#me over analyzing all these scenes

[waitineedaname]

feeling insane about the deep dream extra again. I like to make jokes about shen qingqiu seeing binghe hugging his corpse and deciding to fuck that man to qi deviation, but when I think about the emotions communicated in that moment it's so much more. shen qingqiu just got insight into a moment he wasn't around for, when binghe was grieving him so terribly, when binghe still didn't have answers for sqq's actions, when he kept reenacting a moment of nonsexual physical intimacy that left such a profound effect on his psyche

and shen qingqiu obviously can't change what happened in the past, but what he can do upon waking up is kiss binghe, press his hand to his beating heart, affirm (out loud!! a big deal for shen qingqiu!!!) that he wants him -- communicating with his actions that "I was gone then, but I'm here now, I'm alive, I won't be leaving, I love you and want you even when it hurts"

[gingerteaonthetardis]

The X-Files Season 1 + close talking

[kazamajun]

Tekken's storytelling may have its flaws and T7 absolutely had its issues, but this is a perfect moment to me. You could NOT have a clearer depiction of PTSD than what happens here; we see the 5 year old child inside the man, while his mother's theme leitmotifs in the background signifying her metaphorically haunting the scene, and then on top of it we get flashbacks from the prior games including Kazuya's T2 death!!

The composition of the flashbacks is so nice too since it's dominated by visions of Heihachi, before we see Kazuya as a child again then a flickering moment of Kazumi (solidifying that he is her legacy and needs to carry out what she failed to do) culminating in the T4 "I'm going to get everything back!" line.

And then the scream. If that's not an amazingly performed vocalization to express 45 years of carried trauma and anger then I don't know what is. That last hit has every piece of rage and pain in him behind it. Then silence as Heihachi falls. The quietude that comes immediately after catharsis. All that violence and then the moments it takes to process before he can act again. I just love it a lot. Kazuya was really done justice here.

[sixxxer]

what do you MEAN the people who received screeners of ep 7 & 8 said it was some of the saddest stuff they've ever seen??? i just watched ep 6 and im sobbing and falling to the ground

[buckleyskin]

okay so we all know a new exclusive promo is dropping tomorrow but we don’t know when…so when it drops i’ll most likely be at work so i can’t stay on tumblr and refresh the tags or, be on instagram and refresh. all i ask is please, PLEASE blow my tumblr up when it drops so i can watch it accordingly 🙏🏼 thank u in advance bucktommy nation

[musicawizard]

i swear

the good omens fandom is its own worst enemy

it doesn't matter if i've come across the cutest fanart that made me scream cry throw up and squeal, or read a headcanon/wip that made me giggle uncontrollably because of how cute it was

because the next post after that one is one of the most angst-filled, emotionally devastating, analytical dives into the plot and tragedy of the characters that makes me scream cry and throw up in utter defeat

(and don't even get me started on the angsty fanart. I am NOT strong enough to see so much pain and devastation yet still be completely enraptured by its beauty)

[bearenjoyers]

sorry im just thinking about bcs but like. why not add a few smaller scenes of gus interacting with his own men? why does it seem like, in comparison, mike is almost immediately elevated to a higher status than those two in bcs purely because we actually get to see him having normal conversations with gus? like i understand they might not keep the plot moving as well because of the fact obviously if victor is currently doing something it’s because gus told him to etc. but for the most part all of the smaller interactions gus does have with those two ends up being in a somewhat high stress situation where it feels very tense between everyone. and it’s just like damn! is it always like that?? why do those two even care that much about their jobs if their boss is a bit of a dick? etc. i think even an additional scene or two with those guys (either alone or the both of them) talking with gus in a more normal situation could’ve both added a bit more depth into how gus treats his employees (we got a lot with how he treats lyle and co., but not a whole lot with the illegal side of things), how comfortable vic and tyrus feel around him in a calmer setting, and exactly why they both feel the need to be as loyal as they are to the guy.

and also on the other side of this i don't think it'd hurt to maybe elaborate on their pay just a bit..? i'm not saying to randomly put a number out into the atmosphere but i just mean some smaller things like. do they buy nicer things for themselves? what's their housing situation? what's their car situation? are the escalade / yukon their own vehicles or does gus just use those two for business situations? do they use them when they're doing their own stuff off the clock or do they have their own cars? etc. that can also help with understanding their motivations a bit. don't get me wrong i don't think they should be visibly rich or something because that's not what gus would want but just smaller things! cause it's easy to write their loyalty off as Well they probably get paid super well, which i'm sure is true, but if they don't show a single hint of that then what's the point. even something as simple as giving tyrus a nice watch, or maybe victor having a nicer looking gun, etc. something small like that. because as it stands right now the average 41 year old viewer who watched the show once only knows and will only ever know victor and tyrus as those two guys in the background who do random stuff for gus with no clear motivation. just the personification of "On it boss (salute emoji)". and to be honest this is true for a whole lot of fans who do watch the show multiple times and enjoy thinking about it more in depth, because on screen we barely have anything about the two.

and to be clear i'm not trying to say we should have an episode just for them or something like no i understand they're side characters. i understand we don't need all that. and i understand this is also primarily Jimmy's show. but it's not like these two are on the same level as like, arlo or paige and kevin etc. these guys have been around since brba. victor was literally introduced in the same episode gus was. and they are a huge part of gus's story, especially in brba. s4 wouldn't have been what it was without victor and tyrus. and in bcs, ignacio's situation wouldn't have been the same if it weren't for victor and tyrus as well. and i just personally believe that if their goal with gus in bcs was to go back and elaborate on how everything came to be and show what he was like a few years younger, they could've dragged victor and tyrus into that. and i think his character would've benefited from taking that extra step with those two.

[fncreature]

hey. have you seen the prologue & epilogue of the Kenadian & Wifies april fools collab??? they're on Wato1876's (the one who actually built the prison for the whole collab) channel and holy fuck theres even more going on than it seems?????

YES OMG. if this is just a one off april fools joke I’m going to be so sad. this thing has been consuming my brain since yesterday.

I’ve been trying to make sense of this for over an hour. Here’s what I think happens chronologically: -Wato and Omz Mask Wifies build the main escape room together

-The prologue happens at some point during this (except the lore bits, which happens after Evil Wifies’ death)

-Kenadian plans to debunk Wifies and enters the room

-The clone of Wifies (I’m just going to call him Wifies for simplicity’s sake) spawns in and the main videos occur.

