Hiding

X-Men and all mutants you know and love belong to Marvel Comics-
I still don’t own anything. No money is being made off this and no trademark/copyright infringement is intended. ?


I want to thank TKD for being such a loyal reviewer, also Lady Chiyome, it’s nice to know that at least both of you are reading this…also to Lady Chi, thanks for your encouragement, it means SO SO much.
This is pretty much smut free chapter, exposition time. Mr. Giles, where you you? Ok, never mind. Here we go:
In addition- the key on my keyboard that is located between the left shift and the x doesn’t work. So anytime I want to use that letter I need to type most of it in and then go to the dictionary to fix it. Seriously a pain in the ass.
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Logan, Roisin and Kurt drove the rest of the way without incident. They stopped briefly in New Hampshire at the State Liquor Store, where Logan dropped $200 on some whiskey (they didn’t have the Glenfiddich so he had to buy something else-Johnnie Walker Blue Label) while Roisin pouted and sulked until he agreed to buy the particular brand of cheap wine she liked as well. Kurt made no specific requests in the liquor store, though he did eye the whiskey longingly and hoped to himself that this friend of Logan’s wasn’t able to put away the booze as efficiently as Logan could, or there’d be none left for him to enjoy.

Freezing cold by now, Logan and Roisinernaernated smoking bouts in the car so as not to completely asphyxiate Kurt with secondhand smoke. They fought over the radio and what songs to listen to, and anyone observing their interaction would have seen them simply as three friends on a road trip, as opposed to three mutants on the run from a fringe religious extremist group. Roisin had won control of the radio for a few minutes, and had settled on news channel, wanting to hear if the attacks had finally made the news media.

It was on one of the 24-hour news shows that the attacks were finally mentioned. Described simply as hate crimes, the reporter detailed the attacks that had taken the life of Roisin’s friends as well as thirteen other mutants. The news made little mention of the fact that the victims were mostly mutants- a few homo sapiens had had the misfortune to also be employed in the sex industry in one way or another and therefore the crimes weren’t technically all anti-mutant. Overall the news report had no information that Logan didn’t already know and hadn’t already told the others. Kurt, disgusted, reached into the front seat and switched the radio off. Roisin was quiet in the back seat, playing with the zipper on her purse. Kurt and Logan eyed each other warily; both knowing there was little more to say at this point. They needed a plan to deal with these people. It was easy to try and forget about it while they were on the road, but the truth of the matter still remained that they were on the run from a bunch of religious zealots and were hoping to go hide out with a friend of Logan’s who, admittedly, was dead the last time Logan had seen him.

Roisin realized the life of superheroes was overrated. Sure, they made the cover of magazines and there were boring talk shows on Sunday mornings discussing the pros and cons of having metahumans or whatever the politically correct name for mutants was this week, and most of them looked pretty good in spandex or skin tight leather, but the bottom line was that overall, there were lots of people who wanted them dead. The life of a traditional shopkeeper, even if her inventory consisted of what John and Jane Q Public probably thought of as torture implements, was comparably wonderful and easy. Sure the church across the street wasn’t thrilled with her and she’d gotten tons of dirty looks, but overall people simply thought she was a debauched fallen woman or something. But nobody wanted to kill her or anything. Roisin realized that due to Kurt’s appearance in her life- a confusing but still overwhelmingly positive experience- these same religious zealots wanted her dead too. She mentally tried to weigh the pros and cons- like the Sunday morning talk shows- of aforementioned religious zealots wanting to put her on a cross like that guy who was in that movie that was all over the fucking news now, because, again- she sold dildos and vibrators. She looked over at Kurt, still blue and furry and beautiful, not wearing the Vincent Cassel suit of the image inducer, and thought of the very intense pros- that of Kurt laying on top of her whispering evil things in her ear as he thrust those amazing fingers into her, and the way she now thought about how desperately she wanted to be tied up and ravaged by him. But – the cons- crazy people wanting to kill her- were still weighing pretty heavily on her mind. As though Kurt was the one who was empathic, he reached out with one hand and started rubbing her inner thigh. Roisin realized that Safe and Not in Danger of Imminent Death life wasn’t really all that great, especially when compared to Almost Certainly Mind Blowing Sex with Kurt Life. She sighed and leaned back against the window, enjoying the way the cool glass felt against her face. She drifted off to sleep again, Kurt following her a few moments later. Logan looked in the rearview mirror and smiled at the sight of his best friend’s head resting on the bust of his former girlfriend. The rage and jealousy he’d felt earlier had nearly dissipated- thanks in large part to Callie. Thank god for casual sex… he thought to himself.


