snikting | 8 - [Action]

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[action]

8 - [Action]

[Logan makes it home from his mission and you know what? He's dead all over. Exhausted and worn out. He threw himself into the jungle, fought alone, and by all rights should be dead. He may have died more than once, when a Shifter removed his powers and he took some deadly wounds. But then backup would show up, kill the Shifter, and Logan came back to life. Rinse and repeat.

Other people died. He tried to save them, but he was just one man and there was too many of them. So they had to withdraw. And when it was time to go home, he signed up for 'just a few more days'. Even when they told him he had maxed out the points he could earn for the month, he still stayed in there.

Up until today, when the squad packed it all up and he was told he had to go back. As much as Logan would have liked to stay out there indefinitely, he was still a test subject first. Guinea pigs had to go back into their cage eventually.

So now he was back. Where his fake family was. With his fake life. Oh, sure, those memories had become less and less clear. But they were still there and he did not relish seeing any of his 'family'. Which is why he didn't go home. He went to the bar for drinks, sure. He visited the Item Shop to drop in on Rogue on the pretense of looking for his old junk. He played some pool by himself, but he only made it halfway through a game before the kid playing video games annoyed him to the point of leaving.

And then he went back to the bar again. To drink and drink and drink and drink. Chances are, he was going to wake up behind the bar after passing out there. But he certainly wasn't going home to his loving wife. Because that wasn't real and he wouldn't be able to stop himself from acting like it was.]

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All things considered, that wasn't a very surprising sight. It was still alarming though, and Ororo was quick to make her way over, hoping she wasn't too late to keep blood from being spilled across the counter.

"Logan! Logan, that's enough!" Enough of the alcohol, or of the threats of bodily harm? It worked both ways.

Logan wanted to pounce. He nearly pounced. But her voice broke all of that completely. All at once, it was the voice of Ororo Howlett. The woman who kept him from taking the strike to far. The woman that made him honest. The woman for which he settled down, raised three daughters, and spent months away from booze so he could spend the money on better things.

It was more than he could handle, even like this.

"... 'Roro." He looked away, ashamed. His claws retracted and then started to march off in the opposite direction, to one of the back rooms.

For a moment, Ororo had expected him to pounce in how he had paused when she called his name, long enough to make anyone else sweat a little. But he kept himself in check, only to drop the poor bartender and then run away from her. Again.

Stung by that, Ororo followed him. She doesn't even pause to check on the bartender. She was talking even before they reached the room he was headed for.

"Where are you going?" Was that really all he had to say to her?

He stopped at the doorway to the other room. Logan's hand was on the knob, but he'd yet to turn it. Over his shoulder, he could see her through the corner of his eye. Not clearly, because he didn't want to see her clearly. But he could see she was pissed. She had every right to be.

"Anywhere."

She stopped just short of him, frowning. It was a shame that he couldn't see her clearly because if he could, he'd see that she was hurt on top of angry.

"You're not expecting me to pretend that nothing happened, are you?"

"No. I already tried that. It ain't workin' out so well."

He turned the knob and walked in. But he didn't close it on her. If they were going to have this talk, it sure as hell wasn't going to be in public.

She would have liked for him to be sober, too. But she followed him anyway, getting the message and shutting the door behind her once inside.

"Oh, of course. Because it seemed like a good idea from the beginning, yes?"

"It seemed like the only thing to do." He leaned up against the wall, looking off at the mirror instead. In a place as small as Luceti, no one ever bothered with separate male and female restrooms.

"But I can't let it go, 'Ro." He tapped his head. "It's all up in here an' it seems like it's realer th anything else."

"Do you think I've had any more luck than you?" She asked, looking at him entreatingly. But he still wouldn't look at her.

"You left so soon and so suddenly. And for the last couple of weeks, I've had to wonder about what was real and what they'd fabricated..." Ororo trails off. It was hard to admit that.

Logan knew he was being selfish. He knew that the moment he signed up for a mission. And that was exactly why it had to be done, in it's own twisted way. He wasn't reliable. He wasn't someone who could pick up the pieces. Leaving it all for Ororo to do was a dick move, but it was foolish for anyone to expect anything more out of him. He wasn't a family man, just a brute that was good at killing people.

