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The door thumped open on its hinges, blistering wind dancing in the shadowed doorway where Logan stands in a tattered, heavy jacket and boots. Thumping his way inside, he drops the bundle of wood at his feet, shouldering the door shut against the heavy wind. Groaning, Logan collapses onto the worn leather sofa, hearing the familiar thunk of his adamantium’s skeleton shifting weight. Peering around the room for a moment, Logan takes in the worn wood, the heated fireplace, pages of Dylan Thomas laying open on the coffee table and feels the tension in his muscles loosen. Pulling the worn afghan off the back of the couch, he settles in, eyelids drooping with a rare sense of tranquility. It’s only as Logan flips the pages to “Before we Mothernaked Fall,” that he hears it.
Hidden beneath the wind, a heavy knocking sound pittering at his door.
Shaking his head, Logan turns his attention back to the book, held lazily in his hand. He reaches only, “Then take the gushes or the field,” before the wind moans once more, icy wrath rattling the hinges as if to shake their way inside. Sucking in a breath through his nose, Logan releases it, feeling the chill creeping down his back. Some instinct, a baser primal thing, flares to life then, tempered only by the man’s patience. “It’s just the wind,” Logan mutters, refusing to look up from the page. He wouldn’t be the first man to hear voices in the cold of the northern territories, and he likely wouldn’t be the last. Experience told him it was best to not respond.
Overheat the wind whistles, old wood groaning against its brutal force. The door quakes like some alive thing, pummeled by the screaming force of nature. Logan’s eyes flit to the door for a moment, before they land back on the worn pages in his hand. “And I will build my liquid world,” Logan murmurs, pressing his fingertips to the faded ink as if to feel them, bare, beneath his hands, “and you, before the breath is cold,” A cold sweat breaks upon his brow, goose flesh pimpling, and Logan forces out another breath. The chill had crept into the room, seeping into the wood, the stone, the very metal of his bones weighed down by the shock of invisible pain.
Think nothing of nothing, Logan tells himself, in the sudden bellowing sound. Pushing out one breath, in, hold, out another. Ignoring the faint tremble in his hands, the Wolverine heaves himself upright, forcing himself to focus on the light of the fireplace, the dancing flames wicking at the shadowy edges of the room. “It’s just the wind,” Logan says, swallowing, “I’m here, by myself, it’s just all that godforsaken wind, and the shitstorm of snow outside-” A burst of wind dampens the flames, plunging the room into darkness.
In the corner of the room, the door quakes once more, fighting some invisible force.
Startled, the book falls to the floor as Logan shoots to his feet. A careful survey of the room reassures him, nothing but the scent of worn leather and smoke. Scrubbing his sweat-dampened face in irritation, Logan shoots the door an annoyed look, “Oh fuck off,” He grouses to no one, trudging across the room. Despite the ridiculousness of the notion, despite what his own senses were telling him, Logan grips the handle of the door -“Sweet Mary mother of fuck all, that better be the wind talkin’-” and jerks it open.
All at once the wind dies down.
A barren field of glistening white greets him. The tree line is dotted with pine, thin lines of green shuffling about in the dark. One inhale, the burn of crisp white snow in his lungs, pine needles, the distant frush of lake water miles away if he focuses enough. Logan is as alone as a man can be here, save for the occasional wolf howl, but the notion itself as not as reassuring as he’d make himself believe. Dragging in another lungful of air, Logan lets his eyes drift shut in the quiet of the still night. Maybe this time he could convince himself it was true. “I need sleep,” He says resignedly, “or beer.” Turning, the Wolverine returns to his den, knowing only of those would come tonight.
Outside the wind picks up.
And doom is turned and veins are spilled,
Your solid land
He’s drowning, thrashing against the water and the bubbling fissures of heat under his skin. His very flesh burning from the inside out, Logan reaches out, frantically, the scent of antiseptic and blood and torn flesh dizzying. “No,” Logan begs quietly, and then a rough keening wail, “No!” He’s drowning in water, in blood, in the dampness of earth clinging to his skin, filthy and sweat soaked and surrounded by gunfire. It blurs together then, the rick shot of peppering gunfire, a man beside him takes the hit and falls, and all Logan can see is the white of his eyes, young and afraid. Another shot, a woman with salt and pepper hair face down on the floor. Another shot, and Logan is staring down a firing squad of uniforms with blank faces, body jolting from the force of impact.
There are fingers on his face, tender and soft, and Logan sobs, reaching upwards unsure if he wants to push them away or pull them close. “Logan,” He heaves a breath, head shaking wildly because there is Marie, his little Rogue and her to trusting smile, “wake up.” Muscles spasming, body jolting as if shaken by some unseen force, Logan sobs, because she is to close to him, far to close. Begging her to let go, Logan watches her choke, Rogue’s breath stuttering into that look of wide-eyed horror, her blood on his claws. “Logan, wake up!” The voice reverberates in his mind, and then it is Jean, glowing and bright, forever out of reach.
Logan knows what’s coming. He tries, damn it all he tries, impossibly so, to wrench himself away. Her begging eyes trap him, just as they did before. “No,” Logan pleads helplessly, hands wavering in the space between them,”No, I’m sorry,” Jerking upright, Logan watches in horror as his claws penetrate the flesh of her stomach. She screams, and he screams with her, agony crescendoing in the tiny room.
Logan screams, and screams, forcing his eyes open against the burning fire of Jean. Then she is gone, and that is somehow more painful, a constant ball of guilt in his chest as he stares without seeing into the darkened bedroom. Panting, Logan stumbles his way to the bathroom, leaning heavily against the sink. Splashing his face, he glances at the mirror, seeing his sunken eyes and bedraggled face. He looked, Logan thought tiredly, exactly like the mess he felt like. Exhausted, Logan closes his eyes, though he knows it won’t do much, “You’d think losin’ my damn memories would make the rest of my head shut up.” He says to no one in particular.
Shuffling his way to the fridge, Logan pulls a beer out, popping the top without looking. As the snow falls outside a scent tickles his nose, clean and familiar. Dripping in wry amusement, a soft voices laughs in his ear, “If only old man, you ever think that maybe your just going crazy?” Logan is so surprised he drops his beer.
Logan putters around the kitchen, pulling open cabinets and cracking eggs. Overhead, music wafts from a staticky radio he’d salvaged, telling the story of seven angels and lovers caught with nothing but hope in a valley full of guns. He’d been in the mood for actual food today, but as Logan plates up eggs and potatoes the room feels barren and somber. Stabbing at his food, the Wolverine lets his eyes, and mind, wander, lost in the soulful piano. Abruptly the lights flicker, and he scowls. Damn weather must be fucking up the old generator again. That gave him something to do at least. Wiping his hands, Logan pushes off from the table, appetite lost.