-Evil Wifies dies in the trivia and Omz Mask Wifies goes through the escape room (end of Wifies’ video and the epilogue.)

What’s really got me confused is the prologue and the multiple Wifies. I differentiated between Evil Wifies and Omz Mask Wifies, because if they are the same person/entity/whatever, it raises a lot of questions for me. Omz Mask Wifies exists before the main videos, when the prison is being built, as shown in the epilogue. But, from what I can tell, in the main series of videos, Evil Wifies is not wearing a head. This could be an oversight, but with all this planning that seems to have gone into it, I’m not sure how this could be just a mistake. On first watch, it does seem like Omz Mask Wifies is just Evil Wifies after death, but the epilogue seems to contrdict that.

Evidence that Evil Wifies is Omz Mask Wifies: It seems like the intention with the way the videos are presented, Omz Mask Wifies is wearing a Wifies head upon spawning in the escape room

Evidence that Evil Wifies is not Omz Mask Wifies: Omz Mask Wifies helped build the prison, Evil Wifies likely isn’t wearing a head in the main videos.

I don’t know. The prologue and epilogue have caused me so much pain. What is the cabin looking thing that appears for a second? How did Wato get there in the epilogue? Who is the other person Wato mentions in the epilogue? If Wato and Omz Mask Wifies built the prison together, what is their relationship to each other?

In the prologue, when Wato falls into the escape room, he is in the Omz Mask Wifies skin- You can see the Wifies hand in the video. Is his confusion there for the video’s sake, or is he actually confused why he’s there? The thing that makes the most sense to me is that it’s for the video’s sake, but I’m honestly not sure. Everything seems to be really deliberate so far, so I can’t tell. Omz Mask Wifies and Wato have to have some sort of connection- they either are the same person with some sort of amnesia thing going on, or they’re closely connected and there’s another memory thing is going on, or Wato is putting on a very convincing lie in the epilogue (I don’t believe that Wato is lying. Just a possibility).

I think there’s definitely something going on with Wato and Omz Mask Wifies- I don’t believe they’re the same person, as we see both of them show up, but there’s definitely something going on there. We see both Wato and Omz Mask Wifies enter the mansion or whatever, and Wato enters considerably later- during the daytime with the redstone torch gone, and looks very confused to see it.

I think Wato is an unknowing accomplice. He builds the maps, for one of the Wifies, and him and Omz Mask Wifies are connected in a way I haven’t pieced together yet. I believe that Omz Mask Wifies and Evil Wifies are not the same person- I can’t make sense of the timeline if they are.

Long story short, I’m very confused, but this is what I’ve put together so far.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Hi everyone. Do you remember the Golden Girls script book I bought a few months ago?

At the time I only shared a few comments about the introduction, but it (obviously) contains the scripts to some episodes, and I'd like to use one of these now as a prop to talk about one of my favourite episodes in the entire series: S5E19 72 Hours. Specifically, what I'd like to do is analyze the way Blanche and Dorothy (and, to a lesser extent, Sophia) support and comfort Rose through her ordeal in this episode: what works, what doesn't, and why. Join me if you'd like -- under the cut!

Alright, let's get down to it. If you're reading this, chances are you already know the gist of the episode: Rose takes an HIV test because of a blood transfusion that she got after a gallbladder removal operation, and has to endure a nerve-wracking three-day (i.e. 72-hour) wait to get the results.

This is a groundbreaking episode under many points of view (especially for the time it was made), but many people have already talked about its treatment of the subject matter, and I have nothing of substance to add on it. What I'm going to do instead is go through every scene with a fine-toothed comb and analyze everything Dorothy and Blanche do to (try and) keep Rose up as the wait takes a toll on her mental health.

A little note: I'm going to supplement the analysis by pointing out important quotes or adding the transcript of certain lines from the book, but I still suggest either watching the episode before you read this or watching along with the text -- it will just make more sense.

Act 1, Scene 1

So! Scene 1 begins with the introduction of the B-plot, Dorothy's trouble with organizing a successful fundraiser for a 'Save the Wetlands' initiative. She's 'in over her head', and so when Rose enters the kitchen with the mail in tow she asks for her help, confident that she'll have it. Rose, however, refuses:

I'm sorry, Dorothy. [...] I have charity work burnout, Dorothy. In the last three months I have helped with so many raffles and bake sales and car washes, I have to draw the line.

This is important because it gives us information about Rose's mental state prior to the actual issue of the episode. This is one of the rare times when we see Rose refuse to help anyone, and especially one of her friends. A big theme for her character is that she's always up and about, even when she should take a rest (see S7E23/24 for proof), so this tells us that she's really exhausted going into this episode. She specifically talks about having burnout, so she's not just physically exhausted, but mentally exhausted as well; she's reached the end of her rope. It's true that she talks about having charity work burnout, but considering how prevalent charity work is in Rose's life, it's safe to assume she's probably not doing too well in general.

With this out of the way, Rose opens the letter that kicks plot line A into motion, and we get our first clear example of how well Blanche and Dorothy know Rose and how effective they are at helping her. Blanche notices very quickly that something is not right, basically as soon as Rose opens her letter; she asks:

What is it, Rose? Is something wrong?

i.e. she's paying enough close attention to Rose to notice that she's a) engrossed in said letter, and b) confused/worried about it. Dorothy is focused on her on mail, but also snaps to attention as soon as Blanche points out that there's a problem.

Rose explains the situation, and -- as is her custom -- Dorothy offers to help. It's interesting to me that here, despite Rose's naive comment, Dorothy doesn't respond with sarcasm:

(Apologies for the handwriting; the transcription of my comments is in the alt text.)

She's patient (or, well, just barely irritated) and immediately clarifies. This is actually a pattern in the entire episode: no matter how many times Rose gives one of her naive comments, not even when she tells one of her St Olaf stories, Blanche and Dorothy never react with sarcasm. They clearly understand that this is weighing on Rose, and although taking digs at each other is a big part of how they all show their affection, joking about what she says feels somewhat out of place in this instance. (I have a special appreciation for how easily Rose hands Dorothy the letter. This is a medical matter regarding a surgery: it's private information! But Rose trusts Dorothy so much that she shares with her without hesitation and she trusts her to explain what's going on in a way she'll understand).

