Terri's Peep Hut ~~ Fiction Archive

Comments: This was written in response to my brbf's request for a story featuring Logan eating beignets, set in New Orleans. For what seemed like an eternity, I had nothin'. But then I got feedback from someone who'd just read Rougher Ride (an earlier alter-eighteen) and desperately wished I'd found a way to let Logan hurt, maim, or kill Gary. Well, that reader wasn't alone, and I figured I'd cover both in one story. This is also to appease my Logan-muse, who's still upset about the pedicure episode in Spa Wolvie. He expressed his displeasure at claw-point, and demanded to be allowed to return to his normal bad-ass disposition. I write to please :) BTW-I lived in New Orleans for a few years, and I can tell you that four a.m. is definitely the most interesting hour to hang out at Café du Monde.

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It was a normal day in Logan's life. Get up, fight, drink, eat, sleep. Nothing to interrupt the normal rhythm, nothing different from the past five weeks. Nothing different than what the next three weeks could be expected to bring. Eight weeks, total, of the same thing, day in, day out. Normal.

Except that today wasn't going to continue being normal, and he knew it as soon as he approached his rented efficiency apartment. He smelled someone inside. That was abnormal in and of itself-he spoke to very few people, and had made sure none had seen his apartment. But the other things carried on the scent-fear, anxiety, and blood-told him this was not just unusual, it was at least a little dangerous too.

He felt fairly sure that whoever was in there couldn't sense him through the door, so he took a moment to think through his options. He could just bail. He'd run, having only the clothes on his back and his special "gifts" to rely on, before. He could go in. Whoever it was smelled terrified-and probably of him. He could go away and come back later, hoping that whoever was in there would leave by then. He didn't have much worth stealing, and whatever was going on, whatever had led to a scared, bleeding person sneaking into his apartment, he frankly wasn't that interested in. It would either sort itself out, or it wouldn't, so he decided to give it some time to figure out which it wanted to do.

Crossing Decatur Street and following the river for a few blocks, he came up on Café du Monde. He'd never stopped there before-too touristy-but it smelled good to him now. He sat at a table near the street and ordered café au lait and beignets. There weren't many people around at four in the morning, and he began to actually enjoy himself. He sat, watched people go by, wondered how many of them might be mutants, mentally recounted the money he'd made fighting at Gary's, and thought a little about where to go once this tournament was over. He'd win-of that he was certain-but it would be time to move on. It was already getting hot and it was only April. He had no desire to stick around for summer in New Orleans.

Maybe back to Canada. He almost thought of it as home-it was at least the place he was most familiar with, and he did own land there, and a sort of makeshift home. And it wasn't ever hot or humid - two things that held a profound appeal for him after more than a month in the swamp. What the hell ever possessed a bunch of French Canadians to move down here all those years ago was beyond him. He knew what had possessed him-the promise of a large purse, and a contestant pool unfamiliar with his special prowess in the ring. He had counted on easy money, and hadn't counted on so much humidity that he felt like he'd been flushed down a toilet every time he walked outside. He really did miss Canada.

When he was finished eating, drinking, and thinking, he wandered at a leisurely pace back to his apartment. The smell was still there when he arrived, only moreso. More fear, more anxiety, and definitely more blood. Not a lot, not enough to be a fatal wound, but more than a few drops. Well, time to go in, he thought. Some of his money and what few possessions he had were in that room, and he guessed he'd just as soon have them as not.

He wasn't prepared for what he found-although it did make sense of the smells. There was a young girl handcuffed to the metal cot that served as his bed. She'd been trying to free her hand from the metal cuff, trying so hard that she'd cut deeply into the skin of her wrist, as well as into her fingers on the other hand. It looked like she'd managed to drag the metal cot halfway across the room in the process. She was looking at him with eyes wide with fear and red from crying. Something was definitely wrong here-she had bruises across one cheek and a black eye, and red marks on her throat that disappeared beneath a light scarf tied around her neck. She was too petrified to move, let alone say anything, and Logan knew if he wanted an explanation, he'd have to ask for it.

"Who the fuck wants to know?" He saw her tremble visibly at that, then move slowly to try to put the bed between herself and him. She still hadn't answered, and frankly, that was not acceptable to him. He tried another approach. "Who're you?"

