[Logan, Scott] I hate you. But...

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Saturday. Set after this
scene and then later that evening. Logan picks up on Scott's state of mind and isn't sure he cares but since he's going out anyway, and confusing Scott is always fun, he takes Scott along.


It's happening again. Scott stood in the middle of the vacant Danger Room, feeling sick. He ran his hands through his hair and the pain stabbing across his shoulders told him exactly how tense he'd been watching Betsy in here. He laced his fingers behind his neck and willed himself to relax a little. Without the grinding of his own teeth sounding in his ears, everything echoed with silence.

Logan opened the outer door to the Danger Room. Before he had a chance to set the safety settings, he realised that the inner door was open and that Scott was inside. He walked over and leaned against the doorframe.

Scott heard the footsteps but they didn't really register at first. After a moment, it dawned on him that someone was there and he straightened, trying to settle his inner turmoil and muster a smile. The smile died as he turned around to see Logan standing at the threshold, watching him. "Logan. Sorry to be in your way, I was just leaving." He headed for the door.

"Ain't been waitin' long." Logan shrugged. Obviously, something was wrong. He wasn't at all interested in finding out what it was, but the man needed to do more in the Danger Room than stare at the walls, that was for sure.

"Glad I didn't inconvenience you then," Scott said, trying to keep the worst of the irritation out of his voice. "Enjoy."

Logan snorted, not moving from his place in the doorway. There was space to get by. Barely. "Thanks. I will."

Scott resisted the urge to kick the man's feet out from under him and settled for slipping by with a slight shake of his head. The last thing he needed right now was Logan just asking to be hit when Scott wanted to badly to hit something real, something that would hurt. He wasn't going to be baited, though. He still had a few shreds of composure clutched in his mental fingers so he set his shoulders and walked away.

---

Logan checked the clock. Scott should still be in his office, at this time of day, so he headed in that direction. He'd already checked his jacket pockets for spare keys to one of Scott's cars -- still on hand from the last time he'd "borrowed" them -- and extra cash.

The office door was open, just a crack, and Logan pushed it open the rest of the way with his body as he leaned on the frame. "Hey, Summers, get yer jacket. We got someplace t'be."

Scott, bent over a spreadsheet of costs and expenses, looked up and winced a little. "What?" he said, for lack of anything more eloquent to say. His mind felt like a blurred mimeograph of binary code; utter archaic, arcane gibberish.

"Get. Your. Jacket." Logan's tone and slow speech implied that he believed himself to be speaking to an imbecile. "It's on th'hook, over here by the door."

"I heard that." Scott slapped down his pen and stalked to the door, pulling his jacket from the hook and putting it on while he wracked his brain for where they were supposed to be. "Where the hell are we going?" he snapped, as he brushed past Logan and into the hall. He had to admit that wherever it was, he'd sure as hell forgotten.

A grin tugged at the corners of Logan's mouth as he followed Scott down the hall. "T'the car, near's I c'n tell," he said dryly, trudging down the stairs to the basement.

-Bastard.- Scott resisted kicking him down the stairs, feeling in the pocket of his jacket for his PDA. It was on his desk. Scott ground his teeth and followed Logan to the car. Today was just getting worse by the minute. He couldn't remember where they were going. Picking someone up? Probably. He'd figure it out. He never forgot anything. The PDA was just backup. Scott hadn't missed an appointment in years.

As soon as they entered the garage, Logan pushed a button on the keyfob, unlocking the car doors. "I'm drivin'," he said, pointing at the passenger door. "Get in."

Scott stared at him for a long moment, then realized he still had no clue where they were headed. -I'm losing my mind,- he thought. -First I'm talking to myself in the control room and then I can't remember an appointment I probably made and for some reason decided I needed Logan to come with me for, which is proof that I'm crazy right there.- It made no sense. Scott got in the car and did up his seatbelt, radiating irritation.

