"Practice Makes Perfect"
by FyrDrakken <FyrDrakken@juno.com>
Rating: Eventually R/NC17 for sex. Probably PG or PG13 starting out, barring occasional rough language.
Archive: WR list archive and X-Men Movie Fanfic Archive, all others ask first. (The answer will no doubt be yes I'm easy! but I like to know who's got my stuff!)
Classification: Character development leading to eventual smut. I'm sure angst and foof will appear at appropriate points I tend to waver indecisively at times.
Series: Following "Drunken Musings" and "Settling In."
Disclaimer: Lots of corporations like Fox and Marvel, and people like Bryan Singer and Hugh Jackman and Anna Paquin, hold more rights in the characters and settings I'm playing with than I do. But I'm even more broke than Marvel, so I'm not worth the time and trouble of suing... The only "profit" I'm getting out of this is getting the demons out of my head without resorting to my family's traditional substance abuse, serial marriages and/or self-mutilation...
Feedback: Questions, comments and snide remarks directed to <FyrDrakken@juno.com> will receive guaranteed responses. As an Elitist Fic Bitch in good standing, I welcome constructive criticism -- if there's a problem in something I've written I *really* want to know about it so I can fix it!
Thanks: To all those whose feedback on my three prior stories (and repeated requests and demands for sequels!) have given the incentive to continue to lose sleep slaving over an overheating laptop! And again to jenn for her betaing, too... Also to Diebin and the mysterious individual known as "The Goddess" for their advice on conversational German, and to Sare for aid in translation of a bit of colloquial Spanish! (And a belated distant thanks to my old e-mail buddy Claudia in Bavaria, who discussed the comparative drinking ages in the US and Germany with me way back when...)
Soundtrack and quotations: I've tried to find a quote to kick off each chapter that reasonably matches the mood or subject matter, some taken from song lyrics and others not. All songs quoted were chosen for lyrics first and foremost, and should *not* be taken as "soundtrack" indications. (Any attempts to create a soundtrack for this series based on songs quoted would be slightly misguided and in several cases disturbingly inappropriate. Anyone who actually listened to Tool's "jimmy" while reading "Drunken Musings" probably knows exactly what I mean! ;-D )
With that being said, A Perfect Circle's _Mer de Noms_ album remains *the* music of choice for my fic writing needs (and a kickass album all round)...
Note:
[ ] = Thoughts
* * = Emphasis
:: :: = Telepathy
/ / = Rogue reliving a bit of borrowed memory
( ) = Translations or parenthetical remarks
* * *
"Practice Makes Perfect"
by FyrDrakken
* * *
"I think it, I say it. That's my way."
Cordelia, Angel, "The Bachelor Party"
* * *
It had been a fairly nondescript afternoon when Logan decided to ask a fairly interesting question.
"Hey, kid, mind if I ask you something?"
"Hmm?" Rogue glanced up from her text of Julius Caesar before returning to the complexities of Elizabethan dialogue.
"This is kind of personal, but since it's *me* asking..." *That* earned him her full attention, and at her inquiring look he went on. "You told me way back when that you put that first boy you kissed in a coma for three weeks." Her face grew shuttered, and he continued before she had time to brood on the touchy memories. "Then you touched me that first time, and I was up in a few hours which is me we're talking about, so a normal person might have been out for a week or two but then came Mags, and he was not only still on his feet after touching you, but able to use his powers a little bit within a few minutes..."
*This* was unexpected territory, and he was relieved to see the closed look leave her face, although she still looked wary. "Yeah, that's right..."
"So was Maggie just *real* resistant, or did he not touch you for as long or were you somehow trying to keep from absorbing anything from him?"
"*Yeah*, I *was* trying to keep from getting his power, I mean."
"So if you were able to hold back like that with him after *how* many times had you touched someone before him? Me, and that kid anyone else?"
"A few brushes, real quick touches, but after what happened with David I was real careful not to let it happen again."
"So, if you got some *practice*, you could maybe learn not to do that little draining trick whenever you touch someone?"
"Maybe, but who's suicidal enough to let me practice on them?" The half-conscious bitterness underlying the wry question was sharp enough to taste, and Logan replied without even having to think about it..
"Me."
She gave him a startled look, and he tried to read the emotions flashing through those doe-like eyes fear and worry, then hope, and perhaps a wicked gleam of mischief flickering beneath. Whether that buried delight might have been at the prospect of getting a bit more of him in her head, at the thought of getting to borrow his abilities again for a bit, or just a bit of earthy pleasure at the thought of actual skin-on-skin contact, he couldn't say. But then, regrettably, her conscience kicked in. Using her gift was Wrong, since it stole from others in the best of cases and risked their lives if things went badly. "Logan, I couldn't ask you to..."
"You ain't asking, I'm volunteering."
"...Or let you do that. It's dangerous "
Having made the leap by offering, Logan wasn't about to let her dither her way out of it now. Without giving her a chance to pull away or fend him off, he reached over and clapped a hand to her cheek.
She shouldn't have been quite so surprised. She *knew* him, including his tendency towards instant action, and after all it was the subject of their current discussion. Still, she wasn't expecting it, and for a moment she felt the dark nearly-pleasurable surge of Loganness inundating her mind and body.
