Fucking Fellini
by
Elektra
DISCLAIMER: Everyone belongs to Marvel, etc. I am simply using them for my own amusement.
DISTRIBUTION: If you would like permission to archive this story, please email: wxfonline@yahoo.com.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Libby for handing over the muse for a few hours.
DEDICATION: For Eiluned; I hope this makes you smile.
The frantic staccato heartbeat of a bass drum was his first clear memory. Laying in a tangle of white linen sheets, sonic reverberations shaking his flesh, Logan thought that they must all be dead. Jean. . . Cyclops. . . Xavier. . . sleeping through this? Damned unlikely.
Shifting quickly, the soft cling of fabric falling away, Logan's feet kissed the remarkably cool steel that blanketed the floor of his bedroom. The insistent, grinding whine of an electric guitar joined the beat of the drum. The mice had set the house to rocking.
He shivered against the cool, crisp air that filled his room, only then becoming aware of the yawning chasm of his open bedroom window. He hadn't left that open. Moving across the room, he ignored the press of wind against his naked flesh. Who the fuck had been in his room while he was sleeping? And, more importantly, why hadn't he woken up?
Logan scanned the section of the grounds that was visible from his bedroom window. The sky was clear, the full power of the moon's reflection flowing back toward earth. All was still; no one was out there, of that much he was certain. Leaning forward, Logan reached out into empty space for the windowpane that suddenly swung outward instead of up and down. As his fingers closed around the latch, a sudden flow of water rushed over his flesh; his hair stuck closely to his skin as beads of the liquid rolled down the thick, muscular plains of his chest, nestling into regions female students only dared dream about. In the distance, the rumble of thunder competed with the driving rhythms of rock music on acid.
Rain? But the sky was. . . overcast, thick ropes of storm clouds blocking the light of his sister the moon.
Retreating to what he supposed was the relative safety of his bedroom, hands clutched in tight fists, Logan shook the water from his body in a motion that was strangely reminiscent of his totem. He eyed the red cotton towel that had conveniently been slung across his desk. He could think of very few people who had the ability to control weather. Someone was fucking with him; beyond which, Xavier didn't own red towels.
Looking around the room, Logan became uncomfortably aware that the length of red terrycloth and the window weren't the only things that had changed about his room. The walls, once tastefully painted, were now covered in a thick layer of what appeared to be black gesso. The beveled mirrors tiling the ceiling weren't too bad; but, the metallic monstrosity in the white artist's smock and red beret wasn't exactly his vision of a wet dream at 4:11 in the morning.
"You are ready, my friend?" the mass of mobile metal asked in thickly accented English.
Just beyond his unwelcome companion, Logan spotted the kind of cage strippers the world over used to help men blow their wads. Yeah, how many fortunes had he wasted at the foot of one of those cages? How much had he won?
A body covered in gauzy gray material lay slumped on the floor of the cage. Logan stared. Alive? Dead? His senses felt dull, negated by powerful pull of some unknown mutant. Slowly, the figure roused under the pressure of his intense stare. Elegant white hands tipped in red pulled the slight frame upright. A curtain of mink brown hair masked most of the woman's face.
Slick black lips grinned around gleaming white teeth, a glimpse of luscious pink hinted at the moist depths of both of the woman's mouths.
Ignoring the insistent hum of desire that pulled at his groin, Logan turned back toward the greater of his worries. He frowned. Good old Pete had vanished, probably one of his smarter moves. But, classically, his departure hadn't signaled the end of whatever half-assed reality he now found himself in. Cyclops stood, unprotected green eyes burning in their sockets, watching him.
Logan's brow wrinkled as he took in the absurd yellow and black spandex outfit that the other man was wearing. The nerve endings in the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably.
"I bet she would like yellow spandex," Cyclops exclaimed, gesturing toward the woman in the cage.
Strands of snowy white hair clung to the woman's lips as she began to laugh. She brushed her strange chocolate and vanilla hair from her face and began gyrating wildly to the never-ending strains of retro funk. The desperate, frantic quality of her voice pushed Logan forward.
"Marie," he exclaimed, "stop it. We have to get you out of there."
At this, the woman laughed harder, collapsing to the floor under the weight of sheer absurdity.
"Logan."
The gentle lilt of an unexpected southern drawl caused Logan to look back over his shoulder. Marie stood beside Cyclops, their hands entwined. She was swathed in lace and pearls, a hoop and several stiff crinolines forcing her long skirt away from her body. Giving him a gentle smile, Marie turned to Scott, who pulled a length of sheer fabric over her face.
"We're ready," she said, turning back to him with a wry grin. "I have something new, something blue and something borrowed. Do you think these," she asked, gesturing toward three bloody gashes in her bodice, "will qualify as something old?"
"Oh God, what did I do?" Logan exclaimed. "Not again. I swore it would never happen again."
He tried to rush toward her, but the grasping fingers of the woman in the cage held him in place.
Marie shook her head and looked at Scott exasperatedly. "Logan," she said, "you didn't give these to me. I gave them to myself." With an unconscious flexing of the muscles of her forearms, Marie released six smaller replicas of Logan's claws. "I wanted them; and, now they're mine."
With that, she and Cyclops turned and began walking out of the room. As they reached the door that led to the hall, Marie turned back one last time.
"Don't wait too long," she said, "you don't want to miss out on everything."
As the door closed behind the couple, Logan tried to make sense of what he had seen. Pete and Cyke and Marie, mirrors and gesso and the moon, what did it all mean? Who the hell was making this happen? It had to be more than one of them. The weather, the music, the weird shifting of perception, was it a test? If so, how was he supposed to pass?
Logan made a move to cross the room and follow his fellow teammates. He managed a single step before a hand closed around his wrist. The woman. He couldn't seem to recall the moment she had originally relinquished her hold on him. It wasn't important. She was there now; and, he'd be damned if he'd leave her in that cage to rot.
Turning back toward the metal structure, Logan was stunned to see a pair of familiar green eyes.
"Jean?" He asked.
Slowly, she pulled herself free from the gauzy gray cloud of fabric that had entwined her. Underneath, she wore a simple white shift dress. Jean smiled, the rich color of her lips eclipsed only by the flame of her hair.
"Ready to let me out?" She asked.
"Cyke-"
"-got his uniform from the Professor. That's all he ever really needed," she said.
"Marie-"
"-got her claws from you. And, that's all she ever really wanted."
Logan opened the cage and helped Jean ease out on to the floor.
"I-"
"You," Jean said with a grin, "are very wet, which is why I brought you the towel. I thought you might need some help drying off."
***
Logan woke with a start. That had to have been the most fucked-up dream anyone had ever had. He rubbed at his face trying to dispel the remnants of the incoherent workings of his mind. Already, as he lay there, the images were fading back into the reaches of his subconscious.
Weird.
Looking at the flashing green light of his alarm clock, Logan decided to hit the hay for another hour before getting up for a run in the Danger Room. As he drifted off to sleep, his hand closed around the soft length of a red towel.
One thing was for sure, no more Fellini movies before bed.
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