Dorothy reads the letter and identifies the problem: the hospital might have given Rose HIV-infected blood. I really love how Bea Arthur delivered her line here: she stumbles a little as she realizes the meaning of the letter, which makes sense, because Dorothy is scared. The situation is somewhat better nowadays, but for the general public at the time, an AIDS diagnosis was synonymous with grave illness and death (as Rose will remind us in a moment). No wonder Dorothy is worried -- but she catches herself immediately, because she knows that Rose is going to panic (which she does), and she needs to be calm and collected for her. The gravity of the situation is not lost on any of them: Blanche also turns to Rose as soon as she hears the words, to gauge her reaction.

Rose works through what the letter means, is understandably shocked and scared, and then we get this exchange:

Dorothy and Blanche immediately team up to reassure Rose, and the way they do it shows how well they know her. Dorothy is comforting and rational; she downplays the danger for Rose, putting it in perspective -- they're just taking a precaution. Blanche also reassures Rose ('Everything'll be fine') and she turns the danger from something Rose approaches as her problem alone ('What do I do?') to a group effort ('We just call up the hospital...'), signaling that she and Dorothy are with Rose every step of the way. She then pivots the subject away from the test and towards a joint activity: planning Dorothy's fundraiser. The final joke re-introduces a note of levity on which the scene ends.

I love this exchange. Dorothy and Blanche do and say all the right things: they comfort Rose, taking something that feels like a blade over her head and turning it into something much smaller -- a precaution, an appointment. Rose needs to know that they're with her to support her, so they assure her that they'll take all the necessary steps together. Rose often takes her mind off things by being active and helpful to others, and she enjoys spending quality time with the two of them, so they turn to a shared activity that allows her to use her energy for actual good: planning the fundraiser. The final joke is just the cherry on top. It's clear that Dorothy and Blanche know Rose very well and deeply care about her, and thanks to this they effectively defuse the situation; however, this conversation already contains the seeds of the problem they're overlooking, the problem that will continue to plague Rose until she finally explodes, much later in the episode.

Act 1, Scene 2

We notice this problem even more clearly in scene 2. The first half of the scene is centered around the B-plot, so I'm going to jump straight over it and directly to Rose's entrance. She comes into the scene ready to go out for her blood test, and asks if anyone wants to accompany her. This is the exchange that follows:

Ok, there's a lot to unpack here; let's take it one step at a time. Rose is clearly terrified by this test, and depressed at the thought that she'll have to stay away from her friends (and Miles, although this is the only mention of him in the entire episode...) if the results come back positive. She's so anxious -- hell, she's ready to get to the lab three hours early! The other girls obviously notice this and use some of their previous strategies to help -- Blanche is almost outraged at the idea of Rose facing this thing on her own (seriously, listen to her tone when she asks 'What does that mean?'), Dorothy reaffirms that they're going to be by her side no matter what, and once again tries to put the enormity of the situation back in proportion ('You're just going for a test'). Even Sophia gives a hand in this instance, trying to comfort Rose by bringing up a similar experience she lived through (although that turns out to be a setup for a joke).

I've also noted down that there's lots of physical comfort in this scene (hugging, arm/hand holding). Although this is a constant in the entire show, it feels poignant to point out because, at the time of airing, there was a general prejudice against even touching people with AIDS. In fact, Lady Diana (Princess of Wales) made history in 1987 by shaking the hand of an AIDS patient without gloves. 72 Hours aired in 1990, so a few years later, but I'm pretty sure the general public's idea of AIDS (and, in universe, Rose's perception of it) hadn't changed that much since 1987. By purposefully comforting her with physical contact, Blanche and Dorothy communicate that they're with her in a way that's familiar (since physical affection is so common, in their household), but also a clear message that they're going to stay by her side no matter what the results show.

This is all good stuff, of course -- but I did say that we start seeing the problem clearly in this scene, and I wasn't lying. For one thing, this is when the cracks start to appear; when Dorothy downplays the gravity of the problem, Rose answers with:

It's not just a test, Dorothy.

This is something that will come up later, and will bring about Rose's eventual breakdown. Dorothy and Blanche have done their best in these two scenes to moderate the gravity of the situation, which is, in and of itself, both understandable and effective (in the short term). They're trying to be reassuring, and their intentions are admirable -- but the truth is that Rose's situation is terrifying. AIDS is more manageable nowadays, but it's still a hell of an illness; it requires life-long treatment and there is still neither a cure for it nor a vaccine against it. HIV is a formidable enemy, and back in 1990 it was a relatively unknown formidable enemy, which brought with itself not only disease and death, but also public condemnation: Rose is right to be so scared! And since she is, while a bit of putting things in perspective is useful (it did help her in scene 1), the fact that Dorothy and Blanche keep trying to downplay the danger unsurprisingly gets on her nerves.

However, and this is the crux of the matter, I don't think this is the actual problem here. Sure, minimizing the issue is a bit of a misstep on Dorothy's part (and on Blanche's later on), but that's not really why Rose ends up breaking down later. There's a more fundamental disconnect that comes from the fact that Dorothy and Blanche have a different perception of what AIDS is and what it means from Rose. To be more specific:

Blanche and Dorothy know that that being HIV-positive is dangerous, they know that if Rose's test is positive they'll have lots of adjustments to make and they'll likely go through hard times. They are worried, of course, very aware of the implications, but ultimately they view AIDS as a disease and only a disease.

Rose is obviously worried about the practical aspects of the disease (she's the one who reminds us, later in the episode, that it might kill her), but ultimately to her a positive result would be a moral failure. In her mind, AIDS is something that happens to bad people, and if she is positive to HIV, that will change her worth as a person.

I know this is not an easy idea to consider. It might even feel out of character for Rose: she's welcoming, warm, accepting, and she grows out of the more judgey sides of her personality fairly quickly in the show. But the fact is that she does struggle with this kind of thing at times, even in later seasons; see for example how she acts with Clayton in S4E22 Scared Straight: she's not judgemental of him, but she can't even say the word homosexual out loud! She can be influenced by society in this kind of way, even though she generally ends up examining her prejudices and settling on acceptance and understanding.

This is one of those cases. Look at what she says:

I might as well get used to being by myself. [...] If that test turns out to be positive, you're not going to want to be around me. You or Miles or anybody.

She's buying into the mainstream idea of AIDS patients in society at her time: if the test turns out to be positive, she's going to be shunned by everyone, and in particular by the people she loves the most. Blanche and Dorothy tell her, repeatedly, that they'll be by her side no matter what, but she can't believe them, because she has a very specific idea of what being HIV-positive means and acceptance from her friends doesn't fit into it. She's not just scared of the disease; she's convinced that her friends will see a positive result as the moral condemnation she believes it to be. This is the underlying issue that drives her reactions, and this is why Blanche and Dorothy can't really connect with her on a deep level until much later in the episode, when the problem comes to light.

