4. Lost and Lonely - Logan
On my way home now, or have I left my home. I don’t know, it’s confusing these days. I spend as much time in the cabin as I can, my own hideaway from the madness. Its small, but it suits my needs. Though its amazing what you get used to.
Most people think of craziness as a hard day at work or two many customers to cope with. Me, a crazy day is strapping on a leather all-in-one, flying around in a high-class jet that not even the military know about and getting my ass handed back to me by an old guy in a cape!
But Chuck understands, the rest of the team understands, to be honest I don’t care if they don’t, sometimes I need the break. A mansion full a brats makes my ears hurt, especially the girls, screeching and giggling all the god damn time. Why, do teenage girls do that, screech when they’re exited and hug each other, there is no need to hug someone and jump up and down on the spot screaming just because some guy in some band will be on the damn TV. Women are creatures I will never understand, maybe that’s why I like em so much.
But I have to be nice to all of them here, to an extent that doesn’t damage my reputation anyway, because I’m their teacher, their mentor, their trainer. I’m the guy that makes sure when the shit hits the fan, they don’t get fried, or dead. Its coming, eventually, it will all come to a head and my kids, Xavier’s kids, they are the ones who will have the best chance. Almost makes me proud.
I guess Xavier’s has been my home, the cabin is just my refuge from the noise and the smell that’s caused by a mansion full of hormonal teenage mutants. Bad enough they have to cope with puberty, but throw in having to control some weird power that is most likely dangerous, and its worse, a lot worse. I can’t help thinking what Marie would think of me if she knew about me, or the kids I teach. I feel for them, the kids, and sigh with relief that I can’t remember going threw it myself. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like. I somehow know that I grew up in Canada, but that’s all I can ever come up with.
Canada, that’s where I come to breathe. Nothing in the whole world smells like Canada, clean, fresh and always knew. The winter comes and clears away the dirty air and once it’s rolled through to the summer, it’s all pure again. Snow seems to be able to do that, glass over everything, make every day clean.
I come up here around twice a year, take my frustrations out in the fight bars along the way north and live of the proceeds till its time to go back to being a responsible member of the X-Men, now that would be a fun conversation. ‘Hey Marie, by the way, I’m a superhero’, ha, not gonna happen!
Years ago I woke up in the middle of a building site, or wreckage, never sure which. There was a French guy and a dead girl. I’ve never figured out who either of them were, I took off when I heard the sirens coming. Her face still appears in my sleep sometimes. I can’t place her. It kills me that she could have been someone, the someone, but I just don’t know.
I ran, ran here to this clean open space, somehow I knew its where I needed to be. Took me nearly two years of living like a scared animal, in a rat hole to realise that I had to carry on. Not something I talk about, not something I’m proud of. I wandered onto an Indian reservation, a proper one. Good people, they gave me back some semblance of myself and put me back into the world. That’s another reason to go up to Canada, I have to pay my respects to the elders.
I’ve never really been a fan of responsible. Not till I met this kid in the streets, living on the edge so to speak. She got herself into trouble, a lot of trouble, I helped, reluctantly at fist, then we both found our way to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Stupid thing to say, but she’s more of a friend than anyone else. She tells it to me straight, no bullshit from Jubilee. That reminds me, I better pick her something up on the way home, or I’ll get my ass busted. Even though she’s nineteen, she likes it that I don’t forget my straight talking buddy.
Lots of things I never thought much about before I got there. Like being with someone. I look at jean and Scott, well actually I try not to, but it bugs the hell outta Scott thinking I’m watching his wife. She is hot and if push came to shove, it would be hard to say no, but tell ya the truth she’s a little too up tight for me, I like a women who can let go a little, a little less polished, a little less false. Just like a that little southern thing I left in Canada. Anyway, I’m not watching her I’m watching them. They’re happy, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get that, but then I’m not sure I would be good for anyone, sure as hell don’t think I’m good enough for Marie. She is so honest, I wouldn’t even have to use my senses on that girl, you can just tell in her body language that she couldn’t lie. Don’t know if she would even want to try and put up with me.
Most of the time I ain’t very social, Jubilee calls me a grumpy old bastard, which I am. I bet she would want a man to talk, be attentive and romantic. I’ve never really been in the situation before, but I can’t see how I would be any good at that stuff. I mean I’ve had relationships, haven’t lasted long, but I’ve had em. And sex, well, I’m rarely tender. I don’t usually make love so to speak, I like it hard, I like to fuck and that’s about it. It would take a lot to change an old dog like me. Fuck, it would take a miracle.
Then of course there’s the other side of me. The side that likes to walk into a bar like Marie’s and see that there’s a fight already going, listen to the noise, smell the fresh blood, sweat and aggression. All those combined give me a bit of a kick, all I need to do after that is get laid. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t some sick bastard that gets off on hurting people, but I have a demon to feed. A demon hidden inside, the animal in me and he likes it, a little more than he should, a little more than could possibly be healthy because sometimes I like it too. He has basic needs, let the aggression out, smell their blood when they fall and feel a woman submit to him. Thankfully, I’m the one running the show and he gets his kicks out of what I choose to give him, not the carnage he’d really like to cause.
