Title: Every Breath You Take
Author: m.jules
Summary: In a comics-history inspired universe, Wolverine hunts down
freelancer mercenary Rogue with intentions of killing her… but who is really
the hunter, and who is the prey?
Rating: NC-17, though not all for
sex. Just mainly for disturbing themes!
Disclaimer: Characters
aren’t mine, lyrics aren’t mine, title isn’t mine. No infringement intended, no monetary compensation being made, no
lawsuits accepted. J
Warning: Didja get the “disturbing
themes” bit of the rating? Yeah. I mean, what do you expect? You’ve got Stalker Logan, Evil Mercenary
Rogue, lust and love and obsession. And
the Police. Heh. It’s a darkfic, be forewarned. Also, f/f slash warning. There’s no details, but it is mentioned.
Thanks to Taryn for the last-minute preview.
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Author’s Notes: This owes a great deal
to a couple of different inspirations.
Obviously the Police, since I stole their title, but mostly the story of
how the title song came to be – it was about the KGB, according to Sting. Also, to the plot of a movie I’ve never seen
called Eye of the Beholder, starring Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd. (You’d think, with those two stars, I’d
watch the darn movie, wouldntcha?)
Maybe it’s better I didn’t, though, because now I won’t be tempted to
steal too much from it. (I did,
however, blatantly rip off the movie poster.)
Also, I know nearly every tradition of comics and cartoons has Rogue being
Mystique’s daughter, but that’s just not so in this fic. Destiny’s not in the picture either.
Every Breath You Take
{Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you}
When the order came down from
Chuck, I wasn’t too surprised.
Everybody else in the mansion might have been, especially his little Boy
Scout, but I knew a different side of him.
I think Red might’ve known a little bit about it, her bein’ his prize
pupil and a telepath besides, but she had a little of that darkness in her as
well, so she wasn’t gonna rat him out to nobody. Obviously, neither was I.
What everybody saw in Xavier was
some kinda God-like beneficiary. You
know, house the homeless mutants, bring peace to the world, do no wrong kinda
guy. And he had part of that in him,
I’ll give him that. But I’ll be the
first to tell ya – at least inside my own head – that he ain’t all that. He’s got a side to him that’s just as
calculatin’ as Magneto’s or anybody else’s you care to think about. After all, you don’t survive as long as he has
in a war as fierce as the one he’s in by pullin’ all your punches. That’s why he’s got me.
Now, to everybody else at the
mansion, I’m just a growly but mainly goodhearted guy who teaches self-defense
and can’t hardly follow orders on missions.
Chuck and Red – they know the other side of me. The side of me that settles into the
blood-soaked enjoyment of a good hunt, the side that likes to draw out the
chase, play with my prey a little bit.
Now, I ain’t inta physical torture mosta the time unless it’s just some
sadistic bastard who deserves it for payback, but I like makin’ ‘em sweat. I like smellin’ the scent of fear on ‘em
when they know they got mere seconds to live but they don’t know who or what’s
gonna kill ‘em ‘cause they ain’t seen me yet.
Psychological torture, Chuck calls it.
Teasin’, Red calls it. I call it
the best fuckin’ adrenaline rush on the face of the planet.
We’d been dealin’ with this
mutant, this Rogue, for a long time. At
first we kinda thought she was workin’ for Magneto, y’know, with the
Brotherhood, but then the news came that Pyro, one of Magneto’s own, was dead
by her hand and she’d disappeared again.
Then we knew she wasn’t one of his, but it took us a few more random
casualties for us to realize that she didn’t belong to anybody at all – she was
a freelancer, a mercenary.
That was when Chuck sent me
after her. See if you can get her to
join us, Logan, he said. I don’t think
she will, I said. Give her a chance, he
said, and if she won’t… well then, kill her.
She’s too dangerous to have on the loose.
I nodded, shouldered my pack,
and set out to her last known residence – livin’ with Mystique. From what we could pick up, her and the blue
bitch were on and off lovers. Now, I’d
seen Mystique, and she was a helluva looker, blue skin notwithstandin’. I hadn’t ever caught a glimpse of the Rogue,
but I had a feelin’ Mystique wasn’t gonna be settlin’ for anythin’ below her
level, ya know? So when I found out
that’s what the Rogue was up to, I was lookin’ forward to gettin’ a good look
at her before I slit her pretty little throat.