But coming with the inrush of energy were Logan's current thoughts, and right at the top of the surge was the reminder of the point of this whole exercise. Remembering the incident with Magneto, she forced herself to resist the influx, and struggled to prevent the intake of energy.
Logan had a moment to revel in the feel of Marie's satiny skin under his palm a touch he had expected never to feel without intervening layers, barring another attempt to preserve her life after deathly injury before the pull began. A hot quasi-electrical current seemed to reach from the hand touching her skin down his arm and through his entire frame, and he could feel himself weakening under the hold. Paralyzed by the tug of Rogue's uncontrolled ability, he could do nothing to pull away from her, unless and until she released him but after a moment, he actually felt the pull ease and the pain lessen. It was still unpleasant, and he wouldn't recommend the contact for anyone not possessed of a mutant healing factor, but he thought he could take it for a fair bit of time before it would kill him.
But it wasn't very much more than a few seconds before she reached up with a gloved hand and pulled his own hand away. "No more," she said softly.
Logan exhaled shakily and let his hand stay in hers for a moment before reclaiming it. Healing factor or not, he felt more than a bit rundown yet also triumphant. He had no idea how long the contact had lasted it had seemed to last hours, days even but he was fairly sure it was at least a bit longer than their first touch had been, and he was still conscious. Definite progress.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, sure..." Deep breath. "Give me another minute or two, and we'll try it again."
"*Logan*..." Alarm warred with that half-hidden pleasure in her expression. "I think it's really great that you want to help me, but I don't want to land you in the Medlab."
"S'okay. I know when I've had enough."
"Liar."
A huffing chuckle and a half-grin were her only responses.
After a minute or two in which Wolverine made no move to resume contact, Marie cautiously tried to return to her English assignment, only to be startled back out of the play by Logan's brusque, "Ready?" Before she could reply, he reached forward again and put his palm to the side of her neck, thumb along her cheek and fingers plunging into the hair at the nape of her neck.
She tensed, and again concentrated on resisting the flood of thought and sensation. The stronger taste of Logan in her head gave her both a taste of exactly how determined he was to stick this out for her, and the added stubbornness to fight her power for as long as the pair could take it. She got less energy from him this time perhaps a bit because she had gotten a slightly better sense of how to hold back her gift, or maybe it was the tiny bit of forewarning that made her able to resist this absorption from the beginning but stopped it after a minute or so when she saw Logan getting paler and paler. "Enough," she murmured, pulling his hand away from her skin.
"No more," she warned softly. "Not tonight."
The implicit statement being that there *would* be more attempts made on other nights, Logan chose to be heartened by this statement. "Later, then," and he was pleased that she didn't disagree.
He let his fingers comb though her hair as he pulled his hand back, as though by accident, but the fresh thoughts of his lurking in the back of her head suddenly told Marie that the caress had been less than accidental.
Attempting to return her attention to the works of the Bard had been hard enough after the first touch, but right now Marie no longer gave a damn what Cassius' deal was or how Brutus felt about the matter. The first contact had been mainly shocking and his uppermost thoughts had been about the sincere desire to help her gain control, but the caress accompanying the second had brought a whole new batch of his thoughts to her conscious realization. The flickering suggestions of ways he'd like to eventually be able to touch her were both unexpected and somewhat motivational.
Right now, she wanted needed a bit of time to sift through the new memories absorbed and reassess what she had thought she knew about his feelings for her. She had managed to settle herself into the role of adolescent gal-pal to the guy she was nursing a wholly-unrequited lust for. Learning that he had been having some decidedly unplatonic thoughts about her was oddly frightening, since it suggested some exciting new paths their relationship could head down, with unforeseeable results.
But she needed to get out of here in his bedroom, for Chrissakes, and sitting on his *bed*, with the man himself within arm's-reach before she did something flaky and schoolgirlish, like turning into a giggling idiot, or else climbing into his lap and suggesting that they start trying out some of the 101 Ways to Get Each Other Off Without Direct Skin Contact that he had been thinking up over the past year or so... "I... I think I should go now."
He gave her a worried look because he had an inkling of which thoughts of his were currently bouncing around in her skull, or because he genuinely didn't want her to leave? "All right... See ya tomorrow, kid... Marie...." She could hear a gentle tone underlying the casual statement that she wouldn't have known to look for before then, especially when he dropped the nickname to use her own given name.
It was wonderful, it was unexpected, it was terrifying. She grabbed her text and fled to the safety of her own dorm room...
* * *
"i'd sell my soul my self esteem a dollar at a time for one chance one kiss one taste of you"
"magdalena," by A Perfect Circle
* * *
After a night to sleep on the idea, and bit more brooding on the matter, Marie had to conclude that Logan's idea had some merits. Of course the hell of it was that she had a fresh dose of*him* in her head, and he was not only genuinely sincere in his offer to play guinea pig for her, but had a certain personal motivation in making her touchable. She had no idea how much of her current willingness to experiment with him might be due to the collusion between her secondhand case of Logan's willingness and her own desires that coincided so surprisingly with his own. Possibly if there had been a little less of him in her head at the moment, or if she'd had a bit more time to consider the matter or to get an outside opinion, some downsides to the plan might have occurred.
But Logan and Rogue were happily outvoting Good Li'l Marie on this one, so when Logan collared her the next day in a break between classes and wanted to try again, she didn't argue. She had an hour or so between history and biology for study time, so five or ten minutes in Logan's room wouldn't exactly be missed from her schedule.
