2
Do You Kiss Your Mother with That Mouth?
"Liquor's the only thing that doesn't let me down," a disappointed Marie mumbled into the tabletop, a mass of tangled hair concealing her porcelain face and pouty lips.
Sitting opposite her, Logan crowded his side of the booth with his muscular frame. He half-carried her over here after she keeled over at the bar and almost landed face-first into the lap of an over-eager bartender. This drinking thing may have been a bad idea of his. Her pretty little head couldn't keep up with his thirst or healing factor.
"You going to tell me what's wrong, or do I have to drag it out of you?" he asked with the help of his ever-vocal eyebrow.
Her face was still buried against the table, and she closed her eyes because the room spun in unhappy and unfriendly circles. "I vote for dragging it out of me," she replied jokingly.
He snorted in amusement. "You already look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, kid. I doubt your hair could stand rougher handling."
Placing her hands on either side of her messy hair, Marie gradually lifted her head off the table and blinked slowly. "That's not very nice," she complained bitterly, her nose wrinkling comically.
Logan snorted again and folded his arms. "I've never claimed to be nice," he responded, his mouth twitching with the threat of a smirk. He couldn't get over how a little fall scared her hair shitless. It looked as though she had spent the best part of a week strapped to the wing of a fighter jet.
"You're just like every other guy," she suddenly complained loudly, fully animated with anger, as she slammed her fist on the table and knocked the condiments over. "You sit there, say things, and my heart breaks."
Things were finally making sense to Logan. He heaved a sigh and shook his head. "What did the ice prick do?"
Tearfully, she shook her head at him, almost subconsciously mocking his body language. "He acted just like every guy does."
"You're going to have to be a little more specific," he sighed, tackling the leaking tomato ketchup with a paper napkin and failing miserably to clean the mess.
"I'd rather have another glass of Sex on the Beach," Marie whispered, a tear escaping her eye and trickling down her cheek.
An uncomfortable Logan spotted the tears and ranted in his head. Good one, asshole, now you've gone and made her cry. I've got a crying, drunk and man-hating girl for company. My hands are covered in ketchup, and these goddamn serviettes are no good. There's something wrong with this scene.
If I had my way, Drake would be sitting here whimpering, I'd have blood on my hands, and they'd be a payoff in the form of a fuckable woman heading my way. I'd stalk to the nearest restroom and pound her against the tiles with my jeans around my ankles. Probably not the most sanitary place to whip my dick out, but I've found it likes an adventure or two to keep the cobwebs away.
When Logan remembered he was pre-lecture, he sighed. "Look, Marie," he began and suddenly growled, looking up from the ruined napkins. His self-obsessed ass had done him a disservice tonight. Even his acute senses missed his drinking partner packing up her tears and leaving the booth and him behind.
While he growled at his stupidity, an overly dolled-up woman settled in Marie's vacated seat. The shade of her skin-tight turquoise dress filled him with dread, but he eyed her ample chest hungrily.
"I think your girlfriend desperately needed to use the restroom," the woman informed him with a warm smile and lit a cigarette with a matching turquoise lighter.
Unbothered by her questioning stare, his eyes hovered over her heavy chest. If she wore a scrap of material that barely covered her top half, he would stare until he mapped out her best assets in the back of his mind.
"She's not my girlfriend," he finally responded after snapping out his tile-pounding fantasies.
She took an alluring drag from the cigarette, and her smile grew more intense. "Is she your wife?"
Logan smirked at that. Married to somebody who couldn't hold her drink, let alone welcome several fucks in the nearest restroom stall? No chance. "Try again," he said in a gravelly tone.
She brushed a confident hand through her mid-length auburn hair. "Hmm. Is she your hooker? I'm certain I've seen her here before, giving head in the car lot."
His brow furrowed as he scowled dangerously. "She isn't a fucking hooker. Now, how about you do me a favour and hit the bar before I show you a different side of me?"
The offended woman huffed in response, and her breasts jiggled as she hurriedly shimmied out of the seat. "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" she hissed at him angrily, tucking her autumn-coloured hair behind her pierced ears.
"Before you start, I have enough interfering women in my life," Logan chuckled, dismissing the shallow attempts to lead him astray. She had a pair of the strangest eyes he had ever seen. They were yellow and very cat-like. He raised a questioning eyebrow when she continued to hang around the booth like a bad smell.
The woman smiled, less offended this time. "I should have guessed. You're her pimp. You look the type and even have the attitude. How can you let her out of your sight, hmm? I bet she doesn't even charge enough to cover her dry-cleaning bill. I mean, sex out there in the dirt and debris of the street. And what about the restroom? At least she picked wisely this time. He owns this bar, you know."
