RETURN of the DEFUNCT Series: X-Men Fic 1/2 [Wolverine/Rogue Part]
So, for awhile, I was pumping out the X-Men story ideas like crazy. Don't ask me why...I just was. I got into Wolverine/Rogue at first, and then, that sadistic part of me (aka, Puck, the Muse) spoke up and said, "Hey...wouldn't it be fun to write Scott/Rogue?" And yes, I know that there's a whole Scott/Rogue thing going on based on the X-Men: Evolution cartoons, but I didn't want to base it on that...I wanted to base it on the movie versions. Yes, exactly. The movie versions that, as far as I can remember, don't actually ever speak to each other.
Anyway...of that whole bunch, only two fics were ever finished (One-Shots, both of them) for Wolverine/Rogue (although there were more of the scenes done). I never put out the Scott/Rogue stuff. So, guess where it's going? That's right! HERE! (You lucky, lucky, bastards, you! < / sarcasm>)
This post is too long all together, so I'm going to separate by pairing.
This is the Wolverine/Rogue post!
1.
Memories [One-Shot]
“When do you leave?”
“Daybreak.”
She nodded, her eyes still on the horizon as if she couldn’t even look at him and it occurred to him that it was a kind of involuntary conditioning, what he’d put her through. She never asked him not to go anymore or how long he’d be. She hadn’t even said she’d miss him the last couple times. As if she thought her comments or questions wouldn’t be welcome.
Not that he could blame her.
He did it to her - he made her that way with his non-responses every time she had asked, with his insistence in going every time. He knew that.
He couldn’t do anything about it, though.
He’d thought a couple of time that he could break the cycle and ignore her when he got back, but he’d miss her just thinking about not talking to her when he got back. He knew the Mansion would just be a building if he couldn’t talk to her, have moments like these with her. It might be best for her if he didn’t, but he’d said it before - he wasn’t a damn hero. He wasn’t that selfless.
“Just for a coupla weeks this time,” he said into her silence.
She nodded again, her fingers absently picking at the seams of her gloves and let the silence grow, like the twilight spreading around them.
He didn’t usually mind the silences, but this one felt loaded with the unsaid, even to him.
Or maybe that was just him.
“Why do you need to know so badly?” she asked suddenly.
He was only mildly startled by her speaking, but was rather thrown by her words. “What do you mean?” he asked.
She looked at him, but away too quickly for him to read her expression except for what he could glimpse through profile in the shadows of the deepening dusk. “You are so insistent on finding out about your past - what you’ve already lived,” she said softly. “I kind of understand you,” and the slight thickening of her accent belied the apparent calm of her expression. “But it’s been years now,” she continued as he knew she would. “Years of fruitless searches, of leaving for weeks or months, only to come back just as empty handed,” she looked at him again, and this time kept his eyes. “Why, Logan?” she asked. “What do you hope you’ll find?” She shook her head and he lost her eyes again. “I can’t understand that,” she admitted. “Not when nine times outta ten, I feel like I’d love to have someone erase my memory of everything from about age 4 until the moment I stepped off the semi in Laughlin City.”
He frowned. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked seriously.
Her gaze fell to her lap, the fingers of her hands curled into each other, and she took a deep breath. “I had a pretty good childhood, you know?” she said, and her voice sounded different, almost detached.
“Most kids do,” he answered.
She nodded, agreeing with his assessment. “We weren’t rich, by any means, but I got most of what I wanted, bein’ an only child an’ all, and I fought with my parents all the time, but you know…” she trailed off, her head rising again, but her gaze focused on the horizon once again. “It was a pretty good childhood.”
“So why would you want to forget it?” he asked once she had been quiet for some time and it appeared to him she wouldn’t offer the information.
She looked at him and her expression was closed off - she was trying so hard to be strong. “They turned on me when they found out what I was, Logan,” she said, her voice just slightly above a whisper. “My parents, my friends, everyone,” she paused as her voice cracked and she swallowed past the emotion in her throat to continue, but her expression was hardening the way he’d rarely seen it before. “Kids I played with growin’ up, neighbors I helped with their groceries, they all turned on me -“ she shook her head, screwing her eyes shut. “They called me names and Cody’s sister…” she swallowed again. “She threw a pitcher of water at me when I tried to visit him in the hospital.” She raised her hands to rub at her eyes, and he could see the strain on her from trying not to cry.
He felt his hands fist at his sides, his jaw clenching in an attempt to stop himself from demanding names, to stop from making elaborate plans on just how he’d go to that town she grew up in and teach those assholes some manners. It wasn’t easy, but he knew it wasn’t what she needed, so he refrained. But he couldn’t speak - not and have it sound normal, so he kept silent and let her finish.
“I know I can’t blame them - they don’t know any better, they had to blame someone, and I was the easy target, the Professor’s always sayin’ we can’t blame them for being ignorant,” she sighed and he bit the inside of his mouth to keep from telling her she can damn well hate them if she wants, because he knows that ultimately, the Professor’s way is best for her. “And it hurt, but you know…” she continued, heedless of his efforts to remain outwardly calm. She sighed again. “It wouldn’t be so bad if my parents hadn’t…”
She couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it. Instead, she sighed again and made herself look at him. “So you see?” she asked. “The good memories,” she shook her head. “I’d gladly sacrifice those if I didn’t have to remember the hatred in my mama’s eyes as she called me evil and devil spawn - hell, it wouldn’t even be so bad that they hated me so much, if I didn’t remember what it was like to have them love me, tuck me in bed and read me to sleep.” She blinked and looked down again, shaking her head. “It’s my personal opinion, but memories are seriously overrated.”
How could he argue with a statement like that? A reality like that? He didn’t know what to tell her except the truth.
“If you’ve ever talked to people who’ve had a loved one abducted or disappeared...it’s something like that,” he spoke quietly. “Yeah, there’s a risk that even if I find something, all I’ll only find is pain, but...” he trailed off and shook his head. “Sometimes, it feels like anything is better than not knowing,” he sighed. “That knowing is worth the risk.”
She looked out over the grounds and for a while he thought she wouldn’t say anymore and when she did, her voice was empty and hollow like he’d never heard it before. “It isn’t.”
***
2.
Choices [Multi-Chapter]
[NOTE: This one is based on something that happened in what is called the "Golgotha" arc from the X-Men Comics, Volume 3, Number 169. (the icon I've used here is from the cover of that comic) Short version of the explanation: They're under a kind of influence - a creature that makes their worst fears come true in their own minds. And everyone at the Mansion is affected. Gambit and Rogue are together in it, and they're in the sewers under the Mansion. They come upon Wolverine, who has gone a little loopy and thinks he's fighting something along a wall or something. Gambit had been a little snippy with Rogue and Wolverine snaps at Gambit when he tries to help him when they come across him. Rogue uses her powers to knock Wolverine out and Gambit gets pissed at her thinking she had to help him, and one thing leads to another and he makes a comment about how he's glad that he and Rogue are "pretend lovers" and how if he could touch her she would've been another one-night stand. Wolverine comes to but is groggy and offers to kick his ass for Rogue. And Gambit leaves, saying that he'll leave them alone since they've always "had a thing for each other". Rogue stops Wolverine from going after Gambit and excuses him by saying that it's "the craziness" talking. Wolverine challenges that and asks her whether it's craziness to say that he's always wanted to kiss her, and he kisses her. She gives in to it until he almost gets knocked out by her powers. The next chapter, they all decide to pretend like nothing happened (the whole team, since they'd been doing crazy crap too) but I started thinking...the creature didn't make them act out, or crazy, really, just supposed to bring out their fears - and that's what he does for others of the team. Wolverine saying he felt something for Rogue isn't a fear, is it? At least, I didn't think so. And Gambit's words, those don't stem from a fear, do they? They didn't seem like it to me. So, I thought about that. And I wondered...what if someone brought that up to Rogue and Wolverine? That it was just supposed to bring out their FEARS?
This conversation was the result of my musings:
--
“I love him.”
He didn’t look at her, for a while, he didn’t even move. Then he leaned forward a little and flicked the ash off the end of his cigar. But he didn’t bring it back to his lips.
She saw it all out of the corner of her eye, and the strange thing to her was how easily she recognized it all, each movement, even the way he held his jaw. She didn’t have to be looking directly at him to know the look on his face would be carefully blank, but his eyes would show his annoyance. Because he *was* annoyed.
“I understand that he meant what he said, deep down, I get it,” she spoke again, because she knew he wouldn’t. “I do,” she insisted, but she wasn’t completely sure she was talking to him. And for a few moments, she was silent as she contemplated that. “But I can’t help that I still love him,” she said finally and her voice was only a little beaten. “I can’t help but think that if it *were* true, if he really *did* mean everything he said, why would he still be trying with me? Why would he--?” she cut off and leaned back until her back was on the concrete and her eyes on the stars. In this position, she couldn’t see him at all. She could still smell him. She sighed.
Eventually, after so much time had passed that she thought he never would, he spoke. “You love people with the part of you that don’t care about right or wrong,” he said, and his voice was gruff and gravelly and she couldn’t read it at all. “It don’t care about pride and it never checks in with your brain.”
Still looking up at the sky full of stars, she spotted Orion and his dog. She remembered her grandmama telling her she should never count the stars cause she’d get warts. “What do I do, Logan?” she asked after awhile, her voice low.
He made a sound, something between a scoff and a grunt. “I’m not the person to ask that.”
