Okay. There was more context now. Reasons why. But it still didn't all add up. I wasn't ready to ask him outright, not without having to give up the last threads of my own sanity. He was always pushing for more than I was able to give. We were reaching a tipping point. Things needed to change, because the way this train was going currently, it was about the careen right off the rails and over the edge of a cliff.

It would take a hell of a lot more than a mental nod to dirty and inappropriate thoughts. It would mean a full acknowledgment that we held a deeper, more meaningful connection than that. Maybe the only one I'd ever had. It meant admitting that whatever that undefined relationship was that we'd had was changed now, not for the better, irreversibly.

The only, repeat question I had was why? Why was he willing to risk fucking up what we had - some misplaced sense of duty? Let the poor untouchable girl watch. Some lingering guilt that I'd taken on more of his unsavory personality traits? He was always attracted to me - but it ended there. Guilt and betrayal and loss. We were friends.

Another week later. It took that long to clear my head of the class A addiction that it seemed to be mainlining. All aspects of my life were wrong. Work resembled a foreign language instead of numerical digits. My apartment was stranger still, the city overwhelming. I craved the stillness of the outdoors, the shushing sound of the wind through reeds. The mildewy smell of the lake. And him.

It hadn't been like that before. Ever. It was usually pockets of insight, in short, sharp bursts. They could only hold onto awareness for so long once I touched them. I took more than their thoughts; I sucked out their life force with it. But Logan healed.

This time, with him willing me to take from him, to take everything… it was too much to ask of a person. It surged into me. The constant ebb and flow enough to suffocate under.

I couldn't think about him, not when the blood was burning through my veins, blazing and strong, reverberating in inky pulses behind my eardrums. Not when each breath took in every smell of the city, in glorious putrid detail, polluted and unnaturally urban. Not when every waking second was consumed by thoughts of him.

I'd be editing a spreadsheet or eating takeout when my brain would switch to sifting through all the new data that came in influx. Lingering on the intimate details that helped flesh out the person I thought I knew. That he got off on letting that wilder part of himself out. Fuck the rules. The law. What was deemed decent or acceptable. The only law that mattered was the law of nature. As long as his partner was willing, he was game.

That when I'd first taken liberty of my newfound freedom, after the cure, he'd found me in the kitchen, dressed in minimal sportswear. So much unflawed skin on show, purely for the benefit of not being swelteringly hot in the unconditioned workout room in ninety-degree heat. I was spreading peanut butter on barely-toasted bread, a pre-workout snack, when he reached over my head for a coffee mug.

When he realized it was me, he'd almost dropped the mug in shock, looking anywhere that wasn't where I stood. He'd left not soon after. It was only now I was starting to fully understand why. He might not overtly say it, or offer any kind of affections, but in his own, unique, messed-up way, he did care an awful lot. If I'd come to him wanting - anything - that he'd not be able to say no.

I wasn't running. I wasn't. I just needed to get away for a while. Let things mellow.

Confession time. In order to be touched (and do the touching) without the fear of guilt, I needed a way to be able to let go. Of the physical aspects, and the mental part too. Both could be suppressed, easily, if you knew where to find it. Not quite legally, though.

I had been through a perverse phase where I thought, fuck it and let the chips fall where they may. It was a bit reckless, and a lot selfish. The type of partner I picked certainly didn't have much morality (on the surface level, at least), so why should I care if they got hurt? That filth would stay with me, and I had enough of my own shit to be dealing with.

The remedy dulled the malevolent edge of both my skin and the battling of my conscience. The worst they'd receive would be akin to an electric shock.

I just wanted to make it clear that I was doing it for all the right reasons. I didn't want to feel high. I didn't even want to feel a buzz. I wanted to feel nothing!

The location was exactly what you had in mind when someone said "drug den." Squalid rooms with graffiti-covered walls and broken glass and used hypodermic needles scattered over the floor. I was a 'take it and leave' kind of client. Usually. That evening, I was more desperate than usual.

Already liquored up enough that the embellished walls were spinning into a blur of black lines, I handed over a roll of bills to the kingpin sprawled in an armchair in one of the back rooms. Ringed fingers thumbed through them lazily, and when he was satisfied I hadn't stiffed him, he smiled wide enough for a gold molar to be visible.

"More than last time?"

I nodded.

Once I had what I needed, I set up next to a guy already passed out in what would have served as the 'front foom' in a normal suburban house, rolled my sleeve up, and used my hairband as a makeshift tourniquet.

