Jean Grey... That's what it said on the label, the perky yet pointless catalogue evidently intent on selling nick-knacks to a dead woman. It amazes me how people can go on getting junk mail even years after they're gone.
The first few times mail arrived for her were horrible. Just awful. Scott would collect them and read them and go about informing whoever still needed to be told that she was dead. After a while of course all the legitimate mail stopped and it just trickled down to occasional offers for credit and other sundry junk.
By now no one paid it any notice, it just wound up in the trash unless the catalogue looked interesting, and not even Scott got that faraway look in his eyes when he'd find it heaped in with the other letters.
I picked the catalogue out today though. The Original Gift Company had a valentine's special sale and an ironing board with a naked man sprawled over the cover. As it happened I was looking for an incentive to make Jubilee complain less about pulling laundry duty and it just seemed to scream "Buy me!".
I was browsing aimlessly through the pages when I stumbled into Logan.
Stumbled, truly. I'd been reading while walking back to my room, not looking where I was going and I bumped into him on the landing. The catalogue slipped out of my fingers as I scrabbled to stop an ungraceful landing, grabbing half onto Logan and half onto the banister before I got my feet back under me.
"You might wanna' look where you're walkin', Kid... you ok?"
I flushed, half awkward, half something indescribable as the steadying hand on my waist tightened a fraction then withdrew. He bent down, plucking the catalogue off the carpet and glancing over the cover.
Jean's catalogue, I thought, as his face clouded over a moment, something about his fire seeming to diminish as I looked at him. He read the catalogue cover and gave it back to me, a flash of shimmer in his eyes as he forced a lop-sided smirk.
"Buying things for anyone special?" he asked me and I shrugged.
"I guess so..."
He exhaled slowly, lips forming a thin line as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked away.
"Been a while... It's her anniversary soon," he added, barely glancing back over his shoulder. "Surprised these catalogues still keep turning up."
I watched him walk away from me, back to his room and I swore. Quietly, under my breath, a mental slap to myself as a cold, hard lump settled in the pit of my stomach.
Her anniversary. Jean.
I didn't see Logan again for quite a while after that. It was a safe enough assumption to make that he was locked in his room, mourning the passing of his unrequited love. Of course, who else? The perfect memory of a perfect person, mentally canonised by absolutely everyone. Who could ever even hope to live up to that?
The pinnacle of his wants was long, long gone... and if he mourned her that badly still, then absolutely no one else would ever have a chance, no matter how much I wanted for him to be happy.
Mentally I knew it. Telling my useless excuse for a heart that, mind you, was absolutely futile.
The curse of the hopeless romantic is right there in its own naming. Hopelessness. That is, not devoid of hope at all, but just rendered unutterably useless by wallowing in rather an excess of it.
A tiny part of my soul will forever be that hopeless. The quietly waiting part that would rather be wooed than pursued. Courted rather than chasing endlessly after other people. It's a little bit passive but I guess I just wanted to be wanted, that's what it came down to. I always felt a little bit stupid even thinking about initiating any kind of relationship, because somewhere along the line I was pretty convinced that I was going to make an ass of myself. I'm not good at reading signals, I admit that one, so making the first move really never felt like an option because it was like heading into something totally blind. I wasn't just hopeless, I was terrible at judging people, too.
I was the kind of person to sit and wait and see if things became clearer with time. Inevitably they did, because the object of my watching would unfailingly waltz off with someone else, leaving me to consider that it was probably a good thing I never mentioned it in the first place. It wasn't a great track-record by all accounts, and it left me pretty convinced that whoever I finally did make that first overture towards would be guaranteed to refuse. I wasn't convinced that my pitifully low self-esteem was actually capable of surviving that too many times and it seemed simpler somehow to hope that, eventually, someone would want me enough to take the decision out of my hands.