She sat up again, turning to look at him. “What do *we* do?” she amended.
He glanced at her, but looked away before she could read the expression in his eyes. “I’m not the person to ask that, either.”
She was mad suddenly, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. “Why not?” she asked, her tone sharper than she would’ve wanted it to be. “You’ve got a stake in this too, don’t you?” He leveled his gaze on hers and for a moment, she almost faltered. “Why do I have to make the decisions?”
His expression remained perfectly neutral and his voice was even when he asked, “Are you saying you want me to take the decision out of your hands, Marie?”
She still felt it, though. The danger around the edges of his control. And she was so tempted. So *very* tempted. It scared her more than anything had in a very long time. She became frozen, staring into his eyes like a mouse looking at a snake, only she knew he’d never hurt her. Even then.
As if in response to her recognition, he stood in one fluid movement. “If you love him, go to him,” he said, grinding the cigar on his boot heel. “Why am I even in the equation?”
And before she could answer, he was gone and she was left to watch his retreating figure with only the whiff of his cigar dissipating quickly in the breeze.
***
3.
Under My Skin [Maybe Multi-Chapter?]
[NOTES: This one could be a Wolverine/Rogue/Cyclops fic...maybe. It also takes the concept that Cyclops didn't really die in X3, that in the future, he'd be "found" somehow.]
Chapter 1
“Hey kid.”
She snapped back from her reverie to glance at him, smiling. “Hey, Logan,” she greeted warmly. “How long you been back, sugah?”
“Not long,” he answered, sitting next to her. He looked out at the lawn she had been inspecting, watching as a set of kids played their own version of Mutant Soccer. “So, where’s Scooter?”
Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched as his question filtered through and her lips tightened for a brief moment, before she appeared utterly calm again. “He’s got a class,” she answered, casually turning to look at him. “He’ll be available in an hour if you came lookin’ for him.”
It didn’t occur to him what she might mean by her words - he was still stuck on the fact she apparently knew Scooter’s schedule. “Since when do you know his schedule?” he asked, meeting her eyes.
She raised a brow in a manner that reminded him strangely of himself. “Since he told me so we could meet for lunch afterward,” she answered, and he could hear the thinning of her patience in the thickening of her accent and in the shortness of her tone. “I also know that he’ll be available for about an hour and a half, and then have another series of classes which’ll keep him busy ‘till about 5.”
“Why?” Logan asked shortly. “You got plans for dinner after that?”
Rogue stood up, looking down at him and he could see the patience was gone in the hardening of the lines around her eyes. “I’ll tell ya what,” she said. “I’ll tell Scott y’all were lookin’ for him when I see him.” She started to walk away before he could say a word.
It took him a moment to realize she was walking away from him, and when he did, he reacted first and thought later. “Marie,” he called, uncaring if anyone around them could hear the name that as far as he knew, she hadn’t offered anyone else.
She stopped and turned her upper body to look at him. “What?”
“I wasn’t lookin’ for Cyke,” he admitted. She raised a brow and he huffed in exasperation. “Fer cryin’ aloud, kid,” he exclaimed. “I was lookin’ for you.”
She turned to look at him fully and waited until he caught up to where she was standing. “Funny way of showing it,” she said. “First words out of your mouth after your version of a greeting are asking about Scott.”
“I could smell he’d been there with you,” he admitted.
“So?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“What’d you want?” she asked instead.
“Do I gotta want something?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Logan,” and he could hear the exasperation in her own voice. “You just said you came lookin’ for me.”
“Forget it,” he mumbled, turning away, but not walking away.
“Fine,” she exhaled, throwing her hands up and then slapping them against her jean-clad thighs. “Forgotten,” she said, only half under her breath. She turned around again. “I’ll see ya later, Logan,” she threw over her shoulder as she walked away. He watched her go for a few feet, before cursing under his breath.
“Hey, kid!” he called again.
“Yeah?” she asked, looking back at him from a few feet away.
“I just wanted to see you.”
It took her a few moments, but eventually, she smiled. “Yeah,” and her tone was warm and welcoming again, just like that. “I missed ya too, ya big lug,” she winked at him and after a moment within which he stared at her in silence, she smirked and walked away, waving her glove clad fingers in her wake.
Chapter 2
“Since when has that been going on?”
Ororo Monroe approached the window Logan was standing in front of, looking out at the lawn, trying to find what it was he was talking about. She saw small groupings of students having lunch all about the lawn, enjoying the comfortable warmth and cloudless skies of the bright spring day. She saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Logan turned to look at her, raising a brow expectantly. She smiled at him. “I’m afraid I do not see to what you’re referring, Logan,” she admitted.
He exhaled and motioned back outside with his chin. “On the picnic tables, by the rose bushes,” he explained.
‘Ro looked at the area he’d mentioned, watching the people on the tables. On one table were several of their freshmen, laughing and joking. “We have always allowed-“ she started to explain, only to be cut off by his gruff voice.
“Not that,” he said, pointing a finger through the glass at the table furthest away from the window, where only occasional glimpses of dark brown hair with white streaks could be seen blowing in the wind. “That.”
‘Ro shifted a little, and she suddenly saw what had him transfixed. At the table he was referring to was seated Rogue and Scott. They were eating sandwiches from on top of wax paper wrappers, and Scott was smiling as Rogue talked animatedly with her hands, her sandwich half-eaten and momentarily forgotten in her story-telling. She smiled as she realized one theory as to why something like that would bother Logan.
“You mean Scott and Rogue having lunch together?” Ororo asked.
He spared her a glance and he didn’t have to answer.
“For quite some time now,” she answered pensively. “Well, at least three months, because that’s when the new semester started at University and Rogue became available to be at home at lunchtime.”
“You mean she comes home to have lunch with him?” Logan asked.
“Only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” ‘Ro answered. “Mondays and Thursdays, she still has class most of the day and Fridays, like today, she doesn’t have class at all.”
Logan looked at Ororo and it took all the calm the Weather Witch possessed to not laugh. “I don’t mean that, either, and you know it.”
Ororo looked at him, managing to keep her expression only mildly curious. “I’m afraid you will have to be more clear then, Logan - I am not a telepath.” Very few people knew the simple pleasures Ororo Monroe engaged in - making the Wolverine verbalize things he would otherwise prefer not to was only one of them.
Logan, for his part, looked about 3/4th of the way to growling, and if it would’ve been anyone else but Ororo, might’ve already been leaning in menacingly. “Since when have Rogue and Scooter been acting like best friends,” he said through grit teeth, hands carefully splayed in an effort to refrain from clenching them.
“Oh,” ‘Ro said, watching through the window.
“Oh?” he prompted, raising a brow meaningfully.
“Truly, Logan,” she said, turning to him and smiling in that kind way she had. “I could not tell you when it began.”
Logan exhaled. “Try.”
Ororo turned her back on the window, leaning gracefully against the pane, resting her hands on the ledge. “It came on so slowly, truly,” she admitted. “You were gone for quite awhile, and Rogue has never been exceptionally comfortable speaking to the kids her own age, you remember.”
“I remember,” he confirmed, his eyes still on where Rogue was now listening, taking occasional bites from her sandwich as Scott spoke, not as animatedly and with less use of his hands, but whatever he was saying was just as interesting to her as her words had been to him.
Ororo shrugged. “I can only tell you the day I realized that they had been spending time together was a little over 5 months ago. Rogue and I were speaking in this very room, I forget about what, and when Scott came into the room, she told him she’d be with him in a minute. When we were done speaking, she went off with him. It occurred to me then that he had come looking for her, that they must have had a set assignation, and only then, when I started to wonder at the strangeness of it and I realized that it wasn’t strange at all, did I grasp that they had been spending quite some time together.” Ororo smiled a little. “It has become quite common to see them together now.”
“What the hell does One-Eye think he’s doing?” Logan bit out.
Ororo’s eyes opened wide for a moment. “Is he not allowed to have friends, Logan?”
Logan glared in her general direction. “Not when they’re young kids,” he answered. “Not when he’s that kid’s teacher.”
“Was,” Ororo said softly. Logan turned to her and she repeated it, with emphasis. “Was.” She kept her eyes on him. “Scott hasn’t been her teacher for about a year now.”
“Are you saying you’re okay with all of this?” Logan demanded.
It was Ororo’s turn to raise her brows, but she couldn’t raise just one, so both went up. “All of what?”
Logan looked as if he wanted to spit. “You know what’s going on.”
Ororo almost did laugh. “I know only that they’re spending time together - I’ve seen nothing to make me believe that anything other than that is going on.” She quirked her head at him. “You, with your advanced senses, have seen something else, perhaps?”
Logan frowned. “No,” he admitted.
“Then?” Ororo questioned.
Something occurred to Logan and he looked at her with renewed argument. “You seem awfully content to let this thing between them play out,” he observed.
She shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I?” she asked.
“That wasn’t quite the tune any of you sang when it was me Rogue was spending all her time with.”
Ororo smiled, but only a little. “Things were different then,” she admitted. “Rogue was still a child, impressionable and naïve in her youth, still half-afraid, and very much anxious to fit in.”
“So, it has nothing to do with the fact she’s hanging out with the Golden Boy instead of the Rough Neck, does it?”
