Chapter 21: Then
“Yeah, well, ok. On top of the security deposit and two months’ rent? How much is that gonna cost me?” Logan asked into the cellphone receiver, leaning on his desk in his office. Marie was standing in the doorway, looking like she wanted to set him on fire, aggressively motioning for him to hang up and follow her, wildly pantomiming like she was trying to land a fucking plane.
“Hell, that much?” he murmured after hearing the price, running his hand through his hair and ignoring the woman in front of him. She scowled at him again, pointing behind her, and mouthing the words Logan. COME. ON.
“Alright, lemme think about it. I’ll call you back,” he said grumpily, clicking the end button on the phone and looking at Marie exasperatedly.
“You said you would help. Jean can’t make all the kids’ shit levitate into the moving vans,” she snapped, turning on her heel and heading for the door.
“Jesus, ok,” he said sighing outwardly, before following Marie into the hall.
The place was turned upside down from the efforts of moving the students out. There were boxes everywhere, furniture shoved to the sides of the hallways. Marie and Logan had spent the last two weeks arranging to find homes for those students who were without one, moving them to schools overseas or up north, while the other students found their way back to their families and into more traditional settings. Peter was pulling more than his weight, and Logan settled on a large box in the hallway, pulling it up into his arms. A scrawny kid no more than fourteen named whose name he’d forgotten shot him a wary glance from his open doorway a few feet away. “This yours, uhh….?” Logan stumbled.
“Doug,” the kid muttered.
“Uh, yeah. Doug. Sorry. Look, kid. Don’t let it all get ya down. This is a temporary thing, yeah?” Logan said.
“That’s what you think,” he mumbled. Logan groaned as he heaved the box outside toward a nearby moving van.
“Jesus, what you got in here, piles of rocks?” Logan grumbled.
“No, video games. There are fourteen separate gaming systems in there from various decades. Be careful with them,” Doug said rudely.
“Hell,” Logan said, before once more swallowing a cough as he brushed past a still-annoyed Marie who currently was carrying several desk lamps. He knew she was in a bad mood. With the departure of the students, their jobs had effectively ended as they knew them. It had been Storm’s idea to close Xavier’s doors, a quick, temporary solution to get the students far out of the radius of Charles’ mind while Hank tried to figure out the best course of action. Additionally, what had happened in January had also made the news, and now Westchester was suffering from a public relations problem. The FBI had come knocking on their door twice, mainly there wanting to assess Charles’ condition, and although they had a decent working relationship with most governmental agencies in the States, the whole confrontation had left Storm more than slightly anxious. Meanwhile, now that they knew the seizures were dangerous, Hank had Charles on a heavy course of drugs, mainly variants of diazepam, to keep the seizures from happening. And while this eased the worst of the fears that accidentally Charles would hurt anyone else, Logan had sided with Storm to close the school. Rogue had too, of course, but she was more heartbroken over it all. Logan taught because it made sense to do so if he was going to live at Xavier’s. Marie taught because she loved it.
As Logan heaved the box onto the van outside in the frigid cold of early February, Logan managed to stifle another cough. The scrawny kid looked at him warily for a moment from the sidewalk, before turning around to go back inside. Logan sighed tiredly. He had been at this job all fucking day, and he needed a fucking break if he was gonna keep pretending he felt fine. The “cold” that he and Marie had taken to calling it had not gone away in the month or so since it had started. And if Hank had noticed, he hadn’t said anything, most likely because all of the mutant’s attention had been settled on Charles, but with every passing day he knew he was irking Marie. He tried as hard as he could to muffle, stifle, and practically suffocate himself to keep the cough at bay, because every time he did suffer through an attack, Marie would shoot him a worried, pained look that Logan would have gladly suffered from a heavy bout of amnesia like he had with Stryker to forget. The look verged on pity, and it was fucking killing him.
He hadn’t quite convinced her yet, but the plan was to get Rogue out of here as soon as humanly possible too. He trusted Hank’s medical know-how to keep them safe, but those were all short-term solutions to a long-term problem. In the end, they needed different jobs. Teaching aside, even the X-Men missions nowadays were far more likely to happen on the pages of a comic book than in reality. Are we obsolete? Marie had asked. At the time, Logan wasn’t sure. Now, it sure as hell was looking like it. The simple fact of the matter was, the professor was slowly dying, and all of his ideologies about protecting mutants were quietly dying right along with him.
--
Later on in the evening, afternoon clouds rolled in. The wind had picked up, shrouding everything in grey, as the rumble of the last moving van started, pulling out of the circular drive in front of Xavier’s. The rest of the adults had filed out to see the last of the students off, and as they all watched the truck make its way down the long drive, they all stood there, lingering. Storm, Scott, Jean, Bobby, Kitty, Peter, Rogue and Logan under the mansion’s entryway, Hank still being up with Charles inside. The snow was falling softly in the drive now, and Rogue leaned into Logan tiredly, resting her head on his shoulder. He put an arm around her, breathing her in for a moment, as he shot a forlorn look at Storm and she frowned slightly back to him. The last of the X-Men, now alone.
“Well, this is depressing,” Scott murmured to nobody.
“Hell yes,” Peter said, switching his weight from one foot to another.
“Alright everybody,” Storm said resolutely after some time, looking at them all. “Inside. It’s cold, and I’ve held off this weather system as long as I can. But I’m tired and I’d like a break,” she said before walking back to the doors behind them.
Finally, Rogue sighed as she looked up to Logan. “Takeout?” she asked, and he offered her a small smile back. “Sure, kid,” he said, squeezing her shoulder a bit more in assurance.
An hour later Logan and Rogue were eating sushi out of paper cartons in the otherwise empty dining room. Logan had propped his feet up in a spare chair, while Marie dipped a piece of Unagi into some wasabi with her chopsticks, sighing as she did so. Marie had also warmed some sake for them both, and they were now generously helping themselves to it. The rest of the crew had disappeared to somewhere else in the mansion, probably to get flaming drunk. At least, Logan thought that’s what they should be up to.
