LIVING IN STEREOTYPES

DIEBIN THANKS (and loves): Mollylinka, Jenilou, Naceshka, Donners, Naciwan, Sarita and Jennilein.

AUTHORS NOTES: This story contains a happy ending. I apologize for the drastic break in protocol. ;)

She told herself that it wasn't her fault. Like a good girl she mouthed the common forms, sat up at night enumerating the ways in which she was the victim. She'd had no power. She'd had no control. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault.

She never told anyone what had happened. Like a bad girl she covered the bruises, sat up at night enumerating the ways in which she was to blame. She'd let him touch her. She'd let him think it was okay. It was her fault. It was her fault.

She learned to live in stereotypes that year, laughing sometimes when choosing which stereotype to be grew too difficult. She hadn't told anyone what had happened, so she couldn't be the stereotype of what she was.

She made up stories in her head, sometimes she told them to other people to justify her actions. The stories were the most fun of all, intricate little webs of half truth and deception, woven with words and smiles and the slightest of gestures that made belief inevitable.

Living the stereotype of heartbreak was fun. With Logan safely gone, she could moon about like a heart broken child.

She could fondle the useless bits of metal that she hated wearing because she'd never liked having anything around her neck. She could languish and sigh and make the teachers shake their heads. She could pretend to be denying

Sometimes she liked to be a troubled child. That ingratiated her to Jean, made Jean feel useful. Made them think they had some control in her life. She went to Jean and confessed countless problems, spun tales of emotional trauma and abuse. Of a broken home. She borrowed from Erik, who liked it when she made up stories. Sometimes she made them up from scratch. She confessed to everything except for the one thing she fought so hard to hide.

She tried being suicidal for a while, but that wasn't much fun. They started following her and watching her. Her things were gone through. Jean made her spend a night in observation, and the novelty of pretend started to wear off. It took them weeks to trust her by herself, and constant questions started to wear on her. She was afraid she'd forget the stories and start telling truths.

She went out and bought a notebook. It was cheap and dark green and she wrote 'History' on the cover in big black block letters. Every time she told a story she wrote it down in her neat, even handwriting--wrote down the lies she spun and who she'd wrapped them around. Sometimes she'd have to go back and check, because it was hard to keep the stories straight, the lives straight.

Later she bought another notebook, and on the top of each page she wrote a name. By the end of the year Jean had six pages, because that was how much space it took to write all the lies she'd told the person who was supposed to be her friend.

On the last page of her notebook she stenciled the word 'Truth' in small, barely there letters.

His hands were rubbing her neck, she loved it when his hands rubbed her neck. Rough fingers on soft flesh, smoothing sore muscles and touching the places that felt so good. He claimed he rubbed her neck to relieve tension.

"Mmmm." The warm voice in her ear was accompanied by hot breath. "Every oh so touchable inch of you."

No one else would say that to her. No one else /could/ say that to her. It was dangerous, being with Kevin. Dangerous, being with a man--a mutant--who could touch her and did touch her and touched her in such wonderfully sensual ways.

She didn't care that he was thirty-nine. If everyone could think she was in love with Logan, Logan who was older than anyone could comprehend--thirty-nine wasn't that bad. Not when he was suave and experienced and loved her.

His hands weren't just rubbing her neck anymore, and even though it made her feel uncomfortable, it felt too good.

She took psychology at the local university. Took it as a night class, and sat in the back with bare fingers clenched tightly around her pen.

She always brought two sets of clothing. The one she wore when she left the mansion, and the one she changed into just before she went to class. She had a locker in the art building, a locker where she kept her low cut, short sleeved blouses. Where she kept her shorts. Were she put her gloves and scarf.

The college was a community college. None of the other mutants her age went there, she'd been careful about that. Nobody who would know that her name wasn't Helena, that she wasn't from the Midwest, that she wasn't supposed to be able to touch.

Taking the class was an excuse to have the book. She stayed up late at night, copying stereotypes into her little notebook, staring off into space as she created fantastical stories and decided who would be the best victims for each one.

She had lots of fun with Multiple Personalities. Erik and Logan weren't really very strong anymore, but she liked to pretend they were. She'd find bits of metal and fiddle with them endlessly, stare off into space and mutter in gibberish that might be German. Sometimes she liked to call the Professor Charles. Sometimes she told him she hated him.

Jean was more fun. She cornered her once and bit her on the shoulder, and growled all kinds of obscene things that should have made her blush. Jean gave her a look of endless pity, of compassion and a little bit of fear, and that was the best part of all. Knowing that Jean thought she knew the truth. That Jean wasn't powerful enough to get through the thoughts she kept at the top of her head to confuse the all powerful telepaths.

One night she took all of her clothes off and stood in front of the mirror, running hands up and down an almost perfect figure. She was beautiful, sensuous, dangerous--she knew it. She knew every inch of her body was as close to perfect as it could be. She loved knowing it.

She decided to become anorexic. It was harder then she thought it would be, but all she really had to do was think about the truth--just a little. It was surprising how bad the truth made her feel about herself. Hating her body was easy when she thought about the truth. And lying about why she hated it worked too.

