She had propositioned Logan!
Marie stared into the mirror with a look of utter incredulity on her face; a face which was now flushing to such a shade of red it could be called a tomato. It was like that, it seemed, when you were doing mundane things like brushing your teeth that moments of sublime stupidity seemed to flash forward into you consciousness and replay in stereophonic-Technicolor. Pulling the tooth brush from her slack mouth she spat the minty spittle into the sink and proceeded to avoid her own gaze.
Rinsing her mouth and splashing cool water on her flaming face, Marie groans at her blatant stupidity.
Logan hadn’t said a word to her since they left the woods. Mama had met them out by their SUV with two heavy bags of food and with a tentative hug for them both she left them to their drive. Logan stowed the bags in the backseat and then wordlessly opened Rogue’s door. He hadn’t made a comment when her stomach growled and gurgled at being so close and yet so far away from delicious grilled goodness. Not a damned word when he pulled into a two-bit mom and pop camping ground and rented the two bedroom cabin for the next three days.
He had, however, grunted when they finally got their stuff unloaded and he had shoved a still warm steak in Styrofoam at her across the tiny shared table. It didn’t take a brain donor to know he wasn’t interested and besides they had too much shit about to hit the fan to even contemplate letting her stupidity jeopardize their mission, whatever that mission was.
Drying her face, Marie was struck by the multitude of bare skin in her reflection. She was wearing a black tank-top and baggy plaid sleep pants so it wasn’t as if she was wearing a skimpy teddy but her arms, shoulders and throat were all left bare, and it made Marie feel free. Hanging the towel on the rack beside the door she flicked the light off and opened the door.
Logan was sitting in the darkened center room with his back to her. Beside him on the table in three incredibly neat little piles were the files Logan had collected. She’d known they would have to deal with the other things he’d found, but it didn’t make her happy about it.
Professor Xavier had a lot to answer for, but he was dead and Marie was a little afraid to find out what the telepath’s endgame had been.
Crossing the cool wooden floor Marie came to a stop at Logan’s shoulder. Her eyes and fingers traced over the files marked with her name. Her voice was whisper soft when she asked, “So, this is mine?” It was a rhetorical question and they both knew it, but Marie felt a little sad that Logan’s only answer was to take a long pull of his cigar. The flare of the tip bathed his face in orange light and she could see his eyes were tightly closed.
He was going to pretend she wasn’t there, it seemed. Sighing, dejectedly, Marie flipped open the file and the first page made her eyes well with tears. “Close it, Marie,” Logan’s voice was quiet as sat forward and crushed his cigar out in the glass tray.
“Mah,” she muttered as she pointed at the file and rage and sadness began to build again. “Mah parents contacted him and he- he-,” she couldn’t form the words as the reality of all that had been denied to her became that much clearer.
Logan reached out and flipped the file closed before taking her hand and pulling her toward his chair. The shock of his rough calloused fingers against her bare skin pulled her mind from the numbing hurt and betrayal.
When her hip was pressing into his shoulder Logan wrapped an arm around her waist and held her as he spoke, “We’ll stay here for a few days there is too much here,” he gestured to the files and books. “We need time to go through that shit and I want you trained before all hell breaks loose.”
Marie nodded, but the only thing she could focus on was the words she’d see printed on that paper, “My parents came for me…They…Wanted me…He told them I was better off alone.”
“I picked New Orleans for two reasons,” Logan said as his fingers tightened on her hip and his head leaned into her side. “There’s this guy, he was there that day on the island, his name is Remy, he has some connections of the lowest sort. We’ll be needin’ people on our side that ain’t afraid to break rules or tarnish the reputation of a dead man.”
Marie agreed, the mansion was filled with mutants, but they weren’t all fighters and the ones that were either had the words ‘fair fight’ crammed up their asses. “And the second reason,” she asked and it was like déjà vu.
“Mississippi is on the way,” he shrugged, absently, as if he wasn’t offering her the world. Sucking in a sob Marie threw herself into Logan’s lap and wrapped her arms around him as she cried. It was odd, she didn’t know if it was from sadness or from feeling like a weight had been lifted from her soul and happiness poured in.
Logan just held her, muttering quiet comfort until she quieted and settled her cheek against his tear dampened shirt. She frowned as she tried to figure out how they went from Logan ignoring her to huddled together in his chair. “Ah’m sorry Ah made ya uncomfortable,” she murmured, tightening her hand in the collar of his shirt. “Ah shouldn’t ‘ave said what I did.”
“Not following you, Darlin’.”
“In the forest,” she prodded. “When Ah said…Well, ya know what Ah said.” She felt her cheeks heating with her blush.
“Yeah, Darlin’,” he chuckled. “I wasn’t upset about the teasing it just gave me a fair bit to think about and I tend to brood when I have to think.”
“Well, then Ah’m glad Ah didn’t scare ya.”
