Modern Life; Scott/Logan
Author: Kate Shelby/counterfeitcoin
Title: Modern Life
Recipient: rachel_martin64
Disclaimer: I don't even own the notebook I wrote this in.
Warnings/Rating: I guess it's PG-13/Teen?
Summary: “Come down on your own/.../I'm near the end, and I just ain't got the time/Oh, and I'm wasted, and I can't find my way home.” Blind Faith, “Can't Find my Way Home”
Recipient's request: Scott/Logan, a 1967 Ford Mustang with an 8-track player, and the 1969 song by Blind Faith (Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood), "Can't Find My Way Home." Movieverse please. It is movieverse including X3 but it's slightly modified (in very important ways). I hope you like this.
- - - - - - - - - -
He could feel medicine making his mind docile. The movement of his fingers and toes required more effort than he would have been comfortable with had he been able to spare the extra brain cells for thought. His right thumb encountered resistance, but everything else moved when he forced hard enough.
“Scott?” someone asked. A warm, soft hand lay against his forehead. He tried to feel for his glasses, but he didn't have the strength to concentrate enough to do so. “Scott?” the man asked again, gentle with worry.
“He's awake,” another voice said. None of the tender concern of the one before it.
“I realize that,” the first one said, right in Scott's ear. “Scott, I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?”
He thought about it. “Yes,” he tried to say but his voice broke and the sound was too small to be considered a voice.
He must have been heard, though, because the first voice said, “Move your toes against my fingers,” and Scott felt pressure against the balls of his feet.
He was in the beginning stages of movement when the second voice suddenly asked, “Are your eyes open?” 'Your' sounded like 'yer,' gravel-like and worn.
“No,” Scott said, softly still.
“Why not?” It didn't sound like he was necessarily addressing Scott himself.
“Ah,” the man behind the first voice exhaled understanding. The soft, large hands were back on his face. “You're wearing your sleeping spectacles, as it were.” The hand tugged at the elastic on one side and Scott could feel it tighten on the other before the strain was gone; he noticed, then, the band encompassing his head, securely. “I assure you, the ceiling is safe from your wrath.”
Even as he opened his eyes, his mind connected the voice to a face. “Hank,” Scott grinned, although it pulled at his lips uncomfortably. His voice was gaining strength. “How are you?”
“Much better now that you're conscious.” Hank smiled, and it put something within Scott at ease, some unnamed fear. “Now Logan,” Hank was saying. “If you would be so kind as to get Scott some water and perhaps some lip balm, I'll continue with my examination.”
Logan, the second voice, barely inside the field of vision the goggles gave Scott but so obviously Logan. Scott thinks, of course. By the time he's able to see him completely there was a cold glass being pressed into his hands. It slipped out the second Logan took his hand away and shattered on the ground pathetically.
Scott could feel exhaustion reclaiming him again, anyways.
When he woke up again it didn't take the same effort to raise his right hand to check the position of the glasses. He knew what plaster felt like against skin, but he opened his eyes in surprise anyways. He was frowning at the forearm cast hovering above his face like it was an alien object-
actual white light assaulting his eyes and something disgusting churning in his chest dry heaves and breathless
-attached to his body in writhing bonds of worms and-
A cool hand was soothing his back and neck forward and he was vomiting into a bedpan. Another cool hand was pressing a wet washcloth into Scott's face when he was done and the bedpan was gone. He was pushed back against the pillows.
Logan said, “I'm going to go get Hank.”
In the three minutes it took for Hank to make an entrance, Scott had enough time to wonder what the hell happened.
Soft hands, again, removing the washcloth from Scott's forehead. Hank smiled. “The nausea is a side effect of the Oxycodone. Nothing to worry about, I assure you.” No one else was in the room or came out of the elevator; Scott tried not to be disappointed.
“What happened to me?”
