Note:
[ ] = thoughts
* * = emphasis
/ / = Rogue reliving a bit of borrowed memory
( ) = Translations or parenthetical remarks

"I think it, I say it.  That's my way."
  — Cordelia, _Angel,_ "The Bachelor Party"

It had been a fairly nondescript afternoon when Logan decided to ask a fairly interesting question.

"Hey, kid, mind if I ask you something?"

"Hmm?"  Rogue glanced up from her text of _Julius Caesar_ before returning to the complexities of Elizabethan dialogue.

"This is kind of personal, but since it's *me* asking..." *That* earned him her full attention, and at her inquiring look he went on.  "You told me — way back when — that you put that first boy you kissed in a coma for three weeks."  Her face grew shuttered, and he continued before she had time to brood on the touchy memories.  "Then you touched me that first time, and I was up in a few hours — which is me we're talking about, so a normal person might have been out for a week or two — but then came Mags, and he was not only still on his feet after touching you, but able to use his powers a little bit within a few minutes..."

*This* was unexpected territory, and he was relieved to see the closed look leave her face, although she still looked wary.  "Yeah, that's right..."

"So — was Maggie just *real* resistant, or did he not touch you for as long — or were you somehow trying to keep from absorbing anything from him?"

"*Yeah*, I *was* — trying to keep from getting his power, I mean."

"So — if you were able to hold back like that with him after — *how* many times had you touched someone before him?  Me, and that kid — anyone else?"

"A few brushes, real quick touches, but after what happened with David I was real careful not to let it happen again."

"So, if you got some *practice*, you could maybe learn not to do that little draining trick whenever you touch someone?"

"Maybe, but who's suicidal enough to let me practice on them?"  The half-conscious bitterness underlying the wry question was sharp enough to taste, and Logan replied without even having to think about it..

"Me."

She gave him a startled look, and he tried to read the emotions flashing through those doe-like eyes — fear and worry, then hope, and perhaps a wicked gleam of mischief flickering beneath. Whether that buried delight might have been at the prospect of getting a bit more of him in her head, at the thought of getting to borrow his abilities again for a bit, or just a bit of earthy pleasure at the thought of actual skin-on-skin contact, he couldn't say.  But then, regrettably, her conscience kicked in.  Using her gift was Wrong, since it stole from others in the best of cases and risked their lives if things went badly.  "Logan, I couldn't ask you to..."

"You ain't asking, I'm volunteering."

"...Or let you do that.  It's dangerous — "

Having made the leap by offering, Logan wasn't about to let her dither her way out of it now.  Without giving her a chance to pull away or fend him off, he reached over and clapped a hand to her cheek.

She shouldn't have been quite so surprised.  She *knew* him, including his tendency towards instant action, and after all it was the subject of their current discussion.  Still, she wasn't expecting it, and for a moment she felt the dark nearly-pleasurable surge of Loganness inundating her mind and body.

But coming with the inrush of energy were Logan's current thoughts, and right at the top of the surge was the reminder of the point of this whole exercise.  Remembering the incident with Magneto, she forced herself to resist the influx, and struggled to prevent the intake of energy.

Logan had a moment to revel in the feel of Marie's satiny skin under his palm — a touch he had expected never to feel without intervening layers, barring another attempt to preserve her life after deathly injury — before the pull began. A hot quasi-electrical current seemed to reach from the hand touching her skin down his arm and through his entire frame, and he could feel himself weakening under the hold.  Paralyzed by the tug of Rogue's uncontrolled ability, he could do nothing to pull away from her, unless and until she released him — but after a moment, he actually felt the pull ease and the pain lessen.  It was still unpleasant, and he wouldn't recommend the contact for anyone not possessed of a mutant healing factor, but he thought he could take it for a fair bit of time before it would kill him.

But it wasn't very much more than a few seconds before she reached up with a gloved hand and pulled his own hand away.  "No more," she said softly.

Logan exhaled shakily and let his hand stay in hers for a moment before reclaiming it.  Healing factor or not, he felt more than a bit rundown — yet also triumphant.  He had no idea how long the contact had lasted — it had seemed to last hours, days even — but he was fairly sure it was at least a bit longer than their first touch had been, and he was still conscious.  Definite progress.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, sure..."  Deep breath.  "Give me another minute or two, and we'll try it again."

"*Logan*..."  Alarm warred with that half-hidden pleasure in her expression.  "I think it's really great that you want to help me, but I don't want to land you in the Medlab."

"S'okay.  I know when I've had enough."

"Liar."

A huffing chuckle and a half-grin were her only responses.

After a minute or two in which Wolverine made no move to resume contact, Marie cautiously tried to return to her English assignment, only to be startled back out of the play by Logan's brusque, "Ready?"  Before she could reply, he reached forward again and put his palm to the side of her neck, thumb along her cheek and fingers plunging into the hair at the nape of her neck.

She tensed, and again concentrated on resisting the flood of thought and sensation.  The stronger taste of Logan in her head gave her both a taste of exactly how determined he was to stick this out for her, and the added stubbornness to fight her power for as long as the pair could take it. She got less energy from him this time — perhaps a bit because she had gotten a slightly better sense of how to hold back her gift, or maybe it was the tiny bit of forewarning that made her able to resist this absorption from the beginning — but stopped it after a minute or so when she saw Logan getting paler and paler.  "Enough," she murmured, pulling his hand away from her skin.

"No more," she warned softly.  "Not tonight."

The implicit statement being that there *would* be more attempts made on other nights, Logan chose to be heartened by this statement.  "Later, then," and he was pleased that she didn't disagree.

He let his fingers comb though her hair as he pulled his hand back, as though by accident, but the fresh thoughts of his lurking in the back of her head suddenly told Marie that the caress had been less than accidental.

Attempting to return her attention to the works of the Bard had been hard enough after the first touch, but right now Marie no longer gave a damn what Cassius' deal was or how Brutus felt about the matter.  The first contact had been mainly shocking and his uppermost thoughts had been about the sincere desire to help her gain control, but the caress accompanying the second had brought a whole new batch of his thoughts to her conscious realization.  The flickering suggestions of ways he'd like to eventually be able to touch her were both unexpected and somewhat motivational.

Right now, she wanted — needed — a bit of time to sift through the new memories absorbed and reassess what she had thought she knew about his feelings for her.  She had managed to settle herself into the role of adolescent gal-pal to the guy she was nursing a wholly-unrequited lust for.  Learning that he had been having some decidedly unplatonic thoughts about her was oddly frightening, since it suggested some exciting new paths their relationship could head down, with unforeseeable results.

But she needed to get out of here — in his bedroom, for Chrissakes, and sitting on his *bed*, with the man himself within arm's-reach — before she did something flaky and schoolgirlish, like turning into a giggling idiot, or else climbing into his lap and suggesting that they start trying out some of the 101 Ways to Get Each Other Off Without Direct Skin Contact that he had been thinking up over the past year or so...  "I... I think I should go now."

He gave her a worried look — because he had an inkling of which thoughts of his were currently bouncing around in her skull, or because he genuinely didn't want her to leave?  "All right...  See ya tomorrow, kid...  Marie...." She could hear a gentle tone underlying the casual statement that she wouldn't have known to look for before then, especially when he dropped the nickname to use her own given name.

It was wonderful, it was unexpected, it was terrifying.  She grabbed her text and fled to the safety of her own dorm room...

"i'd sell my soul my self esteem a dollar at a time for one chance one kiss one taste of you"
  — "magdalena," by A Perfect Circle

After a night to sleep on the idea, and bit more brooding on the matter, Marie had to conclude that Logan's idea had some merits.  Of course the hell of it was that she had a fresh dose of*him* in her head, and he was not only genuinely sincere in his offer to play guinea pig for her, but had a certain personal motivation in making her touchable.  She had no idea how much of her current willingness to experiment with him might be due to the collusion between her secondhand case of Logan's willingness and her own desires that coincided so surprisingly with his own. Possibly if there had been a little less of him in her head at the moment, or if she'd had a bit more time to consider the matter or to get an outside opinion, some downsides to the plan might have occurred.

But Logan and Rogue were happily outvoting Good Li'l Marie on this one, so when Logan collared her the next day in a break between classes and wanted to try again, she didn't argue.  She had an hour or so between history and biology for study time, so five or ten minutes in Logan's room wouldn't exactly be missed from her schedule.

As before, her only warning was the "Ready?" before he put his hand to the side of her jaw, mere seconds after closing the door behind the two of them.  It wasn't much time to prepare herself to resist before being touched — and perhaps he would have been wiser to have sat down first. As it was, his knees started to buckle when she pulled his hand away, and she had to make a grab for him.  Had she not absorbed a fair bit of borrowed strength, she probably wouldn't have managed to keep him on his feet, but somehow she managed to prop him up against the wall.

"Right...  Better...  next time?" he managed after a minute, and she shook her head at the bravado.

