AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wrote the last scene of this chapter before I started this sequel. It flowed out so easily and seemed to fit so well. Since then, I have been struggling to yank the first half of the chapter out. I recognize that it's a bit stilted and that's why. I flip the first half the bird, but little hearts rotate around the second half. :P
The train ride to Jackson took twenty-eight hours, which felt too long to Rogue, Bobby, and Hank. It felt like two and a half decades to Logan, who spent the bulk of the trip pacing and glaring at Hank for having the audacity to read the whole damned trip. He wasn't sure why he found that so irksome, but the sight of Hank absorbed in the collection of pages made him want to punch a hole right through the side of the train.
Logan had been surprised by the addition of Bobby to the entourage, but caught on quickly to the reasons when he saw the extended periods of eye contact between the two young adults. Even that annoyed him. This trip was supposed to be about Rogue reconciling with her folks, not taking some kind of unmarried honeymoon. Hell, Gambit was still making a pest of himself trying to win her back, even after his cheating ways and it wasn't that Logan thought she should give him a second chance, but was it possible for the heart to change so quickly from one person to another? Plus, he didn't like Bobby.
His claustrophobia had kicked in before the first movie was finished playing on the little screens in the corner. It was some kind of chick flick and even without the headphones to listen, he had managed to catch too much of the plot. He'd crossed back and forth from the diner car where Rogue and Bobby chatted to the seat where Hank was engrossed in some book about pollution. It made him want to scream.
"How can you read that?" asked Logan. When he got no response from his friend, he wandered back to the dining car. At least Rogue and Bobby would try to include him in conversation, not that he had anything in common with the two kids.
After ten minutes or so of following their dialogue, he would get up and seek attention from Hank. Thus the cycle continued until the others dropped off to sleep. Even Rogue, facing such an uncertain reaction from her estranged parents had no trouble snoozing as the big metal cage rumbled down the tracks. It took forever, mind-numbing, uncomfortable, exasperating eternity.
"Now that is a view!" exclaimed Hank as they gazed at the sparkling river before them.
Rogue had asked Logan to pull the rental car over and now she was beaming at the water that wasn't half as luminescent as the warmth of her smile. "I had forgotten just how nice it smells."
Logan raised an incredulous eyebrow, but didn't comment. He just loved seeing when that little girl that he had first met showed through the woman she had become.
"When my father took me to see it, I imagined that I could see Huck and Jim on their raft. I thought maybe if I wished hard enough, they would come up to the bank and let me on." Hank was mesmerized by the beauty of the water and did not realize at first how silly the memory must have sounded to the others. When he did, he felt his pulse in his cheeks and he coughed uncomfortably. That was quite a bit more personal than things he cared to share with Rogue or Bobby.
"So, you've always been a book nerd?" teased Logan.
"Indeed, though I do find it easier to read when bothersome little boys are not pestering me for attention." There had been a few times that Logan's insistent interruptions actually had managed to stir Hank's ire, but now that they were off the train, he was able to look at the humor in it. He hadn't know Logan to be so attention-hungry, but he must have been terribly bored with no one to chat with and nothing to read for so long.
Logan scoffed. "Excuse me for not being more interesting than pollution."
Rogue smiled at the interchange between the two. She hadn't realized that inviting Wolverine included a plus one, but she was comfortable around Beast, even if she didn't know him very well. She had taken his science classes like any of the other X-kids and he was a nice guy albeit a bit dull. It was beyond her what Logan got out of their relationship. They were always pickin' on each other, but maybe that was how he wanted things. After what had happened with Remy, she was pretty sure she was clueless about what made people choose the friends and lovers they did.
"Do not underestimate the potency of a well-told tale, fiction or no."
"Thanks for pulling over Logan, I think I'm ready to continue on," she gave a slight wave at him and walked back to the car. Bobby followed like a lap dog. Soon enough Logan and Hank also made their way back to the rental, but they made strange faces at each other along the way. Hank could always win the weird face battles, with his large fangs and wide-parting jaws.