Logan cradled the warm ceramic cup in his hands, and once more took a sip. He shot Marie a glance, and he could tell she was now fiddling with her food more than eating it. They had pretty much finished anyway, and he knew Marie was just trying to give her hands something to do. Finally, however, she set down the chopsticks and murmured the words, “We need to talk.”
“Dear lord, woman. You know better than to start a conversation that way,” Logan said, frowning slightly before setting down the small cup on the table
She offered him an apologetic smile, finally picking up her own sake. “Ugh, you’re right. Sorry,” she muttered.
“So, spill,” Logan said from the other side of the table, although he knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“I don’t wanna leave,” she murmured into her drink. Logan frowned a little, sitting up straight and putting his boots back on the ground again.
“You know it ain’t safe here,” he said quietly.
“We can’t abandon Charles,” she said.
“Rogue…” Logan began, falling into the habit of using her other name almost always when she was scaring the shit out of him.
“He’s on the diazepam. The chance of another seizure is…small. And if we go, who’s going to stay?” she said softly, a look of deep despair melting around her brown eyes.
“Hell, baby. You know all this already. Hank’s almost finished arranging long-term care with a couple of mutants with healing factors he’s calling in. They’re modifying Cerebro for Charles. It’s the deal we made with the government,” Logan said.
“I hate that,” Marie hissed. “It feels like we’re locking him in there or something. It’s horrible,” she finished. Logan said nothing for a moment. The truth was he felt similarly, but they had all been at a loss of what to do. They had discovered Charles’ seizures had a remarkably large radius, and short of killing or hurting anyone else, it was one of their only options.
“You have a healing factor,” Rogue said softly.
“But you don’t,” Logan said through narrowed eyes. “And we can’t risk me just hoping to get to you in time. So unless you plan on leaving me here by myself, what you’re saying doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“Of course I’m not going to leave you here, sugar.” Despite her words, Marie’s tone was icy.
“Then it’s settled. We leave,” Logan nearly growled back in response. At his anger, Marie stiffened.
“I’ll make up my own mind, thank you very much,” she said caustically.
“I know you will, Rogue. That’s what I’m so fucking worried about,” Logan practically barked, and the effort of doing so sent him spinning into a coughing fit once more. It was awful, and he struggled to breathe as the physical effort of the day caught up with him. The whole time, Marie looked at him through angry, bitter eyes. Not a hint of pity on her face this time. As his lungs finally settled down, he groaned, running a hand over his face to find Marie still shooting daggers at him.
“What?!” Logan asked nastily.
“Nothing,” she whispered, setting down her sake a little too forcefully and standing, before sleeking back her hair and putting it up with a spare band she had on her wrist.
“I’m gonna go work on my uppercuts,” she said.
“This late?” Logan asked. Despite their bickering, he never wanted her in a separate room from him for long, especially with knowing what Charles was now capable of.
“Yes, this late. Looks like I have the whole gym to myself from here on out anyway,” she snapped. Logan growled quietly as she brushed past him, but he didn’t move to stop her. Instead, he drank heavily from his little cup of sake, knowing he would have to switch to something stronger, and fucking soon.
--
After a while of sitting there stewing, Logan moved to clean all the shit up from dinner. He walked the cups back to the sprawling, empty kitchen, carefully and dutifully washing out the tokkuri, the warm water and soap feeling good on his hands as he did so. He snapped up a dish towel from a nearby oven and slowly and rhythmically dried each of their cups. As he opened the cabinets, he was greeted with stacks and stacks of plates, hundreds of place settings polished and ready to be used. Logan simply stared at them all for a moment, hands still resting on either cabinet door, before he exhaled deeply and set their dishware in with all the rest, closing the cabinets, shutting off the lights to the kitchen, and walking out.
Whiskey was on the docket tonight, maybe scotch if he could find some, but Logan made a mental note that it was probably best to drop by the med bay first. He had taken up the habit of using his senses to check in on everyone periodically, especially over the past couple of weeks. With the students gone, Logan found that it was far easier to do this. Downstairs, the dutiful heavy thud of Marie’s taped fists making contact over and over again with the punching bag, her breath coming in fast and steady. Up another floor, he heard Kitty and Bobby going at it, and with a scowl he mentally lowered their volume down. Logan could tell Storm was probably pacing in her office from the rhythmic sound of her footsteps, but he also heard the rim of a bottle clink against a glass and he smiled softly at the notion of her drinking, mentally sending her a silent atta girl. Scott and Jean were still outside, they had been since the kids had left, but they were not outwardly talking, which wasn’t unusual, such was their way. Then there was Peter, poor Peter, who was currently listening to jazz with what could only be a pair of expensive headphones in his room as clear as Logan could hear the music. And Charles, well, Logan knew just by his steady breathing he was already asleep, the valium and other drugs he was on often making the older man tired and mentally distant, which they all hated to see happen, but hadn’t found a way around it. Finally, he picked out the sounds of Hank, the brush of him taking off his glasses, and sighing through a tired growl. He was still working, the fucking addict, and Logan intended to tell him to call it a night.
Logan entered the med bay quietly, knowing full-well that Hank’s hearing was just as good as his own and not feeling the need to announce his entrance, as Hank would have likely heard him coming up here a few minutes earlier anyway. Logan found Hank at his desk on the other side of the med bay, pouring over paperwork.
“Hey, Blue,” he said.
“Logan, my boy, how are you?” Hank responded, albeit tiredly. Logan smiled faintly at the nickname. They both now knew that Logan had over a century on him, easy.
“Been better,” he finally muttered. “How’s Charles?” Hank peered at Logan over his glasses that he had set back on his face upon Logan’s entrance, as Logan plopped down in a chair across from Hank’s desk.
“Stable. Tired,” Hank said. “His memory comes and goes,” he added, after a bit of thought. Logan blankly stared at the neatly organized desk, settling his gaze on a small hourglass set on the left corner. Neither mutant said anything for a bit of time, and right about then Logan had wished he had indulged in the whiskey first, as he began to suspect the real reason he found himself up here tonight. He was worried about Charles, he wanted Hank to relax, but those had little to do with why he had strolled through the doors at a late hour. Hank seemed to inherently know this, sense it on him, and finally, after some more silence, offered Logan a bit of a nudge.
