A cold wind whipped through the room. Logan turned and shut the door behind him, the decisive sound of the door clicking into place echoing hauntingly throughout the empty dorm. His thoughts now were incoherent.... He was only aware of how he felt, and of how he had hurt so many people in his life, and how hopeless this had all come to be...
Hope had somehow deserted him on what had seemed like the longest walk of his life as he'd made his way from the cellar to his room. A dark, black hollowness filled him, encroaching every thought that flittered to his mind. Logic wasn't a apart of his mind anymore - logic had been what had told him to forget about Marie because she was too young. Logic had told him marrying Jean was the right choice, and the safest choice. Logic had told him to let Marie have her own way when he realized she was avoiding him, and in doing so he'd lost her. No. There was nothing for him anymore. His life was as empty as the room he stood in. And, he was alone.
He'd started out on this life already turned on the path of destruction, and he had dealt with his pain by fighting in cages and generally just hating every god-damned person that walked into his midst. But, that had changed when he'd met Marie. Then his life had somersaulted into something that was a little lighter, softer, and safe- Marie's arms. Now, he'd even lost that.
She'd left him again. Left him alone in that cellar. He didn't understand why completely, but he understood that fate would never let him be at peace. By nature, he wasn't a man meant to be loved - he was a beast. Marie must have realized that - she must have realized who, or what, it was she was saying 'I love you' to, and seen her mistake.
Animals were designed to roam free in the wild without ever laying permanent claim to one spot. They always kept moving, kept changing - never stayed.
He could never have her.
The thought revolved through his mind, causing a boiling self-loathing to churn inside of himself. Any second, his claws should break loose - the very product that made him animal and isolated should have come out in confirmation, the light reflecting off of the deadly blades, glorifying their menace. But there was nothing. His abilities had been suppressed, along with his emotions, by the intense amount of alcohol in his system.
He'd even lost what had made him so alone.
His shoulders sagged as if a heavy weight were pressed on them. Logan shut his eyes tightly, his teeth bared and his mouth curled into a snarl as he felt the pain of hopelessness. His feet softly padded across the room to the bedside table.
The whiskey could never take this back. He could never get over this - what he had come to depend on so much had destroyed him, had made him repulsive in the eyes of the one he loved, and there was no way to fix it. He saw no way out of this.
A pad of paper and a pen lay exposed innocently in the drawer. His fingers picked up the pen gingerly, scribbling his whole life away into a few simple words that he felt was all she had know. His last words.
Deeper inside the drawer, was a fully loaded revolver. His mind went blank as his fingers brushed against the cool metal, and fit neatly into the crook of the trigger. Without a further thought, he aimed the gun toward his left temple and pulled.
Hank was the one who had found him lying face down on the bed, his hair sprawled across the pillows. At first, he had thought Logan to be sleeping, and had almost turned around until the glimmer of metal on the pillow caught his attention-- and the rapidly spreading blood stain soaking the white material. His shouts rang through the mansion, and soon the team had crowded into the room, shutting the door quickly on the noses of curious and frightened students.
They started to bring him to the medlab, practically in hysterics as they lifted him onto a gurney. Rogue appeared minutes later, the strong scent of liquor on her breath as they were carrying his body down the stairs. She'd stopped breathing, trying to understand why as she raced to his side, clutching his cold, dead hands. Hank had tried to calm her as soon as she'd began screaming hysterically, tearing her hair out and digging her nails into his blue skin. Jean had finally come to the rescue, pulling her away as the girl collapsed onto the ground, bawling into the carpet.
Only when she'd felt something being shoved into her hands did she look up to see Jean hurrying away again. What she had was a crisp piece of paper, with the fresh scent of ink still lingering on it. As she turned the paper over, she'd broken into a new fit of sobs as she'd recognized Logan's familiar handwriting, and the jagged lines it had from the grooves of the wood. Her tears soaked the material, and as she read it, an infant-like wail escaped her lips.
A student found her later on that day, curled up into a ball and forged away in a darkened corner of the mansion. Tears stained her cheeks, and her eyelids were red and swollen from crying. In her hands, was a piece of paper, held firmly in her grip.
In the note, it read -
I'll love her 'til I die.
Weeks passed by in a blur, and it was decided that Logan be buried on the property of the mansion. Right over his grave stood a weeping willow, which seemed to tell his story better than any headstone could.
Things at the mansion were strained, and the effect his death had on the entire team, as well as the few students that had become accustomed to him, was evident. Oddly enough, no one really thought much about Rogue, except for Jean, who often saw the young girl running into the woods at daybreak, and not returning for days.
It wasn't long though, before another round of screams were heard throughout the mansion, and Rogue was found facedown on her bed, her fingers wrapped tightly around Logan's dog-tags. A gun lay beside her, making its mark with the smell of gunpowder and fresh blood. The look on her face was one of firm resolution, and her fingers were tangled in such a way around the chains of the dog-tags that they never slipped from her fingers, even while they were carrying her in the coffin, at Jean's request, to the same burial spot of Logan's...
Side by side they lay, underground, lifeless, heartbroken, and forever bound to each other. During the funeral service, the wind picked up and whirled around them, whistling through the leaves of the willow, as if singing them both to sleep with a lullaby.
She put him out,
like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart,
he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night........
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her 'til I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby.
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la.
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la.
The rumors flew, but nobody knew how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind,
Until the night.
She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby.
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la.
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la.
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la.
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la...
- Whiskey Lullaby. Brad Paisley ft. Alison Krauss