Chapter 15: Then
Logan awoke to the sound of brisk knocking outside his door. He groaned from the bed, face in a pillow, twisted up in blankets. It sounded like a goddamn machine gun, firing off the way it was. He had been here a handful of weeks, and his sleep had been shit. Last night, after a lot of booze and a whole lot of moping, he had finally passed out at around four. He didn’t move, but he knew from the various alarm clocks screeching in other bedrooms in the hall that it couldn’t be past seven or eight in the morning. Too goddamn early.
Again, more knocking, harder this time.
“Go’way,” he finally shouted, although his voice was muffled from his place in bed.
“Logan!”
He groaned again, but on hearing her voice and knowing for certain it was her, he finally resigned himself to lift his head from the pillow and look around tiredly.
“Logan, seriously! Get your ass out here!” He finally grumpily stumbled out of bed and stalked over to the door, whipping it open in one fell swoop.
“What?!” he rumbled.
Rogue’s eyes widened as she took in the sight. He usually slept nude or with very little on, but the poor girl and everyone else walking down the hallway was lucky enough that he had passed out with his jeans still on. He was shirtless, however, unshaven for a few days now, his hair probably sticking up this way and that, disregarding gravity. Definitely the archetype of something feral. He saw her eyes fly up his torso, and he smirked a little in victory. If she woke him up like this, at the fucking crack of dawn, she sure as hell was gonna get what she asked for. All of it.
“Uh, you have class. Fifteen minutes,” she said, coming back to her senses, and beginning to bolster the irritation she had momentarily lost.
Logan sighed moodily. He knew he had been a mediocre employee at Xavier’s at best in the last few weeks. He often just didn’t show up for his classes, sometimes giving notice and sometimes not, much to the rest of the faculty’s frustration. He also had made a habit out of coming and going, leaving for stretches of days at a time on Scott’s Harley. When he was here, he was usually in his room. Needless to say, but it had been a rocky climb back up into something normal.
“What’s it on?” he muttered, almost incoherently, his hand still leaning on the door frame, physically denying her entrance into his room from the hall.
“United States history,” Rogue said, annoyance of his complete disregard of responsibility growing in her voice. Rogue’s anger was something he was always sorta amused by, also finding it sexy on her, but this morning he was in not much of a mood to find anything attractive.
“A lot’s fucking happened in this country. Which bit exactly?” he griped, leaning further on the doorframe.
“Revolutionary war,” she grumbled. “Battle of Monmouth.”
“Sorry. Can’t help you. Wasn’t alive yet,” he quipped. He was in the process of swinging the door shut when she stopped it quickly with her hand, surprising him with her relative deftness, as she pushed it back open with a scowl. He took a couple of awkward steps backward to not get hit in the face with the door, and then glared at her accusingly.
“That obviously doesn’t get you out of it,” she rounded on him. “You think we’d let the kids just hear your version, anyway? That’d be one fucked up way to teach them. Besides, they need a holistic perspective.”
“Charles said I didn’t have to,” he grumbled, crossing his arms petulantly as he stood a bit awkwardly in the middle of his fucking bedroom.
“Oh, some excuse. What else you plan on doing then? Living off the poor man’s generosity?” Logan snorted at that one.
“Hey, you know I’ll do just about anything to earn my keep. And he ain’t poor, Rogue. That’s pretty much the point of all this,” he gestured unenthusiastically around the place.
She stopped, then, some of the fight leaving her as she bit her lip thoughtfully, her stare morphing slightly from outright annoyance to mild irritation verging on concern.
“Why you lookin’ at me like that?” he asked.
“You can’t just…wallow. Lie in bed all day,” she finally said.
“I’m not…wallowing. And who said it was ok for you to keep coming around my door bothering me in the first place, huh?”
“We’re friends. We’ve been friends for years,” she said quietly.
“You were friends with him. And, poor guy, has he always been at your beck and call, always answering the goddamn door when you knock on it, putting up with your dictatorial ass?”
She stopped, frowning a bit, the hands on her hips slightly falling. Fuck. He knew he’d taken it too far. She stood there, in those trendy little dark-wash denim jeans that hugged her ass and that white cotton t-shirt and black, sleek blazer, suddenly lookin’ all meek and hurt, crestfallen. God, she could kill him with a look like that. Logan sighed, rubbing his eyes warily.
“Look, sorry, kid. I just…Jesus. Ok, how ‘bout no to the history class but yes to you meetin’ me on the veranda for lunch later, eh?”
“You wanna…eat lunch?” she said, looking mildly confused by his sudden shift in mood.
“That’s what friends do, yeah?” he finally grumbled. A youthful and innocent pink suddenly blossomed on her pale cheeks, standing in direct defiance of the nascent beginning of the lines of laughter near her eyes. How she had the ability to look seventeen and a woman at least twenty years beyond that at the same time was fucking beyond him.
“I guess,” she finally said. “It’s just that we don’t usually-”
“Don’t usually what? Eat?” he retorted, interrupting her.
“No. Nothing,” she sighed. “Sounds great. A lunch date it is then,” she said a little too curtly, obviously still frustrated. Logan winced a little at her choice of words, but stepped forward a bit, practically walking into her to back her out again into the hallway, a blatant, non-verbal display of dominance.
“Good. You bring the food, I’ll get the rest,” he said, before shutting the door closed a little too quickly behind him.
--
He found her out lounging in the mid-day sun. She was sitting on the steps at the edge of the semi-circle of the veranda, leaning on her arms stretched out behind her, staring up at the sky and taking in its warmth. Students peppered the grounds, and it was one of those fall days that felt cool in the shade but hot in the sun. Logan quietly approved of her choice of spot, watching her as she lazily took a bite of sandwich. It was peanut butter and jelly, he could smell it from here. It should have been such a juvenile thing, such a sandwich for a grown woman’s lunch, but Logan realized it somehow still fit her. Freshly showered and dressed, Logan had taken the bike to pick up a six pack, and now his grip tightened around the cardboard holder in his hand as he was struck with an old memory that had taken place in the same spot a lifetime ago. He hadn’t meant it to be when he had asked her— the veranda had always been his favorite spot at Xavier’s— but this suddenly looked like a life on replay. He finally approached her, clearing his throat slightly to announce his presence.
“Hey, kid,” he said, walking down a step or two and sitting next to her on the stairs, setting the six pack between them.
“Oh, thank god,” she said, looking down at the beer.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t be opposed to a little day drinking,” he said with a chuckle, easily snapping off the cap with a thumb and handing her a glass bottle. “Although I’m not sure how well it goes with your little sandwich you’ve got there,” he said as he gestured to her lunch.
“Don’t worry,” she said, setting her food down and rustling about in the pack that sat behind her. “Pastrami for you,” she offered, holding out the reasonably larger sandwich in front of him.
“Bless you, darlin,” he murmured, taking a swig of his beer first before accepting the sandwich from her. The beer, the sandwich: both of them their quiet peace offerings to each other.
“So, was your morning bad just because of me or did something else happen to exacerbate things?” he asked. She looked up to him as she held the bottle, the glass just lingering below her red bottom lip.
“No, wasn’t just you,” she smiled, as she finally took a sip. “Besides, I can handle your grouchy moods just fine.”
“That so?” he asked, as he could feel one side of his mouth pulling up into a smile.
“Oh yeah,” she smirked. “I guess…it’s just, sometimes, I don’t know...” she trailed off.
“What?” he asked.
“I guess I just miss the old you.”
