The Girl: Chapter Seven
"It's okay, Kid. It's okay. It's okay."
Logan brought the girl to the couch, settled her (after knocking their bag of would-be dinner to the floor) with her back slightly propped against the arm rest.
"It's okay."
He couldn't seem to stop repeating the words, the useless (to him) mantra. At least it was better than the swear words Logan stored and kept on hand near his tongue.
The girl was blinking, her eyes dark and glittering with an unnamed, but not unnameable fear. As if she'd awaken to find herself alone in a forest with footprints all around her that were disturbingly bear-shaped. He hoped she wouldn't cry. He wouldn't know how to handle a crying teenager; somehow he guessed that his usual clawed reply would not be appropriate.
Logan took a deep breath. "It's okay, Marie. I'm--I'm gonna look atcha', alright?"
He really, really hoped she wouldn't cry.
He examined the injuries not hidden by clothing first. The hardened, scratchy tissue of his fingers skimmed over bruises, little cuts. They plucked small, dark slivers of glass out and pressed the little holes the shards left until they clotted. She gasped and whimpered, and whimpered more when his hands left her arms and made their way up her neck.
"Come here, Darlin'. It's okay. Ain't gonna hurt you. Just lemme see. Come here."
She submitted to him with a few tremors and a watering of eyes that couldn't imagine any more hurt, but couldn't hope for anything else. He made her turn her head, left then right, as he searched for abrasions. Gently, with a brush of his knuckles over her cheek, Logan urged her head down. He swallowed, fought to hold his face in an expression that wouldn't cause her any more fright. Near the back of her skull, the girl's knotted hair was wet. A gash lay beneath the clumped, moist strands. Not deep, not too wide, but enough troubling enough that he put in extra effort to make his voice kind.
"It's okay," he told her softly. "You're gonna be okay. It's okay." Logan felt the swollen of the wound, testing. Blood oozed slowly, rather than gushed, but his palms were still soaked when he drew back.
Logan's heart battered tightly somewhere in the passages of his throat. He thought, hospital. But no. He trusted the clinics in this city even less than those anywhere else.
He listened to her pulse, her lungs. Watched the girl watching him and tried to decide if the confusion he say was part of a concussion.
A tear trickled down her too-pale cheek.
The girl's pupils were large, but even, and no pink stained the whites around the irises.
He inhaled deeply; Logan's senses were as good as any doctor's tests. No notably abnormal chemicals in her body, besides terror. Hints of beer and smoke on her skin, but not beneath it. Dirt and cheap laundry detergent and sweat and the nostril-burning stink of other males. His thoughts bouncing around like marbles in a dryer--what he could do, what he couldn't, what had to be done--Logan left the girl and fetched a towel from his bathroom. It was one of only two that he owned; the second was wet from his morning shower.
He pressed the cloth (not too hard, but she jerked and keened) against the girl's scalp--regretting, for the first time, how poorly stocked his apartment was. Furniture, beer, cigars, food, clothes, and a few vials of poison (just in case they came in handy). Nothing, besides this fucking towel, that would help the girl. What the hell was wrong with him? How could he let this happen? He was The Wolverine. He was supposed to be prepared.
"They payed him," the girl whimpered incomprehensibly. "They payed him. They payed him."
Logan bit down on the God dammit that almost slipped through his teeth, pushed the self pity to the back of his mind and focused his attention on the more pressing realities.
The girl had to be tended to.
She shouldn't be left alone.
He had to take care of her.
He needed items not present here.
He needed to leave, to gather those necessary supplies.
He shouldn't leave her.
She was hurt.
She was hurt.
She was hurt.
Logan's thoughts fused into a grudging, fragile decision.
She was hurt.
"It's okay, Darlin'. Don't worry."
Logan continued his improvised examination, hurrying now. He ran his hands along her legs--checking for lacerations, bumps, any areas too tender. Wounds that could not be left unattended even for a brief period of time. He removed the single sock from her foot, and then the circular head of a beer bottle that had been buried into her skin. She shrieked, once, and the sound ended in a coughing fit. Logan held her ankle in his grip until the pain dimmed enough to make her reconsider kicking. He made little shushing noises, stroked her heel and any skin that didn't seem too bruised, apologized over and over again. A strip of towel was sacrificed to tie around her foot; the wound would scar badly and leave her with a slight but permanent limp. He released her leg, but it spasmed every time Logan touched it, as if stung with tiny bolts of electricity.
"D-Don't. I don't --don't want--I don't want--don't," the girl choked out, barely articulate, when he pushed her shirt up.
"It's okay," Logan said, reflexively, hopelessly.
"I don't want--"
Her bottom lip shook too much. Lack of vocal control or upset kept the girl from completing her sentence.
"I know., Darlin'. It's okay."
He touched her stomach, drew his fingertips down her ribs--one side and then the other--checking for fractures. She wasn't wearing a bra, and Logan tugged the shirt back down as quickly as possible. He looked down reluctantly, studied the juncture between her jean-clad thighs while equally attempting not to recognize it. Logan's throat spasmed in something like a swallow.
