Fic: Dress Code (Logan, X-23) - PG
Title: Dress Code
Author: eva_roisin
Fandom: X-Books
Characters: Logan, X-23, Domino
Description: Logan is forced to take Laura on a shopping trip.
Rating: PG
Words: 4400
Dress Code
When Logan pulls up to the dock and finds Laura sitting on a bench, he admits that Emma Frost was right: she’s not dressing well these days.
Laura stares at the car for a moment, peering at him through the windshield. Then she unfolds her hands and rises to her feet, slinging her purse around her shoulder. Her jean skirt is faded and fraying at the hem and her shirt is too small, straining across her chest and riding up above her waist. She’s not wearing fishnets today-thank God-but her shoes are big and black and clunky. Secondhand, Logan thinks. He doesn’t know a thing about fashion, but he recognizes a well-dressed woman when he sees one, and he admits, with a prickle of shame, that X-23 isn’t looking that good.
She pulls on the driver’s side car handle and nothing happens. He realizes that the car is locked-he didn’t know. He hits the automatic unlock button.
“I did not recognize this car,” Laura says, sliding into the front seat and slamming shut the door. She sniffs. “This car is not yours.”
“I don’t have a car,” he says, releasing the brake. “You know that.” He sniffs too. He can tell that she just washed her hair.
Laura turns to look in the back seat. “It is certainly not yours. But you have ridden in it previously.”
She’s correct. It’s not his car. And he has ridden in it previously. He’s sat where X is sitting right now.
“I am guessing you haven’t driven it before,” she says.
“How’s that?”
“You hit the curb on the way into the turnaround. A more experienced driver of sedans would not have done that.”
He glances at her. “Any other observations you want to lay out?”
“Not presently.”
The car is Melita’s. He borrowed it this morning after telling a few white lies about what he planned to use it for. He’s told Melita only the basic facts about X-23; if he’d told her about his planned shopping trip, she would have wanted to come. Maybe that would have been okay. Maybe they would have all had a nice time. Maybe Melita and X would have bonded. But Logan didn’t want to risk it. He knew what would probably happen: X wouldn’t trust Melita, or she would say nothing during the outing. Or she would say something unintentionally creepy and weird-she’d drop the facts about Rahne’s pregnancy, or she’d tell Melita about the time she got her arm cut off. And Melita would listen and pretend that it was no big deal, but later she’d corner Logan with a list of questions.
The relationship is going well, and he’s still at the stage where he’s trying to impress Melita by concealing his more glaring faults. He doesn’t want to fuck it up before he absolutely has to, and introducing his semi-dangerous and socially awkward clone into the mix seems like it could spell a premature end to things.
X turns to look out the window. Her hair is already pencil straight and fine; when it’s wet it hangs down her back in thin clumps. Maybe she didn’t have time to blow dry it today. Maybe she woke up late.
Maybe she just doesn’t care.
Four nights previously, Emma Frost found him in the kitchen. “Ah, there you are,” she said.
He was slicing a banana into a bowl of cereal, and he felt his spine lock up with dread. “Hmm.”
“X-23 needs to go shopping. If she’s going to continue to live and study here, she needs new school clothes for the new year.”
“Says who? You?” He gave her the once-over.
She opened the cabinet and took out a glass.
He picked up his bowl and spoon and turned around. Then he looked at her, raising his eyebrows dramatically. “So why don’t you tell her? She can go shopping. She’s a big girl. I’ll front her the money.”
Emma ran the faucet. Then she switched on the water filter and filled her glass. “I’m afraid that, if left to her own devices, she won’t look any better afterwards. She simply doesn’t know what clothes to buy. Always too small . . . and too cheap. I know that Laura likes to be economical, but she’s not doing any of us favors when her things fall apart in the wash.” She angled her body away from the sink and brought the glass to her lips.
“You’re criticizing the kid’s fashion tastes? Jesus, that’s like . . . .” He tried to think of a particularly apt comparison. None rose to his mind-none that he could say out loud, anyway. “Well, the jokes just write themselves.”
“I know that X-Force was a big commitment”-Emma took another sip-“and that Laura didn’t have the time. But that’s over now. And now is the time for her to start taking care of herself, looking better . . . and the school has a dress code. If X-23 wants to stay on here, she’ll have to conform to our rules. If she doesn’t want to stay, that’s fine too. But school has started, and I need an answer.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of a dress code,” Logan said. “Does it apply to instructors or just students?”
