Demon In My View
Chapter Seven: Whispers in the Dark
by
Libby Edwards
Disclaimer: Property of Marvel Comics. I do not own them. I sure-as-hell wish I did.
Author's note: I originally posted the first two chapters of another X-Men story of the same name on ff.net, as well as on a personal page I had created. After the second chapter, and despite some very nice reviews (thank you, those that gave me feedback!), I decided that I really wasn't happy with where the original story was going, although I was excited about the basic premise (which unfortunately was not made very clear in the initial posting). I took some time off, rethought my idea, and this story you are now reading is the result of that retooling process.
While I have tried to stick as close to canon as possible, I am a firm believer that canon is there to be a support, and not a stranglehold, so if there are a few departures from canon here and there it is because I truly did not feel that those elements were necessary. Also, as in all my Logan-centric stories, Wolverine is tall, because I don't like a short Wolverine. Call it artistic license, if you like. :)
Enjoy!
"Logan..."
He opened his eyes, staring blindly into the night-darkened room and listening intently. Someone had called his name...it didn't seem like he had even been asleep (or at least not for very long) when the voice had called him back from the edge of dreaming. A woman's voice, hauntingly familiar and so soft it faded into his consciousness like a sigh.
So familiar...
"Logan..." she called again, and this time he sat up in the bed, his eyes adjusting to the darkness and making out the dim silhouettes of the room's furnishings. There was the dresser, and the chair he had thrown his tuxedo jacket over. The door that led into the bathroom and Ororo's room just beyond. He was on the top floor of the Imperial hotel, listening to the distant sounds of New York on the street far below...feeling cool air on his chest as he sat up in bed, his sheets pooled about his waist, searching the room for the owner of the soft voice from the shadows.
The sheer curtains that covered the room's solitary window shifted suddenly, rippling as if a breeze had touched them. The window had been closed when he went to bed, though...he stiffened slightly, the hairs on the back of his neck stirring as he watched a small, dark figure detach itself from the rest of the room's shadows, standing in front of the window with the lights of the nighttime sky outlining it in shivery midnight blue. The wind sighed again, ruffling the drapes, causing them to undulate before the silently standing figure, and he felt a rock of dread settle itself in his stomach.
"Who are you?" he asked hoarsely.
"Logan..." the figure whispered, breathing the words with hideous beauty as one hand lifted and pushed aside the drapes, slipping into the room itself with a sound like silk. He thought of Ororo's dress...but this wasn't Ororo. The shape was too small...tiny, girlishly petite, and the scent was not of sand and spice but plum trees, blooming in a long-vanished spring.
"Mariko?" He remained frozen in the bed, watching with a fear he hadn't felt in a long time as the shadow glided closer to him. Another scent reached him now...plum blossoms still, mixed with the smell of blood, and ashes, and rain-dampened earth. And decay...
"Why, Logan?" she whispered again. "Why did you kill me?"
"Oh God." He grabbed the sheets in his hands, twisting them, clinging to them. Not this dream...this nightmare. Not again. "You asked me to, darlin'," he whispered brokenly, knowing she was only a murmur from his imagination, but powerless to remain silent before her implacable question. "You asked me to end it. The poison..."
"You could have saved me, Logan!" she cried.
"No."
"Hai, Logan-san," she hissed, flinging the endearment at him like an accusation.
"Don't do this," he whispered.
"You killed me..."
"You're dead..."
"...killed me..."
Logan reached for the light, snapping it on with trembling fingers...and moaned. Mariko was there, all right...Mariko, with empty weeping sockets where her eyes should have been and her hands clenched to her waist, hands that could not keep the blood from pouring out of her, down the front of her kimono, onto the rug, pooling and spreading and running from her mouth and down her chin, a terrible crimson against the rotting porcelain of her face...
"Killed me...."
* * * * *
Ororo awakened suddenly, unsure for the moment where she was. Then she rolled over on her back, feeling the difference in the sheets as she stirred against them, and she remembered...the Imperial Hotel.
