POV: Adonai
"Like a blind lesbian at a fish market. I was very turned on."
"Well, good mornin' to you too, Sugah," Rogue replied, her voice still heavy with sleep and amusement.
She lay beside him in his bed, her head resting on his chest, naked as the day she was born beneath the tangled sheets. Waking up to the gorgeous sight of Rogue every morning had quietly become one of the highlights of his day, something he refused to reflect on too deeply.
"Ah," he said softly, one arm tightening around her instinctively, "that explains it."
"That's flatterin' of ya," she teased, giggling as she brushed her lips along his neck with deliberate slowness. "It seems my conditionin' is workin' perfectly."
"Conditioning?" he echoed, amused, one eyebrow lifting as he looked down at her.
"Yes," she said brightly, far too pleased with herself. "I once read about something called operant conditionin'. It's basically about usin' rewards and consequences to shape behavior. You do somethin' desirable, you get a reward. You mess up, you lose somethin' you like. Kinda like a student studyin' harder for good grades or givin' up bad habits to avoid gettin' grounded."
He let out a slow breath that was halfway to a laugh. "And I assume I'm the lab rat in your little experiment."
"Oh, very much so," she said sweetly. "I give you positive reinforcement every day, right on schedule. I wake up naked beside you every mornin', make sure you associate certain behaviors with very pleasant outcomes, and eventually you start seekin' those behaviors all on your own without me even havin' to ask."
"That's blatant manipulation."
"Mmhmm," she agreed without shame. "But that's not even the clever part. The real fun is something called classical conditionin'."
He folded one arm behind his head and waited, humoring her.
"You ever hear about Pavlov's dogs?" she continued cheerfully. "You know, ring a bell, feed the dog, do it enough times and the dog starts droolin' at just the sound of the bell. No thinkin' required. It becomes automatic and involuntary. You start associatin' unrelated things together until your body responds before your brain even catches up. Fear, desire, comfort, all of it can be wired that way."
Her fingers traced slow, idle circles over his chest as she spoke, drawing invisible lines of temptation. "So now, every time you wake up, your first sight is me. Every time you feel that half-asleep warmth beside you, it's me. Every time your body stirs before your mind does, I just so happen to be right there. Eventually, your nerves start respondin' to the idea of me before you even realize what's happenin'. Turns out conditioned responses don't just make dogs drool. They build habits, cravings, and expectations."
"You're telling me, with a straight face, that you've been deliberately rewiring my instincts with nudity and kisses."
"Yep," she grinned up at him, unapologetic and radiant beneath the sheets.
"Why?" he asked, more amused than anything.
Her grin turned feral.
"To make you into the kind of man who'd wake up one day and think it's perfectly reasonable for a woman to crawl outta the walls at three in the mornin', whisper your name upside down from the ceiling, and declare you her lawful snack for the week," she purred. "The kind who wouldn't run or scream. Wouldn't even question it. Just sigh, roll over, and say 'yes mommy'."
He stared at her in silence.
She added, sweet as sugar, "Maybe a little light mind-breakin'. Possibly some long-term emotional dependency. A dash of very unhealthy attachment to danger. Y'know, the usual stuff.."
"That's… very hot," he said slowly.
"Mmm," she said, amused. "You're supposed to find that disturbing."
"Joke's on you. I'm into that shit."
There is little he would not let a girl as hot as Rogue do to him. And honestly, what she described seemed way too fun to him. He was always open for new experiences. One thing he had come to find out about Rogue besides her insatiable sexual appetite was that she was a nerd.
She was someone who could easily quote Shakespeare mid conversation and then shift without pause into talking about some physiological theories that she had read about and now randomly felt compelled to explain to him in great detail. He found it honestly cute, the way her eyes lit up when she got passionate about new stuff, the way she talked faster and faster, eager to share everything she knew with him.