"Don't you have a self-defense class this afternoon?" A rhetorical question — the answer was already in her thoughts.

"Hmm?"  A blink, before the gears caught and the wheels turned.  "Later."

"And you still wanted me to try this *now*?  Less than half an hour before?"  She gave him a raised eyebrow, leaving it to him to fill in the unspoken commentary on the wisdom or lack thereof of his chosen timing.

"I'll be fine by then," he said defensively.  "Besides, aren't you supposed to be learning *not* to do this to me?"  The Logan between her ears told her that he really *was* feeling a bit foolish for not having thought this through before impulsively hauling her off to his room, but wasn't about to come right out and admit that it had been a less than stellar idea.

"Right.  From here on out, no more ‘practice' until *after* classes are done for the day."

"At least until you get good at it," was his conditional agreement.  He gave her a half-grin, and her very own personal subliminal Wolverine supplied that he wasn't going to let her feel anything less than confident in the eventual success of this little project.

"I know you well.
you are a part of me.
I know you better than I know myself.
I know you best,
better than anyone.
I know you better than I know myself."
  — "Part Of Me" by Tool

It was just as well that *he* was so sure that she'd learn what they both wanted her to, because after a week she was getting a bit discouraged. She was still "studying" in his room at night — the given excuse being that Kitty and Jubilee (especially Jubilee) tended to be noisy, which was actually true — but two or even three times a night he would lay a hand to her face, or catch hold of the segment of arm bared between glove and sleeve, or even take her ungloved hand in his.  And two or even three times a night, she would take his hand away from her skin and leave him dizzily clinging to consciousness.

The day she found herself tracking Jubilee from dorm room to gym by scent alone, she realized that she'd absorbed a bit too much Wolverine for now — especially when she found herself winking at Jean in bio class.

Coming to Logan's room as usual right after dinner, her first words were, "No more."  He gave her a startled look, and her subliminal Logan complained, [You're *giving up*?] sounding equal parts hurt and peeved. "Not — I don't mean ‘no more' *forever*, just — we need to back off a little for a few days.  I need to stop and think about what I've been doing wrong, before we try again."

Both Logans were willing to accept that.  "That might be a good idea. Try to think of a new angle, something like that." [Give me a bit of a breather,] Subliminal Logan added.

"Besides, I need a few days to let the insides of my head settle a bit, before I start smoking cigars and stealing Scooter's bike."

Logan chuckled but didn't say anything. [Aww, but you're so *cute* when you start acting like me...,] came the internal commentary, which made Marie giggle a little in response.  Logan stopped laughing and gave her an alert look. [Probably wondering how much of me you've got in there — I mean, in *here*.]

Changing the subject a little, Marie suggested, "I start acting too much like you right now, someone may figure out I touched you again, and want to know why."

A wary tilt to the head, and the guarded response, "Well, I'm trying to help you control your gift — nothing wrong with *that*, is there?"

[Unless Jeannie or Chuckie take a look in my head and get an idea of *why* I want to get my hands on a sixteen-year-old girl so badly...] "Well...  It's a bit of a risk, even for you, and someone like Scoo— Scott or the Professor might not like the idea much."

"True..."

"So maybe we need to keep this just between us?  For now, at least?"

"That... *might* be a good idea." [As much as I hate skulking around like this, we're probably going to be better off if no one else knows what we're playing around with yet,] Subliminal Logan noted.

"I am too connected to you to
Slip away, to fade away.
Days away I still feel you
Touching me, changing me,
And considerately killing me."
  — "H." by Tool
 

A few days went by — time for Subliminal Logan to quiet down and for Real Logan to go around giving Marie thoughtful looks, though not mentioning their little practice sessions at any point.  Marie missed the acerbic grumble in the back of her head when it faded from ever-present to occasional, and missed the little buzz she got from absorbing Logan's sharper senses and restless energy in small regular doses.

It was when she realized just *how* much she missed borrowing little bits of Logan that she got an inkling of her real problem.  Her gift may have been painful to those she touched, and on a conscious level she was horrified at what she did to those she absorbed energy from — but to her it felt good, even wonderful if what she was absorbing came from someone whose thoughts she didn't mind sharing.  Logan was already in her head in residual form, and she *knew* how much she liked having him there. Absorbing his abilities was a joy, and the urge was there every time she touched him or he her — to *keep* touching him, to take him into her until he would always be there, and never fade.

Now *that* was a kicker — that the one person willing and able to practice touching her was the one person she was most tempted to use her power on. [Maybe I shoulda started visiting Eric in his plastic cage and practiced on *him*,] she thought wryly to herself. (The idea had certain merits.  Having already absorbed him once, she wouldn't exactly be getting anything particularly new and damaging from further contact, and his powers were a lot less nasty to pick up than, say, Cyke's uncontrolled eyeblasts.)

On the other hand, secondhand Magneto dreams weren't half so pleasant as some of the ones she had gotten from Logan's mind.  Oh, sure, there were his nightmares, filled with pain and violence, of being in that mysterious lab or in any number of half-remembered battles — but then again, there was the ever-so-odd schizophrenic pleasure of erotic dreams from Logan's point-of-view starring herself as the guest of honor...

"to touch upon the surface, is not for
what it seems, I take away
my problems, but only in my dreams."
  — "Brackish," by Kittie

(She was sitting at the head of his bed leaning back against the headboard, a textbook open in her lap — except that she was also standing at the foot of the bed looking at herself.  But that wasn't her, that was *Marie* over there on the bed — and she was Logan — except that she was also Marie, wasn't she?  But that didn't matter right now, because she was on the end of the bed now, crawling on hands and knees like a stalking animal towards the girl in the nightgown studying and pretending to ignore her — *him* — whoever she was...  And s/he came up beside Marie, reaching over to close the book firmly and gently pull it from her
hands.  And as she raised her head to meet his eyes, he set the text aside and raised his hand to her face.  And there was no pain, no pull, and he slid his hand into her hair and pulled her into a kiss, warm and slow and deepening, and felt her ungloved hands sliding up his chest and then around his body, pulling him closer.  And then she was pulling his shirt up and off, and he was reaching for the skirt of her nightgown and pulling it up, up, baring long lean lovely legs, curved hips, slender waist, rounded breasts, and then it was over her head and off and for whatever reason she hadn't worn any underwear when going to study in the
bedroom of a man old enough to be her father (if not her grandfather)... And he was touching her, happily, painlessly, wherever he wanted to, waist and belly and breasts and thighs and silken furry dampness between...  And she was reaching for the fly of his jeans and helping him skin them off quick as a thought, touching *him* wherever she wanted to, though where she wanted to was really only one place and it was exactly where *he* wanted to be touched, caressed, rubbed as hard as she wanted to do so...  And then her arms were around him again, pulling him closer, between her parted thighs, guiding his hips as he slid himself into her, warm yielding silken smooth snug gripping...)

And Marie woke panting, feeling her heartbeat throbbing in her chest and even more strongly between her thighs, making it very easy at that moment to settle the question of exactly what gender she was, and therefore *who* she was.  She put one hand wonderingly to her own breast, Logan still strong enough in her mind to delight in the feel of the soft mass in her palm, then lifted her head from her pillow enough to make sure that Kitty and Jubi were both sound asleep, before sliding the other hand down to ease that pleasant ache.

[Now, see, if you can get yourself under control, you wouldn't always have to be doing this *yourself*...,] came an internal voice, though at the moment she couldn't for the life of her have said whether it was Subliminal Wolvie or her own personal internal monologue.  Didn't much matter, though, since Logan and Marie were both agreed on this point. [Hell of a motivation for *not* draining Logan dry whenever I touch him,] she thought to herself in her last clear moment before drifting back to sleep...

"so grow libido throw dominoes of indiscretions down falling all around in cycles circles constantly consuming, conquer and devour it's time to bring this fire down bridle all this indiscretion long enough to edify and permanently fill this hollow 
feed me fill me up again temporarily pacifying
feed me here fill me up again temporarily pacify this hungering"
  -- "the hollow," by A Perfect Circle

Oddly enough, the thought recurred to her on waking the next morning, and then again during the day at unexpected moments.  So she was in a decidedly odd mood when she grabbed her pre- calculus textbook and headed  for Logan's room after dinner.  He glanced up when she entered the room —  her presence there at that hour so expected that she no longer bothered knocking — but refrained from asking if she was planning to resume ‘practicing' that night.

She saw the question on his face, though, or picked it up from Subliminal Logan on a non-verbal level, and answered it.  "I thought of something." Accepting the raised eyebrow for the question that he wasn't bothering to voice, she answered, "My problem seems to have been that I've been enjoying absorbing you too much.  I need a little more... *motivation* not to take from you whenever I touch you."

Having dropped her eyes to the floor when saying that last bit, she didn't catch the way his eyes had widened at that statement — especially when she followed it up by peeling off one glove.  To his credit, he had his expression back under control by the time she lifted her gaze to his face again, and didn't flinch when she raised her bared hand — though he held himself very still as she reached for his face.

