Taming a Beast

We made it back home and Rogue surprised me with some plans to go out and just have a girls’ day to ourselves. Rogue had always been my best friend ever since I had come to the Academy, especially because she was probably one of the closest to Logan besides me. We used to have girls’ days all the time before I went on my mission, and we hadn’t been on one ever since we came back. So, it was with immense excitement that I said goodbye to Logan quickly and took off to my room to get ready.

I wore a nice dress that was appropriate for nearly any occasion: a nice dinner, shopping and a movie, going to the club, and so on. I curled my hair and applied some make-up, grabbing my clutch as I made my way down to the living room where Rogue had told me to meet her. She was sitting and talking with Gambit, Logan, and Storm, the first of which whistled the moment I came into the room and got a light rap on the wrist from Rogue as a consequence.

“Hey, she’s my girl,” Logan growled protectively, jumping up from the couch and slipping his arms around my waist. He smiled down at me, looking at my lips and then my eyes as he murmured, “You look even more beautiful than usual.”

Rogue and Storm awed in unison, while Gambit rolled his eyes, jumping off the couch as well. “Excuse me, I’ve got to go vomit.”

“Grow a heart, Remy,” I teased him, poking him in the side as he walked past me. He stuck out his tongue at me, then smiled and winked at Rogue before leaving the room. We all turned and looked at her, a bit surprised, and she cleared her throat and stood up from the couch.

“Well, we better get going!” Rogue said, fixing her shimmery dress. “Storm, Logan, see you guys later.”

“I’ll see you later,” I said, leaning up to kiss Logan. He tried to milk it for more than it was worth, but I laughed and pulled away from him. “Logan!”

“I’m just upset you’re not spending the night with me tonight,” he said. Storm laughed.

“Who would’ve thought that the fearless Wolverine was such a clingy sap?” She asked. Logan growled and I hit him on the chest, laughing at Storm’s words that couldn’t be any truer.

“I’ll be back later, and we can spend time together then,” I said to him, leaning up to kiss him. I pulled away and smiled at him, looking into his eyes as I spoke the only words that would get him to quit whining and holding me back. “I love you.”

He sighed. “I love you, too. Now, go have some fun with Rogue.”

“You won’t regret this, Logan. Just try not to stay up too late, waiting for us,” Rogue teased as she grabbed my hand and began to pull me out of the door. We both got into Rogue’s car, and she drove us to a little Italian restaurant in the downtown area. She had made reservations and we sat down, eating our food and talking about the typical things girls talked about-- her and Gambit, me and Logan, hot guys in movies, and so on.

“I’m just,” Rogue said, sighing as she smiled and looked up from her plate to meet my eyes, “I’m just so glad that you and Logan are dating.”

I smiled at her, a bit surprised by the infatuated way she spoke. “Is there something I’m missing here?”

“I don’t know if Logan’s ever told you the story of how we got here,” Rogue said, pulling at her fingers. “I feel like because you weren’t there, you’re the only one who doesn’t really know what went down, that Logan and I were kind of a package deal.”

My eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“Oh, no,” Rogue was quick to correct herself, her eyes going wide. “I didn’t mean it like that. Even Logan fell victim at my hands a few times. His invincibility makes it only a bit easier for me to touch him, but I could still kill him, given the chance. And he knows it. That’s why he knows better than to hurt you.”

I laughed, relaxing back into my seat again. “Continue your story.”

Rogue flipped her hair over her shoulder, smiling sheepishly at me. “So, yeah. It’s not that big of a deal, really. Right after I found out that there was something wrong with me, considering I nearly killed one of my boyfriends after kissing him, I ran away and hitch-hiked with some trucker to some bar in Canada. There was a cage match going on...”

“Rogue!” I cried, laughing. “I can’t imagine you being at a bar where there was a cage match!”

“Honestly, it was better than being at home and getting judgmental stares from my parents and questions from the police and... well, just hearing everybody talk about him and their theories of how he died,” Rogue said, sadness entering her voice as her thoughts trailed off. She shook her head, bringing her focus back. “Anyway, there was a cage match going on and Logan was fighting some dude. Of course, he totally whipped him. Afterwards, I was sitting at the bar when the guy came back and told him he knew what he was. Logan flipped.”

Rogue paused, her eyes somewhere else again. She spoke in a tone that was barely above a whisper. “I had never seen somebody like me before. I knew I was a mutant, and I had seen the news reports... but to see somebody so close to me that I could touch them. It just made everything so much more real to me.

“Anyway,” she said in a louder voice, shaking her head again, “he let the guy go, but not after the bar owner threatened to shoot him. He left, and I stowed away in the back of his truck. He finally stopped the car and noticed me, and told me to take a hike, but then gave in and allowed me to ride with him. I was just chastising him about not wearing his seatbelt when a tree branch was thrown onto our car and Logan was thrown into the snow. Then Sabretooth attacked him. I wanted to help, but I was stuck, and then the truck caught fire.