Ororo started at his misinterpretation. “Logan,” she said, the humor and amusement completely gone from her expression since they began their conversation. “Who Rogue spends her time with is up to her,” she said. “Our worry about Rogue’s desire to spend so much time with you five years ago had nothing to do with you, per se -“ she shook her head. “Gods knew no one thought you’d hurt her or take advantage of her,” she looked him straight in the eyes. “We all knew you’d protect her at the expense of your life, we’d seen you do it,” she assured him. “It wasn’t you we were worried about, but her.” Ororo sighed, leaning back again. “We were worried she might mistake your feelings of duty and protection and even affection for her and fall in love with you, only to be hurt when you didn’t return her feelings.”
Logan grunted, but said nothing.
Ororo sighed again. “And do you know what she told us?” she asked, turning to Logan. “She sat in the Professor’s office and calmly told Jean and I that we were acting like overprotective mother hens,” she smiled at the memory. “She went on to explain that she was going to feel what she was going to feel regardless of how much time she spent with you, and that she knew perfectly well that your nature wasn’t the type to stick around and then she asked us if either of us had figured out how to stop enjoying spending time with someone we enjoy spending time with?” She shook her head again, heedless of Logan’s reaction. “Of course we couldn’t tell her we had, so from that day on, we dropped it.”
Ororo looked at Logan, waited until he met her eyes, and her expression was as serious as it was when she considered whether someone was friend or foe. “You were gone the following week.” She shrugged again, the seriousness seemingly dropping from her expression. “You didn’t come back until Alcatraz, and then you were gone again…” she trailed off, but when Logan didn’t say anything, she continued. “She took it as well as can be expected, you know, both times, but-“ she stopped, seemingly realizing something, and Logan waited for her to explain. “I think I just realized when it all started to change between them,” she admitted. “When we found Scott, after Alcatraz,” she looked at Logan. “She hugged him.”
***
4.
Cornflake Girl [AU - VERY AU; Multi-Part]
He could smell her. It took him a moment to place the scent, but by the time she had settled into the bar stool next to him, he not only knew who she was, he had a healthy glower and the first stirrings of a growl rumbling in his chest.
“Easy now, Logan,” her smooth voice with a nondescript Midwestern accent. “I’m not here to fight.”
If she’d been there to fight, she wouldn’t have sat down next to him where he could smell her. He knew that. She was up to something way more nefarious.
“Whatever it is you’re selling, I’m not buyin’,” he growled.
She sighed, and he sensed something in the way she looked down at the drink in her hand, the way her expression softened out of the corner of his eye. Not that he was dropping his guard. The bitch was an excellent actress when she wanted to be, and whatever her plan was, he wasn’t falling for it.
She looked up at the wall behind the bar, catching his eyes in the reflection between the bottles. “I’m the one looking to buy something here.”
He cocked a brow at her and drank from his bottle, waiting for her to explain.
“I’ve been looking for you the last few weeks, searching every dive bar this side of North America,” she admitted. She turned to look at him, but he didn’t look at her, so she turned back to watching him through the mirror. “I need you to deliver someone to Xavier.”
He scoffed, and it might have been a laugh. “Not happening.”
She exhaled, lifted the tumbler to her lips and took a sip before speaking again. “I know you have no reason for trusting me, but if you don’t get her to Xavier, she will die.” She drank again and looked at him and spoke at his profile. “I can’t keep her hidden for much longer.” She leaned into him, one hand reaching out to caress his arm in a move that to anyone watching would seem entirely seductive. He didn’t move, even though he ached to press his fist against her abdomen and unleash the claws. She spoke against his ear and he grimaced at the feel of her breath on his flesh. “Once Erik finds her, the fate of humanity will change,” she promised. “Everything you X-Men fight for will die.”
He scoffed again. “You should’ve stopped before you tried to convince me you care what happens to humanity,” he growled.
She pulled away from him. “I don’t,” she assured him. “I care what happens to her.”
He scoffed again, brought the beer back to his lips, took a long drink and let that answer for him.
She exhaled and slid off the seat, wedging herself into the very small space between the bar stool and Logan’s knee. “She’s my daughter,” she hissed.
Bottle midway to his lips, he paused, turned his head to look at her, ignoring the stunning features of the blonde standing at his side and focusing only on her eyes. His teeth grit and he narrowed his eyes dangerously at her. “That’s low even for you, Mystique.”
“Her parents died in a car accident when she was four,” she explained, her voice low and suddenly urgent. She glanced around, the first sign he’d seen that she was aware of her surroundings, but he knew she was as aware of everything going on around them as he always was. “A year before she died, a precog prophesized her ability, prophesized that a plan he considered for decades would come to fruition using her as a conduit and that through it, he would have his war,” her voice was low and fast, but he could sense no deception in it. “He found her, I don’t know how, and when her parents died, it was the perfect opportunity.” She paused for a moment, and had to swallow before continuing. “He arranged it so that I could adopt her, installed me with her in a house in a small town in rural Mississippi, and for ten years, I raised her as my own.” She inhaled deeply, exhaling again and he felt the slight shift in scent as her power tried to manifest, feinted or glitched, whatever it was her power did and her eyes flashed yellow for a second, but she closed them before anyone could notice. “Erik was waiting for her power to manifest,” she continued. “He wanted her to trust us - we didn’t know what her power would be, only that it would be of use, do you understand?” she asked.
“So, what changed?” he prodded, tired of the fairytale.
She looked away from him, motioning the bartender for another drink. “I’m the only mother she’s ever known,” she said, almost as if to herself.
“And you expect me to believe you’ve developed a mother complex?” he asked derisively. “That you’d betray your boss for a slip of a girl just cause you spent a few years with her?”
She narrowed her eyes, and he knew her anger, knew it was real. “Have you ever tucked a child into bed, Logan?” she hissed. “Ever held their hand in yours? Ever had them depend on you?” She shook her head. “Until you do, don’t tell me about what you’d do for that person.”
She took the drink as soon as it was placed in front of her, drowned it almost entirely.
“And yet you brought her to Erik, didn’t you?” he pressed. “You cared so much about her, but you brought her to him anyway.”
“I didn’t know what he had planned for her,” she snarled. “If she chose to join our cause-“
“Ha.”
“Don’t make it sound so unbelievable that someone could prefer our methods than Xavier’s,” she said, and she sounded like the woman he’d always known suddenly. She took a sip from her drink. “You might be singing a different tune now.”
“I may have agreed with your dogma, but never your methods,” he reminded her.
“Quibbles,” she said dismissively. “The point is, she could have chosen to stay with us, could have chosen to follow Erik of her own will.”
“So, why sneak her away?” he prodded. “Why send her to Chuck?” he met her eyes again. “Did she decide against your cause?”
“I told you,” she insisted, still angry. “If Erik uses her as he plans to, she will die.”
“But if she chooses your cause--”
“--she can’t,” she interrupted him. He raised a brow at her. “She can’t control her ability,” she said. “Do you understand what that means?” she asked, leaning in again. “She can be forced.” She looked at him, and he could see the plea in her eyes. “Logan, help her.”
He didn’t say he would, he didn’t say he wouldn’t. He looked away. She sighed, dropped money on the bar, and started to turn away. “We can’t stay here very long,” she placed something on the bar in front of him, but he didn’t look at it, then she walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
Logan’s eyes drifted downward, and even in the dim light of the bar, he couldn’t miss the expression of joy on the face of the little girl in the picture. It had probably been taken several years before she manifested. She looked about 12, all gangly limbs and big goofy smile, a mess of thick brown hair loose around her shoulders, brown eyes squinting in the sun as she sat on the steps leading up to a porch, a brick house with red shutters behind her.
xxx
(…Marie shows up in his truck, morphed into some 40-something truck stop hooker lookalike...she explains Mystique gave her a hit of her power so she wouldn’t be recognized getting into his truck…tells him to drive away…he looks at her suspiciously…)
“What?” she asked, the whiskey and cigarette voice coming out annoyed. She noticed him looking her up and down. “She gave me her power, so I’d go unnoticed.”
“Where is she?”
She thought about it a moment, glanced out the window, motions with her chin. “Three o’clock, gray building, fifth floor up, sixth window from the left.”
Logan looked and saw just a shadow of Mystique watching the truck from her vantage point, enough for him to be convinced it wasn’t her.
“You think I’m her?” she guessed. She shook her head when he didn’t answer and it was answer enough. “The only way I can prove it to you is by using my power,” she told him bluntly. “And I’m not about to do that until we’re a safe distance away from such a public place.”
He put the truck in gear, watching out of the corner of his eye as her gaze strays to the building where Mystique’s form could no longer be seen, and drove several miles on the interstate, pulling over in a deserted stretch of road with woods on either side.
She was already pulling off her glove. “My mother told ya what I do, right?” she asked. He nodded. “What do you do?”
He rose a brow and she shook her head again, just shy of rolling her eyes. “I need to know what you do so I can handle it when I get it, get it?”
His nostrils flared - he knew she didn’t smell like Mystique, even though she did smell like she’d been around Mystique. Still, he couldn’t take anything for granted.
“I heal,” he answered. “Your mother should’ve told ya that.”
She shrugged and extended a smallish, pale, bare hand. “I’m told this feels…weird,” she said, and gently placed two fingers on his fingers.
It took a few moments before her power kicked in, but when it did, he felt as if his life was falling out beneath him. Before he could really get a grasp of it, she pulled back with a gasp and he watched blearily as the blonde, stringy hair, bad makeup, and wrinkles fell away, leaving behind the soft features of the older version of the girl in the picture Mystique had given him.
(…)
xxx
“Tell me about him.”
