Title: You Make Me
Author: m.jules
Rating: R
Summary: What we will do for
love is limited only by our dedication.
For someone whose desperation runs deeper than the metal in his bones,
there are no limits…and that can be a frightening thing.
Disclaimer: I love Third Day. I’d never claim to own their property. Fox and Marvel, however, I’m holding a slight grudge against, and
they’re gonna hafta fight me. (No
lawyers, please; I can’t afford them.
*Grins*)
Author’s Notes: Like “Nonetheless,” the lyrics used herein
can be found on Third Day’s album Conspiracy No. 5, song titled “You
Make Me Mad”. (And it’s so darn
convenient that “mad” has two meanings, since it’s used twice)
xXxXxXx
1.
Dance
I don’t know if it’s
necessarily
The things you do
“You don’t scare me.”
I never thought I’d do it. Never, not once, from the beginning, did I
think I’d ever do it. My time with the
X-Men – with her – had changed me.
No longer was I the selfish bastard who only looked out for himself; now
I had to deal with an awakened sense of morality and responsibility that, true,
wasn’t as strong as Chuck’s or Scooter’s, but had a lot to do with the trust I
remembered in a pair of big brown eyes.
In the end, those eyes were my downfall.
“Mmm, maybe not in one way,” he answered, his
voice ridiculously smooth and hypnotic, with an underlying edge…like cream over
broken glass. “But I do have one card I
haven’t played yet, dear boy, that I’m sure will inspire a proper degree of
fear in you.”
“Nothin’ you do scares me.”
The soft, teasing persuasion left his voice
quicker than I’d hauled ass out of Westchester. “Unless you comply with my terms, Wolverine…she dies.”
“Motherfucking—“
“Temper, temper,” he reminded, a hand coming
out to hold me still, vibrating the metal in my bones, rippling it beneath my
skin like it was water. Shit,
that hurt. “I wouldn’t want her to have
to die simply because you have no self-control, now would you?”
“You can’t kill her,” I growled at him through
teeth that were involuntarily clenched shut.
“Oh, couldn’t I? I did last time.”
“I beat your ass last time, and I’ll do it
again.”
“Oh, dear boy,” he chuckled. “Do you really think that? Do I look beaten to you?”
I knew he had a point. Fuck it all, I knew he could do it. The X-geeks by themselves wouldn’t be able
to save her—I had been her only salvation last time, and he could very well
hold me prisoner until she was dead; so dead her skin wouldn’t take me in. There would be nothing I could do.
He must have seen the defeat in my eyes, read
it all over my manipulated body, because he relaxed his hold on me without
releasing it completely and began to give instructions. I closed my eyes and tried not to think, not
to feel, not to allow any thought to enter my mind except those eyes. Those eyes that had spoken to me louder than
words in a trashy little bar in Laughlin City and told me that we were matched;
the ones that looked at me with sadness, apology, and more than a little
affection when they should have been horrified, condemning, and revolted
because she was dangling on my claws.
The same eyes that had fought hard against tears because she wanted to
be strong in front of me when I came to bring her back…the ones that I gave my
life to have open again when they could have been closed forever.
And fourteen hours later, as I fought a raging
battle within myself to suppress new memories of cold-blooded murder and to
restrain the feral desires that threatened to ravage every ounce of my
hard-earned control, it was the memory of those fucking eyes that at once
grounded me in humanity and let loose the howling, raging beast inside me. I was glad they hadn’t seen what I’d done
for them…glad that she didn’t know the kind of things I did for her…
I was glad she didn’t know that because her eyes were burned into my mind and
because I would give anything not to see them closed in death, I had danced to
Magneto’s tune of shedding innocent blood and what essentially amounted to
political assassination. I had a
feeling she would have rather died to protect them than to have their blood
stain my claws, but I knew that if she died my life would have no meaning…and
she was the only person I knew who could kill me. If she went, I wanted to go first.
Turns out I was still a fucking selfish bastard
after all.
2. Cry
Maybe the things you say
“Logan?”
I closed my eyes and sank against the side of
the phone booth in relief. She was
there. She was alive. I could hear her voice; I could see her in
my mind; I could damn near smell her and feel the heat of her body, of her
breath, over the telephone line. She
was alive.
“Sugar, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Marie.” My voice was gruffer, hoarser than normal, but then again, I was
surprised it was working at all. She
was alive, and she was still speaking to me.
Of course, she didn’t know what I’d done, either.
”You don’t sound all right,” she answered, and my chest hurt with the reprimand
and concern in her voice. She was
trying sound stern, but all she sounded was insanely worried. Worried about me. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
That was a little too quick, and I could almost see her eyebrows draw
down in anger.
“Logan, don’t you fucking lie to me. What the fuck happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Marie.” Shit, that came out harsher than I
intended. “I’m sorry, darlin’; look, I
just… I just had to make sure you were still there, still all right. Don’t run off again, all right? I … stay at the mansion.” My lungs hurt and I was having trouble
breathing. “Stay right the fuck under
Chuck’s wheelchair if you have to,” I growled.
True, I’d done what the magnetic bastard had asked, but that didn’t mean
he wouldn’t take her for leverage if he thought he needed my services again. I couldn’t risk having her taken. “Promise me.”
“I promise, Logan,” she said slowly,
quietly. “But on one condition.”
“Name it, darlin’, it’s yours.”
“Be careful, please. I…I…please don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want to lose you.”
Her voice was so quiet at the end I almost didn’t hear her, and I
thought I could hear her sniffling quietly in the background. “Promise me I won’t lose you.”
“I promise, baby; I promise,” I whispered and,
after a few minutes of us breathing together over the line, hung up without
saying goodbye. I banged my head against
the plastic of the phone booth and howled with the pain that was rattling in my
chest. I tried to tell myself that the
moisture on my face was because I’d been running for four hours straight and
the humidity in the air was at ninety-eight percent, but I knew it was because
I could practically smell her fucking tears over the phone.
I was so fucking lost inside the sound of her
voice, I wanted to just drown in it.
Nothing had ever felt this desperate before…I needed to keep her alive,
no matter what else I did. I angrily
wiped at the tears—rain and sweat—on my face and told myself that I wasn’t
going to keep her alive by being a fucking pansy.
I trashed the bloody shirt and jacket in a
dumpster behind the bar and took off running into the night again with only one
thought on my mind: stay alive; stay alive for Marie.
3. Laugh
“Darlin’?”
”Mmph…Logan?”
“Hey, darlin’.”
”Logan…bloody…what the…it’s…what time is it?”
“It’s okay, baby; it’s … it’s late. I just… you’re all right, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.
Give me a couple of minutes for everything to check in. I’m pretty sure I was all right when I went
to sleep, though.”
A low chuckle, warm like honey over the
line. The first time I’d heard him
sound normal in weeks. Well, almost
normal.
“Logan?”
”Yeah, baby.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s—I—it’s nothin’, Marie. It’s—well, it’s complicated.”
“I’m smart.”
Again with the chuckling, this time almost
regretful.
“Yeah, but we ain’t got time for me to be smart
enough to explain it to ya.
Look—tell—no, don’t tell. Don’t
worry about it. Just—it might be awhile
before I can call you again, okay? I
don’t want you to worry.”
“You know I’ll worry.”
“I know.
I just had to tell you.”
“I know.
Logan?”
”Yeah.”
“You need me to come kick somebody’s ass so you
can come home or at least start callin’ at decent hours?”
A real laugh that time, low and gentle, quiet,
like he doesn’t want to be heard…but at least it’s a real laugh.
“Yeah, darlin’, yeah I do. But hey, hang in there; we’ll throw a party
when I get back.”
“You bet.
Be careful, sugar.”
”Always. Go back to sleep, baby. I love you.”
I couldn’t help the yawn that overtook me at
the mere suggestion of sleep, especially made in that soothing, command-disguised-as-a-magic-spell
voice of his. “All right. And Logan?”
