Individual X-Men 100 Drabbles
Title: ReturnedChallenge: suggested prompt: dirty laundry, broken mirror, cigar
Character(s): Rogue
Rating: G
Date: Feb. 28, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Rogue
Dirty laundry and glass from a broken mirror littered the floor of Logan’s room. Rogue stepped over them. He’d asked for blue jeans and a shirt, anything to get out of the hated hospital robes he was stuck in. Jean wouldn’t let him out of the infirmary, but had agreed to let him wear clothes. Logan’s grumbling was expected. They hadn’t expected him to do so well, but he’d been in the lab for just a few days. Rogue was only relief at the moment, and her gratitude at having him back let her slip a cigar into a pocket.
Title: Nothing Really Changes
Challenge: suggested prompt: chipped fingernail, deluge, oversized sweater
Character(s): Rogue
Rating: G
Date: Feb. 28, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Rogue
'Verse: Evolution
Rogue picked at a chipped fingernail, flaking off bits of black nail polish. She was bored, the deluge of water outside keeping her in, curled up on the couch, and ready to cause some damage. Logan had chased her out of the Danger Room, all Kitty did was talk about her date, and Scott and Jean had passed the nervous stage and gone deep into the can’t-keep-our-hands-off-each-other stage.
So, she was left to her own devices with no distractions and an oversized sweater to keep her company. Sometimes the only difference between here and with the Brotherhood was clean accommodations.
Title: White Elephant
Challenge: suggested prompt: a gift from an unwanted suitor, mirror image, teacup
Character(s): Logan, Rogue (Xavier)
Rating: G
Date: May 21, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Scott
Note(s): An explination of the White Elephant Gift Exchange can be found here.
Logan's face twisted in horror at his White Elephant gift. It was a pink teacup and teapot set decorated with dancing bumble bees. Beside him, Rogue burst into laughter.
At the end of the night, Logan was still in possession of it. Rogue dragged him to the kitchen and set about making tea.
"It's not as bad as a gift from an unwanted suitor," she chided, taking off the teapot's lid. She paused and peered inside, freezing. Logan also peered inside, his face the mirror image of her shock.
Inside were two tickets to Tahiti.
In his study, Xavier laughed.
Title: Something New
Challenge: suggested prompt: grave, ultimatum, whisper
Character(s): Logan (Rogue, Scott)
Rating: G
Date: April 29, 2005
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo. Kurt
'Verse: Movie
Spoilers: X2
Logan stood before Jean's grave. He hadn't visited her for a long time, not since before Marie became Rogue became Marie again, and Scott found out. Scott had given Logan an ultimatum. Rogue had given Scott a broken nose. My life is my life, she'd told Logan in a whisper that night in bed.
Logan understood that, understood Rogue, just as she did him. Even when he'd longed for Jean, he'd never believed he'd have that, not with anyone.
The part of him that had been holding on to Jean let go then, and today he was finally saying good-bye.
Title: Intensity in Memory
Challenge: suggested prompt: slammed door, cut crystal, secrets
Character(s): Logan (Rogue)
Rating: G
Date: April 29, 2005
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo. Kurt
These are the senses of a memory:
Sight: a slammed door (She left before they'd finished fighting. He still wants to apologize.)
Sound: shattering glass (He threw her favorite cut crystal vase after her, relishing the pleasure of breaking something.)
Smell: burning flesh (She took the hit meant for him.)
Touch: cooling skin (He held her while she cried (died) and told him she wished she'd been able to share all her secrets.)
Taste: bile (He gags into the sink after another nightmare, cries when no one comes to dry the sweat from his skin, and fades a little more.)
Title: Dreaming New
Challenge: Insert a line
Character(s): Logan (Rogue)
Rating: PG
Date: Jan. 27, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Logan
Sometimes all you have are your dreams, and for fifteen years, they were all Logan knew. He sleepwalked through his days, counting the hours before he would return to the familiar. He didn’t know anything else and didn’t know there could be something else.
It took a girl with no dreams to show him. The thing in him that dreamt woke, and it found it liked reality.
He didn’t know what to do when she began to dream: of friends, of family, of a future. He didn’t want to lose her though, so he began to dream too--her dreams.
Title: Good-bye
Challenge: suggested prompt: pearls, lit cigarette, open window
Character(s): Rogue, Logan
Rating: PG
Date: Feb. 27, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Scott
Rogue twists her mother’s pearls through her fingers, sitting on the sill of her open window. Wind pulls her hair back in waves of white and brown. Logan leans against the wall next to her. He chews on a cigar and watches her.
