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“Not everybody heals as fast as you Logan,” Scott’s words echoed through Logan’s mind, leaving him dumbfounded and speechless as Logan stood in the center of the hallway watching the one person he come to discover that he couldn’t live without walking out of the hallway and away from the things that Logan had realized that they hadn’t said to one another.
Knowing that Scott had been suffering in silence, Logan had done his best to step up to the plate and take on some of the responsibilities that Scott had been letting slip away in his grief. Not that anyone had really taken the time to notice how lost Scott was beyond Logan, who’d been there when it all fell apart, watching Scott crumble in ways that the world refused to acknowledge given that they all expected Scott to be their leader and pillar of strength, long after Jean was lost and he had taken to his silent suffering away from the team. Sure, they all felt horrible about losing Jean, but they had been losing Scott little by little each day and now as Logan stood in the hallway remembering how he’d observed their team leader crumbling bit by bit without so much as his team to pull him out of the darkness, something hit hard in the center of Logan’s chest leaving him caught up in the divide between knowing Scott needed space and the want to reach out to the man who was beyond caught up in the pain of all he’d lost when the only love he’d ever known had slipped out of his life.
“Screw it,” Logan finally cursed a few seconds after Scott had left the hallway, knowing that they’d come so far after they’d lost her even if the others hadn’t seen it.
Sure, Logan hadn’t planned on it, but after Jean was lost to the world, he’d felt protective of Scott, hating himself for all the games he’d played when Logan had wanted to lay it out on the line and tell Scott that it hadn’t been simply Jean that Logan had been pining for. If anything, Logan had been shaken by the idea of Scott from the very start, hating the idea that Scott had been the one to ‘rescue’ him and bring him into the world of the X-Men.
With his prim and proper turtlenecks and his uptight persona, it would’ve been so easy to hate Scott, but Logan hadn’t. If anything he’d wanted to tear down Scott’s walls and discover the man burning beneath the surface full of fire and passion, who was ready to fight for what he believed in and reach out and take what he wanted, but as Jean had informed Logan time and time again, Scott had to show restraint. He had to keep it composed or the team could fall apart. He’d been led to believe that he was the one thing holding it all together, but when Scott could no longer carry the weight of his grief, it appeared that the team hadn’t taken to task in giving back what Scott had delivered them time and time again. If anything, the team merely went about as usual, fighting to pretend everything was normal while their team leader was shattered to the core breaking inside that had Logan realizing that he needed to be the one to give Scott what he’d been missing out on.
At first it felt like an impossible task after Scott had avoided him after Jean died, caught up in what Logan could sense was grief and embarrassment at the way he’d fallen into Logan’s arms in his anguish, crumbling to pieces in his sobs in ways that made Logan only want to hold on tighter and rip that pain away from him, but he’d been unable to do so. Instead Logan would follow Scott around at the school, covering him up with blankets after a long night of tears had left him hunched over in one of the chairs in the study or finding his way down to Scott’s office to pull him away from his desk and carry Scott to bed where the two would find their way to holding one another through the dark hours, caught up in a shared grief and a bond that neither had been brave enough to accept was building between them.
Now, however, as Logan thought about the ways that the months without Jean had changed them, taking Scott from the deafening silence in his room to Logan’s place at the school, tucked in beneath the blankets and sharing Logan’s bed with collective snuggles and warm, whispered words of encouragement that as of late had escalated to a series of tender touches and delicious kisses, awakening something beyond grief in both men. The first time it happened, Scott had taken to sleeping in his office again. The second time Logan had slipped out of bed in the morning, simply making breakfast and pretending that it hadn’t been a thing until last night when the two had shared a meal under the stars out back by the pool house, each sharing a few fond memories of Jean with one another until somewhere between Scott’s story of his first skinny dipping experience with the team and Logan’s teasing they’d wound up kissing like they’d never be able to get enough of each other.
