Fic: Physician, heal thyself. Logan.Marie.
Monday, August 21st, 2006 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orange_crushedX3 fic, spoilers, and featuring what may or may not be classified as Logan/Marie. Considering I read subtext in my subtext, I'll err on the side of the angels and say L/M, PG-13 for language, and shortish.
They tell her later, the precautions they had to take. Xavier, shutting her off. Dr. McCoy's injections, four times daily, to keep her asleep. And an isolation tank in the bottom of the sub-basement, a watery womb where they filtered out noise and light and smell and yeah, where they filtered out Logan, because he wouldn't shut up about seeing her.
She is in line and the bracelet on her wrist has started to chafe. They could make them out of paper instead, or that paper that's coated in plastic to make it supple and strong, like at concerts, but no- it has to be dehumanizing, cold, it has to be sterile, and- oh, fuck. Can her head shut up for forty seconds and let this happen ? She's here because she wants to be here. She's here because she wants to be here. Twenty more repeats or so, and she'll start to remember why.
"Name, please ?" She doesn't look at the face, or the eyes, just at the clipboard the woman holds.
"Marie- uh, Marie Grey." She has no idea why she's given Jean's last name, except out of the perverse knowledge that Jean is not dead, just orange and crazy. "Do you need ID ?"
"No," the woman says, and walks away. Just like that. They wouldn't want ID, because that would mean the people they're injecting are citizens, or something living and important. Marie's number is 113-J. She wonders if they'll burn it on when it's over. The worst thing of all is this: she thinks they might, and she's still in this line.
There are some people in the line holding hands, and she thinks to herself, why would you come here, if it wasn't because you had to come alone ?
Time doesn't pass when she's waiting. People are waving signs across the street, trying to convince her that she's one of the chosen to heal the world, or maybe just a stupid girl ruining her own life. Either sounds fine. Marie is very, very tired.
The smell of a sandwich turns her head- real roast beef, somewhere further down the line, and she can hear the others grumbling about it. Tomorrow she'll get a sandwich and insist on shaking the guy's hand, you know ? Just because. Somebody else has the news on a radio, mumbling softly, something awful about an island and a bunch of-
-mutants.
And she knows, suddenly, that they're out there; Bobby and that mousy girl, and Ororo and Peter. And Logan. She knows that're fighting for something that they believe is good and real, something that she can't believe in late at night, when the ache in her belly is unbearable and unending and alone.
But it's real for them. And she wonders what it will be like- who will go down, and who will get back up ? A thought strikes her, Bobby fighting alone, Ororo dropping out of the sky when she gets shot. A thought of Logan on the island, when the troops come, with a dart in his neck and his own body killing him from the inside.
"Can anybody fly ?" she says suddenly, and a kid in a hoodie looks up. "I said, can anybody fly ?"
"I-" there's a soft sound to her right. A boy hidden under a hat and a wig, with an oddly pointed face and scraggly bird-hands, heaves a sad sigh. "Not after, uh, about seven-thirty tonight, but for the moment. I can fly."
"I'm so sorry," she says, and she is sorry; but the gloves are already off.
It is much harder than she expected, to be in the air; but it's also lovely. If her powers were for trade, she'd take that boy's face and give him her terrible skin, and find somebody who didn't mind.
There's a lot of smoke and a lot of rubble and more than once she wonders who'd take the bridge when you could just steer a goddam ferry ? Neither here nor there. She ducks out of sight and slips between busted-off guard towers while the sun goes down. A guy or two gets thrown at her.
She ducks behind what used to be a filing cabinet and finds herself peeling off the gloves again. What for ? She doesn't know. She only knows that she's done; she was given a curse, or something, and it's about time it proved good for more than warding off the creepy guys behind the mall. The first person she touches turns out to be some kind of spiky guy, which weirds her out, but scares off two other guys with guns. The next one is a woman with some kind of energy fields, and that one goes straight up her spine to her brain, and it's like the best flying dream and the best falling dream put together. She begins to lose track, until there are half-a-dozen faces screaming at her inside her head, and she tells them all to shut up in a way that scares even her.