As before, her only warning was the "Ready?" before he put his hand to the side of her jaw, mere seconds after closing the door behind the two of them. It wasn't much time to prepare herself to resist before being touched and perhaps he would have been wiser to have sat down first. As it was, his knees started to buckle when she pulled his hand away, and she had to make a grab for him. Had she not absorbed a fair bit of borrowed strength, she probably wouldn't have managed to keep him on his feet, but somehow she managed to prop him up against the wall.
"Right... Better... next time?" he managed after a minute, and she shook her head at the bravado.
"Don't you have a self-defense class this afternoon?" A rhetorical question the answer was already in her thoughts.
"Hmm?" A blink, before the gears caught and the wheels turned. "Later."
"And you still wanted me to try this *now*? Less than half an hour before?" She gave him a raised eyebrow, leaving it to him to fill in the unspoken commentary on the wisdom or lack thereof of his chosen timing.
"I'll be fine by then," he said defensively. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be learning *not* to do this to me?" The Logan between her ears told her that he really *was* feeling a bit foolish for not having thought this through before impulsively hauling her off to his room, but wasn't about to come right out and admit that it had been a less than stellar idea.
"Right. From here on out, no more practice' until *after* classes are done for the day."
"At least until you get good at it," was his conditional agreement. He gave her a half-grin, and her very own personal subliminal Wolverine supplied that he wasn't going to let her feel anything less than confident in the eventual success of this little project.
* * *
"I know you well.
you are a part of me.
I know you better than I know myself.
I know you best,
better than anyone.
I know you better than I know myself."
"Part Of Me" by Tool
* * *
It was just as well that *he* was so sure that she'd learn what they both wanted her to, because after a week she was getting a bit discouraged. She was still "studying" in his room at night the given excuse being that Kitty and Jubilee (especially Jubilee) tended to be noisy, which was actually true but two or even three times a night he would lay a hand to her face, or catch hold of the segment of arm bared between glove and sleeve, or even take her ungloved hand in his. And two or even three times a night, she would take his hand away from her skin and leave him dizzily clinging to consciousness.
The day she found herself tracking Jubilee from dorm room to gym by scent alone, she realized that she'd absorbed a bit too much Wolverine for now especially when she found herself winking at Jean in bio class.
Coming to Logan's room as usual right after dinner, her first words were, "No more." He gave her a startled look, and her subliminal Logan complained, [You're *giving up*?] sounding equal parts hurt and peeved. "Not I don't mean no more' *forever*, just we need to back off a little for a few days. I need to stop and think about what I've been doing wrong, before we try again."
Both Logans were willing to accept that. "That might be a good idea. Try to think of a new angle, something like that." [Give me a bit of a breather,] Subliminal Logan added.
"Besides, I need a few days to let the insides of my head settle a bit, before I start smoking cigars and stealing Scooter's bike."
Logan chuckled but didn't say anything. [Aww, but you're so *cute* when you start acting like me...,] came the internal commentary, which made Marie giggle a little in response. Logan stopped laughing and gave her an alert look. [Probably wondering how much of me you've got in there I mean, in *here*.]
Changing the subject a little, Marie suggested, "I start acting too much like you right now, someone may figure out I touched you again, and want to know why."
A wary tilt to the head, and the guarded response, "Well, I'm trying to help you control your gift nothing wrong with *that*, is there?"
[Unless Jeannie or Chuckie take a look in my head and get an idea of *why* I want to get my hands on a sixteen-year-old girl so badly...] "Well... It's a bit of a risk, even for you, and someone like Scoo Scott or the Professor might not like the idea much."
"True..."
"So maybe we need to keep this just between us? For now, at least?"
"That... *might* be a good idea." [As much as I hate skulking around like this, we're probably going to be better off if no one else knows what we're playing around with yet,] Subliminal Logan noted.
* * *
"I am too connected to you to
Slip away, to fade away.
Days away I still feel you
Touching me, changing me,
And considerately killing me."
"H." by Tool
* * *
A few days went by time for Subliminal Logan to quiet down and for Real Logan to go around giving Marie thoughtful looks, though not mentioning their little practice sessions at any point. Marie missed the acerbic grumble in the back of her head when it faded from ever-present to occasional, and missed the little buzz she got from absorbing Logan's sharper senses and restless energy in small regular doses.
It was when she realized just *how* much she missed borrowing little bits of Logan that she got an inkling of her real problem. Her gift may have been painful to those she touched, and on a conscious level she was horrified at what she did to those she absorbed energy from but to her it felt good, even wonderful if what she was absorbing came from someone whose thoughts she didn't mind sharing. Logan was already in her head in residual form, and she *knew* how much she liked having him there. Absorbing his abilities was a joy, and the urge was there every time she touched him or he her to *keep* touching him, to take him into her until he would always be there, and never fade.
Now *that* was a kicker that the one person willing and able to practice touching her was the one person she was most tempted to use her power on. [Maybe I shoulda started visiting Eric in his plastic cage and practiced on *him*,] she thought wryly to herself. (The idea had certain merits. Having already absorbed him once, she wouldn't exactly be getting anything particularly new and damaging from further contact, and his powers were a lot less nasty to pick up than, say, Cyke's uncontrolled eyeblasts.)