The piano refrain trickles into his ears between buzzes of static, and Logan’s scowl deepens. Jesus, how long could a song go on? A flush works its’ way over his skin, sweat drops dripping, and Logan swipes at them with a grimace. There is that scent again, clean like wind in the spring, overlaying a find dusting of engine oil and sweat, teasing him with its’ aching familiarity. It drifts in from the rattling doorway, closed tightly against the snow, but it’s there, slipping down to collect in the back of his throat-"
Snarling, Logan tears open the door, nearly pulling it off it’s ancient hinges. “Who’s there,” He demanded, eyes sliding frantically across the treeline. “Answer me,” Logan barks, stepping out into the snow, “I can smell ya, I know yer here!” Eyes surveying the field once more, Logan kneels, head tilted to examine a disturbance in the smooth terrain. Tracks, he can see now, average size for an adult, light steps, the impressions weren’t deep enough for a heavy body. Squinting, Logan can see the footprints trailing up to his door from a scant few feet away in the snowfall. Concerned now, he stands, scenting the air, “Hey,” Logan calls out, “You need some help out there?” But there is nothing more than damp snow and that dizzying blend of wind-oil-sweat-human. Logan steps further into the froth, shutting his eyes against the icy wind. “Tell me where ya are!” He steps forward, only to be pushed back by an upheaval of wind, “Damn it all-” Stumbling back against the doorway, Logan blinks, seeing nothing against the endless roam of white.
The tracks, he realized abruptly, were gone. If they’d ever been there in the first place. Unnerved, Logan stepped back from the door wearily, the abrupt silence of the cabin overlaid by radio static ringing loudly in his ears. It took a few moments to realize the ringing was in his ears, as the cell phone he’d gotten from the school was playing loudly on the counter top. Still eyeing the door, Logan scooped up the phone, “Logan?” and felt a palpable sense of relief at Ororo’s voice.
“Ro,” Logan wheezed, collapsing onto a chair, “Jesus you almost gave me a heart attack.” A few inches away sat his now abandoned plate, gone cold. On the kitchen counter, the static filled radio. Anxious for something to do, Logan turns his attention to Ororo’s laughter as he lumbers his way to a small chest nearby, “Now what’re you laughin’ about? You’re hurtin’ my feelings here,” Logan says good-naturedly.
“Am I that scary to the mighty wolverine?” Comes Ororo’s teasing voice, and Logan chuckles, easing into the familiarity of it all. It feels good to hear another voice after so long, he thinks, maybe sticking around hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
“Well, I’m glad you can’t send lightnin’ down a phone line,” Logan snarks back, and smiles at her laughter. Heaving out his tool box, he plops it down onto the table in a familiar motion. Goddamn radio was driving him nuts. “How y’all doin?” Logan asks, as the radio follows suit and gets dropped onto the table.
“We’re doing well, we’ve had some recent arrivals,” Ororo says offhandedly, and Logan makes a curious noise, pulling out a small screwdriver. “One of them turns into a puddle of water when surprised so that has gone well.” Ro’ continues, and Logan listens, letting his hands fall into the now familiar rhythm of pulling something apart, “Somehow Bobby has not accidentally iced him since we don’t want to find out what will happen.”
Unwittingly, Logan snorts. It’s easy to imagine the popsicles horrified face, funny as it may be. ’“As cold as it is right now, I’m thinkin’ it might be a moot point,” Logan says with a chuckle, having now pulled off the back panel. Mind drifting, he’s reminded once more of Rogue’s stricken face, the sight of her skewered on his claws, and swallows. “How’re the kids, Rogue doin’ ok?” It’s a bad attempt to fight the concern in his voice, but inwardly he thanks God for the fact that the woman doesn’t call him out.
“She’s doing fine, apparently she’s trying to see if Kitty’s interest in computers also applies to vehicular mechanics” And didn’t that sound horrifying, Logan thinks, Pryde was gifted at anything digital but the girl would sooner land everyone in a ditch in Milwaukee than cruising down the highway. “Some of the younger kids are asking her about it. I think she might have accidentally started a teenage mutant biker gang in the making,” Ororo says conspiratorially, and the image of his fresh-faced, occasionally pimple-laden students in oversized biker leathers and denim pulls a chortle out of him. “Whether it will improve Kitty’s driving remains to be seen.”
Still chuckling, Logan peers down at the circuit board with a practiced eye. “God forbid anyone ever let that girl on the road,” He says warmly, smile growing at the sound of Ororo’s laughter. He doesn’t even think much of what he says, at ease for the first time in days, as he turns his attention to the amplifier, “Specially since cyke can’t bitch at them ‘bout seatbelts-” And all at once Logan’s mouth snaps closed, screwdriver hanging limply in hand as he stares unseeing down at the worn table.
It was the first time he’d willingly brought up Scott since he’d left.
It was the first time he’d brought Scott up at all, really.
“We’ve started dividing up the classes for next semester,” Ororo breaks gently, “Hank has agreed to take over biology and a few others, but some of the kids were asking about the auto mechanics class?” The question goes unsaid. Despite this the writhing ball in Logan’s stomach has turned into a full on lead weight, pinning him in place more than his metal skeleton ever could.
Logan sighs, closes his eyes, “Ro, please,” He begs quietly. He couldn’t do this. Not now. Not when the garage practically bled out the boys’ presence, even now so many months later. The motorcycle was only the peak of the mountain regarding Slim’s affinity for cars, and the boy had done some beautiful work. It had surprised Logan the first time, watching Summers’ normal sense of anal-retentiveness ease as he guided the kids through pulling apart and repairing the internals of some sports car or another.
It had been Scott’s class. It had almost always been Scott’s class. “It’s not to late to add it as an elective,” ‘Ro replies hurriedly, “And we’ve had to start sorting through their offices anyway-”
“You did what?” The words come out harsher than intended.
On the other end, Storm sighs, and Logan can hear the exhaustion in her voice, “Paperwork, lesson plans...and between you and me, I think the kids were getting too curious about what’s inside.” The ball in his chest tightens for a moment. She’d loved them to, much longer than he ever had. He’d tried to stay, he had, but walking the halls of the empty school that seemed to haunt him with their presence had been to much. “Logan?” Her voice was quiet.
“I’ll think about it.” Comes his tired response. It’s all he can think of to say.
“That’s all I ask Logan.”
“Pretty sure one of the kids made me watch a movie like this,” Logan grumbles, boots crunching in the snow. The Wolverine had hit a rare bout of stir crazy the past week, and decided a change of scenery was in order. If for no reason other than he didn’t want to put any holes in the walls in the middle of winter. “Not like it fuckin’ matters, just standin’ out here and I’m already freezin’ my balls off.” Despite this, Logan’s scowl melts away the closer he comes to the waters edge. A few feet past the edge of the treeline a shallow stream flowed, partially iced over from the cold. Clear water like cut glass gave way to dark river stones and white snow dappling the edges of leaves.
