#it’s just like. it’s. without even thinking consciously about it

[sqgeism]

𐙚 𓏵𓏵𓏵 𐙚 lay on the horn to prove that it haunts me | amphoreus men x gender neutral reader

💌 — ; ! i love you, i'm sorry ! NEVER have a soulmate as an immortal. written by amphoreus men 🤦‍♀️

love mail — trend made me sad. decided to make it EVERYONE ELSES PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!

soulmated so hard, i couldn't live without you. anaxa knew his goal; to fuse with the titan cerces. but when he knew it was time, and he held his hand over his chest, his mind raced with a thought of one possibility. that maybe if he sacrificed his mortal body, that at least his consciousness could meet yours again. in a kinder, softer life.

anaxa was no fool, the possibilities of life after death were endless—absolute nothingness, a 'heaven' and 'hell', or maybe he'll be reborn. with a family who won't leave, and a lover he does not have to mourn early.

and as he holds out his coreflame to the sky, it feels like offering his heart to you all over again. everyone thinks he smiled because he fulfilled his duty as a chrysos heir, but it was in fact that in the 2 minutes and 11 seconds of him realizing he had passed the trial of reason; he had just enough time to replay his memories of you, and was ready to go home.

soulmated so hard, i couldn't make your favorite dish without feeling sick. mydei's love language was always cooking, he adored seeing that smile on your face whenever he made you his favorite dish, laughing at how fast you would eat and warn you to slow down. now he can't even smell the aroma of it without wanting to throw up.

it isn't his fault, he knows it isn't. but he can still smell the blood whenever he *tries* to. he can't smell a dish; he smells a battlefield. it makes him feel so weak but he isn't even mad about it, he's just a man in mourning. a husband mourning his lover who had gone far too soon.

call it silly, he doesn't care. but he kept the leftovers he made for you the night prior to your death still left in the freezer. it's like keeping a piece of you, really. he can't afford to lose anything else or it'll feel like you're really gone.

soulmated so hard, i'm yours in every universe but you can't be mine. phainon feels like he's just doomed for some kind failure and hardship in every universe, but the one consistent heartache will always be you. it's stupid, really. he'll see that smile he won't forget, fall in love with every version of you, only to have you taken away right before he can tell you how he feels. the worst part is that he knows you reciprocate, he found the unsent letters you wrote for him and he still keeps them in his jacket pockets. reads 'em whenever he feels hopeless because a new death means a new life, and even if he can't have you, he'll at least *know* you. even if his love will have you doomed forever. for who is phainon if he does not love you unconditionally through every rebirth of you?

© sqgeism or wtv (^_^;)

[grayandthyme]

firefly!reader and joel miller | headcanons

inspired by THIS post.

masterlist

thinking about firefly!reader and joel miller...

i kinda want this to be a series so bad...

firefly!reader, stunned into silence when Marlene tells you the impossible: there’s a girl—immune. The word doesn’t even seem real. And you? It's a myth. You've heard it before.

You’re expected to help get her across the country. Not just you—but you. Personally. Because there has to be a firefly with her.

For protection. For assurance. For the cause.

firefly!reader; your heart dropping when you realize what that actually means. That the mission isn’t just a handoff. It’s your burden. One girl. One miracle.

firefly!reader who meets Joel. The introduction brittle. Brittle like the ice you’re forced to walk across together. Tess stands between you like a reluctant bridge, laying out terms neither of you like. You don't mind her. You knew he'd be difficult—hell, you'd heard stories. But you didn’t expect the weight of him. The silence. The grief in his bones. He looks at you like you’re a waste of space. You return the favor. He's an asshole, you think. That's it, end of story.

firefly!reader who greets Ellie with a smile anyway. A real one. Because someone has to. She’s a kid, and you're the only one who seems to remember what that even means. While Joel scowls and Tess counts bullets, you tell Ellie stories of Fireflies who did the impossible. Individuals who blew through enemy lines, stitched the world back together, piece by shining piece.

You don’t know if they’re true. But it doesn’t matter. Someone has to believe in something. Right? Right.

firefly!reader who watches Tess die. The bite deep within her skin, crawling and licking at your consciousness. This time it’s not just another name to add to the list—it’s a blow you feel. She wasn’t a Firefly. She wasn’t one of yours. She didn’t believe in the cause. But she was real. Human. Brave. And she died for your mission. Your cause. You think about the empty building, about the lie Marlene might’ve told. About whether any of this is still worth it.

firefly!reader who grows quieter. Dimmer. No more bedtime stories. Joking with Ellie. No more laughter echoing down ruined hallways. Just silence, and the crackle of campfires, and the hollow sound of your own breathing. You let Joel take first watch more often. Not because you trust him—but because you're too tired to keep pretending you don’t. Sometimes you switch with him, letting him take the much-needed rest. Not because you care about him. But, because it'll get you to the end faster.

firefly!reader who starts to notice the way Joel looks at you. Not kind, not soft, but different. Like he’s trying to solve you. Like he doesn’t hate you as much as he used to. Like maybe you’re the only other person still standing in this ash-covered world who knows what it means to have lost everything. You’re both bleeding hope. You both want to stop caring. But you don’t. Not yet. You’re too stubborn.

fuck the light. fuck.

but you still carry it. it's the only thing you have.

firefly!reader who’s learned to watch his hands. The way they twitch before danger. The way they clench when he talks about his past. You think, maybe, he's done terrible things. You think, maybe, so have I. But you don’t ask.

firefly!reader who patches up Joel’s minor cuts and scrapes without speaking. Hands practiced, efficient, but gentle in spite of yourself. You’re not sure when that change happened—when the anger faded into calm, silent understanding. Maybe it was when he let you take first watch for once. Maybe it was when he didn’t complain about the firefly emblem on your jacket anymore. Maybe it was just time.

firefly!reader who starts dreaming again, even if you hate yourself for it. Of what comes after. Of a world where the girl makes it to the hospital. Where you find a place to rest. Where people stop dying for a cause that’s already half-dead. You don’t share these thoughts aloud. But sometimes, you think Joel sees them in your eyes. You miss the light. You missed when it shone so brightly.

firefly!reader who wakes up with frost biting your fingertips in Colorado, the wind howling through broken windows. Teeth chattering so loud you feel as though they might shatter. You’re used to discomfort by now, but Joel drapes his coat over your shoulders before you can reach for your own. You say nothing. Just nod. He doesn’t meet your eyes. Though, you can't help but tense at the feeling in your stomach.

firefly!reader who learns Joel isn’t as heartless as he seemed. Not really. He suggests Ellie like she’s his own—except he doesn’t at the same time. Not directly. Not with words. But in the way he watches her. In the way he teaches her to shoot, to listen, to run. In the way he touches her shoulder when she’s scared. You see it all. And you never bring it up.

firefly!reader who gets grazed by a shot in the side outside Salt Lake City, and Joel panics. Really panics. Blood all over his hands, cursing under his breath, cradling you like you’re made of something fragile. You try to laugh through the pain, say something witty, but his voice breaks—"I ain't playin' around, stay still, damnit."

The concern in his eyes made your breath falter.

Like it meant something. Did you.. mean something?

firefly!reader who hears Joel yell before you see the fall. One second he’s pulling you up the stairs, the next—he’s gone. Crashing through glass, landing hard, the metal rod impaling him like the earth itself wants to take him. The sound that leaves your throat is something raw, something not human. You didn't know the light could vanish that easily. That the darkness would swallow you whole. Leaving a rotten, sickening taste in your mouth.

firefly!reader who scrambles down with trembling hands, blood slick on your palms as you press into his side, trying to stop the flood. “Stay with me, Joel. Stay with me.” His face is ghost-white, eyes slipping. “You’re gonna be fine, we’re gonna get out of this—Ellie needs you—fuck—fuck…"

"… I need you."

firefly!reader who has to help Ellie drag him through the snow, each step a prayer, each breath a promise. You sleep sitting up, holding his hand, whispering nonsense stories like you used to—about cities lit back up, about summer days, about stars no longer hidden by ash. You're not sure if he hears. But you need him to.

He'll wake up.

Yeah. He'll wake up soon.

firefly!reader who wakes one morning and finds Ellie gone. The tracks in the snow lead away from the cabin, and your heart sinks so fast it steals the air from your lungs. You nearly tear the door off its hinges, waking Joel. "Joel—She's gone, okay? You stay here—Please, just rest… I—"

firefly!reader who watches him stagger to his feet, nonetheless, still half-dead, fury in his eyes like fire set loose. You load your rifle. You don’t say a word. Because you know exactly what it means to love a child who didn’t come from you.

firefly!reader who finds the Silver Lake cabin with Joel, your breath coming in panicked gasps. The smell of corpse rot, of smoke. The gut-deep feeling that something is wrong. You search every building. Then you hear it—Ellie’s scream. And it shatters you. It's not a mission anymore. You know that for sure.

This is your girl. Your girl.

firefly!reader who kicks the door open seconds after Joel, and finds Ellie bloodied, clutching a knife, trembling. He runs to her, pulls her into his arms, saying, “It’s me, baby girl. It’s me.” You stand there, stunned. Watching the girl who’s fought everything now collapse like a child.

firefly!reader who sinks to your knees beside them, one arm around Ellie, the other on Joel’s back. Fingers grasping for any semblance you can. They're alive. You're alive. Fuck, that's all that mattered.

firefly!reader who sees Ellie cry for the first time when winter ends. You comfort her like a sibling, like a parent, like someone who remembers what it’s like to be a child forced to grow up at gunpoint. Joel watches, quiet. Afterward, he sits beside you and doesn’t say a word for hours. But his leg touches yours the whole time. Knees softly brushing against each other, but eyes toward the fire.

firefly!reader whose fingers softly graze against his as you sleep, only a few feet away from each other. The silence between you is no longer awkward but heavy with meaning. You don’t talk about what’s changing. But it’s there. In the way he lingers beside you when Ellie runs ahead. In the way he tells you to sleep first, that he’ll take both watches. In the way your names start to sound softer in each other’s mouths.

firefly!reader who kisses Joel first—under the highway overpass, after Ellie nearly drowned. Fingers threaded through his curls, it tasted of coffee from the morning previous. It's desperate. It's like clinging to life. He holds your face like he’s afraid it’ll vanish. Like you might vanish. You don't say it. Neither does he. But the kiss is the kind you only give once you're already in love.

You don't talk about the kiss after it happens.

You don't say anything to each other.

firefly!reader who wakes up in the back of a hospital truck, dazed, alone. The Fireflies found you. They sedated you. Took you away. You ask where Joel is. No one answers. You already know. Breath hitching as you look around the room. Begging, pleading to take you to him. Take you to Ellie—for something. They look at you like you're a threat. Their stares no longer filled with light, and hope—now tight, and knitbrow.

You're an outsider.

firefly!reader who hears what they plan to do to Ellie. That the cure will kill her. And the screaming in your chest doesn't stop. She's a child. She's a person. And when you try to stop them, they lock you in a room like you're the one who betrayed the cause. Thrashing against the wooden door, slamming your shoulder repeatedly. Throwing objects in the room against the small pane of glass in the door. It feels like a lost cause. You're caged. A caged fucking dog. Betrayed by the light.

firefly!reader who hears the gunfire echo through the halls, and knows it's him. Of course, it's him. The blood trail, the dead silence. Joel kicks open the door, panting, wild-eyed. "Come on," he says. He doesn't explain. You don't ask.

firefly!reader who drives away from the hospital in a haze, Ellie unconscious in the back seat, Joel's hands tight on the wheel. Your fingers brush his thigh. He doesn't move away. His jaw tightens. "They would've killed her," he mutters, "I couldn't let them."

You nod.

firefly!reader who sits beside Joel later that night, both of you watching Ellie sleep under a canopy of stars.

And finally, finally, you say it. "I would've done the same." Joel looks at you, eyes full of something too raw to name.

And he says, simply, "I know."

"Y'know.. they used to force it into our heads," You inhale deeply, "when you're lost in the darkness… look for the light." Eyes dazed against the stars, then back to Ellie, as if she might disappear if you look away too long.

Who were you if not a firefly? If not, someone who believed in a new hope?

A few long beats of silence pass before he finally speaks:

"Used to think that meant somethin’. Lookin’ for the light." He shakes his head, voice low, "But turns out, light can lie, too."

Then he looks at you. Long, thoughtful.

"You? You ain’t a lie. That counts for more."

reader who loves him.

Not in spite of the monster. Because of the man. Because of the things he still tries to protect, even when the world gives him no reason to do so. Because even when hope dies, he still chooses you.

[studiogrimm810]

It Ends With Him

// Jackson!Joel Miller x you

summary: you’re alone. you’ve lost everything and you don’t even know how you can continue to go on without your son anymore. just as you accept your inevitable fate, an old companion finds you and and gives you a new purpose // 1.4k // base content: grief, child loss, thoughts of giving up, hypothermia, you and joel are more than friends, you knew joel from before the outbreak.

A/N: hello!! this is my first ‘joel x’ fic and i reeeeally wanna do more!! feel free to send in requests. you can check out some of my other fandom work on my page :]

The shelves were picked clean long before your arrival, you knew not to expect much, but you were really starting to lose hope of finding anything at this point.

You had been on your own for too long now, starting to see things in the shadows that weren’t clickers and hearing his voice just as you closed your eyes to rest.

Hope was fleeting fast from your veins.

The icy winter air raked over your exposed skin like shards of glass and you were honestly surprised at one point when you found no blood in its wake. Your joints ache from constant trek through the ocean of snow coating the dense skeleton of once flourishing flora.

Just a few more steps…

The words echoed around your skull, the same things you told him when all hell broke loose at the QZ all those years ago. It didn’t work for him so how could you be selfish enough to think it would work for you now?

You don’t know what fueled your mindless footsteps as you continued to hike through the snow, it’s not like you had anything to live for at this point, but whatever it was it wasn’t patient.

It ignored your feet that felt on fire and it belittled the edge you were about to leap off of in your own consciousness.

You were ready. Ready for the snow to drown you and ready to leave behind the planet the fell victim to its own mother. Ironic.

Ice seeped through your jeans and kissed your knees, running along your legs that gave out and settled you in the plush snow. It was time. You smiled.

Falling back to sit between your own swollen heels, snow devoured more of your body, sinking you deeper into the icy coffin you knew to always be yours.

Nothing on this Earth was for you now and the supplies you’ve yet to stumble on during your weeks alone was obvious proof.

The snow froze your skin, inking up your limbs and over your torso. Freezing claws pulling you deeper as you relaxed fully, letting your eyes laze shut.

You heard his voice calling for you again, but this time it was a greeting and not a bloody goodbye. You couldn’t tell if you were smiling anymore because the freezing blanket suffocated your own muscles.

It’s time.

———

Your muscles felt cemented, heavy and stiff. It was different than sleep paralysis, you could move, but it felt like you were buried under mounds of sand.

When you tried to take a full breath, your lungs only stretched so far and the burn in your throat made you cough.

Whatever room you were in was small and warm. Your body trembled, toes and fingers like ice, but you could feel your core thawing.

This isn’t Heaven, you knew it immediately because if it were, your son would already be wrapped around your neck. Whatever is left of your heart shatters and you mentally curse whatever cosmic being fucked you over so hard to keep fighting for no fucking reason.

