#{ hades is so childish }

[hera-arii]

I always felt the gods here with me throughout my life, even before I started worshipping them.

When there was a thunderstorm I would go to the window and bask in the embrace of the lightning, beautiful and spectacular I thought it was. The comforting sound and feeling of the storm was calming to me.

That was King Zeus with me, giving me a sense of peace when others wouldn’t feel it.

The feeling of parental instinct when a child is in need. Wanting to make your family proud and trying your best to be strong, for them. Doing whatever you have to do so everyone in your life is safe.

That was Queen Hera with me, protecting me and others.

Going to the beach and collecting seashells. Splashing in the water with my loved ones, finding new rocks and walking along the seashore, smelling the salty sea breeze, it’s amazing.

That’s Poseidon with me, showing me the beauty of the sea.

Thinking about the loved ones that passed. Having them in my memories and feeling their presence here even though they aren’t.

Thats Hades with me, remembering the past.

Taking care of the Earth. Cooking your meals by yourself. Being grateful for your belongings and food. Respecting others and willing to do anything for your loved ones, and keeping them safe.

That’s Demeter with me, caring and understanding.

Learning. Making sure your studies are fufilled. Being a strategist and using your brain before doing. Trying extra hard to pass your classes. Wanting peace between war.

That’s Athena with me, reminding me to try my best.

Loving. Giving my friends the love they deserve. Always trying to make them happy, even if im upset that day. Trying to love my family even when they make me feel negative about myself.

That’s Aphrodite with me, loving unconditionally.

Losing my temper, controlling my temper, feeling strong emotions. When I get mad I can’t even think. So angry I might start a war. Standing up for what I believe in. Making myself known.

That’s Ares with me, and my emotions.

Feeling the sun heal my soul. Using music as an escape from reality. Guiding me throughout the day with the light that shines in the darkest parts of me. Healing myself.

That’s Apollo with me, using his light to save me.

Watching the moon glow at night. Hunting for my purpose in life, and learning new things. Archery. I hold the bow high, aim, and shoot. It’s easy for me because of her. She showed me the way.

That’s Artemis with me, guiding me throughout the night.

That feeling when you built something by yourself. It’s so amazing, like you can do anything else, and you seem powerful for once. The best thing you can feel. Pride.

That’s Hephaestus with me, building my pride.

The warmth you feel in your heart when you are in your room. It’s the happiness of being in control of yourself. Being hospitable towards others.

That’s Hestia with me, warming my heart.

Having fun. Doing what you love. Dramatizing yourself and being playful with others. Always leading with what you want to do. Making time for your passions.

That’s Dionysus with me, reminding me to have fun.

Traveling. Doing new things. Trying to find new passions. Not be afraid of getting in a little trouble. Playing pranks and games with people you love. Getting to act like a kid again.

That’s Hermes with me, making sure my childish needs are filled.

Dreaming. Imagining yourself in a different way. Seeing the beauty of another life. Being someone else entirely, you can do anything. Nothing can limit you now. The feeling of being cradled to sleep like a baby. The care you are being handled with.

That’s Hypnos with you, and in your dreams

They were always with me, and now im with them.

[thewritetofreespeech]

Hey! Happy to see requests again!

Could I request headcanons of Thor, Poseidon, and Hades getting a lap pillow from their beloved wife?

RoR men + using their wife's lap as a pillow

Says he doesn’t like it, but actually he does

Being able to set the hammer down, and lay in his wife’s lap, looking up at the endless sky of Asgard is comforting.

It’s the only way he can truly relax anymore.

Able to fall asleep as his wife combs her fingers through his hair.

He hates it.

It’s undignified, childish, and a waste of time. But, his wife likes it when he does it so he plays along.

Humoring her only on occasion, it is one of the few times he openly talkative as Poseidon would rather fill the space with something that just lay there.

He suspects that’s why she asks to do it.

Initiator for this event, to the point that he’ll even go find his wife and make her sit down to do it.

Hades’s loves it.

Being pampered and caressed by his wife. Looking up at her (and her bosom) while they ‘sit’ together is a wonderful thing.

Preferred spot to do it is the gardens, although he will settle for really any flat surface area.

[lowkeyrobin]

Hey pooks:3 can you do a thing with the VK’s (from red) with like a reader who is reckless, childish, stupid, and just has no filter and like reader is like the little sibling of the group? Maybe there like a bit younger then the VK’s to tytytytytyty:333 (all platonic)

oo okay I can try! ; I turned this into a pref because 💀 ; anyway thanks for requesting, hope you enjoy! ; I don't write for hades or uliana unless it's like a group oneshot thing so I didn't add them here, but I did add red cause she technically is a vk and I felt bad for the small cast lol. but if anyone else sees this and wants to request a preference, you can say vks + bridget and charming if u want them cause I'll prob just sort red in there already

RISE OF RED ; reckless

includes ; hook, morgie, maleficent & red

warnings ; language

masterlist

JAMES HOOK

lowkey finds the lack of filter hilarious

he also finds the childish, reckless antics adorable in a platonic way

like he will be watching and supporting

you're like his little sibling

he kinda leads you around n stuff and whispers into your ear of what to do

like he pushes you into situations where you can cause mischief, and it's funny asf

in those Twitter aus I usually see on tiktok, he'll post videos of you doing stupid shit and caption them

and usually the others will laugh or leave dumbass comments

he loves u tho ur like his little sidekick

fuck smeed he let his hand get eaten off by that dumbass crocodile

ur cooler anyways

MORGIE LE FAY

he's not inherently evil, just trying to fit in

so when you're under his wing, you're not doing nessecarily bad things

he'll watch you do dumb shit and speak your mind and laugh, but no assholery

he jumps into little pranks and stuff sometimes cause he has some cool powers

he really does see you as a little sibling that he never got growing up

it really does fill the lonely void inside his heart 💔

he finds your reckless antics hilarious but he's also worried about you mentally because how tf are you so stupid

MALEFICENT

she's like your whole ass mother

she's teaching you all the ways to be wicked

she's teaching you all about dark magic and fairies and shit

she finds the childish behavior and recklessness funny for a while but there's a point where it's a tad annoying

just act as her little evil sidekick already 😔

but she definitely drags you along everywhere and parades you around

"y/n, be a dear and show them what I taught you"

and you turn some rando kid into a fuckin toaster or some shit

"not quite... you'll get it with some practice"

she's really a proud mother when you get shit right and whatnot

she does find the whole zero filter hilarious tho

you've eaten her up a few times 😭🙏

RED OF HEARTS

you're literally the little sibling she never had growing up 💔

you being so childish, reckless, and open with your thoughts makes it sm better

being princess of Wonderland sucks asscheeks and it's sooooo boring

but ur like the light of her life

you're always out with her when she's causing trouble in the night

your lack of filter makes her laugh outside the guidelines (noon-4pm) (idk got this from the book)

she's always getting you into trouble since you want to so bad

you do some reckless ass shit sometimes 💀 gang do not get caught...

she 100% supports the trouble you get in

ur number one supporter

[itstheghostofmypast]

Burden of Love

Non-idol Choi San x (F)Reader

Son of Hades × Daughter of Aphrodite

Summary: Cursed. Since the day of her birth, she had been cursed, one that was a burden her mother had no interest in catering to, the burden of love.

Genre:Fluff/Angst

Word Count: 2.9K

Est. Read Time: 20 min

Warnings: sexual harassment, mild torture

Rating: Mature

Networks: @cromernet @k-labels @san-network

"If you're going to sulk all day, his highness may conclude that you are unhappy here." The butler cleared his throat, placing a cup of tea in front of his queen, turning his head to face her sour expressions, her small little frown and the dent etched between her eyebrows as she read the book in hand -though he ensured to avoid her eyes. She however was busy, busy ignoring the man talking to her, even ignoring the little exaggerated sigh he had let out.

"What are you reading?" He asked, trying to distract his King's wife, his lover, his muse, the shining star of his dark, cold and endless sky, his spoiled brat- No, Yunho, you do not say that about your queen, no matter how childish and petty she may be sometimes. What did he expect? She was the youngest of Aphrodite's children, which did mean that she was in fact, the most babied of the lot, one who had her mother's and almost every other individual's undivided attention- attention and love she was bound to receive, a promise made at birth, or so he had assumed. Though would she give back in equivalence and sincerity? Even his King, he never did expect his king, the ruler of the Underworld, the sole most beloved child of Hades, the powerful ruler of the world below, one of the strongest to exist- to grovel to his knees at the mere sight of this woman- especially when she had refused to even look a him, for he was from the world below, an inferior being, as she had proclaimed- look at her now, sitting in the very world below that she had once insulted-

"Do you think he no longer loves me?"

His eyes snapped up at her face, still avoiding her eyes once more, though he took in a certain look she wore, one that made her beauty stand out even more, the pastels of her off shoulder dress extenuating her graceful features- this woman radiated an air so alluring that perhaps she would leave her mother jealous- was she? Is that why Aphrodite, herself, ensured to take over the marriage proceedings, ensuring her daughter had no way out, ensuring to send her down to hell, to hide her, to ensure her daughter could not outshine her in any manner- she had even refused when his great King had gone running to her, telling her how he never wished to upset her daughter. The first night of their marriage and she had told the son of Hades how she hated him and never wanted this- in an instant he had rushed to Aphrodite to get to the bottom of this, to ask her how she could do something against the wishes of her own child? How could she harm such a being of tenderness, of such beauty, of such purity, only to be brushed off, when his mother in law retorted with,

"She's yours to do as you please, oh, Prince of the underworld do not burden yourself with her childish tantrums, she is but a nymph, who could satisfy you for eternity and more, just take off the blindfold and your worries will vanish."

That night he had come back to the underworld and called upon all his generals and advisors, he had even called in Seonghwa, even though the guardian of the Titans had no real clue of what love was, giving instructions they never thought of receiving, especially for a mere spoiled child of a goddess,

"We must ensure she is never unhappy, my wife should have her every whim dealt with, no matter how childish."

It may have originally been a form of guilt that he was going through, Wooyoung had told Yunho the same, perhaps like all other men, their King had fallen for her beauty, her alluring nature and persona, her flirtatious being, which is why when she had rejected him to face, he must've felt the guilt of forcing her to a commitment she may not have ever wanted- which is why the first of his new wife's request was to have a separate sleeping chamber, one so far away from them that she would barely see his face. He had agreed instantly- guilt, was it not?

However, even after a year of this practice, he had not once been bothered by her increasing demands, but instead had shown nothing but concern, making Yunho stand there for hours in his dimly lit study, asking about his wife;

"Has she eaten?"

"Yes, young Prince."

"Is she well? Have you been feeding her whatever she wants?"

"She is. We have."

"Is she...what about her comfort? Bedding? Clothes? Rugs-"

"She changed the ones in her room to colours that matched her room in Olympus, we did all she asked her for, including getting her a new wardrobe."

"That's good..." he had smiled staring at his father's will, knowing he would be no longer a Prince in a few days, "I want her to be happy, truly happy."

Yunho had wanted to believe in his King's wishes, but he could tell him how this child of Aphrodite had slowly been drifting away, sitting locked up in her room most of the time, only tended to by the female staff- other than Yunho. Yunho was the only man other than San to have interacted with her in the Palace, but unlike his King, he had never met her gaze, the galaxy filled crystal pair of orbs, that stories had been written about, songs had been dedicated to, the eyes of a maiden that held the galaxy within, shining brighter than a sky full of stars, reflecting off one's deepest desires, often lust when it had been a man who had dared to make eye contact- which is why she was to always where a blindfold, one that would often match her attire, though there were occasions in Olymus where she chose not to, but every god and goddess there feared for their life, knowing laying a finger on her meant Aphrodite's wrath.

It was ironic how the first time his King had ever seen her, she was wearing a blindfold, one she had refused to take off during their wedding as well, out of spite or out of fear, the advisor (mind you she just treated him like a butler) was not sure, but he knew that the night she had said all those things, San had taken off her blindfold, admiring her beauty when she had spat at him, using words so harsh, words he had never wished to hear from his wife.

After that night the blindfold had returned, even when the maids would bathe her she would not let them touch it, Yunho knew she would wear it around him, but he never dared to meet her gaze in any case, out of respect? Perhaps...or out of pity. He had been witnessing for a year how she had begun to lose the colour of her cheeks, her lips now often found quirked into a frown, hands often fiddling with the ribbons of her dress, he had wanted to tell his King this, but he had stopped asking about her altogether, especially since she had refused to attend his coronation, even after receiving the title of the Queen. He had stopped asking if she had eaten, if she was well, in fact, he would no longer be interested in the report Yunho would give nightly, only asking if there was something out of the blue that should concern him- but there never was, everything was always the same, or so they had assumed.

For the night that the King had decided to retire early to bed, bidding his generals and his advisor a goodnight, his advisor following suit, asking his King to listen to him about his wife, wanting to tell him about her declining health, though his Lord had turned a deaf ear to him, "I don't want to hear of it Yunho, I'm tired tonight, I don't care if she didn't like dinner tonight just give her what she wants tomorro-" his words had been cut short with an ear piercing scream, one that had had him and his loyal servant bolt to the wing of the castle where his wife stayed.

Yunho had seen almost his fair share of sin and horrid things, the underworld was no place for the light hearted, but what he had not prepared himself for was the sight of his Queen's shivering form, hugging herself as she coward behind a fallen chair, crying and yelling,as she gripped onto the torn end of her dress to cover herself, while across the room a dozen maids were holding onto a foaming, wild eyed -Minister? What had he even been doing down here? How did he get in? Did he catch her without her blindfold? Was he a traitor coming to coerce the Queen for something? Or was he just a curious old fool? Was this because he looked into her eyes, maybe General Jung could beat it out of him- or not, for as soon as his King had entered the brightly lit, pastel coloured room the atmosphere had shifted, the air had thickened and her cries had been muted out by the screams of the minister that had just caught fire, shackled to the the ground, with the molten hot chains that had manifested from the floor of the castle - of course the son of Hades was no soft hearted fool, he knew no ends when it had come to torture. All too soon the burnt man that was still whimpering apologies was tossed out of the window, his scream ending with a loud thud as the King glanced at maids, enough of a gesture for them to scurry out of the room before turning to his wife, walking over to her, like predator to pray, Yunho would have interfered if he were not so deathly afraid of the man, he was unsure of what he was going to do to his mess of a wife, especially when he had crouched down infront of her, gripping her shoulders, which had only led the poor thing to yelp in pain, pleading for her life, whimpering about how she had nothing to do with this, how she did not wish to taint the reputation of the king, how she did not want to be punished-

"LOOK AT ME!"

Her eyes had snapped open meeting not the glare of a tyrant, not the eyes of a lust induced man, but the tender, soft gaze of a loving husband, one that had her calming down, one that Yunho did not expect- for he had realised something, his King had not been lust driven even after staring into her eyes, was this...love?

He knows not what happened after, for he had been instructed by his King to leave him with his wife, all he knows is that next morning he had been tasked by the King to infrom the head of the King's Counsel, Hongjoong, about the implementation of a new law, a new practice, one with grave punishment,

"One must never look at the Queen whilst in her presence, eyes must be cast to the ground while her Majesty is around, for her safety, anyone caught not following this would be tortured in the deepest pit of the Underworld for eternity, by the great General Park."

As soon as this was done, the King had personally overseen the burning ceremony of all her blindfolds, with his Queen standing beside him, hand in hand, only for her to smile up at him, a smile that he knew had led his King to fall for her, a smile he knew she'd use to get away with anything, even making the poor advisor wear a pink suit because she was bored, the smile that was so menacing and-

"Yunho~" she whined, causing him to let out a sigh, "I asked you a question!"

"My Queen, his majesty loves you no lesser than he did yesterday." He bowed, before straightening up, ignoring the way she scoffed and slammed her book shut, tossing it onto the table, truly a brat.

"Then why has he kept me waiting since morning!? I didn't even see him at breakfast!"

"He is a busy man, one who is ever so dutiful and responsible."

"You know...the saying is to "lick it, not make a meal out of it."

Of course, leave it to her to call him a boot-licker, maybe he should retire-

"Careful love, if you keep this up, Yuyu might retire early~" the door opened, as the subject of the matter walked in, with all his might and glory, laughing at the way his wife huffed and looked away, shaking his head at her antics, "Purple looks nice on you...Yunho." He motioned to the suit he was wearing, another one of the Queen's choice.

"Thank you, Sire, may I be excused?"

"Of cours- oh my." He chuckled when the door slammed within a second before turning to face his wife, who was still not looking at him, arms crossed over her chest, cheeks flushed and puffed out in anger- or a tantrum, whichever it may be, it was enough to have him sitting beside her and gently clasping her hands in his, whispering to her, trying to coax her out of it, "My love, the star of my life, why is it that you ignore me? I was but away ensuring I finish all my tasks so I could spend time with you."

"Liar." She huffed, though she never pulled away, even when he had gently gripped her chin, making her turn her head to face him, admiring her even more upclose.

"Never." He whispered, leaning closer to place a soft kiss at the corner of her lips, letting out a hearty laugh at her gasp, catching the surprise in her eyes, his own crinkling with admiration and love as he gave her his signature dimpled smile, before leaning closer once more, their foreheads bumping slightly, "Not once in my life have I lied to you, my love; my soul, my body, my mind, are but at your disposal, all yours to claim."

She only sighed, pouting at his words, pulling her hands out his hold to wrap her arms around his neck, her fingers reaching to twirl a lock of his onyx hair, her other hand gripping his coat, "Prove it."

"Oh? How so?" He mused, letting her play her little game, "Is my seed not proof enough?"

A light hearted chuckle broke past her lips, if it was possible for his heart to grow bigger with joy, it would have, the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears, "I suppose not~" she purred, the instant change of demeanour had him shivering under her warm touch, biting his lip when she gently tugged on his hair pulling him closer, enough for her to have her back pressing against the couch, him hovering above of her as he peered into her eyes, trying to find the constellation that had blessed their union, though when her hand pulled him down ontop of her, he forgot the purpose of his mission, to busy and engrossed by the sweet taste of her lips, the soft warm skin his fingers could feel through the gown, his hand reaching for hers, pinning her wrists above her head as he pressed his forehead against hers, his warm breath mingling with hers, "You naughty little-

"SHE IS WITH CHILD- GET OFF HER!? HAVE YOU NO SHAME!? AND YOU! FINISH YOUR TEA!"

In an instant the two had parted, sitting prim and proper at the two opposite ends of the couch, hands in their lap, the only give away were the dishevelled clothes, their messy hair and the smudged lipstick that was now decorating both of their mouths.

Clearing his throat he looked at his fuming advisor who held onto a notebook, "I-I was going to be gentle, Yunho-"

"SHUT UP. I KNOW HOW GENTLE YOU ARE, YOU MORON."

"Yuyu! That's not how you speak to your king-"

"SILENCE. I admit it's on the early stage but my Lady you must not let this hooligan give into his desires, do not be fooled by his stupid charm." Pinching the bridge of his nose he sighed as he handed the Queen a tissue, "Your health comes first, my lady, " Then he side eyed a flushed San who was staring at his wife wipe away the evidence of their little session, "And you should know that, Sire, her happiness is linked with her health."

When he earned a strong, firm nod from his King he sighed, for the nth time, "I shall prepare dinner and bring it here, for the love of all that is holy, please do not do anything harmful while I'm gone.' He mumbled walking to the door, only to stop, when he heard a giggle, turning around with another lecture ready, but stopped at the sight before him, his heart melting in disgust covered awe, watching her giggle to herself as she cleaned the lipstick off his lips, only for him to playful nip at her finger tips, earning squeals in return- these brats were a handful, he thought to himself, closing the doors of the study as he walked down the hall, a small smile gracing his tired features, glad that his Queen had found all she had been looking for, so afraid of the curse that she would never even say it out loud...love.

A/N: Idk...I just, I had to get this out of my system. I hope yall like it.

Taglist: @edenesth @yessa-vie @jaehunnyy @spooo00oky @the-kpop-simp @mlysalt

[areyouwell]

Alea Iacta Est

Ch.2

Ch.1 <-

Pairing: Logan Howlett x F!Mutant!Reader

Warnings: MDNI

Word Count: 27.1K

A/N: uh... oops? okay so this took like forty years because i wasn't expecting it to be sO LONG. this is also the initial length of the chapter CUT DOWN because there were three more scenes i wanted to add but JESUS it would have been around 40k if i did that soooo here :3

🏷 : @speeedybaby @ltristessedureratoujours @froggieeez @ayamenimthiriel @daddyslittlevillain @chubbyhedgehog @marifilue @galacticglitterglue @salemslostwitch @m1cky-y-y

“Alecto? That’s what she said her name was? Are you sure?” 

Logan sighed for the millionth time that evening, his arms folded securely across his chest as he answered question after question about his encounter with their latest mission target. This one came from Jean, her eyes bearing into his as if she could peel back his cool façade and dissect the truth from within. Which, to be honest, she probably could. 

“Like the Fury?”

All heads in the room turned to look at Kitty, who shrank in response to the sudden attention. “It’s uh, a Greek myth. After Cronos castrated the Primordial God Uranus–” Logan had to suppress a childish snort of amusement. Uranus, what a ridiculous name. “–his blood fertilised the soil and three Furies sprang into existence. Tisiphone, Magaera, and Alecto. They’re sort of supposed to punish sins like Magaera punishes sins committed through jealousy, Tisiphone punishes sins committed against the gods and avenges the murdered, and Alecto punishes sins committed through anger. They’re… torturers of sorts, mainly in the Underworld serving Hades. It’s actually in interesting–”

“Right, thanks for the Mythology lesson, Kitty, but that’s not really the point here,” Scott grumbled, clearly still not over the fact he was bested on the mission by someone he didn’t even have time to react to. But Kitty’s explanation got Logan thinking. It made sense, he thought, that you would name yourself after some kind of punisher. After all, every single one of your victims had been some criminal of sorts, your own acts against the law put to the side. 

“I’ve heard that name before…” Charles pondered, his brow furrowed in concentration as he searched his mind for the source of his recognition. Logan grunted in confirmation. 

“Yeah, she mentioned you by name. An old pupil of yours?” He asked, a brow raised in suspicion. It wouldn’t be the first time Charles had kept something like that hidden from the rest of the team. He liked to keep his cards close to his chest when it came to his failures, and if you were one of them, it would make sense why he’d never mentioned you before. But Charles shook his head. 

“No. Not this one. We couldn’t get to her in time.” He muttered, almost to himself, and Logan’s heart stilled in his chest. Couldn’t get to you in time? In time for what? Who the hell were you? What the hell did ‘in time’ mean? Jean and Charles exchanged a quick glance, the redhead nodding in silent understanding before she left the room. Some telepathic thing, no doubt. A spark of jealousy ignited in Logan’s chest. He hated it when they shared secrets, and he briefly wondered if Scott was ever let into their little silent communications club. 

As if hearing his thoughts, Charles sent him a long look of disapproval, to which Logan responded with nothing but tensing his jaw, dragging his eyes away from Xavier’s omniscient ones. 

