Unfinished Business
Unfinished Business, an X-Men movieverse story by Brenda Antrim. Rated NC17, no copyright infringement intended. For Kat. It was all her idea.
The Canadian Rockies were cold most of the time. February felt coldest.
It was old stomping grounds for Logan, although he'd never realized when he was stomping over it how close he'd been to the past. It had taken a side trip to the States, an adventure with a madman, an unlikely adoption and an even unlikelier attraction, not to mention Wheels with sight, to get him started on the right track.
Unfortunately, he wasn't getting very far. He was beginning to wonder if it had been worth leaving the warmth behind to follow an invisible trail on the off chance that it might tell him who he was. Who he'd been.
Why he couldn't sleep at night unless he was alone.
He flipped a scorched, crumbling chunk of plaster away from the drift of snow that had nearly covered it and stared half-heartedly into the depression left behind in the ground. Staring at the frozen mud, sunlight glinted off an ice crystal along the side of the hole, and his mind flashed back. Fifteen years? Twenty? Before the now. Back in the then.
Water, only thicker, and it tasted bad, and it covered all of him. Pale yellow, or maybe that was the stuff they were drinking, he couldn't tell with all the bloody bubbles.
All the blood.
Laser fire along his backbone, into his shoulders, where his hair should have been on his skull, in the soles of his feet. Thick water in his eyes, on his tongue, in his lungs. Bubbles, inside him where they hurt, outside where they were hurting him.
Lights, then darkness and echoes of machines and voices. Straps breaking, giving way leaving tracks of blood and strips of skin behind, caught in the wires. Wide brown eyes, startled, then staring, then bright red as the blood flowed around them, dulling the flash of silver slicing through them.
Freedom.
Confusion.
Ice.
A shiver ripped through him, shaking him from his memories and bringing him back to the present. He growled, low in his throat. As usual, the tiny slivers of information he could remember didn't mean a damned thing and left him no closer to the truth than he'd been when he started.
"Not getting anywhere here," he muttered under his breath. Might as well head for what passed for home.
For warmth.
Besides. He had to check up on Marie. See how she was doing. Pick up his dog tags. Tease Jean. See if Chuck could give him any more tips.
Let Cyke visit his bike.
Grinning at nothing in particular, at least nothing he'd name, Logan straddled the motorcycle and hit the rocket button. Time to hole up for the winter. Taken any which way he could.
Light splintered on the snow for an instant as the powerful engine roared into the silence of the Canadian winter high in the mountains. It skipped from the trail of the motorcycle to the debris Wolverine had picked over. Muffled in fur and leather, a hand wrote a license plate number on a small piece of paper and tucked it inside the heavy jacket, where the precious information would be safe.
A clue. The ass-end of a long thread. That was all he'd needed. Now he had it. Vengeance had waited too long.
The wait was over.
"I can ... almost see it." Jean's voice was soft, strained with effort.
"Control it," Charles urged her just as quietly. "The power is there. But the conduit cannot be too broad. Fine control, precision-wielded -- "
"Damn!" Her cry of pain interrupted his instruction and he reached over, unclamping the Cerebro helmet from her skull and pulling it swiftly from her head. Her hands reached up automatically to keep her hair from being pulled out of her scalp along with the metal helmet. She closed her eyes and sighed, tired down to her bones. "I thought I had it."
"You were close, my dear," he reassured her, his voice as gentle as she'd ever heard it. "You're pushing." Do you need to speak to me about something?
She heard the mental voice at the same time she felt the indefinable sensation of his mind checking hers for any damage the failed lesson with Cerebro might have caused. No, she denied, knowing it was useless, also knowing he wouldn't probe any deeper. He wouldn't trespass without permission, wouldn't expose the truth she was trying to protect. "I'm tired."
"Then it would be best to wait until you're rested before we try this again."
Her hand reached out and touched his shoulder, grounding herself. Am I ever going to get this?
Not if you don't believe you will. You have the ability, he reassured her. You simply must work on your control.
"Not something that comes naturally, I'm afraid," she admitted.
"Which makes the level you've attained all that much more impressive." He smiled up at her and she returned it helplessly. "Rest. Try again in the morning. It's not out of your reach. Difficult, but not impossible."
"Not with you holding my hand."
"Always, my dear. Now go. I'll see you at breakfast."
Her hand tightened and she forced herself to unpeel her fingers and take her leave. It was becoming harder and harder to disengage herself from Charles. She'd known him most of her life, and for almost all that time she'd seen him as a mentor, the father she'd never had the privilege to have. The past months of intensive training on her psychic abilities, being allowed to share things with him that no one else could, had altered her perception of him. She no longer saw him as a father figure.
She saw him as a man.
And that picture was interfering with all her preconceived notions of how her life should be structured. Charles was the person to whom she turned for learning, guidance, leadership. Scott was for love. Togetherness. Passion. Ororo was for friendship, companionship, the closest she came to normalcy. Now those lines were blurring. When she pictured the categories in her mind, Scott and Ororo blazed as friends in her thoughts. Charles was coming to embody passion.
She was fighting with everything she had to keep that secret sacrosanct. She would not inflict her confusion on anyone else. She would do what she had always done; work through the conflict until the world was in its proper pattern again. Until then, she would do what she must to protect the people she loved.
Even from herself.
She didn't notice, in the distance she attempted to create between herself and Charles, that an even greater distance had formed between herself and Scott. Focused on the man who was becoming the central point of her life, she didn't realize the one who had been her center was withdrawing. She certainly didn't know that the withdrawal was as much on his side as it was on hers, and had been ongoing for months.
