Continuing Education
by Mo

Series/Sequel: This is a sequel to Adult Education, which is a four-part series told from Scott's point of view.
These two series are consistent with the characters and relationships presented in my previous Scott/Logan series:
I Know What You Are
We're Not What You Think
Canadian Nights
Night and Day
Foreign Correspondence
Adult Education and Continuing Education can be read on their own, but they do refer to events that occurred in each of the above series. My previous stories are available in a few places, including:
www.dymphna.net/xmovieslash
www.fanfiction.net
www.phoenixfyre.net (in the Showers subsection of the Mainframe section)
In particular, Continuing Education makes reference to events that happened the first time Logan met James Macdonald "Mac" Hudson, founder of Alpha Flight. The story of that meeting is covered in detail in Canadian Nights.
Scenario: Movieverse. This series begins immediately after the end of Adult Education and it takes place approximately three years after the movie ends.
Disclaimer: The movie belongs to Fox. The X-Men belong to Marvel. Commodore Perry belongs to history. Oliver, Yasuko, Yukio and a bunch of other characters in Westchester, Saskatchewan, Belarus and elsewhere are the products of my fevered imagination. Well, by this point, so are Scott and Logan, to some extent. I hope their basic characters are still evident but they have grown and changed somewhat with all I've put them through. I think Bryan Singer could still recognize them, but he might wonder what the hell they're doing.
Rating: NC/17 for sex, language, and violence.
Literature Guide: Since my Scott is an English teacher, my stories have a lot of literary references. It has been my practice to publish a literature guide to go with the stories, providing supplemental information about literature referenced in the stories and pointing interested readers to places to read the works quoted.
Adult Education and Continuing Education, in addition to literary references, have a few historical references, since they deal with Logan's early life. The guide posted at the end of this series offers supplemental information on both literature and history and covers both Adult Education and Continuing Education. As has been the case with previous literature guides, this one contains spoilers and should therefore be read after the stories themselves.
A Note on Character Naming: The character of Yukio was named in homage to the late Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima. It has been brought to my attention that there is a character named "Yukio" in the Marvel canon. Although Yukio is a man's name in Japan, the Yukio of the comic books is a woman, I'm told. No connection between my Yukio and Marvel's is intended. For more information on Mishima and how his life and work relate to the themes of this series, see the Literature Guide posted at the end of this series.
Acknowledgements: As always, a great debt of thanks is due to LS and SW, tireless researchers, beta readers, wise and funny friends and helpers of all kinds. Thanks also to Eiluned and Nancy for reading drafts of this series and answering my questions and offering suggestions.

Sometimes I think I'll never understand him. We're standing there in the classroom and he's looking right at me. "Knowledge is Power" is still up on the board from my last class, but I sure don't think he's feeling powerful from what he just found out. He said he wanted to know how the last guy who loved me died, and I told him that I'd killed him. And what does he do? Walk back out that door? Tell me he's shocked? Challenge me on it? Ask me why, even? No. None of the above. Says "I'm so sorry, Logan," and puts his arms around me again.

"I had to do it," I told him. "I didn't want to. It's the hardest thing I ever did, I think."

"I'm sure it was," he said, holding me close, fingers in my hair.

"I really did love him, Scott. I wanted to stay with him - thought we were gonna grow old together." He pulled back, looking surprised. "Yeah, it was before I knew I wouldn't be getting old. Anyway, I wouldn't've done it if I didn't have to."

"I know that."

"You don't know anything about it."

"I know you. "

Neither of us said anything for a while.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

I shook my head. "Not now. It's too hard to explain without telling you a lot of other stuff and it's all jumbled in my head still. Give me a little time to make sense of it. I'll tell you the whole story."

"Does that mean you're sticking around for a while?" He was smiling now.

"Guess so."

"Okay. Take your time." Still smiling, real big now. "Can you tell me his name at least? Just so I know whose story I'm waiting to hear?"

"Yukio."

"He was Japanese, too?" I nodded. "And you were in Japan then?"

"Yeah."

"I'm from Indiana, you know."

I laughed. "Yeah, I remember. It's not a requirement or anything."

"Well, good to know. I like sushi and I played a lot of Nintendo when I was a kid. Other than that, I have no connection with Japan." Then, after a minute, "So, while you're sticking around and thinking about what went on with you and Yukio, what happens?"

"What do you mean?"

He turned his head away. "I mean with you and me. Are we going to have sex? Are we going to hang out together, even? Or are you going to go back to pretending you don't know who I am?"

I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything for a while. He just kind of stood there, not looking at me. "I'm not pretending I don't know you, Scott," I said, finally. "This is hard for me, too, you know. It's just… I don't know. The more we're together, the harder I think it is to stop."

"I don't want to stop." Now he was looking at me, that red glow behind his glasses brighter. I could almost imagine the pleading look in his eyes. Eyes I've never seen. "Don't say we're done, Logan, please. Give me a chance - give us a chance - to figure out what to do about this. I think we can come up with a plan together, a way to deal with it if Sabretooth shows up. Or maybe we can even do something proactive, find out where he is, figure out what to do about him. Work with me, please." He took a deep breath. "I'm feeling a little like I did the first time you left here. I thought then if you'd only talked to me we could have worked something out. You're making decisions that affect us both. Can't I have some input into this?" The glow was still strong, but the red looked angrier now, somehow.

I thought about what he had said. He just stood there - angry, hurt. Maybe a little hopeful, too. "Okay," I told him after a bit. "I don't know that anything can be done about him, but I'm willing to try. We're a good team. Maybe you're right - maybe we come up with a plan."

That big grin came back, lit up his face. "And in between planning, maybe we could fuck sometimes, too?" I laughed and nodded.

Then he turned serious. "Logan, why didn't you tell me the truth? Why didn't you want me to know about Sabretooth killing your family? And that you were worried he'd do the same to me."

"I don't know," I said. "I guess I didn't want to scare you. Plus I thought you'd accept me leaving easier if you didn't know. I figured you'd try to talk me out of going if you knew."

"Well, you figured right, I guess." We both smiled.

"I'm not saying I'll stay long term, you know," I told him, not smiling anymore. "I'll work with you on trying to come up with a plan. But if it doesn't work and I've got to go, I'm going."

He put one hand on my shoulder, looking right at me. "Will you promise me you'll tell me this time if you're going to leave? I want your word on it. I don't get why you wouldn't promise me before. It's not so much to ask, you know."

"Well, I guess I thought if I told you I was leaving you'd bug me about why."

"Okay, I can see that. You didn't want to tell me what happened and I wasn't likely to just let it go, if you told me you were leaving. But now I do know what happened to Yasuko and the kids. We're working on this together now. Please, Logan. Promise me this time you won't just leave without facing me if it gets to be too much for you. You owe me one good-bye." He was right in front of me now, both hands on my shoulders, looking at me real hard.

"Okay, Scott. I promise. I don't make a lot of promises, but I'll give you this one. I give you my word I'll tell you if I'm going."

He nodded, satisfied. I pulled him in to me, turned his head to the side, licked round his ear. "I don't want to stop either, Scott. I want you," I said, right in his ear, "I want you bad."

He looked around at the classroom. "Do you want to go to my room?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Nah, I want to have you right here." I grabbed onto his ass, rubbing against him now, sticking my tongue deep in his mouth. I could feel him getting hard, pressed against me.