Marie gently pressed her palm against his cheek, fingers tracing through his sideburns, and thought very, *very* hard about how much she wanted him to be able to touch her anywhere he wanted to for as long as they both wanted to...

For his part, Logan was startled again — twice.  First was the feeling when she touched him, still pulling but not painfully.  More of an unpleasant tingling, as of feeling returning to numbed flesh, but not even close to the searing drain of lifeforce that it had been the first couple of times.  Unthinkingly, he raised his hand and pressed it to hers against his cheek, before they both realized the significance of the action — that her hold on him had been lessened to the point of allowing him to move.

It was as their eyes met each other wonderingly that Logan got his second surprise.  With her standing mere inches from him, he couldn't help but detect the clear scent of arousal wafting from her body — which gave him more than an inkling of how she was "motivating" herself not to drain him.

Giving her a half-smile and a quirked eyebrow, he suspected that she was still drawing enough from him to pick up the drift of his thoughts, which had become somewhat graphic as he thought of a few "motivational techniques" that might have a hell of a lot of potential under the circumstances.  She blushed a little — which he couldn't help but find adorable — but left her hand where it was, and her scent became if anything even more enticing.

He retained enough self-control to refrain from doing anything like pulling her into his lap or trying to touch *her* in a few interesting places (if necessary through her clothing), but she no doubt continued to pick up little flickers of what he was thinking about doing with and to her, if her continued blush was any indication.

They managed to stay like that for several minutes, before she sighed and pulled her hand from between his own hand and cheek.  He reluctantly let her go, then spoke.  "That wasn't bad at all."

And it hadn't been.  He was a tiny bit drained, but not exactly beyond the point of standing on his own power, and more than ready for a repeat performance whenever she was willing to try again.

"Could have done better," she said.  "I was still getting a little from you."

"So we keep practicing..."

"Here comes a kiss that I've never had
Nothing feels like this if it were heaven tonight
I love you"
  — "Heaven Tonight," by Hole

And so they did.  The next day, catching her in the hall between classes with no one else in sight, he drew her into an unoccupied classroom and  put a hand to her cheek.  They were able to stay like that until she had  to go to her next class, and he was still on his feet and unwobbly when  he took his hand away.

After that were a lot of similar incidents.  Stopping by his room in her  longer breaks between classes, or evenings after dinner, and seeing how long they could hold contact.  Brief pauses during the day whenever they caught a few moments alone for fleeting touches.  One afternoon when they ducked into an unoccupied classroom, he pulled her close and held her, resting his cheek against hers, and that was best of all, with their arms around each other and his scent so close to her reminding her clearly and sharply of exactly what she was trying to gain from this little exercise. There was almost no pull at all that time, only a faint tingle against his cheek and the softest whisper of his thoughts against hers — and so of course they had to repeat that particular pose, as often as possible.

They never discussed what kind of "motivation" she was using, or what they were leading up to with all of this "practice," aside from her not needing to shroud herself in layers of fabric to protect those around  her.  They didn't need to, since he had guessed and since she absorbed  little flickers of what he knew on a daily basis.

So after a few weeks of this, he didn't feel the need to say anything  but, "Let's see if I can make your second kiss turn out a little better than your first," before pulling his cheek away from her face and pressing his mouth to hers instead.

She hadn't been expecting it, but she clung to him and gamely returned  the kiss, parting her lips slightly and letting him brush his tongue against hers.  When he tried probing a bit deeper, she playfully sucked  at the tip of his tongue before nipping at his lower lip a bit.  He  growled softly low in his throat and put a hand to the back of her head,  plunging his fingers into her hair and holding her closer.

Several nuzzly nibbly minutes later, he pulled away from her lips and  rested his cheek against her forehead.  They held each other close, getting their breath back, before he murmured, "Beautiful.  Absolutely  beautiful."

"Hmm?" she inquired contentedly, for once not following his train of thought.

"No pull at all."

She pulled away abruptly to meet his eyes, realizing that he was right.  She hadn't even absorbed a little bit from him during that kiss.

"I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would  agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options."
  — Barnabas, as quoted by Delirium, SANDMAN #63, by Neil Gaiman

Logan and his mercilessly talkative passenger got back to the school a  bit past ten at night.  Most of the kids were already in their dorm rooms  for the night, so McCoy's welcoming committee consisted of Cyke, Jean,  Storm and Xavier, as the adult contingent of the school.  Between the confusion of introductions and the activity of hauling Hank's various  personal belongings and equipment up to his new room or down to the  Medlab, it was well past eleven before things were settled and Logan was  free to escape to his own room. [Enough damn *talking* for one day...]

Except that when he opened the door, he found company waiting for him.  But in this case, much more welcome company than the loquacious medico.  "Waitin' up for me?"

Marie smiled, closing her textbook.  "And reading my history chapter.  Just about done now, though.  So what's the new doc like?"

Closing the door and taking off his jacket, he answered, "Nowhere near as  pretty as Jeannie.  Least, not unless you're into big, furry, and  *blue*."

"*Really*?"

"Yep.  He's friendly enough — talks too damn much, though.  Might turn  out to be a decent enough teacher, but hell to be stuck in a car with him  on a long trip..."

She giggled.  He smiled at her and caught her hand, pulling her off the  bed and onto her feet, then into an embrace.  She leaned into him  happily, resting her cheek against his.  "Poor baby, stuck in a car with  a chatty Cookie Monster all the way from — where was he from, again?"

"Illinois."

"Like Kitty!"

"Mmm."  Logan ran his hands down Marie's back, wondering if he should  risk sitting down and pulling her into his lap, or if it would be pushing  things a bit.

He felt her tense slightly, as though she'd known what he was thinking —  [You idiot, she probably *does* know what you're thinking!] — before she  relaxed a bit and said, "I wouldn't mind."

He didn't need to be told twice.  Reaching down to pull the chair around,  he dropped into it and pulled her abruptly into his lap.  She squeaked in  startlement, and there was a moment of confusion before she wound up  settled more or less across his thighs, her knees draped over one arm of  the chair.  She shifted position nervously, placing her elbows on the  chairarm behind her back, trying not to rest too much of her weight on  his lap.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not too heavy for you?" she asked worriedly.

He laughed, wrapping one arm around her behind her back and nudging her  arms forward off the armrest.  "No."  He pulled her back against him,  gently, and gave her a minute to get used to the idea.  To distract her,  he asked, "So what's Storm got you guys readin'?"

"Oh, we're up to the early colonization of the Americas.  She was talking  about the first colonies in the US today and I about died giggling  remembering — " She broke off as Logan, deciding to see how well her  control worked with distraction — or possibly trying to distract her from excessive consideration of which regions of hers were currently resting  in close proximity to which regions of his — started to ease off one of  her gloves.

"Go on.  You were laughin' because...?"

"Oh, um, for some reason I had this bit going through my head from a CD  Kitty has, where there's a spoken word bit where the girl who does the  singing was comparing the conditions of the Pilgrims and the Donner  Party, and suggesting that the Pilgrims may have resorted to cannibalism that first winter, and I know it was silly but I just had the hardest  time keeping a straight face while Storm was going on and on about  hardships and religious persecution and stuff..."

He treated her to a soft gruff chuckle — the Wolverine's sense of humor  being hard-edged enough to appreciate a good cannibalism joke — while  lacing the fingers of his free hand through those bared by removal of the  purple satin glove.

"... And she was almost glaring at me out of the corner of her eye, and  the rest of the class was starting to look at me funny, and then I  whispered to Kitty and Jubes, ‘The similarities in situation between the Donner Party and the Colonial Pilgrims...," and Jubes started laughing so hard she fell out of her seat!"

"I guess she got the joke?"

"Yeah, Kitty made us both listen to the CD with her.  Freaky, but good.  Gothic chicks with cellos."

Logan quelled the budding impulse for further information — funny Donner  Party talk or not, he wasn't interested enough to *request* Goth music  torture.  "Did Stormy give you guys any problems?"

"Oh, she asked us to share the joke with the rest of the class, and Kitty  told her that the lecture was reminding us of a CD that mentioned the  Pilgrims and that she *really* wouldn't like the side discussion we'd get  into if we told her what it said.  So she asked us if we'd gotten ourselves under control and if she could *please* continue the lecture and all that, and we got mobbed after class by people wanting to know  what was so funny.  Kitty wound up playing that track from the CD down in  the rec room after dinner."  Another giggle.  "I don't think Storm's  going to be very happy with us tomorrow if she brings up the Pilgrims  again..."

Logan chuckled softly at the image of Storm trying to lecture a dozen giggling teenagers. [Not a problem I think I've ever had...] Sliding one hand from Marie's shoulder down her side to tuck around her waist, he  left the fingers of the other curled through hers. [This is good.  This is *very* good.]