She never looked closely enough to see.
Scott heard the engine before he saw any sign of the motorcycle. He'd built that bike from the ground up. He knew it inside and out.
If only he could say the same of the man riding it.
"That's it for today," he told his students. They looked disappointed. He stifled a grin. Nice to know he could do something well, even if it was just teaching automotive class to a bunch of fourteen-year-olds. "Now, I've got some business to take care of for the next few hours. The garage is closed. For class Thursday, I want you to study up on suspension systems. We'll be looking at the Jeep and the Explorer."
Watching them tumble out the door, chattering about cylinders and lunch dates and physics and Victorian poetry, he couldn't help but compare the happy sound of their chatter with the hell his own adolescence had been. He had so much to thank Charles for, and his own life was just the beginning of it. Shaking the thoughts off before he got too sappy, he closed and locked the door leading from the garage into the house.
Logan was home, and Scott didn't want any interruptions. The kids weren't ready for that. Heck, he wasn't sure he was, either.
Then the sleek chrome wheel guard nosed in the outer door of the garage, and the moment of truth was upon him, whether he was ready for it or not.
"Hey," he offered laconically as soon as Logan cut the engine. Logan sat there, leaning back against the seat, all denim and leather and scruffy hair and hungry eyes. "She running okay?"
"Damn fine," Logan answered the question Scott hadn't asked. Then he answered the second one before Scott could get it out. "Didn't find much." He swung his leg over the chassis and stalked up to stand toe to toe with Scott. "Got cold. Figured I might as well come back and see if you wanted to take up where we left off." The last words were practically spoken into Scott's mouth.
He didn't back off an inch. If anything, he leaned closer. "And where exactly would that be?"
Strong arms wrapped around him and he barely had a chance to bring a hand up to anchor his glasses. When the spinning stopped, he found himself tipped over the saddle of the bike. He couldn't stop the laughter that was bubbling out, even though it robbed him of his breath.
The laughter wasn't all that it made him breathless.
A single claw, the middle one, he'd bet, slipped out and slit his trousers from waist to crotch. "Oh, right about here, I reckon," Logan drawled.
The laughter mutated to a moan as hands still warm from leather gloves parted the material and stroked the bare skin of his ass. His own fingers clenched around the edge of the seat, careful even with his mind clouding with lust not to touch the hot spots of metal all around him. Lust with an edge of danger : an apt description of his entire relationship with Logan.
Then two fingers curled inward from his buttocks to push into him, and his thoughts scattered. "Good. God," he growled into the air, eyes closing behind his quartz glasses. He prided himself on his control, but Logan made mincemeat of it every time he did this. It was the only time he really let himself go.
When Logan made him.
Flesh hotter and larger than fingers worked into him, and he clenched his jaw to keep from screaming out loud with the sheer sensual intensity of it. Control of his body he could lose; control of his tongue? No. If he howled the way he wanted to when Logan thrust -- just - like - that -- he'd bring the house down around their ears. Some things shouldn't have an audience.
Himself tossed over the seat of a motorcycle and screwed out of his mind by Wolverine gone primal was definitely one of them.
Hard hands gripped his hips, holding him steady while Logan slammed into him. The skin along his thighs and lower back felt like it was on fire where Logan moved against him, even through two layers of clothes. His erection dug into the leather grooves on the seat, and he spared a thought to wonder if semen was bad for leather, before Logan kicked up the momentum another notch and that thought joined the others in oblivion. Buttons dug in and his breath hitched in pain. He spared a second from hanging on for dear life to unbutton his fly.
Leather felt even better on bare skin than he'd expected. Especially leather that was still warm from Logan sitting on it for a few hundred miles.
Scott's hair was hanging over his glasses, one hand was holding them on determinedly while the other tried to brace himself on the pedal. All he could see was a red haze, all he could feel was brute force and pure need. All he could hear was the rush of his blood in his ears and the muffled pant of Logan's breathing under the stifled moans of his own. It was incredible.
He'd missed this.
Shunting that thought off to the side as well, Scott concentrated on the moment, losing himself in Logan's rhythm, allowing himself to let everything else fall away. Sex was so different with Logan, and not just in the obvious ways. With Jean, he had to be careful. With Logan, he didn't.
There was no one else he trusted to get this close. Not even Jean. Clenching his hands into fists, focusing on the weight of Logan slamming into him and the slide of the leather under him, he put the thought of Jean away too. She had no place here.
She never had.
He was on the verge of coming when Logan, damn him, suddenly stopped moving completely. Scott couldn't stifle the whimper that escaped. He did manage to force one word out through clamped jaws. "What?!" It was closer to a growl than a question.
"Are we?" Logan growled back. He seemed content to stand there forever, stuffed up Scott to the hilt, thrumming with barely contained energy.
Scott nearly pounded his forehead into the side of the bike. Hanging upside down with all the blood in his body pooled in his groin made logic difficult, and following Logan's logic was tough even when he was prepared for it. "Are we what?" he asked helplessly.
"Taking up where we left off?" Logan sounded so damned reasonable. If Scott hadn't been lying there with his toes over the cliff so close to climax he could taste it, he would have been irritated. As it was, he was just frantic.
"Doesn't it look like it?" he panted, wiggling his hips back as much as possible against Logan's grip. The friction against his cock made him grunt in near-painful pleasure.
"I wanna hear it," Logan told him, thrusting twice, then stopping again.