“Mmm?”
“I love you too, sugar.”
I could practically hear him smile over the
line. “Good night, Marie.”
”Night, Logan.”
4. Shout
You’ve said some things to me
I hadn’t been able to detect anyone on my trail
for at least forty-eight hours, and that had me more than a little
worried. They were good trackers, yes;
I had no doubt of that. But I was better,
and I’d been able to keep at least vague tabs on them the entire time. When they suddenly disappeared, I knew it
was a trap, but I couldn’t risk not walking into it.
The longer I waited, the more chance I had of
them deciding to use Marie as bait, so of course I didn’t wait very long. And you know, I figured I was cutting it close,
but I never figured the bastards would actually get there before I did.
Why the fuck they had to go for something
dramatic like that was fucking beyond me.
They knew all they had to do was make a veiled threat, drop her name,
and I’d be their little puppet on a goddamn fucking string. They didn’t even have to lay a hand on
her. I guess they just wanted to spice
things up a little. Fucking hell, did
they ever.
I smelled them when I got to the mansion—that
mangy walking carpet and the shape-shifting blue bitch. The security at that place is incredible, so
I couldn’t just sneak in…but I didn’t want to alert them to my presence
either. They must have had something
serious they wanted her for, because let’s face it, Magneto’s henchmen are like
bulls in the proverbial china closet on a good day, and they were sneaking
around like…like…well, not like themselves.
They were still on the perimeters of the
property, outside the fence, when I got there and I wasn’t planning on letting
them know I was anywhere around. I
figured I’d just keep an eye on ‘em, and if they tried anything, I’d make sure
they never did it again. I found out
later that the Professor and Jean were in D.C. appearing before Congress, for
which I am permanently holding a grudge against the whole fucking American
government.
If Chuck and Red had been there, chances are
they would’ve known that Sabretooth and Mystique were prowling around and
would’ve sent ol’ One-Eye after them with his laser beams. They sure wouldn’t have let Marie leave the
house that day, especially not by herself.
I had a great hiding spot, completely
camouflaged and downwind from Larry and Moe (Curly must’ve stayed home zapping
flies), when she came waltzing through the gate like she didn’t have a care in
the world. The only thought in my mind
was Why the fuck is she outside the gate? Xavier has extensive grounds…if she wanted
to go for a walk, she had plenty of room to do so without leaving the protected
area. It was too far into town to walk…
In short, Fate was out to get me, and he was
being a mean-hearted bastard about it, too.
They had guns. The stupid fuckers had guns. Apparently they didn’t want to get close
enough to engage in hand-to-hand combat and risk her dropping them like flies. But why the stupid fuckers had the kind of
guns with bullets and not with tranquilizer darts escaped me. Surely they knew that their lives were
forfeit if they spilled a drop of her blood.
Who knows; maybe all of Buckethead’s screws had finally come loose. Or maybe they were just all suicidal.
Or maybe—just maybe—it was planned to turn out
exactly as it did…sort of. The minute
that overgrown piece of shag carpeting raised his rifle and set the sites on
Marie, my supreme hiding place didn’t matter anymore. And apparently it was just what they were waiting for, because as
I roared and lept from my concealment, that blue bitch turned a machine gun on
me, full force, dead center. My body
was healing from the bullets almost as quickly as they ripped into me, but
Marie’s horrified scream at the sight of me being shot full of lead distracted
me for a fraction of a second. Long
enough for Smelly-Boy to reach into his pelts and launch a grenade at me that
exploded somewhere in the general vicinity of my throat.
The world went black pretty quickly after that,
but the last thing I remembered was the school’s alarm going off, the sound of
many, hurried feet rushing to our rescue and a haze of red that I couldn’t be
sure was Scooter’s beams or my blood.
At that point it didn’t matter as long as it kept Marie safe. Red was going to be my favorite color if she
came out of this alive. And if she
didn’t – neither would anybody else.
***
Fuck.
She’s crying.
Whoever the fucking hell made Marie cry was gonna pay for it, dearly, in
blood. Now if I could just get my eyes
open—if I could just maybe see what bastard was responsible for that
heart-wrenching sound and the acrid smell of salt that was burning my nostrils…Oh,
shit…the world isn’t supposed to tilt like that, is it?
“Logan…?
Logan! Logan, baby…!”
“Muh—“
”Ssshhh, Sugar, don’t try to talk right now.
You’re…you got beat up pretty bad, baby. Just lie still, okay?”
”Muh-rree?”
”Ssh, Logan, please. Please, baby, just
be quiet and rest for a minute. I’m
here. I’m here, sugar. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her hands were warm over my cool skin,
pleasantly so, like hot cocoa in December or orange coals at just the right
temperature for toasting marshmallows in late October. Perfect warmth layering life over the shadow
of death that hovered within my skin. I
moaned softly in concession and relaxed, letting her hands work magic over me,
coaxing the blood back to the surface now that it would not run through.
“I surmise that our patient has awakened?”
Who the fuck is that? Is that who made Marie cry?
“How is he, Hank? How bad is it?”
Hank. Okay. Hank was going to be a dead man, just as soon as I regained use
of my feet. Maybe before then, if the
feeling and movement came back into my arms long enough to pop the claws.
“He is recovering admirably – miraculously, one
might say – and he should be restored to his complete vitality within a few
days – in all probability, less than a week.”
More tears from Marie, but they were tinged
with…relief. They splashed onto my
forehead, wetting the tendrils of her hair that wisped over my eyes as she
leaned down within a hair’s breadth of my face, giving me a breathy
air-kiss. She could control her
mutation, but I knew that sometimes she lost control when she was upset. She was obviously not taking any chances on
accidentally draining me. I hated to
admit it, but I was relieved. I always
woke up, I always healed, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed the journey back to
the land of the living. It was a cold,
hard road forged of packed snow stained crimson with my own blood and tinged
black with the chill of death.
It damn near froze the metal in my bones every
time, and so now, bastard that I was, I was damned grateful for the soft suede
covering her hands, and not just for the extra friction that rubbed warmth into
skin that belonged in a morgue.
I could feel my body snapping back to life,
sparks of heat flying between nerve endings and sizzling along the edges of my
bones, charging the adamantium with the electric energy that buzzed through
collapsed veins, slamming them open again with a force that was painful. That was the part nobody understood – the
healing itself always fucking hurt.
I could hear Marie murmuring again, and now I
could clearly pick up the distinct rustling sound of something – furry? “Thank you, Hank. Thanks for everything.”
“It was certainly not a burden, I assure you,”
the cultured voice that belonged to the hated Hank responded. “I will leave you to a moment of
privacy. If you require anything of me,
you are aware you need only summon.”
”Of course, Hank. Thank you
again.”
And then the sound of – a kiss? A fucking kiss? The bastard made her cry and she’s fucking kissing—hey, who
the hell is she kissing? The eyes
opened a little easier this time, though whether because the healing had
progressed further or because they were aided by a surge of jealousy was a
toss-up. The growl—that was
involuntarily. But I wasn’t going to
apologize for it.
“Logan—!”
She turned to face me with her hands on her hips, and I barely caught
sight of something big and blue moving out the doorway. I had a feeling that I’d just missed seeing
“Hank,” but I was still too close to death to want to push that margin by
ignoring Marie when her eyes flashed like that.
“I told you to stay still,” she reminded me, a
little softer this time, and once again tears glimmered in the corners of her
eyes. Shit. Fucking shit. Not only was she going to start crying again – and my nose and
heart already burned from the tears she’d cried earlier – but it suddenly hit
me that I was the reason she’d been crying in the first place. Well, there went my plan for killing Big
Blue. I figured I’d already done a good
enough job of almost getting myself killed, so it would just defeat the purpose
to try it again.
