Family Ties

Family Ties Chapter Twenty
Three (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamster Witch, ‘I’m the Green Fairy!’ I have so got to get more sleep… InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink get muse
Twinkies for archiving. J ProPhile is a lovely smutbunny still and
gets platypi for the effort. Ramsey,
Tex and Jubilee (who gets extra huggles for a crap day) get sparkles because I’m
all out of everything else at the moment…
Readers/Reviewers: *happy dance
*You’re still here! Hootie hoo! (Random noise of happy…I think I need to get
out of the South more…)

 

 

 



“What the
Hell were you thinking?” Lance demanded, stopping just short of shaking Todd by
the shoulders.

“I don’t
know,” he protested petulantly. “Is
Rogue okay?”

“Pissed as
Hell but fine,” Lance sighed, nodding in the direction of the Goth girl. She was gesticulating wildly, her face
uncharacteristically flushed as she and Cody bandied words. “What were you thinking?” he asked
again. “He’s twice as big as you, if
not more!”

“Sorry,
mom,” Todd sulked, wincing as Lance tried to dab antibacterial ointment on a
cut just below his left eye. “Watch it,
man! I need both of ‘em!”

Lance
rolled his eyes and tossed the ointment at Todd. “You do it then!”

“Fine.” Todd hesitantly applied the ointment,
hissing through his teeth as he did so.
“It’s just…I dunno. He was all
‘Tell Marie I said hi,’ and no one calls her Marie!”

“No one but
you?” Lance asked in a flash of insight.
“Or people who knew her before she became Rogue?” he continued, crossing
his arms over his chest.

“Is there
something in the water? You’re all Father
Knows Best[1]
right now.” He glanced up at Lance
bemusedly, almost able to ignore the throbbing in his ribs. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,”
Lance said dismissively. “Shit. Security goons want to talk to you.”

“Who? Poor little old me? Half the size of that gorilla and lookin’
the worse for wear?” Todd said innocently.
Lance merely snorted softly in acceptance of the coming debacle.

“Are you
the guy who jumped this gentleman?” a uniformed security officer asked as he
approached, Cody in tow. Rogue followed a pace behind, looking a mixture of
worried, angry and tired.

“Dude, all
I did was step on his foot on accident, ya know? The line at the food tent was kinda hostile.”

“Fuckin’
liar!” Cody snapped. “You kicked me!”

Todd let
his eyes go wide and his mouth go slack.
“You’re bigger than me! Why
would I pick a fight with you?”

The
security guard held up his hand, stemming further outbursts. “Mister…Tolensky? Is that your name?”

“Todd…” He glanced at Rogue and she gave a small
nod, indicating that she was the one who had told his name to the officer.

“It seems
to me that this fight might have been over a girl?” The officer raised a brow and looked between the three teenagers,
excluding Lance from his gaze.

Cody nodded
furiously. “He fuckin’ jumped me
because I wanted to say hey to Marie here.”

“Is that
true?”

“Well, he
did say he wanted to say hi to her before I saw him again in line,” Todd
allowed.

“And…” the
guard prompted.

“And
nothin’,” Todd insisted. “He just sorta
went off cause I scuffed his shoes or somethin’.” Rogue’s expression, he noticed, had slid more firmly towards
anger. Fuck…not good…

The
security guard passed a weary hand across his eyes and looked upwards for a
moment. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’m supposed to kick y’all out for fightin’ but
honestly, I don’t need the hassle.
There’s more problems to deal with than two guys fightin’ over some
girl. And frankly,” he looked Todd up
and down, “I don’t see why she’d have much of a choice…”

Todd
preened in false pride. “Why, thank
you, but you’re really not my type.”
Lance’s snort was louder this time.


Cody
seethed. “He fucking jumped me!”

The
security guard shook his head. “Do you really want me to tell the real cops you
got beat up by this runt?” he said, jerking his thumb in Todd’s direction. For his part, Todd grinned, bloody lip and
all, at Cody.

Rogue was
tense, visibly so, as Cody deliberated for what seemed like an interminable
moment. “No,” he finally sighed. “But I can’tmisemise I won’t kick his ass
before this weekend’s over.”

“Just do it
off the grounds, would ya son? I have
enough problems here as it is…” The
security guard led Cody off to a decorous distance and then removed himself
from the scene entirely.

Lance shook
his head in disbelief. “I feel safe,”
he said sarcastically.

Todd’s grin
slipped at Rogue’s strong glower.
“Sorry?” he offered meekly.

“I am so
mad at you right now,” she growled.
“You have no idea…”

“Sorry?” he
offered again, sliding from the table top he was sitting on to stand somewhat shakily
between Lance and Rogue. “Lance, don’t
you have to go find Amara or somethin’?”

Taking the
hint, Lance muttered, “Yeah, that’s the highlight of my day,” as he trudged
off, heading towards Warren’s distant figure high up the hill near the
tents.

Rogue
waited for almost ll mll minute before saying in a tense, low voice, “He just
wanted to tell me hi. Fucking Hell,
Todd, what were you thinking?”

“I was
thinking why the Hell was this guy calling you Marie?” he snapped.

“Because
that’s my damn name!” she bit out. “I
was Marie before I was ever Rogue and that’s all the people in Meridian know me
by.”

“I
panicked!” he said hotly. “Sorry!”

Rogue
opened her mouth as if to snap back but shut it quickly. Her posture slid from tense and wired to
defeated. “You’re covered in mud,” she finally said.

