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Logan lays in a bed in the medical wing, a rare sight for the unstoppable, ever-healing man. The wounds to his body have bound themselves, thanks to both his own abilities and the healing intervention of Stephen Strange. But he remained ill for a time, stricken with fever overnight, seeming to burn something out of him.
Finally, after a day of sleep, he's begun to stir and awaken. His lips feel thick and gummy, his eyelids heavy.
The chart at the base of his bed had detailed the extent of his injuries - he'd disemboweled himself and sliced each of his forearms to the bone, mutilating himself for reasons not entirely understood. Piotr had suggested he might not have been in his right mind. Logan had only said one thing when they'd come upon him.
Tell Jean I'm sorry.
*
Jean had heard what had happened to Logan. Well, she had heard what he had done. And then he left. But hearing that Logan was in the infirmary now? God. She didn't even know if she should even go down there. But she did. After a hard day with Bobby and the little boy she wanted to save, she went down there. She faced that fear that maybe, just maybe he didn't want to see her anymore and he'd be leaving soon after he is better.
But hearing he was in a bed either way was an alarming fact that had her rushing her way down there. Even facing some scolding from the nurse who had meant to get her fitted with a pair of braces or possibly a pair of crutches. She even needed her bandages changed.
"I SAID NO!" Jean shrieks out, drawing a still to the area, the nurse frowning and marching up to the young lady in the wheelchair. 'You -will-, or I'm calling the Professor!'
Yep. That did it. Jean silently murmured that she will, and pushed her way into Logan's room, out of breath, her arms burning from pushing her wheels at break neck speed. She closes the door behind her, panting.. though those pants quietly breaks into soft, little sobs.
*
Logan blinks hard, the aches running through his body as he comes back to himself. He barely remembers the last couple of days - he'd been drinking enough booze to blind a normal man. Throw in a bit of extra-planal demonic possession and a mind that already leaked like a sieve and, well, he wasn't a model of accountability.
"It's…it's okay, darlin'…" he says softly, He manages to force himself to sit up, even as the muscles in his belly, freshly knit and newborn, scream at him as they're stretched for the first time, "Unghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…ain't…nothin'. I'll be…right as rain…'fore you…know it."
*
"I.. I know.." Jean says, turning the wheelchair back around as she slowly draws herself closer to his bed. It was hard to reach, he was up a little bit higher than normal and she didn't have the strength to lift herself up right this moment. So instead, she settles for his hand, pushing the tray out of the way to move herself closer, the telekinesis dragging her chair a little to the side so that she could appropriately look at him.
"What happened?" She sniffles out, finally drawing her hand up to wipe away at her cheeks. "I looked everywhere for you.. I was so close to.. doing something that.." She draws in a breath, then whimpers out quietly. "..Why did you.."
*
Logan looks down, in shame and sadness, "I just…I never wanted t'hurt you, darlin'. But I did. I nearly put an end to ya. You in the chair's bad enough, but I know, if I hadn't found a way to stop…It was a game o' inches, 'tween life an' death. An' I let my bravado push me to try an' take care o' you myself. To convince myself that only I could do it, that you needed me," he says, "Arrogant."
"As fer last night…I…I don't know. I barely remember," he says softly. He remembers the voice in his head, though, and the slimy feeling of it coating his mind, his thoughts, his soul. "It weren't pretty, that's for damn sure."
*
Jean shakes her head quickly, holding tight to his hand, dragging it just a little closer as she huffs quietly. "I'm not talking about that.." She says quietly. "This chair.. what happened back then.." She shakes her head. "It couldn't be helped, like you said. It was.. it was horrible. And.. I can't sleep." She frowns just a touch, drawing in a deep breath, letting it out with a relieved huff. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was mad at you for this. I'm just.. so damn sorry. I felt like I pushed you out and I didn't mean to. I was just hurt, ashamed, and horrified with myself."
She does bite her lip, in a way, she wanted to know what happened, wanted to see. But looking into his mind was painful enough. There was a mix of horror there. "I never expected to see you here like this."
*
Logan shakes his head, 'You had every right t'be angry, darlin'. I never shoulda let you get taken in the first place," he says. "Got distracted, tryin' t'play hero," he says.
