9229/Chicken Soup for the Wolverine

Chicken Soup for the Wolverine
Date of Scene:	17 September 2019
Location:	Medical Lab - X-Men Base
Synopsis:	Rogue visits Wolverine in the medbay.
Cast of Characters:	Wolverine, Rogue

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Wolverine has posed:
Logan usually heals very quickly. In battle, the wounds he takes tend to knit up before the very eyes of his attackers. But a little known fact about his signature mutant ability is that it can be burnt out. It can be pushed to it's limit - and when that happens? Well, everything slows down. His whole body tends to focus all it's resources on healing a particularly gruesome injury and the rest of his cuts, bruises, and breaks are forced to heal at a more human pace. Such is the case now with one of his lungs almost completely destroyed by the vicious killers known as Sabretooth.

Logan lies in one of the beds in the medical lab of the X-Men's base, his arms folded irritably over his stomach and a scowl on his face. He hates this.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue had been pretty MIA all week down in the X-Men base. She'd gone on a mission with Illyana to Limbo and taken out an entire army of demons, apparently, but it had left her green and gold suit in tatters. She'd had Forge repairing it, or out-right making her a new suit of the same pattern, and was down here checking on it when she'd been told about Logan's situation...

So the medical lab doorway slides open and the figure of the Belle strides inside. Wearing a dark green tank top, black gloves that go to her elbows, low rise blue jeans with a brown leather belt cinched around her slim waist with a silver (X) buckle on the front of her lap. Her leather jacket hands at her side, also recently cleaned and repaired, Rogue quietly sways herself through the medlab and then drapes her jacket over the back of a chair that she slumps down into to sit beside Logan at his bed.

When he rouses, she's there, smiling at him, her brown and white hair only kind've a mess over her otherwise bare shoulders. "Heya, Sugah." She says in her husky-hued voice. "Seen bette'ah days, mmm?" She asks with a slight smile for him.

Wolverine has posed:
"If yer here t'mock, turn that butt right around, darlin'," Logan says with frown, all gruff and short-tempered - at least that part of him is back to normal, "Right now I feel like I got hit by a fuckin' truck. Which I s'pose I did ... truck with claws and all the tender sweetness of a cut snake."

He draws in a breath and winces, the air whistling a little. While the lung he's grown is almost at full size, it hasn't been used before and the medical staff at the school have instructed him to take it easy while it gets used to breathing.

"Where've you been?" he asks, "Figure if you'd been lingerin' around the cabin, y'could a' thrown Creed into space or somethin' an' saved me the trouble a' whoopin' him."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue just grins at his initial words and she shakes her head right to left dismissively once, with her white bangs just softly swaying against the sides of her youthful face. "I ain't gonna mock." She very quietly replies to him with her lips barely even pressing together to form the words.

The rest of what he says to her she takes in while staring down at her lands in her lap, her left leg crossing over her right at the knee she picks a little white fuzzy poof of lint off of the back of one of her black gloves. "I ran inta Sabretooth once, couple years back, in Paris." She then averts her greened eyed gaze back over and up to aim it at him. "He tried t'get me t'get inta a van with him, after my weddin' fell apart... So I grabbed'im by the throat and threw'im inta the van. Then stormed off."

She glances back down to her hands and then uncrosses her legs again and leans forward to put her covered elbows on top of her knees, her brown and white hair draping forward a bit as she leans forward like this. "I helped Magik fight a... huge battle in Limbo. She needed help." Once more she looks up at Logan then. "Just been ignorin' action stuff since then. It was pretty intense. Some regretful feelins. Killin' a demon-thing... guy... who'd surrendered to her rule. But, she said execute him. So I did. Snapped his neck in fronta everyone who'd taken a knee. Felt his insides just dribble down my arm. Kinda fucked me up a bit inside. Ya know? I'll be all right though."

Wolverine has posed:
"That sorta thing'll do that."

Logan looks at her warily for a moment, not judging but evaluating. There's a lot about his own life that can be paralleled in Rogue's own, albeit in a twist and funhouse mirror sort of way. But he sees it sometimes, especially in the tale of being compelled to kill when maybe she thought it wasn't the right thing to do.

"Don't let it eat y'up," he tells her, his gruff tone suddenly softer, "Sometimes, we gotta wade through the shit. Figure, worst case scenario? That demon-thing was jus' that ... a demon thing. An' if you hadn't killed him, sounds like it woulda been Magik that did ... an' she'd prob'ly've been a damn side less gracious an' merciful about the whole thing."

