Logan wasn’t sure when he had settled.
It had not even occurred to him that he had, till December started.
Till then he just took a break from past-searching and all the disappointments it held for him. It were supposed to be two or maybe three weeks. At the beginning of December he was up to five month.
And the only thing that brought this to his focus where all the Christmas preparations that suddenly started left and right.
And though he was rather reluctant to admit it: it scared him. It really scared him. And that was a rare thing to happen.
He knew anger and rage, he new how to brood or how to be indifferent. On rare occasions he even knew how to be happy. He also knew the general feeling of fear and he did so way better then he wanted to.
But to be scared of something... that was a rare thing.
For most people it would have been completely irrational to be scared of some holidays, but to Logan this were the first Christmas he had a realistic chance of attending with people he could call friends. He did not need to spend it on the road or in some faceless motel room while all the world went quiet.
He would have denied it to everyone asking, but he hated Christmas on the roads.
First of all it was really hard to ignore. The single houses started to blink and glitter with lights. Each and every single window in the apartment houses seemed to have spurted some stars or candles or something similar. Christmas carols started to invade every single music station. There was that unmistakable smell of cookies. The excitement and crowded streets of people shopping for the festivities. And then, from one moment to the next, it was all gone, as people gathered with their families and friends and just minded their own businesses for a few hours. Everything was quite and the price he had to pay for something he would have usually thought of as pure bliss was the knowledge that he was spending another Christmas alone. No family, no friends, no one to turn to.
So he usually took up heavy drinking till he lost conscious and the holidays were hopefully over when he woke up again.
But this time it could be different.
This time he could be part of it.
And mixed with that was the surreal feeling that the moment he would start to participate in this, it would shatter and he would spend another Christmas all on his own.
He even considered to just hit the road and run from his personal demons, when finally his brain caught up with reality.
It was about Marie.
Well things lately were almost always about Marie.
But this was different.
She seemed perfectly normal toward everyone else. She went shopping with the rest. She helped decorating. She enjoyed her chocolate filled Christmas calendar. Like all the others she seemed a little more secretive lately. That was to be expected. But what caught him off guard was the way she always seemed to have an eye on him. Lately she knew before he did, when they were about to meet in a room or on a corridor. And a few times he even caught her stuffing something into the pockets of her jeans.
Logan checked for possible reasons: there was no smell of chemicals, drugs, alcohol or males on her, though she seemed to have taken up a liking for chamomile hand creme lately. Scott did not scowl her, so she most likely had not broken one of the many rules in the mansion. And she didn’t seem to behave that way with anyone else.
And finally there was only one explanation left: Marie prepared a present for him and she did not want him to see it before hand!
When this realization finally hit him - together with one that told him that he had not made a single move to buy presents - his head started spinning.
It was one week short of Christmas and while everyone else was almost done with the preparations, he had not even started! How could that have happened? Especially while Marie was obviously busy with his present!
So he did what he did best: grabbing his jacket and stealing Scott's bike.
Of cause she noticed it. He knew that she was starring out of the window as soon as the first roar of the machine sounded through the garage.
And of cause she was at the window when he reached the gates.
Normally he would have turned up the engine and just left, but for a reason he wasn’t all that willing to examine, he waved till she opened the window and shouted almost loud enough for the entire mansion to hear “Save me a place at the Christmas table, will you? It would be a pity to let all the food go to waste.”
She gave him the thumbs up and he knew they were both grinning rather smug.
But be it that way. For the first time in his remembered life he had not only promised to be back but also said a certain time, and even more unbelievable: he intended to keep it.
Christmas gift shopping was a nightmare.
To many people, to many different smells, to less space and whining kids everywhere.
Only five minutes after entering the mall he already felt an immense headache coming his way.
And seeing that he had no idea what to get for Marie, he started with everyone else.
Bike-gloves for Scott. Some Whiskey for the Professor and once he was at it, Logan bought one for himself. An Operation Rescue Unit game for Jean and Hank as a prank gift. A German bible for Kurt. Some African art for Ororo.
Kinda content with what he got he placed his price in a locker and walked another round in the hope of finding something.
An hour later he still had not come up with an idea.
The green satin scarf didn’t seem to fit, CDs weren’t personal enough, he did not know what she liked to read, jewels seemed too much, he did not know if she liked little sculptures or something like that and in general he had to admit that he knew very little about her.
Otherwise he should have come up with an idea by now.
A little frustrated he turned into the next bar and tried to figure things out over a bottle of beer or two.
Who would have thought that finding a gift for a young girl could be that hard?
And over the third beer he finally started to think it over. What could he do to give her a surprise? What would she be happy about?
Of cause the second question was far easier to answer. She would wish for something no one could grant her: to touch, to be normal, to not have people keep their distance. But that was out of his powers.
Around the fifth beer and the third whiskey he finally had a sudden inspiration.
Logan asked the bartender for a sheet of paper, wrote down something he hoped he would be able to identify next day and went to grab the belonging that were still inside the locker.
He needed to place them somewhere else, where he would be able to still get them back about a week later, and he needed to travel in order to cage-fight. Because if this idea would work out he would need money. And if it did not work, he would at least be able to work of some frustration.
Anyway: he would go, fight and get drunken, and if nothing else he would embrace a part of his personality that he had not allowed to show for the last few months.
It was the evening before Christmas - or rather the night - and Logan still wasn’t back.
Marie wasn’t stupid. Beside the thing he had shouted to her when he had left, the chances that he would be back for the holidays were rather small. She knew he hated Christmas. When she had allowed herself to think it through for a moment, she had to admit that she was kinda surprised he had not taken off earlier.
