X-men fic: Out beyond the breakers (Kitty/Rogue, R)
Title: Out beyond the breakers
Author: maharetr
Recipient: aphrodite_mine
Fandom: X-men (movie ‘verse, technically)
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing: Kitty/Rogue
Warnings: brief violence and character death, mentions of suicide, end-of-the-world grimness...
Notes: Title from Everclear's Santa Monica
Summary: The first time Rogue kisses her, it’s the end of the world.
The first time Rogue kisses her, it’s the end of the world.
Kitty has solidified half way up the hill in the middle of the bedlam, coaxing the kids clinging to her to let go and pointing them towards Storm when Rogue runs in. She’s out of breath, face grimy with ash.
“Hey,” Rogue pants. “Hey.” Kitty has a moment to realize what Rogue’s about to do before she leans in and kisses Kitty on the mouth. Rogue’s lips are dry, chapped, her tongue a shock of wet, and Kitty has just enough time to gather her wits and start kissing back before the pull sweeps in and carries everything away.
Rogue has broken the kiss but she’s close enough still for the heat of her cheek to transmit, somehow far hotter than the heat of the fire.
“You okay?” Rogue asks, urgent, and Kitty realises Rogue is practically supporting her weight. She wishes she’d had time to think I love you, you crazy woman. But Rogue would get that anyway. Kitty steadies herself and nods. “There were still some kids on the second floor, in the science labs,” she says instead.
Rogue nods and takes off at a sprint back towards the school. Kitty takes deep breaths of smoke-filled air and stamps her feet to re-learn the boundaries of her body, needing the grounding before going back into the rescue. Down in the grounds, Rogue sprints through the wall and back into the burning building.
To her right, Kurt materialises with some of the younger kids, one of whom is screaming. Jones. He’s bloody, face streaked with it. Fuck. She lunges across to him, grabs his arm.
“Stop,” she snaps, then gentler: “You’re okay.” To her surprise, he shuts up and gapes at her.
It’s hard to see in the dark, but it looks like a gash rather than a bite, and she rips off her jacket and folds it up for a compress.
“Don’t die on us,” she says, forcing a grin, but he just stares mutely at her. She nearly prefers the screaming.
Behind her, the fire roars suddenly, a wave of heat that hunches her shoulders. Over that, Wolverine’s shout of warning is barely audible, but far more alarming.
“Incoming, two o’clock!”
Kitty jerks around, barely aware she’s grabbed Jones around the chest, pulling him close to her. For a moment, she can’t make anything out, the light cast by the fire barely enough to illuminate the trees. Then the flashlight beams spot them: shapes in amongst the tree trunks, moving shapes. For a moment, Kitty can’t even breathe through the fear, then she lunges for the group of kids, dragging Jones with her. Wolverine is barking orders -- “Hold that line, goddamnit. Everyone else, move” -- as if there was some place safe to go, rather than the ragtag remains of already exhausted survivors standing far too exposed on the side of a hill.
“Grab onto me. Don’t let go,” she says, and they obey; four hands clutching at her uniform and taking her hands. They’re so young, and they’re staring up at her like she can rescue them, like she can make it all go away. It’s hopeless, utterly hopeless, but she forces her mouth into a reassuring smile. “We’re going to run, okay?”
They nod seriously, wide-eyed and soot-streaked.
“Rogue!” Kitty calls, and there’s a shout to her left, further down. Kitty tries not to sag with relief. She tugs the kids forward and starts a stumbling run with everyone else up the slope.
They don’t get far at all.
The girl holding Kitty’s right hand screams, and the flashlight beams jerk across what had once been a man, still wearing most of a business suit. It staggers towards them, reaching out with a remaining arm, and that’s when Kitty gulps in a breath and phases as she runs. The world blurs into snatches of sensation: the ground under her feet, the kids clinging tight -- the moment, fleeting but still far too long, of passing through the zombie -- then the more familiar feeling of tree, tree, someone - Bobby? - tree... before her hold on the phase wavers, and she trips and goes down hard.
Someone is lifting the kids off her. She’s swept up by blue arms, and it’s Beast’s voice in her ear: “Can you keep going?” She’s too tired to nod, but she closes her eyes and phases again, her awareness simultaneously shrinking down again to the edges of her body and extending to Beast pressed against her side, the hands of the kids clinging to her and the... things they’re passing through.
The world jerks -- terrifyingly, there’s no sensation at all - then they’re crashing through the undergrowth and Kitty hears the snarling and phases, then the world jerks again, and again, until she’s lost count, until she’s nauseated and there’s nothing but holding the phase, and gasping a warning to Beast when she can’t.
“It’s okay,” Beast says though the ringing in her ears. “It’s okay, you can stop now.” For a moment she thinks it’s because they can’t run anymore, that it’s over and they failed, and no, no...
