xp_logs | Logan and Sarah - Dinner and Keen Insights

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Logan comes to save Sarah from the horrors of working too hard. They wind up giving each other some food for thought. Backdated to 4/7/2007

The Brownstone was quiet tonight, it's various residents either out doing social things or turning in for the night. Except Sarah, who was very nearly done editing a paper she needed to turn into school by the end of the week. And just in time too, as the words were just beginning to blur together on the page from staring at too much block print.

Luckily for Sarah's frazzled brain, her savior was just at that moment climbing the stairs to get to her apartment. Under each mighty thew he bore a case of disgustingly expensive beer and a single DVD from Netflix. When he reached her doorway, he knocked on it with his foot. His steel toes caused the door to rattle in its frame with each impact.

The rattling door might have startled her, had she not heard him actually stomping up the staircase. She hurried to the door, calling "Yeah yeah, keep your panties on." The door opened shortly after, with a smiling Sarah behind it. "I think you are my hero. Even if you've pissed off all my sleeping neighbors."

"Fuck 'em." Logan said in a friendly voice. "Little bird tells me you're working too hard." he said. "Hence, beer and movies. Heard they're all the rage with you young punks."

"Yeah, well, I was in a mood to write, so I took advantage of it. Six hours later, here I am." She waited for him to enter, peeking down the hallway in both directions before shutting the door quietly behind her. "Beer -and- movies? I'm so spoiled."

"Direct-to-you service as well." he quipped as he put the beer down temporarily so he could flip the Netflix envelopes onto her coffee table. He sniffed the air, wrinkled his nose, then picked the beer cases back up to introduce alcohol to cold. "Think either somethin' went bad or you missed a spill somewhere. I smell mold."

She shrugged helplessly, glancing down at the envelopes. "Might be something in the fridge. Just make sure it doesn't try to eat you when you put the beer in there."

Logan barked out a laugh as he opened up her fridge, then reeled backwards. "Found it." he said, trying to cover his nose and reach into the fridge to get the leftover Chinese out of these ASAP. "Come here and get this thing outta here. It's makin' my nose crawl."

"You big baby." Sarah took the offending box from him and tossed it into the garbage can. "For you, I'll even take this out before we get started. Just quit making that face."

Logan didn't dignify that one with a response. Instead he started putting bottles into the fridge, stacking them on their sides to fit more of them in the fridge. He got the entire first case in and he left the second one to just sit. While Sarah was off taking out the offending trash, Logan pulled off a paper towel from the roll and blew his nose. Loudly. Looking for a trash can, he wandered into her bathroom to drop his paper towel into that trash can. He wrinkled his nose again and backed out of her bathroom at a hastier-than-absolutely-necessary pace.

When Sarah came back, Logan was studying the pictures on top of her entertainment center. The three framed pictures sat in a row, one of Miles (Leech, she silently corrected herself), a smiling group of the Snow Valley Brats at a club somewhere, and a sandcastle. She hit the fridge first, and grabbed a beer. "Found anything interesting?"

Logan put the picture of Miles down like it was on fire and burning him. He looked vaguely guilty, but didn't say anything right away. Instead, he put his hands behind his back as he looked at the three pictures. He wasn't sure what the sand-castle represented but it must have been important to her. He felt a wave of jealousy towards Sarah that she had things to remind her of the good and bad times in her life. That she could never forget, never have those memories stolen from her. "Beer's in the fridge." he told her.

"I know," Sarah replied, holding up the open beer in her hand as evidence, "I was just there." She quietly walked up behind him, glancing back over the pictures even though she saw them every day. "You never answered my question."

"What's the sand-castle?" he asked her, looking the picture back over. It was fairly unremarkable, all things considered - at least at first glance. But Sarah wasn't the type to keep pictures of random crap just because. It had to have a meaning to her.

"Sandcastle therapy." Sarah smiled a little smile, picking the picture up to bring it closer. "That one spring break, when we took the boys to the beach, Jono went home and had a really shitty visit with his parents. And I yelled at his dad over the phone. When we flew up to spend the weekend with the group who had gone up with him, I brought him a little piece of the beach. He's got the other copy."

Logan just nodded, giving the castle another hard look. "So." he said, turning away and planting his ass on her couch. "Marie's got this Netflix thing that she lets me use. Got something nice and bloody, if you're in the mood." he teased. She was rarely if ever not in the mood.

Sarah grinned, returning the picture back to its place on the shelf. "Yep, definitely my hero." She flopped down on the other side of the couch, leaning over to see the movies. "So what do we have?"

"Something called Hong Kong cinema." he said with a shrug. "Garrison seemed to think I'd like it. Said somethin' about magic guns that never run outta bullets and more dead mooks than any ten films should have." he said. "I said it sounded pretty good to me. Go ahead, get it started." he said, standing up to make himself a beer run. "Got anything to eat that's not swimming in mold?" he asked as he moved into her kitchen.

Dropping the first disk into the DVD player, Sarah called back over her shoulder, "There should be some popcorn up in the cabinet beside the fridge. Or there may be some pizza from last night. I don't remember if I ate it for breakfast or not."

