![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsHome from work, Amanda goes for a recharge and finds Logan in her spot.
Logan sat up on the top of Sarah's brownstone, a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. He left her sleeping below, finally sated. He let his feet dangle over the edge of the building, staring off at the New York skyline. He didn't want to think too much right now - not about Sarah, not about Marie, not about immunologists and the papers they wrote, not about Jeannie, not about Bill Stryker, not about anything. He was just trying to be nothing at all for a little while. Not an X-Man, not a lover, not an experimentee, not even as a mutant.
Be, do not do.
What a crock of shit.
It was strange Logan should choose the roof to do that, since it was Amanda's location of choice for a bit of quiet powers time. Especially after prolonged periods of being out of major cities. Letting the stairwell door clang closed behind her, she shuffled over to the heating unit that was her customary perch, cup of tea in one hand, cigarettes in the other. On seeing Logan, however, she paused.
"Um," she said intelligently.
He didn't bother to turn around. Instead, he just raised a hand and waved her onwards. "Hey, kid." he said, sounding tired. Tea and smokes. Heh. "Am I in your spot?." he asked her. He took a drag off his cigar and let the acrid smoke burn his lungs and nose. The resulting deadening of his sense of smell was rarely more welcome as it was just then. The beer was still somewhat cold, but his body neutralized it before he even got to enjoy the affect.
"Nah," she said, tilting her head a little at the weariness in his tone. Acting on a sudden impulse, she asked: "Mind if I join you? I was just coming out for a bit of powers time, but I can do that in company."
Logan just patted the ledge next to him and took another swallow of his beer. "Be my guest." he said. "Plenty of space up here." he elaborated. It was, on further reflection, a pretty good spot to sit up and meditate. She smoked the same smokes Sarah did, which just set him off on another fairly unwelcome chain of thoughts. He sniffed the air, mostly out of habit. "Rosemary, huh?" he asked her. Faint, but he could definitely smell it on her. Could barely smell it through all the Angelo and the book-must.
She came over, setting her mug down with a faint clink before taking a seat, swinging her legs over the side as he had. "For rememberance," she said, looking down and busying herself with lighting a cigarette. Shoving the lighter back into her jeans pocket, she blew out a long plume of smoke before going on. "I was paying a mate of mine a visit down at the cemetery. It was a couple of years ago yesterday." There was a slightest hint of a catch in her voice - there'd been two sprigs of rosemary this year, one for Charlie, one for Forge.
Logan nodded and left her to her rememberance. He had enough ghosts on his own, even if he couldn't remember their names or their faces. He took another drag on his cigar and added his smoke to hers. The city looked almost unreal from up here. Like something from a painting, or from a particularly nasty story. "It's nice up here." he commented.
Amanda nodded, taking another deep drag on her cigarette to settle herself. "Yeah, it is," she said, knocking the heels of her boots against the bricks. "I can recharge in my room just fine, but I like doing it here. Feels closer to things." Even as she was talking, she was focussing on her mutant power, the feeling of opening herself up to the energy she could sense. If anyone had asked her to explain it, she'd had been at a loss to put the process into words. "I guess it's getting away from the all the shite, too. No distractions, no hassles, just you and the city."
Logan was no fan of the city - they were loud and they stank. He vastly preferred the wilds. Something primal, something wild. But as Amanda did her thing her scent ... shifted. Instead of her, she reeked of bus exhaust, pigeons, rats, asphault, smog, and all the other olfactory ills the cities were heir to. He couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at it. "Hope that does you some good." he said dubiously. "Whatever you're doing stinks".
That got him a startled look. "There's a smell?" she asked, a little stupidly. "I figured it was just energy transfer."
"Stinks." he confirmed, and exhaled a drag of cigar smoke through his nose to deaden it just that little bit more. "Smells like I stuck my face up a bus's ass."