He glanced at her before focusing on the spot just beyond the hood of his truck, the spot of light bouncing off the receding pavement. She had somehow found a way of curling up on the worn pleather seat, her legs hidden underneath her, the blanket he’d bought outside of El Paso years ago hiding as much of her body as she could manage. It said something about her that she tried to make herself as small as possible, hide as much of herself as possible, but he wasn’t a fucking shrink and couldn’t be bothered to try to figure it out.
“Who?”
“Professor Xavier,” she answered, as if it should’ve been obvious. She thought about it a moment, and amended her statement. “All of them, I guess - the School, too…”
He glanced at the red digital numbers on his dash, knew she should be getting some sleep, but he didn’t tell her so. “Didn’t she tell you anything?” he questioned.
She shrugged, the upper part of the lump rising and falling quickly. “She told me it was a school, and that I’d be safe there.” She was looking out at the still, dark night flying by on the other side of the windshield. “I don’t know what he’s like,” she added. “I mean, will he be pissed that I’ve been shoved at him like so much garbage?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He won’t,” he assured her. “He welcomes everyone who needs him.”
She turned to look at him. “What else?” she asked. “What’s he like?”
Logan grunted. “Do I look like a fucking profiler, kid?” he groused. “You’ll figure that out on your own soon enough.”
She blinked and nodded, turning back to her inspection of the window. “Yeah, okay.”
They’d gone five miles in silence with only her steady breathing next to him before he spoke. “A gentleman.”
She looked at him and he cursed under his breath.
“He’s a gentleman,” he repeated. “All proper and shit,” he explained. “He makes people feel comfortable, like he has it all under control.”
“And does he?” she asked. “Does he have it all under control?”
He huffed. “I think he tries.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod and look back out the window and he was glad she had accepted what he offered as enough to satisfy her curiosity.
xxx
[after he’s noticed that she fell asleep in the truck]
“You’re entirely too trusting, kid.”
Marie rolled her eyes to look up at him while still sipping from her drink. When she had sipped her fill, she released the straw from her lips and leaned back to look at him. She didn’t particularly know what brought his statement on, but it didn’t really matter. “You won’t hurt me.”
If he was surprised by the certainty in her voice, he didn’t show it. “I wouldn’t need to touch your skin to do you damage, sweetheart,” he said, the edge of anger slipping into his voice. Oh, he didn’t care if she personally thought he was a pansy masquerading as a big bad motherfucker, he didn’t have pride that way. He was angry that she seemed to care so little about her own safety that she’d take something like that for a given. For reasons beyond him, he wanted to make certain she opened her eyes to the dangers of the world. He could tell himself it was because if she was aware, it would be easier to protect her until he got her to Chuck’s, but he didn’t lie to himself… much.
She cocked her head to the side and suddenly looked way younger than 17. “I didn’t say you couldn’t,” she spoke. She shrugged. “I’m saying you won’t.”
It irked him that she seemed so sure of his goodness, but he wasn’t looking inside himself for reasons why. “How do you know that, kid?” he asked, his tone slightly sharper than he would’ve intended it to be. “We’re ____ miles from where the devil ____________[saying],” he continued. “Anything could happen to you.” He leaned on the table, closer to her. “You don’t know me from Adam,” he reminded her.
She didn’t seem the least bit frazzled. She waited while the waitress came to place her hamburger in front of her and his steak and potatoes in front of him, smiled at her kindly when their eyes met, said thank you in that soft southern drawl of hers as she turned to go, then turned back to him. “I don’t know you, no,” she admitted. “But my mother does,” she said, reaching for the ketchup bottle.
He watched her pour the ketchup on her hamburger and decided she thought the conversation was done.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he conceded, looking at his stake. It wasn’t rare enough, he could smell it. “Your mother’s a great one to trust.”
He watched as her hands lowered the hamburger back onto the plate before she could bite into it, as if the weight was suddenly too much for her. “I suppose she’s not,” she said softly. “But she saved my life,” she looked up at him, meeting his eyes steadily. “She wouldn’t risk his wrath only to drop me into the lap of someone she thought might do me harm instead.”
It occurred to him again that she never said Magneto’s name and he wondered, once again, why.
She sighed, and it was as if he could almost see her forcefully push the heaviness inside her aside and when she was done, she smiled. “How’s your steak?”
He looked down at the meat on the plate in front of him. “Overdone,” he answered, picking up his utensils, cutting into it anyway.
She laughed and it surprised him into looking at her, piece of steak on his fork and halfway to his mouth. It only made her laugh harder. “You want it should moo at you from the plate?” she motioned the piece of meat on the fork where she could see it was mostly pink all the way through.
He smirked at her, despite himself, popping the steak into his mouth. “I want them to show the steak the pan, just to scare it dead and warm it up a little, then bring it out to me.”
She was laughing so hard, he’d nearly finished his steak before she got two bites into her burger. Some part of him realized he didn’t mind.
xxxx
She never looked antsy or scared, never looked as if she were expecting someone to find her and drag her back, so when she spoke that afternoon, it was something of a surprise to him.
“He’ll come after me, you know.”
Her voice was soft and calm, no more emotional than if she were talking about the likelihood of rain for the night. Three days on the road together and he knew her voice was only ever that soft and calm when she was trying not to show whatever she actually felt on the matter.
But he didn’t really know what to say in response, so he remained silent.
“He considers me an investment,” she continued, her tone never shifting, her eyes on where her fingers were picking at a loose thread from her jeans. “He’s already got it all prepared,” she explained. “He won’t scrap the project just because I was able to run away.”
“Run away?” he asked.
She looked at him. “That’s what momma’ll tell him happened,” she said like he should’ve known it. When it was obvious he didn’t, she showed a bit of surprise. “You don’t think she’ll tell him she smuggled me out, do you?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t understand how she could still have affection in her voice for someone like Mystique, even after everything she was made aware of about her mother’s true nature and especially despite what she’d learned about her mother’s priorities.
She sighed, only this time she didn’t seem able to push the worries away with the exhaled breath. “Your friends, Professor Xavier, everyone at the school,” she listed, “they’ll be in danger once he finds me.”
He scoffed. “Everyone at the school can take care of themselves, darlin’, trust me.”
She shook her head and didn’t let it drop. “People say that, Logan, but they can’t - not against someone like him.”
“Marie,” he said seriously, calmly. “Chuck is prepared for things like this,” he tried to convince her of his certainty of this fact by his voice, his expression. “Magneto can’t get in there,” he assured her. “And the only one of his Brotherhood,” he said the name like it left a bad taste in his mouth, “that can is Mystique, and I doubt she’ll be trying real hard to get at you once you’re in the Mansion.” He reached out and squeezed her gloved hand before he realized it and she met his eyes in surprise at the contact. “You’ll be safe there.”
She didn’t look like she believed him, but she didn’t argue and he pulled his hand away so he could pay the bill when it came.
xxxxx
In Kansas City, he’d had enough. Not enough of her company, surprisingly, but enough of dingy diners and roadside cafes. It wasn’t that he cared about the type of food, but the quality of the food was starting to get to him. And maybe it was only starting to get to him because it was summer and he knew Kansas City and although he didn’t know what exactly might be going on at the City Market, he knew something good always was during the summer.
Besides, they had been on the road for a week, and he figured the kid could use a night’s sleep on a decent bed, and a place to shower rather than just ‘freshen up’ as she’d taken to calling it when he told her to wipe down and get as clean as she could in the various pit stop bathrooms. Not that she’d complained.
Kansas City was as good a place as any to get lost in for a couple of days, anyway.
So, when she woke up as he put the car in park outside the Motel 6 off the I-435, she blinked blearily at the time on the dashboard, before closing her eyes again and raising his jacket over her shoulder. “I’m not hungry, Logan,” she mumbled. “I’ll wait here.”
Or, at least, that’s what he thought she said.
“Kid,” he poked her shoulder with his index finger when she didn’t immediately respond. “Wake up, kid,” he insisted, poking her shoulder again.
She grumbled and opened her eyes, turning to him and blinking in an attempt to get his face into focus. “What?”
“We’re not going to eat.”
She smiled sleepily at him. “Okay,” and closed her eyes again, getting as comfortable as possible against the seat again.
He poked her again and her eyes opened again, a frown creasing her brow. “What, Logan?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep, but obviously annoyed. He showed her the key with the Motel 6 tag attached and when she blinked, rubbing at her eyes and tried again, he couldn’t help but smirk.
“We’re in Kansas City,” he told her. “I think it’s safe to sleep in a bed for the night.”
Her eyes widened and she sat up, looking around her at the nearly deserted parking lot. She looked at him and she didn’t appear sleepy at all anymore. She looked happy. She snatched the key out of his hand. “I call dibbs on the shower,” she said.
He chuckled. “You get your own, kid, knock yourself out,” he told her. She grinned at him and tumbled out of the truck, reaching back for her duffel bag only as an afterthought, practically running to the door with the number on it that matched her key. He followed more sedately.
She paused once, after she had already entered her room, to look back for him. He was just walking past her room to the door next door. “I’m next door,” he told her. She nodded and started back into her room. “Wait, kid,” he said.
She popped back out, waiting.
“There’s a connecting door between our rooms,” he told her. “Don’t lock it, and if you have any problems,” he didn’t have to say what kind, her face showed she understood what he meant, “just yell.”