"P-please don't. Please don't." She was shaking her head back and forth, eyes pleading. Somehow, that pitiful, small gesture reached through to Logan, at least enough to make him realize he wasn't going to get the answers he wanted until she calmed down a little, and that he was going to have to be the one to do the calming.

"Hey." He managed to make his voice softer, almost gentle, and he held out his hands, palms up, trying to show her he meant her no harm. "Just tell me how you wound up in here, OK? How'd you get handcuffed to that?"

"Gary?" Now why the fuck would he do that, Logan thought. He knew Gary was running a lot of stuff, most of it on the wrong side of legal, out of the fight club. Prostitution, child porn, white slavery-all of it was profitable, and none of it particularly bothered Logan. Well, it did, but not enough for him to stop fighting in the tournament, and certainly not enough for him to try to put a stop to any of it. He'd learned early on that more Garys would only pop up to take the place of this one, and that no matter how many people you tried to help, there were a hundred that you'd never get to for each one that you might manage to save. Why bother? Especially when some of those people just kicked you for trying to help them. Logan had learned that lesson particularly well.

"I-I.." She was beginning to tug at the cuff holding her to the bed again. It just kept cutting into her wrist. Neither the cuff nor the metal post were going to give, not in her lifetime.

Logan let her tug at it a few seconds, then tried to suppress his anger and speak calmly to her. "Look, I ain't gonna do nothin' to ya. I just wanna know why Gary sent you. I know you know why. I can smell it on ya."

"Me too." All the tension bled out of her with those words, and it was Logan's turn to go wide-eyed. All he could think was that she couldn't have any useful mutation. If she had, she'd have gotten herself loose by now. "Gary.Gary sent me because of it. I-my skin, it can kill people if they touch it. I absorb them somehow, their life, their memories, and I kill them in the process. Gary thought-he said you'd attack me, try to-try to hurt me and when you did, my skin would kill you. I-I didn't want to. I didn't, I said no even after he-" She stopped herself, but Logan could guess at where that was bound to finish up. "So he hit me until I passed out and I woke up here. He-he knew I-I wouldn't have done it, I wouldn't have. So he made sure you'd find me here. I tried.I tried to get away. He was so sure you'd just.."

He knew what Gary must've told her-the Wolverine, the animal, you won't be able to stop him, and if you don't kill him, he'll kill you, and worse. It didn't bother him that Gary thought those things about him-most people did. But it did bother him that the girl had believed it, and worse, it pleased him that she didn't seem to believe it any more. Logan never cared what people thought, actively set out not to care, and the fact that he did now despite it all made him feel as uncomfortable as he ever had.

"He just-he said something about you winning all the time and him losing money. I don't know-I really don't know what that means. He-I'm pretty sure he doesn't know you're a mutant. He doesn't know about the smell thing."

"It ain't just that." Logan put his claws out, on some level thinking that this would create the usual and appropriate reaction in the girl. Then things could go back to normal, and his world would once again be filled with people he barely knew and cared even less about. People whose reactions to him didn't matter.

"Oh! Are those-they're metal, aren't they?" She edged closer to him, reaching out for his claws with her free hand. "Can I?" That wasn't the usual reaction. That was the opposite of the usual reaction, in fact.

He didn't respond verbally, just extended his hand so that the claws were within her reach. She ran one bare finger across them, and tilted her head a little. Curious, Logan thought, she's just curious. She doesn't mean for it to feel good to him, doesn't mean for him to feel anything at all from it. She's just indulging her curiosity. He tried to focus on that, remember that.

He let her continue, waiting until she looked up at him with a half-smile on her face and drew her hand away. He let the claws stay out, though. He had an idea. "They'll cut through that." He nodded at the cuff.

She nodded agreement and he crossed the small space between them to stand next to her. Examining her bleeding wrist, he tried to judge how best to handle it without causing more damage to her and without touching her skin. She seemed to understand what he was doing. "It's OK if it hurts. I just want out of it." Her voice was very steady, and Logan couldn't smell fear or anxiety anymore. Just the blood, and that was making him mad. The scent of her blood elicited an unusually strong response from him, and for no reason he could think of. He drew blood, much more than this, every night in the ring, and the truth was that sometimes he relished that smell, basked in it. This-this was just making him want to smash things. Big things.

