Disclaimers: Logan/Wolverine and Jubilation Lee/Jubilee are properties of Marvel Comics and are being used without permission. We are not making money from their use.
A/N: This story was written by Jaenelle Angelline and edited by me. It her request, I am posting it along with the story that inspired it; "Lifeline". The content is entirely hers. She is a much better writer than myself.
Dichotomy
Author's Note: Inspired by Betty's story 'Lifeline'. Came from a comment she'd made in the story about what Logan would do if he ever found any of the men who hurt Jubilee during O:ZT. It's also a contrast between the two sides of his personality; the feral, wild, violent sadistic side that comes out in a battle rage; and the softer, caring, compassionate side he only shows to the people he cares about. Which is where the title comes from. The first part of this is violent, dirty, and is going to make you wince. A fanfic off your fanfic. See how good you are?—Jaenelle
Logan froze.
He dropped his cigar, smoking forgotten as he sniffed the air. That elusive scent…he'd only smelled it once in his entire life, and never even met the person to whom the scent belonged, but someone he cared deeply about had met the man and it had been a traumatic experience. Logan had an old, unpaid score to settle with the guy, who was about to have a long-overdue appointment with Death and his own Maker.
He sniffed the air, filtering out the scents of gasoline engines, car exhaust, sewage, stray cats, garbage, unwashed bodies, and all the other smells that came from living in the city…and found it. A sticky, heavy, unpleasant scent, of sweat and stale beer and old piss…he wrinkled his nose. Not that he always smelled so good himself, but at least he showered frequently. Not, apparently, like this guy. Ignoring the passers-by who stared at him, sniffing the air like a dog sniffing the base of a fire hydrant, he tracked the scent several blocks from the Auger Inn to a much cheaper, seedier bar in a much less desirable part of town.
Once there, he strolled in nonchalantly, looking around until he spotted his prey, sitting in a corner booth. A slow, vicious smile curled his lips, and he sat down at the end of the bar, positioned so he could keep an eye on the man sitting in the booth. He ordered a beer carelessly, took a sip, and almost spit it out; it tasted like…crap. Damn. He put the mug back on the bar and glared at the bartender, who went on serving drinks, completely oblivious to Logan's displeasure. Ah, the hell with it. He turned away from the bar, walked over to the booth. "Anybody sittin' here?" he asked.
The man looked up. "Nope. S' it dat crowded in here?" He squinted blearily at the patrons of the bar. "Can't see a damn thing 'thout my contacts," he slurred. "Ain't got the money to git a new pair neither."
"Down on yer luck?" Logan nodded in mock understanding. "Here, let me buy ya a round. What's yer poison?" he signaled to the serving girl. She came over, the guy ordered, and Logan turned to him after the girl had gone. "I'm Logan." Might as well know the name of the man who's gonna kill you, he thought to himself.
"Jimmy." The guy held out a hand sloppily. Logan took it briefly; it lay in his hand like a limp fish for a moment before Jimmy dropped it, and Logan had to resist wiping his hand on his jeans. His hands were going to be a lot dirtier by the time the night was over.
"So, what's got ya down, Jimbo?" The other man didn't seem to resent the familiarity, and Logan figured he was too drunk. That was good. Logan had been having mental conversations with this man before he even met him; conversations that always ended in death. This one, now, would be no different; it would end in death. The only question would be how Logan would kill him. Something slow, that was for sure. Slow and excruciatingly painful. He didn't deserve any better. Not after what he did.
"M' gurl gone an' dumped me," Jim slurred. "Not that I mind; she was just another piece of ass, like all them other girls I done. Thing is, she took my boy with her. My only son. Every other kid I ever had was a girl; I didn't care nothin' for them either."
"Mm. I'd sympathize with ya, but a girl leavin' ain't such a big thing. Not unless she was a real sweet piece." Logan dangled the verbal bait in front of Jim, and he took it. Well, he wasn't expecting the trap Logan was carefully setting for him.
Jimmy took the bait. "Man, ain't nothin' in this town a real sweet piece," he groused. "All the girls in this town are either whores and hookers or one a' them high-bred uptown girls, and I ain't never gonna have a chance with one a'them. I likes 'em young, see, but all the chicks I can get are all spoiled by the time I gets them."