And maybe they couldn’t have, Logan had realized when they’d stepped out of the night and out of their clothes to slip into the thick heavy blankets that covered Logan’s bed, falling into each other’s arms and experiencing something that Scott had timidly confessed he hadn’t shared with anyone but Jean before Logan’s arrival. It had been tender and passionate, intense and brutal in ways that felt right, but beyond the intensity there was a softness and a twinge that found its way to the center of Logan’s chest when he’d discovered that he hadn’t wanted to run. If anything, he’d wanted to hold onto Scott from that moment out, sharing in that something remarkable they’d found in one another until somewhere between Scott’s muted cries brought on by his nightmares and the alarm clock ringing on the nightstand, Logan realized that Scott was needed for training. He’d skipped it far too many times for Xavier to be anything but angry, so Logan had taken to leading the class. He’d hated to go, but wanting to keep Scott out of trouble, he’d accepted the request from Xavier, doing his best to dissuade anyone from chastising Scott after the night before would no doubt leave him feeling far more confused than he’d been before they’d taken to holding each other tight.
“Not everybody heals as fast as you Logan,” Scott’s words once again entered Logan’s mind, taking him from his moment of hesitation to a place where he realized that they needed to talk.
It was long overdue even if Scott had taken to running, needing to escape the morning of waking up without Logan at his side even if Logan had carried the best of intentions with him when offering to take over the class. Caught up with concern at how quick Scott was to leave, Logan made his way down the hallway Scott had exited moments earlier knowing that this might be his last shot to clear the air between them. With rushed movements and worry in his brow, Logan followed Scott’s scent and headed down to the garage, to the place where Scott was mounting his motorcycle and preparing to leave the school behind now that it was clear he was lost in a sea of conflicted thoughts.
“Slim wait,” Logan called out to Scott from the garage entrance, but his words were lost on the roar of the ignition and the way that Scott was quick to peel out of the garage without giving Logan or the things happening at the school a second thought.
This time, however, Logan didn’t hesitate as he pulled the keys off the rack beside him, surveying the garage for a moment before making the decision to hop into Scott’s sportscar and chase after the man that Logan was wholly convinced was headed down the wrong road. With the hum of the engine and the faint rhythm of rock music pouring over the front seat, Logan put the car into drive and chased after the man he was wholly convinced that he couldn’t lose no matter how far he had to run to find him.
The voice was in Scott’s head, driving him to madness when he could swear he heard Jean calling for him. In his mind she was begging for him to find her, to save her from the darkness, but beyond that agonizing sound that clouded his thoughts, his mind and body were in conflict, wondering if perhaps he’d done the unthinkable and moved on in ways he hadn’t been ready to admit to.
Scott’s word with Logan had been harsh in his retreat, but mostly they’d come from fear and panic, from facing the unknown when the nightmares and the voices plagued his mind, driving him deeper into madness in ways he hadn’t been wholly prepared for until last night Logan had broken the spell that the ghost of Jean had over him and reeled him into something that Scott feared he’d needed too much. At first, Scott had cajoled himself into believing that it wasn’t anything beyond a means to an end of their suffering, but soon Scott had started to realize that Logan wasn’t there simply because of his grief, but rather he was there because of Scott and his pain, working in what ways he could to reach Scott when the rest of the world had not.
It was the last thing that Scott had expected, but somehow, he’d let Logan in and with the stretch of miles he was attempting to put between himself and the school, he felt a new fear in just how easy it was to do just that. At first, it was simply just the idea of Logan being around, but then it escalated to talks about just about anything together, talks that went beyond Jean until they were sharing in cuddles and unexpected laughter, discovering new secrets in each other leading up to last night when…
“You sure this is okay?” Logan had questioned in between heated kisses after he and Scott had found their way into Logan’s bed together, carried away by temptation and the promise of a new beginning in ways that Scott had been afraid to wish for until Logan had walked into his life.
“It’s more than okay,” Scott had confessed reaching for Logan again against the fear that resided in his body. His arms stretched wide around Logan’s shoulders, encouraging Logan to kiss him again before he lost his courage and fell back into that place where he closed down and ran away from what he’d wanted.
Deep down he’d known he was so close to doing just that and leaving, but Scott had forced himself to stay—to remain in the place where the world was on fire and out of balance, but the heat of the passion between them burned strong in ways that Scott had never experienced before.
“Be gentle with me,” Scott had whispered against the back of Logan’s ear with a blush on his cheeks and eagerness creeping over his flesh in ways he dared not speak of until that moment when his legs were wrapped around Logan and they were flying together to places unheard of before Scott had let go of his fears long enough to face the truth about where his heart was leading him to be at Logan’s side.