“Ouch, kid,” he joked, the truth of it sting a bit. She sighed a little guiltily, but continued on.
“Sorry, but I thought you deserved the truth.”
“Well, maybe you don’t know me all that well yet. Maybe I’ve got things in common with the guy? And, besides that, it’s not like I signed up for this shit,” he said, although, after thinking about it for a moment, he corrected his answer slightly. “I mean, well, I guess I did, technically, but only because I was the only one who could make the trip.”
“Now that sounds a bit more like you,” she said.
“How?” he asked.
“Oddly selfless, for all of your tendency to act tough and mean.” He stared at her for a moment, eyebrows raising at her blunt honesty. He wondered, not for the first time, what the depth and the extent of their relationship had been in this timeline.
“So, other than his gallantry, what did this joker have goin’ on for him that makes you miss him so much?” he teased, and she blushed a little.
“Umm, well, he liked music,” she said a bit awkwardly.
“Ok,” Logan said. “But doesn’t everyone?”
“Alright, yeah. Duh. Ummm, he liked folk and rock, mostly. Stones, Dylan, but he’d take the Clash too.”
“Good, that’s better,” Logan said optimistically. “Sounds like I’ll have to raid his CD collection.”
“CD collection?” She looked up at him, grinning brightly at his slip. That fucking smile. Got him every damn time.
“Ah, fuck. Whatever. I get ‘em mixed up. Whatever it is they’re usin’ right now. iPods. Tapes. 8-Tracks. Records are preferable,” he added after a bit of thought.
“I have a record player,” she said, smiling at him again. “Pretty good collection too.”
“That so?” he asked a bit more softly. For a moment he was a thousand worlds away, until he realized she was waiting for him to say something.
“Ok. Uhh, what else?” he asked, taking a swallow of his beer.
“Motorcycles.”
“Yep. But hell, darlin’, that’s sorta cheating. You’ve seen me on one practically every day since I’ve been here.”
“Yeah, you’re right, now that I think about it. Umm…Cigars. Good liquor.”
“Hell yes,” he said. With that, he noticed a mischievous look move across her face as she grinned.
“Cream in his coffee,” she added.
“Bullshit,” he countered. She smiled widely now at him.
“I was only joking. Tryin’ to throw you off. Good catch,” she said, her hair gleaming in the sunlight, and the whole adorable thing was almost too much. He could tell, the more alike the former version and the current version of Logan were in her mind, the happier she became, and whatever got her looking like that was reason enough for him to feel grateful.
“He also liked order,” she said, after a bit, and Logan raised a suspicious brow at her growing perceptiveness. “He kept his room neat, tidy, probably a little more so than someone might think a-”
“-a feral would?” Logan finished her sentence for her. She blinked at him for a second.
“Yeah,” she said, finally blushing a little bit.
“Hey, all mutants come with stereotypes. I don’t hang with many of ‘em, except for Big Blue, and we both know he runs a tight ship. So you might be wrong about that one.”
“Probably…” she said, setting down the beer and taking a moment to clasp her hands together, stretching in the mid-day sun, her posture becoming more easy and loose by the minute. He watched her stretch helplessly, before she continued on. “And, let’s see, what else? He liked nature. The outside called to him, all the sounds the world could make. And, hmmm, what to call them, he liked…the times in between.” She looked over to him a bit more carefully for a moment.
“Yeah?” he asked, not quite giving her the affirmation she wanted anymore, still knowing everything was the same between he and his doppelganger. This was a bit more intimate now, information he wouldn’t have been as likely to give up.
“Like…the time before something else,” she continued, trying to sound it out. “Twilight, or the way a door would look partially open. Maybe the way lungs feel before they take another breath. I think that’s why he liked being out on the road so much, you know? Between what had happened and what was going to…” she trailed off, a bit wistful.
Logan was openly staring at her now, only having to blink once before he understood.
“So… all that shit at the Statue of Liberty still happened, huh?” She turned her head quickly back over to him from where she had been glancing down at her boots, mildly alarmed with surprise.
“What?” was the question she asked sharply.
“You’ve got him in your head, don’t you?” he asked carefully. She closed her eyes deliberately for a moment, before opening them to face him once more.
“Yes. I mean, it was a long time ago, but-”
“Even though you could control it?” Logan interrupted her once again, curiosity overcoming him.
“It’s not…” Rogue began, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Back then it was a bit more… unwieldy. Plus I was unconscious, and I always have less control of it when I’m sleeping. Or tired, or stressed...” she trailed off. Logan couldn’t help but glance down at all that touchable skin, noticing she had taken off the blazer she had worn earlier and now was in nothing but jeans and a sheer t-shirt.
“Hmm,” was all Logan offered in response as he mulled over this new version of Marie.
“Yeah. I didn’t know any of these guys back then. I had just met you all…or just met them all…before it happened.”
“I see,” Logan murmured. “So whatcha said that first night?”
“All true.”
“Huh.”
“So…” she said, after a bit of silence lingered between them. “How did you even know, about the Statue of Liberty?”
“Because it happened to us too,” he murmured simply, finally choosing to stare deliberately into her brown eyes.
“To her?”
“Yeah kid, it did.”
“Shit,” was all she offered, and Logan smiled a little at her candor. After a couple beats of silence, he spoke again.
“Look…maybe we should stop talking about ‘em like this. It’s just…a little too weird. And it ain’t too helpful. Hell, it seems I’ve got enough things in common with the guy anyway. Maybe just try callin’ it ‘me’ and ‘you’, ok? Because that’s really all there was, or, all that’s left,” he said a bit wearily, as, at the same time, Logan pushed down a vision of Marie wiping blood away from her forehead in the med bay before gently rubbing his temple. The truth was, he just didn’t want to talk about her to her right now. He didn’t want to talk about her to anyone.
“Ok. Fair enough…” she trailed off. “So, did you go around calling me kid no matter what age I was back then too?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood and playfully swatting at his arm a little. He stole a glance at her ungloved hand and then back up to her, feeling simultaneously relieved and strange that she felt so easiy in touching other people.
“I… well, yeah,” he said, a bit sheepishly now.
“I’m nearly forty,” she remarked, smiling at him once more, not quite a protest of the nickname, so much as she seemed to find it all a bit ironic. Logan just shrugged his shoulders.
“You were seventeen when I met ya. And god knows I got several more decades on you than that. So that was it, for a long while. Well, until South Africa,” he said, before he could stop himself.
“South Africa?” Rogue questioned, interest peaking. As Logan peered up at her, he realized that once again he had driven them into dangerous territory.
“Uhh, you knocked me on my ass in a sparring match. You dislocated my shoulder,” he said through a small laugh, although he realized, as innocent as the words were, his tone was coming out all wrong.
“I dislocated your shoulder?” she asked in total disbelief.
“Yeah,” he said, through a smile. “I still fucking feel it sometimes, although I don’t know how the hell that’s possible, the timelines being different and all. After that, everything changed…” he trailed off.
She looked at him, a bit confused by his meaning, and then the whole world fell away as the quiet realization swept over her, even if that had been the very last thing he had intended. Shit. This, partially, was one of the reasons he had been keeping his distance up until now. It was so easy, so dangerously easy, to fall into his old habits with Marie again. The Marie from Westchester, the Marie from the war, this Marie here. The same goddamn woman that drove him crazy, kept him up at night, made him so hard half the time he couldn’t see straight, no matter how many times he made himself come with the image of her in his head. He needed to get a fucking grip.