“How’s that ‘cold’ of yours?” Hank said carefully, adjusting the papers in front of him, even though they were already in a neat stack as it was.
“Rogue’s giving me hell for it,” he muttered. The simple fact was that Logan had not thought long or hard about what was happening, because if he did he could take a pretty good guess as to what the answer might be and what it might mean. He also realized, however, that Marie was becoming steadily worried, and as much as he tried embodying strength and health and bravado in the day-to-day, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, his body felt like it was fucking falling apart. And the problem was that, as much as Logan tried to evade Marie’s watchful eye during these subtle moments of weakness, it was practically impossible to do it all the time.
“You got any clue as to why, Hank?” Logan finally said, through gritted teeth.
“Without a proper examination, Logan-” he said.
“-which you ain’t gettin’,” Logan interrupted.
“I understand that, my friend,” Hank grumbled. “It’s just scientists don’t typically rely solely on guesswork before offering up a diagnosis.”
“Well, how ‘bout your best hypothesis, then,” Logan murmured, as he saw Hank look to a thin scar that had appeared on Logan’s forearm during the past year after a fight turned rough.
“How long has it been since you started not healing fully from your wounds? A year or two now?” Hank asked. This surprised Logan. He wasn’t so much of an idiot to not guess it was all connected, but he was routinely impressed with how fucking perceptive Hank was. As a feral, Hank naturally would be, but unless he had some full-on rage happening, which Logan rarely saw, he found himself half-forgetting Hank was a feral mutant most of the time due to Hank’s unyielding civility.
“About that long,” Logan grumbled.
“Well, then, I think the answer might be more apparent than we think,” he said quietly, and then there it was. The pitying look.
“Quit fucking around with me, and give it to me straight, Hank,” Logan nearly growled.
“Old age,” he said calmly. Logan’s eyebrows shot up at this, a little taken aback by the bluntness of his remark, even if he had asked for it.
“Excuse me?” Logan asked caustically.
“I’m not joking around, my boy. I’m not sure exactly what your Hayflick limit would possibly be without tests, but I’m assuming your telomeres are finally deteriorating,” Hank said.
“Telomeres? The fuck? Speak English, bub,” Logan murmured. Beast sighed, rubbing his temples.
“From what you’ve shared of your memories with the professor before things…deteriorated with Charles, we have your year of birth pegged somewhere in the eighteen thirties, Logan. That means you’ve got a two hundredth birthday coming up.” Logan squirmed in his chair. He hated being reminded of this fact. Fucking hated it. He didn’t feel that old, but he assumed that was most likely the silver lining of Stryker’s experiments on him in the eighties. A reliable ol’ dose of amnesia was good for that. Being reminded that he was, indeed, not the forty-year-old human being that he looked like was never a pleasant experience, however, because it had him feeling less than human, and it also made him feel weird, strange when he thought of Marie. He knew he was probably a little perverted, but fuck.
“Yeah, I’ve seen some shit,” Logan heard himself saying. “What’s your point, Hank?”
“Logan, look. All human cells divide, over and over again, but eventually they divide enough times that the buffers that protect our actual genetic code in our cells, the telomeres, slowly get shorter until they disappear, leaving our genetic code subject to… wear and tear. That’s why, typically, as we age, our eyesight fails, we become weaker, we lose the melanin in our hair,” he said, shooting a glance at Logan once more.
“Come again?” Logan asked.
“Why our hair goes grey. The genes that made up those characteristics start to fade, and in your case, such as with all of us, the X-Gene is no exception to the rule. It’s just another blip in your genetic code. Your body doesn’t know the X-Gene is special, although it’s ironic, because your healing factor probably inadvertently kept your telomeres intact a lot longer than they normally would have been around. But in the end your X-Gene is just another gene where your DNA is concerned, like your eye color. All human cells have a limit of how many times they can divide, even yours. Eventually I would assume your healing ability…well, it will sputter out, leaving you…err, more human. Prone to illness, and prone to more often experiencing the usual consequences of physical violence, as in slowed healing,” Hank finished. Logan simply blinked at him for a moment, comprehending what Hank was saying, but just so.
“Shit. So I got some missing telomeres. Maybe. And, so, I’m not sick?” he asked carefully. The fact of the matter was aging was one of the scenarios Logan had already come up with in his mind, and it was the worst one. If he was sick somehow, he could be cured. If he was aging, well, he was fucked.
“I wouldn’t say that…” Hank said, glancing to Logan’s knuckles and the adamantium that lay hidden beneath, and that’s when Logan’s stomach churned with a new sort of dread.
“Fuck. Ok, you can stop. I was wrong. I don’t wanna hear this shit,” he said, suddenly standing.
“Logan…” Hank said, before he interrupted him.
“Thanks for the, uh, info Hank. You know to keep this between us, right? Storm, Rogue, any of them, they don’t need to know about this shit. They have enough to worry about,” he grumbled.
“Of course,” Hank said quietly, before, gripping a pen a little more tightly, he added just as Logan had reached the med bay doors, “And Logan?”
He stopped, mildly annoyed, turning back once more to the other mutant.
“Yeah?” he growled.
“Remember, without tests, it’s just a theory,” Hank said carefully.
“I’ll….keep that in mind. Just keep taking care of Charles, alright?” Logan grumbled.
“I will do my best.”
--
Goddamn fucking shitty DNA shit telomere fucking whatever they are MOTHER FUCKERS, Logan thought, as he fumbled in the liquor cabinet for at least a half-full bottle of whiskey. He needed booze, and then he needed Marie. Now. Fuck giving her space. Fuck her martyrdom. Fuck her ever-loyal urge to serve those in their time of need. He needed her. He’d convince her alright that it was not safe to live here anymore, and, if not, he’d pick up her sorry albeit fine piece of ass and strap her, tie her the fuck down, in his god damned truck and get far enough away from this cursed place before she could ever get the chance to run right back here to try to save the world for the hundredth time, even if she screamed her pretty little head off the whole fucking way to Canada or wherever they ended up.