Except that then the Wolverine started taking too great an interest in  the proceedings.  Between that whole proximity thing and the fabulous  closeup view he was getting of her cleavage, this was about thirty  seconds from getting really embarrassing. [Enough lap time for one  night...] Quickly lifting Marie to her feet, he stood up. "Why don't I  let you finish up your readin' while I run down for a beer or six?"

He was still holding her hand — chances were that she had an idea of the  reason for his mood change.  Especially when she gave him that naughty  little half-smile... "Can I have one?"

He smiled back.  "Maybe...  If you've finished your homework!" he added  as a parting shot while on his way out the door...

Life was good.  He pondered this on the way through the hall and down the stairs.  Decent digs, good food.  People he liked to hang with, people he liked to harass, people who didn't call him a mutie freak.  Places to go running off to on occasion, excuses to get into fun knock-down drag-out fights on a semi-regular basis.

Even that "teaching" crap wasn't too bad.  Bunch of bleeding-heart worry  about mutants getting along with humans — but the fact of the matter was  that when he thought about some of these kids he liked running into some  of the stuff he'd had to deal with in the past...

Well, they were damned lucky to have *him* teaching them how to deal with  a fight, rather than Scooter.  With what he had to show them, if they  actually paid attention then they might stand a reasonable chance of  coming back alive.

Not that he'd ever been that big on "saving the world" or "contributing  to society" or any of that other volunteer crap.  But he had to admit —  in a very small part of his mind, and never out loud — that it did feel  kind of good to know that he was doing something to protect the people he cared about.

Yep, life was good.  He had his girl, waiting for him upstairs, and he  had his beer, waiting for him in the fridge.

Except that it wasn't all there.

He found himself staring in disbelief at the empty spots in the carton.

*Someone* had raided his beer supply.

Not just one bottle, but *two* were missing!

Growling faintly, he opened the door wider and leaned in, wondering if he  had a hope in hell of identifying the thief's scent amidst the various  food odors.  Pulling the remains of the sixpack out, he sniffed at them.  Unfortunately, it wasn't a scent he recognized.

Rumbling louder in frustration, he straightened and started to close the  door — then paused.  His instincts were telling him that *someone* was  there.

Except that as he slowly turned on his heel, scanning the darkened  kitchen, even his night- sensitive eyes were detecting no one.

But sight wasn't the Wolverine's primary sense.  Closing his eyes, he  concentrated on what his nose was telling him — despite the lingering  aromas of food and a large number of other people — and what his ears  were telling him.

When he was sure, he jumped.

To the eye, there was nothing above the refrigerator.  But to the touch,  there was *something* — warm, furry, startled, struggling.  He dragged  whatever-it-was down off the appliance, dropping it abruptly to the  floor.  Then he stared.

The — *thing* revealed in the light from the still-open refrigerator in  no way appeared human.  Had he not spent the better part of the day in  unfortunately close proximity with someone who resembled nothing so much  as an over-educated and oddly-colorized former star of _Wild Kingdom,_ he would have assumed "animal" on seeing the fur.  Except that the blue fur  didn't appear to be anything found in nature.

And then there was the fact that the guy had been invisible until Logan  pulled him out of the shadows.  Not merely hidden in the dark — Logan's  night vision was good enough to have easily spotted him atop the fridge,  had he been there to see.  He hadn't been.

Which said "mutant."

But still — there wasn't just the fur, there were the hands. *Three*  digits on each?  And yellow eyes, pointed ears...

Okay, this was *definitely* someone who belonged at Xavier's. (If not a  circus.) No way in hell he could go out on the streets safely looking  like *this*.

But that didn't give him free rights to Logan's beer.

One bottle of which was still clutched in an oddly-shaped hand.

Wolverine glared at the bottle, then back at the guy on the floor.  He  growled menacingly.

"Ah, Gute Nacht...  Entschuligung..." (Good evening...  Excuse me...) "Ah  — beer?" the nameless guy offered helplessly, waggling the bottle in what  was evidently hoped to be an appeasing manner.

Logan was not appeased.  Noting how little liquid remained in the bottle  — even accounting for the amount spilled mere seconds ago — he was once  again reminded of just why he was annoyed with this particular guy,  fellow mutant misfit or not.  The growl increased in volume.

Which was when the guy yelped in alarm — something that sounded like,  "Tut mir leid!" (I'm sorry!) — and disappeared, in a <Bamf!> of displaced  air and a whiff of sulfur.

Logan jumped back a step in startlement.  Then, annoyed with himself for  his reaction, he started forward. [No way this fuzzy punk is gonna be  laughing at me...] Except that he seemed to be alone in the kitchen — and  as the sulfur reek cleared out, his nose and ears concurred with his  eyes.  The misfit was gone.

"Fuck!"

So annoyed that he almost forgot to grab his remaining beer, Logan left  the kitchen.  On his way back to his own room, he kept an eye — and nose,  and ear — out for the beer-guzzling pest.

While passing through the lobby, he heard a suspicious jingling from the  chandelier and stopped to glare up at the vibrating light fixture.  Nothing to be *seen* up there — but it was dark...

He growled warningly, and was rewarded with a gasp, followed by absolute  silence.  Grumbling to himself with mingled satisfaction (at the  appropriately frightened reaction) and frustration (at the inability to  dole out appropriate retribution), he returned to his room.

"What, you couldn't wait to get to your room and started without me?"  Marie teased when she saw the missing spaces in the carton.

"No, *somebody* decided to help himself," Logan grumbled.

"Who?" she asked with startlement.  Scooter had made some very pointed  comments when Logan first started keeping beer in the fridge, citing the  necessity to keep alcohol out of the hands of the underaged.  This ceased  when Logan demonstrated both willingness and ability to track down anyone  bold enough to help themselves to his beer.  After having tracked a few  sticky-fingered students to their respective dorm rooms — not to mention  spotting another trying to smuggle a couple of cans out of the kitchen under his jacket — the word had spread.  The Wolverine's Beer is Hands  Off.

"New guy.  Don't know him, but at a guess I'd say the Germans have  started crossing Smurfs with gargoyles..."

"Hell is only half full
Room for you and me
Looking for a new fool
Who's it gonna be?"
  — "Monkey Wash Donkey Rinse," by Warren Zevon and Duncan Aldrich

Marie got to meet the newest teacher fairly early the next day.  Jean  introduced him to the biology class, announcing that he would not only be  assuming a position in the Medlab downstairs but would also take over the  advanced biology classes.  Rogue quickly decided that she liked Dr. McCoy (or Hank, as he immediately insisted that the students call him) — but  she could also see how he could have worn on Logan's never-steady temper.

Lord knew, the man liked to *talk*!

"And that, class, is why one should always exercise *extreme* caution  when choosing a test subject for a new experiment — and why one should  only use *oneself* as an absolute last resort," he concluded humorously, finishing the explanation of how he wound up covered in indigo fur.  Moving on to the topic of other mutants he had dealt with in the past, he  discussed the recent trends in human mutation and why some abilities —  such as telepathy — were comparatively common while others — such as  Bobby's icy talents — were rare or even unique.

Marie nibbled on her lower lip while debating whether or not to ask him  if he'd ever run across another mutant with a healing factor — if so,  perhaps it could have turned out to be a long-lost relative of Logan's.  She was jarred from her thoughts by Jubilee's elbow.

"Ask him about your gift, Rogue!" Jubes whispered.  "Maybe he knows how  to fix it!"  While Marie was debating whether or not Hank would be able  to come up with anything that would work better than her practice  sessions with Logan, Jubi impatiently raised her hand and spoke up  without waiting to be called on.  "What about somebody who can absorb  someone's energy by touch?  Powers and memory and stuff?"

Most of the glass looked at Rogue, involuntarily.  She blushed at the  attention.  McCoy, by no means slow on the uptake, added up the question  with the attention paid to the girl layered with more clothing than was  necessary in the current weather.  "Some forms of empathy or telepathy work best through touch contact," he said thoughtfully, "and there are a  very few mutants able to mimic the powers of other mutants around them.  I've never heard of quite that form of ability before..."  Marie stared at her desk. [Just means you're special, sweetheart.  I already knew  that,] Inner Logan murmured.  The affectionate comment helped, as did the  reminder that she was in the process of learning how to do without the extra layerings.  She raised her head and met Hank's sympathetic look  calmly.

After the bell rang and their books and papers had been gathered up, Jubes and Kitty eagerly led the way to the cafeteria.  "Just wait till  you meet the new guy," Kitty said happily.

"New guy?"

"Yeah, he got here last night," Jubi filled in.  "You would have met him,  if you didn't spend the evening lurking in Wolvie's bedroom waiting for  him to get back from picking up Hank."  She gave Rogue an amused roll of  the eyes.

"What's he like?"

"Kind of like Hank!" Jubes said.

"Huh?"

"He's *blue*," Kitty filled in, "but he's got six fingers and yellow eyes  and a *tail*."

"Six fingers?"