Scott nearly howled, "YES!" That must have been the cue, to what, Scott had no idea, too far gone to even know that he'd agreed, not caring what it might have been about. All he knew was that he had to come. Now.
Logan obliged. One hand left its steel grip on Scott's hip to slide between Scott's cock and the seat. A few strong pumps, echoed by the counter-movement behind and in him, and Scott came all over the side of the bike. The relief was so great he almost didn't feel Logan arching behind him, slamming into him, coming himself. Silently.
Utterly wiped out, feeling boneless, Scott flashed back on the first time Logan had made him feel that way, after a workout in the Danger Room late one night shortly before Logan had left. He hadn't thought, then, that this would ever happen again.
So much for predicting Logan.
Hands leaned against the saddle on either side of his hips, and he cracked his eyes open far enough to look at one. He felt a certain satisfaction at noting that the arm attached to the hand was shaking. Then Logan pushed off and pulled out of him, and he groaned involuntarily at the loss of contact. Logan steadied himself against the handlebars and stretched out, swiping Scott's hair off his forehead, a gruff caress that spoke as much of ownership as affection. Scott sighed.
Back to square one.
"You gonna get up sometime today, Cyke?" His voice was steady and remarkably cheerful.
"Gimme a decade or two to recover, Wolvie," Scott grumped back. There was a moment of silence.
"Wolvie?" Logan asked in a tone that redefined disgusted disbelief. Scott couldn't help chuckling.
"You'd prefer Claw?" he asked, undraping himself with some difficulty from the bike, absently rubbing the spatter of semen into the leather. Examining it with a critical eye, he decided he'd have to oil the saddle later. Salt wasn't good for leather.
Logan growled at him. Turned to stomp into the house. Scott started to follow then stopped abruptly, suddenly hyper-aware of the torn back seam of his trousers and the reddened, wet state of his rear end.
"Hey," he called out. Logan glanced over his shoulder. "Toss me a pair of sweats from the locker. I can't go in there waving in the breeze like this."
Logan grinned. He looked more like a shark than a man. Then he flicked a claw in Scott's general direction and walked jauntily into the house, leaving the door wide open behind him.
"Shit," Scott grumbled, then took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. Yeah, Logan was back, and hadn't changed one iota from the look -- and feel -- of it. Not sure whether he was pissed off or happy about the idea, Scott wandered back into the house and headed for his room. By the time he'd showered, gotten dressed in fresh clothes and tossed his ruined trousers in the trash where Jean couldn't find them, he decided that he was pleased Logan was back.
He could always work on the attitude.
Drained from a long day of conflicting emotions, Jean burrowed into Scott's arms and tried not to think about anything. Logan's return hadn't been a surprise; she'd read from Charles that he'd be coming back soon. His arrival had deflected attention from her own distraction, and she was thankful for that. Her emotions were too unstable these days. It was good to be able to concentrate on someone outside herself.
Confused by her own conflicting feelings, she found herself aroused by Charles and comforted by Scott's closeness. Fortunately, Scott wasn't a psychic, so he couldn't know she was thinking of another man as he held her in his arms. Unfortunately, she knew precisely what she was doing.
She was using Scott as a shield against her feelings for Charles.
It was a coward's way of dealing with a difficult situation. It was also the only way she could think to handle it. She felt unprepared to confront either man, unprepared even to confront herself. She loved them both, but that love had changed. There was something shameful in making love to Scott whilst holding a picture of Charles in her mind.
It was a good thing that he was as tired as she, and perhaps as conflicted about Logan's return as she was about the situation with Charles. She didn't dare ask, didn't dare run her mental fingers through his thoughts to see how he was handling Logan's return to the school. Her own struggle was too close to the surface. She ran the risk of exposing her own, mental and emotional if not physical, infidelity if she got too close to Scott's mind.
Whatever the cause, he didn't say anything and she didn't ask. He didn't initiate lovemaking, and neither did she. They lay there quietly, holding onto one another. If there was a hint of determination in his hold, it was masked by the desperation in her own.
"Jean," he said softly. She looked up at him.
He was surprisingly vulnerable with his shields off. Sans visor or goggles, his face was all planes and angles, an upturned nose, long eyelashes, soft lips. He was beautiful, and she'd loved him. There were times when she thought she was insane not to continue to do so, not in the way she had before.
Before Charles had insinuated himself so fully into her thoughts that there was no room for anyone else.
"We need to talk."
She stiffened. "About what?" She tried to moderate the sharp edge to the question, but didn't fully succeed. His brows drew together, and he took a deep breath as if to steady himself.
"Sometimes ... sometimes things change. And we can't really do anything about it. Right? I mean, it's not our fault. Things just ... happen. It's not that it's right or wrong, it just is. Priorities, they get, well, rearranged, sort of. Feelings change, and maybe that's not a bad thing, not really. People change. You know what I mean? Other people cause us -- "
Her hand rose to cover his mouth. Guilt ate at her. He knew. He knew, and she couldn't face the fact that he knew. Not tonight. Not in his bed.
In his arms.
"Please, Scott. I'm very tired. Can we talk another time?" Not now. Not here. Not yet.
He nodded, pressing a light kiss against her fingers. She read forgiveness and love in the gesture.
It made her heart break.
The wave of pure misery coming from Jean and Scott's bedroom was so strong it literally pulled Charles out of a sound sleep. He stared up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes slowly, pain forcing a sigh from him.
His poor children.
He'd only been fifteen the first time he'd realized what the voices in his head meant. It had been a terrible, frightening, alienating experience. In the first few years after it began, he'd made frightfully stupid mistakes. Then he'd met Eric, and learned to put the needs of another before his own. Learned so many things. Not least of which was when to step back.