Logan found what he was looking for and indulged generously, taking a long pull from the bottle, before stalking off in the direction of the gym. He knew already she was still giving it to the punching bag, and she’d been at it for well over an hour. The trainer in him knew she should stop for her muscles’ sake, but the man who found himself hopelessly in love with the stubborn-ass woman knew that, emotionally, she needed this. He stood there watching her for a moment from the gym entrance, watched the muscles under her flawless skin flex and move as she came at the bag with another sequence: kick, dodge, uppercut, uppercut, kick, dodge, hit. It was a blend of a few different forms of martial arts, impressive and sexy, and, he felt his anger start to morph into something else as he watched her move with grace and beauty and power.
“You’re really givin’ that bag all you’re worth, aren’t ya?” he finally murmured from the door, before taking another swig of the bottle in his hands, cursing all sense of propriety now.
“You…better…believe it…!” she breathed, before hitting the bag again. He could tell she was already losing energy, though, heart beating erratically and breath coming in a little too hard. Logan finally walked over silently, before resting his hand on the bag, steadying it from swinging and partially blocking her ability to keep at it.
“Let go,” Marie said, although he noticed that she took advantage of the moment’s break to wipe the sweat from her temple.
“No,” he said. She stared at him, a bit perplexed, before her expression turned to one of anger again.
“God damn you, sugar. I said let go,” she rumbled.
“No,” he said again. “Time to stop this,” he muttered, before setting the bottle down at his feet and stalking over to her. He moved a hand to the back of her neck, bringing her closer to him. He could feel her muscles straining against him as she fought for control, putting a fist to his chest, and then his grip tightened, pulling her closer, until she finally relinquished her strength.
“Fuck. You,” she muttered.
“Exactly,” he growled.
“I’m all sweaty,” she pouted, looking back up at him
“What the fuck is wrong with that?” he asked. “That’s one of the best ways I like you.” He lingered over her lips then, just barely hovering there.
“Stop,” she insisted.
“Stop what?” he teased.
“Stop making me stop being mad at you,” she said quietly, and he smirked at this, before growling at the blooming arousal in her scent and her looming proximity as he pulled her in for a rough and long kiss, the taste of liquor on his tongue spilling over onto hers. As he began to hold her more tightly to him, however, she whipped a hand up to get out of his control, and he grabbed her wrist tightly, almost too hard. She stared up at him, a knowing, wild look in her eye, and they both knew what he wanted. It was the same look she gave him when she wanted to play with his claws. He wanted more than the usual, more than they normally gave each other.
“I can’t, baby,” she said tiredly. He looked at her carefully, through dark, terse eyes.
“It’s been a fucking terrible day, darlin’. I’d like to feel… less,” he rumbled.
“I’m not sure you have as much to give, sugar,” she muttered, and his hand gripped her wrist a bit tighter.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” he snarled, pulling her closer to him so he could kiss up the length of her forearm, and then he was pulling at her thighs to get a better grip on her ass, before swinging her around and landing them both hard on the mats on the floor.
“Here?” she breathed, even as he was peeling off his own clothes.
“No one else around. Not that I give a fuck,” he muttered, before he turned them so she was on top of him, pulling off her shirt to get her down to nothing but her sports bra. He ran his hands over her abdomen, felt the smooth, taught lines of her stomach, all that bare skin, exposed.
“Do it,” he muttered to her.
“Why?” she asked, a bit helpless, even though he knew he was already close to convincing her.
“Because I wanna feel a little fucking careless. Cause I wanna stop giving a shit about every other fucking thing …” he muttered, and she sighed.
“It’s a good thing I trust you,” she said.
“Don’t I know it,” he murmured, even as he could feel her skin hum to life. They routinely took and gave from each other in all kinds of physical ways, but they only did this rarely, mainly because of how dangerous it could be. There was something riveting about it though, fucking hot and wild about having to break apart every few seconds, and they both knew that Rogue, and she was Rogue then, was wilder, less inhibited, when she finally had the chance to let go. They were both better about stopping from her taking too much of him than that first fateful night, anyway, and although Logan was sure there was probably a safe word or some shit, he didn’t want to know what the hell it was. He roughly pulled her closer to his body, moving on top once more, just as the connection opened up between them, and he snarled as he bit her bottom lip, tearing away after a couple seconds of her drawing him in.
“You ok, baby?” she asked through a breathless whisper.
“Yeah, fine,” he growled, even as his head danced. He felt his body loosening, giving into whatever this was.
“I don’t know about this,” she murmured. He scowled at her even as his hands work to rip away the rest of her clothing.
“Quit it, Rogue,” he snapped.
“But-” she tried again.
He growled loudly, biting where her jaw met her neck to shut her up, even as her skin buzzed once more. After a few seconds he felt the touch open up again, and he intentionally lingered for several more moments before breaking contact, and then he was nipping and biting his way down to her breast, taking her whole nipple in his mouth roughly.
“You want it dangerous, sugar?” he heard her raspy murmur up from above, and he knew he had passed some of his wild, desperate energy to her. Good.
He growled roughly in response, before moving up once more to lick the side of her neck.
“You wanna take out your frustrations on me?” she pressed, her voice verging on viscious, but he was too fucking gone to care. He only snarled, tugging at her ear with his teeth.
“Do it,” she said, and then he gave her no warning as he shoved several fingers inside of her as she writhed under him, and he held on again a few seconds longer than he should have, but she didn’t move or turn it off either, as they both felt some of his power being sapped away, a heavy burden taken from him as Rogue let out a low growl. As he pulled away for a moment, he smirked knowingly back at her wild, dark eyes. God, he fucking loved her like this.
Then she was moving upward, biting into his own flesh as her teeth tore at his skin, the feeling of pain that sharp from her mark during lovemaking foreign and strange and good, even as he instinctively felt the need to get her to back down.
“Don’t think ‘cause you got a few seconds of me in you, you know what’s good for you…” he rumbled.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, sugar,” she teased, releasing him as her skin warned them both again.
He kissed her roughly once more, a unique distinct signature to the way his lips met hers, before taking her hands and raising them up above her head and clasping them together.
