Chapter 2.
There's something about this one. I know it. I mean there's damn few things I know in life, damn few I'm sure of but this here is one of them. She is special, you meet one like her maybe once in a lifetime, if you're lucky. I know it. But I don't know if she knows it.
Look at her, smiling up at me, even leaning into me as we're comin' outside and the snowstorm is hitting us. It's hard to push through this, don't know how we'll drive through it but I'll try and get a few miles between us and this flea pit town.
Always like to move on after a fight. The men out here, sometimes they loose hard, and they ain't always that bright with it. And I don't need assholes waking me up at night trying to fight for their money back. Most of them know they caught a lucky break to get away without internal bleeding but there's always some who lost too much, money, reputation, pride, it's always something. Once back a few years ago there was one asshole who came back and kicked the door down of my motel room and started waving some shotgun around like he knew how to use it. He was just talking big and besides that idiot could pepper me with bullets and it won't put me in the ground. Would get me kicked off the fight circuit though and I make good money and don't wanna loose this. Scared the hell outta the woman I had in my bed too, I comforted her though heh heh. Anyways, I got the camper now and I always move on every night.
Aw, look at me just standin here, thinkin while she's still freezing in the doorway. She, uh, she grabbed a hold of my arm when I started heading into the snow. Her hands are tiny, and so y'know, delicate. Like a fine tree branch or something. Graceful, like, in the wind but I know she's got strength and power, got that inner core, I've seen that tonight. Maybe that's why I picked her up and. No Logan, come on, focus, less pansy-ass dreamin and more pushing through this damn blizzard and getting the girl safe in the truck.
There we go, I took that hand and tucked my arm around her. I'm almost shaking, I, no, I'm not Scooter, I'm a badass and I, well, shit, it moved me ok? Having a woman like that in my arms even if it's just for a second to pull her through the snow and lift her up into the truck.
Shit, better put the heater on quick it's colder than Siberia in here. Don't want her to get sick or something, she's so small and,
"Thank you so very much."
"What?" I can't hear her properly over the heater blowing.
"Ah said thank you so much for giving me a ride."
"Uh, s'ok. I'm goin in your direction and I don't mind"
"Ah can give you gas money, Ah'll work, Ah'll pay my way. Ah know Ah owe you right now but Ah'll work it off and you can trust me. Ah'll appreciate it, Sir, truly, um, Ah appreciate you goin out o' your way, takin a chance on me especially after that... scene.... in the bar."
That voice, oh baby that voice, she don't even realise it an it just makes me want to eat her up and shit, what am I doing thinking shit like that? Come on Logan, get it together. Think with the head, don't think about her voice, don't think about her offering to....
"Uh, yeah. Um yeah, I mean it's ok. I've got gas covered and you just come along for the ride, ok?"
I'm helping her out, doing a good thing. She's not a project, it's not a job. It's, I dunno but it's not that.
"I'm sorry about that, in the bar, those guys were assholes."
Shit, why's she blushin now? She looks all kinds of good like that, her cheeks all pinked up, a little flush down her neck to...
"Ah know, Ah know they were laughing at me. They are, uh, what you said."
Huh, you telling' me a woman like her is put off by a little cussin? Even with all that shit she pulled on that guy in the bar? She's a trip, all innocent and good and yet so hardcore all at once. I know she came from money but how did she get so far like this? I suppose if you can fight like that it's easier to keep your innocence on the road, and your manners too by the looks of things.
"That's just cos they don't know jack. I mean, I thought what you said sounded real interesting. You said you do performance art. What's that like acting or singin? Or you a writer?"
"Oh, Ah do spoken word art, it's poetry but performed."
I dunno what to say to that, it sounds real good, but real cultured and I don't know nothing about that shit.
"You know when you read a poem, or the words to a song, and written down, well they're ok but when you hear them out loud they just come to life? Well, that's what I do, I speak the words, like singing just without the music"
I think I know. I know with songs sometimes I've been saying the lyrics over and over.
"There's some songs it's like they said just what I'm feeling. Just right there in that song on the radio. I know that"
"Yes! It's that, I write what's inside me and well, I can show you one day if you like"
"Well, there's this one;
I know the gunshots were miles away, yet somehow, they left a hole in me.