Beast is laying her gently down on... sand? Kitty opens her eyes.
They’re on a beach. Dawn is glowing over the eastern horizon, revealing an empty jetty and the silhouettes of boat houses. There’s just enough light to make out Kurt collapsed beside her, eyes closed. She can see his chest moving with his breath, and she reaches out to touch his outflung arm. Warm. She nearly sobs with relief.
“Well done,” Beast says beside her. “Rest for a while.” She wants to tell him the same thing - he carried her for... however long it took them to get wherever the hell they are. Kitty rolls over enough to watch him untangling the kids from his legs.
Further away near the rise of the dunes, Wolverine is struggling too. It takes a moment for her exhausted mind to register that it’s not Wolverine snarling, it’s the woman on his back, and then Wolverine throws her to the ground and runs his claws through her throat.
He straightens slowly, blood pattering to the sand as he sheathes his claws. Kitty turns her face away, not wanting to know who that had been.
“Is anyone hurt?” Wolverine calls, voice carrying over the group, and Kitty doesn’t want to know how few they are now. Wolverine walks forward, and in the growing light she can see the blood on his clothes, the bite on his neck that is rapidly closing and for a moment she hates his ability to heal, to live when so many others had died.
Then she meets his eyes, and the grief there makes her feel ashamed.
“Jones,” she says, sitting up despite the wave of dizziness. “He’s got a head wound. He’s not...” She can’t quite finish that sentence. “He’s okay.” A glance between Beast and Wolverine, and Beast lopes off to check him out.
“How you doing, kid?” Wolverine asks, crouching next to her. He touches her cheek, and the small comfort nearly makes her cry, even if she knows he’s just checking to see if she’s cold. A wave of morbid humor sweeps her: how are they going to check -
“Rogue,” Kitty says sharply. “Where is she?”
Wolverine doesn’t even look around. In that brief moment of clarity before the realization starts to sink in, that strikes Kitty as the worst part: that he knew already.
“She touched me,” Kitty insisted steadily, calmly. “She could go anywhere. They can’t get her.”
“How long did she touch you?”
She kissed me, I wasn’t paying attention Kitty wants to yell, but she doesn’t know how much Wolverine knows, or if Rogue wants him to know. Wanted her mind whispers.
“I saw her go into the school,” Kurt volunteers wearily from the ground. “I did not see her come out.”
“If she was still in the school when it went down,” Wolverine says. “She would have been trapped under the rubble.” As if that’s good news. And really, Kitty thinks, it is. No one mentions out loud that Ruth had barricaded herself in her room before she slit her wrists, and still managed to break her way through the door afterwards.
Kitty shudders, hard, and forces her hands into fists until the shaking stops. Kurt gets slowly to his feet, shaky himself after so much teleporting.
“I thought there might be boats,” Kurt says apologetically, gesturing to the shattered boat sheds, the empty mooring posts.
Wolverine twitches. It was almost imperceptible, but his nostrils are flaring, and Kitty sees his muscles tense. She can’t hear anything over the breaking of the waves, can’t see any movement in the dunes, but still...
“Can zombies swim?” Kitty asks, so softly she almost hopes no one else has heard. Kurt hears, and denial flares bright in his eyes.
“Where would we swim to? We can’t float out there until - what? They rot to pieces?”
“No,” Kitty says, and her mouth is numb around the words. “We can’t. Can zombies swim?”
“People were drowning themselves in California,” Wolverine says, reluctantly. Kurt turns away, mouth moving in silent prayer. Wolverine is pale, but he keeps talking. “The reports before the lines went down said people were climbing out of bathtubs. Swimming pools were tricker. Oceans... we’d get washed back to shore, eventually.”
Kitty shivers again, wrapping her arms around her chest, but it’s just the cold breeze picking up... and with it, the sickly-sweet smell of decay. Some of the kids begin to wail.
Wolverine steps closer, like he might try and hug her. He squeezes her shoulder instead. “Would she want you to give up like that?”
Rogue’s voice in her head is instantaneous: No. Kitty clenches her jaw. “I don’t care.”
They can hear it now; the snarling and muttering. Storm is calling up thunder clouds over the ocean, the salty wind driving away the smell of rot and bringing ozone.
“Could you give up on the kids?” Wolverine asks, and she wants to hit him, because of course she couldn’t. Rogue’s No almost makes it past her lips this time, but she shoves Wolverine away instead, and starts yelling names, pointing them down the jetty. The defensive line is forming around them, and Kitty takes up her place at the head of the pier.
Wolverine nods sharply at her, and someone hands her a machete on their way past. It’s already splattered with blood.
“Let’s get on with it, then.” Kitty tightens her grip on the handle and squares her shoulders as the rain starts to fall.