“Keep your hands there, how ‘bout? Try it. Try holding back with a little of that animal inside ya, and see how fucking hard it is,” he muttered into her ear.
Then he was moving lower and she moaned, and he grinned greedily as he saw the glaze on her thighs, her pleasure moist and sending a sweet chorus into the air even as he lowered himself, his tongue exploring idly, languidly running along her folds.
“Too slow,” she growled, and he snarled back.
“I’ll decide what’s too fucking slow and what’s too fast, woman,” he said sharply, and then he was again intentionally making her moan and writhe with his unhurried, light pace for several long minutes. He could feel her try to break free of her own hold, and he whipped an arm out to steady her, to stop her from doing so.
“I said keep ‘em there,” he snarled, before finally applying more pressure, sucking at the coiled center and releasing ever so slightly as her skin drove them apart and she whimpered at the break in contact, but then he was diving back into her, adding the pressure of his fingers to keep her good and begging. After a few moments, he felt her begin to convulse, and she moaned as she came, and he lapped at the fresh results of her orgasm, her body still quaking underneath him as he licked the inside of one of her thighs.
And then, it wasn’t enough, and he was above her again, tongue on her lips, sharing her taste before he thrust his entire length within her. She screamed into his mouth, as her hands struggled to stay above her head, and he stayed like that for a moment, all of him shoved into her hot, wet heat. The skin buzzed, got louder, but still he didn’t move.
“Sugar…careful,” she pled with him, breaking the kiss momentarily.
“I know what I’m fucking doing, Marie,” he growled, and then he moved out of her for just long enough to kill the threat before slamming his thick length all the way into her again, even as he felt the pull happen way more quickly once more. That was part of the reason this game was so fucked-up and good and wrong. Sometimes her skin took less than a few seconds to really pull anything in, sometimes more than a minute. He reluctantly pulled out, his thoughts dizzy and lightheaded as he felt the animal shaking it off once more, before willingly pushing into her again, despite the fresh influx she likely received from his mind.
“Sugar!” Marie hissed.
“Just… let it happen, darlin’,” he murmured. They both knew she could handle it, handle him inside her. Logan knew her fears weren’t about her ability, they were about him and his fading incapacity to be who he used to be. And he was fucking sick of it. With that, he began establishing a rhythm, driving into her hard again and again, and she broke her hold to move her hands along his chest and shoulders, holding onto him out of desperate purchase.
“Fuck! Logan! Baby, like that!” she muttered as he fucked her harder, slamming them into the mat, forgoing any sense of decency, willfully purging the pity from her face from earlier as he made her forget her name, made her forget every fucking human thing she had ever known about herself. Every time the jolt summoned him he released himself lightly before thrusting roughly into her again. And, eventually, the feelings in him built, and he forgot about the buzz entirely as he began to feel himself come.
“Logan,” she murmured into him, as he began to spend himself inside her.
“That’s right, baby. Take it,” he somehow managed to say through gritted teeth, and then he was pouring into her in every conceivable way, filling her with his mind and body as he came, and then she was moaning a stream of curse words as she took in the feeling of his own orgasm he was giving her through her skin, minds blending as her body involuntarily responded to the sensation of his own pleasure, her walls clenching around him in an agonizing gratification. He held onto her tightly, letting it both take them over the edge together, and even after it was through he was hesitant to let her go. They simply breathed hard for a few moments, before he gently moved off to one side, taking up his place next to her on the mat. The threat of her skin was no longer, and he realized that somehow she had managed to shut it off once more.
“Holy hell,” she finally said, still breathing hard.
“Too much?” he managed.
“No, I just…” she said, looking over to him through dark brown eyes. “That’s only happened a couple of times. To feel you come. To know what that feels like...fuck,” she muttered, as she rolled closer to him, resting a hand on his broad chest.
“Bad?” he managed to ask.
“No. Good, but a bit scary. Intense,” she murmured, as her grip on him tightened. For a several long moments no one spoke as they settled into each other, returning to some semblance of their human selves.
“Sugar…” she finally said after a few moments, and as he turned to her he realized she was biting her lip in hesitancy.
“Yeah, darlin’?” he asked tiredly.
“It’s just…” she lingered.
“Spit it out, Marie,” he said.
“I saw….I mean, you’re that worried of how I’ll think of you? That I’ll think less of you because of a few scars?” she asked. Fuck. He hadn’t meant for her to see that.
“I dunno,” he muttered, laying back on the mat once more and casually glancing up to the ceiling, even though he could feel her pulling herself closer.
“You gotta start listening to your senses and get out of that paranoid head of yours,” she whispered, and that’s when he looked back at her, eyes widening as she pegged him with a precision only Marie could manage. “I would never think less of you. And if…I’ve seemed too worried, it’s because I fucking love your sorry ass and I can’t do this without you anymore. You understand? You can change all you want on me and that’s not gonna go away,” she said quietly. He swallowed hard, the emotion of at all a little too much for him as he could only growl in approval, before nuzzling into her neck, kissing her and licking at the bite he had planted there earlier.
“Mine,” he finally managed to say, and Marie sighed as she felt his warm tongue on her cooling skin.
“And you win,” she practically whispered. He backed up a little and cocked his head in a small question.
“We’ll make sure Charles is safe,” Marie mumbled, “And then we’ll leave. I think…I get it now.”
---
In the morning, Logan woke to Marie already rustling about. He could hear the crisp flip of pages, the sound of coffee slowly dripping into a basin. He opened his eyes slowly in the morning light, feeling lightheaded, weak, and a bit empty. Just the sort of feeling he had wanted.
He sat up slowly to find Marie walking over with a cup of coffee to him. All around the room there were piles of books on the floor, and there was obviously some sort of organization system going on that was probably beyond normal human comprehension.
“What…are ya doing, kid?” he asked groggily, taking the warm mug from her. She smiled as their fingers brushed before she stood back, taking in the sight of what he was sure was his mussed hair and sleepy disposition, all with that goofy beautiful grin still on her face.
“Figuring out what to take and what to leave,” she said brightly, as Logan lazily took a sip of his coffee.
