So she had bought it.
The smell had intoxicated her first – she still had the tendrils of Logan's power left. Nothing but the suggestion of his sense of smell, teasing, wafting, light. Like a memory of sensitivity, a prickle.
And it smelled gorgeous. It felt gorgeous. Even without touch, she knew – it felt gorgeous. Spongy and somnolently heavy. Smooth, elastic. Cool at first, then a growing warmth. Firm. Substantial. Felt fragile 'til you pushed and plucked and grew to appreciate it: tough. And giving off those baked, alive odors with every stroke. The creak as you moved.
Leather. A loooong jacket.
Once she'd swung it round her shoulders, seen it fan out, once she'd heard the plish of her hair falling over the glimmering purple-black…
No, look, she didn't buy leather! She especially didn't buy something this—eep!—expensive, this selfish, this…unnecessary.
So…maybe she did.
Once she'd spied herself in the store mirror and seen a person who would buy a jacket like this, who would wear it with nonchalant, uh-yes?-what? grace, who would walk away with a toss and without a backwards glance…
Well, once that had happened, she'd had to buy it. And hide it. Very unconvincingly. In the bottom of a very large shopping bag.
Jubes, of course, had noticed. 'What you got there, Roguey?'
'Nothing.'
'Ooh, Rogue's all mysterious again,' Jubes had quipped, the others smiling tolerantly.
She felt like smacking Jubes. But it was good luck she was considered mysterious. There'd been some ribbing, some good-natured mocking at her expense, which she bore with less than good nature. But mercifully no disclosure.
Though it wasn't as if, she thought later, opening the bag and lifting the box lid with a kind of breathless drama, it was a big deal. Who cared if anyone knew? The owner of this jacket certainly wouldn't care.
And feeling stupid, she'd stuffed the jacket into the back of her closet behind her dorkiest sweaters and most ill-fitting track pants. An impulse every bit as strong as the one that made her purchase it in the first place.
She wasn't good at many things. She hadn't Jubilee's flare or fire. She hadn't Bobby's cool control. She hadn't Kitty's litheness, elasticity. She hadn't Jean's potential, or the Professor's grandiosity.
She hadn't Logan's anything.
She was small and not all that quick or strong, and her mutation wasn't useful until she was close. She couldn't control it even then. For a few seconds, it strained her, overcame her, and then the power vibrated outwards uncontrollably – huge and dominant but borrowed and blunt.
But she was good at training, good at waiting. She was good at following until the moment that the order didn't come. She was good at being scared.
You used what you got.
The mission tonight hadn't been so different from any other. Heart rushing, heaving, hysterical terror wrestling with deadly calm in her head. A grab at information. Panicked situation. In-and-out raid of an FoH camp.
She'd made mostly right choices, one wrong one. One rather big wrong one.
'What the hell was that?' Logan had said tightly, hand out and ready to wrench her into the Blackbird and away. She'd hopped aboard, though, the rest of the team clamboring, too.
'I'm ok,' she'd said with a light pat. There – that was the difference.
'Goddamn stupid. Stupid fucking mistake!' He wasn't done, roughing her into a seat, which normally she would have minded a great deal. And normally, there would have been shame. 'I told you to be careful. How many times have we gone over the variables?'
The jet roared to life around them.
'Many, many times,' she placated.
'You coulda died,' he snarled, buckling her into her seat with a snap.
'I know, sugar.' Strange serenity settling over her, a contrast to Logan's red rage, the rest of the team's white, adrenalin-laced shock. The plane taking off, his flashing eyes and severe brow, and she'd wanted to preempt him.
'I could have died many times. I could die next time.' She exhaled, and that was jittery still, she was, somewhere, in a way that amplified the calm. 'But I'm alive.'
That did shut him up, or rather had him brooding ill-temperedly as the jet droned and dumped them home.
And tonight was the night that, when she threw her closet doors open, ripped off her clothes to change, she smelled it again – the soft, teasing juices of the jacket, easing out in waves before her. That was different, too. She'd almost forgotten.
Solid yank, spinning hanger, and she had it pressed up to her nose, dark earthy scent. The temptation rose, too – for the softness and the scent and the power. Tough. She decided to go for it, short skirt so she could feel, long dark jacket to hide. And in the mirror, she looked shadowed and shrewd and this time, all her.
