Logan was in a cranky mood. Last night hadn’t gone according to his plans. He had had his sights set to a gorgeous redhead from the minute he walked in to the bar. Legs up to her neck, delicious, full lips and eyes that spoke to something inside of him. More accordingly, redhead spoke to him, just before he entered to the cage.
“I’m going home with the winner tonight…”
He had beaten man after another, ten in a row if you counted the MC that he had the sudden urge to knock over just out of principle. Bastard was getting all too cozy, hiding in his own barricaded corner. Ten. Without even breaking a sweat. And next time he saw the redhead she was headed out of the door with some blonde, clean-cut boy-toy who could have been her fucking son.
Desperate times called for desperate actions. Redhead had been the only even mildly interesting woman in that joint, nobody wanted to fight anymore, so that left nothing but booze for him. After fifteen shots of tequila bartender refused to serve him any more.
Generally speaking he wasn’t a mean drunk. Generally. But it riled him up to no end when people started to shy away from him. Men and women alike. He liked his own space, even more than most of the people, but when the crowd around him started to cast long glances at him from the corner of their eyes and scooting even further from him… Hell. They were asking him to smack some sense in to their thick heads. Right?
Wrong. At least according to the sheriff who had turned up, collected him surprisingly easily and thrown him to jail to sober up some. He had been released two hours ago, with strict instructions to leave the town immediately.
To say he was in a cranky mood was probably an understatement, when you added to the growing list of his misfortunes the fact that he had the mother of all hangovers pounding inside of his head with vengeance. It wasn’t often when he had to suffer from ill effects of the booze in the next morning, but when it happened… There were moments when he feared he would die. Then came moments he feared that he would live after all.
To say he was in a cranky mood was to say that the Pope just might be a little bit catholic. On top of that he was hungry as hell. Downright ravenous. And traffic was murder. Who would have thought that town of this size could house this many people with a car? And why the fuck they all had to be going down the same road as him?
He tried to wrestle his way through the sea of pick-ups and SUV’s, head pounding and stomach growling when his motorcycle started to act out. It would stutter and cough, threaten to die on him on this very moment when he saw the Heaven.
Well, it wasn’t The Heaven with Pearly Gates, just a greasy pit at the side of the road, but neon sign blinking in front of it advertised food, gas and service. To him it was sure sign that somebody up there had decided to grant him a small reprieve.
Maybe, just maybe he wasn’t paying proper attention. Maybe, just maybe he had his eyes glued to the redhead from the previous night, who was at the moment lounging on the hood of a deep red convertible with very little excuse of a bikini on. But the truth was, that the girl with roller skates, wearing waitresses’ pink and white uniform and carrying a tray loaded with burgers and fries came out of nowhere. He barely managed to avoid the collision with her. She wasn’t as lucky. Tray went flying, and for a moment it was raining burgers and fries. She made a small thud when she careened straight against a trash bin before toppling over on her hands and knees.
Marie’s day just kept getting better with every passing moment. It all had started nice enough, with her alarm clock breaking down. She came to work half an hour late. Nate, owner of the BurgerHeaven wasn’t pleased. And wasn’t buying her explanation. He told her he would take the half an hour she was late from her next paycheck.
She had gotten on her uniform, fresh from the cleaners. It had been clean and fresh exactly ten minutes, before one of the customers had spilled coffee on her. Woman had apologized, but she knew her. Adele never made mistakes or accidents. But she made Marie’s life a living hell.
She had gone to the backroom to clean up the mess Adele had made when Nate had barged in, demanding that she return to the floor immediately. And put on skates. It was her turn to serve outside.
She had taken the skates from her locker, with feeling of dread hanging over her head. She hadn’t had much practice with skating, and now Nate expected her to keep her balance on a cracked pavement while carrying a tray and avoiding guys who tried to pinch her behind every time she rolled by?
She managed nearly half an hour before first accident happened. She bumped against a fender of a car that somebody had parked too close of the lane that Nate had reserved for skating waitresses. She found her balance quickly enough, but the owner of the car tried to claim that she had scratched his precious bumper. And Nate agreed with him, because in BurgerHeaven the customer was always right. No matter that the car was so old, scratched and dented, that Marie had to wonder how the driver could tell which scratches were newer than others.
To save the precious reputation of the BurgerHeaven Nate offered free burgers and fries for the owner of the car for the whole year as a compensation. Of course he was going to take them out of Marie’s salary.
She had been still a bit frazzled from the collision and the end result of it. She probably was a bit distracted as well. And not at ease on skates. But the motorcycle came out of nowhere. Big mountain of black leather and glittering chrome, engine purring and rumbling like a hungry beast. She just barely managed to avoid it, then the wheels of her left skate got stuck to a crack on the ground. For a second it felt like she could keep her balance after all, but then mother nature remembered her, and added all kinds of neat physic’s laws and powers. Tray she was carrying flew from her hands, skate slid off from the crack and she stumbled against a trash bin before falling to the ground and skinning her hands and knees.
