Long Road Home (the_wolverine) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-06-12 22:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, blake belladonna, logan howlett (wolverine) |
You don’t know that.
Who: Logan and Blake
What: Blake is down in the dumps, Logan tries to be a good dad(tm) and brings her fish
When: recently
Where: Logan's place
Status: complete
Rating: PG
Logan didn’t have to have a super sniffer or amazing senses to be able to tell something was bothering Blake. He’d spent enough years around moody teenagers to know the difference between moody young person and something that was actually a potential problem.
So he brought home some take-out fish and chips, “Hey kid, you home?”
Blake was reading, though her mind was still reeling from the emotions that had flooded her of late. The playhouse was fast becoming a refuge, and she seemed to always have anxiety problems when she was around Yang. Maybe one day she wouldn’t be so messed up and she could actually hold a normal conversation with Yang.
Hearing Logan, she marked her place in her book and set it aside. “Yeah, I am,” she said coming out of her room. Then the scent of fish hit her and she eye darted momentarily. “Is that fish?” She tried to ask it in a normal way, trying not to come across as a fish lover or something equally crazy.
“Yeah, figured you could use something. You’ve been down for a couple of days.” Logan put a bag on the table next to the couch. She seemed to live on tuna sandwiches so he figured it was a good bet. “Anything you wanna talk about?”
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” she said. She was touched at the gesture, and she decided to just accept it. Beside, Blake never turned down anything involving eating fish. “I had a lot of emotions I ran through, both during that whole singing thing and before. I had an abusive ex-boyfriend, and I kind of sang-confessed to that to a...friend of mine.” Blake wasn’t certain what to call Yang, but friend seemed more appropriate than acquaintance.
That explained a lot. Logan was touched Blake was willing to share that much with him. “Probably a lot to lay on someone. But sometimes that’s exactly what you need to do. An’ a true friend is willing to listen.”
Logan pulled out a bowl of something greasy for himself. “How’d they handle it?”
“It was, and I felt bad for just laying it on like that. But the song just came and I couldn’t stop it.” Blake said as she started to eat her fish and chips. Emphasis on the fish, of course. “She took it in stride, better than I thought. We kind of have a spot, I guess you’d say, in a treehouse thing on a playground. I had an anxiety attack once when we ran into each other and she took me there so I could both calm down and have the attack away from prying eyes. We went there after I had my song outburst. She sang back to me, and was basically way accepting and supportive. She’s unlike everyone I’ve ever known.”
She paused for a moment in thought. “She and I have the same dreams. And strangely enough, I can see parallels between my dream life and my life here.” Her dream world was vastly different, but she could see where the White Fang, as it had turned into under Adam’s leadership, was like Scientology.
Her comments made Logan miss Kurt. Of all the people from his dreams, Kurt was the one he missed the most. He’d be that kind of friend. It was just in his nature. “Know a guy like that in my dreams. He’d always have your back. Friends like that are the ones to cherish.”
But at least Blake was something he could handle. Logan was in over his head when it came to Jean. He hated the Phoenix, and all he could do was field phone calls and try to talk her down when he could, not that that ever worked.
“That ain’t a bad thing. Sometimes these dreams are so fucked up it helps when you got someone who could really understand. Some people might try, but only those that experience it can get it.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of weird to me, only because I’m not used to people being nice for the sake of being nice.” Even before things went to hell after her parents left Scientology, there was a sense that some of the people involved in that ‘religion’ always wanted something in return for their kind acts.
“It is nice having someone who understands the world I dream of, but even then, she can’t completely understand. For instance, she’s a human and I’m...not. I’m a faunus. We look like humans except we have animal parts as well. Like for instance, in my dreams I have cat ears, and night vision. Some faunus have tails, some have horns, so on and so forth. Faunus are treated as second rate citizens at best. Yang can’t quite understand being a faunus, but she seems the type who’d at least try to understand and not pre-judge like most people do. If people saw my ears, most of them would instantly think of me as dirty scum. Or worse.”
So Blake was a mutant. Logan felt a sudden kinship. Hell, he could see in the dark better than most. “Sounds like my dreams. Maybe less animal based but anyone who’s a mutant gets immediately on most peoples’ shit lists. If you’re lucky. If you ain’t lucky they want to kill you. But maybe that ain’t fair. Most people wouldn’t have a problem with mutants. Just...if the majority stays silent, they ain’t acting. An’ that’s not good by itself.”
Blake looked up at Logan. Mutants? Blake felt a sense of relief that Logan understood that kind of thing. Sure people could be empathic about others, but without experiencing certain things for themselves, they couldn’t really know what it was like to be someone that generally wasn’t accepted by society as ‘normal.’
“Yeah, there are obviously good people who think faunus are good, but they tend to be overshadowed by those who hate my kind. And vice versa, there are faunus who would not hesitate to strike out at humans simply because they’re human. There’s fault on both sides.” Which was the truth in most every situation, really.
Logan popped his claws, then sheathed them, before digging into his food. “Some people got it worse than me. Like a boy who looks like a lizard, another who’s like a rock man. A literal pixie girl. My best friend looked like a blue devil. And I get that too. Some of us try to coexist. Others fight for it. Protests, or using our powers to help people. An’ them some folks go straight up terrorist. Faunus and Mutants sound like two sides of the same coin. An’ we have every right to exist.”
The claws were definitely unexpected. Blake looked at them for a moment before he retracted them. “So there’s a whole range of what features and abilities mutants can have?” That was definitely interesting to her. And faunus may have been varied, but not to the extent it sounded like mutants were. “I agree. In my dreams, I was part of a group called the White Fang. They were a peaceful group that more or less campaigned for equal rights for faunus. However, they eventually became violent once the leadership changed. I left after that because I wasn’t one who enjoyed hurting innocent people. Violence is not the answer.”