She could take on the world. Her gaze could cut diamonds. Her skin could hum symphonies and make painters beg. Her voice was of honey, her whispers like whiskey, her laughter a melody - it could strip paint off glass. She could touch, she could die, she controlled all around her…Yup, she grinned at her reflection, and the jacket made the grin look wicked and wry – she could be the girl in this jacket, just for tonight.
She could feel the bass kicking, even as she exited the car, catch the scent of bodies and sweat and sour alcohol in the air. Click. Hips twitching. Clack. Heels clapping. Dancing, she was going dancing. Hell to tomorrow and hello tonight!
Swaying, hooraying, mooning and twirling. Her heels were clacking and she was straining, hair a-tilting. Music booming. Big lights flaring. She was sure this feeling of euphoria wouldn't last. She was sure it was the height of absurdity to celebrate a mistake. But the room was spinning: she knocked back a few drinks, exhilarated.
Her neck, her neck was beautiful. Her thighs and hips and lips were beautiful, and she felt long and touchable and extremely bendable. Fluid and flapping in her jacket which brushed the floor and swayed and brushed against her naked legs.
She wasn't surprised when she spied him across the crush of people; wasn't surprised, but it was new knowledge. She was surprised that she almost didn't care. Of course…she did.
'You're drunk,' he admonished, suddenly before her, his gaze sweeping her figure.
Hey!
'Not drunk,' she drew herself up, felt the room roll a little. Perhaps drunk. Definitely drunk, but she grinned. 'Just a short skirt – loooong jacket…' She gestured, 'A different me.'
His eyes glinted in light amusement, but she could sense the reservation in him still, the remnants of discomfort. Well, she'd show him. She'd show herself. Tipped her head back, stretch, and she could feel the beat through her fingers.
'You almost died today,' he reminded her, biting voice in her ear. He was suddenly behind her, above her, and around her, suddenly vibrating through her.
Why on earth was that a problem? She had no problems.
'I promise to be scared shitless tomorrow,' she assured him breathlessly.
Low rumbly laugh. That got him. 'I like the new you,' he smirked. Then he drew back so she could dance, and they didn't touch more.
There wasn't much touching or pawing or groping. She was dancing, and he was watching. The crowd was cheering and swaying and grinding around them, braying, pounding, bopping to the beat. She caught him staring, brown eyes shadowed, but lit with something, too. Amusement and challenge churning the air.
Loud and too fast and too many, so that she seemed quiet and alone on the crowded dance floor. Not touching. Just brushing. Occasional bumping. And his hand sometimes creaking and releasing over the jacket's pebbled smoothness, experimentally pressing, sometimes guiding, as she bit her lip and smiled. Her waist. Her back and shoulder. Her arm. One hip. But not for long. None of it for long – transient, there and gone again, like it had never been.
Small non-touch impressions, and careful, unconsidered brushes. Bumping into his rabbiting thigh. Leaning on a right forearm. Heat rolling through flannel and cotton. Lightly running a finger along his upper chest to the beat, not teasing, not exploring, just feeling, and he didn't stop her. Feeling, too. And she could feel bone and muscle, shoulder, as she gamely twirled around and behind him.
He didn't dance, but once she got him to sway with her. His breath and heartbeat spiking, pool of the leather kicking between them, as she pressed herself close to him with her nose in the hollow of his spine. She could feel the softness of his shirt over the hardness of him, noted his clean smell and tangy scent. And then, hips still twitching, her arm crept round his corded waist, lightly ran over the muscles there. She'd felt him shift and sway, his hand briefly clasped over gloved hers.
And once he'd touched her, deliberately close to her. He clasped her hair, hot and heavy from sweat, brushed it to one side, and blew with light breath on damp, heated skin.
But those were moments only, twinkling pauses in the evening before restraint and good humor came again. The contrast between her short skirt, white deadly legs, and that gleaming jacket. His dark eyes and knowing grin.
