Title: Fortress of Solitude
Author: lachlanrose
Disclaimer: Not mine. I sure enjoy the hell outta playin' with that Logan one, though...
Feedback: Yes, please! With a bag of marbles (go with it) on top. The good, the bad, the ugly, welcome. Flames may be publicly mocked. )
Summary: Marie moves in with a certain growly badass. Things change as he opens his home and his heart... W/R
Notes: Just a little bit of lighter (smuttier) fun for the holidays, with my usual warning slapped on it, of course, because clearly I am incapable of writing anything without smut. It's written for adults with adult themes and content. You have been warned. A special shout out to doctorg for the last minute holiday beta. Gotta love a friend who'll take an hour out thisclose to Christmas to beta some W/R lovin'. Thanks, lady! This one is just a short little (stand alone) two-parter. I know I promised Shine Against Me next, but some smut bunnies jumped in line. Somehow, I think I'll be forgiven… hee hee! Merry Christmas, Bah Humbug, and Happy New Year!

Fortress of Solitude

Four months. It's been four months since I moved in with Logan, but I've known him since I was just a girl and he was... well, he was still man then. Neither of us really knows how many years are between us. A century? Two? I suppose it depends on how you're counting. I have a lot of years in my head, too. Somehow, what had seemed a huge gap when I was fifteen seems a pittance now that I'm approaching thirty. I've known him half my life. But it's only in the last year that I've really come to know him, to know the things that only his heart's keeper could know.

This place... his apartment... our apartment now. He's always been particular about his private space. That I'd always felt comfortable in it said a lot. That he asked me to share it with him said more. We're not married yet. Not even engaged. He moves in his own time and in his own way. He always has, like some force of nature that has a rhythm all his own. He is, and always will be, an individual.

There is no taming the Wolverine.

But I know he'll ask me someday, perhaps even someday soon. We don't talk about it much, but it's there in his every word. Not mentioned specifically, it's more in how he speaks about the future. Our future. He uses words like Home and Family and Forever. They are words he mentions far more than he mentions Love.

It's his way. He's a man of actions. He has said he loves me, as I have said it to him, but I feel it most when he shows me. When he makes a place for me in his life. When he wants me to be there to greet him when he comes home, travel-weary and worn from the rudeness of life. When he does things like wrapping my fingers around his tags or hugging me without fear or talking late into the night, a beer in his hand and a light in his eyes.

Or how he is always there when I need him. When I really need him. Not just the life and death things, like how he put himself between Sabretooth and me, or how he put his claws through his own chest to save my life that night in the torch. There are other things, too. Small-big things, like how he came and dug a hole for me in my back yard the night my dog died. It was dark. Raining. He was tired from a rough mission, and yet he simply looked at me, water dripping down his lined face and said, I think the hole needs to be deeper, darlin'... we don't want nothin' to disturb his rest.

That's love.

So, here I am. Alone in our apartment. He's been gone for three weeks, another covert mission. Details he can't and won't share. Usually that means someone's life hangs in the balance. I hope they're okay. I hope he's okay. He takes it personally when it all goes to hell. He only heals on the outside. I still don't know how he lives with that burden. How he's always so willing to take responsibility for stranger's life. It's one of the reasons I love him like I do. He is a good man, not always nice, but good. A hard man too. As difficult as he is generous. He makes me crazy.

I couldn't live without him.

He sounded exhausted the last time we spoke. Ready for the comfort of his home. His bed. His woman. Slow sleepy mornings and nights filled with passion. Afternoons cuddling in front of the television and meals shared together in our tiny, homey kitchen. All the good things he needs to knit the ragged edges of his soul back together.

The apartment seems too quiet without his presence there, filling it with light and life and laughter. I miss our evenings together, sharing a bottle of fine bourbon as we as we share our secrets and our bodies. He is so uninhibited. It makes me smile to think of it, of the pleasure he takes in seeing just how red he can make me blush. Sometimes it's just a look, or a phrase whispered into my hair at a meeting.

I loved how you looked this mornin' when I was lickin' your pussy.

Then he waits. Watching for my reaction, looking damnably innocent — as if he's only bent in to ask me the time. If I don't blush enough, he adds to it, eyes sparkling with mischief.

M'gonna do it again tonight, ya know...

Waiting again. Watching.

Maybe even before we get home.

See? He's shameless. And I absolutely adore it. Especially when he whispers to me in Japanese. A holdover from another time. Another life. And I have to say; he's as shameless — and as smooth — in Japanese as he is in English.

