Cruelty in beauty, nature's tease-- the rose that pricks, the thorn that caresses, the girl that can absorb a person's soul with a simple touch. Life's twisted sense of humor.
Not everyone laughs, though.
Studying her cloth covered hand for what must have been the hundredth time in the last hour, Rogue once again contemplated on how such a cursed mutation could ever be inflicted on a person. Yet again, she came up with no new answers. Sighing in defeat she looked at the quiet girl a few feet away from her to make sure that she was indeed asleep.
Kitty, like her outward soft-spoken ways, was a sound sleeper. She was clad in sky pajamas and clutching an old teddy bear to her chest. It was already eleven in the morning but the young girl who usually woke up at the break of dawn had come home late from a date with Bobby the night before. Bushed, she had fallen fast asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
Giving her roommate one last parting glance, Rogue then moved to retrieve her journal. Owning a journal wasn't anything new to her. When she was younger, every year she would purchase a new book to write her thoughts in. it was almost a religious action the way she kept up with every detail in her life. But then the gods dealt her a few wild cards. Mutation hit, and she ran from home. Trying to survive for eight months on the road doesn't leave a person much time to write frilly thoughts down in parched paper.
Actually, it was the Professor who suggested the concept of keeping a journal again. He said it might help her to sort through the jumble of thoughts and people in her head. But for her part, Rogue wasn't nearly stupid enough to buy into that story. She knew it was really a way for him to keep tabs on the powerful psycho that warded in his home. She couldn't blame him, really. After all, two very susceptibly deranged mutants, among a handful of others, held an eternal residence in her psyche. A place where even the world's most gifted telepath could not penetrate into.
She picked up her ball point pen off the desk-- a pen, which like everything else in the mansion--- was adorned with a small "X" symbol. Not sure where exactly to begin, she decided that simple was best and went from there.
Free will is limited to the confines of fate.
I was thinking today: maybe I am existentialist. But I am not a brilliant writer, so I don't qualify. Most existentialists are also ex-patriots, so that also counts me out, because even as I think otherwise on most days (thanks to dearest Erik) I am not from a foreign country.
Although Mississippi should be.
So, yeah, I said something fucking brilliant in my English Lit course today, but no one noticed but me. I wonder if everything Einstein said, he thought was stupid, but some of the little things. Maybe.
Just a bunch of maybes and never minds.
So what is my fate? Damnation is coming soon and I'm looking over the brink and staring down at emptiness because something is rising towards me, something that's tired of me staring at it, something that wants to devour me, chew me up, and let me dissolve in its stomach acids and wondering---
Is this my destiny?
A knock at the door interrupted her writing. After shaking her head to get rid of her more depressing thoughts, she quickly closed her leather bound book and stuffed it in the bottom drawer of her desk.
"Yes?" She called, twisting sideways to face the door and her intruder.
"God, Roguey! You won't believe who just walked into the mansion!" Jubilee squealed in such an unnaturally high pitched tone that Rogue wondered bitterly if it were not another manifestation of her mutation.
"Oh, no," came a soft, sleepy mumble from the corner of the room. "Did someone get hurt?" A yawn escaped Kitty's lips as she rubbed the residue of sleep out of her eyes.
Ignoring her completely, Jubilee, in all of her obnoxiously yellow glory, tossed her weight on the edge of the bed, causing Kitty to bounce twice before settling back into the comforters. "Wayne," she smirked in the direction of Rogue, as if that one word would be the answer to all of life's most questionable mysteries.
"Come again?" Rogue asked.
"Bruce Wayne," she clarified with a loud pop of her bubblegum for effect. Rogue must have shown as much confusion on the outside as she did on the inside with her roommate's announcement because Jubilee waved her hands in the air with exasperation. "Hello! Bruce Wayne. The Bruce Wayne. Mr. I'm-a-billion-gagillionaire-that-was-voted-one-of-the-tope-five-most-sexiest-men-on-the-East-Coast-and-is-a-bachelor-to-boot-Bruce-Wayne? Ringing any bells for ya, chica?"