Before this, I'd only known what blood looked like on the news but now I felt an intimate, bitter knowledge of the pain, the iron taste in the air, the shock as the wound blossomed lush and bright under the flat grey skies.
Even though I only ever saw it through her memories, I knew salty, sticky details too much for my own comfort. How the dog howled, that time didn't slow down, it just sped up until everything she recalled from that day was a blur of colour, scent, sensation and the shock of the rapport that ended her world as it was.
She told me afterwards it reminded her of her wedding day. Shouts and swirling feet, tumultuous emotions that left a vague impression afterwards. The photographs, she recalled, were like peering into another country. Into someone else's life. She hadn't remembered that her mother wore that hat or that the hyacinths were in flower behind them when they stood beneath the arbour covered in baby pink and soft lemon confetti.
I went afterwards, kicking through the freezing snow, iced over now and clinging grittily to my boots, to see where it happened. There was no chalk on the ground, no crime tape, no flowers even. It felt lonely."
Jesus Christ. I don't think I breathed during that. Couldn't take my eyes offa her, not that you can see much on the road in this damn storm anyhow. Damn me, how did she do that. We're in this little cab and she's wrapped in that cut up old fur and somehow she just transformed. Pulled herself up and spoke like she was performing in front of the damn president or something. Damn me.
And where the hell did she learn all that shit anyhow. Blood and gunshots and how it all feels. She's got it all right too, I've been there, felt that and it's nothing like what those damn Hollywood films say, expect the bit about sex after.
They got that right, you get hot as hell after coming out of a situation like that. Somethin about knowing your still alive and the adrenaline and I wonder if she's ever felt like that and who she was with or if she was too good....
Come on Logan, eyes on the road, not on her dress, even if the frost on it is melting now and I can see it clinging to her through her open coat. Right. Eyes, road.
She's like two people though, this innocent little debutante chick and then a damn hard bad ass fighter. Lethal. But good all the same. I wonder which of those she'd be like in bed. Oh man. She's one of a kind. Douches in the bar didn't know what they were missing, but I'm glad I picked her up, glad I got her and they were too stupid to see.
"Uh, you're a little quiet."
"Damn." I'm just not used to having company and I'm damn struck by all she said.
"Ah'm hoping that's a compliment."
"Yes, yes it is, it, how do you know all that shit anyhow?"
"It's a long story."
"Well, we're driving ain't we, ain't got no place else to go."
"Look, Mr, uh, Ah'm sorry, we haven't been introduced, Ah don't know your name."
"Wolverine."
"Oh, what kind of a name is Wolverine?"
"It's my name, ok?" I know I'm not fancy like her, but I am what I am.
"Oh, Ah didn't mean to offend, it's just real unusual. Ah like it, my name's a little unusual too. Well, Ah'm called Rogue, most people call me but I wasn't laughin at you really Mr Wolverine, look, you can call me Marie."
She said that, said her name like it was a secret. I get that. But sharing it with me? That's crazy? But then hitching through a snowstorm in a girls ball dress and gettin in fights in bars with bad ass ole boys is crazy too. And I picked her up. And what the hell, she can't call me Mr Wolverine, not when I'm trying to check her out through her wet dress, I can see a little you know, the rose colour is a little deeper in two spots if you know what I mean.
"I'm Logan."
"Well, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance Logan."
I know I'm not good enough for her, I know that. But I'm here now, givin her a ride, she needs me for now I could do this for her. And that's enough you know? That's something pretty big to me.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you SO much for all the hits and lovely lovely reviews.
I don't have a beta but if anyone wants to volunteer you would get my gratitude and as many Marie/Logan-plot-bunnies as you like!
Not so much action happens here, and Logan is more ruminative. But there is more action coming up. Stay tuned and enjoy trying-to-keep-his-eyes-on-the-road-Logan!
I don't have a beta but if anyone wants to volunteer you would get my gratitude and as many Marie/Logan-plot-bunnies as you like!
Not so much action happens here, and Logan is more ruminative. But there is more action coming up. Stay tuned and enjoy trying-to-keep-his-eyes-on-the-road-Logan!
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading. Constructive critique and reviews welcome.
Gently, thank you!
Gently, thank you!