#i had a fantastic time writing them
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JASKGKFKKSKS OH MY GOD UNCOVERED THE CURSED SPIDERSONA X TWILIGHT CROSSOVER I WROTE IN HIGH SCHOOL. LOSING MY MINDDDDD. BEING A TEENAGE GIRL DURING THE PANDEMIC WAS QUITE A TIME.
#LOOK#i can explain#i went insane#i read all of the twilight books in four days#look i was actually very tasteful about it#itâs not ship fic#my oc gets in a spiderwoman career ending accident and moves to forks where her aunt lives bc she wants to escape the city#and there she is going out of her mind batshit crazy because itâs the middle of nowhere#and sheâs dealing with the trauma of losing a large chunk of her mobility + not being spiderwoman anymore#so she terrorizes the cullens for sport#and then it explicably turns into young justice crossover fic with no warning#i think i mustâve rewatched yj at the time?#and decided to integrate it into this alternate timeline as opposed to main canon?#bc main canon had too many marvel elements?#literally only explanation I can think of for that#as cringe as these fics are on some level I do genuinely stand by them#i had a fantastic time writing them#and esp when i was having a rough go at it i could always use the struggles of my oc to kind of work through that#express my emotions + remind myself it will get better#and itâs delusional as fuck but like crafting little fictional found families made me feel supported on some level#and also hopeful that one day i actually will find my people and not be so terribly alone#itâs almost like a form of journaling?#i realize how concerning this all sounds but itâs not as bad as it sounds#I also stopped doing it a while back#mostly because i was on steadier ground and didnât feel the need to#also the writing itself was pretty fire in some portions#imo#but who knows Iâm in an echochamber of me myself and I#mattie talks fic
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honestly, after watching the bg3 rpc collapse totally because of shitloads of elitist entitlement (yes i am ever and always the person who doesnât give a fuck, iâll say what i want) itâs really been half a sociology study and i cannot believe how insane it was.
#ooc. o kaptain.#[i feel like it existed and collapsed inside of like four months itâs mesmerizing. but also. oh my god why would you let fandom perception#bother you that much. i literally went through nbc Hannibal while it was running and it easily had one of the most toxic and messy fandoms#in the days of the less discord heavy internet. granted some of them (and us itâs me) were wonderful. and Iâve met such incredibly#fantastic people during my time here. but like. Tara can attest to how hard it is writing Alana at the point when the fandom did nothing but#shit on her for like. literal years. honestly? i think everyoneâs gotten infinitely too sensitive and the separation between fandom and rp#fandom is likeâŚ. a thing. fandom overall is never going to have a take thatâs not scalding hot or putrid. you have to let. it. go.]
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Iâm conflicted because I tend to see a lot of people (both non-Wildchip fans and even some casual fans of the ship) complain about the only content of WB and Chip being content shipping the two of them together, and while objectively I absolutely do agree thereâs been a persistent problem with boiling down WB and Chip to just their relationship w/ each other (and honestly thatâs just a problem with the CRK shipping community as a whole and honestly Iâd wager to guess thatâs a large reason as to why so many people look at it with disdain), thereâs always the monkey brain side of me that whenever I see these complaints my tunnel vision brought on by constantly scouring the Wildchip tags and being in a constant state of being starved for content kicks in and it just goes â:(âÂ
#and tbh I feel like I even had this problem too at first#if you go back to my older content back when odyssey initially finished nearly all of my wb content was just wildchip related#at the time I just found chip the more interesting of the two and kinda just. ignored wb#which I do really regret considering how much appreciation I've grown for him as a standalone character over time#wildchip is good. wildberry and crunchy chip as standalone characters are good#don't be discouraged from enjoying them#crk#cookie run#cookie run kingdom#crk shipping#cookie run shipping#wildchip#and also they're very much written as two sides of the same coin characters#their mere existences strengthen the writing of the other and I love that#but once again even just by themselves they're both great characters. odyssey's writing was fantastic
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MCFLY JULY â24 ⸺ ă 17 / 31 * DAVE'S NIGHT OFF ă
March 3, 1986, Twin Pines Timeline(β)
Five months since Martyâs sudden disappearance.Â
Linda doesnât even have to pretend she doesnât know exactly where sheâll find Dave when heâs not at home. If heâs not working, busting his ass taking whatever job that pays so he can keep funnelling it into the supplies to stock this cursed garage, heâs hunched over on the couch, buried up to his brain in papers that may as well be written in Greek for all he can read them.Â
Itâs the same place he spends most of his free time these days; surrounded by ghosts and a couple of Momâs swiped bottles of vodka.
Not like she notices when a couple of them go missing.Â
Dave once said he could hear Marty in here. Like he was still alive. Still here, because Martyâs not dead. Heâs somewhere, God-only-knows, but heâs not dead because they only found one body in that parking lot and Marty had to be there because he was Doctor Brownâs fucking shadowâbut since Martyâs body wasnât there, just that truck and that poor dogâEinstein or Edison or whatever; some dead scientistâlying next to the body, according to the cops, that meant someone must have kidnapped him.
They're faint echoes, Linda, he'd said, three-quarters deep into a bottle, but he sounds happy. Â
It sounds like bullshit, but it's far more than anything they have at the moment.
And it means, regardless of however tightly she has to wring her own heart to get even a single drop of hope out of it, there's a chance Marty is still alive.Â
âHow long have you been here today?â Dave pretends not to hear her. Or maybe he wilfully ignores her. Once, she knew how to tell. âDave, face it. Tââ Â
âShut the fuck up, Linda,â Dave snaps, and it takes every ounce of her resolve not to march up to him and slap him in the face for that.Â
Itâs grief that made him an asshole. It isnât him. It has a way of burrowing into the deepest, most vulnerable parts of a person and poisoning them from the inside out until they were but shadows of their former selves.Â
Itâs already hollowed her out, stuffed her full of ice and made a cold, heartless bitch out of her until she was numb to the world. She figured that out when her motherâs broken sobs didn't spear her through the heart like they used to. As if it was her fault.
Why weren't you nicer to him that night?
That shouldnât be an excuse. But she lets it be for Daveâs sake, and her own, because maybe, as fucking crazy as it sounds, theyâll just find that one in a million breakthrough scattered in the ramblings of a dead man.Â
Who apparently claims he learned to leap through time.Â
Some good that did him if it was true. Heâs buried in Oak Park Cemetery, looking like Swiss cheese. Wasnât time-travel supposed to help prevent exactly that? Â
Maybe it could have saved Marty. Â
Maybe itâs exactly what stole Marty away from them. Â
âTheyâre going to tear this place down, Dave. In two weeks! T-w-o. And theyâre not going to stop the bulldozers because youâre glued to that fucking couch. What good are you going to be dead? Do you know what thatâs going to do to Mom?â She puts her hands on her hips and might have inwardly shuddered at how much she sounded like Mom if she had the energy. Â
With Marty gone, she didnât expect to be an older sister again.Â
After a long, tense silence, she finally sighs. She didnât come here to fight. âDid you eat anything today?â Heâs swimming in his T-shirts now; theyâre all but falling off his shoulders. Â
Dave huffs, dragging his fingers through his shaggy hair. âJen left about twenty minutes ago; sheâs grabbing Chinese. You know, that place...where...â
Yeah. I know.
âI gave her some money. Then weâre gonna go back to this.â He spreads his arms, gesturing to the mess of paperwork that makes just as much sense as it did four and a half months ago.
âAre you staying?â
Linda says yes because a part of her, too, is trapped within these four walls.
#mcflyjuly#mcfly july 2024#back to the future#bttf#somewhat AU leaning and heavily inspired by many-worlds theory as well as steins;gate 0 and the idea of there being 'other' martys#(this is my entirely shameless plug telling you to go watch/read/play steins;gate actually. it's fantastic.)#like - other dimensional counterparts existing on other worldlines#as well as the idea of various worldlines that all have predetermined 'endings' that can't be changed#and that their marty only escaped the cycle by unknowingly hopping to a different worldline#so even if they create a time machine - who is to say they can change the outcome of history this time#and instead of following marty we're following linda & co now#as they possibly do very reckless things in search for answers#i also think this iteration of dave has some parallels to the way he ends up in 1985A given the circumstances oops#they're all incredibly broken by grief BUT in a way - something good has come out of this#as opposed to the original twin pines timeline where they make it seem like dave has no direction yet-now he has a purpose.#it keeps him going#for some reason i really love writing for linda - especially the twin pines variant where she's a little more jaded#ALSO - i bet the news of doc's death actually ends up being a whole thing in hill valley#for 95% the very wrong reasons but - you know how people are. god the shit some of them will still say even though he's gone#(my original idea that i wrote out and hated the way it came out had dave going to chat with doctor brown after marty's been#hanging out with him for a few weeks and just non-stop talking about him. but i couldn't get it written right and i went WHAT IF...#and now we're here eyyyyy)
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Song of the Day: May 14
"Diamond on a Landmineâ by Billy Talent
#song of the day#buckle up babes this one's a nice showcase of how my brain retains memories which is to say it's a long path to a close destination#in early 2011 when Leverage's season three had recently wrapped#one of my friends was writing a character study piece for Eliot with a partial focus on his toxic relationship with Damien Moreau#and they made a writing playlist for the fic that included this song#(and also 'Laughing with a Mouth of Blood' by St Vincent. absolutely killer song)#and I like the song but for whatever reason I never looked up anything else by Billy Talent#(I was at the time not spending so much time looking up new music but more just letting it come to me#in 2017 St Vincent came out with 'Los Ageless' and I was like oh I know her!! and I started paying attention to her albums#which is good because then in 2021 she released the Daddy's Home album which has 'Pay Your Way in Pain' /and/ 'The Melting of the Sun'#which are absolutely incredible tracks and my life would've been less without them)#and then today I saw a Call of Duty post with lyrics from Billy Talent's 'Afraid of Heights'#and I didn't recognize the lyrics so I went and pulled up the song as how I do#and as it played I was like. do I know this? no. I know something like this. what is it?#and at first I was convinced I'd just been listening to it but then why couldn't I place it? and then I realized I hadn't heard it recently#but I had been /thinking/ about something /related/ to it--which I had been. sort of. there's a Damien Moreau post queued for tomorrow--#and then in Afraid of Heights the chorus was wrapping up#'you're the only one I'd follow til the end of time / if we fall we fall together baby don't think twice again'#and something clicked and I dragged 'Diamond on a Landmine' up out of the depths of my various-artists folder#it's a great song got an excellent build to it#'alone at last / I can't wait til we're alone at last / all I wanted was a second chance / a second chance / to hold you in my arms at last#and the visual of 'better watch your step / she's a diamond on a landmine' is fantastic#anyway! I made giant scotch eggs with my family's spicy sausage ball mix instead of the normal breading and they're amazing#a good day#two weeks into May already can you imagine
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wait you got me so invested in the stammer & heddy tailor au....
this is my standard disclaimer that i have never posted a fic on ao3* and for however much i say âauâ i truly mean that itâs a universe that lives in my head & i am absolutely delighted to tell you all about, all the time <3 if it helps i ALSO got me so invested in the heddy & stammer tailor au
ok now that the authorâs note is out of the way hereâs some notes about the not!fic heddy & stammer tailor au:
stammer as the tailor from gentâs playbook, very reserved, quiet, with an excellent eye for details (honestly the evidence i have for his style sense is just that heâs best friends with pk subban so it has to be there somewhere if only by proxy irl) is hired by victor hedman, star of the tampa bay lightning who is every other tailorâs nightmare to dress (huge, opinionated, fashionable)
heddy is decently well-known throughout the league for being very well-dressed & becomes quietly well known for also being one of his new tailorâs favorite loyal customers [heddy has the nicest fabrics. he has his suits the first day a new collection drops & e v e r y o n e is jealous]
stammerâs business booms after heddy takes a chance on him as his first big client & promotes him, heddy sees him grow in popularity & get more clients
heddy also moonlights as a model for stammerâs suits on instagram, initially to help him grow his business because then he wonât have to pay for a model and then because heâs over there all the time anyway because theyâre dating (thatâs why the modelâs face is never in the pictures)
thereâs not really a plot to this besides the vague idea of a plot where stammer makes heddy his lucky suit that he wins the cup in & ďżźsews a special little tag into the lining of his jacket that says i love you
because love sometimes is picking out the perfect right color pocket square to match your husbandâs beautiful suit that you fitted like a kiss to the curves of his huge body
& also sometimes love is making your beautiful husband who makes you beautiful clothing enjoy nice things for himself once in a while, like the fancy watch you ďżźďżźbought him or the nice suit you custom-ordered for him (from him) just so you could take it off of him
#*i did very much post a zine on ao3 that was part of a really fun exchange that i loved doing (thank you leah for organizing!!!)#& had a fantastic time with however i have not strictly speaking posted a fic. one day i will. eventually. hopefully. pray for me :)#also one time my horoscope told me i was a âneutral projectorâ & iâve never felt more called out (âloves making up thingsâ/âwill not#actually write or plot but will explain every intricate detail of their world & character relationshipsâ/âhype up every member of the#writing chat & give good advice but never follow itâ) like HI CAN U NOT DO THIS TO ME HOROSCOPE THANKS i was read to FILTH#liv in the replies#i do LOOOOOVE me a good one of them plays hockey the other one does not au sometimes theyâre so fun to explore dynamics outside/inside sport#at the time i came up with this stammer was out on IR & heddy kept showing up to the playoffs in ridiculously nice suits what was i to do??#the gentâs playbook tailor will sometimes model his own suits w/o showing his own face which made it look like he had a secret model come in#heddy canonically says his suits make him feel better when he plays esp during playoffs & if he wins in a suit heâll keep wearing it#oh also the truth of the love is in the pocket square bit? angela price i will never forget. anyway that blue suit i posted in the last ask#with the perfect pink pocket square? that pocket square is a pair of stammerâs boxers heddy took To Me. in my brain#me about the beautiful clothing: this is like daisy crying in gatsbyâs silk shirts except itâs baby alpaca fur & also itâs not sad#itâs simply decadent & the inherent intimacy of a fitting mapping the body yada yada yada knowing the ways to flatter someone is a form#of loving them etc etc. love is art love is food love is given love is stored in the custom three-piece suit and tie#is this an enemies to lovers? workplace drama? is the secret plot i only just now invented & added that heddy is âdifficult to work withâ#but itâs just because he wants to look good & in the words of his own (real) tailor the hardest guy to fit because heâs so big? OHHH HOLD IT#I GOT THE PLOT IN THE TAGS YâALL AND ITâS STAMMER TEACHING HEDDY TO LOVE HIS BODY heddy whoâs been told what to/not wear & you know.#the commodification of the body in hockey (but weâre not getting that deep) but stammer with a mouth full of pins tightening heddyâs pant#leg down even further as he listens to what heddy wants for once & lets him pick fabrics (this is the daisy shirt moment but itâs heddy#looking at fabric swatches dozens of books of them stammer helps him pick out matching linings &outsides &squares) & stammer compliments him#& theyâre in love & idk NEARLY enough abt fashion but there r like codes? messages? to wearing suits i think w/the etiquette so that too#should this have also gone under a readmore? yeah probably. whoops#victor hedman#steven stamkos#tampa bay lightning
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failed my algebra final so spectacularly but i kinda feel like touched by the hands of God right now? so i donât even care
#sat down opened the exam and almost started laughing as i tried to do the problems#gave the least amount of effort to all of them left like 6 blank and then spent the rest of the testing time drawing pictures on the paper#then i had a religious experience in the testing center#i should write a song about that#i feel fantastic#chicken scratch
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Dang.
Resurrection day and cc!Tommyâs birthday and a good writing day and getting to spend time with baby cousins?? All on the same day???
#this was a very fun day :D#THE KING IS RISEN!!!!!!! YES!!!!!#listened to Christ And Christ Crucified earlier todayâabsolutely amazing song fantastic just wonderful just incredible one of my favorites#I actually heard it for the first time a year ago exactly! it was during the Easter service my church does :)#but yes amazing song amazing DAY Jesus is ALIVE!!!!#I actually didnât realize it was Tommyâs birthday until today XD#canât believe heâs 19 now oh my gosh :0#hope he had a good day :)#and writing okayokay; this past week has been pretty busy for me so I didnât have as much time to write as I usually do#which has been a little frustrating#but I ended up writing over 1K words in about an hour (which was surprising sjsvsjdbwksvsi) and it felt⌠really really good#especially because I worked on two stories that Iâve been stuck with for a while. it was soooo nice to have inspiration for those again#me and a ton of family members all met up today to celebrate easter/hang out#MY BABY COUSINS I GOT TO SPEND TIME WITH THEM đđ I LOVE THEM SO MUCH#the youngest wanted me to read him a book (twice!!) and held onto my finger as he looked for plastic eggs outside and he just apsgsiagsskshw#and the oldest wanted me to play with her and she gave me a flower and said it was a BFF flower đđđđđđđ#my heart exploded#I love my baby cousins SO DARN MUCH#but anyway allll this to say: today has been good. really fun and kinda busy but really really good#my post#rambling in tags#I AM FILLED WITH SO MUCH HAPPINESS AND LOVE AND JOY
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scapedgrace was such a good hawke url. i mourn it every day.
