Title: Colorblind
Author: Sandra
Email: ArcThalia@aol.comStatus: WiP
Category: R, S, L
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose." Hada Bejar
Disclaimer: Did you see gratuitous sex and/or violence in the movie? How about a cool superhero that bares a striking resemblance to me in a wig? No? That'd mean I don't own squat.
Author's Notes: Fine. It started out as a discussion about literature between Rach and I. It turned into a challenge for both of us. She wrote hers, I wrote mine. We have a thing for unlikely...um, couples, so, yeah. While hers is, like, a major angst fest, mine was written while I chewed on vanilla lipgloss, which is partially proven to cause extensive brain damage. Archive: As long as we're sane enough not to build a site, you can ask, keep my name on it, and have it.
Feedback: Well, duh.
Etc: God, okay, this is where I get mushy. Pink, fluffy kudos to Rach who's basically my reason to write and practice that little thing called 'thinking' before I jump head first into an empty pool. Oh, she also brings the aspirin when I slip up. And with her being so Scott-whipped at the moment, I'm pretty sure she's the only reason I'm writing this one. Also thanks to the WR list (yeah, I know, major conflict of interest) whose members are blissfully unaware of how creative a surrounding they create.
-----------------------------Prologue:
He makes them read.
He throws around profound-sounding titles that don't always catch everyone's attention, titles that some students probably couldn't even spell out, by authors they know only because of low budget movies. He reads to them in class, and it's never simply entertaining, it's passionate and barely controlled and only she can notice when his voice drops a few octaves while he reads long Hemingway's excerpts. Only she wants to.
And she watches him, listening to the way every long, significant word is pronounced, subconsciously memorizing which words get special attention, and she experiences pleasure and desire and grief and rage and always feels defeated when he finishes.
His words, the way he reads makes her feel lost, ruthlessly taking away any sign of redeeming mercy in the blink of an eye, and always brings anger, so much anger. But he keeps reading to them, to just her perhaps, speaking calmly, telling her of great romances, sweeping her off her feet for long, remarkably eternal moments, openly watching as she barely strains to remain there, comfortably sheltered in cloaks of ecstatic illusions.
But he brings her crashing down every time.
He reminds her that all great love affairs end in tragedy, in disillusionment, in both death and development, and she wonders if maybe he speaks from experience. If all those famous romances are partly his own, natural and intrinsic and hidden beneath the layers of denial. If the desperation and the fake idealism are real, real and his, plaguing his life because he doesn't want to resist them if they bring much deserved punishment.
But before she can seriously dwell on it, he's once again reading to her, his breathing easily compared to a slow, fiery rhythm, exuding sexuality and a passion far beyond the cold reservation and composure epitomized by his ruby red lenses.
And he hides it all so well, but his words, his words are almost like a soothing, arousing touch, and at moments, she thinks that he can see her, really see her. And then she wants to touch him, really touch him, like his words touch her.
But she knows she can't.
Because their lives revolve around liking what they find.
Not around finding what they like.
Chapter One: Red
"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views...which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." - Doctor Who, "Face of Evil"
It went beyond color.
It held more meaning than a palette of dyes used to paint mortality and timelessness. It was nature's way to balance everything out, to make life more meaningful, no matter how painful the loss.
It was a reminder of frailty and a hindrance to power. It was blood.
And it was suffocating her, soaking her thick clothes, baptizing her in sin and destruction, spreading quickly, dangerously, until it took form. And it always chose to take the same form, always predictable, always incredibly frightening, always smelling like fear and panic and betrayal.
It was always Logan's.
Rogue curled on her side, her long fingers clutching the thin blanket until the images passed and guilt washed over her.
She sat up, and let her exposed feet slip to the cold floor, rubbing the side of her neck. It hurt so much. But never enough.
It hurt when she woke up halfway through a bone-chilling nightmare and couldn't tell him how sorry she was he had to go away, how grateful she was he saved her, how sometimes she wished it had been her who hurt for days. How sometimes she watched the sunrise, never the sunset, because there was less red, less pain during a sunrise.
Because stars and blackness followed a sunset, but a sunrise gave light, meant life went on, and that was what he taught her, whether he liked it or not.
But she wasn't going to think about life or Logan right now.
There was that English paper that was due in a few days.
She quietly walked over to the table, careful not to wake her roommate, and sat down, brushing her fingers over the cold laptop. She wrote intensely, beginning the moment her long, thin fingers brushed across the slick keys.
She wrote about a room full of strangers, about a girl that dreamt only in shades of red, always red, poured her heart out through tangled, long metaphors. She wrote until she felt the prickle of tears behind her eyelids, until soft light trickled through the curtains, signaling the break of dawn.
And then she walked over to the window and sat, curled up on the windowsill, her profile outlined by the flickering rays of a still-distant sun, writing uninterruptedly as the chilly breeze played with her hair.