“I’m the Wolverine, Baby, I don’t scare easy.” Logan told her in an exaggerated cocky tone, as he flicked the tip of her nose with a curled finger, making her giggle.
Marie shifted on Logan’s lap and slowly reached out to pick up the leather journal, “What’s this?”
“What I was thinkin’ about,” Logan took the book from her fingers and opened it to the first page; flipping to about the middle he pulled a photo out and handed it Marie. “Found this.”
Marie studied the photo as best she could in the dim lighting. What she saw made here heart jump in her chest; there in the photo was Logan looking just as handsome as he is now, only younger. That youth wasn’t physical, it was more psychological, the wide smile on his lips and the openly care-free eyes staring up at the woman draped around his neck, and it made her heart ache. “Ya look so happy,” Marie murmured. “She was a real beauty.”
Logan just grunted as he tossed the book to the table and took the photo from her hand; he traced a finger over the smooth cheek of the woman in the photograph, “She looked just as pretty the last time I saw her.”
“She was dead,” Marie frowned at his comment.
“She had the same look,” Logan shrugged and laid the photo face down on the table. Marie followed the action and reached out to pick it up again.
“There’s somethin’ on the back,” she murmured, as she brought it closer, growling because of the lack of light.
Chuckling, Logan reached past her shoulder and flipped on one of the table lights causing them both to blink.“So, what’s on the back?”
“It looks like a poem or a story,” Marie showed him the back and the tightly spaced feminine writing. “Ku-Kue-kuatu, Ah don’t think I’m sayin’ it right.”
“Kuekuatsu,” Logan answered, vaguely. “It’s some sort of Indian parable; Mama mentioned it once, but she didn’t get to finish it because Silver Bear interrupted.”
“Kuekuatsu,” Marie tested the foreign syllables and then smiled. “Wanna hear it?”
“Sure, Darlin’,” Logan murmured as he stroked her hair behind her ear.
“Kuekuatsu and the Moon lived in the spirit world together and every night they would dance through the skies. All the spirits knew the Moon loved Kuekuatsu and it made most of the spirits happy to twinkle around them each night, but one of the spirits was jealous and wanted the Moon for himself. Trickster told Kuekuatsu that the Moon had asked for flowers; he told him to pick her some wild roses from the Earthly plain. So, Kuekuatsu stepped down from the heavens and gathered all of the wild roses he could find, but when the night came and Kuekuatsu tried to take the Moon her flowers he couldn’t find his way back to her. He didn’t know that if you leave the Spirit world you can never return. Every night, Kuekuatsu lifts his head to the Moon, howling her name, but he can never find his way to her again. The wolverine spends his eternity alone on the Earthly plain never able to touch the Moon again.”
Marie’s voice faded and Logan slowly opened his eyes when he smelt the brine of fresh tears on the air. “Marie,” he murmured with a frown.
“She’s the reason ya call yer self Wolverine,” Marie slapped the photo onto the table. “She made ya think she was the Moon and you were Kuekuatsu, but she wasn’t the Moon.” She pushed herself from Logan’s lap and started pacing as she continued. “That ain’t love,” she growled. “It ain’t love what she did.”
Logan stood and watched her pace for a moment, but when he claws slid free he scooped her up carried her back to the chair. Dropping them into the chair, this creaked ominously under their combined weight. “Marie, Darlin’, calm down.”
“How can ya be so calm,” Marie growled. “She manipulated ya, called it love!”
“And there isn’t anything either one of us can do to change it, Darlin’!” Logan massaged her hands until the claws retreated and then he pulled them to his lips and kissed the place they’d been, licking gently at the tender skin between the knuckles. “Are we gonna have to go for another run,” he asked when her tension and rage didn’t diminish.
“What about Plan C,” she snapped, her eyes flashing. She was angry that he wasn’t more upset to find out the extent of the power that woman had, had over him.
Logan growled, baring his teeth and wrapped his hand in her hair pulling her head back exposing the arched column of her throat. Marie’s mind emptied of all thoughts except those of the here and now; Logan’s hand tightened in her hair as he growled menacingly. They remained poised like that for a while longer neither doing anything except steeping themselves in the moment. “It won’t be like that,” Logan’s voice was rough and the growl rumbled from the pit of his chest ending his statement. Loosing her hair he gave her a nudge, “Go to your bed Marie.”
Marie scurried to comply; when she stood by the door to her room she turned back, “Logan?”
He sighed heavily, but he turned to look at her and the look in his eye was new. The intensity of that gaze made her tremble and quake, his voice was rough when he met her gaze and smiled. “Don’t worry, Darlin’. You go on to bed now.”
“Okay,” she nodded, her eyes lingering over his features. “G’Night.”
“Night,” he murmured as she shut the door.
Marie walked to her bed in a daze and slid beneath the covers. Logan had never looked at her with such intensity before and there was something about the way he’d handled her that had never been there before. He was treating her ‘different’.
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