Logan chuckled a bit. "Your face is gonna freeze like that." He opened the driver's side door and climbed inside. They weren't far from the hotel now. Rogue was quite adamant that she face whatever happened with her parents alone and Hank was griping about needing a shower. For his part, Logan was looking forward to cable television and not being in a vehicle.
"You cannot possibly be enjoying that."
Logan tilted his head as if considering and spoke slowly. "Big robots....smashing stuff... and a redhead in daisy dukes?" He gave Hank a wide-eyed look when asking, "You don't think I could like that?"
Hank just groaned, plunging back into the refreshing intelligence of Oscar Wilde. Action movies were a mystery to him. He had done his share of pummeling bad guys and it had no similarity whatsoever to the poppycock in those films. When the violence was necessary and for the greater good, as happened occasionally to X-men, it was a kind of fun that action film viewers could not possibly fathom. For Hank, it was like watching sports rather than playing them. Thanks to Dr. Bolivar Trask, Hank was quite over the whole giant robot thing.
"This movie kicks ass," added Bobby.
Logan glared over at the boy who was sitting at the little table that the hotel patrons were supposed to eat at. Okay, if his tastes were similar to Bobby's, maybe Hank had a point. "Dammit," he cursed. Hank's grin did not go unnoticed by Logan. "Oh you think it's funny Fuzzbucket?"
Hank glanced at Logan, his visible eye just above the rim of his glasses. "Feeling insecure Logan?"
"I'm feeling like a fucking prisoner. What the hell are we doing just laying in this hotel room?" He rose up from the bed and snatched up his flannel shirt off the wall lamp. He began to button over his tank top. "Get your shoes on fuzzy."
"Are we going somewhere?" asked Bobby hopefully.
The briefest of smiles crossed Hank's lips before he could control himself. There was no chance that Logan would be taking the lad along on some seedy bar hopping voyage. He rolled off the uncomfortably stiff bed. He considered explaining the situation to the boy, but he would let Logan be the bad guy; he didn't really want Bobby along either.
"Nope, we aren't. The great blue drain clog and I are."
Yes, that was put about as tactfully as Hank had expected. Though the interesting nickname had surprised him. "I always tip the cleaning staff very well," justified Hank.
Bobby's youthful face became crinkled with disgruntled lines. "You can't just leave me here."
Hank pulled on his trench coat and hat, no point in frightening the local populace with his visage. He saw that Bobby was looking to him for confirmation of his declaration. What was he to say? Hank couldn't even remember if he was old enough to drink alcohol legally. "One of us should be here if Rogue needs picked up."
Logan heard the easy excuse and swore silently. Well, that meant that they would be on foot then. He was just as happy with crushing the little puppy dog of a boy under his boot, emotionally of course. But, it did seem to work.
Bobby nodded. "You're right. She may need me."
The melodramatic words prompted Logan to roll his eyes. Rogue was too pretty for any of the X-boys good; this was the effect that she tended to have on them. He opened the hotel room sparing a look over his shoulder to make sure that Hank was following and then they were off into the waxing evening ready to explore and, if Hank knew his friend, to make asses of themselves.
Their endeavor of boozing it up in Mississippi took on a feel of bringing the one ring to Mordor. Hank suggested twice to Logan that they just hop in a cab, but he wouldn't entertain the option. The first two they hit had no pool table and Logan was adamant. The third one, which was already much further away than Hank had hoped for, also didn't have a pool table but was somehow acceptable due to a gritty sounding live band. The way that Logan glared at them, anyone else would have assumed that he didn't like the music, but Hank knew firsthand that being evaluated with those squinted eyes was a gesture of respect from the lone wolf. If he didn't like the music, he would ignore the band and if he hated them, they would be back outside wandering through alien streets. Hank was just glad to be sitting on a stool with a beer in his hand, regardless of the looks they were getting from the sparsely populated room.
The beer in Caldecott County was a strange local brew that came about as a result of a county ordinance that limited the percentage of alcohol that was allowed in beer. It tasted as though it had been swilled in a vat that used to contain old sneakers and Italian flavored croutons. Between that and the un-skilled performers on stage, Hank felt that he was having a very authentic time.