While Logan watched her saunter away and disappear into the crowd, the conversation replayed in his head, and he vaulted to his feet. His eyes flickered to the restroom door; he sniffed and cracked his ketchup-stained knuckles. He repeatedly told himself not to stick his nose into her life but caught their scents mixing in the restroom stall and growled gloomily.
This isn't any of my business, is it? She has every right to have a little fun, and I might call her 'kid', but she's fully grown. I can't go barging in there and shred them both.
He almost left her behind in the bar but remembered his promise on the train. He always took care of her, and she would wake up tomorrow and regret every drunken decision. She would find a way to blame him for this; he just knew it and traipsed over to the disabled restroom door.
Cracking the kink out of his neck, he furrowed his brow, unsheathed his claws, and kicked down the door. There were two surprised shouts, curses directed at him, and a blood-curdling scream. He still wasn't sure who screamed but soon worked it out when the nude barman fled the scene with a wailing promise to prosecute him for property damage. Typical Yank wanting to sue, he thought with a smirk.
Logan chuckled to himself and sheathed his claws. "Next time, he'll keep his pants on," he muttered, congratulating himself with a pat on the back for another successful mission completed.
The thoroughly drunken Marie leaned against the off-white tiles of the wall. She blinked slowly; her muddled mind soon caught up with the carnage he caused. "I'm sober enough to have fun, Logan," she said, glaring at him.
When he turned around, he cleared his throat and noticed her topless and helpless state. Scratching at the stubble on his jaw, he stared at her perfect, pert breasts and closed the distance between them.
"Just concentrate on putting your clothes back on before that body of yours takes a vacation from the cold," he growled, bringing a joke to the party before he let his instincts run wild.
The chilly temperature in the room left the drunken Marie unbothered as she reached for the tatty olive-green sweatshirt on the tiled floor. She fought with the scrappy material stubbornly. "My head won't fit through the hole. What's happened to my head?"
A brooding Logan suddenly imagined his glistening head slamming inside several of her holes. When his hand accidentally brushed against her perky nipples, he reminded himself she needed protection and nothing else. Grumbling and growling, he helped her dress and focused on her face with a trusted scowl. "What the hell made you think this is a good idea?"
Her gaze snapped up defiantly, and she attempted to stare him down. The Rogue made an abrupt guest appearance in the conversation. "If I wanted to, I'd screw every guy in the bar tonight and ride them until sunrise. So, don't go poking your nose where it doesn't belong, Wolverine, because I swear even you can't stomach the truth."
His scowl darkened because he knew where this conversation was headed. She wanted to chew him out over Jean Grey, Bobby Drake, or teaching duties. Fucked if he knew what bothered her, but all roads lead to the Ice Cube. "You can't even get your shirt back on, so you're in no position to be demanding anything."
That seemed to shut her up for thirty seconds, and he pulled her away from the grimy tiles with the tug of her wrist. Sighing heavily to himself, his eyes examined every inch of her face closely. "All this over some boy, huh?"
She averted her gaze to the wall and visibly wavered on her feet. "If you tell Bobby, I'll never talk to you again."
"You think I care?" he snapped gruffly, towing her to the fire exit. He could smell the welcome committee waiting by the bar for them and wanted to avoid an ugly scene. "You're just a drunk kid playing a dangerous game."
She walked drunkenly along, thoughts of triple cheeseburgers and fries cramming her mind. "He'll never find out."
Slamming the fire door shut behind them, Logan traipsed down a deserted alleyway, his hand still firmly holding her wrist. "I've known you long enough, Marie, and you can't lie. Remember when that student wrecked my bike, and you took the blame?"
She bravely scoffed because she knew her lying skills had magically grown wings and floated to the top of a tree since then. What type of tree she didn't know due to drunkenness, but she would remember one day. "I'm a great liar, but wait, wait a minute!"
He stopped and scowled, his temper close to combusting. It had been a long night, and she pushed on his last nerve. With his left eyebrow raised in a questioning arch, he waited impatiently for her to spill the drunken beans.
Reaching for Logan's jacket to keep herself steady, she gazed at him thoughtfully. "Someone keeps moving the sidewalk without telling me. They need my permission, but they never ask before it travels left and right, up and down."
"You're drunk," he reminded her with a half-growl, tugging her toward the car lot.
Scoffing again, she almost tripped until he caught her in his burly arms. "No, I'm high on cocktails and life. Can we go to a club?"