“It’s not about what I think, Logan. Please. It’s about what X-23 thinks of herself. Have you seen her lately? She doesn’t look good. And you’re always saying that she’s your responsibility.”
He hadn’t seen X lately. Or if he had, he hadn’t really looked at her. She’d been visiting her old friends and studying at Utopia, bouncing along the corridor like a stray note. When she was in X-Force she was quiet and reliable; now she seemed invisible.
“So what do you want me to do?” he said. “I don’t know anything about what girls like or what they wear. Shouldn’t someone else help her? One of her friends, maybe?”
“Sure, someone else could help her. But she’s your responsibility. And you’re always saying that you want to spend more time with her.” Emma shrugged. “Let her pick out clothes she likes, but make sure the clothes match and cover what they need to. Keep her out of Hot Topic. Shopping is not hard. Not compared to some of your other activities. Why don’t you make a little day of it?” She smiled at him. “Unless you prefer spending time and money on your new girlfriend rather than Laura.”
Bitch, he thought. “Fine. I’ll take her this Saturday.” He looked down at his cereal. It had gone soggy during the last five minutes. He went to dump it in the sink.
“Good,” Emma said, turning to leave the kitchen.
“You shouldn’t wear white after Labor Day,” he called to her. “You shouldn’t wear black, either. Know why?”
Emma paused. Logan could tell that she hated herself for wanting to know what he would say next.
“‘Cause once you’re past a certain age, it makes you look old,” he said. As he opened the refrigerator to reach for the carton of milk, he heard Emma edge out of the kitchen, her annoyance invisible to everyone but him.
***
While nudging the car through weekend traffic, Logan tries to make conversation with Laura. “So how are things? At school?”
“Fine,” Laura says. “Everything is fine.”
“That’s great,” he says, distracted by the motorcycle that’s about to cut him off. “That’s fantastic.” He can hear the hollow enthusiasm in his voice. “It’s great to be around people your own age.”
Laura sits back and opens her purse. “Do you mind if I eat? I was not able to eat lunch before I left Utopia.”
He glances down at her lap. She’s got a peanut butter sandwich and a bag of chips. “Just don’t drop any crumbs. We’ve already established that this isn’t my car.”
Laura pops open the bag of chips. “The car belongs to a woman. Based on the level of progesterone in the air, as well as the slight traces of perfume and hand lotion, I’m guessing that this female is between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five.”
She’s bluffing. “I don’t smell anything,” he says.
Laura eats a chip, placing it completely into her mouth before she starts chewing. She swallows. “Why did you borrow this car? We could have taken the motorcycle.”
“Yeah,” he says. He understands that now. On the motorcycle they wouldn’t have had to make conversation.
Laura looks down at her sandwich. She takes one bite before wrapping it back up and sitting back. “Ms. Frost told me I need new clothes. She says that the ones I have have seen better days.”
Logan tries not to grip the steering wheel too hard. “We could all use new things once in a while. Since you . . . since X-Force is over, you might as well get a fresh start.”
“But there is nothing wrong with the way I dress. My clothes are adequate. They are functional. I do not understand why we must do this.”
Logan steals another glance at Laura. Her tattered skirt and too-short top are mismatched. Her pale legs stretch into the bottom of the car. It’s not that Laura is ugly or unattractive. And it’s not that she looks slutty either-like someone who might give grown men the “wrong idea.” It’s that she looks tired. Poor. In her face he sees the other women of his family, the women who came before, all of them living out tired, painful lives at the mercy of unsympathetic and manipulative men.
“Don’t take what Emma says so personal,” he says. “You should hear the crap she says to me. Other people too.”
“Logan,” X says quietly. She presses closed the ziploc baggie. “On average, how long does a couple wait before having sexual intercourse?”
Logan feels the car drift into the other lane. He corrects it quickly.
“I’m curious,” Laura says.
“Jesus Christ, Laura,” he says. "Where the hell did that come from?" He keeps his eyes fixed to the road. He's surprised--but he shouldn't be. Laura's asking because she knows the car belongs to a woman. She's taking stock of Logan's life. "Are you having sex with somebody?” He flips through a mental list of possible candidates, boys back at Utopia who might be suicidal.
“No.”
“Are thinking about having sex with somebody?”
“Not at the present time. I am merely curious.” She continues to stare. “Josh and I have been talking about it.”
“Josh! You and Josh are talking about having sex together?”
