Lost and Lonely by sharonmjl47
Summary: Classic girl meets boy. Mostly movieverse, but some things have switched around a little.
R to NC-17 (eventually!)
Mostly Marie POV, but with some snippets of Logan along the way.
Categories: X2, AU Characters: None
Genres: Action, Adult, Angst, Drama
Tags: None
Warnings: None
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 19 Completed: No Word count: 41045 Read: 155435 Published: 02/03/2009 Updated: 11/24/2013

1. Lost and Lonely Girl by sharonmjl47

2. What a difference a day makes...or two years. by sharonmjl47

3. Choke 'N' Puke by sharonmjl47

4. On the Road Again. by sharonmjl47

5. Return of the King by sharonmjl47

6. Big man, small space by sharonmjl47

7. Ride 'em Cowboy by sharonmjl47

8. Running again? by sharonmjl47

9. Goodbye and Welcome! by sharonmjl47

10. Meeting the In-Laws! by sharonmjl47

11. Too good to be true? by sharonmjl47

12. Introductions and Awkward Moments.... by sharonmjl47

13. Kept in the Dark by sharonmjl47

14. Cold Showers (Part 1) by sharonmjl47

15. Part 2.....GLOVES! by sharonmjl47

16. "Welcome to Mutant High" by sharonmjl47

17. Look what the cat dragged in... by sharonmjl47

18. Heart to Heart by sharonmjl47

19. Baiting the prey, hunting the hunted. by sharonmjl47

Lost and Lonely Girl by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Beta by Gamma, she rocks!
1. Lost And Lonely – Marie

It’s been three months now, since it happened. Since the whole street ran out of their houses at the sound of the ambulance screaming its way towards my house. They wheeled Cody out covered in one of those red blankets, a vacant expression on his face, to the gasps and horrified looks of my neighbours.

They couldn’t and still can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. My father explained to the paramedic that he started to jerk and shake for no apparent reason, then passed out. He lied. That’s not what really happened that bright sunny day in my bedroom. In truth, it was me. I did it. I made him gasp for his breath, fight for his life. I made those disgusting veins appear on his face.

I kissed him. Just one simple, innocent kiss between two teenagers. Neither knowing what to do, how to go about that first special kiss. Where to put your nose, so you close your eyes? But something went wrong, something inside of me changed. I felt it. A twinge, that turned into a rush of emotions, thoughts and memories from his lips into mine. I saw everything, from his first childhood memory to what he had for breakfast that day. All flooding into me. For a second I thought I was him it was so strong. I was so confused, then scared, then terrified. Then screaming.

I haven’t been allowed to leave the house since. I’m out with stress. That’s what my mother has told my school anyway, that because of the ‘incident’, as she calls it, I couldn’t possibly manage to go into school due to my depression. Apparently, I’m almost suicidal. I think she’s panicking, desperate to find something people will believe other than the real truth. Her friends come round the house to see her. They tell her that they don’t know how she copes with such a difficult child, who gets so stressed and depressed that she can’t even go to school or leave the house. They hug her and support her, and she cries, but is it from guilt that she’s lying to her friends or guilt that she ignoring her only daughter’s real problem? Who’s hugging and supporting me? When they come, I’m not allowed out of my room.

My best friend Sara is bringing homework to and from the house. I’m not allowed to see her either. She comes to the door, my father takes the folders from her, and then he closes the door in her face. He turns away everyone who comes to visit. At least I’m allowed in the garden after dark. They are scared of me, scared of what I’m now capable and most of all scared of what it means for them. They’re easy lives.

It can’t go on like this for much longer. I can’t go on like this.

I’m a mutant. A freak. Something filthy if the look my father gives me is anything to go by. But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to change. It wasn’t my fault not really. I tried to say this, but my parents refused to listen. I keep thinking that it would have been easier if I’d have turned out to be a lesbian, or maybe it would have been the same.

My father won’t look at me any more, wont talk to me, and I’m guessing he would rather play with a rattlesnake than to touch me. I am no longer to be mentioned in polite society. My mother, she’s the one who says how she feels. She cries too. I walk downstairs to breakfast. She glances at the thin gloves on my hands, and she turns away, grips the edge of the sink like Southern women do, and she cries. For my situation or hers, I don’t know. Then come the insults. Because it’s my fault, don’t you know. It’s my fault Mother Nature decided to mess with my DNA. My fault that I turned into one of those abominations that are all over the news these days, you know, the ones running around killing people with sonic beams and walls of snow, sick people who can get into your head and make you do funny things. Sometimes, when father isn’t there, she blames his mother. Bad blood apparently. Looking for anyone to blame but herself more like.

She tells me that I’m nothing now. I can’t leave the house because someone might see me, even though my appearance hasn’t changed at all. She tells me that because of me. Her life’s over. How can she have her dinner parties now? Her socialite friends wouldn’t want to be seen in the same house as the likes of me. Her bridge evenings will have to be cancelled, and if anyone from the Church found out her status in the community would fall so low.

There haven’t been any arguments. There haven’t been any beatings. There hasn’t been anything, and I think that’s worse. If my father shouted at me, beat me, told me I was a monster, a freak, at least I would know he knew I was there. At least he would be acknowledging me.

My father goes to work every morning, comes home eats his expertly prepared dinner in the living room away from me. My mother glares at me all the way through dinner with that you’ve-driven-your-father-away look, and then he reads his paper before he retires to bed. All without a word in my direction.

My mother goes to the store every Thursday afternoon. She always asks me if I would like anything. I always say, only to go with you. She always accuses me of being cruel, because I know I can’t, and it wouldn’t be fair on her to be seen with me. What if someone found out? She locks the doors and windows before she leaves. I’m never sure why, is she scared someone will sneak in, or that I will get out? She always used to go on a Thursday morning, but now it takes so long for her to lock all the windows and doors that she goes in the afternoon.

I’m trapped in an empty house. Though even when they are here, its empty. Silence from one, hate and disdain from the other. What am I supposed to do? I really am stressed, depressed and suicidal now. I’m cut off, isolated. Trapped in this house where every room seems like some cavernous space that I’m too scared to cross for fear of the same loneliness on the other side.

What do my friends think? I don’t know, maybe they think it’s because of Cody, because I loved him so and now he’s in a coma. Little do they know. I kissed him, that’s all. One small kiss. My lips met his. They were soft, gentle. Then it started; I literally sucked the life out of him. His thoughts, some of his memories, his fear, his life, it flowed into me like cranberry juice into a tall glass.

I spend my days drawing, reading books or magazines that my mother has left lying around. Wandering the house. It’s a huge, four-bedroom town house, nice big garden full of beautiful flowers. Not that I see them in the day. But none of that matters now. I’ve made my decision. I know what I have to do.

Thursday afternoon, I sit on the bottom stair and watch as mother puts on her coat.

“Do you want anything from the store?” Her accent is old and thick, but cultivated to sound posh.

“No, only to come with you.”

“Marie-Anne, we go over this every time. You will not leave this house until you stop this ridiculous trick you are playing on your body. Now, be a good girl and put some of your clothes in the washer while I’m out, then you can run them through the dryer. I’ll be a little longer today. I’m going to the Clancy’s for coffee first.”

“Yes mamma.”

She looks me up and down, then shakes her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. At least there are places for disabled or mongrel children. There’s nowhere for… for…”

“Mutants?”

Her heels click quickly on the expertly polished floor as she gets close to my face and whispers. “Do not say that *word* in my house!” She stands up again and smoothes out her hair, then her coat. “You are lucky that we keep you, that your father works to feed you. I mean it is, not like you’ll ever be able to make any kind of contribution to this house again. Now, do as I have asked you and I’ll be back by four.”

“Yes mamma.” I stay where I am until she closes the door. I hear her small perfect car start and then pull out for the drive and down the street. Then I’m on my feet and running up the stairs to my parents’ room.

I open up my father’s closet and rip out his old army duffel bag. The label on the side reads: Private H R D’Ancanto. He was in the army, but as my mother bitterly points out, all he did was sit behind a desk. I feel slightly guilty for ripping the label off I know how much it means to him. I wonder if I mean as much, but I don’t want anything identifiable with me. I chuck the label high and over the back of their tall wardrobe. It falls down the gap between the wood and the wall. It’ll never be seen again.

Next, I’m back in my room and pack the duffel. I’ve never run away before, but I’m not stupid and know that wherever I go, *I* will be the one carrying this bag.

I also put in a keyring. It’s a square piece of plastic with a pink background and on it, printed in a retro style is ‘M&S’. Marie and Sara, my best friend, that I haven’t seen for three months and two days because my father won’t let anyone near me. She has the same keyring. We had them printed on my 17th birthday in December last year. I can’t call her, or tell her I’m going. It’s too risky. But I will take this keyring, so I can remember her. I purposely don’t pack any photos or keepsakes of my life with my parents, one they take up too much room, two, they make me too easily identifiable and three, why should I?

Lastly, I grab a clean washcloth and my toothbrush out of the bathroom and then my passport out of my mother’s document box, she still has it from out vacation to Europe three summers ago. I’m not sure if I will need it, but I’ll take it anyway.

With my bag packed, I take it down stairs. Thankfully, it’s not heavy. In the kitchen, I smile at the predictable’ness of my mother. Hidden inside a large cookie jar is her emergency housekeeping fund. She tells my father that it is in case one of the kitchen appliances. The car or the washer goes wrong, but really she’s saving it for a trip to Chicago with her friend Margo Clancy. There’s just under $600. My father thinks it $200. I smile a little, knowing the look on her face when she realises that I’ve taken the lot and she will have to lie to cover herself. She’ll never admit that she had nearly $600 stashed away from him.

Right, so I have my bag, I have some money. Now, to get out of the house. First I make a quick call to the local cab firm. I have a plan you see, like I said. I’m not stupid. If I call a cab and get it to take me to the bus depot, they will track me easily. But there are two major ways to travel around here, the Greyhound and the trains. The buses take you to places like Arkansas, Houston, Dallas, further into the South or along to California. The major trains take you North, towards New York, etc etc. The bus and train station are right next to each other by the way. So my plan is, I get a cab to take me to the Bus depot. I buy a ticket for Dallas, make sure I talk to the ticket man and make myself memorable. Then run the few hundred yards to the train station where I get a train to where I really want to go. It’s a hassle, but I’m determined that no one will find me. Not that I’m even sure if they will want to. Maybe they won’t miss me at all.

I can almost hear my mother voice in my head, ‘We are better off without her’.

That thought stops me. What if they really won’t miss me? What then? Do I have no family, nothing? I guess I won’t.

But first, I have to get out of the house. In a way, it’s easy. My mother doesn’t go in the basement other than to use the washer and the dryer, she complains about the stairs. While I’m down there, I grab the small one-man tent my father uses for fishing trips. It clips easily to the back of the duffel and the little gas stove fits inside.

The old hatch at the rear of the house doesn’t lock. About a year ago, my father told her that he had fixed the lock, so she stopped bothering him about it, nagging that if he wasn’t careful we would get robbed. So now he really has forgotten to fix it.

I’m round the front of the house just as the cab picks me up. I make a point of calling a goodbye to Mrs. Lawrence, the old lady next door. She waves and gets a good look at the cab. Busybody.

My plan goes as I want it to. I talk the hind legs off the ticket man, and he giggles and smiles at me, then wishes me a safe trip and hopes that I enjoy my stay in Dallas with my grandma. Next thing, I quickly use the restroom to change my clothes and alter my hair, this time under a cap. The bus for Dallas leaves just as I do an hour and 48 minutes after my mother left the house this afternoon, I’m on a train headed for Wisconsin.

It’s around 570 miles. There are plenty of stops on the way, but I make sure to keep quiet and off the radar. It takes just under 7 hours, with stops. But I don’t care. I step off that train into the night, free. Free from everything.

Then fear overtakes. What if I’ve done the wrong thing? What if I’m really bad at this? I could get lost, murdered, raped, hacked into small pieces by some weirdo with a big knife, lots of knives? But no, get a grip. If I just think on my feet and concentrate, I can do this. I have to do this because I’m not ever going home.

I know some people run away because their situation really is desperate. They’ve suffered sexual or physical abuse, and they really need to get away, but I feel abused too, neglected, unloved, and love means a lot to me. So does trust. So I won’t be going back. From now on, I trust no one. No one can save ‘me’, but me.

It’s too late in the evening to go anywhere now, so my first night of freedom is spent on the floor of the train depot. Nice. No one minds or questions it. A lot of people do it while they wait for another train, or maybe its because they are so dunk/drugged that they just can’t stand up anymore. I guess I’m just another one in the crowd now, just the way I want to be.

The next two weeks I spend travelling through Wisconsin. It’s hard going, as I’m trying to keep my money outgoings to minimum as I don’t know how long I’m going to be out here. The ticket to Dallas cost $98, and the ticket to Wisconsin cost another $110.

At one point, I hitch a ride with a trucker. He’s fat and has a stinky looking beard with what’s left of his lunch stuck in it, but he opens his door and offers to get me out of the rain. Five miles later, he throws me back out of the truck and calls me a prick tease. According to his logic, he picked me up, so I immediately should agree to give him a blow-job. Ha! Not on your life mate! So he showed me the sidewalk again. That’s when I decided, no more hitchhiking. Walking is much better. Not particularly safer, but better. So I walk and then camp at night. My money buys me little bits of food, like bread, crackers and until now I never realised how many different types of tinned Spam you can buy. I know I’ve lost weight, but right, now I’m still keeping going.

I get through to Minnesota, find a job for a couple of weeks, and then move on again. Thankfully people are happy to pay cash in hand, I’m not using my SSN card. This is how I carry on, moving from one town to the next until I’m in the next state. It’s nice. I get to meet people, tell them what I like and leave out the bits I don’t like. I can be me, without having to worry that people will look at me the way my father did or speak to me like my mother.

As I work my way through North Dakota and then Montana, I start to feel a little detached from myself, like I can’t be bothered to think anymore. I’m lonely and I think I’m shutting off somewhere inside. Maybe that’s why I spend more time in Chinook, Montana, than I planned, but only because I got a job helping an old lady with her two horses. It seems I have a natural ability with them. She’s sweet and has never questioned my gloves, even when I’m in her house.

But I think I might be making a little breakthrough with my skin. Ever since Cody, bless him, I feel so guilty about it all. I have had a tingling or a buzzing on my skin. But now, if I concentrate hard enough I can turn it off for about 3 or 4 minutes. Maybe if I keep going I can make it longer, maybe I can turn it off completely. But hey, one thing at a time, right?

**

Six months, give or take a day and a few hours, since I left my mother’s house, I use my passport for the first time and legally cross the border into Canada. I have to admit, it seems like an enormous relief, but at the same time it seems like some kind of final word on things. I’ve used my passport, signed my name to say who I am, and I watched as the official entered my name on a computer because I was under age. Then he smiled and wished me a safe and pleasant stay in Canada.

If my parents had reported me as a missing person, my name would have flashed up on his computer, and the game would have been up. But here I am, walking through the checkpoint seemingly without a care in the world. I look back at the gates. The same official is seeing other people through, not even sparing me a thought, and why should he? Apparently, no one else has.

I find a bench and forget about the chill on my bottom as a cry, turning into heaving sobs, the realisation hitting me. My parents didn’t report me missing. They’re not looking for me. No one is looking for me. My sobs subside, and anger takes over. How dare they? I’m their daughter! My mother carried me. She used to sing me to sleep. My father used to pay ball with me, wash my hair. They have cared for me when I’ve been sick, stood up and cheered for me at my piano recitals, and now, nothing.

I wipe my eyes angrily. Fine then. If they don’t want me, I don’t want to ever see or speak to either of them again. I really don’t have anyone to fall back on now. Even though I was the one who ran away, somewhere in the back of my mind, I had this thought, that if I really needed them, then maybe, just maybe they would be there for me. This has brought it home. They will never be there for me. No matter how much I can control it. I’m still a mutant, still an embarrassment, and I’m on my own.

All of a sudden, I feel the chill on my face. Probably all the tears. Wiping them away I look around, there’s a huge notice board with a map of Canada near the bench, so I stare at it for a while. A bright red arrow declares, ‘You Are Here’. I’ve always wanted to come to Canada. I was telling Cody all about it just before I kissed him. I had this big trip planned from a map in my room.

Now after six months, I just want to settle for a little while, but I don’t want to stay here, near the border. Looking at the map, I pick a small town a little father north and decide to make a beeline for it. A nice helpful man at the local visitor centre told me that if I go to the bus station, I can get a bus to Calgary which will go straight through to Edmonton. Should take about four hours, and from there I can make my way to Alberta and a little town called Laughlin City. I like the sound of it, Laughling, it sounds like a happy place, full of laughter. Plus it’s on the edge of a lake and I’ve always wanted to live near water.

Six months and six hours later, I arrive where I want to be. It’s not much. There’s a huge lake, Slave Lake, not sure I like the name, but hey, who am I to judge? There’s a dock, a fish market, two diners, a nice looking bar and a dingy one, an elementary school, a skinny strip of land commonly known as the airport and a small selection of shops. It looks like the village of out of Murder She Wrote, apart from the snow, and I’m in love with it already. I guess ‘I’ start here.
What a difference a day makes...or two years. by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
2. Lost and Lonely - Two years later – Marie at 19

Beta by Gama, who thankfully is back in the land of the living!
I like my job, so don’t get me wrong when I say this bar is a dump. ‘Cause it is. But I like working in it, heaven knows how I got a job here. I think the owner could just see I was desperate. It has character that other, more quality establishments don’t have. Like the big cage at the back where the locals and passing truckers like to beat the hell outta each other. Sometimes I like to watch. Depends on the quality of the fighter, but most of the time, I pay it no attention. It’s usually filled with fat, sweaty drunks who think they can take each other. Not fun to watch, but this place does character.

Me and Gina, the other bar girl and my new best friend, have been running low on glasses, so working my way through the crowd, I collect as many empties as I can and make my way back to the bar. I will admit I’m concentrating more on the tray than walking, and I bump into the side of this guy.

Then my senses take a jolt as I bump into this guy. Good lord above, he is handsome. A little rough round the edges but nice. Mutton chops not usually my thing, but hey, I’m guessing what’s hidden under that biker jacket and tight jeans would make up for it. Wonder if he’s a fighter or a drinker. “Sorry, sugah, but it ain’t the best place to stand.” As I turn away from him, I cringe. I hate my so-called sweet southern accent, but it slips out when I’m a bit nervous. It’s more than a little out of place here.

Turning back, I see him nod and follow me towards the bar. He takes a stool and orders a beer from Gina, whose eyes immediately light up. I smile a little as she flirts with him. He smiles at her, plays along, but I’m not sure he’s really her type. Though if he sleeps with anyone who has big tits and a pulse, then maybe he is her type.

As I load up the dishwasher with all the empties I collected, I wonder what my type is. I don’t think I have really even thought of a guy since the whole Cody thing. Not sure I want to even try just in case. I mean, I can control my skin, keep it off for 24 hours if I wanted to but, I don’t. I let it on when I’m home alone. I kinda like that little buzz it gives me sometimes.

Four beers later, he’s still sat at the bar. I could be wrong, but I think he may be watching me. But why the hell would he want to watch me? Gina is right there, short skirt over really long, nice legs, huge breasts, and more than a pretty face. Everyone watches her. I get offers, but I think most of the regulars think I’m a lesbian. Since I’ve been here, I have filled out a little. My hair has thickened up. It went a bit weird actually. I started getting little bits of white come through the front. I tried dying it, but it doesn’t work. Now I kinda like it, so I leave it. Makes me different, though. I guess I already have enough to make me different.

There, I’m sure he looked. A quick glance my way. Didn’t turn his head, just his eyes. Pretty intense eyes, I have to say. Damn, I think I’ve gone red. He’s started smoking a cigar. I love the smell of them. Reminds me of smoked meat.

I do a mental check of what I’m wearing: low cut t-shirt, tight black jeans tucked into heeled knee highs. Yeah, I think I look okay. I really shouldn’t be thinking like this. I mean, I couldn’t be with anyone. It’s too dangerous. I could kill him. I mean, I could kill anyone.

Shit, now I’m thinking about sex. That’s never a good thing, especially when I start dropping glasses like I just have. A huge cheer goes up, and someone shouts, ‘Touchdown!” I wave my hands at the cheers and laugh. He looks again a smirk on his lips. This time, I don’t look away; I smile.

Get a grip, woman, or should I say ‘girl’ because I’m only a little more than nineteen. I hope he doesn’t watch too closely and notice a few things. I’m all brass. I joke with the guys, carefully avoiding their come-ons. I’m cocky and mouthy, not afraid to tell them to fuck off, but as they walk away, I always let out this tiny sigh of relief. No one else notices it, not even Gina. I’m not scared, but I’m not as bold as I make out.

The evening passes quickly as he sits at one end of the bar; I’m convinced he is watching me now. Oh well, let him watch. I kinda like the attention. I try and move easily, with grace that hopefully matches older, more - I don’t know - intellectual women. I hand him another beer and meet his eyes with another smile when a strong hand slapped him on the back, breaking me out of it. “Hey, long time no see. How’s tricks?”

“Hey, Tony. Not bad, not bad. You still own this dump?” Tony sits his enormous ass on the bar stool next to sexy biker-guy. I can’t think of anything else to call him in my head, and I’m not asking his name. Tony’s stool creaks its dislike of the situation.

“Oh, I still own it…” Tony nods his head towards me and Gina. I move away from them and start wiping down the glasses out of the washer. I can still see sexy biker-guy and Tony in the big mirror behind the bar and hear then a little. “But I don’t run it anymore. Gina and Marie do a better job of that.”

“Gina, as in your daughter Gina?” Guess he paid more attention to her than I thought if he’s asking after her. Damn.

“Yep, the blonde, just like her mother. Attitude like her as well.” I see sexy biker-guy shake his head and let out a small laugh. He must remember Tony’s wife, Emily. Sexy, brash, blonde and likely to break your jaw if you looked at her the wrong way. She died about five years ago apparently. Cancer. “Hey Marie, another two beers over here, darlin’.”

