Here he was again, in this crazy and ridiculous predicament. How did he keep getting himself into these situations?
“Look honey, you look like a real charmer and all,” the girl said casting a dubious glance up and down Logan’s gruff form, her black hooded head bopping up and down as she observed him, “but, I need a truck and it sure as shit isn’t my problem that you caught me and I’m sorry but I don’t really have a choice here.”
The girl shrugged and smirked and Logan wondered why she was such a confident little thing, did she think he was just going to let her leave with his truck? He tentatively sniffed the air, he didn’t smell anyone else, did this little slip of a girl think she could take him?
“Hate to break it to ya but I really don’t care about you being stranded and I don’t have time for this, not move the hell outta the way!”
He was seriously loosing his patience, and truth be told there wasn’t one thing he had in his arsenal to address a frozen young girl, couldn’t threaten to call the cops currently they were looking for him. Heh, minor mishap between him and a Canadian Trooper, whoops. Couldn’t stab her full of holes, although her annoying attitude was gradually pushing the idea to the forefront of his mind.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk chivalry really is dead? Now what am I suppose to do about transportation if I don’t take your truck here? Temperature dropping, I’ll be a popsicle in a couple of hours.”
“I don’t know,” Logan said putting his hands on his hips two more minutes of this and he was picking up the runt by her collar, throwing her aside and high tailing it outta there.
Logan was seriously having déjà vu issues. If the next words out of this girls mouth were, “don’t know or don’t care” he was going to start looking around for the hidden camera’s. True this was not the way he’d originally met Marie, he’d discovered her packed away in his trailer. Marie had the common sense to be stealth and quite, well as quite as she could be sitting in the freezing trailer with nothing but a flimsy cloak and worn out tarp to keep her warm. Besides at least she’d semi-earned her favor. Only semi-earned though because the great and powerful Wolverine would have seen that bar tenders gun coming a mile away, Marie’s shout just gave him a highly lucrative heads up…that was all.
Besides this wasn’t that kind of situation, the girl in front of him wore gloves and boots and a leather jacket with a sweat shirt underneath, he wondered why she wasn’t freezing her ass off. She had no coat and this far north, a couple more miles and they’d be stepping into Alaskan territory, how did these crazy women find him?! This girl had literally been watching him all night in the bar, a good three hour event, between his first set of drinks, cage fighting and more drinking-to celebrate. Now she was out here, in the middle of a deserted parking lot, Logan had walked out to see her picking the lock on his truck, his new truck nonetheless. Something he’d been forced to invest in because Wolverine didn’t particularly like having to use his claws to cut his frozen nuts off the motorcycle’s seat, he winced just thinking about it.
Right now she was standing between him and the truck, cocky smirk on her face like she was going to really get out of this with his truck…why would she think that?
Logan sighed nosily the air falling out of his nostrils in little clouds reminding the girl in front of him of a big angry bull. She gulped slightly re-thinking her decision to wait so long before she stole his truck, but he’d been drinking all night! By now he should have been sleeping it off in the bar not coming out here to leave! How he wasn’t three sheets the wind yet she didn’t know.
“Look buddy, I think your funny and I kinda like you, I had my eye on ya all evening you did great in there champ,” she said the word with wicked vindictiveness and it wasn’t taken as a compliment, “but I’m getting cold out here and we can do this the easy way or the hard way and either way I don’t see you enjoying the outcome.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” She nodded sadly, throwing Logan a mock pout.
“See,” she continued, “on the one hand, I kick your ass and take your truck, clearly the hard way for both of us. One the other hand, I just take your truck, easier for me, less pain for you and,” she paused for dramatic affect and switched her voice over mimicking the sound of a game show host or a talk show host, “best of all no messy clean up!”
“Nough’ of this shit,” Logan huffed and moved toward the girl very intent on throwing her aside and driving off. Hey, he was in a good mood, he might even wave to her as he drove away while she froze her ass of in the snow.
No sooner had Logan gotten close enough to get a hand around the collar of her jacket that he smelled something distinctly hot, he sniffed a little confused, it almost smelled like the microwave when it was used to much, that plastic-ish heated smell. He looked down, the girl in front of him had a glowing yellow light coming out of the palm of her hand, and her hand was snuggly pressed against his chest.
“Ah shit.”
Those were the last words Logan got out of his mouth before he was sent flying-a good 20 feet out into the snow. He didn’t fly far and he wondered as his ass hit the cold ground, if the girl had done that intentionally to keep from killing him. After all, she didn’t know he had a healing factor. He sat up, snow drenched and shook his head like a big dog, knocking residual powder out of his hair, he looked up in time to see the head lights of his truck-she couldn’t have hotwired it that fast, his hands went to his pockets.
