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lhostgil · 2 months

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[For @waldmaerchen, who has been very kind + their lovely art which continues to spark joy. ]

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“Our nature is that of survival of the fittest and licking our own wounds.

Humans pretend to have evolved and are distinct from animals;

Putting up airs of being elegant and noble.

But in the face of desire, our animal instinct can’t be denied.”

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‘I remember when this was a nice town.’

The thought crossed Logan’s mind, brief like the passing breeze that had brushed past him. He took in a deep breath, let it fill his lungs and then eased it out through his nose. The air was cold, like a thin knife of ice; yet, the physical sensation paled in comparison to the harsh, unforgiving realization that had punctured a hole in his chest and turned a part of his—beautiful, riddled with fault lines, but whole—world into shattered crystal.

A low, soft mutter slipped out of his lips; more of a sigh than a growl, a bitter chuckle of resignation had also followed it. “If I couldn’t remember anything from then, it would have been great to return here.”

The hardened man’s eyes kept away from resting on any of the faces—

Cold.

Hard.

Hungry.

Drunk.

Hopeful.

Scheming.

Desperate—

Street faces.

It was beginning to turn dark—golden sunlight rapidly giving way to encroaching night—as was expected of the shorter days that characterized this season. Nonetheless, the streets remained crowded; lampposts stood every thirty meters or so along both sides of the boulevard, casting their glowing liquid pools of yellow. Adding to it was the indoor lighting from various businesses and taverns—spilling out into the pavement—from their large glass windows.

Yet, as bright as they were, their light was one that could not reach into the black shadows haunting the alleyways; to pass into any one of the mouths of the back alleys was to be swallowed—wiped from existence.

His keen instincts guided him as he walked mechanically: paying just enough attention to avoid meandering cyclists and vehicles; the occasional peddler seeking to sell whatever it was in their hands; the puffed up, swaggering strut of those with firearms displayed for all to see.

All that was secondary to the paper bag cradled in his arms; Logan did not at an eye at the weapons waved, people shoved, the intimidation and crude gang horseplay occurring around him as he passed by them—when the crack of a gunshot sounded in the distance, he did not even turn his head towards the direction of its source.

None of that mattered; not really, even when all of it was stacked on one side against the individual who stood on the other end of the metaphorical balance scale in his mind.

Besides, it was not his business or place to care—he was a private eye who occasionally took on subcontracted work from local official enforcement on the side at his own discretion. He had a working relationship with them, but was by no means under their payroll as an officer or provided the same immunities and privileges as one.

Either way, even if someone were to say that it was his civic responsibility to give a shit—

He was not obliged to go out and intervene or risk his life. He was however, obliged to adhere to civic duty: taking action to avoid run-ins with the law— which as things were, the latter’s impartial reach and vigilant sight was limited.

In any case…

Logan shook his head and sighed; it was ridiculous to still be this bothered when whatever he had heard was entirely false, nothing more than rumour—unconfirmed and rarely accurate speculation—

Except, he could not stop himself from reaching deep into his heart; despite knowing that he would find no comfort in doing so. For all of his discipline and experience in life—from carrying out innumerable brutal, questionable, simply unforgivable acts or just witnessing them without lifting a finger to intervene when he could have, or even begin to form a single thought that questioned any of it…

There was no bulwark he could summon to overpower the human heart, and his had been struck by a lash of foreboding that had only doubled.

The detective heard the mocking, almost pitying voice again: he’s been doing this longer than you’ve been sleeping with him—oh yes, we know about that and more too.

A low growl rose from his throat; he could shake his head till he gave himself a headache, but doing so would not rid him of those poisonous words that had muddied his clear mind.

So instead, he adjusted his thoughts to focus on the item nestled inside the brown Kraft gift bag.

It was not something that would appear to be fancy or lavish to most at first glance, but it had cost him a pretty penny; a plain, scarf made of cashmere wool.

