Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own DA
A/N: I expect my Logan clones to arrive any day now Jen.... :-) Anyway, for the rest of you all, enjoy my following moments of shipperness. By the way, mysophobia is the fear of contamination or germs...took me forever to find the actual name of the phobia for out dear friend Normal (so one of my all time favorite characters...he should get his own show someday)
Wind of Change
Part 2
Logan walked into Jam Pony, dodging numerous people on bikes who were peddling as fast as they could with packages in hand. He'd never seen people more eager to make deliveries. Whatever new strategy Normal had devised, it obviously was working brilliantly.
His hands shoved into his pockets, he sauntered up to Normal who was standing waving his arms in the air as if he were doing semaphore. The picture he presented was mildly humorous. All of his employees scrambled to stay out of the blonde man's way, ducking around corners and riding their bikes through at break neck speed.
Normal turned in time to see Logan walking up to him, and sent him a nasty glare.
"I'm assuming your here about Max," he sighed. "Since she's not here, I'm assuming she must have found a pot of gold and doesn't need a job anymore, or is dead."
"Not quite dead," Logan shrugged. "Max is sick...throwing up and all that."
"Great," Normal rolled his eyes. "Doctor's note?"
Logan handed him a slip of paper which Bling had kindly forged. It wasn't quite the honest approach to getting Max off work, but it was a hell of a lot easier than explaining they were off in search of Max's genetically enhanced brother.
"When's she going to be back?" Normal asked, reading quickly over the curving scrawl of the note.
"Doctor says she'll be down for about a week," Logan replied.
"A week?" Normal's pupils dilated. "What the fire truck does she have?"
"Some kind of highly contagious stomach virus," Logan replied. "It's pretty nasty. I was over there this morning, she's hurling all over the place, has a high fever...not pretty."
Normal's faced blanched and he took a step away from Logan.
"At least she's got the sense to keep it at home with her then," he snorted. "Tell her not to come back until she's sure she's better."
"Will do. Thanks, Normal," Logan grinned. As he stepped away, Normal went to sanitizing the area in which Logan had stood, drenching the air with anti-bacterial chemicals.
As Logan walked out, he nearly collided head on with Original Cindy, who was riding in. She swerved to a stop and leapt off her bike.
"Hey there, Logan," she smiled. "S'pose you know where my homegirl is? Not like her t'be late for work."
"Max is back at my place," he replied truthfully.
"Ah...I see," Cindy smiled knowingly. "You all's finally got it on."
"No, actually," Logan replied, looking down at the fiery woman, "Max and I are leaving town for a while. If Normal asks, she's sick."
"A'ight," Cindy nodded, light arching through her dark curly hair. "Where you and my Boo going to?"
"Idaho..." Logan replied, realizing for the first time how silly his answer sounded.
"Idaho?" Cindy sounded surprised. "Not what Cindy expected, but whatever."
Logan sent her a smile he hoped would stop her from asking more questions.
"Listen," Cindy's mood suddenly changed, and she jabbed Logan in the chest with one of her fingers, "you'd better be for takin' good care a my Boo. Understand? She comes back with one hair on her head outta place, an Original Cindy will go medieval on your skinny white ass."
"Understood," Logan replied, trying to hide a grin.
"Other'n that," she cracked a bright grin, "you be for doin' whatever with her you want. You know...action an all."
Logan flushed with embarrassment. He and Max had known one another for a long time, but their relationship had never taken on that face. Sure, they'd kissed...more than once -- actually, three times, but who was keeping track? Other than those few encounters, they existed in a somewhat comfortable companionship. Sex was something that, though Logan had defiantly considered it, wasn't on the foreseeable horizon.
"Got a run for you!" Normal yelled from somewhere behind Logan. He came up to them and handed the brown paper wrapped item to Cindy, being sure to keep his distance from bio-hazard Logan. He scurried away quickly, covering his nose.
"What's with him?" Logan asked.
"Dunno," Cindy shrugged. "Gotta blaze, tell Max that Original Cindy says hey."
"Alright," Logan nodded. Package in hand, she pedaled away, leaving Logan standing in silence for a few moments. Conversations with Cindy never lacked confusion on his part. She used phrases he had to admit he didn't fully understand, but he knew her heart was always in the right place. Max had a knack for choosing friends.
Yawning from a sleepless night, he walked out to his Pontiac Aztec and started for home. Max was waiting, and she wasn't the most patient woman he'd ever met. Bling was keeping her company, but God only knew what sort of conversation they'd gotten into.
Logan trusted Bling explicitly, but somehow he couldn't help but worry that his friend would mention some little thing Logan had once said, or done, which would set Max off.
As Logan walked into Foggle Towers, he was met with Bling coming out. Seeing him without Max made Logan's heart drop into his shoes. A ridiculous fear that something had happened to her, or she'd left him, dug and roosted within him like a parasite.
