Haunted
The X-mansion was settling down for the night, which consisted of Rouge banging on the bathroom door waiting for Jean to finish her face mask routine, and Kitty sleepwalking through people’s walls again. Kurt and some of the others were gearing up to pull a one nighter smuggling dozens of snacks and mountain dew to their rooms so they could play Supersmash bros together or Mario Party. Most of the adults in the Mansion weren’t as lively, Ororo made sure the place was locked up and checked on Spyke. Charles was in his study reading over some books, Hank was clearing up his lab and Logan was looking for Laura to take her to bed.
Finally he found her in one of the common rooms sitting close to Jamie while watching a movie. Logan turned on the light and walked over to them, Jamie was about to complain, but he saw Logan’s glare, and blinking lights in his mind went off ‘danger, danger!’ Laura looked up at her dad, “why did you turn on the lights?”
Logan paused the movie, “it’s time for bed, the both of you.” He crossed his arms and glared directly at Jamie.
Laura realized her dads glare and the direction it was going in, 'did Jamie piss him off? I’ll ask Jamie later’. “Okay, it’s almost done anyway.”
“No, now.”
Laura rolled her eyes, “it’s like 11 o'clock no one’s tired.”
“Fine then I will watch the rest with you both.”
Laura looked confused, “but you won’t know what’s going on there’s like twenty minutes left.”
“I can figure it out.”
Laura shrugged as she tapped the seat next to her, but Logan sat right between them and asked, “why are you so close?”
Jamie gulped as Laura answered, “oh Jamie was cold.”
Logan turned to the side Jamie was on, “oh…you were cold.”
Jamie nodded his head, “yes sir…”
Logan handed the blanket that was behind them, “here, next time ya get cold, use a damn blanket.”
Jamie nodded his head, and covered himself in the blanket despite him profusely sweating.
The twenty minutes were like torture, Jamie felt staring coming directly from Logan, it was like he was standing trial for a crime that he had no defense for. Laura was nonchalantly watching the movie and bobbing her head along with a background tune that came on every so often. Jamie heard the pounding of his heart in his ears, ‘I’m gonna die this is it, tell my parents I love them’. Finally, the end credits rolled on the screen Jamie jumped up in joy, as he quickly exited the room, and forgot to say goodnight to Laura.
Laura sat there confused as she saw Jamie practically run from the room ‘huh I wonder if he isn’t feeling good? I did beat him pretty badly in soccer’. Her thoughts were interrupted by her father pushing the hair out of her face.
“So….anything new with you?”
Laura scrunched up her eyebrows, “what could be new in a day?”
“Well….” He gestured his head to where Jamie was sitting, “anything going on with you guys…” he waited in silence.
Laura thought for a moment and jumped out of her seat, “did you hear how badly I beat him in soccer! It was insane! It was 1 v 2o clones and I got more than 35 goals, I bet you wanna hear how much he got right?” she had her hands on her hips and a proud smile.
Logan smiled in relief, deep down he wasn’t ready to see her grow up so soon, so he listened to her reveal the harrowing story of all 35 goals, and how she only allowed 7 shots from his side to slip past her.
It was about 12:30 till Laura ended up loosing her breath, “and boom! The last shot.”
Logan smiled and he felt the tug of sleep on his eyelids, “amazing! Why don’t we hit the sack now?”
Laura nodded and walked with Logan to her room, he opened it and sighed, “you should really clean this.”
Laura growled lightly at him, “it is clean” she stepped over toys and some stuffed animals on the floor and hopped in her bed.
“Ah, brush your teeth.”
Laura rolled her eyes and rolled off the bed onto the floor, she grabbed her toothbrush and glared at him, “I’ll be back.” She made it seem like a threat which made Logan smile as he sat on her flowered comforter.
A few minutes later Laura ran back in put her toothbrush on her dresser and threw herself on her bed, she was about to bounce when Logan pulled her down, “sleep, time for sleep.”
“I’m not tired though! Wanna hear my game plan for tomorrow, I’m thinking of trying out side tackles on the field, wanna watch?”
Logan rubbed his face with his hands, “sure bub, why don’t we get you tucked in?”
Laura was still bouncing a bit, “or maybe or maybe I can just do actual tackles and make it rugby, I heard that’s an even more dangerous sport, ya hear that?”
“Mhmm” he was trying to put the blanket over Laura and was tucking in her sides, but she kept squirming out to sit up and talk more.
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed in, “if ya don’t sleep you’ll be too tired to tackle or attempt to kill whoever tomorrow so it’s best if you get to bed.”
Laura smiled and nodded, “your right” she covered herself with the blanket, “I’m ready, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Logan was about to get up when Laura whined, “you forgot something!”
He leaned back down and gave her a kiss to the head, “okay, I’ll see ya in the morning bub.”
Before he left and turned off the light he added, “if you can’t sleep y’know where I am.”
Laura hugged her stuffed animal tighter, “okay.” Luckily for her the nightmares were subsiding so she didn’t have to wake Logan up anymore, but she still missed their late-night talk sessions. Before he closed the room to her door she said to Logan, “don’t forget I’m here too…”
Logan nodded, walking down the corridor to his room which was at the end, he entered it and took off his shirt and his pants then finally collapsed onto the bed. He hoped he could actually get some sleep, ever since the microchip which was implanted by Hydra was taken out pieces of memories were starting to come back. Most of them weren’t pleasant, most were in Hydra.