She lay quietly for a moment, feeling herself drifting again, sweetly and easily back into slumber. She normally did not wake in the middle of the night, and when she did, it was usually very difficult for her to get back to sleep...but the effects of the whiskey she had consumed earlier in the evening were still very much with her, and it gave her a pleasant, heavy sensation that made slipping back into sleep a simple thing. And that is exactly what she intended on doing...lying still, listening to the sounds of the hotel's air conditioning, its subtle sighs and groans...
Something clicked distinctly from the direction of Logan's room.
Ororo opened her eyes again abruptly, turning her head slightly on her pillow as she looked toward the open bathroom door. The door to Logan's room was still closed, just as he had left it when he went to bed earlier...but now the light was on, if the yellow line of illumination under the door was any indication.
What in the world was he still doing up? Especially after he had mentioned wanting to go to bed early so they could fly home in the morning. She leaned up on her elbows, watching that slit of light curiously. Maybe she should check on him...
Ororo hesitated a moment longer, glancing at the glowing dial of the clock on the table beside her bed. The hands indicated that it was only a few minutes past midnight. She stared at the clock, biting her bottom lip in nervous indecision, then she turned the sheets back from her body and swung her feet to the floor, standing up and crossing the room to the bathroom door.
The tiles of the bathroom floor were cold under her feet. Ororo paused in front of the door to Logan's room, carefully removing a linen sleepshirt from the back of the door where she had hung it earlier. She slipped her arms into it and pulled it loosely over her head, then opened the door and stepped quietly into Logan's room.
"Logan?' she said softly, shutting the door behind her.
He was sitting on the bed, his back to her...but he turned his head slightly as soon as she slipped inside the room. "Hey, 'Ro," he said. "Did I wake you?"
"No. I was awake already." She stopped just inside the room, hugging her arms about herself as she regarded him with concern. "I saw the light was on, and I just wondered why you were still awake."
"I slept for a little bit," he said. "Woke up again."
"Can you not go back to sleep?" she asked.
He laughed briefly. "No, guess not."
Ororo watched his back uncertainly. His shoulders were slumped, uncharacteristically so, and he leaned forward, his hands dangling between his knees as he continued to stare almost blankly at the room's single window. The silence of seconds seemed to stretch between them, filling her ears only with the sound of her own breathing.
"Are you...?" She took a step closer to him, her brow furrowed slightly. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. His head turned toward her once more, but he kept his eyes down rather than look at her. "Fine as paint, darlin'."
Ororo hugged herself tighter, regarding him with a frown, then she suddenly broke her frozen stance and crossed the room slowly, her shirt whispering against her hips as she moved to his side. He looked up at her in mild surprise as she sat down beside him, crossing her legs and arranging the shirttails over her thighs absently.
"You never were very good at lying to me, Logan," she said.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah." She smiled and lifted her hand to his face, brushing a stray wisp of hair away from his forehead with gentle fingers. "Was it another nightmare?"
He looked at her, his dark eyes studying hers in brooding silence for what seemed a long while. Ororo looked back steadily, her face calm, and at last Logan shrugged.
"Yeah...another nightmare," he muttered.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He laughed shortly. "Yeah, right..."
Ororo smiled, bringing her hand to rest on his arm. "I did not think so." She patted his arm lightly, then stood up, hugging her shirt more closely about her as she looked down at his bent head. "I'll let you go back to sleep now, Logan. You should try."
He said nothing, and she watched him for a moment longer, feeling something hurt inside her heart as she watched the weary slump of his shoulders. She wished he would talk to her...if not to her, then to somebody. Kurt, maybe. But Logan never would, and she had too much love and respect for him to force him to open up, to her or anybody.
"Good night, Logan," she said softly, and she turned to leave.
"Wait."
He surprised her by reaching out and catching her hand in his, and when she looked back he was looking up at her, his eyes dark and fathomless.
"What is it, Logan?" she asked softly.
