A Chance of Rain: Part One
by Coda
She ascended into the air. Thin cirrus clouds encircled her like ethereal satellites. Tears danced across the lids of her eyes. Storm watched the brown wooden talons of redwoods scratch at the lower belly of the horizon. Ice crystals nipped at the soft pads of her fingertips as she hovered in the chilled heavens. She drifted higher. One mile. Two miles. Three miles. Four. The sky still relatively clear, Storm closed her eyes and felt a charge of energy wash throughout her frame like a deluge of spring rain. Wisps of clouds trailed across an opaque canvas of atmosphere.
And still no rain.
The clouds folded in on themselves like yards of silk or curtains of gauze. Wisps mutated to soft dense rolls. Cumulus clouds drifted listlessly throughout Artemis's domain, carried underneath a glowing full moon by a soft brisk breeze. One goddess beneath another, Storm turned gently towards starlight beams and whispered prayers to the pale thief of sunlight--a nocturnal copy of the life-giving bright lady who danced across pastel morning skies. The clouds changed shape beneath Storm's machinations. A strong X branded upon a midnight plane backlit by the pale fire of moonlight let her lover know that he wasn't alone. Storm hoped Logan would see the sign, and hoped he would remember that he had a home.
She could have been his home.
Teardrops soaked eyelashes the color of pure winter snow.
And still no rain.
She twisted her body through the dead of night. Storm fell from the heavens. Low slung sheets of silver stratus clouds enveloped her like the worn shroud of a sleeping soul as she dropped from darkened skies. The haze blurred her vision. She stopped suddenly. Halting in an endless span of midnight sky, she brushed white mists from her eyes and gazed at the grounds below. The monolith of Xavier's dream jutted out from between nature's beauty. Fertile earth gave way to cement pathways. Ancient redwoods died ignoble deaths to make room for cold mechanical security systems. This was what she had given up love for? Twice. Twice happiness had been placed before her, set in the rare and sparkling jewel of a ring, and she had refused it. Why? Responsibility? Loyalty? Shaded windows mocked her thoughts. The mansion was empty. Barren. Her teammates had left her to her unwanted solitude. Too enraptured in the events of their own lives, they had forgotten the soul who lived above them...caring for them...living for them. Storm had given up her last chance at happiness for ungrateful children and a father figure who had vanished during the reign of Bastion--the one time when she had perhaps needed him the most.
Dark gray clouds ate away at the blackest midnight. Teardrops rolled from cheeks as brown and sharp as sun-baked cliffs.
And so it began to rain.
It poured down in heavy streams. It soaked the white cloth of Storm's costume, staining it to a damp and dismal dun. Raindrops mixed with tears; chilled air met with the heat of Storm's fury and disappointment. Thunderheads screamed in the distance; Electric tongues lapped at the wet earth below. Steam escaped from the moist mouths of nimbostratus clouds as snaps of lightning danced throughout the water logged drafts. Storm tore into the heavens once more. Savage weather poured from her fingertips. Cold sweat drained from her pores. Her limbs snapped back and forth like the branches of withered trees imprisoned in the furor of a summer storm.
An angel fell in the distance.
Warren cut through Storm's peripheral vision, long enough to register reason in the wind-rider's frenzied mind.
The clouds dispersed immediately, scrambling like pale roaches across heaven's floor. Zephyrs reined in tempests; whipping winds gave way to soft breezes. Reason pinned in emotion. A sharp gust coursed from Storm's palm to shoot across the sky, cupping Angel and Marrow in its force. The two tumbled gently to the earth. The X-Leader followed silently behind them. As her feet touched moistened soil, she immediately took the weight of Marrow's sleeping form into her arms and the weight of responsibility once more upon her shoulders.
Warren stumbled towards the house. His rain-soaked wings dragged behind him like iron plows. After a few faltering steps, he toppled helplessly to the ground.
Already straining beneath Marrow's mass, Storm hoisted the girl over one shoulder, leaving the other free for Warren's grasp. Angel glowered at Storm--and begrudgingly accepted the offer.
The weight of the X-Men dangling from her shoulders, Storm half-walked, half-crawled back to the mansion. Her body quaked with rising fatigue. Her teeth gnashed together like grinding gears. Narrowed eyes, blurred by tears, focused on the mortar and brick symbol of Xavier's dream looming in the distance.
And so she began to rein.
********
He hadn't said goodbye. The fact troubled Logan several minutes later as he waited for the train, the absence of closure gnawing at his soul like a parasite. He had not even had the decency to say goodbye. He had simply left, leaving the woman to stare after him with wounded eyes--like an animal caught in a trap. Logan cringed. He wasn't the type of person to treat people as less than human. He wasn't going to start now.
His footfalls echoed against subway steps as the train roared into the station. He trudged up the stairway. Worn soles slid against weather-beaten cement. Dirty light from dusty street lamps spilled into the crow's feet that embraced the corners of Logan's blue eyes as the city greeted his rising form. Logan wandered his way through Harlem's abandoned streets, retracing the guilt that had initially led him into his clandestine lover's arms.