“It’s
okay,” he sighed. “I don’t mind.”

“Well,
it’ll get in your cut. That’s gonna
need stitches, I think.”

“Nah. I heal fast. Viva los amphibians.” He
tried a crooked grin and found it hurt too much to maintain, pulling at the
skin of his lip.

“Come on,”
Rogue said, taking his wrist in her fingers.
He followed without protest, fighting the urge to drag his feet as she
pulled him through small groups of people, wending her way up the hill towards
the large cinder block building that houses the bathrooms and shower area. “Stay here,” she ordered, stopping outside
the door to the women’s showers. Todd
did nven ven question her orders but stood almost meekly outside the door,
wondering just how many mosquitoes it would take to completely drain him of
blood, until Rogue reappeared. “Come
on,” she said again, pulling him inside and shutting the door behind them.

The room was humid, more so than
outside, and smelled of a combination of so many different soaps and shampoos
Todd did not even want to try and count them all. A subtle clicking sound made him turn around to find Rogue
locking the door. “What are you doing?” he managed without squeaking.

“Don’t want to be disturbed,” she
said evenly, checking the stalls one more time. “Okay. All alone…”

Todd could
not help the quailing fear that shot through his stomach, even though he knew
Rogue would never hurt him intentionally.
“What…what do we need to be alone for?”

“What do
you think?” she asked, smiling faintly, approaching him with a swaying gait.

“Whoa,” he
said, his spinning. “I thought you were
mad at me.”

“A
bit. But not why you think. Cody was a jerk even when I first knew him
and I’m pretty sure I know how he came across to you,” Rogue explained,
pressing against him and pushing him flat against the wall.

“Then,” he
said carefully, not quite trusting his brain to function properly at that
moment, what with the lack of blood and all, “what are you made about?”

“I’m mad he
made you feel uncomfortable and I’m mad because you got jealous.” She slid her hands under his shirt, her
gloves warm from her skin and the hot summer day outside.

“Oh,” he
breathed, not caring that he did not quite make sense of what she was saying.

She encircled
his wrist with her fingers again and pulled him towards one of the
showers. “We have to be kinda quick…”

“Oh,” he
repeated, glad he could form at least one coherent sound. She turned on the water and began tugging at
his shirt, which somehow triggered a response.
“Is it safe?”

“If we’re
careful,” she allowed, stepping back to let him take his own shirt off. She looked at her gloves and sighed. “Not
like I don’t have more pairs at home…”

“Rogue…Marie…”
he began, but she silenced him by pushing him under the hot stream of
water. “Hey!”

“Shh,” she
directed, pulling off her shirt and skirt and standing just out of the stream
in her bodysuit. He shifted
uncomfortably under her near scrutiny, breathing a sigh of relief when she
stepped closer, the water splashing onto the black fabric covering her making
silvery trails down her body. “Turn
around. The mud’ll never come off if
you don’t rinse.” Rogue turned him to face the water and her breasts brushed
against his back as she reached around him, her hands trailing down his chest
to his stomach. “Now, you want to tell
me why you went off like that? Cody
would’ve killed you if he had the chance.”

Todd closed
his eyes, Rogue’s fingers teasing along the plane of his lower abdomen to areas
not that much further south. “I…was
jealous. I thought he…He knew your
name!” he finally said in a rush.

“We’ve
covered that bit,” Rogue muttered, one hand moving back up Todd’s stomach,
retracing it’s downward path in the opposite direction. She traced the tattoo over his heart and
smiled against the back of his head. “He
may know it but only you say it so that my knees go wobbly.”

“Wobbly?”
he muttered. “I make you wobbly?”

“Just the
knees,” she corrected, though chuckled softly.
“Why did you think you needed to jump Cody just because he wanted to
talk to me?” She smiled even more
broadly when Todd jumped slightly, her hand on his length apparently surprising
him.

“Um…”

“I’m really
not worth fighting about,” she continued, not giving him time to try and divert
blood back to his brain. “I mean,” she
said, her own pulse near to racing as she silently cursed herself for starting
something that very well would have a one sided finish this day, “I’m bitchy, I’m
not so hot to look at, I can kill someone with a handshake and I eat brains,
for cryin’ out loud.”

“Forgot
that accent,” he said, his eyes closed tightly as she drew him nearer to
physical response. “God knows I can’t
stand the fact you sound like sex personified.”

Rogue
faltered. She was not expecting rejoinders.
It took her a few seconds to find her pace again, to resume her caresses
and teasing along his length and chest and stomach. She truly wanted to kiss him but she could tell he was so close
already… “Just for you,” she whispered.
“No matter what, I’m just for you…”
Todd shuddered against her, his moan echoing in the tiled shower. Someone rattled the door leading to the
concert grounds and Rogue snarled under her breath. “For me, Todd…” she murmured a moment before he bit down hard on
his lip to keep from crying out, his release sudden and hot even through her satiny
gloves.

Todd
swallowed hard to regain composure before saying, “I don’t care what time of
the month it is. Tonight, while Lance
and Warren are down the hill watching Edema[2]…”

Rogue
nodded, her knees weak already. “Okay. What about Amara, though? She hates Edema…”

“She’s got
her own little tent. Forget her,” he
murmured as more people tried the door, the rattling growing louder.

“Okay,”
Rogue said again. “Now how do we get
outta here?”

“You got us
in here,” he grinned. “Your problem.”



[1] Old
television series from the fifties…Kind of a schmaltzy thing.

[2] An actual
band named for a medical condition. Yee
haw.