Marie stepped out onto the porch, breathing in the crisp morning air. Her indrawn breath turned to a shriek as she dropped her breakfast plate, backing up against the front door.
She pressed her hand to her mouth as she took in the gory sight hanging from her porch ceiling, dripping blood onto the weathered floorboards.
She heard a rustling and Logan burst from the woods, his face fierce, his claws extended.
She barely restrained herself -- the urge to seek shelter in his arms was so overpowering. Who had tracked her here, to threaten her like this? Magneto? He was her only enemy, but his torments were usually more subtle...
Logan skidded to a stop at the base of the porch steps, and to her confusion he looked puzzled.
She gestured to the mangled animal corpses. “I...”
Her confusion increased as he snicked the claws back in, rocking back on his heels.
“From me,” he said gruffly.
“What?” She didn’t understand. Why would Logan be threatening...
He furrowed his brow at what must have been her continued look of bewilderment.
“Meat,” he added helpfully.
“Oh,” she breathed weakly. “Oh!” she repeated as understanding dawned. It wasn’t a threat...it was a gift.
She saw hurt flash across his face before his features lapsed into their usual impassive expression. He silently climbed the steps, snicking a claw out and cutting the skinned carcasses down. He wrapped the string they were hanging from around his finger a few times and slung them over his shoulder, apparently oblivious to the gory mess. He started to walk away.
“Wait...” She stumbled down the porch steps after him. “Logan, wait...”
He turned around but looked at the ground, avoiding her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I -- I didn’t understand. Can I...can I still have it?”
He looked at her then, his eyes again suspicious as if she might be mocking him.
“I’m serious. I’ll make it for dinner. Is it...” Holy hell, she had absolutely no idea, but she hoped it wasn’t her friends the badgers. “Is it...squirrels?” she finally hazarded.
The tension seemed to leave his body. His mouth twitched. “Rabbits,” he said, amusement now in his voice.
She smiled back in relief. “Well, you don’t have to make fun of me, Grizzly Adams,” she teased. “They look a lot different with their skin on, ya know.”
His brow furrowed again. “Who’s Grizzly Adams?”
She laughed. “Honestly, I don’t really know. My momma used to call my daddy that when he did somethin’ outdoorsy.”
He seemed to consider that for awhile. “You really want ‘em?” he finally asked.
“Yeah. Definitely.” She was racking her brain...she was almost certain she had seen Joy of Cooking somewhere in the cabin’s library. “I’ve never eaten rabbit before. I think you’d have to go to a fancy French restaurant in Jackson or Birmingham to get somethin’ like that where I’m from.”
“Okay.” He held his hand out, the carcasses dangling from the string. She hesitated.
“If you don’t want ‘em...”
“No! It’s not that. I’m just...I’m not wearin’ gloves.”
“Oh.” He looked at her bare hands. “When’re you gonna stop bein’ so nervous about that?”
“Stop...” She pulled the cuffs of her sweater down uneasily. “What do you mean, stop bein’ nervous? I can’t stop bein’ nervous about it. Ever. People’d get hurt.”
He grunted, a little unsympathetically in her opinion. “But it takes a while to kick in, right? So maybe you don’t hafta worry about it all the time.”
“You...” She felt her cheeks flush with anger. “You make it sound like…like I’m bein’ neurotic or somethin’. Like it’s nothin’.” She took in a deep breath. “I could kill somebody.”
He shrugged. “Not me.”
She stifled the urge to kick him. “So...so what’re you sayin’?” She was practically sputtering in anger. “That you want me to -- what? Just run around, touchin’ you willy-nilly?”
Oh, Jesus Christ! She heard her own words replay in her head a millisecond later and cringed. She felt the blush set her cheeks on fire, wishing the ground would swallow her up.
His eyes darkened. He stepped closer to her. “Yeah.”
She had swung from anger to embarrassment so quickly, and now she didn’t even know what she was feeling. Her heart was still pounding, her blood thrumming through her veins.
“Yeah, what?” she breathed.
His voice was a low rumble. “Maybe you should. Just touch me. Whenever you want.” He took a step even closer.
She felt her heart stutter. She started to step back, but the porch steps were behind her. “I...” What was he saying? She looked into the warm golden-amber of his eyes, speechless. She felt like her brain had stopped working.
Finally he looked away. He shifted his feet and then shrugged. “You can’t hurt me. I heal. So why not? That’s why you came out here, right? To get control?”
Her emotions see-sawed again, as she felt tears prickling her eyes. She looked down at the ground. Was he just being mean now, taunting her with what she couldn’t have? “To get control by keepin’ away from everyone,” she said bitterly. “Not by...by gettin’ close to someone. It doesn’t work that way.”
He ducked a little, peering into her face. Then he looked away, and sighed.
“I didn’t mean to make you sad,” he said softly. “It’s just...” He stopped, apparently trying to put something difficult into words. “I was listenin’ before,” he finally said. “When you talked about your mutation. You hafta not be scared. And with me, you don’t hafta be. So maybe it could work that way.”
She swiped at her eyes, considering his words. “Even...even if I didn’t kill you, I’d still hurt you. I don’t wanna do that either. I’d still be scared of that.”
They both stood in thought for a minute.
“How long?” he abruptly asked.
“How long what?”
“How long ‘til it kicks in?”
Now it was her turn to shrug. “I don’t know...it’s not like I’ve tried it out a bunch of times. It’s always been an accident.”
“So let’s find out.”
She felt her jaw drop. “Find out? You mean...just touch you ‘til I hurt you?”
“Maybe that’s how you do it. See how long it takes, and try to make it take longer.”
“And hurt you every time? Why would you even let me do that?”
That intense gaze was back, his eyes seeming to glow as he looked at her. “Maybe it’s worth it to me.” His voice was a deep rasp. “To have you touch me.”
Christ, she was blushing again. There was no misinterpreting that.
He held her gaze for another minute, and then looked away. She saw a shadow of hurt cross his face, and she realized that she hadn’t given him any kind of response.
“Have dinner with me.”
His head jerked back around to her, surprise in his eyes. She felt her blush deepen, but her voice struck her as being remarkably steady under the circumstances.
“I mean...it’s not like I can eat two rabbits on my own,” she said, feeling the smile start to curl her lips.
His own mouth quirked in response. He raised an eyebrow, holding the rabbits out by the string.
“Take ‘em from me.”
“I...”
His voice was firm with just a hint of challenge. “Take ‘em from me. And I’ll come to dinner.”
She looked at him uncertainly. His outstretched arm was steady, his body relaxed.
She reached a hand out, and hesitated.
“Go on,” he urged.
She reached all the way, gingerly catching the string between her thumb and index finger, a hair’s breadth from his hand. She tugged, but he kept the string wrapped tightly around his finger.
“You can do better’n that,” he teased.
She bit her bottom lip between her teeth.
This time she reached out with both hands, lifting the rabbits by the string with one hand while the other hand worked quickly, unwrapping the loops of string from around his finger. She felt her hand brush against his warm fingers -- once, and then again. She looked up at him nervously, but he kept his steady gaze on hers. Her fingers started to tremble but she got the last loop off, pulling the rabbits free, feeling the weight of them drop into her other hand.
She pulled them towards her. She looked back at him, slowly smiling in triumph. “I got ‘em.”
The quirk of his mouth widened into a real smile in response. “Yeah. You did.”
“So...I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
“Guess so.”
He turned back towards the woods as she started up the steps of the porch.
“Logan?”
He stopped, turning to face her again.
“Thanks,” she said, feeling an unexpected swell of emotion choke up her throat. “For the gift.”
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