He sucked on my tongue, moaned, sliding his hands up and down my back. I backed him up until he was pinned against the wall, still kissing him, stroking his hard cock through his pants. "I want you," I said again. "Turn around."

He did what I told him to, put his hands up against the wall. I undid his belt and his fly and let the pants fall down. Popped a claw and sliced the boxers off of him, then retracted it and just pushed against him again. Reached down with one hand and stroked those smooth round cheeks, reached round with the other and started playing with his hard dick, sliding my fingers along it. Pulling and tugging.

I was hard as a rock from feeling him like that, from hearing the sounds he was making. I undid my pants and pulled out my cock, my other hand still working him. Spread his cheeks and pushed it in between. Not into the opening, just up and down, rubbing against him, his cheeks squeezing some precum out of me.

"You want that?" I asked him.

"Oh, yes, Logan," he moaned. "Stick it in me. Push it in hard."

"I don't want to hurt you. I don't have anything with me…"

"I'll be okay."

I moved down a little, could feel his round ass against my belly, stuck my dick in between his thighs. "Press your legs together," I told him, and he squeezed me with those strong thighs of his. I started fucking him like that, in between his legs, pushed up hard against the wall. My hand was round his cock still and I was stroking him real slow but pumping into him fast. I pushed his head up against the wall with mine, his cheek to the wall, my tongue in his ear.

"Faster, Logan," he panted and I speeded up, matching the rhythm of my hand on his cock to my dick pushing between his legs now. Tugging hard on him with my thumb and three fingers, slipping my index finger into the slit, feeling it getting wet. He was holding my dick tight with his legs, rubbing his ass against me, leaning into my hand. I could hear him panting real hard. His mouth was open and he was licking his lips a bit. I held him by the chin for a minute and then stuck my thumb in his mouth.

"Suck hard on that, Scott," I told him, right in his ear. "Suck on it while I'm fucking your legs, while I'm rubbing your cock." He did what I told him, still grinding that beautiful ass against me, too.

I was almost there but wanted him to come first, so I stayed still for a minute, squeezed by his legs, just working him hard and fast with my hand, the other hand still on his face, thumb in his mouth.

He bit hard on my thumb when he came, his teeth sinking into the flesh. "Oh God, I'm sorry!" he said, as soon as he was aware enough to taste the blood and able to speak again.

"It's okay," I told him, humping him hard and fast. "It's fine now. Squeeze harder with your legs, Scott. Keep pushing back. Rub your ass against me. Oh, that's good." Pounded him into the wall, just loving doing it to him, realizing how much I'd missed having him. Pretty soon I was coming hard, getting those lovely swimmer's legs all wet and sticky. Then we both kind of sank down to the floor.

He took my hand, looked at my thumb. No marks now. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I didn't mean to do that." I told him it was okay. "It looks like it never happened."

"Yeah, like I told you before, the marks you leave on me don't show."

"Come stay with me tonight, Logan?" he asked. "For a while, anyway."

I told him sure. We just sat there for a few minutes, both thinking. "Are you scared, Scott?" I asked him after a while.

"Scared of what?"

"Of me. You know what happened to Yukio. Aren't you scared it could happen to you?" He shook his head. "How come?"

"I know you keep your promises, infrequent as they are."

There was lots more sex than planning in the couple of weeks after that. Well, he might have been doing some planning on his own. I asked him once and he said he had some ideas but he wasn't ready to talk about them. "I don't think we should talk about this here, anyway," he said, kind of looking around. I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I was willing to wait. Plenty other things to do with him while I waited.

It scared me a little how much I needed him then. I was willing to give him what he'd asked for, a chance to work out a solution together. Still, I knew I'd probably have to leave anyway and every day with him it was getting so it'd be harder when I did. All the stuff about Yukio was coming back in a rush now. It had gotten to a point where I couldn't close my eyes without seeing him there. That pleading look in his eyes while I plunged my claws into his chest. My claws. I didn't even know that they were mine then, what they were, where they came from. The first time I ever used them and it was to kill him. Because I had to do it and there they were.

Afterwards I pulled my hand back and stood up, looking down at Yukio lying there. I looked from him to my hand, sharp bone claws sticking out of it, covered with his blood. Then I got down on my knees and held his still body close to me, telling him how much I loved him, crying like I'd never done before.

I couldn't help thinking about all that and it just made me need Scott so bad. Needed to feel him alive and warm and wanting me. Needed to feel his body under me while I pushed hard inside him. Needed to hear him moaning and crying and telling me he wanted more. Needed to hear him saying he loves me.

I was staying with him most of the night now. Not sleeping there - with the dreams about Yukio now I knew it wasn't safe. But we'd fuck and talk and fuck some more. And he'd fall asleep finally and I'd just lie there and watch him. Touch him a little while he slept, stroking his hair or putting my arms around him. Sometimes I'd stay there all night and just go to sleep in his bed in the morning after he left.

Sometimes I woke him up in the night, told him I needed some more. I was remembering some stuff this one night. Not how it ended but Yukio and me together. And it felt so good to think about it and just remember how happy we were together. But I just didn't get it, how it could have been like that. How could it have been so good when I know it was wrong, know it was nothing he should've been doing with me? And part of me was feeling good and part of me was feeling ashamed and part of me was feeling like I should be mad at him but I just couldn't. Mostly I was just feeling confused and didn't want to think about any of this. So, I shook Scott and told him to wake up. He was lying on his back but I told him to turn over. He did what I said, handing me a tube of lube from the nightstand where we'd left it. I started getting him ready, opening him up, brushing against his prostate with my fingertips.

"Oh, Logan," he was saying. "Oh, yes. I love your hand on me, in me." And then, after a while, "I want your cock. Stick it in me. Please, Logan."

"Pull your knees under you, Scott. Lift up your ass a little that way."

I kneeled behind him and pushed it in slow. Stroked up and down his back with my fingers while I fucked him deep and slow. Listening to him moaning, listening to him telling me what he's feeling. And then, when I needed to go faster and harder, leaning down so I'm pushed against his back, fucking him hard while I whispered in his ear. Coming in him, pressed all against him like that.

I pulled out and he stretched his legs back out. I lay down next to him and pulled him to me. "That was real good, Scott," I told him. "I needed it. Sorry to disturb your sleep."

"I like how you disturb my sleep," he said, smiling. He reached over me for his glasses so he could look at me. "Did you used to do it like that with Yukio?" he asked.

"Nah, he was always on top."

"How come?"

"It's just how it was there. Well, there and then. Don't know what it's like in Japan now. He was older than me and the older guy was the top. It was like a rule or something. They had a lot of rules. It was hard for me coming into it, a foreigner. I didn't know the language, didn't know how to behave. But Yukio taught me. He taught me lots of stuff. And there was a whole set of rules for men having sex."

"So, it was accepted behavior? Men together?"

"Yeah. Not just accepted. You were supposed to do it. Well, some guys were, anyway. Yukio was a samurai. They believed in it, not just sex but being a kind of a warrior team. Fighting for each other and dying for each other. Like that army of lovers thing you told me about from Greece, you know? But with the samurai it was called shudo. And it was always an older guy and a younger one and there were rules about who does what."

"That's like the ancient Greek model, too," he said, sleepily. "A young man would have an older lover, who would be his mentor, too.

'For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth.'

"Remember that? And it translated to roles in sex, too. The older guy was always the one penetrating. And then the youth would get older and eventually he'd have a young lover. So, men had both roles over the course of their lives, but only one in the relationship." He closed his eyes and I thought he'd gone back to sleep, but he was just thinking. "Is that why you like to top, Logan? Is it because you're older than me? Is that how you think it should be?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, I'm older than everybody."