She danced. Until the alcohol had been burnt off. Until the euphoria had softened into general contentment. Until the purples and blues and screaming reds of the lights became stationary, and until their heartbeats were discernible above the stamping feet. Until she was aware of her breathlessness and his depthless gaze. She could hear the squeak of the jacket, feel air and warm leather against smooth legs as she swayed to a stop. 'Let's go.'
They were out of the buzz of the club, but the hush seemed louder. Behind the clip of her heels, his tread behind. Yes, she was powerful tonight, chin up, nostrils open to take in the crisp sting of cold, the cooling embers of leather.
She couldn't believe she could get him to follow. Knew he would. At the road, they had to stop for the light, the still of the night. They both paused, with him right behind her.
She was giddy just from the feel of his thigh, and then the press of his length at her back. His unarticulated fingers through layers of cloth. His caress was bolder now, low over abdomen, hovered just shy of her pubic bone. Warming, the muscles there springing to life. She knew it wouldn't move lower, but she was barely breathing anyway – oxygen wasn't necessary, she could get drunk on this feeling. Gaiety and novelty and giddy disbelief. Then she felt warm puffs of breath, the firm slip of his nose, and he was nuzzling her hair.
A truck whooshed by, and she couldn't hear her laughter above the sound. The light ticked faintly, the crosswalk lit, and she pulled away easily. She felt his low chuckle.
She walked to her car confidently, the air cooling her, the distance steadying her. His glance over the roof of her car nearly paralyzed her again. But they were splitting up now, separate vehicles. His headlights were in her rearview mirror, the heater was switched on. She was calming down, still feeling the buzz, losing the edge of the glow.
Because she hadn't really thought about it, what it would mean, when he was waiting at her car to let her out. What it would mean as he trailed after her again, at home this time, inside the mansion and to her door. Her heels made the same click-confidence over concrete, but it began to sound hollow. Her jacket wafted around her, but it was cold and bulky and not her own. His heavy boots, his heaving bulk, his expectations. No, she hadn't thought about this at all.
She managed the business of the key and the doorknob. Propped open the door.
Logan was there, closer than she'd heard, black eyes, and mouth cocked into a smile that looked lazy but wasn't. Smiling like you would to the girl in this jacket. And then he placed one hand at her lapel, his gaze on her mouth. He was drawing her forward, inevitably, too slowly…She stepped back sharply, face turned away.
The wall came down immediately. 'Rogue—' he growled in warning, his hand now curled tight. Maybe he thought she was teasing him, that it had been about him. Maybe he had a right to be angry and annoyed.
But she hadn't meant to, hadn't planned it. She hadn't been thinking. Clearly. She just—she wasn't any good at this.
'I'm sorry, I didn't mean—I know I've been…tonight, with the outfit, and the drinking and the dancing—' she trailed off helplessly. She felt swallowed in the leather, a girl playing dress-up. She didn't know how to explain tonight; she could only explain how it was. 'But it's still me, Logan. It's just me…like always.'
He looked at her for a long moment, eyes hard, not quite mad. Then in a second, all that intensity was gone, and he was the old Logan, like always, protective and fraternal and bringing her in for a safe hug.
She couldn't help feeling disappointed, a little disgruntled, disgusted at herself. Something had changed; she didn't want to pretend it hadn't. She wanted change, hoped it would change, because she didn't want to be stuck in this skin forever. She just didn't know if she could change so much so soon. She'd failed at that now.
She began to pull away, but then his hand fell from her back to trail down one arm, snagged her sleeve in a clumsy grip. Confused, she peered up, but he was staring fixedly at her hand, her glove. 'It's just me, too,' he offered quietly. When he finally met her eyes, it was with the same intensity, a flash of appeal somewhere behind.
Fuck. She was scared shitless again. But there was an agony of want rising up within her, too. Palms sweating, skin flushing. Well…so long as he was ok with that combination.
She pressed her suddenly-dry lips together. 'C-come on then, sugar.' She wedged upon the door, stood aside to make room for him. 'So long as we're both pretending.'
He hovered for a breath at the threshold. 'Who says we're pretending?'
Her laugh tumbled out – nerves, pleasure, relief. 'Come on then.' She made a breathless grab for him, but he slowed her, smiled -a long slow smile that grew more sure. She drew him inside and shut the door.