Chapter 4: How Far?
Jubilee looked up as she heard footsteps coming into the kitchen. To her utter surprise, it was Logan. "Hey, whatcha doin' up?" she grinned at him.
For a moment he looked like he was ready to turn around and leave, then he stumped in, dragged a chair out from the kitchen table, turned it around so he could straddle it, and dropped his head on the back of the chair as he closed his eyes. Jubilee got up wordlessly, poured him a mug of coffee—one spoon of sugar—and placed it in front of him at the table. He reached for it without opening his eyes, took a mouthful, ignoring the way its heat scalded his mouth, and then opened his eyes in surprise. "Ya know I usually take it black, darlin'," he drawled.
"The sugar will help you wake up." Jubilee got up out of her chair and leaned against his back, the smooth blue satin of her pajamas a strange contrast against the hair on his back—he hardly ever wore a shirt to bed, and he had obviously not been expecting anyone to be up this early in the morning. She glanced quickly at the clock.
Four-thirty in the morning was really too early for her to be up, too, but she hadn't been able to sleep. She'd come down for a cup of coffee, and had no sooner sat down at the kitchen table when Logan came in. Her eyes followed him as he drank from the cup again, and she noted the bunched, tense muscles in his shoulders. Reaching up tentatively, she stroked him gently, loving the way his soft but coarse body hair slid under her fingers. Obviously he'd showered when he got home last night, because he smelled clean. When he didn't pull away from her fingers, she applied her fingertips to the knotted muscle, trying to massage the kinks out.
Logan stopped himself from groaning out of the sheer sensual pleasure of Jubilee's soft hands. He shouldn't let her do this, he really shouldn't; but it felt so damn good…and it had been a while since he'd felt her do that. She used to do this for him when she was younger, massage his shoulders when he was tense. And he'd liked it. He'd missed it, too; he just hadn't realized how much he'd missed it till now.
Yer an ol' man, Logan, he chided himself, even as his tension melted away under her fingers. An' she's a beautiful young woman. She ain't a girl anymore. This ain't right. But he couldn't keep himself from rolling his shoulders back as Jubilee reached for the junction of his shoulders and neck. Even having a healing factor couldn't take tension out of muscles, couldn't do away with the pleasure a good massage could bring.
He rested his elbows on top of the chair back, stretching out his spine. Behind him, Jubilee moved from his shoulders and the back of his neck down to his spine and the heavy muscles in the middle of his back. As she bent over to reach the small of his back, he took a discreet sniff. Jubilee had obviously just showered; she smelled of lavender soap and shampoo, finished off with a lotion in a light, not too overwhelming scent of wildflowers. She'd found out a long time ago that he hated the strong scents that Emma and Rogue and Betsy favored, preferring instead the warm earthy cinnamon and honey smell of the exotic lotion Ororo put on. She'd then experimented until she found her own blend of natural oils, and started using that exclusively. Logan had appreciated it.
He also appreciated the fact that she didn't ooze sexual pheromones, like a couple of the others did. She still smelled like herself, maybe a little muskier since she'd hit puberty, but not noticeably. And right now, there was none. She was concentrating on making him feel good, not seducing him.
Her hair was still damp, her pajamas freshly out of the drawer. That was another change, and a welcome one. He'd gotten used to seeing her in slightly rumpled, musty smelling clothes straight from the floor, or bed, or chair of her room. Since she'd come back, the few glimpses he'd gotten of her room showed it to be neat, without the clutter that had filled it formerly. He was kind of sorry she'd had to grow up; he'd enjoyed hanging around with her. But her newfound maturity had its advantages too.
He leaned his head back, gritting his teeth to stifle the moan as she crouched behind him, working on the large muscle groups in his lower back. Her hands were larger, her muscles stronger, so she could rub harder. He lifted his left elbow, giving her access to the muscles under his left ribs, and as she went to work on them, they both heard another set of footsteps coming down the hall.
