diademlogs | [ CLOSED ] june.

[ It's not that complicated, how he ends up where he does: Logan smells the blood, sees the blood, and decides to look into what's going on. The blood's old, but not too old—from a day ago, about.

Which means it's two in the morning when he twists the doorknob 'round back and steps inside the cleared-out barbershop. Most of the puddle's somewhere inside, spilled over the scuffed linoleum tiles with a clump of brain matter and gore. No body, though. They must've dumped it somewhere. Yeah, he knows: it's not his business. He should leave it alone, and any other time, he would. Not like this is the first time somebody's ended up dead in the city. But deep down, he'll admit he's...Jesus, what. Itching for a fight? Searching for trouble? Not exactly, not like that, but—

Let's just say he wouldn't hate it if somebody decided to make this his problem. 'Cause it's been quiet. For him, for where he was plucked from, this is quiet. Pockets of odd jobs, coming home to Charles, scrounging up shit for the others to keep them fed and whatever else. On paper, all that's great. Good, even. But they're not safe here—aren't safe anywhere, usually—and he keeps waiting for something to happen. Keeps feeling as if something more should be happening. He hasn't been sleeping, either, which only stirs the restlessness boiling under his skin.

So maybe that's why he's not too careful about his intrusion, isn't as silent as he ought to be. Nor does he bother to hide his silhouette, outlined through the cracked glass window by the city's glowing neon lights as he rifles behind the front desk. ]

Edited 2025-06-10 17:34 (UTC)

[ The past few weeks have gone like this: he picks a job. He shows up, usually after sundown, stays until just before dawn. Then he takes his money and goes. When he's not doing that, he's riding through the Fringes, usually comes back in a couple of days with something they can use.

He looks in on Rogue. Charles. Karen. Doesn't look in on Scott—not in any way that Scott would ever know—and after the little showdown with Erik, he hasn't had the goddamn energy to deal with. Anything. Least of all the dozens of complications surrounding Scott.

Go figure that's who he sees first thing at the warehouse. He stops short, just outside the back doors. Logan takes one last puff on his cigar. Great. ]

The hell are you doing here?

[ Working is obviously the answer, but that's not why he's asking. ]

Edited 2025-06-14 01:41 (UTC)

(( sliding from here )

[ In the dark, and with Jesse at his back, the roll of his eyes probably goes unnoticed. Yeah, Logan must've hit a nerve. Can practically hear the impact. Some part of him knows he's being a dick; it's the same part that doesn't apologize for it—not because he's trying to say something, but because he's had a long fucking week (decade) and can't bring himself to care about making nice with a kid he's got no plans of ever seeing again.

(Funny how that works. When he in all likelihood will.)

Still, the lines of his shoulders soften a hair. He glances back for the first time since they started walking to see if Jesse's keeping up. The moment the kid showed up, Logan reshuffled his priorities, and that scream's left his mind while he focuses on this instead. Maybe he should've gone to take a look, anyway, even with Jesse along, but Logan often follows his instincts ahead of anything else. If you asked him later what made him decide to take Jesse out of here and ignore that sound, he won't be able to say. It's just what he did. ]

Logan. [ No pause on his end. He's got one name that matters, and it's the only one he uses. Sometimes, he remembers the years where it was all he had, haphazardly flickering through the puzzle pieces of his life. ] Something tells me you won't stop asking.

[ Now what's that remind him of? But it's been years since there was a school or students to harass him every damn morning.

At the stairs, he pauses, listening, then opens the door. The hinges creak. Like the rest of this place, the carpet's scuffed and uneven. He releases the lighter's wheel for a second—lets his fingertips heal back up—before he flicks it back on. ]

Watch your step.

[ After the night Logan spends with Karen at the weird resort, he doesn't return for another two, three days. Uses that time to find work, do the work, make sure the room he's got for him and Charles is still good and paid for so nobody kicks them out or dumps their shit onto the side of the road.

Eventually, he returns to check up on folks. Or just to see how the place is still hanging on. Far as he knows, zones like that tend to vanish without warning. Could be replaced with a nice little meadow, could end up with a hurricane sweeping through. Either way, the more time passes, the less he likes the idea of people he knows, people he cares for, being in the area. It's not without purpose that he asks Karen: You heading back? And either she already planned on doing so or she sensed something in his question, but she heads back.

He heads back with her.

Electricity's back on these days, at least. Not so much the AC. His tank top's damp by the time they reach her door. He pauses in front of it. Where he seems almost at ease now that they're back on familiar ground, he can practically spot the tension coiling around Karen's shoulders. He gets it. This city, it's not safe, not the kinda place you wanna walk around at night if you didn't carry a healing factor and six blades in your hands. It's not where she calls home. And it isn't where Logan calls home, either, but for him? For him, not having checkpoints or cameras or mutant trackers, it's the kinda freedom he hasn't had in a long fuckin' time. Here's as close to the home he used to know as it gets—at least any time he slips out of Westchester. Old city, jackasses looking out for themselves. Everybody minding their business.

He watches her unlock her door. His gaze lingers on her as the hinges creak. A week ago, he wouldn't have asked. But a week ago, they hadn't spent four hours looting luggage together. A week ago, she hadn't asked him to stay in a tone that was almost uncertain. As if she expected him to say no. As if she was preparing to be disappointed. ]

You gonna be okay?

Edited 2025-06-18 01:50 (UTC)

[ The place she picks is the Xiao Xue Dumpling House.

By the time Logan arrives, Kimiko's a few spoonfuls into her soup, effortlessly extracting noodles with chopsticks and feeling, briefly, like she did a long time ago — before the Shining Light, before New York and Supes, back when the sands of Yokohama's beaches was soft and warm between her toes and her father's cooking filled her belly. There's no awkward noodles dangling from her mouth, no soup broth spilled on her jeans. It's almost disgustingly graceful, the way she shovels her food down.

When he arrives, she waves over to Sophie and communicates seamlessly with the restaurant's owner in a series of visibly incomprehensible gestures.

Sophie, her grin as bright as her cheeks are pronounced, greets him like they're old friends. She says, "Please have a seat and order anything you want. It's covered."

Kimiko has been doing quite well for herself in the Dome and can afford it. Eat up, big man. ]

kimiko.

scott.

jesse — TDM (cont.)

karen.

kimiko, the sequel.