Peacock: If this seems familiar to you, it's because I took from my old account on here. I decided on continuing this story here on this account. With that said, I don't Wolverine or X-Men. Everything, save any OCs I come up with, all belong to Marvel. All I own are the OCs that weren't in the movie to begin with.


01.

The music of the strip joint was loud and obnoxious, playing some weird futuristic techno music as she grabbed onto the pole, hanging on as she swung. She hated this line of work, but times have changed (perhaps a little too much) and with too much at stake (and very little faith) she had to do it. What would her father think? What would the world's most renowned Mutant Expert think of her if he saw her like this?

"He wouldn't think anything. He's out of his fucking mind and fucking crazy." He said as she brought up the idea of her becoming a pole dancer, an entertainer of sorts. His steely blue eyes darkened with what had become his constant companion these days, misery. His silver tinged black hair had shown heavy signs of aging and he coughed as he picked up a beer bottle. "Besides, you're not becoming a damn whore."

Chelsea rolled her eyes and shook her head. "It's not Prostitution, I'm just swinging my ass on stage while holding onto a pole. I'm not selling my body for money."

"It's still being a whore." Logan grunted.

"It makes good money. Money that we need if you really want to get our asses out of here." Chelsea said fiercely.

Of course, the two of them had a stare down, his blue eyes glaring into her gray ones until….

He looked away grumbling something about how he couldn't believe he was letting her do this and that she was going to be on her own. But she knew him. Logan wasn't going to let anything bad happen to her, which is why he made sure a lot of his clients were patrons of the strip joint she now works at.

When she was first starting out, Chelsea had almost lost her nerve about going out on stage, dressed up in a skimpy outfit and dance around in such a provocative way. And Logan having come to her first "show" made things a bit unnerving but in a way, she felt safe and over time, she overcame the unnerving anxious situation of being barely clothed and having so many depraved eyes on her. But if one good thing came out of this gig. It's that the owners of this place put the, "Look, but no touching" rule in place if any of the dancers didn't want the customers groping their asses.

Logan went to most of her shows in the beginning as "Just in case you get into some deep shit," but as Chelsea gained more popularity at the club, thus gaining a lot of clients, Logan had also gained the same clients. He eventually stopped worrying so much and just let her do her "whore business" but Chelsea knew he still cared. Once in awhile when work is slow for him, Logan would go into the club and just wait until she was done.

While many of the other girls had said she'd be losing out on more money while working under the look but no touch rule, she didn't care. Actually she had proved them wrong. Part of her "charm" was her empathic powers, her ability to manipulate the clients' emotions, to make them more…. Attracted to her. After all, that's what her training as an X-Men from so long ago was going towards. It was the only way her powers would be of any use.

Jeers and catcalls met her ears as she just did what has now become natural to her, become second nature. But as she did the final spin, stretching a leg upwards along the pole, her eyes opened and she saw him standing at back of the room, close to the main entrance. At least she thought she did. But it wasn't him, it wasn't Logan. It was just some other sex depraved man who had come to kill his time with beautiful yet sleazy women.

With that said, the music stopped a few seconds later and Chelsea immediately took one final spin before going off stage via the left exit.

As she entered the dressing room where all the entertainers were at, she heard someone calling her name.

"Chelsea!" A thick southern female accent called out to her. "Chelsea, your phone!"

The blonde looked up in time to see one of her fellow entertainers tossing her phone to her, which she caught instinctively with her hands. When she looked at the screen, Chelsea saw the name James Howlettacross the screen and of course a picture of Logan flipping the bird as the id photo. She couldn't help giggling at the memory of her taking that picture.

"Why the fuck you need to take my picture? You know it's me by the damn name on the screen." Logan's tone was sharp, annoyed (but then again that's how he was nowadays, a grumpy old man who puts on fake smiles for the clients) as he said this.

She had just laughed, a big grin on her face, "Because I can't remember all these aliases we've used and honestly you're always going to be Wolverine or Logan to me so say cheese, old man."

