#when the clock broke

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The true, tactical significance of Project 2025

TODAY (July 14), I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Like you, I have heard a lot about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's roadmap for the actions that Trump should take if he wins the presidency. Given the Heritage Foundation's centrality to the American authoritarian project, it's about as awful and frightening as you might expect:

https://www.project2025.org/

But (nearly) all the reporting and commentary on Project 2025 badly misses the point. I've only read a single writer who immediately grasped the true significance of Project 2025: The American Prospect's Rick Perlstein, which is unsurprising, given Perlstein's stature as one of the left's most important historians of right wing movements:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

As Perlstein points out, Project 2025 isn't new. The Heritage Foundation and its allies have prepared documents like this, with many identical policy prescriptions, in the run-up to many presidential elections. Perlstein argues that Warren G Harding's 1921 inaugural address captures much of its spirit, as did the Nixon campaign's 1973 vow to "move the country so far to the right 'you won’t even recognize it.'"

The threats to democracy and its institutions aren't new. The right has been bent on their destruction for more than a century. As Perlstein says, the point of taking note of this isn't to minimize the danger, rather, it's to contextualize it. The American right has, since the founding of the Republic, been bent on creating a system of hereditary aristocrats, who govern without "interference" from democratic institutions, so that their power to extract wealth from First Nations, working people, and the land itself is checked only by rivalries with other aristocrats. The project of the right is grounded in a belief in Providence: that God's favor shines on His best creations and elevates them to wealth and power. Elite status is proof of merit, and merit is "that which leads to elite status."

When a wealthy person founds an intergenerational dynasty of wealth and power, this is merely a hereditary meritocracy: a bloodline infused with God's favor. Sometimes, this belief is dressed up in caliper-wielding pseudoscience, with the "good bloodline" reflecting superior genetics and not the favor of the Almighty. Of course, a true American aristocrat gussies up his "race realism" with mystical nonsense: "God favored me with superior genes." The corollary, of course, is that you are poor because God doesn't favor you, or because your genes are bad, or because God punished you with bad genes.

So we should be alarmed by the right's agenda. We should be alarmed at how much ground it has gained, and how the right has stolen elections and Supreme Court seats to enshrine antimajoritarianism as a seemingly permanent fact of life, giving extremist minorities the power to impose their will on the rest of us, dooming us to a roasting planet, forced births, racist immiseration, and most expensive, worst-performing health industry in the world.

But for all that the right has bombed so many of the roads to a prosperous, humane future, it's a huge mistake to think of the right as a stable, unified force, marching to victory after inevitable victory. The American right is a brittle coalition led by a handful of plutocrats who have convinced a large number of turkeys to vote for Christmas.

The right wing coalition needs to pander to forced-birth extremists, racist extremist, Christian Dominionist extremists (of several types), frothing anti-Communist cranks, vicious homophobes and transphobes, etc, etc. Pandering to all these groups isn't easy: for one thing, they often want opposite things – the post-Roe forced birth policies that followed the Dobbs decision are wildly unpopular among conservatives, with the exception of a clutch of totally unhinged maniacs that the party relies on as part of a much larger coalition. Even more unpopular are policies banning birth control, like the ones laid out in Project 2025. Less popular still: the proposed ban on no-fault divorce. Each of these policies have different constituencies to whom they are very popular, but when you put them together, you get Dan Savage's "Husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office":

https://twitter.com/fakedansavage/status/1805680183065854083

The constituency for "husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office" is very small. Almost no one in the GOP coalition is voting for all of this, they're voting for one or two of these things and holding their noses when it comes to the rest.

Take the "libertarian" wing of the GOP: its members do favor personal liberty…it's just that they favor low taxes for them more than personal liberty for you. The kind of lunatic who'd vote for a dead gopher if it would knock a quarter off his tax bill will happily allow his coalition partners to rape pregnant women with unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds and force them to carry unwanted fetuses to term if that's the price he has to pay to save a nickel in taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#tolerable-racism

And, of course, the religious maniacs who profess a total commitment to Biblical virtue but worship Trump, Gaetz, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Reagan, and the whole panoply of cheating, lying, kid-fiddling, dope-addled refugees from a Jack Chick tract know that these men never gave a shit about Jesus, the Apostles or the Ten Commandments – but they'll vote for 'em because it will get them school prayer, total abortion bans, and unregulated "home schooling" so they can brainwash a generation of Biblical literalists who think the Earth is 5,000 years old and that Jesus was white and super into rich people.

Time and again, the leaders of the conservative movement prove themselves capable of acts of breathtaking cruelty, and undoubtedly many of them are depraved sadists who genuinely enjoy the suffering of their enemies (think of Trump lickspittle Steven Miller's undisguised glee at the thought of parents who would never be reunited with children after being separated at the border). But it's a mistake to think that "the cruelty is the point." The point of the cruelty is to assemble and maintain the coalition. Cruelty is the tactic. Power is the point:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

The right has assembled a lot of power. They did so by maintaining unity among people who have irreconcilable ethics and goals. Think of the pro-genocide coalition that includes far-right Jewish ethno-nationalists, antisemitic apocalyptic Christians who believe they are hastening the end-times, and Islamophobes of every description, from War On Terror relics to Hindu nationalists.

This is quite an improbable coalition, and while I deplore its goals, I can't help but be impressed by its cohesion. Can you imagine the kind of behind-the-scenes work it takes to get antisemites who think Jews secretly control the world to lobby with Zionists? Or to get Zionists to work alongside of Holocaust-denying pencilneck Hitler wannabes whose biggest regret is not bringing their armbands to Charlottesville?

Which brings me back to Project 2025 and its true significance. As Perlstein writes, Project 2025 is a mess. Clocking in an 900 pages, large sections of Project 2025 flatly contradict each other, while other sections contain subtle contradictions that you wouldn't notice unless you were schooled in the specialized argot of the far right's jargon and history.

For example, Project 2025 calls for defunding government agencies and repurposing the same agencies to carry out various spectacular atrocities. Both actions are deplorable, but they're also mutually exclusive. Project 2025 demands four different, completely irreconcilable versions of US trade policy. But at least that's better than Project 2025's chapter on monetary policy, which simply lays out every right wing theory of money and then throws up its hands and recommends none of them.

Perlstein says that these conflicts, blank spots and contradictions are the most important parts of Project 2025. They are the fracture lines in the coalition: the conflicting ideas that have enough support that neither side can triumph over the other. These are the conflicts that are so central to the priorities of blocs that are so important to the coalition that they must be included, even though that inclusion constitutes a blinking "LOOK AT ME" sign telling us where the right is ready to split apart.

The right is really good at this. Perlstein points to Nixon's expansion of affirmative action, undertaken to sow division between Black and white workers. We need to get better at it.

So far, we've lavished attention on the clearest and most emphatic proposals in Project 2025 – for understandable reasons. These are the things they say they want to do. It would be reckless to ignore them. But they've been saying things like this for a century. These demands constitute a compelling argument for fighting them as a matter of urgency, with the intention of winning. And to win, we need to split apart their coalition.