"What's the youngest you ever got? I got me a eighteen year old barely legal, once. But I like them younger. A lot younger, if you know what I mean." Logan was going to wait longer before getting him on the hook, but since Jim was so drunk he might bite it sooner. "And ya know what;'s best?' he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Hearin' the real little ones scream when they're bein' hurt. I love 'em screamin'." To his grim pleasure, the other man took the bait. By pretending to be a pedophile like this piece of crap, he could extract a confession…
Jim leaned in, so close Logan almost couldn't keep from grimacing at his body odor. "I got me a piece of a real young one, once. Sweet, pretty, one a'them chink chicks y'see in them porno flicks all the time, you know what I mean? She was real young. And I mean REAL young. Ain't even had a good-sized set a' tits on her yet. Was still a virgin 'fore me an' my buds worked her over. And we worked her over good." Jim chuckled at the memory, and took a sip of his stale dog piss. "See, I used to work for this dude named Bastion. I was workin' as a guard at this big mutant prison thing set up in the southwest, New Mexico somewheres. Bastion didn't care what we did to the muties, except this one. She had some sorta information he wanted. First he tried to scare it outta her, then he tried to read her mind with this machine thing he put on her. But she was clever, that one, she figured out what he was doin'. She didn't give him what she wanted." He snickered. "If she had, we mighta got her sooner, and we coulda had more fun. Bastion didn't care 'bout what we wanted, he just wanted his info. When none of his methods worked, he gave her to us."
Logan had to fight his revulsion. So this man had been at the base. And the reference to a young 'chink' chick (he had to grit his teeth at the derogatory term) had to be Jubilee, coupled with the reference to the New Mexico Hulkbuster base and the mindsifter. But it was now more important than ever that he keep himself under control, because Jim had said 'me and my buds'…so he knew the other men who had hurt his little girl. And those others had to have names. Names Logan could track down and extract from them their share of price for Jubilee's suffering.
Jim's eyes glazed with the memory, and he smiled. "He walked into the cafeteria while we was eatin' an' told us we could have her. No permanent visible damage, he said, and he wanted her able to talk…but other'n that, we could do whatever we liked." He grinned at Logan. "So we took her to the doctors first, and they tied her tubes so she wouldn't accidentally make any more mutie brats like her. From the screamin' she was doin', we thought they was killin' her, wondered if there was gonna be anything left for us, but she was still intact when we got her. She was bruised up some, and in pain, but she was conscious…the doctor said he'd given her sumpin' to keep her awake, and you could tell from her eyes that she knew what was goin' to happen when we walked in there. I tell you, she was a sight to make ya hard; lyin' on that table all spread open like she was waitin' for us." He paused for a sip.
Logan had to fight the rising tide of rage in him. There had been other guards, he had known that; but doctors…now he knew. He could do some digging, find out who had been assigned to the O:ZT project, and execute them. The regular soldiers, like this one, were harder to find unless he had names—and by the time he was done he would have them—but doctors; licensed medical doctors, would be far easier to find. And thanks to this guy's loose lips, he now had an idea how he'd execute the bastards.
Jim rambled on, oblivious to the fact that Logan was stone cold sober and furious, too drunk to see the gathering storm sitting beside him. "The doctors said she was still a virgin; they prepped her for us by ripping her open. They got one of them salad tong things they use ta examine her and just opened her body up bigger than she could handle; they ripped her virginity open. She was still crying and shaking when we walked in. You could see she was terrified. It really got me real hard, and I know every other guy in the room was sportin' a boner to end all boners. She screamed when I walked up there and stuck it in her; man, you shoulda heard her scream! I came almost immediately. Too bad, cause I wanted it to last, but the doctor said the drug he gave her to keep her awake would last three hours. So I waited while my buddies took their turns; then we all went again. I think I musta come like three times that first session." He laughed.
Logan thought his teeth would shatter, he was gritting them so hard. How long had that taken? How had Jubilee had endured a three hour gang rape? How many men had there been?