He mumbled something, his voice low and almost inaudible.
"What did you say?"
"Don't go," he said gruffly.
She paused. "You...you want me to stay?"
"Yeah." He held her eyes a moment longer, then dropped his gaze. "Please."
Ororo watched him for a long while in perfect silence, her hand still in his as he sat quietly on the edge of the bed. It was like seeing him in a different light altogether, one that it took Ororo a few seconds to figure out, but then it came to her.
He looked like a frightened child...albeit one trying desperately not to let on to anyone just how frightened he really was. Slumped on the bed, clinging to her hand without even seeming to realize it, asking her to stay so the nightmares wouldn't return...that was what both touched and unsettled her about seeing Logan like this, both tonight and that morning just a few days ago. She had been unable to name it before now, but there it was...he looked like a lost child. It was so unlike him it bordered on impossible.
She regarded him thoughtfully, then her face smoothed as she seemed to come to some sort of decision. Ororo pulled free of his hand, but only to climb onto the bed, the mattress shifting under her movements as she crawled behind Logan and sat down.
He followed her curiously with his eyes. "What are you doing?" he asked.
She slipped her arms gently about his shoulders in lieu of an answer, tugging him toward her gently. "Lie back against me," she instructed. "Put your head against my chest."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Why?"
"Because I said so."
"I'm too heavy."
"No, you're not," she scolded gently. "Now lean back."
Logan still looked reluctant at first, perhaps fearing that the heaviness of his head against her breasts might hurt her...but when Ororo gave him her familiar, imperious stare, he finally relented, chuckling a little under his breath as he scooted back on the bed. Ororo spread her legs apart without so much as a blink, allowing Logan to lie back, his back between her thighs as he gingerly rested his head against the soft, full swell of her breasts.
Ororo reached over and turned out the bedside light, then slipped cool fingers over Logan's bare shoulders, gently testing and kneading the muscles there. Logan jumped at her touch, prompting an exasperated sigh from Ororo.
"Will you relax?" she asked. "I am not going to hurt you."
"I'm more worried about hurting you, darlin'," he protested.
"Well, stop it," she said, the sweet huskiness of her voice somehow calming, even as she berated him from the darkness over his head.
He forced himself to relax, his body seeming to mold itself to her softness as her fingers continued to move over his shoulders. Logan closed his eyes to the darkness, blocking out even the faint, silvery combinations of light that bled through the cracks around the curtains at the room's solitary window. He moved his arms, intending to relax them at his sides...but his hands brushed against the smooth flesh of Ororo's legs on either side of him, and he recoiled hastily, not even sure why he had done so.
"Relax," Ororo whispered soothingly.
He settled for folding his hands together over his stomach, a soft growl of contented pleasure rumbling up from his chest as Ororo withdrew her hands from his shoulders and moved them to his head, her long fingers sinking into the thickness of his hair and beginning to stroke his scalp gently.
"That feels great, 'Ro," he murmured.
She hushed him with a wordless sound. "Do not speak yet," she said...and her fingers changed their movements, the gentle massage changing in purpose. Her fingers made intricate patterns on his scalp, patterns that sent a creeping, nameless pleasure flowing through the tightly-wound cords of his muscles. He grunted faintly, as if in surprise...and Ororo smiled into the darkness as his hands relaxed again and slipped free of each other, coming to rest naturally on her legs stretched out on either side of him. Whether he noticed or not, she did not know. And it did not matter.
"Better?" she whispered...and she felt him nod his head. "Good. Now clear your mind, if you can."
"'Kay."
He felt so strange in her arms...like a little boy in the body of a man. Ororo's fingers continued their gentle dance, stroking his hair gently using the healing movements her mother had worked on her when she was very small, and her mother before her, and her mother before her...and on and on through the uncountable ages of her ancestors. Ng'ahimba, the mothers called this touch...the-man-that-becomes-a-child. Which was exactly its power...Ororo could remember mighty warriors of the tribe she had lived among, writhing in pain, awaking in the night covered in sweat from fear and fever...but the ng'ahimba had the power to make them children again, and calm them as if in the arms of their mothers. The maternal nature of the gesture was as tender and as old as time itself...but as Logan shifted slightly under her hands, she abruptly found herself wondering briefly about his mother.