Adonai of course used this to his advantage and made her do all of his homework and assignments, though he had to fool her a bit in order for her to do it, as she always said at first that he should do it himself so that he actually learned something.
"Or maybe I conditioned you into thinking that you are into that?" she said, laughing.
"Maybe," admitted Adonai. "But you will not see me complaining."
He shook his head amused, just looking at her where she lay sprawled comfortably in his bed, her hair scattered across the pillow, her skin still warm from their earlier activities.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided long ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence."
"How can you say that so casually," grumbled Rogue, her face blushing as she turned her head aside.
Adonai laughed and got up from the bed, to which Rogue pouted in protest. He slowly started looking for his underwear and his pants and eventually found them on the floor.
"You are up unusually early," said Rogue, still in the bed, watching him dress.
"Miracles happen from time to time," he said casually as he pulled on his underwear.
"Well they should happen more often," she said. "I never imagined I would ever see Scott Summers drunk. A miracle indeed."
It had been two days since they went to the club together to celebrate and by the end of it everyone was severely drunk, even Jean and Scott. All things considered, Adonai found it to be a fun night out.
"How is he by the way?" Adonai asked, remembering suddenly that Scott had confessed his feelings to Jean while he was drunk.
"He is burying himself in training and solitude," answered Rogue. "He is probably way too embarrassed about it. And he does not want to make it awkward for Jean, I guess."
"Things are only awkward if you think them to be," said Adonai, amused. "It is not like he did anything bad. He confessed his feelings and was rejected and I would say he handled it maturely afterwards."
"Yeah," agreed Rogue. "But not everyone is just like you in that they can ignore a broken heart. Oh, I am sorry, I forgot you do not have a heart."
"If I did not have a heart," said Adonai calmly, "how would I be alive? Think, Rogue. Think. The thing inside your head, it is called a brain. You should try using it."
"That is so not what I meant," Rogue said frustrated, throwing a pillow at him, which he easily caught.
"This counts as a form of abuse by the way," he said.
"Cry about it," she said with her tongue out. She had become way too sassy in his opinion.
"Behave or I will get Mahoraga to spank you," said Adonai, annoyed.
"Not even a man enough to do it yourself?" mocked Rogue with amusement. She wagged her ass to him from the bed as if to provoke him.
"Well I created Mahoraga so that I do not have to take care of the trash," said Adonai dryly. "And besides he is my masterpiece. His speed and strength are unmatched, he can tank any hit. Mahoraga the oppa stoppa."
"Zip it up when you are done," retorted Rogue, unimpressed.
"Damn, you are right," said Adonai in realization. "I was dickriding too much. I have to lock in."
Not to mention, summoning Mahoraga at every inconvenience was starting to sound like a certain fraud. He had to be careful about that. In fact, he should not summon Mahoraga at all but instead only use his wheel himself.
"Still I am surprised that Jean rejected Scott," said Adonai, now putting on a shirt.
"Not really," said Rogue, playing with her hair. "They are just too similar to each other in personality. Both are too serious about everything. So it makes sense that she would not be that interested in him. And besides, she has another reason."
"And what reason is that?"
"You really do not know?" said Rogue, laughing loudly.
"Care to share your joke with the class?"
"Nope," said Rogue. "It is a secret. Only cool people know about it."
Well, he was not that interested in that anyway. He only cared that Jean was now fair game as Scott was rejected and he could pursue her in all freedom.
"Are you going out?" asked Rogue curiously.
"Yeah," replied Adonai. "I have a date."
He had been postponing his date with Sue, but now he was completely free.
"Only you could talk about going on a date, while another woman lies naked on your bed," said Rogue, her tone carrying a certain melancholy and sadness.
He had never promised Rogue that he would remain monogamous, nor had he ever offered her exclusivity. From the very beginning, he had been unapologetically honest about the way he lived. If she chose to walk beside him, it would not be under illusions of devotion or ownership, but in the open light of indulgence, where longing was welcomed and fidelity was optional. He did not bind himself to anyone. He only invited them to share in the excess.
