POV: Adonai
Adonai opened his eyes slowly, letting the blurry shapes around him settle into clarity. White sheets. The antiseptic scent of the room. The soft hum of machines. He was in the medical wing. That much was obvious. His limbs felt heavy, as if they belonged to someone else, and lifting his hand demanded far more effort than he had available.
"Hey," a voice said from his right. "We really need to talk, Adonai Ezra."
Close enough. Welcome back, Obito.
He turned his head with deliberate slowness and saw Rogue sitting on the window ledge, her face resting against her palms. The sunlight framed her silhouette, and for a moment she looked unreal. He also noticed instantly that she wasn't wearing gloves.
"What's up?" he said, attempting to push himself up. His body refused to cooperate, and he settled for shifting his head instead.
Rogue's reaction was amusing to say the least. She froze, staring at him with her mouth wide open. Did she just speak without knowing if he was awake or not? Talk about an Aura gamble.
"Flies are gonna crawl into your mouth if you keep it open like that," Adonai said, dryly.
The comment snapped her out of it. She blinked rapidly.
"Adonai…" she breathed, her voice trembling.
"That's me," he replied.
"You're awake…" The sound of her voice hovered somewhere between disbelief and joy.
"So it seems. I have risen," Adonai said, wondering why she felt the need to narrate the obvious.
Rogue surged forward and wrapped her arms around him in a hug so forceful that his life genuinely flashed before his eyes. She held him as though the universe would rip him away if she loosened her grip even slightly.
"Oh, Adonai…" Rogue whispered, shaking. "I'm so glad you woke up. I was so worried. I thought that I… I…"
"That you killed me?" he finished, entirely unbothered.
She nodded into his chest, her voice muffled. "You didn't move for three days. I thought I'd… I thought it was over. That I'd finally… hurt someone too much. That you died."
"Sadly, yes," Adonai said. "But I lived."
A small laugh left her, soft and wet with tears. She lifted her head to look at him, her eyes red but bright.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I always bring bad luck to the people around me."
"My dear, you have nothing to apologize for," he replied, voice gentle. "And besides, you never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."
She hummed thoughtfully and finally loosened her death grip. She settled on the edge of the bed, still watching him with a strange mix of relief, regret, anxiety, and something warmer that she probably hadn't sorted out yet.
"How long was I asleep?" Adonai asked. His body felt like it had slept for a week and an hour at the same time.
"Three days," Rogue answered, guilt still lingering in her voice.
"I see," he said, as though arriving at a grand revelation. "The signs are clear."
"What signs?" she asked.
"Turning water into wine, rising after three days… It's obvious. I am Marvel Jesus."
"You are not Jesus, Adonai," Rogue said, exasperation colouring her voice. "And Jean might sue you for copyright."
Adonai looked confused for a moment before remembering that Jean's codename was Marvel-Girl, a name he relentlessly bullied her for.
"She might," he conceded. "Help me sit up?"
She guided him carefully, adjusting pillows behind him until he was comfortably propped up. He glanced down at the white patient gown and scowled.
"Thank you," he said. "I see you're not wearing gloves anymore."
"It felt pointless at this stage," Rogue said with a small smile. "So much of it was just fear and guilt. The professor told me that if I could accept myself as I am, I could learn to control my power."
"But it isn't that simple. Is it?" Adonai said.
"No, it's not," she agreed. "Fear doesn't ever go away. I am going to have to confront it everyday. It's going to be exhausting, but it is the puzzle piece that I have been missing until now. Now that I know, it's up to me and nobody else. As it always should have been."
"Not entirely alone," Adonai said with mild amusement. "I'll help if you need it. And I'm sure others will too. It's fine to ask for help when you need it."
She stared at him, eyes wide, a faint smile forming. "You nearly died because of me, and you still offer me more." Her expression softened further. "Why? What have I done to deserve that?"
"Why not?" he said.