Oh, and she's floating. She hopes she doesn't get two powers that magnify the other in the wrong direction, and she hopes she doesn't explode.
It takes a while before she gets to where her people- her people ?- are, and they're doing pretty much alright from what she can see. But then something in the air shifts, and there's a sweet light, like the crest of a carnival-colored sunset over the water, and then there's Jean.
And Logan.
Marie sees the flesh come off of his shoulder and cries out, though nobody can hear. It's like she can feel it in her skin; her spiny, hyped-up, electric skin; and it's too much to bear. To have come all this way, and watch Logan get picked apart. She goes forward so fast she's not sure she didn't teleport, and punches Jean right in her staring, coma-baby face. It hurts. She does it again, and Jean sends her backwards without lifting an arm. But not as far backwards as she might have. There's still enough space to lunge forward, and she does, spines sticking out and the air crackling where their two fields seem to meet.
"Everything !" she shouts suddenly. Marie can feel her feet bleeding from the drag backwards, and her hands burning around Jean's thoat, and finds she doesn't care. "Everything- you have everything, and all you can do is destroy it !"
"Back up." Jean says, and Marie can feel what must be her bones stretching backwards, out of her- she screams, but doesn't let go. The pull begins to ebb, and Jean's face goes dark, suddenly shot with a multitude of spidery black lines. "Back-"
"I would have killed for what you had," she says. Jean looks at her from out of those flat, dead eyes; and there's a flash of humor.
"Didn't you ?" she sighs, and drops out of Marie's hands. There is a lot of rage and light after that, and a swirling agony inside her own skin, and unbearable noise; and Logan's face above hers when she slips into the dark.
She thinks she dies.
They tell her later, the precautions they had to take. Xavier, shutting her off. Dr. McCoy's injections, four times daily, to keep her asleep. And an isolation tank in the bottom of the sub-basement, a watery womb where they filtered out noise and light and smell and yeah, where they filtered out Logan, because he wouldn't shut up about seeing her.
"Let me see her, when can I see her, her hair looks dirty, you're feeding her the wrong kind of Jell-O." Kitty rolls her eyes, but smiles a real smile. "Honestly, he drove everybody kind of fricking nuts."
"I bet." She's had him in her head before. She knows he's- ah, insistent.
"Do you mind me being here ?" Kitty says suddenly, and turns her eyes to the floor. "I figure you want to get some rest, or-" she lets the thought trail off. But it's alright. Marie knows. Has known, for longer than the two of them. It's better that they do this, be with each other.
"I don't mind," she says, and nudges the second half of her lunch across the tray. "And have some cookies already."
She sits in the garden in the evenings, after dinner when the TV is on. Appliances are still crackling around her a little, and the people already bristle; so she might as well stay outside, since the leaves seem to be pretty okay with her. He, of course, is not deterred.
"You smell funny," he begins, and she falls half off of the railing trying to glare daggers at him.
"I smell like my shampoo, buttface."
"And about thirteen other people, in bits and pieces." He sits down beside her and dangles his legs. "They're fading quick, if it's any consolation."
"It is." She shuts her eyes. "Even Jean ?"
"Even Jean," he confirms, and runs a hand down her hair. "You let her go, you know. Let it end."
"Nothing ends." She's surprised at the fatalism in her voice- but then, hey, maybe it's somebody else, somebody in her head that doesn't believe in unicorns. Maybe it's worth trying to go up instead of down. "But thanks."
"I've meant to say something for a while now, but you were doing your best Namor impression, last month or so."
"You can say it now. Or do I smell too funny to talk to ?"
"Don't push it," he growls, and elbows her. "You got out of line. And I have to tell you, I admire that."
"Yeah," she snorts. "From afar."
"I can admire it fine from here," he says, and there's something in his eyes she doesn't feel like looking at right now. But someday. Yeah. Someday soon. "It was okay that you went. That you thought you had to go. But it's better that you came back."
