Standard disclaimer: Logan belongs to Marvel. Dammit.
Author’s note: This short lil’ ficlet was inspired by the picture in Ascian’s Wolverine Image Gallery . The pic is here. Written in kind of the nameless woman’s point of view.
Shore Leave
ice princess deluxe
He calls it shore leave, the time he spends with her. She knows the term from back when her daddy used to work on an offshore oil rig for months at a time. When she was a little girl, shore leave meant playing game upon game of Clue and Monopoly during the daytime and hearing story after story at night, as if her dad hadn’t wanted her to sleep because the next time he’d see her might be the last in a long while.
Logan’s shore leave was similar. She remembers the first time it happened, how he had picked her up at a local tavern after a couple of drafts. She remembers exactly how he looked that day: windblown hair, checkered flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his forearms, faded blue jeans. Something in him had caught her eye, made her look twice. Something in her made him do the same. He bought her a drink, talked a little, then the next thing she knew, she was on the back of his Harley and they were stopped at a little cabin. She spent the better part of two weeks at that cabin with him.
Then he left. Months went by, a postcard or letter trickled in every once and a while. She didn’t mind. Winter would roll into Spring and there he’d be again, all windblown hair and road weary eyes. She knew from the start that what they had wasn’t the permanent type of relationship. Both of them had made that clear during those initial two weeks together.
So there she lay on his bed, her back to him. She’d been napping, a smile permanently plastered on her face. She closes her eyes, inhaling the cloyingly sweet tobacco smoke in the air and enjoying the sound of the fire behind her crackling in the hearth. She feels him there as well, his presence comforting.
Turning, she wraps the white cotton sheet around her in a belated attempt at modesty, her dark hair spilling over her eyes as she does so. Her eyes linger on him; the strong dips and valleys of his back, the way his hair curls ever so slightly upward at the nape of his neck, how his body seems to mold into the chair he’s sitting in. She notices that he looks completely at ease here, not how he had looked several days ago when he stepped into the tavern. She smiles, remembering how he had called her from some phone booth and asked her to meet him there. All he had said was for her to pack a bag, and she knew he was back.
She stretches, feeling all the pleasurable aches and pains that came with dealing with this man. During the four days they’d spent in the cabin, she had rediscovered his propensity for throwing himself into everything in life headfirst. It was just in his nature to eat healthily, argue loudly, and love intensely. She enjoys the arguing as much as the loving; his steadfast yet intelligent nature making him an adept debate opponent. He called it steadfast, she called it stubborn. That had led to another debate, which had morphed into an impromptu pillow fight that had led to another pleasurable bout of lovemaking.
She takes the time to let her eyes rove over his body, fully aware that he’s conscious of her inspection. Her eyes zero on the arm he has slung over the chair, traveling the muscled expanse of it, remembering how good it felt to have that arm wrapped around her only hours ago. There’s a light dusting of black hairs along that arm, which only emphasize the steely muscles that normally bulge against his shirts. Her eyes go further down, her breath hitching as she stares at his hands. He has good hands, she silently muses, large square palms and thick fingers. Dependable hands. Honest ones. Surprisingly, for a man that looks like he works out on a regular basis, there are hardly any calluses on his fingers. Not that they’re completely smooth, they have enough ridges to slightly catch on her smooth skin when he trails his palms over her body.
Her field of vision is slightly disturbed by the chair slats, allowing her to view the waistband of his jeans and the curve of his behind. She stares at how the firelight plays on the material; how it highlights the planes of his thighs yet sends the curves into shadow. She almost thinks of him as a statue come to life, yet Michelangelo’s David never looked this…this wild. This primitive. This real.
She jumps involuntarily at the sound of his boot heel coming down to rest on the wood floor of the cabin, the faint thumping noise sounding loud in the otherwise silent room. Watching as he stretches up to grind his cigar out over the mantle, her lip curves into a smile when he turns to face her. He might be relaxed up here all alone, yet for the past few days he’s been growing ever restless. She can see it in his eyes now as he stands up from the chair. Their time together is growing short.
With purposeful, even strides, Logan comes towards the bed, resting his knee on the mattress. He pauses long enough for her to feel as if he is the predator and she the prey, the thrill that comes from knowing she’s the cause of the burning desire in his eyes making her stomach flutter. A belated blush heats her face momentarily and her hair once again spills over her eyes. She looks up at him as his hand reaches out to clear the inky strands from her vision and they both smile.
Shore leave. A reprieve from life at sea. It’s not a permanent fix, and even as Logan tugs the sheet from her body and loves her with an urgency that signals the end of their time together, she cannot help but relish the moment.
End.
