It was the Law of the Sea, they said.

12in2008/Mission0001: Stargate Atlantis

2008-02-26T20:00:00Z

Title: Scents and Sensibility
Rating: X for explicit sex
Pairing: Ronon Dex/Rodney McKay
Summary: The team goes out to prove themselves in a thorny wilderness, sans guns. Maybe catching the wolf inside the man is a metaphor, maybe it's not.
Fandom(s): Stargate Atlantis
Crossposted: mission_central, 12in2008, ballroomblitz
Words: 4000ish
Disclaimer: I think I write better on drugs; this is me writing off of them.
a/n: Sorry this report is late. I was dead. Also, I apologize for the horrible pun in the the title. I was just recently dead. It affected my humour. Also, the title has nothing to do with the report. It is there to throw off the enemy.

Scents and Sensibility

"You panicked and fell into a Greggii bush, Rodney." Sheppard was unmoved by the sight of Rodney's ass visible through the rents in his trousers.

Rodney wheeled on him. "I can tell the difference between the flora and fauna of this particular world, thank you." He gesticulated at his ass. "And my ass has been in enough thorn bushes over the years that I think I would know if I fell in one. I am telling you, I was attacked. By something large. And dangerous." His heart was still pounding and he wasn’t sure if he was more furious at nearly having been eaten or at not being believed about it.

"Rodney," Teyla said gently. "This whole ritual of capturing the serigala within, it's symbolic." She fed a few thick, thorny branches to the fire and looked up at Rodney, her eyes far wiser than the age in her face. "We leave our weapons and we go out without resources, and we come back understanding what it is to live as the animal does, and we show that we respect their world."

"I respect it already," Rodney fumed. "I respect it a lot. I tend to respect things like freezing to death and dying of starvation." He stomped over to his backpack and started sorting through to find another pair of pants.

"If you respected it, you wouldn't be cheating," Ronon rumbled. He was sprawled by Sheppard's feet, the firelight glinting off of his skin and eyes. Of all of them, he looked most at home in this wilderness.

"I am not cheating." Rodney clutched his intact pants to his chest. "They said that I was allowed to take my religious necessities with me, as a priest of the temple of knowledge."

"I don't see anyone else with spare pants." Ronon rolled to his feet, chuckling softly under his breath.

"I don't see anyone else with my IQ or delicate constitution." Rodney glanced about furtively before stomping off in what felt like the safest direction.

The sky was an arch of midnight blue-turning-black studded with stars that Rodney was tempted to try and name all over again (that had been what he was up to when the whatever it was scared the bejeesus out of him and clawed out the ass of his pants) when he looked up through the clawed fingers of the Crataegus trees. If they'd been on Earth, Rodney would have assigned them to the family Rosacea. Rose trees. It was too cold for them to be blooming though the leaves were starting to unfurl tentatively.

Too cold for much of anything, even for playing astronomy, though anything was better than hanging around watching Sheppard and Ronon vie good-naturedly for Teyla’s attention. Some people weren’t that far from the basic animal within; none of them were even serious about it, it was almost like they did it just to pass the time because they didn’t have anything better to do. Rodney put his back to a tree and started unlacing his boots. He had his pants down around his knees, detritus digging into his feet through his thick thermal socks, when he heard the whisper of something to his right.

"Who's there?" he snapped, clutching at his pants and trying to decide whether to yank them up or not.

“Damn thorns,” Ronon grumbled.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Rodney still hadn’t decided if the pants were going up or down.

“Making sure some seri—whatever it is doesn’t eat you while your pants are down.” Ronon was a shadow and then he resolved in the faint starlight, his strong features traced with silver. He disappeared again as he crouched down with his back to a tree, facing Rodney.

“Serigala. There’s no need to mock me.” Rodney yanked his pants off the rest of the way and tugged the belt out of them with a grunt, then threw them on the ground. Damn things.

“You know what your problem is?” Ronon grabbed a stick and used it to snag Rodney’s pants, tugging them toward him.

“What, you’re playing Heightmeyer now?” Rodney shook out his other pants – there’d been an unfortunate incident some months ago with a scorpion-type creature and he still had a sore spot on his ass right where it curved into his left thigh and… what was it with him being endlessly humiliated?

“You don’t take yourself seriously enough.” Ronon started tearing Rodney’s pants into strips.

“What… what are you doing with my pants?” Rodney got the new ones on and did them up. “And I take myself extremely seriously. God knows no one else does.”

“Look, if Sheppard comes back and says, ‘Some werewolf tried to bite me on the ass!’ everyone believes him, because he expects it.” Ronon was a velvet voice in the darkness, some kind of weird oracle. He sounded far more intelligent when one wasn’t looking at his feral, dreadlocked beauty, Rodney mused. Then he hoped he never said anything like that out loud, ever. “You hardly believe yourself, so why should we believe you? And I’m making something useful.”

“They were useful when they were on my ass,” Rodney muttered. “And I do so believe that something tried to eat me.” He crouched down to lace up his boots and caught a glimpse of Ronon’s eyes glittering in the dark.

“You don’t expect us to. It’s all over you like stink.” Ronon stood up and wandered off seemingly at random until he reached up into a tree and grabbed something, wrenching it down with a slight noise of effort. Tribulus vines were ropey and tenacious and produced a nutlet that had horns so sharp and thick that they stuck into the soles of one’s boots and had to be wrenched out with a pair of pliers. Rodney hated this damn place. “So no one does. People believe you in the lab when you say, ‘that blinking thingie is going to explode’.”

“Thingie?” Rodney was stuck on Ronon using that word, and then he was also stuck on Ronon having a conversation with him, and after that he was stuck on Ronon making sense. If this planet had a subtitle, it would be ‘Rodney McKay Gets Stuck On Things’.

“Whatever it is at the time.” Ronon dismissed technology as a whole with a shrug of one glossy, muscled shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Okay, so what if you have a point?” Rodney did up his belt and started sorting his Necessities (handkerchief, epi-pen (in case of incidental citrus), etc) into the pockets of his new pants. “I don’t expect them to believe me because they don’t believe me. They started it.”

“Now I see where your people got tied up in those Hundred Year Wars,” Ronon said, and then he laughed softly, derisively. “Doesn’t matter who started anything, McKay. Only thing that matters is who finishes it. You want to go on being a laughingstock, you go ahead.” He was doing something with the vine and Rodney’s pants that Rodney couldn’t make out in the dark.

“What are you making?” he asked, to avoid admitting that Ronon might have a point.

“Lariat,” Ronon said, then he grunted. “Damn thorns.”

“What for?” Okay, now Rodney was curious. He took a few steps closer, squinting to see what was in Ronon’s hands. The light was actually getting a little better, which tweaked his curiousity in another direction. “Is it a full moon tonight?”

“Can’t you smell it?” Ronon tugged at the thing he was making. The vines were too stubborn to tie into any shape on their own but Rodney could make out that with the strips of cloth, they braided into a very sturdy rope, probably one that could hold a knot. “And I’m making a snare.”

“We already ate.” Rodney took the finished lariat that Ronon handed him and held it obediently, without thinking, while Ronon worked on braiding another strip of vine into it. “Also, I think this thing would catch a cow.”

“Or a man.” Ronon’s hands flashed in the silvering light. “Or a serigala.”

“You believe me?” Rodney almost forgot to hang onto the rope.

“I know how many thorn bushes you’ve fallen in, McKay,” Ronon said, straight-faced. “I can count past ten, even with my shoes on. I figure even you have to know the difference between that and a slavering werewolf.”

“…thanks. I think,” Rodney managed, after a moment. The only other thing he could think was that Ronon was going to tie him to a tree as bait, but he was pretty sure that Sheppard would have nixed that idea. He had in the past.

“Come on.” Ronon tied off the end of the lariat with a twist and shoved the last of Rodney’s pants into his pocket. “Show me where it happened.”

“Well…” Rodney looked up and cast about to try and remember where he’d been looking at the time. “I think I’d been trying to get a good angle on the blue dwarf…” He turned about several times in place. “…of course avoiding the firelight from you three… I’m not sure…”

Ronon grabbed him by the collar and struck off into the dark. “You were over here.”

“You’re sure you’re not using me as bait?” Rodney stayed well clear of Ronon putting the snare together on a path between a pair of low-hanging Crataegus trees, at the juncture of two paths. Rodney had his back to an outcropping of red rock that still held a hint of the sun’s warmth and it was lovely.

The Greggii bushes had been pushed back enough here to make a comfortable little resting place, the ground underfoot hollowed out as though something slept here from time to time. Probably, Rodney thought, the graceful little Sunda deer. They’d not managed to capture one for dinner, dining instead on Bunolagus-type animals, silky-wooly little bunnies that made Rodney consider vegetarianism except that he was starving.

“Sheppard won’t let us use you as bait because you’re a… what is it…”

“Genius?”

“Unfortunate necessity.”

“He means that fondly,” Rodney said loftily.

Ronon didn’t say anything, he just adjusted the snare and stepped back to admire it. “That’ll do.”

“What now?” Rodney felt fidgety.

“Just do whatever you were doing before.” Ronon pointed upward. “Categorizing.” He leaned against the rock wall beside Rodney. “Maybe it’s after your brains instead of your ass,” he said thoughtfully.

“That would make it a zombie,” Rodney said, giving Ronon an impatient look. He pulled out his notebook and pencil – he’d had to bring analog equipment even though he was a priest and all that. “But at least that, I could understand.” He could feel the heat of Ronon’s bare skin near him even through the layers of his jacket and his shirt, and he could smell Ronon as well. It was a familiar smell, not unpleasant, musky and human instead of clean and chemical.

“One way or another, it’ll be back.” Ronon chuckled. “You do look good enough to eat,” he noted. “Soft and pale and delicate.”

“I resent that remark.” Rodney snapped the book shut and turned to Ronon, gesturing at him with the pencil. “And I am tired of being mocked because I don’t meet some hardened, grizzled ideal of combat-ready explorer. I… hey!”

Ronon plucked the pencil out of Rodney’s hand. “You’re gonna put someone’s eye out with that thing.”

“I’m not incompetent.” Rodney snatched the pencil out of Ronon’s hand. “And if you’ve dragged me out here pretending to believe me just so I can freeze my ass off while Sheppard and Teyla get their wild thing on, well, forget it.” He turned and started storming off the way he’d come.

A heartbeat later, he was up against the rock with Ronon’s body blocking him from going anywhere at all. Ronon smelled like everything Rodney wasn’t and inhaling went straight to Rodney’s dick, which was quite happy to prove the theory that opposites attract.

“I put a snare there, remember?” Ronon’s rumble was almost affectionate. “I don’t think anyone’s going to believe that you’re a werewolf or anything.”

“I was going to step around it,” Rodney spluttered, even though he’d actually forgotten about it entirely in his frustration. “And, you know, I can take a hint. If people want to be left alone, that’s none of my business but they could at least be polite enough to leave those of us not getting any with the fire for warmth.”

Ronon was very close, his hands on either side of Rodney’s shoulders, his face so close that Rodney couldn’t focus on it. “Cold now?”

“No,” Rodney admitted, after a moment’s thought about the whole thing. He was actually quite warm, between the heated rock at his back and Ronon, warmer and no less immoveable, at his front. “Not so much.”

“I think it’s a generally accepted politeness that people getting some leave the fire for people not,” Ronon said, his lips so close to Rodney’s that they brushed with every word.

Rodney’s brain was a good sixty seconds behind his dick in figuring this one out. “…why?” he managed to get out past the tightness in his throat and the urge to lick at Ronon’s mouth.

“Why not?”

Good question. When did Ronon become a genius, too? Rodney was about to say something else when Ronon’s mouth silenced him.

Ronon’s mouth more kept Rodney from talking than silenced him, after the first few hot, desperate kisses. Rodney made the most un-genius-like animal noises when Ronon’s hand cupped his hard dick through the fabric of his pants. Damnit, he did not have a spare pair of pants in the event that these got ruined.

And yet, Rodney didn’t care enough to stop. His hands were tracing cool arcs over Ronon’s chest, pushing aside the layers of savage clothing to get down to smooth pectorals and hard nipples that got shockingly good noises out of Ronon when Rodney rolled them between thumb and forefinger. Oh, fuck. This would mean that Ronon and Rodney were the ones getting up to something. That never happened. At least the Rodney part never happened.

But Ronon moved like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he wanted Rodney, like his huge, rough, killing hands couldn’t get enough of Rodney’s cold, white skin. If he was faking this, he was a better genius than Rodney and Rodney would declare himself outclassed. When Ronon ground his hard cock against Rodney’s hip, humping his leg for all intents and purposes, Rodney thought he was going to come in his pants.

“Fuck. Ronon.” Someone had to think enough to get people’s pants undone; for once, Rodney was the man of action. He got Ronon’s breeches open and the smell of heat and musk hit him like a hammer to the face. God, what that must taste like.

Rodney dropped to his knees, throwing all caution to the wind, and lapped at Ronon’s thick, dark cock with long, lascivious strokes. Ronon’s nails grated over the stone and he started swearing in languages Rodney didn’t recognize, though the surprise was evident enough in his tone. Good. Rodney felt smug as he used one hand to hold Ronon’s cock up against his flat belly and cupped Ronon’s balls in the other, leaning in to tongue them shamelessly. Ronon just made a fresh set of surprised and desperate noises as his cock started leaking. Rodney was suddenly a great fan of the ‘why not?’ philosophy.

“Up.” Ronon was grabbing at Rodney’s vest and pulling him to his feet long before Rodney was done enjoying Ronon’s cock and balls. Ronon pushed Rodney back against the stone and kissed him with a snarl. “Fuck.” It wasn’t an expression, it was a declaration of intent.

“Why not?” Rodney said breathlessly. He had sufficient lubricant and at least one condom in a pocket of his… there it was. Ever since the Unfortunate Leaping Crotch Rot incident, there was always a little safe sex kit in one’s gear. Nothing like someone – Sheppard, not naming any names – bringing home an STD that required only casual proximity to move between humans.

Ronon was everything Rodney had imagined he’d be in those random unscientific daydreams that Rodney denied he had, even to himself. He was relentless without being brutal, animal without doing damage. Rodney braced himself against the warm rock face and closed his eyes and let Ronon do what he did until they were both making deep, rough noises and Rodney wasn’t just warm, he was sweating as he writhed and ground his hips back to take all of Ronon’s impressive cock in.

Rodney braced one arm against the stone so he could lean his forehead on it and used his other gritty, dirty hand to jack off as Ronon fucked him with long, deep strokes that were so perfect Rodney had to wonder if Ronon could read his mind. He shuddered as his hand slid over his own dick, tightening around Ronon’s cock. Ronon growled and bit at the back of Rodney’s neck where the skin was so sensitive, sending jolts of pleasure down to Rodney’s dick until it dribbled precome that made jacking off slicker and better with each stroke.

Rodney bit his own arm through his layered clothing to stifle the wail that rose up as he started to shake. Ronon snarled and fucked him so hard that Rodney was going to have bruises on his ass as well as a scorpion bite but the pain just made it better. Rodney saw stars he couldn’t classify as he shot all over the stone in front of him. He was still jerking and coming when Ronon bit his shoulder and rammed in as deep as he could get, clutching at Rodney’s hips to keep him close as Ronon came in shudders.

They were standing there, trembling with the last waves of pleasure, when there was a noise like a great bow being plucked and a howl of fury. Ronon stopped panting in Rodney’s ear long enough to mutter, “Got him.”

“What?” Rodney elbowed Ronon in the ribs and shoved him away. There was a flurry of getting put back together, Ronon so he could check the trap and Rodney so he could figure out a way to kill Ronon and make it look like a mistake.

“You were right.” The thing in the trap was definitely semi-human and also definitely part-canine. It twisted and howled until Ronon grabbed the rope and swung it with perfect precision, knocking it’s head off of a tree trunk and knocking it out cold. “Wasn’t a thorn bush.”

“You… you set me up.” Rodney was ready to redefine his personal definition of livid.

“Well, sex does get animals like this interested,” Ronon said. He was grinning in the moonlight, looking sleek and sweaty and sated. “Figured it would work.”

“You said I wasn’t bait!” Rodney was too furious to be smug about the fact that he had been right about nearly being killed by an alien monster.

“You weren’t. I could have left you back at the fire and come back and just jerked off,” Ronon pointed out. “Or asked Teyla if she wanted to join me.”

“But… then…”

“Why not?” Ronon climbed the tree nimbly and let the creature down. Dropping to the ground again, he looked up at Rodney from a low crouch over his prey.

“What are you going to tell Sheppard?” Rodney checked to make sure his pants were done up properly and he didn’t look too much like he’d just been fucked, and fucked so well.

“That you helped me with the snare and the trap and we caught the serigala.” Ronon set to binding the thing up tightly. “He might even apologize to you.”

“Right.” Rodney snorted and that and shoved his hand in his pockets. He was still certain he’d been played, but maybe he was just expecting it by now.

“One of these days.” Ronon stood up with a grunt and threw the serigala over his shoulders. “Sheppard will stop worrying about his hair and being sarcastic at you long enough to figure out that he likes you. It’s like watching a seven-year old poking someone with a stick because they have a crush.”

“He. What?” Rodney almost lost sight of Ronon moving away because he was too stunned to move. He ran, and that was a little awkward, to catch up. “Likes…?”

