Persistence of Memory

Persistence of Memory Chapter Thirty One (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch, and Uberbeta… it’s finally
cooler! Whooo! You sent weather! J InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink get big
sparkley muses for archiving. J ProPhile has enough muses, squishy and
otherwise. He just gets a big shiny
gold star for being a smutmuse. J Readers/Reviewers: Okay, I heard you! Now,
with more Rogue/Todd and Lance/Amara! J Thanks for reading and reviewing! J

 

 

 

 



Rogue shook
herself, the buzz of feelings rattling around her head subsiding somewhat as
she made a concerted effort to keep her mental shields firm. It had been getting worse since the Professor
got sick, she thought to herself.
Before, if she had a problem with the powers she had absorbed from
Empath, she would go to him and he would help her, block the feelings himself
or teach her a new way to strengthen the shields. It had been slowly getting better as she let herself learn more
methods, but for nearly a week, since the Professor collapsed, the empathy had
been growing. She could feel twinges of
it even through the shields and that was part of the reason it had been so easy
for her to go off on Todd. She had felt
the mixture of jealousy and anger and doubt and it had made her mad. Rogue had been nearly infuriated that he
could ever hold any of her past against her and part of his did not trust her
when she said he was the only one she loved.
I’m such a bitch, she sighed inwardly. He’s allowed to feel like that. Everyone does now and then…I think. She knew that she had a niggling moment of annoyance whenever he
was extra nice to Wanda and hoped he could not notthe the glares she shot in
the other girl’s direction. Yeah,
everyone… The Institute was far
from quiet but it was subdued in the growing evening. Evan was no where to be found, according to Scott, so the
Fearless Leader had taken Jamie, Bobby and St John to look for him out on the
grounds. Everyone else was lost in their own pursuits or whispering in corners
about the “stupid questions”

With a sigh the bespoke more
frustration than anything, she opened the door to Todd and Lance’s shared room
quietly, blinking at the surprisingly bright light. He had his back to her, hunched over the desk that stood on his
side of the room, music blaring tinnil from the earphones clamped firmly on his
head. She frowned and shut the door,
not making an effort to be quiet now.
“Todd.” He did not turn around
but merely started humming off key to what seemed to be Tom Jones. “Todd!”
The urge to giggle was nearly too great as he began dancing in place,
studiously bent over some broadsheet on his desk. With a stifled laugh, she crossed to him and yanked the earphones
off his head, Sex Bomb blaring embarrassingly loud.
“D
“Don’t do that!” he cried, leaning
against the desk heavily. “I nearly
threw myself through the window!”

“You didn’t hear me call you.” She glanced at the earphones. “Tom Jones?”

“It’s not unusual[1],”
he shrugged, taking them back. “I
thought you and Amara were going to bitch about the questions or something.”

“I decided I didn’t want to wait
until tomorrow to talk,” she said smoothly, turning off his CD player without
breaking eye contact with him. “It’s
too important.”

“Oh?” he choked. Surreptitiously, he began covering the paper
spread across the desk. “Really?”

Rogue glanced down and sighed. “You don’t have to do that family tree. We aren’t going to school tomorrow. Probably
not ever.”

“Mmmm.” He hastily shoved it aside, covering it with a stack of comic
books and some assorted mess.

She raised a brow. “Whatever.
Look, I just want to tell you…and I want you to really understand…I
trust you. But I’m having…problems.”

Todd frowned. His hand crept to his heart and the tattoo
there, his birth defect a constant worry in the back of his mind. Sometimes he wondered if she would find him
dead on the floor because he could not heal fast enough to correct for the
malfunction. I hope she doesn’t mean
problems like that… Please let it be something easy. “I trust you, too. I mean it. Even though I
got pissy about Pietro, I know that…”

“Shhh,” she hissed, closing her
eyes tightly. A pang of nervousness had
struck her, emanating from him, and she could not figure out why he was so
upset. The nervousness was tinged with
worry and sleeplessness, making her feel groggy while her heart began pounding
hard in her chest. Breathe, Rogue,
breathe… After a long moment, she
opened her eyes. “I can’t control
Empath anymore.”

Todd blinked. “What?”

“When the Professor was…himself…he
helped me control these feeliwhenwhenever my mental shields got too weak but
now I’m on my own and I can’t hold him in.
Emma noticed earlier…she felt him in my head. And,” she found her words were coming in a rush she was unable to
stop, “and I keep feeling all these things and I can’t stand it! I want to hide
and scream and cry and…and…damn it all, I can’t stand this!” She covered her face with her hands and
muffled a noise of outrage.

