Title: This Time Next Year
Author: Hotel Montana
Fandom: Marvel Comics
Spoilers: Wolverine #75
Pairing: Wolverine/Jubilee
Rating: R
Summary:
I heard from the trees a great parade
And I heard from the hills a band was made
Will I be invited to the sound?
Will I be a part of what you've made?
Author's Note: Song fic, of course. All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands by Sufjan Stevens.
Written at the behest of thelasteuropean as a "That's Your Fic!" challenge. She wanted Wolverine/Jubilee smut because she's mean.
Beta'd by the INCOMPARABLY AWESOME sionnain, who pats me on my little head when I'm being hand-wringey about writing religion-themed smut.
For most of his life, the life he could readily recall, Logan had never had an innate sense of where he was supposed to be. There were few times he felt the warm satisfaction of knowing that where he was, was where he ought to be. That there wasn't anywhere else calling to him, tugging at him. That he was home. Those few brief moments of belonging he'd had (stolen kisses from Mariko in the garden; in bed with Silver Fox, her head resting over his heart) were the memories he cherished most. He guarded them fiercely, recreated them, sought them, unconsciously hoped to have that again.
Instead, what Logan had was intuition like a divining rod, telling him when it was time to run. He never planned it. Never decided on it. He simply knew that he'd come to the end of the line. And when that happened, when he opened his eyes and looked at the world and knew it wasn't his world anymore, there was nothing in that world that could make him stay.
The closest Logan had ever come to having a home, to having a place where he could take his hat off and stay awhile without feeling urge to run like a ripple beneath his skin, was in Salem Center. Despite the rage that addled him, painting his whole world red, ol' Charlie Xavier had invited him in and asked him to stay, and gave him the acceptance he hadn't even known he'd needed. For the first time in his splintered memory, he'd had a chance to stop and rest and breathe.
He should have known it couldn't last.
When he woke one morning in August--a morning that dawned early and hot, the sun shining in his eyes and overtaxing the mansion's central air--with a shaking, pinging sensation in his chest, he knew it was the last morning he'd wake there for a long time to come. Maybe forever.
He didn't fight it, the feeling. He'd tried that before, and there was no use in it. It was a losing battle. He'd stay on and pretend everything was the same as it had been before; this was still his home. That he still belonged and he could still hang his hat without a quivering gut. But in the end, as hard as he might fight, it wouldn't change the fact that he wasn't any good to this place, to these people, anymore.
Instead, he got up, out of bed, swung his feet over the side and stood on sun-warmed oak. He showered, stayed too long under the burn of water too hot for the day, letting it work the weary out of his old bones. He put on clothes without noticing what they were, pulled on his boots and jammed his hat over wet, bristly hair.
He followed the smell of fake butter to the kitchen, where he found Jubilee leaning on elbows on the counter, her forehead pressed to the microwave door, watching the bag of popcorn balloon and jump within. She turned her head at the sound of his footsteps and smiled with just a hint of small, white teeth beneath petal pink lips.
Logan ducked his head, hid his eyes beneath the brim of his hat. If she saw his face, she'd know. She would see it in his eyes, in the downward curve of his lips. She'd read the lines around his eyes and see the gnash of his teeth. Jubilee would see that he'd lost loose and easy, and all he had left was an elastic band, ready to snap back and pull him out of her world. He was an open book to the girl, and if he let her look into him, he wouldn't be able to leave, not so easily.
He left her in the kitchen without saying a word. He walked out of the house, went through the field toward the lake, making tracks through the tall grass. Jubilee found him resting in the shade of an oak tree that was older than he, maybe, with a massive trunk and gnarled, spreading limbs. She found him just as he'd wanted her to--as relaxed as he could make himself, his head ducked away from her, beneath the lowered brim of his hat.
And maybe that was why they'd got on so well. Not just that she'd saved his life, brought him back from the dead, back from the brink of insanity, kept him grounded and real and with her. Maybe she had a divining rod as intuition, too; only instead of letting her know when her time was up, it was attuned to him. In the years since Australia, since she had taken him from the cross, resurrected him and made him whole again, she had joined herself to him so thoroughly that he could no longer see where he ended and she began. He never should have let her. Never should have allowed a girl to make him her own. But when she laughed with him, when she called him pet-names, when she clung to him, when she looked at him like he was her savior, he couldn't help himself.
Jubilee dealt in somedays, and Logan in forevers. Jubilee had power sitting in her palm and didn't know what to call it. Logan's had been yanked piecemeal out of him, until he didn't know what to call himself.
But when he was with her, he belonged to her.
He belonged.
When he led her out from the shade of the tree, there was a part of him that knew what he was starting. He told her to stick with Charlie, turned his face and let her see him, took in the stricken look on her face, and the way she pressed her lips together to hide it. There was a part of him that knew, when she put her arms around his shoulders and steered him inside, what she was starting. When she took his hand and led him to her room, he hadn't been surprised. When she pulled him inside and shut the door behind him, he hadn't resisted. When she pulled her tank-top over her head and put his hand to her small, bare breast, he hadn't refused.
And when she wound her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers, he let her kiss him.
And when she tossed his hat off and ran her fingers through his hair, he kissed her back.
And when she stood on her toes and pressed her ribs to his, he lifted her off the floor.
And when she wrapped her legs around his waist, he carried her to the bed and lay his weight down on her.
And when she clung to him afterward, he kissed her again and again and again, as though the press of his lips could make her easy.
That night, Logan stood over Jubilee, as much of a Dear John letter as he'd ever written propped against her light. There was a heavy weight on him, had been there since he'd left her bed, and he took his hat off, as though that might ease the crush.
Even if he wanted to wake her, he wouldn't. And if he wanted to kiss her one last time, he didn't. He would take her with him--the memory of her body, firm and soft beneath him, smelling like sunshine and girlish sweat, mouth still tangy with popcorn salt--but that was all. Looking down at her, he could see that the change had already begun. With her cheek resting on the pillow, Illyana's Bamf doll held tightly to her chest, she looked like the child she ought to be. He wouldn't interrupt, wouldn't steal that away from her anymore than he already had. She would have this time, and it would be her own. She would make something new without him, and if there was a shred of justice in the world, it would be better than what she'd had before. Better than she'd had with him.
She didn't belong with him. She couldn't. She was something sweet. Something good. Something not meant for him. Not now, not someday, not ever.
He didn't know when he'd see her again, or if he ever would, but if he was alive, he'd think of her this time next year, and more often still. Logan dealt in forevers, and that was how long he would love her. Forever and always, for as long as he could remember, and then, when he'd forgotten her, some part of him would love her even still.
When he went out the door, his hat was still sitting in her room.
As he left the mansion, walking his motorcycle, engine cold and quiet, down the gravel drive, he felt her at his back. She was in the window, the light shining from above and behind, her face pale and lined, hat sitting awkward and crooked on her small head, his note clutched in her hand. He would feel the touch of that hand, would taste her in his sleep; the sound of her crying would follow him days down the road. No matter how far he went, as far from her as he'd already gone, she would still be with him.
She raised her hand to him, and he raised his in return. Wiggling two fingers in a half-hearted wave was almost more than he could bear to do and so much less than she deserved.
It was as much of a goodbye as either of them had ever been able to say.