Chapter Text
For “normal” mutants over 200-years-old, time muddled together into a familiar, yet lumpy creature. This creature tended to have beautiful, smooth skin and shimmering in life. If you focused and pried, you could break off a nice chunk, separate it from the amalgamation, and remember something meaningful. A mother’s warm gaze; a daughter's first steps; a brother returned home safe.
Then, below the peel the overall shape tended to be bumpy, warped. That was the point of the skin: to obscure what was under the surface. The core was often rough and sensitive, as all lives tend to be at one point or another. More so the longer you survive. No one could have a completely smooth existence, no matter the circumstance. The creature reflected this.
But Wolverine had a particularly unfortunate creature. With it locked in a windowless cell for his own mind's protection, Logan only knew his was in a great deal of pain. If he wasn’t careful to keep himself distracted, he would be able to feel it himself. Distractions strong enough were seldom. He felt the ache often.
He didn’t need to see it to know it had good reason to hurt. Something was wrong with it. His creature was a raw thing; skin stretched thin over parts that gaped with deep, dark, pustulate holes. Some skin covered hills were missing; they were lopped off unceremoniously and disintegrated without his permission. As if any part of it existed with permission. Other chunks were grafted on haphazardly, artificial and clawing for a chance to be a part of the living tissue.
Logan was force fed the key that could set the creature free of its cell long ago. The key sat just as deep and metallic in his core as the adamantium wrapped around his bones. And it was a large meal; whenever he shifted he had the digging-prodding reminder it was there but out of reach.
How many times did he go to Charles to complain about it? He lost count. When it was at its worst, when he was drunk and at his wits end he would display his vulnerable stomach to him like a submissive dog. Begging for him to rip the key out of him as he believed only Charles could. Like many dogs, “no” was a word he couldn’t understand.
“He’ll regret it,” Logan would stomp away thinking each time. “He’ll regret it and so’ll everyone else. Selfish bastard.”
In most cases he’d be in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin less than an hour later.
For Logan, last night was one of those nights. No surprise. Today, he is grumpy. It is the same as nearly every day.
The kids in his World History class stopped minding long ago. Despite his gruffness and the deep dark circles under his eyes, he was always patient with the kids- even the troublemakers. Especially the troublemakers.
He has been lecturing from a text book for most of the period. Last week was the end of the Western Europe quarter. This week is North America. Somehow even with it being World History, North America tops out as the biggest section. What a load.
It's annoying, plain and simple. Within the time of his restored memory, Wolverine has traveled and toured. He’s seen the world and studied its languages. Not through the lens of tourism, though he admits that had its purpose for some. Some of the best times he had were when he could peek his head into worlds that didn’t know his legend- didn’t even know his name. To see the people and their families’ traditions and connections… It was something else. He couldn’t think about it too long or he’d start feeling something. Something he’s not keen on sharing with a group of ten to sixteen-year-olds.
Because of the book's direction, Logan started and lingered on British colonization of the United States. Of course it happened, and he should teach about it. He didn’t think he shouldn’t. But that’s all the books taught: the glory of the settlement. Didn’t mention mutant impacts. Definitely didn’t mention native contributions other than how they could be assimilated.
Logan makes a note to talk to Charles about getting new textbooks. He’s sure if he mentioned it, Charles would. He always supplemented what was in the books with oral lectures– Something Logan would do if he wasn’t cramming to teach the bare minimum he could before exams. But he was stuck here in the meantime regurgitating the most dry and holey recountance of the past he possibly could be.
“Do they pass down her name by mouth? Or was she lost to time as she’s lost to you.”
Logan pauses his monotonous reading at the whiteboard. He’s staring at the textbook he’s referencing with its spine supported by his large hand as he braces his other arm against the board. He reads the last line he said again out loud. Then reads it again with his eyes. Scanning the letters, he’s distracted. He can’t make sense of it.
“Mr. Howlett?” a kid says behind his back.
He turns and looks at them. They’re sitting by the window. Fourteen and able to control the decay of whatever they so choose. Logan’s eyes catch the tree limbs swaying by the glass behind them. He looks past the student. His mind goes to nature, to the woods.
Then he’s there. Not now, but then. His cabin. His home.
The front door stands in front of his nose, wooden and sturdy. He smells cedar and pine more than anything. His hand is on the knob. He opens it. The first thing he looks for is her.
He was thinking about her. Always about her. He was excited to see her– he caught a bass for dinner. He wanted to show off his prize, he was proud. It was heavy and deadweight in his right hand. He had cleaned it before he got back.
When Logan opened the door he could see her on the dining room table. She laid on her back, bodice ripped, with her feet dangling over the edge to graze the floor. She was barefoot, blood dripping from the ends of her toes to the wood planks below as it leaked from higher on her body. Logan dropped his fish. The smell hit him like a punch to the gut; sour and metallic. Not just her smell but… A man, ever so familiar as well.
