A/N: I watched X-Men: The Last Stand last night and was mightily displeased with it. I saw First Class before I saw it, so that might explain why, because FC was waay better, so this is my way of stitching together some silly movie canons to make myself feel better.
Disclaimer: The X-Men franchise thing does not belong to me. Because I'm on a site for fanfiction for no reason. Obviously.
I Saw You Wreathed in Flames
This is Logan. He is both wise and foolish.
He remembers (a little blurrily, but mostly okay) a time when Charles still walked with a swagger to his step, all college cocky and young-man confident, and Erik still smiled with dimples in his cheeks, stretching his lips like someone had put a torture device into his mouth (but never like that at Charles).
Logan is old too. He's really old. He's old enough to remember things people tend to forget as they age.
He remembers sitting in a bar somewhere up north, because it was cold. It was a smoky bar scene that he had been stewing in. The bartender had a potbelly spilling over his belt, and the waitress had bags under her eyes and limp blonde hair. He had figured he would fit right in with his scruffy face and torn flannel shirts. It was a pretty stupid assumption when there were men like Charles looking for men like Logan. Erik's hand had descended onto his shoulder with a muffled thump even as Charles muttered a cheerful greeting.
Logan is a little hollow. He's seen a lot of stuff, okay (strange, twisted, broken, jagged things)? And that stuff (clawed at, beckoned for, slithered toward, crawled closer to) changed him.
And now Charles is peeling away. Literally. Piece by piece. Erik is pinned against the cabinet doors under the kitchen sink of Jean's house? and Logan is hanging onto the threshold of some sliding door as the house? levitates off the ground with the woman that he loves causing the destruction of a man that had been her mentor/father/friend and Logan's team leader.
Loyalty first, everyone. Unity. Logan, where are you going?
"Fuck off," he remembers saying to two young men.
Young? When did Eri…Magneto get those wrinkles? When did his cutting cheekbones dull their edges into just ridged corners? When did Charles loose all that hair?
In a moment's time; in Logan's head, there was just the tiniest of time gaps.
Logan doesn't change.
He killed the woman he loved who had killed the man she loved who had done nothing except maybe treat Logan a little rougher than his other teammates (but that was just because Scott saw Logan as the threat that he was).
And there is a weight on Logan's mind now. Because how could he be so old, and keep doing stupid shit like this? Like freeing the Phoenix, and having to kill Jean with his own hands, and having to watch as Er…Magneto loose himself and seeing Charles disintegrate, but Logan doesn't change, and he is still here standing in the sun with grave stones all around him and he still remembers…
That moment when he sat up from that chamber, liquid cascading down his sides, his hair plastered to his head as if he was some mere baby chick breaking the shell of its egg.