Act 1, Scene 3

With all this in mind, let's move on to Scene 3. Rose goes to take her test with Dorothy, Blanche, and (although she only appears later) Sophia in tow. Their entrance is already interesting from the lens we're using; Rose is clearly wary and intimidated (she later calls the place/process creepy), but Dorothy and Blanche are keeping guard, too. Specifically, Dorothy enters the place looking around, trying to get a feel for it, while Blanche turns her attention on Rose, gauging her reactions. I felt like I was watching two knights escort a princess through a dangerous road!

Rose tells the counter lady about her appointment (notice how she lowers her voice when she says 'AIDS'), and she gives Dorothy's name to maintain her anonymity. Dorothy has a visibly annoyed reaction, but she doesn't complain; instead, she and Blanche sit down on either side of Rose to wait with her. Rose is rattled, but the girls are by her side, and Blanche acts especially comforting, while still remarking on the hardships of HIV-positive people (which certainly doesn't help Rose's nerves):

After this exchange, Rose pivots straight to a St Olaf story. This makes a lot of sense for her (we know she interprets the world around her through a St Olaf lens), and it's especially significant if we adopt the headcanon that Rose is autistic: it seems to me that she's trying to self-soothe by turning to her special interest (although I'm not autistic myself, so I invite any autistic readers to give their take on this). As I mentioned before, neither Dorothy nor Blanche respond sarcastically to this; Dorothy even tries to meet her where she is with her answer:

It's a scary story, Rose.

Unfortunately, this is not enough to calm Rose. Her anxiety starts to get the better of her again (and no wonder; that wait must be nerve-wracking!), and so Blanche decides to intervene. She gently takes Rose aside and reveals that she has also been tested in the past, although she's kept it to herself all this time. This is an incredible show of courage, love, and trust on Blanche's part (we know she tends to keep this kind of sensitive information to herself, and this is information that could potentially impact her social status too, so it's especially notable that she chooses to reveal it!), and it's a good way to calm Rose down. It's what Sophia was trying to do at the end of Scene 2; Blanche explains that she can relate to what Rose is feeling, because she's been through it before, and she knows it's hard:

[...] I want you to know -- I got tested, too. So I know what you're going through. [...] I just wanted you to know I understand this is not an easy time.

This is, it turns out, effective enough. Rose is immensely relieved by this revelation: she's still anxious, of course, but it's clear that she feels reassured, knowing that Blanche also went through her same experience and came out on top.

At this point, Rose gets called into the test room. Blanche is right beside her and offers to go in with her (I love it when she calls the girls darling -- how sweet!), and there's a little thing here that's not easy to notice, but that really pulls on my heartstrings: Rose touches Dorothy's shoulder as she walks by (and Dorothy turns her head to watch her go inside). It's very quick, but so meaningful!

The rest of the scene focuses on Dorothy and Sophia giving the audience an important lesson in how crucial education is when it comes to AIDS and sexual activity in general -- in their own, humorous way, of course. I just want to point out a little thing here, and that is that Dorothy is looking through pamphlets as she waits. She might have seemed a bit disconnected from the scene before, but she was actually looking for information through the material she had available: she was trying to gain a better understanding of the situation, which is a very Dorothy thing to do, and a more subtle but still very sweet show of support towards Rose.

Act 1, Scene 4

In the final scene of Act 1, we check in on Rose and Blanche right after the test. Blanche is very, very sweet in this entire little scene; she 'wish[es] [she] knew what to say to make [Rose] feel better', and she tries to suggest that things aren't as dire as Rose's mind makes them seem in the moment.

The doctor comes back in and we get the piece of information that titles the episode: Rose won't get her to know her status immediately, because there's a three-day delay between the test and the results. I feel like the fact that Rose didn't know this prior to the test is a major blunder on the hospital's part, and a bit of a misstep on Blanche's: she's been through this before, so she knew the results would take time, and it would have been wiser to check if Rose knew as well. Still, I think we can forgive her for it; it's possible that the process was different where she was tested, and otherwise she likely assumed that Rose had been told all the details, and perhaps didn't want to throw salt in the wound by pointing out the wait time (since Rose was already so anxious about her appointment). The hospital is more at fault here: this is important information, that can seriously impact the mental health of a patient! The doctor very clearly expected Rose to know, so we can assume this is information the patients are supposed to be told before the test; it's impossible to know where the miscommunication occurred, but it was quite the disservice towards poor Rose. If we want to extend a little grace, we can suppose that they're overworked and overwhelmed, and it somehow escaped their notice -- the height of the AIDS epidemic was really hard on clinics and hospitals.

In any case, Rose is seriously upset by the news (and no wonder!). She looks back at Blanche a couple of times as she tries to understand what's going on, and she addresses her directly at the end of the scene:

[...] There's plenty I can do. Like sit around the house for the next seventy-two hours, scared to death he's going to tell me I have something that's gonna kill me. How am I going to do that, Blanche? How am I going to get through the next three days?

Blanche, to her credit, tries her best to reassure her ('Honey, I guess there's not really much you can do', as in: 'I know it's terrible, but working yourself into a panic isn't going to help you'), however the news are just too much for Rose to handle. She runs out of the room, and Blanche hurries after her, thanking the doctor as she goes (which is very sweet: she tags in for Rose when she's not in the right conditions to exercise her usual kindness). Note that Blanche also takes care of Rose's coat and purse, in a small act of service that is very sweet and domestic.

Act 2, Scene 1

With the main conflict of the episode finally on the table, we move on to Act 2, and meet the Girls back in their kitchen on the following morning. For the third time in this episode, Rose enters the scene a few lines after the other girls; she's surprisingly active and energetic, almost her usual upbeat self (although the attentive eye will notice that there's something going on under her apparently cheerful behaviour). Blanche asks her where she was, so early in the morning, and she answers:

Well, I couldn't sleep, so I went for a spin last night -- to Alabama. Blanche, do you know at a truck stop in Tuscaloosa they have an egg dish named after you?

