Before: Five Months Ago

Air conditioning. It’s a marvel. One that Logan doesn’t think he’s ever given enough credit to, but now, now as he crosses the threshold into the mansion and is assaulted with cold waves of air, he thinks he might just have to build the contraption a shrine.

Hell, right now, he doesn’t even mind the tinny, mechanical odor the thing pumps into the place. He’ll take that over the smell of the too-warm rubber that is burned into his sinuses, courtesy of long hours spent on a bike baking on the roadway.

For once, Logan can’t wait to get indoors. His internal thermostat telling him that it’s just a few degrees shy of the sun outside, with no sign of relief in the air. One would think that with a weather goddess living in their midst, the residents of Chuck’s Home for Wayward Mutants wouldn’t have to put up with a heat-wave in June.

One would be wrong.

So instead, the sun continues to beat down unmercifully on Westchester, New York, and Logan finds himself peeling a sweat soaked jacket from his body. Eager to get it away from him. He glances up the long length of stairs, and finds that he is less eager to make the trek to his room. Even for the promise of a shower. It’s been a long few weeks, and the rec area is only a few steps away - and with it, the promise of creature comforts that don’t exist in nickel and dime motels.

He shucks his over-shirt off him as well, still blistering with the left over heat from outside, leaving him in just a tank and wondering what the hell he was thinking dressing in layers that morning. The jacket and shirt find a home on a nearby hook - God help anyone that goes near the things - and he makes his way into the rec room, and over to the sofa.

Despite the time, or perhaps because of it (Are classes over yet for the year? Logan’s not sure...) the halls, and common areas, are free of kids, and adults. Bathing the place in temporary silence, broken only by the obnoxious ticking of the grandfather clock up the hall.

He lets his body fall, an ungraceful heap, into the sofa. Eyes closed, and head arched, utilizing the back of the sofa to prop his neck up; not bothering to turn the television on. (There’s never anything good on during the day.) One of the buildings many vents blows air out from overhead, and across his scalp. He relishes it. Enjoying the way the sweat on his skin freezes up, and chills him. Lolling him into a doze.

Several minutes tick on by before a creak in the floorboard by the door makes him stiffen, but the rich scent accompanying it calms him. He stays seated. Relaxing once more. Letting the intruder come closer. At her own pace. No threat there.

“Welcome back.” Marie’s warm, southern drawl pulls his attention from the back of his eyelids in enough time to watch her curl her body onto the cushion beside him. Carefully arranging her limbs up under her in a pose that makes his joints ache at the prospect. How the hell can that be comfortable?

She presses an amber bottle - slick with its own sweat, cap already removed - into his hand. A part of him, one that he’ll never give voice to, growls approvingly at the gesture. No matter how often, or for how long he is gone, he can always count on her to make him feel like he belongs. Like him coming back really is something she welcomes. Like he matters.

The fact that she can do it with just a beer and her presence is a little disconcerting, so he doesn’t dwell.

He grunts in thanks and takes a long draw, appreciating the cool, familiar taste. She graces him with a tiny smile before raising her own bottle in a mock toast, and sipping it with much more delicacy than he did his.

Lifting a brow, he eyeballs the label that clearly reads ‘Molson’ on her bottle - the same as his - and prods her. “Musta been gone longer than I thought.”

“Hmm?”

He gestures to the beer in her hand. “Last I checked, you weren’t twenty-one.”

She raises an eyebrow in a mirror of his own, and the urge to smile wide is damn hard to repress. “Never stopped me before.”

And that does bring a smile, he can’t fault her there. The number of times they’ve settled into a routine similar to this over the last three years, is uncountable. But always, they were behind closed doors - or in some other location altogether - where discovery via Cyke or one of his Scouts was unlikely. Not in the middle of the day in the rec room. “Yeah, but you don’t usually advertise it. What gives?”

She spins a lock of white hair around her finger, before sliding it behind her ear, revealing the pale column of her throat - which Logan does his best to ignore. “Nothin’ really.” The corner of her mouth curls up in a smile bordering on devious, and a flash of warmth spreads through his limbs, despite the air conditioning. “‘Cept Scott and Storm are at a pickup in Nevada, and Jean and the Professor have been holed up most of the day makin’ adjustments to Cerebro, or somethin’. And most of the kids are down by the pool with the my Beta Team compatriots.”

He snorts, knowing damn good and well that her not being down by the pool has less to do with her skin, and more to do with her wanting time away from the screaming masses. Still, it begs the question... “Thought this was a school, don’t they still teach around here?”

“Lo-gan.” The way his name rolls off her tongue, like she is simultaneously scolding him and laughing at him, is something only she can get away with. Anyone else’d get a claw in the gut for taunting him like that. “Classes ended two weeks ago, ’s nearly July.”

