Reminisce
Chapter Four
BACK THEN
"Hey, Kid.
This was the first time she'd hugged him. Rogue didn't realize that until her arms were reaching for them--she watched them as if they belonged to someone else. Had the thought occurred a moment sooner--but it was okay. She didn't balk, she didn't trip. She just-she just put herself in Logan arm's. And he let her. He didn't watch her hands; he didn't flinch when her bare neck came close. His hand went to the small of her back. Pressed.
Rogue heard and felt him sniff at her, his breath tickling the little hairs behind her ear. He smelled like gasoline and pine sap. When they drew apart, the look in his eyes warm, like the glow of a front porch light, let her know something incredible, as clearly as if it had been whispered into her ear: Logan was glad to see her.
Everything in the whole world felt, briefly, better.
But she didn't have long to revel in it. Students were crossing the entry hall, some on their way to class, some coming to view the new arrival,” drawn by the thought-quick pipeline of mutant gossip. Logan was still examining her, and Rogue’s heartbeat sprinted forward in the embarrassment of what she might be telling him without meaning to.
"You missed me?"
She squirmed. "Not really."
"That right?" Logan was trying not to smile, and the struggle was almost better to watch than if he’d just done it. Two years hadnt aged her friend, but it had made his back straighter, his eyes more clear. She wondered if he'd been drinking less. She wondered if he'd been doing other things, less.
"Did you find what you went looking for?"
He shrugged. Something flickered off in his face. That porch-light look, going out. "Not really", he said.
"No?" She tried to show, without speaking, how disappointed she was for him. I'm sorry wouldn't cover it. But Logan wasn't paying attention. He looked over her shoulder now, at the kids, at the decorative urns, at the paintings on the wall (the pieces of 16-year-old art students beside 17th-century Dutch painters, hung indiscriminately). And the closest he came again to smiling was the smirk when Jean came down the stairs.
_____________________________________________
Their school had too much class for anything so institutional as a cafeteria. Instead, the X-mansion offered four kitchens and six dining rooms, variously stocked and styled so that the residents, from all backgrounds, had a chance of feeling comfortable in at least one of them. There were well-balanced meals at regular hours, and Saturday was the much-celebrated pizza night, but otherwise, the students were at liberty to shift for themselves. Scott always said--pausing for them to appreciate the pun--it gave students a taste of home.
Most days, Rogue ate late as well as alone. She'd balance a plate on a stack of textbooks and carry it off to some discreet corner; eating while reading, blurring out the rest of the world, was something she'd grown quite good at. This had invited her to more than a few chats about trying harder to fit in. She did try, actually. Rogue wouldn't have called herself antisocial any more than the Xmen would have considered themselves unkind. She didn't know how to tell them, how to explain that dining with the team made her feel young and dining with the students made her feel old, and dining in any crowd at all made her feel as if she were on display. Two years and people hesitated to pass the salt if her gloves were off. Two years and they made sure to keep their bare limbs away from even her covered ones.
Maybe that was it, the struggle not to look bothered which instead caused a certain tightness around her nose--called ‘uppity’ in the South. Or maybe it was because, after two years, she had neither left the school or committed to staying, as an Xmen. Or maybe it was that she couldn’t relate to their discussions--which bill had been recommended by which congressman, which sportsman had scored which goal, which resident had let John do what in which coatroom. Or maybe it was just what had happened with Bobby. Or maybe or maybe or maybe--it didn’t matter.
There was a barrier, something thicker than the gloves she wore.
But Logan had come back.
That evening, she dug one of her better sweaters out of the closet, scrubbed the watercolors out of her nails, smoothed her hair into a ponytail. She turned her head back and forth in front of the mirror, the portions of glass not eclipsed by sticky-note reminders, doodles, pages torn from art magazines. At least her skin was clear today, she thought--then wondered why she’d thought it. Nobody would notice. Her reflection smiled, and then snorted, and then laughed outright, for no reason at all except for the fact that the evening was glimmering ahead of her, as inviting as pool, hers to wade into, or splash, or drown.