It's passive, it's pathetic, I know all of that. But it's just sometimes you get stuck into this well-embedded rut and it's hard to find the courage or even the motivation to climb out of it. This is who I was, and I wasn't sure it was the best plan to go changing that because inevitably it was something I would always slip back into. I wanted, so desperately, to feel that rush as someone swept me off my feet and charged headlong into the sunset...
I wanted that impossible romance, I guess. The kind you see in movies and books that doesn't really exist but that never stops you hoping. I wanted that fantasy. I wanted... I wanted someone to love me, basically. I wanted them to love me with the passion I knew I was capable of feeling if only someone would give me a chance. But with every day and week that passed without sign of that hope ever being fulfilled it began to burn inside me with a crushing sort of despondence, like a low, smouldering ember in the very back of my soul.
It's tiring, I found, pulling on that happy face every day and attempting to convince people that you're glad for their joy when all you really want is for them to go away and make a return to the status quo. Jealousy is exhausting, but lying about it is so much worse.
Harder still is when you know that absolutely nobody is fooled. The pity was cloying and sickly sweet at times and it probably stung more than it ever helped. It felt a little too much like condescension when suddenly everyone and their dog was trying to either cheer you up or fix you up and the stream of 'good advice' was pretty much never ending. In the stakes of all-time-low I wasn't exactly planning on hurling myself off any rooftops or anything, but I greeted each morning with an ever-increasing sense of weary resignation rather than sunshine and optimism.
I'd hoped that day that I'd be able to grab someone, anyone, to go see a movie with me. I needed a time-out from the cabin-fever that was brewing in my room and it was one of those things that we all used to just get together and do for the sake of it. But both Kitty and Bobby and Jubilee and Remy all had other plans. Pitor was out someplace, doing whatever it was he did and Logan... Well like I said, Logan hadn't spoken to me since he got back and was pretty much nowhere to be found.
I went on my own that afternoon and, as the lights went down and the trailers came up, I felt strangely desolate.
I watched the movie, ate my popcorn and sat there in the dark, but as the credits rolled I felt that ember in my chest roll and catch inside me, smouldering gently against my heart. I missed Logan, I missed my friends, I missed what we'd had and the thoughts just wouldn't leave me alone. They stung and hurt behind my eyes and as I sat there crowded by so many people I could almost feel physical distance pulling me away from them. It was like being trapped inside a bubble, always watching everything else happen but never getting to be a part of it. For a second I felt helplessly isolated, so much so that I could almost feel myself starting to disappear, like I was becoming as insubstantial as the shadow I was living in, and I suddenly, desperately wanted to cry.
I wouldn't though, I had enough pride left to not be the crazy sobbing lady on the train home so I buried it. Swallowed it down as hard as I could, putting one foot in front of the other as I walked the last distance from the station to the mansion's gates. A cool breeze had sprung up and it caressed my slowly-burning cheeks as I trudged my way home. It should have been beautiful, my romantic heart whispered. Like a tragic heroine in the novels and movies, this should be the point when the dashing hero comes to save you and make everything better...
But there was no hero, this wasn't a book, and the mere fact that it almost felt like it should be just poured vinegar into an already bleeding wound. By the time I got home I felt so full up it was like my head was almost ready to burst and I closed my bedroom door behind me, curled up on the bed and finally let free the tears that had been gathering for far too long.
I mourned, I think. For what I'd had, what I'd lost, and what I absolutely believed I would never get.
Red-faced and blotchy and still sniffling my way through a box of Kleenex was how Jubilee decided to come and find me. She wasn't awfully good at going away, even when shouted at through a door, so she let herself in. Protestations that I was fine were evidently not going to cut it and she flopped down with a deep, heavy sigh, staring blankly at her booted feet shifting uncomfortably on the rug.
"Shit... I'm sorry I couldn't come with you earlier. I wanted to but I'd already agreed to do this thing with Remy and-"
I sniffed and shook my head. "Doesn't matter."
