#xmen wolverine | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

themareverine · 3 days ago

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DESIGNATED DRIVER

—oldman!Logan x namelessfem!OC

SYNOPSIS: “Hey driver!” Tits, yeah—counts two of 'em. What Logan can't quite shake isn't the drunk-off-her ass's $20,000 tit job, or even the way his passengers embarrass themselves with shameless come-ons, stupid amounts of money. something else, entirely—a pretty little thing all done up in makeup and curls, wishing she were anywhere but third-wheeling a drunk hen party. "Sorry about my friend, she's—" "Didn't even notice her, honey."

warnings: this is so offensively long, I'm SORRY. flirting, drunkenness, flashing, maybe some oldman!logan inappropriate thoughts, maybe a kiss, general shyness/awkardness of that girl, language, not proofread, mentions of oral sex, OC has blue eyes.

a/n: and finally, after many weeks, it's here. not entirely sure how i feel about this, it's very self indulgent. let me know what you think, and maybe there needs to be a part two?

There’s a lot of things about this fucking limo that Logan hates.

For one, you couldn’t ask for a shittier lease agreement, and if such a hellish thing dared to exist, Satan holds the pink slip. Two years ago it had seemed like a good fucking idea, leasing some long black experimental piece of Chrysler shit that was heavy off the line and a low fatass—hot as fuck though, with chrome plated lugs. Midnight metal flake showed every piece of God’s earth, the color of sin. Washed the fucker every other day. Couldn’t make green with a dirty rig, and he was an anal retentive sonuvabitch like that to begin with. And the interior, fuck that, it would tell secrets it showed every damn piece of filth that fell into it. Paid or otherwise.

This shitpiece had a tendency to run hot and burn crude, but, she got the groceries—brought home bacon, if that was even still a thing in this century. Toss up between this and the Navigator the color of bad ideas, he’d flipped for the Chrysler. Industry standard, turned heads, attracted the upper echelon. No intention of hauling around fucktards into the suburbs—black paint looked good under Vegas neon on the strip.

But the biggest fucking thing he hated about this rig— fucking privacy partition. Busted worse than a fat lip and had been since the jump. Any serious driver, that would’ve been the first thing to check. Separate him from the sin—hot piece of ass that slid into the backseat looking at him like he’s dinner, a couple too deep in on the red to think straight, the fucker on business hiding his wedding ring in his dick pocket as he picks up an STD.

The first God-awful time he’d went to use it, the damn thing had all but stood up and shrieked in his ear. Grinding gears, the knock of a seized electric motor—scared the shit out of the handsy blonde who’d been trying to get his dick wet since the moment she’d dropped into the back of the Chrysler, tits all but popping from what looked like at least a size too small black—thing. Hadn’t been a dress, he’d seen plenty of them slide in and out—she’d made a spectacle of showing off the little lace number squirreled away for the right price. And it wasn’t that he’d been preening for a look, wasn’t his style—but when it’s right there. Plain as the nose on anyone’s face, and he’s been chaste as a priest for fucking years. It taking up all the glass of his rearview, looking like a felony—the devil had all but welded his attention between her legs.

”Looks like you’re stuck with me, hm?”

Fucking partition. A business-only kiss landed two hundred green ones between his abs and the elastic of his Calvins. A handful of hours of rack and many shotglasses later had put him on the scent to hell, the damn dealership. Four hours from the border, four hours from any kind of work—he’d all but flown the thing into the service bay. Demanded a new partition. And, Logan had been laughed out of a lot of places the last two centuries he’d been sucking air—laughed, jeered, driven out with pitchforks. Circumstances aside, it all ended the same. Vamoose, pissed off his rocker.

An astronomical estimate later, with the fucked-in-the-rear-end isn’t covered by warranty—his fist had collided with the service writer’s nose faster than his patience had evaporated for the blonde. All but jammed the prick’s deviated septum up into his brainspace—Logan had felt it between his knuckles. Only thing keeping his patience held together, keeping the claws in, the man’s crunching cartilage had given him a high not much removed from amphetamine—it had felt good. Feel some asshat’s blood on his hands, staining his skin. See it hit the floor in fat, thick drops. Feel the warmth of it fade as he brushed it away, coppery scent an idea beneath his nose so familiar it may as well pay rent.

Didn’t get his partition, though. Just a bad taste of customer service and the satisfaction of seeing a grown man cry.

Logan isn’t a man to complain—never did change the cards dealt you at the gametable of living. Better to shut up and play, make due with what you’ve got than wish away opportunities. Sure, an almost-lemon of a leased Chrysler with a busted partition wasn’t great, but, it wasn’t that long ago that he’d have given his right nut for the chance to work, much less actual green. Put up and shut up had been the mantra since he’d all but popped out of his mother, and it had, for all intents and purposes, kept him this side of the dirt. Sucking air and feeling, if nothing more—and what was surviving, if not sucking air and feeling?

Doesn’t know. Doesn’t care.

Music that’s been muffled most of the ride tonight suddenly isn’t, the back door of the rig flinging open, a wide arch, revealing the world beyond. Neon bleeds across the black leather of his interior. A smack of humidity rushes in, almost immediately fogs the passenger windows— he keeps it ass-in-winter cold, A/C all but screaming full bore. Likes it that way, keeps him awake. Keeps them awake, he isn’t hauling anyone’s ass anywhere because they fell asleep in his seats.