She made her way to the first floor, still feeling laughter tickling behind her cheekbones. Her steps were light; she practically bounced down the stairs. Ororo passed her, winked. The kitchen down here belonged to the older students and the teachers. (Belonged in a sense that children were welcome, but not enthusiastically.) There were two tureens on the counter, whatever in them still hot enough to bubble, and towers of dishes teetering on the side. For some reason, she had the urge to go sketch them, but couldn’t remember where she’d left her book and, anyway, Piotr was shifting his weight back and forth behind her. So she just took a dish off the top and ladled some of the contents into it, hardly noting what she’d taken. She spilled some tea into a cup, the pitchers heavy, filled to the brim, sides bedazzled with condensation. “Borscht is better,” said Piotr to nobody in particular, as he helped himself to three servings at once--fitting one bowl into the crook of his arm.
The adult dining room had green walls and brown carpets, a few smaller tables with darkened wood as if someone had slow-cooked them for a few centuries. There weren’t as many windows in here, just two that looked over the pear trees at the back of the house. In April they opened the windows up, and the petals found their way to the carpets like drifts of snow. Each table had a vase with a single lily, a platter of bread, and a bowl with more flowers--these ones carved from butter. There weren’t as many windows in here, just two that looked over the pear trees at the back of the house. In April they were left open, and petals found their way to the carpets like snowdrifts.
Piotr waited until she’d taken her seat to chose his--across the room. Rogue didn’t notice. She set her bowl and spoon and cup carefully in front of her, then rearranged them--twice. She wasn’t really hungry--there was a little fluttery feeling in her belly like the laugh had settled in for the long haul, and she wasn’t sure that went well with bouillabaisse. Did she even like French soup? She couldn’t remember, suddenly. It wasn’t something they had in Meridian. Did Logan like French soup? Would she see him tonight? It was fine if she didn’t, of course. But it would be nice. She could ask about Canada. She could ask about traveling. She could ask how long he was planning to stay. She took a slow breath.
Students came in, in pairs and groups, and then Professor X and Dr. McCoy. The latter seldom ate in front of them and didn’t do so now--although he sat with Xavier and continued some serious, quiet conversation. The old man looked strained, Rogue thought. Almost frail. But he looked around the room, the usual fond light in his eyes, and she tried to think of something else before that gaze reached her. “It’s nothing to concern ourselves with now, in any case,” she heard him murmur to the doctor.
She smoothed a napkin across her lap and tore one of the rolls in half, buttered it--although spoiling that butter rose felt criminal. She made herself chew, swallow, dip her spoon into the bowl. She reached across and turned the vase back and forth, trying to see something in its steady dull prettiness worth putting on paper. Just as she’d convinced herself he wouldn’t come, and had reasoned herself into not minding, Logan appeared in the doorway--peering in, brow furrowed. He saw her, and it smoothed.
There was nothing in the world which could have stopped her lips from jumping up--although she wished she hadn’t been holding a mouthful of shrimp at the time (bouillabaisse had turned out to be delicious).
“Is this where everyone porks out?”
“Well, we try,” she told him, wiping her chin.
He took easy, loping steps towards her. Other kids at other tables gaped, not even discreetly. His return and everything about it would be gossip fodder for the week. Anyone who hadn’t lived here during the Liberty Island incident was curious to see if he lived up to his name, anyone who had was hoping he’d do something to prove their exaggerations. “You look nice, kid. If I’d known we changed for dinner here, I would have rented a suit and tie.”
“Oh, we-we don’t, usually,” Rogue blushed, caught in admitting that she’d gone out of her way.
Xavier saved things, calling across the room-- "Logan if I thought you would substitute even one layer of plaid for a dinner jacket, I would pay the tailor’s bill myself.”
“That’s real generous, Charles, but I don’t want to put you out. I know how tight things are.”
“We’ll hold a bake sale. Cupcakes for a cause,” Xavier laughed, turning back to Dr. McCoy, and Logan did the same with Rogue. He leaned down, just slightly, and though there was hardly a change in the way he spoke, his voice seemed to rumble against her ear, for her and her alone.
“How’re we doing, kid?”
“Good.”
“Really?”
She blushed again. His eyes tickled down her face, her arm, to the bowl at the end of it.
“Better than gas station jerky.”
“No,” she told him. “But it’s alright, anyway.”
At that moment, a streak of lightning jostled Logan aside. That was at least what it looked like. That was what Jubilee always looked like. One of those people who forever seem to be mid-sentence, she kept talking as she dropped her purse on the floor, as she dropped her bowl on the table, as she took the chair he’d been reaching for. “S’cuse me,” she threw over her shoulder, like an unwanted wrapper.
