“Rogue, would you hurry up?” Jubilee was standing in the doorway impatiently tapping her feet, waiting for her.
“I’m coming!” She ran out of her bathroom to meet her friend. She was wearing a shirt, black skirt and knee-highs, and a dark blue v-neck sweater with long sleeves. Even though she could control her skin these days, she couldn’t help feeling safer covered up.
“Whoa, hot mama Rogue!” She blushed at her friend as they headed off.
They went out most Friday nights. They had to take their pagers in case there was a serious mission. But most Friday’s were their own.
Logan watched them jump into the waiting taxi and smiled. He was happy that his little Marie was such a confident young woman. She was an X-Men, despite his better judgement; she was 21 and beautiful. He had watched her grow up, overcome her issues with her mutation, enough to gain complete control of it.
She didn’t live at the mansion anymore. She had a small apartment in town over the top of a Chinese takeaway. She had only decided to rent it because of the smell. Most Friday nights she stayed with Jubes. They went out, and she spent all day Saturday there. She taught photography to some of the older students three times a week, but was there at least every other day to work out and train.
The club was heaving. People everywhere. Jubes kept glancing at Rogue to make sure she wasn’t freaking out, but there wasn’t any need. Rogue was having a great time.
They had been talking to a couple of guys for about an hour. Mike was tall, blonde and a little skinny, but Jubes liked his eyes and was flirting with him outrageously as he bought her drinks and flirted back. Ethan was well-built, dark with nicely-cut hair, and he reminded Marie of David Boreanez, the guy who played Angel in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.
He was amazingly easy to talk to. He had flattered her with compliments and made her feel pretty and wanted. They had chatted about films and music, and he was currently asking her about her job while he rolled a cigarette. “So you teach photography?”
“Yeah, it’s cool. You get to take pictures of really weird stuff, and no one questions it because you can call it *art*.”
He finished his cigarette put it between his lips, and lit it. The moment Rogue smelled it, she knew it wasn’t any smoke you could buy over the counter. He smiled at her and offered it to her.
Not wanting to look like a complete plank, she took it from him and drew off it. The weed filled her lungs, and she coughed. He smiled at her. “First one’s the worst. Take a second toke on it.” She did and was surprised that she didn’t choke.
He rolled another and left her to smoke the first one. As the evening wore on, she drank what he bought her and smoked what he gave her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so deliriously happy. She giggled at everything. So did he. They laughed together as they watched Jubes and Mike dancing slowly while kissing; for some reason, the scene was hilarious.
When the club closed, they exchanged numbers, and he kissed her, holding his hands on her cheeks and pulling her to him. It wasn’t a perfect kiss, but it was perfect at that moment. She didn’t pull away, the drug in her system making her forget she had only just met him.
When she and Jubes got home, they tottered on their heels back to Jubes’s room. Rogue couldn’t stop giggling, and Jubes, even though she was drunk, just couldn’t see what was so funny.
Waking up in the morning, Rogue felt like she had been hit by a truck: tired, dizzy, but thankfully not sick. Jubes, on the other hand, was already throwing up in the bathroom.
After a slow and weary day of watching the students swim and marking some papers, she decided to call Ethan.
He picked up quickly. “Yeah.” Her heart skipped a beat in excitement.
“Hey, it’s Rogue, from last night.” She was sure she heard him smile.
“Hey, you alright?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Are you around tonight?”
“Could be.” She bit her lip. She really did like him, and according to Jubes, it was about time she had a man in her life, other than Tall-dark-and-growly.
“Meet me at the club at eight. I really want to see you again.”
“Ok. See you then.”
“Ok, bye.”
“Bye.” She put her phone on her desk and clapped her hands together like an excited child.
She ran upstairs and borrowed Jubes’s shower, and then got into her best tight black jeans and a silver boob tube that Kitty had bought her for Christmas. As she was leaving, Jubes, ‘Ro and Logan were in the foyer.