And while he isn’t startled—there isn’t fucking anything that could scare him, he doesn’t think—Logan’s spine pulls into a straight line against his seat at the sliver of night outside the door. Alarm bells sound off in the back of his head, eyes narrowed on the rearview—hand all but lava, hovering over the gearshift. He’s been here before, on the jump. Ready to rock and roll, ready to kill—should killing need be. He’s lived two centuries on this edge, this cliff. Walking the line between reflex and ready. It’s almost carved into his skin, alarm—comes as naturally as the crest and fall of his chest.

Logan relaxes a little when a peek of skin slips hurriedly into the back seat, familiar stiletto heels. Air in the limo immediately snaps to an all-soldier attention, flustering—like a disturbed hen rustling her chicks. Something isn’t right, isn’t stable—nuclear, almost. Dangerous. The car shifts a little with incoming weight as one of the night’s passengers whisks into the back. Curl and makeup and the familiar whiff of peaches escorts her in as she pulls the door closed, all too quickly for this to be a normal, unbothered arrival.

Her. Muscle in his jaw ticks off, it takes willpower not to wriggle in the front seat, shift his weight a little. Usually it helped shake off the hot weight of sex rolling around the base of his gut, desire. Carnal things he’d learned to live without, suppress. Animalistic and snapping at his spine like frothing wolves. Most times, it was easy to not notice—girls, women, came and went in their short dresses and makeup. Pretty to see, but venomous little things. Maneaters, trouble on stilts. None of them were pretty–pretty in the way that mattered, pretty souls. Ugliness shot behind their eyes like bullets, low and cold. Dimes and dozens, nameless and unnoteworthy as they slipped him tips, batted their lashes, kissed him like he was their plaything because who’s he to fight a pair of tits? Forgettable is understating it.

But her? He hasn’t been able to unglue her piercing eyes from his brain matter. And, he’s tried—like it or not, he’s tried bailing water out of this canoe, a canoe that’s been hallowed and empty for God knew how long. But it’s like emptying water back into the ocean—it only comes back, heavier and heavier.

No dice. Close, but no cigar–unlucky bastard.

She’d slipped into the limo before the night had even been an idea, one of three who’d decided to split fare for a sober ride. Pharmacy, first, for little more than IVs of electrolytes and fluids—never had seen girls guzzle so fast, but, whatever. Mile-a-minute chatter he hadn’t even bothered to pace had kept them busy most of the ride into the metroplex, and Logan should’ve prayed they’d ignored him. Kept his fat trap shut and just let them guide him, but God, no. He’d asked—asked for directions. Where they were going.

Had asked, and fuck him, that had sent things off with a bang. As if they hadn’t realized he’d been there, all three of them had locked eyes with him in the rearview, surprised thrown over the air like a stifling blanket. Heartbeats later, awkward and thick, one of them had leaned forward. Arms over the seat, showing off everything God had given her as she’d all but pumped her bedazzled phone in his face as if it were a shotgun.

He’d clocked her noticing he wasn’t wearing a ring. Was jacked as fuck under an two-undone button shirt and jacket that fit him like sin. Deliberate choice, but–she’d all but started drooling right there on his lap, hungry like a starving man at banquet.

Asking God for some shred of mercy had done little—the look on her face. He’d never forget it, had seen enemies look at him with more mirth and pity. Shit. Hungry, in the eyes. Desperate, like a dying woman choking on her own libidol. After rattling off the address, it would've been faster if he’d just hit the brakes and sent her flying forward through the window. Skulking back into her seat as if it were an X-rated shot, she’d eye fucked him hard until she’d been dragged back into hushed, schoolgirl conversation. Gross.

And that was it, the beginning of the end. Eyes glued to the back of his head like some kind of anchor—Logan could’ve tasted them from here. Was hell trying not to make eye contact in the rearview, feeling their gaze hunting him like wild banshees. Spiking adrenaline, heady plumes of pheromones. Arousal, unlike anything he’d ever wanted to scent—stunk up the air like God knew. Half-starved vixens, all low and bedroom eyes, begging for trouble in all the right little ways that leave men slobbering fools. Had they been parked and out of the Chrysler, the two of them would’ve been on their knees, if not on his cock.

He’d blasted the air again, because the air in the damn car was so thick he would’ve cut it in halves.

Low lashes, smoky eyes. Lips the color of cherries. Tight black dresses and heels higher than heaven, they’d been dressed to kill—maybe a little less. Lobotomize, maybe. Cut out hearts, certainly—blue ball, absolutely.

Pity the bastard who gets the taste of these tarts, pity, and probably mercy.

Bachelorettes, he’d guessed off the gun. Correctly, too—not two blocks from CVS and out came cheap accessories. FUCK ME may as well have been written in lipstick on Stuck-In-the-Middle’s forehead, he assumed she was the future betrothed. By the look of her, much less the smell, she’d been aching for tonight. Primed and desperate, like an oil-starved pistol. Clawing for it, walking the heat of the desert for change. Something else, something new, something dangerous—cock. Dick. Be it Tom, Harry, or some other poor fool—Logan could clock it from anywhere. She’d been sitting on this for a hot minute. Maybe since she’d been born.

