A/N: Whoops re: Boom Boom! I know that well, not sure why I miswrote Dazzler there. I guess I consider them to be so similar or something. No offense to true fans, just not my cup of tea.
I will be exploring X-23 in hell, and some other plots. Then Laura's leaving, like in the actual X-23 comic. But...wowowow I suddenly had an influx of plots and I seriously have about fifteen lined up.
She's going to meet SO many people, many she's seen before. Notable figures in her history. People you WANT to see interacting with Laura, see her reaction...and I'm developing her here.
And she has a mission, a really BIG rock-solid reason she has to leave Utopia. To drop a hint...it involves the facility, but it's bigger and further reaching than she ever thought it could be.
Hellion's also going to get some major building up. I planned out a realistic, comic-style story here and I'm really excited to write it...this and Helix are the two stories that get my writing fires
goin' and I find it majorly hard to turn off my brain and start doing Alien (aka math...yes I've reached the point were none of it makes sense).
Hope you enjoy, thanks for your input! ~onelildustbunni
2- Chapter 2.
"Guess what I heard about your crazy girlfriend," Santo says at lunch.
Julian looks at him through red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. "Don't call her that," he says in a tired manner before stuffing more fries into his mouth with his mind.
"Your girlfriend or crazy?" Nori asks, eyeing him.
Julian chews, swallows. "Crazy."
There is a silence at the table. Everyone is watching for Nori's reaction. She raises her eyebrow, self conscious. "Well…I'd have thought it was the other way around. Smooth moves, Keller."
"Thanks," he says flatly. "So what'd you hear, Santo?"
"That she doesn't sleep in her room anymore. She's always outside instead."
"She does go indoors. I went with her." Julian deliberately leaves this open to interpretation, and watches Nori twitch slightly, her features twisting in hate. In reality they hadn't, even though Julian had thought
about it. God, he's thought about it. They've waited a long time for this relationship to start, and it's been long enough now.
But somehow he struggles with the idea of taking his bandage-wrapped stumps into a bed with Laura, expecting her not to notice. Would he take the wrappings off? He doesn't want to see the charred flesh. No. But
it also seems fundamentally wrong to keep them on. There is no solution, and so he decided just not to press the issue, at all.
"Way to go, Keller," Santo says, sounding impressed. "Although I hardly support your choice of woman. X, really? You had your pick of the Cuckoos!"
"The Cuckoos are creepy clones of Frost," Julian says.
"X is a creepy clone of Wolverine," Santo counters.
"Oh yeah. I forgot." Julian pauses. "She's her own person though. The Cuckoos…you can tell they're just like Frost . Except there's three of them."
"Yeah but the Cuckoos are hot," Santo points out.
"So is Laura," Julian says.
"Oh, it's 'Laura' now, is it?" Nori asks, her voice sharp with anger. "What happened to you being afraid of her, huh? Suddenly it's all Laura this and Laura that , after she gives you some tail. I see
how it is." She pauses. "You're a jerk, Keller, a big fat jerk. And a loser."
"Sour grapes much?" Julian asks.
Nori stares at him for a second, then abruptly gets up and leaves the table.
"That wasn't nice," Sooraya comments. She has been silent before this.
"She isn't nice," Julian says. "I'm just making it absolutely clear to her that I'm not interested."
"There's no reason to be mean about it."
"She was mean to Laura," Julian defends. "If Ashida wants to be treated like a nice girl, then she'd better act like one."
The meal continues on, mostly in silence, with some attempts at conversation by Santo and Victor. Finally Julian finishes and wanders off, thinking maybe he'll work on a paper he has. All the kids are currently enrolled
in distance education, to a school in San Francisco. He's been keeping up with it, knowing that it'd be great to have a means to support himself should the X-men ever dissolve again.
