There was only one thing, Rogue thought, that was worse than being a third wheel. And that was being a fifth wheel. Or a seventh wheel, or any number of wheel between zero and however many couples were currently living at the mansion. Breakfast had been close to intolerable already and she could feel a brewing edge of almost Wolverine-like surliness that probably wasn't going to ease up any time soon.
She passed a floating, red, heart-shaped balloon as she walked through the foyer, the silver string tied to an eerily grinning, pink teddy-bear, and she was quite undeniably filled with the desire to stick a pair of scissors in it while no one was looking. Valentine's day was not a Rogue-friendly holiday. Never really had been, as she would have freely admitted if anyone had actually bothered to ask. For a long time she hadn't let herself think about it; The idea of a relationship had long seemed too far into the realms of the impossible to even consider. Given the dangerous nature of her skin, she had pretty much resigned herself to a rather solitary existence and had almost managed to come to terms with it... but while some situations changed, unfortunately some others didn't.
Her peculiarly lethal mutation had finally been curbed the summer before. The steel-coloured bracelet around her wrist was made from an adapted form of the Genoshan power-suppression collar, but that really seemed to have solved only half the problem. For while she could no longer kill with her touch, and the chance of a relationship was no longer just a pipe dream, she had somehow completely failed to find anyone to actually have a relationship with.
It was that, more than anything, that made Valentine's day so unutterably hard to bear. Because though previous years had been devoid of romantic interest, she had at least been able to blame her mutation for the lack of cards and candy headed in her direction. Greeting it with mildly martyred stoicism had been strangely bearable, and a scapegoat had often been her best friend.
This year... well, she realised, this year she had absolutely nothing to blame at all, and if the truth were told it made her feel more than a little bit pathetic. Not just for her perceived sense of failure at attracting a partner, but for the fact that she'd waited so long for that one step forward yet somehow had managed to remain standing still.
A pathetic Rogue was not a happy Rogue, and she was made just that tiny bit more unhappy when she returned to her room and found not only her roommate monopolising the shower, but also a large bunch of flowers lying rakishly on top of her bed.
"JUBES! Get out of the damn bathroom!" She yelled through the locked door and dropped her forehead against the wood as she sighed and waited for a response.
"What?"
The shouted reply came back over the sound of the shower running at full blast and Rogue huffed.
"You left your flowers on my bed, and I want to get in there and brush my teeth."
"I don't have any flowers!" Jubilee shouted back and Rogue rolled her eyes.
"Then one of your boy-creatures has left your flowers on my bed, and I still need to get in there to brush my teeth."
There was a moment of silence broken only by the background hiss of water and then the bolt was drawn back. A dripping wet, soapy-haired Jubilee peered carefully out of the tiny crack between the door and the frame.
"I'll be out in a sec, ok? Just lemme rinse."
Rogue sighed and slouched down at her desk, knocking her computer mouse to get rid of the screensaver before starting up yet another game of solitaire to pass the half hour she knew it would take for Jubilee to finish her loofah cycle. She was up to draw three with Vegas scoring, and actually winning. She really did spend way too much time playing solitaire.
The shower finally stopped some twenty minutes later and a billowing cloud of soap-scented steam puffed into the room just ahead of Jubilee. She was wrapped up in a gigantic, yellow bath-towel and she glanced at Rogue still idly toying with the computer before looking at the bed where a bunch of flowers was laying, untouched. Twelve stems, wrapped around with a white satin ribbon that was knotted neatly down the left hand side.
"Where did those come from?" Jubes asked. "They weren't there when I went for a shower."
Rogue shrugged and spun round in her chair to look at the roses lying on the bed. "Dunno," she replied. "I just got back from breakfast and there they were. I assume one of your many boy-shapes left them for you but managed to leave them on the wrong bed. You'd think the yellow bedspread would give it away really, but apparently not."
Jubilee picked them up and looked carefully around the tied stalks. "There's no card," she said. "How do you know they're not for you?"
Rogue snorted. "Oh, please. It's Valentine's day, you currently have at least six boys chasing around and panting at your heels and it'll be one of them, trying to be secretive and romantic. Plus, those roses...? In case you hadn't noticed, they're really fucking yellow."
Jubes looked at the flowers thoughtfully, running her fingers down the thornless stems. "It's kinda' odd though, don't you think? That they're yellow, and all... it's not exactly traditional for Valentines."
