Logan flipped through the sports pages of the Daily Bugle from his perch at the counter and took a pull from his second beer. The rice bubbled soothingly on the burner beside him as Ororo set the table in the breakfast nook. Ororo smiled to herself whenever he occasionally grunted aloud or cursed under his breath.
“You’re unusually chatty today.”
“Eh.” The newsprint pages rattled together, breaking the tempo of thumps from Ororo’s cane across the hardwood floor. Ororo reached for a glass for herself from the cupboard. She brought it back to the cherrywood table and set it on the placemat closest to the kitchen door. Logan folded and set aside the Bugle and lifted the lid from the sauté pan, releasing plumes of rich, savory steam.
He was gonna miss this. Dammit.
Civilized. Yeah, that was it. Companionable. Friendly. God help him, it was even…domestic.
Unconsciously, Logan flexed his fingers and stretched, popping the joints in his neck. Didn’t help. None of it helped. He ran his palm over the stiff hairs covering his nape. All of ‘em were standing on end. The Molson didn’t chase away the swampy aftertaste of the Jack Daniels from ten hours before. Ororo pulled out a mosaic tiled trivet and set it atop the antique wood before she brought out the skillet and serving spoon.
Logan’s dark eyes followed her progress, assessing her posture. Her gait. The rolling, undulating movement of her hips. The graceful flex of her lissome thighs. His knuckles tingled and itched abominably. He scrubbed the itch with his blunt fingernails. Every nerve ending in his body cried out in protest, begging to be scratched. Shit. All it ever took was one little scratch. His skin felt too tight. The Beast within him snarled and clawed his insides, fighting to get out.
Of course, it might help if he fed it once in a while. He leaned over to flick off the burner switch and removed the rice from the heat.
“Logan, could you bring in the-“
“Got it, darlin,’ just a sec.” He grabbed a serving spoon out of the utensil rack and snagged a potholder from the counter, placing it under the saucepan to protect the table.
“Lunch is served, milord,” Ororo announced, her lilting, deep voice affecting more pear-shaped vowels. Logan quirked an eyebrow.
“Buttering me up won’t get ya anywhere, ‘Ro. I meant what I said. Quit overdoin’ it.” Ororo’s eyes narrowed again before she gave her attention to her meal. Logan loaded his fork with rice and a plump chunk of chicken breast and closed his mouth around it. A sound of pleased surprise escaped him. “Not too shabby at all.”
“I found some of Peter’s old cookbooks in the pantry,” she admitted. “Gives me something to do.”
“Hm. So yer tellin’ me yer bored ta death with all the gait training, parallel bars, yoga, physical therapy, weights, and pool workouts I’ve been throwin’ at ya?”
“No. Not bored.” Ororo raked her fork through her rice thoughtfully. “Just restless. Cabin fever.” Heat rushed into Ororo’s cheeks as she measured her words. “I need to fly Logan. I have to get up into the clouds, or I’ll go mad.”
“Ya have ta crawl before you can walk. And ya have ta walk before you can fly.” Snowy, delicately arched brows drew together at him. Logan bared his teeth in retort. “Yer walkin,’ ‘Ro, I ain’t blind. But I can smell yer impatience every moment o’ the day, I can feel yer aches an’ pains, yer radiating it. Ya can’t use yer powers, grand though they are, as a crutch. Yer spine was practically ripped ta shreds. Ya don’t just hop up from a wound like that an’ go back to life as usual, tiltin’ at windmills.”
“You do.” Logan practically choked on his chicken.
“Got a healin’ factor, darlin,’ it ain’t the same…”
“Oh, I think it is.” Ororo’s fork hit the fine Noritake china plate with a harsh clink. “I’ve been doing it your way these past few months. I don’t regret putting myself in your hands. You’ve said it enough times, Logan, there’s no one else I’d rather have at my back. But I’ve been closed up in this bloody house, all but chained to the ground like a deer clamped in a trap. I have no release.” Logan laced his fingers together and propped his chin up on them, leaning in as Ororo made her case. “Don’t pretend that this has been a picnic, that you don’t need to escape just as much. I heard you when you came in last night, or should I say this morning?” Ororo cleared her throat. “I hate it when you do that, you know?”
“When I do what?”
“I know you’re getting tired of me. But I truly despise it, Logan, hate it with every fiber of my being, when you disappear for hours on end and try to drown your sorrows away.”
