Long Road Home (the_wolverine) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-01-14 22:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, logan howlett (wolverine), neena thurman (domino) |
“Don’t you want to build a snowman?”
Who: Logan and Neena
What: Logan checks on Neena
When: 12/25
Where: Neena's
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13, suicidal ideation
The storm had picked up again, and Kitty promised to be careful on the way to Diana’s, so Logan walked up to the door to Neena’s apartment and let himself in. “Don’t shoot, it’s me.”
The only place that had been open had been a corner store so he had some beer, a bottle of whiskey and really greasy convenience store food that he’d brought as gifts, along with an actual present for Neena that was in his pocket.
The gun had been out of its holster for an hour before Logan had even shown up, but she'd definitely pointed it at him the second she'd heard a noise at the door. It didn't actually pay to be paranoid in the grand scheme of things, probably, but old habits had a way of never really dying.
No gifts and no tree at Neena's apartment that Christmas, but she'd found the snow globe by her coffee maker. It was still in her lap, and though her eyes were red and her cheeks were puffy, she pretended to be just fine as she rolled her eyes and holstered her weapon. "Jesus, Logan, have you even heard of knocking?"
“Hanging around Kitty a bit too much,” Logan joked. The woman was legendary for not knocking. Or using doors. Though that had gotten better with age.
He shook off the snow and hung up his coat, even removing his boots before he actually left the entryway. The gun did not go unnoticed beyond the obvious paranoia factor. “Got some drinks. An’ shitty food. The greasy kind.”
Neena watched Logan as he came in, noting the care he took not to make more of a mess. It made her instantly suspicious, and she squinted her eyes at him as he mentioned the greasy food. Usually he made every effort to push her OCD's buttons, exactly like the asshole he was. Only every once in a while did he show off that gigantic squishy heart of gold inside.
She wasn't sure she was in the mood for that today. But she squinted at the bag of greasy food, "That better be taquitos."
“Among other things. Figured I’d force feed you my sausage-on-a-stick.” Logan dropped the bag onto the table next to Neena, in a true return to form. But he was worried and not really trying to hide it.
That heart of gold was on fine display.
"Oh I'll eat your sausage-on-a-stick. Just bring it over here and I'll bite the tip right off it," Neena joked, snorting a bit. The food was just out of reach, and she gazed at it for a bit as if wondering if getting to it was worth the effort of lifting her arms and rolling in that direction.
It was an equation she'd calculated a lot lately. But under Logan's scrutiny, she eventually rolled a little closer and reached out for the bag. Nothing was getting past that guy. "What else in included in our greasy gas station Christmas Feast? Day-old hot dogs? A side of Pepto Bismol?"
“Well. Be worth it.” Logan grinned at her, taking a seat on her couch and kicking his socked feet onto the coffee table. “Taquitos, tacos, a shitty burger. Some really bad liquid refreshment. Mints. You’re gonna want the mints.”
"I guess it'd grow back, too, come to think of it." Neena mused. Shooting Logan for laughs had always been some serious stress relief in the dream world. "Maybe take a day or two. Laura always did say you healed too slowly."
She was half mumbling, her face still looking down into the bag of greasy gas station food. Only the taquitos really sounded appealing, and she pulled one of those out before resting the bag back onto the table. As for the liquid refreshment? "Pineapple Fanta? Really?!"
It didn't even go with anything in the bag. "This is a Christmas Prank. It's not even a miracle."
“It has,” was the only response Logan would dignify that question with. He’d leave it up to her imagination which was a lot better than whatever had been going through her head before he’d gotten there.
Probably some of the same things that had gone through his. He glanced towards the window and the storm building back up. “An’ that was all they had, sorry Dom.”
Distract. It was what he was good at.
The plan worked, because Neena's head was swarming with questions she'd dare not ask. Things like whether or not it grew back larger and stronger like old wive's tales, which was an extremely amusing thought. Not that there was anything wrong with the normal size, either. Logan was a satisfying lover, all told.
The disgusting Fanta got pushed aside, and Neena decided to roll herself over to her fridge. "I think I've got some beer in here, and that's definitely better than... whatever THAT crap is. Because it's definitely not pineapple. And then you can tell me what you saw in your depressing snow globe."
That was a question that Logan wouldn’t actually answer, best leaving it to the imagination. And he knew Neena’s imagination was probably running a little wild. He couldn’t help but make a joke, “That one time I put butter on my dick because you said that was the only way you’d suck it.”
Neena's head had been stuck in the fridge as she rooted around for beer cans. There was a loud bumping noise though, right after his comment, and a hiss of pain before she emerged with one in her hand.