"Oh." She was still thoroughly confused, but it seemed that confusion was a state of being she was constantly in when it involved Jubilee and her crazy antics. "Why'd he come here? This is just a school for a bunch of mu--gifted kids," she corrected. "What's his deal?"
"Dunno." She smacked her gum again, smoothing back her gelled black hair. "I think it's something to do with a donation towards the school's funding, though. But no matter the case, the point is, he's here. And he's going to be staying here for an entire week. Couldn't you just die?" she gushed as she pulled a string of gum out of her mouth and twirled it around a finger with perfectly manicured nails. Which were, with no surprise, painted yellow.
It was true that the school needed funding all the time. It took tons of money just to keep up with all of the material mishaps that occur when you're boarding over forty-five mutants, over half of which with little or no control over their destructive powers. So the fact that someone was here to offer a donation was nothing new. What was new, however, was the oddity of him spending a week at the school. Most people just stayed long enough to shake hands with Xavier and hand him a check before hurrying out to attend to another meeting or function.
Another thought occurred to her. "Is he a mutant?"
"Don't think so." Both Kitty and Rogue seemed to consider this answer.
"Is he okay with other mutants, then?" Kitty asked, finally making it out of the bed and pausing on her way to the bathroom.
"Dunno that either." Jubilee shifted but couldn't quite seem to get comfortable where she sat. She tossed all of the pillows unceremoniously to the floor, including Kitty's cherished teddy bear, before letting out a sigh of content.
"So what do you know, then?" The question came out a little more bitter than intended. All of the voices in Rogue's head became very alert when the possibility of a non-mutant outsider stepping into the thresholds of mutant --X-Men-- territory became clear. Too many things were wrong with this development. Too many possibilities that, after being filtered through her internal and eternally paranoid Logan and Magneto personalities, came across as completely insane and dangerous.
"Just that I overheard the Professor welcome Mr. Bruce aboard. Told him that he hoped the dude would have a nice stay here, find everything comfortable, start a couple forest fires, sacrifice a few chickens to Satan, yadda yadda yadda…" noticing the raised eyebrow from Rogue's direction, Jubilee smiled broadly and slapped her friend's leg. "Geeze, chica! You know the Prof will probably call a meeting and debrief us on the details later. Just chill, alright? We've got a gorgeous hunka-hunk of a man sitting on the couch downstairs. What more do you need to know?"
"But isn't he… you know… old?" Kitty scrunched up her nose in mild disgust. She still preferred her men no more than a couple of years older than herself. Anything more was just plain 'icky'.
"Nah. Some magazine I read said that he was supposed to turn thirty-three last week. Plus, he works out and stuff all the time. Which means he's still high drool-worthy material," Jubilee announced, then added matter-of-factly, "Also, he's rich. So who cares? Besides," another pointed look at Rogue. "I think Streaks here has a thing for older men, don't you think, Kit-Kat?"
"Definitely," Kitty giggled behind her hands before disappearing behind the bathroom door.
Choosing to ignore the teasing of her friends, "You're probably right." Rogue admitted. "About the me not worrying thing," she amended quickly. "I'm sure the Professor knows what he's doing."
She then let just enough of Marie out that she actually began to enjoy the prospect of new male meat. It's not like I'm tied down to a boyfriend or anything, she thought in acrid regards to Logan. I'm twenty three years old. He's been home for nearly three months now, and yet he still hasn't said more than a handful of words to me. To say the least, it was very disheartening. And she knew that it wasn't doing her any good to pine away for the Canadian like a lovelorn child.
Blowing a strand of platinum hair out of her face Rogue looked to Jubilee, who was still playing with her gum and now kicking her feet in an unrecognizable rhythm as she hummed an annoying boy band tune to herself to block out the sound of running water from the shower.
A smile edge its way up Rogue's lips. "Hunka-hunk of a man, you say?"
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000