We’d been gatherin’ intelligence
on her for a long time, and what we had was painfully little, but I could tell
a lot about her from what we didn’t have.
For one, I knew she was good, damn good, at what she did. She was a fuckin’ professional to the last
detail, and she didn’t leave loose ends.
If we gotta whiff of her havin’ been somewhere with somebody, that
somebody was gone by the time we got there.
I knew that what we knew about her was what she fuckin’ wanted us to
know, nothin’ more, nothin’ less.
I knew she had to be a fuckin’
gorgeous bitch who liked to fuck her victims before she put ‘em down. That was just a freaky combination if ya
asked me, but I understood it. It was
like me, in a way – it was a way for her to play with ‘em for awhile before she
had to cut her fun short.
I knew she had a high goin’
price and wouldn’t back down. If you
didn’t wanna pay her what she asked, fine, you’d just hafta find somebody else
to do the job – but nobody’d do it as good as she would. She usually got what she asked for. I also knew that, despite her high price and
determination to get paid what she thought she deserved, she sometimes did a
‘job’ just for fun, just for herself.
Those were the ones we learned the most about her from, mainly ‘cause
she was doin’ it just to show off for us and to throw us off-track tryin’ to
figure out who she did it for. Took us
about five extra-curriculars before we figured out she wasn’t doin’ ‘em for
nobody but herself, and after that, she didn’t leave us no more clues. She’d gotten her point across.
{Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I’ll be watching you}
It was a cold, rainy day in
Westchester when I set out after her in my truck with my bike loaded on the
back. The weather seemed strangely
fittin’ somehow, and I couldn’t help but snort in amusement at it as I cracked
the window just a little, just enough to let the cigar smoke waft out. I didn’t know what kind of powers the Rogue
had – some of her victims were killed mysteriously, with no visible cause of
death turning up in the autopsies. Even
the one body Jeannie and Hank had stolen to autopsy themselves hadn’t given us
any kinda clue.
Sometimes she did it by poison,
other times she shot ‘em… but the ones she did for herself, they were always
clean, with no kinda marks or nothin’.
No tissue damage, no evidence of organ failure, no traces of any kind of
substance. They were just gone.
The one thing she hadn’t been
able to cover up, disguise, or otherwise fuck me over with was her scent. She had a very distinct signature of salt
and sweat, combined with the cherry-almond soap she seemed to favor and just a
hint of her own natural musk. Still,
despite the fact that I could pick up a trace on her a mile away, she managed
to elude me for several days. She was
quick and smart and a master of disguise, and I soon found out why she’d been
so careful to confuse her trail – she was on a job.
For two days after the body
turned up – some random mutie nobody knew anything about – I lost her but
good. After the furor died down, I
picked up a faint trace down near the river and followed it to an abandoned
glue factory where I lost it again only to catch a whiff of her on the breeze. I looked up and noticed that one of the
upper story windows was completely and cleanly busted out, as opposed to the
ones near the ground that still had shards of glass jutting out from their
edges.
Try as I might, I couldn’t find
any way for her to have gotten into that room, but my gut told me that’s where
she was. She’d have cut herself wide
open trying to crawl in through any of the lower windows and there wasn’t a
drop of blood to be found anywhere, all the doors were locked, and there were
no ladders or nearby tall buildings.
There were two possibilities – she’d either climbed the walls, which
wasn’t likely since none of her scent clung to the bricks, or she’d flown. Being that we knew so little about the Rogue
and her powers, I wasn’t putting it past her.
I found a good hiding place and
waited, every sense focused on detecting her.
I must have drifted off despite my best intentions, because when I woke
up, there was a faint orange light on the horizon and the edges of the clouds,
and she was hoverin’, right outside the window, her arms outstretched and her
head tilted back, just breathin’ in the mornin’ air. I found out I’d been wrong – she wasn’t beautiful. She was indescribable. Just the sight of her, suspended against the
orange-and-indigo sky, the sun catchin’ her hair on fire, jolted through my body
like several hundred watts of electricity.
