Disclaimer: Marvel rules the world. The Shi'ar rule the rest. I don't want any of their money (that's a blatant lie but hey, this is just the disclaimer.)
Author's note
: This fic is set immediately after Uncanny X-Men #384 (or whichever number, this month's ish), the book with the Logan and Jean smoocheroo on the cover. Other than that kiss, Marvel's story line has been tossed out a high window. This is my own plotline, deals with much darker stuff than the comic, has some gratuitous violence, and as usual I've made up my own team. This idea was co-thought-up with my sweetie SonOfSephiroth52 (Go read his stuff!) and dedicated to m'friend and fellow author Addie Logan. Have fun. Or not. I suppose I should also put a little synopsis in here…A hidden and evil piece of Logan's past comes back to haunt him, Jean wants to have a relationship, and all the X-Men are being stalked by something…or someone. Be afraid, y'all. Very afraid. Oh oh oh! And there's major character death. Don't yell at me! I'm just a slave to my muse!X-Men: House of Mirrors
A telephone ringing is not normally a cause for alarm. Jean Grey was the one to pick up the receiver without a care. Before Jean would come to lie helpless in a dingy corner, leg broken and slave collar digging into her neck, she would learn to fear the sound of the bell inside the plastic case. But tonight, she set aside her book and answered. "Xavier Institute."
"Jeannie?" said Logan's voice. "Jeannie, my goddamn jeep quit on me again. Can you come down here and pick me up?"
"Where's here?" asked Jean. There was an intake of breath on the other end of the line.
"Tony's" said Logan. To his credit, he lowered his voice a note in shame. Jean's lips tightened.
"The girlie joint. Right." Logan started to explain.
"I'm sorry, Jeannie, but—" Jean hung up on him.
"Bastard," she said almost conversationally. She removed her reading glasses and went to the foyer coat closet. She encountered Jubilee stirring a lumpy cup of Swiss Miss cocoa, heading up the broad stairs. "Where are you headed?" asked Jean.
"Bed," said Jubilee. "I have to teach a class tomorrow, second period." Jean pulled on her blue windbreaker and found the keys to one of the school's Explorers.
"Where are you going?" asked Jubilee with a note of reproach.
"Downtown," said Jean, anger rising.
"You know you can't treat him that way," said Jubilee. "It'll just encourage him."
"I think I can take care of the situation, thank you," said Jean curtly. She still couldn't stomach Jubilation Lee giving her advice. She yanked open the heavy door and slammed it so the glass rattled.
Tony's was located in an old building in a suburban district that had decayed into a bad neighborhood. Its neon was shabby, and the windows needed washing. The parking lot was populated with men, pale, furtive, dirty, bold—vice didn't discriminate. And him. Leaning against the fender of the jeep, cigar stuck in one side of his mouth, backlit by red neon proclaiming GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. Jean pulled the Explorer to a stop and got out. She knew he smelled her before he even turned. "Hey."
"Don't," said Jean. She moved around him and slammed the hood of the jeep, moved further down and pulled the canvas top up. "Just don't."
"There's a good explanation, Jeannie," said Logan as he stomped out his cigar and came to help her fasten the top. Jean moved her shoulder and shoved his hand away.
"There always is, Logan. There always is. Get in the car."
"Hey, come on," he said, trying to touch her shoulders again. Jean spun around.
"I'm tired, Logan. Tired of everything. Get in the car." She locked the doors of the jeep with her mind and stormed back to the Explorer.
"Suppose it won't do any good to say I'm sorry," said Logan once they were moving. Jean shook her head.
"No."
"Just tryin'," said Logan. Jean gripped the wheel, white-knuckled.
"What the hell is the matter with you? You call your girlfriend at twelve-thirty in the morning to come get you at a strip bar?" There was only silence from Logan. Jean realized what she had just said. Your girlfriend…
"Moving pretty fast, ain't you, Jeannie?" he said quietly. Jean flushed, anger and resentment mixing.
"Excuse me," she said tightly. "I didn't mean to."
"God forbid I should not wanna make things formal, like Cyclops," said Logan. Jean crumbled. Tears came spurting out, hot, enraged tears.