“You fractured your right wrist and thumb,” Hank said. He was bustling around the tubes and wires connected to Scott. “We preformed the surgery and brought you back here. The children enjoyed signing your cast-Kitty Pryde actually suggested that I give you a larger cast so the students could write more on it.” Scott saw it then: Kitty's rounded print, a heart with sparks and Jubilee's name, small Cyrillic letters under 'get well from everyone' in colorful graffiti block letters over the back of his hand, and Bobby's chicken scratch took up all of the top of it. Scott started to laugh at the flashes of the horrors of grading short answer questions on Geometry tests.
“You also broke three ribs, but they're mending wonderfully. Unfortunately, you have a concussion.”
“Thanks for the update, Hank, but you're not answering my question.”
He moved one of Scott's legs over and sat down at the edge of the bed. “What's the last thing you remember?”
Scott concentrated. “I remember...being on my motorcycle. I going to Alkali Lake.”
Hank nodded. “That was ten months and three days ago. Logan found you two days ago. In Alaska.”
Scott wasn’t entirely sure what to be more upset over. “I don’t remember anything after going to the lake.”
Hank sighed heavily. “You have been in a coma since Logan found you. I believe it might have been longer than that.”
“Are we in the mansion? If I was in a coma shouldn't I been in a hospital?”
“One of the changes that happened since you...have been gone. The father of one of our new students is very well off. He was kind enough to donate the most cutting edge technology. The basement is essentially your own private hospital.” Hank's pride was obvious.
Scott smiled. “I have heard only glowing recommendations about the staff. Now stop beating around the bush. Tell me what I've missed.”
It took three hours. Scott demanded every single detail of what he'd missed that Hank knew.
A day later he was off the catheter and eating solid foods. He could move around the basement with no trouble at all. Hank ran every test he could; he took Scott to the hospital to double-check every test despite his own assurances that the care at Xavier's Hospital For Accidents and Mishaps was of the highest caliber.
When they returned to the mansion, Logan was leaning against a rusted-out Cadillac Scott didn't recognize. A group of students were standing in front of him, backs to the driveway. Eleven heads jerked around. Eight smiles greeted them as they stepped out of Hank's old Camry Hybrid. Logan stayed stoic. Logan stared as they drove up.
“Hello Mr. Summers,” Peter Rasputin said. He smiled.
“Hey, there's something-something for you here. Stick around for a minute?” Bobby Drake asked. He disappeared into the back of the garage before Scott could answer.
“We-tried to,” Peter started awkwardly, but Bobby was back before he needed to continue.
Bobby shoved a box at Scott's hands. “It's the 8-track player. It came. Well, it came a while ago. Peter and I tried to install it but.” He scratched nervously at the back of his head. “We didn't feel right about it.”
Peter smiled. “And we couldn't figure out how to do it.”
Scott laughed. He managed to hold the box between his chest and right arm and pulled it out left-handed. “This is great, guys. Thank you.”
“Could we help you install it?” Bobby asked.
“Sure, later. But I'm interrupting your class.” Scott put on his blanket apologetic look toward Logan, who was still staring but had a look of almost disinterest.
“We've been at it long enough for today,” Logan said. He unfolded himself from the Caddy's door. And he walked away. Scott stared at his back as he retreated to the path to the house.
The other students dispersed with a few “welcome back Mr. Summers” thrown his way.
Peter asked, “Are you well enough to work on the car?” Scott had almost forgotten anyone else was in there.
“As long as he takes it easy,” Hank said. He put one hand on Peter's shoulder and the boy looked small and next to him. “Can I rely on both of you to remind Mr. Summers that overexerting himself is a horrible idea?” There was a sincere chorus of “yes Dr. McCoy” before Hank would leave with another warning.
“Come on,” Bobby said. “It's pretty much right where you left it.” Peter was the one who pulled off the tarp covering the car in question. A 1967 Ford Mustang. He found the shell of it in the scrap yard after he finished fixing up the motorcycle and was itching for another project. It was before he saved Logan, before he even proposed to Jean.
When Bobby handed Scott the keys and a screwdriver, he felt like himself for the first time since he woke up-probably for the first time since Jean died.