“You …” she asked, eyes widening, before stopping, unsure of what to ask, what to say.
He offered her a slightly pained look as his eyes met hers, before looking away, polishing off the rest of his beer.
“We...?” she attempted again, and Logan suddenly felt the need to stand.
“Logan,” she said more intetionally, standing too, the empty beer bottles planted around their boots on the ground.
“Look, kid, I ain’t crying my heart out over it,” he said defensively, the instinct to get the hell out of there so strong in his muscles it was practically pulling at his entire body to move. “It was…a long time ago.” A truth, but also a fucking lie. He hated doing that to her, but there it was.
“I- I don’t know what to say,” she murmured, scuffing a boot on the ground.
“Like I said. Don’t sweat it.”
---
It wasn’t like he had put up posters and shit. But here they all were, lined outside the gym like it was prohibition and it was a fucking speakeasy they were tryin’ to pay their way into. Somehow, someone had gotten word that Logan was starting a “Fight Club,” although Logan hadn’t been the one to name it that, and the news had spread like fucking wildfire. All he had done was suggest to Charles that some of the older kids, and there were far more older kids here nowadays than younger ones, might need to eventually rely on a little hand-to-hand combat, powers aside, if the world ever got a little rocky again. It had taken a few quips and subtle remarks sandwiched around the times he had visited the professor in his office, Charles trying to understand the full extent of the world Logan had just recently left. Charles had finally, after some persuasion, given Logan the ok, and now, here they were, all these gangly kids, begging to be taught. Logan realized, a little too late, that he had his work cut out for him.
He had recruited Peter to help him out, because the man knew something or two about sparring and hand-to-hand combat, in the previous world and in this one. He had asked for mats, too, which Charles had easily provided, and now the bleachers had been folded back into the wall and in their place sat the mats, brand spankin’ new and neat, on the gym floor. As he walked in, he gave a low whistle, smirking at Peter and glancing back out to the kids in the hall.
“How you wanna do this, Logan?” he asked.
“Uhh, bring ‘em in two by two, I guess. Give ‘em the basic rules, and then it’s all diagnostics from there on out. Just see what they got. Put the decent ones,” Logan hesitated, shooting a glance around the room, “over in that corner, and see what else they know. I’ll take the kids that need some…help. After tonight, we can work on trying to get something a little more organized together.”
“You focused on a certain style? Ninjutsu, karate?” Logan snorted a bit at the idea of any of these students knowing the intricacies of any sophisticated form of martial arts and offered a slight shake of his head in response. “Maybe...in time. Now, just see what they know.” Peter smirked, cracking his knuckles. He knew Colossus would be all over this idea, and had been helpful getting it to work. It wasn’t necessarily a class, but a club was enough to be a damn fine start. Maybe the name had a better ring to it than he thought.
Slowly, one by one, Logan saw each kid through the doors of the gym. He realized, warily, there were over fifty kids outside, and with each pair of sneakers he told the kid to kick off before stepping on the mat and with each swat of the arm, block of the wrist, he grew steadily more discouraged. These kids knew shit about sparring, let alone fighting. What the fuck had happened to the world? About half-way through, he realized there were only a handful of students standing over in the far corner where he had told Peter to put the decent ones, and “decent” was a bit of a fucking stretch. Logan inwardly grimaced as one of the last students filed her way in, a petite, dark-haired girl of only about thirteen and Logan assumed less than ninety pounds, headphones in her ears, pink dyed in her hair, and bubblegum in her mouth. She was reading something too, and when he cocked his head to get a better look at what it was, his own, illustrated face was staring back at him.
“What…the... fuck?” he asked, looking at comic than up to the girl and back down to the comic book again, before snatching it from the kid’s hand.
“You’re famous,” she said through a pop and snap of her gum. As his eyes widened at the ridiculous, overdone drawings, the title The Uncanny X-Men splashed on the front cover, Logan grew uneasy. Trying to shake off the feeling, he tossed the comic to the floor and motioned to the mat.
“Ok, kid. Ear plugs or whatever they are off, spit the gum out, and no shoes on the mat,” he said. She only looked at him with a smirk before getting ready. He didn’t have a watch on, but he realized that it was much later than he intended for this to go when Marie had entered the gym, offering him a smile and a slight nod of the head. She usually worked after class on the next day’s materials, and that typically took her until nine or so, Logan knew from using his senses to keep track of her most of the time. Despite the late hour, though, she held a ceramic mug of coffee in her hand, and once more smirked a bit as she took a sip, leaning against the wall nearest him in the gym. It was obvious that she was thoroughly amused by the idea of Logan’s “Fight Club,” and had come to watch the last of the entertainment.
“Ok, come ‘round here, kid,” as he pointed to a particular spot on the mat where he wanted the little thing to plant her bare feet. He was also barefoot, in athletic pants and a token wifebeater, but not much else.
“You know zenkutsu Dachi?” he asked, trying to throw the young mutant off balance with a terminology question about basic Karate stances, too frustrated and tired now to baby the shit out of the last few. To his surprise, she knowingly grinned, instantly standing with better posture and putting her feet apart at the appropriate length, before whipping a foot out into the first position, raising her hands into tiny, well-formed fists.
“Thank fucking god,” he murmured, and he could feel Marie smiling at him a little wider from the wall. They went through a couple of basic sparring sequences, realizing this little one at least knew when to block and how to move. She was a quick thing too, and Logan instantly felt bad for whatever fucker was gonna stand in her way when she was full-grown. When they were done, she gave a little bow, and whispered, “Domo arigato sensei."
He offered her a small smile before murmuring, “Do itashi mashite. Oyasuminasai.” You’re welcome. Have a good night.
After she was off the mat, he whistled over to Colossus, who was finishing up with his batch of students.
“That little one would be one to watch out for,” he motioned to her as she made her way out the doors. “Yeah, that’s Mirage. I could’ve told you that when she walked in here.” It was then, as he looked around the place, Logan noticed several of the students had stuck around, even though he had at one point dismissed them all after getting a sense of their capabilities. Logan stood uncomfortably for a moment, staring into their young, eager faces.
“Well, if we already worked with ya, you can leave,” Logan said, but no one made a move to do so. “Uhh, again next week, same time,” he added, but still, no one moved. Logan looked to Peter questioningly.
“Uh, I think there was a rumor goin’ around today that they’d get to see some sort of kick-ass fight tonight or something, at least a decent spar,” Peter murmured. Logan snorted at that, looking back at the crowd of kids.
“How we supposed to get better when we don’t know what to aim for?” some little punk asked. Even though he was mildly annoyed, Logan managed to throw Marie a knowing glance, and she just shrugged her shoulders at him, a grin on her face, and took another languid sip of her coffee.
“Uhh…good point I guess.” He glanced up at the taller mutant. “You wanna do this, bub?” Peter’s smile went wide, massive arms still folded across his chest.
“Fuck yeah, Logan,” he said. With that, they were already getting into position, to some excited whispering of the kids.
“Hey quiet in the dojo, or…the gym…or whatever the fuck we’re calling it,” he said. “Your job is to watch, ok? Watch how the hits happen, but most importantly how the blocks happen. Ultimately, most of this is about self-defense. And this ain’t a real fight; nobody’s getting hurt. That ain’t what sparrin’s about,” he said, shooting another casual glance at Marie.
“None of that metal shit, Colossus,” he muttered, getting into position.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Wolverine. Respect the rules of the dojo, right?” he said back, and Logan grinned.
