Vantage Point - Logan

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The rope that's wrapped around me is cutting through my skin
And the doubts that have surrounded me are finding their way in
I keep it close to me, like a holy man prays
In my desperate hour, it's better... better that way

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Sometimes, I think that running would be easier.

It's not all the time, though it seems to be happening more often these days. Every animal instinct screams at me to get out. Run while you can before it's too late...

It was too fucking late a long time ago.

I didn't see it at first. Never claimed I was a genius. It took me a long time to put the pieces together.

It started with that day I woke up in the med bay and couldn't look at Jean without feeling like I was betraying someone or something. Once I was back on my feet, I kept trying to figure out what my problem was. It made no sense that staring at a gorgeous woman like Jean did nothing for me except make me feel like a total bastard.

I started thinking that maybe it did have something to do with the fact that she was unavailable. Why that should suddenly matter, I didn't have the first clue. Morality has never been my strong suit. Anyway, I decided to take my theory for a test run.

I took Scooter's bike from the garage and went into town. Found an out of the way dive and took a seat at the bar. I checked out the talent in the place. Not much, being that it was early. Then I caught sight of a leggy blonde in a tight red dress. Great legs, nice ass, unbelievable breasts...

Guilt... God. Fucking. Damn it.

The blonde saw me eyeing her and strutted toward me with a wicked smile. I'd seen that smile a thousand times before and knew exactly what it meant. I reacted on instinct.

I tossed back the rest of my beer, threw cash on the bar, and left... alone.

I swore a blue streak the entire way back to the School. What the hell was wrong with me? I felt like I'd been mentally castrated.

Nice image, huh?

In addition to the never-ending search for my suddenly elusive sex drive, I had other ways of occupying my time. Mostly, I watched out for Marie, although what I was looking for was a mystery to me. She seemed perfectly content and safe here in Xavier's Fortress of Mutant Solitude. She smiled and laughed, goofed around with the other x-geeks in training, just like a kid her age should. There was no obvious reason for me to feel like I should be protecting her, but I did.

At least once a day, I'd find some way to talk to her, to make sure she was ok. Not that I got all touchy-feely and asked her straight out how she was doing, because that's just too fuckin' unmanly, and I was having enough problems in that area already. I stuck to safe topics. Her classes, her friends, the latest God-awful movie she'd seen. Like nothing else, those conversations describing stuff I cared about only because it mattered to her (and it never struck me at the time how odd that was) kept me grounded. For the first time I could remember, staying in one place didn't make me feel trapped. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and don't think for one second that the idea didn't give me more than a little discomfort when I dwelled on it.

I probably would have spent more time with Marie if I didn't think it was better for her that I didn't. More than once, I found myself on the receiving end of another one of Jean's dissecting glances while I was sitting with Marie in the rec room or eating lunch with her. Those clinical, piercing stares set my teeth on edge and made my knuckles itch. I didn't see any disapproval in Jean's expression, but I did see concern, which made no sense at all to me at the time.

On the other hand, One-eye made no attempt to conceal his disapproval. Summers had apparently decided that Marie was the kid sister he'd never had, and he was doing his level best to act like an overbearing, protective older brother. Not that the overbearing bit was a stretch, but the protective thing grated my nerves. I was sorely tempted to give him a foot up his ass to keep the pole he had permanently lodged there company.

So my days were spent training in the Danger Room (and damn me if that ain't the best fuckin' room in this place), talking to Marie, or finding new and creative ways to get on Cyke's nerves (on general principle, if not for something specific). The nights had a different agenda altogether.

It became a kind of obsession for me. I went out every night for a while. I kept waiting for the switch on my libido to turn back to the "on" position. I got more frustrated and pissed off every time the guilt popped up where lust should have been.

And then the lust returned... in a most unexpected, most uncomfortable way.

I had returned to the Mansion after another trip into town that left me cold. I was in a particularly bad mood that night and wanted to work off the frustration by sparring with Scooter. I hate to admit it, but (besides Marie) Cyke was the only thing saving my sanity in those first weeks after I woke up. In a fight, he made up for his lack of experience with an abundance of enthusiasm. He really wanted to pound me good. I could see it in the way he always clenched his jaw in a tight smile whenever I challenged him. Scooter was thoroughly pissed that I kept coming on to Jean.

Yep, I still flirted with her. Even though my body wasn't so hot on the idea anymore, I could fake it with the best of 'em. I was even more blatant than before, partly because I kept hoping to feel something stir in me when I muttered innuendoes to Jean while standing closer to her than I should. Mostly, I did it to piss off One-eye. It was one of my few joys at the time, making Summers so furious that he was anxious to spend time and energy trying to make me pay (trying being the operative word).

