Late night phone calls, Logan's room; Attn: Logan
((This is insanely long, I'm warning you. It clocks in somewhere around 1,300 words. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking, either. This post is one part narrative, one part threading between a much-needed conversation between Matty and her X-Man.))
It was a rare, rainy day in Genosha. Damien sat perched on his windowsill, his forehead against the cool glass as he stared outside, watching the rain fall. His ribs still ached from where his father had broken them, and there were still the faintest signs of bruises across his cheekbone. His ribs were healed, but sense memory was a bitch, and had always been a far better liar than he ever was.
And he could still taste the blood in his mouth, though days had since passed. He wasn't going to get off easy, not for murdering a fellow mutant. He'd been lucky he was confined to his home.
Heaving a sigh, he looked away, to the cell phone clutched in his fingers. He knew the differences between time zones was great, that by this time, she should probably be sleeping.
He dialed anyway and let it ring. And ring. He was just about to hang up - he never left voice messages, not even for her - when he heard the click of the connection opening, and a gruff, masculine voice growling into the phone, "Yeah?"
Hurriedly, Damien disconnected the call. Had he dialed wrong? He had given her that phone, that number, in case of emergencies, and no matter what issues they may have between them, she always carried it with her. He dialed again, staring at the screen to verify he had dialed correctly.
The same voice again, this time a hair more irritated than before. "What the hell do you want?"
It took a moment, but the voice on the other end of the line finally registered with him, and Damien suppressed a shudder as he thought of why Logan would be answering his sister's phone. "May I speak with Matty?" he asked, adopting his most polite, foppish tone.
He could almost hear the man's eyebrow raising. "Who's askin'?" he replied, a hint of anger - and perhaps a tinge of jealousy - in his voice.
"Tell her Damien wishes to speak with her."
He didn't get a reply, but he could hear the rustling of sheets, the soft whimper of a young woman being roused from her slumber.
And Matty had been sleeping so well, too. She grumbled as she rolled over to stare at Logan, who was giving her a strange, guarded look. Had she been talking in her sleep or something?
"You been giving out your number to strange men?" he asked.
Half-asleep and confused, she furrowed her brow. "Huh?"
Logan held the phone out to her, insistent that she take it. He was just a little pissed off, she could tell. "There's some guy named Damien wantin' to talk with you."
Matty snatched the phone away from him and sat up, throwing on her clothes. She could feel Logan's eyes on her, watching her every move.
"Who's Damien?"
She glanced back at him as she threw her shirt on over her head. "He's my brother." And then she was out the door.
Logan stared after her, his brow knit in confusion. "Since when does she have a brother?" he mused quietly.
Matty didn't bring the phone up to her ear until she had climbed out onto the roof and sat with her legs pulled up to her chest.
"I just wanted to check up on you," he told her softly. She would have laughed, except there was a forlorn quality to his voice, and for once, Matty wondered if her brother had gotten himself into more trouble than he could get himself out of.
She sighed, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "What happened?" This being her brother, she was almost afraid to ask.
Damien leaned his head back against the glass, the index finger of his free hand idly tracing droplets of water as they ran down the pane. "Creed and I got into a fight, bystanders got killed."
A soft curse, almost inaudible except for his amazing hearing, slipped past her lips. "Damien, I'm not bailing you out of trouble."
He shrugged, though she couldn't see it. "Not asking you to." Silence fell between them for a few moments, for him, seemingly an eternity. He could hear her breathing over the line, and it was comforting. In his mind's eye, he could picture her, the steady rise and fall of her chest. It soothed him, to remember she was living, breathing, and very, very human. He wanted to reach out to her, and curl up against her, to have her protective arms wrapped around him. Warm, safe. He'd forgotten what that felt like. "Just... needed to hear your voice."
A wry smile painted her lips and she looked up at the stars. "Is that really gonna solve everything, Dames?"
"Right now?" he laughed softly, a dry, sardonic laugh. "Yes."
And there was that silence again. It lasted nearly five minutes this time, until Matty asked, "Why were you fighting with him?" She never named him, never called him "father". Just him. Damien wondered why that was, though he had a feeling he understood.
"He said I wasn't in control of the beast. I wanted to prove him wrong." Damien looked away from the window to stare at his feet, examining his bare feet with a dull sort of interest, popping his claws in and out and back in again. "He was right. Someone just got stupid enough to get between us at the wrong moment."
She made a noise of understanding, and left it at that. Matty was a good listener when she wanted to be, which was probably why he was calling her at what would be three in the morning for her. Why she was willingly talking to him at three in the morning, when she had a man waiting for her to return to his bed, Damien would never know.
"Does he make you happy?" Damien asked suddenly.
"What?" She titled her head to the side, knitting her brow. One arm went around her knees, and she held them close to her chest. The question had surprised her, thrown her off guard. She wasn't sure she liked that feeling.
"Does he make you happy?" he repeated. "The X-Man, is he taking good care of you?"
"Uh..." She scratched her head, making a noncommittal noise at first.
"If he's not taking care of my baby sister, I'll beat him in the face with a shovel," he said softly, seriously.
She laughed, surprised. "Damien, you're not going to beat him in the face with a shovel. It wouldn't do much good, anyway."
Damien almost pouted, which was ridiculous because 1) Damien never pouted and 2) she couldn't see him anyway. "It would hurt, at least."
"Yes, he's taking good care of me," Matty said. She was smiling. He could hear it. "And I'm happy."
He nodded, satisfied with that answer. He still wasn't too happy about her choice, but she was a grown woman, and she could make her own decisions about the men she slept with. And, he supposed, there were worse choices out there. "That's good. You deserve to be happy."
"Are you sure you're really okay?" she asked. The concern was clear in her voice, but when he told her yes, she dropped it. He didn't need to be pushed, she understood that; when he was ready to talk, he'd come to her.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, "I should let you get back to bed."
She laughed again. "Yeah, probably."
"Good night, then."
"Hey, Damien?"
"Yeah?"
"Take care, okay?"
"I will."
***
Not long after, Matty sat on the edge of Logan's bed. She set the phone on the night stand, staring at it for several moments. Her brother very rarely contacted her, and every time, it unsettled her, though she was never sure why.
She glanced back at Logan, who was watching her, waiting, she guessed, for her to speak first.
"I guess we need to talk, huh?" Right. She sighed, stretching, and fell back onto the bed. Might as well get comfortable.