So, I was given a list of one-shot prompts from my collaborator, Ariellemoonlight. This is, of course, a Logan/Rogue collaboration. We've teamed up to post our work on separate accounts on FF dot net, but we're pushing for more ROGAN stories because we are.
She gifted me prompts, and I'm a massive fan of drunkenness. No, don't think of it negatively. As I see it, being drunk is freedom for someone like Rogue. She's caught in a web of mutation. She wants to escape the negativity and responsibility of dealing with a never-ending issue. That was my chosen prompt, and I ran with it to create this. I thought of… No, I won't spoil the following story.
The prompt: Rogue is drunk and calls Logan for help.
I stitched this together over two and a half weeks of fretting. Haha. What am I like?
Also, being seventeen is difficult, especially when you have issues to deal with. I pictured Rogue balancing issues, and… No, I can't spoil the one-shot. But did you know two Beatles songs came to mind when I thought of beds, and everything went wild?
Welcome to the Club
Seventeen-year-old Rogue hugged hundreds of dwindling hopes to her chest and forever danced around the dangers of poisonous skin. She wanted to be normal, cured, and rebellious and demanded to party, run, scream, frolic, drink, be merry, and damn it, that's just what happened. Yes, she partied; no, it wasn't an X-Men-sanctioned celebration. The party occurred off-campus, away from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
In fact, it was so off-campus that she might have accidentally wandered across a particular border into a specific country in a certain snowstorm during an unplanned drunken episode of stupidity and singing. Yes, singing was involved, and strangers, too. Then she locked herself in the motel bathroom once they arrived at Heck-Knows-Where with God-Knows-Who because suddenly the situation didn't feel safe.
Gazing at the swirling reflection in the teeny, spherical mirror, she pointed to herself. "Stand still and let me think everything through, Miss D'Ancanto. I'll deal with this situation, or maybe not. Shit, damn and fuck." She didn't usually cuss, but the growling Logan in her mind wasn't best pleased with the current state of her drunken ass. "I can't really do anything because how far is Westchester from here?"
As it turned out, calculations weren't a first-time drunk's best friend. Sitting in the empty bathtub, she rummaged through her coat pocket and checked the cell phone. It still had a healthy battery life but swam in her unstable vision. Hmm, that could be an issue, but who would she call? Not the X-Men. They were busy doing X-Men things. Yes, X-Men things. You know, things the X-Men did at two in the morning, which involved sleep and missions. So, scratch the X-Men off the straightforward list, and that only left Logan.
Her gloved fingertips merrily tapped the buttons several times and searched for his number. He fled the mansion too long ago in search of a past he couldn't remember or recall but promised to return one day soon.
Maybe he would help a friend in need who currently lay in a bathtub with a pocketful of stuff. Yes, stuff. She refused to describe her pockets in further detail in case you were law enforcement desperate to enforce the law. Officers in Mississippi would shoot before asking any questions. What would the Canadian cops do?
Anyway, back to the problematic Logan. As proof they were friends, she jingled the dog tags fashioned around her wrist and pressed the call button. He would help, wouldn't he? Of course, he would help. The phone rang and rang and rang and rang. No one picked up, and the worry seeped into every inch of her mind. Try again, Head Logan ordered. So, she did. Then again and again and again.
Logan was parked in a snowy car lot of a hellhole bar close to the United States border. With a smirk, his adventurous hand slipped under the silky skirt of a redheaded barfly he took a liking to over a shared love of motorcycles. As they continued to get acquainted in the bathroom stall, his jacket pocket vibrated for the thirtieth time.
"It's probably a family emergency," she suggested, inching the panties enticingly down her thighs.
He gave the woman an amused snort and shook his head. "I don't have a family."
"Guys say that all the time, but they're often lying," the fiery redhead said, patting his vibrating pocket. "It must be important, seeing as they call back every thirty seconds."
Logan fished the cell phone into his rough grip, muttering about inconveniences. He didn't recognise the number and looked relieved when it stopped ringing.
"Now, where were we?" he asked the long-legged beauty, about to put the phone away when it vibrated again. With a growl, he answered the call abruptly. "This better be important."
Complete silence greeted him until the pounding on a door could be heard in the background. Shouts of "Open up before we kick your ass, Rogue!" reached his ears. He frowned and stepped away from the woman, ignoring her even when lacy panties plummeted to the sticky linoleum floor.
Rogue cradled the phone with a gentle sigh and gazed at the too-small window, considering the limited options. "Hi Logan, how's your trip? Did you find your past, and is it treating you well?"
The frown on his face deepened because she sounded drunk. "Never mind what I'm doing. What's going on there? Have the geeks finally lost control of a school full of brats?"
Rogue winced as the knocking grew louder with every furious thump at the locked door. "It's funny you should say that because I'm in a tub."
"A bathtub? You're calling me drunk from a bathtub at two in the morning? Here's some advice, kid. Get out the goddamn tub before you drown, and go catch some shuteye."