Logan pulls his eyes up from the puddle growing on the floor. Everything from the knees up was a blur no matter how he focused his eyes. Was he crying?
“Mr. Howlett?”
Logan looks down to the voice and his claws flex in his hands. He can see clear as day.
It’s an 11-year-old girl. He’s standing over her desk. The textbook he was reading sits on the floor at the front of the room. He’s sweaty, his heart is pounding, but his breathing is level. He looks at the girl’s concerned expression. She has her nose, though he couldn’t remember her face.
His throat tightens and he feels breakfast creeping towards his mouth.
“Study hall for the rest of the period. Read quietly.”
He turns on his heel and leaves the class room.
—
The old grandfather clock in Charles’ office ticks on. Hearing the gears turn with every second passed is agonizing for Logan. He holds his fist, thick fingers resting over blunt knuckles as he leans back in his armchair across the desk from Xavier.
“Did I make myself clear, Logan?” Charles asks.
He made himself as clear as he was going to, Logan thinks. He has been listening on and off to Charles lecture him for at least the past ten minutes. Maybe longer. Called into the office like a rowdy school boy, Logan is used to being reprimanded when he gets back from missions. Less so for his teaching performance. He decides to take the comments like they were towards a mission regardless.
“These are your students. You can’t just leave them unsupervised whenever you please,” Charles reiterates for the umpteenth time.
“ ‘S better for them. For me to walk out when I need to than to stay there and make them take the brunt of it,” Logan explains dryly. When he looks up, Charles is looking at him expectantly from his own seat. That was the first thing Logan had said since he had sat down and apparently he was hoping he’d continue.
“Listen, everyone here has issues. Even the kids. You know I got mine. You could either let me handle it my way or- here’s a thought- help me yourself.”
“You know I can’t do that for you,” Charles says calmly.
“Bullshit. You can, you just won’t,” Logan grumbles. His voice comes out more tired than he’d like. He drops his fist and instinctively his hands pat his pants pocket. He needs a smoke. Another one, that is. Bad.
“Logan, I am going to be frank with you.”
“Oh really now?”
“If this happens again- If you neglect your responsibility again, I’m going to consider revoking your teaching privilege.”
Logan closes his eyes and lets a long, low breath out his nose. Alright. He can take hearing that. Even if it makes him want to grab a pool stick and sink that cue ball head of his. He doesn’t care if Charles knows it either.
“These students are all going through one of the most difficult times of their lives; teenagehood. They depend on you to set a good image as a role model. They depend on you for stability.”
“Jesus, Chuck,” Logan rubs his eyes, “Never been known for being stable. If that’s what you’re looking for ya got the wrong guy for this fuckin’ job.”
“No, I believe I knew exactly what I was doing when I gave you your position,” Charles rolls back his wheelchair so he can round his desk and pull closer to Logan. He stops when a wheel knocks into the tip of Logan’s brown leather boots. “These children look up to you, Logan. To them you’re more than a teacher. You are the Wolverine.”
“Don’t you even listen to yourself? You’ve said it before: ‘the Wolverine is a vicious animal’. Not a babysitter,” Logan growls.
“No. The Wolverine is as much of a person as he is a legend. For many of the young men sitting across from you in their desks, he is the blueprint for the men they will model their future selves after. Should he not be someone they can depend on?”
“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me.”
“Logan.”
“No. Don’t, ‘Logan,’ me. No one should be tryin’ to be like me, Chuck. Fucking zip, zero, not a one.” To Logan, the conversation is coming to an end. He doesn’t even know half of his own, personal, fucked up history and he knows he’s done little to be proud of. And the more he finds out, the more of a monster he becomes. He’s not a role model. He’s pestilence. A walking bad omen. And he’s pushing himself out of his squeaky leather chair so he can be as much of a shitbag as he pleases somewhere else. Somewhere that isn’t handicap accessible. “Maybe you should find a substitute for a bit. Get your golden boy, Scott, to put in some extra hours or call a snow day. Fuck if I care.”
“You’re letting your anger get the better of you again.”
Logan’s opening the rich, wood door to Xavier’s office and flipping him the bird before the poor man can finish his sentence.
—
Logan’s pickup is in the shop and Scott has taken his bike out for the night, leaving the Wolverine to escape on foot. The position of the mansion, environmentally, is dogshit to him. The nearest gorge is thirty minutes by car, with manmade landscape beyond the manicured grounds of the mansion for as far as the eye can see. So fifteen minutes of trudging in his heavy boots later, Logan is at a gas station.
The fluorescent lights make him look even more haggard as he stares at his reflection on the wall of drink refrigerators. Beer. His eyes scan down from the single tallboys to the cardboard cases of twelve or more cans stacked in a row at the bottom. Yeah, that would be more like it.
He opens the glass door, which fogs up immediately, and pulls out two cases, one for each underarm. Once he’s settled, he lets the door slam shut. Then, standing where the frost once blocked is a little girl.