"I could teach you." He was panting, the words breathless as he buried his face in her neck. "I could teach you how to do it."

It took a while for her brain to catch up with her body, because her neck was damp from where he'd been kissing her and she could feel every inch of her skin, feel it in a way that made her know someone else was feeling it too.

His hands touched her face and she felt something she wasn't supposed to feel, felt a trickle of him rushing into her, felt thoughts and words and feelings and lust and she gasped, pressing up with her body to break the contact.

"Control it," he whispered, touching her face again. "I know how to control it, and I can teach you too."

The words were seductive in a way that had nothing to do with his hands on her body, and it was the beginning of the end.

Logan was at a loss to deal with her, and she knew it. She counted on it. The stories she told him had been prepared with meticulous care over years, finely crafted shades of half truth with all of the right spins, all the things she knew would get him because she knew him.

He called her a kid and she acted one, wide guileless eyes and cloying innocence. She simpered and preened, she ducked her head and stared up at him from under lowered lashes. She let her lips fall into a pout that was artfully manipulative, luscious, unknowing sin.

One night she confessed to him her deep, undying passion for Scott. She watched his eyes flickering over her face, watched him sorting each sentence, each word--weighing truth from fantasy and filing them away behind that impenetrable mask of a face. It was the one time she wasn't sure she'd won, the way he shook his head and gave her a lowly disapproving look before telling her goodnight.

For a while she thought she'd told him a conflicting story, that the words she's written so carefully and neatly on the pages marked 'Logan' had some intrinsic flaw--that she hadn't done as well as she could have.

It was starting to make her uneasy. The surly look in his eyes when she tried to stop him from going farther. The way he sighed and shook his head as if she were missing the great secret of the age. The way the caresses had gotten a little less gentle, the way the soft words of love had grown sharper.

He started calling her ungrateful. Not in as many words, but after an hour when he'd encouraged her gently while she struggled with control, he let it be known he expected some kind of compensation--some kind she wasn't ready to give.

"It'd not like anyone else would do this for you," he whispered once after she pushed him back, her hands trembling in fear at going to far too fast. "I deserve something out of it, don't I?"

And she wanted to say no. Say no, you only deserve what I want to give you--but how could she deny that no one else could touch her, no one else /would/ touch her, and maybe she was foolish and ungrateful and maybe he was right.

That was her only warning that Logan had shown up, and when she turned slowly on her way out of class--and oh god, she was so aware of every inch of bare skin--Logan didn't stop staring.

Kassie stopped next to her, giving Logan a nervous look. "Want me to call security or something?"

Rogue waved her almost friend away, her eyes fixed on Logan. Logan's eyes were fixed on where Kassie's bare hand rested on Rogue's bare arm.

"Okay, Logan." And because the game was so far up, she reached out with bare fingers and wrapped them around his arm. "Let's walk."

She wasn't surprised when he pulled the notebook out of his jacket on their way out of the building. She wasn't surprised that he didn't speak as they walked towards the park in the middle of the campus.

The wry smile that twisted her lips was everything of him and nothing of herself. "I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you."

He didn't look angry, didn't look betrayed or worried or really anything at all besides disappointed, and that was nowhere in her equations. "Don't play games, Rogue. I'm not going to play them with you anymore."

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Nothing had prepared her for a Logan who just . . . didn't care. Reaching for the notebook, she slid her bare fingers over his own in as deliberate a way as she knew how, and something inside her crumbled just a little when he released the notebook and drew his hand away.

His gaze was tangible as she tightened her hand around the spiral edge on the notebook, tightened her fingers until she could feel the metal biting into her palm. She waited--waited for something to happen. Waited and wished desperately that she could open the pages and find a lie that would make the disappointment disappear from his face.

He flicked the pages of the notebook with one finger. "I read it all. I remember it all. When you're ready to tell me something that's not in there--maybe we can talk."

She needed more lies. Needed them desperately--because for one fragile second she was almost ready to tell the truth.

She didn't like going to see him anymore. She didn't like the feeling his hands on her body--didn't think she'd /ever/ like feeling /anyone's/ hands on her body again. She found herself coming up with excuses on nights she was supposed to meet him, because she could control her mutation now and it wasn't just a subtle pressure to do things that almost frightened her now.

Something was wrong with her. Something had to be wrong with her, because she was a woman and she'd known Kevin for two months and he was a man and wasn't she supposed to /want/ to let him do whatever he wanted to her?

Sometimes he told her that she obviously wasn't much of a woman at all, and she knew he had to be right.

She felt guilty after he touched her. She couldn't sleep sometimes. Her stomach twisted at the sight of food. She had nightmares that she woke from with fear and terror and no idea at all what they'd been about.

And this time, when she pushed him away, he came back, and she found out that giving in wasn't what she'd wanted to do at all.

She was crying when she lit the notebook on fire. It was so early in the morning that no one else was stirring, so she felt safe in the chemistry lab with her gloves on the table. She held the notebook until the hair on her arm started to burn, until she felt the flames licking at her hand.