She shrugged. "It kinda' does to me. I know we've not been spending much time together lately."
I groaned quietly. "It's not that, Jubes. I know you've got Remy to occupy you, it's ok. I'm just... having a moment."
She nodded and chewed at her lip quietly for a second before looking at me. "Christ, girl, you look like shit."
I choked out a laugh and she handed me another tissue with a lop-sided smile.
"Thanks," I said, "Don't cushion the blow or anything."
She shrugged in her nonchalant way before growing quiet again. "Seriously, Rogue." She pulled her feet up on the bed and lent her chin on her knees. "I kinda' feel like we've been ignoring you, and obviously something's made you upset. You can still talk to me, you know. I'm still the same old Jubes you used to hang out with."
I swallowed at the lump that still burned in my throat and shook my head. Because she wasn't. This was Jubes of 'Jubes and Remy'. Half of a couple, and no longer on her own. Somehow that made everything different. "I really don't want to talk about it, OK? It just sounds stupid and there's nothing you can do about it so just... leave it alone. I'll be fine by tomorrow. You'll see."
She gave me the eyebrow, so amazingly unconvinced it was painful. Which was a shame because I'd actually been telling the truth.
"Uh huh... ok then if you won't tell me I'm going to have to guess."
I flopped over backwards with a groan and let my forearm rest comfortingly over my eyes in the forlorn hope that not having to see her might make her go away.
"I'm thinking," she said, "That it starts with an 'L'."
"Love?" I guessed. "Don't talk shit, Jubes. The topic's closed."
"Actually, I was going to say Logan, but there's a certain amount of crossover in that," she replied.
The silence hung in the room for an amazingly long second before I pulled my arm away and looked at her incredulously.
"Excuse me?"
She shrugged. "I'm just sayin'-"
"Logan's a friend but that's it, Jubes."
She nodded. "Yeah, he is. I'm thinking that maybe that's the problem."
I could feel the beginnings of something probably bad brewing on the horizon and I sighed resignedly.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm saying," she said, "That's he's been seriously antisocial since he came back last time, and since nothing else in this place has changed it has to be him that's responsible for this. The more he pulls away the more time you spend wandering round looking like you just got kicked."
My eyes narrowed a fraction. I had my share of self-pity, yes, and God knows I missed his company, but I didn't understand what she was trying to explain. Logan was just Logan. It was none of her business what I wanted when the plain fact of it all was right there for everyone to see. Didn't she understand that?
"You should just tell him how you feel," she said. "Get it over and done with. It can never be as bad as you're thinking. It might even work out."
I looked at her, something in the back of my mind whispering at me about the possibility held in her suggestion, but I didn't want to listen to it. I couldn't listen to it. Logan was a fantasy, I knew that. He was anything and everything apart from what I had been denying the longest. Even thinking about it was tantamount to building up my dreams just for the purpose of smashing them down again. I wasn't going to think about it...
"My feelings about what?"
"You love him, don't you?" she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You have done forever and you've never done anything about it."
I didn't want to think about it. I wasn't going to think about it...
"I don't love him. Not like that," I told her. And I meant it, I swear I did... but my mouth was dry and it came out sounding forced and unnatural.
I loved him, but not like that; never like that. I wouldn't let myself. And damnit, what business was it of hers anyway?
"Why don't you believe in yourself for once?" she asked, shaking her head. "What makes it so hard to think that he might actually be interested?"
It felt like the most ridiculous question she'd ever asked me. Why wouldn't he be interested in me, huh? Because he never has been, that's why. Because nobody ever is. Hell, some days even I'm not interested in me. And why should they be? It's like all the other hopeless people out there. Everyone says it doesn't matter because we have 'nice personalities' or 'really great hair'. Well I had freaky hair and people were scared of my personalities. Mostly because I could say that as a plural and actually mean it. I was bitter... God I felt so painfully bitter in that moment. But instead I said "Don't be stupid Jubes," and rolled over to stare at the wall just so I didn't have to look at her face while I lied to her.