“It’s pretty much an inside joke,” Ronon said mildly, leading the way back to camp – which was a good thing because Rodney didn’t have an idea so to where it was. “Weir finally noticed after that whole thing where you nearly drowned.”

Rodney had never been in on an inside joke in his life. The subject of them, yes, but never in on them. “It’s not very funny from here,” he pointed out.

“It will be once you get a better look at it.” Ronon looked over his shoulder at Rodney and grinned, his teeth flashing in the moonlight. “Funny.”

“Funny. Right.” Rodney trudged along in silence. “Are you…”

“Like I can smell it on him,” Ronon said. And that was the end of that.

“Where the hell have you two been?” Sheppard’s hair was actually standing on end. The lack of product combined with his apparent frustration made for some interesting coiffure choices.

“Capturing the wolf within the man.” Ronon dumped the unconscious thing at Sheppard’s feet. “McKay was right about it being out there.”

“Yes, and since I was, let’s go back to where there’s things like beds and electricity and things,” Rodney said, refusing to look at Sheppard.

“McKay was right? I may have to sit down.” Sheppard crouched down to inspect the serigala.

“Be careful, it may be feigning unconsciousness,” Teyla chided. She handed Sheppard a stick, which he used to poke at the thing.

Rodney looked up to see the first tentative poke, then glanced over at Ronon. There was a tiny curve at the corner of Ronon’s damnably pretty mouth and Rodney had to stifle the unexpected bubble of mirth rising up in his chest. Maybe it was kind of funny if you knew the little details. “Please be gentle with that,” he said, forcing tightness into his voice instead of laughter. “It may be of scientific value. I’d like a chance to look at it before you oafs break it.”

“You’d think you caught it.” Sheppard rolled his eyes and stepped away from the thing anyway.

“He did.” Ronon shrugged off Sheppard’s disbelieving look. “I just did the grunt work.”

Rodney almost choked on the laughter clawing its way up his throat. “He’s half-right,” he said, glaring at Ronon. “He did the grunting, I did the work. After all, it was me that thing was attracted to. At least something around here has good taste. Can we go now?”

“Night out under the stars never hurt anyone.” Ronon was sprawled in front of the fire again, hands tucked behind his head. The firelight danced on his bare chest and Rodney realized that the man hadn’t bothered to do up his clothes all the way before going back. John was glaring down at him and Ronon blinked up at him, all wide-eyed wild-man innocence. “What?”

“We got the werewolf. Serigala. Thing.” John poked it with his toe. “We go back. Mission accomplished. We’re done here.”

Teyla gave Ronon a narrow stare and then started kicking dirt over the dying fire. “The paths are clear enough to see under the full moon. We can be back by dawn.”

“And then breakfast.” Rodney shouldered his backpack. “All this werewolf hunting has me hungry.”

Ronon rolled to his feet again and scooped up their catch. “Sure,” he said lazily. “Why not?” He caught Rodney’s eye and Rodney could see the glint of humour there.

“Indeed.” Rodney pulled his notebook and pencil out. “I can make some notes while we walk.”

Sheppard was glaring between them as though they’d done something wrong and, for a moment, Rodney felt sorry for him. It wasn’t any fun to be on the outside of the joke. Then again – Rodney thought back over the last long while he’d been on Atlantis – Sheppard could deal with it a little longer. One of these days, if he behaved himself, Rodney would take him along as protection against werewolves when he went out to look at the stars some night, and he’d let Sheppard in on the joke.

12in2008: Blade Trinity

2008-02-18T02:13:34Z

Title: A to Z: Chapter One
Pairing: Blade/King
Rating: explicit sex between male characters, violence, sweat, indifference, King having a tantrum
Notes: the start of a much longer piece, partly written, but this stands alone as a pleasant romp
Words: 4000

A to Z: Chapter One

“Maybe we should talk about it or something.” Hannibal watched the speedometer on Blade’s car creep higher and higher. Behind them, the sky was growing hazy with smoke and flames. Another safehouse down. Still, something wasn’t right.

It should have felt good. Blade should have had that look that would be angry on other people but was actually his ‘satisfied’ expression. Instead he looked like a vampire had just fucked his mother over. Of course, Hannibal thought, one had, so maybe that was why Blade looked like that most of the time. Blade took a corner on three wheels, heading for the highway.

“Okay, tiger.” Hannibal grabbed at the ‘jesus handle’ over the door and considered taking up religion. “We don’t have to talk. We just have to not crash in the five minutes it’s going to take us to get another twenty miles and then you can cope with your emotions in a completely silent but constructive manner.” Oh, Christ. This was the on-ramp with the new-fangled cloverleaf. Maybe Burger King hadn’t been such a good idea.

“Are you sure hitting two places in one night isn’t overdoing it?” Hannibal slung a bandolier of light grenades over his shoulder and trudged after Blade as he headed down a narrow alley into another bolthole. “I mean, we run them off entirely and we have to pick up and go after them and I was just getting comfortable in my new room.”

“You can always call a cab.” Blade stopped and pulled out a pair of goggles to scan the buildings for runes. It was the first thing he’d said in two hours, the third thing he’d said all night. The previous two statements had been “Let’s go,” and “Now.” Six words was pretty much a fucking monologue.

“No, I’m good.” Hannibal resisted expanding on that statement. He was, actually, quite good. He’d taken out a score of vamps all on his little lonesome and been really damn witty doing it. A documentary crew would eat him up.

Blade just gave him that sideways look that had “You think so, loser?” written all over it, pocketed the goggles, and headed for a battered red door. When Hannibal started humming the Rolling Stones, the look turned murderous.

“Sorry,” Hannibal said quickly. “Red door. Couldn’t help it.” He picked up the pace and opened the door before Blade got there. A dark hallway led inward and a low bass beat summoned them on. “After you.” Blade tugged the hood of his coat up and sailed through without so much as a grunt of acknowledgement.

The bass beat swelled into a full scale riot of sound when they plunged into the rave that filled the bottom of this warehouse with a sea of vampires and familiars and innocents. Hannibal followed Blade through the crowd, watching him cast about as though he were looking for something. It wasn’t Hannibal’s business who Blade was after; for all that he never kept his mouth shut about the little things, he knew better than to question the big ones, especially the ones that might have anything to do with Blade’s past.

For a moment, Hannibal felt the music grip him and heat rose up his spine. He remembered a flash of the old hunger and the thrill of the hunt and, just then, he missed it. On one level, it had been amazing to be wild and predatory and immortal. Blade grabbed his arm and spun him around, his back hit a pillar, and he was suddenly utterly terrified that Blade had learned to read his mind.

That fear was gone in a heartbeat, replaced by a fresh new hell of confusion when Blade’s mouth covered his and Hannibal’s tongue was sliding over fangs. Oh, fuck. What the fuck?

Worse, it felt really good. Blade kissed like he killed, not holding anything back, and Hannibal was weak in the knees with it. His hands found purchase on the front of Blade’s black leather duster and he hung on to keep standing as Blade kissed him until he couldn’t breathe anymore. When Blade pulled his mouth away, Hannibal sucked in raver-flavoured air and realized that his eyes were closed.

Tentatively, he opened one eye and peeked up. He could see Blade’s eyes under the edge of his ubiquitous sunglasses, focused somewhere past Hannibal’s right shoulder. Okay, maybe this was some kind of strategic kissing. That made Hannibal feel a little bit better. The world wasn’t going completely mad.

“Don’t move.” Blade’s words were barely shaped on the breath that stroked Hannibal’s cheek and ear.

Hannibal had no intention of moving. Moving might have slid his ragingly hard dick against the column of muscle and bone that was Blade’s thigh pushed between his like Blade knew exactly what he was doing here. Oh, fuck, that was so embarassing. If he’d worn leather pants tonight, he wouldn’t have to worry about a big fucking wet spot on the front the next time Blade’s mouth found his.

Looking around was a good idea. Watching what he could of the room beyond Blade’s shoulder would distract him. There were eyes on him, the glassy eyes of a big shirtless man with muscles on top of muscles under slick dark skin, leather harness and pants and boots, and a shaved head. Hannibal knew that look, that completely erroneous calculation of an arrogant idiot bastard just before he had a go at Blade.

Hannibal’s hand twitched toward the mini-stake gun at his hip. That was a mistake, he knew that right away. Blade had said not to move and Hannibal’s punishment was that massive, powerful thigh grinding against his balls and dick, sending agony and pleasure chasing through him at once. Hannibal groaned and bucked against Blade’s thigh, shuddering as Blade’s mouth fastened on the smooth skin just below his ear.

“Oh, fuck.” He couldn’t focus and he had no idea what was going on and his hips were moving independantly, pushing him toward a wildly humiliating and confusing and desperate orgasm. Keeping his eyes open, keeping still, took everything he had. He realized that he was whining softly, pressing his throat against Blade’s teeth.

The big man took a few steps closer and Hannibal wanted to tell him to stop, to please wait just one more minute while he got off. He’d already humiliated himself utterly, he might as well get something out of it. The man slid a long, thin piece of polished wood out of his belt like he was drawing a knife. Hannibal’s back arched with pleasure and yet he smacked at Blade’s chest with one hand, trying to tell him to turn around before whatever Blade was doing got him staked and left Hannibal alone and unsated in a vampire nest.

The next thing Hannibal knew, he was trying to keep his feet and the big man was in the place he’d been, Blade’s hand around his throat. The stake bounced when it hit the floor and Blade kicked it out of the way without missing a beat as he pounded the man’s head into the pillar over and over again. Hannibal caught the stake before it impaled someone and drew attention to them. His head was spinning; he was beyond confused, his brain refusing to have anything to do with him until his dick shut up and stopped throbbing.

“Good to see you again, Sullivan,” Blade said conversationally. Sullivan’s head bounced off the pillar one last time with a squishy noise. “It’s been a while. How’s Sheridan?”

“Fuck you,” Sullivan said. He wasn’t fighting and Hannibal realized that Blade’s other hand was between them, Sullivan’s blood running down a silver stake already lodged between his ribs. That must have happened when Hannibal was being thrown aside like a used tissue.

“Not interested.” Blade’s arm flexed and the stake slid a little deeper. “Starting to itch yet?”

They were drawing some curious glances but no one wanted to interfere in the scene. Hannibal was somewhat resentful of that cowardice as killing a few things might have sated his adrenaline-soaked lizard brain, at least until he could find somewhere safe and welcoming to put his aching dick. That pretty much meant his own hand, which made him even more irritable. The music picked up to an even more frenzied pitch and the bass line went right down to Hannibal’s bones and strummed at his nerves from the inside out.

“Go ahead and do it. I’m not telling.” Sullivan spat blood at Blade, spattering his cheek and sunglasses. In the next instant he slammed his head forward into Blade’s face, smashing Blade’s mouth open. One hand clamped down on the last inches of silver stake between Blade’s hand and his own chest and the other fist came around like a wrecking ball into the side of Blade’s head.

Blade rolled with it, letting go of the stake and coming up with his gun pointed straight at Sullivan’s head. Hannibal caught Blade’s sunglasses as they came flying his way and pulled his own gun, putting his back to Blade’s.

“Last chance,” Blade said, still perfectly pleasant.

People started screaming and pushing to get away the minute the guns came out. Nothing made Hannibal want to shoot people like watching them behave like idiots. It was a vicious circle. He tucked Blade’s sunglasses into his pocket and waited for someone to screw up so he could pull the trigger.

“How about I take a message?” Sullivan’s voice was strained and Hannibal looked over his shoulder to watch Sullivan pull the stake out from between his ribs. Already, he was breaking out in rapidly swelling hives.

“Sure thing.” Hannibal could hear Blade grinning. “Tell her…” There was nothing to the message but Blade’s gun going off. Now he could pull the trigger.

“Okay, look. We need to agree before we go out on what me helping you out entails. It’s not like I have a problem with you kissing me and… all that… but seriously, at least a little warning next time.” Hannibal handed Blade’s sunglasses back from where he was huddled in the footwell of the car as they sped through the night, going the wrong way down the highway. In the back of his head, he was trying to remember when he’d last had any dignity.

There wasn’t an intact window in the car now. They’d managed to redefine ‘outnumbered’ back in the second safehouse. A motorcycle hummed by and a grenade bounced onto the front seat in front of Hannibal. He didn’t think twice about pitching it right back out. There was a flash of fire and rush of noise and the distinctive sound of a motorcycle spinning across the asphalt behind them.

“Seriously. We need to talk about this,” Hannibal went on.

Blade flicked his sunglasses open and put them on, at which point Hannibal realized that he wasn’t holding on to the steering wheel with either hand. A vampire leapt from a car keeping pace with them – in the correct lane, the cheaters – and landed on the hood. Blade fired the gun in his other hand, then grabbed the steering wheel with his free hand and swung it so that most of the burning corpse flew aside. A few coals came bouncing in and Hannibal brushed them off hastily.

“Ow, ow, HOT.” Another vampire dove halfway through the passenger window and Hannibal covered his face with one arm and fired his own gun. The creature exploded in fire and Hannibal pushed himself up to kneel on the seat, feeling the coals gnawing at his skin through his fatigue pants. “We are trying to have a fucking CONVERSATION here,” he screamed out the window. His next shot hit the driver in the head and the car veered off wildly as the driver went to ash. “Thank you.”

“I miscalculated.” Blade cut across three lanes of oncoming traffic and shot up the emergency lane of an onramp. The flaming skull between them exploded into sparkling dust and ash.

Hannibal gave up on salvaging these pants, ever, and sat down in his seat. Nothing like sitting in someone else’s dust to put your own life in perspective. “You what?”

“Sullivan. Thought he’d cough Sheridan up without a scene if I caught him.” Blade decided that the old car was good enough for all-terrain and took them down into a hollow and back out instead of around the curve. “I hate it when people mature.”

“Without a scene?” Hannibal thought about his seatbelt, then decided that he didn’t want to survive any crash Blade was going to get him into just now. “We are all about the scenes. It’s what we do. If we’re not making scenes we’re not us.”

“There is no us.” Blade found a road somehow, somewhere in the dark, and the car stopped lurching around like a drunken sailor on a trampoline. “I’m just cleaning this town up.”

“And then you’re moving on.” Hannibal sagged back in his seat. “What, tonight means nothing to you? You take me out, we have dinner, we kill a whole bunch of people, you make out with me in some steamy nightclub, get me all wound up, you don’t even have the decency to give me a happy ending, and then you tell me you’re moving on? Wow, do I ever feel dirty now.”

“Did you tell Abby I was back?” It wasn’t as if Hannibal had expected Blade to give a damn how he felt.

“No.” For that, Hannibal did feel properly dirty. “She’s busy tonight anyway. PTA meeting.” Blade actually turned to look at Hannibal, his face shifting into something like surprise. “Yeah, I know, it fucks my shit up, too. But someone’s got to do the right thing for Zoe.”

“Doesn’t seem like her.”

“What, doing the right thing or raising a kid?” Hannibal lifted his hips to brush broken glass and ash out from under his ass. “Abby always does the right fucking thing, and well, taking in strays seems to run in the family.”

Blade made a little noise in the back of his throat that had more meaning than most conversations Hannibal had had with him. It was enough to make Hannibal fall silent until he figured out where they were. He pointed to the next turn-off and Blade made the turn without questioning him. Sign language was good. Maybe they could work on that.

“Everything here?” Blade shoved at a few of the crates that Hannibal had stacked up in the office of an old printing house.

“Your serum stuff is in the top box.” Hannibal closed the door to the office and went from window to window, dropping the blinds. A flick of a switch and the careful application of his fist to the side of the television up on a bracket brought up the view from a set of security cameras. He kept his back turned until he heard the hiss of Blade’s inhaler and then had the time to sing the alphabet song in his head. “No one’s going to miss any of it. This time,” he said.

“Won’t be a next time,” Blade said. “I’ll find a workaround.”

“You could, you know, visit once in a while.” Hannibal turned around to watch Blade going through the boxes. Cases of bullets, light grenades, arrowheads, handguns… he’d brought what they could spare and then some. “Like people do.”

“I’m not people.” Blade picked up a crate and dropped it on the desk. He pried it open with his bare hands instead of using the crowbar Hannibal had so thoughtfully provided.

“Yeah, that’s real sexy.” Hannibal peeled off his ruined coat and dropped it over a filing cabinet. “I bet that gets the chicks wet.” There was box of first aid supplies on the floor. Let it not be said that he didn’t know his own limitations. “Not people. No, you’re the terror that stalks in the night. The lone fucking wolf.” Hannibal found the disinfectant spray and hosed down his shoulder where something had torn through leather and cloth and skin.

“FUCK. Human doesn’t turn anyone on. No. You’re special.” Ranting helped the pain fade faster. He yanked down his pants to get at a swipe along his side. “You’re the man without rules. The man who doesn’t need anyone. Doesn’t need anything. FUCKING OW, that stings. Did you take me along for the amusement factor? Because I don’t mind being the comic relief. I can do that. I don’t have any fucking pride, so long as I get to kill some…”

He never got the rest of the sentence out. The disinfectant went bouncing across the floor as Blade pinned him back against the filing cabinets with one hand around his throat. “Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Not really.” Hannibal looked at his distorted reflection in the curved lenses covering Blade’s eyes. “Fundamentally, I’m an extremely insecure person.”

“Bullshit.” Blade leaned into him and Hannibal felt that heat rising again. Great. And here he was with his pants falling down and his skin on fire with antiseptic and sometimes, only sometimes, he hated the way that pain turned him on. Blade leaned in so close that Hannibal could feel fangs brushing the fine hairs on his ear. “I don’t do comic relief.”