Installing the 8-track evolved into a plan to rebuild the engine. The three of them were lost in grease and metal for hours without noticing. Ororo appeared in the garage as the sun started to disappear.
“Is it dinner time?” Bobby asked.
Ororo nodded. “All of you should get cleaned up.”
The boys went ahead but Scott stayed in the garage. He and Ororo locked eyes; the look in her eyes was something he couldn’t define, but the air became electrified.
Scott broke the stalemate, dredging through the awkwardness. “I come back from the dead and I don't even get a 'hello'?”
Her face broke into a grin. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. “Stop! You're getting grease on my shirt,” she swatted at his shoulder gently, but she laughed.
For two months Scott's life was spent being poked and prodded and forced to jog on treadmills until Hank was satisfied that he was normal. He took over afternoon Geometry and spent the rest of his time with his Mustang. It took him three weeks to notice that Logan never spoke to him, even to taunt him in the Danger Room when Hank let him start rebuilding his strength. It took five more weeks for this to really piss him off.
“You're coming with me,” Scott told Logan after the last Shop class one day.
Logan looked at him. “No I'm not.”
“What are you, chicken?”
Logan leered at Scott. “No, and I'm not five either.”
“Come for a ride with me.” Scott stopped the posturing. “Please.”
To Scott's surprise, Logan actually got in the passenger side.
Scott drove them aimlessly and too fast. It wasn't what he wanted. They ended up back at the school without ever saying a word to each other, except when Scott said, “Come to the dock with me.”
The dock was rotted through and collapsing. The grass around it was dead. The pond was filled with algae. Scott sat at the edge of it anyways; after a minute Logan did as well.
They were still silent until Scott was fed up with it. “Do you remember Toad?” Scott asked. His voice was too loud in the calm that settled. “He was green. A really ugly green. And he-”
“He was like a toad,” Wolverine said. “One of Magneto's idiots. He's dead, right? At Ellis Island.”
Scott laughed, a short, mean laugh. “Who knows? Maybe one day he won't be anymore.”
Logan sighed impatiently. “Is there a point to this?”
Scott carried on anyways. “He's a little younger than me. The professor found out about him around the time when Magneto left the school. When he was a kid, he didn't have anything other than green skin and an abnormally long tongue. Him and people like him get tormented and abused out there. I know it happens to people regardless of genetic mutations, but maybe if we took him in, then maybe when he did develop a more useful mutation he wouldn't have used them like he did. We just found about another kid like he was. Kamala Callaghan-there's purple light coming out of her skin. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe she won't suddenly wake up with telepathy or superhuman strength, but maybe if we accept her, she will be an asset to the school and the mutant community in general. No matter what her mutation is or ends up being, she'll know she belongs to a community and she won't let the first authority figure who gives her praise and attention manipulate her into hurting people. But if she’s in a bad situation, at home or at school or anywhere, don’t you think we should bring her in? We should teach her that she’s not a freak just because she glows like a neon nightlight. But we won’t take her in.
“I used to fight the professor on that. Who deserves to be here? I guess he thought about the limited space we have. He wanted to bring in only students with promise, who needed to be taught to harness their mutations so they wouldn't harm themselves or anyone else. Accidentally. He wanted to bring in the powerful ones to protect the school and I guess the world.”
“Do you think he was wrong?” Scott thought he could hear disgust in Logan's voice.
Scott paused. He sighed, heavily. “No, he wasn't. But he's not here anymore. Ororo doesn't want to run the school forever. I always-ever since I was 19 I wanted to continue his dream after he was gone. I want to take over, but I don't know how to make those judgment calls. I don’t know if I can handle it-any of it. I still don't know what happened to me.”
Logan scoffed. “Join the club.”
Scott turned to him. “I think I got a flash of something when I was just waking up from the coma. I see this bright white light, and I think it was really white. There wasn't any red at all. I think there were stars. It doesn't make any sense. I try to connect the dots, but nothing works. Maybe it was the meds Hank had me on.”