“You’re in a…good mood,” he said, and she grinned once more at him as she picked up her own mug, and closed her eyes as she took in its aroma. “Everything smells so good, tastes so good. I feel great,” she said, smiling widely.
“Heh. That makes one of us,” he muttered through another sip. At this, Marie’s smile fell slightly.
“I didn’t give you too much of a hangover, did I sugar?” she asked.
“Hell no, baby. I wanted to feel like this, I guess, or I wouldn’t have asked that of ya last night. I’m just surprised you’re feeling me in ya still,” he finished
“Well, you hung on for quite a long time,” she said, and as he began to frown she added, “It’s all okay though.”
“Good,” he murmured. Marie sighed as she turned to glance around the room, looking at all her odd stacks and piles of books once more.
“We can’t take all of these with us,” she said a bit sadly.
“I wouldn’t part you from your books,” he murmured.
“Nah. It would be highly inconvenient to take them all. Besides, I’ve read them all anyway,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, before she had a quirky grin again on her face, setting her coffee down and moving to the bed, straddling him in her little robe.
“You sure I haven’t brainwashed you into doing this?” he asked, running the pad of his thumb across her lips.
“No,” she said. “I make up my own mind.”
“I know you do,” he said, moving his hand down to play with a lock of her hair, idly running it through between thumb and index finger.
“You wanna go to Canada,” she said quietly. It wasn’t a question, and after last night Logan knew better than to guess how she knew that.
“After looking at the prices of rent around here, yeah. Just an idea,” he said.
“Laughlin city perhaps?” she smirked. “We could reenact the entire experience you’ve told me so much about.”
“Hell no, that place was a hell hole. Or, at least, my version of it was,” Logan said, through a smile.
“Maybe we drive till we find a place we like,” she said quietly.
“Sounds real good, baby,” he muttered, hands still lingering on her body.
“So does this mean we’re officially retired now?” she asked.
“Heh. Probably not. Knowing what I do about you and your righteous ass,” he said, moving his hand lower to grip her thigh. She smirked at him, but moved away from his grasp. “Uhh uhh. Not now. I’m putting you to work,” she said, before standing. She snagged an apple off the desk and threw it at him, and he caught it with ease.
“Eat something. I need you up and at ‘em,” she replied.
Later on after they both had showered and dressed, he still found her surrounded in the piles of books, trying to decide which ones to take and which to leave. He offered her a grin, as he pulled a shirt over his head. She looked up to him, a pained expression on her face.
“This is going to be harder than I thought,” she mumbled.
“You’ll figure it out. I’m gonna go see about finding a trailer in the garage to hitch the bike to the truck to take with us.”
“You wanna take the bike?” she asked, her eyes bright again.
“Hell yeah, baby,” he said. “No one else gets the pleasure of riding that bike but me. Well, and you,” he added, and Marie smiled once more, as she clutched a Jane Austen novel in her hands. Persuasion.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, tapping the doorframe as he did so. As he was about to turn, however, he heard her murmur a “Hey” from her spot on the floor. He stopped, turning back to her, and she cocked an eyebrow at him, before he dutifully returned, stepping carefully over the piles of books to kiss the top of her head from where she sat. She tilted her face upward, smiling at him widely once more, before he flashed her a grin and walked out of their room, creaking the door just slightly, the way she liked it, before he made his way down the hall.
--
Logan had been successful finding a trailer that might work and had done a decent enough job of rigging it up. He had already packed up a few of his things from his workbench in the garage, shuffling around for a few boxes, and now he was in the process of strapping his beloved Panhead to the trailer. The hard work in the cold garage felt good, the door open as always despite the February temperature, and he was grinning like a fool in spite of himself. This was going to work. He knew it would. Just as this thought passed through his mind, however, he heard someone mucking about in the open door leading into the mansion, and he was able to pick out the scent easily enough. Scott.
“I heard the news,” he said from his place by the door. “You outta here?” Logan exhaled. He knew he was going to have to have this conversation eventually, but he wondered just how the hell Cyclops had found out so quickly.
“How the fuck did you-” he asked, before the other mutant cut him off.
“Jean,” Scott said simply. Logan exhaled once more, finishing up the final strap and standing up straight.
“I mean, we’re not leavin’ now. It’ll take Rogue days to sort through our shit. Just thought I’d make myself useful out here, see if anything would work to haul this bike up north,” Logan said, and then, peering down at the trailer and realizing it wasn’t quite his property, he added, “Uhh, if it’s okay I take it.”
Scott snorted a bit, but was already nodding his head as he walked further into the garage. “Don’t worry. I won’t charge you for it or anything. Hasn’t been used in a few years anyway. So, up north, you say?” Scott asked.
“Uh, yeah. This country ain’t what it used to be anyway. Rogue doesn’t wanna go south, and it’s my old stomping ground and all,” Logan murmured. Something about the conversation was starting to make Logan feel a little uncomfortable. They were doing the right thing. Weren’t they? Scott peered at him through his visor, and even through the lenses Logan could tell the look was even, but friendly.
“You always had one foot out the door, anyway,” Scott remarked, and as Logan’s face was about to turn into more of a scowl, he clarified.
“Hey, that’s not a dig. It’s just your way. Look, I’m not like you, but I get it. And besides…I think, in the end, it’s for the best. Storm and I talked pretty late into the night last night, and I think she’s finally facing the music. With the enrollments as low as they were… hell, after graduation in May we would’ve been down to nine students. We both think it’s best to end things, at least for now.”
“Hell,” Logan said quietly. “So… what will you all do?”
“The modifications to Cerebro are almost done, and once they are, Jean and I have plans to stay, maybe Storm too, to look after the professor from a safe distance, but the others are making arrangements to go.” Logan considered this, realizing it was the most likely conclusion all along.
“And Hank?” he asked.
“Couple of mutants with healing factors that make yours look like a piece of shit are already on their way, so I imagine he’ll stick around for a while, before finding other work. They…don’t think Charles has more than a year or two left in him anyway.”
“Hell,” Logan muttered, before looking solemnly up to Cyclops once more.