Now, the idea that Rose took a round-trip to Tuscaloosa, Alabama in one night is, well... physically unlikely. Google Maps estimates a trip from Miami to Tuscaloosa and back to take about 24 hours, which is definitely longer than a single night, and longer than the time elapsed since Rose's test; she later claims she still has '52 hours to kill', implying that only 20 hours have gone by since the end of Act 1. This declaration is most likely just hyperbole on the writers' part (not to mention a way to set up one of my favourite jokes in the series -- that 'over easy' has me in stitches every time); however, the meaning they want to convey is clear. Rose is so anxious that not only she can't sleep, but she has to use all that excess nervous energy somehow, and so she takes a ridiculously long trip in a ridiculously short time, implying that she drove like a madwoman the entire way (she even had the time to take a break at a truck stop in Tuscaloosa...). This manic behaviour is a common response to a period of stressful wait; the body doesn't know where to direct all the excess anxious energy, and so we start doing ridiculous stuff, just to keep ourselves occupied and to avoid thinking about what's troubling us.

Obviously, Rose's fake cheer doesn't fool the other girls:

I find it interesting that Rose is exhibiting some behaviours that are usually the prerogative of her roommates: denial (she's fine! she's never felt better! she's not even going to get her results!) and deflection (she took a spin! she saw an egg dish named after Blanche! look at all the stuff for the celebrity auction!). From someone as in-touch with her emotions as Rose is, this behaviour feels uncanny; the viewers can immediately tell that this situation is taking a big toll on her mental health. Sophia and Dorothy try to get her to open up, but they have little success; Rose is too anchored to the cheery front she's using as a shield. Instead, she redirects her anger and fear on the celebrity auction: she gets irrationally furious about a missing item, despite Dorothy's invites to keep her cool and Sophia's attempt at a bit of humour. The situation is defused (or, more appropriately, the tension is brought back to manageable levels) when Blanche invites Rose out for lunch and a movie.

We've already seen bits and pieces of this in Act 1, but this scene is where it becomes evident that the girls' usual methods for supporting and comforting Rose aren't working anymore. On the surface, they do a lot of good things: they don't believe her bravado and ask how she really feels, Dorothy tries to ground her by rationalizing the situation, Sophia attempts a bit of shock-value humour (come on, you don't really believe slapping Dorothy was a mistake -- or gratuitous violence?), Blanche offers to share some quality time. They're all under a lot of stress, and so it's natural that they make some small mistakes (for one, the term 'hysterical' likely doesn't help in defusing the situation), but overall, by the metric they've set in the episode thus far, they do a pretty good job.

And yet, it doesn't work. Rose doesn't calm down one instant all throughout the scene; she's hyper at the beginning and furious at the end. Even when she accepts Blanche's invite, she does so angrily. I'm guessing the lack of sleep doesn't help in keeping her cool, but still, there's a complete lack of connection between Rose and the other girls, and that is because they still haven't tackled the root of the problem. And they won't for a little while more -- things are going to get worse, before they get better.

Act 2, Scene 2

This scene involves only Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia, so I won't spend too much time on it. I only want to point out how Dorothy and Blanche put their money where their mouths are: they strongly oppose Sophia's irrational behaviour, calling it for what it is -- ignorant paranoia. I really like this quote from Blanche:

Well, Sophia, I'm afraid you're just going to have to get over that.

I love the words, and I love the matter-of-fact tone she uses. Obviously they're going to stay with Rose no matter what happens. Obviously they're not going to treat her any differently even if her test is positive. Deep down, Sophia thinks so too; she just needs a little more time to get over her prejudices -- but I love how defensive Dorothy and Blanche are of Rose, and how clear their position is on the matter.

Act 2, Scene 3

Okay, this is the big one, folks! This scene has been quoted everywhere ever since it aired, and for good reason. Blanche gives Rose, and the general public through her, a big lesson in what AIDS is and how wrong the prejudices against HIV-positive people are.

In the lens we're using, this is the moment when things finally start working properly again between the girls. This is the scene where Rose's internal hang-ups about AIDS come to light, allowing Blanche to challenge them, and thus re-opening the effective communication channels between the girls.

Since it's so pivotal, I'm going to share the entire transcript. Let's take it from the top:

Blanche enters the kitchen and finds a dejected Rose at the table. Note that Rose says she is kicking herself for... not being able to see into the future, essentially? All she did was have an operation: it wasn't her responsibility nor her prerogative to ensure the safety of the transfusion she was given. She has nothing to kick herself for -- but she still does, because, once again, being HIV-positive is synonymous with being a moral failure to her, and so if the test is positive it goes without saying that is must be her fault, for not staying safe enough.

I'm sure you'll agree with me that the way she faults herself is nonsensical and unfair, and deep down she feels so too, because as soon as Blanche tries to soothe her ('Take it easy', which she's heard quite a lot in the previous few days), she explodes. And she is right to, at first: as she articulates very well, she's scared out of her wits, she is threatened by something that might kill her, and in their attempts to support her through it Blanche and Dorothy have been downplaying the problem. They don't mean to -- they're not trying to shut Rose up or invalidate her feelings; it's clear that they get the gravity of the situation, they're just trying to help her keep a cool head through it -- but after almost three days of being told to 'take it easy' whenever she expresses any anger or fear, it's no wonder Rose is at the end of her rope.

Blanche recognizes so too, and she apologizes for it, but at this point Rose cannot hold herself back anymore. She keeps venting and finally reveals what exactly has been plaguing her ever since the beginning:

Why me, Blanche? [...] Damn it, why is this happening to me? I mean, this isn't supposed to happen to people like me. You must have gone to bed with hundreds of men and all I had was one innocent operation.

There it is. Asking 'why me?' while facing hardships is pretty common, but this is not a 'why me, of all the people on the world'; this is a 'why me, when this isn't supposed to happen to people like me'. In Rose's mind, AIDS is something that happens to people who live a completely different life from hers; people like Blanche, who go to bed with hundreds of partners, or worse. It's the monster in the closet of those who live... dangerously, let's say. Why does she have to deal with it, when she's a good person who just had an innocent operation?

I'm sure, if she thought about it with a clearer mind, she'd figure out that her position makes no sense, but let's remember: she was already exhausted at the beginning of the episode, she got a horrible and unexpected piece of news, she's been anxious and terrified for days. She's not in her right mind, and she needs someone to point it out. Fortunately, Blanche is exactly the right person to do so.

The scene moves to the living room, and Rose keeps hammering the point. Of course she's not saying that Blanche should be in her position instead: Blanche is her dear friend, she doesn't want her to suffer -- what she's saying between the lines is that it would make more sense to her if their positions were reversed, because of their respective lifestyles. She is a good person, a goody-two-shoes! She's so clearly exasperated by the disconnect: remember, this isn't supposed to happen to people like her.