Hannibal only remembered the words later. In the moment, all he could feel was Blade’s cock hard against his hip. The serum, he told himself. Must be the serum. “Nice to know.” Could have been adrenaline, too. He blamed his own for the way he moved against Blade’s body and the fact that the little exhalation he got in return gave him the courage to grab hold of the man’s belt and spin him around.

They moved like dancing and Blade moved his hand from Hannibal’s throat to his jaw, fingers digging in so hard that Hannibal knew he’d be bruised under his beard. The grip forced his mouth open and Blade kissed him again, just as hot and fierce. The man did not fucking play around. No comic relief. Just relief.

Hannibal got Blade’s belt undone, got the button and zipper beyond it undone, and his fingers were so steady he had to wonder if he was dreaming. Blade’s teeth tore into his lip and his blood flooded both their mouths. The noise Blade made was so human that Hannibal didn’t feel anything but justified when he hit the floor so hard his knees cracked in unison.

Not people. Bull-fucking-shit. Blade wasn’t any different from any of them when Hannibal went down on him. He was hard and hot and he fucked Hannibal’s mouth too hard and not hard enough at the same time. It felt like a kind of revenge in spite of the fact that he was the one on the floor with a cock in his mouth. He fisted his hands in the fabric of Blade’s pants and took everything Blade had to give.

Fuck, but he was going to be eating through a straw for a week. That just made it so much better. He curled his tongue around the head of Blade’s cock – and he couldn’t stop to parse that or he’d forget to breathe – and sucked him in harder. He didn’t care that he was making animal noises in the back of his throat or that he was seconds away from coming in his pants. What the hell. It wasn’t like he could wear them again.

When Blade came, it was silent, a whole new silence, because Hannibal knew it wasn’t directed at him. It was all his. He swallowed hard and fast to keep up with one rush of come after the other, refusing to give in to his body’s screaming need for air. He was still trying to swallow the last of it when Blade’s hand around his throat jerked him up and off his feet.

For a moment, he was airborne and then he was on his back on the desk, Blade’s mouth on his, taking back what Hannibal was trying to swallow before Blade’s tongue stole it from him. His lip was bleeding and he could taste both of them, couldn’t smell anything else. Blade shoved a thigh between his again and moved against him, the demand as loud as a bootcamp shout.

Blade’s hands on his shoulders were like clamps, fingers of one hand digging into fresh wounds while Blade sucked blood and spit and come out of his mouth. Hannibal fought him a moment longer, nails breaking against Blade’s armoured vest, breath forced out of him by Blade’s weight on him, flesh tormented by the weapons crushed between them. Blade lifted him up just an inch and slammed him back down on the desk, picking up speed even in that tiny space, rolled his hips against Hannibal’s, and it was all over.

Coming was anything but surrendering. It was like a reward for every time he’d felt like such a fucking loss, a waste of space, extra baggage. Hannibal’s fingers found the sweat-soaked skin exposed at the collar of Blade’s vest and dug in as he rode Blade’s thigh, feeling it flexing against him while he came all over his own belly and soaked the front of his ruined pants. He felt skin part under his nails and shuddered all over again.

Not fucking people. Fuck that. Fuck Blade. Fuck me.

Blade dropped Hannibal back onto the desk again and stepped away. He shook his head and his neck cracked like a gun going off as his tension let go.

Hannibal lay on the desk, staring at the bare track lights overhead, and wondered if he was going to die now or something really fucking disappointing. Instead, as he was reaching out to find something to help him get up while his body was still twitching like he’d been electrocuted, Blade grabbed him by the hand and yanked him to his feet.

“You can shut up,” Blade said blandly. The sunglasses hadn’t even moved but there was a fresh sheen of sweat on him that made Hannibal feel better about himself than blowing up an entire rave’s worth of vampires.

“Just need a little boost to the self-esteem once in a while.” Hannibal yanked his pants up and settled them in place. That was going to be really fucking uncomfortable until he got changed.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Blade turned away, his own clothing already back in place. “In the meantime, get out.”

“What?”

“Get out. And don’t tell Abby I’m here or I’ll have to kill you. I don’t need any complications.”

“Ookay.” Hannibal started picking up his things.

“Tomorrow night. Here. And bring me a new car.” Blade looked over his shoulder at Hannibal. “Other one’s a little breezy.”

“Yeah.” Hannibal tried to walk straight as he headed for the door. “I noticed that.”

“King.”

Hannibal stopped with the door half-open and turned around. “Don’t tell me. You want me to wear something lower cut tomorrow night?”

Blade actually paused a beat before continuing. It was as good as a laugh from anyone else. “Don’t be late.”

12in2008: House

2008-02-15T03:12:41Z

Title: Do You Know the Muffin Man?
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: explicit sex between male characters, violence toward children's toys, verbal abuse, profanity, and muffin theft
Notes: I have no one to blame for this but myself. For phinnia, on Valentine's Day, since I cannot make her muffins in person.
Words: 5250

Do You Know The Muffin Man?

“What is this?” House was lounging comfortably in Wilson’s chair, stuffing another hunk of whatever-it-was that he’d found on Wilson’s desk into his mouth. Wilson was the source of all good things, really, when one boiled it down to brass tacks, or whatever the metaphor was.

“It’s mine.” Wilson stepped in, a cup of coffee that was probably to go with the whatever-it-was steaming in one hand. He put it down on the desk and reached over to grab the rest of the whatever-it-was from the plate in front of House.

House pulled the object of contention away before Wilson could get it back. “I know that or I wouldn’t be eating it. I asked you what it was, not who it belonged to.”

“To whom it belonged.” Wilson’s sigh was aggrieved with a capital Grief. “It’s a muffin.”

“Ish nah.” House had no compunction about speaking with his mouth full. If he didn’t eat up, Wilson might make another go at getting his not-muffin back. “Muffinsh aw dwy an’ tashelesh. Shish ish yike cake or someshing.” He swallowed. “But less irritatingly iced, and without any twee toppings that they put on cupcakes.”

“Take the paper off!” Wilson said hastily.

House was about to cram the rest in his mouth when he noticed that there was, indeed, a little paper cup melded to it. “I thought that was for extra fibre.” He peeled it off and sailed it across Wilson’s desk at him. It hit Wilson’s tie just before Wilson made a grab at it. “I know how you are about fibre.” He crammed the rest of the whatever-it-was in his mouth.

Wilson bent to pick up the paper and House got up out of his chair. He was giving Wilson a place to sit down, not checking out Wilson’s ass. “Was there anything else you needed?” Wilson discarded the paper neatly in the trash, the sissy, and turned around to look at House. Wilson even put his hands on his hips in his most ineffective ‘I’m irritated with you, House’ pose. House chewed the last of the whatever-it-was and swallowed unrepentantly.

“No, unless you have any more of those whatever-they-ares.” House made his way toward the door. Irritating Wilson was as good as Vicodin, while it lasted.

“Muffins. Chocolate muffins. With fig paste. Next time I’m making them with Ex-Lax.” Wilson took his lab coat off with an angry flick and graced House with a sideways glare.

“I’ll make sure to share the next batch with Cuddy,” House said brightly. That thought was remarkably cheering.

“House?”

House paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Yes?”

“Go away.”

“I was...” House gave Wilson a wounded look and pointed at the open door.

Wilson hung up his lab coat, and then looked over at House. “Yes, but this way I can pretend that you respect me enough to leave when I ask you to.”

“You’re lucky I have clinic hours,” House said loftily. He so rarely got the moral high ground. “My patients are waiting for me.”

***

Of course, the joke was partly on House because there was no joy in clinic hours. He was facing down a fever-eyed little waif clutching a stuffed doll that wore a ridiculous white hat and played a tinny, horrible song over and over and over again.

“She’s not herself.” The mother, a prematurely-dried stick of a woman wrapped in cashmere and silk, had a nasal tone that, had it not come from so high up, sounded like she was speaking out of her obviously-clenched nether sphincter. House thought that offering Wilson’s second batch of muffin-things to the clientele wouldn’t go far wrong.

“If only that could be said for others.” House pulled out the aural thermometer and had the little girl tilt her head. “I think it would be a perfect world if most of us weren’t ourselves. Some of us more than others. Do your ears hurt?”

The little girl shook her head once House had the thermometer out. If they weren’t hurting from that damn music from her doll, there must be something wrong with them.

“You’re lying,” House said pleasantly. Being right was fantastic. He took down the otoscope for confirmation. “There’s a party going on in your ears and you didn’t invite me.” Quite a party too, by the look of it.

“How dare you accuse my child of…” The woman stopped when House flashed her in the eyes with the otoscope. That was remarkably effective.

“She has an ear infection.” House looked down at the little girl. “I know you’re lying because hearing loss would only improve your quality of life, but I’m afraid that my Hippocratic oath requires me to…” He paused to grab the doll out of the child’s hands and he whacked it against the examining table until the tinny noise shut off, then he handed it back. “…requires me to prescribe you antibiotics so that you get better. Maybe then you’ll realize how bloody horrible that music is.” He sat down on the stool by the counter with a sigh of relief.

“But…” The little girl’s lower lip trembled. “That’s ‘Do You Know the Muffin Man?’.”

“I know the Muffin Man.” House scribbled a prescription for amoxycillin, strawberry-flavoured, onto a pad. If she’d actually cried, it would have been the banana. “So I don’t have to listen to the song.” He ripped the prescription off the pad and offered it up with a flourish. “Give her Motrin as well, as indicated on the packaging. No more, if you don’t want to kill her, no less, if you don’t want her to be suffering in silence like she already is.”

The mother snatched it out of his hand. “There’s no call for you to be rude to my child,” she snapped. “Or to lie to her.”

“But I do know the Muffin Man.” House grabbed his cane and got to his feet, giving the child and then the mother a brilliant grin that would have caused his interns weeks of extra psychotherapy. “Biblically, even.”

On that note, he was stumping out the door, letting it swing shut on the mother’s stammering fury and a plaintive little, “What does that mean, mommy?”

***

Everybody lied. House lied all the time. He was good at it. It rarely nagged at him, in the way that a huge rat nagged at you after you’d flashed a light over it in the corner of a garage you shouldn’t have been in and even once the light was off of it you could never quite ignore the fact that it was, in fact, there in the shadows. Even if you did outweigh it by a factor of fifty or more.

The truth, the ugly truth (truth was ugly and so were naked men, it was a fact of life) was that House did know the Muffin Man. He just didn’t know him that way. House was so busy thinking about it, he wasn’t fully aware of walking out of the clinic with a brusque “Testing a theory, back later.” to the irritated nurse at the desk.

House liked knowing why things happened. Usually he liked to take a wild guess based on his brilliant intellect and years of knowledge, then test his theory out, and later bask in the praise and admiration of his myriad groupies. The last part usually happened in his head.

“I’ll talk to you next week.” Wilson was standing in the door to his office, ushering a lovely young woman out the door. “I really do recommend that support group.”

“Thank you so much.” The girl looked positively starry-eyed. House was fairly certain he was going to throw up. He blamed the muffin. And Wilson.

“I need to talk to you,” House said loudly, bearing down on the pair like a three-legged race horse. “Excuse me,” he said to the girl as he elbowed Wilson in the stomach, sending him back into his office with a noise like a kidney hitting the operating room floor. “I need a consultation with Dr. Wilson.”

Her mouth opened but no sound came out and, for a moment, House thought she might be the perfect woman. Then Wilson’s indignant inhalation brought him back to reality. He stepped into Wilson’s office and closed the door on her before she could ruin her moment of perfection.

“I… what… House! You can’t /do/ that!” Wilson began; that was all he had breath for that time. House crossed the gap between them while he was inhaling again for another try. “I have just about had it with you. You don’t want a consultation, you have no reason at all to be here in my office…”

House grabbed Wilson by the tie, a gift from wife #2, if House remembered correctly (and he usually did), and tugged him forward. Shutting Wilson up with House’s own mouth was a sterling strategy, as long as he had nothing to say in the moment. Wilson made a few charmingly horrified noises that cut off the moment House gave him a little tongue. Slutty little minx.

House’s theory wasn’t going quite the way he’d planned, however. By the time he got Wilson backed up against the desk, one knee between Wilson’s thighs, and Wilson’s hands tangled in his hair, he realized that he’d been expecting a single kiss, a lot of sputtering, and a quick exit with a snappy one-liner that would leave Wilson dazed and furious as the door closed on him. They were not supposed to be mashing lips and tongues like a pair of teenagers who’d just gotten their braces off.

Some tests took longer than others. Time for stage two. House cleared Wilson’s desk with a sweep of his cane, and when Wilson pulled away to protest, House growled impatiently at him. To his utter surprise, Wilson SHUT UP and kissed him back instead. House was so pleased about that, he nudged Wilson to sit up on the desk and was faced with the delightful realization that they were well on their way to having sex in Wilson’s office, logistics be damned.

“We can’t do this here.” As though Wilson had read his mind, and House continued to have his suspicions about that, he pulled away and spoke this time.

Here. That’s the part that caught House’s attention first. A small, four-letter word, but like many four-letter words, rather important. “Why not?” House was enjoying himself just fine. Wilson seemed like the type who liked his neck kissed, the way he was putty in women’s hands, so House tried that instead. He could deal with Wilson babbling about why they couldn’t do this while they did it.

“My office. My desk.” Wilson’s voice was rather more pleasant when it was somewhat raw and desperate and getting even more so as House’s mouth moved over the remarkably soft skin under his ear. “I am not having sex on my desk with you.” He got both hands on House’s shoulders and pushed, forcing House to step back and lean on his cane for balance.

“I’ll lock the door.” House was good at problem-solving and quite ready for stage three of his theory testing: Getting Into Wilson’s Pants.

“No, you will not.” Wilson looked really damned delicious sprawled out on the desk, leaning back on his hands, hair in disarray, mouth all soft and red. It was so very hard to take him seriously, but he sat up and held a hand out as House came back for another try. “I said /no/, House. And in this case, ‘no means no’.”

“If you don’t, I will have lied to a very sick little girl. Can you stand to have that on your conscience?”

Wilson crossed his arms over his chest. Damn. House was losing ground. “/You/ are using a sick child to try and get me to have sex with you and you’re asking me about /my/ conscience?”

“Can you?” House tried again and actually batted his lashes at Wilson. He wasn’t really going to have a sound conclusion until he’d finished stage three of his test.

“Yes.” Wilson straightened his tie and got to his feet, smoothing his shirt down and starting to tidy himself up in spite of the absolutely – how could House have ever thought anything else – tantalizing swell distorting the line of his fine wool pants. “But that’s besides the point. Dinner. Eight o’clock. If you don’t, you’ll have lied to a very sick little girl. And there are worse consequences than that.”

“We won’t be doing any...” House gestured at the desk. He could guess what the consequences were and he was trying to decide if he cared or not. Perhaps he was just trying to beat his libido into not caring. The term ‘hoist by his own petard’ was beginning to apply, regardless of what you thought ‘petard’ meant.

“Ever.” Wilson ran a hand through his hair, settling back into place. If anything, he looked even better for having been somewhat ravished.

“I’ll even wear a tie.” House wasn’t beaten. He was making a strategic withdrawal to evaluate the evidence in private, which was not just a metaphor for jerking off to get his dick to stop leading him around by the nose.

“Don’t bother.” Wilson shook his lab coat out and smoothed it down. One could hardly tell that he’d been up to anything at all. “I can’t trust you when you’re being sincere.”

“Fine.” House yanked the door open. “Eight o’clock.”

“Good.” Wilson rescued an origami crane from the floor. “Don’t be late.”

They had almost worked it all out when Cuddy came barging in through the slightly opened door, looking delightfully out of breath and irate. House liked her that way; it did fantastic things for her breasts. “House, what are you doing in here? You still have patients in the...” She stopped when she saw the wreckage in Wilson’s office. “…what on earth?”

“Consultation,” House said without missing a beat. He shouldered past her and out into the hall.

“He was just leaving,” Wilson said, almost at the same time.

Cuddy stood there in silence a moment before grabbing her composure like a pair of erstwhile panties and yanking it back into place. “You cannot leave patients waiting like that, House,” she called after him.

“That’s why I’m hurrying,” he said, stopping and turning around to look at her. “You’re just slowing me down.” The look on her face was priceless. The whole experiment would have been worth it just for that.

***

Eight o’clock. House would have been late picking Wilson up except that Wilson was still in his office.

“You’re late,” Wilson said. He was reading over case files, leaning cheek on one hand as he read and took notes.

“I have five minutes left.” House shook his sleeve back and checked his watch.

“I stayed to do some work because I knew you’d be late,” Wilson said, not looking up. His desk was back in its previous state and House was fascinated by this enough to wander closer.

“I knew you’d stay,” he said absently, trying to remember where things had been. “So I didn’t hurry. Did you put everything back where it was exactly?”

“There’s a whole story there.” Wilson closed his files and got up to put them away. “It’s not hard to put them back where they belong.”

Thinking about it that way made House a little uncomfortable. He adjusted the origami crane and a little red babushka so that they were facing each other.

“I’ll know if you switch them around.” Wilson’s back was to him as he put away the files. “So don’t bother.”