"Hold still." Cutting the handcuff would have to do for now - breaking things, preferably Gary's spine, would come later. Logan retrieved a handkerchief from his back pocket and used it to protect himself as he slid his hand between her wrist and the cuff, cushioning it on one side. Retracting all but one of the claws, Logan carefully slid the tip of the claw between her wrist and the handcuff on the side opposite his own hand. It was metal cutting metal, and he was pretty sure that he'd have to pull tightly on the cuff to break it. His hand would be cut up pretty good on the backside, but that didn't really matter. It would only be damaged for a few seconds.

He did it quickly, causing her to let out a little gasp. And it did cut his hand-some blood even surfaced before it began to heal. She rubbed gingerly at her wrist and looked down at his hand.

He had no response to that. Yes, it was why he always won. That and his adamantium-reinforced skeleton. But the way she'd said it was what had silenced him. Teasing, almost in a friendly, just-between-us way. Like they were something to each other, almost like they were friends. "Yeah," he finally managed.

"Every time," he answered involuntarily. She frowned in reply, and for a moment he thought she'd say she was sorry about that. But the moment passed, and she simply stood there, just inches away from him.

"I should go," she offered. "Thanks-for-you know." He did know. And the odd part about it was that he knew and he accepted it instead of being uncomfortable with it. In fact, he wanted to do more for her, wanted to do more that would merit her thanks.

"You can-you can use the bathroom to clean up if you like." He thought she might take him up on that. She was a mess, and dirty too-dried blood, sweat, and tears soaked her tank top and her jeans were covered in dirt. From the smell of her, it had been a long time since she'd showered. Though he knew little about women, he knew they generally liked to be clean, that it mattered to them more than men. A slim thread, but one he hoped would reach her.

"Yeah. It's no problem. You can borrow some of my clothes if you wanna get outta those. They're in the closet right there." That should be an offer she couldn't refuse-Logan remembered what it was like to badly want a shower and fresh clothes and to not be able to have it.

"Thanks. If-if you don't mind, I think I will. Thanks." She turned to go, but stopped after a few steps and turned back to him. "I'm Marie. Gary-Gary called me Rogue, but my name is Marie." She said it with conviction, as though it was a critical distinction.

"Thanks, Logan." He liked how she said it, liked how she smiled a little when she turned back to the bathroom, and liked that he had pulled it off-he had done another thing to merit her thanks.

When she emerged from the shower, wrapped in a towel, he made himself not look, not take more than a glimpse. He'd been thinking. First, he was going to kill Gary. Literally, no question about it. He didn't take kindly to people trying to kill him, but moreover, Gary was just the kind of person that the phrase "he needed killing" had been coined for. Logan couldn't see a single downside to doing it. Well-there was the potential that he'd be caught by law enforcement, but not if he did it quickly and quietly, and not if he left town, perhaps the country. The police-especially here in New Orleans-could be counted on not to try very hard to solve these kind of murders.

Second, what to do with Marie? He'd gotten the idea of keeping her into his head. Keeping her for what, he didn't exactly know, but he was sure he wanted to keep her. If he let her go right away, she'd be in danger if Gary found her. She didn't seem very street-smart, and even though her power was capable of killing Gary, he had a feeling she wouldn't do it. She'd said something about absorbing the people she touches, and even if she got past whatever moral problems she had with killing that piece of shit, she wouldn't want to absorb him. That'd stop her. If he let her loose, it'd be as good as turning her over to Gary, and he'd already seen what treatment she could expect. No, he'd have to think of a way to keep her, to make her stay here now and go with him later. And it would have to be a way that wasn't too forceful. He didn't want to scare her off.

Third, what to do next? He couldn't go back to the fight club. He was done here, and just as well. Canada-well, he'd have to chance crossing the border with a girl who probably had no papers. Or he'd have to get fake ones made. He could make money again when he crossed over, but how much would he need to support another person? And what if he wanted to head for his cabin? Would she go someplace so remote and completely lacking in modern conveniences? What was she used to and what would she expect?