‘I can just walk away; even now, I could just not show up to our agreed upon meeting.’

Blue eyes shifted to peer at the delicate, woven article of clothing; a swelling sense of unreasonable anger bubbled up from his heart—bringing with it the urge to rip the fabric to shreds.

He was not aware of speaking—as if someone else was using his mouth, to his own ears, the voice that came out of his lips sounded different from how his own usually was. “That’s right, I’ve always put aside my suspicions and chose to trust that you weren’t any of that.”

The voice inside his head, whispered softly, ‘you didn’t just suspect, you knew all along and accepted it nonetheless. What cabaret performer has easy access to morphine like he does for his injuries—of course he had to have certain connections.’

A dense black fog formed and gathered at the back of his mind, thickening into a smog that clouded his vision—

“Oh, kind sir…”

He looked away from the scarf to find himself staring into the darkness, towards direction of the frail, old voice that had broken through his thoughts. His eyes made out the rough silhouette of a homeless elderly man, sat against the wall of an alleyway.

‘Here’s your chance, you can give this scarf to this old man; rid yourself of this gift and go on your merry way—severing all ties with the truth of that person you so dread facing.’

Logan felt his fist clench, though he was certain that his face remained in an attentively blank expression that betrayed no emotion. After what felt like an eternity—when only a few minutes had passed—the stocky man reached into his coat pocket and tossed the loose change he found in there into the other’s empty bowl; each one of them settling at the bottom in a noisy clatter.

Despite the warm thanks his ears managed to catch as he walked away mechanically, the detective knew what he had done was hollow: —

In that—

The moment Logan turned to look at whose voice had drawn him out of his pondering and his eyes made contact with the diseased, sickly appearance belonging to a body with one foot in the grave, a flash of intuition had gripped him and he knew:

This elderly man would not live to see the sunrise or feel its warmth.

‘You could have given him the scarf. Even if it would not have done anything more than provided a sense of comfort.’

Unbidden and unwanted, Logan felt tension bloom below his ribs; indeed, he could have done just that. Right there, it would have just taken an effortless toss to rid himself of the item weighing more than it should in his mind due to its association with the source of his inner conflict and present suffering.

So, why hadn’t he just thrown the bag over?

Truthfully, whether he did anything or chose to turn a blind eye: the result would not have changed in the slightest. No choice of his—justified with civic, moral, selfish reason or otherwise—would have mattered.

Just as the predators of the animal world hunted down prey with their claws and teeth; as parasitic creatures often formed quasi-symbiotic relationships with their should-have-been victims when the former failed to consume and assimilate; the world at large made no promises and therefore no lies regarding its character—Nature as it was—that people so enjoyed fantasying and giving it a metaphoric aspect of a living being sentient enough to have a moral sense of its own, good, or evil.

Because it was hard to accept the plain truth:

That the world was simply a very big place where many, many things lived in and all of them die.

Therefore there was no outsmarting it, or trusting it. Neither was there befriending it, or overpowering it—nor was there bargaining with it, or deceiving it.

That was all there was to it.

Logan felt a scowl cross his face and he took a breath, closely followed by another. The tension within him eased slowly; after a few minutes, it was as if he had not even experienced the earlier encounter at all.

Then—

He found himself trying to fend off street children trying to offer him an assortment of trinkets; scrap they had found, or likely, pocketed off from the many unfortunate persons before him. In their words, “we’re giving them to you at special rates cause you look like someone who knows what’s good when they see it.”

They were children; young, impressionable—many of them probably younger than they looked to be—at an age where they should be at home, under the care and responsibility of their parents…or whichever adult figure was available in their lives.

Yet, here they were: selling this, enduring that—exchanging their youth, hopes and future…

For what?

Perhaps, it was due to the outwardly alert air he had projected, along with an unspoken, keep your hands to yourself—If you know what’s good for you; the small, cold, hungry faces surrounding him with faint hope in their eyes didn’t dare get too close to him. At least, not within their reach to start pawing at him with their little hands that were reddened from cold—instead of being warm and around a soft toy.

