ilvw reader v1.0
Go Deep
written by asclepius
The two men were sent out together for a mission. Charles Xavier had instructed them to help extract an 11-year-old mutant girl from the complex holding her. Friends of Humanity had taken her from her parents, maybe an example for others, a message to tell them to relinqush all fetid and cursed mutant children to the kind and loving people who will help them. Jack Alguna and Logan, two mutants, side by side. The shorter man, the hairier one, was driving the car that they had rented. They would have taken the Blackbird, however, this mission required finesse and care. The man had a cigar in his mouth, a cloud of smoke out the window somewhere deep in the thralls of the long, infinite stretches of field and asphalt that oft marked the territory of the Midwestern America. The other man, taller, covered in small metal strips all across his body, was deep in thought. Green goggles atop his head, he listened for a far off signal, stretching out his own fleshless hand into the witching hour's gapped darkness.
"We're going to have to stop for the night," Jack said. "There's no way we're getting into complex right now. They're expecting a night attack."
"Why don't we just fight our way through?" Logan grunted.
"And they kill the kid?" A spark jumps between his fingers. The metal plates clink against eachother, barely legible over the rush outside. His green eyes dart to Logan's blue ones.
"I get it, bub. We'll wait. Sleep in the car?"
Jack laughed. "There's a motel in 6 blocks. We passed somene with a GPS a while back, I yanked the data from there."
Logan grumbled something under his breath. The man kept going on the road, the pulse of whatever station Jack had stolen echoing on the radio. They were in the area, Logan could taste the thick anticipation in the air. The tensed muscle of the town was pulled taught, flexing hard down on the two of them. Outsiders. He'd have to bring it up to his friend, as much as he didn't want to have make the man hide himself. He swalloed hard, biting down on the hard truth, the sharp knife of reality. "You bring the inducer?"
"Yeah," He said. The small device was a star in his pocket, mass of immense proportions in his mind. A vacancy sign entered on the horizon, it's red blue glow a polaris of momentary rest, a pause in the doldrums of a traveller's journey.
For the two of them, it meant hackles raised, sleepless worry, and a low hum of fear echoing through whatever dingy, yellowed room.
Logan pulled the car into the decaying lot, slotting into a spot. He killed the engine as Jack tapped into the image inducer, removing the silver grey metal that dotted his body. The two swung open the doors, and made their way into the lobby.
White tiled floor met with a fluorescent thought still being imagined in the mind of the aging building. A woman who could care less sitting in the front desk, the soft hum of Dido on the radio. Jack could tell that the rooms left were not many.
"Room for two." Logan approached, laying down a wad of cash.
The girl, no more than 23, looked over her magazine, eyes narrowing for a second. "More tourists?"
"Sure, why not." Logan gave a slight smile.
"We only have singles left. That good with you and your travelling partner?" A bite on that last word. Jack's eyes swung to her, searching her face for something. What did she think of them?
"That's fine. I can sleep on the floor." Logan took the keys from her.
"Room 11." She said, pointing behind them.
The two men thanked her, and drove the car up to the room.
A standard room, yellowed as expected. The soft smell of cheap rooms sunk into Logan's nose, His senses traced fingers along the familar textures of scent, taking note of the new ones on the fabric. Alcohol spilled in the corner, blood, the violent smell of sex lingered. The last people who were here were lovers. The hormones still stunk, cliningto the room.
Jack followed behind, placing his bag on a chair in the room. Simple upholestry, 70's pattern that's 20 years, nearly 30, out of place. The air in the room, to him, was old. Felt thick and used. To him, all he could hear was the murmur, the whisper of radioes and televisions around him. A phone went off, the person picked it up - a wife, wondering where a cheating husband was, a lie told as a peace offering. He moved past it, searching the mess of signals for any semblance of the girl.
A warm rough hand touch his shoulder.
"Sparks."
"Mmmhm?" He looked to Logan, snapping out of his haze.
"Let's get some shut eye. Some day ahead of us, bub." Logan was moving a pillow to the ground and searching for a blanket.
"You take the bed. I'll take the floor," The other man said, tapping the shorter man wiht his foot.
"Naw, not gonna fly," He grinned. "Take it."
"Your cirlces are back. You take it."
"I'm not doin' this with you, Sparks."
Something was in the air now, a thin string, pulled tightly.
Jack looked at the bed, and back to Logan.
Logan looked at the bed, and met eyes with Jack.
"It's not small..."
"Just don't snore, Canucklehead." He sighed, throwing off his pants. Jack kept his shirt on.
Logan shrugged, stripping down to just his boxers. Not the first time the two had found themselves on a mission and sleeping near eachother. Comfortability was not guaranteed, so it was something they sought when they could, when the chance preseneted itself. This was one of those times.
The two went about their business, Logan forgoing toothbrushing for an early sleep. Jack turned in eventually, after opening his laptop to check on the data.
The quiet of the room was permeating, it was encompassing. Despite their combined extrasensory gifts, it felt deafening. The void between them, inches, bodies nearly touching under the cotton covers and shadowy curtain of night, seemed infinite. Jack that Logan was a warm beacon of some long gone hope, some absent sense of safety, a man who he trsuted. Logan felt Jack was the nap after a long day, the calm in a hurricane, it's eye peering at the right path, how simple it was for him to find it, to cut through everything else to just see what should be obvious.
Jack was turned away, with Logan facing his back. He caught a glimpse of the mutant's legs earlier, dotted with metal like the rest of him. How could he ever fathom, bear, to hide that? How could someone that was such a breath of fresh air, a light in the darkness, ever be subjected to something as painful and harmful as that?
The aformentioned string was snapped, ripped in half, when Logan's rough, hard voice swam through the grey wall of sleep.
"I can smell it on you, bub."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Logan."
"You're not stupid, Sparks."
"Logan, stop."
"Listen, bub, I-"
"Drop it. I swear to god, drop it." Jack's voice was wavering, it was breaking. It was scared, cortisol was a new shade of cool that he wore.
Logan didn't need to say anything else. He didn't to hear anything from the other man.
Jack was embraced by two large arms, hairy and warm. They wrapped around him, pressing him against his friend. His breathing hitched, swallowed dry. And yet, he did nothting to stop him. His body was pressed against the larger frame of Logan's, sharing the warmth between them. It wasn't tense, not anymore. It was true, honest, real, raw. It's the first blood out of a wound, the reddish pulse beneath the surface of the skin. Logan's face was pressed against the crook of Jack's neck. Hot breath on his skin as a promise of something more. Not now, not yet, but a promise nonethless. The pair dropped deeper and deeper in the vast grey pit of sleep, eventually drifting into the dreamless nothingness of cosmic ignorance.
The morning light dripped down the windows until it's thick dewy glow flooded the room and the once stable isotope of sleep began to decay, leading way to Jack's eyes slowly opening, his mind following. The two arms around him, even still, were a promise, a contract, binding him to the snoring man beside him. A small smile crept onto his face, a hidden secret.
"You ready, bub?" Logan said, brushing a hand through dark, pointed hair, and scratching his stubble. A thicker jacket thrown over a white tank. Jack came out of the room in a graphic tee and cargos, his steel boots to match.
"Let's go." He said, determined.
The two didn't need to speak on it yet. They would, eventually. But for now, the solmen, secret embrace of the night was more than enough for them, more than the locker-rook glances, the quiet thoughts, the pulsing smell, the rough hands. This was a sanctuary of theirs, a hidden place, one that they were contained in alone.