He gets his books and a pencil, then heads for the outside picnic table area. Sitting down, he uses his mind to open the book, then to hold a pencil over a pad of paper beside it. He's still not great at writing with his
mind; it looks like chicken scratch. And he still has trouble with telekinesis and fine motor control. He'd gained some of it back, out of necessity; but a lot of things are still out of his reach. Like writing.
He looks sadly at his missing hands, from which he still gets phantom sensations. He'll often find himself rubbing the air beyond his left stub with his right one, trying to scratch an itch on a none-existing hand…with another
hand he doesn't have. It's very strange.
Julian makes the first attempt to write. His pen skitters across the paper and down the table to the ground. He reaches out with an arm and brings it back patiently. The next attempt sends the pen shooting straight up, then
down. He gets out of the way just in time. His third attempt results in the letter T.
"Hi."
He turns around and sees Laura, standing behind him with her hands in her pockets.
"Hey yourself," he says.
Laura hesitates, then moves towards him and sits down on the other end of the table. She studies him shyly, not certain what to say.
"How's it going?" he asks her. It's been two days since they got drunk. They'd fallen out of a tree, he'd poured his heart out to her in an outburst of anger that alcohol seems to provoke in him, and then they'd made
out. He doesn't remember a lot about what happened, but he's pleased that he managed to finally express his feelings to her, break down his barrier. He still feels slightly awkward around Laura, and they haven't done
anything since, but he is starting to think they will, in a very definite sense.
She's passed him, a few times in the hall, and she sat near him for supper the other night; their eyes had met several times. And now…
He's working up his nerve to talk to her while sober.
"I am alright." Laura falls silent, flicks her eyes up at him, then down at the table. He admires the effect of her downturned eyelashes, which are very thick.
"That's good." He forgets to concentrate on the pen; it catapults down the table and imbeds itself in a pillar a few feet away. He flushes.
"Oops," he says lamely.
Laura gets up, moves closer to him and looks over his shoulder, at what he's reading. Her hair tickles his neck; he shivers slightly and looks up.
"Chemistry," he says, in answer to her unspoken question. He pats the bench next to him and smiles hopefully; she climbs over the bench, and he watches her skirt hike up an inch with the motion, revealing more
thigh. Damn, he'd like to put the hand he doesn't have on the area.
Laura glances at him and sees his face has darkened. "What is wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing." Julian looks at his textbook for an excuse. "Do you know anything about orbitals? I'm having trouble with the numbering thing."
For about two hours, she helps him with his assignment; finally he slips the paper into the envelope with his mind. "Thanks," he says. "I owe you. How's your stuff coming? Can I help you with anything?" In the past,
he's helped Laura and Cessily with English assignments. In the beginning, Laura was too technical to understand what novels were about; of late, she hasn't seemed to have difficulty.
"No." She pauses, then reaches out and puts her hand, over his forearm, on the table. "We need to…talk."
Julian looks at her hand, on his arm. It feels strong, smooth, muscled. Feminine.
"Yeah," he says.
She takes a breath, her expression strained. "You said that you…harbor affections towards me."
He nods slightly, risks a glance at her. She sees this from the corner of her eye, and looks also.
"Is this true?" she pauses. "You were intoxicated. I—"
"Yeah, Laura, I…I meant it." He swallows. "I'm interested. In you."
Laura doesn't say anything. For a moment, he feels afraid that she was just drunk, too, and that it was all a misunderstanding. She gets up.
"Don't—" he says, thinking she is leaving. Then she turns around, and straddles his lap.
"Hi," she says, smiling.
He blinks, in surprise. Then he smiles back at her, and leans closer. They have both closed their eyes and are moving forwards with slightly puckered lips, when they hear a throat clearing.
Julian looks over her shoulder, and his eyes widen.
Laura stiffens. It's Wolverine. She doesn't want to see her mentor right now; she doesn't trust him. She's been having strange dreams, and every time she is near him, her skin crawls. There is something
wrong with him. He smells faintly of death.
There is an awkward silence. Julian doesn't know what to do. He's mortally terrified of Wolverine, and here is, holding his adopted daughter in his lap, clearly about to put moves on her.
