Template:Featured Articles/25-2025
 "Relationships are so tricky. Just when you think you're done with someone, stupid love flares up and you're willing to accept things that maybe you shouldn't be. I mean, I don't pretend to know the situation with your lost lady friend there, but that sounds tough. Always tough to walk away from someone." "Truth be told we'd yet to meet in person, and it sounds as if that was to both our benefit. For the salvation of a relationship on her part, and a preference for only the most ephemeral romance on mine." Marius began to reach for his glass of wine -- balm for what was, if not thwarted love, then certainly something geographically adjacent to it -- and paused. "Oi, what did you do to your knuckles?" "Hm?" Rogue looked down and frowned. "Oh. Right. That. Can't sleep, gotta work out. Must've gone too hard in the gym." Marius raised a thick eyebrow. People were often surprised this could be accomplished without the help of a winch. "Doing what, going three rounds with a wall? No offence," he added, "it's just a bit odd to see you carrying any sort of injury." There was no way to answer that without lying; it also had always been an unspoken agreement that they never lied to each other. "I didn't want to use Logan's healing factor," she admitted. "I wanted to feel this because I'm just so.....angry, Marius." Tears suddenly filled her eyes with a ferocity that scared her. Sniffing, she reached for her napkin and dabbed at the corners, willing herself not to cry. "Why the fuck did I have to go and fall in love with someone who will never make me number one? And I'm okay with it, I am ... most of the time..... but that fucker hasn't talked to me properly in weeks, but oh look Weapon X situation? Gotta show up. And he acts like his usual self, and so I just go with it 'cuz why am I gonna fight when I barely get time with him anyways?" She swallowed thickly. "And then just as fast, without even a proper goodbye, he's gone again." Marius wasn't sure what kind of answer he'd been expecting, but it hadn't been this. Grasping for some suitable platitude, he tried to think of what he knew of relationships. This did not help. What he did know usually just reinforced his natural disinclination to ever partake in one. "I'm sorry," he offered. As a statement it was inadequate but safe. Marius tried to expand. "Is it, ah . . . have there been problems recently, or . . ?" "Can't have problems if'n you don't talk," Rogue mumbled. She sighed again and slumped back in her chair, posture be damned. "That's actually the problem. There ARE no problems. We're fine. The definition of fine. We got love an' mutual respect an' years between us. I just... je te jure, Marius. I'll kill you if this gets out but godDAMN is it hard to see Gar and Jean be all lovey lovey sometimes. Ya think Logan does that? Ever? And I don't know that I need that or have really wanted it .... it's just a lot when you're missing someone, I guess." Marius spared a moment trying to imagine Logan in the context of a romantic relationship. He failed. "Whilst not my area of expertise," he ventured, "it sounds as if one's desires would be difficult to define in the absence of basic communication. Logan strikes me as the sort who speaks through action rather than word." "He does, and that's fine. I'm just ... I dunno. Kinda feel like I'm floating and getting itchy feet and that's so dumb. Every time I leave here, I come right back. I miss everyone, I miss this life. Logan leaves and honestly, I don't think he misses anything. It'd be nice to have that kind of detachment," she said wistfully. "I always wanted to be able to jus' cut all y'all off." She gave a chuckle. "Okay, that's a joke, but you know what I mean." "I do, in fact. This place has a sort of gravity." One digit, exposed by the fingerless gloves Marius wore, rubbed slowly against the tablecloth. "Thinking on it, perhaps it is not so much detachment as being drawn to a different centre of gravity. Weapon X, for example. Does he miss it? From all accounts I would suspect not. More likely there is a sense of obligation attached to it, and it is that which he prioritizes." Marius scratched his head. He was unused to thinking about other people's relationships in any kind of depth and wasn't quite confident in his footing. "Although I suppose this is potentially its own complication." Rogue sat with his words for a bit while she cut into her steak, appreciating the perfect doneness of it. There was something to be said for going to a very expensive restaurant. "An example," she said, putting her fork in a piece, and lifting it up, examining her bite. "Do you know that I don't know how I like my steak? I know how Logan likes his. I know how Gar does. I know how you do even. But I don't know how I, Marie, like it. Logan understands that. He understands that I have so many people in my head, I don't even know what's me and what's not. I've been turned into a million people, and Logan has had to rebuild himself so much, he also doesn't know who he is." She gave a wry smile. "I'm not an obligation, but I'm also not even me so how can I even know how I want to be prioritized, I guess." Distracted, Marius speared a fingerling potato. The house intingolo was no doubt superb, but his focus was elsewhere. "If you find there's a thing you want, what does it matter how you come by it?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. "You feel it no less, correct?" "Probably not," she admitted after a pause. "I'm just in a shit mood, and this is good food so I shouldn't be feeling this awful. But," she added suddenly, "you know what I was doin' before you called? Nothing. Fucking nothing. Sitting, thinking about drinking just to sleep because no one was around, I was bored, I didn't even feel like picking up a pen and sketching because what's the point?" She sighed. "Ugh, okay I gotta suck it up and stop ruining dinner. This is stupid and I should just not dwell on this." |
