"Hey, kid."
Sitting on a blanket beneath an old oak tree, Marie was so engrossed in the novel she was reading that she didn't even hear him. He had to repeat himself, and even then it was a moment before she dragged her eyes away from the book long enough to register his presence.
"Hey," she smiled, lifting a hand to shield her eyes against the late-afternoon sunshine. "Whatcha been doin'?"
Logan gestured to the various picnics and games of touch-football and frisbee going on all across the well-manicured grounds. Laughter rang out across the lawn, kids chased each other, couples smooched and somewhere, a radio played the Top 40. "Mostly, I've been trying to avoid all these people," he answered, dropping gracelessly to the blanket beside her. "But then I saw you sittin' out here, and you're not half as irritatin' as the rest of these fuckers. Thought I'd come talk to you as long as I can stand it."
Marie rolled her eyes, bumped his shoulder with her own. A quiver of awareness shot through her at his nearness, but she'd long ago stopped trying to squelch it. "You say the sweetest things," she told him, and picked at the edges of her gloves.
She wasn't all that surprised by his arrival. In the months and weeks since he'd been back from his latest trip, he'd taken to searching her out on the grounds more and more often; she didn't exactly turn him away.
Their friendship had never been what anyone would call conventional - an older, cage-brawling amnesiac and the young, lonely runaway who'd literally stolen chunks of his soul. It sounded like the premise of a Lifetime Original Movie, complete with the requisite longing and angst, with horrors and heroics thrown in for good measure. Everyone around them, from teachers to students to Professor Xavier himself, seemed to watch for signs that their relationship was finally beginning to ease into romance.
Much to her bitter disappointment, weeks ago Marie would have told them that they might as well keep on holding their collective breath. But then she'd looked across the dinner table one evening and was startled by the intensity in Logan's eyes as he watched her. She'd nearly dropped the bowl of greens she'd been about to hand to Jubilee.
The moment had passed and if there'd been more than one or two since, well, she wasn't going to dwell on them.
But ever since, she'd noticed that every time she entered a room, conversation would hush or stop altogether. People were whispering in the cafeteria, casting badly-disguised glances her way or Logan's.
She was probably just making more of it than there was. And so what if he'd kissed her outside her door the other night, when he'd brought her upstairs after watching a hockey game?
He took the cigar from the corner of his mouth and handed it to her. "Hold on to this for a sec," he said. "And move on over."
"Sir! Yes, sir!" But she put her book down and took the cigar from him anyway.
"Just fuckin' do it, would ya?"
"All right, all right." She moved over a few inches and then kept on moving at his urging, until she was sitting on the very edge of the blanket. "Honestly, what in the hell do you need all that space for? Here I am, tryin' to enjoy my book and . . . oh. Hi there."
While she'd been busy protesting, Logan had stretched out his large frame across the blanket and rested his head in her lap. Her skin suddenly felt flushed all over, too hot, too tight, and that slow, lazy grin of his didn't exactly help matters.
And if he didn't know what kind of response it would draw from her before, he surely did now. His grin deepened and she narrowed her eyes. Anger! Irritation! Those were much better choices than sheer embarrassment and lust, she thought. Any old day.
Deep breath. You Are a Big Girl Now, she told herself. You are twenty-one years old, a junior in college. You can speak coherently to this drop-dead gorgeous man with his head on your thigh. Just open your mouth and . . . "Mph."
"Give me that," he said, nodding to the cigar. Since he wasn't reaching for it in any way whatsoever, she brought the end to his mouth and if her hand shook, it was only a little bit. He clenched it between his teeth and she let go immediately, and then it was clear to both of them that she had absolutely no idea what to do with her hands or where to place them.
Logan, as always, came to her rescue. In his own way. Reaching for her discarded book, he handed it to her and took her other gloved hand, placing it directly on his chest. "There," he said, around his cigar. He took a puff and blew the smoke away from her face, covered her hand with his own. "Would you calm down already? It's just me, kid."
Calm down? Kid? Damn him.
"Just you," she repeated, shaking her head with a derisive-sounding snort. "No reason to get all excitable, huh? It's 'just you'. You and your . . . your tight jeans and the scruffy beard and the muscles . . . You and your stupid mixed signals you know damn well I don't understand! Just you." Truly irritated, she pushed at his shoulder. "Get off me! Go stalk the new teacher or hunt a bear, whatever. Go away."
But he only laughed, full throatedly, and she caught a look in his eyes she'd begun seeing more and more recently. A look she didn't have the first clue to understanding. Well, maybe she did have a clue or two. Just an idea, really. Nothing substantial or anything.
She stopped pushing, left her hand on his shoulder.
"You bug me, you really do."
"Yeah, I know." Reaching up, he tapped the spine of her forgotten book. "Whatcha readin'?"