On the other hand, secondhand Magneto dreams weren't half so pleasant as some of the ones she had gotten from Logan's mind. Oh, sure, there were his nightmares, filled with pain and violence, of being in that mysterious lab or in any number of half-remembered battles but then again, there was the ever-so-odd schizophrenic pleasure of erotic dreams from Logan's point-of-view starring herself as the guest of honor...
* * *
"to touch upon the surface, is not for
what it seems, I take away
my problems, but only in my dreams."
"Brackish," by Kittie
* * *
(She was sitting at the head of his bed leaning back against the headboard, a textbook open in her lap except that she was also standing at the foot of the bed looking at herself. But that wasn't her, that was *Marie* over there on the bed and she was Logan except that she was also Marie, wasn't she? But that didn't matter right now, because she was on the end of the bed now, crawling on hands and knees like a stalking animal towards the girl in the nightgown studying and pretending to ignore her *him* whoever she was... And s/he came up beside Marie, reaching over to close the book firmly and gently pull it from her hands. And as she raised her head to meet his eyes, he set the text aside and raised his hand to her face. And there was no pain, no pull, and he slid his hand into her hair and pulled her into a kiss, warm and slow and deepening, and felt her ungloved hands sliding up his chest and then around his body, pulling him closer. And then she was pulling his shirt up and off, and he was reaching for the skirt of her nightgown and pulling it up, up, baring long lean lovely legs, curved hips, slender waist, rounded breasts, and then it was over her head and off and for whatever reason she hadn't worn any underwear when going to study in the bedroom of a man old enough to be her father (if not her grandfather)... And he was touching her, happily, painlessly, wherever he wanted to, waist and belly and breasts and thighs and silken furry dampness between... And she was reaching for the fly of his jeans and helping him skin them off quick as a thought, touching *him* wherever she wanted to, though where she wanted to was really only one place and it was exactly where *he* wanted to be touched, caressed, rubbed as hard as she wanted to do so... And then her arms were around him again, pulling him closer, between her parted thighs, guiding his hips as he slid himself into her, warm yielding silken smooth snug gripping...)
And Marie woke panting, feeling her heartbeat throbbing in her chest and even more strongly between her thighs, making it very easy at that moment to settle the question of exactly what gender she was, and therefore *who* she was. She put one hand wonderingly to her own breast, Logan still strong enough in her mind to delight in the feel of the soft mass in her palm, then lifted her head from her pillow enough to make sure that Kitty and Jubi were both sound asleep, before sliding the other hand down to ease that pleasant ache.
[Now, see, if you can get yourself under control, you wouldn't always have to be doing this *yourself*...,] came an internal voice, though at the moment she couldn't for the life of her have said whether it was Subliminal Wolvie or her own personal internal monologue. Didn't much matter, though, since Logan and Marie were both agreed on this point. [Hell of a motivation for *not* draining Logan dry whenever I touch him,] she thought to herself in her last clear moment before drifting back to sleep...
* * *
"so grow libido throw dominoes of indiscretions down falling all around
in cycles circles constantly consuming, conquer and devour
it's time to bring this fire down bridle all this indiscretion long enough to
edify and permanently fill this hollow
feed me fill me up again temporarily pacifying
feed me here fill me up again temporarily pacify this hungering"
"the hollow," by A Perfect Circle
* * *
Oddly enough, the thought recurred to her on waking the next morning, and then again during the day at unexpected moments. So she was in a decidedly odd mood when she grabbed her pre- calculus textbook and headed for Logan's room after dinner. He glanced up when she entered the room her presence there at that hour so expected that she no longer bothered knocking but refrained from asking if she was planning to resume practicing' that night.
She saw the question on his face, though, or picked it up from Subliminal Logan on a non-verbal level, and answered it. "I thought of something." Accepting the raised eyebrow for the question that he wasn't bothering to voice, she answered, "My problem seems to have been that I've been enjoying absorbing you too much. I need a little more... *motivation* not to take from you whenever I touch you."
Having dropped her eyes to the floor when saying that last bit, she didn't catch the way his eyes had widened at that statement especially when she followed it up by peeling off one glove. To his credit, he had his expression back under control by the time she lifted her gaze to his face again, and didn't flinch when she raised her bared hand though he held himself very still as she reached for his face.
Marie gently pressed her palm against his cheek, fingers tracing through his sideburns, and thought very, *very* hard about how much she wanted him to be able to touch her anywhere he wanted to for as long as they both wanted to...
For his part, Logan was startled again twice. First was the feeling when she touched him, still pulling but not painfully. More of an unpleasant tingling, as of feeling returning to numbed flesh, but not even close to the searing drain of lifeforce that it had been the first couple of times. Unthinkingly, he raised his hand and pressed it to hers against his cheek, before they both realized the significance of the action that her hold on him had been lessened to the point of allowing him to move.
It was as their eyes met each other wonderingly that Logan got his second surprise. With her standing mere inches from him, he couldn't help but detect the clear scent of arousal wafting from her body which gave him more than an inkling of how she was "motivating" herself not to drain him.
Giving her a half-smile and a quirked eyebrow, he suspected that she was still drawing enough from him to pick up the drift of his thoughts, which had become somewhat graphic as he thought of a few "motivational techniques" that might have a hell of a lot of potential under the circumstances. She blushed a little which he couldn't help but find adorable but left her hand where it was, and her scent became if anything even more enticing.