"Three on each hand," Jubes filled in.  "He's kind of cute, though.  Like  a fuzzy friendly gargoyle."

The final word kicked up a memory.  "He wouldn't by any chance be German,  would he?"

At the startled looks and simultaneous, "How did *you* know?" she just  smiled and led the way into the cafeteria.

The "new guy" was incredibly easy to spot.  Surrounded by several other  students, they might have been comparing notes on their lives before  reaching the X-Mansion — or talking music or TV shows, for all she could  tell.  Walking right up to him, she offered her hand.  "Hi, I'm Rogue," she said without preamble.

Glancing up in startlement, he paused for a moment before self-consciously offering his hand in return.  A thumb and only two  fingers, as Kitty and Jubes had said, with the digits being broader than  usual, making the entire width about that of a standard five-fingered  hand.  "I'm Kurt," he replied.  She saw he had noticed her gloves but  wasn't commenting on them yet.

[The beer,] Inner Wolvie reminded.  "Did you by any chance take a couple  of beers out of the fridge last night?" Rogue obliged her subliminal  boyfriend.

Kurt looked guilty — and even more so at the chorus of gasps and "Uh-oh!"  surrounding him.  He nodded sheepishly.

Jubes whistled.  "You took some of Wolvie's beer?  And you're still in  one piece?"

"‘Wolvie'?  Like ‘wolf'?  Good name," he muttered.

Inner Wolvie grumbled and muttered, trying to decide if he found that  complimentary or not.  "C'mon.  You'd better find him and apologize."  The yellow eyes widened.  "It'll be okay.  You're new, you didn't know it  was his.  He'll snarl at you a little, but he shouldn't hurt you.  Much."

Kurt seemed to view the prospect with equal parts reluctance and horror.  Fortunately, Kitty and Jubes were backing her up on this one.  "You're  gonna have to run into Logan sooner or later.  Better do it quick and try  to get on his good side — *before* you wind up in class with him," Kitty  advised.

"Class?" Kurt asked incredulously.  "He *teaches*?"

"Personal combat and self-defense," Rogue filled in.

"And he's rough enough on people he *likes*," Jubi added with the relish  of those delivering bad news.  "You *don't* want to leave him mad at  you."

The generalized agreement from those surrounding Kurt — as well as the  obvious group decision that he needed to go make his peace with the  cantankerous Wolverine *immediately* and come finish his lunch afterwards  if he survived — managed to get Kurt out of his seat, albeit slowly.  Bracketed by the three girls, he allowed himself to be led from the  cafeteria and outside.  Being such a pleasant autumn day, it came as no  surprise that Logan had chosen to grab some food and bolt for the woods.  Following the hints of her Subliminal Logan, Marie took the lead and  managed to find the tree he was leaning against without much searching.

Once Wolverine actually came into view, Kurt's nervousness became  outright balkiness.  Kitty and Jubes each reassuringly but firmly gripped  one of his arms, neatly forestalling his attempts to escape by either  teleportation or simply turning tail and running.

"Logan!" Marie called happily, though in fact he had no doubt already  heard and perhaps even smelled them coming.  Looking around, he studied  the four crossing the grass towards him.  Kurt ducked his head, uselessly  attempting to hide behind Rogue.  "Logan, we want you to meet Kurt," she announced as they came close enough for normal conversation.

Logan gave him a sharp look.  "I think we ran into each other last  night," he said with a faintly dangerous tone.

Kurt hunched his shoulders unhappily.  "I'm sorry."  Twisting his tail in  his hands nervously, he lapsed into German, mumbling, "Tut mir leid, tut  mir wirklich leid..." (I'm sorry, I'm really sorry...)

"He's new," Kitty added helpfully.  "He didn't know it was yours."

Kurt shook his head, silently agreeing that he hadn't known.  He  continued worrying at the end of his tail.

"Yeah, it's not like it's got your name on it," Jubes added.

Logan not being totally unreasonable, the genuine misery before him made  him much less angry than he had been the previous evening — as did the  obvious youth of the offender.  "Never had to — I'm the only person here  that drinks it."  The startlement in Kurt's expression suggested  something to Logan, seasoned traveler that he was.  "Drinking age in this  country is twenty-one," he added.

"What?!"  Kurt dropped his tail in dismay.

The girls studied him.  "What is it in Germany?" Jubes asked curiously.

"For beer?  Sixteen..."

"Whoa, *dude*!  Wish *I* lived there!"  Kitty and Rogue giggled at her  reaction.

"Well, over *here* it's twenty-one, so hands off."  Logan ended the  conversation with finality, dismissing the subject and letting Kurt off  the hook.

[Unless you ask me nicely,] Subliminal Logan added for Rogue's benefit.  She giggled and gave him a wave and a smile as the girls and Kurt turned  to head back to the cafeteria.  Could be she'd get her food and come back  out to join him — though the other three were getting into an interesting conversation, with her two roommates comparing notes with Kurt as to  other ways in which Germany might prove to be as good a country to be in,  if not better than, the US.  Despite the powerful argument of the  comparative legal drinking ages, Jubilee was finding it hard to let go of the idea that her own nation was superior to all other countries in all  respects that could possibly matter.  [Hmmph, do her some good to learn  the world doesn't *really* completely revolve around America,] Subliminal  Logan grumbled. [Especially not Southern California,] Marie silently  agreed, having run into the slightly more subtle form of regional  snobbery Jubilee practiced on occasion.

Glancing back over her shoulder, Kitty saw her trailing behind the trio,  lost in her own internal conversation.  "You coming?" she asked her  friend.

Marie grinned and ran to catch up.

"I know what's good for you...you can touch me if you want
I know you're dying to...you can touch me if you want
I know what's good for you...you can touch me if you want
But you can't stop"
  — "Queer," by Garbage

Things didn't always go so well as that first kiss, of course.  Logan  made a point of surprising her on a semi-regular basis, wanting her to learn to deal with unexpected contact as well as possible.  When he came  up behind her and touched her without warning, there would be a bit of a  pull before she caught herself and stopped it, and sometimes she couldn't  quite prevent a trace of absorption even when she was prepared.  But they  were both determined, and encouraged by her success so far, and they kept  at it.

Sometimes when she was in his room studying, sitting at the desk or on  his bed, he would quietly come up beside her and lay a hand on the back  of her neck.  Sitting on the bed was especially interesting, since he had  room to sit beside her and rest his fingers against her face or take her  hand into his, just maintaining a light contact while she studied, trying  to get her accustomed to controlling her power without conscious thought.  He might gently remove one of her gloves, sliding a finger or two into  the top and slowly peeling it down her arm and off.

That last was perilously similar to foreplay, and made it very difficult  to concentrate on what she was supposedly studying — but that was all  right with her, since she wasn't exactly having a hard time keeping up  with her classes, and there were some very interesting things that could  be done when she put her books and homework aside.  She didn't even feel  particularly guilty, since the students *were* supposed to be learning to  control their powers, and what she had been doing with Logan was doing  more for her along those lines than the rest of the school combined had  been able to do...

She still didn't trust her newfound control enough to share the news with  her friends and teachers, though — let alone finally get rid of the  gloves and scarves.  With Logan was one thing — between his healing  factor and the strong presence already in her head, a little more  absorption was no big thing.  But that didn't mean that an unexpected brush against a different person couldn't still result in a stay in the  Medlab for them and an added voice in the eternal committee meeting  within her skull.

In truth, she had gotten so used to the extra layers that the idea of  walking around without gloves — at Xavier's *or* outside the school  grounds — felt uncomfortably like the idea of wandering about in public  in her underwear.  So for the moment, the practice sessions with Logan  remained their little secret.

Which she learned to be thankful for, the next time her parents called.

"If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
something."
  — Murphy's Eighth Law

As Xavier had told Logan during his initial tour of the school, most of  the students were runaways.  There were a number of reasons for this. Many of the young mutants, like Marie, had found themselves the target of  hostile attention from neighbors and former friends as soon as their  powers manifested.  Others, unfortunately, came under attack from their  own families, or had even been thrown out.

Xavier had seen the wide range of backgrounds his budding mutants came  from, and understood that in some cases a clean break was the best for  all concerned.  But if at all possible, he encouraged reconciliation with  their families once they had settled in at the school.  For the parents who had tried to support their children despite public disapproval, the  news that their children were alive and well in a safe haven came as  nothing short of heavensent.  Even when families had reacted unfavorably  to the discovery of their offspring's mutations, an abrupt and mysterious absence occasionally made the heart grow fonder.  If nothing else, it  made it easier for the family to maintain the pretense of normalcy if the  absent child was "away at a boarding school for gifted students," which  made them more tolerable in their absence.  A very few lucky students (including Kitty) had never run away at all, but had instead been  discovered and contacted by Xavier regarding enrollment in the school.  So mail, phone calls and even holiday visits home were by no means  unknown for many of the students.

