Participants:
| Scene Title | Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | After a trying evening, Nicole pays a visit to Logan's room. |
| Date | March 13, 2010 |
The Corinthian - Logan's Room
If you asked Logan, he would have no idea if you're not meant to smoke in the rooms — in truth, it hasn't occurred to him to check. By now, the room's taken on the same musk he more or less goes about his day carrying, which is a potent combination of cigarette smoke and overpriced cologne, with a few notes of incense lingering in the air — all of which are stale save for the ashy nicotine scent which ribbons up from a glass ashtray. It sits next to his ankle, where he's seated on top of his bed, legs out in bent angles of a V with a few files spread open before him.
Information, numbers, names, addresses, and a photo or two with each. He'd gotten a similar folder when asked to take out Niki Sanders, but these are of his own creation.
Enough that when the hard knock on the door comes, he's hastily going about closing the things, if not with particular panic. The sound of shuffling paper, foot steps, the shudder of a drawer and then more footsteps headed for the door. Cigarette still clamped between teeth, Logan only briefly checks himself with a glance down at his ensemble — jeans, a sweater, all reasonably domestic if expensively made — to deem it acceptable before opening the door.
Nicole doesn't bother to doing something considerate like standing in front of the peep hole so that Logan can peer through and figure out who his visitor is before opening the door. Oh no. It's been far too long a day and stressful a night for something like being considerate. Instead, after he opens the door, the woman swings on through with a bit of a swagger that's part confidence and part champagne, the bottle of which she's still clutching by the neck in one hand as she makes herself at home.
"Oh, good. You've managed to procure yourself an ashtray. I've got this horrible illness that seems to require me to be responsible while I'm a guest at this hotel." Nicole scoffs at the very idea of it, a roll of her eyes and the THUNK! of the bottle down onto the nightstand punctuating the huff of her breath. "Did you know there was a fucking polar bear down in Chambery just a bit ago? Zarek has lured the damnable creature to the gardens, where it will no doubt cause considerable and costly damage to Daniel's roses." It's rare the Nicole slips and refers to their employer as anything other than Mister Linderman, but it's been known to happen.
Darkly painted lips purse as the woman kicks off her rather sensible pumps and look the man up and down. "Not very flashy attire for you, is it?" She in her somber grey pencil skirt, back-seamed stockings and plain white blouse with a navy patent belt at the waist offering some allusion that she may actually be aware of how to use colour in her wardrobe. "What are those? Diesel?" A very appraising eye is given to Logan's jeans, and she leans to one side as though she might like to be checking out the man's posterior.
Nudging the door closed again, Logan's arms go out in a gesture at himself. "I didn't quite build up my winter closet for arctic temperatures, and I wouldn't want to be all dressed up with no where to go either." Resting his back against the closed door, tucking thumbs into belt loops at a casual lean that may or may not be straight from the cover of whatever magazine has passed through his hands in the past seventy-two hours, he gives her the same appraising look, once that deviates off towards the bottle of champagne. "Levis. Hesher. Straight leg — so, close."
With a push of elbows, he levers himself off the door to move back into his room at a few meandery steps, taking another drag from his cigarette before gesturing with it, an expansive wave. "Sorry, I just— might be hallucinating, did you say polar bear or are you fucking with me?"
"Not yet," Nicole murmurs dryly, hiking her skirt up enough to produce a silver cigarette case from her garter long enough to pluck out a menthol stick and tuck it away again. She holds it out toward Logan expectantly. "Apparently one of the escaped animals from the zoo wandered its way to us and thought dinner sounded awful tasty. I will, however, allow you to hear the full story from Zarek. I'm sure he'll be upset with me if I ruin his chance to tell the tale of his bravado."
While Logan may be layered for the chill, Nicole most assuredly isn't, but that's almost to be expected at this point. With a sigh, she reaches up and undoes the button at her throat, and two after that. The champagne has brought a rosy flush to her cheeks, her ability has brought a slight luminescence to her eyes. "They look good on you, at any rate. Levis." Now she's definitely checking out Logan's arse.
A stampeding polar bear is, sadly, probably not among the craziest things to have happened — ever since superpowers breaking the fourthwall and angry-bull-ing their way into reality in 2007, the absurd has lost its shine. Still. Still. "Trust me to miss the party," Logan laments, mildly closing up distance between them as he produces a lighter, meeting the slight glow of her eyes ever since tracking the journey of her cigarette case with unabashed vigilance and unguarded interest. "Hearing it from that redneck's mouth won't be near as much fun."