“No. Josh and I have been talking about whether or not it’s right to have sex before marriage. Some kids think it’s not right. Others say it’s not normal to wait. So I asked Domino, and she said that you need to test drive a car before buying it.”
Yeah, that sounds about right. Eyes still on the road, Logan levels a finger at X. “Don’t. Don’t be asking Dom about shit like that.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t. She’s not the person you should be talking to.”
“Why not? Is it because you’re sexually attracted to her?”
“Is it because I . . .” Logan changes lanes so that he’ll be able to get off the freeway in a few miles. He takes inventory of his physical reaction. His heart’s beating faster. His stomach, he’s sure, is curled against his spine. “I’m not sexually attracted to her.”
Laura is silent.
“This is grown-up stuff,” he says. “You shouldn’t be thinking about it.” He realizes how patronizing he sounds. Laura’s no ingénue when it comes to sex. She seems innocent only because she’s so direct, so sincere.
“But everyone is talking about this. May I ask you more questions about these matters?” she says.
He feels every joint in his body compress. “Go ahead.”
“How long do you wait before engaging in sexual activity with a person?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “Like, me personally? It depends on the person. Depends on the situation. It’s different with different people.”
Laura’s mood changes. He can tell that he’s letting her down, that his answers are vague and annoying. “Is it acceptable to have sexual intercourse on the first date?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s acceptable.” He tries not to remember all the times he’s had one-night stands or casual flings with friends and total strangers. “It’s best to get to know someone. It’s best to know that they care about you before doing that.” He starts to pick up a little speed, a little confidence. “It’s about respect. Self-respect. And somebody else respecting you. You can’t respect each other if you’re just doing it like a couple of . . . animals.”
“You can’t? Why not? Why are sexual activity and respect mutually exclusive?”
For this he has no answer. She’s right-the laws of society make no sense.
Laura turns back around to look out the window. “I shall ask Domino.”
“You will not ask Domino.”
“Your answers have not been sufficient. Domino is more forthright about these matters.”
“Listen X,” he says, steering the car onto the exit ramp. “Look. Do I sometimes have sex on the first date? Yes. Is it a nice thing to do? No. You should wait. It’s better when you know someone really well. The sex itself is better”-he feels his heart beating in his ears-“and the relationship is better.”
Laura says nothing for the rest of the trip. They pull up to the mall and park in the farthest corner of the parking lot. Outside it’s drizzling, and X pulls a jacket over her head.
***
He hasn’t been inside of a mall for a long time, and he’s forgotten how irritating and unpleasant the experience can be. He’s assaulted by the smell of a few thousand people-body odor and perfume, shampoo and hand-sanitizer. Their voices and laughter bounce off the linoleum floors and high ceilings and skylights. It’s not unlike being in a bar, but a bar has alcohol. A mall has crying, shrieking children jumping on and off giant plastic breakfast food.
Someone walks past him and farts.
He turns toward X. He’s trying to keep it together. Ever since he had that episode in the woods with Nick Fury, he’s been nervous that he’ll lapse again, that any little annoyance will set him off. He can see the headlines now: Man with claws has killing rampage at suburban mall. He wonders what Melita will think.
“Where do you want to start?” he says.
She shrugs, arms dangling at her sides. She knows he’s uncomfortable. She’s uncomfortable too. “We could go somewhere else.”
“We’re here. Now what do you want to get?”
She points herself in the direction of a small store that sells women’s clothes. Tentatively, as if she’s afraid of scaring people away, she sets out in that direction. He follows her.
In the store, he paws a garment, a shirt, and catches a glimpse of the price tag. “Wow.”
“Yes,” Laura agrees. “Overpriced.” She motions to the back of the store. “There is a sales rack back there.”
Once back there, Laura flips through the garments, giving each one an equal amount of attention. Logan pulls a shirt from the rack. It has long sleeves and flowers and a big, ruffled collar.
“What about this?” he says, holding it up.
Laura looks at it. Then she drops her gaze. “It is not me.”
“How do you know if you haven’t tried it on?” He holds it up to her. “I think the color looks okay.”
She hesitates a second. Then she reaches out and takes it.
They go back to looking through the rack of clothes. Logan pulls out a button-up dress with a belt around the waist. “This is nice.”
Laura glances at it. “It is a size twelve.”
“Well, what size do you wear?”
“Two.” She pushes aside a few more garments. “Finding clothes that fit is difficult. I shop in the children’s section often.”