It’s as close to home as the Wolverine has ever been. Logan takes a lungful of cold air, so crisp and bright it burns his lungs. He takes another, slow and steady, letting the cold push away everything else. Jean. Scott. The kids. The school. The nightmares. Eyes closed, Logan lets his body fall into rhythm, back to basics, back to stability. Form one, fists low, he squares off. One, two, center turn, one, center, two, three, four. He has the fleeting wonder of whether Scooter would like it out here, the man always seemed to deal with roughing it better than Jeanie had.
Logan takes in another breath, pushing the thought away with the cold. He pushes himself through the motions, body flexing, punch, punch, center turn, moving through the snow. Something dances along his skin, setting his nerves alight. “I wouldn’t mind, no colder than Alaska,” And the smooth amusement makes his gut curl. Logan forces his eyes to remain closed, something heaving within him. One breath. Another, he blows out in a forceful bluster. The nerve shaking tingle returns, goose flesh following in its’ wake as laughter sounds in his ear, “Ignoring me old man? Still haven’t been house trained yet have you.”
Well, if he was going crazy ignoring it didn’t seem to be helping. Logan wondered how Chuck would have felt about the voices in his head. “Yeah well, S’ not like yer around to keep me on a leash anymore,” Logan forces out, making another turn, another punch. His feet have formed neat little lines in the snow, he can feel it gathering around his ankles. Still, the frustration builds like a volcano bubbling over. "‘Sides, who’d wanna watch you hike your skinny ass all the way out to Alaska?”
A hum sounds in the air, invisible. “I don’t know, I think you’d like it out there. If you could stomach the flight anyway.”
Logan swallows down the bile in his throat. “Shut up, cyke,” He says roughtly, even though Logan knows he’s talking to air. To himself, to whatever fucked up sense of humor the universe has.
Another laugh, cruel and biting like the wind that carries it, “Can’t get any quieter than being de-”
“I said shut up!” Logan snarls, spinning abruptly toward the sound, fist raised. His hand connects with nothing more than air. He snarls again, forcing his eyes open to stare out into the froth of white, tree branches poking out like shadowy palms, and bellows, “Goddamn you, shut the hell up! You're not real, so whoever the hell is messin’ with my head can man up or leave me the hell alone!”
Silence greets him
It’s dark by the time he makes it back. The sun had set, the frigid darkness of dead winter leaving an eery silence in its wake. Logan is cold down to the metal in his bones. Despite this he keeps walking, throwing open the door and stumbling his way inside. Bypassing the bath entirely, Logan heads towards the bedroom, flinging himself onto the mattress, head buried in the blankets in a vain attempt to block out the sound of voices on the howling wind. Trembling and childlike, Logan curls up on the comforter, as a thousand screaming voices claw at his mind, their faces distorted into a perverted mass of rage and hysteria. “I’m sorry,” Logan sobs, and he knows them all, even if he doesn’t remember their names, sees only the smallest fraction of their faces in the shadows of his mind. “God I’m so sorry,” He’s begging now, but it never stops. Their suffering is too great.
A man who shares Victor’s snarling face. A dark-haired woman lying in the dirt. An endless line of bodies reaching out to him, pulling him down, drowning him again. Zombies lined up like tin soldiers, eyes blank, and the only thing that changes is the uniform.
Logan screams.
He screams and screams, slashing at the bed, the covers, pillow’s spilling their insides into the room, and he keeps screaming, and crying, until the only thing Logan can hear is his own voice. The silence peters out, precious and achingly alone, and Logan slumps back down into the bed, eyelids slipping shut for all the peace it will give him.
There is the softest brush of heat against his skin. “Logan,” Jean says softly, her tender presence hovers over him, and if Logan peeks out of the corner of his eyes he can see her shadow trailing along the bed like misshapen bird wings. They dwarf him entirely. Instead, Logan buries his face in the remains of a pillow and refuses to glance up to her burning red. “Logan, can you hear me?”
“No,” As if in agony. Her presence, her memory, what he’d done. Killed her. He’d killed her. He’d loved her and he killed her and she had never been his-
“Logan, wake up, wake up Logan-” Jean’s voice is urgent now, the bed shaking on its’ feet. Her voice grows, crescendoing in the tiny room. Her wings cast their great shadow, at once burning him and leaving him in the dark. The entire room seems to tremble at the mighty calamitous roar of her presence.
“Stop it,” Logan wails, clenching his eyes shut, veins bulging. “Please,” Logan begs her tearfully, “I’m sorry jeanie,” His voice breaks, body heaving, “don’t do this to me.” He slumps forward then, exhaustion finally creeping in. He was sorry, so sorry, couldn’t she forgive him? Logan had saved her, that’s what she said, despite the guilt that tore at him. Couldn’t she forgive him? Or was it Scott she wouldn’t forgive him for? For letting him go, for watching him waste away. Not everyone heals as fast as you, Logan.
Logan shivers. With the inferno gone, all that’s left is the cold winter night. Knowing the disaster that awaited him, Logan doesn’t bother opening his eyes. Instead he curls up, tugging the torn blankets up and over himself. He settles, despite knowing sleep won’t come. But if he had to choose between the nightmares and the darkness, at least in one he’d find some peace. “Logan, A voice calls quietly, “wake up.”
Too exhausted to fight, Logan cracks an eye open, only for them to widen at the sight that greets him. Scant inches away on the opposite side of the bed lays Scott summers, a visorless specter of blue veins and pale skin. His eyes are neon bright in the dark room, as if tiny pinpricks of light. Blue. A clear, soft blue that reminds Logan of a pale morning sky, or the water running over river stones. For a moment Logan doesn’t dare breathe, wondering if he had gone well and truly insane. Then the specter smiles bitterly, all white teeth and neon eyes, washing out the rest of him as he says, sotto voce, “Thought guilt was my thing old man.”
Logan wrenches his eyes open, panting and sweaty. The boy's face is painted behind his eyelids like some dark stain, but a glance around the room shows nothing more than torn pillows and wood. Logan looks down, where his trembling hands grasp the ripped covers. Asleep. He had fallen asleep.
Logan shuffles out of the room, somehow more exhausted than the night before. He’d grabbed short winks of sleep between anxiously pacing the room, restless. The cycle had repeated most of the night, sleep, dream, walk, repeat, until he had finally crashed around four am and hit an uneasy sense of dreamless sleep. He was going stir crazy out here, Maybe ‘Ro had been right and he should head back early, Logan thought, rubbing his eyes tiredly. A change of scenery might do him good. He’d only just downed a sorely needed glass of water when he’d turned, blinking blearily down at the weathered table.