She nodded solemnly and then smiled. “Thanks, Logan,” she said before going back into the room and letting the door close behind her. He listened for a moment until he heard the locks click into place and then proceeded to his own room.
xxx
Well, that’s it for the Wolverine/Rogue ones...at least, the ones I’m putting up. There are two more that I’ve got, but they have more actual writing done, and I wouldn’t call them DEFUNCT as of yet, so they don’t go up here...
Whaddya think? Anything worth pursuing on here?
Anyway...of that whole bunch, only two fics were ever finished (One-Shots, both of them) for Wolverine/Rogue (although there were more of the scenes done). I never put out the Scott/Rogue stuff. So, guess where it's going? That's right! HERE! (You lucky, lucky, bastards, you! < / sarcasm>)
This post is too long all together, so I'm going to separate by pairing.
This is the Wolverine/Rogue post!
1.
Memories [One-Shot]
“When do you leave?”
“Daybreak.”
She nodded, her eyes still on the horizon as if she couldn’t even look at him and it occurred to him that it was a kind of involuntary conditioning, what he’d put her through. She never asked him not to go anymore or how long he’d be. She hadn’t even said she’d miss him the last couple times. As if she thought her comments or questions wouldn’t be welcome.
Not that he could blame her.
He did it to her - he made her that way with his non-responses every time she had asked, with his insistence in going every time. He knew that.
He couldn’t do anything about it, though.
He’d thought a couple of time that he could break the cycle and ignore her when he got back, but he’d miss her just thinking about not talking to her when he got back. He knew the Mansion would just be a building if he couldn’t talk to her, have moments like these with her. It might be best for her if he didn’t, but he’d said it before - he wasn’t a damn hero. He wasn’t that selfless.
“Just for a coupla weeks this time,” he said into her silence.
She nodded again, her fingers absently picking at the seams of her gloves and let the silence grow, like the twilight spreading around them.
He didn’t usually mind the silences, but this one felt loaded with the unsaid, even to him.
Or maybe that was just him.
“Why do you need to know so badly?” she asked suddenly.
He was only mildly startled by her speaking, but was rather thrown by her words. “What do you mean?” he asked.
She looked at him, but away too quickly for him to read her expression except for what he could glimpse through profile in the shadows of the deepening dusk. “You are so insistent on finding out about your past - what you’ve already lived,” she said softly. “I kind of understand you,” and the slight thickening of her accent belied the apparent calm of her expression. “But it’s been years now,” she continued as he knew she would. “Years of fruitless searches, of leaving for weeks or months, only to come back just as empty handed,” she looked at him again, and this time kept his eyes. “Why, Logan?” she asked. “What do you hope you’ll find?” She shook her head and he lost her eyes again. “I can’t understand that,” she admitted. “Not when nine times outta ten, I feel like I’d love to have someone erase my memory of everything from about age 4 until the moment I stepped off the semi in Laughlin City.”
He frowned. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked seriously.
Her gaze fell to her lap, the fingers of her hands curled into each other, and she took a deep breath. “I had a pretty good childhood, you know?” she said, and her voice sounded different, almost detached.
“Most kids do,” he answered.
She nodded, agreeing with his assessment. “We weren’t rich, by any means, but I got most of what I wanted, bein’ an only child an’ all, and I fought with my parents all the time, but you know…” she trailed off, her head rising again, but her gaze focused on the horizon once again. “It was a pretty good childhood.”
“So why would you want to forget it?” he asked once she had been quiet for some time and it appeared to him she wouldn’t offer the information.
She looked at him and her expression was closed off - she was trying so hard to be strong. “They turned on me when they found out what I was, Logan,” she said, her voice just slightly above a whisper. “My parents, my friends, everyone,” she paused as her voice cracked and she swallowed past the emotion in her throat to continue, but her expression was hardening the way he’d rarely seen it before. “Kids I played with growin’ up, neighbors I helped with their groceries, they all turned on me -“ she shook her head, screwing her eyes shut. “They called me names and Cody’s sister…” she swallowed again. “She threw a pitcher of water at me when I tried to visit him in the hospital.” She raised her hands to rub at her eyes, and he could see the strain on her from trying not to cry.
He felt his hands fist at his sides, his jaw clenching in an attempt to stop himself from demanding names, to stop from making elaborate plans on just how he’d go to that town she grew up in and teach those assholes some manners. It wasn’t easy, but he knew it wasn’t what she needed, so he refrained. But he couldn’t speak - not and have it sound normal, so he kept silent and let her finish.
“I know I can’t blame them - they don’t know any better, they had to blame someone, and I was the easy target, the Professor’s always sayin’ we can’t blame them for being ignorant,” she sighed and he bit the inside of his mouth to keep from telling her she can damn well hate them if she wants, because he knows that ultimately, the Professor’s way is best for her. “And it hurt, but you know…” she continued, heedless of his efforts to remain outwardly calm. She sighed again. “It wouldn’t be so bad if my parents hadn’t…”
She couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it. Instead, she sighed again and made herself look at him. “So you see?” she asked. “The good memories,” she shook her head. “I’d gladly sacrifice those if I didn’t have to remember the hatred in my mama’s eyes as she called me evil and devil spawn - hell, it wouldn’t even be so bad that they hated me so much, if I didn’t remember what it was like to have them love me, tuck me in bed and read me to sleep.” She blinked and looked down again, shaking her head. “It’s my personal opinion, but memories are seriously overrated.”
How could he argue with a statement like that? A reality like that? He didn’t know what to tell her except the truth.
“If you’ve ever talked to people who’ve had a loved one abducted or disappeared...it’s something like that,” he spoke quietly. “Yeah, there’s a risk that even if I find something, all I’ll only find is pain, but...” he trailed off and shook his head. “Sometimes, it feels like anything is better than not knowing,” he sighed. “That knowing is worth the risk.”
She looked out over the grounds and for a while he thought she wouldn’t say anymore and when she did, her voice was empty and hollow like he’d never heard it before. “It isn’t.”
***
2.
Choices [Multi-Chapter]
[NOTE: This one is based on something that happened in what is called the "Golgotha" arc from the X-Men Comics, Volume 3, Number 169. (the icon I've used here is from the cover of that comic) Short version of the explanation: They're under a kind of influence - a creature that makes their worst fears come true in their own minds. And everyone at the Mansion is affected. Gambit and Rogue are together in it, and they're in the sewers under the Mansion. They come upon Wolverine, who has gone a little loopy and thinks he's fighting something along a wall or something. Gambit had been a little snippy with Rogue and Wolverine snaps at Gambit when he tries to help him when they come across him. Rogue uses her powers to knock Wolverine out and Gambit gets pissed at her thinking she had to help him, and one thing leads to another and he makes a comment about how he's glad that he and Rogue are "pretend lovers" and how if he could touch her she would've been another one-night stand. Wolverine comes to but is groggy and offers to kick his ass for Rogue. And Gambit leaves, saying that he'll leave them alone since they've always "had a thing for each other". Rogue stops Wolverine from going after Gambit and excuses him by saying that it's "the craziness" talking. Wolverine challenges that and asks her whether it's craziness to say that he's always wanted to kiss her, and he kisses her. She gives in to it until he almost gets knocked out by her powers. The next chapter, they all decide to pretend like nothing happened (the whole team, since they'd been doing crazy crap too) but I started thinking...the creature didn't make them act out, or crazy, really, just supposed to bring out their fears - and that's what he does for others of the team. Wolverine saying he felt something for Rogue isn't a fear, is it? At least, I didn't think so. And Gambit's words, those don't stem from a fear, do they? They didn't seem like it to me. So, I thought about that. And I wondered...what if someone brought that up to Rogue and Wolverine? That it was just supposed to bring out their FEARS?
This conversation was the result of my musings:
--
“I love him.”
He didn’t look at her, for a while, he didn’t even move. Then he leaned forward a little and flicked the ash off the end of his cigar. But he didn’t bring it back to his lips.
She saw it all out of the corner of her eye, and the strange thing to her was how easily she recognized it all, each movement, even the way he held his jaw. She didn’t have to be looking directly at him to know the look on his face would be carefully blank, but his eyes would show his annoyance. Because he *was* annoyed.
“I understand that he meant what he said, deep down, I get it,” she spoke again, because she knew he wouldn’t. “I do,” she insisted, but she wasn’t completely sure she was talking to him. And for a few moments, she was silent as she contemplated that. “But I can’t help that I still love him,” she said finally and her voice was only a little beaten. “I can’t help but think that if it *were* true, if he really *did* mean everything he said, why would he still be trying with me? Why would he--?” she cut off and leaned back until her back was on the concrete and her eyes on the stars. In this position, she couldn’t see him at all. She could still smell him. She sighed.
Eventually, after so much time had passed that she thought he never would, he spoke. “You love people with the part of you that don’t care about right or wrong,” he said, and his voice was gruff and gravelly and she couldn’t read it at all. “It don’t care about pride and it never checks in with your brain.”
Still looking up at the sky full of stars, she spotted Orion and his dog. She remembered her grandmama telling her she should never count the stars cause she’d get warts. “What do I do, Logan?” she asked after awhile, her voice low.
He made a sound, something between a scoff and a grunt. “I’m not the person to ask that.”
She sat up again, turning to look at him. “What do *we* do?” she amended.
He glanced at her, but looked away before she could read the expression in his eyes. “I’m not the person to ask that, either.”
She was mad suddenly, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. “Why not?” she asked, her tone sharper than she would’ve wanted it to be. “You’ve got a stake in this too, don’t you?” He leveled his gaze on hers and for a moment, she almost faltered. “Why do I have to make the decisions?”
