I Hate When People (usually Men On Reddit) Are Like “if You Met Arthur Back Then He Would Murder You

i ♡ arthur morgan

reading this felt like someone went into my brain and wrote the perfect thing for me oh my god

HOUSE IN NEBRASKA — Logan "Worst Wolverine" Howlett x Mutant!Reader AO3 version Spotify Playlist

WORD COUNT — 15.4k SUMMARY — Reader gets roped into saving the timeline with ex-best friend Deadpool, coming face-to-face with a variant of Logan that uproots memories she'd long suppressed, only to find that this version of him lost her in his universe, too. TAGS/WARNINGS — she/her pronouns (minimal usage), female anatomy, flashbacks in italics, angst, enemies to lovers, alcoholism, smoking, arguments, canon typical violence, cursing/bad language, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall like twice, canon behaviour worst wolverine, religious trauma, honda odyssey scene self-insert, eventual smut, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, dirty nasty talk (logan has a filthy mouth), mentions of cocaine literally once. smut is marked after last divider if you want to skip plot but i'll kiss you if you don't!

You’re smoking a cigarette on your porch when the snowfall happens. It would be normal, you think, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s dead in the middle of July. A group of nanas, elbow-deep in the community garden soil, glance up to the sky and begin muttering prayers amongst themselves.

You’ve lived in this safe house for a while now, up in the mid-west of the Appalachian mountains, surrounded by thickets of pine and opposite a bubbling creek. You grew up somewhere near here and the locals welcomed you back with open arms and a plateful of hot food when the humans started the culling— when the X-men fell apart.

It has plenty of benefits. The smell of lavender, for one, and your cat, Kevin, loves chasing the pigeons, even if he’s not the most successful hunter. The locally sourced produce means you can avoid the poisoned food they’re distributing in supermarkets.

But, most importantly, the humans can’t find you out here. You’re lucky the gossip of your… genetics, so to speak, doesn’t leave Sunday morning church.

Things have been different, lately. The trees are shedding down to dust, people are disappearing at an exponential rate, and there was a time when you’d be on the front lines helping them. You’re on the edge of your seat waiting for the call — a learned habit — but it’s never coming. Charles is dead. Logan is dead. The X-men are dead.

The snow is warm when it lands on your skin. It feels like rot, and your solitude suddenly feels lonelier and more daunting than ever.

You reach to take a sip of your steaming coffee when you hear movement. A zipping strobe light crosses your vision and you flinch against the intrusion, but you’re not afraid. You’ve surely survived worse.

Stryker worse.

A comical and confused looking figure pops out from an orange portal, scratching the crown of his head over the red and black mask on his face. You sip your coffee as you observe him nonchalantly.

He notices you and approaches with a dainty point of his finger.

“Um, excuse me, ma’am.”

“Well, well well,” you suck on your cigarette with a frown. “Look what the cat dragged in. Got a new suit, Red?”

“What, aren’t you happy to see lil’ old me?”

“You’re on my property,” you say matter-of-factually. You had a shotgun stowed away inside for emergencies, but frankly, you never had to use it. You were enough of a weapon yourself. Consider it insurance, if the corn-syrup they’re poisoning ever finally makes it way to you.

You glance sidelong at the old ladies in their aprons, clutching one another with stern gazes in your direction. The deal was that you didn’t bring trouble their way — but it looks like trouble found you. You narrow your eyes and silently hope that this doesn’t turn messy, as it so usually does where he’s concerned.

He sighs heavily and continues approaching regardless. You analyse his stature and take notes of the weapons on his holsters and back. You reckon you could take him if it came down to it, but he didn’t seem threatening.

You and Wade used to be friends, but after isolating yourself from grief, you don’t necessarily consider yourselves to have a close relationship. More often than not he brought trouble; hence your defensive response.

“Listen, ants in your pants, I’ve done this about a hundred times,” he huffs and places a hand on his hip, waving the device around in his hand. You take another drag of your cigarette and perk your brows before rising to your feet.

“I’ve had my spleen shattered by the Hulk, about eighty stab wounds…”

He rambles on about his collection of injuries and you tilt your head with amusement. Must be another one of his famous mental breakdowns. This might be entertaining, at the very least.

“…You’ve even killed me a few times in different universes!” He claps his hands together. “And frankly, I was just going to let you die here. You’re not even canon, so you won’t be missed, but you appear to be of use to me. So I need you to come with me. Now. Please.”

What on Earth was he talking about? What on Earth was he ever talking about?

You bark a laugh. “I ain’t going anywhere with you, Red and Black.”

“Will it change your mind if I add a cherry on top?” He asks with a dry laugh before nodding enthusiastically. Manically. “You’re coming. Kevin’s life depends on it.”

“What are you talkin’ about? Are you threatenin’ my cat? That’s a new low, Wade.”

“Is it? Is it really? I am certain that I can go unfathomably lower.”

You roll your eyes, half-way through turning your back on him.

“You see this?” He holds out a gloved hand and catches some snowflakes. He rubs them between his fingers and they spark and fizzle before dusting away. “That’s not snow. That’s time death. Our universe is dying, womp womp. Stay here, sure! By all means, but—”

Your cat launches out of the door behind you, chirping and meowing to himself before promptly dashing through the portal and disappearing into the blurry void on the other side.

“Well. Looks like he made his choice.”

He sighs and lets you process. You take the final swig of your coffee and huff a breath.

“You literally have nothing left to lose. Trust me. I know. I’ve seen all kinds of you and, believe me when I say this, even though I love and cherish this version of you, this—” he points two fingers at you and gestures towards you judgmentally. “— isn’t the best look on you, honey.”

You want to dismiss him. You want to turn him away, to tell him to get lost. Grief swallowed your heroism whole, turning it into a barren wasteland of bitter indifference. You used to be bright, full of light, love, and hope.

Fucking hope. It’s the reason Logan left you to help Charles in the first place. You just wanted to settle down and disappear, to live a normal life. You lost an intrinsic part of your being when he died; you remember feeling it before you heard the news. Fucking hope.

Hope, hope, hope. Nana Rose chants on about it when she clasps your hands with her wrinkly ones, dragging you to church in spite of your atheism.

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts,” she chants, basket of flowers on her hip. “Romans 5:5. You’d do well to do your readin’, tulip.”

You didn’t and don’t ever usually believe a word she says, but you can feel her faith. It’s solid as steel, pouring out of her like blotting light through the gaps in the trees. Undying. And you’ll be damned if you let anything happen to her.

A flicker remains. You imagine what Charles would say to you now, how you’d hang onto his every word and he’d bring out the better of you. You truly do have nothing left to lose, except maybe your cat. Over your dead body.

“Come ooon,” he pokes his fingers together. “Fancy being a hero? One last time?”

You take the final drag before stubbing the cigarette out on your railing. “Alright, Red. I’ll bite.”

“Then suit up.”

Your friendship with Deadpool was a rocky one. There was a time you told him you’d be there for him through everything, and you technically owed him one for saving your life that one time even though your ego insists that, to this day, you could’ve taken the fight. That’s what heightened cellular control of your body is for, right? Accelerated healing? Empathetic abilities? Faster reactions, enhanced strength— you get the point.

Though you didn’t realise that returning the favour meant following him through space, time and alternate dimensions, you were a person who stayed true to their word, and you hated being indebted to someone.

So, here you were, waking up in the middle of a barren wasteland that was seconded as a cocktail soup of abandoned universal relics and heroes ripped from their worlds, accompanying your ex-best friend to restore your timeline.

But, one thing about paying someone back, it doesn’t technically count if they lie to you about the terms and conditions of the agreement. Only a few mere moments after you come to, dazed by the impact and the blaring wobbly heat of the sun, you rise to watch as Deadpool takes six blades of Wolverine to the chest.

You’re still a little dizzy when you stagger to your feet, head throbbing, as you’re trying to process if, yes, that’s exactly what you were witnessing.

“Let’s see you grow your fuckin’ head back!” Wolverine growls.

Deadpool holds his hands up in surrender. “Wait, wait, wait! I can fix it! I can fix it!”

The man in yellow hesitates. “Fix what?”

“Whatever it is that you did, whatever made you so bad—” Wade pants, catching his breath. “Those pricks at the TVA, you heard ‘em. They have the power to end my universe, but they also have the power to change yours. We get back there, and we can fix your world! Together. I promise.”

You stumble from around a pile of debris, clutching your side as a rib pops back into place. Wolverine sniffs the air, face blanching as he snaps to look in your direction.

When you first make eye contact with him, it feels as though you’re resurfacing from water after being on the precipice of drowning. Your heart leaps into your throat, adrenaline boils your veins and your lungs burst with relief of breathing.

“Troubles always gonna find you, baby,” Logan murmurs, kissing his way up from the pulse in your throat as he rocks against you. “But so am I.”

You’ve never loved him more, you think, than when he fucks you slow like this. A snowstorm rages outside the cabin, howling full of glass and needles and rattling the window frames. His skin against yours burns a fire within you, warming you to the bone. He sweeps hair away from your face before capturing your mouth in his, swallowing the sounds of your pants, threading his fingers between yours.

You could stay here forever, you think.

Your fingers shake from the whiplash of the memory. You instinctively reach towards him but you catch yourself. This was the husk of him, not your Logan. The realisation feels akin to ripping open a haphazardly sewn wound right down to the fatty yellow flesh, raw and needling and sore.

He’s broader than you remember. Hair a little darker, wrinkles a little deeper. He smells of alcohol and cigars — that much is familiar. That’s him, flesh and adamantium bone, living, breathing. Alive. The physical shell of him prods alive parts of your inner circuitry that you weren’t aware had fallen asleep, like intrinsic nerves untangling within you.

You can sense that he knows you, too, based on his emotional response. His noise is extremely loud, spilling out of the cracks of whatever wall he thought he’d successfully built up. This version of Logan certainly had a lot of secrets.

“You,” he whisper-growls. It’s almost intangible, leaving him like a breath. He pulls his blades promptly from Deadpool’s chest and kicks him backwards.

You’re starting to understand that faith thing that Nana Rose was knocking on about when he strides towards you, large and tall. You certainly weren’t a believer by any means but you’re sure you’d be the picture of unbridled worship for the way you’d fall to your knees for him.

Your empathetic power lurches for him, seeking him out as you used to — like a flower to the sun — but it physically recoils from the aura that it touches. It was all your Logan but not in a familiar way. It’s tainted, dark, and it tastes like copper and screams.

All colour melts from his face and his body shuffles in a way that indicates discomfort; a dry swallow, tense shoulders and flicking eyes that refuse to meet your gaze. He omits feelings of guilt and shame that linger on the tendrils of your empathetic powers where you connect with him.

You try to zone Wade out, squinting as you attempt to navigate through his cobweb of emotions (seriously, this guy’s aura could do with a cleanup) but it’s like wading through black-tar syrup, feelings negated by years of alcohol-abuse and avoidance. Eventually, you feel something that makes your guts twist and your legs shake: a version of romantic attraction and recognition so carnal and raw that you begin to blush, a warmth that creeps its way up from your belly. A breath escapes you like a punch.

