Persistence of Memory
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X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
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Category:
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
57
Views:
7,455
Reviews:
68
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own X-Men Evolution, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.
34
Persistence of Memory Chapter Thirty Four (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…any word on the
notebook? InterNutter, TC and Maxwell
Pink are loverly for archiving. J ProPhile gets…a nap. (I’m out of musekibble. Roll with it.) Readers/Reviewers: Big,
smooshy duck hugs for all of you!
Rogue felt
a small measure of relief as soon as Todd ran off to find Jean, but the voices,
the people, the feelings were still seeping into her mind, crushing her own
thoughts and subsuming them. With an
effort greater than she would have thought possible, she rose on her knees and
swayed, bracing herself against the bed.
Her stomach roiled in protest, a physical manifestation of psychological
turmoil. I know I haven’t prayed a
whole lot, not since I was a kid, but if You’re listening…help?
“Are you
okay?”
The relief
was so sudden and pure that she fell forward.
“Leech!”
“Are you
okay, Miss Rogue?”
She sucked
in a deep, painful breath. “Come in
here,” she exhaled. “Come closer.”
He edged
further into the room. “I saw you and
thought maybe you were sick or something…isn’t this Toad’s room?”
“Yeah, it
is,” she said a little more firmly. “I
was…vistin’ him and had a little accident.
He went to go get help. Leech,
do you feel okay?”
“Yeah…well,
I’m a little hungry, but I’m fine.” His
wide eyes took her in and grew even wider in alarm. “Is it your mutation?” he whispered. “Am I hurting you?”
“No! No…you’re helping me!” She carefully pushed herself to her feet and
felt dizzy. “Leech, why’re you using
your powers?”
“Oh…I was
playing tag with Rahne and Ray in the Danger Room and they kept using powers…it
wasn’t fair,” he said petulantly. “I’ll
stop.”
“No! Please don’t!” Rogue held out a placating hand and sighed as Leech
recoiled. Her mutation had been part of
the general warnings for new students—“If Rogue ever faints or needs medical
attention, do not touch her bare skin.
Avoid her bare skin in Danger Room sessions unless you want to be
drained…”
“Okay…” Leech’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s a
very, very long story, Leech.”
“Call me
Artie please. I like Artie.”
“I thought
Storm said your name was Dorian.”[1]
He
sighed. “That’s my first name. Artie is my middle name. Well, short for Arthur. Artie sounds cooler.”
She laughed
weakly. “Artie it is, then. Look, Artie, I need your help. Can you help me?”
“Depends…” He edged just a little closer. “Will it hurt?”
“I won’t
drain you, I promise,” she sighed. “I
just need for you to stay with me long enough to get off the grounds. Can you do that?”
“Won’t we
get in trouble?”
“No one’s
gonna yell at you. I promise. I’ll make sure of it!”
“What do I
need to do?”
Rogue
tucked her hair behind her ears, trying to ignore her burgeoning headache. “Come with me.” She would leave two letters, she decided. One for Todd and one for everyone else. They would have to be short—she did not
have much time before Todd found Jean.
“Can you write fast?”
“Kinda.”
“Okay,
while I pack a bag, I’m gonna say some stuff I want you to write down, got
it?” Leech nodded. “And you can’t tell anyone I left until they
find the note, okay?”
“Why’re you
running away?” he asked fretfully.
“Don’t you like it here?”
“I love
it here,” she admitted, “but I can’t stay.
I can’t stay unless I can get something fixed in my head and that’s not
gonna happen until the Professor is all fixed, too.”
Leech
looked dejected. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t
have to,” she said as kindly as she could manage. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time. Can you help? Please?”
The
‘please’ unhinged him. “Okay,” he
sighed. “Let’s go.”
Evan shushed
himself as he rattled the lock on the mudroom door. “Not so loud!”
“I was
about to say the same thing,” Scott said tersely from within the dark mudroom.
“Shit!” Evan dropped to his knees in surprise. “Wow, you got tall…”
“God, you’re
drunk!” Scott sounded so disgusted that Evan giggled. “Get up!”
“The floor’s
all wobbly!”
“Evan,” he
growled, grabbing the younger mutant’s wrist and dragging him to his feet. “We’ve been worried sick about you…”
“Sorry, dad,” he drawled
sarcastically.
“Evan…”
“Fuck…Auntie
Ro!”
