Touch – by Darlin

Disclaimer – All characters belong to Marvel.

A/N – Another one shot I wrote on the spur of the moment, something very, very different which I think most will attest to after reading. I'm really curious what you think about his rather unusual story.

-xox-

There’re together now. Logan and Ororo. His arms are around her as he pushes her to the bed. His kisses are hot and wet full of passion and desire. They don’t bother to strip just tug and pull at their clothes because they can’t wait, can’t hold it. She’s got those long legs of hers wrapped around his waist and he’s thrusting inside her like he hasn’t had any in days but it’s every day they go at it.

In the morning he’s in her room again. He doesn’t spend the nights with her for some reason. They do it before they go out for their morning run and people would think they’re crazy if they knew but they do it after they run too. They’re all hot and sweaty and exhausted sprawled out on the pine needles of the forest floor where they run. They’re like animals untamed and ferocious, grunting and going at it all day and all night.

They laugh a lot. They tease each other and touch each other and kiss when they think no one’s watching. Always in the shadows. He doesn’t care but she does. He lurks waiting for her. She’s so proper with that sophisticated accent of hers all regal and queenly. He’s coarse and common place always bringing her down to his level and deep inside she revels in that. She likes it when he takes control and makes her do all kinds of things she’d never think of doing in her sedate correct little life.

I know because I see them in the shadows. I’ve seen them go into her room and I’ve heard the door lock behind them, each tiny mechanism clicking into place like explosions in my head. I’ve heard their rasping breaths. I’ve seen them come out of that room looking disheveled and happy – happier than any one should have the right to be.

No one should have happiness like that. Not when us ordinary people are going without love and happiness and touch and feeling. No one should flaunt love that’s as deep as the ocean and as wide as the plains. Not when I’m alone and empty and barren and always will be. They did it on purpose loving each other in front of me, making kissy faces, their hands never staying still. I can’t wrap my legs around a man and I’ll never be able to find release by any human being through touch, skin to skin.

I had to do it. And I had every right to. I can’t touch. I can’t feel someone’s skin against mine. I can’t kiss and savor the taste of another’s mouth without taking their powers or worse. I had to do it when they added Remy in their sick disregard of me. I had no choice.

I saw them. Always in the shadows. All three of them were talking one night. Remy and Logan were smoking and she hates cigarettes and cigars but she stayed out there with them – waiting. They went to her room afterwards, all three of them. They were in there for hours doing things I don’t want to think about. I know because I stood outside her door listening. I can’t remember how long it was. I don’t remember when I left or how I got back to my room and into my own bed or when they finished their sick threesome. All I know is that when I woke up I knew what I had to do. I knew how to fix it – how to make it all right, how to stop my pain.

It was easy. She was in her room still sleeping though dawn was coming soon and she’d be getting ready to screw him or maybe both of them again. When I came in she woke up and called my name. I sat down on her bed right beside her. She was beautiful but evil and everything couldn’t be – everything I wasn’t.

“Rogue, what’s wrong?” she asked still groggy with sleep.

“Nothing, sugar everything’s perfect,” I told her.

“What’s going on?”

I sat closer to her and waited for her to sit up. I hated her and loved her but hate won over because she’d ripped my heart right out of my chest and crushed it in her bare hands without a second thought.

“Rogue? Are you crying?”

I don’t know if I cried. I saw myself sitting there and her looking tired and sloppy but beautiful and enticing and I hated her and loved her. She was my best friend but she’d taken Remy from me. I saw us sitting together as if I was watching us instead of being there like some dream I couldn’t wake up from and I saw I was crying.

When she sat up I threw my arms around her and sobbed like a babe. I didn’t want to do it but I had no choice. It had to be done. She gasped in surprise or maybe shock, I don’t know which. She was still drowsy, not at all alert and I used that to my advantage. I’m strong too, near invulnerable. I didn’t let go though she struggled. I had no gloves on, no shirt on either, just a tiny running top and some shorts, the kind of stuff she wore when she went running. I held onto her with all my might.