She almost gives him a heart attack. How he didn’t hear the approaching clomp of her light up sneakers is beyond him. Beer can be distracting like that, he supposes. She seems focused well enough, however, on her own task at hand. In between her stolen glances at Logan’s grizzled form that is.
He didn’t run here to have a stare down with a five-year-old, however. So he turns to go to the register. He will mind his own business and ignore her curious looks as he ignored most strangers.
That is, until he hears her begin to jump.
Logan is putting his beer cases on the counter when he hears the first hop. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. The tapping of little feet is muffled behind him. Then it gets more aggressive. Louder.
When he sneaks a glance over his shoulder, she has begun to climb the fridge racks. The only adult Logan can hear is on the other side of the gas station. So he feels like it’s his responsibility when he goes up behind the little girl and catches a can she kicks from the shelf.
“Okay, no need for that,” Logan grunts, scruffing her by her puffy winter coat. He pulls her gently from the higher rungs of the fridge. “Just… Here,” When she has her footing on the tile floor, he follows her line of sight and grabs the can of juice she had been straining for. His hand is easily three times the size of hers when she takes the drink from his grip.
“There. Ask your pops next time, yeah?” Logan says, stuffing his mitts into his pants pockets.
The little girl stares up at him wordlessly with big, brown eyes. Her gaze is intensely scrutinizing even with her mouth open in shock. Logan tilts his head and stares back. Does she need something else? He squints and shakes his head in an “out with it” gesture. Maybe it’s his natural creased frown, or the way he towers over her but whatever he does causes her own little eyebrows to furrow and her eyes well up with tears.
Logan opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He thinks of telling her no, of shushing her, of comforting her. But he’s stuck there with indecision and his own surprise. Fat tears start pouring over her cheeks. Uncharacteristically, he doesn’t know what to do. He further doesn’t know what’s happening when a stabbing sensation drives through his gut and a static fills his throat.
He can’t, that’s all he knows. The girl begins bawling behind him when he walks out the front doors of the gas station. He steps into the night air, beerless and staring straight ahead with unfocused eyes. Something tells him he needs to run until he separates from himself. But the Wolverine has the stamina to chase Logan and then some to spare.
The beast behind his ribs snarls through the bone rungs of its cage. He wishes it would shut the fuck up. Get out of his head and off his face off his chest off his conscience. At least for long enough for him to help some poor, unaware fucking kid.
Maybe it’s pointless. Maybe his nature made all the gooey, gushy parts of him dried up and brittle a long time ago. But he aches against that sandpaper barrier. He yearns to be able to be soft and vulnerable and helpful and good and everything he’s never been and never will be.
Mushy shit. It must be early for him to be throwing this pit party for himself. It should be making him angry, not… Whatever this is. That would be useful, channelable. It would be familiar and dare he say manageable. Stupid, is what this all is. He shouldn’t have abandoned his beer, he knows that much.
His feet carry him and the Wolverine with little effort for miles. He turns corners frequently on the paved sidewalks, as if he’s got something to lose behind him. But he’s got little idea of where he’s going. Maybe he can manage to get himself lost, if he zones out enough.
But when he finally stops to see if he is out of his depth he knows exactly where he is. Prophecy. Or it used to be. It was a home for damaged christian men to stay which used to be part of the Apocalypse. Now it was repossessed. Renamed Christ's Stable. It’s all the same shit to him. He’ll do the same thing he did when he stayed here before: lie that he had faith to get through the door then crash in some empty bunk until the sun comes up.
But when the metal and glass door clicks shut behind him he smells it. Gunpowder. It makes his hackles bristle. He hunches into a ready position and gets ready to bare his claws for what is to come. It couldn’t be anything good.
“Mein freund! Come in!”
That was the best thing he could have expected to hear. He should have known it was him from the mix of rose that flitted delayed in the air; Kurt always tried to soften his smell with perfumes. Logan notes Kurt is wearing the red cable knit sweater he got him three Christmases ago. But he still weighs if it's better to turn on his heel and not bother his best friend with his already shit night.
“...Fancy meetin’ you here, elf,” Logan replies after he decides to hold his ground. He straightens up his back. Kurt’s pointy ears flick minutely when the older man’s spine pops upon doing so.
There’s a lamp behind the reception desk, bathing Kurt in light as honeyed as his smile. Logan’s lip twitches reflexively at the corner. He approaches, noting how sickly the skin of his own arms look in comparison in the green fluorescents on his side of the desk. He’s not vain, but anyone with eyes could discern it's less than flattering.
He blames the bulbs when Kurt’s eyes soften, looking him over.
“I hope you are well tonight. What brings you to The Stable?”
“Need’ta sleep,” Logan says, leaning over the desk. He lets his chest dig into the lip of the counter, looking at Kurt’s little book of residents. His handwriting is better than his own but not by much. Logan doesn’t recognize any names though, which he is thankful for. He looks up to see Kurt's eyes flick up from his chest as they meet eye to eye. “You?”
