"This...is a piece...of shit." The smell lingering in the building was nauseating. Not to mention, every time you moved, it brought up a cloud of dust, which seemed to get into your eyes and lungs with the intention to make you go blind, then suffocate instantly afterwards. Personally, he was getting pretty annoyed with all of this, and decided that, under the circumstances, complaining was absolutely unavoidable. The only thing to stop him, of course, was Marie's horrified gasp.
"Logan...how can you say that? This place...it's beautiful..." He raised an eyebrow, wondering if perhaps she was seeing something entirely different than what was before his eyes. Because all he saw was a bunch of filth, dust, and old, broken statues strewn about the floor. Not to mention, the ceiling looked ready to cave in. It was beyond hope.
He watched as Marie moved carefully over to the windows. They were probably the only thing impressive about the entire place. Four large windows made up the fourth wall of the room, leaving a pretty fantastic view, he imagined. He'd look later. Right now, he was content to take a moment out of working and let his eyes run over Marie. Usually, men found women to be the most attractive when they were all glitzed up, make up and a tight, revealing dress. Of course, he certainly wasn't going to disagree, they did tend to look pretty good like that. But his Marie was something different. Right now, she had on a pair of overalls that were probably close to two sizes too big for her. One strap kept falling down off her shoulder, but she never seemed to notice. Underneath she had on a tight, complimenting tank top, which left her shoulders bare, just the way he liked them.
Her cheeks were covered in dust, he noticed, when she turned to call him over. He went, of course, wrapping his arms around her thin waist when he reached her. She smelled like the place already. Not wanting to inhale any more of that dust, he settled upon kissing the top of her head. "It's a great view..." Resting his chin lightly atop her head he looked out. After a moment's contemplation, he grunted in agreement. They could see a good portion of the city from where they stood. "This'll be the bedroom..." All at once, she was back into work mode, causing Logan to stand there as she slipped from his grasp and anxiously moved about the room.
"The bedroom? Marie...it's the attic...I mean, don't you think-"
"Which will leave all the downstairs rooms open for our other stuff..."
"What other stuff? We haven't got much else-"
"And THEN you could have an office area, and I could set up my art stuff in another area..." Logan folded his arms across his chest and followed her pacings with his eyes. A small, amused grin tugged at his lips, and so he let it have free reign. Whenever she got going, she tended to zone out, too wrapped up in her own thoughts and plans to concentrate on the fact that others were present and possibly talking to her. It was always fun to tease her when she got this way, and he for one, was not going to miss such an opportunity.
"Yeah...I see what you're saying..." Moving around slowly, listening to the creaking of the boards beneath him, Logan began to pull the large white sheets off of the many statues littering their new bedroom. "We'll have to put the bed up against the windows...and have lots of lights surrounding it. That way, at night, we can make wild passionate love, and everyone in the building across the street can watch."
"Mmm hmmm..." He turned to see Marie stooping down, examining a small table that was missing a leg. "Sounds okay to me..."
"We'll need a big neon sign though...to get their attention..."
"Okay Sugah..." Picking up a small, wooden statuette, Logan flipped it around, trying to figure out what exactly it was. He was pretty sure it was supposed to be an angel, but now it just looked like the junk you saw at garage sales and things.
"Maybe some nights, Jean and Scott can come over. Then it'll be a real party..."
"Mm...hmmmm..." Suddenly, Marie's head snapped up and she cocked her head. "Wait a minute...what have you been sayin'?" Taking hold of her waist, Logan pulled her close against him, placing a brief kiss on her forehead.
"You work too hard, darlin'." Marie laughed and rested her head against his chest, sighing some, in longing.
"I suppose...It's just...I can picture everything the way it'll be when we're finished with this place..." She laughed flintingly and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. He raised a hand and gently cupped her face into it, using his thumb to brush off some of the dust. "It's just...I'm glad we're doing this...you and I." He knew she was. He was pretty happy getting out of that Mansion himself. Things there were just too stuffy and hectic for him. The Summers' family was growing, with little kids always running around, tugging at his pantleg and altogether driving him crazy. Not to mention the countless teenagers enlisting in Xavier's school, with their loud music and annoying habits. It was good to get away from it all...even if the home they picked out for themselves was one step above falling apart.
Correction, the house Marie chose for them. He really hadn't cared, so long as there was a bathroom and a place to put beer. The Mansion wasn't far away, only an hour drive or so, so exercising in the Danger Room was still a possibility for him. Of course, he had expected something a little less...shakey than this. Still, Marie was an artist, and always dreamed of redecorating a home. This way, they wouldn't have to get rid of the old furniture and scrape off the old paint in each of the rooms. It was practically like starting from scratch.
"All right, Marie. Here's the deal. I'll help you bring this place up to par...if we can give it a break now, and come back to it in the morning." He could tell, by the way the light in her eyes momentarily went out, that she really wanted to get started today. However, they'd done quite a few things to the downstairs already, and he could see she was rapidly growing tired. Her shoulders sagged and she lifted a hand to rub her neck.