Author: maharetr
Recipient: aphrodite_mine
Fandom: X-men (movie ‘verse, technically)
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing: Kitty/Rogue
Warnings: brief violence and character death, mentions of suicide, end-of-the-world grimness...
Notes: Title from Everclear's Santa Monica
Summary: The first time Rogue kisses her, it’s the end of the world.
The first time Rogue kisses her, it’s the end of the world.
Kitty has solidified half way up the hill in the middle of the bedlam, coaxing the kids clinging to her to let go and pointing them towards Storm when Rogue runs in. She’s out of breath, face grimy with ash.
“Hey,” Rogue pants. “Hey.” Kitty has a moment to realize what Rogue’s about to do before she leans in and kisses Kitty on the mouth. Rogue’s lips are dry, chapped, her tongue a shock of wet, and Kitty has just enough time to gather her wits and start kissing back before the pull sweeps in and carries everything away.
Rogue has broken the kiss but she’s close enough still for the heat of her cheek to transmit, somehow far hotter than the heat of the fire.
“You okay?” Rogue asks, urgent, and Kitty realises Rogue is practically supporting her weight. She wishes she’d had time to think I love you, you crazy woman. But Rogue would get that anyway. Kitty steadies herself and nods. “There were still some kids on the second floor, in the science labs,” she says instead.
Rogue nods and takes off at a sprint back towards the school. Kitty takes deep breaths of smoke-filled air and stamps her feet to re-learn the boundaries of her body, needing the grounding before going back into the rescue. Down in the grounds, Rogue sprints through the wall and back into the burning building.
To her right, Kurt materialises with some of the younger kids, one of whom is screaming. Jones. He’s bloody, face streaked with it. Fuck. She lunges across to him, grabs his arm.
“Stop,” she snaps, then gentler: “You’re okay.” To her surprise, he shuts up and gapes at her.
It’s hard to see in the dark, but it looks like a gash rather than a bite, and she rips off her jacket and folds it up for a compress.
“Don’t die on us,” she says, forcing a grin, but he just stares mutely at her. She nearly prefers the screaming.
Behind her, the fire roars suddenly, a wave of heat that hunches her shoulders. Over that, Wolverine’s shout of warning is barely audible, but far more alarming.
“Incoming, two o’clock!”
Kitty jerks around, barely aware she’s grabbed Jones around the chest, pulling him close to her. For a moment, she can’t make anything out, the light cast by the fire barely enough to illuminate the trees. Then the flashlight beams spot them: shapes in amongst the tree trunks, moving shapes. For a moment, Kitty can’t even breathe through the fear, then she lunges for the group of kids, dragging Jones with her. Wolverine is barking orders -- “Hold that line, goddamnit. Everyone else, move” -- as if there was some place safe to go, rather than the ragtag remains of already exhausted survivors standing far too exposed on the side of a hill.
“Grab onto me. Don’t let go,” she says, and they obey; four hands clutching at her uniform and taking her hands. They’re so young, and they’re staring up at her like she can rescue them, like she can make it all go away. It’s hopeless, utterly hopeless, but she forces her mouth into a reassuring smile. “We’re going to run, okay?”
They nod seriously, wide-eyed and soot-streaked.
“Rogue!” Kitty calls, and there’s a shout to her left, further down. Kitty tries not to sag with relief. She tugs the kids forward and starts a stumbling run with everyone else up the slope.
They don’t get far at all.
The girl holding Kitty’s right hand screams, and the flashlight beams jerk across what had once been a man, still wearing most of a business suit. It staggers towards them, reaching out with a remaining arm, and that’s when Kitty gulps in a breath and phases as she runs. The world blurs into snatches of sensation: the ground under her feet, the kids clinging tight -- the moment, fleeting but still far too long, of passing through the zombie -- then the more familiar feeling of tree, tree, someone - Bobby? - tree... before her hold on the phase wavers, and she trips and goes down hard.
Someone is lifting the kids off her. She’s swept up by blue arms, and it’s Beast’s voice in her ear: “Can you keep going?” She’s too tired to nod, but she closes her eyes and phases again, her awareness simultaneously shrinking down again to the edges of her body and extending to Beast pressed against her side, the hands of the kids clinging to her and the... things they’re passing through.
The world jerks -- terrifyingly, there’s no sensation at all - then they’re crashing through the undergrowth and Kitty hears the snarling and phases, then the world jerks again, and again, until she’s lost count, until she’s nauseated and there’s nothing but holding the phase, and gasping a warning to Beast when she can’t.
“It’s okay,” Beast says though the ringing in her ears. “It’s okay, you can stop now.” For a moment she thinks it’s because they can’t run anymore, that it’s over and they failed, and no, no...
