Title: Viscosity: Burning Incense
Author: Sare Liz
Email: TeknoVamp@yahoo.com

*****

She's got the most beautifully long neck. Never really noticed that with anyone else before. It's just one of those things, I guess, one of those things that you notice when you can't take your eyes off someone and when it's not all about the sex when you're looking at them.

Granted, a hell of a lot of it's about sex, don't get me wrong. Just not all of it. There's possession in there too, for instance. And when she arches her back just like that and her head goes back and her eyes close and she just feels me. That's power, right there. Hell of an ego boost, true, but power.

We chose each other, the two of us did. I could have stayed away. She could have had her pick of anyone here, up to an including - time to face the truth, Red - Scooter. It wasn't equal before, and that's not just me talking, 'cause Ro is damn good at seeing human nature and keeps tabs on all the things I can't be bothered to pay attention to, particularly when I'm in a different country. So it's not just me sayin' that for a while there all Rogue wanted was a fantasy version of a picket white fence, odd considering what's in her head. It was good in a way. It let me know she was still in control, she still had the power. She just had to do a little living first, make sure she knew what she was getting into, the real version of things.

And there's power in her, flowing through her when we're like that. When I'm holding her so close and she's pulling me closer. Something happens because of it, something that just didn't exist before our embrace and it's a drug. I know she can feel it. I watch her head sink back into the wall and her neck stretches out and she sighs as her eyes close and I know she can feel it. Her entire body arches into mine - she craves my touch and I can't bear not to give it to her, not now, not at any point. I've become neurotic, maybe. I'm either touching her, or wondering why in hell I'm not.

Other's don't really touch her, but that's okay. Normal, even. I mean, in a given day, not a damn person touches me either except Marie and sometimes Jean, but Red is just a down right touchy feely person and eventually Rogue will call her on it and I look forward to the ensuing battle, I do. She's changed, my Rogue.

No, that's not right. She's my Marie. When she's Rogue, and she's always a little bit of a rogue, she's her own, and amazing to see. It's not even the physical I'm talking about. She's just... She's a force of personality. That's been growing. Developing while I've been here and there and back and gone again. I've seen some of it, but not all, but I did manage to keep up with the important parts so it has evened out in the end.

And she's not the firecracker that her friend Jubilee is. She's not the scarily quiet type like Kitty where you always have to be on your toes as to what she's thinking. She's just Rogue. Expect the unexpected and even then you might not be prepared, or so Ro keeps telling me. I don't see her as all that big of a mystery. She's a fairly simple person, after all. Simple, with a couple souped up additions, is all. And she likes her privacy - doesn't want Jeannie or Chuck messing around anymore than necessary and I can't blame her at all for that one.

I just have to respect that, I do. It's one of those little watchtowers of really growing up, though it sounds even as I think about it, pretentious. 'Growing up.' Fuck that. Never grow up, that's what I say. At the same time, life's a bitch and it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with when you're ready for it, and she's ready for it. There are so many watchtowers she's passed by. Do they even see that particular one? Knowing her limits? I don't think most of them do, poor bastards. They've missed something beautiful there, when my Marie figured out what she's willing and unwilling to endure in her life.

Alienation was a big one under the 'not willing' side. She's not a social butterfly all the time, but none of this Untouchable Rogue shit. Interesting how she can manage to make herself approachable and a mystery at the same time. I guess it's just one of those things. Like the power I can feel flow through us when we touch, when we're so close to touching the skin almost grazes and the trust is implicit and none of it matters anyway, because we're where ever we are and we're together and I'm touching her and she's basking in it, absorbing it like the rays of the sun.

She's like that, you know. She's just... It goes so far beyond a force of personality. She's a feeling, a pure unadulterated emotion. She's the moment before the dog that adores you begs, the moment it's eyes are round and huge and so needy. She's the moment the cat arches into your touch, instinctive yet loving and trusting. She's the moment you hold your lover in your arms after absence and rediscover everything you've ever needed in them. She's the moment before the laughter rings out, when the eyes are crinkled and a hint of a smile has just begun to form. She's the moment after the nightmare, after the adrenaline is in your system and you're in the rush with nothing to kill, no where to hide and only at her touch you've realized you have other reasons for going on that have nothing to do with vengeance. She's.... She is beauty. She is everything beautiful could ever be. She is power. She defines the concept.

I don't see her as that mysterious at all.