“None of this matters,” he began, clearing his throat. “Unless I go to this Gala thing on the 18th. She said if we wanted to help–”

“Stop this slave trade business, yeah you said. But what’s to say she isn’t lying? Who’s to say this isn’t a trap to lure you away so any little friends she has can invade the school? Who’s to say she wasn’t involved in the burning of the orphanage?” Scott rebutted, and Logan could almost taste the irritation in his voice. 

“We’ve been over this. She couldn’t have anythin’ to do with it cuz she was–”

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have others working for her.” Storm offered as calmly as she could.

“How do we know she’s not workin’ for someone else?” Marie interjected the first words she’d said since entering the room. 

“Scott’s got a point, she knew more about the orphanage than any of us did.” Hank sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between fuzzy fingers. 

Logan huffed in irritation. “Because she fuckin’ told me. Why the hell would she say anythin’ if she was involved?”

“Why’re you defending her?” Scott accused, leaning forward against the broad table in the centre of the room. “Sounds like she got under your skin.”

“‘M not defending her–”

“Sure sounds like it.”

“What would you’ve done? Blasted a hole through her chest without a second thought?”

“Would have been better than letting her get away.”

“That’s ENOUGH.” Charles’ voice echoed through the room and Logan’s head, and judging by the winces and flinches from the rest of the team, he’d done the same to them. The room fell silent, though the tension was palpable. Logan’s fists bled white as he clenched them tightly, fighting every instinct in his body not to leap over the table and pound the ever-loving shit out of Scott’s stupid sunglasses-wearing face. “She didn’t have anything to do with the orphanage. That’s final. Scott, I think your anger is clouding your judgment. Logan’s right, she wouldn’t have said anything at all if she had any kind of involvement. As for others working for her, I didn’t see anyone else in the vicinity last night. She was working alone.”

A sick sense of satisfaction inflated his chest as he watched Scott lean back in his chair with a sharp huff, and he knew the motherfucker was rolling his eyes behind those tinted shades. 

“So… you’re going? To the gala thing?” Marie asked, cutting the tension in the room and forcing everyone back on track with the conversation. Logan shrugged in response, nodding simultaneously. 

“Yeah, I am.”

“I’ll search my closet, see if I have any kind of gala-appropriate outfits. A week doesn’t exactly give us much time...” Ororo mused, making to leave before Logan stopped her in her tracks, rising from his seat. 

“You won’t be needin’ it because you’re not goin’. None of you are.” He stated firmly, taking a step back to lean against the wall behind him, exhaustion pounding in his head. He knew this meeting was going to be fucking endless, but he didn’t think it would be this bad.

“You can’t seriously be thinking of going alone? That’s suicide!” Kitty exclaimed, her hands clasped firmly against the edge of the table as she too stood up. 

“You heard what Alecto said. Come alone or not at all. If we all show up, we run the risk of her boltin’, and not gettin’ any closer to findin’ out what the hell she was talkin’ about. Or who’s doin’ this and why? Charles?” Logan turned to the Professor for help, hoping to shit he was on his side. And the way Xavier sighed heavily, his head almost hanging low in defeat, told him he was right. 

“We don’t have a choice. Alecto specifically asked for Logan and nobody else. She had the chance to talk to Scott and instead incapacitated him.”

Logan suppressed a bark of laughter as Scott gaped at the blatant putting down of the incident, but Charles continued before he could refute the claim and tell them all how he thought everything went down. “Logan’s likely the only one who can pull this off. Now this isn’t to say none of you have the capabilities, it’s more than if things do go wrong, and this is, as Scott says, a trap, then he’d be the only one to make it out alive.”

‘Thanks…’ Logan thought sarcastically, and Charles narrowed his eyes at him, clearly having heard the faux gratitude. 

“I really don’t like this…” Marie muttered, running a hand through her nutmeg hair.

“Neither do any of us, but this is the only way forward I can see, and Logan’s willing, so it’s settled.” Charles finalised, looking to each team member individually, no doubt to gauge their reactions. None of them seemed happy, but they all seemed to have accepted the reality. 

“Alright, better search for somethin’ to wear. No offence, Slim, but I don’t think any of ya suits would fit me.” Logan jabbed with a crooked, shit-eating grin, and Scott simply glared at him from behind his sunglasses. There was no greater satisfaction than pissing him off. 

With the meeting ended, the rest of the team filed out, Logan making a promise to Marie to find her later so they could properly talk about what happened. He pulled out a cigar from his pocket and clamped it between his teeth, making his way to the front hall and out the double doors so he could smoke in peace. He’d just flicked open his lighter when the cigar in question was pulled from his mouth by invisible fingers and placed delicately back in the leather jacket he was wearing. A small, instinctual smile tugged at his lips, and he raised a brow as he looked behind him to see Jean leaning against the doorway, her arms folded across her chest, cleavage almost spilling from the low-cut top she was wearing. But, remarkably, Logan managed to ignore it. Not on purpose, it was more of a subconscious decision. 

“You’re really going to this thing, huh?” She sighed. It wasn’t a question, more a statement of acceptance, as if she needed to voice it out loud to truly understand. Logan hummed in confirmation, turning his body so he was facing her, mirroring her stance and leaning against the wall.

“Yeah. I am.” He responded simply, a surprising flare of irritation curling in his gut as he took out the cigar again, slotting it between the gates of his teeth and lighting the end, inhaling the thick, nicotine-laced smoke for a moment, before blowing it out into the night air. Jean’s lip curled in momentary disgust, before she schooled her features once again, although there was something flickering in her eyes. Something that almost looked like disapproval, and not at the fact he was smoking. 

“Something’s changed. You’re not as… you, as you were before.” She murmured, taking a few steps closer to him. Any other time before, his heart would be stuttering in his chest, and all sorts of filthy, debauched thoughts would be racing through his head. But this time, he couldn’t be far enough away from her. That instinctual smile that had pulled at his lips earlier had been wiped completely clean, replaced by sheer disinterest. 

“The hell does that mean?” He asked, the sudden need to defend himself dripping from his tone as he took another drag if only to blow smoke in the decreasing space between them. Jean’s eyes narrowed, and Logan felt the softest caress against the walls of his mind, his jaw clenching against it. “Outta my head, Jean. I mean it.”

She looked as if he’d just insulted her, slight hurt flickering across her sharp features. “Yeah, something’s definitely changed. What did she say to you?”

“Who?”

“Alecto.”

Logan rolled his eyes, turning away from her again to lean his back against the brickwork. Honestly, he was sick and tired of explaining himself, and you, to the rest of the team. He didn’t know what had happened, to be honest. But it was something greater than him. Greater than all of them. There was something going on that he didn’t understand and he didn’t like it. And he liked Jean’s prodding and poking even less. 

“She didn’t say anythin’. Jus’ thinkin’ about this whole slave trade thing, y’know?” He deflected. In all honesty, he couldn’t explain the sudden shift in his dynamic with Jean. He’d noticed it the moment he returned from the mission, realising she wasn’t the first person he wanted to see. Wanted to talk to. In fact, she hadn’t even been on his mind until she came running up the halls to crush Scott in a squeezing embrace. He didn’t even care about the way her hands cradled his face, searching for any sign of injury. He’d walked straight past her and into the board room without so much as a second thought. He was as thrilled as he was unnerved. 

It was peaceful, not having his heart bruised and beaten with every word exchanged. To not feel chewed up and spat out every time they looked at one another. Refreshing to feel absolutely nothing when Scott tucked her into his side, his hand braced against her waist, and he was only now realising his jealousy from earlier came from the fact that he was the one who interacted with Alecto, and she was still the one Charles was sharing his secrets with. That was what bothered him most. Shockingly enough. 

He blew out another cloud of smoke, watching the wispy tendrils rise and found his mind pulling back to his fight with you, the whirls of grey strikingly similar to the way the blood around your palms would twist, separating and joining at different points, as if they weren’t liquid, but something more. Something alive. 

“Sure, I guess. But you’ve barely said a word to me. Barely even bothered to say hi before you marched on through to the Professor. What’s– Logan would you look at me?” She urged, her hand on his shoulder sending a ripple of… something, across his skin. He couldn’t discern the feeling, but it sure as hell wasn’t a good one. Something really had shifted in him. How the hell could this happen seemingly overnight? 

But he did as she asked, hazel eyes sliding to look at her out of his periphery, and she removed her hand when he finally accepted he wasn’t going to turn to her again. “What’s that supposed to be?” She asked, gesturing to the way he hadn’t even moved. 

“‘M lookin’ atcha, like you asked me to.” He shrugged, fingers fiddling with the roach of his cigar as he twisted it around. He felt another strange sense of satisfaction at her defeated sigh, her eyes downcast as she traced the patterns of the gravel ground. 

“Just… Look. Be careful, okay? We don’t know what this Alecto is capable of, or what she’s planning, and I– I’d rather you came back safe.” She whispered like a secret. How long had he been waiting to hear something like that from her? How long had he been yearning to hear those kinds of caring words fall from her mouth and actually be directed at him? It didn’t matter, because he felt nothing. It was confusing. Freeing. Terrifying. All at the same time. 

“Thought I was the bad guy who didn’t stick around? How’d ya know I’ll come back at all?” He mused, flicking the cinders from the foot of the cigar and putting it out completely on the cold, slightly damp wall behind him. “Who knows, maybe I’ll come back the good guy you’d take home to your parents. Isn’t that what you said girls wanted?” He didn’t know where these sudden jabs were coming from, but it felt strangely good to get his inner turmoil out in the open. To call her out on the things she’d said in the past, contradictory to the fact he’d stuck around for the last god knows how long. He stood from leaning against the wall, placing the half-smoked cigar neatly back in the steel tin before shoving it, and both his hands, back into his pockets. 

“I was wrong… okay? Is that what you want me to say? You’ve proven you can stick around for a while, but it’s not just that. I’m with Scott, and I have been for a long time.” The exasperation in Jean’s voice baffled the fuck out of him. Why was she saying this as if he didn’t know? As if it wasn’t shoved in everyone’s faces every moment of every day. It irritated him to think that she cared. Irritated him to wonder why the hell this was even brought up. But he drew in a deep breath, finally turning to face her once again. 

“Okay.”

The night fell silent, only the distant sounds of crickets filling the sudden void as he watched the redhead process what he’d just said. The acceptance in his tone. The finality in one simple word. Okay.

“Okay? That’s all you have to say? Years of you flirting with me, pining after me, constantly jabbing and insulting Scott and all you have to say is ‘okay’? Like none of that ever happened? Like you didn’t kiss me that night we were running from Stryker?” She floundered, and Logan just watched. Sure, it was all true. He did kiss her that night, and when Mystique later entered his tense wearing her skin, he didn’t even hesitate. But that felt like such a distant memory now. After all, it had been a few years since that. 

“Wasn’t this what you wanted? It’s sure as hell what Scotty wanted, f’me to finally back off his girl. Isn’t this what you wanted? Cuz I’m gettin’ real confused over here.” He ground out between grit teeth. Why was she angry? What the hell was going on? Did she not want him to back off? Was this all some sick kind of powerplay to keep his attention? Or was she just as confused as he was? Despite all his questions, he suddenly found himself without a willingness to care. He’d had enough. 

“I didn’t–”

“G’night, Jean.” He interrupted before she could get a word in, shrugging past her and back into the warmth of the school’s interior. He’d never been the one to leave the conversation before. Never been the one to put an end to their interactions before now. It was thrilling, in a way. Leaving her out in the cold while she was stuck thinking about everything he’d just said. It was nice to turn the tables for once and to be the one in control of the situation.

Things truly had changed.

A sharp hiss echoed against the empty walls of an old abandoned factory as you bound your wounds, crimson blood seeping through the stark white gauze you wrapped tightly around both hands. Sure, they’d probably be healed up in a week or so, but the scars left behind were just short of infuriating. And the scabbing process across your hands already meant they would take longer than usual to heal over. 

This was not your finest work. 

You leaned against one of the solid beams, your legs dangling either side of the rafter you were perched on as you savoured the slight sting of closing your fists, reflecting on whatever the hell just happened. Of all the people to get mixed up in your business, why the hell did it have to be Professor X? Why couldn’t it have been Magneto? At least he would be more likely to side with you. 

The buzz of your phone vibrated in your pocket, and you breathed a heavy sigh. You knew who that was. You always knew who called you after a victim. Tugging out your phone, you swiped up on the screen, not even bothering to look at the caller ID. 

“Hey Tiss, what’s up?” It took a great deal of effort to make it sound like you weren’t utterly exhausted, and a sharp knife twisted in your gut at the realisation that you were about to lie to her. 

“Hey Alec, the Boss wants to know if you found anything?” She asked, her already husky voice crackling slightly over the receiver. Wasn’t there anywhere in this godforsaken city with good signal? You ran a hand through your hair, pushing down your hood at the same time. And it was with heavy hands that you removed the mask from your face, taking a gulp of the fresh air, air that to anyone else who hadn’t been wearing a mask for the last ten hours would more than likely both taste and smell incredibly stale. 

“Yeah, the location. Some fancy estate called Thornbury. Some kinda owner gathering so these sick fucks can discuss trades.” You spat involuntarily, disgust curling in your chest at the idea of people, humans, fucking about with the lives of mutants. Of your people. The natural order of the world had gone insane. How had it happened that the more advanced race had been subjected to torture and slavery? What the fuck was wrong with this world?

“Thornbury… that’s almost a hundred miles west of the city, some posh prick’s country estate. It’s been in the Thornbury family since the 19th century, and Lord Thornbury –apparently self-proclaimed– has been under fire for some less-than-savoury controversies. Tax evasion, mostly. They say–”

“You’re reading this from a Wikipedia article, aren’t you?” You asked and the line fell silent, prompting a snort of amusement to fly from your nose.

“...Maybe. You never know, my intel could just be super fast.” Mag offered, though you could tell she was grinning on the other side of the phone. 

“Tisiphone… nobody’s intel is that fast. Not even Magpie’s.” You chuckled at her offended gasp from the other end.

“What’re you tryna say? That Magpie’s a better informer than I am? I’m shocked and hurt, Alec,” you just knew she was clutching her chest, her phone facing up on the desk on loudspeaker. “By the way, did you kill that guy because he had the same name as you?”

You pursed your lips. You weren’t that petty, but for some reason, it did piss you off that this dirty little fuck stick did have a similar name. At least, a similar name to the one you were given. Your birth name you kept close to your chest. Not even the other Furies knew what it was, and they were like your sisters. 

 “...Maybe.” You mimicked her tone from before and she barked a laugh. 

“Fuckin’ knew it. I told Per– oh shit Mag’s on the other line. Must’ve found something in Phoenix.”

You cocked a brow. “Mag’s in Phoenix? Why? I thought we were focussing our efforts here?” You queried, a little irritated that none of this had been passed to you, and you heard Mag suck in a breath down the receiver. Clearly, you weren’t supposed to know. 

“Special assignment from Bossman, wouldn’t even tell me what it was, but I guess I’m about to find out.” She refused to elaborate further, and you heaved another lengthy sigh. 

“Alright, fine. Call me back after you’ve spoken to her,” you resigned, going to press the red button on your phone screen before you had the sudden urge to ask her something. “Oh, Tiss? How’s… how’s Monkey doing…?” You were slightly hesitant, and Tisiphone’s answer was the reason why.

“Alec… you know you’re not supposed to ask shit like that,” she sounded tired, and you couldn’t blame her. At the end of every assignment, you asked how Monkey was doing. It was an instinct. You just had to make sure he was okay. “He’s fine. Tired and worried, but fine.”

You breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Thanks. I know what you risk telling me. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah yeah, save your gratitude for someone who needs it. I’ll call you back.” And without another word, the line went dead. 

You sat for a moment with your thoughts. At least Monkey was okay. You knew he’d been through a lot lately, and in all honesty, you worried about him. Deeply. It irritated you to no end, but you couldn’t help it. Ever since you brought him back it had been a nonstop rollercoaster of emotions for the both of you. It hadn’t exactly been easy.

But then again, nothing ever was. 

You dragged your hand down the side of your face, your fingertips catching on the prominent scar over your eye. The only reason you had to wear some kind of mask twenty-four fucking seven. Even when you weren’t on an assignment, you felt more comfortable with the soft leather that usually hid half of your face. You could still see, thank fuck, they weren’t cruel enough to blind you in one eye.

Just cruel enough to permanently brand your face.

Your legs ached slightly as you rose into a seat, stretching your arms above your head before deftly swinging down from the rafter, using the support beam to slow your descent. You really didn’t feel like opening your wounds again, not after you’d only just bound them, so you grit your teeth and clung to the steel beam as you clambered down, your ankles barking in slight protest as you landed heavier than you would have liked the sound of your boots echoing across the empty, run-down factory. You’d scouted the area beforehand, usually a hotspot for drug deals or street urchins.

You half-smiled at the idea. You were one yourself not so long ago. Wandering the streets. Stealing what you could, running from those who’d caught you. You and–

You smothered the memory before it could take over. 

Sliding your mask back over your face, a paradoxical sense of comfort enveloped your chest. Whilst yes, you hated having to wear it, you also liked how it concealed who you were. Kept you and your family safe from those who would prefer to hunt you down and sell you to the MSR. Your fingers ghosted atop the mask, over the scar along your left eye. You were trying to put a stop to it. The Mutant Slave Ring. Nobody should have to suffer like that. Nobody should have to suffer anymore. And if that meant burning the human race to the ground, you’d be happy being the one to light the match. 

Your phone buzzed again in your pocket, and you immediately held it up to your ear. “Yup?”

“Wow, rude. Yeah, that was Mags. Said she’s gonna be in Phoenix a little while longer. Ran into trouble.” Tiss explained, her voice seemingly brighter than it had been during your last call. You rolled your eyes. 

Disgusting lovebirds.

“The good kind of trouble or the bad kind?” You asked, your boots crunching on the earthen ground as the night air greeted you, leaving the abandoned factory behind. Tisiphone sighed through her nose. 

“The bad kind. She’s okay, she assured me she was okay, but she was almost caught. Looks like the MSR is as active there as it is here.” You listened to her voice get progressively heavier, and you knew she was worried. Though you’d all made a pact when you joined not to get feelings caught up in the mix, you cared for each other as if you were blood-related. Argued with each other as if you were blood-related. And now Tisiphone and Magaera were friends-with-benefits-but-not-really-friends-more-completely-in-love, it was getting harder and harder to hide the fact that you all cared for each other. Deeply. 

“Well, at least she’s okay.”  You offered weakly, not really knowing how else to help Tiss’ worrying. You never were very good at that kind of thing. And the way Tiss chuckled down the line told you she knew exactly that.

“Yeah, I know. I forgot to ask the standard questions earlier–”

“Magpie would never forget.” You jabbed lightheartedly.

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Just because I’m on a field ban doesn’t mean you can be mean to me.” She pouted, and anyone else who didn’t know her as well as you did could never imagine one of the Furies pouting the way she did. “Right, are you hurt?”

“Minimally, but I’m always hurt. Kinda part of my mutation.” You shrugged, taking the spare time you had to wander around the darker sides of town, admiring the peace of distant sirens. 

“Don’t get smart, Alec. Uhhh, did you get what you needed, yep we already covered that. Okay, were you seen by anyone?” 

Your heart stopped. This is what you were dreading lying about. Because, yes. You were seen. Not only were you seen, but you asked for help. You asked for help. From a man you’d never met before and was sent there to stop you, maybe even kill you. You asked for his help. What the fuck were you thinking?

“Nope, stealthy as a cat, like always.” You lied easily, though it twisted your gut to do so. You hated lying to your sisters. There was nothing you couldn’t tell them. Except for this. Because not only had you asked for help. You’d asked one of Charles Xavier’s for help. You were sort of holding out hope that Logan wouldn’t turn up on the 18th. Though from the look in his irritatingly perceptive eyes, it wasn’t much of a hope. 

“I don’t even know why I need to ask you these things to be honest. You’ve got these assignments down to a science at this point.” Tiss lamented, and you felt that knife of guilt twist further into your gut. You didn’t even know how you were going to explain when a strange man turns up to an exclusive MSR event asking for you by a name only those in your own inner circle know, and you knew your sisters were going to feel betrayed, let alone your Boss. You didn’t even want to think about how he would react to this. Not after everything he’d done for you…

Well, you hadn’t actually ever met him. It was more the things he’d done down the grapevine. Saving your sorry ass from a gruesome fate was a start, and letting Monkey in was something you never thought he’d agree to. Not to mention the fact he’d given you a home, food, a family. And now you were going behind his back to employ someone you’d met for less than an hour, and spent most of that time trying to kill each other?

You must be insane. 

“Yeah well, been doin’ it for a while, I guess,” you shrugged despite the fact you were on a phone call and Tiss couldn’t actually see you. “I’ll be coming back soon anyway, you know if Mags has any kind of gala-wear I could steal? Don’t particularly fancy a shopping trip, to be honest with you.” You chuckled humourlessly, though hoping she couldn’t see through the poor attempt to disguise your discomfort. Luckily, you assumed the shitty signal drowned out any kind of complex communication, so Tiss was none the wiser. 

“Not that I know of. I’ll have a look. Aren’t you coming back soon anyway?” She asked, her voice distant as if she’d left the informant’s desk to rifle through one of the communal clothing drawers. And the light thumping of discarded hoodies and jackets proved your assumption correct. 

“Yeah, on my way back now. I’ll see you soonish.”

“Soon-ish? How long is soon-ish?” She called from across the room, and you chuckled slightly. 

“It’s soonish. See ya Tiss.” You disconnected the line before she could question you further. If you were being totally honest with yourself, you wanted to walk about the alleyways for a bit before you return to the stuffy underground hideout. As much as you appreciated the Boss’ roof over your head, you often felt the need to stretch your metaphorical wings, so to speak. That and you were slightly claustrophobic, though you’d never admit it. But the thought of seeing Monkey had you turning homeward bound instinctively, your mind playing the events of the night over and over like a provocative carousel. And your thoughts kept returning to one face. One name. 

Logan.

Storm was right. A week really wasn’t much time. It only seemed like yesterday Logan was in the board room with the rest of the team, trying to figure out what the hell they were going to do about these seemingly random murders. Now he was on the road heading west, a black two-piece suit hanging neatly from the passenger seat roof handle, the matching white shirt placed in a separate plastic cover, that too hanging from the roof handle in the back seats. What the hell was he doing? Walking completely unprepared into something he barely understood, on the likely empty words of a serial killer. Usually, he’d just puncture six holes in their chest and be done with it. But there was something different about you. 

A certain desperation in your tone he couldn’t ignore. The sudden flip from trying to kill him, to asking for his help. Or rather, suggesting that if he so wanted to help, he could by turning up at this location at this specific time. It all seemed too… spontaneous, for him to think any more of it. You didn’t look like you’d been prepared for him to even open his mouth, let alone start asking questions. He’d caught you off guard, that much he could see now. And your instinctual response had been to in turn, ask for help. 