Beast is laying her gently down on... sand? Kitty opens her eyes.
They’re on a beach. Dawn is glowing over the eastern horizon, revealing an empty jetty and the silhouettes of boat houses. There’s just enough light to make out Kurt collapsed beside her, eyes closed. She can see his chest moving with his breath, and she reaches out to touch his outflung arm. Warm. She nearly sobs with relief.
“Well done,” Beast says beside her. “Rest for a while.” She wants to tell him the same thing - he carried her for... however long it took them to get wherever the hell they are. Kitty rolls over enough to watch him untangling the kids from his legs.
Further away near the rise of the dunes, Wolverine is struggling too. It takes a moment for her exhausted mind to register that it’s not Wolverine snarling, it’s the woman on his back, and then Wolverine throws her to the ground and runs his claws through her throat.
He straightens slowly, blood pattering to the sand as he sheathes his claws. Kitty turns her face away, not wanting to know who that had been.
“Is anyone hurt?” Wolverine calls, voice carrying over the group, and Kitty doesn’t want to know how few they are now. Wolverine walks forward, and in the growing light she can see the blood on his clothes, the bite on his neck that is rapidly closing and for a moment she hates his ability to heal, to live when so many others had died.
Then she meets his eyes, and the grief there makes her feel ashamed.
“Jones,” she says, sitting up despite the wave of dizziness. “He’s got a head wound. He’s not...” She can’t quite finish that sentence. “He’s okay.” A glance between Beast and Wolverine, and Beast lopes off to check him out.
“How you doing, kid?” Wolverine asks, crouching next to her. He touches her cheek, and the small comfort nearly makes her cry, even if she knows he’s just checking to see if she’s cold. A wave of morbid humor sweeps her: how are they going to check -
“Rogue,” Kitty says sharply. “Where is she?”
Wolverine doesn’t even look around. In that brief moment of clarity before the realization starts to sink in, that strikes Kitty as the worst part: that he knew already.
“She touched me,” Kitty insisted steadily, calmly. “She could go anywhere. They can’t get her.”
“How long did she touch you?”
She kissed me, I wasn’t paying attention Kitty wants to yell, but she doesn’t know how much Wolverine knows, or if Rogue wants him to know. Wanted her mind whispers.
“I saw her go into the school,” Kurt volunteers wearily from the ground. “I did not see her come out.”
“If she was still in the school when it went down,” Wolverine says. “She would have been trapped under the rubble.” As if that’s good news. And really, Kitty thinks, it is. No one mentions out loud that Ruth had barricaded herself in her room before she slit her wrists, and still managed to break her way through the door afterwards.
Kitty shudders, hard, and forces her hands into fists until the shaking stops. Kurt gets slowly to his feet, shaky himself after so much teleporting.
“I thought there might be boats,” Kurt says apologetically, gesturing to the shattered boat sheds, the empty mooring posts.
Wolverine twitches. It was almost imperceptible, but his nostrils are flaring, and Kitty sees his muscles tense. She can’t hear anything over the breaking of the waves, can’t see any movement in the dunes, but still...
“Can zombies swim?” Kitty asks, so softly she almost hopes no one else has heard. Kurt hears, and denial flares bright in his eyes.
“Where would we swim to? We can’t float out there until - what? They rot to pieces?”
“No,” Kitty says, and her mouth is numb around the words. “We can’t. Can zombies swim?”
“People were drowning themselves in California,” Wolverine says, reluctantly. Kurt turns away, mouth moving in silent prayer. Wolverine is pale, but he keeps talking. “The reports before the lines went down said people were climbing out of bathtubs. Swimming pools were tricker. Oceans... we’d get washed back to shore, eventually.”
Kitty shivers again, wrapping her arms around her chest, but it’s just the cold breeze picking up... and with it, the sickly-sweet smell of decay. Some of the kids begin to wail.
Wolverine steps closer, like he might try and hug her. He squeezes her shoulder instead. “Would she want you to give up like that?”
Rogue’s voice in her head is instantaneous: No. Kitty clenches her jaw. “I don’t care.”
They can hear it now; the snarling and muttering. Storm is calling up thunder clouds over the ocean, the salty wind driving away the smell of rot and bringing ozone.
“Could you give up on the kids?” Wolverine asks, and she wants to hit him, because of course she couldn’t. Rogue’s No almost makes it past her lips this time, but she shoves Wolverine away instead, and starts yelling names, pointing them down the jetty. The defensive line is forming around them, and Kitty takes up her place at the head of the pier.
Wolverine nods sharply at her, and someone hands her a machete on their way past. It’s already splattered with blood.
“Let’s get on with it, then.” Kitty tightens her grip on the handle and squares her shoulders as the rain starts to fall.