It had been everything Scott had imagined it could be, exceeding his expectations when the flames of desire passed on fading into a sense of intimacy and belonging tangled up beneath the sheets in each other’s arms where Logan’s tender promises soothed Scott’s soul in ways he couldn’t have imagined could have been reached after Jean was lost. But somehow Logan had done it, bringing Scott back to life again and giving him a new hope for the future.
It was damn near perfect, or it would’ve been if Scott hadn’t been haunted by his dreams, feeling as if he was buried beneath the water and drowning with Jean shouting from the world below, crying out in terror for Scott to find her. Along the way he could feel her torment, could experience her pain as he was surrounded by a different kind of fire, threatening to eat him alive in ways that had him waking up and shaking, trembling with a new fear only to discover that Logan was no longer at his side. It didn’t take much in Scott’s awakening to see the quick note Logan had jotted down about having to go take over Scott’s training session in the Danger Room, yet somehow in knowing that Logan was gone, Scott allowed the dream to haunt him, pulling him from Logan’s bed and into a place where he was filled with a need to run away from the school and return to Alkali Lake to drown in the pain of losing Jean all over again.
“Come to me Scott,” he could hear her shouting out in that dark place of his mind, causing him to accelerate closer to the lake when the sound of a horn honking pulled him out of his thoughts. In his mirror, he could see a car fast approaching from behind, speeding up on him in ways that felt reckless and careless until Scott recognized that it was his car coming up on him.
“What the…?” Scott questioned fighting to keep his eyes on the road along with discovering that was Logan behind the wheel, honking the horn like a madman possessed and determined to drive Scott off the road in how fast he was approaching.
“Pull over!” Logan shouted rolling down the window and waving one hand out into the road beside the car, “Scott!
“What are you trying to do?” Scott shouted in response over his shoulder before focusing on the road ahead of him. He attempted to speed up, but it was no use as Logan was in the lane beside him where oncoming traffic was approaching in the distance. Seeing a truck in front of Logan headed right at his car, Scott slowed down enough to glare over at the man behind the wheel, “What the hell are you doing Logan?”
“Pull over!” Logan roared back at him honking the horn incessantly until Scott discovered that the truck fast approaching Logan was only a few meters away.
“Logan get out of that lane!” Scott called out to the man whose bed he’d awakened in, but Logan was too busy paying attention to Scott to notice the potential disaster ahead of them, “Logan there’s a truck coming and…”
“Pull over Slim!” Logan repeated far more impatient than before only to be met by the booming sound of the truck honking at him and pulling him out of his adrenaline fueled haze to a place where he was struggling to swerve back into the lane behind Scott, but it was after the rain and the road was slippery causing Logan to lose control of the car, sending it spiraling down over the gravely strip and down into the grass closer to the water as Scott kept moving forward unable to slow down fast enough to register what was happening when the truck sped on past where Logan had gone down.
“Damn it,” Scott cursed finally slowing the motorcycle down enough to turn around on the road and race back to where Logan had gone off the pavement, surrounded by trees and bushes that would no doubt destroy the car, but right now that hadn’t been what was on Scott’s mind. Instead, he was pushing closer to where he could see the smoke coming up near the water.
Worried about what he might find below, Scott carefully shifted direction to the tiny gravel path leading away from the road, taking him down closer to where he discovered his car crashed into an oversized oak and smoking in ways that would no doubt set him back with the crunch of his hood, but none of that was important. Instead, he was turning the motorcycle off and rushing down the path the rest of the way on foot, abandoning his bike near the top of the hill until he discovered Logan hunched over the wheel with his head down. There was no movement in the car, which had Scott worried even if a part of him was convinced he didn’t have to be. Still running closer to the car, Scott frantically reached out to open the door, catching the first glimpse of blood running down Logan’s forehead before he was suddenly aware of a ticking sound coming from under the hood.
“Oh no!” Scott mouthed to himself, reaching down to discover that Logan hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt, which in an instant he deduced was why there was blood on Logan’s forehead. The front windshield was cracked and as the smoke rose higher from beneath the hood, now accompanied by flames, Scott was filled with a sense of déjà vu as he struggled to pull the heavy weight of Logan out from behind the wheel, “Logan, come on. You need to work with me.”