When to wait.
When to watch.
When to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the inevitable eruption.
An explosion was imminent. Jean was learning at an amazing rate, and her emotions were not keeping pace with the development of her powers. She was confused, and would become moreso before she regained her balance. Scott, his dear earnest Scott, was facing a moral dilemma unlike any he'd ever encountered.
They had each fallen in love with someone else, and were too frightened of hurting one another to admit it to themselves, much less each other.
The hardest lesson he'd learned from Eric was not to interfere. This was not the time to step in. They had to find their way through the morass on their own. When they had sorted the options to the point where they knew what it was they wanted, he would be there.
For both of them.
Smiling somberly, he deliberately cleared his thoughts and settled down to return to sleep. Love was the most difficult, exasperating and miraculous of all emotions. He'd felt it once. It had nearly destroyed him. He would do his best to ensure that his children didn't suffer to that extent, but they would have to make their own decisions. They would have to be the ones to live with the repercussions of those decisions. It was a harsh but necessary lesson they had to learn, and they had to learn it on their own.
In the dim light of his bedroom, his mind a half century away from his body, a tear trickled down the side of his cheek and into the corner of his smile.
None of it made any sense.
Back in the relatively safe haven of the school, Logan had figured the nightmares would ease off a little.
On the contrary.
He'd spent some time catching up with Marie. Told her to keep the dog tags on the off-chance he had to leave again. Flirted with Jean, keeping an eye on Scott the whole time. Waiting for another chance to get in his pants. Something about making Control-boy lose his cool did it for Logan, big-time. He'd checked in with Xavier, and been assured the old man would do what he could to find some new leads. Logan believed him. He didn't trust many people. X, he found himself trusting.
Scott, he just found himself wanting.
Refusing to look past the surface of that want, he stripped off, flopped on the bed, and told himself to go to sleep. Two hours later he finally did. Then the insanity began all over again.
The images were different each time, but the underlying fear and agony were always the same. Flashes, like some noir filmmaker gone nuts, barely enough to shock and tease, never enough to tell him what the hell had actually happened.
Men in camouflage, automatic pistols in their hands. Himself, confused, frightened, enraged, shivering in a hospital gown. He was cold, but burning up with anger. They couldn't take him! He wouldn't let them take him! He'd kill every last one of them before they took him!
They took him.
Another flash, this time back with the damned thick water again. Lines on his skin, fire in his bones. Laser scalpels and surgical masks. Laughter and triumph outside the glass; silence and agony inside. Drowning in pain, but always waking up again, to more pain.
He thrashed on the bed. His knuckles hurt, and part of him knew his claws were snicking in and out, responding to a threat he'd never had a fair chance to meet. Overpowered, conquered before he could even start to fight. Impossible odds.
Flash of memory, and the water was gone. Laughter was gone. Crowds were gone. Halls echoed, mostly empty, but not quite. His arms strained and the straps gave. Freedom, trapped in a complex built for torture. Rat in a maze. A face before him, bodies at his feet. Pretty but empty, brown eyes looking at him and through him. Not human, not him, not her. His fist closing around her windpipe; finally, an expression other than curiosity in her eyes.
Terror.
Pale skin turning ashen, lips turning blue. Expected pain of claws erupting through the skin between his knuckles as he clenched his fist. Slicing through skin and skull, hers this time, not his, and she wouldn't heal. Metal, not laser. Fear disappearing into blood as the claws sliced into and through her face, through those eyes, cleaving that questioning brain into so much raw meat.
Escape.
Blood on his hands.
Hers, this time. Not his own.
This time when he woke himself with his screams, he knew he'd killed them. All of them. Now, if he just had a clue who the fuck 'them' was, he'd finally be on the right track.
Exhausted, eyes burning, body hurting from phantom memories, Logan fell back against the pillows, stared at the ceiling, and waited for sunrise. At least when he was awake, he didn't have nightmares. Or remember.
Pretty much the same thing, from his perspective.
He'd been searching for almost sixteen years. He was a patient man. He'd been trained to be patient. As well as deadly. It came in handy.
Especially when hunting mutants.
He hated the fuckers. Most real humans were scared of them, but he wasn't. He just hated them. They were abominations, animals, mistakes. They had to be put down. Before they hurt anybody.
Anybody else.
He lived for the hunt. Didn't have anything to go back to now. The project was terminated when the last subject went berserk, escaped and slaughtered the last remaining team of scientists during a holiday break.
Including his wife.
He wasn't berserk. He was calm. Focused. Ready. He'd been ready since a mutant freak went nuts and destroyed his life; his patience was paying off. He'd discovered a few things. The killer wasn't alone. He had a friend. A fuck buddy. The other freak was the way to get to the killer.
He'd lost all he cared about. He'd return the favor. Then, when the bastard knew what it was like to lose, he'd kill him, too.
He still had some contacts in the government from his own time in the shadows. The plate had been easy to track. Settling in on a hill overlooking a swanky big house, the man brought high-powered binoculars to his eyes and prepared to wait. An opportunity would present itself and when it did, he'd be ready.
Blood for blood.
About damned time.
"What did she say?"
Scott stared blindly at what he supposed was a nice green tree at the edge of a clearing in the farthest reach of the school grounds. Everything he saw was a variant of ruby red, but he remembered what green looked like. Sort of.
"I didn't tell her." He didn't want to have this conversation, either, but for once the normally taciturn Logan wouldn't shut up.
