“Be careful.”
“Dammit, Marie, how many times are you going to tell me that?” Logan clenched his jaw in aggravation. She was so damned skittish about her skin. She hadn’t even been willing to take her shirt off until he had threatened to cut it down the back to get to her wounds. She had finally reluctantly slipped out of it, holding a towel in front of her like a shield until she was lying on the bed face down. “I’m wearing the gloves, I buttoned my cuffs like you asked. ‘Sides, if I slip up and you hurt me I’ll just heal again.”
“You don’t know that! I can’t control it when I’m in pain, and you can’t be sure that you would heal from what I can do...”
“Darlin’, trust me, I can heal from anything and everything. Now do you want a demonstration or are you going to shut up and let me do this?”
Logan realized he was being a bit rough on her, but dammit he wasn’t looking forward to hurting her and it was making him edgy. Besides, he wasn’t scared of her, but he wasn’t stupid either. He saw what she had done to the guy in the bar, and this was probably more skin than she had ever shown in her life.
Now that she had stopped arguing, he could fully appreciate the beauty of it -- creamy smooth unmarked skin covering her slender but toned back, shoulderblades elegantly raised on either side of the gentle curve of her spine. He remembered checking out her rack in the bar, and thought she had probably been right to be so modest, even the lush curve of her breasts flattened against the bed was making his mouth go a little dry. He reached out to brush her hair back off her neck and she jumped. “Dammit, Marie!”
“I’m sorry!,” she snapped. “I’m not used to...” She cut herself off as if she regretted saying that much, and then turned her head so that the curtain of her hair obscured her face.
I’m an asshole, Logan thought. Of course she’s not used to being touched. He was such a physical man, for the first time he fully realized what it must have been like for her, avoiding even the simplest touch. He tried to gentle his tone. “It’s okay, I should have told you what to expect. I’m going to touch your shoulder now. It’ll be easier if you can try to relax the muscle, okay?” She nodded.
He poked and prodded at the wounds a bit. “Looks like only three of them have the shot still in ‘em. This is going to be a little cold.” He swabbed everything down with the antiseptic she had bought. He straddled her legs, and felt her tense and then consciously relax again. He moved the bedside lamp closer to avoid casting a shadow on the wounds. “I’m going to have to cut you a little, okay? I’m going to slide my claw out.” She nodded again, and he slid a claw out a few inches, and then wiped it with the antiseptic as well. That was a first, he had never really worried about giving an infection to anyone he was going to stick the claws in.
“You ready?” She nodded again, and held her breath. With three quick cuts he opened up the flesh over the buckshot fragments. She hadn’t made a sound. “You doing all right?” She made an indecipherable noise, which he took as a yes. “Breathe a little, this next part is going to be the hard part, okay?” He placed his hand on her lower back and rubbed, trying to reassure her a little as she took a few deep breaths. Nice ass too, he thought, and then cursed himself, wrenching his eyes back up.
He took the tweezers off the nightstand. “Here we go.” He tried to pull the shot out with a minimum of digging around, but they were in deep and several had fragmented. The scent of her pain burned in his nasal passages as he clenched his jaw and forced himself to keep digging until he was sure that every piece was removed. He wiped the wounds down again, and fastened the bandage. “All done. You did good, kid.”
She sat up shakily, and as the screen of her hair fell away he saw the streaks of tears on her cheeks. He instinctively reached a hand out to wipe them off, but stopped when he realized his gloves were bloody. By the time he had stripped them off she was in the bathroom, putting her shirt on again. He heard her rinsing her face, and she looked a little less pale when she came out. “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t know how I could have done that on my own. It’s good to have...a friend.”
Guilt twisted his stomach. “No problem, kid.”
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Logan’s blood was on fire, he was being burned alive from the inside. He clenched his teeth against the pain and flailed, but his limbs were weighted, useless. He tried to draw breath to scream and thick fluid burbled in his lungs. He knew what he would see before he even turned his head to the left -- the doctors, the general, all shaded a sickly green through the glass and fluid of the tank. Something was different this time, though. He heard muffled screams and turned his head to the right. Someone was in a tank beside his. Her wide panicked eyes stared helplessly into his, a nimbus of auburn and white hair floating around her terrified face. She convulsed, and he knew they were boiling her alive too, killing her in slow excruciating degrees. He tried to call out to her, reach her, the metal of his claws scraping the glass of the tank, but the thick fluid flooded his lungs and he was drowning, drowning...
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Logan came awake in a rush, bolting upright, the claws springing free reflexively. “Christ,” he mumbled, getting his bearings, smoothing a hand over his face and willing his heart to slow and his pulse to stop roaring in his ears. Suddenly he realized what had woken him...Marie was in the next bed, making muffled, choked noises. He felt a rush of panic, remembering his dream, and then felt foolish. It was just a nightmare, like his.
“Marie!” he called out gruffly, but she didn’t wake. He turned the lamp on. “Jesus!” Her skin was covered in a thin layer of frost, her lips blue, and the whimpered breaths she was choking out were thick with ice crystals. “Marie!” he barked, shaking her shoulder. She came awake with a gasp, scrabbling away from him, throwing an arm up defensively to fend him away.
He turned and went to the bathroom to get some towels, giving her time to compose herself. When he came back she was sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking. She kept her head turned away from him as he rubbed her hair down with one of the towels, wrapping another around her shoulders to try to warm her.
He rummaged through her duffel until he found a pair of sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and socks. He pushed them into her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Go change,” he said, and she walked as if on autopilot into the bathroom.
He was still buttoning his cuffs around the gloves when she came out, dressed but still shivering. She froze when she saw the gloves and shirt he had put on, and her eyes snapped to his, a flicker of panic in her gaze.
He made a noise of aggravation. “I’m not going to hurt you, kid.” He towed her toward his bed, flipping the covers back. “Get in.” She looked up at him again, and he just wanted to get the light off so he didn’t have to see that goddamn vulnerability in her eyes. “You’re frozen and your bed is wet. Now get in already, and scoot over.” He gave her a not-too-gentle shove, and she climbed into the bed, burrowing under the covers.
He slid in after her, and he felt her tense up. With an exasperated sigh, he gathered her in against his body, looping his arms around her, wrapping her in his heat. She shook both of their bodies with the force of her shivering, her teeth chattering loudly. Slowly the shivering abated, and he felt her start to relax against him. “You wanna talk about it?” he asked. He felt her shake her head against the flannel of his shirt.
He realized she hadn’t said a word since he had woken her. They lay there for awhile longer, Logan feeling her body slowly warming where it pressed against his. He found her scent strangely soothing to his nightmare-frazzled senses. She smelled fresh and warm, like rain and sunshine all at once. He felt a spreading wetness where her cheek pressed against his shirt, and only then smelled the salt of her tears. He hadn’t even realized she was crying. He smoothed a gloved hand over her hair. “Be careful,” she mumbled.
He pulled her in closer, absently enjoying the warm press of her slight weight of her against him, the way her curves seemed to fit into his side exactly right. “I’m always careful.” He lay there for awhile, listening to her breathing, gauging the moment when she slid into sleep. Then he lay there for hours more before he found sleep himself, wondering what had happened to her that she had learned to cry without making a sound.
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