“Ah, volunteering. Does a bit more good and clears the head better than sitting in a pew for adoration,” Kurt comments, grabbing a pen and beginning to sign Logan in. “Though you never mentioned being a man of faith yourself. I am shocked I did not know until now-”
“I’m not. Not particularly.”
“I see,” Kurt pauses writing his name, pen bleeding through the page as he does so. He thinks for a moment before finishing writing it. “I was about to say ‘I wish you would have shared such a thing with me,’ but there was nothing to share in this case was there?” He looks up with a wry smirk. Logan reaches out to take a key he is offered by blue fingers, nodding.
“Just never came up, really,” Logan shrugs. “Not much for sharin’ regardless. You know that well enough.”
“Oh, but it is my favorite when it happens. I do wish we had more of… What’s the phrasing? Heart to heart. Though I suppose we are both busy more often than not.”
“Yeah,” Logan says and it comes out sadder than he means for it to. “Yeah, I guess we are.” He looks at the keychain labeled ‘9’ attached to his key and encloses it in his fist. When he looks back up Kurt is staring at him expectantly, tail swishing behind his back. Something about his eyes makes his brain turn into mush; not another word coming to his head.
Logan purses his lips into a smile and tucks his head down, turning to go to his room. He raises his hand in a goodbye- but then feels something firm wrap around his wrist. When he looks back, Kurt has stood to lean over the desk, grabbing him with a three fingered hand.
“Are you going to be alright tonight, Logan? I am not so naive to think you are telling me the real reason you are here.”
“Do you want to join me?” Logan asks quickly. It’s an avoidant question, but the invitation is genuine. There’s a pause. He doesn’t take his hand back, but tilts his head in Kurt’s direction to show he’s waiting for an answer. He knows Kurt can feel the pulse in his wrist gradually grow faster the longer he is in his hold.
“...Ja, anything for you, alter freund,” Kurt smiles softly. Logan thinks he imagines it when Kurt’s thumb swipes his wrist before he lets go of him. After putting out a sign that says to ring a bell for reception, Kurt passes through the door dividing the employee space and follows Logan to his room. When they reach it, Logan steps back to hold the door to his accommodations open for Kurt.
The room is simple. Two bunks, and a desk with a chair between them are all that furnish the room. The right bed is taken by Kurt almost immediately, who leans against the metal headboard, legs crossed at the ankles.
Logan shakes his head with a tight smirk. Kurt made openness look easy. Couldn’t be Logan. When he shuts the door the world seems to come down to just the two of them and it leaves him painfully vulnerable. His jaw clenches, tense like it's holding back the floodgates as he crosses the room. He knows he’s stiff as he slots his butt on the lip of the desk, as if the metal in his body won’t let him bend. It’s only a matter of time before Kurt pries something out of him, he knows that well enough.
“I cannot imagine this is much better than your room at the mansion. Though I suppose sometimes it is nice to get away,” Kurt comments as he adjusts the thin pillow behind the small of his back.
Logan snorts, shaking his head. “It’s cleaner at least. Don’t have to worry about the rugrats running up and down the halls either.”
“I believe you. You do love your privacy. It is why I gave you a key to a room far away from anyone else. No need for you to listen to a man snoring with only a wall between him and your sensitive ears.” Kurt watches as Logan’s fingers flex on the edge of the desk, tightening and untightening. “Though I do not see you sleeping very well on that desk,” he jokes.
Logan scoots back on the desk, propping his feet up on the chair supplied with it. “As if you’d let me sleep. I could feel you thinking about me from across the building, elf. Taking lessons from Chuck?”
Logan doesn’t know how to react when he hears Kurt’s heart rate increase. Doesn’t know more so when he sees the lavender darkening on the tips of his ears. He must just be embarrassed he’s being caught.
“I am just concerned,” Kurt says. His tail thumps nervously against the side of the mattress where it drapes off the bed.
Logan already knew it though. And he hates to acknowledge it. It was fun to work Kurt up with his teasing, getting him annoyed or impish with a comment here or prank there. But making him anxious and worried… It leaves a pit in Logan. One that only grows deeper when he looks over and he sees yellow eyes burning through him with what he takes as pity.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Logan breathes. “Don’t look at me like that, Kurt. I ain’t done nothin’ to deserve your puppy dog eyes.”
“You are more tense than a circus clown trying to do the splits, Logan. I only want to help.”
He snorts acidicly. He knows he’s pushing Kurt away when he replies but he can’t stop himself, “No, you want a confession, Father. And there’s nothin’ I can tell you that you or God could save me from if you tried.”
“You know I was never ordained,” Kurt says plainly.
“Sorry,” Logan mumbles.
“Besides, I’m not looking to preach to you. If you don’t want another word out of me I will be quiet. It will kill me, but I will. If you don’t want to tell me another word you don’t have to. We can just sit here.”