"No, you don't understand," she complained, attempting to clamber out of the bath with all the grace of a drunken farmyard animal. Eventually, she gave in and slid into the temporary plastic prison with a fed-up groan. Fighting to stay awake, she stifled a shuddering yawn. "The tub's not at the school."
Logan raked a hand through his hair and listened to the thuds and squeaks coming from her location. "Oh yeah, and where's this tub at, huh?"
Slumping into a semi-comfortable state, she sighed dramatically and tapped her gloved fingertips against the bath. Her words were deliberately vague and subdued. "I might have seen the Welcome to Canada sign at one point, but I'm unsure with all the snow and liquor. Can we please talk about it later? I've never told you before how much I like your hair. It's wild, like a mane with magical powers of persuasion and grumpiness."
"Is that your way of letting me know you're sat drunk in a tub in Canada?" he questioned gruffly, catching the sound of muffled words that sounded suspiciously like a significant problem for the both of them.
"I know you think I'm shy, and everyone else sees me the same way, too, but liquor helps me unwind. Do you know something else, Logan? I'm tired and want to sleep, but I'm asking for a ride because it's unsafe here, and I'm scared."
"Shit," he muttered worriedly, forgetting about the waiting redhead. Heading straight to the car lot, he passed through the noisy bar, the phone still crushed to his ear as he listened to some drunken semi-confession from a seventeen-year-old pain in the ass. "Where are you?"
Her eyelids grew heavy with promises of peaceful sleep, but she fought to free herself from the tub for the second time. "I already told you that. I'm in Canada. I'm drunk in Canada with my new friends, who I think might be criminals."
Logan listened to every tumble, squeal and squeak and reached the SUV. Scrubbing the recent snowfall off the windshields and mirrors, he sighed heavily. "You better be okay, kid." Silence settled into the call for a good minute and a half. "Now what's going on?" He unlocked the car and sat behind the steering wheel.
"I can't get out of the tub," she whispered sluggishly, gazing up at the curved light fixture that reminded her of a sun.
"How about telling me where you are." Met with a wall of silence, his brow furrowed even further as he turned the key in the ignition. "You must know where you are."
"I'm in Canada," she replied unhelpfully and spelled it out in a cheerful sing-song tone. "C-a-n-a-d-a."
An irritated growl rolled from Logan's lips. He would have to wake Charles up and send him down to Cerebro. "Just sit tight and keep the phone close. I'll get back to you once I've contacted the geeks."
The call ended with a beep, beep, beep, and Rogue shrugged to herself. That went better than expected. Humming tunelessly, she craved junk food and a cheese-slathered quadruple cheese-filled, cheese-stuffed cheeseburger as thoughts lingered lightly on the current predicament.
Drugs didn't interest her, neither did liquor, because look what happened when you drank. You ended up lost in Canada, laying in a bathtub you couldn't escape as you considered singing to pass the time until a gruff Canadian with wild hair saved you.
"One, two, three, four. Can I have a little more? Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I love you. Sail the ship, bompa bom. Chop the tree, bompa bom. Skip the rope, bompa bom. Look at meeeee. All together now. All together now. All together now. All together now. All together now. All together now. Black, white, green, red. Can I take my friend to bed? Pink, brown, yellow, orange, and blue. I love you."
Logan grimaced at the noisy voice of a drunken Southerner and the seemingly endless song. Didn't she understand he could hear every goddamn word? He switched over to the other line with a heavy sigh. "It sounds like Rogue's keeping herself occupied for now. Chuck got a fix on a location yet, Jean?"
Jean stood outside Cerebro dressed in the tight-fitting X-Men uniform and clasped a phone loosely in her long fingers. She paced outside the secretive room, awake because of a late-night mission. "Not yet. I'm sorry this happened, Logan."
"It's not your fault she poured half the liquor in North America down her goddamn throat," he said, impatiently drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. "Can you tell him to get a move on? I haven't got all night."
She smiled at the impatient tone. "Once we have Rogue's location, we can pick her up on the X-Jet."
"No, it'll be fine once she stops singing. I'm already here anyway. Any word on who her new friends are?"
"Most of us were unaware she had met anyone outside the gates, but according to Scott, she befriended new neighbours who moved into the old O'Malley house."
"Well, she's gonna unfriend them once I'm through with her," he growled ominously.
"Logan, you can't stop a teen from making friends," she admonished him.
He grumbled and changed his mind on the X-Men not being at fault. "Why not? She's just travelled eight hours to the border, and none of you noticed until she called me for help."
"Because seventeen-year-olds make mistakes, and you know we're busy with missions and classes. I have mounds of schoolwork to mark, lessons to plan, speeches to write, research to complete, I run the sickbay single-handedly, and I'm planning a wedding. This is a school, and we try our hardest to monitor the students, but sometimes we make mistakes, too."