“Well. This feels awkward.” Wade glances between you both and places his hands on his hips. “Why do you both look like you’ve seen a ghost? Do I need to call Egon Splegler and tell him to bring his ghost sucky-sucky vacuum? Oh my god—” He slaps his hands to his face and gasps sharply. “Cross-Universal lovers?”

As inappropriately timed and tone-deaf his one-liners could be, you’d never been more appreciative of an icebreaker. You think you could’ve stood there for an hour, frozen in silence, staring at a reanimated corpse, basking in the noise of his emotional frequency like an addict finally getting another hit.

But then the noise stops, swallowed up like a heaving black hole had split and atomised the tension whole with its unforgiving jaws. He closes himself off from you. Connection severed. You reach out and feel a cold nothingness similar to how, on particularly rough nights, you’d try to reach out to him after his passing. You’d clung onto his plaid shirts until the smell and emotional residue wore off of them.

“You with the mouth? To fix things?”

You nod tightly. You don’t think you can find your voice in front of him.

“Let’s just keep moving. And stay out of my head,” Logan grumbles, crossing you with a cold shoulder and mumbling something incoherent under his breath. When he’s made enough distance, you turn to your old friend with a cold glare.

“Ooh, brr. Anybody else feel a chill?”

“Wade.”

He twists towards you comically slow.

“You. Motherfucker.” You begin approaching him. He backs up slowly and holds his hands up.

“I knew if I told you the plan you wouldn’t have gone along with it!”

“Are you insane? You think multiversally grave-robbing my fucking dead ex-boyfriend is going to save our timelines?!” You yell.

“Technically he’s not dead—”

You push him. “He should be! He- he was— he is!”

“Well, this one isn’t!” He pushes back. “And I’m not sorry for finding a loophole in the plan to fry — not just mine, mind you — but both of our timelines! Did you happen to forget that? No multi-dimensional depressed Logan? Alright then! No more Kevin!”

He’s talking about your cat. Anger flares.

“Don’t you dare bring Kevin into this.”

“You forced my hand!” He yells, mouth moving alien-like behind the mask on his face. “Besides, I’m not doing this for me—”

You blink your eyes closed. You might reach the end of your tether if he said her name one more time. You’ve been in his company for approximately an hour, and he’s already drilled a hole into your brain with his incessant yapping about the “love of his life”.

“Wade, you need to move on. She clearly has.”

“I will not move on from the only people I love in this fucked up dimension. This isn’t just for Vanessa.” He shoves a glossy photograph in your face. “This is for you and blind Al and even that shit-head teenager and her pinkie-pie girlfriend! They deserve their timeline!”

“I literally don’t care about any of those people!”

Even yourself?

“Well, I do! I have people I care about! Aren’t you supposed to be a hero? God, all of you X-men are so depressing. Is it the suits they make you wear? Is that it? Can’t breathe in that thing?” He continues poking at you. “Loosen up a little!”

You straighten your posture and the black leather of your suit crackles. You swat his hands away as he continues poking. “Alright! Cut it out!”

“Think of Nana Rose.” He draws a heart with two fingers. “Little old ladies like her deserve a chance, don’t they?”

And even though humans had done nothing but wage war on your kind for simply existing, you still felt obliged to help them. Besides, the thought of other mutants — kid mutants — dying when you hold the chance to save them in the palm of your hand? You were hardly managing as you were now. You’re not sure you’d be able to live with yourself if you kept going like this.

“Alright, alright!” You huff, heart pounding in your chest. You look over at where Wolverine kicks at rocks in the distance. “Fucking hell, Red. Holy fuck.”

You say it again, only this time you scream it into your hands.

“You should’ve warned me.”

“Are we good?”

“Are we go—” You scoff. You kick his ankle, feel the bones shatter and crunch beneath your foot. He lets out a short, high-pitched yelp. “You deserved that.”

“Motherfuckermotherfucker… oh you’re lucky I feel bad about lying to you or I would’ve twisted your milk bags off for that I swear to God.” He sucks in a breath. “I’ll allow it. Just this once.”

“Mhm,” you murmur, walking forward. “That doesn’t sound like an apology.”

He limps after you, floppy ankle dragging a line in the sandy dirt. “I’ll be dead before you ever get one of those out of me! And too bad I can’t fucking die!”

The difference between this Logan and your Logan is stark, minus the uncanny resemblance. Your Logan was soft and gentle, but this version is sharper and blade-edged, and your fingers bleed when you try to touch him.

Staring at him feels like throwing up a mirror and analysing yourself, a picture of what happens to a person when they make all of the wrong choices. You’re embarrassed, almost. This isn’t a version of you that you ever want him to know, but at least you can say you’re trying.

Him, on the other hand…

“Are we going to keep up the awkward silence?” You snip, awkwardly adjusting the restraints on your wrist.

You’ve been in Logan’s company for all of an hour, and yet accompanying one another through literal time purgatory didn’t seem to irk any feelings of obligation from his end. He’d been cold-shouldering and ignoring you the entire time, even though you kept catching him staring.

“I have nothing to say to you,” he spits, wriggling uncomfortably against a very unconscious Deadpool. “You got us into this mess.”

You frown, small. You can feel hatred pouring out from him, leaving a sickly bile taste in the back of your throat. You’ve lived through enough hate for being a mutant in your lifetime, enough that you’d become accustomed to tuning it out of your radio channel, so to speak, but something about it coming from the man you loved makes it a little harder to swallow.

You’re quiet when you next speak. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

He shoots you an indistinguishable look and grunts to himself. Such a Libra.

“So, what’s the story here?” Johnny asks with a sly grin. He turns to you with a glimmer of mischief in his eye. “You two know each other?”

You cringe. “Sort of. Last I remember, he wasn’t this much of a prick.”

“Oh, trouble in paradise, huh?” His grin grows. “That’s a shame. Not often we get girls like you in the void.”

“Seriously?” You say with a side-eye.

He shrugs, all blue-spandex biceps and charming smile. “No harm in trying.”

Your breath hitches as Cassandra approaches, wide eyes and tilted head aiming for you purposefully. Logan swiftly angles his body so that he’s standing in front of you and she halts as a delighted, implicating smile stretches across her face. Your chest constricts, tendrils of yearning coiling tighter. It appeared to be muscle memory: his instinctual, protective flinch. Just like your Logan used to, despite how capable he knew you were.

“Now, I’ve always wanted a Wolverine.” Her finger moves along the crowd. “Knew I’d get one eventually. But I never even dreamed of having you.”

Cassandra zips behind you and her slender fingers delve into the crevices and valleys of your brain, lips intimately close to your neck and ear. Wolverine snarls territoriality, but he’s unable to move. The urge to reach for him is overwhelming.

“Do you know that there are so few universes where you exist?” She whispers, caressing your deepest memories. “I even asked the TVA about you, in exchange for keeping the peace. I was disheartened when I found out one of you died. But you’re here! Now, I don’t believe in fate, but this almost feels like it was meant to be.”

You flinch when she uncovers a particularly fond memory, one you hadn’t been aware was so prominently in the forefront.

In the back of his truck, a cigar between his teeth, hands sliding under your shirt. In another world, he would’ve taken the time to do this properly, but living in a school didn’t exactly grant two consenting adults any privacy.

“Waited long enough for this.”

He kisses up from your bare foot to the sensitive skin of your inner knee, lips scorching against your skin.

“Logan…”

“Easy,” he murmurs, leaning away for a moment to remove his plaid overshirt, leaving himself in that white vest you could eat him alive in. “Still wanna take my time with you.”

You’re desperate, he can tell— can probably smell it, too, but you’re far too humiliated to ask him if he can.

Logan wasn’t your first by any means, but with the way you were near trembling for him truly felt like you’d be losing all of your innocence in the back seat. You’re shy and quiet, everything he isn’t. You’re infatuated with him — have been since he burst out of the lab in his grey hoodie — and have daydreamed about what it would be like to have him. You certainly didn’t let him know that right away, and with whatever shred of composure remained around his relentless flirting and teasing remarks, you tried to play hard to get.

Until you couldn’t. Because you weren’t. He had you, and with every fibre of your being, you wanted him to.

She pulls her hands from your brain with a shlick sound, rubbing her fingers together as if relishing in the produce of your memories. She grabs a rag from her pocket and smirks knowingly.

“You’re thinking of that at a time like this?” She laughs all witch-like. “Worry not; your secret’s safe with me, naughty girl.”

Wade lowers his voice and leans towards Logan. “She was thinking of me.”

“I can read between the lines, darling,” she potters on. “This isn’t about a sexual fantasy. Deep down, you just want to be wanted. To be loved.”

She steps back and extends her arms. “After all, you’ll never amount to anything in your world. It’s such a shame that your Logan left you so abruptly. Did he break your heart?” She giggles. “Why suppress your powers in his name? For a level-five mutant, you certainly don’t act like one. You can do that, here. Freely!”

Your worn thin tether creaks with exhaustion like a dilapidated bridge under pressure. There isn’t a singular fibre of your being that desires to be stuck here, but the small, angry teenage voice in your head would love nothing more than to just let go. You’d been containing your powers for as far as you can remember, and they'd always been as irresistible as the promise of Pandora's box.

But you know how that story ends.

You take a moment’s pause. “I have no interest in livin’ in a garbage dump.”

She tilts her head and neatly clasps her hands behind her back. “Do you forget where you come from? I think we both know who lives in a garbage dump.”

“You motherf—”

You’d just managed to escape Cassandra’s lair with Alioth’s foggy storm fangs nipping at your ankles when you ran across the abandoned diner.

You’re ravenous, wrist aching from how you dig at the freezer-burned ice cream. It’s your least favourite flavour but you’ve been running on fumes for the past day or so, so you’ll take what you can get, though you begin to lose your appetite when you remember Johnny, and how Cassandra had zipped the skin from him like popping a blood-filled water balloon.

Something is rumbling beneath your surface. A distinct, constant buzzing, like two atoms slowly building up radioactive energy. You’d asked for none of this, and would certainly give Wade a talking to when the time called for it, but, for now, you’re trying your hardest to make this as easy a process as possible.

Your male counterpart, however, was doing exactly what men generally do. He was making this fucking unbearable.

Logan sits across from you, brooding, fingers gripping the medicinal bottle as if it’s anywhere near appropriate to be drinking. He throws you a particularly lingering glare when he notices you staring, but refuses to maintain eye contact when you look back at him

You toss the tub and spoon across the table with a sharp clatter, your patience collapsing.

“What? Can’t even look at me?” You snap. His eyes look exhausted when they finally meet yours. Wade, being the characteristic little fucker he is, pulls a delighted, shit-stirring grin as he glances between the two of you as if watching a tennis match.

Logan gasps as he finishes taking a drink. “Not much to look at,” he says, wiping the back of his mouth.

The words twist like a fist in your gut. For a moment, you’re rendered too stunned to respond, like he’d tossed a flash-bang toward you. His casual cruelty digs deeper than you care to admit— but you’ve had far too much therapy, too much psychological training, to know he’s deflecting.

But you wouldn’t doubt for a second that there was a more beautiful version of you somewhere.

“What, you comparin’ me to someone?” You ask. You can tell you’ve struck a nerve by the way he goes for another sip. “That it?”

He grimaces.

“Do I make you feel sick? Am I making you feel sick?”