In a real fight, Logan would have needed his claws. Colossus was bigger than him, and Logan couldn’t say that about that many guys he went up against. That’s usually when he had to play dirty. In a spar, however, obviously all that flew out the window, so Logan would have to rely on his knowledge and his instincts, which hopefully would a be a decent match against Colossus’ sheer strength.
It started innocently enough. Logan instinctively read off Peter that the other mutant planned to run through the basic punches, and Logan the basic blocks, until they intuitively switched after about five or six sequences. No one used their full strength, and they took it slower than they normally would have, Logan intent on letting the students see the full range of movement and perhaps even, for the more adept ones, mentally anticipate some of the hits in their own heads before they happened to the two in front of them.
At some point, however, Logan discovered one of Colossus’ fighting weaknesses. Peter favored his right arm, and showing that you preferred any arm over another was a token taboo in most skilled masters of martial arts. Logan was a left-handed, verging on ambidextrous nowadays, which usually worked to his advantage because people were always anticipating he was going to throw with his right. But to read a favored arm so easily in a sparring partner was…a delicious thing to behold. Something in him started getting the idea that Colossus himself needed a little sparring lesson in cloaking your weaknesses, and so he started moving quicker, anticipating the hits easily. Peter seemed to notice the change, a quirky smile on his face, and then picked up the pace too. He went in again with his right to uppercut Logan, but Logan dodged left, throwing more strength than he had intended to swipe at Peter’s leg, bringing Colossus down to one knee. No fucking easy feat. It hurt like hell to throw force into the other mutant to even knock him off balance, and Logan knew if he could bruise, he would have.
A few of the kids clapped when he made the move, and he found himself simpering just a little. Just as he was about to throw Marie a cocky grin, however, Colossus struck. This time it was with his fucking left and with just as much force as Logan had just shown him, and, distracted by the pretty girl in the corner, Logan didn’t move out of the way in time. Peter’s hit was to his right shoulder, that fucking shoulder, and it knocked the wind out of Logan, making him stumble back a few feet. Somehow Peter knew that was Logan’s weak spot nowadays, and he had fucking taken advantage of it. A few people started cheering louder, and Logan bristled at the burgeoning enthusiasm of the crowd. He didn’t like where this was going. Logan stood back up easily enough, throwing his shoulder into a few circular motions even as his joints screamed in pain. Logan knew he’d have to end this soon before it got too out of hand; he didn’t want the kids getting the wrong idea. He performed a complex triple sequence Colossus wasn’t sure to have anticipated based on knowledge and experience, with a little more than an ethical use of his strength to take the man down on one knee again. Logan stopped, breathing hard, offering a hand to help the man up.
“Better call it there, Pet-shit!”
Peter’s right leg whipped around to wipe the feet out from under him, an odious clank of metal striking metal, and Logan fell to the ground, hard.
“What the hell, Pete?!” he said, growling from the floor.
“Sorry, Logan,” Peter grinned. “Got this thing about having the last word.”
--
He groaned as he made his way down the hallway. Marie walked next to him, and she kept throwing him little concerned stares that were starting to piss him off.
“So he pulled a couple of good ones over on you, huh?” she finally said, realizing and seemingly disregarding that Logan’s pride was probably the only thing on him still wounded.
“No, he didn’t,” Logan grumbled. “I’m just...a little rusty.”
“I thought you were fighting in a war,” she teased as she paused on Xavier’s staircase, smiling back down at him from a higher step before Logan scowled at her, brushing past.
“Yeah, well, the last couple of years we were mainly just, you know, hiding out. And you gotta love ‘em, but neither Charles or Storm was very interested in keeping up with sparrin’ too much.” Rogue laughed a little at this, and he looked up at her, feeling a strange smile forming on his mouth. “Besides, Peter wasn’t fighting fair,” he added as they made their way to the upstairs hallway.
“Since when does the Wolverine care about fighting fair?” she teased, and he stopped for a moment and turned to look at her oddly. A bright and vivid memory of her with a braid in her hair, having the same conversation on a different sparring mat lit up his mind. They stood like that for a few moments, awkwardly stalling now outside of her bedroom door. Logan finally cleared his throat.
“Yeah, well, see ya in the morning, kid?” he murmured. Something about dropping her off at her door had him feeling awkward, even if he was just tryin’ to be friendly. It felt…chaste, leaving her here like this. And wrong.
She looked up at him, eyes a little dark, leaning against her own shut door.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she finally muttered, and as he turned to leave, she spoke again.
“Logan?”
“Yeah?” he asked, hesitating slightly before turning back around to face her.
“It was good today, to see you working with the kids again,” she practically whispered.
“Yeah, well don’t get too used to it, darlin’” he added cynically, knowing full well he was already churning over in his mind more ideas for lessons, sets and strategies for Fight Club. Suddenly an image of her from their conversation on the veranda a few days ago came to mind, and after some thought he added, “Is that because it reminded you of someone you used to know?”
She blushed a little, mildly embarrassed.
“No, I just… you’ve got more of a knack for it than you think,” she muttered. He took a step closer to her then, just a hairsbreadth away from something that would have been considered an intimate proximity.
“Not sure I’d agree with you,” he said quietly. He was close enough now, real close enough, to take in her scent. Still there, that sweet nectar and mint and that fertile scent of earth, and he breathed in a bit too deeply, practically woozy on the spot. He could hear her heart beat a bit more quickly in her chest, a steady thud that he swore suggested…
“Logan?” she asked quietly.
“Huh?” was all that he could get out. Her eyes were dark and heavy. Her pale skin stood out in the dim hallway, and she fiddled with the edge of her jacket she had been holding, rubbing the hem of the fabric back and forth a little.
“Was it a good thing, we had going for us, back there?” Logan looked at her intently, before being sucked into another fucking vortex, a stream of more memories of Marie’s pink nose, her laughing in the cold, and then her up on that table, the taste of whiskey and anticipation on her breath the night before it all fell apart.
“Yeah. I think, for however short it was,” he said evenly, before gently taking out a hand and brushing a platinum streak of her hair back before withdrawing it. “It just was the rest of the world that was fucked up, kid.”
She looked up at him intently in the dark, and said nothing. He realized then that he was having a hard time reading her. There was something there, something important, brimming just beneath the surface of her, but fuck if he knew what it was. Arousal? Frustration? He was having a hard time focusing, the way she looked so much like herself…
“Well…thanks… for sharing,” she murmured, before she backed up a step, hand suddenly fumbling for the door.
“Night, Rogue,” was all he managed to say before she was inside and the door shut quickly behind her.
Later, in his room, he could still hear her. He always could with her next-door, but he had tried hard the last few weeks to tune her out. Tonight, however, it seemed everything she did, every scratch of her pencil, brush of her hair, sip of her drink, was greatly amplified in volume. She stayed up for a long time afterward, reading he guessed, from the occasional crinkle of faded paper, her flipping another page. Logan meanwhile had flopped onto his made bed, giving in after a while and just tuning in to Marie’s station. She smelled like mint-brushing her teeth-and of sandalwood-putting on perfume but more likely lotion. He then heard the click of the lamp, the lights going out.
