[ CLOSED ] june.

[carcajous]

Who: Logan + Kimiko, Scott, Jesse
Where: Panorama
When: June
What: Catch-all for the month, including a little misunderstanding at the barbershop (oops)

Warnings: A bit of violence, probably!

Comments

[pagings]

[ if she had the ability to take a step out of herself in this moment, she'd realize how her reaction could come across. there is an immediate guard, an instant wall that she puts up for her own sake, more than anything specific logan has done. or even said.

he reacts in turn, though she isn't yet capable of understanding fully why. his guard seems to go up just as much as her own, which... isn't what she expected. there's a part of karen that is trying to piece together what she knows about logan, what small pieces he's let out for her to pick up, and what it might all add up to. the space between her brow wrinkles, the slightest bit, while she waits for an answer, because she doesn't know what he might say.

there is no masked man who saved her life. no secret identity that she knows about, running around. every interaction they've had has seemed so clear, so simple, that the concept that she could (once again, again-) be so blind as to miss the signs-

she's at a loss, suspended in the passing moments, while she waits for logan to answer. she tries to prepare herself for the impossible (I'm a murderer, I'm a killer, I've done terrible things to good people, I'm a liar, I'm a thief), but even then none of them seem to quite fit. not fully, not completely- but still karen wonders what it could be.

( and then, as a next thought, she wonders what answer he might give- no, what answer he might owe her like he seems to think he does- that would change how it is she thinks about him.

nothing comes to mind, but still she waits, knowing that she's been proven wrong before. )

she waits, still tense, still unsure, but not leaving. her eyes stay on his face, dropping down to his hands only when she notices them moving. his fingers curl slowly into fists, and karen very nearly tilts her head at him, very nearly asks what it is he's doing, when something moves.

it's hard to describe what it is that karen sees - because in one moment she is looking down at calloused hands, curled tight into fists. and then, in a smooth movement, there are three what look like knives sliding between his knuckles. briefly, she thinks back to the glint of silver she'd seen in the diner, how she'd assumed he kept knives on him, how this somehow feels like a confirmation that she hadn't been imagining that. somehow, without karen really understanding why, the tension starts to ease out of her - slowly, but surely.

it doesn't... it's odd. it's different. it certainly isn't anything that she had expected to see slipping through the knuckles of logan's hands (hands she'd held, if only briefly. hands she's thought about). but it also isn't-

it isn't what she thought. no- it isn't what she'd feared.

her shoulders relax, her eyes going from his hands back to his eyes, that guard she'd put up just a few moments before slipping away. what replaces it is a kind of hesitant curiosity, uncertain if she's crossing some kind of line, but unable to truly hold it back. hesitantly she lifts her hands to his, but stops with a safe enough amount of space between them. her request might be obvious, but even so, she still asks- ]

Can I...?

[ see them, touch them, get a better look. how logan interprets it is up to him, while karen waits to either be told to fuck off, or... maybe something else. ]

[carcajous]

[ The air expands with the sweltering heat. He's half-expecting her to pull away or to glimpse that flicker in people's faces he's seen too often. They don't always need to say something. He can always tell.

There's none of that. If anything, she seems to exhale, releasing a breath neither of them realize she was holding. Logan blinks once, waiting to see where this is going. It's a weird position to be in, to be telling somebody. He's never bothered. They either already know or they don't need to know. Ever since he landed on this planet, he's realized how many people have no idea about mutants. They're not plastered all over the news. They're not being debated on the streets and in Congress. They're not being hunted. It should be a good thing, but...fuck, he doesn't know. Mostly, it throws him off. He's operated by instinct for most of his life, and when things aren't quite right, aren't what he's accustomed to, it's as if his instincts aren't working, leading him astray, making him hesitate.

Or maybe he's having trouble admitting Karen's the one throwing him off. That it isn't this place, it's her. It's that he keeps...that he cares too damn much what happens next. He cares what she might tell him or how she might look at him. It shouldn't matter, he doesn't want it to matter, but it does. It does because like her, he's been asking himself if he's a goddamn idiot, if he was wrong, to think that he could maybe—for once in his too long life—let himself trust someone again without solid proof in front of his eyes that they can be trusted.

That's the thing, right? He's cautious 'til he isn't. And more often than not, he regrets it. (Somehow, he never learns.)

Still, she relaxes further, and despite himself, some of the tension leeches out of him, too. He expects questions. What he is. How long he's been like this. What happened to him. If there are others like him. But those questions don't come.

Instead, she reaches for his hand. The room's quiet. Real damn quiet, so quiet he can hear her heart as clear as drum. It's not steady. It's not beating fast out of fear. It's something else. (He knows what it is.)