The door opened, and Emma stumbled in, yawning and rubbing her eyes. As soon as she saw who else was in the room, she froze, looking surprised. "Logan? Jubilee?" she asked. "What are you doing?"
Logan had frozen as soon as Emma had come in. Scott was on his way, because Emma smelled…well, she had Scott's pheromones all over her, and that meant they both were completely awake. And that also meant that soon Bobby and Hank would be up too; they had rooms closest to the couple, and would be the first ones to wake up from the…noise. "Couldn't sleep," he finally managed.
"We neither of us could sleep," Jubilee said absently, focused on her task. She never looked up from her fingertip inspection of Logan's right ribs. "So I decided to try some massage therapy. I took a course in it back in college, just for the fun of it. Comes in handy sometimes."
Emma blinked. "Well, maybe you could at least put a shirt on?" she said irritably. "Jubilee is a young girl, Logan, there's no need to offend her, and all of our, delicate sensibilities by sticking a big hairy back right in her face—"
Logan got up with a growl, pulling his back out of reach of those soothing fingers, and stumped out of the kitchen. "Logan, wait, don't go…" Jubilee trailed off as the kitchen door slammed, and she turned to Emma, her face flushing hot. She'd been having a nice quiet moment with Logan, and now Emma had gone and ruined it. She turned to face the skimpily-dressed blonde, thought of a number of things she wanted to say, decided against most of them, although she knew she was projecting all over the place and Emma could hear perfectly well what she was thinking, then whirled and left the kitchen.
Emma blinked confusedly, still caught in the whirling chaos of Jubilee's raw anger. "What did I do?"
Ororo, as if sensing something wasn't right with Jubilee's temper, did what she usually did when Jubilee was upset; took Jubilee out shopping. She didn't bring up any of the events of the morning, waiting for Jubilee to talk as she usually did, but Jubilee remained uncharacteristically silent, and when they came back Ororo had no more understanding of the subject than she had when they started. As she put her shopping bag down on the bed and started to unpack it, she heard a shriek from down the hall.
Jubilee was in her room, trying on the new bra and panties she'd bought when there came a tap on her door. She was about to call out that she wasn't decent when the door opened and the person walked in. She gathered herself for a shriek of outrage, which she stopped as soon as she saw who her visitor was.
Logan.
She knew what her shocked cry must have done to him when he staggered back and sat heavily on the end of her bed. Biting her lip, she sat down beside him, "Wolvie? You okay? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
He groaned, shaking his head, and instead of answering her, he got up and left her room as abruptly as he'd come in. She was left, sitting there, stunned, and after a moment she flung herself face down into her pillow and pounded her fist in it.
A moment later, there was another tap at her door, and she looked up, to see Ororo standing in the doorway. She was frowning. "Jubilee? Is everything all right? Logan just came running by my door looking upset. Is anything wrong?"
Jubilee rolled over and let Ororo take a seat on the edge of the bed. "Ororo, am I ugly?" she asked.
Ororo's frown got deeper. "No, Jubilee, you have grown into a lovely woman," she said perplexed. "Whatever would give you such an idea?"
"Wolvie's suddenly started staying as far away from me as possible. We got close, this morning; he'd had a rough night out and he was all tense, so I tried out some of the massage therapy I learned in college. It seemed to be working, too…up until Emma came in and got all mother hen on us, and Wolvie left. Then he just came in, saw me in my underwear, and ran away like I was the Wicked Witch or something." Jubilee propped her chin on her fists and waited.
Ororo thought carefully before she opened her mouth. She'd seen this coming for several weeks; she was mildly surprised it hadn't come to a head sooner than this, given Jubilee's temper. "He was not expecting to see you in undergarments," she managed finally.
"Well yeah, that I knew," Jubilee said. "But he's seen me in my underwear before…and I've seen him in a lot less. This shouldn't be different. Over the years we've seen each other naked a few times, it's like, practically a non-issue to me now."
"To you, maybe," Ororo said, sighing. "But you have been gone some time, and he has not yet gotten used to seeing you as a young woman. It reminds him of how old he is, and that is not a thing any of us like to think about."
