The teens immediately tended the cooking fish, obviously checking them over. The orange flames flickered brightly in the clearing, sending thin tendrils of smoke up into the quiet darkness. The stars contrasted sharply in the black sky now. Logan tilted his head back and appreciated their unobtainable beauty. He felt like sighing, but knew that would seem thoughtful, and Logan was a man of action. The tree tops swayed in a breeze that would not sink low enough to grace the humans. As his gaze wandered down to earth, he noticed Scott just outside the circle of light and he was looking rather demonic. What was that saying about keeping your enemies close?
"Hey Cyke, there's plenty of food to go around," he hinted, resting torso back on his elbows now.
"I'm good, Logan, thanks."The firelight sparkled in his visor.
"Git over here and eat," Logan ordered this time. A few of the students took note at that, but none said anything.
Logan himself wouldn't have obeyed a command like that, but Scott was definitely not Logan. When the leader of the X-men moved closer, Logan took no pride in the obedience but merely offered Scott a place to sit. Scott nodded tensely but said nothing as he watched over the excited children.
Logan pulled a cigar from his pocket. He faked a deep scrutiny of his tobacco while his thoughts traveled through the day's events. This wasn't as hard as the professor had let on. Sure, the kids rubbed him the wrong way at times, but now that they had settled down they were much more tolerable. He took pride in them all. He wondered what he had been like at their age.
The sharp chirp of a cricket contrasted with the smooth sound of running water that had somehow lured into a trance and Logan shook himself. Marie approached with fish fillets in both hands and held them out for Scott and Logan. "Thanks kid," Logan smiled as he pocketed his cigar and took the offered food. Scott voiced his gratitude also and gave her a brighter smile. Logan huffed.
"What, no raw rabbit?" Scott asked after Marie had joined her friends closer to the fire. Logan determined from his tone that the comment was not entirely with bad intentions.
"Nope," he sighed, starting on his dinner, "This park has special rabbits. They each carry a copy of that damned wildlife protection act. Whip it out before you can kill 'em."
Scott chuckled and the tension in the air immediately drifted downstream. "Darn."
Logan relaxed muscles he didn't even know were tense. It was much easier to be nice on a full stomach. He wondered what the correlation was.
Everything was starting to wind down now. The teen's chatter became softer as the night wore on and a cool breeze began to blow off the river. The fire was even dying down. Logan took a moment to really notice the rhythm of life. The nocturnal creatures were awakening now and creeping closer to the campsite in curiosity. Logan focused his powerful eyesight on a dark shape in the bushes and grinned softly when he recognized the large, upright ears and unblinking eyes of a deer.
Logan's thoughts suddenly took a more serious turn. "Listen up," he spoke up as he rose to his feet. "We gotta make sure that all the fish remains are cleaned up. I don't want any unwelcome visitors later. Throw everything in the river. If I can smell it, the bears can too."
A tingling of fear crackled in the air as the group hurried to rid the campsite of the fish. The loud chorus of crickets played a pressuring melody of background music as they worked. The moon provided the only means of visibility now, so it was no wonder when a couple of the girls stumbled over rocks. "Slow down and take it easy," Logan said, keeping his voice gentle. "We're not in any danger." Yet.
Once Logan was satisfied that the wildlife would have no legitimate reason for rummaging through the campsite, he called off the clean-up crew. "Alright guys, that's good. We got a good hike tomorrow so you'd better start getting some sleep."
'They must be exhausted,' Logan thought as he watched all the teenagers begin rolling out their sleeping bags. Without being told, they were careful to stay within the campfire's circle of light. They never responded this well when Xavier himself gave orders. 'Huh.'
Logan took the self-proclaimed role as sentinel. He too relaxed a bit as he leaned against a tree that was older than he was. With a certain amount of pride, he watched his 'flock' with the same parental fierceness that had forced him to pick up Rogue back in Canada all those years ago. The group was asleep almost instantaneously with the exception of Scott, who was seemingly trying to decide if he should keep a lookout also. Logan had to give the guy credit. Even though this field trip placed Scott as the proverbial fish out of water, the team leader still kept his confidence. Or arrogance, however one chose to look at it.
"Goodnight Scott," Logan called softly, for there was no need to be loud in the forest's stillness.
Logan thought he saw a small smile contort Scott's face before the man returned the pleasantry. After Scott had relaxed, Logan breathed a deep sigh of sweet, natural air and let his senses extend to take in all the animal activities that were taking place in the shadows.
o0O0o
The sound of a human grunt was magnified by Logan's sensitive ears and spurred his brain into consciousness even before his body would move. Logan jerked away from the tree and looked around the campsite. It was dawn, and as Logan blinked to clear the sleepy haze from his piercing eyes, he connected the sound with the teenager that made it. "What's wrong?"
