Logan watched in amusement as Rogue rummaged through the fridge, occasionally growling under her breath. She chose an eclectic assortment of foods: a few pieces of leftover fried chicken, a bit of odd-looking expensive cheese with her name on it, Canadian beer (a six-pack), a green apple, and a cluster of dark purple grapes. “Put the chicken in the microwave, will ya, Sugah?” She handed him the paper bucket.
Logan took it and obediently heated the chicken, watching her slice both the cheese and the apple, setting out both on a plate, which she then set aside on the bar as Logan joined her with the re-heated chicken. “Not gonna eat your appetizer?” he asked.
“That’s dessert. It’s best at room temperature, and it’ll be there once the chicken’s gone,” she said matter-of-factly, plucking a drumstick from the bucket. “Ah ordered in next-day-delivery the night Ah got here. Ya can blame Erik for corruptin’ me with certain gourmet habits, but Ah picked the cheese myself.” She shrugged. “Ah don’t mind some of his tastes, really. Just his ideology and the fact he’s an asshole who tried to kill me.” To punctuate her statement, she took an impressive bite of chicken. Rogue has more prominent eyeteeth than the average person; they’re pointed and while they don’t really show when she talks, they stood out stark and white when the tip of her tongue darted out to pick up a crumb left at the corner of her mouth.
Logan nodded distantly, trying not to think too much about her mouth. “I ended up with a similar thing about really good Japanese food, once my memories came back. Spent weeks huntin’ down a sushi place that gets the rice right.” He grabbed his own piece of chicken and bit into it.
Rogue gave a small smile, sincere and soft and a little grateful. “Ya know, you’re probably the only other person on the planet who’s got a clue as to what it’s like...with memories that are yours, but aren’t at the same time.” She pulled more meat off the bone and popped it into her mouth with bits of the crunchy, battered exterior. It wasn’t southern-fried chicken or home-made, but it still smelled a little bit like a place that used to be something like a home to her, however long ago.
Logan considered her words, swallowing his mouthful. “You don’t think the telepaths can relate?” he inquired.
Rogue shook her head. “They see other people’s minds from the outside lookin’ in. Ah see ‘em from the inside, and to make it even more awkward, they’re in my damned house, metaphorically speakin’.”
Logan chuckled softly. “Yeah. That’s a good way to put it,” he mused, thinking about how it had been as he re-discovered James Howlett, and how foreign and familiar it had been all at the same time as things came back not in a flood but as though he’d tripped over them.
Rogue gave that smile again. “It’s just odd for me. That it’s not just me and that you get it.” She shook her head, the smile fading. “Ah feel so old, and like Ah’ve been wandering around in other people’s lives for two hundred years, give or take a few decades, but my mind has always had that odd distance between what Ah’m rememberin’ feelin’ and how new it is to me, and who Ah actually am and whose memories Ah’m in at the time. And then Ah wake up feelin’ like Dorothy at the end of the Wizard of Oz, only the adventure lasted years an’ years, and then people look at me and call me ‘kid’ and wonder why Ah get pissed off.” She set down her chicken on a folded paper-towel and grabbed a beer, plucking off the cap with an ease that only invulnerable skin and super-strength could give her.
Logan nodded. “I get the same thing when One-eye tries to play leader.”
Lowering her beer after taking a swig, Rogue replied, “Ah know.” She gave him a soft look that was oddly piercing.
Logan recalled, somewhat belatedly, that she’d gotten a peek into his skull when he’d lent her his healing. He smirked a little. “I guess you do.”
Rogue looked at the floor for a moment. “What do ya think of me, Logan? Now that ya’ve met me, and my skin, and t’ some extent my fightin’ ability.” She tried to smile a little, but there was real nervousness behind her question; she really wanted to know, and it really meant something to her. “Has it changed much, since ya last gave me a picture of what’s in your head?”