Rogue shrugged and went back to her solitaire game. "Probably means they ran out of red ones at the gas station and someone had to improvise a substitute."
For a moment the only sound in the room was the slow, almost rhythmic clicking of Rogue's mouse as the cards on the screen shuffled and stacked and reshuffled all over again, and Jubilee looked curiously between her friend and the 12 yellow blooms she held in her hands. The petals were still fresh and undamaged, perfect and sweet flowers that were nothing at all like the kind you picked up last-minute from a gas station. Giving Rogue one last curious glance she took the decorative, blue glass vase off the windowsill and went to fill it with water.
---
There's an inevitability to being miserable, Rogue usually believed. Like holding back a dam. If enough events conspire then eventually it's going to break and the full force of a bad mood will be released. Once you start it's not only hard to stop, but suddenly even the smallest things seem to grow and somehow increase in importance, like opening a floodgate to irritation.
Rogue was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, her dam had sprung a leak.
"I fucking hate Valentines day..."
She seethed quietly as she glared at the bunch of honeysuckle sitting in a neat little posy on the middle of her pillow. The fact that she couldn't seem to leave the room for 5 minutes at a time now without some brand of floral mistaken identity taking place was more than a little irritating. Not to mention upsetting, whispered some small part of her, but she squashed it back down again and stomped off to find something to put Jubilee's latest bunch of flowers in. Finding only a coffee mug with a cocoa-stain lurking at the bottom, she filled it with water and dumped the honeysuckle stems into it, sticking it on the windowsill along with the roses.
She gave a sigh and dropped down heavily onto the corner of her bed. "Sucks to be you, Rogue," she muttered, glaring at the flowers that almost seemed to glow with unnatural cheer from across the room.
It wasn't that she hated Valentines day, exactly... if you wanted the truth it was the opposite. She hated it only because she was never a part of it. Elder wisdom held that Valentine's day mattered more to those who were single than it ever did to established couples. But therein lay the issue, Rogue thought. There's a difference between choosing not to celebrate, and not choosing to be alone. It was one of those days that highlighted lovers into the haves and the have-nots, and life so far seemed to have decided she should remain permanently among the latter.
Jubilee had gone off to chase and be chased by a troupe of eager young mutant boys, and the hearts and flowers brigade of gooey and eager couples at the mansion had taken up residence in the rec room and turned it into an impromptu love-in. At least if the saccharine sweet, smoochy, kissing noises coming from there were anything to go by, they certainly had. She'd actually been heading down there to watch TV but she'd heard them from out in the hall and, not exactly being a glutton for punishment, she'd turned around and gone right back to her room again.
There was only so much schmoop any one person could take at a time, and finding more flowers on her bed that were so blatantly (and yellowly) intended for her roommate seemed almost like some hideously unfair cosmic torment.
"I need chocolate," she grumbled, sliding onto the floor and rooting round in the chaos beneath the bed. It was the only place she'd found where Jubilee wouldn't look, because much as she loved her roommate, you never left Jubilee alone with chocolate especially if you wanted to stand any chance of eating it yourself.
Pulling out a half-eaten box of champagne truffles and grabbing a couple of movies from the shelf by the computer, Rogue headed out again, this time to the usually unoccupied briefing room on the other side of the mansion. It didn't have cable TV, but it did have a DVD player, and as long as it provided a couple of hours undisturbed moping then it would do well enough.
The thing about Valentine's day, she thought as she plodded through the seemingly endless miles of hallway, is that it breeds ridiculous hope. It's the one day of the year that every lovelorn little girl can cross their fingers and wish really hard that, sitting on the doormat or waiting out in the mailbox, there's going to be a card. From someone... anyone... whether they sign their name or remain a mystery, or whether you hear from them again or not. Even if there's been no romantic interest in you at all the whole year long, it never stops you from secretly hoping that you'll be proved wrong. For that one brief moment it reminds you that maybe, if you're lucky, and you just wish hard enough, you'll get some kind of sign that you're not as doomed to a life of solitude as you think you are. Of course it's a romance cliche, and an old one at that, to find the mysterious card on February 14th and be swept away on a passionate and romantic cloud as your enigmatic suitor makes himself known and whisks you off for a lifetime of love and steamingly hot sex... it hardly ever happens that way, but that never stops you from wanting it.
Was it so much to ask, she thought, plodding down the Western corridor under her own, dismal little grey cloud, to just maybe feel like you were wanted?