Perlstein calls on us to dissect Project 2025, to cleave it at its joints. To do so, he says we need to understand its antecedents, like Nixon's "Malek Manual," a roadmap for destroying the lives of civil servants who failed to show sufficient loyalty to Nixon. For example, the Malek Manual lays out a "Traveling Salesman Technique" whereby a government employee would be given duties "criss-crossing him across the country to towns (hopefully with the worst accommodations possible) of a population of 20,000 or under. Until his wife threatens him with divorce unless he quits, you have him out of town and out of the way":

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Final_Report_on_Violations_and_Abuses_of/0dRLO9vzQF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22organization+of+a+political+personnel+office+and+program%22&pg=PA161&printsec=frontcover

It's no coincidence that leftist historians of the right are getting a lot of attention. Trumpism didn't come out of nowhere – Trump is way too stupid and undisciplined to be a cause – he's an effect. In his excellent, bestselling new history of the right in the early 1990s, When the Clock Broke, Josh Ganz shows us the swamp that bred Trump, with such main characters as the fascist eugenicist Sam Francis:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605445/whentheclockbroke

Ganz joins the likes of the Know Your Enemy podcast, an indispensable history of reactionary movements that does excellent work in tracing the fracture lines in the right coalition:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/when-clock-broke-106803105

Progressives are also an uneasy coalition that is easily splintered. As Naomi Klein argues in her essential Doppelganger, the liberal-left coalition is inherently unstable and contains the seeds of its own destruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Liberals have been the senior partner in that coalition, and their commitment to preserving institutions for their own sake (rather than because of what they can do to advance human thriving) has produced generations of weak and ineffectual responses to the crises of terminal-stage capitalism, like the idea that student-debt cancellation should be means-tested:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/03/utopia-of-rules/#in-triplicate

The last bid for an American aristocracy was repelled by rejecting institutions, not preserving them. When the Supreme Court thwarted the New Deal, FDR announced his intention to pack the court, and then began the process of doing so (which included no-holds-barred attacks on foot-draggers in his own party). Not for nothing, this is more-or-less what Lincoln did when SCOTUS blocked Reconstruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

But the liberals who lead the progressive movement dismiss packing the court as unserious and impractical – notwithstanding the fact that they have no plan for rescuing America from the bribe-taking extremists, the credibly accused rapist, and the three who stole their robes. Ultimately, liberals defend SCOTUS because it is the Supreme Court. I defended SCOTUS, too – while it was still a vestigial organ of the rights revolution, which improved the lives of millions of Americans. Human rights are worth defending, SCOTUS isn't. If SCOTUS gets in the way of human rights, then screw SCOTUS. Sideline it. Pack it. Make it a joke.

Fuck it.

This isn't to argue for left seccession from the progressive coalition. As we just saw in France, splitting at this moment is an invitation to literal fascist takeover:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/melenchon-macron-france-left-winner

But if there's one thing that the rise of Trumpism has proven, it's that parties are not immune to being wrestled away from their establishment leaderships by radical groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

What's more, there's a much stronger natural coalition that the left can mobilize: workers. Being a worker – that is, paying your bills from wages, instead of profits – isn't an ideology you can change, it's a fact. A Christian nationalist can change their beliefs and then they will no longer be a Christian nationalist. But no matter what a worker believes, they are still a worker – they still have a irreconcilable conflict with people whose money comes from profits, speculation, or rents. There is no objectively fair way to divide the profits a worker's labor generates – your boss will always pay you as little of that surplus as he can. The more wages you take home, the less profit there is for your boss, the fewer dividends there are for his shareholders, and the less there is to pay to rentiers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

Reviving the role of workers in their unions, and of unions in the Democratic party, is the key to building the in-party power we need to drag the party to real solutions – strong antimonopoly action, urgent climate action, protections for gender, racial and sexual minorities, and decent housing, education and health care.

The alternative to a worker-led Democratic Party is a Democratic Party run by its elites, whose dictates and policies are inescapably illegitimate. As Hamilton Nolan writes, the completely reasonable (and extremely urgent) discussion about Biden's capacity to defeat Trump has been derailed by the Democrats' undemocratic structure. Ultimately, the decision to have an open convention or to double down on a candidate whose campaign has been marred by significant deficits is down to a clutch of party officials who operate without any formal limits or authority:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-hole-at-the-heart-of-the-democratic

Jettisoning Biden because George Clooney (or Nancy Pelosi) told us to is never going to feel legitimate to his supporters in the party. But if the movement for an open convention came from grassroots-dominated unions who themselves dominated the party – as was the case, until the Reagan revolution – then there'd be a sense that the party had constituents, and it was acting on its behalf.

Reviving the labor movement after 40 years of Reaganomic war on workers may sound like a tall order, but we are living through a labor renaissance, and the long-banked embers of labor radicalism are reigniting. What's more, repelling fascism is what workers' movements do. The business community will always sell you out to the Nazis in exchange for low taxes, cheap labor and loose regulation.

But workers, organized around their class interests, stand strong. Last week, we lost one of labor's brightest flames. Jane McAlevey, a virtuoso labor organizer and trainer of labor organizers, died of cancer at 57:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-strategy-organizing-obituary

McAlevey fought to win. She was skeptical of platitudes like "speaking truth to power," always demanding an explanation for how the speech would become action. In her classic book A Collective Bargain, she describes how she built worker power:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey helped organize a string of successful strikes, including the 2019 LA teachers' strike. Her method was straightforward: all you have to do to win a strike or a union drive is figure out how to convince every single worker in the shop to back the union. That's all.

Of course, it's harder than it sounds. All the problems that plague every coalition – especially the progressive liberal/left coalition – are present on the shop floor. Some workers don't like each other. Some don't see their interests aligned with others. Some are ornery. Some are convinced that victory is impossible.

McAlevey laid out a program for organizing that involved figuring out how to reach every single worker, to converse with them, listen to them, understand them, and win them over. I've never read or heard anyone speak more clearly, practically and inspirationally about coalition building.

Biden was never my candidate. I supported three other candidates ahead of him in 2020. When he got into office and started doing a small number of things I really liked, it didn't make me like him. I knew who he was: the Senator from MBNA, whose long political career was full of bills, votes and speeches that proved that while we might have some common goals, we didn't want the same America or the same world.

My interest in Biden over the past four years has had two areas of focus: how can I get him to do more of the things that will make us all better off, and do less of the things that make the world worse. When I think about the next four years, I'm thinking about the same things. A Trump presidency will contain far more bad things and far fewer good ones.

Many people I like and trust have pointed out that they don't like Biden and think he will be a bad president, but they think Trump will be much worse. To limit Biden's harms, leftists have to take over the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, so that he's hemmed in by his power base. To limit Trump's harms, leftists have to identify the fracture lines in the right coalition and drive deep wedges into them, shattering his power base.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

[cinematicnomad]

roman as the child who suffered the most overt abuse at logan’s hand growing up...roman who finally seemed to be coming to a place where he might be ready to confront logan head on, who left that angry voicemail after having to knife gerri on logan’s orders and hating himself while doing it...roman being the only child who forgot to say “i love you” to logan in his dying moments...roman who could only use the language of violence and strength and lies when saying his final words to logan (“you’re going to be okay because you’re a monster")...roman being the only one who felt like he HAD to go see logan’s body...i am Feeling Things™

[allpromarlo]

i judge jjk characters by how far they would go for yuji and that's just the way it is

[inga-don-studio]

I’m feeling so much kinship with my plants right now.

