Elevation
by
Sare Liz
Disclaimer: Not Mine.
Author's Notes: So. This fic was inspired by Bono (of course), a particularly good bottle of Concha Y Toro's Casillero del Diablo merlot (thank you, Rose), and my own somewhat lacking Halloween costume that would have benefited greatly had I been Marie in this situation.
Disclaimer: Characters to Marvel. Music to U2 (Elevation). Merlot to Concha Y Toro, a lovely Chilean winery which I highly recommend.
Extra Added Warning: Yet another fic that begun with Logan chucking U2 CDs at my head, like the frisbees they are to him. Thank you to my muse, present when I need him, and my beta, for the constant encouragement.
A star lit up like a cigar
Strung out like a guitar
Maybe you could educate my mind
Explain all these controls
I can't sing but I've got soul
The goal is elevation
It was the loud music. And the smell of liquor. And only a little concern.
Only a little.
That's the only thing that drew him to Marie's room.
Knocking on the door he wondered if he'd have to pound it down. The music really was that loud, though in some of the other rooms down the hall it was just as bad. The door was opened only a few moments too late by what all accounts was a French maid.
Halloween was really taken too far in this place. It was.
Kitty, for instance. She seemed to be a perfectly nice girl, and here she was, currently falling out of her French maid's costume, about to make her little boyfriend a very happy guy.
Logan rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the display. Less than half his age anyway. Asking gruffly for Marie over all the din was difficult, but he managed to do it anyway.
In the lull between what he would eventually figure out was not two different songs, but the same song repeated over and over and over again, Logan saw Kitty turn around with an uncharacteristically evil grin on her face, calling out "Oh, Marieeeeee," which was weird, as he thought about it, cause really, he was the only one who had the good sense to call her that.
The French maid, evil grin intact, casually invited him in and walked away from the door. Taking the most careful of steps inside and pushing the door only slightly closed, his senses were assaulted. The music was too loud, the perfume was too strong, the lights inconsistent - unearthly bright in some places, deathly dark in others. Apparently you couldn't go for ambiance and put on make up at the same time.
She was in the room, but damn if he could fucking find her.
Kitty. French Maid. Jubilee. Chinese dragon-thing. Some blonde. Goth.
Jubilee smacked the arm of the blonde and she turned.
Fuck.
* * * * *
High, higher than the sun
You shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here
At the corner of your lips
As the orbit of your hips
Eclipse, you elevate my soul
He really shouldn't have this reaction to Marie, no matter what the fuck she was wearing. Firmly putting thoughts of Jean in his mind, Logan tuned out for a second, missing the mutual smirks of all the female occupants of the room.
She was moving slightly, in time with the beat of the music, her hips pulsating, twisting, writhing. . .
Fuck.
Just as he was about to leave, appearances be damned, she called out to him over the music.
"Logan," she cried out happily, her drawl dragging the word out. She ran up to him, only to stop dead in front of him, grinning.
Oh yea, she was drunk.
"Perfect. Just perfect. Logan, you wanna do me an teeny, tiny favor?"
Well, considering he'd do anything for her, a teeny tiny favor didn't seem that bad. So he shrugged.
She grinned all over again. "Great." She picked up one of his hands carefully at the wrist - she had no gloves on, and looked at him all wide eyed innocence. "Extend ya' claws?"
"What?" Logan couldn't understand what the hell was going on, but he sure as hell would before he brought the claws out on her. "You're drunk," he stated instead.
Marie rolled her eyes and must have ignored the other giggles. "Only a little bit," she countered. "Besides, Ah'm twenty."
"Which is to say, not twenty-one?" Not that he really gave a shit one way or the other, but she'd get in trouble probably, and for something as stupid as this.
This time she did roll her eyes as she exhaled. "Lo-gan," she drawled, looking up form beneath severely darkened eyelashes. "You, of all people on earth, are so not the one to lecture me on this. Mr. I'm-the-reason-Rogue-likes-bourbon-and-cigars."