"Stupid about what? You totally have a thing for him. And you know he only comes back here because of you..."
"I do NOT have a 'Thing'!" I cried, angry suddenly. Like my privacy had been invaded in the most merciless way. I had a chasm in my chest and some indefinable need, but it was not a 'thing'... not by miles and definitely not for him, and she dangled that fucking carrot in my face, almost daring me to believe that there was more. There wasn't more. There never would be and how dare she try and make me hope that there was. Hurt turned to rage as I sat up to glare at her. "And he does NOT come back here for me. This isn't some stupid movie or some fucking romantic novel, ok? Grow up, Jubilee. This is real life and it sucks and it's not romantic and he has never even ONCE shown any interest in me beyond a grudging kind of friendship. He isn't secretly pining away and he isn't hiding his feelings and you know what? Neither am I. I do not have a thing for him. He does not have a thing for me and don't you ever suggest that he does. Don't you dare..."
Don't you dare give me hope...
I was shouting by the end and she stared at me silently for a second. She looked like I'd slapped her and I almost felt like I had, the pain inside me exploding like a volcano and pouring out before I'd even had a chance to think about what I was saying. For once, I think she was speechless. Her eyes were shimmering a little, like she was going to cry and I almost wanted her to. Almost wanted to make her hurt. Wanted so badly to scream at her and make her feel the twisting in my heart every time she waved that impossible dream in front of me. Because she had no idea how much it burned. No idea at all...
"You love him, don't you?" she whispered, and it wasn't a question. She knew I did. She'd known all along and I hated her for it. Hated that she could see my secrets and my fears and my weakness so easily. Hated that the things I so desperately needed to keep private were so fucking public.
"No." I replied and the lie felt like swallowing fire.
Oh God... God I loved him. The realisation was fast and hard and sickening all at once and the chasm in my heart seemed to expand into a gaping, black void.
But I already knew he didn't love me back. He never had and he never would. I couldn't just sit dreaming about the things that wouldn't happen because it was just too hard to keep hoping for the impossible. To keep wishing for fantasies to come true. Because I knew, if I asked him, exactly what his answer would be. Masochistic as it sounded I preferred not to ask. That way he couldn't answer. If he didn't get the chance to say that inevitable 'no' then there was always a chance he could have said yes.
I looked down at my hands and they were shaking and I closed my eyes in frustration at my own weakness. But not just that, it was the realisation that I wasn't as accepting of my friendship with Logan as I'd always convinced myself I was. It felt strange yet too achingly familiar both at once.
"I'm not good at playing the martyr," I said eventually, as if that explained everything. And in my mind it did. I wasn't going to be some daydreaming, desperate heart, pining away for the impossible, no matter how badly I wanted it. No matter that I could almost taste it with the lightest touch of his hand...
She looked at me then and pouted slightly, a bizarre mix of pity and disbelief on her face as she climbed to her feet. Because I knew she could see right through me.
"Believe what you want to, Rogue. But just remember that the only reason he even has to come back here now is you. Eventually you have to stand up and ask for what you want. It isn't always going to come right to you, no matter how much you wish it would."
She left then and I buried my face in the pillows on the bed, pulling the blankets over my head until I was cocooned in their darkness, wishing that today would just be over so that tomorrow I could forget it ever happened at all. Maybe that way I could forget the aching loss inside my body from where all of my illusions had suddenly fallen apart.
My hope went unrealised though and I felt off-centre for days afterwards. Though while Jubilee knew the reason for my discomfort at least she had the good grace to keep quiet about it.
I didn't see Logan during that time either. I would sometimes catch a hint of his scent in the hallways and I knocked on his door once or twice to see if he was ok, but there was never any answer so I assumed he was either out or didn't want to see me. It hurt, I admit that. More now than it would have done previously though I tried not to think about why that was. I tried hard too, to rebuild my net of fantasy, but all I had left was a lingering resignation to an unrequited, new, old, endless love affair with a man I knew deepest of all wanted nothing less than my heart on his conscience.