“I wasn’t…” House pulled his hand back like he’d been slapped. He was thinking that the babushka was going to kick the crane’s ass, but the awareness that there was meaning here for Wilson had set in and that awareness was extremely unpleasant. He shook it off as Wilson turned around. “If you’re done housekeeping, I was thinking maybe we could go eat.”

“I’m driving.” Wilson pulled on his jacket and turned around to give House a look before House could protest.

“Fine.” House was willing to give on this point, but everywhere else, he was driving. That wasn’t optional.

***

Well, that plan didn’t work as well as House had thought. Wilson had picked a roadhouse for dinner, a loud place where House couldn’t even talk to him. Sure, the steaks were perfectly bloody and the waitresses were overflowing from their tank tops and daisy dukes; any other time, it would have been the perfect place for dinner with Wilson. House was deaf and sated and watching expanses of sophomore tits and ass bouncing about. The only thing the place lacked was a stage and a pole, and then House would have hung a shingle out front.

However, there was Wilson, with his ridiculously kissable mouth, sitting across from him and looking mildly interested in all the flesh passing by and most definitely not talking to House. The one time you wanted someone to do something… “I was expecting someplace a little less rustic,” House said, leaning across the table so he could be heard over the atmospheric honky-tonk cluttering up the air between them.

“You’re not happy?” Wilson paused with a bloody sliver of steak poised just at his lips and House wanted to whine in frustration.

“It just doesn’t seem…” House leaned back and watched Wilson eat.

“I don’t take my dates here,” Wilson said, after he’d finished the bite.

“And yet you’ve never taken me here, either.” House stabbed one of the crisp cross-cut fries and shoved it into his mouth.

“I like it here.”

Well, that was a conversation killer. House shut up and ate his steak and ogled tits like a good boy.

***

“Come in for coffee.” House was done being polite. He turned to see Wilson’s door closing. Damnit.

“Did you say something about coffee?” Wilson opened the passenger door for House to get out of the car.

“Yes. I was telling you to come in for it.” House levered himself out of the car. “Are you going to let me into my own apartment, too?”

“I thought that would be a little forward.” Wilson stepped back to let House go ahead. “And you were looking like you were strangling slowly. Or constipated, but far be it from me to lecture you on the side effects of your less pleasant habits.”

“You couldn’t just let this be a nice evening, could you?” House stumped ahead.

“I’m having a great time.” Wilson was a step behind and House was startled to realize how close Wilson was and he didn’t even notice. “You’re the one in a mood.”

“I’m always in a mood,” House noted. He got out his keys and let them into his apartment.

“No you’re not.” Wilson followed him in and stopped to take off his coat once he’d closed the door behind him. “You’re perfectly happy when you’re making other people’s lives hell.”

This was a good point and House wasn’t about to argue it for the moment; he was already grasping for straws. Making someone’s life hell wasn’t exactly going to be an easy task at the moment, since it was just him and Wilson and, and this was extremely disconcerting, at one point House had been sure he was going to get laid tonight. He headed into the living room and wriggled out of his jacket, leaning his cane up against the couch as he did so.

“So, am I getting lucky tonight, or what?” Might as well put that particular horse back in the barn, or to bed, depending on what the answer was. House turned around to see Wilson standing with his hands in his pockets, wearing that little crooked smile of his that was so familiar.

“Admirable,” Wilson said. The twitches at the corners of his mouth said that he was trying not to laugh, which was worse than if he’d laughed outright.

“What?” House resisted the urge to do something that might get him un-laid before he got laid. This whole business was putting him at an unfortunate disadvantage; he hadn’t really considered that when he’d hatched his theory.

“You waited this long to find out if I was actually going to put out.” Wilson’s grip on his laughter loosened a little and his eyes sparkled with good humor so much that House was sure that if he looked behind him he’d see his own gloomy shadow stretched out in the glow from Wilson’s expression.

“Yes, well. I respect you. As a friend and as a colleague…” Even as the words were coming out of House’s mouth, he knew he was in over his head. Wilson’s laughter was like a smack in the face with sunshine and sugar and good humor and there was only one way to make it stop. House grabbed him by the tie again, pulled him close, and kissed him.

There was no protest this time, either, and House had the distinct feeling that he’d been played. Wilson was too good a kisser for him to be bothered grumping about it, though, all hot, enthusiastic tongue and carefully applied teeth. God, but there was something to be said for his plodding precision sometimes. And the way that Wilson’s hands went to the small of House’s back, pulling him close and working his shirt out of the waistband of the…

“This is just…” House pulled away to get clarification on this whole thing.

“We’re not dating. We’re still friends. This is meaningless sex. Yes, I’ve thought about this before. Yes, I am putting out. More appropriately, /you/ are putting out, because I am not the one of us behaving like a virgin with her knees glued together,” Wilson said, somehow managing to kiss House and lick at his lips while speaking in a crisp, precise tone that was as casual as though they’d been sitting in the board room. “I /did/ buy you dinner, after all.”

“I am not…” House got that far before Wilson bit him on the lip, the bitch, and made him moan. “/Fine./ Get naked and get in my damn bed, then.”

Wilson stepped away and started undoing his tie. “Okay. I’ll see you there, then.” He turned and started walking toward House’s bedroom.

House grabbed his cane from where he’d left it. “And stop being so damn smug,” he shouted.

He caught Wilson most of the way to being naked in the half-dark bedroom, down to boxers (the damn man even took his socks off before his underwear, no wonder he was like fucking catnip to women) and folding his clothes up on the end of the bed. House knocked them off with the cane and felt a surge of satisfaction.

“Need an excuse to check out my ass?” Wilson turned around obligingly and started picking things up again, sorting them into a neat pile on the floor where they’d be safe from House’s antics.

“You have to ruin everything, don’t you?” House hung the cane on the doorknob, and then pushed the door closed. He yanked his button-down and t-shirt off at once, moving quickly so he didn’t miss the view, and threw them on the floor.

“Define ruin.” Wilson skinned out of his boxers and dropped them on the pile. “Most people would consider me leaving to be ruining everything. Not getting naked and getting in bed as ordered.” He padded around and shook the unmade bedcovers out. “At least I know you weren’t planning on getting laid when you left for work this morning. Not by me, anyway.”

Maybe naked men weren’t so ugly. House stopped with his hands on the buttons of his Levi’s, gauging the level of light in here. It was low, a glow from the bathroom, but it was enough to see by, especially where House stood caught in the slice of it thrown across the floor. Wilson stopped and turned to look at him, the light tracing down his shoulder and arm and thigh where he stood in the shadows.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Wilson said. House couldn’t see his face clearly, but Wilson’s tone was soft and tender, and House knew why people would thank him for the worst news of their lives.

“I didn’t want you to be overwhelmed by my male beauty,” House said dryly. He started undoing his jeans and as he did he heard Wilson’s feet and then the door to the bathroom closed the rest of the way, down to a thin line of pale blue. His hands stopped and he stood there in the dark, eyes adjusting, and listened to Wilson’s bare feet crossing his floor. Then Wilson’s hand was on his face, and Wilson’s mouth was on his mouth, and the collision of reliefs, the dark and the touch and the kiss, was an exercise in wave theory and amplification.

How House got out of the rest of his clothes was irrelevant. That Wilson didn’t try and fold anything up or put it in the hamper was a footnote. All House could focus on was Wilson’s lean body against his, how soft Wilson’s skin was, and how surprisingly aggressive Wilson was in bed. Somehow, House ended up on his back, hands clenched on Wilson’s in the pillows under his head, moaning into one long, hot, messy kiss as Wilson rode his cock with a grace and ease that said he had more than one drunken night in college to rely on for reference.

When Wilson finally pulled his mouth away, House arched under him and fought the hands on his for another kiss, anything to stifle the noises he was making that were incontrovertible proof of how incredibly good Wilson was in bed. By the time they were done, he wasn’t just going to be out of ammunition; Wilson was going to be the one holstering his metaphorical gun.

“Come.” Wilson’s voice was like nothing House had ever heard from him before, hot and smoky like a shot of scotch and it made House’s cheeks burn.

“What?” Protest was habitual, even as he was writhing under Wilson’s body and fighting back orgasm to preserve his pride. “No.” Later, House would mark this off as the first times he had actually refused to enjoy himself in bed. “You first.”

Wilson laughed at him, the merciless bastard, and did something with his hips and muscles and House didn’t know what, even as he leaned in and kissed House so hard and careless and hungry that House felt his lip split against Wilson’s perfect, white teeth. It was the imperfection and the lust that did him in and House came, giving up a desperate whine that Wilson’s tongue licked out of his mouth.

“Son of a bitch,” House spat, the moment his mouth remembered how to work. He pushed Wilson off of him and Wilson sprawled backwards across the bed with a breathless laugh. House grabbed a handful of tissues and got rid of the ridiculously laden condom with a flick of his wrist, tossing it haphazardly into the corner of the room where there might be a waste bin.

He didn’t much care; he was following Wilson across the bed, running his hands over the landscape of Wilson’s body until he found what he wanted. Pushing Wilson’s thighs apart, he leaned in and went down on him, trying to remember what little drunken fragments of sucking cock still lingered in the recesses of his mind. It must have been enough because Wilson’s hands tangled in his hair and Wilson’s hips came up enough to make him gag a little before he got his rhythm back.

The best part about this was the way that Wilson made noises, all kinds of delicious little noises that were gratifying in the way that solving problems always was. When House’s head cleared enough that he remembered to slide his fingers in where his cock had been, Wilson made the kind of noises that would get a man evicted on the grounds that the neighbors couldn’t cope with the sheer jealousy at someone getting laid that well.

House was relentless and it was so good to be relentless in a way that got such amazing, immediate results. The groupies in House’s head couldn’t really compete with Wilson when it came to reminding House of how in-fucking-credible he could be. Wilson came with a rough cry that sounded like House’s name and House felt so triumphant about that, he almost forgot to swallow. Almost.

***

“Staying?” House lay next to Wilson, head by Wilson’s hip, staring into the dark where the ceiling probably still was, provided it hadn’t been blown off and House simply hadn’t noticed because he was so busy having amazing sex.

“Not safe to drive,” Wilson said, enunciating with the care of a man who was having trouble getting his lips not to stick to his teeth. His breathing sounded like he’d just run up fifteen flights of stairs. Maybe a whole stadium worth of stairs, really. House was pretty sure he was worth at least that many stairs.

“You just drove,” House pointed out. It was entirely possible that Wilson had forgotten. House wasn’t quite sure where he’d put his feet, so he could see how Wilson’s short-term memory might be a little uncertain at the moment.

“Shouldn’t drive when I’ve been drinking.” Wilson was a little clearer this time, and his breath wasn’t coming so fast.

“You only had one beer.” Damn, he was good. House was smug.

“Scotch. Going to have some as soon as I can move.” Wilson inhaled, held it for a long moment, and then let it out with a shuddering sigh.

“Excellent idea.” House was pretty sure that he was going to need a drink himself once he came down from the endorphin high. “Not too much, though.”

“You expect me to do that again?” Wilson sounded pained. He pushed himself up on one elbow and House could just make out the familiar lines of Wilson’s best ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ expression in the tiny bit of light that still crept into the room.

“We could try something else.” House gave him the best charming grin he could muster under the circumstances.

Wilson groaned and collapsed back onto the bed. House grinned at the dark. Wilson was right, he was happier when he was making someone’s life hell.

***

“I have a complaint about you.” Cuddy caught up with House on his way down to the clinic.

“I’m going to the clinic,” House protested. “I’m not even stopping for breakfast.” He waved the muffin in his hand at her. “You should be admiring my dedication.”

“You…” Cuddy flipped through some pages on the clipboard she held, ignoring the muffin. Fine, more for House. He took a bite, humming through the chocolate-y goodness. “…vandalized a child’s toy. Flashed a bright light into the mother’s eyes. And made inappropriate references to the Muffin Man. The Muffin Man, House? /Biblically/?”

House swallowed before playing his cards. “You’re always telling me not to lie to the patients!”

“Yes, House.” Cuddy grabbed his sleeve and stopped him, nearly causing him to drop his muffin. “But you do not,” she hissed. “Know the Muffin Man. Biblically.”

“He lives on Drury Lane.” House said solemnly. He brought the muffin up between them and took a huge, salacious bite out of it. “An’ I do scho.”

~fin~

So, I got talked into this community thing...

2008-02-11T18:01:00Z

sodomy_central (a Jack Harkness/Historical Figure community) has found her long-lost sister, mission_central! mission_central was born to be a Torchwood weekly mission community but, like Jack, she can't bring herself to turn anyone down if they know how to do the job right. mission_central welcomes anyone from any fandom. Our motto is 'By Any Means Necessary'. If you can do it, we want to read it.

I'll be writing pure crack for this. Look for Torchwood/SGA/SG:1/etc/and so on and so forth from me. First mission is upcoming.

12in2008: X-Men

2008-02-10T17:13:13Z

a/n: 8242 words. for the hell of it. more m/m explicit, some mild unpleasantness. Scott/Logan. in which there is a plane crash, blindness, insanity, and a bad situation, but Scott figures it's actually a pretty good accidental vacation. i love it when people tell me i'm good (i'm being shameless, it's been a bad day) so go forth and say so if you think it. follows on the heels of this: http://ballroomblitz.livejournal.com/28895.html totally not canon, IC only in the context of the previous story and itself, and all that rot. and there's things i need to patch but can't be bothered right now. i like it fine as it is. and it was fun! does not count toward my 12 fandoms in 2008, sadly.

One of us is Crazy

It wasn’t like things were back to normal. Jean and Warren were still making sweet at each other in that horrifically calculating ‘let’s not hurt Scott’s feelings’ way that was worse than if they’d fucked on the breakfast table. Worse, they were completely sincere about it. They really didn’t want to make things harder.

Scott would have been happier if they’d understood that there was no way this wasn’t going to be hideous, and just gone about their lives. In the most bitter cliché of all, he was happy for her. Warren could have gone to hell, but Scott was glad Jeannie was happy now. He knew she had to believe him, it wasn’t like she couldn’t read his mind.

Getting out of the mansion had been a huge relief, heading north to check out some unusual readings that Hank had picked up over Alaska. That he had to go with Logan had been less appealing. Logan was the worst flyer in the world, and it got even less fun because Scott was flying the Blackbird. That made him the source of Logan’s misery, according to Logan’s furry little feral brainstem.

“Yer doin’ that on purpose,” Logan snarled when the first turbulence hit them.

“No, not really.” Scott didn’t bother to harass Logan about it.

Sure, he could have dropped some altitude, he could have pulled a roll to show Logan what it was like when Scott really wanted to fuck with him. But he’d never really found Logan’s abject terror when flying particularly funny. He could see how someone who couldn’t really die as far as anyone knew would be rather fucked up at the idea of being entangled in an air disaster. It wasn’t compassion so much as the fact that Scott respected flying and all its dangers more than he liked fucking with Logan’s head.

“Stop it, Summers.”

“Would if I could. Shut up and let me fly.”

The wind was changing with that intensity that boded no good. Scott could almost hear warm and cold layers of artic air squealing past each other, building up static and tension. He pulled up the weather radar display and took a good grip on the stick. It was going to get ugly out there.

They passed ugly on the third lightning strike, the one that blew out half the electric in the plane. That was after Scott had discovered that their communications gear had quit working. Surprisingly, Logan was completely calm at this point. He was already up and packing supplies to make sure they took something with them when they bailed out. The plane started to reel even though Scott still had manual control.

“Let’s go.” Logan got him by the back of the uniform parka and hauled him up as Scott undid his harness. Logan rammed his claws into a bulkhead to hold steady, his other hand tight on Scott’s collar while Scott pulled on a parachute. “Out.”

The wind ripped the emergency door away as soon as it popped and the poor Blackbird twisted in the air. The world outside was full of white fists that pounded Scott back against Logan. Strong hands picked him up like a puppy and flung him out into the storm. Scott was sure that he heard the words, “I’ll find you,” as he went soaring out into a cold hell.

Scott was dangerously warm, dangerously comfortable. The alarm bells in his head woke him and he opened his eyes. All he could see was red, wild living red that washed over everything in front of him and crushed it. Scott closed his eyes and dug around in his parka, only to find it torn down one side and those pockets empty. He pawed in the snow in hopes of finding his goggles to no avail.

Finally, he gave up and pulled a length of bandage out of his first aid kit, using it to bind his eyes. He could deal with being blind. He used some of the tape to patch the parka up a little, though his black uniform underneath was well-insulated. Then it was time to assess the situation properly.

The radio-satellite unit should have been working but it was all static. Getting up a hill would probably help. He could do that easily enough. The wind down here was still bad, but he would manage. Pulling the hood of his parka up to protect his head and face made it bearable.

Dismantling his parachute went quickly with a utility knife. He had matches, lighter, tinderbox, meal bars, the knife, the rope and fabric of the parachute, and he wasn’t terribly worried about predators. All he had to do was get his back to something and open his eyes in a pinch.

All in all, it was ridiculously refreshing. His compass was even one that flipped open so that he could touch the needle; he’d had that since he was a kid. Scott made sure he had everything in place and headed in the direction that he’d been gazing. He might find a walking stick in the debris and then he’d be okay.

Scott’s watch wasn’t analog and he cursed his stupidity; he had to guess at the time and that was never reliable. After what felt like two hours, he’d found trees and some rock, but that was it. However, he had found where ‘uphill’ was and he was making good headway. It shouldn’t have taken Logan this long to find him. Back to a tree, he crouched down and pulled out a meal bar.