“I’m – I’ll be okay, darlin’,” I managed to
tell her, my body rippling and surging with the life that was now running
through me as if desperate to erase all memory of death’s fingers brushing
across my tissues. “They didn’t get
you, did they?”
She sniffled and shook her head, and all would have been right with the world
if my mouth and my fear at almost losing her hadn’t decided to team up on me
just then. I blame it on the fact that
all the chemicals in my body were turned on full-force thanks to my healing
factor being in high gear. That’s it –
the adrenaline made me do it. “What the
fuck were you thinking, going outside the gates alone like that?” I shouted.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted in shock, but I didn’t notice. I was getting really worked up at this
point. “You fucking knew it was
dangerous! I told you – I begged you,
Marie – to stay here, at the mansion!
Safe!”
A lesser woman – or man – might have been cowed
by the unchecked fury roaring within me that I, just stepping away from death’s
door, didn’t have the strength to hold in.
My emotions were at the surface, my id was in control, and most people
knew to back away from that. Not my
Marie. I should have known. I barely had the last word out of my mouth before
she interrupted me, matching me for vehemence and volume.
“Oh, so I’m just supposed to stay here, like a
fucking prisoner in my own home, until you decide it might be safe for
me to come out and play?”
”Yes, goddammit!”
“God, you know what Logan? You are the most arrogant –“
“Marie, shut up.”
“How dare you think that your needs are more
important than mine?”
”I never once—“
“I’m – trapped! – here like a caged animal,
dying of boredom and restlessness, worried sick half the time with nothing to
distract me, and you’re out roaming the snows!”
”Marie, that’s enough.”
It must have been the fact that all the volume
had dropped from my voice to be replaced by a low, angry menace. It must have been the look in my eyes that
spelled murder if she repeated that sentiment again. True, I would have killed myself after she was gone, but if she
kept accusing me of taking this whole situation lightly, I was not going to be
responsible for my actions. I’d gone
through too much.
Whatever it was, she shut up immediately and
gave me a long, hard look.
“Exactly what is going on, Logan? I think I deserve to know that at least.”
Her voice wasn’t accusing now or arrogant, it
was simply… confident. Telling me that,
as my equal, she deserved an explanation and she was tired of being kept in the
dark like a child. And I couldn’t argue
with her. But, exhausted as I was from
being blown to smithereens and put back together again, I was in no condition
to tell her the whole story. I’d have
to settle for the bare bones and the promise of more later.
“It’s a game, Marie. A deadly, dangerous game that I got trapped in. I’m not sure what the goal is, or how the
winner is determined, but I have a feeling everybody comes out the loser
somehow. I can’t explain it to you
completely because I don’t understand it all yet, but when I’m a little
stronger, I promise I’ll tell you as much as I know.”
Exhausted from the speech and the ebb of
adrenaline, I sank back onto the bed and closed my eyes, hoping that would be
enough for her, for now.
I heard a sniffle again, and the next thing I
knew, the warm, soft pressure of her body was being pressed against mine as she
clambered onto the bed, mostly on top of me, but shifted to the side so I
wasn’t bearing her full weight. As if
her full weight were any weight at all.
Her hair brushed over my bare chest and her lips pressed tiny kisses to the
skin closest to her mouth. Apparently
she was confident enough in her control – or my healing factor – to risk touch
now. “I’m sorry,” she sniffled, and I
felt warm tears against my sternum.
“I’m sorry, Logan. I’m sorry for
yelling at you like that. I know—I know
you’re not gone because you want to be; I know you’ve been places that would
make most people die of fright. I’m so,
so sorry…” She sniffled again and the
tears were hotter, her voice more choked as she continued. “I’ve just been so worried, so worried, and
when I saw you today – when they almost killed you – Logan, I nearly died. I would have died if they’d killed you.”
“They can’t kill me, darlin’.” Huh.
Y’know, I’m proud of myself for how confident that came out – because
for a minute there, this last time, I wasn’t sure.
“I know—but they hurt you, baby. They hurt you. And I wanted to kill them for that. I still do.”
Hmph.
Couldn’t disagree with that. It
still hurt, just a little…although I was pretty sure the ache in my chest was
not so much residue from the wounds as it was a response to the emotional pain
that was filling her scent. I wanted to
reassure her with kind words, the kind I know she likes, that fall over her
ears in what she calls “poetic cadences.”
Never thought of myself as poetic, really, but she likes my words and my
voice.
I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Too tired.
Too damn tired. Coming back from
the dead is harder work than most people think. So I just tightened my arms around her and made rumbly noises
into the top of her head. She
understood and licked the residue of her tears from my chest, purring
back. Apology accepted. From both of us.
5.
Smile
But I’m not sure if you really
mean it
I was so grateful to be back on my feet within
twenty-four hours, although I still couldn’t go very far without having to
rest. It pissed me off to no end, but
Hank – who turned out to be a pretty nice guy, Marie-kiss notwithstanding –
told me they’d had some sort of chemical in the grenade that was retarding my
healing factor. He didn’t say it aloud,
but I knew he thought it was a miracle I’d recovered at all. That bomb was designed to kill me.
So I tottered around the mansion like an
invalid – except when anybody could see me.
Then I just sat back wherever I was, planted my ass in a chair and my
feet on something that probably wasn’t meant to be used as a footrest, smoked
my cigars, and acted like a general badass.
Marie was the only one who dared laugh at me. And laugh she did.
”Logan,” she’d say in that amused tone, “I never knew you were into Martha
Stewart.” And I would look up and see
that Jeannie or ‘Ro or someone else had left the TV on and I had just plopped
down on the couch when I heard footsteps approaching, trying to look like it
was where I’d meant to be instead of just where I collapsed. One day I was going to have to preprogram the
TV to play nothing but hockey or home improvement shows. (I actually liked that damn ‘Trading Spaces’
thing, despite the fluttery designers.
The carpenters kicked ass, and…well…I liked seeing the rooms transform
like that. Though I could’ve done
without all the histrionics at the end, when the homeowners saw what had been
done…)
And I’d just grumble at her and she’d smile sweetly and settle down on the
couch beside me, digging the remote out of the cushions, and lay her head
against my chest while she changed the channel. Come to think of it, she usually turned it on to ‘Trading
Spaces’…maybe that’s why I liked the show so damn much; I always got to hold
her while I was watching it.
She almost clung to me the first few days, and
I didn’t mind. I got to lean on her – I
had to lean on her, actually. My legs
stayed weak for a day and a half, and by the time I could walk on my
own, I had gotten used to her staying tucked under my arm and against my
side. I liked it that way; I could feel
her heart beating through her ribs and mine and her warmth against my skin that
still bore a slight chill most of the time.
I just couldn’t seem to stay warm unless she was there. I’d even taken to wearing gloves all the
time, even when she wasn’t around, because my hands were cold.
Shit.
That chemical had turned me into a fucking pansy.
Chuck and Jeannie returned a few days later and
were debriefed on the situation by Scott and some of the others. Rogue gave her report, but they didn’t
question me. I sensed they were holding
off until I was a little stronger. They
did check up on me and were very supportive, but no one would tell me the
details of what had happened. One
night, lying on the couch with Marie and growling my agreement with the
carpenter over whether or not the hand-made wooden dresser should be painted
(definitely not), I finally decided it was time that I knew.
“Marie.”
“I know,” she whined. “Doug has absolutely lost it.”
“Marie.”
The second time, it got through to her that I
wasn’t growling about the show.
(Although she was right, Doug had lost it. Stupid designer.)
“Yeah, Logan?”
”I—“ See, my problem was that we hadn’t
said it again. We’d only said it once,
at exactly 3:17 am, with me standing in a cold, plastic phone booth in the
middle of God knows where and trying not to let her hear my teeth chattering
from the sharp wind. (Healing factor
takes care of the frostbite but it doesn’t do a damn thing for the
shivering.) I wanted to know…but I didn’t
want to know, either. “I was just
wonderin’…”
After a couple of seconds of me not saying anything, she turned the TV off and
turned over onto her stomach, her chin resting on my chest, and looked up at me
with those big brown eyes. “Yeah?”
