Title: Those Things You Do
Author: Trinalla Mohani (riddickgurl@yahoo.com.au)
Website: no site
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Those Things You Do 2 (Logan's POV)
By Trinalla Mohani
I found him in the garage fiddling with some mechanical thing, I'm not sure what really, coz I wasn't focussing on what he was doing; I was focussing on him. Jeannie and Wheels were right, he looked like Hell and if he kept on going like this there wouldn't be anything left of him. There was a reason I was staying away from him, a fucking good reason I thought, and I was going to stick by my decision and not become close or involved with anyone. Only now that I've seen what's happening to the one person I was trying to protect from me, I fear I'm going to have to go back on that decision.
"Do you find time to sleep with all the stuff you do, Slim?" I asked, trying to be casual. I obviously chose the wrong thing to say because he stiffened and kept on fiddling.
"What do you want, Logan? Did Jean and Charles send you out here to try to negotiate some sort of compromise?" His voice was lifeless and steely. What the hell had I done to him?
"No. I came because I'm worried about you." Another bad choice of words.
"Better late than never they say." Came the sarcastic reply.
"Scott-"
"Don't Logan. I don't really care what happened to prick you ubiquitously absent conscience but I don't want to be on the receiving end of your magnanimity, Logan. So I suggest you take your good intentions and bestow them on someone who wants them. As far as I'm concerned you're still in Canada, so why don't you just return there and stop bothering me." He didn't turn to look at me or raise his voice during that entire speech, he just sat
there next to his mechanical contraption and continued to fiddle.
I was speechless. I also felt like my heart was breaking. Had I really done this to him? Did he really feel that way about me? There was no way I was going to get anymore conversation out of him with this snarky attitude so I left him to his goddamned contraption and went for a walk around the grounds. I had a lot of thinking to do.
* * * * *
Scott's POV
It was quite a visit I got from Logan. I wasn't really expecting him to come. I'd guessed that Jean and Charles would have chosen Ororo or possibly even Jubilee, she never fails to cheer me up and set me back on track. But no, it turned out to be Logan. And no matter what he said about them not sending him, I know better. And it hurts all the more because of it. He just has no idea and I thought Jean had more feeling and compassion in her than that, obviously I was wrong. Maybe I should have just stayed at the cabin and become lost, then I wouldn't be wasting away in the house I used to consider home which now feels like a prison.
It's almost like I'm back in the orphanage again but instead of physical abuse I'm getting assaulted with all kinds of emotional and psychological abuse. It's almost as damaging. But then I'm not that little kid anymore. I'm an adult, only I don't feel like one. Maybe I should go and have that talk with Jubilee, I know she suspects something and is dying for some answers but she's too discreet to come up to me directly. I'll have to go and find her some time during the next couple of days. She's almost as revitalizing as the cabin, almost. The last time I poured my heart out to her was just after Logan left. And now I think it's time we had one of our deep and meaningful discussions, it always manages to sort out everything.
It was childish of me I realize now. I was shocked and angry and I took it out on him. And maybe I used a couple of words he didn't know, I never figured Logan for a person with an extensive vocabulary. And I know I was harsh, but it was the truth. I prefer to think of him in Canada and that I'm waiting for him to come back. That way I have no idea who this stranger is that's stalking the halls and it makes it that much easier to ignore him.
But maybe they're right. Maybe I am working myself too hard. It's just that the only way I can stop myself from thinking of Logan is to keep myself so busy on intricate things so that my mind doesn't travel down that painful path. I know I'm being a coward, I'm avoiding him and everyone else like the plague and I suppose it's a little extreme. I guess I've been a little stupid, childish and what not, and I shouldn't lose my grip on reality just because I've lost my heart. So it seems like I'll be visiting Jubilee. I feel the need to get some things off my chest and get her distinctly realistic view on life.
* * * * *
Jubilee looked up from her novel as she heard a quiet rap on her bedroom door. She sort of half guessed who it was, before she opened the door and had her suspicions confirmed. She smiled as she saw Scott standing at her door with a block of chocolate in his hand. He'd brought a block of chocolate with him the first time he'd had a deep and meaningful with her and it had sort of come a ritual. Plus if their talk went on too long it helped to serve as snacks when they became peckish. She opened the door wider, inviting him in. He silently walked past her and settled himself at the bottom of her bed.
"It took you long enough, Cyke. I've been expecting you for a while, you know. " She kept her voice light as to not alert Scott to the real effect his appearance had on her, but her eyes were sad as she sat down cross-legged on her bed, facing him. He looked like death warmed up. "You know you look like shit." she stated.
"I know." he agreed ruefully. "It took me this long to realize how stupid I was being. I was just trying to not think of him every second of the day, I wasn't trying to waste away." His voice was lifeless gradually becoming plaintive. He wearily rubbed a hand through his hair and Jubilee recognizing the gesture, asked him if he wanted to take his glasses off. He smiled at her and placed them on her bedside table.
"So tell me it all. I know Logan's been acting like an asshole. I saw him avoiding you. I've also seen Jean and the professor casting worried glances at you as well as holding quiet meetings for the three of them. Seems like you've got them mighty worried. And they aren't the only ones." Jubilee reached out and tenderly traced the dark circles under Scott's closed eyes. "What have you been doing to yourself, Cyke?"