...............
“WHEN THE FUCK DID SHE GET MY KEYS!”
He screamed this to no one in particular and he was up in a flash, running towards his truck. He realized that the engine was stalling and for once he was actually happy with himself for not taking better care of his possessions-ha! Procrastination won the day! He heard the engine sputtering and trying desperately to turn over and kick on with no use. He was closing the distance between him and his truck, he was just a hands touch away from the bumper now and he was sore! His chest was healed already, but he could smell the scorched scent of his shirt and it was repugnant crawling up into his sensitive nose and choking him, this girl was going to pay.
As Logan go to the end of the truck the little traitor suddenly decided to work, and Logan just had enough time to hop up and into the bed of the pick up before she drove away, the truck was old and Logan was hoping she hadn’t heard the sound of his admantium laced body falling heavily into the truck because he wanted to surprise the little mutant.
Logan stayed down for a few minutes, catching his breath, he would have liked to have stayed back there longer but he figured he didn’t have a lot of time because she was driving through the main drag of town. If memory served correctly there were only two more traffic lights before she hit open road and then this far out, there wouldn’t be any signs or stops of any kind after that. Logan waited until the truck came to a halt before stepping up onto of the hood. He could hear her from inside the cab, she knew something was on the hood of the truck. He could hear her heart beat increasing, she let out a nervous gasp as he bent his body over the roof of the cab and reached for the handle of the passenger side door. He hadn’t bothered to lock it before he entered the bar, who was going to steal it up here in the boonies? The door remained unlocked, for which he was grateful and he dragged himself down from the top of the roof and swung into the passenger side seat. He dusted himself off and got comfortable before looking at the light ahead of them.
“Light just turned green girl, you better go.”
The girl for her part did everything short of falling down and dropping dead from shock. She wasn’t talking to Logan, but facing him, sitting in the driver seat and just staring at him wide eyed. Mouth hanging open and hands limply griping the steering wheel, she could hardly breathe.
“Hey you wanted to drive the truck now get going.”
His voice was more strict, authoritative even.
“But…but…I…you went down! I saw it!”
“Haha," Logan sat back in his seat chuckling lightly as he did, maybe he just attracted mutants ,"darlin let’s just say you ain’t the only one with gifts,” he looked her straight in the eyes and released his claws, “now drive,” he said pointing them at her.
And she did.
Deep in the dark halls of Xavier’s school for gifted mutants, flopping over haphazardly twisting into this position and that position trying to find her comfort zone, Rogue side wide-eyed and awake, frustrated beyond belief.
“Errrr.”
Rogue let out a frustrated little growl, why was falling asleep so hard? A sinuous little voice in her head whispered back, ‘because you miss him that’s why.’ Rogue knew who the little voice was referring to but she ignored it, this wasn’t fair anymore. It had taken her the whole long six months that Logan had been gone for Rogue to finally get a handle on the tingly feeling she got whenever thought of him. She would actually test herself, she would think of him and she would measure how big the drop in the pit of her stomach was. Slowly it had dwindled, shrunk down to nothing and she was able to think of Logan with…longing yes, but also with a feeling of contentment because Rogue had his dog tags-he may not come back to her but he would come back for those. She knew why Logan was so fresh floating around her mind, it was because of his postcard.
The infamous aloof Logan had sent Rogue a postcard and she couldn’t believe he’d done it. He must have made it all the way to Alaska because the picture he’d sent her was of Alaska, of the Northern Lights and it was post dated from three weeks ago. Lord above only knew where he was now, but for a mere instance in time, just for a second, Logan had looked at this postcard and thought of her. Thought of her enough to purchase it and take his hand to it writing her a real message for her eyes only. She knew it was silly but more thrilling then getting the post card was the knowledge that while Logan was thousands of miles away…he had thought of her for at least a ten minute period of time as he wrote the message on her card. That alone sent a little shiver through Rogue because it fueled her imagination and combined with the Logan in her mind whew doggy! That made for some damn good dreams, dreams she’d love to be tortured by with their elusiveness, if she could ever fall asleep to see them.
The card was simple just a couple of lines, but enough to make Rogue itch with the want of Logan to be back from
the cold northern hemisphere.
Hey Kid,
Be back soon, thought you’d like to see this, I know how you love Alaska.
Be good, keep your nose clean…I hope everything’s going good for you. Be Safe.
Logan