He stares at you hard, but silently. He takes a long swig of the rubbing alcohol and you cringe as his throat bobs. His silence and feigned indifference light a fire of indignation.

“You know, you’re not the only person who’s suffered. Who’s lost people.”

He laughs like what you’re saying is funny. “Yeah, right, bub, you have got no idea what loss is.”

“Oh, you are such a fucking cunt,” you spit, slamming your hands on the table as you rise to your feet. “You know what, Wade? You’re right. I can’t do this. So fuck you and fuck his timeline and fuck every timeline that had anything to do with it! I’m done.”

A wave of uncontrolled psionic energy born from your anger blasts from you upon your final words, slamming them back into their seats and sending the cutlery, nearby debris and weapons flying. The neighbouring windows smash, shattering explosively and sprinkling outside of the diner.

The simmering stops, replaced by a stifling emptiness.

“I wasn’t finished with that!” Wade cries, crouching down to scoop up what remains of the gelatinous spam.

You pause for a moment, glance at your hands, and then grab your jacket in an aggressive fit.

Wade whines your name, halfway through gagging down a forkful of cold spam off of the floor (one of which resonates with a particularly distinct crunch, but you don’t stay to find out whether or not he just truly ate glass), and he doesn’t attempt to get up and follow you as you storm off.

You take a heaving breath of hot desert air when you leave the diner. The sandy breeze tousles your hair, and with the prickly energy of an incoming nervous breakdown, your legs kick and you’re running.

“Stryker got you, too?” Logan asks, eyebrows flicking up.

You don’t look him in the eye when you nod. You cross your arms and slouch a little, caging your heart in. Stryker — the ex-militant with a fetish for experimenting on mutants — had held you captive for several years. He’d brainwashed you into using your empathetic abilities for nefarious purposes, like seducing other mutants, and sometimes important political and militant figures.

“You like me?” He questions, quieter this time.

“No… no, not like you,” you reply. “I don’t have the fancy bones. I heal fast, but I wouldn’t survive that kinda procedure.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t remember everything. Just bits and pieces. Feelings, mostly. Nightmares,” you explain. He nods understandingly. “I’m always on edge.”

“You always seem so calm,” he observes. “Nothing seems to phase you.”

“I have to be. It took a lot of pain and damage to get this level-headed,” you respond quickly. “If I don’t manage my emotions, all the emotions that I receive, touch— it all comes out. Explosively. It has to come out somehow. I could hurt people.”

“Funny. School therapist ‘n’ you’ve got the most issues,” he teases light-heartedly.

“You got no idea, lumberjack.”

You hated killing.

You’re on your knees, arms and hands and chest soaked crimson, sobbing. They’d come out of nowhere, the raiders, and they were hungry for something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. All you know is that you felt their need, their desperation, their willingness to do anything to get it.

The flash of harrowing horror someone feels before they die isn’t a unique experience. It simply varies in strength — sometimes it’s a feather-like touch that careens over you, a shuddering realisation that they’re taking their last breath, and sometimes it’s like a crack of lightning. Bloodied hands gripping your biceps with fear in a final attempt to survive. They’d rather cling to you than die alone.

You hate killing. Especially this up close.

You don’t cry for them. You don’t even cry for yourself. It’s a small emotional space where they cry vicariously through you.

You were black-out when it happened, you tell yourself, and suddenly regress to the student you used to be, sobbing on your knees in front of Charles as he tries to teach you serenity and control after an outburst had caused you to kill a nest of birds. He’d done it for Magneto, he said— so he could certainly do it for you.

You should have meditated more.

The sound of a car gurgles somewhere behind you, but you haven’t the energy to look or use your powers to seek out who’s approaching and what their intent is. You’re exhausted enough that whatever they wish to do with you — turn you to processed dog kibble, send you back into the jaws of Cassandra’s lair, kill you — whatever. Just let it happen.

A slamming car door and then the crunching of boots on gravel.

“You’re easy to track.” A pause. “You look pathetic. You done throwing your tantrum?”

Logan. Of course, it’s him.

“Leave me alone, prick.”

“As much as I’d like to, you and the Mouth still have to hold up your end of the bargain,” he quips, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Now get up.”

You glare up at him and his arms unfurl as he notices your tear-streaked face. His expression drops, softens, before it quickly ticks back up into an incredulous, irritated look.

“Are you crying?” He asks with a scoff. He pauses before dragging his hand down his face and rubbing his scruffy jaw. “Jesus Christ. Get up. Get in the car.”

“I ain’t fuckin’ around, Logan. Piss. Off.”

He mumbles a string of incoherent curses and turns on his heel. You think, for a moment and a breath of relief, that he’s truly going to give up on you and leave. He could finish this without you. It’s easier this way.

Instead, a thick bicep wraps around your middle and you’re flung over his shoulder with a yelp.

“Quit your squirmin’.”

“Then put me down!” You yell, thrashing in his grasp. He promptly ignores you, unphased by the jabs you strike at his back. You quickly unsheath the small knife from your jacket sleeve, winding up your arm before you drive it into the muscly pocket by his kidneys.

“Ow! Cheap shot, you little fucker!”

Wade sighs and clutches his hands in front of his chest romantically. “Oh, the newlyweds.”

Logan dumps you into the front seat of the car carelessly, grumbling something as he slams the door shut and applies the child locks. Petty motherfucker.

You rub the sore spot on your tailbone where you landed on a seat buckle funny. You want to bite your tongue but you’re flared up.

“We should switch places. I’m a better driver than you are.”

Logan doesn’t bother looking at you as he starts up the ignition. “Just shut up.”

“You can go on ahead and smoke a cat turd in hell, then.”

“So fuckin’ immature. Grow up.”

“Mom and Dad can you please stop fighting!” Deadpool cries out from the backseats.

You just roll your eyes, resigning into your chair and folding your arms.

At some point along the ride, Wade falls asleep, snoring soundly to himself. You’re silent in the front, drumming a beat on your knees, awkwardly thinking of something to say. You have the impulsive need to fill the silence, even if you were trapped in a crappy car with a man who had made it vehemently clear that he irrevocably hated you.

“So, if they can fix your world, what’s the first thing you’ll do?”

Logan rips his eyes towards you. “What did you say?”

“I said when you get back, what’s the first thing—”

“No, no, no— before that.”

You hesitate, wondering if you’d landed yourself in a trap based on the sharpness of his tone and the way that anger crackles off of him like static lightning.

“If… they can fix your world?”

He slams his foot on the brake and you just about catch yourself before your nose goes flying into the dashboard. Wade is thrust out of the front window, smashing through and promptly falling unconscious underneath a tree, neck broken at an awkward angle.

Your eyes widen.

“What do you mean: if?”

“That’s what Wade said—”

“I don’t give a fuck who said what. He promised me he would fix things—”

“Well, I didn’t promise you shit!”

He laughs, low and devoid of humour. “You don’t have a clue if they can fix things, do you?”

Well, no. You’ve been operating on a hunch the entire time and had half come to accept that you might be stuck in the TVA void forever. Who knows how much time has passed elsewhere?

Regardless of the fact you truly had nothing to do with whatever came out of Wade’s mouth, you weren’t about to let Mr. Worst Wolverine shit all over him and his plan to save his friends.

“Is it really that far-fetched? We made an educated wish!”

Something dark flashes across his face. You can feel hate pulsing off of him in dizzying waves, doubling with each passing moment.

“You made… an educated fucking wish?”

“What’s your problem with me, huh? Got a stick up your ass?” You reach for the car door handle, but he snaps up your wrist, holding it high. “You better let go of me right now, old man—”

“Or what, huh? Gonna run away again?” He threatens.

“You geriatric, alcoholic motherfucker. I’ve done nothin’ but try and be civil with you and you treat me like I’m the one who ruined your life! I don’t know what version of me you knew but you need to stop actin’ like I ain’t worthy of being here because of what you did!”

“Listen, I’ll tell you what my problem is with you—” he leans closer, eyes roving over you with a disgusted look on his face. “I mean, you are a ridiculous, emotional, immature crybaby. I have never met a sadder, more attention-seeking, foul-mouthed little bitch in my entire life and that says a lot because I’ve been alive for more than two hundred fuckin’ years.”

“And I’ll tell you, that bald chick was right about one thing: you will never amount to anything. You’ll never save the world. You couldn’t even save a relationship with me. I’d say you should’ve died alone but it’s one of God’s best jokes that in this universe you didn’t seem to fuckin’ die, except that ones on the rest of all of us!”

He breathes heavily when his rant finishes. You’re taken aback, jaw slack, eyes warm with the onset of tears born from shock.

“What, you got nothin’ to say, empath?”

You suck in a deep breath, blinking slowly as you flick the emotional switch off in your head.

“I’m going to hurt you now.”

He snorts. “Oh, are you?”

In a swift manoeuvre, you raise your slap him around the face. You knew better than to punch a metal skull, but you still wanted him to sting. His eyes slit, nostrils flaring in challenge.

“That all you got?”

“Not even close,” you snap back, knuckles whitening from the way you curl your fingers into your palm. “You want to play this game, Logan? Fine— but I’m not gonna sit here and keep on provin’ myself to you. I’ve had enough of your Christ-born-again superiority complex. Did you forget that you’re the worst Wolverine?”

“Oh, yeah? Well, at least I’m honest about who I am. Look at you— you’re a fuckin’ joke, pretending to be some hero in a suit made for a dead team,” he barks back, voice rising with each word. “I don’t need your bullshit “wishes”— you should know, I’ve buried people for less.”

“Yeah, because you’re so perfect, ain’t that right?” You yell, voice cracking from the power of your anger. “The almighty Wolverine— the unkillable bastard who can’t seem to hold onto anythin’ good in his life! You’ve had centuries to get your shit together, and look at you—” You look him up and down with disgust. “—still just a bitter, lonely, broken man, takin’ it out on everyone else and a goddamn bottle.”

His eyes narrow, muscles in his jaw twitching as he appears to fight and keep his temper in check, but there’s an obvious crack forming, the dam of his unbridled rage near overflowing.

“You think you know me, huh?” He murmurs, voice a deadly whisper, the calm before the storm. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about what I’ve been through. You’re nothing but a lost woman playing make-believe and hiding in the shadow of a fuckin’ merc. You’re pathetic.”

Something inside of you breaks. “I’m pathetic? Look at yourself! You’re so goddamn desperate to feel anythin’ that you’ll lash out at everyone around you for some semblance of warmth. There’s a fine line between hate and love, after all! You think you’re so strong because you can heal, because you’ve lived forever? Yeah, right— you’re the weakest, most cowardly man I’ve met in a loong time.”

The blades between his knuckles shoot out with a shink! For a moment, you think that he’s going to attack you. Hell— you even hope that he will, just to diminish some of the unbearable, stifling tension. Instead, the blades retract with a deep breath, and he grabs you forcefully by the collar of your suit, yanking you so close that you can feel the heat of his breath on your face.

His voice is low and rough, each word dripping with venom. “Go on, keep psychoanalysing me. You wanna talk about cowardice? How about leaving people who need you, just because it’s easier to run? Better yet, how about the fact that you abandoned the X-men to hide away in the mountains, huh?”

Your eyes widen with recognition.

