Title: Let Me Touch You For Awhile

Author:  Logan Berry  (loganberryx@yahoo.co.uk )

 

Summary: Logan contemplates his love-life with a whiskey and a country singer.

            Songfic - Lyrics By Alison Krauss

 

Rating/warning & pairing: Logan/OC - PG

 

Disclaimer:     I do not own any rights to any Marvel Characters.

 

Feedback very welcome

 

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The lights dimmed.

 

And a half-hearted hush descended on the smoke-filled room.  The smell of stale beer and even staler sweat pervaded the low-ceilinged, fake-wood panelled bar like an acrid miasma; the majority of the clientele oblivious to its biting fragrance.

 

The lone seated figure sighed audibly as the darkness closed in around him.  He slumped down in the hard wooden chair; the back too upright to allow him room to relax comfortably, but then he wasn’t here to relax, he was here to drown his sorrows.  He stretched out his legs in front of him crossing his cowboy boot-clad feet at the ankles, blocking the meandering path between the remaining tables.  Nonchalantly he tilted the brim of his battered straw Stetson over his eyes just enough to plunge them into an even deeper darkness but give him a clear view of the smokey world around him.  He slipped the thumb of his left hand into the tight corner of his faded denims and slid his right arm across the surface of the scored and battered table to scoop the small tumbler of whiskey into his broad paw of a hand.  As he brought the chipped glass to his lips, the blinding white light of a floor spot broke the darkness.  From under his brim he flinched and blinked, hiding the minute movement with a bolt of liquor.

 

A hiss of meagre applause rippled through the gathered throng of itinerants, drunks and general lay-abouts as the spot broadened and came to rest on the poor excuse of a stage at the front of the house.  A few made the courteous effort to find seats but most just continued with what they did best, drink.

 

From behind old black-out curtains four middle-aged men found their way onto the platform, each looking as if time and circumstance weighted heavily on their shoulders.  All puffed idly on cigarettes - adding to the growing smog - as they picked up instruments; steel guitar, double bass, electro-acoustic, the fourth finding his way behind a bashed drum-kit that had seen better days.  A spate of random twangs and beats echoed around the room as the four-piece tuned and tested instruments and mics. Finally with a silent nod passed between them the drummer counted them in with three short clicks of his sticks.

 

The deep drone of the bass hummed through the air as the acoustic finding the soft rhythm of a country song.  The howling whine of the steel joined the refrain, picking out the haunting melody with its distinct phrasing.  From the edge of the stage a figure stepped into the light.  The woman made her way steadily to the lead mic, timing her sashay to perfection.  As the instrumental finished she took the microphone gently in her hand, like grasping a familiar lover, and closing her eyes she opened her glistening, full lips to the first lines of the ballad.

 

It's been a long time coming,
As you shed a lonesome tear.

 

She hung on the last words of each line, feeling her way into the song like she knew each expression from personal experience.

 

And now you're in a wonderama,
I wonder what you're doin' here.

 

As she finished the line she opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on the one figure she could see beyond the light, sitting right before her.

 

“Yeah, what am I doin’ here.” Logan wondered, an  indignant smile playing over his lips.  But the question was rhetorical.  This was his place, his get-away, the one spot no-one would look for him and no-one cared who he was.  It was the place were he came to think; over a cheap whiskey and a hot chilli.

 

He glared up from under the rim of his hat, eyeing the form of the woman on the stage.   She was tall and pale under the harsh lighting, giving her skin a bluish hue.  The tight blue jeans, tucked into brown boots, looked almost painted on and the small white t-shirt clung to her like kitchen wrap.  She was wonderfully slim yet her hips and breast curved in such a way that she could only be described as ‘hour-glass’.  And as the band picked up the rhythm a little she swung those hips to the beat with all the grace of a belly dancer.  A raucous wolf-whistle ripped through the gentle music followed by overly loud ‘shushes’ and the sound of a breaking beer glass.  She’d heard it all before.

 

The flame no longer flickers,
You're feeling just like a fool.

 

She glanced seductively over the microphone, peering at her audience through a curtain of russet-coloured fringe, scanning the back of the bar for signs of life; trying to make some kind of connection, anything that might trigger an emotion in one the waifs and strays.  Her eyes came to rest once more on the lone ‘cowboy’ at her feet.

 

You keep starin’ into your liquor,
Wonderin’ what to do.