But just it case he should really keep his promise, she was here, spreading his present on his bed.
And well, she would most likely just put it away and never talk about it if he was not there again by January or February, just as she had done with his ‘Birthday’ gift.
It had been only a small thing, a bottle of whiskey she had acquired in a not so legal way and that would have still been inside of Logan’s nightstand, had her own nightmares not driven her to it again and again. She had always left it in his room. People could take her sleeping in his room as what ever they wanted, as long as they did not say anything about it into Logan's face. She knew she could explain it easily and he would most likely not even be mad about it, but she did not want him to feel like she intruded his personal space.
And should he really not make it back, she had the feeling that she would keep this present as well.
But for the time being, she continued placing pieces of paper on his bed.
The idea of him coming home, all tired and groggy, just tossing the entire thing on the carpet because he wanted to sleep, caused the corners of her mouth to pull upwards.
Yeah, she could be a brat from time to time.
Logan still felt the fading ache in his muscles.
The fights had been long and hard and he had taken some damage that at least for others could have been severe. For him it was a way to work out he had not allowed himself in a rather long time.
Plus: it had gotten him a considerable amount of money. The thing that had made him cage fighting to begin with, was not much more then a nice side effect. But it was a good foundation for Marie’s Christmas present.
He had placed the gifts for everyone else beneath the tree and for a moment he had considered placing hers there with all the rest, but it was something he rather delivered privately.
He really wanted to see her face when she got it, but for the moment he wanted nothing more then a good hot shower and some sleep that even with his healing factor would hopefully turn out to be long and blissful.
But as soon as he reached his room he knew there might be some trouble with that plan, seeing that the all to familiar smell of Marie hit his nose.
He wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing in his room, but the easiest way to find that out was to just ask.
Still the words died on his lips as soon as he opened the door. A rather smug looking Marie was eyeing a huge pile of paper on his bed. As far as he could make out, they were all folded into some vaguely familiar form and judging from one overgrown exemplar in the middle of his bed, they might be birds of some kind. Maybe swans. A whole army of them.
And they had a rather unanticipated consequence: for the first time in a really long while Logan found himself lost for words.
Seriously. How to react to a girl who had just placed an entire army of... things on his bed?
He was spared coming up with something witty, seeing that Marie choose this moment to turn around and a rather startled look crossed her face.
“Logan?”
“Marie?”
“You weren’t supposed to see this yet!”
Her protest sounded a little weak and she knew that there was hardly anything she could do as Logan came closer.
He noticed how her eyes darted between him and the door and with ease he used his right foot to close said one behind him. What ever she had come up this time, she deserved to squirm a little and what the hell was that on his bed?
Nervousness crossed her face and he watched an reaction that wasn’t all that unknown to him. She started to babble.
“Look, I really didn’t mean to intrude. I was just setting up your Christmas present, you see? Well, of cause you do, which is no good, because you weren’t supposed to see it yet. After all Christmas only starts in a few hours. And you see.... it is all explained in the envelope on your nightstand and I rather... I think I rather go back into my room and get some sleep.... or something like that.”
She tried to inch to the door, but of cause Logan would not let her.
He was more then curious, and after all his present wasn’t much more than an envelope either, and once they were at it, they could as well gift each other right now.
“Well, since your present is kinda blocking my sleeping place, I think I will read it right now. And in the mean time...”
Logan pulled an envelope out of his pocket. It looked like it had seen better times, but it was the content that mattered, and as long as she could still read it, things would be fine.
So the two stood in front of each other, smirking while they opened the letter the other had given them and started to read.
Logan had a definite advantage. The letter he had gotten was way shorter then the things he had written. It explained in pretty brief words the legend of the paper cranes. Everyone who managed to fold 1.000 of these things was allowed to wish for something. And, as Marie wrote in her letter, she had wished for Logan to have a better sleep. One without nightmares if that was possible. And, seeing that she knew that wishful thinking alone did not necessary do the deed, she had also placed a bottle of valerian underneath the overgrown crane.
Skeptically Logan lifted the object in question, and there really was a med. bottle underneath it.
Though he did not believe that her present would really help to bring him some peaceful sleep, something inside his body still went all mushy and he had her in a crushing embrace before he even realized that he stepped forward to hug her.
A small voice saying his name brought him back to his senses and slightly embarrassed he took a step back and looked down on her.
“Yes?”
Tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes and with a shaky voice she spoke “You really mean this? I mean: you did not just write it because you didn’t find anything for me this Christmas and hope I will never call you on this promise, right?”
“Marie, you should know that I don’t promise something I don’t intend to keep.”
With a happy sob she flung herself around his neck, rumpling the paper in her hand even more.
“You really would take me on a small road trip between Christmas and New Year? Four days away from everything, the mansions, the happy holiday couples, the mistletoes, the people who say they are friends and still keep a safety distance because of my skin?” She sobbed against his neck. He just nodded, because that were all the arguments he had thought up when he had written the letter. And from region of his neck he heard a “You’re awesome.”
And with a smile he answered “You too.”
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Story Notes:
Well, Christmas screams for some Christmas themed fiction, right?
Don't know yet how many Chapters there will be, but there are at least going to be three. Probably more. ^_^;;
And of cause I hope you enjoy. ^^
Feedback - as always - is highly appreciated.
And happy holidays to all of you ^^
Don't know yet how many Chapters there will be, but there are at least going to be three. Probably more. ^_^;;
And of cause I hope you enjoy. ^^
Feedback - as always - is highly appreciated.
And happy holidays to all of you ^^
Chapter End Notes:
I didn't make the Thousand Crane Legend up.
You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_origami_cranes
You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_origami_cranes