My idiot brain has decided that it’s clearly autumn, now that we’re heading back into chilly wintery weather after a warmer false spring.

My beloved idiot babies, i.e. my air plants, ferns & ZZ plants, have all been going hog wild sending out new growth & popping off new pups since the arctic blast as if it was the middle of spring.

This is an apartment of NO seasonal awareness and no brain cells (though I guess that’s more a problem for me than the greenery) and we’re all confused.

[monty-glasses-roxy]

I do so love the idea of Cassie's dad being one of the workers at the Raceway that either survived the Mimic or one of the members that was there in the Raceway when a survivor got out and told him everything. Like bro. The awkward truce, the tense understanding, the gradual, carefully built house of cards they call trust...

Animatronics don't trust staff and staff have never seen animatronics as real... So it's a strange learning curve. An interesting situation for sure.

[chirpsythismorning]

For what I've seen, the ST production team has been working all o this time since none of them are part of neither the WGA nor SAG-Aftra. This probably means they've advanced a lot of work. Do you think that once the strikes are over, this will make it easier for them to start filming as soon as possible or even for the filming process to take less time than initially predicted? (Around a year)

It’s possible.

But it’s also worth noting that them needing a full year to film ST5 is for a multitude of reasons.

With all the delays, they now have to rework their entire schedule post-strike, as it won’t look the same as it looked before the strike. They need to be able to fit dozens of cast-members schedules together to ensure that their availability aligns with other cast-members they have scenes with.

While ST does get first dibs more than the casts other projects because of their contract with Netflix, it’s a lot easier to plan a schedule when you get everyone’s schedules, put them all together, and look at what aligns and what doesn’t, to make it easier for everyone.

For example, it made sense that despite certain cast members being unavailable in May to film, there were rumors (multiple statements from Noah himself) that he would start filming in May. And that’s likely because he started school again in the fall, and so it makes sense they looked at his schedule and determined it would be best to squeeze in as much filming for him as possible from May-August before school started in the fall, with him having a good chunk of time throughout the school year to go back to school for tests, etc..

Another example is David Harbour, who said he was going to be filming Thunderbolts in Atlanta simultaneously while he was filming ST5 in Atlanta. This means he would likely have at least 1-2 weeks of filming for ST and then 1-2 weeks of filming Thunderbolts, with days off and on within the mix, in order to accommodate both films schedules and when they need him for certain scenes.

I think a lot of fans assume that 1 year of filming means nonstop filming for each cast member, which is just not the case.

Even if certain actors have a lot of scenes in each episode, there are still scenes without them.

For example, let’s say Millie has 8 scenes total in 5x01 or something. There are still going to be several scenes without her, upwards of over 10 scenes give or take. That's scenes with other characters filming without Millie present because she does not have to be because she is not in any of the shots. Millie does not need to be strictly in Atlanta for those 1-2 weeks that it takes to film the block of scenes that do not include her. If they can make it so actors are able to be gone for 1-2 weeks of time, as opposed to just filming 1-2 scenes and then having to wait 2-3 days for their next scene, they’ll try to. Not saying that won’t happen occasionally, as I'm sure there are times when it's maybe a week on and week off or three weeks on and one off, but still, doing it in larger blocks to make it easier and accommodate everyone, is much more realistic because it just makes it a lot smoother to flesh out the schedule like that with their main (high demand) cast, and then fit side characters (not as high demand aka more wide open availability) around that.

For example, Amybeth only had like 4ish scenes total throughout the entirety of s4, and she lives out of the country, so it wouldn’t make sense to have her stay in Atlanta for upwards of a year. Instead Amybeth was only in Atlanta filming for two weeks total for those scenes featuring her, from mid May-early June 2021. That meant they had to ensure Maya (and Joe lmao) were available during that time Amybeth would be on set bc they had scenes together. Fun fact, if you pay close attention to the shots with Vickie during the pep rally, it's clear that it was filmed on a different day than the rest of the scenes, bc in the wide shots we don't even see the band on the bleachers (TV magic!). This means that only that corner with the band was filled up and the rest of the bleachers were empty when they shot that scene with Amybeth and Maya. No one else needed to be there since it wasn't necessary.

Usually, filming for 1 episode takes about a month. But it’s likely much of ST5’s episodes will be a little over 60 minutes as opposed to like 50 minutes. So giving them about 1-1.5 months to film each episode, 8 total (unless that changes), puts them at approximately 12 months aka a year. While some episodes might take only a month (or maybe even less) to film, the finale is going to be over 2 hours, which means filming for the finale will take closer to 2 months potentially.

This means 12 months is a very good estimate for how long it could take to film ST5 overall. Though to be fair, given the circumstances of them being on hiatus for so long and maybe being more prepared, maybe it’ll take a little bit less than that? But I honesty don’t think it will be by much, as most years they end up underestimating and it takes a little bit longer than anticipated bc of impromptu delays. (This is also assuming the strike ends and filming starts in Oct, only a couple months from now, which isn't guaranteed whatsoever either).

Even if the strike ends and filming is in full swing and they have a plan to finish in 12 months, there’s no way of knowing for certain if something else could impact filming and cause it to take longer. We should know by now with COVID and the strike that nothing is guaranteed until it’s all filmed. Once it’s all filmed, THEN we can actually start theorizing about when it will premiere.

ST5 premiered about 8 months after filming, not only because post-production is time consuming in and of itself, but because they wanted to have it come out in summer as opposed to Spring. Maybe the first few episodes were ready way earlier, but the later ones weren't even close, so holding off for a more suitable release period, Summer, which they prefer for ST releases anyways, makes sense.

A best case scenario rn, that I allow myself to hope for still, despite everything (assuming the studios get their heads out of their asses asap), is ST5 starting filming in October this year and finishing in October 2024. This puts them at a similar roll out period to ST4, with about 8 months of post-production and a premiere in the summer sometime in 2025 between May-August, whether that include two volumes or not. Netflix is a lot more likely to push for a summer release, regardless of them starting/ending filming sooner than October. Hell, even if they finished editing those first 5 eps by like March or something, Netflix would much rather stretch and wait to release those in early summer with the rest in mid/late summer again, bc they’ve never done Spring releases and I don’t think they’re going to start now. Especially bc I think it will be pushing it in terms of the working conditions being way too strenuous for VFX/editors. I'd rather have them push for a summer release and take their time and make it as good as they can, then to rush and make a spring release and have it feel half ass, only to be over forever.

I know people get sad knowing how long it's going to take to come out. But I just can't comprehend wanting it to be out ASAP, and most likely poorly, only to be over forever. Like this is the end for real. Maybe you'll see one of the characters pop up in a spin off, at best, but it wont be any of the mains that is for certain.

