A series by November

Chapter 61: Tear me Open, Pour me Out

“Where do I take this pain of mine?
I run but it stays right by my side.
So tear me open, pour me out,
These things inside they scream and shout.
And the pain still hates me
So hold me until it sleeps...”
--Metallica

They were watching Animal Planet one night after dinner when the phone rang. Rogue got it.

“Roguey?”

“Carter? Is that you?”

“Yeah. I need a favor. I haven’t slept in three days and I could really use a hit.”

“Oh, sure. No problem. Now?”

“Please.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Be right back,” she said, trailing her fingers through Logan’s and Maggie’s hair as she passed by behind the couch. She did not notice Logan’s clenched jaw.

Rogue had Carter sawing logs within five minutes and when she returned, she sat back down next to Logan on the sofa. On a commercial break she told Maggie to get ready for bed and when she left the room, Rogue leaned into Logan’s side. “Hey Bub.”

“Hey.”

She playfully licked his ear and watched as his jaw just clenched. Her smile turned to a look of confusion. “Logan. Earth to Logan? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She watched him for a few seconds. Her face showed confusion, then anger, then hurt.

“What, I can’t talk to my friends now?”

“Did I say that?”

“No, Logan, you didn’t say much of anything, so why don’t you enlighten me?”

“There’s nothing to enlighten you on!”

“I’m going to the DR. If you wanna talk I’ll be there.”

He didn’t wanna talk.

Bobby was there. She ran sims with him until midnight, then came home, aware on some level that she was sweaty and she smelled of Bobby. She showered and slept.

The next morning she took Maggie to school and returned home to study, instead finding Logan there.

“Morning, sug.”

He grunted at her.

She dropped her keys and purse on the floor and crossed her arms. “Okay, Logan, what the fucking fuck?”

“Hey, I told you I had baggage!”

“We all have fucking baggage! You wanna share this with me or not?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Well you’ve grunted like five words to me in the past twelve hours, so that might become a problem, like, on a long term basis, don‘t you think? All I’m asking is for you to talk to me, tell me what’s goin’ on in your head. I don’t think that’s so unreasonable.”

He was quiet.

“For Christ’s sake, Logan, I love you.”

“I know,” he said quietly. He sat staring into space, wound so tightly he seemed he might break.

“And I’m not losing you over something so stupid, so you’d better talk!”

He sprung up, sudden violence everywhere in his stance. “Dammit Marie, what do you want me to say? Yes, I’m a pathetic insecure loser who gets jealous every time you so much as talk to another man. You think I don’t know I’m like some fucking barbarian? You think I don’t know how that sounds?”

He was so in her face that she could feel his breath as he shouted, but she merely stood there, breathing calmly.

“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Her calmness pissed him off. Anyone else would have shrunk back. Suddenly he knew he needed to leave the room, now.

The idea of hurting her never crossed his mind, not for a second. But the door was just there. He took a huge shuddering breath, popped his metal, and slashed it, from transom to doorknob. She could smell the shredded wood as he ventilated her front door. Then just as quickly the claws retracted, and he ran. She stood for a few minutes, shaking, tears welling.

Logan was halfway across the campus, clothes soaked, his bare feet sloshing on wet frozen ground. He didn’t hear her until she was on him. She tackled him, not a very wise thing to do given his current mental state, but she wasn’t thinking clearly.

“So what? You’re gonna throw all this away? You’re gonna run?”

“Do I look like I’m gonna go far?” His lips were already blue and goose bumps stood out in clear relief on his skin.

“So what then? Gonna sulk every time I‘m around another guy? Punish me for having friends who are male?”

“Please get off me,” He said calmly. He was taking very deliberate, even breaths.

Something about the effort he was making made her comply. She did, quiet despite the rage in her chest, waiting for him to say what would happen next. He stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Marie, when I came back I told you that I wouldn’t leave unless you asked me. Do you think I didn’t mean that?”

She looked at him blankly, unsure of what to say.

He spoke again, as if it took a physical effort to do so. “I just ran out because I’m ashamed of what I did to the door. Because I saw you look scared of me for just a second, and that hurt and fuck, I deserve it. Because I know that I have no right to want to die inside when I think of any other man touching you, and because I can’t be around you until I can not act like an asshole. Because I want you to trust me and I’d rather run out to calm down than do anything to damage that trust.”

She nodded, stepped closer to him, understanding. She was quiet for a moment, taking in his earnest look, his shame and regret.

“I’m sorry. Come back in soon, okay?”

He nodded.

“Love you,” she said, and let him be. He watched her walk back into the mansion in awe at her strength.

She was in bed reading when he came in. He was so cold, a metallic bone-cold, and their place was warm. He pulled off his clothes and lay them in a sodden heap on the bathroom floor. He went directly into the shower and merely stood under the stream until the whole room was steamy. His body ached, particularly his knuckles. He gingerly washed the dried blood from the unmarred skin, and tried to wriggle the tension out of his fingers, There were several trees in Xavier’s woods that were now pulp.

He stood in the hot water some more. Until he felt warm. It took a long time to warm the metal. He hated being cold.

He dried off and rummaged in the linen closet. He found a quilt, which he wrapped around himself. He made a call to a local carpenter to come in and fix the door. He called Xavier, apologizing and telling him he was in the process of repairing it.