Finally, he allowed himself to think of the vortex he had experienced. Logan usually did a good job—damn fine one if anyone was askin’— of shutting off memories. He always had imagined locked boxes, mainly because for so long he couldn’t find the keys to open any of them. However, even after he had rifled through most of the contents once the memories had come back to him, some he had managed to dutifully lock back up again. He gathered that he hadn’t been that terrible of a man in the past before Stryker, but Logan hadn’t always agreed with some of the decisions James had made, not even close. And then, as his life moved forward, being a part of the X-Men had caused him to experience joy, but also painful things, terrible things, and he had fallen into the habit of deliberately forgetting once again. He had tried to also do this with Marie, just as he had years ago with Jean, but for some reason Marie wouldn’t stay put. The way the light hit the room or a random smell in the air, and there she was again, clear as day in his mind: the vortex. And it was driving him crazy, because, now, another Marie was usually already staring up at him. Two versions of the same woman, both beautiful, both driving him to drink.
Memories had been something different to her, he remembered her once explaining. What had she called it when she had taken her drink of him after Cape Town? Like walking through a cloud. He had always pictured a white fluffy cloud, like the one you might find occasionally drifting by on an otherwise clear day. But now, he doubted it that’s what she meant. Clouds had a way of going grey, getting stormy, throwing out signals that they were all in for nasty weather. A thunderstorm, a hurricane, a fucking black hole. How did you possibly walk through that?
--
A few days later, he found her in the dining room, reading another book. As he walked toward her, he couldn’t help but notice the way she cradled the spine, as if it was something precious. She sat with one leg tucked up under her, and she looked comfortable, at peace. He savored the little scene for a moment, before walking up to the table, and, using the spine of his own closed book he was holding, he parted her open one down the middle, slowly bringing her novel from where it had been in front of her face back down to the table she sat at.
“Excuse you-” she started, before he interrupted her.
“You owe me,” he smiled playfully.
“What?” she said, looking up at him from her seat at the table. Just then, he threw his yellowed, dog-eared paperback copy of War and Peace down, the doorstop of a book thumping heavily on the table between them as Logan took a seat opposite of her.
“No way,” she said, skeptically.
“You bet your ass I did. You could just turn that skin of yours on and steal a few thoughts of mine to know it’s true if you want.” She blushed a little at that, before steadily regaining her composure, straightening a bit in her seat.
“I’ll settle for a quiz,” she said, a more mischievous look in her eye. “So, what’s it about?”
“The Russians’ war with Napoleon,” he said with ease.
Rogue rolled her eyes. “You could have googled that,” she said flatly. Logan was surprised to find himself slightly hurt by her disbelief in him actually reading it. He hadn’t been moping the entire time since being here, that was for fucking sure.
“You think I sit around googling shit all day?” he retorted. Rogue simpered a little at this.
“Ok, wise guy, if that what it’s about, then what’s it really about?” she asked.
Logan rolled his eyes a little bit at her corny question, but he still found himself thinking quickly on his feet. The rest of the truth was that, after his memories had slowly returned to him in the old timeline, Logan realized he had read the book several times over the course of his life. This was, in part, because books about war obviously spoke to him, but it was also because, hell… he’d been alive a long fucking time, long before most forms of technology they all used now, and for the vast majority of his life all he had were books. And he made his way through most of the books out there, at least the classics, although he wasn’t about to admit that to her. It certainly wasn’t a truth the Wolverine went around vocalizing very often. Yet there she was, all hopeful doe eyes, waiting for an honest answer.
“It’s about instinct,” Logan murmured. Rogue’s eyebrows raised in surprise, but he saw her trying to hide it by grinning a little as the irony settled between them.
“Instinct, huh? Sounds familiar,” she goaded.
“Mind your teasin’, kid,” he said, crossing his arms in vague discomfort. “I ain’t wrong, and you know it. It’s about, well… Human beings behave irrationally sometimes, in ways that don’t make much sense up here,” he said, tapping his forehead gently. “It’s not just you who’s at war in your own head, darlin’, although you may have it worse than most. We’re all warrin’ with ourselves. And, to get it right, sometimes, we gotta dig deeper. Listen to that innate thing inside of us, and trust me, we all have it to some degree. I like that about the book. And the ending…it ain’t happy, it ain’t sad. S’real. I like that too.”
Marie’s mouth hung partially open, before she quickly shut it. She sighed, resigned, smiling a little at him before murmuring, “Top marks.” Logan grinned devilishly, as he leaned in toward the table between them.
“Now about this pecan pie of yours…what’s it got in it?” he asked.
“Ah, um well,” Marie cleared her throat slightly, more than a little thrown and still trying to recover. “Pecans.”
“I gathered,” he said through an evil grin.
“Butter, sugar, eggs. My mama also used Karo syrup,” she murmured, now closing the book in front of her, fiddling a bit with one of its frayed corners, suddenly unsure of what to do with her hands.
“Sounds real good,” Logan practically hummed.
“You cook the filling beforehand on the stove, you know? Before it ever gets to the oven. People don’t always realize that. The butter and sugar and Karo, even a little cornstarch to condense it. It all sorta heats up, caramelizes, gets thick and sticky.” Logan was still listening, but the way the words were slinking out of her mouth, a slight southern draw alongside them, salivating at the thought.
“Sticky, eh?” he asked, grinning. Marie had a quirky little smile tugging at the corner of one lip, before she straightened a little.
“Well, you’ve schooled me in Tolstoy. If you’re so interested in learnin’ a thing or two on cooking, meet me in the kitchen tonight. Unless you’ve also already mastered the skill of baking pies too, wherever you came from.”
“Hardly, darlin’,” he said, giving her a small wink.
“‘Round eleven ok? The faculty kitchen?”
“Ain’t eleven a lil’ late?” Logan asked.
“I’m all grown up, remember? I stay up late all the time.”
“I know you do. I can hear you reading most nights. I’m next door,” The words were out of his mouth before he could think about what it might mean to utter them. A deep red flew up her cheeks as she realized what he was actually saying.
“He…or you, the old you, never told me that.”
“Welp,” Logan said, stretching a little, leaning back in his chair. “It was a secret he was likely keepin’ from you, baby, for some reason.” Marie’s eyes narrowed at this, and she stood.
“Eleven, the kitchen. Be ready to get sticky, baby,” she said with a little smile and wink, before walking off, his eyes on her whole way out of the hall.
---
She had a little apron on, over some shorts and a sheer t-shirt, and house shoes on her feet. Her long hair was up, but falling down and loosely tied, and she was cradling a glass of— holy fuck was that bourbon?—in her hand. He could smell it, and even from the kitchen doorway he knew it was expensive. Logan couldn’t remember the last time he had a decent glass. He studied her for a moment, stock still and completely quiet, as she peered into a couple of cabinets and grabbing a box here and setting down a can there on the table, all the while humming the tune of some slow, sad song playing from the speakers in the background.
“You’re right, you ain’t a kid,” he finally said, leaning on the door frame. She turned to find him there, and she smiled that fucking beautiful smile. There was a little flush in her cheeks and her posture was loose and easy as she walked her way over to him. He met her half way, and now they lingered next to the kitchen island. The place was deserted. The faculty kitchen was hardly ever used, meant almost entirely for late night snack fests and the occasional game of poker. It was, however, in traditional Xavier fashion, completely stocked with every ingredient you could ask for. Logan picked up the bottle of mostly still-full amber liquid, and let out a low whistle.
“It’s the good stuff. Charles flies it in,” she said, eyes on his hands on the bottle. She took another little sip from her glass, the ice clinking together softly.
“A.H. Hirsch Reserve. Holy fuck. They don’t even make this shit anymore. Or at least they didn’t where I’m from,” he looked back up at her red lips lingering on the edge of her glass.