Storm
loomed large behind Scott, her eyes crackling white and a small, stiff breeze
ruffling her hair and cloak. “Take him
to the kitchen and put on some coffee.
I need a moment to collect my temper.”
Scott
nodded mutely and dragged Evan mercilessly to the kitchen, letting him slump
into one of the chairs. “You’re an
idiot, you know that?”
“Risty
doesn’t think so,” Evan sing-songed blearily.
“She looooooooooooooves me.”
“Risty?” Scott turned, the packet of coffee filters
dangling limply from his fingers. “What
does Rogue’s friend have to do with this?”
“I was
walkin’ with her,” Evan replied smugly.
“She understands!”
“Understands
what?” Scott bit out, his stomach feeling as if it had dropped to the
floor.
“Stuff…oh…are
those Kitty’s Nutter Butters?”
Scott slapped Evan’s hand away
from Kitty’s stash of cookies. The
drunk teenager had taken to wandering crookedly around the table and had seized
on the junk food cabinet as his destination.
“Sit down!”
“Auntie Ro’s
not here and you can’t make me!”
“You’re
acting like a child!”
“Phhhhht!”
“How much
did you have to drink?”
“Ah…this
much.” Evan held his hands a certain
distance apart. “Scott,” he sighed,
suddenly drunkenly serious, “does Jean get you?”
“Uh…”
“You know,
really get you? Like, totally
understand everything and just…listens to you?”
“Evan…”
“Because
Risty so gets me. All we did was talk
for hours out in the park and she was, like, so cool about the mutant
thing. She didn’t care! She said it was evolution and we even talked
about that! I’ve never talked nerd stuff with a girl before!”
Scott
returned to making the coffee—twice as strong as he normally would—with one eye
on Evan. “What else did you talk about?”
he asked carefully, hoping he sounded neutral.
“Oh…life,
the Universe and everything[2],”
he sighed romantically, then ruined the effect with a loud belch.
“Suave,
man, real suave.”
Storm chose
that moment to enter in a flutter of robes and ey. y. “Evan, this is the most selfish,
irresponsible, reprehensible act you’ve ever engaged in!”
Scott
grimaced. “I’ll, uh…I’ll leave you now…” He made tracks out of the kitchen through
the rec room only to run into a small gathering in the foyer. Logan, with Kitty
draped across his arms, was waiting for Cecilia to open the front door. Jean
had made it back to the mansion and was trying to fasten Kurt’s holo on his
wrist while the younger mutant flailed after Kitty. “What’s going on?”
“Kitty!”
Kurt said urgently. “She’s going to the
hospital…”
“I’ll
explain in a minute,” Jean said through gritted teeth. “Grab him, would
you? If he doesn’t get this holo on, he’s
not going anywhere…”
Scott
pinned Kurt’s arms and legs but could not grab his tail, which lashed
frantically. “Kurt,” Kitty said
quietly, “I’ll be fine. You promised me everything will be alright and it
will. Beast said they do this surgery all
the time…”
“But not on
you!” Kurt protested. His holo
activated then and his blue fur disappeared under a patina of false flesh.
“Elf, calm
down,” Logan said calmly. Red lights
flashed coming up the drive and everyone fell oddly silent as the ambulance
pulled up to the portico, escorted by a sedate Banshee, walking ahead of the
rig after opening the gate for them.
all all
crowd was gathering on the stars and in the hall by then, students attracted by
the commotion. “Everyone, back to bed,”
Jean said loudly in her best “obey me!” voice.
Logan let
one of the paramedics take Kitty to put her on the gurney as Cecilia rapidly
detailed the events of the evening to the other paramedic. “Can two of us ride with her?”
“Family?”
“I’m her…her
father.” Logan said firmly. “And he’s
her…uh…”
“We’re
engaged to be engaged,” Kurt supplied with a hitch in his voice.
“En…what?” The paramedic shook his head. “Only room for
one of you.”
Kurt
swallowed hard. “I’ll ride with
Cecilia. There’s probably forms you need to sign…I’m sorry I can’t come with
you, Kitty,” he said, taking her hand.
“Promise
you’ll be there when I wake up?”
“I promise.”
“We need to
take her jewelry off to attach the electrodes…”
Kitty made
a half-hearted clutch at her necklace and ring. “But…”
“I’ll hold
on to them, Schatz,” Kurt soothed, slipping the ring from her right forefinger
and the necklace from around her throat.