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“About another twenty minutes and we’ll be there.” Logan said, lighting yet another cigar. Roisin and Kurt nodded groggily, before falling asleep in the car again. When the car stopped the next time, Logan reached into the back seat and swatted both of them. Kurt and Roisin both jumped- grumbling about being woken up.

“All right Dad, give us a minute. Sheesh!” Roisin whined. Logan cringed.

“Please, don’t ever call me that again. That’s beyond disturbing.” He said shaking his head with a sick look on his face. Roisin just shrugged and grinned.

“ Roisin, gimme the whiskey, Kurt, put on your image inducer. I’m gonna go ahead in – you guys just wait for me to tell you to come in, ok?” Logan said, looking at the two of them with a raised eyebrow. “Try not to fuck while I’m gone, ok? I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Kurt and Roisin both tried to look indignant, with little success. Roisin looked out the car window at the building they’d pulled up along side of. It was a huge warehouse with a gigantic parking lot. She knew that antiques were big business in Maine but she’d never seen anything like this. She really wanted to get in there and poke around and she really hoped she wouldn’t break anything.

“Ooh. I like antiques.” Roisin said, trying to look closer at the darkened building that Logan was now standing outside of, banging on the door, the bottle of whiskey in his hand. Kurt and Roisin both watched as the door opened, a sliver of light coming out onto the darkened doorstep. Logan was talking to a man who looked to be around 30 years old who had a look of extreme distrust on his face. When Logan lifted the bottle of whiskey up and showed it to him, however, the man’s face brightened and he embraced Logan in a tight hug. Logan turned around and waved to Kurt and Roisin in the car.

“I guess it’s safe to go in now, right?” Kurt said quietly, gathering up Roisin’s bags for her.

“Maybe it’s not really his friend. Maybe he’s just an alcoholic who was craving some booze. That stuff Logan bought was really expensive. Oh well. We won’t know if he’s trying to kill us if we wait in the car, right? Let’s go!” she squealed, pulling Kurt out of the car and slamming the door behind them. She held onto Kurt’s hand tightly, still marveling at the way that the image inducer gave him the appearance of a normal (incredibly attractive popular French actor) man but didn’t replace the feel of his amazing fingers in her hand. As they approached the door, Kurt stopped her.

“Give me a kiss. I hope I didn’t upset you earlier.” He whispered into her ear. She shook her head, reaching up and kissing him briefly before shaking her head and looking up at him.

“No, you didn’t. I was freaked for a minute- I’ll admit it…but…overall…I was really turned on…no one has ever done that to me before, talk to me the way that you did…” she trailed off, lost in her memories of it. She sighed. Stupid Logan. If he could have just waited another five minutes to come back to the car before…

“I’m sorry- Roisin- I, I never wanted to upset you. I was trying to do what you wanted. I remembered what you said and I wanted to surprise you and be passionate and unpredictable and all those things you don’t think I am.” Kurt said quietly, looking quite dejected. Roisin grabbed his chin in her hand and laughed quietly.

“No, silly, it was wonderful. I never imagined that when I told you I liked to switch- that is be submissive instead of dominant, that you would take it so far. But- I loved it. It was…I can’t even describe it. It was what I’ve been missing, I know it sounds insane but…it was just…perfect. Like you. I know that this whole thing is insane, that if you weren’t being hunted down by these people that none of it would have happened and I know that what they did to you was horribly, horribly wrong, but part of me can’t help but be happy that it did. Cause otherwise I would never have met you. I’m sorry. That probably makes me sound really insensitive. And like an obsessive fourteen year old. Can we just pretend that I didn’t say any of that right now? Please?” She looked at the ground. Kurt didn’t say anything, and Roisin was pretty sure that she knew why. She knew she could read him to confirm that, but she felt that it would be like violating the trust they’d seemed to have formed. It would be cheapening it somehow, and she didn’t want to do it. Plus she was scared of what she might learn. Sometimes she wished she was mute.

“Hey, Kurt, Roisin, come on in. I want you to meet Glen.” Logan called from the doorway, wondering what the hold up was.

Kurt and Roisin entered the warehouse and looked around. The place was enormous. The ceilings were very high and all around them were huge glass cases all of them packed with thousands and thousands of different items. A case a few feet away immediately attracted Roisin’s attention, to the point that she ran right past Glen and Logan. It was full of old prescription medicine bottles, many with POISON written on them. There were dozens of cobalt blue bottles with raised patterns on them that Roisin knew were there so that whomever purchased them would be able to tell, even in the dark, that there was poison inside. Unbeknownst to her, she was now pressed up against the glass making cooing sounds at the items within.