"See you two are hitting it off, eh?" Logan comments.
Julian says nothing. What can he possibly say to make himself look better?
"Must be something special about you, Keller. Can't say I see it." He pauses. "She's been mooning after you for a while," her mentor says. "Like a bitch in heat."
Julian raises his eyebrows.
Laura doesn't answer either. Julian is aware of a tension beyond the awkward situation; she doesn't want to talk to Logan period. He's been able to see that before the strange comment.
Logan studies them. Sizing them up, Julian thinks, in an abstract way. He feels Laura tensing; her stomach tensing against his.
"I have to go," Laura says. She gets off his lap; Julian scoops up his books and follows her. He's sure as hell not staying there with Logan watching them like this, and he wants to know why Laura is
avoiding him. She stomps off down the trail towards the beach; he runs after her. "Wait up!"
Laura whirls around to face him, her hair and skirt flying. "That is not Wolverine," she says.
"…" Julian stops. "Huh?"
"There is something wrong. He smells strange…and he has not been behaving normally. " Laura's eyes flash. "And he would not taunt me like that."
"That was totally off-base," Julian agrees. "Mr. Logan is a teacher." He pauses. "So what do you think is wrong with him? Booze? Drugs?"
"No," Laura says. "There is no definable chemical scent. He…smells like death. Like something rotting inside. It's faint; you probably can't detect it."
"Um," Julian says. "Like a …zombie?"
"I don't know," Laura says.
They fall silent. Julian rubs his neck with his arm. He's curious about something, but it's very disturbing, and not something he wants to call her. Something Logan said. Finally, in a small voice, he asks. "'Bitch in heat', huh?"
Laura's eyes widen. "That was not—" she begins to repeat.
Julian musters up the courage, to tell her he thinks she is attractive. "I've wanted to do you for a long time," he blurts.
Stunned silence. Laura stares at him, and suddenly what he has just said registers for him. He winces.
"Jeez…did I really say that?"
Laura gives a quick jerk of her head in response. Two jerks; yes.
"I'm an asswipe," he says in wonder. "I mean, god, really." He's said it before, to girls like the blond that ended up kidnapping him, but it wasn't something he had planned to say to his romantic interest. He would
have never said something like that to Sofia, for example.
"Do you want to?" Laura asks him.
"Want to what?" Julian asks.
"Do…that. Now."
Julian flushes, beet red. He looks like he has a sunburn.
"Uh—Laura—we're not ready for that," he stammers. His arms hang uselessly at his sides.
"Oh." Laura looks embarrassed.
"Maybe soon." He hesitates, then he leans forwards and presses his lips against hers, in what is effectively their first kiss. He doesn't really count when they were drunk, since he doesn't remember a lot of it. Although he'd like to.
It feels even better than he remembered; he puts an arm around her, to press her in.
"GET A ROOM!" Rockslide yells, from the beach.
"For fuck's sake," Julian says, rolling his eyes, as they quickly part and continue to head down the beach.
They simply walk for a while, talking about random things. Laura tells him about her concerns over Wolverine; he suggests that she tell Frost and Cyclops. He asks her how she's liking life on the island, and she responds
that she does not believe the food system is secure; they are not self-sustaining, and therefore it could turn into a dangerous situation.
"I hate the sea creatures that Namor keeps catching," Julian complains. "Last week, all that was on the menu was Lochness Monster. And seaweed, really?"
"We could go elsewhere for food," Laura says.
Julian stops. "You're a genius. Want to go get some pizza? I know this little place downtown. I had a friend I used to visit in San Francisco. We always went there to eat."
"Okay." Laura touches his arm, near the end, and he stops, surprised.
"When will we be ready?" she asks.
Julian looks down. As soon as I'm whole again. "We'll know," he says.
"Okay." Laura wraps her hand around his arm, and they head back up to the main complex, to get permission to go.