#i just had to move them here to actually write them i think#having all my muses on their own blogs doesn't work#i can only manage a few blogs at a time so yeah#rip to all the fantastic solo blog urls i've given up over the years#ooc. ( a suspicious lack of dragons )#tbd.
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in need of serotonin or something. might go watch Deadpool & Wolverine again to see [REDACTED] again bc i want to see my special guy and feel happy
#amphi speaks#my brain is funny lately#but not in the haha kinda way#apologies to all the messages ive left essentially on read#my only response to lots of messages lately is a very monotone 'okay' so like#when i hit that i just end up not replying to anything#i blame the fact i work in retail and the back to school season is mentally draining#also my company is ASS after losing money last year bc they're still punishing us by not giving us all the hours we need to do our jobs#and then my other job is very busy right now#im editing stuff for it every day in ~2k word chunks this week and i have to do this again at the end of September#which doesnt sound THAT bad right?#WRONG#someone's pissy about the fact i had to cut 500+ words of their submission in editing bc they went over word count and it was paced badly#they were the only person to go THIS BADLY over word count#and it is still over the preferred word count. i literally couldnt cut more and there was no time for them to rewrite it#im gonna MCLOSE IT#anyway while writing these tags i bought a ticket to see d&w again in a little bit#the ticket pays for itself in entertainment by the time the opening credits are over#plus the role reprisals for non-MCU Marvel movies are FANTASTIC and they make me happy to see
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Future FFVII Rebirth Essays
Okay now that I've finally finished FFVII Rebirth, here's a list of some essays about the game I've either partially written, or want to write in the future!
Titles are absolutely subject to change, they're just what come to mind right now. Each bullet point has the title of an essay and a little bit of elaboration into what they'd be about. Most essays will cover far more than what is in the bullet blurb, but for now I wanted to jot down some of my ideas before I forgot them, so details are relatively sparse and lean towards the nonspecific. This also doesn't even cover all of the essay ideas I've had while playing through the game! But it's long as it is, so I figured I'd cut it off at what I have here and include the rest in a reblog or separate post.
Warning, this includes spoilers for both the OG FFVII and events/changes in the FFVII Remake Continuity (Remake/Rebirth)!
A (Not Really) Dying World: The impact of the removal of the Midgar Black Pit and the introduction of other greenery in FFVII Remake and Rebirth (basically, Remake/Rebirth Gaia does not appear to be in such dire straights until sky stuff happens, which changes how the planetary threat appears, being moved from a dying planet which is on the edge of destruction even without Sephiroth's involvement to a planet that's mostly at risk because of Sephiroth, with the slow death of the Planet being a far lesser/evident threat.)
Shinra: A threat to the Planet, or a threat to humanity? (Heavily connected to the essay above and the Dyne essay below. Revolves around how much of the weight of Shinra's threat is shifted to them causing human strife and suffering, rather than the way they are killing the Planet and the impact of Mako Reactors)
Changes to Corel Prison (potentially combined with a larger essay on tone in FFVII, see below. I still can't believe Corel Prison isn't a prison anymore. Also the town of Corel is now separate from what became the prison which is. A choice! Changes the narrative.)
On Dyne and Marlene in the OG vs Rebirth (why the change in Dyne's motivations matters on a larger scale, potential reasons for the removal of the threats to Marlene, and how this impacts Barret's character)
It's Okay for the Protagonists to Sometimes be Bad People: how imperfections and weaknesses can strengthen a character arc, and the Remake continuity's avoidance of painting party members as 'the bad guy'. (Basically the Remake/Rebirth introduce several new scenes solely there to remind you the protagonists are good people, change some scenes to remove a character being acknowledged as having made a mistake/potentially being a bad person, and remove ambiguity present in the OG in order to make Shinra explicitly (and sometimes more) to blame.)
Apathy and Action in FFVII: The tonal shift between the OG and Remake Continuity (the characters in the OG FFVII are WAY more apathetic, complacent, or depressed. Remake and especially Rebirth make far more of them angry and active against Shinra, which dramatically changes the tone for better or for (imo often) worse.)
Bombastic is Not Always Better: The importance of quiet moments in the narrative, and how low points can serve to drive highs even higher. (FFVII Rebirth removes several moments in the OG where the characters stop to discuss what's going on, where to go next, or how they're doing, and while it means the ending is high energy for a very long time which can be exciting, it loses out on some of the intimacy of the OG. Different people like different things, but I've always been someone who relishes the quiet moments and find they make me like the big ones more, because we have a chane to process what's at stake.)
For the Love of God Minerva Someone Please Talk to Cloud: Cloud's mental state in the Remake Continuity vs the OG (Cloud has SO MANY MORE breakdown moments in the Remake Continuity, and most of them are far more obvious/severe than the OG. This both changes the mystery of the breakdowns (which is fair to do bc most players know about Sephiroth), and also makes the fact that Rebirth removed many of the 'Cloud are you okay' scenes WAY WORSE. Cloud is not okay and it makes way more sense for them to ignore it in the OG where it's small and infrequent than it does in Rebirth where he's having major problems very frequently which hurt the main cast (except where it matters in the OG!))
Preserving Mystery in a Remake: Is there any point when the players know what's coming next? (Yes. Yes there is. You don't need to get rid of all the mysteries present in the OG just because some players might already know the story (this is not about stuff they're changing, but things they're keeping the same but exposing early). Also the other option for this title is "A Game for Newcomers and Veterans Alike: No it's not, if it was you would've bothered to keep some things mysterious and clearly you were too giggly to do that to the detriment of several story events and even plot points.")
FFVII Rebirth and Gameplay at the Cost of Atmosphere (part one of this is already written, but this is about how sometimes minigames or new mechanics introduced to spice up gameplay can disrupt or even completely upend the atmosphere of a scene, much to its detriment.)
FFVII Rebirth and Story Padding at the Cost of Atmosphere (this would be part two to this series, covering some new scenes which were added to Rebirth that did not match the tone of the rest of the scene and sometimes completely pulled me out of the emotional impact that existed in the original. At times I think the writers wanted to have a different emotional impact/tone than the original, while other times it seemed like completely tone deaf padding where the writers wanted something to happen so they shoved it into a place where it sort of fit in theory but did not fit in practice.)
Trope-Heavy Characters in the PS1 Era vs PS5 Era: How adding in new character scenes without adding new character traits can make a character seem bland (tl;dr I feel like Rebirth did a disservice to Yuffie's character, and Cait Sith is on thin ice. When a character only has 15 lines and 13 of them are about how they want materia, I think it's fair to assume that while liking materia is their main character trait, they probably care about other things too, but just didn't have the time/space to say it. But when a character has 150 lines and 130 are about materia, they seem bland/like materia is basically their only character trait, because they did have the time to talk about so many things but didn't. If you want to flesh out a character by giving them more lines, you should make sure to give them something substantial. Don't be afraid to go more into their (in this case Yuffie's) life, fears, and desires! The bits we got were good but they were to few in comparison to materia and motion sickness scenes)
#longpost#ffvii#erurandomness#i do actually want to get to these if/when i have the time. i have some time before dawntrail and i hope to get to these before then#FFVII Rebirth spoilers#ffvii rebirth#also disclaimer: i am still giving this game a 9/10#i just think it had. uh. some narrative issues lol#second also. this list is basically just for me to remember with...but if you want to talk then you can reply or reblog#just know that these are NOT my full thoughts!!! I have so many thoughts that go much more in depth#these are just the short versions so I remember to come back to them#i know I have more thoughts in my 34.5k word notes document on rebirth but i haven't reread it yet#i should probably also write some essays on what ffvii rebirth did well but. y'know. negativity bias#the gameplay was fun and i thik some of the characterization was stellar. barret was fantastic with one single complaint#which is about a bad writing choice and not something i'm upset the character did. it's a one line difference#cloud in rebirth feels sort of like a different cloud but i can't phrase it wel enough rn to put a mini essay title for.#erubabbles#eruwrites#erumeta
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thank fuck the one r/nosleep mod Iâve been conversing with the last 2 days trying to get a story unremoved from the sub is so nice or else Iâd actually be doing this rn
#LIKE THEY CALLED THE STORY REALLY WELL WRITTEN AND FANTASTIC AND ITS LIKE AHHHHHHH STOPđ¤Şđ¤Şđ¤Ş#BUT AT THE SAME TIME IVE HAD TO EDIT THIS SHIT LIKE 50 TIMES#and I feel bad bc I hope Iâm not pestering them too much đbut also PLEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEEEE#Iâm Sisyphus rn Iâm him. /j#Then again my fault for trying to post writing on fucking Reddit of all places
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Writing tips for long fics that helped me that no one asked for.
1.) Don't actually delete content from your WIP unless it is minor editing - instead cut it and put it in a secondary document. If you're omitting paragraphs of content, dialog, a whole scene you might find a better place for it later and having it readily available can really save time. Sometimes your idea was fantastic, but it just wasn't in the right spot.
2.) Stuck with wording the action? Just write the dialog then revisit it later.
3.) Stuck on the whole scene? Skip it and write the next one.
4.) Write on literally any other color than a white background. It just works. (I use black)
5.) If you have a beta, while they are beta-ing have them read your fic out loud. Yes, I know a lot of betas/writers do not have the luxury of face-timing or have the opportunity to do this due to time constraints etc but reading your fic out loud can catch some very awkward phrasing that otherwise might be missed. If you don't have a beta, you read it out loud to yourself. Throw some passion into your dialog, you might find a better way to word it if it sounds stuffy or weird.
6.) The moment you have an idea, write it down. If you don't have paper or a pen, EMAIL it to yourself or put it in a draft etc etc. I have sent myself dozens of ideas while laying down before sleep that I 10/10 forgot the next morning but had emailed them to myself and got to implement them.
7.) Remember - hits/likes/kudos/comments are not reflective of the quality of your fic or your ability to write. Most people just don't comment - even if they say they do, they don't, even if they preach all day about commenting, they don't, even if they are a very popular blog that passionately reminds people to comment - they don't comment (I know this personally). Even if your fic brought tears to their eyes and it haunted them for weeks and they printed it out and sent it to their friends they just don't comment. You just have to accept it. That being said - comment on the fic you're reading now, just do it, if you're 'shy' and that's why you don't comment the more you comment the better you'll get at it. Just do it.
8.) Remove unrealistic daily word count goals from your routine. I've seen people stress 1500 - 2000 words a day and if they don't reach that they feel like a failure and they get discouraged. This is ridiculous. Write when you can, but remove absurd goals. My average is 500 words a day in combination with a 40 hour a week job and I have written over 200k words from 2022-2023.
9.) There are dozens of ways to do an outline from precise analytical deconstruction that goes scene by scene to the minimalist bullet point list - it doesn't matter which one you use just have some sort of direction. A partial outline is better than no outline.
10.) Write for yourself, not for others. Write the fic you know no one is going to read. Write the fic that sounds ridiculous. You will be so happy you put it out in the world and there will be people who will be glad it exists.
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âepiphanyâ | 21k
worst!logan howlett x f!reader
SUMMARY: Superheroes and mutants werenât enough. Noâthe universe had to throw in soulmates who share scars. Fantastic, right? Except yours had vanished, only to mysteriously reappear with the arrival of a new face: the âWorstâ Logan Howlett, fresh from another earth.
OR What happens when a hopeless romantic crosses paths with the ultimate soulmate skeptic?
WARNINGS/TAGS: mdni smut 18+ strangers to lovers. drinking. cursing. slow burn. angst. pining. mentions of alcohol. fluff. reflecting on the art of writing/poems/books. dual POV. takes place after the events of âdeadpool & wolverineâ. TW: multiple descriptions of scars. worst/variant!logan. implied age gap (readerâs in her late 20s). theyâre both touch starved. wadeâs everyoneâs friend. miscommunication/misunderstandings. oral sex (f and m receiving). fingering, grinding. some slight hair pulling. unprotected p in v, creampie. sex with feelings.
A/N: HOPELESS ROMANTICS RISE! here we go again with another long ass fic. this is a soulmates AU in which you get your soulmateâs scars. if you feel triggered by this topic, please refrain from reading. i had a lot of fun writing this even though it took me a while to get it done. thanks to @lubdubology for being my beta and allowing me to share my work with you. and also thanks to @brushworth for giving me the chance to write this. having said this, enjoy the story! iâd love to know your thoughts on it <3
Love giveth and love taketh away.
To this day, itâs still hard for you to wrap your head around the fact that love is what humans both strive and die for.
If it werenât for love, you wouldnât be here. No one would, actually. Human beings are the result of billions of people who loved each other just enoughâor at least long enough to bring life into the world.
But isnât it in the name of love that people act in bad faith? Why would something so pure be used in vain?
You donât get it, but as the years go by, you slowly come to terms with the idea that perhaps you never will. Not because there isnât a reason, but because youâre in love with the idea of love.
How could you not be? Itâs on the streets, on the bus, at work. Everywhere you go, every place you attempt to set foot in, there it is. Love is dressed up in an expensive silk robe, a ribbon tied neatly on top of it. You reach closer, trying to unravel it, though it's pointless. The moment love sees youâtruly sees your longing for itâit flees, and you struggle to keep up.
Love runs faster than anyone, hiding within the bushes, counting the seconds until its next appearance.
It had always been a relentless race, your only worry being to catch it before time ran out. But with each day that passed, the finish line only stretched further and further away. Now, they all blur together, to the point where you live and breathe on autopilot.Â
In a Jane Austen novel, youâd be considered a lone woman. That character whoâs nice, and kind, and loved by some, but not in the way she yearns for. Every time sheâs mentioned, you go âOh, the poor girl,â until the slow realization dawns.
In reality, sheâs you, and itâs you who you feel sorry for, not a fictional character. You.
All in all, love giveth. And love also taketh away.Â
Love maketh you miserable.
Soulmatesâa nine-letter word that holds so much meaning.
Itâs one of those words that you learn early in your life, one you hear at home or on the TV. Your parents never fail to mention it if given the chance. The first time youâre introduced to the topic is at school when you're older, a bit more self-conscious, and no longer preoccupied with picking your nose.
âEverybody has a soulmate. And no,â your teacher had added after a pause, already anticipating the inevitable questions from any curious 10-year-old, âthere isnât such a thing as not having one. We all do. You just have to search for them.â
Back then, that had been your favorite gameâalways keeping an eye open, scanning the crowd more than once in new places. You knew for sure that more than one person probably thought youâd strained your neck from all the times you glanced over your shoulder.
It must be pretty obvious now, the fact that youâreâwell, alone. Saying âwithout a companionâ sounds quite outdated. They canât see through you, but something in the way you walk or speak must give it away.Â
Or is it the fact that you always ask for a table for one?
âAre you expecting someone else?â A waitress approaches you, her tone gentle as she makes sure youâre on your own. A small notebook dangles from her slender fingers, and your eyes catch the name stitched onto her apron: Emily.
The response you give her is on the verge of sounding automatic, robotic even, like one of those prerecorded messages busy people leave on their phones. âNo. Just me.â
She nods, and you feel the sympathy in her gaze. Youâve mastered the art of recognizing that lookâthe one hovering between concern and pity.
Of course, people rarely voice it, but theyâll never know their eyes sometimes say more than they think.
As she jots down your order, youâre met with the ring on her left hand. Very pretty, very shiny. Very expensive as well. Your attention must linger on it a little too long, because she catches you staring, making you feel exposed.
Emilyâyou decide to call her that way from now on, because once you know her name, it feels odd to address her as the waitressâoffers you a shy smile.
âIâm getting married next month,â she blurts out, happiness radiating from her pores. Her eyes glint like two lanterns in a starless night. She also looks younger than you, and the abrupt silence forces you to pinch your wrist, a reminder of the fact that this is a conversation, and not just something you're overhearing.
âCongratulations,â you manage to reply, returning the smile. If she saw how your expression faltered the second she walked away, you wonder if sheâd still think you were so amiable.
Sometimes, your façade slipsâyou canât help it. Thatâs what the âhopelessâ in âhopeless romanticâ stands for.
Some minutes later, she comes back with your coffee, and you catch another glimpse of the ring as it twinkles in front of you. Envy doesnât suit you, so you shift your focus.
Taking out your laptop, you scroll through the latest headlines. This is your attempt at acting more like an adult and less like a girl in her mid-twenties who has no clue what sheâs doing.
One article stands out from the rest: Hollywood Actress Divorces Loving Husband of 25 Years to Pursue Presumed Soulmate. âI saw his scars and knew he was the one.â
Interesting. You canât help but feel sorry for the displaced husband, though.
