Life Dance
by
Nina
Disclaimer: All references to characters belonging to the X-Men Universe are © and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities.All rights reserved.[*]The song segment is from "The Mummers' Dance," from Loreena McKennitt's album, The Book of Secrets.
Author's Note: This isn't really a sequel to Healing Heart, but it matched my mood. It's still Logan and 'Ro, but it's sometime after UXM #381 (after Sinister nearly killed Wolverine).
You never forget. No matter how old you are, no matter how many buddies you've seen go down, no matter how many enemies you killed, no matter how many bloodbaths you've seen, no matter how many ways they fragged you - the memories follow you to dreamland. Funny how I can't remember things awake, but I can remember them in my sleep. They merge in one big jumble so I can't tell what's real, but the truth is somewhere between the blood and the screaming. You can take a pharmacy or drink a gallon of booze a night but it don't help. Trust me - I know.
I don't wake up yelling this time but the names echo in my mind: Sinister . . . Magneto . . . Creed. My chest heaves, spittle hangs down my chin, I'm a stinkin' mess - but I don't yell. I don't yell anymore because Charley and me did a few laps around my frontal lobe. He helps better than the painkillers. He couldn't completely clean me up, but he did a good enough job so I'd stop tryin' to kill myself. But I can't sleep with a pillow anymore. I keep shredding the damn things.
The clock next to my bed says 2: 30. I couldn't go back to sleep if I wanted to. With a feral growl, I put on some clothes, light up a stogie, and go outside.
Wind snaps through my hair, stinging my nose and cheeks. It's beautiful out here. It snowed last night and the grounds are covered in a new, thick glaze, the color of a snow leopard's pelt. My feet crunch delicately on the white land but I hide the noise of my tracks as the cold heightens my awareness of things around me. I smile a little as I catch the scents. I smell a few deer, some rabbits, a few embers in other people's fireplaces. I rear up and wrinkle my nose--some owl caught a skunk a few miles back. It stinks like hell but smells like home at the same time.
Home.
Before heading out I glance at the mansion's dark, heavy shadow under the full moon. In less than a second the faces of all the people who ever lived there flash across my mind, as if I'm dying. I'm their uncle, their best friend, their protector, their sparring partner, their drinkin' buddy . . . their grandpa. I don't look a day over 40, but I'm at least twice that. Maybe three times - wouldn't that be a kick? Knowing my shitty luck, I'm probably older than Methuselah. Seriously.
My cigar goes out. I light another one.
The smoke curls around my head, heats my face, covers my scent. I choke out an "O" that disappears as soon as it forms.
Have I outlived my usefulness here? They've been grown for years and I taught them the score. They don't need a babysitter anymore.Sure, I come back and keep coming back because this is the only home I've got. These people remind me of the decent stuff out there, not the warlords or the commandos or the assholes waitin' to take me on. But when I bring my heavy shit with me and they have to pay the price, I wonder if it's worth it. It's better for them, maybe, if I move on.
Hah, my mind barks. And miss your chance with Jean?
I take a deep puff from my cigar. I keep hoping, dumbfuck that I am, that she'll turn around and see what I see, smell what I know and feel what I feel. But you know what? I'm lyin' to myself and I know it. Her devotion to Cyke smells stronger than anything I've ever known. When she was with him, the air changed. Her pheromones went crazy - his too. It was a soul-bond thing, and I couldn't reproduce that if I tried. He's gone, but she won't believe it. I doubt she ever will. We've all moved on, more or less. Not her. I've decided to move on, too. It ain't my fight anymore.
I forget how long I'm standing in the snow, gettin' my ass frozen. A healing factor works great but it don't help if you turn yourself into a popsicle. I'm about to turn back when I hear a noise. I curse myself for not hearing it before. They train you over and over to be God's good little soldier and you become it - until you get so stupid in your own depressing thoughts that you miss the small stuff. That's how people get killed.
Instinctively my claws tear out - it sounds like a rattail file across a knife's blade. Brittle air hits my wounds and for a second fire shoots across my fingers, like I've hit a raw nerve. But as soon as I feel the sting my mutant factor heals around it. From then on, my fists are numb. I flex my hands and crouch low, like one of the animals in the forest.
I pause to take a good sniff of the air . . . and suddenly realize what a prized idiot I am. I sheath my claws; I know the scent. Guess I've been on edge lately and - if I believed in God - this would be His way of playing me for a sucker. Wouldn't be the first time.
I decide to be stealthy anyway, maybe catch her unawares. It's her own damn fault for being such an easy target, so far from Xavier central. I taught her better than that. From her scent, though, it doesn't seem like she cares.