“I’ll be there when you wake up.”
“You’d better be,” she sighed,
closing her eyes as the paramedics began to bump her down the steps as gently
as possible.
It took a
good hour for yoneyone to wend their way back to bed and another twenty minutes
to settle down. Rogue thought she was going to go crazy, hiding from Todd and
keeping Leech quiet the entire time. “Come
on,” she hissed, tugging him behind her out the back door near the laundry
room. “I promise no one is gonna yell
at you…”
Leech nodded, though the gesture was
uncertain. “Okay. How far?”
“To the
river. About six miles. Can you make it?”
“I think so…”
Rogue
sighed. “Okay, halfway to the
river. Far enough away from here that I
won’t…be sick anymore.”
Leech
sighed. “That Todd guy was looking for
you. Are you mad at him?”
“No, not
even close. But I don’t want him to…be
hurt. I need to be alone. And why am I
explaining this to you?”
“People
talk to me a lot. I think they think I
won’t know what they mean.”
“Do you
mind?”
“Not really,” he shrugged,
kicking at a pinecone. “I learn all
sorts of new words that way.”
Rogue
laughed and paused under the shadows of a tall pine. “Can you shut off your powers for a sec?” she asked suddenly.
“Yeah.”
Almost instantly,
she was awash with…nothing. Nothing
except Artie’s nervous calm. “Oh…” She sighed in near-bliss. “Artie, you don’t have to follow me
there. You can go on.”
“But you said you needed me to
help!”
“Tell you
what…make sure Todd finds that letter, okay?
That’ll be an even bigger help!”
Artie
nodded and disappeared into the dark, heading back to the house. “I hope you get better soon!” he called back
to her.
“Me, too,”
she sighed. “Me, too.”
A/N Short, I know… *sigh * Next chapter, Professor, Emma,
Magneto, Lance/Amara.
[1] In Evo, he’s
Dorian. In the comics, Artie. Go figure.
[2] Title of one
of the Hitchhiker’s Guide books in the series by Douglas Adams. He always had
the best titles. My favorite was Dirk Gently and the Long Dark Tea Time of the
Soul in his Dirk Gently series. J Felt like sharing. Go back to the fic now.
;)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…any word on the
notebook? InterNutter, TC and Maxwell
Pink are loverly for archiving. J ProPhile gets…a nap. (I’m out of musekibble. Roll with it.) Readers/Reviewers: Big,
smooshy duck hugs for all of you!
Rogue felt
a small measure of relief as soon as Todd ran off to find Jean, but the voices,
the people, the feelings were still seeping into her mind, crushing her own
thoughts and subsuming them. With an
effort greater than she would have thought possible, she rose on her knees and
swayed, bracing herself against the bed.
Her stomach roiled in protest, a physical manifestation of psychological
turmoil. I know I haven’t prayed a
whole lot, not since I was a kid, but if You’re listening…help?
“Are you
okay?”
The relief
was so sudden and pure that she fell forward.
“Leech!”
“Are you
okay, Miss Rogue?”
She sucked
in a deep, painful breath. “Come in
here,” she exhaled. “Come closer.”
He edged
further into the room. “I saw you and
thought maybe you were sick or something…isn’t this Toad’s room?”
“Yeah, it
is,” she said a little more firmly. “I
was…vistin’ him and had a little accident.
He went to go get help. Leech,
do you feel okay?”
“Yeah…well,
I’m a little hungry, but I’m fine.” His
wide eyes took her in and grew even wider in alarm. “Is it your mutation?” he whispered. “Am I hurting you?”
“No! No…you’re helping me!” She carefully pushed herself to her feet and
felt dizzy. “Leech, why’re you using
your powers?”
“Oh…I was
playing tag with Rahne and Ray in the Danger Room and they kept using powers…it
wasn’t fair,” he said petulantly. “I’ll
stop.”
“No! Please don’t!” Rogue held out a placating hand and sighed as Leech
recoiled. Her mutation had been part of
the general warnings for new students—“If Rogue ever faints or needs medical
attention, do not touch her bare skin.
Avoid her bare skin in Danger Room sessions unless you want to be
drained…”
“Okay…” Leech’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s a
very, very long story, Leech.”
“Call me
Artie please. I like Artie.”
