The small, furry animal crouches beneath the heavy branches of a tree, watching in only mild interest. Purple lightening strikes through the black sky. The brief light isn't enough to chase the darkness out of the creature's eyes.
"Kill me," a woman's voice floats through the air.
Logan turns his head at the sound of it.
"Kill me again. Kill me, please," she pleads on.
He can't see or smell anything and he barely can breathe. He begins to panic as the voice echoes all around him. He roars and grips the side of his head in frustration. But instead of hair his hands contact rough, harsh cotton. A bag. It's a bag over his head blocking his vital senses. He roars again as he rips the black covering off. He goes further, ripping of his jeans and red, flannel shirt so that nothing covers him.
His breath comes out in ragged pants, dragging the freezing air around him into his lungs. He quickly jerks his head around. No woman. No voice anymore.
He looks down to find himself standing in the middle of a snow covered forest. Around him he is surrounded by over a dozen dead soldiers, lying face down at his feet in the fresh white powder. He isn't aware till just then that the claws are out. Panic seizes his chest and he tries to back away from the bodies. He stumbles over the ones behind him but eventually manages to get his back to the tree.
He looks for the woman again. He knows her voice, but he can't place it. And he can't smell anything but his own sweat and fear and the blood of the soldiers. She's gone.
"Nice work!" the creature under the tree cheers.
Logan's head jerks down to the voice. The wolverine grins at him, running its little red tongue over its sharp front teeth. He blinks, starring dumbfounded down at the animal. The wolverine winks at him then takes off running into the forest.
"Hey!" Logan screams and runs after it.
He quickly catches up with the beast. The branches from the trees wiped into his bare chest but they did little to slow him down in his pursuit of the creature. The wolverine turns its head up and grins at him again. "You look a little thirsty," the beast announces.
Logan quirks an eyebrow at it. When he looks back in front of him he has no time to react before a branch collides with his face.
The small row boat rocks gently under him as the breeze shirts across the surface of the lake. He is still naked, aside from his favorite cowboy hat now gracing the top of his head. Confused, Logan grips the sides of the boat, making it tilt and rock under his frantic movements.
"Woah, big fella."
Logan looks front of him to find a very relaxed Rogue leaning back, opposite him in the boat. She lazily reels her fishing line in and then casts it out again.
"...Rogue?" His voice is scratchy, but her name manages to get out.
She lifts a gloved finger to her lips. "Shh... Ya'll scare the fish."
He nods and grabs his own pole. Slowly his heart beat settles and his casts his line out as well. He relaxes, feeling free and content. Until he looks over the side of the boat. Fish swim all around them-- fishes with human faces, all screaming up at him in terror.
Logan drops his pole into the water. "They're already scared..." he mumbles, closing his eyes against the sight.
"Frightened of tha great mutant hunter!" Rogue agrees and throws him a wink.
Fierce lightening crashes again in the sky above them, dragging Logan's glaze up to watch it.
"A storms comin'," Rogue declares ominously, all the playfulness suddenly leaving her face. "We should get off tha water."
Logan nods and grabs the oars and begins pulling them towards the shore. As soon as they get close enough the wolverine jumps from the shore and lands in Rogue's lap. It is only there for a flash of a second before it jumps again and snatches the cowboy hat from Logan's head and lands on the shore again. The beast quickly starts running.
"Hey!" Logan stands to his feet, rocking the boat, as he yells after it. "That's mine!"
He jumps off, leaping onto the shore to chase after it. The boat lurches at his sudden, forceful departure, sending Rogue tumbling off if it into the water.
Logan stops to catch his breath, his hands gripping his knees as he pants. He lost sight of the wolverine but now there is a small, quaint, wooden cabin in front of him. He swallows and walks towards it. The door is unlocked and he steps in.
A man in a grey checkered suit is sitting at a table in the middle of the room. Logan raises an eyebrow at the stranger.