He did not help out of principle, empathy, or duty. Those things bored him. He helped because certain people, in certain moments, could provoke a peculiar thrill, an aesthetic rush that stirred something decadent in him.
Usefulness was irrelevant. Morality was irrelevant. What mattered was the sensation.
If someone's suffering happened to catch his interest, its texture, its intensity, its promise of emotional spectacle, he would intervene. He stepped in to indulge the strange pleasure he took in watching their distress transform under his touch. And if they failed to fascinate him, he simply walked past.
Rogue looked surprised by the simplicity of the answer. "You really are…" she began, but the door opened before she could finish.
"Ah, Adonai," Dr. McCoy's warm voice filled the infirmary. "Good to see you conscious again. How are you feeling?"
"Never felt better," Adonai said dryly. "Why do you ask?"
"If you can still make that sort of joke, I suppose your mind is intact," Dr. McCoy replied with a quiet chuckle. "Though I imagine you're having trouble moving."
Adonai attempted to lift his arm and failed. "Yeah. My body feels about a thousand times heavier."
"It is a miracle you woke up this soon," McCoy said. "Given how much energy Rogue absorbed, you should still be unconscious. Frankly, most people would not have survived it at all. Your unique biology is the only reason you are still with us."
"Unique biology?" Rogue whispered. She looked pale, terrified at how close she had come to killing him.
"Yes," McCoy answered, his tone shifting to a mixture of awe and scientific fascination. "His physiology is unlike anything I've catalogued. His digestion is almost perfectly efficient, his metabolism adjusts itself instantly to whatever fuel he has, and his cells produce and use energy with very little waste.
"His oxygen use, muscular output, neural response time… all of it is far beyond normal human limits. Even his healing factors and sensory systems operate at an elevated level. It is not a single mutation. It is an entire network of improvements working together. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Adonai here is the pinnacle of human evolution."
Rogue stared at Adonai in stunned silence. His awesomeness has that effect on people.
"Most bodies fail when pushed too hard," McCoy continued, calmer now. "His, however, does not. It adapts. That adaptability kept him alive. Without it, the energy loss alone would have shut down every organ he has."
"What can I say? I am built different.." Adonai let out a smirk.
McCoy smiled slightly. "In very simple terms, yes."
Rogue swallowed hard. "Ah'm so sorry. Ah didn't mean—"
"Don't start apologizing again," Adonai cut her off with a small shake of his head. "If anyone should be embarrassed, it's me. I let you drain me dry like an amateur."
McCoy sighed. "Your sense of humor remains questionable, but at least it's consistent."
….
"Not to get too political or anything, but," Adonai began, "I am relatively sure that my dream death involves me getting suffocated by a dominant muscle mommy with super thick thunder thighs."
Silence followed. Deafening silence. Bobby, Kurt, and Scott stared at him with varying degrees of disappointment, each expression implying that Adonai's tastes were an unforgivable crime against common sense. He disagreed. It was a solid statement and, in his view, a perfectly legitimate declaration of self.
It was Einstein, he believed, who said that if you are the most cultured person in the room, you are in the wrong room. Evidently, he was in the wrong room.
"I mean, I guess bro," Bobby said, massaging his forehead.
"Yeah, whatever man. Just say Ahhh," said Scott, unimpressed, holding a spoon in front of his mouth.
"I hate you," Adonai said with a scowl. "I feel you are simply dismissing my completely reasonable self expression."
The problem with struggling with motor skills was that, at the moment, he could not eat by himself. So the others had taken it upon themselves to feed him. Scott, of course, refused to let him live it down.
"Oh?" Scott said, amused. "Is our little Adonai perhaps feeling grumpy? Do you want me to do the chu chu train?"
It was a testament to Adonai's inexhaustible patience that he had not killed Scott right then and there. It also helped that he could not really move.
"Don't you dare do the chu chu train," Adonai warned, face serious.
"Open wide, Adonai," Scott said with a smug expression. "Here comes the choo choo train. Choo Choo Chuga Chuga."
