It was late into the morning, so the kitchen was full of teenagers freshly woken from their late-night teenage antics. Of course, most of them weren’t going to be teenager’s much longer. Logan would still always call them ‘the kids’ much to their chagrin. He watched Rogue move through them like oil moving across the surface of water.
They had accepted her as an X-man, after she had helped them take on the sentinels, and they had naturally adjusted to her “touch issues” by keeping a little bit of distance. Of course, they were still young and absent-minded, but Rogue was less so, and smoothly avoided any thoughtless contact. Only once did she move quickly enough for it to be called a flinch, and that was to avoid being struck about the head by one of Jubilee’s dramatic story-telling hand gestures. Jubilee never made exceptions for these gestures, and it was usually considered a right of passage to be hit by one for the first time. As it was, Jubilee only smirked a little and complimented Rogue’s exemplary reflexes.
“It comes with the territory,” Rogue said.
“Is that your catch phrase or something?” Siryn inquired.
Rogue seemed amused by the idea. “Ah hadn’t thought about it, but maybe.” She shrugged and moved away with her breakfast plate, now piled high with an unruly mixture of fruit and protein. With her plate in one hand, and two bottles of molson in the other, she sat next to Logan, and handed him his breakfast beer.
“You made it back alive. Now I really am impressed.”
“Ah also apparently have a catchphrase.” She opened her beer and casually rolled the cap into a compacted little ball with her unnatural strength. “And Ah think you were impressed before then.”
“Yeah. I was. Last night, especially.”
Rogue smirked, and said with light and airy sarcasm, “Ah never woulda guessed.”
Logan chuckled, and took a sip of his beer.
They both settled back quietly, people-watching as they ate.
Remy returned, obviously still looking for his prey, appeared puzzled and perhaps even irritated until he spotted Siryn sitting next to Jubilee. He did pause as he passed Logan and Rogue sitting at the bar. “Beer for breakfast?” he questioned, showing a hint of disgust.
“Ah didn’ say anything when you had bourbon with your pancakes,” Rogue countered.
Remy’s brow furrowed. “But that’s pancakes.”
Rogue arched an eyebrow at him, obviously unimpressed by his logic. “Beer goes with anything except pancakes, in my opinion.”
“No accountin’ for taste, I suppose.” He turned to Logan. “No ‘ffense, mon ami,” he added, a mocking smirk gracing his expression before he sauntered off to join the madness of the junior team’s table.
Logan’s eyebrows raised. “Did he just-”
“Yeah. He’s not bad at snarky banter now an’ then. He’s better at it in French, though.”
Logan snorted, shaking his head, but smirked a bit when Remy squeezed his way in to sit next to Siryn. “She speaks French, y’know. Shocked the Hell out of him, early after he joined up, when he tried to say something under his breath and she ripped him a new one over it, in the language. Dunno what it was about, but it sounded...colorful.”
Rogue chuckled quietly.
“You got any more work today?”
Rogue took a deep breath and exhaled, swallowing her bite of bacon. “Not ‘til after the news conference. Not much left to do before that but nitpick neurotically at stuff that’s doin’ fine enough on its own.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes as much as it should have, and Logan could tell that she was beginning to run haggard, and it wasn’t just the lack of sleep; it was what she was doing instead of sleeping and what a toll it was taking to keep herself from reacting to it.
He’d been there before. “It’s gettin’ to ya.”
Rogue’s expression abruptly closed and she looked away. “It’s just a little raw, is all. I’m still raw from that cage,” she said quietly, but with cold conviction. The brief visit back to a militant mindset felt like having cooling ointment put on a burn. “Plus Ah haven’t had the chances you have, to go kill all of ‘em.” Her eyes darkened considerably, but there was heat in it that seemed to energize her somewhat. “Not yet, Ah haven’t.” She took a pull of beer.
“Keepin’ track of ‘em, though?”
“Damn straight, Ah am.”
“Let me know if I can join you when you get the chance to go after ‘em.” He didn’t ask to help; she didn’t need help, but he wanted to cause them pain, too.