"So they gave her some time to rest and sleep and get her strength and her voice back, and the next day we started doin' other stuff. Y'know what I mean? After all, there were all those medical instruments, and we also had all them toys we used on the other muties in the prison. The doctors flipped her over so we could take her anal cherry too; man, that girl had a tight sweet piece a' ass. And she had this real pale skin that reddened easily when we hit her…I loved the marks our belts made, though my buddy liked them black lines left by the wooden canes. And when her ass got too bruised to take any more, we jus' flipped her back over and went to work on her tits. She hadn't even grown them all the way; they were still little bee stings on her chest. Little mosquito bites for nips. Then the docs went to work cleaning her up and fixing the cuts left by the belts and canes, and by the time they finished we was all hard again, and we fucked her again. She lost her voice by then, and we was tired, so we let her sleep while we came up with something that would break her, 'cause that Bastion dude wanted the information we had in a hurry.
"We rigged this fucking machine with a couple of big ribbed dildos and rotating shafts attached to what used to be a fan. She hadn't broken while we was doing all the rest of the stuff, but she sure did start begging when we shoved that thing in her used-up holes! Then she just started screaming with everything she had left in her when we started that up in her. She couldn't move away from it, she was tied so she couldn't, and the fan motor made it so that they pulled all the way out and drove all the way in each time. You could see her hips rock every time they went all the way in. we left her there all night with those things in her body... hey, where are you going?"
"Gotta piss," Logan ground out, and fled to the bathroom. There was, thankfully, no one inside, and he rushed into one of the filthy stalls and threw up in the bowl. He rarely came across something so disgusting that he wanted to throw up; but the obvious relish with which Jimmy described what he'd done to Jubilee—Logan's innocent, sweet, bubbly little Jubilee—was more than Logan could stand. He pressed his forehead against the graffiti-covered wall of the stall and tried to force the image of Jubilee, tied down to a steel operating table, screaming and begging them not to hurt her anymore, while they repeatedly raped her…he leaned over the toilet bowl and threw up again. This time he let it go on until he was completely empty; if the guy had more filthy memories like this Logan was going to have to have a strong stomach to bear it. The trap he'd set for the guy, coaxing Jim into telling him what he'd done to Jubilee so Logan could construct a punishment to fit his crime, had worked too well. Now he didn't want to hear the rest of it…and knew he had to. A just punishment for his neglect; because he hadn't been there for her like he'd promised her, she had suffered, and now he was going to pay for that neglect by hearing what she had never been able to tell him.
He had asked, begged, pleaded with her to get it all off her chest, to tell him so he could help her exorcise the demons the abuse had created; but she had declined, telling him it would hurt him too much to know what she'd gone through. And she'd been firm in her decision. Now he knew why…and knowing did hurt. Hurt badly. But even worse than the hurt of hearing the tale was knowing that this was only one of the terrible secrets she'd kept. How much worse were her other memories? And how in the name of God had she survived it all?
He returned to the table with an empty stomach and an execution plan in mind. He suffered through the rest of Jim's retelling in silence; how she'd lost her voice by the next morning, along with a lot of blood; how the doctors had insisted that they give her a break and so she'd spent that 'break' being repeatedly orally raped with a ring gag in her mouth; how she hadn't given Bastion the information he wanted, so one of the doctors had truth-drugged her while another—a dentist—had put his skills to use. He'd gone to work with a scalpel in her mouth, and used it to expose nerves in her gums, which they then stimulated to cause her such exquisite agony she'd lost control of her bodily functions. The combination of drugs and agony had finally broken her spirit; she'd sobbed out the location of the mansion while delirious with agony and open to suggestions by the drugs.
Logan sat there, silent, crying out mentally in anguish at the pain Jubilee had endured, forcing himself to not turn and strangle the man next to him. The temptation was strong…but Logan had something else in mind.
It was with some relief, then, that he saw the serving girl coming over to tell them the bar was closing. Jim got up, less than steady on his feet; Logan pretended to help him by getting an arm under him and hauling him quickly out of the bar, throwing the completely drunk and almost unconscious man into the front seat of his Jeep, which he'd driven tonight instead of his scoot. Now he was glad he had; that would make this so much easier.