I look up and catch Tony’s eye in the mirror. “Sure thing, Tony. Gimme a sec.”

As I reach into the small refrigerator under the bar, I catch the smirk on sexy biker-guy’s reflection. “What’s her story?”

Tony’s stomach shakes as he chuckles. “Oh, no, my friend. You won’t get anywhere with that girl.”

I suppress a very nervous giggle as I work the bottle opener on the two bottles of Buds in my hand. “Really and why is that?”

“Because no one ever does. She’s been living here for just over two years, and I ain’t never seen her with no one. They all try it, and they all get nowhere.”

“Tony, don’t make it a challenge.” Oh my God! I do not believe he just said that. I wonder if he knows I can hear him. I mean, yeah, the bar is noisy, but only over by the fight cage. This end has just a reasonable murmur and a little blues music. I catch a confused look from Gina, bless her. Years of loud music. She can’t hear a thing. I place the two Buds in front of Tony and sexy biker-guy.

“Thanks, honey.” I smile at Tony. Then biker-guy throws me a wink, and I walk back to Gina by the cash register. Yeah, he knows I can hear, or my completely red blushing face could have given it away. Smug bastard.

Tony laughs again, this time more heartily. “Logan, my friend, you be careful. There are a few folks in this little backwater that have taken to being a little protective of that girl. Including Val over at the dinner and that woman still hasn’t forgiven you for pulling up your pants and runnin’ the last time you flew through here.”

“She’s still angry?”

“Lets just say, don’t go in there alone.” Both of them are laughing now. Logan - better than biker-guy, and yuk - Val!

By the time 3am rolls around, Logan is still sat at the bar with a very, very drunk Tony. Gina and I have chucked out the last of the regulars and cleaned up, she counted up the cash and had already put it in the safe in the back room. Now we are sitting with them and enjoying a beer or two for ourselves. I don’t really drink much, but I like the odd one. I’m too worried about my skin, I suppose, never know what I could do if I got drunk. Gina is flirting shamelessly with Logan. Thankfully, Tony is too far gone to see how his daughter really behaves, bless him, but at least they have each other.

During a chorus of some old song that I don’t know or like, Tony’s awful singing causes him to fall off his barstool, and we all try and get the fat bastard up while laughing ourselves silly. Gina puts his arm around her shoulders and steers the man towards their home above the bar. “I love you, little Gina.”

“Yes, daddy, come on now.”

I’m still laughing as I come round the other side of the bar and pick up Tony’s fallen stool. Then I sit on it. It doesn’t groan this time. I’m a lot slighter than Tony, a whole lot.

Now, I think Logan’s drunk. He just gave me a wicked smirk. Bet he’s wondering what he could get away with or how long it would take to get me into bed. Sorry, honey, I ain’t Gina. “So, Marie, you live round here?” His eyebrows flick up in suggestion, and I blush slightly. I really need to stop doing that.

“Actually, yes. The trailer park. I rent a small one all to myself. Little blue door, a few fairy lights round the outside.” I kick myself a little, why am I describing my home to a complete stranger, he could be an axe murderer for heavens sake. He doesn’t look it though. He looks….decent.

“All to yourself, huh? You get much company?”

I think my smile must be a little infectious as I have him grinning broadly, or is it the beer? “Only Gina, and that’s kinda the way I like it.”

“Oh, oh, I see. So you and Gina, right… I get it, sorry. I didn’t realise that you were….uh, sorry, darlin’. I wouldn’t have hit on ya if I knew you were…”

“No! No, not like that! Gina is my friend, and she comes round for coffee and stuff. God, I’m not… you know, like that. I like men, you know, men, as in people who aren’t women. You were hitting on me?” Shit, the blush is back and more than ever. Damn!

“Yeah, darlin’.”

“Right. Um, I should probably get going, I have to work at the diner in the morning.” I move to the bottom of the stairs. “Gina, I’m off, honey. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

There’s a muffled response that I can’t hear clearly, and he’s next to me quickly. “I’ll walk you home.”

“It’s fine, really. It’s not far.” Moving quickly, I turn the lights off and get my coat. I smile back at him. I like the look on his face and wonder why he likes what he sees, but then it’s probably the beer again. Though as I do the buttons up on my coat, I’m not sure if he’s as drunk as he makes out.

He grins again. I get the feeling he knows I’m trying desperately to figure him out. Wish I was a mind reader. That would be a cool mutation, cause I would love to know what’s he’s thinking, but it isn’t anything about mutants.

We walk out of the main door together. As we move away from the door I hear a muffled bye from Gina as she locks the doors from inside, then her steps disappear up stairs again.

“Don’t care how far it is. I’m not letting a nice young lady like you walk home on your own.”

I sigh, disappointed that he really is like every other guy. “Look, Mr… I’m sorry, what was your last name?”

“It’s just Logan, darlin.” Please stop calling me that. It’s ruining my ability to think straight.

“Right, well, Logan, actually, I would appreciate the walk home because there are some not so nice types hanging around, but I think I should probably make it clear…you ain’t getting nothin’.” I can’t stop staring straight into his eyes. The pure colour of them has me a little mesmerised. He is making me feel, not uncomfortable, but in some way aware of myself for the first time, like there maybe is something to look at, that someone would really want to look, and maybe I’m not what my parents made me think I am.

I can feel every part of me, every cell, every hair, and they are all excited by him. “Look, I’m not… that kind of girl.” I laugh at myself, rolling my eyes. “Now that’s cliché if ever I heard one!”

I don’t think he was expecting me to be so blunt, but I hope he likes it, likes that I’m honest. “Okay, Marie.” He scratches the back of his neck and smirks, which is cute. “Since we’re being honest. I was kinda making a play, seeing how far I could get, but if you’re not interested, darlin’, that’s fine. I can respect that. Some women, like you say, aren’t like that.”

“Okay then, so we’re, you know, clear on… that.” I’m looking into those eyes again - hazel, clear, and bright, and I’m finding it really hard not to smile. “Right, I’ll, um, see you around then.”

I guess that’s that then, but as I turn to walk away, he stops me gently with a hand on my arm. “Hey, don’t mean I ain’t walking you home, darlin’. And besides, gives me more time to change your mind.” I laugh. I can’t help it as we walk away from the bar and across the parking lot to the main street.

“Let me guess. By the time we get there, you will have charmed me out of my panties? Told you, sugar, I ain’t that kind of girl.”

“Okay, so what kind of girl are you? Come on, you got me curious.” Loaded question much! If only he knew, what ‘kind’ of girl I really am.

“I’m just a normal girl. Nothing interesting to see here.” I almost laugh bitterly at the statement. It’s just what my parents would have wanted. Nothing interesting about their daughter. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“Well...” He looks me up and down as we walk. Damn that blush again. “Nice, maybe a little naive, a little shy about certain things despite the bravado. Honest, decent. So, it begs the question, why are you in a place like this? I mean, I really can’t help wondering why the hell have you been hiding in this ‘shit-hole’ of a town?”

I pull my coat a little tighter, for want of something to do other than run away. “I’m not hiding, Logan. I just…” I watch my breath come out of my mouth and swirl away in a cloud of carbon dioxide and ponder what I really am doing here. “I guess I’m just giving myself a chance to be me. I’m being free. You know, be someone, somewhere and live a life.”

“Free from what?”

I don’t meet his eyes, even though I know he’s looking at me. I can feel it, which is strange. “It’s a long story. Mind if we leave it at that?”

“Sure. I have a few long stories myself. But there’s always something interesting about everyone, darlin’. You just have to look hard enough.” We walk past the motel and a few shops in silence. Then we cross another street and through the main gate into the trailer park. Stopping, he gestures to the selections of dilapidated trailers. “So which one was it, blue door and fairy lights?”

I chew my lip, still trying to figure him out. I can’t quite understand why he was still walking me home even though I had made it clear that he wasn’t getting anywhere with me. “Yeah. Over here.” I set off again, and he follows me once again. I wonder if he’s watching my hips sway. They’re not big, but they are a little out-there. My mother always used to say they’re like a dancer’s.

“This is me.” I put my back to the door, and he leans his hands on it above my head, so that his face is close to mine, no so close that I’m scared or boxed in, but close enough that I feel his breath on me. “Thanks.” God, I hope my breath doesn’t smell. He’s close enough to smell that, or anything else. Great, now I’m paranoid, and my heart is going crazy.

“You are welcome.” He’s so close, I shouldn’t like this. His body has got closer too, pressed against me slightly, but not too much. I should be pushing him away really, but there is just something about him, a masculinity I can’t resist, and I have to say I kinda like it, but I’m don’t want to hurt him. One stupid careless, un-concentrated touch and he’s out of it. “You sure you wanna turn me down?”

I fidget again, and a smirk spreads across his face obviously at what he sees as girlishness, but really, it’s nerves. I’ve never been this close to a man before, Cody doesn’t count, he was just a boy. “I’m guessing not many people do. Turn you down I mean.”

“Not that often, no. Any way I can change your mind?”

I swallow. “Um, yeah, no! I mean no. You’re nice, nice lookin’, and all, but I couldn’t do that, I mean… I just met you, like a few hours ago. It’s not really right.” He flares his nostrils slightly. Is he smelling me, cause that seems a little odd?

He backs away, and I thank god for the chance to let my heartbeat settle down, but his eyes don’t leave me as he speaks. “You’re kinda refreshing, ya know that?”

“Refreshing?” My confused expression amuses him, earning me another smile.

He shrugged. “Yeah, not many women round these parts are that, you know, ‘picky’.”

“Um, thank you, I think.” I blush again. Then I smile, and he does too. “Will I see you around?”

“Nah, heading out tomorrow, early.”

“Where are you headed?” Biting my lip, I don’t know why I’m is still talking and not going inside. Maybe I want to keep him talking, have him look at me a little longer. That stare makes me feel special somehow. I can’t describe it, and I don’t think I want to. I just don’t want it to stop.

“New York, Westchester. I work in a school, teacher.”

“Get out! You, a teacher? Of what?” My first thought is seduction, which makes my heart skip and has me smiling again. Down girl!

“Phys-Ed.” He flips open his jacket and gives me a quick flash of his clothed body, cocky bastard.

“Oh, I see. Can I call you coach?” He laughs. I like him. He makes me want to joke, relax. Not many people make me feel that way.

“Not if you expect me to answer, darlin’.” Laughing, I bend my head forwards a little, and some of my hair escapes from behind my ear. His hand reaches forward and tucks it back. Then he lets his fingers trace over the skin of my cheek. The movement silences my laughter in a second and makes my heart race again as I unconsciously press my cheek against his hand. God, I can hear it in my ears. Damn and there goes the heat, straight to my face.

I whimper a little as he draws his hand back, and damn if I didn’t shiver as well, from either the cold or the touch, I’m not sure. “It’s cold…”

“Yeah, it is. You better go inside.” He pauses as if to say something else, but then stops like he can’t place the words, or changed his mind about it. “It was nice to meet you, Marie.”

“Likewise, Mr. Coach.” I let out a small giggle before turning serious. “Goodnight, Logan.”

“Night, darlin’.” I turn away from him and fiddle with the lock, nervously fumbling until it gives way. Stupid thing. Once inside, I watch from the darkness of my window as he exits the trailer park and crosses the street. Then he was out of sight.
Choke 'N' Puke by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
I currently have no Beta, so all mistakes are my own....SORRY!!!

Feedback please, bad or good, I like opinions!
3. Lost and Lonely – Marie

I’ve been leant on the front counter of the ‘Choke & Puke’, starring out the window for the last hour. This is probably the only original dinner left in Canada. Its old fashioned from around the late ‘60’s, complete with cream/red coloured leather booths and a big jukebox. Apparently it hasn’t worked since 1974 and nobody has ever bothered to fix it, which I think is a shame. I would love to have a try, but I’m not at all mechanically minded.

There haven’t been many customers this morning. Most only want coffee, some want a little more, but nothing especially taxing. I just keep starring out the window. Wondering if he’s left yet. He said he was leaving early, I wonder what his version of early is. Mine’s 6am. Though I didn’t sleep much last night. After Logan left I took a long shower and laid on my bed starring at the ceiling.

Just can’t get the man outta my head. So, I watch the road, not that I know what kind of car or truck he drives, could have a motorbike for all I know. That makes me smile, I can imagine him on a motorbike, a big hulking Harley that you can hear rumbling you’re way a mile off. I wonder what it would be to like to ride on the back of something like that, holding onto him, burying my face in the back of his jacket. God! Get a grip woman.

There was definitely something about him. Something different, I mean, I know he only had one thing in mind and but he didn’t take off the minute he found out he wasn’t getting it. He walked me home. Talked to me. Looked, at me. I know men look at me, but none of them actually see me, not past my chest anyhow. I’ve never had a man look at me quite like that, like they saw something in me that was worth something.

A regular walks in and sits at the counter in front of me. I smile and put my finger up stopping him from ordering, he comes in everyday and her loves the fact that I get his order right every day. Turning towards the kitchen I shout to Mo. “Mo, break three and wreak em, then throw on a couple of logs.”

Mr Collins chuckles, his shaggy beard bouncing slightly. “Marie, you always know what I like. Three eggs and two sausages. I have a little extra cream in my coffee this morning, I noticed yesterday that the brew was a little strong.”

“Sure Mr Collins, no worries.”

I fetch his coffee and wait for Mo to cook his food. Again I glance out the window as another car drives past. There isn’t much snow on the ground, mostly mush, but it makes enough noise so that I can tell when there is a car or a truck, or something.

I need to snap out of this. I shake my head a little as I pour Mr Collins’s coffee, I really, really need to snap out of this. I few hours and a couple of drinks and this man, I don’t even know his surname, has me thinking my ass off.

I thought that all my girlish fantasies about finding someone had passed me by a long time ago. I grew up when I ran away, I grew up real fast and its been a long time since I felt this little tightening in my stomach from someone. I haven’t really felt anything since Cody, and lets be honest that didn’t exactly work out how I planned.

Feeling stuff for people is too risky, someone always gets hurt. Cody got hurt. Christ I have tried not to think about that for so long. Things here are peaceful in a way, predictable. Safe. No change, no surprises. Safe.

I’ve been living at the trailer park for two years now and life is very good. Its plane and simple, but its mine. A sprinkle of fresh flowers every now and then and a huge Guns ‘N’ Roses poster makes it perfect. I don’t have to share. I can be alone with my skin turned on and not have to worry.

I have very few complaints and all of them pale into insignificance when I think back to living at home.

Mo runs this dinner with his wife Flo, myself and the delectable Val work as waitresses. Val is a sweetie, I think she is around 35 but I’ve never had the heart to ask, I can plainly see the wrinkles arriving at the side of her face, but she plasters on the make-up with a trowel. She’s tall with coppery short hair and huge breasts and the most changeable personality you could ever imagine. One minute she’s fine then something will set her off and the whole world knows to stay out of her way. She makes me laugh.

Gina is the one, who has made me stronger, or maybe she has just showed me the way, and I like to think that I did a little myself. She is so confident and I think being around her has made me relax and realise that the world maybe isn’t full of horrible and spiteful people.

We’re a dynamic duo behind that bar now, partners in crime, fending off the drunks and keeping up with the orders on fight nights. The second best thing she ever did was teach me yoga, which I love, it keeps me toned all over as well as really bendy. Kinda cool, not that I’ve used the bendy part of me yet.

We also talk, a lot. She knows I’m a mutant, I told her the truth and the best thing she did was she was be great about it, but we both agreed that no one else in the town probably would be.

I wonder what Logan would think if he knew that I was a mutant. He doesn’t strike me as the un-opinionated type. Sighing I give my one an only customer his breakfast and smile sweetly as he winks at me and then dribbles egg in his beard. Nice! Guess this is the only kinda man I can look forward to.

Thankfully within minutes my day gets better as Gina comes in looking worse for wear after those beers last night. “Morning sunshine, want some eggs, or bacon, yeah nice greasy bacon fried in a good…”

“If you don’t want me to decorate your shoes missy you will shut it right now.”

“Oh Gina, that bad, I thought you only had a couple?” I get her a cup of coffee as she sits at the far end of the counter.

“Yeah that bad. I finished dads whiskey after I got him to bed. But, I’m better since I just got my daily dose of eye candy courtesy or the walking man-hunk Logan.”

My eyes widen a little. “You saw him this morning?”

“Uh-hu. He came by the bar to say goodbye to dad. But you know daddy he was out of it, don’t really know why he came surely if he knows dad as well as he says he does he should know that he was out cold, but hey. So, he asked me to tell him that he would be back in a couple of months when the fights start up again, end of February.” She sips her coffee and grimaces at the taste, then reaches for the sugar and pours some in. “Oh babe I can’t wait, trust me when he comes back through this town I am so getting myself a piece of that.”

“You are?” I can’t help the little disappointed sigh that escapes when I say that.

She leans back in her chair and raises an eyebrow at me. Busted. “Well well. Do I detect a little hint of interest from my celibate friend?”

I fidget. “I…um, I don’t know. I guess he’s nice.”

“Nice? Nice! He’s more, I-like-your-face-can-I-wear-it-as-a-hat kinda nice. Oh he is more than that, sex on legs, which by the way are fabulous too, I don’t normally go for legs, but yes sir, I’m interested in those, nice strong musically thighs that could stand there and take me against a wall!”

“Who’s got your panties all in a twist then?” Val walks in from out the back and catches the tale end of our conversation.

“Logan, a friend of my dads, he came through town last night.”

She stiffens and then frowns. “Let me guess, tall, dark, sexy and looks like he could bench press a truck?”

Me and Gina exchange glances and I remember the conversation Logan had with Tony last night. “Um, yeah.”

Her stance changes, one hand gets propped up on her hip and her eyes glint dangerously. Gina suppresses a giggle. “Oh that bastard. He fly’s into town and doesn’t come see me, well you just wait till I see *him* again. That son of a bitch picked me up at your dads bar, took me back to mine after a couple of his fights and fucked me good, then he literally pulls up his pants, grunts something about an early start and goes to leave. Damn I didn’t even have time get my breath back before he was to my door.” By this time her face has gone red and I’m trying not to laugh either. “…and let me tell you that no man, I mean *no* man walks out of me. Then if all that wasn’t bad enough he turns back gives me some look I can’t really read and tells me ‘The heels are nice darlin’ but try some odour-eaters next time’ I tell you this girls…”

We are both snorting our laughter back as she rants on until Mo calls her name and we can finally laugh all we want. When me and Gina calm down, she tells me that we’ll talk about it later at the bar. We embrace and she leaves as a couple of truckers come in, eyeing her ass as she goes.

The day goes on and my mind still wanders for the best part of it until once again I’m back at the bar, the night is slow, easy with no trouble which is always a bonus. Me and Gina never really get to talk, which I’m kinda pleased about and by the time the night is over, all I want to do is go home and crash. Then I’m on my own again, lying in bed, starring at the ceiling and thinking once again about a man I hardly know.

So I try to piece together all the things that I do know about him. He likes a drink, women, and if he’s coming back in February he obviously likes the fights. That’s one fight I think I would watch.

He works in a school in Westchester, New York. My curiosity is going crazy, so I reach under my bed for my laptop. People round here may be red necked idiots of low moral fibre, but they have excellent broadband.

After an hour I find two schools in Westchester, one is an elementary school and Logan doesn’t seem like the type to want to be around little kids all day, so it has to be the other one. Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. I wrinkle my nose, its sounds way too posh. I bet the yearly fees are ridiculous.

My mother would have loved it.

Bet he has a score and more young girls drooling over him every day. He could have his pick of women, so I just can’t think why he would want to spend an evening looking at me.

Maybe I’m just over thinking this, he more than likely just thought I would be easy. But he doesn’t seem like that type of guy despite what Val said about him. God he slept with Val, or ‘fucked her good’ as she said. I sure as hell wouldn’t know what that’s like, not unless battery powered sex counts, which I don’t think it does. That’s a train of thought I can do without, great now I’m never going to sleep tonight, four months is going to take forever.
On the Road Again. by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
No beta again. All mistakes my own, thank you for the kind FB guys!
4. Lost and Lonely - Logan

On my way home now, or have I left my home. I don’t know, it’s confusing these days. I spend as much time in the cabin as I can, my own hideaway from the madness. Its small, but it suits my needs. Though its amazing what you get used to.

Most people think of craziness as a hard day at work or two many customers to cope with. Me, a crazy day is strapping on a leather all-in-one, flying around in a high-class jet that not even the military know about and getting my ass handed back to me by an old guy in a cape!

But Chuck understands, the rest of the team understands, to be honest I don’t care if they don’t, sometimes I need the break. A mansion full a brats makes my ears hurt, especially the girls, screeching and giggling all the god damn time. Why, do teenage girls do that, screech when they’re exited and hug each other, there is no need to hug someone and jump up and down on the spot screaming just because some guy in some band will be on the damn TV. Women are creatures I will never understand, maybe that’s why I like em so much.

But I have to be nice to all of them here, to an extent that doesn’t damage my reputation anyway, because I’m their teacher, their mentor, their trainer. I’m the guy that makes sure when the shit hits the fan, they don’t get fried, or dead. Its coming, eventually, it will all come to a head and my kids, Xavier’s kids, they are the ones who will have the best chance. Almost makes me proud.

I guess Xavier’s has been my home, the cabin is just my refuge from the noise and the smell that’s caused by a mansion full of hormonal teenage mutants. Bad enough they have to cope with puberty, but throw in having to control some weird power that is most likely dangerous, and its worse, a lot worse. I can’t help thinking what Marie would think of me if she knew about me, or the kids I teach. I feel for them, the kids, and sigh with relief that I can’t remember going threw it myself. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like. I somehow know that I grew up in Canada, but that’s all I can ever come up with.

Canada, that’s where I come to breathe. Nothing in the whole world smells like Canada, clean, fresh and always knew. The winter comes and clears away the dirty air and once it’s rolled through to the summer, it’s all pure again. Snow seems to be able to do that, glass over everything, make every day clean.

I come up here around twice a year, take my frustrations out in the fight bars along the way north and live of the proceeds till its time to go back to being a responsible member of the X-Men, now that would be a fun conversation. ‘Hey Marie, by the way, I’m a superhero’, ha, not gonna happen!