He retained enough self-control to refrain from doing anything like pulling her into his lap or trying to touch *her* in a few interesting places (if necessary through her clothing), but she no doubt continued to pick up little flickers of what he was thinking about doing with and to her, if her continued blush was any indication.
They managed to stay like that for several minutes, before she sighed and pulled her hand from between his own hand and cheek. He reluctantly let her go, then spoke. "That wasn't bad at all."
And it hadn't been. He was a tiny bit drained, but not exactly beyond the point of standing on his own power, and more than ready for a repeat performance whenever she was willing to try again.
"Could have done better," she said. "I was still getting a little from you."
"So we keep practicing..."
* * *
"Here comes a kiss that I've never had
Nothing feels like this if it were heaven tonight
I love you"
"Heaven Tonight," by Hole
* * *
And so they did. The next day, catching her in the hall between classes with no one else in sight, he drew her into an unoccupied classroom and put a hand to her cheek. They were able to stay like that until she had to go to her next class, and he was still on his feet and unwobbly when he took his hand away.
After that were a lot of similar incidents. Stopping by his room in her longer breaks between classes, or evenings after dinner, and seeing how long they could hold contact. Brief pauses during the day whenever they caught a few moments alone for fleeting touches. One afternoon when they ducked into an unoccupied classroom, he pulled her close and held her, resting his cheek against hers, and that was best of all, with their arms around each other and his scent so close to her reminding her clearly and sharply of exactly what she was trying to gain from this little exercise. There was almost no pull at all that time, only a faint tingle against his cheek and the softest whisper of his thoughts against hers and so of course they had to repeat that particular pose, as often as possible.
They never discussed what kind of "motivation" she was using, or what they were leading up to with all of this "practice," aside from her not needing to shroud herself in layers of fabric to protect those around her. They didn't need to, since he had guessed and since she absorbed little flickers of what he knew on a daily basis.
So after a few weeks of this, he didn't feel the need to say anything but, "Let's see if I can make your second kiss turn out a little better than your first," before pulling his cheek away from her face and pressing his mouth to hers instead.
She hadn't been expecting it, but she clung to him and gamely returned the kiss, parting her lips slightly and letting him brush his tongue against hers. When he tried probing a bit deeper, she playfully sucked at the tip of his tongue before nipping at his lower lip a bit. He growled softly low in his throat and put a hand to the back of her head, plunging his fingers into her hair and holding her closer.
Several nuzzly nibbly minutes later, he pulled away from her lips and rested his cheek against her forehead. They held each other close, getting their breath back, before he murmured, "Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful."
"Hmm?" she inquired contentedly, for once not following his train of thought.
"No pull at all."
She pulled away abruptly to meet his eyes, realizing that he was right. She hadn't even absorbed a little bit from him during that kiss.
* * *
"I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would
agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested
options."
Barnabas, as quoted by Delirium, SANDMAN #63, by Neil Gaiman
* * *
Logan and his mercilessly talkative passenger got back to the school a bit past ten at night. Most of the kids were already in their dorm rooms for the night, so McCoy's welcoming committee consisted of Cyke, Jean, Storm and Xavier, as the adult contingent of the school. Between the confusion of introductions and the activity of hauling Hank's various personal belongings and equipment up to his new room or down to the Medlab, it was well past eleven before things were settled and Logan was free to escape to his own room. [Enough damn *talking* for one day...]
Except that when he opened the door, he found company waiting for him. But in this case, much more welcome company than the loquacious medico. "Waitin' up for me?"
Marie smiled, closing her textbook. "And reading my history chapter. Just about done now, though. So what's the new doc like?"
Closing the door and taking off his jacket, he answered, "Nowhere near as pretty as Jeannie. Least, not unless you're into big, furry, and *blue*."
"*Really*?"
"Yep. He's friendly enough talks too damn much, though. Might turn out to be a decent enough teacher, but hell to be stuck in a car with him on a long trip..."
She giggled. He smiled at her and caught her hand, pulling her off the bed and onto her feet, then into an embrace. She leaned into him happily, resting her cheek against his. "Poor baby, stuck in a car with a chatty Cookie Monster all the way from where was he from, again?"
"Illinois."
"Like Kitty!"
"Mmm." Logan ran his hands down Marie's back, wondering if he should risk sitting down and pulling her into his lap, or if it would be pushing things a bit.
He felt her tense slightly, as though she'd known what he was thinking [You idiot, she probably *does* know what you're thinking!] before she relaxed a bit and said, "I wouldn't mind."
He didn't need to be told twice. Reaching down to pull the chair around, he dropped into it and pulled her abruptly into his lap. She squeaked in startlement, and there was a moment of confusion before she wound up settled more or less across his thighs, her knees draped over one arm of the chair. She shifted position nervously, placing her elbows on the chairarm behind her back, trying not to rest too much of her weight on his lap.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm not too heavy for you?" she asked worriedly.
He laughed, wrapping one arm around her behind her back and nudging her arms forward off the armrest. "No." He pulled her back against him, gently, and gave her a minute to get used to the idea. To distract her, he asked, "So what's Storm got you guys readin'?"
"Oh, we're up to the early colonization of the Americas. She was talking about the first colonies in the US today and I about died giggling remembering " She broke off as Logan, deciding to see how well her control worked with distraction or possibly trying to distract her from excessive consideration of which regions of hers were currently resting in close proximity to which regions of his started to ease off one of her gloves.