Scott breathed in deeply and slowly let his breath out. He moved forward so that he was stretched out on the bed, lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. He felt Jubilee moved slightly so that she sat at right angles facing him.
"I was expecting things to be different when he got back from Canada. I guess it was too much to ask for from someone like him." Scott's voice was pained and Jubilee reached out and firmly grasped his hand in hers, silently giving him her support. "We had one night of passion, well, not even that. More like an hour at the most. It was the night that Rogue went missing. It just happened. One minute I'm accusing him of stabbing Rogue through the
chest the next I'm backed up against the wall desperately trying to rip his jeans off."
Jubilee chuckled.
"Yeah, I forgot, you've heard all this already."
"Oh, that's quite alright, Cyke. I still find it all highly amusing." Jubilee remarked, a wide grin on her face. "I'm dying to rip those jeans off myself! But we'll forget about that." Jubilee tacked on hastily when Scott frowned at her.
When Scott turned his head and raised an eyebrow in query Jubilee smiled widely. "You know I didn't tell yoiu this before, but I happened to be walking past that night when I believe I heard a rather loud thump, which I now recognize from experience (from having a room next to John and Bobby), was when you two probably fell off the couch onto the floor." At Scott's telling blush Jubilee's smile grew even broader. "Wow, you two must have been going at it-"
"Jubes please!" Scott interrupted. Reluctantly a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Jubilee took pity on him and decided to get back onto the reason he was here, she opened the chocolate packet and broke off a couple of squares, offering one to Scott and popping the other in her mouth.
"Back to the subject at hand. So you had sex, if I may put it so crudely, and knowing you and what you told me, you said something to him while he was recuperating. Something along the lines of 'let's have a go at it', relationship-wise I mean, or.." Jubilee gasped as it suddenly hit her. "You asked him to stay didn't you?" She asked as the realization hit her.
"I knew I didn't have the right but I took the chance that our, 'mating' meant more to him than just some release of his sexual tension. Yes, I asked him to stay but he didn't, he didn't even say goodbye." He sighed loudly and sent his fingers searching for more chocolate. Jubilee subconsciously pushing the packet towards his questing fingers as her mind worked furiously.
"I don't know why you didn't tell me that before..." Jubilee paused and chewed on another chocolate square as she thought. "Did you ever consider that he had to leave?" At Scott's confused look, she elaborated. "From what you've told me he was searching for his past that he had no memory of. I can tell you if it was me in his place I'd be trying to find out all I could about my past, whether I was a lumberjack, a transvestite or even a murderer or something." They were both silent for a moment, thinking to themselves, lost in separate thoughts and eating chocolate.
A giggle erupted from Jubilee suddenly in the silence. "Sorry, transvestite...I crack me up sometimes."
"Right..."
"Where was it the professor sent him?" Jubilee asked suddenly as she got up off the bed and moved over to the computer on her desk in the corner of her room, her brow furrowed in thought. Scott lifted himself up on his elbows and followed the sound of her footsteps around the room a similar frown on his brow.
"Some military complex in the Canadian Rockies, I think. Why?"
"Just a hunch," Jubilee muttered as she quickly booted the computer and started a search on the Internet. She felt Scott come up and stand behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw his glasses still on the nightstand. "Put your glasses on, Cyke, you might want to see this."
She quickly brought up a map of Canada and focussed on the Rockies before chewing thoughtfully on her thumb for a minute.
"I don't know why you act like an airhead and let everyone believe you're stupid when you're quite capable of whipping their asses at anything you put your mind to," Scott remarked as he pulled up the only other chair in the room and sat down beside her. He was quite used to seeing this side of her. As far as he knew he was the only one she was familiar enough with to show her true personality. Two orphans brought together, sharing an intimate bond of friendship. And neither one of them would have it any other way.
"It's all an act so that when the aliens land they pass me over for the more intelligent beings of our species." Scott smiled and looked closely at what was showing on the screen.
"I think it was an abandoned base. No longer in use or maybe in ruins. I'm not sure." Scott muttered and Jubilee listening to his comment made some adjustments and typing in a flurry of fingers narrowed down the search band. Windows kept popping up as she searched classified files.
"And just how is it that you know any of this at all, Mr Summers?" Jubilee asked in a mock prim voice.
"I asked the professor," Scott answered with a huge smile on his face. Jubilee had a similar smile widening her lips but it died when a window of information popped up on the screen.
"Fuck me." She exhaled in disbelief. "My God do I have to start playing around with this more often!" she exclaimed before scrolling down and reading as well as continuously typing at the same time.
"And they thought their records where hacker proof. That was almost too easy!" Scott's smile turned into an uneasy frown at her words.
"Jubes, just what exactly have you found?" he asked uneasily as she distinctly typed in 'Wolverine'.
"I'm finding out about what's so important to your gentleman-love and why he's avoiding you and-" Jubilee broke off her little speech with a shocked gasp. "Fuck me!" she whispered as a large window appeared bearing a prominent picture of the man they knew as Logan and an extensive profile with one word written in bold blazoning red colour at the top of the window, 'DEADLY'.
"Fuck me!"
"You said it Cyke!" Jubilee muttered as they both stared transfixed by what they saw on the screen, mouths agape.