“Who said I was gettin’ tired of you?” Logan’s brows scowled this time, darkening his eyes to burning coals. “First of all, chickadee, I ain’t tired of you, an’ we went over this before. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t wanna. Number two, last time I checked, I was a grownup, ta say the least. I’m allowed ta sip somethin’ besides Kool-Aid when I get thirsty. And news flash, darlin,’ I’m always gonna have sorrows, whether I try ta make ‘em float away on a tide of the good stuff or not. And ya can’t sit here and preach ta me about how I deal with my feelings, when ya walk around this place with yer best face forward fer everybody else’s benefit but yer own.” Logan’s hackles rose up again as Ororo’s scent changed. Challenge sparked in her eyes, ringing the irises with white sparks.
“Logan,” she began, pushing back from the table.
“Uh-uh.” Logan’s large hand slapped down onto the arm of Ororo’s chair, holding her immobile as he edged close enough to see the flaring of her nostrils and hear the quickening of her heartbeat. Damn. “Yer not goin’ anywhere.”
“Back off,” she snarled. “I’m going outside. You’re allowed parole for good behavior, Wolverine. Now it’s my turn.” He grunted as she grasped his hand and flung it aside to stand, flinching at the faint brush of her leg against his denim-clad knee.
“Ro, yer cane…”
“You know where you can stick it.” Ororo’s back was ramrod-straight as she strode through the kitchen and out the back door.
“Aw, hell. No ya don’t, ‘Ro, get yer sweet ass back here “ORORO!” Logan practically stumbled over his own feet as he chased after her, the thud of his boots across the planks matching the pace of his heart. He caught the door before it could swing shut in his face, just in time to catch Ororo standing, feet planted, in the center of the rose garden. The faint breeze began to pick up.
Logan flung her cane onto the veranda. “Don’t do it.” Ororo turned to face him, only a few yards away. She didn’t stagger. Logan could see the control she was exerting to stand steady, muscles tight as a bowstring. I’ll show you, her eyes shouted at him. I don’t need you.
“You can’t stop me.” A gale force wind nearly deafened him, enhanced senses and all.
Wrong answer. Logan lunged to tackle her, momentarily forgetting to question the wisdom of hurling all three pounds of his bulk at a woman recovering from a spinal injury…
“WHOOUUULFF!” His snug T-shirt did little to cushion him from the friction and grass burn as he landed face and elbows first in the dirt, barely skimming Ororo’s sneaker clad feet as she took flight. Logan spit flecks of grass from his bottom lip as he glared up toward Ororo’s lithe body, growing smaller the higher she soared. “ORORO MUNROE! GET YER ASS BACK DOWN HERE, IF YA LOVE AN’ VALUE LIFE AS MUCH AS YA SAY YA DO!” Half torn between anger and awe, Logan urged his heart to climb back up into his chest cavity from where it had dropped into his shoes.
Ororo hovered well below the clouds, but still relished the yawning gap between her feet and the earth. The air smelled fresh, carrying over the woodsy scent of the pine trees from the north end of the Professor’s property. The wind whistled in her ears and pinkened her cheeks, running its fingers through her rippling hair like a lover.
She needed more.
Even from where he was rooted, speechless, Logan could make out her brilliant smile, even hear the faint echo of her giddy laughter drifting back to him. Ororo wove and dipped through the air like an autumn leaf, going wherever the wind took her. The hairs on his arms stood on end. He sniffed the growing aura of ozone and felt the building static in the air.
SSSSS-SSHRAKA-THOOOOOMMM…
Shit. “Don’t do it,” he hissed through his teeth. There was no turning back. Mesmerized and wary, Logan followed her on foot as she flew, futilely attempting to position himself below her. SNIKT. Snakt. SNIKT. Snakt. Useless. His claws were damned useless. He couldn’t fly.
And she wasn’t supposed to. He might as well have told the sky not to rain…
A strato-cumulus cloud that nearly dwarfed the entire complex rolled across the sky. Ororo’s arms gestured, shaping it to her will, painting the whirling mass as black “ almost as black - as the eyes staring incredulously up at her. Ororo pirouetted like a child showing off new Sunday shoes and spun in the air, flinging the first lightning she’d generated in months from the tips of her fingertips.
I don’t need you. I don’t need you. You don’t have to stay, nagged the petulant voice in her head. Her heart had other thoughts on the matter.
You do need him.
He wants to leave. As always. Same tired song. I won’t keep him where he doesn’t want to be. I won’t be the millstone around his neck.
Look at him. This is killing him.
It kills me a little bit every time he walks away. When he hurts himself. This time I’m the one dragging him into the ground. Strangling him.
This is how you repay him? This is how you thank him for his friendship, for his guidance, for all of the times he’s risked his neck to save your hide?