An awkward silence carried on for a few minutes. “Are you expecting me to respond to that?”
Scott considered Logan. It looked like something about the other man hadn't been at ease for a long time beyond what Scott's come to recognize as Logan's default attitude.
“You were there when I woke up, weren't you? I remember you were there the first time I woke up, I think, but you were there the second time, too, weren’t you?”
Logan's jaw tightened.
“Why were you there? Since I've woken up this is the first time out of class that you’ve given me the time of day.” Logan didn't even blink. “Why won't you answer me?” Scott pressed loudly. He was suddenly, irrationally, angry.
Logan turned his face toward Scott and yelled, “Because I don't know the answer!”
Their faces were barely inches apart. Scott's eyes were drawn to Logan's rough lips.
The moment hung there until Scott was fed up with it-it seemed to be one of the themes of his life lately-and moved forward.
The kiss was harsh and angry; it seared through Scott. When Logan moved away just a fraction, Scott brought his hands up from the dead grass and held Logan's head still.
Logan didn't stop him. His lips moved under Scott's and his hands moved to Scott's torso.
- - - - - - - - - -
Come down off your throne
And leave your body alone
Somebody must change
You are the reason
I've been waiting so long
Somebody holds the key
Well, I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time
Well, I'm wasted and I can't find my way home
Come down on your own
And leave your money at home
Somebody must change
You are the reason
I've been waiting all these years
Somebody holds the key
I'm near the end, and I just ain't got the time
Oh, and I'm wasted, and I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
Still, I can't find my way home
And, I ain't done nothing wrong
But, I can't find my way home
Blind Faith “Can't Find My Way Home”
End notes: I had to take a few liberties with the car and especially the 8-track player since I've never seen one, but I hope it was convincing anyways. The car's description comes from this website. Many thanks to dragonessasmith and apathocles for listening to last-minute panic attacks.
Feedback is much appreciated. Comment or email me at societal_casualty at yahoo dot com.
Title: Modern Life
Recipient: rachel_martin64
Disclaimer: I don't even own the notebook I wrote this in.
Warnings/Rating: I guess it's PG-13/Teen?
Summary: “Come down on your own/.../I'm near the end, and I just ain't got the time/Oh, and I'm wasted, and I can't find my way home.” Blind Faith, “Can't Find my Way Home”
Recipient's request: Scott/Logan, a 1967 Ford Mustang with an 8-track player, and the 1969 song by Blind Faith (Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood), "Can't Find My Way Home." Movieverse please. It is movieverse including X3 but it's slightly modified (in very important ways). I hope you like this.
- - - - - - - - - -
He could feel medicine making his mind docile. The movement of his fingers and toes required more effort than he would have been comfortable with had he been able to spare the extra brain cells for thought. His right thumb encountered resistance, but everything else moved when he forced hard enough.
“Scott?” someone asked. A warm, soft hand lay against his forehead. He tried to feel for his glasses, but he didn't have the strength to concentrate enough to do so. “Scott?” the man asked again, gentle with worry.
“He's awake,” another voice said. None of the tender concern of the one before it.
“I realize that,” the first one said, right in Scott's ear. “Scott, I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?”
He thought about it. “Yes,” he tried to say but his voice broke and the sound was too small to be considered a voice.
He must have been heard, though, because the first voice said, “Move your toes against my fingers,” and Scott felt pressure against the balls of his feet.
He was in the beginning stages of movement when the second voice suddenly asked, “Are your eyes open?” 'Your' sounded like 'yer,' gravel-like and worn.
“No,” Scott said, softly still.
“Why not?” It didn't sound like he was necessarily addressing Scott himself.
“Ah,” the man behind the first voice exhaled understanding. The soft, large hands were back on his face. “You're wearing your sleeping spectacles, as it were.” The hand tugged at the elastic on one side and Scott could feel it tighten on the other before the strain was gone; he noticed, then, the band encompassing his head, securely. “I assure you, the ceiling is safe from your wrath.”