Lastly, there was the question of how to find some of those things out-in other words, what to do right now? Logan gave this the most thought because it was the trickiest to answer. From what he knew about Gary's other businesses and from the looks of her, he could make a few guesses. She was probably a runaway. Probably underage, so no real job or place to stay was going to be possible. Probably had few friends or family that would be willing to help her because she was a mutant. Probably too naïve to see what Gary wanted with her until it was too late. Probably from close by, judging by her accent. Marie right now was probably very, very scared but Logan knew she wasn't afraid of him. He also knew she felt thankful-really *felt* it-toward him. That could give him an in with her, could make her more open to talking to him, to going along with him keeping her.

By the time she emerged, he'd gotten a rough idea of how to go about all that. He let her walk around the apartment, keeping his eyes trained on the window. He listened to her shuffle through his clothes and dress, listened as she returned to the bathroom and worked his comb through her hair, listened as she stood silent for a few long moments. When it felt right, he spoke.

"Yeah. I feel so much better clean, you know?" When he turned to look at her, his knee-jerk reaction was that she looked better too. With some of the dirt and blood gone, the bruises stood out in sharper contrast to her pale skin, but otherwise it was an improvement all around. He noted that she'd chosen the most skin-covering clothing from his closet-a long-sleeve turtleneck, sweatpants, socks-without regard to their warmth factor. She'd have to be too warm in that; it was well into the eighties, Fahrenheit.

"Yeah. Hey-you want somethin' to eat? There's some stuff in the little fridge there." He said it casually, but it was really a very important question. If she just said yes, Logan thought, it might mean that she wanted to stick around a little too. It might mean she was open to him keeping her.

"Take whatever ya want, but would you mind grabbin' me a beer while you're in there?" That would cause her to come over to him on the sofa, and maybe she'd sit there instead of at the small kitchen table.

"Sure." She'd retrieved leftover Chinese food and two beers. And she did sit on the couch, at the opposite end. "I really appreciate you being so nice to me, I want you to know that."

"It's no problem. I, uh, appreciate you not tryin' to kill me." That sounded tense and forced even to his own ears, but he wanted to mirror her behavior a little, to make her more at ease.

"What're you gonna do now?" Logan strongly suspected she had no plan. But he wanted her to say it out loud, to let herself hear it right out there, if that was the case. That too, would make her more open to hearing his plans for her.

"I guess I'll just move on. I mean-if-if you don't mind me keeping these clothes." Logan nodded permission, and she smiled. "Thanks. I, uh, washed out my scarf and it should be dry pretty soon. I think the rest of my clothes are trashed. I guess I'll just go somewhere else."

She laughed at that a little, and Logan thought that it looked natural on her and right. Like that was how she'd normally be. "I have an idea, but it's kind of crazy." Her eyes flitted across his gaze, and the now-familiar half-smile appeared on her lips. "I thought about hitchhiking to Alaska. I've always wanted to see snow."

Aha, Logan thought, that's it. I can fit in with that. "Ya know, I'm from Canada. Plenty of snow up there. And I'm headed back up soon. If you wanted to go, I could give you a ride." He'd said it casually again, as though it wasn't at all important to him what her response was, but she hadn't taken it casually, not at all. Her body tensed, she leaned forward, and her mouth tugged down into a frown.

"No. Whatever-whatever you're thinking I'll offer in return for the ride." She said it apologetically, as though she'd breached those southern manners somehow by talking about a forbidden subject out loud.

"That's not all, though, is it? You're-you're thinking of something else. Maybe not that but." She had the curious look again, and Logan realized his expression or tone must have given away more than he'd intended. Now what to do?

"Yeah. I found you here and I was thinkin' I'd keep you." He knew it made her sound like some kind of discarded, trash-heap, used-up thing, but it was what he'd thought in his head.

"Not for what Gary did." Best to get that right out, Logan thought. "Just to have around. You don't bother me. You don't seem to be bothered by me." That was what was at bottom, what lay beneath his reaction to her and hers to him. It was a rare thing, and Logan knew it. He hoped Marie did too.