He doesn't invite her closer. Doesn't move toward her. But he doesn't pull away, either. Maybe she can see his continued silence for what it is: a sort of careful allowance of whatever she might be asking to do. ]

[pagings]

[ logan is waiting for something- karen picks up on that much, even as she is busy wrapping her head around what just happened. he relaxes, just a little, but not fully. karen can't blame him - she's treading in uncertain waters herself - but she's no longer waiting for something to drop, for whatever reason. it's probably not smart of her, the fact that this man she barely knows has just shown he has knives hidden between the bones of his hands. has blades that have just protruded from his knuckles.

it's something karen should probably figure out about herself - how she can sit here with what she's just seen, how it can be something so outside of her own understanding, how it can be something so obviously dangerous - and feel somehow more comfortable. it says something, that because it is something physical, because it isn't something he's lied about, that karen feels entirely safe again, though not entirely at ease. that little uncertainty that remains in her has a lot more to do with the fact she can tell logan is still a bit tense, still waiting for her to do something, still waiting for her to hurt him-

and some part of her has recognized- no, decided, that she can't do it. she won't. but she doesn't know what that is- what he's so worried about, what it might be that he thought she would do.

he seems just as uncertain as she is, somehow. just as caught off-guard by her lack of reaction as she is by the fact there are blades between his knuckles. when she reaches for his hand and asks if she can, and he doesn't respond, she waits for a breath before reaching just a bit further across the space and, gently, carefully, cupping her hands around his closest still-clenched fist. part of her thinks to pull it closer, to set his hand in her lap so she can really look at what it is she hasn't yet fully understood, but karen decides against it. instead, she closes the space between them herself, leaning forward and propping her elbows up on her knees. her hands are featherlight as she cups his hand and leans towards it, finally getting a clearer picture - seeing the way the blades really are protruding from his skin, like they've pierced right through the soft tissue between the bones of his knuckles.

she tilts her head off to the side to avoid the blades themselves, seeing her reflection in the metallic sheen. part of her considers running her thumb along the blades to see just how sharp they are, but something in the back of her head says that is a little too far. she squints, notices the blood but can't see him bleeding, before her eyes flick up to his own.

it's hard to tell what he's waiting for, what he wants from this conversation. karen knows what she wants to say, but there are a couple of seconds where she thinks the question over. considers if, maybe, it could be the wrong answer. when she hasn't yet figured it out, she decides to take a small leap, a risk, watching his eyes - his face - for some clue. ]

Does it cut you each time? [ distractedly, she brushes her thumbs along the skin of his fingers below the blades - brushes across the small amount of blood there. ] When they come out?

[carcajous]

[ The moment her hands close around his, the rest of his hackles lower, and he's suddenly too aware of how fuckin' stupid he feels, guarding himself against something that isn't there. Never was there to begin with. Jesus, he doesn't know why he's like this or why it's happening with Karen, of all people. He hates feeling as if he gives too much of a shit—and he swallows the natural urge to pull his hand back and get the hell out. It'd be easy to. He's ended things before over less. Never looked back. But he wants this: her company, her friendship, the sort of thing he hasn't let himself have in years because he couldn't. Because there was no room for it in his time.

He isn't sure if there's room for it now. A tentative part of him wants to believe there is.

She's studying them, the smooth metal claws. He doesn't mind. The scrutiny, he means. His fingers relax, loosening in her grasp. ]

I heal fast. [ The simple answer. He finally retracts them. They vanish in a blink, leaves behind no sign they were ever there. His hand stays in hers, though, lingering. ] We don't exist in your world, do we?

[ Not that she's aware of, at least. He can tell. Otherwise, she'd have more than this sort of idle curiosity, as if she's seeing something she doesn't understand and couldn't possibly have imagined seeing. She'd know what he was. The second his claws came out, she'd have known he was mutant. Maybe his people are underground in her timeline, her dimension. Maybe they were never born at all. Evolution might've just veered in another direction. Funny. He's not sure how he feels about that. When he's faced with somebody who isn't from anywhere close to what he is, that's easier to wrap his head around. But Karen...he could've met a woman like Karen on the streets of Manhattan, at a bar in Westchester, anywhere.

