Laura is a pragmatic superhero (nomorestrings) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-12-12 18:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !trigger warning, jubilation lee (jubilee), laura kinney (wolverine) |
"I am his daughter. This... is my responsibility."
Who: Laura and Jubilee
What: Identifying a Body, Many Feels.
When: December 5th, after these texts
Where: Irvine PD which is also conveniently the Coroner's office.
Rating/Warnings: R for dark subject matter, triggers for character death, mentions of self harm.
Status: Complete.
The only way that Laura had made it safely to the police station had been to tell herself that none of this was happening. Logan had been supposed to live forever, and she’d been angry enough when she’d learned how wrong they both were about that. Discovering his healing had been taken away had made her furious inside, and turned her entire outlook on life upside down.
It had taken her days to get over the rage. The surface of her skin had only just started to recover. Now it stung with fresh cuts under her jacket. Jubilee would smell it, but she didn’t care.
She couldn’t care. Caring would destroy her, and she’d already spent enough time that evening destroying herself. Every other emotion she had, she buried down inside herself as she headed inside. There was nothing else to do but wait for Jubilee to arrive, because she wasn’t doing this alone.
Jubilee could smell it but she couldn’t do anything about it, except maybe fume inwardly. She could, but she was too worried. Too freaked out. She felt things and she suddenly hated feeling them because this isn’t what she wanted to feel or how she wanted to be able to feel. She walked up, hands stuffed in her pockets and her entire demeanor antsy. She didn’t ask how Laura was doing. She figured it was easy enough to tell.
“Heya.”
"...hello." Laura's hands were at her side - it was the kind of posture she usually adopted, ready to move or attack at a moment's notice. Even here in the police department, that conditioning was hard to break. She raised one in a half-hearted wave, then tucked some hair behind her ear and scuffed one of her boots against the floor. There wasn't anything to say that wasn't awkward.
Instead, she motioned to the police desk, "They're waiting for us. I do not think we should keep them. Stalling will not... make it go away."
Jubilee nodded her head shakily. She held out her hand for Laura’s, but let the other woman decide if she wanted to take it or not. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. There weren’t many people that they’d call Laura down for and Jubilee was torn between freaking out about Logan and trying not to freak out for Laura’s sake. Logan was like a father to her. Logan was the only family Laura really had here.
He was her only real family. They'd all sat down over Skype with her moms at some point, ironing out the details of what Logan adopting her meant. She couldn't say they weren't her parents; They'd raised her. But Logan was flesh and blood, he had the dream connection too. Without him, she was just a little bit lost.
She took Jubilee's hand and clung to it like it was a life raft as they went to the counter to announce themselves. Laura didn't let it go while they were walked down into the depths of the building. Instead, she gripped Jubilee's hand even more tightly.
Her father was on a slab down there, maybe. Probably. She felt like this was merely a formality. The smells in the lab were too many chemicals for her to pick out anything of his, and Laura wasn't sure what to think about that. Everything that really smelled like Logan was probably still at his place.
The coroner's assistant seemed like a nice enough woman. She had a warm smile for them and tried to soothe them as she lead them over to a table. By then, Laura'd lost the feeling in her fingers; They were squeezing Jubilee's that tightly.
Jubilee had thought to ask Laura's mothers down for Christmas. Now she wasn't sure. It might still be a good idea, but maybe it wasn't the time. Logan couldn't have picked a worse time to die.
She should have been there. How? Didn't matter, she should have anyway. She'd saved his life plenty of times. And he'd saved her so so much. Logan was her mentor. The old man was her father. Maybe not by blood but by experience and ... well by a different kind of shared blood.
Maybe they should have brought Kitty. But the only reason she wasn't a mess right now was because her emotions were dulled. Kitty would be a mess.
Still. They should have brought Kitty.
"We shoulda brought...This isn't happening," she muttered under her breath, and squeezed Laura's fingers more tightly.
"I am his daughter. This... is my responsibility. The rest we can leave to those who would say they knew him better. But this... this is mine." Laura replied, her tone so even that it sounded like a robot was speaking instead of a young girl. She dropped Jubilee's hand, then, and braced herself for whatever was under the sheet.
There was a brief nod to the woman, to let her know she was ready. Not that anyone could ever be ready for what was coming, but Laura had seen her share of dead men. Everything she'd experienced in her dreams and otherwise told her that the thing on the table was just a body. If it was Logan's, he wasn't in there anymore. The thought didn't really help, and when the sheet lifted up to reveal his face, Laura bit down on her lip.
Two inches of adamantium claws pushed out of either fist. The pain kept her emotions at bay. This couldn't be happening, but it was. "That... is definitely him."
Jubilee didn't need to hold her breath. She didn't even need to take a breath, but she did as the sheet was pulled back. Even when she saw his hair, she still held out some hope. But that hope was utterly crushed when the sheet was lifted completely off of his face.
She made a shakey sound, the kind that only dogs could hear, balled her hands into fists and stuck them under her arms. For a brief, mad moment she wondered if it was too late to turn him. Her eyes flashed red. If that would even be the right thing to do. But he'd been... it had been too long. And it wouldn't be what he wanted. And Laura had been hard enough to deal with, Logan as a vampire would end with them staking him.
Her voice threatened to break. "Oh Wolvie..."
The tremble in Jubilee's voice made Laura briefly regret her choice to bring her along. This was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, and hearing the emotion in Jubilee's voice didn't make it any easier. Her claws slowly retracted, then pushed back out again. One of them had to stay in control of themselves.
