fandomtownies | Sunday morning at the Perk... (locked to Shane and Rogue)

Rogue walks in, after her few moments at the church. Her shoulders are stiff, clearly she's angry. She orders an iced tea, sweet please, not looking around until she's paid. When she turns around, she spots Shane, and strides quickly toward her. She pulls out a chair, and sits down, hard, in it. She takes a sip of her tea, not really looking at Shane.

Shane sits quietly for a few more moments, unmoving, but then bows her head, rubbing at a spot between her eyebrows. After a moment, her slim fingers reach down and remove her sunglasses, revealing dark, dark circles on the tender skin beneath them. She places her sunglasses up on the table and everything about her seems drained... gray... deeply tired.

She looks over at Rogue and a long beat passes before her brows furrow and she looks away and closes her eyes, pinching at the bridge of her nose. I asked her to come... someone's gotta say something... it has to be me...

"I had to make a choice... Rogue," she says softly, haltingly. She's not used to calling her by that name; it takes a conscious effort on her part not to call her what she used to.

"I get it." The words are short and clipped. "I made some choices too, choices that involved you. Now I gotta go unchoose." The words are harsh and accusing, trying to mask the hurt she feels.

"And there are some... that you can't," Shane says as she looks up at Rogue, tears glistening in her faded green eyes. She looks away. "Things... I... took from you that I can't give you back... and I'm sorry."

Rogue finally turns to Shane, brown eyes firey. "What the hell are you talking about? What did you take from me? I mean besides the obvious kick in the teeth that puts us here." Her hands are shaking, and she takes a long drink to try to hide it.

"You know what I'm talking about," she says calmly, deliberately as she pulls a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of her denim jacket. A couple of false strikes and she manages to get the cigarette lit.

"I do?" she asks, very sarcastically. Rogue is NOT a nice person when she's angry and hurt. "Shane, if it makes you feel better, I lost my virginity back in 1950, when I was twenty, to a whore in Vienna. She was pretty. And then again, about three years ago, to some girl whose name I don't remember, but who was much older than me. And I may not remember losing Logan's, I do remember all the hundreds of girls he's had sex with in the past twenty years.

"I'm anything but innocent, and while my body may not have had sex with too many women, my brain certainly has. Funny thing, that."

Her glare is intense. "And what the FUCK does that have to do with anything anyway?"

Shane doesn't flinch as Rogue lays into her ... she just sits perfectly still, cigarette dangling from her fingers, smoke being caught by the slight breeze and carried away.

"Because... even though the men in your mind remember those things... it was still you who was losing her virginity in your body," she says carefully. She pauses and takes a small drag off of her cigarette. "I wasn't touching them... Rogue... I was touching you..." She presses her lips together and takes a deeper drag off of her cigarette.

"And we're back to my original question. What the FUCK does that have to do with anything?" Rogue is just seething now. The fact that she's not getting a rise out of Shane is pissing her off--she's used to screaming matches with her sisters, with her mother, with her roommates back at the mansion. This calm--it's new and annoying. A fight is supposed to be a fight not one person yelling and the other just taking it.

Lifting her head, Shane looks over at Rogue and her eyes are sad, but at the same time, understanding. "Because it was a mistake. Because... you're right. I'm not -- worth it... I'm not." She raises her shoulder in a slight shrug as she looks away again, a tear slipping down her cheek. "That's something you don't have any more, because of me... but that doesn't mean it didn't mean... everything to me, because it did," she says with a nod, her voice hushed. "But it still doesn't change the fact that... you lost your virginity to another woman and the thought of it made you nuts."

"Who are you to decide if somethin' I choose to do is a mistake?" There's still anger in her voice, as evidenced by her choice of emphasis. But for the most part, Shane's words have brought her down to just sadness. "I won't lie to you. It freaked me out that I might be falling for a girl. But you can't just throw away ten years of Catholic schooling and fifteen years of Southern family values. But I thought about it, and I talked to some people, and I decided you were worth trying to get over it.

"The sex had nothing to do with it. It may be my body for the first time, but my mind has had a long time to adjust to me not being a virgin."

"I'm not anyone," Shane says with another half-hearted shrug as she shakes her head. "And I wasn't asking you to throw anything away..." she presses her lips together again, once again cutting herself off before she can call her by the wrong name. "You can be a dyke and still be Catholic. You can be southern and still be gay."

She worries at her bottom lip for a moment. "Don't think this is easy for me. It's not," she says, voice breaking slightly as she lets out a weak, weak huff of laughter. "This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life. Because I love you... but I don't wanna see the look on your face when someone calls you a dyke for the first time. On top of... everything else you have to live with. That's something I can't handle."

"Shane, seriously. Don't make me have to come across this table and slap some sense into you."

Rogue looks mostly serious as she leans across the table. "I've spent two years of my life building up an immunity to name-calling. If a mutant can't figure out how to deal with people being close-minded assholes, then the world is more fucked up than I thought.

