Logan’s fingers were touching my left breast. There was nothing overt about it; from the way we were lounging it could’ve been an accident.
His hand, originally cupped around my upper arm, had slipped. Without moving my head, I raised my eyes to his scruffy, resolute profile to check for any signs of awareness. He was focused on the TV, seemingly engrossed in the complex and intricate plot of Die Hard. I knew he had to have been able to feel my open stare, yet he never once glanced over. Did that mean his hand had slipped on purpose? My heart rate began to accelerate at the thought. Logan heard it or felt it against his ribcage or both because he shifted uncomfortably and removed his arm from my shoulders. I lifted the side of my face from his warm cotton shirt. I was so confused.
He went out of his way to present himself as this essentially one-dimensional tough guy, the kind of guy who saw something he wanted and took it. Logically, if he wanted me, then he’d make a move. He hadn’t and it didn’t seem likely that he ever would.
So what was with this faux-inadvertent cop-a-feel game he was playing? He’d been doing it for months. It had started off with looks, and it hadn’t gotten much further than what it was now. Was it for my benefit? He let me get away with a friendly cuddle now and then, but I hardly believed that he thought faking a physical interest in me would make me feel any better. There was obviously something more going on there. Something even he didn’t fully recognize or else I probably would’ve felt it when he touched me while working on my control. The whole situation was seriously screwing up my balance.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Logan cleared his throat loudly. “Is this movie almost over?”
“We don’t have to finish it if you’re tired,” I responded, a little petulantly.
He shrugged. “I think you should get your rest. We’re gonna start our regular training again tomorrow.”
“Why would you want to do that? I’m not supposed to absorb your power again until it goes away from last time. Dr. McCoy needs to see how long lasts.”
“It’s been over a week.”
“I know. And the longest it’s ever lasted before is a day. Don’t you want to know why?”
“It’s not gonna matter much if it suddenly runs out in the middle of a fight.”
“Give me some credit, here. I’m not going to take any unnecessary risks by relying on you or your power to heal me.” Wisely, I hadn’t told him about the little incident with Ricochet. Professor Xavier was the only one who knew about that. “Besides,” I said, “We both know that we’re not getting anywhere with my control anymore. We should concentrate on my hand-to-hand combat.” I figured that maybe if I got good enough at that, Logan wouldn’t be breathing down my neck at every minor scuffle.
“Look, I’m your trainer. And I say that we have been making progress. I would know.”
“I don’t care. You’ll ruin the experiment.”
“You’re not an experiment,” he snapped.
I tossed my hair back haughtily. “You’re not touching me.”
Never one to be shown up, Logan grabbed me by the arm, his hand in direct contact with the bare skin peaking out between the top of my glove and the sleeve of my t-shirt. I narrowed my eyes in concentration, thinking to give him a jolt by abruptly drawing a fair amount of energy from his life-force. Nothing happened. I mean nothing. His bare skin was touching my bare skin and nothing was happening.
We gawked at the place where we touched, the petty hostility between us giving in favor of sheer wonder. An eerie, lightheaded sensation overtook me as I watched him slowly slide the warm pads of his fingers down the length of my arm, taking off my glove in the process. Cautiously, he wrapped his hand around my wrist and squeezed. No wave of power, no pain. Just touch. Shakily, I took off my other glove with my teeth. I hardly recognized the trembling, pale hand I placed on top of Logan’s as my own. His breath caught.
Something in my mind snapped.
Faster than even he could react, I swung my leg over his torso so that my butt was planted directly on lap. In the same fluid movement, I took his face in the palms of my hands and pressed my lips against his, a wave of near-franticness overtaking us both. After years of playing second fiddle to a ghost and one-night stands, I finally had his complete and unwavering attention. It was exhilarating. His mouth, his hands…
“I think we should see the Professor.”
I jerked my gaze from where my hand rested on Logan’s to his sober hazel eyes. I blinked away my fantasy, acutely disappointed that I’d missed my window of opportunity. I could’ve done it; I could’ve jumped him. I still wanted to. I licked my bottom lip, wondering if I was as agile in real life. About ready to find out, a quick image of a not-so receptive Logan dumping my ass onto the floor in disgust chilled my raging hormones. It finally sunk in that his main concern was finding out how this was possible instead of milking it for all it was worth.
Logan stood up, letting go of my wrist. “Let’s go.”
Picking up my discarded gloves and stuffing them in the pocket of my jeans, I followed numbly.
For the past two – almost three – years of my life, all I’d dreamt about was being able to touch Logan. Why had I let doubt mess up my perfect kiss? Regret was a far worse fate than embarrassment. I knew that. Still, I’d hesitated. Now I was probably going to spend the rest of the night hooked up to machines in the med lab with only Dr. McCoy as company. Logan had been so indignant about people treating me as an experiment before; where had those qualms gone? Didn’t he understand that this was a momentary opportunity? It was going to wear off. I was so sure of that fact, I felt like crying.