"He... Would not want an autopsy. If you haven't already started one." Laura said, trying to steer the conversation back towards the immediate concerns. Hopefully talking about necessary things would also distract the woman from the fact that one of them had claws and the other one's eyes could flash red. The last thing she wanted was for the Coroner's Assistant to raise some kind of alarm.
It would make what she had to do next a lot harder.
Autopsies. That made things more real. This was real. This was more real. More. Jubilee exhaled that breath she didn’t need to hold, and straightened her back. “He had this thing. About being cut up.”
A little inside joke never hurt anyone and made her feel a little better.
It wasn’t the first body she’d ever seen. It wasn’t even the first person she’d loved that she’d seen the body of. She’d lost so many people over the years - Logan was supposed to be this one constant. And now that constant was gone. But at least this way he didn’t have to watch the people he loved grow old and die. There was that. Small comfort.
It wasn't a comfort to Laura at all, because now she'd have to face all of that alone. It was something her mind kept coming back to, and she didn't want to think about it. Right now, she had to think about what would happen if people got their hands on him. There was no explaining away the adamantium.
Hope, a tiny tiny voice in the back of her mind, piped up and reminded her that there was the faintest chance he might wake up. "And I'm going to... need his remains. They can't be disturbed. I... don't think it matters who killed him. We don't want an investigation."
The woman raised her eyebrows at Laura, "Well, we obviously have to respect the wishes of the deceased if it's a matter of religion or he had some directives..."
Was there even a will? Laura had no idea. That lost feeling came back again and threatened to swallow her up, "I don't... know. He never said, but I know he wouldn't want this..."
She glanced at Jubilee, and wondered if she'd get her mental telegram. If they mezzed the woman they could just take his body and go. Jubilee had to know how dangerous it was to have his body just laying around somewhere.
There was going to be a fight if this woman kept resisting. Jubilee didn’t want anyone cutting into Logan, not even their own people. Her eyes flared red again, and she said in a short tone. “You’re going to let us carry him out of here, and borrow a truck to drive him away. You’ll make a report that says you released the body and we took care of the arrangements. Then you’ll forget that anything unusual happened. It was just another day on the job, with grieving family members.”
It wasn't the way either of them would have wished to handle the situation, but Laura was grateful. She flashed Jubilee an extremely relieved look and put her hands to work pulling the sheet back over Logan's face.
The woman nodded her head, "Of course you can handle the arrangements. I'll just sign off on all the paperwork myself. I can use my clearance to release him and escort you out. No one will ask any questions. You can borrow one of our vans."
"Thank you," Laura replied. Her voice sounded uncharacteristically emotional, and she hugged herself, "We should... put him back in a... a bag. Just to get him... I think I know a place. Where he can be safe."
Jubilee sent the doctor off to handle everything. Once they were alone, she pulled Laura into her arms. It was as much for herself as for the other mutant. “Where are you thinking?” Talk. Keep talking, keep moving forward and dealing with this and keeping busy. That’s the ticket, that’s the way. Jubilee found herself falling back on the darker parts of her life. Pulling up the reserve that had gotten her through the Civil War and Nanking. This obviously wasn’t a tragedy on the scale of those, but it was personal and she needed to put herself in a place where she could deal with it later.
Come to think of it she hadn’t talked to anyone about any of that. Staring at Logan’s body, she wish she had with him. He’d lived through at least some of that too, at least in one life. His loss suddenly hurt even more.
In most cases, Laura wasn't a hugger. Physical intimacy was a strange thing for her; It made her feel emotions that her dream self didn't know how to deal with. She wasn't even sure that she knew how to deal with them, if she was honest. And that was putting aside the part where she'd been a prostitute in that other world for a time.
Right now, it was a comfort, but Laura wasn't sure she wanted to be comforted. Not yet, anyway. She didn't want Jubilee to think she didn't appreciate the gesture, though, so she rested her head against the vampire's chest for a few moments, "The place that that one vampire locked me up in when I... turned. It is cold and equipped with a safe room, and I think... it should preserve his body. It should... I do not want him to wake up in the ground, if he--"
Her body trembled a bit, and her voice broke. But she didn't cry. Claws pierced through her hands again, and once more she used that pain to help her focus.
“Yeah.” Jubilee stepped back, giving Laura some space. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Maybe...maybe put something with some nice smells in there.” And it would be really cold, which was good. In case. Decay. She didn’t want to think about that, let alone say it. She really just wanted to go and break things. A lot of things. It wasn’t fair! They were all supposed to be this little family that would keep going and going and going. And Jubilee would eventually be alone because they did age and she didn’t, but that wouldn’t be for centuries and then she’d just step into the sun.
She might have thought about that, on occasion.
"Things that will comfort him..." Assuming he woke up. Laura put her claws away again and ran her hands up into her hair. It was one of her only nervous gestures, "It's disorienting the first few times that you wake up after dying. If he is... gone too long, he may not remember things. We should put smells that might jog his memory."
She frowned as she realised how much she was now hoping he'd return to them, "It is probably wrong to think of it like that. He is... gone. He had no healing left. Hope isn't something that I should have. I have to face... reality. We have to face reality."
Jubilee shook her head. "Maybe we can pretend a little bit longer." She rubbed her palms in her pants and then folded and unfolded her arms. She was antsy. She wanted to move and keep moving. "But he's come back from worse. We've all come back from worse. It's not..impossible. I mean he could wake up, yo. He really could."
But staring at him, that felt less likely than ever before. "Reality... can wait a few days, right? Or even just a few hours. I'm not ready to mourn him and I don't think you're ready either."
"I will never be ready," Laura replied, looking even more lost than before. "He was supposed to live forever. We both were."
Jubilee put her hand on Laura’s shoulder, then guided her from the morgue. “Then maybe you need to live for him, too.”