He gives a noncommittal grunt. Keeping the school’s schedule in his head isn’t something he bothers with. No point. Least, not since she graduated. She knows that just as well as he does. He comes and goes as he pleases, doing jobs for Chuck when he’s around - occasionally covering one of Cyke’s pitiful excuses for self-defense classes - but not staying put for long enough to earn his professor’s cap.

Damn good thing too. The kids ‘round here wouldn’t know what him ‘em if he was in charge.

Now he pays more attention to when Marie’s on break from college, and when her own exams come around. Last time he was here was final season for her, and she’d been stressed to all hell.

A night at a local pool hall, one that knows better than to card someone walking in with Logan, took care of that. Damn good time, and they made some decent cash that night too. Girl wasn’t a bad hustler. Thanks in part to the Logan in her head, he’s sure, but also due in part to the southern charm she could lay on. Thicken that accent and tilt her head - threw the drunkards for a loop. Helluva lot a fun to watch. In fact, he’s thinking a revisit might be in order. Welcome back, party of two.

Her smile turns playful, like she’s on the same page as him (and knowing her, she probably is) and she nudges his bare shoulder with her fully clothed one. “‘Sides, I’ll be twenty-one in six months. Need to start prepping my liver. Wouldn’t wanna get alcohol poisoning on my birthday.”

“No, wouldn’t want that.”

“Take all the fun outta it.”

“That it would, Darlin’.” She angles herself back away from him, her face tilting down towards the bottle clasped in her hands. Long fingers encased in dark green fabric pick at the label, peeling it away in stops and starts; little pieces of paper dropping in balls to her lap. Something in her scent changes, moves from the sweet whiskey of a content Marie - the one that he had been happily bathing in like a lap dog since her arrival - to a duller, worried one. Apprehensive. And he doesn't like that. Not one bit. “What’s eatin’ ya, Kid?”

She shrugs, and takes another sip - longer this time - eyes closed, and head titled back. The action, simple as it is, highlights the curve of her neck in a way that has his thoughts veering off in an unexpected direction. He’s been on the road too long, and he’s certain that if it weren’t for his healing factor, he would have passed out from heat exhaustion hours before he made it to I-9.

Dehydration. Over-taxed systems. Exhaustion. Insanity.

They’re the only explanations he can think of for why watching her throat move as she swallows the liquid down causes a growing urge to taste the skin there. Makes him want to trail the flat of his tongue along the expanse, and taste the gathered moisture at the divot where neck meets shoulder. The wave of lust is as sudden, and fierce, and it is unwanted. It makes his fingers clench around the bottle, and the arm of the couch. Causes an itching between his knuckles; and a heat, wholly unrelated to the weather, to fill him.

It takes some effort, but he manages to shake himself from the instinctual reaction that clamors to the front of his brain. Represses the desire that has no place here. Nothing good can come from those sort of thoughts, he knows.

“Did ya find anything this time?”

And if ever there was a bucket of ice-water, there it was right there. Nothing better than a reminder of the most recent batch of Weapon X files he was able to uncover, thanks to the most recent link to his past that Chuck had acquired. This packet came complete with surveillance photos - some shitty-ass quality, others in bright high-definition color - and all of them of things he was better off not having seen. It was enough to make him want to stop looking.

Well. Almost.

He looks at her again, letting his eyes linger on her wide, bright ones. Nothing but frank, honest concern - for him - in their depths. And he knows that he isn’t quite done looking. Not yet. She has so much faith in him - so much trust - and he wants to believe that it’s well placed. It gives him the thinnest thread of hope. Something more than just curiosity to keep him looking.

“Nothin’ good, Marie. Nothin’ good.”

She holds his gaze, her head tilting to the side slowly as she takes him in. If it was anyone else, he’d feel like he was being judged. But not with her. Her chin dips a little, an almost imperceptible nod, before she heaves a sigh, and passes her bottle from one hand to the other.

Any question he may have as to why is answered a moment later, when she curls herself into his side, careful to keep a curtain of her hair between his exposed skin and her face.

He follows her example, and changes the bottle to his other hand, leaving him one arm free to wrap around her, so that he can tug her closer. Lets himself be calm for a moment, leaning his head against the top of hers, the soapy smell of her shampoo filling his senses. His about to remark on the change in brand, something more fruity than usual, when she sniffs audibly. Once. Twice. Before she leans up to look at him, her nose crinkled up.

“You stink, ya know that, Sugah?”

He laughs. A loud, chest filling gale of laughter. If it were anyone else but Marie...

