The place had pretty much cleared out by the time Scott emerged from the back room, dressed more recognizably in jeans, a t-shirt, and his typical red sunglasses. He stopped short when he saw Logan leaning against the bar. Logan watched warily as Scott’s hand reflexively shot up to where his visor switch would have been.
Logan carefully put his cigar and beer down on the bar and held both hands up in what he hoped was a conciliatory manner. Not something he was used to, but he’d give it a try. “Just here to talk,” he said.
The red sunglasses steadily regarded him for a moment. Finally, Scott nodded curtly and took a bar stool. “Tequila, por favor,” he told the nervous-looking bartender.
Logan couldn’t help his eyebrow from twitching up as Scott knocked back two shots in quick succession. He lifted his empty beer bottle in the direction of the bartender.
“Dame otra.”
The bartender clanked a new bottle onto the bar and scurried away from the two of them as fast as his legs could carry him.
Logan turned back to find the red sunglasses watching him.
“So...here to talk, huh? What’s the matter, Hallmark doesn’t make a ‘sorry for fucking your wife’ card?” The question was punctuated with another shot of tequila.
Logan took a long drink of his beer. He had spent so much time chasing down Scott, and yet he had given fuck-all thought to what he would actually say to him when he finally found him.
“I am, ya know,” he finally settled on. “Sorry.”
A flash of Scott’s teeth in what no one would consider a smile. “Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Four years of you panting after her like a dog in heat. I guess I had just gotten used to it. Convinced myself that it was all bark. Even started to consider you a friend. Guess that makes me twice the sucker, huh?”
Logan clenched his fist around the bottle, swallowing down the bitter aftertaste of shame. “Nah. We were friends. Just makes me twice the asshole.”
Another shot, and Scott leaned his elbows back against the bar, considering. “Have to admit, I figured you’d be halfway to Canada already. Sure as hell didn’t figure you for tracking me down to apologize.” His head tilted. “So, which one sent you? Charles or Jeannie?”
Logan looked down at his cigar, burning a scar into the battered bartop. “Rogue.”
“Rogue?” The surprise was evident in Scott’s voice.
Logan took in a deep breath. “Look, Scoot -- um, Scott. I dunno what the hell I was thinkin’, sleepin’ with Jeannie. I was blind, or some kinda fuckin’ coward, or both, but she didn’t give a damn about me. Told me herself, it wasn’t about me, coulda been anyone. And for me, even though I was runnin’ from it, even if I didn’t have the sense to know it until she smacked me over the head with it and I almost lost her, it’s always been Rogue...”
The last thing he saw was a flash of ruby light.
____________
“Mmmmpph.”
Logan pushed his way towards awareness. Damn, his chest sure hurt. What the hell was up with that?
He finally pried his eyes open. A dim motel room. Could have been anywhere. A movement caught his attention, and his blurry eyes focused in on Scott Summers, watching him dispassionately, a half-empty bottle of tequila in his hand.
Oh. Yeah. That.
“Fuck.” He pushed himself up on his elbows. He was bare to the waist, and he watched for a moment as a red patch of burned skin in the center of his chest slowly faded. Damn, that itched.
“You know what’s funny?” Scott said meditatively. His voice had a slight slur.
“Not a damn lot right now.”
“What’s funny,” Scott continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “is that I think I actually got more upset at the idea of you sleeping with Rogue than I did at the idea of you sleeping with my wife. Now why do you think that is?”
“I’m not sleepin’ with Rogue,” Logan grumbled. Yet, he added mentally.
“And still the thought of it was enough to make me blast a hole through you. I didn’t do that before, when I found out about you and Jean. Why do you think that is?”
Logan figured a noncommittal grunt was his best option here, and so he supplied one.
Scott took a hit straight out of the bottle.
“Did you know Jean is six years older than me?”
Logan supplied noncommittal grunt number two.
“When I met her she was so...” Scott trailed off, taking another hit of tequila. “Just...so...everything. Smart, sophisticated, beautiful. And I was just some schmuck who could fry someone without even meaning to. Who couldn’t even look her in the eye. I never thought she’d even go out with me.”
He took another swig of tequila, and then after a pause held out the bottle to Logan.
Logan wordlessly took it, taking a deep swig of his own and then handing it back.
“Even since then. How she kept setting back our wedding date -- always some new reason. And the way she’d flirt with you right in front of everyone. Between me and her -- it was always her on top, you know?”
Logan did know, but stuck to noncommittal grunt number three.
“This connection we shared. Sometimes you choose what comes through, and sometimes you don’t. It’s just...there. And the last year or so, I’d get a sense...just every now and then...”
Scott held up the bottle, apparently judging if there was enough tequila to get him through before taking another hit.
“Six years older started to bother her, more than it ever did before. Suddenly she didn’t feel more sophisticated, more worldly. She just felt...older. She started getting needier. More insecure, wanting more reassurance from me. And I felt that, all of that, through our connection. And do you know what I did?”
He didn’t even wait for the grunt this time.
