Terri's Peep Hut ~~ Fiction Archive

Comments: The 'With Maries' are kind of my writer's block release valve. I was getting pretty tense the past few days between planning Easter dinner and doing my taxes. And I have to say that, while my holiday dinners were nowhere near as bad as Marie's, my very first Easter dinner did end with two of the guests throwing things at each other and breaking up. Since then, every Easter (it doesn't seem to happen on Thanksgiving or Christmas, just Easter) that I've hosted has included some kind of big interpersonal fight or revelation. This story is kind of a product of those, plus my own theory that it's just not in the cards for me to host a peaceful Easter dinner. Oh well, can't have it all.

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I don't know why the hell I agreed to this. Well-I didn't actually agree to it, Marie did. I'm still getting used to that part of being married-one of you says something and it goes for both of you. Not that I usually mind, but this

See, the tradition around the mansion is that on holidays-Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Memorial Day, and Fourth of July-the staff and students have off, so the residents do the cooking and holiday stuff. Traditionally, Scooter and Jean always do that since they're like the mom-and-dad couple of the mansion. But, since Marie and me got married at Christmas, Scooter the Smartass suggested that we take over the holiday cooking duties for Easter.

Marie said yes right away. She thinks it'll be fun. I told her I don't know how to cook anything that can't be cooked over an open flame. I mean, if it'd been Memorial Day or Fourth of July or some shit, we could've barbecued. Raw meat, fire-that I could do. But Easter-we're talking about a ham that has to be cooked in an oven, some kind of vegetables and dessert. Marie said not to worry, she'd do most of the cooking, all I had to do was help. I told her I'd never seen her cook a single thing in all the time I've known her. I mean, I appreciate her enthusiasm, but we're in over our heads.

I think it's Scooter and Jean's way of getting back at us for eloping. It's been more than three months and I still haven't heard the end of that shit. 'Logan, how could you?' 'Don't you think you should've at least told us what you were planning?' 'We didn't get to give Rogue a wedding shower.' Eeesh. Marie's really gone out of her way to quash any ideas that she wanted a big wedding, but they're still bitching.

They did give Marie an after-the-fact wedding shower. That, I didn't really mind because I didn't have to attend, and because it resulted in some seriously interesting underwear that I know she'd have never bought for herself. What did annoy the living shit out of me was the dinner they threw. Jeannie said since they didn't get to hold a reception, they wanted to do a nice dinner for us. That doesn't sound so bad at first, does it? You're probably thinking it'd be kind of fun to have a big party, right? Ha. Shows what you know.

The first clue I had that this was going to be worse than I thought was when Scooter told me I had to dress up. I mean, I wore jeans to my own wedding, I shouldn't have to get more dressed up than that, right? But oh, no, nice pants were required. And a nice shirt. One that had to be ironed at some point. I absolutely refused to wear a tie, though. No way. Marie just took what Scooter said about dressing up in stride and picked out a damn nice dress-not too revealing or low-cut, but the perfect shade of blue for her and clingy. That was the highlight of the evening right there. The one and only highlight.

The night of the dinner comes, and we sit down at the head of this big table that's all decorated fancy and shit, and everybody's grinning at us. It was kind of creepy, actually. I don't think I've ever seen that many people smiling at me at once, and it seriously spooked me. Well, the Professor comes down shortly after us, and that's when things really started going downhill. He gets everyone's attention and makes this big speech about how happy he is that we finally got married and how great it is that we're happy. I mean, OK, all that's nice, but did he have to make a speech about it? And in front of everybody? I don't mind talking with Marie about that kind of stuff but, come on.

Then Scooter says something about how if this was a wedding reception, there'd be a toast by the best man. Then he stands up-STANDS UP-and starts making a speech. So very many things wrong with that. A-No way Scooter would have been my best man. No way in hell. The words 'best man' don't even belong in the same vicinity as Scooter. B-It's *not* a wedding reception. The whole damn reason I eloped with Marie was to avoid this shit, and you'd think one of the x-geniuses would have caught on to that. C-Another fucking speech about how great it is that we're married. I know it's great. I know everybody thinks it's great. I don't understand why the hell we have to talk about it, though, let alone make speeches in front of everyone who lives here.

I know what you're thinking-don't be an asshole, Logan, Marie probably liked it. Well, that's where you're wrong, buckaroo. I know my own wife, and she didn't like it any better than I did. She gets all flustered when she's the subject of a lot of attention, and she's as protective and private as I am about our relationship. When I looked over at her and she had this 'I'm-uncomfortable-as-hell-but-I-know-I-have-to-pretend-to-enjoy-this-because-they-went-to-so-much-trouble
' expression on her face, that's when I really got a little pissed off. I mean, I know they mean well and all, but there's no excuse for Marie-discomfort.