And in response, Blanche delivers one of the most important lines in the whole show:

AIDS is not a bad person's disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.

What a line. Rue McClanahan really understood the assignment with this delivery (as if she ever doesn't...). She knows this statement holds a metric ton of gravitas and she delivers it accordingly; with the way she's glaring at Rose, I wouldn't be surprised if she burned a few holes through the cameras. I think it lands especially well because of how sweet and gentle Blanche has been in this episode, up to this point: she's been very affectionate and comforting and understanding towards Rose, so when she snaps, it feels particularly poignant.

And Rose gets it. Someone, someone she loves and trusts, has finally confronted her on her deep-seated ideas about AIDS, and it's so clear in the way Betty White's posture and expression change (she also understood her assignment -- God, what a marvelous cast this show has!) that Blanche's words have moved something within Rose. The nervous energy is knocked right out of her: there's a palpable release of tension in the way her shoulders slump and her hands relax. With just one line, Blanche has managed to demolish the base notion she's held all throughout this episode: that AIDS is something that happens to bad people, and that as a consequence she is a bad person if she's HIV-positive. Now that she's free from this assumption, she's also in a better position to accept the other Girls' love and support, as we will see soon.

I'm not surprised that Rose's mind changes so quickly. As opposed to most people's bigoted positions, hers is a remarkably coherent one. Bigots tend to have a set of rules for themselves, and maybe their loved ones, and another set of rules for others: I've read so many stories of conservative women who rally against the right to abortion but had an abortion themselves, because 'it's different' in their case. People who hold bigoted ideas (and this includes all of us, at some point or another in our lives) often lack the ability to understand that they're not the exception, they're the rule, when it comes to this kind of thing: every person who has an abortion is a special case, every person who immigrates is a special case, etc etc. There are no special cases because everyone is a special case. Rose doesn't share this hypocrisy: her discomfort comes from the fact that she holds herself to the same rules as everyone else, and these rules say that AIDS = bad person (and she thinks of herself as a good person, hence the disconnect -- and the frustration: it doesn't fit with her worldview!). When Blanche points out that the rule is false, she's essentially flipping a switch in Rose's mind, turning the rule from right to wrong, and that changes Rose's perception of it: AIDS is not a moral failure anymore, but a disease, as dangerous as it is.

This doesn't solve everything, of course. Rose is still facing a nerve-wracking wait with days of exhaustion and tension on her shoulders, so naturally she's still anxious. But this was, as she says, 'what [she] want[s]', and also what she needs, I'd argue. She can now truly appreciate her roommates' support, and face the rest of the wait with a clearer mind, as we will see soon.

(As a side note -- Blanche's glorious eye roll when she says 'real bitch'? It's everything to me. God, I love her.)

Act 2, Scene 4

Here we have another scene without Rose. Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia take a moment to discuss the situation and renew their conviction. Dorothy has been so worried for Rose in the entire episode and she still is now ('These three days are killing Rose'), and Blanche reaffirms their support out loud:

Sophia is the star of this little segment: we watch her grow out of her prejudices, overcome her fear, and finally commit to her support of Rose. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but Blanche chose her words wisely here; appeals to familial values always work well with Sophia, and she's often the one who underlines the importance of being there for one's family to others:

She's family. If you can't count on family, who the hell can you count on? [S1E4: The Transplant] Hey, it's Blanche's grandson. We do for family. [S1E6: On Golden Girls] Don't turn your back on your mother, Rebecca. Don't let your little girl grow up without a grandmother. I'm 85, and I still cherish all the memories that I had with mine. [S6E20: Even Grandmas Get The Blues]

Perhaps Blanche's reminder that they are Rose's family is what finally knocks Sophia onto the right track; in any case, she's as on board as Dorothy and Blanche are now. They're prepared to support Rose as the wait comes to an end, and they're prepared to take care of her no matter what comes after.

Act 2, Scene 5

This is one of my favourite scenes in the whole show, and the reason why I decided to embark on this analysis, so you will forgive me if I get a bit emotional.

The scene begins with Rose laying on a lawn chair in the lanai. Dorothy enters from the house, and they begin talking about Dorothy's issues with the fundraiser. Note how different Rose is from how we've seen her until this point: she's still scared and anxious (she's 'trying to put in a good word' with God), but she lacks the anger and frustration she felt in the previous days. This is what I was talking about earlier: she's not completely okay, of course, but opening up about her deep thoughts and being confronted by Blanche about them did her wonders. She's facing the future with a much calmer attitude and a clearer mind now.

This, in turn, allows Dorothy's support to come through. We see once again how good Dorothy is at reading Rose's emotions and figuring out what might help her: she initially refuses to talk about the fundraiser with her (which makes sense; Rose has a lot on her plate already), but she accepts at Rose's insistence -- which shows that she listens to her wants, and she knows that putting her energy to good use is one of the methods Rose uses to work through anxiety.

They chat a bit about wetlands, and then we get to the part that makes me sob like a baby. Rose shares a little St Olaf anecdote, and Dorothy doesn't joke about it. Not just that: she listens, she smiles, she pats Rose's arm, and she takes her seriously, to the point where she uses her story as a jumping point to talk about their common problems with groups. And this is yet another perfect move: Dorothy gets Rose to laugh. To actually, really laugh. I love how you can see the wheels turning in her head when she says 'You know, it sounds like we both have a little trouble with groups': we can tell that she's found an angle, a way to ease some tension off Rose's shoulders. Her tone sounds similar to the tone she has when she finds her footing in her stand-up comedy segment in S5E9 Comedy Of Errors: she's found the starting point for a hilarious story.

Rose's chuckle is the confirmation that she's right, and so she goes full out. Notice how she laughs, full belly laughs; how happy she looks; how she keeps holding Rose's hand tight as they joke. She's helping Rose release some tension, and she's conveying (both with her body language and with their shared laughter) that she's here for her; that she's by her side, and she'll keep staying by her side.

This works so beautifully that Rose doesn't only laugh along, but she feels comfortable and safe enough to be completely vulnerable:

Oh, that felt good. It's been a bad week.

Rose is the one in the cast who has the healthiest relationship with vulnerability, I feel, but this is still an important admission. Betty's delivery is amazing: the way the phrase almost tumbles off her tongue, how simple and yet full of meaning it is... I love it. And note that Rose is able to accept Dorothy's attempts to make her laugh on one side, and ask for her support in this way on another, only because of her previous exchange with Blanche! Now that her prejudices on AIDS have been shattered, she can communicate with her girls (laugh with them, ask for their support) as she always does, and Dorothy's comfort is much more effective as a result.