This Earth had no right to hold you prisoner. It’s been long enough and you’re starting to think that you should’ve just done the job yourself.

Your name is called, but not your mother-given legal name that you stuck to because the only one that mattered after the outbreak was ‘mom’, no it was.. it was your name. A simple spin on your legal name, sure, but a name that only those from the old world knew.

Only people like…

“Here, drink some water.” Thick like molasses and sweet like syrup, a dampened southern drawl that you thought died with the rest of Austin. “C’mon, stay with me here, ya’ gotta open those eyes.” Aged like wine and pained by time, you know him.

Opening your eyes against the scratchy sand blanketing you 20 feet deep is hell but you have to be sure. A chill runs through your body and you convulse forward, squinting in the, honestly not so harsh, light of the room you’re in.

Cloudy vision blurs the face you already know it to be, and as he speaks again you’re convinced that it really is him.

“Hey, darlin’, you gave me quite the scare there,” he breathes out in a nervous scoff. His voice is lighter than it was a few moments ago. “Thought I found ya’ just to lose you again,” his voice is somber, a gateway to his deeper and more complex feelings of your sudden appearance, you don’t think either of you care to sit aside and assess the situation.

“Joel.?” Your voice is raspy and not your own, frozen and shattered from the bitter cold of whatever hellscape Joel has been holed up in all this time.

“It’s me,” he assures, following with your name again. A word that sounds like poetry in your eyes and ecstasy off his own tongue.

“Where am I? What is this?” You grumble out, trying to push yourself up, but the stiffness of your sore, overused and freezer burnt, muscles mock you and push you back into the cot beneath you with a heft.

“Jackson, Wyoming,” his voice is followed by the scratch of a chair that he must be pulling up to sit beside you. “It’s a settlement my brother Tommy helps run. You remember Tommy, donchya?” His warm hand grips your own lithe fingers and he feels like fire. You hum in contentment, closing your eyes to settle the spinning room.

“Yeah, Tommy and Sarah, could never forget them,” you look over to him, no longer struggling with blinking the blur out of your vision. You see him clearly now. Aged, warm skin lined with wrinkles, salt and peppered hair, a scar on his temple and the same glassy eyes that held so much love for you and his family.

You separated yourself from his family for the same reason you separated Joel from your son. Neither of you wanted to complicate your children’s lives so to them, you and Joel were barely neighbors who helped babysit, that’s all.

But behind closed doors, on nights when you could manage to sneak away without suspicion, you were something beyond lovers. Something that defied traditional laws of love and settled deep into your gut with unwavering support in the background. You were each other's rocks.

His eyes softened, though. They dropped down to your interlocked fingers, anchoring back to old habits and quick glances, and he nods only once before speaking again.

“Just Tommy, hon,” he brings his face back up but his eyes go to your hairline where he pushes some defiant strands back. Your heart breaks, echoing the grief of a lost child.

It’s quiet as the news settles and his grip tightens slightly, almost unnoticeable by the state of your frozen limbs.

“Me too, Joel,” you choke out, trying to caress a soothing thumb along the back of his hand but your muscles are still so useless that it’s more jerky than calming.

“I’m so sorry,” his eyes meet yours again, somehow holding every emotion he’s wished to bless you with the past 20-some years you’ve been separated.

You didn’t understand why you were forced to keep going after losing your boy all those years ago. For a while, you were numb and would fend for yourself. Then you manipulated your way into some groups to pick up the slack of traveling alone, but inevitably you always ended up alone. And after each departure from another era in your life, you swore that one day the Earth would swallow you up and your time would come soon, but it never did.

Maybe that’s because there was never a scale deciding what you must go through to earn rewards.

Maybe it was because you fucked up so badly in ways you didn’t recognize that solitude was your penance.

Or maybe, it was the love of your life waiting for you in a safe haven where you could live the rest of your lives together and relearn each other.

Maybe, in all of this soul-rotting madness of the world, there was still a chance to patch together what was broken and build a better outcome for each other.

Maybe it was to supply the loud-mouthed moody teenager that Joel took on a chance at a life that was hard to come by these days.

And maybe it was to watch her grow into her own person, being there for her and finding bits of your lost children in her.

Nothing could pave the cavern of grief carved into your very being, but there had to be a reason it didn’t swallow you whole.

And maybe Joel Miller was the reason.

thank you so much for reading <3

[foggyeyes]

im SOOO glad u mentioned the liz phair supernova scene in yj when jackie was in the car cuz i dont see anyone else mentioning it😭 i swear if that scene and the crazy 'coincidental' lyrics "and you f like a volcano and you're everything to me" wasn't some type of early nudge towards jackieshauna idc what is. also thanks for explaining liz phair in the 90s and her writing, it really makes sense shauna would love her back then. sorry for the rant i had to lol

Nah don't be sorry, rant away! Yeah I think Liz Phair is such a good choice for Shauna. Like there's so much there about having to temper your feelings - anger, sexuality, whatever - to survive and how hard that is. Living a contradictory life as a survival strategy.

Liz Phair talking to Caryn Ganz from Rolling Stone in 2010: "… I was so angry about being taken advantage of sexually, being overlooked intellectually. A lot of Exile in Guyville was about an ‘I’ll show them.’ That was a major emotion in my life, pent up for a long time."

Now obviously the important relationships and interactions in Shauna's life that we actually see onscreen are not with men (Jeff being the major exception, and from Shauna's point of view I think he functions more as a symbol than a person) but it's clear that Shauna feels that pressure and disrespect, growing up and living in the world that she does, and sadly she blames Jackie for a lot of it. Jackie, who through her own repressed survival strategy ends up becoming the gateway to heterosexuality and men in Shauna's life: Jeff, Randy, keg parties, putting on the Boob Dress, whatever (all of which are, on some level, necessarily evils so that Jackie can spend more time with Shauna under the guise of platonic friendship, but Shauna doesn't see it that way, resenting Jackie for forcing her to interact with it at all).

Right after the "Supernova" moment, what happens? They see the sign congratulating the mediocre boys' baseball team. Jackie wants to curse it down because she feels comfortable enough around Shauna, but Shauna would prefer to keep that feeling bottled up - because she can't imagine a way to shout down that sexist complacency without seeming like she endorses it (she says they'll just think they're honking in support). Liz Phair eventually found an outlet for that frustration, which must have been really appealing to Shauna, even if as a teenager she might not have known exactly why (or maybe she did! she's a smart literature nerd after all).

Anyway now I'm rambling! I'm probably being kind of glib because I wrote this more or less stream-of-consciousness but I'd love to hear what people think about it all.

[naevisnova]

HIII IM THE GIRL FROM LASTIME WHO SAID I WAS HAVING TROUBLE GETTING IN THE VOID STATEE. Ok so I planned on shifting to my babysitters a vampire and like listened to two guided meditations but they weren’t doing anything for me (I don’t feel like they’re for me) but like before I even attempted I watched some of the show I was shifting to and did go over my script a little bit. After I was getting a little bit sleepy so just decided to lay there. Fifteen minutes passed and I was like determined to shift so I started repeating affirmations like “im not attached to any reality” “im nothing but cute consciousness” and I was relaxed and I’m pretty sure I got in the void state. I was really close to shifting I was imagining like my dr house what I would do when I got there and everything. I started like getting hot like my body was getting hot flashes everywhere and my eyes were fluttering like crazy, my heart was also racing. I was gonna ask if you have any tips to stay focused because I was right thereeee but like I was focusing on the symptoms and also there was a tv my family members were watching that was on so like yeah. Also like once I get in the void state how do I use that to enter my dr because once I get in the void state I’m kinda stuck ^ _ ^ !! THANKUUU AGAIN YOUR TIPS HELPED SMMM

first of all HI HELLO YEA I REMEBER U, IM SO GLAD U FOUND WHAT WAS FOR U AND WHAT ISNT FOR U YK. AND SECOND YAYYY IM SO HAOOY LIKE AHH, honestly like don't thank me AT ALL cuz I DONT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE VOID STATE, and I SHIFTED WITHOUT IT. (I did a sleeping method, fell asleep and woke up in my dr) NEITHER LESS IM SO HAPLY FOR U LIKE AJEBWUSHWIWIWJ. THIS WAS SO FUN TO READ LIKE IT MADE ME SMILE, AHH TYSM FOR DOCUMENTUING IT. NOW TO ANSWER U . If your heart is racing, just let it. Say in your mind: “This means it’s working.” Don’t try to slow it down. Your body is processing something big. when you are in the void state, Just state your intention clearly, LIKE SAYING “I intend to shift to my desired reality as [your DR self] in [your DR location], now.” And then detach. Like, say it and let it unfold , don’t wait for it like it’s a countdown. If you can still think or imagine in the void, Picture a door, mirror, or portal. Walk through it or imagine falling through it straight into your DR. Try feeling the scene, not just seeing it. You can use simple void-based affirmations like: “I am now waking up in my desired reality.”, “I have fully shifted.” Say it once, with belief, and let go. NOW I HAVENT BEEN IN THE VOID BUT THIS IS ALL FROM RESEARCH! I HOPE THIS HELPED

[quinloki]

Oh gosh I cannot resist! If you could do Beckman/Rayleigh/Shanks with Praise Kink + Discipline/Obedience + Mirror Sex I would be eternally grateful

(I randomised the holy trinity of kinks imo but when I saw discipline there I thought obedience would go hand in hand, so feel free to pick one of those instead of both!)

\o/ Oh man, talk about some solid like Daddy Dom vibes, Very Firm Dom vibes at the bare minimum.

Annnnnnnnd now I'm thinking about Beckman and Rayleigh Disciplining Shanks >.> such a handful of a captain, after all.

AHEM, but my thots aside, lets get to the kinky headcanons - Discipline and Obedience do kind of go hand in hand, but I'll focus on the discipline angle =3

Gods, mirror sex too, seas save us...

Benn Beckman:

Discipline - Yes - Beckman is certainly here to teach you discipline. He can't lie though, the only reason he really wants to instill any discipline, or protocols, is so that he can punish you when you lapse. Maybe you like being bad for him, and maybe those punishments are more funishments than anything else, but the point is that Discipline is just a means to other ends.

And as a matter of fact, one of those other ends is on the list, so lets get to it.

Mirror Sex - FUCK Yes - It's not a super fancy set up, just a full-length mirror set across from the two of you. Usually he's seated on the end of the bed, or in a chair, but there's at least one time when he picks you up, leaving you to hold onto the top of the mirror, right up close and into it.

Don't look away, watch, it's a perfect angle, you can see him sink in so deep. So easy. If you watch your stomach you can see the subtle bulge as he fills you, pay attention. Take in Every Single Detail sweet little thing, and don't worry about the mirror.

He expects you're going to make a mess on it.

Praise Kink - Oh god you don’t even know - Oh he loves to praise you. Praising you when you're learning (like discipline training or protocols), praising you when you're being good for him, praising you when you're so far gone to pleasure you don't even consciously know what he's saying.

Beckman will even praise you for taking a punishment well. Especially when it's an actual punishment and he's really put you through it. But you endured it so well, all for him, what more could he ask for? You're such a good little thing, hold on longer and he'll be sure to reward you for it too.

Silvers Rayleigh:

Discipline - Oh god you don’t even know - I think Rayleigh likes teaching people things. Whether it's haki, fighting, cooking, survival, or more... intimate things, he's delighted to pass on his knowledge. So teaching you how to be disciplined, how to serve, how to act and speak, how to follow protocols, and all the fine details of the poise and grace involved in it - he's here for it.

It rates so high because not only does he get to teach you, but it also opens avenues for punishments, praising, and rewards, and it's the whole package kind of deal. More than the sum of its parts kind of thing. No matter how well you learn he's going to enjoy every aspect of the process.

Mirror Sex - Oh god you don’t even know - It's okay if you close your eyes. It's perfectly fine if your body flushes from embarrassment. The mirrors are as much for him as you. He wants to see everything. To drink in every part of you he can, as much as he can.

You can close your eyes, but you're not going to be able to stop the commentary. How he praises your body, how he talks in detail about how well you're doing, how beautiful you are, the little twitches you do when he touches you here, and here, and the way your lip trembles.

It's okay, open your eyes, watch carefully while you make a mess for him.

Praise Kink - Oh god you don’t even know - It's not fair that he can praise you into orgasm without touching you. It's not fair that the velvet voice rolling over your skin is enough to set it on fire. It's not fair that his honeyed words have you whining for more, for a kiss for a caress, for something, anything, to justify why you're almost ready to go over the edge again.

Ah, but you've earned it sweet one. All the pleasure, look at how good you are for him? How much you enjoy his efforts that you're shivering with need just from a few words of praise from him. What greater honor is there?

Shanks:

Discipline - Yes - Much like with Beckman (and Shanks might even just leave it up to Beck to do the heavy lifting) Shanks really only sees discipline as a means to an end. It doesn't mean he dislikes it, or that he doesn't enjoy it, but what's more enjoyable are the fruits of that labor.

Though it is edging toward a FUCK yes for him, as he's starting to really enjoy the pleasure of teaching in general. Shanks has always been pretty hands off though, igniting sparks in others and stepping back when the fire catches. Less teacher, more inspiration =3

Mirror Sex - Oh god you don’t even know - He's cruel, so cruel. There's enough mirrors set up that there's no where you can look without the reflection taking you back to what he wants you to see.

He's on his back on the bed, with you on your back on top of him, helping you ride while he's pointing out the mirror on the ceiling. Even if he was on top of you, you'd still be able to see, but this way you can watch he thrust as he pushes

nice and deep.

Aren't you just divine when you're shivering against his cock like this? He certainly thinks so - keep your eyes on the reflection, sweet darling, see what you look like when you cum for him.

Praise Kink - Oh god you don’t even know - Let him praise you, let him worship you, let him make sure you know just how amazing you are in his eyes. Certainly, you can praise him too, he's been good, yeah? He's been so good to you, it's okay, you can pat his head, he won't be offended.

It makes him feel so good to get your praise. It feels so good to praise you. Won't you let him make you feel good? With his words, with his lips, with his hips <3 You're perfect and he just can't get enough of you, and when praises for him fall from your lips he can barely control himself.

How May I Kink Your Head Canon?

[subtextdecoder]

Continuing the thoughts from the previous post because I kept thinking about it.

You should read the previous post before this, so you won't be lost.

The ED: I mentioned that there were 9 pigeons looking at the heroes, but when the camera moves a bit further we can see 10 pigeons.

Which confused me at first—until I realized that if X is helping to free the heroes from the system, it would make sense for him to join them. After all, he does pass through the 'breach' with the rest.

Previously, I mentioned the idea that the feathers falling from the sky might represent everyone else in the world switching timelines along with the ten heroes, which would explain why the city appears empty in the color sequence. But let’s assume that’s not the case.

Another possibility is that the feathers symbolize the pigeons (i.e. the heroes) being “destroyed” in that timeline in order to return through the breach—freed, in a way—linking it to the magician metaphor. This ties back to my earlier thought: that it’s not their physical bodies moving between universes, but their consciousness. So the feathers would be a metaphor for destruction and rebirth—like a phoenix—hinting that they awaken anew after their consciousness returns. Remember that moment with the hand becoming responsive after the Trust count disappears?

'Born in the ashes'—sounds like something a phoenix would do, doesn’t it? (Thanks @nilo-77 for reminding me of that scene.)