She cracked it open and started drinking it in front of him, while staring at him intently. "This is the last beer. And now? It's mine. Because fuck you. Also, you'd have had a better time that night if you'd stuck a couple of pieces of bacon on there like I suggested."
“That worked out that other night,” Logan pointed out cheerfully. He made sure the food was plated and then very deliberately dumped the fanta down the drain. Which would now smell like pineapple.
He still hadn’t answered about his snowglobe.
There would be vengeance for the Pineapple Fanta smell later. Neena made a note of it, because it was something to grab onto. Everything else felt like it was slipping right through her fingers, but pranking Logan was a real thing. She could attach an emotion to it that felt better than the numbness she'd been swimming in.
She finished every last drop of the beer and crinkled the can up, then tossed the remains of it right at Logan's backside.
It ricocheted off of it like it was made of rock (it was), and landed neatly in the nearby trash can. Only when it had landed did she wheel back to the table and pick up a taquito. "Tell me about the snowglobe."
Logan turned around, leaning against the sink like she hadn’t just richoted a can off his ass. He looked at her, sadness and nostalgia reflected in his eyes. “It showed me Alyssa at first. Then other things. Times with Scott and Jeannie. ‘Ro and Remy. Good times with you. Teachin’ students. Mariko, a couple different versions of her. Drinkin’ with Rogue. Kitty. Hank….Elf.”
His voice actually broke on the last. Fuck, he was getting misty eyed. How many people had he loved on that list? All of them. “Don’t know what hurt more. The people that are dead or the people I never met.”
"Fucking bastard snow globes," Neena muttered. It had been hard to keep eye contact with Logan through the entire list, and so it looked like she was delivering some dark and edgey soliloquy to the remaining half of her taquito. She tossed the rest into her mouth and leaned back against her chair.
They were spicy and made of pain, but that was better than having to talk.
“Thought about tossin’ the thing. Kitty said that we shouldn’t. That we should look at it as somethin’ to remind us of the good times.” He pulled his out and shook it. It started to show a time he and Domino were laying in a pile of money.
"I threw mine at the wall and it bounced right back into my lap." Neena admitted. She grabbed another taquito and glanced over at Logan's snowglobe, trying to figure out if she could see what was pictured there.
“Hard to take out,” Logan agreed. He came over, setting it on the table in front of Neena and sitting on the nearest seat to where she was. “That was a good time we had, darlin’. That’s a memory I don’t mind relivin.”
It was a very good memory. Neena couldn't disagree. But watching it didn't fill her with the warm fuzzies that memories like that were supposed to, and she let out a sigh. "Watching them on a snowglobe isn't the same as reliving them. And I'm still mad you didn't let me keep all that money."
“It wasn’t yours to begin with,” Logan pointed out. He gave her a lopsided grin, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “An’ it went to a good cause. You gotta learn to give back to the world, Dommy.”
"Finders keepers." And it was a HUGE find. That money could have set her up for life. Or even set all of them up. At least in some ways. "We could have bought a new X-Mansion with that cash, given all the kids a college fund, put away a couple million each for retirement, kitted me out with all new equipment, gotten your adamantium claws polished and still had enough to give back."
“The mansion explodes three times a year, wouldn’t have been enough for that,” Logan countered. He reached for his food, glancing outside at the snow. “Wanna go out in the storm?”
"Out in THIS?" Neena asked, glancing outside. Snow had already laid a thick coating on all of the bushes in front of her living room window. It was probably at least a foot or more thick on the ground itself. "What are you going to do, carry me around in your arms?"
“Yeah, why not?”
"I'm heavy and if you carry me out there you're gonna end up tossing me into a snowbank."
Because he was that kind of jerk. Neena was sure of that. Though she wasn't really that heavy, not anymore. She'd kept as much upper body strength as she could manage, but she'd lost a lot of weight despite that. Still, she didn't really want to get plunged into 2 feet of snow.
Logan was sure he could pick her up one handed. Maybe with a couple of fingers. It worried him, but he was trying so hard not to reduce her to her injury. To worry too much. She deserved better than that.
“Don’t you want to build a snowman?”
That sounded like it came right out of some kind of movie. In fact, she was sure she'd heard it put to music at some point, but couldn't recall exactly where. Neena took another long look outside. Trying to build a snowman in a blizzard was at least better than talking about snowglobes and times past. Times where she was healthy and whole and could walk and thought that she was going to be a mother.
So she shrugged a shoulder, "I don't have anything to use for a nose, we'll have to improvise."