All the more reason for him to deal with this alone. With another furious grumble under his breath, Logan heard the Professor share the location of Rogue. She was at the Motor Inn in Hamilton, Ontario, Motherfucking Canada. He ended the call and returned to the other line, grimacing at the instant stream of drunken singing as he reached for a wrinkled map on the passenger seat.
"She asked me to stay, and she told me to sit anywhere. So, I looked around, and I noticed there wasn't a chair. I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine. We talked until two, and then she said, "It's time for bed". She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh. I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath."
He snorted in amusement at the song as he searched the map marked with motels, hotels, inns, guesthouses, and bars. "Look, Kid, you keep singing, and I'll leave you to bed down in that tub until hell freezes over." He heard a commotion in the background and drove out of the car lot with his eyes darting to the map every few seconds. "What's going on?"
"You asked me to stop singing, so I considered my options and the tub is the bed, but the door's locked, and the window's too small," she explained, sounding drunker as her words slurred dangerously. "Do you understand?"
"No," a frank Logan grumbled, wondering what she had chased the booze down with. This was more than a simple case of beer talk. "What the hell made you think any of this is a good idea, huh?"
Rogue glanced at the door and stifled an almighty yawn. "What do you think about personal growth?"
"Is that a joke, or are you as drunk as you sound?" he shot back, putting his foot down on the accelerator and relived he had decided to hang around Hamilton for a few more days before crossing the border. The kid was lucky his plans changed when he met the redhead in the bar, or they would have missed each other completely.
"I don't find any of this funny, Logan," Rogue replied firmly, then giggled until she dropped the phone on her lap. She picked it up again when she heard several death threats screeched through the door. "Did you hear that? My new friends want to kill me."
"Tell 'em to get in line," he answered gruffly and kept his narrowed eyes on the deserted country road on the outskirts of town.
Rogue focused on the light above, her eyes circling the faux sunlight. She ignored Logan's voice echoing against the tiles and wondered when the cell phone battery would die. The punching at the door was soon replaced with genuine danger. Still, it never entered her floating mind as she focused on the colours of the rainbow swarming across the walls.
"You're my only friend," she whispered and meant it too. "Everyone else is scared of me. Scared of my poisonous skin and frightened I'll harm them. They look at me like I'm a monster, and maybe that's why I'm locked in a bathroom in Canada. I'm just a runaway who can't even run without making a mess of things. I'm a monster. A mutant. An almost friendless freak who fails at everything and can't even sing without hurting people's ears."
Logan sighed heavily at the sound of furniture crashing against the bathroom door. "Just sit tight and stay awake," he ordered, closing in on the motel from a freshly ploughed highway.
"You don't understand. I hate my life, Logan, and hate living like this. Why can't I be normal like everyone else? I never asked to be a mutant. No one said, 'Hi, Rogue, do you want to kiss this boy and hurt him badly because you're a freak?' It happened, and then I ran away. If I keep running, do you think things will be different, or will it always feel this way? There's an emptiness inside me, and I'm scared it will swallow me whole."
He fished for an answer and grumbled to himself. There was nothing he could say to make Rogue feel any better. Sure, her skin remained an issue, but mutations were hell on earth to deal with, and the baggage didn't lighten over the years.
"We'll talk about it later," he promised and turned into the motel car lot. "Stay put in the tub, and let me deal with this."
"Deal with what?" she asked, forgetting most of the night as the colours expanded in her mind and rode blissfully into the stratosphere.
Logan parked and exited the vehicle in four seconds flat, ready to rescue her from a difficult situation. He left the car unlocked and used his nose to trace Rogue's scent to a nearby ground-floor motel room full of partying kids ready to riot. His sharp hearing overheard plans to smoke her out of the bathroom as he entered through an unlocked door.
The disarray inside the four walls was difficult to ignore, and the same could be said for the strong scents of beer, whiskey, tequila, and a heavy cocktail of street drugs. Shattered pieces of pine littered the stained carpet where chairs once sat. The music stopped, and the confused voices raised merry hell until screams rang out.
With one get-the-fuck-out-of-here wave of Logan's claws, the kids fled the motel room, leaving the empty bottles and drug paraphernalia behind. It was almost too easy, but he shoved the worry aside for now.
He made an instant beeline for the bathroom door and sliced through the lock. Sheathing his claws, he sighed in relief at the familiar scent of a certain Southerner as he closed in on the bathtub.
"The light's calling me, Logan," Rogue whispered as his concerned head appeared above and joined the animated rainbows dancing in her vision.
Sniffing her confusing scent, he started to scowl and noted the size of her swollen pupils. She smelled of beer, whiskey, tequila, and rum, but the worries were pinned to whatever drug she had stupidly taken. Shutting off her phone, he pocketed it and pulled her free of the tub.