This detail about the number of pigeons reminded me of another moment:

Here, X throws a coin into water, and it becomes a king chess piece. Around him, other chess pieces fall—there are ten in total, including X as the tenth. The king piece then transitions into X himself. That speaks volumes. He’s clearly been playing chess with everyone all along, watching and moving pieces behind the scenes. And while "king" has a powerful connotation to it, in chess, it's actually a pretty vulnerable role, one that has to run and dodge all the time, otherwise, checkmate. Does this mean X has a weakness we don't know about?

Before I get into more chess references and how omnipresent he seems, let me show you the scene that made me believe he’s actually everywhere at once:

I love this one. It starts with him “entering” the ads on his smartwatch. The interactions look like he’s behind the screen—or rather, inside the internet. We see him removing some of the people's comments, so can he also change or stop public opinion? Well, let's not go there now. He steps out, walks through the city's buildings, grabs a drink from a screen ad, and drinks it. What does this tell us? That he can interact with any screen/surface, teleport through them, and even manipulate the digital world too. It's even a nice discussion because the coke and the watch band are real objects, through the screen or not, what happens here is that he can access the other side seamlessly. I love the parallel with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when Willy Wonka made it so you could watch a chocolate bar commercial, reach out your hand and take it without leaving the comfort of your couch. Now, going back to what matters...

This is important because in many dangerous moments for the heroes, there’s always an image of X in the background—on a screen. Those aren’t just advertisements. They’re him watching. Always. And maybe he wants people to know he’s there. He doesn’t seem to hide—especially in that scene where he pulls the camera, as if to force us to look at him.

There are more scenes like that, but I’ll stop here for now.

Now, I really believe his power opens breaches in space-time. Every time he uses it, the world glitches—the visuals suggest he “breaks” reality itself.

And linking that with the red strings at the end of the ED: he’s not just pulling the strings—he’s also playing the keys… of the universe?

He clearly knows his place as the king. Again, so many chess references.

He also loves to flip his coin—a nice tie-in to the show’s gambling motifs. It’s like he’s playing with probability. Maybe that’s what the strings represent. If he controls probability, then he essentially controls everything. It’s not really a gamble for him—but it is for everyone else.

There’s a frame I love that shows him seeing the reflection of the villains behind him on the coin’s surface. Sure, they were behind him, but what matters is the metaphor of the showing him important information, maybe helping him tweak the probabilities and with that change the outcome of things? Like winning a bet you never feared losing in the first place.

Then there’s the scene where he looks into the camera—and suddenly we’re inside his eye:

It looks like an eye, but it also resembles a casino roulette wheel from above—the same one the CEOs play on in the OP:

And eventually, it becomes a stage—where X is about to perform. So in a single image, we get three meanings: an eye, a roulette, a stage. This metaphor suggests that fate isn’t as random as it seems. Beneath the surface, all the chance and chaos are actually intertwined with control, and what we think is a spontaneous event might be part of a much bigger, carefully crafted plan. It’s the illusion of randomness—when in reality, everything is being steered by someone behind the scenes. What’s key in this metaphor is the idea of controlling how things are seen. The "eye" represents the observer, the one watching as the "roulette" of fate spins—like a symbol of randomness and unpredictability. But what seems like pure chance could actually be part of a well-thought-out show, where the "stage" reveals a narrative that’s been carefully set up. This connects to the idea that someone—maybe X—isn’t just watching fate unfold, but actively controlling it.

I’m almost at the image limit, so I'm gonna end it in the next post. There are a few lines scattered through the story that have really sparked my curiosity about who X truly is. This post started with doves, but here I am now, unraveling cinematographic cues and trying to make sense of it all. Part.3 ->

[sylusjinxedpaw]

A Rafayel's draft

Just something that I wrote but won't make a whole fic out of it. Was going to keep it as personal — because it is — but decided to share.

"Raf, have you ever wished that you could have the power to stop a situation in the past that really changed your present and future?"

"Huh?"

"Because I do."

"What are you talking about? We're just gazing to the sea together. I know I know... Humans always say that the sea makes them feel so many emotions by just seeing it, but that's not the sea's fault you know? It actually-"

"I wish I didn't took that step. I wish that I didn't chose to hate the way I am at that time to the point of chasing something so desperately that it destroyed myself."

"..."

"I'm still picking up the pieces, you know? And there's so many... It's ridiculous how much it broke me, and sometimes when I'm trying to pierce one with the rest I end up cutting myself in the process. And then I drop it. And it is on the floor again, and I'm so afraid of getting hurt again that I do not pick it up again, so it stays in the floor, again."

"Cutie... I'm trying to understand but I can't comprehend why are you talking about that right-"

"However, I still try to pierce what once was myself, but you can repair a porcelain vase without all the pieces. Even if you don't like some of them. It will eventually crumble, or look deformed with the holes that were left on their own. And I don't know how to deal with that. It is natural for me — or at least for my body — to run away from the pain, even if I consciously know that for me to let go and rebuild myself I have to feel it.

But I find myself so horrified at it that my body kicks me out and takes control."

"Maybe your problem is that you haven't found something to put that pain in, something that would help you take it out of your body."

"Like your paintings?"

"Aren't you smart? Yes my sea angel, my art is the way I take it out."

"But does it help you process it? Once is poured onto the canvas, does it really give you a push to move on and get rid of it forever?"

"... I think the pain from our actions never really fades in its entirety. I wish it would, but it isn't like that. Especially with decisions that made a before and an after in your life."

"So... Do you have any situation in the past like that?"

"You could say that, yeah..."

"And how did you manage it?"

"I... Learned how to live with it. Taught myself how to not drown when the tides are strong enough, and instead of succumbing to it, I just float in the surface."

"... It never ends, huh?"

"No cutie, it never ends. But the ache doesn't keep the same intensity as in the beginning. Eventually, it fades a little, like the color of a very old painting. And instead of being a bright blue, it becomes gray, giving space to other experiences that overshadow and paint over what happened with other bright and new colors"

"That would be so... I feel like mine will never fade. It will stay the same, and my grief will not retire. The desire of taking my heart out of my chest is so intense sometimes, that I fear it is so damaged and tired it will give up eventually."

"I don't want the big heart I got, Rafa. I hate it. It doesn't belong here."

"It will fade. Your wound is just recent, that's why you think of it in that way. I did felt the same way at the time, but even if it takes a looooong time, you will see that I don't lie with this.

Eventually, the pain that you feel will not be the center of your life as it is now."

"And what did became the center of your life now that it made the pain retire from your chest?"

"Love. Love for art, love for what's left from what I lost, love that comes from other people that I care.... Just love. Love is as powerful as pain."

"My wound comes from love... I think you would not understand."

"Mine comes from love, too. But that's not all there is to it. Poets and writers don't lie when they say that love has many faces, you know? I have seen many of them. Even if it is unbelievable, another face of love amended the damage the first one made."

"Perhaps one day I will see with my own eyes what you say..."

"Perhaps..."

"But please... Don't ever say that you hate your heart, and that it doesn't belong here. It does. And I would gladly cherish it and make it mine, if you let me.

With me, your heart is safe. No harm with come from my hands."

[keferon]

Did you think I was done? Ahahahaha no, I have more.

Because chapter 70 of MOMU gave me the very dynamic between them that I missed so much, I just blacked out and started drawing uncontrollably lmao

Also. ALSO. I noticed a while ago that Prowl has the habit of..like…constantly frowning. So. I did a bit of research and made this graph.

In 70 chapters, Prowl frowns rougly 104 times. And the intensity of this gesture is very clearly correlated with the development of his relationship with Jazz, as you can see ahahahahah It might be wrong tho don’t take me seriously I’m not good with graphs

[orcelito]

It feels. So so so good to feel confident in my playing again.

I spent a good hour and a half yesterday working at my new bridge again (so a total of 2.5 hours of sanding) and I think I'm satisfied with it now. The sound is definitely a lot better in general, which is Wonderful!! And I put on one of my new practice mutes today, so I didn't feel quite so self conscious playing with my bow. Bc my playing both sounds better than before and wasn't as loud (due to the mute), so! Not as self conscious!!

The bow was an important thing for practicing today. Prior practices at home, I was just practicing the fingerings and plucking, but when I got to rehearsal I'd still get tripped up by the bowings. So I needed to practice the bowings for this audition video.

Playing here today... I mean I still wasn't perfect, but that's what the practice is for. But my finger agility feels like it's really coming back, nowhere Near as stiff as it was when I started out this semester, AND my bow control was actually pretty damn good!!! So even with the parts I was tripping up on, overall my sound quality was Good, and that's. Such a relief, honestly. I got so out of practice that it kinda felt *wrong* to play, bc the experience just didn't match what I'd known in the past. Too clumsy, too stiff. But after just a few weeks of consistent practice, im starting to feel like my old self again. Starting to feel like I Do have the right to call myself a violinist.

And it's a very, very good feeling.

[scalproie]

Domesticated Post-Tekken 2 Era Kazuya is my favorite to think about because this would be so good for him and everyone else but he would have an absolutely miserable time during it

[wookgerine]

Love that they take Bella with the gym with them all the time

[tetradic-echinoidea]

Allow me to expand upon this a little bit to share my thoughts:

In this party, there are thousands and thousands of people, most of them you don't know. There's also thousands of people who have brought cakes, and every single one of them will feel dejected if no one tries their cake, or if they don't get enough positive commentary from amongst the chaos of the sea of strangers wandering around, seeing what kind of cake is being offered or even themselves carrying their own cakes.

This, inherently, is not the best situation to base your worth as a baker on, or to let determine whether or not you want to keep baking cake in the future.

(Disclaimer: I'm a professional artist who has been posting art on various forums and platforms for 18 years.)

This issue is very multifaceted - there's the current social media digital infrastructure not fascilitating art or writing well. There's the lightning fast 21st century current of constant 'content' going past people every day at all hours. There's people shouting into 'the void' and wondering, why no one is answering amongst the deafening noise of all that.

It's unfortunate, especially when you see others (most of the time people who have spent years and years cultivating their craft and an audience) get the kind of engagement you want, and you're just not getting it yourself. As much as artists aren't content machines, followers and social media users aren't constant engagement machines either. Sometimes a piece, no matter how deep the meaning behind it just doesn't manage to convey it's message to the audience it's reaching. Not all art speaks to all people. To get your audience to engage with you, the art needs to engage them first. And to achieve this consistently, you need to know what kind of audience you are presenting your work to.

Bare with me for a second here: there's this concept in dog training (that I've started to use in my mental health recovery as well, highly recommend) that in order to consistently succeed you need to set the dog up for success first by putting it in situations you know it can succeed in - that is to say, if you put it in a situation that's too difficult for the dog, it will fail. You should avoid that. How does this relate to art or the topic above you might ask? Well, especially beginner artists putting their work out on social media and expecting a certain amount or type of engagement are already setting themselves up for a failure. Like I said above it's a huge gamble, where you are fighting against all other content online for attention - it is not a fight you are likely to win.

In order to set yourself up for success, you need to ask yourself what you are actually looking for when you share your work. Think about where it is realistic to get what you want, whether that be in a smaller community or platform, or a friendgroup, or with other loved ones. Find those niche communities that like that thing exactly the same way you like it, engage with them, and they will engage with you. If you have trouble getting comments in a group setting, ask people individually. Reach out to artists and ask if they would like to give a quick comment about your art - some, like me, are happy to offer commentary and feedback!

Building an audience takes a lot, a LOT of time and patience, and willingness to withstand those times where something that spoke to you just doesn't speak to others, or it's not reaching the people it would speak to. Instead of sitting still and waiting for engagement to come to you, set yourself up for success and go to the engagement. Ask people if they'd like to try your cake, or what they thought of it. Engage with other bakers and share thoughts and tips about it.

You arrived to the party, now go offer people some cake.

“Your art isn’t valued by the number of notes you get” okay but. If you spent 6 hours baking a cake for a party, but no one at the party eats your cake, it’s still disappointing.

[reignpage]

How the JJK men react to you being in a coma

Satoru is devastated

It’s a deadly silence that envelopes you as he carries you to safety, face stone cold and grip tight. Even as you’re being patched up, laid down on a hospital bed, he doesn’t say a word. Just stares and watches every bruise fade, every wound heal, and for the heaviness in your limbs to wash away. But your eyes don’t open. No one says the obvious. 

Lying on the bed with you, he cradles your head to his chest and whispers, “This is the closest to losing you I ever want to get.”

You’re practically locked away after that. He takes over your teaching duties, and he works overtime to ensure the area is as safe as can be whilst you recover, intent on making sure that when you wake up, all you have to do is make it up to him with hugs and kisses. Every curse that runs into him faces a slow and brutal death as he takes out every ounce of his pain on them. None of it is enough. No number of curses slain will bring you to consciousness. For every hour you slumber, Satoru loses sleep.

"I always knew you like to nap but this is just excessive, sweets. Leave some beauty for the rest of us, yeah?"

No one has ever seen him more serious.

"Please?"

Suguru is motivated

You weren’t supposed to get hurt. You weren’t supposed to be there at all. Finding you, lying in a puddle of your own blood send shivers of wrath coursing through his veins. It was them. Those filthy monkeys. Seeing you barely able to open your eyes is a kind of pain only non-sorcerers could cause.

As you sleep life away, he busies himself with plans, double checking everything is airtight and all will proceed as expected. He can’t let you get hurt again. He won’t let them hurt you again. “Hi, pretty girl. I’ve been gone, haven’t I? I’m sorry.”

You're taken care of by Nana and Mimi and every single shaky smile they hide from him steels his resolve even further.

"Yes, I think that colour suits her well. She always did love when you painted her nails. Why don't you do mine too? We can all match."

Manoeuvring you onto his chest, he pretends you’re merely napping. He decides, there and then, he’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that the world you wake up to is one that’s safe for you, for your family, for your future.

Even if that world is devoid of him. 

Choso is panicked

He’s fussing, hands flying as he warns them to be careful of you. Every lack of sound of pain, of agony, and anguish from you makes him pull on his hair harder. You’ve always been the stronger one out of the two of you, so to see you limp, weak and silenced, sends his newfound heart racing. Even when it’s just the two of you, he runs around the house, fluffing up your pillow, getting you a glass of water, placing a warm towel on your forehead. 

“I don’t know what to do. You’re supposed to be the one who tells me what to do.”

Putting more hours sparring, he pushes his body to the limit, dedicated to getting stronger and better. He wants to protect you. To make sure you’re never in this position again. And though he’s always wanted to experience every part of being a human, grief is something he can do without. 

"I'll be fine, Yuji. Hit me harder. I can take it. No, I have to. Y/n needs me. I'm no good to her like this."

Toji is terrified

This can’t be happening again. He can’t lose someone else again. Someone so special to him, who taught him how to love again, to live and to know it’s okay to want more. "You promised you'd never put me in this position. You fucking promised."

You’re safer without him. You have people to take care of you. He'll only get in the way.

Leaving is the hardest thing he’s ever done. Every step feels like needles are pricking his feet, stabbing him in the heart somehow. He barely makes it a mile before his thoughts drift to you and stay there.

He thinks about you, weak and recovering. What if you wake up and no one’s there? Not a single family member or friend. He thinks about how you’ll croak his name, force your body up and search the house for him, limping. He imagines your legs will give up on you and you’ll fall, hurting yourself more.

