Summary: Jubilee discovers Logan's sensitive nose objects to her perfume. So she does something about it.
Warnings: Logan tries to thank Jubilee…guess how?
Rating: PG
Category: Romance
Setting: Non-specific
Characters: Logan/Jubilee guest starring Hank, Moose, and Ororo
ScentsJubilee finished applying her lipstick and surveyed herself in the mirror. Reflected in the mirror behind her, she could see Logan sitting on the end of the bed, dressed and ready to go. "Jubes, yer pretty enough a'ready," he said finally. "Hurry or we'll be late meetin' Moose and "Ro fer the concert."
"Okay, hold your horses," she grumbled, reaching for her bottle of perfume. "Hey, 'Ro takes longer getting dressed than I do." She glanced at his reflection in the mirror and saw his grimace. "What was that about?" she demanded, turning to him and putting her perfume down.
"Nothin'," Logan crossed his arms.
Jubilee mimicked his stance, crossing her arms too. "That face wasn't 'nothing' Logan,' she said. "Out with it."
He sighed. "Ain't nothin' fer ya ta worry 'bout, okay darlin'?" He picked up her jacket and stood, holding it out to her. "Come on, put yer jacket on an' let's go."
She scowled at him and refused to move.
He sat down on the end of the bed. "Truth?"
Jubilee nodded. "I'm all ears."
"I hate that stuff."
"What stuff?"
"Perfume." The word came out in a growl.
Jubilee looked mystified. "Perfume? What's wrong with my perfume?"
"Ya know what my sense o' smell's like, Jubes. Perfumes are just…they're almost over powerin'. I hate the stuff. Ya know that stuff Jean wears when she an' Scott go out fer the night? Moon somethin' or orther?"
Jubilee searched her memory. "'Moonlighting'?" she said.
"Yeah. That stuff. I hate it, Jubes. Ya girls don' understan', ya smell fine ta me. Well, 'cept maybe after a Danger Room session, but then, none o' us smell good after that. That stuff," he gestured to the bottle sitting on the edge of her dresser, "Smells awful ta my nose."
Jubilee dropped her arms, anger forgotten. "Oh, Logan. I'm sorry. I never thought of it that way before."
"An' that's part o' the reason why I hate shoppin' with ya girls. Too much perfumes in the womens' department of the stores."
Jubilee picked up her bottle of perfume and dug around in the debris on her desk for the box. She'd just bought it today: if she was lucky, she'd find the receipt in her checkbook tomorrow and return the bottle. Lucky she hadn't used any of it. Why had she never thought of it before? She'd never, not once, stopped to consider that her perfumes might be too strong for Logan's sensitive nose. Now that she thought of it, whenever she'd worn perfume Logan had kept his distance from her; and he'd avoided their bedroom for hours afterward. The same with all the girls' rooms, come to think of it.
She and Logan joined 'Ro and Moose waiting out front in Moose's van. Jubilee climbed in, buckled her seatbelt, and said, "I didn't know you were into the Rolling Stones, 'Ro."
Ororo nodded. "Some of their music isn't that bad," she admitted. "When Max told me he had four tickets and no one to go with, I offered to accompany him. There are worse things I could do with my evening, after all."
"Yeah, like sit in the Rec Room watchin' Jean an' Scott neck in front of the TV,"Logan told her with a wicked grin. Ororo didn't dignify that with a response.
They found their seats with a minimum of difficulty, and Jubilee shed her jacket, slinging it over the back of her chair. As she did so, she saw Logan looking at an older woman taking her seat just in front of them. He leaned in to her and whispered, "Smell her perfume? Or whatever it is she's wearin'? It's a lot better than a lot o' other perfumes."
Jubilee leaned over, ostensibly to tie her sneaker but also to get a whiff of the woman's scent. She smelled of jasmine and magnolia flowers. Jubilee straightened up, and her mind was only half on the concert as she thought about the scent problem.
* * *
She left the perfume bottle on the counter and had the saleslady give her sample sprays of the other perfumes. Some of them Jubilee hated herself; some weren't bad, and she exchanged her bottle for one that was labeled Sunkissed. Just for when I go out with the girls, she promised herself. None of it, however, smelled like anything Logan might like, or even tolerate. Finally, in desperation, she said to the saleslady, "My boyfriend is allergic to most perfumes. He doesn't have as strong a reaction to natural scents. Do you have anything like that?"
The woman shook her head. 'No, we don't," she said regretfully. "Have you tried scented skin oils? They come in a variety of scents. My daughter is allergic to a lot of the perfumes as well, and she finally chose skin oils and mixed them in with an unscented lotion to make her own scent. You might try that."
"Now there's an idea," Jubilee said happily. "Where would I find them?"
"At the bed and bath shop down the hall," the woman said promptly. "That's where my Allison gets hers."
Jubilee thanked the woman, and left. It wasn't hard to find the shop. As she walked in, she smelled the wonderful odor of roses, jasmine, and apple. She grinned. The woman's daughter had a good idea.
She let her eyes wander down the rows of tiny bottles of scented oils, reading the labels. Lavender. Mint. Pine; She grinned at that one. Rose. Jasmine. Cinnamon. Apple. Coffee. Lemon. And a lot more. Jubilee picked up a tiny bottle of the 'Pine' scent, uncorked it, sniffed. The heady scent of a pine forest filled her nose. Logan would definitely appreciate that.
"Can I help you?" said a voice. Jubilee corked the tiny bottle carefully and turned, to see a young man smiling at her.
"Uh, maybe," Jubilee sighed. "See, my boyfriend is allergic to my perfume, and someone suggested trying an unscented lotion mixed with scented oils. I'm trying to find something that he might like."
The boy smiled. "What does he like?"
