Palm up, palm down, right foot forward, right foot back. Their steps barely qualified as a dance, yet they moved, stepping over each other’s feet in slow succession.
The most dignified room in the school. A room where mutants breathed life. The low chairs for guests had been removed, leaving only the desk that once served as a lectern. A wheelchair lay toppled in front of the double doors.
The slender man standing beside Logan reached out to set it upright, but Logan stopped him gently. In response, the man turned his gaze to Logan—perhaps. The red visor of his glasses obscured his eyes, but Logan saw the long lashes lower briefly, dusted with the faint shimmer of particles in the dim light. They leaned against the balcony window and turned their attention back to the center of the room.
Two pairs of birds danced with effortless grace.
What a sight. Logan shook his head, as if to rid himself of the thought, but even that gesture was unnecessary. Instead, the man beside him nudged his shoulder in a knowing manner. Their difference in build meant Logan hardly swayed.
“I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking.”
“Don’t read it.”
“Then don’t let me.”
The man rubbed his own shoulder where they had touched. From the speakers, a melody played—one Logan was sure he had heard before. One of the dancers had once let this song play while murmuring about World War II. Logan had lived through that era, but he didn’t remember.
“Scott.”
At the sound of his name, the man beside Logan looked up. The dancing figures approached, their steps unhesitant. The silver-haired man, positioned at one wing of their formation, smiled.
“Turn up the volume, just a little.”
His thick hair swayed as he moved away again. His partner, a man with sharp brows, lifted a hand instead of letting his hair flow with the motion.
Almost unconsciously, Logan brought his palm down against that raised hand.
“Charlie, don’t get too carried away.”
“Ha! Feels like a prom, doesn’t it?”
Charles, hand still tingling from Logan’s swat, reached up to brush the ends of his lover’s hair. In Charles’s domain, he set the rules. In other words, this school itself—Scott Summers’s entire world—rested in his hands.
Scott leaned against the wall, adjusting the music slightly. The gesture was so subtle it barely held meaning. But the dancers seemed satisfied with it. Across the room, Scott decided to settle in.
Logan saw no reason to stay apart either. Careful not to get in their way, he stepped back to Scott’s side.
“Think he’ll trip over his chair?”
Scott, who had never known this man to stand on two legs, let his brows furrow slightly. Logan hadn’t either, but the image of Xavier prowling around covered in fur was burned into his memory.
On that island—those islands—Professor X had behaved more like a man consumed by hunger than the idealist he once was. Maybe Scott, having been reborn there over and over, couldn’t see it the same way. Logan, at least, had come to his own conclusion.
“That’s Magneto’s problem, not ours.”
“Maybe Erik can’t use his powers right now either.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Just a hope.”
Scott’s lips pursed, embarrassed. Logan found himself smirking.
Behind them, the bookshelf stood like an archive of Professor X’s path, all set neatly in rows as if every piece of it were correct. Psychology, defense, offense, genetics, leadership, political economy, the foolish history of humankind—right up to the mantle where the birds now rested.
It was obvious that Charles and Erik loved each other. But their time in the sun had been too long, leaving their edges faded, sunburnt. Each time they tried to smooth out the weathered spots, they only clashed again, the force of it rippling through the world. Logan, even unwillingly, had become part of that. The boy beside him, even more so.
Once, Magnus had called the X-Men his private army—a battalion of extraordinary children. Logan wondered what Erik had thought when Charles’s history stood before him, lined up in the faces of those children.
Logan looked at Charles’s “child.” At Scott’s profile.
Scott’s lips pressed into a firm line, his gaze fixed on the dancing pair with such intensity that it seemed as if every time the lovers kissed, a galaxy vanished.
“Jealous?” Logan was used to his words and thoughts misaligning. It had made him stronger. It had also left him alone.
“Which part, exactly?”
That Scott remained in this place at all was proof of something. That Logan did too, in his own way. They were both shaped by a mutant’s isolation—something sharp-edged and uncompromising. That, and the presence of this one-eyed man, standing here now, ever watchful.
Logan could imagine Erik sleeping. He couldn’t imagine Scott at rest. Charles knew a hundred ways to ease himself into sleep.
“The part where they acknowledge their love.”
“Jealous isn’t the right word. More like… exhausted by it.”
Scott turned back to the screen.
On it, the lower halves of the dancing figures drew closer. Xavier’s legs slotted between Magneto’s as if he had never stopped walking. The movement was practiced.
“What happened next?”
Charles’s knee pressed against Erik’s thigh. Magnus let out a low sound, one that wasn’t quite concealed by the background music.
“The kids are watching, you know.”
“Yes. That’s the point, Max.”
Of course, Charles knew Logan could hear everything.
With a swift motion, Charles shifted his foot, breaking Erik’s balance. Catching him by the waist, he arched him backward.
Strands of silver hair fell forward, framing the steel-gray eyes now looking directly at Logan and Scott. Above him, Charles hovered, cheeks flushed.
A courtship display. Logan could feel it in his bones.
Dip.
“About time,” Scott muttered. His sigh carried a trace of warmth.
Logan let out a breath of his own, spreading one arm in a dramatic bow. Then, without thinking, he reached for Scott’s hand and lifted it as he rose.
“Not now,” Scott grumbled.