If looks could kill, Scott would have been reduced to cinders. Adonai still opened his mouth and ate from the spoon, much to Scott's delight.
"You know," Scott said thoughtfully, "I kind of see why you enjoy making people mad for no reason at all. It is strangely cathartic."
"This is the type of stuff that sends people over the edge, you know," Adonai said, annoyed.
"Well then, it is a good thing that you cannot move, isn't it?" Scott shot back.
Adonai had always assumed the leader of the X-Men was terminally serious and incapable of enjoying anything that wasn't a tactical briefing. His time stuck in bed proved otherwise. Scott actually possessed a dry, almost accidental sense of humor, which was pleasantly surprising.
Small things like that were what reminded him that these people were not the archetypes he had once known on a page or a screen. They were not constructs shaped by writers with questionable fixations or editorial mandates. They had inner lives, contradictions, impulses, and flaws that no author had scripted. They were real, and the gap between his memories of them and the reality in front of him became clearer each day.
It was still irritating that Scott interpreted Adonai's weakened state as an invitation to test out his mediocre stand-up routine, but even that annoyance felt strangely grounding.
It had been a full day since he woke from his coma, yet he remained tethered to an IV drip, his strength still nowhere near restored. Even eating had become an exercise in humility. Solid food was out of the question; his jaw tired too quickly, his body too weak. Soups, broths, and anything that required minimal chewing became his temporary diet.
It was annoying, to say the least, and felt like yet another fraud allegation leveled at him.
It was beyond embarrassing that the moment he tried to aura-farm, he instantly fell unconscious and landed in a coma. Pathetic did not begin to cover it. He felt as though he should walk into the nearest supermarket, buy white powder and red lipstick, and complete his transformation into the clown he clearly was.
He would have to redeem himself in the future and invest in better aura-farming opportunities. The good thing about being at the bottom was that you could only go up.
The only silver lining in all of this indignity was that the girls had apparently taken it upon themselves to care for him in anything he needed. Rogue, most of all, felt responsible for his current state and had gone out of her way to look after him. She prepared different varieties and flavors of soup so he wouldn't get tired of eating the same thing, helped feed him without complaint, and was generally almost always by his side to keep him company.
She talked to him about everything, telling him about herself and getting to know him with sincere enthusiasm. She told him why the students in the institute were wary of her. Apparently, after she went on the run when her powers awakened, the skittish Rogue was approached by a warm-hearted woman named Mystique, a mutant shapeshifter.
Since Mystique was an outcast herself, Rogue trusted her. She took Rogue in as part of a family and her home, and gave her a sense of belonging, even moments of genuine happiness.
It had all been a lie in the end. A manipulation meant to draw her into the Brotherhood. Eventually Rogue discovered that Mystique intended to use her as a weapon in terrorist operations. That revelation tore everything apart. She had fought the X-Men while under Mystique's influence, a fact the younger students had not forgotten.
"Stop bullying Adonai, Scott," said a new deep, manly voice. Piotr entered the room, the man practically built like a brick wall. "It is impolite to make fun of weaklings."
Jean, Kitty, Rogue, and Alison followed behind him, all wearing amused expressions.
"This is the thanks I get for my heroic sacrifice?" Adonai grumbled, offended that he had been referred to as a weakling.
"Suck it up, nerd," Alison said playfully.
"Yeah, you are right," Adonai said. "Whining is for frauds."
"How are you, Adonai?" Kitty asked softly, her voice gentle, her eyes full of concern.
"It is too early to tell, kitty," Adonai answered with mild annoyance. "It could go either way. Ask me again in two hours."
Kitty, surprisingly, had taken his condition worse than anyone except Rogue. She cried when he first awoke. She cried again when she realized he would be bedridden for a while. She looked at him as though a single breath might shatter him. To her, the contrast between his usual chaotic energy and the fragile stillness of his current state was unbearable.