Logan held her gaze, thinking. His first impression from her first letter had been: this bitch is crazy! But as time had passed, he’d absorbed all of what she had sent along with that letter, and all the things that followed, and he had felt grudgingly grateful, and frustrated and confused because he couldn’t understand what the Hell the mystery woman thought she was doing. Then even that had eased, if only a little, because she had given him so much, for no other apparent reason than because she thought it was right, and he’d understood that when she had sent him a disk with a smeared drop of her blood on it from a gunshot wound. And then Emma had told him that she was afraid of Rogue, and told him about Rogue’s insane quest and ruthlessness and lawlessness and determination. And he’d known that whoever Rogue was, she was like him, which was something new to Logan, even with so many of his memories returned.
What had changed since he’d met her? When he’d first seen the frantic figure digging and cursing in the wreckage, he had been amused and curious and had thought she was a spitfire. And then she’d stood up and shown off that body and the way she moved, and even through the muck and the trench coat, Logan had seen enough to make him think she’d be great in bed. Then she’d been amused by his claws, and unafraid, and she’d known too much about everything; then she had told him her name was Rogue, and later told him much more about who Rogue was. But wasn’t what she was asking; she knew about that, knew his thoughts about all that, from when he’d taken her scars away.
What had changed since he’d felt that desperate need to see that her hands didn’t have those scars? He’d gotten to see more of her character, and her body, and the way she perceived things and thought about them: other people, touch, war, ‘the rules’, authority, and––to some extent, at least––Logan himself. And he may have just met her three days ago, but he’d started getting to know her about a year ago, with that first letter, and everything else she’d sent since then. Now that he’d finally managed to come to terms with the Rogue he’d known all this time and the one in front of him...yeah. Things had changed a bit.
He couldn’t find the words. Not in any of the three-and-a-half languages he’d remembered. It took him several quiet seconds to go over it all in his head and figure out what to say. “Some thoughts have gotten clearer. Others are still kinda in the works.” He wiped the grease from the chicken off his fingers with a paper towel. “You could always take a quick peek.” He held out one hand, palm-up.
Rogue hesitated, pausing in the middle of licking her fingers. She picked up a napkin and wiped her hands clean, even as her facial expression remained unsure. “Ah don’t...like usin’ my skin on ya. As much as Ah...kinda like lookin’ at the world as seen by you, Ah don’t like hurtin’ you,” she said quietly.
Logan was flattered, but insisted, “I want you to see this, because I can’t think of how to say it for the life a’ me.”
Rogue inhaled slowly and something in her eyes changed a little, and her scent, too, taking on a sharp edge, smelling like a mixture of crisp snow-scent and overheated titanium steel, as her skin activated. She tried to control the pull, more than she had ever needed to before, as her fingertips touched Logan’s palm and she looked straight into his mind as it flooded over hers. One second, two seconds, three...
She pulled her fingers away absorbing his thoughts. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Logan felt drained, and exhausted, but his healing factor kicked in faster and he neither fell off of his barstool or went anywhere near unconsciousness. “Not so bad, this time.”
“Didn’t last as long, and Ah wasn’t tryin’ to borrow your mutation this time.” Rogue rolled her shoulders. “But apparently Ah got some of it. The burns are gone.” Her voice was a little distant, her thoughts still directed inward.
It was Logan’s turn to feel a hint of nerves, because if there was anyone in the world whose fear or disgust or disappointment could wound him, it was the woman sitting in front of him with her eyes shut as she slowly pulled back her hand to rest her elbow on the bartop. He felt a wash of relief when he saw that faint smile on her lips again, and was intrigued by the hint of nervousness that flickered behind it. Nervous seemed like unfamiliar territory to Rogue; she wasn’t the type to get nervous, she was the type to get defensive. The fact she wasn’t getting defensive with Logan said volumes.
“Thank you,” she said softly. She opened her mouth to speak further, but then hesitated turning to look at the kitchen doorway.
Logan had heard the footsteps as well, and cursed under his breath. Kitty, Jubilee and Siryn were on their way, chatting and laughing in the way that only carefree youth can. Rogue sighed and finished her chicken.
The trio appeared in the doorway a few moments later, and seemed to pause for a thoughtful second at the sight of Logan and Rogue.
“She’s alive,” Siryn observed.
Rogue raised an eyebrow.