“Did you mean it?”
“Did I mean…what?”
Her eyes were focused on my face, narrowed slightly
and flickering over each feature, looking for some hint as to what I was
talking about. I could see her rapidly
clicking through memories in her head, looking for something I might have
thought she was joking about that I needed her to be serious about.
”When you said—did you—were you—“ It
was damn frustrating. But with a flash,
I suddenly realized why I couldn’t ask her what I thought I wanted to ask her –
it’s because that’s not what I really wanted to know. Hell yes, she meant it when she told me she loved me then. She meant it then. But would she still mean if she said it again? And would she mean it if she ever found out what
kind of shit went down out there?
And while I always knew Marie was smart –
smarter than me, most days – I never knew she was smart enough to know what I
was asking when I didn’t even know myself.
Her eyes cleared, her expression opening into certainty and affection,
and she told me firmly, “Yes. I meant
it then, I mean it now, and I’ll always mean it. I love you, Logan. That
will never change.”
I sighed with relief and kissed the top of her
head. She loved me. Invalid, only a shadow of the man I was –
not the strong, virile mate with the right to claim the alpha female – and she
loved me anyway. She loved the shadow,
still. She was my light.
“Thank you,” I whispered, slowly shifting my
focus back to the television as a huge, very un-Wolverine-esque smile spread
across my face. There were some pretty
intense emotions in the room right then, and me still being mostly weak, I
wasn’t sure how long I could wallow in them.
“I love you too. Always.”
“You’d better,” she teased back, tucking her
arms on either side of my torso as she snuggled in closer and turned her head
back to the TV. “Otherwise I’m gonna
hafta find some other gimpy Canadian to snuggle with on the couch.”
I might have still been mostly weak, but it doesn’t take that much
energy to slam a pillow into someone’s head.
However, laughing with them for the next five minutes will burn you to
exhaustion pretty damn quick. Maybe
that’s the way to watch this dumb show – that way I could always be asleep when
the waterworks started.
6. Mad
Do you realize what you have done?
“No.”
“Yes, and that’s final.”
“No fucking way, Marie.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Logan.”
”I sure as hell can.”
“Logan, stop it. I’m fine. I’m going to go
to the store to pick up some stuff, okay?
I’m even taking Jubes and Kitty with me, so if anybody shows up, Jubie
can fry ‘em and Kitty can phase us out of there.”
”No. You’re staying here.”
”Logan, the store is five miles down the road.
It’s in a well-lit, well-populated area and it’s the middle of the day.”
“I’ll go.”
“You can’t go!
You’re still too weak.”
“I’ll go.”
”Logan—fucking listen to me, will you?”
Her voice was a mix between a shout and a growl, and I didn’t think I’d
ever heard her that angry before.
“They’re fucking trying to kill you, not me, you goddamn fucking
idiot! They don’t want me – if they
did, they’d have killed me already.”
“That’s what I’m fucking trying to prevent!”
“Well it’s not going to happen today in
Target! All right? Just…just let me go to the store,
please. I haven’t been out of the
mansion for four weeks, Logan. I’ve
barely been out of your room for that long!
You don’t let me take a bath without practically playing Marco Polo with
me! I love you, but for fuck’s sake, I
need breathing space!”
“Marie—“
“Logan.
I need to go to the store. I
have to get things, girl things, that are needed.”
”Jeannie doesn’t have any you could borrow?”
“Logan!”
”What?”
“I just—I need to get out of the house. Please?”
”If I can come with you.”
”Lo-gan! I want to go to the
store with my friends, Jubilee and Kitty.
You’re my friend, and I love you, and there’s nobody else I’d rather be
with long-term, but I really need some girl-time. Please?”
”Can you have girl-time at the mansion?”
”Not with you hovering.”
”All right – how about – how about if I give you some space, here at the
mansion, for girl-time…and you borrow the stuff you need from Jeannie or Kitty
or that Firecracker kid?”
[sigh]
“Are you really that worried, Logan?”
“I can’t…I can’t risk losing you, Marie.”
”God—if I didn’t love you so much, I’d hate you. You’re an infuriating man, Logan.”
”But you do love me.”
“Yes.
But I’m still mad at you.”
A grin, then. A wicked one. “You’ll get over it.”
”I always do.”
7. Sing
“What’s that?”
”What’s what, sugar?”
”What’s that song you’re humming?”
“Oh.”
She smirked then, and I knew nothing good could come of that smirk. “Just a song.” She turned her head slightly to look into my face, and the gleam
in her eyes confirmed my suspicions about the smirk. We were sitting – lying, really – on the roof, stargazing and
looking for shooting stars. We were
perpendicular to each other, her head resting on my stomach and her body
stretched out at a ninety-degree angle from me.
“Sing it for me?” I loved to hear her sing.
Couldn’t carry a tune worth shit, but I loved it anyway. She wasn’t exactly a bad singer…just
a little flat and with a tendency to slide off the note every couple of bars or
so. It was cute.
“Okay.”
And that’s when I knew I was in trouble. She never agreed that quickly to singing…knew too much
about her own voice. “If you’ll sing me
a song too.”
“Fuck, Marie, I can’t sing.”
“Neither can I.”
I grunted.
She had me there. Besides, we
were up on the roof, it was probably two in the morning, and nobody would hear
me. And I really wanted to hear her
sing.
“Okay.”
She seemed really shocked, and I couldn’t help
but smirk. I loved surprising her. And now she was stuck. She had to sing. Reaching up a little to pinch the flesh over my ribs, she cleared
her throat and sang softly, shyly, “When this old world starts getting’ me
down…and people are just too much for me to take… I climb way up to the top of
the stairs and all my cares just drift… right into space… on the roof, it’s
peaceful as can be… and there the world below can’t bother me… at night the
stars put on a show for free... and darlin’, you can share it all with me…”
She trailed off then, blushing and turning her face to bury it in my
chest. “I hate you,” she muttered, but
she was smiling, and I just ran my hand through her hair and hummed contentedly.
“I liked that,” I said finally. “It’s a good song…’specially for tonight.”
She nodded, but had her mind fixed on exacting my promise. Shit.
“Your turn.”
”Marie…”
”Logan…” Her tone mocked mine, warning,
teasing. “You promised.”
I sighed heavily. She was right. I had
promised. Damn it all, when did I turn
into such a fucking pansy?
I cleared my throat and out of the dark recesses of memories that I barely
remembered – the ones like what I guessed was my name and a guess at being
Canadian – pulled a song. One that I
wasn’t sure actually existed, but haunted me some nights. Like tonight.
“Hello, my friend, hello… it's
good to need you so… it's good to love you like I do… and to feel this way when
I hear you say, Hello... hello, my
friend, hello… just called to let you know I think about you every night… and I
know it's late, but I couldn't wait…hello…”
She pushed herself up slowly, turning so that
she was leaning over me, her face above mine.
Her eyes were serious, though wide and bright, and I thought I could
smell tears that weren’t showing themselves yet. “Logan,” she said in a soft, broken voice. “If you ever – ever – tell me again
that you can’t sing, I’m going to knock you three ways from Sunday.”
I grinned at her and was just about to push my luck and insist that I couldn’t
sing when a bright blaze streaked across the sky. Without a word I pulled her down, pushing her over so that she
faced upward. It was such a bright one,
so gloriously brilliant, that the streak faded slowly from the sky…as if it
were just leisurely melting. “Oh,” she
said softly. “Oh…that was beautiful.”
”Sure was, darlin’,” I told her, nuzzling her hair and pulling her closer into
me now that she was practically lying on top of me. “Sure was.”