ST5 in 2024 is 100% not happening, so unless you want s5 to be edited for a mere 2 months at absolutely shit quality, let it go. If you want to hope for Spring 2025 go ahead, but that release period is already unprecedented with/without the strike, so don't hold your breath. I would try to accept ST5 Summer 2025 and hope that is as far as it goes. TBH if the strike goes past October, Netflix is going to have to come up with a deal because they are risking ST not premiering in the Summer like they want. If they don't make a deal by then, they'll presumably be forced to make a deal asap, otherwise they’d just be fucking themselves over.

[see-arcane]

Is the Seward protective of Jonathan idea coming from when Jonathan had tried to slice Dracula up and Seward rushed to save him from retaliation?

I tried to play it as a carry-over from the fact that, while Jonathan and Mina are Mr. and Mrs. Holiest Love (and will do (supernatural) violence about it), Jack Seward is almost as far-reaching in his love as Lucy was. Maybe more.

Jack falls in love easily. Jack falls in love deeply. Jack will do anything to help and protect those he loves.

The same Jack who prefers to toy with a lancet when nervous.

The same Jack who was strong enough to punch a raging, knife-wielding Renfield so hard it staggered him; the guy who would later wrestle fucking Dracula.

The same Jack whose idle daydreams involve vivisection and how much he appreciates the term 'euthanasia.'

Yes, Jack is easy to poke fun at in most cases. He's made of soggy cardboard and malnourished kittens in a lot of ways. But in others, he is at least as big a shock to a potential enemy as Jonathan 'Sweetheart Solicitor' Harker is in terms of being an unexpected creepy killer in potentia.

In an alternate and far grimmer twist, there's probably a version of the story that ends with Hyde underestimating the threat. Jack is not Jonathan, after all. Nor is he a mob. He can take him, make the little upstart scream, beg--!

Cut to the future. Jekyll and Hyde have been missing for weeks. And in his office, in his own private safe, Jack Seward keeps a new medical marvel to examine at his leisure. A brain preserved in a chemical bath, with such terribly interesting makeup to explore...

[pseudospectre]

Starting to roll out some of my Halloween things :3

[meowmeowmessi]

Honestly, as much as well talk about it, I kinda don't seen City as an option just becauss they've built their team over the last 2 years, including ofc Grealish who also plays as a 10 and is a starter, and it doesn't feel like they'd want to make any big transfers now. But still I guess we will see in the transfer window for sure, both for City's squad and Messi's decision.

appreciate the reality check, anons 🥲 it's all on leo and whether he believes in whatever "sports project" nonsense pissg is feeding him atp. i seriously doubt he's going to stay in the tinpot club for much longer (dear god let this not be a jinx), but considering barça's financial situation rn, not to mention tebas,,, i really don't think it's a feasible option. and i don't want it to be, either :// not at this moment, anyway. so yes, we can only wait and see what happens in the next transfer window. i'm not too worried about his options tbh— it's fucking messi, not just any random player: all it takes is the news "he is wants to leave" to break out just like the burofax in 2020 and he'll have clubs lining up at his doorstep

[lo11as]

nothing like an hour long yoga class to still feel like you want to take a lighter to a safety pin to your thigh :)

but hey i'm starting a new job tonight, surely that will cure me

[onepiexe]

blah

[rose-n-gunses]

5 hours at work -> 3 hours at home to drink cherry pepsi -> back to work for another 2 hours

[vannilagvtzz]

Get these Goofy ahh bitches off my phone

They think they innocent

Ain't nobody worried about y'all, crazy ahh niggas they think they funny💀💀🤣🤣🤣

[wellnesscard]

if you guys want a guy thats the sweetest snuggler and so spunky and hilarious still at 10y old get u a chiweenie

[foldingfittedsheets]

I’d like to entertain and enliven you now with the saga of my Slut Era.

I’ve always been a serial monogamist and my shortest long term relationships clocked in at three years. So perhaps that’s why when I finally broke it off with my ex I went insane on dating. Part of it was definitely just that between anxiety and loneliness I wanted to fill up my time.

This happened when I was living alone for the first time, no roommates, just me and my little cat Leeloo. I didn’t want to come home to an empty house so instead I set up dates.

Most of these were disastrous. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea and I had a lot more first dates than second because they’d seen enough, including the one where people aggressively complimented me.

But after a few months I had four people I was seeing simultaneously. I was up front with all of them that things were not exclusive, and they all agreed, so no infidelity took place here, just a lot of hijinks.

Here’s who was on the dating roster:

• An apprentice woodworker that we’ll call Jill. I honestly thought at 26 years old that her being 21 wasn’t a problem age gap and I quickly learned that there was a vast gulf of both maturity and life experience between us. Jill described herself as “heteroflexible” and had just dumped her first boyfriend to flirt it up with me.

• A married woman looking for a friends with benefits. We’ll call her Alice. I insisted on meeting her husband first to be sure I wasn’t part of a cheating mess and he gave me his blessing when I stayed over at her house. Years later when he and Alice had divorced I would go on to sell him and his new fiancée an engagement ring and we both realized at the end how we knew each other and it was wildly awkward. Alice was nice, but a hardcore vegan who insisted I brush my teeth if I so much as ate string cheese before I could kiss her. She was also unhappy in her marriage and was feeling out if I’d want to get serious.

• A bartender dubbed Snakebites, so called because of her signature piercings. She cooked me a steak so raw it was still mooing and some of the best asparagus I’d ever had. In our singular sexy encounter she bit my nipple and I never got over it. Really don't bite someone if you don't know their preference and work up in pressure. We weren’t terribly compatible but neither of us were willing to admit it yet. Truthfully I considered still dating her solely because I desperately wanted her bathroom. It had all black tile, black toilet, black sink, a rain shower in the corner and a jacuzzi tub. I may not have loved her but god I loved that bathroom.

And finally,

• My beloved, who I would go on to marry, who was dealing with a lot of personal stuff at the time. Obviously that meant I liked them the best of all the people I was seeing because we were both disasters at the time.

So that’s the cast of this little misadventure. Now, our story begins with Jill.

Jill was someone who heightened my anxiety. Each of the three times she came to my home she brought and left more stuff. A self help book, a ramen kit, the entire Teen Titans collection of DVDs. It was like she was trying to move in. She also liked to deride my taste in things, frequently calling me a pleb when I mentioned a band or show I liked.

She was working on a gorgeous little decorative table in her woodworking program. The main wood for the top had a beautiful dapple of knots like jaguar spots, and when she showed me a picture I exclaimed how pretty it was.

“Do you want it?”

“Oh- I mean it’s lovely, I wouldn’t mind having it, but you should sell it and make some money!”

But she was adamant. She’d give me the little side table. At about this time, Alice was starting to get awfully lovey for a FWB. I knew she wasn’t happy with her husband but I also knew we were not a good fit. Fun fact: Alice and her husband were step siblings with a pretty hefty age gap. They got together when he stumbled upon a kink photo shoot she’d done with vegetables. None of their family was happy about the relationship but they weren’t related by blood so it was fine.

So I was fending off more overt romantic advances from Alice, and feeling increasingly like I needed to break things off with Jill. Snakebites wasn’t ever initiating communication and I decided to pull a lot of plugs at once.

I ghosted Snakebites, told Alice that I thought we should cool it, and in a move worthy of a rom-com I asked my beloved if I could pretend we were exclusive to put off Jill. They agreed and I texted Jill to let her know that I was no longer single.

