The Deal

Well, if Logan was one thing, he was true to his word. We went upstairs and we had sex. Within seconds his hands were tangled in my hair, pulling it, and I was biting him, sucking him, my lips against his skin. I could feel his fingers press into my skin like bruises, owning me, loving me, in the most basic way possible. "I ain't hurtin' you, am I Jeannie?" he gasped for a minute, coming up for air. "No," I said, smiling, even though he was, a little. I wanted it. I needed it. The pain made me feel real again, feel whole. It was crazy, passionate "I thought you'd died and I was never going to see you again" sex. Between Logan growling and my tendency to lose a little telepathic control when Logan pushed me over the edge, I doubt there was anyone within a thousand feet who didn't know exactly what we were doing. I can't say I minded much. And then, afterwards, Logan made love to me really gently. He pulled in and out at an agonizing pace, his eyes locked onto mine, kissing my face, my neck, his warm mouth leaving little trails of heat across my body. I responded in every way I knew how until I was beyond words and reduced to sighing against him, running my hands through his hair, feeling his shoulders, his back, his chest. He moved his hands over me slowly, his mouth following, kissing me and murmuring my name out loud. At some point it just got to be too much, I couldn't take it and I started crying. "Do ya want me to stop?" he asked, concerned, holding still. "No...No....I just," I said, wiping the tears away with the back of my hands. "It's all right darlin' I know," he said. "I know, it's okay, we're okay." When I came it was intense, I scratched the hell out of his shoulders, but Logan was totally silent, his muscles suddenly tensing, pulling me close, white-knuckled and shuddering as he breathed in my ear. Then, with a sigh, he rolled off me, adjusting the covers and lying on his back, hands behind his head. "All right Jeannie," he said at length. I knew he'd been waiting for this moment, mentally preparing for it. "Lay it on me." I took a deep breath too. And then, I told him everything. I felt possessed to tell him every detail, to relay the experience as vividly as I'd felt it, and in doing so it was a good hour and a half before I finally stopped talking. The whole time Logan just lay there on his back, listening, his face expressionless. When I'd finished the story with, "And then she told me to take you back, to our time, and you woke up," the bedroom fell into silence. I looked at Logan for a while, troubled. It was a lot for him to take in, I knew. It was a lot for me to take in, and I hadn't even processed it yet, not really. Finally, Logan spoke to the ceiling. "So...my name's James," he said. He didn't sound particularly upset or enthused, but rather like he was stating a fact. I said nothing. "People have called me that before ya know. I always kinda wondered," he conceded. "People have called you a lot of things," I said quickly before I realized what the words had come out sounding like. Logan gave a laugh and turned to face me. "You got that right darlin'," he said. He looked at me with an unreadable expression as he spoke. His tone was somewhere in between cynical and amused. "So...my old man was some mean old dirt poor gardener who managed to get in the pants of some fancy upper crust woman, eh? Sounds familiar." "I guess so," I said, smirking at the backhanded compliment. "And technically, that would make your last name Logan after all," I pointed out. "Hmmm," Logan said, eyes thoughtful. He paused another few moments before he continued. "An' this whole thing... you an' me Jeannie, what you said about the Phoenix force and this other girl you say I knew, Rose..." "...you don't remember her?" I asked. That was what I was really curious about. Somehow, long ago, Logan had been connected to me before I was even born. The thought was hard to fathom. Logan shook his head. "No. Sometimes I think... I..." he said, and then stopped. "She stole my memories? You said she was a telepath like you?" "Only the bad ones, the ones about your parent's death. She was doing it to save you, to spare you pain," I said quickly. I felt some kind of strange obligation to protect Rose, since she wasn't around to speak for herself and she had helped me bring Logan back. "Still," Logan said, expression turning cloudy. "Don't much like people fuckin' with my head. Even with the best of intentions. You know that Jeannie." "Yeah, I do," I said. "That's what bothers me about this whole thing. I love you Logan, don't get me wrong...but I don't like the feeling that we're being used as pawns in some weird game of the gods." "Welcome to my world," Logan snorted. "I think ya just described my whole life. But I don't know if it's as cut and dried as all that Jeannie." "How do you mean," I asked, turning on my side and propping myself up on my elbow so I could get a better look at him. "Well, you were the one that came to me that night in the woods, but I was the one who let you, even when you were..." Logan trailed off. He had started to look worried, uncomfortable and I suddenly got the bad feeling that he was hiding