Occasionally, her gaze would submit to the swelling colors around her, surrendering her attention to the abundant rosebush. She would watch the red roses blossom, glistening with small, translucent droplets of morning dew, and she promised herself she would ask the Professor if she could plant some white roses soon.
~oOo~
He stayed late.
Long after the last class of the day left, long after the students hurriedly scattered around the mansion, he stayed, sat at his neat, systematically arranged desk, chewing on his favorite number two pencil as he read slowly.
He read about a game of tetherball, carefully memorizing the parts about a girl who dreamt in red and had to play in a room full of strangers. He read nervously as the girl wondered why the ball needed to be on a leash, wondered why no one saw that if the ball was attached to a rope, that it would eventually tangle itself around the pole, and be stuck, stranded and alone with nowhere to go.
And Scott reread the story over and over again, not daring to sympathize, unable to comment as he usually did, unable to allow himself to feel anything beyond teacher's vanity and a leader's anxiety.
He looked away and watched the sunset in all its darkness and when he turned around again, he caught himself scribbling an 'A' in thick, red ink.
~oOo~
He avoided searching for her face in the crowd.
Until the second story ended up on his table.
The girl still played tetherball in a room full of strangers, but she didn't wonder so much anymore. She asked if it made sense that the girl realized the ball needed the rope. Wrote about knowing that without the rope, the ball would fall to the ground. Said she wanted to know how deep the drop would be, how loud the crash would be, and if anyone would ever care if the ball fell. If it could be picked up again.
And Scott reread that one until the sun set for the day, and marked it with an 'A' in bold, black ink, because he didn't have a red pen handy.
~oOo~
Suddenly he didn't read Hemingway to them anymore.
He substituted To Have and Have Not with A Midsummer Night's Dream, carefully skidding around any other Shakespeare plays. He read comedies, and cheesy romance novels posing as good literature, and she noticed the happy endings.
Noticed there were no events greater than life, no deprivation of fulfillment, and ignored that something was missing, something important.
And then he wanted them to write about the strength the female characters displayed, and made it worth twenty-five percent of their grade, and she noticed the way he was looking at her when he described the assignment for full ten minutes.
Rogue sat at her window, vaguely aware of her reflection in the opposite glass, and tried to find examples of strength. She desperately searched her textbooks and paper copies that were stapled together neatly, and grunted in a very Logan-like way when she found no depth, no intensity, no significance.
And she almost tossed the papers out the window together with her cold, shiny laptop that felt so much like Logan, but the rosebush caught her attention. And she stared at the withering roses as they faded, the dark red petals drying out, shriveling and looking so much like dried blood on leather she felt like all strength left her forever.
So she threw the laptop onto her blanket and rushed out of the room, with her hand over her mouth and her eyes watery and found her way into Mr. Summers' office.
"They're all weak," she said as she burst through his door, her brown eyes pleading with him.
"That was light entertainment, Rogue," he remained seated, and watched her, his fingers twined.
"But..."
"Do you want to be strong, Rogue?"
"I...yes."
"Then you have to endure pain, Rogue."
And she understood as he repeated her name like he knew something she didn't.
~oOo~
They gave her a bracelet.
They gave her a bracelet, a shiny little thing, and kept her in the lab for hours, explaining how it worked. Long, meticulous explanations about magnetism and chemical control and kept using more scientific terms until she believed them and smiled brightly.
And then she could touch. She could laugh and go out and not write anymore. She could play with people who weren't strangers anymore, could wear clothes that were appropriate for the weather, could skip his class to go to the lake with Jubilee and Kitty. She told him she never dreamt in red anymore and that she loved the leash because she was almost normal.
And she didn't need his words anymore, she didn't need him to read to her, for her.
But he expected her to write, he needed her to write.
He needed to see in color again, in all the thousands of shades that he knew existed and could only find in her writings, in her need for him.
And then he saw her with Bobby, and he saw her kissing him under a tree and heard her giggle, so he told her the truth, making himself believe she was ready for it.
"The bracelet, Rogue...it's just silver jewelry. It's you, you're controlling your power all by yourself."
And she rushed off, pale as the first snow, and he didn't see her for days, until Monday rolled around and she showed up in class. Until she sat calmly and listened to him talk about language patterns, and when she left, there was a story on his table.
And he thought he knew what he was going to read, and he almost felt at peace, elated and contended and then he read.
He read about a girl who lived in a mansion full of red, dying roses, a girl who could never say never, because she never knew who would betray her. A girl who couldn't trust anyone, not even herself because she was too
susceptible to illusions. Who didn't want to be strong. A girl who was missing her protector, her reliable shield against the darkness, against the cold, against life.
And he knew he was needed again, and he felt a twinge of guilt, but the need to protect and to see was stronger, so he buried everything else deep inside and promised himself he would be her protector, her safeguard and that no one would make him colorblind again.
And then Logan reemerged.
~oOo~
TBC