The thought steals his breath and knocks him back. Rushing home, he drops his getaway bag and creeps into bed, holding you gently against him. 

“I’m here. I’m here, ma. I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you.”

Kento is ruined

His wife. His beautiful wife, losing the light in your eyes as he holds you. Gone is your smile, your warm touch and is instead replaced with shivering and shallow breaths. The noise that comes out of him is guttural and broken. "Oh, d-darling. Look at this mess. Let's get you cleaned up, alright?"

You’re alive but sleeping. And he doesn’t know when you’ll wake. It feels as if you’re floating in that space between the world of the living and the dead, and he wants to follow. 

He never leaves your side. He freshens the flower by your bedside table, keeps a tight schedule of visitors. None of them can touch you, they can’t speak too loudly and they can’t complain by your ear about their personal lives — he only wants you to be surrounded by positive energy. 

“You’ll wake up soon, won’t you, sweetheart? Yes. Yes, you will because you always take care of me. You’ll tell me off for not shaving, for not eating and for pushing everyone away, wouldn’t you?"

Maintaining your routine, he washes your face, puts on face masks, and reads aloud by your side, hoping that a particularly dramatic prose will provoke a reaction from you.

"I need my wife. I need you. What am I supposed to do without you? Won’t you open your eyes for me? For your Kento?”

Sukuna is confused

He’s in disbelief as he's ushered into the room where you rest. Everyone is in a state of disarray and for what, he has no idea. You’re merely sleeping. He pokes your cheek. “Wake up, woman. Tell these pathetic fools to stop their useless quivering.”

When you don’t, he frowns. Brows furrowing, he tilts his head and examines your body. You’re breathing and he can hear your heart beating, and yet you don’t respond to his commands.

How insolent.

Waving the peasants away, he shakes your shoulder. “Your king has given an order. Follow it immediately or face punishment”

Even once he has it explained to him, he can’t wrap his head around the concept of you sleeping indefinitely, though he’s once gone through it himself. You’re different. Better. You’re supposed to be filled with endless optimism and energy. You’re supposed to be bothering him about smiling, pulling him to the garden to look at a flower he’s seen before.

"Humans really are f-fragile creatures. Ridiculous."

Tutting, he rolls his eyes and grumbles about how you’re not even making space for him on the bed. There, lying with you, he can do nothing but slumber and wait for your soul to reignite, sparking his once more.

[hyper-fixates]

Time After Time

Logan Howlett/Wolverine x AFAB!reader (no pronouns/gendered language).

Explicit content (18+)

Word count: 15.2k never let me near him again

Tags/warnings: age-gap due to logan’s mutation (reader’s age not specified), mutant!reader, unprotected sex, teasing, friends to lovers, explicit language, dry humping, storm cameos, fluff, domesticity, the claws come out when he’s close (👁️👁️), detailed descriptions & scenes of nightmares/trauma/PTSD/panic attacks, one (1) ass smack, alcohol consumption, vomiting, biting/marking, angst, soft!logan, creampie, groping/touching, use of “baby” once, aftercare, yearning (kindly let me know if anything was missed!).

Summary: 4 times you end up in Logan’s bed, and the 1 time he does something about it.

Notes: this falls somewhere in between “which could mean nothing” and “we can fix each other” 🫡 (written with a mix of X1 & X2 logan!)

Your heart, despite always being alive and beating, sometimes wakes up before you.

You can feel it before your eyes even have a chance to open. It jolts your sleep-ridden body and collapses your lungs without giving your brain a chance to fight against it. Muscles and limbs feel lifeless and detached from your body, shaking from the sleep that your heart knows wasn’t completely dreamless.

You kick the blankets off of yourself and sit up in a panic, trying to regain some control of your sudden erratic breaths while bringing a lethargic hand to your heaving chest in hopes to ground yourself. It never works.

Maybe your ribs are shrinking and squeezing your lungs, making you delirious from the lack of oxygen, but you know that’s not the case. Your heart feels like it’s being squeezed and broken into a million tiny pieces.

No part of your body feels real, yet you keep your hand on your chest as firmly as you can, trying to focus on controlling the pounding of your heart that’s working so hard with each beat that it hurts. 

“Fuck. Fuck,” you choke out, feeling the tears finally breach and roll down your cheeks as your nervous system catches up to what’s happening.

 Panic. It’s all panic.

You can’t do anything but sit there and let the tears hit the freshly-washed fitted sheet on your bed. So you let it happen. Nothing can stop it.

Trauma is such a fickle thing. One moment you’re fine, and then the next, your heart is screaming at you and forcing your body to process something at 4 a.m. on a random Friday when all you wanted was some goddamn sleep.

There is no choice. Your mind doesn’t give you one.

The tremors subside slowly after a few minutes, giving you the feeling back to your arms and legs, albeit minimal.

You slide to sit at the edge of your bed, resting an elbow on your thigh and setting your chin into your palm with a defeated, yet shaky, huff. 

You look to your window and see that the sun hasn’t even started to rise yet. You’ll be up for the rest of the foreseeable morning, but there’s not much to do so early besides wander aimlessly and think…then think some more. 

You’re confident the professor isn’t even awake at this hour, which says enough about your state. You would typically go visit Storm for some comfort, but she’s been gone fuck-knows-where with Hank and Scott until Sunday at the latest. Thanks, Charles.

A questionable, and probably manic, decision comes to mind. One that’s only two doors down, one over from Storm.

Your impulsive feet make up your mind for you. The cold hardwood floor shocking you further into consciousness as if your heart didn’t do a good enough job.

You tiptoe a couple steps down the hall, forcing yourself to turn and face the large wooden door when you reach it. You just stand there staring at it, unknocking, analyzing the wood grains, suddenly very interested in what type of wood it is and what stain was used to—

“Uh. Are you okay?”

You refocus your eyes onto the man now standing in front of you in the doorway, adorning a barely-zipped school hoodie and black sweats.

“Huh?” You blink a few times, disoriented.

Logan quirks a brow, looking you up and down cautiously. “Are you okay?” He asks again, offering a look of concern—or maybe confusion—that you haven’t seen often. A look that’s never needed to be directed towards you.

You come back to yourself. “But—I…didn’t knock,” you respond, looking equally as confused as him as you point to the door. 

He leans against the edge of the door, face softening. “I could smell you before you passed Storm’s room,” he clarifies, a hint of reluctance in his tone. Oh. 

You feel like a child who has just gained awareness, all too conscious of your situation.

“You’re…awake?” Is all you manage despite probably needing to say much more than that to explain just why exactly you’re standing outside Logan’s room at 4 a.m.

“So are you,” he counters with a curious look. “So let me ask again. Are you okay?” He locks his eyes on yours, probably in hopes to understand why the fuck you’re outside his room at 4 a.m.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” you say, and it’s the truth. 

You should probably be embarrassed. You show up at Logan’s door unannounced, dressed in a flimsy shirt and matching sweats—thanks, Charles—that can’t fully hide the remaining quivers throughout your body.

Logan pulls his lips together at your admission. You can almost see the wheels turning in his head trying to figure you out.

“Can’t sleep?” He questions, but he knows he’s right.

“Yeah.” You don’t know why you’re making it Logan’s problem, though. Sure, he happens to be awake, but maybe this is all too personal to push on the guy who’s seemingly all pride and no solicitude most of the time.

It’s not that he’s not a good, nice guy, but you don’t know how you would define your relationship, or lack of.

You know each other well enough from existing in the same space over the past couple months, being part of the same “team”, but it’s nothing to call a close friendship like you and Storm. He’s a bit of a rare species in the mansion, not really lingering around.

He cocks his head in a half shrug, the soft points in his hair broken by sleep shake gently with the movement.

“I don’t think I can help you,” he says wearily. “I’m no better. Clearly.” He gestures between you, drawing attention to the fact that you’re both awake. The helpless cannot help the helpless.

“Oh—no, I’m not looking for help. I think I’m beyond that at this point,” you laugh but stop yourself short when Logan doesn’t follow. Tough crowd.

“I, uh, don’t actually know what I’m looking for,” you offer.

You knit your brows together in thought, still wondering why the fuck you’re here. Comfort? Entertainment? Some other unknown third thing?

“I’m not really used to Storm being gone for so long,” you admit. “I just feel…all over the place, I guess.”

Logan considers your vulnerability for a beat, eyes flicking to yours. “I can hear you sometimes,” he says, a knowing—almost sympathetic—look on his face. “We have the same problem.”

You go cold, any expression you had on your face sliding away. You wish the floor could swallow you right now. You know things have been getting worse recently, but you didn’t think anyone could hear that fact. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise from someone who could smell you from down the hallway.

He steps back, pulling his door open further. An invitation.

You don’t move right away. Could this be a false awakening? You’re not sure what you expected when you came to his door, but you also didn’t expect him to open it without you knocking, so you have to suspend disbelief for now. You figured he’d offer a few words of advice and dismiss you, or maybe even tell you to fuck off, but he opened his door wider for you. But you didn’t exactly think any of it through in the first place anyway.

You force your feet to carry you into Logan’s room. It’s not much different from yours; scarce belongings, minimal decor, a small work desk, brown curtains that are drawn back, and a bed. 

“Were you, uh…sleeping before I came?” You sit on the unmade bed, nothing noticeably different from it compared to yours.

He shuts the door quietly, moving to the small desk across the room and filing some scattered papers together neatly.

“Trying to,” he says, keeping his gaze on the desk.

Fucking duh. “Sorry if I disturbed you,” you wince to yourself. 

You see him briefly shake his head at your unnecessary apology. “I had to get up anyway.” His voice is still gravelly from sleep.

It feels like you’re invading his space. But he invited you in. How many others have had the opportunity to be in here? Probably too many. There’s nothing to make this special.

“I’m fucking exhausted,” you sigh, flopping back on his bed defeated. Simply overwhelmed with the uncontrollable repercussions of your mutation.

“Try to sleep. If you want,” he offers, moving to the edge of the bed. “It’s easier said than done, but I have to meet with Charles in an hour.” It’s gruff, but he’s sincere.  

Maybe the professor is awake after all.

You roll your head to the side to look at him. Was he really offering for you to stay in his bed?

“Oh, wow…uh, sure.” It comes off as more of a question, but he quirks his brows in acknowledgment, turning back to the desk and collecting a handful of other miscellaneous papers.

“I have to head downstairs and take care of some things. Stay as long as you need,” he says, zipping his sweater the rest of the way up. Thank God in heaven.

A shy “thanks” is all you manage as you situate yourself on the bed.

Is this fucking weird? You could name a handful of others in the mansion right this second that would kill without hesitation to be where you are. They’d probably kill you specifically to get it. It’s not much of a secret that Logan is the subject of almost all students’ desires. He knows it, too. 

“See you later,” he adds, his lips forming the slightest hint of a caring smile as he sees himself out. You throw one back before the door clicks shut.

Should you be offended that he didn’t stay? That he left so quickly? No, no, he can’t. He couldn’t. Charles is expecting him. The timing is just horrid. But now you’re just…alone…in Logan’s room, expected to sleep because of a random act of kindness in his heart.

Lying in his bed instead of yours is an odd sensation. The sheets and mattress are exactly the same, the pillows are just as fluffy, yet it feels unalike. 

You flop your head on his pillow, tugging the blankets up to your chin. Your fingers graze something by your hip as you settle in, making you push the blanket back down. Leaning over, you see three puncture marks in the mattress, fraying the bedsheet material into feather-soft strands around the deep holes.

Your eyes widen, remembering his words before he invited you in: “We have the same problem.”

Part of your heart fractures for the second time today. Your eyes cross over to the other side of you, seeing a matching set of holes just below the pillow. It’s suddenly easy to understand why no one besides him has been seen coming and going from this room in a while. One day, things just seemed to change. 

Maybe his act of kindness was an act of mercy. Trauma will always find you, and it will make sure you feel it until you either destroy it or it destroys you.

Even the Wolverine isn’t an exception. 

━━━━ ● ━━━━

The gold liquid is gone from the glass as quickly as it was poured.

Your throat clenches and protests the swallow as you try to suppress the urge to gag. You gently set the shot glass back on the counter, watching Storm chase with a piece of lime that does nothing to help the puckered face she makes from the tequila. 

“No more, no more. I can’t.” Your arms anchor you to the counter to stop yourself from swaying too much.

Storm nods, still fighting off the sourness with furrowed brows and a scrunched nose. You giggle at her when she quickly screws the cap back on the bottle, sliding it out of reach.

“You’re a bad influence,” she scolds as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“No—I’m under the influence,” you counter, a playful smile on your lips. “There’s a difference. You still have your own free will.”

Storm rolls her eyes so hard you only see the whites of them. “We have training tomorrow,” she slurs. “Charles will not be happy if we show up half-conscious.” She rounds the counter to you, grabbing your shoulders for stability, and you do the same.

“He’ll be lucky if we show up at all,” you mumble. 

The dim kitchen lighting embraces the two of you, the rest of the mansion blanketed in darkness with everyone fast asleep—like you both should be.

You close your eyes with a roll of your neck, more giggles falling through your lips as you clumsily grab onto Storm and rock and sway together for a moment, the alcohol quickly catching up to your motor skills. It feels like you’re spinning through time and space, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel fucking euphoric. At this rate, neither of you will be able to make it back to your rooms.

“Am I interrupting something?”

You lose a bit of your balance as you try to find the resonant voice, eyes shooting open. Storm unintentionally startles and stumbles away from you, white hair also jumping from the excitement.

You grab onto the counter again, sucking in a deep breath. “Fuck, don’t do that,” you growl through your teeth, a hand on your chest as you try to calm yourself.

“Don’t do what? Come to the shared kitchen to grab a drink?” Logan huffs a laugh, an amused smile creeps to his lips as he takes in your drunk and shaken state from the entryway.

“Doesn’t anyone sleep in this place?” He mumbles to himself.

“And with that, I’m done for the night,” Storm chuckles, fixing her hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her eyes lock intensely on yours, index finger firmly poking the middle of your chest to make her point for you to show up to training very clear.

“See you, Logan,” she dismisses, stumbling as she passes him.

Logan shakes his head, still smiling. He steps to the fridge, opening the double doors and plucking a bottle of soda from the bottom shelf. No alcohol is readily available in the communal fridge because, after all, you’re all in a school full of kids, so Storm had to get creative; Scott will be missing a rather large bottle from the now not-so-secret stash in his room.

As the alcohol continues to settle in you, you feel more and more lightheaded as it brings you to a new level of euphoria again. You only know this because watching Logan pop the cap of his drink with mindless ease feels a little more exciting than it would be if you were sober. But you’re not sober, and that’s the problem.

“Not gonna follow Storm?” He asks, taking a generous sip from the bottle as he casually places his free hand on the counter to lean on across from you.

A tight smile forms, mostly to yourself. “I don’t think I can make it down the hall,” you laugh in embarrassment. Maybe that last shot was one too many, and it’s not even fully done working its magic yet.

Logan raises a brow. “Want some help?” There’s no judgement in his tone like you expect. Then again, you don’t know what the fuck to expect from him.

Your already half-closed eyes, blurry and unfocused, meet his hazel ones in interest. Another favour?

