He was the only person in the whole wide world who had ever been decent to her.

Well, that was kind of an exaggeration. A lot of people had been nice to her, really – and she did appreciate their efforts, but he was the only one who she had ever connected to and she wasn't sure whether she could title him as her friend, her brother, her father, or her lover. The relationship between them ensured trust, but it was beyond that; there was a mutual playfulness, a disregarded sexual attraction that she knew he knew of but would not acknowledge because, well, maybe he, too, was unsure if he was her father or her brother. If he was one of these things, wouldn't acting upon the sexual attraction be wrong?

Well, then again, you are from the South, sugah…

Rogue snorted and resumed to nurse pink lemonade to her lips. It was so sour and so sweet that her mouth watered even as the liquid was tipped; she couldn't decide if she wanted to ask Jean for more, or if she wanted to chuck it at her stupid red hair. Prolonging the decision was probably best, she decided after swirling the last droplets, and hummed with seeming contentment.

"So, like, I've never had a guy pick me up while we're, you know, doing it!" Kitty's eager voice fell to a whisper so loud that Rogue would've bet her mama's soul that everyone in New York was listening to her gossip about her recent sex life with her boyfriend, Piotr. Mostly disinterested but probably more subconsciously turned on, Rogue's emerald hues casted upon Kitty's long, bare legs as they swung from side to side at the edge of her plastic bathing chair. They were really long. Like, really long – maybe they were twice as long as the rest of her body. But you couldn't really tell unless you looked hard enough, and even then, well, it wasn't bothersome. They were slender, too, and it was hard to tell that Kitty could easily squat more weight than Rogue could, because they looked so useless. She mentally projected the Russian's visage as the teenaged girl clenched those long thighs around his waist. Would he be taken aback, too? "Ooooh, it felt so good! I've never known what an orgasm was, and then THAT happened. OOOOOOOH!"

Jean cut into Kitty's squealing. She had carefully taken Rogue's cup from her cloaked hands and seemed to hold the pitcher of pink lemonade high enough to hide her cocked brow and darkening cheeks. "Scott held me against a wall once – you know, the one on the south side of the entertainment room?"

"Yeaaa—OH, YEAH. Was that why the movies were knocked over? Logan blamed that on ME, you know!" Kitty pouted her lips and dramatically folded her arms over her bikini top. "I really wasn't lying when I said I didn't do it!"

Jean was still tipping the pitcher into Rogue's glass and through the rational liquid she could spot a look of concentration of the girl's face. It was almost as though she was trying to conjure a method which would allow her to pour the pitcher forever, because discussing the sex life she had with Scott Summers was less comfortable for her than falling from a cliff onto a bed of jagged rocks. "Can Ah PUH-LEASE have mah glass back?"

"U-uh, yeah, I was… just…"

"Yeah, whatever."

"You know he knew you were telling the truth, Kit. There's no way he would've let you off with just wiping all the windows of the Institute," Jubilee chimed, swaying her hips as she walked closer to the three girls. "He totally has the hots for Jean, and he didn't want to say anything about her banging Sco-"

"WHAT? NO!" The redhead practically flailed. She forgot the pitcher was in her hand, too, because as her fists balled to her side, so did the pink lemonade, and it splashed not only across the pavement, but also across Rogue's lap. She jumped to her feet, shocked by the iced refreshment, and evaluated the damage: her leggings and the bottom half of one of her favorite shirts was stained with the vibrant color, which also meant that the region of her body would quickly become heavy and sticky. Jean placed the pitcher on the tiny rounded table to help her friend, but Rogue merely shrugged her off, knowing that the effort would be wasted.

"It's alright, it's alright – don't bother, it's fine! Ah'm gonna go inside and wash off – was gonna anyway, you gals get so annoyin'!"

Kitty, Jubilee, and Jean shifted awkwardly where they either sat or stood. They'd apparently forgotten about Rogue's unfortunate circumstance in which she was not allowed to make skin-to-skin contact with another living human being unless he or she wished to be put into a coma. It was something which had haunted her since puberty, when she made her first kiss. She hadn't touched anyone since. Not with affection, anyway. It had been herself and her hand and she really didn't want to discuss it.

Later that evening, after Rogue had showered to wash away the sweet, sticky substance between her thighs, the girls insisted that she continue the day with them and go out on the town but despite the whining and squeals, she simply could not torture herself through several more hours of "Girls' Day". There wasn't enough self-loathing in the world. Instead, she occupied her night off by reading poetry by the late Robert Burns and began to reread Wuthering Heights, a novel she couldn't genuinely bring herself to appreciate until she had a drawn conversation with Professor McCoy. She first began to read in the center of her mattress with her legs crossed, but when her back began to ache, she lay flat on her stomach with her ankles crossed. Then, when her neck strained, she turned on her back – but the light from the ceiling blinded her, or, when she shadowed her eyes with the pages, they were too dark. So she tossed and turned and finally decided that she had retired her literacy effort and pursued the empty hallways of the Xavier Institute.

Even at eleven o'clock at night, the hallways echoed with the voices of other restless students who wanted to rest no more than they wanted to attend the early morning training session with Logan. Rogue, still loyal to the promise she made to herself to not socialize, shuffled down the main hallway with her head held high, gaze avoiding the others', until she pushed the door that lead into one of two kitchens forward and sighed with contentment when no one else seemed to be there. All she wanted with a little bit of chocolate milk to satisfy her sweet tooth and then maybe she'd think about chasing the dreams which mystified her insecurities and doubts.

"Aren't you supposed to be gettin' some sleep, kid?" Logan called brusquely. The younger girl gasped and peeked from behind the door of the fridge and rolled her eyes, veiling a smile by shoving her head back into the shelves and pretending to search for a gallon of two percent milk.