I tried not to be demanding on his time in general, but he seemed to have withdrawn completely and I felt a little bit lost without him. I made myself promise not to dwell on my feelings but there were moments in amongst it all where the only thing I wanted was just to be near him for a little while. Hear his voice or feel him touch me in the little ways he used to. Even just to know that he was ok and not still hurting too much.
And when I was honest with myself, I finally admitted that I desperately wanted more.
It was probably close to a week later that I next saw him. It was late and I couldn't sleep, so I decided to take a walk down to the library rather than toss and turn all night. There was a book I'd been meaning to find and for once I had absolutely nothing better to do.
So it was while passing the rec-room late that night that I finally happened to see him.
Well, no, that's a lie. It was when passing the rec-room that I saw the TV was still on, if you want to get technical about it all. The room was dim and silent other than the droning infomercials and I paused at the door, thinking that someone had forgotten to switch it off before going to bed. But there was a rustle of something crinkling and, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, it was then that I saw him.
He had his back to me, strangely absorbed in the flickering, endless images on the screen. Sitting in the dark, he was eating Pop Tarts right from the box.
The vision was so patently absurd I almost thought I must be sleepwalking, dreaming this moment, but no. Something shifted a little inside my chest and, no matter how much I wanted to see him, I stayed hidden just beyond the doorway. It was so far from anything anyone ever would have expected of him I didn't want to take that moment away and spoil it.
Something so... humanly mundane but infinitely lonely in that instant. He looked so sad and it fired that spark inside me once again, breath almost halting in my lungs for a half second, stopped by the sudden formation of an intense, tangible desire. I wanted to hold him, I thought. Make the pain go away. The fantasy of it flashed behind my eyes, casting the prettiest image and making my heartbeat lurch.
The realisation of my denied feelings still felt a little strange and new in that moment, and I could almost physically feel the conflict between old and new perspectives like a fizzing sensation in my chest.
I wanted him. I wanted him so desperately, but I didn't want to want him. I still didn't want to need him this bad because I already knew how it would end. I was lost that second in a halfway realm between 'what is' and 'what was'. What I want to have and what will never be.
Need felt sharp, watching him from the shadows. He was the realisation and the solidity that anchored still essentially abstract feelings and I felt it then through the deepest part of me with total, inescapable clarity.
I needed him. Like air and water. I wanted him inside me, like oxygen in my lungs. This great, vital thing that I couldn't even hope to live without...
I saw him pause then. Saw him throw the remains of the Pop tart back into the box and then I saw him slump forward. Heard the sigh as he dropped his head into his hands and felt the desperation and wistful sadness of it rip right through me. It burned as it did, like a sheet of white hot lead slicing my heart. Because I wanted him so badly when I knew that all he wanted was Jean.
For once it was me who walked away. I don't think he even knew I was there.
Logan did eventually make a grudging return to a more public mansion life. I saw him finally once more in the rec room one lunchtime, squeezed into wifebeater and jeans, pouring over his copy of greasy engine monthly or whatever the hell it was he read for his own edification.
His extended avoidance had made it pretty clear he had no great desire to see me (or I guess anyone else), but I took his presence now as a sign that a little company might be ok, so long as it was pleasantly indifferent and didn't ask anything he didn't want to answer.
Or mention Jean.
I said 'hey' and sat down on the other end of the couch and he glanced at me and grunted and flipped the page. Ah, another classic Logan moment. The only difference was that previously I had been pretty much certain I only ever saw Logan as a friend, and now...