Poor Logan. Ororo's mother might be dead, but at least she knew her mother's name and could still conjure the memory of her face, her laugh. Logan's mother was lost to him, though, and suddenly Ororo couldn't think of anything more sad. Who had she been? Had she held him once, just like this, when he had been small and afraid of the dark?
She felt one of his hands stir lightly against her ankle, his thumb unconsciously tracing the delicate contour there as he settled deeper into her calming touch. He is ready now, she thought.
"Logan?"
"Yeah," he murmured, his voice softer now, almost sleepy.
"Tell me about your dream." She instantly felt his body tense again, as if readying for a fight, but her fingers did not cease in their lulling movements.
"Why?" he asked.
"So I can interpret it."
He startled her with a low laugh, although not an unkind one. "What, you're an oracle now?"
"No, but it is the custom among my mother's people to bring bad dreams out in the open, so the elders can pick them apart and interpret what is important." She smiled down at him, her eyes beginning to adjust to the tiny peeks of light from behind the drapes, allowing her to just see the tousled darkness of his hair beneath her hands. "Most bad dreams are trifles, after you look at them closely. And then the rest of the dream is left to the wind...to be blown away."
"I don't want to, 'Ro."
Her hands slipped seamlessly from his hair and back to his shoulders, where they began to work their magic once more. "You must, Logan. The dreams are getting worse, are they not?"
He didn't answer for what seemed like an eternity.
"Logan?"
"Yeah, they are," he said finally, and she felt his hand on her ankle tighten just a bit.
"It is because you keep them locked close inside you," she said softly. "Bad dreams are like a wound in your spirit...they need to be looked after, tended to. Healed. If you do not, they will fester...and they will poison you."
A close, breathing silence stretched out between them. Ororo began to believe that he would refuse yet again...but instead she felt Logan's other hand come to rest against her leg as well, and he absently began to caress her calves, teasing a faint whisper of pleasure from her skin, even as she waited patiently in her concern. Ororo ignored the waking of her body to his touch, though...now was not the time, if ever.
"I dreamt she was here," he said quietly. "In the room with me."
"Mariko?"
"Yeah."
"Did she speak to you?" she asked.
He took a deep breath. "She accused me of killing her."
"But you did kill her, Logan," Ororo said. She felt the instantaneous recoil of his muscles beneath her fingers, but she did not allow that to change the rhythm of her caress. "Do not be angry with me when I speak the truth," she whispered softly. "It is not the taking of her life that visits nightmares on you, Logan. You did as she asked of you."
"For God's sake, 'Ro," Logan replied, his voice suddenly sounding harsh and ragged. "She asked me to kill her."
"No, Logan. She asked you to act as a true husband, and allow her to die with honor, spared the indignities of a poisoned death."
She felt Logan shake his head almost angrily. "Then why do I still dream of her, accusing me? Why, 'Ro?" A shudder ran through his body, and he seemed to suddenly curl in on himself, tucking his legs against his chest and wrapping his arms about them as his body hardened beneath her hands. "Why?"
"She does not accuse you, Logan," Ororo said gently. "It is your own guilt that accuses you."
Silence drew out once more. He mused over her words as her hands continued to massage his shoulders...my guilt, he thought, feeling his anger draining away under Ororo's expert touch. God, she got that right.
"Do you know what the worst part is?" he said quietly, making himself relax against Ororo once more.
"What is that?" she murmured softly.
"In my dreams, she..." He swallowed hard. "She has no eyes."
"That is not surprising."
Logan pulled free of her hands, jerking to the side and looking up at her in the shadows with a scowl, but Ororo's voice remained as calm as ever. "Eyes are the window to the soul, Logan," she said gently.
"Yeah, so?"
