ArchivedLogs:Ronin and Rogue

Ronin and Rogue
Ronin and Rogue
Dramatis Personae Logan & Rogue
In Absentia	11th April, 2013 After an emotional end to a training sim in the Danger Room, plus some painful revelations for Rogue, she takes off into the night to escape, to think, to breathe. Logan, out for a nighttime run, goes looking for her and the two of them have a rare heart-to-heart.
Location <XS> Forest
Nighttime. And raining. The air is mildly humid, almost warm enough that one could forego the usual attire for keeping warm... if one didn't care about keeping dry. Thick clouds partly obscure the night sky, through which some stars can be seen twinkling up above the rain. Water drips from the leaves and branches of the trees in the forest near Xavier's School, and puddles form in the ground in between grassy patches. The nearby treehouse is similarly saturated - with water cascading off its roof like multiple waterfalls. It is after curfew; no one should be up - but Logan is. Drenched from head to toe and not giving a damn about it, he practically bounds through the forest with agility a gazelle would envy. He is only wearing a singlet and some slacks, water running down his face, dripping off his nose and getting in his eyes. None of it matters. Not to him. He's out for a run, and so he runs. Well, he's not alone in being up or outside. Rogue is out and about herself, hunched against the rain in her hoodie. Logan's senses may well tell him the belle has been by the treehouse if not up in it, but she's not there now. Hood pulled up, sodden and almost useless, auburn and white that peaks out along the edges also stringy and soaked. Her sneakers stomp through muddy ground, no longer white by any means. That familiar scent belonging to his friend has Logan skidding to a stop in the mud, his feet sliding on the ground a few feet before coming to a halt in front of a tree. He looks up, sniffs the air and turns about, causing droplets of water to go spraying around from his hair. "Rogue?" he asks in the night-air, regardless of whether or not she can hear him. Moving at a half-walk, half-jog, he heads back the way he had come, scouring the landscape for any sign of her. He lets out an explosive breath of air, upwards to scatter more rain droplets on his nose, and then inhales through his nostrils deeply. "Rogue?" he calls out for the second time, much louder now. "C'mon..." Rogue stiffens at the deep sound of Logan's voice. She momentarily considers ignoring him and marching on...in whatever direction she's going, but that seems silly. She's being silly, as it is. Moping about in the rain, when Logan had just been honest with her, Peter had just been responding like one should expect. It could be worse... "Yes, Logan?" There's a tired quality to her voice as she calls out, not quite a sigh. Logan draws up beside Rogue and then steps around just a fraction - enough that if she wants to keep walking on, she'll have to go around him. Heedless of the rain running off his face, soaking his clothes, he peers at his friend with a mixture of worry, reproach and confusion all rolled into one. "Don't try any o' that with me, kiddoh," he says in a tone that could be considered both warning and wry. "You've been moping since that last sim; and what is this?--" he motions abruptly to the woods, the rain - everything! - with a hand, and then puts the hand on his hip. "C'mon, talk ta me, kiddoh; this--" he motions to the environment again. "--isn't good for you, and you know it." There's the blur of a pale shape, a small hand that rips the hood back from her hair so she can look up at Logan properly. Auburn hair starts getting rained on, white strands turning almost translucent as she looks up at him, chin lifted almost defiantly. "Try any of what exactly, Logan?" Her still bare fingers rake through her hair to push it back from her face before it can fall into her eyes and soak down under the hoodie, for all the good it will do her. "Am Ah not allowed to mope, as ya put it? A black mood, a blue one? Ya flat out said it, Logan. Ah have the power to stop horrible situations...if Ah don't kill someone doin' it. Ah horrified that kid, Peter. And the dragon kid? He agrees, havin' a power that kills is a horrible thing. An' if Ah wanna wallow a little, Ah will. Even as Ah'm standin' here, thinkin' it could be worse. That kid, Kai? He doesn't ever remember being hugged. Ever. Ah at least have had that, before all this. But.. " Rogue runs out of steam, as she runs out of breath. Eyes drop from Logan's, shoulders lifting in a brief shrug. "Came out here to be alone, and think. You're the only one crazy enough to come lookin' for me, if Ah was needed." She peeks up at him again, her head tilting a bit. "Ah'm not even nineteen yet, Logan, and Ah'm just tired of this life. Tired of the suckiness of all of it. Ah know it's not all fuckin' lollipops and rainbow fartin' unicorns, but.. Ah miss it. Miss bein' normal. Miss bein' touched. Other girls my age.. they're worryin' about how to stop a boy from touchin' them. Me? Ah'm mournin' the loss of bein' able to have a kiss. A hug. A handshake." Logan... is quiet for a long while. He stands there, just in front and to the side of Rogue - watching, listening, breathing. A few times, his mouth starts to open - the beginnings of saying something - only to close again, followed by a sigh through his nostrils. Eventually, he puts - or rather, tries to put - a rueful smile on his face. "Fuckin' lollipops and rainbow fartin' unicorns?" He almost chuckles. "You gotta point..." One more moment and he mouth-shrugs, then steps in with a raised arm to put it around the girl's shoulders. "Choices kill, kid," he says softly. "Not powers. Doesn't help much, I know - but ya gotta hold onto to..." he pauses to shrug. "Whatever ya can. Take it from someone who knows..." He trails off, eyeing