“That’s not surprising, really,” Jubilee said in corrective tones, “it’s that she’s above ground that’s a real shock.” She wore a playful smirk.
Rogue gave a languid shrug. “A girl’s gotta eat sometime.” She glanced at Logan, but then shifted her attention to Kitty, who looked nervous. “Hey, Kitty? When do you want to start lessons?” Rogue set aside her picked-clean chicken bones after wrapping them in a paper towel.
The other girls took this as a cue to do what they’d come to the kitchen to do, and they moved to the fridge and pantry, pulling together a stock of snacks. Jubes put some popcorn in the microwave.
Kitty hesitated for a moment, struggling to hold Rogue’s gaze. “Uhm. When would be best for you? I mean...I heard you were still busy putting together your work station...”
“What better place to start than with the hardware? Ah can teach ya anytime, for a couple hours a session. You’re the one with a concrete schedule.”
Kitty nodded. “Uhm. Seven-ish in the evenings then?”
Rogue nodded. “Sure.”
There was a minute or so of idle talk amongst the girls as the popcorn popped. They apparently planned to have an epic eclectic girls’ movie night––British-themed this time; Pride and Prejudice followed by Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Logan finished off the rest of the chicken and dumped all the bones, including Rogue’s, into the bucket. He watched her pull the cheese plate forward so it sat between them. She gestured toward it after picking up a piece. Logan’s gaze may have lingered on the way her tongue darted out to pluck the cheese from between her fingertips. He picked up a piece of it, intrigued by its odd, but not unpleasant, scent. It was a little strong, but complex and rich, somewhat earthy, and just a little bit sweet, with traces of a flavor like wine.
They had nearly finished the cheese, and Rogue had nearly finished the fruit with it, by the time the microwave finally beeped and the trio of teenagers fled the room.
“It’s almost time for the dinner rush, isn’t it?” Rogue observed. So much for their previous relative privacy.
Logan gave a light growl. “Yeah. There’ll be a dozen of ‘em here in a few minutes.” He reached for the plate absently and popped a piece of cheese into his mouth.
“Try a bite of it with a grape, Logan,” Rogue insisted. She reached over and glibly pressed a grape to his lips. There was only the ghost of a smirk on her lips as she watched him.
Raising an eyebrow somewhat, Logan bit the grape lightly, taking it from her. As his teeth broke the skin of the grape, he had to admit she was right: it tasted good. Logan was wondering what Rogue tasted like, and how that might combine with the lingering flavors on his tongue. He couldn’t help but think that it would go well with just about anything.
As if reading his thoughts, Rogue smirked morevisibly, taking the last piece of cheese for herself and picking up the plates, the bones-and-napikin-filled paper bucket, and their two empty beer bottles, as she got to her feet. Logan watched her curiously as she tossed the bucket in the trash and set the plates in the sink, rinsing the beer bottles before dropping them in recycling. She dried her hands and returned to the bar, but there was something about the almost-smirk hinted by her facial expression...
Instead of taking her seat next to him again, Rogue stood in front of him and leaned in, her hands resting on either side of him on the marble counter. Her face was very close to his and her gaze lingered on his lips for a long moment. “Ah would very much like to be close to you,” she said softly. She took a deep breath, slowly, drowning in his scent for a moment, and then looked into his eyes as she added meaningfully, “Ah want t’ let you get close to me. Ah want you to know me...maybe as well as Ah know you.” Her words were solemn but warm with something almost tentative, but too calm to be called uneasy, and her dark eyes were like shadowed mirrors, interrupted by flecks of green and hints of gold.
Logan held her gaze silently for a few long moments, reading her, seeing the uncharacteristic heat of her expression; he could tell that she was not familiar with being this close and this open, despite the ease of her movements and the knowledge behind them. Logan could sense something not unlike a mixture of nervousness and the not-quite-unpleasant tension of want from her. He wondered what she could sense of him. One of his hands settled on her hip, then slid slowly up to her waist and pushed up her shirt a little in the process, his palm and fingers taking in the feel of her skin. He could hear the slight change in her breathing, just the slightest tremor of response. “You’re pretty new to this,” he said quietly, the statement serving as both a gentle warning and a light observation.