"Well, and you top with everybody, right? Except once in a while with me."

I considered that for a minute. "I don't think that's why, though. That was their rule, not mine."

"So, why?"

"God, Scott. You make me think about everything."

He chuckled. "Is that good or bad?"

"Maybe a little of each." Made him smile. "Well, I don't think it's because of when I was in Japan. I think it's from what happened later. Weapon X and after that." I looked away. "So much time when everything was decided for me, when other people were in control of me. I didn't get to control anything, not even my own body. So, after that I sort of felt like I never wanted to have anybody in charge of me, anybody telling me what to do. So, mostly I was on my own, you know? But with sex there's another person involved."

"Usually," he said, smiling again. "I understand that, Logan. I get why it's important to you to be in charge, in control." He stroked the side of my face gently. "But even when I'm fucking you, you're in charge. I still do what you say, still do it like you want me to."

I took his hand and tongued the palm for a minute before answering. "I know, Scott," I told him. "Maybe that's why I can do it that way with you. I trust you - I know you know what I need, understand that I have to be the one in charge. I haven't felt like that with anybody else." Still holding his hand. I started sucking on his fingers one by one, real slow. Watching him get hard while I did that. Seeing him kind of squirming, hearing his breathing change. "You like that, Scott?" He didn't really answer but sounded like he liked it. "I'm going to do that to your cock now."

And I did. Sucking slow and hard and sliding my tongue along the underside while I moved up and down on him. He started bucking up a bit with his hips, but I held him down, made him stay still. And just made him take it slow like that. Driving him a little crazy with my tongue moving so slow on him, with my hands holding him still. "Faster. Please, Logan. I can't take it like this," he said, but I showed him he could. Made him wait a little longer like that, pulling on my hair and moaning for a while. And then, finally going faster and bringing him off, tasting that hot cum in my mouth.

He was just lying there, panting hard still. Tried to say something a couple of times before it came out. "That was so good like that," he said, finally. "I didn't think I could stand it."

"I know what I'm doing," I told him and he smiled at me. "So, Scott, what about you?"

"What about me?"

"What's in it for you? You like it when I tell you what to do. How come?"

He thought about it a bit. "I don't know for sure," he said, after a while, talking real slow. "I think part of it is just because you're into that and I'm hot for you. It's how it started with us - you telling me what to do and me doing it. And the sex was so hot and maybe I just kind of associated that with doing what you tell me to. Like Pavlov's dogs salivating at the sound of the bell or something. But there's more to it than that, I think." He closed his eyes and pulled off the glasses, wiping the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. "In most of my life I'm the guy in charge. I'm the one telling other people what to do - the kids in my classes, the team. Giving assignments, being there for them if they have questions or problems, helping them when they're in trouble. I like that; it suits my personality, I think. And I think I'm good at it. I'm a leader. But sometimes I don't want to be." Without the glasses he looked so young and his face had this sort of dreamy expression, eyes closed. "When I'm with you it's different, Logan. It's like an escape or something. I don't have to feel responsible, I don't feel like I have to make decisions. You tell me what to do and I do it. You take care of me - I trust you to. You know what I need. Sometimes you know better than I do."

"Like when you don't think you can take how slow I'm going anymore?"

"Yeah. Just like that."

I lay back on the bed. "Get on top of me," I said. He climbed on me, the whole length of him stretched out over me. I held onto his ass, kissed him on the mouth and then the neck. He turned his head to the side and I licked his cheek and his ear. "We're a good match, Cyclops," I told him. "It'll be hell to leave you," I thought, but I didn't say that part.

It was Friday afternoon and I was done with my last class. I was in the Danger Room, powering down the simulators, putting everything away. I smiled when I heard Scott's footsteps approaching. I was thinking about how I'd barely seen him all week and about him having more time for me on the weekends, usually. But then he came in and I stopped smiling. He was dressed for traveling. Going north, I guess. Maybe to Saskatchewan, to the outpost up there. His parka on but unzipped, overnight bag slung over his shoulder, keys to the Blackbird in hand.

"You going somewhere?" I asked, trying to sound like I didn't care.

"We're going somewhere," he said, smiling.

"Where?"

"I'll tell you on the way. Come on. You're done here, right?" Taking me by the hand.

"Don't I need to pack?"

"I packed for you." Patted his suitcase and handed me my jacket.

When we were in the air I asked him if we were headed for the outpost. "Right country, wrong province," he said. "We're going to Ontario. To Mac's cabin in Huntsville." I didn't say anything and I guess he got worried. "Are you okay with that, Logan? You talked once about going on vacation there, so I thought it would be alright."

"It's fine, Scott. I'm just feeling a little strange about it. It's been so long since I've been there and it's just lately I've been remembering everything that happened at the cabin. Some of the memories are a little hard to take - particularly that first time I was there. I'm just wondering what it'll feel like to go back."

"If it doesn't feel good, we'll leave. Okay? We can get a room somewhere, still have a weekend away."

I told him I was sure it would be fine. "So is that what this is? A weekend away? Just a little vacation?"

"Mostly. It's a chance to talk about what we're going to do about Sabretooth, too. Away from the school." After a while he added, "Away from Charles."

"Why didn't you tell me where we were going before we left?"

He shrugged. "I just thought I'd surprise you." He concentrated on the jet's controls for a few minutes. Then he spoke again. "Well, maybe it wasn't just a surprise. I think I wanted to see if you'd come with me without knowing where we were going. Just wanted to see if you trusted me enough for that."

"So I passed the test?"

He chuckled a little. "I was thinking I was the one being tested. Maybe we both passed."

When we got to the cabin I stood outside the door a while, remembering when I was there first. How I'd managed to knock before I collapsed. Lying there on that doorstep, bleeding all over. Cutting myself again and again with my claws, trying to distract my brain from the signals that machine was sending, forcing me to go back. Just concentrating on staying there, not knowing how I'd stop that transmitter from telling them where I was but knowing I had to somehow. And then this guy opens the door and takes me inside. I didn't know then he was going to change my whole life.

Scott waited while I was standing there remembering and then I told him I was ready and we both went inside. He punched in the access code for the perimeter alarm and then turned to me. "Are you okay?" he said and I nodded. I hung my coat up on the rack and went over to the fireplace. I bent down and touched the flagstones, thinking for a crazy minute my blood might still be there. Shook off that idea and noticed Scott looking at me curiously. So I started building a fire, acting like that was what I'd gone over there for in the first place.

When the fire was going, I sat down in the armchair by the fireplace. Scott was standing by the door, watching me. "Come over here," I told him. He walked over and stood in front of me. "Take off your clothes."

He pulled off his sweater and then his shirt. Stopped undressing and looked away from me, running his hand through his hair, looking a little nervous. I told him to keep going. He kicked off his shoes and then finished undressing. And then just stood there for a minute, still looking nervous. "What are we going to do now?" he asked.

"I'm going to look at you. You're going to touch yourself." He didn't say anything. Standing there looking all naked and beautiful. But nervous, still, hand running through his hair, the other at his side. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I feel uncomfortable, self-conscious or something."

"That's not like you."

"I know."

I didn't say anything and after a minute or two of just standing there like that, he got started. Slid his hand down from his hair onto his face, slipping two fingers in his mouth while the other hand moved up his leg and over to his balls, stroking slowly.