I was not prepared for Jill’s response. She. Was. Devastated. She flew off the handle. She’d just been waiting for the right time to tell me how she felt about me! How dare I do this to her!

What about the table?!

“You should keep the table, it’s gorgeous, you’ll be able to sell it, but I don’t expect a free table.”

Silence met me after that text. I worried and fretted and eventually headed home.

There on my doorstep. The table.

It was a small little end table, reeking of oil and polish, but very beautiful. I brought it inside. The little drawer didn’t even have a knob or guide rails. But it did have a handwritten bill proclaiming that it was costing me $500.

“I can’t afford a $500 table, Jill!” I texted.

“Well you kept saying how nice it was. I spent a lot of time on it.”

“I’m not saying it’s not worth $500” (it wasn’t, it was a tiny side table made by an apprentice) “but I can’t buy a $500 table.”

“Make me an offer.”

I stared at the little table. I did actually like it, but I worried about the repercussions of entering into this deal. Hesitantly I typed back, “$300.” I didn’t think it was worth that much but I didn’t want to insult her too badly.

This suited her for the night. But the next day she informed me she needed a new bed, and that she’d take her $300 in credit toward a new mattress. I spent the whole next day basically wrangling with her over what she wanted and eventually she spiked back up to demanding $500 for the damn table.

“Let me just give it back,” I begged. It was not the first, second, or even third time I’d asked to return the thing but this time she finally relented and gave me her address. Since she lived with her parents still I’d never been over.

I called up my beloved and said, “Hey, I need moral support, can you run an errand with me?”

They agreed which is how we loaded up a self help book, a ramen kit, the entire Teen Titans DVD collection, and the table from hell into my little car together. Jill had said to meet her at one o'clock. I intended to drop everything off at noon and be done with this madness.

But while my beloved and I were on the doorstep leaving everything I heard, “Jill? You’re home early,” through the door. Her mom opened it to peer at us in confusion.

“I was just bringing Jill’s stuff back!” I chirped in alarm.

With little tact and a lot of speed we left her with Jill’s collection of things and then I sped out of there like my tail was on fire. I handed my phone to my beloved as I zoomed away instructing them to block Jill’s number. I was free. The tabletross around my neck had been returned.

It was about a month after that when my beloved and I officially began dating exclusively. I had wrapped up all my messy dating threads and it was a relief to be in a relationship again. They went on a trip to Mexico shortly after we made it official.

So I knew they were out of town. But next morning I walked out to my car and beheld a lipstick kiss pressed to the drivers side window.

I was petrified. I had just dumped three girls at once and had an extremely messy back and forth with one of them. Did I have a stalker?!

Of the girls, Alice seemed like likeliest candidate, being of a stronger lipstick variety girl than Jill or Snakebites. We had ended things a bit stiffly, but still cordial. She just laughed when I asked if she knew anything about it. “Nope,” she said, “but good luck.”

I’d rather have walked over broken glass then text Jill, and I’d firmly ghosted Snakebites so I was scared to reopen communication to ask if she was stalking me. I had to drop it. But it haunted me, that lipstick kiss.

For months I was jumpy, wondering which of my spurned lovers had done it. And why. Was it a threat? A goodbye? I lay awake thinking about it, worrying about how everyone I’d dated knew where I lived, which car was mine.

Finally, nothing else happened and I moved on. The kiss would remain a mystery and I had to be content with that.

It was a year later when I finally started filling my mom in on my dating escapades that I finally got closure. She was hooting and laughing as I went over the table debacle. Then I paused and added, “And then this kiss showed up on my car.”

“Did you like it?”

“What? No! I’m pretty sure one of them was stalking me! Who else would leave a kiss on my car?”

My mom started bellowing with laughter. “I did!” She wheezed.

Apparently. My mother had been driving by my place. And decided that a cute little gesture would be to leave me a kiss. And then decided to never mention it to me even though she’s never done anything like that previously.

“It scared the crap out of me!” I yelled while she collapsed with helpless laughter. “I thought I had a stalker! How could I possibly have known that was you?!”

“How could I have known you’d just broken up with three girls at once?” She wheezed in rejoinder and like. Fair play.

So that’s how my mom convinced me I had a stalker and I got out of buying a $500 table.

[8lyme]

Heat Rises

Logan Howlett x f!Reader

SUMMARY: The mansion is boiling hot

WARNINGS: excessive use of italicisation, borderline dirty thoughts, makeout scene bc that's the best i can do, maybe ooc bc I fear I imagine Logan a little funnier than he actually is.

a/n: the ac in my room broke and inspiration struck after I doomscrolled through wolverine edits on tiktok ... chat i love men

It was hot. Boiling. Stifling.

You woke up at 2 a.m. drenched in sweat, sucking in a deep breath of hot, stale air. Grogginess fading, you stumble from your bed while pulling of your shirt and pajama pants. You open the door to the bathroom and turn the cold water on in the sink.

The heat was dripping down your back despite your lack of clothing. Overheating and still half-asleep, you stuck your head into the stream of cold water, splashing over your neck and across your shoulders.

You straighten to tie your hair up before turning the water off and running your still cold hands down your arms. The patter of thudding sounded outside your door, and you move to dress in a thin tank top and shorts.

You let your eyes adjust to the light as you began walking down the hallway of the mansion. A few children slipped out of their rooms in similar sweaty conditions to follow you down the staircase and onto the main floor.

Gathered by the professor's office were Scott, Storm, and Jean. The stray young mutants who trailed you settling around them.

"Goodmorning," You call out the the group.

"Do you know who turned this place into a boiler?" Jean asks. You both swipe sweat off your foreheads in sync while you shrug, shaking your head.

"Jesus, my glasses are gonna slide off my face," Scott complains, knocking his head against the wall in exasperation. He was shirtless, (rightfully so) wearing what you guessed were swim trunks.

"Charles is working on it," Jean put a hand on his shoulder, then quickly removing it to wipe his sweat off her hand and down the wall.

You turn to Storm, who was pulling the fabric of her tank top to fan herself off.

"Do we know where Bobby is?" You ask in search of the Iceman. You turned to scan the room, addressing the three students who followed you.

"Pretty sure him and Rogue took off before lights out," a young girl from the floor calls out. Her mutation rubberized her molecules, and her legs were in misshapen puddles - akin to flat stanley - due to the heat.

"Christ, it's fuckin' hot in here," a familiar voice groans loudly from behind you. "Nice shorts." Logan said to you before reaching your side.

"Alright fashion police," you respond in mock annoyance, offering a small smile at him. "Didn't know you worked this late."

He shot you a wink before turning away. When you caught full sight of him, your face froze and (if possible) more sweat rolled down your spine.

It was sickening how attractive he managed to look in what felt like the inside of an air fryer. Having clearly just woken up, his hair was perfectly tousled into a messier version of his normal tufts. His hair hardly looked damp despite the oiled-up glow he had on his face ...

And torso.

Fuck he was shirtless.