"Go on. You were laughin' because...?"
"Oh, um, for some reason I had this bit going through my head from a CD Kitty has, where there's a spoken word bit where the girl who does the singing was comparing the conditions of the Pilgrims and the Donner Party, and suggesting that the Pilgrims may have resorted to cannibalism that first winter, and I know it was silly but I just had the hardest time keeping a straight face while Storm was going on and on about hardships and religious persecution and stuff..."
He treated her to a soft gruff chuckle the Wolverine's sense of humor being hard-edged enough to appreciate a good cannibalism joke while lacing the fingers of his free hand through those bared by removal of the purple satin glove.
"... And she was almost glaring at me out of the corner of her eye, and the rest of the class was starting to look at me funny, and then I whispered to Kitty and Jubes, The similarities in situation between the Donner Party and the Colonial Pilgrims...," and Jubes started laughing so hard she fell out of her seat!"
"I guess she got the joke?"
"Yeah, Kitty made us both listen to the CD with her. Freaky, but good. Gothic chicks with cellos."
Logan quelled the budding impulse for further information funny Donner Party talk or not, he wasn't interested enough to *request* Goth music torture. "Did Stormy give you guys any problems?"
"Oh, she asked us to share the joke with the rest of the class, and Kitty told her that the lecture was reminding us of a CD that mentioned the Pilgrims and that she *really* wouldn't like the side discussion we'd get into if we told her what it said. So she asked us if we'd gotten ourselves under control and if she could *please* continue the lecture and all that, and we got mobbed after class by people wanting to know what was so funny. Kitty wound up playing that track from the CD down in the rec room after dinner." Another giggle. "I don't think Storm's going to be very happy with us tomorrow if she brings up the Pilgrims again..."
Logan chuckled softly at the image of Storm trying to lecture a dozen giggling teenagers. [Not a problem I think I've ever had...] Sliding one hand from Marie's shoulder down her side to tuck around her waist, he left the fingers of the other curled through hers. [This is good. This is *very* good.]
Except that then the Wolverine started taking too great an interest in the proceedings. Between that whole proximity thing and the fabulous closeup view he was getting of her cleavage, this was about thirty seconds from getting really embarrassing. [Enough lap time for one night...] Quickly lifting Marie to her feet, he stood up. "Why don't I let you finish up your readin' while I run down for a beer or six?"
He was still holding her hand chances were that she had an idea of the reason for his mood change. Especially when she gave him that naughty little half-smile... "Can I have one?"
He smiled back. "Maybe... If you've finished your homework!" he added as a parting shot while on his way out the door...
Life was good. He pondered this on the way through the hall and down the stairs. Decent digs, good food. People he liked to hang with, people he liked to harass, people who didn't call him a mutie freak. Places to go running off to on occasion, excuses to get into fun knock-down drag- out fights on a semi-regular basis.
Even that "teaching" crap wasn't too bad. Bunch of bleeding-heart worry about mutants getting along with humans but the fact of the matter was that when he thought about some of these kids he liked running into some of the stuff he'd had to deal with in the past...
Well, they were damned lucky to have *him* teaching them how to deal with a fight, rather than Scooter. With what he had to show them, if they actually paid attention then they might stand a reasonable chance of coming back alive.
Not that he'd ever been that big on "saving the world" or "contributing to society" or any of that other volunteer crap. But he had to admit in a very small part of his mind, and never out loud that it did feel kind of good to know that he was doing something to protect the people he cared about.
Yep, life was good. He had his girl, waiting for him upstairs, and he had his beer, waiting for him in the fridge.
Except that it wasn't all there.
He found himself staring in disbelief at the empty spots in the carton.
*Someone* had raided his beer supply.
Not just one bottle, but *two* were missing!
Growling faintly, he opened the door wider and leaned in, wondering if he had a hope in hell of identifying the thief's scent amidst the various food odors. Pulling the remains of the sixpack out, he sniffed at them. Unfortunately, it wasn't a scent he recognized.
Rumbling louder in frustration, he straightened and started to close the door then paused. His instincts were telling him that *someone* was there.
Except that as he slowly turned on his heel, scanning the darkened kitchen, even his night- sensitive eyes were detecting no one.
But sight wasn't the Wolverine's primary sense. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on what his nose was telling him despite the lingering aromas of food and a large number of other people and what his ears were telling him.
When he was sure, he jumped.
To the eye, there was nothing above the refrigerator. But to the touch, there was *something* warm, furry, startled, struggling. He dragged whatever-it-was down off the appliance, dropping it abruptly to the floor. Then he stared.
The *thing* revealed in the light from the still-open refrigerator in no way appeared human. Had he not spent the better part of the day in unfortunately close proximity with someone who resembled nothing so much as an over-educated and oddly-colorized former star of _Wild Kingdom,_ he would have assumed "animal" on seeing the fur. Except that the blue fur didn't appear to be anything found in nature.
And then there was the fact that the guy had been invisible until Logan pulled him out of the shadows. Not merely hidden in the dark Logan's night vision was good enough to have easily spotted him atop the fridge, had he been there to see. He hadn't been.
Which said "mutant."
But still there wasn't just the fur, there were the hands. *Three* digits on each? And yellow eyes, pointed ears...