“Yeah… Wade’s got a big mouth. Told me everythin’. You’re no hero. Hell, you’re just a selfish, reckless hillbilly who failed at pretending to be human.”

Your heart palpitates in your chest, each word coiling and slicing like blades in your intestines, but you refuse to let him see how much it hurts. Instead, your lips curl into a cold, bitter smile, one that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“And you’re just a sad, angry old man who can’t handle the fact that he’s lost everythin’. Go ahead: keep pushing people away! Keep hidin’ behind that anger o’ yours! It’s got you this far, ain’t it?! I’ve treated kids with trauma worth double yours and they were nothin’ but kind and selfless. I won’t let you project your failures onto me. I’m done with this.”

“Yeah, why don’t you walk away!”

The argument reaches a fever pitch, tension sizzling in the air between you. You’re so close, glaring at each other with so much anger, so much resonating heat, that it feels like something’s going to break. And then, suddenly, it does.

Before either of you can think, you close the gap between you, lips crashing against his. It’s not gentle, it’s not soft— the kiss is rough, violent, a clash of lips and fury. His grip on your collar tightens, and for a moment, you’re both frozen, caught in the shock of what’s happening.

But then something more fiery in nature than anger ignites, and he kisses you back just as fiercely, and maybe a little more desperate— like he’s trying to pour out all of his pain and resentment, into this one moment. Your tongues slide against each other and his teeth catch against yours as he groans into your mouth. Your hands thread through his hair, yanking him closer as if trying to hold onto something real and tangible in the chaos of the kiss, reeling from the sudden spinning in your head. It’s angry, raw, filled with all the things you’re not capable of verbalising: grief, love, yearning, reconciliation.

The result of a painful reunion.

The world falls away and all that’s left is the taste of him, the feel of his lips against yours, rough and demanding. You hate him right now— hate him so much that you can’t help but want him. The sheer intensity of it all overwhelms you and makes your fingers shake against the nape of his neck, but you can’t pull away— not now, not when you’ve tasted the wine. You’re too far gone, caught up in the storm of his intoxication, fantasising about ripping that yellow and blue suit off of him and riding him until there’s nothing left for him to regenerate.

And then, just as suddenly as it started, the bubble of the moment bursts with the sound of slow clapping coming from outside the car. You jerk back from Logan, breath coming in ragged gasps. Logan is equally as stunned, still tight-gripping your collar as if he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.

You both see Wade sitting up, hands together, eyes wide as saucers as he takes in the scene.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did I just wake up in a telenovela?” His voice is laced with amusement. “I mean, I know you two clearly had some unresolved sexual tension— but this? Oh, this is gold. Please don’t stop on my account, just let me get the camcorder first!”

You’re too stun-locked to respond, lips parting and closing as your brain scrambles to formulate a response as you’re still reeling from what just happened. Logan (for once) seems equally as lost for words, his typical scowl replaced with a look of confusion.

“Shut up, Mouth,” Logan barks, but there’s no real heat behind it. There can’t be, really, not when you’ve both been caught red-handed. He releases your collar at once.

Wade, however, is having none of it. “Oh, no, no, no! You don’t just get to brush this off like it’s nothing! That was a full-on makeout session! I only interrupted because I thought you were about to rip each other’s clothes off.” He sighs wistfully and crosses his legs. “Here I was thinking that you two hated each other— but I guess all that anger was just foreplay, huh?”

Your face burns with a mixture of shame and something else you’re not quite ready to admit. “Wade— cut it out.”

He grins, not deterred in the least. “Oh, but I’m loving this. All that pent-up aggression finally coming to fruition. It’s beautiful, truly.”

Logan shoots him a look that could melt iron, but Wade just simply shrugs, unfazed. “Hey, I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking. Everyone being me.”

“Wade,” you warn through gritted teeth.

“Well, unless you want me to watch (which I am not opposed to, by the way) maybe next time the two of you should get a room,” he tilts his head. “Or, you know, a couples therapist.”

He then turns to address Logan directly.

“And I must’ve missed the AO3 tags because I did not peg you for the enemies-to-lovers type, Mister. Who knew all it took was a bit of hate-kissing to get the sparks flying? Don’t look so ashamed! I’m just jealous I didn’t get to you first.”

He stumbles towards the car and collapses into the back seat. “Next time you wanna bump uglies, just ask for some privacy! You can save me the broken neck!” He gets himself comfortable, man-spreading and laying his hands on both of your shoulders as you stare dead-forwards, unable to look at each other.

“Gosh, you’re both so tense.” He begins massaging. “Look— props to you both for not letting all that angst go to waste. This is a safe space, and there’s no shame in a little hormone-induced—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Logan interrupts, revving the car back to life and shoving his prodding hands away. “Just be quiet back there.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll keep the commentary to myself. But just so you know— got that bad boy playing on repeat, right here.” He says, tapping the side of his head.

You bury your face in your hands. This was going to be a long car ride.

As the car starts moving again, you muster the bravery to risk a glance at Logan. His expression is hard to read but his energy thrums with uncertainty. The boiling hatred seems to have dialled down to a gentle simmer, mostly redirected towards himself rather than you. There’s something else— something that wasn’t there before. You rip your eyes away quickly, mind racing.

For somebody so in tune with emotions and the literal ability to manipulate them if you so desired, you were horrendous at navigating your own. You don’t know what this kiss meant, or if it even meant anything at all.

If there’s anyone you didn’t expect to come across in the void, it’s X-23— Laura. She’s taller, now, with hair down her back, but she’s still got that stern, mean look on her face that intimidated you the first time you met her.

The weak front door squeaks when you open it a crack. A girl, maybe in her small teen years, blinks up at you.

“Can I help you?” You ask, wiping your flour-dusty hands down on the front of your cooking apron.

“Are you—” she says your name.

You attempt to swing the door shut, but she jams it with her boot. You flick your eyes up, glance around for any signs of threats, and then lower your gaze to her. You wrap your cardigan around your mid-section.

“I don’t go by that name anymore. Who the Hell are you, kid, and what do you want?”

“I’m here about Logan,” she says, matter-of-factly.

Logan. A name followed by your own, both of which you hadn’t heard in years.

“He’s not here, kid. He died years ago.”

“I know,” she answers, unwavering. “I was there when it happened. Your name was the last thing he said.”

You’d let her in for a glass of sugary sweet tea that day, but once stories were exchanged you told her not to come back. She respected your wishes— she said she simply wanted to put a name to the face, to get closure, but you’d felt her desperation. Perhaps she was seeking out respite, or family, but you were in no position to be sharing your space with someone who could put another target on your back.

After introductions were made with the others who had been ripped from their timelines (Elektra, Blade and oh my god a Gambit variant with muscles so huge he could pop your head between his biceps) you excused yourself to sit outside. The buzzing emotional energy made your collar feel a little tight around the neck, your head a little fuzzy with noise, so you decided to reignite the small campfire a few yards away from the safe-house and rest there, instead.

You hadn’t realised you were being followed.

“It’s not safe here.”

“It’s not safe anywhere, Logan.”

He looks defeated, raising and clasping his hands behind his head.

“I gotta leave, baby.”

“If you leave, I ain’t lettin’ you back,” you whisper. “You don’t heal the same anymore, Logan, and you promised me—”

“I know what I promised,” he rebuts, but not angrily. You can already see on his face that he’s made his choice. He’s not coming to you to discuss it. “But I owe it to him. To Charles. He gave me everything.”

“So then what did I give you?” You ask. “Not a home, not my love, not everything?” You slam the tea towel down and turn away from him as the tears form. He’s quiet, perhaps processing everything, but you’re too impatient.

“If you’re just gon’ get up and leave, do it now. I won’t beg you to stay, Jimmy.”

“I love you.”

You don’t say it back.

You wake up with a start, damp clinging to your forehead. You immediately sense another presence and glance over to see Logan watching you with a steady gaze. His expression is soft and almost reverent at first, but his facade hardens with a quick tick of his jaw.

“You talk in your sleep.” The bottle in his hand sloshes as he takes a drink. “Nightmare?”

You sigh frustratedly when you realise it’s him. Of course, it’s him — his energy reeks of whiskey and self-loathing. You prop yourself on your elbows, massaging the sore spots on your temples where sleep fog forms.

“I can’t even get some rest without you botherin’ me? You’re leakin’ self-hatred everywhere.”

“Quit hogging the fire then.”

“Fuck you,” you murmur, but it’s without bite.

A moment passes before he fills the silence again. “What are you even doing out here, alone? Trying to get yourself killed? Pretty stupid.”

“Do you know how hard it is to sleep when nobody shuts up?”

His brows knit. “They’re all dead asleep.”

His hand runs up and down your back.

“Can’t settle?” He asks after you sigh.

“No.” You turn so you’re lying on your back, shoulder touching his, staring up at the ceiling. “Everyone is feeling so loud. It’s like a frequency I can’t turn off.”

He hums. “They’re grieving, I s’pose.”

“Even you and you always said you hated the guy.” You shuffle to lie on your side, facing him. You place a hand on his bare chest. “I can feel it, you know.”

“I didn’t hate Scott. Just found him… obnoxiously irritating.”

“Tough guy.” You giggle and stroke his cheek. “You’re turnin’ soft, old man.”

He pulls you flush against him and presses a kiss to your hairline. You lay in verbal silence for a while, soaking up his presence (god, you were so in love), but you’re interrupted when he abruptly sits up and grabs the white vest he discarded somewhere near the bed.

You lean on your elbows. “Where you goin’?”

“Let’s go for a ride.”

“What?”

“You can’t sleep here. Let’s go somewhere quieter.”

“But Charles said—”

“Screw Charles. You comin’ or what?”

He hadn’t told you he loved you yet, but at that moment you felt it.

And so you do, clinging to his mid-section on his motorcycle, head stuffed into the helmet he affectionately forces you to wear. It’s a warm night in New York, soupy with heat, but the further you get away from the compound with him by your side the more you feel you can breathe.

“’Course, you don’t understand.”

You reach for the small pouch on your hip and retrieve a cigarette. You light it between your lips, taking a seat a few paces away from him, hands still shaking a little with the aftershocks of the night terror.

“Since when did you start smoking?”

You perk a brow. “I’ve always smoked.”

He seems to realise something and simply shakes his head before returning to the vice in his fist.

“Right.”

You stare at him for a long, passing moment, before pulling out your lighter again and offering it towards him. He perks a brow.

“I know you got a cigar in there somewhere,” you say. He pauses, sighs, and then retrieves a thick cigar from one of the pouches on his suit. You lean closer, flick the lighter, and cup your hand to protect it from the breeze, shamelessly glancing at the dancing glow that bathes his face amid the firelight. You feel the urge to kiss him again, and when his eyes flick up to yours, you think for the briefest second that he wants to kiss you, too.

Swallowing, you collapse your lighter and clear your throat. You sit quietly, smoking and drinking in a silence only negated by the distant sound of chittering bugs around you. Once you’re finished with your cigarette, you toss the butt into the fire.

“We’re infiltrating tomorrow morning.”

He laughs dryly. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

Your lips tighten into a thin line. “We won’t make it without you.”

“Sure you will. I’m not him, you know,” Wolverine grumbles, slugging another shot of alcohol.

You scrutinise him from across the log. You wonder if he feels as pathetic as he looks.