âGood for you,â you mutter under your breath, clicking the link to read more. Thereâs a picture of the actress and her new boyfriend that makes you stop dead in your tracks: theyâre smiling at each other, their faces close, noses almost touching, while they show off their matching scarsâthe unmistakable sign that theyâre, in fact, soulmates.
Soulmates, superheroes, mutants. It all sounds like a whole lot, doesnât it? Overwhelming, to say the least. One thingâs for sureâyouâll never get bored in this world.
But, hey! Donât forget that there are multiple universes out there. Maybe in one of them, youâre not this pathetic.
Why are you being so hard on yourself? Thatâs not even the point. Shaking your head, you keep glancing at their scarsâtheyâre identical, perfect mirrors of one another. The kind of scars that only two destined souls share.
Their happiness is evident, tangible. You can feel it by just eyeing the image. Itâs a bitter sensation that metamorphoses into a warmth, which heavily spreads through your chest, filling up every empty space it finds.Â
To say you understand that feeling would be a downright lie. And you may be many things, but a pathological liar is not one of them.
As if on cue, you duck your head, rolling up the sleeves of your jacket. You do the same with your shirt, foolishly hoping to find something other than smooth, unmarked skin.
No scars. No marks. No sign of a soulmate, of a lover. In the world you inhabitâthis universe full of the most inexplicable thingsâyouâre alone.Â
Without a second thought, you pack your things, shoving them rapidly into your bag. The cafe feels too little and too large all at once, the walls closing on you.
The rest of the customers are looking at you. Fuck, they already noticed itâyou canât escape it.
Have they? Do you think they see you like you see yourself? The lone woman who writes poems for an addressee who will never read them?
In silence, you hand Emily the money for your coffee. You fear that if you open your mouth, a cry will come out, and thatâs the last thing you need today. She gives you that look againâpity laced with sorrow, the one you despise. It burns.
At that moment, a man walks in, passing right by you. You see his face, his green eyes, and the way his lips curl into a grin as he greets Emily.
The scar on her forehead, which you'd missed before, mirrors the one on his.
They are soulmates.Â
Itâs on the streets, on the bus, at work. Everywhere you go, every place you attempt to set foot in, there it is.
She wishes you a nice morning as you leave the cafe. Little does she know youâll spend the rest of the day locked in your apartment, mourning someone you never even met.
Until the day you lost them, you wore your scars with pride.
They were scattered across your stomach, back, chest, and even your legs and arms. Some were shallow, others deep. It never occurred to youâthe thought that they belonged in the shadows, hidden.
Everyone has them, you thought as you stood in front of the mirror, running your fingers along their jagged paths. I just seem to have more than most people.
Over the years, you might have changed your hairstyle or the way you dressed, but your scars never didâtheyâd always been there, and they were yours.
Partly yours, of course, since you knew they belonged to your soulmate as well.
The older you grew, the more you realized having a good memory was both a gift and a curse. You still remembered that moment so vividlyâwhen you found out that somebody out there was meant for you and only you.
A point of no return, thatâs what itâd been. From that day on, not a single one went by without you imagining the first encounter with your Prince Charming.Â
In the meantime, you dated. A few boyfriends came and went during and after high school, mostly as practice for the real thing, youâd told yourself.
God, you were determined to know everything. To be the best girlfriend ever, so that when you finally met him, heâd be over the moon.
At the age of seventeen, it sounded like a brilliant plan.
You never knew how, but your life became that meantime. All your friends began to find their soulmates: in the supermarket, while traveling, at the goddamn doctorâs office.
Everybody was fulfilling the purpose youâd been taught humans were made forâeveryone but you.
The scars multiplied, yet he was nowhere to be seen, remaining out of reach. Your soulmateâs whereabouts were a mystery. What the hell does he do in his free time? was something you used to often ponder. Is he suffering? Does he need help?
âBe patient, give it some time. The less you seek, the more youâll find,â your mother would say, trying to sound encouraging. Although she was trying to do her best, that phrase alone had the power to make you go nuts.
Be patient? Waiting was all youâd been doing. What was so wrong with you that he seemed to be hiding from you? You didnât want to wait any longer, noâyou wanted to find him. If it meant traveling to Italy like your cousin had to meet her husband, then so fucking be it.
Many nights, sleep eluded you. Lying wide awake, staring at the ceiling, youâd imagine what life with him would be like. What he would look like. You were certain that no matter his appearance, youâd think he was beautiful.
Wasnât that the whole point of soulmatesâthat the bond you two shared transcended physical attraction?
Nevertheless, you secretly wished heâd have brown hair. He didnât need to know, but you had a weakness for brunettes.
On the night of your twenty-second birthday, you were getting ready for the big event when every trace of your scars disappeared.
The bathroom mirror was fogged from the showerâs stream, and as you wiped it clean with the palm of your hand, the image you saw reflected on the glass made your stomach do a flip.
There were no scars. No marks. Nothing. At first, you thought your eyes were playing tricks on youâit couldnât be. Scars didnât just vanish. It was impossible.
But as you lowered your gaze, tracing your limbs again and again, the truth hit you. The marks you knew by heart, the ones that reminded you, Heâs out there, somewhere, were gone.
You felt it deep in your chest, too. Every sound seemed louder and clearer: the blood rushing through your veins, each shaky breath you took. Where are they? Your fingers dug into your flesh, intending to ground yourself.
Is he⌠dead? It was the only reasonable explanation, the rule youâd known all along. Youâd read it countless times, memorizing the principles about scars.
The scream that tore from your throat brought your mother running upstairs, and she entered the bathroom with a horrified expression on her face.
âWhatâs wrong? Are you hurt?â she asked, but your mind was already far away. Your whole body shuddered in her arms, a sob slipping past your lips as you crumbled to the floor, desperately hoping it was all a nightmare. âIt must be a mistake, honey. Iâm sure heâs okay.â
But heâs not, you wanted to tell her. The words, however, never formedâonly a broken whimper escaped your lips. Isnât that what we were taught? Our scars belong to our soulmates; they bind us to them in a way that simple words canât explain.
It goes deeper than the skin. It delves into our bodies, our minds, reaching into the very essence of who we are. What was once his is also mine, but theyâre gone.
Heâs gone. He must be, because otherwise, how would you explain this void?
When oneâs soulmate passes away, that person will notice the disappearance of their scars. The physical marks that once symbolized their connection fade, leaving no trace. This absence is accompanied by a distinct, unsettling sensationâan awareness of loss that goes beyond the physical, signaling the end of the bond.
A part of you died with him that day.
The first time you exchanged words with Wade Wilson, you thought he was a total dick.
It wasnât as if you didnât know himânot when he was so infamous for that mouth of his. Deadpool: the self-proclaimed superhero with a vocabulary that was 90% profanity, who made cracking jokes while fighting the bad guys look easy.
Super funny? Sure. But not exactly your cup of tea when all you wanted was to crawl into bed and forget the world existed.
He was apparently long retired from superheroing. No one had seen that red, sex-toy-looking suit in ages, which was why you were only mildly surprised as you spotted him hauling boxes into your building on a Tuesday afternoon.
It was late, and you werenât in the mood for small talk. Heâd been there barely a week, yet somehow, heâd already managed to fuck things up.Â
You let out a deep sigh, rubbing the crease between your brows. âLook, Wallyââ
âItâs pronounced Wade,â he corrected you, trying to edge his face further into the gap between the door and its frame, though you didnât let your guard down. âYouâre pretty rude, you know that?â
âIâve been up for twenty-four hours, and I need to sleep,â you groaned, trying to push him away with one hand. Technically, he wasnât even asking for something that complicatedâhe wanted to use your microwave to heat his dinner, since his had decided to stop working out of the blue.
The thing was that youâd had the kind of week that felt like a one-way trip to hell, an important detail he wasnât aware of. âGo ask someone else. I canât do charity tonight.â
âYouâre the only one who answered,â he said, pressing his palms together in a pleading gesture, his lips curling into a heartbreaking pout. âPlease, my lovely neighbor, whose name I donât know. You wouldnât want me to starve to death, would you?
âI thought you couldnât die.â You raised an eyebrow, half-interested.
Wadeâs arms dropped to his sides, his eyes drifting downward. âAnd I thought kindness wasnât extinct, but here we are.â He spun on his heel, acting defeated and dragging his feet like a scolded puppy. âCanât believe this is what the worldâs come to. Iâm sure the Bible says something about treating others how youâd want to be treated.â
Why. Just⌠why? Some cosmic, divine force from beyond might have been testing you that night.
âWait,â you croaked just as he was about to step into his apartmentâwhich was literally three meters from yours. His face lit up, expecting you to continue, and you moved aside slightly, signaling him in. âFive minutes and youâre out, okay? I really need to get some rest.â
The rest was history. Wade was just standing there, mesmerized by your microwave as if heâd never seen one before.
You could only hear the faint buzzing sound of the gadget, punctuated by the rhythmic drumming of his fingers on the counter. He was humming a tune while shaking his head to the beat.
You tried to focus, replaying the guided meditation you sometimes followed to sleep in your mind.
Allow yourself to feel the stillness of this moment. Notice your breath slowing as your body begins to calm. Be the observer of your breath, flowing in and out naturally, as your lungsâ
Yeah, it wasnât working.
âPlease, stop it,â you eventually told Wade, whose gaze shifted from the microwave to you, brows furrowed.
âAnd whyâs that?â
âThey say itâs bad for your eyes,â you explained, recalling a half-forgotten news report youâd heard on the TV. Whether it was a myth or not, youâd never know. âI believe itâs because of the radiation exposure.â
Leaning back on the counter, he crossed his arms over his chest. âAt this point, I think Iâm safe. You, on the other hand⌠maybe not so much,â he nearly whispered that last part, and your desire to strangle him grew stronger.
Save me, mindfulness, you thought to yourself.
He jerked his thumb toward the pile of papers and books you had on your kitchen table. âSo, youâre a writer?âÂ
âEditor, in reality,â you snapped, your eyelids twitching as you watched him leaf through your stuff. âWade, donât touch my things.â
âSorry, canât help myself. Iâm very curious.â Flashing you a quick grin, he opened your notebook, squinting his eyes as he went through the pages. âBut you write too, huh? Iâm discovering plenty of material here.â
The bastard. âGive. It. Back,â you snarled, lunging at him and trying to snatch the notebook from his hands, but he was faster, raising it out of reach. âI hope your food explodes in that microwave, asshole.â
âOh, right. I forgot about it,â he snorted, tossing the notebook onto the couch and retrieving his dinner instead. You stared at him in disbelief, opening your mouth to scold him, but nothing came out. Then, there he was, standing in front of you with his plate and a fork.
Wait. Was that your fork?
âItâs hot, Iâll give you that.â He blew on his food to cool it down, and as he glanced up, he was met with your murderous glare. âWhoa. Want some? You couldâve just asked me. No need to get so angry.â
Calling it a desire to kill him wouldâve been an understatement. And the worst part? He couldnât die. âYouâve got what you needed. Now, can you leave?â
âHow longâs it been since you talked to another human being?â
You blinked, feeling the sudden urge to look around, half expecting a hidden camera. âWhy do you always answer with another question?â
âAll Iâm saying is Iâve been meaning to talk to you for days now, but youâre practically living the hermit life,â he said between bites of chicken, excusing himself briefly to chew. âThat robe youâre wearing? Itâs had the same stain on it since I moved in. Also, your doormatâs buried under a mountain of newspapers, so either you really love trees, or youâve been avoiding any sort of social interaction.â
If he had been wrong, you wouldâve felt much better. But he⌠wasnât, and it sucked.
âI feel like I should be scared,â you mumbled after a long stretch of silence, your eyes going round.
Wade did no more than laugh at your troubled expression. âScared of me? Thatâs cute. Iâm a nice guy, sweet pea. Persistent, sure, but Iâve got a knack for getting under peopleâs skin,â he said, grinning through a mouthful of foodâwhich, for the sake of your sanity, you chose to ignore.
After he had finished eating, he let the fork fall into the sink, the metal striking against the surface with a piercing echo, making you jump. He stretched his arms with a satisfied yawn, and he seemed determined to leave you alone. âWell, Iâve done my good deed for the day.â
âWhat do you mean?â you asked, following his movements as he ambled toward the door. âAre you telling me your microwave does work?â
âOh, youâre a smart one, arenât you?â Wade patted your head, ruffling your hair like you were a puppy who had just learned a new trick. âGood night, peanut.â
From that moment on, the two of you became inseparable. Your personalities clicked in a way youâd never experienced before with any other friend. Wade was loyal to a fault, and he treated you like the little sister he had never had.Â
Most importantly, he didnât pity youâhe saw you for who you were, not just someone marked by a lost soulmate. You never told him how much that meant to you, but deep down, you were grateful.
Which brings you to the present day. Youâve been friends with him for over a year, and heâs taken every chance to introduce you to his âweird but lovableâ (his words, not yours) group of friends.
âCheck your social anxiety at the door, thank you,â heâd tell you every time he hosted a get-together and you were invited.
Somehow, you had managed to bond with themâespecially Althea, his elderly roommate, who occasionally forgets who you are despite living next door.
âRemind me of your name again, sweetie? All this disco dust must be affecting my memory,â sheâd ask, leaning in close so youâd practically have to shout it into her ear. Then sheâd nod, smirking knowingly. âAh, yes. I thought so. Just making sure.â
Sheâs quite the character. A real sweetheart if you leave aside the number of times sheâs offered you more types of drugs than you knew existed.
Tonight, youâre throwing Wade a surprise birthday party. Among all the party tasks, youâve handled the decorations and the cake. The roomâs a riot of color, with balloons floating lazily from the ceiling and a cascade of streamers draping over the furniture.
Guests start arriving, greeting you warmly, a feeling you once thought impossible. Theyâre Wadeâs friends, sure, but on some level, you like to think theyâre your friends now too: Vanessa, Dopinder, Buck, Shatterstar, Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Yukio.
As you hear footsteps approaching the door, Wadeâs voice filters through the hallway. Panicking, you whirl around to the group. âHeâs here! Everyone shut up!â you whisper urgently, turning off the lights and pressing your back flat against the wall next to the door.
Seconds later, the sound of keys jingling fills the air as both Wade and Peter step into the apartment.
You flip the lights back on just as Dopinder pops his much-anticipated party popper. âSurprise!â you all scream in unison, and Wadeâs face splits into a grin, unsure of whom to hug first.
âYou guys are lucky Iâm not armed,â he quips, slinging an arm around Dopinderâs shoulders. âSix years ago, youâd all be dead!â
And you giggle, because⌠well, what else are you supposed to do?
As you expected, the night unfolds smoothly. Youâre having fun, engaging in conversations despite yesterdayâs emotional meltdown at the cafe. Itâll be okayâit always is. The food is amazing, the company even better. You remind yourself that romantic love isnât the only kind that mattersâthatâs what friends are for, after all, to teach you that lesson.
The low hum of chatter fills the air, punctuated by bursts of laughter and the clinking of glasses, creating a lively symphony that wraps around you like a warm blanket. Yukio calls your name, waving her head in front of your eyes, trying to snap you out of your thoughts. âEverything okay?â she wonders, concern flickering in her voice.
âYeah, Iâm fine,â you reply, tightening your grip on your beer bottle. âJust thinking, thatâs all.â
You all gather around the cake when Wadeâs about to blow the candles. You know heâs preparing himself for a speech. âAnother year of spinning around the moon, huh?â
âSun, you dumbass,â Al corrects him, and you have to bite your lip to keep your laughter to yourself.
âOkay, flat-earther,â Wade shoots back, giving her a playful side-eye. âAnyway, where was I? Oh, rightâI canât thank you all enough for being here. These past few years have been... well, rough on me, to say the least,â he says, glancing down at the cake with a small, crooked smile. âBut Iâm happy now. Weâve got each otherâs back, like a team!â
âLike The Avengers, you mean?â Dopinder pipes up, eyes sparkling with excitement. Thereâs a moment of silence in which you swear youâd be able to hear a hairpin drop.
Itâs still a sensitive topic.
âNext time, give me a trigger warning before you mention them,â Wade mutters in a hushed tone, and Dopinder shrinks sheepishly. âI guess what I wanted to tell you wasâŚâ he trails off, his palm covering the place where his heart is, âthat I'm glad youâre all here. Being surrounded by the people I love most is the best birthday gift ever.â
His words stir something inside you. Vanessa gently nudges his arm, smiling up at him. âWhy donât you make your wish?â
Wade dramatically drops to his knees in front of the cake, eyes fluttering shut before blowing out the candles, whistles and cheers erupting all around.