Sitting innocuously on top was Scott’s motorcycle keys.
Logan blinked. Blinked again. Closed his eyes and forced himself to breath.
When he opened them the keys were still there.
Dumping the last of the water down the drain, Logan turned, grabbed the phone he’d left on the counter the night before, and pressed the call button. Phone in one hand, Logan shoulders open the door to his room searching for- “Logan?” his bag, which he’d left abandoned on the floor. It’s only as he lets the bag flop onto his bed, dresser half open, that Logan realizes exactly what level of crazy this would sound like over the phone. A familiar, grief heavy type of crazy that still hung over everyone while Logan was here, miles away in the cold.
No, Logan thinks, standing in his bedroom, flannel hanging limply from his hand, no, none of them needed the burden of comforting him. “Ro, I just,” fumbling for a minute, Logan eventually settled on, “Wanted to call and see how the kid was doin’?” It sounded much better in his head than ‘Hey, I think I’m going crazy cause I’ve been dreaming about dead people way more than usual. Remember how that ended up last time?’
On the other end, Ororo’s laughter rings clear as a bell in his ears. Logan has the spare thought to wonder how the line is so clear considering the piles and piles of snow outside. The storm doesn’t seem to rolling through like the radio had suggested. “Rogue is fine, just as much of a hell raiser as always.”
But, Logan conceded, his instincts weren’t an easy thing to fool. Nightmares were like alcohol, at the end of the day they’d always be there. This was something else. “Great, that’s great,” Switching his attention back to the phone, Logan heads back out to the kitchen, bag in hand,”How’re you doin’? Goin’ through jeanie and slim’s things and all. I know I left but,” He hesitated, unsure if his comfort would be welcome.
“We’re getting through it,” The goddess’ voice was dripping with exhaustion, and another pang of guilt flares in Logan’s stomach. “Sometimes its’ like their not gone at all,” Ororo admits, and God if that isn’t true, Logan thinks, “I walk by the couch in the library where Jean would read, or see the cars left in perfect condition, like they just walked out one day and I’m waiting for them to come back.” By the end Storm’s voice is shaking, and Logan curses himself once more for being such a bastard.
It hurts. Talking about them hurts like a soul deep wound, like he keeps expecting to turn a corner and find them, piled on top of each other, Jean with her research, Scott with a rare motorcycle magazine he’d steal while lazily tossing popcorn at Slim’s head. “Sometimes I think,” Logan starts hesitantly, dropping the bag onto the table. He stops, starts again at Storm’s encouraging noise, “We never did find a body. I know he’s gone, but it keeps me up some nights.” Logan admits quietly.
Ororo lets out a tearful laugh, “Logan, if anyone could’ve found him, it would have been you. Your worse than a bloodhound,” She tells him fondly. It’s pained, and it’s soft, but it’s genuine, and Logan relaxes for a moment, reveling in her livelihood. “Besides, if we didn’t, then he’d have hiked his way halfway across the world to find us. He was a stubborn fool like that.”
The image of Scott scowling, possibly bruised, a check list of bitching already prepared as he walked into the door of the mansion to the stunned faces of his team was so absurd it nearly sent Logan howling. “He’d have walked in and bitched about us being late, like we shoulda known better. He’d probably still be bleedin’ too, the stubborn sonuvabitch,” Logan wheezed, leaning against the chair “How Jeanie put up with him I’ll never understand.” It still hurt, but it felt good to talk about them, to force himself to remember it hadn’t been all bad.
“She loved him,” Ororo said easily, then she hesitated for a moment, “She loved you to, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Logan swallows, but it’s easier right now, a little lighter, “ I-” a glance at the table shows him the keys are still there, waiting, “I gotta go Ro’, but I’ll check in soon yeah? Tell the kids I’ll drop by once the snow lets up.” It’s abrupt, and a terrible distraction, but Storm’s reassurance had him thinking. Whatever this was, there was a good chance he was just going stir crazy. Considering what happened to the last man he knew who went off chasing the voices in his head however, was lodging a terribly persistent shard of something he refused to name in his chest.
I’ll pass it along,” Storm offered, and Logan could hear the smile in her voice,
“They’ve all been missing the mighty Wolverine and his master sandwich making skills.” She was teasing him, but Logan couldn’t help but quirk a smile.
“If those rugrats touch my food, I will not be held responsible,” He grouses, but it’s all show. As Logan hangs up, he stares the keys down in silent contemplation, tapping a finger against his jean clad thigh for a moment. After a moment, Logan turns back to the bedroom. He’s not quite ready to go back to the school, but maybe getting some air would do him some good.
Logan tromps through the snow, heaving his pack higher over his shoulders. The snowfall had lightened today, the cold night making ice dangle over the edges of branches like crystals. Needing some air, the Wolverine had ventured from his den and out into the cold, intent on some hunting. “Knew I shoulda brought that damn jacket, thank god for fur blankets,” Logan grunted, several rabbits strung over his back. He walks easily along the river, now almost fully iced over, when something flickers out of the corner of his eye. “The hell is that?” Despite his better judgment Logan leans over, peering down into the icy water. A red something dances in the water, tendrils fluttering not unlike a koi fish’s fins. It flickers again, swirling between a bright fiery scarlet and a deep ruby haze.
Unable to look away Logan sways closer, ice crunching beneath his feet. The pack, and dinner, slip from his hands as he watches the swirling red dance closer and closer. Spring clouds his senses, lilac and lavender and the clean rush of wind on a sunny highway. He can smell water, clean and cool. Logan can hear it bubbling, as he bobs and sways toward it, water rushing in his ears. The clacking of river rocks echoes, the current becoming a torrent, a deluge, the damn cracking as Jean goes under and he smells salt as Scott cries-
“Shit-” Pinwheeling on the wet rocks, Logan loses his footing, crashing into the stone below. A throbbing begins in his temples, and he groans at both the pain and scent of blood. head swimming, Logan forces his eyes open, seeing the dark patches along the wet stone, his sleeves and collar dampened with water from where he had caught himself. Stomach heaving, Logan blinks again, oddly disoriented.
The wind blows, gently fanning over him. The crisp scent helps some to ease the rolling in his head and stomach. “Thought that one through, didn’t you?,” Comes a laughing voice, “Head wounds always bleed like a bitch.”
“Lot worse wrong with my head than a scratch, slim,” Logan slurs, resting on the snowy riverbank. The cold soothes his aching head. If he forces himself to blink against the sunlight and squint into the now shattered surface of the water, Logan can see small ribbons of red drifting away downstream. In the back of his mind a slow rolling alarm is going off.