Shortly after Marie's arrival, Xavier and the other adult X-Men had begun  subtly encouraging her to consider phoning or writing to her family,  informing them of her whereabouts or at least sounding them out regarding  a reconciliation.  The whole idea gave her a sinking feeling, and fear of having some well-meaning person tracking her family down and contacting  them on her behalf kept her from giving her real name to anyone else long  after she had settled into her place at the Academy.

Until Logan returned, and settled into his own somewhat unique position  in the school.  Chuckie being the sharp character that he was, the idea  of enlisting Logan to the cause of ferreting out Marie's past had  occurred to him before very many weeks had passed.

Surprisingly for such a deeply private individual, the idea captured  Logan's support with very little consideration.  Or perhaps not so  surprisingly after all.  As he noted to Marie late one Friday night (the  resident pariah and the Designated Curfew Enforcer for the weekend  bonding in front of Letterman), having no living relatives that he knew of had made him highly sensitive to the idea of having a family.  Appreciative, was the word.  In his case, anyone who may have cared about  his absence when whoever-the-hell-they- were grabbed him and wiped his memory fifteen or more years ago had no doubt given him up for dead by now — assuming they were still themselves among the living.  His ties were severed, for better or for worse.

But Marie had a living family — parents, a younger brother, other  relatives — and she hadn't been gone from home much more than a year.  Chances were she was missed, whether she expected to be or not.  And it  was a very sad thing to be alone in the world.  Sad enough to maybe be  worth risking a phone call to prevent.

Not that he was suggesting she give them an address to come find her, or  even a number to return the call to if things didn't go well.  Just — a  few minutes to sound them out, let them know she was all right, and see  how they reacted...

He didn't ask questions about her home life before or after her gift  surfaced, or whether her parents had reacted that badly to learning of  her mutation.  He didn't even ask her last name.  He didn't nag, or try  to pressure her into doing what he thought she should do.  He simply gave  her his honest opinion on the importance of families, and his risk/benefit assessment of a simple phone call to her parents.  Then he  let the matter drop and left her alone to think about it.

A few days after Logan gave his thoughts on the subject, she came up to  his room after dinner.  Standing awkwardly just within the doorway,  examining her gloves as though they were a constant source of interest  and worry, she asked him if he had any ideas as to what she should say if  she called up her parents after so many months with no word.  They kicked some ideas around for a while, he being a proponent of the baldest  possible, "Hi Mom, I'm okay and in a school for mutants.  Miss you!"  while she wanted a bit less of the bare-bones approach.

After his offers to talk to her parents first himself, or to come down to  the lobby phone with her for what essentially consisted of moral support,  she asked him to come downstairs with her to stand lookout in case of  eavesdroppers or interruptions.  So he was too far from the phone to overhear Marie clearly, let alone catch her parents' side of the  conversation.  He noticed that she cried at one point, and spent a few  minutes silently arguing with himself over whether or not to intervene —  but she seemed relieved when she eventually hung up, and she thanked him  on the way back up to her room.  And after that, Rogue became one of the students who received occasional family phone calls in the evenings.

Logan allowed himself to feel mildly smug about his role in the events.  A month or so after the initial call, her parents actually visited the  school for a weekend.  Logan didn't learn this until Monday morning,  however, since Xavier had come to him Friday night with the name,  location and appearance (the latter imparted telepathically) of a young  mutant in Charleston who absolutely *had* to be picked up that very  weekend.  Accepting the assignment with his usual appreciation of a job  that got him out of the state for a few days, he was chagrined afterwards  to learn that he'd missed a chance to meet Marie's parents.

This lasted until Marie acerbically asked him how he expected her parents  to react to, "And this is my friend Logan!  When I met him, he had just  got done pounding the crap out of a bunch of drunken rednecks in a bar in northern Alberta, and the next morning when he got thrown out of the bar  for being a vicious mutant and I stowed away in his trailer, he refrained  from leaving a teenaged girl standing by the side of the road in the snow  in the middle of nowhere.  Oh, and he likes motorcycles, hockey, drinking and violence!"

He got the point.  And he didn't have to be lured away from the X-Mansion  on her parents' occasional future visits — he made a point of clearing  out himself.  So Marie's parents had certainly heard of her good friend  Logan, but somehow they just never got a chance to meet him...

Which was how matters stood, when Marie's parents called again with the  standard questions...

"bend around the wind silently blown about again i'm treading so soft and
lightly compromising my will i am"
  — "rose," by A Perfect Circle

"How are you, baby?"  This from her mother.

"Those other...  you know, *mutants*... treating you all right?"  And  there was Dad, on the other extension.

"You haven't learned how to control it yet, have you, baby?"

"Because you know we'd bring you home in a *second*, if we only could..."

"Just as soon as it's safe honey, you let us know.  Don't even wait for  the end of the semester..."

"We miss you, baby."

Because somehow, when Xavier was giving the Gordons the grand tour of the  school and giving his usual speech about a safe environment for the young  mutants to learn to control their powers in loving and accepting  surroundings for their eventual graduation as useful and productive  members of society — well, her parents heard the phrase "control their powers" and more or less stopped listening.  That was the part that  mattered to them.

Because compared to some of the other kids they were seeing, their little  Marie was just so *normal*.  Oh, sure, there were those shocking white  streaks — Marie's mother had almost cried the first time she saw her  daughter again, sensing the world of hard experience and lost innocence that the bleached hair signified — but hair could be dyed.  If she could  just learn to turn her unwelcome gift *off* —

Then she'd be normal again.  And then they could take their little girl  home, and everything could go back to the way it was supposed to be...

Listening to her parents now, for the first time since she had begun  practicing her control with Logan, some unconsidered consequences of her  new lessoning began to occur to her.

Like having to pack up and return to Mississippi in mid-term.  Like  having to say goodbye to her new best friends and roommates.  Like having  to put up with the same rejection from her neighbors, classmates and  former friends that had driven her from home in the first place.

Like having to say goodbye to Logan.

Tangling her fingers anxiously in the phone cord, she asked, "Momma, did  you ever think — maybe I could — even if I learned to control my — my  mutation — " [Don't forget, ‘if' and not ‘when,' and don't call it a  ‘gift' or a ‘power'!]  "Maybe I should just — stay here until I graduate  high school?  I mean, it's with my friends, and I'd *still* be a mutant,  and — "

"Don't be ridiculous, honey!  You belong right here with your family!"

Marie swallowed nervously. [Easy does it — too much arguing and they may  want to know why I'm suddenly so interested in what happens if I learn to  control my power...] "Are you sure?  Everyone would remember what  happened — with David — and they might not care that I could keep from  doing it..."

"Baby, if we have to, we'll move.  To a new town, somewhere they won't  know you."  The declaration was flat, a statement of fact.

Marie blinked back tears.  Her parents meant every word — and they loved  her, they did, and they *meant* well, but...

Well, they were missing parts of the big picture.  Because they wanted  things to go back to the way they *should* have been, before her would-be  boyfriend wound up in a coma and she wound up climbing out her bedroom  window in the dead of night to run as far north as she could get before  her money ran out.  But that just couldn't happen — time wouldn't turn back for wishing.

She wasn't the same person she'd been before she kissed David — or even  before Magneto's machine, or meeting Logan — and trying to return to the  little girl she'd been before all the insanity was something akin to  trying to stuff a chick back into its broken eggshell.  It was time to be thinking about stretching wings, not returning to the egg — and she  sensed that she'd be able to fly a lot farther starting from Xavier's  than from her narrow-minded little Mississippi high school...

[They're gonna believe what they want to believe, because they don't want  to admit that their little girl isn't ever going to have the life they  planned for her,] Subliminal Logan whispered to her. [You can come close  — school, friends, love, even college and a career — but because you've  got that little something different, it's never gonna be quite the way  they'd expected it.  But that doesn't mean it can't be good — or that  they can't learn to accept it one day,] he added.  [Just not yet...]

She bowed her head in silent acceptance. [As long as they insist on  trying to make me pass for human, I can't risk telling them when that's  possible.] As she changed the subject, moved on to inanities, gossip, her  grades and her latest trip to the mall, Inner Logan noted something else. [I'm having a real hard time picturing Wheels deliberately lying to your  parents the next time they ask how you're doing with your gift — and I  *damned* sure can't see Cyke keeping this a secret from them with the way  they keep asking!]

Her eyes widened at the realization. [If I can't tell my parents — or  anyone who would tell my parents — or anyone who might tell someone who  *might* let it slip to the wrong people...] The corner of her mouth  settled into a wry quirk. [Unless something changes, looks like we're  gonna be sneaking around for a *long* time...]