How could he ignore that? How could the rest of the team think there was an ulterior motive here? And though he barely caught sight of them, in the brief moments he could see your eyes, they weren’t the hardened eyes of a killer, like he had expected. There was so much… life, in you. Like you weren’t fighting a battle for the sake of it, but rather for something more. You had a purpose, and that was something else he couldn’t ignore. Whether that purpose was good or bad, he supposed he was about to find out. But there was purpose there nonetheless. Much more than any of the team was expecting. 

You were… interesting. That’s how he’d put it. And he wanted to understand why. Why you were doing this. Why you were caught up in something as big as this. Was it simply to stick up for the little guy? Or was there something more sinister running beneath the surface? He couldn’t assume. The last time he’d assumed, he’d been proven seriously wrong. So he wouldn’t this time. 

The radio crackled slightly as he left the outskirts of the city, where the signal strength was getting weaker and weaker by the second before all he was listening to was white noise and he was forced to change the channel. Logan didn’t make a habit of listening to the radio, but since this was technically Kitty’s car, it had turned on automatically when he started the engine, and he’d been too lost in his own thoughts to notice. It wasn’t too bad, to be honest. Filling the rest of the silence whilst his head worked overtime. Only now, it was hurting his damn ears. Flicking through the stations, he raised a brow as a familiar, seemingly appropriate song thundered in the speakers, the guitar solo to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell becoming his new road trip soundtrack. And he honestly couldn’t think of anything more accurate to his situation. 

Highway to Hell indeed.

He kept the station on, occasionally peering out the side window at the change of surroundings, from the suburbs to the countryside, he watched as homes were switched out for fields and farmland. Just where the hell was he going? He’d punched Thornbury Hall into his phone’s GPS and he’d already been driving for what felt like centuries. He would know. And when you’d said west, what exactly had you meant? Because right now he was heading southwest. Was that deliberate? Or were you just really shit at directions?

He’d like to think it was the latter.

Logan spent the next hour planning out an escape route if things were to go wrong. He hadn’t been a stranger to being on the run, so that seemed to be the safest option. Calling for backup was also always there, but there was something prideful in him that really didn’t want to, even if things really did go the worst way they could possibly go. He could always fight his way out. Leave no survivors, old school style. But he’d left that life behind. That wasn’t him anymore, And he didn’t particularly fancy returning to that version of himself. 

Well then. Running it is.

Dusk was falling by the time he rolled up to the estate. Two broad, cast iron gates remained open as ridiculously fancy cars lined up around the central courtyard. This place had a courtyard. Various couples all dressed to the nines walked arm in arm up to the doors, where he could just see a butler offering a welcome glass of what he assumed would be champagne. Wasn’t that what these fancy folk drank? Fuck.

This already wasn’t going to plan. 

The car rolled to a stop before it entered the trail of tall lamps leading up the driveway, pulling into the side of the road. It felt better to walk than to roll up in Kitty’s beaten-up old Ford. That and he needed to change. He knew he should have just driven up wearing the damn suit, but Marie insisted he needed to hang them up. ‘They’ll crease’, was her reasoning. 

Why oh why had he listened to her?

With an irritated huff, he snatched the suit from the hangar, reaching into the back to the shirt before borderline contorting in the driver’s seat to get this stupid fucking suit on and get this stupid fucking night over with. He had to remind himself several times why he was here whilst fighting with cuff links, had to remind himself to steal Marie’s CD collection in payback for insisting a clip-on bowtie would be obvious to these people and they’d know he wasn’t one of them. 

Although, surprisingly, he had to thank Scott for reluctantly letting him borrow his black shoe polish, because despite all the struggling and fighting with the fabric, he didn’t scrub up too badly. Sure, his hair could probably do with some kind of gel, but he wasn’t about to go up and ask for some. Not after he’d gone to the trouble of tying his own goddamn bowtie in order to blend in with these people. Nothing says ‘outcast’ like having to ask to borrow some fucking hair gel.

Why was this even something he was entertaining? 

Pausing to take a breath, Logan reached into the console to pull out his tin of cigars, flicking open his steel Zippo lighter and clamping the roach between his teeth, cupping the flame out on instinct and taking a long drag, before exhaling the cloud of smoke. He knew Kitty would likely give him an earful for smoking in her car, but if nothing else, he was doing it out of spite. Taking one last moment for himself, he opened the door and put out the foot of the cigar on the tarmac.

Stepping from the car, he briefly looked over his appearance in the wing mirror, straightening his jacket slightly by the lapels and smoothing down any creases he could see. He was sure it wasn’t perfect, but it would do. The first true test of his disguise would be trying to find you, wherever the fuck you were. Were you even here yet? Only one way to find out…

The house was almost exactly how he imagined it. Some shitty imitation of an English country house, oozing inauthentic extravagance in every way conceivable. From the over-flashy imitation gargoyles to the poorly kept white roses climbing the side of the double doors. Two pillars held aloft the front porch, painted and foiled with gold which he was certain would have washed away if they truly were in England. Although, he swore he could smell rain in the air. Fucking great. 

His eyes scanned the greeting hall, searching swiftly for the man with the runic tattoo you’d told him about. Which was borderline impossible since every peacock here seemed to be wearing high collars. All except the countless security guards, who kept their collars flat. Why the fuck he would be looking for a security guard, he had no fucking clue, but for some godforsaken reason, he trusted you. Trusted you enough to turn up to this event anyway. 

He stayed still for a moment, his eyes flicking to the necks of every guard he came across before a wave of relief settled over him. Whilst he wasn’t well versed in runes the same way Kitty was with her mythology fixation, she’d talked his ear off enough to know one when he saw one.  A shorter man with patchwork black and white hair stood to attention at the foot of the grandest staircase he thought he’d ever seen, arms held firmly behind his back, mahogany watching the room like he could see more than just people. The moment his eyes landed on Logan’s, they widened almost imperceptibly, but just enough for Logan to realise. 

He strode over, fixing the cuffs of his white shirt as the blonde looked away, pretending he didn’t notice he was coming toward him. But Logan wouldn’t let that happen. Whether he knew he was coming or not, he didn’t care. Not finding you wasn’t an option. 

“Looking for Alecto.” Was all he muttered, setting his jaw against the way the man turned back to him, his own jaw tensed in muted surprise. He looked Logan up and down, as if sizing him up, before offering him a curt nod and turning on his heels to head up the stairs, and it didn’t take a genius to deduce that he was meant to follow. 

With a small shrug to himself, Logan did just that, though keeping his wits about him and making mental notes to remember where he came from, which turns he took, and which doors they entered through and exited out of. He swore this damn palace was bigger on the inside, and it felt like he’d been walking for hours before he was striding up the hallway behind the smaller man toward another security guard, blonde hair and with eyes so deep blue they almost came across as violet greeted them. 

 “One of Alecto’s.” He heard the blonde mutter, clearly not meant for his ears, and Logan tried his best to make it look like he couldn’t hear them, folding his arms across his chest. 

“You sure?” Violet-eyes responded, looking past the blonde and straight into Logan’s damn soul. 

“Said so himself.” 

These two really didn’t exchange more words than necessary, did they? If Logan didn’t know any better, he’d assume they hated each other. But by the smell of them, he knew they were mutants. Poppyseeds and bird feathers with the slightest hint of sulphur that wasn’t coming from either of them, but rather from behind the door. A smell so strong he couldn’t scent anything else further than that. 

The ebony-haired guard narrowed his eyes to Logan, before stepping to the side and opening the door, allowing them both to enter, following on after and closing the door behind him. 

It had to be some kind of guest room, various sofas all arranged facing each other, ornamental coffee tables completely untouched separating the space. Various masks and equipment settled on a small round table near the large bay windows at the end of the room, with another set of white double doors leading off to the left, the coppery scent of fresh blood barely noticeable over the borderline overwhelming stench of sulphur.

The source of the scent now facing him, two deep red flames burning in her hands, neatly curled black hair falling in front of her face slightly. 

“And just who the fuck are you?”

You weren’t nervous. You’d never been nervous about things like this. Sure, you had a history of being a little… flighty, before a mission, but that never meant you were nervous. But, if you weren’t nervous, then what the fuck else could explain the twisting of your stomach or the unsteady, jumpy beat of your heart. You’d already thought over every possible eventuality, twice. What the hell had you so worked up?

It was a rhetorical question. You knew exactly what had got you so worked up. And he wasn’t even here yet. If he was coming at all. You’d put so much faith in a complete stranger, a man you didn’t even know, and for the twenty minutes you were introduced, you’d spent nineteen of them trying to kill him. Only to learn he couldn’t die. Only to learn he was… kind. Kinder than you were expecting. And more understanding in those twenty minutes than anyone else had been in your entire life, except maybe Boss. 

You blended the concealer on your neck with a sponge, coating the already hefty layer of foundation before brushing on setting powder, taking extra caution not to spill any on your dress. You hated the trials and tribulations of trying to get white powder out of black fabric, and this dress was fucking expensive. ‘Nothing but the best!’ Tisiphone sang whilst dagging you through clothes store after clothes store, genuinely enjoying the experience. 

You, on the other hand, hadn’t felt more like sleeping on the highway in your entire life. 

Delicately, you picked up the lace-covered mask from the vanity, turning it over in your hands, feeling the delicate material beneath the pads of your gloved thumbs. You’d made sure it wasn’t sheer, not wanting to take the risk of anyone peering through it and seeing who you truly were. Layers and layers of spiderweb-thin material gave the illusion of solidarity, the only thinner segment being the small, almond-shaped hole that would fit directly over your eye. Sheer enough that you could see out of, but not light enough that those could see in. 

Fixing the mask to the left side of your face, you’d barely pressed it securely before a rogue shout filtered through the closed doors to the bedroom, and you paused for a moment. You could have sworn that was Tisiphone’s voice you’d heard. But just who the fuck could she possibly be yelling at? Morpheus was outside the room and Magpie was downstairs keeping watch. Was she just having a breakdown over her choice of dress? You had mentioned that–

Oh fuck. 

Now that wasn’t a voice you would easily recognise…

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

“Oh… shit.” You muttered, standing from the vanity and quickly crossing through the conjoined doors to the living room, where the sounds of raised voices became nothing but a cacophony of ceaseless noise. The strong scent of sulphur hit you like a truck, and you knew Tisiphone was moments away from incinerating your hired help where he stood. You burst through the doors, your hands held up as if to ward your sister away, barely taking in the scene of Tisiphone’s hands glowing with deep red flame, and six razor-sharp knives pointed in her direction from the spaces between each of Logan’s knuckles. “It’s okay! It’s okay. He’s not– fuck. He’s here because of me!” 

You watched Tiss’ head tilt in confusion, her thin brows furrowing behind her masquerade as she tried to comprehend just what you were saying. You took a deep breath, nodding to Magpie and Morpheus as the two of them turned on their heels and headed back out the door to stand on guard, leaving you to your explanation. 

“The fuck you mean he’s here because of you? Alec, who the hell is this guy?” Tisiphone asked with no small degree of accusation, though you were thankful that the overwhelming stench of sulphur was fading slightly, Tiss’ hands falling back down by her sides. 

“Uh, Tiss, this is Logan. Logan… Tisiphone.” You introduced them a little warily, hyper-aware of Logan’s eyes trained on you rather than the real threat in the room. “We met. On the assignment. Last week…”

“Oh, the one where you said you weren’t seen by anyone?” Tiss continued her string of accusations, now seemingly more pissed off at you than she was at the intruder. A small blessing, you thought. 

“Okay, so I bent the truth a little–”

“Bent the truth? You snapped it in half! Alec, what the fuck were you thinking? Why the hell is this guy still alive if he saw you?”

“Because I couldn’t kill him!” You explained, exasperation dripping from your tone, and Tiss narrowed her eyes behind her mask. 

“Like ‘I was bested in a fight’ couldn’t kill him or ‘He asked me nicely not to and I caved’ couldn’t kill him, because I’ve never known either of those things to be true when it comes to you.” She folded her arms across her chest, the silken fabric of her gown creasing every so slightly. Logan filed away what information he could about you, adding that latest little tidbit to the mix. 

“No, like ‘he literally cannot die’ couldn’t kill him.” You sighed, running a hand down the side of your face that wasn’t covered by scratchy, lace fabric. 

“Doesn’t mean she didn’t try,” Logan added gruffly, the first words he’d spoken since getting into a fight with one of those guards outside the door. In all honesty, he was just trying to understand what the hell was going on, and trying to get over the fact that Scott was right. You did have people working for you. Or rather, judging by Tisiphone’s reaction, you were working for someone. And Tisiphone’s mere existence made him think too. Kitty said there were three Furies in that mythology. And since there were two of them, it only stood to reason that there was a third somewhere. 

“Look,” you started, exhaustion already creeping into your voice and the evening hadn’t even started yet. “You said it yourself, a woman not on the arm of a man at events like these means nothing. My feelings on that aside, and since Magpie and Morpheus are borderline mute when it comes to social interaction, I found one that can actually hold a conversation. Just, trust me, okay? When have I ever made a mistake?” You implored with a half smile, relief settling in your chest as Tiss exhaled a long breath.

“You really want me to answer that?” She asked wryly, and you huffed a laugh. Whilst making mistakes on assignments wasn’t something that ever happened, the trouble you got into in your downtime was another story altogether. Your mouth really did get you into deep shit on occasion…

“Not really.”

“And just how do you think he’ll get past security? Not only does he have the same X-gene as us, but I don’t think those claws of his would make it past the metal detector either.” Tiss sighed, looking Logan up and down as if to weigh up the pros and cons of not incinerating him where he stood. 

“I’ll figure it out.” You hissed back, mentally punching yourself for not thinking of that. Whilst yes, you could attempt to hide the mutation in his blood the same way you did for yourself and the others, the metal was going to be a serious problem. 

“Uh-huh? And how are you going to explain–”

“I’ll figure it out, Tiss,” you paused to take a long breath, calming your irritation. “Look, we were getting nowhere by ourselves, and these fuckers were the only ones who managed to trace, follow and catch me in the act. Don’t you think that says something? All the officers in the city. The detectives, the undercover cops. None of them could do what they did. Not even a whisper. So just back off and let me handle this, okay?” The room fell silent and Tisiphone looked at you, her brows pinched with indecipherable emotion before she relented. 

“Alright. But when you’re in the shit when Boss finds out, I can’t have your back. You know I can’t.” 

“...Yeah. I know.” You responded with a quiet that made Logan pause. Just how much were you risking bringing him here? 

“And I won’t be able to help Monkey, either.” She added, and though her tone was harsh, there was something behind her masked eyes that told him she was regretful over that. 

Your heart stuttered in your chest. You were happy to suffer the consequences of your actions, happy to endure whatever punishment Boss deemed necessary if he found out about this. But the thought of anything happening to Monkey because of something you’d done? It was almost unbearable. 

“Tiss… please. Boss’ll kill him if he thinks he has any knowledge of this. You have to vouch for him. The same way I vouched for you.” You emphasised, and she paused. At least now Logan had somewhat established a motive for what you’re doing. Whoever this Monkey guy was, you clearly needed to keep him safe. 

“...Alright. If it gets to that, I will. I’ll see if I can get Mags to do the same,” she smoothed her dress, holding her chin high. “Do what you gotta do, Alec. I’ll see you out there.” With a nod of finality and one last wary look to Logan, your sister left you alone to explain just what the hell was going on, and why he was here.

The silence was deafening as you did nothing but regard each other cautiously before you drew in a breath. “Was starting to think you weren’t going to come…” You shrugged, turning your back to him in a deliberate display of confidence, peering at yourself in one of the many mirrors of the room to fix your hair back into the loose butterfly clip you’d tucked it into and securing the lace mask tighter across half of your face. Didn’t want that coming loose anyway anyhow…

“You asked, now here I am.” He responded with the exact same level of disinterest, something that irked you slightly. Self-righteous asshole. 

“I didn’t ask,” you snapped back, sending him a sharp glare through the mirror. “I offered. You’re the one that took me up on it. Tell me, does Xavier know you’re here? I’m shocked he’d allow a pet like you to walk into such a mess.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. What exactly was your relationship with the Professor? Why did you hold such a grudge against him? Charles didn’t say he didn’t know you, but you weren’t a pupil, and unless you were much older than you looked, you were too young to be a past lover. He had no family that he knew of, so just who the hell were you? 

“You want my help or not? Cuz it would probably save me a lot of hassle to just leave.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his suit trousers, raising a brow as he stared at you in the mirror. You exhaled slowly, knowing he had you in a box.

“Yes, I wa– I need your help. And it’s not easy for me to say shit like that so don’t be an asshole about it.” You grumbled, scowling as he scoffed.

“Right back atcha toots. So what am I here for?” He asked, using the slightly more relaxed environment to survey his surroundings. It was the kinda place you’d see in some period drama. Silken upholstery, long floor-length curtains, everything gilded with gold foil. He’d never felt more out of place in his life, and he’d gone from a feral life on the run to being a damn supply teacher. 

“Unfortunately, that depends,” you hummed, as if this wasn’t a huge problem and running your finger beneath your lower lip, smearing away any traces of lipstick. “If I can get you past security without an issue, you’re my esteemed husband looking to invest in the MSR for a large sum.”

“MSR?” He asked, raising a brow as you rolled your eyes.

“Mutant Slave Ring. Keep up. The Thornbury’s don’t own it. Not by a long shot. As far as we know, they’re just hosts for things like this. Events and functions where like-minded freaks gather and share their trade secrets. We’re here trying to separate those directly involved, and those who watch from the sidelines. Quite literally.” You shivered slightly, memories you’d rather not relive flashing in your mind. Sweat dripping into your eyes. Blood trailing from the corner of your mouth. Rampant cheers and hoots of thrill with every aching punch. The collar tightening around your neck. 

You shook yourself, your hand reaching absently for the base of your throat. You were free. You’d never go back there. Boss had freed you from that life. Both you and Monkey. 

“Right…” Logan acknowledged slowly, choosing not to comment on the way your eyes glazed slightly, the way your gloved hand skimmed across the skin of your neck. “And if you can’t get me through security?”

“Then you’re my mutant pet, essentially.” You stated flatly before your eyes dropped from the mirror and you turned to face him. “Look… you don’t have to do this. You can walk away. We know the risks we take every time we do something like this. You’re walking into this blind, and there’s only so much I can tell you without compromising our whole operation. You have people who care about you, Logan. But us? We’re nothing more than a collection of circus freaks and street kids. This is all we have. We are all we have.” You explained, subconsciously divulging more than you’d ever really said to anyone, and it took you a moment to realise. But it was a bit late to take it back now. 

And Logan seemed just as stunned as you were. But not by what you said. But more because you said it. And what that did to him. He never thought he’d feel his heart soften for a killer he’d been chasing, but here he was, finding it difficult to associate you with all those gruesome, bloody murders he’d seen on the slideshow. He sucked in an awkward breath, observing the way your jaw clenched as you started to regret opening your damn mouth. 

“I don’t really know what your relationship with the Professor is, but he wouldn’t want me walkin’ away from this. An’ I don’t know what happened, but he’s happy to take in circus freaks and street kids. Always has been. An’ he’d have a place for you, ya know. If you wanted it.” He took a step forward, ducking his head slightly to drag your fallen gaze back up to him. 

You pursed your lips, hating the way your heart broke slightly. “You seem to think quite highly of him.”

“Yeah well, the man’s done a lot f’me.” He shrugged, and he watched your lips pull into a slight, half-smile. 

“Circus freak or street kid?” You asked quietly, standing your ground as he continued to step closer, removing his hands from his pockets like he was approaching a cornered animal.

“Stray dog,” he smiled as you huffed a laugh, nodding your head in understanding. “You?”

“Street kid. Then a circus freak.”

“The whole package?”

“Nothing less.”

He was close enough for you to see the slight crease in his shirt, just beneath his ribs. Close enough to see he wasn’t used to tying a bowtie around his neck, and for some godforsaken reason, you found it slightly endearing. Even the cologne he wore wasn’t something recognisable. Wasn’t the same dreary, vain attempt at masculinity the rest of the men here wore. You supposed he had nothing to prove to these people, but you had a suspicion it wasn’t just here he felt that way.

Logan was close enough now to see why your fingers had lingered on your neck, a borderline unhealthy layering of makeup coating the base of your throat, expertly hidden. Interestingly, it was the only part of your body left uncovered. Your black dress was floor length, long thin sleeves exaggerating the curvature of your arms, barely concealing the muscle beneath. Close enough to see where your mask had rubbed at the side of your face, the slightest catch of what looked to be the beginnings of a scar peeking out the only part the mask didn’t entirely cover on the left side, parallel to where he assumed your eye was. It was hard to tell above the lace. 

“Who are you?” He asked quietly, an unmistakable, static tension now charging the air between you as you raised a thin brow. 

“Alecto. You know that already.”

“That’s not really your name, is it?” It wasn’t a genuine question. He already knew the answer but was rather prodding for more. More information other than what you’d already told him. He was a perceptive man, knowing when to listen and what was important. And the nuggets of your past had been collecting in his brain for the past thirty or so minutes. The nuggets of who you were. 

“Could be.” You shrugged, and he tilted his head to the side. You hated looking at him. Hated how you realised he was actually incredibly good looking. His face was hard but his eyes were… softer. Almost kind. You wondered if his heart reflected that. 

You had a feeling it did. Or he wouldn’t be here now. 

No. He was here because of Xavier. You had to remember that. 

Logan watched as your features flickered with something akin to remorse before they were schooled into neutrality. “We should go.” You uttered, before breezing past him and heading for the door. With each step away from him, you found breathing easier. Found your chest loosening, your heartbeat growing steadier. You hadn’t even realised it was racing.

He took a moment to inhale as you walked past him, his nose itching with the masking scent of your chosen perfume. He waded past it, finding the coppery smell of your mutation, and the surprising, underlying tone of lavender. It wasn’t fabricated. Wasn’t something anyone could bottle and spray. It was you. You smelt like lavender. 

And blood.

Loosing a long exhale, Logan took another moment to collect himself before he turned to follow you out the door, seeing you already halfway down the hallway talking to Tisiphone, who to be quite honest, he didn’t entirely trust. Although, did he entirely trust you? His gut told him yes, he did, and it was a good idea too, but he’d been wrong before. He wouldn’t be wrong again. Exercise caution. That was probably the smartest thing to do right now. 

And don’t get attached.

“And you’re sure this is going to work?” He overheard Tiss asking, to your almost comically exaggerated eye-roll. Clearly, you’d already had this conversation, and not just about this. 

“No. Tiss. I have no idea. When do we ever? But I’ll have Opheus in my ear and Magpie’s eyes on the whole room. If shit goes haywire, we bounce, okay? Like always.” You shrugged, and he saw you pull at an invisible piece of lint from your glove. You were nervous. Were you always nervous? Were you like this before any of your other assignments? Were you like this when he met you?

“That’s not what I meant, Al, and you know it. I meant bringing Claws along with us. Do you know how fucking dangerous this is? He could blow the entire operation!” Tiss hissed, gesturing wildly to both ends of the hallway. The moment her head turned toward him, she straightened, smoothing down any creases on the front of her shimmering silver dress. You glanced his way, clenching your jaw.