“But you know Xavier, he’s got a sixth sense for these kind of things and had sent Cyclops and Storm to help out. They defeated Sabretooth and brought Logan and I back to the Academy, where we were nursed back to health. Ever since then, Logan has felt protective of me and we’ve saved each others’ lives more than once. That’s why when you arrived, I set you two up. Logan’s like my older brother, and I knew you could only be good for him,” Rogue said, smiling at me gently now. I reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

“Thank you, Rogue,” I whispered to her, the beginnings of tears springing up in my eyes. It meant a lot that Rogue had told me all about her relationship with Logan. It made me feel closer to them both.

“Anytime,” she whispered, wiping a tear out of her own eye. She laughed, saying, “Now that the heartfelt moment is over, what do you say we pay this check and go have some reckless fun that I’m sure Logan won’t be too happy about later?”

I smiled at her slowly, motioning for the waiter as I handed him my credit card to pay for the check.

“I like the way you think, Rogue.”

--

After leaving the restaurant, we walked down the street towards a club we used to frequent. With just one smile at the bouncer, we were in even as the line groaned at our quick entrance. The best thing about it? We just had to use our feminine powers, and that was it.

Almost immediately, we headed to the bar and got Screwdrivers for each of us, smiling again so the bartender wouldn’t ask for our IDs, which didn’t actually exist. We downed our drinks and made our way to the dancefloor, gaining the attention of some boys from the local college who began grinding up against us at the first opportunity. I smiled over at Rogue, whose gloved hands had locked with those of the boy behind her. She winked at me, and then things started to go horribly wrong.

The boy who was dancing with Rogue hissed, then snapped down to bite her neck. She gasped and fell to the ground as the humans around us gasped as well. I shifted quicker than the mutant behind me, quickly pulling Rogue to the side as I took on the two mutants. People watched disbelievingly as a third mutant joined the fight, the three boys lining up to face me.

“Magneto wants you,” the snake boy hissed. “There’s a reward for you. A very generous award.”

“Yes, yes, very generous,” the other two boys behind him hissed in unison. One of their tongues flicked out, and I took it that they were all snake boys, which was just fantastic considering one of my biggest fears was snakes.

“Sorry, boys, but you’re going to be empty-handed,” a deep voice growled. I turned and saw Logan pushing through the crowd. The three snakes hissed and attacked not Logan, but they all went straight for me. One pinned me down and the other bit me a few times, and I could feel the venom seeping into my veins. I screamed as I heard Logan roar, and two of the snakes were thrown off of me. I kicked my legs blindly, sending the third one flying into a table. Logan rushed back and finished off the three snake boys, leaving them unconscious.

He ran over to me, grabbing my face and asking, “Are you alright?”

I barely managed to get out the words, “Heal Rogue.”

He turned and grabbed Rogue’s face, both of them choking as his energy transferred to her body. He waited until she was fully healed to pull away, and then the two of them ran over to me. All the humans stood back, still staring at the three of us. Logan helped me up as my wounds healed themselves, the venom disappearing somewhere in my blood stream.

“Why did you come here?” I asked as we made it back to his car. I knew he’d have Storm or somebody else come pick up Rogue’s car later; our main concern right now was getting home, and we had to stick together.

“Because you were here,” he said to me evenly, the hand on the speedometer reaching 80 as he swerved around cars and ran several red lights.

“Were you here the whole entire time?” I asked him, disbelieving.

“I’m always here, I’m always watching you. Someone’s got to protect you from making bad decisions and getting yourself into worse situations,” Logan said, a growl in the back of his voice. My eyebrows shot up and I turned towards him, giving him an ‘Are you serious?’ look.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Logan,” I said to him. He rolled his eyes.

“Really? Because to me, it seems like you do. Had I not been there tonight, you could’ve gotten yourself and Rogue either killed, injured, or captured. As is, had it not been for our healing powers, you both would’ve been pretty severely injured,” Logan said, getting his fatherly tone on like he always did every time I did something wrong.

I ignored him and turned to face out the window. We drove in silence as Rogue slept soundly in the backseat, exhausted from healing herself with Logan’s energy and her own. Thankfully, she had passed out the moment she sat down in the car. I couldn’t imagine how awkward it would’ve been for her to be witness to Logan and I’s argument.

We made it back to the mansion and Logan carried Rogue inside, bridal-style. He was intercepted by Gambit, who took Rogue and told us he could handle it. I nodded and began to walk back to my room, and Logan raced up beside me, asking, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To bed, where else?” I asked him, getting to my bedroom door.

“We’re not done talking about this yet, Shiloh,” he growled. I whipped around to face him, meeting his fierce expression with one of my own.

“You seemed to be finished talking considering we drove the rest of the way home in silence. You had your chance to say something, Logan, and now the moment’s passed to talk about whatever happened,” I said to him, opening my door.

“Shiloh, look, I’m sorry, but...” Logan began, but I cut him off.

“Goodnight, Logan,” I said to him firmly, slamming the door in his face with finality.