To him, it was uncomfortable. Almost offensive. That soft, tremulous look of pity on her face made his skin crawl. He could acknowledge that her distress came from genuine affection, but that did not make it less distasteful.
He detested suffering, and he despised self-pity even more. Pity, whether directed at oneself or others, was a disease. A rot. It drained sensation from life, dulled the edges, and turned experience into mud.
People in his old world had often romanticized pain. They treated anguish as though it granted depth or nobility. He had never understood that delusion. There was no pleasure to be found in suffering, no beauty in wallowing.
Self-pity, especially, was the most corrosive emotion a person could embrace. It was worse than pride, worse than wrath. It devoured everything around it and left only itself behind. It convinced people they were cursed, mistreated, forever unlucky. It made excuses for failure and demanded sympathy for cowardice. Even when the grievances were true, to pity oneself was to betray oneself. It was a disgrace of the senses and a betrayal of the soul.
His own philosophy was the opposite. He refused to be ruled by emotion. He sought to master it, shape it, revel in it. Temptation was not an enemy to resist but an invitation to indulge. Pleasure was a compass. Sensation was a cure.
The only true sin was stagnation; the dull death that came from fear, hesitation, or self-loathing. One was meant to live, to consume the world with appetite, to seek new experiences, to draw joy even from chaos. Nothing should be wasted. Nothing should be dulled.
So Kitty's trembling worry struck him as something alien. A reminder of the gulf between himself and those around him. She mourned his suffering as though it diminished him. He rejected the very premise.
Weakness, humiliation, pain – these were temporary states, irrelevant except for the sensations they provided and the lessons they left behind. He would rise from them, reshape himself again, and seek new heights. That was life as he understood it.
And so her tearful little "poor you" expression, however sincere, felt like an intrusion. A plea for him to participate in a kind of emotional theater he had no interest in performing. If she could not understand that suffering was an experience, not an identity, then she understood very little about him at all.
He had no patience for pity, especially when directed at him. There was nothing to grieve. He was alive. He was awake. He would grow stronger. Everything else was irrelevant.
"Oh, Kitty, stop worrying you worrywart," Alison said, amused as she hopped onto the windowsill. "I'm sure the mutant messiah can take care of himself."
"Mutant what now?" Adonai asked, genuinely flabbergasted.
"Oh, haven't you heard?" Alison replied. "You've become a hot topic among the younger students. Some are saying you're the one who'll bring mutantkind salvation."
"I mean," Bobby said, chuckling, "he did turn water into wine, healed the downrotten—"
"Did you just call me downrotten?" Rogue asked, her voice sharp with warning.
"I told you so, Rogue!" Adonai shouted, face filled with theatrical delight. "My first act as the messiah is obvious. I shall commission an altar dedicated entirely to my magnificence."
"Oh God," Jean muttered.
"Silence mortal," Adonai commanded with grandiose disdain. "You stand at the dawn of a new covenant. My covenant. And since divine law apparently needs an update, allow me to bestow my commandments before any of you embarrass yourselves by writing inferior scripture."
Adonai cleared his throat with theatrical gravity, much to the amusement of all those present.
"One. You shall not worship false misery. It is tedious. Worship sensation instead."
"Two. You shall treat temptation as a banquet. Refusing a feast is an insult to the chef."
"Three. You shall not look upon suffering with reverence. It creates nothing, teaches nothing, and inspires nothing but boredom."
"Four. You shall honor ecstasy and reject guilt. Guilt is a parasite with good PR."
"Five. You shall make an idol of curiosity. Let no day pass without discovering a new pleasure."
"Six. You shall not covet despair. Despair is a liar and a narcissist."
"Seven. You shall reject self-pity. It devours the soul more efficiently than any demon."
"Eight. You shall celebrate your emotions as instruments. Play them loudly. Do not let them play you."
"Nine. You shall not deny the body. To deny the body is to deny the world."
