Spend all your time waiting
for that second chance
for a break that would make it okay
there's always one reason
to feel not good enough
and it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
oh beautiful release
memory seeps from my veins
let me be empty
and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight
in the arms of an angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you fear
you are pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you're in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort there
-Sarah Maclachlan "Angel"
It had been five months. Five months and three days, and he was standing in the pouring rain next to a payphone in Westchester, New York, shivering with something that wasn't quite cold.
Five months and three days, the three days being the time it took him to get back to Westchester after the five months proved to be more pain than good, and more loss than gain.
The pay phone was on Fifty-third Street, and that seemed like an omen. He wasn't sure if it was a good one or a bad one until she got on the phone and said his name in her breathy voice that thrilled across his nerves.
That's when he started shaking. And she could hear it, he was almost sure, so when she found out that he was only a few miles away, she told him to stay right there and she hung up the phone.
The car was beat up and old, but in good repair like everything that ever came out of Charles Xavier's School for the Gifted with the possible exception of the girl inside it. She was beat up and young and looked like she'd seen ten years in the past five months, and when she crawled out of the car and walked towards him he could only watch as the rain plastered her hair to her face and made the white and brown look gray and black.
She stared at him from a few safe feet away. "Are you okay, Logan?"
Okay. He was so far from okay that he couldn't in good conscience tell a young girl about it. He couldn't and shouldn't--but nothing he had done in the past five months had been what he could and should have done.
"No." The word was hard enough to say, but he did and it decided something inside her apparently because she closed the space between them and wrapped thin arms around him.
And even though the arms around him and the body against him were part of what wasn't okay, he couldn't help the way he responded, the way his own arms slid around her and his hand tangled almost desperately in her shirt. The way he almost cried when she tried to pull away slightly.
The ageless eyes looked worried in the young face, and it was with a guilty shock that he realized she hadn't changed at all--not at all in the last five months, and he was looking at a young woman with scars as deep as his own. And yet for some reason he had run to her, had known that the only cure for him was her, despite the scars they shared.
But when she turned the car around and headed towards the school, he reached over and threw the car into park and ignored her startled exclamation as they jerked to a stop. "Not there, please--I can't go there, Marie."
She looked at him for a few moments and then she turned the car around and drove. She drove for a long time, and neither of them said anything as he watched her squint through the downpour at the road, the dirty wipers leaving streaks of mud on the windshield that the rain couldn't quite wash away.
Finally she pulled over and tapped one gloved finger against the plastic casing that housed the gas gauge. "I'm going to run out, Logan."
"Can--" It was harder than it should have been to form the words, and his voice cracked as he finished the sentence in a rush. "Can you take me to a hotel?"
The ageless eyes stared at him for a while, dark and mysterious, and then she pulled away from the curb again and turned left, driving out of the dark alleys into the well lit section of town, the one with the hotels he'd never think of staying in.
He tried to protest, but she shook her head and left him in the car and went in to get a key, and when she came back out he saw her slipping a credit card back into her wallet and he felt even more guilty because she was young and hurt as much as him--and she was taking care of him.
She drove around to a parking spot but it was raining even worse by the time they got there, and when she pulled him stumbling through the doors and into the clean hotel room he stood by the door, dripping on the carpet and shivering.
"Marie--"
"Shhh." She disappeared into the bathroom and came out with a towel in her hands that she held out to him before slipping into the bathroom again. She shut the door softly and he sank into a chair as he listened to the little hair dryer humming softly. And it seemed strange to him, because he'd never been in a hotel room where they gave you a hair dryer before.
He was still wet and shivering five minutes later when she reappeared, and the worry in her eyes was strong as she walked across the room and tugged her gloves up self-consciously. "Logan, are you--"
But she couldn't ask if he was all right, because he'd already said he wasn't and he was glad. Glad she didn't ask the question he didn't have the energy to answer more than once. Glad that she seemed too nervous to talk, so she caught the towel up in her hands and brought it up to his face. Glad that she.
