No Surprises
by
Nancy Lorenz
Disclaimer: All characters copyright Marvel and Fox.
Archive: Yes to the list archives and Kielle - others just ask.
Feedback: Kiss me, I'm Australian. (Yes please!)
Author's Notes: This isn't Beta Read yet.
Obligatory Schpiel & Dedication: Okay I know - this has been done before. Logan looking on how he got to be at the X-Mansion and wondering 'Oh wow' and thinking how wonderful Marie is. But this story kinda demanded to be written, and it's all Radiohead's fault. If you've heard their song "No Surprises" you'll understand why. I dedicate this story to their brilliance. Their music moves me in every way - they have my eternal admiration.
A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.
I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,
with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
Silent silence.
This is my final fit,
my final bellyache,
with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.
Such a pretty house
and such a pretty garden.
No alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.
It's not like I'm a man that doesn't like the odd fist-fight. I do. I adore it, getting the skin of my knuckles raw and the claws out for a walk. It's kinda why I like the Danger-Room so much. I get to do that shit, and it's no real personal threat to me.
I used to not care about that, about dying. I used to ride wherever, eat whatever, smoke whatever and drink whatever in the complete knowledge that no matter what I did, I'd never die. Not for a very very long time, and I knew that'd kill me.
I know it will kill me one day, inside.
Perhaps the hero business will carve a few decades off my life - I hope it does, cause I couldn't bare thinking of life without her.
See, that's another thing I didn't care about before I came to this place -other people. Now, I do, a certain little miss in particular.
I can remember sitting there in Laughlin City, and she's sitting there. Lookin' a little worse for wear, and dressed a little funny for a slag in a bar. Well -that's what I was expectin'. Any woman that sets foot in here is after two things - drugs or sex. I could tell she was after neither.
The complete desolation in her eyes caused me to glance twice. You just don't see that. I seen some wrecked kids, but most of them asked for it. I could tell straight away - she was a survivor.
The thing that struck me most about those brown eyes of her was the total lack of fear.
Shit, if I'd been her I'd be terrified. Any old bastard could have run away with her and left her in a ditch. She was just some strange kid, though, and her calamity wasn't my problem. So I got back to my cigar, my beer. TV blathering about some more mutie shit and-
She looked up. That struck me too, her eyes ringing at the word 'mutant' as it called out from the television. Something about her was odd, strange, in such a familiar way... So much so that it intruiged me, and that annoying me. Nobody intruiged me. I walked on, ignored the world and existed.
The last thing I did was care.
She made me care. With brown eyes and lost frowns with soft lips and swan-like grace. She was like - those old pictures on cards that depicted the late nineteenth century, with women in frocks and petticoats and frills and lace. I wasn't even surprised when a soft lilting and so mild southern accent slipped from her mouth when she first spoke to me. It was the birth of my new obsession, my new aim in life.
Calm, sweet calm and stability. I couldn't believe I wanted it, at first. I had run, all over the border and back after my stop to Alkali Lake. I'd kept going after witnessing the empty carcass of the dead military base, making some excuses about leads and knowing I'd pretty much found jack shit.
My mind always stayed at Westchester, in the green gardens and stately corridors and the little patch of paradise it created. Eventually, I stopped being scared of what I wanted - cause it had scared me. When you have rough, tumble, isolation and cold for so long, anything different kinda scares you. I'd had it the first way for fifteen years of my life, the only years I could remember.
Suddenly, I ached for calm.
So when I rode around the country, stopping off in those dingey bars, I knew I was really saying 'goodbye' cause I would never ride past and feel at home here again. I wouldn't feel alone anymore, and I wouldn't feel cold.
And I didn't. The day I came back she was a little taller, a little fuller, brilliantly beautiful and totally happy to see me. There was such calm and serenity as they let me lope in, care in their hearts and welcome in their arms as they accepted me home, that I was suddenly glad I'd gotten the balls to give up what I'd known for so long.
Now, I have a home. I have a room with a soft bed, a place where I can get into the odd scrape to satisfy my inate hunger for violence and a sweet woman who likes to spend time with me. Sometimes the alarm would sound, and on the leather would come. We'd run to the outside world, where things were cold and cruel, and I'd feel guilty.
Guilt was my new darkness, cause out there all they have is fear and anger. I knew there were lots of hideaways like the one I lived in though, where people were happy. Not many, and I never saw them. I saw the ugly side. The scared kids, the angry parents. The cruel bigots with the wrong set of morals and the messy bloody results. Things like that make you feel real old.
Then of course we'd take in the orphans, the homeless, the frightened. Then you'd see them happy at Xavier's little oasis and you'd feel real young again. Kinda makes me think that's why he does it.
After this, I'd slip into the fold again, into the nice varnished corridors that smelt of wood-polish, into the beautiful gardens, and in a room alone at night with my sweet Marie for our late night talks.
I'd sit there in my room though, after she'd gone, knowing that soon another alarm would sound. That eventually I'd be called out into the ugliness again, and how unfair it was that I had a place of solace at all.
A secret selfish part of me always thanked God for my blessings, for Marie, and it'd pray that for the next day that there'd be no alarms and no surprises. Just peace.
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