Well, that day, I stormed into to the Mansion on a tear. I needed to take out the frustration on someone, and beating myself up wasn't high on my list. I nearly ran Storm down when she came around a corner in front of me. I asked her where Cyke was, and she hesitantly told me he was down in the gym. She looked like she thought that I should be sedated and Summers should be warned.

Maybe it was the growling. Maybe I looked as murderous as I felt. I didn't much care at the time. I went to the locker room, changed into workout gear, and headed for the gym.

When I got there, Scooter wasn't alone. Marie was with him. He was obviously training her, though what he was teaching her to do was up for interpretation. She was balanced on the ball of one foot, the other slightly raised from the floor. Her arms were held up and she was slowly moving them around, her hands and wrists flexing and changing positions.

It was the strangest fucking regimen I'd ever seen. She'd told me that Scooter was teaching her how to fight. This looked more like some bizarre dance routine to me.

Marie looked over and saw me standing in the doorway. She dropped her position and stared silently for a moment before she smiled. "Logan, what are you doing here?"

Cyke turned around and glared at me from behind his shades. I was well acquainted with his expressions by then and could tell that he was annoyed. "We're in the middle of training. What do you want?"

He was in a foul mood. My own humor improved accordingly. "I want to know why you're training the kid to move like a snail on quaaludes."

He was scowling even more now. This was getting better by the second. "Rogue is learning Tai Chi. It teaches principles of balance and..."

Scooter yammered on about the supposed benefits of stretching and turning your wrists in different directions. I tuned him out and looked at Marie. She was paying rapt attention to the drivel pouring out of his mouth. Did she actually buy that crap? How was she supposed to defend herself with moves that a seventy-year-old in a walker could easily avoid? My protective instincts took over and I interrupted Cyke's tirade.

"Have you bothered to teach her anything useful?"

Now he was really losing his cool. The small part of me that wasn't worrying about Marie's safety reveled in the fact that I was pushing Scooter's buttons. I'd get a good fight out of him later.

"Logan, it's important to start with a good foundation before-"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, One-eye! What's she gonna do if some creep grabs her in an alley? Pose him to death?"

Marie coughed suddenly. It made me wonder if she was hiding a laugh. "Take a hike, Summers. I'm going to teach the kid some real moves, if you don't mind."

He started stalking toward me. I grinned. I was certainly up for teaching Marie by demonstration if he was. We never got a chance to give her that display of hand-to-hand combat. Jean walked in and told Scott he was needed in the briefing room, and I found myself alone in the gym with Marie.

She seemed more than a little uncomfortable for a minute. Her eyes wouldn't meet mine and her gloved hands fidgeted. The moment didn't last. She stepped closer to me, straightening the spandex workout suit she was wearing. "So... you wanna teach me somethin'?"

I moved to meet her on the padded mat. "You need to be able to defend yourself. There's a few easy things I can teach you so that you can."

She took a deep breath and said, "Okay. What's first?"

I showed her some basic strikes that would disable an attacker, vulnerable spots that she could damage even when she was outmatched in weight and strength. Eventually, we moved to more advanced territory. "Let's try a throw."

Her eyebrows flew up and she laughed. "A throw? Logan, there's no way on God's green earth I can throw you!"

"Don't think like that, Kid, or you make yourself a victim. You can fight back against someone who's bigger than you. It's a matter of leverage and using the attacker's momentum against him."

"Right. Okay... show me."

I moved behind her and wrapped my arm around her throat. "If someone comes at you from behind, grab their arm in both hands and push your hip into them like this," I pulled her hip back into me with my free hand to demonstrate. "Pull forward and down on the arm while you twist your hip forward. Okay, you ready to try?"

She muttered something that sounded like an assent, so I backed up a few steps, then approached from behind and wrapped my arm around her throat. She followed my directions damned well for a beginner, and I flew forward to land on my back on the mat. The problem was, I hadn't been explicit enough in my instructions.

I forgot to tell her to let go of my arm.

When I went flying to the ground, Marie quickly followed. She landed sprawled across my chest in a heap. She flipped her hair back over her head, her eyes wide with surprise. "I can't believe that worked."

I couldn't help it. I had to laugh at that shocked expression on her face. "Well, that's not exactly how it was supposed to go, but it was good for a first try."

She laughed too. "Right. I'm supposed to still be standing up."

"Let go of the arm next time," I advised.

"Got it." She laughed again, and that's when it happened. My body and I both noticed something.

Marie had breasts. Very nice ones. And they felt really good rubbing against my chest with her laughter. Too good...