Logan held her fridge open as he rooted through it. "Aha!" he said, withdrawing the last two forlorn slices of pizza. He closed her fridge, got the popcorn, and set it to popping in the microwave - but not without a distasteful look at the machine first. Absurdly, for just a moment he empathized with the popcorn in the nuker. "Popcorn's started." he said as he brought the last two slices of pizza over, tossing one of them at her.

She caught the pizza slice, pulling her legs up under her on the couch. "So what's the hot gossip over at the mansion?"

Logan glanced over at the TV then back to Sarah. He took a bite before he answered. "Girl who's stuck at an inch high decided to divebomb people with Peeps." he said. "Oh, and Allerdyce has decided to slink back to the Mansion with his tail between his legs."

"Peeps? At least here, the crazy goes no further than Mark showing up to work with fake tits." Sarah took a couple of sips of her beer, and grabbed the remote from the endtable. "But prodigals returning is -always- fun."

"I'm starting to wonder if Wheels's forgiveness policy's gonna bite him in the ass some day." he groused. "Allerdyce worked with Magneto, for fuck's sake. That makes _two_ ex-Brotherhood under the same roof. I don't like it." he said with disgust, washing the taste out of his mouth with cold pizza and beer.

"I don't know Logan," Sarah mused, navigating her way through the DVD menu, "If they actually required all of us to live up to a code of conduct, I know I'd have been kicked out long before I left."

Logan snorted. "Not even close. Kids are kids, they fuck up. Aiding and abetting the enemy? That's something else." he said. "But hey, nobody on my team save for Gar and Marie gives a fuck what I think, so I just get to eat a big ol' helping of Shut The Fuck Up on this one."

"Yeah, those silly kids and their murder-sprees." She glanced briefly at him, before returning her attention to the television. "Twice even."

Logan just ate the last of his pizza and, when the microwave went off, got up to go retrieve it. He reappeared a few moments later with one of her bowls full of light, fluffy popcorn. He put the bowl on the end table then slapped his ass into the chair, kicking his boots up onto her coffee table. He half-watched the film and half-thought about the point she was trying to make to him. She'd been a bad kid - one of the worst. And she'd pulled it out. Maybe this Allerdyce asshat would do the same.

Sarah gave the movie most of her attention (like there was much left anyway), until she happened to glance over see Logan pondering something which was -not- the movie. She leaned over to prod him with her finger. "You're not watching."

Logan swatted her hand with a mite bit more than his customary amount of force. "Sorry." he said a few moments later. "Guess I'm pretty shitty company tonight." he said apologetically. The thoughts he was having _definitely_ called for more beer. He got up, walked to her fridge, and pulled four out. He handed her two and kept two for himself. "Got a lot on my mind."

Sarah popped the fresh beer open, turning on the couch to face him. Instead of sitting on her legs, she pulled them up to her chest. "I noticed. Tell me about it?"

Logan slammed back half his beer before he spoke again. "It's your pictures." he said, making a vague gesture in their direction. "Just reminded me of how fucked up I really am."

Sarah blinked, taking another drink from her beer before she replied. "My pictures?"

"Yeah." he said. "What they represent. To you." Things he'd likely never have. A family. A love. "They're so ... normal. Like something regular people do."

Sarah wasn't sure to react. In the end, she went for the sarcasm. "Yeah. Funny, huh? Somebody like me does something so mundane as displaying silly pictures."

Logan just shot her a look. "Laugh it up, Morlock." he told her witheringly. Disgusted, his introspective mood gone, Logan went for a handful of now-cool popcorn and another healthy swig of beer.

Sarah frowned, scooting forward towards him on the couch. "Logan-- I don't understand. How do my pictures make -you- feel fucked up?"

Logan tried to put what he felt into words. "It's what they represent. Friends. Loves. Normality." he said, groping for the right words. "What normal people do."

"That's why I do it. It's one of the few 'normal' things I can actually do." Sarah glanced back at the pictures, and then back to Logan. "But how does that make you fucked up?"

"Just feelin' a little isolated of late, kid." he said, finally putting his finger on it. "Like it don't mean fuck what I think, what I say. Just keep fighting, Wolverine." he said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. "Best at what you do."

"And the rest of us who do give a damn?" She cradled her half-empty beer in between her hands, nails scratching at the label. "Where do we fit in?"

"The few, the proud?" he joked. "Look at your pictures, kid. You got friends, family of a sort, even someone you care for pretty deeply." he said. "Everything you should have, instead of hangin' your life with the rest of the Spook Squad." he said.

"Yeah, that family I'm not supposed to talk to without proper supervision." Sarah tossed back the rest of her beer, and dropped the bottle gently on the carpet below her. "I'm a lot farther from all that normal stuff than it might look."

"I was thinking about the folks you punch a clock with, go clubbing with, and take pictures of." he said. "Not the survivors of your previous tribe."

"Yeah, I guess we aren't really family anymore. We've all been 'adopted' into other groups. We aren't really Morlocks anymore." She leaned back to grab the second beer and popped it open. "I'm more a Snow Valley Brat now."