This, here. This is the only difference. As if somebody took a giant eraser to the entire potential of a mutant population and scrubbed them out. ]

[pagings]

[ the rest of the tension leaves him, and with each passing moment, karen feels more and more settled. more and more confident in the fact she hasn’t done, or said, whatever it was that logan was most afraid of. she’s not entirely sure what he was waiting for her to do, or say, or be, but he doesn’t jerk away from her hands on him, so she assumes it’s not this.

his fingers relax, and she shifts her hands just a marginal amount, her grip
on his hand not firmer, exactly, but more complete. like she wants to keep her hands there, wants to keep holding his.

i heal fast. she blinks, sitting up a little as she watches the blades slip back into his hand. she notices that he doesn’t pull his hand out of her’s as he does it, so she also doesn’t pull away. keeps herself leaned forward, holding onto his. she’s aware of it, the heat he gives off, how humid the room is still, but part of her is afraid to move.

we don’t exist in your world, do we?

her brow furrows, though not negatively. more thoughtful. we? she thinks about the avengers, the aliens who invaded and destroyed half of new york. she thinks about ultron, and europe, meeting someone from sokovia only a couple of weeks ago. ]

You mean like superheroes? [ her head tilts, briefly, before she shakes her head. whether she means it or not, she thinks about matt. about frank. ] No, we have those.

[ that’s not what he means, but she doesn’t know that.

though, a moment later, the corner of her mouths turn upward. a soft, small smile. somehow, logan being a superhero is one of the most unsurprising things that has happened to her since she woke up in that med tent. ]

[carcajous]

[ Like what? Logan blinks. Superheroes, like a—? Okay, he didn't expect to hear that. Somehow, he expected even less that this is what Karen thinks he might be. What, people in her world, some of them just have powers and become...heroes?

Give him a minute with that one.

A dry chuckle escapes him. ] No. No, I'm—a mutant. Trust me, nobody's lookin' at us as heroes.

[ Well. Maybe the kids did. Used to.

Besides, it's been a long time since they've done any saving on humanity's behalf. Most days, he tries not to let it get to him. He knows Charles still believes it was the right thing to do. And Logan doesn't disagree, it's just—lately, it's gotten harder and harder not to ask: what the hell good did all of that saving do? Where's it gotten them except killed on the streets and in cages like animals?

After a second, he finally slides his hand from between hers, gently. His thumb runs absently over the groove between his knuckles.

Karen's smiling at him, soft. He can't figure out what that look's for. Why it's directed at him. But if it's got anything to do with that superhero shit...

Guess it could fit some of the others. Just not him. ]

Nature spun the roulette wheel with some of us. That's all it is.

[pagings]

[ sometimes it can just be that simple - people have abilities, have powers, and they just help people. some of them are publicized, a lot of them aren't. karen's first, actual introduction to a hero had been a man that most of manhattan had called the devil, so it's also possible her perception of all of this is already skewed. a dry chuckle escapes him, and karen's eyes narrow a little, not sure she's following.

I'm a mutant.

there is something in the way that he says mutant that makes karen think he's expecting a very different reaction from her, and something makes her think that reaction wouldn't have been positive. still, her eyes remain on him, his hand still in hers, as she smiles a little. ]

Mutations. That's what Charles studied, right? As a scientist? [ he says nobody is looking at that as heroes, and karen... god. truth is, karen feels something solidify in her chest at that. feels her jaw clench, biting back the urge to argue with him.

that's when logan finally pulls his hand out of her's, and karen lets him, sitting back again so that she's sitting up on her corner of the bed. he looks... uncomfortable. looks like he'd rather snort and shrug his way out of the conversation than talk about it. karen sits back and watches him look uncomfortable, something... not amusing, necessarily, but it is interesting. ]

You saved me. [ she says, easily, without any extra weight or meaning behind it. that's all it is. she doesn't think so. ] I'd consider that pretty super. [ her smile turns a little playful, like she knows she's turning it into more of a joke than actually trying to argue with him, even if she does mean it. even if she could turn this into something a lot more intense than it is.

but she doesn't think she wants to. she can tell this was important for logan to tell her, and while she might not fully understand the lengths as to why, she can notice when something is important. she lets a moment pass, and then she lets out a breath, shaking her head. ]

But no- I don't know if there are mutants back home. Or, if there are, they're not public knowledge.

[carcajous]

[ Charles told her that, did he? They must've gotten to talking more than he thought, though he supposes that's no surprise. They would get along like a house on fire.

Funny. To find out she's already brushed by other landmarks in his life. City this big, and she just happens to speak to Charles at that same resort. He's one of us, too. She might be able to guess by now, but Logan decides not to confirm either way. That one's not his story to tell. His reply is a noncommittal nod.

Now how'd he guess she was gonna say that? He rolls his eyes—lighthearted more than dismissive. Yeah, yeah, alright. Maybe he did do that.

Then his gaze cuts back to her, angled beneath the tilt of his head. ] Oh, I don't know. Bet you would've had it handled.

[ Now he's definitely teasing. But there's a small nudge beneath it, one that says he's aware they've barely scratched the surface between each other. And that's okay. He doesn't have to know right now in the same way she doesn't need to know more of him, either. They've both said enough for one night.

He leans back in his seat. The springs creak under his weight. ] You gonna tell me when you land your next job?