Just then, you hear the unmistakable sound of the doorbell ringing through the air. You exchange a curious glance with Wade, raising your eyebrows. âThatâs weird. Want me to get it?â
âNah, I got it,â he says, excusing himself to answer the door. He slips outside, shutting it behind him, and everything returns to normal. For a while, you assume heâs chatting with someone who dropped by to say hiâbut that doesnât really make sense.
âDonât you think itâs weird that heâs been out there so long?â Vanessa inquires, her worry starting to creep in.
âIâll go check on him,â you tell her, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze before heading to the door.
But when you open it, thereâs no Wade in sight. Just⌠his toupeeâor âhair systemâ as he insists on calling it, lying on the floor.
Kneeling down, you gingerly pick it up, a strange sensation settling in your chest.
Where the hell did he go?
After his existence went downhill, Logan turned to prayer.
Completely out of character, right? He thought so too. The number of times he'd stepped foot inside a church could be counted on one hand, so why would a man like him resort to religion?
In the past, he had been told he was part of Godâs plan, but somewhere along the way, he felt like he had become Godâs mistake.
After living a life plagued with loss and constantly in hiding, he wasnât shocked that his self-worth was in the gutter.
Things only spiraled after letting everyone down, especially after that particular day when things took a turn for the worse. He had prayed, asking God to make him forget.
When that didnât work, he just drank harder and smoked more. But not even drowning in alcohol and clouds of nicotine could put an end to his strugglesâhe was condemned to suffer.
In spite of everyoneâs wishes, heâs still going strong, stuck with no defined purpose. Itâs almost impossible not to fall into a routine that seeks to numb him, to put him under anesthesiaâwaking up after passing out who-knows-where, finding the nearest bar, sinking into whiskey and the haze of ashtrays.
Then he does it all over again, a never-ending cycle. His self-destructive habits donât lead him to oblivion; instead, they intensify every sensation, making each memory and emotion painfully vivid.Â
Day after day, he convinces himself heâs got it under control. Logan may be tough as fuck, and he may heal faster than anyone else, but his pride is in pieces.
No amount of strength or supernatural abilities can stop the decay he feels inside, the slow rot creeping deeper within him the longer he remains trapped in this life.
He slams the empty glass onto the counter with a heavy thud, tapping two fingers against it. âAgain,â he murmurs, his voice low and rough.
The bartender looks at him like he's the reincarnation of all things vile. âI told youâyouâre not welcome here. Youâre not welcome anywhere. Now get the fuck out of my bar.â
Oh, yes. Music to his ears. If he had a nickel for every time he heard that, heâd be rich. âJust give me one more drink and then Iâll leave.â
âThatâs not how it works,â the bartender replies, and Logan knows heâs screwed. Another public establishment heâs been banned fromâfucking perfect.
Will there ever be a day where heâs not treated like garbage?
âIt does now,â an unknown voice joins the conversation, and Logan glances to his side, arching a brow. The masked man doesnât let his stare falter. âLeave the bottle.â
âDo I know you, bub?âÂ
âYou donât, but I know you.â
This serves as evidence of how pliant heâs become. Years ago, he wouldâve already wiped the floor with this guy. They didnât call him Logan âshort fuseâ Howlett for nothing. But now? He just canât bring himself to do it.
âEverybody does. Iâm theââ
Here it comes, the reminder of his personal calvary.
ââWolverine.â Once he finishes the sentence, his words taste bitter. Perhaps itâs the venom on his tongue, or maybe itâs just the alcohol from yesterday kicking him again. Either way, both hit hard.
âYes, you are,â the stranger says, continuing to stare at him, as if Loganâs worth the effort. âAnd Iâm going to need you to come with me. Right now.â
Logan holds his breath. The worst part of it all is that his dayâs just getting started. He has no clue who this guy is or why heâs claiming to need him.
But heâs got the wrong manâLogan doesnât know him, and he sure as hell doesnât have anything good to offer.
Or so he believed five minutes ago. Life seems to have its own way of surprising him.
Knowing heâll regret it later, he closes his fingers around the whiskey bottle, chugging the liquor until darkness takes over his senses.
Nighty-night, Logan.
I'm aware that you're not mine, and nor will you ever be.
Iâve spent sleepless nights trying to figure out
where this need to call you mine stems from.Â
You're like an antique, a rare piece displayed
in a crowded bazaar, drawing curious glances.
Iâm aware that you're not mine
because I haven't bought you yet;
I hold no claim over you,
nor can I control who touches you and who doesn't.
I want you to be mine,
but no amount of money would buy your soul.
You're beyond reachâsomeone has already marked you.
Iâm aware that youâre not mine,Â
and I guess maybe thatâs how life is meant to be.
âBullshit,â you mutter softly into the quiet of your apartment, where the only sound is the echo of your own voice.
Chewing the end of your pen, your eyes narrow as they skim over the poem youâd written over a month ago.
Since then, youâve been working on refining the details, but something is missingâthat you can feel. The flow is awkward, the choice of words stiff. Itâs like a puzzle that doesnât quite fit together.Â
You take a long sip from your coffee, tucking both knees up onto the chair you're sitting in. 7:30 a.m., and already, your mind is spinning, diving headfirst into a poem when countless other things are demanding your attentionâlike, a hundred things, really.
Right now, cracking this piece feels more important than any other task on your list.
Who do you write to? That part is easyâyour soulmate. That deceased, probably buried, long-gone soulmate of yours.
It shouldnât be funny, but thereâs an absurdity to it.
Without warning, a memory slips into your thoughtsâone girl you used to work with once advising you to change the subject of your writing.
âYou should go for some self-love crap. People usually eat that up,â she said, not even bothering to look up from her nails, red polish smeared over the edges.
Her fingers were a mess, coated in that fiery hue, but she didnât seem to care as she tapped your notebook with her lacquered index finger. âThis is repetitive. Keep writing about the same thing, and people will get bored of you.â
âI havenât published them yet,â you answered, your voice coming out more high-pitched than usual, betraying the doubt you intended to suppress. Her blue eyes flicked up, studying your face as you slid the now red-stained notebook back into your bag, away from her careless, messy fingers. âI thought��� I thought we were supposed to write about what we feel passionate about.â
That managed to catch her attention. Passionate. She let out a laughâsharp and cold, like something straight out of a villainâs script in a childrenâs movie. It grated against your ears.
âSweetie, you call that passionate?â She waved her hand dismissively, standing up from the table.
Taller, older, and more secureâjust the fact that she gave you her time shouldâve made you feel grateful. âNot to be a bitch, but what you showed me is kind of depressing.âÂ
Kind of depressing. From that moment on, you kind of hated her. Small victories, thoughâthe agency fired her a year later. You like to think you kind of won that battle.
Still, she mightâve been right about one thing: your writing does fall into patterns. Itâs predictable, to say the leastâthe rhythm, the themes. Even the metaphors you include can be found in several of your poems.
Are you⌠lazy? Has someone revealed the way to break out of it? If there is, you figure you're fine without it.
You donât want to write the kind of articles sheâd churn out about the latest trends or the five best positions to get pregnant faster. Nor do you want to pick apart celebrities' lives for a flashy headline.
What you do want is to write about love. Real love. Even if you are not the most qualified person to do it. Even if nobody wants to read the words from someone who has never experienced it in the flesh.
And youâll get thereâhow? Youâre still figuring that out.
As long as you live and breathe, love will remain in your thoughts, haunting youâespecially with your muse being the fleeting dream of a soulmate you never got to meet in the first place.
But itâs time to start your dayâthe real one. The one where you have to step outside the safety of your four walls and deal with reality.
The to-do list assembles in your mind: groceries, that book youâve been meaning to pick up, emails you need to answer.
You let your mind take over, guiding you through the motions without a second thought. As you head back to your room, you get rid of the comfortable robe you love so much.
Next, your shirt comes off, tossed carelessly onto the bed. Just as you're about to step out of your pajama pants, you notice them.
The scars.
Theyâre not the same, not the faded lines etched into your skin that you could see every night behind your eyelids. New marks glow against your flesh, each one a map of something you donât yet understand, standing out like new brushstrokes on an old canvas.
You canât help but freeze, your breath faltering for a moment, and you nearly trip over yourself. Kicking your pants to the side, you stare down at your hips, thighs, the hollow of your ribcage.Â
Tentatively, you press your fingers into the lines, expecting them to fade, to disappear under your touch like some peculiar illusion.
But they donât. They remain. You can feel the raised edges, the subtle roughness, the heat beneath your touch.
These scars are different from the ones you had before. Under no circumstances are they the faint memories you once carried. Noâthese are fresh and vibrant. Marks that shouldnât exist, the stories theyâve witnessed unfamiliar to you.
Within seconds, youâre sobbing, and you blink through the wetness clouding your vision, wiping your tears of disbelief (and maybe hope?) away with the back of your hand.
Nothing changes. Theyâre still there.
You've never heard of scars returning like this. It goes against everything in the manual on your shelf. Scars vanish when a soulmate dies, but they donât come back. Not like this. And they certainly donât change.Â
Barely able to stand without stumbling, you scramble to your phone. The first person you call is your mom, your fingers shaking as you press the buttons. She screams into the phone, and all you can do is laugh through the tears.
What doesnât sit right with her is the change in the scars. She mentions something about reaching out to a specialist, insisting that your case is rareâone in a million.
Almost immediately, you think of Wade, knowing heâd want to hear this. God, heâd be ecstatic. Before you even realize it, youâre standing in front of his door, finger hovering over the bell.
Thatâs when the realization hits you: heâs been gone for nearly three days, off doing whatever it is he does.
Ringing the bell, a smile tugs at your lips. News like these are meant to be shared.
âAlthea, itâs me!â you call out, hoping sheâll hear you. You press your forehead against the door, fidgeting with your fingers. âI have something to tell you.â
Logan has had better days. Days that didnât involve escaping The Void, fighting a hundred Wades, or saving an earth that wasnât even his to begin with.
You know, normal daysâof being sneered at while drinking to forget and, fuck, how many hours has he been sober? It feels like an eternity.
When the adrenaline wears off and the heroism fades, heâs back to being just Logan again. If he had a watch, heâd probably tap the glass and fake impatience to Wade, pretending heâs got somewhere else to be.
He should leave. Thatâs his first impulse: to escape before itâs too late, but a question arises in his mind: does he truly want to?
Wade watches as Logan rises to his feet, planning to walk away. Pretty stupid, Logan thinks, considering he knows no one else in this universeâapart from the scarred man heâs become friends with against his will.
âLogan!â Wade yells his name, his voice light but firm enough to halt him in his tracks. Logan turns to face him, greeted by Wadeâs familiar, infuriating smile.
It's a silent invitation to a new beginning.
Nothingâs holding him back, so why not accept it? The odds of being the target of hateful glares are lower here, and thatâs reason enough for Logan to give a small tilt of his head and return to the bench where Wade remains seated.
âWeâre gonna be roommates!â the latter exclaims, a wide grin stretching across his face as they head toward the building. âCan you imagine all the fun weâll have?â
Logan presses his lips into a thin line. âLooking forward to it,â he murmurs, a small glimmer of sarcasm slipping into his tone, although Wade takes his words at face value.
âMe too, roomie. Me too.â
âLetâs not use that word.â
Wade holds the door open for Logan with an exaggerated bow. âWhy not? Itâs the truth. We can even share my bed if thatâsââ
The sound of Loganâs claws succeeds in silencing him. Wade recoils and covers his crotch, no doubt remembering past close calls.
âYou know what? You can have the bed. Iâll take the couch. No problem.â
Was moving in with Wade the worst idea heâs had in a while? Absolutely. The reason? Althea, the elderly woman he lives with, isnât answering the door, and he doesnât have his keys.
Logan covers his eyes with a hand, silently questioning all of his life choices. And itâs only been ten minutes.
âThis doesnât happen often,â Wade reassures him, rubbing his neck.
âHard to believe,â Logan mutters, some unknown muscle in his jaw beginning to ache from how hard heâs gritting his teeth. âYou just leave the house without your fucking keys?â
Wade huffs, jutting out a hip in mock offense. âThose TVA guys didnât exactly send a âWeâre here to ruin your dayâ memo. I was ambushed, okay?â he retorts, keeping a finger glued to the doorbell, its shrill ring gnawing at Loganâs already thin patience. âAl, I swear to God, Iâm replacing your blood pressure pills with laxatives if you donât wake up!â
âHow old is she?â Logan asks, searching for anything to keep him from snapping the other manâs neck. Peaceful thoughts.
âCompared to you, sheâs basically a newborn,â Wade replies, rocking back and forth on his heels. Heâs having the time of his lifeâmeanwhile, Loganâs self-control is reaching its limit.
His claws twitch in his knuckles. Heâs had enough, and with a jerk of his left hand, they gleam as they slide out, ready to break the damn door.Â
But then Wade jumps in front of him.
âWhoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there, buddy! Iâm not letting you turn my door into a strainer.â
âMove,â Logan barks, not an ounce of friendliness in his tone. His stare is flat, unfazed.
âIâd rather not. You canât just go around breaking peopleâs doors, man. Not cool,â Wade blurts quickly, placing both hands on Loganâs chest, pushing him away. âHow about I ask my neighbor, huh? I gave her a spare set of keys for situations like these.â
âI thought you said this didnât happen often.â
âWell, lifeâs full of disappointments.â
Before Logan can answer back, Wade rushes to the door next to his, slamming his fist on it like a madman, his finger hammering the doorbell simultaneously.
The devilâs orchestraâa symphony straight from hell.
Logan grabs Wadeâs wrist before he can knock again, hissing: âHave some manners, will you?âÂ
Wade tries to shake his arm free from Loganâs tight grip. âSheâs in there. I know it,â he replies in the same tone, but now he uses his other hand to ring the doorbell with greater feeling.
After a pause, he stamps his foot on the floor, throwing his head back. âCome on! Is this how you treat me after being away? Shame on you, Missy!â
This neighbor must be very patient, Logan thinks, to keep up with a guy like Wade without often seeing red.
As the door finally swings open, his grip on Wade loosens, and his hand falls limply to his side.
âWhat⌠the fuck?â
The sound of your voiceâsoft, slightly groggy from sleepâpulls his attention away from the door incident. His gaze is fixed entirely on youâyou look as if youâve just rolled out of bed, which makes sense since itâs still early.
Back in The Void, Wade had rambled on about all his friends, you included. Logan recalls how he had described you: a book editor who lived on her own and loved reading. You were youngerâbut then again, who wasnât younger than him?
The picture Wade had shown him, with you standing in the background, hadnât done you justice. He had found you attractive then, but seeing you in person?
Youâre⌠far more than he expected.
More beautiful, for starters.
Fuck. Why is he even thinking about that? He mustâve been staring at you for quite a whileâyou glance at him like a startled lamb, clearly feeling self-conscious under his unwavering stare.
âMay I know,â you start, tightening your robe, âwhy you were banging on my door like that? I thought I was getting robbed for a minute.â You direct your question at Wade, avoiding Loganâs presence, which makes something tighten in his chest.
He finds the way you stifle a yawn endearing, though.
Okay, thatâs enough, he tells his mind. Let it go.
Wade steps in first, dropping his mask on the nearest surface. âHello, my dear. Oh, yes, Iâm fine. Just a few scratches. No, I wasnât partyingâI was kidnapped. Thanks for asking.â
You draw in a long breath, rubbing your eyes to wake up once and for all, and then you proceed to gesture for Logan to enter. Even now, you find it difficult to maintain eye contact with him. âDo youâwould you like to come in?â
Not only are you pretty, but also polite. He nods, muttering a gruff: âYeah, thank you.â
As he walks past you, your shoulders brush briefly, sending an unexpected jolt through him. A tingling sensation on the verge of being electrifying that has him knitting his brows.
His gaze finds yours, searching your expression to see if you felt it too. But you look away, closing the door to go after Wade.
Great. You must think heâs a weirdo.Â
âIâm always up for company, but why so early?â you ask your friend, rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. âAnd are you going to tell me what happened the other day? You left without saying anything.â
Wade hops onto a stool at the kitchen counter, swinging his legs like a child. âYou know Al. When it comes to sleeping, sheâs like a much older version of Sleeping Beauty,â he replies with a grin, snatching the mug you were about to use for your morning coffee. âThanks, youâre such a doll.â
âThat wasâmine,â you sigh, hitting him in the thigh, and Wade winces with a fake whine. âI donât think Iâve missed you that much. Go back to being missing in action,â you say, grabbing another mug and filling it before raising it toward Logan. âCoffee?â
Logan hesitates. Youâre treating him like youâve known him for years, not minutes. âIâm�� good.â
âYou sure? I made it fresh, just before you guys arrived.â
âDonât worry, Iâmââ
âI love the chemistry here,â Wade interrupts your conversation, drawing your attention back to him, âbut you still got the keys I gave you, right?â
You roll your eyes, blowing on your steamy coffee before answering. âI do, but I want answers first. And I want them now.â
Twenty minutes and a rambling, half-coherent story later, your drink has gone cold, and Loganâs patience is wearing thin⌠again.