I barely noticed that we’d headed to the stairs instead of straight to Professor Xavier’s office. Logan led me down a corridor I’d never been down before. He stopped at a thick, oak door where he gave a perfunctory knock, then walked right in. Professor Xavier and Cyclops looked up from a chessboard. Already caught up on all he needed to know, the Professor was intrigued. Cyclops was visibly annoyed. I pretended to be interested in the red and gold wallpaper, which decorated what I concluded was Professor Xavier’s own personal sitting room.
Professor Xavier pushed himself away from the chess table to face Logan and me. He wasn’t wearing a suit jacket or even a tie. That surprised me for some reason. It occurred to me that wearing suits all the time was probably as confining as constantly wearing gloves. “Perhaps we should go to the med lab and have a word with Dr. McCoy.”
I knew it. Dr. McCoy was going to poke and prod my precious seconds away. Cyclops gave me a strange stare as we left the room. What’re you looking at? I thought rudely. Interrupting his chess game sure hadn’t been my idea. He could thank Logan for that one.
Dr. McCoy was waiting for us in the hallway of the lower levels when we came out of the elevator. Uneasily crossing my bare arms behind my back, I kept close to Logan as Dr. McCoy ushered us into the med lab. The large, blue-furred “beast” – who, not too long ago, had been a thin, brown-haired man – was eager to analyze the hiccup in my mutation. Dutifully, I held out my hand so he could take the skin samples he needed. The scrape healed quickly.
“Just as I thought,” he announced after a minute of peering into a microscope. “Nothing has changed.”
I sat down heavily on one of the infirmary beds. I couldn’t remember ever having been so angry at Logan.
Not buying Dr. McCoy’s analysis, Logan grabbed my naked wrist and held it up for the others to see. “Something’s changed.” Cyclops and I were the only ones surprised. Logan dropped my arm and didn’t look at me.
“Oh, of course it has,” Dr. McCoy blinked. “Just not with Rogue. The change is with you.”
Logan cocked an eyebrow. “Me.”
“Yes. For example. Cyclops, would you be so…Well, no, I suppose that wouldn’t be wise.”
“I don’t think, in this case, a demonstration is unnecessary,” Professor Xavier opined.
An explanation would be nice, though, I thought. The shock was making me derisive.
“Perhaps you should explain further,” the Professor told Dr. McCoy.
“It’s simple, really,” Dr. McCoy answered, his large hands animated. “Over the past few months, Logan’s extraordinary immune system has become resistant to the affects of the toxin in Rogue’s skin. I deduced that that was the reason it became so much less painful for Logan when Rogue absorbed his power.”
“I thought it was because I was gaining control,” I replied, puzzled.
“Oh, certainly, that happened as well, as made evident when you were able to use Quicksilver’s speed against him without gaining any of his memories or personality traits. But, with Logan, since he adapted to your skin, we saw that he was no longer incapacitated by your touch.”
“It still hurt him.”
“Yes, but he could’ve fought back at anytime. Not just at the beginning. I meant to test that, but I’ve been preoccupied with a serum I’m working on.” His eyes flickered over to Cyclops momentarily before he continued, “The plateau in your training that you hit was a result of that immunity.”
“That was a long time ago,” Logan pointed out. He was standing with his weight shifted away from me, his arms crossed over his chest.
“And in that time Rogue has been able draw huge amounts of energy from you in increasingly longer sittings. It should’ve killed you, but, due to a number of dynamics like your immunity to her toxin and your healing capabilities, it didn’t. Instead, she’s absorbed your powers completely. Perhaps permanently. We can’t really be sure of that, but it seems likely. Her body is satisfied with the near-immortality it has taken from you. An oversupply would be simply unnecessary.”
I titled my head forward so that my hair would hide my face. The detached part of me struggled against the hope that Dr. McCoy’s longwinded explanation had roused. Permanent was forever. From now on, it was safe for me to touch Logan. In point of fact, I had been able to touch Logan for over a week, I just hadn’t realized it. I couldn’t quite grasp the alien concept. It was too big.
“What about other people?” Logan was asking.
I looked up at him. Who cared about other people?
Dr. McCoy folded his hands in front of him. “I’m afraid not.”
In an attempt to appear adequately disappointed, I looked down at my bare hands. Obviously, that was the catch. There had to be a catch or else it would’ve been too good to be true and I wouldn’t have trusted it. If it had been anyone else, I would’ve been sorely disappointed. But it was Logan so I was okay with it. Forget science. This was a made-to-order miracle. Thank you God, I thought fervently.