Well now I was honestly still confused as all screaming hell. I tried to be indifferent I really, really did, but it was so much harder than I would ever have anticipated. That conversation with Jubes and then my stolen glimpse into his privacy had stirred up a lot of things I still didn't quite know how to deal with, and now publicly faced with the object of all that confusion I had no idea how to behave around him any more. I couldn't seem to remember what I'd always done to make that camaraderie between us so easy, because this was like a whole other person now. The same man but looked at from a completely different angle and he, apparently, was offering no clues. He just sat there in silence reading his magazine.
There was a noise at the door and a bunch of the boys came in, Pitor at the head, all of them shirtless and rowdy from some outdoor pursuit and tracking mud across the wooden floors as they headed to raid the sodas behind the corner bar. Their presence was pissing Logan off, I could tell. His knuckles had paled as he gripped the pages a little tighter but it was the only outward sign of his annoyance. They must have been loud and stinky and generally overwhelming on his heightened senses. They were pretty overwhelming on mine, to tell the truth, but he said nothing.
The guys settled down eventually, milling around the fridge as they drank and discussed their game and I let my attention wander back to the silent figure beside me. He evidently wasn't in the mood for talking so I didn't. I Just sat there, feeling absurdly and pathetically grateful to be spending any time with him at all, even if it was in silence.
He wanted indifference. I was sure I could give it to him. I mean, it was only Logan after all, right? Regular, solid, boring old Logan. He didn't leave me flustered and confused in the slightest. Of course not, that would be crazy...
It was easy to ignore him and pretend I felt nothing, really it was. Then he'd go and do something simple, like yawn and scratch his neck and damn it if I wouldn't be lost all over again. Just at the sight of his throat bobbing as he swallowed, or that smooth glide of skin that arced from shoulder to jaw. He had a terrible effect on me, his body like some lethal weapon made all the more dangerous by the sweetness of the soul I knew lived within it, and I wound up just sitting there, staring blindly into the middle distance as my brain went off on some tactile and erotic fantasy trip.
I wanted him. I wanted him badly. Though while it wasn't a new thing that I found him attractive, it was like I now felt it with a whole new level of intensity. Because while before it had been some kind of nebulous, abstract concept, now... well now I suddenly wanted to hold him tight and refuse to let go. I wanted everything he was and, for some ungodly reason... I really wanted to lick him. I mean seriously. Run my tongue over the shivery flesh under his jaw. Curl hot, rough trails over his nipples. Suck and taste and feel his skin against my mouth, salty and warm and bare. I wanted to make him gasp and shiver in pleasure. I wanted to know how that felt, looked... tasted.
I wanted to feel the turn of his hip, the top of his thigh, the hard, toned ass that almost just begged to be bitten, teasing as it does when so often encased in tight, worn denim. I wanted to feel the fulfilment of heart and soul both satisfied, humming with the glow of deep, passionate sex... And then I had to catch myself, blush creeping up my face as I stole a look at Logan from the corner of my eye, hoping beyond anything that he hadn't detected the suddenly heated scent coming off me.
For a second I thought I'd got away with it but then his head snapped round sharply, pinning me with an inscrutable look before his eyes flickered for a split-second to Pitor and the guys laughing boisterously on the other side of the room. His attention came almost instantly back to me though, his expression set and unreadable before he got to his feet and walked out.
Shit.
I was an idiot. He had to know what I was thinking of even if he didn't realise who it was directed at... Heat and want and longing, he'd said to me once that they were distinct and I was pumping them out like crazy. Wafting in his senses was the bloom of infatuation when the only one he wanted to be infatuated with was gone and evidently still burning like a fresh wound. What more proof did I need that he wasn't interested in someone like me? I'd upset the legendary Wolverine so much he'd had to leave the room. It was like every day my own stupidity incinerated yet another bridge to take Logan further away from me.
I sighed and shook my head. Fuck. Maybe if I could keep my fantasies in check we could pretend like it never happened. I should just take his friendship and be grateful for what I had rather than keep risking it all dreaming about the impossible.
