Hell Hath No Fury

Hell Hath No Fury Chapter Eight
Disclaimers Apply


A/N Goddess Foxfeather… Gah. I know, I know… *ahem * Late. Yes. Well. *blush* Readers/Reviewers: OW! Quit poking me!!!!!!

Logan eyed Hellboy warily. He didn’t like him. He smelled wrong. “Beer?” he asked casually, offering a cold one and transchanneling at the same time.
Hellboy watched the sports shows flip by and shrugged. “No thanks, I’m good.”
Logan put the beer back in the box and did not so much as glance sideways at the red demon on the sofa with him. It had been long enough, he decided, and damn it, he deserved some answers. “So…what the hell are you, anyway?”
“Demon,” Hellboy shrugged. “What the hell are you?”
Logan sneered. “Wolverine.”
“Aren’t those like badgers or something?” Hellboy yawned, stretching his legs and arms. “Tiny, angry badgers?”
Logan slammed his open can down on the coffee table and shifted to face the massive red man sitting next to him. “It’s not a fucking badger!” he snarled. “It’s… it’s…”
Hellboy smirked, standing and stretching again. “Yeah, yeah. It’s a wolverine. Got it.” He had the audacity, in Logan’s mind, to wink. “I’m gonna go see what Liz is up to. Later.”
Logan fumed silently, his grip on the beer can threatening to crumple the aluminum and send alcohol spewing all over the Oriental rug. “That guy,” he bit out as Rogue entered from the kitchen, trying to read, at a banana and walk at the same time, “is a pain in the ass.”
She looked up, pausing in the middle of the rec room and looking momentarily startled, as if she just remembered where she was. “He’s not so bad,” she shrugged. “Least he don’t’ do weird things like yell at sports on t.v. or slice up harmless teddy bears.”
“That,” he growled. “was a fucking accident. I told Jubilee not to leave the damned thing there!”
Rogue smirked. “You know what it is? You’re just ticked that he can out-Wolvie you.”
“That ain’t even a word,” he grumbled, waving her off and settling back to sulk over the rest of his beloved hockey game.
Rogue snorted and resumed her trek to her room, trying to find the spot on the page where she had left off. She managed to make it to the foot of the stairs without incident, then she ran into Liz. Literally. “Damn it!”
Liz caught herself before she fell, a momentary panic washing over her as she expected to feel the draining effects of the other young woman’s powers. It was only a few seconds before she realized that Rogue was covered from collar bones to toes, only her neck and face baf clf cloth. “Sorry,” Liz muttered, blushing slightly. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
“Yeah, caught that one,” Rogue muttered, shutting her book and eyeing her smooshed banana sadly. She toed the peel and sighed. “If you’re lookin’ for Big Red, I think he headed to the Danger Room. Scott said he’s got a hard on for that warehouse sim…” Rogue winced. “I mean…”
Liz snorted. “I’ve heard the phrase before. It’s okay.” She tugged at the hem of her t-shirt and shrugged, looking past Rogue towards the roomroom. “Does he ever not watch hockey?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “When he’s kicking our asses in the Danger Room.”
The other young woman smiled faintly. “I’ve heard stories…”
Rogue opened her mouth to respond but a claxon of alarm bells cut through the mansion. “Shit!” she hissed, spinning on her heel to see Logan vault over the back of the sofa and head at a dead run for the back of the house. Overhead, footsteps began thundering down the halls and towards the stairs. “Get back,” Rogue ordered, grabbing Liz by the elbow and pulling her out of the way as Scott, followed by Bobby and a cadre of Jamies, pelted past. “Wait for it,” she muttered. Rahne and Amara followed, Jubilee bringing up the rear, hop-running as she tried to cram her foot into a high topped sneaker. “Now we go.”
“Go where?” Liz asked, already following, This place was nothing like the bureau, not like she thought it would be. It was far more chaotic but in a weird way, she thought she might be able to stay there, if she ever had to. Even the alarms bursting suddenly to life, the chaos that erupted around them, had felt familiar and comfortable.
“Just follow me,” Rogue said, moving faster. She led Liz down to what some of the others called the Ready Room, but what she really thought of as one giant locker room. Their uniforms, relatively new and unused, were kept next to their older practice gear in the tall metal lockers, along with necessary equipment and various implements she had no idea what to do with other than clip onto random belts and boots, enjoying the faint beeps that some of them emitted as it made her feel like she had a clue about them. “What’s going on?” she shouted over the partition between the male and female sides of the changing area. “Where’s the fire?”
“No idea,” Scott called back, his voice muffled as he pulled his t-shirt off. “Jean would know…”
“Jean’s not here,” Rahne called out helpfully. “We thought you had her!”
Scott stuck his head around the corner, his chest bare and showing clearly as he glared at the girls. “Why would I have her?”
Liz shrugged. “Cause you like her?”
“Uh… Liz!” Scott turned as red as his glasses and ducked back around the corner. “What’re you doing down here?”
"She needs you, she wants you, she loves you,” Rogue sniped, zipping up the uncomfortable black outfit. “Where we supposed to meet?”
“Cerebro,” Jean replied, striding through the door. “Seems our houseguest has the wandering fingers.”