15502/Three Hundred and Ninety One Days.

Three Hundred and Ninety One Days.
Date of Scene:	30 July 2023
Location:	Xavier's School Front Yard
Synopsis:	MARRIED?!?!?!?!
Cast of Characters:	Piotr Rasputin, Rogue

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Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    "Thank you, sir. I do appreciate it."
    Those were the words uttered by the tall man as he set foot upon the road some distance away from the mansion. The eighteen wheeler roared as the driver waved a small salute to Piotr. A wave that was returned as the elder X-Man stepped back from the passenger side door, the large lumber carrying tractor trailer started to roll off down the road. A few moments passed as he stood there, then he slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and turned to finish his walk back to this home away from home.
    When he drew near enough the security systems would likely pick him up. Though it's hard to miss the six foot six Russian as he walks down the sidewalk. He reaches the gate, and for a brief moment he ponders if those gates will open. Or if he'll be subjected to the trial of having to call up to be admitted.
    And even then what if the person on the other end of the line didn't recognize him?
    Fortunately whomever was in charge of the database didn't change his security credentials as that old wrought-iron gate rattled as it opened, presenting that long driveway up to the front of the mansion.
    For a moment Piotr just stood there, then he smiled to himself, adjusted his grip on his duffel bag, and started the stroll up toward the manor.

Rogue has posed:
From the far eastern yard a rumbling engine might draw Piotr's attention as it crests one of the small hills that lead back up toward the house. The vehicle is a green and yellow John Deer work buggy, sort of like a golf cart, but more heavy duty. Behind it it is pulling a trailer filled with yard debris, most specifically branches from trees.

Driving the cart is Rogue, wearing a denim coverall with the legs cut off about halfway up her thighs. She's got a green sports halter on under the denim of the coveralls, and her two toned hair is done up in pig-tails that inter-weave the dark brown locks with the snow-white. creating a swirling affair of contrasting tones.

She spots Piotr from behind her aviator sunglasses, and is soon to arrive beside him with the cart coming to a sudden stop. She kills the engine and leans back in the driver's seat, with one hand on the wheel, wearing a big old dirty workglove.

"Well hey there, Sugah." She says in her utterly charming Southern style.

"I thought you went an' fell right off the face'a the planet. Glad to see that ain't the case."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    The smile is likely what she sees first. Well beyond the tall frame and the muscular physique, wrapped in a pair of blue jeans and a black t-shirt that is perhaps a touch too small on his broad chest. But as soon as she appears that smile appears and whens he's near enough he greets her, "Rogue." That accent, the rolling 'R'. His lips curve wryly, then he speaks in that sharp rhythm of his, just a hint of an accent on the last word, "It is so good to see you."
    He steps forward and drops the bag beside himself, opening his arms in that universal way of offering an embrace in greeting. And if she should accept it, well then it will be a very strong embrace indeed. He holds her there, a moment, two. Then he leans back, hands on her shoulders as he looks in her eyes. "What is this?"
    A gesture to the coverall she wears, rubbing the denim between thumb and forefinger. He quirks an eyebrow. "Not your usual fine fashion. Have I been gone so long you have embraced the ways of Logan?"
    Another smile, then a second embrace. But faster as he steps back over to take up his duffel bag. "You are doing the... yardwork?" He asks, then he points at the cart. "Also this is new."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is up and off of the yard vehicle as Piotr approaches, making the hug an easier thing for both of them to achieve. She returns the strength in the hug too, both knowing that the other is pretty darn durable afterall. She makes a little 'Mmmmmh!' noise too, just to emphasize the gesture and emotion of the moment.

When they part, and he questions her attire, Rogue just smiles and shrugs her shoulders within the denim and lycra garments. "I dunno. I'm just bored." Is her official response to the line of questioning. Her aviators glance toward the school, then back toward him. "We had a big storm last night, and a buncha branches were down this mornin', someone had t'do somethin' about it. I think Logan and some'a the others are out back tendin' stuff out there. Less they gave up already, and went back in to the air conditionin'." She grins lightly toward him before she tilts her head as he picks up his duffle bag.