"You don't strike me as the cheatin' type."
He glanced over. Yeah, he'd heard right. The smirk was there. Logan's mouth turned him on; it had since the first insult he'd heard from it. But that smirk -- it was irritating, the way sand in his shorts was irritating, at a basic level that made his blood boil. He was about to snap back, something as caustic as he felt, when he glanced up further.
Details were hard to see. The lightning in his eyes made it tough sometimes, regardless of how much training he got in how to read body language. But even he could see the uncertainty in Logan's eyes. He wondered if Logan knew it was there. Judging by the smirk, he'd guess not.
"I tried." Before Logan could make the smart-ass remark he just knew was on the tip of his tongue, Scott hurried on. "She didn't want to talk."
The smirk hardened. "Too interested in nookie to worry about small talk?"
Scott turned back to the tree. At least if he lost his temper and hit it, it wouldn't hit him back. Taking a deep breath, he ran a hand through his hair and told the tree, through clenched teeth, "No, we didn't make love."
"If you weren't fucking and you weren't talking, what were you doing?"
He could feel the warmth all along his side as Logan settled down next to him. Unconsciously, Scott leaned into it. "Sleeping." He glanced sideways, noting the shadows under the other man's eyes and lines around his mouth that spoke of fatigue. "Which was more than you were doing, from the look of it."
Logan shifted uncomfortably and looked away. Scott suppressed his own smirk.
"Don't sleep much."
"I wouldn't know," he found himself saying. "Even if Jean did know, and we were really together, you wouldn't let me sleep with you. Heck, the one time I did doze off you practically set land speed records getting out of the room." The memory still irked him. Almost as much as it hurt. "So what's with that?" He turned enough to be able to watch Logan's face. Darkened eyes glared at him then looked away. That tree was being well watched, between the two of them.
"Claws," Logan answered abruptly.
"Huh?" Scott responded with a singular lack of intelligence. He couldn't help it. Logan made him stupid. In so many ways.
"Not safe."
Logan was glaring at the tree with enough force to cause it to spontaneously combust. Scott wriggled until he was sitting perpendicular to Logan, watching him intently, trying to read what he wasn't saying by the expression on his face. It was tough going. He took a stab at it anyway.
"Are you afraid that you'll do to me what you did to Marie and skewer me while you're in the midst of a nightmare?"
Logan's silence was more telling than anything he could have said. Scott cast around for a tactful way to approach the subject, then shook his head. This was Wolverine. Blunt was always best.
"Tell me about your nightmares."
The response was immediate. "I don't talk about my past."
"Especially to me, yeah, got it." Logan scalded him with a glare and Scott leaned forward, hand warming the air a breath away from the top of Logan's thigh. "You're trying to uncover your past. The key might be in your dreams. Maybe I can help you." Logan didn't run away. Scott considered this a good sign. "You can trust me." I let you fuck me. I broke my promises for you. I've given you my body and my heart. The least you could do is give me your thoughts. He didn't say the words, but his thoughts were strong enough even the mind-numb should be able to read them. It was a damned good thing Jean was in Cerebro with Charles. His hand settled on Logan's knee.
Logan looked down at it. Looked up at him. Scott stayed as still as possible, seeing the wildness in Logan's eyes, the wariness in his stance. Fight or flight was in full swing, and he was praying Logan would choose neither. Talking wasn't the easiest option, but it was the best one. For this, anyway.
"I trust ya," Logan finally said. "Just don't know what to tell you."
"What do you see in your dreams?" Scott asked quietly, encouraged by the fact that Logan hadn't bolted. Yet.
"Guy with a wielder's mask and a torch, coming at me. People having a party while I'm getting cracked open like a fuckin' walnut. Thick water trying to drown me. Killing people." His voice faltered on the last words.
Scott swallowed. His hand didn't move, but his heart felt like it skipped a few beats.
"Can you make any sense out of it?" he asked after a long moment. Logan shook his head.
"Nah."
They sat there for several minutes. Scott waited, but there were no further revelations. Inching closer, he asked, still quietly, "What can I do?"
"Keep the nightmares away," Logan answered. Then he leaned sideways and caught Scott by the chin. Scott closed his eyes as Logan's mouth covered his.
It wasn't rough, like it usually was. It was slow, and curious, and hungry. Always hungry. Logan's hand cupped his face, holding him in place. Not like he'd go anywhere.
He was pretty damned hungry, himself.
His arms went up around Logan's back, measuring the shoulders that were just that much broader than his. One hand clutched the thick wiry curls at the back of Logan's head; the other ran down his side to curve around his waist and pull him closer.
They went over in a tangle of arms and legs as Logan surged forward. Scott found himself on his back, Logan leaning over him, kiss continuing unabated, hunger riding them both hard. Logan's hands were tearing at his shirt, and he protested, a combination of arousal and caution.
"Damnit, Logan, don't rip my clothes to shreds this time. No way am I walking back to the building naked."
A strange sound, a rumbling cross between a growl and a laugh, came from the mouth pressed against his throat. Scott found himself grinning. Unwinding his hands from around Logan's body, he stripped himself as quickly as possible considering he was unwilling to let go completely. It took some time, and he was hampered as much as helped by Logan kissing and stroking his skin as it was uncovered, but he finally got himself relatively naked.
The shoes would just have to stay. At least his ankles weren't tied together by his jeans this time.
That taken care of, he attacked Logan, determined to enjoy stripping him for a change. In a playful mood, Logan let him. It was sheer heady sensation for Scott as he explored Logan's chest, the side of his neck, the curve of his hip, the back of his knee, stripping off cloth and replacing it with kisses.
