This story is for Montana-Rosalie for the Christmas in July Challenge.
Things You Don't Want to See in Your Story:
1) Zack
2) anything season 2
Wish List :
1) M/L kissage
2) Logan catching Max listening to "Halo" by Beyonce on repeat
3) Tinga
4) a thunderstorm
The story is set three days after Rising; Logan is just regaining his legs.
Disclaimer: I don't owe them, just playing with them.
A Different Game of Cat and Mouse
Chapter One
Logan Cale opened his eyes slowly, blinking as the rare morning light hit his face.
He moaned in pain as he stretched. His arms and shoulders ached, his back was killing him, and his legs were beginning to cramp...
His eyes shot wide open as he sat up, looking at his left leg twitching under the covers. It hurt. It hurt like hell.
He couldn't remember being so happy before in his life.
No, that was a lie. He did remember a time when he was as happy, if not more. He remembered three nights before, after he had stood for Max for the first time after the shooting, remembered her delighted smile, her beautiful, luminous brown eyes wide in happiness for him. He also remembered her wicked smile as she dragged him to her baby and let him drive them both through the empty streets. And he remembered the warmth of her body seeping into his as she leaned to shout instructions at him, the incredible feel of her firm breasts pressed against his back...
Yeah, he had a lot to be happy about in the last few days. And he owed every last scrap of it to Max.
Thinking back at that night, he allowed himself to revisit every feel, every smell and sight of her. He had always been attracted to Max, but after the shooting he had never allowed himself to think about her that way, although she was a common visitor in his dreams.
From the moment he first saw Max Logan had felt a connection with her, a bond that drew him to her, and he thought she felt something similar. After all, she had come back after the shooting, and saved him from being blown to pieces at the hospital. There had been several awkward, very intense moments between them, like the time he had been thrown from the roof of the Steinlitz Hotel, only to have Max jump right behind him to snatch him from a messy death. After they had crashed into a room the adrenalin haze had dissipated a little to find them sprawled on the bed, Max on top of him, eyes locked, their lips almost grazing each other's...and then there was the dream he'd had after his surgery, waking only to find Max laying waste to his lunch...god, that woman would eat anything!
His smile widened as he felt his body react at his memories of Max. Yes, he was whole again. Perhaps now he could do more than dream about her...
Logan sat up and swung his legs to the side of the bed. Walking was still a chore for him, but he relished the challenge, embraced every cramp and ache as his legs grew stronger, pushing himself until his body trembled with the effort, and then pushed some more. Bling was not amused, of course. He was worried about his miraculous recovery, and whether it would last. Logan refused to even consider the possibility of his body failing him again.
While his dark mood and thoughts about his disability had been pushed away, into the far corners of his mind he still felt some flashes of hopelessness and despair sometimes, in the dark of night. He still was surprised when his body responded as it used to. He still expected to wake up to find it had only been a dream, and he was still bound to the damn chair. In the almost three weeks since he had first started to regain feeling in his legs he'd had those fears less and less, but they were still there. He knew now that he would not be back in the chair, one way or another. If this wondrous regrowth of his spine failed for some reason...
Shaking himself Logan stood hesitantly, took his cane and went to the bathroom to start his day.
One of the things he enjoyed the most was this, to be able to go through his morning routine like a normal person. He still used the shower stool, he knew that he wasn't strong enough yet to stand there for fifteen minutes, and he really didn't want Bling to find him sprawled in the tile floor, naked, wet and with a cracked skull.
But he drew the line at sitting down to use the toilet. He knew he was being stubborn and a little irrational, that he still didn't have the strength and fine motor control to do a proper job, but having to pee sitting down was one of the things that he had hated the most, he hated the lack of control, the lack of feeling, how a simple thing had turned into a complex, humiliating ritual.
The first thing he had done after wobbling his way around the apartment had been to go to the bathroom when he felt the almost forgotten pressure in his lower abdomen. He was ecstatic, almost dizzy with joy, and had ended up making a mess of the pristine bathroom. Bling had rushed to his aid as he heard Logan fall, and had almost bitten his head off for being careless. It would have had more effect if he had not laughed the entire time. The shame had been enough to make Logan pace himself, at least in the bathroom. But he had pushed himself until he finally was able to pee like a man.
It was childish, yes. But he enjoyed his victory all the same.
Once finished he walked slowly to the kitchen and started the first coffee pot of the day. Now that he could walk again he had started to do every thing he had been denied in the last months, from the necessary to the foolish. One of the things he had missed was to do his own legwork for Eyes Only. He was thankful to Max for all her help, of course, and he intended to keep her as his main operative for as long as she wanted to, but he missed doing things on his own, meeting contacts, gathering intel and even the occasional break in. He had a few leads that he wanted to check himself.
He moved to his office, relishing the fact that he would now seat again at the chair that was usually used by Max or Bling. Booting up his system he started checking emails, answering some, marking others for further research and deleting the rest. One caught his eye.
He'd spent the last three months trying to get some information on a new gang, a group that was bringing sophisticated, expensive weapons and designer drugs from Europe. He would've thought that there would be a small market for such things in Seattle, but the larger gangs and both the Russian mob and The Triads were avid customers. The guns they put to use to consolidate and expand their territories, and the drugs were funneled to other cities. He had managed to locate the shipping company used and Max had infiltrated it and gathered the evidence needed to put a stop to them, but a few weeks later the drugs were back in Seattle, and he'd had no luck in tracking the supplier again. But now he had.
One of his contacts in Portland had told him about a new turf war involving several gangs using high-powered automatic weapons, and the pictures that he'd been able to take before being killed proved to him that he had not stopped them, only forced them to relocate.
Logan burned with anger and shame. He had failed.
He had become complacent, and had assumed that the local Police would put a stop to the nameless group responsible, and one of his informants had paid with his life for his hubris. What made it worse, though, was that the man wasn't just an informant, he also had been a friend.
Logan vowed to himself to finish the job this time, and to do it right. Contacting another source in Portland he prepared himself a set of travel documents under one of his false identities and went to his bedroom to retrieve his travel kit.
Eyes Only was going to Portland.
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