I’m just nudging open the door. I won’t be guilty of locking him in. I don’t own him. No one ever truly has.
Who do you belong to, Wind-Rider?
Logan almost didn’t feel the first fat drops of rain slapping his hair until they dripped down his forehead, dribbling into his eyes and obscuring his vision. Her flight was dizzying and achingly beautiful. Logan recognized the blissful laxness of her limbs and the serene expression on her face for what it was. Ororo had gotten her lips wet and felt that first buzz.
Now she was out on a bender.
Ororo’s potted hyacinths and lilies were nearly drowning in inches of water as the rain poured down. Logan’s thick hair grew slick as a seal’s as the rain ran through it in long runnels, caressing his taut flesh. The lush English roses swayed and bobbed beneath the weight of the torrents, bowing and saluting their mistress. Roses, damp earth, wind and ozone threatened to overwhelm Logan’s senses.
The wind continued to howl its lusty song, buffeting Ororo recklessly. She gave it her head as Logan’s serenade came back to her. I’ve got friends in low places… Ororo threw back her head and laughed at the irony, until she glanced back down to Logan, still staring at her with so much intensity that she nearly crumbled.
If he has to walk away…if he can’t stay, then I’ll just have to give him something to remember me by.
“Witness the fruits of your hard work. I can stand on my own two feet,” she whispered fiercely as she darted higher into the sky and gathered the lightning into herself. Her body was engulfed in whirling, dancing streaks of electricity. Down on the ground, Logan growled, every muscle knotted as he watched and waited for what she would do next.
The pent-up energy crackled loose, unleashed from her glowing white eyes, fingertips, mouth, feet, arcs of it whirling around her like carousel horses.
KRAKKA-THOOOOOMMMMMM…Thunder shook the ground, nearly knocking Logan off his feet. He swayed from the impact, anticipation and a strange, raw thrill darting through his stomach, headed straight for his vitals. The wind tugged at him. Reflexively he unsheathed his claws again, fighting the urge to dig them into something, anything, not knowing if Ororo was angry enough at him to fling him aloft.
“Givin’ me a taste of my own medicine, darlin’?” Logan leaned up against a tall oak and gripped it for support, watching in new alarm as small funnels swept through the courtyard, dancing around the nearby lake. Foolishly, Logan hoped the neighboring properties had some serious flood insurance.
This was tearing at her, all this time. Every time you came stumbling up the front walk, cussin’ and wailin’ about how life kicked yer teeth in, Patch. When ya didn’t let her in. Didn’t open up.
Too damned stubborn, I guess.
Ever think maybe ya shoulda asked her for help, dumb ass?
I’m not supposed ta need her. Not s’posed ta need anybody. Everything I touch, everything I care about dies. Sometimes at my own hand.
Yeah, well, surprise. She’s still breathin,’ maybe even back and better than ever. Look at her. God, she’s magnificent.
Logan’s buzz had already worn off; now he was high. He drank his fill, but was still thirsty.
The lightning took on a life of its own, settling down for a moment, no longer spinning its mad maypole dance around its keeper. It pulsed around her, awaiting her whim. CRAAACCCK! Ororo raised her hand and curled it with a flourish, grasping the storm in a hearty leash and released the lightning again. Ball lightning shot from her outstretched hand, up, up, up…THOOOOOMMMHH! Sparks exploded into pompons of energy that would have made Jubilee jealous.
Ororo’s hand dropped, her arm suddenly limp as a noodle. She passed her hand over her eyes to clear her blurry vision. Tingles ran up and down her arms, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. “Nnnnnnnggggh.” Instinctively, the winds died down a bit. Logan’s stomach flipped over dangerously as she suddenly dropped several yards lower in the sky, as though hovering took more effort than it had a half an hour ago. He ignored the chill that swept over his skin and sank into his bones from the pounding rain, focusing instead on the icy fear in his gut.
“RO?!?” The winds still howled, but no longer drowned out his voice. He let go of the oak and stumbled forward, swaying, waiting…
The rain resumed a steady, even shower as the clouds began to unfurl. The near-demonic, threatening mass eased, no longer grinning at him with bared fangs. Logan watched as Ororo slowly, painstakingly began her descent. Hover. Then drop. Hover. Then drop. Her body tipped and tilted drunkenly, limbs limps, her soaked white tresses trailing behind her in a rippling banner as the distance between her and the unforgiving, punished earth narrowed at perilous speed.
An eerie peace stole over Ororo. Flying. I’m…falling… The wind made her T-shirt flutter against her flesh.
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