Logan kept his boots on, too. By that time, they were both a little crazy with desire, and neither one of them was up to the challenge of buckles.
Scott took Logan in his mouth, clumsily but with great enthusiasm. Sucking cock wasn't a skill he'd ever practiced, but natural talent could and did make up for lack of experience. He didn't get very far, anyway, before Logan shifted under him and made him lose his place.
Then Logan started in on him, and made him lose his mind.
He didn't know where Logan had learned how to make love to a man, and Logan probably didn't either, but who cared? He knew what he was doing. Scott was muttering broken gibberish in short order, legs and arms akimbo as Logan licked and sucked everything he could reach from Scott's navel to his tailbone. By the time Scott realized he was face-first in the grass, Logan was already working his way into him, and he couldn't care less if he was on the moon.
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Scott breathed through his mouth and fought his incipient climax. Logan did things to him, made him feel things, he hadn't even known existed. His hands dug into the dirt and he arched his back, pushing up against Logan's belly, back into Logan's groin. When Scott felt the solid muscle of Logan's pelvis flat against his buttocks, he was finally able to relax.
Not for long.
Logan crouched over him, knees between Scott's, forcing his thighs apart. Scott turned his head to the side to keep from eating any more dirt and saw Logan's hands come down on the ground next to his own. Logan's fingers were shorter, his palms broader than Scott's. Sturdy hands. Fighter's hands. Metal flashed as claws extended from between the knuckles, impaling the earth, anchoring Logan in place over Scott.
Deadly hands, on a deadly man, bringing him nothing but unadulterated pleasure.
Tension built along Scott's spine, in his thighs as he thrust back to meet Logan's forward motion, in his shoulders as they took the brunt of the pounding he was getting. His fingers and toes began to tingle and his lips drew back in a snarl. His muscles tightened and he bucked, once, twice, feeling the release of that tension through his balls, down the back of his legs, along his scalp. He clamped down tight on Logan, still moving within him, and muffled a scream against the side of his forearm.
Then Logan was moving harder, faster, as Scott's bones melted. Only the curl of Logan's body over his, and the final thrusts into him, kept him from dissolving into the grass. He felt Logan still, then hunch against him, the roughness of a bearded jaw rubbing between his shoulder blades, the softness of a kiss pressed there.
Scott folded his legs and carried Logan down with him as he collapsed. Logan held him all the way down, head resting against his back. Twinned racing heartbeats thudded through them. Scott smiled into the grass.
There was a time for talk and a time for action. Trust Logan to know the difference.
In the end, they made it easy for him.
The killer took his freak friend into a grove of trees some distance from the house, in easy range of his own position, and proceeded to fuck him. He smiled.
Enjoy it while you can, bud. Life's short. Getting shorter.
Bringing his rifle to bear on the entwined, oblivious couple, he sighted through his scope. A broad scarless back filled his field of vision. It gleamed with sweat, shining in the sunlight. Crosshairs picked out a point mid-spine.
Didn't matter how fucking well he healed. Nobody, no matter what kind of freak, healed from stone dead. Not even a mutant.
The body shifted, falling below his sight, and he followed it. They rolled to the side and he caught a glimpse of brown hair, flushed cheeks, black glasses. His smile widened.
First the heart. Then the gut.
The crosshairs traveled slowly down a lanky, toned body, slender next to the bulk of the killer, but not weak. Not yet. A well-placed bullet, and it would be. The target settled, the juncture of ribs over the belly, panting under the killer's hand. His eye narrowed and his finger tightened on the trigger. Time to finish this business.
For his wife. So she could rest in peace.
For the killer and every damned mutant like him.
May they rot in hell.
The helmet was becoming easier to handle. Sorting through unique patterns of brain waves was rather like sorting through fine embroidery threads; the slightest variation in texture and color defined and contrasted each from the next. Jean relaxed further. It was difficult, yes. It was also fun.
"Try someone closer to home," Charles instructed her. She thought immediately of him. "Not quite that close." She could feel his smile as clearly as she could hear it in his voice.
Guilt struck her She felt his concern, but turned away from it, her mind already seeking Scott. That seemed to have become her pattern. Seek out Charles; feel guilty; seek out Scott. Caught up in that realization, she was completely unprepared for what she found when she found Scott.
Logan.
Her mind ricocheted from the scene painted by Cerebro, disbelief tearing her from it and sending her reeling. Vaguely, she could feel Charles move closer, mental energy reaching out to steady her. She swung wildly, settling on the closest mind she could find, then exploding back out of it.
Charles. Taking Cerebro from her as she lost all semblance of control over her mental gift.
Her psychic questing rebounded back toward Scott, then veered away, ghosting through another presence, close to Scott but not Logan.
Not Logan.
Boggling at the emotional knot she'd felt between the two men, the blast of hatred from the new mind came as an even greater shock to her, immobilizing her completely. All she could do was sit, screaming in her mind, watching through an assassin's eye as he centered his aim directly on Scott's heart.
Thankfully, Charles heard her scream.
She heard the echo as he called Storm, mobilized the defenses of the school, invaded the mind of the sniper and took control of the situation. Sitting, trembling, she watched from somewhere outside herself as Charles mounted a rescue. Unable to do anything else, needing to help, she did something she'd never tried to do before.
She screamed, with her mind, projecting as loudly as she could, every ounce of fear and adrenaline running through her fueling the alarm.
Scott! Logan! MOVE!