…
POV: Rogue
Rogue had always lived as if the world were made of glass and she of fire. Everything she touched shattered, everything she wanted burned. Affection was a luxury she learned early to starve herself of, and hunger became a constant ache beneath her ribs.
She learned to smile carefully, to stand at measured distances, to weigh every step and every breath as if the space between herself and others were a battlefield seeded with invisible mines. Loneliness was not a mood for her. It was the shape of her life.
Her mutation was a verdict. A sentence handed down at birth with no appeal. Skin to skin was death and comfort of any kind was lethal. Even kindness could become murder if she forgot herself for a moment.
Desire came to her like a punishment rather than a gift. She could feel it rise, unbidden, only to be immediately poisoned by fear. She watched others laugh, argue, embrace, build lives out of careless physical closeness.
She had learned that lesson young, learned it in screams and sirens and the weight of a boy's body going limp in her arms. After that, every closeness became terror disguised as longing. Every desire came with the knowledge of what it could cost.
So she clung to affection where she could. In words and smiles. Glances held too long. Jokes that lingered just enough to feel like warmth without crossing the line into danger. She learned to survive on what was almost touch. Almost love.
When Adonai arrived, all noise and motion and reckless joy, she had known at once that he was dangerous. He moved through the world as if consequences were rumors other people invented to frighten themselves. He laughed too easily. Promised too boldly. Burned too brightly. To her, he looked like a boy playing with fire while standing in a room already full of gasoline.
He promised to heal her.
She had almost laughed in his face.
Men had made her promises before. Priests. Scientists. Conmen. Mutants with theories and gadgets and good intentions. All of them had failed her. All of them had eventually looked at her with the same quiet resignation, as if the truth were self-evident. Some things were simply broken beyond repair.
She had learned to accept that verdict, had built her identity around it, and had learned how to be strong in the narrow space the world allowed her.
So when Adonai spoke of cures and solutions and adaptation, she heard only boasting. The loud, careless boasting of a boy drunk on the discovery that the universe had finally bent in his favor.
And the more she watched him, the more certain she became that he did not understand the price of being born dangerous.
He took Kurt into a nightclub like rules were a suggestion and not a shield. He clashed with Scott without restraint or respect. He laughed in the face of restraint. And to Rogue, that recklessness felt obscene.
She had lived her whole life knowing that one mistake could destroy someone she loved. She had watched Mystique and the Brotherhood hurl themselves against a world that despised them, fueled by pain and rage and the certainty that they were already damned. Their recklessness had come from wounds.
Adonai had no such excuse.
His power had never cost him the right to touch. His mutation had never made him a monster in the eyes of strangers. He had never woken every morning afraid of his own hands. He spoke of coexistence with humans as if it were obvious, as if fear were a childish thing that only the weak indulged.
He had never been spat at for looking wrong. Never been hunted for what his skin promised. Never been forced to measure desire against death.
So when he said mutants should not fear humans, she could only hear ignorance.
And she judged him for it.
She judged him easily.
Too easily.
When he declared that he had finally found a cure for her mutation, she thought it cruelty disguised as humor. Too cruel to tolerate, even from someone like him. But he did not laugh it off. He did not tease. He did not retreat when she doubted him. He stayed. He worked. He asked for nothing.
Only later did she learn how much that promise had cost him.
While she scorned his recklessness in silence, he endured sleepless nights. While she told herself that he was only chasing pleasure, he worked himself into exhaustion. While she assumed selfishness, he chose sacrifice without witnesses.
When Jean finally told her how hard he had pushed himself, how deeply he had buried himself in the attempt to save her, guilt struck her like a physical blow.
She had seen his sins and invented the rest.
And she hated herself for that.
When he risked his life to complete the adaptation, when he stood on the edge of death so that her hands might one day become harmless, she understood something too late. She had mistaken appetite for emptiness. Noise for absence of depth. What she had taken for moral carelessness was not a lack of feeling. It was simply a different way of carrying the world.