She smiled a little, showing her teeth, but it did not reach her eyes, which were still remained, at least for a few moments, hard and dead-looking as only war can make them. “We’ll see, Sugah. Thanks.” Her eyes did lighten a bit when she looked at him.
Logan’s fingers traced her spine. “You should sleep, before the speech.”
Rogue nodded, setting her fork down. “Ah know. Ah planned on it.” She sighed a little. “This is gonna be a long day. It’s a waitin’ day. Ah hate those.”
Logan nodded. “Me too.”
They exchanged an empathetic look, and finished their breakfast in silence, and Logan followed her out into the hall. She let him lightly press her against the wall, his fingers brushing lightly along the lines of her face as her eyes fell shut. She looked weary, and that aged her more than anything else Logan had yet seen, but the strangeness of the tender gesture––and how much she actually liked it––made her brow crease just slightly, and the puzzlement made her look younger again.
“You’ve got freakishly high endurance for sleep deprivation, especially without a healing factor,” Logan said; it was as much a question as an observation.
Rogue smirked a little. “Ah like that you’re observant,” she murmured sincerely, and opened her eyes. “Ah’ve gotten used to nightmares worse than yours Logan, startin’ back when Ah was more fragile. That fragility got me int’ the habit of missin’ a lotta sleep. My mutation’s all about adaptation, so it makes sense that Ah was able to adjust to it. Ah think day eight has proven to be my limit, though, without absorbin’ anyone.” She shrugged.
Logan nodded, understanding; although, it did give him an idea. He gently tugged her away from the wall by her wrist. “C’mon.” He was relieved when she followed. He took her into the main TV room, which was empty for now. In several hours, it would be full of nervous mutants watching the presidential news conference, but it was currently quiet. Logan sprawled on the couch and tugged Rogue so she landed in his lap. “Sleep here.”
Her eyebrows raised a little, and she almost hesitated on instinct, but she was honestly curious, and she had always been a bit of an addict when it came to new experiences, be they aesthetic, sensual, or insanely risky. She rested her head on Logan’s shoulder and lay down, her body settling along his, her weight half on him and half on the couch. Her muscles twitched and tensed instinctively when he wrapped an arm around her waist, but his scent and the sounds of his breathing calmed her, and she slowly shut her eyes as the tension began slowly draining from her body. It felt utterly foreign to her, to fall asleep without being secure in how alone she was, how out of reach or even how prepared she was to rise at the slightest hint of someone else’s presence. Alone meant safe, and all of Rogue’s most deeply-ingrained instincts told her so. But she felt good here, and warm. She wasn’t even unnerved by the realization that she really trusted Logan this much.
“Thank you,” she murmured softly, and felt his arm tighten momentarily to give her a reassuring squeeze. She purred, very quietly. It got softer as she got closer to sleep.
Logan shut his eyes as her breathing slowed, although he opened them briefly when one of her hands moved instinctively to clutch her dogtag; she was only half-conscious by then, but something about the gesture struck a chord in him. She shifted a little, so her forehead rested against his neck and she was a little more curled up: something else about her that was cat-like. Then, at last, she fell fully asleep, going bonelessly relaxed even as her grip tightened a little around her dogtag.
Logan relaxed too, listening to her breathing, and the movements of people throughout the mansion. He’d made this offer on impulse, but it felt right, strangely: providing her with something It was comfortable here, and he found himself dozing lightly, waking up when people walked through any nearby halls. He could hear nervous talks about politics as he drifted in and out. Within about an hour he woke as he felt Rogue’s muscles tense, and her heartbeat start racing. Her breathing sped just slightly, but even in dreams she was used to keeping it even. She smelled of anger and a grimace flickered across her features.
Surprising himself somewhat, Logan stroked her hair and whispered her name in her ear: once, then twice. She calmed slowly, and shifted her position a little, her breathing deepening so that she took in his scent, before her body relaxed again.