"Your dream Mariko has no eyes because it is not her," she said patiently. "It is your guilt that haunts you...not Mariko."
Logan continued to search her face in the darkness, silent except for the sound of his breathing...and then Ororo did something that surprised him completely. She took his face in her hands, her palms cool against the stubble on his cheeks...and then she lowered her face to his and pressed a sweet, tender kiss against his lips.
The unexpected pleasure of her lips against his caught him by surprise. Logan didn't move a muscle, feeling like a hunter that is allowed the rare gift of its prey coming close enough to touch instead of kill. It was if she would vanish if he even stirred or took a deep breath...but then all too soon the gentle kiss was over, and Ororo withdrew from him...a faceless shadow among the deeper shadows of the night.
"What was that for?' he asked huskily.
"To return you to the world of the living," she replied...and Logan could hear the smile in her voice. "We have spoken of death enough for one night."
"Well, hell," he said. "Couldn't you have just changed the subject?"
He regretted the words the second after he said them...but Ororo only laughed. "You did not like my kiss, then?" she teased.
"Of course I liked it...it's just..." He shrugged, suddenly feeling inexplicably awkward. "Well, you've never kissed me before, 'Ro."
"Yes, I have. Many times."
"If I remember correctly, darlin', I was the one doing most of the kissing," Logan replied, surprising himself with the grin he felt tugging his lips.
"Only because you delight in getting a rise out of me," she said. "I do not think you have ever kissed me without an audience egging you on," she added with a light laugh.
"Is that what you think?" Logan chuckled a little, then...surprising even himself...he sat up suddenly and leaned towards her, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her close against his chest. She didn't resist, her body molding to his willingly but not moving to embrace him in return, her eyes darkened to black pools as she looked up into his face through the shadows...and then Logan kissed her chastely, testing the fullness of her lips briefly with his own before releasing her a second later.
"There," he said. "Now I've kissed you without an audience. How was that?"
"Like kissing my brother," she said smartly, a deliciously husky, teasing laugh lacing her words as she spoke.
"Oh yeah?" The seriousness of moments before was abruptly forgotten as he grinned at her, rising to her unspoken challenge. Logan's eyes roved over her face briefly...then he pulled her tightly against him and covered her lips once more...but this time he kissed her hard. He turned his head slightly to the side, almost bruising her mouth as he opened his against hers and slipped the tip of his tongue over the swell of her bottom lip teasingly...only to pause in surprise when he felt Ororo open her lips and meet his tongue with her own.
She had never returned his kiss before...all those stolen pecks over the years, which she had resisted by pushing him away and laughing with the rest while a rosy blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks...never once had she played the game with him and met his embrace with one of her own. But now...
Ororo's arms slipped around his neck, and Logan shifted, sitting back on his heels as he pulled Ororo with him and crushed her against his chest, his mouth never leaving hers as she returned his kiss almost fiercely. God, she tasted wonderful...he could feel her hands sinking into his hair, her own white tresses gleaming like smoke in the faint light from the window as it spilled across her shoulders and tickled his chest with its heavy length. Her lips were soft and honey-sweet, the scent of her perfume filling his senses...Logan slipped his hands over the soft linen of her nightshirt, sliding down the perfect line of her back until he could lift the shirt free of her and actually touch the silken softness of her hips...
...what in the hell are you doing?! he thought suddenly.
Logan snatched his hands away from her with a murmured curse, suddenly painfully aware that she was straddling his lap. "Shit, 'Ro...I'm sorry." He looked at her nervously, unable to read her expression in the darkness...then he laughed sheepishly. "Guess I got carried away."
Ororo slipped away silently, sitting back on her heels with her fingers on her lips.
"Are you okay?" he asked, suddenly feeling very stupid. "I'm sorry, 'Ro."
"I did not stop you," she said faintly.
"No," Logan replied. "No, you didn't."
They sat quietly, each lost in their own thoughts as they tried to see each other's expressions in the shadows. Then Ororo cleared her throat and moved to get off the bed. "I...I should let you get some sleep now," she said.