"Logan," Rogue's voice calls to him. He quickly turns around to find her standing at a stove, stirring a giant pot of chili. She is dressed in just a short skirt and an apron. "Ya should get changed for dinner, sugah."
"Black tie," the stranger elaborates, dragging his eyes up and down Logan's naked frame. "We're *civilized* folks here."
Logan looks to Rogue but she has her back to him, concentrating only on the pot in front of her. So he makes his way towards the open doorway, his bare foot padding loudly on the creaking wooden floors.
Inside the room is a giant wardrobe, three long gauge marks scratched into the front of it. Without pause he pulls open the heavy oak doors and begins rifling through the wardrobe. His wardrobe. He pulls out a suit, elegant and black. A pair of small, black eyes stare at him from the dark recesses of the wardrobe. He doesn't seem to notice them and instead smiles at his favorite cowboy hat and his old Wolverine masked lined neatly up on the top shelf. His newest uniform is hanging there, right behind a crisp black dinner jacket. He takes the jacket out and stops at the mirror hanging from the door of the wardrobe. A distorted reflect of himself stares right back at him. Logan growls at him and slams the door shut.
At the table, Logan sits down and Rogue immediately serves the two men large bowls of chili before sitting down herself. Nothing in front of her.
Logan takes a spoon full and then jerks his head towards the man sitting beside him. "Who's this guy?" he asks Rogue.
Rogue doesn't answer his question. Instead clear green eyes unwaveringly meet his. "I love you, Logan," she says matter-of-factly. "You can kill me later."
"Okay," Logan replies. He reaches for his bowl again but somehow it is no longer within his reach. He stretches and snatches at it again but no matter what he can't get his hands on it.
Beside him the strange man is digging full force into his bowl, shoving the chili spoon full by spoon full into his mouth. Evidently he was clearly enjoyed it by the loud moaning sounds he made. Not only that, but with each bite the man grows larger and larger until he completely dwarfs Logan. The man looks down at him. "Aren't you hungry?" he asks.
The wind blows and howls around him, stinging his naked skin of his back. He lifts his face out of the fresh deer. His tongue removes the blood around his mouth that it can reach with long licks. More drips off his chin and he wipes it away with his hand. His stomach is finally full, his bestial nature has once again provided him with nourishment.
Logan stops and sees the wolverine staring at him. It approaches and climbs onto the deer. It sticks its tongue out, playfully, and Logan answers with a smile.
Logan purrs and sinks further into his bed then stretches out his stiff muscles. He is holding the wolverine to his chest, it curled up above him. When he wakes up it leaps away.
He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed and stretches again and then rolls his neck, letting the vertebrae pop loudly.
A tap sounds from outside of the window and he turns to look who it is. It's the wolverine. "You thirsty?" the beast asks through the glass.
He nods and stands up, pulling on his old uniform, mindful of all the rips in it.
He walks into the club and goes straight to the bar. He settles onto a seat and Rogue is soon on the other side, tending it. She is gloveless and has a large 'X' tattooed on her shoulder.
She smiles warmly at him and holds a bottle out. "Beer?" she offers.
He takes it gladly. Behind him the club is in an uproar. Fights are spring up all over and the security staff is hassling all the customers. He, however, remains oblivious to all of it.
Rogue leans her elbows against the bar top, resting her chin in her bare hands. "Why do ya drink so much, sugah?" She asks him.
"Because it always hurts," he answers.
She sighs heavily. "Don't ah know it."
He toasts her and takes a long swig of his drink.
"During prohibition," he starts, smirking at the bottle in his hands. "I useta run booze down from Canada along the eastern seaboard."
Rogue straightens up and begins wiping down the bar. "Ya an' Capone," Rogue states, shaking her head.
"I've never met him," he shrugs then goes on. "We'd cross the border in upstate New York, make deliveries in Buffalo and then on down, into the city."
He takes another long drag, emptying the bottle, then smirks. "One winter, it was so cold that the beer *froze* in the barrels." He reaches across the bar himself to grab a new beer.
