Life Bites (the_hotness) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-07-17 12:21:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, jubilation lee (jubilee), laura kinney (wolverine) |
We're all we have left now. Here. The only blood ties.
Who: Jubilee and Laura
What: Babysitting Logan, having emotional chats
When: Before Logan woke up
Where: Jean Grey Outreach center
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13, warnings for self-harm and blood
The shower was warm, and it felt nice to feel the water run over her skin, especially after the day she’d had. But Laura spent more time sitting in it than she did cleaning herself up, and before the shower was over she’d added more to the mix than the blood she’d gone in there to scrub off. It was a habit from the dreams, to pop her claws and use them on herself, usually when her mind couldn’t process the emotions she was currently experiencing.
How did a mind process being stabbed to death by your own father? But Laura knew that wasn’t him. He didn’t have any control over it. And Logan was just the tip of the iceberg, really. Everything felt like it was coming to a head. Eothain, the Cerberus stuff. The man she’d turned, the girl she’d killed. Jubilee’s return, and that one nighter with Sam. What was she trying to prove?
It wasn’t really the time to let herself fall apart. Not with Logan waiting downstairs in the cell. And Jubilee. She dried off and got into the extra pair of clothing she’d brought, then took a few moments to tug the sleeves of her shirt down and look presentable.
She stopped for a cup of coffee on the way, though she knew Jubilee couldn’t drink it. It was the thought that counted, and she hoped her old friend would understand when she stepped beside her, holding two to-go cups in her hand, “You can smell it and pretend you’re drinking it, anyway.”
Jubilee hated this. She hated when Logan got like this. It wasn't entirely his own fault (but it was probably at least partly his fault) and she was worried about him. She shouldn't have left.
But she couldn't have stayed either. Watching Laura like that had been a lot harder than she'd admitted. She'd thought that a century and a half of time would have made everything easier, but it hadn't. That had all come undone in one night with Laura just a few years ago. Scent and taste had flooded back to her, and with them memories as clear as any other.
Leaving had made her a shitty friend, though. She just didn't know how to talk about it.
She smiled at the snikette, and took the cup. She was unusually sober and unhyper sounding, but she got like that sometimes. A lot of her hyperness online was an act. "Thanks. The warmth is nice."
"It was nice when I was a vampire, too. Sometimes I would drink it in smaller portions to feel warm on the inside, too. When I couldn't get fresh, warm blood." Laura took a sip from her own cup, glad to have that warmth inside of her even now. Despite the fact that she'd been 'cured' of her vampirism and had blood pumping through her veins.
Her other hand motioned to the cell, "Has he woken up yet?"
“Used to do that with warm water,” Jubilee said, her fingers tightening on the mug. Still made her a little sick, but she understood that feeling. She wasn’t proud of some of the things she’d done. Some of the things she’d still do. She wasn’t as pure as people liked to think. The drink, at least, let her stare at something that wasn’t Laura.
“No, he’s still out. Moira patched him up, said his healing factor would take a few days to recharge. Left me a cattle prod in case he got out of hand. Who knows who he’ll be when he wakes up.”
Laura knew it, but that only made Jubilee more real for her. And real was good, at least where she was standing. She'd grown out of the phase where Jubilee was placed high above her, like an angel or a godmother. They could never have been equals like that, and being lovers had been mentally dissonant. It was different now.
She nodded her head a bit, and took another sip of her coffee, "I don't think what Rogue did will be enough of a cognitive recalibration. But we will have to be careful what we do to snap him out of it. Hitting him on the head won't work with the plated skull he has and shooting him in the eye would reset his memory but leave him with amnesia. ... I think we should put familiar smelling things in his cell. There are probably still some things of Vel and... my sister's... at his place."
“Lets start with beer. And some of his shirts,” Jubilee said, scratching her head. “Maybe like something of his. And a baby blanket but I dunno. They left, do we really want to snap him out of it with something like that? He’s already gonna be heartbroken.”