"I tried to drink myself stupid for a while,' he admits, "Ran into some…old friends," he says. "Most of 'em told me I was being stupid. Weren't wrong," he says. "But the last coupla days…darlin', I gotta admit, I don't remember much at all and what I do…don't make any sense."
*
"You were just doing what's in your nature. Saving people. That's what you are, a hero.." Jean leans down to press her lips against his knuckles, carefully avoiding the space where his blades appear. But hearing his words there after, it felt like something that -she- needed to do. She kept herself in her room in the medbay, refusing to see everyone. Shutting herself off from the Professor, that constant flow of information that was blocked left her lonely.
She closes her eyes for a moment, still not delving into.. wanting him to speak it out before she were to take any action. "Tell me. What -do- you remember?"
*
Logan shakes his head sharply, "No. I ain't. Not sayin' I can't do good or that I'm a lost cause, it ain't about…self-pity," he says. "But I ain't a good example for nobody. Cause when the chips are down, I really will do what it takes t'survive. I always have. I may not be proud of it and I can hate myself when it's done, but that's always the way my chips have fallen," he says.
To the last, he purses his lips and thinks, "A voice. Strange voice. Wasn't always speakin' English, but the languages were all…mixed up. Russian an' German, Slav and Arab…hell, might've been some Latin in there," he snorts. "I just…I remember the woods. I remember blood. Lots o' damn blood, all of it mine. It…whatever it was, it thought I would die."
*
"Why do you always do this?" Jean asks, finally letting go of his hand.
'Because he doesn't know another way.'
"He does. He just doesn't listen! It's like he can't take a compliment!"
'Can you?'
"No, but that's beside the point.."
She rolls her chair away, turning it so that it faces the foot of the bed, the tray slowly approached as her shaky hands reach for the water that was left there. She pours two cups of the liquid, spilling just a little, which was soon picked up by the fine precision of her telekinesis to float towards the trash and in. As the cups were grabbed, she pushes the chair back, bumping into the other tray as the cup of water was soon handed towards him so that he could drink.
"I.. I'm sorry." She finally breathes out. "But.. something attacked you? Had you in a trance? Someone out there like me?"
'You want to try it. You want to see if he would listen to you when you tell him to bleed.'
"Stop it."
*
Logan shakes his head, "Not…not like you," he says. He can tell his statement about not being a hero upset her, but, well, he wasn't going to lie to her either. "Didn't even feel like…a person. I mean, I had you an' Charlie an' others in my head before. This wasn't…it was like it was all over me, soaking to the bone. I couldn't feel the rest o' myself, I was just trapped in this…tar. Sinkin'," he says.
*
Jean was concerned, it shows by the way she holds onto her water, which was soon put aside.
"Do you want to remember it all?" She asks quietly. "..I.. it'll hurt. And I won't be the one doing it but.." She looks a little uneasy at this, for she knows that she'd let that other side of her out. The one that speaks to her. The one that she teaches. The one that begs her to be set free, even if it was for a minute.
*
Logan considers, "Do I want to? Not really. But I prob'ly should. Gotta know what's goin' on, or if whatever did this is done wit' me," he says. "I don't like the idea o' not bein in control o' myself. So go ahead, doll, do whatchoo gotta do. Can't be much worse'n what I did to myself."
*
Jean takes a little moment, then picks up his hand again to wrap both of hers around his own. It was a tricky thing. She had to be careful that he wouldn't actually hurt her, as well as taking care that she wouldn't actually hurt him.
So she allows herself to feel. Calling out. Drawing that being to the surface. It was a quiet draw.. that raw, unsettling power that's contained by the barest of threads. He could hear them. Hear the both of them speaking to each other. While their voices were similar, one seemed almost older. That was the bird that taps in, draws out that memory.. coaxes it to the forefront so that they all could see..
*
The spirit seized him late the night before last. Urged him to eat specific things, guiding him to strange, dark clad priests in back rooms. He drank spiced wine and ate strange things, sweetmeats and dates and beetles that crunched between his teeth.
He wandered for hours until the creekbed drew him, until he sprinted to his place.
Almost too late, as Strange and his cohorts came to intervene.