And that makes Logan feel like he is going to burst. So he holds his breath and waits for something to kill him.
“Logan. Bitte, breathe,” Kurt softly ushers. When one of his hands comes to rest on Logan’s wide, jean covered knee Logan jolts. Blue eyes look away to the other side of the room as he forces all the air in his lungs out his nose. There’s a moment where nothing changes- where the world stops and waits for him. He doesn’t deserve that. Doesn’t deserve this tenderness that he can’t even reciprocate because he’s always too beastly and incomplete to be vulnerable.
He wants to be though. He wants to be soft and malleable and good. He wants to be good so bad it hurts in the kinds of ways that just don’t heal with him. His lips turn up into a snarl and he shakes his head. Kurt’s hand retracts.
When he looks back, Kurt has pushed himself against the wall, making adequate room for Logan to fit next to him. Sit with me, is the unspoken command and Logan pauses. He knows if he doesn’t it’ll just be another way for him to hurt someone else and he can’t take that. Not tonight. So he uncurls himself from his place on the desk and lays on the scratchy bed linens next to Kurt.
It’s rigid and forced; on his back he is a plank of discomfort.
“Mein gott, we could get you a job as one of those men who pretend to be the shiny statues, do you know that?” Kurt jokes to lighten the mood. Logan snorts a laugh, dry and brief.
“I don’t think I’d get enough tips to make it a living,” Logan comments.
“Nonsense. I’d be tucking dollars into your hat like I was printing them if I saw you.”
“Aw, stop it or you’ll make me blush, elf,” Logan rolls his eyes and smiles just enough that Kurt can see a glimpse of his fangs.
“Oh really? What can I say? I try.” Kurt shrugs, turning onto his back and laying shoulder to shoulder with Logan. Unintentionally, his tail between them brushes Logan’s thigh, making the older man sigh. There’s a long pause.
“Can I tell you something?” Logan asks, staring up at the ceiling blearily.
Kurt tilts his chin to Logan. “Anything.”
“I didn’t know you weren’t a priest.”
“I am not surprised I suppose. I studied very hard for it, I could be one.”
“What stopped you?” Logan asks. He knows why he’s asking, and it feels like a twisted and selfish reason: he wants to know if Kurt too possesses a flaw too terrible for him to do such a thing. A nasty part of Logan hopes he’s not alone.
But, of course, it’s Kurt.
“People of my nature are not welcome in the clergy. Though of course, that has not stopped some.”
“They don’t let mutants be priests?”
“Men with homosexual desires. Catholics are still quite… Old school in some regards.”
“Oh,” Logan says dumbly. “I didn’t know that either. Ain’t much of a theologist though.”
“Does it bother you?” Kurt asks, and his voice is noticeably quieter.
A bark of laughter forces itself out of Logan, making Kurt’s fur stand on end. “No. I’d be a hypocrite to end all hypocrites.”
“Funny, I did not know that either,” Kurt smiles and his pointy teeth shine sharp. For a second, when Logan glances over, one could mistake the look on him for almost predatory. But it melts into its usual warmth in a fraction of a second.
“Yeah, well. You can catch all kinds when you’re a guy like me, I suppose. Everyone wants a bad boy, or something like that.”
“You are not wrong, mein freund. But it is very funny, I would not take you as such, not really.”
Logan snorts. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, really. To me, Logan, you are very much a good boy.”
Logan feels his stomach knot and heat rise from his neck to his cheeks at the words. “You got me all wrong, pal. Thought you knew me better than that.”
“I do know you better than that, herr Howlett. It is why I said it.”
“Come on now, stop playing with me. Ain’t nothin’ good about me, Kurt. Not a damn thing,” Logan sighs, shaking his head. “If you can’t tell that you shouldn’t be around me.”
“We are all far from perfect, Logan, but I would be a fool to look past you because you can’t see in yourself what I do each time we speak.”
Logan grinds his teeth hard enough for them to click. He doesn’t know what to say. He thinks through one-liners and quips he’s practiced in the mirror on occasion and none seem to fit. The tail running up and down his leg is distracting though. He slaps his hand down on it, pinning it to the bed and making Kurt yelp.
“You’re driving me nuts there, bub.”
“I can tell, you’re as red as my sweater,” Kurt says bluntly, tail thrashing under Logan’s heavy palm.
Logan isn’t oblivious. He’s flirted in order to avoid things, often with Kurt, but he knows where this can lead. In the past it never has, but it has been a long time coming. He just needs to know what they’re doing.
“Do you need something?” Logan asks, looking over challengingly. He feels a new mask lock into place over his stoic one. The one that he’d wear when others wanted him to take charge, to be the big bad Wolverine that they would dream about. It’s reflexive. And the straps only tighten because he can feel Kurt telling him to roll over and expose that sensitive underbelly– and that is a trick he does not know. He knew better than to learn it when he had only been reprimanded for it with someone like Charles.
