It's on a Saturday that he discovers she's just as unpredictable as the weather.
Out.
He needs out.
The itch is crawling beneath his skin and making it hard to think. His already terse and gruff responses border on snarls and growls and when he sends not one, but two of the students away in tears, he knows he needs out.
It's been raining for a week straight, keeping him from going any farther than the garage to tinker, but enough is enough.
So he decides to go. To hell with the weather. He'll hit the city, grab a few beers and unwind, maybe knock some heads, and to hell with anyone—particularly one tight-ass Head Mistress—that gets in his way.
The leather of his jacket smells like freedom and his steps are hurried as he makes his way to the front doors.
He's irritated when she's on the porch—almost as though she'd been waiting for him—but irritation turns to surprise when she asks to join him.
He refuses.
She offers to stop the rain. At least while they're out.
He tells her that he ain't in the mood for a babysitter, and she tells him that she's in no mood to babysit.
He surprises them both and agrees to take her. Halfway into the city, he's rethinking the decision, but he refuses to turn around. The scent on the wind is cool and smells of new growth and wet asphalt.
He knows he'll lose it to smoke and cologne and sweat and stale bodies in the city, but for now it's there and he's savoring it.
He decides on a place—just out of the way—and one he's not a regular of. This bar is crowded and louder than he likes, but he's hoping the smoke and noise will persuade her she doesn't belong there. She's knit sweaters and polyester pants, not tight jeans and shredded teeshirts—like she's wearing now—but even he has to admit the look suits her.
Somewhere between classy and punk, she's something unexpected, and he thinks maybe he likes it.
And that he finds, is unnerving.
The rules between them are clearly laid out, and have been since day one. She's the leader, the rule enforcer, and the “go-to gal” of the X-Men. He's the bad-ass, come-as-you-please rebel with no commitments.
They are oil and water.
They don't mix.
So why then is his hand straying to the small of her back and his head tilting for a better breath of her soft scent?
He can feel the press of eyes on him as they cross the crowded bar to a booth in the back, and even more, he can smell the changes in the men.
Pheromones and adrenaline.
New meat.
He feels unexpectedly guilty for bringing her here, to these ruffians, and doesn't bother to stem the overproteciveness that comes from that. His eyes are narrow when he takes in the room, and he sees several glances swing down and away from his.
That's right, assholes. This one is off limits.
At the table, she offers to buy the first drinks.
He's not the type to refuse free alcohol.
He expects her to order something fruity, with an umbrella. She orders something short, with a bite.
She downs it in one, and he blinks twice.
After some finger-tapping and lingering silence, she challenges him to a game of pool, which he accepts with a Jackson and a grin. It's no contest, and she hands over her money with the promise of retribution. Surprisingly, he finds himself looking forward to the rematch.
The noise and crowd don't seem to bother her, and as the night wears on he stops trying to get rid of her.
It's later, when her eyes are dark and laughing, and her lips flirting with a smile, that she decides she wants to dance.
He shakes his head when she holds out her hand for his—he doesn't do that bump and grind shit, unless it's in the bedroom (and don't go there, Bub)—and she shrugs, nonplussed at his refusal and takes to the floor on her own.
She's fine by herself, he notices, if the sway of her hips and the happy grin on her face is any indication. She moves like the wind, he thinks, before he can stop the thought, and shakes his head and orders another beer.
When she comes back to the booth, they spar with shots and innuendo, and on the fifth she looses a laugh that tightens and warms something inside of him.
On the sixth she tells him that he's more fun than she thought he'd be, and he's not sure what to make of it, so he asks exactly how fun he was supposed to be. She doesn't seem inclined to divulge.
And that buys her another drink.
Even after, she still won't tell, and he likes that.
Easy women were never his thing.
The eighth shot is one that reveals a raunchy joke she overheard in her Sociology class, and the tenth slurs her speech a bit.
She's drunk, but not sloppy, and he appreciates that about her.
Her eyes are heavy lidded, and slanted up at the corners ever so slightly. He's never noticed that particular feature before, and he wonders at her lineage.
He's a mutt, a mongrel of mixed ancestry that he can't remember, but he thinks she probably comes from something regal. She slants him a look and he modifies that thought to a confirmation.
It's a surprise when the bartender shouts for last call and he wonders at how quickly the night flew by.
She tilts her head onto his shoulder and suggests they head home with a hint of lament in her smoke-raspy voice.
He has the urge to touch his lips to the snowfall cloud of her hair, but instead simply nods. He'll drive.
Her breath is warm on the back of his neck as they ride home, and her whisper is close to his ear when she thanks him for the good time.
The subtle sway of her hips is a little less graceful than usual—but still appealing—as she walks up the steps of the Institute. When she turns and offers him a smile and a small wave, he decides she's really not at all what he expected.