"You back for good? Or just like... pickin' up your mail? We could use the help around here.... I'm sure you've been stayin' in touch online, right? Probably heard about us doin' all kinds'a crazy crap. If not, I'd be happy ta fill ya in on some of it."

Her work gloves are pulled off her hands, before getting stuck in to a pouch on the front of the coveralls where the dirty fingers of the gloves just limply fall forward against her stomach. Her bare hands now go in to the pockets on the sides of the cut-offf pants. "Course, I'd rather hear what you been up to more than all the dumb stuff we have been wallowin' in."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    "I am afraid I have been remiss." Piotr says with that apologetic tone, the formality in his words showing the weight of his regard. He starts to walk with her though his gait is slower to match hers a touch better, his manner a leisurely peramble and in no rush to reach the mansion now that Rogue is here and they can chat.
    "I at one point opened my... email. And there was so much, I started to read and I answered I believe... four mails before I had to return to my job of the time." His stride is steady and easy, his blue eyes remaining on her as they stroll. "So I tell myself I will call. I call and spoke with a young man. I believe his name was Quentin. I left message. But..."
    Piotr gestures to the side with one hand as if the fact of the matter escaped him. He takes a deep breath, then says, "But much has happened for me. Though it likely will bore you."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue does the casual yard strolling with Piotr on her left side, she on his right. She glances over and up at him, a big happy smile showing off her pearly whites as he speaks. She looks away when he brings up Quentin, and a big smirks then graces her visage.

"That guy..." She says with a shake of her head. "He probably hung up the phone, and went back ta lookin' at himself in the mirror." She jokes, with a clear indication of an opinion about Quentin resting on the sidelines of what she'd just said. "He's either talkin' ta people about how great he is, or he's like out here in the yard sun bathing in a banana hammock." She adds with a bit more of a playful edge.

Her aviator-shaded eyes go back up to Piotr as she smiles more warmly at him.

"Nevertheless, if you're back for awhile, everyone will be thrilled. I figure the Professah an' Jean will definitely be relieved t'know we got a little more muscle around here to rely on. Rather than all the fat kids, and lazy adults we seem to be compilin' around this place..." She tells him as she steps around the edge of one of Ororo's flower beds, that seems like it got a little beat up in the weather last night too.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    "Ahh," Piotr says as he listens to Rogue's opinion of the poor Mr. Quire. But his smile grows even as she declares the likelihood of the young man failing to deliver his message. Something about just listening to Rogue speak, it makes his eyes dance with a warmth of affection. "I am back for a while I feel. I was going to see if my room is still available, or if there are quarters."
    A few more steps and then he just looks sidelong at her, "You do not know how nice it is just to hear the... lyrical qualities of your voice, Rogue. It is a thing I missed yet I did not know I missed it."
    But then he straightens up. "But come, enough of my foolishness. You have a task. Let me aid you in your task. I will help you clean up the yard."
    Then he looks to the manor. "Though perhaps I should leave my duffel bag by the door." He starts to close that last distance to the door, moving up the steps that lead to the front entrance. Just a few quick steps taking them three at a time then opening the door. He sets his bag around on the inside resting it against one of the tables near.
    Once he has that stowed away he descends the steps just as fast, dusting off his hands and declaring. "There, now I can be of some use."

Rogue has posed:
The compliment that the big Russian conveys to Rogue just has her smiling quite expressively again. She sways her shoulders a little, and bumps her left over against his side. "Aw, Petey. If ya go an' feed my ego like that, I'm just gonna start blushin' like a school girl on her prom night." She fires back at him in that continued playful style of hers. "Volunteerin' to help with yard work too? How come the good ones are the ones who are always gone for months on end, while the rest stick around an' just eat all our eggs?" She asks the universe, her hands still tucked in to the pockets of her coveralls.

She glances over her shoulder back toward the John Deer four wheeler, then looks back to Piotr who ducks back out of the house.