“Logan,” Kurt warns.
But Logan doesn’t ease up. He holds Kurt’s tail in his fist and gives an experimental tug. Kurt grunts, before putting his hand over his.
“I want you, Logan, as you. Not the Wolverine right now.”
“They’re the same damn thing, crawlie. Thought you knew that by now.”
“Come now, Logan, I am a performer at my core. Do you not think I know when I can see another? You see yourself as far too two dimensional,” Kurt says plainly, though his tail tries to pull itself from his hand.
Logan scoffs. “You’re gonna get bit thinking like that.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Kurt dismisses. His tail, unable to get out of his grasp, wraps around Logan’s wrist and pulls his arm between them. “Logan, I am going to do something. If it bothers you, tell me to stop. If worse, tell me to leave. I will act as if it never happened.”
“Uh huh,” Logan watches him with a squint, still tense with his jaw set firm in an attempt to maintain control. Yet it is Kurt who pins his thick arm between them and uses the spade end of his tail to hook in Logan’s shirt collar and pull him in for a kiss.
Logan’s eyes snap shut and he tries to breathe through it. The kiss is soft, chaste. He can feel his own stubble dragging against Kurt’s upper lip as they don’t perfectly slot together into place. They probably couldn’t if they tried, with how tense Logan is. All he can think is how long he wanted this and how he should have wanted for longer because he didn’t deserve it.
“You’re very stiff for someone who has teased me to make this moment occur for years.” Kurt pulls away with a sad smile, and buries his nose in the top of Logan’s clenched fist between them. He kisses the space between his knuckles delicately. When he speaks, it is against the valleys between bone, blue lips moving over pale skin. “But I will continue to wait for you, if that’s what it takes, schatz.”
Logan feels his stomach tighten; he’d off himself if he let one more person- let Kurt- down tonight. So using his restrained arm as leverage, Logan leans in and rolls Kurt’s face up off his hand using his forehead to kiss him again. Their mouths mash together hard enough to bruise- at least one of them. Kurt even feels the back of his head thud against the peeling, white wall behind him. So it’s no shock when Kurt gasps in surprise. It takes everything in Logan’s body to not plunge his tongue between his teeth, simply lapping his lower lip affectionately to say, “I noticed”.
Not long after, Logan feels a free hand paw through the back of his hair, before grabbing a clump and pulling him back. When the gesture ushers him away gently, he resists so he can feel the pull and chase their kiss. Kurt tuts disappointedly, tilting his chin up so Logan cannot reach him and is forced to take a breath. The line of spit that connects them snaps.
“You don’t have to be gentle with me, I’m not a damn daisy,” Logan murmurs, nose brushing the fur of Kurt’s throat as he pulls against his grip.
“And if I want to be?” Kurt asks. The hand knotted in the back of Logan’s hair begins to pet him, softly. It’s instant that Logan’s cursing himself for closing his eyes and tilting into it. “You seem to like it.”
“You won’t break me, I can’t break. I can take it.” Logan says, licking his lips. “I… I don’t need that kinda thing. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Kurt leans back as far as he can before being stopped by the wall. He looks at Logan with enough heartbreak to kill a horse. “Logan, I may not have done this with you before but I know you all too well. Why do you need to lie to me?”
Kurt cups his face and Logan can’t look him in the eye. He looks down between them. “Just want this to be good for you, elf.”
“It already is. You already are.” Kurt says, running his thumb over Logan’s cheekbone and his heart melts more than he wants to admit. He visibly softens in his hold and when he reaches up to put his hands over Kurt’s, the younger man genuinely smiles. “That’s it. I can tell you like that.”
Fuck. The words crackle across his nerve endings like lightning.
“Let me try something tonight, ja? You might even enjoy yourself,” Kurt teases.
Logan opens his mouth to say some instinctual wisecrack before Kurt’s thumb hooks into the gap in the side of his jaw and holds Logan’s mouth open so he can explore it. It knocks a grunt from Logan’s stomach but he doesn’t protest.
Kurt’s tongue is dark, long, and ever so dexterous as it runs across the line of Logan’s teeth. He takes his time exploring every inch of Logan like he’s burning it into his memory for later. All Logan’s tongue can do is lap against the one he invited in, as if to thank him for the pleasure of being known.
By the time Kurt pulls back, Logan is panting and still inclined to chasing. Kurt clicks his tongue, amused as he hooks the thumb on Logan’s cheek into the corner of his mouth to stop him.
“Watch your teeth, bärchen.”
Logan huffs. He opens his jaw to take in his thumb and testingly grazes his teeth against Kurt but doesn’t bite down. The shiver that rolls up his tail and consequently across Logan’s arm is just what he wants. He watches as Kurt stares at him, mouth pressed into a thin line. Logan doesn’t hesitate after that. He presses the flat of his tongue to the intrusion, laving the pad then up to the knuckle. Then he closes his lips around the digit and sucks.