Let's just say that my body reacted accordingly. The part of my mind still capable of thought was relieved that she hadn't fallen in a full body sprawl on top of me. And my body countered that that wouldn't have been a bad thing at all.

"Logan? Is somethin' wrong?" And damn if that soft, breathy drawl didn't do all sorts of things to me that added to the tightening of my body. Heat radiated through my blood from where her chest lay against mine, and... she'd asked me a question that I hadn't responded to yet.

"Nah. I'm fine." But suddenly, I wasn't. My conscience finally pushed itself into the fray of my reawakened hormones and reminded my body exactly who it was that I was lusting after. This was Marie, not some floozy I could tumble and walk away from with no questions asked. The number of ways it was wrong couldn't be listed without using up several reams of paper, and I'm sure if I asked, Scooter could provide those along with a case of number two pencils and a method to categorize each reason by increasing degrees of depravity.

My body told my conscience to go fuck itself. Then Marie (and God, why did she have to go and do that?) took a deep breath and moved her hands across my chest.

I held up my wrist behind her head (praying she didn't notice that I wasn't wearing a watch) and said, "I gotta go. I have... an errand to run." And isn't that the smoothest I could have possibly been? I suppose I could have upped the stupid factor by claiming I needed to rearrange my sock drawer, an excuse that only Summers could give and be believed.

Marie pushed herself off me and I rolled in the opposite direction (for obvious reasons), getting to my feet and managing to keep my back to her as I walked to the door of the gym.

"Logan?"

I looked over my shoulder (turning around was definitely not an option). "Yeah?"

Her lips quirked up on one side and I wondered how I could have failed to notice how sexy that half-smile of hers was. "Thanks... for the lesson, I mean."

"My pleasure." Ugh, nice choice of words, idiot. Her smile widened and I left before my body ignored the categorical list of badness my conscience was enumerating.

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I'll come by and see you again
I'll be such a very good friend
Have mercy on my soul
I will never let you know
Where my mind has been

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I took Scooter's bike, rode hell for leather into town, found a suitably eager woman, and spent a good long time working out my suddenly rejuvenated libido.

And as I lay next to that nameless woman I'd just screwed the daylights out of, I realized that though my body was satisfied, the whole thing just felt wrong. And I couldn't stop wondering why.

So, I left. Went back to the Mansion, parked the bike in the garage, and smoked a cigar out on the front stoop. I finally gave up trying to philosophize and went to sleep.

The dreams started that night.

They were vague and strange and made no fucking sense. I stood in a place that looked like it was suspended nothingness. It was dark and there was absolutely nothing around me. And then I saw a figure walking toward me out of the blackness. I realized it was Marie, and my dream-self felt a whole rush of emotions that I'd never experienced in my life.

I bolted up in the bed. I have to admit that that dream scared the shit out of me, even more than some of my worst nightmares. It was too damned strange to be real, but it had felt real. I decided that it was my conscience getting back at me for lusting after Marie earlier that night.

I didn't sleep very well after that.

The next day after dinner, I saw Marie headed for her training session with Scooter. I told myself not to notice how well she filled out the spandex suit she was wearing. Yeah, like that was gonna happen. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she was gripping the ends of a towel around her neck. "Hey Logan."

"Hey yourself. Is Cyke givin' you another dance lesson tonight?"

She thwapped me with the end of her towel and laughed. "Stop it, Logan. Scott's been helping me a lot."

"Uh-huh. I'm sure you're wrists are very flexible thanks to the One-eyed-wonder. Why don't you let me teach you some more useful stuff after he's done with you?" And yes, my next thought was to wonder if I'd completely lost my fucking mind. After the previous night, volunteering to be in close proximity to a sweaty, spandex-covered Marie was not the most rational thing I'd ever done. Fuck.

"Umm..." And I honestly couldn't tell you if I was more fearing that she'd say yes or hoping for it. "Sure."

Decision time had passed, and my conscience didn't at all like the hooting cheer that my hormones gave out. "When will you be done with Scooter?"

"About an hour. And Logan, you might get along with him better if you called him Scott."

I snorted. Yeah, getting along with Scooter is on my top ten list of things to do the day that hell freezes over.

I watched her walk away, fixated on the unstudied, sensual sway of her backside. My conscience screamed bloody murder, and my sex drive told it to shut the fuck up. It was then I realized that I hadn't lost my mind.

I was just a completely hopeless masochist.

After our session that night, I was horny as hell again. I headed into town for another round of fuck-the-nameless, but not before I asked Marie if she wanted to keep a regular schedule of training and she said yes.

Masochism at its finest, folks.