“Where you going, dude?” Jubes called after her, but the others looked like they expected an answer as well.
“Ethan. We have a date. I’ll see you Tuesday.” She turned and ran to the waiting taxi. “See ya.”
She got stoned with him again, smoking more than she had the night before. She couldn't get enough of the excitement. It made her bold, made her feel very sexy and wanton, sitting in the booth in a darkened club, openly kissing someone she had only known for 24 hours. She straddled his lap as their kisses deepened. Then they giggled as they broke apart.
He took her home in a taxi, giving the driver an explicit lesson on French kissing. Groping her breasts and moaning into her mouth when she cupped him through his jeans. She didn’t know she could behave like that. When she got out of the taxi, he pinned her to its door, kissing her again, before getting back in and leaving her to go up to her door alone.
Logan sat in his truck opposite Marie’s apartment, watching some guy kiss her into the side of a cab. He wanted to growl, run over there, and throw the little prick a hundred yards. But he didn’t. He saw the way her body arched into him, saw her delicate hand and fingers wind into his hair. She wanted him, whoever the hell this kid was. Marie wanted him. He couldn’t deny her anything. Then he smiled - plus the fact she would kill him for interfering.
He had only gone to make sure she got home ok. He started the engine and pulled away, not wanting to see whether or not she took him up with her.
It went on like this for two more months. She would go out one night during the week and then both Friday and Saturday nights with Ethan. She would get completely smashed on whatever he was smoking, each night needing more and more to get that *thrill*, combining it with vodka or something else that was similarly potent.
In the morning, she woke up tired and hungry, her head ready to explode. She couldn’t think why she kept doing it. It gave her a buzz, and she certainly like the feeling of being so happy. So free. Not caring about the things around her.
She had started giving Ethan money for the drugs he gave her, after he said he only had enough to buy his own. He introduced her to people. All were fun to be around and seemed to like her. She had become part of his little group, and she loved it.
She loved the feeling smoking dope gave her. The feeling of being so out of it, she could forget about killer mutants like ‘Bagpuss’ and Bucket-head. The world melted away. She didn’t have to worry if there was a war coming or not. She didn’t have to worry that sooner or later she and the ones she loved the most would have to fight and kill in order to survive.
Not just evil mutants. Humans were just as bad. There wasn’t a news broadcast that went by when someone hadn’t killed someone else for this reason or that. Children, woman, they didn’t care. Now she had a way so that she didn’t either. She could lose the feeling, but take the attention of a man.
It wasn’t just general things; there were personal things too. She hated the idea of being left alone. She couldn’t cope with the thought of eventually falling in love with someone only to have it end badly. She just couldn’t deal with it.
She had done something similar when she was younger, with her grandmother. She had become old, but when she started to get ill, Marie distanced herself, stopped visiting, stopped calling. Her theory was that if she distanced herself from her when she was alive, it wouldn’t be so bad when she died. After that, whenever anyone said they loved her she just smiled, not able to bring herself to say it back. Not even to her mother.
The thought that everyone might just not want her anymore, like her parents, scared her to death. She had ended her relationship with Bobby, not wanting to wait for him to leave her; she did it before she got too close. Even her relationship with Logan had its boundary.
It was easier to smile, but not get close, be happy when people were around, but not join in. She couldn’t stick her neck out only to have it chopped off. It was all too much of a risk.
She stepped into the shower and winced as the water hit her skin. Yeah, that was it. She didn’t want to feel anymore. She didn’t want to feel like a freak, didn’t want to feel like the whole world was closing in on them, ready to kill simply because they were a potential threat.
Escaping was one thing, but she was truly in denial of her feelings. A couple of mornings she had even woken up in her bed with no idea of how she got there. The previous night simply a complete haze. One morning she had no clothes on and fearfully wondered how and why. But she just concluded that she must have come home and undressed herself.