He holds out a bandaged hand towards her, "Don't let it get you thinkin' you ain't a good person."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue just gives the elder man a slight smirk and looks back down again toward the floor between their locations. "Yeah." She softly says to those first words from him. A second or so later and her left hand comes up to stroke her white and brown locks back behind her left ear and she looks up again to see his hand outreached.

After a second she reaches out to take hold of his hand, but she turns it over to look at the back of it. Her gloved thumb strokes over the back of his knuckles and she seems lost in a bit of internal thought before she looks up at him. "Do you know how many people you've killed?" She asks him, but quickly adds onto that question. "I mean, like the ones ya killed but maybe thought didn't deserve it afterward?" Her expression would suggest she's had these kinds of thoughts on her mind of late, maybe a giant demon battle was a bit heavier for the 20 year old than one might have expected it would be, considering how much butt kicking Rogue has publicly dished out.

Wolverine has posed:
Logan considers the question in silence for a moment, letting her hold his hand and staring quietly off into space. After almost a minute has passed he glances sidelong at her, shaking his head slightly.

"I don't. Seems like a thing a man oughta remember, but I jus' don't. I see 'em sometimes. When I'm asleep ... dreamin', I guess. Or nightmares. Their faces before it happened. Lookin' at me like I was some sorta monster."

He sighs, "But dyin's easy, darlin'. When y'go, y'jus' go. Best thing for it, I reckon, is t' jus' move on. You didn't kill that thing. She did. An' that's her cross t'bear."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue releases his hand and lets her gloved own drop back down to rest beside the other on her knees and she just gives his words a sheepish smile before shaking her head again. "Nah, that 'thing' doesn't really bother me too much. Its just the... I'm pretty sure I've done things that've killed folks, and I just don't know if all've'em deserved it. Plus, I'm worried I'll get used ta'it and start killin' more. Especially when I lose my temper, sometimes its hard t'control all'a this strength I got. Its hard not t'turn people inta pink mist, if they upset me good enough..."

She leans back in her chair again and smiles lightly while staring at him now laying there. "Don't mind me, I'm just being melodramatic." There's only a short pause there before she speaks right on up again. "When you gonna be full well again? I don't like seein' ya like this, it makes me feel all kindsa uncomfortable. We're supposed t'be the tough ones around here. Don't go make'n me feel my mortality now..."

Wolverine has posed:
"Look, burrito," Logan says quietly, drawing his hand back and folding it across his stomach, "I know y'ain't a student anymore, really, but I got this class ... teachin' some a' the kids how t' control that anger. Focus it an' make it work for them. It's a strictly one on one sorta thing. I'm not sayin' y'need to sign up for the semester or anythin', but I've been where you're sittin' - thinkin' on how killin' just got so easy an' havin' t'change who I was t'try an' make it ... less so. If y'wanna try, maybe I can help."

But when she smiles and asks her second question, he just lifts his shoulders in a light shrug, "Soon. Day or two. Thinkin' I might head on back up to the cabin tonight. Got a friend stayin' there ... the reason I got this beat up in the first place, really. She ain't in top shape herself. Figure she could use the company."

Rogue has posed:
A breath is drawn in then between the Belle's pinkish-purplish painted lips and she then flashes a little grin at him. "One on one Zen Training with Miste'ah Logan. Does it count toward my college credits?" She asks, in good humor of course. "I'm up for whatever advice ya got for me on the subject though, so yeah, we'll have t'find some time for that."

After the rest of what he says comes out though, Rogue just softly nods her head to it and moves to stand up. "I'll make sure t'stay away from your cabin'o'love for a bit then, if'n ya got some company out there." She gives him a mischievous smile as she reaches for her jacket on the back of the chair to pick it up again and let it hang over her forearm against her right hip.

"Thanks though, for offerin' the help. I'll look forward to shootin' spit balls at your chalk board when you're back is t'me." Rogue just holds her grin then and turns to make for the lab exit again. "Stop lettin' people beat ya up!" She adds on her way out.

Wolverine has posed:
"You take care a' yerself," Logan says after her, turning slightly on the bed and propping himself gingerly on one elbow to watch her go, "Y' might be almost invincible, but that doesn't mean y'can't still get hurt. You know you can still come talk t' me whenever you need. No conditions or timeframes on that, burrito."

That said, he watches her go and slowly rolls to lie on his back once more. He turns his eyes to the ceiling, frowning slightly at some strange thought suddenly drifting across his mind.

"Would it kill 'em to put a TV down here?"