On her part, Dorothy has the perfect response:

It'll get better.

Just that: it'll get better. This is an acknowledgement of the truth in what Rose is saying (there's a 'yes, and' implied at the beginning), and a statement of hope. You're right, the past few days have been hard, but it won't last forever. Rose is often the one who keeps the girls up, who gives them hope and never stops fighting; watching this brief inversion of roles warms my heart. And Rose believes Dorothy: she makes a face as if to say 'I don't know', but if this had happened earlier in the episode, she would have outright denied it, or even stormed out of the room. She's come a long way.

Act 2, Scene 6

This brings us to the final scene in the episode. I find it interesting that this is the first (and only) time when Rose appears on the screen at the same time as Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia: in the rest of the episode either she comes into an already established scene, or someone comes into the scene to find her. This might be a case of 'the curtains were just blue', but I like to think that this symbolizes her growth in this episode: she has overcome her internal hang-ups, and so she's fully on the same page as her roommates now, ready to accept their support no matter what the test results show.

There's a couple of small interesting elements before the good news, here. Dorothy and Blanche show their support in the form of attention -- they're basically pending from Rose's lips; as is her fashion, Sophia uses humour to cover a genuine beautiful statement:

Your future's going to be filled with nothing but joy and laughter.

The doctor then comes in and tells them the good news: Rose's test is negative! Dorothy's happiness is especially heartwarming to me -- as is her patience in helping Rose understand what's going on. Rose can finally relax; her relief is so palpable that even the doctor doesn't insist in offering counseling when she tells him she feels great:

Well, evidently, you had all the emotional support you needed.

And she did. She really did, and she's aware of it, to the point where she asked Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia to accompany her inside to hear the results. And they all share her relief, of course: we get smiles, happy faces, hugs and arm touches, all the usual works. Rose is so overjoyed that she can't even imagine going back home to rest; she'd much rather stay with her girls and go have a nice time at the fundraiser they somehow managed to organize (although it seems like Sophia forgot to stuff the invitations...). It's a true happy ending, and Rose managed to reach it thanks to the support and affection of her girls, as she herself says:

Oh, he's right. You guys were terrific! Thank you for being there for me, and thank you for making me feel you'd always be there for me, no matter what happened.

Whew! That was a long one, ha. If you've reached this point, a heartfelt thank you to you for staying with me until the end. Go have a cookie, my treat. :)

I really adore this episode, and spending some time with it was a real joy. I hope this was as fun for you to read as it was fun for me to write. Thank you once again, and I hope you have a lovely day!

[franeridan]

okay look I know I've talked about this at length already but I've seen a ton of people talk about how they don't like whiskey peak and how they think it wasn't necessary for zoro and luffy to fight like that or straight up think it was ooc of them, but then the same people will turn around and go "isn't it fascinating how zoro's the only one who can say no to luffy or nearly order him around or that luffy waits for the opinion of before acting for no apparent reason it must be because they are soulmates" and honestly for real I'm the first to subscribe to the zoro and luffy soulmates thought but the reason why zoro can do all that is whiskey peak. that is the moment zoro took a decision that benefited the whole crew without asking luffy first for the first time, and that is the moment luffy unjustly doubted him without implicitly trusting his judgement, and that is the moment luffy learned that actually sometimes zoro sees what's best for the crew before he does and that trusting him to always act with the crew's best interests in mind is something he should do. zoro had never opposed luffy or acted without his consent in any way before whiskey peak and luffy never doubts him and always turns to him ever since, there is direct correlation between the two zoro and luffy didn't learn to trust each other and respect each other through a magical soulbond connection their relationship is actually pretty damn well developed

[itsbrucey]

Need to cement myself as the Darryl Wilson mutual otherwise it'll all have been for nothing

[galacticlamps]

actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be

First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:

my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)

But letting that go...

I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)

On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.

(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)

At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.

To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.

So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.

And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?

anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)

[liesandbrokenhearts]

Where did your taste in movies/art come from?

Hmm I guess I’m just explorative in movies I think will strike my fancy in some regard I suppose, I don’t really curate much its just whatever I think may make me see something in a certain light in beauty or despair in the eyes of the director and actors creating it, I was watching Testament of Orpheus by Jean Cocteau that said a film is an idea of an artist that is portrayed to a great number of people so much so it becomes a petrifying ray of thought, it is a dreamlike creation making real of the unreal and that an artist always paints his own portrait and I think in a lot of the greatest minds of artists their art is so representative of their unique way of thought and being and I like seeing the world in different eyes. He says essentially films are great vehicles for poetry and I love movies that are created by those principles (when I watch them I’m between non hard hitting media like everything else). But I really do like movies that provoke thought or emotion, or in its many forms just explain and portray the human condition, I don’t really have a formula on where my likes in movies came from but I know with a lot of art I love (Jenny holzer, Marina Abramovic, Jean Michael Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe and many others but those are ones that jump come to mind immediately) there are usually political undertones as well as symbolic imagery and melancholy or suffering of some kind. I just like anything that makes me feel something. I think it’s hard to pin down but my tumblr is just essentially things I love and think about and my useless thoughts too but I think my taste just comes from what I’m able to find and what I find time to watch really

[my-name-is-jefferooni]

I desperately need to sleep but THERE ARE SO MANY LITTLE DETAILS HERE THAT I HAVE THE URGE TO TOUCH UPON AND I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I DO JUST THAT SO STRAP IN EVERYBODY IM GOING GAME THEORY MODE

So for the first image, which is already gruesome on its own, is the bit where Amy quickly explains what happened to Cream’s mother in issue 22. (One of my personal favorites) And… Yeah. What happened is extremely deep!

Cream is a 6-year-old child, or in my head canon she’s like. 9. Still very young though, so we’ll go with 9. And this young, impressionable 9-year-old girl who previously had just been living her life peacefully before the Metal Virus, just watched her own mother die right in front of her eyes. Vanilla, Cheese, and Chocola were the only people Cream knew outside of the people in her village before meeting Sonic, and she’s been with them her whole entire life. Vanilla has cared for Cream her whole life, gave her food, a home, but most importantly, gave her love. Vanilla loved Cream unconditionally. She held the young rabbit up when she had no more strength to stand, helped her through so much in her life, and did everything that a mother could do a more!