And Logan’s uncertain who to pity more—her or the mediocre cock she’s about prowling for—the lopsided tiara, tacky dimestore BRIDE sash out of a CVS bag were just warning signs. Red flags, if you were smart about it. Darkness in her eyes would make any man second guess the two carats on her finger, if men weren’t animals. And they were, every one of them—and she’s far too drop-dead to not demand attention, to not homewreck and ruin some poor, unsuspecting fool’s evening.

Watching her slip those two carats into her handbag, he’d just shook his head.

Silence to stir the dead had followed after they’d eye fucked him into celibacy. Blissful, sweet as the Nile quiet. A creak of movement, the slip of skin on leather—her. Short brunette curls with highlights, icy blues. Defined collarbones in a hardly-strapped dress, big earrings. Sparkles, everywhere, blended into makeup that’s been on awhile but still looks good. And she, she isn’t like the rest—not by a mile. How she moves, the way her lashes flutter. Doe-eyed and sweet. Doesn’t smell like sin, the kiss of color on her cheeks isn’t blush, either.

Peaches, this one smells like fucking peaches. Something floral.

She’s sweet. Saccharine, sugary. Like everything Logan’s forgotten. Pretty, in that girl-next-door kinda way—the way he’s always noticed, the way nobody else ever does. And what a pretty thing like her is doing in the back of his sinwagon, riding with Jezebels, hunting for trouble—he’ll never know.

Hours before this, she’d leaned forward, pretty hands on the back of his seat. Done up nails that looked fake, but not cheap. This close, he could see her contact lenses replacing nine-to-five frames, the permanent little indentations on her nose were unmissable. Ocean eyes smiled at him through the glass of his rearview, as if it were a game. Good at it, she won—he blinked first.

Offered him a little half smile, that dust of color on her nose darkening to an almost strawberry. When his eyes hit hers again from the road, icy blues ramped up like pulsing neon, unlike any he’d ever seen in two fucking centuries. Difficult to think, he’d had to realize he was holding his breath in the pocket of his cheek, hot against his molars. She’d reached across the back of the seat to gently nudge him with her elbow—hey. It should’ve sounded like something you gave to horses, but it was—considerate.

Nearly fucking polite.

You got the address okay, sir? If his tongue hadn’t swollen to the size of his balls he’d have dared to laugh at her. Sir. If he thinks hard, Logan can’t remember the last time he’d been seriously called sir, from a place of consideration, behind the ribs. He’s been alive for hundreds of years, seen a lot of shit and blood, but has been called a professional and crisp sir all but five times in his existence on God’s planet.

Shaking himself out of it, he tells himself she isn’t the first pretty skirt to grace the leathers of his Chrysler. To look pretty and smell good, to stir up his cold blood. Wouldn’t be the last, by far. Part of his marketing was that he was safe. Stuck around, even when the witching hour faded into bleeding colors of morning. Fair & There, as if he were a fucking marketing guru.

She’d slipped out of the limo with her friends even though he’d wanted her to stay. Wanted to smell her and look at her all night, mull over all the things in his life he’d abandoned. Think about how, maybe, in some other world, bend of time, something that sweet could belong to him. But, she’d thanked him. Obviously the designated sober of the night, she’d arranged to text fifteen minutes before they wanted to leave in case he wanted to get a drink or took another gig.

I’ll be here all night, and that wasn’t a lie. The flask burning a hole against his heart had enough whiskey to last him until morning, another bottle tucked under the seat for safekeeping. He was safe, he was there, and too damn tired to even try to think about driving around the city on a time schedule.

It’d been two hours, parked under the neon at the curb. Not even midnight. Normal clients would just be breaking stride, setting paces. At the gate, snorting like stallions in heat. Rutting like animals, working the game. Nothing he didn’t know all too well, he’d lived his wild years a lifetime ago—he knew what sex and booze, a good time smelled like. Could clock it every time, wasn’t daft. Had witnessed his fair share of back-alley fucks, the straightening of a hemline. Crooked buttons and tented-out slacks.

Tonight wouldn’t be different, he assumed—well. Had assumed. Which, as the saying went, made him an ass.

Her heartbeat from the frontseat is almost tangible, hard and fast. Jackrabbit—as if she’d dropped it in his hands, bleeding and raw all over his fingers. Logan’s eyes fall away from the rearview for a beat, ticks back to her when she slides across the seat. Straightening the end of her dress, which hits below the knee–or would, if she were upright, but now pulls at her thighs. And the way she fiddles with it suggests it’s shorter than it was earlier in the evening, when sin was exciting and didn’t slap like a bitch.

Tucked in against the opposite door, looking out tinted glass like it’s a skyline worth seeing, not just a lot of nothing. And something’s off, he can feel it in the little pulses of electricity of the air, the heat in her blood. Anger. The tick tick tick of frustrated fingernails on the edge of the window. Upset. It buzzes in her blood, which he can feel thumping against her bones from here. Slick scent of sweat between her thighs, swirls of alcohol and pyrotechnic smoke mixed with fairy dusting drugs. It’s enough to make him shift, crack the window.

Long gone are the peaches and florals, now she just bleeds with heat and virility enough to stir the gods. Fucking perfect.