"Maybe. But a gal has to have her milk first," she insisted, her unusual politeness laced with a hint of sarcasm. When she had regained control of the muscles in her face, she seized the handle of the plastic jug and withdrew it. "Shouldn't you be the one t'rest, sugah? Ah'd be awfully nervous if Ah was facin' me. Ah'm equipped with guns."

Logan snorted. "Whatever, kid," he said; 'kid' was a fond name he used mostly for Rogue, and while he never used it in a way to degrade her, he had now, and it stung – just a little. But she was tough. She could shrug it off. The man, who wasn't much taller than she, and who was clothed with only basketball shorts and body hair, came behind her and reached onto an otherwise untouchable shelf which cased his beer. He placed a gentle hand on her back, probably out of habit, but it made Rogue a little self-conscious. She took the bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup from the door of the massive cooler and closed it.

"Ah'm not a kid anymore, y'know," she assured him, popping the lid off the container and holding it above the glass she had filled with milk. "Ah turn nineteen next week."

"Heh. Like that makes a difference," Logan continued to grumble and rounded the island, sitting firmly on a barstool that moaned beneath his unusual weight. His calloused digit pushed beneath the cap of his beer and he cracked it open, bringing it to his lips.

Rogue shot a playful glare in his direction. When nearly a quarter of the glass had been filled with chocolate syrup, she replaced the cap, withdrew a spoon from a drawer, and stirred. "Ah've changed. Mentally," - pause - "and physically." She turned her body to provide him with a side view and motioned her gloved hand in a mocking stirring motion, bringing attention to her feminine endowments. She caught Logan rolling his eyes from behind the blue-white can and she, too, chuckled, never being one to think much of herself. She rounded the island and plopped next to him; the heels of her feet rocked on an axle of the stool and a strand of snow-white hair fell in front of her face. "Ah'm jus' teasin'. Ah'm still the same stupid kid Ah've always been."

"Heh. Well, I guess I'm not one for words, but, I'm proud of you, kid. You've come a long way," Logan paused and Rogue, trying very hard to not think about his compliment for fear of blushing or falling into a stupefied daze, noticed how quickly he was slamming the can down his throat. He was never very patient about drinking (or doing anything, really) but tonight, he might as well have been doing shots. She frowned a little and pulled at her baggy sweater. "Chuck told me you applied to Brown?"

Dammit. There went the heat in her face. At least it wasn't for other reasons, like drifting off into a daze in which he had suddenly taken her hips, slammed her against the counter their drinks rested upon, and taken her like a damned animal. Brown University was a very prestigious school, a school which Rogue had never considered applying to until recently when the conversation with Professor McCoy (as mentioned earlier) gave her confidence in her intelligence and inspired her to pursue education that Professor Munroe could not give to her. She felt proud of herself, which was a little odd, but she also felt a tremendous amount of guilt. The X-Men were her only family, and she knew if she told anyone else, like Kitty, that she was even considering leaving, if only for a while, that they would misinterpret her intentions and assume that she felt indifferent towards them. Only the professors knew (she had asked them to write her letters of recommendation) and now, apparently, so did Logan. "Uh, yeah. Ah mean, Ah probably won't get in. Ah don't think Ah wrote a very good essay, an' mah grades haven't always been very good, but Professah McCoy told me Ah should, an' –"

"I think it's great, kid."

"You do?"

"I know you're worried about what everyone else will think, but fuck it. Everyone needs a damn break from this place. You need a life outside of the X-Men, too, you know. I know it doesn't mean much coming from me, but sometimes you need to think about what's best for you. I'm surprised you haven't run off yet. I've always had it in the back of my mind that I'd have to come chasing after yah."

Wow. Was that sincerity? A small smile pulled at the edge of Rogue's lips and she nodded with understanding, not quite meeting hid gaze. Not like she would've been able to, anyway; Logan had a habit of drawing his own eyes to the floor or the wall when things became intimate. "Thanks. Ah think."

He tipped his head back to drain the last of the can. "No problem, kid." The stool released a sigh of relief when he got back onto his feet. "Now, get some damn sleep."

Rogue's laugh was melodic now, light, as though it had been the one straining under his weight. "Yeah, you too, old man."

She could always count on her brother, father, lover to lift her mood.

A/N: It's the first fanfic I've written in forever, yay! I'm unsure what suddenly inspired me to write this, or this pairing; I watched the anime X-Men series and while it didn't include Rogue, it definately made me think of this pair, which have always been my favorite, aside from Rogue/Remy. This piece was originally going to be a very quick one-shot, mostly focusing on her thoughts of the relationship she shares with Logan, but since I've come up with so many ideas for an extended story! And I don't believe I've ever completed one that I was proud of, so I'm challenging myself? Maybe?

If I do continue this, I will introduce more elements, including the classic Logan - Jean conflict. I'll introduce an overbearing conflict, and add more internal conflicts as well. I want to avoid being cliche like, for example, making a complete priss out of Jean. I'll try to make her a rounded character and maybe make some of you who despise her fall in love with her and maybe expirience somewhat of the same problem Logan expiriences? (;

Also, I've taken elements of Rogue's character mostly from the original comics and added some spice from various other interpretations of her from the movies and television shows. I'll include better details of the other characters in the next chapters, or later chapters, to provide a better idea of what timeframe this is established in.

So, please review! For those of you who write, you understand what it means to wake up to one. For those of you who don't, well, you've already spent x amount of time on this, so why not spend another minute or so? Please let me know if you didn't like something, or if you really liked something, what is it? Maybe throw out some ideas you've had or some ideas this piece may have inspired. I would appreciate it so very much.

-Isolde Necrophilia