“I can tell you’re dying to try it. Here,” she said, raising her own glass and extending her arm from the space between them. “Take mine.” He smirked a little, reaching out his hand and taking the cold glass from her, their fingers grazing as they did so, nothing happening but the exchange of the condensation on her fingers to his own.
“Damn, that’s still so strange,” he said, before taking a long, deep sip of the stuff. It tasted like toffee and anise, but it also had the taste of Marie’s lips, a speck of mint and honey. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring it.
“So…” she said, watching him take the sip, before casting her glance downward. “You never touched her then?” Logan looked up at her carefully, and quietly noted that the glass he had taken from her definitely wasn’t her first drink. He stared at her a bit longer than he probably should have, glass still cool in his warm hand.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Logan finally said, smirking a bit, as once more he brought the glass to his lips, taking an even larger swallow. If the little vixen had started before him, he was determined to catch up.
“I’m sure that’s meant to be sipped,” she said skeptically, taking a look at the mostly empty glass.
“I’m thirsty,” he growled, finishing it off. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment, before she looked around the kitchen island at all the ingredients she had set out, now more determined on her task.
“Ok, let’s get started,” she said, turning around, and he couldn’t help but stare at her ass in those tiny shorts, that little apron tie dangling off the back of her waist. He growled a little, but shut his trap when he realized she was still talking.
“I already started on the crust, that takes a while and I had some time to kill, so now, we get to making the filling.” She moved gracefully around the kitchen, flicking her wrist to start the gas stove, carefully holding the glass bowls as she set them down on the table, twirling this way and that, preparing what she needed.
“You move pretty naturally around this kitchen,” he couldn’t help but remarking, as he fetched her a glass and filled up both with more than a splash of bourbon.
“Yeah, of course,” she said, measuring out a pour of sugar in front of her. “I’ve been making pies for thirty years. A good many of them right here in this place.” Logan genuinely smiled then, before offering her a fresh glass during a lull in her prep work.
“Thanks,” she said, taking it from him.
“Anything I can do to help?” he offered.
“Oh, no. Not during this part. This, my friend, is for professionals only,” she said, and Logan found himself inwardly wincing a bit her choice of words.
“Explain it to me then. Talk me through what you’re doing,” he said. This was mainly a selfish request. For one thing, this was Marie’s territory, exclusively her space, and everything in him knew it. He wasn’t about to go and try to disregard that by insisting he help. However, without anything more to do, he could feel something in him steadily growing taught and a bit uneasy. At least, with the more bourbon the graced her pretty red mouth, the more that southern drawl came out, and Logan couldn’t get enough of that.
“Well, there’s a trick to it,” Marie was saying. “Making a pecan pie, it’s not quite caramelizing, but it’s pretty dang close. It ain’t such a far cry from making a roux.” She was pouring the ingredients after whisking them together into the sauce pan now, except for a couple she kept close to the stove, ready to use when she needed them. “It’s about timing,” she continued, stirring the sauce pan in long, unhurried strokes with a ladle. “About feeling it out. You got add the right thing at the right second, or it becomes something it’s not. You need to know how long to hold to wait, to let it simmer, before you let it go.”
Logan must have made some sort of noise, because she looked up from her stirring, finally coming back to herself, and flushed.
“Sorry,” she said, still pink as she walked back over to the island and to him. “Cookin’ does this to me. And I might have started a bit early on the bourbon.”
“Hey, baby, did you hear me complainin’?” he asked, offering her a small grin. Right now, he noticed the kitchen island was a firm barrier between them, she on the cooking side and he leaning on the counter on the other, and Logan didn’t like it. Any barriers between them, Logan was starting to hate, but, in this room, in this space, in this life, he wasn’t sure where to stand yet, how quite to be.
“So, uh, where’s Bobby tonight?” he asked, before another generous gulp of his bourbon. He’d been saving this question for the right moment, and now seemed as good a time as any to ask it. Meanwhile he noticed she flushed even more, dancing on the ball of one foot back at him, yet again looking both vibrant and refined, sexy and intelligent all in one goddamn glorious package.
“Oh, uh, I don’t know...” she trailed off, undoing the little tie at the back of her waist, slinking off the apron and setting it on the table while the filling still simmered on the stove beyond. Logan frowned a bit at the move. He liked the little apron, and he couldn’t help thinking it was a damn shame she had taken it off.
“I thought you two we’re going steady,” he pressed a bit.
“Going steady? You sure show your age sometimes; you know that?” she teased. He said nothing, still peering at her. As she looked up to him, realizing he was still waiting for his answer, she rolled her eyes a bit. “Oh, don’t look so bothered. He’s just my…you know. We hang out sometimes,” she finished. It was a remark, Logan thought instantly, a seventeen-year-old would make, not a woman nearly approaching forty. He glanced down to the empty glass she was holding and instantly was around the table refilling it.
“So you’re not together?” he asked, carefully choosing his words now as he refreshed her glass. They were only a couple of feet away from each other now, and he surreptitiously breathed her in for a moment. He warmed further at the fact that she was already shaking her head in response to his question.
“That’s not… a thing I do,” she stated. Logan cocked his head at this, a little thrown by her remark. He had never quizzed the old Marie on her values regarding matrimony or the ethics of long-term partnerships, so he hadn’t known what she had thought, but he got a sense she would have given a different answer. Every time there was a remotely difference between the two versions of this woman, Logan felt a little more off-balance.
Marie seemed to notice his surprise, and offered a brief, stilted explanation. “It’s just…two people forever and ever, til death do us part and all that…egh.” She said. For some reason, Logan’s unease grew a bit.
“What’s so wrong with that?” he asked. Marie only offered an almost apathetic shrug of the shoulders in response.
“Monogamy not for you?” he tailored his question, trying to feel out what she meant.
“Monogamy’s alright. I get the idea of sticking with one person for a while. It’s just…nothing really lasts; you know? In the end…” she tapered off and something in Logan felt heavier.
“For as much romantic literature as you read, you’re quite the cynic,” he was saying, as she took the tie out of her hair, and it fell gently around her shoulders. She sighed a bit as she did so, wrapping the little band around her wrist. The move had meant something; Logan just wasn’t sure what.
“So you too, uhh, when you hang out sometimes, do you-”
“Fuck?” she asked, looking him directly in the eye.
Logan nearly about swallowed his glass. Hell, that word on her pretty little mouth. The Marie he had known would have never been that forward. Or, had she been? The girl or the woman? This woman? Who could fucking tell anymore?
“Well I figured you would know that sugar, with your good hearin’ and all,” she teased, and Logan’s eyes widened more. The fact was that he had been waiting to hear that, if only so he could get the hell out of his room when it happened, but he hadn’t heard them at all. Not once.
“I…well, I haven’t really…” he trailed off. Marie just grinned all the more widely.
“I know, I’m teasing you. But yes, I slept with him. Off and on, for a while at least.” Logan’s frown deepened.
“Off and on?” Logan asked, trying to get to the bottom of this awful thing.
“He goes off on missions, long ones, for weeks at a time. But, it used to be, when he came back, if he was in the mood and I was in the mood…”
“Alright, I get it. You can stop now,” he practically barked, grabbing the bottle of liquor from the island and pouring himself another refill.
“Sorry. Just banter… between friends right?” she murmured, looking up at him coyly. Outside, the crickets were chirping in the night, and inside, the boiling pan behind them steadily bubbled.
“…right,” Logan murmured, his bottom lip twitching a bit. She waited a beat, glancing down for a moment, before coming back to his gaze.