How long’s it been, old boy? Dull pangs in his cock make him shift up in his seat, stir some blood into his feet. Eyerolls, gaze hitting the pavement out his window, sick fuck. Just a girl, just like the rest. Reaches inside his breast pocket for a cigar and a light.

And as much as he wishes it isn’t true, Logan can’t quite shake that she ain’t just a girl—not by a shot, long or short. He’s seen a thousand of them, sure—seen and tasted and fucked senseless. Yeah. But—none like this. None that make him burn at the drop of a hat and a smile. None that twist his guts like a corkscrew, rip him open like he’s a fresh kill. He didn’t even know her name, anything about her. He swore to God he wasn’t this type of man, couldn’t be bought with some pretty eyes and cherry lipstick. Happened to wet-behind-the-ears boys only ever hoping their balls dropped into manhood, not guys like him. Not men that had seen a thing or two, not men who had sampled the female sex from every fucking era the last two hundred years had presented.

Not men with demons, not men with metal bones and rust spinning through his cells like Satan’s blood. Not him.

But it doesn’t seem to matter, because her presence in the limo upsets his sensibilities like an earthquake. Seemed to fillet him like a fat bass, pull his ribs back to watch his heart beat. Everything he didn’t know, everything she could be—choked the life out of him, those wicked blues heavy as steel. If he weren’t careful, she’d see through him, like—like memories. And she, like everyone else, wouldn’t like what she saw lurking in his bones, in the organ behind his ribs.

All his life hiding who he is, years hiding from everything the world wanted to label him, only to—

Fuck. Yeah. Something’s off—is his leg bouncing? The fuck is that about? Fuck, fuck. His fingers card through his hair, cough aching in his bronchial tubes. Shit.

Another glance in the glass reveals she isn’t even looking at him, thoughts out the window in the shifting low lights of the limo’s interior. Maybe a million miles from here, but nonetheless—she’s everywhere, every damn where in the space of the Chrysler, this sinwagon that’s messing with his head. Everything about her. Her scent, her pheromones playing him like a fucking game, the heat along her spine. Blood in her veins, ripping through her heart, the pull and push of arteries and cardiovascular muscle. Mesh of her lungs, rising and falling. He’s tuned into it like it’s the fucking evening news.

And everything about this is wrong, his guts swim with it.

Fingering the cigar between two swollen knuckles, Logan ignores pain that zings. Rips through the adamantium in his arm like it’s starving, hunting for air. And Logan is maybe considering that he’s lost his mind, that it’s somehow taken up residence in his dick, when—-a sniffle.

Good fuck. Is she crying? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It’s magic, the little breathy thing girls do when they’ve been crying, but don’t want you to flag it. Witchraft, maybe. Men will never understand how they do it, cry without tears, but—it’s a thing. Definitely, confirmed by science somewhere, some egghead in a lab taking notes on female specimens and how they manage such emotion while still looking like she does. Vaguely his memories spin with all the girls he’s known throughout his life, and how every single one of them have this ability hardwired into their core being, mutations aside.

Biting the cigar between his teeth in the corner of his mouth, he flicks the lighter between his thumb and index finger, holding it up in line of sight. His head angles to look up at the rearview, a rough cough rattling the mesh of his lungs enough to trigger her attention. And sure enough, she has been crying—her knuckle gently brushes at the trails of tears all but neon on her face beneath the limo’s lights, eyes flicking to the rearview to meet his.

Coughing, he eases his back against the seat. Hot muscle burns a little as tension bleeds away, “You care if I smoke?”

And why he asks, Logan isn’t sure—he’s never asked before. Then again, he’s never had to ask, because it’s a standing policy to not smoke on a gig. Tonight, though, he needs something to do with his hands, to calm the magma rushing through his blood, the cold sweat bubbling up on the back of his neck. Staining his white fucking shirt. Even a blush from the grave and exhausted, slowly dying away from whatever is inside of him, he isn’t an idle man. If he doesn’t do something, he won’t be able to help himself—he can barely fight back the urge to not lose whatever sanity’s buried alive and get himself off, right here and now.

Anything to masquerade the scent of whatever’s slick between her legs. You are a sick, perverted fuck, Logan. True, probably. But it’s been years, a lot of years. And he hasn’t wanted a lot of women, hasn’t clocked many that he’d actually enjoy rousting up a fantasy over. And she smells like a good time, something he may not actually regret. That would be a first.

Tucking a little tighter against the door, her eyes close as she gently shakes her head. Curls flick around her features as she does, and she cracks her window before reaching forward to slip off both shoes. Logan had noticed them—yellow, bright highlighter yellow so jovial they may as well have smacked him upside his head. So out of place, but they were sexy as hell—he’d always appreciated a well dressed woman, and as impractical as they were, high heels did add a punch of something that made him a little hard in the dick.

“I do, but go ahead,” it’s a little sigh, one he’s all but five-star VIP familiar. “One of us should enjoy ourselves, anyway.”

In zero to none he flicks the lighter to life, burns the edge of the cigar until it’s hot. Thick, it rides his throat perfectly—chases that gut-twisting urge that’s coiled around the base of his spine like a viper. Through his blood it goes, ramping up the rust and poison and years that kill, and he heaves a sigh—falls back a little rougher against the seat. That ache in his cock twitches, but she retreats.