He drove the Jeep out of the city with Jim half-unconscious in the passenger seat; for what Logan wanted to do seclusion and isolation was necessary. He took Jim to a location not far from the mansion, to the small ghost-town he'd confronted and eventually killed MacLeish in; the still-erect, deserted cabin in the middle of a place that no longer had a name was perfect for an interrogation and execution. And on the drive there, he buried his compassion, his humanity, and allowed the Wolverine out to play.
When they got there Wolverine yanked the passenger door open and let Jim fall to the ground, smiling grimly as the man fell into a small mud puddle. The mud seemed to startle him; he looked up, his eyes still glazed by the alcohol, and realized where he was for the first time.
"Whu…" Jim was too drunk to even stand; Wolverine was relieved in a way, but also slightly disgusted. The man might be too drunk to realize why he was being executed. "Whu' you do'…where a' we…?"
"You an' I got an old score ta settle, dickhead," Wolverine spat, not bothering to hide his contempt and rage anymore. "You know that 'sweet young piece of ass' you been goin' on about all evenin'? Well, she's my little girl." He let the rage—that cold, insane rage—wash through him, releasing the Wolverine inside him.
The man wasn't too drunk to realize he was in deep shit, Wolverine thought with satisfaction as his expression changed from befuddlement to horror. "Yeah, I see ya got it, you sorry little piece o' shit," he said, letting his claws slide out of his forearms. Slowly, so the man could see what was coming. "Every scream you wrung from her, I'm gonna wring from you. Every moment of pain, every cut, every bruise you put on her…you'll get that back. What goes around, comes around, shithead, and ya had yers comin' fer a long time. " He grabbed the back of the shirt and dragged Jim into the cabin.
Once inside, he yanked the belt out of the man's jeans, then slashed downward with his claws. When he straightened up, the man was naked, wearing only tatters of his original clothing. Wolverine leaned in close, savoring the pleasure of seeing the terror in the man's eyes as he snarled, "Face it, you fucked up. And now yer gonna get fucked up." He paused. "Unless, of course, ya give me the names of them other shitheads ya did this with. I…might be tempted to leniency then." Actually, he had no intention of it…but Jim didn't know that, he thought as he took Jim's belt and yanked the worn, supple leather strap tightly around the man's wrists behind his back, then turned to start a fire in the quiescent fireplace. He used a length of metal piping to stoke it, then left the makeshift poker actually in the flames, having some vague idea of how to use it later.
He knelt, ignoring Jim's upper torso for the time being as he focused lower. He reached down with one hand, taking the limp member in one hand and extruded one single claw from the other. He traced a fine line down the underside of his shaft, right down that sensitive ridge of skin. Jim screamed. Wolverine paused, grinned up at him. "It gets better unless you give me those names," he snarled.
Jim made a desperate, futile attempt to get free. His legs scissored convulsively, trying to trap Wolverine's arm between his thighs and pull him down, trying to get him off-balance enough that Jim could get to his feet and flee, completely forgetting he didn't have the faintest idea where he was. It was a futile attempt: Wolverine had seen that coming. He captured a flailing ankle in one fist, gripping it tight enough that he could feel the bones; then he adjusted his grip slightly and closed his hand. Adamantium-coated finger bones crushed the bones in Jim's left ankle, mangling it to a bloody pulp. Wolverine tossed the ankle aside, grabbing the other one. Jim screamed again as agony shot up his legs as his torturer crushed that ankle, too; then Wolverine yanked off the grimy sneaker on the end of that foot, yanked it off, ignored the fetid smell coming from the unwashed socks, and squeezed the foot. Bones cracked, splintered, shattered; blood trickled from between Wolverine's fingers. Jim's screams were music to Logan's ears. "All right, all right!"
Wolverine paused in the act of poking his claw into the man's penis. "All right what?" he asked sardonically.
"Lee…Jackson," Jim gasped out, sobbing in pain, snot and tears streaking his sweaty, dirty face. "Ray Ramsey. Calvin…Benson. Gage Hardy…he put the fucking machine together…Wilson Poole, Bert Bennett, Nick Pindell, John Merrill, George Wenger. We took turns. George…" he gasped as Wolverine applied a tiny bit of pressure on the bloody penis. "George was the one who used the cane on her, broke her skin and made her tits bleed!"