They occasionally talked during breaks in the music, but it wasn't long before a lady set her sights on his handsome friend. She introduced herself and then proceeded to verbally flatter him as Hank looked away respectfully. The plan for the two hotel rooms had been for he and Logan to share one and Bobby would take the other, sleeping on the floor if Rogue needed picked up, but now Hank worried that he might have to lodge with the iceman.
The foam on his beer had wilted away until only the amber filled his mug. It was a nice touch to have it in a mug; the Barracuda had less beer on tap than they did in cold impersonal bottles. He looked into the swirling liquid as if he was divining the future. What kind of futures could a urine-colored low-alcohol content drink predict? Hank set the mug down with a deflated sigh.
"So, you ready to try the next place?" asked Logan, furry chin brushing his ear.
He was surprised, looking to where the lovely blonde had been standing and back to Logan. "What about...?"
With a shrug, Logan explained, "not my type." He slid off his stool and snatched up his leather jacket. With a quick peek into Hank's mug, he added, "Your beer's flat anyway."
The strange rejected sensation Hank had been feeling left as easily as they did from the bar.
They could smell the Mississippi on the air and without conversing about it, they both headed towards the river. Their strides were close to even, being built similarly in stature, and the pace was slow, easy-going.
"That beer..." said Hank which prompted a great deal of laughter from Logan.
He shook his head. "Man, local beers aren't normally that bad. I think they used part of a football. Must be local team pride."
Hank chuckled. "It was yet another occasion upon which I possessed your miraculous healing properties."
"Face it. The envy doesn't stop there."
Hank paused as if considering. "Yes, but it seems a bit extreme to subject myself to a lobotomy just to emulate you."
"Oh, a stupidity joke. You're becoming predictable."
"I have to keep things simple for you." Hank adjusted his hat, pushing it up a bit so that he could see further down the road. He couldn't yet see the river, but the smell was getting stronger. There was no sun out, but he guessed it to be somewhere in the vicinity of 8 or 9 o'clock, but he didn't have an internal clock like his ex-girlfriend. He didn't like that thought, so he brought up something else. "You really enjoy traveling don't you?" When Logan looked at him as if he was being very dense, Hank corrected his statement. "At least, you enjoy being in new locations."
"I fucking love it."
All the crankiness that Logan had been exhibiting on the train was completely gone once they arrived. It had been replaced by a subtle excitement, the longing for adventuring. Walking around Caldecott was nice in a way, the exploration of new territory.
"It's kind of all that I know," said Logan, softly. The emotional intonation of the words caught Hank by surprise. He stayed quiet, hoping to encourage elaboration as they walked. Within a block or two, Logan continued speaking. "I'm not bitchin' or anything. My life's been pretty good since I joined up with Chuck's kids. I'm just sayin' that since I don't really know much about who I was before, no family or nothing, I kind of looked at things like new towns as big maybes."
"Maybe what?" asked Hank, but he thought he understood already what Logan was saying.
"Ah, you know, maybe this would be it." The river finally came into view. Logan had been smelling it since they left the bar. It was really gorgeous under the moonlight; for a second, he thought of Jeannie's eyes but he stopped soon after the hard thump of his heart. She was never an okay place for his wandering mind to go. "Anyway," he persisted, "I used to think that someday I'd find home. Whatever that means."
Hank nodded. "Some homes a person is born into, others are made, but it's part of the human condition to want one."
They walked off into the grass. The scent of magnolias and algae were strong and pleasant to Hank who spent too much time locked up in his lab.
"We aren't really human though," corrected Logan. With a grin, he added, "Me more than you though."
Hank didn't bother to react to the jab. Instead, he took a seat on the grass close to the rocks and dirt that led down to the river. Logan remained standing, but he stayed close, swaying a bit as he watched the water. "Do you still think those things? Even after you came to live in the mansion?" he wanted to add something about having found a family, but that was something best left to Logan to feel. He was well aware that Logan felt paternal towards Rogue and he had many friends that even the man with the hard exterior had to accede to having.
Logan thought about it. "I guess so, but with less, um, hope." He laughed. "That sounded wrong. I don't try as hard to find that. I guess I've probably got a home now, but it's still missing... something."