All at once a burst of wind blows, covering Logan in downy flakes. He groans, shaking his head, but that soothing scent of Irish spring and gasoline and bright wind surrounds him. Another burst and Logan heaves himself onto his back, slush and water painting his jeans. Logan can feel a barely there pressure at his side, and he turns, nosing the familiar scent. That pressure slips over his face, tracing the ridge of his brow, the length of his jaw, familiar somehow, “Wake up, old man,” Right there against his lips, “You can’t die on me now.”
Logan’s eyes snap open, panicked. He’s cold, soaked through his jeans and jacket, and it’s getting dark. But no, no that can’t be right, Logan thinks, pushing himself to his feet, he had left just before dawn. Another sleepless night, and he’d made do with far less than he’d packed today. But the overhead sky is darkening in hues of icy gray clouds, barely thin enough to show the setting sun. Two hours, Logan guesses, maybe a hair more until night comes. A cursory glance around shows his fallen pack, which he heaves over his shoulder, and dried, darkened stains on the smattering of river rocks.
Unnerved, Logan turns, hastily retracing his steps in the fallen snow. He needed to get home before night fell.
The door bursts open on its hinges. Logan stumbles inside on shaky legs, pack falling out of his numb fingers. Flushed, his breath comes in quick pants as he collapses onto the wooden chair, legs giving out beneath him. Head between his knees, Logan forces himself to breath, counting the lines in the wood grain with rapt attention as his very lungs seems to collapse. One smooth curved line, two, a spot where the stain was lightening, focus he tells himself, four, five six, focus and breathe (italics).
“Funny, I keep forgetting that I’m the only one here who’s used to voices in his head.” Logan jolts, eyes shooting up at the sound. Scott is there. Scott is leaning against his door, arms crossed, in jeans and a maroon colored sweater, as if he was passing by Logan on his way to the kitchen and decided to make a pit stop. “What, no hello? I know we aren’t exactly friends, but you weren’t actually raised in a barn were you? Logan?”
Logan doesn’t say anything because he’s just become certain that he’s losing what’s left of his mind. Scott Summers is dead. The Phoenix had killed him, and left nothing behind but the glasses Logan had kept in the bedside drawer. “No,” Logan says hoarsely, and then he laughs because of course this would happen. God forbid he get any kind of peace for his sins. “No this isn’t- your not here, none of this is real,” His voice cracks, and then he’s laughing, tinged with hysteria to keep the pressure behind his eyelids at bay, “My head is just fucked up,” Logan chokes out between laughter, “So fucked up, cause outta all the fucking people, why did it have to be you?”
The Scott Thing goes quiet for a moment, stepping forward, palms out in a soothing gesture, “Logan I need you to listen to me, ok?” The Scott Thing says seriously, “I’m here, I don’t think I could leave if I tried.” He takes another step forward, no noise from his footsteps, as if he’s walking on air and that is Logan’s undoing.
Logan jerks out of his seat, backing away, head shaking,“No. Your not real. You’re dead,” He spits out, “Jean’s dead. I killed her. I let you die-” Logan’s back hits the wall then, and trembling, he slides down, slumped on the floor. Above him The Scott Thing makes a concerned noise, but Logan hears no footsteps, not even the man drawing a breath. “I didn’t say shit,” Logan says from where his head is buried in his knees, “I just let you run off cause it was easier than dealing with your bullshit. I tried but I couldn’t- so why’re you here? Why’re you here when I didn’t stop you?”
Logan looks up then, eyes red and swollen. Every inch of the mighty Wolverine seems to be weighed down by his sins, undeserved as they are. As if the man would shatter into a million tiny pieces beneath their weight. “Logan,” The Scott Thing starts, stops, starts again, stops again, as if he can’t decide what to say. Hesitantly The Scott Thing raises his arms, moving slowly, as if to reassure a cornered animal. Logan doesn’t have it in him to be angry at the thought, not when that scent blooms again, summer wind and Irish spring right under his nose, as Scott kneels down right in his line of sight and says, "Logan, you couldn’t have stopped me if you tried,” in a voice so gentle Logan doesn’t think it can be real.
Logan would never admit it to anyone else, but just this once, with Scott’s voice murmuring soothing things in his ear, he lets himself cry.
Logan awakens from a dreamless sleep, aching and sore. He feels like a well run over, dug too deep and hollow. Every breath hurts, but its’ a faded, familiar ache and somehow that makes it a bit easier. Outside, the early morning sky is gray. Numbly, Logan stands and shuffles his way over to the counter, flicking on the coffee machine. As it percolates, Logan gazes down at his phone, resting idly on the counter top.
After a moments’ hesitation Logan flicks it open to press the call button. The droll ring sounds for a few moments before, “Logan?” Ororo picks up. Logan tries, vainly, to pull something out of the depth of himself, to put to words what the last twenty-four hours had done to him. A flex of his palm could shatter the tiny phone, his one source to a world bigger than him and his grief, Logan thinks, as a shifting in the corner of his eye catches his attention. He refuses to look. In his minds eye however, Logan can see Scott, the placidity of his face as he gazed at Logan, watching, “Logan, is everything alright?”
“Answer me, Logan!” Ororo barks into the phone, and Logan turns his attention back to her. His mouth opens, then closes silently. The room felt strangely muted, the maelstrom in his veins buried beneath images of white snow and the boys’ ghostly presence.
Ororo’s voice comes down the line once more, harsh and worried, and all Logan can think to say is a quiet, “You think he’s found his way back home, Ro?”
For a moment She says nothing, and Logan can picture her face, the bemused wrinkle in her brow. “Is this about Scott?” Ororo asks him hesitantly, and then, as if between head shakes, “I didn’t think- Logan that was weeks ago do you know how worried we’ve been-” A click, and her voice goes silent.
It was a terribly petty thing to do, Logan knows, staring down at the phone, but he can’t bring himself to say much more. His hair raises, a ghoulish prickling sensation that sets his teeth on edge. Logan sips his coffee quietly, sighing, “I’ve gotta go look at the genny out back, if I’m goin’ crazy out here, might as well have company.” His voice is resigned. Out of the corner of his eye something flickers, a warbling shift of colors and light.
It’s gone by the time he turns around.
An endless amount of days pass like this. The nightmares persist, faces morphing into bastardized figures intent on dragging him down, only to bleed like wretched, squirming things at the end of his claws. There are faces he knows, and even more faces he should (italics) know, and all of them do nothing but seethe, wailing their disappointment in his mind for their suffering. On those nights Logan doesn’t sleep. Those nights are edged out, barely, by dreamless voids. Blank, shadowy darkness, as if he closes his eyes, only to open them again, with untold time in between.