“No— you got that right,” you answer. You pry the liquor from his hands but the grip he releases from the neck of the bottle must have been a mercy on his part because you knew he was extraordinarily stronger than you. “He was much braver than you.”

His eyes flicker from the flames to you as you take a long swig.

“Although probably just as stupid.”

A pause. Crackling and popping firewood fills the silence.

“But, he was a hero. And so are you.”

A beat before he spits a dry laugh, “what gave you that idea?”

You give him a once over and offer a half-smile. “That suit, for starters.”

He looks down at himself like he’d forgotten he was wearing it and wipes away a stray speck of blood from the bright material that you’re sure you might be responsible for.

“What, you like it?” He grunts.

You can’t help but smile. “Yellow suits you.”

“This is all I had left to remember you— them by,” he says, tone turning more sombre as he reminisces.

You decide it’s not the time to make another jab, so, instead, you play back and forth with the bottle for a while until the alcohol stops stinging your throat.

Something small shatters inside of you when you watch him muster the strength to look into your eyes, and his look a little glassy.

“Did you love him?”

Woof, that needed a healthy drink of courage to answer. When you hold his gaze, there’s a hollowness to his expression— an unasked question. Was there truly a version of him worth loving?

“Yeah.” You wipe the back of your hand across your mouth to cover the crack in your voice. “Yeah, I did.”

He’d insisted he hadn’t wanted you around yet he’d kissed you and now followed you to where you’d been sleeping. That had to count for something, so you extend your arm and gesture the bottle towards him— an olive branch in the form of shitty Jack Daniels. Your fingers touch when he accepts it and the brief glimmer of eye contact you share sends shivery energy zipping between you.

“I loved him,” you repeat, as if convincing yourself. A repeated balm to soothe the pain of letting him leave.

“He’s an idiot for leaving you.”

You bite back a sob-laugh, imagination caught somewhere between wondering who you’d rather beat up more: him, or yourself.

“Maybe I’m an idiot for not followin’ him.” You sniff deeply to push back the incoming sob-induced mess. “Not that he woulda let me.”

He hums resignedly.

Clearing your throat, you tuck your hands between your thighs. Swiftly moving on. “What was I— she like?”

He takes a long drink and sighs thickly when he comes up for air. He looks down at his hands when he talks as if choosing his words thoughtfully and carefully.

“Strong, smart. Stubborn. Far too fuckin’ stubborn.”

You force a smile over the flinch of pain in your chest. “Guess we got that in common.”

You reach up and twist the dog tag around your neck, feeling for the ring you’d slipped around the chain. You were never married legally but were in all the ways that mattered. Your heart aches for the brief moment of domesticity you shared with him. You expect him to be finished, but he once laughs, a smile cracking on his face.

“She loved kids— had a soft spot for the weird ones.” He squints and rubs at the flesh between his knuckles where the blades typically protrude. “Put me in my place. Stood up for what was right.”

His words strike a chord in your heart, playing the familiar tune of yearning and guilt and grief. A swelling sensation rises from your stomach and you’re not sure if you’re going to scream, cry or throw up.

“Were you—?”

“In love with her? What, like you can’t tell?” He interrupts, face hardening. Another drink. “It doesn’t matter. We argued one night and I refused to follow her back to the school, ‘bout the same time the humans went mutant hunting.”

Logan takes a moment to catch himself.

“When I came back, shit-faced from the bar, I realised I’d gotten my version of you murdered, along with the rest of them. Laid up like a fucking log pile. That’s what loving me got you.”

The gruesome imagery sours the liquor in your stomach. You push the nausea down with a hard swallow.

“I’m sorry.”

“Wh—” He jolts back, face pinched. “I got you killed, and you’re fuckin’ sorry?”

“There’s a world where you didn’t make that choice. You know, I’m not proud of who I am, either,” you answer, softly. “After you left and I lost you… I got bitter, stopped pulling my punches.”

“You never liked hurting people.”

“I didn’t.” You take a deep breath, willing away the warmth that pools behind your eyes. You quickly regain composure with a short cough. “Whatever woman you’re comparing me to, I stopped being her a long time ago. Like you told me— I’m no hero.”

He grunts, looking like he regrets saying that now. Checkmate. You’re not what either of you expected or yearned for in one another, but maybe you’re exactly what you both need.

“You know, your accents thicker.”

He says it as if to draw a line of separation, but you take it as an invitation. Your head swims from the alcohol, and against what probably is your better judgement, you inch closer to him until your knees bump against each other.

“That’s what I get for hidin’ in the mountains. Got adopted by a scary old lady and her church friends. I reckon she rubbed off on me. You’d like her, I think,” you tell him fondly. There’s something wistful about it, imagining a life with him. You grieve a life you never had but somehow, in his company, the melancholy loosens its grip.

“Maybe we got lucky,” you add flatly.

He lifts the bottle with a dry laugh. “You have a very funny idea of what lucky means, bub.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be so sure. Y’see, they didn’t get lucky. They died, ‘n’ we lost each other,” you explain, glancing up at the stars as if either version of you would ever be in heaven, as if it was as loving enough as a mother’s womb to stretch wide enough to allow space for mutants.

God probably hated you just as much as they did down here.

You lower your head onto his shoulder. “But, we’re still here. Maybe there was always space in my universe for you.”

“You’re drunk,” he observes flatly, but he doesn’t move.

“A little.” You get more comfortable against his tense bicep and close your eyes. “Humour me, why don’t you?”

He sighs, but it’s gentle. “Just for a while.”

“Good, because you’re not very good at keeping your feelings quiet. I know you like this.”

“Keep that to yourself.”

You sigh, eyes remaining closed. “We ain’t gonna talk about it, are we?” You ask, in reference to the kiss.

“Nope.”

A high-pitched whine resonates in your ears, vision blurring as if lying underneath a rippling river current. Paradox has just explained the stakes to you — to stop Cassandra, somebody would have to lay down on the wire and make the sacrifice play. This wasn’t a matter of regeneration anymore— it was being ripped apart from the seams, atomised.

It just so happens that your cat, Kevin, has been loving his little journey around the TVA. Cheater.

“You won’t survive it,” is what you say in response to Logan offering himself up for the job. What you really meant was: I don’t think I can survive losing you again.

“I know,” Logan answers. His eyes drip to where you palm at the slow-healing wound on your side, courtesy of the Lady Deadpool variant. You’re winded, running on fumes, and know you’re in no position to start throwing yourself out there as a suicide volunteer. You’d never make the journey, let alone succeed in your venture.

“That’s why it’s gotta be me,” Deadpool interrupts, peeling the mask from his face to address you both. “Neither of you asked for any of this. You were right. I lied. I lied right to both of your faces — just to get you to help me, and you did.”

“You didn’t lie,” Logan replies, throwing you a glance. “You made an educated wish.”

He reaches into his pocket and slaps the bloodied Polaroid of Deadpool’s friends against Wade’s chest. The gesture is a final, silent acknowledgement of why any of you are here in the first place, and everything that’s led to this moment.

“I got nothin’ back in my world,” he explains, the sharp arrow of his words striking a sting straight through your heart. “Let me do this. For you.”

You could see that this meant more to him, that he would only deem himself worthy and die a peaceful death if he could do it knowing he saved at least one variant of you. This is more than just a mission. This is his only chance to redeem himself, and you know you’re in no position to start trying to convince him that you’d have him either way. Fuck redemption.

You’re parallel from one another, standing just outside of touching distance. It was a cruel existence— reaching out and never quite being able to hold on. It’s inevitable, the pull you feel. You’re dictated by his gravity but cursed by the narrative.

Your chest rises and falls with shallow, laboured breaths as you attempt to process what’s happening, what he’s asking you to let him do. The pain in your side ebbs only from the comparative pain of watching another version of the man you love sacrifice himself for you.

His voice is a quiet whisper. “Give me this.”

But I love you. The words are there, hiding behind your clenched teeth, gnawing at the bars like a feral animal caged in the reminder that this isn’t — shouldn’t be — the man that you love.

Something shifts and as you’re running on the delirium of your battery running low, healing resources drained, you decide that you don’t actually care to make the distinction any more.

You’re in no condition to fight; you barely had the energy to argue with him, let alone stop him. But you can’t just let him go.

One wobbly step forward. You poke his chest, mustering whatever energy remains to express your feelings in the only true way you know how. “I…” you stammer, but you suddenly can’t find the words.

His hand reaches up and he splays yours flat against his chest. Faintly, buried deep behind the armoured layer of his suit, you feel the distinct thunk, thunk of his heart. He exhales deeply when your empathetic energy transmission reaches the other side. Your eyes connect, and even through the sharp whites of his mask, you can feel the psionic pulse resonating between you two— strong enough that the wound on your side begins to sew itself together.

“I know,” he whispers.

And you believe that he does.

He nods shortly, releases your hand, and turns on his heel. You collapse against the control centre, eyes needling through the camera footage, desperate to watch the final moments and know that his sacrifice was worth it.

It’s about the same time that Deadpool yanks his mask back on and barrels down the hallway after him.

“Wade!”

You glance back at the party as you creep towards the apartment door to leave. Your consciousness has only recently slipped back into place, having hovered somewhere above your body for the entire time you witnessed your friends atomically ripped apart, only for them to return mere moments later.

You think it might’ve been witnessing Wolverine sweaty and shirtless that was finally the last straw for you. You’re not sure you’ve recovered since.

You thought you were being sneaky about your departure, but a flat hand reaches from out of view, splays and then holds the door closed.

“You sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Logan asks, voice slow and tentative.

“I ain’t runnin’ this time, I promise,” you answer. He rests his arm on the beam above him, making him appear even taller and maybe even more imposing. Your pulse quickens as you look up at him, trying to find the right words, ones that you hope won’t give you away. You nearly squeak. “I um— just—”

He arches a brow, a hint of a micro-smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He shifts, getting closer by just a fraction. “Yeah?”

Trying to keep your distance is proving to be immensely hard when he’s gotten himself this deliciously close. His energy tastes of confidence, a stark contrast to the self-loathing only a mere few days prior. It’s magnetic. If you make eye contact now, you’re not sure you’ll be able to control yourself.

The atmosphere crackles with tension, like the static energy right before lightning strikes. His gaze is intense when you look at him, and with the way his eyes glance purposefully down at your parted lips—

Jesus. Pull yourself together.

You gently pull away from him and feel the spell of the moment dissolve. “I just… need time.”

Recognition flashes on his face, as well as a tick of disappointment, but he seems to understand.

A beat, then he taps the door before stepping aside. “Alright. Don’t be a stranger.”

Wade bursts around the corner, arms wide and voice booming. Vanessa hangs off of his arm, white teeth gleaming with mischievous joy.

“Whoa, hey there, lovebirds! What’s going on here— a secret rendezvous? Looking for somewhere to sneak off? Should I cue the romantic music or just give you two some privacy?”

You jump in surprise at his sudden entrance, flinching away from Logan as if you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t. Logan’s expression shifts from whatever tender moment was brewing, spell broken, to a mix of exasperation and resignation, jaw tightening.

“Wade,” he grumbles, voice sharp, but you can acknowledge there’s a level of begrudging affection beneath the steely surface. “Timing, as usual, is impeccable.”