Never before had Hank heard him speak so honestly about his feelings. It was a bit intimidating to Hank, as if he did not know quite what to do with the information. He asked more questions, hoping to figure out his role before called on to enact it. "What do you think that something is?" Hank felt that he was a poor Freud. He allowed his upper half to fall back onto the soft grass. His fingers caressed the green spears as though he was petting a cat.
Logan came down to the grass then as well, laying prone onto the ground. It felt way softer than those torture devices the hotel called beds. He flipped onto his back and stared at the starless sky. Damn clouds must have been covering them and the moon was just a tiny sliver. It seemed far away. He believed that was how moons should look when traveling, like if you kept trying to follow it, it would only get farther away. "Fuck, I don't know hairball. Maybe it's this damn love thing people talk about. Humans want that too right?"
Hank was surprised by the sudden intense need he had to swallow, the saliva in his mouth seemingly absent. Had Logan hit a sensitive spot? "Yes, even mutants want love." He tried to push out the images of Ororo that bombarded his sensitive, sore grey matter. She always appeared when he felt the most vulnerable, but wasn't that being in love was like?
They were quiet for a while, lost in their individual heartaches. Logan wasn't sure why he had spoken so frankly to Hank other than the fact that he trusted the guy not to go gossiping his woes with the rest of the mansion. It seemed kind of pathetic to be whining about not being loved, especially to his closest male friend. He needed some justification for all that he had said tonight. "You want love right?"
"Indeed I do."
There was a tension that Hank could feel in the air. It was like a DVD paused right before the best scene. It was in the way that Logan was speaking to him with shield lowered, in the sight of the Mississippi river sparkling as if flowing with diamonds under the waning moon, and in the fragrance of the magnolias growing all around them. The night was expectant and he felt surprisingly weak to its will.
"Logan..." he began, stopping only because he did not know what to say.
"Hm?" came the distracted reply from the man laying on the grass next to him. When nothing further followed from Hank, Logan reiterated. "Yeah?"
Hank swallowed, vastly out of his depth with the strange emotions he was having. Surely it was the romantic setting and their growing closeness combining to form some faux sense of attraction. He would have been able to blame it on the Mississippi river if it hadn't been for that damned night at the mansion. His subsequent thoughts, lingering erotic fantasies, over the weeks that followed could hardly be blamed on the river either.
Gods above, he thought; I'm attracted to Logan. The realization was hitting him fully as Logan was propping himself up on an elbow, body maneuvering to face his friend. "You okay Fuzzy?"
He wasn't okay, in fact. Part of him felt like crying over his desperately unwanted epiphany. He had no interest in dating a man; was he not an outcast enough as it was? Oh, and to have developed some sort of crush on a friend whose opinion he truly valued. Why, it was just too unfair. He felt that he must truly be a glutton for punishment, imagining the next few months of coping with his feelings as comparable to the life of a Dostoevsky character. For he was old enough to realize that crushes were thus named for good reason.
"Talk to me buddy; you're worryin' me," growled Logan. When Hank looked his way, he said, more quietly, "Did I freak you out?"
"No..." Hank replied. His voice sounded small. He coughed. "No, sorry, I was just thinking."
Logan stared at him doubtfully. "Must've been some fucking deep thoughts."
Hank nodded. "Indeed they were."
Logan wouldn't force Hank to open up, but it irked him that he'd opened up plenty to Hank in the last half hour and the blue hairball wouldn't even do the same. He folded his arm down, using it as a makeshift pillow to rest his head on while still on his side. He watched Hank's chest rise and fall, a bit too fast from the look of it. Something had upset Hank, but he had no idea what it was if it wasn't his recent words.
"I wasn't coming on to you, if you're worried."
Hank looked at him and smiled. "It wouldn't be the first time."
Logan objected. "Look, I don't know when you're referring to Bub, but you are obviously..."
Hank interrupted. "I believe it was 'furry toes curled with a cigarette hanging from my mouth?' Sound familiar?"
As a matter of fact, Logan did remember saying something like that during their pool match. With that memory followed the shocked look on both Ororo's and Kurt's faces. "That was truly a Kodak moment. Thought Stormy was gonna lose her jaw."