Those nights are his only peace, for it never seems to follow him into waking. Scott never shows up in Logan’s dreams again, but it seems the boy is hellbent on haunting him either way Out of the corner of Logan’s eye he watches Scott flicker in and out of existence, the glint of his eyes shifting red-blue like fractured crystals. His laughter echoes across every corner of the room, everywhere and nowhere all at once. Sometimes in that hazy razor-thin space between dreaming and wakefulness, Logan hears him, sometimes humming, sometimes whispering secrets into his ear Logan can never remember. Some mornings, if Logan lays still enough, the boys scent permeates the room and Logan can picture him, all lean body and pale scarred skin, draped over Logan’s still form, mouth in his ear.
Tonight is another sleepless night.
That’s fine, they’ve been happening long enough. So as the sky darkens and the wind picks up, Logan settles onto his worn couch. A few feet away the fire roars, and the golden light makes shadows dance along the wall. He lets his eyes trace the now familiar pages, thumbing them in contemplation.
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
“Poetry,” Comes a voice to Logan’s right, thoughtful, “Funny, I never pictured you as the type.” It’s the closet to Logan’s line of sight that Scott has come in days. If Logan tilts his head just so, he can see the boy curled up on the other end of the couch, legs tucked beneath him, face half hidden in the shadows left by the firelight. Logan fights the urge to turn his head, instead forcing his body to relax into the cushions. After a few moments, Logan can see a pale, ghostly hand running along the back of the couch. Scott’s next few words are subdued, “Then again, I always kind of wonder how much I didn’t know about you.”
Logan doesn’t tell him how many times he’s wondered the same. At what point their alpha dogging had turned from outright hostility to an acceptable level of snarking he doesn’t know, and at what point he started trusting Slim’s ability to watch his ass he doesn’t know either. But it had happened, and Logan had worn the uniform, and reigned himself in long enough to see whatever bigger picture Slim’s brilliant mind would conjure. The man had made a dreamer out of him, if only because Logan had never seen someone dream so viscously. But Logan doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, “What did you ever do ‘sides sit in yer office and do paperwork?”
There’s a pause, and the shifting vision on his couch stills, doesn’t even breathe, head tilted in contemplation. Logan doesn’t expect an answer. “Guitar,” Scott says eventually, and if Logan focuses he can almost imagine the way his lips would move, “I had this old parlor in my room I got as a teenager,” His voice is wistful, and Logan forces himself not to notice the way his edges become wisps, as if smoke curling, “I used to play all these oldies my dad would listen to when I was a kid. I could play a mean Bob Dylan.”
“More of a Neil Young guy myself,” Logan returns easily, then motions with one hand to the shelf a few feet away, heavy with leather bounds in faded curling script and cheap, thin paperbacks, “Alan Seeger, couple o’ others to, Wilfred Owen, guy named Hayden Carruth wrote this one called The Curtain, I think you’d like it.” He had no idea why that one came to mind, except maybe for the fact that Logan had been dwarfed in so much snow the days were starting to blur together.
For a moment neither say anything, just sitting in the quiet. Finally, Scott says, “What’s it about?”
“Seeger?” A nod, and Logan rubs the worn leather between his hands in contemplation. “It’s about this soldier who knows he’s going to die,” Logan starts, and the shadows creep in then, inky hands dancing in the firelight. “He sees it as this thing set in stone, even though he doesn’t know how its gonna happen. But he’s waiting on spring, when everythin’ starts growin’ again, cause he knows that’s when Death is gonna take ‘im.”
Scott ponders this for a minute, staring off into a distance Logan can’t see. Outside there is the drone of wind, and as if it had snuck its’ way inside, the room suddenly feels cold. A deep, quivering kind of cold that dropped heavy and squirming in his stomach. "It seems so cruel for someone to die in spring,” Scott muses, and the way he’s turned, his face is all shadow except for the bare hint of chin and rosen lips, nothing more than an outline in the dark, “Isn’t it supposed to be about about joy? Isn’t that what everyone says?”
It’s not clear whether the boy is speaking to him, but Logan shrugs all the same. “Lotta people who can’t keep on keepin’ on, slim,” Logan says quietly, “Compared to that, nothingness just kinda feels like the better option.” Nothingness didn’t give you anything, he knew that better than most, but it didn’t take anywhere near as much effort as getting up everyday. And sometimes, nothing seemed to be all you had the effort for.
“Yeah, I guess it does,” Scott’s says tiredly, and for a moment they sit there, two specters in the dark. The fire had died down, but the chill crept inwards, and squeezed somewhere in Logan’s chest like a vice. The stillness is broken only by the creaking of wood, but it hangs between them, heavy like manacles.
The fire has burnt itself out, dousing the room in darkness. By the time Logan lets himself look, the boy is already gone.
Scott doesn’t return the next morning, or the day after. Logan wakes to nothing but his own earth and musk, and the scent of highway wind seems so distant he could almost convince himself he made it up. The day repeats, first one, then another. Logan wakes up, walks past the counter to grab a beer, waits until the wind dies down to practice his forms, or hunt, or walk along the icy river. Anything, Logan thinks, is better than being here.
One day Logan opens his eyes to nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat. It’s suffocating, and the pressure in his chest tightens. There is no sound, nothing reverberates, all blanketed by the snow, resting like a casket lid over roots and treetops. Logan sinks down into the familiar couch cushions, bottle dangling between his fingers.
Utterly still, barely breathing, a statue forlorn.
The sun sets, and Logan shatters. He cries, first in quiet, heartbreaking sobs, and then in a loud calamitous rage. Logan cries like a river runs, swelling with an endless deluge at the unfairness of it all, until his tears run dry.
Then exhausted, he takes a long pull from the bottle.
That night the nightmares return with a vengeance.
Logan gets up the next day, and the day after, because not getting up is a luxury he’s never had. It burns all the more now, but he’s never been one to rest easy. That’s what he tells himself when Hank calls, and Logan holds the phone between his ear and shoulder as he fiddles with his truck. “-Re-calibrating Cerebro, I think the professor mentioned that he’d like to call in Betsy for some help,” Hank rambles on, and Logan is half listening as he pulls something out from the guts of the engine, “We keep getting these short-burst readings, but it’s almost like they disappear-”
“Yeah yeah king kong, I’m sure it’ll work out,” Logan grunts back, frowning down at the spark plugs for a moment, brow furrowed. “Hey, gimme a second I gotta-” Logan turns to grab a set of cables, only to feel his breath stutter in his chest, voice raspy, “-do somethin’,” as the phone drops into the snow.
Scott stands before him, pale face drawn in pain, a horrifying ghostly apparition. The boy sways in place, strings cut, the blue of his eyes milky as he stares, unseeing. Logan sees the gray of his veins, lips parched and bitten, and staggers towards him, hand outstretched. To see, to feel something besides agony in this microcosm of frosted hell. But a hairsbreadth away from his fingertips the boy disappears, leaving nothing but a ring of ash.