It’s been two weeks since he let you sleep off the nightmares in his bed. Two weeks since you learned he’s burdened with them, too. You traced the holes in the mattress over and over before you eventually fell asleep, wondering what—or who—could have hurt him so badly. He plays it off cool; you wouldn’t suspect anything from talking to him. The same could probably be said about you.

“I didn’t know wolverine’s were chivalrous,” you tease.

The yellow hue of the lights dance over the quaffed points in his hair, making them appear sharper than usual. You would never admit it, especially to him, but you adore them. They give him an absurd amount of character that you’d expect a guy like him to not care about. 

You’re not exactly complaining about the fitting grey tank-top he has on either.

“Not overly,” he plays along, taking another mouthful of the fizzy drink. “I like to think I’m special,” he says quieter.

“Maybe you are,” you say as you try and straighten yourself to see if you can stand unassisted.

The world tilts as you stand to your full height, eyes rolling into your head from the wave of dizziness. “Wow, okay,” you say to yourself, squeezing your eyes shut to stop the spinning. How many shots did you have again?

A warm hand presses between your shoulders. “Woah, nice and easy. Nice and easy.” Logan appears by your side to steady you, other hand grabbing your elbow to pull you straight. You wobble in his grip, letting him guide your useless, alcohol-ridden body.

His hand on your back rubs a few small, comforting circles as you work to regain your bearings. He watches your expressions intently, looking for the right moment to get you moving back to your room safe and sound.

Your arm crosses over your body out of instinct to grab the hand he has on your elbow for extra support.

“Are you okay?” He asks. He seems to ask you that a lot.

You lean into him, your shoulder to his chest, and you can feel the blackout creeping up on you like humidity from a thunderstorm—it’s usually too late to do anything once you notice it. 

“I drank a lot,” you laugh deeply, rolling your head onto his shoulder to look up at him.

He looks so much more delicate under the ambient lights—his usual defined features have shifted and melted him into someone that doesn’t look like they should be a feared animal out in the world.

Logan all but cradles you, that same look of concern crossing his features from the night you went to his door. The only difference is that you’ve had a generous amount of tequila—and are currently being kept alert by the hot touch of his hands. That’s new.

“Can you walk?” He holds your squinty eye contact, probably searching for any signs of a coherent thought behind the blissful expression on your face. “Or will I have to carry you?” He muses, a hint of a smile crosses his lips as his hand moves up to gently rub over your shoulders. 

Drunk you likes the sound of anything relating to Logan keeping his hands on you right now. You wonder what sober you would think.

“I’m not gonna tell you no, but it feels like I’m floating in a bubble that won’t stop spinning,” you hum as you let the sensation consume your senses. “I might fly away.” You dip your head back off of his shoulder in amusement as you laugh again. 

“Yeah, you’re fucked up,” he mumbles lovingly. Just like anyone else who’s concerned for your well-being would. 

“Hey, kitty cat—I’m perfectly buzzed,” you emphasize the teasing nickname, narrowing your eyes at him sternly as you bring your gaze back to his in defence.

“‘Kitty cat’? Really?” He snorts. “I think you’re past your bedtime by three drinks,” he remarks back with equal levity.

“Then take me to bed if you’re so concerned,” you sigh dramatically, going limp in his arms to make your point. 

Truthfully, you’re probably past your bedtime by five shots. But he doesn’t need to know that. You just know that you can’t control your limbs like you were able to ten minutes ago.

“Maybe I will.” You don’t see it, but he does his quick little eye roll that you’ve seen pointed towards Scott too many times. 

He slides the hand on your elbow down to the backs of your knees, pulling you up off the floor and into his chest as you fall into the arm that was rubbing your back. 

Oh, so it’s gonna be like that. 

An excited—or maybe shocked—noise escapes your mouth as he adjusts you in his arms. You extend your right arm up and over his shoulder to hug his neck and keep yourself stable.

The trip to your room isn’t one that should take long, but each sway from Logan’s steps goes straight to your stomach in waves of queasiness. It feels like forever before you feel him bend awkwardly to turn your doorknob.

You’re fighting to keep yourself conscious the entire time, not wanting to regret missing the feeling of being in his arms.

The room is only lit by the silver moonlight creeping through the window. It’s hard to distinguish anything through your bleary eyes besides Logan’s look of determination to get you in your bed.

He leans down, shuffling you out of his arms and onto the mattress as swiftly as possible. The care of it all pokes at your heart. 

He silently goes around each corner of the bed adjusting the blankets. It may be dark, but the moonlight highlights the peaks of his shoulders as he moves. Your eyes might be involuntarily half-shut, but that doesn’t stop you from staring.

You’re now probably no better than every other mutant in this school.

“Logan,” you start before you can fully process the foolish thing you’re about to say next.

He rounds the bed back to the side you’re huddled on, looking down on you. “Yeah?” The subtle jingle of his dog tag pierces the quiet that’s lingering in the room.

You part your lips to speak but the words die in your throat. They’re replaced by a flood of saliva that has you sitting up at a speed that shouldn’t be possible for someone as intoxicated as you. You cover your mouth with your hand, feeling your stomach churning and finally rejecting the tequila. 

You suddenly feel very awake.

“Hey, hey.” Logan squats down in front of you with his already permanently-furrowed brows pinched closer together than you’ve ever seen before, a hand coming to your shoulder in concern. “What—”

“Bathroom,” you mumble through your palm, eyes rolling shut at the nausea. 

He doesn’t say another word. He pulls you to your feet by your arms, walking behind you fiercely with his hands gripping your shoulders to guide you to the small bathroom across the room.  

You push the door open, falling to your knees in the darkness over the toilet as the mistakes from the night expel themselves from your body through rounds of coughing and gagging. He lingers in the doorway, keeping an eye on you but still giving you privacy.

“Fuck,” you cough, resting your warm forehead on your hand as you slump against the toilet. That definitely sobered you up fast.

Exhaustion hits you like a truck. “Logan…” you croak from your crumpled position on the tile floor. 

He steps in, bending down again to reach your height. You can barely make out the shadow of him in the fading moonlight.

“Just…help me back to bed,” you groan, reaching for his arm as you use the toilet seat to push yourself the rest of the way up. You stumble against him as you try to make it back through the doorway.

He guides you to the bed the same way he did to the bathroom—steering you from behind.

“I’m gonna get you some water,” he says as you settle back into bed, head hitting the pillow with a quiet thud. “Even though you did this to yourself.”

“Fuck off,” you groan.

You close your eyes, hearing his footsteps fade back toward the bathroom. You hear the tap run for a couple seconds before he’s next to you again, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Drink. All of it,” he says firmly, holding the cup out to you.

You sit back up slowly, no doubt lethargic, an unimpressed look on your face that earns you a raised brow that tells you there’s no room to object.

You finish the cup in four mouthfuls, handing it back to him. “Thanks.”

You fall back onto the pillow, no longer feeling like you’re travelling through space and time.

The clothes you’re in are close enough to pyjamas. There’s no sense in undressing in front of Logan, especially with what you were about to say to him before you were rudely interrupted by the consequences of your own actions.

He returns the cup to the bathroom and you pull the blanket over your waist as you hopefully settle in for the rest of the night. You owe him big time for this. The thought of just how exactly you’ll manage that fills you with anxiety.

You turn on your side, fingers sliding over the mattress with the movement. They graze familiar strands of feather-soft fabric by the pillow.

This is Logan’s room. Are you just that drunk that you couldn’t tell the difference when he brought you in? Or are your rooms just that similar to each other?

You dip a finger in one of the three holes, hearing the bathroom door click shut as Logan makes his way back. 

“Why am I in your bed?” You see him rustling through some drawers of clothing by the small desk, but he stops when you finish your question.

“You can’t take care of yourself tonight,” he says. “You’re too drunk.” He pulls the grey tank-top off, stuffing it in one of the drawers and shutting it.

You sit up at that, head still foggy and tipsy, watching him move to the foot of the bed across from you. You try to focus your eyes on anything but his bare chest and the dark hair that adorns it and trails down past the waistband of his sweats. His hair is somehow even more wild from mindlessly pulling the tank-top over his head.

“Ah. I was gonna ask you to stay anyway,” you reveal, almost whispering the bold confession.

You were planning to ask before the tequila decided to make another appearance, but maybe doing it this way isn’t so bad either. He did all the heavy-lifting.

A modest, tight-lipped smile graces his lips. “I think you still have some tequila to sleep off.”

Whether or not you still have some shots in your system, what you feel and want right now is real. It’s not influenced by anything besides some mild andronitis created by the fact that you share a common struggle.

“Is it…safe? To share a bed?” The most coherent thought you’ve had all night makes him stiffen from your sudden nervous tone. Your body could easily replace the mattress and become a new home for the deep punctures. 

Your eyelids have been fighting against being pulled shut by alcohol-induced drowsiness, yet your eyes are wider than they’ve been all night in this moment.

You’re sat right in the middle of the bed and Logan comes around to the right, sitting on the edge of the mattress to come down to your level.

“You’re just gonna have to trust me.” His eyes are imploring and apologetic all at once. He understands the prospect of even having you here in the first place.

You nod, sliding over to the left to give him more room. 

Logan wouldn’t put you in harms way, you reason with yourself. He wouldn’t risk potentially killing someone, especially a fellow mutant, if he wasn’t absolutely sure of his mental state. But you also don’t really know his demons.

You roll onto your right side, tugging the blanket up to your chin in comfort. “Why haven’t you been given a new mattress?” You ask as he turns to face you in the same position, his half of the blanket resting at his hip.

The bed dips significantly on his side, almost encouraging you to roll over against him.

“Forgot to ask,” he says quietly, running his right hand through his hair to push the shorter strands off his forehead.

From his tone you can decipher that he actually means “can’t be bothered.” It’s a devastating thing to imagine just how many he goes through, anyway. He probably doesn’t see the point in replacing something that will inevitably have the same fate as the others.

There has to be less than an arms length between you two. It’s a surreal situation to be in considering what you thought you knew about him. A recluse. Standoffish. Maybe it’s all a fluke and the alcohol is severely fucking with your perception of what’s actually happening.

“Thanks for everything,” you whisper as if someone else will overhear.

“Get some sleep,” he insists, rolling onto his back. You do the same.

You stare at the blank ceiling for a while, noticing the exact moment Logan falls asleep; his breathing grows slow and his body runs even hotter than before. 

You think about how he could wake at any moment, claws accidentally sliding right through your stomach from a nightmare or two. You imagine all the others that have been in your position—if they felt scared, if they even knew. 

He asked you to trust him, and that should be enough. 

There is a body full of secrets and hurt sleeping undisturbed next to you with the ability to withstand and regenerate from any physical injury, yet there’s something that hasn’t allowed the same to be done for his mind. 

━━━━

The bright amber sun hits your closed eyes through the window, making you roll your head away onto the other side of the cool pillow.

You want more sleep. Your head feels like a bag of bricks and your body feels like it got beat with them.

You stretch a leg out, gently grazing something solid with your foot. Your eyes shoot open, the night coming back to you as you drift into consciousness. Logan. 

You shoot up, bouncing a little from the momentum.

Logan startles next to you, clearly interrupted from a deep sleep. “What the fuck…” he groans, rubbing a hand over his face, not seeming interested in making a move to sit up with you.

“What time is it?” Your eyes bounce around the room looking for a clock.

He grunts, reaching for a watch on the nightstand. “Seven-forty.”

You needed to be in the Danger Room for 7 o’clock.

“Fuck!” You rip the blanket off, almost tripping as you run to the bathroom.

Logan also wants to roll back over and go back to sleep, but he knows he won’t be able to. He doesn’t work like that. So he just lays there, listening to you swear and make a mess of his bathroom as the clattering of fuck-knows-what fills the room. 

The surprise of how well he slept makes him feel uneasy. Although it definitely wasn’t eight hours, it was uninterrupted. He doesn’t want to credit that to you, though. He wants to believe that he’s getting better overall, and maybe he is, so he can’t offer you any flattery in his mind.

Another distant “fuck” escapes the bathroom, pulling him out of his thoughts. You exit a few minutes later, as refreshed and presentable as you could get yourself, and the sight of Logan still in bed makes something in you ache for another moment of feeling him care and tend to you. Maybe that’s your hangover talking.

“Thanks again. I’ll see you around,” you say hurriedly, offering an apologetic smile as you turn the doorknob to leave.

“Good luck with Charles.” It’s a genuine advisory. Fuck. You’ll be so incredibly lucky if he doesn’t give you more than a stern lecture in front of everyone.

You take a deep breath in and slip out of Logan’s room. There’s not a single cut, mark, or scratch on you, just like he promised.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“I was told it’ll take a day to fix,” Storm explains with a shrug. “You’ll have to find somewhere or someone to room with until tomorrow. Jean already offered to have me stay with her.” A contrite look passes over her face.

You stand outside your rooms, staring in at the remnants of the mess caused by two terrakinetic kids fucking around in the courtyard when they weren’t supposed to be. They somehow managed to throw, or launch, sizeable tree branches right through each of your windows. Of course it wasn’t on purpose, but the Danger Room exists for a reason—to avoid mishaps like this. 

Shards of glass and fragments of wood splatter your floors. The branches are hanging half-way out both of your windows, caught on the window sills and bobbing in the evening summer wind. The kids are extremely fortunate that neither of you were in your rooms when it happened.

“It’s fine. It’s just one night,” you sigh, rubbing your eyes in frustration. You don’t love how quickly your mind picks out who to go to. It’s already nearing 11 p.m., so you have to work fast. 

Storm squeezes your shoulder in comfort. “The living room is always free,” she suggests with a remorseful smile.

But you don’t want the living room. Stiff couches mixed with students clamouring and passing by at the crack of dawn isn’t exactly a recipe for a good nights rest. As if you usually get one, anyway.

“Not a fucking chance,” you laugh. “I’ll be fine,” you say again, dismissing her worries. You wish her goodnight when she steps by you to head towards Jean’s room at the very end of the hall.

You glare at the mess in your room, not daring to step in. The amount of shattered glass everywhere makes the floor look like a body of water from the reflections of the pale moonlight bouncing and refracting off of the jagged shards.

“Fuck,” you spit through your teeth, solely to yourself.

Not even a full week after Logan saw you at your worst, you’re going to go back and ask for the left side of his bed. Shameless.

You don’t have much of a choice; you’re not comfortable having it be anyone else. It’s only because Logan saw you at your worst that you feel he’s the most logical choice. Already having shared a bed with him this week may also have some weight in your decision.  

You take the few self-assured steps to his room, once again standing in front of his door. This time you feel more confident in approaching the Wolverine in his den.

You knock three times, the piercing sound echoing through the hall.

“You start to miss me or what?” A bare chest enters your view. You note the dog tag hanging from his neck again before you find his unyielding gaze full of ambiguity, wondering why you’re here. Again.

You blink at him slowly in hilarity. “Ha, funny. Can I stay with you tonight?” You ask flatly, not thrilled with the situation, but not completely displeased with being here now. “My window—”

“I know what happened,” he interrupts. “Figured you’d go for the couch in the living room.” He looks at you more pointedly with teasing suspicion. 

“I think you know no one would ever willingly choose to sleep out there,” you reason, running a hand over your face in both shame and defeat.