I studied her for a long time as
she hung there, wonderin’ about her.
Wonderin’ ‘bout that white streak in her hair that made her look so damn
exotic, wonderin’ what kinda hardened, ruthless professional luxuriated in
sunrises like other women did in long, hot baths, wonderin’ how someone so
stunning could be the object of my hunt.
Before I’d finished wonderin’,
the sun had come up and Rogue had had her fill of the mornin’, choosin’ instead
to float back inside. After that, I
didn’t lose her even once. I followed
her to the exclusion of all else – didn’t sleep, didn’t hardly eat or drink,
and never, if I could help it, took my eyes offa her. She’d been hard enough to find the first time – there was no tellin’
how hard it would be to find her again.
{Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
I’ll be watching you}
I’d been shadowin’ her for five
months before I realized how deep she’d gotten me, and by that point, I didn’t
care. I hadn’t had contact with anybody
at the mansion since I’d left; Chuck and Red knew not to contact me and nobody
else at the school knew I was doin’ anythin’ important. As far as they knew, I was just off on
another one of my trips, the kind they all thought were just so I could get
away but were really little jobs I was doin’ for Chuck, kinda like this
one. Except no job had ever been like
this one.
By the time I’d been watchin’
her for four weeks, I had her memorized.
Probably coulda killed her by then, too, only I couldn’t. There was just somethin’ about her… I
couldn’t stand the thought of not bein’ able to see the way she tossed her
head, the way she clenched her teeth and flared her nostrils when she was in
pain or fuckin’ somebody, or the way the touch of her bare hand could lay out a
victim faster’n anythin’ I’d ever seen.
Took me awhile to figure out
what she was doin’… I finally got that somethin’ ‘bout her skin could be used
to just suck the life outta somebody.
When it was mutants, she sucked out their powers too – lemme tell you,
it was fuckin’ freaky first time I saw it happen, ‘specially when somebody
knocked on the door of the hotel room right afterward, before she’d had time to
do anythin’ with the body, and it pissed her off so much the buildin’ started
rumblin’ on its foundation. She’d
politely dismissed the flustered little bellhop at the door and gone back to
the bed to wrap Avalanche up in a sheet and dump him in the river.
After a kill like that, she’d
wrap all up in scarves and gloves and shit and not let an inch of bare skin
show through. Took me a while to
realize that she could turn her skin on and off, but it wasn’t
instantaneous. Took her several hours
to get it back off after she’d had it on, and she didn’t wanna touch nobody
unnecessarily. I could understand that
– start killin’ too many people ya didn’t mean to kill, ya leave a trail and
get into trouble. That’s how I’d gotten
captured the second time after that damn bar-clearin’ brawl in Laughlin City.
I started lookin’ forward to the
times she’d kill somebody like that, ‘cause somethin’ about seein’ her all
covered up and knowin’ what was underneath just did somethin’ for me. And the strangest thing of all was the
obsession I was developin’ with her wrists.
They were fine and delicate, but strong, and I loved it when she wore
short gloves and long sleeves, and the skin there just peeked out every now and
then when she moved. There was
somethin’ about the hide-n-seek of that skin that just shot all through me and
made me wanna nip and lick at it.
It was bad enough when, three
months into the detail, she got sloppy and got caught off-guard. Somebody killed Mystique, and it completely
threw Rogue off. She was a much-wanted
woman, and Magneto had Sabretooth out after her too, so when she found
Mystique’s body all torn up and shit, she really lost it. I guess they were kinda close and all – the
fact that Mystique was the one lover she’d had that she didn’t kill afterwards
shoulda clued me into that straight off.
Anyway, while she was gettin’ herself back under control, Sabretooth was
sneakin’ up right behind her.
I knew she could probably touch
him and kill him, but I didn’t want her to hafta do that. I smelled the pain comin’ offa her every
time she did it, and she was already in too much pain over losin’ Mystique and
shit, so I just jumped right in and distracted Sabretooth. Got a good beatin’ and a damn good fight
outta the deal, but Rogue got away and that was what mattered. I tried tellin’ myself at first that it was
just ‘cause she was my prey, not Sabretooth’s; and when that didn’t work, I
tried thinkin’ it was just ‘cause she’d be harder to kill if she absorbed ol’
Sabe’s healin’. None of that worked,
though, and I knew it was just ‘cause I didn’t wanna see her die.