Years ago I woke up in the middle of a building site, or wreckage, never sure which. There was a French guy and a dead girl. I’ve never figured out who either of them were, I took off when I heard the sirens coming. Her face still appears in my sleep sometimes. I can’t place her. It kills me that she could have been someone, the someone, but I just don’t know.

I ran, ran here to this clean open space, somehow I knew its where I needed to be. Took me nearly two years of living like a scared animal, in a rat hole to realise that I had to carry on. Not something I talk about, not something I’m proud of. I wandered onto an Indian reservation, a proper one. Good people, they gave me back some semblance of myself and put me back into the world. That’s another reason to go up to Canada, I have to pay my respects to the elders.

I’ve never really been a fan of responsible. Not till I met this kid in the streets, living on the edge so to speak. She got herself into trouble, a lot of trouble, I helped, reluctantly at fist, then we both found our way to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Stupid thing to say, but she’s more of a friend than anyone else. She tells it to me straight, no bullshit from Jubilee. That reminds me, I better pick her something up on the way home, or I’ll get my ass busted. Even though she’s nineteen, she likes it that I don’t forget my straight talking buddy.

Lots of things I never thought much about before I got there. Like being with someone. I look at jean and Scott, well actually I try not to, but it bugs the hell outta Scott thinking I’m watching his wife. She is hot and if push came to shove, it would be hard to say no, but tell ya the truth she’s a little too up tight for me, I like a women who can let go a little, a little less polished, a little less false. Just like a that little southern thing I left in Canada. Anyway, I’m not watching her I’m watching them. They’re happy, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get that, but then I’m not sure I would be good for anyone, sure as hell don’t think I’m good enough for Marie. She is so honest, I wouldn’t even have to use my senses on that girl, you can just tell in her body language that she couldn’t lie. Don’t know if she would even want to try and put up with me.

Most of the time I ain’t very social, Jubilee calls me a grumpy old bastard, which I am. I bet she would want a man to talk, be attentive and romantic. I’ve never really been in the situation before, but I can’t see how I would be any good at that stuff. I mean I’ve had relationships, haven’t lasted long, but I’ve had em. And sex, well, I’m rarely tender. I don’t usually make love so to speak, I like it hard, I like to fuck and that’s about it. It would take a lot to change an old dog like me. Fuck, it would take a miracle.

Then of course there’s the other side of me. The side that likes to walk into a bar like Marie’s and see that there’s a fight already going, listen to the noise, smell the fresh blood, sweat and aggression. All those combined give me a bit of a kick, all I need to do after that is get laid. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t some sick bastard that gets off on hurting people, but I have a demon to feed. A demon hidden inside, the animal in me and he likes it, a little more than he should, a little more than could possibly be healthy because sometimes I like it too. He has basic needs, let the aggression out, smell their blood when they fall and feel a woman submit to him. Thankfully, I’m the one running the show and he gets his kicks out of what I choose to give him, not the carnage he’d really like to cause.

I push through the night to try and clear my head, I’m slipping into my usually thing of self-hatred, I can feel it. I know what I am, I just try not to think about it too much, cause it makes me feel kinda shit about myself, which I deserve. That’s why I’m an unsociable bastard, people just don’t get what’s lurking under the surface and they wouldn’t want to. A girl like her doesn’t need that, no one needs that. I ain’t safe, I ain’t reliable and I ain’t a real man, I’m just living. Just.

Large iron gates that are at least 50 years old swing open without so much as a creak to let me into the mansion grounds. Home, definitely home. The snow coverage got less and less the further away from Canada I got, here, in New York its still cold, but it hasn’t snowed yet. It will at Christmas, if not naturally by Storm’s means, the kids love a white Christmas.

It felt like a long ride, longer than usual. My mind was somewhere else. On someone else. That damn girl. She keeps creeping into my thoughts and some of them aren’t that decent. She’s just so different. Like she can appreciate life, take what’s thrown at her and make the best of it no matter what. Don’t get me wrong the women around here, Jean, Storm and the others they appreciate life, but they, have a tendency to moan about things.

Its late afternoon and there are students around, some playing outside in the cold, others, more sensible ones are inside finishing the last of their classes. Some pass me, some say hi, some scurry away which makes me chuckle. I know them all, by sight and by scent. Each and everyone in the building, I know them all. Just like I know Marie’s now.

Reaching my room I don’t have much time to myself before my door it swung off its hinges and my arms are full of a little Chinese firework. “You’re a day early, what happened someone’s husband run you outta town?”

I put her back on her feet and chuckle. She is nineteen in a couple of months, she beautiful, sexy and more trouble that a rattler in a jar. “Very funny. No, I just skipped a night, drove through.” I shrug, the truth is I wanted to put some distance between me and Marie, less chance I would turn back and do something stupid like kiss her and tell her all my secrets. “Felt like it. You kept outta trouble?”

She smiles. “Trouble? Mr Wolverine sir, I am the *picture* of innocence!”

“Yeah, sure you are sparky. What’dya do this time?”

There’s a small crack as blue gum escapes from her mouth in a bubble and pops. “Nothing that Bobby won’t be able to paint over.”

“Paint over? Jubilee…”

“Don’t worry about it Wolve-meister. I got it covered. Now what ya get me?”

I shrug again. “Who says I got ya anything.” But my attempt at putting her off doesn’t work and she pokes my side. “Fine, fine,” I rummage in my bag and pass her a small paper bag. “Here.”

She opens the bag and smiles at me, a real one, not the fake patronising happiness she gives everyone else. “Mills and Boon. Thank you.”

I get a quick squeeze before she’s back to reading the back of the small paperback. “Don’t know why you can’t buy them round here.”

Another smack of gum, Jesus that gets irritating after a while. “Well, you can, but only the new ones. The really good ones are the old ones that are out of print and you can’t get anywhere. Well except for Canada, whose book collection is apparently 15 years behind everyone else.” And thanks to me she has quite a collection.

I smile and start to unpack my stuff and give her a mock salute. “Glad to be of service.”

Flopping down on my bed she looks at me funny and then frowns. “Hey, are you okay, you’re kinda quite. Well, more quite than your usual grumpy bastard self.”

“I’m fine. Tired.”

“Bull! You don’t get tired dude.” She points at my head. “What’s going on in there.” She clicks her fingers and sends a little spark above my head, it spins into the shape of a question mark then it goes out with a series of little fizzes and pops.

A growl escapes, she knows I hate that sulpha smell and the fizzing lights flash on my sensitive eyes for ages after. “I’m fine.” I growled that, a normal person would leave after that, but she’s still sat there.

She suddenly smiles. “Oh no you don’t, you can’t fool me, you met someone didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“Canada is bigger than you think, I meet a lotta people.”

“Oh very dry, you can’t bull me Logan. I can read you like a book, and I don’t need no fancy swanky senses like Miss Grey to do it!” She crosses her bare legs on the end of my bed and bounces with excitement. I don’t get it, I can lie to Charles Xavier, who can read minds, but I can’t lie to an eighteen-year-old girl. A fucking girl!

I sigh. “Okay, I met someone, but it didn’t go anywhere and its not gonna.”

“I knew it!” My ears hurt now. “Tell me, is she pretty, uh, okay stupid question. What’s her name?”

“Jubilee…”

I rub my hand over my face, I am tired, tired of thinking. “Jubilee, dude that’s kinda sick, wanting to boink someone with the same name as me! Oh, I see, this girl really got to you didn’t she. She must be special.”

A little smile escapes. “She is/was, I dunno. Marie, her names Marie, slight like you, but curvy you know. Brown hair, about a ton of it with this white flash down the front that’s kinda weird, but… not. She’s pretty, not mind numbingly beautiful, but really pretty, which sometimes is better I think. Fuck, I don’t know, she’s different, just a normal girl.”

“Like human, normal?”

“Yeah. Not likely she’s gonna wanna a freak with a set of steak knives 9 inches up his arms.” I sit heavily on the end of the bed.

“Well, she could, you never know she may have always wanted a one-man BBQ set, in which case, your in.”

I smile, to some that would have sounded like an insult, but from her, I know its her being cheeky and cheering me up. “You never know. Now scram, I wanna take a shower and I don’t need an audience.”

She gets up and laughs. “You sure, I could do with the cheap thrill.”

I shake my head and shove her out the door. “If you want a cheap thrill go find ice-boy, I’m too expensive darlin’!”
Return of the King by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Thanks to Gidget for the Beta.
5. Lost and Lonely – Marie

It’s the third week in February and Christmas is well and truly over, thank God. I used to love Christmas. The weeks, months of childish excitement building and building until finally, the day arrives. When I was young it was always so special. And it wasn’t just about the presents, it was about the decorations, the special food, the visitors.

My mother’s Christmas trees were legendary; a perfect spruce, naturally, decorated in bows and ribbons with a fake gold candle carefully clipped to the end of each branch.

The most beautiful silver fairy always sat on the top. She would surveyed her kingdom, her polished porcelain face beaming down at all those who passed underneath. I used to pretend that she came to life at night and danced endlessly around the house. The only sound she made would be a small rustle of her dress as she constantly pirouetted round and round, never tiring. I wanted to be her, I wished I was her.

Perfect polished skin, untouched, unmarked, dancing almost silently and always alone. I should have been more careful what I wished for.

Now, Christmas is just a painful reminder that all those times were just another vehicle for my mother to show off but I was so young I never really noticed. All the neighbours would come round for one of my mother’s mulled wine evenings and my father would spend most of it in one corner with all the other men discussing sports or what the best model of mower was.

I loved it; so many people telling me I was pretty, listening happily when I was told to play the piano. I was just another vehicle too. Until it all changed. I’m not that perfect little girl anymore. Not just because I don’t go to church, or that I wear short skirts and tight tops sometimes, but because I’m different. Most people say it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Well, according to my mother, I’m bad on the inside too. Like a rotten apple. So Christmas is not a good time for me. I hate it in fact. I still miss them, despite everything. I miss my family. My old friends.

The thought that maybe I should have sent a card crossed my mind. I’m nineteen, I’m now legally allowed to be away from home, so there wouldn’t be any harm in sending a card and letting them know that I’m safe, letting them know where I am.

But I didn’t. And I don’t think I ever will. They haven’t bothered to try and find me. They haven’t bothered at all. All my friends probably think I moved away or got put in some asylum. Let them think what they want, I have a life. It may not be perfect, but it’s my life and I can do what I want with it.

Including waste a good part of it waiting for January to end and February to start. I hate that I have spent the last three and a half months wishing it away, because it really is a waste, but I can’t help it. I want to see him again. Even just for a little while.

A thousand scenarios have run through my head about what I will say, or what he might say, or what we might do… mostly what he might do to me. Thoughts of him have kept me warm through Christmas and the New Year. Thinking about his body, the way he moved. I laugh when I think about the way he called me ‘darlin’. But then I have had times when I was convinced that he would never coming back, why would he? I’m nothing special.

When I’m feeling really low, I’m honest with myself. Fact: he’s not coming back for me. He’s coming for the fights.

Though that in itself will be a thrill, I think. Most guys take their shirts off, get all sweaty and start parading round like caged animals. Logan has that power already, that presence.

Standing at the bar watching some of the locals around me talking, drinking and flirting, I can’t imagine anyone in here looking as good in that cage as Logan does. But then sometimes, we do get passers through who make your knees go a little weak. There were a few last year; young, fit, strong and cocky as hell. All talk, no substance, just muscle and mouth.

I like to know what’s on the inside too. Gina, on the other hand, loves the fights when those men come round; it’s like a playground for her. She’ll watch them fight and then by the end of the evening she will have them in the back room, fucking her like crazy while she screams her head off.

Once I walked in on it. They didn’t see me and it took me a good couple of minutes to tear myself away. I’m not a sick voyeur or anything, but it was so raw and hot that I couldn’t stop watching them. Thankfully I broke out of my daze and walked out, but I could still hear him smacking her ass and her screaming for him to go harder as I walked back down the hall to the bar.

I can’t help wondering if sex is always like that. In movies it’s all soft and tender, but from what Gina says, it’s rough and hard. ‘Nasty’ as she calls it. Not sure what I would want. All I know is I’ve gotten really good at it all by myself.

Sex. It’s confusing. Very confusing. Mills and Boon have a lot to answer for. They fill your head with fluffy visions of how you’re supposed to get swept off your feet and fall in love within a day. It’s all a load of shit. My parents weren’t happy. Any fool could see that, so why would I think that my life would be different?

It’s not too hard to guess what kind of a guy Logan would be. Dominating. Though I think any guy would have to be with me, cause I would have no clue what to do. Romance novels tell you that it all just happens, it’s natural and safe and full of love. But I still wouldn’t know what to do.

But how can it just happen? Things like that don’t just happen. In some books, when the cheating husband inevitably gets caught, he says ‘it was an accident’. That excuse is just ridiculous. ‘Oh whoops! I appear to have fallen and my penis has slipped into your vagina, so sorry’. Don’t think so.

I personally just don’t think I could trust anyone, I would be too scared. Scared of sharing my secret, scared of them finding out that I’m the freak that my mother said I was. God, what if something went wrong and I killed someone?

I let out a big sigh, I’m so gonna be a virgin for the rest of my life.

I look around the bar again, it’s quiet at the moment. Gina is clearing some glasses over on the other side of the room with the new girl Tony hired a month back for the fight season, so I sneak out the back. The store room is small and there’s a big freezer in the back, apparently they used to serve food, but the big man stopped it ‘cause of some food poisoning scare. I push past it and continue out the back door to the rear of the bar where the dumpsters are. Leaning against the cold wall with the fresh air on my face, I let the tears fall. I cry quietly, as I have no wish to draw attention to myself. From Gina or anyone else.

I like my life; it’s how I want it. Predictable and safe. I can’t handle change; I can’t handle anything to be honest. I know I can only be strong as long as I forget who I am and where I came from. Sounds crazy, but the minute that the memories slip into my head, I hear every bitter word that my mother ever said to me; feel every glare from my father. The disgust, the hate. Back there I’m not a real person, not a real member of any family, not even cared for.

Here I’m Marie Roberts, just a girl, just a normal girl who is trying to make things work. Trying. Really trying.

Wiping my face I take a deep breath and try to get my skin back under control. It flipped on the minute I thought about my mother. And it takes a moment or so to reel it in.

Not only does the truth hurt, the truth sucks. I may be a nice person, at least I’d like to think so, but I’m not normal, not like everyone else. I know there are others like me, trying so hard to hide, to fit in. They are all over the news, calling for equality, begging to be left to live their lives away from persecution and hatred. And they deserve it; every person should be allowed to live their own lives. I just don’t want to be the one to put my hand up.

It’s been about twenty minutes since I came outside, trying to get my emotions and my skin under control. Standing here I hear a few cars pull up, Tony’s big voice on the mic announcing someone and the rumble of a big bike or two, so I should go back in, it sounds like the cage is full.

Walking through the back, I check my face in the reflective door of the big freezer, no panda eyes, good. Gina is already hollering my name as I make it back to the bar.

“Girl where ya been, I’m startin’ to get killed here!” She shoots a glare at Claire the ‘new’ girl, who is really not very good.

I smile and immediately start assembling her next drink order for her. “Sorry, little girls room.”

She shakes her head as I pick up the tray filled with beer. “That one’s for a tall guy, blue checked shirt, in the back by the cage. Better get some glasses on the way back; dad’s just announced a fight.”

Making my way through, I can see the blue checked shirt guy, I smile and I put down the tray. He smiles back through a thick beard and looks me up and down, but his eyes don’t make it back up past my breasts. “Thanks sweetcake. Nice rack.” He laughs and throws some bills on my tray.

“Enjoy the view, only one you’re gonna get, sugar.” He laughs again and so do his friends.

I turn away and weave back towards the bar, picking up glasses on the way. Tony’s voice is booming again, I’ve learned to tune it out, but sometimes the odd thing catches my ear. “…never in all my days have I ever seen anything like this. Are you gonna let this man walk away with your money?”

Curiosity has me turning and then I freeze. The din of cheers and boos and shouted obscenities muffle the sound of my suddenly loud heart beat. It’s ringing in my ears, vibrating through my whole chest I think I can even feel it in my legs.

Logan. Just standing there, thick cigar hanging from his mouth. He stops and drinks the shot of whiskey off the little ledge next to the cage, as smoke from his cigar swirls around him in slow motion. He’s wearing jeans, that huge Indian belt buckle and nothing else. He rubs the back of his neck and then braces himself against the cage with one hand as he leans; it accentuates the muscles across his back and through his arms.

A big guy with a shaved head stands up among the crowd and declares that he will fight. He’s a regular trucker who passes through a lot; I think his name is Lyle. Tony opens the cage. “Ladies and gentlemen, our saviour!” As I put my tray down on the nearest table, I can see Tony lean over and say something to him, but between the noise in the room and my thundering heart I can’t hear anything.

Lyle doesn’t wait for Logan to be ready; he kicks him in the back when Logan turns. Then Lyle punches him in the face twice. I actually wince in sympathy and jump; I can feel myself doing it. Logan goes down, his back is red, but then as I watch it fades quickly. Lyle kicks him in the stomach while he’s down, and then does it again. My hands are in balled up in fists as I watch. I can’t explain why, but my skin flips on. Come on Logan, get up.

He does and punches at the same time as Lyle does and fisted hands meet. I’m sure I hear a weird clanking kind of noise, but I can’t be sure, there’s so much noise. Lyle is grabbing his hand like he’s in pain but is coming back at Logan, who punches Lyle again and then head-butts him. Lyle is down- very, very down. It’s over. Less than 60 seconds and it’s over.

I can see the bruises already forming on Lyle’s face and across his hand as a couple of guys drag him out. As I look over at Logan, who’s just gone back to smoking his cigar, there’s not a scratch on him. I can see his chest rise and fall with a few heavy breaths. I see nothing but perfect skin covering strong muscle.

His head turns slightly and even though I can’t see his eyes, I know he is looking straight at me. Flustered, I look around and grab my tray, nearly knocking over the glasses I have on it before I hurry back to the bar. Tony’s voice rings out behind me. “…the undisputed king of the cage, The Wolverine!”
Big man, small space by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Thanks again to Gidget!
6. Lost & Lonely – Marie.

After watching Logan in the cage I manage to finally get back to the bar, Gina is giving me a knowing look. All I can muster is a “Shut up!” as I pour more drinks and try and keep my cool. As I am filling my tray again, I chance a quick glance at the cage; Logan is coming out and nods in my direction, a cocky smirk on his face.

Turning away I can feel my cheeks burning. Where’s a big hole in the ground when you need one? Tony is on the mic again announcing some other fool who wants to start a fight and try to win some money. Logan isn’t the challenger anymore, another quick glance and I see him buttoning his shirt, hiding away his massive and slightly sweaty chest.

I knock over a beer bottle and Gina laughs. “Woman! Will you concentrate?”

I laugh. “I’m trying!” While I’m trying I keep thinking. And thinking. And thinking. As the match keeps running through my mind, I think I may have figured something out. Something important. It gives me hope, hope that things aren’t so bad. Hope that maybe I’m not alone.

******

After three rather rushed hours, the bar finally starts to quiet down. There are still some people, sitting at tables or lounging by the bar, but only a few. For tonight, the fights have stopped. Tony is sitting at one end of the bar, counting his money while me and Gina are trying to gather up the empties and get ready to close. Claire stays at the bar.

We clear the large table at the back near the cage together. I can see Logan, he is sitting in a booth near the back of the bar area, next to the juke box, beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. There’s a girl next his table, she dances to the music, but keeps chatting away to him, laughing some dumb fake laugh and wiggling herself up against him. She’s skinny, long jet black hair and she would be pretty without all the make-up and veneer. I sigh. Jealous much?

“Marie, honey, if you don’t like what you see, stop watching.”

I shrug and turn to Gina. “I dunno. I guess…never mind.” I go to pick up the glasses, but she stops me.

“What?”

“I guess I kinda thought, that…well maybe he liked me a little.” I shrug again and smile weakly. “But seeing as he’s sitting over there with little-miss-wiggle-a-lot, I guess not.”

“I think her surname is Suzuki.” She laughs, but I don’t get the joke and I think she sees that on my face. “As in, she gets ridden a lot.”

“Oh, I see.” We stand next to one another and lean against the table watching her dance in front of him, and I have to say the poor man looks bored. “You can always tell the ones with no friends.”

“God yes, ‘cos if she had any, someone sure would have told that poor girl desperation ain’t a good look.” We both laugh and Logan’s head turns. I’m caught in his eyes for a second before I drop my head a little. As I look back at him, he’s still looking at me, and his little friend pouts and actually dances in front of him. I hear Gina chuckle. “Yep, desperate.”

We both laugh and carry on clearing the tables before taking the glasses back to the bar and loading up the dishwasher. Another quiet hour passes and Logan is the only one left, he sent his little dancer away a little while ago, she pouted and huffed and I think she even stamped her foot, but she left. Claire has gone and I’m just about to leave Gina and Tony to finish the rest of the clearing up.

As I’m putting on my huge sweater, I watch Tony go and talk to Logan. I’m too far away to hear, they laugh about something, shake hands and Logan starts putting his leather jacket on.

Gina nudges my arm. “Girl, why don’t you ask him to walk you home?”

Frowning, I wrap my scarf around my neck. “Are you kidding? I don’t think so. Let him have his skinny-Suzuki.”

We both chuckle a little, then hug and I leave without a second glance at Logan. I really wanted to look, I really wanted say ‘bye’. But I guess I feel a little hurt. I feel like I waited ages to see him again and now I’m just disappointed. Guess I wasted a lot of time thinking about him when he truly wasn’t interested at all. I suppose I should have realised. I should have listened to the brutally honest voice in my head.

By the time I cross over into the entrance of the trailer park, my feet feel like they are frozen and so does the rest of me. This sweater really isn’t big enough, even though it reaches my knees.

My cold fingers fumble with the key, and just as I open the door a strong hand on my arm turns me around, I only have time to give a little shout and the weight of a man knocks me backwards. “GET OFF ME!”