“Um, actually, I was just leavin’,” you answer, tugging on your bag.

“WHAT!” Wade exclaims, face dropping. “We haven’t even gotten to our favourite part yet!”

You tick a brow. “Our favourite part?”

“The cocaine part,” he says, matter-of-factually.

“Wade, that was one time,” you pinch the bridge of your nose. “I’m sorry. Thank you for inviting me. I just can’t miss my flight.”

Dogpool jumps at your ankles, whimpering and chewing on the hem of your jeans. You give her a gentle scratch on her head, deftly avoiding the lick of her impressive tongue. Wade scoops her up, holding her against his shoulder and kissing her affectionately on her wet nose.

“You, ah, need a ride?” Logan offers.

Your heart stutters at his chivalrous attempt. “Oh, um. That’s okay— I called a cab. So.”

That was a lie. You hadn’t— not yet. You just weren’t sure if you were going to make the right decisions if you were alone in his company for an hour. Probably wouldn’t make it to the airport without fighting or crying or making stupid choices.

He rubs his jaw. “Right.”

“I’ll… see you around?”

“I better!” Wade yells, using two fingers to gesture that he’s keeping his eye on you as Vanessa yanks him around the corner gleefully.

A magnetic tether — or red string, whatever you want to call it — seems to strain when you walk away from Logan. You feel the pull in your chest, a fluttering of electricity, but you swallow the urges and ignore the way they scratch like glass on the way down.

You call an Uber, squeezing your bag tightly for a source of comfort as you crowd yourself into the back seat. You spare one last glance at the apartment and think for a brief moment you see a silhouette of someone watching you from the balcony, but they slip away into the light before you can discern it.

You know, though. Of course, you know.

You expected relief when you arrived home, but, instead, the aching, gnawing black hole in your chest seems to grow exponentially. You go through the motions— feed your cat, tend to the garden, eat the food with no appetite, go to Church.

The fixture of Jesus pinned to the cross gives you pause for the first time. You wonder if he was a mutant.

You weren’t sure how much of this “time” thing you were going to need to heal or make a decision on where you and Logan stood after everything, but only after your second night, sleepless and alone, do you start to doubt that this will be an easy process. You communicate like you know what you’re doing, but you haven’t stopped shaking since he kissed you, like a newborn foal traversing ice.

You want to do things right. You’re not trying to replace any missing pieces or live up to any expectations he might have of you. The girl he knew seemed to be a softer, sweeter (less traumatised) version of you, and you worry that you’d be constantly comparing him to a ghost of himself.

The rain lulls you as it patters on the window by your bed, but sleep doesn’t take you.

You hear thunder, you think, and wonder if the chickens are frightened in their coops. However, the distant grumble continues to grow, reverberating through the floorboards of your rickety cabin. As it creeps closer you discern that it’s not a brewing storm— but the growling engine of a motorcycle.

Awash with a deep sense of knowing, you throw yourself out of bed and knot a silk robe around your middle. The sound of the engine dissipates, replaced only by the hammering rain and the rushing pulse in your ears when you tear your door open.

You see him— all leather jacket slick with rainwater and tight jeans, brows pinched against the onslaught of the weather as he dismounts his bike.

Logan.

When your eyes meet, there’s a palpable shift in the air, and the storm, angry as a howling spirit, mirrors the turbulent emotions within you. You don’t speak, you don’t think, you just act.

Barefoot, dressed in your slip of a robe, you race down the short path and meet him halfway.

“Logan? Logan?” You call out. “What are you doin’ here?!”

“Had to see you,” he calls out between strides, voice nonchalant as if what he’s said was obvious.

You’re closing the distance. “That’s a day’s ride, and the weather—”

Instead of letting you finish, he grasps your face, kissing you suddenly and with a reverence so sincere that your knees feel gelatinous and weak. His thumbs brush away the raindrops— tears? —that drip over your crystallised lashes. His touch is both grounding and electrifying; the warmth of him pressed against you is a stark contrast to the chilling downpour.

Your fingers curl against the front of his jacket, clinging with equal fervour as if it’s the only thing keeping you anchored from floating someplace else. The strength of his body crowds over you, arm sliding down to capture you by your waist as you lean into him, syrupy-decadent and entirely reliant on him to keep you upright.

The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding over yours tasting both bittersweet and intoxicating in equal measures, like cigar smoke and peppermint gum. There’s a distinct sharpness of liqour and you wonder if he had a shot (or bottle) of courage before coming here. You breathe deeply against his skin, smelling rainwater, musk and gunpowder; your senses are completely overwhelmed by him and you’re not sure that anything could pull you away.

The red string knots.

When you both eventually take pause, gasping for air as the rain continues to pelt, his eyes lock with yours. He radiates relief, desire, and a raw vulnerability that makes your heart ache.

“You’re freezin’,” he murmurs, peppering kisses against your lips, your cold nose, and pulling one of your hands to his face to peck along your palm. You feel dizzy in his embrace, drunk on his lips.

“You should come inside,” you whisper, “before the neighbours start askin’ questions.”

He quietly nods, kissing your fingers before following you inside and ducking away from the rain.

Once inside, he shakes the rain from his hair with a flick, eyes immediately roaming around the innards of your respectable (tiny) house, the size of him immediately proportionally shrinking the interior. He absorbs your surroundings, chivalrously pretending like he can’t see every curve of you in that wet material.

You lead him towards the heath, lighting a small fire to help dry you both off. You leave, pottering around to gather some towels for your hair, and arrive back to see he’s peeled off the top layer of his clothes, leaving him half-exposed, his back an impressive marvel of rippling muscle. He glances at you over his shoulder.

You’re lost for words, but can’t just stand there ogling him. “Um, I don’t think I have any spare clothes that’ll… fit…”

When he turns to face you, his rain-slick torso shines in the firelight, skin glistening on the taught muscles of his biceps as he accepts a towel from you. Your words lag, entirely distracted by the realisation of one thing when you glance down at his v-line and dark, coiling hair that creeps down into his jeans: you’re absolutely going to have sex with this man.

You might’ve decided that when you watched the way his jeans clung to him when he dismounted his motorcycle, but that’s beside the point.

“That’s alright,” he answers, towel slung over his shoulder, eyes roving shamelessly over the damp, silky robe that clings to your silhouette effortlessly. “Don’t need ‘em.”

Your mouth dries when he steps closer to you, head angled, lips centimetres apart.

“Logan…” you breathe, tone edging toward a warning.

He presses against you, tilting you back. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll stop. I’ll get back on that bike and I’ll leave.”

You creep further away, trying to catch your breath. “I—”

The words don’t manifest, simply because you don’t have it in you to lie— to deny yourself of this.

He cages you in against the wall, shrinking you underneath his frame, eyes narrowed and dark as they search for yours through lowered lashes. “Tell me you don’t feel somethin’, and I’ll walk away. You won’t see me again.”

His bare-chested proximity was overwhelming you. You’re acutely aware of every inch of his skin that touches yours, pebbled nipples hard against his warm flesh, stubbled jaw nuzzling against your neck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. You feel like a teenager again, anxious and hormonal, a ball of puppy fat and unrequited crushes. The space between your thighs positively aches with heat, throbbing like a second heartbeat.

“I can’t… I can’t tell you that I feel something.”

He leans back, lips quirked with a flash of disappointment.

You blink up at him. “Let me show you instead.”

He ticks an eyebrow.

You use your empathetic influence to decrease his heartbeat, relaxing him down to the bone. He sighs, nosing against your shoulder, arms flexing as he holds himself up against you.

“Just with a little influence…” you stroke your way up from the slow pulse in his neck to his jaw, capturing him swiftly. You use your mutation to increase his heart rate this time, hiking it up to an excitable level. His cheeks begin to flush, pupils dilated, lips parted with the anticipation of your kiss. His eyes darken with something intrinsically primal and hungry.

“Does it excite you?” You ask, innocently.

He shakes his head all dog-like as if to regain control, canine showing as his lips curl into a wolfish grin.

“You’re not the only one with… tricks. I can do that, too— in other ways,” he says, tone low and suggestive. He lifts a hand, tracing a knuckle over your exposed collarbone, shifting the soft material of your robe just an inch. Your breath hitches.

“You know I can hear your heartbeat, right?”

You blush. You hadn’t known that.

You challenge his eye contact, feigning self-control and authority. The stare-down has your pulse spiking, arousal ricocheting down your spine and sitting low and syrupy in your belly.

“Your heart’s beating pretty fast, too.”

Oh, Hell. He’s got you melted like butter in a pan.

You rest your head against the wall, breath quickening. “If we do this, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

“Good,” he growls. “I don’t like to stop.”

The teasing back-and-forth game of teetering towards nearly touching finally gets the better of you. You’re weak, as malleable as soft dough, so you invite him against your mouth with a sigh-wine and a tug on the nape of his neck.

He positively devours you, a hand palming at your breast as you kiss desperately and feverishly. The shoulder of your robe slips and you’re half-exposed, the slip barely holding itself together by the loose knot on your waist. He pulls you impossibly closer, the skin of his chest flush against yours as he reaches and digs fingers into the globe of your ass, hips twitching together.

You fumble between your bodies, yanking on his belt buckle and zipper impatiently. He pulls backwards, a wet string of spit snapping between your lips as you separate, helping you with steadier fingers to remove his jeans. With equal passion, he swiftly tugs on the waist-tie of your robe and discards it somewhere on the floor.

When you’re both bare, nude silhouettes sharp and soft in the firelight, he stumbles you over to the plush rug in the centre of the room. He nods to the couch.

“Legs up.”

You obey without hesitation, taking your seat and spreading decadently for him. He kneels below you of you, hips between your ankles, and gazes at you like a hungry, stalking animal. You feel impossibly sexy and dangerous.

He peppers kisses along the bone of your ankle first, foot hiked up onto his shoulder, only breaking eye contact to flutter his eyes closed. He moves along the inner length of your leg, pausing keenly against the sensitive parts— the thin stretch behind your knee, the soft plush of your thigh. He lowers himself, scruff tickling between your legs, and then licks a molten stroke between your folds, parting you with his tongue and burying his face deeper.

You clench around his skull, mindfulness of your heightened mutant abilities long forgotten. You can’t crush metal between your thighs. Or can you?

He groans into you, varying suckling and kissing you on your clit with long strokes on the blade of his tongue to your hole, lapping up the nectar of your arousal, fingers digging bruisingly into your hips. The sting of his grip and the relentless lave of his tongue entice moans from you, fingers raking into his hair for some semblance of reality grounding in your pleasure-lapsed consciousness.

Jesus. With as filthy as his mouth was, you should’ve known he would be this good at eating pussy.

You come quick, orgasm pulsing on his lips. The burn of overstimulation seizes your muscles, writhing against his onslaught, but he shoves your hips down.

“Not done with you yet,” he murmurs possessively, leaning back to wipe his chin. “On all fours.”

You bite your lower lip, suppressing the humiliation of the intimacy (vulgarity) of it. You turn, belly still clenching with the aftershocks, arching with the anticipation, whining moments later when his mouth reconnects with you. His hands palm at your ass, spreading you wider, tongue slipping dangerously close to the tight ring of muscle.

