InsaneJournal

Who: Ilia and Logan
What: Just talking
When: 23 March 2018, morning
Where: Logan’s Asylum for Wayward Girls
Warnings: Low
Status: Log | Complete

It had been a few days since Blake had taken her first stray home. Ilia seemed like any number of girls Logan had seen over the years. Lost, alone, angry. It was a feeling he understood well.

He was pouring beer into his cereal, still a little half-asleep. Usually he’d have the news on, but he’d cut the radio in half about a week ago because the sheer fuckery of it all made him angry.

The remains were still on the counter, the radio in 4 pieces.

Ilia still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Logan. It had been a few days since Blake found her on the stoop of her work when it had been raining and she had decided to take the chance that Blake had been genuine in wanting to help her. And she had been. But after realizing that she’d mostly just been used by the gang back in Arkansas (even when she still felt loyalty to them in some sense and felt the loss even when knowing it was the right move for her), she was a bit more suspicious.

Which was why she had figured that in order to stay she had needed to post on that stupid network. Where the Schnee apparently was also on. Which meant she’d been more tense and tightly coiled in the days since Blake had given her a name. She never took it out on the two, but she was still tightly wound.

Of course right now she was just half asleep and in need of something akin to breakfast, so in an oversized t-shirt and pajama pants, the petite teen shuffled to the kitchen, quirking a brow at the beer into cereal. That was new.

“Help yourself,” Logan said, pointing to the fridge. He gave her a gruff smile, and didn’t seem to care if helping herself included a beer or not. There were worse things for people to get into, honestly. And maybe it might relax her, Logan didn’t need super senses to tell she was wound up more tightly than a spring.

“Um...thanks.” Still wary and a bit confused, Ilia shook her head some and went to the cupboard to first get a bowl, then some cereal and then milk because as tense as she was and as familiar with illegal activity as she was, she wasn’t sold on beer into cereal. Maybe later.

That done, the teen leaned against the counter with bowl in hand to eat her own cereal, perfectly content to go back to silence. But she’d see how things panned out before she decided to head out for the day to find either some form of work, or distract herself. Usually whichever came first.

“Settlin’ in?” Logan asked. He didn’t know what kind of space issues she had and he was content to leave that be anyway. Not everyone was Jubilee, or had earned the privilege of huggin the Wolverine, after all.

“Yeah, I am.” It wasn’t as if Ilia weren’t used to constantly moving around anyway, possessions in a garbage bag as she moved from home to home when she was younger. As she had said before, Ilia was adaptable. So even if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of all of this, of Logan or this place, she could adapt to it.

“That’s good. New places ain’t always easy, when they’re unfamiliar, with unfamiliar people.” In some ways she reminded him of Laura, at least one version of her, or Jubilee. Just a lot angrier, so maybe more like Hisako or someone on a bad day.

Like a gruff man who poured beer into his cereal? It wasn’t the strangest situation she had been in and while she still didn’t think it was going to last all that long, the teen was willing to go with it for now. So she just shrugged in response as she had never been all that good at small talk. “I guess.”

Logan didn’t like talking all that much, but he’d learned over the years that it tended to help others, even if it bothered him a lot of the time. So he listened. Listening seemed to work well with Blake, anyway. If Ilia needed someone to listen, he could do that too. But probably not today. “Ever consider school?”

Definitely not today. Ilia was still trying to figure out if she trusted Logan or not. So far he hadn’t done anything and that was good. But until she had a better read on him she probably wouldn’t be opening up all that much. She knew that she liked Blake as much as she liked anyone after only knowing them for four days, but grown man taking in teens also was just sketchy so she was working on that one.

“Might look back into it once I’m more settled.” Wherever that might be. She had barely gone back in Arkansas (and it wasn’t like those schools were all that great to begin with) and then needing to get away. She should have graduated this year but life had obviously taken a different path.

He nodded. “If you do that and need scholarships, I know a few you can look into. Run one myself for the Jean Grey Outreach Center.”

Sure, he lived in a shitty apartment but he had more money than god.

But he also knew how sketchy things could look, he just preferred to let actions speak more than words.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” And she would. For all her anger and hesitancy to trust after everything that had gone down, Ilia also knew better than to just ignore something because of the source. Especially if said source had yet to prove untrustworthy even if she was in the vetting stage of it all.

Besides, she wasn’t an idiot. She knew that a good education could go a long way and even in her rage she knew the importance of that. Besides, it would be nice to prove people like the Schnees and their ilk that people like her could make something of themselves even without all the money in the world.

Logan nodded at her, and finished his cereal. “Gonna be out most of the day, figure I should put in an appearance at my bar. There’s cash on the counter if you wanna order a pizza or something.”

If she stuck around, he’d direct her to a couple of places for a job. Neena was always looking for good help, but he didn’t want to have her skip town and leave a friend high and dry.

So far, no need to skip town. As adaptable as Ilia was, it wasn’t like she liked being on the move. She wanted a new start and that meant finding a place to stay. She just wasn’t sure yet. Her anger, while always a part of her, was worse with the knowledge that the Schnee heiress was around. She would need to work on that and figure things out. For now, it was getting her bearings straight.

“Thanks.”

Not like Ilia knew if she’d stay in, go exploring, or what that day. But options were always good. So was the ability to get something to eat.