“Did he take them all out?” Rogue grinned as Logan’s voice came over the cell phone connection.
“Yep - all sixty-nine stitches. And by the way, you’ve got a dirty mind for a virgin. Gonna have to fix that when you get home.”
“I’m sure you got the perfect tool for that job, handsome,” she purred as she heard Logan’s throaty chuckle.
“Like I said, about the dirty mind. When ya comin’ home? There’s something wrong when you’re up in Canada and I’m down here in the lower forty-eight.”
“About three days, four at the latest. There’s a lot to do; people to coordinate, houses to inspect, everything from blueprints to attics to basements. It’s a big job.”
“You can handle it, babe.”
“Thanks, sugar! I gotta go - I’ll call again when we’re on the road, heading home,” she waited through several moments of silence, wondering if their connection had been dropped, before she heard his husky male voice.
“Love you.”
The connection closed before she could respond.
*
“Aside from the string of safe houses in Canada, there’s not much to report,” Shelly ran her tongue over her lip gloss as she listened to Toad’s thick, sexy accent, and wished that she could spend the next two years just talking to him without having to look at him. His moist, greenish skin made her a little queasy.
“What’s going on with the wild thing - any changes?” Toad loved the Texas twang in the beauty queen’s voice.
“Nothing. Teaching, moping around while our Little Miss is in Canada. I don’t know what he was like before you got to him, but he’s a mess now, based on people’s stories of what he was like before. It seems that he’s lost his edge.”
*
Mike marveled over the twin sisters who had adopted him as their pet project while he got acquainted with the school and life within it’s grounds. The two sisters had waist-length blue-black hair, dusky copper-toned skin with a blue-ish tinge around eyes and mouths, pale sea-green eyes, and gills on the sides of their throats. He thought they were perhaps the most beautiful creatures he’d ever seen, but their tendency to switch languages mid-sentence in conversation with each other was befuddling. Though they were one year younger than him, he felt ashamed of his own intellect when he was in their company.
“How many languages do you two speak, anyway?” He fiddled with the wiring on Ciji’s stereo while Niji sorted CDs in a crate. All Mike’s stereo equipment had been delivered to his dorm room and he had been reassembling the system and tweaking it when Ciji had asked his help with wiring their dorm room.
“How many languages are there, really?” Ciji mused, and caught a CD her sister tossed at her.
“We have spoken Cherokee and Greek and Latin and Mandarin and Arabic and....” Niji started rattling off the list.
“... and some Pawnee, and Italian but with a funky accent, and French and...” Ciji continued without a pause between sisters.
Mike interrupted the linguistic laundry list, “How in the world can anyone know that many languages?”
“Oh, we don’t know them by heart, of course.” “Not all of them, anyway.” They started the trading-off conversation again, “We can converse in anything we hear, but I can’t write in anything but English.” “And Italian and Greek, of course.” “I don’t know enough Italian to order pizza by snail mail, sis.” “You don’t like pizza, deary.” “That’s not the point, idjit.” “My point is the one on top of your head, mouth-breather.” “Bite me, fishmonger.” “Get stuffed, baitgirl.”
“Wait, wait... you mean you can speak any language, but only write English, Italian and Greek?”
“‘Zactly.” “You got it.” “It’s our mutation.” “It’s kind of like having perfect pitch in music.” “But with us, it’s perfect pitch in words.” “Multi-lingual instant comprehension, but short term in most cases.” “And the gills, of course.”
Niji hung her single lock of silver hair behind her right ear and subtly rippled the lips of her gills just to show them off. Mike noticed the small scar that threaded back into the hairline where the silver streak was rooted, and discretely noted the blue-edged gills at the side of her throat. Even their gills were identical, but the silver streak was the only way to tell the twins apart. The two sisters again got a rolling babble going about Ciji’s need to update her music collection, and Mike felt his head start to ache. Perhaps trying to date either one of them would be painful. A girlfriend required maintenance and attention. School chums could be avoided without paying dearly for the comfortable distance.
“Wiring’s done - I gotta go.” Both twins waved and said synchronized ‘thank yous’ as he zipped out the door.
*
Rogue stepped out of the car, stiff and drowsy from the long ride. As she raised her hands over her head in a glorious, joint-popping stretch, she felt two arms encircle her waist from behind. Logan nuzzled into her hair and nipped her neck lightly, uncaring that Piotr was standing there grinning at them. “Welcome home, baby. And you, too, Tin Man.”
“What? No manly hug for me?” Piotr held out both burly arms in greeting.
“You’re on your own, bub.”
Piotr waved them off laughingly and left the garage.
“Miss me?” Logan ran his lips over her cheek as she turned in his arms.
“More than you know, sugar,” she met his embrace with a full-on kiss. When they finally parted, she saw a mischievous grin on his face.
“Wanna go upstairs now?” The left eyebrow and the sly smile spoke clearly of his intentions.
Rogue chuckled merrily at his impatience, “I think I’d like a shower, some food, and then we can pass the evening as we see fit. May I see your hands, please?”
“Two, matched pair, just like in the catalogs,” Logan extended both hands for her to see. The stitches were gone and the wounds were healing. Only angry red lines remained where the claws had cut through the skin when he went down in the park. Rogue stiffened her back and looked Logan squarely in the eyes.