"Telepaths, girls that can walk through walls, teleporting. The works." There never seemed to be a reason for it. Some kind of evolutionary niche? They weren't Inhumans.
"So there was a rift." Like Charles and Magneto. Logan nodded. "Violence rarely makes any kind of difference in the end. For my group, we only ever responded. We didn't provoke."
“Wow, those are certainly some amazing abilities.” Sometimes Blake wondered if she got her speed and reflexes from a cat as well, but it was hard to tell. She always had been agile.
“Yeah, there was. My parents used to be the leaders of the White Fang, but they eventually left. I hated them for turning their backs on the cause, and I called them many terrible things when they left. I stayed, every day resenting how my parents just gave up the fight like that. But maybe they saw the change coming and they couldn’t do anything to stop the ones who wanted violence. I don’t know.” There was some guilt there, both for events in her dream and in this life.
“Maybe they wanted to try a different way. Revolutions ain’t clean, they never have been an’ they never will be. But there are good ways and bad ways to go about it. An’ sometimes you gotta fight. But hurting innocent people ain’t ever the way to do it.”
And Logan had a lot of experience with innocents getting hurt.
“To me, they just plain gave up.” Blake said with a shrug. She didn’t actually know, and she kept trying to tell herself that she didn’t care. And she also tried to convince herself that her parents didn’t care, only to make the fact she’d never spoken to them again easier to bear.
“Yeah, there are times to fight, but going after innocent people is not the way to do it. That’s the fastest way to get people to hate you and call you a monster.” Well alright, technically not the fastest. Sometimes the fastest way to be called a monster was to be judged based solely on looks.
“I can’t say what was on their mind, and you won’t know until you talk to them.” That was easier said than done, and Logan couldn’t exactly tell dream!Blake to fucking talk to her parents. But there was heavy implication that she should consider calling her waking parents. It couldn’t hurt.
“Nah, that’s the fastest way to convince people their first impression was right.”
“I doubt they’d want to talk to me,” she responded. It was a response for both this life and her dream life. The things she’d said to her parents weren’t things a child should ever say to their parents. Besides, Blake didn’t even know where her parents lived now, let alone what their phone number was, so even if she wanted to talk to them, she didn’t have a means to do it.
And she wasn’t going to ask anyone to do it for her. If she wanted to, she’d do the work herself. But for now, she was going to hide and let her parents continue to think she was still part of the church of Scientology.
“You don’t know that.” Logan finished his meal, getting up to toss the remains into the trash. “Any parent worth their salt, don’t matter what your kid does. You support ‘em, you love ‘em. Maybe give them a good talkin’ to when they fuck up. But that don’t change that you love ‘em.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes it don’t work out, an’ your blood family ain’t your family. But you get a new family then.”
Family didn’t have to be bound by blood. But it was nice to have sometimes.
True, Blake didn’t know that for a fact. But she also couldn’t say for a fact that her parents still loved her. Years had passed, people changed. “Only if you actually let yourself have a family.” People could try, but it wouldn’t make any difference if Blake was resistant to opening up to people and letting them become a family to her.
“What’s stopping you?” Logan challenged. “Look at me. I didn’t look for one. But I got Laura and Kitty and Rogue. An’ now you. And I lost some people along the way, but I’m still going forward.”
There was Alyssa, of course. And Vel. At least Vel was alive, even if he’d never see her again. It was best that way. In hindsight, they hadn’t been as compatible as he’d thought.
Anyone who couldn’t keep up with an X-Man didn’t really belong.
“Fear. The fact that it’s hard to earn my trust.” Which really wasn’t unexpected considering the shit she’d gone through in her life already. “It’s not impossible, but I don’t expect people to work for my trust.” Also not unexpected given the abuse and her non-existent self-esteem.
“You’re a good person. An’ a good friend would be willing to work for that trust.” Logan tapped a finger against his chest. “What made you trust me?”
“You never push or question me, even after all the nightmares and anxiety attacks. You were just there, never expecting anything in return for the kindness. You don’t try to make me fit into how you think I should be. You just accepted me how I am.” Blake responded. “And I hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but I needed you, needed someone to reach out and help me. You let me stay here despite not knowing anything about me. I could’ve been a serial killer or something for all you knew.” Yes, that last bit was said in a teasing manner. “You also remind me a bit of my father. You’re hairy and gruff like he was.”
Logan grunted. Hairy and gruff indeed, but he didn’t mind the comparison. It sounded like a good one.
“Well, I got a record of that. I know when someone needs a little help. I also know you can’t force a person to do what they need to do.”
It was a good comparison, her dad was a good guy. Blake didn’t quite have the self-esteem to say she was a good person. Though she definitely couldn’t say that she was a good daughter because she wasn’t.
“That definitely goes a long way. People tend to think they know what’s best for someone and try to make them do it.” She’d had passing experience with that in the places she’d drifted to before getting to Orange County.
“That’s a quick way to get someone to do the opposite of what they want.” Logan knew that’s the effect it had on him.
“I think you should prepare for the worst and hope for the best. With your dreams.”
“I’ll do my best.” Which was all she could do. Blake could prepare all she wanted for the various terrible turns her dreams could take, but she didn’t know if she could prepare for all of them. Given the state of the world, the grimm and human-faunus relations, things could go completely sideways in a billion different ways that was difficult to predict.
Logan studied her, then decided she needed to get out of the apartment.
“Wanna go get some ice cream?” Kids liked ice cream still, right?
Blake looked at him, not having expected that kind of offer. But hey, he brought her fish, which had been really good, and ice cream would certainly make it even better. “Sure, I’d like that.” She responded as she finished up the last of her chips. Ice cream sounded really good, actually. Especially after having that heart-to-heart with Logan.