“Rogue, what’re you doing? Let me go!” she cried but I didn’t listen.

It felt so good to hold her. She slept naked and I’d never known. I should have known. Why didn’t I know? I saw them. In the shadows. Lurking. Doing things I never would be able to. She felt beautiful in my arms. Her skin was hot against mine, warming me. I couldn’t have let her go even if I’d wanted to. To touch skin, to feel another’s, our chests pressed against each other, my arms wound tight around her squeezing as hard as I could, digging my fingers into her bare back. I loved her. I was so overwhelmed with love. I kissed her shoulder, kissed her neck, kissed her ear and ran my tongue over her skin anywhere I could touch any little spot I could make contact with. It was a feast and I dined in rapture. Inexpressible.

I remember every detail. How soft her skin was, how sweet it smelled, so fresh and pure. I remember the feel of her beautiful silky snow white hair thrashing against my bare shoulders and along my neck and face and chest. Exquisite. To touch, to feel, to share this with another human being, it was beyond my wildest expectations.

I can still feel her nails digging into my arms and my back but it didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt when she bit me, tearing at my arms or when she screamed in my ear or the taste of her blood in my mouth when my kisses turned into savage bites ripping her flesh in response to her attack. Nothing she threw at me hurt. I was full, as if every deep desire I’d been holding inside me had been answered – except, except for the moment of consummation but it was enough to hold her, despite her weakened protests, to feel her heart beat against mine and the warmth of another human being mingling with my warmth.

When they found me I was laying with Ororo in my arms caressing that beautiful golden brown skin of hers. So soft, so pretty, sheer perfection. I loved her. She was my best friend. They tell me I was crying. I never cry now. Because of what I’ve done. I can never forget.

They pulled me off of her but some of her hair and flesh came with me because I refused to give up her touch. Or maybe because our skin had melded together in fire and lightning. I knew too late what I’d done. I wanted to take everything I’d taken from her and give it all back. I’d knowingly drained every last drop of her life from her but now I wanted to undo it, fix her somehow and I wanted to tell her I was sorry and beg her to forgive me. But all I could do was cry because – because I’d done to her what I’d done to Cody. Oh, goddess, I’m sorry. No, I mean God. God I’m so sorry.

They say I was suffering from delusions but I wasn’t. They use fancy words but what they’re saying is that I’m crazy. I’m not. I wasn’t. But they locked me away. I live in a cell designed by Reed Richards the pompous know it all leader of the Fantastic Four. Not all my strength can free me, not fire, not wind or freezing rain, not lightning or any powers I possess. They make me talk to a Dr. Leonard Samson every week. He’s cute even with green hair. He won’t tell me why his hair is green. He sits outside my cell. No one can enter. I can never leave. He asks a lot of questions. I tell him the same thing every time. I think he’s incredibly stupid or either very crazy because isn’t the definition Einstein gave for crazy doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results each time?

“How’re you feeling today, Rogue?” he asks as always and I tell him as always.

“I don’t feel cold or hot. I feel empty but full.”

“And why do you think that is?”

I don’t say anything at all. The idiot already knows why that is.

“Do you understand why this is, Rogue?”

“I hate her.”

“Yesterday you said you loved her.”

“I’m not like my mother. I said I hated her too you loon! I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand her, him – them – all of them. But . . . but I was wrong. She – they, none of them were screwing around. I . . . I imagined it. Somehow. Why? I was jealous. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand her, him – them – all of them. I never would have hurt her if she hadn’t been sleeping with Remy. Because I loved her. Why would I hurt Ororo? She was my best friend. But she wasn’t. She was my only friend. Sleeping with Remy and Logan how could she flaunt that like she did?

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know until it was too late. Too late, drunk with the feel of her, her touch, her flesh – I couldn't think right and I took and took and took and kept taking because I didn't want to be without touch again. Even as I sucked her life from her I saw she loved me. I saw how she loved Remy and Logan but she never told either of them. They’d never done what I thought they were doing in the shadows. They weren’t lurking. It was me. I thought they were but they weren’t. I was wrong.