Jubilee was stumped. She hadn't asked Logan what he preferred.
The boy grinned. "Okay, what is he like?"
Jubilee thought. "He's very rugged. The outdoorsy type. He goes camping out in the woods for days at a time."
"So why not try for something that will remind him of the woods?" the boy said. "We have this scent called 'Waterfall'…here…" he reached past her and took down a little bottle. "Careful, some of this can be kind of strong. It's all concentrated, so it only takes maybe a few drops to do the trick." He held the bottle up for Jubilee to smell.
Jubilee closed her eyes. She was standing in a forest glade…no, a rainforest glade…with a waterfall cascading down from an overhead rock and bathing her in its coolness. She grinned. "That's wonderful," she said.
"Try this," he said, screwing a dropper onto a bottle of 'Magnolia' and putting a tiny drop on a sponge. He added a drop of 'Waterfall', waved it for a minute in the air, and then held it out. Now Jubilee was bathing in a waterfall-fed pool bordered with magnolias.
She chose the 'Pine', 'Waterfall', and 'Wildflower' scents, paid for the tiny bottles and the eyedroppers, and thanked the boy for his help. Hurrying off to the grocery store, she chose an unscented lotion for her skin, and hurried home.
She dumped her things off in her room, and stood there, wondering where to go next. She wanted it to be a surprise for Logan; where was she going to be able to mix her 'perfume' where he wouldn't smell it or see her doing it? She grinned suddenly. She could test her mixture on Hank. He wouldn't mind the company either.
Hank looked up as Jubilee came into the lab, carrying a brown paper bag. "And what would you be wanting to do here, young Jubilee?" he said.
Jubilee swept her isolated reaction chamber off to one side of her lab table, and put her bag down where it had been several moments ago. "Custom-mixing my own perfume," she grinned. At Hank's bewildered look, she explained, "Logan told me last night that the perfumes I usually get drive his nose nuts. So I decided to try to mix my own scent using unscented lotion and scented skin oils. What do you think of when you smell this?" she uncorked the 'Pine' bottle and held it up.
"A pine forest," Hank said.
"And this?" Jubilee uncorked the 'Wildflower' bottle.
"A wildflower meadow in the middle of a pine forest."
She uncorked 'Waterfall'. "Now?"
Hank closed his eyes and sniffed appreciatively. "The same as the above…after a rain."
"Think Logan would like it?"
"I would not presume to dictate Logan's likes or dislikes…but he will at least appreciate the thoughtfulness you display in considering his tastes."
Jubilee poured out some of the lotion into the separate bottle she'd bought, and added several drops of each scent into it. She used a thin stirrer the boy at the shop had provided, then capped the bottle, shook it briskly, and applied a tiny bit behind each ear, down her neck, and on the insides of her wrists. She rubbed her wrists together, capped the bottle, and giggled. "This should work. Now I have to go find…" She stopped as Jean's telepathic voice filled both their heads. Dinner!
Hank slid off his chair and held out his arm to Jubilee. "Let's go test the efficacy of your 'scent solution', shall we?"
* * *
Jean took a deep sniff of the air as Jubilee and Hank passed her on the way to the dining room. "Hey, did someone open a window?" she asked Ororo, who was carrying a bowl of mashed potatoes. "I smell woods."
Ororo sniffed the air deeply. "I smell it too, Jean," she said. "And no, I did not open the windows."
Logan followed his nose to the kitchen. Part of it was the Cajun sausage Remy had cooked; he recognized the signature blend of spices the butcher in Greenwich Village used. Another part of it was the smell of a rain-drenched wildflower mountain meadow, complete with a hint of piney woods that he was smelling. His nose could tell it was an artificial scent; but it smelled just enough like the real thing to get his blood moving. The wildness of the mental image the scent evoked made him want to go find the meadow. So he followed the scent.
He tracked it to the kitchen, then through the kitchen into the dining room. His gaze sharpened as he picked up the familiar female musk that accompanied the scent, and he slid into the seat beside Jubilee, never taking his eyes off her. What had she done?
Jubilee felt Logan's gaze on her, and she took her time helping herself to the sausage and red beans-and-rice Remy had made before she turned to meet his eyes. "Like it?" she smiled innocently at him.
'Like it?' oh, the little tease…Logan suddenly realized Jubilee had done this on purpose. The seductive scent of her own body, mixed with the scent of wildflowers and rain…he had a sudden vision of Jubilee, lying nude in a bed of wildflowers, rain making a slick, shiny coating on her bare skin as she moaned his name. He wanted her. He really wanted her.
It took all of his self-control to sit there and eat the food on his plate when he really wanted to turn and eat the girl sitting beside him. It didn't take long for the others to figure out where the scent had come from. It didn't take Jubilee long to spill the secret (though she kept to herself the reason for it), and Logan was touched by her thoughtfulness. His mind was only half on the conversation as Jubilee told Oror that yes, there was a cinnamon and a honey scent at the shop. Ororo told her they would go shopping the next day to create her own blend.
Dinner was barely over, dessert hadn't been served yet, and Jubilee had just put down her napkin when Logan grabbed her arm. She didn't protest, just followed him upstairs. He turned to close and lock the door, and when he turned around, Jubilee had removed her shirt and was in the process of removing her jeans. The fragrance wasn't very strong to her, but to his sensitive nose it was filling the room. He closed his eyes, imagining himself in that wildflower meadow…
Jubilee came to him, nude, and giggled as she started to push his shirt up off his upper body. "Couldn't wait, could you?" she whispered huskily.
"Jubes…" He couldn't think with her hands roaming up and down his chest. "Thank…thank you…"
"You're welcome," she grinned seductively, her hands going down to his belt. "Now come thank me properly."
Her lips pressed against his, and all thought fled his head.