Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended.
JITTERS
CHAPTER FOUR: DON’T YOU WANT ME, BABY?
Fuck.
Fist and claws made contact with the wall.
Fuckity fuck.
The other fist made contact, knocking one of the pictures of the Sacred Heart askew and sending plaster flying.
Fuckity, Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
The picture of the Virgin Mary went too, along with a watercolour of an old jazz concert from 1932. And a statue of someone Logan suspected was Saint Anthony.
Jubes snickered, waggling her eyebrows at him.
Logan took a deep breath. Stopped beating up the nasty wall.
Because as a general rule he didn’t beat up things that couldn’t fight back against him-
And also, more importantly, Marie was staring at him like he was outta his mind.
Logan sighed then, stepping away from his… opponent. Trying to look nonchalant, like there was nothing at all weird about him pummelling the shit outta an inanimate object as soon as he met an old friend. Said old friend having shot him a knowing grin and then wandered off to talk business with some guys even Logan thought looked rough. Marie opened her mouth to ask him what the Hell he was doing, but he merely shrugged, began fussing with a shot glass behind the bar. Going to pour himself a shot of whiskey, then of gin, then of bourbon. The amused look Jubes was shooting him doing nothing to help his sense of Zen. Because he was pissed, dammit: That bastard LeBeau had taken one look at Marie and he could practically see the lurid, Dear Penthouse fantasies playing in his head. It was so wrong: Marie wasn’t the kinda girl you treated like a, a- what was that phrase Kitty was always using? Oh yeah- like a sex object. She just wasn’t. She was beautiful and wonderful and absolutely not the kinda person you screwed on a pool table-
At least, not unless you were him.
Cos if you were him, well then it was okay. Since he loved her and he’d take care o’ her and if it was him then it meant that she wasn’t having hot monkey sex on the nearest flat surface with the biggest man-whore in New Orleans-
Which was, needless to say, an eventuality which must be prevented at all costs.
So Logan growled, took a shot of whiskey. Remembered that oft-seen look the Cajun had shot Marie: It was the same look he’d seen him shoot a hundred nameless girls over the years, and not a one of ’em had ever heard from him after he’d gotten what he wanted. Not that that had ever bothered Logan before now. But with Marie it was different; she was different. She was His Girl, and His Girl didn’t get hurt if he could help it. That’s what the claws were fer. Besides Gambit didn’t do the long haul: He was strictly in the good time- Okay, judging by the amount of repeat traffic he saw make that the great time- business, a fact that insured that one way or another Marie would get her heart torn to Hades-
And that being the case, it was obviously his duty as her friend and protector to tell her just what a bike Remy LeBeau actually was. To point out the danger, as it were. And also to show her (while he was at it) that he too could do sensitive and caring-
In, ya know, a badass sort of a way.
So Logan cleared his throat. Poured out a shot of bourbon- It was Marie’s favourite- and pushed it over the bar towards her. Poured one out fer himself too and gestured fer her to join him on a stool. By this time Jubes was biting the inside of her cheek from trying to control her giggles, everything about her expression and her scent telling Logan she knew exactly where his head was at.
Needless to say it made him tetchy as Hell.
“I’ll just see if there’s somewhere to put my stuff,” the firecracker told him then, backing away from the bar.
“But you can join us,” Marie pointed out.
“Uh-huh,” Jubes snorted, “I could, but I won’t do…”
And with that she scooted away, her laughter trailing behind her. The knowing look she’d shot Logan not helping him concentrate at all. The feral watched her go, all his famous bravado apparently going with her: Fer the first time in years he felt tongue-tied, not sure how to approach this. Of course, he told himself that Jubilee being there woulda been all kinds of awkward. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that having her as a referee would have been a real good idea. Not that he’d have admitted it in a million years-
A beat.
“Nice place he has here,” Marie began then, staring at her shot glass. She was holding the amber liquid an inch away from her mouth, letting it cool those luscious lips. Logan had never been so jealous of a beverage in his life.
