After half an hour of driving across the darkening roads, the battered looking camper van pulled up at the roadside against soft snow. The sky outside was dark with little activity in the sky above since clouds had crossed over in a menacingly quick manner. Logan exited the driver’s seat without a word and rogue was quick to scramble out of her own door. She hurried around the front of the vehicle, across the icy roads to join him at the door. She pulled her cloak tightly around herself as she gave a shiver and a misty breath was exhaled.
Logan unlocked the side door and wrenched it back, nodding for her to enter. She was quick to pull herself inside, wishing to be out of the cold. When she entered, she got a better look of the place that Wolverine called home. Admittedly it was dark and miserable looking. The area that was supposed to be a kitchen worktop was scattered in rubbish Logan had never managed to be rid of. The only surface visible was a cramped table that sat beneath the window as a booth between two cupboards. A make-shift washing line strung across the top of the room with various clothing items hung upon it, they still swayed pitifully from the previous motions of the vehicle.
Rogue quickly looked round as Logan pushed by her, heading over to what Rogue recognised as a small single bed crammed against the back of the van. Rogue watched it worried for a moment, “Where am I sleepin’?”
“Well not in the bed, don’t forget, your skin and all that,” muttered Logan as he wrenched his shirt off his head.
Rogue could sense sarcasm in his voice. “Well, fine. I’ll just sleep on the floor,” and she resolutely sat down on the spot, although couldn’t help but glare at Logan.
Logan had settled himself into the small bed wearing just his jeans; he folded his arms behind his head as he lay. He was watching Rogue with a shrewd expression. “Here,” he muttered after a moment, pulling off the top layer of his bedding which was the thickest blanket. He chucked it down onto the floor. He also gave her one of his pillows. “Now just go to sleep, kid.” With this, Logan turned over, so his back faced the room and he remained silent.
Rogue watched him silently for a moment before she looked down at the blanket and pillow. She sighed quietly to herself before she lay down on the floor besides the taller single bed. She shoved the pillow further up before she dropped down onto her back. She quickly gasped through and sat up. Reaching around she knocked an empty bottle of beer from beneath her. It rolled morosely across the floor before it rested against the wall. Scowling quietly, Rogue flopped back down, lying tightly wrapped both in her coat and the blanket. It wasn’t the comfiest makeshift bed. But she had had a long day, and sleep had come upon her before she knew it..
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Waking up wasn’t so peaceful. In fact, Rogue was awakened with a start and a yelp as Logan scrambled over her laying body. Logan had thrown back his covers and stepped straight out of bed, right onto her and had promptly fallen over with a loud thud. Logan quickly pulled himself off her legs as he stood up, looking rather dazed at the sudden fall so soon after opening his eyes. But as Rogue watched him, she noticed his eyes harden as he tensed up.
“What?” she asked as she stared up at him.
“There’s someone outside..”
Logan suddenly spun towards the door, clad in nothing but his jeans, and unlocked the door, which was wrenched back as he jumped out into the cold snow. Rogue scrambled to her knees, crawling across the floor to peer out of the door. Logan stood there in the falling snow, seeming perfectly content as the cold flakes fell upon his half naked torso. He looked around inquisitively before he ran towards the trees at the edge of the road.
After a short disappearance, he returned to the door, looking rather disgruntled, “I think someone is following us.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can sme – I can just tell.” Logan quickly moved around her, grabbing his vest top that he quickly shoved on. He thrust his bare feet into his boots and stomped back outside with them untied as he continued to pull his shirt and jacket on. Rogue pushed aside her blanket and followed him out, pulling the door shut behind her so it would lock.
“We movin’ already?” asked Rogue as she followed him to the cab door.
Logan had abruptly pulled back the door and had got into the driver’s seat. The door was noisily slammed. He replied to Rogue through the small gap at the top of his window, but he was no looking at her. He was starting the ignition, “Yes. Get in.”
“But why?”
“I’ll tell you if you just get in!”