She wrinkled her nose, and pulled the neck of her t-shirt out to poke her nose down and sniff at herself. Nope, nothing she could pick up, but then again, she wasn't in possession of a Super Nose. "Bugger me," she said, lifting her head up. "Never heard of a power giving someone BO before. You want me to stop? I can probably handle picking it up later."
"No thanks." he said with a grin. "And it's no big deal. I noticed, but I doubt anyone else 'cept maybe Kyle would." he said lazily. "Go ahead and recharge." After all, that's what he was doing - more or less. Recharging.
She wrinkled her nose at him and picked up her tea. "So, how're things?" she said after a while, looking for topics not to do with how she was smelling. "I should be ready for training again now, if you've got the time."
"Isn't that nice." he said, leaning back a little. "You going to stick with it this time, or drop it again when you get too busy." he asked her.
"Not all of us have healing factors, Logan," she told him, just a hint of an edge entering her voice. "I wasn't medically fit for training for most of it. And it seemed pretty counter-productive to ask you to go easy on me so I didn't rip things up again."
"Tell you the same thing I tell Sarah." he said with amusement. "Well enough to fuck, well enough to fight."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "Ew, as Angie would say. Not to mention, again, not everyone has a healing factor." She shrugged. "I know this isn't a game, Logan. That's why I stayed away as long as I did. I wasn't fit, and I didn't want to get someone hurt or killed 'cause I wasn't ready yet." She sipped at her tea, the new pink scar tissue circling her wrist contrasting with the faint tan she'd picked up. "But I am now, and I'll stick with it, if you'll have me." A faint grin appeared. "Since I'm not planning on getting kidnapped and tortured again for, oh, another six months."
"So how precisely did they wind up snatching you like that, anyway?" he asked curiously. "We need to work more awareness drills, or you just not strong enough to beat back your assailants?" he asked.
"They came out of nowhere when I was driving the minivan," she admitted. "Didn't see them until it was too late, had to brake hard and hit my head on the steering wheel, which meant I couldn't focus enough to cast. By the time I got it back together, they'd tranqed half the kids already and there was a fucking gun in Angelo's face as well as mine." She took another drag on the cigarette. "So maybe more awareness drills, tho' these guys were experts - I doubt even a telepath would have gotten much more warning. And once they had me..." She kept her tone deliberately casual, but the tension was plain in her posture and her scent. "They kept me drugged out, most of the time. Could barely walk, let alone fight. I tried any way. Got beat."
Logan frowned. It sounded to him like she folded like wet cardboard once Angelo was threatened, but he held his tongue for right now. "You have to be better than that." he told her mildly. "How fast can you cast that shield spell of yours? How big can you make it?"
She put down her tea mug, holding the cigarette between her lips as she clapped her hands together. "That fast," she said from within the shield that sprang up around the two of them. "I can't do it without using my hands, no matter what I try. But I'm getting more range with it - I can push it maybe... ten feet?" The energy around them pulsed with neon, echoing Times Square.
Logan looked at the field. "But you have to use your hands." he said. "Wonder why that is." he said. He poked a finger at the bubble, which flexed as if it resented the intrusion. "Cripes, kid, turn it down already!" he asked as the field pulsed neon in front of him.
She clapped her hands together again, cigarette clamped between her pointer and middle fingers and scattering ash on her jeans. The shield winked out. "Sorry. 'M running on pure New York, and things are a bit lively today, by the looks." She shrugged a little. "Magic tends to like the gestures. Hocus pocus, all that shite."
"Just raises the question - why didn't you shield the van the moment you knew something was up? Your shield will keep everyone inside alive, and who cares if the van gets trashed?" he asked simply. "No takings, no carved like a fucking fish, no voodoo queen."
"You ever tried clapping your hands together when you're trying to brake a van in a hurry?" Amanda retorted, then shook her head. "You probably have, what am I saying?" She looked down at the cigarette burning between her fingers, smoke spiralling up. "I thought it was just another New York prick who couldn't drive. Didn't seem like something I needed to use the magic for."