It was her image though. Everyone had images, none of them were technically true to life. Scott for example, has been known to do things completely contrary to the general assumption of something rod-like wedged in his ass. Ororo has a temper that exceeded the bounds of sanity, and I myself occasionally do things that completely preclude the idea of me being anything approximating a badass. But images are who we are, in a way, and necessary in a similar way, so what the hell.

Being with me only adds to her reputation, I think, though I'm fairly certain she doesn't give a shit about that. That adds to the reputation too, and she just might have gotten that from me.

I've always liked that thought, that she's gotten good things from me. It's not something I try to think about much at all anyway, but sometimes something will happen. I'll be able to protect her from the inside, or I'll know I've influenced some decision and I know that I'm not entirely a burden to her and that's some measure of comfort.

Usually leads me to wondering if I'll do it the next time. I always put restrictions on it. I always say 'only' and 'if', but I never really mean it in the end. It only takes a moment to see her fall and my only thought is the all encompassing fear that I might be too late. I don't really stop to think if the next time will be more difficult for her to be herself, or if I'm hurting her somehow by being inside of her all of the time. I'd like to say that it's all in worry for her, no matter what, but that's not true. There's a tiny part of me that doubts, that thinks she could heal on her own, that knows Jeannie is a good doctor, that knows everyone else has to heal the normal way and that maybe once so could she. It's that tiny part that is usually overcome by the possession of being in her.

I'm the stable personality. I'm the one who hasn't faded. I'm the one she calls upon when she needs something else, something different to throw people for a loop. I'm the one who listens to her when she wants to be alone in her head and loves her enough to simmer down and give her what she needs. Just me. Everyone else has gone.

Just me and her. It's like that a lot, actually, but we don't mind. Notably enough it's Scott who really understands that. Jean should, but she doesn't. Ro takes it all in stride and I know she's on my side but I can never really tell what she's thinking unless she actually tells me and she's not known for that, but Scott gets it. It's like... We need this time. We exist in our lives just the same, but we need our time together where we can ignore every thing else that doesn't matter because we have each other and we need to hold that particularly close right now. It's too new not to.

She's had me for so long, so close to her, she knows so much and I'm learning too slowly about her. I have to take every single opportunity I can glean. I can't stop touching her. If I stop it will be the sacrilege against everything we have, this power that flows between us. I can't not touch, I can't stop the flow. I can't do that to her and I'm certainly not strong enough to deny myself of it.

It's enough to hold her, to mold my body to hers and breathe her in and just hold that moment for as long as I can. Once I might have said that I could die happy after it, but it's not even funny now. The thought of leaving her, actually departing forever makes something inside of me seize. I can't breathe when I think of all of the cracks in the glass that would cause, how very much I want to live because of her.

The phrase is all about dying in her arms but I can't imagine that. That came from the lips of someone who didn't at all take death seriously. If they had they would have realized not death but life in her arms.

A single brush is a caress that smoothes away so much A trail of silk over my body while I stare at her form, her arched back, her eyes closed in her pleasure. So close to skin on skin brush, but never quite there, always half as close and half as close with half the way to go, infinitely close I can get, and still be infinitely far away. And her head is back and her eyes are closed because she doesn't care. She can feel the power between us and she holds me close. A deep breath fills my head with her and I wonder if it's like that at first with her, when the flow is fresh in her mind and the transfer hasn't settled in yet, I wonder if it's just sensation, just a smell before the voices begin and the memories emerge. I wonder if it feels like a rush for her, besides the horror of losing control, or if it's just the power we create that gives me that when my senses are submerged in her.

Her sigh says quite a bit. It's the release of the day's frustrations thus far, the relief of being so close again, of feeding the addiction of her soul, of being completely in balance, at one with who she is. It's a sigh I can mirror only when she's in my arms.

Nobody quite gets that, which I might find amusing if something, some beautiful, passionate, spirited, powerful, quizzically enthralling other thing weren't weighing heavily on every ability to think I've ever had.

I would wonder, if I had the time, why they bother to stop and whisper in the hall by us when the place that we meet, the place where I begin to worship the temple of her body happens to be that selfsame hall. I'd tell them to fuck off when she's on my lap in the kitchen and we're feeding each other and talking and listening and pouring out our souls and taking them back in again - I'd growl and tell them to fuck off, but I can't be bothered to expend the effort, not when she's on my lap, gloves forgotten on the table, and she's telling me about the deepest part of herself.

I'd growl, and get in their face and pop the claws and ask them if they've ever fallen in love, but I always seem to have something better to do.