Other times, it's actions not words. He took a pair of my panties with him this time when he left. Told me with a dirty wink just how he planned on using them to get himself off while we were apart. How he can say such deliciously filthy things without blushing is beyond me.

That's never that sort of stuff that makes him blush, though. Oh, no... But I definitely have his number. And I just adore razzing him in that way that I know will make that color creep up his neck. For example- for some inexplicable reason, he knows all the words to Mary Poppins' 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'. When he's really giving me a hard time... all I have to do is hum a few bars and his ears turn red. And then he gives me this look that says he's gonna get me back so good for making him flush in public.

God, I miss him.

The days are long, but it's the nights he's away that are the hardest for me. We don't have kids or pets and I've long since learned how to leave my work at work. I'm on the team too, but there are some assignments that Logan takes alone, no matter how much I protest.

Things are a little different now, post Carol. Touchable skin. Flight. Strength. Invulnerability. He's not afraid I'll get hurt. It's the darkness he wants to shoulder to keep it from touching me. I'm tough but I'm not hard. Not like he is. I used to resent it when he took off alone. I thought it was because he still thought of me as a child. Now I know better. He doesn't do it because he thinks I can't handle it. He does it because I'm the woman he loves and he knows that on some level, even though I could do it, touching that darkness would hurt me. I love him for that, even if it makes me a little crazy, but it does make for a lot of lonely hours when he's gone.

This time, I decided to do something more worthwhile with my time than catching up with shows in my queue or reorganizing the pantry.

This time I decided to tackle the Graveyard. That's what we call the spare room. Where old furniture goes to die, you know? It's kind of a joke really. I mean, his style... it is so minimalist. He has an affinity for Asian décor. Lots of natural elements. Monochromatic neutral colors. That sort of thing. The Graveyard is like the catchall room for the things he's outgrown but simply can't give up. Every other room in our apartment is crisp and neat. Warm, but uncluttered... all but that one.

Picking through it is like this scrapbook of his life. He is the best at what he does, a professional, and our apartment reflects that. It's been feminized slightly by the addition of some of my things, though I'm hardly given to the frilly frou-frou feminine décor that intrigues him in other people's homes, but makes him cringe to contemplate living with on a permanent basis.

The Graveyard, in comparison, is like this peek not only into his past — into the years he can remember — but into who he really is under the surface when you scratch away all the layers he's acquired over the years.

There are boxes of dusty cards and letters from kids at the school who took a shine to him. Most of them were runaways, like me. Hard cases. Screw-ups. He has boxes of hand-made mementos they gave to him at the end of the year or when they graduated. Old, beat-up furniture that could have only come from his first apartment is layered under other pieces; glass and chrome monstrosities that I'd bet came from his first real bachelor pad. He still travels light, but I think there's a part of him that can't quite give up these links to the part of his past that he can remember.

At one point, he'd had intentions of making a place where kids from the school could come crash if they needed to, but the bed was buried under tons of electrical gadgets I couldn't begin to name, though I think I might have seen a few old gaming systems — that have since been replaced by an Xbox. (You know that TV commercial where the black Ops men are kicking ass in the jungle warfare game? I am sad to say that does indeed have a basis in reality.)

The kids still crash here sometimes. They sleep on the Wolverine's couch, and generally go back to the school in a day or two, a little wiser for the Wolverine's wisdom and usually with a good story or two, as well. Logan's never much been one for rules.

In the other corner sat a monolithic stereo and fugly speakers (with a matching record player!) that he insists on keeping as well. He says they just don't make them like that anymore. Is it any wonder? I always say. He just laughs, but I know he's too attached to ever part with it. The little sheepish sparkle in his eyes tells me so when I really razz him about it.

The closet is jammed with more mementos and old clothes. A letterman's jacket from the school that he got as a gift. A horribly outdated blue tux. T-shirts that are old and grungy, emblazoned with the most rude slogans imaginable. 'I support gay marriage, especially if both chicks are hot!' and 'If it swells, ride it.' And this one god-awful shirt with holes burned into it that says 'Who farted?' on the back. Only a man would ever wear that in public. Occasionally, he wears one of them around the house on the weekend, as if he's daring me to say something. I never do. Just as he never says anything when I buy him new t-shirts and hide his favorite old ratty ones away in there, hoping he'll forget he owns them. Mission Impossible, he always says.

The Graveyard always makes me laugh, even when it's frustrating me. Sometimes I wonder if I got buried under the onslaught, if anyone would find me before he returned home. He says it's a good thing we don't have a cat. The only animal he wants nibbling at my incapacitated, delectable body is him. How can you not adore a man who says things like that?