His breath caught in his throat as he felt the cloth of the towel drag down the side of his face, her body warm and close as he let his eyes slide shut under the gentle caress. He could hear her breathing and it comforted him, the sound of her steady, even breath. Comforted him as much as the even beat of her heart.
"What's happened to you, Logan?" she whispered as the towel ran down his neck and back up to his head, rubbing slowly against his hair.
And that was the problem. He just didn't know.
"I--" His voice didn't crack even though he expected it to. "I found out--" That he was a freak of nature. That he'd been alive over eighty years by the time she'd been born. That he was a killer. That he was dark and horrible and the darkest thing he'd ever done had been to throw away the little honor he thought he'd had. To throw it away for a pair of eyes that saw through him in a way that aroused feral hunger in the deepest parts of his body.
The towel fell to the floor and he nearly gasped as her hands wrapped around the back of his head, pulling him forwards until his face rested against her stomach. Her hands slid through his hair, down his shoulders and back, and her voice murmured brokenly, words of comfort that made no sense.
That was when he realized that his shoulders were heaving with sobs that he couldn't quite give voice to, shaking with pain that was too deep for tears. And she was touching him, soothing him with soft words and softer caresses.
He needed more. God he needed more but he couldn't take it.
"Sorry," he finally choked out, and when he managed to get his hands up to rest on her hips, he was proud that he pushed her back slightly. "I just--"
"You hurt." She smiled slightly and he watched in fascination as the wet fabric of her shirts parted and stretched over her skin as she bent down to pick the towel up off of the floor. "It's okay, Logan. The Professor can make it--"
"No." His hands caught her hips again and caused her to still, her eyes fixed on his face. "Don't tell them I'm back yet. Let me--let me have a day to--" He shrugged, and he prayed she'd read what he needed to her in the gesture, prayed she'd understand that he wasn't ready to see them--that he was only ready to see her.
"That's fine." Her voice was slightly hesitant, and he could hear the breathing that had been so steady, and it was slightly ragged. Her gloved hands covered his at her hips, and she started to pull his hands away slightly. "I should--"
Go. She was going to say that she should go, and he could feel the cold rushing in to fill the places she had made warm with her presence. He had come back because he loved her and needed her and didn't want to be far away no matter how wrong and dirty it was--and she was going to leave him alone in a hotel room. Alone like he'd been in so many hotel rooms before, and when she was gone the clean white sheets and the wide bed with its expensive comforters would mean nothing--it would be just another in a long line of beds that weren't his own.
"I'll be back tomorrow--"
His hands clenched around her waist and he buried his face in her shirt again, trying not to sound desperate. Trying not to sound needy. "Stay?"
He heard her draw in a strangled breath, heard her heartbeat jack up. "Logan, I--they'll be--" Her hands slid up to his head and he felt her bury her face in his hair. "It's not right, Logan. Not right for me to--you're not yourself. You're hurting--"
He stopped breathing at the same time she did.
He clenched his hands tighter as she tried to break away.
"What do you mean?" The delicate flush in her face flooded his veins with warmth.
"Logan, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--" Her eyes wouldn't meet his and he pressed his head tighter against her body so he could hear the thudding of her heart.
"I came back for you."
Everything stopped. Everything except for his hands, which couldn't quite stop the slow, hesitant caresses of his fingers over her shirt. Because her skin was warm even though the damp fabric of her shirt was cold.
"You didn't." She sounded like she was begging him for affirmation. "You--you came back for help--for--"
"You."
And the moan that spilled from her lips as she sank to the floor held nothing of submission and everything of someone trying to fight their destiny.
It surprised him, then, when she turned eyes on him full of anger. "Why do you think it's okay to play with me, Logan?" She wrapped her arms around herself and suddenly he realized that even though her hair was mostly dry, her clothing was wet and she had to be freezing.
