Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made by this work.

"Oh Roguey!" Jubilee called from the hall.

Rogue, Marie to her friends, looked up in irritation from her latest college application. Truth be told that wasn't the reason she was irritated, but it was a welcome enough distraction as she looked up to her dorm door. Jubilee stood in the doorway grinning, her hands behind her back wearing some ensemble of blues and yellows, a blue T with a pastel yellow shirt with the sleeves rolled up and denim shorts cut dangerously short. Wondering what she was doing there, Rogue tried to shrug it all off and get back to her latest application.

"Pfft, jeez, you break up with Bobby cause he's totally got a thing for older women and you get down in the dumps. Well, I got your birthday gift right here in hand." Jubilee said as she invited herself in.

"Emma ain't that much older..." Rogue argued.

"Dude, she's like...almost thirty. Break out the metamucil." Jubilee said, jumping up onto the bed to start bouncing.

"I just made that." Rogue growled.

"What? I'm not wearing shoes or nothing?" Jubilee asked, preforming a midair somersault to land with the mattress crashing through the frame.

"You just broke my bed..." Rogue said oddly quiet staring at her ruined mattress.

"That's what ya get for buyin' Ikea." Jubilee shrugged off.

"I didn't buy it! It was here when I got here!" Rogue yelled, stalking from her desk to glare down at her friend as she tried to pull herself free.

"Cool, well then that means ya got a reason to go buy a new one, hey, we can go shopping after I give you your gift!" Jubilee cheered, tumbling to the floor out of the ruined bed.

"Gift, ya can start buy buyin' me a new bed!" Rogue yelled.

"Huh? Please, anything that can't handle that couldn't handle any decent banging. Ya should thank me, how horrible would it be if you got your groove thang going on and the bed broke, major buzz kill. Trust me, your O face would be an instant MG. Oh and way I hear it, majority of penile injuries are caused in love makin', whoever ya shag will be thanking me." Jubilee rambled, waving off the broken bed.

Wondering how her friend always did it, always managing to change the subject of ones anger so flawlessly to another source that it left them feeling awkward to even talk about it. Rogue tried to hold onto her irritation by grinding her teeth and remembering all this 'gift' talk that had been thrown around. Looking for her friend, she found Jubilee already sitting at the desk slipping in a little sd card to her laptop.

"Oh hey, wanna close the door. Totally nsfw stuff on here, they got me on the hook for another month...I'm not doing any more detention." Jubilee said rather nonchalantly.

Slamming the door shut she stalked to the desk to see what her guest of sorts was up to, fiddling to pull open a folder that looked like something she'd see when she pulled pictures off her camera. Clicking on the first, an image of the lake came up looking like it had been down by the boathouse, Jubilee just hitting the slide show option.

"Please tell me ya don't think your amateur photography is a gift worth breaking my bed..." Rogue hissed, remembering the last time she'd been subjected to a similar show.

"Oh trust me, you're gonna love this one. Here's where it gets good." Jubilee said with a shit eating grin.

The photos started to transition out into the very depths of the forest, pictures of flowers, rotten stumps and spider webs taken along the way. Fuzzy at first, the images zoomed in on something that had her jaw drop in shock. Staring at the scene that grew closer with every snap, she felt her heart beating all the faster until it skipped a beat with how crisp and clear the latest was.

"Yeah, totally upped the quality before that one. So, happy birthday even if it isn't for like two more months." Jubilee chirped.

Logan stood before her naked as the day he was born, his flesh taught and tight with the muscles toying with her womanly bits. The scene slowly changed to slow him at different angles as he held a pose, the reason for it scene as he stood before Piotr behind a canvas. A picture came of the work cast in oil pigments and paints, Logan looking so much like a Greek god frozen in marble with a sword clutched in his hand.

"Jubes...that's, that's..." Rogue sputtered.

"A hunk of 100% Grade A Canadian Beef." Jubilee answered.

"He's, I mean...oh my..." Rogue whispered, staring at the most recent close up taken that had fallen out of bounds of any boxing match.

"Ya know, if Bobby's goin' after older women, aboot fair ya go after some older men eh?" Jubilee said working a faux Canadian accent.

"I, I couldn't...he's..." Rogue started, whatever she had been thinking cast off as she stared at the toned and firm buttocks before her.

"I rest my case." Jubilee said as if she were in court.

"How did you take these without him knowing?" Rogue asked in shock.

"Ya know when they say I can run faster scared than they can mad?" Jubilee asked, Rogue just shaking her head in complete confusion.

"Well, it means he knows...and...that's him coming up the stairs." Jubilee said slamming the laptop shut and taking the sd card out quickly at the thunder sounding out in the hall.

The door was thrown open with Logan barging through with his nostrils flaring and breath coming hard and ragged, his face flushed and his skin glistening. Wearing only his jeans, Rogue stared at him wide eyed as those images were brought to life, stripping away the denim to easily imagine what lay beneath.