He makes it to his boathouse just as the rain comes down, and for the longest time he watches it from his bedroom window.
It's a Thursday when she discovers he has a love of Classical music.
She hears it as she's locking up her office, and for a moment, she pauses, reminded of blue fur and intelligent conversations.
She really must call Hank soon, and catch up. It's been far too long.
It takes her a few minutes to realize just exactly which room the music drifts from, but she follows the strings and sharp notes like breadcrumbs down the long corridor to carved mahogany.
Surprise barely covers her reaction when she realizes just exactly who is in the library.
From his reclined seat, he opens his eyes and the lazy appraisal in them makes her blush.
That unnerves her and she runs her hands along her pants to hide it.
She apologizes for interrupting and turns to leave, stopped by the gruff invitation to join him.
Over her shoulder she eyes him warily, but he's already resumed his relaxed lounge and he's as harmless as she's ever seen him.
A series of plinking notes lull her and she relents. The door clicks shut and she scoots onto the small couch across from him.
She doesn't always understand the subtle tension that thrums through her whenever she's near him, and she was certain she'd adjusted, but the soft flutter in her breast tells her that she's not as settled with him as she would like to believe.
She tries not to study the way his hair scatters haphazardly or the shadowed stubble on his jaw, or how his shirt's top three buttons are undone. She tries, and fails.
He's a force of nature. He draws her.
She acknowledges this, but decides against pursuing it.
She made that decision a long time ago, and it was best not to change it.
It takes her a full ten minutes before she's relaxed enough to close her eyes.
Soft breath hums past her lips and the music takes her away from piles of paper, death threats and responsibilities that seem heavier by the day. It's nice and she drifts...
She opens her eyes again, when she feels like she's being watched. The room is more shadowed than she recalls it being when she entered and she notes the time.
She fell asleep.
She sits up and sees him.
Really sees him.
Gray and deep, glimmering feral, his eyes claim her. It's silent and nonthreatening, but she knows—on some primal level—that she was just claimed.
Her face flushes and she turns her eyes to the floor. She's not submissive by nature, and she's far from docile, but she looks away because she knows, if she meets the challenge, then something will change.
This can't happen, she thinks.
But it is and she's too late.
His hands are on her face and he's brushing his thumb against her ear drawing her eyes up.
She doesn't look away.
She thinks he might kiss her.
He doesn't.
He simply stares at her.
The music stops, but neither one moves.
She's not sure she can, even if she wanted to. The gravity of him holds her.
Slowly, he straightens away from her, but his eyes remain on her face.
She's suddenly unsure. This will change everything if she lets it happen.
She can get up now and walk away and nothing will really have happened. They can go back to they way they were...
”Mozart or Bach,” he asks her.
”Bach,” she says, and everything changes.
It's on a Wednesday that he finds out she's ticklish.
It's innocent enough, the way his hand strays around her waist as she leans against him, but the soft breathless chuckle she emits does things far from innocent to him.
She fidgets, and mumbles something he barely catches around the popcorn in her mouth.
His eyes narrow on the lucky kernels being snugged in past pearl teeth by a soft pink tongue.
He finds himself glowering at the bowl, and he realizes how utterly stupid it is, but it doesn't stop him from setting it aside.
She raises a brow, but says nothing, and slouches against his side, watching the movie.
He long ago stopped caring about the flickering screen, but she seems to like these old films, so he indulges her, because then he can indulge himself. In the soft texture of her hair, and subtle smell of rain that clings to her and the smooth texture of her skin where her shirt has lifted—just a bit—above her pants.
His fingers dance across her side and she chuckles again, swatting at him.
He smirks.
And let's his fingers play some more.
She swats him again.
And she laughs.
And he's done in.
She's a breathless mess of popcorn and disheveled hair beneath him and her laughter and squeals would have brought in a troop of kids had they been in the Mansion, but they're in his boathouse, so he's the only one to bear witness to her flushed cheeks and wide smile.
And he's selfish enough to savor that.
They make love for the first time on a Tuesday.
She's fantasized about him pressing her against the wall and tearing at her clothes, but when it finally happens, he lays her against fresh washed sheets and slowly unbuttons her shirt.
It's better this way, she thinks, as his lips find the curve of her neck and his tongue stakes claim over her pulse.
He takes his time, patiently exploring each new spot of skin he reveals, until she is sweat slicked and wanton.
His dark hair is tugged in her hands, threaded between fingers that refuse to unclench, as her body arches and she says, “Yes, please...yes!”
His mouth is hot and hard one minute and soft and soothing the next.
He's a dichotomy of beast and man, and she is captured by the gentleness of his hands on her face and the fierceness of his thrusts between her thighs.