Wolverine nudged the limp, bloody member with the claw again, listened to the man's sobbing increase. "Okay, now I want them doctors' names, or I'm cuttin' this thing off."
"Omar Allen, Frank Gaylor, Tom Hurst. And Dr. Chester Lee's the one who sterilized her, but that didn't work 'cause she got preggers anyway, so Hurst injected a birth control implant in her to kill the baby." Logan suddenly found it hard to breathe; Jubilee, pregnant…had she even known? And then…sterilized…what had happened to her after that? He had to ask her, had to find out. When he got back. In the meantime… "Anybody else?" Another jab at the limp dick.
"No! No, that's all I know, I swear, please, I don't know, let me go…"
"I don't think so." Logan was pretty sure the guy was telling the truth; there was no pulse flutter that would indicate a lie.
Jim stared at him, horror struck. "But…but you said—!"
"I lied. You think you deserve to live?" Wolverine snarled. "Murderer!" Disgusted by the sobbed begging, the cowardly pleading, he grabbed a handful of cloth from the floor, the remains of Jim's clothing, and stuffed it in the man's mouth, reducing his screams to muffled noises.
He slid a claw into the incision he'd made down the length of the underside of the other man's penis; then, sliding the metal blade inch by slow, torturous inch, he peeled the skin away. The muffled sounds were continuous now, the mutilated feet flapping as the body twitched in agony. Wolverine ignored all of it, pausing only to sit on Jim's torso to keep him from moving too much; it would spoil the effect. Having three hundred pounds of muscle and adamantium sitting on you doesn't help keep you breathing; Jim found all his attention suddenly focused on getting air in his lungs. Only a distant part of his mind registered the agony of having his genitals skinned.
Wolverine sat back in satisfaction. A lump of bloody skin lay in a spreading puddle of blood and he could see the blood vessels supplying blood to the man's balls and cock throbbing. Smiling grimly, he severed each one, then severed the connecting tissue holding the balls to the body. Slowly, though. Pain was cumulative, and Jubilee must have felt the same way when the doctors were cutting into her body. He drank in Jim's agony and terror the way Jim had drank in Jubilee's pain and fear; drank it in and used it to feed the rage that was allowing him to perform this execution.
The man's balls finally joined the skin in the pool of blood; Wolverine surveyed the mess with satisfaction and went to the fireplace, taking up the section of hot pipe after wrapping the rags of Jim's clothing around the base so he could handle it without getting burned. Returning to the screaming man, he laid the hot pipe into the open wound, cauterizing the open blood vessels, stopping the bleeding so his prey didn't die of shock before Wolverine was done with him.
He returned to the man's crotch, extending a claw. With one savage, careless thrust, the claw slid into the rear cavity that the man had prattled on about having raped Jubilee in; the noises grew frantic. Blood followed the withdrawing of the claw. Wolverine 'raped' Jim several more times with the claw, then withdrew, picking up the hot pipe again. This time it went into the torn rear cavity; Jim screamed and passed out. Wolverine sniffed the stench of burning flesh; normally he'd hate the smell, but this was one of Jubilee's rapists, after all…he smiled, a slow, cold, cruel smile.
But there was still more left to do. He slashed through the cock, pleased when the man roused to agonized awareness at this new infliction of agony, took his own belt out of his trousers and proceeded to beat the man's upper chest, leaving red bruises that would darken to horrific black ugliness after the man died. Then he rolled the man over onto his stomach, ignoring the howling that started up as the bloody, burned stump that used to be a dick touched the rough carpet. He beat the man's back with the belt; knowing Jim was awake and able to hear him, he started to talk. "So now ya know how she felt. Ya know how she felt when they cut her open; you know how she felt when you raped her anally; you know how she felt when you set a machine to fucking her so badly she was bleeding when you finally stopped. Ya know how she felt when ya whipped her. Sorry yet, shithead?"