“He won’t.” He heard you hiss back, and Logan was forced to pretend he’d heard nothing as he all but sauntered up to the two of you, hands lodged firmly in his pockets. With a heavy sigh, you flipped open the clip of your small shoulder bag, bringing out a sleek-looking masquerade and wordlessly handing it to him. He quirked a brow.

“This isn’t a masked ball…” he stated lowly, trying to ignore the look of pointed exasperation on Tisiphone’s face, her own matching silver mask barely concealing any of her expression. He chose instead to focus on the way you shot her a glare, your lip curling slightly before she huffed and folded her arms. 

“It isn’t. Not for anyone else. Each family has their symbol. This is ours. Your name is Jonathon Hargraeves, but don’t mention that until asked. We as the Hargreaves have never been to one of these socials and only decided to invest in the MSR. This is Evie Hargreaves, married to your brother, Henry. Magpie and Morpheus are our security, so will remain nameless. As will you if we can’t get you through security, because then–”

“I’m your mutant pet. Yeah, you said,” he muttered, slightly regretting sharply snatching the mask from your hands when he saw how genuinely sorry you were. It was smart, he thought, to keep one of your eyes covered. Because though your face itself was masked to perfection, your every emotion shone through your eye. “And you are?”

“Amelia. We met four years ago at a hunt ball in England. I was there as an au pair for the family. The connection was instant blah blah blah we’re married, got it?” You didn’t wait for him to confirm before you nodded to Tisiphone, who rifled through her clutch bag to pull out one, infinitesimal earpiece, one that could be mistaken for some kind of alternative piercing. She handed it to you and you fiddled with the lace at the side of your mask and slipped the earpiece securely within, tapping it once and nodding in confirmation. He took the time to fix his own mask over his eyes, finding that, remarkably, it fit like a glove. No chance of it falling from his face unless he removed it himself. Had you ma–

“Stick with Al. She’s your only point of communication since the rest of us didn’t know you’d be tagging along.” Tisiphone instructed with no small degree of begrudging, halting his train of thought. Like he was going to wander off anyway, in a strange place he didn’t know full of strange people who hated him for even existing? Yeah, not a chance. 

But he nodded all the same. 

“Magpie, you here?” you murmured, waiting for a beat before exhaling in muted relief. “Morpheus?” You repeated the same cycle, dipping your head to Tisiphone and, to Logan’s surprise, him, in confirmation. “They’re at the bottom of the stairs. Everyone ready?” You asked breathlessly, and Logan found himself wanting to take your hand. To reassure you. A wanted killer. And he wanted to reassure them. What the fuck was he on?

“Let’s go then.” Tisiphone finished, linking her elbow around yours and looking pointedly at Logan as if waiting for him to do the same. It took him a beat to understand, but the moment he linked his arm through yours, he clenched his jaw against the foreign prickling of his skin. You looked down momentarily to where the crook of his arm rested against your own, confusion furrowing your brows, but not because of the action itself. And the way you glanced up at him confirmed what he’d suspected. 

You felt something similar. 

But you once again schooled your expression to neutrality, each step measured as the three of you approached the top of the stairs, the hum of idle chattering in the ballroom growing louder until he could see the two men he’d briefly met with before, shades now concealing their eyes, looking every bit the part they were playing. You did too, he realised. You looked the spitting image of a young, upper-class woman at her first big social. It was impressive, the number of skins you could wear. 

“What happened to the real Hargreaves?” Logan asked quietly, barely moving his mouth as he descended down the staircase by your side. You raised your head slightly as those lingering in the front hall looked up to see just who it was whose footsteps were echoing down the stairs. Though, upon the lack of recognition, they all turned back to their conversations. 

“You catch on quick,” you murmured, impressed. “Tiss took care of them. They won’t be a threat to mutants anymore.” A delicious sense of satisfaction laced your tone, and Logan’s gut twisted, looking past you to find a similar satisfied expression sitting neatly on Tisiphone’s masked face. 

“Hellfire. Not even their bones will be found.” She flashed him a knife-like grin, and he gripped your arm a little tighter, though he couldn’t say why. 

The steady beeping of the security measures sent your nerves spiking, Magpie and Morpheus now flanking the three of you as you approached the door to the ballroom. They really took security seriously here, having a separate conveyor for bags and personal items, such as necklaces, watches, belts and so on. 

Due to a lack of logic or sheer dumb luck, names were taken after passing through security, Logan breathed a small sigh of relief. That’s at least one problem taken care of. 

“It’s not just a metal detector,” you explained quietly, looking as if you too were engaging in idle chatter. “It can detect the X-gene. I can hide it in the rest of them, but there’s nothing I can do about your claws. Don’t suppose they detach?” You asked hopefully, and Logan clicked his tongue in a firm no. 

“It’s not just the claws.” He muttered, letting go of your arm the same moment Tisiphone did, joining the queue to be searched. He heard you hiss a quiet curse, and his shoulders tensed involuntarily. He didn’t like how this had already taken a bad turn. 

“Bags and jewellery on the left. Please declare if you have a mutant with you before they enter the detector and we have spare collars if needed. Next!” The guard manning the security called, waving his arms and beckoning Tisiphone forward. All your focus honed in on her bloodstream, separating the X-gene-carrying cells and pushing them into the deepest parts of her body, holding your breath as she took a step forward after placing her bag and silverware on the conveyor belt. This was always the worst past. If you fell at the first hurdle, it was likely you’d end up back where you started.

And that simply wasn’t an option for you. 

But she stepped through clear, sending you a nod as she placed various rings back on her fingers, securing her tennis bracelet back around her wrist. One down, two to go. Magpie and Morpheus had flashed their security badges, completely fabricated of course, and were promptly let through the side door with a respectful clap on the back from the man in charge. And whilst spite curled in your chest for how easy that was for them, you were slightly relieved you didn’t have to exhaust yourself further by simply trying to get them in. You only had to hide yourself now. 

And Logan… but you’d burn that bridge when you got there. 

You steadily removed your necklace, placing it delicately next to your bag on the belt, before once again honing in your concentration, this time on yourself. It was always harder when you had to hide the fact you were using your mutation as if your own blood was struggling against you to be free. But you repeated the same action to yourself, sending the genes flowing through your blood to the furthest corners of your body, heart thundering in your chest as you took a step beneath the detector.

And waited.

“All clear. Next!” Those words were both music to your ears and the equivalent of hearing nails down a chalkboard. You were through, yes. But now was the issue of getting Logan through as well. You fought to keep your knee from bouncing as he removed all the metal from atop his body. Your chest squeezed as he sent you a look of what you could only describe as ‘here-goes-nothing’, and you focused your mutation on his blood.

But, predictably, your efforts fell for naught as the alarms blared and lights flashed red as he was instantly stopped, two guards flanking him frm either side, guns suddenly in their hands from where you hadn’t seen them before. But he looked as calm as ever, and you wondered just how many times this had happened.

“Step this way, please.”

“Don’t want to cause a scene now, do we?”

The threats in their voices made your spine shiver with apoplectic rage. As if they could do anything to actually harm any of you. If only they knew just who they were dealing with. Or rather, what they were dealing with. You craved to see them cower, but a display of power right now really would blow the entire operation, and you had to keep your head. 

“What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?” You asked smoothly, gliding over to where they’d taken him to the side and started a search. The two men turned to you, looking you up and down appraisingly, before gesturing to Logan with their guns. 

“There’s no metal on him. This one yours?” One asked, and your gut writhed like seething vipers. The idea that mutants belonged to anyone made you want to–

“Yes. Why?” You asked flatly, folding your arms and tapping your foot in a display of annoyance Logan had no other choice than to be impressed with. You really were playing the part perfectly. But no matter how good of an actor you were, the guards eyed you with equal suspicion.

“You should know all mutants must be declared ahead of time. If I could have your name, please.” One of the guards took a notepad and a pen out of his pocket, and your heart raced in your chest. 

“Amelia. Hargreaves. My husband–”

“Hargreaves?” He asked, raising a brow and lowering his notepad. “As in, Jonathan Hargreaves?” He clarified, glancing at his partner who still had his hands securely around Logan’s arm. The sigh made you seeth. 

“That’s right. I don’t like repeating myself gentlemen, yet here we are. What seems to be the problem?” You took their shock and ran with it, hoping they were staring at you in reverence rather than disgust. But the moment Logan was released, you had to fight to hide your sigh of release. 

“Our apologies, ma’am. Your husband has done more for the security business than he knows. But, I’m forced to remind you all show-pets must be tagged and collared for your own safety and the safety of the event.” Your stomach dropped, taking a glance around the room. Sure enough, there were various different mutants, all with blinking lights embedded into their necks, just above where those collars sat. Those collars you knew all too well. Some kind of suppressant frequency hummed at the constant high, rendering them completely powerless. Your fists clenched by your sides, something the guard seemed to notice. “Is that a problem?”

“Not at all. Tag him to your heart's content, however unfortunately you cannot collar him.” Whilst putting a tag in his neck would plant yet another spanner in your already spanner-filled works, collaring him was another problem entirely. Getting those fucking things off was borderline impossible without the passkey. And you refused to subject him to that. “You see, he has a rare genetic disease. Other than being a mutant, of course,” Your throat burned with the words, but it was worth it to put the guards at ease, their light chuckles were a stark contrast to your barely concealed rage. “It’s only due to his enhanced immune system that it doesn’t kill him. Take that away and he’ll be dead in minutes. And I don’t suppose you know how expensive this one was now do you? This was my darling husband’s first true mutant investment. I wonder how much he’ll continue to do for the security industry when he learns his prized pet was killed at the hands of one?” You mused absently, lying through your teeth and pretending not to notice the way the guards straightened their backs, sending each other sharp glances as if trying to figure out what they were going to do.

“I uh– of course, ma’am. As long as you know what you’re doing and he’s kept under control at all times. Would you like some extra security?” One of the guards asked, now taking a step forward. You could see the eagerness in his eyes to prove himself, and something darker that bubbled just below the surface, making your skin crawl. 

“No, thank you. My own guards should suffice. Thank you for your time and concern, gentlemen.” You gave them an appreciative bow of your head before your features hardened as you looked at Logan, who’d done remarkably well to hold his silence. He was even better at this than you were. “Heel.” You barked sharply, and without hesitation, he strode to your side, his face betraying nothing. “Enjoy your night, gentlemen.”

You turned to leave them behind, your heart thundering in your chest, praying they were done with their inspection and would finally leave you alone to do your job. Only, any prayers you had were answered the second you took a step forward. And you really didn’t like the answer. 

“Ma’am!” You stopped in your tracks, whirling back to them and not bothering to conceal your haughty irritation. But before you could open your mouth to ask them just what the hell they wanted now, the same guard from before waved the tracker gun in his hand, hurrying over to you. “For tagging purposes.” He explained, before bringing the gun to Logan’s neck and pulling the trigger. 

You inhaled as he barely winced, the light blinking just below the surface of his skin, and your gut twisted. You knew he could heal, but was this something he could heal from? Did the tag have to be removed before the wound could heal up? Fuck, there were already too many unknowns. But nonetheless, you nodded gratefully, and the guard looked you over one last time. 

“Where is your husband tonight? I’d greatly appreciate the chance to thank him for all he’s done for us.” He asked with a tilt of his head, and you schooled your expression into something of remorse.

“Unfortunately my husband has taken gravely ill. He is in our bed back home, and I am here in his stead upon his wishes. I will pass on your gratitude. Good evening.” You wondered how many times you could end this interaction before it actually finished, but he seemed to take your answer on board and step away, heading back to his station by the security gates. Thank fuck for that. You watched him go, making sure he was actually back to work before turning your back on him, and stealing a glance at Logan. “Are you okay?” You murmured, fighting the urge to graze the back of his hand with yours in something you hoped he’d interpret as comfort. But he just nodded, his hand instead cupping the side of his neck where the tag blinked beneath his–

Or rather, where the tag had just been pushed out from beneath his skin. With a swift movement, he used his thumb to wipe away any trace of blood before it stained the collar of his shirt, crushing the tag in his hand and pocketing the remains. Well, that answered your question from before. 

“I’m sorry…” you continued, finally causing him to glance down at you, and whilst his face betrayed nothing, his eyes shone with surprising calm. When you asked him to help, this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind. And now having to treat him like something less than human just because he was born with the X-gene almost made you want to throw up. 

“Don’t think about it. Just focus.” He replied with equal quiet, and under any other circumstances, you’d ask just who the hell he thought he was ordering you around like that. But annoyingly, he was right. You didn’t have the time to say what you wanted to say, and you sure as hell weren’t in the right environment to do so. 

“On your right, 4 o’clock. De Voss. Owns an electrical company, one of the largest in the country. He’s here with his sons. A regular at these events.” Magpie’s voice muttered into your earpiece, and you straightened your back, preparing for your first interaction of the evening. The first of many, you assumed. 

“Quite the impressive pet you have. Worth a small fortune, no doubt.” As you turned, you managed to catch sight of Tisiphone, already deep in conversation with another family whose tie bore the image of two dancing swans. Another family symbol, no doubt. 

Your eyes met with the monocle-wearing Mr. De Voss, and you stole a glance to his two sons sporting the same look. Plastering on a bashful smile, you placed your hand into his outstretched palm, grimacing as he brought it to his lips, his thick moustache scratching against your knuckles. You felt Logan stiffen next to you. “De Voss, a pleasure to make your acquaintance Miss…?”

“Hargreaves. But my friends call me Amelia. And you’re not wrong. Wulfred here did indeed cost my husband a small fortune.” You delicately removed your hand from his as you thought up a name on the fly, your skin crawling at the way his lips split into a broad, predatory smile. 

“Amelia it is. You're Jonathan’s wife, correct? I met the man a few weeks ago at the new gentlemen’s club. I have to say, he undersold your beauty, the old dog.” You had to suppress the urge to scoff. If only he knew. But your brow raised in a careful display of shy amusement. “So this is the mutant he was boasting about. Now I understand. You don’t think you could give us a quick show, do you? He wouldn’t stop talking about this thing’s ability to command the very earth itself.” De Voss laughed, though he eyed you expectantly and your blood ran cold. This wasn’t what you were expecting. A display of mutation in a slaver’s gala? You really hadn’t been counting on that. Nor had you been counting on any members here already having basic knowledge of who you were. Or, who you were pretending to be.

“Now now, I hardly think that would be appropriate. I wouldn’t want to be escorted out of my first gala now would I?” You joked, placing a strategic hand on his arm, watching as he pursed his lips in thought. 

“No, I don’t suppose that would be appropriate. However, you must visit us in the south, and bring your pet with you. As long as you’re both well-behaved, of course.” He winked, and you barely managed not to gag. The people truly were the epitome of disgust. “We have quite the range of mutants, from pyromancers to telepaths, and we’re finalising the details of our new breeding programme if you’re interested. This one here looks of good stock, incredibly obedient as well. Those are the kinds of qualities we’re looking for,” he walked around Logan, eyeing him up as if he were nothing but cattle and to be quite honest, he was feeling like it. But he held his tongue tightly behind clamped, letting this worm appraise him. “I mentioned it to your husband the other week, since he’s just getting into the game, this would be a wise investment for him. A good place to start. I’m sure we could find an appropriate bitch for this one.” He didn’t mean the word as an insult, and you couldn’t help but think that was worse. 

“I see. And how much would be the first instalment?”You asked, appearing as if you were simply inspecting your nails whilst you fought every instinct not to explode this motherfucker’s face where he stood. De Voss’ eyes narrowed at you, an expression of dawning realisation settling on his features.

“Ah, I understand now. Your husband… he’s not the brains, is he? You know what they say, behind every great man there’s a powerful woman, and here you are.” Oh, he had no idea. “Fantastic act, by the way, but not much gets past me. I’ll be keeping a watchful eye on you, Amelia.” He emphasised your alias as if to truly seal the friendship card, and you looked at him through your lashes, painting your expression to look impressed. “Here, my details. Get your husband to give us a call and we can discuss terms and prices.” He flashed a grin, producing a small, thin card from between his fingers. Was he just keeping a bunch of them up his sleeve for this very purpose? You would have laughed at the ridiculousness if you weren’t so seething with fury. 

“I’ll pass on the offer, Mr De Voss, I’m sure my husband would be more than interested in your… programme.” You couldn’t say it. Couldn’t force the words out your throat because he would have known you were disgusted by the idea simply by your tone. Plucking the card from his fingers, you made a show of slipping it into your bag, all the while keeping eye contact with the weasel. 

“Please, call me Simon. It’s what my friends call me.” He replied with the same wink as before, before dipping his head to you and gesturing for his sons to follow as he went to rehearse the same spiel to someone else. Your hands shook as they balled to fists by your sides, whatever Magpie was saying in your earpiece was drowned out by the pitched screaming in your ears. 

“Y’okay?” Logan murmured, but to no response. He cautioned a glance at you to find you were staring straight ahead where Simon had been standing, your eyes burning a hole into the ground. He was thankful your mutation had nothing to do with fire because he was certain there really would be a hole burned into the ground. 

“No, no I’m alright darling, just feeling lightheaded is all.” He heard a finely dressed woman say as she passed by with her partner, flicking open the fan in her hand to cool off her face. He had hoped it was just coincidence, but the moment he saw another, a man, having to put his drink down and shake his head of fuzziness, he knew this was no coincidence. 

You were messing with their bloodstreams. Intentional or not, he didn’t know. All he knew was that you needed to calm down. Now.

“Alec… what’re you doing?” He hissed, pretending to accidentally bump into you in order to snap you out of your daze. It worked for a moment, and he watched as you blinked a few times at him, your brows furrowing in confusion before you glanced around, your face paling. 

“Shit…” you cursed, concentrating for a moment and reining in your mutation, watching as those who had started to feel dizzy came back to their senses, reassuring their partners or blaming their mutant pets. “Magpie? No, I’m here. Fine. Yep, I just need– yeah I know. Tiss I do not need your input. Fuck.” You clenched your jaw, and Logan barely had time to repeat his question before you were on the move, making a beeline for one of the doors that lead from the ballroom and deeper into the house. You dipped your head in respectful hellos to the people you passed, promising a few of them a moment of your time after you’d ‘freshened up’ or ‘powdered your nose’. It was impressive, how you could appear so collected on the outside when he could sense your unrelenting rage on the inside. He could see it with each stride, the bounce of your loosening hair as you walked with purpose through the now quiet hallways and into an empty room, somewhere far away from the rest of the chattering crowd. 

Similar to the one from before, yet another meeting room, you swung your bag onto one of the many gorgeously upholstered chairs, snatching the earpiece from your ear and slamming it onto the table, Magpie’s concerned voice still chiming through, occasionally interrupted by Tisiphone. Logan took the liberty of picking it up, holding it closer to his own ear so he could hear what they were saying more clearly. Mainly it was Tisiphone spitting feathers at you losing your cool like that. And for some reason, it pissed him off. 

“Give us a minute, we’ll be back out there soon.” He spat, ignoring Tiss’ concealed squawk of rage as he placed it back down on the table, along with his mask, turning to where you’d taken your hair down and were staring out the broad, tall window into the darkness beyond. He wanted to walk up to you, to place a hand on your shoulder, sweep your hair to one side, anything, but he kept his distance. “...Y’okay?” He asked again, hoping this time you would answer. 

You stayed silent for a moment, staring at your own reflection in the window, running a hand through your hair. “A breeding programme…” you whispered, fearful that if you spoke any louder, your voice would break. “Breeding mutants. Like we’re livestock. Like we’re prized racehorses or pedigree dogs.” Your every word was dripping venom, toxic vowels spitting from your mouth. “I thought this was just about the MSR. The system. Trading and bartering with lives for the most money. The most earnings. But now they’re starting to breed us?” You could feel your blood coiling in your veins, yearning to strike out, and you inhaled a deep breath. 

“That’s why we’re here,” Logan responded, now taking that step toward you he wanted to take, placing that hand on your shoulder he wanted to place. Satisfying the itch to sweep your hair to the side, silky strands flowing through his fingers in what he hoped was comfort. “Stopping this fucksticks is the goal, but if you lose your cool in there, we’re all screwed.” His tone was surprisingly gentle and warmer than you were expecting, and you masked your pleasant reaction with a humourless chuckle. 

“You sound like Tisiphone.” Your head fell into your hand as you continued to peer at your own reflection through your spread fingers. The lace mask still perfectly concealed half of your face. The shadows of your past lives. But your eyes slid from your own to his in the window. “I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this…” you murmured, only now noticing you didn’t instantly shy away from his touch like you would most others. And only now remembering you didn’t earlier, either. 

“You didn’t. You didn’t ask, remember? You offered, and I took you up on it.” He shrugged, his heart skipping a beat when your chuckle this time held a lot more genuine humour in it, your lips quirking into a half-smile as your eyes fell from his gaze to the floor thoughtfully.

“You don’t belong in this kind of life. You’re too kind for it.”

Now that took him by surprise. Never, in his century of being alive, had he been told he was too kind for something like this. He would have laughed aloud if you hadn’t been looking so riddled with guilt. 

“Never heard that one before. Don’t forget I was a stray dog before Charles found me.” He wanted to make you smile again. Or, as much of a smile as he could get out of you, but instead you crinkled your nose, your lip curling slightly. 

“Please don’t refer to yourself as a dog after that conversation…” You muttered, turning to face him, his hand still steady on your shoulder. “Some strays are already tame, anyway.”

“Not this one.”

“No?”

“Nope. Feral as they come.” He smirked, and you ducked your head as your lips cracked into a smile, before composing yourself again and returning your eyes to his face. 

“Feral?” you gave him a look that suggested you didn’t believe him, before sighing through your nose. “A feral stray dog and a street-kid circus freak. What a pair…” you hummed in bittersweet melancholy, and Logan had to wonder just what the hell the world did to you. And he’d just opened his mouth to ask before a familiar scent struck him like a slap. His eyes hardened as he looked at you in confusion, leaning in closer and inhaling your scent a few times, his nose scrunching with each exaggerated sniff. 

You drew back, utter bafflement crossing your features. “What the hell are you doing…?”

It wasn’t you. It wasn’t coming from you. The mutation he was smelling… it wasn’t yours. “I can smell something.”

“I’m gonna try really hard not to be offended by that.” You quipped back, folding your arms in what could only be described as offence. 

Logan rolled his eyes skyward. “Not you. Mutants. Other mutants.”

You tilted your head to the side, wondering if he’d run completely off the rails. “Yeah… they’re out in the ballroom. We saw them.” But Logan shook his head definitively, and your pulse quickened slightly. 

“No, not them either…” he glanced around the room, head snapping in alert, before he turned back to you, both hands now gripping both of your shoulders. “You said you can hide the X-gene in mutant blood, right?” He asked frantically, and you nodded, staying quiet to allow him to brainstorm. “So you can detect it? Mutant blood?” You nodded again. Where the hell was he going with this? “Good. Imma need you to concentrate real hard. Focus. Expand your range.” He wracked his brain to remember how the Professor taught telepaths and telekinetics to use their powers as you closed your eyes, remembering his wording and hoping to whatever sick gods there were that this would work. He had no idea if it was the same for sense-based mutations, but he had to try. “Like you’re puttin’ out feelers, testin’ the waters for–”

“Hard to concentrate with you yapping.” You snapped, but you took his advice on board, expanding the range of your mutation and doing exactly what he described, putting out feelers and waiting for any kind of feedback. You could sense the ballroom, the various mutants pulling your blood in various directions. Someone had once described it as a ‘birds of a feather’ situation. Your blood wanted to be near others with the same gene. He’d explained it like a pack animal situation.