Although you've known Logan for the better part of a year, you unfortunately failed to experience him half-dressed. You'd been in close proximity frequently - sparring and other various training taking a large percent of that. You were friendly with each other, his acknowledgement of you with a nod whenever you walked in a room affirming he didn't hate you. You normally ate breakfast together, often offering the other the last portion of cereal or setting aside an extra cup of coffee for whoever entered the kitchen second. Within the last few months, however, after a particularly unfortunate mission gone wrong in almost every way, your friendship became more affectionate in those 'off the clock' moments.

Quick but firm hugs, slinging his arm over your shoulders, nudging each other with elbows or hips at inside jokes. He'd also been placing a hand on your back or shoulder every time he was in proximity to do so when moving behind you; in the kitchen, during briefings, even while you were grading papers in the library. He would touch your shoulder to let you know he was moving past you or going to sit next to you.

All that is to say you were aware - in theory - he was well built. He was taller and broader than you, so you made an educated guess. Theory proven, but well beyond expectations.

A month ago, you and Scott had stopped at a Texas Roadhouse an hour outside of the city after having spent two weeks clearing out a mutant experimentation lab in eastern Quebec. The plump and shine of the appetizer rolls (that you and Scott had both equally asked for seconds of) had absolutely nothing on Logan.

He damn near glistened. The dim light of the mansion sconces bronzed his skin, cutting him into an even more defined picture for you to look at. His chest expanded with each breath, shoulders and pecs slightly flexing in response. His hands lazed on his hips, if even possible causing the room's shadows to shade in the dips of his biceps and forearms. The veins of his arms just barely covered by the moisture-slicked hair covering his skin. If you had a fork and knife, you would throw them behind you to happily eat a piece of him with your hands.

You had to force yourself to swallow to shock your brain into looking anywhere else. You made an 'eaugh' sound and swiped your hands across your face. You meant it defensively, but you really were dripping into your eyes.

"I feel like I'm being waterboarded," you say disgustedly while wiping your palms on the back of your shorts. Feeling a texture that wasn't fabric, you turned your head. Glancing down, you understood Logan's earlier comment.

These shorts must have been from your freshman year of high school that somehow never got tossed or donated. They were a pair of (very) short, low-cut and dull pink velour Juicy Couture shorts with the word 'Juicy' spelled out in rhinestones on the ass. You actually felt like hurling as your body got even hotter.

You slowly turned your face away from the glittery stones on your booty to unfortunately glance in Scott's direction. His hands covering his mouth to block how obviously he was holding in a laugh.

"Scott, don't even look at me right now," you groan in exasperation, crossing your arms over yourself in attempted modesty. Scott's eyes glitter, and you snap "Keep your mouth shut" at him to no avail.

"Do your shorts say Juicy on your ass?" He snickers. "In rhinestones?"

He's cracking up now with his hands in fists over his mouth. Jean bites a smile away and looks down, shaking to stifle a giggle. You look across the room to the kids who are choking down laughter themselves.

"Oh my fucking God-uh!" you again groan out, covering your eyes. "I really liked Jersey Shore when I was in High School, guys, leave me alone!"

Storm bursts into a laugh that inspires the others to join in. You're cracking up too, mortification disappearing. You glance at Logan through your fingers, who surprisingly seems to be choking back a laugh himself.

"Storm, can't you make it snow or something to-", Logan clears his throat. "Save her from embarrassment?"

"Not how it works," She says. "I can't pull cold air or moisture out of this heat to create any snow." She looks at you and winks. "Sorry J-Wow, the shorts are staying on."

Scott about keels over with a snort before Jean thwaps him in the shoulder.

"If we bring you enough bags of ice, could you use that to cool the building down then?" Jean asks.

"In theory," Storm says. "I can stay here with the students to wait for the professor if you all don't mind searching for some. I'll need to conserve energy if I have to create a blizzard out of thin air."

"Copy. Divide and conquer," you say glancing at Logan again. The four of you turn to wander the mansion, but you stop to turn back to Storm.

"Also," you call back to her. "I'm so obviously Snooki."

Scott barks a laugh from the other corridor as you trot after Logan. He turns to meet you with a confused look on his face.

"What the fuck is a Snooki?"

---

Logan daydreamed about upper-cutting Scott with his claws unsheathed. He fantasized about throwing him down the stairs and curb-stomping him after. He imagined speeding over him on his own motorcycle and drilling him into the asphalt.

Right now, as your face flushed with embarrassment over your bedazzled booty shorts, he wished he had enacted any of those in reality so he had never, ever, heard Scott say a word about your ass.

Logan was used to waking up in a sweat, heart racing as he yelled out in anger (or fear, he couldn't tell which) from the nightmare that slipped from him the longer his eyes were open.

This time, he awoke uncomfortably hot and sprawled out diagonally above his sheets. He pushed himself up onto his knees and rubbed his eyes. He took a beat to wake himself up and stared at the clock on his nightstand blinking at 2:00 am.

He found it impossibly hotter in the hallway, swiping his palms on his pants every few steps. He regretted not scouring his room for shorts or even a pair of briefs. He moved down the stairs and rounded, following the sound of conversation. He dragged his sweaty palms across his pants again, groaning out; "Christ, it's fuckin' hot in here".

And then he almost tripped over his own feet.

You stood facing away from him, hands clasped on top of your head, in the tiniest clothing humanly possible. You wore a thin, strappy little yellow tank top that ghosted just under your ribs. In the dimmed lighting, your skin glistened, droplets of sweat gliding down your neck, your spine - fucking hell, was your sweat turning him on? - down your lower back, and -

Logan just about stopped in his tracks.

Impossibly tiny pink shorts clung to your ass, riding low on your hips. In glittering rhinestone, the word Juicy was bedazzled over the fabric. He felt like a dumb moth to a flame, trying to look like he wasn't seconds away from using his hands for some workplace misconduct.

"Nice shorts," he managed, trying to shake his head clear.

"Alright fashion police," you smirked up at him. "Didn't know you worked this late."

He winked at you, turning away to avoid staring at the beads sliding down your collar bone. Trying even harder to not imagine where the droplets would travel next.

Too focused on thinking about anything else in the world other than you, he blinked back into reality after Scott's voice grated his ears.

"Do your shorts say Juicy on your ass? In rhinestones?"

Whatever you or anyone else responds with falls on his deaf ears. The only thing he can hear is the pounding of his heart and the rush of blood. His face tightened and he clenched his jaw.

He coughed to clear his head and interject into whatever conversation he's too furious to tune in to.

"Storm, can't you make it snow or something to-", Logan paused, coughing again to catch himself from saying anything related to freezing Scott solid so he can shatter him to pieces. He settled on "Save her from embarrassment?"

Once again, Logan half-listened and half-internally plotted extreme violence, perking back in at the sound of your voice. He turned to you as you catch up with him.

"What the fuck is a Snooki?"

---

You declined to continue to explain trash TV to Logan. You settled on "It's entertaining to watch people be out of touch with reality", to which he quipped back a "That's stupid", effectively shutting you up.

The both of you wandered to the kitchen, you fanning yourself as Logan tried not to burst a blood vessel while holding to his willpower to not watch you tilt your head back and exhale while uttering whines of complaint. He decided the amount that his was sweating coupled with the lack of sleep made him delusional. That's why his brain kept trailing back to the same thought: you.

