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Secret Burdens
Chapter Four: This ‘Touch’ Thing

“He wants more than the licking of wounds.”



Rogue was lounging on the couch in the mansion’s rec room, flipping through soap operas and infomercials and midday movie marathons when she first saw Logan that day. He had wondered in through the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of beer, before making his way over to the television she sat in front of. He stopped just at the edge of the couch when she glanced up to see who it was that was blocking a speaker.

“Surround sound,” she stated simply.

Logan pulled the bottle from his lips with a raised brow. “’Scuse me, darlin’?

Rogue lifted a finger to point at the speaker box directly behind him on the stand. He turned slightly to see the small box and that he was standing on the cable. “Huh. Well, would ya look at that.”

Rogue huffed. “Do you mind moving, Logan? I can’t hear the background noise.”

Logan smirked as he looked back at her. “And that’s important to me?”

Rogue narrowed her eyes at him as she began to crawl over the arm of the couch to get to the cable.

Logan chuckled. “Alright, alright, darlin’. Just scooch over so I can sit.” He stepped over to the couch, releasing the cable from the tread of his boots, and Rogue almost had to hurl herself over so he wouldn’t sit on her.

“Thank you ever so much,” she drawled out, while she curled her legs underneath her and rested the remote back in her hands.

“Watcha watching, kiddo?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Whatever’s on.”

“Huhn.”

Rogue continued to flip through the channels restlessly. Logan was content in just watching the stations as they crossed the screen. He took a glance at Rogue as she sat next to him and stopped as he noticed there was something alarmingly different about her. It took him a moment to register the change, its subtlety normally going unnoticed but Logan had looked at this girl enough times in his life to make him stop and realize that her arms were bare. The idea was confusing to him at first, because why wouldn’t anybody have bare arms? But for Rogue, it was different. And it was a few seconds before Logan realized it was because he never saw her bare arms.

Rogue was holding the remote with unclad fingers, and the sight of her missing gloves had Logan staring uncertainly at her hands for several seconds. Then he remembers that she had taken the “cure”.

“It’s weird, huh?”

Rogue’s voice cut through Logan’s confusion and he shot his head up to catch her still staring at the screen.

“What?”

Rogue quirked a small smile. “It’s been months I know but, even to me, it’s extremely new. This ‘touch’ thing.”

Logan kept quiet.

She turned her head to look at Logan and he noticed the slight wetness at the corners of her eyes.

“You know, you never think about all the things you’re missing until you can’t touch things. I mean, textures and all. Who would’ve thought I’d miss textures? The scratchiness of yarn, the roughness of jeans, the smoothness of wood. Even cold things and hot things.” She sniffed slightly.

“God, Marie, are ya gonna cry on me?”

Rogue scoffed and wiped one eye. “Ugh, Logan, just shut up for once.”

Logan lowered his eyes, realizing he was interrupting her in what seemed to be a sudden realization of her own. “Sorry.”

She sighed. “It’s okay, Logan. I just…with Bobby…”

“Please don’t go inta details about your new discoveries.”

Rogue narrowed her eyes once more and Logan held up his hands in defense. “I’m just givin’ ya fair warning. If you get too nasty on me I’m leavin’.”

She resisted the smile tugging at her lips. “It’s not that, you pervert. I’m just…not even used to the feel of someone’s skin. The…,” she paused, looking down at her own hands. “The idea that I can touch someone.”

Logan cocked his head. “Ya mean without hurtin’ them?” he finished softly.

Rogue looked back up at him uncertainly, the television forgotten, the remote resting in her lap. “Sort of.” She drew in a breath. “It’s like…have you ever thought about the kind of trust that goes into letting someone touch you?”

Logan stopped, and blinked, because he honestly had no idea what she was talking about. The only kind of trust in touching he had encountered was some nondescript woman in a bar letting him have at it. He smirked slightly at the thought.

Rogue scowled. “Not like how you’re thinking, Logan.”

“Darlin’, you don’t know what I’m thinkin’.”

“Well, just forget that and listen to me. It’s like, your body is the only thing you’re born into this world actually owning. The only thing you can really say ‘No one gave me this. And you can’t take it’ about. Letting someone touch you, even in the smallest of touches, is like saying ‘I trust you. Implicitly. I trust you with all that I own and have’. Do you understand?”

Logan had a hard time turning away from her eyes, because he had a small feeling that she was desperately hoping for him to acknowledge it. That feeling. That trust. Like how she had trusted him that night he accidently ran her through in the throes of his nightmare, and she had borrowed his ability to heal. Or the night he had trusted her when he thought Magneto’s contraption had drained her life away, and he dared to bring her back. He thought she was looking for someone to share that with, that idea that someone out there trusted them with their lives.