8. Sad
I found the one sound I never
wanted to hear again – ever – in my entire life. The one that pulled me out of a sound sleep and propelled me down
the hall to his room with an urgency I’d never felt before. The one that pushed my emotions past the
point of response, of rationalization, of description. The one I’d die to never have happen again:
Logan retching…deep, hard sickness that came from his heart more than his
body. Fear and desperation in his face,
anguish and agony in his eyes. Low,
deep groans in his throat, choking on his tears, tension so great in his body
that his muscles looked like they were going to crack.
“Logan—“ My voice was soft, just a little whisper,
just to say, hey, I’m here. A hand
resting lightly on his bare shoulder. You’re
not alone. He turned then, his eyes
swollen from tears, groaning sobs tearing from his chest. God, baby…what happened? I couldn’t ask him just then, I could only
hold him and clamber into his bed, clutching him as tightly to me as I could
and praying for relief.
Even when he woke from
nightmares about the lab, he was never like this. Never. Even some of his
worst ones, when he’d wake drenched in sweat and gasping for air, his roar of
anger ending in a tiny whimper of pain, he was never like this. This was worse than anything I’ve ever seen
in my life…and I vowed, solemnly, whoever made it happen was going to die. Slowly.
His hands clutched at my waist
so fervently I could literally feel the bruises forming, capillaries and blood
vessels breaking and swelling to the surface of my skin. His head was buried between my breasts, his
teeth catching on the cloth of my nightgown as he breathed harshly, fighting
for control of everything running through him.
I momentarily wondered if I could share some of the pain…just turn the
power on for a half-second and lighten the emotional load…but I knew that he
wouldn’t want that. It would be
essentially raping him…and he didn’t need his mind fucked with any more than it
already was.
His sobs were calming somewhat,
his body relaxing marginally, and I just sat there with him, stroking him
softly, feather-light touches over his back and shoulders, humming and
whispering in little comforting sounds.
“Ssh…it’s okay, baby. It’s
okay. I love you. Sshh.
Relax. I’ve got you, love. I’ve got you.”
He hiccoughed once and pulled
away slightly, beginning to sit up. His
eyes were slightly shuttered as they flickered to mine for a half-second, and
he self-consciously reached to wipe the tears from his face, the saliva and
vomit from his chin. His action made me
realize for the first time that my nightgown was going to be seeing the laundry
soon…but since it was filthy anyway…I took the hem of it in my hand and gently
wiped his face with it. He seemed
embarrassed, but relieved that I wasn’t disgusted with him.
Letting my eyes catch his in a
look that I hoped conveyed devotion and every ounce of love in my heart, I
quickly shrugged out of my gown and tossed it to the hamper in the corner that
he never used. That left me sitting
topless on his bed, which actually hadn’t happened before, but neither of us
was taking much note of my state of undress.
He wrinkled his nose in
disgust and muttered softly, “I’m going to take a shower.”
I nodded, watching him slide
out of bed and step carefully over the vomit on the floor. God…what could have happened to make him so
sick? I debated momentarily whether I
should clean up the floor or continue taking care of him…and then couldn’t
believe it had ever been a question.
The floor could wait.
Without asking his permission
or waiting for his acknowledgment, I stepped out of my panties and followed him
into the shower. Again, this was
something new for us, and under different circumstances it might have led to
something interesting, but neither of us was in the frame of mind to think of
our nudity as anything more than a necessity for getting him clean in the most
comforting way possible.
He didn’t seem surprised when
I stepped into the shower behind him and pulled the curtain closed, nor when I
maneuvered around in front of him so that my body blocked his from the initial
coldness of the spray. He didn’t react
much at all other than to remain quiet and submissive as I lathered a washcloth
with soap – a gentle woodsy scent that became the essence of masculinity when
it blended with the scent of his skin – and began running it gently over his
body.
If my hands lingered anywhere,
it was with tenderness and a light flexing of fingers to coax the tension out
of his muscles. After a few moments I
ditched the washcloth, choosing to spread the lather over his skin with my bare
hands so that he could feel the comfort of my presence. He hung his head, his eyes closed, and never
moved except when I prompted him to accommodate me as I smoothed the bubbles
over his shoulders and down his arms, over his chest, around his sides, down
his back and forward a little to run over his hips and down his firmly muscled
legs.
Later, I would look back with
a little surprise that erotic thoughts had never entered my mind, even as I’d
gently bathed his intimate places, but the thought in the front of my
consciousness the entire time was his incredible beauty. Not just the beauty of his body, despite the
grace native to his lithe muscular form, the sensual way he held himself and
moved, but the beauty of his spirit, of his tortured mind…the beauty that
reached out to me in eyes that opened to watch me as I knelt on the floor of
the shower to run my hands over his feet and then bend down to kiss the tops of
them softly, my wet hair falling over them in a caress of its own.
He hummed softly and I looked
up to catch his gaze as I sat up and rocked back on my heels, my hands still
resting lightly on his ankles. His eyes
were filled with love, with pain, and no small amount of
self-recrimination. Whatever he’d done
this last time out must have really done a number on him.
I stood and squeezed some
shampoo into my hand, breathing deeply as the steam of the shower enhanced the
sandalwood scent, and he leaned his head forward silently, allowing me to wash
his hair. My fingertips worked gentle
massaging circles into his scalp, and he rumbled once with the pleasure of the
sensation. I stepped back so that I was
on the other side of the shower’s spray and turned him around, tilting his head
back so that the water could rinse the soap out of his hair, my fingers running
through the strands to assist it.
When he was clean, I pressed a
small kiss to his shoulder blade and then turned him once more, cupping his
face in my hands. There was no space
for words in that moment – words would have messed everything up. There was only room for expressions and
caresses and my fingertips resting against his lips to say I love you. He finally closed his eyes again, a pained expression
flickering across his face, and I let my hands slide away to turn off the water
and pull back the shower curtain.
I stepped out first, holding
his hands in mine as he followed me onto the fluffy bathroom rug. I let go, a hand resting lightly on his arm
to convey my message – hold still – while I reached for a towel. I started at his hair, choosing to squeeze
the moisture out rather than vigorously rubbing it, and continued down,
smoothing the terry cloth softly over his face and neck, dabbing the moisture
from the small hollow of his clavicle and sweeping it gently across his broad
shoulders. I continued down his body,
hoping that my motions were doing more than drawing the moisture away from his
skin – I hoped they were drawing the torment away from his soul. When I’d finished, meticulously dabbing the
droplets from between his toes and placing one last kiss on the tops of his
feet – he had really beautiful feet – he placed his hands on my shoulders and
pulled me up to a standing position.
Wordlessly, he reached for the
other towel and began repaying me with confident, gentle motions. I closed my eyes and let the sensations wash
over me of his large hands guiding the soft-rough cloth over my skin, not lingering
anywhere unnecessarily but not moving in a detached manner either. His hands were all tenderness and affection
as they smoothed over my body and squeezed out my hair as I’d done for
him. He finished with my feet as I had,
and mimicked my actions by placing a gentle kiss on the top of each, then stood
and kissed my forehead, his hands resting lightly on my upper arms.
“Love you,” he whispered, and
my heart broke in that moment for the wonderful, beautiful man standing in
front of me, so strong of spirit despite everything done to him. I couldn’t even work up the energy to be
angry at whoever had done this to him, although I knew I would be later. All my focus was on him, and my heart
ached for him. A tear slid down my face
and he put his finger up to my chin in time for it to roll onto his hand.
“Love you too,” I said
softly. We left the bathroom with my
hand resting lightly in his and dressed him in a pair of sweatpants before
moving in silent agreement to my bedroom.
He would sleep with me tonight, and after he was asleep, I would slip
back in here to clean the floor before returning to hold him. I wondered if I would sleep at all, or if I
would just lie awake and weep for the man I loved.
9.
