Socks

It was not always a good day if you're Logan and you wake up on a Thursday.

This view was, of course, thanks to Mr Orderly himself, Scott Summers. He thought that it would be a wonderful thing to have 'some sort of order in our messy lives', to which Logan had smartly replied:

"Not as bad as yours!"

The next thing Logan knew, he was assigned to collect laundry baskets from everyone who were boarders of the academy – and wash them. This he learnt from a glaringly red manila card tacked in the Common Room entitled CHORES! The fine print stated as thus:

Should these names failed to fulfil their chores on the appointed days, students are free to demand their lunch the next day from that person(s). For the meal, the total must not be less than one hundred dollars. There is no maximum, however.

It also explicitly instructed the students to report delinquent names with promises of rewards. At first the teachers had protested heatedly, but when Scott calmed then down and told them that not only this was important for teacher-student bonding, it would also set good examples for the students, they somewhat relented. The first few weeks saw two teachers became victims – Jean had forgotten all about the laundry because she had a bad hungover (Logan never knew she drank – he supposed she simply made that up); Gambit had simply refused to do it. Both had born the cost of feeding 50-odd hungry teenagers. They never revealed how much they had to pay.

Logan was not planning to spend money on hungry mouths, mutants or humans alike – he was never a philanthropist. He would rather eat glass. With forced enthusiasm pasted on his face, he leapt off his bed and stalked out of the bedroom with a laundry basket in one hand.

He first mapped in his mind out how would he tackle the chore:

The ground floor would have to wait until later. He had to finish the upper level of the mansion first. The student rooms were to the west, and he would start there first. Since the laundry was directly downstairs of that particular wing of the academy, that would make his life easier. Besides, most of the students were on summer vacation, and only a few were taking summer classes, so they took up only the first floor of the students' wing. (Another brilliant idea conceived by yours truly, the Orderly – summer school. Logan grunted at even the passing of that name, face or anything that had to do with Scott Summers. Grunt!)

Then, while the washing machines downstairs (there were two heavy-duty ones) were busy with first wave, Logan would go collecting laundry in the teachers' wing in the north, where it would take him about twenty minutes to finish the whole wing altogether, upstairs and downstairs. By the second round at the teachers' wing, the first wave of the students' laundry should be on the spin-dry cycle already. (There were separate spin-dry machines, too.) At this time, Logan could start hanging the laundry out in the field to dry. Yes, Mr Orderly himself had erected clothesline in the practice field. "This would save our money spent on the dryer," was his reason for this. Grunt!

Logan could not fail to see the reason behind this, though, albeit begrudgingly. This was a good way to cut back on expenses, especially when some smart ass had begun a move to sue the Academy for causing bodily harm during one of their excursion with a particularly nasty piece of mutant who called himself Garnet. (What kind of man – mutant or otherwise – would call himself Garnet?!)

Heck, Logan thought, snapping back to reality, I'd better hurry up with these laundry. He grimaced at that thought. I am thinking like a real laundrywoman now!

But later, as Logan went through collecting the laundry, now at the teachers' wing, he realised he could not quite cast aside the discomfort his previous thought (on the move to sue the Academy, not Garnet) had stirred in him. That was why the Professor was not present in the Academy, along with Emma Frost and a lawyer named Amer Hansa. They all had been summoned to be present in court for the hearing. The jerk who sued them was a man whose history of violence against mutants was as long as Logan's list of enemies. They thought to turn this matter around with that fact, and that was their only leverage for the time being.

Logan remembered how the jerk look like. In his mind's eye he could picture the man: he was thin, with small, calculating cruel eyes, messy hair, walked with a slight stoop, and had a very bad case of gingivitis. Why use all these legal craps when Jubilee could have kicked the man's butt with her fancy fireworks? Why, Logan thought, I would happily put an end to that man by just a SNIKT!

In his frighteningly vivid imagination, Logan had put his claws through the thin man, squarely on his sternum. His adamantium blades pierced the man like paper knife through a... erm, well, paper. Logan watched as the man's eyes lose its light, felt the man's death throes in his arms, then he ceased stirring, as his wound bled profusely and his last breath left. His sight became red with blood, Logan snorted to himself, satisfied.

... and saw that his adamantium claws, in real life, actually were stuck to the panel of a bedroom wall. What made his eyes bulge out in horror were not the wood panels that had shattered and fallen off the wall, but what lay stuck between the claws.

One pair of a sock, a grey woollen sock, lined with bright green about the toes, with a slightly faded logo that resembled the head of a bunny on the side. His claws had pierced the bunny's head at several places, and they also had rendered the heel of the sock into a massive hole.

Time stretched as Logan looked on at the sock, his mind spun like a bunch of massive gears, still running together, but running down a hill instead of properly inside a clock. Whose sock is this? I don't think it's usable after this, but... it's just a damn sock! Why am I so nervous about it?! Goddamit, why am I freaking out like some stupid kid... just chuck this thing out of the window or burn it somewhere.