And the dreams kept on coming. You would think that they would've been X-rated, given my hormonal response to her during the waking hours, but they weren't. At first, they were just flashes of images. Marie touching my face and smiling at me like I was the most important person in the world. Me stroking her hair and holding her in my arms. And during all of them, the sensations flowing through me were tender and possessive at the same time.

The possessive feelings spilled over into the daylight hours when I found out that Marie had agreed to go on a date with the Russian kid. She told me herself when we were training one night, and I had to restrain the urge to pop my claws and go threaten the kid within an inch of his life. Not that I had anything personal against him. Hell, all I knew about him was what Marie had told me - that his "gift" was to armor plate himself in metal and that he liked to draw. So I forced a smile, told Marie I hoped that she had a good time, and cut the session short.

I didn't go into town that night.

I kept up the pattern for the next few weeks: Work out with Marie, go into town, have a disturbingly ambiguous dream at night. Then two things happened.

I realized that when I went looking for a woman to fuck, I was inevitably choosing one that reminded me of Marie. This one had a similar figure, that one had wide brown eyes, another had her smile. One I picked because she was wearing leather gloves, and I asked her to leave them on. The feel of those small, leather-clad hands raking over my body made me wild.

My conscience had a field day with that little epiphany.

The other thing that happened was a change in the dreams. They became clearer, the details more discernable. I heard Marie talking to me in them. She was telling silly stories, asking me questions about my life, and I heard myself answering her.

Then came the dream where she was telling me to get better, to hold on, to believe that she was strong enough. And I was telling her that she had to let go, that it had to end.

I woke up breathing hard, my heart pounding like I'd run a fucking marathon, because it suddenly made sense.

The dreams were memories.

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I have crept into your temple; I have slept upon your pew
I have dreamed of the divinity inside and out of you
I want it more than truth; I can taste it on my breath
I would give my life just for a little... a little death

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I went to see Xavier first thing in the morning. I told him about the dreams and asked him what he knew. He tried to put me off until I said that I thought the dreams were memories, and he sighed and told me that they were. I had to push him to get details. The Professor started cautiously explaining what had happened while I was in that coma, how Marie had saved me and nearly died because of it. He'd barely gotten started, but I didn't need to hear any more.

The second he started talking everything came back to me.

My immediate impulse was to go and tell Marie what had happened. That I remembered her and everything she'd done and that I loved her. I interrupted Chuck, told him that I had to do something and went looking for Marie.

I exited Xavier's office and looked down the hallway. A door opened and students started filling the hall. Then I saw her. I thought I'd forgotten how to breathe for a minute. My chest tightened as I took a step toward her.

And then I noticed the Russian kid. Marie had her hand wrapped around his arm and was smiling up at him. She was laughing at a joke he'd made.

And damn... she looked happy.

So, I went off to think. I thought about how she'd told me she loved me right before I'd broken our connection. I started to believe that she didn't mean it the way I'd thought he had, or else, she'd confused caring and gratitude for love. It was a definite possibility, given the fact that she was dating the Ruskie and looked for all the world to be a normal, happy teenager. If she'd really loved me, wouldn't she find it impossible to act like nothing was wrong when we were together? Wouldn't it have been too difficult to be friends with someone you loved that didn't remember you? I didn't think there was any possible way that she could feel the same way about me as I suddenly remembered feeling about her.

Then the question was, what the fuck should I do? Telling Marie how I felt was out of the question. She'd obviously moved on with her life, so shackling her with my emotional baggage wouldn't be right. I decided not to tell her anything, let her go on thinking I didn't remember.

It wasn't easy to make that decision. If it had just been a matter of disapproval from Scooter and the gang, I would have said fuck it and done what I wanted. I've never been one to let what other people think stop me from getting what I want. And if I believed that Marie returned my feelings, there's no way that the age difference would have gotten in my way either. First of all, even I don't have the first damned clue exactly how old I am, so age is pretty much irrelevant. Given the two people involved, Marie would be the one with more memories of life experiences in the relationship anyway. And like I said before, morality has never meant dick as far as I'm concerned, so that wouldn't have been an issue.

What did matter was Marie. She was happy, and I wasn't going to fuck with that no matter how much I wanted to. Amazingly enough, I discovered that I'm just not that selfish.

I went back to Chuck's office and told him that I didn't want anyone to know I'd gotten my memory back. He counseled me against it, but when he saw that my mind was made up, he said that he'd respect my wishes.

Everything went on as it had been. I spent as much time with Marie as I could. I pretended that everything was fine and nothing had changed (and I'm a much better actor than I ever imagined I could be). I got my jollies by ticking off Scooter and fighting him in the gym. Everything was status quo.