He kept sucking on his fingers, moving them slowly in and out of his mouth, the other hand still playing with his balls. I watched his cock growing and lifting and could feel mine doing the same. I looked at his face and saw the red glow behind his glasses fading. "Open your eyes, Scott," I told him. He took his fingers out of his mouth and protested a little, saying he could concentrate on what he was doing better with his eyes closed. "I want you to see me looking at you," I said and he opened his eyes again.

The fingers that had been in his mouth moved down to his shoulder and then his chest. He squeezed one nipple and then the other, kind of rolling them between his thumb and index finger. Meanwhile the other hand was moving up from his balls, wrapping around his shaft, now real hard, stroking real slow up and down. He spread his legs a little more, like he was sort of anchoring himself. Looking straight at me, breathing harder now, playing with the head of his cock with thumb and forefinger and then sliding his whole hand up and down. "I want you to do this, Logan," he said, breathing hard, rubbing stronger and a little faster.

I kept my hands on the arms of the chair. "I want to do it, Scott, but I'm not going to. Not yet. I'm dying to touch you, dying to suck you. Can you see how hard I am? Can you tell how much I want you? Can you see it in my face, hear it in my voice?"

He nodded, panting hard now. "Keep talking," he pleaded, one hand round his hard-on the other moving up and down his chest, his belly, then back to his face. "I want you in my mouth, Logan," he said and put his fingers back in, sucking hard.

"That's good, Scott. That's what I want to see. I like to see you wanting. I want to see you hot and needy. Keep stroking, keep sucking. You're gonna come soon, aren't you? But you won't be making yourself come. No, I'm going to do it. Do it to you just sitting here, watching you touching yourself. Do it with my voice and my eyes and by telling you what to do. I want to see you come, I want to see it coming out of you. I want to see your face when it does. That's right, Scott. Almost. A little more. A little harder."

He got down on his knees, legs spread out, rubbing hard, looking right at me. Then his eyes closed again but I didn't tell him to open them this time. Just watched as he brought the other hand to his dick, too. One hand on the shaft and one on the head and pretty soon the cum just spurted out of him, all over his hand. And his face kind of relaxed and he sat back on his heels.

I got up from the chair and pulled my clothes off real quick. Then I got on my knees, too, right in front of him. His eyes were open again now. I took his hand and put it to his mouth, telling him to lick the cum off of it. I licked the palm of his other hand for a minute and then put it round my dick and he started doing me while he sucked on his fingers again. I stuck my tongue in his mouth, right like that, with his fingers inside there and his other hand on me, pulling his whole body close to me, holding onto his ass. He kept rubbing me and between the taste of him and the feel of his hand on me and his body against me I was coming pretty soon, too. Afterwards I told him to put his fingers back in his mouth, this time with the taste of my cum on them. I watched him sucking like that for a minute. "The next time you come I'll be touching you, Scott," I told him.

We just sat there on the rug by the fireplace for a while, neither of us saying anything. "Are you okay about being here?" he asked after a long time, sitting behind me, rubbing my shoulders.

"I think so," I said slowly. "I was right here, on the floor, when I pulled the transmitter out. I didn't know if it would kill me. They told me it would - that it was too close to my heart and the healing factor couldn't save me in time." Scott put his arms around me, pressed against my back a little. "Thanks. That helps, to feel you against me like that," I told him. "It helps to kind of keep me in the present, you know? Not let the memories take over."

He nuzzled my neck a little. "I'll do whatever I can to help, Logan. Just tell me what you want. And if it gets hard for you being here, tell me that, too. We can still go somewhere else."

"I'm okay. I want to stay, want to get comfortable here. You can give me a whole new bunch of memories for this place."

He laughed at that. "I'll try." Then, after a while, "I figured it would be private here. We don't get a lot of privacy back home. Somebody always needs something - kids, teachers."

"Yeah, or we've got to go off and save the human race or something."

He laughed again. "Hey, I told you from the start it's a strange job. Anyway, we need some time to ourselves once in a while. And we need to plan what we're going to do about Sabretooth."

"So, what are your ideas about that? And why couldn't we talk about it in Westchester?"

"Well, I have a couple of thoughts. They both involve Charles, though, and there's the rub." He stopped again, thinking. "I think we've got to find him, Logan. We can't just wait around for him to show up. I still think we could take him together, even if he takes us by surprise, but we're better off if he doesn't. We need to control when and where. And I can't stand to see what it's doing to you to be worrying about when he's going to come back. We've got to be proactive about this. So, how do we find a seven-foot tall, hairy mutant with superhuman strength? Maybe one-legged, too. There can't be a lot of guys answering that description. Last seen about half-way between Winnipeg and Flin Flon."

"Did you mention him to Mac? Alpha Flight might be keeping track of him. They were trying to keep tabs on what's left of Magneto's team, the ones in Canada, anyway."

"No, I didn't, but that's a good idea. Maybe they can give us some sense of where he was last seen. And then if we can get Charles to use Cerebro to find out more specifically where he is we can go find him. That's how I found you that time. You know, when you'd lost your memory? Charles found you with Cerebro. You were on the move, though, so I had to follow you for a while before I caught up to you in Medicine Hat. We might have to track Sabretooth - I don't think he'd be staying in one place. But, if we can get Charles to give us one location for him we can take it from there. And if he can't get a fix on him with Cerebro there's another way."

"What's that?"

"Magneto. I'm sure he knows where Sabretooth is. Charles is still visiting him. He could read his mind, find out for us that way." He paused again. "I've just got to figure out what to say to him, how to get him to do this for us. His telepathic powers are so strong. That's why we need him, but that's the problem, too. It's real hard to lie to him effectively. And I can't even always tell if he knows what I'm thinking. Lots of times I've thought he didn't know something and then found out afterwards he did. And we won't get a second chance on this. We've got to come up with a good enough cover story that he doesn't even think to read our minds and find out what we're really planning."

"Why can't we just tell him the truth? He knows what happened to Yasuko, to my kids. He knows what that guy tried to do to you." I looked into the fire, spoke a little softer. "What he did do to me." I turned around and faced Scott. "Why wouldn't the professor want to help us?"

"He doesn't approve of assassination."

"Assassination?" I asked, turning around to face him. "Is that what we're talking about?"

"I don't know. Does it count as assassination? Or is it just murder? I'm not sure what the criteria are. Does he have to be a public figure to make it an assassination? You have more experience with this than I do." Sounding bitter and angry, but I couldn't tell if it was me he was mad at.

"It's not exactly something I'm proud of, you know," I said, looking at him kind of warily.

"I know that," he said. "I'm sorry, Logan. I didn't mean to sound insensitive. It's just that this is all new to me."

"Yeah, I know. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Oh, yes. There are few things in my life I've been more sure of."

"I don't know, Scott. I know how you feel about killing. I'm thinking you might not realize how this could affect you. I tell you - I'm worried."

"Don't worry about me. I'll be okay once he's dead. I'll be more than okay. Until then, well I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not killing him when I had the chance." He practically spat out that last part.

"That was more my fault than yours, you know. I thought you'd want to leave him alive."

