Everything I need
Around me is You. That means
You are my Hold, but spinning
Me in circles.
We can only be described
In truth, spinning circles.
Man and woman
Until the carousel stops
Holding on Fast.
(Kleine Welt Runde, by Anton Leitner)
I waited patiently. Logan hadn't said a word since he arrived. I hadn't uttered a word either. I opened and closed the door, barely meeting his tentative glances. It was his turn to make the first step. And I had screamed all I wanted the last time he stood in our apartment.
"I'm sorry."
Such a simple sentence. I knew my defense faded into nothingness with these two words. I had no strategy against "I'm sorry."
There had been many fights over the last ten years. So many discussions. So many arguments. I had thought I had been given the opportunity to be prepared for any and every occasion going through these fights. Just not for this. I had never imagined Logan sinking to his knees looking forlorn and broken. For Logan would never bare his soul if he had any hopes left. I had expected a lot of different takes on this particular domestic scene. We had played them all some time, some place, mirroring each other with coldness and passion. Another quarrel, another round of deafening silence, another year of absence. Another chance left for me.
What I wasn't prepared for was finality, was honesty. And ironically I got exactly what I feared and what I desired most in the gloomy hours before dawn. I had pictured him across the room, leaning against the door frame with his trademarked 'I don't give a fuck' smirk planted on his face. Seemingly careless ripping my defiance, my arguments apart. I had imagined him to avoid the topic at all cost, relaxed on our bed, chiding me for questioning experience and self declared immortality. Seducing me into giving in. I had been so sure what to say, what to scream, what to whisper. For hours I had obsessed over the perfect sneer, a superior air that would allow me to gain control for once. Control over my reactions to his cruelty or nonchalance.
But I wasn't prepared for a beaten man kneeling beneath my feet. A plea burning in his hazel eyes that he would never voice. I couldn't indulge in his pain, this was hurting me as much as him. Of course I had wanted to punish him, to give him a taste of my daily ordeal. I only hadn't thought that he would actually suffer this time. But he had.
I could see tremors on his face, guiding a mask of pain onto his features. There was nobody who could do guilt as beautiful and frightening as the Wolverine. Logan might lack experience in using the emotional weaponry built for human interaction, but he had the basics perfected. At the moment he had himself cocooned into the safety of a guilt trip. I wouldn't be allowed to crack into this shell where there was no hope, only hurt.
Once I asked him about this place and if he was safe there from me, from my words. He had smiled then and answered that I had been the one that built this hell for him in the first place. He had learned all about it from me. There's probably no excuse for hurting each other the way we do, but we keep on with it.
Why?
Maybe because I didn't get what I had hoped for in my romanticism.
I got sex.
Maybe because with bedding me Logan had got more than he bargained for. He had been given love.
Maybe we hurt so much because we both needed emotional pain to feel alive at last.
I sank on my knees in front of him, not being able to stand looming over him a second longer. His eyes were wandering, he wasn't able to meet my gaze. Perhaps he had forgotten that I was with him. Talking would probably make everything worse.
Didn't he know that I would never leave him for real? That I simply couldn«t do that to him, to myself?
"I'm sorry."
His voice was strained, rough beyond recognition. I could feel his tone carving into my bones, for Logan was not sounding like my lover, my friend, my warrior. He was lacking all the warmth, all that fire that usually thickens his tone. I didn't know the man speaking to me with such broken passion. I didn«t know the man kneeling submissive on the floor in our, in his own apartment, just opposite from me, but worlds apart from all I knew of him. I had barely glimpsed at this wounded soul, once in the aftermath of a battle, when we lost Kurt to Stryker. Another time I saw him in my lover`s eyes when our discovery of the Genoshian Lab and a certain file broke into the mystery that was his past. And I felt him pouring into me one night in New York City.
Logan was pale, thin and I asked myself if he'd eaten since I saw him last. Didn't a healing power take care of telltale circles beneath dull hazel eyes? Didn't his mutation preserve him from shaking of exhaustion? I felt nauseated when thoughts of self inflicted mutilations chased through my mind. It wouldn't be the first time I did that to him.
Logan was waiting for me to respond, his trembling head still bowed. I should have probably said something, but in between my broken heart and my anger I was still mute. His shivering was awfully close to body convulsions. I didn't wish to see them. They reminded me that this humble approach was dictated by me. My cruel intentions shattered his dignity. Or what was left of it.
I should have known that he would believe my every word when I raged on him in the aftermath of the X-Men's latest battle. Too wounded by his suffocating protection that has yet to be equaled by any declaration of love I had told Logan in no uncertain terms that we were finished. Through with playing relationship on the "Wolverine-terms."
Through with his warped form of no ties, no strings. I had wanted to have forever. Or at least a promise of that. In between our rescue missions of straying mutant kids and fighting against Mr. Evil-of-the-week I had grown tired of our routine. Each day I faced my own mutation, walked through nightmarish fights and survived the invasion of my soul by a variety of psychopaths. I followed orders often enough against my own belief, living always in the shadow of the mutants who could control their "gifts". And for ten years I loved a man who took my efforts for granted. With the addition of Carol Danvers to my psycho circus it had all become too much and I had leashed out at the one person whose buttons I could press with closed eyes.
