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Title: Lazy
Sunday
Author:
Terri
E-mail:
xgrrl26@yahoo.com
Rating:
PG-13
Archive:
Dolphin Haven, Peep Hut - anyone else, please ask ;)
Feedback:
Please! Pretty please! Good, bad, and ugly welcome.......
Summary:
Marie's Lazy Sunday goes off-track.
Comments:
Just a little fooflet that demanded to be written before I embarked on another
epic- length fic ;) A tiny, little AssertiveSensibleMarie bunny bit me on
the ankle before I could get away for vacation......
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Marie came
down to the kitchen around eleven. Sundays were always lazy days for
her, and usually for Logan. He'd been up and out of bed near dawn today,
though, and while she wondered what had gotten him moving so early, she didn't
wonder enough to actually get up with him and find out. She supposed
that since he was now sweating, panting, and stripped to the waist as he
stood before the open fridge in the kitchen, chugging down water from the
pitcher without benefit of a glass, he'd been working out in the wee hours.
"Hey, sugar,"
she greeted, startling him into a spit-take. That was unusual too, very.
She could almost never sneak up on him, not even when she was trying.
"Logan, you OK?"
"Yeah, yeah,"
he replied distractedly, putting the pitcher back and wiping his mouth with
the back of his hand. "You up already?"
"Uh-huh.
It's past eleven." She took a few cautious steps toward him.
He was radiating jumpiness from every pore. Workouts usually spent
the energy, calmed him down. Hmmm.... "Were you in the danger
room?"
"Yeah.
Got a - a little practice in early. You know, gotta keep on my toes."
"I thought
keeping you on your toes was my job, sugar," she teased, closing the distance
between them to mere inches. It put a very odd look on Logan's face
- almost like he wanted to simultaneously take off running and ravish Marie
all at the same time. Marie - well, she liked the latter half of the
equation, but was befuddled by the former. "Logan, what's going on
with you? You're all - all weird."
"Heh.
Yeah. Just woke up kinda already goin, already revvin', you know."
Marie pinned
him with her eyes as her nose crinkled up. "OK, now you're really freaking
me out. What's going on with you?"
"Nothin'.
Nothin'."
"Logan........."
"It's nothin',
really."
"You can't
bullshit me, mister. Don't even try."
He let out
a sigh and slumped back against the refrigerator. After running a hand through
his sweat-soaked hair, he answered. "You know how you've been workin' on
controlin' your mutation real hard for the past coupla months?"
"Yeah," Marie
answered slowly. She didn't think he'd lost patience with her, or was
becoming frustrated by the lengths they always had to go to get around her
skin, but his dour expression was worrisome. "And?"
"And, well,
somethin' happened."
"What?
What happened?" And how could I not know about it? Marie thought.
"This mornin',
when I woke up, I was - well, I was touchin' ya." He gave an apologetic
shrug and couldn't quite hide the wince that accompanied it.
"Did I hurt
you?" Marie asked softly. Accidental touches had happened before -
but she or Logan, and usually both, had always woken immediately and pulled
away before the pull got too strong.
"No.
No. You didn't hurt me at all. Your skin - it wasn't on."
"Oh," Marie
sighed. It was welcome news on one level, but she held back her inner
celebrations because that kind of good news shouldn't have freaked Logan out.
"Well, um, good. I mean, I guess that's progress and that's good."
"Whatever
you did last night, before we fell asleep - it worked, darlin'." Now
he was wearing a sad smile and she could've sworn his eyes got glassy there
for a moment. "You got it down now."
"Well, I
don't know about that. I mean, I can try it again and see if it works
again, but it's a good beginning, I guess. It's the most progress I've
had since I absorbed Sabretooth." Marie immediately tried to push recollections
of that battle out of her mind. It had given her the ability to 'pull
the switch,' as she thought of it, for a few seconds, but literally only
that. It had been borne out of panic and necessity - she had been desperate
not to absorb Sabretooth's twisted psyche. In the end, though, she
couldn't hold him off for long, and she wound up killing him and absorbing
him permanently. It was her worst nightmare come to life, and she cursed
her inability to hold her ravenous skin off for more than five seconds or
so. Afterward, she'd had to spend long weeks in therapy with the Professor
to help her deal with the new and very unpleasant resident in her mind.
But now, she was grateful, on balance, for that small measure of control
over her unruly mutation - Lord knows she and Logan had made some very creative
uses of it. Still, she wanted more, and that had been the object of
her recent sessions with the Professor, to try to 'pull the switch' at will,
and for longer periods of time.