When Logan hadn’t responded, Scott sucked in a breath and tugged on him tighter than before, struggling to carry Logan’s weight, but knowing that the flames were rising and the car was ticking louder than before, Scott knew he couldn’t worry about that. Frantically he pulled with all his strength, readily causing Logan to plop out of the car and onto the ground before the sound of an explosion had the two men up in the air and rolling down towards the water with the force of the sound. Holding onto Logan tighter than before, Scott swallowed down a breath before pushing his fingers over Logan’s heavy shoulder to pull at his glasses and send a beam out to the ground, using his optic blast to push them up higher and out of the smoke and the flames only long enough to have them circling in the air, faster than before and headed straight down into the icy waves of the water beyond the shoreline with a hard, slapping splash all around them.
At first Scott fought to hold his breath, suddenly surrounded by the fierce, frigid rapids engulfing them whole when they went down, closer to the bottom of the lake in ways that had Logan feeling heavier in Scott’s arms. Granted it was a rough tumble from the sky, but as they sank deeper, Scott felt a twinge of panic over him until he forced himself to look through the murky water and aim his blast at a large rock formation about twenty feet beneath him, hoping that he could use his powers to push them out of the water and back to the beach where the remains of his car was still aflame.
Gripping Logan tighter than before, Scott braced himself for the push out of the water, accompanied by the loud wave that bounced them out into the day, sending them off into the damp sand with Logan flat on his back and Scott stretched out over him. It would’ve left Scott in shock if he hadn’t been struggling to right his glasses and reach for Logan’s cheek, discovering that Logan wasn’t breathing in their return to land.
“You aren’t taking the easy way out on me Logan,” Scott slapped at Logan’s cheek before leaning down to breathe into Logan, administering mouth to mouth until finally Logan choked on the water that had filled his lungs. He shuddered and shook, prompting Scott to sit up over Logan’s abdomen and encourage Logan to roll onto his side to spit the water out until a long silence followed with Scott raising his head up to watch his beloved sportscar going up in flames in front of him, “What the hell were you thinking Logan?”
“I couldn’t let you walk away without us taking the time to talk,” Logan coughed and fell back onto his spine again over the packed strip of wet sand, gazing up at Scott behind desperate eyes before his hand was reaching out to touch Scott’s cheek, “I couldn’t let you think that last night didn’t matter. That I left because it was anything, but perfect for us when…”
“I know you took over my class,” Scott replied reaching out to cover Logan’s hand with his own, coaxing Logan to relax on the beach beneath him when Scott could hear the faint sounds of sirens approaching in the distance, “I saw your note this morning.”
“Then you realize I didn’t leave because I had regrets about last night,” Logan questioned behind a nervous breath, gazing up at Scott in ways that damn near caused Scott to blush when Logan’s lips curved upward in the beginnings of a smile, “I know I said maybe we should move on and I wasn’t trying to be pushy but…”
“Last night was perfect,” Scott confessed leaning in closer to where Logan was before admitting further, “If it hadn’t been for the nightmares, then I would’ve said it was the best night of my life, but this morning…”
“You had nightmares again?” Logan’s concern mounted as he reached out to touch the side of Scott’s face. With a sweep of his fingers, he pushed Scott’s damp, dark hair away from his forehead before encouraging Scott to lean in closer to him, “You said that they stopped.”
“They did,” Scott bit down on his plump bottom lip before confessing, “but they came back this morning. I don’t know why but they were stronger than ever. As if Jean was telling me to go back to the lake to find her and…”
“She’s gone Scott,” Logan pushed up on his elbows, struggling to get into a seated position beneath Scott, “I wish that wasn’t the case, but we both have to accept that we lost her.”
“I’ve accepted that, but it doesn’t make me feel any less guilty for allowing it to happen,” Scott replied lowering his head uncomfortably.
“It wasn’t your fault Slim,” Logan cupped Scott’s sculpted cheeks in his hands, encouraging Scott to meet his eyes behind his waterlogged sunglasses before they were inching in toward one another, “She made her choice and last night we made ours. You shouldn’t feel guilty about us falling into each other’s arms.”
“That’s the thing Logan,” Scott’s face grew a deeper shade of crimson, “I don’t feel guilty about last night even if I’m certain I should be.”