John and Bobby followed her, giving the Wolverine a more natural birth. Not participants in the conversation, or even happy members of the audience, but that didn’t matter. Jubilee was a one-woman monologue, a forest fire of speech, a solid wall of it. “--so Bella cuts her finger on the wrapping paper, yeah? An’ this tiny little bead of blood comes up. And it starts all this drama at the party because the blond vampire isn’t fully trained or something. But what I wanna know is, is y’know, how a papercut caused him to fang out and not all the times she got her period. Cuz y’know that had’t’ve happened; she’s been with them for months. And they go to a high school. Five days a week! Literally, dozens of girls must have been on the rag at any given point. More, because we synchronize.”
Rogue liked Jubilee. She really did. But she found herself lightly picking at the edge of her gloves. There was still an empty place to her right, but she knew no reasonable Canadian cage fighter would--sure enough, when she brought herself to check, his eyebrows were raised to an unprecedented height. She thought Logan might backpedal out of the dining room entirely. Please let him stick around. Please, please--
And then, of course, again, Jean entered--with the kind of serene confidence of someone used to being the addressee and answer to most prayers. “It’s nice,” she said, “to see a man with an appetite. Are you going to join me--us?”
Behind her, Scott was gripping a tray with both his and the doctor’s supper. “No pressure. Seriously. At all.”
“Oh, but it’s good to have mature company now and then.”
“I didn’t realize he’d been short of it.” Scott glanced at Rogue, somehow managing to give the impression of winking despite the glasses.
“But I’m always happy to help you out, Jeannie.” Logan touched Rogue, a perfectly friendly, perfectly platonic pat on the shoulder. “Catch up with you later, kid?”
“Oh. Yes. Yeah. Sure.”
He let himself be led across the room. How it felt to watch that happen, Rogue couldn’t have said, because she didn’t. She finished her meal, scraping the bowl. She had another roll. She sipped her drink, enjoying the way it cooled her burning throat. When Bobby started making jokes about iced brew versus boiled (“I honestly thought the revolution happened because the British thought we were doing it wrong. The Boston Tea Party? Just a bunch of nitwits who didn’t own a kettle.”) she laughed. She’d forgotten how nice it could be when he was trying to be her friend and not the other thing. She told Jubilee about a book she’d finished, offered to loan it to her. She pretended to understand what John was saying about boxing versus wrestling--or, at least, to care.
She had a nice evening. It was fine.
____________________________________________________
Four days passed without Logan and herself speaking privately. They were busy--he with the Professor or the team, she with preparations for midterms. In addition to a new piece, which they’d be refining for months, the instructor wanted a portfolio of their best work; but in retrospect, nothing she’d done seemed good, or even better than the rest. She couldn’t sleep.
“Make something that matters to you,” Scott told her. She’d taken to visiting him while he tinkered in the garage. He was giving his bike another examination, searching for a further reason to dislike its abductor. “That’s going to show, even to people who don’t want to understand.”
She thought about that. For a while.
And then she started the new project.
She borrowed material from the mansion’s art closet but did most of the work at the university. She’d never tried anything like this before--there were false starts that bordered on mental breakdowns. Sometimes her classmates asked questions about what she was doing, but most of them were caught up in their own assignments. Her instructor didn’t ask any questions at all but gave her permission to stay late.
It made a difference to know Logan and she were under the same roof. He wasn’t showing any sign of leaving soon--not that he would. They passed in the hall, and the little jolt she’d get, seeing him, would last all day. Something in her felt simultaneously more relaxed and more alert.
But that only drew attention to the sense that something here, alone, had been amiss.
She couldn’t sleep.
___________________________________________
“You don’t mind?”
“No!” Bobby’s eagerness was almost painful. He rubbed his hand over his face, across round and stubbornly unstubbled cheeks. “I still have half a case of that Canadian brand. Nobody else likes it.”
“Well, then, I guess I need two.”
“Yeah? Awesome. Let me just--”
She watched him from the doorway. Tripping over clothes, an empty Taco Bell box, the controller to a video game console. In the bed against the far wall, the other boy rolled over, raising the lighter he’d must have fallen asleep clutching.
“The fuck, Iceman?”
“Shut up, John.”
“Oh, man. Tell me you’re not doing this again.”
“Shut up, John.”
Bobby dove under his bed. His pale legs wriggled among the clutter like the limbs of some pitiful insect under a boot. She backed up and fixed her eyes pointedly down at the rug until he reappeared, breathless, dust bunnies in his hair. He crinkled his nose, and she wondered why she’d stopped liking it when he smiled at her.