It was really easy for Jubilee to be angry. She’d liked Vel and she’d liked Amy and Vel had just turned tail and run. Her hand was shaking and she took a sip of the coffee. It tasted rancid in her mouth but she forced it down anyway. “I’m so pissed at them.”
"What they did seems cowardly," Laura admitted, with a nod. Her emotions about the entire thing weren't really engaging, not when it came to Vel. More, she realised that she had a sibling out there, one that she now wouldn't get the chance to get to know. But she'd spent so much time resenting the woman for stealing Logan away from her and not making her a part of the family that it seemed as much her fault as anyone else's.
"Being in our life means being a part of things like this. The people we include in our lives have to be prepared for that… I thought she was strong enough. Though I did not really... like Vel. She knew I existed and never bothered to try and welcome me. I wasn't included, and now they are all gone."
She chewed on her lip for a moment, and then let out a sigh, "You are right, though. We could stick to things that will still be here with him. Things like his old clothing, or beer. Things that smell like me. Maybe something that smells like Domino, they are friendly enough in the dreams."
Whether or not any of that was true was up for debate. Jubilee knew how easily one could see something that wasn’t there, blinded by one’s own prejudices. But it was too late now. They were gone. She folded her arms. “Kitty says they’re okay, but she won’t say where they are. Probably because she doesn’t want anyone to spill it to Logan. Not sure if that seems fair, but if no one knows where they are, then no one can find them.”
She put down her mug, and put some extra space between her and Laura, then paced. “Maybe one of my shirts too. Something from Kitty. I’d say Alyssa but she left too.”
"They left together," Laura replied, with a nod. She didn't know Alyssa well enough to be angry with her, "But no, it makes sense that she wouldn't tell us. Whatever decisions Vel has made, they are hers. She has the right to make them, even if they hurt us or make us angry, even if they hurt Logan. We have to respect them, we can't go after her. And if no one can find them, then that means they might be safe from Cerberus, too."
Which was probably what Jubilee was getting at.
"I'll have Cass bring something to put in there, too. Cass is his friend."
"I guess if she's safe. Dating Logan is like painting a target on your back and I guess that kinda happens here too." Jubilee licked her fangs. She'd fed the night before but she knew she'd have to feed again before this whole ordeal was through. She just didn't feel comfortable asking Laura. There were a lot of things the two of them were avoiding talking about.
"Cass is good!"
"I'm not sure who else here he knows, but that's a good start. And yes, it is. He doesn't seem to keep a girlfriend for very long in the dreams. Especially one that isn't a mutant." Sometimes Laura thought that he and Domino might have had a chance there at least. Domino liked having targets painted on her back, if her lifestyle was anything to go on.
But she also liked to keep things casual and tended to lose her own boyfriends, too. So it was probably for the best. "I don't know if any of us ever get to be happy. In the dreams. It doesn't see like it."
Her and Jubilee certainly weren't together, there.
Jubilee didn't think that Logan was going to bother with women for awhile after this. He'd seemed genuinely happy and content, and like he'd finally decided he needed to live his life and not worry about the other shoe.
Which had now dropped, and Jubilee thought he wasn't going to take that well.
She and Laura weren't together here, either. Jubilee's actions had seen to that, and while sometimes she had regrets (okay she had regrets all the time) she knew it had been for the best.
"Sometimes we get happy. Maybe not all the time. But sometimes. It's why it's so important to like...get happy here."
"It doesn't seem like I ever do," Laura commented. She folded her arms over her chest and stared into Logan's cell, trying to keep a lid on her emotions. They'd agreed, there, that they had to go their separate ways. Her own path had lead in some surprising directions, not all of them good. She had no idea if she ever reconnected with anyone after that.
The claws pushed out of her hands a few centimeters, "And I still don't know what I want, here. I had a friend I used to... do drugs with. He would take them and then let me drink his blood. It was a nice escape from everything and he was very good at sex. I think... I liked him. He didn't judge me. He didn't try to tell me who I could be or who I shouldn't be. But in the end, I made him very sick. And I don't think we were good for each other."
