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The first time Scott heard Logan singing, it had been in the showers of the locker room in the sublevels of the school. He’d forgotten something there after a routine mission and had gone back down to retrieve it. The deep rumbly voice that carried over the spray of water surprised him, largely because it didn’t belong to Hank, the only member of the team that he knew liked to sing in the shower. In fact, it had taken him a full minute to register to whom that voice belonged because the idea of this person singing, much less in the shower, was completely alien to him.
Wolverine.
Scott stood still and listened to the song. It was a catchy, country tune that he didn’t recognize. He and Logan rarely socialized and so the type of music Logan might listen to had never crossed his mind. Country, bluegrass. He supposed it made sense for Logan, who personified the entire campaign of the Marlboro Man. But that voice! It was a revelation. Deep. Gravelly. Sexy.
Scott started at the train of thought that Logan’s singing had taken him. Had he just associated the word ‘sexy’ with Wolverine? He shook his head with a rueful smile. It had been far too long if he was starting to find Logan attractive. He quietly left the locker room before Logan finished the song.
* * * * *
Despite what Scott initially thought, he seemed to catch Logan singing a lot. It was as if a door had been opened (a somewhat disturbing door) to a whole new side of Logan’s personality. He would hear Logan singing late at night when he crept past the other man’s room to get to his own after a solo punishing session in the Danger Room. He’d sometimes hear Logan out in the garden, several times more in the shower, twice in the garage, once when they were on a mission. It reached a point where Scott was starting to question his hitherto fore powers of observation. Had Logan always been this way and Scott had simply ‘tuned him out’ or was this a recent development? It was always the same damn song too, the lyrics of which had now been burned into his brain. He was starting to hear the song (with Logan singing it, naturally) in his sleep.
This development bothered him so much that he eventually asked Storm about it when they were alone in the Blackbird, flying back to Westchester after a peaceful mission.
“Have you ever heard Logan sing?” he said out of the blue.
“Logan? Sing?” Storm repeated. She was looking at him like he’d suffered a mental break. Scott was beginning to think he had. “No,” Storm said after a while, sensing that Scott was asking a serious question. (Please. He always asked serious questions.) “I can’t say that I have. Have you?”
“Yes,” Scott replied. “Frequently, it seems.”
“What does he sing?” Storm asked, her own curiosity evidently piqued.
“Country, mostly. He likes this song called ‘Your Man’ by Josh Turner.”
Scott was stretching the truth a little. ‘Your Man’ was the only song he’d ever heard Logan sing. A silence fell between the two old friends.
“Is he any good?” Storm asked after a while.
“Not bad,” Scott replied.
* * * * *
Sensing his disbelief, Xavier added, “Play nice, Cyclops.”
“I always do, sir,” Scott answered.
The conference went smoothly, but it was also tiring. Scott missed Jean’s presence acutely. She’d always been the one to accompany him on these diplomatic engagements and her telepathy had been infinitely useful in gauging the mood and temperament of those around them. It was very different with Logan as his companion. The trip, thus far, had been surprisingly peaceful, the bickering between them kept to a minimum. Scott would go so far as to say that their bickering had transformed into a kind of playful banter of late. Logan seemed mellower to him, less combative. Maybe he was the one mellowing out. Who the hell knew anymore?
What he did know was that on their last night there, long after the closing banquet had ended, Scott heard a familiar refrain that led him back to the almost empty ballroom, where waiters and maids were cleaning up after a long night. Scott leaned against the doorway of one of the side entrances and watched. Logan was sitting at the foot of the elevated stage, guitar in hand as he strummed that tune Scott had memorized by heart. He was singing to a pretty woman (blond, Scott guessed, judging by the lightness of her hair) who was sitting on the carpeted floor before him, her high heels off. She was completely smitten.
It was sweet, Scott realized, so incongruous with the Wolverine that he knew. He felt like an intruder during this tender moment but was unable to take his eyes off of the scene. As if sensing him (and with Logan’s acute senses, it wasn’t at all implausible), Logan looked up right at where Summers was standing. Scott held his ground even though he’d just been caught playing voyeur. They both seemed frozen for a moment until a ringing in Scott’s pocket broke the spell. He reached in and pulled out his phone. It was Hank. He hit the ‘receive’ button at the same moment that he gave Wolverine a small, apologetic wave. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for – spying on him? Listening in? Wishing he could stay longer? It didn’t matter. Logan looked like he’d be busy for the rest of the night. At least one of them was going to get laid, he thought absently. Logan didn’t return the gesture and Scott walked away.
* * * * *
When Scott returned to his hotel room at nearly two in the morning, he was immediately on alert when he heard the shower running in the bathroom. His defenses dropped when a familiar tune carried over the sound of running water, sung by that gravelly voice that he occasionally heard in his dreams.
What the hell? he thought. It was too late for this.
He was sitting at the foot of his bed when Wolverine stepped out of the bathroom, skin still wet and wearing nothing but a white towel.
“Logan,” he greeted the other man a little wearily. “I think you’re in the wrong room.”
