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"I read this book once, about evolution. It said that eventually human beings all evolved into fish, because of mutations caused by the bombing of Hiroshima."
The news had been looping the same piece of animated footage all evening: a hurricane off the coast of New York that kept getting closer. The last hurricane to grace an American shore had been Hurricane Nathaniel, so they called this one Omega. Logan fingered the remote control sitting on the arm of his chair. "If evolution decided to hurry the fuck up, I don't think I'd mind."
"No, no, it was fiction. Vonnegut."
Logan stood and walked over to where Rogue was sitting on the common room couch. He extended a hand, and Rogue gave him an eyebrow quirk before placing her gloved hand inside his. Logan pulled back the drapes from a large window, and steered her in front of it. The sky outside was pitch black from the storm clouds, despite it only being three in the afternoon, and the darkness outside turned the window into a mirror. He stood a little taller than her, his hands on her shoulders but not quite at ease, and they looked at each other through the windowpane. "Is that fiction? Are we fiction?"
She didn't respond right away. Logan had never shown anything but the slightest signs of possible affection, but she liked feeling the heat of his hands through the fabric of her shirt. "Have you ever been in a hurricane?"
"I'm from Canada, Rogue."
"Well hurricanes don't normally happen in New York either," she said defensively. "I remember being in Hurricane Andrew. Our whole city was evacuated. We had to stay with my aunt in Little Rock."
Logan looked back at the television, where a woman meteorologist was standing in front of a map of New England, indicating where the storm was likely to hit. She made several sweeping motions directly towards New York City. "What happened?"
"After a few weeks, Dad rented a helicopter to take us out to the house. So we could survey the damage, you know. Mom wanted me to stay with Aunt Julie, but Dad wanted me there. He said it was something we should do as a family." She walked away from the window and sat back down on the couch. "I remember flying over my neighborhood. Everything was gone. There was plywood everywhere. The playground had all these sheets of roofing lying around. I remember someone had spray painted something on what was left of their roof. 'Andrew Was Here.'" She laughed. "I got out of school for two months while they rebuilt the city."
"So it wasn't the end of the world."
"Not hardly. I spent most of it bored out of my mind."
***
Rogue liked to wear Mississippi Rebels t-shirts to bed, with long white gloves from an old evening gown she found in the attic. "I couldn't sleep," she said apologetically, rubbing the back of her left calf with the toes of her right bare foot.
Logan stepped away from his bedroom door, not gesturing for her to come in because he knew she'd invite herself anyway. "Jean's the witchdoctor around here, not me."
She was getting better-- Rogue only missed half a beat at the sound of Jean's name, and if you weren't looking for it, it was impossible to catch. "I just wanted to talk."
This time he did gesture, and Rogue sat down on his bed. Logan rummaged through a top drawer in his bureau, pulling out a box of cigars. "So, talk," he said around the butt, tilting his head and squinting a bit as he lit it with a match.
Rogue shifted uncomfortably on the bed. Despite having lived here for three years, she hadn't been in Logan's room since he stabbed her. That was why she wore gloves to bed these days, actually. "It's just that people are saying things. You know. About--" she glanced out his window.
The television on the other side of his bureau was dark and silent, but he headed for it, thinking he knew what she was talking about, "Look, I really don't think it's going to cause any permanent--"
She caught his mistake immediately and got to her feet. "No. I mean." She looked around the room. Logan kept his clothes in his suitcase, despite having plenty of drawers and closet space. Nothing could say more about his personality than that. "Some people think it's the end of the world."
"Some people think that eggs cause cancer. What did you have for breakfast?"
She blinked. "What? No, I had cereal. That isn't my point. Have you ever had something, and you thought you'd have all the time in the world to grow into it, but then you realized that you might not have as much time as you thought you had?"
"I have all the time in the world." Logan shrugged.
Rogue threw up her hands in anger. "But what if you DIDN'T?"
They looked at each other from across the room, Logan dragging on his cigar and Rogue standing in front of his bed, looking like she suddenly had no idea what to do with her arms. "Then I guess I'd do whatever it took to make sure I had it. Or did it."
All that could be heard in the silence that followed was the steadily increasing rain beating against Logan's window. Rogue crossed her arms against her breasts, then she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her pajama pants. Finally she ran her hands through her hair. "I hate you."
"No you don't," Logan said, slightly bemused at her obvious discomfort.
"Yes, I do." Rogue frowned, but sat back down on his bed, the navy duvet wrinkling under her weight.
"Why," he asked, closing the distance between them. "Because I tell you the truth? Or because the truth isn't what you want to hear?"
"You frustrate me. You're impossible to reason with."
Logan raised his eyebrows, "I happen to think I'm very reasonable."
Rogue opened her mouth to retort, but then he was kissing her and she forgot what she was saying, or why they were arguing, if they could even be said to have been arguing. She tasted smoke on his tongue, and even though this was what she had wanted all along, she couldn't help herself from wondering where, exactly, the lit end of his cigar was at this very moment. "Logan."
He pulled away. "What?"
"You're humoring me. And you're going to burn down the mansion."
"No I'm not." He didn't specify, but he did stand up and put his cigar in the ashtray on the bedside table.
She stood up too. "You're not what?" she demanded.
Logan looked out the window and then pulled back the industrial-looking sheets of his bed. "I'm not convinced that the world is going to end. You have plenty of time, but I guess there's no point in wasting it."
Whether or not she believed the world was going to end, she agreed with the last bit, so she crawled towards the front of his bed and met him there, with lips and arms and torsos touching.