He wanted to say, “Yes. I know exactly what you mean.” But then he was taken back to that morning that Storm shied away from his touch, the morning she told him to be honest with her. And he felt ashamed that there was someone he knew for so long and yet didn’t know at all.

“Can you imagine what it takes to let that person in?”

Logan found that Rogue was staring at her hands again, her fingers curled in on themselves, her fists almost trembling. “It’s so much, Logan. It’s so much that I hardly think I deserve it sometimes.”

Logan scoffed at that. “Marie, if anyone’s deserving it’s you, darlin’.

Rogue smiled softly, and bit her lip. “I’m just so thankful, and I only hope that I can do that for Bobby. And I want to be over this stupid fear to let him in.”

The idea was odd, wanting to reach out and touch her arm, her shoulder, anything belonging to her, and it made him grasp for her wrist awkwardly.

Rogue pulled her head up to find Logan staring at her.

“It’s not stupid.”

She wanted to stop tearing up over something so ridiculous, so small, and she hated that Logan was the one to see her like this. But maybe, maybe Logan was her best option for understanding. And she figured he more than anyone else she knew understood what it was like to be afraid of opening those gates. Well, not that he’d ever admit it was fear.

“Believe me, darlin’. It’s not stupid. And I know it’s a lot.”

She figured he wouldn’t exactly have a pep talk up his sleeve, considering how much he disliked talking in the first place, but it was comforting just to think that someone else knew what it felt like. It was just enough that in his own way he was trying to tell her that he was lost, too. That he had no idea how to start being honest, how to start being bare before another person.

Vulnerability was everyone’s fear in this place, in more ways than one. But for the first time Logan realized that he wanted to be vulnerable in front of someone. And he was surprised to realize that it wasn’t Jean he was thinking about. There was someone else he wanted to show himself to. To bare all his shame, all his short-comings, all his raw ugliness. And it wasn’t because he wanted the same in return.

It wasn’t about finding out the secrets of Storm’s past anymore, or discovering her own hurts just to ease his. This was more than a licking of wounds. Logan wanted trust.

* * *


“When you can tell me the parts of you that you’re most ashamed of, then maybe, maybe I will do the same.”

“Well, shit.” Ororo dropped her forehead into her palms, her elbows resting on the piles of papers cluttering her desk. First and foremost was the loan she needed to sign and fax to her lawyer, and after that, she had her first three classes’ essays to grade. She really didn’t feel like reading a few dozen teenagers’ opinions on Napoleon and his objectives. Nor did she feel like typing up the midterm she had to have ready for her classes in a little over a week.

With one hand she rubbed at her temple while trying to push back the headache over her left eye with the other. Words were running into themselves, lines were blurring and she found that she kept coming back to her reaction to Logan those few mornings ago and cursing herself.

“I really do not look forward to hearing about this man’s past, if by chance he even feels like divulging it for my ears.”

She sighed and dropped a hand to pick up the loan resting innocently on her desk, bringing it closer for her eyes to read. After several attempts at focusing she threw the paper across her desk and rose from her chair to make her way to the large window behind her desk. The afternoon was just coming to an end and the trees at the estate’s perimeter blocked the sun’s beams of light from fully entering the room, casing streaks over her red silk blouse, the top buttons of which were unfastened. Her suit’s jacket was resting on the couch along the back wall of her office, and below that on the floor were her heeled boots. She smiled as she glanced at them, then turned to look at her bare feet, her toes scrunching the carpet beneath her.

She knew she’d have to suit back up if she decided to go outside her office and took the moment to imagine never leaving her sanctuary. She rubbed her forehead once more, feeling the headache start to pound behind her eyelid and reached up to loosen the braid her hair was in, hoping that the release would ease the strain on her head.

Just then there was a tentative knock on her door and Ororo turned surprised, used to having no one asking for her at this time of day. All the students should be heading to dinner she thought, and the faculty even. She returned to stand behind her desk before she called out for the person to enter. The doorknob turned and she almost sank in on herself when she saw Logan hesitantly peer in.

“Yes, Logan?” she asked, almost exasperated.

Logan took a glance at her and thought for some reason he was intruding on another one of her escapes, her releases. He caught sight of her bare feet peeking out of her slacks from under her desk, the loosened silk of her top, and even her hair running over her shoulders. And though he was not seeing her undressed or anything he couldn’t help but feel that he was seeing her in a way that he shouldn’t be. He had to stop in the threshold as he watched her, catching the blue of her eyes even from where he stood and he realized he liked her much better out of business attire. The way she looked now he could almost imagine her listening to him, hearing him out as he tried to peel away the layers of distance for her to see him. The way she looked now, it was getting harder and harder for him to think she was Storm, but instead, Ororo.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he managed to get out, as he closed the door behind him.





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