Logan makes a short sound, lurching forward, knees hitting the snow. The world is a distant worling of sound and color, an amalgamation cut with the screaming sound of icy wind, low and distant. A hot flush on his face, and Logan is wailing to, tears falling, “Why can’t you leave me alone!”
No one answers. Logan is left, kneeling numbly in the snow. God, but he’s never been so tired before. Drifting upwards from near his feet comes Hank’s tiny voice, tight with concern, “-Charles says-Logan? Logan are you there? Logan?”
That night when he’s dragged down into sleep, Logan sees Scott’s face that final time in the hallway, when he was just passing through, and he watches it morph into that dead eyed, milky stare.
Logan stands at the edge of a great, cold lake, who’s glacial waters are a familiar shade of blue. But the Wolverine closes his mind to this, focusing on the burn of his muscles, the raise and fall of his own chest. One, two, center turn, one, center, two, three, four. Rinse, repeat. Logan stands barefoot in the snow, suffused by the cold. It’s all he lets himself feel. “I still see her sometimes,” A misstep and Logan whirls around, heart tumbling, “She feels so bad now,” Scott continues, a pinch in his brow. The man is standing dangerously close to the waters edge, and Logan watches him, weary, “She keeps saying how sorry she is, no matter how many times I tell her I’m here. That doesn’t seem to make it any better.”
There’s a few feet between them, but it feels like a chasm. Logan watches Scott watch the water, the boys reflection rippling along the surface. Scrubbing his face, Logan asks the inevitable “Who?” tiredly.
“Jean,” Scott says simply. A red glow dances lazily in his eyes, not unlike fish gently swimming beneath the surface. “She misses you, you know.” He adds casually, and the image of him, hands in his pockets, all prim posture and wistfully blank face is as rage inducing as it’s always been.
The sensation is strangely reassuring. What Logan says instead is, “I miss her to,” raw and painful, because it hasn’t ever really stopped being true. But if Logan’s being honest with himself, and out here he’s had all the time to, maybe misses more than just Jeanie. That maybe he misses the way Scooter and Jeanie would pile on top of each other in the den, and Scott would kick his sides but still let Logan take a seat, and the way everyone had laughed the one time Jeanie got tired of their shit and plopped two bowls of popcorn onto their heads. But still, that something in his chest, burrowed deep, pushes Logan to ask, “Where do you go when I can’t see you?”
Scott contemplates this, brow furrowed, “I don’t know,” He admits, and sighs as he settles himself down onto the bank of the lake. He’s shoeless. Logan doesn’t know how he never noticed before. “Sometimes all I see is her, crying in that room all alone. Sometimes I’m here,” Scott motions to the lake, then to Logan himself, and continues, “But I don’t really know where that is either. Most days, It’s kind of just nothing.”
Nodding slowly, Logan plops himself down next to Slim, wishing he had his cigars. Or a beer, although that wouldn’t help. It would make him feel better at least. “Do you know where you are?” Logan asks hesitantly, and it’s the first time Logan has let himself think this is real, that Scott is real somewhere beyond this realm of ice and snow.
Scott shakes his head, “No, but I hear things. Voices sometimes, not hers, I know hers,” He adds at Logan’s questioning glance, “These people are different. I don’t really feel anything either, there’s just this sort of blankness.” Scott hesitates for a moment, and at Logan’s raised brow, gives a helpless shrug, “I just know wherever I am, I can’t open my eyes.”
There’s something poignant about that, Logan thinks, how a man can only see the most when he was closest to dying. Logan hadn’t thought much about it before, his own senses so finely tuned shutting them out took years of practice. He wonders how the man feels, sitting side by side like this, watching the world pass them by. Logan thinks that it’s not the worst way he’s ever spent the day.
It was spring in Westchester, and everything about her bloomed with a vengeance. The Wolverine had hit the road running, wind in his hair, and an ease only the open road could give. The wind was warm, the grass was green, and Logan hadn’t even made it to his room before the rugrats decided to mob him. Logan walks in, bag slung over his shoulder, to be greeted with Rogue’s excited, “Logan! You’re back!”
The smile it pulls out of him is genuine as he watches Rogue run down the stairs to the carpeted den. Logan lets out an “oof” as she smacks into him, grin dazzling, and chuckles as he pats her back. “Hey kid, how ya been?” Logan asks, and seeing that she’s practically bouncing on her feet in excitement, raises a brow, “What, where’s the fire?” He asks playfully, and she smacks him with a snicker.
“We’ve been good,” Rogue chirps back, and then her smile morphs into something small and mischievous. One gloved finger pokes at his nose as she motions to the stairs and says, as if chiding him, “You’ve had someone waiting on you, you know.” At Logan’s look she flounces away, and he grins, pulling the pack higher over his shoulder and turns towards the stairs.
“I made sure to fill up yer bike this time,” Logan calls out, twirling the keys around his ring finger cheerfully, only to stop short, breath catching in his throat. Jean Grey floats above the landing, radiating power, the red of the Phoenix as bright as her halo of hair, and the green of her eyes mournful. The sight of her hits Logan so suddenly, so viscerally, that the lead weight in his stomach bubbles over, guilt drowning him from the inside out. “Jeanie,” Logan chokes out, and the keys fall with a clatter that rings throughout the room, “’m sor-”
Jean shakes her head, floating down the staircase. Logan’s mouth flops uselessly as he tries to find the words, but Jean hushes him, laying a gentle palm along his cheek. Her touch, the tear filled smile she gives him, threatens to undo him. “Thank you for saving me,” Jean says gently, “Thank you for trying to save us both.” Something in the woman trembles, Logan can see, trapped in her own guilt, so very human despite the shadow of wings over the carpeted floor.
Logan makes a broken sound, covering her hand with his own. It doesn’t feel like absolution, but something in him loosens, lightens, just enough to breathe easier. When Logan opens his eyes again, they are misted over in a tired sort of agony. “I’m sorry I let him go, Jeanie,” Logan tells her quietly, and though it’s a selfish notion, some part of Logan wonders if this is the sin she wouldn’t forgive him for.
Jean wavers then, the pinch of her mouth telling, but all she tells him is, “I’m sorry I couldn’t.” Jean straightens then, gaze serious, and all Logan can see is that unstoppable force of a woman he’d loved so much. “But you didn’t let him go,” Jean tells him, and at Logan’s head shake, huffs in frustration.” He was fighting it,” Jean stresses pointedly, and she reaches out for him then, both hands around his face, somewhere between stricken and vexation, “I couldn’t stop her, but I didn’t let her destroy him completely.” At Logan’s dumbfounded face, she gives him a watery smile, “He knew you’d still be there Logan, that’s why he’s been trying to find you,” She explains, despite looking like she wanted to shake him.