You pulled open the bottom drawer of the fridge, exposing the freezer. The rush of cool air fanned at your skin, and you signed in relief.

"Logan," you call, eyes closed. You waved him over and he leaned next to you.

"Oh my god," he quietly uttered out, eyes closing in relief. "Oh my god, this is better than sex."

You snorted and slapped your hand to your mouth.

"Logan, shut the fuck up" you giggle. He snickers back with you, shoulders shaking.

"Aw man," you groan, staring into the freezer drawer. Inside, there was an empty popsicle box, an half-eaten pint of strawberry ice cream, and an unwrapped ice-cream sandwich with freezer burn. You and Logan met each other's eyes with matching disappointed expressions.

You shut the freezer drawer, straightening up.

"I think there's a freezer in the basement lab," Logan says, sweat instantly beginning to drip down his neck.

"Aw man," you respond, lifting your arms slightly as sweat slides down you as well.

"Come on, bub," He moves around behind you. You feel the familiar ghost of his fingers against your back, but you recoil away at the thought of more heat against your body.

Logan yanked his hand away like he had been burned, gaze raking from you to his hand. You keep walking, not realizing how far behind you he's trailing.

---

He tries to shake it off, he really does. He feels stupid for letting something so small seep into his head and twist his thoughts around.

It's just because it's hot, he thinks to himself. Rationally, yes, he knows that is the answer. And yet he stupidly can't help but overthink every interaction he's had with you.

He masks it with a stony expression. The walk to the elevator is sticky and humid. When you both step in, he strays as far away from you as he can.

You've felt the shift in energy from him. He's pressed against the curved wall, arms crossed over his chest. It's palpable, but you aren't the type to pry when Logan is brooding.

He slips out of the opening doors first, relinquishing in the slightly cooler air of the lab. You trail after.

The air is awkward now. You fumble in your brain for the right words to say to him. 'Are you okay?' doesn't seem to cut it.

You've come to understand Logan. He has a complicated relationship with feelings and is awful at communication. If you don't notice the energy shift and bring it up, it isn't getting spoken about.

You follow him to a white metal crate pressed near a cabinet of saline. It's clasped shut and luckily on wheels. The precipitation on the outside confirming this is what you were looking for.

You place your hands on the corners of the crate to slide it from the wall, but Logan damn near rips it out of your hands. He shoves it across the lab towards the elevator.

You stare at him in shock and confusion. Your thoughts whir as you replay every moment from the entire day, convinced that he's pissed at you. He seems pissed. He's acting pissed.

You reach the elevator just as the door slides open. You're trying to decide if you should say something. Trying to think of a way to approach this in a way that will actually get him to talk. The air in the elevator is thick, more so with his shift in attitude than with heat.

Logan is locking himself inside his head. He can’t organize his thoughts and all he feels is stupidity. He can't understand why he's over analyzing, much less what he's over analyzing.

He doesn't know it's basically radiating off of him. Unaware that you've been staring at him to try and decipher what's wrong.

You utter out "Are you okay?" just to cut through the thick silence (and hopefully the wall he's locked himself in). You're sure he hears you, but the sliding of the door gives him the perfect opportunity to continue to ignore you.

Again, you trail after him. The wheels scrape against the hardwood, a testament to how hard he is pressing into the metal.

You're confused, sweaty, and almost on the verge of nonconsensual tears when you reach Storm and the other kids. The girl from the floor has turned into mostly puddle. Everything besides the tip of her shoulders and up are deflated to the wood. The other kids have spread to the floor themselves.

Logan shoves the crate towards Storm.

"Alright," he says curtly, once again crossing his arms. "Cool this shit down."

You fiddle with your fingers as Storm unlatches the metal. Her eyes gloss over to a milky white while she lifts the lid. The temperature drops almost instantly, and you begin to shiver.

"Done," She says, blinking away the glaze. "Charles said that-"

"Great," Logan cuts her off with a slam of the metal lid. He slides it around before moving back towards the elevator. You glance back and forth between Storm and Logan for a second. When you meet her confused expression, she gestures back towards him.

Ignoring the comfort of your sheets and lack of emotional drainage, you jog after Logan.

---

He huffs at you when you reach his side.

"I can push a metal box by myself," he says dismissively.

"Okay," you say, just to get something in the air. "Am I not allowed to come with you?"

You regret even speaking anyways as he scoffs at you, kicking the crate into the opening of the sliding door. It hits the wall with a loud clang. You flinch, but you're more concerned about him to not slip into the door at the last second.

You hug yourself as you start to shiver. Logan rolls his eyes, crosses his arms, and turns away from you to lean against the wall. For the third time tonight.

You are racking your brain. Screaming at yourself to say something, literally any words at all. It feels like you've been panic-searching your thoughts for anything to say for a while.

"Are we not moving?" You ask. You wait for an answer before repeating, calling him by name and moving to stand in front of him.

He huffs before standing straight. After a beat, he says "We're not."

"Shit, how should we -" You start, but are cut of by the metallic unsheathing of Logan's Claws. In a blur he rears back and slices through the door, scraping three parallel lines across the metal.

"Jesus Christ, Logan!" You snap out at him. The glare he gives you while his claws sink into his skin makes you back up into the wall.

"What the hell is your problem?" you say evenly.

He scoffs at you, muttering out "Don't know what you're talking about."

"You just sliced the wall open," You point out, gesturing to said wall. "And you're acting like you're pissed at me"

"You're imagining things," he says back, resuming his position against the wall with his arms folded.

"Oh, that's bullshit. You're literally sulking in the corner and you want to tell me that isn't happening."

Logan stays silent. You almost expect him to turn into the wall so he can pretend to not see you.

"Logan," you say, trying to catch his eyes. "Why can't you be upfront with me? It's very easy to say 'Hey, you pissed me off because of this' or 'Oh, something sparked a bad memory' or, I don't know, 'I don't want to talk about it' "

"I don't want to talk about it," he responds. You smack the back of your head into the wall behind you in exasperation.

"Oh my god, obviously that was just an example. Please just tell me what's wrong."

Logan raises his eyes to meet yours for just a second. You catch his gaze, and you can tell that he wants to tell you. When you quietly say his name he looks away.

"Logan, you’re being mean." Your eyes flick over him, trying to catch any more indication that he'll open up. He stays stoick, stubborn piece of shit. You decide to wait just a moment longer before giving up. If he's going to be this adamant about whatever happened, you aren't about to keep fighting him on it.

"Okay, you’re pissing me off and I give up" You spit, sinking to the floor. You draw your legs up and fold into yourself, the chill of the room sinking into your skin.

It takes a long, awkward amount of time sitting in silence before you her Logan speak.

"You're cold," he states.

"No, I'm not," you say into your arms. Shivering.

"You look cold," he once again states plainly.

"I'm not, stop talking to me."

"I thought you wanted me to talk," Logan retorts at you. You look up at him over your arms, seeing a smug look on his face.