"Oh, I know that, Logan. And I appreciate that you were trying to conform to my standards. Or what you thought were my standards. You were just going by what I'd said; you had no way of knowing I wanted him dead. But let's face it - we both know I could have killed him then if I'd wanted to." He turned away from me. "If I'd had the courage to. Once my eyes were open, I knew where he was. I could have adjusted my aim." He paused a long time, thinking. When he spoke again the bitter tone was back. "You don't know how much I wish I had. I have a lot of regrets, a lot of things in my life I wish I hadn't done, wish I could turn time back on. Still, I don't think there's anything I wish I could do over as much as that day."

I wasn't sure what to say. "Scott," I started, hand on his shoulder, "I think we both made a mistake. You're right - we probably should have killed him when we had the chance. But it'll be different if we track him down now." He turned back, looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain myself. "You know, I've killed a lot of people. And I can't say I even regret it much. Well, the Weapon X years I do, but more for being under the control of those bastards than for the people who died. I'm sure that seems sick to you. It does to me, too, a little. But it's how I feel. Anyway, other than that time it was usually in battle or in self-defense. Or defending somebody else. Almost never in cold blood. I've done that if I had to. Well, if I thought I had to, thought the guy needed killing. But it's different. So different. It changes you, Scott, I'm telling you. It changes you ways you don't want to change." He didn't say anything. I tried to figure out another way to explain it to him. "Look, Scott, you're not like me. You're not a killer. Hell, it wasn't that long ago you said you're against capital punishment, even."

"I'm still against capital punishment. I don't want the State to kill him. I want to do it myself. He needs killing, Logan."

"You're not getting any argument from me on that. I'm just thinking about you, Scott. He needs killing but do you need to be the one who kills him? I don't think you really know what that could do to you."

He looked away again. "It's got to be me. I'm the only one who can. You know that. I'll be okay. Hell, Logan, I could kill him just for what he did to you. Never mind the rest of it."

"You don't need to do this for my sake. I don't need an avenger. I can settle my own scores." He didn't say anything. I wondered what he was thinking. "Look, why don't we think about other ways of dealing with him? At least we should consider other options. Maybe we could turn him in to the RCMP. If he ends up locked up forever, what do we care if he's alive? He's no threat to anyone then."

"Turn him in for what?" he asked, voice rising. "For killing your family 100 years ago? For raping you 60 years ago? How do you think that would go over? They'd think we were insane. He'd never be convicted of anything."

"Well, there's the time he kidnapped you. That's still a crime, isn't it?"

"A crime with no evidence. That took place over two years ago and that we didn't even report at the time. And the only dead body on the scene was the guy you killed to save me. If I hadn't been such a coward there would have been two bodies there and we wouldn't even be having this conversation." He was really yelling now.

"Scott, calm down. It wasn't cowardice. You know that, we both do. It was a mistake, I'll give you that, but it's one we both made. And we wouldn't have if we'd known more then."

He started crying and I put my arms around him. "I'm so sorry, Logan," he sobbed. "I wish I'd known. If I'd had any idea what he'd done to you, I wouldn't have left him alive. I swear I wouldn't have."

I told him I knew that, held him, tried to comfort him. He just held on to me, crying hard now, telling me again and again that he wished he'd done Sabretooth back then.

Part of me thought we had to go ahead and do it, that the only way he was going to feel he really was making up for that time was if he killed him now. But there was another voice in my head saying this just wasn't something he was cut out for. He'd spent half his life trying not to kill people. I didn't know if he could change that now and come out of this whole.

"Look, Scott" I said, finally. "How about if we don't make a decision on this yet? Let's go ahead and find him and then figure out what to do. Maybe we find he's dead or in prison already, anyway. Why don't you talk to Mac and see what he knows? And I'll talk to the professor, ask him if he'd help me find him. I think he'll be less concerned hearing it from me."

He considered that for a minute. "Don't you think he'll pick up your thoughts?"

"Fine if he does. He's been in my brain enough to know how I think. He's not gonna be alarmed to find I've got murderous feelings about that guy. And if he's picking up my thoughts then he'll know that I don't know what we should do, too. But he'll understand that I need to know where he is, need to know he's not a threat to you. Hey, I'm sure he wants to know that, too. As for the rest of it, let's wait and see. And if we decide to go ahead I'm not sure it has to be you doing him. There has to be other ways to kill him. There's time to think about that. Let's just take this one step at a time."

He nodded. "That makes sense." And then, after a minute, "Hey, Logan, what's wrong with this picture?" He was smiling now.

"You mean me being the calm and rational one?" He nodded again. "Yeah, I noticed. And this role reversal shit is pretty stressful, you know. So let's not do it too often."

He laughed at that. "I'll try to remember that. Sorry I got so carried away about it. Okay, so we play it by ear. I still think we're going to need to kill him, but we don't have to make any firm decisions now."

I lay back on the hearth and he got on top of me. Stretched out on me, head on my chest. We just held each other like that for a long time, not saying anything. Then he said, "Logan? What you said about killing in cold blood changing you. Is that what happened with Yukio?"

I thought about it for a while. "Not the same way I meant when we were talking before, but sort of. It wasn't self-defense, anyway."

"Defending someone else?"

I didn't know how to answer that one. "Well, maybe, but in a strange way. Defending Yukio, I guess. He wanted me to do it." He didn't say anything. "Do you want the whole story?"

"Yeah. That's probably why I've been bringing him into the conversation every chance I get." I laughed at that. "Do you feel ready to talk? Do you remember it all now?"

"I think so," I said slowly. "There's parts I'm still trying to understand, but I remember it. Not sure how to start, though."

"Start at the beginning. What were you doing in Japan?"

"I was in the Navy. They sent me there."

"Which Navy?"

"U.S."

He lifted his head up from my chest, looking me in the face. "Nineteenth-century Japan? U.S. Navy? You weren't on the Perry expedition, were you?"

I told him I was and he kind of whistled. "Really?" he asked. I nodded. "What ship?"

"The Susquehanna. Why?"

"I don't know. It's just kind of blowing my mind. I feel like that sometimes when you talk about your experience in both World Wars, too. It's just odd to think that the guy I'm in love with is kind of a walking history lesson or something." I guess I scowled at that, because he got all concerned about what he said. "I'm sorry, Logan. I don't mean that like it came out. I know this is your life. I'm taking it seriously, not trivializing it. It's just…it feels strange sometimes, hearing this stuff." He got off of me and sat up, cross-legged.

"Yeah? Well it feels strange sometimes living it, too." I sat up, too. Looked away from him, into the fire. Having trouble talking now. "I didn't have any idea about any of this for a long time, you know. The amnesia - well, I had no idea how old I am. And then when I found out about Weapon X I thought that was kind of it, you know?"

"You thought that was the worst there could be, right?"

"Yeah, but that's not all. I thought there wouldn't be much more to find out. And then I'd remember something earlier and earlier. And I got so I was sort of wondering how far back it was gonna go. So, it's kind of a relief to remember stuff from before I came into my powers. Just sort of knowing there's a limit - there's not that much more to remember."

"Can you remember back to your childhood now?" he asked.

"Not early childhood, but teen years." I kept looking in the fire. He kneeled behind me, started rubbing my shoulders again. I told him it felt good, that it helped.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," he said.

"I know. I do want to tell you. Maybe you can help me understand some of it. You're good at that." I thought back some for a while. "Lean up against me again, Scott, like before." He did, kissed me on the back of the neck. "I don't really remember anything about my family from when I was a kid. I guess it wasn't great at home, 'though, cause I ran away and joined the Navy. Lied about my age. It was easy - no driver's licenses or social security numbers back then. And I always looked older than I was - funny to think about that now, eh?"