Logan shakes his head again, because none of this makes sense. Jean’s tears hurt him, and so does the hope she’s giving him. Unwittingly, Logan flinches away from her touch as the room starts to swim. “I don’t understand,” Logan tells her desperately, and as if ripped from it’s very foundations, the warm wood and carpeted floor fly upwards in a great heaving motion, leaving only a stark, bright white, “Jeanie tell me where he is-”
Logan jerks upward with a scream, his arms reaching outwards to catch nothing. Always nothing, forever out of reach. Trembling, Logan wipes at his sweaty face, collapsing back against the bed. With one arm thrown over his face, he can’t see anything but darkness, smell nothing but the scent of Irish spring and open wind. “Another nightmare?” Scott asks, and there’s a soft tick to his voice, a hesitance that grates on Logan’s nerves.
But he’s to damn exhausted to get his hackles up. “Fuck off,” Logan says tiredly, and when no sound comes, Logan let’s his arm flop onto the shredded bedspread to squint into the dark. Scott is there, back against the headboard, one leg raised, picking at the blanket. The movement makes Slim look suspiciously young, and Logan’s frazzled mind wants nothing more than to reach out and ease the tension from his hunched shoulders. After a few moments Logan let’s his eyes drift shut, offering a quiet, “I never knew yer eyes were blue,” into the space between them.
The covers shift, the slip of skin and cotton, and when Logan opens his eyes again the boy is still there. Laying there, on his side, facing Logan. This close Logan can see slivers of scar tissue peeking out Scott’s shirt, the callouses on the boys hands’ that had surprised him what feels like a lifetime ago. Scott’s lips quirk into a facsimile of a smile, “Kinda hard to show ‘em off, you know. Not even if I wanted to,” He adds and Logan watches the flex of his throat muscles as he swallows, “And I wanted to,” Scott finishes softly, hesitantly, “I wanted to see you, Logan.”
Logan turns on his side, mirroring the boy. The world feels oddly small, two bodies beneath the covers, the air so still every breath felt like a needle about to drop. The only light in the room are the shine of Scott’s eyes, blue like river stones and open air, like the dew drops on creeping vines on crisp mornings. They lay there, huddled together like two school boys in the dark, and Logan leans in the barest inch, “Why are you here Scott?” It’s a question Logan’s been turning over in his head, that he probably should have asked before. But maybe, Logan thinks, watching those eyes blink limpid and soft, maybe he wasn’t ready to ask then.
Scott stares at him for a moment, one hand fiddling with the covers. Finally the boy shifts, leaning across the valley of space between them. He move slowly, as if waiting for Logan to pull away. Logan doesn’t, instead watching as Scott lifts one hand, finger ghosting across his jaw as if it were a wisp of air, their faces a breath apart. “I want to see the spring.” Scott confesses, voice practically a whisper, and then he leans in, and Logan can feel the barest hint of pressure against his lips, eyes slipping shut.
Logan lets it linger for a few minutes, a shaky breath catching in his throat at his own touch-starved intimacy. He wants to press his face into the warmth of a palm, to hear the slow pulse of a lulling heartbeat. But tonight all he has is the scent of wind clinging to his covers, and if Logan focuses hard enough, a soft humming that rolls, warm, throughout the room.
I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I'm all alone at last
Rolling home to you
Logan wakes up cold and alone. Something had dragged him out of a deep, meditative sort of sleep. Blinking groggily, Logan scrubs his face, heaving himself out of bed with the stray thought that someone was knocking. He only just reaches the bedroom door when he registers how wrong the thought is.
But Logan can hear it, the heaving-thumping sound of the door’s wooden frame, rhythmic and steady. A peek around his bedroom doorway shows the fireplace, holding nothing but ash. Another heaving-thump, and Logan twitches, clamping down on tensing muscles, some deep part of himself coiled and spring-loaded, registering fear (italics). Forcing a quiet breath through his nose, Logan flexes his palms, feeling the adamantium inching its way through his. hands.
Releasing one breath, then in, another, The Wolverine calms his racing heartbeat, let’s the morning chill creep into his lungs and bone marrow. Cocking his head tells Logan there are no footsteps, no scent of flesh or the iron tang of blood. Despite this the icy hold on his gut clings to him, fills his insides until their brimming with anxiety, as he breaks into a cold sweat.
There is a sudden burst of screaming wind, so harsh it sounds human, as the room trembles. Bracing himself against the wall Logan can hear the heave-thump-heve-thump echoing in his ears and abruptly throws himself into the den-
Only to see the door swinging on it’s hinges.
Shoulders slumping, Logan groans, mumbling a soft “Fuck me it’s too damn early for this shit,” To no one as he stalks across the room. Slamming the door shut, Logan scowls, skin prickling at the silence that descends on the room. Logan feels trapped in his own skin, the room feels to small, to barren, as if something in the very air had disappeared overnight.
And Logan knows with a sudden, deep certainty that when he turns around Scott won’t be there. That last night had been something, a confession, a farewell of some sort, and his breath escapes in a heavy fwoosh that leaves him weak-kneed, leaning against the doorway. Logan tries to count the grain lines in the wood, gives up at seven, and closes his eyes, trembling. He tries to remember the scent of wind, and blue like water over river stones, parses through the words to every Bob Dylan song he’s heard on the radio and can’t contain a sob. Unwittingly, Logan thinks back to that moment on the couch, and finds himself murmuring, “When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous,” Through wet lips.
Logan doesn’t know how long he stands there, face pressed into the wood with a bone-deep sort of weariness on his face. All he knows is that the only reason he turns around is the ringing of his phone. It sits there on the counter, lying innocently next to the bike keys and the pair of ruby glassed Logan had kept in his bedside drawer. He never could quite bring himself to get rid of them. Logan stands there, watching the phone ring, then go quiet. A few seconds later it lights up, ringing again and again. By the third call, Logan’s pulled himself together enough to answer. Hank’s voice comes over the line, breathless with excitement, “Logan, we need you to get back here as soon as possible. Wait no- we’ll pick you up, it’ll be faster with the Blackbird. I know you don’t like it but we must hurry-”
There’s shuffling on the other end, papers scratching, the clacking of a keyboard. Logan pulls back to stare at the phone for a moment, feeling lost. Realizing Hank was busy doing whatever he was doing, which seemed important as his fellow feral was mumbling what Logan realized was a medications list, Logan instead asked, “Ro,” in a questioning tone.
The goddess’ voice comes down the line, ringing with certainty, "There’s a hospital in a town not too far from Alkali Lake. I don’t know how they found out yet, but they called the school..” Ororo hesitates, and when she speaks her voice wavers, close to tears, “They found him Logan,” She chokes out, as Logan clutches the phone like a lifeline, “He’s alive.”
When the jet lands a few hours later, Logan walks out, pack slung over his shoulder to the warm press of sunlight on his skin.