“Nothing ‘grand’? Really?” She asked, staring at one of the women who was currently shaking her humungous breasts in hopes of milking every last peso out of a trucker who was slobbering at her feet.
Striptease bar. Sleazy as hell. Old women. Young women. Skinny women. Fat women. Blonde women. Brunettes, redheads… It really shouldn’t have come to her as a surprise, but she was frankly quite amazed that Logan had brought her here. For the past day they had been visiting his old haunts, some of them exactly what she had expected, some of them something quite unexpected, like that one miniscule library hidden behind a modest tavern.
“I knew this was a bad idea…” Logan frowned when she dug out her purse and slipped few pesos to a woman who was dancing on a table next to her. The woman smiled and winked at her.
“Bad idea? Why? I’m having fun!” Rogue laughed. Logan grasped her arm and started steering her out.
“I didn’t bring you here to explore your sexual preferences…” Logan grunted.
She practically had to run to keep up with his long strides as they crossed the parking lot. Their transport, beaten up sorry excuse of a truck was waiting in a dimly lit corner. Logan didn’t even wait for her to get in before he started the engine. She buckled her seatbelt hastily, expecting him to speed off immediately. Instead of stepping the gas he just sat there, engine running, his hands clasped loosely over the steering wheel.
After long moment of silence she started to feel really uncomfortable. Usually being quiet with Logan was easy. They could spend hours with each other, not talking, just exchanging one-syllable words if communication of sorts was absolutely needed. Now the silence felt somehow wrong. Somehow made up. Forced. She cleared her throat.
“Uh… Why did you bring me here?” She finally asked.
“You asked me to. You asked me to come with you to see the rodeo.” Logan spoke silently, his voice low and hushed. And somehow even that sounded wrong and forced. She turned to look at him. He wasn’t looking at her. He was still holding the steering wheel, his gaze roaming over the dashboard and squashed bugs on the windshield.
“Is that the only reason?”
Logan turned to look at her, just stared at her for a long moment, then swallowed.
“Pretty much…” He grasped the gear stick, clearly trying to end their conversation right then and there. She swatted his hand away, wondering silently from where exactly she had suddenly gotten an extra dose of courage and some stupidity to go with that. Nobody swatted the Wolverine. Nobody.
Except that every rule there has to be an exception. Instead of flashing the claws Logan just grimaced, then grasped the stick harder. She slapped the back of his hand harder, making him hiss and let go of the stick.
“Christ! What’s the matter with you, kid?” He asked.
“We’re not moving until I get an answer to my question.”
“Fuck! I told you already, I came with you because you asked me to come along!”
“You don’t do anything without a good reason. You wouldn’t have taken a trip across the border just because this little twit of a girl suddenly had an urge to see cowboys and stuff down some burritos.”
Logan turned off the engine. He patted down his pockets until he found a cigar and a lighter. Then he leaned back, not lighting the cigar, just holding them and closed his eyes. And that extra boost of bravery that Rogue had been riding on vanished completely. Suddenly she felt very small and insecure.
“I came here to hang out with you,” Logan said.
“But… We hang out every day at home,” she piped, suddenly at loss with words. Logan chuckled mirthlessly, then turned to look at her, completely serious.
“We ‘hang out’ because we have to. Two muties at mutant haven, both brave and heroic X-men. With our history it’s fucking mandatory to ‘hang out’ with each other.”
“Umm… What?” Now she was getting the distinct feeling that she wasn’t going to like very much of what Logan was about to say next. When the word mandatory came in to play there hardly was nothing nice following at its wake.
“When people look at us they see the first night we spent at Xavier’s. They see the Statue of Liberty. They see my dog tag.” Her hand went instinctively at her throat, where the item in question had been hanging for quite some time, all those months that Logan spent on the road after the Liberty incident. Her fingers met only warm skin. Tags she had returned to Logan for long ago.
“They see all those things. It kind of forces us to act certain way. To speak certain way. To react certain way. And I’m so fucking tired of it. So… How about we forget the whole deal? Forget Xavier’s. Forget the X-men. Forget Wolverine. Forget Rogue.”
Logan lit the cigar and jammed it to the corner of his mouth, then cranked the window partially open. Turned on the engine.
“Just forget everything and just hang out. That okay with you, Marie?”
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