He hadn't even known her name. Had it mattered? He supposed not. It wasn't as if he wouldn't remember her. He'd remember the scent of her skin, the glimmer of warm brown eyes, the way her pale pink nails contrasted the dark topaz bottles of beer she carefully stacked behind the counter. And the way she danced. He could live forever and remember the way she danced. Thick hips shifted underneath warm spandex. Heavy breasts shrugged out of a dime store bra. The cheap cloth was frayed in the middle, as if supporting the weight so near her heavy heart was an impossible task to bear.
Crumbling brick brownstones sheltered Logan from stark white moonlight as he plodded one foot in front of the other. He paid no attention to the stark white X that roamed across a dark midnight sky. The awkward angular pattern of clouds drifted across battered streets, marking shadows against the pavements with celestial foreboding.
Logan continued on to the bar.
Curious eyes watched him from above.
The door was ajar. The security gate was open. A slow love song drifted from behind the heavy plank of wood and the rattling of half-drawn steel. Logan ducked carefully underneath the gate and pushed the door open.
Eyes narrowed.
Blood streamed across the dirty tile floor like spring water from expensive marble fountains. Logan's lover lay in her own spent juices, mixed with those she had shared with Logan only moments before. Her eyes wide open in fright, brown irises caught stray streams of light to illuminate the hazel flecks in her eyes. Her thighs, which had stirred Logan to unlocked passions, lay bruised and battered--jutting into the air like broken hinges. He moved warily into the bar. Tears plunged from Logan's red rimmed eyes to the crimson rivers of blood that twined through the cliffs of his worn soles. Slowly, he reached down to brush artificial locks of gold from before his lover's genuine eyes. Her pupils dilated with the sudden movement.
She was still alive.
His eyes quickly scanned her figure. Exposed meat and sinew lay before him like discarded carrion; the wound was fatal. A regrettable sigh seeped from between ivory canines as Logan rested on his haunches and watched the life flow from her once strong form. He stroked her cheek gently.
"Who did this to ya?"
She opened her mouth to speak. There were no words. Crimson liquid spilled over crimson lips.
He shook his head. "It's okay, darlin'. I'll find out. I'll take care o' everything."
He hadn't even known her name.
He sang songs to her until she died. Logan's gentile baritone mingled with grainy voices pouring from a cheap radio nestled in the corner. Emotions he'd long since pent up inside rode quietly out on hushed notes. His companion listened calmly to his voice--let herself focus on the music. It was all that she had left; it was the only thing that remained to comfort her in life--and now in death--whether cloaked in an ebon machine, or in the sway of a choir, or in the sweet voice of the stranger who had looked into her eyes for a second time and hadn't judged her soul.
He had sung for Eileen.
He had sung for Silver Fox.
He had sung for Mariko.
He would sing for her.
And when her last breath drifted from between full and parted lips, his last note slipped from between his own. Gently, Logan crossed his lover's arms across her heavy heart and drew the lids on her now vacant eyes. He stood for a moment in the dim light and contemplated the X her soft limbs made as they laid across her chest. Sighing with regret, he reached for a nearby tablecloth to shroud her body--to treat it with the dignity and respect he hadn't afforded it in life. He crossed the room--and as he reached for the heavy cloth--he saw it.
I could smell you on her.
The words were inscribed in blood along the mirror above the bar. Logan's eyes narrowed as he maneuvered behind the counter. A cash register filled with singles greeted him as he looked down. This wasn't a robbery. He peered closely at the discarded message. Beneath the dried crimson of her blood the mirror had been punctured along the curves and lines of each letter. Small flakes of reflective glass rained down as Logan's breath shook them from their precarious perch. He sneered. No human fingers could have left that message.
Logan breathed in deeply. He sorted scents in his mind. Nestled between the aromas of beer and blood and brandy, lip gloss, sex and stale perfume, was the smell of sour skin and sewers twining through it all like a rattlesnake in tall weeds.
Victor Creed.
Slowly...methodically...claws slipped from between bone housings of sharp cartilage. Logan stalked across the bar, his eyes pouring over every detail of the chamber. He burned the image of the tavern into his memory; the vision of his lover's twisted and battered body seared into his mind. He'd remember it always. Just like he'd always remember the way she danced.
And when he had captured it all, when no article was left to be catalogued, he punctured each bottle in the bar. Bone carved into glass as topaz bottles burst beneath his force. Alcohol coursed along the floor, thinning the blood that had congealed there. Sanguine fluid rolled freely once more against sticky tile until the floor was covered in a carpet of amber and crimson.
Logan carefully dropped a kiss against his lover's chestnut skin, and backed quietly from the bar. He stood for a moment--bathed in the artificial light of a street lamp, then struck a match against his five o' clock shadow and tossed the small flame into the confines of the tavern.
The bar exploded. Flames furled like thunderheads, spitting venomous heat into nearby alleys. Logan was thrown from the force of the initial blast. He sat for a moment in the middle of the empty street and watched flames lap at tortured brick. Tears dancing in his eyes, he glanced towards the sky above to keep the warm drops from spilling down his face.
The shadow of the pale X drifting across the heavens trailed over the old bar and Logan's weathered blue eyes. Charcoal clouds spiraled from the smoky inferno into a waiting sky to mingle with the paler brethren they found there.
And Logan knew he had a home.
And knew he could not go home again--not when Creed had heard him call out the only name he knew into the darkness of a Harlem night.
Storm.
back to Coda Voodoo's stories | Cyke and Logan archive | comicfic.net