Logan lifted the glass to his lips once more, fixing his gaze firmly on the songstress.  Draining the glass dry he lowered it carefully to the table and raised a finger to the barman for a refill.  There was a time, long ago when getting drunk kept the nightmares away, now it kept the pain of a different kind from surfacing.  Logan smiled bitterly to himself; which was the worse of two evils?  The pain of not knowing who you were and what you’d done or the pain of loving too much and never being able to show it?  He considered the irony of the whole thing.  When he’d hated himself for being who he was, all he’d wanted was love and a place to be loved.  Now he had the affection and warmth of a ‘family’ the love had become more painful then anything in his nightmares.  As the fresh glass was unceremoniously slammed onto the table in front of him, Logan’s mind drifted back to the woman.

I don't hardly know you,
But I'd be willin' to show you,
I know a way to make you smile!

 

The music lifted to a crescendo as her voice seemed to fill the room with the chorus.  She drove all the power and emotion she could muster into the words, and the mutual feeling didn’t go unmissed by her front-row audience of one.  She wrapped both hands around the mic, cupping it lovingly as she delivered the last line to every full-blooded male in the room with a pout and knowing smile.

Let me touch you for awhile.

 

A smirk twisted his face.  “yeah darlin’ that would be nice.”

 

The music dropped to a hush, and the proverbial pin could have dropped and been heard in that dive-bar.  The steel guitar sang out as the familiar country cadence wound its way through the room.  With a flick of her hip to the beat and a toss of her hair, fixing her captive audience with two shining eyes, she hit the next verse.

I'm gonna ruin my black mascara.
You're drinkin whiskey when it should be wine.

 

Logan tilted his head at the words filtered into his thoughts. With a rye grin he tipped the fresh glass toward the woman on the stage.   She never broke her rhythm but acknowledged the gesture with the lyrics and a smile.

You keep a-lookin' into that mirror.

But to me you're lookin' really fine.

 

The mirror, his refection.  How often had he tried to avoid looking at it?  Self-persecution had always been one of Logan’s strong suits.   He saw himself time and again as the ‘wrecker’, not just when he was in his feral moods - that came with the territory - but as a wrecker of his ‘own’ happiness.  He looked at himself and saw a man who had no chance of finding love or peace and the more he looked at himself and fed himself this bullshit-line of propaganda the more he pushed people away and the more it became a self-fulfilling prophesy; an ever-decreasing circle of pain.  Take now - the reason he’d ended up at the bar.  He’d convinced himself that the one person he so desperately wanted to give his heart to, the one person he felt could make his life complete would never in a million years accept him and so he had driven a wedge between them with words and moods and actions till they had - feeling in a state of disorientation - disconnected themselves from him.  “Quod erat demonstrandum.” The old Latin phrase for ‘point proven’ rattled around Logan’s brain.  He sighed as his eyes refocused on the stage.  But she always knew how to sing it away, the pain, well for a while anyway.  She always knew the right thing to say at the right time.  That’s why he came back here.  She had no agenda, no why’s or when’s, just time and patience and a shoulder.

I don't really know you,
But I'd be willin' to show you,

 

He smiled to himself again.  “That’s right darlin’, ya don’t know me.  If ya did, I guess you’d be just like the others.  But ya never have bin.”  Logan eyed the curvaceous singer with unabashed desire.  Never once in all the years she’d known him had she asked anything from him.  He came to the bar, he talked, she listened.  If he needed more she was there for him, if he didn’t, well sometimes just talking was enough.

I know a way to make you,
Laugh at that cowgirl as she's walkin' out your door.
I know a way to make you smile.

 

Her voice swelled over the room as she lifted the mic from its stand and flicked back her brunette hair, giving the smoky room a seductive glance over her shoulder with full pink lips and a flash of green eyes.

Just let me whisper things,
You've never heard before.
Just let me touch you, baby.
Just let me touch you for awhile.

 

She fixed her glance on the Stetson-wearing man at her feet as she delivered the last refrain of the chorus. 

I don't really know you,
But I'd be willin' to show you,
I know a way to make you smile.
It's been a long time,
Let me touch you for awhile.

 

The haunting sound of the steel guitar faded as the spotlight dimmed.  A half-hearted applause rattled around the bar followed closely by the buzz of chat and glasses chinking; the essence of the song lost on the rabble’s addled, beer-soaked brains, all except one.