It was the only time his mind and his body ever really worked together. Even when he was fighting, it was like his body took over and his mind went along for the ride. When his brain took over, he had nightmares and lost control of his body.
When he fucked Scott, everything went right. It was the only time that happened.
He felt Scott spasm around him and fought to hold on, wanting to feel it before he lost himself in his own orgasm. It was a hell of a fight and a hell of a ride, worth every bit of effort he put into it. When Scott sagged, he used his arms to hold them both up, letting himself go. Sweet. Felt sweet. He lowered his head and touched his mouth to the hollow between Scott's shoulder blades, right below the little bump his spine made where his neck met his shoulders.
Tasted sweet, too.
Strength draining out of him, he let Scott drop, controlling and breaking the fall with his arms, rolling them sideways as they collapsed. His claws retracted and his fingers spread over the soft skin just below Scott's ribcage, above his belly, over his heart. There was sweat and sperm caught in the hair there and he rubbed it absently into the fine grain of the skin, following the line of rib until his palm was lying loosely over the rapidly pounding heart just below the breast bone. The beat echoed through him.
Before he could say anything, supposing he had the breath for it and remembered how to form words much less knew what those words might be, a brick slammed into his head. Reflexes kicked in and he was rolling toward cover even as the static in his brain translated into Jean's voice and his body recognized that Scott was rolling just as fast as he was.
Covering him.
His mind flashed to another memory, a recent one. Barely conscious, aware more with his body than his mind, usual state of affairs in combat. Snow, and pain, and blood in his mouth, and the smell of gas afire close by. Warmth along one side, and an arm braced across his back. Long body angled partially over his, lying there in the snow. Scott. Covering him.
Again.
Logan didn't know what the hell was going on, but he didn't need to. The short hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. His teeth were bared in a snarl. His claws were primed to slash. Scott was pressed up against him, one sweat- and dirt-streaked naked arm raised, hand at the side of his glasses, vainly looking for a trigger. Jean's voice was shrieking through his head, danger! danger! and he had a gut feeling Scott was hearing it too.
No more than two seconds had passed from the first alert to them finding cover. He heard the whine of a high velocity bullet and saw a puff of dirt and grass kick up. Right where they'd been lying.
Right where his hand had been pressed over Scott's heart.
Rage filled him, causing his body to shake, drowning out Jean's call in his mind. There was a threat. To Scott. It had to be eliminated. He had to track it down and kill it before it could try to harm them again.
Before he could act on his instincts, a gale force wind struck the hill directly behind the clearing he and Scott had been in. Brush flattened, and he caught sight of the source of the threat.
A sniper.
Seeing that the man was pinned down by the unnatural winds, Storm's work, no doubt, Logan pushed himself away from Scott and grabbed his clothes. With his peripheral vision he saw Scott doing the same. Scott's mouth was moving, but the wind was whistling so loudly he couldn't hear a thing.
Probably just as well. Lip-reading, Logan knew Scott was telling him to stay in place, keep covered. It wasn't gonna happen.
Not until the threat was eliminated. For himself. For Scott.
Nobody tried to kill what was his and lived to walk away.
Drops of sweat slid down from his forehead, stinging his eyes, but Charles didn't feel it. As often happened when he was engaged in mental struggle, physical details ceased to exist. The only reality was the threat and its neutralization.
Storm had the intruder pinned to a hillside at the edge of the school grounds. Jean's warning had been sufficient to remove Scott and Logan from the line of fire. Their doings at the time of the warning were irrelevant. Survival was paramount.
With that edict at the forefront of his mind, he forced his way into the thoughts of the intruder. He had no qualms at doing so. His children were at risk. The man had brought the action upon himself with his attack.
Hatred boiled up from the bowels of the man's mind like the stench of a sewer. Forcing his way through it, Charles froze the man's muscles in place, stopping him from doing any further damage until the ground forces could get to him and disarm him. Storm and Jean were on their way; with the warning delivered, the threat made clear, Scott and Logan would be as well.
Thoughts began to form, images of a woman. A place, with gray walls and tile floors; a military research institution. He recognized the symbols emblazoned on the wall. The darkened splashes of liquid were out of place in the sterile surroundings. Blood.
Vast quantities of it.
The image lurched, as the man's foot must have on the slick tile. It shifted, and Charles saw several bodies scattered along the corridor in a manner that bespoke immense strength and inhuman fury. Denial painted the image dimly, then it surged back, stronger than before, to focus on a single woman. There were two stars on her shoulders. Her hands were curled into claws.
Her head had been sliced into pieces. Her face was unrecognizable. The man whose memories he plundered knew her without having to see her face.
Another memory image appeared, this one accompanied by feelings of pride and affection. The same woman, intact, animated, sparkling. Flutes of champagne and chests full of medals gleamed in the light of a laboratory. In the background, a tank; in the tank, the body of a man.
Staring at her.
Death in his eyes.
The memory shifted again, to a single glimpse of hands covered in blood and brain matter, fingers resting at the point where the collarbone dipped at the base of the corpse's throat. There was no pulse, of course. Resolve shrieked in a macabre duet with hatred. The man began to track his prey.
Charles could feel insanity pulling at him, lapping at his own iron control, threatening to overset him. Pulling back, he concentrated on maintaining restraint of the man until such time as he could be disarmed and taken into custody. He would have to tell Logan what he'd discovered from the man's memories.
Later.
They were up the hill in moments, Logan in the lead. Scott was fumbling with his shirt buttons, cursing under his breath. Distantly, Logan was impressed with the boy's vocabulary. The rest of his attention was concentrated on putting down the bastard who'd tried to kill Scott.