"And you paid for it." he commented, taking a drag on his smoke. "You and everyone else you were with." He sighed and took another pull from his cigar, letting the smoke burn deep in his lungs before letting it out through his nose. "Said and done, now, with no casualties. Least you got that."
"Yeah." She looked out over the city, pressing her lips together. Small mercy that the worst of it fell on her, although Angelo hadn't gotten off lightly either. "You're right, it is nice up here," she said after a while. "Starting to feel like home, in a way."
"Must be nice." he said, trying to force himself to relax a bit, to see what she saw, feel what she felt. But the city felt oppressive to him like it always did. "Think I used to have a little cabin buried way up in the woods somewhere." he mused. "Real simple affair. Well-water, fireplace, all that. I miss it." he said. "I just hope it was real."
"Sounds... quiet." She'd go crazy somewhere like that, within a week, but she knew a lot of people liked that sort of thing. And with the enhanced senses, quiet would be bliss. "You every feel like going back to something like that?"
"Just about every day." he confessed. "But I can't stand the idea that something that perfect, that right is probably a lie." he said. "Better to keep the ideal in my head."
She thought about her life here, how she seemed to fit. About Angelo, and how right it felt, being with him. And about how the mistakes of two years ago had reached out and nearly taken all that away again. "Maybe," she said softly. "But sometimes... the risk's worth it."
Logan snorted at that, but didn't say anything. "Told Gar once that I was gonna fuck him up for not letting me go to hell the way I want to." he said. "He can take a little hurt. You can't." he said, but there was the ghost of a smile as he said it.
"Hey," Amanda replied with a grin, holding up her hands in mock-surrender. "Go to hell, do not pass 'go', do not collect two hundred pounds. I know better than to take you on, old man." She grinned. "I'll leave that to Sarah."
Logan laughed. "She's good, but I still got a couple of moves she ain't ever seen." he grinned. "I drink too much, smoke too much, and take way too much pleasure out of harassing Slim." he said. "Keeps him honest."
She barked out a laugh of her own at that. "I was wondering about the grey hair, last time I saw him."
Logan sat up on the top of Sarah's brownstone, a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. He left her sleeping below, finally sated. He let his feet dangle over the edge of the building, staring off at the New York skyline. He didn't want to think too much right now - not about Sarah, not about Marie, not about immunologists and the papers they wrote, not about Jeannie, not about Bill Stryker, not about anything. He was just trying to be nothing at all for a little while. Not an X-Man, not a lover, not an experimentee, not even as a mutant.
Be, do not do.
What a crock of shit.
It was strange Logan should choose the roof to do that, since it was Amanda's location of choice for a bit of quiet powers time. Especially after prolonged periods of being out of major cities. Letting the stairwell door clang closed behind her, she shuffled over to the heating unit that was her customary perch, cup of tea in one hand, cigarettes in the other. On seeing Logan, however, she paused.
"Um," she said intelligently.
He didn't bother to turn around. Instead, he just raised a hand and waved her onwards. "Hey, kid." he said, sounding tired. Tea and smokes. Heh. "Am I in your spot?." he asked her. He took a drag off his cigar and let the acrid smoke burn his lungs and nose. The resulting deadening of his sense of smell was rarely more welcome as it was just then. The beer was still somewhat cold, but his body neutralized it before he even got to enjoy the affect.
"Nah," she said, tilting her head a little at the weariness in his tone. Acting on a sudden impulse, she asked: "Mind if I join you? I was just coming out for a bit of powers time, but I can do that in company."
Logan just patted the ledge next to him and took another swallow of his beer. "Be my guest." he said. "Plenty of space up here." he elaborated. It was, on further reflection, a pretty good spot to sit up and meditate. She smoked the same smokes Sarah did, which just set him off on another fairly unwelcome chain of thoughts. He sniffed the air, mostly out of habit. "Rosemary, huh?" he asked her. Faint, but he could definitely smell it on her. Could barely smell it through all the Angelo and the book-must.