She’s been quiet since they came with a note from a lawyer. An apology from her mother had been tucked inside the box.
She sighs and lowers the necklace to her lap. Logan pulls something from his pocket and holds it to his cigar. He proffers it, and Rogue takes the lit cigarette without looking at him.
Title: Valentine's Day
Challenge: suggested prompt: parking ticket, roses, perfume
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG
Date: Feb. 28, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Rogue
Vases of red roses covered nearly every surface in their room. Her favorite perfume was wrapped with pale pink paper and decorated with a superfluous red and white bow. Candles were set up around the bed. He’d replaced the usual cotton sheets with dark red silk ones. He’d changed from his usual jeans and t-shirt into slacks and a button down.
Now, he waited.
Rogue flew into the room three hours later, hair flying wild, paper fluttering in her hand. She didn’t notice anything as she waved the paper in his face, hissing angrily, “I got a fucking parking ticket.”
Title: Try Me
Challenge: suggested prompt: exhalation, resistance, itchy trigger finger
Character(s): Jean
Rating: PG
Date: March 26, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Rogue
The slight exhalation of held breath gave her away. Resistance increased against her back. She dug her heels in and shoved backwards. The door gave way, dumping her at the feet of several armed guards. She rolled to her feet quickly, but found herself face to face with the barrels of their guns.
"Don't move!"
She raised her hands in surrender.
"Okay."
A guard to her left shifted, his itchy trigger finger tightening slightly.
She smiled.
The guard fired. So did the rest. Bullets bounced off her projected shield. Red hair fluttered wildly around her head, and they were down.
Title: The Pointy What?!
Challenge: suggested prompt: lost earring, concert tee-shirt, pointy
Character(s): Rogue, Kitty
Rating: PG
Date: March 26, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Rogue
'Verse: Evolution
"Rogue! Are you ready?"
Kitty leaned through the door just as Rogue's concert tee-shirt covered her breasts. Rogue glowered at her.
"Haven't you ever heard of privacy?" she asked, turning her back on the younger girl. Kitty rolled her eyes.
"Whatever. Hey! Is this yours?" Kitty held up a lost earring, looking expectantly at Rogue.
Rogue glanced back at her and shook her head. She gave herself a once over in the mirror and turned toward Kitty. "I’m ready."
Kitty's eyes went wide, her mouth dropping open as she caught site of the band on Rogue's shirt:
The Pointy Penises
Title: Not a Good Mix
Challenge: field trips and Murphy's Law
Character(s): Logan, Scott, a boy
Rating: PG
Date: May 07, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Beast
It hadn't been very bright of him. He knew that, but he'd die before he'd admit it. So, he stuck with his stance of "I didn't know."
Scott's rolled eyes told Logan that he knew quite well what Logan didn't know, and that among those things was the fact that roller coasters, kids, and as much food as can be swallowed was not a good mix.
Logan glowered at Scott, shoved the still green kid at him, and stormed off to clean up. As he entered the bathroom, Logan was rewarded with the sound of the boy redecorating Scott's shoes.
Title: The Definition of Inappropriate
Challenge: field trips
Character(s): Logan, Jean
Rating: PG
Date: May 07, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Beast
"Logan, that's not an appropriate field trip spot."
"Why not? They learned something, didn't they?"
Jean groaned, closing her eyes tightly. "I can't believe you're asking me this. It's a strip club, Logan. It's not age appropriate."
Logan rolled his eyes. "They're boys. They've all got Playboy under their mattresses. They've seen it before."
"If they've seen it before, then they obviously didn't learn anything new by going there."
Logan grinned. "Sure they did. They learned what it feels like—"
"Logan! They're teenage boys. You are their teacher. It's inappropriate. No. More. Strip. Clubs."
"What about after school?"
"NO!"
Title: Watching Signs
Challenge: suggested prompt: prophecy, wind chimes, a paper cut
Character(s): Ororo
Rating: PG
Date: May 21, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Scott
Spoilers: X2
Ororo remembered thinking Jean's wind chimes were one of the prettiest things she'd heard in a long time when Jean had first hung them up in the observatory.
Jean had told Ororo they reminded her of water.