Before you exploded his arm off…

But all you could sense was the ballroom. Nothing else was pulsing back to you. You shook your head slightly, and Logan huffed in resignation, his head bowing low, almost touching yours. He was positive there were others here. The scent was faint, but it was there. Unmistakable. He was convinced. 

And then you felt it. Like the whisper of a breeze through trees, something pulled you back, your knees almost buckling as you were also pulled down. What the fuck?

“You’re right…”

Logan’s head snapped back up, his gaze flickering over your concentrated features, your eyes moving beneath closed lids as you searched, brows twitching. “It’s big, whatever it is. I can’t… pinpoint it, but it’s below us somewhere.” Just what the hell had the Thornbury’s found to give off that kind of pulse? What the hell had they locked away in the bowels of the house? You were suddenly acutely aware of how close he’d gotten to you, the warmth of his body causing yours to shiver almost imperceptibly. What the fuck had gotten into you? You were a hardened, seasoned killer, and the proximity of one man had your body behaving in ways you didn’t tell it to. That in and of itself was a novelty, let alone the… feelings that came along with it.

You couldn’t be far enough away from him. But, at the same time…

You couldn’t be close enough. 

You were glad when he removed his hands from your shoulder. But if you were glad, then why did you suddenly feel so damn cold?

Whatever. It didn’t matter. You didn’t have time for this. 

“We should go.” You muttered sternly, shaking your head at whatever the fuck had just happened, turning away from him to allow yourself to breathe. Logan cocked his head to the side as you turned, your shifts in demeanour giving him whiplash. One moment you could be so kind, so genuine, and the next you were stony and emotionless. It was hard to keep up with, but he nodded nonetheless.

“Yeah.” He agreed, following you back out the door, trusting your sense of direction and his own sense of smell, your earpiece left discarded on the table, left behind as Tisiphone, Magpie and Morpheus continued trying to get a hold of you. 

But you were long gone. 

“So what’s with the mask?” Logan asked absently as you led him through hallway after hallway, descending downstairs where available, popping your head into various different rooms. You both knew you’d find nothing until the scent and the pulse were stronger, but it was worth a look anyway.

“We’re not doing this.” You snapped sharply, not bothering to even cast a glance in his direction because you feared that if you did, you’d open up further, and that terrified you.

“Doin’ what? Idly chattin’ whilst aimlessly wanderin’ the halls of this fuckin’ palace?” He snapped back defensively, finding your sudden irritable mood grating. Just moments ago you were telling him he was too kind to be here, and now you couldn’t even be bothered to look at him. 

“Sharing our sad, tragic backstories. You might all sit around braiding each other’s hair and making friendship bracelets back at that cushy little school, having group therapy sessions sitting in a circle, but we don’t really go for that kinda shit here. The people who know, know. The people who don’t, don’t. That’s all there is to it.” You shut the door to the room you were peering into, hoping to fuck that would be the end of his line of questioning. Truth be told, you didn’t really want to relive your past. You didn’t want to have to explain why you wear a mask, because he’d perceive you differently, and it would become all too obvious why you’re doing what you’re doing. And a deeper, more vulnerable part of yourself simply didn’t want him to care.

Logan bristled, striding forward to snatch your wrist before you could walk any further in front of him. You whirled, a sharp breath sailing from your lips. “Listen bub, I don’t give a damn about what shit you’ve been through. If you don’t wanna talk, fine by me, but we’re gonna have a problem if you keep jumping down my fuckin’ throat every time–” he stopped abruptly, the sudden haze of anger clearing as he registered just how quickly you’d shifted again. Guilt spiked through his chest as fear flickered across your features, your eyes stuck on his grip around your arm. 

But it was gone the moment he loosened his hold, your wrist snatched from his palm, subdued rage replacing the deep, scarring terror on your face. “Touch me again, and I will boil you alive, got it?” You hissed, though your voice shook ever so slightly, shards of broken memories slashing through your head, the same harsh grip, the same enraged eyes, the pain that was soon to follow.

The shower of blood. The screaming of agony. The slick, wet crack of bone splintering bone. It rang in your ears like a tannoy, and you closed your eyes to shove it back down where it belonged. Deep, deep within the carefully stacked boxes in your mind, where you kept the rest of your past. You clenched your jaw, your teeth groaning as they ground together, and turned back away from him. He was gone. You’d scared the shit out of him and he’d run. You were free. 

You were free.

“I didn’t–” Logan began, but you cut him off. You didn’t want to hear whatever bullshit apology he had. 

“Save it. Let’s keep moving.”

“Alec–”

But you’d already started walking. Well, pacing, really. And Logan couldn’t help but think it was to be far away from him. He sighed, running an exhausted hand down the side of his face and making a mental note not to touch you again. How complex could one person be? Was this how Jean felt?

The thought of her made his stomach turn, conflicted. They hadn’t exactly left off on the best of terms, and he was dreading the conversation looming over his head when he returned. What more could he possibly say to her? Should he apologise? Explain how he knew what it felt like now? But what exactly was it that she wanted? She seemed almost hurt that he’d changed so much so quickly. Not only that, but he had his own shit to figure out. 

Anyhow, now truly was not the time to be sorting through his own messes. 

“The fuck?”

Logan was broken from his thoughts, looking up to where you’d stopped at the end of the hallway. At a complete dead-end with nothing but an enormous oil painting of a landscape. The landscape around the house. But the scent was getting stronger, how could this lead to nowhere?

Striding up next to you, he briefly caught your wary glance, before turning his attention back to the painting, running the tips of his fingers around the frame. Old houses like these… they always had some kind of secret entrances and exits. He was surprised you didn’t think of it, considering the first time he met you, you’d escaped through said secret exit. 

You eyed him with baffled curiosity, watching his hands skirt around the wooden frame, up to where he could reach, before feeling beneath the bottom, his expression shifting from one of concentration to one of satisfaction as something clicked behind the painting. 

“Gotcha.” He muttered, the painting sliding up the wall with a mechanic hiss, the wooden boards behind the wall shifting inwards and clicking into place, before a door that wasn’t there previously swung open and a cold draft swept your hair back. You would have snorted in amusement if the tension wasn’t so high, the walls changing from wooden to metal beyond the entrance, steel steps leading down into the darkness.

“Well… That’s not ominous.” You quipped sarcastically, folding your arms as you flared out your mutation, the pulse of blood feeding back to you stronger than it had ever been. 

“Yep, these people love a cliché. Shall we?”  He raised a brow, and your lips pulled into a slightly apologetic half-smile. You didn’t mean to lose your temper earlier, truly. He was helping you, and you’d lashed out in a moment of vulnerability. The least you could do was pretend like it never happened. 

“Age before beauty.” You shrugged, and Logan sighed, expecting you to wait for him to go first. But to his continuous surprise, you started down the steps, your heels echoing against the metal. 

“Just how old do you think I am?” He asked, following you into the dark, your huffed breath of a chuckle louder within the empty stairwell.

“Doesn’t matter, you’re prettier than me.” You threw back nonchalantly, and Logan’s gruff laugh bounced off the walls alongside your footsteps. But when you didn’t laugh with him, something in his chest twinged. 

“Hold on, you’re bein’ serious?”

“As a heart attack. You should see me without the mask.” He didn’t need to. Holy shit you were truly blind, weren’t you? 

“Thought we weren’t talking about each other’s sad, tragic backstories?” He asked wickedly, and you could hear his smirk, his tone making your stomach flip. 

“You brought it up.”

“And you shut it down.”

“Just… shut up.” You whispered over your shoulder, and though the light was dim, he could see the humour sparkling in your eye, the knowledge that he had you in a box once again. And the realisation that you were liking it. Enjoying having someone who could keep up with your sharp tongue and even sharper wit. He grinned back at you, and you gave him an exaggerated eye-roll, huffing as you turned back to watch where you were going. 

The moment between you, however long he wanted it to last, was quickly broken by the coppery stench of blood. And not just the lingering hint of your mutation. You paused as if you could smell it too, and he could see the way the muscles in your back stiffened slightly. 

The stairs opened up into yet another large hallway, only this one was vastly different the the ones up above you, and you could only tell because the air wasn’t so stiflingly thick, the lack of light still impeding your vision. Though, whilst you swore there was absolutely no light, the moment you turned back to Logan, you almost jumped out of your skin. 

His eyes were fucking reflective. Just what the hell was he?

“Here,” he murmured, stretching out the the side and finding the large switch for lighting, the humming of electricity filled the silence before white lights overhead stuttered to life. You blinked a few times, squinting as your eyes adjusted, but the moment they did, you felt like you were going to be sick. 

The walls were almost green with age and damp, mould crawling up every corner it could find. The hallway split off in several directions, and you nodded to Logan in a silent agreement to split off and find what you could. You took the left room, the steel door cold against your palm as you pushed it open, the hinges squealing with complaint. A single desk and chair stood imposingly towards the back wall, with various monitors and keyboards littering the surface of the table. Your breath clouded in front of your face as you cautiously walked in, eyes flickering over the various papers strewn across the tabletop, various family seals all stamped into the bottom corner, signatures of all kinds signed atop dotted lines. 

Your blood ran cold. 

‘Ownership Terms and Conditions’

The paper was thick beneath your fingers as you picked up one of the documents, scanning through the text. It was all here. The details of mutation, the strengths and weaknesses, age, height, weight, and gender. Everything but name. They’d taken away the only thing these people could call their own. Referring to them as numbers or mutant abilities. 

And you realised now you’d already made your first mistake. You’d referred to Logan by a name when talking to Simon De Voss. Shit, had he caught it? Were you already fucked? You tapped your finger to your ear, your panic rising when you realised you’d left your fucking earpiece behind on that damned table. Fuck fuck fuck. 

You had to go. You had to get them out. By now, if De Voss had noticed, they’d have already started the hunt for anyone wearing a mask like yours. And Logan had left his–

You had to go. Now.

“Alec!” Logan called urgently, and the uncharacteristic fear in his tone had you backtracking through the doorway and into the room he’d been investigating. 

And the moment you joined him, you felt sick to your stomach. 

Cages. Cages lining the walls, stacked on top of one another, crammed into little corners. Large ones, tiny ones, long ones. And each containing at least one pair of terrified eyes, staring back at you with measured caution.

“This isn’t a country house,” you breathed in utter horror and you tried and failed to comprehend just how many mutants the Thornbury’s had locked up literally in their basement. 

“It’s a collection point… Those deals made tonight? They’ll be finalised tonight.” Logan finished darkly, his teeth aching with how hard he was clenching his jaw. He sidled up next to you as you stepped up to the closest enclosure. And sure enough, someone within shrank back, but not fast enough for you to miss a black circle tattooed around her right eye. Like the De Voss’ monocle. Logan was right. 

Everyone had brought stock today… including you. 

“Help me get them out,” you barked, frantically searching the room for anything sharp enough to prick your hand with. Just one small wound was all you needed, and you’d be able to free these people. The operation be damned. This is why you did what you did. You knew the kind of lives that awaited these captives. Knew intimately the way the system worked. They’d be passed from rich prick to rich prick, sent to fight in the cages until they either burnt out or were killed. Even if they lived, they’d be tossed to the streets or executed. There was no future if they remained slaves. You were lucky. You were bought out. 

You knew not everyone had that luxury. 

Logan nodded wordlessly, releasing the constant leash he kept on his claws and allowing them to slide through his knuckles, and sliced through the top of the steel bars of the one in front of him, crouching to slice through the bottom before stepping back as the metal crashed to the ground. Without notice, you slashed your palm down his other hand, blood welling from the cut before he jerked his hand away. He opened his mouth to ask just what the hell you were doing, eyes wide with concerned frustration before the blood in your hand spiralled and solidified into the same blade you’d used to fight him with. 

“It’s okay, we’re here to help you,” you soothed, stretching out your unarmed hand to the terrified-looking woman within the shadows. You spoke with a gentleness Logan could never have expected as if you were talking to a child, and he briefly wondered if you’d ever had much experience with kids. 

The woman took a shy step forward, peering at you with more curiosity than fear, and your heart soared. You were doing something. Finally, after months of torturing loose ends, you were finally making progress. 

For the first time since he’d met you, Logan saw you smile. Not the half-assed quirk of your lips he’d gotten used to, a real, genuine smile. And despite the pressing situation, he found it difficult to tear his eyes away. How could you believe you weren’t beautiful? And when you turned to him, your grin only broadening, he found himself smiling right back at you, almost overwhelmed with the urge to pull you in. 

Almost overwhelmed with the urge to kiss you. 

Fuck… you were gorgeous. 

But before he could say anything, you were back on the move, slashing through steel bars and coaxing terrified men, women and children from their cages, one of which had instantly attached herself to your leg, curls of dirty blonde hair sticking up in all directions, a tattoo of a galloping horse family crest peaking just below the ripped short sleeve of her filthy t-shirt. Logan ignored what the sight did to his chest, distracting himself by freeing the others you hadn’t got to yet. He wasn’t as reassuring with his words as you were, but seeing the way the others were treated with kindness was enough to show them he wasn’t going to hurt them.

“Well… they’re out,” Logan murmured, his claws retracting back through his knuckles, his suit jacket and tie long discarded inside one of the cages, leaving him in just the white shirt. You nodded, now at a slight loss as to what to do. You sure as shit couldn’t get back through the way you came. Sneaking thirty or so mutant slaves through a trader’s gala? Not likely. You wracked your brain for a plan, thinking of things on the fly was supposed to be your strong suit. That was until a little hand tugged on the fabric of your dress, the girl who’d attached herself to your leg looking up at you with large, determined eyes as she pointed to a door behind you. Looking back at Logan, you glanced to the door, and he nodded, crossing the room to shove at the steel.

Only it wouldn’t budge. 

He tried it again, this time putting more strength behind his arms, but the door was stubborn. So with a frustrated huff, he unsheathed his claws and slashed straight through the hinges, giving the door one last kick as if fell through, crashing to the floor with a deafening clang. 

“We’ve got activity in the cages, over.”

“Shit,” you hissed, your head whipping back to the hallway, and Logan tensed as he heard various colliding footsteps all honing in on your location. Detaching the kid from your leg, you hauled her up into your arms, handing her to Logan by the door. He took her without question. “Get them out. I’ll give you as long as I can.” His gut twisted at the implication, and before he could stop himself, his palm rested against the side of your face. But you didn’t boil him alive like you promised. His breath caught in his throat as you instead leaned slightly into his touch, your hand gently holding the base of his wrist. The moment was brief, like all other moments between you, but it felt different. It felt solid. 

But the growing threat behind you shattered it, and he dropped his hand the moment you dropped yours. 

“Stay alive.” He instructed softly, and your lips quirked into a smile as you nodded, eye glinting with determination before glancing to the open door. 

“Go.” Was all you said, before you turned, your crimson blade growing from the open wound in your hand, the blood writhing and shimmering in the white lights, before you were round the corner and gone from his sight. 

He didn’t stick around to hear the pained screams of guards and security alike, holding the kid in his arms as he raced down out the door and down more steel hallways, letting his nose guide him as the scent of rainfall and fresh air called him left and right. And it only felt like minutes before he burst through another door with his shoulder, stepping to the side to allow the rest of the mutants to sprint through to the outside, watching as they didn’t stop, scattering in different directions. He kept the girl close to him, secure in his hold as he waited for the last captive to race through, before stepping out into the rain himself.

The moment he did, he was drenched. It was the kind of rainfall that doused everything the moment it touched it. Lashes of water flooded the ground, his hair sticking slick to his head. And it was freezing. He shivered slightly as he ran, his shirt clinging to his body like a second skin. Shouts and sirens rang out behind him, and he looked back to see the country house up on the hill, torches pointed into the woods just beyond.

And no sign of you. 

Logan knew he had a choice. Protect the kid or go back for you. But the moment he paused, the girl made the choice for him. 

Sharp claws scratched at his shoulders as she fought in his grip, her little cat-like eyes narrowing with every wriggle, a tail he hadn’t previously spotted whipping and swishing. Freedom. She craved freedom. And the moment he set her down, she bounded off into the woods on all fours. Like she belonged there. 

A little wildling. He chuckled briefly, swiping his wet hair from his forehead. Something told him she’d be okay, and it was that thought that had him turning back, racing up the hill to where a line of torches was advancing forth. Torches that he knew were fixed to the end of guns. 

They really did take their security seriously at these events. 

Your feet screamed at you with every thunderous step you took, and you cursed yourself for wearing fucking heels to an event where it was more than likely you’d have to make a quick getaway. You were lucky you were light on your feet because every obstacle seemed intent on tripping your up. You’d stumbled more than once on a loose stick or thread of bramble, your leg bleeding where the thorns had snared your ankle. Drenched hair stuck to your back, the canopy above doing nothing to shelter you from the deluge, weak leaves bending with each droplet. You shivered uncontrollably, despite the adrenaline in your blood as you raced through the undergrowth, twigs and branching whipping at your arms and face, catching against the lace of your mask, threatening to tear it free. 

Your breath like ice in your lungs, burning with each panting inhale, your legs aching as you lept over a moss-covered log, the torchlight barely catching your sprinting form, but enough for the shouts of “There!” to echo throughout the wood. You didn’t look back. You couldn’t look back. You’d received strict instructions and you couldn’t disobey them.

“Stay alive.”

His voice calmed your freight train panic as you squinted through the rain, focussing on what was ahead of you rather than what lay behind. “Stay alive.”

‘I’m fucking trying.’ you responded mentally, the mutation in your blood flaring as you forced it to pump faster. The ache in your muscles dulled, the haze in your mind cleared, and you were running again, your reflexes heightened. You dodged, ducked and weaved through the trees faster than the gunmen behind you could keep up with, their voices fading into the distance as you focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Things were finally looking up. Maybe you’d gotten away. Maybe they were too busy searching for the rest of the escapees. Maybe they were distracted by–

You could barely finish the thought before an arm caught around your waist and a broad hand settled over your nose and mouth, pulling you back behind a large oak tree. You kicked and writhed as much as you could, your elbow colliding harshly with the figure’s ribs, the blood from your ankles and arms drawing up in front of you and separating into several crystalised points, all aiming behind you. 

But then a thumb smoothed down the bridge of your nose repeatedly, and the hand at your side squeezed not in fight, but reassurance. The crimson-throwing knives liquified in the air, dropping to the ground. 

Logan.

You stopped struggling, letting him bring you closer into his chest as steps crunched through dead leaves. He moved his hand from your nose, though keeping it over your mouth to allow you to breathe, his thumb unceasing in its movements. And despite being huddled in his arms, you couldn’t feel any of the warmth you’d felt within the country house. He was freezing as if his very bones were nothing but ice. You weren’t much better off, shivering violently in his hold. You both stayed there, waiting in the increasingly charged silence until those footsteps had receding into the roar of the rain. Only then did Logan slide his hand from your mouth, but it didn’t go far, moving just enough to cup your jaw, turning your head to look at him. 

You were caked in blood. Your dress had been completely ruined, crimson stains spotted your arms and legs, your collarbone and neck were painted a diluted scarlet as the rain did its job to wash it all away.

His eyes fell to the hollow of your throat, where the rain had not only washed away the blood but the makeup. An angry, jagged scar ran all around the circumference of your neck, slightly raised from the rest of your smooth skin. You really had masked it well, a perfect concoction of concealer and foundation combined with colour corrector. But all your hard work was now washed away, leaving behind the cruelties of your past. 

He was lying about what he said earlier. He did give a shit about what you’d been through. In fact, he gave more shits than he cared to admit. 

“Y’alright?” He asked, his hushed voice barely audible over the rain, and you nodded, droplets falling into your eye, your other still covered with your mask. You were fine, physically at least. Sure you had a few scrapes and bruises but other than that, you weren’t hurt. But you couldn’t help the sinking feeling that everything you’d just worked for had gone down the drain. Sure, you’d saved them from their imminent slavery, but you’d just lost them all. Who’s to say they weren’t going to be found again? Who’s to say you’d only succeeded briefly, only to fall back into the vast depths of failure? It had become your constant companion recently. The empty, hollow void of failure. After every pointless torture, every pulled nail, every busted lip, you’d trudge back home with that same pit in your chest. You’d filled it for a moment. Smiling for the first time in years, only for it to be snatched away from you the moment you let yourself think that maybe, just maybe, you were making a difference.

You hoped the rain would disguise your watery eye. You should be used to the feeling now. Used to feeling completely and utterly useless against the forces constantly working against you. Then why? Why did it feel like you’d accomplished nothing? You stepped out of Logan’s hold, shivering slightly in the freezing weather, your skin crawling with the way your dress was pasted against you like wallpaper. 

“We need t-to get out-t of the rain…” you managed to stutter through chattering teeth, wrapping your arms around yourself as if it could provide any kind of heat. 

You only succeeded in making it worse. 

As per usual.

Logan nodded in agreement, his hand reaching for yours only to stop when you flinched away. He wished he could brush the hair stuck to your face away from your eye. Wished he knew what was going on inside your head. What you were thinking. What you were feeling. Damn…

Telepaths had it so easy. He guessed Jean never needed to worry about this shit. It almost pissed him off to think about it. 

So instead he just gestured for you to follow him, shaky steps careful in the downpour, less for the sake of slipping and more for the sake of noise. Though he couldn’t hear anybody close, that didn’t mean they didn’t know how to mask their footsteps. And the rain made it much easier to be snuck up on. It made him uneasy. He’d glance back at you every now and then, his heart lurching at the way your eyes focused on the ground in front of you, your arms still wrapped around your body. It was the first time he’d seen you truly look vulnerable. Like the victim of the world, he suspected you were. Makeup washed away, hair flat against your head, shoulder hunched and your body shivering so violently he was mildly concerned you were going to lose your head. Not that he was much better off. Yet another downside to having bones of metal.

His body was really shit at regulating his temperature. Heat felt overwhelming, and freezing felt like he could barely move. Each step was a challenge when he wasn’t fuelled with adrenaline. And if he wasn’t so close to chattering his teeth out his own skull, he’d probably make some kind of joke about sounding like a steel bar being dropped down a hollow well just to make you smile again. At least, that’s what it sounded like to him. 

“N–not far now.” He tried his damnest to keep his voice steady. He’d spotted it when peering into the darkness after the little Wildling. A logger’s cabin, looking abandoned in the deluge. Wasn’t much, but it would do for shelter until the rain lessened. He glanced back to you again, and genuinely couldn’t tell if you’d heard him or not. You made no indication and he once again found himself wishing he could read your mind. 