Think
I knew before I opened my eyes that she needed
to know today. I knew that she needed
me to be completely honest with her – but I also didn’t think I could bear to
tell her everything. Not…not the last
one. Not the accident. God. That one hurt to think about… deep down in my chest, it
hurt. So bad.
She was beside me – wrapped around me, really –
in bed… I could tell by her breathing that she was awake. I decided it would be easier to keep my eyes
closed. If I opened them, I’d have to
watch her face. I’d have to watch the
first moment of reaction that she wouldn’t be able to control – the flash of
horror…then, if I knew Marie at all, pity.
So without opening my eyes, without any sort of
preamble at all, I started.
“It was…it was a deal. He had me stretched out like some fucking
crucifix, about to kill me just by snapping my bones with that metal…but…I
still wouldn’t have done it. I would
have just let him kill me. Figured I
could’ve probably recovered…eventually.
But…he threatened you. And I
knew…I knew he could lock me up somewhere, just like I was then, and he’d be
able to get to you. And he’d gotten to
you last time…”
She shifted just a little, just to lie more fully on top of me, stretched out
over my chest, her hands running comfortingly up and down my arms. I still wouldn’t open my eyes.
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
He could’ve killed me a million times and I would’ve let him…but I
couldn’t let him anywhere near you, darlin’.
I’m sorry. So I…I did what he
asked.” I swallowed then, heavily, and
she squeezed my bicep gently, pressing a kiss to my chest, right over my
heart. “There were four of them. I only knew about two when I went… a… a
general and his wife. I… I didn’t want
to kill her…I didn’t even want to kill him…but…but I did. And…and…” Shit. I never realized it would be that difficult to talk about.
She didn’t say anything, just kept touching me,
caressing, steadying. Her hand moved up
my arm, over my shoulder, and rested on my heart, where she’d kissed me.
“And when I had…I killed her first, you know,
so she wouldn’t have to wake up and find her husband dead. I just…I wanted her to go quietly, in her
sleep, not knowin’. He woke up—I didn’t
want him to have to see—but he did…and I killed him quickly too. As quickly as I knew how.” Straight through the brain. Severed the spinal cord. Made a huge fucking mess…gray matter
spattered all over me…I nearly threw up then and there. “I’d just…I’d just pulled the claws back
when I heard a gun click. I…my
instincts took over and I struck out before I looked to see what I was
striking—it was a kid, Marie. Just a
little kid. About seven years old, had
his daddy’s rifle. And I…I got him…”
Shit. I
knew I’d cried then. I’d stood there,
in the bedroom of this general and his wife, and cried over their dead
son. But I didn’t realize it would hit
me again, that I’d burst into choking sobs at the memory. I struggled for a few minutes, Marie’s
touches becoming firmer, more solid, steadying me, centering me. Finally, when I could breathe again, I took
a moment and gathered myself, curling my hand around hers like an anchor.
“And…and then I heard this little voice…she
was…God, Marie, she was beautiful.
She…was about three years old…pretty brown curls…and her eyes…they
looked like yours, baby. She looked
like she coulda been your daughter. She
just looked right up at me and asked for her mama.”
“Mama?”
”No, darlin’…your Mama’s…your Mama’s gonna sleep for a long time, okay? She…won’t wake up anytime soon. Are – are you – what’s your name?”
“Julie.”
“Julie, I’m…my name’s Logan. I’m…I’m gonna take you with me, okay? I’m gonna take you somewhere you’ll be
safe.”
“Until Mama wakes up?”
“Yeah…yeah, darlin’. Is that okay?”
A small, decisive nod. “Okay.”
“I…I took her with me, found a
place for her. You know, one of them
homes. Told ‘em…told ‘em she was an
orphan, but she didn’t know it yet. Her
parents had died…in an accident. She
said her name was Julie, didn’t know a last name.” I didn’t, either. I
didn’t even know their names. “They,
uh, they asked me who I was…said I’d rather not say, if it was all right… but
she piped right up and told ‘em my name, told ‘em that she was going to stay
with them until her mama woke up because I said she could.”
The tears were coming again,
but silently this time, just running down my face.
“They asked…asked if they
could give her my name for her last name.
Julie Logan. Told ‘em they
could. I…I almost couldn’t leave her
there, Marie. She just…it was…it was
like…God.”
Like she was my own
daughter. Julie Logan. I murdered her parents. Stole her chance at a normal, happy
childhood…and I felt like she was my daughter?
My child? Because…because of her
name, and because she was so much like Marie…and I knew, I knew instinctively,
that if I ever had a daughter, it would be Marie’s daughter too.
She was still being silent,
and I couldn’t take it at that point.
“Do you hate me?”
“No,” was her immediate
answer. No hesitation. “No, Logan, I don’t hate you. But I have some things to think about.”
“That’s—that’s okay.” I swallowed, loosening my grip on her. “Take all the time you need. And…and…if you don’t want to…you know, keep
going like we were…that’s okay. I
understand. I’ll understand if you
can’t love me…be in love with me…anymore.
That’s … that’s why I wanted to tell you, before it went too far for
you.”
“It’s already too far, Logan,”
she sighed quietly. “I belong to you as
much now as if we’d been sleeping together already. I’ve always belonged to you, ever since I saw you in the
cage. Do you know, I felt like you’d
won me? I felt like you’d fought for me
and won me?”
How could she talk about that
when she’d just heard what I’d done to an innocent child? Two innocent children…killed one, ruined the
other one’s life…
“I imagine…I imagine Julie
feels a little of the same way. You can
be…very safe feeling, Logan. Very …
very strong. Secure.” She paused, biting her lower lip. “What I need to think about isn’t whether I
want to be with you or not.”
“Oh…okay.”
She looked up at me then. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You know when I said I’d
always love you?”
“Yeah?”
“I still mean it.”
“God, Marie…” That just…that deserved a kiss. A good one.
A long one. I still felt like
shit, I still felt like I could claw my own heart out for what I did to those
kids…but at least I felt like there might be some chance to be redeemed as a
human being. And all because of
Marie. Always because of Marie.
And she knew just what to say to me about Julie – about her feeling safe
because of me. Made me feel like less
of a jackass…well, not really…but it did make feel a little better. A little better that maybe she wouldn’t be
too traumatized, wouldn’t have nightmares about me, because she didn’t know I’d
killed her parents and she … maybe, just maybe … thought I’d taken care of her.
I still felt like I deserved
to die, but at least Marie still loved me.
At least I had that.
9 ¾. Interlude
For all of two hours after
Logan went back to sleep, I lay awake, absently running my fingers through his
chest hair and thinking. Thinking
hard. Before last night – and
subsequently this morning – I’d been considering taking our relationship a step
further. He’d been recovering very well
and had almost no residual weakness from Mystique’s and Sabretooth’s attack. The two mutants seemed to have been working
independently of Magneto in their little assassination attempt, but they sure
as hell weren’t fucking around with it.
They had a plan – a surprisingly good one – and they’d carried it out.
I still hadn’t told Logan –
mainly because I felt guilty – about the phone call. Mystique had called the mansion, her voice disguised as Logan’s,
and asked me to meet him—her—outside the gate in ten minutes. They must have known Logan would be there…or
they were planning on sending him a ransom note if he wasn’t. I fell for it; didn’t even ask him for a
reason why. Logan wanted me to meet him
outside the gate, then hell, I’d meet him outside the gate. Just shoved my feet into my boots and did as
I was told without telling anybody where I was going.
Thank God Kurt was a little
off on his teleportation that day – he accidentally landed in a tree just
inside the gate, saw what was going on, and bamf!d back into the mansion
to alert Scott and Ororo. If it hadn’t
been for that, I don’t like to think what would have happened. Sabretooth had already been heading for
me—they had what they’d come for, Logan, but that didn’t mean old Creed didn’t
want a little extracurricular amusement.