The land slopes sharply and I have to lean back to keep from tumbling forward. Ice coats part of the hill and it takes my best tracking skills to keep from making noise and to keep from slipping. Gangly trees stick up from brutal angles. I grab hold of a few branches on the way down and carefully pick my path between rocks and deadwood. After five minutes I start wondering if it's such a hot idea - I'm still sore and still recovering from Sinister's blast. I'm gettin' madder, too. I could be anybody - Creed, Sentinels, the Brotherhood - anybody. And here she is, makin' herself a target big as life, by the pond.She's too far for anybody 'cept the telepaths, or me, to hear her. By the time we did it'd be too late.Hell, I didn't even smell her or hear her right away because of the deepness of the gully.
I crouch low again, hiding myself behind some trees. I snub my cigar and grimace at the loss, but it's for a good cause. I figure if I catch her right, she'll be so scared she'll never do this again.
But as I'm waiting, my eyes and ears and, goddammit, my heart takes in the truth of what I'm seeing. It's beyond the new-agey Celtic number blaring on her CD player. It's beyond the halo of the frozen pond, glinting between the ground and moon. It's not even her incredible grace as she skims the pond before shooting up like a rocket. It's all of it. It's more. She feels the CD's music in her body; her body becomes the music. She's dancing. Flying, yeah, but dancing. Her moves would fry a sailor, and she put them to an erotic shuffle all her own. I can't help bein' amazed. Shit, I can't help feelin' more for her than our friendship allows. Hell, even if Cyke was alive he'd have a woody by now.
'Course . . . it didn't help that she was stark naked.
"Now returning back again, we bring a garland gay . . . "[*]
I don't know the song, but I don't care. I nod with approval.
"Who will go down to those shady groves, and summon the shadows there . . . "
A funnel of air surrounds her brown body and she spins slowly. She softly . . . erotically . . . caresses her chest and her neck. Her white hair tangles and loosely covers her breasts and backside. Her body ripples, her hands reach into the heavens, she cradles herself and stops the winds with a gesture. I'm afraid for her as she plummets grandly, but she pulls up at the last minute with her arms stretched wide. She laughs like a child as she plays tag with the wind.
Suddenly I feel like a pervert.
Quietly, I reach into my pocket and light my last cigar. I let her see the ember. She gasps, and I chuckle to myself.
"You always au naturel around this time 'Ro? I'll sell tickets to the next feature."
She grimaces and flies close enough to me to grab her clothes and whip up a snowball. She promptly throws it in my face as she speeds past.
"That is for your impropriety, Logan," she says. Her crystal voice echoes flatly across the pond, but there's a touch of humor in it. She's not ashamed of her nudity - just ashamed of being caught at it by me.
"Yeah, well, you shoulda thought of that before comin' here by yourself. You know how dangerous it is. The security's all back at the mansion. Yer askin' for trouble out here."
She doesn't say anything but I know she agrees with me.
"I needed some time alone."
"You can be alone in the day time."
She touches down delicately in front of me. She still ain't wearin' much, nothing but cut-off jeans and a crop top, but her weather powers make her nearly immune to the cold. I've got on a heavy jacket. Seeing her in practically nothing makes me feel the chill more.
'Ro arches her eyebrow at me. "You would prefer that I did this dance during the day? Around curious, prepubescent boys?"
"Maybe that ain't such a hot idea."
A bare smile tickles her soft, dark lips. "No. Not at all."
I cough a little, and she looks at me in a way only a mother would. I instantly feel like a kid again.
"Logan, you are still recovering from your injuries. Are you certain - "
I wave her off. "Everyone's tryin' to put me back in bed. My body's healing fine on its own. My skin came back, didn't it?"
I rap my chest like Tarzan but 'Ro's not amused.
"You could have died. If we had not received our powers in time - "
"Then I would've died anyway," I growl. "You could've put my tombstone up there, next to Cyke's."
For a minute, she looks like she's about to slap me. A rumble of thunder and a crackle in the air is all I need to tell me how mad she is. She turns away.
"You care nothing about how others feel about you, do you? Foolish little man. If I had known, if you told us - "
"Then no one would've been able to concentrate on what they had to do. Look, I told you, didn't I? You kept it quiet. The rest of 'em would've been tryin' to take care of me like the mother hens they are."
"That's what families do, Logan," she says. She takes to the air, poses, and points at me all goddess-like.I smirk at her subtle use of power. Sometimes she does that, like a cat tryin' to make itself look big. It don't do jack for me.
