Lorna Dane (polaris_) wrote in marvel_mashup, @ 2017-11-21 21:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | @dark shadows, dane: lorna, holden: dr. russ, logan: james, murphy: ronan, rasputin: piotr, silvercloud: eva |
CHARACTERS: Polaris, Wolverine, Urge, Lenny.
TOPIC: The Rainbow Connection.
DATE & TIME: Tuesday, November 21st, 2017 - 10:30pm.
LOCATION: "And what's on the other side?"
RATING: M.
'Beyond the Pines' was a marvelously artistic name for the horribly unromantic biker bar not too far from Xavier's compound. Which suited Lorna, because she hadn't ventured out to the biker pit stop for the atmosphere. Perched haphazardly on a bar stool, Polaris wondered why exactly she had decided to stop at the edge of the forest's crummiest watering hole. She'd nursed her drink long enough the bartender had started to shoot her dirty looks, not that his original looks had been all that clean. She sighed when she heard the stool next to her slide out, "Buzz off, I don't want company." Lorna informed her newest guest. Turned out women traveling alone were rare in these parts. She wasn't that surprised.
"Save it," Logan shot back without even a glance at Lorna. He did make eye contact with the bartender, who hurried over with Logan's bottle of beer and shot of whiskey.
Lorna recognized the voice before he'd finished his first syllable and it caused her nostrils to flare. Why did she feel like she was getting caught? Why did it matter? "Guess they know you here?" She wondered aloud when his drinks appeared without a word being said.
Logan drank the shot, then chased it quickly with a large portion of his beer. He rapped his knuckles against the bar and requested more whiskey. "I come here to get away from you." You meaning anyone at Xavier's that wouldn't walk into this lovely establishment, it wasn't too personal.
"That's sweet," Polaris told him, while her head bobbed gently in agreement with his statement. "Glad I can ruin this for you." She quipped and watched him take the second shot and finish the beer. "You drink... like it's your second job."
"Healing factor." He explained then held up two of his fingers to order more. As much as he didn't care, Logan was curious what had brought Polaris this far off the beaten path. Not enough to ask, though.
"Makes sense." The alcoholic that couldn't get drunk because of his mutation. With that mystery solved, their conversation lulled into an awkward silence, more awkward for Lorna, because Logan didn't seem like he wanted to talk much. Which should have been fine with her, but it wasn't. "I heard Raven say she came here for information." Lorna started and Logan's face immediately morphed into something rather unpleasant. Like he couldn't believe they were doing this shit.
He couldn't believe they were doing this shit. As soon as he'd seen Lorna's Volkswagen (not hard to miss) parked outside, he'd known he should've just kept driving. "What information?" Logan snapped back, then remembered he didn't care. Damn.
"I don't know. About creeps." She really didn't know. And she couldn't even remember exactly when she'd overheard it. Raven and Erik had so many quiet conversations she couldn't keep up. "Anybody in town that might cause trouble."
Christ. "Stop." Logan finally made eye contact with Magneto's daughter. "I know you want to catch the fucker that attacked you but this is stupid. I thought you were a scientist." He turned away from the geologist, hopeful she'd take the hint and leave. "The son of a bitch has Magneto and Mystique on his ass. He better be halfway around the world." Logan added, eyes now fixed on the TV screen above the bar.
"First of all, fuck you." Thought she was a scientist... Lorna would cockslap this wannabe cowboy in the face with her degrees if he wanted her to. "And... yeah. I don't know what I was thinking." Polaris admitted. But earlier this had seemed like such a good idea. She'd come here right after her session with Russ, he'd helped her so much with her PTSD. Polaris had seen some shit before, but for some reason, this incident had stuck with her. And she knew people were tired of it. Morgan, bless his sweet, stupid head. All the nights she'd just made him hold her... Fuck, she was an X-woman; she should have been able to handle her shit.
"You see this shit?" Logan gestured to the news, a story about an influenza outbreak in Arizona. The reporter was standing in front of a local clinic somewhere in Tempe. But Wolverine was more interested in the soldiers being transported in behind her. "When's the last time you remember the National Guard being deployed for the flu?" After a beat, Logan turned to Lorna, who had become uncharacteristically quiet. "Hey?"
"Maybe we should wait?" Russ spoke toward the ratty jukebox he stood in front of, while his words were meant for the woman who leaned against it.
"Why, because muttonchops showed up?" Lenny asked, eyes fixated on the pair at the bar. "That'll make it better." She could not have been smiling any harder. "He know we're here?"