“And you and…Jean?” she said. The name hardly even registered as he was trying to understand what she was asking. He hadn’t spoken with Jean but once or twice since he’d found himself here, and he didn’t quite take her meaning.
“Jean?”
“He was...uhh, you were--sweet on her. I think. Or maybe something more. Who knows?” she asked, clicking a couple of nails on the edge of the island she was holding onto a bit, and Logan realized she was trying to steady herself, preparing for the answer. Logan rolled his eyes.
“Oh, hell, baby. Jean was, well, whatever Jean and I were, that’s over and done with.” She only blinked at him for a moment, but then he heard some sort of increase in pressure, steam rising, and he tilted his head in the direction of the stove.
“Looks like that needs tendin’ to, darlin’,” he said, before taking another sip.
“Ah, shit,” she said, putting down her glass and going back over to the stove. With a quick movement of her wrist she brought down the flame, then removed the pan from the heat entirely.
“Sorry,” he heard her saying as he watched her work. “You’ve got me a little…tipsy. In fact, come over here, why don’t you? I could use your help pouring this.”
She grabbed a large glass bowl of whipped eggs and walked back over to where the saucepan on the stove. Meanwhile, he had walked over to her, now just slightly lingering behind where she worked.
“Grab that saucepan by the handle and pour it into the bowl,” she said, but as he went to grab it, he also heard her say “Grab the handle toward the top,” but his hand was already making contact with the scorching metal further down toward the base, and he whipped his hand away again, muttering a “fuck” under his breath as he sucked the side of his hand at the base where his index finger and his thumb met. The skin was hot from the burn and salty from his sweat, but also sweet, tasting a bit like caramelized sugar from where the mixture had splattered onto the handle.
“Sorry, baby,” he murmured, before taking the pan again, this time much higher up. She offered the bowl, and he steadily poured in the liquid, and she was already whisking the mixture as he did so.
“Good, not too much at once. See, sugar? You’re a natural,” she said, adorably excited for his progress, while, inside, at the name “Sugar,” the Wolverine practically purred.
He set the saucepan down, and followed Marie as she took the bowl back to the island, both of them on her side now. Her movements were languid, a bit slowed, but so were his, both of them swimming in bourbon as they were by now.
“Good, now, the best part,” she said, and Logan watched as she lifted the pecans out of their packaging with her bare fingers, and put some of them into the mixture. This Marie knew how to use her hands, and well. It was obvious she felt everything all the time, and held nothing back. Logan watched her work gracefully, running her hands through the pecans, and as he paid closer attention he noticed the little nicks and scars, a few miniscule discolorations, tiny battle wounds most people had from living a life with ungloved hands.
“Hold the bowl steady for me?” she was asking, and the room danced as he came up behind her, placing his hands firmly on the bowl. His head looking over her shoulder, nose inches from the soft skin of the nape of her neck. He stood there, that close, for one long hard moment, drinking in her aroma. As he lingered there, the scent suddenly and drastically changed, and it was everything and more he had picked up on the other night, that earthy and sweet fragrance of her arousal rocking him back, making him dizzy, and he couldn’t abstain from a quiet, low growl in her ear.
“Logan…” she was whispering.
“Yeah?” he asked. She had set down the whisk and taken one of his hands in hers, before turning around to face him. She was inches away now, and her touch was almost too much, too unbearable.
“You’re still burned, sugar?” she asked quietly.
“Wha?” he managed to say.
He looked down to see the dark pink mark still there on his skin at the base of his finger. He stared at it indifferently, as if it wasn’t a part of him, because she was now idly massaging his hand.
“You ok?” she murmured.
“Swell,” he said, still drunk on her fragrance. And then, just ever so slightly, she ran her fingers deliberately in the spaces between his knuckles. He drew in a sharp, deep breath, helpless to her touch, and then her fingers were intentionally lingering there, adding pressure. It was all he could do but shut his eyes and breathe.
“That…good?” he heard her say.
Logan only issued a low growl. She was drawing small circles around the skin, applying more light pressure, and he was going lightheaded, weak in the knees. He had never known anyone to do that to him before, in this life or the last, and he was fucking hard because of it.
“What…does that feel like?” she barely whispered.
“S’just sensitive, there, is all.”
“Like...a pressure point?” she pushed. Her curiosity was fucking killing him.
“Somethin’ like that,” he said, barely managing to hang on, the animal inside of him screaming to put his hands on her, to bite and to lick and to fuck, but something in him hesitated, unwilling to do so until he had something more from her, some other sort of affirmation.
Her fingers moved away from his knuckles then and once more swiped the stubborn pink burn on the side of his hand. It still stung a bit, and the move mixed with the feeling from earlier caused a pleasure-filled pain to course through him.
“You’re still so different,” she said, staring down at the mark on his hand intently.
“Thought we were pretty much the same, Marie,” he murmured. She let out a quiet, breathless laugh then. He looked up at her, a question in his eyes.
“Marie? See? It’s like now you… know me, or something. Just like that.” Finally the rest of the woozy feeling fell away, as his look darkened to something more predatory, his hands moving to hold her possessively around her hips.
“So what is it, baby?” he rumbled.
“What?” she barely breathed.
“What you want from me that you couldn’t get from him?” he muttered, and the look in her eyes blackened, the soft brown he had come to know disappearing. She looked down a bit, still running a few fingers over his large hands still firmly on her hips, biting her lip in pause.
“Tell me,” he said simply.
“Can you… show them to me?” she finally asked.
“Show you what?” he toyed with her. If she was going to ask for that, she had to utter the whole fucking sentence. “Say it.”
“Show me the claws,” she said a bit more firmly, voice now steady and even.
“Tell me why,” he murmured, wanting more.
“Because… seeing you vulnerable like this is a fucking turn on, because, usually, it’s you making me feel-” and she then stopped because they were unsheathed on one hand, gleaning off the still-bright kitchen lights, a few drops of blood blooming at the base of his knuckles, a couple rolling down the front of his hand. Her eyes widened in surprise, fear, or awe, he wasn’t sure.
“I’ve never seen them up this close,” she murmured, eyes dancing. “They’re beautiful.”
“Fucking lethal is what they are,” he muttered bitterly, and, just as she reached out to touch one of them at its base, he retracted them again, the sound ringing in the air between them. It was something intimate, something he hadn’t ever admitted to himself he wanted, but something he was unwilling to offer her tonight. For that, he would have to lay himself completely bare. Meanwhile, her face was singed with frustration, the look in her eyes burning for more.
“Did she ever see them like that?” she asked, completely forgoing all use of “you” and “I” when talking about their former selves, the rules of it all worn thin.
“No,” he said quietly.
“What did she do then? Or what did you do to her?” she asked. Another question, another longing need to see into that former life.
“Not near enough,” he said through gritted teeth, his grip on her tightening. He still hadn’t moved the other hand from her hip, and now the one from where he had shown her his claws was back on her too, the blood drying on his knuckles.
“Tell me, show me, what you wanted to do, sugar,” she said.
“Kid, you better know what you’re asking for before you do,” he threatened, his voice low and rough.
“Try me.”
And that was it. He could feel the rest of the inhibition slip away, and he pulled her unbearably close, his mouth lingering just outside of her ear.
“Fuck, baby, you got this scent on you, you see? God’s sending me straight to hell for the thoughts in my head, you paradin’ around in all that touchable skin, pretendin’ to be in charge in this kitchen, all with that fucking scent on you.”
She breathed hard against him, barely whispering. “What’s it like?” she breathed. A low growl rumbled in his throat.