Even as he opened his eyes, his mind connected the voice to a face. “Hank,” Scott grinned, although it pulled at his lips uncomfortably. His voice was gaining strength. “How are you?”
“Much better now that you're conscious.” Hank smiled, and it put something within Scott at ease, some unnamed fear. “Now Logan,” Hank was saying. “If you would be so kind as to get Scott some water and perhaps some lip balm, I'll continue with my examination.”
Logan, the second voice, barely inside the field of vision the goggles gave Scott but so obviously Logan. Scott thinks, of course. By the time he's able to see him completely there was a cold glass being pressed into his hands. It slipped out the second Logan took his hand away and shattered on the ground pathetically.
Scott could feel exhaustion reclaiming him again, anyways.
When he woke up again it didn't take the same effort to raise his right hand to check the position of the glasses. He knew what plaster felt like against skin, but he opened his eyes in surprise anyways. He was frowning at the forearm cast hovering above his face like it was an alien object-
actual white light assaulting his eyes and something disgusting churning in his chest dry heaves and breathless
-attached to his body in writhing bonds of worms and-
A cool hand was soothing his back and neck forward and he was vomiting into a bedpan. Another cool hand was pressing a wet washcloth into Scott's face when he was done and the bedpan was gone. He was pushed back against the pillows.
Logan said, “I'm going to go get Hank.”
In the three minutes it took for Hank to make an entrance, Scott had enough time to wonder what the hell happened.
Soft hands, again, removing the washcloth from Scott's forehead. Hank smiled. “The nausea is a side effect of the Oxycodone. Nothing to worry about, I assure you.” No one else was in the room or came out of the elevator; Scott tried not to be disappointed.
“What happened to me?”
“You fractured your right wrist and thumb,” Hank said. He was bustling around the tubes and wires connected to Scott. “We preformed the surgery and brought you back here. The children enjoyed signing your cast-Kitty Pryde actually suggested that I give you a larger cast so the students could write more on it.” Scott saw it then: Kitty's rounded print, a heart with sparks and Jubilee's name, small Cyrillic letters under 'get well from everyone' in colorful graffiti block letters over the back of his hand, and Bobby's chicken scratch took up all of the top of it. Scott started to laugh at the flashes of the horrors of grading short answer questions on Geometry tests.
“You also broke three ribs, but they're mending wonderfully. Unfortunately, you have a concussion.”
“Thanks for the update, Hank, but you're not answering my question.”
He moved one of Scott's legs over and sat down at the edge of the bed. “What's the last thing you remember?”
Scott concentrated. “I remember...being on my motorcycle. I going to Alkali Lake.”
Hank nodded. “That was ten months and three days ago. Logan found you two days ago. In Alaska.”
Scott wasn’t entirely sure what to be more upset over. “I don’t remember anything after going to the lake.”
Hank sighed heavily. “You have been in a coma since Logan found you. I believe it might have been longer than that.”
“Are we in the mansion? If I was in a coma shouldn't I been in a hospital?”
“One of the changes that happened since you...have been gone. The father of one of our new students is very well off. He was kind enough to donate the most cutting edge technology. The basement is essentially your own private hospital.” Hank's pride was obvious.
Scott smiled. “I have heard only glowing recommendations about the staff. Now stop beating around the bush. Tell me what I've missed.”
It took three hours. Scott demanded every single detail of what he'd missed that Hank knew.
A day later he was off the catheter and eating solid foods. He could move around the basement with no trouble at all. Hank ran every test he could; he took Scott to the hospital to double-check every test despite his own assurances that the care at Xavier's Hospital For Accidents and Mishaps was of the highest caliber.
When they returned to the mansion, Logan was leaning against a rusted-out Cadillac Scott didn't recognize. A group of students were standing in front of him, backs to the driveway. Eleven heads jerked around. Eight smiles greeted them as they stepped out of Hank's old Camry Hybrid. Logan stayed stoic. Logan stared as they drove up.
