DISCLAIMER: If you know them and love them (or hate them), they aren't mine. If you don't know 'em, they are.
DISTRIBUTION: If you would like permission to archive this story, please email: mydestinyfic@yahoo.com.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my first attempt at an XFic. If you don't like it, don't read it. I'd like to thank the ladies of the WXF for their support and encouragement. Special thanks to Albertina, Chase and Joanne for beta'ing this for me. Big sloppy baby kisses to Cyn and baby Nicky for their special brand of ego-boostin'. And, finally, if you like it, please let me know. I've already got a few sequels spinning in my brain. Eve and Logan will not be stopped.
SPECIAL NOTE: Look Ma, all that thesis research came in handy for something!
Logan stalked the halls relentlessly. After his run-in with Rogue, he realized that she was right. Something inside of him had been avoiding a direct confrontation with Eve. He had the feeling that of all of them, he was the one who could climb in under her skin and understand what was going on. It frightened him a little. She brought to life parts of himself that he thought he had under control.
He didn't want to climb in under her skin. He didn't want to know what went on in that mind of hers. If he did, he might never break free. He might be many things: brash, reckless, but he wasn't stupid. Part of him liked their similarity. The endorphin rush of their chemical reaction wasn't something he could easily ignore.
Finally, he'd decided to screw the fear. There was one person who had the answers to all of his questions. He meant to have those answers before the time came to make like someone's Long Island iced tea. She was around somewhere, lurking. And he was going to find her.
He heard the children shrieking on the lawn and something told him she wouldn't be there today. No, the hour was approaching. It was getting too close to her sacrifice for her to be with them. He checked her room, thinking she might have stashed herself away, hiding from the children's joy and laughter. It was empty. He was almost ready to give up when he realized that he hadn't seen Scott all day either. There's no way monobrow can be hanging out with her, Logan thought. But, he couldn't seem to get the idea out of his mind; and so, he found himself standing outside of Scott and Jean's bedroom door.
His lips curled in disgust. He really didn't want to go in there. But, it seemed he had no choice. Though he had given Jean up without a fight, he had never been able to get himself to go in this room. He didn't see the need to have their intimacy thrown in his face.
Logan turned the knob. He'd be damned if he was going to knock.
His eyes flicked over the carpet, the curtains, the carefully made bed. He sniffed. The faint aroma of Scott's cologne and Jean's perfume hung in the air. He could tell by the weakness of the scent that neither of them had been in the room for hours. Strike two.
Logan returned to the hallway. The muscle in his jaw ticked. Where the hell could she be hiding? Time was running out.
As he made his way past the staircase, a rich, primal aroma tickled his nose. Damnit, he knew that smell. He swung his head left and right, desperately attempting to locate the source of the odor. What the hell had she done? Finally, Logan took a chance and he headed up to the top floor of the mansion. It was rarely used, and never occupied. If she was doing what he thought she was doing, it would be the perfect place to hide.
Logan crept up the stairs; he walked lightly on his feet, avoiding loose boards in the steps. When he reached the top of the staircase, he sniffed again. It was stronger now. There was no mistaking the scent. She'd made a fresh kill. He slowly wound his way through the large, dark room that made up the top floor. As he tripped over a box of Christmas lights, he cursed the darkness. She'd said that she had excellent night vision. She wasn't kidding.
He'd almost given up on finding her when he saw a flash of white in the darkness. She might be a creature of the night, but there was no way she could hide that white skin of hers from him. Of course, his nose couldn't miss what she was holding in her hands either.
He padded silently toward her.
"What the fuck are you doing?" he asked angrily.
She looked up from her meal with a crazed expression on her face, her lips a brilliant, glossy red from the blood of her victim. The body landed on the floor with a dull thud. She hadn't heard him coming.
"I repeat, what the fuck are you doing?"
"Go away, Logan. It's best if you just go away. Forget what you've seen and go away."