John sat with his legs stretched out before him as his torso seemed to sway with incoherence. "What?" he echoed with a blank stare.
Logan studied the teen and decided that the only threat was the other kids who were now waking up. "Morning sunshine," he teased.
As everyone grumbled and began stumbling around the campsite, Logan couldn't help but notice that the symphony played out by the crickets had now been taken up by the songbirds. He doubted this forest had ever known silence.
Logan pushed himself to his feet. "Everyone grab some breakfast and pack up. We'll be leaving soon."
The majority of the kids grabbed their packs and dug out a baggie of trail mix or berries from the night before. Jubilee, however, looked to Logan with a familiar urgency as she approached him. "I have to go," she whispered, her eyes darting to the others.
Logan studied her. "Go where?"
Jubilee rolled her eyes. "You know..."
Logan cocked his head in concentration for a moment before her clasped hands and bent knees spelled it out for him. "Oh. Uh..." Logan looked to the group and raised his voice. "Alright, guy's bush is up stream and girl's bush is downstream. And no peeking." Logan opened his mouth and tried to decide whether or not he needed to say more. Jubilee looked at him with relief before she grabbed the hand of a petite blonde girl and together they made their way into the privacy of the shrubbery. A few of the guys headed in the opposite direction as Logan joined the kids to help pack away their equipment.
The students returned looking much more comfortable and soon the group was moving up the trail at a steady pace. Logan knew they must be sore after the laborious hike yesterday but he gave them credit for not being outwardly disgruntled. Even Scott was favoring his right shoulder but he never complained and Logan never asked.
The morning had passed uneventfully but now his charges were reaching their limits. Logan decided to give them a break before he had a mutiny on his hands. They had just entered a man-made clearing designed to give hikers a view of the valley below. To the right, a low wooden guard rail-like structure had been built to prevent accidental falls down the side of the mountain.
"We'll stop to rest here," he announced and the kids all but fell to the ground. "Take a few minutes to catch your breath. We've still got a way to go."
Logan circled the perimeter of the little rest area, which was no more than a small clearing in the woods. He surveyed the area with his senses, not sure what he thought he might find out here anyway, but giving in to the habit nonetheless. Satisfied they were safe, Logan began to admire the scenery for all it's wild grace. This part of the forest wasn't as old as the rest, as the trees were thinner here. Logan made his way to the cliff and couldn't help but breathe deeply at the sight below. The thick green trees covered the mountain, giving the effect of multi-tonal carpeting that blanketed the mountain side. An eagle circled in the air, looking quizzically at Logan with piercing yellow eyes before resuming it's hunt for prey.
"Wow," whispered Jubilee.
Logan smiled a half-smile to acknowledge her. Slowly, more of the kids were gathering around the edge of the cliff. "Stay back," he warned. The cliff was steep, a straight four-story drop into a small body of water below. There was no way to determine the depth of the water, but Logan guessed it wasn't very deep.
"It kinda looks like the earth ends here," John said quietly.
"Or like someone just chiseled away the ground," Kitty added.
"Cliffs are formed by erosion," Scott announced, and Logan felt a headache coming on. "Rock that has been deteriorated by weathering. Usually the higher the cliff, the harder the rock."
"Thank you professor," Logan mumbled under his breath.
"Hey, this is supposed to be educational," Scott shot back, and Logan was amazed that he had been heard. "I'm just sharing some trivia."
"Well save it," Logan grumbled as he turned away from the 'formation'. "Five more minutes," he called over his shoulder.
Disappointed grumbles filled the air as the kids moved away from the cliff and to the packs scattered over the forest floor. As they busied themselves with water and snacks, Scott approached Logan the way a terrier approaches a rat.
"What's wrong with the kids learning something useful?" he asked, putting a sharp edge in his voice. "Learning something that doesn't involve killing?"
"There's nothing wrong with that in your classroom," Logan growled. "But this is my classroom, and I'm teaching them things that will keep them alive in combat situations."
"Combat?" Scott repeated incredulously. "Logan, these are teenagers."
"They're mutant teenagers," Logan corrected, raising a hand to point at the nearest one. "They have to be able to defend themselves. Especially since you're doin' such a bang-up job of puttin' away Magneto."
Scott's mouth opened and he sucked in a breath, ready to fight when Marie interrupted.
"Logan?"
Logan had only heard Marie sound like that when she was truly scared. He turned, halting whatever retort Scott was about to spew, and found Marie sitting in the tree line facing him and looking terrified.
"What's wrong?" he asked, immediately smoothing his hackles and moving towards her.
Marie's wide-eyed gaze was fixed on the ground beside her. "S-snake." That's when Logan heard the tell-tale, zipper-like warning of a Rattler.