"We're going back to Xaviers," Logan growled, leaving no room for an argument and scooping her into his arms. He didn't want her to fall again; her hair had yet to fully recover from the night's events. "Fuck knows who you'd jump next, and I'm sure as hell not bursting into every restroom in the city."
"My sex life's none of your damn business," Marie remarked coldly, eyeing him like he had sprouted into a swollen, angry pimple hugging the tip of her nose.
"Ordinarily, no," he admitted gruffly, his eyes barely brushing hers and waving down a cab. "And you can thank me later for looking out for you."
She rolled her eyes and groaned in annoyance. Why were they back to the silly promise again? Was it because he always had to ensure sidewalks were where they should be? She didn't need to be saved from the clutches of concrete or cocks in the wild, and by the way, she loved cute guys and walking. Repeating her thoughts out loud because her sensible, sober filter had slipped from her fingertips, her drunken voice carried for miles in the open air.
Logan snorted at her words and shook his head. "You've got a bad case of beer goggles." Though, that was probably the least of her worries.
There was no way in hell he would have her on his bike again. He just hoped it would be safe to park outside that bar because heads would roll if he spotted a single scratch on the paintwork. Why hadn't he stayed at the mansion and beat the crap out of everything in the Danger Room instead?
"Beer goggles?" she slurred into his side while he hauled them into the cab. "That's really unfair. I didn't get any free goggles with my beer. Do you have a pair that I can try on?"
Now he'd have to keep her secret, find a new bar to drink in and scratch the memory of those pert breasts from his cranium. Eyes narrowing, he felt her hand creeping somewhere sacred.
"I don't have any goddamn goggles, Marie. Even if I did, I wouldn't keep them down there."
"The driveway is moving without my permission again," Marie complained, clinging onto Logan's jacket sleeve and pausing as she gazed at the full moon. "And my head hurts as it swims left and right, up and down. Hey, do you think one day someone will live up there?"
Logan would happily have volunteered to jettison to the moon if it meant escaping the responsibility of shepherding a drunk Rogue to bed. "You know full well how to walk and shoot off that mouth of yours," he told her, heading toward the garage. "Get a move on, I don't have all night."
"I bet Edgar would have all night. I bet Edgar would last all night," she replied with a giggle and started to walk again, wobbling on her feet.
"Who the fucks Edgar?" he asked gruffly, lost in her mumblings and having trouble keeping up with half the drunken bullshit she spouted.
Tripping over her feet, she tightened her grip around his brawny arm. "How often do you meet naked guys?"
No wonder the asshole back in the restroom screamed. Logan would have done the same if he had the goddamn misfortune of being named Edgar.
"What do you think?" he demanded flatly and focused on the mansion coming into view, not how her breasts bounced every time she moved.
"I'm only surprised by your answer because you're kinky," she replied, sketching the outline of a scattering of his memories she still housed. "You live a kinky life under the covers with all the ladies you pluck off bar stools."
Logan growled because the conversation was taking an unnatural turn in his eyes. "I'm not kinky."
Rogue wandered past him, paused again, and gazed at the moon. "Yes, you are, you're kinky. See? Even the moon agrees."
This was the last time he ever took Marie drinking, especially if this was how she repaid him. Reaching the backdoor, he fished for the keys in his pocket and wrapped an around her waist to steady those drunken, wayward feet of hers.
The intimate question had tumbled from lips buried against a flannel shirt that smelled of cigar smoke. "How many pairs of handcuffs do you hide under your bed?"
Her chin lolled against his chest again as he lifted her over the steps. He scowled, unlocked the door, and guided her inside. "How the hell do you know about them?"
"You see, you're kinky!" she cried happily, applauding his words and grinning like the latest lottery winner. "I've even seen what you've been hiding in your drawers."
"I'm not fucking kinky and keep away from my drawers," he growled, releasing her so she could hug the granite worktops until all her dreams came true.
Marie exhaled and pawed at the kitchen counter, drooling slightly on the cold granite worktop. "You're kinky, and you know it, Logan, but please don't clap your hands because my head hurts. It's so nice and cold, like sex in a park in November as sweet, little snowflakes fall from the pretty sky."
"What the hell do you know about sex in the park?" he snorted in amusement and shook his head at the drunken ramblings of an inexperienced idiot. "And I'm not kinky."
"You're one kinky pervert, and I love you for it because, in my line of work, kinkiness rules like a ruler." Her nose wrinkled while contemplating the words that refused to slide easily from her tongue. "Bobby wouldn't even use his old ruler from math class to measure his icicle. How lame is that?"
"That's too much information, and for the record, I'm not goddamn kinky!" Logan roared across the kitchen, searching the fridge for an ice-cold beer.