“Here’s a size two,” Logan says triumphantly. He holds up the dress.
Laura touches the sleeve. Then she takes it by the hanger.
Ten minutes later she’s in the dressing room and Logan is waiting outside. He watches as other people browse. A fat girl brushes past him, at least twenty garments in one arm. A woman leads her daughter into the dressing room. “And then you’ll have to get a haircut. I can’t have you showing up to Jacob’s bar mitzvah with it looking the way it looks now.”
The girl follows her mother, her eyes at half-mast. She’s a few years younger than Laura but she seems just as jaded about the prospect of shopping. “I don’t care,” she says.
Logan wonders if there are thousands-hundreds of thousands-of kids in the San Francisco metropolitan area who absolutely hate shopping with their parents. How do parents deal with this? Do they force their kids? Do they simply give them money and trust that they’ll spend it in the right place? Go shopping without them?
A few minutes later, X emerges wearing the dress. It hangs past her knees.
“Oh,” he says, pretending to be pleasantly surprised. “That looks nice.”
She turns to the mirror and pulls her hair past her shoulders. “It is too big.”
It is too big. It puffs out in the back and the waist clings to her hips. “Overall it looks good.”
“No, Logan. It does not look good.”
“You’re used to things being tighter. Just give this a chance.”
X stares at herself in the mirror. “The dress looks fine. But I do not.” She pauses. “I am not like other girls who can wear things like this. I am not pretty.”
“Huh? Of course you are,” he says.
“No, Logan. I am not.” She turns to look at him. When their eyes meet, he’s shocked that she’s so sad and resigned. She hasn’t looked that sad since she got her arm cut off, and in that moment she was also in a great deal of pain. Now he’s worried that she might cry. He doesn't want that, doesn't need that. He'll do anything to avoid tears.
She slips past him and goes back into the dressing room. When she comes out, she’s wearing her regular clothes again.
“What about that other shirt?” he says, careful to be especially accomodating so that he doesn't inadvertently prompt X to have a meltdown.
“I think we should go now. I don’t think any of these clothes will fit or look nice.”
“So let’s try a different store.”
“I mean that I would like to go home.”
“Laura, what the hell is the matter?”
Laura crosses her arms and looks down. An instrumental version of “Candle in the Wind” trails from the speakers.
“Let’s just give it one more go,” he says. “One more store.”
In the next store, things are more or less the same. Laura tries on a few clothes before declaring them a bad fit or too expensive. (It doesn’t matter that Logan offered to pay.)
“What is it?” he says as they leave the second store. Laura walks quickly. “What the hell is wrong? Look, I came all the way out here to help you shop and it's no picnic for me either, so whatever the hell kind of problem you're having--”
“We need to go to the food court,” she says.
“Huh? You’re hungry?” He’s hungry too. He could go for a gyro. Or orange chicken. He can smell the grease. Maybe everything will seem okay after he eats. He functions better on a full stomach.
“No, because-” She spins around to look at him. Her almost-dry hair hangs around her shoulders. “Domino will be there.”
“What?”
“I-I texted her when I was in the dressing room. I thought that perhaps she could help. So she said she’d come here.” Laura spins around again and picks up the pace, tracking skills in high gear. He struggles to keep up with her.
Sure enough, when they reach the food court Dom is there, sauntering in through the glass doors. She’s wearing jeans and sandals and looks-Logan thinks-very refreshed. The sun is in her hair. When she reaches them, she bends over to hug Laura. She pulls away and turns to hug Logan too.
Logan accepts the hug. He shrugs and steps back.
“Well look at you two,” she says. “Out in the middle of this end-of-summer clusterfuck.”
“Laura needs new clothes,” he says.
Dom looks him up and down. “She’s not the only one.” She smiles at Laura. “Come on, X. Let’s find some bargains.”
***
Logan is torn between two emotions. First, he’s relieved that Dom showed. She and X select a few stores, and Dom methodically finds clothes that fit Laura and look appropriate.
Second, he feels guilty. He hopes it won’t get back to Melita that he borrowed her car to go to the mall with his young clone and an attractive colleague. Not that he’s doing anything wrong. But he thinks of the white lie he told, and how this might sound if she ever finds out.
Dom scans the sales rack and sends Laura to the dressing room with a pile of clothes. Then she waits to tell Laura whether or not things fit and look nice, and Laura trusts her judgment implicitly. It’s funny, Logan thinks. When Domino first joined X-Force, Laura didn’t trust her at all. Now? God help the creature that so much as touches a hair on Dom’s head.