Then he went into the bedroom. “Hi."

She marked her page and closed her book. “Hi, love. You look so cold.”

He nodded.

“Come warm up.”

He nodded gratefully and she pulled back the covers. He climbed in and laid his head on her lap.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too, sug.” She lovingly stroked his hair.

“I don’t know how to get past this,” he said. “I’ll do anything. I just don’t know what.”

She was quiet for a minute, thinking about what to say.

“I’m so afraid that you’re gonna leave me because of this. And I just get controlled by these emotions that come out of nowhere, and there’s nowhere to stuff them. My first instinct is to hide ‘em from you so you don’t know how pathetic I am. But you’re way too smart for that.”

“I don’t want you to have to hide.”

“I just feel like I’m dragging you down.”

“You aren’t. Logan, I loved you, ever since that first time you touched me. And don’t forget that your mind isn’t some deep mysterious secret to me. I know you. I took you in and made you mine and saw everything. I loved you because I knew you, not in spite of it. And now I love you more.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“Bullshit, Logan-”

“Listen to me. I don’t deserve it. You could do so much better. I feel like I’ll always have to struggle with these things.”

“You don’t get it, do you? I love you because you struggle.”

He just shook his head, trying to comprehend the enormity of it. He closed his eyes and felt her hands gentle in his hair and tried to figure out a way to offer up his thoughts to her.

“I’m so possessive because I have this sense of nothing…”

“Whaddya mean?” she asked.

“Because I have no memories, no past, don‘t know who or what the fuck I am. Sometimes I wake up sweating in the middle of the night with this feeling that I’m surrounded by nothing and there’s nothing to grab on to.”

“Logan, I’m nowhere near wanting to leave you. This is a problem and I’ll do my damndest to get around it, to help us through it. But I’d die if you left me.”

His eyes met hers and he kissed her palm. “I’ll never leave you.”

She smiled, a small smile that made him smile a little too. “I know.”

It was quiet for long seconds. She heard the heat whirr on, and Logan‘s breath, and little else.

“And you know, Logan, you don’t have the market cornered on jealousy. I went through nearly two years of hating Jean because of the way you flirted with her.”

“Really?” this was a revelation to him.

“Oh yeah. And I’d think about you out there on the road, in bars every night, and come on, I knew a hottie like you had to be gettin’ some.”

He laughed suddenly and loudly. He wasn’t expecting that.

“I’m serious!” She said, semi-indignant. “And I’d lie in bed wondering what they looked like, were they blondes or redheads or brunettes like me, and I’d think about how you didn’t see me that way, how I was a kid sister or daughter or something to you, and what did it matter anyway because I could never touch you?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Told you I had baggage, too. Mine’s just a little less gory.”

“Well, I was gettin’ a lot less than you think. You’re the only one I can sleep with and not wake up screaming. That wasn’t exactly conducive to a happenin’ sex life.”

She laughed. “Oh, god. We’re a neurotic mess.”

“Well, I’ve killed some trees and it’s mostly out of my system.”

“Aww.” She picked up his hand and kissed each of his knuckles. “I bet you’re aching, sugar.”

“Yeah.”

She dropped his left hand and picked up his right one. She kissed the knuckles there, too. It was incredibly sweet and symbolic and suddenly, inexplicably, erotic. He went hard and she scooted down in the bed and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. She tried to show it all to him, as if she were offering up her heart on the tip of her tongue. A shudder ran through her that had nothing to do with heat.

“God, I love you,” she said.

He just smiled, an unexpected, happy smile.

“We need a safeword,” she said.

“What?” He was obviously familiar with the term because his eyes went huge.

“Not that kind of safeword. You need something you can say to me if you need to go kill trees. Like ‘time out’ or something.”

He chuckled. “Sounds good.”

“And if you say ‘time out’ I’ll just let you go, no questions asked, except maybe for when you’ll be back. Only because of Maggie and all.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“And I won’t give up my male friends because of this. It kills me to hurt you but to do that would be like admitting there was something there that isn’t.”

He nodded. “I don’t want ya to do that. It would only make you resent me.”

She smiled and cupped his face in her hands and kissed him some more.

“I’m sorry I went off on you like that. It was like you were pushing and pushing.”

“Well I guess I was. I get really scared when you get all sulky and monosyllabic and shit. I get afraid you‘ll leave me. And, I get afraid for Maggie, because she‘s become so attached to you.”

“Marie, I would never hurt her.”

“That’s not what I meant. In the beginning I was so afraid you’d leave, and not just afraid for me, for her too, because she can’t take one more person abandoning her. I know that sounds horrible, like I’m pressuring you into something or using her to sink my claws into you.”

“Bullshit,” he said with a grin.

“You turning my own words back at me?”

“If the shoe fits.” He grinned some more and pulled her close to him. “Maybe I want your claws in me, woman.”

She grinned back and dug her nails in a line down his back, gently.

He shuddered.

“Damn, girl, you make me feel good.”

“You ain’t seen nothing’ yet, sug.” She snuggled into his neck. “Oh, and by the way?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“You’re exceedingly lucky that Maggie wasn’t here earlier because if you ever pull that Freddie Krueger shit in front of our child, I will kill you.”

“Kay,” he said, pressing his face into her shoulder to hide his grin.