Logan said nothing, listening as the sheets rustled with her movements...then the bed shifted slightly as she stood up and moved away into the darkness.
"Are you goin' to bed?" he asked, more gruffly than he intended.
"Yes. And so should you." There was another soft rustle of fabric as she moved...then her hand was on his shoulder with the softest of touches as she leaned close and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. "Good night, Logan," she whispered in his ear, her breath sweet against his skin...then she moved away again, and moments later he heard the bathroom door shut quietly behind her as she left the room.
Logan turned his head and looked at the closed door thoughtfully...then he snorted and shook his head before laying back down on the bed. "What in the hell's gotten into you, bub?" he muttered to himself, flinging an arm over his eyes...and forgetting to be surprised when a few minutes later he was asleep.
* * * * *
Rogue sat on the couch in the sitting room, her legs curled under her as she lounged in a pair of knit leggings and a t-shirt. She held the remote in one ungloved hand, idly flipping through the channels while she sucked on her bottom lips distractedly.
She and Remy had returned to the hotel room a few hours before, but now Remy was asleep in his room, and Rogue was awake, unable to sleep, almost angrily searching for something to watch on the television. The sound was muted...she didn't want to risk waking Logan, who could be a bear if he was startled from sleep...and since she hadn't found anything that interested her anyway, it didn't much seem to matter.
It was all Remy's fault, of course. It was always his fault when they argued...he always had to have the last word, always had to get just one more barb or tease in before he would leave her alone. Rogue frowned, her eyes darting momentarily to the darkened door of Remy's room...she knew he meant his teasing to be playful...after all, he had always been a terrible joker and prankster, even when they were dating each other. That had been then, though, and this was now...and every time he would tease her now, it took the knife he had stabbed into her heart at their break-up and twisted it as he smiled in her face.
And the worst part was, he didn't seem to know he was doing it.
Rogue finally tired of pressing buttons, and instead she flung the remote almost disgustedly onto the couch cushion beside her, propping her chin on her hand as she stared at the channel she had stopped on...some kind of home shopping channel. A slickly grinning young man with a side-part was excitedly extolling the virtues of some collector Star Trek coins (Limited Offer! $19.95 if you call now!)...Rogue rubbed her thumb against her cheek, reveling a little in the touch of her own skin as her mind wandered. She didn't often feel comfortable enough to take her gloves off during the day, but now, with everyone asleep, she couldn't see any reason not to. She was alone, in every sense of the word...feeling as cut off from the world as only one can feel in the middle of Manhattan at night.
Stupid Cajun, she thought angrily, her pretty lips twisting a little. It was hard to define exactly what she missed about him...it certainly wasn't the lack of intimacy, since there hadn't been any of that to begin with. And Remy hadn't really changed toward her since they had decided to be "just friends"...he still accompanied her to their favorite places, and he still listened to her and laughed with her and touched her arm through the safety of her blouses, just as he always had. But she was no longer his "girl," and everyone knew it.
And that was what troubled her most of all.
Rogue withdrew her hand from beneath her chin and looked at it quietly, opening her palm and studying the lines and smooth contours of her bare fingers in musing silence. She would never be like other women...she knew this without any real bitterness, simply having accepted its fact a long, long time ago. But when she had been Remy's girl, none of that had seemed to matter. It didn't matter that they couldn't truly touch, or kiss, or any of the millions of little intimate gestures that they could never share, because she had been his girl. She belonged to somebody. There was a man who wanted her. And that made everything else okay. It made her something like normal...like Jean, and Kitty, and the others.
But now she was just poor, untouchable Rogue again...and she hated it. She despised the pitying looks, the sympathetic stares. And nothing she did seemed to lead Remy into changing his mind about their relationship, such as it was...even though Rogue was beginning to realize that, deep down inside, she wanted him back more for their status together than because she still loved him. And that made her despise herself most of all.