She came over, setting her mug down with a faint clink before taking a seat, swinging her legs over the side as he had. "For rememberance," she said, looking down and busying herself with lighting a cigarette. Shoving the lighter back into her jeans pocket, she blew out a long plume of smoke before going on. "I was paying a mate of mine a visit down at the cemetery. It was a couple of years ago yesterday." There was a slightest hint of a catch in her voice - there'd been two sprigs of rosemary this year, one for Charlie, one for Forge.
Logan nodded and left her to her rememberance. He had enough ghosts on his own, even if he couldn't remember their names or their faces. He took another drag on his cigar and added his smoke to hers. The city looked almost unreal from up here. Like something from a painting, or from a particularly nasty story. "It's nice up here." he commented.
Amanda nodded, taking another deep drag on her cigarette to settle herself. "Yeah, it is," she said, knocking the heels of her boots against the bricks. "I can recharge in my room just fine, but I like doing it here. Feels closer to things." Even as she was talking, she was focussing on her mutant power, the feeling of opening herself up to the energy she could sense. If anyone had asked her to explain it, she'd had been at a loss to put the process into words. "I guess it's getting away from the all the shite, too. No distractions, no hassles, just you and the city."
Logan was no fan of the city - they were loud and they stank. He vastly preferred the wilds. Something primal, something wild. But as Amanda did her thing her scent ... shifted. Instead of her, she reeked of bus exhaust, pigeons, rats, asphault, smog, and all the other olfactory ills the cities were heir to. He couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at it. "Hope that does you some good." he said dubiously. "Whatever you're doing stinks".
That got him a startled look. "There's a smell?" she asked, a little stupidly. "I figured it was just energy transfer."
"Stinks." he confirmed, and exhaled a drag of cigar smoke through his nose to deaden it just that little bit more. "Smells like I stuck my face up a bus's ass."
She wrinkled her nose, and pulled the neck of her t-shirt out to poke her nose down and sniff at herself. Nope, nothing she could pick up, but then again, she wasn't in possession of a Super Nose. "Bugger me," she said, lifting her head up. "Never heard of a power giving someone BO before. You want me to stop? I can probably handle picking it up later."
"No thanks." he said with a grin. "And it's no big deal. I noticed, but I doubt anyone else 'cept maybe Kyle would." he said lazily. "Go ahead and recharge." After all, that's what he was doing - more or less. Recharging.
She wrinkled her nose at him and picked up her tea. "So, how're things?" she said after a while, looking for topics not to do with how she was smelling. "I should be ready for training again now, if you've got the time."
"Isn't that nice." he said, leaning back a little. "You going to stick with it this time, or drop it again when you get too busy." he asked her.
"Not all of us have healing factors, Logan," she told him, just a hint of an edge entering her voice. "I wasn't medically fit for training for most of it. And it seemed pretty counter-productive to ask you to go easy on me so I didn't rip things up again."
"Tell you the same thing I tell Sarah." he said with amusement. "Well enough to fuck, well enough to fight."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "Ew, as Angie would say. Not to mention, again, not everyone has a healing factor." She shrugged. "I know this isn't a game, Logan. That's why I stayed away as long as I did. I wasn't fit, and I didn't want to get someone hurt or killed 'cause I wasn't ready yet." She sipped at her tea, the new pink scar tissue circling her wrist contrasting with the faint tan she'd picked up. "But I am now, and I'll stick with it, if you'll have me." A faint grin appeared. "Since I'm not planning on getting kidnapped and tortured again for, oh, another six months."
"So how precisely did they wind up snatching you like that, anyway?" he asked curiously. "We need to work more awareness drills, or you just not strong enough to beat back your assailants?" he asked.