“Look, Logan, you were a pain in my ass most of the time, but…” Scott muttered, hesitating slightly before continuing on, “But I was wrong. You got some real grit. And, you know, you are one of us. We consider you family.” Just then, Scott reached to extend a strong and steady handshake, a smile barely touching his lips, and then the world fell apart.
A searing, horrible pain in his head, worse than ever before. It felt like a hole in the earth, the world ripping in two, a giant, terrible thing reaching out from its depths to swallow them both. Logan shut his eyes in abject agony for a few blinding moments, and when he opened them he was met with Scott’s face contorting into something terrible and raw, as Scott stood frozen to the spot, every muscle thrashing in pain.
No.
Logan shouted, growled, staggering backward slightly, as he felt his brain teem, panicking, trying to rebuild whole parts of his pre-frontal cortex as he stumbled stubbornly forward. His claws were out and he threw himself into the hood of the nearest car to keep standing, all with Scott’s frozen face on him, that haunting stare, before they both were hit with another intense wave, another seething tide, a broken, mangled screech. The metal on Logan’s bones ached as his muscles moved grudgingly lurked forward, step by step, as the earth still shook around him, a rumbling quake. He left Cyclops there, then, knowing there was only one person he could possibly save. Upstairs. Go upstairs and find her. One minute, two minutes, three. Every moment he thought the seizure might end, might finally give way, it stubbornly pulsed on and on, so much longer than the last.
He stumbled into the hallway to the sound of heartbeats shuddering. It was a painfully glacial pace, slow, difficult. He staggered upstairs, and then he found himself standing at the mercy of their doorway, still cracked open from where he had left it, the yellow midmorning sun illuminating its outline. The door rattled, throbbed, shook in front of him. Four minutes. Five minutes. Six.
Marie. God, Marie.
He retracted his claws on his left, reaching painfully upward, hand on the door as he fell to his knees to finally, finally push it open, and his heart reeled.
Marie was writhing on the floor in pain, body at an awkward, broken angle, as books lay scattered around her. There was blood flowing from her nose and ears, and as he crawled across the floor toward her, the intensity grew. Seven minutes. Eight. Too long. Too fucking long. He bared down as he reached out a shaking, bloodied hand, attempting to get to her, screaming out in pain as finally the seizure relinquished its hold on them both, and he collapsed three feet away from her.
He breathed heavily as he willed his body to scramble over to where she lay, and he was touching her all over, ripping off her robe, making contact with her skin everywhere he could.
“Come on, kid. Turn it on,” he muttered, as his fingers struggled to find a pulse, his ears listening to find the slow shudder of a heartbeat expiring.
Thud. Thud. ………thud…………thud………….
“No. Baby…. baby. No. God damn it, Marie. TURN IT ON!” he screamed, cradling his face to hers, and then they were suddenly years away, on the torch, decades younger, and he was holding onto her, willing the life back into her body, making her realize, making her see, but unlike that night, there was no pull, no nascent beginning of pain. Heartbeat. Where was the fucking heartbeat?!
…………
“No, no, no. Baby, baby,” he muttered, before growling loudly as he put two fists over her heart now, pumping it for her, desperate to get it moving again. He pushed, and then breathed air into her lungs. Pushed. Air. Pushed. Air. Nothing. Nothing. He didn’t know how long he continued like that, tears rolling down his cheeks until he finally stopped, swaying gently above her until he could do nothing but bring her to him, cradling her against his chest. He murmured her named again and again into her hair, and he knew she was leaving him again, her lips already going cold, her body settling down, her essence flickering. They were in the middle of a torch hanging in a dark, starless sky, and he watched helplessly as the light burned out.
--
He wasn’t sure how long he held her like that, her soft hair pouring out of his hands as he clutched her to him, on the cusp of a bitter, desperate ache. Meanwhile, sirens were ringing, the sound of helicopters over, but still he refused to move, refused to give up the only part of him that meant something anymore, the only part that was inherently good.
They’ll be in the building any minute.
Logan perked slightly at the sound, looking down confusedly at the dead woman in his arms, and then back to the air once more. Oh, yeah. Her.
Enough.
“Enough of what?!”” he snarled.
This. You gotta get up now. You gotta face it.
“No,” he breathed.
They’re almost here. And you’ve got a job to do.
He knew the sirens were blaring. He knew that, soon, there would be boots on the ground. SWAT, most likely.
It’s done, baby.
“No,” he said to her hair.
Enough.
He snarled, seething, before clutching her lifeless body to him as he picked her up off the floor, and gently lay her down in their bed. He ran a finger through her hair, as the world, the awful, awful world they lived in fell apart around them. Outside, he could feel the air tighten, the guns loading, the orders of Fire at will being shouted into transceivers, the promise of destruction on the wind.
“I love you, kid. You hear me? I love you. Always fucking have,” he murmured over her. He kissed her forehead fiercely, and then he was staggering backward, out of their room and out of the life they had created for themselves as if it were only full of dead things, all those forlorn birds and sad books carefully crafted from paper, waving their soft goodbyes.
--
The disparate images bled into his frame of vision. Pete, Kitty, and Bobby dead in the hall. As he raced toward the med bay, Storm, Jean and Hank dead on the floor, bodies broken at awkward angles. Charles was on the ground, scattered vials and shots and medicine around him, but, as Logan heard his faint but steady heartbeat, he realized Charles was still alive.
He sneered, looking down at the old man. The animal inside wanted to rip Charles apart for what he had done, wanted to leave him to die at the very least, but, something deep down curbed his rage. Fire at will. That’s what they had said, wasn’t it? Fire at will. A new, bitter resolve began rearing up inside him and then he found himself wildly reaching for anything that looked like medicine, grabbing a med kit and throwing shit in it, and then he was picking Charles’ fragile body up off the floor, practically stumbling down the stairs back to the garage door as the phrase tumbled over his mind again and again. Fire at will. Fire at will.
Over his fucking dead body.
Charles was mumbling incoherently under his breath and Logan’s heart thudded heavily when he saw Scott sprawled on the floor of the garage as they passed by. Dead. Everyone dead. Inside, he could feel the depth of the biting cold, growing more numb by the minute even as he lay Charles down across the thin back seat of the truck, throwing the kit in the back with him.