“Hey,” he said, panicked. “Here, sit down…” He took her elbow
carefully and led her to his bed, her sobs shaking her body.

“I can control it a little
still…I’m not projecting like he could, not as bad, and I can block out most of
it unless I’m really close to someone but…Oh, hellfire!” She looked down at her gloves. “I ran.”

He ignored her subject change,
taking her now-stained gloved hands in his bare ones. “The Professor’s gonna be fine soon, I’m sur it. it. Emma’ll get
him straight.”

Rogue snorted. “For Brotherhood, you’re optimistic.”

“Former Brotherhood,” he
corrected.

“Sometimes I wonder,” she sighed.

“Wonder what?”

“Never mind.” Rogue sniffled once more and closed her
eyes, seeking equilibrium. She could
feel desire rising off of Todd and did not resent it as she half expected
to. Instead, she felt an answering
response in her own body and wondered just what he saw when he looked at her,
sitting on his bed and sobbing, her makeup running in black streaks down her
face to her neck, her gloves wet and stained.
Frowning, she looked down at her knees and thought for the millionth
time that she was too skinny. Maybe
Kitty and Jubes want to work out a swap and we can all trade bodies for a
while.

“What’re you thinking?” Todd asked,
rubbing his thumb over the back of her damp satin glove.

“You really trust me?”

“Yeah…” He had barely gotten the word out before she was kissing him, the
edge of his shirt pulled between their mouths to prevent contact. He let her push him back against the bed,
his hands moving automatically to grasp her hips as she straddled him, her
kisses moving from his lips to his neck, then his chest, always annoyingly and
tantalizingly inhibited by fabric.
“Marie,” he said urgently, “what do you want?”

“Show me you trust me,” she
breathed, running her gloved hands up his stomach under his shirt. “Show me you don’t care that I’m damaged.”

He grabbed her wrists and stopped
her progress, pushing her off him and onto her back. He leaned over her and
said as sternly as he could manage, “Never, never say that!”

Rogue set her mouth stubbornly.
“Show me.” She had a moment to wonder
at her own audacity and the glare he shot her but she quickly lost her train of
thought as his mouth closed over her now-erect nipple, her braless state
lending towards the effect. She sighed
and let her hands fall back against the bed, her eyes closing as he drew on
her, kissing her through her clothes as he ran a hand down her stomach to the
waistband of her pants. She gasped
softly at the sudden intrusion of his fingers between the fabric of her jeans
and the thinner cotton of her underwear, but her legs parted for him willingly,
urging him onward. He paused, not sure
of the danger inherent in their activities, and she wanted to scream with
frustration. “I’m wearing tights,” she
drawled, her accent thickening with her lack of effort to control it.

He looked up at her and a grin
ghosted across his face. “Really?” Quick as anything, he was on his knees on
the floor, pulling her towards him by her knees. She giggled in a very un-Rogue-like manner as he pulled her pants
down and ran his hands up the inside of her tights-clad thighs. Her giggles
turned to a sharp gasp and then a low moan as he trailed a line of kisses along
the roundness of her flesh, stopping at the juncture of her thighs. She made an incoherent pleading noise low in
her throat as he pressed a lingering kiss against damp fabric and heated skin.

He could taste her through the
layers of clothing and the lack of contact made him desperately eager for
more—more of her responses, more of her flesh and heat and the salty sweet
moisture between her thighs that he was trying very hard not to lap at like an
overzealous dog. Todd could feel her flesh
part for him even through her clothes, so thin were the layers, and he found
the small bud of flesh so barely obvious.
He pressed his tongue against her there and drew hard, making her cry
out with the suddenness of it, her fingers twisting in his hair in an effort to
pull him closer. He drew every response
possible from her, wondering if anyone heard them and if they did, what would
happen? He found he did not care as she
gasped his name, her hips rising to give hieateeater access to her covered flesh,
her murmured pleas and encouragements flowing through his veins like thick
honey, making him feel removed even as he sought closeness. Her release was like melting, her heels
digging into his back as she pressed against him, his fingers gripping her hips
even as he continued to lave her until she pushed him away, begging for
breath. He crawled up to lay on the bed
next to her, careful of her skin as he lay his head against her shoulder. “Don’t say things like that,” he chided
again, breathlessly.

“Which part? The yes yes oh god yes or the damaged?”

“You know…”

Rogue closed her eyes, waves of
feeling that had everything to do with her but nothing to do with her own
psyche drowning her. “I have to go.”

“What?”