His hands are all over and his face is in my neck. “Come on Marie,, give a man a chance.” His words are slurred and I try and push him off, he smells like beer and as he raises his head I recognise him.

“Martin Clearwater you get off me this second or I’m gonna tell your Mama you’re a smelly would-be rapist!”

Suddenly his weight is gone and there’s a loud thud when he lands on the ground a few feet away from the front of my trailer. I get up and see Logan about to kick him in the head. “NO!”

I stumble to my feet and run to Logan. “No stop, Logan, he’s drunk, he’s just a kid, he doesn’t mean it.” I look at his face and all I can see is anger and it shocks me a little.

Martin stumbles to his feet and starts slurring again. “Sorry Marie, I didn’t mean nothing by it. Just saw you walking home and thought I would say hi, and then I think I fell on you a little bit.” He staggers and rubs his head. “Are you really gonna tell my mama?”

I sigh. “Not if you promise not to do that ever again.”

“I, I wont. Promise.” He smiles rather weakly. “Night.” He drunkenly salutes Logan. “Night, Mr…er, sir.” And he begins to stagger off.

Letting out the breath I didn’t realise I was holding, I turn to Logan. “Thanks.” His expression is still angry and I don’t really know what else to say to him, so I walk forward and pick up my bag that’s still by my front step.

“Are you alright?” His voice is gruff and low.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” I turn and sit on the step.

“You sure? You’re shaking.” He squats in front of me and takes my hands in his; his expression softens as he holds me.

I shrug a little, liking the heat he radiates. “Was a little scared there for a second, but he wouldn’t hurt me, he’s just a dumbass. He lives just outside of town with his mom, he’s more afraid of her than anything else in the world.”

“You left pretty quick, I was gonna walk you home again.”

Standing up I brush the dirt off my backside. “Oh, well I thought you’d had enough entertainment for the evening and I don’t really dance that well.” My voice is still a little shaky, but it holds the right amount of sarcasm.

He chuckles a little bit and smirks at me. “She wasn’t really my type.”

“What, too desperate for you?” I smirk back at him, feeling less shaky now.

“Yeah, I prefer my women a little less desperate.” His smirk turns into a slightly bigger smile. “It’s cold out, you gonna invite me in?”

I flush a little. “Er, yeah, sorry. Come in.” I turn and walk into my trailer, turning the lights on as I go. He follows me in and closes the door behind us. It’s not a big place, but it’s just right for me; a bedroom with a bathroom in it at one end, a little kitchen/dinner with a built in bench along one side, a square table and then a space at the other end for a living room. I have a sofa, a stereo/tv unit and one huge chair and that’s it. I point to the little table next to my kitchen counter. “Have a seat, I’ll make some coffee.”

“So did you get enough entertainment earlier?” He removes his jackets, while I take off my sweater and hang it by the door.

I move toward my little kitchen area. “What do you mean?”

He leans on the edge of the counter, watching me. “I saw you watching the fight.”

The colour rushes into my face again and I turn my back on him, filling the kettle to keep my hands busy. “Yeah. It was over pretty quick.”

“I normally last longer than that darlin’.”

Turning around I try to ignore the blatant innuendo and lean my back on the counter facing him. “It was very interesting, enlightening even.”

I watch as he folds his arms across his chest, noticing how his forearms ripple and bulge, and the smirk is back on his lips. “Really. Like how?”

overlooking him over head to toe, I mentally add up what I’ve been trying to put together in my head. I think I’m right about him. I sure as hell hope I’m right, or this conversation isn’t going to go very well. “Nobody walks away from a fight like that without a mark to show for it.”

The smirk disappears, He looks at his boots briefly and shifts around. “He lost his money, he was lucky he didn’t loose something else.”

I watch him shift around and make up my mind to just say what I’m thinking. “I know what you are.”

His hazel eyes shoot upward and meet mine; nailing me to the spot with the intensity of their gaze. He takes a couple of steps forward and cages me in against the counter. “Really, and what is that?”

That hit a huge nerve and now I’m thinking maybe I should have kept my mouth shut because he looks a little dangerous up this close, but then I guess it’s too late for that. “Like me.”

He face is very close to mine; I see his brow draw together. “Like you?”

I nod and I notice how close I am to his nose. “Yeah, like me… a mutant.” He steps back at that and a little bit of shock shows on his face before he composes himself again. My nerves get the better of me and I ramble. “My skin, it’s my mutation, it, um, can hurt people, like, um, suck their life out or something like that. I uh, I kinda guessed, yours is healing real quick.” His eyes narrow a little and my confidence dips even more. “Unless I’ve just made a big mistake and you’re about to lynch me for being a freak, which won’t be too good.”

In the small space of my kitchen I watch him watching me. He stares and again I’m wishing that I could read minds and figure out what he’s thinking, because I really have no idea and it scares me a little.

“You’re a mutant?” He asks and I nod weakly. “And you figured all this out on your own?” I nod again. He frowns at me again and crosses his arms over his chest again, his jaw is set. “Who are you?”

I’m slightly taken aback by his aggressive tone and body language. “Ur, Marie Roberts…”

“That’s a lie. What’s your real name?”

The space we are in is almost clausterphobic, his size makes it seem even smaller and I’m starting to feel a little hemmed in. “That is my real…”

“No it’s not. Marie may be real, but your last name, you’re lying darlin’ and I don’t like it.”

How the hell does he know I lied, how could he know? Have to say it annoys me a little, I like being anonymous. “So what? I lied about my last name…it’s not like everyone else doesn’t do it.”

“No, no, this is all too….set up. I walk into a small town I’ve been coming to for years and suddenly there’s a girl, one I like, and she just happens to be a mutant and just happens to have figured out I am too…na, sorry darlin’, that just doesn’t cut it. Who are you? Who do you work for?”

I’m fumbling in my head to find some words to convince him, but all I can register is that he said he liked me. “I work for Tony, you know that, and my last name is none of your damn business. Um, I, ….how do you know I lied?” ‘Cos I really want to know.

He sizes me up again with his eyes. “You really just figured this out, no one- I mean, you just did?” I nod. “You’re telling the truth ain’t you.” It’s not a question, he lets out a breath and rubs the back of his neck, I can tell it’s in relief.

I shrug. “Well yeah, I mean it wasn’t too difficult, if you look close enough you can see that you just... heal.” I take a step close and put my hand up to his face, touching his cheek lightly, his skin feels surprisingly soft. It’s more a fascination about how it works than anything else. “It’s just that there’s not even a scratch on you, and that guy battered you.”

He reaches up and takes hold of my wrist gently. He doesn’t move my hand away from his face, just leaves it there, while he’s holding me. “It’s a healing factor, or regeneration, comes hand-in-hand with enhanced senses; smell, hearing stuff like that. It’s how I knew you lied about your name. I can smell a lie, literally. That’s how I know you’re being honest now.”

“Oh. Guess that’s…handy.” I simply stare into his eyes and he stares back. His features have softened again. He is so gorgeous.

“Your skin, how does that work?” he pulls my hand away and looks at it, as if he expects to see something there.

“Uh, I only used it once, by accident. I didn’t mean to do it, but….I can control it now, turn it off and on. It kinds, pulls stuff out of people, like thoughts, memories, how they feel as well as their energy. It’s a little freaky.” I pull my hand away. “But like I said, it’s under control.”

“So you really are hiding in this town.” He leans back against the counter again, relaxing a little.

“Yeah. Family issues, you know. Ended up here, but I like it, it’s nice for the most part.” He gives me a little smile, and I can’t keep staring at him so I turn around and start to make our coffee. I sigh with a little bit of relief, also. I honestly thought for a second there he was going to go a bit nuts. “So, how did you end up a teacher or coach or whatever?”

I hear him blow out a breath. “Long story. But, cut short, I helped someone out and we ended up at this school, it’s run by a mutant. He helped me with a few things and I ended up getting a, well, a job, out of it.”

I know he means that school in Westchester, Xavier’s, but I can’t tell him I looked it up on the net or he really will think I’m some weird stalker. “Sounds like a good deal.” I turn and hand him a mug of coffee. “Sugar, milk?”

“Nah, just black is fine darlin’.”

Squeezing past him I go and sit at my small dining table, he follows behind me and settles next to me. I bring my foot up so it can rest on the bench and sip my coffee. There’s a small radio on the shelf behind me, I lean back and flip it on; the silence is killing me.

“So tell me about your family issues then?”

I sip my coffee again. “Uh, well let’s just say I didn’t turn out quite how my parents wanted me to. It’s not socially acceptable to have a daughter who can render people unconscious with a kiss, don’t you know?” I chuckle a little.

“A kiss?” I can hear the smirk in his voice without even looking, but I feel compelled to look, so I turn and meet his eyes. And then blush, a lot.

“Well, just a little one. My first one actually. Yeah, first kiss, that sucked.” I chuckle again, and so does he.

“What happened?”

“You can’t really want to know that?”

“I’m curious, enlighten me.”

I shrug and give a silly grin like a complete girl. “Kay. We lived in Meridian, really nice place, but ‘really’ Southern, if you know what I mean.” He smiles and nods. “I had my boyfriend in my room, we were talking about stuff. What I wanted to do after graduation. I had this big trip planned, was gonna travel around the states, work my way to Canada, then up to Anchorage. We talked, like normal, and then we kissed.” My smile fades. “It all happened real quick. He just… flooded me, everything he thought, wanted, hated, all his dreams and ambitions, it was all in my head. He’s still there sometimes. Next thing I know I’m screaming and my parents called an ambulance. Then, well, I just ran. Seemed easier, you know, easier than staying there.”

“What do you mean, he’s still there sometimes?”

I take a deep breath, for some reason this feels good. It feels nice to tell someone, to get it all off my chest. I never told Gina this story, only the fact that I was a mutant. “It’s weird, like there’s a miniature version of him, in my head. I can…God why am I telling you this?”

He laughs a little. “Why not?”

I hesitate, but then decide, yeah, why not? “I can lock him away, like he’s not even there, but sometimes when I’m tired I can hear his thoughts, I get his feelings. Like I said, weird.” I turn in my seat so I’m facing him on the bench; I lean my head on the side next to me and look up at him. “Tell me about you? I’m curious now, where’re you from?”

He sinks in the seat a little and tilts his head back as he looks at the ceiling. “I’m not sure. Likewise with the weird. I can’t remember.”

“What, like amnesia?”

“Yeah. Lost at least the first twenty years of my life.” He turns his head to look at me. “That’s what Xavier, the guy from the school, hasbeen helping me with. Trying to remember.”

“Don’t you remember anything?”

“Odd bits. I get nightmares, but I can’t figure out if they’re dreams or memories. Sometimes I’ll be somewhere and a smell will trigger something off, an odd flash of memory, but I can never pin-point anything clear. I know my name is Logan, I know I’m from Canada, and that’s kinda it.”

The light catches something he’s wearing around his neck, I noticed it in the cage fight, but now I reach out for it. “Dog-tags, aren’t they a military thing, doesn’t that mean you were in the army?”

“Yeah.” He looks down at them and I quickly let go.

“Well they hold records, my dad was in the army, this number is unique, it could tell….”

“I’ve checked. There’s no record of me. Xavier has checked through some contacts, too, according to the military this number doesn’t exist.”

“I’m sorry, that must be really hard to deal with.”

“Not so much, to be honest. It’s easy to just live.”

“I can relate to that. The past sucks, literally.” We both smile.

Our conversation goes on for the next couple of hours until I can’t stop a massive yawn from escaping. “Sorry.”

“No, you should sleep, it’s nearly morning. I’ll go.” He goes to get up, but I stop him, and then we stare at each other for what seems like an eternity, but is really only a few seconds.

“Stay. This bench isn’t much but you can stretch out and… well I like having the company.” He smiles gently and nods. I smile too, and then jump up to fetch what blankets I have from my bedroom. Once I give them to him I smile with girlish abandon again. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night.” He smirks back and I melt again, he really, really is gorgeous.

“Night, Logan.” I stand in my bedroom and pull the door partially shut. I can still see him through the little gap I’ve left, it’s not that I’ve done it on purpose to watch him, I just don’t like being shut in my bedroom; reminds me too much of home.

Changing into my bed shorts and top I think about our evening together. It’s really late and we must have talked for hours. It felt right, like I could trust him, somehow I know I can. I got the same feeling from him as well, like we had both found someone who we really could be honest with. He told me about what he could remember, some of his nightmares, and I feel so sorry for him. It’s bad enough not being able to remember anything, but what little he can piece together is positively awful, brutal, and scary. He told me he had been experimented on and that there were other issues with his mutation, he wouldn’t go into the details but said he would tell me, that he wanted to, just not right now. He also told me about his friends, though the way he speaks of them, they sound more like his family.

The X-men, that’s a bit of a shock. I’ve never heard of them, but I guess that’s why they are a secret organisation. I could see the pride he had in himself for being a part of something like that. Helping other mutants, and all those kids. Kids who are just like I was.

Alone, with no other option but to run from those who you thought you loved and you thought loved you. I told him about all of that too, even managed not to cry, I was very impressed with myself. He said my mother sounded like a prize bitch, I agreed, she is, was, whatever. She could have changed, but I'm not really interested in finding out. I heave a big sigh, I feel good; I feel hopeful, a little light-headed, even.

Curiosity gets the better of me and I peek through the crack in the door. He’s standing up and arranged his blankets, and now he’s taking his shirt off. He has his back to me and slowly he peels his under-shirt off over his head.

My jaw drops and I actually hop up and down a little bit as his back is revealed, full of muscles, each one ripples slightly as his arms move. I fan myself with my hand and then stifle a giggle as I move away from the door. Thinking about it, he can probably hear and smell me through the door, but I don’t care at the moment, I can be embarrassed in the morning. I can’t believe I just did that, spied on someone taking their clothes off. I crawl into bed and wrap myself in my covers, trying not to think of him nearly naked in the next room.

Yeah, it’s gonna be a long night.

***********
Ride 'em Cowboy by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Beta by Gidget. Many, many thanks!!!
7. Lost and Lonely – Marie

I’ve been awake for a while now, just laying here. Not sure why. I feel like I'm waiting for something. It’s around seven so I know I should be getting up. I don’t have to work today, but I do have stuff to do this morning.

Stretching as I get up I hear Logan’s make-shift bed creak as he moves. I freeze as I listen to the rustle of cloth and then a yawn, possibly some manly scratching, and then I hear my front door open. I panic suddenly; I don’t want him to leave without saying goodbye.

Forgetting that I’m only wearing a skimpy tee and shorts, I rush out of my room to cold blast of air from the open front door.

What I see takes my breath away; not to mention my mind, and also the ability to use my mouth. I can’t speak, the sight before me is just too glorious. He’s outside my door, bare feet, tight blue jeans stretched over his long muscled legs, but not done up properly and I cant help but follow the trail of hair that travels from his very large, very shirtless chest down to his open jeans. He’s not wearing a shirt. Absolutely no shirt whatsoever. Or a shirt. Definitely no shirt. Did I mention that he’s not wearing a shirt?

“Morning darlin’.”

My eyes snap to his. “Ur hey, sleep, you know…good?” I watch as he lights a cigar and then looks around in the early morning sun.

“Not bad. You? Heard you shifting around a lot, there was some mumbling too.”

I fidget in my doorway. “Oh, sorry. Guess you can’t help what you do when you’re asleep.”

He gives a little chuckle and smile. “If you say so.” He takes a long drag on his cigar and watches me; I think I shiver a little. Must be the early air. “Why don’t you put some clothes on, it’s cold.”

Looking down at myself I suddenly remember I’m not wearing much and blush like hot cherry sauce. “God! Yeah that would be chest. I mean ‘best’! That would be best. I’m gonna, just…you know, go, do, that.”

I catch a smirk on his face as I walk back to my room, then just collapse head first on the bed and hope it swallows me whole so I can never blush again. Why am I such an idiot around him? He’s just a guy like everyone else, well apart from the mutation issue. Why can’t my brain just give my mouth a break, you know, just once?

With a groan I dress in my best jeans, a black shirt and a black hooded sweater and head back to Logan. He’s back in my little home and making coffee. Still shirtless and barefoot.

“So, barefoot and cooking in my kitchen, you’ll make someone a lovely wife.” I laugh and take a steaming mug from him.

“Funny, keep laughing darlin’. I ain’t the domesticated type.”

“You look kinda domesticated to me. You must have to be kinda domesticated to live in a school?”

He shrugs. “Kinda I guess. There’s a lotta kids running around so I have to behave.”

“Behave? Sounds hard.”

His eyebrow shoots. “It’s always hard.” His eyes rake up and down me. “Especially lately.”

Biting the inside of my cheek seems like a good idea to stop myself from smiling, but it fails and his blatant innuendo has me looking at my feet once again with a smirk on my face. I like it that he’s playful, and I like it that he wants to be this way with me, but…I don’t know, I think it must be some inner self doubt that just wants him to stop. “You really need to stop talking like that.”

“Why? It’s fun.” He leans in close to my downcast face. “And I think you like it.”

“I do. It’s just….” I look up at him. “I kinda like this. This easiness that we seem to have with each other and I don’t want to spoil that by complicating it with sex. Does that make sense or have I just rambled on without making any sense at all?”

“Yeah, that makes sense. And I see what you mean, this does feel easy.” His brows come together in what must be his thinking face. “Honestly it feels a little too easy.”

“Hey we had this conversation, I'm not lying.” That’s a bit unfair, apart from my name I haven’t lied. I haven’t needed to, he feels just right.

“I know you’re not.” He puts his coffee down on the counter and folds his arms in front of his chest. “Like I said last night, I’ve spent a lot of time watching my back. A lot of bad shit has come my way and I'm finding it hard to accept that I can have this…shit I'm not good at explaining it but, this, just standing in someone’s - a friends - kitchen, having a cup of damn coffee like a normal person and having a genuine conversation where I don’t have to watch what I say or act like…” he shrugs and picks up his coffee again. “It’s nice.” Suddenly I want to hug him.

I smile and pick up my mug too; taking a little sip as I look at him over the top of my mug. “You’re right, it is nice.”

He laughs. “So, what goes on around here on a Sunday then?”

For some reason I'm not sure why, but I feel excited, like a kid at Christmas. “Oh, well nothing really, the town’s real quiet…”

He chuckles again. “No darlin’, I mean you.”

“Oh. Oh, okay. Um, I usually go for a ride.”

Those eyebrows are pushed together again. “You drive around?”

This time I laugh. “No sugar, ride, as in a horse!” I watch as he nods and I think on my feet. “Do you wanna come along?”

****************

The morning sun has melted most of the snow, it’s still cold and once the sun goes later it will probably snow again, but right now it’s a bright and sunny drive. I have a vehicle/truck, well it’s more like a hunk of junk that happens to go when you push the little pedal on the floor, personally I think it’s powered by magic.

We go over a bump and he nearly bounces through the roof, hitting his head with an ‘oophf’.

“Sorry, the suspension is kinda shot.”

“Anything else wrong that I should know about?”

“Well…apart from the suspension, its not four wheel drive anymore the back diff sheered off a while ago, the steering veers left when you break, the breaks stick on going up hill and then for some strange reason don’t work going down; keeping it in a low gear usually helps but I have to use the handbrake on the high gradient, sometimes the throttle sticks open, the petrol filler cap leaks in water when it rains, your window doesn’t open, that door doesn’t lock and if you go over a really hard bump sometimes the prop-shaft will fall off, but you know apart form that – she runs.” When I look over at the horrified look on his face I realise that he wasn’t actually asking for a list of everything wrong with my little 4x4.

“How haven’t killed yourself? This scrap yard on wheels is a death-trap.”

I shrug, because he’s right. “When you have a budget of nothing, you make do.”

“Darlin’ there’s making do and then there’s…this truck.”

I glare at him a little, but don’t have time to defend my poor truck or I’ll miss the turning for the stables. We rumble to a stop outside the main stable and he gets out, slamming the door shut, which I don’t mind; it won’t shut otherwise.

Smiling I wave my arm at the building. “Welcome to the Heath Stables.” He casually leans against the front of the truck and takes out a cigar. “Oh, no no, no, you ur, can’t smoke here…”

He put his hand up to stop me from rambling at him. “Just gonna chew on it.”

“Oh, okay.” I blush a little again, then get caught in his eyes again. There’s more there than one glance would tell you, you have to look deep and just keep looking, I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of looking for what it is inside him that makes him tick.

“So?” He’s smirking at me again, not sure why.

“So….oh, yeah, horses.” Rolling my eyes at my self I turn towards the small farmhouse. “Just be a sec, gotta grab the key.”

The door is open, so I push the two lumbering Labrador’s out of the way as they bark and wag their tails at me and practically run to the far corner of the kitchen to the desk and grab the spare stable key out of the draw. Mr & Mrs Heath always leave it there for me on a Sunday while they go off to church.

When I get back outside Logan is still leaning against the side of my beaten old truck, he has his head tipped backwards and his face pointed towards the sun. “Horses are this way.”

I go through the open track that leads round the back of the house to the stables. It’s an enormous building that houses 11 horses as well as a small office on the left side, well its actually the twelfth stall, but they turned it into an office.

Logan helps me pull the huge double doors open and lock then in place. “How did you get into this?”

“What, horses?” I ask as I walk ahead and pull down a saddle off the rack on the wall.

“No, breaking and entering! Yes, darlin’ horses.”

“Chinook, Montana. I spent a while with an old lady who had a small holding. She gave me a job, place to sleep for a couple weeks. Found out how much I really like horses. Mr Heath is a customer in the dinner and his wife was a good friend of Tony’s late wife. We all got talking one day in the diner and they said I could come and ride a horse on my day off, or whenever I wanted.”

“Montana huh, on the way to here?”

I shrug. “Yeah.”

“It’s a long way, kid.”

I smile more to myself really than him and sigh. “Anyway, that saddle on the top there should be fine for you. You know if you still wanna ride.” I turn to walk away down the stall then turn back to him. “Actually, can you ride, I never asked?”

He reaches up and pulls the larger saddle down off of the wall. “Guess we’re gonna find out.”