I never realised Logan was such a voracious reader until he started using it as an excuse to avoid holding conversations. Maybe he figured there's only so much longing to be had between the covers of a Dostoevsky or whatever, but he sure did spend a lot of time being here while being somewhere else entirely. It may have been good for him, but I admit it wasn't working out so great for me.
I was having... I guess you'd just have to call it 'One of those days'. The sun was shining and the birds were singing and I'd just found out Pete was having an online romance with some Russian woman he'd met on an ex-pat mailing list somewhere... everyone was nauseatingly happy and to me it was about as chafing as the cake crumbs under the hide of Kipling's rhino.
But I am, as I have said before, nothing if not a glutton for punishment, and when what I really wanted was to be hiding from everyone, I was stupidly down in the dining room with a slightly glazed expression on my face. One that would probably pass for normal so long as no one was looking too hard.
Of course no one was looking. Just regular old Rogue, there like always, slowly blending into the wallpaper. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Kitty and Bobby giggling and whispering sweet nothings over the broccoli, Kurt and Ro sharing smiles across a platter of buttered carrots. Remy removing a piece of chocolate cake from Jubilee's mouth using only his tongue...
Jesus.
I couldn't help it. I winced. Flinched visibly enough for Logan to glance up from his book and stare at me. His eyes flicked sharply between my grimace and Remy making out with Jubes in the corner, watching in silence as I got up and left. I felt like I was choking on it all suddenly. Drowning under this inescapable tidal wave of the most potent kind of resentment. He must have followed me though because I paused at the bottom of the stairs and he was right behind me, speaking before I even had the chance to register he was there.
"Don't tell me you have some kind of crush on that stupid Cajun now."
I jumped at the sound of his voice. The first time in weeks he'd actually spoken to me and suddenly so close to my ear I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment to bring my galloping heartbeat under control.
"Don't sneak up on me like that. Christ you made me jump..."
He didn't reply, just crossed his arms and stared at me questioningly.
I exhaled and shook my head. "And not that it's got anything to do with you, but no. I don't."
He nodded, satisfied at least with a denial and I started my way up the stairs.
"Don't suppose your little Russian would like it too much if you did."
I halted mid step and spun round to stare at him. Pitor? What in the hell did Pitor care whether I crushed on Remy or not?
"Huh?" As responses go it wasn't the greatest, but I was genuinely confused.
He was leaning against the stair rail at the bottom, an air of sarcasm about him as he rolled his eyes.
"You know? Russian Kid? Seven foot tall. Turns to metal. Can't really miss him."
"I know who he is Logan. I just don't know what he has to do with this."
"I thought you two were some kind of an item or something."
I gave him an incredulous look and snorted. "Yeah, right."
His eyes narrowed a little and I huffed. "He's just a friend. Someone to talk to sometimes. I do have friend y'know, even if I haven't even seen him in weeks, but then you'd know this if you actually spoke to me from time to time."
If I didn't know him better I would have sworn he shifted uncomfortably... but he was Logan. He was never uncomfortable. I turned my back on him and started up the stairs again, muttering under my breath. As if someone like Pitor would even go out with a freak like me anyway.
"You're not a freak."
There was heat in his voice suddenly, the sound of his footsteps quick and sure on the creaking old stairs and I cursed quietly. I didn't mean for him to hear that and my fists clenched, walking a little faster, ignoring him in the hope that maybe, just maybe he wouldn't push it.
"Marie, look at me..."
My chest hurt and I didn't want to, but he touched me. A hand on my arm and I froze, helpless against it as he turned me round to face him. I didn't look at his face though. I couldn't. Stared at the collar of his shirt instead, at his neck and where he'd missed a spot shaving.
"Marie, darlin'..." I felt the back of his fingers brush across my cheek and he paused, concerned. "Kid? You crying?"
I shook my head. No. No I'm not. I won't. But he wiped the warm, dry pad of his thumb just under my eye and fuck it, I was. Damn him...