Rogue is standing, facing one of the security guards, his gun aimed right at her head. "Ya don't say?" she answers Logan. "That's *cold*."
Logan bites the cap off the top of his bottle and goes on drinking.
Rogue slides a matchbox with a gun painted on it over to Logan. Another man stops it and grabs it. "*This* is for me," the other man growls.
Logan looks up from his drink to Rogue. Suddenly her right eye is all busted up, already purple and blue and swollen. "What happened?" he asks.
"He beats me," she tells him, indicating the other man.
"Beat him back," Logan advises her.
She sighs again and turns away from him. "It ain't that easy."
Logan growls and jumps to his feet, immediately stalking over to the other man. He grabs the other man's shoulder and turns him around.
The other man is identical to Logan, neither man notices. He throws the matchbox at Logan.
"I ain't interested," Logan snarls, balling his fists up.
"Snikt," the man says.
Logan squares up on the man. "Did you hit her?" he growls, pointing to the bar.
"Snakt," the man says.
Logan grabs the front of the other man's shirt. "Stop," he warns him but the other man goes on speaking gibberish. He roars and punches the man in the face and it crumbles like a broken jigsaw puzzle to the dirty bar floor.
The two men are now outside. Logan is once again wearing his red, flannel shirt. The other man is in pieces at his feet. A "tsk-tsk" floats to his ear and his looks up from the pile to see the wolverine shaking his head at him.
Logan meets his glaze innocently. "I didn't hit him *that* hard," he defends himself.
Again the wolverine shakes his head and runs away.
"Hey! Come back!" Logan takes off after him.
He walks into another bar, this one much quieter since it is almost entirely empty. At the bar the wolverine is already sitting at one of the stools, his sharp claws propped up on the counter. Logan sits down beside him and clears his throat.
"Beer," he requests.
The bartender ignores him, however, and goes about his business. He is obviously a mutant, since he only has one eye.
"Who do I have to kill to get a drink around here?" Logan asks, slamming his hand down on the bar top.
"I got here first," the wolverine challenges back at him.
Logan growls at the creature. "My money is just as green as yours," he says.
The bartender turns around and sets a large plate of meat in front of the wolverine, still ignoring Logan. Logan turns his head and covers his eyes. "AH! Damn it, why's it so..."
"Bright, are you?" the strange man in the grey checkered suit asks him, now the man has a top hat on his head.
Logan looks down at himself he is sitting back at the table in the cabin, in his dinner suit. Rogue is no longer there, but instead the other Wolverine from the wardrobe mirror.
Wolverine tears through the wooden cabin's walls with his claws, trying to bring the place down with his bare hands. Fire shines brightly in Wolverine's eyes as he goes through the utter annihilation digging deep gauges into the wood with his claws.
Logan turns around to the man in a baseball cap sitting behind him and the man in the grey suit. "It hurts my eyes," Logan tells him.
"That's why you have two," the man replies calmly.
"Two?" Logan echoes, confused.
"Oh, yes, I'm sorry," the man apologizes. "I meant to say six."
Wolverine suddenly stops his destruction and turns to them. "Six of one," Wolverine snarls.
Logan looks around to the other men in the room. "I never thought of that...." He turns back to the man in the baseball cap. "Thank you."
"Logan..." a soft, thick voice calls to him.
All the men turn to it. Rogue is at the far back of the cabin, carefully making the large bed. Wolverine starts closing in on her as the man in the baseball cap and the man in the top hat stand to leave. Logan looks down at himself, he is once again in his red, flannel shirt.
Logan takes a steps toward her and looks her over. She smiles at him coyly and unties the back of her apron, letting it slowly drop to the floor, baring her full and nude breast to him. Logan takes another step towards her but Wolverine reaches for her and quickly drags her away to the hole he recently bored into the walls.
Rogue screams in fear and reaches her hands out towards Logan, but Wolverine holds her tightly in his strong, bulging arms. Logan roars and racing towards them, furry pouring out of him that she is being taken away from him again, by *himself*.