Logan nodded, looking at Sarah closely. "Probably for the best." he said with compassion. Morlocks were usually a touchy subject with her and he didn't fancy getting stabbed again if she felt the need to get testy. "Maybe the 'Morlocks' in and of themselves have dispersed, but their memory - and some of their persons - live on. You _lived_. He _lived_." he said.

"But they don't remember." Her hand dropped to her side, brushing lightly against the side of the couch. "I'm the only one who remembers. I know what it was like to be a Morlock."

"They were too young. And so long as _you_ remember, they live on. Take it from me, kid. Not knowing is _hell_." he said passionately. "Not knowing who you are, what you are, where you're from, what you've done... GAH!" he snarled, standing to his feet to go get another couple of beers.

Sarah didn't even flinch, just sat there on the couch, her chin resting on her knees. "I know, and all I can do is run from it. Hide from a past I can't live up to."

"Least you have one." he grumbled as he fished out more beer. "You're better off."

"Am I?" She looked back at him then, her eyes never leaving him. "It drove me to revenge. My whole time at the school was driven by it. The hate. The need to live up to expectations and to pull whoever did this to us down piece by piece if I had to. I can't go back now, for fear I'll never leave the sewers out of guilt. Does that make me better off Logan?"

"Yes." he said, biting off his words. "Better to know why you hate than to just hate for no reason. To not have the thousand little things that people take for granted." he said sharply, his forearms twitching a bit with the effort to keep the claws sheathed.

"But I don't understand any of it!" She physically spun around on the couch, one foot on the floor and the other tucked up underneath her. "I hate the people who did this to us. I -know- I'm the last Morlock, but I don't -understand- why! How am I supposed to keep them alive?" Sarah went very quiet for a moment, before adding "You know Logan, sometimes I wake up and I hate every one of my new 'family'. I know this is because I've been taught to hate pretty upworlders for a very long time. But I don't understand why I still hate them even now. Why do I hate them for being what I can never be?"

"You just answered your own question, kid." Logan said sadly. "You hate them because they are what you can never be. I get that. I get it."

"But, that can't be right. I have -good- days and bad days. I'm so close to passing as normal it's frightening. I've got a chance here." She watched his reaction closely, but provided no clues as to her own thoughts. She didn't want him just to humour her. When he didn't respond, she added quickly, "Right?"

"I don't see you often enough to be able to tell you you're right or wrong. And in your heart..." he said, moving forward to poke her in the ribcage, just above her heart "... you still hate. You hate them because they're upworlders and that's who you were taught to hate, and some days you hate because you're becoming one of them." he said. "But I'm no psych geek."

Sarah curled in on herself again, feeling very tiny at the moment. She replied quietly, "You don't have to be. You just have to tell me how -you- think."

"Does it matter? I think you got a heart full of hate and a head full of arguments." he said. "You want to be normal - to have the apartment, the job, the income, the friends, the club-parties, all the shit that normals do. But you know you're not normal - you can't get away from your childhood, because to get past it would be to put the Morlocks in the past, and there's too much guilt for that." he said, then took a deep swallow of beer. "Some days - maybe even most days - you can convince yourself you're like them. Just another good little worker giving her all for the company." he said. "But some days you wake up and smell the bullshit. You sit there and ask yourself "What the _hell_ am I doing?". You remember the tunnels, the grinding poverty, the hate. You remember the men and women you grew up with, and how you lost them all in a blaze of gunfire. And it makes you fucking sick that you can't - or won't - do anything about it. Because you tried and failed once already."

"So I throw myself back into normal things, and pray it goes away." Curled up, there's nothing Sarah can do but lean her cheek against her knees and stare off at the wall to keep from running off; telling him it isn't true and slamming her bedroom door behind her.

Logan sat down and then looked over at Sarah. "Hey, kid." he said, reaching out and shaking her leg briefly. "You asked. And I'm not hassling you for it. You got your ghosts, just like I got the ones I can't remember." he said. "You want to know what I think?" he asked.

Sarah, realizing just how exhausted she was, leaned back, resting her head against the back of the couch. She sighed heavily. "I asked, didn't I?"

Logan nodded. "I think that given what you've been through, what you've had done to you and what you've done? You've got it amazingly together." he said. "No shit."

She smiled humourlessly, stretching out to put her own bare feet on the coffee table. "I guess I'm just better at hiding it. Out of sight, out of mind."

"That's life." he said with a sigh. "Hey, I'm sorry I poked you in a sore spot." he said. "I got a big mouth sometimes."

Sarah shot him a look. "Yes, you do. But you brought me beer, and a movie I didn't even finish. So I can't complain."

Logan snorted a laugh at that. "Got my redeeming qualities after all. Don't tell anyone, it'd ruin my rep." he said with the ghost of a grin.

Sarah actually smiled this time, a devious grin. "Leave whatever beer is left, and your secret is safe with me."

"You strike a hard bargain, kid. But done." he said with an honest laugh this time. "I'm gonna go drink my ransom now."