The two chuckled, both genuinely pleased at the memory. "So, you said it just to provoke my former lover into a state of shock?" said Hank intending it to be a statement but hearing a question mark sneak its way in.
"Maybe," said Logan mischievously. "Or maybe not."
Hank flicked Logan a look that read "You're an idiot." He said, "And here you are saying that you've never come on to me."
They held eye contact for several moments before Logan broke into laughter. He held his non-pillow hand up in a gesture of surrender. "All right, all right! Point made! I do hit on you on special occasions."
The confession just begged the question that passed unbidden from Hank's lips, "Why?" After he asked the dangerous question, he immediately added more to it, acutely afraid of an answer from Logan. "I mean, it is not as if you are attracted to me. I am male for one thing and furry, blue, and simian for another."
Logan was quiet in response. He appeared to be thinking very carefully, either of his word phrasing or the question itself; Hank did not know which. He could hear the sounds of the nightlife, buzzing insects and night birds, over the beats of his heart, but just barely.
Finally, satisfied with whatever he had worked out in his brain, Logan answered. The entire time Logan talked, Hank found himself unable to look away from the familiar face speaking such touchingly honest words.
"You know, I've kinda wondered that myself. I mean, let's face it, I'd have to be some kind of pervert if I was into your brand of, pardon the pun, bestiality. But, as I've gotten to know ya..." he paused then, concentrating on saying the truth but in a non-hurtful way. "Well, suddenly it stopped mattering so much, the fur, the fangs, all of it.
"Like there was how you looked when I first came to X's place and there's how you look now. I think... well, I kind of see all of you now. See you, as you, you know?"
Hank was looking at him then as if his adamantine claws had just popped out his face or something. It was crazy to have actually brought this up with the uptight guy. For all knew, his frankness had just cost him a dear friend, but he wasn't gonna lie about stuff like that to Hank. Their camaraderie depended so much on their being equals. Also, he kept enough secrets from people. He wanted to be himself around his friend. He wasn't such a coward that he had to keep something like that secret.
"Are you... are you attracted to me?" Hank asked hesitantly, his eyes still wide from surprise.
Logan was confused how Hank could even ask that after the spectacular and incredibly spontaneous makeout session they'd had outside Hank's room. Sure, they hadn't pursued any relationship strangeness, but he felt that neither could deny the attraction there. The actions spoke louder than anything they could have said regarding the matter. "Yeah," he said.
"Oh my stars and garters," breathed Hank, his eyes closing as he rested his head back against the ground.
"Not to make you feel stupid or anything, but didn't you figure that out that one night?" asked Logan, feeling a bit insulted. After all, Logan hadn't been alone in the passionate kissing.
Hank sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose under where his glasses dug in. "I thought you were just making a point about my lack of spontaneity."
Logan rolled onto his back, grunting as he did so. "Hell of a move to make a point," he said. He was actually feeling enormous relief that he had said something about it even if it hadn't been a secret. The two of them had obviously been avoiding the topic since it'd happened. "You know, you're not as smart as you got people believing."
In the turmoil of Hank's brain, the only retort that appeared was, "Oh, shut up," so he favored silence to the proffered insult. The fact was simple; he had avoided thinking about why, because he was too afraid of Logan's possible flippancy.
"Look, it's not that big of a deal. I'm not pining for you or anything or writing your name with hearts around it. I'm not gonna lie, I had fun that night. Hell, we always have a blast. It's just that sometimes I think about things like that, you know, again."
Yes, they had kissed, for a solid five minutes at least, but Hank was still surprised to hear the words from Logan's lips. He had been unprepared for that passionate action then and he was similarly off-kilter about this honesty. Logan wanted to do that again? With ugly, ape-like him?
"How far off in your head are you fluff-head?" asked Logan gruffly. He was scowling into the evening sky, scornful of his friend's careful ways. He was bitching in his head about the over analytical bastard when he caught movement in his peripheral vision.
Hank had rolled closer to him and was looking at him curiously. Even with the intense conversation, he couldn't shake the feeling that Hank was looking at a piece of food on his face or something. "What?" he asked.