Okay, this was *definitely* someone who belonged at Xavier's. (If not a circus.) No way in hell he could go out on the streets safely looking like *this*.
But that didn't give him free rights to Logan's beer.
One bottle of which was still clutched in an oddly-shaped hand.
Wolverine glared at the bottle, then back at the guy on the floor. He growled menacingly.
"Ah, Gute Nacht... Entschuligung..." (Good evening... Excuse me...) "Ah beer?" the nameless guy offered helplessly, waggling the bottle in what was evidently hoped to be an appeasing manner.
Logan was not appeased. Noting how little liquid remained in the bottle even accounting for the amount spilled mere seconds ago he was once again reminded of just why he was annoyed with this particular guy, fellow mutant misfit or not. The growl increased in volume.
Which was when the guy yelped in alarm something that sounded like, "Tut mir leid!" (I'm sorry!) and disappeared, in a <Bamf!> of displaced air and a whiff of sulfur.
Logan jumped back a step in startlement. Then, annoyed with himself for his reaction, he started forward. [No way this fuzzy punk is gonna be laughing at me...] Except that he seemed to be alone in the kitchen and as the sulfur reek cleared out, his nose and ears concurred with his eyes. The misfit was gone.
"Fuck!"
So annoyed that he almost forgot to grab his remaining beer, Logan left the kitchen. On his way back to his own room, he kept an eye and nose, and ear out for the beer-guzzling pest.
While passing through the lobby, he heard a suspicious jingling from the chandelier and stopped to glare up at the vibrating light fixture. Nothing to be *seen* up there but it was dark...
He growled warningly, and was rewarded with a gasp, followed by absolute silence. Grumbling to himself with mingled satisfaction (at the appropriately frightened reaction) and frustration (at the inability to dole out appropriate retribution), he returned to his room.
"What, you couldn't wait to get to your room and started without me?" Marie teased when she saw the missing spaces in the carton.
"No, *somebody* decided to help himself," Logan grumbled.
"Who?" she asked with startlement. Scooter had made some very pointed comments when Logan first started keeping beer in the fridge, citing the necessity to keep alcohol out of the hands of the underaged. This ceased when Logan demonstrated both willingness and ability to track down anyone bold enough to help themselves to his beer. After having tracked a few sticky-fingered students to their respective dorm rooms not to mention spotting another trying to smuggle a couple of cans out of the kitchen under his jacket the word had spread. The Wolverine's Beer is Hands Off.
"New guy. Don't know him, but at a guess I'd say the Germans have started crossing Smurfs with gargoyles..."
* * *
"Hell is only half full
Room for you and me
Looking for a new fool
Who's it gonna be?"
"Monkey Wash Donkey Rinse," by Warren Zevon and Duncan Aldrich
* * *
Marie got to meet the newest teacher fairly early the next day. Jean introduced him to the biology class, announcing that he would not only be assuming a position in the Medlab downstairs but would also take over the advanced biology classes. Rogue quickly decided that she liked Dr. McCoy (or Hank, as he immediately insisted that the students call him) but she could also see how he could have worn on Logan's never-steady temper.
Lord knew, the man liked to *talk*!
"And that, class, is why one should always exercise *extreme* caution when choosing a test subject for a new experiment and why one should only use *oneself* as an absolute last resort," he concluded humorously, finishing the explanation of how he wound up covered in indigo fur. Moving on to the topic of other mutants he had dealt with in the past, he discussed the recent trends in human mutation and why some abilities such as telepathy were comparatively common while others such as Bobby's icy talents were rare or even unique.
Marie nibbled on her lower lip while debating whether or not to ask him if he'd ever run across another mutant with a healing factor if so, perhaps it could have turned out to be a long-lost relative of Logan's. She was jarred from her thoughts by Jubilee's elbow.
"Ask him about your gift, Rogue!" Jubes whispered. "Maybe he knows how to fix it!" While Marie was debating whether or not Hank would be able to come up with anything that would work better than her practice sessions with Logan, Jubi impatiently raised her hand and spoke up without waiting to be called on. "What about somebody who can absorb someone's energy by touch? Powers and memory and stuff?"
Most of the glass looked at Rogue, involuntarily. She blushed at the attention. McCoy, by no means slow on the uptake, added up the question with the attention paid to the girl layered with more clothing than was necessary in the current weather. "Some forms of empathy or telepathy work best through touch contact," he said thoughtfully, "and there are a very few mutants able to mimic the powers of other mutants around them. I've never heard of quite that form of ability before..." Marie stared at her desk. [Just means you're special, sweetheart. I already knew that,] Inner Logan murmured. The affectionate comment helped, as did the reminder that she was in the process of learning how to do without the extra layerings. She raised her head and met Hank's sympathetic look calmly.
After the bell rang and their books and papers had been gathered up, Jubes and Kitty eagerly led the way to the cafeteria. "Just wait till you meet the new guy," Kitty said happily.
"New guy?"
"Yeah, he got here last night," Jubi filled in. "You would have met him, if you didn't spend the evening lurking in Wolvie's bedroom waiting for him to get back from picking up Hank." She gave Rogue an amused roll of the eyes.
"What's he like?"
"Kind of like Hank!" Jubes said.
"Huh?"
"He's *blue*," Kitty filled in, "but he's got six fingers and yellow eyes and a *tail*."