"Yeah, that's sure changed." He stayed pressed up against me like that, nuzzling my neck, talking in my ear. "So you were like Oliver? Looking like a grown man when you were still a kid?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I can see that's been hard for him - people expect you to act like you look, you know? I guess it was hard for me, too. I hated the Navy, hated following orders. Maybe I didn't have time enough to just be a kid. Or maybe it didn't have anything to do with being young. Maybe that's just my personality. Well, I put up with it for as long as I could. I jumped ship in Japan."

"You deserted?"

"Yeah. Lots of times. Different armies, different countries. Hey, maybe I've got the record for that. I'll have to look it up in Guinness. That was the first time, anyway. I couldn't hack it anymore and I figured it would be easy to just get totally lost in a foreign country. Not really thinking that one through. I had no idea what it would be like to be a foreigner in a country where I didn't speak the language, didn't know the customs. A country that had been pretty much closed to outsiders for a long time. And where even if I did learn how to behave I'd still stand out like a sore thumb just 'cause of how I look. I just knew I couldn't stand taking another order. Like I say - maybe it's just my personality."

He chuckled a little. "Yeah, I've sort of noticed that about you." And then, after a minute, "But you haven't had any problems on the team with that, have you?"

"Nah. Well, maybe I should've been fucking the commodore back then and I wouldn't've minded being in the Navy." Scott laughed at that. "On the other hand, he might have had something to say about that."

"I suppose so." He put his arms around me. "So you deserted in Japan. And you met Yukio?" I nodded. "And you were lovers? Was that your first time with a man, Logan?"

"Yeah. I'd heard of men doing it together. Believe me, you can't be in the Navy and not know about that going on. But it was looked down on, mostly kind of a dirty joke or something. Or something guys did when there weren't women around. And then I'm with Yukio and he taught me all about it. That it could be something else. Something honorable and important. That loving each other could make you braver and you could learn stuff from your lover. Like I told you, they believed in it."

"Did they stay together? Samurai lovers?"

"No. It was like a stage in life or something. Like you said with the Greeks. First you'd be the younger partner and you'd learn from your lover. Then later on you'd be the one teaching some younger guy. And eventually you marry a woman and have kids. Continue the line."

"But you thought you and Yukio would stay together?"

"Well, I was young and stupid, I guess. You know, the guys on my ship really looked down on the Japanese. They thought they weren't as strong as us, as brave. Or as smart, even. But Yukio was the bravest man I'd ever met. And the most honorable. And knew more than all those guys combined. I really loved him. And I believed he loved me. And besides, he was already stepping out of what was expected being with me. I wasn't a samurai. I wasn't even Japanese. So, I thought we'd stay together."

"You said you believed it. Looking back now, what do you think? Did he love you?"

I thought about it a minute. "Yeah, he did. I don't really doubt that. It just gets me all fucked up to think about it."

"What do you mean?" I didn't answer him at first and after a while it sort of hit him. "How old were you, Logan? When you were with Yukio."

"Sixteen. Two years in the navy, but I was still a kid, even if I didn't look it." He didn't say anything. "See what I mean? Yukio knew the truth - I told him how old I was. He thought that was fine. Here he was this grown man fucking a sixteen-year-old kid. I hate people who do that. But when I remember him that's not what it feels like. I remember him being good to me, teaching me, loving me. I don't know how to make sense of it." "Well, autre temps autre moeurs. There and then it was okay, right? It doesn't mean it's a good thing now."

"Some things are just good or bad all the time. How do you feel about the guys who used Oliver?"

He didn't answer right away. Finally he said, "It's different, I think, Logan. In a lot of ways. And maybe being sixteen was different then, too. I think it was different for me, even, than it is now. You know I've told you that I hated that time I was on my own but I still feel like I got some good out of it. And I have some good feelings about the few guys who were nice to me."

"Well, I don't. I could kill them all, Scott, all those men. They had no business having sex with a kid."

"I'm not disagreeing with that part. I just don't think they need to die for it. And I'm acknowledging that there were positive aspects to it." Neither of us said anything, just looking into the fire. "Look, maybe that's too emotionally charged an example. Let me try another one. When Charles came and got me I felt like I was just saved, you know? I couldn't believe my luck. I would have done anything for him. I worked so hard at being an X-Man, at forming the team, at the missions he sent us on. I really wanted to make him proud. Same for Jean and Hank and Warren - we all wanted to.

"But Logan, we don't have kids on the team now. We're so careful to make sure they finish school, make sure we all agree they're ready before we offer them a spot on the team. We talk it over endlessly before we do. You've been in on some of those meetings - you know how seriously we take the decision to offer a space on the team. That one time that Oliver came to Saskatchewan we emphasized again and again that it was just temporary and we were only sending him because it wasn't a combat mission. And made sure he was always under adult supervision.

"I don't think sixteen-year-old kids should be sent into battle. I think it's a terrible thing, a crime, really. But I don't think Charles was a criminal for sending us to fight. We were all he had. And it was so much better than what my life had been. So at the same time I'm happy and grateful for what he gave me but I want something different - something better - for the kids I'm responsible for now. Does that make any sense?"

I thought about it a little. "Yeah, it does. I never really thought about it like that. Like I said, you help me understand stuff. You've taught me a lot, you know."

"Like Yukio?" he asked, kind of a teasing voice.

I answered him seriously. "I think it's different with you and me. We teach each other."

I felt him nodding his head. "That's what makes for a mature relationship, don't you think?" He kissed me on the shoulder. "We're a good team, Logan. We learn a lot from each other." We just stayed there quiet for a while and then he asked again. "So what happened to Yukio? Why did he want you to kill him?"

"We were attacked. He came out of nowhere. Two of us against one of him and still we were no match for him. Huge, bigger than anybody I'd ever seen. Stronger than any ten men, he seemed more animal than man. We had no idea where he came from, what he was. And before we knew it he'd just like ripped us apart, left us there bleeding and dying."

"Sabretooth?" he asked, holding me tighter, knowing the answer to his question.

I nodded and continued. "And there we were. Dying, I thought. More pain than I'd ever known, anyway. Yukio right next to me, in no better shape, telling me he's sorry he failed me. I told him I loved him. It's the first time I ever said it - they didn't talk like that there. Not that I ever heard. I didn't even know how to say it in Japanese - Yukio had told me he loved me by how he treated me, never in words. But we were dying and it seemed important to say it. So I said it in English. He wouldn't know what it meant, I knew, but I did.

"And then… Well, I guess I blacked out for a while. And when I woke up I was feeling better. It's like the pain was sort of disappearing or fading into the background or something. At first I thought maybe that's what happens when you die, but then I looked down at my body and my wounds were just closing up, healing."

"You came into your powers," he said, voice full of wonder. "God, Logan. It's classic - mid-teens, traumatic event. But you couldn't have had any idea what was happening."

"Not a clue. But, there I was. And within minutes it was like it had never happened." I closed my eyes. "To me, anyway. But Yukio's still lying there. Horrible pain. Horrible shame, too, for letting that guy do what he did to us. And Yukio asked me to finish him off. He could barely talk. I can still hear him, Scott, his voice a desperate whisper. I don't know if it was the pain or the dishonor, really, that made him want to die right then. But I knew he couldn't survive. If I thought there was a chance he could've lived, I don't think I would've done it.