Later, Ororo thought it had been a sign, something akin to prophecy. She'd been clutching papers covered with various lists, things that needed to be done for the funeral, and the thought had caused her hands to clench, the edges giving her a paper cut.
She had sat and stared at the thin line of blood, wondering if that too was a sign.
Title: The Secrets We Keep
Challenge: suggested prompt: grime, contact lens, secret
Character(s): Rogue, Logan
Rating: PG
Date: June 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Kitty
Her hands trembled as she tried to put in her contact lens.
They always trembled now. Logan had noticed, catching a hand and asking what was wrong. The trembling had worsened. She'd struggled from his grasp, gasping, Nothing, nothing. She'd fled, a confession in her throat, and hidden in the bathroom, washing her hands again and again, trying to wash away an invisible layer of grime.
Logan knocked on her door, and Rogue quit trying to hide the color of her eyes. She answered it, hands trembling feircely, and looked up at him with greens eyes instead of brown ones.
Title: Popular Opinion
Challenge: suggested prompt: bare feet, moisten, blink
Character(s): Rogue
Rating: PG
Date: June 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Kitty
Rogue used her tongue to moisten the tip of a finger to turn the page of Blink Magazine. Every girl in every picture had indecent amounts of skin bared as they modeled bikinis and little dresses, tank tops and shorts in settings ranging from beaches to forests to bedrooms. And in every picture there was a boy with his hands on that exposed flesh, palms pressed to smooth skin.
Rogue tossed the magazine away, not caring where or how it landed. She closed her eyes and fought bitter tears. It wasn't fair that her bare feet alone could scare people.
Title: Changes
Challenge: suggested prompt: coffee, Eskimo kisses, lavender
Character(s): Scott/Jean
Rating: PG
Date: June 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Kitty
The first clue Scott had was when Jean refused her usual morning cup of coffee, drinking a glass of juice instead. When she started throwing up every morning, he started to worry. When Logan started fussing over her, Scott got pissed. He cornered her that night, and she told him, looking terrified while waiting for his reaction.
When Scott jumped off the bed and started making lists that included things like lavender bath soap—"It helps put them to sleep."—and books on bonding—"You're supposed to touch them, give them Eskimo kisses and hugs."—Jean knew it was okay.
Title: The Fight
Challenge: suggested prompt: wallet, missed train, quirk
Character(s): Logan/Rogue
Rating: PG
Date: June 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Kitty
At the moment, a missed train was the least of Logan's worries. The accent Marie had developed, a quirk he'd found endearing until Jean had destroyed his careful denial, had thickened, and the other personality had slipped in its portayal of Rogue. Whoever was in her body had snatched his wallet and taken off, dragging Marie along for the ride. Logan had spent a week trying to find her, and when he'd caught up to her, he'd had to wrestle her into submission. She was still fighting him, so taking the next train seemed small compared to what was coming.
Title: Final
Challenge: suggested prompt: picture frame, slamming door, a postcard
Character(s): Bobby, Rogue
Rating: PG
Date: September 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo Kurt
'Verse: Movie
Spoilers: X2
It was a small thing, one as simple as a postcard, but the fight that came after was anything but small and simple. Bobby resented her feelings even though they were only familial.
In the end, it was Rogue who left, the sound of a slamming door the final word on their relationship.
The next day, Bobby found a picture frame propped against his door. He recognized it as the one that held Rogue's favorite picture: one from the celebration of their six month anniversary. He picked it up to see himself smiling happily and standing beside a ragged tear.
Title: Tomorrow
Challenge: suggested prompt: dust, teaspoon, a single glove
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG
Date: September 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo Kurt
'Verse: Movie
"Time passes too quickly," Rogue said, measuring out a teaspoon of salt and spilling it into the bowl.
Logan said nothing. He sat at the table behind her, watching her move about the room, sliding a single glove through his fingers. Its pair lay across one of his thighs. Rogue added another powder to the mixture in the bowl and began stirring. A cloud of flour rose into the air and settled across her skin. Logan paused and knew: In the years coming, he would find himself sitting alone here, a layer of dust across everything and grief choking him.
Title: Wishes
Challenge: suggested prompt: postage stamp, snowflakes, red velvet
Character(s): Logan (Jean, Rogue)
Rating: PG
Date: September 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo Kurt
'Verse: Movie
Logan knew the day after Christmas he'd be hearing from Jean. It always happened when he sent one of these gifts. He knew they were inappropriate, a little too mature for her, but looking at the red velvet gloves, imagining the contrast of wine colored material against pale skin, he couldn't stop himself.