Wolverine throws Rogue behind him, into the darkness of his burrow and meets the enraged Logan.
"Yurkio!" Wolverine shouts at him, the name of his now dead ex-finance.
"Jean!" Logan replies back.
"Rose!" came Wolverine's response. It immediately silenced Logan.
The doppelganger Wolverine laughs and winks at him. "Gotcha. Snikt," he says and then plunges his claws into Logan's now naked chest.
Logan stumbles back, holding a hand to the three deep puncture wounds in his chest. "Ha! I didn't feel a thing," he snarls back at Wolverine.
"I know," Wolverine smirks. "How about this?" Wolverine raises his claws poised above his head, coiling his muscles together for another attack.
Logan's own claws shoot out from behind his knuckles, ripping the flesh. He opens his arms wide, and lets the blood drip freely from his hands and chest. "I can't feel anything!"
Wolverine smiles and lowers his hands. "I ain't done with you yet, bub."
Logan shrugs and walks towards the door. "Maybe later," he says and steps out of it.
"You forgot someone!" Wolverine calls after him.
Logan walks out into the snow, shivering as it drops onto his head and melts into his hair. He stops. The wolverine is sitting in front of him. It looks up at Logan and Logan approaches it. It immediately takes off again, running further into the forest.
He follows, a good ways behind it this time. He quickly looses all sight of it and has to track it through the woods with his nose. Suddenly the trees thin out and he runs right into a clearing.
He stops. In front of him Rogue is kneeling naked on the ground, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Her head slowly lifts up and she looks at him.
"Ahm cold." she whispers with a trembling voice. "Make me warm."
He runs to her and throws himself down into the snow in front of her. He searches her eyes, they're lost and still, the dullest, greyest of greens.
"I...I have no heat." He tells her. He lifts his hands to her, but can't bring himself to touch her skin.
Rogue unlocks a shaky hand from her chest and presses it against his bare chest. "Logan..." she whispers as she leans forward. "My love..." she breathes into his ear and kisses it softly. He groans as she kisses across his cheek, his hands still hovering useless beside her.
"My hero..." She kisses his nose, then between his eyes. "My mate..." She kisses the other cheek on her path across his face. She blows cool air against his other ear and then places a gentle kiss on it as well. "Touch me..."
Galvanized, he grabs her and pulls her hard to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her cold frame. His warm lips crash down onto her freezing ones. He wastes no time and forces his tongue through her full lips, demanding entrance to her own warmth. She whimpers and finally unwraps her arms from around herself to cling to him, trying to climbing into him just as much as he tries to pull her into him.
A few feet away from them the wolverine watches the passionate kiss as he licks blood off his sharp claws. Slowly the snow beneath them begins to melt from the heat and the wolverine backs up, deeper into the forest to keep itself out of the puddle.
Logan shoots up from his lying position. He immediately reconizes the black covering over his head and he rips it off. He finds himself in a dank and dirty cell. He looks around frantically. There is no Rogue or wolverine. Quickly he scurries back into the far corner darkness of the cell, pulling his knees up to his chest and curling into a ball.
"Snikt, snakt, snikt-snakt paddy wack, give a dog a bone," a voice taunts him. He looks up from his knees as the other man from the bar, or Wolverine, or someone identical doppelganger places of bowl of milk in front of him with an evil smirk.
"I am not a animal!" Logan roars.
**************
Logan eased into the chair across from Rogue, black coffee gripped tightly in his hand. She eyes him and then gets up and retrieves a bowl and cereal for him. She pours it for him, and places the meal in front of him before regaining her seat.
"Ya alright?" She asked, making no attempt to hide the worry in her voice. "Ya don't look like ya got any sleep, sugah. D'ya have any dreams?"
"No," he groans and shoves a spoon full of cereal into his mouth
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
My bunny stumbled back to me from Ara's and I finished beating it with an angst stick. Not a drop of foof left in it. Thank God. It changes scenes a lot so fair warning- get an airsick bag. :)