Feedback is not mandatory but t'would be much appreciated at kielle@aol.com. Do not archive (like you'd want to, but still...) without dropping me a note, please. I'm jes' nosy that way. PS: If anyone out there wants to dump this same cruel fate onto another X-character, I highly encourage it!
.-=K=-.
The very air flared actinic white, dust motes dancing aganst
the blinding glare. A shadow flickered over the walls as
something staggered through the portal, tripped over the
edge of a floor mat, and fell face-first onto a futon. Then
the beacon winked out and the room was once again plunged
into pitch black.
A stream of low but choice curses came from floor level as
the traveller sat up and fumbled around in the dark, trying
to get his bearings. His hand brushed over a pair of
well-worn hiking boots, dented a discarded cowboy hat, and
knocked down a framed picture. There was a momentary
silence as he digested what his hands and nose were telling
him.
With a bang the bedroom door slammed open. Once again light
flooded the room -- this time from a perfectly normal
hallway and an equally perfectly normal fountain of agitated
multicolored sparks. "Wolvie? You all right? I heard a
sound--"
He grunted in satisfaction, easing back onto his haunches.
His claws snapped back into his hands.
The coltish silhouette in the doorway hesitated for a moment
then edged inside. The hall glare was cut off and he heard
a metallic "k-click" as the door fell back into place. He
sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Okay. Now. As quickly as you
can, tell me everyone who's living at the mansion right
now."
"Whaaat?"
"Don't ask. Just talk."
"Uh...shoor, Wolvie, whatever." As his eyes adjusted to the
darkness, he could see her counting off on her fingers as
she rattled off the rollcall. "You, me, the Prof, Scott 'n'
Jean, the Hankster, Bobby, Gumbo, Rogue, Storm, Betts,
Warren, Bish, Sam, Joe...uh...yeah, that's everyone. The
whole zoo."
"No one else?"
"Nope. Unless you count Jean's goldfish. I don't know
their names."
"Aren't you supposed to be up in Massachusetts?"
She flushed pink. "I--I'm just visiting for a while,
remember? Sheesh! What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?"
Logan exhaled a gusty sigh of relief. "All right. Okay.
So far so good."
"Er...if I can ask now, what the heck is going on?" Jubilee
asked, edging closer. "You're acting really, really weird."
"Everything an' anything. Total insanity. I need a beer.
Right now."
He stood up and pushed past the girl, who shrugged and
trailed after him to the kitchen. She fidgeted with ill-
concealed impatience behind her mentor as he stood in front
of the refrigerator for a long, long time, tapping his foot
and frowning at the contents.
"It's on the bottom shelf," she supplied at last. "In plain
sight, y'know."
"Uh? Oh, just checking." He grabbed a half-decimated
sixpack with that same abstracted air, claimed a chair, and
plonked the drinks down on the kitchen table. His battered
hat followed in short suit. "Looks okay to me."
"What? What does?"
"The fridge. Last time I looked, it was fulla green veggies
and sugar-free stuff for that little blue kid of McCoy's.
Blech." He raised the beer to his lips and then stopped
short, staring at the label. "Sonovabitch! Whose is this?"
"Uh...it's yours. What's that dirty look for? You LIKE
Kirin."
The bottle thumped back onto the table, untasted. "Not
anymore."
Jubilee was finally at the end of her short fuse. Pun
intended. "Wolvie, if you don't tell me what the hell is
goin' on, I'm yelling for Jean to pry it out for me! And
she WILL, too!"
For a moment Logan glared at her across the sixpack. Then
he sighed and lounged back in his chair, rubbing his
stubble. "Not sure how to put it, pun'kin. One minute I'm
lyin' down ta bed -- then there's bright light everywhere.
The next thing I know, I'm somewhere in the FOH-infested
Rockies with you, Gumbo, an' some short noisy chippie
claiming to be related t'Wade."
"Wade? As in 'Deadpool, The Mouth That Walks Like A Man'?"
"Yeah, the same. An' I've been jumpin' through portals like
a dog through a goddamn hoop ever since. Everytime I think
I'm back, it turns out it's not quite exactly home..."
Jubilee thought for a moment. "Sounds like 'Sliders' or
'Quantum Leap' or something."
"I guess. I never really watched those." He contemplated
the shunned bottle of Kirin beer then grimaced and downed it
anyway.
"Was I in any more of these...places?" Jubilee asked, her
eyes bright with curiosity.
"Um, yeah, a couple."
"Oh, come ON Wolvie, talk! Tell me! What was I like?"
For the first time since she'd known him, Wolverine
actually...blushed. Bright red. He mechanically popped
open another beer for moral support. "Well, uh, there was
that one with Bobby's over-sexed cousin, and the one with me
an' Betts where you tried to get...er. Actually, I don't
think you're old enough to know."
Jubilee's expression was now alight with mischief. "You
mean I...oh, man oh man! Well, I guess it's only fair that
SOMEwhere in the multiverse some version of me is gettin'
it."
"Jubilation Lee--"
"Okay, okay, ferget it. What else? I wanna hear it all."
"That'd take all night."
"Highlights. Cliff's Notes. C'mon, spill it!"
Logan rocked back in his chair, pondering the request as the
familiar taste of decent brew mellowed him out. "Lessee,
I've been yelled at by an angel, gotten married an' retired,
dragged back through some old business with Vic an' North,
kicked around by Batman--"
"No way! From the COMIC BOOK?"
"Yeah, squirt, but at least I didn't go ga-ga over the Boy
Wonder like SOME little firecrackers I could name. Where
was I? Oh yeah." He started ticking incidents off on his
fingers. "Pummeled by a pissed-off long-lost twin sister,
hauled out in front of a bunch of yahoo MTV cameramen like a
performing monkey, dropped through a storm into a geek
convention and told that *I* was a comic book character,
forced to help Magneto babysit a kid who could raise the
DEAD for crissakes, and screwed silly by Betts, Storm, AND
Jean. Not all at the same time, you. Though that would'a
been fun."
Jubilee had both hands clapped over her mouth, her eyes
huge. She made a muffled sound which vaguely resembled the
syllables "Ohhh boy."
"Yeah, that's kinda what I said too. And that's not even
mentioning--" his voice lowered with a shudder "--the
fanboys. At the mansion. ON THE TEAM. And then there were
the parodies..."
"Sounds painful," Jubilee said helpfully. Logan just
shrugged and downed the third bottle in one long pull. Then
he forlornly eyeballed the empty carton. "Oh, hey, no
worries Wolvster, I'll get more for you. Don't get up."
"Thanks, kid." He flashed her a tired but grateful smile.
"God, it's good to be home."
The fridge door rattled behind him and then glass clinked
heavily at his right elbow. He glanced over, startled. The
fresh beer was resting on the table...and Jubilee had not
yet moved from her chair. There was no one else in the
room. For a moment he thought maybe Jean had--
Jubilee was grinning triumphantly. "Not bad, huh? I've
been practicing finetuning it, just like the Prof ordered.
No sweat."
Logan stared at her, a bad feeling settling into the pit of
his stomach. "Finetuning what, exactly?"
The teenaged girl rolled her eyes and snorted as if the
answer was perfectly obvious. "My control over the Phoenix
Force. Duuuuh! Sheesh, Wolvie, what planet have you been
living on?"
"Obviously not this one." Wolverine was already clambering
back to his feet, clapping his hat hastily back onto his
head, oblivious to Jubilee's bewildered queries.
FIN...?