un_gloved | (no subject)

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If she'd been paying closer attention to the lightening and darkening of the room, Rogue might have known what day it was. She hadn't, though, and so she didn't. The first day had been a misery, and everything else was too vague and surreal to feel like it mattered.

She'd gone to bed happy, wrapped up in a particularly lanky embrace, and woken up to an empty bed. That wasn't cause for immediate concern, but after she'd wandered down the halls of the townhouse and the emptiness of the place had set it, then she'd become worried.

She went through all the closets, and all the drawers, and there was nothing.

His clothes were gone. He was gone. Everything was gone, except a Jericho 941 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

So she'd climbed into bed with it and stayed there. First, she'd wept, the kind of sobs that hurt, that moved so tight in her chest she barely made any sound, and pressed her face against the sheets where he'd been lying beside her a few hours earlier and tried desperately to keep the smell of him in her mind. Eventually she exhausted herself and slept, and awoke groggy and with her hand on the Jericho.

She got up a few times, to drink a little water and use the bathroom, or to sit in the shower until the hot water turned icy, and then she climbed back into bed. Eventually the crying stopped- she was drained, and even though her thoughts kept turning to what had happened, to who was gone, her body had stopped responding. By that point, she had lost any interest in getting up. She kept her hand curled around the Jericho, finger looped against the trigger, and drifted listlessly into and out of awareness, and decided she was done.

She was just done.

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Nothing.

Maybe she's not in, and this is just going to get her pissed at me for breaking her door.

Or she is, and something's wrong. Hurt, captive, there are a lot of options. I've run across pretty much all of them. Not risking any of them.

It takes a single kick. A single, satisfying crunch of wood as the old-fashioned lock tears off and it swings inwards, splintering, and I step past it to see what I can see.

Well, that had been a more or less foregone conclusion. So what else was new. The place was kind of a mess, drawers still open and shelves somewhat overturned.

She'd looked thoroughly.

"Go away," she murmured, though the words barely got out, even knowing he wouldn't hear them.

It looks like someone ransacked the place.

I'd be more suspicious about that if it weren't for the fact that Rogue is home, and looking a lot less riled than she'd be if that's what we were dealing with.

"What happened?" I say, slowly crossing the room, keeping an eye on the corners, the exits.

She was going to have to say it out loud.

She really didn't want to say it out loud.

"Spike's gone," she said, voice rough with disuse, gaze not so much as flicking up at Wolverine.

"$#%@," I say.

It would be that. The thing I can't hit, or track down. Can't beat into submission or eliminate entirely. This place. I'm good at what I do. Everyone knows how it goes. But here I'm only ever coming up against problems that aren't what I do.

"Alright, get up." Have to start somewhere.

"No," she said dully, closing her eyes again.

"Sorry, darlin'," I say. "Not taking that for an answer."

Because it isn't one. It's not an answer.

It's a reflex.

And it's not going to do her any good.

She unfurled her hands from her chest, curling one under her chin and keeping the Jericho in the other, lying flat against the sheets but still there, visible.

"Go away," she told him.

"Get up and make me," I suggest.

Not that I plan on leaving even if she does get up, but I don't think she's in any state to fight, and I don't want her to fight.

'cept in a more general sense. Fight the urge to just give in and give up, that's what we need.

Admittedly maybe she'll just shoot me. I'd prefer it didn't come to that, but...

Well, she's hardly likely to leave me bleeding on the floor.

"That's the beauty of a firearm, Wolvie," she said, slowly, words husky and drawn out and lacking any real sense of ire or intent.

"Don't have to."

"Right now, darlin', I'm having trouble believing you'd even bother to lift your arm," I say, walking right up to the end of the bed and crossing my arms.

"You can go ahead and prove me wrong."

She didn't, only turned fer face against the sheets so the bridge of her nose and her forehead were pressed gingerly against the muzzle of the gun.

"Please just go," she sighed. She could lift it, if she had to, just as she could get out of the bed. But she hadn't bothered once to go get food in the... however long it had been since she'd awoken to find Spike gone, and she felt tired.

Not that I want to get shot, but it'd be a damned sight more promising than this dull malaise. Act dead inside long enough, it starts to stick in ways you'd rather it didn't, if you were thinking about it clearly.

"Not happening," I say. "Unless you're coming with. Scratch that. Until you're coming with."

"It doesn't..." She turned her face to hide it against the bed spread for a moment.

"It doesn't matter. Nothing here matters. You stay, or you go. Right?"

"It all matters, Rogue," I say, taking one end of the bed spread and yanking it away, because some extra measures are called for. "People go, wherever they are, but if you think I'm going to let you go while you're still here, you've got another thing coming. Up."

She drew her bare legs up and pushed herself up to sitting, hair tumbling everywhere and eyes narrowing.

"Don't."

"Get up and I won't have to," I say, releasing the bed spread and straightening. Figuring out the next step in getting her up and around, since provocation hasn't worked so far.

Maybe it'll kick in in a second or two. Looks like she's getting mad, which I'm for. Anything that isn't empty works.

"You know Ah hate playin' inna stereotypes," she said, accent thick but voice otherwise devoid of her usual expressiveness, "but if you don't git off my property?"

She pulled the hammer back and lifted the Jericho, hand incredibly steady.

"Ah'm'a shoot you."

"I'll get off your property when you come with me," I say, not moving an inch.

I've stared down plenty of barrels of plenty of guns. Plenty of them were in hands as steady as this.

Used to have a healing factor backing me up, though.

"Otherwise, go ahead. Dragging me to the clinic would get you up and about, at least."

"Wolvie," she said, voice smooth, cool, even.

"You of all people... I just need t'be left alone, okay? You have to get that. I j-just-"

She stopped entirely, eyes closing for a moment, and when she opened them again the were dry and dull and she was back at zero.

"I just need to be alone. Now go away, or so help me, I will pull this trigger."

I look her over, and then I look the apartment over.

"Alone, maybe," I say. "Alone like this? Not even close. If I'm going, I'm coming back tomorrow."

"Unless you disappear, too," she said, ducking her head and drawing both hands up, pressing her forehead to her wrists, gun still loaded and cocked and now resting unnervingly close to her temple, not that she seemed to notice.

"You could, too," I say. "Maybe right after I leave. Isn't going to stop me showing up tomorrow."

"That's what I keep hopin' for," she said quietly, voice straining a little as her throat tightened.

"But I keep wakin' up 'n I'm still right here."

I'm already turned, started out, but I turn back a little at that.

"Sitting around hoping you'll wake up tomorrow and everything will be fixed never works," I say. "But you don't need me to tell you that. We both already know it."

"Not fixed," she mumbled, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them and pressing her face against her legs.

"Just gone. I swear that's all I'm askin' for."

"Gone's as bad as fixed," I say. "You can wish you're somewhere else, you can wish you're someone else, but it's never going to get you out of dealing with the here and now."

She should've been able to have been someone else. She just couldn't seem to find any doors to open, and she didn't think Bones would much appreciate her asking him to undo the work he'd done.

Her fingers tightened unconsciously around the Jericho's grip.

"Guess it ain't," she said, turning her face toward the window.

"Yeah," I say. "It ain't."

Nothing I can do here. Not right now. Someone else might be able to get through to her, but all I can do is hope time'll do some good. And that maybe even if this kick in the pants doesn't do any good, the next one might.

"See you tomorrow."

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