“A fan of poison, I see? I’ve been collecting them since the mid 1800s. I’ve got some other medical stuff over in aisle 9. I’m Glen Eaglen. Well, I am now anyway. Logan told me a little about you. He neglected to mention the tail however. Is that some sort of Raver thing?” Glen asked in a condescending tone. Roisin turned from the glass back to him.

“No. It’s a birth defect. Didn’t your parents teach you it’s not nice to say things like that?” she seethed. Logan rolled his eyes and came over between the two.

“Glen, play nice, ok? This is Roisin Austen, a friend of mine from way back. Don’t piss her off. If she starts shrieking and screaming, she won’t back down for hours. This is Kurt Wagner, one of my fellow X-Men.” Glen extended his hand to Kurt, who shook it firmly, smirking a little as Glen took a step back and pulled his hand away.

“What the fuck? Logan, what the hell is going on here?” Glen looked angry and Roisin thought now was a good time to perform an instant psychoanalysis of him. Roughly 33-35 years old, fairly good looking, not as tall as Kurt, with brown eyes and reddish blonde hair, wearing what she was pretty sure were intentionally distressed jeans and an equally intentionally distressed shirt. Way trendy… She noticed he had Ben Sherman trainers on, though, and begrudgingly awarded him 5 points for those. The intentions coming off of him were a nice mixture of fear, annoyance, superiority, and irritation. He was like a premenstrual twenty one year old on coke, she thought to herself. Kurt noticed the way Roisin was watching him and snickered.

“What? What’s going on now? Damnit, Logan you better crack that whiskey now. It’s been a long day and I wasn’t expecting tailed freaks for company.” He muttered, looking darkly at Roisin who was now smiling sweetly back at him, doing her absolute best to be as immature and annoying as she possibly could be. Later she’d try to get into that display case and get some of those bottles.

“Well you’re in luck. I’m opening the whiskey right now- you’ve got a place we can sit around right? I mean, we’re not going to stand basking in the glory of your shop all night right? And as for tailed freaks- you’re outnumbered so I’d be careful about what you say.” Logan smiled and nodded at who who switched off his image inducer and put his arm around Roisin.

“Oh. You’re the one they call Nightcrawler. Can you really teleport?” Glen asked, apparently overcoming his xenophobia in regards to tailed bipeds. He looked at Kurt with what looked to be a combination of respect and apprehension.

“Yes. If you’re nice to Roisin maybe I’ll show you. Now, where can we go sit and drink?” Kurt said, smiling, his fangs shiny in the lights of the shop.

“Furniture section. Aisles 13-26. Well, I figured we’d just sit in one area. I’m closed tomorrow anyway- mid week is dead in this weather- tourists don’t usually come up till the weekend. I’ve got some great old tables we can sit around at. Let me grab some tablecloths- not antique by the way- I’m not messing up the textile merchandise with the stench of those cigars, which Logan, I assume you still smoke?”

Logan nodded.

“Whatever. I’m gonna have a cigarette anyway. Follow me.” Glen locked the front door behind them again and shut off the overhead lights, leaving only the lighting above each case on. It gave the entire area the feel of a museum, and Roisin and Kurt both looked in all the cases they passed, pointing out objects they liked and wondering aloud what others were.
When they finally reached aisle 17, Glen reached down to the bottom drawer of one of the large curio cabinets standing around and pulled out a huge plaid blanket.

“Here, just throw this over the table. I’ll figure something out for bedding later. I’m assuming you guys aren’t just passing through, right?” He said, again in that mocking tone that made Roisin want to slap him.

“Yeah, we need to hide out for a bit. I’ll explain everything. Where do you sleep?” Logan asked.

“Upstairs, I’ve got an apartment. There’s my bed- my bed- and a couch that you can crash on Logan. I’ll figure out something for our additionally limbed friends. Got tons of beds, just not a lot of mattresses. Should be able to pull something together though… Now, about that whiskey?”

The four of them sat down at the table and began drinking. Glen regaled them with tales of his past lives- born originally in a small village in France, dying during the peasant revolts of the 1360s, being born the next time in Florence in the early 1370s to a wealthy family. He went on to detail life after life- as an illustrator in Italy, a sailor in Spain, a tradesman in Tudor England, at which point he managed to stay in England for the next 400 years in various incarnations.

“I liked England.” He said when Kurt asked him why he stayed there longer than anywhere else. “Saw a lot there- plagues, fires, monarchies, religious wars, industrial revolution, bad teeth, you know, England.” He said as though that explained everything.

Roisin, almost done with her wine at this point and snatching cigarettes out of Glen’s expensive silver case when he wasn’t looking, suddenly jumped up from the table. Staggering slightly, she pointed a finger at Glen.

“How do you know this is all true?” she said. Glen, Logan, and Kurt all looked at her as though she had something in another language.