The following events seemed happen simultaneously, in slow motion. Logan halted, knowing the short distance between himself and the poised Rattle Snake was precious. Snakes only hunted prey that they could swallow, and certainly never rattled when hunting. This animal was afraid, giving a warning signal because it believed itself threatened by the humans and wanting them to stay back. Quick movements caused quick vibrations, which would startle the snake and force it to strike. All these facts had become a feeling to Logan, one that he felt as soon as he recognized triangular head and heat-sensing pits below the animal's eyes. Logan thought Scott knew that as well.
"I got it," Scott said, reaching a hand to his visor as he plunged forward.
Marie flinched as the coiled snake sprang forward, it's fangs unfolding from the roof of it's mouth just before closing it's jaws on the side of her thigh. She screamed, probably more from fear than pain at this point, as the snake quickly released its hold and darted away, swiftly puling it's stocky, three and a half foot long body into the camouflaging dead leaves that littered the ground.
It was over that quick.
Logan ran forward, past Scott and dropped to his knees beside the trembling teenager. She pulled herself away from the tree truck she had been leaning against and put her covered hands to her skin, encircling the twin puncture marks. She was dressed uncharacteristically in shorts, and Logan was grateful that the injury would be easier to care for this way.
"It's okay," he murmured, barely aware of the other students gathering behind him. "You alright?" he asked, eager to hear her voice.
"I- it...it was a Rattle snake, wasn't it," she said ever so softly.
Scott was on his knees now too, on the other side of Marie. "It's okay, we'll get you help, alright? All the hospitals have anti-venom now, we'll get you taken care of."
Even though Scott was spouting statistics about low fatality rates, Marie's eyes locked with Logan's. He had placed a strong hand over her gloved one for reassurance. Despite all of Scott's babbling, Logan was touching her, making her believe that he would take care of her. Still, after all their time at the school, she was untouchable expect by Logan. No one else even tried.
Logan took off his T-shirt and tore a strip of fabric from it. He tossed the now useless shirt to the ground and quickly tied the fabric above the bite, his fingers barely brushing against her bare skin. "Keep your leg down," he said softly, lowering her bent leg so that it rested on the ground. "Keep the bite below your heart."
Marie looking into Logan eyes and for a second Logan felt her reading his soul. "It's okay," he said, and Marie relaxed as if now she believed, now that Logan had said so.
"-the venom is hemotoxic, containing digestive enzymes and anti-coagulants-"
"Shut up!" Logan shouted, effectively silencing Scott's stream of facts. "We don't need to know all that, just get the comlink and call the professor!"
The students parted like the Red Sea for Moses when Scott turned and headed for his forgotten pack back. "Everything's gonna be okay," Logan spoke loudly to the group. "Everything is under control."
Finally Jubilee stepped forward. "Does it hurt?" she asked.
Marie looked at her and rolled her eyes. "No Jubes, I kinda like it."
Logan smiled at Marie. "You stay here and don't move. I'm gonna help Scott." He rose to his feet, bits of leaves and dirt falling from his jeans at the motion, then he laid a caring hand on Marie's head for a moment before turning to join Scott at the cliff.
"...need Jean and the Bird. I think we're calling this trip off," Scott finished as he glared at Logan.
Logan glared back. "Everything taken care of?"
"No thanks to you."
"Hey, how was I suppose to know that a rattle snake had plans to bite her?" Logan growled. "I'm not psychic."
"What are you saying?" Scott rumbled as he took a dangerous step towards Logan.
Logan's physique unconsciously prepared him for battle as his shoulders tensed and his fists balled. "It's not important. What matters now is that Marie is taken care of."
Scott's visors seemed to light up with anger. "The only reason you wanted Jean to come on this pathetic little outing is so you could ogle her like the perverted animal you really are."
That was the last straw. Logan had proudly held himself on a tight leash for this entire field trip but now Scott had gone too far. His claws slid silently from his hands and he could feel the testosterone-generated heat rolling off of him. Without a word, he lunged at Scott the way a dog lunges at the person who's been blowing on it's face in torment.
Logan had always thought that when it came right down to it, he had more bulk than Scott and therefore, could kick his ass in a fight. Logan was surprised then, to find himself rolling off Scott's back after the younger man ducked. Logan's momentum sent him falling to the ground on the other side of Scott, and rolling through the dirt. Suddenly the ground dropped out from underneath him and he was falling, hands and claws scrambling for purchase as a wall of rock rushed past him mockingly.
The last thing he heard was Marie's familiar scream and a mumbled 'Oh shit' from Scott before Logan plunged face-up into the shallow water at the bottom of the steep cliff. A stabbing pain ripped through his shoulder almost simultaneously and when Logan grasped for whatever had hurt him, he found the offending object to be a large and jagged branch that was now protruding from his front side. Blood filled the water around him, his claws retracted like kicked puppies, and the world turned black.