“Poor Remy, I love him. She loved him too but like a brother. He called her Stormy and she loved that but she pretended she didn’t. He looked after her when she was lost, when she was a little girl confused and scared. She’d always be there for him and she knew he’d be there for her. He came too late. Too late for her and me. What did I do?

“She loved me like a sister. Only Remy had ever loved me. Not Mystique who used me. Ororo was my best friend. She never would have hurt me. She felt sorry for me and pitied me but she respected me and was proud of me because I lived without touch except when I took someone’s powers fighting for good and I tried so hard to accept it. She wasn’t afraid of me. She loved me. She trusted me. She . . . she . . . trusted me and I betrayed her. Goddess forgive me. No, I meant God – God forgive me.

“I was delusional. No. Crazy. No. I’m not crazy. I’m not. I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand her, him – them – all of them. I deserve to be in a nut house. No. I deserve to be punished. In any way she sees fit. They never did anything in those shadows. Logan told me, keeps telling me. I don’t believe him but I do because it’s true. I didn’t need to hear it from him. Remy tells me too but he didn’t need to tell me either. I don’t want to believe them but I know it’s true. I know everything she thought. I know all her truths. I see through her eyes.

“I hate it when they visit me. Make them stop. I can’t touch Remy. I want to. I want to touch him so bad. I want to hold onto him and never let him go. I’m still a virgin Doc. I don’t want to be a virgin. I want a life. I want to touch someone. But I remember touch. It’s all I have. All of her memories are in my head. She could touch. I can’t feel it but I can see, remember the touching, Peter hugging her, Kitty, Jean, Kurt, so many. She was loved by everyone. I only had her and Remy. They were the only ones who ever loved me. I hate her. I hear her voice with that soft foreign accent that made her so sexy to every guy she ever met, all of them – those – villains who wanted to do things to her that I want Remy to do to me. I’m not a pervert. Stop looking at me like that. What do you expect from me? I’m not crazy you know. I’m not.

“I know all her thoughts. I can’t help how I act. She’s in my head. She won’t leave me alone. She was in love with Logan but he saw her as a friend and she was afraid to tell him what she really felt. She hates me for telling you this. I hate her. She never listens to me. She kept her feelings deep inside locked away and no one ever guessed. Remy never knew she loved him like she did or that she loved it when he called her Stormy because no one else treated her like that, teasing her, like family, with love. Not me, not Logan or Jean or any one else. They didn’t know she needed love like – like how I needed to touch. She couldn’t express her emotions, I couldn’t feel.

“Poor Logan, he comes to talk to me. Not me really. He comes for her. I touched him once that’s how I know. I kissed him before he pushed me off him. That was before when you thought I could have visitors. He hates me but he tries not to show it. You said it’s not true but because of him now they won’t ever let me out. I’m locked away like a fairy tale princess. Locked away forever waiting for my prince. Ororo knew a prince. You think he hates me? Will he come to wake her with a kiss?

“She didn’t love him though. She loved Logan. She was stupid. I would’ve told him but – but I couldn’t have touched him so maybe I wouldn’t have. But I know he loved her too only he never knew she loved him back, that she wanted him as more than a friend. They should’ve lived each day as if it was there last. My last days are now.

“I live with these truths each and every day and every night all blamed year long – no not blamed. She won’t let me say blamed any more. I got to be proper. I’m sorry! I have to be proper. You see, all this, it’s my punishment, punishment for stealing my best friend’s life. She’s always with me. She never leaves me. I can’t feel her touch but she’s here inside me. She doesn’t fight me like Carol Danvers did but she won’t shut up. Please make it stop, Dr. Samson. Please make the voices go away. Please make her leave me alone. Please take her spirit out of me. Or kill me. Please kill me.”

But they won’t. I’ll always be this way and Ororo will always be like Cody, trapped, waiting for that prince to come, waiting for that kiss that will forever erase the endless sleep I gave them – my touch of death.