He didn't think about why (Later, he always did it later, in privacy.), only concerned himself with putting a postage stamp on the package and getting it mailed. Then, he stood and watched the snowflakes fall and wished he would be there when she opened her gift.
Title: Crush
Challenge: suggested prompt: leather seats, Velcro, lipgloss
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG
Date: September 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo Kurt
'Verse: Movie
It was pathetic. Slouched down in one of the leather seats, a hand in his pocket (fisted tightly around a tube of lipgloss), Logan wished, with everything in him, that he'd never met her.
He'd felt something like this before, but then again, it felt new, as if he'd never done this before. He hadn't, really, but he still thought it was bullshit.
Next to him, Rogue freed the visor mirror of its Velcro restrained cover. She began digging through her purse, only to sigh irritably.
"Logan, have you seen my lipgloss?"
Logan gritted his teeth. Pathetic. "Nope. Sorry, darlin'."
Title: Grief and Regret
Challenge: suggested prompt: a piano, broken mirror, rouge
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG
Date: September 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo Kurt
'Verse: AU
In a smoke filled bar, a singer lounges atop a piano, her voice low and sad; she sings of a lost love. She is dressed in a long black gown with gloves that come up over her elbows. Her face is heavily made with eye liner, rouge, and lipstick. Her eyes are closed.
A man watches her. His coat is worn, and he is unshaven. A pint glass of beer sits next to him, still full. His eyes are heavy with grief.
Between them, a memory: angry words, a broken mirror, pained screams, blood.
And the loss of something precious.
Title: Touching without Touching
Challenge: gifts we give and recieve (in a subtle way)
Character(s): Logan (Rogue)
Rating: PG-13
Date: Dec. 26, 2003
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Logan
It was a secret he guarded jealously, one of the only ones he took pleasure in despite the shame that tainted the knowledge that he had passed on that particular trait to her during one of the many times he had touched her to heal her.
While he was only wary of having the other X-Men know that sometimes it wasn't only sweat he washed off his body after a fight, he cradled to his heart the knowledge that the times Rogue sat in the jet, smelling sated and satisfied after a mission, he was touching her without touching her.
Title: Imagine
Challenge: suggested prompt: ice cube, parted lips, smell of grass
Character(s): Logan (Jean)
Rating: PG-13
Date: Feb. 28, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Logan
Spoilers: implied X2
He missed her, missed the brightness of her hair, the sweetness of her scent, the movement of her body, missed simply the presence of her.
So, Logan closed his eyes and imagined her with him. Imagined something domestic—a picnic—where she lay on her back with closed eyes and parted lips. He imagined the smell of grass twisting with her scent. He imagined teasing her—imagined taking an ice cube and running it across her lips making her smile, imagined leaning down and tasting that smile.
He imagined a world where red didn’t haunt him, where it never had.
Title: The Wrong Kind of Guilt
Challenge: suggested prompt: stolen kiss, rosary, darkness
Character(s): Jean (Logan)
Rating: PG-13
Date: Feb. 28, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Rogue
She sees it in the mall, the only one hanging from a hook at the jewelry kiosk; it’s light-weight and cheap, made of glass. The beads are marble-colored—black with streaks of white.
Every time she closes her eyes, she sees black and remembers another darkness, one streaked with fumbling hands, harsh panting and low moans, the occasional stolen kiss.
She also remembers it’s not fair to Scott, so she leaves the rosary hanging and walks away. She knows she should be ashamed, but she’s not, and that knowledge is what makes her unable to meet Scott’s eyes any more.
Title: Betting
Challenge: Murphy's Law
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Date: May 07, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Beast
"Fucking piece of shit! I'm going to take a fucking sledgehammer to you if you don't start to fucking work!"
Three fucks, Logan counted, leaning against the wall outside the garage. Apparently, Rogue was frustrated with the engine she'd sworn up and down she could build from his memories alone.
Sharp sounds of metal hitting something solid echoed in Logan's hearing, followed by a string of indistinct cursing. Logan grinned. He was going to win this bet.
Rogue gave a cry, and then, the sweet sound of a finely tuned engine complimented her voice. Logan's smile disappeared.
He was screwed.