[ I wanna come see you. It goes unspoken. ]

[pagings]

[ he told her some things, maybe. introduced a whole new collection of concepts and realities that karen still isn't entirely sure she understands. but he was also kind, and friendly, and a welcome distraction. a sort of epitome of what she'd been using the resort to be.

it is...interesting, really. realizing that when charles had been talking about students, about adults who he'd known as kids, about time travel, whatever that was supposed to mean, that he'd also been talking about logan. his roommate that he'd been thankful to escape from, if only for a few days. it makes karen feel a little more ingrained than she'd realized she'd been, building connections, noticing who knows who and how they are all, somehow, ending up connected.

she has her suspicions, as far as charles, as far as these mutations and abilities, goes. but she doesn't know anything for sure, so she decides not to start assuming. yet.

he rolls his eyes at her comment, and karen's smile grows just a little more, shaking her head. Bet you would've had it handled. ] Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Spider monster swarms are definitely my thing. [ there's enough sarcasm in the words for logan to know she's also kidding, though she has a feeling they both know she's not entirely helpless. she'd come into this place thinking she had it handled, or at least would make it by, by the longer they linger the more she realizes just how out depth she really is.

but just like he's thinking - that's okay. just like she figures there is plenty more to learn about logan, there is plenty more for her to learn about panorama, about herself, and maybe about them, too, somewhere along the way.

now it's karen's turn to roll her eyes - equally teasing, softening too. ]

Maybe. [ a beat, and then a grin. maybe it's a little too much, maybe it's a little too forward, but something in the way logan sits back on the couch - settles, like he's not planning on leaving quite yet - has her feeling a little confident. ] Why? You wanna come visit me? [ which may just be her speaking aloud what logan leaves unspoken. ]

[carcajous]

[ Her eyes light up. For a moment, he forgets how dark it's getting out there. She's gonna make him say it, huh?

He smiles, the briefest flicker. ] Thinking about it.

[ He could make an excuse to himself—keeping an eye on her, checking up to make sure she's alright—and some of it would be true, but that's not the whole reason. Not even most of the reason. No, he just wants to see her. He wants to see where they go, if maybe this isn't gonna turn out to be a bad fucking idea like it always does. 'Cause so far, it feels...good. Nice. She hasn't pushed him back, and Logan doesn't feel two steps away from bolting. (Anymore.)

It's real late now, but what the hell does time matter these days? He stays. He closes the crooked blinds against the harsh neon glow outside, ends up accepting whatever drink she's got in her fridge. It's not the high class champagne from the resort, but it's more what he's used to getting.

When he leaves this time, he leaves before she's fallen asleep. His hand rests on her doorframe, old and splintered, paint chipped. ] See you around?

[pagings]

[ she is going to make him say it - and for good reason, too, considering the way he smiles. it does not escape her notice, then, how at ease she does feel. how much, even with the weight of the conversation, all that they've shared between them, she does feel better. just as she'd hoped, when she asked him into her room. just as she'd hoped the entire drive back, as she considered his reflection in her rear-view mirror.

he smiles, and does say it, and karen's smile brightens. it says something close to in that case... but she doesn't say that part aloud, either, because something flutters in her ribs at his smile. he could make excuses, could be just as playful and just as joking, keep pushing this down the road and they could continue to dance around it.

but logan doesn't, so karen doesn't either - lets her eyes linger on his smile, just for another second or so, and then he stays.

the evening isn't anything crazy - she does finally pull out a couple of beers, possibly leftover from when they sat with each other in the parking lot, and they talk. about something. about nothing. karen talks, weighted but open, about vermont and growing up in the mountains, and he talks about his favorite routes, drives and seasons out in the woods, in the mountains, quiet and his own. in the end, nothing much gets shared beyond that start as well as a few beers and some bad whiskey. it's good, and karen very nearly lets herself be comfortable, be comforted, to think this can - even in the neon glow, the dingy motel carpet, the thick humidity.

and then, when it's time to leave, he stands and heads to the door - and karen follows him. her face hurts a little from smiling, and with the drinks she feels warm all the way through, and as his hand sets on the doorframe and he hovers, barely a moment, polite and easy, and karen leans against the doorframe his hand is resting on, looking up to him, still smiling. still warm. ]

You know where to find me. [ her tone is playful, light, and her eyes flick from his eyes to his mouth and back again. they're close - his hand on the doorframe above her, her hip and shoulder pressed against the wood of the frame, and it would be so easy... it's barely a moment, but she clocks it in herself, more than anything. there's a second where she wonders if this might be it, if this is even okay even after all the confirmations the evening has brought.

and then karen pushes up from the doorframe. putting a distance there, though it is by no means a closed door. more like a not tonight as her eyes soften. ] Goodnight, Logan.