"I did- come back."
"You did." She leans on him then; and he blows her hair out of his face.
It's a start.
They tell her later, the precautions they had to take. Xavier, shutting her off. Dr. McCoy's injections, four times daily, to keep her asleep. And an isolation tank in the bottom of the sub-basement, a watery womb where they filtered out noise and light and smell and yeah, where they filtered out Logan, because he wouldn't shut up about seeing her.
She is in line and the bracelet on her wrist has started to chafe. They could make them out of paper instead, or that paper that's coated in plastic to make it supple and strong, like at concerts, but no- it has to be dehumanizing, cold, it has to be sterile, and- oh, fuck. Can her head shut up for forty seconds and let this happen ? She's here because she wants to be here. She's here because she wants to be here. Twenty more repeats or so, and she'll start to remember why.
"Name, please ?" She doesn't look at the face, or the eyes, just at the clipboard the woman holds.
"Marie- uh, Marie Grey." She has no idea why she's given Jean's last name, except out of the perverse knowledge that Jean is not dead, just orange and crazy. "Do you need ID ?"
"No," the woman says, and walks away. Just like that. They wouldn't want ID, because that would mean the people they're injecting are citizens, or something living and important. Marie's number is 113-J. She wonders if they'll burn it on when it's over. The worst thing of all is this: she thinks they might, and she's still in this line.
There are some people in the line holding hands, and she thinks to herself, why would you come here, if it wasn't because you had to come alone ?
Time doesn't pass when she's waiting. People are waving signs across the street, trying to convince her that she's one of the chosen to heal the world, or maybe just a stupid girl ruining her own life. Either sounds fine. Marie is very, very tired.
The smell of a sandwich turns her head- real roast beef, somewhere further down the line, and she can hear the others grumbling about it. Tomorrow she'll get a sandwich and insist on shaking the guy's hand, you know ? Just because. Somebody else has the news on a radio, mumbling softly, something awful about an island and a bunch of-
-mutants.
And she knows, suddenly, that they're out there; Bobby and that mousy girl, and Ororo and Peter. And Logan. She knows that're fighting for something that they believe is good and real, something that she can't believe in late at night, when the ache in her belly is unbearable and unending and alone.
But it's real for them. And she wonders what it will be like- who will go down, and who will get back up ? A thought strikes her, Bobby fighting alone, Ororo dropping out of the sky when she gets shot. A thought of Logan on the island, when the troops come, with a dart in his neck and his own body killing him from the inside.
"Can anybody fly ?" she says suddenly, and a kid in a hoodie looks up. "I said, can anybody fly ?"
"I-" there's a soft sound to her right. A boy hidden under a hat and a wig, with an oddly pointed face and scraggly bird-hands, heaves a sad sigh. "Not after, uh, about seven-thirty tonight, but for the moment. I can fly."
"I'm so sorry," she says, and she is sorry; but the gloves are already off.
It is much harder than she expected, to be in the air; but it's also lovely. If her powers were for trade, she'd take that boy's face and give him her terrible skin, and find somebody who didn't mind.
There's a lot of smoke and a lot of rubble and more than once she wonders who'd take the bridge when you could just steer a goddam ferry ? Neither here nor there. She ducks out of sight and slips between busted-off guard towers while the sun goes down. A guy or two gets thrown at her.
She ducks behind what used to be a filing cabinet and finds herself peeling off the gloves again. What for ? She doesn't know. She only knows that she's done; she was given a curse, or something, and it's about time it proved good for more than warding off the creepy guys behind the mall. The first person she touches turns out to be some kind of spiky guy, which weirds her out, but scares off two other guys with guns. The next one is a woman with some kind of energy fields, and that one goes straight up her spine to her brain, and it's like the best flying dream and the best falling dream put together. She begins to lose track, until there are half-a-dozen faces screaming at her inside her head, and she tells them all to shut up in a way that scares even her.