Logan took a deep breath, retracted his claws, and felt time returned to its normal speed slowly. The ruined sock fell upon the floor with a scandalized whisper. His first thought was to simply throw the sock under a carpet or something, but that would easily be discovered.

After he had disposed of the sock somewhere safe (according to him) he immediately went out with two basketful of laundry on each shoulder, and began hanging them out on the clothesline to dry as he put on his best poker face. He did not even growl back when a bunch of students passed him by and called him names.

That night Logan went to sleep with a slightly nervous disposition. He waited until midnight, but nobody came up to him looking for the other sock. With that giving him some measure of relief, Logan fell asleep.

But next morning proved worse than yesterday.

"I can't find my sock!"

Logan, who was drinking down his black coffee, choked suddenly, the result being coffee was spurted all over the floor. He was in the dining room with Jean, Ororo – who were seated properly and were eating toast and marmalade jam – Gambit, Hank, and Bobby. The men were having their coffee while standing when Scott had suddenly entered the room - barefooted - and said that.

"You mean your socks." Ororo calmly bit her toast.

Meanwhile Hank slapped gently Logan's back as he struggled to regain control of his breathing. Jean looked on with some amusement dancing merrily in her eyes.

"No, I mean my sock! The other pair. I have only this one pair, and I really can't find it."

Logan made himself look preoccupied by mopping up the coffee stain on the floor. Jim, the mansion's butler, had suddenly appeared beside him with a mop and was about to wipe the stain himself when a recovered Logan had said: "Let me."

Jim had stepped back and stared at Logan in silent wonder. Meanwhile:

"Please, you have got to help me find it!" Scott was practically begging at Jean. She said exasperatedly:

"It's just a sock, Scott. Not your head. Use other socks; don't you have, like, a closet full of socks?"

"Jean, you know I can't give a speech properly without my confidence socks!"

The whole dining room fell silent. Even Logan had stopped mopping the floor. Gambit gaped openly as Bobby tried his best not to giggle girlishly. Jean closed her eyes and covered her lips his her hands prudently. Scott looked around with that ruby-red glasses of his. It was fortunate for him that his eyes were unseen, whatever emotions that were in them were not seen by all. But that unmistakable flush on his cheeks was hard to miss.

He looked down at his bare feet, probably trying to avoid the surprised and scandalized eyes that were upon him.

Ororo broke the silence:

"Well, Scott, I didn't know you are so... superstitious."

"I... have my Lucky Pen," Hank volunteered. "Works every time when I have to write a paper."

"Well, you can't beat a Lucky T-Shirt any day," Gambit said. "Wear it every time I go out to pick up girls."

"Must be a t-shirt that says 'I HAVE BEEN NEUTERED'," Bobby said, and roared with laughter.

"Guys, PLEASE! This is no joke!" Scott shouted, genuinely desperate. He clutched at his hair, making it messier than ever. "That speech I am to give is important! Now I don't even remember what I am supposed to talk about any more! Oh no! OH!"

With a panicked frown on his face and another shrill, elongated "OH!", Scott immediately ran towards the coffee machine, pushed Gambit – who was standing serenely over his cup of coffee and spilt it in the process – roughly aside, grabbed a mug and filled it to the brim with black, thick coffee. Jean tried to pull him away at the arm, but Scott protested, relinquished Jean's hold on his arm, and drank it all down. Tears were streaming down his cheeks – the coffee was still rather hot...

Later, Scott seemed to have somewhat recovered from what Hank had classified as "a near-miss nervous breakdown. Coffee seemed to have staved it down a few notches. I don't know what would I do if it had been a full-blown one." They had placed him on an easy chair taken from the nearby room.

With the missing sock, Scott seemed to be less than the person Logan knew, and he voiced that thought to Jean. But she had assured them not to worry. "This is only temporary," she added. "He'll be fine in an hour or so."

"I think," Ororo stood up, "someone should call that speech venue to inform them about this. Who was it that asked him to deliver a speech?"

Jean placed her hand on Scott's forehead. "It's someone from the Youth Institute in town. A Ms Tracy." She also gleaned the phone number from his memory for Ororo to jot down.

"I'll call her," Gambit rose with a confident, cheeky smile on his face, as he grabbed the number from Ororo's fingers and walked out of the dining room.

Logan did not realise that Jim had taken away the mop and the bucket from him as he silently gave thanks to whatever that was holding the threads of Fate today. Not only that his deed went undiscovered, he managed to see the other side of Mr Orderly rarely seen by anyone. A mischievous smirk appeared on his usually sombre face, and Logan nodded to himself, his confidence returned with full mast.

He thought to himself: Nice way of skewering two birds with a claw; and felt himself balloon with pride.

But it was not meant to last.

To be continued...?