“Yeah, but as usual, Ah still know what Ah’m doin’.” She leaned a little closer, so her forehead touched his. He was close. It felt...good. And warm. She felt a promising flicker of greater intensity when his thumb began to stroke the side of her stomach, near her hip, in slow back-and-forth arches. “In some aspects anyway.” Rogue smiled archly. “Ah know how to do everything from the perspective of other people. It’s different, y’know, when it’s what Ah want, and when it’s you.”
Logan’s hand on her side tightened its hold just slightly. She smelled good, and the more she talked, the more he felt this pressure somewhere left of his sternum––not painful, no, never painful, but he could not think of it as pleasure so much as a pang of intensity. He wanted her, but the craving was not immediate, and it inspired in him a kind of predatory patience. He knew, from her voice and her smile, that somehow, this was to be a sort of game, but not one that either of them had played before, having never had the opportunity. “It isn’t cat and mouse. That’s why it’s different,” he said.
He knew he was right when Rogue pulled back and met his gaze, a smile on her lips.
“It’s cat and wolverine,” she agreed.
Lynx, Logan decided mentally. Rogue was a lynx: guardian of secrets, elusive, and surprisingly strong for her size. It was fitting. “Your move, Marie.”
She was still leaning over him, very close, but not quite touching him––not quite ready to be so vulnerable as she knew she would be as soon as she reached for him. It was already strange, to feel his hand on her skin, and feel how tenuous her hard-won control could become, and how easily; it was disconcerting, and yet exhilarating. Rogue took a breath, and let it out slowly. “Keep in mind, Sugah, Ah don’t play fair.” Her gaze shifted away, landing on the doorway to the kitchen with an expectant look.
Logan realized that she had borrowed his advanced senses.
Remy was merely the forerunner. Three or four others were shortly behind him. Rogue had heard Siryn’s voice mentioning her, and had, quite rightly, expected Remy to quietly part from the group and get to the kitchen ahead of them. Rogue met Logan’s gaze again.
And that was how the Cajun found them, facing off in a silently challenging way, like a pair of cats trying to decide whether to fight or have sex, because either option would be truly exciting. There was an air of intensity about them, and through its haze Remy got an unusually clear look at them, at the Logan and Rogue few ever see and live to tell the tale.
Then Rogue put a hand on Logan’s hand as she stepped away from him, her thumb brushing the inner side of his wrist as he let her pull away. She pulled the hem of her top back down and turned to look at Remy, a somewhat glib smirk touching her lips for a moment. She stepped past him with a light “Hello” and made her way out the door.
Logan watched her from his place at the bar, his gaze lingering on the slight sway of her hips as he reigned in the urge to growl, which was difficult, because he could tell the Cajun was staring at Rogue, too.
After a few moments, Remy gave a low whistle. “Merde. You lucky sombitch,” he murmured, shooting Logan a bit of a glare. Then he fumbled around in that bulky trench coat, pulling out a cigarette. There was something unsettled in his countenance.
And Logan could see it. “You’re scared of her.”
Remy shook his head. “Not always. Jus’ when she look...” He gestured in a futile manner, grasping for words he could not find. “Like she gon’ drink blood, or sum’ like,” he concluded at last, his brow creased with dissatisfaction.
Logan looked away from the other man, fixing his gaze on the empty doorway. “Frankly, I think that look is pretty appealing.”
Remy lit his cigarette and exhaled clove-scented smoke. The look he shot Logan was solemn and considering. Then he shook his head, cursing the other man in bayou French quietly under his breath.
As the others entered the room, Logan got up from his barstool. As he passed Remy, he said quietly, “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Cajun.”
He was surprised when Remy replied, “I know when I be outclassed, Wolverine, but dat don’t mean I gotta be happy ‘bout it. I’m like a cat whose tail been stepped on, homme; gimme time to regain composure, non? Then we have drinks like we do sometimes.”
Logan nodded, and left the kitchen, resisting the temptation to follow Rogue; he wanted to draw this game out.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry for the long wait-time between chapters. Blame life.