That night he chose a slightly classier motel than his usual, flashing the plastic gold Xavier had given him to obtain two adjoining rooms with a shared bathroom. The girl undoubtedly would have balked at the idea of sharing the room with him, and considering his rather restless sleeping patterns it probably was the wisest decision anyway, but he needed clear and unrestricted access to her at all the times. If there really were people after her it wouldn’t do to get stopped by something as menial as a locked door at the wrong moment.
They stepped in. He watched her carefully as she went about, inspecting the room and the bathroom, as well as the second bedroom. “If I see even one cockroach they’re going to have to settle half of what you paid for this…” She hissed. He chuckled. “I kind of doubt that there are roaches in here.” She raised her brow questioningly. “It’s a myth. I have been visiting grimier places than this, haven’t seen a single roach in years. Besides, they’ll need food to survive, like the rest of us. Why would they crowd us, when there’s perfectly situated diner right across the parking lot?” He asked. She made a face at that, then frowned. “What?” He asked. She rubbed her tummy. “I’m kind of hungry. What do you think? Do they have anything else besides roasted roach with Ebola-marinade in there?” She asked. “I’m sure they have something for us to eat. Sorry, kid. I kind of forgot to feed you. Why the hell didn’t you say something sooner?” He asked. She shrugged her shoulders. “I was too nervous to eat…” “And now?” He asked. Another shrug and a wide yawn before she answered. “Right now I’m too tired to be nervous. Good time to eat.” He nodded. “That it is… Come on, let’s go and see if they have roach burgers.” “Oh, eww…”
There were no roaches on the menu, but they managed to find quite decent burgers. She opted for vanilla shake whereas he flushed his down with beer. The diner was nice, tidy and quiet, only couple of truckers aside them sat at the corner table, deep in hushed conversation about the weather condition and unfair regulations of their trade.
“You’re no teacher, that much I got earlier. But you work for Professor Xavier. What are you then? His gardener?” The girl asked. He was severely tempted to wipe the white vanilla moustache from her upper lip, but remembering her earlier reaction to touch, and her warning made him to cling to the bottle of beer instead as he pondered the suitable answer. “I guess you could say that I’m the janitor…” He ventured. “I fix things that need fixing. Make them work. And the stuff about teaching art, it’s not complete bullshit. I teach, occasionally, if one of the teachers is unavailable.” “So, you’re the regular Jack-Of-All-Trades,” she said, slurping her shake. He frowned, then shrugged. “Know all, master of none? No. Not really. I just said that I teach occasionally. Never said that I was any good at it. So far there has been one thing that I’m good at. But that’s enough about me,” he said taking a sip from his rapidly warming beer.”What about you? What are you going to be when you grow up?” He asked. She grimaced. “Grow up? I don’t know if I even want to. Mom and dad… They’re great. And they have really tried to make me feel good and secure and wanted, but I have seen things. Heard things. I know what the world is like. It’s not a nice place for a mutant. Not a nice place at all. And being just a kid…” She chortled the last remaining frothy drops of the shake. “Being just a kid gives me kind of an edge over lots of things. For example that jerk that attacked me. There were people coming to my aid even when they saw what was happening. Would they have done that if I had been all grown up and everything? I kind of doubt that. They probably would have stood and cheered for both of us for trying to kill each other.”
He emptied his beer with one big gulp, slamming the bottle against the table little too hard, his fingers grasping the cool glass just a little too hard. “Kid… It’s good to be realistic. Most of the time I’m downright pessimist when I look at things around me. But you need to lighten up a bit. You’re too young to be thinking like that…” He said, digging out his wallet and counting the appropriate amount of bills to cover their supper. “From now on the brooding and whining is reserved for me only.”
They made their way back in to the motel right in time to avoid the sudden downpour of water. It looked and sounded like a real storm was headed on their way.
“I want you to keep your front door locked. But leave the door of the bathroom open,” he instructed her. “Open. Closed but not locked,” he corrected hastily when she started to blush. She nodded and skipped through the bathroom to her room, closing the door. He waited for a moment, and when he couldn’t hear a peep from her started to undress. He felt wiped. Shower would have to wait until morning. He stared at the bed as he kept stripping off his clothes, letting them fall haphazardly to where he stood, not really caring if they got few extra wrinkles in the process. The pillow would probably be lumpy as hell. The mattress? Like a slab of fucking concrete. His skin was already crawling from the sight of the colorful blanket thrown on top of the bed. Then on the other hand, it was a bed and he was so fucking tired that it was a small wonder that he was able to function.
He was down to his jeans, actually his jeans were down at his ankles when the door of the bathroom opened and the girl peeked from the crack. “Good night, Professor Logan… Oops. Sorry.” The door slammed shut, and he could practically hear her blushing, the blood filling the veins at her face with sudden flush. “Good night, Mss. D’Ancanto!” He shouted through the door, biting his lip, trying not to laugh. Poor girl. She’d have hell of a time in adjusting to the unruly crowd of muties back at Xavier’s.
He stretched his back and cracked his neck, his eyes scanning the parking lot behind the window one last time before the siren’s call of the bed won and he crawled between the sheets that surprisingly smelled only slightly of detergent instead of anybody who had been sleeping at the bed earlier. He curled his arms around the pillow, rumpling it underneath him as comfortable as possible, curling slightly on his side and closed his eyes. Petty bickering and arguments through the day had drained him.
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