“Hello Mr. Summers,” Peter Rasputin said. He smiled.
“Hey, there's something-something for you here. Stick around for a minute?” Bobby Drake asked. He disappeared into the back of the garage before Scott could answer.
“We-tried to,” Peter started awkwardly, but Bobby was back before he needed to continue.
Bobby shoved a box at Scott's hands. “It's the 8-track player. It came. Well, it came a while ago. Peter and I tried to install it but.” He scratched nervously at the back of his head. “We didn't feel right about it.”
Peter smiled. “And we couldn't figure out how to do it.”
Scott laughed. He managed to hold the box between his chest and right arm and pulled it out left-handed. “This is great, guys. Thank you.”
“Could we help you install it?” Bobby asked.
“Sure, later. But I'm interrupting your class.” Scott put on his blanket apologetic look toward Logan, who was still staring but had a look of almost disinterest.
“We've been at it long enough for today,” Logan said. He unfolded himself from the Caddy's door. And he walked away. Scott stared at his back as he retreated to the path to the house.
The other students dispersed with a few “welcome back Mr. Summers” thrown his way.
Peter asked, “Are you well enough to work on the car?” Scott had almost forgotten anyone else was in there.
“As long as he takes it easy,” Hank said. He put one hand on Peter's shoulder and the boy looked small and next to him. “Can I rely on both of you to remind Mr. Summers that overexerting himself is a horrible idea?” There was a sincere chorus of “yes Dr. McCoy” before Hank would leave with another warning.
“Come on,” Bobby said. “It's pretty much right where you left it.” Peter was the one who pulled off the tarp covering the car in question. A 1967 Ford Mustang. He found the shell of it in the scrap yard after he finished fixing up the motorcycle and was itching for another project. It was before he saved Logan, before he even proposed to Jean.
When Bobby handed Scott the keys and a screwdriver, he felt like himself for the first time since he woke up-probably for the first time since Jean died.
Installing the 8-track evolved into a plan to rebuild the engine. The three of them were lost in grease and metal for hours without noticing. Ororo appeared in the garage as the sun started to disappear.
“Is it dinner time?” Bobby asked.
Ororo nodded. “All of you should get cleaned up.”
The boys went ahead but Scott stayed in the garage. He and Ororo locked eyes; the look in her eyes was something he couldn’t define, but the air became electrified.
Scott broke the stalemate, dredging through the awkwardness. “I come back from the dead and I don't even get a 'hello'?”
Her face broke into a grin. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. “Stop! You're getting grease on my shirt,” she swatted at his shoulder gently, but she laughed.
For two months Scott's life was spent being poked and prodded and forced to jog on treadmills until Hank was satisfied that he was normal. He took over afternoon Geometry and spent the rest of his time with his Mustang. It took him three weeks to notice that Logan never spoke to him, even to taunt him in the Danger Room when Hank let him start rebuilding his strength. It took five more weeks for this to really piss him off.
“You're coming with me,” Scott told Logan after the last Shop class one day.
Logan looked at him. “No I'm not.”
“What are you, chicken?”
Logan leered at Scott. “No, and I'm not five either.”
“Come for a ride with me.” Scott stopped the posturing. “Please.”
To Scott's surprise, Logan actually got in the passenger side.
Scott drove them aimlessly and too fast. It wasn't what he wanted. They ended up back at the school without ever saying a word to each other, except when Scott said, “Come to the dock with me.”
The dock was rotted through and collapsing. The grass around it was dead. The pond was filled with algae. Scott sat at the edge of it anyways; after a minute Logan did as well.
They were still silent until Scott was fed up with it. “Do you remember Toad?” Scott asked. His voice was too loud in the calm that settled. “He was green. A really ugly green. And he-”
“He was like a toad,” Wolverine said. “One of Magneto's idiots. He's dead, right? At Ellis Island.”
Scott laughed, a short, mean laugh. “Who knows? Maybe one day he won't be anymore.”