something. "When I was what, Logan?" I asked curiously, my voice going slightly sharp. Logan looked away and then clenched his jaw. "Nevermind Jeannie, it's...nothin', I just---nothin'." "It's obviously not nothing, Logan, or you wouldn't be hiding it. I thought you could tell me anything, what are you holding back?" He sighed and shot me a look. "Look Jeannie, I don't wanna talk about it right now, all right? Ya just laid a whole lot on me, an' it's still goin' through my mind, I don't know what I'm sayin'," he said, and rolled over, his back to me. It was so uncharacteristic of Logan that I was completely put out, worried, confused. And more than that, I wasn't about to let the father of my children, a man who self-professed he would die for me, keep secrets. It was too much like Scott, and I knew how that had ended. So I did something I shouldn't. I reached into his mind. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a bad decision. It was a violation of the worst kind, but I couldn't stand waiting for whatever dark secret Logan was holding to come back and haunt me later. It was just one word that had been lingering on the tip of his tongue. Fertile. "Get the hell outta my head Jean!" Logan yelled at me, just as I gasped and sat up in bed. "You let me even when I was fertile? You KNEW? You KNEW I was going to get pregnant?" I said in shock and disbelief. "You got me pregnant on PURPOSE?" I threw off the covers in anger and started pulling on my clothes. "I didn't know anythin' darlin'!" Logan pleaded at me, somewhere between angry, scared, and apologetic. "Jeannie, stop it! Come back here, where the hell do ya think you're goin' anyway?" "Don't LIE to me Logan!" I yelled. "How could you do this to me?" I felt my heart breaking as I tugged on my jeans, which I was now unable to button thanks to the bump in my stomach and grabbed a shirt, pulling that on as well. "Listen to me Jeannie! I'm tellin' you it ain't like that!" Logan yelled back. "I could smell that you were comin' into heat...shit that's not right...it just smells kinda the same, but really, I thought maybe it was just a coincidence or- "Excuse me?" I yelled in rage. "Excuse me, what did you say? I'm not some kind of animal Logan!" I screamed. "But you are! You obviously are! Get out! Get the hell out! I don't want to be near you right now!" Logan said nothing. His face dark, movements swift, he grabbed his own jeans off the floor in anger and pulled on his wifebeater so hard it ripped. He grabbed a pillow off the bed, wadded up in his hand, and without another word stalked out of the room, slamming the door. I sat on the bed in a minute in a total daze, and then I got up and ran down the hallway after him, prepared to give him another piece of my mind. A part of me just couldn't believe he would do that to me-it was so underhanded, so dishonest, and if it was true I didn't know if I could ever look at him the same way. I was a few feet behind him shadowed by the darkness of the hallway when I heard Logan's voice come out rough and surprised. "Scott?" he asked. "Hey...welcome to the club," I heard Scott's voice. I stopped moving and threw up a psy-shield. "What the hell happened, did Emma kick you out?" Logan's voice came through, wary. "Yep." "What for?" Logan asked. "You tell me your story, I'll tell you mine," Scott responded. "Point taken," Logan said. Then I heard a creak, that was the springs straining as Logan sat down heavily on the sofa. As angry and betrayed as I felt, it was nice to know that Logan and Scott could now be in the same room without any kind of attempted murder. "What the hell is wrong with us Summers," I heard Logan say, voice close to despair. "What," Scott replied. "You mean the fact that we're superheroes, we save lives every day, and yet we can't maintain a stable relationship for more than five minutes?" I recognized the chipper sarcasm in Scott's voice. It used to annoy the hell out of me. Now, I found it almost cute in a sort of sadistic way. "Yeh, somethin' like that," Logan mumbled. There was a pause between them. "Look Cyke," Logan said, and then there was another long and very uncomfortable pause. "I'm sorry. I shouldn'ta ever touched your wife. I shouldn'ta touched Jeannie, at least not 'til you guys had made your own decision." "Yeah," Scott said without a trace of sarcasm. "Yeah, you shouldn't have. But men make mistakes Logan. Lord knows I have." There was more silence between them. I thought about either going back upstairs or waiting until one of them had left to emerge. I didn't want to interrupt this moment. I heard a big sigh, and then Scott's voice. "She saw one of my dreams," he said finally in a somewhat embarrassed tone. I heard Logan laugh. A short, bitter laugh. "Yer in trouble over a dream?" he asked. "Musta been one hell of a dream." "That's the kicker," Scott said. "I don't even remember what it was. I just woke up and Emma's staring at me with this expression of hate and says she never wants to see my face again." I heard Logan give a grunt. "Oh, Frosty'll be over it before you c'n say '24 carot,' Cyke. That woman's crazy for you." "You think so?" Scott asked uncertainly. "I know so," Logan