Will he survive sleeping under the same roof as Wade? Stay tuned for more.
âAnd then I told Paradox âHe has risen, babygirlâââ
âI think youâre being too specific,â Logan interjects, noting how youâre staring into space with wide eyes. âShe seems confused.â
âI am,â you admit, rubbing your temples. He doesnât blame you: Wadeâs a terrible storyteller. You offer him a weak smile as you turn to him. âSo⌠youâre from another universe.â
âLast time I checked.â His back collapses against the couch, groaning softly. He sits beside you, and the way your eyes sweep over him, taking in his disheveled and sweaty appearance, doesnât go unnoticed by him.
âAnd how is it? I mean, do you haveââ
âIâm public enemy number one.â
Too harsh, idiot.
âOh. Thatâs⌠good to know.â
Wade says your name, and you look to your right, lifting your brows. âDo you mind if I grab the keys myself? I need a shower. Iâve been marinating in sweat and blood for way too long.â
You grimace, pointing toward your room. âTop drawer of my nightstand.â
With that, he embarks on a quest to find them, leaving Logan alone with you. Silence stretches between you two.
He doesnât know what to say, or if he should even say anything. Casual conversation isnât his forte.
âYou and WadeâŚ?â
Letting out a giggle, you lean back on the couch. âGod, no. Weâre just friends,â you explain, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. For a fleeting moment, your eyes bore into his, and then you return to burning holes in the floor. âIâm single. Havenât found my soulmate yet.â
Itâs his turn to chuckle nowâa dark, humorless sound rumbling in his chest. You chew on a cuticle, Loganâs gesture igniting a sense of curiosity in you.
âWhat?â you ask him, puzzled.
âDo you really believe in that? Soulmates who share scars?â If he were to think carefully, heâd watch his tone. Itâs too late, anywayâyou straighten your posture, your face contorting with each passing second. âI can tell you do.â
âAnd I can tell you donât.â
âWhy would I? Those are lies,â he retorts, the corners of his mouth turning upward.
His opinion is anything but objective, totally biased, given that every time he dove into loveâs arms, he was met with the crude reality: not everyoneâs meant to be loved, himself included.
The look you give him is enough to wipe the smirk off his face.Â
âSoulmates exist, Logan. We all have one.â Thereâs a certainty in your tone, marked by the subtle way in which you say his name, that he finds alluring. He shouldnât, especially when you seem angry above all.Â
âAnd where is yours, then?â
He regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth. Your expression becomes inscrutable. You could be either disappointed, frustrated, or even exasperatedâsad, perhaps?
Logan feels as though a weight has settled on his shoulders just from staring into your eyes.
You strike back with silence. Plain, pure, dreadful silence that has him wondering if heâs breathing properly.
At long last, Wade comes back from his expedition, keys dangling from his fingers. âIt was quite the treasure hunt, you know? Youâve got a lot of garbage in there.â He sticks his face between Loganâs and yours when you don't answer him. âGuys, is there something wrong? Are you doing a staring contest? If so, can I join?â
âI need to start getting ready for work,â you announce, standing up from the couch. Logan mimics you, and you open the door, your fingers curling around the knob. âYou should get going. And Wade,â you pause, acknowledging only him, âI need to talk to you later. In private.â
Without Logan. Thatâs what you wanted to say but didnât.
âSure, my queen. I live to serve,â Wade says in rejoinder, and he kisses your forehead briefly, which forces Logan to avert his gaze the whole time his lips are on you, feeling uncomfortable watching. âTake care, alright?âÂ
You give Wade a small nod, waiting until heâs outside your apartment to glance at Logan.
âGoodbye,â you croak, and he knows he should say something, that heâ
The door almost closes on his nose.
Had he been an asshole? He was merely expressing his thoughts. The idea of soulmates didnât sit well with him.
Once settled into Wadeâs apartment, Logan steps into the shower, water rinsing off his body. Yet he finds himself unable to stop thinking about you.
The disappointment in your eyes when he asked about your soulmate.
The coldness in your tone at the end, so different from the warmth you initially offered.
He feels drawn to you, as if some sort of invisible string is tying the two of you. Were it possible, he would use his own claws to cut it, but he canât discern where it begins or ends. Instead, he prefers to blame his touch-starved state for this reaction.Â
Heâs already hating this earth. So much for a man whose skin refuses to scar.
And where is yours, then?
His words shouldnât have stung the way they did. All the charmâthe gruff exterior, the mysterious personalityâhad vanished.
The guy from another universe, with the claws, the healing abilities, and the raspy voice, is a moron.
A ridiculously good-looking moron? Yes, but a moron nonetheless.
There is something about him you canât quite place. A chill creeps down your spine as you replay the instant your eyes first locked. Your body had reacted in ways it never had before, drawn to him like metal to a magnet.
Why? Youâd seen handsome men before, even been with some. Yet, youâve never felt thisâthis gravitational pull, this inexplicable pull to invade someoneâs personal space.
How would your soulmate feel if he saw you like this, lusting after another man?
You shudder at the thought. This isnât like you. You pride yourself on loyaltyâperhaps a little too much. You donât read two books at the same time, and youâve been buying the same brand of shampoo for the past five years.
So why now? Why him? It feels like a betrayal of your own mind, your conscience turned against you.
Let things stay as they areâitâs safer that way. You donât want to know the reason behind this forceful need.
After all, being his grumpy and ill-tempered self, heâll stay holed up in Wadeâs apartment, avoiding any interaction with the real world. And you? Youâll forget about him. Easy-peasy.
That afternoon, as you take a nap on the couch, he invades your dreams. Itâs not even a wet dream, but heâs there, staking a claim on a part of you he has no right to.
You wake up with your hand clutching your chest, a frustrated punch landing on the nearest cushion.
The next day, you drop by Wadeâs place for a quick visit, your eyes darting around the room every few seconds, half-expecting Logan to appear out of nowhere.
âI told you, heâs sleeping. That guyâs got a fucked up sleep schedule,â Wade says, urging you to take a seat beside him at the table. âWhy donât you wanna see him?â
Because heâs messing with your sanity. Your brain cells are practically disintegrating at the mere thought of breathing the same air as him.
âI justâI need to tell you something.â
âAre you pregnant?â
âWhat? Wade, no! Youâve been gone for three daysâpregnancies take months.â
âIâd make an amazing uncle, though.â He grabs your hand between his, his eyes sparkling with mischief. âBabies are so adorable at thatââ
âMy scars are back,â you cut him off, putting an end to his nonsense. Pulling the neck of your sweater to the side, you show him the thin lines etched into your collarbone. âBut they are different this time.â
âDifferent? You mean they changed?â His disbelief is clear as he reaches for your arm, frowning while he inspects more of your scars. Wadeâs jaw slackens, color draining out of his face. âFuck. Fuck!â
âFuck?â
âYeah, fuck!â His strong arms envelop you, and you lean into the embrace, resting your cheek against his shoulder. âIs this good news? Are we happy? Does this mean I have a shot at becoming an uncle after all?â
You laugh a little at his eagerness, rubbing gentle circles into his back. âI am happy. I justâI donât know what these changes mean yet.â
Althea steps out of the bathroom, her cane tapping the floor in rhythmic beats. âI already told you what they mean.â
Wade pulls away from you, glaring at her. âYou meddler! Havenât we talked about not eavesdropping? Hasnât life taught you anything after all these decades?â
âUpside of being blind: Iâve never seen this motherfucker in Crocs,â she says, pointing her cane at you, though you know her aim is Wade. âDownside of being blind: I hear everything in this apartment. And you, kid, have a new soulmate.â
âI know what we talked about the other day, but... it doesnât make sense, Al. You only get one soulmate,â you protest, feeling the tension grow as you pace around the table. âWhy canât it just be simple? My friends are getting engaged, years are flying by, and Iâm still out here chasing this⌠this idiot who no one can even find!â
Thatâs when Logan appears, emerging from his room, holding several empty beer cans. He rolls his eyes and walks straight into the kitchen. âGreat. Who else is coming tonight?â
Wade smirks, clapping a hand on Loganâs shoulder as he looks at you. âSweetie, Loganâs going through his second puberty at the ripe old age of two hundred. The pediatrician said itâs just hormones, nothing to worry about. Excuse his shitty attitude.â
With a low groan, Logan shrugs off Wadeâs hand, scowling. If anything, the younger manâs grin just grows bigger. âWolvie, I gotta admit that whole âDonât fall in love with me or Iâll break your heartâ personality shouldnât turn me on, but here we are.â
You decide to take that as your cue to leave. You grab your bag, muttering a quick goodbye to Althea as you head for the door.
But Logan calls after you. âCan we talk?â
You freeze, your back to him. âHow much did you hear?â you ask, not daringânot being ableâto meet his gaze.
âAll of it,â he admits after a beat, and you curse under your breath. âBut it doesnâtâHey!â He follows you into the hallway. âIâm talking to you!â
âNo, youâre not.â You fumble for your keys, fingers shaking as you try to unlock your door. âLeave me alone.â
âI wonât,â he mumbles behind you, his voice softer now. âCome on. Donât be so harsh.â
âI canât believe you,â you whisper, finally finding the right key and jiggling it into the lock. The door swings open, and you step into the safety of your apartment. But when you try to close it, Loganâs foot wedges into the gap, blocking it. âGet out.â
He doesnât budge. âNo.â
âLogan, Iâm not in the mood.â
âWell, me neither. But I owe you an apology.â
You wonder if he realizes the hold he has on you. No matter how hard you try to mask it, the unbearable pounding of your heart betrays you.
Scanning his features, you trace the rugged contours of his face with your eyes, lingering on the lines on his foreheadâthe aftermath of what it looks like a life lived through bitterness and pain.
âCan I come in?â he insists, his tone on the verge of sounding pleading.
You hesitate. The sensible part of you screams to send him away. Thinking that avoiding him would be as easy as stealing candy from a baby is a long-forgotten idea now: youâd been naĂŻve to even consider it possible.
Heâs going to find a way to sneak into your space, your homeâand youâll let him in. Youâll grant him a chance to cross a boundary that shouldâve been already drawn.
It feels like youâre fifteen again, infatuated with the guy you know you shouldnât get close to. Paul from high school wasnât your soulmate back thenâLogan isnât now.
The smart thing would be to take a step back, accept his apology, and ask him to leave. Thatâs how you preserve what little remains of your sanity and protect your heart, which is already hanging by a thread.
But God, it feels so good to be near him.
You step aside. He walks in. Something tells you this wonât be the last time.
âIâm waiting.â You stay near the counter, pressing your back against it, and keeping your distance. Logan sits awkwardly on the edge of your couch, unsure of where to begin.
âLook, about what I said yesterdayâŚI didnât mean it. Iâm sorry.â He sounds sincere, earnest. âI didnât know you believed in soulmates.â
âItâs not a matter of believing in them or not, Logan. My soulmate is out thereâyours too.â
Your words coax a grin from him, and he shakes his head. âI guess weâll never see eye to eye on that.â In a fluid motion, he crosses the room, and you find his unexpected proximity a bit exasperating. âDo you forgive me?â
âIâll think about it.â
âGive me a break, darlinâ. Iâm trying my best.â
âWell, you were an asshole.â
âYes.â
âThe first time we exchanged words.â
âAlso yes.â
âAnd now youâre apologizing.â
âPositive. I just did.â
Itâs not that youâre easyâitâs Loganâs persuasive allure that gets to you.
âWhat else can I do to win your forgiveness?â he wonders aloud, his syrupy voice making you tighten your grip on the counter.
An idea sparks in your mind. You move toward the pile of books next to the TV, eyeing the titles, until one catches your attention: your copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontĂŤ, one of the first novels youâd read when you were younger.
Itâs adorned with colorful post-its, and the pages, sort of rough to the touch, are marked with handwritten notes in the margins.
âHow do you feel about reading?â
âNot my strongest suit,â he answers, arching a brow as he takes in your enthusiasm. âWhatâs going on in that head of yours?â
âYou want me to believe youâre sorry for what you said? Then read this,â you say, wiggling the book in front of him, âand we can start over.â
âWhat is it about? Let me guess: love and soulmates. Did I get it right?â he asks, playfulness lacing his tone. His breath hitches as you press the book against his chest, silently urging him to take it. His pinky grazes your hand, feeling your skin and sending a jolt through you.
Logan watches you with half-lidded eyes, and it takes every ounce of willpower to tear yourself away from him and his maddening touch.
You clear your throat. âOpen it to page one hundred fifty-three.â
âDo youâyou remember specific pages?â
âAnd read whatâs underlined in black,â you murmur, eyes fluttering closed for an instant. âPlease.â
Logan must mutter something along the lines of âYouâve got to be kidding meâ before searching for it. Itâs only then that he begins to recite the passage:
He is not to them what he is to me. He is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine; â I am sure he is â I feel akin to him â I understand the language of his countenance and movements; though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered: â and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.
Youâve chosen a damn good page.
Logan looks up from the book, his mouth slightly parted, as if heâs about to speak. You interject before he can find the words.
âYouâve got a week to read it.â
âHow long is it again?â
âFour hundred pages.â
He surrenders, sighing in defeat. âYouâre killing me here, yâknow?â
âWrite an opinion essay if possible.â
Right there, Logan offers you a mock laugh. âHaha. Thatâs so funny.â
âIt is for me,â you talk back, unable to hide your smile from him, and soon he mirrors your expression.Â
As Logan steps toward the door, he hesitates and glances back. âWeâre all good then?â
Leaning against the doorframe, you raise your chin defiantly. âWeâll be when you finish the book.â
What he says next has your stomach turning into knots. âYouâre trouble.â His tone shiftsâno longer teasing, but grounded in truth. Gone are the jokes; he seems to mean every word.
For the rest of the night, one line from the book doesnât stop echoing in your mindâthe line about soulmates: I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him.Â
Youâre trouble for him, and heâs trouble for you. You hope he knows it too.
He thought that not seeing you for a week would snuff out his feelings. That by next Wednesday, every thought tied to your name, every urge to uncover the last of your secrets, would be extinguished.
That's what time usually did: it diminished dangerous desires that couldn't afford to be voiced, and buried those longings that had no place in the light of day.
Logan now figures heâs been underestimating the spell you cast on him with just a few glances and the intensity of your eyes. Heâs seen you animated, angryâboth defiant and vulnerable.
Each of your gestures feels like a memory he canât quite place.
The way you laugh, the right corner of your mouth lifting just slightly higher than the leftâhe swears it isnât the first time he's seen a smile brighter than the sun.
Still, he convinces himself itâs all in his head. He must be the one losing his mind, the years finally catching up to him. Itâs the only reasonable explanation for the thoughts that consume his every waking moment.
Heâs wrongâyouâre right. Heâs seeing things where there are noneâyouâre simply too kind.
Too kind. Too young. Too damn clever for your own good, with your books and that sharp mind of yours. He wonders how you see yourself.
Do you like the reflection in the mirror? Are you content with the way your life has turned out?
Do you, too, lie awake at night, the bed stretching endlessly, aching for a touch that never comes?
The walls in this place are paper-thin. When darkness falls, and the moon rises, the big, scary Wolverine canât close his eyes.
Instead, he listens.
Some nights, you play the same movie on repeatâa romantic comedy that lasts exactly one hundred and twenty minutes. For two hours straight, heâs privy to your laughter, your commentary at the characters on the screen.
He hears you cry when the lead couple drifts apart after a terrible argument, but they always find their way back to each other, and you watch every second until the credits roll.
None of the other films you pick ever ends in heartbreak, he realizes. They all have happy endingsâthe kind you wish for yourself.
One way or another, there must be a way to get you out of his system. He knows, without a doubt, that you wouldnât want him. Heâs not your soulmate, and itâs clear that finding that person has become the center of your existence.
Logan canât allow himself to be the moron who derails your purpose.
Sure, heâs done bad things, but he likes to believe that at least a part of himâsome small fractionâhasnât been lost yet. That thereâs a piece of him that can be saved, which is the reason why he stayed here: to be a better man than the one he was in his universe.
But itâs hard. Harder still because itâs you who disrupts his quest for redemption. How is he supposed to go on with his life when every thought circles back to you? The idea of holding you, kissing youâsleeping beside you haunts him.
And so the images blur, new dreams twisting with his usual nightmares.
Which one is worse, he can no longer tell.
One afternoon, while deliberately steering clear of Jane Eyre, he reluctantly turns to Wade in search of answers. âTell me more about her.â
Wade, lounging on the couch, stops scrolling on his phone and drops it onto his chest, drawing his eyebrows together.
âHer? Who do you mean?â His tone oozes with feigned innocence, barely containing a shit-eating grin when Logan grits out your name, his tone rough, almost pained. âOh, Romeo. Youâve got it bad.â
Intending to maintain some semblance of control, Logan strides into the kitchen, grabbing a glass and the last bottle of whiskey. As he tips it, only a few drops fall into the glass.