"The tenth law: worship is voluntary, but I do accept offers."
He ended with a satisfied nod, as if the universe itself had just been improved by his contribution.
Rogue stared at him. "Sugar, Ah don't even know what Ah'm supposed to do with all that."
"Obey," Adonai said, serene and utterly without shame. "Obviously. Your messiah commands it."
"Great, as if his ego wasn't the size of a planet already," Jean groaned.
"You hear that, Kitty?" Alison snorted. "He started planning a religion while you were busy fretting over him."
"You make a joke of it, as usual," Scott said, half serious. "But there is some truth to it."
"Ah, Scott," Adonai replied with a broad, pleased smile. "Surely you're not entertaining the ridiculous idea that I am a messiah?"
"Of course not," Scott answered. "I've met you."
"Why, my dear Cyclops, I could almost believe that little jab was aimed at my character," Adonai said lightly.
"What gave you that idea?" Scott replied dryly. He continued before Adonai could answer. "I'm talking about what you represent to the younger mutants, and maybe to mutants in general."
"And what is that supposed to be?"
"Hope," Scott said, steady and certain.
Adonai laughed, loud and genuine. "It is amazing how you could say something like that without visibly cringing."
"If I told you," Scott continued, ignoring Adonai's comment, "that you could be the hope of mutantkind, it would not be flattery. You have the ability to reshape what we are. You can stabilize mutations that spiral out of control. You can mend bodies that are collapsing under their own genetic burden. You can take the children who arrive here terrified of themselves and make them safe.
"You can offer the desperate something other than fear. You could build a generation that no longer hurts itself by accident, no longer harms others by breathing the wrong way, no longer hides, no longer runs. You have the power and the obligation to do so. You could change the entire path of mutant history. And if you chose to embrace that, if you chose to act, then you would be the hope they see in you."
Adonai regarded him with a slow, almost indulgent look, as though he were watching someone recite a particularly overwrought monologue.
"Well," he said at last, his voice smooth with amusement, "I would correct you on one point at least. I am under no obligation to save anyone. How I use my power is solely up to me."
"It is," Scott said at last, then left the room.
An awkward atmosphere lingered for a moment after his departure, a brief and uncomfortable pause. It dissolved quickly once the others shifted the conversation toward lighter topics, especially the idea of holding a small celebration for Rogue's rebirth, as they called it.
…
It took another day before he could move on his own, and one more day before he was almost fully healthy again. His aura reserve had grown even larger, likely because Rogue had drained him so completely that his body was forced to adapt in order to survive.
Once he regained enough aura, he guided it carefully through his body and accelerated his recovery. He was going insane, staying another second in the medical wing. Boredom and helplessness were truly inhumane.
He checked the clock in his room. It was almost eleven at night. He planned to go out for some fresh air, and perhaps meet Susan if he was lucky. She had been an interesting girl. And very attractive.
A knock sounded at his door. He frowned, wondering who it could be. Most of the students and teachers should have been asleep by now. He put on a simple shirt and opened the door.
"May I come in?" asked a very sexy girl with a southern accent.
"Sure," he said with immediate interest, closing the door once she stepped inside.
He regarded Rogue carefully, and by the heavens, she looked beautiful. She wore a red nightgown that revealed her cleavage and barely covered half of her thighs. The red fabric contrasted with her smooth, pale skin. Her figure was perfect; curves in all the right places, ample breasts, and wide hips- the epitome of feminine beauty, leaving even him staring in awe. She was simply exquisite.
God bless horny comic book writers and even hornier fans.
Rogue looked nervous, avoiding his gaze, which only made her more endearing. Slowly, she summoned the courage to meet his eyes, and for a moment, they simply stood there, taking each other in. No words were spoken, but the air was charged with raw desire.