She glanced up and, on the window seat at the end of the hall she saw Logan. He was propped up languidly on the green velour bench-cushion, reading some book or another with a cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth. Seemingly he'd been evicted from his favourite spot in front of the TV too.
The window was open a crack to let out the smoke and he looked, ridiculously, like he belonged there. Some hangover from a bygone era, maybe, the way he held his body sometimes unconsciously like that of a long-lost and much more genteel and graceful time. Rogue paused for a second by the briefing room door, watching him carefully flick the page over. He was apparently too engrossed in his reading to stop and acknowledge her though, and she felt the small but sharp flare of rejection again. If not even her friends were interested in her today, it seemed pretty certain she wasn't going to be receiving any secretive gifts from unknown but lovesick suitors any time soon.
Hearing the snap of the latch on the door click shut, Logan looked up from the page he was reading, one eyebrow cocking slightly almost as if he was confused.
He looked down the empty hallway for a moment, then shrugged and went back to reading.
---
"Where the hell did THAT come from?"
Two hours and the first volume of Kill Bill later, (nothing eases a romantically pining mood better than Quentin Tarantino and chaotic and gratuitous movie violence) Rogue finally made it back to her room. Jubilee was standing in the doorway, having only just returned herself, and Rogue peered round the door to see what she was shouting about.
There was a potted, dwarf sunflower sitting in the middle of Rogue's bed now, and more annoyingly still, it was shedding compost onto her quilt. Rogue rolled her eyes, swore quietly and shoved past a mystified Jubilee.
"The same place as the roses and the honeysuckle, I would assume," she said irritably, tossing the movies onto her desk and picking up the cheerily golden sunflower. "And if you want to survive until next Valentine's day, I suggest you find whichever colour-blind little mutant just got mud all over my bed and make him damn well apologise."
Jubilee just looked lost. "Chica, I swear, I just left all of them downstairs. There's no way anyone could have beaten me up here just to plant you a plant. I have no idea who's doing this."
"Great. You have a florally-obsessed mystery admirer to add to your harem. Maybe he can help you with your botany homework," Rogue snapped.
Jubilee's brow crinkled, one eyebrow arching as she watched Rogue slam the sunflower down on the windowsill with the other bouquets and then begin to irritably sweep the soil off the top of her sheets.
"I still don't know why you're assuming they're for me," Jubilee said. "They were all on your bed."
Rogue paused and shot her an incredulous glare. "Jubes," she said. "There is so much yellow on that windowsill now that moths are gathering on the opposite side of the glass under the mistaken impression that it is a small sun. Somehow it doesn't seem like a big leap of logic to assume the increasing mountain of flowers that all happen to be in your favourite colour, are actually for you." She angrily swept the last few fragments of compost onto the floor and flopped down onto her bed to glare at the wall. "I fucking hate yellow, anyway."
Jubilee frowned thoughtfully, her lips pressing into a thin line as she looked at the cheery flowers now taking up most of the tiny windowsill.
It certainly couldn't have been Bobby. Maybe it was Warren... or Pitor... or Sam... or...
Rogue just stared at the chipped area of paint-work on the wall by her pillow.
Like as if the flowers would ever be for her. It was ridiculous. Not one desiring look or flirtatious comment had sailed her way at any point during the whole of the last six months, why would anyone suddenly be making a fuss about her now? No, said her inner realist, firmly pushing the lingering threads of hope well and truly out of the way. The flowers were not hers. Destiny, it said, obviously had very set ideas about its plans for a mutant with deadly skin. Mechanical suppression cuff or not, it was just basic natural selection to deny her a partner no matter how appealing one sounded. It wasn't fatalism, it said. Just common sense. Natural selection and all that. Darwin would be proud.
She frowned, hating the way she could feel resentment welling up inside her as Jubilee pottered about the room, lining up the pink and white valentine cards she had collected from her numerous little boyfriends already that morning.
And just for a moment... through the sharpest, flashing sting of hurt, Rogue absolutely hated her.
---
She was almost loathe to go downstairs for lunch. Rogue had been staying in her room for as long as possible in the hope that Jubes' mystery suitor would crawl out of the woodwork again so she could at least set him straight about which bed he was supposed to be leaving mud on. But no one turned up and she was starting to get hungry, so grudgingly she headed downstairs to raid the kitchen.
Returning not even 10 minutes later with a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of soda balanced in her arms, it almost completely failed to surprise her when she was greeted with yet another bunch of flowers sitting neatly on her bed.