He makes a face that tells you “touché” and you smirk in satisfaction. “If you don’t mind giving up half of your bed again, I would really appreciate it. I promise I’m not trying to make this a habit,” you sigh. Spending the night in Logan’s bed three times in the past month has to be a record for anyone recently. 

“I don’t think it would be a bad habit,” he argues. Oh. “C’mon.” He gives a jerk of his head to allow you in, his tufts of his hair bristling with the quick movement.

“Thanks,” you squeak. He wants you here? 

He shuts the door behind you, following you to the bed that’s clearly already had him in it. The blanket rests in waves on the mattress that remind you of just how human Logan is despite his reputation and image.

“Do you have an early morning?” You ask, slipping under the blanket.

“No. Charles was feeling nice for once,” he raises his tone sarcastically to rag on Charles’ judgement, which has clearly been a much needed one before now.

“Not an early bird?” You roll onto your right side like last time, facing him as he settles on his back with a deep breath. The bed sinks in again where he lays, your body wanting to give in to the laws of gravity and fall into him.

“Fuck no,” he laughs lightly, eyes crinkling around the corners. It’s self-deprecating, but it’s still a genuine laugh. The condescension from it lingers in the air, all directed at himself in a way that tells you he’s thinking about how inconceivably fucked up he is.

The last time he had a decent sleep was when you were drunk in his bed a few days ago.

“People like us don’t usually get the pleasure of a full eight hours,” he notes, sliding his gaze to yours for a fraction of a second.

He props an arm behind his head, the other resting on his chest and idly twisting the dog tag between his fingers. You watch the thin piece of steel slide and flip easily, the chain tinkling with every movement.

People like us.

“You mean mutants,” you state. You see his jaw tense in what little light there is from the half-moon tonight.

You see his brows pull together. “Yeah.” He has a point.

You think about the mutants you know, how they all have some horrific story about their gifts or family, or both. How they either were shamed by society or experimented on like rats. 

The scenarios are endless. If you can think of it, some mutant has probably lived it.

Your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach. You and Logan are not isolated or special cases, but you’ve already shared a moment of vulnerability with him when you came to his door all those weeks ago seeking solace for the same thing he fights with: the inescapable ability of remembering.

You pull the blanket tighter against you. “I don’t think you’ll hurt me.” 

He turns his head to you, confusion written on his face. “What?” He stops toying with the dog tag.

“Your claws. I trust you.” You didn’t feel like you were in immediate danger that first night, but you want to reassure him anyway. Or maybe you’re reassuring yourself. 

He hasn’t had to say a single word for you to know his nightmares trigger something instinctive and combative that’s been hardwired into his DNA. In this case, it’s his claws needing to find a home in his mattresses, where another body could potentially lay one night. Like yours is right now.

You noticed the lack of holes in this mattress when you first got to the bed. Maybe you mentioning them last time was enough for him to finally request a new one.

Logan knows he shouldn’t make promises he doesn’t know he’ll be able to keep, but he wants to keep you here tonight, so he improvises. He abandons the dog tag between his fingers completely, turning onto his side and reaching to find your hand under the blanket. You meet him halfway, sliding your fingers between his as your palms lay flat on the bed.

A smile tugs at your lips for a moment. He watches your interlinked fingers, observing the size difference, wondering if he really just did that—and why. 

You assume it’s his way of saying “thank you” for your trust when you probably shouldn’t be putting that much into him.

“Does it hurt?” You whisper, pulling your fingers out from his just enough to caress the divets between his knuckles that conceal the claws.

He knows what you’re asking. “Every time.” He softly pushes his fingers back into yours, squeezing a little. 

There’s a deadly stillness in the room despite his window being cracked. You both know you’re one in the same in a way, and that’s a connection that Logan hasn’t let himself experience. Not everyone likes looking in a mirror.

To be truly seen by someone, wholly, without judgement or fear, is what he deserves. 

“What are you?” He asks, rubbing his index finger back and forth along the top of your hand. “Telekinetic? Psychic?” His curious voice grows quiet, hazel eyes fascinated with you and your lack of a physical mutation, at least nothing that he can see.

It never occurred to you that he didn’t know your mutation, or that you’ve never told him. It was never needed, but it seems unfair that you know about his when he wasn’t the one who told you.

“Ha, close.” Your eyes twinkle as you notice how intently he’s listening. “Psychometric,” you correct, watching his forehead crease.

“Sounds like math,” he quips, readjusting his head on the pillow. He’s close enough that you can feel the heat he’s putting off.

You laugh quietly. “No, it’s extrasensory perception. It lets me see the history of any object or person I touch, but only if I accept the energy,” you explain.

You watch his eyes narrow and you know what he’s thinking, so you quickly interject as he begins to pull his hand out from yours. “I need to touch a pulse point to be able to see anything,” you reassure, feeling his fingers slide back against yours. “The heart remembers everything,” you clarify.

The catch? The person’s memories and past stay with you after you see them. It’s become hard to distinguish what memories are yours or someone else’s. They all become intertwined. Good or bad, violent or gentle. You see it all, and then it’s part of you. Forever.

“I haven’t looked. I promise.” 

“Good. You don’t need to see that shit,” he huffs, eyes wandering over your face. He isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he’s a little startled for the first time in a while.

“I’m sure I’ve seen it all,” you state. It’s probably not far off from the truth. Your gift came when you were all too young, and plenty of time has passed since then for you to rack up this amount of damage from near-strangers and their lives.

“No, you haven’t.” A sure expression passes over him, shaking his head as best as he can against the pillow. 

“Then I’ll count myself lucky,” you say softly. You have no idea what Logan has experienced, but his demeanor makes you want to stay curious. Not everything needs to be known, and you’re definitely not entitled to it.

A faint smile appears on his lips, then it’s gone just as quick. “Get some sleep,” he rasps. He turns onto his back and his hand abandons yours. 

It’s a complete repeat of last time.

Something twinges in your heart, and you don’t like it. What exactly had you expected from Logan? He’s just doing you a courtesy by letting you stay here for the night. Nothing more. And that’s what you should expect: nothing.

The hum of crickets outside eventually lulls you into a dead sleep. It’s heavy and deep, not a single muscle twitching in your body. Logan breathes steadily next to you, a hand on his chest as the occasional snore fills the air.

From above you two might look like you’re transient, only here in this moment for a short time. And, realistically, you are. 

━━━━

Logan was no where to be seen by the time you woke up, and you made quick work to get out of his room. It always feel wrong to be in someone’s space when they aren’t there.

Just like Storm said, the windows in your rooms were fixed the next day. It looks as though nothing even happened.

“Thank fuck,” you mumble to yourself as you step back into your room.

If you ever have to spend another night in Logan’s bed, you might as well wear a shirt that says “yes, we’re fucking!”, even if it isn’t true. You could deny it all you want, but it won’t stop what students would say. Nothing gets past them, even if it’s behind a closed door.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“Are you fucking Logan?”

You almost swallow your tongue. “Sorry?” Your brows shoot up in surprise, eyes round in disbelief.

“Are you guys sleeping together?” Storm casually asks as she flicks through the T.V. channels, glancing over to you from her spot on the couch.

You’re sat comfortably in an arm chair, suddenly no longer caring what channel she decides on. “Why would you think that?” Technically you were sleeping together, but not like that. It may never happen again, no matter how badly you want it to.

“Things travel fast around here,” she deflects with a cheeky smile. “And, you know, Logan is…Logan.” She shrugs.

You don’t even know what to say to that. Is there a right or wrong answer?

“It wasn’t like that,” you grumble. “He was doing me a favour. As a friend.” It hasn’t even been a full day since he let you stay with him while pieces of your window laid on your floor, and people are already convinced you’re fucking. 

You haven’t even managed a chaste kiss, despite how much as you want to, never mind his dick being balls deep in you.

“Right.” She emphasizes the word, not convinced. Or just pushing your buttons because she can. 

You roll your eyes. “If anything was happening, you’d be the first to know,” you point out. 

She looks back over to you. “I know,” she says with another, more sincere, smile. “You two would be cute, though.” 

You give her some side-eye, not quite sure if you disagree entirely with that statement. Whatever happens, happens. Logan is not something you can control or influence. He does what—and who—he wants, when he wants. 

━━━━

A bolt of lightening strikes you. You gasp, then release a choked cry, eyes flying open as you claw at your chest in terror.

Your throat tightens and you break out in a cold sweat as you sit up. The soft blanket around you feels constricting. Sporadic and short breaths make you heave as your body registers the horrors in your subconscious. 

There was never any lighting. That’s just what the pain feels like.

The muscles in your shoulders and neck tense from your panicked state as your heart struggles to keep a normal rhythm. You yank the blanket off, feeling weak from fear and the onset of tremors. Your whole body gives up on itself as you sob through broken exhales. Your legs have gone cold, lungs shrinking inch by inch with every passing minute. 

You crawl to the edge of your bed, wanting to just get out and leave—the blanket. The bed. The room. Most of all, you want to escape your own mind.

You sink onto the floor when a foot touches the ground, and you realize walking isn’t in the cards right now. You’re shaking too badly to be able to physically move. All your strength is gone, robbed by your memories.

Balmy tears paint your face in determination, making sure no part of you is left untouched by this spell.

You screw your eyes shut, tears still slipping out with ease anyway. Leaning your back against the bed-frame, you curl into yourself and wrap your arms around your knees on the chilled hardwood.

You try to focus on your breathing to at least slow your heart down to a pace that doesn’t hurt.

Wounded cries rip their way out of you, interrupting the breaths you try to steady. A hand touches your arm and you yelp like an injured dog, flailing at the contact as your arms swing out from around your knees in shock.

“Hey, hey, it’s me. It’s me.” Strong hands quickly wrap around each of your wrists to stop your arms from thrashing.

You try to focus your eyes, blurred and stinging from tears, on the person kneeling closely in front of you.

“L-Logan…” you whisper, balling your fists to try and expel the shakes.

He looks like someone who shouldn’t be able to be concerned about another person, yet the look on his face scares you. Brows pinched together in worry, eyes frantic, lips parted from heavy breaths. All because of you.

“It’s just me,” he hushes your cries. His thumbs stroke the undersides of your wrists tenderly, no doubt feeling your racing pulse. 

You feel disoriented. “Wh…how…” 

“I heard you,” he explains, watching you process everything. He drops your wrists when some recognition passes over your face.

“What do you need?” He follows your gaze as it wanders around the room, trying to keep you from spiralling further.

You look at him for a moment. He’s got his white tank-top on, the black sweats, and an intense need to help you written all over him. Fresh tears burn your cheeks as you come back into reality.

“I want it to fucking stop,” you weep, head falling into your hands in shame.

You don’t want him to see you like this, even though it’s a commonality between you two. It’s too intimate. You’d take him seeing you blackout drunk everyday of the year over this.

Then you do remember that it has stopped. Each time in Logan’s bed. There was silence. Peace. For the whole night. For both of you.

“Tell me what you need,” he says firmly, angling his head down to keep your eyes on him, desperately wanting an answer.

“You.” You suck in an agonizing breath to try and collect yourself.

He doesn’t flinch like you expect him to. If anything, his eyes become more pensive, clearly considering something. Then he shakes his head in wariness.

“C’mon. Let’s get you out of here,” he breathes, voice barely above a whisper. The only sound echoing in the room is your wobbly breathes, your body jerking with each one as you enter the aftermath and begin to go slack.

An arm slides behind your back, his hand grabbing ahold of your side while he pulls your legs over his other arm, picking you up off the floor.

He cradles you against him just like he did when you were drunk, carrying you out of your room.

He left your door open when he came in, and you hope no students heard or saw anything. He tilts to grab the doorknob, shutting it without a sound.

You wipe and rub at your eyes as Logan takes a few steps down the hall, quickly getting to where he needs to go when you feel him lean for his doorknob.

You’re sure a few rogue, leftover tears fall onto his shirt before he manages to sit on his bed lightly, you still curled tightly in his arms. 

His hand pushes on your back for you to sit upright on his lap. “Face me,” he encourages, holding onto your sides as you twist around, bending your legs to slide over his thighs and straddle him loosely. 

You look down at him, he looks up at you, feeling the quivers in your body dissipate as you melt further into his lap. A fondness crosses over both of your tired faces. He rests his arms over your thighs, warm hands linking behind your back as you do the same around his neck. 

It’s nothing provocative or seductive. All you can feel is the care and concern rolling off of him in suffocating waves. He wants you to feel safe, and if that means overrunning your senses with his presence, then that’s what he’ll do.

“Got anything to say?” He murmurs, the fallen strands of hair around the edges of his forehead bristle with each move of his head. The rest of his hair fails to fully resemble the cat-like ears he had earlier in the day. 

What does he want to hear? 

You let your head hang a little, your nose almost brushing his. “I have nothing to say,” you assert, fidgeting with the chain of his dog tag at the nape of his neck. 

You don’t necessarily feel embarrassed about him seeing you in such a helpless state, but you don’t want to simply unload your shit on him. So, in turn, you have nothing to say.

“Bullshit.” He almost rolls his eyes. There’s no real threat of him forcing you to say anything behind it. He won’t pry, but he doesn’t believe you.

An offended look overcomes your face, and you almost pull away. You don’t want to feel the humiliation of elaborating on just why exactly you said you needed him in this moment out of everything else. 

“I just…” You roll your lips together in thought, measuring the words you could say but won’t. “Want to sleep. Here,” you sigh. “I don’t wanna go back.” You deflate in his arms, voice wobbly. 

It’s already who-knows what time, and you need to pacify your wired nervous system; Logan simply holding you has already helped with that more than you want to admit.

His mouth quirks up briefly at that. “What happened to not wanting to make that a habit?” His eyes soften as his arms retract from around your sides, letting you slip easily onto his bed from his lap in a moment of calm, or relief.

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

“Special circumstances,” you reason, already pulling the blanket over you while he keeps his place at the edge of the bed, observing you with amusement.

“Seems like you get into those a lot,” he notes, pushing himself off the mattress.

He steps around to the other side—his designated spot—and slips the tank-top off, letting it drop to the floor. You’re not trying to be a freak, but you watch the whole thing.

The flex of his arms and shoulders are out of your mind as fast as they entered as you watch him hook his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats and pull them downright in front of you, not even turning around or to the side to try and conceal himself.

Your eyes widen, then you reel in your thoughts before they get lost at sea. No one who is sane fucking sleeps in sweatpants. Duh.

But didn’t he the last two times? It’s hard for you to remember, but you’d certainly recall if you were face-to-face with the outline of his di—

“It’s rude to stare, y’know.” Logan pulls his lips together, interrupting your thoughts. You try to not eyeball the bulge too hard, but it basically looked at you first. 

The snug briefs do little to hide anything. They hide nothing, actually.

You almost scoff, but the playfulness in his tone tells you he couldn’t give a shit. He probably likes it anyway. From what you know, he definitely does.

“Oh, yeah, like you’ve ever cared about modesty,” you throw back, averting your gaze to the ceiling anyway.

It’s not that he runs around the mansion naked, but he definitely isn’t shy about what he looks like or against showing some skin. You’ve seen and heard enough over the past few months.

You hear a stifled chuckle as he joins you under the blanket without a retort. He knows you’re right. He’s just glad you’re a little lively and alert.

“Will you be okay for the rest of the night?” He brings both hands behind his head on the pillow, propping himself up a little.