"Bling, where's Max?" he asked, worried.
"Right where you left her," Bling replied. "Did the note work?"
It took Logan a moment to process and work out the relief that ran hotly through his blood.
"Yeah, it did," he finally managed to reply, swallowing hard. "Max was right about Normal's mysophobia. He practically drenched the place in bleach to get rid of the germs I could have been carrying."
"Maybe he's OCD," Bling suggested. "He'd be an interesting case for any psychiatrist anyway."
"Yeah," Logan agreed. "I'm surprised they're not all over him like sharks drawn to a bloody carcass."
Bling laughed and slapped Logan gamely on the back.
"You'd better get up there to Max," he suggested. "I don't know how long she'll wait for you."
Bling knew all of Logan's soft spots and knew exactly how to manipulate them. Logan, giving Bling a farewell wave, sprinted boyishly toward the elevator. Once inside, he slid his key through the small slot and impatiently pressed the button that would take him up to his penthouse. The entire way, he fidgeted.
"I was just coming to see if you got stuck," Max announced when the elevator doors swung open to reveal her standing on the other side.
"Had a short conversation with Cindy," Logan explained. "She says hey by the way."
"Oh..." Max chewed on her lower lip and followed Logan back into the penthouse. Her black duffel bag sat on his couch next to his own suitcase. He was mildly surprised by the fact that he'd packed more than she had. Valerie had always packed as much as she possibly could to go anywhere. He was surprised she hadn't packed just to go to the store. Max, however, was a light traveler, probably due to her training.
"Normal said you don't have to come back until you're sure your better," he announced, retrieving his things.
"I'm impressed," Max laughed. "You're a better liar than I give you credit for."
He gave her a look that said he didn't appreciate the comment. She merely smiled charmingly. She was dressed in a short pair of jean shorts and a tight, black tank top that Logan had to admit showed too much skin to leave him comfortable. As he picked up her duffel bag and handed it to her, he wondered if similar outfits were inside. He definitely hoped so.
***
Max and Logan had been driving for a little over an hour and had run out of things to talk about. She sat quietly in the passenger seat looking out the window as trees flashed by. The strobe light effect they produced made her eyes heavy. The classical music Logan had playing wasn't helping -- some piano concerto or sonata.
She was an intelligent woman, more so than people really gave her credit for, and the song was not lost on her. The gentle, repeating beat, and flowing bars of runs made the purpose of the song very obvious. It was a love song. Some creation a long dead composer had constructed for his long dead girlfriend. There wasn't a single harsh cord in the entire piece.
Her head touched the glass window, sending the vibrations from the car through her skull. Somehow, it made her more weary, although her tiredness wasn't so much leaning toward sleep as much as a faint dreamscape.
She was zoning when Logan suddenly asked her a question.
"Huh?" She blinked, disrupted by the sound of his voice.
"Are you hungry?" he repeated, a little slower than necessary.
"Why?"
"There's a town in a couple miles and if you're hungry we can stop and get something to eat."
Traveling with Logan was strange. With Zack it had been: leave early and don't stop until you get where your going. Logan, however, was apparently used to being able to take his time; another sign of his affluence. Although, she got the feeling she and Zack were destination oriented because of their training, and the feeling that someone would someday catch up to them if they didn't keep moving. Max still looked over her shoulder every few steps.
"We're only an hour out of Seattle..."
"Well...I just thought you might be hungry," he shrugged. Max stared at him for a second, wondering if he was really worried about her or if he was embarrassed to say that he was hungry.
"Are you?" she finally asked.
"Am I what?"
"Hungry."
"No, I just thought you might be."
A little confused, but oddly pleased, she turned back toward the window to hide her smile. Max had never had anyone really worry about her before, not like Logan did anyway. Or, maybe it was just different when he did it.
He's so cute when he worries...
Max figured she was making progress, not having mentally chastised herself for liking having his concern. It was something, a step toward humanity. Max somehow never felt quite human, partly because she wasn't really human. When Manticore made her, they borrowed from a plethora of other species. The cat genes that let her jump also made her fundamentally different from other females. Manticore hadn't been overly concerned with their soldiers someday having children, and the only time Max was fertile was when she went into heat.
Even should she someday decide to be a mother, more problems presented themselves. Her DNA was so scrambled that her children could come out with any number of traits. They could have barcodes on their foreheads, have serious problems with their brain chemistry, or be so screwed up they would never function normally in society. She didn't know if she could live through loosing a child, or even seeing one's life ruined by their genomic heritage.
Despite her tough girl attitude, Max had strong maternal instincts. She loved children, could never turn her back on one. They were the one thing that really got to her, mostly because they reminded her of her own flawed childhood. So, she felt the need to protect them from becoming something like her.