Jubilee itched to touch her. To brush Laura’s hair aside, to hold her and become lost in her scent. She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. It hurt more than she thought it would, to hear Laura had someone she liked. And to hear about the things Laura got up to. It reminded her too much of the life that she’d taken her away from and her eyes flashed in anger. But she didn’t say anything about that. She just grunted. “No, doesn’t sound like you were. He sounds like the kinda person who was gonna drag you down into the pit …” that I pulled you out of.
“You know… except for … some good times with Generation X and everyone. And then Paris. I loved Paris…But then things were miserable for awhile until I found Shogo.”
"... I was the one that dragged him down, I think." Laura pushed her claws all the way out, and looked down at them for a second before letting them go. She wanted to turn them against her arms again, even with Jubilee there watching. Maybe if the vampire could see that, she'd know about the emotions that Laura couldn't put into words yet.
"Paris was... It wasn't good until you came. I tried to kill myself in a bathroom. I almost severed my hand off in the process. And then I hurt Gambit. All I could do was lay in bed and stare at my claws... I let them bleed all over the bed, but I could not make them go back in. Everything about me ... Everything I will ever be, everything I ever was... is bound in adamantium. I can't even escape it here. But when you... You made Paris good."
Laura could escape it if she chose to. She could remove her claws and let bone ones grow back. But it wasn’t Jubilee’s place to suggest that, and the adamantium, honestly, was too useful. Laura’s words sunk in a little, sneaking past the part of her that was emotionally dead, but Laura was so good at finding the part of her that still felt a damn. “I’m glad Logan let me tag along…I think he thought it would be good for both of us.”
"It was. He is right a lot more often than I like him to be, but I hear that's a thing that happens with fathers and daughters." Laura was still trying to accept her relationship with Logan. She'd had a dream where he'd even offered to adopt her, but now she couldn't remember if that was 'real' or her own fantasy.
It was difficult. Every bad thing that happened to her was because of him. But it was because of him that she was alive, too. And the good things, those were also his doing. She placed one of her hands against the glass between them, "We're all we have left now. Here. The only blood ties. My real mother is dead. Vel is gone. I still don't know what to do about my other mothers. They are nice, but New York feels like a lifetime ago."
She sounded as forlorn as she felt. But she looked at Jubilee, and she smiled a bit, "I'm... glad that you're back. It's complicated, but I am still glad."
Maybe it wasn’t what Laura wanted, or maybe it was, but Jubilee hugged her, slowly wrapping her arms around her. “Family isn’t just blood. Family is forged and put together and ripped apart but still connected by tenuous strings. And then you knit it back together and it’s a little worn but it’s stronger for it. I’m glad I’m back, because you’re all my family. You and wolvie and the girls upstairs and even stick-in-the-ass Summers. You’re family. We’re family.”
Laura wasn't a hugger. It was a level of physical intimacy wasn't usually comfortable with, and sometimes it even made her lash out in ways she couldn’t predict.
But she let Jubilee hug her anyway, and tried not to let her emotions go crazy, "Yes... we are all of us family. It is just... a family that doesn't always function that well together."
“So, a family.” Jubilee let go, before her instincts and emotions became uncontrollable. Was it always going to be this awkward? Was Laura’s scent always going to be impossible to forget?
“Most families are pretty dysfunctional.”
“And this is the family we chose. I am not sure what that says about us, but at least none of us are alone,” Laura replied, gruffly. She turned her attention back to Logan’s still form, and set herself up to stand there for the next few hours, “You should go and eat. I can watch him for now.”
It was better for the both of them. They needed some space from each other to calm down.
Jubilee stared longingly at Laura's neck. She'd eaten earlier, but she needed the excuse to get away. Before Laura could blink again, she was gone.