Logan found her while she was crying and cradling her burned hand and watching the flames turn the last year of her life into ashes in a dirty sink.

He didn't say anything. His hands wrapped around her waist and he pushed her into a chair and knelt down in front of her.

"Who did it?" He wasn't looking at her face, he was staring somewhere over her shoulder, and his voice was low and even. Impersonal. Professional.

And now he did look at her, and his eyes were hot and at least it was emotion. "I'm not stupid, Marie. It was the only thing you never told anyone. The only lie that wasn't in your little book. And I want to know who did it."

She shook her head slowly, wrapping trembling arms around her own body. "I--it's not what you think, Logan. He didn't--he didn't do--it wasn't his fault. It was--I didn't tell him not to. I didn't tell him that--"

His voice was rough. "I thought you were going to stop playing games, Marie. I don't want some stereotypical psycho-babble. I want the damn truth."

She started crying again, and she closed her eyes because finally she realized that she'd lied too much to ever, ever, ever be believed again. And with the truth between them, the truth and the whole truth and Logan didn't even--

She felt his arms wrap around her so softly, so gently and then she was curled into his chest and he was rocking her back and forth, his lips in her hair. "It's okay, Marie. It's okay. It's not your fault. It's never, ever your fault."

And when she curled her fingers around his neck, it was nice to feel skin and know that she didn't have to do anything about it.

She'd asked him if he worked for Magneto. If he was on some great secret assignment to destroy her.

"Really, Rogue." His voice was bored. "I thought you wanted it. You shouldn't lead people on like that if you aren't willing to go through with it." And his hand was clumsy as he pet her on the shoulder like some kind of puppy. "I guess this means we won't be seeing each other anymore."

She got dressed and left and made a vow right then--right then that she would never, ever let anyone know how stupid and naïve she'd been.

She told herself that it wasn't her fault. Like a good girl she mouthed the common forms, sat up at night enumerating the ways in which she was the victim. She'd tried to say no. She'd tried to push him away. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault.

She never told anyone what had happened. Like a bad girl she covered the bruises, sat up at night enumerating the ways in which she was to blame. She hadn't said no. She hadn't pushed him away. It was her fault. It was her fault. It was her fault.

She learned to live in stereotypes that year, learned to live in them because she knew she was one.

"I trust you'll tell us what was going on eventually." Jean's voice was professional and totally disapproving.

Logan just smiled. "Maybe. Maybe not." And when the red headed doctor glared at him, he shook his head. "It's not mine to tell, Jean."

Jean sighed. "And if you pick up and leave, Logan--who is going to know what to do if it happens again? We can't just keep calling you every time something goes wrong with her."

"It won't happen again." The feral gleam in his eyes was surprising, Jean tensed against the sudden jump in intensity in the room.

"No." Logan smiled again. "Besides, I don't think I'm going anywhere for a while. Have some things to take care of."

He winked and turned away, and if Jean hadn't know better she would have taken the wink as nothing more than Logan being flirtatious.

Logan didn't look up as she stomped into his room, shaking snow off of her boots and coat. "Hey, Logan."

Logan looked up and smiled, and she couldn't help but smile too. Logan's smiles were free, she'd learned. He didn't ask for anything in return, didn't expect her to pay for his smiles and his help and his words with anything other than a

She took off her coat and peeled off the gloves that she was only wearing because it was cold out. "I got a letter from a publisher today."

He arched an eyebrow, but she could tell she had his attention. "Quote: 'Your imagination and passion for spinning stories that can't help but be believed make you a strong candidate.'"

He snorted and she smiled, perching on the edge of the desk where he was sitting. "As long as you're telling the stories to them and not me," he grumbled, but she could see that he was proud and happy for her.

And because it had been a year since he came back into her life, and because for that year he had been her friend and built so must trust into her that she couldn't imagine anything she /wouldn't/ be comfortable asking him--it was easy to find the words she wanted.

"Hmm?" He was back to staring at whatever it was on the desk that had his attention, but she could tell he was listening.

The eyebrow was back up, and she was at a loss to read the expression in his eyes. "No, Marie. I will not kiss you."

"But--" And he leaned back in his chair a little and laced his fingers behind his head and gave her a smirk that said more than words ever could, "I probably won't fight too hard if you try to kiss me."

It was putting all the power and all the choice in her hands, and for a long moment she was sure she was going to blush and smile and just get up and walk away. Fear choked her still sometimes, and she knew that, deep down inside, she'd wanted so badly for him to take the responsibility away from her.

She knew just as well that he wouldn't do that, wouldn't give her any chance to tell herself that it had been anything but her decision, her action--her bravery.

She felt him chuckle softly against her lips, felt his hands threading carefully through her hair as he slowly coaxed her clenched lips into relaxing, slowly traced her lower lip with his own. It was soft and it was gentle and it was over far sooner than she wanted it to be, and when he pulled back and pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear, he smiled at

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?" he whispered, and his mouth looked so tempting, crooked into that tiny little almost-there smile that she kissed him again, and she knew it was her choice and that she wanted it.