I thought I was gonna lose her
for good, not be able to find her and shit after she got away, but a coupla
hours later she just came waltzin’ outta some alley about two hundred yards
ahead of me, careless as you please, and I’d found her again.
{Oh can’t you see
You belong to me…
With every step you take
And every move you make…
I’ll be watching you}
Two months after that, I watched
from a distance as she lured one of my old teammates into her hotel room. Remy was a lady’s man and quite a looker, if
the feminine talk around the mansion was to be believed, and it was no surprise
to me that he’d fall for her or that she’d want him for a little
amusement. I knew I was a goner when I
realized I wasn’t worried about Gambit – I knew he was gonna die at the end of
their little evenin’, and the only thing I was feelin’ was jealous.
Jealous that he was gonna get to
lay beneath her – ‘cause I’d never seen Rogue as anything but the top – and let
her fuck the life out of him… first figuratively, then literally. And did she ever. Watchin’ her that night made me hot in a way it hadn’t
before. Oh, I’d always thought she was
gorgeous, always thought she was damn sexy, always felt a little twinge of envy
toward her victims, but for the most part just watchin’ her was enough.
But when she sank her
fingernails into his biceps and threw her head back to scream, the claws came
out before I knew what was happenin’ and it was all I could do not to roar in
jealousy and bust in there to drag her offa him. I wanted her more than I wanted my next breath – and that sayin’
took on a whole new significance when you factored in the likelihood that
gettin’ her would most likely mean givin’ up that breath.
The third round they had – and
that was more than any of her other victims had gotten – I was seein’ red and
barely holdin’ myself back. Just when
she was on the edge of orgasm – I knew her so well, I liked to think I could
recognize the signs before she could – she reached out and touched Remy’s face
delicately. It was the only gentle
touch all night and I knew what was comin’ – she’d never done this before. Always before, she waited until they were
both finished before she killed ‘em.
She’d never done it while they were still fuckin’.
But as soon as her fingertips brushed
his face, he convulsed violently and she let loose with the loudest scream I’d
ever heard. I could smell her
adrenaline spiking, violent ecstasy only pushed higher by the pain, and just
when her body shattered, she turned her head and locked eyes with me. It was then that I realized how stupid I’d
been – I’d come out of my hidin’ place and was standin’ right at the window,
claws at the ready. Chest heavin’,
breathin’ hard and with a heartbeat like a jackhammer, she licked her lips in a
gesture of exhaustion and held her free hand out to me as Remy collapsed on the
bed.
I didn’t wait to be asked
twice. The animal in me was loose and
wanted her. I cut through the glass and
went in through the window, ignorin’ the shards of glass that stuck in my hands
and forearms. Her coordination was
still sufferin’ from that orgasm – I think the pain took her to a whole new
level she’d never been – and she was still tryin’ to climb offa Remy when I
reached for her. She flinched back and
managed to whisper, “No,” keeping her skin away from me.
Then I remembered – she couldn’t
turn it off right away. She’d kill me
if she touched me right now, and while I desperately wanted to fuck her, I
wanted to be alive for it. Standing on
trembling legs, she went to a small bag in the corner and pulled out a bodysuit
and a scarf, along with a pair of very short leather gloves. There was a small band of skin visible at
her wrist and I heard myself growling at the sight.
She gave me a little smile, as
if she knew why I was growling, and for the first time that night, I saw
something human in her eyes. It was the
same thing that had been on her face the first time I’d seen her against the
sunrise; the same thing that sometimes flickered over her expression when she
was bein’ just a normal person in a café with a book. It was that look that got through to me a little, calmed the haze
in my brain, let me respond when she took my hand and led me to the other bed
in the room. “Lie down,” she said
softly. “It’ll only take me a little
while to get it back. Just wait.” Her voice was hypnotic in a way and I felt a
soft warmth filtering through my brain as she stroked my temples and whispered,
“Relax.”