“There y’are.” Logan’s voice was a surprise, but not entirely unexpected.

“Apparently, yes.” Scott tucked half the meal bar back in its pocket. Using the branch he’d picked up as a walking stick, he got to his feet. “Where were you?”

“Workin’ out where we are.” Logan crunched through the snow, coming closer. Scott could hear the sharp inhalation that was Logan making sure he was in one piece and that was somewhat gratifying.

“Where’s that? I can’t get my radio to work.”

“Ain’t gonna work ‘cause we’re on top of an old project site. Guess somethin’s still active in it.” Logan nudged Scott to the left. “That way. Night’s fallin’.”

Scott was even less concerned now. All in all, this was kind of like an unexpected vacation. Logan was a good hunter, a brilliant tracker, and made to survive. Scott thought he’d have been well enough on his own but now he could relax. He could hear Logan tromping on ahead and he followed the sound.

The shelter Logan found presented as aging concrete under Scott’s hand, pitted and mossy. He followed Logan deeper in and felt a twisted steel hatch that marked a threshold. Logan went ahead, quiet except for the occasional warning. Getting out of the wind was a good thing; they could talk without shouting.

“Did you manage to hang onto that stuff you packed?” Scott wondered if there was anything left of the Blackbird, as well.

“Nope. Found it later, though. Got it on me. Guess ya didn’t think t’ pack an extra pair of goggles.”

“I did.” Scott gestured at his torn coat. “Want to go find them for me?” He was fine without. Stepping in a deep pit in the floor didn’t help his dignity but he caught himself before he fell and kept going.

Logan snorted and his feet kept on in front of Scott. “Nah. Doesn’t bother me if ya can’t see.” Scott couldn’t even be offended by that; he didn’t expect it to bother anyone. Gonna find whatever’s makin’ the radios not work, then go get wood,” Logan continued. Apparently adventures made him downright chatty. Who knew?

The concrete changed to steel as they moved downward and inward. There were doors here and there but none of them opened. “This way,” Logan said and Scott took a corner after him. A rattle of metal was the sound of an industrial lift being opened.

“You’ve been here before,” Scott said as he realized it. If they were where Logan had been treated up here, that couldn’t be easy on him and the place could be downright dangerous.

“Or somewhere like it. Probably need to go down a few floors and we’ll find what we need. No way we can walk out of the radius, not any time soon.” There was the distant dripping of water before the lift dropped slowly.

Scott tried to keep it clear in his head how they’d got in, but it wasn’t easy. Maybe he should have stayed near the surface. Maybe Logan didn’t want to be down here alone.

“It’s here.” Down a hallway and then they were at a dead end. The door wouldn’t open. Scott heard the click of Logan’s claws coming out, then the rending, spark-spewing sounds of a door console coming to an end. “That’s…” Logan started to say but then the door slid open and the words got cut off as Logan fell back against the wall.

“Logan?” Scott had his back to the other wall and was trying to figure out what was wrong. There was a gnat-whine rising and falling like the ghost of an air raid siren but Scott couldn’t determine anything else. Even the air didn’t smell wrong.

Logan was making these terrible, wounded noises and Scott reached for him blindly. “Come here. Logan.” He cut his fingers on one of Logan’s claws while fumbling for Logan’s hands. “What’s wrong?” He’d never heard anything like those noises, never seen Logan flinch from anything other than the occasional impaling, or being crushed under a tank or building.

Logan moved, an explosion of force that sent Scott tumbling back into the room they had just opened. He hit the ground on his back and rolled to his feet. His walking stick went bouncing away. “Logan! It’s Scott. Cut this shit out!” He was screaming at the top of his lungs, hearing his voice get lost in this huge room. He started working his way back toward the door.

The strangled noises continued until Scott heard what sounded like Logan’s head slamming against the metal wall. He headed that way as fast as he could, but Logan wheeled and fled before he got there. His footsteps retreated at a full-out run and Scott was left alone.

“Fuck. Oh, fuck.” Scott pulled his thoughts together and shouted out into the ether. Once upon a time, it might have done some good. Now, he wasn’t expecting Jean to pick up on it. Whatever they’d once had was gone.

“Okay,” he said to himself. “You have to turn off whatever it is making that noise, or whatever’s jamming the radios. You can do that, if Logan’s right about this room.” He could figure out the consoles from the configuration, maybe. If he were lucky, there might be something stamped on them that would be a clue.

Scott found what Logan had been carrying out in the hall and dragged it in, then collected his own things. Feeling along the walls and consoles found him an alcove where he decided he was going to ‘live’. Out of the room, he felt his way down the hall to a door. No fancy door plate here.

Scott figured out where the handle was. He missed it on the first kick, broke it off on the second. Broom closet inside by the feel of things. “Guess even the evil military industrial complex needs to tidy up.” A tap gave some sluggish water that smelled clean, but Scott didn’t trust it. There was some towelling and bits of equipment around. And a toolbox, cold against his fingers.

“Fuck me,” Scott said, grinning. Real tools. The room would make a decent bathroom and he’d use what he found in here to get by. He’d use one of the buckets when he ventured up to get snow to melt. The wooden shelving was going to be his first victim. He broke down one section, tucked the wood under his arm, grabbed the toolbox, and headed back to the control room.

One day in, the shine had worn off and it was only the possibility that there were nuclear materials or worse here that kept Scott from using his eyes to gut the place. Instead, he had made it to the surface once, worked out where everything was, eaten, slept on a bed of emergency fire blankets he’d found in the broom closet, and now he was awake again. There was no sign of Logan.

Scott found that certain equipment was identified by bolted-down plates with serial numbers and words on them. The only problem was that his memory of fifty-year old army equipment naming schemes was rusty and Logan’s wouldn’t have been any better. At least Logan would have been able to describe things. He was just going to have to work it out and hope that he didn’t press any red buttons.

A low rumble brought Scott out of his work and at first he thought it was his stomach. But it came again, louder. Scott dropped the screwdriver he held, spinning around with his back to the console.

“Logan?”

Just the snarl again, but damned if Scott didn’t know it. He’d heard it before.

“Logan, it’s Scott.” He crouched down to get low, to protect his belly, to look less threatening. “Look, I don’t know what’s happening, but…” He was grabbed by the coat and shaken violently, then thrown to fall face down yards away. “Logan, no.”

Something had finally cracked inside Logan’s adamantium skull and Scott was stuck here with what was left. He got to his knees, started to crawl away, but Logan picked him up and threw him again, still snarling. Scott hit a chair and thought he felt his ribs break. He wasn’t going to survive this if he didn’t make friends with whatever still lurked in Logan’s brain.

Scott pulled off his coat and threw it aside, then unzipped his uniform all the way down. The more he smelled familiar, the better. Maybe the uniform wasn’t helping. Scott tried to take refuge under the console as he worked the top off. He was just getting out of it when Logan’s hand locked on his ankle and he was yanked out.

“Logan,” Scott said, keeping his voice soft. It was really hard not to panic while he was now half-naked and blind and trapped down here in Logan’s hell, but that was only going to make things worse. He could feel Logan’s breath on his skin as Logan caught his scent. “It’s okay.” He kept very still and Logan didn’t hit him or throw him this time, just dragged him by the arm toward the safe alcove where Scott had chosen to hole up.

It was so cold that Scott started to shake, and his ribs sang with pain. He felt for Logan’s hand and stroked it, working his hand up Logan’s arm. Still dressed, that was good. Meant there might be some human left inside. When Logan dropped him, Scott bit back a whimper of pain and reached up to find Logan’s face. Logan tolerated the touch for a moment, then shook it off.

Scott pushed himself up and licked the undercurve of Logan’s jaw, his tongue rasping over stubble. He’d licked there before, knew Logan liked it, but had never realized what a submissive signal it was. He allowed himself a soft whine, the kind he knew he made when they were in bed together, the one he made when Logan pushed too far and he wasn’t going to say anything because it was still good.

That seemed to work because Logan stilled and let Scott lick and kiss. Scott dared to run a hand down to cup Logan’s cock and found it hard. Some things hadn’t changed. Scott always wondered how low their sex sunk into the primal and he found it here at rock bottom. He just had to get out of this without being hurt more and they might still be okay.

At least they could make friends. Scott’s fingers found Logan’s zipper and pulled it down slowly. At least Logan refused to wear a uniform and Scott wasn’t having to fight with all that. His fingertips brushed hot flesh and he was acutely aware of the low rumble in Logan’s chest, Logan’s sweat, and the heat of his body.

The real surprise was how fast his own body responded, in spite of pain and cold and fear; he almost bit back the whimper of need that rose but he let it happen. Logan’s cheek brushed his and Logan’s tongue curled around his ear and Scott whimpered again. It was already hard to hold onto the knowledge that he had to do this to get out of here in one piece.

He slid Logan’s cock out, the thick heat of it filling his hand, because he wanted it, no other reason. Pulling away from the rough tongue bath of his cheek and ear, Scott licked tentatively at the head of Logan’s cock, finding it wet already. The smell went right down to his dick and he moaned. Logan growled and rocked his hips; that was all the permission Scott needed.

It would be too perfectly ironic to get ‘saved’ just now, just as he was going down on Logan with desperate noises, rubbing the heel of one hand over his own dick where it was a hard ridge under his uniform. Fuck, but he was turned on. The danger didn’t deter him in the least; thinking about it just made him shudder and push his mouth down on Logan’s cock even further.

Scott was drowning in Logan’s scent, gagging on the thickness of his cock as Logan’s hips started moving to fuck his mouth. Scott held himself up on one elbow, used his free hand to stroke Logan’s furred belly and down to cup his balls. Logan was leaning over him now, making low, pleased animal noises. Scott took his hand away to undo his own pants, to touch himself. It hurt too much not to.

That was some kind of mistake. Maybe the sound of the zipper or the fresh release of scent as Scott yanked his briefs aside to free his dick set Logan off. He didn’t know, but Logan grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed him face down onto the floor.

“Logan,” Scott whispered, his voice thin from having his throat pressed into concrete. “Please.”

Logan’s other hand clawed at Scott’s pants and Scott realized that he’d been an idiot. He’d thought the blowjob was going to do the trick. Struggling for breath, he pushed his pants and briefs down, then got his knees up. It hurt his ribs and he was whimpering, wasting precious air.

Then, Logan moved and Scott could move again. He lunged toward where he thought his pack might be, but that was a mistake, too. Logan got him by the hips and dragged him back and all Scott could think of was how much this was going to hurt. He took a breath and tried to relax, tried to just let it happen. It wasn’t like it was the first time… he didn’t think about those things anymore, that far-off orphan past.

It hurt, it hurt enough to make tears soak the wrappings over Scott’s eyes and stream down his cheeks. It hurt enough that he clawed at the floor and bit his lip until it bled. He was shaking by the time Logan was inside him, but he managed to hold himself together.

Logan leaned over him, making this noise that Scott realized was purring. Soft, deep purrs, and Logan licked at his neck behind his ear, over and over. Affection. Simple, animal affection. Logan wrapped an arm around Scott and held him close as he licked and nuzzled and nipped; it was so unreal to feel that unfettered fondness focused on him.

The time gave Scott a moment to remember that there was a stick of sunscreen balm in the pocket of his pants where he’d shoved it earlier that day. All the purring and tasting seemed to have Logan busy and Scott worked the tube out carefully. He got the lid off and crushed the tube so that the thick contents oozed into his palm.

Logan let Scott work a hand between them to touch. He hoped that the damn stuff wouldn’t sting or burn; he couldn’t afford to anger the animal but he didn’t want the man to remember that he’d done damage, he didn’t want to be living with the damage, either. Logan was a son of a bitch, but he got off on the pain he caused in fights, not like this. The teeth on Scott’s neck and the little growl were a warning that he ignored, moving slowly as he slid slick fingers over Logan’s shaft.

It wasn’t perfect but it was good enough. When Logan started moving, going back to licking the back of Scott’s neck with disturbing tenacity, it ached but there was none of that searing pain that screamed about damage. It even started to feel good as Logan moved with long, slow strokes. Scott was dazed by how surreal this was, that Logan was actually gentler as a beast than as a man, at least for the moment.

Logan planted his hands on either side of Scott’s head and started moving faster, grunting with each stroke. His feral self had no pride to defend by being silent about the pleasure he got from Scott’s body. The sounds he made sank right into Scott’s skin, heavy with desire, and Scott found himself getting hard again.

Face and shoulders still against the floor, Scott rocked back to meet Logan’s thrusts, and pleasure ran through him. He moaned and shuddered when Logan’s cock slid against him just right. That got a choked snarl out of Logan and then a hot, wet lick along Scott’s cheek, through the drying tears.

“That’s so good,” Scott whispered, arching up into the hot curve of Logan’s body, ignoring the streak of pain in his ribs. “Fuck, Logan, please…”

He wanted this so badly that he wondered if the feral nature was infectious. The noises that came out of him were animal and desperate. He let go of thinking and let himself move, ass pushing back for more, knees spread as wide as they could with his pants down around his thighs, cheek grinding into the concrete, hips grinding to coax Logan into more, harder.

Logan gave Scott everything he wanted, answering every whine and yelp with a snarl that shivered in his bones and a deep thrust. Scott shuddered and reached under his belly to jerk off with the hand that was still slick with balm. His dick leaked heat between his fingers and onto the floor as he moved. The sounds deepened to grunts as he hunched between Logan’s cock and his own hand, aching to come.

Suddenly, Logan was moving hard and fast, hips slamming against Scott’s ass and grinding him further into the floor. The gasps and growls were the sounds of Logan losing control and Logan straightened, hands clenching on Scott’s hips to hold him up while Logan started coming. Feeling Logan lose it left Scott howling with pleasure as his own orgasm tore into him. Hanging from Logan’s hands, he jerked and writhed, spattering his chest and the floor with come as Logan filled him up.

After the shaking stopped, Logan pulled out and Scott was expecting him to turn and leave. Instead, a hot tongue washed over him as Logan licked up his own come until Scott was clean, purring all the while. Then he knocked Scott over onto his back and licked at Scott’s dick and chest until they were clean. Scott wished for nothing more than to see it, but he got to keep feeling it when Logan licked the come-slick hand Scott offered him.

“We good?” Scott reached out tentatively and scratched the nape of Logan’s neck. The rumble he got sounded like an affirmative. “Okay.” It felt so good not to be lonely.

It had to be pure perversity that made Logan pull away as soon as the thought crossed Scott’s mind. Scott wriggled back into his pants and crawled across the floor to find his coat and uniform jacket. He didn’t want to ruin things by standing up if being bipedal was something that put Logan-the-beast off.

He could hear Logan’s feet now, moving away. “Logan?” But the footsteps didn’t stop. They receded until Scott was alone and trembling. He felt around and found the jacket and the coat. Pulling them on helped. Maybe Logan would come back, maybe he wouldn’t. The least Scott could do was keep trying to get them out of there. He remembered to eat a meal bar before he went back to work to keep his strength up.

Hours passed and Scott thought he’d worked out the design of the room in his head. Intuition and what he remembered of military installments he’d been in before told him that he was probably in front of the control panel for the radar and communications arrays. He sat down there and exhaled slowly. He could do this.

It felt like forever that he sat there with his hands touching the keys and dials. Sometimes the labels were stamped and he could feel them, painstakingly working out the words. Finally, he thought he knew which switches would shut down the transmitters that were interfering with their radio and satellite signals. Slowly, he moved his hands over the controls, letting instinct guide him.

Nothing exploded.

Scott pulled out his radio unit and flicked it on. The radio crackled to life immediately and after a moment, the uplink chimed. Scott tried not to drop it as he shook with relief. Another deep breath and he started talking, surfing the air waves for help.

“Cyclops?” That was Hank’s voice. Oh, fuck, God, thank you.

“Beast, we went down about…”

“We found the Blackbird.” Hank cut him off. “We’ve been searching that area but were cut off by another storm and some issues with communications. How early did you bail out?”

“We were pretty high,” Scott said. “I think I fixed the communications problem. We’re at the old base that’s up here. Logan knew where it is.”

“Can he give us coordinates?”

“No. Something’s wrong with him; he’s not himself. Look, I’m going to take my radio unit above ground and you can home in on that.” Scott got to his feet and made his way to where he’d left his walking stick.

“We can’t be there for some hours,” Hank said. “Will you be okay for another eight? It’s still too rough out there for the choppers.”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine. I’m going to work on whatever’s bugging Logan and we’ll see you when you get here.”

There was a scuffling noise on the other end and then, “Scott?” Jeannie. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong. I lost both pairs of goggles in the crash and it took me a while to find and turn off the masking transmissions here on the base, that’s all.” She sounded genuinely worried but it didn’t warm Scott the way he thought it would.

“Oh, God. I’ve been so worried.” She sounded like she’d been crying.

“I’m fine. Worry about Logan if you want to worry about someone.” Scott heard the sound of boots and headed for the alcove to settle down in the ‘den’. He didn’t want to disturb Logan by being out of that safe space where Logan might have trouble recognizing him again. “Look, I have to go. Tell Beast I’ll put the transmitter on and we’ll be waiting.”

“Okay.” Jean sniffled and he heard her pass the radio over.

“Anything else?” Hank asked.

“We’re good here.” There wasn’t anything Scott needed right now except to fix Logan before they went back. “Scott out.” He flicked the radio off to conserve the battery and put it away where it wouldn’t get broken. Logan’s footsteps came closer and the sound changed so that Scott knew he’d come in the room.