"But the wounds, the blood loss - there was nothing I could do to help him. And death, a good death, was important to him. To them. It was a big part of bushido - the way of the samurai. 'One who is a samurai must before all things keep constantly in mind…the fact that he has to die.' I had to do it, Scott." I could feel tears falling on my face now. "It was my responsibility as his lover, part of being a warrior pair. And I knew I never really could be that with him. I wasn't samurai, wasn't Japanese. But I could give him what he needed right then." He was pressed up against me, stroking my hair now, telling me he understood. "So, I reached down to him, to get his sword. But my hand…suddenly there they were and I didn't need the sword."

"The claws? They came out?"

"Yeah," I said, popping the claws on my right hand, holding it up and looking at them. "They weren't like this, you know. Just bone, but strong and sharp. I didn't know what they were or where they came from. I hadn't made them come out. Well, not consciously. They were just there. And he was lying there asking me to do it and it seemed like a dream or something. And I just stuck them right in his heart.

"He shook a little and then he was still. I pulled my hand back and they came out of his body. I didn't even know how to retract them - just looked at those bloody sharp pieces of bone sticking out of my hand. And then got down on my knees and held him and cried and told him I loved him. "

He didn't say anything for a while. "It's like you told me," he said finally. "Anything bad happens and there he is." He paused again. "We've got to get rid of him, once and for all."

"We agreed to take this slow, right? Figure it out as we go."

"Yeah, I'm not going back on that. I wouldn't want you to have to strain yourself being calm and rational again." I chuckled at that. "I'm just saying that's where I think we're going."

"Okay." The fire was dying down now. "Come on, Cyclops," I said, standing up and pulling him up by the hand. "I've had enough of talking about the past. Let's go to Mac's bedroom and come up with some new memories for this place."

He gave me that big grin of his. "Remember you said you'd be touching me this time."

"Oh, yeah. You're going to feel me all over you."

The End

Literary and Historical Guide to Adult Education and Continuing Education

Adult Education and Continuing Education are two brief story series featuring characters I've written quite a bit about before. Throughout my stories, I portray Scott Summers as: a mutant superhero, really good at giving blow jobs, a funny guy with a joke for most any occasion, and an English teacher. So the stories are full of quotes from poems and other literature, primarily reflecting Scott's literary interests. It has been my practice to publish a literature guide at the end of each series, providing a little information on the works quoted as well as urls to read the complete works, where available.
These two series are a little different. In addition to the literary references, there's a fair amount of historical content, since these stories deal in part with Logan's experiences in nineteenth-century Japan. So, this guide covers some of the historical background as well as the literature referenced. As was the case for the other literature guides, this document contains spoilers for the series and should be read after reading Adult Education and Continuing Education.

Literature Referenced:
Poems
Robert Burns. John Anderson, my Jo.
This is a lovely, life-affirming poem of long-term loving. Told in first person it is a love poem to one John Anderson, an elderly man loved by the same person for many years ("Jo" means sweetheart or lover). The narrator tells of when they were young together and John's hair was "like the raven," contrasting that with now that he is old and grey, and offers "blessings on your frosty prow, John Anderson my Jo." Scott quotes the poem to Logan in talking about coming to grips with the fact that he and Logan don't have the option of growing old together. He says he can't expect Logan to heap blessings on Scott's frosty prow while remaining forever young himself. It's not clear what Logan's views on the subject are, though, since at least with Yasuko he had formed what was intended to be a long-term relationship, in spite of the knowledge that she would grow old and he wouldn't. Read the poem at http://www.robertburns.org/works/268.html.
George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron). When We Two Parted.
A poignantly sad poem about clandestine lovers breaking up. Byron says that they parted "in silence and tears" at the beginning of the poem and ends it by saying that, should they meet again at some distant point, "How will I greet thee? With silence and tears." Scott is presumably thinking of this poem when he uses the phrase "silence and tears" in connection to what appears to be the last time he and Logan will have sex. You can read the poem at http://www.bartleby.com/101/597.html
John Donne. For Whom the Bell Tolls.
This is the poem that Scott is teaching when Charles returns from Washington in Adult Education. It begins with the famous line "No man is an island." Its presence in the story is a reminder that Logan has pretty much lived as an island for much of his life and is planning on going back to that solitary existence. Scott, however, wants desperately to maintain their connection. The wording of the line "Each man's death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind" sparks a discussion of inclusiveness and specificity in poetic language and causes the class of young mutants to muse on whether they are truly "involved in mankind" or only involved with their own subspecies. You can read the poem in its entirety at http://djryan.tripod.com/inspirations/poems/bell.html
Carl Sandburg. War Poems.
Scott mentions that Logan wrote an essay on imagery in poems of the Great War. He doesn't specify which poems Logan discussed, but it's a good bet that at least some of them are in Sandburg's Chicago Poems collection. This volume, published in 1916, includes 11 poems of that war. Two of them, "Murmurings in a Field Hospital" and "Killers", were featured in some of my earlier stories. Logan had described Scott's reciting the former poem to him as something he would always remember, with both of them seeing Logan in the badly wounded soldier who wants only playthings. I think it likely that, given Logan's aversion to blind obedience to orders, he might also have particularly been moved by "And They Obey." The entire text of Chicago Poems is available online in a few places, including at http://www.bartleby.com/165/index1.html. Scroll down to poems 67-77 to find the war poems.
William Shakespeare. Sonnet 23.
In this poem, Will pleads with his young lover (known as the Fair Youth) to understand the depth of his love even when he doesn't express it or does so imperfectly. Scott quotes the poem to say that he doesn't need Logan to give him declarations of love, for he has learned - as Will asked of his lover - to "read what silent love hath writ." Logan replies that it's not just an inability to express love that he suffers from, but also to feel it. Scott is at this point confused by the mixed messages Logan is sending him since his behavior seems to suggest intense feeling, not a lack of such.

Play
William Shakespeare. Hamlet.
Scott quotes what is arguably the most famous speech in Shakespeare's most famous play, when he says "There's the rub" with reference to having to involve Charles in their plans for Sabretooth. The line occurs in the "To be or not to be" soliloquy in Act III, Scene 1. Hamlet compares death to sleep but then ponders on the possibility that there may be disturbing dreams in death, rather than peaceful eternal sleep, saying
"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub"
I used the same line for the title of the story in "Night and Day" in which the whole household was dreaming at once. Hamlet is available online in many different places. An excellent site with very readable text and some useful commentary as well, is www.shakespeare-online.com. Hamlet can be found at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamletscenes.asp.