She sighed, drowning out the fluttering sting of jealousy with a more resentful kind of anger. Annoyed not even with the giver as much as with her own, increasingly dented sense of self-esteem. Upset, truthfully, at how much she was letting the continual reminders of rejection actually get to her. Twenty years of not really caring and not really thinking about it, and being strangely reconciled to solitude... and now on this one, single, ridiculous holiday, every single gesture suddenly seemed like the cruellest reminder of exactly what it was she didn't have.
She dumped the plate and glass down on the desk and snatched up the latest bunch of flowers. They weren't yellow this time. Carefully bound stems held together a bunch of white poppies, the stalks surrounded with a mass of tiny, white bell flowers and Rogue frowned. Staring at them, sitting in her hands so pretty and sweet and so evidently not intended for her, she could almost feel the weight of her heart dropping inside her chest. "Not for Rogue," the flowers seemed to whisper. "Never for Rogue..." Her previous hunger seemed to evaporate as she stared at the blossom and, if she was honest, she felt a little bit sick. The continuing adulation being bestowed upon her roommate gnawed doggedly at the edges of her composure. Not because she begrudged Jubilee her happiness, but because she wished that, just once, she wasn't quite so invisible in comparison.
Because there was Jubilee, not just pursued by a whole assortment of people at once, but also somehow living out that romantic Valentine fantasy Rogue had so fervently wished for herself. Things don't always work out like romance chiches, she knew that already, but it seemed beyond unfair to see that cliche working out so well right in front of her face, and happening to the one person who probably needed it the least.
Slowly, almost mechanically, Rogue headed to the bathroom and tipped her soda down the sink. Filling up the glass with water instead she dropped the poppies in, one by one. They would wilt quickly without it, their petals turning crepey and limp before falling off and some part of her burned with a malice that wanted to leave them lying forgotten on the bed and just not come back. Wanted them to shrivel and die just out of spite for her own, increasingly bruised heart. But they weren't hers and no matter how jealous she was she couldn't do that to her friend. Her eyes started to sting with swallowed-down emotion; tears of frustration and impotent rage as she arranged the mass of pretty little bell flowers around the edge of the glass, and she cursed herself for being so melodramatic about a stupid bunch of plants. They only cause Hay Fever anyway, she thought, resentfully. Who needed a dumb collection of flowers, when obviously any woman would have preferred chocolate?
Rogue couldn't seem to stop staring at the white poppies though, their hairy stems tickling her fingertips as she pushed them around the glass. The fragile petals seemed almost translucent in the bright, wintry sunshine, so delicate and tissue-thin she could see the veins flickering through them.
Some small place deep inside of her had started to ache with yearning when she found the roses that morning. Now it almost burned with jealousy, self-pity forming a low, throbbing pressure behind her eyes. Scrubbing at her face with the edge of her sleeve (the pollen was making her eyes water, she told herself sternly) she put the latest bouquet on the windowsill with the others. The white stood out surprisingly vivid against the rest of the blooms and she wondered for a moment whether yellow poppies had proved too hard to find, even for Jubilee's horticulturally-obsessed suitor.
She turned then, and left, closing the door behind her and definitely not intending to return until Valentine's day was well and truly over. Jubilee could deal with her own floral offerings next time around because what she really needed now was to be somewhere else. Even if it was only to try and forget how much she wanted to dwell on her own self-pity.
She wrapped her arms about herself as she wandered the hallways, not really heading for anywhere in particular, just as long as it was away from her room. Her head was bowed as she walked, staring dejectedly at the carpet that vanished beneath her feet with every plodding step, following the woven trails of vines and creepers and Japanese birds that covered it. She barely even noticed as she brushed past Logan in the hall, his curious gaze lingering on her as she wandered aimlessly towards the back of the house.
---
She wasn't quite sure how, but she wound up in the greenhouse. She'd laughed at the description when she first heard it, a long time ago now. It was heated and lit and furnished, stone benches looking out across the back lawn through tall, Victorian glass panes. The gardeners used it to force plants to bloom out of season, the air heady with perfume almost all year round as riotous and clashing colours billowed out in floral clouds from every available surface.
The air was always humid and warm in there, steaming up the windows right now against the February chill on the other side of the glass and Rogue slumped down on one of the benches to stare dejectedly at the flowers lining the walls. These ones at least did not really belong to anyone. The terracotta tiled floor was wet under her shoes, and the hanging baskets were dripping peat-brown water onto the flowerbeds below them. Everything was glistening with moisture, like the lingering fingerprint of the gardeners tending their plants. Caring for them and nurturing them, giving to them exactly what they needed to swell out into a perfect bloom and she suddenly and desperately wanted to cry.