He wanted to pull her into his arms and pull her up against his skin until her own was warm and she wasn't shaking anymore--but he knew it was impossible. He knew it and he hated it--but he couldn't hate her.
"I'm not playing." He couldn't keep his hands off of her, so he reached out to trace the line of her arm. "I don't play, Marie. I don't play."
His heart lurched as she jerked back, a look of betrayal in her eyes. "But you hurt, Logan. You--you don't know what you're saying. You don't--"
He reached for her again, and this time he pulled her against his body. "I hurt, Marie. Because I need you. I--" Her body moved against his and he had to stifle a groan as his arms tightened. "I always know what I'm saying, Marie. I always know exactly what I'm saying."
Her moan was softer, but when she pushed back this time it was to frame his face with her hands. "Logan--I have to ask you a question."
So close. He had been lost and she found him and now she was so close--so close to surrender. And he needed her surrender. He needed her to say that she was his so that he wouldn't feel guilty for thinking that she was. For knowing it. "Ask."
"Why me?" Her eyes were wide and confused and for a moment he stopped to think about what he was doing. She was young and confused and had known him for a week and he expected her to understand the kind of animal need that had driven him back to her after five months of running away.
"Because you--" His hand flew out to the side and he winced as the claws slid out.
Her eyes slid down his arm like a caress, and her gloved hand followed slowly, her fingers sliding over his knuckles and touching the beginning of the cool metal. It made his body tighten, the innocent curiosity and the way that she touched him, unafraid.
"Because you're not afraid of me." Her eyes flew back to his and she jumped slightly when he let the metal slide back away, twisting his hands slightly to twine his fingers with hers. "I think I could love you for that."
Her eyes were wide and unfathomable. "I don't know what about me is worth being loved," she whispered, and it was the closest thing to surrender he'd ever seen when she closed her eyes and leaned into him. "Even if it's inside me--no one can get to it. No one can get past my skin."
He made his voice soft and he spoke the words in her ear, because something inside of him had shifted and now he was on firm ground again--now he knew what he was doing. "I can."
And as soon as he was certain--or maybe because he was--doubts flooded her. "Logan, it will never work."
He could have responded in words, but he'd already said more about his feelings than he ever remembered wanting or needing to say before in his life, however much of it there was to remember.
"So?"
Her head snapped around so quickly that wet hair slapped against his cheek, stinging a little. "What do you mean?"
He found her eyes with his own and held them. "So what? It will never work. You know by now that things usually don't work. You want to just curl up and die because you're afraid of something not working?"
And the look in her eyes told him yes--yes she'd wanted to curl up and die because it was safer, it was easier than admitting that nothing was perfect, and knowing that she would have to settle for something that was less than a perfect dream.
"Why me?" she said again, and it was her trembling voice that told him she was his--but she still didn't know it.
And so he kissed her.
Later, lying on the bed with limbs too heavy to move and a warm back pressed tightly to his side, he thought about the pain of her skin combined with the pleasure of her lips and the passion he'd tasted before she had shoved him away, stark terror for his well being showing plainly on his face.
So few words had been exchanged as he'd dragged himself into the clean, unruffled bed. So few words, but the ones that mattered, the ones that he needed to hear--
"I understand." Muttered as she curled next to him, her hands still shaking as she rubbed slowly at her temples.
"I know you do." Mumbled as he managed to wrap an arm tightly around her waist.
There was nothing of perfection in their union but she understood what he had known.
There didn't need to be.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
Setting: Five months post movie. Warnings: This is smarmy, plotless Logan/Rogue. I don't even attempt to hide it by giving them some great larger meaning in life--they just kinda needed some love. Dedication: Caeryn and Shaz, who mean lots to me as they well know. Donna, the other half of my brain, for being the other half of my brain. Nacey and Gowdie and Misty and Jengrrrl and Kara for being my chatting buddies. And I'd like to thank the academy.