Chuckling a little I walk down to the other end and open stable 4. “This, is Cowboy.”

“No offence darlin’, but someone’s cut his legs off.”

“Hey.” He laughs as I start to saddle up the horse. “He’s a true Spanish Mustang, a paint pony. You know, a Navaho horse. Mr Heath rescued him from some place in Oklahoma. Will you stop chuckling like that? In comparison to most other horses okay so he’s a little small, but hardy, he has vigour, and adaptability, he’ll get you through anything, wont ya boy? What?”

“He suits you.” I stare at him for a while and try to figure out if that was a compliment or not, but give up when he turns away to the stall. “So which one’s mine?”

I walk across to the other side of the stables to stall 10. “This guy. He’s the only other horse here I’ve ridden so I know he’s okay. His name’s Rodeo.” I slide the door across and present Logan with a nice big white stallion.

He shakes the saddle that’s hanging over his arm. “I have no idea how to put this on.”

Smiling I pull Rodeo’s blanket off of the side of the stable door and throw it over his back. “Okay, you throw this on first, then the saddle pad, these ties attach to a D-ring on the saddle and help keep it in place while you’re riding along. Next you lift of the saddle…sorry its heavy.”

He stands behind me and takes the big saddle out of my hands and lifts it onto the horse for me. I can feel his back pressed against me and even though the saddle is on he hasn’t moved. “Um, next you check the position, that’s fine; then, you reach under the horse and pull the girth strap under to this side…” I bend forward and reach under for the girth strap, my backside rubs against his legs as I bend over, I couldn’t help it when he’s standing that close, I catch my breath as I feel his hand move up my back. I stand back up, his hand still in place and I brush my hair out of my face and try to buckle the girth with shaky hands. “This buckles onto here like this. Then you need to put the bridle on.” I turn round and meet his gaze, his eyes don’t leave mine, making me shiver a little more as I reach for the bridle hanging over the stable door.

“You have to hold the bridle up over the horse's nose with your right hand…” he puts his hand over mine.

“Like this?” His face is pressed against my neck and his voice is soft and husky, his breath hot on my skin, I can already feel the first shiver of goosebumps march across my skin.

I nod, feeling him pressed against my back again. “Using your left hand fingers, hold the bit against his mouth, and insert your thumb into the space between the front and back teeth, slide the bit in, and lift the bridle higher with your right hand so the horse can’t spit the bit back out.” I feel his other arm move around me to fit over mine and lift the bridle. His arms are caging me in and it’s so hot in here. “Grasp the crown of the bridle with your left hand and with your right hand gently bend the horse's right ear forward to slip it under the crown. Then the other ear, these straps need to be fastened up…and you’re done.”

He’s still pressed against me. “Ready to ride.”

I’m not sure if it’s a question or a statement, but I don’t have time to think about it as Rodeo seems to pick up on our atmosphere and spooks a little breaking us away from each other. “Easy, easy boy.”

I hear Logan mumble something as he walks out of the stall, I think it sounded like ‘Yeah easy boy’ but I'm not sure. I choose to ignore it and lead his horse out and hand him the reins.

“I’m guessing you can get on, right?”

He nods. “Yeah, I’ve ridden a horse before, I think.”

“This one of those memory moments?”

“Yeah, I have more than I’d like.”

“Maybe this will be a good one.” I smile and go back to Cowboy, tacking him up before leading him out the far end of the stable into the sunshine. In one, I have to say, rather graceful movement, I’m saddled and ready to go. Logan follows me out of the stable and with an equally graceful move he is on too. “I usually take the track out to the rear of the farm and hack through the woods at the far end. That okay with you?”

“Fine by me darlin’, lead the way.”

With what feels like the brightest smile I have had in a long time, I turn Cowboy round and trot down to the rear track. I look back and see him trotting behind me; soon he’s alongside and smiling with me.

****
Running again? by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Beta by Gidget - she rocks!!
8. Lost & Lonely – Logan

I hate wet clothes. I hate water, swimming and bathtubs. But somehow here I am, standing inside my smelly motel room, soaking wet and wringing my jeans out in the bathroom sink. Although I can’t help but smile, because even though I hate being wet, how I got wet was all kinds of fun.

The sun, nice as it was, melted all the snow through the woods and made the ground turn to shit, which meant the horses got bogged down and muddy. Marie, being nice, didn’t want them to have to wait till the Heath’s got back from church to get cleaned off so she rigged up the outside hose.

It was fine; it really was, until she slipped in some of the mud that had mixed in with the water. Went right over on her cute little ass, and I couldn’t help laughing. Next thing I know she turns the hose on me, took me a little while to get it off of her and give her a dose of the same medicine. Even managed to steal a kiss. God that felt good, got her pressed against me, soaking wet clothes moulded to every curve and in turn moulded against me. She blushed scarlet and practically rammed her horse back into the stable to get away from me. Its not about sex though, I'm not saying I wouldn’t, ‘cos I really, really would, its just, fuck, I don’t know, like I just want to touch her, feel her, watch her smile.

Need to stop thinking and hang my jeans out, as well as all my other wet clothes and get in the shower. Warm water is a nice change from the cold. Not in there for long, need to get shaved and dressed. Don’t usually bother shaving while I’m up north, helps with the cold, but I want to.

We’re going for a drink, I asked her. It was no big deal, just, you know, ‘hey you wanna go for a drink later?’ Easy.

I blow out some air and shake my head, smiling. God damned girl is turning me into Scott or Hank, actually no, not Hank, he’s a more of a man than Scott. Can’t think straight when I’m with her, or when I’m not. All I can think is how her face is so soft and honest. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but I can sure as hell tell how she feels. Those eyes, big and brown and I guess it’s true what they say, ‘window to the soul’ and all that shit. She is so beautiful.

I catch myself smiling again in the mirror. Seem to have done a lot of that today. Lot of laughing, a lot of smiling. It’s her. She has this weird easiness to her; I think I actually relaxed today, for first time since I can remember I didn’t spare a thought for the rest of the world. Didn’t look around for exits, check for snipers, sniff around for other mutants or military, or even think of anything bad coming my way.

Sighing I clean my face off, now I feel nervous; waiting for the other shoe to drop. My phone rings. The caller ID tells me it just has and it landed with a crash.

****
Goodbye and Welcome! by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
9. Lost & Lonely – Marie

beta by Gidget!!!
My teeth are actually chattering! I have to peel my clothes off; they are so wet and completely stuck to my skin. Yuk, this feels horrible and it makes such a disgusting sucking sound when I pull my jeans off.

We had a water fight, well, once he got the hose it was kinda one sided, I couldn’t get it back off the big ox. And God is he big.

Then he kissed me. He kissed me.

I stand still in my little bathroom as that statement sinks in. He actually kissed me. My head is swimming a little and I bite my lip as my smile grows. I just can’t seem to accept it, the fact that someone like him, i.e. absolutely gorgeous and capable of having any women in the world, kissed me. Little boring me.

He took the hose right out of my hand and gave me a pretty good soaking, next thing I know his hand is in my hair and his lips are on mine. I remember going a bit wide-eyed and stiff at first, then… just, kinda, leaned into it.

It was nice. Scratch that it was more than nice, it was amazing. Much better than my first kiss. Though I’m sure filing my nails with a chainsaw would be more enjoyable than my first kiss.

He kissed me. I kissed him. No one was comatose. Mutation, nil; Marie, one!

Giggling, I jump in my shower and let the hot spray warm me up. We rode back to town in silence, I was too embarrassed to talk and thankfully he didn’t press for a conversation. When I dropped him at his motel, he asked if we could meet up for a drink or something. It was quite sweet actually; he started scratching the back of his head and looking at his boots. So cute. Although I’m not sure cute is the right word for him, not sure he’d like that. Maybe I can call him that later and see what kind of a look I get. The eyebrow, I expect. I like that one, along with the smirk. Oh, and I especially like the I’m-looking-at-you-with-my-head-down look. That one’s sexy and it makes my stomach flip a little, he looks a little dangerous like that actually, it’s almost unnerving. Though the cowboy-leaning-against-my-truck look was also nice earlier. Wonder how he will look later?

So, we’re meeting at Tony’s for a drink. Just a drink. It’s not like it’s a date or anything. I mean it’s like a date, because that’s what you do on a date, but it’s not a date. At least I don’t think it is. I mean it could be. I wonder if that’s what he thinks it is? God, what if he thinks it’s a date and I don’t and I turn up...? Calm, calm down. It’s not a date. It’s just a drink.

Taking a deep breath I reach for my fruit shampoo and stop, thinking about it, if Logan can smell everything he won’t want to be sniffing strawberries all night. Or for as long as the evening lasts. I use the other one I have, its herb, smells a little softer, I hope.

As I sit on the end of my bed and dry my hair my mind drifts back to our kiss. I leaned against him, right against him. His shirt was all wet and stuck to his chest, all his muscles were… “Ow!” Hot, hot, hairdryer is hot when you keep it still.

Okay, I really need to concentrate, this is just getting silly. Getting dressed is easy, I don’t own anything really, really, nice, just average nice. So tight blue jeans, long grey fitted sweater with a belt and my Ugg’s. Gina reckons that I could get away with this sweater as a mini dress, but I’m not that brave, not tonight.

Checking my face I put on eye make-up and little bit of flesh coloured lip-gloss. Then look again and get rid of the gloss for something a little less shiny. I’m not the shiny type.

Okay, I’m ready. I think. Now I just have to get to the bar and act natural. Maybe a glass of water first, I open my cupboard and get a glass, maybe some vodka instead. But that will have to wait since someone is knocking on my door.

I can’t hide my surprise to find Logan standing there. Shit, he really does think it’s a date. “Er, hey. Were we meeting here?”

“No, darlin’. Can I come in?”

I take a couple of steps back to give him room. “Sure.” He looks so handsome, he’s had a shave and he smells nice, but he doesn’t look too happy. “Logan, is everything okay?”

“I have to leave.”

Frowning, I try and force a smile, I’m a little confused. “But you only just got here.”

“No, Marie, I mean town. I got a call from home…” he sighs and rubs his hand over his face, pacing back and forth a little. He looks so tired, so stressed, so…desperate. “The shit’s hit the fan, so to speak and I have to leave, tonight. Now.”

“Oh.” I turn away a little. Shit, why does this hurt so much? “I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go.” He grabs my arm and turns me, then uses his finger to gently raise my chin. His eyes hold mine, and there’s... there’s fear in them. And then his pacing, his desperation, it hits me. “I’m never gonna see you again am I?”

“Marie…” His lips quickly take mine, and this time the kiss is a little more intense, it holds urgency and something else I can’t put my finger on. His hands cup my face and mine find his hair. When his hands change and find my back, I feel my feet lift off the floor a little. Before I know what I’m doing, I start to push his jacket off his shoulders, he lets go of me so it can hit the floor, next I find the buttons on his shirt, but his hands stop me. “Stop. Not… not like this.”

I try to catch my breath. “Please…” I try to kiss him again, but he holds my face and rests his head against my forehead. “Logan I don’t want you to go.”

He pulls away and rubs his hands through his hair, then suddenly his hands are back on my face and he’s kissing me again, then he pulls back a little and runs his thumb over my lips. “Come with me. Pack a bag, right now and come with me.”

I step back and try and take in what’s he’s asking. “Logan, that’s crazy, how can I just…”

“Please. Okay, your right, I am gonna leave, tonight, now and I wanna come back, I just don’t know when. I don’t want to leave you here Marie, I don’t think its safe anymore. Please just come with me.”

“Logan you can’t just ask me to leave, I need to know why, you need to explain…”

“I will, I will I promise, just now, I need to go. I got transport coming and I gotta go. Just trust me, please.”

I look around my little trailer, my home. The only place that I’ve been even slightly happy, because I made it that way. Then I look at him. I don’t know much about him, I don’t know what this is about or what I’m being led into, but somehow I know staying here without him, isn’t really an option I’m willing to consider. “Okay. Let me grab a bag. How long do we have?”

“We gotta go now; it will take us a few hours to get to the pick up point.” He quickly kisses me and turns to pick up his jacket. “Hurry up.”

Pulling my dad’s duffle bag out from under my bed and stuffing it full of clothes bring back a few memories of when I ran away. Guess I'm running again, except this time I don’t know from what. I look at my hands, they’re shaking. What am I doing? To be honest I don’t know, but it feels right.

I’ve never been the impulsive type, before when I ran away it was planned, it was pre-meditated. This is proper flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda stuff. But I can do it, where’s the harm in being a little bit impulsive, a little spontaneous. All I can think is how can I let him go? How can I let him walk away and never know what would have happened between us, because there is ‘something’ between us. I want to know what it is, how it works, who we can be to each other. So…I’m going.

Grabbing some photos off of my night stand I spot my make-up bag which is next to go in the bag along with my hair brush, tooth brush, my favourite book and a green alligator teddy Gina gave me for Christmas. I'm ready to go.

I grab my denim jacket off the hook by my bedroom door. “Ready.”

He turns to look at me and smiles. “That was fast.” He smirks. “You done this before?”

I smile and shrug. “Once or twice.” I scribble a little note on the counter for Gina…‘Back in a week, love you.’ …and follow him out the door.

It took us three hours on the back of Logan’s bike to get to the ‘pick up’ place, so now, we are standing in the middle of an empty field and we’ve been here for hours. He is standing behind me with his arms keeping me warm. “Sorry it’s so cold darlin’.”

“The weather’s not your fault.” I feel him bury his nose in my hair. “What’s going on Logan?”

“You remember I told you about my friend, I helped her out?”

“When you ended up at the school?”

“Yeah. She got hurt today, torn up pretty bad. Lucky to be alive apparently. Trouble is I know the guy who did it; he wouldn’t leave anyone alive, not without a good reason. She’s just a messenger.”

The wind bites at me as he pulls away and looks towards the sky. “A message for you?”

“Yeah. It’s an old score, one I thought got settled a long time ago. Guess I should know better.”

I pull my coat tighter. “Who is, ‘he’?”

Logan turns towards me and strokes my cheek. “Someone you don’t need to worry about.”

I sigh. “Logan, come on. If I don’t need to worry then why am I doing this? Why am I running? What am I running from? I'm scared Logan. I’ve known you properly for all of two days and I…”

“He’s dangerous. I thought he was dead, but I was wrong. He’s coming for me, Jubilee is hurt because of me and I don’t want him to come here, I don’t want him to find you.”

I’m about to protest and get more information when I hear a weird noise. “What’s that?”

“Our ride.” He pulls me in and shields me from the force of the wind, I can’t see where it’s coming from.

There’s a wining noise and a puff of hydraulics, then a loud voice I don’t recognise. “Someone call a cab?”

Logan walks away from me towards a tall dark haired man, he looks sort of Native American, they shake hands and then I suddenly notice the huge black jet plane parked behind them.

“Fuck!” Both men turn to look at me. Logan chuckles, as his friend gives me the once over. “Sorry, that’s, I mean, I don’t normally swear like that.” I gesture towards the plane. “But, you know.”

“Logan you never said you were bringing company.” His voice is deep and thick, he sounds kind.

“Last minute change of plan.”

“Logan, Scott’s not gonna like…”

“Forge, I don’t give a damn what Scott thinks, I ain’t leaving anything I care about out here for that bastard to get his hands on. Now let’s go.”

“You’re the boss. I’ll wheel your bike.” Forge turns to the bike, but Logan stops him.

“How’s yella?”

The other man shrugs. “Better I think. She was asking for you last night, asking why you weren’t there. Hank’s had to dose her up pretty hard, she’s gonna take a while to get back on her feet.” Logan’s puts his hand on his hips and sighs; he must care for this girl a lot. “Man it’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is, it all is. I should have ended this on Liberty Island three years ago, but instead I took it for granted that he was dead. It’s my fault she’s hurt.”

“Then…maybe bringing someone else into this isn’t such a good idea.”

“What other option do I have? My scent is all over that girl, in her house, her truck. If he came here it would take him less than an hour to find her and…” Logan leaned into the other man and said something under his breath. The other man nods and Logan walks back to me picking up my bag. “Come on.”

I pull on his arm. “Logan wait, I, um, this is silly I know, but, I’ve never been on a plane before, let alone something like…that!”

“Darlin’ it’s perfectly safe. Should only take an hour or so.”

I pull on his arm again. “Are you sure?” I follow him into the jet and he buckles me into the seat behind his.

Forge looks round from the front of the jet. “Depends on who’s driving.”

Logan gives a small chuckle as he moves next to Forge and straps himself him. “Are you saying that there is something wrong with my flying?”

I smile at the easiness between the two men in front of me, as Forge tries not to laugh at Logan. “Oh well let me see, who was it that crashed the jet into the west gate house?”

“I was momentarily distracted.”

“Momentarily distracted, dude what happened, Jean bend over?”

Logan gave a huge belly laugh and slapped Forge on the back. “Nice, I’ll have to try that one on Scott.”

“Doesn’t he suffer enough?”

“No, not nearly enough.”

“Who’s Scott and why does he need to suffer?” Curiosity about Logan’s life is getting the better of me. I would especially like to hear about this girl he’s so protective of.

Forge takes off with ease and all of a sudden the landscape turns to white cloud mixing in with the purple and orange of the sunrise. “Scott is our fearless leader in the face of adversity!” He laughs and glances at Logan. “And him and Logan don’t see eye to eye.”

“He’s an asshole.”

I laugh again. “So you don’t like him?”

“I never said I didn’t like him, gotta a lot of respect for the guy, but it doesn’t change the fact the he’s an asshole and wrapped tighter than airport sandwich. ”

I’m laughing before I know it and instantly at ease for my first time on a plane. First time on anything that flies actually. I’m still not sure why I'm doing this, why I trust him. I just know that I do and that somehow it will all be okay.

He was right about the flight, it only took just over an hour and as we sank low over massive grounds of a mansion Logan turned and pointed to the huge house. “Welcome to the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters.”


*********
Meeting the In-Laws! by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Bete by Gidget. Thank you!!
10. Lost & Lonely – Marie

We were off the plane - jet - whatever the hell that thing is for less than, maybe three minutes and there was an argument. Some guy with funny red shades, Scott, I discovered quickly, marched into the hangar and just started to shout at Logan.

He shouted at Logan for bringing me along, how could he let a civilian on to a classified piece of machinery like the ‘Blackbird’(I concluded that’s what they called the plane) how could he not call beforehand and let them know that he was bringing someone, why wasn’t he aware that ‘Sabertooth’(pass on that one) was still alive? Who was this woman anyway ( i.e. me), how did he know that I wasn’t some kind of plant and apparently there is a whole host of other reasons about security and responsibility as to why I shouldn’t be there. The final thing he threw at Logan was; “How could you bring yourself to put another innocent woman’s life in danger?”

That’s when Logan hit him.

Forge pulled Logan back, but I think he only intended to hit him once. So Scott started shouting again. Logan is apparently and I quote “an uncontrollable freak, who should have been put down at birth”.

That’s when I stepped in between them and poked my finger in Scott’s chest. “First off, I am Marie, I am a person and I am still in the God damned room! And secondly I thought this was some kind of safe place for mutants?” he looked a bit shocked at that one. “What? ‘Cos I don’t have blue hair, wings or fancy damn shades I’m not a mutant, or what was it you said, an uncontrollable freak…” I tried to give him my best copy of one of my mothers looks, “Comments like that…you sure you’re on the right side of the picket line?!”

I turned away from him and took Logan’s hand, he smiled at me and marched passed ‘ol Scotty boy and into a very polished and sterile corridor which, I discovered, leads up into a perfectly normal looking school. Which, in a word, is weird. We arrived through a basketball court and descended into a huge hanger, how it’s all connected I don’t know, but, just… weird.

Walking down a long corridor I got a good look around. Place is nice, fancy, lots of wood panel and potted plants. I could hear the chatter of school kids and the hum of lots of people as we passed what looked like a school cafeteria. Sure I can smell bacon, breakfast round here is obviously good. I reached into the side pocket of dad’s duffel and pulled out a think pair of brown gloves, lots of people in one place make me nervous and this is the last place I want any slip ups with my skin. I don’t want anything to touch me, ‘cos all of a sudden I am scared to death of where I am, what I'm doing and who these people are and would really like to go throw up somewhere.

Logan noticed, but thankfully didn’t say anything; I think he could sense that my anger had worn off and that I was now running on nerves.

We got to a large foyer and went into a small round office off to one side, without knocking, I might add. “Logan, good to have you home. Pleasant journey?” The middle aged bald man in a wheelchair behind the desk smiled at us both.

“Was till fuckin’ Scooter put in his opinion! Charles he has no right…” the bald man raised his hand for Logan to stop.

“I will speak to him. Marie, isn’t it?” I nodded not sure what to say, and, how did he know my name?

{You’re not the only one with gifts you know.}

I step back and raise my own hands. “Okay…that was in my head!!”

Logan laughs a little next to me. “You get used to it after a while. Professor Charles Xavier, this is Marie…” His voice softens a little. “The girl I told you about.” He told someone about me? What did he say exactly? My heart gave a little jump at that. Such a girl!

Charles wheels himself round his desk and shakes my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Marie, Logan has told me a lot about you.” He turns to Logan. “Although I didn’t expect to be meeting her just yet.” Logan looks at his feet, shrugs and then glances at me, a smile spreads slowly across his face and before he has time to say anything Charles clears his throat. “I think I understand. Why don’t you get Marie settled and I think it would be wise to go and see Jubilee, she had been asking for you. Leave Scott to me, and Logan you must remember at the end of the day Scott is only thinking of this school and the implications for the team.”

“Yeah? Whatever, one day he’ll have to trust me, let’s just hope when that day comes I’m in a good mood.”

Logan turns towards the door and leads me out with him; at the last minute I remember my manners and turn to the Professor. “It was really nice to meet ya sir.”

He did nothing more than smile and incline his head towards me before we were out the door and heading up a giant staircase. “Logan, slow down!” He’s taking the steps two at a time, and I just can’t keep up.

Before I know it he’s opening the door to what looks like his room. “Um, this is…me.” I look around and I’m a little surprised, he notices with a smile. “Not what you expected?”

