ilvw reader v1.0
High Times
written by asclepius
The man stood in the corner of the kitchen late that night, after all the kids had gone to sleep in their dorms. He grabbed a beer out of his stash, the one that no one actually knew about, and popped a claw with a snikt! to get the cap off. It clattered to the floor, glass and coins against cold, hard tiles. A vice of his, but not one that mattered at all. Logan's eyes wandering the room, empty. A door opened upstairs. Footsteps, not who he thought it was. Not who he wanted it to be. Not who he needed it to be.
A quiet hum off in the distance. An engine, edging ever closer to the building. Logan's breath hit the cold air, the quiet shiver of the mansion becoming all too real for him. Vast and thick, dark and whole, the night seemed to be all to crushing. It was empty, that room. He was so used to hearing that heartbeat, smelling the iron on his skin, the just-fired gun strapped in his holster. "Fuck." He speaks as a incantation, a charm, or maybe a curse, into the occluded night. The hum got louder and louder, and then came the smell, a pale horse riding on the hushed current of the wind. It was iron, fire, blood, rage, exhaustion. He'd been gone for nearing a week now, off on some assignment from Hank. Sometimes, he was the only person with enough finesse to pull certain jobs from the ether. Logan was brutish, angry, short with people. He was rough and abrasive, bulky and strong. Jack Alguna was a calm, controlled, precise, understanding man.
The door to the garage opens slowly as Jack steps in, the familiar scent of the man hitting Logan’s nose. “Hey, Sparks,” He took a swig from his beer.
“Hey,” Jack walks into the kitchen. He makes his way past the shorter one, finding his way to the refrigerator. The metal plates in his robotic arm shift around, Jack taps into the security system to make sure the remaining mutants are still there, the small bit of preservation they still contain as hope after the Scarlet Witch. He takes out some leftovers. Logan chuckles under his breath.
“It’s spoiled.” His nose sniffs the air. “Happens when you leave.”
“Shit.”
“That’s usually my job,” He took another sip of his beer. “The kids like you better.” Logan makes eye contact with Jack. Something behind his cornea seemed honest.
Jack smiled, pouring out the leftovers into the trash can. "Don't say that, Logan."
"You know I'm right."
"Maybe, they'd like you a little more if you weren't as harsh," Jack said.
"I don't exactly have a way with words, bub." A strange honesty possesed his words. He finished the remainder of his alcohol, dropping the bottle next to the man with the metal arm, it clattered against another glass bottle in there. Logan was close to Jack, body heat shared in the close space between them, a screaming void that wanted to be filled.
"They still look up to you," Jack said. He sighed, breathing in and out. Odds pointed in the direction of a change in subject. "What'd I miss?"
Logan grunted. "More of the same. Hisako's been getting better in danger room."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "That's good. She has potential," He takes a breathe in. His metal arm shifts. "I don't want to have to act on it." Gritted teeth, tense air, cold room.
Logan narrows his eyes. "I know. I know, Sparks. I don't...she shouldn't have too."
Jack looked at the shorter man with a fearful look. He'd seen far too much, glimpsed at the odds, crunched the numbers.
"We're gonna protect them, bub." He placed a hand on the fleshy part of Jack's other arm. Warmth, blood still beneath the skin. The scream that wrenched itself from Jack's throat on Battleworld when he lost it still echoed in Logan's medulla like a bell.
"We couldn't last time, Logan. We're struck in the knee, surrounded by sentinels. I'm few people permitted to leave when I need to, but even then, they're always watching. Is this how it's gonna be? Is this what we're giving to the last mutants?" His voice pulled taught and shattered.
"Jack," Logan pulled the now crying man into a hug. "It's okay." That's all he could say, that's all he could bear to tell the man. That's all he knew, and for Jack Alguna, that was more than enough.