Last night had been especially vague. They had gone to a new club called The Underground, somewhere she had never been before. She’d felt tense as they descended the spiral staircase into the echoing tile room below. A hulking bodyguard had stood in the middle of the room. He gestured to Ethan, who smiled and showed him some kind of membership card. He opened a door for them, and the sound of pumping music met her ears.
It was like an enormous warehouse. The lights were dim and gave everyone an eerie glow. Filled to the brim with heaving people, a stage at one end with a DJ, and off to one side some booth with important looking people in. Bodyguards keeping the revellers out. She also noticed a narrow corridor leading off to god-knows-where.
They had drunk and danced, and he once had left her at the bar while he went to one of the booths. He came back and offered her a pill with a small ‘e’ stamped on it. She was already stoned and at that time could see no reason not to take it. The rest of the night went by in a blur of kisses, bright lights, dancing and laughing. She was hot and sweaty and so perfectly high.
She never realised that she could be so out of control, be so free of all her thoughts. She was glad that the voices in her head had stopped years ago. It had been so long since she touched anyone like that, and they would drive her mad now.
She arrived at the mansion on her old Vespa and headed straight for her class. Logan stopped her in the hall. They had lunch together everyday she was there.
“Hey.” He looked his casual handsome self, vest, shirt, jacket and cigar. Leaning against the doorframe of her classroom, waiting for her.
“Hey yourself. We still on for lunch?” She noticed that his nostrils flared, and she hoped that she didn’t smell like the club anymore.
“Can’t. I got to run an ‘errand’ for Chuck. You in tomorrow?”
“Um, what are we on, Tuesday? So no, I’ll be in Friday afternoon. The schedule changed slightly this week. I’ll see you then?”
He smiled at her and kissed the top of her head. “Yeah. And stop smokin’ that shit. It makes your eyes dull.”
She sighed and muttered under her breath as he walked off, “Yes, dad!”
“I heard that!” was the laughing reply she got from around the hall corner. She laughed and walked into her classroom to set up for the morning. She only had two lessons today. She was glad she was going out with Ethan again that evening.
She got home later than she wanted to, after being cornered by Jubes, who insisted that she tell her everything about her relationship with Ethan. Rogue told her the truth. They went out and partied, but at the moment they hadn’t even gone past the kissing stage.
She showered, dressed, and was just checking her make-up when her buzzer went. She didn’t bother to check who it was, she knew. Grabbing her jacket, she raced downstairs. Ethan was patiently waiting at the bottom. She was already slightly high from the joint she’d smoked while getting ready.
He looked handsome, and she kissed him easily. She was attracted to him, but she knew she wasn’t in love with him, nowhere near. She had purposely not bothered to get to know him properly.
She suddenly realised as they walked into The Underground club that she knew absolutely nothing about him: his last name, where he lived, where he was from, or even if he had a job.
He handed her a drink and a joint. She smoked it, and the familiar buzz began to fill her again. She got looser as the evening wore on. Openly kissing him in front of his friends. They danced closely, and she vaguely remembered him groping her breasts through her top as they swayed about.
He took her through the narrow corridor which led to some back rooms. He opened a door, and Rogue gasped at the sight that greeted her. A girl lay on her back, while a man, maybe her boyfriend, maybe not, roughly fucked her, his hands digging into her fleshy thighs as he held then apart. Marie could see every detail, his cock slamming in and out of her. Another man was harshly shoving his own cock in her mouth, her long blond hair wound round his fist as he forced himself in and out of her lips. The girl was so obviously out of it that she didn’t even move, arms limp at her sides, no sounds coming from her, her head hanging in the mans hand with a vacant expression.
She didn’t know what to think. She giggled, but it was a nervous giggle, the dope and ‘e’ in her veins making her not realise the seriousness of that girl’s situation, or her own.
***********END OF PART ONE
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to Gamma.
Summary: Waking up in the morning, Rogue felt like she had been hit by a truck.
Summary: Waking up in the morning, Rogue felt like she had been hit by a truck.