"Right," he said, kicking the corpse of the deer she'd been feeding on when he spotted her, "just go get ready so you can do this to me too, right? I don't think so. I'm not going to go that easily."
He grabbed her arm; the fingers digging into her flesh left bloody welts that healed as quickly as they appeared.
"We're going to set the record straight, just you and me. You're going to tell me everything."
She drew a shuddery breath.
"Go away, Logan," she said, her voice breaking. "You don't need to know anymore."
He grabbed her other arm and shook her violently. He felt her muscles give easily and was dimly aware that she was capable of stopping him if she wanted to.
"Goddamnit, lady, you're going to tell me what I need to know. What the hell are you doing up here? What the hell is wrong with you?"
Her hands gripped his wrists and slowly pulled his fingers away from her arms. She wiped the blood from her mouth with a quick swipe of the back of her hand.
"I'm doing what I have to do, Logan," she said. "I have to ease the hunger, don't you see?" She turned away from him and ripped the cloth covering from one of the windows. "I was hunting, out there. Dawn is best. But, I don't need to tell you that. You already know. By the time I found her," she said, gesturing toward the body, "it was too late. I couldn't feed out there where the children might see me. So, I brought her up here, away from everyone and everything."
"I still don't see why you had to do this. Yer getting' your fangs into me soon, isn't that enough?"
"I don't know, Logan," she said, repeating his action and grabbed his arm. "I don't know, that's why I had to kill this morning. I don't know what I am capable of. I don't want to be responsible for your death."
Her hand dropped free of his arm, stroking the muscles as she moved away. He was warm, she could feel it. The scent of his blood was intoxicating. With it came the odor of the man himself. He'd been in the earth lately, she could smell it on the soles of his shoes. She told herself to pull away. He wasn't safe alone with her, not with her blood running high. Not fresh off a kill.
Logan seemed to sense the effect he was having on her; he pulled away quietly, retreating a few feet.
"You've got to know something. I know you do. Rogue told me you talked to her. Why is it that you have no problem burdening a young girl like her with details, but you aren't willing to tell me squat? I'm the one you're going to be gnawing on in less than an hour. Doesn't that deserve something?"
She slid to the floor beneath the window, looking for all the world like a forgotten rag doll. She looked so sad that he almost relented. Almost. Damnit, it was his life they were talking about. He couldn't find it in himself to walk the path blindly.
"You can tell me," he said, as he silently approached and crouched down beside her on the floor. "I'm not your enemy in this. If you just let me know . . ."
She said nothing, simply staring at the dead deer carcass. It was already growing cold and stiffening. She could smell the changes in the body. The approach of decay sickened her. Though she was intimately acquainted with the after effects of death, she still found them disquieting.
"I think that Charles and Jean are wrong," she said. "I don't think you're going to recover quickly from the exchange. And, I don't mean physically. I'm afraid this is going to hurt you, way down inside, in that place you don't let any of them see. I know it's there," she said, as she turned to place her palm against the spot on his chest where she could feel his heart. "You've walled it off, freezing it inside a block of denial. I know," she said, grabbing his left hand and pressing it against her breasts, "because the same thing is locked in here. I don't know what it is. It's just there, sitting heavy in my chest. Whatever they are, Logan, they make a difference."
He felt her heart beat rapidly beneath the palm of his hand. The softness of the fabric of her dress made him long to close his fingers around the mounds of flesh that swelled on either side of his palm. As he pulled his fingers away from her body, they brushed against the stiffened peak of her right breast and she drew a quick, shallow breath.
He looked at her face, longing to pull the lenses from her eyes. Damnit, now he knew how Jean felt. If he could only look in her eyes, he knew he'd find the answers to so many questions.
"You aren't just worried about me," he said quietly, as sure of it as he was of the fear he felt in the pit of his stomach. "This isn't exactly going to be easy for you either, is it?"
She shook her head silently.
"No, it isn't going to be easy. There won't be anyone to guide me through. I'll have to do it alone."