Logan wondered if he'd done something to give his thoughts away there too, or whether she just wanted to know. "He's done. He's over. He'll come lookin' eventually, to be sure you did the job. When he does, that's it." She nodded solemnly, and Logan felt hopeful. That was the worst part. That would be the most difficult thing for her to agree to. Keeping her, Canada-that was easy in comparison. This-well, it wasn't her nature, and it was something she'd never do left to her own devices. It was murder plain and simple, and she was right, she wasn't the killing type. But her response meant something too, it meant that she wasn't the type to stand in the way of rightful revenge, or to judge that for other people.

"I don't have anything. It's just me and I don't-I'm not at all useful. And I'm having kind of an emotional crisis right now." All that had been fairly obvious to Logan from the start. "What I mean is - you'd have to take care of me a little. If you did. If you did decide to keep me." She talked like it was a decision out of her hands, and that caught Logan's attention. He might have thought about it that way-him keeping her-but didn't want it to actually be exactly like that. He wanted some agreement, some go ahead from her. Taking advantage of a situation in which she had limited options and making himself look like the best one was one thing; her going along because she thought she didn't have *any* options was another.

Gary did show up, just as Logan had predicted, almost to the minute. As it turned out, Gary arrived at 5:02 a.m., giving himself an extra two minutes on the planet. When he opened the door, he saw Marie on the bed, still actually asleep. He made the mistake of taking a step toward her, a step into the apartment. He never saw Logan coming from the side, just felt the sharp metal slicing his throat, neatly severing his windpipe. Logan retracted the claw, and Gary dropped. That woke Marie. She looked briefly over at Gary's fallen form, then back up at Logan. He told her gently to go back to sleep, and she simply lay her head back down on the pillow, turning away from them both.

Logan knelt beside Gary, carefully avoiding the spreading pool of blood. He'd been deliberate in his first cut, careful not to sever Gary's jugular. He wanted time to explain a few things.

"That was for me. This is for her." Logan said it loud enough for Marie to hear, but didn't look for her reaction. He extended all three claws, sinking the tips into Gary's stomach, then slowly, excruciatingly slowly, dragging them upward to his rib cage. Gary couldn't scream, couldn't breathe, couldn't make a sound. He could only suffer, and Logan made sure that he did. When it was over, and Logan smelled death on him, he rose and looked to Marie. She looked back unflinchingly.

They drove in silence for the first few hours. Logan wanted to let Marie be the first to speak, give her a chance to think through everything that must be going on in her head. When she did speak, he wanted to be ready to handle her reaction.

"He hurt you. I didn't like that." Maybe that wasn't the whole story-maybe he liked doing it, maybe he got angrier than he thought he would, maybe it mattered to him more than he was ready to admit-but it was true.

"I hope you don't think-I hope you don't think I'm a bad person because of that. But it's how I feel." If he'd been looking at this conversation from the outside, Logan might have laughed at that. But he understood why she said it and what she meant.

"I'm sorry you had to do it. I mean, I'm not sorry you did it, or that he's dead or that he suffered. Not really. But I'm sorry you had to do that." Her bare hand rested lightly on his thigh. "You're not a bad person either."

"I kinda am." That just came out, and Logan knew it sounded bad, but it was too late to take it back. She might as well know now. And, in a way, he felt confident that it wouldn't bother her. It didn't seem like anything up to and including watching him commit murder had so far. Maybe in some way, she'd decided to keep him too, and now nothing was going to change that. At least nothing like being a bad person. It wouldn't matter if she'd decided he was *her* person. "I don't usually do anythin' good."

"You're an exception." He didn't tease back, he wanted her to know he meant it, both to make her realize that he *wasn't* good and to make her see that she *was* an exception to that, that he would behave differently toward her.

They crossed the border without incident after about four days of driving. They spent the night at a little roadside motel, the kind without HBO or even cable but with a coin-operated massage-bed. They'd traveled quite companionably together, getting to know one another slowly, naturally. Marie commented just before reaching the motel that she thought Logan was the only person she'd ever really known, and he beamed at the compliment.

He listened to her run the water and undress, then heard her ease into the tub. Marie was usually good for a 30-45 minute soak, and Logan wanted some time to think. He hadn't discussed going to the cabin with her, and he needed to give some thought to how to approach that. If she didn't want to go, they wouldn't, at least not now, but he'd gotten the idea of them heading straight up and staying indefinitely stuck in his head. That had implications. Implications for their relationship, and not easily handled ones.