She swayed unsteadily on her feet, thanks to the alcohol, and he gazed into her eyes with all the care he could muster. "This running away business isn't the end of the world, but how about you fill me in on whatever you've taken tonight."
Rogue felt his steady hands rest on her shoulders. He turned her around and walked them outside into the cold night air, avoiding the black ice, slush, and snow. Words swam away, and she didn't mind because life finally seemed tolerable. That's what she told him. Maybe life wasn't meant to vanish from the tips of her gloved fingers tonight because rainbows were a sign of happiness, weren't they?
The incoherent rambling worried Logan, and he settled her into the front passenger seat. As he sat quickly behind the steering wheel, he drove them across town, searching for a motel while constantly checking that they had no stragglers following behind.
"What did you take?" he questioned gruffly, demanding to be told the goddamn truth. "I can smell the booze a mile off, but I need to know what else is lurking inside that body of yours."
Silent for an untold time, Rogue struggled to respond as he growled impatiently. Words danced before her euphoric gaze, and sentences faded with the unfrozen weather. Snowflakes twisted and turned into raindrops as she battled thoughts, feelings, and muted emotions. Her head remained detached and dazed despite his infamous temper unravelling in knots.
"Poisonous skin coats my body, but I drank liquor and liquor and more liquor. I didn't like it, though, and I don't think it liked me." She gazed at his scowling face with a distant stare that concerned him. "They only let me hide in the bathroom because I swallowed a pink pill with a shot of tequila. Two pink pills or maybe three pills, two pink and one a pale, pallid, whitish shade of beach-like sand."
"For fuck's sake, Marie! What the hell's going through that head of yours, huh?" Logan snarled, gripping the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip as he swung the vehicle around when he spotted a nearby motel.
Thrown forward by the rapid change of direction, she listened to the tyres screeching against the drizzly, sub-zero tarmac. Thankful to be wearing a seatbelt, a yawn faded before it began. Sleep seemed to escape into the night, as did a little lecture.
"You should wear a seatbelt. Remember what happened the last time I warned you about road safety?"
Putting a lid on his temper, a scowling Logan parked again and headed straight to the office to pay for a room. He returned several minutes later with a key card. Cursing bad-temperedly to himself, he pulled her into his burly arms and carried her from the car. Whatever she took had robbed the use of her goddamn legs, and he was out of options.
"You called me Marie," she murmured to his fuzzy face, eyes glossing over with further waves of drug-induced confusion.
"Uh-huh, that's your name, remember?" he said, unlocking the door, booting it shut with his foot and sitting her down on the king-sized bed.
He checked her coat pockets and caught another strong whiff of drugs. Fishing over a dozen small, transparent bags of assorted pills from the coat, his brow furrowed as he headed to the bathroom to flush them.
She watched him closely and had difficulty sitting up, staying still, or even blinking, and smelled of anxiety and dread.
"Where was the same worry when you hit the road with a group of thugs who plied you with drink and drugs?" he growled and soon returned to her side.
Rogue couldn't answer because words continually vanished, and her lips refused to use them. She pushed his bare hand away from her face several times, but he was persistent and scowled dangerously as he laid out his plan to save her ass.
Logan sat down on the bed and sighed heavily. "You're either gonna OD on the pills, or the booze will take you to the nearest emergency room. We do this my way, you hear. I'll heal you, and you'll stay put until I'm awake. I mean it, Marie. Your disobedient and reckless ass doesn't move until I'm healed and on my feet again."
Nineteen-sixties song lyrics had faded from Rogue's mind with a shivering, shuddering halt. They were replaced by thoughts that chased after redheads behind clouds of cigar smoke or snarled about stupid Southerners drinking underage and hightailing it across the border with pocketsful of drugs. Rolling her eyes, she instantly dropped the attitude when Head Logan ranted the longest string of cuss words known to mutant kind.
Last night's guilt, shame, and embarrassment chipped away at her fragile state of mind. She couldn't sleep, anyway. Not while lying beside a volcanic corpse, waiting for it to heal, growl, and spew venom everywhere. Logan would kill her. He'd kill her. He would pin her against the wall with his claws and roar until she no longer existed. Bye, Rogue. Fuck you, Marie. You're dead, dead, dead.
She wandered through his memories for a while, still shivering in the frosty temperature of the room. Every inch of her head screamed to stay in case he woke, but a miniature portion of stubborn pride ordered her to flee while he remained out of action. The Wolverine's personality suddenly swamped any hastily made plans to run. Don't you fucking dare. And that was her told.
Then again, the SUV needed locking because a stolen car would mean an even-deader Rogue. Searching through Logan's jacket pockets and snagging the car keys, she wandered outside and would never get used to it. The sights, smells, and sounds polluted every inch of her mind. His mutation harnessed the world in full-colour vision, and it was a legal high without taking drugs.
"I could get used to this," she admitted softly, feeling powerful and in complete control.