So by the time Scooter got done talking, I was a little hyped up. I squeezed Marie's leg under the table and whispered to her that we should make a break for it as soon as we had a chance. She nodded like a maniac, and I could tell that it wasn't just the speeches or the public attention. I could tell that she was reaching people-capacity. Even though she's almost totally comfortable around people one-on-one now, she still doesn't like crowds. Even crowds of her friends.

We ate dinner and drank champagne and I kept looking for a way to get the hell out of there. I think Chuck sensed how we were feeling and he really did try to tone things down a little. But then Jeannie and 'Ro said it was time for cake. I knew this ritual, I knew what was coming. They expected us to do something cute like feed each other cake while everyone watched. Oh no, bub. There's only so much I'm willing to do for the sake of politeness and it stops at cake-feeding.

I flat out told them-no cake. Marie backed me on it, and I know everybody thought she was doing that out of respect for me or something, but I could tell she didn't want to do it either. Everybody thought I was pretty much being a huge dickhead at that point, but I didn't really care. After endless minutes of back and forth about whether we were going to eat the damn cake, Chuck finally put a stop to it and said that he would cut the cake. Thank God. I still owe him for that one. Marie and I each took a plate of cake and high-tailed it out of there. Scooter and Jeannie and 'Ro were all fussing about how we couldn't up and leave a dinner in our honor, but we were already halfway up the stairs before they realized we really weren't coming back down.

As soon as the door to our room closed behind us, Marie let out a big sigh. I made sure the door was locked-'cause I knew that someone would come up to try to get us out eventually-and I flopped down on the bed, cake and all. Now, even though the whole dinner thing pissed me off to no end, something good did come out of it. Marie got this naughty little gleam in her eye and picked up her plate of cake. She took a scoop of the icing up with her finger and slowly-very, very slowly-sucked it off. Have I mentioned that I love my wife? I had that dress off of her less than a minute later, and we did end up making some very creative use of that cake. So, not all bad.

"So we won't have to worry about it tomorrow. Come on, I already made two pies from scratch. Scalloped potatoes aren't that hard." I've got to hand it to her. She did make two apple pies from scratch. And I mean scratch. She used, like, flour and shit. It was pretty impressive for someone I've never seen cook before. 'Course, I haven't tasted the pies yet.

"Marie, it's like, ten pounds of potatoes. That's almost a pound per person. Baby, don't go getting all tense over this. If the food's not good, well, they'll never ask us to cook again. There's an upside."

"Logan..I just want everyone to like it. It's my first holiday dinner. The first one that I've done, you know? It's-it's something almost normal. Like we'd do if we weren't x-men."

She looks a little down. I wonder if this is bugging her for different reasons than I thought. "Did your family do stuff like this?" She really doesn't like to talk about them much, and I don't usually pry. I've almost had my ass on a bike to Mississippi with murder on my mind more than once.

"Yeah, but.it wasn't a good thing. I mean, there was always fighting and yelling and throwing things. One Easter my Dad picked up the whole platter of ham and threw it against the wall."

"Asshole." I can just picture a cute as hell little Marie sitting at the table, all wide brown eyes and fuzzy hair watching that shit. Makes me pissed off to think about that. Better just think about peeling the potatoes.

"Yeah, he was. I remember always wanting to have something normal-you know, just quiet and peaceful-for the holidays. I guess 'normal' just isn't my destiny."

"Well, maybe, but that really doesn't say much for you." She's trying to change the subject by teasing me a little. I can tell she doesn't want to talk about it much more.

Easter Sunday. D-Day. Dinner day. Marie got me up at seven this morning to do the ham. She said that had to go in at seven. Glad I got up to help her-I used my claws to score the outer layer so she could put cloves in. They were very stinky, and I'm not sure how they could possibly improve the taste of ham, but Marie seemed pretty sure. She kept saying something about glaze being too much trouble, so, cloves. At least she poured some beer over it before she put it in the oven. Beer's bound to help the taste of just about anything.

Scalloped potatoes are good to go. Those were complicated-three different cheeses and mushroom soup and all that layering-but they smelled pretty good when they were done. Marie's chopping up vegetables for salad, and she said she's still got to make some green bean thing, but it looks like we're actually doing pretty OK with the cooking thing.

Now, I'll admit-I don't know everything about Marie. There's a fair amount that she keeps to herself, and I don't really begrudge her that. I mean, I'm not exactly Mr. Openness myself. But this cooking thing-I had no idea she even knew how to do this shit. No idea whatsoever. None. Never saw her do it before, never thought to ask about it, it just never came up at all until now. Kind of makes me wonder what else is in there, what else she might be able to do that I don't know about. She's always surprising me.