They both feel the pain again as Cthon's servant slashes at his wrists, then his guts, sacrificing him to the Eternal Empty, to the Father of Oblivion, his screams ripping through the place until he awakens to Piotr and Strange and Illyana standing over him…and the voice is gone…
"That…damn…deal…" he mutters.
*
And they watched. Watched everything unfold. Jean looks down towards her wrists in the memory and sees blood..
In the real world, welts begin to form that sting and burn, her face twisting up with pain but she keeps it all under wraps. The need to cry. So much that she joins her arms together to keep him from seeing, even up until the very end until she pulls away from his hands.. immediately shoving hers down and out of sight.
"That is what I meant when I asked why…" Jean quietly murmurs. Or was that Jean? "Why in the world would you make a deal with the devils when I alone could have saved us all?" She looks up towards him, then down again.. her head quickly shaking. "Sorry.." She murmurs softly. "..I'm sorry.."
*
Logan shakes his head, "I didn't know," he said, "I didn't know how to…find you. It was my fault. And I come back and they don't know nothin'. And she smelled…" he says, "Laura, I guess her name is. She smelled like the tank. The tank they put me in. And I imagined them putting you in that. Doing the things they did…"
The treatments of Weapon X took nearly a year. A year of Logan's life, spent almost entirely in agony.
"Every second you were there, it gnawed at me. It ate me alive. I couldn't think about…anything else, nothin' but gettin' you home and safe and out of their damn hands," he says.
"If he'd asked my soul, I'd-a given it. Cause it was my fault, my responsibility. You didn't deserve it."
*
Jean listens to him, bowing her head slightly as she hangs into the chair. The little red welts upon the inner most parts of her wrist were slowly fading, her hands kept to themselves so that he couldn't see. If he did.. maybe he would feel worse.
"James.." She murmurs quietly. "You're like.. the greatest father a girl could ever have. And I love you just like I love my own." She smiles softly, then finally joins hands.. or hand with him to hold tight. "You don't deserve this pain or shame either. And you deserve a family. And you deserve someone to love you like your family and everything else. But.. never do this again. Please. Never sell your soul for me. We're damned enough already."
*
Logan nods, "I don't imagine I'll get much chance," he says with a slight snort, "I think the Russkie about shit his britches when I did what I did the first time. I thought he was gonna sock his sister right in the jaw fer helpin' me," he says.
"Important part is, comin' out the other side. Ain't hangin' over me no more, that's thei mportant part. An' you home and safe," he says. "Maybe things can finally start…gettin' better," he says.
*
"You already have one." Jean says. Then she leans back with a smile to lift her hand. "Me? I don't count? Is it my red hair?" She pulls at her locks, flapping them just a little. "Is it because I'm in this chair?" She grins then, dropping her hands to the wheel to give it a slight, awkward turn. She even bangs into the cart to knock it down. "Cause no daughter of Logan is in no stinkin' wheelchair!" She stops, then rolls back up to his side, shifting herself up a little further so that she could lean upon the bed.
"I.. think you should make nice with Piotr. He acted and still acts out of concern for you. Stop pushing him away." She smiles a little, yet.. she keeps the things that she's been up to quiet. He didn't need to know. "I hope so, Logan. I think we all just need a damn break."
*
Logan snorts, "I know he does, but he's a bit too big for his britches. We ain't all little sisters in need o' big broski to keep us in line," he says.
"But I'll stop bustin' his chops so much. He did help me out in a jam last night,' he says. "Daughter, huh?" he says and there's something strange in the way he says it, a little wistful, a little sad, "Yeah, I could live with that. For sure," he says."
*
"Good. I'll call him in." Well, not yet.
"I want you to get some rest first. And eat something. I really don't want to hear anything else, okay?" Jean smiles a little, then raises from the bed, scooting herself back so that she could meet the waiting nurse. Her wounds need checking. Not to mention, she had to see if she could actually get up and walk with the crutches that need to be fitted for her. It was going to be a long, long night.
*
Logan nods, "Don't worry, doc, I'll get my three squares. I'll be right as rain come tomorrow. HOpe you end up the same," he says. "That doctor friend o' Illyana's had some good help with that. The magicy feller with the stache. He's got a stick up his butt, but he's got some magic hands, you betcha," he says.
*