“I have to ask one question, and forgive me for it, but it’s necessary. Have you been with anyone but me since you were attacked?”
“No,” his trademark poker-face went into action.
“And I’ve had no sexual contact with anyone but you, so we’re safe together, especially since I’m on the pill now. Sounds like we’ve got a free pass to no-condom-land, right?”
“Right,” he pulled her against his body again and kissed her deeply before the sounds of footsteps running toward the garage’s open door reached them. Pulling back from each other, Rogue saw Jubilee bound through the door and virtually leap into her arms with a shriek.
“Dude! How was Canada? How was the trip? How are you? Oh, hi Wolvie...” she grinned guiltily at Logan.
“Don’t call me that, pip-squeak.”
“Fine, good, and fine,” Rogue answered, “and now if you two will forgive me, I’m starving.” Turning to the door, Rogue saw Jubilee fall in step behind her, but Logan remained in the garage.
“I’m gonna be here checkin’ over the wheels for a while - you logged a lot of miles. I’ll catch up with you later, Ma ... Rogue.” He gave her a wink and a grin and popped the hood on the sedan.
Over supper in the cafeteria, Jubilee regaled Rogue with tales of events since she’d left ten days ago. Sipping at her coffee, Rogue noted their distance from anyone else, and leaned in to speak confidentially to Jubilee.
“I’m gonna disappear later tonight, after I’ve met with Storm. Please cover for me if anyone, ANYONE comes looking for me. Tell them I’ve left the grounds, got a migraine, took a plane to the coast, whatever; but make sure no one knows that I’m hidden away in either my room, or...” she drew a quick breath, “or Logan’s room.”
“Big plans for the evening?”
“Very big.”
“Anything you wanna share before it’s too late?”
“Let’s just say Logan and I are gonna need privacy tonight.”
“You are NOT! Seriously, chica? Damn.”
“Very seriously, Jubes. Just cover for me, okay?”
“Absotively. Now, I think it’s time you had the traditional birds-n-bees talk, and I guess that makes me the one to give it to you.”
“I’m planning on Logan ‘giving it to me’ later, so save your breath.”
Jubilee fluttered her hands and wiped a mock tear from her right eye, “Oh, our little girl is growing up,” she play-sobbed, “and about to jump the hottest thing walking. I’m so jealous, you wretch.” Jubilee elbowed Rogue’s ribs as Logan walked into the room and settled beside her at the table.
“‘Evening, Wolvie.”
“Shut it, cupcake.”
“I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” Jubilee rose gracefully from the table, but stopped to lean across and into Logan’s face. “If you hurt her, I’ll make you pay in very large quantities of blood.”
Only the quirk of an eyebrow broke the poker face Logan still wore. Watching Jubilee’s back as she left, he commented flatly, “You told her.”
“I asked her to cover for me, and she figured out the rest. It’s not like she hasn’t been cheering for us all alo.... eep.” Rogue snapped her mouth shut, appalled that she’d dropped that particular hint.
“‘Cheering for us?’ For how long?”
“Long time,” Rogue busied herself with blowing over her coffee cup and sipping daintily, even though the brew was nearly cold.
“You been plannin’ this?”
“Not planning, just fantasizing, dreaming... “she cast a sidelong glance at him, “hoping.”
“Guess I better be good tonight, then, so I get a favorable review tomorrow. I do have a reputation to maintain,” Logan started to rise from the table, but Rogue’s hand shyly slid across and grasped his, pulling him back to her side momentarily.
“If this bothers you, I won’t say another word to her about us, and what we do with each other. Yes, she’s my best girlfriend, but you mean more to me, and I want your respect as much as I want your body. You tell me how private we need to be.”
“If word gets out that we’re sleepin’ together, we’ll be the core of gossip around here for weeks, maybe months.”
“And that bothers you.”
“No, it doesn’t, but it’ll bother you eventually.”
“So, you’re not bashful about being with me?”
“Not in the least.”
Rogue breathed a sigh of relief, “Good. Okay, Jubes is my cover, but no one else will know, and she’ll keep her mouth shut if I ask her.”
“That’s smart, babe,” Logan again rose from the table, but leaned down to whisper to her before leaving. “Just make sure that I come out sounding good when you report to her tomorrow.”
“Ah-ha, that’s the infamous male ego talking, right?”
“You got it. You been debriefed from the mission yet?”
“No. I have to go report to Storm now. Meet me later?”
“Naked? Midnight? Your room or mine?” The ripple of a leer passed over his face, leaving a impish smile in the wake.
Rogue thought for a moment before replying, “Yours - we’re less likely to get interrupted in your room. And let’s make it ten-thirty.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He walked away, and Rogue allowed herself to blatantly ogle him from behind. She sipped at her cold coffee again, and noted the trembling in her own hands.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Rogue’s on a mission in Canada, and Logan’s on his own mission to get Rogue into bed. Mike meets the mermaid sisters, then rethinks that mission. Jubilee is on a mission to give Rogue the ‘Sex Ed’ talk, but becomes a confidante as Rogue gets a case of nerves.