Family is what you make of it...

[x-rogue.livejournal.com]

Monday afternoon @~1pm; Marie and Logan in the Danger Room.


He doesn't see anyone, doesn't hear anything, along the way. He slams open the door to the Control Room, hoping that he can remember how to program the system. It's not two minutes before his claws are out and he's tossing a chair across the room in frustration, growling.

"Hey." A soft voice from the door way. "You want me to do that?" It's Rogue, looking pale but resolute, standing in the doorway.

Logan looks up in surprise and deflates. His claws stay out and he looks down at them angrily. He glances back up at her and struggles to speak in something not a growl. "Please?" It comes out a growl anyway, but it's obvious he's trying and that he's upset about something.

"Sure." She moves slowly, eyes on him. "Which one did you want?"

Logan looks at Marie through a red haze of pure animal instinct, trying not to see her as prey. It takes him a moment, but the haze recedes and he looks at her again, really looks. "You okay?" he asks, his voice still a growl.

She shrugs, tapping keys. "You got in the wrong menu, that's all." A pause. "You care? Here... this is where you want to be. Expert level, right?"

"Is there anything higher?" he growls, then blinks. "Care? What the fuck? Since when /don't/ I?" The red haze starts to return and he shakes his head, trying to clear it.

"I'll see what I can do." She shifts to the advanced options. "I... I don't know. Just wondered." She stops and looks at him. "You're not okay," she says quietly, then goes back to the menu.

"No fucking kidding." He moves away from her, to the other side of the room, trying to put a safe distance between them. He doesn't trust himself, can't trust himself. "What brought this on?" he asks, switching topics again.

"Oh, I don't know," she says softly. "Something someone said made me think. That's all. And you being so... quiet. Not your fault. Me, not you."

Logan shakes his head. "This." He concentrates on trying to retract the claws, but fails. "This has nothing to do with you." He looks away from her, stares at a wall, blankly.

"I know. Of course not." She frowns at the screen. "I wouldn't assume."
He growls quietly. He can feel his annoyance at her deliberate misunderstanding of his comment growing into anger far too quickly. "Stop." He takes a breath. "You're...just stop. You know that you're the reason I came back. So stop pretending you think I don't care about you." All of this is said in a low, angry, almost-growl.

She's got her head down, hair falling around her face. "Okay." Her hands are shakey and she presses the wrong button. "Damnit." Her voice breaks, two tears hit the screen. "Fucking thing..."

Struggling to put away the anger -- and to put away his claws -- Logan sighs and walks up beside her. He's still tense when he puts a hand on the back of her shoulder, careful to angle his hand such that the claws he can't seem to retract won't hurt her.

One hand to her mouth to silence herself, she flinches a little at his touch, shoulders shaking with stifled sobs. "I'm sorry," she manages to say. "Sorry." She wipes her tears from the screen.

Logan jerks his hand away when she flinches, immediately moving back to his side of the room. "'s okay," he mutters, staring at the wall again.

"Don't go... " she is leaning on the console for support, head down. "I mean... you don't have to stay. I just... I'm sorry. For crying. For everything. I can't lose you too."

"You won't. A bullet to the head didn't stop me, right?" He walks back up beside her, his anger starting to fade. He doesn't reach out to touch her, this time, but he stands close enough that her shoulder nearly brushes against his chest each time she breathes.

She turns to him, putting her forehead on his chest. "I love you," she says very softly.

"Shh," he murmurs, carefully wrapping his arms around her back and fisting his hands so that the claws are safely away from her. "I love you, too," he says, though he means it differently, perhaps, than she does.

She puts her arms around his waist and hugs him. "I just wanted you to know. Just... just in case. I'm so sorry about everything, Logan. I am. I can't fix anything..." Her voice is shaky.

"Sorry for what? Marie, you don't have to fix anything." Suddenly, his humanity issues don't seem so important.

"John. Bobby." Her voice breaks. "Either of them. They're in my head. And... I don't know anything anymore. And I'm not enough to make anything better for anyone. Not even me."

Logan blinks uncomfortably, wondering when Bobby ended up in her head. And John. And he's in there, too. He strokes her hair carefully, just now noticing that his claws have retracted. "You are. Look at /me/," he asserts, pointing out that he's no longer a raging lunatic, throwing chairs around the room, and that it's because of /her/.

She looks up at him, pale and tear streaked. "I don't know if I can do this," she says simply.

"You can," he says, confident, though he doesn't know, really, what she's talking about. "And I'm here if you need me. Always." His lips curl in an almost-smile.

