Further Crisis
I don't call her on her cell phone.
I just don't.
We arrange our trysts other ways. While we're together. Postcards. Letters.
The woman can figure out any puzzle I make for her, and I've been trained in codes.
There's only one reason to call her on the cell.
Unfortunately, I've got it.
****************************
Three days ago, she got back to the mansion from "a trip upstate." Not a lie, not entirely. She had gone on a trip.
The trip had left her with more bites and nip marks, as usual. Victor had been unusually passionate this last time.
Luckily, she usually dressed in a formal fashion, and though it was spring, it was cool. She adjusted the collar of her turtleneck and listened to the parameters of the mission, as well as planning alternate routes, altering her course outline, and in the back of her head, tasting the exciting promise that next time, he would hunt her down in the wild North.
Just two more weeks.
Her cell phone rang. Startled, she answered it. "Tessa."
"I got a reason."
She paused. "Good."
"Same place as before. Ten minutes. I know you can make it."
She closed her phone. "Pardon me." She got up to go, putting the agenda in her briefcase and giving a brief nod to the other X-men in the room.
"Somethin' serious?" Logan had been following her closely, particularly after this last encounter. Perhaps she had not washed off enough of the blood afterward.
She projected her usual cool, businesslike demeanor. "No, but it requires my immediate attention. Excuse me."
She felt his gaze on her body, burning through her clothes, as she hurried to her room. Unfortunately, in order to be dressed properly, she had to wear shoes which restricted her movement. She kicked them off and threw the briefcase in a corner, slipping on an old pair of tennis shoes instead and tossing her jacket onto the bed.
Tessa
. Charles' cool mental touch came, as expected.
Charles
. She nearly ran down the hallway from the women's dormitory. Logan was standing at the stairs as she came, wild eyes watching her.
What is it?
Personal business. She infused her mental touch with some of the wild throbbing she felt inside, the urge to run on the edge, as well as a tinge of sexuality.
Nothing too serious, but I need to go now and bleed off some energy.
He withdrew, almost instinctively, as he always did when confronted with the intimate knowledge of his teammates.
I see. Please inform me when your task is complete.
I will contact you by the end of the day. If I do not, come for me. She broke off the link sharply and burst through the front door, nearly slamming it into Rahne Sinclair, who had been standing outside laughing with Jamie Madrox.
She did not apologize. She ran past the startled couple and heard their exclamations as she sped over to the motor pool. This would require greater speed than she could muster on foot.
***************************
I waited in the apartment. She had a few more things in it now. A chair in the living room. Microwave food in the freezer. Changes of clothes in the dresser. Strongly scented lilac and patchouli soaps and candles in the bathroom.
Couldn't have Logan finding out about us, now, could we?
I snarled, trying to keep from smashing something as I paced. Cataloguing scents was about all I could come up with.
She had to come soon. I'd given her ten. If she wasn't doing anything, she'd be here in two minutes. If she had been, she'd be out in seven.
Maybe I should eat something. I hadn't eaten for … well. Twenty four hours.
I fished out a packaged meal and read the instructions carefully, keeping myself from slashing it open with an effort.
Hm. Time was, I'd have slashed it wide anyway and ruined the place.
I sat, paying no attention to the sesame chicken that was scattering everywhere on the hard kitchen floor.
What was she doing to me?
**************************
She parked in the lot five blocks away and started running. No one, to her knowledge, had followed her. She did a quick and dirty telepathic sweep of the immediate area anyway. No suspicious blank areas where there should be people, no recitations of meaningless nonsense, and nothing but ordinary thoughts of ordinary humans.
She kept running and hoped she'd made it in time. She had no time to look at her watch. She vaulted the stairs, avoiding the broken second step, and flung her apartment door open.
He was sitting on the kitchen floor. Bits of rice and orange sauce surrounded him on the floor. A box of "authentic" Chinese chicken lay at his feet, with more rice and orange bits inside. He looked up at her approach. "Tessa."
She swallowed. "Victor." She locked the door, triple locked it, then moved forward, dropping her usual reserve. "What has happened to you?"
His eyes stopped at her shoes. "It's after Labor Day," he said, faint surprise in his tone.
She waved her right hand impatiently. "Why did you call?"
He rose to his full height, his own suit wrinkled from his former posture, his long blond hair settling down his back. He raised a hand, then dropped it with a sigh. "Why can't I kill you?"
She blinked. She hadn't anticipated a question like that. "Let's go to the bedroom. I need a drink."