She's grinning at me-first smile of the day, she's been pretty tense. "Don't know. I guess I just never really thought to cook for you before. Meals are always provided here, or, you know, we go out. I bet you kind of like the idea of me cooking for you now that you know, huh?"

"Yeah, I kind of do." There's something primal about having your woman feed you. And I chop potatoes with my claws-I'm a primal kind of guy. "You need any more help?"

"Nah. I'll set the table in a few. Why don't you go on up and get showered? I'll be up in a little while. The ham's got a few hours, and that should be plenty of time to get everything ready."

"Everything's wonderful, Rogue. The ham is delicious." Jeannie's not kidding about that. She's put away a whole plateful, and I must've had at least two pounds worth of it myself.

"Mmm. Yes, everything is primo, girl!" Jubilee's been packing away the grub too. Well, everything *is* good. Marie did a real good job. And I can tell she's happy about how it turned out and everyone liking it. I can tell it was important to her.

"Thanks. Logan helped a lot." She's glancing at me, trying to share the credit like she always does. I don't have the heart to tell her it ain't really a guy-compliment to be good at cooking.

"Well, everything is marvelous. You have to give me the recipe for the potatoes. They were exquisite." 'Ro's a vegetarian-I forgot all about that but Marie made some kind of eggplant thing for her, special, instead of the ham.

"No. No we aren't. That honor goes back to Scooter." Enough adventures in cooking for me. Marie can have her nice, normal holiday dinner, and then we go back to no cooking.

"Well, it'd be bound to taste better than your sorry-ass excuse for barbecue." 'Cause he can't cook manly things to save his-oh-oh. Marie's got a little bit of a look going there. Shit. Fighting. Fighting at dinner. That's what she didn't want. Even if it's just playing, she's still getting a little tense.

"Yeah. Well, I like meat. Whatever. Hey-pass the green bean thing." Change of subject. Right now. Nothing resembling fighting is going to go on during this dinner.

"Casserole. It's a green bean casserole, Logan." Kitty does not know how to keep her mouth shut. Smartass kid. But I'm not going to say anything. Not during dinner.

"Kitty, chere, tell de people de news, huh?" I don't like the cajun. Never have, never will. And especially not today, 'cause he's been all pissy. I don't know what women see in this guy.

"It's nothing, Scott, it's just that, uh, I've decided to stop seeing Remy and to go out with Kurt. It's not important. And it's kind of private." She's glaring at Remy, and I can feel Marie's body tense up beside me. I swear to God, if they don't stop this right now-

"The both of you-shut the hell up and sit down. Now." Sometimes you've got to be clear to get the job done. And a little display of the claws never hurt. "We're having a nice dinner. A nice dinner that *my* wife took the time to cook for you goddammit, so sit your asses down, shut the hell up, and eat. Try to have some consideration for other fucking people for once. The world don't revolve around your little dramas. Ungrateful brats, both of you. Sit."

Shit, now everything's tense and quiet. Good job, Logan. I don't know if I even want to look at Marie 'cause she probably knows I meant well, but she probably is-

"Thanks, Logan." Real soft, just a Marie-whisper, so only I really heard. And she don't look too bad. Tense, yeah. A little unhappy, yeah. But she also looks kind of pleased with me.

"I'm sorry it didn't go like you wanted, baby." She doesn't really seem upset, not too bad, just kind of resigned. I don't like it. I wanted her to have what she wanted.

"Well, it went OK. I mean, everybody liked the food and everything. And you know what? I think I'm beginning to realize that you just don't get everything in life. If you did, life would be perfect, right? And we all know it's not. Maybe I'll never have a non-fighting holiday dinner, but I've got you for a wonderful husband, I've got a good home, I've got good friends. That's a lot. I'm willing to trade off quiet holidays for all of that, if that's how the forces of destiny want it to be."

"Wasn't anything. They were pissing me off. You worked so hard cooking and everything and all they give a crap about is their stupid love life." Dumb ass kids. I ought to scare them again, maybe put the claws out for a little emphasis.

"It made me think how glad I am that we aren't like that-fighting and mad all the time. And when you said what you did, well, it reminded me how much I count on you. How much you're always looking out for me. I appreciated it."

"I always stick up for you, baby." Just going to join her on our bed. Our bed. Going to join my beautiful, talented wife on our bed. She's right, you know. Life is pretty good. We're pretty lucky.

"Honey, the day I ever raise my voice to you or throw shit at you is the day hell would freeze over. Come here." Just going to cuddle with her a little. She looks like she's in need of a little cuddlage.

"Maybe." Could be another shot at a nice holiday for her. "Maybe you could convince me a little." 'Cause I really do hate cooking. And I really do love it when she tries to convince me of stuff. She's pretty talented at that too.