“No Cyke,” Logan replied, in the most amiable voice Scott had ever heard from him. “I don’t think I am.” He adjusted the towel around his waist as he walked towards Summers. “Where you been?”
“Hank called,” Scott answered. “I had an errand to run.”
“At midnight?” Logan pressed.
“It was a little unorthodox,” Scott conceded. “But nothing I couldn’t handle.”
Suddenly, Logan was very close and Scott half-expected to hauled up out of the bed, but Logan merely leaned over him, hands on his hips.
“What happened to being a team, Cyke?” he said, voice dangerously low. “You shouldn’t have done whatever you did without me.”
Scott knew that Logan was absolutely correct. “It won’t happen again,” he said sincerely. That was as close as Wolverine was going to get to an apology or to him admitting that he was wrong.
Logan seemed to accept his words, however, since his posture relaxed and Scott felt the tension between them dissipate.
“What are you doing here, Logan?” Scott asked, half expecting Logan’s female companion to exit the bathroom as well. Maybe he was in the wrong room.
“Waitin’ for you,” Logan replied.
“Well, I’m here,” Scott said, trying to keep the testiness out of his voice. He was tired. It was late. He’d committed a crime that evening. He really just wanted to rest. “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
“You could say that,” Logan said somewhat vaguely.
“What is it?” Scott said, when Logan didn’t seem inclined to continue.
The other man was shaking his head. “You know what, Cyke?” he said. “For one of the smartest people I know, you really are a dumbass.”
Scott looked at him incredulously. “That couldn’t wait until morning?” he said. “Later this morning?” he corrected.
Logan made a noise that was a cross between impatience and frustration, and this time Scott really was being hauled off the bed. Previous experience had prepared him to expect a fist in the face or maybe in the gut and he was about to respond accordingly, except Logan wasn’t following their usual blueprint. Instead, Scott found himself pressed up tightly against that half naked body, a hand at the back of his head to hold him in place, and a tongue in his mouth.
A tongue in his mouth? What the hell was going on?
It was difficult to form coherent thoughts with Logan probing and exploring that way, teasing Scott to follow and Scott did. It turned out that Wolverine had a very talented tongue. He didn’t taste of beer or stale cigar smoke as Scott had expected (not that he’d spent a great deal of time wondering what Logan would taste like). Logan had a peppermint freshness about him as if he’d just brushed his teeth. It was . . . sweet. Something was nagging at Scott though, and he began to pull away, putting a firm hand on Logan’s chest to stop the other man from leaning in again.
“Wait,” Scott said forcefully, the command hinting of Cyclops.
Logan’s irritation was back. “What?” he snapped.
“Where’s your lady friend?”
“What lady friend?”
“The one you were serenading earlier? The one I assumed you’d be spending the night with?”
Logan shook his head and Scott could practically feel the exasperation radiating off the other man. “Is that who you think I was serenading?” he questioned.
“I suppose you could have been serenading the hotel staff,” Scott said. “But the pretty lady sitting on the floor in front of you would be a more reasonable guess.”
“Dumbass,” Logan muttered. Scott was still caught in his embrace and Wolverine didn’t seem inclined to let him go. “I don’t even know that woman’s name,” he told Scott. “And she’s not the person I’ve been serenading for weeks.”
Oh.
Suddenly everything fell into place. The singing and the fact that no one else ever heard Wolverine sing. That song. Why Logan had volunteered for the conference. Why he had waited for Scott tonight. What he was doing in Scott’s room now practically naked, except for a towel. The tonsil hockey.
He was a dumbass.
“You up to speed now, Slim?” Logan asked, licking a warm stripe up the side of his neck.
“It appears so,” Scott agreed, his heartbeat increasing slightly at Logan’s actions. “Listen Logan, it’s not that I don’t find your attention flattering . . .”
Logan jerked back and Scott could practically see his hackles rising. “Christ Cyke,” he said, his exasperation returning full force. “You really know how to kill the romance.”
“It’s my secondary mutation,” Scott deadpanned, but he quickly wrapped his own arms around Logan to prevent him from stepping away. Logan felt nice in his arms. “I’m rusty,” he began. “And I’m going to need a bit of time to process what’s happening here. But more than that? I’m tired. You may have a healing factor but the rest of us mere mortals have to rely on sleep to recuperate.” He looked behind them at the comfortable queen-sized bed longingly. “Join me?” he invited.
Logan shook his head, but it was out of fondness not rejection. “Yer ruining my plans, Cyke,” he said.
“And who’s the strategist between us?” Scott countered, equally fondly. Before Logan could answer, Scott had already leaned in to kiss him, still wet and open-mouthed, but slow this time and Logan followed his lead. “I’ll promise I’ll make it up to you in the morning,” he said when the kiss ended. “We don’t have to check out until noon.”
Logan arched an eyebrow. “Playing hooky from class, Mr. Summers?”
Scott grinned. “Between them, Storm and Hank have my classes covered for the whole day,” he replied. “Are you going to sing me to sleep, Wolverine?”
“I can do that.”
Fin.