You’d been following him almost blindly, simply letting him guide you as you disappeared into your head, thinking over the original plan until you had it down to a script. You knew Tisiphone wasn’t likely to forgive you for this. That was if she was still alive. The house hadn’t been set ablaze, so there was that at least, but if anything it made you sink deeper into your concern. Why hadn’t she set the house alight? She hadn’t had a problem with it before when things went wrong. It was why she was on a field ban in the first place. She’d lost her shit on an assignment and the whole place went up in smoke. You didn’t know any of the details, you were out on your own mission. All you knew was there was absolutely nothing left for Boss to save. Not even bones. Hellfire…

It was one hell of a force.

“Here…” Logan murmured, breaking you from your thoughts by running his hand down your shoulder. You finally looked up, squinting through the pouring rain to see an open door to possibly one of the smallest shacks you’d ever seen in your life. It was more of a shed than anything else, but you guessed it would do for a couple hours. Your eyes flickered from the little cabin to Logan, holding the door open for you. But before he could say anything, you trudged inside, mildly grateful to be out of the wet. 

The interior was as bleak as the exterior. Mostly abandoned, with the only sign of life being the slightly messy bed. But you guessed whoever had been holding up in here had left in a hurry, blankets strewn over the wooden floorboards, the fireplace unused and damp. That was the perfect way to describe how this place felt. 

Damp. 

The door closed behind you and you turned to face Logan, his white shirt now completely sheer and stuck to his body. And if you didn’t feel like a drowned rat, you probably would have made a comment on his insane build. All hard lines and cut muscle. But in this moment, you couldn’t have cared less. You were freezing, you were defeated, your colleagues scattered all which ways and all you wanted was to curl up into a ball and cry. 

Well, you didn’t care until his finger started frantically popping open button after button.

“W-what the f-f-fuck are you d-doing?” You chattered, eyes now blowing wide as he peeled the shirt from his body, suddenly finding the ceiling incredibly interesting when his hands shot to his belt.

“Str-stripping off wet clothes. And-d if you d-don’t wanna f-f-freeze, you’d d-do the same.” He answered, belt clattering to the floor before he kicked off his shoes and stripped off his socks. You turned around before you saw anything else, your necklace jingling with just how hard you were shivering. Fuck, he was right. Wet clothes were a killer, especially in these temperatures. And without a proper way to heat up… you’d freeze. Shit. This is not where you expected this night to end. 

“F-fine. But d-d-don’t look.” You hissed, shaky hands fumbling with the clasp of your necklace, struggling to find purchase before you managed to get lucky and it dropped to the floor. Logan had already pulled the dry blankets around his body, soaked clothes lay spread on the floor. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best chance they had to dry. He found your sudden timidity endearing, almost rolling his eyes as he kicked his shoes into the corner of the room, scrambling to find somewhere that would be a little warmer than standing on the freezing floor in nothing but a blanket. The bed seemed like the best bet.

Your long satin gloves crumpled to the floor in a wet heap, and it was only when you started to remove your dress did Logan truly realised why you didn’t want him to look. The fabric slid down your shoulders, and his gut twisted just as he lay down. 

A latticework of scars littered the expanse of your back. Line after line all carved into your flesh with careless abandon. Your dress continued to slide down your body, and he watched as more of your skin became a canvas for whatever sick, twisted bastard did this to you. Despite your wishes, his eyes roamed your back freely, landing on a small black tattoo of a curling snake just below your ribs. Cogs were turning in his brain, but before he could open his mouth to ask, you’d kicked off your heels and turned back to face him. 

Now he was staring at you for a completely different reason. Scars still covered your body but–

You were breathtaking. 

“Th-though I t-t-told you n-not t-to look.” You didn’t seem irritated. No, you sounded resigned. Tired. Your arms were still wrapped around your middle, water pooling at your feet from where it dripped from your limp hair. And it was instinct for Logan to pull the blanket open, a silent invitation for you to stop freezing in the middle of the room. But your lips quirked slightly, eyes glinted with exhausted mirth. “B-bit presumptuous, no?”

Logan answered you with an exaggerated eye-roll, raising a brow as you continued to stand out in the cold. As if wanting to make sure he was sure. “Get in-n.”

You didn’t need telling twice. Not when one of your two options was to freeze to death. And the other just looked so…

Welcoming. 

You joined him beneath the blanket, shivering for a whole new reason the moment his hand slid around your waist, his arm holding you tight against his chest as he wrapped the blanket back around you. Fucking hell he was freezing. You didn’t know if this was worse or better. The blanket was scratchy and smelled faintly of mildew, but at least you weren’t still out in those damn woods. 

You placed a palm on his shivering chest, his heartbeat solid beneath your fingers, and Logan looked down at you, head tilting to the side as he saw your face still obscured. But you looked concentrated on something, your eye honed in on the centre of his chest, above your hand.

Temperature regulation. It was never something you excelled at. Sure you could slow blood flow in others to the point of dizziness and fainting, but accelerating it was another problem altogether, and for some reason, you just couldn’t get the hang of it. Your mutation flailed and writhed like a stubborn horse as you tried to get a solid grip on Logan’s blood. It should be simple. Easy as falling asleep. But you’d proven to yourself time and time again that your powers weren’t created to heal others. Only to hurt. 

“W-what’re you doin’?” he asked with no small degree of suspicion, and you closed your eyes against the accusation, almost tempted to say you were trying to blow him up. 

“Trying to inc-crease your b-b-blood-pressure. Helps with b-body heat.” You explained curtly as if to get him to shut up. Not that he needed any more encouragement, you appeared to have stunned him into silence. How the fuck did somebody like you get so wrapped up in a mess like this. Spouting so much nonsense about him being too kind to be involved when you were the one spearheading the whole operation. And whether it was due to your mutation or just your surprising display of decency, he felt his muscles slowly cease their endless trembling, a slight warmth spreading from where your palm rested at his chest.

You breathed a little easier when you felt him relax a little, unable to bask in the rare win for your mutation when he uttered a single word that instantly had you on the defensive. 

“Mask.” He prompted monosyllabically, and you tensed your jaw, tilting your head to meet his gaze.

“No.”

“It’s fabric and soaked. Take it off.”

“No.”

“Just–” his hand skipped from around your waist to the side of your face, and you shot from his chest, sitting bolt upright, the blanket falling from your body. Logan followed you, bracing a hand against the mattress as he sat up in front of you. “Why?”

He didn’t need to know. No, more than that. You didn’t want him to know. You didn’t want his pity. You didn’t want anyone’s pity. “Because I can’t.” You answered, your voice smaller than he’d ever heard it. It did something to his heart he’d rather not think about right now. 

Slowly, like approaching a spooking animal, Logan’s hand drifted back to the side of your face, halting when you flinched away and only moving again when you’d settled. The tips of his fingers ghosted the edge of the black lace, your breath stilling in your lungs as he pulled his slightly.

“Yes you can…” with me, he wanted to say. You would be safe here. With him. You wouldn’t have to take on the burdens of this world alone. You wouldn’t have to scar yourself to get what you needed. There was a reason you asked him to be here today. And he’d be damned it he didn’t find out what it was.

When you didn’t move away from him, Logan carefully, gingerly lifted the mask from your face, keeping your hair back with his fingers. It took him a moment to register, but everything made sense now. Why you were doing this, the mask on your face, the tattoo at your waist, the scars around your neck. It was like the final piece in the puzzle that was who you were.

A burn had been branded across your eye, three letters seared into your skin for the rest of your life. Your cross to bear. 

MSR.

You were one of them. 

Logan was almost taken aback by the maelstrom of emotions that suddenly kicked up in his chest. Utter, unending fury, earth-shattering heartbreak, and a sense of understanding that he’d never felt before. 

Somewhere in the process, you’d closed your eyes, fearful of his reaction when he pried off your mask, finally revealing the answers to so many of his questions. You didn’t really know what to expect. Whether he would get up and leave now knowing your reasons were far more personal than heroic. Or whether he would try and find some bullshit common ground between you, with his tone disgustingly sympathetic. But none of that happened. Instead, the pads of his fingers ghosted across the letters, tracing them with a gentleness that was foreign to you. 

“Circus freak…” he understood now. You weren’t one of the personal ones. You were a money maker. Sent to fight in the collard cages for gamblers and drunks who didn’t know any better than to bet against David fighting the goliath. A prized possession kept locked away and promised freedom after every win. 

“Nobody should have to live that life.” You whispered, slowly opening your eyes to find yourself stunned by the way he was looking at you. No pity. No sympathy. Just… perception. He saw you. He understood you. When was the last time anyone had understood you?

“Not even you.” He didn’t mean it as a joke, but he savoured the way you huffed a small laugh, your head moving imperceptibly into his touch. But he was right. Not even you deserved to live that life. And you’d done plenty of things to deserve a lot of shit. But not that.

Never that.

“Did you know them? Whoever sold you off?” He asked lowly, still tracing the three letters across your eye, and you nodded slightly.

“Yeah you uh, could say that. Known him for a while. He uhm, taught me everything about my mutation. Thought he could use me, kept me close with bullshit lies about loving me. The day he branded me I uh, blew his arm off.” You shrugged, and Logan surprised you yet again by snorting a laugh. “What?”

“You blew his arm off?”

“I was kinda going through some shit at the time, okay?” You laughed, and Logan could only compare the sound to delicate wind chimes in a soft breeze. “Alright then, what about you, stray dog? Don’t look like a stray to me, especially not tonight. So out with it.” You poked his chest and Logan heaved a sigh, lying back against the mattress and dragging you with him, a gradually building warmth seeping into your bones. 

“Kinda the same story, ‘cept I wasn’t in the system. Lost my memories some day some how and just kinda… wandered, for a bit. Fighting in cages too, but I got to keep the winnings,”

“Lucky shit.” Your viscious tone had not heat to it, and it almost made Logan laugh. He didn’t think he’d met anyone who would consider fighting in cages for money lucky, but he supposed he’d never met anyone who’d fought in cages for someone else to claim the winnings. 

“Met a girl there–”

“Ooooh? Now it’s getting interesting.” You quipped, and Logan didn’t bother fighting the urge to pinch at your waist, your soft skin prickling with goosebumps.

“Not like that. She was just a kid. On the run from herself, honestly. Hid in my damn truck she was so desperate to escape. So I took her with me–”

“How chivalrous.”

“Could you stop?” He huffed, though his disobedient lips pulled into an equally disobedient smile. You schooled your expression dramatically, your heart singing with the surprisingly pleasant feeling of this conversation. You hated getting to know people. Hated their bullshit backstories. You often found you didn’t have the time to listen to them cry. But Logan? There was something mesmerising about the way he spoke. It wasn’t a fond memory, that much you knew, but he wasn’t telling it like it hurt. He was just telling it as it was. “Some asshole mutant was huntin’ her, named Sabretooth–”

“Sabretooth? That’s a bit dramatic.”

“Wanna talk about dramatics, Alecto?” He raised a brow to you and you huffed.

“That could be my real name, you don’t know.”

“It’s not.”

You pulled a mocking face, sticking your tongue between your teeth. “Fine. Maybe it’s not. What’s yours then, if you think mine is so dramatic.” You shot back, eyes narrowing as he pulled his lips into a thin line, mumbling something under his breath. “Sorry? Didn’t quite catch that.”

“Wolverine.” He repeated defeatedly, and you let the moment hang for a second, pursing your lips to stop yourself from laughing. 

“Wolverine?”

“Yep.”

“Like, the cute little badger thing?”

“I don’t think I knew what it was at the time.”

“You don’t say… isn’t it technically a weasel?”

“I didn’t know it was a damn weasel.” 

Your restraint on your laughter shattered in an instant, your shoulders shaking with fits of wind-chime giggles, and honestly, the mocking was worth it just to hear you laugh again, your lips splitting into a full grin that had his heart skipping several beats. “You done?” He asked flatly, his eyes trained on you as you fought to recover yourself.

“Yeah, sorry. Please, continue, weasel man.”

Logan groaned in exasperation, choosing to ignore your little lighthearted jabs. “He was trackin’ her, wanted her for some master mutant plan. Turns out he was bein’ tracked by the X-men. Picked us up on the road, ‘n that’s where I met Ororo, Scott ‘n Jean.”

Your eyes flickered over his face. He said that name differently from the rest. Jean. There was history there, you could tell. His tone both softened and hardened at the same time, paradoxically, and you felt a twinge of something deep within your chest. 

“Huh… so you stuck with them ever since?” You asked sincerely, and Logan noted the way your demeanour had shifted. 

“Yeah. Well, kinda. Been here there ‘n everywhere since, but pretty much stuck around for the last few years. ‘N that’s it.” You had a feeling he was holding back from divulging his truth. Sure, it was a lot, but something was missing. Something he wasn’t telling you. But at least now you knew why he referred to himself as a stray. Taken in by a family he wasn’t expecting. You knew what that was like. Sure, your team were a bunch of self-serving dickwads, but you were family. 

“And… Jean? What’s up there?” You asked before you could stop yourself. You didn’t know why you wanted to know. Curiosity, you supposed. You wanted to know as much as he would tell you. A stark contrast to everyone else you’d met in your life. 

“What’d ya mean?” He asked, masking his sudden defensive surge with confusion. 

“You said her name differently. Hope I’m not gonna have some pissed-off mutant after me when she finds out I was naked in bed with her man.” Your chuckle was humourless, and Logan raised a brow. In truth, he’d almost forgotten the circumstances, too wrapped up in your face to truly notice that, underneath everything, there was nothing separating you. 

“Doubt it. Her boyfriend would be thrilled though.” He muttered surprisingly bitterly, and your eyes widened in surprise.

“Boyfriend huh? Ohhhh, I get it. Love triangle?” You wiggled your brows.

“You ask a lotta questions.”

“And you give a lotta answers, you just don’t realise it. So, who likes who? Obviously you like Jean–”

“Obviously?” He asked, finding himself feeling extremely exposed. 

“Written all over your face. And Jean has a boyfriend–”

“Scott.”

“Oh shit, the guy I knocked out?” You clarified, trying to ignore the sudden sense of satisfaction. No wonder he referred to the guy as his acquaintance, he was dating the woman he liked. Despite the kernel of something you refused to acknowledge of jealousy in your gut, you were glad to have helped in some way. 

“The very same.”

“Assuming Scott likes her back since they’re together and everything. But what about Jean? Where’s her head at?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He sighed, wondering how and when you got onto the topic of his love life. Things had become so much more complicated the last time he was at the mansion. He’d pulled back, and she’d gotten angry with him. For pulling back. Which made no sense since she was always refusing his advances. So why the hell had she been so pissed off with him?

“So you’re jealous?”

“I was, maybe a little.” He shrugged, finding himself at peace looking down at you as you furrowed your brows in thought, trying to decipher just what that meant. He wasn’t lying. He was jealous. In the past. But things had changed now, and he’d only just realised when, and why they had. 

“You were? What changed?” You asked, and you watched him hesitate for a moment, which only added more questions to the pile. Not that the pile wasn’t already a mile high.

“I–” Logan stopped himself, allowing a moment to truly think over his answer. It wouldn’t be right, to tell you. Not when he still knew so damn little about you. It wouldn’t be right to tell you things changed after meeting you. Things changed beneath that church when you’d asked him for help. When he’d seen your fire born of defiance. “I don’t know. Just kinda… stopped one day.”

You narrowed your eyes up at him, and Logan knew you knew he was lying. Or not divulging the truth. But a lie of omission is still a lie nonetheless. You seemed to accept his answer however, though filing away the question for later, falling into an effortlessly comfortable silence in a bubble of warmth. You didn’t realise he was still looking at you when you lay your head down to rest in the dip between his neck and shoulder, leeching off the heat from his body and returning it in an ouroboros cycle. You were content, you realised, to bask in his presence, feeling his chest rise and fall with each breath. For the first time in a long, long time, you were at peace. 

“What’s your name?” He asked softly, and you pushed back against the sudden wave of remorse. Telling him would endanger your entire operation, everything you’d built would be compromised. And you couldn’t bare to look up at him, couldn’t bare to see the slight hope in his eyes. 

“Alecto…” you whispered in response, your chest constricting as you almost felt him deflate. And you realised you couldn’t fucking bare it. “Is what I was named when Boss picked me up,” it was almost comical, the way he stilled beneath your touch, as if too terrified to move in case you remembered he was there and you’d stop talking. “But before that…?” you trailed off, closing your eyes as you murmured your name so softly it was only thanks to Logan’s increased senses that he heard you.

He repeated it softly, tasting the letters on his tongue, savouring how they sounded pieced together. It suited you, your name. More than Alecto did, anyway. Fuck… what was it about you that had him so hooked? Other than absolutely everything?    

“At the risk of you stabbing me in my sleep–”

“A risk you’re willing to take?”

Logan rumbled a chuckle, delicately moving a strand of your hair from your face and you lifted your chin slightly to peer up at him. “You were wrong, ‘bout what you said earlier,”

Your head tilted in confusion. You’d said a lot of things earlier. But your heart stuttered in your chest as his expression softened into something you really didn’t want to think about right now. 

“You’re beautiful,” He whispered, your true name falling from his lips like a secret, and your eyes widened, exhaling a soft breath of shock. How on god’s green earth could he think that? He’d seen your face. Seen your scars. Seen the mess of your body. 

“You don’t have to be nice because of my tragic story,” you responded quietly, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. But he gently gripped your chin between his thumb and forefinger and slowly brought you back to look at him before caressing your jaw with his knuckles. 

“I’m not.”

You closed your eyes against the overwhelming wave of melancholy, hating how he was making you feel seen. Making you feel less like the monster you’ve had to be. Making you feel human. 

“I’m scarred, Logan. You don’t–” You cut yourself off, unable to quite find the words to articulate what you were trying to say. But you didn’t need to. Your eyes fluttered open to find him still gazing at you, no small degree of understanding flickering in his hazel irises. He knew you didn’t mean your body. He knew you didn’t mean your face. You were scarred in ways beyond physical, and you supposed, of all people, he would be the one to understand that.

“We all have our scars, sweetheart,” you scoffed at the nickname, rolling your eyes. You were anything but sweet. “I’ve been around for a long, long time. One thing‘ve learnt, is that they don’t define us. It’s how we choose to heal from ‘em.”

You didn’t want to bring up the fact that you’d chosen to heal by using your pain, your anger, to kill anyone who stood in your way. You didn’t want to ruin his perception of you, no matter how far from the truth it may seem. So you let the silence linger, your eyes flickering between his and finding nothing but brutal honesty.

“Now at the risk of you stabbing me in my sleep,” you began, savouring the way his lips pulled into a small smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. You felt his gaze fluttering across your features and watched as his eyes landed on your lips more than once, before lingering there. “This Jean woman?” you breathed, leaning further into him, and his arm around your waist tightened. “Is a fucking idiot.” You whispered against his lower lip, his eyes searching yours for permission and you let him open the windows to your soul, and there was only a second of charged energy before he closed minimal space between you, his lips surprisingly soft as he moulded them against yours. You could taste his last cigar, however long ago that may have been, the smoky aromas still lingering in his mouth and you found yourself savouring it, eyelashes fluttering closed as he slowly, languidly moved with you.

Logan found himself having to suppress a groan, his palm spreading across the side of your face, cupping your jaw as your tongue darted out to swipe along his lower lip and he parted his mouth, a shiver running down his spine as he tasted you, the subtle hint of what he could only compare to cherry dancing across the buds on his tongue. 

It was slow, unhurried, so different to every other aspect of your life. His touch was gentle, his hand sliding down your waist to tug you closer as you craned your neck up to meet him further, open palm splayed against your lower back. You’d never been touched with such tender delicacy before, and the heat in your body had nothing to do with your mutation. 

Logan hummed lowly as your fingers ghosted up and down the side of his ribs, goosebumps prickling his skin with your touch, and you gasped lightly when his teeth nicked your lower lip, and feeling your nails scratch gingerly at his waist, he repeated it, sucking gently on the soft hurt. 

The sweet, tangy scent of your building arousal reminded him that there was absolutely nothing separating him from you, and he couldn’t stop the overwhelming urge to skirt his hand down to your thigh, hooking your leg over his hip. You canted against him, the silken heat of his cock barely grazing your cunt had you whispering his name, sweet as honey. He didn’t care that you were scarred, mentally or physically. It didn’t matter to him. You were beautiful; heart, body and soul. And things changed the moment he stepped into that church. 

His hand drifted from your outer thigh to the warmth between, tentatively dipping his fingers into the gathering slick of your cunt, your fingers carding through his hair as your head fell back in pleasure, and Logan took the opportunity to pepper the scars on your neck with light kisses, nipping gently at the raised skin. You bucked against his fingers, silently seeking more from him, a quiet moan falling from your lips when the soft pads of his digits circled over your swollen clit. You clamped your lips together, a whimper trying to escape your gated teeth with the sudden spark of ecstasy rolling through your nerves, your nails clawing through his hair. 

Logan groaned against your neck, a subsequent gasp fanning your throat when you did it again, his cock jumping with each muted tug at the back of his head. You rolled your hips against his fingers, urging him to finally breach you, your arousal coating not only his hand but the tip of his member, trapped between his wrist and his stomach. He smirked slightly against your neck, nipping at the hollow of your throat before sliding one finger through your folds, growling carnally as your silken walls clenched around him.

“Logan…” you murmured, eyes rolling behind closed lids. Fuck he felt good, and he wasn’t really doing anything more than slowly fucking you with one finger. You guessed it had been a while, but that could only explain your visceral reaction to his touch so much. He pumped his finger inside you, his thumb still circling your clit in a way that set your blood on fire. And through your pleasure-addled mind, you realised he wasn’t getting anything out of this. He wanted to make you feel good. The scales were unbalanced, and you couldn’t help but want to rectify that.

Your hand left his hair, ghosting down the side of his body and dipping between your pressed hips, your fingers delicately grazing the tip of his weeping cock. A shiver wracked his spine as your curious hand wrapped around his sensitive head, his finger curling against a spot deep within your walls that had you crying out, squeezing his tip in your fist. Logan’s hips bucked into your hand, a stuttered gasp sailing from his lips. 

A furnace was building between your thighs, a low glow of ecstasy that only grew the moment a second finger joined the first, slowly stretching you out, scissoring inside your vice-like walls. You wanted him inside you. Not his fingers, you wanted his cock. Craved it. Fuck, you wanted to feel him throbbing in your cunt, wanted to feel every pulsing vein along your wanton heat. And so despite your building release, you relented your hold on his cock and gently took his wrist, pulling him from your thighs. 

Logan’s eyes fluttered open as he looked down at you, dazed confusion creasing his brows. You cupped the side of his fuzzy jaw, panting against his lips. “Want you…” You whispered, and something shifted in his heart. Slowly, he pushed against your shoulder, urging you to lie on your back as he followed, hovering over you. Fuck he was gorgeous, gazing down at you with something you couldn’t quite decipher glimmering in his hazel eyes. 

“You have me.” He responded softly, ghosting his hand down between you to align his cock with your clenching cunt. You gasped as he coated the tip with your slick, sliding through your soaked folds before pushing into your heat, achingly slowly. 

A sharp hiss escaped your teeth at the initial stretch, Logan’s head falling against your collar as he fought every instinct not to drive into you with reckless abandon. He wanted to be gentle with you. He wanted you to trust him. And the moment you wrapped your legs around his waist, your ankles locking at the small of his back, he released a low, guttural moan. Inch by torturous inch he filled you, sharing a mutual gasp as his tip grazed that same spot his fingers were reaching just moments ago, your walls clenching around him when he bottomed out into you.

