A/N: Written for the Fall Fandom Free for All over on LiveJournal. This was for a prompt by moirariordan, who wanted Rogue/Logan and traveling, preferably to Japan.
All The Rage
She crashed the bike just over the state line, and sat in the mud for an hour and a half, looking up and down the road. She was thoroughly wet and miserable when he showed up, driving uncharacteristically slowly, as though practicing to be gentle.
The smoke from his cigar bloomed out into the cold air. He slammed the door and advanced toward her, hands in pockets. Surveyed the damage, the pinwheeled bike, the muddy young woman. Raised one eyebrow.
"Outta gas?" he inquired, and the tension eased out of her so slowly, she didn't even notice. She leaned forward, clutched her hands together.
"Never." And that was true, for the most part; she might not known how to drive it all that well, but she knew to keep an eye on the gas gauge.
His teeth were a sharp white gleam behind his cigar, firmly clenched. "Cyclops is gonna kill you."
"Probably," she admitted, though at the moment she couldn't bring herself to be worried.
Then he was next to her, lifting the bike free of the mud, kicking the tires, swiveling the handlebars.
"Can you fix it?"
"Oh, it'll live to have you crash it another day," he said. "But you don't want to ride it on a day like this anyhow. Do you?"
"No," said Rogue. "I'd rather ride in a truck, actually."
"You and the bike both," he said, offered her a hand up out of the mud. Her gloves were messy, a slick reddish brown as though the earth was bleeding. He shook his head at her.
"Your aim must be terrible. Don't tell me you didn't see that ditch coming at you."
"I was distracted," she said, quietly. "I didn't mean to—"
"Nobody means to wreck a motorcycle, unless they're terminally stupid," he snapped gruffly, and heaved the maligned bike into the back of the truck. "Come on."
She stood staring at him blankly for a minute, disbelieving, and he growled a little, impatiently, under his breath; put a hand on either side of her waist and hoisted her into the back of the truck with the bike.
"But I—" she said.
He slammed the tailgate on the rest of the sentence, pointed the cigar at her, grinned briefly, and returned to the driver's side.
He took some other road. She didn't recognize it.
When he stopped at last— it felt like forever, though it was really only about half an hour— and motioned for her to get in the cab, she hustled.
"Don't you ever wonder," he said as she clambered in, "why they always send me after you?"
"No," said Rogue, and stripped off her gloves to stick her bare hands under the heater vents. He grumbled wordlessly and started up again. "Where are we going?"
"Where were you going?" he contradicted.
She was quiet for a minute, eyes mesmerized by the vents. She thought she could almost see the heat, coming out in waves. "Don't know. Away." She shrugged.
He leaned forward, hands tight on the wheel, and scrutinized the sky.
"In that case, we're headed the wrong direction."
She took off her coat and spread it over her lap. Pulled down her sleeves, double checked her buttons, rubbed at her chin. Glanced at her reflection in the cracked mirror on the underside of the visor. By the time she was done and settled, warm hands now in her lap, she had no idea where she was.
She grinned indiscriminately at the unfamiliar road, at the rattling truck, at him.
"So where are you going, Logan?"
He checked the sky again, shrugged, chewed on his cigar. "A tank of gas is like an investment in the future. Let's see how far we can get."
She glanced through the back window. "Should we drop the bike off somewhere?"
He doesn't even bother to really answer that one, just eyes her for a minute. A smile edged back onto her face, settled in.
"You know, eventually we're going to reach an ocean, one way or another. What are we going to do then?"
He shrugged.
"They have ways around oceans."
The airport was crowded.
"And how, exactly are we supposed to pay for that?" Rogue asked, folding her arms.
He flourished a credit card at her, with a magician's hand gesture.
"Where did you get that?"
"They told me to cheer you up," he said, and shrugged. "So I'm cheering you up. Two for Japan," he told the girl behind the counter. She let loose with a string of optional cities— Tokoname, Narita, Toyonaka, Izumisano — that left him momentarily disconcerted. "Which one has the best food?"
Rogue tugged at his sleeve. "I thought they wanted you to bring me home."
"Once we get rid of your wanderlust, that's exactly what I'll do. But I don't feel like chasing after you again. What was the second one?"
"Narita," said the girl.
"Leaving when?"
"In an hour."
"We'll take it," said Wolverine decisively, as though buying the city itself. He swiped the card through the machine, eyed the screen skeptically.
"Why Japan?" Rogue wanted to know.
"You got a problem with Japan?"
"No." She readjusted the strap on her pack. "We need passports, stuff like that."
"Taken care of."
The idea that he had foreseen this contingency, that he had planned all this out, made her slightly vertiginous. It also made her smile.
"How are you going to get through security?" She leaned close to hiss this at him. He paused for a moment.
"We'll break that barrier when we come to it," he said, evenly, and grinned. "It's been a long time since I was on a regular plane. I kind of miss it."
"Perverse," said Rogue.
"You know it," said Wolverine.
His cigar was ended, cold, kaput. He'd run out of matches. He wasn't supposed to be smoking anyhow.
"If we crash, I'd probably die," said Rogue, looking out the window. "But would you?"
He had no idea. He didn't even particularly want to find out.
"So why were you running?"
There were all sorts of answers she could give to that question. Why not? for one. Why not run, when you feel surrounded by brick walls, when you get hit with that feeling that no one actually cares, when your room is a cage? When Bobby is friendly but nothing more, when your world begins and ends with gloved fingertips, when everyone is flat and implacable and untouchable?
