Author Notes: Wonder Burns and dear Sare for the betas, because they were remarkably quick about it, which impresses me immensely. And yeah, still my version of humor. Be afraid. This is me playful.

**********

You know what I resent most?

The beer. The goddamned beer. Everything else is just icing.

And there my language goes *again*.

Oh fuck it. Sounding like him is close to having him here. So I'll live with it.

It's always sudden and inexplicable--I'm in my own bed, alone, contemplating sleep--usually unsuccessfully--then I want one. Well, more than one, but I'm not several decades old, I don't regenerate instantly, and I lack anything resembling tolerance--my parents were *damned* strict.

And yet again, here I am in bed, staring at the wall and getting images not of sheep or boys or even just how good Logan looks in the black uniform--and he is hot in leather--noooo, I'm getting one of a can. A shiny metal can. In my hand.

I hate beer.

But I creep downstairs with my robe on, gloves being pulled off because I'm sorry to say even I get tired of them--hey, you try wearing gloves every fucking damned day--

He still patters around in my head. It's been over a year...and four months and three days. I could tell seconds but that might be considered obsessive. But yeah, he's still there, still wakes enough to want a beer and speak a few choice words during lit class with Scott--oh my, I think I'm still grounded for *that* little display--

But that isn't part of this story. And it was worth it just to see the shock in old Cyke's eyes. It really was. Really.

I get downstairs, gloves shoved into the pocket of my robe and prowl through the kitchen, getting the milk out first and pouring a glass to set carefully on the counter--just in case some other poor fool gets all insomniacal and wanders down to get a snack, I'm not a complete idiot. Then I go to my real goal--crammed at the back of the industrial size fridge--like they're trying to hide it or something--and get out one blessed can.

It's cold, it's frosty, and I get right back out clutching it like a prize or something. It's a *beer*, not a religious experience, but that's not what my head seems to think and it's hard to fight your own head.

God, if he saw me, Scott would--well, a part of me is pretty damned amused with the idea. Which part is obvious.

Beer. It's disgusting. I can't stand the taste, the smell, or the can. But I hop onto the counter--near the trash can so if someone comes in, I have a place to drop it--and pull off the tab and take an enthusiastic drink.

Big drink.

I still hate the taste.

"When did you start drinkin', kid?"

And I spin around on the counter, staring into those amused hazel eyes--looks like he already raided the fridge, the kitchen table is a disaster area.

"Logan?"

And how the hell did I miss--ah, yeah, that focus. He gave me a taste for beer, a mild liking for cigars, and a strong interest in watching men beat the shit out of each other for the hell of it. Logan, what *would* I have been without you?

Oh yeah, and the language thing. Can't forget that--literally can't forget it, because it's far too often I get those disapproving looks when my mouth gets two miles or so ahead of my head. I mentioned this earlier, didn't I?

He's here. That's enough to make me smile despite myself, when I told myself I'd act, just this once, like a grown-up and maybe not throw myself at him--literally--the second he manages to get in the door.

He comes and goes and comes again, like the tides or the wind or herpes. Ah, he wouldn't like that last comparison. And I jump down and he walks over, takes the beer from my hand, and gives me a hug, barely glancing at the bared hands I'm careful to keep away from any exposed skin.

He trusts me. I don't know anyone else who'd take my bare fingers so casually.

"How was your trip?"

It's a trip now. He takes trips, he comes home. Though he'd never admit it, that's what he calls them himself. Trips from home. He has a room with a nice view and when he's gone, I sometimes sleep in his bed. And I'm trying to remember right now if it's been recent enough that he could smell me there still.

Oh God, how the hell would I explain that?

"Okay." Standard issue reply--he should just write it on a card and hand it out. "Damned cold, though."

Canada again. Canada in winter--no wonder it's cold. Calgary, Laughlin City, maybe he wandered into Winnipeg just for the hell of it--I got a letter from Vancouver. I have the maps and I keep tabs. He stops in Laughlin a lot--I've noticed that. Every time he leaves, even if he eventually ends up doing whatever he does in Mexico, Costa Rica, or eastern Ukraine.

I sometimes wonder if she has red hair--the chick in Laughlin. I don't need to be told there are only so many reasons to stop there, and sentiment ain't one of them.