I laugh and put my hands up in mock defence. His room is neat, clean and very spacious. “Not at all, well...maybe. I mean come on, you’re a guy. Where are the dirty socks on the floor, the bedpost, hanging off a lampshade? Really I’m shocked.” I laugh again.

He closes the space between us, his eyes look down at me and I feel like he’s been in my life forever. He touches my cheek gently. “Guess we’re both full of surprises. And you just keep right on surprising me. There I was thinking you were all shy and shit and then you go and make Scott feel about two feet tall.”

I cringe a little and drop my head; his hand instantly comes up and raises my chin. “I’m sorry, it’s just, you’re not what he thinks you are. I can feel it.” My voice is almost a whisper and I think I’m shaking…either that or it’s really cold in here.

His lips come down to meet mine, slowly descending and when they finally touch its feather-light and full of gentleness. Both of his hands are on my face, framing it strongly as what feels like electricity fills me. I can’t help making the completely girlish moan in the back of my throat and I feel his lips smile against mine.

Hands move from my face and strong arms engulf my body, pressing me to him as the kiss deepens, his tongue is in my mouth, hot and searching. Not invading, not pressuring. Just right. Our lips part and our breath his heavy, laboured. More lighter, smaller kisses are pressed against my now plump lips.

I finally find the power to move my body; I push my hands behind me to peel my gloves off then place my open palms against his shirt, gripping the material between my fingers. Holding on. As I find I’m able to function a little more I push my hands up and under his shirt so they are against his skin. The hair on his huge chest tickles my palms as his muscles ripple at my touch.

One of his hands drifts lower and another moan escapes me as he grips my left buttock, pulling me even closer although my muddled brain can’t quite figure out how I can be any closer to his body than I already am. I’m on overload. My head is swimming.

His kisses, soft but somehow firm at the same time, start to drift down the side of my face to my ear, then my neck. Opening my eyes I can see the slightly yellowed ceiling tiles, I can’t say as I care about them, my vision swims as he lifts me up, my legs instinctively wrapping around his waist, all the while he’s kissing and mumbling into my skin about how I smell, how I taste. I never could have imagined the feel of him next to my skin.

All of him against my skin. My skin. His lips are against my skin. Pressed against me. My skin. MY skin. Shit.

That’s all the conscious thought my overloaded body needed to shock it into panicking and doing something stupid. My mutation flipped on, without me even telling it to, like some kind of weird defence, not that I even want or need to be defended. Especially right now. I feel the shock run through his body, he stiffens, gasps against my neck, but he can’t pull away. I feel the rush, what a rush. Pure energy hits me, fills my body giving me that momentary blindness you feel at the point of climax. Then I realise that’s not what should have happened and that’s not how it should make me feel. I turn it off, as quickly as it came on, all of that took less than 4 seconds.

Without warning, I can smell month old cigar smoke, my skin, his skin, the room, his washing powder, the wood polish, sex, sex, sex, I can smell sex.

My feet hit the floor and his hands leave me. He staggers back from me, a strange glazed look of shock on his face. “Logan?” My hands cover my mouth muffling my voice as I panic. “OhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygod!”

He staggers again, he blinks extra, extra slowly, then suddenly his legs give out and he’s instantly sat on his ass. His eyes glaze over even more and his head just flops backwards hitting the wood floor with a really loud heavy thump.

*****

Too good to be true? by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Beta by Gidget
11. Lost & Lonely – Logan

Light. Bright light. Overhead, the light is from overhead. Means I'm on my back.

Marie, where’s Marie? “Marie?” Whoa is that my voice? Croaky!

A face fills my field of vision; it swims, and then focuses. “Unfortunately not, my friend.” Hank moves away and allows me to sit up. “Here drink this.”

My old friend hands me a glass of water. “Got any whiskey to go in it?”

“Again, no and I don’t think that will make any difference. How do you feel?”

After draining the glass I pass it back to him. “Like she nearly killed me. What the fuck happened?”

A hiss of high-powered doors and an almost silent whirr announces the Professor’s arrival in the medical lab. “If you’d have held on any longer she would have.”

“It’s very interesting actually, her mutation is like a high powered defence mechanism, it draws every last drop of energy and life force out of a person. In the case of that person being a mutant she can also absorb their mutation and…”

“Hank, enough already.” I ignore his excitement over anything to do with genetics and turn back to Xavier. “Where is she, she okay?”

“She’s fine, a little shaken. What happened?”

I slide off the side of the hospital bed on wheels and stretch my shoulders, then crack my neck. “Ur we…we’re kissing…” Hank looks at me over the top of his glasses and smiles. “…next thing I know I'm on the floor.”

“Have a little more rest, and then maybe you can…”

I start to look for my boots. “No, I need to see her make sure she’s okay. This must have scared the crap outta her.”

Xavier wheels towards the door, it opens and before it shuts after him, he reminds me of something. “She’s upstairs in my office with Jean. She’s fine Logan. There is someone else you need to see first.” I stare at him for a split second then sigh, how could I forget. Idiot. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” With that he’s gone.

I turn to Hank who realises before I even open my mouth. “Jubilee is next door, she was awake the last time I checked, coherent, but unfortunately the limited movement is starting to grate on her nerves somewhat and that in turn, as we know, makes her grate on mine. I will leave you with her.”

He chuckles and leaves. Pulling my boots on as I go I cross the room to the connecting door into a more private smaller medical room. I wanna leave the minute I'm through the door. She’s lying on her side dozing slightly. I can see the healing bruises on the side of her face, yellow and purple. She has stitches in her neck leading right down into her top at the front and the back. Her left hand and wrist is in plaster. She smells like iodine, medicine, dried blood and pain.

I turn to leave her to sleep and to try and escape all the guilt, but she stirs and sees me.

“Well if it isn’t big and ugly.”

“Nice to see you too kid. How’s it hanging?”

She flinches as she tries to sit up, I stand there watching her not knowing whether to help or not. She’s up and looks at me with a broad smile. “It’s hanging off Logan, well and truly off!”

I glance down at my boots. This is all my fault; she’s like this because of me, because she’s my friend, because I was stupid enough to care. “Jubilee, I…”

“Shut up dude!”

I stare at her. “You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”

“Trust me I have an idea. I can read you like a book remember? It would go something like…‘Sorry, guilt, never meant to get you hurt, guilt, guilt, I’m so sorry, guilt, Sabertooth should be dead, guilt and did I mention the guilt’… that kinda thing. Go for it, tell me I'm wrong.”

I chuckle a little. “Truth hurts.”

“Like a bitch, man.” She shifts and flinches again. “Look, it wasn’t your fault. We all thought the son of a bitch was dead, how could anyone have predicted that he would be alive and still apparently holding a grudge. This isn’t your fault and it will just piss me off if you go on about it, so, shut up. Okay?”

“Okay.” There an awkward silence as I try and pick my words. “I, ur, haven't had a chance to talk to Hank properly…did he, ur…you know, did he…”

Her eyes meet mine and I know instantly we are on the same page, without having to actually say it. Her eyes hold the smile before her bruised lips do. “No. He didn’t.” I let out the breath I was holding. I don’t think I could have coped with that, she may be nearly nineteen, but to me she’s still a kid and if that bastard had of raped her, it would be the end of my sanity and the end of him. Not that it won’t be the end of him anyway, ‘cos it is.

I relax a little and sit on the end of her bed. “I am sorry.”

“I know. So, now we have all the shit outta the way. Tell me about ‘Marie’.”

Shaking my head I smile at her. “Fuck, I’ve been in the house all of half an hour and everyone knows my business.”

“Actually you’ve been here for around four and a half hours, but you’ve been unconscious for four. She packs a punch dude, a scary, dangerous-I didn’t know you could go down like that-punch! Hank was telling me.”

“Four hours?” I whistle. “Really? Shit.”

“Yeah. I saw her, through the door. She’s really pretty, you know, even with all the crying.”

“She was crying, over me?” Small smirk reaches my lips, it really shouldn’t make me feel good, but…means she cares.

“Yeah, kept apologising, said it was an accident.”

“It was an accident. We we’re kissin; and …well…”

“She dumped you on your ass.” She laughs and then grips her sides. “Oh god, it hurts, hahaha, you got done over by a girl no bigger than me! Score one for the ladies!”

“Shut up before you hurt yourself.” I sigh and rub my hands over my face.

“So, kissing huh?” She wiggles her eyebrows at me and smiles broadly.

I choose to ignore that. “Last thing I remember was the look on her face. She was shit scared. Was she really upset?”

“Yeah, I thought Jean was gonna have to slap her.”

I raise my eyebrows and Jubilee rolls her eyes at the mention of that name. I’m also grateful for a change of subject. “So, Jean is back from London huh?” Her blankets suddenly look very interesting. “You okay with that?”

She shrugs and won’t meet my eyes. “What choice do I have.”

“You could tell the asshole that it’s over. That would be a start. Try mentioning that he shouldn’t be using you, that he’s married to a nice lady and that you want him to fuck off and that maybe he should stop leading on young girls and…”

“Hey, you promised to stay out of it! And, he’s not an asshole.”

“Yes he is Ju. You’re 18, he’s married…” I drop my voice to a whisper, after all, I did promise. “You’re fucking around with a married man, not to mention the team leader. He is playing with you and I don’t like it.”

She whispers angrily back. “I told you before it’s my choice!”

I continue to whisper. “I know and that’s why I’ve stayed out of it, but I won’t see you get hurt. Sooner or later it’s all gonna come to a head and it may not go the way ya want it to.”

She shrugs again, bringing her voice back to normal. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Can we talk about something else now please?”

“Fine. But I mean it. Scott hurts you, he’s gonna have it coming Ju.”

“Shut up you big neanderthal and go find your girl. She’s probably out of her mind by now.” I lean in and kiss her forehead; she wrinkles her nose at me and bats me away.

Walking up through the school to Xavier’s office I can’t stop thinking about Jubilee, she really needs to kick him to the curb and move on. I should have stepped in a couple of months ago when this started, but she asked me to keep my nose out and I have, and I will keep out if that’s what she wants, but not for too much longer. Not while she’s getting hurt.

Not bothering to knock I walk into Xavier’s office and cross the room straight to Marie. She’s on her feet and in my arms before anyone can even breathe, and in that moment I notice she’s wearing gloves again. I don’t like it. I brought her here to feel safe.

Her breath is fast against my neck. “I’m so sorry, it just slipped for a split second, I never meant to…”

“Shh, its okay.” I raise her chin and kiss her lightly. “Are you okay?”

She laughs a little. “You’re worried about me? You dropped like a stone and you’re worried about me, Logan the last time this happened…Logan he, he never woke up…” she pauses and looks at me with so much fear in her eyes. “He’s still never woken up!” She gives a sharp laugh and shakes her head at me. “You are unbelievable!”

The smirk speaks for itself as I gently touch her face. “I try.”

She huffs and rolls her eyes. “Logan you can’t charm you way outta this.”

“Oh I think he’ll try anything.” Jean stood up and gently put her hand on my arm, she kisses my check lightly. “It’s nice to have you home Logan. Enjoy your nap?”

“Funny. How was London?”

“Over priced, boring and cold. But it was good to see my father, I'm glad Scott suggested it.”

“Yeah, he’s a real peach isn’t he?” Bastard.

She smiles, safe in her thought that me and Scott differ because we’re ‘men’, not ‘cos he’s screwing her and my best friend behind their backs. “You two still at it?”

“It’s his calling in life to piss me off.”

Charles smiles at us all. “I think maybe Marie needs some time to relax and settle in. Logan why don’t you two take some time, have an early diner, get some rest.”

“Sounds good to me Chuck. Jean.”

“Night Logan.” She rises and her and Marie embrace, glad to see she’s made a friend already. “Just relax, you’re safe here.” She nods towards me with a smile. “Even from him.”

Marie laughs and follows me out the door. Along the corridor I stop at the foot of the stairs. “I know we said rest, but, there’s someone I want you to meet. That okay?”

She nods. “Sure.”

A long minute later we are entering Jubilee’s room. “Hey yella, you still awake?” As I walk through the door, Scott moves away from kissing Jubilee in a millisecond, probably hoping nobody notices he was that close in the first place. Well, I did.

“Logan.” A curt nod. He steps towards Marie and holds out his hand. “I would like to apologise for my conduct earlier. It was out of line and I’m truly sorry if I gave you the impression that anyone, no matter who they are, is not welcome here.”

Nice speech for an asshole. Unfortunately Marie smiles and shakes his hand. “It’s nice to meet you Mr Summers.”

“Please, call me Scott.” His smile makes me want to vomit, I may have to set the record straight with her later, make sure she realises he’s a complete dick. Marie smiles and Scott turns to me. “Logan, can I speak with you in the other room please?”

“Sure, whatever.” I wink at Jubilee who is mock praying behind Scott’s back, making sure I keep my mouth shut. “You two girls get to know one another, have a feeling you’ll get on just fine.”

I hear them exchange “hi”s and names and I walk into the main lab and stand square-arms across my chest in front of Scott. “What’d ya want?” More of a growl than words, but who the fuck cares.

“Listen, I know you won’t hear it, but I’m going to say it anyway. Look at this from a team perspective, my point of view. A military point of view if you like.” He points to Jubilee’s room. “You’ve only just met her, she turns up out of the blue, in a place that you are known and suddenly she’s your ‘friend’, she just happens to be a mutant? None of this seems a little odd to you…”

“Now you listen to me you up-tight fucking prick, she…”

“Logan listen to me, she’s in the house 30 minutes and you’re nearly dead! You are the best asset that this team has, everyone knows that including our enemies, especially Magneto, I have never known anything take you down, even slow you down. There is nothing out there that we know of that can kill you and then this, this ‘girl’ nearly does it with a god-dammed kiss! Please see this for what it is…”

All of a sudden I want to hit the smug bitch again. “And what is it Scott?”

“I’ll tell you, Logan, she is dangerous. She was obviously put in front of you, hoping that she would take your fancy, and then Creed goes for Jubilee almost forcing your hand into bringing this girl here. Why can’t you just let us deal…”

I give him a little shove, maybe not a little one, and he staggers back while I growl. “I may have only just met her, but I know her better than anyone on the planet. She’s not a danger, she’s nothing more than a confused, lonely woman who’s been cast out by everyone who was supposed to care for her, she’s been left to fend for herself and you know what? She’s done it. Just.” I almost wanted to add, ‘she doesn’t have to anymore, ‘cos she’s got me now and that’s the way it’s going to stay’, but didn’t. “You keep your nose out of my business and stay away from my girl.”

He shakes his head, huffs and leaves. I take a minute to calm down. To think. He’s right. There is a little bit of nagging doubt in the back of my mind, that maybe this is all too good to be true. This is me after all, what in my life ever turns out any good?

Pacing a little I try and work this out in my head. Every moment I have been near her the only time I smelled a lie is when she lied about her name. And like she said, who doesn’t? She’s told me everything about her. Her home, her life, parents, friends and all the time she spent running. I want to trust her. My instincts tell me to trust her. But I hate the fact the Scott is right, I have to be careful. She nearly killed me. Easily.


*******
Introductions and Awkward Moments.... by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Beta by Gidget, thanks honey!!
12. Lost & Lonely – Marie

So I’m left standing in a hospital room with a bruised and battered girl that I don’t know. Thanks, Logan. We look at each other and she bursts out laughing.

“Awkward!!”

I laugh too and instantly feel more at ease with her.

“So, you’re Marie.” She holds out her hand for me to shake, which given that she knows I put Logan out with a touch is rather…touching. I feel bad that I can’t force myself to take her hand. “I’m Jubilee, nice to meet ya. Take a seat chica.”

I sit down on the end of the hospital bed. “Nice to meet you too.” I can’t help but look at all her bruises. “It’s probably a stupid question, but, are you okay?”

She laughs. “I’ve been better chica. It could be worse, I could be dead. But I’m not so I’m gonna be more than slightly grateful for that.” She leans forward a little and touches my gloved hand. “Are you okay?”

Again, I am taken aback by the way she is so willing to touch me. But then I am wearing gloves so that kinda negates the problem. Still I wore gloves at home all the time and that never negated any kind of issue with my parents wanting to touch me, they simply just didn’t. “Been better.”

“This place is, pretty full on.”

I take a deep breath. “Full on is a description I would definitely go for.” I shrug. “I just don’t want to cause anymore trouble, for Logan or anyone else.”

“He’s a big boy; he can take care of himself, even if he does have to have a four hour nap to do it.”

“Don’t - I never meant for that to happen, my mutation doesn’t usually come on without…”

“Hey, hey it’s fine, I was only kidding. Although I will admit that I find it absolutely hilarious that he got taken out by a 95lb girl. That is never gonna get old!” Even with the bruises her smile is blinding. She laughs, then grips her sides. “Ow!”

“Laughing doesn’t help, I take it.”

“Not really. But it’s fine, I’ll be back to my normal, irritating self in no time.” I laugh a little and look around the room. There are a bunch of flowers in one corner and a couple of cards next to it, she catches me looking and I blush a little. “I know it’s not exactly full to the brim with well wishers and floral tributes is it. I’m not very popular. I’m loud and refuse to conform to the ‘I’m a mutant and therefore must be quiet’ regime.”

“I wish I could be like that. But when you get used to hiding, you just hide.”

“Logan’s good at that one, the whole hiding in plain sight thing.”

“People seem to find him anyway though I guess.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” She looks at her bandaged hand and sighs. I can’t help but be drawn back to thinking what their relationship is, why does he care about her so much? Is it just a protective thing? Is that how he sees me? She is pretty; I can see how Logan could be interested in her.

“So you and Logan, are, good, um, friends?”

She laughs. “Oh yeah, with benefits, I’ve been using him for sex for years!” She looks at my face and laughs, grabbing her sides as it hurts but carries on laughing. “GOD, your face. Don’t worry chica, the man is not my type at all. I prefer the more polished man, less Neanderthal and hairy. He’s all yours!”

Smiling I put my hands over my face and really want to crawl away. “Was it really that obvious what I was getting at? Sorry.”

“Oh no, real subtle… like a house brick.” She doubles over laughing and I join her. And that’s how Logan finds us, both laughing and Jubilee holding her side and laughing through the pain.

“You two’re getting on fine then.” He leans down a kisses me on the top of my head. “You alright?”

I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. Tired. You?”

His hand comes up, lightly touching my face, his fingers feel warm against me and for a second I’m just lost in his eyes. “Better now. Lets go, Yella needs her rest.”

“Well goodnight then, ‘cos you two seriously need a room.”

I give her a light hug and follow Logan out the door. We walk slowly though the quiet halls back to his room where he starts to take off his shirt. “Just gonna jump in the shower, you alright for a minute?”

I smile and nod. He throws his shirt on the bed next to where I’m sitting. His bare back is facing me and I really like the view, his skin is the perfect shade of tan and there isn’t a mark on it anywhere, it’s flawless. I can feel the heat rise in my cheeks as his belt lands in the same place his shirt did, then his shoes and socks and just as he starts to undo his jeans he goes into the bathroom.

Have to admit I am a little disappointed, but what should I have expected? Last time he came anywhere near me I put him out for four goddamned hours. No wonder the only thing on his mind is taking a shower. I flop backwards on his bed and stare at the ceiling, guessing it will be a while before he even thinks about touching me again. What was I thinking? Why did I come here? All I’m going to do is cause trouble and possibly kill someone.

Just like Cody. I did that; I ruined his life and his parent’s lives, his friend’s lives, everything is lost and that was my fault. He isn’t dead, but it’s the loss of ‘life’. His life. His bright future. Whatever college he would have gone to, the vacations he would have taken, the girlfriends, his wife, children. Everything. I mean, who’s to say he wouldn’t have found a cure for cancer or figured out how to power the world without killing the planet.

Wonderful, now I feel even worse. I should have just kept out of Logan’s way, never told him anything about me and let him pass me by, like everybody else. My head hurts and I'm so tired. Laying here I can feel sleep take me, and I let it. That way I don’t have to think about how undesirable someone you can’t touch really is.

*****

The gentle feel of fingers brushing thought my hair wakes me up slowly, just how I like it - none of that jumping out of bed crap for me. After a couple moments enjoying the sound of his breathing and the feel of his fingers in my hair I open my eyes. Perfect hazel staring back at me. “Hey.”

He’s lying on the bed next to me, mirroring my position, and I can’t see the rest of him but he’s not wearing a shirt again, which is something I can definitely get used to.

“Was I asleep long?” he touches my hair again and shakes his head. I frown a little at him. “Are you alright? Did something happen?”

“No.”

I sit up and he rolls on his back to look up at me. The look on his face is just sadness and it’s more than a little unsettling. “What?” He looks away, but I have to ask. “Do you want me to leave?”

His eyes snap back to mine. “No!”

He sighs and gets off the bed, the release of his weight on it makes my side spring up a little, and god he is heavy isn’t he? His hands land of the back of his leather desk chair with a bit of a thud and he sighs again before turning to look at me. He’s only wearing jeans and they aren’t even done up, a quick look around shows no towel or any sign that he’s gotten changed. He never got in the shower; he just laid and watched me.

This is how he behaved in my trailer just before he asked me to come with him. What if he’s changed his mind, what if he does want me to leave but he just doesn’t know how to say it? What am I supposed to do without him now? Let’s get this over with, now.

“What is it? You’re acting like you want to say something but you just can’t.”

“I don’t want you to leave. I just…”

“What? There is something going on, you’re scaring me again. Just, oh for god’s sake just say it Logan!” My voice is surprisingly strong considering I just know a huge lump of rejection is coming my way.

“I need to know I can trust you.” His voice is deep and he can’t look at me.

What, is that all? Trust, his senses tell him everything like that don’t they? That’s what I thought. “What do you want me to do? I can only tell you to trust me Logan. I don’t have anything to persuade you with. Is this, is this about my mutation and what it did to you?” Does he really think that I tried to kill him on purpose? Inspecting his shoes is all of a sudden really important, so I guess that’s my answer.