When she had a hunch that the man beside her would be sent after her, because he had been before, why wouldn't she run?
But it all boiled down to one word, in the end.
"Drama," she said, and smiled at him.
"Can we take a rickshaw?" she asked. "Can we rent bicycles?"
"Let's take a bus."
"But there's busses everywhere. You can't get a rickshaw in New York."
"Let's take a bus."
"Look at those taxis! They're striped!"
"Let's," said Wolverine, with infinite patience, "take a bus."
Message to C. Xavier, Xavier Institute, North Salem
Caught up with escapee. Taking scenic route home. Don't wait up.
L.
When they turned the TV off, it was very quiet in the hotel room, but surprisingly bright. They were high up in the building, and a million neon lights were vying for entry through the window.
Before she could think better of it, she said, "Logan?"
"Hmm."
"Thank you for coming after me."
"Sure thing, kid." He sounded sleepy. She wondered if he was going to have nightmares; wondered if he tried to stay awake, to keep that from happening.
"What do you think they're doing? Back home?"
"Sleeping," he muttered. She shook her head.
"Time difference. They'll be wide awake."
"Fine," he grumbled, and flipped over in his bed, onto his back. She could see the lights shining off his eyes; he wasn't as tired as he pretended to be. The room was small, and she thought if she reached out, and if he reached out, they could easily touch across the gap.
Her pillow was hard as a rock. She turned on her side, facing him, and punched it a few times.
"Violent."
"Yeah, well, at least it's just a pillow." She settled down again. He was looking at her, the light full on her face, dappling her, turning her to stained-glass. "You asked me if I ever wondered why they send you after me," she said.
"And you said no."
"Yeah. But do you wonder?" She could have told him why. It was because whatever Rogue was doing— running, falling, killing, dying— Logan was the only one who could be certain of catching her. She wanted him to know this. Wanted him to know it without having to be told. Wanted the warm certainty of their mutual knowledge to fill the gaps that being alone had created.
"Yeah," said Wolverine, finally. "I wonder what they're thinking, giving me a credit card and telling me to find you and cheer you up."
"Probably not Japan."
"Well," he said, softly this time, "wouldn't want to be predictable, now, huh?"
She held his eyes for so long she thought she'd go blind; but he was up out of bed with an almost violent suddenness, advanced on the window and swept the curtains closed. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness he was in bed again, nothing but a blanket with a dark head poking out of the top, back to her.
She had a dream about the motorcycle. They were riding it, both of them, and though she thought he may have been driving first, at some point they switched and he was guiding her. Trying to teach her to avoid ditches, he said, probably.
The road was very straight, long, narrow. As far as she could tell there was no end to it. She held fast to the handlebars, clenching her fingers over them at first, then easing up gradually as she grew used to the motion. He was a solid warmth at her back, arms around her waist, mouth in her hair. His fingers curled momentarily upwards and the bike wavered; his hands covered hers on the grips, straightened out their course. She wasn't wearing her gloves, and she opened her mouth to tell him to let her go before he was hurt; but he held on tighter, and nothing was happening. Not to him, anyway, but the longer he held on, the harder she ached. His skin was rough, his hands cracked from cold, chapped from the wind. He steered her straight. His mouth was warm.
She was telling him that she was bound to hit a ditch if he kept doing that, when a noise from the real Logan, the non-dream Logan, woke her up. She sat up with a profound sense of regret, glanced over to where he was thrashing slightly under the bedcovers. Wary of how this had ended last time, she got out of bed and approached him.
Called his name a few times and he sat up, suddenly, startling her a few steps backwards. He was panting, sweating, slowly getting a grip.
"Nightmare?" she asked, quietly.
"No," he said, and brought a trembling hand to his forehead. He didn't look at her, but eventually said, somewhat lamely, "I dreamed I fixed the motorcycle."
As much as she wanted to, it was impossible to get back to sleep after that.
"What do you think?" She pulled the brim of the hat down and gave him a seductive glance from beneath it, fluttering her eyelashes a little. "Good souvenir, right?"
"It'll be all the rage back home," said Wolverine, grinning. He'd bought some matches and smoke escaped him with every breath. "You're going to start a trend."
Rogue said nothing, only grinned and paid the vendor. The vendor plucked the money from her palm, grinned, thanked her in passable English. Her hand looked different and she thought for a moment she'd forgotten to put on her gloves; her heart nearly stopped cold in her chest.
But no, the gloves were on, barring her, keeping her from the world. She rubbed her hands together, to reassure herself. For the time being, this was what she had to work with.
Gloves, and a truly stunning hat.
"Are we going to be late for the plane?"
Wolverine shrugged. "Who cares? We'll catch the next one, if we are."
The idea was appealing; but the thought of going home was, surprisingly, more so. She took his hand and led him onwards, hurrying a little, step step step.
"Seatbelt light's on," said Logan in her ear, and before she fully registered what he was doing, he had buckled her in. "Pilot says there might be a little turbulence as we touch down."
The bottom of the world dropped out from beneath her feet. She came fully awake in a second, and grabbed for his arm. He let her hold on, as the plane steadied and began the descent.
She glanced out the window, then back to him— face calm, implacable, a little naked without the cigar in his mouth— then down to their arms, entwined. Encapsulated in sleeves, covered, coated. But somewhere beneath it all, the truth of their bones. A half-embrace, a holding on, a finished journey, skin to skin to skin.