As she pressed the lock button on the key fob, noisy, vengeful footsteps approached. Tilting her head to the side, she spotted an unknown man's reflection in the window of the car. The Wolverine's instincts merged with her fear and timed to perfection; she swung around with all the bravery of a borrowed mutation.
The darkly smirking face of an entertained but furious drug dealer stared back at her. His eyes were the bluest she had ever seen, and his mid-length hair was darker than the night. If he hadn't been here to threaten, maim, or murder, she might have developed a crush, but Logan's voice in her head knocked the crush-talk into the nearest trashcan with a formidable growl.
"You have something that belongs to me, and I want it back," the dealer said, one hand in his hoodie pocket, the other pointing an index finger.
Head Logan coached her through every movement. Back away. That's it. Never take your eyes off an enemy. Don't answer him, either. Focus on your surroundings, Kid—the door's right behind you. No, don't look at it. See, now he knows what you're planning. Yeah, I see the gun. Don't worry about it; keep backing away until you reach the sidewalk. Forget what the geeks taught you, okay? Just listen to my voice, and everything will be fine. There's a change of plans, but I promise we'll handle this together.
Rogue's heels bumped against the curb as she crept backwards, reaching the sidewalk. Her gaze never left the gun. Thoughts of death and dying trailed the outskirts of her mind, and Logan's personality slowly took control of every movement.
Tell him what he wants is waiting down that alley, but don't turn your back on him. You never look away from an enemy, especially when they're armed. Go on, Kid. Now's your chance to tell him. Lie your ass off.
"What you want is down that alley, buried in the dirt," she said confidently, pointing a gloved fingertip towards the shadowy entrance of a lonely passageway across the car lot.
Attagirl. That's it, now you let him lead the way, okay? Do exactly as I tell you, Marie. You've got one chance at this, and I'll be with you every step of the way.
Paler than the moon and frightened of her shadow, Rogue stared at the ceiling and searched for nineteen-sixties song lyrics. Something, anything that would drag her away from the current thoughts tumbling, twirling, and twisting in the back of her mind because the truth was darker than her worst enemy's soul.
After a further spell spent worrying, Logan stirred just as the sun rose outside. She rolled onto her side, refusing to be a coward and watched him groggily open his eyes.
He groaned, scratching at his head and disorientated, until the popcorn ceiling came into focus. As he inhaled the surrounding scents, the memories of the early morning dash across town to save the kid returned with a vengeance. Tilting his head, he studied her face for signs of lingering drink or drug use.
Rogue's ashamed gaze dropped to the bedspread, and she picked at the loose fluff out of a nervous habit. Most words felt insufficient after running away, partying through the night, underage drinking, smuggling drugs across the border and then getting stuck in a bathtub while drunk and high. The less said about the singing and everything else, the better things would be.
"Look at me," Logan ordered, sounding calm. He noticed the trembling and pulled her closer with a protective hug. "Hey, quit moping around and look me in the eyes, Kid. If you're old enough to break the law, you face the consequences head-on, understood?"
She nodded gently and raised her chin until their eyes met. "I'm sorry I dragged you into my mess."
He shook his head in gruff disappointment and hugged her close. "No, you're not. Dump the fake apology and try again. I'm giving you one last chance to come clean, and you best take it."
Her glance grazed across his concerned face, and she closed her eyes. Breathing in the calming scent of cigar smoke, the promises tumbled out instead. "It won't happen again, I swear. I'll never even look at a beer bottle without feeling sick."
"Fine, we'll do things my way." Taking out his cell phone, he searched for Jean's number, determined to ask her to read the kid's mind and fish for secrets.
A curious Rogue twisted his jacket sleeve until she caught sight of the phone screen. Her eyes widened. No! Every secret was personal and mostly danced around her hidden crush on Logan. She wouldn't let anyone read her mind. She grabbed his phone and tossed it on the carpet floor without thinking. It bounced several times and landed under the desk with a clattering thud as it struck the wall.
Logan turned his scowl on the ceiling and worked through a heavy dose of anger. Right about now, he regretted ever making any promises to a goddamn southerner with temper tantrum issues. "Pick the phone up."
"No." She turned her back on him and closed her eyes to sleep despite the cold temperature in the room. The heating wouldn't work; it was a metaphor for her crumbling life. Everything was either out of date, broken, misused or mistreated.
"I haven't gotten to your punishment yet, Marie. Pick the phone up."
She scoffed at that. As if her only crush in the world would punish her. "You're always on the road. And don't call me Marie."
"Not anymore, I'm not, and you can forget about having a social life. You owe me some serious Danger Room time, Marie."
Glancing over her shoulder, she glared at him. "It was one out-of-hand party."
He raised an eyebrow at the lame excuse. "Bullshit. Now go pick the goddamn phone up." As the stubborn standoff in the bed continued, they frowned at each other. "You ran away, crossed the border with drugs in your pockets, got drunk and high with your criminal friends, and now you're giving me an attitude. Does any of that seem smart?" His eyes suddenly narrowed dangerously as he stumbled across a thought. "What, was this all for my benefit?"