His growl seemed to amuse her. He'd have to think about that. In the meantime, he did extend the claws.
Her smile was worth it though. Worth the indignity of the giggling, the measuring, the all but fawning over those three slices of adamantium that really weren't all that special.
"I've never seen 'em close up before."
"Oooh, they're so long. Gawd, they're so long."
"Wait, no, just, goddamnit Logan, stop movin'. Thank you. Now, hold still."
This really wasn't happening. This was some twisted dream that he'd wake up to and never, ever remember. His claws really weren't just over her breast, just under her shoulder. She wasn't holing his wrist in one hand and fucking well caressing the metal with the other hand.
And Jubilee sure as hell wasn't marking exactly where his claws fell.
Since it was all a dream anyway, any maybe there'd be sex, Logan went with it.
"So where'd you get the booze from anyway?" he asked, trying to make conversation and not think about Marie in that way he'd been thinking about her for the past year since he came back.
"Ah dunno. Kitty, you know where that bottle of wine came from?"
"Nope."
"How 'bout you, Jubes?"
"Nuh-uh."
She looked back at him, a candid expression mustered on her features. "Well, damn. Musta been magic that brought that bottle of red wine here. Who knew miracles could take such forms?"
He snorted and Jubilee laughed. He'd figure out who it was, and then maybe have some words, depending on his mood.
"What the hell you goin' as?" Logan asked, trying hard not to scrutinize her outfit, scant as it was. A black lace tank top that was more revealing than it was covering. Hell, he could see the outline of her breasts in the damn thing. And a pair of black leather pants that were too fucking tight. Way too fucking tight. And black boots. And no fucking gloves in sight.
Fuck.
And all she could do was grin. White on blonde, all gothed up, a set of claws at her chest and she was grinning.
Why was she blonde?
But before he could ask, she purred, she fucking purred, pressing into him and making him bend his arm to change the angle of his claws so they wouldn't cut into the delicate skin they rested on. "I'm a statistic."
Huh?
"A statistic," she said with a wicked little flick of her eyebrow. She let him lower his arm but she was still caressing the claws and he didn't have the heart to retract them on her. There was a moment of something he couldn't quite figure, but it was definitely a moment, detracted not the slightest by the fact that Jubilee was doing some sort of makeup miracle on Marie's skin, practically between the couple.
"Ah'm dead, Logan."
The reaction was instantaneous and mostly instinctual. His growl was punctuated almost immediately by her laughter.
Somehow he ground out, "And you choose to die by my hand? Not liking this Marie."
Logan was somewhat perturbed to be reminded that he wasn't alone in the room with Marie when Kitty called out from the far and ambient shadows, "Yea, but what a way to go. . . "
And there was, of course, more laughter. Logan, amazingly enough chose not to partake of it. He kept growling, seeing it as the only safe ground offered.
When Jubilee had apparently finished, Marie twirled herself neatly into his somewhat startled arms, still holding onto the claws of his left hand. He looked into the full length mirror that Jubilee scrambled to move in front of them, and damn if she wasn't a wet dream waiting to happen. Besides the fact that she had those three stab marks, of course.
Hell, even they looked fantastic on her, not that he'd ever want to mark her like that. But of course, he had, even if she didn't have the scars to prove it. The fact that she didn't seem as ashamed of the incident as he did made him want to pull her closer, regardless of the fact that he didn't act on the need.
"Do Ah look as pretty dead as Ah do alive, Logan?"
He nearly swallowed his tongue on that one. "Course you do, darlin'." A quick chaste kiss on the top of her head and he was out of there, backing up damn fast, hand on the doorknob before her voice stopped him.
"You're not going to the party, are ya'?" She sounded mildly disappointed, like she had been expecting him there and all the sudden it was some big revelation to her that he wasn't dressed up like a fool.