“Yeah,” he muttered gruffly, “He did well after the Big Storm. Got lucky- one of the only places barely even hit.” Logan had plenty o’ theories about why that was but he kept ’em to himself; Last thing he needed was to make Marie more curious about Gambit than she already was.
“You don’t think he was offended Ah snapped at him, do ya?” she asked, blushing. “With the whole “armed,” thing?”
He rolled his eyes. “I think Remy’d forgive a pretty girl anything,” he grumbled.
She lit up like a Goddamn Christmas tree. “So you reckon he thinks Ah’m pretty?”
“Fuck no!”
Oops.
Suddenly the temperature in the room dropped about fifty degrees, the atmosphere turning practically Canadian despite the smothering Southern heat. “So let me get this straight,” she drawled, eyes narrowed. “You’re saying Ah’m not pretty?”
Kill me now. “No, Marie,” Logan muttered edgily, “That’s not what I meant-”
“Then what did you mean?”
Logan could feel something that smelt a lot like panic clawing at him. “I meant that you’re just not his type-”
“And what’s his type?”
His expression turned sour. “Not you.”
Something real angry passed across her lovely face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” he snarled, “That you’re a nice girl Marie, and not some two-dollar skank who’d put her ankles behind her ears fer a few words o’ bullshit French on a dance-floor-”
Fury exploded through her scent. “So just cos Ah’m not the sorta woman you like Remy won’t like me either?” she demanded.
What the Hell? “No,” Logan retorted, “I’m just saying that you can do better than that asshole and we both know it-”
“And what if Ah don’t wanna do better?”
“What’s that supposed t’mean?”
Now her face was in his. “It means,” she hissed, “That just because you think Ah should live like a nun doesn’t mean Ah want to. It means that just cos you don’t think Ah’m a grownup don’t mean Ah’m a little girl.” She stood up, eyes flashing, jabbing a finger inta his chest with each word she uttered. Heat radiating through his skin with every point of contact, the urge to shut her up using only his mouth and tongue and tonsils suddenly over-powering in that hot, sticky room. “Ah’m a grown woman, Logan,” she was saying, “And if Ah’m old enough to be an X-Man and Ah’m old enough to live on mah own then Ah’m old enough to sleep with whoever Ah Goddamn please- Not that you’ve ever given much thought to what Ah might want in a man.” And she shook her head, the image of all those clean-cut boys, all those smooth-looking, smooth-talking assholes just like Remy standing between them. The thought of it making Logan wanna skewer so bad he could practically taste it. Practically smell it in the air. Fer a beat she glared angrily inta his eyes, heat flashing between ’em- And then just as suddenly she looked away. Gaze on her shoes, fight gone outta her. Something in him twisted at the sight.
“Ah only want a little comfort now and then,” she was saying more quietly now, “Is that so much to ask? Or do you really find it so impossible to believe someone would want me-?” The chocolate brown eyes gazed imploringly at him.
“Of course someone wants you, Marie-” I want you, I love you-
“Then why am Ah alone shuggah?” She save a bitter laugh. “Why am Ah still alone in mah bed?”
And with that she pulled away.
Slipped outta Logan’ reach, scent suddenly melancholy. No, scratch melancholy: Make that embarrassed as Hell. All that spitfire anger disappearing as if it had never been there. Stammering and blushing taking their place. Without another word she ran from the room, spine stiff and straight as queen Victoria’s. The sight of it making Logan frown-
While in the hall outside a returning Jubes watched Roguey’s departure. Peeked in to find Logan muttering angrily to himself and glaring so hard at the bar she was surprised it hadn’t burst into flames. The firecracker shook her head and pulled out her cell-phone, flicking it open and hitting speed-dial: Clearly this was an emergency.
“Chica,” she announced when it picked up, “We have a problem.”
And rolling her eyes she explained to Kitty and Pete what Logan had done- this time.
“We’ll be there in five,” Pryde said.