"I know how he feels about you," she says quietly, plunging on stubbornly, the words coming out very matter-of-factly. "Not that he'll ever do it again, but he really shouldn't think things like that about you while he's kissing me. And I know how John feels about him. And I remember Erik and I remember you and I know you all and I cannot make you go away. And I know where I stand. And it's very lonely. And I'm trying to stay. I really am. But it hurts."

He frowns, just a little, when she says that she knows how Bobby feels about him. He doesn't, really. He just knows that there's lust there. And that John lusts after Bobby. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we're in there and that you can't let us go." He touches her hair again. "If I'm in there, you know that I care," he reminds her.

"I know you /did/," she corrects him. "And I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I'm not enough for anyone."

"I /do/," he says firmly, "and you /are/ enough. I just..." He sighs. "You're enough. You're all the family I want or need." He looks at her. "But that's not what you mean, is it? Bobby. I'm sorry that he's not what you need."

"Family? Me?" she frowns at him. "Don't throw words like that at me, Logan. Not if you don't mean it. I can't take anything more right now, I can't, and I believe what you say, always."

He looks at her and shakes his head. "You're the reason I came back to this place and the reason I'm staying." He frowns slightly. "If I'm in there," he repeats, "then you know I don't throw words like that around lightly."

"I know." Her voice breaks again. "I just... it hurts. And I need to be sure."

He nods, understanding, and meets her eyes. "There's no one else I'd rather call 'family'." He draws his hand from her hair and down to the side of her face. It hovers just above the skin, close enough that he can feel the tiny hairs on her cheek. Trust.

She doesn't flinch, eyes on his. "I trust you. I'll stay for you, like you stay for me. You're my family too."

"If you go, I go." He's not sure if she needs to hear it, but he needs to say it. His hand slowly slides down her cheek, brushing the tiny hairs on her face, as close to a skin-to-skin caress as she'll probably ever feel again. He doesn't think about it that way, just does it on instinct. Finally, his hand comes to rest on her shoulder.

She's shivering a little. "You..." she looks at his hand. "You okay?" She's not afraid, just worried.

"Yeah." He sounds a little surprised. "Yeah, I am. Now." He takes a breath. "Thank you. For coming in here."

"I needed to see you," she admits. "And you didn't look so good." She touches his face gently, almost mimicking his touch, her eyes searching his. "You can come see me too, you know?"

"I will, next time," he promises. "Not used to having someone to talk to, really." He shrugs one shoulder carefully, not wanting to upset her hand or make her draw back. "I'm sorry you were worried." About me. About me not caring about you.

"Well, I knew you weren't *dead*," she says wryly, "No matter how bad you look. And you don't have to talk, you know. It's okay to just be... I do shut up once in a while."

He grins, then chuckles. "I know. I...just." He sighs. "You'll probably hear from someone else anyway. What happened, I mean." He shrugs again, the grin fading.

She frowns. "What?"

"The new kid. Everett. He manifests other mutants powers." Logan glances away. "Bobby pissed him off while he was 'channeling' me, or whatever, and he sprouted a nice set of bone claws." He looks back at her, hurt just barely visible in his eyes. "They were supposed to've been part of the experiment, Stryker's project." He knows it sounds silly, but he can't help it. It matters.

"Oh... Logan," her voice is very quiet and she puts her hand on his on her shoulder, rubbing the back of his hand gently. "I'm sorry. Yeah, someone would have said something."

He nods, glancing at her hand, thinking that she's getting blood on her gloves. "Yeah. Just...not how it was supposed to be, y'know?" He shrugs, rolling his hand over in hers. "I'll live."

"Like it or not?" she says lightly, bringing up her other hand to touch his cheek. "You're tired, Logan. You want the room, I'll set on Advanced, but that's it. Otherwise, maybe you could sleep?"

"Yeah." He nods. "Maybe I'll sleep. Beating the shit out of some lizards doesn't sound as important as it did a few minutes ago." The corner of his mouth draws up in a semblance of a grin.

She smiles back at him. "Okay." She hugs him then, pulling him close, then pushing him back gently. "Go rest. I'll fix up whatever I did to the damn menu."

He tugs lightly on her hair, backing away. "You gonna be okay?" He wavers uncertainly.

She bites her lip. "I will be as long as you're around. If I'm not... can I come talk to you?"

"I'm not going anywhere," he assures her. "You can come talk to me whenever you want. No matter what." He tucks the hair behind her ear, careful not to touch her, and walks toward the door, then turns around. "And I'll do the same, okay?"

"Perfect. Don't forget. Go sleep." She turns back to the console to fix her errors.