Rogue's face flushed from ghost-like to the garden pink variety of embarrassment. Her mortified gaze darted to the walls, the floor, the bedding, and the ceiling. When she failed to escape the humiliation and awkwardness of the moment, she frowned darkly at him. "No, because my life doesn't revolve around you, Logan!"
He shook his head because he had finally gotten somewhere and unlocked the reason for her case of sudden stupidity. "You let them use your ass as a drug mule, so I'd come running?"
The embarrassment felt overwhelming. Rogue ripped the dog tags from her wrist and threw them in the same direction as the phone. She heard them strike the same wall as the phone and land on the desk, and no, it didn't make her feel any better.
"Real mature, Kid. You better start acting your age before I've finished healing."
"I'm not scared of you," she replied petulantly. This wasn't the Logan she wanted when she planned the party, the drinking and agreed to the accidental border-hopping. But the drugs had been a drunken calamity wrapped in an eternal mistake.
"Then you're more stupid than I thought. This deal between us and the promise I made on the train doesn't give you the right to put your life in danger. Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you. This isn't a fucking game, you nearly died, Marie."
"Stop calling me that name," she muttered despondently, sluggishly leaving the bed and crossing the carpet. If he wanted the phone and tags, she would throw them at his head, and no, she didn't understand the growling, grumbling fury in her mind. "I'm not a kid, either."
"Could've fooled me." Logan leaned against the headboard, still frazzled by the aftereffects of her mutation. He would label this a partial win but intended to dig deeper through the behaviour of a runaway, dumbass kid because was last night a one-time mistake or had it happened before on a smaller scale?
She had enough sense to carefully pick up the phone and dog tags and carry them to his side. While half tempted to fling them at his head for no reason, her hands gripped the items tightly as she sat on the edge of the bed close to his feet. "You're an asshole."
"And you're a goddamn idiot," he answered gruffly, holding his palm out.
Dropping the objects into his hand, Rogue turned away, ashamed when he looked at her.
He pulled the dog tags over his neck and gripped the phone. "You ready to tell the truth, or do I have to call Jean because what you said last night about your mutation –"
"I just want to forget everything that's happened," she said softly, talking over him in a half-daze as she hugged a pillow.
"It's obviously bothering you. Come on, don't be stubborn. It doesn't suit you, kid," he said, searching her face for clues.
Rogue sighed loudly. "You don't know me, and stop calling me that." She wasn't a kid. She was a monster.
"Like hell, I don't. This isn't you. You know what I think? Your head's been turned." His brow furrowed, and he sniffed the air again suspiciously. "And you want my advice? Grow the fuck up, drop the attitude, and tell the truth."
She gazed at him for a moment in understanding. "Because the truth sets you free?"
"Yeah, something like that," he said, nudging her knee with his boot and holding out his arm as a peace offering.
"The first time I tried it, everything felt better. Life seemed to calm, and worries faded. Does that make sense?" she asked, crawling toward him.
He hugged her, and they lay silently for a little while as they thought things through. Certain scents still troubled his nose, and his brow continued to furrow.
"Maybe, maybe not. I can't condone anything you did because you're an idiot, but I understand wanting to run from trouble."
She rested her head against his chest and squeezed her eyes closed, desperate to disappear entirely from the world. "Every part of me wants to do it again."
He growled at that and tightened his protective hold. "You keep thinking that way, and I'll kick your ass."
"Thanks, Logan," she mumbled into his flannel shirt and sighed.
"No problem," he grunted, still curious about the scent that clung to her. "Anything else you need to confess?"
Rogue felt classless, tactless and senseless. She was a monster and a dangerous freak. Confusion reigned free, and her thoughts swung high and sunk low. Nothing felt at peace. Drugs, drinks and random friends didn't care for her, but Logan did, and she let him down badly. "I've done something. Something evil. Something unforgivable."
"Spit it out, huh? Remember that saying about the truth setting you free? I figure that's what you need right about now."
The thought of him discovering the whole truth turned her world upside down. "Something happened earlier, and I can't live with the responsibility of keeping it a secret."
"Go on," he said, relieved she finally wanted to cough up further information about the stupid drug use. "Let's hear it, then."
Rogue lifted her head and looked at him with a watery gaze. Gulping, she knocked a trembling hand against his shirt pocket. There were tiny rips in the material across her knuckles. "I hurt someone." The words coincided with the sound of sirens outside closing in on their location.
Logan's eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and his hardened gaze snapped to the window and then down to her hands. "What happened?" he asked gruffly.
"I hurt someone," she repeated faintly, in a frightened daze and unable to explain further.
He traced a finger carefully around the holes in one of the gloves and left the creaking bed behind. "Sit tight and let me deal with it," he said, opening the door and studying the nearby crime scene.