And then she was gone. Just like that. While protecting the very person that she loved with all her heart. And on top of that, Cheese and Chocola were gone as well. No one in her family was left. It was just Cream. All alone.

When passing by Sonic, she hardly even greets him. Just gives him a small, depressed “H’lo Mr. Sonic.” Her eyes are devoid of any emotion, all the joy sucked right out of her voice. She’s just a husk of who she used to be.

And it is genuinely all Sonic!s fault. (More on that later)

The next image, with Metal and Sonic later in the comic, there isn’t really too much for me to say. Sonic is exhausted, he can barely stand on his own two feet, (Again. More on this later) and he is heavily infected with the Metal Virus. Metal is literally his only hope in this moment. Bro can hardly even speak by the way, and yet somehow, Metal fully understands. And when he does help Sonic, it’s at the cost of what little autonomy he had left.

I think this scene is important because while Metal is doing all this because Eggman told him to, us Sonic fans know better. Metal didn’t help Sonic up because it was part of the mission. If it was, Metal would have continued beating up the Zombots and he would’ve waited for Sonic to speak up. But instead, he listens closely to what Sonic has to say and ignores the other Zombots, focusing entirely on Sonic’s needs. It’s a very very small step and won’t get him anywhere for a WHILE, (Mostly because Sega demands he stays evil) but it’s still a step. So for now, we just have to wait until we get the Good Metal ending. 😭

The next scene is Sonic mulling over everything that’s happened. Everything that he’s indirectly caused. Sonic at this point in the comic has finally met up with Eggman for the very first time since his defeat a few months prior, and one of the first things the doctor does is mock Sonic for being infected. He mocks Sonic’s naivety, mocks the way the rodent wants him to be good, mocks the blue blur’s sense of justice, mocks his entire worldview. And naturally, that pisses Sonic off.

Because Sonic just spent weeks trying to justify letting Mr. Tinker live. He has been telling people this entire fucking time that Eggman was good now and that he would never do anything nefarious again. When the Metal Virus hit, the denial started setting in. Because while all the signs pointed right at Eggman’s mustache, there were hardly any of the obvious signs that it was truly him. Trouble started arising in the villages and Sonic chalked it up to Rough and Tumble just getting their hands on old tech, when deep down he knew what was really going on. And when he saw Eggman’s newest flagship parading around cities and towns like he owned the world, (Which he actually very literally did) something cracked in his resolve. Sonic had to admit that Eggman was back to his nefarious deeds once again, but he just… He couldn’t.

So when everything starts going wrong. When Eggman finally tells Sonic straight up that he will never go back to his life as Mr. Tinker. When he outright tells Sonic to his face that this was all his plan the entire time…

When Sonic is all alone, transforming into a Zombot, Tail’s device broken, his entire moral compass shattered within a matter of minutes… He finally allows himself to admit he was wrong.

Before he fully succumbs to his misery and guilt though, he thinks of his friends. He thinks of everything that could’ve been if he had just done something right for once! And he ZOOMS off into the night, the Metal Virus flaking behind him as he runs, his thoughts going just as fast as he is, telling him that he was wrong, and…! He starts to slow down. Because it’s been… How long? A week? 2 weeks? Who’s keeping count, even? And he’s been on his feet this entire time, never giving himself a break, never stopping to even take a nap longer than a few minutes, not having any proper rest since before this whole debacle began…! Everything hurts. His brain, his body, his heart! It all hurts so fucking much, and all he wants is for all of this to end. But he started it, so he has to be the one to end it.

Okay that was way more dramatic than intended to let’s just move on shall we?

BOOM. INSERT ANOTHER SONIC MORAL DILEMMA HERE FROM THE EXACT SAME ISSUE BUT FROM A WHOLE TEN MINUTES PRIOR WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Hoo boy, this is another relatively short one. I basically already covered a majority of Sonic”s moral issues above, but basically what’s happening here is Sonic is finally letting the weight of everything sink in. He knows he fucked up, so he’s at this point just straight up treading on eggshells. All Sonic wants to do is the right thing, but at this point he doesn’t even know what the “Right thing” even is anymore. He spent so long thinking that giving people second or third chances was the right thing, but due to what he sees literally right in front of him… That contradicts that very statement now, doesn’t it?

Sonic no longer knows what the “Right thing” is anymore, and it’s confusing him. If it weren’t for him spotting Eggman in the next panel, our boy would’ve been left standing there for ages mulling over what to do. He’s so exhausted, so out of it, so utterly lost, that he can’t even do the one thing he’s been doing his whole life: Run.

And it’s eating him up inside.

And here is the moment where I unfortunately have to cut things short. It is 11:30 in the pm right now and I have school in the morning and I still got a ton I gotta do before I go to bed so I’ll continue sometime tomorrow, if my brain will allow me. Thanks so much for reading this gigantic wall of text, hope you somehow enjoyed, love you lots, have a great day/night, and bye-bye!

beautifully painful IDW moments that I could talk about for AGES.

(aka I miss the metal virus saga)

[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.”

[wildsaltair]

HOTTER THAN A METAL SLIDE IN JULY

but also. the degradation here. the absolute insult of this. the way Maximus was a general and a commander and the most respected honored soldier of Rome, a favorite of the emperor, a dedicated husband and father, a man to be admired and treasured

and now he's just a slave. a piece of flesh to these guards who have probably never seen real battle before.

this just KILLS ME I CAN'T TAKE IT

because like.... the way he walks into the room and casts a glance back like he can't believe the guard is actually shoving him when Maximus could so easily kill this guy if he wanted to

the way he just holds out his arm to be chained and doesn't fight back because he's so broken and betrayed

the way he looks down as the guard walks away because this is so wrong, it's so wrong for him to be in this situation

and the ANGER when he sees Lucilla, whom he thinks is complicit in all this, and the way this is what makes him yank at those chains and lunge at her

but how he's held back by the chains which only adds to his frustration and helplessness and despair

so he just grits his teeth and turns because he can't even look at her after all this, he's fallen so far and become so unrecognizable even to himself, and he doesn't want her to see him like this and he doesn't want to see her at all

and his whole tone in this scene is one of agonized frustration and rage and helplessness. he's so strong and unstoppable and ruthless but HE. CAN'T. DO. ANYTHING.

it tears me up thank you Ridley and Russell I am thankful for this absolute feast of angst and fodder for analysis

OKAY BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED THIRSTING

Russell Crowe in the Gladiator

Rich matrons pay well to be pleasured by the bravest champions