The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Chapter Fifty One (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… I’ll start sending energy midnight my time! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are extra loverly for archiving/hosting! J ProPhile gets naked muses and associated kibble for being a loverly smutmuse and Morgan… how goes the planned coup d’etat? ;) Readers/Reviewers: *GLOMP * for being so nice and reading and reviewing, lol. And it’s going to wrap up soon with bits left to carry into the next fic so… Wheeee, lol.



Todd sniffed and sighed. “I’ll get her,” he offered, bouncing once on his toes and peering down into the belly of Cerebro.
“No, you won’t,” Logan began, but it was too late.
Todd leapt off the side of the platform and caromed off the nearest curve of wall before landing near Emma below. His footing was precarious on the slick metal surface and he slid a foot or so before catching himself with his hands, ending in a crouch. “Whoa,” he muttered. “This shit’s slippery!”
“And fragile,” Logan snarled. “Hence the ‘no’.” He glanced back at Bobby and St John, flanking Lance, and nodded, “Close the door and make sure it’s sealed good, Bobby. St John… make sure this thing’s shut off. Lance…” He paused and sighed.
Todd looked up, squinting. “She’s breathing funny… all wheezy!”
Lance craned his neck, trying to see down into the machine without coming too close to the edge. “Maybe she’s choking on her tongue.”
“Way to keep a good thought,” Logan said mostly to himself, the sarcasm lost in the moment. “Todd, get yer green ass back up here now. Lance, make sure he stays. He listens to you. Sometimes.”
Lance shook his head. “Not since we left the ‘hood, man. Hey, Todd!” he called down. “Get your many ass back up here. Let Logan get Emma!”
Todd frowned. “No, I can do it myself. Just stand back, kay?” He actually as not too sure about being able to get her to the platform. He could lift quite a bit of weight but Emma was dead weight. She was thin but also tall, making her awkward to handle without any sort of movement in her. The metal surface popped and buckled beneath his feet as he carefully stood, shuffling every so slightly towards her. “Emma,” he said conversationally. “You awake down there?” He gasped as a flash of a mental imaged assailed him, gone so fast he did not have a chance to recognize it. “Emma?” he tried again. This time, the image lingered a split second longer, long enough to leave an impression and tell Todd this was beyond serious. “Uh, Logan?” he shouted. “Got a problem!”
Logan growled and leapt over the edge, at once both annoyed and concerned. He landed with a bit more grace than Todd had, but he too slid. His claws popped out on his right hand as he automatically reached to anchor himself but he seemed to remember at the last minute where he was and opted to tilt to the left instead, making him practically fall onto Todd. “What’s the deal?” he asked, trying to retain some sense of superior position in the p dyp dynamics.
“She’s wheezin’ or somethin’, yo,” he muttered, toeing her gently. “Should I move her?”
“No!” Logan ordered. “What is it with the women in this group and getting hurt?” he muttered, kneeling carefully next to Emma.”
“That’s sexist,” Lance called from above, trying to be flippant. “I’m telling Storm.”
“Show me how it’s not true. Then shut up,” Logan replied.

Bobby stepped back to admire his own handiwork The door was covered with a thick layer of white-blue ice. He was honestly quite proud of the effect, having been experimenting with the different types of ice he could produce lately, and turned to St John to show off. “What do you think?”
“I think,” he replied vacantly, bent over the controls to Cerebro, “that I have no fucking idea what I’m doing…” He looked up and smiled briefly. “Nice… remind me to bring you along next time I raid the tequila stash.”
“You usually do,” he reminded his boyfriend, walking over to join him bent over Cerebro’s controls. “What the hell? Is that Greek?” He ran his fingers over the slightly raised letters that marked each control panel option.
“No… I have no idea what it is. Probably some Emma-code…” Bobby glanced up at Lance. “Hey, come here…”
“What good’s he gonna do?” St John muttered under his breath.
“Not like we’re making any progress ourselves,” Bobby replied tartly as Lance loped up. “This make sense to you?” he asked Lance, pointing to the raised letters.
Lance bent low, peering and hmmmming over the device control panel. After a long moment, he stood up, looking self-satisfied. “Nope. Not at all.” A scrambling sound behind them made the trio turn to see Logan pulling himself up over the edge of the platform, looking slightly strained. Emma hung over his back, still limp as a wet noodle. Todd appeared a moment later, looking very pleased with himself thanks to the one leap it took him to make it to the top. “Make your own handholds?” Lance asked Logan innocently.
“Stow it, string bean,” Logan replied, dropping Emma onto the platform. “You get that thing turned off?”
“No…Actually, maybe,” St John amended. “I can’t read this thing and I had no idea how to operate the one at home, either. Why’d you need it off for anyway?”
“Same reason I told Bobby to seal off the door. Soon as whoever’s doing this shit realizes we’re in here, they’re not going to leave us alone.” Logan strode to the control panels and with a slight growl and an air of deep satisfaction at being able to release tension, swung his claws downward, driving them into the metal and wires, sending sparks flying and setting up a metallic tearing sound as he did a thorough job of making the controls unusable. “They can send me the bill,” he snapped at the horrified expressions of the teenagers on the platform.
Lance and Todd could not help the old urge to snicker gleefully at the sight of wanton vandalism, but at least they kept it to a minimum. St John raised a brow but did not comment. Instead, he asked, “Do you want me to get the door open so we can take her back to the recon point?”
Logan opened his mouth to reply, but froze. He inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowing. “No… get back…” He rose, his claws extending fully and his body tense as if for a fight. “And take Emma with you.”