“I thought
Storm said your name was Dorian.”[1]
He
sighed. “That’s my first name. Artie is my middle name. Well, short for Arthur. Artie sounds cooler.”
She laughed
weakly. “Artie it is, then. Look, Artie, I need your help. Can you help me?”
“Depends…” He edged just a little closer. “Will it hurt?”
“I won’t
drain you, I promise,” she sighed. “I
just need for you to stay with me long enough to get off the grounds. Can you do that?”
“Won’t we
get in trouble?”
“No one’s
gonna yell at you. I promise. I’ll make sure of it!”
“What do I
need to do?”
Rogue
tucked her hair behind her ears, trying to ignore her burgeoning headache. “Come with me.” She would leave two letters, she decided. One for Todd and one for everyone else. They would have to be short—she did not
have much time before Todd found Jean.
“Can you write fast?”
“Kinda.”
“Okay,
while I pack a bag, I’m gonna say some stuff I want you to write down, got
it?” Leech nodded. “And you can’t tell anyone I left until they
find the note, okay?”
“Why’re you
running away?” he asked fretfully.
“Don’t you like it here?”
“I love
it here,” she admitted, “but I can’t stay.
I can’t stay unless I can get something fixed in my head and that’s not
gonna happen until the Professor is all fixed, too.”
Leech
looked dejected. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t
have to,” she said as kindly as she could manage. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time. Can you help? Please?”
The
‘please’ unhinged him. “Okay,” he
sighed. “Let’s go.”
Evan shushed
himself as he rattled the lock on the mudroom door. “Not so loud!”
“I was
about to say the same thing,” Scott said tersely from within the dark mudroom.
“Shit!” Evan dropped to his knees in surprise. “Wow, you got tall…”
“God, you’re
drunk!” Scott sounded so disgusted that Evan giggled. “Get up!”
“The floor’s
all wobbly!”
“Evan,” he
growled, grabbing the younger mutant’s wrist and dragging him to his feet. “We’ve been worried sick about you…”
“Sorry, dad,” he drawled
sarcastically.
“Evan…”
“Fuck…Auntie
Ro!”
Storm
loomed large behind Scott, her eyes crackling white and a small, stiff breeze
ruffling her hair and cloak. “Take him
to the kitchen and put on some coffee.
I need a moment to collect my temper.”
Scott
nodded mutely and dragged Evan mercilessly to the kitchen, letting him slump
into one of the chairs. “You’re an
idiot, you know that?”
“Risty
doesn’t think so,” Evan sing-songed blearily.
“She looooooooooooooves me.”
“Risty?” Scott turned, the packet of coffee filters
dangling limply from his fingers. “What
does Rogue’s friend have to do with this?”
“I was
walkin’ with her,” Evan replied smugly.
“She understands!”
“Understands
what?” Scott bit out, his stomach feeling as if it had dropped to the
floor.
“Stuff…oh…are
those Kitty’s Nutter Butters?”
Scott slapped Evan’s hand away
from Kitty’s stash of cookies. The
drunk teenager had taken to wandering crookedly around the table and had seized
on the junk food cabinet as his destination.
“Sit down!”
“Auntie Ro’s
not here and you can’t make me!”
“You’re
acting like a child!”
“Phhhhht!”
“How much
did you have to drink?”
“Ah…this
much.” Evan held his hands a certain
distance apart. “Scott,” he sighed,
suddenly drunkenly serious, “does Jean get you?”
“Uh…”
“You know,
really get you? Like, totally
understand everything and just…listens to you?”
“Evan…”
“Because
Risty so gets me. All we did was talk
for hours out in the park and she was, like, so cool about the mutant
thing. She didn’t care! She said it was evolution and we even talked
about that! I’ve never talked nerd stuff with a girl before!”
Scott
returned to making the coffee—twice as strong as he normally would—with one eye
on Evan. “What else did you talk about?”
he asked carefully, hoping he sounded neutral.
“Oh…life,
the Universe and everything[2],”
he sighed romantically, then ruined the effect with a loud belch.
“Suave,
man, real suave.”
Storm chose
that moment to enter in a flutter of robes and ey. y. “Evan, this is the most selfish,
irresponsible, reprehensible act you’ve ever engaged in!”