He let out a growl. It wasn't angry, only frustrated. With himself, mainly.

"I don't know, either. I still find myself worryin' about the girls. Our 'daughters'. Some joke, ain't it? One of 'em was Magneto's girl. Like she ain't been brainwashed enough already."

"Her name is Wanda," Ororo corrected him shortly. "And she is doing much better now, if you're wondering. Korra, as well." Yes, she'd checked up on them. How could she not, when the instinct to take care of them was still so strong? She was selfish too, in a way. Those girls had mothers - real ones. All she was doing was trying to fill in someone else's shoes.

But she hadn't mentioned a third name, and Ororo simply crossed her arms, not wanting to think about that too hard.

He groaned. "I know their names." He noted that the youngest wasn't mentioned and that was a cause of some concern. But he refused to say anything on it. "I've spent two weeks wonderin' about everyone. People I shouldn't be worried about, cuz they ain't supposed to mean anything to me."

"So by running away and ignoring those feelings, those people, you hoped it would all go away?" She asked, frowning. She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts and trying not to let her feelings run away from her. But she'd had weeks to think about this, and wonder why he'd been gone so long.

"I was doing the only thing I'm good at, 'Ro. It wasn't running."

Except he damn well knew that it was running.

"No, you went looking for a reason to leave us," she accused him plainly. "And to an extent, I understand that, Logan. We all have our own ways of coping, and that was yours. But you have been back for nearly a day, and I had to hear it from someone else."

The accusation didn't sting, either because he was too buzzed or because he was too thick skinned. Or perhaps it was because she was right and he wasn't doing much to hide it. Either way, he finally looked at her and did his best to keep his gaze steely.

"... 'Ro, you know what I wanna do the second I lay eyes on you?"

She raised her head, meeting his eyes despite the steel in his gaze.

"Is this the part where you try to scare me away?"

He had to look up to see her in the eye. Same as it always was. But he didn't step forward. He wouldn't let himself.

"No, cuz this ain't the part of me that wants to tear people apart. Least of all, you. No, I see you, an' all I wanna do is go back to the way things were in that big mess. Pin you against that wall an' do the kind of indecent things that married folk don't talk about. Cuz all of that is still up in my head, whether I want it there or not."

In the end, what he says does scare her. But not in the way she'd thought. Ororo was still for a few moments, surprised by his admission.

"Do you think that it hasn't been the same for me?" She said, finally, holding her arms to herself almost protectively. "Just being alone in this room with you is difficult. It's been three weeks, Logan. But what I feel for you has been slow to change."

He let out a low sigh. "I can't figure out how I feel for ya, 'Ro. I look back at us, before this latest mess, an' I can't figure out if I already loved ya or if the Sparties just addled my brain."

The instinct to step forward, to lay a hand on his arm when he sighed, was so strong that Ororo had to fight to keep herself still. She knew better than to touch him at this point, when they'd both just admitted that they did not know what to make of what they felt for each other.

She was silent for a long moment, thinking of what to say and trying to find the courage to say it.

"... Truth be told, Logan, I think I did have feelings for you even before this 'latest mess,'" She paused to glance away, something she almost never did when she was talking to him. "But I do not know just how much of what I feel now is mine."

Somewhere, in his memory, that seemed right. It had the taste of truth to it. But it was so muddled with everything else, he couldn't tell if that was real or simply his imagination. It was enough to make him walk away, to the opposite wall. A moment later, his fist went through it.

"Hell, it could be the same for me. I can't tell. I thought I could stay away and it'd go away. It always had before. But it's stuck up in there. I can't shake it."

They were talking in circles, and it was beginning to frustrate her. She meant to point that out, that they weren't exactly getting anywhere, when something sticks out to her in what he says last.

"- 'Before'? You'd felt this, something similar to this, before now?"

Logan pulled his fist out of the wall and watched as the wound sealed itself, even as his fist remained dirty and bloody.

"... maybe. I can't be sure of what I feel."

It was the sight of his blood that did it. Ororo was pulling out a handkerchief and stepping forward in a second, meaning to take his hand in hers so she could wipe it clean. She reached out - but realized what she was doing, and looked up at him instead.

"-- May I?"

After all, it was only complicated if they wanted it to be.

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