“Yeah, Darlin’. I know.”

~~~+~~~

After: Day 1

Logan wasn't sure what he expected to find behind the closed door. Wasn't sure what had prompted the utterance of his name from Marie's lips in the first place. He wasn't sure, but he did have several expectations. She’d be hurt. She’d be crying. She’d be clothed. All reasonable expectations, given the circumstances.

But all reason is tossed out, blown up, scattered to the four corners of the world like so much debris when he sets his eyes on her; pushing the door shut behind him without the expected click – the lock shorn off and all.

The bathroom is neither spacious nor cramped, falling into that oh-so-common middle ground where utilitarian function meets poor design. Not that he cares, but it does cause a logistical problem. Can’t really go anywhere, without the door easing open, so his back presses to the door, holding it in place. He can hear Scooter and Jeannie arguing on the other side. Chuck's always even tones filtering through the bickering. But he tunes it out. Tunes out the world beyond this room, beyond these walls, and instead focuses on the girl kneeling in the corner. A scant two feet from him.

He drags in a cool, over-sanitized breath of air to refill his empty lungs - the whirring sound of the school’s ventilation system buzzing overhead - and lowers himself down into a crouch; angling towards her in the hope of catching her eye, should she deign to look up from the curtain of hair obscuring her from view.

But she doesn't look up. Doesn't so much as acknowledge his presence. His intrusion into her world. She just continues to kneel, glass-paned shower stall door at her back, head bowed against the wall, and her arms wrapped around her in drawn knees. Frightened, yes. Her scent gives that away, though it has dimmed some. But there are no tears, none that he can smell. And there are no wounds - no physical ones at least.

And the thin shift she'd been wearing when she'd entered the room - the standard issue medical garb that Jeannie made all her patients wear - is pooled around her feet. It is startling, the absence of contrast between the white-on-white cotton and her sunless skin.

His expectations are obviously useless in this scenario.

He wants to go to her. Wants to go to her, and pull her close, and make it all go away. Drown out reality in useless promises. But there's no room for him by her side, not without either climbing into the bathing area behind her, or pulling her into his lap. And with so much of her skin exposed, he thinks that might not be the brightest of ideas, so he stays where he is. Needle-sharp teeth of uncertainty gnawing away at him as he waits. Waits on her to say something. Do something.

His frustration tangles uselessly with the remaining threads of his patience. Unhappy with all the waiting that has been forced on him of late. But for her, he will wait. However long it takes.

She drags dull nails, snipped past her fingertip to a point that it looks painful, across her arms. Again, and again, and again. He can see deep indentations left in their wake. The skin rebounding with an elastic bounce as she trails the digits across each part. Swirling, nonsensical patterns mixed in with straight lines.

It’s hypnotic. And he wonders if that is why she does it.

“Marie?” His patience, it seems, has run its course. Still, he manages to keep his voice low, even. So as not to spook her. Like he would a wounded animal. Doesn’t want her to do anything other than trust him. Doesn’t want to give her any cause.

A minute passes, then two, before she pulls her head up, glassy brown eyes staring back at him. All the vibrancy, all the punch normally in them, gone. Vacant.

It scares the shit out of him.

“All gone.” Her voice is thin, soft. And even with his sensitive hearing, he has to strain to hear it. The words themselves echoing his own thoughts so closely, that it makes him tense.

“What’s gone, Marie?”

She doesn’t blink, doesn’t twitch at all, as she speaks. The words no more than a sigh. “Everything.”

“Mar-”

“Everything, everything. They filled me up. Filled me up, ‘til I was overflowing with ‘em. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t sleep.” One of her hand’s raises to her head, tugging at the hair, eyes still unfocused, staring back at him. “So many. So many of them, Logan. Voices upon voices upon voices.” Each repetition of the words is punctuated by a pull of her hand on her hair. Making him wince. He reaches out to her, to make her stop, and realizes that his gloves are still in his pocket.

With much speed, and very little finesse, he dons the latex pair that Jeannie had given him ages earlier it seems, while he was waiting for Marie to come back out. She blinks at him, her mantra stopping as she watches him.

The sudden inaction makes him pause, makes him wait; hand hovering, ready to reach out to her. The sound of a brittle, moist laugh breaks something inside him. “Aww, Sugah. You don’t need those.”

In a move that seems to happen in slow motion, she reaches out towards him. Those blunt fingertips coasting along his jaw, and lingering for long seconds by his mouth. He can’t breathe, so jarred is he by the touch. Marie’s touch.

There is no pain. There is no pull. But there is something in her eyes, eyes that are no longer exactly vacant. Something that looks like loss.

"They took it away, Logan. All of it. They filled every corner of me up, then they burnt it all away.”

~TBC