But things turned out all
right despite the fact that Mystique morphed into a mosquito – rather an
appropriate visage, I thought – and zig-zagged off into the clear blue sky, too
small and erratic for Storm’s lightning bolts or Cyke’s eye blasts to be
accurate. Sabretooth went loping off
with a jagged hole in his abdomen, but he managed to disappear into the forest
and we all knew he’d heal, unfortunately.
But the tension around those
events had eased somewhat, with any remaining attention focused on Logan’s
recovery and the Professor’s newly-vigilant efforts to keep mental tabs on the
two rogue agents of evil. (I thought
Logan was going to was going to wash my mouth out the first time I used that
term for them in front of him – I believe his exact words were, “Don’t you ever
let me fucking hear you refer to them like that! That’s your fucking name, Marie. I don’t ever want to hear it in reference to those goddamn
motherfuckers again, you got that?”)
So you know, all seemed well
in our little world, and I had all the plans.
I was going to ask him tonight if he’d like to “take our relationship to
the next level.” (That phrase being my
compromise between Kitty’s long, drawn-out speech and Jubes’ succinct – if
blunt – suggestion of “Yo, Wolvie, don’t you think it’s about time you jumped
my bones?”)
But then the nightmare
happened the night before, and then the next morning – the morning of the day I
was going to practically proposition him – he told me what it was all
about. It didn’t mean I didn’t want him
anymore—oh, no, I doubted anything could do that. Even if he turned out to be an evil robot in Magneto’s service,
just please, let me have one good roll in the hay with him before he killed
me. All joking aside, I knew what he
was inside; what kind of man he was in his heart, no matter what his actions might
say to someone who didn’t know him as well, and I was unwavering in my
certainty that I loved him – and wanted him – unconditionally.
But there was the
consideration of – well, of him not being emotionally ready to undertake a new
step. I was sure he could handle the
physical side of it, even if he viewed it as comfort sex, but I didn’t really
want our first time to be about that. I
wanted it to be a conscious decision of, hey, we’re in a relationship now. (Of course, when had we ever not been?) Let’s take this seriously. Maybe it was a little selfish of me; maybe I
was projecting my needs onto him. Who
knows. All I knew was, I now had
something terribly terrible to think about.
And when he woke up, his eyes
focusing blearily on mine, I was still thinking…so deep in thought, as a matter
of fact, that his initial faint smile faded into a worried frown. “Marie?
You okay?”
I nodded, but still couldn’t
speak. All my mental energies were
focused on deciding what step would best serve his well-being…attempting to
divide the altruistic motivations from the selfish ones.
“Talk to me, darlin’, please.”
About that time I realized that, in attempting to discern my motivations, I was
at that moment being selfish. He needed
me – needed my voice, my vocal
acceptance – more than I needed to have everything perfectly worked out in my
head.
“I’m right here, Logan,” I
said soothingly. “I’ll always be right
here. I was just…considering some
things.”
“Like what things? Do you think you could talk to me about
them?”
”Mmm.” Now there was a tough
question. If I told him I really,
really wanted to have sex with him – actually, more than that; as corny as I’d
always thought it sounded, I wanted to make love with him – then chances were,
ten to one, he’d agree to it whether he was really ready or not. I had to hold in a snort at that thought –
Logan, not ready for sex. But it was
actually a possibility at that point; he was emotionally traumatized, and that
could have a serious effect on my plans.
“It’s all right if you can’t,
baby. It’s all right.”
Oh shit. He’s got that dejected tone to
his voice now, and he thinks I’m upset about what he did to that general and
his family. Which is only partially
true – I’m upset that he had to do it, and I’m really upset that that
bastard Magneto used me as the incentive to force him, but no way in hell am I
upset with Logan about any of it. Now
I’ve got to tell him, if only to set him straight. He’d smell it if I lied.
“I was just… just
thinking…yesterday I had planned to ask you a really important question today,
and I was just trying to decide if you could handle it after last night.”
”What question is that, darlin’?” His
voice was really soft, really quiet, and nearly split my heart in two.
“Whether…um…whether you’d want
to, um, you know.” Shit. Come on, Marie, where’s that carefully
planned speech you had? Going right
down the drain along with anything that gets in the way of those nice fantasies
running through your head right now, I’m sure.
A lightly cocked eyebrow, a
tone of vague amusement. “Actually, no,
I don’t know. Telepathy ain’t one of my
powers…that I remember, anyway.”
“Smartass!” I couldn’t help it. His teasing always loosens my tongue. Probably why he did it, looking at it in
retrospect. “And to think I was about
to ask if you wanted to have sex with me.”
The look he got on his face
was priceless. It was obvious that he
hadn’t been expecting that. A dozen
other things, maybe, but definitely not that.
“Oh. Um…well, yeah. Right
now?”
I had to laugh. He looked so adorably confused and turned-on
and nervous and predatory all at the same time. “Well, I didn’t mean necessarily right this second, no. I just meant, in general, you know…like,
over a long period of time, having sex with me for…oh, say years into the future?”
And you know, maybe it was
presumptuous and arrogant of me, but I was pretty sure I could take that kiss
as a pretty enthusiastic “Yes.”
10.
Fall
“Logan?”
”Yeah, baby.”
”I’ve been thinking.”
”Oh, shit, are you okay?”
A slap then, a hard one, across the shoulder.
“Very funny, smartass.”
A smirk. “I thought so.”
A tiny growl that made me grin.
“Fucking asshole.” A pause. “I, um…you know what we were talking about
last night?”
”About getting married?”
”Shit, you say that so easily. Yeah.”
”Yeah, what about it?”
”Were you serious?”
”As a heart attack.”
”I mean—seriously?”
”Yeah, Marie. I’ve been thinkin’ about
it for awhile, actually.” Since you
saved my life the night everything came back to haunt me… that’d be,
what, three months ago?
”Fuck, Logan; that’s dangerous. You
oughta get Hank to do a CAT scan, check for brain damage.”
”Darlin’, you’re sweet, but you can be a real bitch sometimes.”
”Don’t dish it if you can’t take it, bub.”
Heh. I really didn’t want to laugh at
that, but there wasn’t much I could do to avoid it. “Touche. So whatcha been
thinkin’ about it?”
“That…um, that I might like to
do it.”
”Might? Marie, this is a pretty big
step for ‘might’.”
”Yeah, I know…but you know, I’m, uh… well, I have commitment issues. You know that. Ever since…yeah.
Anyway.” Yeah, I knew. Ever since Remy—the dickhead—turned out to
have been married. She wasn’t seriously
interested in him anyway she said, but it was kind of insulting – and
trust-destroying – to have him suddenly pop up with a secret wife. I could see how that might give her
commitment issues. That, and, you
know—her family kicking her out. If
that won’t give you a pattern for dysfunctional relationships, what will?
“Mm-hm.”
”Well, I figured, you know, if the big bad Wolverine could settle down and turn
soft, well, maybe I could too.”
”Whoa, whoa, whoa, darlin’. Turn
soft? What the fuck have you been
smokin’?”
That grin, that wicked little
grin, was going to get me into a helluva lot of trouble one day. Fuck.
Maybe I was turning soft.
“Your cigars.” Okay, I had to glare at her for that one—but
it explained a lot. Like where my
Cubans had been disappearing to. “Well,
okay, admittedly—there are parts of you that don’t seem to ever be
soft…” A flirty, teasing little glance
down below the belt…Shit, darlin’, you’re not doin’ much to help that. “But…well, I didn’t mean it in a bad
way. I meant…you know. Sweet.”
A growl…just a little one, to let her know she’d better pull out a thesaurus
real soon.
“Um…tender?” A little better, but still deserving of a
raised eyebrow. “Hmph. A good mate.”
Okay, that one really
appealed to the Wolverine, if that purring growl that just rolled up out of my
throat was any indication. I liked that
idea. I really, really liked that
idea. “So what are you saying, Marie?”