Xavier pulled Erik upright with a firm tug, pressing kisses to both his cheeks.
“What a shame. You won’t dance?”
Not unless it’s in bed, Logan thought. Today, however, it seemed Jean and the Phoenix had blessed Scott with a flicker of telepathy—because a sharp heel struck Logan’s shin.
They could dance as four, perhaps. But Logan had only ever loved one person at a time. Even with eight claws at his disposal, his hands would always be full.
Their hands were still clasped. Scott’s grip was light, as if just a sliver of connection was enough. Like a dancer poised on their toes.
Logan pictured Scott as a ballerina and immediately dismissed the thought.
The colors on the canvas behind Logan’s mind were still just red and blue. If mixed, they’d resemble the silver figure spinning across the floor. But he had chosen those two hues because someone had once told him they mattered. A red-haired woman, or a white queen, or Charles himself.
Because behind the ruby quartz lay a blue deeper than the sky, than the ocean, than ice, than the universe itself.
“Lesson one?” Logan murmured.
“It’s called a section.”
“Segment, then. What’s the first one?”
They adjusted their grip, neither letting go.
Before them, Magneto stepped hard against the polished floor, pulling Xavier with him, moving beyond the song’s tempo into a rhythm of their own.
The One-Eyed wasn’t replaced by sunglasses today just because Magnus had arrived. It was because Charles had, for once, ceased his telepathy, as if he had declared a sudden recess and immersed himself in spoken words instead. Days like this were rare, and on such days, Cyclops remained Cyclops through and through.
Scott’s unheld hand traced the edge of his visor.
“I remembered that I, too, once wanted to learn control.”
Control and freak were two words easily connected through Scott Summers’s body—at least, to Logan.
“You’ve already got it down.”
“Thank you. Not as well as you, though.”
When Logan let his claws press lightly against the back of Scott’s hand, Scott let out a low sound. Charles and Erik were the ones who laughed at it.
Be bolder. The words lingered at the edge of Logan’s thoughts, yet they did not seem to be his own.
“I’d rather not say,” Scott muttered, leaving the thought there, refusing Logan any questions, turning his gaze forward again.
Logan knew Scott had suffered brain damage. Knew that was why he couldn’t perceive colors. But Logan, too, found himself resenting his own inability to grasp the colors of the place Scott had been blessed by—cursed by, at times. That made them the same.
“It’s nice not having to worry about Charles poking around,” Logan remarked.
It was Magnus who picked up the line Logan had intended to say.
“So today is the day Magneto and Cyclops awaken as telepaths?”
“Let’s celebrate properly, then. If you two now share the same gift as I, I may find myself loving you all the more.”
Scott and Erik inhaled at almost the same moment, then exhaled slowly, deliberately.
Amazing how they could adjust their breathing patterns mid-dance. Their footwork remained light. This was the third time Logan had found himself an uninvited guest to their dance, and Scott had long since lost count of how many times he had been asked to join.
Summers had always been the Professor’s favorite. A beloved son molded by control—at least, in that one regard, it was undeniably true. Logan tried to envision an image of Scott reaching for freedom.
“I don’t need any more than this,” Magnus said, his tone gentle.
And you? Logan murmured at Scott’s ear. A light pull of the arm was all it took for Scott’s slender frame to settle easily against Logan’s shoulder. Same foot lunge. Holding a man in his arms, close enough that their lips hovered at the edge of proximity.
In the corner of his vision, the birds continued to dance.
“I almost find myself giving my life to you,” Charles said.
“And I have already given you mine, Charles. Now, hurry and return it.”
“Logan.”
Three voices pressed in around him, and for a moment, he wanted to cover his ears. But there was only one voice he wished to catch.
Logan placed a hand against Scott’s back. He didn’t let it slip lower. Instead, he pulled the clasped hand forward, stepping into motion—but he did not surrender himself to the music.
Scott’s free hand came to rest on Logan’s shoulder. It was almost an answer in itself.
Logan gripped Scott’s back once—firmly, almost to the point of pain—before hoisting both of them onto the desk in a single motion. The impact sent devices toppling, silencing the music. The equipment was vintage by now; it wasn’t worth worrying over.
Contra check.
From this makeshift stage, Logan couldn’t read Scott’s expression.
He had no idea what it meant to give someone his life. No idea how to dance as four, nor what he should do to take this man to bed. But he knew how to dance alone. And it seemed he could manage dancing as two.
They could dance as two.
“Alright?”
Without loosening his grip on their joined hands or the arm wrapped around Scott, Logan nudged his nose against Scott’s temple. Then, tilting his head up, he bit down on the edge of the ruby quartz visor.
It came off easily.
Logan spat it to the ground and focused instead on the faint pulse beneath Scott’s closed eyelids.
“Show us a spectacle bright enough to burn,” Magneto chuckled from his place among the audience.
Cyclops. Scott Summers. The boy standing before him.
If he wanted to be burned away, should he just say it outright? Logan wasn’t sure.
So he stepped forward, pressing their chests together, waiting for the rhythm of their heartbeats to align.
“A gym teacher ought to be able to teach dance, too.”
Logan bared his teeth in a grin.
“Probably. But I doubt any of them would hold private lessons like this.”
But Scott couldn’t see.
Which meant he should have understood—here, now, the only one before him was Logan.