His expression remained perfectly neutral and his voice was even when he asked, “Are you saying you want me to take the decision out of your hands, Marie?”
She still felt it, though. The danger around the edges of his control. And she was so tempted. So *very* tempted. It scared her more than anything had in a very long time. She became frozen, staring into his eyes like a mouse looking at a snake, only she knew he’d never hurt her. Even then.
As if in response to her recognition, he stood in one fluid movement. “If you love him, go to him,” he said, grinding the cigar on his boot heel. “Why am I even in the equation?”
And before she could answer, he was gone and she was left to watch his retreating figure with only the whiff of his cigar dissipating quickly in the breeze.
***
3.
Under My Skin [Maybe Multi-Chapter?]
[NOTES: This one could be a Wolverine/Rogue/Cyclops fic...maybe. It also takes the concept that Cyclops didn't really die in X3, that in the future, he'd be "found" somehow.]
Chapter 1
“Hey kid.”
She snapped back from her reverie to glance at him, smiling. “Hey, Logan,” she greeted warmly. “How long you been back, sugah?”
“Not long,” he answered, sitting next to her. He looked out at the lawn she had been inspecting, watching as a set of kids played their own version of Mutant Soccer. “So, where’s Scooter?”
Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched as his question filtered through and her lips tightened for a brief moment, before she appeared utterly calm again. “He’s got a class,” she answered, casually turning to look at him. “He’ll be available in an hour if you came lookin’ for him.”
It didn’t occur to him what she might mean by her words - he was still stuck on the fact she apparently knew Scooter’s schedule. “Since when do you know his schedule?” he asked, meeting her eyes.
She raised a brow in a manner that reminded him strangely of himself. “Since he told me so we could meet for lunch afterward,” she answered, and he could hear the thinning of her patience in the thickening of her accent and in the shortness of her tone. “I also know that he’ll be available for about an hour and a half, and then have another series of classes which’ll keep him busy ‘till about 5.”
“Why?” Logan asked shortly. “You got plans for dinner after that?”
Rogue stood up, looking down at him and he could see the patience was gone in the hardening of the lines around her eyes. “I’ll tell ya what,” she said. “I’ll tell Scott y’all were lookin’ for him when I see him.” She started to walk away before he could say a word.
It took him a moment to realize she was walking away from him, and when he did, he reacted first and thought later. “Marie,” he called, uncaring if anyone around them could hear the name that as far as he knew, she hadn’t offered anyone else.
She stopped and turned her upper body to look at him. “What?”
“I wasn’t lookin’ for Cyke,” he admitted. She raised a brow and he huffed in exasperation. “Fer cryin’ aloud, kid,” he exclaimed. “I was lookin’ for you.”
She turned to look at him fully and waited until he caught up to where she was standing. “Funny way of showing it,” she said. “First words out of your mouth after your version of a greeting are asking about Scott.”
“I could smell he’d been there with you,” he admitted.
“So?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“What’d you want?” she asked instead.
“Do I gotta want something?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Logan,” and he could hear the exasperation in her own voice. “You just said you came lookin’ for me.”
“Forget it,” he mumbled, turning away, but not walking away.
“Fine,” she exhaled, throwing her hands up and then slapping them against her jean-clad thighs. “Forgotten,” she said, only half under her breath. She turned around again. “I’ll see ya later, Logan,” she threw over her shoulder as she walked away. He watched her go for a few feet, before cursing under his breath.
“Hey, kid!” he called again.
“Yeah?” she asked, looking back at him from a few feet away.
“I just wanted to see you.”
It took her a few moments, but eventually, she smiled. “Yeah,” and her tone was warm and welcoming again, just like that. “I missed ya too, ya big lug,” she winked at him and after a moment within which he stared at her in silence, she smirked and walked away, waving her glove clad fingers in her wake.
Chapter 2
“Since when has that been going on?”
Ororo Monroe approached the window Logan was standing in front of, looking out at the lawn, trying to find what it was he was talking about. She saw small groupings of students having lunch all about the lawn, enjoying the comfortable warmth and cloudless skies of the bright spring day. She saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Logan turned to look at her, raising a brow expectantly. She smiled at him. “I’m afraid I do not see to what you’re referring, Logan,” she admitted.
He exhaled and motioned back outside with his chin. “On the picnic tables, by the rose bushes,” he explained.
‘Ro looked at the area he’d mentioned, watching the people on the tables. On one table were several of their freshmen, laughing and joking. “We have always allowed-“ she started to explain, only to be cut off by his gruff voice.
“Not that,” he said, pointing a finger through the glass at the table furthest away from the window, where only occasional glimpses of dark brown hair with white streaks could be seen blowing in the wind. “That.”
‘Ro shifted a little, and she suddenly saw what had him transfixed. At the table he was referring to was seated Rogue and Scott. They were eating sandwiches from on top of wax paper wrappers, and Scott was smiling as Rogue talked animatedly with her hands, her sandwich half-eaten and momentarily forgotten in her story-telling. She smiled as she realized one theory as to why something like that would bother Logan.
“You mean Scott and Rogue having lunch together?” Ororo asked.
He spared her a glance and he didn’t have to answer.
“For quite some time now,” she answered pensively. “Well, at least three months, because that’s when the new semester started at University and Rogue became available to be at home at lunchtime.”
“You mean she comes home to have lunch with him?” Logan asked.
“Only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” ‘Ro answered. “Mondays and Thursdays, she still has class most of the day and Fridays, like today, she doesn’t have class at all.”
Logan looked at Ororo and it took all the calm the Weather Witch possessed to not laugh. “I don’t mean that, either, and you know it.”
Ororo looked at him, managing to keep her expression only mildly curious. “I’m afraid you will have to be more clear then, Logan - I am not a telepath.” Very few people knew the simple pleasures Ororo Monroe engaged in - making the Wolverine verbalize things he would otherwise prefer not to was only one of them.
Logan, for his part, looked about 3/4th of the way to growling, and if it would’ve been anyone else but Ororo, might’ve already been leaning in menacingly. “Since when have Rogue and Scooter been acting like best friends,” he said through grit teeth, hands carefully splayed in an effort to refrain from clenching them.
“Oh,” ‘Ro said, watching through the window.
“Oh?” he prompted, raising a brow meaningfully.
“Truly, Logan,” she said, turning to him and smiling in that kind way she had. “I could not tell you when it began.”
Logan exhaled. “Try.”
Ororo turned her back on the window, leaning gracefully against the pane, resting her hands on the ledge. “It came on so slowly, truly,” she admitted. “You were gone for quite awhile, and Rogue has never been exceptionally comfortable speaking to the kids her own age, you remember.”
“I remember,” he confirmed, his eyes still on where Rogue was now listening, taking occasional bites from her sandwich as Scott spoke, not as animatedly and with less use of his hands, but whatever he was saying was just as interesting to her as her words had been to him.
Ororo shrugged. “I can only tell you the day I realized that they had been spending time together was a little over 5 months ago. Rogue and I were speaking in this very room, I forget about what, and when Scott came into the room, she told him she’d be with him in a minute. When we were done speaking, she went off with him. It occurred to me then that he had come looking for her, that they must have had a set assignation, and only then, when I started to wonder at the strangeness of it and I realized that it wasn’t strange at all, did I grasp that they had been spending quite some time together.” Ororo smiled a little. “It has become quite common to see them together now.”
“What the hell does One-Eye think he’s doing?” Logan bit out.
Ororo’s eyes opened wide for a moment. “Is he not allowed to have friends, Logan?”
Logan glared in her general direction. “Not when they’re young kids,” he answered. “Not when he’s that kid’s teacher.”
“Was,” Ororo said softly. Logan turned to her and she repeated it, with emphasis. “Was.” She kept her eyes on him. “Scott hasn’t been her teacher for about a year now.”
“Are you saying you’re okay with all of this?” Logan demanded.
It was Ororo’s turn to raise her brows, but she couldn’t raise just one, so both went up. “All of what?”
Logan looked as if he wanted to spit. “You know what’s going on.”
Ororo almost did laugh. “I know only that they’re spending time together - I’ve seen nothing to make me believe that anything other than that is going on.” She quirked her head at him. “You, with your advanced senses, have seen something else, perhaps?”
Logan frowned. “No,” he admitted.
“Then?” Ororo questioned.
Something occurred to Logan and he looked at her with renewed argument. “You seem awfully content to let this thing between them play out,” he observed.
She shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I?” she asked.
“That wasn’t quite the tune any of you sang when it was me Rogue was spending all her time with.”
Ororo smiled, but only a little. “Things were different then,” she admitted. “Rogue was still a child, impressionable and naïve in her youth, still half-afraid, and very much anxious to fit in.”
“So, it has nothing to do with the fact she’s hanging out with the Golden Boy instead of the Rough Neck, does it?”
Ororo started at his misinterpretation. “Logan,” she said, the humor and amusement completely gone from her expression since they began their conversation. “Who Rogue spends her time with is up to her,” she said. “Our worry about Rogue’s desire to spend so much time with you five years ago had nothing to do with you, per se -“ she shook her head. “Gods knew no one thought you’d hurt her or take advantage of her,” she looked him straight in the eyes. “We all knew you’d protect her at the expense of your life, we’d seen you do it,” she assured him. “It wasn’t you we were worried about, but her.” Ororo sighed, leaning back again. “We were worried she might mistake your feelings of duty and protection and even affection for her and fall in love with you, only to be hurt when you didn’t return her feelings.”