The lips shaped a word that might have been 'sorry' but there was, of course, no sound. Wolverine grinned cruelly and said, "Yeah, well, you tell that to the Devil when ya get there, 'cause I know yer goin' ta hell fer what ya did ta my little girl. So'm I…but at least I'll go knowin' I did what I did fer the right reasons. You? Don't think there's any hope fer you." He slid his belt back into his belt loops, buckling it. Careful not to step in the blood, he ended it all with one killing slash across the man's throat, then stepped back and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall and watching as the light finally went out of Jim's eyes. Grimly satisfied with the night's work, he stepped out of the cabin, and made his way back out to the Jeep.
As he took a long, circuitous route back to the mansion, his rage, satisfied by the night's bloodletting, slowly died. By the time he pulled up in front of the mansion an hour later, he was calm again, and even felt a tiny measure of peace. He had paid the man back for a tiny portion of the pain Jubilee had felt, had paid him back for the anger Logan had felt, and now there was one less scumbag walking around on the face of the earth. That always made him happy. He didn't enjoy killing, but there were some people who didn't deserve to live. That man had been one of them.
As he slipped into the front door, he was surprised to smell something cooking. Smelled good, too. Oil, and…he sniffed, then raised an eyebrow. Smelled like deep-fried Chinese dumplings. Wondering who could be cooking at—he checked the clock—three in the morning, he wandered down the hall to the kitchen.
Jubilee stood there, her back to him, headphones on her head, her Walkman clipped to the waistband of her pants. Or hip band, as it were; she was wearing one of those annoyingly enticing hip-hugging short shorts she favored and Logan hated. They were annoying to him because they showed so much more skin than he thought was decent for her to show; and enticing because he had, sometimes in his deepest, darkest fantasies, hooked a finger in that waistband and pulled it down lower, just low enough that he could get a glimpse of her 'charms'… he cleared his throat, cleared the image from his mind, and spoke. "Jubilee, whatcha think yer doin' at this time o' mornin'?"
She didn't hear him; obviously she had the music on her headphones too loud, not expecting anyone was going to interrupt whatever it was that she was doing. He walked into the kitchen, took up a position right behind her, and tapped her shoulder. "Jubes, what are you doing?"
She jumped a foot in the air, then cried out and doubled over. Alarmed, he bent over next to her, yanked the headphones off her tousled black hair, and asked worriedly, "Jubilee? Jubes, talk to me…" and then he smelled hot oil on her skin. "Jubes!"
She'd been pouring out a cupful of hot oil into the sink when he'd interrupted her. She jerked in surprise…and the oil splashed onto her bare midriff, left exposed by the cropped top tee she was wearing. Her skin was reddened, and would be a nasty burn by the next morning.
"Jubes…oh damn it…" She was gasping, her face twisted in pain. Logan eased her backward into one of the nearby kitchen chairs, ran to the sink and grabbed the dishtowel, soaking it in cold water as he turned the heat off the fryer. He returned to Jubilee, and she slid to the edge of the chair as Logan eased her backward and placed the cool cloth against her burned stomach. She gasped as it touched her skin, then sighed as the coldness eased the burning. "I'm sorry, Jubes," he said, crestfallen.
"Why?" she opened one eye.
"I startled ya an' I made ya drop hot stuff on ya," he gestured at her stomach. "I shouldn't'a snuck up on ya like that."
She closed that eye. "I knew you'd gone out. I shoulda realized you would be coming home. I also shoulda had the music turned down so I could hear you." She shrugged. "It's no biggie, Wolvie."
"It is," he insisted, taking the cloth off her stomach so he could look at the skin. It didn't seem serious enough to need Hank, but burns could be tricky things. "It coulda been serious." He tugged the waistband of her shorts down to check the entire expanse of her belly…and again saw two tiny scars on either side of her navel. "Jubes?" he asked, his mind flashing back to the conversation he'd had with Jim. "What are these?"
"Oh." She blinked. "I…um…hurt myself."
He gently touched the two scars. "I met a guy today in a bar," he said softly, not meeting her eyes. "He was bragging about a little girl he raped."
"Oh my God…" Jubilee's hands came up to cover her mouth and her eyes got big.
"It was years ago, he said. And a long way away from here. He was working for the government…and someone named Bastion." Now he did look up at her.