Rogue turned her hand over and inspected her nails casually. They were painted a brilliant coral pink, as shiny as ever since they stayed so well-protected by her gloves. Too bad hardly anyone got to see them. Rogue was nearly fanatical about her manicure. She liked this color particularly...it was a shade of Ororo's, which Rogue had borrowed one evening a few days prior.
Hmph. Ororo. "At least Ah'm not the only one without a fella," Rogue murmured aloud, secretly glad that Ororo had never had a single gentleman friend in all the years Rogue had known her...unless you counted Forge, of course, and that had to be the shortest fling ever known. Maybe she's a lesbian, Rogue thought, stifling a giggle against her hand. She truly liked Ororo...she really did...but she couldn't help the almost shameful relief she felt, knowing that Ororo, for all her rare beauty, was obviously as unlucky in the dating game as herself.
"Aw, damn." One of her nails had chipped. She curled her finger and studied the tip of her nail in disgust, then lifted her eyes curiously to Ororo's closed bedroom door. Ororo would have her makeup bag with her, of course...and she usually carried a few bottles of polish with her when she traveled. Maybe she brought the coral polish too?
Only one way to find out...Rogue hopped up from the couch without another thought and crossed the sitting room to Ororo's door, placing her hand on the knob's cool surface and turning to as quietly as she could. Her first peek into the room made her brows come together in a slight frown, though, for the light beside Ororo's bed was on...and as Rogue pushed the door wider, peering inside curiously, she saw that the bed was rumpled and empty. Ororo was nowhere to be seen.
"Well, where in the hell is she?" Rogue murmured under her breath, taking a step into the room quietly...but her question was suddenly answered for her as the door connecting the bathroom to Logan's room on the other side suddenly opened and Ororo slipped inside, closing the door on the darkened room behind her with a quiet click.
"Uh...hello," Rogue said quietly.
Ororo turned and stared at Rogue with wide, startled eyes, then she moved from the close shadows of the bathroom and into the muted light of the bedside lamp. Rogue raked her eyes with undisguised curiosity over Ororo as she paused, hugging her arms across her chest as the darker woman met the challenge in Rogue's eyes without flinching.
Rogue also noted the simple chemise-like nightshirt Ororo was wearing, and the excited flush in her cheeks. Interesting...
"What are you doing in here?" Ororo asked...then she winced inwardly, knowing how guilty her words sounded.
Rogue shrugged. "Ah wanted to borrow your nail polish for a touch-up," she said. "Ah naturally assumed that you were asleep, an' Ah didn't think you'd mind if I just let mahself in." She grinned slyly at Ororo. "You don't mind, do you?"
"No."
"What were you doin' in Logan's room?" Rogue asked casually. "He's asleep, ain't he?"
"We were just talking." Ororo took a deep breath. "Which nail polish were you looking for?"
Rogue held up her hand, her palm turned towards herself as she fanned her nails in Ororo's direction. "This color."
"I am afraid I left that one at home."
"Oh, well...it doesn't matter. Ah'll just borrow it when we get back tomorrow." The two women watched each other for the space of a moment, then Rogue shrugged again. "Good night, Ororo."
"Good night, Rogue."
Rogue turned and left the room, closing the door behind her once more without so much as a backward peek at Ororo...but as soon she reached the relative privacy of the sitting room her face crinkled in a bitter smile. Apparently Ororo wasn't quite as unlucky with men as Rogue had previously thought.
Old anger stirred in Rogue's heart as she sat back down on the sofa and stared at Ororo's door in silence. God, didn't it just figure? It wasn't fair. Interesting, though, that Ororo seemed at such pains to hide whatever had happened between her and Logan in his room. Jesus...it was obvious, wasn't it? Who did Ororo think she was kidding? Still...
Rogue curled up on the sofa once more and ran her tongue over her teeth idly, occasionally glancing at Ororo's door...a sweetly malicious smile curving her mouth as she savored this newest, juiciest piece of gossip.
Wait until Remy heard about this.
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