“What do you mean?” Glen asked, his brow furrowed. Usually the people he deigned to tell of his secret were appropriately respectful. Lots of “oohs andhs.”hs.”

“I mean, how do you know all this is true? Maybe you’re just mental. You could be imagining all these past lives, right? Look at Shirley MacClaine! There are tons of people who think they’ve been born again, it doesn’t make it true. Why should we believe you? “ Roisin sat back, apparently satisfied that she’d debunked this guy. Kurt raised his eyebrows.

“She’s got a point, right? Logan, how do you know that this is the same guy you knew?” Kurt reached out and rubbed Roisin’s back, causing her to sigh deeply.

“Aren’t you going to defend me?” Glen asked Logan. Logan shrugged.

“Show ‘em your photos. And the memento mori. That should help.” He said, pouring another glass of whiskey.

“Fine. I have to go upstairs- I don’t keep them down here.” Glen shot Roisin another nasty look and walked off down the aisle they were all sitting in.

“Rosh, you do know that I’d never have brought you in here if I wasn’t sure it was him, right? He’s going to show you some stuff that should help to convince you. He looks basically the same as when I knew him- the shape of the face is a little different, and his nose is a little longer- but he could easily pass for the brother of the guy I knew back in WWII.”

“Oh. You’re right, I guess. You wouldn’t bring us here if you weren’t sure. Is all this stuff here his? I mean, is it all stuff he has collected over time?” she asked, standing up and walking over to some of the pieces near them. She stopped to admire a little mahogany stand with three drawers, ran her fingers over the top and picked up the price tag.

“Holy shit! Does this look like it should cost $2250? It says it’s from around 1795 though…and it is lovely…hmm.” Roisin wandered back over to the table they all sat at.

“I think Glen could explain better than me, but I’m pretty sure only some of this stuff is his. He leases space out to other dealers, depending on what they sell. Most of his personal belongings aren’t for sale, not the ones that he really cares about anyway.” Logan said, yawning.

“I thought he didn’t care about anything, Logan.” Kurt said quietly, looking around and also taking in the plethora of expensive wood furniture around them.

“That’s not true. I do care about some things.” Glen said, walking back towards them with a large black box, carefully engraved and embossed with intricate details.

“This stuff, for example.” He placed the box on the table and opened it, pulling out daguerreotypes, faded black and white photos, cufflinks, and other small pieces of jewelry. “Go ahead, pick it up. Just be careful, they’re old, obviously, but they also really do mean a lot to me.”

Roisin picked up some of the photos and saw that they all had young men- young men with eerie resemblances to Glen. They weren’t identical, but all looked as if they could be brothers. She placed them carefully back down and picked up a small pin that had a portrait painted on to it. It showed one of those same looking young men, and had the words “In Memory of My Dear Husband- Died April 2, 1878,” inscribed beneath it.

“That was Eleanor’s. She was my wife then. Lovely woman.” Glen added, looking wistful.

“How did you get all these things? I mean, if you’ve died, how do you get your belongings back? Especially if you don’t know when you’re going to die.” Kurt asked. Glen looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Originally, I didn’t know when I was going to die. And I lost things, all of my possessions. Sometimes when I came back, usually a good twenty years later before I was able to come and go as I please, having picked up some pretty good thievery talents, I’d steal some of it back. Later, I realized the only way I could plan ahead for that was to decide when I would die, and plan accordingly. Some things I put into a trust that only someone with this particular key-“ He showed them an ornate gold key he kept on a chain around his neck- “could claim. Other things I buried in the same place, hoping it would still be there the next time. As for the dying, well, I had to do it myself, didn’t I?”

Kurt looked sick. “You’d take your own life? That’s…that’s a mortal sin. Against the 5th commandment. Thou Shalt Not Kill and what of those you left behind? How could you do something so cruel?” He stood up and walked off down the long corridor they all sat in, disappearing around the corner.

“Kurt was studying to be a priest.” Roisin said quietly to Glen. “Sometimes I think he’s not sure where he stands anymore. He’s had a rough couple of years.” Glen looked carefully at her before responding.

“I understand how he feels, actually. There were times when I felt like the worst person ever to live, knowing what pain it would cause those I loved once I was gone. That’s why I don’t really do that anymore. Not they dying, obviously I still gotta do that. It's the other part. Getting involved; fall in love, those things. Hurts too much to know that even though I know I’ll come back, they won’t. Plus I hated being responsible for those feelings. Eleanor killed herself six months after I did. She’s still dead. Let me go talk to Kurt.” Glen excused himself and stood up, smiling sadly at Logan and Roisin and going off to find Kurt.

tbc