He had done the impossible for someone who never believed in him.
For her.
The cure shattered something in her that she had long believed unbreakable. The old resignation. The cold acceptance of eternal isolation. When she touched without killing, when warmth reached her palms without consequence, the world cracked open. It was terror and ecstasy at once. The thing she had feared most became the thing she wanted most.
So she reached.
Too fast.
She slept with him first out of guilt, then out of wonder. For the simple miracle of heat, of shared breath, of a body that did not recoil or fade. She was a teenager after all, no saint, no martyr. Curiosity had lived behind her fear for years, starving and unsatisfied.
And then curiosity became affection.
Affection became fascination.
Fascination became love.
She fell quicker than she wanted to admit. Embarrassingly fast. Foolishly fast. The kind of falling that does not ask permission, that does not consult the future. She did not confess. She did not need to nor had any intention to do so. She already knew how the story would end.
He was honest about himself. Always had been.
He would not belong to one woman. Not to her. Not to anyone. His life was built around motion, risk, desire, and excess. Thrill was his faith. Restraint was never going to be his sanctuary. He would move from flame to flame, always alive, never anchored. And he had never lied about that.
It was she who hoped anyway.
That was her sin.
She had misjudged him as hollow when he was merely uncontained. And she had misjudged herself as strong enough to love someone who could never be hers.
Now the guilt folded in on itself. Guilt for her prejudice. Guilt for her doubt. Guilt for loving a man who never promised permanence. Guilt for wishing, foolishly, that he might break his nature for her. As if love were an argument that could undo a philosophy. As if devotion could rewrite hunger.
She understood now that hearts were made to be broken. The wisdom did not protect her from it. If anything, it only sharpened the pain.
She had spent her life afraid to touch.
Now she was afraid to lose.
And that fear was worse.
Because this time, it was not her power that endangered her.
It was her heart.
..
She sat in the living room, reading Romeo and Juliet for her English class on Monday. The thin paperback rested in one hand while the other lazily lifted a teacup to her lips. A small plate of cookies sat on the coffee table, half empty. The living room was unusually quiet thanks to the fact that the majority of students were outside due to the good weather. Sunlight spilled through the wide windows, warming the couches and painting slow-moving shadows across the carpet.
"I am sweating like a pedofile in a nursery," she said out loud.
"Great, now we got two of them," said the cheerful voice of Bobby. He, along with the others with the notable exception of Scott, entered the room, instantly killing the silence with footsteps, laughter, and overlapping chatter.
She did not understand what he meant at first, then she realized that she had just made an outrageous statement like Adonai. The small memories she had absorbed had rather stupid and outright brain damage inducing. It was a wonder she had not gone insane by the amount of bullshit she had absorbed from Adonai. His humor alone felt like a slow, spreading infection.
She half wondered how he even functioned like that, but quickly stopped herself from thinking too deeply about it. Adonai was not meant to be understood, only loved or hated.
"I find them pretty hilarious," said Jean with a giggle. Her rival for Adonai's affection.
She had always found Mrs. Perfect annoying. She was everything Rogue was not, and she was jealous and hateful because of it.
"Well that's because you don't know the origin of them," snorted Rogue.
"Well we've got you for that," said Kitty suggestively, leaning forward with bright, eager eyes. "You got a front row seat to his mind after. So tell what is Adonai's mind like? What did you see? Come on! tell me, I won't tell anyone."
"If I told you a secret, Kitty," said Rogue. "I might as well go on the television and tell the whole world. It would be the same thing."
"Hey, that's mean," cried out Kitty in outrage, hands on her hips. "I can keep a secret. In fact, I am a very good secret keeper."
Everyone looked at her unimpressed. Kitty was a lovely and kind girl, but for the life of her she could not keep a secret to herself and had to tell everyone about it.