I jerked away.
"Kid... If this is about that Russian-"
"It's not about Pitor!" I yelled. "Or Remy. Or anyone. Just leave me alone!"
"You angry at me?" And damn if he didn't look genuinely concerned. "Did I do something to upset you?" No Logan, nothing at all. Just ignored me for weeks while I let my heart break, no biggie... But I was more angry at myself. I had no right to be mad at him for anything because he didn't know how I felt and hadn't once done anything different to the normal behaviour I'd come to expect. But more than that, he had enough of his own damn misery, he didn't need mine on top of it.
"It's not about you either." No, not directly.
"Marie will you just tell me what's wrong?" There was a hint of exasperation in his voice and the grip on my arm got just a little bit tighter. Why couldn't he leave it alone? Why couldn't he, more than anyone, know that sometimes the hurt you feel is easier kept inside?
I wrenched my arm from his grip and tried again to escape up the stairs, but he hounded me pace for pace until I spun around shoved him hard, my hands in the middle of his chest just trying to push him as far away from me as possible. He stumbled down a step before regaining his balance, grabbing hold of my wrists and twisting me around until my back was pressed hard into the oak banister, his body solid and impossible to shift as he folded my arms firmly across my chest.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" His fingers were tight against my skin. He was angry now, I could tell. Angry at me. Frustrated and annoyed and I scrunched up my face as I felt my body go limp. Just sagged under the twist inside as if I'd hammered another nail into my own damn coffin, helping to bury the hopeless fantasy of a relationship with Logan before it even had a chance to live.
Christ, I was such an idiot.
He sighed heavily, releasing a shaky breath as he let go of my hands. "What were you trying to do, Kid?"
Kid. It was all I was ever going to be to him and suddenly I just felt exhausted. So tired of trying to hide from him because I knew then that, no matter what I said, it wasn't going to change anything. I would always be a kid, Jean would always be his hopeless fantasy and he... he would always be mine.
"I'm just so sick of it..." I whispered, and my tongue felt thick in my mouth, throat burning as I looked anywhere but at him. "I'm so sick of all this. I'm so tired of watching everyone else be so happy all the time."
I swallowed, hating how much it hurt to admit it. Especially to him, when I knew he still had his own damn pain to deal with. Because I knew he could empathise to a degree and that somehow made it worse.
"It's exhausting, being happy for other people when I'm so sick of being on my own. And they all act like it's ok cause I'm waiting for something special, but it's bullshit."
His fingers clenched by his sides, I could see them baling into fists through the shimmering blur of tears that just wouldn't leave me.
"I never get to be a part of it because they don't want me and it hurts to watch them. It hurts to see what you've never had sitting there just out of your grasp... but most of all I'm so sick and so tired of trying to make myself believe that it doesn't matter."
I wiped angrily at the wet streaks slithering down my face.
"I tried... I really did... and sometimes it was ok, y'know? I could believe that it was alright and that I didn't need anybody. That I was the best damned thing people like Remy will never get to have... But sometimes... there are times when I would give up everything I have for someone like that. Even just for a little while. Even if they were only pretending. Just so at least I could say that I knew what it felt like to be wanted that way."
He looked devastated for a moment, fire burning behind eyes that almost seemed to glow and he grabbed me hard by the shoulders, shaking me slightly when I wouldn't meet his gaze.
"Hey... Hey, don't ever talk like that. Never again, Marie, you understand? You deserve to love someone who loves you back. Someone willing to move the moon and the stars for you. Nothing pretend about it."
He looked at me so intensely, like he was trying to see right into my heart, so close that if he just leaned in a fraction he almost could have kissed me.
It was a pretty image, and pretty words, but so sadly impossible. I forced out a watery smile, shrugging out of his grip and then regretting it as his hands fell back down to his sides.
"Yeah... well... You learn to live with disappointments." And this time when I walked away, he didn't follow.