The far-off sound of someone falling against the wall hit my ears. Someone had already found their oblivion.

Without warning, a strong hand wrapped around my arm, the tanned fingers so long they met around my bicep, and squeezed. My hazy vision swirled, then focused on a pair of too-familiar hazel eyes burning into mine. He ripped the band off my arm, yanked the needle away.

"What. The fuck. Are. You. DOING!"

I let out a yelp as he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and manhandled me out the door into his waiting truck, keys still in the ignition. Even in this neighborhood, no one would be crazy enough to take what belonged to the Wolverine.

He was so mad he was physically vibrating the steering wheel, although he had his focus very fixed on the road.

I sniffed, wiped the drop of blood that was hanging from a nostril, back to him. Not sulking at all.

"I let you in, what you specifically asked for, and you deal with it like THIS?"

"Let me live my own fucking life," I mumbled, head lulling to one side listlessly, then swayed joltingly back to attention.

He swerved over to the side of the road, slamming the door as he made his way to the passenger side of the truck.

Fury burned in his eyes as he yanked me from the seat.

"Out."

I realized I was slurring, probably hadn't understood what I'd been saying at all. Had I understood him? I did my illusion check again. Nope, definitely there and… that train was derailed by him jamming his fingers down my throat.

"Christ! What did you do that for?" I was on the ground, heaving. Nothing but black, caustic bile coming up.

"I told you to leave well enough alone because I knew you wouldn't be able to deal with it."

'I'm-not-a-kid," I replied from the loose mud I was currently lying on face-first.

"This behavior tells me otherwise. Wanna take this inside?"

He gestures to his house, which I'd been too self-absorbed to notice that we'd pulled up on the dirt patch he called a driveway.

"No thanks." I rolled onto my side, straight into the pile of acidic vomit, ignoring the hand he held out to pull me to my feet.

"Marie…" he sighed, almost tiredly.

This almost felt like one of those before times, one of those firsts. Where there was no danger, nothing to be ashamed of. Just me and the youthful abandon of barely legal adults adulting the best way they knew how to pretend. I giggled, remembering mine and Jubeilee's wild, barely-there outfits, teeteringly high heels and lack of inhibition. Then the thought sobered me.

Logan was still there, looking his usual surly self. Maybe more weary. But still with that hard, impassive expression. He then crouched down beside me, settling in the mud, leaning back against his truck.

We were at stalemate. Both too worn out to continue battle. Unexpected tears leaked out and ran down the side of my cheek, the side that faced away from him. I knew he smelt them. He stiffened next to me. Tears were not my style.

"Why?" I choked out, "Why are you doing this?"

"If there was an easy answer… you have to know, it wasn't about me gettin' off, or using you, Christ. I wasn't tryin' to hurt you."

I bolted upright, indignation flaming. I was about to interrupt, tell him how wrong he was, but something in his far-off look stopped me.

"I was trying to protect you. Give you what I thought you needed. I just wanted you to realize…"

The next words came out as a snarl, one I knew wasn't directed at me but with me as the subject, it made little difference.

"You were fifteen fuckin' years old when we met. How do'ya think that makes me feel? Having all those uncontrollable filthy thoughts over a little girl who was young enough to be my daughter."

"But-but…"

"My chance to do something right. To keep something good, and pure. You want me to say I didn't chase after Jean because she was the next best distraction I could have? You think I didn't know I'd fuck up your future? You had all these big dreams. Who was I to stand in the way of those?"

I continued stuttering and gaping.

He had to open his big stupid mouth. Had to let all that pent-up energy pour out, like letting blood. The blocks were all sliding into place like the most fucked up version of Tetrus. He could of, any time, at any point, made me that offer, knowing what my answer would have been. Knowing What it would look like. Knowing he couldn't in good conscience follow through with it.

"And now, things are diffrent. You pretend you can't touch, can't feel. You literally sleep with strangers, but you won't let me anywhere near. When I could be the answer…"

He trailed off, more lost in thought than stuck for words.

"When you told me, about them. The ones who didn't make it. It made me realize you'd done a hell of a lot of growing while I'd been away. Maybe too much." Thoughts of those rose bushes were too much to handle right now. The idea of the kind of life I'd imagined for myself and the harsh, muddy reality were stark.

"I had an illusion of what I wanted too. A woman to come home to each night, someone loving and loyal. Someone to depend on when times were hard. Life just doesn't always work out the way we plan."

And to my surprise, a lone tear streaked down his face.

"You're not the only one… who lost a child." His voice broke on the last word.