âNo, I donât,â he says, extending his arm and holding the bottle up. âWeâre out of whiskey.â
âYou keep saying we, but youâre the only alcoholic in this apartment.â Wade kicks off his shoes, propping his feet on the coffee table. âSo, why the sudden interest in the lady? She getting through that tough exterior of yours? Iâll give her points for that.â
âAnd you wonder why I donât talk to you.â
âI saw the book,â the younger man replies, lacing his fingers behind his head, watching as Logan rummages through the fridge with increasing frustration. âYou never told me you were into classics. If Iâd known, Iâd have gotten you a copy of Pride and Prejudice.â
âShut your mouth.â
âIâm sorry, werenât you the one who came to me, looking for the essential oil of truth?â
The silence that follows is thick and uncomfortable, mood-killing.
âSee what I just did there?â he adds, and Logan feels forced to shake his head from side to side, appearing conflicted. Wade lets out a low huff. âThat was Virginia Woolf. Add her to your reading list.â
âHas anyone ever told you how obnoxious you are?â
âMore times than I can count. Iâm just not everyoneâs cup of coffee.â
âTea, Wade. Not everyoneâs cup of tea.â
âWhatever.â Wade simpers, as though Loganâs correction is the punchline to a joke only he gets. He sets his palms flat on the table, looming closer with a mischievous glint in his eyes. âSo, what would you like to know about my dear friend?â
Logan hesitates, the weight of his question heavy on his tongue. âWhatâs the deal with her scars?â
The air shifts. Wadeâs playful expression fades and he tilts his head, his tone turning serious. âI donât think itâs my story to tell,â he begins, gaze dropping to the floor. âBut she lost them years ago. She was living a normal life, and one day, they were justâgone, like they were never there. It broke her. We didnât know each other back then, but youâve seen her.â
Wadeâs eyes flick back up, while Logan stands there, tongue-tied. âYou even know the kind of books she readsânothing can shake that belief in real love, in soulmates being destined. Imagine how she mustâve felt when she found out her presumed soulmate was dead⌠without a single warning.â
From what he had heard, that sense of loss was impossible to put into words. Those whoâd gone through it described the experience as if half of youâyour body, your soul, your very essenceâwas being ripped away.
The pain was excruciating, and the only way to survive it was by means of tolerating itâno remedy, just the endurance to outlast the agony.
It wasnât just a momentary hurt. It was the kind of torment that lingered, making you question who you were and what little remained of you.
You and Logan had more in common than heâs willing to admit.
âSheâs a good person,â he mutters absent-mindedly, his thumb grazing the cover of the book. He had carried it everywhere for a week now, without even cracking it open.
âOh, you dirty pigâŚâ Wade whispers, his eyes lighting up as if a lightbulb suddenly went off in his mind. âNow I get it. You wanna know her. Like, really know her!â
âI donâtââ
âYour sex life is none of my business. Iâm all up for you putting your mutant dick to work, otherwise itâs just wasted potential. But itâs my friend weâre talking about.â
Loganâs jaw tightens, and he snaps. âDrop the speech, alright? Iâm not trying to get into her pants. I just want to be nice. Thatâs all.â
âNice, huh? Whatâs your version of nice? Starting a two-person book club?â Wade stifles a laugh, pressing a finger to Loganâs chest. âLook, if you want to sleep with her, and the feelingâs mutual, then go for it. Just tell me thisâhow longâs it been since you visited Pussy Village? Was it before or after the Big Bang?â
Things are never truly serious with Wade Wilson. âIâm not answering that.â
Wade raises both hands in surrender, still chuckling. âFine, fine. But if youâre really interested, just be clear about it. She doesnât need a half-assed situationship.â
By now, itâs like a mantra he repeats again and again, hoping that eventually both Wade and he will start to believe it. âI donât want to have sex with her.â
As he heads back to his (now Wadeâs old) room, Wade adds, âIâm sure sheâd appreciate it if you underlined some quotes you like.â
Much to his dismay, thatâs exactly what Logan does.
His handwriting isnât the most legible, but he tries his best, leaving notes in the margins of some pages, such as:
I hate this John kid.
Her aunt is a cunt.
This is too cheesy.
Mr. Rochesterâs married?
St. Johnâwhat a prick.
He finishes the book at 7 a.m. A long-ass bookâjust for you. While getting ready for work, Wade calls him an unemployed fucker, and Logan knows nothing better than to shoot back a similar insult, stretching his arms as the first rays of sunlight creep through the curtains.
Wade was right about something, even if Logan himself doesnât wish to admit it: heâs behaving like a teenagerâstaying up until dawn, practically chained to the bed without daring to go out. Falling for a girl he didnât know a week ago.
Learning to control his impulses has been a hard task, especially with his temperament. Over the years, Logan thought heâd mastered the art of self-restraint, long past the point where his body moved without his mindâs permission.
As his feet carry him down the hall toward your apartment, he recognizes how wrong he is.
This is a terrible idea, he thinks. And yet, his fist knocks on the wood. Three times.
Fuck.
The door opens just a crack. You peek out, your face barely visible, eyes puffy from sleep. âLogan?â
His name isnât a fancy one. Itâs pretty normal, pretty standard. There must be a thousand other guys named like himâyet itâs only when you say it, your voice turning it into something rare and unique, that it feels different, like itâs only his.
The tone you use with him isnât the one heâs used to: Logan, youâre a disappointment. Logan, how dare you turn your back on your friends? Logan, theyâre all dead. Logan, itâs your fault.
Yours is inviting, and warm, and new. He likes new.
âI just finished it,â he answers, holding up the book, mindful not to grip it too tight as not to crumple the pages.
You scratch the back of your head, blinking at him. âYou just finished it⌠at 7 a.m.?
Yeah, it sounds stupid now that you say it out loud, but itâs true. Hoping his reaction is enough to explain what he canât put into words, he gives you a slow nod.
This time, you donât wait for him to say more. âCome in?â
Yes, this is what heâs been looking forward all week. This moment, this interaction.
This Come in. This Yes, thank you. Youâre so kind.
His quiet acceptance of your invitation, the unpronounced thought of I donât deserve this, but I canât back off now, because how could I ever say no to you?
He follows you into the kitchen as you move to make tea. âWant some?â you ask, but he declines the offer. If he were to drink anything right now, it would be something much stronger, not tea, despite the early hour. âYouâre here to talk about the book?â
âWell, you told me I could come back after reading it.â
âI did,â you say, a small smile tugging at your lips as you hide it behind your mug. âI just wasnât expecting you to be so punctual.â
You donât need to know that heâs been counting down the seconds, marking each minute in his mind since the last time he saw you. Thatâs a detail heâll keep to himself. âItâs a good story.â
âTell me about it.â You smile even wider, and he takes a moment to absorb the details of your faceâthe crinkles by your eyes, the way your nose scrunches when youâre amused. âI lent you my most precious book. Fell in love with it years ago.â
âI can see why you liked it,â he explains, flipping through the pages to find the one he marked. âAll the romance and the yearningââ
âHey, itâs also good for other reasons,â you try to defend yourself, but any other argument dies on your lips when he finds the passage he was looking for and begins to read aloud.
âI sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you, especially when you are near me, as now,â he recites, his voice lower, almost reverent, as he looks up from the page to meet your gaze. âIt is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your frame.â
You seem startled by the sharp sound of him closing the book. Heâs sort of breathless, and from where he stands, he can tell you are too. âThatâs one of my favorite passages.â
âI canât blame you for believing in soulmates if this is the kind of thing you read growing up,â he teases, handing the book back to you.
Though a part of him almost wishes he didnât have toâso that it would still be a reason, a tether, pulling him back to you again and again.
Grinning, you take it, your eyes remaining trained on his. âI happen to notice it hasnât changed your perspective on soulmates.â
âItâll take more than a book.â
âThis is, in my opinion, one of the best love stories ever written. How else will I convince you?â
âWhy do you feel like you need to convince me?â He takes a step forwardâyou take a step back. âWhy canât it be the other way around? I might end up being the one who convinces you.â
âYou could never,â you respond, clasping your hands behind your back. âIt would be like convincing me the sky is green instead of blue.â
Logan retreats slightly. âDonât you get tired?â
âOf what?â
âOf waiting. Of always being on the lookout.â
You donât react badly to his question. Youâre not even shaken, not fazed in the slightest. âWhen I meet him, Iâll know all the waiting was worth it.â
âAnd in the meantime?â Logan inquires, pressing himself further into your intimacy, edging closer as if testing the boundaries youâre willing to cross. His words are a subtle request for more, for answers. âWhat will you do until you find him?â
If you ever do, he thinks, but itâs left unsaid, lingering in his thoughts. Heâs getting better at not saying the things that sit heavy in his chest without thinking.
âI think you misunderstand, Logan.â You study him through your lashes, and he feels heâs become the keeper of your most sacred secrets. âItâs not about waiting as if my lifeâs on pause. Iâve been with other people. But in the end, I want to choose him.â
That casual admission strikes him like a wave of cold water. A flicker of jealousy burns at the edges of his composure, though he tries to smother it.
Iâve been with other people, you say, your tone so nonchalant, and yet the mental images that flood his mind are anything but comfortable.
He imagines someone else standing in your kitchen. Perhaps in five minutes, there will be another man knocking on your door, here to discuss a book, and it wonât be him.
Perhaps this isnât rare for youâall this come in, grab something to drink, letâs talk when youâre done reading.
Perhaps heâs not as important as you make him feel.
His thoughts spiral until your voice pulls him back from the brink.
âDonât you understand how beautiful it is?â Thereâs a dazzling glint in your expression, a light in your eyes that makes him ache. âOutside of these four walls, thereâs a person whoâs waiting to meet me, in the same way I expect to meet him. I canât grant myself the choice not to believe in something like this.â
Far from easing the martyr in his mind, this conversation only deepens his internal struggle. The questions overlap each other: what happens if you never find him? Would you ever consider settling for somebody else?
He rephrases that last oneâwould you ever consider being with him?
âHeâs a lucky guy,â Logan murmurs, and just like that, he feels himself slipping deeper, falling into the rabbit hole with you guiding him through the madness.
For a moment, he can pretendâpretend that matching scars and bonds that defy the rules of his principles make sense.
Maybe, just for you, heâll allow himself to believe it.
Your eyes soften with sudden emotion, glistening with the beginnings of tears. He feels the primal urge to reach out, to cup your cheek, to be there when the first tear falls. âYou think so?â you ask, your voice fragile.
I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you, especially when you are near me, as now.
âOf course I do,â he replies, his tone quiet but laden with a strange, undeniable truth.
It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your frame.
Whatever this is between youâitâs messed up. Heâs messed up. And you⌠youâre just as tangled in this chaos for indulging it, for looking at him in that way that calls out to him.
The more time he spends with you, the less he feels like himself. Everything heâs done latelyâreading that damn book, standing in your apartment at 7 a.m.ânone of it feels like something heâd do.
Itâs not just his mind youâre messing with: itâs his very sense of self.
Loganâs smart mouth had always been a liability, getting him into trouble either by saying too much or by choosing the wrong words. Bad things had always followed in the wake of his tongue.
Somehow, when it comes to you, heâs the most careful heâs ever been. He doesnât want to upset you, nor does he want to be the cause of any sorrow that might affect your heart.
When the two of you stand at the threshold once more, just as you have other times before, you softly say: âI feel like Iâm experiencing a dĂŠjĂ vu.â
He laughs, because it sounds ridiculous. âCare to explain why?â
âYou come, we talk, you leave.â You lean against the wall, your hand ghosting over the handle. âBut you never stay that long.â
Thereâs no mistaking the layered meaning in your words. You, who work with language and its peculiarities for a living, never speak by chanceâevery phrase, every pause, carries an assigned weight. The double meaning in your statement doesnât escape either of you.
Youâre a natural at this madness, diving headfirst into it. You must be losing it, too, because your actions donât match what you said before.
Slowly, his fingers brush a loose strand of hair behind your ear, the perfect excuse to feel your skin, to close the distance without saying what he actually wants.
They say food and shelter are the basic human needs, but Logan chooses to believe they forgot to include the longing to reach out and just feel you.
âI canât stay,â he finally responds to your earlier comment, his hand still lingering against your skin.
His strengthâthe only thing saving him from completely giving inâhelps him pull himself away.
Before the impulse to kiss you becomes too overwhelming to resist, Logan leaves.
Some time later, youâre making lunch, music playing softly in the background at the same time the cityâs distinct noise finds a way to break through your tranquility.
You rely greatly on the knowledge that youâre good at multitaskingânow more than ever, with a book in one hand and the other stirring the pasta on the stove.
The warmth from the pot rises around you, but you trust yourself not to be careless. Not to be stupid enough to burn yourself with the boiling water.
This time, you miscalculate. Not only do you dip the wooden spoon into the pot, but your fingertips too.
Though it only lasts a second, and the voice in your head instantly screams Hot! Hot! Hot!, the shock makes you drop the book to the floor. You yank your hand back, racing to the sink to run it under cold water.
âFuck,â you grumble, watching the skin redden in protest. âLesson learned: no more multitasking.â
The funny thing is, just a door away, Loganâs watching a movie with Wade when he feels a sting in the tips of his fingers.
Itâs barely there, practically faint, but he looks down, inspecting his hand like it doesnât belong to his own body. His skin briefly flushes with irritation before returning to its normal state.
Wade notices his distraction. âHey, you okay?â
Logan pays no mind to it. âSure. Just felt something strange.â
Is it still called avoiding if youâre both doing it? Youâd like to think so.
For the sake of clarity, letâs say youâve been actively avoiding Logan, but truth be toldâheâs been avoiding you too. That last encounter in your apartment didnât help matters at all.
If anything, it made everything worse.
Youâve been down this road before, knowing men like him too well: theyâre everywhere, until theyâre not.
One day, they vanish without a trace, leaving you staring at the empty space they used to occupy, asking yourself âWhat happened to my Prince Charming in disguise?â
They disappear as though they never existed, and not even the best detective can track them down.
So far, your avoidance strategy has worked wonders. Maybe itâs for the best. Heâs a distractionâan undeniably attractive one, the kind anyone would want to trip over.
Yet you miss him, which is dumb: why are you missing someone you were never supposed to care about in the first place?
You return home after a long trip to the grocery store, arms laden with bags. Itâs the kind of errand that exhausts you, though you keep telling yourself itâs better than thinking about him.
As you struggle to get through the building's exit, you resign yourself to the fact that itâll take several trips to bring everything up to your apartment.
Then the elevator doors slide open, and you drop everything to the floor.
You shouldâve known better than to assume victory so soon. After days of successfully avoiding him, there he is.
And of course, itâs when you look your worstâtired from running around, weighed down by groceries, barely holding it together.
âHey,â he greets you, standing just outside the elevator, like heâs not sure if he should step inside or stay where he is. Heâs dressed in a red-and-black flannel shirt, layered over a white vest, a leather jacket tossed over his shoulders, and a pair of jeans that seem made for him.
He looks... ridiculously good.
âHi,â you manage to answer after a beat, scrambling to collect the bags youâd dropped. âJustâgive me a second.â
âLet me help you,â Logan says, ducking down to gather the groceries, but you pull them away.
âIâve got it. Are you going out? On a date, maybe?â You nod toward his clothes, trying to keep things light, teasing even.
Glancing down at himself, a crease appears between his brows, and in one swoop, he gathers all the bags with a single hand. âIâm supposed to meet Wade at a bar, but heâll survive without me.â
âLogan, you donâtââ
But heâs already moving, one hand tugging you out of the elevator, the other gesturing toward your apartment.
âNot up for debate,â he mutters. Then, without waiting for permission, he holds out his hand. âKeys.â
Sighing, you dig into your pocket and drop them into his open palm. He unlocks the door with practiced ease, stepping inside and placing the bags on your kitchen counter.
As he starts to unpack them, you stop him. âYou really donât need to do that.â
That seems to catch his attention. He pauses, turning toward you with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the counter.
His unrelenting stare sizes you up, and he cocks his head to the side. âHavenât seen you in a while.â
He thinks heâs so discreet, so smooth. âWell, Iâve been busy,â you explain, fiddling with the frayed edge of your sweater, tugging at it like it might unravel your nerves.
You hear him click his tongue. âBeen busy too.â His words hang in the air, thickening the atmosphere. Your body tenses, and you stare at his shoes, untilâ âSweetheart,â he calls you softly, and your eyes snap shut for a moment, your chin almost pressing against your chest. âMy eyes are up here.â
A quick flutter of your lashes brings you back to him, and your chest tightens with the effort it takes to look into his eyes. âDonât you have somewhere to be?â you ask, praying heâll let this go.