 

*********

 

Logan sucked down the last of the whiskey and pulled himself up in the chair to huddle over the table, contemplating his beleaguered existence.

 

“Well if it ain’t my old friend Mr. Logan.  How longs it been sugar?”

 

“Too long Mariella, too long.”

 

“There’s only two reasons you ever come down here, to drown ya sorrows and to…”

 

“See you darlin’.”  Logan finished with a smile.

 

“I was hopin’ you’d say that.”  She winked.  “So what’ll it be?”  She asked.  He flashed her a look and saw her nod towards his empty glass.

 

“Oh, same again.”  Logan replied.

 

Mariella flicked a hand towards the bar “Right with ya Ell.”  The barman acknowledged.

 

“So what is it this time, sugar?  She say no?”

 

Logan pushed back his Stetson and sighed, a deep painful sigh.

 

“I see.”  Mariella answered his silence the soft smile passing to a concerned look.  “She didn’t say nothing cos you didn’t tell her did ya?”  She asked.

 

“Nope.”  Logan replied of hand.

 

“Ah hell, Logan honey,  what am I gonna do with you?”

 

The two shot glasses arrived accompanied by a full bottle of JW.  Logan reached for the bottle and poured the round.  It was a rhetorical question Logan couldn’t answer.  He knocked back the content of the glass and grimaced at its harsh kick.

 

“Do ya still love her?”

 

Logan reached out for the bottle again.

 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”  Mariella whispered.  “You know if you keep this up its gonna eat you up so bad ain’t no-one gonna care how ya feel…’cluding me.”  She reached out and placed a warm hand over his.  Logan paused with the glass half way to his lips.  She didn’t mean it but it was her way of getting through his thick hide.  He looked into her eyes, those two deep emeralds that reminded him so much of another soul he cared so much about.  The proverbial knife twisted in his side a little more.  Just one more he’d driven away.

 

A contemplative silence fell between them as he poured them both a drink.  He knew of course she was right, then again, she was always right.  But typically, what she said and what he did about it were two sides of the same coin.

 

“She ain’t spoke to me fer a week.”  He offered, finally feeling the need to explain himself.

 

“I’ll bet you pushed them buttons just a little to far didn’t ya honey?”

 

“Guess.”  He muttered as he poured another round.  Why was it she always knew how to make him feel that little twinge of guilt that he managed to keep at bay for so long.  Was that the reason he came?  He’d never been able to understand why he let her, of all people – a singer in a dive bar – hold up the mirror to his idiosyncrasies and show him the error of his stubborn ways.  But like a mistress and her client, their relationship had always been an anonymous one.  He told her things he never told another living soul and she listened and told him the truth.

 

“You can’t fight fire with fire sugar.  Puttin’ up these barriers every time she’s near isn’t gonna endear her to ya you know.  Just for once… show her the side you show me.”

 

His head snapped up from the whiskey glass to meet her eyes with a look of pain, refusal and determination.

 

“Don’t gimme that look cowboy.    The balls in your court.  Take a risk just this once.  Let her see you the way I see you…let her touch you Logan, you never know you might just like it.”  she smiled at him and swallowed down the drink.  The silence returned.

 

 

 “You know something darling,” Mariella, smiled seductively.   “I have just the thing to take your mind off all of this.”  Standing she held out her hand.  Logan paused, looking at the small white hand in front of him then, let his eyes glide up the arm to that warm smile and those sparking eyes and rich brown hair.  Smiling, he pushed himself from the seat and reached out, taking her fingers in his.  She led him slowly through the haphazard tables and into the darkness at the back of the bar.  Here it was quiet, private, they would be alone.  As she reached the large piece of black velvet curtaining that acted as a partition she turned to him. “I know a way to make you smile sugar,”  She leaned in close and let her lips brush his cheek, “If you’ll let me.” She whispered.  Logan shivered at the hotness of her breath on his face and the arousing scent of her perfume.  He squeezed her hand in compliance.

 

Mariella pulled back the curtain and lead him into the darkness beyond, reaching for the light switch as she did so.  “Straight pool, best of five, and no cheating…. It's been a long time, honey ya ready to get that tight little ass of yours whipped?”

 

“Stacked ‘em up darlin’.”  Logan growled, a sly smile on his lips as he hung his hat on a nearby peg and reach for a cue. “ya’r in fer a long night.”