Logan put his hand over his eyes and laid under the sheets, his mind drifted in fogginess, and he was fast asleep.
‘It was blurry when Logan woke up again, he was confined to a room, Sabertooth who looked pissed off as usual was sitting across from him. Logan was confused as saber tooth was ranting about some bitch, and he finally asked, “who?”
Saber tooth looked at him sideways like he was stupid, “the cunt next to you.”
Logan looked over and saw her,
“Fuck you too!” She held out her middle finger towards him.
Logan recognized the girl from the mall, she had black hair, but this time it was cut to her chin, and she had bruises on her neck and her lip was cut.
Logan wanted to say he knew her from the mall, but his words weren’t coming out.
Saber tooth stood up and marched over to them, he grabbed her by the collar and shook her, “y’know if you were just one percent useful we wouldn’t be in this fuck hole of a situation!”
She laughed, “maybe if you listened to me we wouldn’t be starving right now.”
Saber tooth was about to slap her, when Logan reached out and grabbed his hand. Before his body could react, he saw a fist to his face.’
Logan bolted up and he was sweating he uncovered the sheets. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. He made his way to his bathroom and washed his face with cold water, he had this dream for months and he was never able to see the girl up in till now. He should be happy he was finally getting somewhere, but now new questions were in his mind, ‘who was she?’
Logan popped into the shower and ran the water, he tried relaxing himself under the coolness, ‘it wasn’t even a bad dream….’ but something was making his stomach twist. Logan’s eyes drifted as his body shifted left and right in the shower like rocking waves.
‘Water rushing. Cool water, it was like arctic cold on his back and his front, he groaned as he hit another river rock. He felt the pounding of the current on all sides of him. Suddenly he heard a yelp, looking behind him he saw a women in the rapids get hit in the stomach with a river rock.
“Fuckin hell.”
“Seventeen” the name slipped out of his mouth.’
Logan woke up and quickly patted his stomach where the rock hit him then he looked up and remembered he was awake in the shower. “Shit” he held his head as the memories were coming in and out of his mind.
A hand moved up and down his spine, Logan spun around in the shower, no one was there. No one was ever there, the hand was comforting though, like it was familiar, but the fact that it kept happening in the shower, made the hairs on his body stand up.
“I’m going insane.” He wanted to wake up Charles and ask for some help, but he had a feeling it wasn’t even daylight out. So he grudgingly got out of the shower and dried himself off. He put on some pants and lied down. With the towel over his face. He thought maybe storm wearing a sleep mask wasn’t so crazy. As the blackness under the towel was able to gain Logan a few extra hours of sleep.
He was naturally able to get up at 5 am and start his day, he got dressed and went down stairs to make himself a pot of coffee. While the coffee was brewing he listened to the birds chirp outside, and he heard a familiar voice behind him, “Logan”.
He turned around and saw and smelled no one. The voice was crisp like it was just behind his ear, it was a womens voice, and it sounded rough and tired.
Logan got chills again as he poured his coffee in his favorite mug, his mind wandered as he was sipping. ‘Who is she?’ Everytime he tried to remember her, the images would become blurry.
It was like the image of her was stuck in the corner of her eye, in the corner of the room and every time he turned to see she was gone. The only glimpse was from the edge of her hair, and it made his heart speed up, ‘is this real? Or is this a dream?’ Logan couldn’t tell and it was like his reality was eating away at itself. He has had bad dreams before, but they rarely physically followed him like this.
The time on the clock read 6 am, it has only been an hour and Logan has his head in hands, he’s debating waking up Charles early, it was getting so bad, he felt like memories were playing themselves out as he sat there. Like the chair seemed to move across from him like a person was about to sit down. Or the a slight knock on the front door. The scariest part was Logan knew no one was there. No person, no foreign scent, no heartbeat. Everyone was upstairs and he was the only one downstairs.
Then he swore he heard the TV go one, this time Logan was determined to see if it was someone so he rushed to the living room where the sound was on. He had his claws out already and the news was indeed on, the headline was something about couples going missing, but Logan was more concerned with who put the TV on. He turned it off and was holding his head as it pounded against his skull. Despite the headache he wandered the house and checked every window and the alarm, nothing went off, and nothing was on the security cameras. By then he checked his phone and it was 7:30, ‘thirty more minutes’ he thought, wandering back to the kitchen he sipped the rest of his cold coffee, he washed it out with his hand. He was watching the water when it suddenly turned red, he dropped the cup in the sink, and both his hands were stained with blood. Logan backed away from the sink and stared at his dripping hands, they were someone else's blood. Then he blinked and it was water dripping on the floor. He brought it up to his nose and smelled it and it was indeed just water.
“This isn’t my fucking day.”
Luckily, Logan looked over at the clock and it was finally 8 am it brought some relief to Logan as he was finally able to take a deep breath again. He wandered up the stairs and waited for Charles in his office. He slowly listened for the wheelchair and waited as it got closer. When the doors opened he saw Charles give him a worried look, “I’m guessing you didn’t sleep well?”
“It was a shit show.”
“Tell me about it.”