“Thanks for this,” Logan says when X is in the dressing room. “Emma Frost instituted a dress code.”
Dom picks through a rack of clothes and laughs. “That’s some bullshit. You know Emma’s just pissed because she’s surrounded by these young girls who are hotter than she is.”
“You like to shop?” he says. He wants to keep the conversation moving along. Pause too long and maybe Domino will mention the slight but too-easily-detected current between them.
“Not really. Not for myself. But shopping for Laura’s fun. It’s like clothes were made for her.” She glances up and smiles, the type of smile that women give when they say something like “shaken, not stirred,” or “you can call me, but my boyfriend might answer.” “You were drowning before I got here,” she says. “The look on your face! You were about to shit a brick. And I think Laura was going to have a panic attack.”
“Laura likes to shop less than I do, apparently.”
“That’s not a bad thing. Credit card debt’s a growing problem for America’s youth.”
Laura steps out of the dressing room. She’s wearing a dress and this time it fits. It’s blue with small white flowers.
“You look fantastic,” Dom gushes. “Get that.”
Laura’s almost smiling when she goes back into the dressing room.
***
During the next half hour, Laura tries on a dozen things and Dom advises her to buy half of them. When they step up to the cash register with the clothes, Dom pulls out her credit card.
He’s a little shocked. “Dom. Come on. What are you doing?”
“No, you come on,” she says. “This is my gift to Laura. It’s your birthday Laura, right?”
Laura shakes her head. “No. It’s not.”
“It’s more than two hundred dollars worth of clothes,” Logan says, but before he can get her to put her wallet away she’s handed her credit card to the cashier. (She’s fast.)
“I’m good for it,” Dom says.
Afterwards they go to the shoe store. Laura gets a pair of sandals and some dress shoes. Logan even tries on a pair of boots.
X takes her purchases up to the cashier. Logan and Dom stand at the opening of the store.
“X doesn’t think she’s pretty,” Logan says. "Hell."
Dom stands with her arms crossed in front of her. “Of course she doesn’t. She’s sixteen. No one thinks they’re pretty when they’re sixteen, no one normal, anyway. And she’s not going to believe you if you tell her otherwise. She's your clone.” Dom laughs. “People probably tell her all the time that she looks just like you, and I bet that really pisses her off.”
When Laura emerges from the store with her new shoes, she looks at both of them. Then Dom looks at him.
“What do you guys want to do now?” she says. “You want to go back to my place and just kick it?”
Logan pauses. “We should get back. Laura’s got homework.”
Next to him Laura tenses. She’s displeased with Logan.
Logan wonders, and not for the first time, how Laura’s handling her forced retirement from X-Force. He knows that letting her join X-Force was wrong, but he also worries about the wrongness of suddenly depriving her of teammates. She must feel so uprooted, so isolated. Only a few people understand what it was like, and most of those people aren’t around a lot these days.
“You sure?” Dom says, sensing their hesitation. “We could grab a bite. Or just hang.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Logan says, “but we really need to go.”
Dom falters imperceptibly. Logan catches her momentary disappointment only because he’s watching. He feels embarrassed for her. Sometimes he wishes that he couldn’t notice what most people work hard to conceal.
“It was great seeing you guys,” Dom says. She grins at X. “Try not to knock all the guys on their asses now. Be nice.”
Logan and Laura walk through the parking lot. Logan can tell that X is discontented. Now they’re heading back to car-the car that belongs to a human woman. He understands, all too late, that Laura texted Dom for a reason, and not simply because she thought Dom has good taste in clothes.
“Well, we’ve got the rest of the day,” he says. Once again his enthusiasm feels hollow and false.
“I have to go back to Utopia.” Laura opens the car door and slides inside. “I have homework.”
He nods, putting the key in the ignition. The car starts right away, with less effort than he expected. It hums quietly.
The plastic bags sit next to Laura’s feet and in her lap. “Thank you for taking me out, Logan.”
“You should thank Dom. I don’t know what her original plans were for today, but it was nice that she came all the way out here. That was generous.” He swallows. “Really generous.”
“I know,” X says, looking out the window at the mall. She sets her hands in her lap. “It was nice of her to come.” She turns to look at Logan, and her expression changes. Once again, she almost smiles.
And it’s this moment-this moment of almost being forgiven-that makes everything worth it. He puts the car in drive and heads to the highway.