”I’m, uh, saying that, yeah. I wanna
take the plunge.”
”You sure?”
”Yeah, I’m sure…”
”You sound like you got somethin’ else on your mind.”
A blush. A shy smile, lowered
lashes. “Yeah. But it can wait.”
”If you say so, baby. If you say so.”
11.
Love
I was pretty damn sure life
couldn’t get any better than where I was at that moment. Undisturbed by worry or stress or the idea
of things that needed to be done the next day—although I knew there were things
waiting for our attention after our little vacation—but hell, it was the last
day of my honeymoon and damned if I wasn’t going to enjoy it as much as I
possibly could.
Marie’d never worn much jewelry, but that slim
platinum-and-diamond band just showed off her delicate hand like you wouldn’t
believe. Memories flashed through my
mind of the low candlelight glinting off the emerald-cut edges of that diamond
as she threw her head back and reached for my face, anchoring her hand in the
hair at my temple, just above my head, pushing my name out of her throat as she
shivered and gazed at me with glittering eyes underneath lowered lashes…
And hell, if I kept thinking like that, I was
going to be depriving myself of my current occupation, which was watching her
sleep. No way I could keep entertaining
those memories and not wake her up…either inadvertently or because I discovered
just how low my self-control was when it came to her. Of course, if my somewhat-fuzzy memories of certain moments the
previous week were correct, I’d already made that discovery. Several times.
She had a low jazz CD playing in the
background—she likes falling asleep to music, although she really didn’t need
any help sleeping last night—and a woman’s voice, reminiscent of smoke and
honey, caressed a plea of “Come away with me in the night…come away…” as my
hand ghosted across her pale skin, skating over her hip and down her perfectly
curved thigh down to the little indent in the side of her knee. Marie had perfect knees. It was a weird thing to notice, but the way
her thigh dipped down and then curved back up into her muscled calf…I just
loved that one spot…
I didn’t even consciously realize that I was
moving to kiss it when she moaned a little and shifted, moving her upper body
so that she could see me. “Mmm…Logan?”
“Hmmm,” I hummed, already caught up in nuzzling
the space behind her knee. “Mornin’,
beautiful.”
“Mmmm,” she answered, closing her eyes and
stretching a little, careful not to disturb my explorations. “You sure it’s still morning?” she slurred a
little, reaching for the clock. I
kissed my way back up the outside of her thigh, biting lightly on her hipbone
and nuzzling my face into her abdomen, right above where her ovaries were. She jerked a little—ticklish—and laughed as
she finally got her eyes to register the bright digital numbers.
“Logan…it’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Yeah?”
“We haven’t been out of bed since eight o’clock
yesterday morning when you made that emergency run for more condoms.”
“That’s not my fault—I told you to buy the
economy size.”
She giggled then, pinching my shoulder and
guiding me up her body for a little quality time with her mouth. Between kisses, she murmured, “That’s not
what I mean and you know it. *smack* Don’t you think we should at least see
–mmm—the countryside a little?”
“I got all the countryside I need right here in
my arms, darlin’,” I grinned, nuzzling her just below her ear as the song on
the CD slid into a playful, sultry beat and a sexy voice teasing, “I’m just
sittin’ here waitin’ for you to come on home…and turn me on…”
“Mmmm, I can’t say that I disagree,” she
purred, arching up into my embrace and stretching her arms over my shoulders
and all the way down my back. “Logan?”
“Yeah, baby?” I asked around her earlobe as I
bit it gently.
“I really like being married to
you. This was a really, really good
idea.”
“I’m glad you think so,” I told her honestly,
licking the underside of her jaw as she moaned softly. “I got another good idea if you wanna hear
it.”
Grinning, she maneuvered so that her face was
directly under mine, her eyes looking deep into mine. “Always,” she growled softly, topping it off with a slight
giggle, and I was lost. That thing I
was thinking earlier about self-control?
I couldn’t even remember the word, and my vocabulary was only getting
smaller by the second.
“You’re crazy.”
”But Logan—“
”Mad.”
“Actually, no; I haven’t been mad since yesterday evening, when you
informed me that I needed to shower.”
”Shit, Marie, don’t bring that up. You
just…you smelled like that fucking perfume store Jubes dragged you into and it
was giving me a headache. Besides, you
know that’s not what I meant.”
That smirk really was dangerous.
Lethal weapon. Known effects:
turning the big badass Wolverine into a certified softie. Shit.
“I know. But, come on, you
haven’t even heard the whole idea yet.”
”I don’t need to hear the idea, Marie.
I just…Aw, fuck. All right. But talk fast.”
”I was thinking, you know, that…”
Shy. Hmmm. That was interesting. “Well—if maybe—we could—actually, I already
checked and I know she hasn’t been adopted yet, and she already has your name,
you know—“
“Whoa. Back up. What the hell are you talking about?”
”See, I knew you weren’t
listening. Julie… I, uh,
thought…maybe…you might…I know it’s stupid, I never should have brought it
up. I’m sorry, Logan. I’m really sorry. I should have remembered that would just remind you of things
you’d rather not remember. I’m
sorry. I’ve just…had this image of her
in my mind ever since you told me, and…well, since…” Shit. Now she was
crying. Way to go, Logan. You fucked up but good this time.
“We can…we can check it out.”
”We can?”
Goddamn, Logan, learn to
think before you speak. “Uh…yeah. Just, I mean…yeah.”
***
She was prettier than I’d remembered.
A little older, too; not so vulnerable looking. But her eyes – I was right about them. They looked just like Marie’s. The women running the home told us that many
couples had attempted to adopt her, but she’d proven such a problem that they’d
all brought her back. I was furious at
that – and so was Marie, I think. I
mean, hell, give the kid some time to adjust, right? She’s been through some pretty traumatic shit, and she ain’t just
gonna be all sunshine and roses from the start.
Marie asked if we could see her, and they took us down the hall to
where she was playing beautifully with two or three other girls. From what I could tell, she was
orchestrating some kind of play. I hid
a grin of true admiration and approval.
Four years old and already a take-charge kind of kid. Marie’s eyes got wide and a little bright
and she looked over at me with a plea plainly written in her expression.
I was trying to figure out to respond when Julie caught sight of us and
came bounding over to us. She stopped a
few inches away from me and tilted her head up with her hands on her hips. “Took you long enough.”
“Excuse me?” Her sassy comment
caught me off guard and I couldn’t do much more than just stare at her.
“Some people try to take me, but I not go,” she stated proudly. “Wait for you.”
I looked over at Marie and her eyes spoke more plainly than any words
ever could. Whether by some weird twist
of karma or fate, or maybe just as evidence of God’s supreme sense of poetic
justice, this kid was ours. This kid
belonged to us as surely as we belonged to each other. Looking back at Julie, I squatted down to be
more on eye level with her and told her, “I’m sorry it took me so long,
Julie. I’m sorry I made you wait, but
we – Marie and me – we came to get you.”
Much to my surprise, she stepped forward, throwing her arms around my
neck and making it clear she wanted me to pick her up. I did, standing and turning to face
Marie. “This is my wife, Marie,” I
explained to Julie. “What do you think
about coming home to live with us?”
She tilted her head, silky brown curls wisping over her forehead, and
seemed to think about it for a minute.
Coming to a conclusion, she nodded once, decisively, and planted a
smacking kiss on my cheek. Marie
giggled, though whether at the action or my shocked reaction to it, I don’t
know. “Okay,” Julie said simply. “I live wi’ you.”
Marie grinned broadly as she slipped under my free arm, tucking herself
against my side and reaching up to touch Julie’s face. “I think that’s a very, very good idea,” she
stated, and I walked out of that home with two amazing women in my arms and a
feeling that—maybe, just maybe—things might turn out all right after all.
xXxXxXx
THE END