You watch as his mouth twitches with something halfway between a smile and a smirk. âYou already want me to leave?â
âIf you have plans, then yeah.â
He huffs out a laugh, inhaling a shallow breath like youâve missed something obvious. âWade can wait. Heâll be fine.â His expression shifts, and the playful tone in his voice falls away, replaced by something more raw. âYouâve been avoiding me.â
You canât help but snort. âOh, please. Like you havenât been doing the same.â You walk over to the couch, feeling your legs wobble beneath you. You collapse into one corner, hoping the distance will help you breathe.
Like a shadow, Logan follows after you, sitting far too close. His legs splay wide, so wide theyâre almost grazing yours.
âAt least I have a reason for it. What about you?â His hand reaches out, fingers closing around yours in a grip thatâs both firm and gentle, enhancing your anxiety. Your throat tightens, the room shrinking around you. âI need you to tell me Iâm not crazy,â he says, his voice rough and low. âI need you to tell me you feel it too.â
Panic flares in your chest, and you scramble for time. âI donât know what youâre talking about,â you mutter, but your voice cracks, the uncertainty leaking through the cracks in your bravado.
He doesnât buy your acting. âYou do. We canât keep playing dumb. Youâre gonna make me lose my fuckinâ mind one of these days.â
Itâs not just his wordsâitâs the way he stands so close, heat radiating from his body, the roughness of his hand gripping yours like heâs terrified youâll slip away.
The intensity of it all weighs on you in ways you canât even begin to describe, leaving you breathless, caught between denial and desire.
âLogan, this isnâtââ
âWhat? Okay?â Thereâs a glimpse of mirthlessness in his tone as he speaks, his forehead furrowing. âI canât stay away from you, donât you see it? It feels too good to be wrong,â he utters, inching forward. You know you should take a step back, tell him to stop. Nothing good can come from this. âIt takes two to feel these things. It canât be just me.â
âThat doesnât mean we have to give in.â Blood pounds in your ears, your pulse racing as your heart hammers unpleasantly. Little shivers of ice run through your spine, and yet, your stomach burns with desire.
More than ever, you feel yourself slipping, your sanity at risk.
Logan runs his eyes up and down your face, agitated, almost going cross-eyed. âEarlier you asked if I was going on a date. Would you like that? Me being with other people? Kissing another woman?â His hot breath caresses your cheek, and you avert your gaze momentarily. âAnswer me.â
Donât do it. For the love of God, donât. âI canâtâI donâtââ
âCome on, baby.â
âI donât want you to be with other people,â you mumble, your lips almost grazing his, and thatâs all he needs to grip your chin and pull you into a kiss.
His mouth moves hungrily over yours, pushing you back until the armrest digs into your lower back. A choked whimper gets lost in your throat, and you bring him closer by grabbing onto the lapels of his jacket, your chest pressing against his.
Logan bites down on your lip, soothing the sting with his tongue, and the moan you let out reverberates in the apartment.
âThis is what you were hiding from me?â he rasps, his forehead bumping against yours. âThese sweet sounds you make?â
You end up perched in his lap, your thighs bracketing his hips. Heâs hard beneath you, and as you shift, your center makes contact with his erection through the layers of fabric.
Both of you sigh into each otherâs mouths, your hips moving on their own accord, rocking slightly against his clothed cock. He hooks one of his arms around your waist, guiding your movements.
Everything seems to fall into place. Outside your window, birds chirp. The world feels lighter, like a better place. The beast inside you quiets, and for once, your mind is blissfully blank.
Logic? Error 404ânot found.
You tug at his hair, and Logan growls, breaking the kiss. âDo that again.â He jerks under your touch, bucking up into you. Encouraged, you pull his hair again, fingers wrapping around a strand at the nape of his neck, and youâre rewarded with a deep groan.
Heâs dizzy for it, but youâre no better, not when he trails his kisses down your neck, his mouth latching onto your skin, tasting the sweat and salt.
âI canât control myself around you,â he murmurs, groping your tits, and you wail, the ache between your legs becoming intolerable. His hands slip under your sweater, caressing the scars on your back.
Thatâs when recognition settles over you.
What are you doing? And why are you doing it?
He ceases sucking your flesh when you go rigid on top of him. Pecking your lips once again, Loganâs hands cradle your face, his thumbs rubbing circles on your cheeks. âWhatâs wrong?â
You donât understand how he does it, how he can remain so calm. Doesnât he realize the gravity of this? âWe have to stop.â
âWhy?â
âDonât ask me something you already know the answer to.â
His arms drop to his sides, releasing you from his hold. You push yourself off him, away from the couch, putting as much distance between you as you can.
Pressing your palms to your eyes, you shake your head. âGod, Iâm stupid. This is stupid.â
Your reaction seems to get on his nerves, his frustration somehow increasing. Logan stands, towering over you. âWas it stupid when you were dry humping me?â
âFuck you, Logan.â
âIâm not the bad guy here. You kissed me back.â He doesnât let up, trailing behind you as you try to escape. âYou want me as much as I want you.â
âWill you stop saying that?â you bark, throwing your arms in the air. Your chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. âYeah, we like each other. So? Does that make it right? How can you just ignore how wrong this is?â
His expression hardens, anger flashing in his eyes. âForget your idea of what's good and bad. You're just upset you can't control what you feel.â
âHeâs closer than ever.â
Logan gawks at you, his voice bitter as he goes on with his rambling. âThat fucker again? Donât you ever get tired of talking about someone who you donât even know? Because youâre certainly wearing me out.â
âYou wish you were him, donât you?â You jab your finger into his chest, feeling his heartbeat, a flutter you choose to ignore. âYou want to be my soulmate.â
âDamn right I do,â he practically spits his words, narrowing his eyes at you. âBut Iâm not him.â
âNo. Youâre not.â
Everything seems to fall out of place. Outside your window, birds donât chirpâthey scream for mercy. The world doesnât feel lighter, but heavier. The beast inside you roars back to life, restless and louder than ever, while your mind spins in chaos.
âWe shouldnât see each other anymore.â Your voice pierces through the thick silence in the room, and you swallow down the lump forming in your throat.
âIf thatâs what you want,â he replies, his jaw clenched tight, irritation radiating off him in waves.
âItâs what we both need.â
âSpeak for yourself. I donât have a soulmate.â His tone is biting, but you donât miss the undercurrent of longing in his words. âBut if in any other universe I do, I hope itâs you.â
Your hand turns the knob, and then heâs halfway out the door, sparing you one last glance before he turns his back to you.
No more visits. No more books. No more bruising kisses that leave you questioning your mere existence.
Let things stay as they areâitâs safer that way. You donât want to know the reason behind this forceful need.
After all, being his grumpy and ill-tempered self, heâll stay holed up in Wadeâs apartment, avoiding any interaction with the real world. And you? Youâll forget about him. Easy-peasy.
It didnât go well in the end.
You remember your first heartbreakâseventeen, fresh out of high school. One of your hands clutched a million dreams, and the other, a pillow soaked with your tears.
Your mother remained by your side, caressing your back, attempting to soothe the sobs that racked your body. She murmured that itâd pass, that you wouldnât feel like this forever. You believed her then, and trusted that things would eventually be okay.
Almost ten years later, another heartbreak shouldnât come as a surprise. By now, you thought you wouldâve developed the tools to survive it. You should be able to piece yourself back together by instinct.
But life, as it turns out, has a peculiar way of catching you off guard.
Whether itâs pent-up horniness, touch-starvation, or genuine affectionâit doesn't change the fact that your pseudo-relationship with Logan fell apart.
Though youâre not the one whoâs suffering the most. Neither is Logan.
Wade, the third party in this tangled mess, has somehow taken it the hardest.
âI feel like a child of divorce,â he says, his head resting on your lap, eyes distant as they fixate on the peeling wallpaper. âYou need to do something about that.â
âIâll take care of it next month.â
Heâs supposed to be the one supporting you, but it feels like the roles are reversedâyouâre comforting him, letting him vent.
âMy two favorite people now canât even be in the same room. What are we gonna do for Christmas? New Year's Eve?â Straightening up, he grabs the nearest cushion and buries his face into it to muffle a defeated scream. âDamn it, Cupid! You had one job!â
All in all, Wadeâs emotionally unavailable at the moment, grieving your separation from Logan as if it were his own loss, too caught up in his melodrama to be of any real help.
Meanwhile, you fill your days with work, books, anything to keep your mind occupied.
You go to bed too late, you wake up too early. Sleep too little, cry too much.
One thing stays constantâyou and Logan donât talk. Stolen glances in the hallway, awkward elevator ridesâthose are the only remnants of whatever you once were. Back to being strangers again.Â
Well, not really. Strangers donât know the route to your mouth the way he does.
The ache lingers every day. Missing him when youâre awake is a common occurrence. At night, as you toss and turn beneath the sheets, he stars in your dreams. You canât recall the last time he wasnât lodged in your thoughts.Â
Where there used to be ideas, creativity, and plots worth scribbling down, thereâs now only Loganâa man destined to problematize your stay on earth.
That fucker again? Donât you ever get tired of talking about someone who you donât even know? Because youâre certainly wearing me out.
And yet, despite all of it, you continue to prioritize someone else. Someone who isnât even here. Clung to the idea of a soulmate, you chose him over Logan.
What did he expect? For you to abandon your principles, your belief in destiny? Itâs who you are. Nearly thirty years of life guided by one belief canât just be discarded like trash.
You liked to separate things into categories: good and bad, right and wrong. A simple method to structure everything, to make sense of your world, and it has worked most of the time.
But now? The limits of those sacred categories look blurred. Your judgment feels unreliable, and you wonder if the choices youâve made lately have been the correct ones.
Each of your decisions seems to be leading you further down a path you canât recognize.Â
Whatâs the goal? Finding your soulmate, the voice in your head mockingly answers for the hundredth time, rolling its imaginary eyes. And where is he?
Youâve shut Logan out, a man whoâs made it clear he has feelings for you, for this elusive person. Isnât it time he steps into the light at long last?
This is what you fear the most: loneliness.
You donât want to be the lone woman who sits by herself in a cafe, drawing pity from waitresses who discuss her solitude. By no means do you wish to be that friend who dispenses wise dating advice, but goes home to an empty bed. You refuse to become the godmother whose hand no one holds when her time comes.
No, this canât be all fate has to offer to you. There must be more. If your life were a book, youâd be flipping through the pages to the last chapter, desperate to see how it ends.
Or, better yet, youâd grab a pen and rewrite it yourself. What kind of ending youâll haveâyouâre not so sure about that.
Itâs Sunday, one of those endless weekends where the only way to survive is by rearranging your entire apartment. You could manage it alone, but help would be niceâWadeâs help, to be more precise, would be perfect for this kind of task, and you find yourself knocking on his door.Â
No answer. Deciding to dial his number to see if heâs fallen asleep, you try calling him, waiting through the rings until he finally picks up. âHey.â
Except itâs not Wadeâs voice that answers. âIâm sorry, who is this?â
The door swings open, and Logan appears right behind it, holding Wadeâs phone to his ear.
He narrows his eyes, leaning against the frame, a single eyebrow lifted in curiosity. âHow sad. You donât remember what I sound like.â
You feel foolish for still being on the call, so you lock your phone, ending it. âWhereâs Wade?â you ask, frowning as you hold your breath, your voice sharper than intended.
âOut and about. Didnât tell me where he was going,â Logan replies, glaring at you as he raises the phone to your face. âHe left without this.â
Abort mission! Nodding in agreement, you begin to step back. âGreat, Iâll look for him later.â
Youâre close to being locked up once again in the safety of your apartment when you hear him: âYou need anything?â
Itâs the most heâs said to you in weeks. You hesitate, keeping your back turned. âIâm moving some heavy stuff around. Thought I could use the help.â
âI could do it.â
No. Not really. Heâs doing that thing againâoffering help when you know you shouldnât accept it. You shake your head.
âItâs not necessary,â you say, forcing a casual tone.
âDoesnât have to mean anything,â he retorts, his footsteps heavy and deliberate as they draw closer. With each passing second, your options shrink, leaving you no room for retreat. âDonât worry. I wonât try to kiss you again if thatâs whatâs got you all worked up.â
âIâm not worked up,â you hiss, and he sidesteps you easily, his arm nudging yours.
The electricity is still there, undeniable, but neither of you has the courage to acknowledge it, acting as though itâs an ordinary occurrence.
His eyes roam the room, like heâs forgotten what your apartment looked like. He pauses by the bookshelf, his fingers gliding over the spine of Jane Eyre, and a low whistle escapes him as he slips it back into place.Â
You, frozen at the threshold, feel your irritation simmering just beneath the surface, and the urge to hide in your bedroom only becomes stronger.
After this, youâll have to burn your favorite book. What a pity.
âWhat do you want me to do?â he asks, hooking his fingers into the loops of his jeans, his posture both confident and annoyingly relaxed.
Thereâs a challenge in his tone, and he acts as if youâre the one who pulled him into this situationâlike he didnât worm his way in here.
You gesture toward the couch. âCan you put it by the window?â
He sets to work, moving the smaller pieces of furniture aside to make space for the couch. Under no circumstances are you going to just stand there and watch him sweat.
Instead, you busy yourself with the long-forgotten glasses and cups gathering dust in one of the kitchen cabinets, each one glinting with past disappointments.
Wetting a towel, you start by wiping the rims. The air feels heavily charged with uneasiness, but you're relieved that for once, you can breathe without feeling like youâre on the brink of a heart attack.
You can already imagine Wadeâs face when you tell himâ
âSo,â Loganâs voice cuts through the silence, startling you, âhowâs the search going? Got any luck?â
His words have the desired effect on you, and the glass slips from your grasp, shattering against the floor in a crash that mirrors the jump of your heart. You curse under your breath, stepping back from the mess, taking in the shards sprawled around your shoes.
âBe careful,â he says from the other side of the room, still dragging the furniture into place, and you scrutinize him over your shoulder, your brows knitted.
âI donât need your advice,â you murmur through gritted teeth as you crouch to pick up the larger shards. His attention returns to the couch, but you guess heâs not technically thinking how nice of a person you are.
As you kneel, your hands tremble slightly, and you wonder when that started. You fumble for a larger shard of glass, bracing your hand against the floor for balance, unaware of the smaller piece lying dangerously close to your fingers.
The sting comes fast, slicing through the skin of your pinky. You flinch, raising your hand, and Logan, hearing the faint wince, abandons his task and crosses the room to you.
"I donât need your advice," he echoes, mocking your tone as he squats beside you, his hand closing around yours to inspect the wound. "Youâre bleeding."
âBrilliant observation, Sherlock. I hadnât noticedââ The words die in your throat, your eyes widening as you take a closer look at his hand. âWait, why are you bleeding?â
He snorts, diverting his attention to his own hand. âWhat do you mean Iâmââ Whatever it is he intended to shoot back remains unsaid as both of you stare down at the small cut in his pinky.
Driven by instinct, you place your hands side by side, your finger grazing his. The cuts are identical: same place, same width, same depth. The only difference is his vanishes within seconds, leaving only a few droplets of crimson blood as evidence.
Logan couldnât have cut himself. He was nowhere near the glass. âAre youâŚ?â You swallow thickly, trying to string together a coherent thought, dizziness making its triumphant appearance. âAre you thinking what Iâm thinking?â
âYes.â
âAnd what is thatââ
âI need a drink.â
âCan you stop acting like a dick for one second?â You peer into his glossy eyes, watching him try to avoid your gaze, though he canât seem to resist. âPlease, Logan. Look at me.â
When he does, his mouth parts as if to speak, then closes again. âI donât understand. I thought I didnât have a soulmate.â His gruff tone slows even further, like he's straining to push the words from his lungs. âI thoughtâI thought I was alone.â
It explains so much: how your scars had reappeared once he and Wade returned from The Void.Â
The instant attraction, the yearning to be near him.
The dread that washed over you each time he walked away.
The dreams that plagued your nights, and the tightness in your chest these past few weeks that made you wonder if you could ever coexist in the same space as him without breaking apart.
All those times you felt he was getting closer werenât just a figment of your imaginationâhe was, in fact, right there.
But he wasnât just anyoneâit was him. Logan is your soulmate. You two are meant to be together. How long would it take for you to truly believe it? Until it no longer sounded like something too good to be true?
Without uttering a sound, Logan gazes at you, silently pleading to see them. To see your scars. You extend your arm, and with a gentle motion, he rolls up the sleeve of your shirt, revealing the marks etched into your skin.
He runs his fingers along the lines, trying to understand the bond you now shareâboth his and yours.
In a sense, youâre his. You carry his scars, the physical manifestation of the life he has lived. Even though he may not bear any of his own, you do, and thatâs more than enough.
He belongs to you just as much as you belong to him.