Kurt seems mesmerised, watching Logan’s cheeks hollow themselves against him. His two remaining fingers curl against the side of his face, scratching his scruff and caressing the underside of his chin. Something about the heavy petting- the scratching- does something for Logan. Does enough something for him to groan through his teeth, sending his own hands down to Kurt’s hips to hike up his sweater.
The fur on Kurt’s skin underneath is velvet. Of course, Logan had felt it before. They’d hugged, grappled, and brushed against each other before. Maybe more than most do casually, if he’s honest. But being able to dig his nails in and feel the tufts poking between the spaces between his fingers could make his tail wag if he had one.
Kurt slowly tilts Logan’s head back and curls himself over to bury his nose in his neck. “I don’t know if you are trying to tickle me but feeling you-” Logan brushes a long swath against the grain “Do that is very strange. Have you ever worn a ponytail for too long, too tight?” Kurt says curiously.
Logan lets go of Kurt’s thumb he had been sucking with a wet pop. He thinks, and catches a dribble of drool threatening to roll down the side of his mouth with his tongue. “I have. Very succinct descriptions at a time like this, sweetheart,” Logan teases.
“Hmmm,” Kurt muses and Logan can feel his sides jolt and the way his hips roll forward just so.
“You like it when I call you that?” Logan growls mischievously. “Sweetheart?”
The lean, blue stomach under his hands tenses again. Give him an inch and Logan takes a mile. He grins ferally, ready to bully him endlessly before he feels Kurt taking one of his carotid arteries between his teeth just hard enough to make his head swim and see stars when he applies suction.
Logan is panting again by the time Kurt lets go, licking the spot he sucked soothingly. A part of Logan is sad he doesn’t even feel the burn of it for long before his healing factor kicks in and undoes all Kurt’s hard work. “I’ve been called worse, bärchen,” Kurt mumbles into his skin.
“Don’t know if you’re calling me worse,” Logan replies. “Not exactly fluent in my German. But you make it sound good enough that I guess I don’t mind.”
“Ruhig, mein Logan,” Kurt shakes his head. Still no clue what he means, but damned if Logan doesn’t like it. He, as if to show approval, grips Kurt’s hips once more and pulls them into his own with a firm grip. Seconds later a long, slender yet muscular leg coils around his own to pull him even closer. He can feel the hard want grinding against him and chuckles.
But the movement stops.
“Are you not enjoying this?” Kurt asks suddenly.
Logan squints. Shakes his head confused. “Damn, how miserable do I look?”
“I cannot feel you,” Kurt says with a tinge of sadness. He begins to pull back until Logan barks a laugh. It’s gruff and loud but he catches himself.
“Com’ere,” Logan says, amused. He reaches down and undoes his belt by the comically large buckle and undoes the fly so Kurt can have access. Kurt watches woefully, like he doesn’t know what’s happening. Taking Kurt’s smaller blue hand in his large one, Logan guides him down his hips, Kurt’s knuckles grazing the dense muscle all the way. They move past the curls of his stomach then crotch and into his briefs.
Kurt’s eyes go wide, then a sly grin crosses his face. “Nevermind,” he says. “I did not realize, my apologies.”
Some snappy comeback sits on the tip of Logan’s tongue before Kurt frames Logan’s cock with his two fingers and squeezes. “Yeah… Well,” Logan groans, trying to keep his composure, “You can’t have all the fuckin’ fun… Let me at ‘em.” His hands paw at the waist band of Kurt’s tight sweatpants, tugging them down part way.
Kurt clicks his tongue. “You first. Your jeans are making me lose circulation.”
“I’ll do it after,” Logan rolls his eyes, knuckles dragging against Kurt’s need as he tries to shimmy his pants down. But the fingers on his own dick drag against his length, hard. It knocks the air out of him and makes his hands tense. “Fuck,” he chuckles breathlessly.
“Let me be as good to you as you are being for me, Logan,” Kurt whispers to him.
Logan pauses, looks away, and, for once, does as he’s told. He puts on a show of reluctance, like it’s killing him to obey but the sparks that shoot through his loins when he hears Kurt praise him- call him “Good boy,” again… He’s thankful Kurt had to pull back so Logan could remove his underwear (which is a task… first boots, then belt, and so-on) and consequently Kurt didn’t feel how hard he made him throb.
“Gott, you’re so wet for me,” Kurt muses, fingers tracing up the wetness running down the insides of Logan’s hairy thighs.
“ ‘s ‘cause of my healing factor,” Logan breathes out when Kurt rubs his thumb over the tip of his cock. He feels his muscles clench all along the lower half of his body like they could hold onto the feeling. “I just… I make a lot.”
“I like it.”
“Figures,” Logan chuckles, leaning his head against Kurt’s shoulder as blunt fingers explore his prick. Occasionally Kurt dips down into a wet trail, pulling back slick to make rubbing along his cock easier. It feels better than Logan’s own, rough hand ever did.