He takes her to the peak of bliss, pushes her over the edge, and floats her down.
Warm and strong, his hands move over flushed skin and damp want.
His touch trembles on her, and she thinks he's beautiful.
Her lips whisper to him, and he thinks she's perfect.
When he growls her name, she responds with his, in a voice that is smoke on satin, and it smolders against the shell of his ear.
She holds him, comforts him, eases him, even as she scorches him, ignites him and sends him reeling.
She tastes of renewal, he thinks, like the fresh taste of rain on a hot summer day. She's strong enough to hold her own against him, but pliant enough to bend. She's everything he knew she was, and a thousand things he never imagined.
She is redemption.
She is fractured rapture beneath him and he wonders how he ever made it a day without her.
He can't imagine trying to.
He holds her in his arms long after their breathing is even and skin has cooled and that's okay, because she is in no hurry to leave.
She nestles her nose beneath his chin and smiles against the beat of his heart.
He smells of leather and musk and a hint of cigar.
It's familiar in a way that feels like coming home, and she thinks she could get used to this.
When he—with more hesitation then he's comfortable with—asks her to stay the night, she doesn't reply.
She's already asleep.
It's on a Friday that he irks a temper that matches her codename.
He's not sure exactly what starts the fight, but he tells her that he's damn sure he's not the one who's wrong, so she can just wait for hell to freeze over before he apologizes.
She'll come crawling back when she realizes she's being unreasonable, he thinks. In the meantime, fuck if he was going to be the one to cave.
So he doesn't.
He goes to the garage for some good old fashioned avoidance, only to find that he can't concentrate on the bike, or the tools, and eventually gives up the pretense.
In the sullen silence of the garage, he wonders how long she'll be upset.
Thunder answers his unspoken question.
He tilts his head back and sniffs.
Ozone and vanilla.
Someone was still pissed.
He tosses the wrench into his toolbox. It lands with a clatter, but the sound is drowned by another clap of thunder.
This one shakes the ground, and despite himself, he grins.
She's fierce. He likes that about her, although he'd never admit it... to her.
He likes the way her eyes glow arctic white and her hair sways. He likes the hard tilt of her jaw and the way her lips purse. He likes the scent of heat and lightening on her skin when she's angry, and he especially likes the teeth marks she leaves on him when they make up.
His lips curl up at the corners when he hears the pelting of hail on the roof. She won't come find him, this he knows, but she has other ways to get his attention.
He gives it another half hour...the wind and rain and thunder that shouts words she would never say, before he braves the stabbing rain and heads for his boathouse.
She's on the couch, a book propped on her lap and a scowl on her face when he steps in.
He shakes the damp from his hair and flashes her his canines.
Once again, thunder is his response.
He chuckles, it's low and lazy, and it draws her eyes up to his.
Chocolate ices over and his smirk widens.
Her pupils disappear and the book slaps the coffee table.
“Arrogant asshole,” she seethes.
“Prissy bitch,” he counters.
Snap. Sizzle.
It's a good thing he heals fast, he thinks as his back hits the wall and his shirt is torn.
It's on a Sunday that she promises forever...
The weather is perfect, but that's a given.
He looks younger, without his stubble, she notes, and watches his hands play with the collar of his suit.
He's vulnerable in a way that makes her steps quicken, just a bit.
She should be by his side, now, so he won't have to face this—her—alone.
That doesn't really make any sense, but then again, she's not thinking all that coherently.
She's getting married; as in “I do” and eternity.
To Logan.
She looks up. His grin tells her all she needs.
Her smile threatens to swallow her face.
The Fuzzy Blue Elf unites them before God and Man, but it's only formality.
She stares into his eyes—eyes she's seen dance through every shade of gray to black—and knows he feels it to.
They've been bonded already.
Souls together.
Intertwined.
He's wilderness and untamed beauty.
She's his answering mate.
Vows are spoken, softly, sincerely, and she feels moisture in her eyes when he has to clear his throat. He tells her that he knows she is his destiny and that she was always meant for him.
She knows this too.
When he asks, she nods and accepts the ring. There is no question, she is his.
Since day one.
From now until eternity.
She is his.
Forever.
It's on a Monday that he learns there are limits to his mutant abilities.
It hurts.
God, it hurts so fucking bad, he can't breathe.
He's known pain before, but not like this. Not this feeling of having his insides torn out of him.
His knees hit the floor and his hands weep.
His scream is voiceless, but he can hear it echoing.
He survived everything ever done to him.
He was a fucking killing machine with a body that couldn't break.
The same couldn't be said for his heart.
His soul.
He's shattered.
A thousand pieces of misery and pain and wrenching grief.
He's immune. To disease, to aging, to death.
He's immune to everything.
But her.
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