"And I know you can be all those things. I never said you couldn't. But it's the mindset that I have to get rid of, that I've really been getting rid of for two years." She sighs. "Do you know what the Catholic Church says about mutants? Worse than the language they use for homosexuals. Y'all are just deviant, and sinners. We're devil spawn. The Church says you can be degay-ified, but me? I'm always and forever a mutant. It's in my DNA." She smirks humorlessly. "I think after that, I can handle being called a deviant."

Her eyes are still holding Shane's. "I can't give up who I am, but I can let go of some of the theories that come with where I've been."

Flicking her cigarette away with a weary sigh, Shane lights another. "Look, I... I know I don't know about the world you come from... I know that," she says, raking a hand through her hair. "I know that you've been through things that I probably couldn't even imagine if I tried... but I'm just trying to tell you what it's like in my world. Just because I don't understand doesn't mean I don't have any fucking sense."

Rogue closes her eyes. "That's not what I meant. I'm angry, and things aren't comin' out they way I mean 'em to." She opens her eyes and takes a deep breath. "I don't care what people will or won't say. I'm willin' to take the chance. If you're not, then just say so. I'll cut my losses and be on my merry way."

She leans back in her chair, her eyes close to keep the tears from spilling over.

[[OOC: Going offline for several hours to drive back to school and hopefully set my computer back up. Will finish when I'm back?]]

Shane looks up and turns her head to look at Rogue and finds herself staring. Leaning forward in her seat, Shane drops her cigarette onto the ground and crushes it out beneath the sole of her sneaker as she stands. She circles around to Rogue's chair and crouches down beside it, looking up at Rogue as she sits with her eyes squeezed shut. Very carefully, she reaches out and places her hand on Rogue's forearm, fingers curling round it gently.

"I was... willing... to take a chance on you. The night I took you home, I took that chance," Shane whispers calmly, eyes slowly tracing Rogue's features. "You asked me what my problem was, I'll tell you. I fall in love with people too easily, but... I've seen too much to trust people the same way." Licking her lips, she looks down, eyes scanning the sidewalk as if it might be able to help. "When you pulled away from me that morning at the church... I already knew you were gone."

"You don't know me at all." Rogue mutters. "I guess it was too much to hope for that anyone ever could."

A single tear squeezes out, and runs down her face. "I wasn't gone, Shane. I was confused and hurt from what had happened over the weekend. What happens in my head is something I can't explain, and certainly don't want to share." She takes a breath. "I wish I'd never met you," she whispers as she stands to leave.

[[Will be off and on for a while now.]]

Quickly pushing herself to her feet, Shane catches Rogue gently by the wrist and circles around to stand in front of her. She reaches up with her free hand and very gently traces the salty trail left on her skin, the tear keeping her skin from making direct contact with Rogue's.

"I do know you, babe... a lot better than you want me to, I think," Shane says, drawing her hand away from Rogue's cheek, the faintest traces of wry humor weaving through her words. "And I'll never wish I hadn't met you. Because even if we aren't together, you're in here," she murmurs, bringing Rogue's gloved hand to rest over her chest, holding it there with both hands. "And you're gonna stay here. Always. I promise."

Rogue wrenches her arms out of Shane's grasp. Her eyes narrow. "If that's the way you feel, then why are you even doing this? Do you know how hard it was for me to get up the courage to try to apologize to you? I don't apologize often." The anger is back, and she's breathing heavily, trying hard not to cry.

"You know what, screw it. Screw you. You think you've got me all figured out, but you don't know a damn thing. You're trying to protect me? Great FUCKING job." She smiles wryly. "You know who else tried to protect me? Magneto. You know how he did that? BY ALMOST FUCKING KILLING ME. That's not protection, Shane, any more than this is." She laughs bitterly. "If I'm in your heart, I hope you fucking feel my pain."

Taking half a step back, Shane holds up both of her hands yieldingly, giving Rogue her space. "Do you know how hard it was for me ... trying to get to the school and not knowing if you'd be alive... and, if you were, if you'd even be glad to see me? If you'd even give a shit that I was there at all?" The muscles in her jaws work for a moment and she rakes a hand through her hair. She's not angry, just frustrated.

"You're not the only one who's taken risks, Rogue," she says, her voice firm and emphatic, a low-grade conflagration sparking up behind her usually placid eyes. "This is the first time I'd ever felt anything like this. For anyone. You may be shitty at relationships but at least you've had them. Do you have any idea what it took? For me to let you in? To tell you the things I've told you? Do you?"

"THEN WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!" she yells, slamming her fist onto the table, knocking her tea off and onto the floor. Her eyes go wide when she sees everyone else in the shop staring at her, and she stands frozen. After just a moment she runs out of the Perk, and collapses against the building outside, sobbing. "I hate her. I fuckin' hate her," she mumbles to herself when she can catch a breath.