âThere are more,â you tell him. your voice barely above a whisper. He stands, offering you his hand, and you take it, rising to your feet. Logan inches closer, his mouth hovering just above yours, his large hand coming up to cup your cheek.
The look he gives you is one reserved for those he loves, a look filled with such warmth and affection that it almost feels dreamlike.
âDo you want me to see them?â he inquires, and all he needs is a nod from you to gently tug your shirt up your chest and over your head.
He lets out a dry chuckle when you attempt to tame your hair, the effort proving to be in vain. The clock on the wall seems to pause its ticking the moment his fingers begin to trail each of the scars that captures his gaze.
You canât even begin to fathom what thoughts might be swirling in his mind, but if the flicker of lust and desire you catch in his expression is anything to go by, youâre not so worried.
Loganâs touch carries an unexpected softness, a tenderness you never imagined a man like him could possess.
Deep down, you wish he understood that these scars donât hurt, that they never have. âIâm okay,â you reassure him, prompting him to explore more of your skin, to claim you as his.
âDo you⌠like them?â he asks without meeting your eyes.
Do you like my scars? is the real question hidden underneath.
Do you like me? is the one he canât bring himself to pronounce.
âTheyâre yours. I could never not like them.âÂ
Before you stands a man you once believed was meant to be your burden, your trial. Logan had been the earthquake sent to test your endurance, to see how much you could withstand before surrendering and waving the white flag.
The same fingers that once imprinted his mark on you now linger on the strap of your bra, waiting for you to decide whether to let him go further or stop.
Desire has a limit before it overwhelms. Thereâs only so much need a person can contain before it spills over, uncontrollable and raw.
This game, one you never learned how to play, feels as foreign to him as it does to youâneither of you knows the rules.
âCan I see more?â Heâs still talking about the scars, still fumbling with the strap, and you nod, your eyelids growing droopier as you take his free hand and direct it to the front of your jeans.
He catches the hint, undoing the button with ease, allowing you to shed the last layers of restraint.
Bare, moments away from being completely naked, standing in stark contrast to Logan, who remains fully clothed, your stomach does a flip as he rubs his thumb along the sides of your underwear.
Leaning your forehead against his shoulder, you stifle a sigh when he splays his hand across your lower back, pulling you closer.
His rough grip tightens on your ass, testing the feel of you, while your breathing becomes shallow, erratic.
âWhat is it, honey?â He slides his fingers your stomach, just below your belly button, brushing a small scar in there. âWant me to touch you?â
âYes,â you croak, the plea slipping out involuntarily, throwing your arms around his neck. He buries his face against your jaw, his lips parting against your skin, trailing open-mouthed kisses along the curve of your neck.
You tilt your head back, exposing more of your throat to him, breathless as you whisper: âIâve waited so long.â
He moves toward the couch, and you follow, trying to anticipate what heâs got planned for you. âI know, baby. I know. Youâve waited long enough.â Guiding your body down, he has you lying horizontally on the sofa. He unhooks your bra, kneading your breasts with both hands, eliciting a ragged gasp from you. âBut Iâm here now. You donât have to wait any longer,â he huffs by your ear, rolling your nipples between his fingers, his breath mingling with yours, each exhale warm and inviting. âGonna let me make you feel good? Show you how much Iâve been thinkinâ about you?â
Instead of answering with real words, you surge forward, crashing your lips against with his, reveling in the way he cages you with his biceps, locking you up in a prison of desire from which you never wish to break free. He tries not to settle his full weight on top of you, attentive not to crush you.
As he nips at the column of your throat, you squirm beneath him, canting your hips up to seek the friction you crave.
He presses his knee against your center and you push back, grinding against him with an animalistic urgency.
You canât recall ever feeling this desperate, this overwhelmed by a man. But then again, heâs unlike any other youâve encountered in your array of momentary hookups.
His kisses grow even more insistent as breathy moans roll off to your tongue, merging with the occasional creak of the couch beneath your movements.
Logan spreads your thighs wider, sinking to his knees on the floor to tug your lower half forward until your ass is almost hanging in the air. He places your thighs on his shoulders, supporting you as he leans in to pepper your soft flesh with kisses.
One can be certain that heâs marking your inner thighs with a hickey or two, the scratch of his beard feeling magnificent against your sensitive skin, and you can hardly bring yourself to think about the potential burn heâll leave behind. Logan inhales your scent, the tip of his nose dangerously close to your cunt, and you tangle a hand in his hair as he continues to test your patience.
âEager?â he wonders aloud, looking at you through his lashes. While maintaining eye contact, he presses a kiss to your clit through the fabric of your panties.
He does it again, and you bite your lip hard enough to draw blood, his fingers deftly pulling your underwear down your legs.
The first drag of his tongue along your folds has you scrunching your eyebrows in pleasure, tightening your grip on his hair. Logan moans against you, the sound muffled as he dips the tip of his tongue into your entrance, lapping at your arousal with an insatiable hunger.
The way you purr his nameâa soft caress, a pat on his back that says Yeah, youâre doing fineâonly spurs him on, infusing every one of his ministrations with fervor.
His longing for you radiates in the intensity of his touch, sending shivers through you, making you writhe because of his hands alone.
Your core throbs. Your skin prickles with electricity. Your legs quake on either side of his face. Heâs hungry and youâre his feast. Heâs parched and youâre the last bottle of water in an arid world.
Logan eats you out like this will be the only time heâll have the privilegeâeach movement calculated, pushing all the right buttons, pulling out every trick he knows to make you think No, it doesnât get any better than this. This is as much as one can get.
Then his fingers join the symphony of pleasure, pumping in and out of you as he keeps flicking your clit with expert precision, and your back arches from the couch, following his pace with your hips. He pushes back, you push forwardâhe pushes forward, you push back.
Who is enjoying this more: him or you?
His pointed tongue teases your bud, matched with the persistent hammering of his fingers plunged into your wet heat. The combination has you coming on his mouth, falling over the precipice while you struggle to keep yourself together.
Your walls flutter around his digits, and your cries fuse with his groans, both overshadowed by his insatiable desire to savor until the last drop of your release.
Shockwaves ripple through your body and you prop your weight on your arms to capture his lips in a fervent kiss, your eyes rolling rolling back in ecstasy as you taste yourself, a mix of sour and sweet.
In a frenzy, he sheds his clothes, practically tearing them away, and you wrap your hand around his length, stroking him in time with your kisses. Logan pulls back, panting against you, and you steal a glance at him.
Your gaze travels down to his hard cock, the tip a furious red, and he seizes your wrist.
âWhy donât you kiss it better?â he rasps, his voice dropping an octave. In this moment, youâre taken aback by his beauty, and the urge to express it rises within you.
âYouâre so beautiful,â you murmur against his thigh, showering his skin with heated kisses. You stare in disbelief at the trail of hair leading to his girth, mouth watering at the sight.
A kiss on the tip, followed by a broad lick along a prominent veinâLoganâs grip on the armrest tightens, his knuckles turning white. âSo perfect.â
âShut up,â he retorts breathlessly, but you revel in the strangled noise that escapes him as you take him deeper, his head disappearing between your lips. His palm rests on your nape, anchoring you in place. âGoddammit. The fuckinââmouth you have on you.â
You try to take him in further once youâre feeling more confident, while Logan fights with all his might against the need to thrust his hips up into your warmth. He canât stay still, grunting and smothering you with lavish praise that heightens your arousal, slick pouring out of you in waves.
âPretty thing you are. Donât even know how to function around you. You got me allâfuck, actinâ all stupid.â
At one point, he tells you to stop, because he doesnât want to come just yet. You know what comes next as he rubs his cock along your folds, blending your wetness with his precum.
Itâs sloppy, and dirty, and messyâand God, do you love it.
He sinks into you and the world collides in a way you never expected. Everything you thought you knew falls apart, leaving you stranded in unfamiliar territory.
You canât comprehend how youâve spent so many years without him. Without this.
Your lips find his, and he swallows every sound he punches out of your lungs. His thrusts grow harder and faster as you adjust to his size, how big he feels inside you.
He digs his fingers into the globes of your ass, yanking you towards his shaft every time he fucks into you. You feel the brush of his balls against your skin, the way his muscles flex beneath your touch.
To this day, itâs still hard for you to wrap your head around the fact that love is what humans both strive and die for.
You come to understand it fully as his eyes flicker to yours, checking for any signs of discomfort in your features.
You understand why people write books and songs about love when he breathes your name in the shell of your ear, chanting how good youâre taking him, how tight and wet you are for him.
You understand the place love occupies in your life as the sound of your bodies slapping together creates a melody which has never been played before.
You understand why youâve searched for this your entire life, lifting every carpet in hopes of uncovering the love youâve pined for.
In the past, it had always felt like a raceâfinding your soulmate before the clock struck twelve. Now that you have him, you wonder what the future holds for you, how this connection will evolve.
For now, you can allow yourself the possibility of relishing the drag of his cock in your interior. His pace doesnât falter for a secondâsomething about mutants and their non-stop stamina, no doubt. He shoves a hand between your sweaty bodies, rubbing circles on your already swollen bud.
Each time he fills you to the brim, you have to ground yourself, resisting the pull of an altered reality.
âSo full,â you blurt out, mewling with a specially hard thrust, a chocked sob lodged in your throat. âPlease, stay.â
It could mean many things: Please, keep fucking me. Please, donât leave after this. Please, remain by my side form this moment onward, because I donât know how to go on with my life now that Iâve experienced this closeness.
Whatever meaning he ascribes to your words is of little importance. He tightens his arms around you, kissing you deeply, tongue and teeth clashing as they compete to see who wins the battle. âNever. Iâm never lettinâ you go, yâhear me?â
Heat pools in your lower back, a coiling tension radiating through your limbs. âYouâre mine, princess. Canât afford to lose you now that I found you. Gonna remind you every day.â
His rambling pushes you over the edge, your dripping cunt spasming around him as you reach your climax, moaning his name against his shoulder. You cling to him, convulsing beneath his body, and he grinds his hips into yours, his chest rumbling as he growls.
âInside,â you mumble, extending your hand to press it to his waist. âNeed you inside me. Please, I want it so bad.â
Logan stutters against you, his forehead falling against your collarbone as he finishes with one powerful thrust, his cock pulsing warm ropes of come within your cunt. You clench around him, whining as he prolongs both your pleasure and his, milking the last drop of his seed. His voice is a constant murmur, filling every space in the room until he slumps against you.
Night has fallen. The cut on your pinky no longer stings. Your scars, after all, are still there, nestled against Loganâs unmarked skin. You caress his back, sighing contentedly as a wave of peace washes over you.
Youâve never felt this relaxed.
Logan grasps your chin and tilts it up, a subtle smirk tugging at his lips. âHey,â he mutters, his gaze roaming all over your face.
You cup his cheek, his rough stubble grazing your palm. âHey, stranger. Long time no see.â
A genuine laugh pierces through the silence. the kind he rarely allows himself. Crinkles form at the corners of his eyes, his brow furrowing as he glances at you with love.
Loveâhadnât you pondered its existence for so long? Your fuel for living, the muse behind your best poems, a recurring motif in your fantasies.
Love now has Loganâs name written in ink, no longer a blank canvas awaiting its unknown owner. Noâitâs all his now.
Youâd do it all over again if it meant ending up like this, tangled and intertwined, with the promise of a future together. He has many stories to shareâabout his past universe, about himself. You have secrets to unveil, too. Thereâs so much you both have yet to discover about each other.
But time isnât up. This isnât a race, you remind yourself: things are just getting started.
Everywhere you go, every place you attempt to set foot in, there it is. Love is dressed up in an expensive silk robe, a ribbon tied neatly on top of it. You reach closer, trying to unravel it, though it's pointless. The moment love sees youâtruly sees your longing for itâit flees, and you struggle to keep up. Love runs faster than anyone, hiding within the bushes, counting the seconds until its next appearance.
Finally, youâve wrapped love around your finger.
dividers by: @cafekitsune thank you!!! <3
#logan howlett#logan howlett x reader#logan howlett x you#wolverine#wolverine x you#wolverine x reader#logan howlett x fem!reader#logan howlett xmen#logan howlett fic#logan howlett smut#logan howlett fanfiction#logan james howlett#james howlett#wolverine angst#wolverine fic#wolverine fanfiction#deadpool and wolverine#wade wilson#logan x reader#logan x you#logan xmen#wolverine xmen#wolverine x y/n#the worst logan x reader#the worst wolverine#worst wolverine#logan howlett x f!reader#james logan howlett#deadpool 3#the wolverine x reader
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Does the Batmobile ever get ticketed or does the GCPD just ignore it
Bruce: *puts a box on the table*
Bruce: Gather around, everyone. It's time for our monthly ticket review.
Bruce: First up, Steph. Can you explain what happened last Friday?
[earlier]
Steph: *looking for parking in a full lot*
Steph: Screw it, I'm going around back.
Steph: *parks in front of a fire exit*
[present]
Steph: I just needed to use the bathroom.
Bruce: And in those three minutes, the Joker released a giant water balloon forcing everyone to evacuate through one less exit.
Steph: It said "fire exit." That technically wasn't a fire.
Bruce: Well, the penalty is $100 plus the towing cost. I can pay it off but you have to help Alfred in the kitchen for a month.
Steph: Yeah, that's fair.
Bruce: Next up... Cass and Barbara? Color me surprised.
Barbara: Oh yeah, I had to remotely pilot the Batmobile the other day because Cass needed a getaway.
Bruce: Then why am I being charged $250?
[earlier]
Cass: *fighting a gang*
Barbara: Orphan, ETA thirty seconds. Prepare for extraction.
Cass: *knocks out the last henchman and runs to the car*
Comm. Gordon: *writing a ticket*
Cass: ?
Comm. Gordon: You're in a disabled parking spot without a permit.
[present]
Barbara: Well I am disabled.
Bruce: Understandable. I'll let it slide since it's the first time. Just file the paperwork for a permit.
Bruce: Dick, you went thirty-five over the speed limit when you weren't pursuing a suspect. Explain.
[earlier]
Wally: Race you to Keystone?
Dick: *revs the engine*
[present]
Bruce: You're better than this. I'm disappointed. Next up: Tim. Driving without a license plate. What happened there?
[earlier]
Tim: I wasn't supposed to take the Batmobile since Bruce benched me for my wrist, but my other ride is in the shop.
Kon: What about cameras? Can't your dad tap into the city's surveillance system?
Bart: Traffic cameras read license plates, so if we take them off, no one will recognize us.
Kon: Now that's an idea.
[present]
Tim: That's on me. I shouldn't have listened to them.
Bruce: Put them back on, plus you're benched for another week. Damian, on to you.
Damian: What on Earth could I have done? I followed the speed limit, parked in the correct spots, and never so much as changed lanes on an empty road without signalling.
[earlier]
Damian, a middle schooler: *driving*
[present]
Damian: Tt.
Bruce: Don't do it again. Duke...
Duke: *cringes and remembers what he did*
[earlier]
Duke: *hooks the Batmobile to a freezer trailer*
Duke: *starts driving around with a megaphone*
Duke: Ice cream! Get your ice cream!
[present]
Bruce: Fantastic job. No complaints.
Jason, muttering: Teacher's pet.
Bruce: And finally, Jason.
Bruce: *empties the rest of the box*
#bruce wayne#batman#dick grayson#jason todd#tim drake#damian wayne#duke thomas#stephanie brown#cassandra cain#barbara gordon#james gordon#wally west#conner kent#bart allen#batfamily#batfam#batboys#batbros#batgirls#batkids#batsiblings#batman family#incorrect batfamily quotes#incorrect quotes#incorrect dc quotes#young justice#teen titans#dc comics#headcanon#batposting
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i fucking hate
this is literally just labeling someoneâs natural circadian rhythms as disordered.
âmay fall asleep later than intended and feel sleepy during the dayâ
WHAT IF
hear me out
WHAT IF
WE JUST LET PPL LIKE ME W NATURALLY âDELAYEDâ CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS SLEEP WHEN THEY NATURALLY WANT TO AND STOP FORCING THEM TO CONFORM TO A BULLSHIT CAPITALISM-FUELED NIGHTMARE SCHEDULE!
like!!!!!!!!! WHY is this a DISORDER!!!
i remember during lockdown when i had nothing to do and i just started naturally letting my sleep return to what felt most natural, and that happened to be around 3am-10am ish. and i felt fucking fantastic!!!! i felt the best iâd ever felt!!!!!!
and now iâm back to bullshit trying to knock myself out using nyquil or weed or benadryl so i can wake up at 8am and get to work at 9am which is apparently âlateâ and i feel like shit all day and can never find the motivation to work on my books!!! during the pandemic i wrote an entire fucking book!!! usually between the hours of 11pm and 3am!!!! and now when i start to feel that itch to write i have to ignore it bc i have to go to bed at a time that feels so unnatural!!!!! fuck!!!!!!!!
i hate everything!!!!!!!!
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