It was shortly after that when Scott walked in, glancing at them as he settled in a nearby chair, then doing a perfect double-take and becoming very still as he realized quite what he was seeing on the couch.
Logan raised his eyebrows in a way that silently challenged: You got a problem, Bub?
Scott slowly leaned back in his chair, still staring. He was remembering the way Rogue had flinched the first night she stayed at the mansion, and the look on her face when it happened, and then the colder and more dangerous look that she gave him shortly afterward. The Fearless Leader was rather understandably shocked, seeing her now curled up and sleeping soundly on top of Logan, and the pair of them looking rather like cats in a sunbeam––assuming, of course, that the cats in question were panthers.
Finally, in the back of his head, Scott found the answer: Monsters of a feather.... It all made sense, and really, wasn’t very strange at all. Not after what he had seen Logan do on missions. Not after seeing Rogue fight sentinels, and not after seeing her in the Danger Room sim calmly snapping a man’s neck. He nodded lightly at Logan, and turned on the TV, making sure that the volume was very low.
Rogue stirred, but did not wake. Logan’s fingers stroked her waist as Scott watched the news, his face stern and serious as people speculated about international relations with Genosha.
Rogue adjusted to the sound of the TV relatively quickly. Logan suspected that it was a skill she had picked up that allowed her to sleep in that bunker of hers surrounded by the low rumble and constant electronic hum of her machines.
After a while, on the third or fourth batch of commercials, Scott turned the volume down further and asked, “Do you trust her?”
Logan rolled his eyes and gestured at himself and Rogue with his free hand.
“Let me rephrase: can we trust her––the X-men?”
“As much as you can trust me,” Logan said quietly.
Scott ruminated on this. After a long pause, he stood up. “Okay,” he said finally, putting the remote in Logan’s free hand on his way out of the room. From the doorway, Scott added, “But for the record: I’d prefer it if she’d stop calling me ‘boy’.”
Logan only smirked. “No promises,” he muttered, and changed the channel.
Hours later, Rogue was still adrift, and quite thoroughly so. When Logan finally woke her, shaking her shoulder lightly and calling her (Rogue, not Marie this time) she instinctively flipped out a bit. Her muscles tensed and she pushed herself upright, eyes wild and a low, perplexed growl escaping her throat. It took her a moment to realize that she had pinned Logan’s wrists over his head. She raised her eyebrows. “Oh. Sorry, Logan,” she said, but she sounded rather amused.
Logan was glad he’d waited until no one was around before trying to wake Rogue. “Good morning to you, too, Darlin’.” He sounded sarcastic. He didn’t bother to struggle after his initial instinctive tug; she was stronger than him. And he thought there was something entertaining about the incongruity of her size and appearance versus his own.
Rogue’s amusement took on a slightly wicked form. “Do ya really mind, Sugah?” she asked, giving a slow grind of her hips.
Logan hissed softly through his teeth. “Admittedly, it might be growin’ on me.”
“Oh, an innuendo there would just be too easy,” Rogue countered, releasing his wrists and holding herself up by folding her arms and resting them against his chest. She looked around for a clock. “What time is it?”
“Dinner.”
Rogue’s lips formed a thoughtful moue. “Hmm. Ah suppose that means we should go get food, but that involves gettin’ up.” She sounded less than thrilled with this notion.
Logan smirked. “I’ll make it up to you,” he rumbled wickedly.
Rogue’s eyes lit up and she smirked back. “Will ya now?”
His hands settled on her hips and slid up along her sides and her lower back. “Yeah.”
She bit her lip, dragging it between her lip slowly as she tilted her head slightly to one side, looking wickedly contemplative. “Guess Ah’ll be gettin’ up, then.” She unfolded her arms, placing splayed hands on Logan’s chest as she slid her legs off the couch and planted her feet; in the process, she bent forward enough that he could see down the front of her tank top, to the dog tag nestled between her pale breasts. Then she stepped back, standing upright, and headed for the kitchen. Logan followed her, a mischievous smirk on his lips.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000