Logan grunted, but said nothing.
Ororo sighed again. “And do you know what she told us?” she asked, turning to Logan. “She sat in the Professor’s office and calmly told Jean and I that we were acting like overprotective mother hens,” she smiled at the memory. “She went on to explain that she was going to feel what she was going to feel regardless of how much time she spent with you, and that she knew perfectly well that your nature wasn’t the type to stick around and then she asked us if either of us had figured out how to stop enjoying spending time with someone we enjoy spending time with?” She shook her head again, heedless of Logan’s reaction. “Of course we couldn’t tell her we had, so from that day on, we dropped it.”
Ororo looked at Logan, waited until he met her eyes, and her expression was as serious as it was when she considered whether someone was friend or foe. “You were gone the following week.” She shrugged again, the seriousness seemingly dropping from her expression. “You didn’t come back until Alcatraz, and then you were gone again…” she trailed off, but when Logan didn’t say anything, she continued. “She took it as well as can be expected, you know, both times, but-“ she stopped, seemingly realizing something, and Logan waited for her to explain. “I think I just realized when it all started to change between them,” she admitted. “When we found Scott, after Alcatraz,” she looked at Logan. “She hugged him.”
***
4.
Cornflake Girl [AU - VERY AU; Multi-Part]
He could smell her. It took him a moment to place the scent, but by the time she had settled into the bar stool next to him, he not only knew who she was, he had a healthy glower and the first stirrings of a growl rumbling in his chest.
“Easy now, Logan,” her smooth voice with a nondescript Midwestern accent. “I’m not here to fight.”
If she’d been there to fight, she wouldn’t have sat down next to him where he could smell her. He knew that. She was up to something way more nefarious.
“Whatever it is you’re selling, I’m not buyin’,” he growled.
She sighed, and he sensed something in the way she looked down at the drink in her hand, the way her expression softened out of the corner of his eye. Not that he was dropping his guard. The bitch was an excellent actress when she wanted to be, and whatever her plan was, he wasn’t falling for it.
She looked up at the wall behind the bar, catching his eyes in the reflection between the bottles. “I’m the one looking to buy something here.”
He cocked a brow at her and drank from his bottle, waiting for her to explain.
“I’ve been looking for you the last few weeks, searching every dive bar this side of North America,” she admitted. She turned to look at him, but he didn’t look at her, so she turned back to watching him through the mirror. “I need you to deliver someone to Xavier.”
He scoffed, and it might have been a laugh. “Not happening.”
She exhaled, lifted the tumbler to her lips and took a sip before speaking again. “I know you have no reason for trusting me, but if you don’t get her to Xavier, she will die.” She drank again and looked at him and spoke at his profile. “I can’t keep her hidden for much longer.” She leaned into him, one hand reaching out to caress his arm in a move that to anyone watching would seem entirely seductive. He didn’t move, even though he ached to press his fist against her abdomen and unleash the claws. She spoke against his ear and he grimaced at the feel of her breath on his flesh. “Once Erik finds her, the fate of humanity will change,” she promised. “Everything you X-Men fight for will die.”
He scoffed again. “You should’ve stopped before you tried to convince me you care what happens to humanity,” he growled.
She pulled away from him. “I don’t,” she assured him. “I care what happens to her.”
He scoffed again, brought the beer back to his lips, took a long drink and let that answer for him.
She exhaled and slid off the seat, wedging herself into the very small space between the bar stool and Logan’s knee. “She’s my daughter,” she hissed.
Bottle midway to his lips, he paused, turned his head to look at her, ignoring the stunning features of the blonde standing at his side and focusing only on her eyes. His teeth grit and he narrowed his eyes dangerously at her. “That’s low even for you, Mystique.”
“Her parents died in a car accident when she was four,” she explained, her voice low and suddenly urgent. She glanced around, the first sign he’d seen that she was aware of her surroundings, but he knew she was as aware of everything going on around them as he always was. “A year before she died, a precog prophesized her ability, prophesized that a plan he considered for decades would come to fruition using her as a conduit and that through it, he would have his war,” her voice was low and fast, but he could sense no deception in it. “He found her, I don’t know how, and when her parents died, it was the perfect opportunity.” She paused for a moment, and had to swallow before continuing. “He arranged it so that I could adopt her, installed me with her in a house in a small town in rural Mississippi, and for ten years, I raised her as my own.” She inhaled deeply, exhaling again and he felt the slight shift in scent as her power tried to manifest, feinted or glitched, whatever it was her power did and her eyes flashed yellow for a second, but she closed them before anyone could notice. “Erik was waiting for her power to manifest,” she continued. “He wanted her to trust us - we didn’t know what her power would be, only that it would be of use, do you understand?” she asked.
“So, what changed?” he prodded, tired of the fairytale.
She looked away from him, motioning the bartender for another drink. “I’m the only mother she’s ever known,” she said, almost as if to herself.
“And you expect me to believe you’ve developed a mother complex?” he asked derisively. “That you’d betray your boss for a slip of a girl just cause you spent a few years with her?”
She narrowed her eyes, and he knew her anger, knew it was real. “Have you ever tucked a child into bed, Logan?” she hissed. “Ever held their hand in yours? Ever had them depend on you?” She shook her head. “Until you do, don’t tell me about what you’d do for that person.”
She took the drink as soon as it was placed in front of her, drowned it almost entirely.
“And yet you brought her to Erik, didn’t you?” he pressed. “You cared so much about her, but you brought her to him anyway.”
“I didn’t know what he had planned for her,” she snarled. “If she chose to join our cause-“
“Ha.”
“Don’t make it sound so unbelievable that someone could prefer our methods than Xavier’s,” she said, and she sounded like the woman he’d always known suddenly. She took a sip from her drink. “You might be singing a different tune now.”
“I may have agreed with your dogma, but never your methods,” he reminded her.
“Quibbles,” she said dismissively. “The point is, she could have chosen to stay with us, could have chosen to follow Erik of her own will.”
“So, why sneak her away?” he prodded. “Why send her to Chuck?” he met her eyes again. “Did she decide against your cause?”
“I told you,” she insisted, still angry. “If Erik uses her as he plans to, she will die.”
“But if she chooses your cause--”
“--she can’t,” she interrupted him. He raised a brow at her. “She can’t control her ability,” she said. “Do you understand what that means?” she asked, leaning in again. “She can be forced.” She looked at him, and he could see the plea in her eyes. “Logan, help her.”
He didn’t say he would, he didn’t say he wouldn’t. He looked away. She sighed, dropped money on the bar, and started to turn away. “We can’t stay here very long,” she placed something on the bar in front of him, but he didn’t look at it, then she walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
Logan’s eyes drifted downward, and even in the dim light of the bar, he couldn’t miss the expression of joy on the face of the little girl in the picture. It had probably been taken several years before she manifested. She looked about 12, all gangly limbs and big goofy smile, a mess of thick brown hair loose around her shoulders, brown eyes squinting in the sun as she sat on the steps leading up to a porch, a brick house with red shutters behind her.
xxx
(…Marie shows up in his truck, morphed into some 40-something truck stop hooker lookalike...she explains Mystique gave her a hit of her power so she wouldn’t be recognized getting into his truck…tells him to drive away…he looks at her suspiciously…)
“What?” she asked, the whiskey and cigarette voice coming out annoyed. She noticed him looking her up and down. “She gave me her power, so I’d go unnoticed.”
“Where is she?”
She thought about it a moment, glanced out the window, motions with her chin. “Three o’clock, gray building, fifth floor up, sixth window from the left.”
Logan looked and saw just a shadow of Mystique watching the truck from her vantage point, enough for him to be convinced it wasn’t her.
“You think I’m her?” she guessed. She shook her head when he didn’t answer and it was answer enough. “The only way I can prove it to you is by using my power,” she told him bluntly. “And I’m not about to do that until we’re a safe distance away from such a public place.”
He put the truck in gear, watching out of the corner of his eye as her gaze strays to the building where Mystique’s form could no longer be seen, and drove several miles on the interstate, pulling over in a deserted stretch of road with woods on either side.
She was already pulling off her glove. “My mother told ya what I do, right?” she asked. He nodded. “What do you do?”
He rose a brow and she shook her head again, just shy of rolling her eyes. “I need to know what you do so I can handle it when I get it, get it?”
His nostrils flared - he knew she didn’t smell like Mystique, even though she did smell like she’d been around Mystique. Still, he couldn’t take anything for granted.
“I heal,” he answered. “Your mother should’ve told ya that.”
She shrugged and extended a smallish, pale, bare hand. “I’m told this feels…weird,” she said, and gently placed two fingers on his fingers.
It took a few moments before her power kicked in, but when it did, he felt as if his life was falling out beneath him. Before he could really get a grasp of it, she pulled back with a gasp and he watched blearily as the blonde, stringy hair, bad makeup, and wrinkles fell away, leaving behind the soft features of the older version of the girl in the picture Mystique had given him.
(…)
xxx
“Tell me about him.”
He glanced at her before focusing on the spot just beyond the hood of his truck, the spot of light bouncing off the receding pavement. She had somehow found a way of curling up on the worn pleather seat, her legs hidden underneath her, the blanket he’d bought outside of El Paso years ago hiding as much of her body as she could manage. It said something about her that she tried to make herself as small as possible, hide as much of herself as possible, but he wasn’t a fucking shrink and couldn’t be bothered to try to figure it out.