Hank laughed. "All that you've just said to me and you're asking me what?"
Logan glared. "I didn't say nothing."
"Anything," corrected Hank. "And you did."
Logan was accustomed to his English being corrected by the scholarly animal. "So, what are you thinking then?"
Hank scooted a little closer, his large form inches from Logan's side. "I am trying," he said, removing his glasses. The face look strange to Logan who never saw Hank without them, at least outside of the battle room. "I think I am trying to forget reason and go with my instincts. That can only be at your negative influence."
Logan laughed, realizing what Hank was trying to work up the nerve to do. For that reason, he reached out a hand to the side of Hank's furry face. He tugged hard on the hair to force that big blue head closer. He didn't do it gently and Hank's expression was of surprised discomfort before he was close enough that Logan could no longer see. Instead he could feel the expression with his lips against Hank's.
"Heavens above," whispered Hank, his lips moving despite their place next to Logan's. "Are we really going to do this a second time?"
The two were laying next to the Mississippi river, Logan supine and Hank prone. Their lower halves were not touching, but Hank's body, from belly button up, was pressing against one side of Logan's chest. Their faces were close enough that to anyone it would have looked like they were kissing and not whispering to each other. Hank was afraid, his heart beating loudly and Logan's matched the rhythm, but from excitement and arousal and not fear.
Logan could hear Hank's anxiety in that voice, but he hoped that he also caught some anticipation. The light fur on Hank's face tickled as his mouth moved to answer Hank's question. "Only if you want us to." He was whispering as if to a lover, which he still wasn't capable of thinking of Hank as, even in this compromising position.
"How is that you always have stubble?" Hank asked in a lighter, more playful tone.
Logan smiled and Hank felt the grin with his lips. "I can't help it. Damn hair grows as soon as I take a razor to it. Why is it that you talk so fucking much?"
"When I ought to be...?" asked Hank, he drew his face back a bit and lifted a blue eyebrow.
Logan was not impressed by Hank's display of coyness. He opened his mouth to blurt out some sort of retort but was shut up by a mouth.
The kissing was better the second time. There was no hesitation from Hank this time, no warming up. There were the two sets of lips, alternating between closed and open, and tongues and teeth and searing hot breath. Logan felt like his whole body was involved in the kiss, though it was just his mouth. The fur lacked its previous repulsion. It was just part of the kiss, part of Hank, and it became okay.
Logan kept biting Hank's lower lip and while it was turning him on, he almost wanted more tenderness. No, he did want more tenderness, but why should he? Perhaps it was the scenery mixing him up inside. Logan tasted like beer and un-smoked cigar. His undersexed body was primed like a race car engine. He didn't even notice that his engine had, in fact, started purring until Logan pointed it out.
"You're purring," said Logan, breaking off the powerful kiss.
Hank felt embarrassed at this side of himself being revealed. The purring stopped at the change of emotions. Logan grinned at him, like he'd just earned new data for insulting, which he had. Hank frowned. "You're just a big ole' kitty, aren't you fuzzball?"
Hank drew back from the inviting chest, but was quickly drawn back in by strong arms. With surprise he looked at Logan, feeling a bit silly for reacting. " Can I get you to purr again?"
With a half-smile, Hank replied, "I wouldn't doubt it."
This ceased their conversation for several minutes. Somehow Hank's body drifted closer to Logan's until he nearly covered him. The night noises became a soundtrack to their kissing as their passion simmered pleasantly. The kissing became the vocals to a song called Hank and Logan, or was it Logan and Hank? It didn't matter who could claim top billing, because they were the only two around to witness the moment for miles.
That was as far as their tryst went there by the banks of the river, kissing until both sets of lips were tired and sore, until the sun began to make itself known on the horizon. It was yet another night that they kissed into the wee hours, but this time felt so much less confusing and so much more right to Hank. Not that he had any better idea of what the two of them were doing with each other, but it had not come so out of the blue as the first time. This was also trumped by the emotions that Hank was feeling. He was happy and it had been a precious long time since he had felt this good. So, he pushed his worrying brain to the background and focused on how incredible it felt to be desired by his best friend.