Marie flushed a little. "A trashy romance novel."
"Figures." He brought his cigar up to his mouth, took another puff. "What's it about?"
"Do you really care? Or do you just want to watch my face turn interesting colors?"
His grin shifted into a smirk and she almost spoke the words with him, they were so predictable. "Pick one."
Marie leaned back against the tree, shifting her legs beneath the weight of his head, getting as comfortable as possible. "Thanks, but I've done enough blushing in the last few minutes. I've filled my quota," she declared, opening her book to where she'd left off. "No more."
"You real sure 'bout that, darlin'?"
The rumble was deliberate, she knew, though it didn't stop the shiver racing up her spine. When she ventured a glance away from her book, he winked and no, as it turned out, she did have a blush or two left inside her. She let out an exasperated breath, tucking a lock of white hair behind her ear. "Would you knock it off?"
Logan only smirked a little more, if that was even a possibility. Carefully stubbing out his cigar in the grass beside them, he shifted a little, settling himself into the most comfortable position possible. She watched as he closed his eyes, crossed his legs at the ankle.
"What are you doin' out here, Logan?"
He shrugged. "Thought I'd ask you what you wanted for your birthday."
Her birthday. Right.
"You don't even know when my birthday is, Logan," she argued. "Nobody does."
More smirking. "Bet you'd tell me if I asked real nice."
I'd bet I'd tell you more than just my birth date, she thought. Out loud, she asked, "Why the sudden interest?"
"Would you believe me if I told you I'm just curious?"
Marie snorted rather indelicately. "No."
He didn't answer for a few moments, long enough for her to wonder if he'd drifted off. Then, seemingly against his better judgment, he said, "They're going to have a party for us. On Saturday."
A party? "What? Why?"
"I overheard Jeannie and Ororo and some of your little friends talking about it earlier," he explained. She didn't even give him crap for eavesdropping; she remembered how acutely sensitive his hearing was, from personal experience, and knew just how hard it was to tune conversations out.
"Yeah?"
"It's supposed to be some sort of anniversary/birthday combination," he told her, and she could tell just how enthusiastic he was at the prospect. "Since they don't know when our birthdays are, they decided to celebrate the day we first arrived three years ago."
"Shit," she muttered, nonplussed.
Logan agreed. "Pretty much."
"Are you sure?" she asked. "Maybe you misheard or something."
Reaching up under his hip for a moment, Logan pulled an invitation out of his back pocket and handed it to her. "Here," he said, opening his eyes to watch her expression. "Read it and weep."
"Professor Charles Xavier and the staff at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters would like to invite you to the Celebration of Logan and Rogue's 'Annibirthary'," she read out loud, skimming over the rest of the invitation's details. "Oh, for God's sake . . . 'annibirthary'?"
Parties given by Professor Xavier were extensively elaborate affairs. You had to dress up, act nice, and stay the entire length of the party no matter how long it dragged on. Not to mention the fact that almost every celebration the mansion held also turned out to be a fundraiser as well.
Marie had a sudden vision of just how boring and/or embarrassing the entire thing would be, from start to finish. Shit.
The recent whispering suddenly made a sickening sort of sense. "So that's why everyone's been so jumpy around us . . . "
Logan nodded, his eyes warm and amused as they watched her. A smile toyed at the corner of his mouth, and she knew then that he was Up To Something. "What?" she asked, suspicious.
"Let me ask you again," he said, taking the invitation from her and putting it back in his pocket. "What do you want for your birthday?"
"Don't you mean my 'annibirthary'? And it's not just mine, it's yours, too," she retorted. "If I have to go through . . . oh. Hey, Logan?"
It was like a light bulb clicked on, right above her head.
"Yeah?"
"I know exactly what I want."
"What's that?" he asked, though she could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he had more than just an inkling.
"I want a big chunk of your time," she told him, smiling brightly. Innocently. "I want some of your undivided attention."
"Sounds like a trip," he said, returning her smile. "And it would only make sense to head out Saturday. Morning."
"Before anyone gets up. Or notices us."
The look on his face said he was on board with that plan. "Bright girl. Where do you want to go?"
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "We could hole up at the local Motel 6 for all I care."
It was out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
Logan only laughed, reaching up to briefly touch her jaw, run a thumb over the fullness of her lower lip.
"Happy fuckin' 'annibirthary' to us, then."
"Oh, yeah . . ."
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Story Notes:
I am currently hopped up on more than my fair share of NyQuil. I have the headcold from hell and I've been off work sick, so . . . here you go, lol. Also, this fic is open-ended. If anyone wants to pick it up for a challenge answer of their own, ask me. Exclusively for the Wolverine and Rogue Annibirthary Challenge, to be archived only at wr.com and my own site.