“Hey,” Scott said, low. “You better?”

There was silence but for the footsteps and then something hit the ground in front of Scott. He felt for it and found fur. A rabbit, a big one at that.

“Thanks.” Scott felt around and found it neatly gutted. All he had to do was pull off the skin. “Dinner.” There was a soft noise and Logan’s hand touched his hair. “You coming in for the night?”

The question was answered when Logan’s hand pulled away and his footsteps headed back for the door. Scott didn’t try and stop him. That little whine was still on the air and he didn’t know how much of the spectrum it covered. Once Logan was gone, Scott got to work skinning the rabbit so he could cook it over the broken wood from the broom closet. Maybe he’d go back and find something that worked as a pan.

There had to be a way to turn off whatever Logan had set off. There was no sense trying to fix the door, so Scott had to find the security system and he had to do it in the next eight hours so maybe Logan could find himself again before they were rescued. Scott stood in the middle of the room and tried to put himself back into old training videos and past experiences. He’d had a good dinner, he was full of rabbit and melted snow water and a chocolate bar. His brain should work now.

“The security console should be here.” He walked himself to the front and off to the right, finding the console that faced a little differently than the rest. The surface told him nothing, but then he found the headset hanging under the console, when he bumped it with his knee. It wasn’t plugged in but Scott figured that out with a little fumbling. The headphones started squawking immediately.

“Security procedure X-9 invoked. Please respond. Security procedure X-9 invoked.”

“Yeah, I’m trying. Bastards.” Scott put his hands on the console and felt a little vibration over to one side. He pulled off the headphones and felt around. He couldn’t figure it out; underneath the console it was an incomprehensible tangle of boxes and wires. There wasn’t any guarantee the system was even working properly. He was pretty sure the frequency of the alarms was hugely off.

After a moment to consider the ‘how bad could it be?’ answers, Scott grabbed his walking stick. He felt for his target, that little vibration of something having an electronic fit. Once he had it, he stepped back and, with completely professional skill, he beat the shit out of it.

That done, he put the headphones back on. “Security procedure X-9 terminated. Please proceed.”

“No shit.” Terminated was right. Scott threw the headphones down and gave the console a last smash. Fucking thing. Now he could go up and put his radio out for the rescue crews to track.

It was wild out, ribbons of snow torn out of the sky whipping across the drifts with incredible speed. Scott felt around until he was out of the tunnel leading inward, then he followed the edge of it back up, crawling along the foot-wide concrete ledge that had been scoured bare by the wind. Too far up for his own good, a gust hit him and he almost fell down onto concrete below except that a hand closed on his coat.

“Logan.” Scott stopped moving. “I have to get up there.” He pointed upward. “I need to leave the radio.”

He couldn’t tell what Logan understood, but from that point on, he had help. At the top, he found a steel fencepost embedded in concrete. He strapped the radio to that with all the medical tape he had left and set it to emergency transmit.

“Feeling better?” Scott wasn’t even sure Logan was there as he turned around, hunching into his coat, and tried to work out how he was going to get down. Logan’s hand found his and tugged and Scott smiled even as he knew that there was no way Logan was back to himself with that gesture.

He let Logan lead him down to his walking stick, and then he headed back into the tunnels. This time, Logan followed him. They went all the way back down to the little den where Scott shook out his coat then checked to see if the fire were still going.

“They’re coming in a few hours,” Scott said as he put wood on the fire. “They’ll take us home.”

He found himself flat on his back once the words were out of his mouth. “It’s okay,” he whispered, trying to soothe with his voice and his hands.

Logan wasn’t having any of it. His hands were rough, pulling at Scott’s uniform until Scott slid out of it and settled back on the blankets. It was fucking cold, but this was better than Logan figuring out that he could get through the uniform with his claws. Logan’s mouth was rough and hot on the insides of his thighs, making Scott shiver more than the cold. This time, he could get at a supplies pocket of his pack and he found the petroleum jelly in there; it was supposed to be used for tending to machinery but this was a better purpose.

When Logan licked at his balls, Scott shuddered and moaned. That was so good. He spread his thighs and let Logan do what he wanted. What Logan wanted was to tongue-bathe Scott roughly and very thoroughly, biting here and there at his thighs and belly, until Scott was panting with it.

“Here.” Scott grabbed the front of Logan’s jacket and pulled him up. He kissed Logan and after a moment, Logan seemed to get the hang of it. “You remember that.” Scott scritched the nape of Logan’s neck and Logan answered him by licking up his jaw. “Okay, that’s good too,” Scott said, laughing.

This time it was so much easier. Logan was content to rumble and lick and occasionally even kiss while Scott got himself slick first, then undid Logan’s pants. “Fuck, but you have the nicest cock,” Scott breathed, secure the fact that Logan wasn’t really registering any of this.

Scott felt the briefest flash of guilt at having sex with Logan while Logan was so much not himself, but then he remembered that Logan hadn’t exactly been conscientious about it either. His slick hand stroking the hot length of Logan’s cock made Logan growl and his hips pushed forward.

“Yeah, me, too,” Scott said. He wrapped his thighs around Logan’s waist and guided Logan into him. It hurt, but nothing like before. Scott shuddered and breathed through it, knowing it would pass. Even if it didn’t, he wanted this, wanted one more time with the feral living under Logan’s skin. All this time, he’d been thinking that it was the beast that made Logan harsh, and instead it was the man.

Logan’s big hands stroked Scott’s face and hair, moving like bear paws, rubbing over what was his as he moved inside Scott. He purred, the deep rumble going right through into Scott’s chest. His tongue washed hot over the curve of Scott’s neck when Scott slid his arms around Logan’s neck and let his head fall back.

Scott moved with Logan, keeping their bodies close together, wallowing in the blended cacophony of their cries and grunts and gasps. He didn’t bother with words, just whined and writhed and Logan moved faster, bit at the tender skin on Scott’s throat with shocking delicacy. That made Scott arch and shudder, clenching around Logan’s cock and making him growl.

Things disintegrated until Scott forgot everything but how good it felt. His nails were raking Logan’s skin, his dick leaving wet streaks in the soft hair where Logan’s shirt had ridden up to bare his belly. The loose buckles of Logan’s jacket chimed as they bounced off of Scott’s hips and that just made it all hotter.

It didn’t last nearly long enough, even though Scott’s body kept trying to scream at him that it was far too long. This time, Scott was the one who lost it first, when Logan growled and grabbed a handful of his hair to yank his head back so that Logan could sink his teeth into Scott’s throat. The jerk and the pain left Scott arching and wailing, coming over Logan’s belly.

Logan lasted a minute longer, just enough for Scott to think he had composed himself. Logan changed rhythm and was suddenly fucking Scott fast and deep, leaning back, nails digging into Scott’s ass. Scott arched with pleasure and cried out again as Logan howled, coming with frenetic strokes.

Scott sagged down onto the floor and Logan’s weight came down on him. Logan made contented noises and didn’t seem inclined to move in the least. For his part, Scott was happy with that. Still trembling a little, he scritched at the nape of Logan’s neck and pushed his hands under Logan’s shirt and jacket to scritch his huge shoulders.

“You’ll have to move before they find us,” Scott mumbled. For now, the fire was warming the alcove, the smoke gathering high in the ceiling among the vents and pipes, and Logan was a very cozy blanket. Satisfied, relying on Logan to wake at the first sound of choppers, Scott let himself drift.

Scott woke with a start, freezing cold. He couldn’t feel the fire and Logan was gone. He pulled his clothes, trying to hear for people, but there was no one. Damn it. He kicked the fire apart and spilled the last of the water over it. That done, he packed up his things, grabbed the fire blankets, and trudged to the surface to wait.

The choppers landed shortly after dawn. Scott knew because the first thing that happened was that Bobby pushed a new pair of goggles onto his head and Scott could unwind the bandages and put them on. The red-tinted morning filled his head with light and he sighed.

“So you’re okay, man?” Bobby was trying to lead Scott to the ice landing pads he’d made for the chippers.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” The place was swarming with people and the noise from the chippers was like a hammer to the head. “Has anyone seen Logan?”

“No sign. He’s not with you?” Bobby stopped, looking around.

“I lost him last night.” Scott looked around. There was no damn way Logan was showing up if he wasn’t back to himself. If he was, he’d have been here already. “Something happened and he…” Scott stopped and shook his head. “You know what, he’ll be fine.” He pointed to the choppers. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll get them to keep a look out for him,” Bobby said. He got an arm around Scott’s waist and led him to the chopper waiting to take them home.

“You have no qualms about that judgement call?” Charles’ voice was gentle.

Scott was clean and dressed but he felt like Charles could see under the cashmere turtleneck to the marks of Logan’s teeth underneath. And, fuck, thinking about it made his dick swell, so that wasn’t a good idea. Scott put his mind firmly on technical matters.

“There’ll be armed forces in the area for a good time. He can get help if he needs it. If he’s not himself, he won’t come back until they’re gone. We don’t hear from him by then, I’ll go back myself.” There, that was suitably commanding. Yeah. Scott felt a little better.

“You did remarkably well, under the circumstances.” Charles gave him an approving smile.

“I just used what I had.” Scott shrugged it off. The truth was that aside from a few minutes of pain and frustration and worry, he’d call it a vacation. He’d have been okay with staying if the facilities were better.

“Well done. Henry tells me you’re in excellent health save for a few strains and bruises.” Not blushing was a skill Scott was grateful that he’d mastered, at least partially. “So, I expect you’ll be ready to work on the designs for the new Blackbird tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be there.” Scott was looking forward to it.

“Go get some sleep for now.” Charles waved him away and Scott left, keeping his sigh of relief in until he could collapse in bed.

The new Blackbird plans were made, construction started. The old Blackbird was pulled out of mothballs and Scott got her working while the new one was being made. Jean was Jeannie again; sweet and attentive and worried, in spite of Warren’s glares. It didn’t make Scott feel as good as he’d hoped. The truth was, he didn’t want to get hurt like that ever again. He still wasn’t done hurting by a long shot.

Scott watched for any sign of Logan but, after two weeks, wondered if he’d made the right call. As much as he tried to say he had, his sleep was getting worse. He’d even caught wind of a rumour that he’d abandoned Logan because of their animosity. That stung like acid on torn skin.

Three weeks after the crash, to the day, he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, sleepless again. A cool wind snuck in at the window; Hank had suggested it might help him sleep. Scott took off his glasses, tied a silk scarf over his closed eyes and tried to will himself to sleep. A thump brought him back to consciousness, then a soft thud.

Scott sat up in bed, reaching for his glasses, when he heard the sound of two heavy boots hitting the floor together, then the soft creak of the floorboards. “Logan?”

There wasn’t any answer, just the jingle of buckles on a jacket, then the chink of a belt buckle. Scott stayed very still and just breathed. He heard Logan’s shirt come off, the pop of one shoulder and the gunshot crack of Logan’s neck as he shook his head, then a soft noise had to be Logan’s jeans hitting the floor.

The bed shifted and cold air seeped under the covers as Logan got into bed. Scott reached out and found a bare shoulder. Then Logan was pushing him down without a word, covering Scott’s mouth with his in a harsh kiss that tasted like days of scotch and cigars. Scott knotted his fingers in Logan’s thick hair and kissed him back, hard.

Logan seemed to remember where the lube was under the pillow because he got it and then shoved Scott over onto his belly. Scott let himself be moved because he wanted to, because he knew what was coming and wanted it. He pushed his hips up to meet Logan’s fingers, whining softly at their thickness and calluses. Logan finger-fucked him just long enough to count for something and then his weight covered Scott’s body, his cock was pushing in, splitting Scott open and making him curse with it.

There was no talking, nothing at all but Logan taking him hard and fast and making him cry out. Scott couldn’t move the way Logan had him pinned, not when Logan got him by the wrists and held him down. He could hardly breathe, Logan was so heavy on him. He lay there and gave into it; he’d wanted this so long.

Finally, Logan’s weight was off of him and Logan’s hand in his hair was pulling him up onto his knees. Scott wanted to be angry but couldn’t make himself care. It was good. It was good for both of them and if he ever wanted it different, he could say so. That’d make it over, but he could.

Scott pushed back once he was on his knees, shivering and asking for more, and Logan moaned. That sounded so fucking good that Scott did it again. “Don’t stop,” he whispered raggedly. “Fuck. Logan.”

Logan didn’t stop, didn’t relent. He fucked Scott like he owned him, until noises were being wrenched out of Scott’s chest with every thrust. Scott reached down to stroke himself, on the edge of coming, but Logan slapped his hand away hard enough to sting. Logan’s hand closed on him instead and Scott groaned, feeling the rough palm and fingers scrape over the head of his dick, dry on the first stroke and then wetter with every pass.

Coming was like being caught in undertow. Pleasure sucked Scott under and stole his senses, leaving him crying out, Logan’s name and profanity. He felt heat splash across his own chest in long streaks. Then Logan pulled out before he was done and tumbled him over onto his back.

Scott was arching and reaching for Logan even as he slid back in, body pressed tight to Scott’s. The pleasure came again with the next stroke, and with Logan’s mouth hot on his, tongue pushing into Scott’s mouth. Logan came with a grunt, moving hard until he was done. Scott shuddered once more and moved to let Logan go as soon as he stopped, letting his arms and legs fall limp to the bed.

Logan pulled away and got to his feet. Scott heard him pick his jeans up.

“They give my room away yet?” Logan pulled his pants on and did up the zip and buckle.

“Well, I was gonna put up an ad for a replacement,” Scott said dryly. He had no idea why he was smiling, but he wasn’t going to think too hard about it. “You know, down at the pound.”

There was a pause and then an empty boot hit Scott in the hip. Laughing, he pitched it back. “Hey, blind guy here,” he protested even though the laughing ruined any chance of sounding hurt.

“Yeah, I gotta use for yer white cane,” Logan growled.

“No, thanks. I think that’s covered, since you decided to come back.” The jacket was next and Scott caught it as it hit him in the chest. Logan must have his boots on now. Scott wrapped his arms around the jacket and hung onto it a little longer.

“What’d ya tell ‘em?” Logan’s voice was soft now and it wasn’t the t-shirt sliding over his head that muffled it.

“The alarm did something to your head. You weren’t yourself, but you were still helpful.” Some things, Scott wasn’t about to share.

“That it?” Scott felt a tug on the jacket, a request for Scott to let go instead of Logan pulling it out of his arms.

“It’s the truth,” Scott said, letting go of the jacket.

“Yeah.” The buckles jingled as Logan pulled it on. “Guess it is.” He paused and in his mind’s eye, Scott could see him standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets.

“You want a beer?” Scott sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. “I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Scott tugged off the blindfold and put the glasses on, then got up, crossing the room to grab some boxers he didn’t care about, jeans, and a shirt. He wasn’t going to be that comfortable but he didn’t feel like stopping to shower. Logan wasn’t one to wait. He could feel Logan’s eyes on him as he dressed and turned to see Logan lighting a cigar, eyes still on Scott.

“Here?” They didn’t have to stay around if Logan didn’t feel like it. Logan quirked an eyebrow at him and shrugged.

Scott found a pair of boots and stepped barefoot into them. They were old and comfortable, so was the worn suede jacket with the shredded lining that Jean had tried to throw out more times than he could count.

“Harry’s still open.” Logan crossed the room and slung one leg over the windowsill. “Bike’s this way.” He disappeared into the night and Scott stopped to get his keys and wallet and make sure he had money. God only knew if Logan ever bothered with it.

It wasn’t a bad drop down to the rosebed and then Scott turned to see Logan on a bike, probably stolen, that had left tire marks all the way from the drive to right under Scott’s window. Subtle. Scott grabbed Logan’s belt and slid onto the back of the bike.

“Not gonna lecture me about needin’ a helmet?” Logan rumbled as he kicked the bike to life.

“You planning on crashing?” Scott made sure he was settled up against Logan, and that he had a good grip.

“I never plan on crashin’, Summers.” Logan turned them around in a wide arc and aimed them for the front gates that were swinging open for them. “Do you?”

Scott laughed and held on as Logan accelerated. The wind in his face and hair felt fantastic. “No, but sometimes I wish I did. It’s not always a bad thing.”

“An’ you say I’m th’ crazy one.” Logan leaned into the turn and Scott moved with him. The road was a black ribbon under a starry sky and Logan left the speed limit and the mansion in their dust.

12in2008: Star Wars

2008-02-02T02:04:33Z

Title: All Masks Hide Him
Pairing: Boba Fett/Stormtrooper, Jango Fett
Rating: There's nothing explicit at all but the implied concepts are disturbing; non-con, death, incest (in a way), insanity. Please do note that not-explicit does not mean not-batshit-insane. *beams*
Notes: people have GOT to stop giving me bad ideas. Seriously. Written in second-person present tense; enjoy the madness!
Words: 1318

All Masks Hide Him

You are pinned to the floor by a weight more than twice yours, an arm around your throat. Your vision is growing dim and the sound of your own struggles is lost in the crescendo of your pulse in your ears. You are in the safest place in the universe.

Your father rolls off of you and you lift your head up to look all the way up at him. It’s like looking up at a monument. He holds out his hand and you push yourself to your knees, then reach out and take it. Your hand disappears in his. He pulls you not just to your feet but all the way up in the air and you wrap your arms around his neck, your legs around his waist, and feel him vibrate against you as he laughs.