"Even you?" Jubilee looked interested.
"Yes, even me," Ororo said gently, getting up. "You're a reminder that we're getting older."
"Yes, but…Wolvie? He's got that healing factor, he's not gonna get old!"
Ororo sighed. "He may not age physically as we do, Jubilee, but experiences can age a person the same way years will."
Jubilee looked thoughtful. "Oh. Yeah, he's got enough of those to last like, several lifetimes."
"Sit him down. Talk to him. Get his attention, and talk to him. You and he are among my closest friends, I don't want to see you upset with each other." She quietly left Jubilee's room.
Jubilee sat for a while, thinking, then went to her desk. Pulling out a sheet of paper, she penned a quick letter, then pulled a small silver digital music player from one drawer. Rummaging quickly in a box of digital music chips, she slid one into her player, set it for the song she wanted, and scribbled a quick postscript to the bottom of the letter. Then she set it all on her desk, cleared it of its other clutter so it was immediately noticeable, and went under her bed for her suitcases. She'd been promising to visit her friend Casey for a little while now; she could crash at Casey's while Logan thought over the contents of the letter.
She rummaged in her drawers, setting aside neatness for expediency, taking her underclothing, her checkbook and wallet, half her dresser's worth of clothes, and stuffed them in her suitcase, followed at last by Logan's old, battered cowboy hat. Closing her suitcase, she then made sure everything was neat before she walked out of the room and headed for the garage.
One of the first things she did when she started earning her own money was save it up so she could get a bike just like Logan's. It sat now in the motorcycle part of the garage, beside Logan's; his a gleaming black, hers a midnight blue. In every way except color, it was the twin to Logan's own; she had bought it for that purpose. Learning to ride it had been another trick; she had gotten a friend to teach her so that when she did come home with the bike, she had surprised Logan completely by having a license for the bike as well as the car when she came home.
She strapped the suitcase to the back of her bike; she'd packed light, figuring if she needed anything else, she could borrow Casey's things (they were both the same height and weight, and had exchanged clothes with regular frequency while they shared the same room in college.) Then, getting on it, she revved it up as quietly as possible and headed out of the garage.
Logan sat in his room for a while, stretched out on the bed, thinking. He shouldn't have just walked in on her like that; no wonder she had screamed, he had startled her. He should go and apologize.
And Emma was making dinner. That was another excuse to escape the mansion. Maybe he should take Jubilee to one of his bar-and-grill places to apologize.
As if on cue, he heard Emma's telepathic call for everyone to come down to dinner. He groaned and headed for Jubilee's room instead. When he saw her room door open, he gave the doorframe a tap and walked in.
It was empty, and neat. There was a sheet of paper on the surface of the desk, and a little silver music player on it. He picked up the letter first.
Dear Wolvie, it started.
I'm sorry things have gotten to this point. I missed you while I was away, and you said you missed me, but now that I am home, I'm seeing more of your back than your face. I miss that close partnership we had before I went to the Massachusetts Academy; I miss it and I want it back, but I didn't stop to think maybe you don't. I'm sorry I keep forcing myself, and my company, on you when you so obviously don't want it. Or maybe you do, and you don't know it.
I'm taking a little vacation while you work out what you want to do about us. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.
Jubilee.
That was all. No 'sincerely', or 'I miss you', or those little X's and O's that drove Logan crazy when she wrote a whole row of them across the bottom of her letters while she was away. Just her name. Not quite believing that that was all, his eyes went to the bottom of the page. She had written a postscript; Logan, listen to the song in the player.
He switched it on.
EDIT 2/19/14: Song title, artist and lyrics removed from Author's Note and chapter text to comply with content guidelines. May also change chapter title to remove any reference that said chapter was inspired or influenced by outside work.
Logan switched off the player and ran for his room, grabbing his jacket and his helmet. He stuffed the little silver player in his pocket and hurried past the dining room, ignoring Emma's sharp call back to the table, and ran for the garage.