There was, however, always room for doubt. “So we don’t really know if this will…if it’ll last,” the pessimist in me remarked.
“Well, as I said, we can’t know. But it does seem likely,” Dr. McCoy replied.
Making up my mind to be satisfied, I peaked over at Logan to see what he thought about that. I was hit by an abrupt jolt. His complete attention was focused on me. Intensely focused. Color crept into my cheeks.
Logan turned and left. “Training tomorrow. Get some sleep,” was all he said as walked away.
I watched him walk out. Cyclops, Dr. McCoy, and the Professor watched me watch him walk out. There really wasn’t anything else left to be said, aside from a feeble promise from Dr. McCoy to keep on testing my skin samples in various ways. I nodded my thanks. The whole situation was very uncomfortable for me, so I excused myself as soon as possible.
As much as I had to think about, my mind was curiously blank as I stepped into the empty elevator. The butterflies in my stomach were doing the thinking for me. They were making me twitchy and uncomfortable.
The elevator paused on the first floor and opened its doors. I scooted myself into the back right side corner to make room. It was eleven-o-five, the tail end of the second lights-out rush of the night. I was glad that I didn’t have classes the next day. I could probably sleep in until noon. I glanced up at the stragglers as they filed in. Artie, Rett, Streak, Nicole, and Flea. Fantastic. Thankfully, they ignored me, too engaged in their argument about what their band should be called.
“Mutant Boyz is not a bad name,” Streak contended, taking of his glasses to polish them.
“No, you’re right. It’s a horrible name,” Flea retorted.
“Well, what’s your great idea, then?”
Flea put his arm around the reedy, blond-haired girl. “I told you. Let our brilliant song writer handle it.”
Streak, Artie, and Rett didn’t look exactly convinced.
“I’ll tell you what,” Nicole said, “I’ll come up with a list of names, but you guys can have the final say.”
“That sounds good,” Rett put in. Artie nodded.
“Okay,” Streak relented.
The boys got off at their floor, leaving Nicole and me alone. She smiled at me politely. I gave a fleeting smile back. I could tell she was holding her tongue.
“It’s complicated,” I told her.
She turned her eyes to the floor. “Sorry. I can’t really help it.”
“Yeah, I know what that’s like.”
Once I got to my room, I threw my clothes in the direction of my hamper and headed for the shower.
It’s complicated. What an oversimplification. So what if it was complicated? I still had to deal with it. I could be touched. By Logan. I’d wanted that for so long. It didn’t seem real, but it was. All the sweat and hard work I’d put in day after day for almost a year and half had paid off in a way I’d never allowed myself to believe was possible. Logan could touch me. Had touched me.
I closed my eyes under the hot spray of water, reliving the way the smooth, warm tips of his fingers had caressed my forearm, the moment his breath had caught, the heated way he’d looked at me in the med lab. I’d seen hints of that look before but never like that. We were on a whole new level, one of unexplored territory for me. Well, unexplored in the real world. The terrain was incredibly well mapped out in not-a-chance-in-hell-but-I’m-still-going-to-devote-unhealthy-amounts-of-time-dreaming-about-it world.
But my fantasies, as well as they had served me in the past, were useless to me now. Nothing had happened as it should’ve. No declarations of love and noble intentions, no passionate kisses. He’d simply walked out on me. It was the direct opposite of everything I’d ever imagined him doing, which startled me into wondering exactly how far my dream Logan had strayed from the real Logan. More than I was comfortable admitting. Could I honestly see Logan getting weepy over my pristine white wedding dress? No. Did I really want him to? I thought about that one for a bit longer. Maybe not exactly weepy, but I wanted to him to think I was beautiful when we got –
Married? Married. Logan. Who was I kidding? I turned off the shower, suddenly feeling a decade older. If I was going to have Logan it was going to be his way. I towel dried my long hair savagely, realizing that I was the one who was going to have to make the sacrifices.
But then I thought, well, maybe I’d be better off just keeping the fantasy, if that was worth more to me than him. He was a grown man with his own distinct personality. I couldn’t magically transform him into some Prince Charming knock-off just because it’d be easier for me to have him that way. If easy was what I wanted I would’ve stayed with Bobby and learned to be creative. I’d blamed the fact that we’d barely gotten to first base on my mutation, but it was mostly by choice. Bobby just hadn’t done it for me.
Flowery speeches and clean-shaven jaws be damned. I wanted Logan and his rough affection, his fits of despondency, and his surprising depth. I wanted his striking hazel eyes to always look at me with such intensity. I wanted his strong arms wrapped tightly around me. I wanted his skin, his hands, and his lips, and his love. And I wanted it now.