The stench of blood and death struck him as he inhaled the scents in the early morning breeze. Across the street, he caught sight of an ambulance and at least three cops' cars parked haphazardly in the car lot.
"Shit," he said and headed outside, lighting a cigar as he closed the door behind him.
When the sirens were switched off, his hearing picked up scraps of information - a dead body with a loaded handgun and three fatal stab wounds. No witnesses. The victim was a known felon. The cops didn't give a damn and hated paperwork.
To be on the safe side, Logan dug through his pocket and made a phone call to somebody who could make this all disappear. He was owed a favour and cashed it in to save the kid from a lifetime of hassle. She'd killed somebody. Marie had killed somebody. This had to be a fucking joke. The more he mulled it over in his thoughts, the closer he came to packing it all in on the spot and dragging her back to Xaviers, where she would be safe.
A silent Rogue continued to stare at the ceiling. The bed was comfortable, the room cold, and the noises outside disturbing. Everything felt wrong, off-kilter and otherworldly. Hurting someone slowly morphed into harming someone because murder, killing or homicide couldn't breach the depths of her cluttered, frightened and guilt-ridden mind. She had hurt someone. He was armed, ready to shoot, but she hurt him. She harmed someone, and now the terrible memories were fully present and unwilling to flee.
Twenty minutes later, with several cigars smoked, a satisfied Logan noticed a new team arrive. Men kitted out in black suits swept the area in dark vehicles with blacked-out windows. When they passed him on the sidewalk, they exchanged nods, and that was that. Case closed, and it was Rogue's lucky day.
He headed inside the motel room and smelled tears. Sighing heavily, he locked the motel door and walked over to the bed. "He was armed, Kid."
"I know," she whispered sadly and gazed at him. "But what if he had a family, Logan?"
He settled on the bed, which creaked under his adamantium weight as he gathered her into his arms. She cried against his shirt, and he patted her back in silence. Shedding tears under the circumstances couldn't be helped, and they both played their roles well, with Logan the protector and chief hugger and Rogue the vulnerable, murdering and sobbing sidekick.
"I've handled it, and the investigation's gonna be kicked into the long grass. He's a known felon, had several warrants for his arrest, and imported drugs into the country. If the cops had their way, they'd give you a medal because he made his bed last night by threatening you." He frowned down at her. "He did threaten you, didn't he?"
She nodded, tears falling as the memories repeatedly played. "When I went outside to lock the car."
"I told you not to leave the room," he growled, scrubbing a weary hand over his face. "Look, it's time we hit the road, okay? I figure the X-Men would welcome you back, and I can do a little teaching if they'll have me."
"You hate teaching," she pointed out in an upset tone because no matter how she framed things, the drug dealer's death would forever stain her conscience.
Logan hated most things associated with schools, students, and kids. Still, he couldn't dump Rogue there and hightail it back to Canada. After the last twenty-four hours, he was half tempted to murder her himself, but tossing the jokes aside, she wanted him to stick around, and it would probably benefit them both. A clean slate is what they needed, but the X-Men offered everything on a plate.
"Things change," he said, patting her back and listening to the clean-up crew form a chain of command over the crime scene.
Desperate to flee her own thoughts, many of the Wolverine's memories swiftly sprung forward like magic, but one caught Rogue's attention. "She looked like me; that's why you killed them."
He searched the Southerner's face and understood the meaning behind the words. "Yeah, she did. Some suits high up in the government asked for help. The X-Men thought it would build bridges between us and them, which is bullshit. Things got a little out of control when they traced the girl to a hideout in New Mexico. The idiots who planned the mission wanted the kidnappers left alive, but I had other ideas. Her family were happy with the outcome and offered me a Get Out of Jail Free card anytime I needed to use it."
"And you just used it," she said softly as he pulled her to her feet and toward the door.
"Yeah, I used it, all right," he said, tossing the room key onto the bed and leading the way to the SUV.
Unlocking the car, he glanced across the street and sighed at the yellow crime tape flapping in the wind. "Don't let this haunt you. I'm proud of what you did."
She followed his gaze, even as he gently guided her closer to the car. A smartly dressed man carried a body bag to the alley, and she almost felt her legs buckle in horror and shame at the sight. "You're proud of me for hurting someone?"
"Killing for the right reasons isn't something to feel shame over. In our line of work, it's just another day. Welcome to the club, huh," Logan said, hauling her into the passenger seat and closing the car door.
The silent trip across the border into the United States left Rogue room to wriggle through thought after thought. Emotional devastation and trauma tripped the murderous memories into the forefront of her mind, and she glanced at Logan every few minutes or so.
"Spit it out," he finally said as he rolled the window down and lit a cigar.
"You welcomed me into a club I don't want to be part of," she explained softly, the tears seeping into the words.
He sighed heavily and pocketed the lighter. "It's too late to back out, Kid."