“No, you should never feel guilty about that,” Logan argued against Scott’s words before moving in to kiss him in a desperate attempt to pull him in closer again, “Never about us.”
“We’re chaos,” Scott’s words buzzed against Logan’s kiss, yet somehow his lips were parting to invite Logan deeper within, savoring the taste of Logan’s words on his tongue before he drew back and pressed his forehead against Logan’s in his deep exhale, “Just look at what happened to my car.”
“I’m sorry about your car Slim, but somethin’ didn’t feel right about you leaving. I couldn’t let you walk away without a fight,” Logan explained now fully seated and surrounding Scott in his arms in a tight embrace, “Something told me I needed to chase after you before it was too late.”
“Too late for what?” Scott questioned angling back just enough to search Logan’s face once more.
“To say what I meant to say instead of the stupid things that I let get out in the hallway,” Logan was once again touching Scott’s cheek, encouraging Scott to move in closer on his lap before he spoke up behind an impassioned breath, “That last night opened the door to something inside of me that I wasn’t sure I was ready to ever find again, but now that it’s here in my life I know that I don’t want to ever let it go. Sure, maybe what we have is volatile and intense at times, brutal in ways that had us second guessing ourselves, but you mean something to me Scott. We mean something to me and what we started last night, well, it’s not something I want to take lightly when it means everything to me.”
“It means everything to me too,” Scott confessed behind a shivering exhale before sliding his arms around Logan’s shoulders again to bring them chest to chest on the side of the beach, “I know that there were so many reasons why I should run away, but nothing about being with you feels wrong. Not when everything inside of me is telling me that you’re where my home is.”
“I never had a real home until I found it here with you,” Logan felt himself hit by a wave of uncharacteristic sentimentality when the words rolled over his tongue in ways that he, himself, hadn’t been prepared for, “I love you Slim and nothing’s going to stop me from feeling that way about us.”
“I love you too, which is why I was afraid of sticking around this morning after you’d left because if you didn’t feel it too, then I was going to feel foolish all over again, but then with the nightmares guiding me to come out here…” Scott bit down on his bottom lip before reaching for Logan again, “Maybe it was my fear driving me away, but now that you’re here I don’t want to run away anymore.”
“Even if I destroyed your car?” Logan questioned when the sounds of sirens were closer than before, reminding them that soon they would be surrounded by strangers demanding answers over what had happened moments earlier.
“You can find ways to make it up to me somehow,” Scott couldn’t help but smile touching the hair on Logan’s jawline before moving in to nip at Logan’s bottom lip, surrounded by warmth and a sense of hope for the first time in far longer than he’d cared to admit to, “I never in all my dreams imagined we’d reach this place together, but here we are.”
“Yeah we are Slim,” Logan wholly agreed pushing his forehead to Scott’s as a breeze swept over their damp bodies, serving as yet another cool reminder of just how far they’d fallen after the car had spun out of control, “and nothing’s gonna stop us from seeing where this takes us now that we know what we want in each other.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t wait to see where that is,” Scott confessed dragging Logan in for another intense series of kisses, knowing that they would have explaining to do back at the school, but caught up in each other’s arms and finding a new kind of freedom in their lives, Scott felt the voice in his mind retract taking the memory of Jean out of his mind only to be replaced by a warmth in his heart in holding Logan.
“I love you Slim,” Logan repeated with more confidence than before throwing it all out on the line in his admission.
“I love you too,” Scott replied feeling the words resonate from deep within his body and
“Let’s get you dried up and get this mess sorted out before we can go back home and work out the rest of what we didn’t get to talk about last night,” Logan suggested behind an uncharacteristic smile of his own, bringing Scott to a place where his heart was filled with love and eagerness knowing that whatever voice had driven him out towards the lake paled in comparison to the emotion that rolled over his senses, keeping him close to Logan and hoping for a future that perhaps this time wouldn’t be out of his reach.
Armed with those thoughts, Scott was determined to put the past behind him as he pulled Logan into one last embrace, set on remembering what mattered most with his new lover in his arms.
“I look forward to it,” Scott wholly agreed abandoning the horrors that once filled his mind in favor of remembering what life still had to offer him. Overcome with a new sense of hope, Scott kissed Logan’s forehead before pulling back just enough to share a smile with Logan, “Now that I know we’re in this together.”