So Rogue quickly hurried around the front of the van too her side, pulling back the door. She lifted herself into the seat and quickly closed the door. Logan had already shoved the gear forward and the camper van was sharply driving away. Rogue spoke as she scrambled to get her seatbelt on, “Why are we leavin’ so early?” True enough, the cloudy sky above had little light. There was a weakness to the sun’s rays that proved it was early morning.
“We’re being followed,” grunted Logan quietly, looking into his side mirror suspiciously.
“Followed? Why!”
Logan speeded up the vehicle, “No idea, kid. But I don’t wanna find out. They are on foot I think so I’ll out drive ‘em.” His hand grabbed onto the gear stick and pushed it up one. The camper van growled painfully under the higher speeds as is raced dangerously across the hard packed snow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They had been driving for most of the day without stopping once. The atmosphere had been so tense in confined cab of the camper van that Rogue had spoken very little. She had only eaten snacks that Logan had offered out of his glove box, and he himself didn’t eat at all. He kept checking the rear view mirror a lot more often than a driver should, and Rogue could see that his hands were clenched painfully tight on the steering wheel.
“They can’t be near us now,” said Rogue tiredly. However, her interest had perked when she saw a neon sign in the distance. She had wanted a rest stop for a while. “Can we stop here?”
“Why?” growled Logan abruptly, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t wanna stop.”
Rogue blanched, “Please Logan, you must stop,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“I have to go,” she replied in the same quiet voice.
“Go?”
“Go,” said Rogue in a strained voice, starting to become pissed off at the fact he wasn’t getting the hint.
Logan blinked, “Oh, go!”
“Yes! Go!”
“Alright, alright. I’ll stop here. This is another cage fighting joint too. Could pick up a few hundred dollars tonight. That’d keep us good for the rest of the week, plus I need some petrol.” He pulled in without indicating (there was no need when the roads were deserted) and he pulled up the camper van at the edge of the car park besides a truck. “Don’t go runnin’ in kid. I’m walking with you.”
The pair exited the camper van, and as much as Rogue wanted nothing more than to speed in to the toilets she stayed obediently by Logan’s side. The man had lit himself a cigar and strolled across the car park with it hung out of the edge of his mouth.
“Be careful in here, it can have a rough crowd. Go to the toilet and then come and sit around the cage, right at the front, where I can see you, ok?”
Rogue, who had only one thing on her mind at the moment made a distracted nod, “Yeah, yeah, of course.”
They stepped in from the darkening outdoors and into the equally dim bar. The dark walls flickered with poor lighting that got pitifully lost in the hanging smog that was the residue of several cigarettes. The place wasn’t the cleanest place Rogue had stepped in, but it was no worse than the bar in Laughlin City. In fact, it was very similar, even its customers seemed to all come from the same neighbourhood. The typically large males types that had plenty of muscle, disguised by fat and beer bellies. More than half of the inhabitants were skinheads and each and every person inside, including the workers and females seemed to have some sort of tattoo on show. The men stood in groups, laughing loudly and having crude conversations whilst their girls stood draped over their shoulders in simpering mode, showing too much flesh for Canada’s weather.
Logan pointed through the murky atmosphere to where a broken neon sign flickered on the wall proclaiming the words ‘Toilets’ or rather ‘ilets’ since the first two letters were not lit. Rogue quickly nodded and disappeared through the crowds the instant she left Logan’s side. But Logan was striding towards the bar, nodding to the man behind it. “Hey, got any fighters on tonight?”
A rough and burly looking man wiped a glass clean with an equally grimy rag. He appeared to be making it dirtier rather than cleaning it, “A few. You interested?”
Logan pulled the cigar from his mouth as he calmly exhaled a cloud of smoke, “Yeah. Any of them wanting to go first?”
“No, none have specifically requested. Bad luck in these parts to go first, ya see.”
“Is that so? Put me first.”
The man looked taken aback before he spread a rather nasty grin and nodded, “Better get ya self over to the cage then. We’re starting in five. Hah, bad luck.”
Logan smirked as he turned away, striding across the room to the lit cage, “Bad luck for whom?”
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000