Then the next moment, she jumped at him and kissed him fiercely on the mouth, and he reciprocated just as passionately. It was clear she had little experience with kissing, so Adonai took the lead. He tilted his head to the side and leaned in. He slightly parted his lips, captured her lower lip between his, and began to make out with her. It was a bit awkward at first, but he didn't mind; what Rogue lacked in skill, she more than made up for in enthusiasm. They kissed, constantly shifting which lips met.
After a while, he lightly touched her lips with his tongue, and she opened slowly, doing the same to him. Then he went all in, pressing tongue to tongue as their movements became a playful, tangled dance.
Slowly, he moved his hands to her ass, fondling them – squeezing and gripping firmly. He broke the kiss gradually and looked deeply into her eyes, noticing the light blush on her cheeks and the needy longing in her gaze.
"Why did you come here?" he asked softly.
"You know why," she murmured, looking away shyly.
"I want to hear you say it." His voice was teasing, coaxing.
A long moment passed. "S-sex," she whispered. "I… want to experience it."
"That's a bit vague," he murmured, giving her ass a light pinch that made her jolt. "Be specific. What do you want me to do?"
Her breath caught. "I… I want you," she blurted, face burning. "All of you. I-i want you to fuck me. I want your cock inside of me."
He chuckled, amused by how shy and desperate she sounded. Her expression was a mix of nerves and hunger, like a sexually frustrated catholic nun who had spent years holding herself back and had finally snapped.
"Good girl," he murmured, and this time he kissed her with a fierce, almost urgent passion, barely giving her a moment to breathe.
His hands roamed up her thighs. She shivered as he drew closer to her most intimate place, and he could feel her breath quicken, her body softening under his touch. As his hands traced higher, her nightgown rode up, and he brushed against the fabric of her panties, feeling the warmth beneath.
The heat radiating from her pussy, coupled with her soft moans, drove him. He began removing her clothes while she did the same to him. For a brief moment, he simply paused to admire her form, letting his eyes drink in her curves.
Then he guided her onto the bed and kissed her neck with tender intensity, tracing a path lower and lower until he took one breast into his mouth, teasing and sucking the nipple while his other hand played with the other. Her moans were intoxicating, music to his ears.
Slowly, he shifted his hand from her breast and began exploring her, rubbing her cunt with deliberate care while still lavishing attention on her other nipple. He could feel how ready she was, her warmth and wetness evident, her desire dripping. He teased her clit before sliding a finger inside her, and she shuddered violently, climaxing hard beneath him.
Adonai looked at his handiwork and smiled.
…
"It was amazing," said the heavily breathing Rogue as she lay naked with her head on his chest.
"Indeed it was," he said, caressing her bare shoulders as he stared at the ceiling.
"Were you surprised?" she asked, tracing her fingers over his chest without rhythm.
"A bit," he said. "I didn't expect you to come so soon."
"But you expected that I would eventually come to you?" she asked with amusement, lifting her head to look at him.
"Well of course, I am irresistible like that," he said playfully, eyes still fixed on the ceiling.
"You are lucky you are cute," she grumbled. "To be honest, I am surprised at myself as well. To think I would sneak in here in the dead of night for something like this… how insane."
"Only things like that are worth doing," he said.
"You and your philosophies," she chuckled, settling her chin on his chest and looking up at him. "I never properly thanked you for what you have done for me."
"Is that what this was?" he asked, unbothered.
"No," she said. "This was done purely out of my desires and curiosity. I haven't been able to truly touch anyone for years. And besides, I wanted to be first."
"First for what?"
"Well the girls made a rank," she said. "About whom you would be sleeping with first."
"Really?" he said, amused. "And who won?"
Curiosity stirred in him despite himself. The idea that girls were making such bets did not bother him or make him self conscious in the slightest. In his experience girls were often hornier than most men.
"Well, Alison was number one, Jean was second, Kitty third, Angel fourth, and some other girls from the lower classes were included too," she said.
"And what rank were you?"
"Twenty seventh," she answered. "In last place. I was even behind the youngest girls from the institute. Sucks to be unable to touch anyone, I guess."