Scott
grimaced. “I’ll, uh…I’ll leave you now…” He made tracks out of the kitchen through
the rec room only to run into a small gathering in the foyer. Logan, with Kitty
draped across his arms, was waiting for Cecilia to open the front door. Jean
had made it back to the mansion and was trying to fasten Kurt’s holo on his
wrist while the younger mutant flailed after Kitty. “What’s going on?”
“Kitty!”
Kurt said urgently. “She’s going to the
hospital…”
“I’ll
explain in a minute,” Jean said through gritted teeth. “Grab him, would
you? If he doesn’t get this holo on, he’s
not going anywhere…”
Scott
pinned Kurt’s arms and legs but could not grab his tail, which lashed
frantically. “Kurt,” Kitty said
quietly, “I’ll be fine. You promised me everything will be alright and it
will. Beast said they do this surgery all
the time…”
“But not on
you!” Kurt protested. His holo
activated then and his blue fur disappeared under a patina of false flesh.
“Elf, calm
down,” Logan said calmly. Red lights
flashed coming up the drive and everyone fell oddly silent as the ambulance
pulled up to the portico, escorted by a sedate Banshee, walking ahead of the
rig after opening the gate for them.
all all
crowd was gathering on the stars and in the hall by then, students attracted by
the commotion. “Everyone, back to bed,”
Jean said loudly in her best “obey me!” voice.
Logan let
one of the paramedics take Kitty to put her on the gurney as Cecilia rapidly
detailed the events of the evening to the other paramedic. “Can two of us ride with her?”
“Family?”
“I’m her…her
father.” Logan said firmly. “And he’s
her…uh…”
“We’re
engaged to be engaged,” Kurt supplied with a hitch in his voice.
“En…what?” The paramedic shook his head. “Only room for
one of you.”
Kurt
swallowed hard. “I’ll ride with
Cecilia. There’s probably forms you need to sign…I’m sorry I can’t come with
you, Kitty,” he said, taking her hand.
“Promise
you’ll be there when I wake up?”
“I promise.”
“We need to
take her jewelry off to attach the electrodes…”
Kitty made
a half-hearted clutch at her necklace and ring. “But…”
“I’ll hold
on to them, Schatz,” Kurt soothed, slipping the ring from her right forefinger
and the necklace from around her throat.
“I’ll be there when you wake up.”
“You’d better be,” she sighed,
closing her eyes as the paramedics began to bump her down the steps as gently
as possible.
It took a
good hour for yoneyone to wend their way back to bed and another twenty minutes
to settle down. Rogue thought she was going to go crazy, hiding from Todd and
keeping Leech quiet the entire time. “Come
on,” she hissed, tugging him behind her out the back door near the laundry
room. “I promise no one is gonna yell
at you…”
Leech nodded, though the gesture was
uncertain. “Okay. How far?”
“To the
river. About six miles. Can you make it?”
“I think so…”
Rogue
sighed. “Okay, halfway to the
river. Far enough away from here that I
won’t…be sick anymore.”
Leech
sighed. “That Todd guy was looking for
you. Are you mad at him?”
“No, not
even close. But I don’t want him to…be
hurt. I need to be alone. And why am I
explaining this to you?”
“People
talk to me a lot. I think they think I
won’t know what they mean.”
“Do you
mind?”
“Not really,” he shrugged,
kicking at a pinecone. “I learn all
sorts of new words that way.”
Rogue
laughed and paused under the shadows of a tall pine. “Can you shut off your powers for a sec?” she asked suddenly.
“Yeah.”
Almost instantly,
she was awash with…nothing. Nothing
except Artie’s nervous calm. “Oh…” She sighed in near-bliss. “Artie, you don’t have to follow me
there. You can go on.”
“But you said you needed me to
help!”
“Tell you
what…make sure Todd finds that letter, okay?
That’ll be an even bigger help!”
Artie
nodded and disappeared into the dark, heading back to the house. “I hope you get better soon!” he called back
to her.
“Me, too,”
she sighed. “Me, too.”
A/N Short, I know… *sigh * Next chapter, Professor, Emma,
Magneto, Lance/Amara.
[1] In Evo, he’s
Dorian. In the comics, Artie. Go figure.
[2] Title of one
of the Hitchhiker’s Guide books in the series by Douglas Adams. He always had
the best titles. My favorite was Dirk Gently and the Long Dark Tea Time of the
Soul in his Dirk Gently series. J Felt like sharing. Go back to the fic now.
;)