So, back to my other Mission Impossible. I wanted to do something really nice for him. Showing him, in the way he shows me, that he's loved and cherished. I had decided to take on the Graveyard. To turn it into a study for him. He's been so good about sharing his space with me, but I thought he'd really like a private place all his own. A place somewhere between a study and a lounge. A place where he could go unwind, to meditate or listen to music, or zone out as the spirit moved him.

And I think somewhere, some unconscious part of me was also thinking about what he said once about that room in that offhand way he has. How he thought it would make a good nursery someday. My heart melted.

He ruined it, of course, asking me in the next breath if I thought a pool table would fit in there amongst all his other junk. I stuck my tongue out at him and told him if he didn't shut up, I'd tell all his merc buddies that he never missed an old Star Trek marathon on TV if he could help it. (After which, he would torment me for days... talking...in annoying... bursts... just like Captain... Kirk. And saying things like: "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor... not a trash man!" when I asked him to take out the garbage. Or in the middle of sex, he'd bust out with a pathetic Scottish accent, al la Scottie and shout: "I'm givin' 'er all I got, Sir... If I give 'er any more, she's sure to break apart..." )

Nobody would ever guess that hard exterior hid such a warped sense of humor.

And he deserves a really nice surprise.

So, I waded in. I'm smart enough to know he doesn't mind me digging through his old things but that for all his gruff irascibility, he's like a boy with his treasures. He just can't get rid of some things, no matter how outdated they are. I know just how he feels. I have a small storage unit downtown that houses my own 'Graveyard'.

The day after he flew out, I went down and got him a unit too. I spent the next few evenings sorting and packing. A few days later, I bribed Kurt, Bobby and Pete with free pizza and beer to help me haul everything but the stereo, the bed, and a few mementos to his new storage unit. After much pleading and the promise of a bottle of good scotch, Pete stayed late and hooked the stereo up for me.

And what do you know? Logan was right about that old thing. The speakers looked like crap, but when that needle passed the scratchy vinyl and old Frank started crooning... I have to say, I was impressed. It sounded cherry. That night, Sinatra serenaded me while I painted the walls a soft muted olive green. It's one of Logan's favorite colors. Perfect for a relaxing escape.

Or a nursery.

Every night he was gone, I would spend hours reclaiming the Graveyard. Painting and decorating, fussing and refussing as only a woman can. I think I tried the furniture in every possible arrangement. At least twice. I had his Teacher of the Year award framed in a display box along with some of the treasures the kids had made for him and I hung it alongside a beautiful sword he'd brought back from Japan.

Logan had never actually been a teacher at the school, though one year almost the entire student body had written in his name when they voted for their favorite. That award and the katana are two of his most treasured possessions. I bought a second box to display the flag I found folded up and carefully wrapped in an old pillowcase. A third box displayed a few of the little wooden figures he'd carved over the years on various missions; a pair of swallows, an otter, a crane.

I dug through my old pictures and took a few favorites to a photo shop downtown where I had them blown up and redone in black and white. One of him resting against a tree fifteen years ago, his face shaded by a straw hat while a little boy in a Superman cape ran around him, safe under his watchful eye. Another of him a decade later with that distinctive merc tan (neck and forearms), muscles bulging, shirtless and drinking a beer while he built an addition for the school. One of him from last year, sleeping in a hammock at the beach on our first vacation together.

I mounted them on the wall next to the cabinet that housed his collection of old records, everything from Bobby Darrin to the Scorpions. I fingered the records. His taste in music always made me smile. It was one of the few things that definitively showed the gap in our ages. He has Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, and Van the Man. I had Pearl Jam, Jewel and about twelve incarnations of Madonna. I guess even girls who just wanna have fun have to grow up eventually….

I hung a painting we'd chosen together, but never had framed, on the far wall and fixed up the bed with new, masculine linens. The rest was small details; I filled a heavy glazed planter with black bamboo. Bought some throw pillows and a thick, soft sheepskin rug. Gave it that subtle woman's touch he liked so much. That thing that we do that makes a place feel homey and welcoming and warm.

Little touches. His favorite incense sat in a small metal dish beside a bottle of his favorite bourbon. I stocked a humidor with a few of the cigars he likes. I spent time sorting through his favorite books and artfully arranged them on the bookcase, well aware that would never last. When he gets it into his head to read a certain book, he simply paws through the stack with a single mindedness akin to a dog with a bone.