Logan stilled, gritting his teeth in restraint as he let you get used to him, your hands running through his hair softly, so softly that, when he looked up at you, your eyes held the exact same tenderness, brows pinched slightly in pleasure. He couldn’t help himself. Ghosting light kisses up your neck, he captured your lips with a passion that could only be matched by the aching desperation of his pulsing cock. You groaned into his mouth as he incrementally pulled his hips from yours, before filling you again, setting a low, languid pace. 

“Shit sweetheart,” he murmured against your lips, a light gasp catching him off-guard as you tensed around him deliberately, his hips bucking into you before he wrestled back control of himself, opening his eyes to find your shit-eating grin, your lower lip caught between your teeth. He huffed a wicked chuckle, lengthening his thrusts to reach further into your cushioned depths. Your jaw fell slack as he established a new rhythm, airy, pitched moans swirling about the small cabin, joined in a symphonic dance with the low groans and soft growls of Logan above you. 

Pleasure accompanied every strong thrust, the tip of his leaking cock brushing that little bundle of nerves you barely knew existed before this, making your thighs quiver around his waist, your heels digging into his lower back in encouragement. Your soft scratches through his hair travelled down the back of his neck, nails clawing gently against the sweat-slicked, sinewy plains of his back, feeling the strong muscles flex and relax with each movement he made. 

“Logan… fuck! Logan…!” your voice cracked the moment his hand drifted between you, those same fingers as before circling your sensitive pearl in harmony with the consistent pumping of his hips, your own canting up against him in a synchronised dance of pure ecstasy. That same furnace started to grow once again, only this time surpassing the roaring flame of pleasure into a wildfire.

He could feel your building release in the way you clung to him, your walls fluttering and spasming around him involuntarily, a series of broken whines muffling his own heavy pants, barely able to kiss you for longer than a single moment before you’d both break away with another choir of moans. His cock pulsed against inside your walls, the need to find his own high fuelling his next few thrusts, pushing your knees up higher for your thighs to clamp around his ribcage, a wanton cry sailing to the heavens.

“Can feel you darlin’. Let go– fuck! Let go f’me,” he breathed through gritted teeth, relentlessly thumbing your clit until he felt you go stiff beneath him, your entire body tensing as you crested your high, spurred on by his heated words. 

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head, jaw locked open as honey leeched through your veins, waves of rapturous pleasure cascading down your nerves, clouding your mind and leaving every fibre of your very being trembling in his hold. 

Your hips bucked mindlessly into his, fucking yourself on his cock and Logan had to bite down on your shoulder to muffle his own shout of ecstasy, finding his release in the way your cunt clamped around him like a vice, milking his shaft of everything he had to give. Those same crashing waves of lightning struck his system, his voice shuddering with every uncontrollable jerk, every pleasure-laced twitch of your sensitive body against his. 

You didn’t know where your soul had gone, but you basked in the floating afterglow of your orgasm, breath unsteady and shaking with each heavy pant, hands threading back through the sweat-matted strands of his hair soothingly. You could have sworn you almost heard him purr, a low, gravelly sound rumbling from the back of his throat.

“Well…” you started breathlessly, causing him to raise his head from your shoulder. “That’s one way to warm up I guess.” You shrugged with a wry smile, and Logan snorted a chuckle, raising up on his forearms to pull out, a wince crossing your features as he did. You’d forgotten how strange it felt to have someone finish inside you. And it was as if he was listening to your train of thought, realisation dawning on his face.

“Shit…”

“What?”

“I didn’t– Fuck.” He ran a stressed hand down the side of his face, pushing up from you to sit on his heels. “I forgot to ask, I– shit, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

You recoiled slightly, fighting to keep the surprising hurt from your face. “Christ, that bad, huh? I didn’t exactly make plans to sleep with you either, you know.” You countered, crudely using the corner of the blanket currently falling from his waist to clean yourself up, praying to whatever deities were up there it was at least somewhat clean. You really didn’t fancy a UTI or a yeast infection. 

Logan blanched, struggling to understand what exactly it was you were talking about, assuming that this whole time you were on the same page. “What? No– fuck, no. That’s not what ‘m talkin’ about.” He huffed in frustration, and you sat up, crossing your legs.

“Then just what the hell is your problem all of a sudden?” You asked defensively, folding your arms across your chest. 

“I fuckin’ came inside you, that’s the fuckin’ problem.”

“And?”

The cabin fell into silence as he just stared at you, as if trying to decipher whether or not you knew the consequences or if you just truly didn’t care. And it took you far too long to finally understand what he meant, your gut twisting slightly. “Oh. Right. That’s uh– that’s not a problem.”

“The fuck you mean it’s not a problem? Look, we’ll get to a pharmacy tomorrow an’–”

“Logan.” You interrupted him curtly, though you couldn’t look him in the eye, suddenly finding the discarded pile of clothes on the floor more interesting than his gorgeous face. “It’s fine, okay?”

It was then he paused to really look at you, the scars littering your body, and the one he’d missed before, thicker than most of the rest, situated dead centre between your hip-bones. The realisation struck him like a truck.

“You’re sterile…?” he asked quietly, though he didn’t need to see you nod your head to know the answer. But you nodded nonetheless, pursing your lips at the discomfort of the conversation. That was until the soft pads of his fingers traced the sunlit-ice skin of your scar, his thumb soothing slow circles against your naval. “Was it your choice?” his voice was as quiet as a breeze, his other hand pinching your chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning your head gently to look at him. 

“Nothing’s ever been my choice. Not even that.” You responded with a spiteful smile that had Logan’s blood run cold. Just how many atrocities have you had to endure? How much trauma did it take to make this version of you?

“It doesn’t have to be like this, y’know.” He murmured, relinquishing his hold of your jaw to instead take your hands into his own. “Come back with me,” you don’t think you’d ever get over the way he said your name, like the charged secret you’ve kept for years. But you couldn’t. You knew you couldn’t, and he knew you couldn’t. 

“Don’t... don’t do this now, Logan,” you pleaded, closing your eyes to spare yourself from seeing the defeat on his face. “Don’t ruin it.”

He didn’t know what ‘it’ was supposed to be, but he sighed all the same, letting the topic drop in favour of laying back down by your side, pulling the blanket back up around the both of you and sliding his arms around your waist, tucking you in to him tight. 

“Alright.” He agreed, using his one free hand to smooth your hair away from your face, returning back to tracing the MSR scar around your eye, his heart clenching painfully as you leaned into his touch, eyes fluttering closed. You both knew the other wasn’t cold anymore, but neither of you were willing to bring it up. Neither of you willing to acknowledge that maybe you weren’t doing this for the necessity to survive. 

Maybe you were instead doing this for the craving to truly live. 

[s6ngbird]

flowers from beneath — ACT V

series masterlist || navigation

[ warnings ] — NSFW, your mother being her usual self, fingering (f. receiving), , lmk if i missed anything

[ pairing ] — hades!coriolanus snow x persephone!reader

[ a/n ] — and here's the last act! i do think i'll make an epilogue but i have another fic in mind before i do that &lt;3

[ beta read by a literal goddess aka @etfrin ]

“i'm not giving her back” coriolanus said, after zeus and your mother had come to the underworld, demanding your release

“she's happy here, probably because you're not there to watch over her like a hawk” he continued, watching with a smirk as your mother reacts to his comment, she was turning so red that coriolanus was sure he could see the snoke radiating from her ears, just as he intended 

“she's not yours to keep! you kidnap my darling child, then try to keep her and now lie to me about her happiness?!” your mother shouts, seething with anger at coriolanus, all while zeus just rubbed his hand over his face, clearly not in the mood for either of their childish behavior 

“you might want to check with her on the whole ownership thing, she really seems to think i own her now” coriolanus exclaims, glee evident in his voice as he continues to argue with your mother, face lighting up everytime she makes a comment that he can easily retort to

“you are insufferable! zeus, what do you think about this? tell coriolanus he's being unreasonable and needs to return my daughter!” your mother yells at coriolanus, turning to zeus with a much calmer attitude to ensure that he would be on her side about all of this

“why don't we just bring her out? see what she thinks about coriolanus and returning to earth” zeus proposed, hoping that your mother would not go off at him for this solution 

“fine i'll bring her, but if she doesn't want to come, that's not my problem and maybe it'll help you rethink some of your life choices about being a mother” coriolanus said, getting off his throne and stalking towards his room, knowing that you would most likely want a kiss from him once he came in

maybe he could even fuck you quickly, so fast that zeus and your mother wouldn't even know but still slow enough to let your mother know that he was doing something to you and you had no objections 

before opening the door to his room, coriolanus looked behind him, double checking that your mother hadn't followed him and once he was sure no one was in the hallway besides him, he opened the door, shutting it quickly

you looked up the minute you hear the door open, your face lighting up when you saw coryo coming in, looking weary but a smile still present on your face that was only reserved for you

you had been cleaning up his room for a while, even though coryo didn't let you out of his room, he still unchained your ankle so that you could freely roam around his room and bathroom without him having to watch you

though getting to watch you take a bath and piss were always a delight for him because he got to see you naked…not that he didn't already get to see you naked whenever he pleased

he walked over to you, picking you up and tossing you on his bed, crawling over you and kissing you hard

you assumed he was upset about something since he never kissed you this hard unless someone or something had upset him earlier, and you were right

he didn't want to have to lose you, all of that time and effort that was put into kidnapping you, all the effort put into making you fall in love with him and getting you to submit yourself to him willingly, would all be wasted if he let you go

once he finally pulled back, you cupped his cheek and he leaned into your touch, shutting his eyes and taking deep breaths

“what's wrong coryo?” you ask, and he snakes a hand around your waist, flipping you two over so that you were on top of him now

“it's just…” he stopped, unsure of what to say next, if he told you that your mother was right outside in the throne room, you might want to go see her which is exactly what she wanted

but if he didn't tell you that, he would have to come up with some elaborate lie that would break his and your promise of not lying to one another 

“your mother stresses me…and she's here” he says, slowly and keeping his arm around your waist to ensure that you wouldn't run the minute he told you

and to his surprise, you stayed put, burying your head in his neck as his other hand came up to stroke your hair

“what's she doing?” you whisper, almost afraid to say it out loud

you had always had this subconscious fear of your mother because of the control she had over you, always grounding you if she thought you stepped out of line and slapping you at times when you really messed up

but you hadn't realized how afraid of her you were until coriolanus kidnapped you and you had spent so much time away from her

and even if coriolanus had married you against your will, you had grown fond of him and loved him, just as he did with you, though he loved you the minute he saw you

“her and zeus want me to bring you out so they can decide what to do with you, he says, voice muffled from burying his face in your hair in order to push down the feeling of crying, no he would not cry, he hadn't done that in decades and he wasn't about to start now

“i think if you keep me here, she'll grow suspicions and probably break down your door” you say, looking up at him, thinking of what to say next

“if you bring me out there it'll be better, trust me ok?” you kiss him, hoping to convince him from doing something he'll regret later and he kissed back, getting lost in your lips before you pulled back, giving him an expectant look

“fine, we'll go, you just need to change and clean up a bit” he grumbled, pulling you off of him and standing up as you go to the bathroom to wash your face

he laid back on the bed, sighing and rubbing his hand over his face, wondering if this was going to be the last time he ever saw you

and if it was he knew exactly what he wanted to do, getting up and coming up from behind you, picking you up and taking you on his bed, despite your protests 

“coryo! you cannot fuck me right now!” you exclaim, but when he quickly stuffs his fingers in your leaking cunt, your protests are silenced

he laughs at how wet you were, clutching your jaw in his hand as you go limp, deciding not to put up a fight with him, just praying that you would be done quickly and your mother wouldn't storm into here and watch her daughter being ruined by the very man she hated

you whined, trying to push him off despite not really wanting to and he eventually got off, but he made sure he made you come first

he wasn't about to deny his little bride of an orgasm, especially because this could possibly be one of the last ones he'd ever be able to give you

after he cleaned you up, he grabbed the nicest dress that he had brought you, helping you into it and zipping up the back and whispering in your ear how fuckable you looked in the dress and how he wished that he got just suck on your tits forever

you got red and slapped his arm, which earned you a slap on the ass that turned you even more red, groaning in frustration as he laughed, kissing you and leading you out the room, his hand wrapped around your waist

your mother lit up when she saw you, running over and hugging you so tightly, you felt that your bones would break under the pressure

she pulled back, checking every inch of you to make sure coriolanus hadn't hurt you and once she came to the conclusion that he hadn't hurt you, she hugged you again

“we're going to go home soon, i promise” she said, holding you closely as you squirmed a bit, opening your mouth to protest, but coriolanus beat you to it

“she's not going back to earth, she's my wife, it's her decision at the end of the day” coriolanus said, giving your mother a death stare as she let go of you

“she's not staying in this hellhole! she belongs on earth with the greenery and more importantly with her mother!” you mother objects, fed up with how coriolanus views this situation 

“and what the fuck do you mean married?!” your mother yelled, angered by the “marriage”

“she's married to me, what more is there to explain?” coriolanus retorts, sounding almost bored of this petty argument

“well you must've forced her and locked her up because there's no way my daughter would agree to marrying an asshole!” your mother seethed, annoyed by coriolanus’ calm reaction

what your mother said was true and both you and coriolanus knew it was true, but in that week, you had warmed up to him and no longer acted wild to escape him just as he started to treat you as his equal, telling you that there's no way in hell he would treat his queen like an object

but alas, your mother and coriolanus bickered for a while, not letting up on the insults and fighting over you as if you really were just a mere object

“i think that she should return to earth” zeus says finally, hoping that your mother would shut up now that he gave his final word that was in her favor

“see i told you! she's coming back with me!” your mother said gleefully, and coriolanus just sighed, not willing to show how heartbroken he was at zeus’ decision

after all, you two had only been married a week and a few days and now you two were being torn apart, faster than either of you intended

you open your mouth to protest but coriolanus looks at you, and you shut your mouth, knowing that he'll figure out something

“if it's ok i'd like to have at least a few minutes with my wife in private before she's snatched away from me” coriolanus said, rising from his throne and making his way towards you

your mother opened her mouth to say no, but zeus gave coriolanus the green light and he took you to a secluded hallway where you just let all your tears out

you couldn't bear the thought of losing coryo, the only man who ever cared about you and was more importantly, your husband

“shh dove don't cry please” he said, taking out a handkerchief and wiping your eyes, kissing your forehead

“i have an idea of how you can stay here with me, ok?” he said, taking out a pomegranate and handing you a few of the seeds, six to be exact 

“for every seed you eat, that's a month that you have to spend in the underworld” he explained to you

“why can't i just eat all 12? that way we can be together forever?” you sniffled, looking at him with wide eyes

“oh dove…i wish but your mother would actually kill me, plus 6 is better than nothing right?” he said urging you to eat the seeds quickly before your mother started looking for you two

you obligated, eating them all at once and wiping the juice with your hand

coryo took that hand a kissed it, promising you that those six months would go by fast and in no time you would be back here with him for the rest of the year

you nodded and bid him your farewell, kissing him hard and promising that you would bring all the pretty flowers when you came back

as your mother collected you and you both ascended to earth, coriolanus waved, realizing his eyes misted over and he indeed was crying after all the decades 

once he returned to his room, ready to wallow in his pity, he noticed something growing on the shelf near some of your possessions 

it was odd because there was no life or growth in the underworld, but once he saw what it was he smiled through his tears, knowing that it was a gift from you, to remind him of you whenever he got sad or felt lonely

the gift was quite on brand for you, it being a flower growing in the underworld 

and it did remind him of you already, as the it was a little beacons of hope for him that he'd see you again after the long wait

but in the meantime…let the torture commence 

[bones4thecats]

A/N: I do not write for Yanderes, but I did make this where they fought, not to the death, but just in general as the one left standing goes. I do hope you enjoy this @fuzzycalzonebeareagle!!

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

🔱 Your father had announced a battle, a battle where the winner gets your hand in marriage

🔱 While you seemed to be against it, you did like the idea of seeing certain Gods fight

🔱 Anubis and you were very close, and quite similar, so seeing the Tyrant of the Sea stand before you as the victor against the other Gods and Humans who tried for your hand surprised you

🔱 You smirked at the God as he held your hands in his own as Anubis cheered and announced the marriage to the rest of the Egyptian Pantheon

🔱 Your uncles and aunts may have been upset about having to accept such a ‘stiff and arrogant’ God into their circle, but they accepted it once they saw how your eyes lit up when he held you close

🔱 He gave you a golden ring with a beautiful larimar gem in the middle of it

🔱 After marriage, expect constant glares from Poseidon to people who dared try stealing you from him, he won you fair and square, stuff it

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💀 Your father and Hades knew one another from work, as Anubis guided people to the Underworld, where Hades worked

💀 The two were on good terms, and seeing how Hades had fought hard, and against his own allies of the Greek Pantheon, to gain your hand in marriage, made him laugh

💀 You just smiled and chuckled as your father grabbed your hands, laid them into one another’s and ran off to announce the marriage

💀 Hades looked at you, squeezed your hand and kissed your temple

💀 For his ring, he gave you a silver and black tungsten ring with a ametrine gemstone inside of it

💀 He said it was made to symbolize the mixture of you both, as you had a bunch of gold and blacks in your outfits, while he had silver and purples

💀 Whenever you father stopped by to check up on you in the Underworld, you would just hug him and listen as he constantly asked for his grandchildren

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🐍 Not exactly fond of each other

🐍 Because of Anubis’ childish tendencies, he would be hard to get angry once pranked by the Norse God

🐍 But he was smitten by you, so he put it all behind himself

🐍 Watching as you walked up to him, held his hands as your father cheered from behind as your uncle Horus just sighed and rubbed his temples

🐍 The ring that this prankster had given you was gold with a malachite gemstone located in the middle with small bits of them stranded about the metal

🐍 It may clash when it comes to colors, but you loved it despite that

🐍 After getting married, you moved in his residence with him, and watch as he constantly pranks his fellow Gods, encouraging you to join in

🐍 You were taught better by Horus, but you couldn’t help it sometimes, Apopis was just asking for it!

[mias-blogs]

Hihi! I was wondering if you could do a childhood friend/best friend fluff hcs with Poseidon, Hades, and Qin Shi Huang? It's perfectly fine if you don't want to do it, please feel free to change anything with it to your taste! Have a good day/evening/night! ✨

Hello! Thank you very much for your request and it's really cute! I'll make sure to try my best! :D (very sorry if I didn't do write it to your liking)

🇵 🇴 🇸 🇪 🇮 🇩 🇴 🇳 .

Probably drags you with him when he goes anywhere but doesn't make it seem like he needs you (his ego is a little too big for that) kinda just grabs you and boom, your with him now

Likes having you as company, but refuses to admit it

Protective as HELL, does not let people bad mouth you, and kinda just stands behind you like a mf guard dog

He probably sees you like he sees Hades, but not in a sibling way, more like a bit of a romantic way because he trusts you

Likes having you at his palace and keeping you close to him as he reads something, or he makes you read it out loud for him

Keeps you close to him if your weaker than him, like I said before, he's protective, he's not letting a soul touch you, god or human.

Probably let's you get away with stuff he wouldn't let others get away with

When in private, he probably treats you like you two are in a relationship, like putting his arm around your shoulders or anything similar

He probably prides himself when he gets praise from you but doesn't show it

🇭 🇦 🇩 🇪 🇸.

Similar to Poseidon, he drags you along with him in most cases.

Teases you for things you did in the past, just because he likes seeing you get embarrassed

You know when you look at one of your close friends and it just makes you laugh for no reason? Yeah that happens a lot with you two, he tries to lower his head and just cover it up as a light chuckle

You two probably gossip a bit, or roast gods from a far, just whispering something in your ear that makes you laugh

Likes playing things like chess with with you or anything similar

Lives for alone time with you, no doubt, even if you two don't do anything in specific he just likes your presence in general

He trusts you a lot, so use that as you wish, because he only trusts once.

Randomly twirls your hair in his finger and let's you do the same

Another guard dog, he protects you with his life, no matter what.

Your the first person he goes to after Poseidons death

🇶 🇮 🇳 🇸 🇭 🇮 🇭 🇺 🇦 🇳 🇬

Convinced you two will get married, no matter what

If you stayed with him after everyone hated him because they thought he was "creepy"? Immediately, this man is with you everywhere

Probably very clingy after his (adoptive) mother's death

Mf treats you like your his wife

Buys you dresses and jewelry, makes his servants find the finest silk and material to make things he knows you would like

Does anything and everything to keep you safe, if he loses you as well, he doesn't have anyone anymore, and that is his sole reason for his clingy actions

Just looks at you sometimes and smiles, thankful he has you.

He probably does some childish shit around you

If you remind him of something embarrassing, he looks like he's about to grab you by the throat and choke you (but in a loving way)

Just like Hades, he'll start laughing when you two look at each other

After his fight, he wants nothing more but to see you and hear you congratulate him

[katerinaaqu]

The Lament of a Life (Achilles and Antilochus short songfic)

If someone asks me how the lament of Achilles looks like my answer would be the amazing aria with music composed by Vivaldi:

The lyrics go on a repeat like this:

So today is a bit chilly and so I was inspired by this amazing song and made this! (Sorry itis a random inspiration I had this morning from this piece thus the title "song-fic")

***

His eyelids were heavy. He didn’t feel like getting up anymore. His bed seemed cold and inhospitable and yet he didn’t feel like moving out of it. His eyes opened slowly and looked to the side. It was empty. He looked outside his tent. Also empty. There was nothing left; he didn’t have the subject of his revenge anymore; he had given it back. Hector’s body was buried and celebrated. His revenge had come to an end. And yet, he felt empty. Nothing mattered. Achilles, the Best and Noblest of all the Greeks was no longer feeling anything mattered. What would it matter now that the subject of his vengeance was gone, if the subject of all the affections he could offer to a human being was also gone? His soul was in turmoil throughout the process. He thought on Briseis, the woman that he felt so strongly for; merely a slave and yet so important for him, had started this domino of reactions which led him to the strike; his refusal to fight. Then his refusal led to this terrible result; the death of his other half. The flame that flickered inside him was gone, the moment Patroclus’s eyes turned glassy from death and he wasn’t even there. During Patroclus’s last moments…he wasn’t there! He remembered his wife; a woman he barely knew and yet she gave him a son, a son he adored despite his young years, a son that he never knew and a son that never knew him back. He could be lamenting for them; they wouldn’t see him again possibly. Given the prophecy, he was to die in war. Possibly neither his wife nor his son, were included in the prophecy. He should be crying for them. He should be crying for the people that were around him and yet…he was feeling weak; unwilling to even get out of his bed and eat because of… He slowly forced himself to sit up and he looked at the magnificent urn with two handles that was always within eye gaze from him. The intricate patterns were cold; just like his bed that could not give him warmth.

“Come back…” he whispered in a voice chocked deep in his throat

Tears oozed out of his sea-blue eyes; his throat burning anew.