As it had been with the elderly man—

Logan rummaged through his own pockets with one hand while the other held onto his paper bag. Dully, he noted that the noise coming from his pockets sounded louder than before—as though subconsciously, he was doing it on purpose to have their attention concentrated on the coin that was about to show its face to the world.

When his fingers found itself a loose note however…

“No need to give me anything or thank me. Whatever you manage to take is yours.”

The moment he finished speaking; he flung his closed fist to the air, opening it up to release a scatter of coins—and a singular, crumpled-up small note-bill.

In the time in took to blink, as though on cue, he was left alone as maddened hands and feet scrambled around him. Whether it was to grab as much as they could get a hold of, or to kick and punch a fellow competitor, or to snatch and deprive another of what they had managed to obtain for themselves—

Did any of that matter?

Even if he had distributed what he had thrown out fairly amongst them, they would covet, lie, steal—do anything in their means—to obtain more than their share. Once more, whether he chose to ignore their existence: walking away without bothering to engage those youths; or, chose to chide them as a responsible adult, with hope that they might learn from the err of their ways…

The plain fact of the matter was simply thus—again, no act or choice of his would matter.

‘You could have handed them the scarf. It is valuable; you could have told them as such. They could have it be cut up or kept whole and resold; with them keeping the money from it after.’

Although his face betrayed nothing; Logan could hear something inside him crack—much like a sheet of glass put under too much pressure but yet to reach the point of it shattering into fragmented pieces.

From a corner of his vision, the stocky man spied a bin fire roaring away.

‘How convenient. Perhaps this is how it ends; a cashmere scarf devoured by the flames instead of given away to those who could have had better use for it.’

He distantly observed the crackling flames; however, instead of his thoughts being that of leaving the scarf to be reduced to ash—

They were instead thoughts of the first time he reached up to the leathery burn scar on a peacefully sound asleep face.

‘The biggest joke here is that all this turmoil is because you fear meeting the one this scarf was meant for as a gift. Yet, even when given all manner of excuse to rid yourself of him—’

Logan blinked; as he did, he felt the corners of his mouth almost, but not quite, pull upwards to crack a smile.

“Somewhere, in the time we spent together,” he murmured, “I began to consider his life—and by extension, anything associated with him as having more value: as being more worthy of justifying, preserving and trusting than that of others.”

Hence, now, when he was a meter away from being face to face with him: his friendly acquaintance whom he had met by chance: his close friend and confidant: the man with a storied past who was simply just another person trying to survive in this world that devoured people whole, and did not spit their bones out after.

Logan discovered that he did not know what to say.

Just seeing the stretched shadow belonging to the man for whose sake he had loosened his grip on notions of right and wrong—ideals that had seemed so simple and so clean in his everyday life—left the detective’s mouth dry and craving for a drink.

Despite the absence of rain, a gloved hand held the handle of an open umbrella. Standing under the cloth canopy was a dark-haired man; wearing a suit tailored for a deceptively strong, lithe physique. In more ways than one, Logan observed that this particular choice of attire reflected the other’s personality and qualities more openly than all the other clothes he’d seen him in.

An appreciation for beauty but not gaudy ostentatiousness; someone who found comfort in and enjoyed collected, immaculate elegance tempered with a sense of dashing charm.

“Elf.”

Kurt Wagner turned to face him, and with an effort that stirred Logan’s heart; the former curved his lips into a trembling smile—the result of straining against stiff scar tissue. He extended his free hand towards Logan, smile widening just a little when it was taken in a gentle, but strong and warm grip.

“Logan,” he murmured slowly. His brows relaxed, and his eyes were lit with a tender warmth. “Liebchen.”

Then he lowered his head until Logan could not quite see his eyes.

“Oh, Logan…”

Logan offered a reassuring squeeze to the hand he held, and pressed a gentle finger on the other’s lips when he raised his head. “Before you say anything, here.”