He undid the little metal button above the zipper and the girl flinched bodily, violently. She twisted, puked over the edge of the couch. Her shoulders rose and fell, gave little heaves even when nothing more dripped from her mouth. There wasn't much in her stomach to expel; she hadn't had the chance to eat her meal of the day. Logan gently pressed the girl's shoulder until she lay on her back once more. He wiped her lips with the corner of his shirt. The scent of vomit bothered him much less than the other smells in and on the girl's body.
Another glance below her hips. He told himself: that can wait. The red stain had not grown, or not so much. And the jeans--they were keeping the blood in, weren't they? Logan told himself that it would be alright, that she would be alright. He told himself that he knew what he was doing.
He didn't want to touch her there.
Not like this, his mind finished without his permission. Logan tried to forget the thought.
"Marie," he said, a little unevenly. "I hafta go get some stuff to--to take care of you. It's gonna take me a little while, but I'll be back. You'll be alright. Just stay here."
Logan got to his feet. She was shivering. He took off his jacket and draped it over her. Trying to find a blanket that wasn't torn or stained (celibacy during missions was another rule of his, one more frequently broken) would have taken too long.
"Don't move too much," he told the girl, and found himself stroking her hair without meaning to. He pulled his arm back and said, a little more roughly, "Don't fall asleep. You hear me, Kid? Stay awake."
Then, "It's okay."
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At the drugstore, Logan cut in line. He threw his purchases on the wooden table top, growled both fiercely and and at nobody in particular--which meant everybody. The cashier, a man who kept a loaded shotgun next to the emergency button beneath the counter and used it far more than the latter, seemed too relieved that Logan was not robbing him to protest.
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He found him by accident, on his hurried return to the tenement. Logan did not believe in coincidences; the bastard mush have lived close by. Nobody went to the police here, unless it was to deliver a bribe (payment taken more seriously than rent). He probably hadn't felt any pressing need to get away after...after.
The man--or boy, he couldn't have been much older than twenty, no matter that he drank from that copper flask like a professional--was slinging dice, in a circle with what amounted to friends in this city. He was skinny, and tall, with a rip in the armpit of his oily wifebeater. Fairly nondescript; normally Logan would never have paid him any attention, or thought twice if he had.
But his senses burned and his instincts set something chained withing him loose. Nerves and muscles burned, aflame with some angry internal firework. His nostrils flared; his eyes sought and narrowed in on the boy across the street, as intent as the scope of a sniper's rifle. His brain, unnecessarily, snarled him.
And then, just as quickly but much less agreeably, he thought, One of them.
Without faltering, without breaking his stride, Logan stored the plastic pharmacy bags behind a dumpster. He crossed the empty street, boots crushing pieces of glass and crumbling old tar.
The game of dice did not take long to finish; the players on this street lacked the attention span for long gambles. It dissolved quickly into an argument, and after sever routine threats and cursing that even Logan considered excessive, the crowd broke up. His target strutted away, twenty-eight dollars and three cigarettes richer.
Logan followed him, followed the scent of the girl imprinted somewhere it did not belong.
An alley to their left, a fake proposition of drugs, abandoned when Logan realized that nobody was watching them. His fingers dug into the wiry muscle of an arm the color of unsweetened coffee. An angry, then alarmed face. Shouts that were easily silenced.
He asked him, Where did you find her?
He asked, What did you do?
He asked, Who did you pay?
The boy stuttered, as people so commonly did when questioned by The Wolverine. He didn't know, at first, who Logan was talking about, and that would cost him. He said, "She was good, man.", and that would cost him more.
"Fi-fi-fifty dollars, m-m-man. Only--only Mac p-pay 'hundred 'cuz he went first."
Logan's claws did not so much slip, as fall, out of their sheath in his arm. He cut through the boy's midsection until not one but two halves of a person lay on the ground. Logan left the body in the alley.
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"Alright, Kid, Imma take these off. Hey--hey, don't. Don't do that. Not gonna do anything to you. Just calm down."
This time, Logan steeled himself, or tried to. He slid the zipper down, listening to the cleck-cleck-cleck. The blood made it sound a bit wet, and he worried about the metal catching on any skin. Should he just cut the jeans off?
The girl was shaking horribly. Muscles shuddered and jumped beneath his palms. He had to place his hand under her knee, to keep her from recoiling. Her lips parted and shut, but she neither spoke nor screamed. Logan had worried that he would find her in a concussion-induced sleep, but the girl's eyes were bright now--almost too bright, alert with fever or fear.
He got the pants off of her, dropped them on the carpet to join the rest of a mess he'd clean up later. Logan had already opened the items he had bought earlier, set them in arm's reach. He picked these up, one by one, and gently held her legs apart.
Emotion pulsed within the confines of his skull. Little shocks of anger that made him want to punch a hole through something (blood from the boy coated his jeans; he'd have to throw this pair out). He thought something was wrong with his heart, his lungs. They didn't feel as if they were working properly--pumping too fast and then not at all.