I guess it was alright to start crying then. I had felt the threatening of tears since Logan stumbled through the door in the middle of the night. I tried to wipe away the tears but it didn't work. They kept on falling. When the first sob escaped my throat Logan paled beyond ashen grey and I asked myself vaguely if one could pass out from emotional shock. He stopped his shiver regarding my rocking body through weary eyes. Time seemed frozen as my sobbing echoed through our dark apartment. Suddenly there was movement around me, heat burning away the coldness that had crept into me without me noticing it. I knew it was Logan's body comforting me in a language that left no room for interpretation or misunderstanding. He had cradled me, trying to sooth me, murmuring words he would never say aloud.
"Shh, it's all right... shh... I'm here ..."
I could not stop crying, trying to leave his arms.
"Stop it ... shh ... never gonna leave ya ... when ya throw me out, I come back ..."
My frantic retreat from Logan's embrace was halted effortlessly.
"Look at me, please?"
He forced my chin up and our eyes met. Grabbing my trembling body he lifted me up and wandered through the dark living room, up the stairs and into our bedroom. He laid me down gently and stretched out with me on the bed.
"I'm so sorry."
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea culpa maxima. I felt thrown back to my childhood, when salvation came through three confessions. Dark churches and Saints formed from stone sneaked into my consciousness. Golden light had illuminated the martyr's sacrifice in the name of the Lord. The South had not only given me a honey drawl, but profound knowledge of the machinery of guilt trips. It hurt to accept that I was at fault too. It hurt so much.
Logan never made the decision for me to fall for him. I am responsible for my own heart, I am not a kid needing protection anymore. He might be older, more experienced and has been my knight with adamantium claws, but I fell in love with him ten years ago. We had started with a significant misunderstanding.
He had wanted sex.
I had wanted a relationship.
But all dreams of eternal love and childhood fantasies of white weddings could never compete with the terror that would mean losing Logan. At that moment I felt mature enough to accept that I couldn«t demand forever from a man who was never taught to believe in anything lasting. With my harsh words I had even taken his hopes in the possibility of that great unknown territory called permanent attachment.
Through my fault. Through my fault. Through my most grievous fault. The roles had changed again. Carefully I snuggled closer in his arms. His eyes were closed for the moment, but he stroked down my spine comfortingly. Like he always did when nightmares of foreign lives stole my breath and kept me waking. My tears wet his chest, but I could exhale without sobbing again. I felt almost elevated, pouring out of my own skin. Lifting Logan's chin with my gloved hand and feeling a hot wetness trickle through the cloth, I made my decision. His eyes were opened again, almost black with need in the dim light of our bedroom.
"Why are you sorry Logan?"
The sensual movements at my back stopped suddenly. But there was still no answer as Logan turned on his back. He lay completely frozen beside me, staring at the ceiling. I forced myself back into his arms, listening to his heartbeat. He didn't resist, but I wasn't too sure whether he registered me in his arms.
The morning came eventually. I watched the gentle games of the sun's rays forming patterns on the walls as the sun became visible through the bedroom's only window. I turned my head to look at Logan who hadn't moved the entire night. His eyes were still opened, not blinking. Ever so slowly I reached up and brushed my gloved hand over his mouth.
"I'm all right... I'm sorry." came his automatic reply. He shifted beneath me and pulled me closer.
With that my tears started flooding again. Why did we always end up hurting each other? I lifted myself and put us face to face. Teardrops wet his face. Mine, his, who knew? Who wanted to know? Tears and sweat bleed into one on his grey skin. He probably hadn't slept for days.
I hated to see him this weak. Loving him did hurt enough, I didn't need to add worrying over his well being to my heartache. And I didn't need to hurt, because I could have him in my arms if I dared to count on the future. Nobody ever said loving was easy. I could live with "I'm sorry", because I knew what he meant with that phrase. "Sorry Rogue, that I can't give you what you want. That I can't love you like you want me to." But we had stayed in this cycle of hurt and comfort for ten years now and I was ready to go on. We didn«t have to part, because even if Logan didn't love me, didn't know how to love me, he indeed needed me.
And that was a basis I could work with.
I could love Logan without having the infinity for it. As long as I knew he would eventually come home, I would wait for him. I could make a commitment to my lover without his reciprocation. Hell, I had been committed since the first day he made love to me. I could do forever on my own, no need for promises on his side.
"No Logan. I'm the one sorry. I didn't mean a word I said. But you already know that, don't you."
I smiled at him gently, urging him up. There was still so much dignity in his tensed frame. In his movements. Insecure about my own reasons, I just held him. In his arms I could stop hurting.
Someday in the distant future I will ask Logan to lend me a heart back. Today and tomorrow and the day after that I can go on with the shattered pieces of my own heart. But one day loving him won«t be enough. Maybe that day I will be loved by Logan. Maybe that is the day I will have to let him go. Until then I won't.
*Fin*
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Story Notes:
Thank you to Victoria for reading a draft of this story and saying it was a good idea and a very big thank you to Patricia for the beta and the vote of confidance;) All remaining mistakes are mine. For Leska and Evamaria. You both know why.