Title: Failed Mission
Challenge: suggested prompt: pallor, fishnets, crushed glass
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG-13
Date: May 21, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Scott
Marie stood behind Logan, shaking, his coat wrapped tightly around her body. Her dress hung awkwardly from her frame, and her fishnets bore huge, gaping holes in the knees and thighs. She looked sick, the pallor of her face taking on a yellow-greenish hue in the cheap lighting.
Logan surveyed the destroyed hotel room with grim satisfaction, taking pleasure in the sight of the man's mangled body. He turned and ushered Rogue from the room, telling her that she was never to be bait again, for any reason.
Every step they took crushed glass, and Rogue could only nod numbly.
Title: Favorite Mission
Challenge: suggested prompt: an enemy, a telephone cord, footprints
Character(s): Logan
Rating: PG-13
Date: May 21, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Scott
Logan never had so much fun as he did when he tracked an enemy by instinct alone. All he needed was a solid scent, and he could track a man from the tip of South America to the coldest parts of Canada with ease.
Logan was getting lucky this time. The man'd left footprints outside a hotel. A call to Chuck got Logan a possible name.
Logan caught up to him a few days later, then left a few hours later, the man split wide open, clutching a telephone cord as if to call for help from beyond the grave.
Title: A Sweet Kind of Torture
Challenge: suggested prompt: sunscreen, a prank, a moving vehicle
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG-13
Date: May 21, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Scott
It was either a prank or a dream; Logan couldn't decide which. Rogue could not be sitting next to him, clad in nothing but the barest of bikinis holding a bottle of sunscreen and asking him, pretty please, to put some on her back. Without gloves.
It wasn't a prank, he decided. A prank was pushing him in front of a moving vehicle to see how fast he healed. This was torture. Dream it was then.
With a wicked grin, Logan snatched the sunscreen from Rogue, straddled her hips, and covered her from head to toe, even beneath the bikini.
Title: Distraction
Challenge: suggested prompt: Kleenex, broken bones, a sly smile
Character(s): Bobby, Rogue, Logan
Rating: PG-13
Date: May 21, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Scott
All in all, Bobby considered it a success when he came away from Logan's training session with no broken bones. True, he used a whole box of Kleenex to stop his nosebleed, but really, it was nothing.
When Rogue sauntered up to him, wearing a sly smile, and said she'd keep Logan off his back, he only mustered up a faint gleam of hope; he was resigned to his fate.
He'd forgotten that Rogue attacked things head on, and, in Logan's case, that meant she threw herself at him and latched on with a kiss that could kill a man.
Title: Good Men
Challenge: suggested prompt: earth, temptation, sweat
Character(s): Logan, Rogue (Jean)
Rating: PG-13
Date: June 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Kitty
Logan was a man whose life had been empty of anything good and filled with everything dark. He had traveled the earth looking for something, anything, to drag him from that pit.
Marie told him he was a good man, that only a good man could have survived fifteen years and still kept looking.
But when he looked at Jean and imagined nights ending convered in each others' sweat and lust and then looked at Scott and wanted to kill him for having what he wanted, he wasn't sure.
And Marie told him that even the best men fight temptation.
Title: She Knows What She's Doing
Challenge: suggested prompt: candy bar, nailpolish, tube sock
Character(s): Logan, Rogue
Rating: PG-13
Date: June 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Evo Kurt
'Verse: Movie
Logan thinks she behaves ridiculously young sometimes for someone who's survived what she has. Other times he's just grateful she's still alive to annoy him like that.
Right now, he's annoyed. She's got bits of candy bar spread across his bed, one tube sock on the floor, the other on her foot, and is busy applying nailpolish to the nails of her bare foot. Her fingernails are already a jarring shade of blue. It's a typical teenager scene.
Or would be, except for the fact that the sock is the only thing she's wearing, besides a devilish grin.
Logan sighs.
Title: Fitting Just Right
Challenge: suggested prompt: friction, inquisitive, desperation
Character(s): Rogue/Logan
Rating: NC-17
Date: June 06, 2004
Words: 100
Chocolate(s): Kitty
Whatever the fuck she was doing, it was wrong, wrong, wrong. Of course, his body couldn't care less. She was getting the friction just right, causing his eyes to roll back in his head and his hips to buck up against her.
Logan managed to make a noise in the back of his throat, something that sounded like a word beneath the desperation. Rogue cocked her head, an inquisitive look on her face. He clutched at her hips and made the noise again.
She giggled and rolled her hips in that wonderful way once more, pushing Logan over the edge.