"I don't think so." Russ dared a look over his shoulder. "This place is full of smells I don't think Logan wants to breathe in too deep." Urge went back to the selector, all while his empathic tendrils remained connected with Polaris.
"Good. Just pick a winner, set the bomb, and let's blow this shit shack." Lenny turned to face the jukebox and pointed her finger at the glass. "That's the one." She let her opinion be heard, then sensed hesitation in her partner. "Hey, Rusty. Don't go soft on me now." Her hand rested on the empath's shoulder. "You know what we're trying to do here. This is part of it. They're all going to thank you when we're done."
Russ dropped a couple quarters into the machine, pulled the mental string on Lorna's back, then the pair casually headed for the exit. Urge couldn't help but chuckle at Lenny's strut and lipsync to the opening line of the Thin Lizzy song.
Polaris heard Logan, but his words didn't... didn't make sense. Why was he talking about Arizona? Why wasn't he... Why wasn't he getting out of there! The bar... no, the kitchen! Where was he... the monster? He was close, Lorna could feel his breath on her, his eyes piercing through the darkness. "Run!" She cried toward Logan, arms outstretched. He listened, he disappeared. But now she was alone. Why had he left her?
Wolverine had just shifted to put his hand on Lorna's shoulder to snap her out of whatever deep thought she'd entered into when, well when, he wasn't on his bar stool anymore. The all too familiar sensation of being lifted by his skeleton and thrown from his perch had returned. Logan was tossed from the bar with all the care of tin can into a recycling bin. Glass shattered around him and a short row of motorcycles took the brunt of his impact. "Ow." Logan said aloud, at his first attempt to get up and scuttle back into the bar.
She'd fallen, from where? She didn't know but from the floor, she could hear footsteps, something came for her. Polaris fought the urge to curl into a ball and knew she needed to fight back, but she couldn't even catch her breath. Not again, not again, she swore to herself from under her hair. A knife, there must have been something in the kitchen. Lorna pulled everything metal toward herself that she didn't think was too big. Several things slid toward her huddled form and she'd lucked out. A large kitchen knife appeared near her hands. The magnekine focused her energy on the blade, and the weapon took flight. Not just her power, all of Lorna's anxiety, her anger at being made the victim, powered the projectile. Brief moments of resistance told Polaris she'd done damage. She wouldn't fall without a fight. It wasn't until the first body hit the floor the fog around Lorna started to fade. Was he her attacker? Her eyes focused on the man with the blood-stained shirt. No. He'd been somewhere else. In the bar. Warmth hit her hands and she felt as though she'd hyperventilate if she looked. Because she already knew the warmth around her hands was blood.
Logan kicked in the door, next to the window he'd just soared through. His jaw dropped, the seven or eight fellow patrons at the bar, including the bartender, were on the floor while a knife fell back to earth. His eyes found Lorna's form, huddled on the ground and he watched her attempt to scurry away from one of the dead men. "Jesus Christ." Logan ran towards the other mutant and picked her up from the ground by her shoulders. "Lorna!" Logan shook the woman, whose face was void of color and soaked with tears. "Snap out of it." She collapsed onto him and he stumbled, nearly slipping on the wet floor. The crimson red on her hands and forearms transferred to Logan's jacket, and he tried to find Lorna's eyes under her hair. "What the hell?" But she was sobbing and muttering and he could already hear commotion outside. His dive into a group of parked bikes hadn't gone unnoticed. "Fuck. Fuck." Logan pulled Lorna onto his shoulder and carefully ran from the bar to her VW outside. Wolverine pulled the door open, dropped Lorna into the driver's seat and pressed the push button start. But Polaris was nearly catatonic. "Hey." He yelled, then slapped the woman across the face. This seemed to bring the mutant back around some. "Listen to me. You drive back to the mansion. You go right to Zap. You hear me?" Lorna nodded, still somewhat out of it, but Logan felt as though she comprehended it. "Just Zap. Not Morgan, not your dad. Find Zap." He repeated, then went to shut the door.
"But... Logan." Lorna managed to eek out before the door shut. But he was standing outside yelling 'go' at her. Drive back to the Mansion, find Zap. She repeated the mantra to herself over and over. Mansion, Zap. Mansion, Zap. She didn't dare think about anything else.
The van pulled away and Logan slowly stepped back into the bar. They were all dead, the blood was everywhere including his jacket. The knife - he eyeballed it, confident it was close enough in shape to his own blades. When he heard the first siren in the distance, Logan hoped to god Lorna was still driving for the mansion. When the first officer entered the bar weapon raised, Logan starred back at him with his hands in the air, in the international sign for surrender. "What took you so long, bub?"