his knuckles and arms with a grim face. "Ah've always got a point, Logan, even if Ah have to borrow it from your hair." Rogue drawls with more than a hint of sarcasm, sighing as she looks off towards where she thinks the mansion lies. She stiffens slightly, tension coiling through her smaller frame before she wills herself to relax into his side. "But to have choices is better than to have none. Sign me up for team Free Will, please." She's quiet a moment. "Logan.. " But she shakes her head, falling silent again. The belle eyes his knuckles and forearms as he does, before she's tipping her head to look up at his face. "You can control it, though, Logan. An' you've helped people. Take that from someone who knows. Who you are... you've saved my life three times, ya know. For a kid that ..her own family didn't want anymore. That's a lot to hold onto. What have Ah done, other than hurt you? " Pain passes over Logan's face like a dark cloud, at that last question from Rogue. He goes stiff, quiet, for several long moments before answering. "I'm not as 'in control' as you might think, Rogue," he says at last - his lip curling faintly in self-contempt. "There's an... animal inside me, and I gotta fight it... every damn day. Havin'... friends makes it easier - an' I got you to thank for that." He gives her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "Don't you ever forget that - or think that you hurt me; I heal pretty quick, anyways..." He smirks, or attempts to at least. Then the smirk is gone. "I know what it's like to be afraid of your powers," he admits in a low, sincere voice. "An' it helps to know someone... who knows it too. I didn't just come back for my dog-tags, kiddoh. You're the only real friend I got - the only real friend I can remember ever having!" Rogue laughs, though there isn't a ton of humor in the sound. "Logan... did you forget who you're talking to? Ah know you fight to keep yourself in one piece. An' yeah, your animal is the instinct most people stopped listenin' to a long time ago. But you.. you're too hard on yourself." The belle states firmly, chin lifting. "Sometimes the mind forgets to help heal it, ya know. Like Ah don't think Ah remember everything on the torch." She pulls away, just a touch. "Logan, Ah know Ah hurt you. Ah can feel you, inside my head. Ah've had some of your powers, sugar. Ah... Ah know the Professor told you Ah could maybe kill you. An' Ah was so scared Ah did, up on the torch. Ah... Ah couldn't even move to pick you up, Ah was helpless to save the person who had just risked his own life to save mine. An' ya /knew/ that time. Ya knew it would hurt." Rogue ducks her head a little, leaning it against his chest. "Ah know. Ah know it wasn't just for the tags. But ya have a place here too, Logan. You can have more than jus' me for a friend, now. You saved me, but all these kids... they might not need literal saving, but none the less." There's a quiet pause. "You're my only real friend, too. The only person Ah feel really safe with." "It was my choice," the man says - referring to the events on Liberty Island. "The only way to save you, for one. And two... dyin' for a friend... well, it's not so bad. Not from my end, at least. But hey - there's no point dwellin' on all o' that. You're alive; I'm alive. We're... both standing out in the rain, soaking wet. Life is...fucked up, but still good!" He gives Rogue another squeeze of her shoulders and chuckles a little. "The truth is, you scared me when you ran into that crowd in the training sim. I just saw... I didn't want you to get hurt, that's all. Kinda defeats the purpose of the sims, yeah... I know. You might have me in your head, but it's not like I've got you in mine. Bear with me on that, alright? I want you as well-trained for combat as the rest of them - better, in fact. Somethin's comin'... I can feel it." He pauses to shake his head. Then he plants a kiss, fondly, on top of Rogue's drenched hair. "I always be here. That's a promise." Rogue chuckles, it's warmer this time. "You're the moron who came huntin' me up in the rain." She teases him. "We could go inside, get somethin' hot to drink. " She suggests, with only the faintest hesitation. "It seemed the simplest way to go. Try to get to the problem, and if the cause wouldn't see reason, take him down." She shrugs, just a touch, almost carelessly. "Sometimes Ah wonder how much of my impulses in the sims are from havin' you in my head." She powers aloud, before she nods. "So we need the hand to hand lessons. Got it." She stills with that kiss to her hair, before her arm goes around Logan's lowered back, hugging the much more muscular mutant. Logan turns, drawing Rogue in closer, and begins walking slowly back toward the mansion. He lets out an involuntary sigh; in spite of everything - the rain, the drenched clothes, the baggage (both his and hers), the rain again... he is actually content. "Well, I gotta sim in mind," he declares in a mild tone a few moments later. "It starts with hot coffee, a hot shower, a change o' clothes - 'n ends with a decent sleep (yeah, there's a pipe-dream), after a beer and a cigar. Whaddya think?" He grins. The belle falls into step with him, not seeming bothered by the rain, or that she's gained a good ten pounds just in water logging her clothes. "Now that sounds like a sim Ah could get into an' enjoy. So long as Ah got to have some of the beer. But you can have the cigar all to yourself." Rogue smirks, letting her wet hair and hood protect Logan's shoulder as her head rests against it as they walk. Logan grins down at the girl, Rogue - his best, and realistically his only friend - and chuckles just as they leave the woods and come into range of some of the mansion's external sensor lights. The lights brighten up the rest of the walk back, as much as Logan's grin does. "Deal," he says. END TRANSMISSION