She bit her bottom lip relentlessly, dealing with a wave of remorse and anxiety. "Scott said it's never too late to change anything."
"He's a dick," Logan snorted in response. "You took a life last night, and there's no escaping it. Yeah, you'll feel shitty for a while, but the feeling will pass."
"Do you feel guilty when you take a life?" she asked curiously, gazing at him and brushing tears away.
"No," he answered honestly without a second thought and looked at her.
She appreciated the honesty. Continuing to gaze at Logan, she blinked away tears that threatened to fall. The hurt rose, and the guilt multiplied. "Why did you make me do it?"
His brows knit together in confusion and concern. "Do what?"
"Hurt him. You told me to hurt him," Rogue whispered, thinking of the voice in her head.
Logan puffed calmly on the cigar and watched her face for several seconds before turning his gaze back to the road. He searched for a response that wouldn't sound unsympathetic or too harsh.
"There's no use shifting the blame on me because those tenants in your head don't control you. You're the one in charge of your own destiny, you hear?"
She crossed her arms and gazed out the window at farmland and snowy fields. Her feelings were a bit hurt because he didn't understand. "That's not how my mutation works."
"Then you're not trying hard enough to overpower it," he warned with a half-grumble.
Rogue scoffed, annoyed. "That's a shitty excuse for a reply, asshole."
He arched an eyebrow and glanced at her. "You're making my point by letting somebody else talk for you."
She frowned at him sassily. "They're my words."
"No, they're not," he said, shaking his head. "I know you, Kid. You'd rather duck out of an argument than fight your corner."
"They're my words, Logan! I'm not the same person after joining a club that I never wanted any part of."
He sighed. "Yeah, I get it, everything's shitty right now, but that's what happens when you act like a dumb ass and don't listen to me."
Rogue fell into a warm and welcoming silence. There was no point arguing with Logan because 'Stubborn' was his middle name. Perhaps even his surname, too. Maybe she would learn to be stubborn and cold-hearted, so everything would stop hurting inside.
"What, no comeback, huh?" he questioned, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.
Upset by the whole series of events, she blinked tears away and rolled her eyes. "What's the point?'
"Don't slide into a depression. You rid the world of a drug-dealing asshole, and there's nothing to be ashamed of."
Letting the words sink in, she glanced at him. "Proud enough to drop the punishment?"
"Hell no. You owe me four hundred and forty-six hours in the Danger Room," he answered gruffly and pointed the cigar at her. "You're not slacking, either."
Rogue focused on the snowy scenery, trying to run from the memories of the past day or two. No part of her questioned him because she already knew why he picked four hundred and forty-six hours. The Logan inside her head smirked. Finally using your brain, huh? She rolled her eyes. Last night, she travelled four hundred and forty-six miles from Westchester to Hamilton because of a crush.
Head Logan stopped smirking. A crush? All this over a crush on some boy?
"I don't have a crush on a boy. I have a crush on you!" she snapped in response and blushed a fiery shade of red. Feeling the heat rising to every inch of her face, desires turned to dying on the spot because this was the cherry on top of the worst twenty-four hours of her life.
From behind the steering wheel, a frowning Logan concentrated on the traffic ahead. His head ticked over with dozens of straight-shooting answers, and he eventually sighed. Now, it all made sense. Jean had been right all along; the kid had a crush on him.
She ignored Head Logan's chuckle and flirtatious remarks. What would tomorrow bring? Life was strange because she sat beside her only crush, searching for beef jerky after murdering a drug dealer. Everything weighed heavily on her shoulders. He saw her as a kid, a friend and a mess. She tricked him into saving her and then killed someone because he said so. He murdered two kidnappers because they hurt a girl who resembled her a little and then used his Get Out of Jail Free card to save her from a life of orange jumpsuits and prison meals.
"Life's stranger than fiction, but thanks for caring, Logan," she whispered, hoping the time spent in the Danger Room would break the embarrassing infatuation.
He grunted and continued to watch the road. "Like I said earlier, welcome to the club, but you deserve better than this, Marie. You deserve better than me."
Those words caught Rogue by surprise. The tone of them. The expression in his eyes. The way he chomped on the cigar and watched the highway without elaborating any further.
Whatever the future held, she would handle it with all the grace of a one-time drug mule who couldn't hold her drink and murdered someone under the influence of a growling, gruff personality in her mind.
Sighing, she gazed down at the torn gloves with across-the-board shame. This is where the story ended. On the road travelling back to Westchester, words left unsaid, a death on her conscience, and a crush that would either flounder or flourish by the time she turned eighteen.
Life would never be the same again, but Logan was here, and he soothed the worst of the worries as she reminded herself that liquor, drugs, bathtubs and Beatles songs didn't mix.
This story is brought to you by two Beatles songs - All Together Now and Norwegian Wood.
Also, this version of Logan and Rogue will return in another one-shot. Yes, I have plans for them that involve drama, humour and a little romance.