If he'd been asked what he wanted, Logan would've answered that he wanted a sexual relationship with her, that he wanted her to be his and no one else's, and that most of all, he wanted her to care for him, maybe even love him. He had no idea how much of that she wanted too. He'd be willing to take whatever she could give, but heading up to the cabin, living alone and isolated, might not be the best thing to do if she wasn't wanting any of those things. After all, the deal was that he'd keep her without asking for her to make offers in return. And he honestly wasn't sure he had the self-control to stick to that deal scrupulously if they were at the cabin.

How could he get that across to her? And what *did* she want? She'd gone with him, seemed to like him, seemed comfortable with him. What was underneath that? Marie herself didn't give any clues, or at least none that Logan found useful. She said once that she was glad she'd met him, even if it had to happen the way it did. She said once that he made her feel safe, but that wasn't surprising since he'd killed, partly on her behalf. She said once that he was the only person who hadn't been afraid of her skin. That was probably because he couldn't be killed by it, or at least he didn't think so, no matter what Gary had thought. She said once that she was glad the first time she'd see snow would be with him.

"Can you get the conditioner? It's in my bag." They'd stopped about twelve hours out from New Orleans at a Wal-Mart. Marie had been reluctant to tell Logan what she wanted, but finally admitted to a desire for hair conditioner, lotion, and several pairs of gloves. They ended up buying seven pairs of varying fabrics and styles. Marie tended not to wear them in the truck, with Logan, but put them on as soon as she stepped out of it. Logan understood.

"You can look." That was just a whisper, soft and unsure. Logan took her up on it though, turning his head to openly gaze at her and taking a step toward her. He wordlessly handed her the conditioner and sat on the toilet, still watching.

Marie smiled nervously but reassuringly and squirted out some of the pink goop into her hand. Logan watched, fascinated, as she worked it through her hair, then sat back to return to idle soaking once more. "Do you want to talk?" Her voice was soft, lazy, and Logan thought that now was certainly the time to talk about some of the things he'd been considering.

When her eyes opened, all uncertainty was gone. She was more sure, more definite than he'd ever seen her. "If I could pick, I'd be with you in every way possible. I know it sounds strange because we haven't known each other long, but I'm positive that I want to be with you."

That was what he'd wanted, needed to hear. Now Logan was sure too. "I wanna take you somewhere. It's a small cabin, high in the mountains. It's mine. There's no runnin' water, no electricity, and it'll be hard livin'. But I want us to go. Together. Now."

Marie reached out a wet hand to him. He moved to kneel by the tub and to let her run her fingers through his hair. "OK," she agreed, and continued to touch him where it was safe.

"It's so beautiful I could just cry." They'd gotten the first big snow of the winter early, and Logan had taken Marie out for a good look as soon as the storm ended. There wasn't a lot of hikable ground near the cabin, but they could at least explore a little. "There's got to be two feet of snow on the ground."

"It makes everything look so clean." She was getting close to tears, he could smell it on her. They'd spent almost five months up here, and she'd done a lot of crying. Getting it out of her system, she called it. She never discussed the particulars, but every time it happened, Logan wished he hadn't killed Gary so easily or so quickly. He should still be suffering now.

"A lot better than livin' in the swamp, huh?" What he could do now was try to cheer her up, which usually worked. This time was no exception. He got a big smile from her, a smile that reached her eyes.

"I found somethin' pretty good. Glad I hung on to it." When he looked back on it, that first day with her at the apartment, he wondered at his good judgment and decisiveness. It was uncharacteristic for him, in a lot of ways. But it had brought him Marie and this life, and that in and of itself almost made him believe there was some kind of higher power at work in the universe. It almost made him believe he wasn't a bad person, if he could have this.

"You know what they say - finders, keepers." She gave him the look-the look that he craved, the one that said she could give him what he wanted from her, and that he could give her what she needed too.

Her broad smile said that she wanted to show him too. "Yeah, let's go. The snow will still be here." She winked, playfully, and ran for the cabin. Logan followed, breathing her in along with the snow.