"Six fingers?"
"Three on each hand," Jubes filled in. "He's kind of cute, though. Like a fuzzy friendly gargoyle."
The final word kicked up a memory. "He wouldn't by any chance be German, would he?"
At the startled looks and simultaneous, "How did *you* know?" she just smiled and led the way into the cafeteria.
The "new guy" was incredibly easy to spot. Surrounded by several other students, they might have been comparing notes on their lives before reaching the X-Mansion or talking music or TV shows, for all she could tell. Walking right up to him, she offered her hand. "Hi, I'm Rogue," she said without preamble.
Glancing up in startlement, he paused for a moment before self-consciously offering his hand in return. A thumb and only two fingers, as Kitty and Jubes had said, with the digits being broader than usual, making the entire width about that of a standard five-fingered hand. "I'm Kurt," he replied. She saw he had noticed her gloves but wasn't commenting on them yet.
[The beer,] Inner Wolvie reminded. "Did you by any chance take a couple of beers out of the fridge last night?" Rogue obliged her subliminal boyfriend.
Kurt looked guilty and even more so at the chorus of gasps and "Uh-oh!" surrounding him. He nodded sheepishly.
Jubes whistled. "You took some of Wolvie's beer? And you're still in one piece?"
"Wolvie'? Like wolf'? Good name," he muttered.
Inner Wolvie grumbled and muttered, trying to decide if he found that complimentary or not. "C'mon. You'd better find him and apologize." The yellow eyes widened. "It'll be okay. You're new, you didn't know it was his. He'll snarl at you a little, but he shouldn't hurt you. Much."
Kurt seemed to view the prospect with equal parts reluctance and horror. Fortunately, Kitty and Jubes were backing her up on this one. "You're gonna have to run into Logan sooner or later. Better do it quick and try to get on his good side *before* you wind up in class with him," Kitty advised.
"Class?" Kurt asked incredulously. "He *teaches*?"
"Personal combat and self-defense," Rogue filled in.
"And he's rough enough on people he *likes*," Jubi added with the relish of those delivering bad news. "You *don't* want to leave him mad at you."
The generalized agreement from those surrounding Kurt as well as the obvious group decision that he needed to go make his peace with the cantankerous Wolverine *immediately* and come finish his lunch afterwards if he survived managed to get Kurt out of his seat, albeit slowly. Bracketed by the three girls, he allowed himself to be led from the cafeteria and outside. Being such a pleasant autumn day, it came as no surprise that Logan had chosen to grab some food and bolt for the woods. Following the hints of her Subliminal Logan, Marie took the lead and managed to find the tree he was leaning against without much searching.
Once Wolverine actually came into view, Kurt's nervousness became outright balkiness. Kitty and Jubes each reassuringly but firmly gripped one of his arms, neatly forestalling his attempts to escape by either teleportation or simply turning tail and running.
"Logan!" Marie called happily, though in fact he had no doubt already heard and perhaps even smelled them coming. Looking around, he studied the four crossing the grass towards him. Kurt ducked his head, uselessly attempting to hide behind Rogue. "Logan, we want you to meet Kurt," she announced as they came close enough for normal conversation.
Logan gave him a sharp look. "I think we ran into each other last night," he said with a faintly dangerous tone.
Kurt hunched his shoulders unhappily. "I'm sorry." Twisting his tail in his hands nervously, he lapsed into German, mumbling, "Tut mir leid, tut mir wirklich leid..." (I'm sorry, I'm really sorry...)
"He's new," Kitty added helpfully. "He didn't know it was yours."
Kurt shook his head, silently agreeing that he hadn't known. He continued worrying at the end of his tail.
"Yeah, it's not like it's got your name on it," Jubes added.
Logan not being totally unreasonable, the genuine misery before him made him much less angry than he had been the previous evening as did the obvious youth of the offender. "Never had to I'm the only person here that drinks it." The startlement in Kurt's expression suggested something to Logan, seasoned traveler that he was. "Drinking age in this country is twenty-one," he added.
"What?!" Kurt dropped his tail in dismay.
The girls studied him. "What is it in Germany?" Jubes asked curiously.
"For beer? Sixteen..."
"Whoa, *dude*! Wish *I* lived there!" Kitty and Rogue giggled at her reaction.
"Well, over *here* it's twenty-one, so hands off." Logan ended the conversation with finality, dismissing the subject and letting Kurt off the hook.
[Unless you ask me nicely,] Subliminal Logan added for Rogue's benefit. She giggled and gave him a wave and a smile as the girls and Kurt turned to head back to the cafeteria. Could be she'd get her food and come back out to join him though the other three were getting into an interesting conversation, with her two roommates comparing notes with Kurt as to other ways in which Germany might prove to be as good a country to be in, if not better than, the US. Despite the powerful argument of the comparative legal drinking ages, Jubilee was finding it hard to let go of the idea that her own nation was superior to all other countries in all respects that could possibly matter. [Hmmph, do her some good to learn the world doesn't *really* completely revolve around America,] Subliminal Logan grumbled. [Especially not Southern California,] Marie silently agreed, having run into the slightly more subtle form of regional snobbery Jubilee practiced on occasion.
Glancing back over her shoulder, Kitty saw her trailing behind the trio, lost in her own internal conversation. "You coming?" she asked her friend.
Marie grinned and ran to catch up.
* * *