He held the Molsons loosely. It’s hard to keep a secret in a house with not one but two telepaths, not to mention the other gifts that tended to make private thoughts public. So the stash was probably not the buried treasure the kids pretended it to be. But there it was and stayed, undisclosed and unrebuked. Maybe Xavier knew that a little rebellion would keep them tame in other ways. “We could go to the balcony with these. Y’know? Like before.”
She swallowed. “Oh-oh, no. I’ll just take them to go. Let you get back to sleep.”
“You’re going to drink alone?” He laughed, but nervously, not as if he thought it was funny.
“I don’t think so.”
His lips made a little ‘o’. “That’s--right. Well. It’s none of my business. I’ve got training in the morning, anyway. Gotta earn my keep around here.” He didn’t hand the bottles to her so much as drop them. With that, she remembered why she didn’t like his smile. It had terms and conditions.
“Goodnight, Bobby.” She turned to leave--
“Hey, Rogue? Wait a second.”
He tugged the drinks out of her arms and with one hardly self-conscious breath turned them frosty cold.
“Thank you.”
“What are friends for?” he asked, rather miserably.
He disappeared back into his bedroom, shutting the door with a firm click. A moment later, she heard--
“Shut up, John.”
She felt bad. Not, however, quite bad enough to keep from knocking on Logan’s door next. The growls, the mumbles, the whimpers were nearly as audible as they’d been through the vent that connected their rooms. And just like last time, she felt them shuddering up as if they were coming from herself. Two years had been enough to learn some lessons, just not all of them.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Oh my sweet blue mutants. You guys! Hello!
The excitement of having something to post, the joy of having *any* kind of finished product, after weeks of clogged pens and brain, is almost equal to the embarrassment of it having taken so long. It might be more, this time. I have a job at a local bakery, which has given me minimum wage, blisters, icing stains, and a new appreciation for all the ways a cash register can make one feel stupid. This and two other inspiration-blocked projects has been borrowing my time away. It’s taken a month of expressos, of Tylenol, of sacrifices to the gods, and a tree’s worth of scribbled notes to get this done. I’m so happy. I’m so freaking happy. I could do cartwheels...except I won’t. Because I can’t. Because I work around cookies. And I have reaped what I have sown. But I would owe you just as many sugary baked goods if you would be patient enough to read this chapter, and let me know what you think. This story is changing, from what I first pictured. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.
The excitement of having something to post, the joy of having *any* kind of finished product, after weeks of clogged pens and brain, is almost equal to the embarrassment of it having taken so long. It might be more, this time. I have a job at a local bakery, which has given me minimum wage, blisters, icing stains, and a new appreciation for all the ways a cash register can make one feel stupid. This and two other inspiration-blocked projects has been borrowing my time away. It’s taken a month of expressos, of Tylenol, of sacrifices to the gods, and a tree’s worth of scribbled notes to get this done. I’m so happy. I’m so freaking happy. I could do cartwheels...except I won’t. Because I can’t. Because I work around cookies. And I have reaped what I have sown. But I would owe you just as many sugary baked goods if you would be patient enough to read this chapter, and let me know what you think. This story is changing, from what I first pictured. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.
Chapter End Notes:
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You're here! Time for me to babble... It would mean absolute worlds to me to know what you think. Your reviews are some of the best gifts I’ve ever received. Either way, thank you for reading chapter four. I hope to get five up soon, and as always I appreciate you sticking with me. It’s a funny thing--I thought this spring, the months before I start grad school, would be ones in which I’d get every possible thing written. Instead, I think they’re the months in which I am finally learning to wait, when the words aren’t there. I’m also learning to keep regular work hours, and to write *bad* drafts so that I can make *better* edits. But that is coming slowly. So. Fingers crossed. Thank you, again. And again. And again and again.
You're here! Time for me to babble... It would mean absolute worlds to me to know what you think. Your reviews are some of the best gifts I’ve ever received. Either way, thank you for reading chapter four. I hope to get five up soon, and as always I appreciate you sticking with me. It’s a funny thing--I thought this spring, the months before I start grad school, would be ones in which I’d get every possible thing written. Instead, I think they’re the months in which I am finally learning to wait, when the words aren’t there. I’m also learning to keep regular work hours, and to write *bad* drafts so that I can make *better* edits. But that is coming slowly. So. Fingers crossed. Thank you, again. And again. And again and again.