His eyes fall closed, heart settling down behind his bones. “You wouldn’t happen to sell those little bottles of booze in this rig, would you?” Makes him start a little, and Logan blinks. A little surprised, he angles to look over his shoulder at her, arm lifting to drape over the bench seat. Brow raised, she elaborates, obviously reading his expression. “You know, the luxury part of ‘luxury accomodations’?”

“Not a part of the deal, honey.”

“Ah, you don’t like money, then,” the corner of her mouth ticks up with a smirk when he shifts a little more in his seat to study her. He catches what she lays down, without thinking. “And I ain’t anyone’s ‘honey’, so don’t be an ass and assume. Please.” Blinking, Logan can’t remember the last time he felt his stomach actually lift with amusement—the little way she says her ‘o’s’ is dangerous, suggests the north–either Canada. Minnesota, Wisconsin. North Dakota maybe? Anywhere but this far on the border, the edge of the world. Interesting.

Fucking Calliban. Knew he’d regret the hard copy that albino had suggested, but, it was too little too late. Surprised, he manages a little growl of complaint before he leans forward, hand fumbling against the floorboard carpet of the passenger’s side. Knuckles nudge the bottle of Jack Daniels, and he grabs the neck of it before allowing it to dangle between his fingers. Amber liquid dances like a tornado through the bottle, sloshing against the glass like a dream.

Unstopping it, he pulls back a sharp drink of it. “Have at it,” it’s rough, raw. Irritation peeks through the teeth of it, but it’s more resigned than anything.

Leaning forward, her eyes hold his and she hesitates to snatch the bottle away, hand hanging in the air. She’s got lithe fingers, bigger hands—hands that look strong. His attention cocks slightly when he notices the callouses, the scars on her knuckles. They aren’t polished, nine-to-five office hands like ninety percent of the girls who pass through his service. Briefly he wonders what her fake nails would feel like curled against skin, but dismisses it when she plucks the bottle from between his fingers.

“Thanks,” her chuckle comes from her gut, almost a growl of relief that says finally! as she puts the cool class to her lips. Guzzles back a full shot. Rights, her cherry lips part into a small smile as she hands the bottle back, passing her thumb over left behind lipstick. “Good God that burns,” managing a little cough, Logan replaces the stop and pops it between his thighs. “But it’s good. Takes the edge off.”

I bet it does. He manages a growling mhm, settling back into his seat. Thinking that’s the last of it. Content to look out the window and smoke his cigar, not think about the heat ricocheting off the adamantium in his pelvis. How it stirs up his blood, how her voice is that perfect lilt of low and just high enough.

Head swimming with the mental picture of her beneath him, breathless and hot, he bristles to attention when her arms drape over the front seat. Very suddenly all Logan can smell is the heady smell of woman and sweat rolling off of her like a locomotive.

She mutters under her breath something Logan can’t quite track, bit the way she picks at a nail with her teeth, gaze anywhere but inside the low limo’s lighting, would imply negatives. And she could’ve started reciting the phone book, he wouldn’t have noticed—far too busy noticing cleavage and the valley of her collarbones to be able to think straight.

But his stare gets heavy, she notices the thick air that’s smothering the limo like a wet dream–her eyes find his, a little smile at the corner of her mouth when his flick away. Oh, good fuck. Her eyes bore into him through the rearview. Uncapping the Jack, he takes another sharp pull of it. It chases the warmth in the back of his throat, blooming in his chest like he didn’t know what.

More pregnant silence. She shifts against the leather, hot skin sticky against it. Reaching to put the car in accessory, Logan fiddles with the A/C. He clocks her swiping her heels from the floor, wrangling them back on her feet—hadn’t she just taken the damn things off?

“I should go get them before either of them do something they’ll regret,” her eyes cast to the clock on the dash, which isn’t terribly far from his ID information, which is offensively just there. “It’s late.” It isn’t, not really. Logan thinks this has to be the most conservative hen party in the history of such things, but his jaw clamps shut.

If he can bail them out of his car early, he may be able to catch a few hours of sleep before the early-hour rush. That hour when last call sends boozers into the streets, looking for rides. That’s where the money was, after all—and God knew he could use the dough.

Her hand floating over the handle of the door, as if she’s waiting for his consent. “Paid by the hour, darlin’,” and Logan does not miss the way darlin’ hits her—sharp eyes flick down to his mouth for a fraction of a heartbeat, a little plume of color lifting to the apples of her cheeks that definitely isn’t rouge. Blush, they called it now. She has plenty of it on her face, but it darkens something pretty in a way that, usually, would amuse him.

Instead, now, he just lifts a hand to slot through the openings on the Chrsyler’s steering wheel, ignoring the ache between his knuckles.

He can’t have arthritis, can he? Popping the latch, he twists out of the limo. Crosses around the front through the headlights to her side. A flick of his fingers and he pulls open the door, highlighter yellow heels spilling out to the pavement in that Hollywood way.

He doesn’t do this— he makes a habit not to touch customers. Usually his hand finds his pocket, as a rule. But for some reason, her eyes skating through the dark, panning around the street and the front of the club, lights the mesh of his lungs on fire. Offering her his hand, its appearance before her drops a rod through her spine—she straightens, blinking at it once before her fluttery lashes look up at him.