Instead of smiling and saying cheese, Logan just flipped the bird at her and that became the picture that would show up when he called her. And in return, Chelsea took a picture of herself on his phone and set it to her id photo when she called him. But she hardly ever called him. Mainly because he was almost always on the job, but he didn't have to call her since a lot of her clients from the strip club happened to be his clients as well. Another reason to keep working in this place. Logan would protect her if things go south and it would give him some peace of mind about her safety.

Shaking her head at how the phone kept ringing, Chelsea tapped on the green phone icon and put the phone to her ear.

"Where the fuck you been? I've been trying to reach you for the past fucking half hour." His irritated tone blared through the phone. It made her hold the phone away until he was done speaking.

"Ow, burst my eardrums much?" Chelsea replied in an equally annoyed tone, but just from his loud tone, she sensed something was wrong. "Logan, what's wrong? Did something happen?"

All kinds thoughts of what could've happened entered her mind. Her father finally dying, Caliban going out into the direct sunlight and being burnt or maybe Logan finally croaked. Wait if Logan was dead, he wouldn't be calling her.

"Chelsea? Chelsea, I swear to fucking God if you hung up on me, I'm gonna come over there and drag your ass outta there!"

"I'm here, Logan. Calm down." Chelsea grumbled. She quickly glanced around the room before walking over to her dressing area. "So what's going on, what's the big emergency?"

"The fucking emergency is you gettin' your ass out here to the car in ten minutes or I'm leaving you behind!" Logan growled.

"What?" Logan was never this angry or impatient. Sure he's chewed her out for being a bit late, but to this extent? "Alright, give me fifteen minutes to get dressed."

As she said this, her boss came into the dressing room, his voice loud, almost like thunder. "Alright girls, the schedule for this evening goes as follows, Angelface, Scarlet Rabbit, Crystal Doll, then you, Intrigue."

Chelsea nearly jumped at hearing her stage name (and her mutant name) and she quickly put a hand over the speaking part of the phone as Logan started going on rampage, obviously telling her to tell her boss she won't be there later on.

"Ah, um, Rob, I have a family emergency," The woman started. Her boss just looked at her, his eyes narrowing.

"And just what is this emergency of yours? Did your uncle Jimmy cough up a lung?" the man asked sarcastically, and as if on cue, Chelsea forced tears to come to her eyes, catching him off guard.

She immediately buried her face into her hands, forcing a sob out of her body. "Uncle James! He's finally dying! We warned him that smoking and drinking would be the end of him! But he was just so damn stubborn!"

"What the fuck?" Came Logan's voice through the phone as she continued to put on her show.

"Aw, Chelsea! There, there, Sweetie." Some of the other ladies crooned over what they thought was a crying Chelsea, hugging her and glaring at the boss. "Come on, Rob, let the poor thing see her dying uncle."

"Yeah."

"Jesus Christ, you're for real?" Rob asked, but upon seeing all the glares from the other women, he sighed, facepalming himself. "Alright, alright, you can have a week off to deal with that bullshit!"

"And?" Chelsea finally peeked at the man through her fingers.

"And what? What more do you want? You're gettin' the weekend and next week off!"

One of the worst things about working at a strip joint? The boss often thinks the girls getting time off is a form of payment for them.

Chelsea's gray eyes hardened with anger and she glared at darkly at him. "You know the rules, Robert!" She said darkly.

"I'm the boss and vacation time is payment enough-!" Rob suddenly felt something stirring in his heart, tears blurring his vision. "What the f-!"

Chelsea forced her tears to come out even more, imagining that Logan really did die helped a lot when it came to her powers. She could make others feel what she felt or what she wanted them to feel. "Have you ever lost someone close to you? So close that you felt like you died with them?"

As Rob's gaze met her's, the boss felt himself choking up. "Jesus, just take it!" He let out a cry as he dug in his pocket for his wallet and handed the woman a wad of bills.

Chelsea just took the bills and thanking him, she ran off to her area of the dressing room. She grabbed her duffle bag that sat under her vanity table and quickly stuffed some of her personal things and the cash into it before dashing out of the night club.