"Not exactly my style, Marie," which of course, she knew, so why was she asking? There was a hockey game that was calling to him, he was sure of it.
She sighed and turned her doe-like eyes on him, probably one of the best weapons in her arsenal. "Ah know, but Ah was just thinkin'. . . Ah mean, what if no one wants to dance with me?"
He wasn't going to look her up and down. He wasn't. And he also wasn't going to imagine her gyrating in that getup and doing what passed for dancing these days. Maybe he should go, just to castrate anyone who got any ideas. "I really don't think that's going to be problem, darlin'."
The doe-eyes turned soft and filled with worry. "But what if it is? What if *noone* will dance with me, Logan? Please? Please, just long enough for one dance? Please come."
Well, shit. How the hell do you say no to that, he wondered.
She must have realized she'd won, because otherwise how could you justify her throwing herself at him in glee? "Oh, thank ya Logan. You're so good to me, Ah don't know what Ah'd do without ya'."
"Yea, well, you owe me one."
Marie looked up at him from where she'd buried her face in his chest. "You're on, sugah." She grinned. "And don't forget to wear a costume."
He had heard her wrong. That was the only good answer.
"Huh?"
She smiled and his insides melted. "Your costume, silly. Ya can't show up at a costume ball without a costume."
"Marie, I-"
Then the doe-eyes were back. "Please?"
Oh hell.
* * * * *
I've lost all control
Been living like a mole
Now going down, excavation
I and I in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high, elevation
He felt stupid. Really fucking stupid.
Scooter had just about died laughing when he walked through the lower levels. See, he'd finally figured he should put in an appearance at the shindig, so off he'd gone to fetch something resembling a costume. Or, at least the only thing resembling a costume that Logan would be caught dead in.
Wasn't the best fit in the world, though they'd sworn they were going to work on that. Apparently not having an emergency lately, they figured it hadn't mattered.
But it didn't matter what the rest of them thought, he reasoned, giving Scooter a gloved finger. He wasn't doing this for them, he was doing it for her, and no he didn't want to think about that. Logan was completely confident that between Jean and Ororo, Jubilee and Kitty, the matter had already been thought about and decided on, and he'd find out soon enough.
He waited comfortably in the shadows and watched boy after boy be *very* careful while dancing with Marie, yet dancing with her and not seeming to mind in the least. Finally, a slow song came on, something he could imagine dancing to, and only then did he stalk towards her. He was in her line of vision the entire time, and a few steps on his way to her, she saw him.
Her smile was a thousand watts bright and worth every little snicker he'd endured from Scott.
She whispered something to her dance partner and parted ways, meeting Logan in the middle of the dance floor, still smiling, albeit with somewhat more restraint.
"Not exactly lacking dance partners, are you?"
She ignored the comment. "Thanks for comin', Logan." She had the cheek to look him up and down, lingering on the bulging muscled areas. An eyebrow raised, she complemented him on the choice of costume.
He shrugged, wondering not for the first time if all the self imposed restraints he had concerning Marie were entirely necessary, considering that she didn't look remotely young and innocent at the moment. "You gonna stare at me all night, or you wanna dance?"
"Do I have to choose?" she asked, though she did come close to him, snuggling up into his black leather clad form.
They swayed gently to the music, his arms wrapped tightly around his waist and hers draped around his shoulders, her fingers playing with the hair at the back of his head.
He had a hell of a lot of questions right then. Like why on earth was she blonde? And, did she want him as bad as he wanted her? And where'd she get that see through lace tank top? And what exactly was going on in her head? And why the hell hadn't she ever worn those damn black leather pants before? And had she really thought about this? And where the fuck did she get off smelling so good? And did she know how much she meant to him?
But he wasn't stupid, no sir. He settled on a nice safe question, one that could maybe lead to all the rest if the time was right.
"You wanna go for a ride after all this, darlin'?"
She just looked up at him, those big-ole doe-eyes in full effect, and nodded.
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