Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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"Ah heck, this one's all rotted out." Rogue muttered, snapping the dried out branch over her knee with ease.

"Careful there kid, don't need ya gettin' a splinter." Logan said with a throaty chuckle.

It was their old joke for walks like this, all it ever took to patch her up was all the effort it'd take to wipe away a smudge of dirt or her old game of swatting at non-existent skeeters just to smack him because she felt like it. Hauling an armload of kindling as he enjoyed a smoke, the crisp fall air was ripe with the smell of fallen leaves still damp with dew.

"Well we gotta stock ya up for tonight." Smiling sweetly at the fella that was so much more than a friend, best or otherwise, Rogue leaned up against a tree to stare him down.

Now he was in for it, batting her lashes while giving him a big ol' doe eyed dose of her beautiful green eyes that had the boys dumber than bricks around her.

"This stack of kindling ain't getting any lighter." Logan grunted, hefting up his armload for show.

"There something goin' on between you and Ro?"

She sure as hell wasn't one to beat around the bush, not like her friends who'd play twenty questions trying to weasel something out just so they could go gossiping.

"We mighta kissed, and to borrow a word ya kids like ta throw around, we cuddled for a spell at my fire pit last night."

"Don't, don't you ever use the word cuddled again Logan, ya hear me? You ain't a man who cuddles."

Smirking at how embarrassed she sounded from him borrowing a word he heard Kitty and Jubilee throw around plenty to talk about Bobby and her, he wasn't about to let Rogue get off that easy with telling him what it was he did with a lady.

"Well why don't you go take a guess at what Ro and myself got up to if we didn't cuddle?"

Never one to back away from a challenge, Rogue pursed her lips and put some thought into the night past.

"Well I'm thinkin' you were slunk back in one of those shop class Adirondacks and she was up on your lap with her legs dangling over the arm. I'm guessin' if she took a hike on down here last night then she had on a jacket that you were plenty interested in gettin' her outta, tryin' for the zipper just to get your hand smacked at. Of course that wouldn't stop ya, and something tells me ya might have been a little distracted with her legs bein' so close and handy."

Giving her that with a nod, the kid painted it pretty much how it happened. Except that Ro hadn't put up much of a fight to get outta her jacket with how hot the fire burned, her sweat a sweet scent he had enjoyed almost as much as the swell of her bottom against his lap.

"Good guess."

"What can I say Sugah, I had ya runnin' around up in my noggin, bad habits and all."

"Well, don't go taking after too many o' 'em, hell if I don't know you got a temper when ya get riled up."

Smiling proudly, Rogue stepped up to him and took her time to enjoy the crinkle and crush of leaves under her feet. Wrapping him up in a hug, he returned it with his free arm that wasn't busy hauling kindling.

"Why don't I treat you and your pals to lunch, I got some dogs in the fridge and all that crap ya left behind from the last cook out you hosted."

"Fire roasted hot dogs and S'mores? I'm game. What about Jubes?"

"If she ain't feeling up to it I always the hot chocolate that came on down with her care package."

Heading on back side by side, his hand on her shoulder and hers slipped into the back pocket of his Levi's, he had his little stowaway to thank for all his happiness. It was a lonely road he travelled until the day she jumped into his trailer in a damned fool act that would have seen her frozen before his next stop.

"Speakin' o' cuddling and bad habits of mine, Drake better make sure cuddlin' is all he's doing."

"What about kissing?" Rogue asked with a sweet smile as she looked up to his stoic facade.

"His funeral."

"Prick." Rogue spat, laughing just the same because she knew he didn't mean it.

Joining her with a deep, rolling chuckle, Logan couldn't begrudge Rogue finding her own happiness. He just hoped she took her sweet time and enjoyed getting there, she couldn't be his little Darlin' forever.

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"She's gonna hate me when she wakes up." Kitty giggled as she painted her slumbering friend's toenails in a colour of green she wouldn't be caught dead in.

Curled by the fire in her purloined robe, while Kitty had been so kind to run an errand so she had something to wear, Ororo was content to linger in the warm terry cloth if just to wait until Logan came back from his walk. It was a thrill to think herself marking it as hers, to imagine his flared nostrils breathing in her scent and sweat as she had so enjoyed the hint of his aftershave that hung on it.

All she wanted to see was his eyes darken with lusty hunger as he came back to see her lounging with the robe a little too loose as to offer him a glimpse of what lay beneath, something to feed his desire and set his imagination aflame.

"So...what was it like to kiss him?"

"Oh goddess, I felt he would devour me if I let him..."

"What stopped you?"

Letting go of a breathy laugh as Kitty's audacity, that was a question she had asked herself but the answer lay sleeping but little more than an arms breadth away. As tempting as the offer of his bed had been, it was all too sudden and wholly too bold, which was just so very like Logan. Yet he still managed if not as he had imagined it, and to wake there this morn was fuel for her dreams and fantasies as she thought of everything that could have been.

"Rather who, and you are painting her toes."

Rolling her eyes, Kitty added another coat so she might admire her work before levelling Ororo with a pointed look, "Lee could sleep through a bomb..."

Biting her tongue, that was a lie and Kitty knew it, Stryker sure had proven that point. Capping her polish, she crept up to her sleeping friend and looked on her as if for the first time. Sick, tired, and tuckered out, Jubilee looked too small compared to the lively girl she knew.

"Okay, I guess you had a good reason. It just means we gotta wish Jubes to get well soon again so you don't have any more excuses."

"Temptress." Ororo teased, Kitty's best efforts but a drop in an ocean of temptation.

"Hey! I have to live vicariously through someone, and I'd take you and Logan over Rogue and Bobby any day, hands down."

Realizing she had gotten a little too loud, Kitty turned to see Jubilee squinting and likely wondering just what had woken her up.

"Whatever you do, don't move your feet. I just finished painting your toes and Logan will gut me if you get nail polish all over his couch."

Blinking her tired and bleary eyes as she listened to everything Kitty was saying, Jubilee gave a disinterested snort and settled down back to sleep.

"She must be tired, usually she'd threaten to paf me after waking her up."

"Perhaps I should let you wake her once lunch is decided upon and ready."

"Gee, thanks Ro."

Letting her laughter loose with a warn wind, Ororo sent the fall leaves dancing in the sudden gust that beckoned to the one she longed for. The smoke of the chimney caught up in the breeze was a reminder to Logan that she was waiting on him. His cabin needed him and his foundling girls to make it a home, girls who weren't at all afraid of the Big Bad Wolverine. And looking to the two that kept her company, Ororo thought she needed them all.

At time friends and other times like daughters to them both, they bridged the gap between her heart and his. It was for them she could resist her temptations and take things slow, a sweet torture of her own denial. But the road to his bed was not without its pleasures as she had found out last night, and she looked forward to finding out just what laid in store for her until she was sure.

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