"You're quiet," Logan noted. "Worried about him?"
"Who?"
"Zack."
"Zack can take care of himself," Max shrugged.
"Then what are you thinking about?" Logan persisted.
"Worried about my ninja," she lied. The last thing she was about to do was tell Logan she was worried she'd never be able to have children. That was something she didn't intend to share with anyone anytime in the near future.
"I'm sure Kendra will take good care of it," Logan smiled.
"Her," Max corrected.
"Sorry...her." His response was exactly the same as Kendra's had been, only hers had been filled with sarcasm. Logan's was careful, and definitely not mocking. She appreciated that.
"S'okay," she shrugged.
"Do you want to listen to something different?" he asked, motioning toward his CD player.
"What've you got?" she asked.
"Everything," Logan smiled proudly and handed her a thick CD wallet to flip through. Max set it on her lap and leafed through it, taking note of the names of some of the older bands and the wide variety which Logan owned. In the end, she chose a high energy, loud band. She needed to stop thinking so much and spice up their trip a bit.
Pushing the CD in, she listened with a grin as the roaring riffs and drums filled the car. She bobbed her head lightly to the beat at first then, as Logan sent her an amused grin, abandoned herself to a moment of silliness. Confined by her seatbelt, she danced to the song. Logan tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and tried to watch her and the road at the same time, which he was pathetically bad at.
The dancing got old in roughly fifteen minutes. They desperately needed some topic of conversation. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, but Max felt the need to fill it.
"You never really told me what was up with you going to Coeur D'Alene," she finally said.
"I told you, road trip," Logan replied.
"Well, could you elaborate a bit?"
"Me and a friend took a road trip there when I was about seventeen," he shrugged.
"You took a road trip to Idaho? Couldn't find somewhere more exotic to go?" she asked, not believing him.
"I wouldn't be knocking it if I were you," he said pointedly.
"Guess you have a point," she admitted. "Who'd you go with?"
"A high school friend of mine," he answered.
"Male...female? Name?" Max persisted.
"Male," he replied. "Scott. His parents and mine were friends, we'd known each other for a long time. Over spring break, we decided we needed to take a road trip and Scott had family in Coeur D'Alene, so we went there."
"No lady friends involved?" Max asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not even one," he grinned.
"Then why all the secrecy?" she demanded, still skeptical of his story.
"A guy's got to have some secrets," he shrugged. "You're not the only one who gets to be mysterious Max." She got the feeling that he was playing with her mind, and she didn't really like it. Logan was one of the rare people who could meet her eye level in an argument, definitely one of the only people who could manipulate her. If he was playing some kind of game, which she immediately suspected he was, she could play too.
"You've got nothin' compared to me," she replied, squaring her shoulders.
"You're probably right."
What the fuck is he up to?
"Oh, I'm definitely right."
"Yeah, I agreed with you, Max."
Slouching in her seat, she watched him as he drove. The muscles in his arms were bunched with the way he held the steering wheel and she had the urge to reach out and touch him. She stopped herself as her hand came up off her lap to poke at the tightly coiled bundle of muscle fibers under his skin. All the time he'd spent in a wheel chair had kept his upper body in superb shape, and she guessed his physical therapy had probably toned his lower body as well.
Her gaze strayed down from his arm to his legs, skirting by the area she wouldn't yet allow herself to stare at. That was too openly wanton...no, more than that it was too dangerous. Looking there lead to fantasies, to an insatiable urge to make all the rumors about them true. Her gaze locked on his knee she began to zone out again.
"You don't have to you know," he suddenly said.
"Have to what?" she asked, wondering if he somehow knew the direction of her thoughts.
"Have more secrets than me," he replied, turning momentarily to meet her gaze.
In reality, Max had never been as open with anyone as she was with Logan. Rarely would she not answer a question he asked truthfully. He knew about Manticore, about almost everything she did. In fact, she'd told Logan more about her life than he had about his own. She hadn't even realized he'd been married until Valerie had shown up on his doorstep.
"Why, you from some covert military operation too?" she asked, becoming a little defensive.
"It was called The Logan Cale project," he replied. "They specialized in making dorky men obsessed with saving the world."
"They did a pretty good job," she replied. "Except they may have missed their mark a little on the dork part."
The smile Logan sent her was worth a million black ninjas. The compliment had been discrete, but she'd definitely complimented him. She returned his brilliant grin with her own soft smile and immediately turned to look out the window again. The effect of the smile stayed with her though, creating a tingling sensation in her stomach. Despite herself, she wanted to lean over and touch his lips with her own...maybe do a lot more.
This is going to be one long trip...
**Not the most exciting part I've ever written, is it? More action in the next one, promise! I'm completely filled up with caffeine, so I'll probably be up at three in the morning working on it...**