“Nothing,” Scott said bitterly. “That’s what I did. I didn’t try to reassure her. Didn’t tell her that she was still so damn beautiful that it hurts me to look at her sometimes. Didn’t tell her that she didn’t have to worry. Instead I just let it go. Felt how she watched Kitty and Jubilee and even Rogue when she came home on break -- she had known them as little girls and they were now beautiful young women. And she would watch them, wondering if I was watching them too. I could have told her any time that it wasn’t true, that no one would ever hold a candle to her, but I didn’t. Because I kind of liked it. Having her confidence shaken, a little bit.”
He took one more swig of the tequila before his arm dropped limply by his side. Logan gently removed the bottle from his hand.
“I kind of liked being on top for once,” Scott said in a near-whisper, as if to himself. “I thought it’d make things a little more even, make her feel like she was as lucky to have me as I was to have her. But it didn’t work out that way, did it? Instead it just sent her looking elsewhere for what I wasn’t giving her. For what I knew she needed, and was deliberately holding back. And even if it had worked out differently...I shouldn’t have wanted that. Shouldn’t have wanted to tear her down so that I looked better in comparison. Love shouldn’t be like that, don’t you think?”
His words were more slurred now, but the sunglasses were trained on Logan, looking for an answer this time. Logan looked down at his hands, thinking about it, trying to get the words right.
“I can’t say I know too much about love. Didn’t even know enough to recognize it when it was starin’ me right in the face, shinin’ right out of Rogue’s eyes when she looked at me. Or maybe I did recognize it, and it scared me so much I had to do somethin’ to screw it up. All this time lookin’ for you and thinkin’ about what I did and why, and I still don’t know for sure.”
He let the tequila trickle down his throat slowly this time.
“Maybe I was watchin’ Rogue, just like Jeannie was. Watchin’ a little girl grow up into a beautiful young woman, and thinkin’ that there was no excuse anymore. No way I could still pretend what she felt for me was just some teenage crush she’d get over, no excuse for not lovin’ her back except that I’m a fuckin’ coward and I don’t know how that goes. What was goin’ on with Jeannie and me -- that was somethin’ I could understand. I’ve never understood what’s been goin’ on with me ‘n Rogue. Never made any damn sense, how she gets to me -- slides right in under my skin in a way that nobody else ever has or will. Scares the crap out of me sometimes, how much of what’s good in this world for me is wrapped up in her.”
He took a final slug of the tequila and then put the bottle aside.
“Rogue told me that she knows me, and that I deserve love. I don’t know if I believe her about that second part, but I believe her about the first part of it. She’s got me in her head, and she knows me. And the way you ‘n Jeannie are, that connection you have -- you know each other too. If you’re askin’ me what love is supposed to be like, I can’t say for sure. But even when there’s love there -- real love, and that’s what Rogue says you and Jeannie have too -- there’s still people in the mix. And people fuck up, and make dumbass decisions, and hurt each other -- on accident or even on purpose. But maybe the love is the thing that gets them through all that. Lets them work it out, instead of just givin’ up on each other. And I don’t think you and Jeannie have given up on each other. If so, you’d both be at the mansion, ignorin’ the hell out of each other because you just didn’t care anymore. She wouldn’t be walkin’ around lookin’ like she’s been shot in the gut, and you wouldn’t be down here in Mexico kickin’ ass in a cage.”
Scott was silent for a long moment.
“I think that’s the most words I’ve ever heard you say at one time,” he finally said.
Logan shrugged. “Just a theory.”
“Just a theory,” Scott repeated. He sighed. “I must be drunker than I thought, it sounds like a pretty good one to me.”
“Well, you’re pretty damn drunk,” Logan smirked.
“Yeah. I kinda am.” Scott rubbed his forehead. “Do me a favor. If I don’t remember this conversation in the morning, will you remind me about all that stuff?”
Logan looked him over. Scott’s head started to droop before he caught himself. He was probably not far from passing out.
With a sigh, Logan got up, digging in Scott’s duffle bag for his goggles.
“Close your eyes,” he said gruffly. “They closed?”
“Yeah.”
He took Scott’s sunglasses off, placing them carefully on the side table, and put the goggles on him, making sure the strap was secure across the back of his head.
“C’mon, you get to sleep now.” He heaved Scott up and walked him over to the bed. He covered him with the blanket, and turned to pull the curtains shut against the dawn light. He’d have a helluva headache when he woke up as it is.
“Logan...thanks,” Scott slurred sleepily.
“Yeah. Well, you just remember what I said. No chance of me sayin’ all of that right a second time.”
“Okay. And Logan?”
Logan paused at the door.
“Yeah?”
“If you break Rogue’s heart...I’ll blast your head off.”
Logan took in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. He moved in closer so Scott could see his face clearly. “If I fuck this up and break Rogue’s heart...” he said, his voice resolute, “I’ll ask ya to.”
______________
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Author's Chapter Notes:
So I had originally planned on having this be the last chapter, but now I'm thinking it might need one more. What do you guys think...do I need one more with Logan and Rogue, or is it just my compulsive need to tie up loose ends talking?
Chapter End Notes:
Please review! :-D