"I was drivin' all'a that crap back behind the garage where Logan setup the wood chippah. I could break it all up by hand, if I wanted, but the Chippah is just more fun, if ya ask me."

She turns back toward the four wheeler then, and motions toward it. "You wanna drive?" She asks him then with a motion of her hand toward the vehicle itself. "It's pretty damn fun too, which is why I'm usin' it insteada just flyin the wagon around myself."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    As Rogue says such kind words to him his own smile remains. He shakes his head and rests a hand on her shoulder when he rejoins her, just giving that companionable squeeze. Then they're walking along again, moving in the direction she mentioned, his arms moving in time with his stride in that purposeful way he has when a task lies before him.
    "Ah!" He says when she mentions the wood chipper. "Indeed, which is a perfect..."
    There's a pause as his brow furrows, and she knows that look. It's when a word in English escapes him. His brow knits, but then he recalls. "Sakeway? To what I had been doing."
    They step around the corner and he informs her, "But yes, the wood chipper is what I would call... guilty pleasure." His lips twist up as he starts to gather up some of the strewn wood about the place, tucking branches under his arm and holding them as he creates his own bundle of the fallen debris.
    "So I traveled. That much is apparent, yes?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue just moves along with the big guy now, watching him as he starts to pick up some of the yard debris that had blown in over Ororo's gardens. She smiles at his words, her thumbs hooking in to the waist loops sewn on to the denim of her coveralls. "It's like a thousand little Logans all jacked up on caffeine goin' at the yard waste with rabid intent." She jests as Piotr gets a nice pile going.

The Mississippi Magnolia steps over to the trailer hitched to the four wheeler, her right hand reaching out to grab one of the rakes from the corner where she'd stuffed it when coming back from the edge of the property.

Her booted feet thud over the grass as she drags the rake back toward him, its tongs bouncing off the ground as it is drug.

"Kitty'll be happy you're back too." Rogue says, having to open that door. "Sometimes I see her starin' at that pic of you in the rec room where you're showin' the kids how many hotdogs you can stuff in your mouth, an' she's just sorta sippin' a drink with a lost expression on her face."

She puts the rake down near some of the yard waste and starts scraping it up in to a pile between where they stand.

"We celebrated her birthday in Atlantic City just the other week. Woulda been fun to have you at that. But yeah... tell me where all you went!" She then demands of him.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    He had been picking up this bit of wood, that particular branch. He smiled as he listened to her, and chortled slightly at the mental image of all the tiny Wolverines with their little claws flashing. He shakes his head and tucks another branch under his arm.
    Then she mentions Kitty.
    His smile turns a little softer. Just a touch. "Ah..." He says quietly. Then he adds, "Katya."
    A pause and he takes a deep breath, glancing sidelong up toward the manor as if giving voice to that name might summon her. His dark blue eyes distancing. Then he looks back to Rogue and hoping to adjust before she can notice his smile returns, though there's a slight tinge to the warmth of it. "I hope she has found her happiness."
    He says that as if there was some hint of finality to that particular line of discussion. And he is quick to grasp onto that other conversational thread.
    "Ah. Well. After... everything. Genosha. The monstrosities in Manhattan. The horrors. I found myself looking inward at times entirely too long. I felt myself being... uncharitable. In such times in the past I would travel. Back home it was into town, or to the Volga, Illyana will think me mad, but I missed the Winter."
    He smiled a little, then set his pile of branches next to the wood-chipper, ready to feed them once they have the pieces all together. "I wandered the coast for a time. Until I find this... meeting house. A man was seeking laborers. Fishing in Alaska. They felt I could be of use. And I..."
    Piotr looked away, then back to her and smiled slightly. "I wished to feel truly useful again."

Rogue has posed:
While he spoke, Rogue just kept working the rake on the grass, pulling together a big pile of smaller sticks, leaves and ruined flowers. She smirks at that last thing he says before her mirrored aviators look back up at him. "Don't we all?" She questions with a faint grin. "I always wanted t'travel the world when I was younger." Like ten years ago. "I had a buncha maps of other countries on my walls in my bedroom, that I took outta my aunt's boyfriend's National Geographics-- he was so pissed... the balding fu--" She trails off on that thought.