I obeyed what was clearly a
telepathically-aided command, and before I knew what had happened, I was waking
up to see her poised above me, naked, stroking me. Her gloves were still on her hands, and my jeans were still
around my thighs, providing a barrier between her skin and mine. I raised my eyebrow at her and she
shrugged. “Only a couple of more
minutes,” she explained in a sweet voice.
“But I couldn’t wait.”
I nodded and sank back into the
pillows, letting my eyes scan the room.
The first thing I noticed was the fact that the other bed was perfectly
made – and empty. She’d disposed of the
body while I was out… and then had come back for me. My eyes locked with hers in a question, but she didn’t bother to
answer it, only smiled a little and leaned down, her breath hot on my sensitized
skin as she continued to lightly caress my shaft with her fingertips.
Whispering so low I could barely
hear her, she started counting down.
“Six…five…four…three…two…”
“God!”
Her mouth was hot and wet and
oh-so-good and I shuddered in pleasure and surprise. Never had I seen her, this dominant creature, perform such a
subservient act for any of her partners.
But damn, she was good. As she
worked me in her mouth, she slid her hands up over my hips and stomach, and my
breath caught in my throat at the sight of her wrists peeking out from under
gloves, the long graceful fingers tracing mindless patterns on my skin. I reached down and pulled the gloves off and
felt her smile around me as I took her hands in mine and sat up enough to lick
the underside of her wrist.
When tremors started running
through my body, she sat up, licking her lips, and leaned over to kiss me. This was also new – she’d never kissed
anybody else either. I had noticed, and
had approved. Kissing only meant
attachment, and it was never wise to become attached to someone you were only
going to kill later. Regardless, I also
approved of this break in procedure – she had an absolutely gorgeous mouth and
I was thrilled to be able to taste it for myself.
She helped me wriggle out of my
jeans, and then settled on top of me. I
was surprised to see her searching my eyes with a strange intensity. Giving me one more kiss, she anchored her
hands on my shoulders and rolled us so that I was on top, her legs falling to
either side of me as her hands lightly caressed my shoulders and the back of my
neck. “Come on,” she murmured, biting
into the side of my neck, but not enough to really hurt. I was baffled by her behavior, but I was
also irrevocably under her spell and didn’t argue.
{Since you’ve gone I’ve been
lost without a trace
I dream at night – I can only
see your face
I look around but it’s you I
can’t replace
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace
I keep calling, baby, baby please…}
Four hours later, though, I was
ready to start arguing when she got up and started getting dressed. “Finished already?” I asked her, and it was
the first thing I’d said to her all night.
She knew I wasn’t just talking
about the sex – we’d been going at that non-stop for awhile, and I was feelin’
pretty finished myself. I was talkin’
about the fact that she looked like she was leavin’ – and I was still alive.
The Look was back on her face
again, the hint of compassion, of humanity, of attachment, as she nodded. “You saved my life,” she said quietly. “I owe you at least that much.”
“Will I see you again?” I didn’t like the way my voice rasped, the
way it caught in my throat and came out in pieces that barely got put back
together into words.
Her eyes turned sad and a little
playful all at the same time and she sat down beside me, pulling on her gloves
so I’d know this touch wasn’t like the one she’d given Remy, so I wouldn’t have
to decide whether I trusted her or not.
The gesture was touching, but I didn’t need it. She could have killed me then. I was waiting for her to.
“You might,” she answered, and her voice didn’t sound completely whole either. “In fact, if I know you at all, you’ll probably see me every day.” She leaned down to kiss me and I let her, and I kissed her back. There was something here, something wrong and something so right all at the same time. I suddenly knew that I’d become Mystique’s replacement, that the Rogue owned me and was somehow allowing me to own a little of her.
As she got up to leave,
shouldering her pack and opening the door, I drew in a shaky breath and
prepared to get up and go after her – in a few hours. I knew she’d leave me a trail this time. She walked through the door without a
backwards glance, pulling it shut behind her and taking to the skies almost
immediately. As she faded from sight,
her mental ‘voice’ came ringing in my head, and I couldn’t help but smile.
~I’ll be watching you.~
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