The flame flicks to life, other than going out on instinct to protect it from wind non-existant in the generous hotel room, so far unsullied by winter refugees. "I'll sing to him each spring to him," he notes, eyes on where fire touches cigarette end, letting it catch before releasing the catch. "And worship the trousers that cling to him. Or something like that."
"Something like that," she agrees with a small chuckle before taking a drag from her freshly lit cigarette. Nicole's shoulders sag visibly with the sort of relief Logan can likely sympathise with. She's obviously been without a cigarette for longer than she would like to have gone. "It is a pity you weren't there. You'd have laughed. I got roared at. Apparently bears don't like it when I consider throwing sparks at them." A shrug. Who knew?
A thin stream of smoke is exhaled laboriously from the corner of Nicole's mouth. "I can't believe I actually clung to Sweeney for dear life. Fear clearly does strange things to people. He's only my height. Not exactly ideal to hide behind." Her lips come up into a sort of sneer at the thought, but it's dispelled quickly as she sucks in another long nicotine-laden breath. "You are a bit bewitching. I'm not gonna lie." To return to a previous, more attractive thought.
Amusement makes brief creases at the corners of Logan's eyes at this particular mental image, letting out a breath of smoke that streams as curls from nostrils and mouth both, draconic and lazy and not really minding when ash spills to the expensive carpet when he lets his arm drop to the side, having come to a halt somewhere inside what counts as personal space. (For normal people.) The other reaches as he leans past Nicole, gripping the slender neck of champagne, and going to spill a dose of its contents into a long since emptied wine glass it had been placed down next to.
"But are you bothered and bewildered?" is queried, before he takes a liberal sip of the sweet, carbonated alcohol — it's a testing sample, as if to taste what she has. "You look it, a little bit. Could just be the bear."
He switches glass to his cigarette wielding hand, moving to touch his fingertip to the side of her throat as if to check the static energy that might be coming off it. Suffice to say that his eyes have remained an icy dullness through her arrival, and there's no familiar, subtle calm of negation.
A broad smile and a cheery huff of laughter follows Logan's query. "Do I?" she asks. "It's not easy to leave me bewildered, you know." She snatches up the bottle of champagne after Logan's done with it and takes a drink. Classy. She doesn't care. "Definitely going to blame the bear. I'm not a school girl, after all. It isn't as though I've never seen an attractive man before."
The bottle is set back down and Nicole tips her head to one side to offer a longer length of neck when Logan reaches for her. There's only the barest of shocks when he touches her skin. No worse than any other generated by the dry, wintery conditions. "Sorry about that," she murmurs. "Swear it's not me." Or rather, not her ability. She ducks away from his arm and comes to sit on the end of the bed, flicking ashes into the crystal tray. A tilt of her head and darting of her eyes indicates that she'd like the man to move over to stand in front of her.
"Mine is on the fritz," he feels the need to inform her, an uncertain twist of a smile showing as he announces this. Obviously something of a sore point, for someone who relies on it as heavily and as often as he does. Tracking her progress towards the bed, Logan only lingers where he stands for the time it takes to inhale smoke, breathe it out again, before moving on closer, bare feet planting themselves around where she gestures for him to stand. "So I can't say how useful I am to you," he adds, as if no silence had transpired between his first point and just now.
Nicole grins and settles her cigarette between her lips, the filter now dark from the lipstick transfer. "I think you'll be plenty useful," she informs him, sweeping him up and down appraisingly once more. Her head tips back once, a small jerk of her chin.
"Take off your shirt," she orders.
Logan's chin tips up a fraction, head to the side, but hesitation only manifests for the briefest of pauses before he's crushing cigarette into the tray beside her thigh, fingers coming away with the faintest streaks of ash likely to be disrupted as he goes to peel off generous wool. The cotton layer of a grey T-shirt just beneath is dragged along for the journey, both coming away like a skin to leave Logan's torso as lean and long as it is when its silhouette isn't interrupted by gathered wool and wintergear.
Scars on his stomach, white and messy, but superficial disfigurement at best. No bruises, no scrapes, no bandages taping up bullet holes and the other obstacles that Wendy Hunter and even Satoru Lawrence were used to. Either life has treated him well, or it's been making sure to make its injuries lack the evidence of their impact. He's still fair skinned, long limbed, brush of fine hair along his arms bristled in static.