"Ya got three seconds to hand over that card kid, or I swear I ain't gonna be held responsible." Logan growled at Jubilee, his teeth grinding and his jaw clenched tight.

"Ya know what's the difference between you and me, Wolvie?" Jubilee asked, not the least bit scared as she worked his hated nickname.

"What?" Logan asked tightly.

"I plan ahead." Jubilee said with a huge grin, hands reaching through the floor to pull her through as she gave a salute.

"Son of a bit...!" Logan yelled, biting his tongue realizing he was still in the school.

Left alone in her room, her bed ruined and her closest friend out for blood, Rogue settled down at her desk and tried to not meet his gaze. Rubbing his eyes and walking off to the window, he threw it open to the warm spring day and settled down on the frame to light up a cigar. The scent carried and she took a breath of it, enjoying it and the musky aroma that filled her room with his sweaty self sitting there struggling for calm.

"Ya can really pick friends ya know that..." Logan said, blowing smoke out into the breeze.

"I think I pick some good friends." Rogue argued.

Logan turned on her with his infamous eyebrow raised in question that only set her heart fluttering, wondering how she ever only looked at him as a friend, knowing she'd never be able to do so again after seeing those pictures. She just wanted to run her fingers over his hardened flesh and dig her nails in, something she'd been denied for so long until she'd taken the cure. His words came back to her, that she better not be doing it over some boy. She hadn't, she'd done it for herself so that someday she could find a man. Staring at him as he sat in her window so casual, dressed in nothing more than his jeans, she thought she just might have found one in the last place she'd have gone looking.

"Guessin' she showed 'em ta ya?" Logan asked.

"She...may have shown me something, I don't believe I'm at liberty ta discuss what I may or may not have scene." Rogue said a touch haughtily, trying to find her dignity.

"Any chance ya could forget seein' them?" Logan asked, still not looking at her.

"Not a chance in hell." Rogue spat, opening her laptop up to start back on her college application.

"I could always ask that Emma broad ta mind wipe ya if ya want." Logan asked again.

"Even less of a chance, I mean really Logan..." Rogue growled, glaring at him.

Turning to regard her with a smirk with his eyes full if mischief, he flicked his ash out the window and stubbed out his cigar against his tongue with a pained look. Clenching the snuffed stogie in teeth, he slipped from her window and walked off to her desk to lean over and look to her application. So near, all she could smell was him and everything that made him suddenly so alluring, biting her bottom lip to hastily delete the latest line she had fouled up.

"Ya just applyin' ta local colleges?" Logan asked.

"Maybe." Rogue replied, starting to type away to correct her mistake.

"Why's that?" Logan asked, his hand finding a place on her shoulder to look about her desk to all the photos that littered the wall.

"I wanted ta be close ta home..." Rogue answered and wondered at why her heart was hammering.

Logan rubbed her shoulder and gave her a gentle pat to her back, never one to be scared to touch her before nor now after everything they'd been through in the time they'd known another Sitting down on her desk he looked to her eyes and held her in his own, surprisingly intense as he sat there. Reaching a finger out to trail down her cheek and tweak her nose playfully, he looked out the window to the sunny day they enjoyed.

"Ya know what, ya promise me ya don't go limitin' yourself...and I'll promise always to head on over anytime ya get homesick? Deal?" Logan asked, his hand offered to her.

Looking to his bare flesh, something she had been afraid of for so long, she took it in her own and felt how nice it felt. Shaken once, his hand squeezing hers gently, their grip eased and fell apart with their fingers slipping from another. Raising her hand to her lips, she wondered at the things she was feeling so suddenly, staring down unseeing to her application that felt so meaningless then.

"If ya'll excuse me Darlin', I got someone I gotta go have a chat with a peepin' tomboy as it were, and her accomplice." Logan said, ambling off to the door.

Left alone in her room, Rogue took a calming breath and tried to find her train of thought with her application as everything he they had just sworn weighed on her. Hissing in frustration, she closed the entire window figuring what was one more local college to the handful she'd applied to. Thinking to check in on her email as she gathered her wits, she found a curious one sitting there from a girl who now found herself hunted by the most relentless man she knew. Opening it, she stared at the attachment that had been labelled so simply, happybirthday dot zip.

"Sonuvagun..." Rogue whispered as she opened it up, finding those scandalous pictures for her enjoyment.

"For your enjoyment and to blackmail him not to kill me. I didn't tell him who, just that copies were made. That's the difference, girl. Always plan ahead." Jubilee's message read.

Giggling at the absurdity of it all, Rogue heard fireworks and screams out on the lawn, rushing to her window to look out. There playing a game of keep away with the flimsy little piece of plastic, Jubilee and Kitty danced and dodged out of reach of Logan in a children's game with an adult twist. Watching until they broke off out into the woods beyond sight, she enjoyed the game played between friends and enjoyed the vision of one in a new light. Settling back at her desk, she remembered the promise she had made and lived up to her end as she searched for the first out of state school to apply to knowing he'd be there when she'd need him, just as he always had been.

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