

In May Maggie turned seven. The last thing Rogue wanted was to be around was little kids. She suggested they go to the National Air and Space Museum, make a trip of it. Maggie was just as happy as if she’d had the usual party.

Maggie loved the museum. She loved the moon rock you could touch and the aviation exhibits and the silvery suits the astronauts wore. Logan watched her like a hawk and enjoyed her excitement. Marie smiled but her heart wasn’t in it. After five hours they had to drag her out of it. Rogue and Logan were exhausted. They walked down the mall, around the reflecting pools, perfect rectangles of sky caught in a green lawn. The cherry blossoms were in bloom. It was beautiful. Maggie was getting big but still he carried her on his shoulders. He watched Marie walk just ahead of him, and worried.

As they drove around D.C., getting lost, they drove past the capitol and the white house. There was a protest going on. The crowd was angry and through the closed truck windows they could hear the chanting. “Human Rights Now” One of the signs read. "No Mutants in USA!" She turned away. Lately her heart was like an exposed nerve worn on the outside, and everything hurt.

Maggie fell asleep before they were even on I-95. Logan glanced sideways at Marie. As he had for the past few months, Logan monitored her closely, sensing her moods, her affect, her scent. His grief had manifested largely as anger and he took to spending three hours in the gym or DR before bedtime. She on the other hand was quiet and seemed tired. He pulled her close on the truck seat and rubbed her arm. He kissed the top of her head without taking his eyes off the road.

Hours later they were home. They both put Maggie to bed with a story, one on each side of her. She slept quickly.

Logan poured himself a whiskey. He sat looking out the window at the night. He smelled tears.

She was wearing a black silk robe. She came to him, sat on his lap straddled his legs. Her chest pressed to his, his heart to hers, she wrapped her arms around him.

“Hey. Darlin’, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Marie.” He held her tight.

“Logan.” She bit his earlobe. He jumped, looked at her, startled.

She pulled away and looked at him. He pushed a strand of her hair back and looked at her. She was so beautiful, eyes shining. He wished he could suck the pain out of her just as she could suck his power.

“I want you right now. Will you...”

She looked away.

It was the absolute last thing he expected to hear. She had not seemed to want sex since the baby and the attack. He had not overtly initiated it, giving her her space, but his long backrubs or ministrations in the shower never lead to sex anymore. She didn’t jump him anymore.

As much as he wanted her, this just made him nervous.

“Marie? It kinda freaks me out when you say that with tears rolling down your face.”

“I just want to escape. I want to be close to you. Please.”

He stood up, holding her up. He pressed kisses to her face, licking away tears. “Darlin’, that’s a question you will never have to ask me.” He walked them into the bedroom and set her on the bed. She bounced lightly and looked up at him.

“Do you want me?”

“I always want you Marie. I love you.”

“Really?”

“Did I ever make you doubt it?” He pressed her hand to the hardness under his jeans and she gasped with pleasure.

“No.” she said, and then she was done with words. She pressed her face to the warm denim, smelling him, nuzzling and dragging her teeth over the grooved denim. He hissed and whimpered and she was tugging at his fly.

She tugged his jeans down roughly, partially, not giving him a chance to disrobe all the way. His length was hot and silky and she took him into her mouth. “Oh god.” he said, and the tone of his voice made her heart quicken. He tried to construct a sentence in his mind but her tongue flickered and she used her teeth gently to hold him in. Her hands went to his bare ass and pulled his entire length inside her mouth. She was rewarded with a throaty moan.

“Darlin’, you don’t have to. Do you really want to do this?”

“That’s a question you’ll never have to ask me,” she repeated. Her eyes met his, gaze heavy with significance, then closed as she proceeded to suck.

He let her bring him off. It had been so long, months, that it didn’t take long. She would pull off of him nearly all the way then roughly pull his ass to her, fingernails lightly scratching, thrusting him hard into her mouth. She loved his scent. She wanted to eat him, he smelled so good. He was like comfort food and she most certainly needed comfort. When he came, biting back a low screech, she swallowed and swallowed and was somewhat satisfied.

She stood up, locked the bedroom door, and he slid bonelessly onto the bed. “Oh, god, Marie.”

She pulled her tee shirt off, showing her high firm breasts. She walked naked to him.

She kissed him hard, and he felt as if he were drowning. In the haze of his orgasm it was hard to have a coherent thought. “I want to devour you,” she whispered, hands moving warm and fast all over him. “Want you...” She licked his nipple, then nipped it. He was starting to harden again. “Oh god Logan I want you...”

He writhed under her, excited again, so damn quick. She was roughly kissing and nipping his neck, trying to sustain the low growl he emanated. She grabbed his hair and growled back, a barely audible purring vibration, and his cock pulsed. He liked her like this. “I want you. I want to own you. I want you to own me. Want you to fuck me so hard.” She was feverish and manic and wanton, punctuating her sentences with tiny nips and kisses. He could feel the moist wetness she held above him and he throbbed, yearned to enter her.

Finally he grabbed her hips and thrust her down roughly. She started to shriek but bit it off.

She rode him for a while, eyes closed, mouth open, moaning tiny sighs and whispers and whimpers, and inside her a warmth rose and burned. She could not get enough of him. He watched her, eyes open so as not to miss a second, awed by how completely she could lose herself in him. He was awed by her beauty and even a little frightened at her intensity.

Finally she opened her eyes and saw him watching. She smiled but the look on his face was utterly serious. “God, baby, you’re so beautiful. I love you...”

She smiled and touched the side of his cheek. There was healing there, building ever so slowly over the months, too slowly, but this was drawing them together. He rolled her over and took her from on top, clinging to her, shivering and close to his orgasm.

The words were on the tip of his tongue but as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and forced her to look up at him, she understood, and he didn't need to speak. Watch me. She knew what he needed. Their eyes met as they moved. “Do it,” she hissed. “Come in me.”

He couldn’t bear any more. He pressed his face into her neck to muffle his scream and drove himself home, all the way into her. She felt him coming from inside.

She was content at this point to sleep, and was halfway there, when she felt his hands moving on her. “Oh no you don’t." He smiled, a sweet sad smile that simultaneously warmed and broke her heart. He touched her, everywhere, hands burning like fire on her skin. He reached down and stroked the tight nucleus of nerves that throbbed and responded. In circles, just the way she liked it, and she shuddered as she grew ever higher.

When he could smell the need seeping out of her he moved down and suckled her with lips and tongue. Take this, he thought as she quickened to come, let me give it to you Marie, take this little bit and hold it tight against the pain.