How long Nicole has this game is probably up to Logan, despite obedience, or the raise of an eyebrow on his expression implies as such.
"Ooh. A boy who can follow orders. And here I thought all the little dogs in Mister Linderman's employ were incapable of listening to a woman." Cheeky. Nicole flashes a grin and a wink. "You aren't a dog at all, though, are you?" It's rhetorical, as her eyes trace his lean frame and follow the lines of scars on his stomach. She draws twirling circles in the air with one upward pointed finger. "Turn around."
That gets a huff of laughter, good-natured, and smile knife-sharp and quick — his arms go out, palms lazily turned for the ceiling and wrists lax. "Not incapable, no," Logan agrees. "But there's value in knowing what a woman wants. And working up a debt." Narrowing pale eyes at this next request, and the little gesture that goes with it, he shifts a step back to allow for a meandering pivot, hands flexing at the ends of his wrists. "Might I ask what you're looking for?"
"I'll tell you if I find it," Nicole quips. She closes her lips around her cigarette to inhale slowly, letting it stream out through her nose. "Pants," she utters simply, one finger making a downward motion gesture to suggest that they should be on the floor, thank you.
Logan has always had a problem with the concept of being different from strippers and whores by simple virtue that they get paid for their services — because that sounds like one of over him, if you asked Logan. His hands, though, do drift to belt buckle — more designer labels, this one printed into metal — but only catches fingers there, before he meanders a step closer. "I think you've found it," he notes, and a hand journeys to find a fistful of hair that does not grab so much as close loosely in a fist that feels its texture between the tips of fingers.
That it could grab should not go missed. "I think you're being greedy." The tug is gentler, but firmer, just enough to angle her face upwards so that when Logan leans down, captures her mouth into a kiss that's far less accidentally than a brush of a peck, tangled in the Rose Garden fountain.
As soon as Logan begins to advance, Nicole knows she's pressed too far and has the presence of mind to crush her cigarette out in the ashtray before he can close the distance between them. When he tangles his fingers in her hair, there's a wide, and eager smile with a flash of pearly teeth. When he calls her greedy, she laughs almost tauntingly.
That he could just grab a fistful of her hair and yank doesn't escape the woman. When he does tug enough to tip her head back, she's quick to straighten her back, so without lifting from her seat on the edge of the bed, she can kiss the man hungrily. Much less accidental or spur-of-the-moment than after too much to drink and a spill into the fountain.
There is no customary flurry of serotonin, the jitter of endorphins, nothing particularly chemical save for what God intended when a man kisses a woman and both are kinda into it. It's not so bad, really, doing it the ordinary way — the supernatural way winds him just as alone as any other method, in any case. On the upside, he isn't getting electrocuted either. A hand descends to lay against here collarbone, feeling its ridge against his palm as long fingers curl along her shoulder, pushing her back against the bed.
The ashtray promptly slides off the end of the bed under the dip of Logan's knee finding the corner of the mattress, scattering cigarette butts and ash everywhere. Doesn't seem to register for nor stop Logan.
If Nicole realises they've just made a mess with the soot and ash of cigarettes, she isn't paying any mind to it either. She's never really felt Logan's ability beyond negation of hers, at least not in a context similar to this one, and so perhaps all this is a bit more expected for her than for him. Her body arches a little awkwardly as he pushes her down, with her legs still dangling off the edge of the bed as they are. These things are rarely as artful as they seem in the pictures.
Shimmying up onto the bed further between Logan's knees, coaxing him along without breaking the kiss — series of kisses at this point, really — is no easy task, but it's one Nicole manages rather admirably. While he may not be getting little static shocks when he touches her, her skin is exceptionally warm to the touch. It's nice in this sort of weather to be one's own heating source.
It's not a difficult task, either. Logan goes, easily, climbing over her and following the trail of kisses, intermingling the softness of pressing flesh and then harder scrapes of teeth in bites and nips. Champagne and smoke is probably all that's there to taste, at this hour of the day. One hand goes out, and takes hers — rather than pressing it down against the mattress or tangling fingers with fingers, the cold press of belt buckle is what her palm is pushed to. His other skims over clothing where skin bakes up through the fabric. Warmth is a wanted commodity, in this weather, and he's keen to monopolise.