Oh, and she's floating. She hopes she doesn't get two powers that magnify the other in the wrong direction, and she hopes she doesn't explode.
It takes a while before she gets to where her people- her people ?- are, and they're doing pretty much alright from what she can see. But then something in the air shifts, and there's a sweet light, like the crest of a carnival-colored sunset over the water, and then there's Jean.
And Logan.
Marie sees the flesh come off of his shoulder and cries out, though nobody can hear. It's like she can feel it in her skin; her spiny, hyped-up, electric skin; and it's too much to bear. To have come all this way, and watch Logan get picked apart. She goes forward so fast she's not sure she didn't teleport, and punches Jean right in her staring, coma-baby face. It hurts. She does it again, and Jean sends her backwards without lifting an arm. But not as far backwards as she might have. There's still enough space to lunge forward, and she does, spines sticking out and the air crackling where their two fields seem to meet.
"Everything !" she shouts suddenly. Marie can feel her feet bleeding from the drag backwards, and her hands burning around Jean's thoat, and finds she doesn't care. "Everything- you have everything, and all you can do is destroy it !"
"Back up." Jean says, and Marie can feel what must be her bones stretching backwards, out of her- she screams, but doesn't let go. The pull begins to ebb, and Jean's face goes dark, suddenly shot with a multitude of spidery black lines. "Back-"
"I would have killed for what you had," she says. Jean looks at her from out of those flat, dead eyes; and there's a flash of humor.
"Didn't you ?" she sighs, and drops out of Marie's hands. There is a lot of rage and light after that, and a swirling agony inside her own skin, and unbearable noise; and Logan's face above hers when she slips into the dark.
She thinks she dies.
They tell her later, the precautions they had to take. Xavier, shutting her off. Dr. McCoy's injections, four times daily, to keep her asleep. And an isolation tank in the bottom of the sub-basement, a watery womb where they filtered out noise and light and smell and yeah, where they filtered out Logan, because he wouldn't shut up about seeing her.
"Let me see her, when can I see her, her hair looks dirty, you're feeding her the wrong kind of Jell-O." Kitty rolls her eyes, but smiles a real smile. "Honestly, he drove everybody kind of fricking nuts."
"I bet." She's had him in her head before. She knows he's- ah, insistent.
"Do you mind me being here ?" Kitty says suddenly, and turns her eyes to the floor. "I figure you want to get some rest, or-" she lets the thought trail off. But it's alright. Marie knows. Has known, for longer than the two of them. It's better that they do this, be with each other.
"I don't mind," she says, and nudges the second half of her lunch across the tray. "And have some cookies already."
She sits in the garden in the evenings, after dinner when the TV is on. Appliances are still crackling around her a little, and the people already bristle; so she might as well stay outside, since the leaves seem to be pretty okay with her. He, of course, is not deterred.
"You smell funny," he begins, and she falls half off of the railing trying to glare daggers at him.
"I smell like my shampoo, buttface."
"And about thirteen other people, in bits and pieces." He sits down beside her and dangles his legs. "They're fading quick, if it's any consolation."
"It is." She shuts her eyes. "Even Jean ?"
"Even Jean," he confirms, and runs a hand down her hair. "You let her go, you know. Let it end."
"Nothing ends." She's surprised at the fatalism in her voice- but then, hey, maybe it's somebody else, somebody in her head that doesn't believe in unicorns. Maybe it's worth trying to go up instead of down. "But thanks."
"I've meant to say something for a while now, but you were doing your best Namor impression, last month or so."
"You can say it now. Or do I smell too funny to talk to ?"
"Don't push it," he growls, and elbows her. "You got out of line. And I have to tell you, I admire that."
"Yeah," she snorts. "From afar."
"I can admire it fine from here," he says, and there's something in his eyes she doesn't feel like looking at right now. But someday. Yeah. Someday soon. "It was okay that you went. That you thought you had to go. But it's better that you came back."
"I did- come back."
"You did." She leans on him then; and he blows her hair out of his face.
It's a start.