Logan wondered if he should tell her about the boy in the alley--no. No, definitely not. What was he thinking? That wouldn't make her feel better. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to be here, hearing the girl gasp and hiss as hydrogen peroxide touched wounds she should not have. He wanted to be away fighting, growling, drinking beer and not thinking about crusted fluid--what the hell was wrong with his heart? He wanted to find the other person who'd paid to be inside her, find who had put that privilege on the market in the first place. He wanted to let his claws out--they were burning in his arms. He wanted to bury his face in her neck, say "It's Okay" until his throat gave out.
Calm down, Logan thought firmly. Focus, before you hurt her. He inhaled, sought control but there was no need. His hands were steady, never shook as he cleaned her; his jaw was unclenched; his body was loose and revealed nothing to suggest that his internal organs were not behave as they ought to. Logan's body, as it so often did, went about it's own task without him noticing.
He grunted, "Don't be scared, Kid." The command didn't seem to have much effect.
Logan's calloused hand rested on her hip, now. He made a pad of gauze and cotton, positioned it in the silken, battered space where her thighs met. He didn't know what else to do. Logan wished, fleetingly, that Jean was here, but did not allow himself to dwell pointlessly.
Absently, without giving the action a name, Logan stroked her leg. Up and down, his thumb moving in thoughtless circles. And then there was--what? Pain, like a million paper cuts on his testicles? A sudden sense of nausea, tempting him to bend over and puke like the girl had? Dizziness? Blurring of his formerly keen vision?
The girl gasped, cried out. Logan stilled, and the uncomfortable feelings went gradually away.
He leaned away, looked up to her face, to the visible strips of the clumsy bandage he'd put together for the gash on her skull. Brown eyes blinking at him rapidly, shock and pain.
What the fuck am I doing here, with this kid?
Logan stared at her for a minute, pathetically clutching handfuls of her t-shirt and trying to make it stretch down. He started to undo the buttons of his, then thought--no, a clean one. Get her something clean.
He stood, and had to use his arm to push off from the couch. Logan wobbled as if he'd gone through several rounds with Sabertooth or several crates of vodka. He was too surprised to really consider the cause. He tottered into the bedroom, grabbed the top shirt off the stack of (more or less) folded clothes beside his bed. Blue denim, long sleeve. It would be long on the girl--which was good.
The walk back to the couch seemed to take longer than usual, and when he sat down, Logan could feel every ounce of his adamantium skeleton. He felt tired, drained.
The girl was looking at him strangely, and he thought--or just hoped--that there was a little color to her cheeks now. His rudimentary first aid must have worked pretty well.
"Wanna sit up a bit, 'Darlin? Help me out a little?"
Logan pulled her forward, and there was a struggle as he tugged her last piece of clothing over her head and her resisting arms. Several panicked "No's" and even more "It's Okays". And then the girl was nothing but bandages and teenage skin and bloody dark hair. Weak thrashing, spending what energy she had--the girl would probably have kicked herself off the couch if he had let her. She curled inward on herself, trying to cover everything. Dimples and bruises and a scar on her right hip.
She wasn't listening to his coaxes or explanations, but he managed to get his shirt on her, eventually. She was hysterical, but small and hurt and exhausted and in danger of slipping into a coma, and Logan was....Logan. He fastened the last button and and found his arm was locked, refused to leave it's position around her waist. He held the crying girl carefully to his chest, felt her slump against him in resignation. The girl's spine pressed against the underside of his wrist: he could feel each round knot. Her whole body shook when she sobbed, and her fists began to rhythmically grab and release handfuls of the flannel shirt he wore.
The tears he had dreaded burned his skin like acid when it seeped through the cloth. They continued to fall even when she drifted into a miserable doze that Logan woke her from periodically, for the rest of the night. He worried about her sleeping too deeply, mentally recalled everything and anything he'd ever half-learned about concussions.
And he murmured, in a nearly unbroken stream, "It's okay. It's okay. It's okay, Kid. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."
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Author's Chapter Notes:
God, this is what happens when I feel confident about a chapter before I've written it. I'm so, so sorry. I feel terrible about the late post; this just took me forever to get right. (And it was the chapter I was the most excited about, too.) Anyway, please please please forgive me. Things are a little crazy on this side of the screen. Classes have started up again, and with work I've only got a couple hours in the evening and one night off a week to write.
I know I say this a lot, but I'm very grateful to the reviewers of the last chapter, and this story. You are all amazing. I'm running out of new words to say it, but I hope ya'll know that "Thank You" and >hugs< is never just a phrase. And I'm always, always, always happy (greedy) to hear your feedback.
The following might have come out a tad on the dark and gross-ish side. (Squeamish)Readers be forewarned.
Hope you enjoy!
I know I say this a lot, but I'm very grateful to the reviewers of the last chapter, and this story. You are all amazing. I'm running out of new words to say it, but I hope ya'll know that "Thank You" and >hugs< is never just a phrase. And I'm always, always, always happy (greedy) to hear your feedback.
The following might have come out a tad on the dark and gross-ish side. (Squeamish)Readers be forewarned.
Hope you enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
Okay, so what will make you forgive & forget the late update and hit that review button? Candy? A puppy? A picture of naked Hugh Jackman? Naked Hugh Jackman holding a puppy and eating candy? I'm willing to give any of those, though I'll have to go buy a box big enough to ship him in....