"You leave Scott Summers out of this!" she shouted. "He was a good, decent man and if you can't take being number two in my list of relationships then tough shit!" The Explorer screeched around a corner. Logan grabbed her hand roughly and guided it to the curb, Jean stomping on the brake just in time.
"Thanks for the ride, sweetheart," he said. He got out and slammed the door. The window glass shattered, leaving fragments sprayed all over the passenger side. Jean slammed both palms hard against the steering wheel, screamed angry and hoarse. Logan didn't even turn back as he disappeared out of the pool of the streetlamp.
Jean sucked down enough coffee for three the next morning, the only way she could face her classes in a reasonable state of numbness. Logan hadn't come home the night before. Of course. He hadn't slept by her in more than a week. Could it be possible? Jean thought wryly. Could Jean Grey have had a fling? She'd believe a lot of things about herself since Scott died, hell, since she'd woken up the morning before she met Logan in the kiss, that she never would have dreamed before. A fling was certainly possible. Logan seemed to screw everyone he came in contact with one way or another, at some point in time, so why not her? "Jean?" said Jubilee, like an evil pixie in the door of the morning room. Jean set down her cup with more force than she meant.
"What, Jubilation?"
"This was under the front door," said Jubilee. She handed Jean a manila envelope. It had her name in block letters on the front.
"If you ask me, flowers would have been better," said Jubilee. Jean ground her teeth. Again, since Scott and Logan had passed out and into her life, she'd been more easily irritated—like permanent, bad PMS. She ripped the enveloped with one red nail, viciously. The bloody color was another manifestation of her mood. A glossy photo slid out of the package, along with a note laser-printed on a plain sheet. Jean turned the photo over, half expecting it to be a ransom demand for one of the younger X-men. The little bastards certainly got into enough trouble. She stopped. It was black and white, meticulously printed by hand on an odd size of photo paper. A tube, with a body prostrate in it. Logan. Logan in Department H. She grabbed the sheet. Hello, Jean. Would you like to know more? A phone number followed. It was an extension for one of the student dorms. Girl's, Room 6. Where Jean had slept when she was a student and Marvel Girl. Now it was a teacher's room, housing visitors, and Jubilee on a more permanent basis. Jean picked up the photo again. Never had she seen Logan more helpless…or more totally enraged. His eyes burned like coals through the bubbling liquid, daring the men pictured only as flashes of white at the edge of the frame to thrust the adamantium into him. They had, though. And had paid. Jean was puzzled. Would you like to know more? Yes.
Jubilee's phone rang, and she detected it over the buzzing of her hairdryer. An instinct she'd kept from being a telephone teen. "Hello?" she said quickly, watching the time. Class started in fifteen minutes.
"Jubilation Lee?"
"Yes," said Jubilee briskly. She'd worked hard to keep the twangy, mall-rat tone from her voice since she turned twenty. She was twenty-two now, and didn't have much success. "Who's it?" she said, talking fast again, then cursing mentally. Sounding like a space cadet even to complete strangers.
"I'd like to speak to Logan, Jubilee." The voice was male, certainly, a clipped baritone that suggested education, or momentous practice with elocution.
"He's not here right now, can I tell him who's calling?" Jubilee ran a brush through her hair as she talked, and slipped a green sweater top on over her camisole. She loved cordless phones.
"May I," corrected the voice. Jubilee stopped brushing. A prig, this caller. Correcting her when he didn't know her at all. There was silence on both ends.
"May I?" said Jubilee finally, impatient.
"You may," said the voice, sounding like he'd taught a dog a new trick. "Tell him his comrade in arms came calling."
"Uh, you maybe want to leave your name?" suggested Jubilee, applying eyeliner and lipstick in record time. She really was going to be late.
"No need, dear," said the caller. "I believe my delivery will clear things up." Delivery? Jubilee wondered.
"Okay," she said. "If you say so."
"I do," said the caller. "By the way, Miss Lee." Jubilee blotted and tossed the tissue away.
"Yes?"
"Navy blue is more your color. That green doesn't match your eyes." A dial tone sounded in Jubilee's ear. She slowly uncradled the phone from her shoulder and pressed the power button. She gave the window a nervous glance as she went out the door to teach second period. Outside, pine trees swayed in an approaching wind.