He wonders if the little flick of muscle in her jaw actually takes muscle memory. Looking at him with a look that’s uncertain, that’s you sure? heartbeats pass and make the moment uncomfortable. Shuffling his weight on his feet, his hand falls from the door and to his pocket, palming the lighter against his thigh. Phlegm and whatever else God created in the human body rattles around the poison in his chest, a low cough echoing off his bones.

It takes her a second to collect, looking between him and his hand. “By the hour. Right,” her eyes skate down his chest, over all of him, as if she’s making sure. Her hand slips into his too lightly to matter, as if she’s making an effort to limit contact—and that’s a good thing, because Logan is fairly sure the world had stopped spinning, the electrical pulses of his body kicking to overdrive at just how alive her skin feels. Senses heightened to infinity. He could count stars, maybe, with the way her nails deliciously press into his palm, rough and hard. Warm, the scent of peaches all but punches his lights out—he can’t even taste his cigar, body enamored with the way she smells, how her hand all but boils in his.

The fuck, Logan.

Stepping out, sharp eyes navigate the front of the club, and a blackhole of the universe suddenly opens between them when her hand falls away. Heels tick against the concrete as she turns to face him batting the door closed. Hands in pockets, he kicks back against the Chrysler. Waiting.

“Thanks,” her smile is small, eyes casting down to the filth of midnight on the concrete, “It shouldn’t be long.”

He shrugs, “‘S your money, honey,” is followed by a grunt as she nods, turns on her heel. Sashays back into the front of the club before flashing a wristband to the bouncer. Between the help eyeballing her in that dress and Logan unable to stop ogling just how it clings, highlights every curve of her, it’s a miracle either of them are still standing.

Reappearing fifteen minutes later with girlfriends in tow, Logan folds them into the limo politely, without incident. Giggling, traces of the night have painted both of her companions—long gone is the bride sash and dimestore plastic tiara. Replaced by smudged-and-attempted-to-be-fixed makeup. Teased hair, ruffled clothes. Nobody could miss that hickey for anything, it would take stock-market shattering amounts of base to cover it up—Mars would have a better time trying to see needles in haystacks. No amount of cigar smoke clinging to his clothes, sweat hanging out as an idea under his nose could cut through that unmistakably sweet musk of sex, sweat.

Before Logan can ask where to point the Chrysler, the other girl pops off an address from her phone to what is most definitely not their hotel, or anywhere remotely in the neighborhood of partylife. Brow raised, Logan peeks the rearview to see his companion whirl so quickly in her seat, he wonders how her head is still attached. Look on her face says everything words don’t, but she asks anyway—”Where the hell is that?”

Trying not to overhear, but it’s impossible, he fiddles with the temperature controls again when the one lifts the hair from the back of her neck. “It’s a hotel,” no shit, it’s the most expensive district in the area. Highbrows stay here—he’d picked them up on the opposite side of the metro, in the middle class accommodations. Sour bile splashes up the back of his throat, jaw setting–he knows what’s about to happen.

“No, really? And here I thought it was the frickin’ monastery,” lunging over her friend stuck in the middle, she plucks the phone from her friend’s hand—laughing hysterically, face flushed with alcohol and tipsy giggles, her jaw opens fully on its hinge. Rapt attention almost has his heart exploding, he nearly misses the stop sign—pops the brake a little hard.

She studies herself against the door, eyes flicking to him for half a second. Phone flipping screen first to her friend, she nods to it. “Who the hell is Mike?” Lowering the phone to her lap, her eyes skate between the two friends, hard. Heavy. Fast. “Oh my god. Don’t tell me—”

“It’s just a fling,” her name rolls off her friend’s tongue sourly, like cold venom. If Logan weren’t so invested in the outcome of this conversation he’d think it was almost melodic, a unique name. Fine and perfect for the sweet little thing currently erupting in his backseat. Too busy pacing traffic, his tongue skates along over his back molars, “don’t get your panties in a twist, honey. It’ll just for a few hours, to have some fun.”

“A few hours?” The actual squeak in her tone was laughable, “You’re joking—you’re actually kidding me. You can’t just go fuck some random guy you met in a bar, you’re getting married.” Offensive hangs in the words like a hot iron, branding itself into the atmosphere with weighty judgment enough to make her chest rise and fall with rapid, uneven breaths. “I won’t let you—”

Eyeroll extreme, Logan could’ve flinched with how much it snaps like a whip. “Oh my god, would you just chill out?” Looking to the other friend, who’s phone is still held captive on her lap, Logan bites the inside of his cheek. Like black cobras their chests fan out, both of them turning to cast frigid judgment to their third, who is pressed against the door to create distance from the very idea of the two of them. For fuck’s sake, “It’s just oral, honey—”

He snorted. All their eyes trip to him, but Logan is nothing if not suave—covering with a cough, he bites back a smile into his lower lip, looking down to his lap. Holy shit, they were actually having this conversation. In the back of his limo. If he weren’t so amused, it could be hot. Smokin’.