Logan started the car and backed it out of the garage, executing a perfect J-turn in the driveway. His amusement at Scott's confusion would've been tangible, had he not been actively suppressing it. "Relax, it'll only take us twenty minutes t'get there an' Marie'd have my hide if I got y'killed in a car wreck."

"That's small consolation," Scott said flatly. He began to flip through his head for things that were within twenty minutes of the mansion.

Logan waved his hand dismissively and continued on in silence. Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the dirt parking lot of a bar -- The Back Room, the signed proclaimed it to be -- and pulled the key out of the ignition. "Here we are," he said, opening the driver-side door and climbing out.

Scott shook his head. He wasn't the one losing his mind. "What are we doing here?" He got out of the car just so that Logan would be able to hear the question clearly and stood there, leaning on the roof of the car, door still open, waiting for an explanation before he went further. He had keys, he could talk around to the driver's side, get in, and leave if he wanted.

"Gettin' outta the car. Goin' to th'bar." Logan looked at Scott with some amusement. "We're gonna have a drink, maybe shoot some pool. Y'know, things y'do at a bar."

Scott took a moment to confirm that the sky was indeed blue, gravity still demanded downward motion, and he was, indeed, awake. Then he slammed the car door a little too hard and stalked after Logan. "Did Marie put you up to this?"

Logan shook his head. "Nope."

"Why, then?"

"'Cause y'need it," Logan said bluntly, pulling open the door to the bar and waiting while Scott walked inside, as though he wasn't sure Scott wouldn't run away, if given the chance.

Scott's brain wasn't having any of this. He fumbled for a question that would have an answer he could believe, or one that would at least make sense, and came up with one at last.

"What the /hell/ is wrong with you?"

Logan shrugged, letting the door close behind them. "Would 'I wanna go out an' Marie's not old enough t'drink' be a better reason?"

"First, Marie doesn't drink," Scott pointed out. "Second, her alternative identity I set her up with so she could go places says she's twenty-one. Third, if you wanted to take her someplace, you would, and damn whatever piddly inconvenient little things like laws got in your way. Fourth, you never go out with anyone, you always go on your own, and you always steal something of mine to do it in."

Logan grinned. "Well, at least I got the last one right, huh?" He jangled the keys to Scott's car in his jacket pocket.

"Clever boy," Scott said sardonically. He sat down where Logan indicated, because he had no good reason not to, and drew the line at looking stupid, even if it was all in the cause of not letting Logan get his way.

Logan hid a smirk and nodded at the bartender, who brought over two glasses and topped them off with Beamish. On his way back to the patrons he'd been chatting with, the bartender send a bowl of pretzels skidding across the bar toward them.

"We're not discussing anything." That wasn't negotiable. Scott fished a pretzel out of the bowl and flipped it around between his fingers before taking a bite.

Logan looked at Scott like he was crazy. "No, we're sure as hell not. /I/ don't wanna hear about yer problems."

"Thank god." Scott relaxed visibly. "Thought you'd caught whatever disease seems to grip everyone else in that house."

"Fuck, no." Logan snorted. "I don't give a damn what's wrong with ya. Y'needed a night out an' I was goin' t'the bar anyhow, so I brought ya with me."

"Fair enough," Scott conceded, reaching for his beer. "I'm willing to let the fact that it verges on nice of you slide on the grounds that no one here wants to take the chance of beating you at pool."

Logan took a sip of the Beamish and grinned. "Ain't that they don't wanna try. They already tried an' lost." Something about the look in his eyes -- ruthless, cunning -- said that he wasn't being entirely honest. Perhaps a few had tried and lost, but more had been scared off by his demeanor.

"Lucky for you don't scare me." Scott answered the grin with one of his own. "You'll get to find out how 'good' you actually are."

Logan took another drink of beer and smirked. He'd heard Storm talk about Scott's skills with a pool cue. Now, he'd see if she was exaggerating or not. "Think there's a table free in th'back." And if it wasn't free, it would be not long after Logan started scouting it.

"You're in a hurry to lose," Scott noted dryly. "But you're the one driving." He gestured to the back. "Let's do this, then."