“You’re so hard too… I want to feel you against me-”
Logan nearly rips Kurt’s waistband in half when he yanks it down to comply. He ignores Kurt’s yelp. Instead Logan watches as Kurt’s blue shaft juts from a quaff of curly indigo fur, released from its fabric confines. The tip is purple and covered with clear precum. Logan can smell the thick musk of his want between them, and pulls Kurt’s pants down low enough so he can cup his balls out of the cloth.
Kurt hums, praisingly as Logan takes his time fondling him. He rolls his balls between his fingers before giving them a gentle squeeze. In his head he wishes he could break himself in half to press his nose right where Kurt’s cock and balls meet. Maybe even lower. Just to breathe him in and be completely enveloped in a world of nothing but Kurt and his moans above.
The closest he can get is running his fingers up the underside of Kurt’s rigid cock and collecting a line of precum to raise up to his lips and lick off.
“You’re incorrigible at times,” Kurt says with a slight frown but the rolling shiver that Logan feels go up his spine makes him grin.
“Just getting a taste for you, elf,” Logan licks his own teeth after he puts on a show of laving his fingers from base to tip. “Maybe you can feed me seconds, I wouldn’t complain.”
“As much of a treat as you’d make it seem to be, pet-”
“Hm,” And Logan feels himself rut at the name.
“I’d rather help you… here.” Kurt says. As he finishes his sentence he rubs the tip of his cock against the underside of Logan’s and they both moan.
This isn’t the first cock that Logan has rubbed against but something about Kurt makes it his favorite. Something about Kurt, Logan thinks sarcastically. It’s because it’s Kurt. He could be barbed and Logan would be a grunting, sopping mess still asking for seconds. So when he feels the rib of Kurt’s fat head slide over the distance of his own smooth length, he can’t help the deep, guttural moan that leaves his chest.
“That’s it… You’re being so good for me, liebling.”
“Fuckin’ ay’.” Logan moans. “Just– Just. God.”
Kurt reaches between them and slides the hood of Logan’s dick back. His nail scratching the base. Logan can’t control himself, rutting down like the dog– the pet, the good, the loved- dog he is. For a second, for once, he actually feels like something he does instinctively is right in someone else's eyes. In Kurt’s glassed-over, beautiful, honey eyes.
He doesn’t think, doesn’t need to, when he cranes his head up and kisses Kurt again. His teeth grazing his lower lip- not enough to hurt him but enough to taste him. And the moan he gets, low and so him, could be his salvation he decides. He feels his cock smearing wet slick against Kurt’s shaft, dragging against tight skin and raised veins and he’s close. He’s so fucking close thanks to not much and everything- thanks to the one thing here for him. Thanks to Kurt.
“If you keep doing that… That, Christ. I’m not going to last, sweetheart,” Logan growls against his lips in an attempt to bring Kurt closer to him. He wants to make him as desperate and needy as himself- doesn’t want to believe he’s the soft one right now being guided on his back and pet to completion.
“That’s what I want from you, Logan. Can you do that for me?”
“Can I-”
Holy shit. He was going to be the death of him.
“Come for me, bitte.”
And Logan does. He lets out a sound, raspy and spent as he clenches around nothing. “Shitttt.” His shaft spasms and he feels himself bucking and leaking against Kurt as if the feeling of another cock rubbing him firm enough would ground him somehow.
“So good for me. You’re so good,” Kurt holds himself on him, feeling their hips crush their sexes between them like a vice as he continues to rut against Logan. And Logan, against his will, makes a sound as close to a whimper as he has ever made. He buries his eyes in the fur around Kurt’s collarbone and feels a wetness that he would swear is sweat until the day he dies.
Kurt finishes not long after, his free arm wrapping around Logan’s head and petting his hair down as he grips him tight. His tail twitches and goes rigid against both of them as he spills against their stomachs. Shifting his hips, Logan feels the heat of it spread against himself and tries to get more of the sensation of Kurt rubbed into himself. The thought that he would smell like him, smell like their sex for however long after this makes him almost ready for round two.
But Kurt was not as quick to recover as Logan– few ever were. And that is fine. He can wait, and they can rest, and he can be-
“Good,” Kurt says with a pointy fanged smile.
Good. Logan sighs.
Kurt’s knuckles rest against Logan’s hairy stomach, caught between them and splattered in their spend. And if it wasn’t a metaphor to him, Logan would have swore he could feel those fat, blue fingers digging past the muscle he honed over the years and finding that nasty fucking key to his nasty fucking core he had swallowed so long ago. And Kurt, like many others, left it there. It’s for another day, another night. But unlike others, Kurt pulled it a little more to the surface and left the imprint of its teeth against Logan’s abdomen. There he would pet it from the outside, admiring its impressions instead of shoving it deeper where no one could find it.
He could hold it there for both of them a little longer, he thinks. If it is for him, he could try to be good.