Startled and shaken by Rogue's outburst, Shane watches her storm out and sucks in a deep, uneven breath. Resting her hands on the tabletop, she bows her head and lets the breath out in a slow, cleansing sigh.

Straightening up, Shane takes another deep breath. She glances over at Jane sitting at the counter. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I'm so sorry about this. I promise I'll clean it up when I get back, okay?" She picks up her sunglasses and hooks them into the front of her wifebeater as she heads for the exit. "I'll be back," she tells Jane again as she pulls the door open.

Rogue couldn't have gotten very far...

Rogue hears the door of the shops open, and scoots away from it, edging around the corner into the alley. She feels an odd sense of dejá vu as she tries to stifle any sounds.

She almost didn't catch the sound, over the noise of the door squeaking open, but still, she did... just the faintest sound of rubber soles scuffing against pavement and echoing.

Scratching at her cheek, she turns in the direction of the sound and lets the door close as it will. She walks to the corner at her usual pace, as calm as she can manage. Instead of going around the corner, though, she leans back against the wall and crosses her arms over her chest.

"I'm doing it because of this, Rogue," she says quietly, talking to the air, the leaves on the tree just across the way as they cast shadows on her upturned face. "It's like I told you in that message. I thought about it a lot before I made my decision. All I'm doing is hurting you and all you're doing is hurting me. We might not mean to do it, but we do."

Swallowing, she narrows her eyes just slightly as she watches a bird cruise in and land on one of the tree's branches. "When I said I love you... I meant that. When I said that you're in my heart... I meant that, too. I just don't wanna hurt you any more than I already have. I want you in my life. As my friend. If you need more time before you can get to that point, that's fine. I understand. But I'm not mad at you, M, and I'm not doing this to hurt you. I'm doing this to keep from hurting you more."

"The reason I'm doing this... is because I trusted you... and you pulled away from me. I know it's hard for you to live in your head and I'm not saying it's not. I'm just asking you to think for just a minute... about how much that hurt me."

"I'm sorry that hurt you. But I didn't pull away from you." The words are muffled. "I pulled away from everything. What happens after..." She trails off.

Rogue stands up, and walks out of the alley. "You've made your decision, and nothing I can say will have any bearing on that. So I'm gonna go home, and I'm going to try to forget about you and what I felt about you, because if I don't, it's gonna eat me up inside." She shakes her head. "I just needed a little time. If you had been anyone else, I would still have needed that time. If it had been any time other than after the zombies, I wouldn't have been so confused, and I would have been okay with this, with us.

"But you've made up your mind, and I'm not gonna be a part of it. No, I don't think I can ever be your friend. I don't work that way. Physical hurt is something I can get over, but this?" She shakes her head. "This is different."

She turns around and starts walking toward the school.

Watching Rogue walk away, all that Shane can feel, now, is the deepest regret... but, she thinks, some things happen they way they do for a reason. Rogue walked into the diner that evening for a reason, just the same way that Kate walked into that diner for a reason.

The zombie invasion happened when it did... because it just did, and there was nothing they could have done to change that or stop it from happening. What it did was cause a lot of grief, for the both of them, but Shane could only hope that Rogue could find it in her to forgive her someday. Because she'd already forgiven Rogue.

this is different...

"I know," Shane whispers, as she pushes away from the side of the building. Her eyes linger on Rogue's departing form for a few moments longer. "With the two of us, there's no other way it could have been..."

Inhaling and letting the breath out in a weary sigh, Shane presses a cigarette between her pursed lips and lights it as she heads back to the Perk to clean up the mess that she'd helped to make...

After Mass, CJ walks in with Mr. Soprano. She sees Shane and the girl from the previous day's conversation...M?, who she had seen at the church when she walked in. She smiles in Shane's direction, and sits down with Tony and begins talking.

I hope they can work it out she thinks.

Shane pulls out her cellphone and sits up a little bit further in her seat, trying to see where CJ and Mr. Soprano had sat down together. Thumbing her phone open, Shane takes a deep breath and sighs as she brings up her text-messaging interface.

[Ys. U ok?]

[O no! I <3 U n we drnk 2nite]

[whtevr. Am here 4 U. Ten ok, or alne w/ me?]

[<3 2, will txt him. Where?]

(a few seconds later)

[ys, bth Tn & I b thr, w/ blndr. nd Rm,Tqla?]

[if nt, kwk stp. Ill get & brng. NyThng else?]

[chnese=gd! ur gf B ok w/ dbl date?]

[if U wnt. Prty=V gd. Kate. lkng fwd 2 mtng]

Moments later

[U ok abt M?]

(moments later)

[ok. nd to tlk to Tny...C u l8r, k?]

[K. <3 U 2]

Sunday morning at the Perk... (locked to Shane and Rogue)

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