Maybe she should have gone to watch another movie, or maybe she should have distracted herself some other way... but in the quiet solitude of the glasshouse there was somehow no escaping yourself, as the loneliness inside finally pushed its way to the surface. Her eyes burned too much to even try and hold it in, her throat constricting as the first, miserable sob made its way past her lips and she twisted round sideways to pull her feet up on the bench, burying her face against her bent knees to try and muffle the sound.
It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. At five years old she would have stamped her feet and screamed until she made herself sick, and at twelve she would have sulked and been angry and refused to come out of her room... but at twenty she just hurt, aching too far down for something no one else seemed to realise that she needed. And it WAS a need, she realised. Simple wanting had never burned this much and she hugged herself tighter, letting the wash of it all overtake her like the endlessly sluicing tide.
"Rogue?"
She jumped and stiffened at the sound, Logan's voice taking her by surprise and she swatted quickly at the tears streaming down her face, wiping them away with her shirtsleeves even though she knew he'd never be fooled by her efforts. He crossed the red tiled floor and gently straddled the bench behind her, the weight of his hand coming to rest on her shoulder and the concern in his voice almost starting her tears again. She sniffed weakly, wetting the back of her hand with warm saltwater as she dragged it over her cheeks.
"Hey..." he murmured, squeezing her shoulder a little. "What happened?"
She let out a wet-sounding laugh, dropping her feet back to the floor either side of the bench as she wrapped her arms around her middle.
"It's Valentine's Day, Logan... I fucking hate Valentine's day."
"You do?" he sounded surprised and the hand on her shoulder started rubbing carefully in meaningless little circles. "I thought women liked that romantic crap. You know, flowers and chocolate and all that."
"Oh, we do..." she told him, trying to sound cheerful but it just came out forced and a tiny bit too desperate. "But Jubilee's been getting flowers all day from some mystery guy, and it's a little hard to take when you've never even got a card before."
She sniffed again, harder this time and she heard Logan sigh slowly, the hand on her shoulder never stopping its movement.
"Jubilee got flowers, huh?"
Rogue nodded, and then laughed again, a little brighter this time and Logan's cheek ticked into a sort of unconscious half-smile at the sound. "Yeah," she said. "Only the idiot kept leaving them on my bed instead of hers." She huffed a little and grew serious again. "It's so stupid, I mean it's just flowers, but I just..." The words trailed off with a vague wave of her hand and she stared blankly at the flowerbeds rather than finish her line of thought.
Logan was quiet for a moment, the hand on her shoulder pausing to carefully move her hair into a neat fall down the centre of her back. He dropped his hands down to rest on his thighs before he spoke again.
"If they were on your bed, how do you know they were for her?"
Rogue shrugged, looking down at the carved stonework in front of her, watching her fingertips drag carefully across the roughly pitted surface. She was strangely glad she didn't have to look him in the eye. "They were yellow."
"Hm." Logan's grunt sounded thoughtful and he slid his hands out to rest on her waist, holding her gently there for a moment. "So what flowers did she get?"
"Roses," Rogue sighed. "Twelve of them. And a bunch of other things too... I don't know."
She felt Logan moving behind her for a moment and she twisted around a little, turning just enough to see him break off one of the greenhouse blooms with a sharp press of his thumbnail. A fat, yellow tulip, barely even opening and he looked at it carefully, pressing the lightest brush of its petals against her cheek before handing it to her.
"Here," he said, the edge of his voice like the burn of fine whiskey. "This one's definitely for you."
She wrapped her fingers around the cool, green stem, the dampness on her cheeks this time nothing to do with misery and she choked out a thank you as he wrapped his arms around her to pull her back against his chest, letting her sink into the slow warmth of his embrace.
Watching the vibrant mass of flowerbeds she finally let the tension ebb away from her body and in the comfortable silence the only thing she could feel was Logan breathing against her shoulder and the slow shift of his chest pressed up to her spine.
"What do you see?" he asked.
She shrugged a little and let the cool, damp tulip rest against the warmth in her cheeks. "Flowers... lots of flowers."
Logan sighed and she felt him shake his head, obviously mildly exasperated with her answer.