“It…it’s too much. I can’t keep it out right now!” She pushed away from him, gasping slightly,
as she was assailed now by his confusion, mingling with lust and love. It made her heart pound even harder and her
eyes water in confusion. “Too much,”
she gasped again, feeling dizzy.

“Marie,” he said quickly, stopping
her before she could leave, “where are you going?”

“Away!” She shook her head violently.
“I can’t be around anyone right now!”
Slowly but steadily, other peoples’ emotions were starting to creep
in. She felt pain and desire and anger
and boredom and superiority and so many things that she could not name but
wanted to that she was sure she would die from it. She cried out, a choked sound, and fell to her knees, covering
her ears with her hands. “Stop it!” she
screamed. “Stop it!”

Todd gulped, fear coppery and vile
in his throat. “Marie!” He stopped just short of shaking her. “Baby, what can I do?”

“Go!” she cried. “Just…” she scream again, wordlessly, and
curled in on herself, her back curving into a fetal position.

His first impulse was to run for
the Professor, but that thought flew from his head almost as soon as it
entered. “Fuck fuck fuck” he muttered
to himself. He tried to rub her back in a futile comforting gesture only to find
his hand batted away furiously. Jean...she’s
a little psychic… “Marie, baby, I’m gonna go get help, okay?” His only answer was a jagged sob, muffled by
the floor. Todd was out of his room and
taking the stairs three at a time before it even shut behind him, hoping Jean
was awake and deciding that he did not care if she was or not.

 

Lance woke up suddenly. “Stop it!”

Amara poke him once more in the
side for good measure. “You sleep a
lot.”

“It’s winter. I’m hibernating.” He yawned hugely and rolled onto his back. “Kitty still sick?”

“How would I know?” she asked
stiffly, staring down at him where he lay on the sofa of the rec room. “And why are you down here?”

He sat up slowly, his back and
shoulders popping with the effort. He
did not want to admit that he had fallen asleep waiting for Kurt to come back
downstairs with news of Kitty. In fact,
he realized, no one had come back downstairs with news of Kitty. Either they went another direction or I
fell asleep damn fast. Or she’s sicker
than she’s letting on… “I just
dozed off is all,” he said carefully.
Amara was fragile in her trust and he did not want to give her a reason
to feel he had broken it. “What time is
it?”

“Only ten thirty. Ish.”
She folded her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were coming to my bed
tonight.”

“You know we have to be careful,”
he began, but at her look, he relented.
“I am. I just don’t want us to
get bitched at by Logan.”

“You won’t,” she said
confidently. “He’s in the lab with
Beast. Besides,” she continued, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of
her eyes, “it isn’t tonight I’m concerned about.”

“So…you don’t want me to…”

“No, Lance,” she said on a
sigh, “I do want you to come to bed with me this evening. What I am…concerned…about is tomorrow
night.”

“What’s tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow,” she said with a tinge
of excitement in her voice, “is sacred to Venus. You know Venus, correct?”

“Er…love goddess[2]?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it,
yes.” She pulled him up by his wrists,
looking more excited with each passing moment.
“Tomorrow is hers and…” she bit her lip and looked around as if
expecting to find an audience. “And
after we’re done with this interview…crap,” she said the wor if if it
were foul in her mouth, “I want you to do something with me.”

Lance stared. Not for her, not because of her, but with
her. “What?”

“I can’t tell you yet…will you do
it?”

“This isn’t some weird Nova Roman
marriage thing is it? I mean, I love
you but we’re really…”

She stiffened. “Hardly.
I am deposed princess of Nova Roma.
I cannot marry.”

“Ah…”

“Are you…” she seemed to be
flipping through a mental Rolodex, “Catholic?”

“I’m not anything,” he snorted.

“Good. That’ll make it easier. I thought Kurt and Rahne were going to
burst a gasket the first time they found me in the…er…never mind.”

“Found you where? Doing what?” he asked intently, narrowing
his gaze.

“None of your concern. It was before I knew you.” She shrugged eloquently. “Lance, this is very important to me.”

His mind was made up before he knew
it. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“I love you,” she said, flinging
her arms around his neck. “Now, I’m
going to bed. Be there in ten minutes.”

He nodded. “Hey,” he called after her , “what am I
gonna be doing tomorrow?”

“Don’t worry about it!”

“Amara!”

 



[1] *ducks rain
of blows * Sorry! Couldn’t resist the pun!

[2] Venus is
actually an amalgam of several forms of Venus, including one known as “Venus of
the nice ass.” Venus, or Aphrodite as
she was known in Greece, was actually a goddess of many things… http://www.bpassion.com/goddess-venus.html That’s just basic stuff. There’s TONS more if you’re into mythography
and such.