Every single thing in that room reminded me of him. Maybe I gave him this room for myself as much as for him. Touching all those memories of his life made me feel closer to him while he was away. Made me remember those things about him that took me time to discover. Little patterns that I only learned over time.

How for all his 'a place for everything and everything in its place' mentality, he still squeezes the tube of toothpaste from the middle and leaves the cap on the counter every morning. How he prefers candlelight in hurricane glass to regular lights in the evenings. More intimate things as well. How (after some impressively mind blowing sessions to break the place in) we now rarely make love any place but the bedroom and the shower, apart from a few notable exceptions. He likes me to go down on him in his favorite chair rather than in bed in the days following his return from an extended trip.

I used to think it was because he liked to see me on my knees. He likes to watch and it's easier in a chair than in a bed. But over the months, I've come to learn it's less about the sex and more about what happens after. He likes to rest. Rest, not sleep. And he likes it best when I'm around. I always cover him with a throw when we're done and he sort of drifts... but not all the way asleep. He likes to know I'm nearby. To hear me moving around, either fussing in the kitchen or reading on the couch. He likes to be able to reach out and touch my leg or grab for my fingers as I pass by. My presence comforts him. And I think it's the sweetest thing in the world that he finds that more restful than falling asleep in the solitary quiet of our bedroom.

There are other things too. He prefers to make love in our room, but when he's in the mood, what he really likes is to come at me in the kitchen. He always waits until I'm in the middle of something, hands busy chopping onions or kneading bread or slicing fruit, my fingers covered with sticky juice... That's when he attacks. Pins me against the island or the cabinets and has his wicked way with me. Pulls down my panties or pushes up my skirt with a sinful leer and makes me come on his mouth.

He doesn't stop there, though. Oh no. He always hangs around afterwards. Perches on a stool at the breakfast bar, grinning at me while he eats an apple, or throws himself down into one of the kitchen chairs and watches me with glittering eyes, totally unconcerned that his nose and chin are glistening with the proof of my pleasure. He just sits there, smug as the very devil. My wild-haired devil. So very pleased with himself as I stand there on shaky legs, trying to remember just what the hell I had been doing. And just when I regain some semblance of composure, he sits back, some fork or napkin ring twirling absently in his fingers, and says something specifically designed to make me blush.

I can still smell ya on my lips.

Flat out. No embellishment of any kind. I blush. But I always sass him back.

Bet if I was flexible enough, I could smell you on mine too, you perve!

Oh, how I love his soft laughter. How it makes his eyes crinkle up at the corners. How it makes him seem like the strongest, most unshakable, honorable man I've ever met. And yet somehow, also like that boy running around him in that Superman cape. He would die if he know that's how I saw him sometimes. It makes me dream about little wild-haired boys with dirty knees and sweet hazel-eyed girls with cute pointy noses. Babies. Our babies... I hope they look like him. My Superman.

I wonder what old Clark Kent's going to think of the Graveyard's rebirth? He's going to have to give it a new name now, I think. Or maybe not. Maybe it will become the room where old soldiers go to crash. The thought made me laugh even though it was late and I was tired.

These last few nights of waiting for him were hard. He never has a set schedule. Covert missions aren't exactly nine-to-five. I'd spent the last few evenings in the newly redone room, cozied up in the recliner reading and listening to his old records, lost in memories of him, hoping the mission could be resolved without him needing to gear up and hit the ground, locked and loaded, claws sprung and full of rage.

I sighed. I always worry about him, even when he's not directly in the field. I sat for a long time and just watched candles I'd lit burn lower and lower. I lay down on the bed, intending to rest my head for just a moment before I went back to our room, but the pace of the last few weeks caught up with me. I felt so heavy and slow.

My body was exhausted, but some part of my mind seemed to still be active. It registered the oddest things. How different this room felt now. Strange. New. The bedding didn't smell the same as ours did. The scent of the detergent was the same, but it carried none of his scents. Not the tang of herbal shaving soap or the softer notes of my perfume, nor the woodsy scents of our bodies or the more musky scent of our lovemaking. The sheets were crisp and new. A bit stiff. Not like the ones in our bedroom, perfectly broken in with that soft, cozy feel.

It felt... lonely. Made me think of all those nights before I was the one sleeping at his side. I wrapped my arms around a pillow that didn't smell like my Logan and I sighed deeply as I hugged the pillow tighter, lost in dreams of his strong arms. My body grew heavier and before long, sleep took me.

Up next: The Return. Logan comes home and has a few things to say about the changes...