Miscellaneous
Declaration of Independence
In Scott's poetry class, the discussion of John Donne's poem broadens into a larger discussion of inclusive and exclusive language in literature. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal" is brought up by one of the students as an example. It is, of course, the first line of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Scott points out that it's not strictly poetry but that the language is very poetic.
A very well-presented and comprehensive treatment of the Declaration can be found at http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/decmain.html. At this site, provided by the National Archives and Records Administration, you will find the text, a photo of the original Declaration, extensive information on its history and comparisons with other major national documents of the U.S. Of particular interest to Scott's poetry class would be the essay at this link: http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/decstyle.html which explores the Declaration of Independence as a work of literature.
Although I agree with Scott that Jefferson's language is very poetic, it's the end rather than the beginning of the Declaration that strikes me as most poetic and most compelling. I find it most applicable, as well, to the world of the X-Men. Charles Xavier's followers, too, might well find themselves saying that, to further their own cause, "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Plato. Symposium.
Symposium, perhaps the best known of Plato's dialogues, has appeared in several of my Scott and Logan stories. Logan appears to have been captivated by the concept of an "army of lovers" from the first time Scott introduced the idea to him, in We're Not What You Think. The phrase comes from Phaedrus' speech in the dialogue, which is basically a record of different ideas of the nature of love. Often referred to as "literature's most famous dinner party" Symposium purports to be a collection of one such party's various views on what love means. In the second story of Adult Education (Night School) Scott quotes from Phaedrus's speech to draw parallels between the ancient Greek warrior lovers and the samurai ones. He talks about the Greeks having viewed same-sex love relationships as having roles tied to the partners' relative ages much like Logan describes those of the Japanese. The entire dialogue is available in a well-designed site, at http://plato.evansville.edu/texts/jowett/symposium.htm. See historical notes below for more information on parallels between the ancient Greek view of homosexual love and the Japanese concept of shudo.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Hagakure: the Book of the Samurai
This early 18th century work is considered a major text explaining bushido, the way or philosophy of the samurai. Logan quotes from Hagakure when he tries to explain to Scott why he needed to kill Yukio. I have been unable to find an online English translation, but this site: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9151/hagakure.htm offers a few quotes and the Wilson translation is widely available in bookstores and libraries. For more on bushido and the samurai way of life as applied to same-sex relationships, see the historical notes below.

Historical Notes
The Perry Expedition
In Continuing Education, Logan tells Scott that he was in the U.S. navy and assigned to the warship Susquehanna during the Perry Expedition to Japan in 1854. Commodore Matthew Perry led an expedition to Japan that resulted in that country's first treaty with a Western nation, the Treaty of Kanagawa. The treaty marked success in the U.S. effort to open Japan's ports up to western ships and is generally viewed as the beginning of the end of a long period of Japanese seclusion.
There's a lot of information available online on the Perry expedition. Of particular interest because of its vivid descriptions is a first-person account at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1854Perry-japan1.html. The descriptions in this passage are culled from Commodore Perry's notes and reflect the viewpoint and prejudices of the invading Commodore. It would be interesting to read a first person account of one of the Japanese observers of the scene as well.
Perry had an artist and photographer among his crew and the images that were brought back were among the first that citizens of the US saw of Japan. The pictures and an account of the entire expedition were published as a book by an order of Congress. A number of these illustrations can be seen at http://www.kauailink.net/~kfa/perry.html. Another useful site for pictures of the expedition is http://www.grifworld.com/perryhome.html. This one appears to be written with an elementary school audience in mind, but has good reproductions of some of the original expedition illustrations.
Shudo, Mishima and Homosexual Behavior in Japan
Logan reveals in Continuing Education that as a youth he had been the lover of a samurai named Yukio. He says that homosexual behavior was not only accepted but very much encouraged among the samurai and that it was called "shudo". He knows what he's talking about. Note this quote from The Love of the Samurai discussing shudo (the shortened form of wakashu-do, a phrase meaning "the way of the young man") in the Japanese society Logan knew:
"It is especially in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries that it flourished greatly under the rule of the samurai, in a period when the traditional civilization of Japan reached its perfection…Far from being condemned, it was considered more noble and more gracious than heterosexuality. It was encouraged especially within the samurai class; it was considered useful to boys in teaching them virtue, honesty and the appreciation of beauty, while the love of women was often devalued for its so-called 'feminising' effect. A great part of the historical and fictional literature was devoted to the praise of the beauty and valour of boys faithful to shudo."
The idea of homosexual behavior as a more masculine undertaking for men than the love of women provides an interesting contrast with the prevalent view in the West of male/male sex as feminizing men. Another striking contrast is in the way shudo, also known as nanshuko, was contextualized in the society. Erotic and educational partnership with an older man was considered an important stage in a youth's development (this is much like the Ancient Greek model, as Scott points out to Logan). Later on the same youth would be the older partner to a young man and still later he would marry a woman. The cultural construct does not view homosexuality as an identity but a set of behaviors. By contrast, the concept of sexual orientation as inextricably tied to identity is one that is pretty much the cornerstone of modern Western gay liberation.
Scott and Logan can, in some ways, be seen as representing those two differing views of homosexuality. Logan sees male/male sex as behavior, as something he has done at different points in his life for different reasons, but not as a part of his identity. In Canadian Nights he rejects Scott's suggestion that he, Logan, is bisexual, saying that the term has no meaning to him. Scott, on the other hand, sees his sexual orientation as a core element of his identity, both when he is living in the closet and later on when he comes out. His identification as gay exists over and above his sexual behavior. As he says to Jean in Canadian Nights: "If I never had sex again for the rest of my life, I'd still be gay."
It's worth noting, though, that the predominant cultural construct is never the only one extant in a culture. Logan's view of his sexual behavior as separate from and unrelated to identity is certainly not unknown in the West. And the idea of distinct core identities, people whose souls were either hetero- or homosexual, is evident in Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, even though the dominant cultural construct in ancient Greece was to view homosexual behavior as an expected part of a man's life and not related to his self-concept.
Yukio Mishima, for whom I've named Logan's samurai lover, can be seen to represent both sexual orientation as identity and the samurai view of shudo. Mishima is considered by many critics to have been the premier Japanese novelist of the twentieth century. An extraordinarily talented man, he was a prolific writer who also sang professionally and acted in and directed films. His first novel, Confessions of a Mask, believed to be largely autobiographical, tells the story of a man deeply troubled by his homosexuality, trying hard to hide his orientation from family and friends. Mishima was a homosexual and viewed himself as a modern day samurai trying to recapture Japan's lost military might. Perhaps part of the attraction of the samurai life for him was the idea that shudo could be not the shameful secret portrayed in his first novel but "something important" as Logan says in Continuing Education.
Mishima is known for his politics almost as much as for his writing. He led a reactionary movement typified by his private army - the Shield Society. The combination of homosexuality and right-wing politics gives Mishima some points of commonality with the gay neo-cons now writing extensively in the West. Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) along with his young lover, Masakatsu Morita, in 1970 after occupying a military office in Tokyo and giving a speech deriding modern Japan for capitulating with the West.
For readers interested in learning more about these topics, here are some useful online and hard copy references:
http://www.geocities.com/countermedia/9.html Yukio Mishima: a 20th Century Samurai. This website summarizes Mishima's life and death and discusses the interplay of his homosexual orientation and the shudo tradition.
http://www.androphile.org/S/Culture/Japan/ summarizes the history of shudo, with some comparison with the ancient Greek model.
Neil Miller. Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present.(Vintage Books, New York, 1995)
An ambitious project to try and accomplish in one volume, but Miller does his valiant best. The main focus of the book is on the Western homosexual tradition, but there is a chapter on Japan and it focuses on Mishima.
John Whittier Treat. Great Mirrors Shattered: Homosexuality, Orientalism and Japan (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1999)
This book is a first person account of a gay American's year spent in Japan as the AIDS epidemic spread. It's a rather rambling volume, but interesting for its depictions of differences in the contextualization of homosexuality in the United States and Japan. Touches only briefly on the shudo and the samurai tradition of same-sex partners.
Tsuneo Watanabe, Jun'ichi Iwata. The Love of the Samurai : A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality. ( Gay Men's Press, London; 1989)
Frequently cited as a seminal work on the history of male/male sex in Japan. Covers the shudo tradition from its origins to its late nineteenth-century decline. Includes illustrations taken from an ancient Japanese scroll depicting men in samurai garb having sex.