The rake in her hands comes up to be used as a leaning post, her hands resting atop its handle's end. She smiles once more toward Piotr. "Once my mutation showed up though, dreams'a bein' on my own like that seemed ta get washed away. I'm glad ta hear you are brave enough ta get out there an' do that kinda thing though. I think I'm too used ta livin' in this castle now." She states, glancing toward the mansion that looms a growing shadow as the afternoon sun starts its journey toward setting for the day.

Rogue's eyes go back to Piotr though, the sun still shining on her as she faces him.

"Did ya know Illyana got married?" She asks. "I wasn't invited, apparently." She says, dropping her stare back down to the rake once more to stroke it across the ground, muttering something under her breath then and there.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    As Rogue was gathering up the rest of those twigs with the leaves, Piotr stood behind the wood chipper and was giving it a once over. Some of the other X-Men would likely just step up to it and let it rip. But she could see him going over it step by step. Checking the gas first, priming the tank, testing the switches before engaging it, making sure the safety guide was in place. He nodded to himself and straightened up, then turned to her.
    "If this is a thing you wish, Rogue. Then make it a thing you pursue. Part of me... I recognize this. There is that temptation here. To remain in the... safety. And there is always something on the horizon that prevents one from going and doing. Always something ahead. Which can feel smothering. Stifling. Yet it is also liberating, for it means every time you would go and do for yourself... it is all equally bad, yes?"
    As he says that last he smiles a little, though his attention is still partially on the wood-chipper.
    He grabs a large branch and holds it into the feeder. Then in the moment before he engages it she gives him that last bit of news.
    Which is when the wood-chipper kicks on at its highest gear and just /DESTROYS/ that branch in his hand, yanking it sharply out of his grip and spattering the wall of the shed with the debris. It continues to whir and hum and roar though now no longer grinding anything. Yet Piotr is just staring at the wall.

Rogue has posed:
The initial commentary from Piotr leaves Rogue simply raking in silence for a few moments as she mulls over what he said. When she does speak up, she just repeats part of his words. "It is all equally bad. Should put that on a damn tee-shirt." She mutters before the chipper is activated, and the sound of the branch being consumed liked Hambone on a donut.

This draws Rogue's eyes up, and upon seeing the branch pieces scattered out like a shotgun blast across the yard, Rogue raises a hand up to push her aviators up to her white hairline.

"Uh. Got away from ya, huh?" She asks the big Russian, a smirk playing across her pink hued lips.

The rake is set down then, and the Belle picks one of the branches up out of the wagon herself. She starts carrying it toward the chipper then.

"I take it ya didn't give an invite either?" She asks then with a grin, and a shake of her head. "I'm just messin' around though, I mean she did get married, so I heard, but she's kinda not around a whole lot. I think she's just tryin' ta live her own life, free'a the drama ya get around here. Ya know?"

Rogue peacefully feeds the branch through the machine, allowing it to fall in to the bin installed on the side of it as directed by the User's Manual tucked in to a pocket of the nylon bag hanging from the side of the machine.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    It's around about the time the second branch is brzzzted that Piotr shakes his head and seems to return to himself. He turns his head to the side and looks once again upon Rogue. "Married?!"
    Which is when he lifts his hands in front of himself, looking at them as if they had betrayed him. His expression is one aghast and rather taken aback. And then... here comes the Russian.
    "Kak ona mogla vyyti zamuzh, ved' ona vsego lish' malen'kaya devochka? Eto bezumiye. Bezumiye, ya vam skazhu." The stream picks up as he turns to look at Rogue, gesturing with his hands and then giving himself the mother of all facepalms. "I am the terrible brother. I am the worst. How could I do this?"
    He turns to the wood chipper and shakes his hands at it as if wanting to grab it and shake it, "I am so selfish. What right did I? I could have been here. To help her. Nyet, no. Oh she will never forgive me."
    He finally remembers to turn off the wood-chipper and then there's an eerie silence that greets them. He sits down on one of those stacks of split wood that Logan left behind the shed. He shakes his head, "Ah. I am a fool."