He clenched his jaw.
"I could-"
"No, Logan," she said firmly, smiling after a moment to take the edge from her words, "you can't help me. It will only make it more difficult."
"Yer wrong," he said. "You've been out there alone too long. You think you can handle it all yourself. But Eve, I'm here to tell you that it's better to turn around and put out your hand." He extended his palm toward her. Slowly, grudgingly, she accepted and twined her fingers through his. He gently pulled her toward him, until he could feel the heat of her body through his jeans. "We can pull you back from the darkness."
They sat in the dim light, staring at one another in silence, Logan once again silently damning her sunglasses.
"You're wrong, Logan," she whispered, tears rolling out from under the lenses of her glasses and down her face. She pulled her fingers free from his hand and slid them up toward his neck. She closed her hand around the sides of his windpipe and slowly began to squeeze her fingers closed.
He gasped against the crushing pressure. A red haze dropped down over his eyes, the pain was excruciating. He didn't bother to fight back. She wouldn't kill him. He didn't know how he knew this, but he did.
She watched him, surprised by his passive reaction. She had been sure that he would strike back. She looked in his eyes and saw the resolute expression lurking behind the pain. He wouldn't give up. He was making a point. Slowly, her fingers relinquished the pressure from his throat.
"I could take you right here, you know," she said. "They wouldn't even know you were gone."
He looked at her with eyes veiled through heavy lids.
"Yup," he said, "you probably could have. But you didn't. And, you want to know something? I don't think you can."
"Why?" she asked with sneer. "Because you're so irresistible to women?"
He laughed.
"Well," he said smugly, "there is that. But, no, I was actually referring to that thing inside you. That maternal thing. You couldn't take me or Jean or Marie or the Profes-" He was cut off by the sound of a horn honking outside. "What the hell?"
Logan and Eve stood quickly and peered out the uncovered window. A large yellow school bus stood in the circular drive. Scott stood at the open doors, slowly ushering the children on after checking their names off of a slip of paper attached to a clipboard.
"He managed to get it here in time," she said quietly.
"What the hell is he doing?"
"I asked him to prepare an outing for the children this afternoon. Something to keep them away from the school. Charles arranged for them to go to a National Park. They're going to swim in a pond and climb trees and eat food with absolutely no nutritional value around a campfire. Then, they're going to pitch their tents and camp out over night. They need to be away Logan."
"I know," he said, looking at the sad expression on her face, "you have to make sure that they're safe no matter what happens."
She nodded.
"You'll be safe too," she said, "I promise. I've already made sure of it."
He said nothing, feeling it was useless to try to repeat the point he had been trying to make earlier.
Together, they watched as Scott counted the children off not once, not twice, but three times. Logan shook his head. The man was entirely too anal. He bet they were already setup according to the buddy system and they hadn't even left the yard yet. Scott stepped away from the bus and Logan frowned. If he was sticking around, who was going to be watching them? He looked at the bus, attempting to peer through the windows. It was no use. He let his concern go, safe in the knowledge that Scott wouldn't let the children leave with someone he didn't trust.
As the bus rolled away, Logan heard a shuddery sigh leave the lips of the woman standing beside him. Tears were rolling down her cheeks unchecked. Soon, all the children would be gone. She clutched at her stomach and gave way to her cries. Her body shook with the strength of her tears. He couldn't just stand there. He pulled her tightly against his chest; her forehead fit neatly into the crook of his neck.
"Shhhh," he crooned into her hair, "they'll be back."
She cried harder.
"No they won't," she said, "not all of them."
He grunted. She was right.
"Close your eyes," he said as he pulled the sunglasses from her face. He gently wiped her tears. She really was a beautiful woman, even when she cried. There weren't a lot of people who could pull that off.
He pressed his lips against her forehead. She must have taken a shower in Jean's room, he thought. The crisp apple smell of Jean's shampoo clung to her hair. He pulled away abruptly, what was he doing smelling her hair?