“Earth. Musk. The scent of you beggin’ for me to make you come, pleadin’ for me to push my fingers up inside you, have you shaking…” he murmured, happy to oblige her now in giving her what she wanted.
“I need to fucking see you,” he growled frustratingly, and he could feel her sharp intake of air as he moved to peel the thin little shirt off of her, along with undoing the pretty bra underneath. She stood before him then, pinned between his hard body and the counter and he savored the view of her full, perfectly round breasts. Even through the fog of his lust, however, he sensed something was unexpectedly off, and he realized slowly she was suddenly looking a little vulnerable at being so exposed, slightly hesitant in a way maybe a younger woman wouldn’t be. A disturbing thought if there ever was one: this gorgeous woman doubting herself.
“None of that,” he murmured into her ear. “You’re fucking beautiful, Marie.” He kissed her then, nipping at her bottom lip gently as he did so, before he moved to the side of her neck, sucking on the skin there lightly. Her body liquefied under him as his hands then ran over her breasts, toyed with one nipple until it was hard, rolling it gently between his forefinger and thumb. Hungry for more and wanting better access, he easily had her up on the edge of the counter now, knocking over abandoned ingredients from their cooking lesson. The whiskey that night, the bourbon now, her up on a table. Did it fucking matter anymore?
He took his first taste of her breast, lapping up her nipple in this mouth, rolling his tongue over it, sucking long enough on it to grow sore, and then sucking harder, his teeth grazing the pebbled skin. She cried out at his mild torture, and he growled in approval. She was breathing hard and heavy, her hips clutching him. He knew she was wet; he could smell it, feel it through the two thin layers of clothing, all that was left separating his mouth from her warmth.
“You needed somethin’ you hadn’t had before tonight,” his voice low and guttural, and he wasn’t sure who he was talking to anymore. “A hard taste, a good long suck, right here…” The pad of his thumb was already placed on her heat, and then he was moving past the lining of her shorts, putting them to one side, slipping a finger inside that moist warmth. She gasped a little in surprise at the invasion, and he grinned, taking in the pleasure of her shock. As he moved in and out, her inner walls tight around him. Finally, he pulled the digit out again, a hild thought in his head, even as something broke in her voice, a soft whine at the sudden emptiness inside her. He stared at her evenly before bringing his finger to his mouth. Her eyes widened, not so much surprised at his forwardness as she was from the scene of it all, of him, tasting her. He was then back in her, quickly adding two more thick fingers. She moaned, clutching her hips around him as he moved in and out of her a little harder now, thumb working around the shorts and occasionally flicking and toying with the bud between her legs. He could tell she was close, on the brink of something, but then it wasn’t enough for him, not like this, and he easily picked her up from off the counter. She whined a little again, but still cradled her thighs around his waist as he gently brought her to the floor.
She began pulling at the edges of his own shirt, and he helped her by ripping it off with ease. Her eyes slid over him carefully, drinking her fill, taking in each sculpted muscle, before she cautiously lifted her hand, running her fingers gently over the muscles of his abdomen. A shudder from him turned into a growl. He wasn’t fucking done with her yet. He moved over her, gently pulling off the little shorts, leaving her naked and bare before him. His tongue was already lazily running its way down her body again, his mouth wet on her warm skin, licking and nipping at her breasts, the hollow curve of her stomach. Along her hips. Her thighs. Now: the spaces in between.
Her body practically came off the floor as he ran his tongue found the most sensitive spot between herself, while a couple fingers drove up into her once more, and he gently sucked and nibbled at that sweet spot between her legs before moving his tongue lower, tasting her warmth, drowning in the flavor of her.
“Logan,” he heard her murmuring his name, and something in him smoldered about how it sounded like that on her lips. Another hard, long suck, and then she was shaking, coming around him, and the animal in him eagerly lapped up the sweet glaze of her, just like the bourbon, savoring the taste. She breathed in and out unsteadily, riding the last of her orgasm, as he lifted his head, moving back up to kiss her, deliberately sharing the taste of her between them. She kissed him back hard, rough, running her tongue along his bottom lip and he found his hand moving upward to cup her face, fingers in her hair, before nuzzling in her neck, growling with a thick, heady need. She was already pawing at his belt buckle, trying to undo the rest of him. Shedding the what was left of his clothes, he watched her as her eyes widened, his thick length on display, tip already dripping with want. Pure, raw masculinity, unsheathed.
“Condom?” he barely murmured.
“No need,” she said breathlessly. He didn’t exactly know what she meant by this, but he trusted her word. He paused, the head of him teasing her already-slick folds. She shivered as it passed over her, while he rubbed gently against her opening.
“Logan,” she whimpered again, rocking her body upward, trying to catch him insider her.
“Wider,” he growled. As she spread her legs more, he stopped toying with her, willfully pushing his full length inside, hard and heavy, caring little now about how tight the stretch around his thick girth was for her, drowning in the hot, wet feel of her surrounding him. It didn’t matter if he was using her now. They were using each other, he realized, adrift in some dark fantasy of the other version of themselves that seemed to be just out of reach, lost somewhere in the black of night.
“Jesus fuck, baby,” he managed to say, as he saw stars, a galaxy of night, white pinpricks searing through black. The animal impulses in-more-take screamed within him, and he pulled almost completely out, before shoving his whole length back into her again. He gave it to her like that, hard, deep, fucking her with wild abandon, even as his knees sung in pang against the hard marble of the kitchen floor. At one point, his teeth made contact with the skin of her shoulder and he bit down, unable to stop himself. She screamed in a mixture of pain and pleasure, but then, just as he was about to lose himself, she stopped meeting his thrusts under him, using all of her strength to turn him toward the floor, and she was on top of him, creamy thighs and slick heat compressing around the base of his cock, moving on him in the dark as she lost herself in him once more, heat pulsating around him, clenching unbearably hard, down, and then he was bucking up, pouring into her, rumbling wildly as he shot thick, white ribbons inside her.
They simply lay there for a few minutes, minds off in the distance, not quite intent yet to get up off even the hard marble of the kitchen floor. Her head was on his chest, which rose and fell with his breath, and then she subtly moved her fingers to clasp his free hand. She cradled it for a moment, a strange feeling between them, before she noticed the blood from earlier dried on his knuckles, and she put her mouth to them. He exhaled deeply as she murmured something incoherent against his hand, before gently licking away the rest of the red. He deliberately didn’t ask her what she had said, knowing it wasn’t quite for him to hear. Outside, the night lay heavy around them, and, inside, Logan heard the occasional click of the oven regulating its temperature, still on.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Take Note: Please mind the “sexually explicit content” tag that has been taunting you throughout this entire story is officially “active” now, and content that is adult and sexually mature in nature is possible and/or highly probable from here on out. You have been warned.
Also, this chapter is long. I recommend tucking in a bit with a mug of something warm before you start this one.
That is all. :P
Also, this chapter is long. I recommend tucking in a bit with a mug of something warm before you start this one.
That is all. :P
Chapter End Notes:
Annddd….I didn’t mean for it to happen this quick, but then I wrote the kitchen scene and everything fell apart from there. It felt right, so I wrote it, even if it was a bit wrong. *smirks And, who knows, there are often serious repercussions to jumping into something too quickly. (But not too serious. I promised ya’ll sweetness and light in the “then” chapters, remember?)
Chapter 16 shouldn’t take too long to get to you, my friends. Already working on it.
Chapter 16 shouldn’t take too long to get to you, my friends. Already working on it.