“I should be fine,” you say confidently. “The challenge will be getting back to sleep.” You laugh in exasperation. 

It’s always hard to calm down and get back to a place of tranquility after everything has settled with your mind. You’re pumped full of adrenaline and there’s not much that can curb something that persistent flowing through your body.

You haven’t found anything to help with it. Yet. 

“There’s not many people that’ll understand what you go through,” he starts, voice rough with fatigue. “But I do.”

You look to him, sliding an arm under your pillow as you turn on your side. “How do you…help it.” You’re not sure if you phrased that right. It feels crude to reduce something so complex to the likes of a common cold that has an array of over-the-counter solutions. 

“You don’t. It just has to run its course.” He looks to you, wanting to see your reaction. 

It wasn’t meant to be hurtful or insensitive, but he’s not going to lie to you and say that things can only get better and that the worst is over. Especially for mutants, that’s not always true.

Although you don’t know what Logan lives with every day and sleeps with every night, you do know that his capacity for empathy is still intact. Here you are in his bed after all, seeing and indulging in a side of him that many never will. 

You sigh lightly. “We’re quite the pair.” 

A comfortable half-smirk slips over his lips. “I think we’re just fucked up insomniacs,” he suggests with a breathy exhale that’s close enough to a laugh.

You wish you could slide a thumb over the pulse in his wrist and see what’s haunting him, just to understand what happened to the Wolverine, but you’ve learned that doing so usually isn’t worth the price you’ll pay after. If what’s in his head is horrific enough to cause him to go through a couple mattresses a month, then it won’t do you any good either.

“I sleep pretty good with you,” you offer, seeing how he raises a brow in doubt almost instantly.

He sleeps well with you, too. It kind of rattled him when he noticed a pattern of uninterrupted nights and you being by his side. Not a single mattress ruined on those nights.

“Try not to knee me in the stomach tonight,” he deflects with ease. He takes his hands out from behind his head, sliding his left arm under the pillow as he turns over onto his side and closes his eyes. Facing you.

You mentally smack yourself. Multiple times. You didn’t think you drifted that much when you slept. 

“No promises,” you mutter. You catch a small shake of his head before you let yourself join him in unconsciousness as you mirror each others lonely bodies.

━━━━

Your eyes ache—to open, to move, to touch. Enough crying will do that to you.Your eyelids are heavy, but there’s something else weighing down on you. 

A tired groan crawls from your throat as you try to place yourself for a moment. The morning sun is just beginning to shine too brightly for your liking, and you squish your face deeper into the pillow.

You’re still tipsy with sleep, lying flat on your stomach, but there’s something dense and hot resting over your back. 

You prop yourself up on your forearms, giving yourself a minute to wake up. You twist your hips around to sit yourself up, feeling the thing on your back slide down to your waist. 

The blanket pools around your hips, and you feel a hand reflexively squeeze over the meat of your hip in disapproval of your moving. Something in you clenches at the sensation of something invading the area with ease. A spot reserved for intimacy.

Your head quirks to your right, seeing Logan on his stomach with his right arm thrown over your midsection. 

You blink in surprise, staring at his sleeping body. His hair is sticking up every which way, his head half-off the pillow, his side of the blanket not even covering the curve of his ass anymore. It’s endearing to see the Wolverine in such a normal, human state.

But if someone were to walk in, it would look like you two spent the whole night fucking. A lot. That wakes you up a little more.

You peek over at the nightstand behind him and see the time blinking on his watch. It’s already 8 a.m. 

You rest a hand over his shoulder to gently guide his arm off of you, but you stop yourself. Instead, you lightly trace your fingers down his shoulders and upper back a couple times, occasionally scratching softly over the ridges of muscle.

A shiver quickly rolls through his upper body, but your touch doesn’t fully wake him. He knows it’s just you.

It’s the least you can do for him as a thanks for recovering your broken body from the floor of your room and bringing you here when he didn’t necessarily have to.

It almost feels like instinct to offer comforting gestures to him. There’s something inside you that just pulls to him. You want to be the one that can give him comfort and help him put himself back together. 

You want to be the only one.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

There’s a shadow that’s been following you around the mansion. 

As soon as you stepped out of Logan’s room that morning a few days ago, it started. 

This shadow likes to be nosy about what you’re doing. This shadow likes to be in your space. This shadow wants to be in your space. And he is.

No one has seen Logan out around the mansion this much, including you, and that’s how you noticed he’s basically been attached to your hip ever since he decided your back was a comfortable armrest. 

He’s always just there, like a stray cat begging for food or affection. There to entertain you, banter with you, indulge you, in any way he can, including now as you trail back inside the mansion well behind Storm from an evening walkabout in the garden.

“No smoking in the courtyard,” you sing as you pass him carelessly, not even offering a glance to him in interest. 

You like playing this game. Whatever it is. Constantly poking and prodding at each other to see what you can do to get the other to break in some way, no matter how slight. 

Your heart flutters and flips every time; maybe from the thrill of it all, maybe from the arousal you get from the tension. You hope he feels everything, too.

He turns his head to watch you cross into the entryway. “Blow me,” he throws back playfully through a thick puff of smoke, leaning against the brick wall with a cigar pinched between two fingers.

You suppress a chuckle, keeping your unwavering pace. “Yeah, you wish!” You yell over your shoulder. You know he hears you. He wouldn’t let himself miss it.

Logan smirks and shakes his head in amusement, always impressed with your quick rebuttals that occasionally tent his jeans. He takes one last drag out of spite before following your footsteps inside. 

You have become, by definition, friends…in a way. Even if you sorely cross the line into other territory more often than not. Sexual innuendos and friendly flirting can only go on for so long before the underlying intentions and meaning reflects real desires. 

It’s evolved into more than just borrowing his bed a couple times or helping each other out. It’s surpassed the fear of whatever habit you were afraid of forming from doing so. It’s become a dependency to get that adrenaline high from simply riling each other up.

You have an assumption that if you were to end up in Logan’s bed again, somehow, there will be a point of no return that you’ll be faced with. There aren’t many more excuses that can be used for explaining to yourselves why you’re together in bed before you have to recognize the truth.

That platonic line is being stretched too thin, and you’re not sure how much farther it can go.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“How’ve you been sleeping?”

“Fine. You?”

“Could be better.” Logan hides his smirk, but you can hear it in his voice.

You narrow your eyes skeptically as he fishes around in the fruit bowl sitting in the middle of the kitchen island.

“How so?” You ask. Your legs swing leisurely as you sit upon the chilled countertop on his left, idly waiting for Storm to show up and go with you to training.

A smug, tight-lipped grin flashes across his face, a green apple rolling around in his palms before he puts it back. “You could be there,” he provokes, his eyes bright.

It’s your turn to raise a brow at him, but you can’t stop your smile. “Oh?”

He turns to you, tenderly grabbing the tops of your thighs and parting them slightly to stand between your legs.

This isn’t the first time he’s done this, and he knows it rouses you in all the right ways. But, neither of you will do anything about it. Not even a brief kiss.

“Come on,” he goads, planting his hands down next to your hips, bringing himself in closer as he bears his weight on his arms. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” He sways his head side to side to emphasize his point.

Fuck. That’s good. 

That may be exactly what you did for him, but it’s now a figure of speech for something else entirely. It’s almost impossible to argue against either way, as if you want to. This is what you’ve been patiently waiting for. 

You put your hands over his as you lean back a little to put some distance between you. “How sweet,” you hum.

His eyes flick from yours to your lips one too many times before you continue. “You start to miss me?” You tease as you lean forward again, echoing what he said to you the night your window got smashed in.

“Smart-ass,” he mutters as you laugh quietly. The tips of your noses barely graze each other as he steps in closer again. You’re almost at the same height like this. 

“Save me the left side,” you advise, bringing your hands to his shoulders as you fondle his white t-shirt between your fingers. You’re so close, and he’s already so warm against you just like this.

“Always do.”

━━━━

You want to rip your heart out of your chest from how hard it’s pounding against your ribs. It’s almost throwing you forward with each heavy beat.

Three resounding knocks fill the hallway as you shuffle on your feet, waiting for Logan to open the door.

It feels like you’re doing something bad. Something parents would warn their kids against. Something greatly envied.

Everything inside you feels on fire. Your thoughts, desires, anxiety, all jumbling together into one distorted state of mind and body.

“Ah, welcome back.” His sarcastic tone makes your face go hot. A satisfied smirk crosses his lips as he runs a hand through his shaggy, unstyled hair. 

You shake your head, pursing your lips. “Knock it off.” You gently shove at his bare chest. Misbehaviour already. But are you really surprised?

Logan grabs your wrist, delicately guiding you into his room. “You enjoy it,” he says lowly, quickly shutting the door as soon as you’re in. 

“Maybe,” you hum in response, pulling away from his grasp and seeking out your side of the bed. Logan follows closely behind, giving your ass a light smack in encouragement before he cuts away to his side while you jolt in shock, a stunned look on your face as you whip your head around to him across the bed.

“Oh, really?” You scoff. He’s biting back a smile, not moving until he knows what you’ll do next. He’s never gone that far before.

“I’m sorry, that was rude—how can I make it up to you?” He almost chokes on a laugh, pulling his dog tag back and forth along the chain while he considers you.

This Logan is very different from the one you were met with the first night he let you in his space. This one is attentive and exuberant, yet he hasn’t given you much up until this point right now. You’ve gotten way too comfortable with him without even doing anything to you. 

In this moment, he isn’t the brooding, animalistic Wolverine many see him as. He’s just Logan—for you. 

You watch him carefully, easing yourself onto the bed. “Get in the fucking bed,” you slap his side of the mattress with a thump of your palm. “And do what you promised earlier,” you stare pointedly at him.

He owes you that “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” favour he decided to pull out to get you here. 

“Mm, alright, alright,” he surrenders, a look of amusement still on his face as he kneels onto the bed. “I thought of a pretty good idea for it,” he says softly, crawling to sit next to you on top of the blanket as the bed-frame creaks with the added weight.

Your shoulders almost brush against each other. You shift, turning your body fully toward him. “Oh? Wh—woah!”

You squeal when his strong hands latch onto your sides, lifting you just enough to pull you over his legs to plant you on his lap. He leans back against the headboard, pulling on your thighs so you straddle him tightly. 

He looks devilish when you catch his gaze again, and you know what’s coming. What’s been coming. Your hands find their places on his shoulders, warm and taut, as his hands hold your hips. 

The bond between you will culminate tonight. It will be wrapped in a blanket and trapped between two alike souls that lie heart-to-heart in the dead of night. It will be perpetual.

The heat of him between your legs makes you restless. It’s just you, him, and the darkness in the quiet room you’ve become too familiar with.

“Logan…” you trail off bashfully when you feel something firm through his sweats poke against your cunt. It clearly doesn’t take much to excite him.

“Hm?” He takes you in for a split second, hands running from your hips up to your chest leisurely with a sharp inhale, not yet completely bothered by the fact that you have a shirt on. 

You suck in a shaky breath when your hips accidentally shift over his bulge from his hands pushing and pulling over you.

“What’s the idea?” Your voice wavers.

You know what it is. He knows that. You just want to hear him say it and fill the silence.

“Something I’ve wanted for a while,” he murmurs, eyes hyper-focused on you. 

Your fingers dance their way to the sides of his neck, brushing along the supple skin while you feel muscles and tendons flex with every slight movement. You subtly press the pad of your index finger against the pulse point right under his jaw, just to ground yourself and truly feel that Logan is there in front of you. 

His pulse is steady but hard, much like yours, and the prickle of energy festering against the finger almost makes it go numb from not accepting it into your body. 

“Show me, then.” You smile sweetly, leaning in closer while you tilt his head up with the hand under his jaw, your finger slipping from his pulse and caressing over the dense, coarse hair along his cheek.

Your noses bump while your lips part in anticipation. His eyes flutter as he falls into you and frantically claims your mouth in an unbreakable kiss.

The first kiss. Nothing could tear him from you in this moment.

Your hands cradle his cheeks, keeping him from pulling off too far. His hands scratch and paw at your back, trying to find a way to somehow get you closer against him.

It’s all a little messy, your lips mostly just mashing together without any rhyme or reason, but neither of you care. You only care about how electrifying it feels to finally have Logan and feel how perfectly connected you are together after all these nights. You go together like a key and its lock.

“Logan,” you pant when his mouth releases yours for a fraction of a breath. The seconds between kisses dwindle the more you take from each other.

Your thighs tense as he pulls half an inch away just to reconnect more crazed as his lips lock over your bottom one aimlessly. Something deep inside you trembles and aches.

He grunts, accidentally sucking the tip of your tongue briefly before slotting his lips back over yours in an apology. “Hold on,” he mumbles in a rush against your parted lips. He knows what you’re asking—or trying to ask. He snakes an arm up along your spine and wraps the other around your waist.

Then the world is tilting.

He drops you on your back on the bed from his lap, hovering over you as he distracts you with harsh but pleasing kisses and wet bites along your neck, settling his hips heavily between your thighs. You squirm and feel how bolts of arousal are making your cunt pulse involuntarily. 

Logan groans. “Fuck—I can smell it. I smell you.” He slowly grinds his hips into yours almost reflexively. He squeezes his eyes shut, and you tip your chin up to press a chaste kiss to his slick lips. 

“Taste…if you want to,” you propose, lightly scratching up and down his shoulders and arms, only enough to leave faint red lines for a couple seconds.

Logan’s eyes almost roll into the back of his head before he gives it a small shake, a conflicted look overtaking his face. “Of course I fucking want to, but—fuck—next time. I promise.” He swallows whatever you were going to say with a deep kiss that has you nearly shaking when he sucks on your bottom lip. 

“Let’s just take things easy,” he says roughly, bearing his weight on his left arm while he tries to get your sleep shorts and underwear off.

A promise of a next time makes your brain go fuzzy like static.

“I’ll hold you to it, then,” you resolve, lifting your hips as much as you can for him to lean back and pull away to wrestle your clothes the rest of the way down your legs, discarding them just as quickly.

“I hope you will,” he breathes through a small laugh as he shuffles on his knees. He doesn’t want to completely overwhelm you and scare you off, he just wants to enjoy you in a simple way that won’t entirely ruin you for tomorrow.

He doesn’t know what you can or cannot handle, but he’s going to find out.

The fresh air in the room brushes cooly against your wet cunt. It’s a nice contrast to how fiery your whole body feels, but Logan feels even warmer than you somehow. Maybe wolverine’s just run hot.

His sweats have ridden down his hips from his desperate grinding against you, and the dangerous cut of his v-line grows more and more narrow as the waistband teases the reveal of what’s underneath.

You watch him—palming his dick once as your knees sway side-to-side in waiting. His thumbs hook under the stretchy fabric, working what remains of his clothes down his sturdy thighs.

“It’s rude to stare.” He pops a brow, a smug, arrogant grin quirking his lips.

You push yourself to sit up, considerably shorter than him in this position as he stands on his knees, and walk two fingers up his toned stomach to his chest, avoiding the hard cock between you. 

He looks at you with curiosity until your hand grabs his dog tag in a fist, pulling it towards you. “Then stop showing me your dick,” you say as he leans in to your pulling a little to not have the chain break away.