"Well look at you now," he said with a chuckle. "Quite the overachiever."
"All thanks to you, Sugah," she said, her voice suddenly sincere. "I just.. i…"
There was a faint tremor in her voice, a strange emotion to hear from someone who had just had the greatest night of her life.
"What is wrong?" he asked, finally looking at her.
"It is probably just my paranoia," she said. "But I… I cannot help but think all this to be temporary."
"You are afraid," he said.
"Perhaps," she admitted with a sigh. "It may sound foolish to you, but the professor said my ability is tied to emotion and that I must conquer myself first to control it. But wh… what if…"
She struggled to articulate her fear, as though she expected judgment or did not want to burden him again.
"You are scared it might happen again," he said. "That in the future you may lose control again."
"I guess so," she said. "It is pathetic, right? But I cannot help but think that one day something will happen, something that will break me again, and everything will go back to what it was before. Like I am just one bad day away from returning to the status quo."
"There is no shame in being afraid," he said calmly. "Everyone has demons to battle and no one is guaranteed victory every time. But you do not need to be so pessimistic. The way I see it, the status quo is you being able to control your powers."
"I guess you are right. I must have become quite cynical," she said thoughtfully.
"If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it," he said. "I can look for a plan B in case you relapse. I could even create a specific Hatsu that lets you turn your power on and off, like a switch."
It would be a boring solution and extremely time consuming, but it was possible.
"You can do that?" she asked, eyes wide with wonder.
"Probably," he said with a shrug. "But it will take time, so do not expect it anytime soon."
"The fact that you would even think about it is enough for me," she said, then smiled. "It is strange, having someone to rely on… someone you know you can fall back to. I have never had that before. But my past makes me suspect alternative motives. How ungrateful I am. You have been nothing but gracious and lovely to me, going out of your way to help."
"Well I do have an alternative motive as it happens," he said. He slowly caressed her naked body, fingers teasing her breasts. "I have this grand evil plan of seducing a hot goth girl, making her fall in love with me, and fucking her senseless every day for the rest of my life."
"Well it seems I have fallen directly into your trap then," she said with a laugh.
"So it would seem," he said, laughing softly.
They remained silent after that, Adonai caressing Rogue's body while she rested her head against his chest.
"By the way," Rogue said suddenly. "Aren't you curious about the rankings?"
In truth he was not curious at all.
"Should I be?" he said.
"Well in case you are," she said with a huff, clearly irritated by his indifference. "You were ranked first in the hotness scale and last in the husband or boyfriend material category."
"Really?" he said with the idle tone of a man receiving information that had nothing to do with him.
"Yes," she said. "You are very attractive. So attractive that I sometimes think you are unreal. Every inch of you looks like it was sculpted to perfection. But your personality makes it hard for anyone to imagine a future with you beyond a few nights of passion."
"Oh, were those your words?" he asked with mild interest. He agreed entirely with the assessment.
"Angel's actually," she said. "But nobody disagreed. I imagine a relationship with you like sittin' close to a bonfire. It's warm and dazzlin', pulls you in with all that heat and glow. But it burns fast, burns bright, and burns out. You enjoy it in the moment, but you don't build a home around it. Not unless you wanna lose a piece of yourself. Pleasure in its purest form is always brief."
"And continuing your flame analogy, getting too close to me would mean burning yourself," he said.
"Makes sense," she said.
"So I am just your booty call," he said with mock sadness. "To think you would play with my heart like that."
"Well you cannot blame me," she said defensively, though amused. "You are just so goddamn sexy."
"I am not just a piece of meat," he said playfully. "I am a man with feelings."
They burst into laughter at the same time, laughing both at nothing and at everything, finding even the smallest movement hilarious.
AN: With this, the first arc, let's call it the "Helping Rogue" arc, is officially over. I had planned to introduce the villains for the next arc and maybe even start it, but the chapter didn't go exactly the way I intended.