Well, not everything.

I thought that I'd wanted Marie before, but what I felt then was nothing compared to how I craved her after I got my memory back. It was a constant physical and emotional ache. Everything about her called to me, and resisting the temptation was damned near impossible. I fantasized about touching her, coming up with a wide variety of methods to get around that untouchable skin. I had her in my imagination a thousand different ways. Whether it was making her scream my name or just having her smile at me like I was her entire world again, it all boiled down to one thing. In my dreams, Marie was mine.

Our nightly workout became a grueling test of my self-control. I struggled to stay focused on teaching Marie and not letting my hands wander over those curves that haunted me. I was careful, but it turns out that I wasn't careful enough.

Just last week, I got caught by the worst possible person.

Marie and I were training, and I ended up with her in a hold. I made her explain her mistake to me, same as always. But while I honestly tried to listen to her, I was more focused on the fit of her body against mine. I smelled her lilac scented shampoo when I spoke in her ear. She was breathing heavily as she talked, and her panting voice sounded so much like it did in my fantasies that what she was saying didn't completely register.

I was holding on to my control by a thread. The thread snapped when I Marie stopped talking and I heard her breath catch. For an instant, I wondered if I'd done something to give myself away. Then all thought was obliterated when Marie's head fell back against my shoulder. Her neck was so seductively close to my lips, her hair falling across it would make a safe barrier. So tempting... so close... I felt myself drifting forward...

And then I realized we weren't alone. I'd been so caught up in Marie that I hadn't taken notice of the other presence my senses had automatically perceived.

Summers strolled in like he hadn't been standing there watching us. The second he asked Marie to leave, I just knew the lecture was coming. I found the whole thing slightly amusing. If Cyke thought he could boss me around like one of his teenage students, he had another think coming.

I didn't find it at all funny once he started talking. Summers was more observant than I'd given him credit for. Too fucking observant. And I'll admit that I was shocked by the fact that he didn't lecture me. One-eye actually got all Oprah on me and asked about my feelings. Could'a knocked me over with a feather there for a second. I sure as hell didn't know why he'd care, let alone where he got the balls to ask in the first place. But I wasn't about to tell him shit or let him think he could go around asking those uncomfortable questions whenever he felt like it. So I threatened him and took off.

I decided that Scooter could go fuck himself. I wasn't about to change my ways just because he was watching me like I was a time bomb about to explode. If my own instincts for self-preservation couldn't keep me away from Marie, One-eye certainly couldn't. I'd show him that Marie didn't need to be protected from me...

But just a few days ago, I damn near screwed the whole thing up royally.

I saw her in the courtyard sitting on a blanket alone eating her lunch. I went over and sat down, asked her what was wrong. She just stared at me, then shook her head and said she didn't want to talk about it. She stood up and so did I.

She was walking away from me, upset about something that she refused to explain. It really got to me. And that's when I said it. "Hey, come on. Wait a minute, Marie!"

She spun around so fast, I thought her neck was going to snap. Her eyes were wide with so many emotions that I couldn't decipher any of them. "What... what did you call me?"

It was the quiet, trembling whisper that made me realize what I'd done. I cursed myself for an idiot. I hadn't called her Marie since I woke up. Slip-ups like that were the fastest way to get me in a shit-load of trouble. I did my best to cover. "I called you Marie. It's your name, right?"

She blinked a couple of times, then her eyes changed. All the emotions that had been churning there disappeared. "You... I'm sorry... You're right... it's just that... no one's called me that name in a long time."

She walked away. I didn't follow. And suddenly, the urge to run hit me again.

So why don't I run? That stupid honor thing won't let me go. It's two promises I made -- one to protect and one to stay. It's damned near killed me to do both. If I run, I break my promise to Marie that I was in for the long haul. If I stay, I don't know how I'm going to keep the promise to protect her. I'm not worried about making sure she's safe from the dangers of any anti-mutant group or the next Magneto wannabe. Just let anyone come within fifty feet of her with threatening intentions. I'll gut 'em like a trout before you can say fish fry.

None of that is the real danger. The thing jeopardizing Marie's happiness lies in my weakening restraint where she's concerned. It's getting harder every day to see her without touching her, to talk to her without telling her how I feel. But I'll keep my mouth shut until I can figure out a way to tell her I remember what happened without knowing that it will wreck her life. Because I've finally found something that matters more than what I want.

What's best for Marie is all that counts.

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I'll come by and see you again
And I'll have to be a very good friend
If I whisper, they will know
I will just turn around and go
You will never know my... sin

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End Note: The song lyrics are from "Angels Would Fall" by Melissa Etheridge.

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