Logan sighed impatiently. “Is there a point to this?”
Scott carried on anyways. “He's a little younger than me. The professor found out about him around the time when Magneto left the school. When he was a kid, he didn't have anything other than green skin and an abnormally long tongue. Him and people like him get tormented and abused out there. I know it happens to people regardless of genetic mutations, but maybe if we took him in, then maybe when he did develop a more useful mutation he wouldn't have used them like he did. We just found about another kid like he was. Kamala Callaghan-there's purple light coming out of her skin. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe she won't suddenly wake up with telepathy or superhuman strength, but maybe if we accept her, she will be an asset to the school and the mutant community in general. No matter what her mutation is or ends up being, she'll know she belongs to a community and she won't let the first authority figure who gives her praise and attention manipulate her into hurting people. But if she’s in a bad situation, at home or at school or anywhere, don’t you think we should bring her in? We should teach her that she’s not a freak just because she glows like a neon nightlight. But we won’t take her in.
“I used to fight the professor on that. Who deserves to be here? I guess he thought about the limited space we have. He wanted to bring in only students with promise, who needed to be taught to harness their mutations so they wouldn't harm themselves or anyone else. Accidentally. He wanted to bring in the powerful ones to protect the school and I guess the world.”
“Do you think he was wrong?” Scott thought he could hear disgust in Logan's voice.
Scott paused. He sighed, heavily. “No, he wasn't. But he's not here anymore. Ororo doesn't want to run the school forever. I always-ever since I was 19 I wanted to continue his dream after he was gone. I want to take over, but I don't know how to make those judgment calls. I don’t know if I can handle it-any of it. I still don't know what happened to me.”
Logan scoffed. “Join the club.”
Scott turned to him. “I think I got a flash of something when I was just waking up from the coma. I see this bright white light, and I think it was really white. There wasn't any red at all. I think there were stars. It doesn't make any sense. I try to connect the dots, but nothing works. Maybe it was the meds Hank had me on.”
An awkward silence carried on for a few minutes. “Are you expecting me to respond to that?”
Scott considered Logan. It looked like something about the other man hadn't been at ease for a long time beyond what Scott's come to recognize as Logan's default attitude.
“You were there when I woke up, weren't you? I remember you were there the first time I woke up, I think, but you were there the second time, too, weren’t you?”
Logan's jaw tightened.
“Why were you there? Since I've woken up this is the first time out of class that you’ve given me the time of day.” Logan didn't even blink. “Why won't you answer me?” Scott pressed loudly. He was suddenly, irrationally, angry.
Logan turned his face toward Scott and yelled, “Because I don't know the answer!”
Their faces were barely inches apart. Scott's eyes were drawn to Logan's rough lips.
The moment hung there until Scott was fed up with it-it seemed to be one of the themes of his life lately-and moved forward.
The kiss was harsh and angry; it seared through Scott. When Logan moved away just a fraction, Scott brought his hands up from the dead grass and held Logan's head still.
Logan didn't stop him. His lips moved under Scott's and his hands moved to Scott's torso.
- - - - - - - - - -
Come down off your throne
And leave your body alone
Somebody must change
You are the reason
I've been waiting so long
Somebody holds the key
Well, I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time
Well, I'm wasted and I can't find my way home
Come down on your own
And leave your money at home
Somebody must change
You are the reason
I've been waiting all these years
Somebody holds the key
I'm near the end, and I just ain't got the time
Oh, and I'm wasted, and I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
But I can't find my way home
Still, I can't find my way home
And, I ain't done nothing wrong
But, I can't find my way home
Blind Faith “Can't Find My Way Home”
End notes: I had to take a few liberties with the car and especially the 8-track player since I've never seen one, but I hope it was convincing anyways. The car's description comes from this website. Many thanks to dragonessasmith and apathocles for listening to last-minute panic attacks.
Feedback is much appreciated. Comment or email me at societal_casualty at yahoo dot com.