He pulls me to the table and I take some bread and spread it with butter and he looks over the massacred--beef? chicken? wildlife?--on the table with a speculative eye, then apparently decides he's had enough.

"So you gonna tell me what's going on now, or do I guess?" And he smiles when he says it and there's something more relaxed about him tonight.

"Nothing. Everything's been pretty quiet." I'm two and a half years from finishing college and two and a half years from finishing training and two and a half years before the name I've given myself is known to the outside world. Rogue. Marie is gone the day it happens.

Can't say I'll miss her.

"And you?"

I think about that, chewing my bread. I could tell him about Bobby--he knows about the beginning but wasn't around for the less than successful end--unsuccessful in the sense that somehow it went very badly between him walking in my room and leaving it. I think the whole 'I don't think we should see each other anymore' may have had something to do with it.

It possibly had its worst moment when he saw I was wearing the tags again.

Yeah, that would qualify.

"Just training." You'd think that killing with a touch would be all the real fighting you'd ever need, but the Professor apparently didn't think so--after all, I may fight someone I don't want to kill.

I understand that. I have enough people in my head. And I admit it--I enjoy it. A lot. I'm not at all ashamed to say that there aren't many at the school who can match me in the practice ring now.

He takes a drink of my beer--*my* beer. Lips curl upward slightly when he sees my glare.

"You're too young." He takes another drink, just to annoy me, dammit.

For what? Drinking or you? I'd love to ask right straight, but I don't think you'd give me an answer and just being here with you is enough. For now.

I lean back in my chair and think about that, twirling hair on my finger and considering the man in front of me that is likely the age of my grandfather and possibly beyond that. Maybe. Practically immortal, mostly unbreakable, and I'm nineteen and it isn't a crush anymore.

And he still looks at Jean and she still glances at him and Scott and I still watch.

But the kicker is--and my fantasy life hasn't gotten this far very often because let's face it, it's pretty damn depressing--there's some things we can't do even if he did suddenly experience that epiphany of epiphanies and notice that I'm legal and willing. Even my many and varied memories haven't solved some basic problems, though I suspect that a trip through the library and a few specialty shops might solve a few. And this is Logan and I know--I *know* what he does during his travel time. In the beginning, I could tell you how many times a week, but that thankfully has pretty much faded out.

For the most part. But I still have the dreams I wake up from in a sweat and wanting something I'm never going to have.

And anyway, if you want somebody to want you, you need to be sexy. And sexy doesn't work when every inch of your skin you can manage is covered. I can't throw myself at him--metaphorically and literally--though I've been tempted--because with my luck something would go wrong and he'd be in the labs recovering and that doesn't promote lust either.

I can't kiss him and sometimes I think that's the only thing in the world I want to do anymore.

"Make you a deal--stop with the sneaking the drinks and on your twenty-first birthday, I'll take you out. In town. You can drink until you throw up and I'll even be nice and bring you home."

Head tilted at me, waiting for my answer. It's a hell of an offer--he spends an entire night with me, alone--trust me, one way or another it will be alone, if I have to drug the entire school to keep them out of *these* festivities--and I really don't need to think it over--a year and a half, after all. I'll survive.

And you know, what he doesn't know won't hurt him.

"What if you're not here?" I take another bite of my bread.

"For you, Marie--I'll be here."

Marie. Not Rogue, not the woman with the superhero name, but Marie, the kid he picked up on the side of the road--after throwing me out of the camper, that is.

So I pretend to consider it and smile.

"Okay." I still have the cigars.

"Finished?" I look at my hand with the crust and decide that, yeah, I am. And stand up and start to put my gloves back on. "Don't bother." He picks his bag up off the floor, giving a glance to the table, then shrugging. He's gloved and he takes my hand, like I'm a kid that needs to be led to the bathroom (ain't that some great imagery, folks), and I follow him to the adult wing where he finds his room in the dark. I memorized the way a long time ago and know ten ways to get here that don't include all those interesting inner passages that the Professor, for his own reasons, doesn't talk about.

And we go in and he flips on the lights and I sit on the bed because--well, you see, it was *last* night I was in here and, hopefully, new-Marie smell will cover old-Marie smell nicely.

He drops the bag and starts rummaging, tossing old clothes and shoes here and there--someone will come in, be disgusted, and clean it up tomorrow--and finally pulls out a smaller bag. That he drops in my lap. I stare at it like it will bite.