The winds eased as they came up beside the man, who appeared to be paralyzed. Close up, Logan was able to see past the black stocking cap and turtleneck sweater, past the long-barreled rifle with the sniper's sight. He could see the man's face.
He recognized it.
Nightmare overlapped with reality as the blank expression and hate-filled eyes staring up at him were replaced by an image of the same stranger. Smiling, this time, drinking champagne, toasting a woman he also knew. A woman who ignored his screams while she cut into him with a torch. A woman who made notes on a chart then filleted his limbs with the emotionless precision of a butcher preparing a cut of meat.
A woman he'd killed, strangling her then slicing her to pieces with the adamantium she had so agonizingly installed in him.
For the first time in his life, Logan's mind over-rode his body in the middle of a combat situation.
Charles could see through the man's eyes, knew that Scott and Logan were there, could feel Jean and Ororo coming up the hill. Then a surge of hatred with the force of madness unleashed behind it caught him unprepared, wrenching control of the man's body from Charles in an instant.
A crucial instant.
Scott skidded to a halt behind Logan, nearly running into him when the other man stopped dead in his tracks. Detouring around him, Scott looked down at the black-clad commando who'd tried to kill them. From the look of it, Charles was holding the son of a bitch down for them.
Ignoring, for the moment, just what it was he'd been doing when the attack came, not to mention the fact that both Jean and Charles must now be fully aware of it, he squared his jaw and snapped at the man, "Who are you? Who sent you?"
The attacker shook, tremors running through him like an attack of palsy, then launched himself at Logan.
Who stood there. Pole-axed. Didn't make a move to defend himself.
Scott saw the hunting knife in the man's hand and reacted without thinking. He had to protect Logan, so he did. His fingers couldn't find a trigger, but they did find the temple of his goggles, and he tipped them at the exact moment that he positioned his body to the side of Logan.
One uncontrolled blast. Something he hadn't done in two decades. For very good reason.
The goggles were back in place and his hands were twitching reflexively a second later. Logan still stood immobile, staring blankly into space. Where the attacker had been, there was nothing but the burning stump of a tree.
Scott had incinerated him.
He didn't have the chance to ask Logan what the hell was going on. Jean and Ororo had arrived. Scott didn't ask them, either.
He was too busy throwing up on a handy bush.
The debriefing after the attack had been blessedly short. Logan simply said, "Grudge."
Charles looked at him and replied, "We must talk. In the morning. When things have had a chance to settle."
Logan nodded, but didn't look at him. He was too busy staring at Scott.
Who was staring at the floor.
Jean avoided Charles, skirted around Scott, stepped away from Logan and veered around Ororo, intent on escape. The lightest touch in her mind stopped her.
My office.
She nodded agreement.
"Well, it's been a difficult day. I suggest we all retire for the evening and try to get some rest. Further discussion can wait for tomorrow."
Ororo went to check on the children. Charles headed out of the library into the corridor. Jean looked over her shoulder and saw Logan take a step toward Scott.
She shut the door silently and followed Charles into his office. She was crying before the door closed behind her.
It's difficult, letting go. His thought was gentle in hers.
She nodded. Knelt beside his chair and put her head in his lap. His hand brushed over her hair, a light, soothing touch.
It gets better.
"Does it?"
He didn't reply.
"You okay?"
Scott didn't have any idea how to answer that, so he kept his mouth shut. Logan stepped closer, stopping within touching distance.
"Thanks." He sounded like he meant it.
The mental image of a human being going up like a torch under the force of his sight made Scott's stomach lurch. "Who was it?" he asked when he could open his mouth without retching. He'd brushed his teeth when they first got back to the house. It hadn't helped.
"Husband, I think."
He gave Logan an incredulous look. "A jealous husband? Isn't that a little extreme?"
Logan grinned. In spite of himself, Scott found himself grinning a little back at him. "Not jealous. Nuts." Logan's grin disappeared into a haunted look.
"You remembered something." It wasn't a question. Scott looked steadily at Logan. Eventually Logan volunteered the information.
"One of the butchers who worked me over. A big cheese. She was one of the ones who cut into me."
A different kind of pain surged through Scott. "Son of a bitch."
"The bitch part you got right. I broke out." Logan swallowed. Looked away.
Scott moved closer. His shoulder touched Logan's.
"I killed her."
He closed his eyes. "She deserved it," Scott told him without a moment's hesitation. "She treated you like a lab animal. Worse."
"Yeah," Logan said dryly. "I kept comin' back. Rat's got the good sense to die."
Scott's hand settled over Logan's heart without conscious decision on his part. He looked into Logan's face, willing the other man to look back. Finally, he did.
"It's probably selfish, but I'm glad you didn't."
Logan looked down at his hand, then back up into his face. "Thanks for saving my ass. Again."
Scott felt himself relax. He'd have nightmares about what he'd had to do, but he'd deal with it. Logan had survived, and that was what mattered. "I've got a vested interest in that ass," he whispered, leaning forward just far enough to brush a kiss over Logan's mouth.
"Think you're gonna get lucky?" Logan teased him.
"Think I already did."
Logan's arms came up around him, and Scott slid both his hands around Logan's back, holding on as tightly as he was being held. It was a mess, and he still had to face Jean, not to mention Charles, and do some explaining. It wouldn't be easy. There were a lot of details to work out, but he'd spoken the truth. Whichever way he looked at it, he'd gotten damned lucky.
As long as Logan was around, he'd stay that way.
The End