"Yeah."
Logan's soft answer brought her back to the present. "So, ah, there
you go, then. Touchin'. You've got it licked."
"And yet
you're not happy about that," Marie countered softly, with a quizzical tilt
of her head.
"I am,"
Logan reassured, reaching out to touch her shoulders. "I'm so happy
for ya, darlin'. You're gonna have everythin' you ever wanted now,
baby."
"I have
pretty much everything I ever wanted already. I have you." That
earned her another wince and a shrug, and something clicked into place in
her mind. "Is that what you think? That as soon as I could touch
I'd ditch you or something?" When he didn't answer, she sputtered out,
"Are you nuts?"
"Open question,
darlin'," he responded, letting her go and backing away a bit.
"You can't
be serious, Logan. Do you not - do you not believe me when I tell you
how much I love you?"
"'Course
I do, darlin'. 'Course. But I know that things - well, things
change. Maybe you and me - maybe we were right for one another before,
and God knows I'll always be grateful for the time you gave me, but I think
we both know that you - you could have anyone you wanted, and - "
"Just stop
right there," Marie said firmly, holding one hand up to illustrate the words.
"Logan, sugar, I love you with all my heart and soul, but let me tell you
something - you can be a damn clueless man sometimes." Now it was his
turn to look a little lost. "Sugar, I could've had anyone I wanted,
anytime. So could you. We picked each other. Do you think
that - that I didn't have any other options, anyone else who was ever interested
in me but you?"
Logan's wide-open
mouth gave her answer, but he added some verbal annotation. "B-but you
- you never said anythin' about anyone who - who - hey! Who?
Who was interested? Did someone make a move on you? Why didn't
you say anythin'?! I woulda - "
"Knocked
them on their ass, or clawed them, or both?" she asked sweetly. "Yes,
I know, sugar, and that's why I never made it a point to share that information.
Even though you're the only one I want to share my bed with, I still like
my friends with all their bodily organs intact."
"Was it
Remy?" Logan demanded.
"Logan -
"
"I've seen
how he looks at ya. Don't think I didn't catch that. Damn wily
Cajun, oughta go kick his ass right now for that." Feral eyes wandered
to the open doorway and Marie watched as his nose twitched, searching for
Remy's scent. She let out a little huff.
"Logan, I'm
not interested in Remy. Or Bobby. Or John. Or Hank.
I'm interested in you." She paused, letting a smile creep across her
features. "You know, the sane, rational you, not the guy who jumped
out of my bed at the crack of freaking dawn on a Sunday to go down to the
danger room and kill the holograms of everyone who might be looking for a
fling with touchable-me."
Logan ducked
his head sheepishly, and Marie could've sworn she saw those stubble-strewn
cheeks pink with a passing blush. "Uh, how'd you know that's what I
was doin'?"
"Because
I know you pretty well, sugar. And you should know me pretty well by
now too." That last part came out tinted in hurt, and Logan once again
closed the space between them to put his hands on her.
"I do.
I believe it when you say you love me. I just - it's a lotta good in
my life, you know? And sometimes it's a helluva lot easier on me to
tell myself I gotta give the good things up insteada havin' 'em yanked away
from me."
"I know,"
Marie sighed. "But next time, you know, say something. Talk to
me or something. Don't get yourself all worked up over it, OK?"
"I'll try."
Logan kissed her forehead, minding the five-second rule just in case.
"Hey. How 'bout I make you some breakfast, huh? Eggs, bacon, toast,
whatever you want."
"I need
coffee first, I think," Marie purred, concentrating just a bit then running
a bare finger down the length of Logan's cheek, very slowly. One second
passed, then two, then three - her finger trailed back up and four and five
seconds went by and then her finger came back down, still in contact with
his skin. She kept up the touch - six full seconds, seven. Logan's
lips curled into a damn sexy grin - eight seconds, nine - and his hands grabbed
for her waist. At a full ten seconds, he planted a searing kiss onto
her bare lips. Somewhere around thirty seconds, they came up for air.
"Sit down,
darlin'. Lemme getcha that coffee."
Marie's frantic
grab halted his movement. "Screw the coffee." She kissed him
hard, and passionately. "I've got the touching thing down now," Marie panted,
when she came up for air. "You said I can have anything I want, and
I sure as hell don't want coffee." With a grunt, Logan hefted her over
his sweaty, bare shoulder, and carried her wiggling form back up to bed.
Although that episode put an end to 'lazy' Sundays for the both of them,
the day still remained one that was always pleasurably spent.
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