"What is it?" It's not promising--that's mud and streaks of what could be blood, tar, or something even less appealing, and the poor thing has been stuck at the bottom of that bag for months it looks like and Logan--well, Logan sometimes has funny concepts of practical jokes.

Yeah, Logan. Don't ask.

"Open it." He's crouching on the floor, smelling the room--maybe he can distinguish old-Marie from new-Marie--but if he does, he doesn't say anything and I try even as I untie the top to think of a good excuse to be prowling around up here.

When I open the bag--oh wow.

"Where'd you find these?" I breathe. I pick up the gloves, feeling them with my bare fingers. The finest leather I've ever seen--so thin that when I put one on, tactile sensation isn't as muted as it usually is and my hands can breathe pretty easy. They're long too--above that dangerous elbow region and almost to the middle of my upper arm. Opera gloves in black leather--he really does think of everything. I admire the effect. It fits so perfectly it could have been made for me.

"A leatherworker in Brazil."

Brazil. That wasn't on my most recent map.

I stretch my hand inside the material--these aren't off the rack, even I can see that. Custom fit--that guy must be fucking--eh, I mean darned brilliant to be able to do it from Logan's memory. He thought of me enough to pick these up--how he could possibly remember my hands that well is beyond me, but I went beyond questioning Logan's abilities a long time ago. So I smile and put the other one on, and it's like a second skin.

"These are great." I stretch my fingers again and run them up my legs, enjoying the feel of the material of my nightgown under them--and Logan watches that movement and I've never seen him do that before. But the expression is gone the second I try to get a good look and he stands up.

"So how're you and Bobby?" Oh yippee. You don't discuss the ex with the future hopeful. He's turning toward the dresser, probably seeing if he stashed any cigars in there and I hope he doesn't notice a few are missing.

Ah, yeah. Bobby. Logan and I didn't have exactly a heart-to-heart about the subject, you understand. He noticed it one day, commented on it the next, and left it at that. I kept my answers monosyllabic and wished, somewhere in me, that maybe he'd be a little jealous--I'm not asking for him to throw himself at my feet and mumble about undying devotion or anything, (though wouldn't that be great?) but--well, something. But no. Not anything.

But Jean did come in for a chat, so I knew he'd thought about it. And I got the standard lecture on care during playtime with those variations that are uniquely qualified to me. And of course, the usual 'door is open anytime' if I want to talk.

After it ended, I did go and talk to her. She's Jean and she's who I want to be. I look at her in her office and talk to her and wonder if I could move like that, breathe like that, smile like that, maybe, just maybe he'd look at me like he looks at her.

But I don't have her scent and I don't have him and sometimes I wish I could hate her just a little. And there are those brief moments that I wish they'd get it over with and fall into some convenient bed and work out whatever there is between them for once and for all.

And sometimes, just sometimes, when I catch this peculiar look on Scott's face during those chats they have together, I think Scott does too.

"Past history." I learned my best ways to get around a question from him. He doesn't say anything else and I don't meet his eyes, and I wonder if he worries it hurt me.

I wish it had. I know it hurt Bobby.

We sit in comfortable silence and I study the jeans and the sweater he's wearing that have obviously seen better days and wonder if I'm quiet enough he'll change clothes right now in front of me and give my fantasy life something to work with.

He never forgets he's not alone. His instincts are too good and he always knows a foreign scent. But its a nice thought, isn't it?

Then I yawn. Damn, double damn, triple damn, *fuck*, as my erstwhile companion here might say. He glances over his shoulder and that little grin is back, that grin that is only for me--me alone--and I have to admit that whatever else I don't have, I do have that. He likes me and trusts me and wants to be my friend. And that's enough. For now.

"Bedtime." He gets my hand, pulls me to my feet, and I obediently follow him out. And he walks me to my room--yes, I know the way, but if he feels the need to baby me, that means his company and damn if I don't enjoy it for every second I can get. I catch myself skipping and he laughs softly before depositing me in front of the room I share and brushes his fingers over my cheek and walks off. And I hold that touch for a minute, enjoying the heat of it, even if it is fatherly/brotherly/uncley/friendly, because that's something else that is mine and mine alone. Even if he isn't.

I watch him go--I also wear those gloves to bed, fingers curled around his tags.

The End