“Who?”
“Professor Xavier,” she answered, as if it should’ve been obvious. She thought about it a moment, and amended her statement. “All of them, I guess - the School, too…”
He glanced at the red digital numbers on his dash, knew she should be getting some sleep, but he didn’t tell her so. “Didn’t she tell you anything?” he questioned.
She shrugged, the upper part of the lump rising and falling quickly. “She told me it was a school, and that I’d be safe there.” She was looking out at the still, dark night flying by on the other side of the windshield. “I don’t know what he’s like,” she added. “I mean, will he be pissed that I’ve been shoved at him like so much garbage?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He won’t,” he assured her. “He welcomes everyone who needs him.”
She turned to look at him. “What else?” she asked. “What’s he like?”
Logan grunted. “Do I look like a fucking profiler, kid?” he groused. “You’ll figure that out on your own soon enough.”
She blinked and nodded, turning back to her inspection of the window. “Yeah, okay.”
They’d gone five miles in silence with only her steady breathing next to him before he spoke. “A gentleman.”
She looked at him and he cursed under his breath.
“He’s a gentleman,” he repeated. “All proper and shit,” he explained. “He makes people feel comfortable, like he has it all under control.”
“And does he?” she asked. “Does he have it all under control?”
He huffed. “I think he tries.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod and look back out the window and he was glad she had accepted what he offered as enough to satisfy her curiosity.
xxx
[after he’s noticed that she fell asleep in the truck]
“You’re entirely too trusting, kid.”
Marie rolled her eyes to look up at him while still sipping from her drink. When she had sipped her fill, she released the straw from her lips and leaned back to look at him. She didn’t particularly know what brought his statement on, but it didn’t really matter. “You won’t hurt me.”
If he was surprised by the certainty in her voice, he didn’t show it. “I wouldn’t need to touch your skin to do you damage, sweetheart,” he said, the edge of anger slipping into his voice. Oh, he didn’t care if she personally thought he was a pansy masquerading as a big bad motherfucker, he didn’t have pride that way. He was angry that she seemed to care so little about her own safety that she’d take something like that for a given. For reasons beyond him, he wanted to make certain she opened her eyes to the dangers of the world. He could tell himself it was because if she was aware, it would be easier to protect her until he got her to Chuck’s, but he didn’t lie to himself… much.
She cocked her head to the side and suddenly looked way younger than 17. “I didn’t say you couldn’t,” she spoke. She shrugged. “I’m saying you won’t.”
It irked him that she seemed so sure of his goodness, but he wasn’t looking inside himself for reasons why. “How do you know that, kid?” he asked, his tone slightly sharper than he would’ve intended it to be. “We’re ____ miles from where the devil ____________[saying],” he continued. “Anything could happen to you.” He leaned on the table, closer to her. “You don’t know me from Adam,” he reminded her.
She didn’t seem the least bit frazzled. She waited while the waitress came to place her hamburger in front of her and his steak and potatoes in front of him, smiled at her kindly when their eyes met, said thank you in that soft southern drawl of hers as she turned to go, then turned back to him. “I don’t know you, no,” she admitted. “But my mother does,” she said, reaching for the ketchup bottle.
He watched her pour the ketchup on her hamburger and decided she thought the conversation was done.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he conceded, looking at his stake. It wasn’t rare enough, he could smell it. “Your mother’s a great one to trust.”
He watched as her hands lowered the hamburger back onto the plate before she could bite into it, as if the weight was suddenly too much for her. “I suppose she’s not,” she said softly. “But she saved my life,” she looked up at him, meeting his eyes steadily. “She wouldn’t risk his wrath only to drop me into the lap of someone she thought might do me harm instead.”
It occurred to him again that she never said Magneto’s name and he wondered, once again, why.
She sighed, and it was as if he could almost see her forcefully push the heaviness inside her aside and when she was done, she smiled. “How’s your steak?”
He looked down at the meat on the plate in front of him. “Overdone,” he answered, picking up his utensils, cutting into it anyway.
She laughed and it surprised him into looking at her, piece of steak on his fork and halfway to his mouth. It only made her laugh harder. “You want it should moo at you from the plate?” she motioned the piece of meat on the fork where she could see it was mostly pink all the way through.
He smirked at her, despite himself, popping the steak into his mouth. “I want them to show the steak the pan, just to scare it dead and warm it up a little, then bring it out to me.”
She was laughing so hard, he’d nearly finished his steak before she got two bites into her burger. Some part of him realized he didn’t mind.
xxxx
She never looked antsy or scared, never looked as if she were expecting someone to find her and drag her back, so when she spoke that afternoon, it was something of a surprise to him.
“He’ll come after me, you know.”
Her voice was soft and calm, no more emotional than if she were talking about the likelihood of rain for the night. Three days on the road together and he knew her voice was only ever that soft and calm when she was trying not to show whatever she actually felt on the matter.
But he didn’t really know what to say in response, so he remained silent.
“He considers me an investment,” she continued, her tone never shifting, her eyes on where her fingers were picking at a loose thread from her jeans. “He’s already got it all prepared,” she explained. “He won’t scrap the project just because I was able to run away.”
“Run away?” he asked.
She looked at him. “That’s what momma’ll tell him happened,” she said like he should’ve known it. When it was obvious he didn’t, she showed a bit of surprise. “You don’t think she’ll tell him she smuggled me out, do you?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t understand how she could still have affection in her voice for someone like Mystique, even after everything she was made aware of about her mother’s true nature and especially despite what she’d learned about her mother’s priorities.
She sighed, only this time she didn’t seem able to push the worries away with the exhaled breath. “Your friends, Professor Xavier, everyone at the school,” she listed, “they’ll be in danger once he finds me.”
He scoffed. “Everyone at the school can take care of themselves, darlin’, trust me.”
She shook her head and didn’t let it drop. “People say that, Logan, but they can’t - not against someone like him.”
“Marie,” he said seriously, calmly. “Chuck is prepared for things like this,” he tried to convince her of his certainty of this fact by his voice, his expression. “Magneto can’t get in there,” he assured her. “And the only one of his Brotherhood,” he said the name like it left a bad taste in his mouth, “that can is Mystique, and I doubt she’ll be trying real hard to get at you once you’re in the Mansion.” He reached out and squeezed her gloved hand before he realized it and she met his eyes in surprise at the contact. “You’ll be safe there.”
She didn’t look like she believed him, but she didn’t argue and he pulled his hand away so he could pay the bill when it came.
xxxxx
In Kansas City, he’d had enough. Not enough of her company, surprisingly, but enough of dingy diners and roadside cafes. It wasn’t that he cared about the type of food, but the quality of the food was starting to get to him. And maybe it was only starting to get to him because it was summer and he knew Kansas City and although he didn’t know what exactly might be going on at the City Market, he knew something good always was during the summer.
Besides, they had been on the road for a week, and he figured the kid could use a night’s sleep on a decent bed, and a place to shower rather than just ‘freshen up’ as she’d taken to calling it when he told her to wipe down and get as clean as she could in the various pit stop bathrooms. Not that she’d complained.
Kansas City was as good a place as any to get lost in for a couple of days, anyway.
So, when she woke up as he put the car in park outside the Motel 6 off the I-435, she blinked blearily at the time on the dashboard, before closing her eyes again and raising his jacket over her shoulder. “I’m not hungry, Logan,” she mumbled. “I’ll wait here.”
Or, at least, that’s what he thought she said.
“Kid,” he poked her shoulder with his index finger when she didn’t immediately respond. “Wake up, kid,” he insisted, poking her shoulder again.
She grumbled and opened her eyes, turning to him and blinking in an attempt to get his face into focus. “What?”
“We’re not going to eat.”
She smiled sleepily at him. “Okay,” and closed her eyes again, getting as comfortable as possible against the seat again.
He poked her again and her eyes opened again, a frown creasing her brow. “What, Logan?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep, but obviously annoyed. He showed her the key with the Motel 6 tag attached and when she blinked, rubbing at her eyes and tried again, he couldn’t help but smirk.
“We’re in Kansas City,” he told her. “I think it’s safe to sleep in a bed for the night.”
Her eyes widened and she sat up, looking around her at the nearly deserted parking lot. She looked at him and she didn’t appear sleepy at all anymore. She looked happy. She snatched the key out of his hand. “I call dibbs on the shower,” she said.
He chuckled. “You get your own, kid, knock yourself out,” he told her. She grinned at him and tumbled out of the truck, reaching back for her duffel bag only as an afterthought, practically running to the door with the number on it that matched her key. He followed more sedately.
She paused once, after she had already entered her room, to look back for him. He was just walking past her room to the door next door. “I’m next door,” he told her. She nodded and started back into her room. “Wait, kid,” he said.
She popped back out, waiting.
“There’s a connecting door between our rooms,” he told her. “Don’t lock it, and if you have any problems,” he didn’t have to say what kind, her face showed she understood what he meant, “just yell.”
She nodded solemnly and then smiled. “Thanks, Logan,” she said before going back into the room and letting the door close behind her. He listened for a moment until he heard the locks click into place and then proceeded to his own room.
xxx
Well, that’s it for the Wolverine/Rogue ones...at least, the ones I’m putting up. There are two more that I’ve got, but they have more actual writing done, and I wouldn’t call them DEFUNCT as of yet, so they don’t go up here...
Whaddya think? Anything worth pursuing on here?