“One day,” he says. He always says it, like a promise. One day, you’ll beat him. Every day, you survive him a little longer. You push your face into his sweat-slick neck and don’t tell him that you don’t want to beat him. The only reason you’d ever want to win was so that he’d be proud.

He still lets you shower with him, long after you can do it alone. Why shouldn’t he? You’re the same person. You live surrounded by him. Him as an infant, a toddler, a youth, a man, and all by the hundreds. You look up at him while he washes his black curls and think he is the center of things. You lean on his hip and pet his thigh, innocent of everything. Some day you’ll be him.

Every day, your eyes are full of him, full of the man you have yet to be, until the day they put on their masks. All the others wear sleek white and his is grey, dirty, and battered.

“Don’t you want a new one?” you ask, and he laughs at you. He laughs more than anyone would ever guess.

“I like the one I have,” he tells you. “I’ve had it so long, it looks like me.” You know you could tell him apart without it. None of the others have his scars, the lines around his eyes. He puts you in his lap and shows you how to fix his gun. There’s nothing of him that you don’t know.

Day after day, the world moves in its round. He is at the center of it. He is the first, and the last, he is the hunter and the killer. You follow him to other worlds, hold his hand as you walk through strange markets and forests. You wait in the shadows, wait in a tree, wait at a window and watch.

“How did I do?” he asks, coming back for you with blood on his hands.

“You were perfect.” You hold your hands up to him. He swings you up on his hip for all that you are more than too tall for it now.

“No one’s perfect,” he says, smoothing back your hair.

You press your mouth to his where it his hidden behind his mask. The metal is cold on your mouth, his voice is hollow behind it. “You are,” you tell him. “You are.”

The next morning, is the same as every other morning. His arm around your throat, his belly on your back, your face in the mat. You writhe under him and feel him rock over you as you shift his weight, the weight of the world. Maybe you could slither free but you don’t. You just twist there like something pinned, grinding against the mat, gasping for air, feeling his sweat soak into your clothes.

You wake gasping for air, writhing. Your eyes open behind the mask and you claw at it until it comes free. Like his hair, your hair falls wet and black across your forehead. Your hand is clutched between your thighs. The world still smells of him. Of you.

Your fingers know the drill. They scrabble your armour aside and then you are being tortured by the relentless grasp of your own gloved hand. The pain is part of it, inseparable. Your boots slide on the floor under the ship’s console as your back arches.

When you come, you cry out for him, years after he’s gone. There is no God for you to invoke, no profanity strong enough. You don’t even know how to beg. One word. Him. The center of everything down to which the world spirals; the last point of light in the dark that turns into a billion stars.

Your hunt takes you to a white world that feels like home, clean and untouchable high in the clouds. Your work takes you to the feet of another man behind another mask. This one is a cruel father. All masks hide him. You keep failing him.

You take the abuse with your jaw loose, your shoulders loose, your breath even. You know you deserve it. You know you’ve failed.

He had the answers once. You are surrounded by him here. Surrounded by lean, lanky things in white armour, faces hidden behind white masks. Some have slid away from the mold, changed, become sullied. Here and there, though, you still see him as he was.

Down long, white corridors, you are hunting him. You know the roll of his walk without seeing it, you can hear his armour shifting as he moves. You can smell him even under the salt and metal tang of your tears.

Now, it is your arm around his throat, your weight on him. His wet hair smells like yours, smells like his. You inhale a soaking curl and the taste of him hits you like a fist and makes you sigh his name.

One day, he said. He was right. This is not the first time you’ve beaten him. The first time, you cried. This time, you just whisper his name and hold him tight until the strength drips away from him.

His is the body you came from. The scars are not the same, but it is his under the skin. You know every long muscle, every perfectly articulated joint. This is the game you play now, another game of survival. He is spread out for you to admire the way you did when you were so small he seemed like the world.

“Tell me.” You fill your hands with his skin, running them over his body.

“Tell you what?” His voice is the same as it always was.

“Tell me what to do.”

“I… I don’t know.”

It’s a test. He’s always testing you. He only does it because he loves you. You kiss the face behind the mask, like kissing the mirror, only warm. You lay your body on his, spread-eagle, your hands twined with his where they’re bound. You can’t get enough of him. He is, and always has been, everything to you.

“I miss you,” you whisper.

Sometimes, just sometimes, he whispers, “I miss you, too.”

You always put the mask back on him before you say goodbye. Your forehead pressed to his, the metal cold against your skin, you always have to say goodbye. He always leaves you in the end.

You always make it quick, because you love him. One day. You never wanted it to come.

Halfway down to the belly of a beast, acid eats through your armour, chews at your mask, melts your gloves. You could let go. You could be with him again. You keep failing him.

No one’s perfect.

You are.

You want to let go but you can’t leave him. You are burning. You will never look like him again. But the universe is still full of him, and you are his chosen one. You grit your teeth against screaming and remember everything he taught you so you can live.

My crackfic, let me show you it: Little Jacks

2008-01-29T21:48:36Z

Title: Little Jacks
Pairing: Jack Harkness/Cthulhu
Rating: you need a rating after seeing that pairing? (it's not explicit. feel better now?)
Notes: only for apiphile would I do this

Little Jacks

Jack is naked. Naked and up to his nipples in warm, dark water that is almost too thick to be water. The cave around him is lit with the green and pink glow of strange lichens phosphorescing ecstatically into the warm, dark underbelly of the earth. It’s like being in a great womb, and Jack has been in one before on other adventures, so he knows. The cave roof arches high above him and Jack is a single point of naked whiteness in a vast wilderness of stone and water broken only by a dark mound that reaches toward the highest point of the roof.

Soft, tender things caress Jack’s toes, his arches, his calves. Something tiny bumps into his belly like the smallest hiccup coming from the outside. Omnisexuality is a beautiful thing, but sometimes it breeds strange consequences. Something rolls in his palm like a marble streaming tendrils.

Jack brings his hand to the surface and there’s a small thing there, changing colour from green to black to blue. It’s freckled and fat and its tentacles are so delicate as to be translucent. It looks edible. Harmless. It looks up at Jack with eyes as bright and tiny as the radium dots painted on the watch that Jack has left in the pocket of his folded pants.

Now that he knows what to look for, he looks across the pools again and realizes that the faint sparkles are not the flare of some single-celled flagellate frolicking in the primordial soup. They are eyes by the thousand, opening, closing, blinking, gazing. The water around him is full of glitter, too.

“Well,” Jack says, pulling himself together. Madness always seems like a good option on these visits but, frankly, there’s more sanity here than in the rest of his life. It’s just a matter of keeping things in perspective. “They do say there’s no perfect contraceptive.” The peak of the mound parts and unfurls; wings larger than any sail fold back from the beast. It’s a terrible thing to look at, like the manifestation of miscarriage and genocide and tragedy.

“Let it not be said that I’m not a responsible man,” Jack continues. He uncurls his hand and lets one of his children escape back into the nursery with the rest of its siblings. “I’m willing to step up, of course.”

Cthulhu’s eyes turn on him like monstrous halogen lamps. Jack is caught in their golden beam. The sound that comes forth is laughter, laughter of an Elder God, and Jack clamps his mind tightly on his sanity. A tentacle resolves from the shadows, taking form, curling around Jack and tracing a line across his jaw.

The tentacles; they could rend reality or they could do so many other things. Jack sighs and wonders at the incongruousness of being naked and aroused while his children slide against his thighs. Elder Gods do not share any of the morality of most sentient things, but still, Jack is relieved when he is drawn up and in toward the great eyes. Other slender limbs twine about him as he surrenders. It’s like being fucked by a dragon made of insanity and cocks, Jack once said, trying to explain it drunkenly to someone who was drunk enough to forget.

Jack has learned to cope with knowing that he can’t die. He’s even learned to be grateful for it, like now, when the dark creeps in between his lips when he opens them for a kiss. This other immortality he’s gained, the rolling on of his genetic code, is nothing but a pleasant surprise in comparison to that. There’s nowhere in him that isn’t dark now and he feels himself writhing with the first of a thousand orgasms he’ll have before the tryst is done. Maybe, the quiet part of his mind says, he’s not so much sane as it is that he’s gone all the way mad and come back again.

12in2008: Fight Club

2008-01-28T04:57:48Z

Title: Someone Has To Be, Maybe
Pairing: Tyler Durden/Robert Paulson
Rating: profanity, sex, disturbing situations, bodily functions
Beta: my girl hasn't seen Fight Club but she likes Chuck and she liked this. That's the sum/total of my beta on this one.
Words: 1522
a/n: I have bad ideas. I have really, really bad ideas. Like BAD IDEAS. Bad ideas like Tyler Durden and (dead) Robert Paulson. They happen when someone says miserably, 'I'm writing Fight Club Fanfic' and I think 'how bad can that be?'. Then I answer my own question. Unlike reasonable people, I write my ideas. If they're not fanfic, sometimes I publish them.

Someone Has To Be, Maybe?

Tyler is all lean arrogance and I am Jack’s Sense of Foreboding. He’s cleaning up in the ‘soap room’, that place that used to be the kitchen, where someone’s mother cooked up dinners for her children and Tyler cooks up mayhem for his followers. Stripped to the waist, wearing big rubber boots and heavy rubber gloves, he’s bent over a table with a scrub brush in his hand. Everything clean between batches. The light from bare bulbs overhead is harsh honey on his sweaty, corded back.

I’m about to speak to him when someone opens the back door. The springs pop and sing, the wood of the doorframe and the threshold creak heavily.

“Am I late?”

I am now Jack’s Creeping Horror.

“I tried to keep up, but… I’m not sure what happened.”

The figure that comes through the door is almost too big to fit. He’s thick and sweaty, hair standing on end, breasts rolling against his belly under his tight, black shirt. Dirt tumbles from him as he walks, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Tyler doesn’t yell at him for mucking up the floor.

“You did great.” Tyler doesn’t miss a beat. He stops and leans on the end of the far table, facing me. One foot is up on a chair, that knee flung out wide; the other foot is planted on the floor. He’s still without being passive, he’s never passive. “You made the whole fucking thing, Paulson.” He starts pulling off those gloves, those fucking gloves that he pulls on like condoms, snapping them into place and flexing his fingers before digging into the next mess. He pulls them off like a burlesque dancer, one finger at a time sucking loose from its sweaty socket. “You were awesome.”

“You know my name.”

“Of course I know your name.” Tyler grins and throws his arms wide open, inviting the shambling mound into that lean, bare embrace. “Your name is Robert Paulson.”

“I shouldn’t…” Bob was always such a gentleman. “I’m covered in dirt.”

“Take off your shirt then.” Tyler is unperturbed by the rejection. He pushes off of the chair and steps forward, hands going to the hem of Bob’s shirt.

I can’t see from here. I can’t see because Bob is taller than the lights hanging over the tables. His head is in shadows. I don’t think I want to see. I don’t know if it’s better or worse to see his brains and skull crumbled together again. But I can’t not watch.

Tyler pulls the shirt over Bob’s head and Bob covers his bitchtits with his big dirty hands, his big dirty hands that he used to dig back out of the grave and I must be drunk, or hallucinating. His shoulders curve inward and I can see the shame written in the valley of his spine that runs down between the swells of fat washing up on his rounded hips. Only the living can be that ashamed. I don’t want to be that ashamed about anything when I’m dead.

“I don’t…” He’s shy about his tits, I want to say. Tyler just hugs him without hesitation, hard, face pressed into Bob’s cleavage like I used to do. Back then, there was a shirt between us; this illusion that we weren’t that close. That we weren’t one shuffle away from dancing. We’re still men. “I’m sorry,” Bob says, apologizing for being what he is. For being ugly and deformed and…

“Turn around.” Tyler steps back and starts undoing his belt. I feel like someone’s grabbed me by the dick.

He leaves his pants hanging open when Bob doesn’t move and starts undoing Bob’s pants instead, loosing that big belly from its restraints. Bob doesn’t have bitchtits when he’s naked. Bob is the fucking Buddha when he’s naked, a huge deity of a man. His belly covers his faded briefs, but then Tyler yanks those down and I can’t see them beyond the table. It’s Tyler who looks all skin and bones, like a boy.

“Turn around,” Tyler says again. He grabs something from the floor and I realize that it’s a container of fat. He drops it on the table, plunges his hand into it and comes out slick.

“You don’t have to do this,” Bob says, but he’s moving. “It’s good of you to offer but…”

Tyler backhands him almost casually with his clean hand. “I’m not offering. This is the next stage.”

Bob turns around, hands on the table like he’s being arrested. Tyler touches him with surprising tenderness after that. He’s saying something in Bob’s ear I can’t hear and I’m straining. Why don’t I walk away? Why don’t I look away?

Because I’m taking care of Bob. Someone’s got to look out for him. Not like Tyler’s taking care of him, his hand out of sight between their bodies, doing something obscene. I can’t even see it and I know it’s obscene. The roll of Tyler’s shoulder, the ripple of his muscles, the noise Bob makes, those are all the evidence I need. It shouldn’t turn me on. This shouldn’t turn anyone on, not if you’re still sane, but it’s driving me crazy.

Tyler gets everything. He gets everyone. Everyone but me.

Tyler fucks like he does everything else, like he wants to kill it or die from it and he’s so fucking shameless. Their noises should have the place on high alert, but no one’s coming. Bob’s big, big like the world and Tyler fucks him like he owns him, like he owns the whole world and it’s got to bend over. And the world fucking loves it.

I fucking love it.

The table hits the wall before they’re done, there’s broken crockery, the bucket of soap and water spills when Tyler kicks it, foaming across the floor like the kitchen is coming from the force of their fucking. Bob’s making animal noises, Tyler’s silent, and the slap of flesh on flesh is like my heart beat. Tyler reaches around and grabs Bob’s tits, I can tell because of the way his body bends, and he pulls himself in, harder and harder, his ass clenching in the yellow light. I don’t know who’s coming, which of them or both of them, but I can almost feel it.

I am Jack’s Nocturnal Emission.

“Talk.” The word is mumbled around the toothbrush in Tyler’s mouth.

“I had this dream. About…” I don’t even want to say it. I’m on the toilet, Tyler’s in the tub. Taking a shit is less embarassing, but nothing stops me from that either. The words come out anyway like I have the runs, like my body wants the poison out. “You and Bob. Biblically.”

“Cool.” He pulls the toothbrush out and spits into the tub, red foam forming a shield over the shadows between his thighs. I try not to look there; I don’t want to compare. He drops the toothbrush into the water. “That’s very human of you.” He sits cross legged, reaches out to turn the tap. Hot water belches out into the tub, then slows to a sluggish piss. Our water heater has a prostate issue.

“Human?” I’m too human. I’m all human all the time. I reach for the toilet paper and yank off a handful. Remind me to buy something better. I still have hemmoroids from holding in all that anger all those years. There’s less blood on the sandpaper in my hand now than there was before I met Tyler.

“Sex is a very human thing.” Tyler picks up his cigarette out of the soap dish and lies back in the tub with a grunt. “Human. Fucking. Shitting. Fighting. Dying. Good dream. You’re all about making people more human.” He exhales smoke. His bare, water-wrinkled feet are braced against the end of the tub, his fight-bruised elbows stick out at the sides. “So, how was I?”

“What?” I yank up my pyjama pants and feel dried semen scrape against my lonely dick. Even in my nightmares, it’s Tyler getting laid.

“Was I good? In your dream, that is.” Tyler looks at me out of the corner of his eye, like he doesn’t care enough to turn his head.

“Yeah.” He’s been using my toothbrush again; it’s gone from its place. Gone, into his mouth, and then down into the shadows between his thighs. “You were great. Can I have my toothbrush back?”

“Come and get it.” He grins without looking at me, splitting his lower lip open with it, and when he pulls the cigarette away from his mouth again, it’s wet with blood.

Pissed, I stomp over to the tub and plunge my hand down into the water, feeling around and trying to ignore the brush of his flesh on mine. I don’t look at him. I don’t look down. I come back up with the toothbrush and turn away before he can see the swell of my dick under my stiff, thin, cheap pyjama pants.

Human. I am. He’s not. I’d like to make him.

I am Jack’s Humanity. Rising up at the worst imaginable times.

12in2008: X-Men AU

2008-01-26T21:45:36Z

Title: Fair Trade
Pairing: Scott/Logan
Rating: i never know what to put here. explicit sex, reluctance, drunkenness, men behaving badly, profanity, sarcasm, and canon blasphemy.
Words: 3500
a/n: written in response to a very specific request. Jean leaves Scott for Warren, Scott and Logan end up in bed together.

Fair Trade

Scott woke up with his head pounding so hard he thought it was going to explode. Shockingly, he wasn’t on the floor. He knew this because unless his floor had spontaneously generated a hole, there was no way he could be dangling awkwardly into space while lying on it.

Further bleary investigation – opening one eye – revealed that his head was about an inch from the matted green carpet. He even had his glasses on, which explained the lack of floor-holes. Shockingly (again), the floor was vomit-free. It was a good day so far. He was even in bed, or mostly in bed on the fold-out couch, with his head and one arm hanging off the end. And his head was pounding.

Pounding and pounding and crashing. Crashing? No. Those were feet, boots, on the crappy floor, and the crash of things being pitched out the window. His window. His things. Scott leapt to his feet.