But the look on his companion’s face is too horrified, too innocent for him to take any enjoyment out of the topic of conversation flitting beneath the lights of the limo. It’s scandalousm, really. Nothing he hadn’t seen before, but, it just—it didn’t fit. Without knowing anything about much, he knows this isn’t her. Neon Heels, brunette curls. Lipstick barely upset, smelling like peaches of sweat. He could feel it in the very adamantium slowly flogging life out of his body.

Color drains out of her face, milkwhite like a ghost. He’s fairly certain she’d rather cut out her tongue and serve it to him on a silver platter than actually go through with such things. Logan knows a thing or two about life, he’s studied humanity for a lot of fucking years—he knew the good ones when he saw them. Pure, untouched.

Or, at the very least, good.

“Just oral?”

“Would you just stop, ok? Nobody is asking you to come up. Don’t need to be all, all pissy just because nobody noticed you at the bar,” and it’s hot, like acid. Cutting to bone. Logan watches the words cut like knives through the mesh of her chest, and if his collar wasn’t absolutely on fire, he’d have the audacity to smack some decency into whatever the fuck this chick’s problem was. “It’s not your thing. That’s fine. It’ll be just fine,” leaning forward, the bride informs him that once he’d dropped them at the hotel, he can take her back to their hotel. We’ll just Uber back in the morning.

“Fine by me.”

And it makes more sense, the longer he thinks about it. Explained the tears, the fluster in the atmosphere. Pushing the Chrysler through traffic, the tension in the atmosphere snaps like a rubber band—she doesn’t even flinch. In fact, her jaw clenches. Muscles ticks off bone, and she hands back her friend’s phone before falling back into the seat, eyes cast out the window like they’ve been welded to the darkness. Wind out of her sails, her elbow props on the windows ledge, subconsciously her hand covers half of her face. Quiet as death, unmoving as a sarcophagus.

Logan had never seen someone’s soul die while they were still alive, but he figures this was close.

Silence enough to make the dead uncomfortable follows for a few seconds. He focuses his attention on driving the limo rather than looking in the rearview, because noticing the look on her face, actually caring, is so far out of his pay grade that it’s laughable. To her credit, he doesn’t think she’s actually crying—hell would sooner freeze over, he reckons—but her brow is set in such a hard line, that he can almost read the regret on her face in red letter clarity.

Ensuing conversation about how the bride’s tits look in her hardly-there dress has him almost disinterested. Guiding the Chrysler up to the curb of the hotel, he almost misses "Hey driver!" that's more giggle than it is anything else. Eyes tracking to the rearview, Logan isn’t nearly as surprised as he thought he would be when she rips down the front of what was once, probably, an investment dress—tits, yeah. Nice ones, too—bought and paid for by the looks of it. Tits that size don’t just sit up at attention without a calculated surgeon’s hand.

“Like what you see?”

Puffing out a little nervous chuckle, his brow trips up. He shakes his head, amused. Erupting into a fit of snickers and snorts, their cheeks darken with heat. Falling against themselves, the two of them think they’re fucking hilarious as they begin to discuss the course of their adventure. May as well be full fledged pornography in the back of his rig, the things that fly—it sparks up his blood, empties his mouth of any moisture Jack Daniels may have rousted.

God couldn’t have brought up the hotel’s curb any faster, he thinks. Dropping the Chrysler into park, he angles to pop the latch on his door. Misses completely the moan of leather, the little rock of moving bodies shifting around the backseat.

Logan all but jumps when two hands come around him from behind. “Maybe you should come upstairs, driver—bet you could show a young bride a thing or two, huh?” Fuck, fuck fuck—hands that palm down his chest, snake under the buttons of his white shirt are hot. Hot, practiced. Soft and deliberate, one of their nails flick against his nipple, beneath his undershirt—he grunts back a sharp breath, head all but braced against the Chrysler’s hard headrest.

Adamantium kisses the flesh of his knuckles, and it takes effort not to let loose—more brainpower than he wants to admit, fighting back the reflex. Hand shaking on his knee, he inhales an uneasy breath and presses the heel of either hands onto his knees, biting the corner of his chapped lip. Hand drifting lower, almost to his abs, he snatches her wrist with a speed he doesn’t remember. Couldn’t, hadn’t, for as long as he can think back.

“Somethin’ tells me you know plen’y, honey,” his eyes narrow in the rearview. “Plus, I don’t do free fucks.”

She chuckles, pleased. “Who said anything about free?” Lifting her hand away from inside his shirt, he throws her off—cackling like the little witch she is, she folds out of the limo with her friend, “Very professional of you, driver,” he couldn’t miss the darkness in her tone if he’d tried as she winks at him from his window, “drive safe. Precious cargo, back there.”

Could’ve fooled him.

A wiggle of her fingers goodbye to her friend in the backseat, the hotel’s thick doors swallow both of them whole. Vanishing in a twirl of hair and makeup, Logan turns in his seat to consider his last passenger. She hasn’t moved, merely has kicked off her heels—but she has allowed herself to cry. Fresh tears fall down the length of her cheeks, but she doesn’t sniffle. They’re silent, powerful. Say everything words don’t need to—it’s a deep knife, one that bleeds. Logan can see the film reel running through her brain, on repeat. As if it has subtitles. A black and white horror show of just exactly what had happened, how she’d ended up here.