"You know, once," he said, "Each and every flower had a meaning. If you knew them and understood how to use them, you could speak without ever using words." He tightened his grip around Rogue's body just a fraction, pre-empting the question he knew she would ask. "Yellow roses can mean either jealousy or friendship, depending on how you use them. What else did Jubilee get?"
Rogue closed her eyes, revelling in the alien feel of the body wrapped around hers. "Honeysuckle," she said. "And a little sunflower that left compost all over my bed."
She felt rather than heard Logan laugh, and without even thinking it made her smile.
"Honeysuckle..." he sounded amused. "That's a generous and devoted affection. The Dwarf Sunflower meant adoration."
"Hmm, lucky Jubilee," Rogue murmured and Logan snorted.
"Yeah... Lucky old Jubilee. What else did you get?"
"Ah..." she sighed lazily. "White poppies and little bell flower things. I guess yellow poppies were out of season or something."
Logan quirked an eyebrow slightly. "Never assume," he said. "Bell flowers denote gratitude. White poppies mean you are the antidote to whatever ails me. Yellow poppies mean something else entirely."
Rogue's head dropped back onto Logan's shoulder and she smiled sadly, her eyes still shut and he looked down at the tulip gently caressing her face.
"Jubes will be so pleased..." she said and she felt the warm rush of air against her neck as Logan sighed again.
"Do you know what I see?" he asked.
Rogue shook her head, opening her eyes again to look out across the colourful display.
"What?"
When he answered his voice seemed unusually thick. "I see someone who should have got scarlet geraniums. Because she's not as bright as I thought."
Her heart lurched in that moment, the breath freezing in her lungs as she felt the lightest press of his lips against the crook of her neck. An involuntary shudder flickered up her spine, her lips parting on a silent breath as her eyes fell closed. Every nerve seemed focused on his mouth, her skin shivering with anticipation as he laid a second kiss on top of the first, the soft caress of his lips brushing slowly up her neck to pause just below her ear.
"You know what a yellow tulip means, right?"
She tried to shake her head but somehow couldn't manage it, her body a shivering mass of sensation in his arms and all she could do was breathe as his lips brushed delicately against her ear.
"Hopeless love..."
She couldn't help the tiny gasp that escaped at his words, his whisper like a caress on her senses and she craned her neck around, suddenly needing to see him, needing to look at him. But before she could even open her eyes he was right there... the gentlest, sweetest brush of his lips, so chaste and heartbreakingly tender, barely skimming across her mouth. Not a kiss, not really, just the feel of it touching her, breath mingling, warm and delicate against her skin. The nearness and the sheer intimacy of the gesture filling some part of her with a feeling she'd never experienced before; a longing that finally felt answered after a lifetime of denial. He was perfect, and solid, and real against her body. Everything she'd ever thought that she wanted and she wished she could tell him as much, but her voice didn't seem to work any more. The faintest of delicious shivers tickled through her body, not seeing, only feeling as his mouth grazed her lips once more. She felt his palm gently cup her cheek, felt the tulip fall from lax fingers as his thumb stroked across her chin. She felt her lips falling open for him as he finally, softly kissed her...
So much at once, it was almost overwhelming, tender and considerate and careful. Her hands brushed over the front of his shirt, twisting slowly in the fabric as the tip of his tongue skimmed her lower lip. It was intended to soothe more than arouse, but the unfamiliar touch still poured sensation through her, a soft moan escaping as she attempted to peel open heavy, passion-drugged eyes.
So many types of perfect, swelling and merging with a heat that marked the beginning of something new and wholly unexperienced. Like wanting something she barely even had a name for, and the feel of his lips remained like a phantom against her flesh even after he pulled back, teasing with the silent promise of everything she'd ever wanted to feel. So chaste and innocent and too much and nowhere near enough, and she leaned closer into his body, soaking up the heat of physical contact as she twisted around enough to bury her flushed, dazed face into the warmth of his shoulder.
"Logan..."
She had so many questions but couldn't seem to voice any of them. Could only murmur his name and hope he understood what it meant, and he held her tighter in reply, stroking her arm and back and shoulder in warmly soothing turns as she listened to his heartbeat in the silence.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
So I found this lurking on my hard drive from... uh.. I think maybe 2005? For one reason or another I don't think it was actually ever posted anywhere so, given the date and the crap-tastic day that I'm currently having, I figured it was an ideal time to whip it out and wallow in some shockingly shameless foof.