He slides a finger knuckle-deep, miming fucking you in a rhythmic pulse. His other hand massages you, thumb sliding down until you jerk sensitively against his nudging intrusion.

You feel impossibly full and tingly, clenching around the burn of his thumb and the velvet of his finger, second orgasm surging and bubbling over with your face pressed against the couch cushion, lips agape. You’re slick, drip-dropping onto his cupping palm, every nerve in your body burning raw as his wrist works you through the pulses.

You turn over, relishing in the sight of his scruff glistening with the aftermath of your orgasm, his eyes dark with lust— a hellish man, seraphic on his knees for you. Your insides clench at the sight as he quite literally shatters and redefines what worship means to you.

“Tired already?” He hums, massaging your hips.

You perk a challenging brow. “That was just the warm-up, old man.”

“Alright,” he seethes, sucking on his lower lip as he lifts himself up to your level. “Show me what you got then, baby.”

When you kiss, his mouth slides against yours, drenched with the taste of yourself. His cock steels against your belly when you pull him close, tip pearl-smooth with precum when you reach down and grasp him with a hollowed fist. The feel of him, heavy and warm in your grip, fans to life the flames of your briefly quenched arousal, and you hungrily pull him down onto the couch beside you.

Moisture pools on your tongue as you rub him. You spit on your hand before stroking him from the base to tip, lathering him silky with your drool. You tuck your hair behind your ears, narrowing your cheeks as you slide your mouth up and down his length, fisting the inches that remain.

“Christ.” He twitches in your mouth as you gently massage the warm weight of his sac, lewd sounds emanating from where your lips and tongue meet him. “Just like that. Good fuckin’ girl,” he snarls, gripping your hair in a fist at the crown of your head. Your engine purrs with his encouragement, revving with newfound enthusiasm.

You always gave as good as you got, after all, and you’re certainly not one to back away from a challenge.

His head lolls onto the back of the couch, thighs tense beneath you, cock hot and hard on your tongue. He growls when he comes, pulsing strongly in your mouth as you lap up the produce of his orgasm, salty and molten down your throat.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“Put those regenerative powers to good use, why don’t you?” You ask, working him through the over-sensitivity with your wrist. His eyes don’t once leave yours, even as they glaze over and flinch from the pleasure burn. There’s a sharp look of challenging determination on his face— a grit of his teeth, the furrow in his brow. He remains hard in your hands and you perk an impressed brow. Not bad for an old man.

There’s a sweet moment of vulnerability when you crawl over him, a brief sobering in the cloud of lust, a clarity of two not-quite strangers and their shared grief and yearning.

You’re not sure where this moment will take you, but the love of somebody scraping together the shards of a shattered heart for a brief time, even as it cuts their hands, holds you with a semblance of human connection so sincere that you’ll carry it with you for a lifetime.

His thighs spread to accommodate you. You hold your fingers against the thick chords in his neck for support as you fumble between your bodies, slotting him against the catch in your cunt before lowering yourself entirely.

You hiss against the intrusion and he steadies you with a hand on your hip.

“Easy. Don’t hurt yourself.”

You laugh-moan, laying your palms against the coils of hair on his sweat-shimmering chest.

“I can take it.”

The fire, intended to help dry you off, creates a heated environment that beads sweat on his temple. The only brain cells that remain coherent bounce around on lust in your skull — so you lean forward, lick the salty droplet clean, and sigh-whine as you begin rocking against him.

You fall into sync quickly, a desperate rhythm of desperate bodies. The delicious ache of him inside you is a masochistic thrill, similar to the irresistible press on a day-old bruise. The squelching shlick between your bodies is an animalistic reminder of your flesh and blood as you chase the pleasure, bouncing with vigour.

“Christ— I can feel you…” his jaw clenches with resolve, fingers digging into the meat of your ass. “…dripping all over me. You wanted this bad, huh?”

“Wanted to ride you in that fuckin’ Honda,” you straighten your posture, leaning away from him to hold your breasts, panting words between bated breaths. “Thought it might shut you up.”

His hand snaps up and grabs you roughly by the chin. “Mm… mouthy, aren’t ya?”

You grin. “You got no idea, lumberjack.”

He pulls your face against him, meeting your mouth halfway in a sloppier, fever-driven kiss that shoots arousal to your core like a shot of his favourite whiskey. Something feral stirs within you: a primal, cellular-deep need to connect with him further. Your empathetic power roils off of you like steam on a hot spring, surging into and merging with him until there’s nothing but one feeling, a black hole of unquenchable desire.

You suddenly feel as though you are him: navel-deep, a throbbing muscle with an aching desire to dive further into the serpent-clutch of your cunt, gliding through tingly, honey-silk velvet, blades hanging onto a tether of self-control as they threaten to slide out of your knuckles in ecstasy.

Well. This was certainly new. Add “voodoo sex doll” to your list of mutations.

You gasp, ripping away from the kiss, your powers recoiling back into you at whip-lash speed, dizzying in its ferocity. His eyes meet yours with darkened curiosity.

“Did you—”

“I felt that,” he grunts, tongue darting out to roll over his lips. “It always like that for you? Feelin’ so fuckin’ full?”

You half-laugh blissfully. “Only the good times.”

“I’ll show you a good time, alright.”

He isn’t gentle when he manhandles you, forcing you into an arch as he repositions and aligns himself behind your thighs, one foot planted firmly on the floor, the other bent to accommodate the new angle. He reinserts himself inside of you with ease, hands palming your hips and ass.

You feel him nudging cervix-deep and you reach out, clawing at the couch to hold your jerking body steady against the relentless slap of his hips. There’s no need to tell him faster or harder when you feel the metal plate of his adamantium hips pressing against your ass, pounding and vulgar with the sound of sweat-damp skin-on-skin.

It’s involuntary, the way you pant and cry out, intoxicated by the relentless drag and pull of his cock. He says something to you but you either don’t hear him or have enough conscious space in your sex-drunk fog to process words and respond. He slides a hand down your spine and pulls on your hair until you’re upright, breath hot when it fans against your neck.

“Where’s that mouth gone?”

You lick the drool from your lip, throwing him a glance over your shoulder. “Fuck you.”

The half-lidded up-and-down look he gives you as satisfaction grows slowly on his lips turns your bones to jelly. “There she is,” he growls back, offering a sharp slap of encouragement on your ass as he drops you back onto your front. You involuntarily grip around him, puffy clit throbbing with the almost-but-not-quite-there anticipatory build. “You gonna come for me? Yeah? I can fuckin’ feel it.”

You slide a hand underneath yourself, reaching for the swollen nub with two fingers. You’re overwhelmed with kinetic energy akin to a fizzy champagne bottle— two more shakes until you’re ready to pop.

You hear a Snikt! behind you, accompanied by a throat-caught groan, and then the distinct ripping shred of blades impaling your couch. You finally come, hard, when you feel him throbbing inside of you, followed by the decadent syrupy flood of his orgasm filling you up. He ruts into you one, two three more final times, milking himself dry, before collapsing over your body in a sweaty heap, sparing you the weight of his metal bones with a forearm propped next to you.

Shared fluids drip to the couch when he eventually pulls out of you, blades retreating into his clenched fists. The fluffy innards of the chair spill out beside you, and, while you were in no financial position to afford another, the sight entices a humoured smile from you.

“Sorry,” he says with a wince, helping you sit up when your unreliable legs shake beneath you.

“That’s alright. It’ll make for an interestin’ story,” you retort, fanning yourself with a hand. You both let out a shared laugh, mostly from the relieved delirium of it all. After a beat, you lean into him, massaging a hand across his belly. “So. We really doin’ this?”

His face softens. “If you’ll have me.”

You cup his face and kiss his cheek. “I’d take any version of you I could get.”

divider credits: @/vysleix and @/cafekitsune tag list: @bearwithegg, @uhlunaro, @sseleniaa, @jxssimae, @autumnsymphony

---

oh my god

Cowboy sevika au (lowkey made her look like a vampire ..)

---

Hi there 👋,

My name is Mohammad, and I’m reaching out in a moment of desperate need. I’m a father of three young children living in Gaza, and we are caught in the midst of a catastrophic war. Our home is no longer a safe haven, and the future here seems increasingly uncertain. 💔

I’ve launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $40,000 to relocate my family to a safer place where my children can grow up in peace and have a chance at a brighter future. 🕊️🇵🇸

Unfortunately, my previous fundraising efforts were abruptly halted when my account was terminated without explanation. However, I remain determined to keep fighting for my family’s safety and well-being. 🫶

If you could take a moment to read our story, consider donating, or simply share our campaign with others, it would make an incredible difference. Every act of kindness, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to safety and a new beginning. 🙏

Thank you for your time, compassion, and support. ❤

https://gofund.me/fd1faea2 🔗

please help in any way you can!

jumping for joy actually

counting stars

violet; 4,988 words; hurt/comfort, fluff, slightly suggestive moments, no "y/n", wlw (duh), self-indulgent to the point of lunacy, lots of kissing, mentions of bodily harm (not self-inflicted), teeth-rotting fluff mostly, popstar!reader x vi au

summary: when vi shows up at your door, what to do but to let her in?

a/n: bc nothing bad is allowed to happen to vi in my fictional world(s). and also im literally cackling ofc the fic that ppl r the least interested in posted first is the one that i post first; i guess i just like to be contrary but also i want to spoil vi and this is the only way i know how

─── Ⅵ SHE SHOWS UP UNANNOUNCED, split lip and bloody knuckles, leaning against your doorframe on a thursday night; you answer the door in your sheer pink nightgown and fluffy slippers, a bottle of rose chilling in a bucket on the table.

“vi?”

“hey princess —” she clears her throat, her smirk going lopsided as she tries to hide a clear wince. a bead of blood seeps out the corner of her mouth as she sucks in a shaky breath, “miss me?”

your lashes flutter with worry as you step aside to let her through — there’s a distinct limp to her gait that she can’t quite hide with her usual swagger.

“what happened?” you ask, letting the door click shut, following half a step behind her as she drags herself into your penthouse flat, letting out a low whistle as she looks around.

“nice place you got here. fits though, pretty castle for a pretty princess —”

“violet…”

you reach out with delicate fingers, taking slow steps forward; she hisses out a breath, her eyes sharp and wild as a wounded lion’s, her mouth a blunt-edged slash as she swallows, gaze flickering between your fingertips and your face as if she’s unsure what you might do.

she winces as you rub a light thumb along her cheek; your finger pulls away red.

“sorry —” the word rips from her at your touch. her eyes drop, her whole body shakes. “i — i didn’t know where else to go — and i — i remembered seeing that stupid 100 questions video you did here for —”

“for the fashion magazine, yeah,” you say, your voice soft as a baby’s breath. your hand lingers, a palm against her cheek. she leans into your touch, the movement small as heartbreak, but just as heavy.

“c’mon, lets get you cleaned up.”

you let your hand trail down her arm till your fingers link, and you lead her to you expansive couch, pressing her down firmly even as she frowns at her grime-covered clothes against your pristine white sofa.

“i’d offer to pay for dry cleaning but —”

you cut her off with a sharp look.

“don’t you dare. and plus, i’ve been meaning to change up the upholstery forever.”

you grab a bottle of vodka from the top shelf and a box of cotton balls, plopping down across from her on the couch in a flurry of pink-colored satin, inching forward till you’re nearly parked in her lap.

vi’s eyebrows hike as you pop the top off the vodka bottle, a grin twitching at her lips.

you roll your eyes.