"Magic from the hand
We're makin'

(Weird science)
Things I've never seen before
Behind bolted doors
Talent and imagination

(Weird science)
Not what teacher said to do
Makin' dreams come true
Living tissue, warm flesh"
  — "Weird Science," by Oingo Boingo
 

One night a month or two past their first kiss, Marie was leaning back  against his pillow with her copy of _Ethan Frome,_ when Logan settled himself next to her.  She gave him a sidelong glance from the corner of  her eye but pretended to remain absorbed in her book. (In reality, every nerve ending had quivered into alert as soon as he sat on the bed.) He  tucked a pair of fingers into the top of her left glove and slowly pulled  it down, letting the backs of his fingers caress her skin all the way.  At her wrist, he took the bunched-up fabric in his left hand and pulled it off completely, letting his right hand caress her wrist en route to  her now-naked hand.  Lacing his fingers through hers, he raised her hand  to his mouth and gave it a brief kiss on the back, before pressing it  against his cheek for a few breaths.

Taking her hand from his face, he disentangled his fingers from hers and  passed her hand to his left one, freeing his right arm to put around her  shoulders.  She contentedly leaned into him, laying her head on his  shoulder briefly before pretending to return her attention to her book. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, enjoying the scent and  feel of the girl in his arm while giving her a bit more time to stop  thinking about her control.

When she turned a page — presumably indicating that she was successfully  "tuning him out" enough to continue reading — he turned his head and  exhaled softly against her ear.  She froze at the unexpected  almost-caress, and he felt a brief tingle in the hand still holding hers.   After her initial startlement, she quickly regained control, and he  leaned his head closer and did it again.  She kept perfectly still, only  her eyes moving to glance at him without turning her head, and he caught  the interest that had entered her scent.

A moment later, and he moved in even closer, slowly running his tongue up  from her earlobe along the outer rim of her ear.  He felt her shudder  slightly, and tightened his arm around her shoulders.  Planting a soft  kiss in the hollow beneath her earlobe, he let go of her hand and reached for her face, stroking up along her cheek and turning her head to face  him.

She met his gaze wonderingly, eyes showing that endearingly paradoxical  mix of youthful innocence oddly coupled to world-weary experience.  He  stroked his thumb along her cheek, remaining lost in her regard for a  minute before bringing her mouth close to his.  She closed her eyes, dropping her now-forgotten book to the bed as she raised a hand to his  shoulder.  Logan ran his hand back into her hair, holding her close as he  sucked playfully at her lower lip.  She sighed and pressed herself closer  to him, parting her lips invitingly.  He took the hint and brushed his tonguetip along hers.

Sliding his hand down the back of her neck to her shoulder, her own arm  was nudged downward by his elbow and her hand trailed from his shoulder  down along his side.  Somehow he found himself pressing her back down  against the pillow, one knee between her thighs.  She moaned low in her  throat and gripped his thigh tightly between her own, pulling him closer  with both arms.  He took his lips from hers and began leaving a trail of  kisses down her throat — down, down, to the hollow at the base, and  further down, until he was nuzzling between her breasts.  She tangled her  hand in his hair, silently assuring him that she approved.

Retracing his path upward with his lips, he slid his hand down her side,  and then let it drift up to claim her right breast.  She made a little noise compounded of surprise and eagerness, pressing herself into his  palm.  He rubbed her nipple with his thumb, feeling it harden beneath her  shirt and underthings, and reached her lips again.  She ran her tongue enthusiastically along his lower lip, before nipping him lightly.  Nudging his knee upward between her legs, he felt her press against his upper thigh, before beginning to rub herself firmly against it.

Finding this to be a laudable impulse, he rolled to his back, then  grabbed her hips and pulled her over on top of him.  There was a moment  of startled adjustment on her part before she got herself settled with  her knees to either side of him, and then he shifted her so that she was  pressed suitably against his growing erection. "You just rub all you  want to right there, darlin'," he murmured in her ear, and after a pause  to get used to the idea she did.

Letting her settle into a comfortable back-and-forth rhythm and beginning  to move with her, he ran his hands from her hips up to her breasts.  "Mmmm," she breathed, pressing a bit more firmly against him.

He made a noise somewhere in the middle ground between a moan and a  growl, pulling her back down for another kiss.  When she lifted her lips  from his to catch her breath, he reached down to the hem of her shirt and  slid his hands up under it, working his way up to her breasts — when he felt an unpleasant tingle.  "Marie," he breathed softly, warningly.

"Mmm?" she moaned.

"You're startin' to lose it, baby."  She stopped moving and after a  moment the faint pull disappeared.  He began to move his hands over his  skin again, finding her satiny bra and beginning to stroke her through  it.  She sighed happily and began rocking again.  He was debating the  merits of removing her bra when the pull began again.  "Ma-*rie*..." he complained softly, pulling his hands and forearms away from her skin  while leaving them within her shirt.

She growled in frustration (which he *still* thought was absolutely  adorable) and after a second he cautiously pressed his hands to her skin  again.  The tingle was gone and they resumed where they had left off —  but as he reached behind her to undo the clasp of her bra, it returned.

He pulled his hands abruptly out of her shirt, and she moaned in protest.   "I did it *again*?"

"It's all right, Marie, you just keep getting distracted.  You're still  new at it — you'll get good at it soon enough."  He managed to keep his  voice soothing, though at the moment what he wanted most was to be able  to start clawing her clothes off and just *have* her, right then and there.

Sighing in frustration, she started to roll off of him, but he caught  her.  "Wait, wait a second.  Just because we need to stop touching right  now — doesn't mean we have to stop *touching*."  Making sure she was  following his meaning, he put his hands to her hips and began rocking her  pelvis against his again.

She got the idea quickly enough and he resumed running his hands over her  body, keeping them on the outside of her shirt this time.  Which was all  very well and good, especially when she began moaning and rubbing herself against him *hard* — but he was desperately wishing he could do something  to up the ante.  If they kept this up for too long, sooner or later  somebody might come looking for one of them, and he *really* didn't want  to stop this time without bringing matters to a satisfactory conclusion.

"Marie — mmm — :GrrroOOOHHrrr: — do you — trust me?"

"Mmm?"

"Here— roll over."  Tipping her off of him, he reached for the fly of her  jeans.  She stared up at him, nervousness and desire chasing themselves  across her face, as he unzipped them and slipped a pair of fingers inside.

The right spot was incredibly easy to find, even through her panties —  hot and swollen, and when he pressed his fingertips against it Marie gasped and arched herself against him, eyes rolling shut.  He started  rubbing firmly, feeling her opening her thighs as far as she could get them and clinging to his shoulders.  When she began to buck her hips convulsively, he pressed her face into his shoulder, muffling her cry  when she came.

Giving her a few more strokes, he withdrew his hand, carefully placing it  on her hip lest he do something excessively Wolverinish like start  sniffing or even licking his fingers. (In lieu of being able to actually put his face in her lap, of course.  He thought it was a bit early in the game to be trying something that unabashedly earthy with her yet.) While  she came back to herself, he concentrated on not panting too hard and  trying to ignore the painful tightness of his jeans.

"Oh, Logan.  That was..."  Words failing her, she pressed herself against  him contentedly, and then couldn't help but notice what he hadn't been  mentioning.  "And you didn't..."

"It's all right," he told her.  "You don't have to worry about it." [I'll  just take a nice cold shower after you leave — or better yet, an even nicer long hot soapy one...]

"Here, let me..."

"You don't have to...," he said while rolling to his back to allow her  better access. [You don't *have* to, I don't *expect* you to, but Lord  knows I'd love it if you would, darlin'!] "You've never done this  before," he felt compelled to add, while helping her undo his belt.  Truth was, knowing how inexperienced she was made *him* all kinds of  nervous — there were all sorts of games he was used to playing in bed, but he was terrified of taking her too far too fast and scaring her.

"I've got the memories of three different men inside my head.  I may not  have ever *done* this before, but I sure as hell remember how it's done,"  she noted acerbically while unzipping his fly.

"You're gonna have fun trying to explain the stains on your glove," he  warned.

She looked at the glove still on her right hand, and asked him dubiously,  "Would you trust me to do this with bare hands?"

He reached up, touching his hand to her cheek and pulling her down into a  kiss.  Back in control of herself now, there was no pull.  "Yes," he said  simply.

He lifted his hips to help her slide his jeans partway down his legs, and  his black briefs after them.  He was half-expecting her to pause and  inspect the territory thus revealed, but then again with so much of him  in her head she probably knew what he looked like naked as well as *he*  did.

Starting with her hands against his belly — one still nervously gloved,  despite his suggestion — she playfully teased her fingers through the  hair leading down to the Main Attraction.  He didn't try to halt the  small moan that escaped his lips when she wrapped both hands around his penis, lacing her fingers together around it and beginning to rub firmly.  Vaguely remembering that they didn't want to be heard, he flung one arm  across his face while wrapping the other around her waist.  When she  shifted techniques and began experimenting with a sort of alternating  hand-over-hand motion, he growled softly at the sensation of alternating  warm bare skin and cool polyester satin.  She sped up a bit, and he  couldn't stop himself from beginning to move his hips to the rhythm set  by her fingers.