Alarmed by his sudden movement, Eve snapped her eyes open, forgetting for the moment that she was no longer wearing her sunglasses. Where had that kiss come from? She looked at him; his face had the same expression that the deer's had had earlier in the morning. He looked shocked and alarmed to be standing this close to something so deadly.
He reached for her, both hands closing around the sides of her face. His chest heaved against the force of his breath. She couldn't look away from his eyes. They burned in the dim light like embers in a fire. There was heat inside, a heat she felt echoing in the depths of her body. As he pulled her closer, his fingers tangled in her hair. They felt like silken tentacles, trapping him so he couldn't pull free.
When he looked into her eyes, it wasn't the same as it had been in the Professor's study the day before. That had been a challenge, nothing more. This was different. He could see the pain, deep down inside. It was a pain he had felt many times before. The others couldn't understand it or recognize it. It was the pain of knowing that every shred of your identity was being ripped from your body.
He pressed his lips against hers, only momentarily registering the taste of the deer's blood that lingered in her mouth. He licked at her lips, then pressed his tongue tightly against them, demanding entry. He felt her resist, and wondered if breaching all her defenses would be like this. He applied slow, steady pressure before suddenly changing tactics and closing the sharp edges of his teeth over the succulent flesh of her lower lip. His hands wrapped around her waist and pressed her tightly against his body. She shifted against the heavy mound of his arousal and a deep guttural moan welled up from his throat.
She gasped and her fingers slid up the wall of his chest before clutching at the muscles of his shoulders. Her lips slowly slid open and he was surprised to feel the tip of her tongue pressing against his upper lip. He captured it quickly, drawing it into the warm cavern of his mouth. The two muscles thrashed against each other in a quest for dominance. He pushed her harder, faster and she came along for the ride, chasing after him and sometimes beckoning for him to catch up.
His left hand moved up from her waist and closed around her breast. In her brief moment of shock, he pressed his advantage and took the kiss back to the confines of her mouth. He flicked his tongue against her teeth, lovingly stroking the edge of her canines. She reacted fervently, her body coming alive under his mouth and hands. He felt her fingers thrust into his hair and against his scalp. They pressed his head forward, melding his mouth more tightly against hers.
She moaned as he pushed her backwards against the wall, her body giving a satisfying thud. His hand tugged at the tie of her dress, desperate to reach inside.
"Logan, you up here?"
Eve stopped abruptly; he felt the passion quickly drain from her. He dropped his hands from her body.
*snikt*
His claws sprang open. He looked down at them, a bemused expression on his face. Was he destined to keep making a fool of himself with these things?
"Logan? Are you up there? I know those were your claws. Stop screwing around."
Scott. First Jean, now him, God, he couldn't catch a break.
"Yeah," he said gruffly, "I'll be right down."
"Hurry up," Scott replied, "Jean wants to check you over before Eve gets back."
Logan looked at the woman in front of him.
"I'll be there in a minute," he called.
Eve refused to look at him. He clenched his teeth as he bent down to pick up her sunglasses from the floor. He'd dropped them somewhere in the middle of the kiss. The way she was acting made the whole thing seem cheap, like she was some hooker he'd picked up to nail in a back alley. He wondered if that's what she really thought of him.
She slipped the glasses back over her eyes; her tension eased considerably.
"Thank you," she said, "I'm sorry that happened, Logan. It's my eyes. I shouldn't have let you take my sunglasses off. It isn't safe. I-"
"Darlin'," he interrupted, "you're walkin' a fine line here. If you want to keep walkin' it, I suggest you shut up." He glared at her for a minute before turning on his heel and stalking across the room.
"You might want to get rid of the deer and clean yourself up before you show up," he called over his shoulder. "You're one hell of a mess."
He pressed his hand against the bulge in his pants, trying to find a more comfortable position. This day just kept getting better and better all the time.
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