**************************
I watched her open the Merlot, pour the ruby red liquid into a glass, and toss off half of it in one gulp. Her throat pulsed with life. Again, I tried to imagine ripping through it, drinking deep, but felt the same as I had earlier. Disgusted. Unhappy. Lonely.
She coughed a little, the alcohol stinging on its way down. "Now, tell me again, from the beginning."
I sat on the bed next to her, growling. "Like I said. Someone said something to me this morning, about being willing to kill anyone for a price. I started thinking about you. No price for you. I couldn't do it." I took her hand. She was shaking, her pulse throbbing loud in my ears. "I want to know why."
She closed her eyes. "I could delve into your mind to find out."
"That'd be fine." I let go of her hand. The idea of crushing it in mine disturbed me. Made me feel guilty. Ashamed.
What was wrong with me if I couldn't even do that?
She brushed into my head, smoky and wild. I held my hands together and pressed hard. I didn't like anyone in my head but me.
Still, she felt friendly. Soothing. How many people could I say that about?
She dropped down into my center. Her feelings swirled through mine as she searched. Fear. Anticipation. Curiosity.
Let's just hope this lady doesn't kill this cat.
****************************
She moved into his mind cautiously. It had been trapped and messed with and felt like it, odd places shut off that should be open, places opened that should have been blocked. She moved into the area of his feelings for her.
They were amorphous, shifting from warmth and want to sudden shafts of jealousy and desire. She opened more to his mind, what he thought about her as the feelings sifted through her being. He missed her when she was gone. He thought about her during the weeks they were away. He wrote things down he thought would interest her. He planned things she would like. He smiled at the memory of her joy when he gave her that updateable Palm Pilot she'd wanted.
Good heavens. Victor was in love with her. She paused. How were they going to deal with this complication?
*****************************
I waited for her to leave my head. I bit the insides of my cheeks to remain calm. Calmer. I raised my hand again, trying to bring it down and snap her neck.
Her lovely neck.
I felt the guilt and shame flooding my body again. What the hell was wrong with me? I'd killed people before without a thought. Better looking ones.
She looked at me. I put my hand by my side, guilty, worried. "You do seem to have a problem."
I waited for her to tell me. She tossed off the rest of her wine and looked up at me, smoky eyes wide with fear. "Victor, you're in love."
I growled and jumped off the bed. "Can't be. I never have been."
Her eyes burned into me, her right hand toying with her almost empty wine glass, a bright red droplet caught in the stem. "Apparently, you are now."
It sizzled along my nerves. Unfortunately, it made sense. A lot of sense. Damn it.
"So, what does that mean?"
She put the glass on the floor and stared at her feet. "What do you want it to mean?"
I wrapped my paw around her chin and raised her head. "Don't go all Zen on me, Tessa. We know about me. How about you?"
She dropped the X-mask, that brisk "Don't touch me" air she put on around the X-men. Her eyes closed. "I might feel the same. I haven't bothered to analyze it." Her eyes hit mine hard when she opened them again. "I've been busy just feeling when I'm around you. Enjoying finally being able to be everything I am. But I don't know what it means. It's not like we can …"
"Do the traditional thing?" I laughed. Yeah. "Imagine the wedding." I snorted.
Course, the idea of a wedding was kinda perversely attractive. I could see the runt's face now.
Her eyes gleamed. "Imagine the kids."
I stopped and looked her over, the image of my ebony-haired lover pregnant doing interesting things to my insides. "I am."
Our eyes locked. The ideas were thrilling. Heady. Hot.
They'd never work.
She pulled her shirt off in one graceful, careless move, exposing the cuts and bites I'd left from our last time together. She traced the nip on her right shoulder. "Why'd you do that?"
I stayed in front of her and dropped to my knees. "I wanted to mark you." I sniffed along her jaw line. "I wanted to claim you before you went back to them." I teased her ear with my tongue. "Before you were swallowed up by other men."
She pulled me against her body, tilting so I could continue playing with her ear. "Then I have to come up with something we can do by the time we meet up in Canada."
"Fine." I picked her up and tossed her back onto the bed. "You're wearing too much."
***********************************
She smiled, blinking back a few tears. She did not like having to inhibit Victor's passion, but having yet more bite marks would make working with the X-men impossible.
She hissed as the soap hit a tender bite. He'd opened it earlier while he was stroking her body and licking at her. She hadn't minded at the time, but right now it stung.
He wanted children. She had to put her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing, then realized that probably no one could hear her and laughed till she cried. And people of different religious traditions thought THEY had problems when they decided to have them…
What if they got the worst aspects of both parents and were danger freaks with bad tempers?
What if they were furry telepaths?