"Next time, I will have no recourse. If necessary, I will ground you from future missions if - "
I laugh out loud. The air hisses and pops. "Two things wrong with that statement, 'Ro. One, you ain't my bosslady. Two, how the hell're you gonna stop me?"
A weak bolt of lightning fries a scrawny tree near me. I grin.
"Yer gonna have to do better than that."
Honest to hell, I didn't see it coming. Lightning, sure. Hail, sleet, tornado - I expected to catch the holy hell of all bad weather. But I don't get weather. 'Ro touches down in front of my fuzzy face and plants the juiciest, deepest kiss on my lips in a long time. I'm too stunned to move. It doesn't even register in my mind before she flies off, laughing.
"Good enough?" She taunts.
"You ain't playin' fair, 'Ro."
"Why should I play fair? You never do."
I don't have an answer. Now, don't get me wrong. We've played this game before - I kiss her, she gets all flustered, I laugh. I show up half dead, she plays mama, and I wave her off. I try sneakin' up on her, she tries sneakin' up on me . . . she lets me ramble on about Jean . . . she doesn't judge me. She knows who I am. She lets me do my job. She's one of my best friends and I'd trust her to protect my back. But now she's crossed the line, and I aim to pop her candy ass back.
I grunt, and slump to the ground, clutching my chest. When she sees me go down, she flies subsonic from the other end of the lake and almost overshoots my position.
"Logan--! Logan, are you all right? Bright lady . . . " She cradles my head in her lap but her hands are shaking.
"I dunno, 'Ro, it came on me kinda sudden . . . I'm not sure - "
"We must get you back! Hank - "
I shake my head. "Nah. Too late for that."
Her face contorts and the fear in her body almost overwhelms me. Fear and fury and - hoo . . . regret? That's somethin' I don't smell every day from her. Shit, I don't have the heart, especially since the wind's picking up like crazy. In another minute, we'll get a typhoon.
"'Ro . . . "
"What, Logan? Tell me . . . " Her hands are warm, soft. And I suddenly don't see her as just a friend.
"Gotcha."
Her jaw drops. "What?"
"G - "
This time, she does hit me. She smacks my ugly mug hard enough to floor Rogue and mutters something I've never heard a goddess say.
"Damn you, Logan. Not funny. Not funny at all."
She is royally pissed, but I'm laughing. "You shoulda seen the look on yer face. It ain't like you didn't deserve it, 'Ro. Ha."
She's about to hit me again but I grab her wrist. She twists, but she's not struggling all that hard. We stare at each other for a heartbeat, both thinkin' the same things. Then we move close at the same time and . . . damn. Our faces were hungry for it, our lips were searching for it, our tongues were probing for it, and we found . . . pure napalm. All the emotion we ever had comes together, and our energy is enough to power a universe. Word to the wise: Never, ever, get two desperate people engaged in a lip lock.
Our clothes are off before either of us knows what's happening.
***
I'm still dazed. Dazed, and half-frozen. My backside's in a cavern of snow, gettin' more an' more frostbit. But my frontside's an inferno - 'Ro radiates more heat than a furnace. We're naked, and I feel like I've committed the unpardonable sin.
'Ro loves it. Loves it that, for once, I'm completely unsure of myself. Her lip quirks and she kisses me in the same way that started this mess.
"You must be cold," she says.
"Half of me is."
She almost looks embarrassed. "I can warm you up."
"We already - "
She giggles. "No, I mean another way." She rises to her feet, and I can't stop wonderin' about the could'ves and the should'ves. Without Weapon X, without Department H, without the cloak and dagger shit and the missions . . . without the brain fucks and the implants. Without Jean . . . without Mariko. Better yet, if I flamin' got past that mess. Shit, I'm thick. The ol' canucklehead had his head up his ass again and missed the girl back home, waitin' by the picket fence.
"Trust me," 'Ro says. She goes over to her CD player and sets her player for that song. She holds her hand out to me and I stare at it for a beat, unsure. I swallow and take it.
Sirocco winds surround us and she has us aloft. She holds me, I hold her, and we're dancing together to this mysterious Celtic rhythm. The only thing keeping us in the air is her control over the weather, but I know she won't drop me. My heart's yammering because of something new, something unexpected. If I breathe, this dream'll shatter. I'll wake up in my bed, with a shredded mattress, with nothing but the memory of her woodsy scent tickling the corners of my brain. I'll think it's another Weapon X blowjob. And if it's real? My mind taunts. Do you want to wake up?
My lip quirks.
Nope. Gives me a real reason to come home.
***
And so they linked their hands and danced
Round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
When all the shades are gone . . .
We've been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay.
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