“I did what you asked…I offered you a burial…come back…! Please…come back to me!”

His hand was shaking as it was reaching for the cold, golden urn; his other fixing the covers upon his naked chest, in a vain attempt to generate some warmth within.

“Please…” he whispered again, “Come back…!”

“Achilles…”

The young and soft voice didn’t surprise him neither made him react. Antilochus was standing right behind him, undoubtedly had entered his tent a little while prior, enough to hear his foolish and childish lament.

“He won’t come back…” the young man said as a matter of fact, “You offered him a burial. He is in the land of Hades now… He will not come back”

More tears arose from Achilles’s eyes as he clasped desperately the covers against his chest; his face buried to the pocket created by them as if his own eyes wanted to confirm what hurt so much was indeed the organ that was pumping his blood, giving him life inside. Yes, he knew. His cut hair was also a proof of that but hearing it again was somehow destroying that foolish illusion that if he begged hard enough, goddess Persephone would have mercy and send back Patroclus to him; his soul to talk to or at least restore his body to hold one more time…

“Soul of my soul…” he mumbled in lament, “My dear as my own heart…”

“Shh…” Antilochus whispered in tears, hugging his shoulders affectionately, “I know… I know… Please don’t do this to yourself… I know it hurts but…he’s gone… No matter what you do…how much you melt…he won’t come back…”

“Heart of my heart…” Achilles lamented again, “I want him back…! I want him to come back…”

“I know…” Antilochus said again, caressing his golden locks with his hands

Achilles seemed almost aged at that point in his sorrow. Antilochus almost felt tempted to look for white hairs in his golden head.

“And I am sorry that I cannot offer you any consolation… Forgive me. I am not him; I cannot take your sorrow away…”

Antilochus softly raised Achilles’s head, cupping his cheeks and making him look deep in the eyes. He moped the tears from his cheekbones with his thumbs.

“I know I am young and foolish…but, please, take one bit of advice from me; stop looking at it! Stop looking at that urn! It will only hurt you more… You need to come back to us too…we need you…”

He looked away.

“I need you…” he whispered shyly, “You are my hero, my idol… I need you back, strong and healthy…maybe some of your previous happiness back… Please…please my dear…we all need you. Above all I do…”

Achilles looked at him and for one moment he looked like a hurt animal facing the peasant that had released him from the hunter’s trap. However then he laughed; it was a dry, humorless, lamenting laugh.

“Don’t be foolish!” he said self-pettily, “No one shall need me! I shall die! I know I will!”

“Don’t talk like that!”

“You can’t deny it, Antilochus! I know it to be true! It was predicted for me! I will die! I will die in this war! My mother told me someday I would die in this war if I decided to fight! I shall never go home! I shall never see my wife and son! I will die now! I know I will and I don’t care! Nothing matters anymore!”

“Don’t say that!” Antilochus retorted again

“I know the truth” Achilles insisted, “I decided it for myself. I know what my fate is! That urn Im staring is waiting for me! I am to die!”

Antilochus looked away. He seemed hesitant; his arm rubbing his upper arm as if he was about to make that confession no one has heard before.

“I’ll tell you a secret…” he whispered, “So am I…”

Achilles seemed surprised and shocked for the first time in that conversation. Suddenly the lament gone; now there was fear in his eyes. Fear for yet another loss.

“My father was hiding it…but I overheard him. An oracle once told him to beware of an Ethiopian. At first I didn’t know…but my father tried to hide it from me. I know now that I am to die somehow by someone from a foreign land… Maybe today maybe tomorrow maybe here maybe at home… I know though that I will die like this…and…”

He swallowed and looked back at Achilles. The elder man gasped seeing tears to Antilochus’s eyes.

“…And I am scared! I am scared, Achilles! I don’t want to tell my father that for he would be ashamed of me and my cowardice but…I am scared! How can you take it, Achilles? How can you live knowing that you will die…?”

“Antilochus…”

Antilochus quickly mopped his own tears, sniffing his nose, trying to find his composure.

“I’m sorry…” he mumbled, “I don’t know what came into me! I just…”

He sighed.

“We need you back” he finally repeated, “You are our strength and our courage. When you are out there we are afraid of nothing!”

“Antilochus!”

And Achilles did something the younger prince never expected; he embraced him.

“Antilochus, dear to my heart…don’t say such things please. Don’t you say that you will die! I will not let you! I…I will protect you!”

“You…you will…?”

“I will!”

Achilles kissed the top of his head and held him close. Maybe for the first time in weeks he didn’t think of death and burials. Right now he was lamenting a life; this young man who was there apparently sharing his pain and fate. No, he wouldn’t see yet another young person close to him die before him in battle!

“I will protect you! I will not let anything happen to you I promise!”

The two men remained there for quite some time, neither wanted to count the time. It was a shared lament for their short lives; a lament that was different than the one for the dead souls. Who would die first? If both of them were destined to die in the war against Troy, who would die first and who would watch the other die? Neither wanted to be the last. Neither wanted to see the other die. What weird and sad fate! Achilles was almost rocking the youth in his arms so worried of his upcoming death while he was almost welcoming his at that point; oftentimes kissing tenderly his temple. Antilochus was trying to evoke some of his warmth to Achilles for he was afraid for his upcoming death; his welcoming of it. He didn’t want to hear fate yet alone his willingness to accept it. It was a weird way to connect that autumn morning. And yet he felt that at least Achilles might have found a reason to postpone his will to die. Antilochus broke the embrace first, standing up.

“Look at us!” he chuckled softly, “Looking like children playing at the gymnasium like this! We have a war to fight! I am sorry…I took your personal time, my lord Achilles…”

“Wait!” Achilles’s voice made him stop, “Stay…please…”

It was a request; a pleading.

“Please stay with me longer…” he almost seemed worried, afraid

“Are you afraid of the dark and shadows?”

“Yes…” Achilles admitted, “More like those inside my heart… Please stay a bit longer…”

Antilochus smiled softly.

“Of course, my lord…” he whispered, “I would be delighted”

*

Outside the tents, the Greeks were already preparing for the events of the day. The kings were to negotiate their next step again given how the mourning period for Hector was over, how the killings would start anew. It was a sad prospect and they knew their own forces wouldn’t last long. The spies were also informing them on movement on Troy’s part to call upon more allies to arrive to the battlefield. Odysseus was thinking all this as he pranced about the camp. He blew some warm air to his freezing fingers. Autumn was in for good. Soon winter would arrive again.

“Yet another year to the foot of Troy…” he thought miserably, “Yet another year away from our homes…for the sakes of this war…”

He was also worried on Achilles. That last lament period shocked everyone. Achilles had just collapsed and then turned into blind rage. People were afraid on his sanity; that his mind would break. An out of control Achilles was much more dangerous than they would have thought. And their army needed their support. Before the Trojans had Hector to even the odds. Now their strongest warrior was gone. It would be their chance to have higher spirits and yet they didn’t. Achilles was a mess. Once more they seemed to square one… He could only hope he would snap out of his grief enough to fight. His gloomy thoughts were interrupted when he saw old Nestor. Nestor was suffering more than the rest of them from the cold; he had a bear skin over his shoulders to keep his old bones warmer and yet he refused to stand back. Odysseus smiled.

“Good morning, my friend” he said

“Good morning” Nestor replied, “It turned chilly!”

“Yeah…” Odysseus agreed, “Sometimes I envy the young!”

“Speaking of which…my son left the tent earlier this morning. He said he wanted to check on Achilles and I didn’t hear from him since. Have you seen him?”

“No” Odysseus replied thoughtfully, “But I was heading there myself to check on things. Maybe he is still there”

As if on a queue they heard light laughter coming from the direction where the Myrdmidons had camped.  The distinct, clear laughter from Achilles made a small smile creep to Odysseus’s lips.

“It’s the first time I hear him laugh in weeks…” he sounded almost hopeful, “Your son is a miracle-worker!”

Nestor smiled back.

“He is…” he whispered thoughtfully, “He is…”

Odysseus’s smile dropped when he saw a shadow in Nestor’s eyes. He didn’t need to ask to know there was something ominous hanging over the two youths.

Yet another time he looked at the cloudy, gray sky and wondered to Athena how all that was even justified…if the youth were to perish and all the others would live…

***

So yeah...Achilles being depressed and Antilochus giving some consolation! TT_TT Achilles hoped to see Patroclus's ghost again (which is what inspired me from that amazing Aria as well!)

Also I wondered if Antilochus knew the warning Nestor got to "beware of an Ethiopian" if he would know or sense the warning was for himself instead of his father...what if he feared it all along...maybe that would be the connection with Achilles!

Set after the mourning period of Hector! As you can see I kept it a bit "homeric" in the essence that I love tenderness in his writing and then leave it unravel!

a small thanking thing in a way too for @smokey07 for honoring me with a mention! Anoher thankng for @h0bg0blin-meat for his sketch to one of my silly headcanons about Achilles and Patroclus! Still makes me giggle my friend!

Also I want you guys check out my brilliant friend's art and mentions on our characters trust me you won't regret it! Many parallels of the epic cycle were added unconsciously to our story! Hahahaha! @artsofmetamoor

My analysis on Achilles and Patroclus can be found here

Antilochus needed some love too there! Hehehe others write scary stories for October but I was like "nope I shall mention ghosts in angst!"

[darklinaforever]

So… The first two episodes of Percy Jackson are awesome !!!

On the other hand, it kills me, because there are already criticisms coming in and people are complaining that we are revealing the identity of Percy's father too quickly, when that is not at all the goal of the story.

That Percy killed the minotore very easily, even though it is precisely supposed to be a testimony to his great power as a demigod, especially one of the big three.

How childish it is, even though the protagonists are actually 12 years old. Like HP in the end, the story grows at the same time as the protagonists, that's… normally the goal when you follow young characters who grow over the course of the story ?

Then also, that it reflects the usual mythological clichés with Hades as a lightning thief… Lol, these people are not ready.

I feel like they can't wait until they have the overall story to judge. As if you were watching Harry Potter and directly expecting the atmosphere of the 5th books and its sequels ? This is completely stupid.

Especially when it comes to the madness with the father, that was never the main plot. Have these people even seen the trailer ? I already see critics saying that it's the Harry Potter of the poor and Harry Potter among the scoots…

Which is cheeky because, sorry, but Percy Jackson is a much better literary saga than Harry Potter in my opinion…

The number of people I've seen say that it was flat and very clearly predictable… Well, given everything that happens in 5 volumes, hats off for having managed to guess what's happening throughout the whole saga ! No, but more seriously, I'm sure that what's in their minds is light years away from everything this saga does over its 5 volumes.

[mylifesjustacarousel]

mali’s little pirate crush

pairing: maleficent x gn!reader (requested!)

summary: hook has a new pirate crew, and maleficent thinks it’s pathetic… until she sees you.

type: fluff

CW: none

WC: 500+

requests are open! <3

“Who the hell are they?” Maleficent asked as she walked into Uliana’s lair. There was a group sitting there in the lair, surrounding Hook. You were amongst them, not paying any mind to the horned girl who had just walked in.

“What does it look like, Mali? This is my pirate crew,” Hook smirked, gesturing to the group around him. She rolled her eyes, “A bunch of copies of you? Seems like quite a crew. This is childish, Hook.”

“Don’t even bother, I’ve been trying to get them out all day,” Hades commented as he walked past them.

Her eyes looked around at the group in disgust… until her eyes got to you. You were sat next to Hook, chatting with your fellow crew member. She didn’t know who you were, but she knew that you were absolutely breathtaking. She couldn’t let you think that she was totally heartless… unless you liked that, of course. “You know, I think that was a little harsh of me. I’m Maleficent, if you don’t already know who I am… and you should.”

You giggled, turning to face her, “We should? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of you, darling.”

She blushed, her eyes darting away, “Well… I’m leaving. Goodnight, Hook.” Maleficent turned on her heel, walking away quickly. She was beyond intrigued by you, and she was determined to find out more about you.

Maleficent was back the very next day, immediately going over to Hook and his crew. “Heyyy, James. How is everyone today? Is your crew okay?” she sat next to him, putting her head in her hands. Hook looked absolutely confused, “You mean the crew that you called childish?”

She scoffed, her face turning bright red. “Childish? Did I say that? No, I meant… you know what I meant,” her eyes wandered over to you, absolutely entranced. Hook’s eyes followed your gaze, his eyes widening.

“Oh, Mali, that is too funny,” he snorted, slapping his knee. Maleficent scowled, hitting his shoulder as hard as she could, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hook. But, while we’re here, who is that?”

“That? That is y/n, and you don’t stand a chance. They’re as cutthroat as it gets.”

She scoffed, “I don’t stand a chance? You don’t know who you’re talking to, pretty boy.” Standing up, she went over to you. You looked up, giving her a small smile, “Hey. I’m sorry, I still don’t remember your name, darling. Does darling work for you? It works for me.”

Her legs felt like jello as she sat by you, “It might. So… why James? What made you join his, um, crew? If you can even call it that.”

You shrugged, your eyes looking her up and down. She was cute, and you liked cute. “I thought it would be fun, I’ve never really had a crew of my own. But, now I think I have a new reason for being here, darling. I’d like to get to know you better.”

You two were still talking hours later, laughing and chatting. You reached your hand out, running it through her long black hair, “You know, darling. I’m free tomorrow night, if you’re available to hang out.”

Hook and Hades stood there, both of their jaws dropped.

“I can’t believe she actually did it. You owe me five bucks, Hook.” Hades said, nudging his shoulder.

“Shut up right now.”

a/n: thank you for the request! i tried as best as i could, i hope you enjoy! sorry it’s a little short!! <3

[twinsarekeepers]

I’m curious as to your honest thoughts on the show? Like I love pjo and all but the show was a bit of a let down writing wise. There’s always the point of “it’s an adaptation, not a carbon copy” like yes but this new writing isn’t exemplary better than the book just because it’s rewritten by the author himself

I think the show is well-written not because Rick is attached to it, but because I actually like the way the writers are approaching adapting the source material. I have a lot of issues with the original books in terms of writing quality because frankly speaking, I don’t think Rick is a very good writer. He has a lot of interesting things in those books that he never explores or drops within the first two and this fandom gives him and the books too much credit imo.

This is why I’m not very moved when people try to ascribe meaning to a certain scene or choice he made in the books to get mad at the show for changing. As an example, one of the main things people were upset about was the kids “knowing everything” in the show when they were getting tricked left and right in the book. Many posts were dedicated to how the book version is superior because it illustrates how they’re just twelve years old kids so of course they’ll make mistakes and get tricked by monsters.

That’s a perfectly fine interpretation but I was twelve years old when I first read tlt and I was able to anticipate almost every single trap, despite being pretty gullible and naive at that age. My knowledge of Greek mythology consisted of Disney’s Hercules, maybe two Google searches, and my second grade teacher’s reading of the kid friendly version of the Odyssey. No where near the level of Percy who’d been learning for a whole year in an established class on the topic with Chiron or Grover who was literally a satry born into the world or Annabeth, who spent the majority of her life dedicated to studying specifically quests and Greek mythology and was also on the run fighting monsters for a good portion of her childhood. Like twelve year olds can be dumb but those three stumbling into every trap was asking me to suspend my disbelief too far. I remember being upset that they weren’t able to figure it out because it was obvious that Rick wasn’t making that choice to show any personality flaws or character dynamics (because he would’ve had them learn and grow but they never did they just kept being not smart), he just wasn’t able to figure out a way for them to fall into those traps organically so he had to dumb them down.

I think the show was able to get across the characters’ childishness without compromising their established backstories. Yes, Annabeth knew it was Medusa right away because that makes sense for a kid who has experience with running into monsters. But, she still acted very much like a child in her interactions with her (and throughout the episode and season). She lashed out and called her a liar and wouldn’t listen to her side of the story because it painted her mother in a bad light. That’s peak twelve year old behavior.

Yes, Percy figured out Kronos was behind everything, but it makes sense because Percy knows Greek mythology and where Kronos resides. He still very much acts like a child when he asks Hades to give him back his mom in exchange for nothing because it’s the right thing to do.

There are dozens of examples like this for a lot of complaints of the show. And this is not me saying that the show is perfect: every single show has flaws. For me, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the dialogue or the exposition dumping. It didn’t hinder my enjoyment though because I don’t think it was egregious (and wrt the exposition dumping, I expected it because the book did it and there’s really no way to “show not tell” Greek myths). I also didn’t like that we didn’t get to really see the huge clashes between Zeus and Poseidon in the weather (we got references to it through news reports but I would’ve liked something more). I was able to look past it because I really liked the storytelling and the themes the show was pulling out of the original source material.

I loved Medusa-Sally parallels and Medusa-Annabeth parallels. I loved the juxtaposition of Pan’s quest to manifest density. I loved Percy and Annabeth’s opposite trajectory in respect to their relationships with their godly parents. I loved exploring Sally’s choice to send Percy to school instead of camp. I loved explicitly coding Annabeth as autistic. I loved Luke’s backstory being brought earlier into the story. I loved the deadline passing and Poseidon surrendering to save Percy. I loved Persues-Andromeda and percabeth parallels. I loved fleshing Grover out. I loved glory vs home seeking being the central theme of the show.

And lastly, I was able to understand that with a limited number of episodes and run time (due to the nature of child labor laws!), they did the best they could and I feel like they did a pretty good job for a first season.

These are not ALL of my thoughts on the show because that would be a very long post. I gave one detailed example of why I think the show succeeded in something the fandom tries to ascribe the books and it was like three paragraphs lol. Anyway this is not the post to try and convince me that the show is bad for whatever reason you have cooked up. I’m not going to change my mind and I doubt I’ll change yours. Here’s to a season 2 that builds on a solid season 1!

[sleepnowmychild]

Since hades 2 early access is out and people are talking about it, here’s my 2 cents on myth retellings.

Personally I never really like Greek myth retellings, because they get so much wrong and some border on straight up disrespectful, but hades is one of the few that actually does it right. I played the first game in 2020, and I’m a console player so I’ll have to wait to play the second one but I’m one of those autistics that likes spoilers so I know what to expect. And I’ve been DEVOURING the spoilers. I think the reason hades works when so many others don’t is because they 1) actually do their research 2) don’t erase the inherent queerness of Greek myth and 3) don’t modernise anything. It’s set in Ancient Greece and it stays in Ancient Greece. A lot of modern retellings just don’t work because there’s aspects of these myths that don’t translate well to the modern day. Researching the culture of the place and time is important to a faithful retelling, retellings like PJO and LO don’t work for me because they’re basically a wattpad American high-school/CEO AU fanfic.

I think a modern retelling COULD work, but you’d have to be a damn expect on the source material and Greek culture to make it work.

Another point: Greece and Rome have a big overlap in their mythology and ancient worship, but there are still differences. If you’re going to draw from both, you need to know those differences and be educated on how both cultures used their overlapping myths. My Italian ass heard varying stories from my Italian family, and my school when we did Greek myths in class. I was able to recognise they were the same source, but they had differences. That’s something you have to take into account for retellings too.

TLDR: the hades game series is one of the few that does Greek myth retellings right. And I like their depiction of Hypnos (he’s a fictive in my brain I mean-) he embodies the more childish mischief side of his characterisation from source myth.

[pandagalo]

[PJO TV AND BOOK COMPARISON/SPOILERS]

I'm really loving the show, most of the new scenes and the changed ones. But I also have a particolar point that I don't like:

The PJO Show is trying too hard to be a "serious" show.

The main plot of Percy Jackson is that the gods follow wherever power goes and they are now in the USA. All gods and titans and giants and monster are influenced by the place where they are living. Poseidon looks like a fisherman, Chiron wears tacky shirts, Caronte loves italian suits and wants a raise, so they can bribe him.

Ares fighting on Twitter was one of the coolest addiction, as he is actually immerging himself in the modern world.

And in the books, the more we read the more things get weird.

Percy Jackson never was about how strong are the gods, demigods or any enemy. They always fight with brains, outsmarting a ridicolous encounter.

The giant Oto literally doesn't kill them because he dances while fighting, wearing a ballerina dress.

They convince a goddess to kill a giant promising merchandising and peluches in her honor.

Annabeth defeats Arachne with a child toy.

And that's what makes most of us love the PJO series, the laugh we get throughout the whole books that makes us despair even more when we get to the emotional scenes.

I think that the actors are extraordinary, they are very good at portraying their respective characters, but the production seems to have fear that the show might be too "dumb", too childish maybe?

Give us Caronte ranting about Hades, give us Chiron wearing Party Pony shirts, give us everything absurd PJO has to offer and then punch us in the stomach with the most heart wrenching betrayals, deaths, scenes that the books have to offer.

[jazeswhbhaven]

Do you think Sitri and Amy were like exboyfriends or something? Like way way back before the demons even met Solomon.

That type of rivalry when Solomon showed up and Sitri was all over him which made Amy mad.

Now Amy's gonna try to "steal" (MC)Solomon's descendant from Sitri

you know, I love it when ya'll ask me cxc stuff...because I go off when asked.

here's a little drabble for you anon that I randomly cooked up for this very situation....

Sitri and Amy did in fact date before. It didn't last long because of Sitri going away to Hades to study and Sitri was too busy studying to check-in half the time and mostly did with Satan instead. Because of this, Amy assumed that Sitri was cheating on him with Satan, his idol, his superior, his king, someone he looks up to. He could never be mad at Satan but he directed all of that energy to Sitri instead.

When Solomon came around the pettiness got worse.

He would deliberately try and get Solomon's attention away from Sitri, trip him up during battle to be seen as the stronger leader to Satan, and even went as far as to kiss another noble in front of him the same way he used to kiss him in the e x a c t way.

Sitri would get annoyed each time, calling him childish and trying to ignore the behavior. Satan found their combined fury funny and pretty much fed on it, however Solomon advised they should get along because they're both strong.

Amy didn't want to hear NONE of that. So the pettiness reins on. Til this day, he still annoys Sitri as much as possible, but only he and Sitri understand why he has that heart tattoo...because they picked it out together during a date before Sitri left to Hades so he could think of him while he was away. (i'm sure there's a canon reason but yeah that's MY reason lol)

When it comes to MC, he now has a new target because he hears Sitri call them "Solomon" and Amy calls them by their actual name and gets real close to MC all the time when Sitri is around. Anything to get him riled up.

[tossawary]

Another great thing about Zagreus and Hades' terrible relationship is that Zagreus has actually tried to be a mature adult about this. Even during the game, when he's repeatedly throwing down to get out of the Underworld, he periodically approaches his father and attempts to talk it out.

Zagreus: "Father, I had an exciting new idea. Why don't you stop sending your wretches to kill me? And actually tell me about our painful family history, so we can make informed choices together about how to make everyone happier?"

Hades: "How DARE you suggest such a thing to me?! You know that jokes are forbidden in this house. Is attempting to become a comedian going to become your next fruitless task?"

Zagreus: "Well, fuck you too. I don't know why I bother. Cerberus, you wonderful boy who deserves all the scritches in the world, tell him he's being childish."

Hades: "Stop bothering the dog with your immature ramblings. Cerberus does not wish to hear your nonsense."

Cerberus: *enjoying scritches*