I push through the night to try and clear my head, I’m slipping into my usually thing of self-hatred, I can feel it. I know what I am, I just try not to think about it too much, cause it makes me feel kinda shit about myself, which I deserve. That’s why I’m an unsociable bastard, people just don’t get what’s lurking under the surface and they wouldn’t want to. A girl like her doesn’t need that, no one needs that. I ain’t safe, I ain’t reliable and I ain’t a real man, I’m just living. Just.
Large iron gates that are at least 50 years old swing open without so much as a creak to let me into the mansion grounds. Home, definitely home. The snow coverage got less and less the further away from Canada I got, here, in New York its still cold, but it hasn’t snowed yet. It will at Christmas, if not naturally by Storm’s means, the kids love a white Christmas.
It felt like a long ride, longer than usual. My mind was somewhere else. On someone else. That damn girl. She keeps creeping into my thoughts and some of them aren’t that decent. She’s just so different. Like she can appreciate life, take what’s thrown at her and make the best of it no matter what. Don’t get me wrong the women around here, Jean, Storm and the others they appreciate life, but they, have a tendency to moan about things.
Its late afternoon and there are students around, some playing outside in the cold, others, more sensible ones are inside finishing the last of their classes. Some pass me, some say hi, some scurry away which makes me chuckle. I know them all, by sight and by scent. Each and everyone in the building, I know them all. Just like I know Marie’s now.
Reaching my room I don’t have much time to myself before my door it swung off its hinges and my arms are full of a little Chinese firework. “You’re a day early, what happened someone’s husband run you outta town?”
I put her back on her feet and chuckle. She is nineteen in a couple of months, she beautiful, sexy and more trouble that a rattler in a jar. “Very funny. No, I just skipped a night, drove through.” I shrug, the truth is I wanted to put some distance between me and Marie, less chance I would turn back and do something stupid like kiss her and tell her all my secrets. “Felt like it. You kept outta trouble?”
She smiles. “Trouble? Mr Wolverine sir, I am the *picture* of innocence!”
“Yeah, sure you are sparky. What’dya do this time?”
There’s a small crack as blue gum escapes from her mouth in a bubble and pops. “Nothing that Bobby won’t be able to paint over.”
“Paint over? Jubilee…”
“Don’t worry about it Wolve-meister. I got it covered. Now what ya get me?”
I shrug again. “Who says I got ya anything.” But my attempt at putting her off doesn’t work and she pokes my side. “Fine, fine,” I rummage in my bag and pass her a small paper bag. “Here.”
She opens the bag and smiles at me, a real one, not the fake patronising happiness she gives everyone else. “Mills and Boon. Thank you.”
I get a quick squeeze before she’s back to reading the back of the small paperback. “Don’t know why you can’t buy them round here.”
Another smack of gum, Jesus that gets irritating after a while. “Well, you can, but only the new ones. The really good ones are the old ones that are out of print and you can’t get anywhere. Well except for Canada, whose book collection is apparently 15 years behind everyone else.” And thanks to me she has quite a collection.
I smile and start to unpack my stuff and give her a mock salute. “Glad to be of service.”
Flopping down on my bed she looks at me funny and then frowns. “Hey, are you okay, you’re kinda quite. Well, more quite than your usual grumpy bastard self.”
“I’m fine. Tired.”
“Bull! You don’t get tired dude.” She points at my head. “What’s going on in there.” She clicks her fingers and sends a little spark above my head, it spins into the shape of a question mark then it goes out with a series of little fizzes and pops.
A growl escapes, she knows I hate that sulpha smell and the fizzing lights flash on my sensitive eyes for ages after. “I’m fine.” I growled that, a normal person would leave after that, but she’s still sat there.
She suddenly smiles. “Oh no you don’t, you can’t fool me, you met someone didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“Canada is bigger than you think, I meet a lotta people.”
“Oh very dry, you can’t bull me Logan. I can read you like a book, and I don’t need no fancy swanky senses like Miss Grey to do it!” She crosses her bare legs on the end of my bed and bounces with excitement. I don’t get it, I can lie to Charles Xavier, who can read minds, but I can’t lie to an eighteen-year-old girl. A fucking girl!
I sigh. “Okay, I met someone, but it didn’t go anywhere and its not gonna.”
“I knew it!” My ears hurt now. “Tell me, is she pretty, uh, okay stupid question. What’s her name?”
“Jubilee…”
I rub my hand over my face, I am tired, tired of thinking. “Jubilee, dude that’s kinda sick, wanting to boink someone with the same name as me! Oh, I see, this girl really got to you didn’t she. She must be special.”
A little smile escapes. “She is/was, I dunno. Marie, her names Marie, slight like you, but curvy you know. Brown hair, about a ton of it with this white flash down the front that’s kinda weird, but… not. She’s pretty, not mind numbingly beautiful, but really pretty, which sometimes is better I think. Fuck, I don’t know, she’s different, just a normal girl.”
“Like human, normal?”
“Yeah. Not likely she’s gonna wanna a freak with a set of steak knives 9 inches up his arms.” I sit heavily on the end of the bed.
“Well, she could, you never know she may have always wanted a one-man BBQ set, in which case, your in.”
I smile, to some that would have sounded like an insult, but from her, I know its her being cheeky and cheering me up. “You never know. Now scram, I wanna take a shower and I don’t need an audience.”
She gets up and laughs. “You sure, I could do with the cheap thrill.”
I shake my head and shove her out the door. “If you want a cheap thrill go find ice-boy, I’m too expensive darlin’!”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
No beta again. All mistakes my own, thank you for the kind FB guys!