Marie listened happily to the random series of growls and muffled  whimpers her lover was making.  A year ago she would have considered a  scene like this to be impossible fantasy — the only person willing to  touch her at all, even through the safe barriers of clothing, seemingly  considered her too young to be interesting.

It was impossible to mistake his interest now.

The fact that she was now touching him bare-skin-to-skin only added to  the surreality of the moment.

[Surreal can be a *good* thing,] she thought to herself as Logan tensed  beside her, a sound midway between cry and growl vibrating low in his  throat. [As long as this isn't a dream I have to wake up from one day...]

Stretching herself out alongside him, she thoughtfully dried her bare  fingers with the already-damp glove on her other hand.  Catching his  breath, Logan opened his eyes and caught her at it.  "Sorry about the  glove, baby."

"Nah, it's okay.  I'll let it dry and see if I can clean it then."

"If it doesn't come clean I'll buy you a new pair."  Logan pulled his  shorts and jeans back up, rezipping his fly but ignoring his belt for the  moment.

"Or I can just leave these here for *next* time...," she suggested  wickedly.

Logan flashed her a half-grin at the promise inherent in "next time."

"Remind me to borrow some Saran Wrap from the kitchen and I'll show you something even more fun  than *this* was..."

"From what I hear, [Logan] ain't playin' with a full team in the _cabeza,_ you catch my drift?"
  — Angelo Espinosa, WOLVERINE #94, by Larry Hama

[Okay, let's review.  How the hell did I wind up standing in an alleyway  in LA listening to the sound of my supposed pickup running like hell for  the next county?]

Logan considered the matter carefully as he tracked the Xavier Academy's  would-be newest student.  Angelo Espinosa had considerately run upwind of  the Wolverine, meaning that he didn't have to stay within sight to keep  from losing the kid.  Let him get out of sight and out of normal earshot, think he'd lost Logan, and relax a little...

He found the kid crouching beside a dumpster, keeping his head down and  trying to pass himself off as a generic vagrant.  Getting an accurate fix  on his position from the breath sounds around the corner, and a positive ID from the scent, he knew exactly where Angelo was before he came around  the side of the dumpster, abruptly positioning himself in the way of the  most direct escape route.  "There you are.  Finished running yet?"

Angelo jumped to his feet, but quickly realized that flight wasn't an  option unless he could get past Logan somehow.  "What the fuck do you  want with me, man?"

"I just want to talk to you for a minute."

An unfriendly stance, arms crossed.  "Talk."

Logan sighed.  "Look, have you really thought about what you're going to  do with yourself?  No home, no family you can call, no future — is this  what you *want*?"  Hearing himself giving this particular sales pitch  always amused Logan no end.

Angelo was blissfully unconscious of the irony inherent in the Wolverine  taking a stand for family values.  Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, he  demanded, "Who the hell are you?  A traveling guidance counselor?  Someone from one of those youth homes?"  With a derisive sniff, "You sure  as hell don't look like no social worker."

Logan half-smiled at the statement of the blatantly obvious.  "Something  like that," he agreed. [I go playing the mutant card now, I gotta show  him I'm one too — and he's scared enough already without me popping the  claws or showing off the healing factor.]

"*Sure* you are."  The kid had  I-don't-believe-a-fucking- word-you're-saying' written all over his face.   It was competing for room with exhaustion, savage cynicism, and — hidden  beneath the rest — bone-deep despair.

It was that last that Logan couldn't help responding to.  The kid was  making it damn hard to help him — but sometimes being a malignant little  shit was all you had left.

No one should bottom out that young.

Not that Angelo Espinosa looked young — far from it.  And the rapid  maturity forced by a life on the streets was only part of it.  The other  part was his own unique mutation.

Angelo had skin.  Too much of it.  Even now, with him exerting as much  untrained control as he could muster, his face was slack, gray and  wrinkled.  It wasn't a pretty effect — and it didn't make it at all easy  for him to pass himself off as human.

Which was why he needed to get out of LA and over to Xavier's. The fun  part would be convincing him of that.

"I work at a school.  It's for runaways.  There's a place for you there  if you want it." Not the most enticingly- phrased of proposals, but just  to see which way the kid jumped...

"Uh-*huh*.  Why me?  You go to all this effort chasing down any old kid  you run across?"

Logan shifted his weight, tried to appear a little less combat-ready.  "Most of them don't run that hard."

"Ohh-*kay.*  Some guy comes up asking kids to get into his car and let  him take them somewhere, and they just go right along.  No trouble.  No  one gets suspicious."

Logan shifted again, preparing to edge into dangerous territory.  "Most  of them seem to trust their own mutations to protect them." At Angelo's  wide-eyed look, he added, "It's a special school."

The kid was not reassured at all.  "A school for mutants?  And you're  trying to take me there?"  Warily trying to edge to one side without  being too overt about it.

"Are you trying to claim you're not a mutant?"

Which was of course when Angelo bolted.  Reflexes taking over, Logan  grabbed him and slammed him back into the wall.  A little too hard,  perhaps, as the back of his skull cracked against the brickwork behind  him.  When Logan released his grip, the kid slid down the wall and  collapsed in a heap on the concrete.

[Oops.]

Guilt fluttering unhappily in the pit of his stomach, Logan checked the  boy's pulse. Strong enough.  Pulling out his lighter, he pulled up first  one of Angelo's eyelids, then the other, to be sure they reacted to the  illumination cast by the flame.

Satisfied that he hadn't manhandled his newest charge *too* excessively,  he slung the kid over one shoulder and headed for the car.  The darkness  and the late hour worked in his favor, as he managed to keep from being  spotted on the way to the SUV — at least, by anyone who might have been willing to talk to the police.  Dumping Angelo into the front passenger's  seat, he buckled him in and then climbed in at the driver's side.  Good  thing he merely looked asleep — Logan didn't like the idea of getting  pulled over and trying to explain his unconscious traveling companion...

"stop the car!
I wanna get out
you're so pretty you're so pretty
I don't wanna go on this joyride Lorraine
stop the car!
just let me out at the next 7-11"
  — "Lorraine's Car," by Cake Like

Luck was with him — the kid didn't regain consciousness until they were  well on their way, and already exiting the city.  He heard Angelo's  breathing change, and realized the kid was awake well before he actually  opened his eyes and asked, "Where the fuck are you taking me?"

"I told you.  A school for mutants."

"Where the fuck is it — out in the middle of the fucking desert?"

"New York.  Westchester."

"YOU'RE DRIVING ME ACROSS THE FUCKING *COUNTRY* TO GET TO THIS LAMEASS  *SCHOOL*!?!"

"Not *that* lameass a school — but I can't make promises about some of  the teachers.  And we're driving because I hate flying."

"Why?"

"I've got a bitch of a time getting past the airport metal detectors."  Little joke there — but judging by the increase in the fear scent coming  from the other seat, Angelo didn't think it was that funny.  Logan  sighed. [Need to defuse this...] "Sorry about knocking you out back  there.  Didn't mean to slam you against the wall that hard."

He gave the kid a quick glance, but he didn't seem to be responding well  to the apology.  Logan sifted through the possibilities for a new topic  but drew a blank — small talk just wasn't one of his skills.  Might as  well keep quiet until something suggested itself.

Which was why Angelo was the one to break the silence.  "You say you work  for a school?"  The unspoken undertone being, ‘Like you think I'm  actually gonna believe *that*!'

Logan gave him another sidelong look.  "Yes."

"Some teacher."  Angelo felt the back of his head gingerly in silent  accusation.

"I didn't say I was a teacher.  I said I worked for a school."

A snort of disbelief.  "Doing what?"

A shrug.  "This and that."  A pause to think about what he *really* did,  and what he could actually safely say to this kid right here and now.  "Keeping kids in after curfew.  Picking people up sometimes," with a  glance over to the passenger's seat.  Reluctantly, "And they made me  start giving self-defense lessons."

Another snort.  "Thought you said you weren't a teacher."

"I'm not.  That's why they can do without me for a few days to go get  somebody."

"So you've got a lot of practice in doing this?"  Judging by the way  Angelo edged closer to the door, he didn't find the thought at all  reassuring.

"What, picking kids up off the street and bringing them to the school?  I've done it a *few* times, not *that* many."

"And the others all trusted you, came along when you said to?"

Logan frowned.  "Pretty much."  Now that the kid brought it up, he had to admit that it *was* a bit strange for traumatized runaways to willingly  get into a car with a strange and dangerous- looking man just because he  claimed to be taking them someplace good.  "Guess they either trusted  their mutations, or were really desperate...," he muttered thoughtfully.  He now realized that it was actually a matter deserving of more consideration than he'd given it in the past.

The conversation halted at that point for an indeterminate period  measured by the passing miles of the road, the night and desert  surrounding them with silence.

Noticing the way Logan seemed to be paying an unusual amount of attention  to the roadsides, Angelo asked, "What are you looking for, man?"

"Somewhere out of the way to stop for the night.

The kid undid his seatbelt and opened the door so fa