"Logan, keep your voice down," Storm ordered from the doorway. "As of five minutes ago, everyone was sleeping peacefully."
And here comes one of those forever-lecturing women now. She could probably do without my heavy dose of sarcasm for tonight, so I'll give it a rest. I don't want a lightning bolt up my ass for my troubles. Yeah, I've turned into a domesticated wuss, and I'm proud of it. Logan thought to himself, snapping the cap desperately off his beer.
"Stooooorm, Storm, Storm, Storm," Marie sang in a warbling off-pitch tone, raising her hands like a clueless conductor in front of an even more clueless band.
They both stared at her, and Ororo gave Logan a questioning look.
"Don't ask," he immediately said, shaking his head at the apparent stupidity of the situation.
"I wasn't going to. This picture paints a thousand words and more," Storm replied indifferently and stepped closer to the exhausted-looking former mutant half-collapsed against the kitchen counter. Surveying the young woman's messy hair as the tuneless singing continued, she sighed and turned to the door. "Bobby, she's back!"
Logan expected a major chewing out for taking off and returning to the mansion with a drunken Marie who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket if her life depended on it. But as he watched the drama unfold in front of his nose, he slowly figured out secrets were being kept from him.
Storm brushed Marie's hair with a calming hand and coaxed her into a motherly hug. "Rogue, sweetie, please don't tell me you've done it again."
He heard a sob and felt slightly out of place in the family dynamic as tears escaped the Southerner's eyes. "It was only one time, I swear. Please, please, please don't tell Bobby," she pleaded with a sniffle.
"Shh, we'll talk about it later, okay?" Storm glanced over the chaotic, frazzled, and wiry nest that Rogue called hair, and her white eyes met Logan's as she frowned. She further attempted to reassure the young woman with continuous circles rubbed on her back.
What the fuck's Storm talking about, and why do I get the distinct feeling that I've been deliberately left out of the loop for their own benefit? he snarled questioningly in his head and returned Storm's frown.
"Does anybody wanna tell me what's been going on?" Logan's voice rumbled over the quiet sounds of drunken sobbing.
Storm gave him a warning look and silently mouthed, "Not now." Then, like all women with a bee in their bonnet, she zeroed in on his hands. "That had better not be blood."
He gazed down and studied his hands. "It's ketchup," he growled through clenched teeth. "Now, what the hell's –"
Before another growled word could be uttered, Bobby sprinted through the door and almost collided with his girlfriend's tears. "Where is she?"
"What took you so long?" Storm asked in a clipped tone, suspicious of the boy's sudden need to dawdle.
"I was just talking to…" Bobby's words trailed off as he squirmed under the relentless glares. He tried in vain not to falter and recovered his thoughts. "I was talking to a friend."
Logan wasn't falling for it. He still wasn't accustomed to people lying to his face. Still, it happened occasionally in the school, and he would readily reward the culprit with a series of break-breaking Danger Room sessions. "Bullshit," he muttered under his breath because he could smell Kitty Pryde on every inch of the shithead.
"Just help me walk Rogue to her room," Storm announced, her eyes still wordlessly berating both men. "I don't want any trouble tonight, do you understand?"
"Sure," Logan commented over the sobs and further muddled song lyrics slipping from Marie's lips. "I just need a quick word with Drake. It won't take long."
In a rapid response to the ominous words, Bobby gulped worriedly, Marie hiccupped violently, and Ororo smiled knowingly.
Logan patiently waited until both women had left the kitchen, then turned his attention to the nervous boy. "I don't know what's been happening behind my back, but listen up: You break her heart, and I'll break your face, starting with that nose of yours."
Smirking to himself, he watched Bobby nod in understanding and dart out of the kitchen faster than his feet could carry him.
He had to bite back a chuckle when he overheard the sounds of Marie puking her guts up at the top of the stairs. That turned into a full-blown, deep-throaty laugh when Storm's shout of, "Not the Persian rug!" reached his tickled ears.
His thoughts were already entertained enough. That serves her right for kicking my ass out of the garage. While she cleans up that mess, I might just kick back and relax beside the workbench with an ice-cold beer. Just because I don't have my bike to work on, it doesn't mean I can't stand there and survey my territory.
After that, though, I'm going to get to the bottom of what's wrong with Marie. I'm not a fan of being kept in the dark, especially when it concerns her. They had better have answers ready because the big, bad Wolverine is about to come knocking. I can't believe those words came out of my head. Beer first, and if that fails to cure whatever's wrong with me, there's always those bouncing breasts to think about.