Sirens screaming, cop cars, ambulances wailed as the truck roared to life and he sped out of the open garage door in the back of the mansion, and only as the rubber of the tires made contact with the asphalt of the long, winding forested road did he realize the hitch was still on, and his motorcycle and the few boxes he had already packed for Canada rattled in the truck’s bed behind him. He swallowed everything, pushed it deep down, erased the feeling of her, as Charles shallow rasps filled the back seat, while the dog tags idly swung back and forth from their place on the rearview mirror where he had strung them this afternoon, winking as they caught the glean of the fading winter light.
---
They were running out of money. They had been for a while. Charles’ bank accounts had been frozen long ago, and what little money Logan had been saving had steadily dwindled down to almost nothing. For months and months on end they had been spiraling downward, out of control, and Logan now knew he had to do something other than desperately run away. He had to start planning. He needed to come up with a way out.
He had found the abandoned smelting plant just south of the border after a decent tip in a bar in Mexico that only sold Tecate. He had set Charles up there, had recruited help in the unlikely form of Caliban, but while they sat on their asses, Charles’ condition continued to dwindle. He needed more medicine, and he needed it soon. And they needed more money.
The used car lot in El Paso wasn’t much to look at, and he drove the truck up a bit hesitantly now. It was the same address that had been printed on the back of the advertisement, but now Logan felt skeptical of the information. Finally, out of a makeshift trailer on the outer ring of the lot, an older man in a crumpled suit strolled up, cigar hanging lazily out of his mouth.
“Looks like you got a pretty bike yer wantin’ to sell,” he said, after Logan had moved his way out of his truck and slammed the door behind him.
“This piece of shit I drove it here with, too,” he murmured. “How much?” Logan asked.
“Hell…” the man said, walking to the dusty Panhead and giving it a once over before offering a low whistle.
“Five grand for the truck—you’re right, it is a piece of shit— but…for the bike, whew, maybe twenty.” Logan closed his eyes, grumbling inwardly. He knew the Panhead was worth at least another ten thousand. It was dirty, sure, but it was still in flawless condition. He should know. He hadn’t touched it in months, but he also wasn’t in a spot to make fucking demands.
“It’s settled then,” Logan murmured.
“Hell, man, whatcha plannin’ on driving home in then?” he asked. Logan pulled the advertisement out of his jacket pocket, pointing to the vehicle on the back right side.
“This still available?” he asked. Again, the man let out a whistle.
“It is, but that’s a $100,000 vehicle right there, easy. Unless you plannin’ on whipping out another couple Harley’s from nowhere, you better have a pretty stack of cash in those pockets.”
“Not to buy. I want it on lease. In fact, I don’t want the cash from these two going toward it at all,” Logan said, gesturing to the Panhead and Ford behind him, before looking back up to the dealer sharply.
“Lease, eh?” he said, before idly gesturing Logan to follow him into the trailer.
An hour later, he watched one of the dealer employees pull it up to the drive, its long, sleek body a liquid black in the midday sun.
“Whatcha plannin’ on doing with this beauty, then?” the man asked, as he handed over the keys.
“Driving it,” he muttered, shooting a dead, blank look at the Chrysler Limousine.
--
Caliban was grating on his frayed nerves, the fucking idiot. Like he needed reminding of any of that shit. The guilt was always worse out here anyway, in the desert, and while Logan knew somewhere deep down he sure as hell was paying for a couple of lifetimes of previous transgressions, the way the wind kicked up the dirt made him want to fucking shoot a bullet into his brain. The days had turned into weeks, the weeks, months, and now years. Two years. His abused lungs ached in pain, but he forced the cough back down as he snarled, storming out of the warehouse and pulling on his jacket as he did so, slamming the door of the limousine shut behind him. That night, women, fucking women, pulling down their tops. And later, the call, the limousine taking him through the rain, puddles of standing water, to a derelict building, the neon sign spelling out The Liberty Motel flickering next to a nearby overpass.
He drove up hesitantly, the sound of a ball smacking against the wet pavement. As he pulled in, he got out wearily, before he finally locked eyes with her, a small girl in a red jacket that was a bit too big on her tiny frame. She stared at him intently, a charge, a challenge, a plea on her face. Logan could only stare back for a moment, hesitating slightly, as, in her irises, the world burned.
--
The soft feel of the sheets and his scent was the first thing she sensed. She fucking loved that scent. They had made love that night in bed after the gym. It had been sweet, tender, everything the gym hadn’t been, but it was also exhilarating with the wild rush with his senses still lingering in her. She had taken him in, nipped his neck, swam in the tiny sounds and subtle movements. God, she loved him.
And then, something changed. The smell of the sheets died, and instead her senses seemed to be infested with the taste of iron or copper, something metal. She realized, then, that her head was pounding, aching, and she could feel something stitching itself up back inside her, as if she had been made of two parts, two selves, and they were finally coming back together.
Marie opened her eyes, the faintest hint of dying light coming from their bedroom window, as she looked back and forth wildly. Why couldn’t she breathe? Just then, she spat blood from her mouth, gasping for air, as her lungs finally took in a deep, shuddering breath.
And then, it hit her. The seizure. The pain. The light. The door.
She shakily moved her hand to her face and pulled it back to feel the sticky wetness of blood. It smelled like hers, but also distinctively like his.
“Logan?” she asked, but the room was empty, even as she noticed their things still scattered and tossed about here and there. And then she heard people, boots stumbling forward. “Alive. Someone’s alive!” she heard a man shout from outside the hall, and then there were tears forming in her eyes, before her hand flew to her mouth as she tried to muffle a confused, irrepressible sob.
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Chapter End Notes:
More fairly soon. I’ve had chapter 22 written for the last two months, but I need to go make it pretty and polished, and I’m gonna try to take my time with it because it is precious to me. (But knowing me it will still be up in a few days because I have an addiction. Lolz). Thanks for all the love lately, peeps. I’ve been a little emotional as of late as this story comes to a close, and all the support lately has given me all the good, important feels, and, most importantly, the bravery to finish it.