You knew the night Logan dropped his pants in front of you and let you eye-up his bulge would come back to haunt you. But it’s alluring. Big. Curves a little to the left, barely noticeable. A respectable amount of hair decorates the space between his bellybutton and the base of his cock.

He gives in to the tension on the chain, falling back to the mattress with you and trapping you between his arms as his cock rests heavy on your clit.

“How about I find somewhere to put it?” His smile pushes a whole new wave of arousal from you.

“It would be a damn shame if you didn’t,” you say against his mouth, giving your hips a roll just to tease him before hugging his waist tightly with your knees.

“Good.” He gives you a strong kiss with a small grunt, running his hands over your sides under your shirt. The movement pushes it up, up, up, until you have no choice but to stretch your arms out above you and let him slide it off between more thoughtless kisses, leaving you entirely bare.

He lets you breathe for a moment, dipping his head to bite and suck marks along your collarbones messily. You squeeze around his hips harder, trying to get him to give you something other than his scratchy cheeks rubbing against your skin and the chilled steel of the dog tag dragging over your chest.

The tip of his cock falls and catches over your clit when he moves lower, licking and sucking over your chest like a starved animal finding food for the first time in a week. You gasp from the mixed sensations.

“C’mon, kitty cat, you can do all this while inside m-me,” you say breathily, fingers digging into his shoulders to stop yourself from trembling too much. 

Logan bites over a nipple before pulling himself back up to look at you. “Is that a promise?” He says lowly, that stupid smirk gracing his face again.

“Try it and find out,” you demand, enjoying the sting of the deeper bites blooming on your torso.

He purses his lips, shifting his weight back onto his knees to grab ahold of his cock to angle and guide it in.

“Hm, guess no lube is needed,” he muses when he gets a look at your cunt, sparing you a glance through his lashes.

You roll your eyes shut when your whole body lights up red-hot. “Jesus fucking Christ, Logan,” you slap a hand over your eyes as you grimace. You don’t want to be that aware of your naked self right now.

He suppresses whatever expression was about to cross his face when his cock notches itself between your soaked folds, teasing your hole with the blunt tip. His brows pinch together and you forget the embarrassment from his crude remark.

But he leaves his cock like that, on the precipice of sliding the rest of the way in with a snap of his hips. Instead, he carefully uncurls his upper body to crawl his way back up to you while holding his hips deathly still.

“Alright, stay with me,” he whispers against your neck when you moan, pressing a tender kiss to your rabid pulse in reassurance. 

“O-okay,” you sigh, running a hand through his hair and tugging at the roots while the other squeezes around his arm as best as it can. You’re not even really sure what he’s saying.  

He kisses up your cheek and over to your lips again. You try to keep up with his quick mouth, licking and sucking whatever part you can get ahold of, but you’ve become lost in the feeling of him all over you. 

He’s in your mouth, on your chest, against your stomach, nudging your cunt. Everywhere.

He slips his tongue over yours, securing your lips together at the same time he pushes his cock in halfway. Now you understand what he was saying. 

The lightheadedness from being filled, even just a bit, almost makes you lose yourself. The stretch makes your stomach drop, your legs shake, and your mouth fall open with a whine. 

“A-ah—fuck. Fuck, Logan,” you whimper, fisting his hair with both hands to stop yourself from falling apart.

He groans, either at the grip you have on his hair or how good your cunt feels already, and runs a hand up your left thigh in comfort as you squeeze around his hips tighter to draw him in. 

“Just a bit more,” he soothes, trying to resist the urge to slide into you in one fell swoop. It would be so easy to just let his hips fall into yours and fill your cunt.

Another heated kiss, another few inches. He works his cock into you the rest of the way with ease. You guess the lube thing wasn’t really a joke. His hungry, needy kisses may have also helped with that.

You choke on your gasps, not wanting to get too loud, and Logan does the same. He tries to muffle both of your moans with his mouth, attempting to form complete kisses, but it just turns into you panting against each other as he finally bottoms out, hitting his end. 

Your legs relax around his waist as he deftly rocks his hips in small thrusts to get you familiar with his size, his small grunts filling the air each time you swallow him whole.

You let out a deep breath, dropping your hands back to his tense shoulders. He lines your jaw with soft kisses, fisting the blanket in his hands beside your head.

“Fuck. Already feels too good,” he moans, pressing into you harder and unintentionally rubbing himself over your tender clit.

You smile, squirming while he works down your neck again. “Best of luck,” you huff, amused at the fact that he might not last as long as he wants to.

He brings his face back to yours, a completely blissful expression controlling his features, but there’s still some mischief in his hazel eyes. “Oh? Yeah?”

You hold each other’s gaze, both equally dazed and overwhelmed, and he draws his hips back and pushes into your wet cunt with a complete, strong thrust. The sound of his pelvis hitting against the backs of your thighs makes him laugh in pleasure and satisfaction when you instantly roll your eyes and head back.

Your cunt quivers, gripping him tight, and then it’s Logan’s turn to lose composure. He drops his head to your chest, managing a few deep breaths as he slowly pulls out halfway just to push right back into you, over and over. 

It’s a pace that isn’t quite pure, mindless fucking, but it’s also not somewhere near earnest love-making. It’s something that feels specifically curated for you. Something that feels measured and sincere. 

The strength of his thighs hitting against yours pushes you up the mattress a few inches, and you don’t know whether to gasp or moan. He reaches somewhere deep inside you, and you know he can feel that, too.

A helpless groan slips through Logan’s lips. “Where have you fucking been, huh?” He muses through shaky breaths, the determined plunge of his cock hitting something that makes your muscles tense throughout your body. 

Your fingers tangle in the hair at the base of his neck, keeping him close. “Two doors down,” you giggle, understanding that’s not quite what he was asking.

“Fucking smart-ass,” he grumbles, silencing any further rebuttals with a wet kiss. You don’t think you could manage much more of a conversation even if you wanted to.

The silence is quickly filled with obscene sounds that only seem to leave you wetter and Logan throbbing. You can hear your bodies connecting through your gasping for air and his choked moans, and you can feel the mess you’re making all over him. It’s smeared along the inside of your thighs from how deep he’s been hitting. The squelching only seems to make him fuck into you harder.

Something inside you starts to grow tight and wind up in your core, making you repeatedly clench around him while his cock strokes all the right spots inside you as he makes sure he’s fucking himself in to the base. He doesn’t deprive you of anything. 

He drops his head to your neck, wedging his face in to latch onto the spot right where your neck starts to slope into your shoulder. The dense muscle there gives him something to basically chew on, sinking his teeth in as deep as he can without drawing blood.

“H-hah, Logan,” you whine, tilting your head into the side of his and squirming from the pleasant sting.

You feel his arm move beside you, then you hear the sound of tearing fabric as he gives a particularly brutal snap of his hips, followed by a deep groan against your skin.

You can barely form any thoughts, but you can guess what just happened. If he pulled his hand back, three long, slim holes would probably be where his knuckles are right now.

“Fu-uck, Logan, you just got t-this mattress,” you laugh a little, your words choppy from how hard he’s driving into you now.

He draws back from your neck, seeing your half-lidded eyes trying to focus on him. “Can’t always control it,” he reasons, giving you two short, fleeting kisses as you hear his claws retract from the innocent mattress. 

You see the double-edged sword. You can guess that that’s the same explanation he would probably use for the nightmares. It can go either way, and now you’ve seen both sides.

“It’s okay,” you say in a hushed tone. You cradle his face, and he rests his forehead against yours. “Keep going…keep going,” you coax, face scrunching from your nearing orgasm.

You can feel it in your toes, your stomach, your shoulders—you’re tightening up everywhere, and he can undoubtedly feel it in your cunt as you pulse around him. It grips him just right for a couple seconds before relaxing completely and leaving him to chase for more.

“Keep squeezing me like that and you’ll get whatever you want,” he offers, fighting to maintain his steady pace for both your sakes.

You almost whine, knowing whatever your body does is beyond your control at this point.

“Just—inside.” You can’t even string together a full sentence anymore, but the urgency and stress on the last word makes Logan’s ears perk up.

He presses a soft kiss to your clammy forehead in acknowledgment, the muscles in his arms straining and flexing as he grabs ahold of his own orgasm after a particularly inviting flutter of your walls.

You’re both walking the line, teetering on the edge of utter euphoria, and you know nothing will be the same after. You don’t want it to be. You hope it isn’t.

He reaches an arm back, sliding his hand up your thigh again and slotting it behind the bend in your knee. He pushes forward—only slightly—bringing your leg closer to your stomach to stretch you open for him.

His cock brushes over something new. Something that makes you bite your tongue. The angle lets him fit perfectly against you, not hindered by the flesh of your thigh stopping his hips.

You want to cry from how good it all feels. You want to be suspended in this feeling forever. You want Logan to—

“Focus, baby. Focus on me,” he coos, bringing you back to reality. He holds the side of your head with his other hand affectionately. “Come on…come on, I know you’re almost there,” he encourages with a quick kiss that goes straight to your stomach.

The burn in your thigh from the stretch can’t overpower the sparks of your orgasm, and Logan just fanned the flames with a few little words.

You come with a broken sob, convulsing around his cock while he fucks you through it, submitting to his own orgasm only seconds after with deep, shaky breaths as he empties himself inside your cunt.

He doesn’t pull out or pull away. He relaxes on top of you, sweaty and sticky with cum, and he places the barest whisper of a kiss on your chin, your parted lips, your nose, and then your forehead. 

Your ears ring from your orgasm, eyes still slightly out of focus. Your body trembles from your muscles finally releasing the tension they’ve been caught up in. 

You desperately suck in air, trying to calm your pounding heart, and you just lie there and let Logan walk your body through a cool-down. Soft kisses. Soft touches. Soft looks. Between sweat, cum, and whatever else.

He rocks a little on his knees, weak from his release, and carefully pulls out of you with a huff as he caresses your stomach and thighs appreciatively to wind you down. You get a good look at him. Not a scratch. His hair tells a story, though—one where he’s completely possessed by bliss. 

You probably look like you survived an animal attack.

“Are we even?” Logan says through a kiss against your stomach.

A mindless laugh crawls from your throat, caught up in the feeling of his hands rubbing circles over your hips. “I think I still owe you,” you argue, resting your hands over his as they travel smoothly up your side.

You’ll find a way to make everything up to him. Including the sex. The scale is now tipping to his side too much. All the nights spent in his bed, what he’s done for you, what you’ve done for each other, may just be immeasurable, but that won’t stop you from finding a way to get him back for it all. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he mumbles, snaking back up your body and pressing himself against you. Face-to-face. Chest-to-chest. 

You mindfully run your hands over the sides of his head, trying to tame his hair and style it back to how it was earlier in the night. It doesn’t work. He enjoys it anyway.

“Do I have the pleasure of staying here tonight?” You ask rhetorically, enjoying the warmth of him on top of you against the brisk air creeping in from the cracked window.

Logan blinks. “You can stay every night.” 

A loving smile springs over your face. This may be the beginning of the end to your troubles and worries.  

You—maybe foolishly—trust him. You trust that he won’t accidentally bury his claws in your side during the night, but you’ve had impressive luck with that up until this point. The only thing you can do now is continue to push that luck.

Healing isn’t linear, and you can’t expect someone to fix you, but everyone finds their thing at some point. 

You slither your hand down to his neck, index finger grazing over his pulse again. You feel the energy biting against you.

Your lips graze over his, tempting him to give you a slow, deep kiss. “Can I have the left side?” Rhetorical, again.

Logan chuckles against your mouth. “Always.”

[pukicho]

What's the weirdest dream/nightmare you've had?

Pukicho story time???

This happened in 2004, I lived in Ireland. I had one very particular dream that I still often think about to this day:

It started in an unusual flat, somewhere up high. It was modern for the time, it felt decidedly Y2K. Every piece of furniture, the walls, the lamps, they were all bright pink. It was so trendy that it almost felt like a parody of itself, but I was a kid, and my mind wasn't clever enough for the act of parody. I would've simply forgotten this flat ever existed if the latter-half of the dream didn't leave such a permanent mark on my memory - now I can recall every last detail.

I asked a stranger to use the restroom. The toilet was downstairs, so I opened up the door to a utility stairwell and began heading down, alone.

I could look through the center of the staircase column, it was pitch-black and there was no visible bottom. I remember going down the staircase for hours, literal hours - A dark, oppressive hum from pipes and vents blinded my ears and shook the inside of my stomach with its volume. I remember thinking how long the dream felt in this moment, I recall getting consciously impatient, but I kept going. My eyes couldn't adjust to the nearly invisible-darkness surrounding me so I put my hand against the walls and handrail for guidance and shuffled downward like a blind man without his walking-stick.

Finally, only a moment before the tension would have juddered me awake, I found the door to the bathroom. I opened it up; to my relief there was light. The room was rectangular, on one end was a boxed-shaped shower with fogged glass, on the other end, a toilet. The floor and wall were decorated by the same beige tile - it all looked hastily plastered. I sat down to do my business. At this moment, the ballooning anxiety I had felt outside had dissipated almost entirely. I sat in silence - I remember acknowledging the sheer contrast in volume between the AC-hum in the bathroom to the oppressive roar from the stairwell.

It was good to be sitting there. I remember feeling as though the dream had slowly turned into a nightmare - but consciously, everything felt right again. Nothing happened for a long time. It grew so boring and tame that my mind stopped focusing on the dream entirely, and I began fading into memoryless sleep. And then the lights went out.

At this point, sitting in a darkness even blacker than the one I had just emerged from, not even a hum could be heard. The only noise I could hear, and just barely, was my own brain-matter hitting against the sides of my ears, bellowing a deep subharmonic hum from within my own skull. Suddenly, every semblance of safety was ripped from my chest, and I sat there, feeling in greater danger than I ever had before. I felt a pressure so omniscient that it choked me -- but nothing came, nothing happened. I waited for minutes - minutes where each second could be counted down in scrutinizing specificity, but nothing happened.

Suddenly, and with no presumption, I felt coarse electricity pumping through my chest. I wrangled with myself in my own bed, feeling what felt like infinite pain pass through me. I could feel myself yelling from within the dream through the vibration of my lungs. A cacophonous buzzing bled into my ears as thousands of people screamed from within my skull. The cries of a falling choir ran-through their screams, like angels falling from heaven.

At the very same moment, a body appeared in the shower. It glowed yellow, so bright and irradiated I could hardly look directly at it. It caressed itself, clawing into its body like it was reeling from immeasurable pain. It moved unnaturally, squirming and spasming as if fast-forwarded. The glass blurred its details, but it did nothing to mask its energy. It was as if it held the sun inside of its own stomach. I felt as though an intruder entered my own mind and I had no power to stop it. Just being near it was enough to kill me, and I was already dying.

The wall of sound lasted not even one full-second - and then - a piercing zap shot me up from my bed, and that was it. I can't remember anything past that point, but I assume I went back to bed shortly thereafter, forgetting what had just happened, if only for that one night. I must have had a vapid dream, worthless and memoryless, unknowing that I had just lived a dream so dreadful that it'd stick to my psyche like tar for the rest of my life.

No other dream has ever felt that way since. It was as if a second-soul decided to visit me, a soul stronger and more omnipotent than mine. Surely a dream is just a dream, regardless of the feeling it gives you, but now I go to bed every night, wishing I'll be the only soul residing within its story.

End!!