Silence fell between them while a pair of hands draped a cashmere scarf around a scarred neck and looped the longer end twice before tying the two ends off to the side.

“Now you have a scarf for the weather,” Logan rumbled, “and it won’t irritate your scars,”

“May I know what brought about this bout of generosity?”

A shrug, followed by a tender peck to a gloved hand, “nothing in particular. I had simply thought of getting something that suited you and for you alone.”

‘Not anything else, but just you for who you are. Like how not all of your apparel and belongings are yours alone—often to be used for another, or on behalf of another—at least now, perhaps this could be among the few that belongs to you truly.’

Because in this world—

Where many things lived and died in.

Where people dreamed of building their own towers to the heavens with sand and were willing to use any means, or pay any price for their own greed…

The truth was that they were all alone.

And that they feared it. ================================================

This piece has taken longer than expected, and I did not strictly follow the comic X-Men noir universe; but I hope it was a fun read nonetheless. I wanted to try and do something that did the Noir style and genre justice more than just take the typical elements that 'defines' Noir on the surface.

I re-read X-Men noir again.

It's them and every universe ♡ Also spun some nice headcanons with @lhostgil 👀

#nightcrawler #kurt wagner #logurt #wolverine #xmen #xmen noir

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lhostgil · 2 months

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Just a little food for thought...

[I know I've been away from here for a while, but it's a bit because I've been all over the place with work and life, as well as not feeling much for posting anything in here. Nonetheless, here I am with a little...post. Featuring a conversation topic I've had with a close friend or two re the recent and ongoing trajectory of the X-Men comic writing.]

Perhaps it's just my personal upset, but the way the writers are handling things feels inconceivable to me because it's not the kind of stuff I am used to. In very general terms--this is somewhat related to Asian vs Western writing when it comes to takes on gods/god-like beings. In Western writing, everyone and their grandma seems to want to become god (or god-like), or to enforce the worship/reverence of a god. [See also most of the motivations of the leading mutants of the Krakoa era, as well as those who are already considered to be of a level that puts them as good as 'godlike']

And really, I don't get it. Because as a non-western reader, from my perspective and cultural background; just speaking very generally from the position of someone who grew up with predominantly Asian writing and media:

In Asian writing, everyone and their grandma can become a god...but just as gods can ascend, so can they fall. To that, what everyone and their grandma wants more than to become a god--more than becoming a supreme being--

Is to slaughter the gods.

//I'm sure most people would be familiar with such a trope especially in Asian media--books, shows, games--somewhere along the line you will definitely fight god(s) and kill them. JRPGs are notorious in the implementation of this trope.

And the reason isn't anything complex: it's just very simply that gods are allegory in Asian writing as representative of oppression and oppressive ideals--especially in the context of failed social systems.

Slaying a god is the equivalent of freeing yourself from their oppression; overthrowing their authority and saying "on what grounds do I have to subject myself to the whims of another? Just because someone is supposedly better, stronger, more powerful...then it is only right that the rest have to lie down and take their abuse? Suffer the consequences of their shitty acts and choices?"

Which leads to the natural progression that is: if you want a world that is supposedly built, created and as close as were everyone is equal --a human-made paradise where everyone grasps their own fate and destiny-- the first thing to do is to start at level one; to rebel and to kill the gods. That's how anyone can begin to move away from the past and walk towards a future that truly belongs to them.

[Admittedly, I do somewhat see this as part of the reason why I was fairly confused by people being upset with Kurt's arc in Krakoa; in a world where they are trying to establish themselves as free from the past, what he did actually makes the most sense in comparison from to the rest of his compatriots.]

Though I suppose, I also can't ignore that there is cultural difference when it comes to viewing the idea of defying a supposedly supreme divine being. As well as the concept of divine/god(s).

#x men comics #x-men #kurt wagner #nightcrawler

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