xp_logs | Logan and Marie

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Marie, as a part of her quest to get Logan up to speed on pop culture, brings him _The Princess Bride_.

Marie pounded on the door of her best friend's room with her foot. "Hurry up slowpoke! My hands are full." She was balancing a DVD player under one arm, a case of beer under the other and had a DVD case grasped in the edge of her gloved hand.

Logan opened his door, and upon seeing Maire at his door, grabbed the most important part of her arm-full. The beer. He opened up the case, grinned in appreciation, and began chucking bottles into his bog-standard dorm fridge. As always, his room contained no decoration whatsoever - it almost looked like a hotel room in its sparseness. "All right, kid, what do we got for tonight?" he asked.

"The Princess Bride," she said cheerfully, walking in to set the DVD player by the television and start hooking it up. "A classic story with fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles..." Marie grinned as she connected the last cable and made her way over to find a seat.

Logan watched as Marie hooked the DVD player up to the TV she'd insisted on dropping off earlier. He hasn't bothered to plug it in or anything yet but she seemed to have things well-in-hand. "Huh. Sounds busy." he said, settling into his one room chair. If Marie wanted a place to sit, she'd either need to park on his bed or take the floor.

Or she could perch on the edge of his chair, swinging her legs as she situated herself. "Y'know old man, we need to get you some more stuff. Ah know you like things sparse, but damn. This is just plain ol' pathetic."

"Don't even start." he mock-growled. "Not big on collectin' things. They weigh you down." he grumbled as he looked over to the girl perched on the edge of his chair. The movie started and he collected himself a beer for himself and one for Marie.

She bit her tongue to keep the comment about him collecting stray girls right and left and how if that didn't weigh him down, nothing would. Instead she just reached out to affectionately ruffle his hair and take the beer he held out to her. "Now, Ah may have to cover your eyes during the kissing parts. Might be too much for you to handle," Rogue teased.

"Funny, I was thinkin' the same thing about you." he teased right back. "Surely such a young and innocent girl such as yourself wouldn't want to sully herself with folks actin' all improper." he quipped. "Hate to have you faint on me."

"Why Cousin Clara, Ah just might become so overwhelmed that Ah right quickly keel over. Hope you've got the smelling salts handy as a woman with my delicate constitution may need some particularly strong ones to be revived," she said, eyes sparkling. "But shhh, or you'll miss the good stuff."

---

The empty bottle collection had grown significantly as the movie had progressed and Marie carefully set her next one down to complete a little smiley face pattern on the floor. "Thoughts on the movie? How many claws does this one get?" she asked Logan.

"Is that how we rate them now?" he said, still stone-cold sober to Marie's tipsiness. A good half of the smiley-face on the floor was consumed by her. If not more. "And I'd give it a three and a half out of six." he said after a moment's thought. "Rugen needed to die more painfully than what he got." But then again, medical experimentation was far from a favorite topic of his.

"Seems as good a way as any," was the cheery response. "And from you, that's not a bad rating at all. So Ah'm getting closer to finding the right kinda movie. Next week Pirates of the Caribbean. Just as much swordplay, but this time there's a love triangle and a crazy pirate. Though Ah guess you could argue that Westley was kinda crazy too."

"Swordplay wasn't bad for Hollywood fare." he said with a bit of a chuckle. "But the names were especially dumb. Buttercup?" he chuckled. "Come on." Just because he was a cruel and capricious Wolverine he offered Marie another beer. He was kinda amused to see how long she was willing to keep throwing them back.

Marie didn't even hesitate in accepting the beer. "Wolverine?" she said, lifting an eyebrow at him. "Do any of us here really have the right to make fun of people because of their names? Well, Ah mean, Ah know Ah do. Nothin' wrong with either of mine. But the rest of y'all..."

"Were you drunk when I explained the whole name thing?" he said sarcastically.

Blinking in surprise, Marie looked slightly taken aback, unsure when they'd gone from joking around to something a little darker. "'course not. Wasn't legal back then," she said softly.

"Forget it." he said with a sigh. Then he grabbed another beer and downed it in a series of swallows. "Been a rough week or so." he said with a sigh.

"Wanna talk about it?" she asked, not cracking the top off her won beer. "Rough weeks around here can have many different levels, so you'll have to be more specific."

"Brush with death, shit on my all my team-mates again, elegantly dumped in favor of someone who is just as crazy but in different ways." he said with another sigh. "Just another week at Xavier's."

Marie shifted from where she was balancing on the edge of the chair to float Indian style across from him. "Hit you harder than Ah realized, didn't it?" she said, referring to the Kaiten mission. "An' dumped? Ah didn't think you were dating steady or anythin'." She didn't touch the teammates comment with a ten foot pole.

"Isn't that what you kids call it when the woman you want the most decided that she'd rather be with someone else?" he asked. "Yeah, yeah, I'm a wanderer. But for her, I'd stay." he admitted. "Don't matter. She made her choice and she's happy with it." he said, trying to force himself to feel comforted at this thought and failing miserably. "Just takes time, kid. This ol' carcass will get over it eventually."

"Didn't realize you were that smitten with 'Ro," Marie said. "And it does matter. You always do that - always say 'My stuff doesn't matter as long as the other one Ah care about is ok.' But what about you? Time helps, but what are you doing to make yourself happy?"

"How the hell should I know?" he asked gruffly. "Mebbe I was. Mebbe I wasn't. I don't know, kid! All I do know is that when she chose the Cajun it hurt, all right?" he snapped. "Don't ask me what makes me happiest. You already know." he told her. Violence made him happy. The crunch of bone, the meaty slap of flesh on flesh, the cries of pain. These things he enjoyed the best, and hated himself for it.

But she knew the softer side, the other things that made him happy. Seeing a young girl he cared about happy. Teaching someone to take care of themself. Protecting those that couldn't. But nothing she could say would make the man across from her believe that. So instead, she did the only thing that came to mind and reached out to wrap him in a hug.

Logan was terribly tense but after a long moment relaxed a little bit into the hug. "Anyone ever tell you you like to live dangerous, Rogue?" he said with just a hint of a smile.

"Danger is mah middle name," the Southern girl said, pulling back to grin at him. "So how 'bout we go out for a midnight ride? Nothing like the wind in your hair to blow all your troubles away." So long as it doesn't blow you away.

"Now yer talkin'." he said with something much closer to a full-bore grin. "My bike or your car?" he asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

Reaching into her pocket, Marie tossed him a familiar set off keys. "The real question is, who's driving?"