Curling a leg up under herself, Logan watches her shrink into as small of herself as she can, forehead resting against the cool glass of the limo’s window. And it’s tragic, really—someone who looks like that, reduced to a teary, smoldering shell of a person by mere words. Logan knew people were cruel, he’d seen the worst of humanity up close and personal. His own life was hell trapped in bones and flesh, his own history more horrific than anything Hollywood could dream up.

He drives. That’s what he does, that’s who Logan is now. A driver.

It’s another 20 minutes across town. And the ride is ominous, a mummified tomb that’s suffocating no matter how much air whisks into the limo from open windows. Trapped between wanting to say something and unsure of how to react, he relaxes a little when she finally slips earphones in—mindlessly scrolling a cell phone. Swiping at tears that ruin makeup she no longer cares about. Alone in her own little world of music and heartache, he watches the night fall away from her—her hair goes back into clips, away from her face. Earrings come off. Out come the contacts, replaced instead with glasses from the purse she’d left on the floorboards. Gum, more scrolling on her phone. Heels set on the seat beside her–finally her eyes close as she rests against the cool glass.

Gently rolling the Chrysler to a stop at the curb, she sits up. Breathlessly, she stretches a little, lashes fluttering behind frames that accentuate the shape of her face. And Logan doesn’t remember thinking anyone has ever looked good in glasses, but she topples such ideology when she beats him to the punch—she pops the latch on the door and steps out, barefoot. Heels tucked under her arm, purse hanging off her shoulder, she meets him at his door when he slips out of the front seat.

Handling cash had never felt so cold, bitter. She doesn’t look at him as she counts it into his hand, more than they’d agreed. Slipping the remainder of it back into her bag, she steps back, smiling at him softly. Resigned. Apologetic. Light from the overhang of the hotel sets off whatever shine is on her face, tear stains all but left behind—replaced instead with pink cheeks and sad, swollen eyes.

“Should be square,” she nods to the cash in his hand, “you can count it again if you want, I won’t be offended.” Briefly Logan thinks to care if her friends had managed their parts of the fare, but he dismisses it when she bites the inside of her cheek, tongue skating over her bottom lips as she shifts awkwardly on her feet. “Thank you so much for tonight—you have a beautiful limousine. The whiskey was great, thank you.”

Nodding once, he shrugs a shoulder. She’s buying time in that awkward little way people do when they’re not sure what to say, but think they have to say something. She doesn’t, wouldn’t ever—but he wants her to, strangely. Logan could stand here and listen to her come up with things to say the rest of the night, if he knew it wouldn’t deepen the color on her face, drive a little deeper the knife that’s still gutting her in the ribs.

Sucking in a sharp breath, her eyes track up to his from her feet standing on the warm concrete. “Listen, Logan—” she remembered his name, “I’m sorry about my friend. She’s really wasted, and it totally wasn’t alright for her to proposition you like that. It was actually gross—but that’s not who she is, not really. I’m sorry. She’s just—”

“—didn’t even notice her, honey.” He lies. What else is there to do but lie to this pretty little thing, bloodletting her own pride out at his feet? For a long set of years, Logan has believed there’s very little good left in the human species—very few people who are worth giving two fucks about. But she’s so galiant, defending some slut’s non-existent honor, drowning in her own humiliation and everything he can only imagine happened during a hen party gone sideways.

“Oh, uh, well—” oh. How she says it, the little curve of her mouth. That accented “o”. It’s enough to make him insane, honestly. He’s been with her two hours and can hardly think past the twitch of his cock, the little ache that niggles in the back of his head. Behind his eyes. It gets a little hard to fight, the snapping air between the two of them—for a man who knows what it feels like, it’s difficult. She couldn’t be more nonplussed. Which says more than it needs too, makes it all the more sweet. “Sorry, oh my gosh. I’m just a little—I don’t do things like this.”

And that is honorable, even if there’s very little honor left among the thieves of humanity. She is honorable. So saccharine and pretty it physically hurts him, drying out the back of his throat and knocking at his ribs like a damn jackhammer. Her eyes holding his, searching for anything else, are so deep and alive, bright in the way only Polaris could ever challenge—he suddenly forgets where he is, what century it is. How he got here, what he’s doing, reaching for the thin strap of her dress.

The back of his knuckle gently skips over her skin, the strap of the dress. And before Logan can even manage a breath, his hand moves under her chin, tips it up a little. Unmoving, her eyes widen like two bright moons, light catching them and opening them up like oceans fully unpassable to the known universe. From here he can feel her pulse flying through her blood, and couldn't miss the butterflies in her stomach if he’d been on a different planet. And maybe she’s never been appreciated like this—maybe she’s never felt seen.

Fuck, the things he could do to her. “Quit apologizin’ for bein’ sweet,” he manages a low rasp, the corner of his mouth ticking up with a little grin, “very few pretty things left in the world that’re sweet,” tipping her chin up a little further, his lips hover over hers. “And I bet you taste as good as you look, honey.” Tucking some hair behind her ear, he rubs one of her curls between the calluses on his fingers.

He gets back in his car, and Logan drives. Because that's what he does—he drives.

tags: @permanentlyexhaustedpigeon88 @fandomxo00 @th3mrskory @blossoming-hotch

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