continued. "Shit, she was makin' eyes at you from the first second she started hangin' round the team. Even before that, when she was a villain. You were just too caught up in your boy scout shit to notice." Scott laughed at that one. I moved forward for a second and then stopped. Angry as I was at this deception, I wasn't quite irrational enough to interrupt this moment of rare male bonding between the two men in my life. There was the creaking of couch springs as I heard Logan relax. "Jeannie thinks I knocked her up on purpose," he said, and then let out a noisy breath. There was a pause. "Why does she think that?" Scott asked reasonably. "Poor choice o' words I my part, bad fuckin' luck, I dunno," Logan said, his voice a growl of despair. "Huh," Scott says. "I have to say Logan, that's surprising. I had my money on her being mad about you sleeping with Domino." "You WHAT?" I yelled, practically lunging out of the hall. The two men jumped a mile high. So much for undercover. In an instant, Logan was standing up, facing me. Then, in a second, he literally dropped his face into his hands and muttered. "Fuck. Fuck. Summers." Scott wisely took his cue to leave, grabbed his pillow and retreated in his t-shirt and boxer shorts back up the stairs. Like I said, Scott may not have been the best husband, but he was a smart man. He could tell when shit was about to go down. "You slept with Domino?" I said, feeling tears beginning to form behind my eyes. "Look darlin'," Logan cried, and I could see in his eyes he really was desperate. "It's not what you think! It was way before we ever happened, you were still with Scott. I swear, it was just about sex!" In a second, Logan knew exactly the wrong words had come out of his mouth. I picked up a vase with my TK and hurled it at him. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" I screamed. Logan ducked and it smashed against the wall. "Have you lost your fuckin' mind Jeannie?" He yelled back. "What the hell is wrong with you? Stop that! Get a fuckin' grip!" "What the hell is wrong with ME? What the fuck's wrong with you! DOM? Really? Did you try and get her fucking pregnant too?" I yelled in a rage, picking up all the objects my mind settled on and hurling them in Logan's direction. In a second his claws were out and with a SNIKT and several framed photos and a bowl that formerly held fruit were in shreds and pieces at his feet. "You better stop this shit right now Jean," he growled at me, and it struck a chord of fear into me. There was something so primal about Wolverine, and though I knew he'd never harm me, seeing his face dark, claws out, sent panic signals somewhere deep in my brain. "Or what?" I asked, taunting him. "You're gonna slice me up? Go ahead you fucking sorry excuse for a man, do it. Nothing else has ever stood in the way of you getting what you wanted, has it!" "You're outta your head right now Jean," he replied, voice low and dangerous. "So I ain't gonna listen to what you're sayin' or mind that you're throwin' shit at me...but DON'T push me." The words were like molten lava. My whole body was trembling and I reached for something, anything that could stab him in the heart the way he'd just impaled me. "Scott was so right about you," I said in a low, cruel voice, looking him straight in the eye. "I'm sorry I ever met you Logan. I'm sorry this ever happened. It was all a mistake." I could see it really hurt him. It really, really hurt him and I could sense it so strongly in the room that I almost took a step back. He had an almost physical reaction to my words, like I'd hit him in the gut. I could see him struggle to maintain control for a second struggle to breathe. When he did speak it was in a very quiet voice. "We're about to do somethin' here that we're gonna regret. I know you ain't meanin' all the things you say, but I'm not about to let you stand here and rip my heart out for no reason. So I'm leavin' now." Taking slow, deliberate steps, he walked towards the front door. I said nothing, just stood in impotant rage, my mind and body a complete mess. "You call me when you got your head on straight," Logan said to me in that same odd, preternaturally calm voice. "I won't be back 'til then." He stood at the door for a moment. "Fucking run away Logan. Go ahead," I said with acid in my voice. He stood and for a split second I thought he was going to lose it. But he didn't. Logan turned and he walked out the door. Then, ten seconds later I heard him howling outside and I heard him smashing, cutting, brick and stone. A few seconds later I heard his motorcycle peel off into the night. I stood there, in the middle of the wrecked living room. There were students looking down at me from over the banister, woken up by the commotion. They were staring down at me like I was circus freak and they were eager spectators in the first row, eyes jeering at me. I felt so completely empty. I felt like a wasteland. Ignoring all the students in their pajamas gawking and leering at their professor having just been walked out on, I made my way slowly up the steps, walked to my room without making eye contact, and shut and locked the door. Then, and only then, I started sobbing.