"Well..." Raising her eyes a moment, she turned and let them roam over the bare room one last time, before nodding in agreement. "I guess that's a good idea. I mean...we've already done a lot to the downstairs..." It was true. They'd already knocked down a wall separating two fairly small rooms, to make it one big one, with enough room for the living room. They did the same to two other rooms to ensure they'd have a big enough kitchen. They'd managed to clear out most of the junk, and set it aside on the curb to be totted away in the morning.
Putting her hands on his chest, Marie smiled up at Logan. "I'll make dinner, if you set up our...beds." They both laughed slightly, and Logan accepted.
"Fair enough. Here...lemme help you downstairs...it's tricky." Considering there were no stairs just yet, he was right. So when he offered her a hand, she took it. Of course, she never expected him to pull her close and lift her up over his shoulder.
"Hey! Logan!" She squirmed, already feeling the blood rushing to hear head, all the while laughing and punching on his back playfully. "Put me down!"
"Hm...I pick...no."
"Hey! Hey wait a second!" Turning her right side up, he carefully placed her feet back on the ground. She pulled the strap of her overalls back up over her shoulder and fixed her hair as she moved over to the corner of the attic.
"What is it? A rat?"
"Very funny. It's an antique record player." Curious, she picked up a nearby rag and dusted it off. Waving her hand around to clear the dust that started to fly around, she knelt down and looked closer. "I think it'll still work..."
"Marie...you are always finding old pieces of junk and fixing them up, you realize that? What do we need with an antique record player, when we have a perfectly working CD player?"
"It's more romantic. You never mind. Just go make dinner and set up the beds. I'll be down in a second." Logan rolled his eyes in a "Here we go again" manner and squeezed out the small hole they'd created as an entrance. Meanwhile, Marie continued to dust off the machine and opened the bottom part to poke around at the wires and see if she could get it working. She was amazed that she had found something like this in such good condition.
More surprising was the fact that there were records still in it. Closing up the bottom, she rubbed her hands together, and lifted the jukebox up to take downstairs. Lifting herself into the air, she lowered both herself and the jukebox down to the lower level of the house, and looked for an outlet that might work that she could plug it into.
Logan, meanwhile, remained in the kitchen. The only thing they had set up in there was a microwave. God knows it'd taken them hours to do so, but they needed some way to make dinners until a stove was brought in. The only thing he'd found by way of a meal were two TV dinners that they'd brought with them. Shrugging, he peeled off the tops and popped them both into the microwave to cook for a few minutes or so.
Waiting for the TV dinners to finish, Logan pulled out a bottle of wine he'd picked up on his way home from work. Looking around, he sighed when he realized all they had by way of glasses were Dixie disposable cups. A tight frown once again moving over his features he began to pour the wine into them, grumbling something about why he'd allowed himself to be drawn into all of this. Still, he had to admit, it was fun trying to pull the place together. It shouldn't take long for them to get the house resembling something close to normalcy.
As the timer on the microwave beeped, Logan heard some music floating into the kitchen, followed by a triumphant screech from Marie. "It works! Logan, do you hear it! It works!" Chuckling, and slightly wincing at the horrid choice of music, he pulled the two cartons out of the micro and carried them into the living room, along with the wine. How he managed to carry everything at once, he wasn't exactly sure. But in the end, he made it over to the floor where he'd set up two sleeping bags.
"Food, fit for a queen."
"Dance with me?" Raising an eyebrow at her, he realized she was serious.
"Marie, I don't..."
"Dance. That's right...I forgot." With a brief sigh she had tried to suppress, she sank to her knees on the floor, and picked up the carton of food. "Ooh...spaghetti..."
"Meatballs too..." He frowned, poking at the food with his fork a bit, digging around in the noodles to find them. "At least...there's supposed to be..." Marie laughed and raised her Dixie cup up expectantly.
"A toast...to the best looking house in New York City..."
"And to spaghetti with no meatballs..."
"And a working record player, complete with records." Logan grinned and clinked his cup against hers, downing his wine pretty quickly. He'd never admit it, but nights like these, just him and Marie, made him comfortable. No body to bother him, or make him worry about being caught being somewhat romantic. "I love you Logan..." He watched her push aside the remains of her food and curl up inside of the sleeping bag. Pretty soon, there'd be a bed, and she could curl up against him.
He grinned at the thought, and pushed some hair from out of her eyes. "Ditto." Smiling somewhat, she yawned, then closed her eyes. Logan got up, taking the wine and cartons with him, and set them down in the kitchen. After shutting the lights off, he slowly crept back over to the sleeping bags, having to feel his way there so that he didn't go too far and trip over Marie. Finally, though, he managed to find the sleeping bag and get into a position that could almost be considered comfortable. Taking one last look in Marie's general direction, he smiled a half grin, his trademark, and went to sleep. No doubt, tomorrow would be just as exhausting.
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