"Right, Piotr? Tell them," whined Kitty, turning to him for support.
"As you say," answered Piotr calmly.
"You are all mean," whined Kitty. "Adonai knows how good I am at keeping secrets."
"Amazing, Kitty," said Rogue dryly. "Calling someone who isn't here to testify for you is very convincing."
"Where did he go?" asked Kurt.
"He went out to the city," answered Rogue. "He said he had something to do."
"You sure he didn't say he had someone to do instead?" said Bobby with a grin.
Rogue hated how right he was. Adonai had been explicit that he was going to meet a woman.
"Enough about that, tell us now," said Alison with a sly grin. "What did you see in his mind?"
"Well first of all," began Rogue, setting her book aside. "I do not see into the mind. I am not a telepath. I can only look into the memories I absorbed from the skin contact."
"Same thing," said Alison with a shrug. "So what did you see in his memory?"
"What I saw," said Rogue, "was one of the most insanely idiotic things ever in human history. At no point in his incoherent memories and experiences was there anything close to what could be considered a rational thought. It is a miracle that I have not become dumber for seeing it, no scratch that, I have probably even lost a few brain cells due to that."
And that was the understatement of the century in Rogue's opinion. His mind was full of what he accurately labeled as "brainrot," an endless flood of nonsense, absurd symbols, and jokes that barely qualified as thoughts.
"Seriously that bad?" said Alison, barely holding her laughter.
"Think of the stupidest thing you can think of," said Rogue. "Then multiply it by a hundred. Do you know what he finds funny?"
"What?"
Rogue made certain hand motions with both of her hands. "Six seven," she said dryly.
"And?" said Kitty excitedly.
"That's it," said Rogue. "That's the joke. And he finds it very funny."
"Are you serious?" said Jean bewildered.
"No, I am Rogue," said Rogue dryly, which only made the others laugh.
"But is it like the sixty nine joke where there is some sort of sexual connotation?" asked Bobby.
"No," replied Rogue.
They continued to discuss the bizarre things she had seen in Adonai's memories and tried to make sense of it, and only grew more frustrated with every example Rogues shared.
Then she heard someone shouting and screaming. The sound was sharp, panicked, and wrong. She glanced at the others, who had also heard the scream. Chairs scraped against the floor as they quickly stood up and ran toward the noise. They rushed through the hallways and burst outside into the courtyard.
There they saw a group of young students surrounding a creature emerging from an earthen burrow that could be mistaken for an animal at first glance. It had a large, bulky, almost slug-like body covered in purple skin that glistened in the daylight. The face was humanoid but horribly distorted, with a wrinkled, pale grey appearance and small, sunken eyes that darted in terror. Rogue had never seen anything like it.
"Aid us, X-Men," shouted the creature. "Beg, implore do I for salvation. Strangers in the alley, they kill. Morlocks ...die...Murder."
Then immediately Jean began screaming loudly too, holding her head and falling to her knees. The psychic feedback hit her all at once. The sound and the speech were so full of horror and despair that Rogue at once felt her eyes tearing.
…
Later they waited outside of the infirmary after calming the younger students who were probably traumatized by the horrific sight of the man screaming. The hallway felt colder than usual, the sterile lights buzzing softly above them. The smell of antiseptic hung thick in the air. Rogue stood with her arms folded, pacing back and forth in small steps, her nerves tight and restless.
"Multiple blade and gunshot wounds," she heard Dr. McCoy speak with her enhanced hearing she absorbed from Adonai. "Massive internal trauma, pulverized bone. It's a miracle he reached us."
Rogue felt her heart drop at that. Who would do such a thing, she wondered. The image of the distorted creature begging for help burned into her thoughts.
"Desperation breeds miracle, Hank," she heard the Professor say quietly.
"Are you okay, Jean?" Angel asked concerned. Jean sat with them waiting, eyes hollow and full of terror. She had refused to go to the infirmary, though she looked like she really needed it. Her hands trembled slightly in her lap, shoulders hunched as if trying to fold into herself.