“It was just all too easy Marie and I don’t wanna think…”

I can feel panic coming over me. “I didn’t mean it! It’s never done that before I swear, I don’t know what you want me to say. I have no idea how to make you believe me or understand, god I don’t even understand how the dammed thing works. It, it’s never just flicked on like that before, well once, but that was in the bar and you were….” I back up a little realising my slip. “Never mind, it just doesn’t do it and I…”

He walks towards me backing me up a little, my legs hit the edge of the bed and I stop. I look down at his chest as its filling my vision, further down I can see his fists are balled by his sides. Okay I’m scared now, not scared because he wants me to leave, I am actually scared of him. “When I was in the bar…and?”

“You’re urm, very intimidating when you’re this close. Do you know that, has anyone ever mentioned it before?” I give a nervous laugh. “Bet they haven't, cos, well yeah, no ones gonna mention that if they wanna live… anyways.” Tell him, woman. “Well, um, if you just back up a couple of steps I’ll, I’ll tell you.” He cocks his head to one side like he’s thinking about it and then moves back a couple of steps. His arms cross over his chest and Jesus they look even bigger now.

“Well?”

“The fight night, in the bar. I was watching you. I, I think you knew that though didn’t you? It felt like you knew I was watching you, I couldn’t see your face in the dark, but I just knew.” He slowly closes the gap between us again. “When the other guy hit you, you went down pretty hard. My skin flipped on, I got it under control quick and turned it off, but it flipped on. That’s the only time it had ever done that. Seeing you get hurt just…I dunno.” I shrug and watch his face. “Will you say something already? You must know I'm not lying to you.” He just stares at my face like he’s trying to figure something out. “I can give you my real name, address everything, I'm sure the Professor can…”

“No. It’s okay.” His voice is quieter, softer. “That’s your business, you tell me when you want to, not cos you wanna prove something. You don’t need to prove it. It’s okay.” His hand comes up and touches my cheek. “I'm sorry. You have no idea how hard this is. Everything goes wrong for me Marie, everything. People die around me, people get hurt. It’s easier to just back away from people, things…”

“Don’t back away from me, please. I know everything points to me being some kind of spy or plant, but I’m not.” I touch his arms; his skin is warm under my palms. “I don’t want to hurt you - I don’t wanna hurt anyone, I'm just a normal girl, well not normal normal, but you know what I'm getting at…” I can feel the tears and my emotions bubbling over. I am all of a sudden so scared and so desperate to somehow prove to him who I am. “I'm not gonna let it slip again, I promise, I…”

He gives a little chuckle and pulls me into his chest. “Shh, shh, don’t cry, I know you’re not, its okay. I'm just bitter and paranoid. I’ll get over it.”

Looking up at him I can see the relief in his eyes, he may not trust me completely and something tells me that that might never happen, but he believes me. And that, I can live with. It’s a start, something to work on. Somehow I will make him trust me, even if it’s just a little.

“I am sorry, for everything.” He nods and kisses me, his hand reaching into my hair. Somewhere in my brain I realise that I haven't washed it - or anything else for that matter - in nearly two days. “Don’t. I need that shower.”

“So we’ll take it together.” He takes my hand and leads me slowly towards the bathroom.

******
Kept in the Dark by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
This chapter is un-beta'd !! Sorry guys my Beta is out of action at the moment. I've read it a thousand times so I hope its okay, or at least readable.
Shaz.
13. Lost & Lonely – Scott

I have no idea why I didn’t think of this before. I know it looks weird, me sitting here in the dark, laptop casting a scary glow on my face while I complete my dastardly deed! Oh I crack myself up.

But joking aside Logan refuses to see the seriousness of this situation so I am just going to have to look into it myself. There, the security cameras from the Blackbird hanger. Now just rewind a few hours and yes, there she is. Zoom in, crop, cut & paste and bingo. One picture of our mysterious young guest.

Now all I have to do is…. “Scott, what are you doing sitting in the dark?”

“JEAN! Honey! You scared me.” She turns the light on in my office and walks towards me. Then raises an eyebrow as she looks over my shoulder at the computer screen.

“Is it wrong that part of me is disappointed you’re not watching porn?”

“Jean, come on…”

“No you come on, what are you planning to do, run a search on her, oh god you are aren’t you. Scott, if Logan trusts this girl then surely we should to.”

“Okay fine, he trusts her and I know he is rarely wrong, but, I have to know. I want to make sure that this woman isn’t a threat to us, all of us.” I swing the chair around and pull her into my lap. “We’ve got plans after all.”

She smiles. “I know. You really want to have a baby don’t you?”

“Of course I do. You, a baby, my life would be perfect, complete. But I have to say the baby plans are on temporary hold, they way things are it wouldn’t be right.” While Jubilee lies in a hospital bed, definitely wouldn’t feel right.

“Oh come on. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. I’ve done all the proper medical check ups, knocked up a quick ovulation chart on my laptop and the next three nights ‘mommy’ is well, for want of a better word, ripe.”

I have to smile at her persistence, she’s been planning this for almost a year now, well we both have. It’s all perfectly planned just waiting to be executed. Guess this is why I love her so much, she never gives up. “Not this time, you know I’m right. This opportunity isn’t going to be wasted, trust me, we just need to wait a little longer and it’ll be perfect I promise.”

She kisses my lips and gets up, swinging her perfect ass up onto my desk. “Fine, but hurry up, so we can go and practice for your big night.”

“This won’t take long you know how fast our computer system is, it rivals most military operations and all the major intelligence agencies.” She shifts on the end of my desk and leans over the computer and watches me finish cropping the photo.

Smiling at my lucky lucky life because I get to have two beautiful women, I upload my cropped photo to the database of known mutant we have access to. I also want to search through some other security networks, but a little hacking will be required.

Police checks come back first. “Clean, that’s strange. She was registered to an address in Meridian, then about three years ago her address changed to one in Dallas.”

Jean’s breath is next to my ear as she speaks. “Judging by the age of occupants, I would say it was her grandparents. Interpol?”

“It shows her passport being used to cross the Canadian border into Canada, but nothing since. Hey, seeing as you moaned at me for doing this you’re kinda into it.”

“What, a lady can be curious. I thought she was supposed to be a runaway. So how come she’s not been reported as missing? It seems very odd. Why would they register her Social Security with her grandparent’s address, when she’s not there?”

“Don’t know Jeannie, could be a scam. According to this she never finished high school or went onto any other form of further education. Let’s try something different. Newspapers. The Meridian Gazette. Oh the joys of Google. Here we are, achieves, yes, check the year and….well well well.”

I lean back in my chair as she reads from the article. “This one I think… ‘Cody Jackson, 17, was rushed to Meridian All Saints Hospital in what appeared to be a catatonic state. He was spending time with his girlfriend and her family when, it was reported that he had some kind of fit and lapsed into a coma….’ Blah blah blah, parents inconsolable, etc etc…oh this is interesting, ‘Mr D’Ancanto, formally a decorated military officer refused to comment on the young boy’s condition, stating that his family had been through enough. When asked if his daughter Marie (pictured below bottom left) wished to comment he slammed the door on reporters.’ ”

“And what do you know, school picture matches the one I have right here. So, she virtually killed some kid and got herself packed off to her grandparents. Then what, did she run from there?”

“She must have done. But still doesn’t explain why her parents never reported her missing. I wonder what conclusions the doctors came to on the boy or if he recovered.”

“Ever the Doctor. Okay, hospitals….here we are, ‘M’….Meridian All Saints Hospital…patient lists…. Jackson, C, Cody, admittance date…”

“I worry about how easily you hack into data protected websites.”

“It’s a gift.”

“Sign of a miss spent youth more like. Scott, stop, there. Oh….. ‘Long Term Care’, ICU dependant. He never recovered, poor kids still there.”

“And she’s here.”

In my peripheral vision I see her roll her eyes at me. “Run the father.”

“Yes ma’am. Private H R D’Ancanto…. he was in a band!” I have to laugh at that.

“But it said in the paper that he was a decorated military officer?”

“Or is that just what he wanted everyone else to think, or his wife. Could be a play the hero thing?”

“Or just keeping up appearances. Anything else?”

“No my love nothing, he spent an uneventful time in the army, got a an honorary discharged for long service and that’s just that. Nothing.”

“So, she is just a normal girl. Well besides the fact that she’s a runaway.”

“Technically she’s of age so, she can be where she wants. But I still don’t like it. It’s all too clean.”

She huffs and walks to the door. “Okay Sherlocke, I’m putting my foot down. Leave this for another time or at least until something crops up and….”

“Jean she is dangerous, don’t you see that?”

“Yes, I see it. I see perfectly what she is. She put Logan down with a kiss, one touch lasting less than sixty seconds and he was out of it. You don’t have to point it out Scott, I was there while he was fitting on the damn floor. Virtually all of his internal organs began shutting down to provide oxygen to his brain so he could survive, when she let go of him his healing factor kicked in, but it was slow. It took a full three hours to get his brain function to a good enough state where his organs could start to function again. If she had held on any longer I don’t think he would have woken up. Trust me, I see the danger.”

“But you’re willing to let it go!”

“Scott, you know what else I see, I see that maybe you want this to fail for Logan, he’s happy, she is actually good for him. Did you see the way he was looking at her, he actually cares about someone Scott. This is a good thing honey.”

I turn the laptop off and join her by the door. “It may be a good thing that he actually cares for someone, but when it all comes back to bite us and this school in the ass, I will have great pleasure in shouting I told you so.”

After shaking her head and chuckling slightly she takes my hand and kisses the palm. “How about we go upstairs and I’ll help you forget about all this for a little while?”

“I’ll meet you up there I want to check something downstairs first.”

She chuckles at me again. “Scott why don’t you just say that you want to check on Jubilee before we go to bed.” She kisses my check. “Your such a sweetie.”

“I’ll only be a minute.” We kiss and I watch her head upstairs to our room. Again its disappointing that no one else is taking this as seriously as I am. This could be a danger and why does nobody see it. I have a duty of care to this school and the students within it and I would be failing that duty if I didn’t keep a close eye on Logan’s little Marie.

****
Cold Showers (Part 1) by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Beta by Gidget - thank honey!
14.-pt1. Lost & Lonely – Logan

She’s in the shower. On her own. I’m sitting quietly trying to rein myself in. I can hear the shower. Hear the water hitting the tiled floor like it’s happening in slow motion. Even the ones that hit her skin first, I can hear those too. Every lucky fucking drop. I can hear her breathing, her heartbeat. The light scratching of ‘my’ wash cloth on her skin, all of her skin and all the places that you would need to wash…I rub both my hands over my face, hard, gotta snap outta this.

We headed for the shower, got it turned on and we started, well kissing. Wasn’t long before I had her in my arms against the bathroom wall, moaning like mad as I licked at her neck. Damn she smells good and the taste of her. Sweet and homely all in one mouthful.

That’s when she panicked. Pushed me away and started jabbering about hurting me again. I calmed her down and told her to take a shower on her own. Just to relax.

So here I am. Trying not to think about how she tastes, how she smells. What she’s doing in there, what she washing, what ‘my’ wash cloth is touching. Or the fact that when she gets out of that shower she’s gonna smell even better than before.

I’m completely fucked!

****
Part 2.....GLOVES! by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
another wonderful beta by Gidget!!

Enjoy!
14.-pt2. Lost & Lonely – Marie

Scrubbing my skin feels good. Feels nice, the monotony of it. I need to calm down. My skin is really pissing me off. It’s off and it’s stayed off. But I'm just so scared of hurting him again.

Although I think if I'm honest that’s not what I really really scared of. Every time I panic it’s when were kissing and its all leading up to…other stuff, my hormones go crazy and bam! It’s the other stuff that I'm scared off. I mean, I know that mutations are meant to be linked to your emotions, but come on, this is getting embarrassing.

It’s the sex. I want to. I want to be with Logan, I really do. He’s amazing. I get the impression that not very many people think of him the same way that I do. He’s kind and gentle and so damn sexy. I look at him and melt; I can actually feel my bones turning to jelly in my body. But I have absolutely no idea what to do. And that is the problem. I'm sure that he doesn’t want some clumsy virgin in bed with him; I bet he’s had loads of women, experienced woman. But… he does want me. I know that, ‘cos, well he was pressed against me pretty hard and ‘things’, were, pressed against me to.

I can do this. I want to do this. With him.

Sighing really heavily I step out of the shower, grabbing the nearest towel. I get a smaller towel and dry my hair as much as I can…I think I need to get over this. If this is what I want I should invoke a little bit of Gina and just go for it.

I wonder…. yeah, gloves!

Deep breath in and open the bathroom door.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed and he looks up. “Hey.” His voice is thick and husky and I have goose flesh marching all over me immediately. His eyes drift down, all the way to my toes and back up. I see his nostrils flare a little like he’s taking in my scent, I hope he likes it.

“Hey.” Walking over I stand in front of him, with only this small thin towel around me. My hands are shaking. Can’t believe I'm about to be so bold. “Put some gloves on.”

His eyebrows draw together in confusion as his eyes meet mine. “Why?”

I bite my lip, swallow, and drop the towel to the floor. “’Cos I changed my mind!”

His breathing noticeably goes up a notch and his hands come up almost as a reflex, but he draws them back before he touches me and puts them on his knees. “Marie, this is…”

“Don’t say anything. Please. Don’t ask me if I want to or if I'm sure, just…” I touch his face. “Touch me.” I watch as he licks his lips. Then he stands up. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but then stops himself. His eyes travel down and back up to mine. They’re dark, hooded and hold something that I can’t quit place, but I know that it excites me more than anything else ever has. “Gloves.”

He nods and reaches for his discarded jacket, pulling out a pair from one of the pockets. Once they are securely on he reaches for my face, gently pushing a stray piece of hair away from my cheek, the gloves feel soft against me and somehow manage to relax me a little. There’s a little bit of security in them.

His hand stays there for a little while until he moves it slowly round to the back of my neck, drawing me in close to him. My naked damp breasts rub up against his chest, the light hair tickling against my nipples; suddenly they are as hard as small round pebbles. Every hair follicle on my body stands to attention as he dips his head to kiss me.

I jump a little as his other hand lands on my hip, fingers rubbing over my hip bone bringing my lower body close to his. Denim scrapes against me. Our kiss heats up. My nerves are shot, but I'm managing to rein it in while his tongue dives in my mouth. He peppers kisses along my jaw and down my neck, I feel him smile against me as I moan when his lips reach a spot just below my ear and… oh that’s good.

My own hands have stayed static by my sides, but as he kisses and licks at my neck, they reach up to his biceps. Massive muscles ripple under my hands. As he kisses me my mind wonders about the feel of his skin, its soft, but firm underneath. God, he is beautiful! And at this moment…mine!

Another little jump as he nips his sharp teeth into my neck. It sends electricity through me. I’m literally buzzing, from top to bottom.

Hands leave my hip and neck and travel to my backside. Pulling me into him he continues to nip at my neck. My hands shake slightly as I reach for the fly of his jeans. The noise of the zipper echoes loudly in my ears like a warning bell or a neon sign reading ‘last chance for gas’.

Strong arms turn both of us around and he lifts me gently off the floor to put me in the centre of the bed, I feel the mattress go down as he lowers his weight on to it. His jeans scrape against my skin again, there’re even more goose bumps all over my skin now.

His body feels so strong against me, but he manages to keep it off me so that I can breathe. Arching into him is my natural reaction, I can’t help it, my body suddenly has a mind of its own as my actual mind, just simply, descends into lovely warm mush!

Kissing, hands everywhere, damn how many does he have? Warm lips pressing against my throat, my chest….nipple! Between his teeth. I cringe at the sound that has just come out of my mouth, so completely not sexy. He moves onto the other nipple, sucking it all into his mouth, his tongue flicking over the top.

Whiskers scrape against my breasts as he slowly licks his way back up to my neck. Somewhere there’s a fire, somewhere inside of me there is more heat than a baker’s oven and it is building and building.

Lips latch onto mine again as my body decides that, yes, yes it is confident and bold and it firmly tells my hands to get rid of Logan’s jeans. I push them down as much as I can, his… his, shit I can’t even say it in my head! ‘It’, bounces against my skin as he wriggles out of them the rest of the way. My hands can just reach his backside, it feels amazing. Sculpted, hard, but something else takes my attention. His hands frame my face as his kisses seem to get even more intense.

Moaning into his mouth, I raise my hips and rub myself brazenly against his…his penis. One of his hands rubs down my body, past my breasts and straight to my, well, down there. I can feel wetness, and he feels it to, rubbing his fingers over me, spreading it. His lips leave me and he looks down, gripping himself he guides it to my entrance. His lips are back to mine, licking, nipping; wet kisses. I can feel him push inside a little bit, just the tip of him. It feels huge, but then I guess anything would feel huge.

He lets go of himself and holds my thigh, raising it slightly. The kisses keep coming as he edges in a little further. This time he moans. His hand slides forward up my thigh to my hip. In just a tiny bit more. I can feel that it won’t go anymore, he pushes a little but there is more resistance than is normal. Virginity. Mine. His hands grip my hip, my hair, all over as his kisses get harder.

I can’t keep still; I know I’m wiggling against the feeling of him inside me, even if it is only a small way in. My hands are running over his shoulders and his neck. He pushes again, this time it hurts a little, like someone trying to push a q-tip too far into your ear.

He kisses my neck and pushes again, my hands clamped round tufts of his hair. Burning pain rushes through my vagina and I cry out. It’s sharp and stabbing, stretching me to an extreme I’ve never experienced. Clamping my eyes shut and my natural reaction is to close my legs, but for obvious enormous man reasons I can’t. My knees clamp around his hips instead. “Marie…” That thick lust ridden voice is in my ear, his breath coming in short gasps against my skin.

I let out the breath I was holding without knowing it. “Shut up! Please, just…please.”

Panting into his shoulder I can feel the burning starting to ease leaving a weird full feeling. Biting my lip as I flex my hips, just a little, just enough to move him inside me. There’s a soft growl from next to my ear inside my hair. I move again and he growls again, and then moans.

Then he moves.

Shock, that’s all I feel shock at how this feels. Its good, but it burns and it hurts a little, but it’s still good. How I feel is all mixed up. So many feelings rushing through me at once as he pulls out and pushes it back in, then he stops, giving me time to get used to it. Then again, and again he keeps moving, slowly building a rhythm.

It’s too much; it’s all too much. Feeling him inside me, knowing that awkward first moment has gone, knowing that he is making love to me, he’s here, with me right now, inside of me. I’m having sex, me. It’s just so overwhelming.

My body arches, I fling my head back and moan loudly. My hands grip his hair. My breath is coming in short rasps and I can’t stop. I feel like I’m falling, like every muscle, every nerve is suddenly tense and any moment...God it’s like all my tendons are gonna snap.

Logan raises himself up onto his hands placing them either side of my head. He is still going in and out of me at a steady rhythm making my tense feeling grow stronger. Something is gonna give soon, my body can’t take it, it doesn’t understand what’s happening, I’m not sure I do either only that I like it.

His face tenses slightly, he moves quickly backwards onto his knees, gripping my body taking me with him till I’m in his lap. “Oh God!” I don’t actually know who said that me or him or for all I know there could be some random person in the room with us, but I don’t care. The change of position is, oh it’s perfect, there’s just not another feeling like this.

The muscles in my stomach tighten as his left hand grips my neck bringing my lips down to his. Chest hair tickles my nipples again as they move against him. His other hand holds me across my lower back, making me move up and down on him. I grip his shoulders, it’s gonna give soon, my stomach tightens even more and I can’t take it, I just can’t take it anymore.

WOW! Tight… hot… gripping… explosions of light… colours flash behind my tightly clenched eyelids. I lose control of my hips, they bounce on him uncontrollably, my hands, fingers dig into his back.

Then it’s gone, my breathing comes back to me, so does the slightly painful burning sensation, I hadn’t even noticed it had gone.

Logan is still moving inside of me. He hasn’t done it yet. He kisses me again, this time it’s less gentle, so are his movements. Sweating slightly his hands move over me in jagged movements, like they can’t decide where they want to be. “Jesus Marie, I’m gonna cum!”

I flush; I can feel the heat in my face, and all over me. There’s that tingling feeling again, building quicker this time, he’s mumbling in my ear, his breath is against me. I’m being wound tighter and tighter again, ready to explode. Again? How? My head goes back again, this time he lets me slip back onto the bed. He keeps his position on his knees and using my hips pulls me onto him in quick sharp thrusts. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful!”

Reaching above me I grip the pillow with my hands and after one particularly hard thrust, my mind is filled with light again, explosions of colours and hot, wetness rushes through me. I feel him jabbing into me as he cums, all the way in, but still trying to get further in, his head rests onto my breasts and he pants.

My mind and my body, slowly come back to me as Logan moves out and off of me, lying next to me. Aching in my crotch makes me wince and clench my knees together. “You okay?”

I laugh a little. “Yeah. Burns a little. But you know, good.” I smile at him suddenly remembering I’m naked and he’s naked, he’s naked and next to me and naked. “Are you, you know okay, I mean was that, okay?”

“Okay?” He leans forward and kisses me gently. “Was fucking amazing.” His lips move against mine as he speaks. Rolling sideways slightly our bodies touch and he kisses me.

Pulling back a little I feel him against me, it’s still hard, or is it getting hard again? “Is that…?”

Raising up on his elbow he smirks and lifts an eyebrow at me. “Healing factor; has its advantages.”

I frown. “But, we just have and you can’t possibly want to again.”

Reaching for me and pulling me back towards him; he rolls on his back and places me on top of him. He rubs his spare hand over my backside, then runs a single finger up my thigh, over my hips and grips my breast making me gasp. “I’m laying here with a beautiful woman on top of me, she’s smart and sexy and stronger than anyone has ever given her credit for. Why wouldn’t I want to be in your bed all day long?”

“Logan I’m not any of those things. I’m not that strong; I can’t fight or protect anyone let alone myself. Smart, I wouldn’t know, I never even finished school. And as for beautiful and sexy, ha, more like clumsy and average.”

“You are strong, just like that half pint horse of yours. You kept going, you went all that time on your own, you made it through when a lot of people would have given up. Being strong isn’t just about fighting or protecting others. Some of it is about protecting yourself Marie.” He kisses me gently again. “And you are beautiful, and fuck your damn sexy too.”