"They came out of nowhere when I was driving the minivan," she admitted. "Didn't see them until it was too late, had to brake hard and hit my head on the steering wheel, which meant I couldn't focus enough to cast. By the time I got it back together, they'd tranqed half the kids already and there was a fucking gun in Angelo's face as well as mine." She took another drag on the cigarette. "So maybe more awareness drills, tho' these guys were experts - I doubt even a telepath would have gotten much more warning. And once they had me..." She kept her tone deliberately casual, but the tension was plain in her posture and her scent. "They kept me drugged out, most of the time. Could barely walk, let alone fight. I tried any way. Got beat."
Logan frowned. It sounded to him like she folded like wet cardboard once Angelo was threatened, but he held his tongue for right now. "You have to be better than that." he told her mildly. "How fast can you cast that shield spell of yours? How big can you make it?"
She put down her tea mug, holding the cigarette between her lips as she clapped her hands together. "That fast," she said from within the shield that sprang up around the two of them. "I can't do it without using my hands, no matter what I try. But I'm getting more range with it - I can push it maybe... ten feet?" The energy around them pulsed with neon, echoing Times Square.
Logan looked at the field. "But you have to use your hands." he said. "Wonder why that is." he said. He poked a finger at the bubble, which flexed as if it resented the intrusion. "Cripes, kid, turn it down already!" he asked as the field pulsed neon in front of him.
She clapped her hands together again, cigarette clamped between her pointer and middle fingers and scattering ash on her jeans. The shield winked out. "Sorry. 'M running on pure New York, and things are a bit lively today, by the looks." She shrugged a little. "Magic tends to like the gestures. Hocus pocus, all that shite."
"Just raises the question - why didn't you shield the van the moment you knew something was up? Your shield will keep everyone inside alive, and who cares if the van gets trashed?" he asked simply. "No takings, no carved like a fucking fish, no voodoo queen."
"You ever tried clapping your hands together when you're trying to brake a van in a hurry?" Amanda retorted, then shook her head. "You probably have, what am I saying?" She looked down at the cigarette burning between her fingers, smoke spiralling up. "I thought it was just another New York prick who couldn't drive. Didn't seem like something I needed to use the magic for."
"And you paid for it." he commented, taking a drag on his smoke. "You and everyone else you were with." He sighed and took another pull from his cigar, letting the smoke burn deep in his lungs before letting it out through his nose. "Said and done, now, with no casualties. Least you got that."
"Yeah." She looked out over the city, pressing her lips together. Small mercy that the worst of it fell on her, although Angelo hadn't gotten off lightly either. "You're right, it is nice up here," she said after a while. "Starting to feel like home, in a way."
"Must be nice." he said, trying to force himself to relax a bit, to see what she saw, feel what she felt. But the city felt oppressive to him like it always did. "Think I used to have a little cabin buried way up in the woods somewhere." he mused. "Real simple affair. Well-water, fireplace, all that. I miss it." he said. "I just hope it was real."
"Sounds... quiet." She'd go crazy somewhere like that, within a week, but she knew a lot of people liked that sort of thing. And with the enhanced senses, quiet would be bliss. "You every feel like going back to something like that?"
"Just about every day." he confessed. "But I can't stand the idea that something that perfect, that right is probably a lie." he said. "Better to keep the ideal in my head."
She thought about her life here, how she seemed to fit. About Angelo, and how right it felt, being with him. And about how the mistakes of two years ago had reached out and nearly taken all that away again. "Maybe," she said softly. "But sometimes... the risk's worth it."
Logan snorted at that, but didn't say anything. "Told Gar once that I was gonna fuck him up for not letting me go to hell the way I want to." he said. "He can take a little hurt. You can't." he said, but there was the ghost of a smile as he said it.
"Hey," Amanda replied with a grin, holding up her hands in mock-surrender. "Go to hell, do not pass 'go', do not collect two hundred pounds. I know better than to take you on, old man." She grinned. "I'll leave that to Sarah."
Logan laughed. "She's good, but I still got a couple of moves she ain't ever seen." he grinned. "I drink too much, smoke too much, and take way too much pleasure out of harassing Slim." he said. "Keeps him honest."
She barked out a laugh of her own at that. "I was wondering about the grey hair, last time I saw him."