"Yeah, if the words you say are 'Hey, I'm sorry I'm being a dickhead and shoving stuff around and slicing into walls and ignoring you. I'm just thinking about X,Y and Z, which is making me feel X,Y and Z,' and then I would say 'Oh my gosh Logan, I had no idea! I'm so sorry, I wish you told me so I didn't make a big deal out of it because I thought you hated me!" You snap at him, mocking his voice for emphasis.

He blinks at you, and you move your head back into your arms.

"I don't hate you," he says quietly.

"You're acting like it."

"I don't."

The softness in his voice makes you sigh. You decide to take it easy on him, and ask him to come to you.

"What?" he asks, hesitation evident in his tone.

"Can you come sit next to me, please?" You ask softly.

"Why?" he asks, and you roll your eyes.

"Because I'm cold and you run much warmer than I do."

He moves and sinks down beside you, thankfully. You scooch closer until your arm is against his. The warmth of his body radiates against yours.

"Can you please talk to me?" you break the silence. The smallness in your voice chips away at his resolve, but his pride is still in the way. He's embarrassed enough about being upset in the first place, he can hardly stand (much less find the words) to say anything to you.

"Look, I'll literally cover my eyes so I'm not even looking at you," you offer, covering your eyes with your palms. "Please, just tell me."

"It's stupid," Logan says, pride dwindling down.

"I don't care, I promise. Please, Logan," You plead.

He sighs loudly, searching for the right words. He stutters out a few syllables before managing a sentence.

"In the kitchen earlier, you flinched away from me. I don't know. Didn't feel great."

Your hands dropped from your face. He was staring down at the floor. He looked embarrassed, maybe downright ashamed. You gently placed a hand on his arm.

"Logan, I'm sorry. It was just so hot and I felt all gross and sweaty. I didn't mean anything by it, I swear."

"Okay," he says, but his eyes never left the floor.

"And that's not stupid. I freak out over the tiniest things in the world."

"Yeah?" he huffs out a small laugh, finally turning to you.

"Yes, duh, I'm a girl. One time you didn't sit in the stool right next to me and I had to suck my tears back in and I thought about it for two days straight," you told him.

"Because I didn't sit next to you?" he teases, and you push off of his arm in mock annoyance.

"Yes, I'm not kidding. I remember once when you came back from a mission you ignored me when I said 'hi' to you on the stairs and locked yourself in your room for almost two days. I was genuinely convinced you wanted me dead and I couldn't function until you'd brought me toast because you thought I was sick."

"You weren't sick?" He raises an eyebrow at you.

"No! I thought you wanted me to jump into oncoming traffic!" You laugh at yourself, feeling ridiculous after replaying those few days back in your head.

"Okay, okay, I get what you mean. I don't want you dead, by the way. Never will." His face has relaxed and the tension in the air completely dissipated. You tilted to rest your head on his shoulder, relishing in his body heat and enjoying the comfortable silence.

"Seems like I get you pretty worked up, huh?" Logan smiles to himself, knowing he'll get a rise out of you.

"I'm not answering that," you snort, giving him a side eye.

"Are you kidding me?" He says in a deadpan.

"No! I'm not answering that," you sputter, forcing an even tone out of yourself. "Why'd you get so upset about me moving away from you?" You shoot back.

"I'm not answering that," he says, and you now shove him away jokingly.

"Oh, come on!"

You both start to giggle at each other, needing to look at anywhere except at the other. Weight has been lifted off both of your chests, being stuck in the elevator long forgotten.

"So," Logan speaks, letting the word hang in the air for a second. He wonders if the feelings he's completely sure are mutual should remain unspoken. "Are either of us gonna do anything about," he gestures to the both of you. "Or..."

"Oh man, I was wondering which one of us was going to take the bait first," you giggle out to mask the nervousness settling in your chest. "You almost had me, I never figured you'd say anything."

"Did I?" He asks. You turn to him and meet his gaze, smirking at him. You hum happily after a few seconds, turning away from him to lean on his arm once more.

"So," Logan says again, so you mock him and echo the word back.

"So," he tries again, obviously wanting a certain response from you. You bite, looking at him with a mischievous glint in your eyes.

"Oh my god, you can just kiss me. I'm cold, I'm not moving my arms," you say to him, earning a short laugh from him.

Logan moves and scoops you into him, sandwiching your arms between both your bodies. You slide one of your hands up him so that your fingertips reach his collarbone. His nose is just touching yours, and he tilts, barely touching your lips.

"So," he whispers against you. You snort and shove his face away with your free hand.

"Okay, nevermind! Get away from me!" You giggle, Logan following suit.

You feel Logan's hand move to the back of your neck, and you blink at him a few times with a small smile. Finally, he leans down to kiss you. You snake your free hand up to the side of his neck and grasp onto a few tufts of his soft hair. He leans into your touch slightly, so your curl your fingers in response.

One of his arms releases you to brace the floor for support, the other moving to hold you tighter. His fingers splayed across your shoulder blade as you slip your other arm out. You slide your hand up the side of his abdomen, almost moaning when the feeling of his back muscles reach your fingers.

You both pull away for a second to breathe before diving back into each other. Logan pulls you towards him, hand that was on the floor now sliding down your side to squeeze at the flesh of your hips.

He pulls back from you and presses and open mouthed kiss just under your ear. You crane your head back in response while feeling your way up the front of his body. Your fingers dip over the curves of his abs and over his chest, and then slide over his shoulder and down his arms. You think about the glisten of his body earlier in the night, the shadows of his muscular biceps and forearms.

"You and these damn shorts," he groans between the kisses he's now leaving on your collar. You let out a breathy laugh.

"I'll take them off later, they don't even fit," you say, pulling his face up so you can kiss him again.

"I hope you'll let me help," he says into your open mouth, causing you to squeeze your thighs together as you heat up.

The shrieking sound of metal against metal surrounds you both, and you shove Logan off you to scramble to your feet. He moves besides you, claws unsheathed on instinct.

The door of the elevator slowly slides open, coming to a halt while it's halfway open. Charles and Jean were waiting from the outside.

"There you both are," Jean huffs out. "You've been gone for about an hour."

"What time is it?" Logan asks, moving out into the mansion floor and sinking his claws back into his knuckles. You follow behind, the chill coming back to your skin.

"About 4:30 in the morning," Charles replies, gliding away from the opening of the metal door. "I suggest you all get some sleep while it's still early." He looks pointedly at you and Logan before rolling to face Jean.

"Agreed. Goodnight you two," Jean says, moving down the hallway to her room.

You and Logan make your way up the stairs, still buzzing. You stop at his door while he opens it. He turns to face you. Once again, you're back to staring at each other hoping you both can understand what the other is thinking.

"Well, good night Logan," You sigh. He cocks an eyebrow at you.

"You're not coming in?" He says while leaning against the door frame.

"Oh," you begin, a smile nervously making its way to your face. "Well ... I ..."

"I gotta help you with those shorts, remember?"

You can't help the soft laugh that leaves your mouth. You move towards him and step just into the doorway.

"I'll take all the help I can get," You say up at him. He takes the opportunity to wrap you in his arm and move you both through the door.

He turns you both, pressing your back against the wall next to the doorway, shutting the door as he molds his lips into yours. His hand slides under your flimsy yellow tank top as you hear the click of the door lock.

More than likely, neither of you were getting much sleep tonight.