She had gone very, very still and pale. Her eyes held a question she couldn't bring herself to voice; but he knew what it was. "Jimmy. His name was Jim."
Tears welled up in her eyes and her lower lip quivered. That melted him and he opened his arms, letting her fall forward into them. "What…what happened?" her voice was just barely above a whisper, and her fists were balled up in his shirt.
"I got him drunk and he told me everything." He hesitated…and wondered why. Jubilee was the last person on Earth who would judge him for what he'd done. She never judged him; she accepted, comforted, and loved. She never judged and condemned. She was the one person in the entire world who accepted him as he was and never tried to change him. She loved him in a way no one else in his life had ever done. But he still couldn't tell her everything that had happened that night. The raw feelings surrounding the well-deserved execution were still too difficult to talk about. So instead, he said, "He won't do that to anyone. Ever again."
"Is he dead?" she asked him, pushing up off him and looking directly into his eyes, her own intense blue meeting his paler blue.
He answered her honestly, as he always did. He couldn't lie to her. She accepted him, trusted him, loved him. He couldn't repay that with a lie. "Yes, Jubes. He's dead." He tensed, waiting for her rejection.
She looked at him for a long moment, then took his hands in hers. He hadn't had a brush to clean out under his nails; there was still dried blood crusted under them. He was also leaving dark streaks on the towel he'd laid over her burned stomach. "I know," she said softly.
He jerked his hands from hers, hastily hiding them in the towel as he got up. "I'd better soak the towel again," he said gruffly, turning toward the sink.
He was washing his hands furiously, scrubbing, when he felt her hand on his shoulder, felt her breath whisper in his ear. "The doctors cut into my stomach and stapled my tubes closed to keep me from getting pregnant from the guards," she told him quietly. "It was just an excuse to hurt me, because they gave me a contraceptive implant along with it. But none of that worked for some reason; I still got pregnant, and Emma helped me get the abortion and paid for me to get my tubes fixed so I could have more kids later, down the road." She raised her eyes to his. "I'm glad he's dead, Wolvie," she said softly. He turned to look at her, and saw the hurt and pain in her eyes, and something else. Thanks? Relief? An easing of the emotional pain she'd never stopped carrying around with her since that terrible incident? Whatever it was, he saw it and welcomed it. She'd never tell him—but then, she didn't have to. He knew her, like she knew him. Words were completely unnecessary.
She laid her head on his back, just behind his shoulder, her arms creeping around his waist. He dropped the towel, turned off the water, and placed his hands over hers. They stood like that for long moments, the tender moment contrasting sharply with the brutality of his early evening. He felt her calm acceptance, her love and trust and confidence in him, and he felt a tear come to his eye.
He swallowed the lump in his throat, wiped his eyes with the dry edge of another towel, then picked up the long-handled cooking fork she had been using and poked at the lumps in the deep fryer. "So. Tell me what the heck this stuff is?" he sniffed. "Smells good, but what are you doing cooking at three in the morning?"
Jubilee released him, grinned, and peered at the contents of the fryer. "I found this recipe for Chinese friend dumplings online," she said. "I wanted to try it, but it takes a while to prepare and everybody's always popping in and out of the kitchen all day, so I just thought I'd try it tonight when everyone was asleep." She took the fork from him and poked the floating lumps. "They don't look like they're supposed to, though," she said, handing him a floury, oil-spattered sheet of paper with a picture of the dumplings next to the preparation instructions.
"They don't look the same, but they smell good," Logan took a deep sniff.
"Don't suppose you'd want to taste-test them, would you?" she asked him. "You got the best taste buds in the mansion."
"I wouldn't miss it fer all the tea in China," he said to her, watching her eyes sparkle with humor. "But I wanna shower an' change first. Then I'll be down, okay?" She nodded absentmindedly, already turning the fryer back on. Just as he reached the kitchen doorway, she said, "…Logan?"
"Huh?" he turned back.
"…Thanks."
He stepped back into the kitchen, brushed a lock of hair away from her temple, and dropped a light kiss on the flour-streaked skin. "You're welcome." He left the kitchen and bounded up the stairs with a lighter heart.