"What did you see?" she heard Bobby ask.
"Tunnels," spoke Jean, her tone terrifyingly hollow. "Sewers, people. Death. Screams. Blood. Bodies filling the sewer like dead rats. I saw a cadre of super beings massacring the Morlocks. They killed everyone."
A heavy silence followed her words.
"Who are the Morlocks?" asked Scott, anger barely hidden beneath his controlled tone.
"A mutant group," replied Jean. "They were mutants whose mutation made them unable to live normally amongst humans. People whose mutation only brought them misfortune and sufferings. They found a society for themselves deep in the sewers of New York, far from human civilization. They live on scraps on piles of shit and dead water like rats. You do not understand, this is horrible. How could someone suffer so much?"
Jean's eyes were deep red from crying to the point there were no more tears coming out. Her face was pale, strained, as if the horror was still playing in front of her eyes.
"We must go and help them," said Jean, suddenly filled with determination. "There may yet be survivors. The Morlocks number in the thousands."
"Be not hasty, Jean," said the calm voice of the Professor, coming out of the infirmary with Logan, Storm and Dr. McCoy.
"Hasty?" shouted Jean, much to the surprise of everyone, for Jean never shouts. "There is a genocide going on there. We must help them, we can't just wait here."
"We will wait, Jean," spoke the Professor. "However, we must be cautious. These beings that you saw are powerful entities. We need a plan of action before you can go in there."
"People will die while we squabble over plans," replied Jean, gritting her teeth.
Rogue had never seen Jean so terrified and out of control before. The ever calm and charismatic Jean being so terrified was a blow to everyone's spirit. Even Logan looked grim, his jaw clenched.
"Professor," spoke Scott icily. "You knew about the Morlocks, didn't you?"
"I did," admitted the Professor with a sigh.
"Why didn't you tell us about them?" asked Scott, fury barely held back. "Mutants, people like us, living in sewers like animals. Even if they refused to come to this school, we would have been able to help in other ways. Oh God, how could you, Professor?"
"Scott, there are things you do not understand yet," said the Professor calmly.
"I don't want to understand," spoke Scott. "It is too late now. We can only salvage what is salvageable. Jean, you saw where these tunnels are, correct?"
"Yes," answered Jean.
"Very good," spoke Scott. "I want you to project these places to Kurt's mind so that he can teleport us all as quickly as possible. We must rush there as quickly as possible."
"Scott," began the Professor.
"Professor," interrupted Scott. "We can speak after we have managed to save at least a handful of people. Jean, if you would?"
Jean nodded and looked at Kurt, likely transmitting the tunnels into his mind. Kurt flinched slightly, his eyes narrowing as the images took hold.
"Scott, I can not teleport there," said Kurt. "It is too far. Too risky."
"I know, Kurt," replied Scott. "And I am sorry that I am asking this of you. But there are potentially thousands of lives at stake here and every second counts. You can do it. You have to do this. Otherwise people will die."
Scott did not wait for Kurt to reply and instead started to shout out orders, and the others followed him without hesitation.
"I will come with you as well," Logan said calmly.
"As will I," said Dr. McCoy and Storm simultaneously as well.
Scott nodded in response.
"I will aid you with Cerebro," said the Professor, eyes filled with determination. "It seems my fear of your safety blinded me to the gravity of the situation. You will have to forgive me."
"Try to contact Adonai," spoke Logan. "If these killers are as powerful as I expect them to be, then we will need his help."
"I will," answered the Professor.
They quickly changed into their combat gears and all connected their hands with Kurt. With a rush of air and the sharp scent of sulfur, they disappeared from the mansion.
She whispered a silent prayer that they were not too late.
AN: I wrote this chapter while on a train, so there are likely a lot of grammatical and spelling errors. I'll go over it once more tomorrow, as I don't have the time right now.