Well, he got to his knees, got caught in the sheets that were half-peeled off the mattress, and hit the mattress with his thighs and belly. Only some vestiges of instinct got his hands in front of him before he face-planted in the carpet.

“I have…” he yelled, trying to extricate himself. “At least another week left, you fucker.” The way the words were coming out, he was still drunk.

Scott managed to get up this time and lunged toward the kitchen. Handily, everything was in one room. There was a calendar there that would tell him how much longer he had before he could legally be evicted. That he had no idea what day it was did nothing to deter him.

“Look!” He pulled the calendar off the wall and gestured it wildly in the direction of his landlord. “It’s not the end of the month yet. Let’s be reasonable about this.”

“Yeah.” The man who pulled the calendar out of his hand and threw it across the room wasn’t the landlord. “Let’s be fuckin’ reasonable.”

“Logan.”

“Sunshine.”

“What the fuck are you…” Scott looked around. His apartment was empty. He’d been robbed.

“You’re movin’ out,” Logan informed him, giving him that wickedly tight grin around the cigar clenched in his teeth. “I’m helpin’ ya.”

“No, I’m not.” Scott swayed and ran his hands over his face. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yer broke, yer drunk, an’ it is the end of the fuckin’ month. Two days ago,” Logan said. He hefted a box of Scott’s books and headed for the window.

“What are you doing?”

Logan answered by heaving the box out the window. A second later, there was a crash. “Packin’ the truck,” he clarified.

“I’m not going back.”

There was no way he was going back to the Institute. Maybe he hadn’t handled Jean coming back from her ‘training session’ on Muir Island and breaking up with him quite as gracefully as he should, but it wasn’t anyone’s damn business because he wasn’t responsible for being a good example now. Precisely why he’d moved out. He turned the kitchen tap on cold and stuck his head under it until his ears went numb, then drank from it until his stomach whined at him. There was another crash as Logan dropped another box.

“That’s still my stuff,” he said, sober enough now that he was really angry.

“Actually, it ain’t.” Logan turned around from the window and gave Scott a smile that didn’t mean good for anyone, especially Scott. Logan was never happy when things went well for Scott. “Everythin’ in here belongs to the landlord. Or, it did.”

“It… did?”

“I bought it. Cheap too, since I’m movin’ it out.” Logan slapped Scott on the shoulder and almost knocked him over. “He said he’d be much obliged if I took your sorry ass with me. Chuck said somethin’ like it, only about me bringin’ you back, and I’m in a mood to make people happy today. I’m happy.” He grabbed a box that was overflowing with Scott’s clothes and headed for the window.

“Of all the fucking childish, stupid jackass stunts you’ve ever pulled, this is… why are you doing this?” Scott’s yelling was making his own head hurt. He should have been rational about this. Calm. Mature. But it was Logan. Goddamn Logan who’d hassled him over Jeannie and now that he didn’t have Jeannie anymore, Logan was just finding new ways to make Scott miserable. “I don’t even have anything you want. Give me my damn stuff back.”

“Come an’ get it.” Logan put his hands on his hips, looking bigger and more solid than Scott remembered. “Gonna stash it inna room at Chuck’s place. He’s got plenty empty.”

“I… I’m not going back.” Scott looked down at himself. He owned a pair of faded blue jeans, apparently. That was all he had on him. He looked around and didn’t see his wallet. “Where’s my wallet?”

“Musta packed it by accident.” Logan stumped past and yanked the fridge open. Apparently it had spawned a dozen beers when Scott was off being drunk, or Logan had brought them. There were already four missing. Logan grabbed a fifth and cracked it open, then grabbed another and pitched it at Scott. Scott caught it before it hit him in the head. “I’ll make sure ya get it when I find it.”

“You can’t do this.” Scott opened the beer without thinking about it and took a desperate drink. “Look, bringing me back is not going to score you any points with Jean. Build Warren a new perch, buy him a pretty mirror, or something, if you want her to like you better. She sure likes you better than me anyway.” No, he hadn’t handled this gracefully at all. He drained most of the beer, then realized that he really had to piss. “Fuck it. Fuck you. I’ll make do.”

Somehow. He headed for the bathroom. It was cleaned out, too. At least Logan had left the damn toilet paper and his toothbrush and the last of the mouthwash. Scott brushed his teeth and wondered if he could wake up some time. But, when he went back out to the one room of his tiny apartment, it was still almost bare. Logan was efficient. As if the thought had summoned him, Logan came back in the front door.

“Logan, can’t we work something out?” Scott tried to be reasonable. He picked up his beer and took a sip, then winced at how it tasted with the toothpaste. “Look, this is just stupid.”

“Yeah, it is.” Logan looked Scott over in that way that said that it was Scott that was stupid.

“What the fuck do you want?” So much for reasonable. Scott was pretty sure they could hear him across the street. “It’s not like you want me to come back. It’s not like you really want all my stuff. What the hell do I have that you want? Just fucking take it and get out of my life.” He whipped the beer in his hand at Logan’s head.

The next minute he was flat on his back on the fold-out couch with Logan’s weight on him, Logan’s hand on his throat. Fuck. Logan’s face was an inch from his and Logan’s beer and the cigar had ended up somewhere else.

“This your couch?”

“No…” Scott swallowed hard. “Came with the place.”

“Good. I didn’t want it. You probably won’t afterward.” Logan’s grin was wolfish.

“What do you…” Scott was going to say, “What do you want?” but then Logan’s mouth was on his and he couldn’t speak. He didn’t think he’d ever speak again, he was so stunned. Logan’s tongue was in his mouth, tasting like tobacco and beer, and Logan kissed like he did everything else, fierce and unapologetic. Oh, fuck.

Scott’s hands slid up Logan’s chest, feeling muscle through slightly damp, thin black cotton. God, that felt good, just to touch someone else. He hadn’t touched another person in so long. And, somehow, he was kissing Logan back and making these needy sounds in the back of his throat and pushing up against the thigh that Logan had shoved between his knees.

“Ever think,” Logan said as he undid all the buttons down Scott’s fly with an expert twist of his wrist that was unbelievably hot, “that if you didn’t like me, you’d never’a minded me hittin’ on yer girl? Ya sure never minded it so much when Worthington did.” Then Logan stripped Scott’s jeans off and tossed them aside and Scott was damned because all he did was move to make it easier. “Ya never smelled like he did much for ya.”

Oh, God. Oh, fuck. Scott wanted to kick, to smash his fist into Logan’s face, but he was too horrified to move. Then Logan’s hands were on his hips and then Logan’s mouth was on his dick and Scott was grabbing at Logan’s hair, not to make him stop, but to keep him there. Oh, Jesus, Logan was good at it, too. Then, it hit Scott that he had told Logan to take what he wanted and, oh, someone or something have mercy on him, it was the best-worst mistake he’d ever made.

When Logan stopped, Scott gasped and tugged at Logan’s hair to no avail. Logan’s hands locked on his wrists and slammed them into the mattress on either side of his head. “Hope you were payin’ attention there,” Logan said, and he still had that wolf-smile on and it made Scott’s dick twitch to see it. “I like it like that. Don’t forget.”

Scott hadn’t been paying attention and he was going to have to fake it when – what the fucking hell, what the hell, he was going to do it and he hadn’t even argued with himself about it – he went down on Logan.

He didn’t have time to answer because Logan kissed him and all his thoughts went out of his head. Kissing was so underrated. Why would anyone ever complain about that sandpaper scrape of stubble, why would they complain about the taste of beer, about the taste of cock… women made no sense.

It was only when he heard Logan’s fly unzipped that Scott realized that the kissing had been a brilliant distraction that let Logan get both Scott’s wrists in one hand and somehow he’d got hold of the lube Scott used to jack off. Scott could smell it and suddenly, Logan’s fingers were in him.

“Logan, fuck…” Scott didn’t know if he was protesting or not. His body came up and slid his aching dick against Logan’s bare belly, against the flat muscle and soft fur, and he whined. Logan knew just where to hit him to make him want more, and this was the most insane thing that had ever happened to him. It made Jean dumping him for Warren look like pure reason.

“That’s th’ plan,” Logan rumbled. He kissed Scott again before Scott could process the implications of that and kept finger-fucking him until Scott was shaking with it and one inhalation away from begging.

Instead, he used that breath to curse Logan’s name as Logan pushed into him. Fuck, but the man was big and he wasn’t patient; Scott breathed and swore and tried to remember how to do this. He bit Logan’s lip when Logan kissed him to silence the profanity and that just got him a pleased snarl when the blood flowed. Logan’s weight pushed him down, carried Logan into him, and then Logan was still long enough for the pain to ease.

Once Logan started moving, though, it wasn’t long before Scott was swearing again. This time, it was pleasure, and he was using words he hadn’t used in years. Jeannie was not one for anything like that and Scott tried not to think anything bothersome during sex. Logan didn’t give a damn what Scott thought or said or felt, he was just taking what he wanted and it was beyond fantastic.

Logan got Scott’s knees up over his shoulders and long-dicked him until Scott was arching and grabbing at the sheets, pouring sweat and making incomprehensible noises. The man moved like something made to fuck, and Scott opened his eyes to see Logan looking down at him with feral curiosity. He met Scott’s eyes and ran a tongue over his teeth like he could still taste Scott there and that was all it took.

Come splattered up Scott’s chest and throat and he was arching to get Logan deeper. The high, thin noise he kept hearing was him, keening as he came in hard shudders. He couldn’t breathe, it had him so tight, pure pleasure without any conscience to it.

He was still shaking and trying to breathe when Logan pulled out. The emptiness felt like falling and Scott jerked with adrenaline, trying to grasp what he’d done wrong to make it stop. Logan grabbed him by the hips and flipped him like he weighed nothing, pulled him back. Scott had his knees under him, wide apart, and was tilting his hips up like begging before he knew it.

That must have been right, because Logan took him and started fucking him again, and Scott pushed back to hear Logan’s hips smack his ass over and over again. The noises he was making into the bare mattress sounded like, “Please” and “Don’t stop” but he couldn’t be sure. It was like someone else was saying it. Someone he didn’t have to think about.

Logan got one hand in Scott’s hair and pulled his head back so that those noises came out clear and sharp. “Fuck, don’t stop. Don’t stop. Please. Hard.” That was Scott’s voice, it was what was echoing around in his head.

The words got a grunt out of Logan and he jerked Scott’s head to the side. Then his weight was on Scott’s back and his teeth were tearing at the curve of Scott’s neck, his mouth sucking the blood up under Scott’s skin.

“Oh, God, make it hurt.” There was no being quiet, not with Logan’s thick cock filling him up, not with his smell and his heat overwhelming everything. Logan’s teeth broke skin and Scott realized that he was hard all over again.

Logan leaned back, relinquishing Scott’s hair for a grip on his hip with one hand. The other hand found Scott’s hypersensitive dick and stroked, calluses raking at the thin skin. Scott yelped and twitched and Logan laughed at him, laughed and pushed in deep with a grunt. “Come.”

Scott would have eaten glass before obeying an order from Logan, right up until now. Logan’s hand was tight and cruel and Logan fucked him harder now, his rhythm getting unsteady, his breath coming in short animal noises that sounded unbelievably hot. A few more rough strokes and Scott was coming all over again.

This time, it was longer and slower and when he felt Logan jerk and snarl, he shook and it felt like coming anew. Logan stopped stroking him to grab his hips and Scott arched his back and took it, over and over again, gasping raggedly as Logan came.

After, Logan let him slump forward and pulled out. The clink of Logan’s belt buckle brought Scott the vague awareness that he was face-down and naked on a dirty mattress, covered in his own come, ass in the air, and Logan hadn’t even taken his damn boots off. And Scott didn’t care. Not a damn bit.

Scott rolled over on his side and grabbed a corner of the sheet to wipe some of the come off of his body. He dabbed at it a little, then gave up, slumping back down. “Get what you came for?” he asked, realizing that he’d brought it all on himself by telling Logan to take what he wanted.

“Nope.”

Scott’s jeans hit him in the face. “Then…”

“Get dressed, Slim.” Logan walked away and Scott wriggled into his jeans. He was slick between his asscheeks and down his thighs, but he was not going to have this argument naked.

Once he had the jeans on, he got to his feet. Fuck, but he was wobbly. “I’m not…” he started to say. Logan was standing there with one thumb hooked in his belt, the half-empty case of beer dangling from the other hand, just looking at him with that “You are such a fuckup, Summers” expression on his face.

“First, ya want to come back,” Logan said. “Chuck says so. And if ya don’t come back, ya can’t have your room on the second floor back, and how the fuck are ya gonna have any fun drivin’ Wings an’ Jeannie around the damn twist makin’ all that noise ya make when I’m fuckin’ you?” There was that grin again and Scott wanted to punch it.

There was a pounding on the door and the landlord started yelling. “What the hell are you doing, Summers? Get out of here before I call the cops and have you for tresspassing.”

“Ya can’t have ‘im,” Logan bellowed back. “I just did and I ain’t in the mood to share. Fuck off.” Scott stared at Logan in horror. “What?”

At least at the mansion, Charles was there as some kind of safety net. Scott took a deep breath and summoned up his dignity. Whatever kind of dignity you could have with nothing but a pair of jeans to your name, jeans that were getting less redeemable by the minute. “Nothing,” he said mildly. “Were you going to stand around here playing neanderthal, or were you going to drive me back to the Institute?”

Logan gave him a long look. “Get in the damn truck.”

Scott kept his chin up on the way out the door, past the landlord, right until Logan smacked him on the ass. “Think I got a use for this, after all,” he said to the landlord, all rumbling cheer. “I’ll be takin’ it back, too.”

Right. That was why Scott hated him. Good to remember.

It had taken the afternoon to unpack the truck and Scott sure as hell remembered why he hated Logan by the time they were done. He hated Logan even more when Logan got a hand in his hair, pushed him to his knees, unzipped, and pushed his cock into Scott’s mouth. He sucked Logan off anyway because it seemed like a matter of pride – he didn’t want to owe Logan anything, after all – and felt deeply gratified at making him shudder and snarl while coming down Scott’s throat.

Then, somehow, he forgot about hating Logan when Logan bent him over the footboard of the bed and fucked him until all he could speak was gibberish. There was no remembering at all while Logan finger-fucked him after coming in him, kissing him, biting him, pinning him to the bed until Scott whined and writhed and they were hard again.

After that, Logan fucked him until Scott understood the phrase “though the mattress”. Scott’s throat was sore from cursing and whining and howling. He’d tried to be polite but Logan had ripped the pillow away and it had snowed feathers around them for the longest time, like they were caught in the world’s most perverse snow globe. After that he’d stopped trying to be quiet until he was lying limp under Logan’s weight.

“I need a beer.” Logan smacked Scott on the ass and pushed himself up.

Scott lay there, too worn out to be offended, and dared to peer at the clock. Shit, it was almost eleven. They’d been having sex for... hours. No wonder he was tired. Logan, on the other hand, was whistling tunelessly while he dressed.

“Want anything?”

Scott processed this and came up with enough saliva to get his tongue loose from the roof of his mouth. “Beer’s good. Sandwich.” He needed something to replace the energy he’d lost. Logan pulled the door open and Scott wondered if he could be seen from the hall.

“Hey, Wings,” Logan said with that hellish cheer that always made Scott want to hit him… only now, it wasn’t directed at him and it was kind of amusing. “Need something?”

“…noise… unacceptable… very upset.” Warren was keeping his voice down. Nice and polite.

“Why’s she upset? She ain’t datin’ him no more.” Scott heard Warren’s strangled noise of exasperation and smiled, rolling over to sprawl bonelessly on his back.

“…no choice but to speak to Dr. Xavier… have to tell him…”

“You think he missed that?” Logan laughed and started to close the door. “Damn, I best get my beer and do it again. Maybe twice. Maybe better. Hell, even if he didn’t, I think I will.” He drew the door shut behind him with a click.

Scott lay there and started laugh helplessly. The worst thing was, Logan might be serious. He could do it again. There was no way that Warren had that kind of stamina. Ridiculously, that made him feel smug. Better. He felt better about all of it.

He still hated Logan, but that never stopped them from making a good team any other time. Scott closed his eyes. He should be resting. God knew, hell, everyone knew, he was going to need some strength.

12in2008

2008-01-26T21:17:45Z

Doing 12in2008. I'm attempting stories in 12 fandoms, of 1000 words each at a minimum. I have NO idea what fandoms I'm going to write in, so don't ask me yet. Potentially, off the top of my head, I could do...

Alphaflight AU: OC-M/OC-M
Blade Movieverse: Blade, Hannibal/Abby
Hellboy Movieverse: HB/Liz, Myers/Liz
Zelazny, Amber: undecided
Shakespeare, undecided: undecided
Dr. Who Original: Ace/Seven or Turlough/Guardian*
Dr. Who Original/New/TW: Adric/Jack**
SG:A: undecided
SG-1: undecided
Bones: Zack/OC-M or Angela/Camille***
A Knight's Tale: William/Edward****

What I've actually DONE.
~~X-Men Comics AU: Scott/Logan~~
~~Fight Club: Tyler Durden/Robert Paulson, Narrator~~
~~Star Wars: Boba Fett/Stormtrooper, Jango Fett~~
~~House: House/Wilson~~

*this would be so horribly black
**Adric deserved better than he got, damnit
***there would have to be some kind of drugs or booze involved here, but it's a nice thought, ain't it?
****because I didn't write it 7(?) years ago when I wanted to do it