“Logan…” I can feel the blush all the way to my toes. No one has ever spoken to me like that before. I could get used to this.
"Welcome to Mutant High" by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
No beta on this one, sorry, all mistakes are my own doing!!

Enjoy and review!
16. Lost & Lonely – Marie

Note to self, stop grinning. No seriously stop grinning. I’ve been up for couple of hours, I woke up stiff and sore this morning, but it was worth it. Aches in places that I didn’t know I had places, but again, it’s all worth it. Being with Logan last night was, well it wasn’t perfect because of the pain, but it was pretty near. He was everything I secretly knew he would be. Or is that just the dreamy version of what my first sexual experience was gonna be like? I dunno.

No…. it wasn’t like that either. In my head, it was in a four-poster bed, there was sweet music, long flowing drapes and rose petals on the bed. But, hey that’s the result of years of trashy novels and old Errol Flynn movies, and in those movies it usually fades to black at the important bit that tells you all about how much it actually hurts.

Anyway, daydreaming aside, here I am currently sitting in a deserted library drinking the strongest coffee known to man and looking out of a massive window at a slightly rainy sports field. The view is nice, but then again I think that I would be happy watching paint dry right now.

It feels a little strange to be sitting on my own, without him. We woke, well I woke up and he was watching me. Any other time I may have thought that a little creepy. He kissed me, then disappeared with a quick, ‘Be right back’, and he was, with breakfast. His version anyway, basically whatever he found in the fridge in 30 seconds to be more accurate, but it was kinda sweet. We ate in bed then I laid and watched him get dressed. It was like a backwards strip-tease, very sexy. I blushed when he first got up and I saw him naked. Don’t think I’m ever gonna get used to that. He disappeared off to talk to the others about what's going on. Said he would catch up with me later.

I’m smiling again, this time at the thought that I might actually have to get used to the fact that I get to see Logan naked, on a regular basis. As in, with ‘no’ clothes on.

Every muscle exposed to me. I get that I'm not the first person to be with him, or to see him naked or touch him. But, I'm here now. And I intend to work very hard on keeping it that way.

“Hi.” I jump and spill my coffee on my leg. “Oh God, I'm sorry, was that hot?” The girl rushes over and starts to wipe down my leg along with me. She’s slight, short cropped brown hair and a wide smile.

“It’s fine, really. I've been sitting here for so long it went cold ages ago.”

“Still, I really didn’t meant to make you jump like that.” She smiles and as I sit what’s left of my cold coffee down, she sticks out her hand, then looks at them and wipes left over coffee on her jeans before offering it to me again. “I’m Kitty.”

I shake it. “Marie.”

“I knew that already. Well, I mean I, well, I heard what your name was and that you came in with Logan yesterday.”

The rumour mill round here sure moves fast, I was kinda expecting it, but, and I don’t know why, it pisses me off a little. “Didya now.”

She sits next to me as a blonde boy pokes his head round the library door. “Hey Kitkat, you coming out for…oh hey, you must be Marie?”

He inclines his head behind him, walks into the room and two others follow him. Kitty pipes up beside me. “This is Bobby, Peter and Lorna.”

Bobby is the blonde, he reminds me of Cody a little. Peter is huge, stereotypical football player and Lorna is well, green! As in her hair I mean, skinny and pretty, but, green. And I already feel outnumbered.

“Its nice to meet you all.” I shake hands with all of them, my hand disappears in Peter’s which makes me giggle a little.

“Welcome to mutant high.” Bobby flashes a smile, which earns him a glare from Kitty, guess he’s hers then.

“Mutant High?”

“Yeah, pet name thing.” Kitty’s smile is sweet and infectious. “We all love it here, it’s the best. I mean where else can you get such a rich education and help with you powers. The Professor is just amazing.” She smiles again and takes a breath. “So where you from?”

“Ur, down south way.”

The big guy pipes up. “Really, can you cook? I love Southern style food, I could eat it all day.”

“Pete man, you could eat anything all day.” Bobby nudges him slightly and Peter blushes.

“I get hungry.” He blushes deeper.

“Hungry, that’s an understatement.” He turns to me. “Once he swallowed a string-ball.”

Kitty laughs. “Yeah it was disgusting, Jean had to pull it out by the rope.”

“Hey it wasn’t my fault, Logan threw it too hard!”

“Logan threw a ball into your mouth?” That really is disgusting.

“Yeah, it wasn’t really his fault, the guys like me. Doesn’t know his own strength sometimes.” He shrugs and I instantly like him, he’s more genuine than the others.

“So, Marie, you and Logan huh?” Lorna’s voice is soft, like any other girl her age, but there’s an edge; something I cant put my finger on and I’m instantly wary of it.

I look around them, Pete is the only one who has the decency to see I'm uncomfortable and looks away.

They girls smirk and share a look. My uncomfortable meter just went up a notch, and I think its time to go. “I’m gonna go change my jeans.” I look round them all. “It was nice meeting ya.”

They watch me pick up my coffee mug and exit the library without saying another word to me. Once outside Kitty’s hand grabs my arms and stops me. “Wait…” she looks around her nervously. “I am surprised you’re with him, he’s a bit of a player.” She smirks and looks around again, her voice lowers. “The women around here, well, we’ve all had a shot if you know what I mean.”

I pull my arm away. “Thanks for the heads up, I’ll bear it in mind.” Once I’m around the corner, I let out a breath and shake my head. I guess that’s why Jubilee said she doesn’t really have any friends, with girls like that around, your better on your own. Think I might go see Jubes actually, just gotta remember how to get down there.

*****************
Look what the cat dragged in... by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:
Again no bete. WARNING - a little dark, violent and there's a rape scene. Sorry!
17. Lost & Lonely – Victor Creed


Little backwater town in the middle of nowhere. Not much to look at, not much here. Perfect. Hiding in plain sight. Well, runt, I found it and I found you. I walk into all the local stores as the day goes by, all six of them. Find a trace of his stinking scent in one. The local hardware store and Gunsmith. Guess the runt wants a little extra firepower when I finally catch up with him, shame it wont make no difference, either way, he’s dead.

As the day draws dark I check out the bars, first one is plain, boring nothing in there, no scent and no personality, not even one good looking woman. Second…well, as I walk in the first thing I notice is the little piece of ass behind the bar with big tits and then, the fightin’ cage in the back. I take a wander around, I can smell him here, close by the cage then at the bar, its faint and he’s long gone, but it don’t mean I cant have a little fun.

Think I might sit a while. Piece of ass with the big hooters looks my way and smiles. This could be a lot of fun. Evening goes by, I drink, she smiles, flirts and talks her fine little ass off. After three hours I know enough. She lives here with her dad, she’s in a dead end job, she’s got no education to speak of, she’s a dirty talking little slut, she’s hot for me and best of all, recently her best friend took off in the middle of the night with a guy that she barely knows and poor little Gina is worried sick.

Good job I’m here to comfort her. By the time the last customer has gone, I have her pressed up against the side of the bar with my fingers in her panties. She’s practically begging for it.

“Oh God. Let’s go out back.” Her breath is coming in short pants.

“Not my style, you gotta have somewhere better to go than that?” I remove my hand from up her mini skirt and kiss her neck.

“But my dad is upstairs.”

I keep kissing her and nipping at her skin. She tastes dirty, not with actual dirt, it’s a used dirty, like a hundred others got there before me. “What about your friends place, if she took off, that’s gotta be empty?”

She moans. “I dunno, she might….ur yeh there!” My hands rub her huge tits. “Lets go.”

I keep touching her all the way to the shitty little trailer park round the corner, keeping her hot, interest, distracted. The minute we enter the small trailer, I smell him. He was here and he was hot for someone. I can smell the girl too, completely different to her friend, clean. Good and clean.

Gina looks dreamily at the way I’m smirking. Dumb bitch doesn’t know I’m not smirking at her, I’m smirking at that smell, nothing smells better than good clean woman. Think when I’m done with the runt, I’ll have me a little fun with his girl.

In the meantime, I think I need to leave a little note for the Wolverine. I grab Gina and kiss her hard. She moans and I can practically smell the wet dripping out of her. I rip her jacket off her, she giggles as she pulls her t-shirt over her head. My shirt goes over my head and away and I undo my fly. In a heartbeat she’s naked from the waist up and has her hand in my pants. I jerk into her touch. That’s the thing about girls like her, they know how to work a man.

I spin her round and press her against my chest, one hand under her chin and the other deep in her panties. “You want it doncha?”

She moans a yes and I walk her the few steps to the bedroom. Once in there I push her to the bed, she falls on her back. Again she’s giggling and she opens her legs for me. I lay between her legs rubbing myself against her. Moving forwards I grab her hips and rub her more forcefully. She knows how to move her ass. Again she giggling and pressing against me, rubbing her wet panties against my cock.

Grabbing a handful of her hair I yank her up so she’s against me. “Listen bitch, there is nothing to fucking giggle about…” I give her a good hard tug on her hair and grunts her face holding fear. “I don’t like fucking giggling...” another tug… “In fact I hate it, I say what goes here. You’re a fucking piece of shit, so shut up and fucking take it.”

Letting go of her hair I push her down. She puts her hands up to my chest. I slap them away. “Get your filthy hands off me.” She raises her hips, I shake my head at her and backhand her across the face, she yelps. Close to her face, one hand holding her hair the other clamped over her mouth. “You don’t get it do you, this isn’t about you bitch. It’s all about your little friend and the fucker she took off with, and when I find her…” I smirk down into her wide fear filled eyes. “This is just a taste of what I’m gonna do to her.” Tears spill out of her eyes and her hands claw at me. My arms, my hands and my face, each little scratch heals over nearly as quick as she can make them.

Bored with looking at her face, I let go of her and flip her over. She starts screaming at me, wriggling trying to get away from me. “PLEASE! STOP, LET ME GO, NO! NO! NO! GET OFF ME!”

She screams some more, pain filled scream when I rake my claws across her back, the deep welts piss blood all over her back and the sheets. “Pathetic little whore, go ahead, scream for me!” I rip open the denim of her skirt along with her panties and spit on her tight ass, then grip her hips. “This is gonna be fun. Now scream!”

**********
Heart to Heart by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:

18. Lost & Lonely – Logan

 Sorry its bee so long!!

No beta, all mistakes are my own.  SW.

18. Lost & Lonely – Logan

Been in with Chuck for the last two hours, going over old ground, trying to figure out what the hell Creed wants with me this time. What bits of memory Xavier has managed to get out of my stubborn ass brain, Creed is in there, younger and just as fucking dark. We have history, I dunno what it is and why he hates me for it but its there. We’ve been over this so many times, and the more we do the more I don’t care anymore I just want him dead and out of my life for good.

Rest of the day I’ve been in various places around the mansion. Down in the hanger with Forge, calibrating cameras with Scott and getting lectured by Jean about how I shouldn’t bait Scott so much.

Wasted day if you ask me, I could have spent it pretty much how I spent last night. She has been in my thoughts all day, the smell of her is still on my skin, still up my nose and its still so good. Wish she’d mentioned she was a virgin, didn’t know till it was too late. Damn it was hot though. Blisteringly hot and tight. Shouldn’t think like that, I know it’s disrespectful, but god damn.

As I get back to my room, its dusk, like I said – wasted day. My hand lingers on the doorknob. The voices I hear stop me from going in.

"What do you think she meant?" Maire’s voice, she sounds pissed off about something.

"Dunno chica, I think she was jus trying to rattle your cage. She’s kinda had a thing for Wolvie-pants for a long while, well since a certain shirt-less gym class. And trust me, if anyone’s spread it around the mansion like butter on mouldy bread, it’s the Kit-kat!" What the hell is she doing out of the med lab and what they hell does Kitty Pryde have anything to do with things.

"I get that he’s not gonna have, you know, not had women. I mean who wouldn’t you know…"

Jubes cuts her off. "Me!" There’s a pause. "No, seriously. It’s like trying to go for my brother of something."

They both laugh. "Everything seems so…."

"Fucked up? Don’t worry about it, this whole place is fucked up, I mean look at me."

The bed creaks a little as Marie sits on it. "You made a crack before about not being very popular, what's that about anyway?"

Bed creaks a little again. "I’m guessing you and me kinda started off the same right, family shit?" Marie must nod because Jubes continues on. "Well, the majority around her all have their stories, you know what I mean, they come from this city or that. Here because their parents are mutants and they want the kids safe, or they had to leave home cos they didn’t want people to find out. I mean Jones is like 9 or some shit, and his Nanna sent him here so his parents wouldn’t find out her secret, get what I’m saying?" there’s another pause. "Well, that particular crew, well they have had no hard ship in their little lives what so fucking ever. Not even a broken fucking nail. Lorna, Kitty and Bobster are like everything I hated about school, my life, anyone’s life. They are high school bullies that have never grown up. We’re supposed to be a team round here and with them it’s the biggest croc a cracking hard shit you’ve ever heard. When me and hairy turned up here it was all fine, but, well…"

"I won’t tell him, if that’s what you’re worried about."

Jubilee laughs a little. "I’m that readable huh? Okay, when we first got here it was fine, then the rumours about him started, who he was, where he came from, what he was capable of you know. And around here what you can do, is just about all everyone wants to know. So when the claws came out the first time, it was…"

I clench my eyes shut, ~Oh Jubilee!~ "Claws? What claws?" There’s shock in her voice, no wonder.

"Oh…he hasn’t mentioned that…oh shit! I’m sorry this is for him to say to you." I hear her try and get off the bed, but she stops.

"No, wait. Please tell me."

Silence. Then. "Okay. But when he eventually tells you, act surprised okay, for my sake. Right, he was subjected to military testing and lots of other shit, but his skeleton was laced with metal. Really hard metal, I always forget the name, something, ‘-itam’, but, whatever, he has claws that come out of his hands. Real dangerous stuff."

"Oh my god!" Great now she’s gonna run a mile. "Does it hurt him, when they come out I mean?"

No ones ever asked that before. "Dunno babe, never asked him." Marie flops down onto the bed. "So, anyways. People round here, can be kinda cruel and well, I don’t like it, not when its directed at him you know. He’s never hurt any of these assholes, but they still say shit, know what I mean."

"What kind of shit?" Yeah, I’d like to know!

"That he’s a freak among freaks, that he’s like some kinda animal. I don’t take it. Got to a point last year I actually got pissed off with him, ‘cos I was sick of defending him, but its not his fault. He does play on the grumpy bastard thing a lot, you know, but that’s jus him. His theory is the less people know about him the less they can hurt him or him hurt them."

"So that’s why a lot of the others don’t talk to you?" Shit, I didn’t know that.

"Yeah, but I don’t tell him that. He thinks it ‘cos I cause trouble, which it is, but, I cause trouble ‘cos of them. He’s a good guy. Grumpy, occasionally violent with serious impulse control problems, but a good guy. We’re both basically fucked up."

They laugh again. "You’re not fucked up, it’s good to know he has someone to look out for him."

"Yeah right, like he’d let the world know that I little shit of a girl looks out for him, L.O.L chica!!"

They laugh again and I do like that she’s looked out for me, need to start returning the favour. Jubes laughter is cut of by a hiss. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I’m beginning to see why I wasn’t supposed to leave the med-lab, but you know, I cannot lay in there, its cold and like, dark, but its light but its still like ‘dark’, know what I mean?"

"Ur, no!"

Jubes chuckles. "Like dark as in, I’m laying in a lab, with lots of shape medical instruments waiting for the nutty doctor to cut me up, kinda ‘dark’"

"Oh, okay."

The bed creaks a little again as one of then shifts a little. "Oh my god, you blatantly jus’ smiled and nodded having no fucking clue what I just meant!" She laughs heartily.

"What, your talking in riddles."

"Scary films you must have watched scary films, you know where the cute girl gets locked up and experimented on by some sick, but oddly handsome, mad scientist or doctor?"

"No, I don’t watch anything." Marie sighs. "I’m actually really boring."

"Well, stick around girl, this place makes for interesting!"

There’s a pause and I’m just about to clear my throat and make out I just got there when Marie talks again.

"So, his ‘claws’…you said he got experimented on?"

"Look, I’m all up for sharing, but you should talk to him about it, he told me the basics you know, how, where, he left out the why and the who." She shifts again, she’s obviously in pain and she shoulda stayed put. "And as for the Green Witch and Kitkat, don’t sweat it, I say flaunt it at her."

"I can’t do that, not really that kind of person you know."

"Well, man up chica, even if you don’t mean it sometimes you gotta put your game-face on."

Taking a few steps back, I heavy my footsteps towards the door and knock on it. "Marie, darlin’ you in there?"

A unified ‘come in’ comes back at me.

I walk in and take in Marie, there has been tears at some point given her puffy eyes, I lean in a kiss her on the top of her head. "Yella why the fuck are you out of bed?"

"Bored."

"One day bored is gonna get ya killed or your leg is gonna fall off or something."

"Yeah dude, cos my is jus’ gonna randomly fall off through boredom!" She glances at Marie and gestures to me with her hands. "Seriously!"

The kid makes me smile, can’t help it. Maries stands up and puts her arms around my middle, she fits next to me just right and I rest my chin on the top of her head. "Yella, you’re a menace to…" I’m cut of by the vibration of my cell in my pocket, the ring starts as I get it out. No one ever calls me. I flip it open.

"Logan."

Baiting the prey, hunting the hunted. by sharonmjl47
Author's Notes:

19. Lost & Lonely – Creed

No bete, mistakes are my own.

19. Lost & Lonely – Creed

"Logan."

The smile I have on my face has gotta be murderous. "Well hello there Logan."

On the other end of the phone I hear him shift around and his breathing changes ever so slightly, if there is someone in the room with him they’d never notice, I do.

"How the fuck did you get this number?"

I chuckle at the growl in his voice. "Lets just say you pay enough money, you get what you want."

The line goes dead. I bellow laughter into my empty bedroom, he’s so predictable. Waiting two minutes exactly I redial the number I spent four hours beating out of some little techno-nerd downtown. "Aw you hung up on me, I’m hurt!"

"Laugh all you want furball, your dead anyway!"

"Strong words Wolverine. So, tell me, how’s your little firecracker? Damn she was fun." Chuckling again down the end of the phone I remember just how fun Jubilee was, thrashing around, trying to get away.

I can hear muffled voices and movement. "And that’s why you’re a dead man, I’m going to scrape you off the sidewalk like god damn fucking roadkill when I’m done with you!"

"Really? Stronger than she looks isn’t she, never screamed for help, did she tell you that…though its kinda hard with my fat dick in her mouth…" I glance down at the watch on the bed next to me. "So, how’s your day going?"

"Where are you, you filthy piece of shit?!"

"Enjoying the early evening sun actually. Was thinking about heading out, picking up another fine specimen of womanhood. Tell me, that weather witch still looking damn hot?"

"I’m coming for you Victor and were going to finish this."

I glance again at the watch. "Well tick tock Runt. I guess we’ll see if you can do the deed in the end, in the meantime I left your new girlfriend a present in her trailer." I hear him growl again and it makes me smile even more. "I’ll See ya soon brother."

Never felt so much satisfaction hearing that piece of walking shits shocked gasp as I hung up the phone, had two seconds to spare before he would have been able to trace the call. Although there is the temptation to just let the fucker come, but I promised to play the long game. Laughing again, I nudge the sleeping form next to me. "Wake up Neena."

She stirs, stretching her toes first, my eyes travel up her strong thighs. Been crushed in them more than a few times, then she arches her back jutting upward her full breasts that are just fucking hot. She’s fucking hot. Can’t resist anymore touching her skin is like magic under my hands, pale and just… hot, even the weird patch on her left eye. She rolls away from me. "I don’t want to wake up, not unless it involves coffee, bacon or sex. Fuck off."

"I can offer the sex bitch, but coffee and bacon will have to wait." I grab her hips and roll her over, her hand comes out from under her pillow as she turns and she’s got a dagger wedged under my chin.

"I said fuck off. I am tired, I was asleep and I did not wish to be woken up!" With her knife still under my chin I move in-between her pale thighs. "You’re pushing it Vic." She presses the elaborate Scottish dagger further into my throat just as I slide into her, wet, knew it, knew she was fucking wet for me, she the only woman who can take me the way I am, and got does she love it.

"I’ll take my chances." She slides the dagger down my throat to my chest as I raise myself up on my hands and pump into her, whispering obscenities and I can feel myself building. Before long blood from small cuts on my chest is dripping down onto her breasts and she cuming.

Three hours later, my car slides past a set of elaborate gates in Westchester, New York. "Wanna drop in for coffee?"

Her voice is smooth in the seat next to me. "Be interesting wouldn’t it."

We drive on and make our way down into the bowels of New York. "Why don’t you just kill him?"

"It’s complicated." She shifts around. We going to have this conversation again, I can tell.

"Why? I know he’s actually your brother, he just doesn’t know it. But…if you hate him that much, just get it done."

Pulling the beat up car into a side street, I slam it into neutral. "How many times, this isn’t just about me and him."

"So tell me then? This fucks me off Vic, you want me in on this, I’m getting paid, but fuck I like to know why? He’s a fucking wannabe goody for fucks sake, wha…"

"Just like you you mean!"

She turns in her seat and punches me, hard. "FUCK YOU!" She sits back straight and hits the dash in front of her. "Fuck. You. They took my husband from me and told him I was dead, then they murdered him for their own gain, so fuck all of them. A.I.M, Shield, the U.S. fucking A, all of them. Don’t you dare throw that in my face you son of a whore."

"We all got reasons. Mine are my own business. He’s going to die slow and painful like, because that’s what I want. He’s also our way to get close to the target and that’s what were getting paid for and I’ve told you all you need to know." There a long pause, her shoulders relax. "Now, hit me again."

She looks at me and smirks, then looks slowly around the car before looking me up and down stopping at my growing crotch. "It’s a small space, I’m wearing leather pants."

"Hit. Me. Again." My voice if strained. She undoes her belt and drops it on the floor, then slowly lowers the zip of her top letting her jugs bulge out. Then she hits me and I’m on her.

*****

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