Rogue has posed:
Drama Llama Colossus.

When the big guy sits down, Rogue's booted feet come in to view at his down cast vision. "Buck up, Silver Bullet." She says, now offering him a brand new bottle of sweet tea that she'd had on her awesome John Deer four wheeler. She holds a second one at her side for herself, and should he take it, she'll take a seat down beside him on the lawn, curling her legs together Indian-style.

She twists the cap off her bottle, and shakes her head while doing it. "I talked to Mary Swanson down at the JIffy Lube, she has a cousin who has a roommate who used to work with the Doctor that your sister married. She said she didn't think anyone was invited, so that may have included even you, if you'd been here."

After relaying this important information, Rogue sips her tea, before lowering the bottle down to the grass in front of where she's seated now.

"Besides. We're all gettin' older, right? It's time t'start hitchin' up, makin' families, or becomin' weird reclusive cat people. Life only has those two choices, after all, right?" She asks, adjusting her pig-tails to toss them back over her shouldrs as she pulls her sunglasses off to tuck the limb under the front of her coveralls.

"I think you'd be a great brotha t'have too, by the by."

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    Piotr accepts the tea but doesn't open nor sip from it yet. He's still looking downward with his eyebrows risen and his brow furrowed. He shakes his head while Rogue speaks, but when she suggests that he likely wouldn't have been invited... his eyebrows rise as he considers that.
    "Perhaps that is the better." Then his eyes widen slightly, "Or perhaps that is even worse." As he reflects on the possible ramifications on that. He then shakes his head, closing his eyes for a moment, holding a hand out as if to stay the drama and push it away. Then he looks over at her. "Forgive me, Rogue." Again he rolls the 'R' in her name, just that habit of his.
    "I should not have expected the world to remain as it was when I have been gone over a year." He pushes a hand through his hair, then looks over at the pile of branches. "I know that there is a price to pay for my absence, so let it begin to be paid now."
    He smiles sidelong at her, then slaps his hands down on his thighs and pushes himself up to his feet.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue remains where she is as she watches him come to terms with the changes that have taken place since he was here last. She leans back on her left hand in the grass, her right holding the bottle in front of her still. She shows him a comforting expression before sipping from her own drink. "That's the spirit." She tells him, hoping he's talked himself out of whatever muscular hole he'd talked himself in to.

"Plenty'a time t'experience all the best parts'a bein' back here now anyway." She reminds him too as she crinkles the paper label wrapped around the plastic bottle.

"You should speak with Jean some time too, to make sure she knows you're here. She's got some pretty big stuff planned, I think, and well.. some of it involves gettin' off world all together. Which she knows I hate, but she does that thing where she stares at me with a thousand yards of sadness, until I groan and agree to go up in to the abyss anyway..."

The Belle floats up off the ground, and back on to her booted feet. She strides back toward the wood chipper where she sets her bottle down on the table beside it. "We're startin' up classes again in a few weeks too, so if ya wanna teach somethin' ya better get your name on the course schedule too, Mistah." She tells him with a pat of her right hand on his back.

Piotr Rasputin has posed:
    "First thing is first," Piotr says as he looks at Rogue. "We finish up this yard work, yes?" He gestuers to the branches and twigs and... the debris that's all over the wall of the shed. "And then I will secure my quarters, get unpacked, get a shower..."
    The large Russian looks thoughtful for a moment, features stern befoer softening. "And then I shall say my hellos and hopefully catch up with our friends." He finally twists the cap off of that sweet tea and takes a swallow of it. Then he looks at the bottle peering at the label as if it surprised him though he voices no thoughts aobut it.
    Turning to her, "Here, more hands makes the work go faster. Let us take care of this and then you can tell me all that has passed for you."