“This is going out of your salary,” she heard Nate’s voice from somewhere up and behind her. She couldn’t help it. She sat up and started to laugh. She was laughing so hard that her stomach hurt.
“Out… Out of my salary?” She giggled with her eyes watering. Nate nodded, looking at her perplexed.
“Yeah. What’s so funny about it?” He asked. She breathed deeply, collecting her thoughts, trying to stifle hysterical giggles.
“After everything you have already taken out of my salary, there’s nothing left to take anymore you twit!” She screamed from the top of her lungs, tearing open laces of her skates and throwing them at Nate’s feet. Apron and stupid looking, frilly hat all waitresses in BurgerHaven were expected to wear soon followed.
“I’m sick and tired of this shit. I’ll quit. Have a nice life, Nate…” She muttered, standing up and wiping her bloodied palms to her uniform before turning and walking away.
Redhead was with the guy she had left the bar in the previous night. No worth the hassle. He drove his motorcycle around the building and found the service station as the neon sign had promised. Mechanic promised to look at it for the first thing after Logan flashed a decent wad of cold cash to his direction.
Mechanic looked like he knew his business. Logan left him with his motorcycle, and strolled in to BurgerHeaven. Place was as greasy as it gets, but tried to keep up the pretence that it was something classy. Somebody had even had a bright idea to arrange a play corner for the kids. Logan seriously doubted that any parent with his or her sanity intact would bring their child over here. Stench of burned oil and stale meat hung in the air heavy and sticky.
“What can I get you, honey?” Blonde woman in her thirties asked. Dry hair, too much make-up and perfume, and an uniform that was ready to burst open from the front at any minute now from the sheer mass of breasts it was holding.
“Burger, rare. Fries. You got any beer?” He asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose, trying to vanquish persistent feeling of nausea and tiredness. Woman smiled, flashing him a row of nicotine-stained teeth, smearing generous amount of dark red lipstick over them in the process.
“Sure, honey. Can I get anything else for you?”
“Yeah. The chick I nearly ran over when I drove here. How is she?” In general he wasn’t a caring person, but somehow he felt that the accident wasn’t completely the girl’s fault.
“Who? Oh, you mean Marie! She left,” waitress said, plunking a bottle of Molson’s in front of him.
“Left? Was she hurt?” Logan asked slightly worried. Waitress pssahhed and waved with her hand, causing brightly colored plastic bracelets rattle against each other on her wrist. Like a rattler. Shiver run down Logan’s spine.
“She was alright. And better off now. I’d leave too if it wasn’t my youngest still in school. Nate pays jack shit, but I need every penny I can scrounge up.”
Waitress left him as soon as it became apparent that he wasn’t going to pay jack shit about her personal dilemmas. All he was worried right now was to eat his burger before it grew legs and walked out on him. Steak had been fresh probably some time last week. He wasn’t going to complain. He was too hungry, and his mutation would take care of any ill effects bad burger could cause. At least he hoped so.
“Idiot!” She kicked the pebbles on her way as she went, and ranted to herself. Sure. Nate was a bastard. Sure. Every fucking customer was a bastard. Sure, paycheck she recieved at the end of every week hardly covered her rent and what she ate. Sure. Work at the BurgerHeaven sucked in every possible aspect, but now she was out of work, out of money, and soon she would be out of apartment as well. And nobody around here except Nate was desperate enough to hire a mutant.
Scrapes and cuts on her palms and knees were still bleeding a bit, and she kept wiping the blood to her skirt. It had seen worse. It had seen kitchen duty. It had seen toilet cleaning duty.
Sun was high on the sky. Half noon. Tomorrow she would have to go to her landlady and tell her that she wouldn’t be able to pay her rent for the coming week.
“Stupid, stupid…” She kept kicking and cussing until she was out of breath and dizzy. She sat on the side of the road to rest for a while. She needed to think. She needed a plan of what to do next. She kept her head lowered. She couldn’t afford a pair of sunglasses, and she was prone to migraines. She wasn’t about to acquire one now. Cars and motorbikes roared past her, raining dust and small pebbles on her.
Suddenly a shadow fell over her, and she lifted her gaze, squinting her eyes just in case. She was staring at the monster from the BurgerHeaven. Her eyes followed a denim clad leg swung over the side of the bike until she reached brown leather. A jacket. She skipped the rest and moved her gaze straight to the face of the man that drove the motorcycle. Big. Mean looking. Scruffy with weird, pointy hair and muttonchops.
“Are you alright, kid?”
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
Urgh. Well, this one's almost finished. That's a promise. Just have to polish up next chappies some and write the last one, and it's done. This one is actually more of an AU than X1, but contains some elements from that movie, so I thought it should be mentioned.