“it’s not for drinking —” you soak a few cotton balls in the vodka even as vi’s expression falls. you lean in; vi’s hands find their way to bend of your waist, settling there as you daub gingerly at the blotches of drying blood on her face.

“ouch —” vi winces dramatically as you press down on a particularly deep cut, her lips pushing up into a pout, “not even a little bit? might help dull out the pain —”

she cuts off as you swipe a thumb along her bottom lip, breath hitching as you frown slightly, making to tug away for a fresh cotton ball.

“don’t — don’t leave —” her voice comes out harsh, desperate. you still, expression softening impossibly.

“i’m not,” you say, patient. she finds her fingers digging into your hips but you only smile. “i’m not going anywhere. promise. but i do need another cotton ball.”

she worries at her bottom lip, and already, you can see the fresh blood collecting in at the corner of her mouth. you press back into her space, wiping the blood away. her entire body slants towards you, her shoulders tight, her arms flexed, as if she’s bracing for a punch or a kiss.

you nudge her nose with yours, lifting up ever so slightly to press your lips to her forehead.

the dam breaks — all the pieces falling, her head tipping forward onto your shoulder, her hands wrapping around you tight, and then tighter. you feel yourself being hauled into her lap as she buries her face in the crook of your neck, a sound caught halfway between a gasp and a sob wrenching from her throat.

“f-fuck — shit —”

there’s heat to her skin, the roughness of her bandages, fraying at the edges, the worn-in material of her pants, the damp streaks of her hair tickling your cheek. her breath is uneven as it splays out against your collarbones, and when she finally tugs away to wipe at her face with the back of her hand, looking anywhere but at you, her lashes blink away wet.

“sorry — god this must be real sexy, right? mm — fuck —” she sniffles, shaking out her hand, her other one coming up to caress your cheek. her gaze is unfocused even as she skims her fingers over your skin. “god, you’re so soft. it’s like you’re made of — of marshmallows or something —”

you catch her hand with a tiny sigh, letting your gaze flicker over the bloodied bandages before you rub a thumb along an unmarred patch of skin.

“and you can be too. if you ever wanted to learn.”

she goes quiet then, the bravado bleeding from her as you continue your quiet work of cleaning all her varied injuries, disinfecting the cuts and bandaging the bruises. for the most part, she stays quiet, offering up the bloodied parts of herself for your perusal without resistance. it’s only when you shift back or make to tug away for a second that she jerks forward, resolute in her all-consuming need to keep you close.

“there. that’s about as much as i can do right now,” you say, heaving a sigh as you brush away several strands of black-pink hair from her face, letting your thumb skim over the tattoo on her cheek.

“thanks.” her voice comes out slightly hoarse, her eyes cutting away from you for a second before flickering back.

“i’d say it’s nothing but…” you let your thumb trail down the line of her jaw, tracing over her fluttering pulse as you work your slow way down her neck, “i mean —” you let out a soft laugh, hiccupping slightly as she takes the chance to tug you even closer, pressing you to her, chest to chest, so that you have to brace both your palms against her shoulders just to keep steady. neither of you mentions the fact that her arms are shaking.

“it was a bad night,” she says. and it’s all she offers for a few minutes, but you don’t push her, content to rest against her, let her run circles into your skin with her fingers against the small of your back, her breaths evening out till she looks back up at you with a wry grin.

“let me guess,” you say, linking your fingers behind her neck, “you should see the other guy though, right?” you drop your voice in a mocking imitation; it sounds nothing like her but it manages to draw out a laugh, the sound ricocheting between the pair of you like an echo till it dissipates, leaving the air somehow slightly warmer than before.

“yeah. somethin’ like that,” she murmurs, leaning forward to nudge your nose with hers, eyes going dark.

you cup her cheeks and let her kiss you, lips on lips and gasping breaths, till her fingers are inching up the thin material of your night dress, bunching it up, her thumbs tracing the ridges of your ribs, the weight of her body pressing you back into the plush couch, far too big for the pair of you —

“v-vi — wait —” you gasp away from her, fingers tangled in her oil slick hair, her mouth trailing hot and wet down the side of your neck. she makes a grumbling sound, nipping at your collarbones before resting her chin on your sternum, her hands still grazing further and further up your nightgown.

“c’mon princess — you got to play doctor, so now lemme pay you back proper —“

“vi.” the sharpness to your voice jolts her, and a frown creases her forehead as she blinks up at you with her gunpowder eyes, her fingers now still against your skin. you puff out a breath, pushing yourself back up to cup her cheeks, squeezing them slightly between your palms.

“i don’t want you to ‘pay me back’ for anything.”

hurt and confusion chase each other in a butterfly-wing flutter of emotions across her eyes before she pulls back.

“you don’t want this?”

you fight back the urge the roll your eyes as you sigh, reaching out to tug her back, this time, it’s you crowding into her personal space, leaning in to kiss her solidly on the lips. you feel her go soft against you, her hands cupping the ridges of your ribs once more.

“of course i want this,” you murmur against her lips, “but i — i don’t want it as ‘payback’ for anything. i…” your breath catches as vi leans in to nip at your bottom lip, heat pluming up the back of your neck, cresting into your chest as you blink at her, “i want this… if you want to give it. and — and i want it because — because i want you.”

she makes a strange, pitched noise in the back of her throat as she crushes you to her, her mouth slotting over yours so desperately that your teeth clack, but when she pulls back, she’s shaking her head, resting her forehead against yours with a sigh.

“shit princess — you can’t say shit like that and not expect me to lose my fuckin’ mind — fuck —“

you let out a tinkling laugh, fingers now massaging the cords of muscle at the nape of her neck. a shiver runs through her, her lashes a sweep of ink and shadow.

“relax… i’m not going anywhere. promise,” you remind her even as she tips into you once more, a whine working from her throat into yours as her fingers dig into the supple skin of your waist, dragging you down the length of the couch till you’re pinned beneath her thighs.

she pulls away panting, your own chest a staccato rise and fall. but your eyes are steady when she finds them again and you reach up to trace her cheek.

“when’s the last time you’ve had a bath?”

the question catches her off-guard, making her jerk back slightly, a frown ticking down between her brows.

“what?”

you giggle, “a bath. like, a proper one.”

one of her eyebrows kick up, “you sayin’ i smell or something?”

you sigh, yet again fighting the urge to roll your eyes as you push yourself up onto your elbows, your pink nightgown rucked up to your thighs, your hair falling out of the messy bun you’d twisted it up into earlier that evening.

“no,” you let your voice linger on the word, pinning vi with a look, “but you do taste like the inside of a paint can so.”

her eyes narrow but she lets you wiggle out from beneath her, your fingers trailing down her arm to tug her behind you as you lead her into the master bathroom. the light clicks on and vi scoffs.

“wow.”

“pick a bubble-bath, any bubble-bath — my favorite’s the —”

“rose one?” she finishes, lifting up the nearly empty bottle of light pink bubbly water displayed on a white marble shelf full of multi-colored liquids.

you allow yourself a blush as you shrug, twisting on the taps and testing the temperature, drying off your hand before turning back towards her.

“so i know what i like. sue me.”

vi smirks in honest this time, uncapping the bottle and wafting it beneath her nose.

“mm, delicious.”

you don’t miss the licentious lilt to her voice, nor the flicker of dark, hungry light in her eyes.

you turn away, leaning across the vast bathtub to grab a white can.

“if you think that’s delicious — wait till you see the sugar scrub — oh!”

a pair of arms snakes around your middle, pulling you back against abs and a bandaged up chest. vi’s voice is hot by your ear as she noses into the side of your cheek.

“yeah? is it gonna make me taste less like the inside of a paint can?”

“mhm,” you say, letting your free hand rest naturally over both of hers, the other hand dipping into the sugar scrub to swipe a dollop of sticky white crystals onto her nose. she gasps, jerking back for just a second, going slightly cross-eyed before a mischievous expression eclipses her features and she hoists you up into her arms, holding you suspended over the slowly filling bathtub.

“don’t play this game with me, princess — there’s only one way it’ll end.”

you let out a bright peal of laughter that echoes around the soft marble walls, looping both your arms around her neck.

“try me.”

for a second, she makes as if to drop you, but she pulls you back into her chest at the last second, cradling you against her.

“alright princess, let’s see how good this bath is,” she says, her voice soft as she sets you back down on your feet. you lean up to give her a quick peck before taking the rose-scented bubble bath and pouring it into the swirling water.

by the time the tub is filled, the room is filled with a thin gauze of steam, and when you turn, you find vi standing awkwardly behind you, watching with one hand on her opposite elbow, rocking on the balls of her feet.

“in general,” you say, pushing to your feet, “people take baths with their clothes off.”

vi’s cheeks go blotchy, and her eyes skitter about the room.

“what, i’m just supposed to strip here and —”

her words cut off abruptly as you turn your back on her and tug your night gown from your body, stepping into the bubble-filled water, glancing over your shoulder.

“you coming?”

vi nearly trips out of her tight-fitting pants, tugging haphazardly at the bandages wrapped around her torso. when she finally steps into the water opposite you, she drops down with a soft splash, a loud groan rolling from her as her eyes flutter shut.

when she forces them open again, it’s to find you watching her with your round doe eyes, a sweet, knowing smile perched over your very kissable lips. she wonders at the heat in her cheeks, at the way it prickles at her skin, thinks to herself that it must be the steam, must be the hot water currently melting away at the knots that had braided themselves into her muscles the past few weeks, but she when she feels your calf nudging against her’s she can’t help the way her breath skids inside her chest.

“c’mere,” you motion, and vi blinks at you for a second before shifting till you’re face to face, her hovering uncertainly between your legs before you jerk your chin for her to turn around.

the bathtub is more than big enough to fit the both of you, and for a while, a comfortable quiet settles as she leans her back against your chest, your fingers dancing up the length of her arms, trailing warm water along her shoulders, tangling in the rapidly lightening tips of her hair.

the dark dye runs off her, pluming in the water like spilled ink. you steadily work your fingers through her tresses, smoothing out the knots, occasionally letting your nails scrape against her scalp.

“holy fuck that feels nice…”

you smile, washing as much the dye out as you can before rubbing your thumbs into her shoulders, feeling the tightness coiled there like springs. she grunts, shifting beneath your touch.

“y-you don’t have to do this y’know —” she tries to pull away, only to have you click your tongue impatiently and tug her right back.

“lemme know if i’m hurting you, okay?” is the only thing you say as you continue to massage her shoulders.

she softens, letting out a long sigh and a small chuckle.

“you’d have to try real hard to manage that, sweetcheeks.”

you puff out a tiny breath before digging your thumb into a particularly tender knot, her entire body buckling away from you.

“ow!” she twists around, eyes wide, even as you cast her a look that has her turning back again, but not before she flicks a bit of water at you, her other hand resting easy on your knee, bent next to her hip as she leans against you once more.

“this is the first thing they teach you how to do in a brothel,” you say, your voice light as you slowly work the tightness from each of vi’s muscles, applying gentle pressure, using the bubbles as lubricant.

“wait what?” she tries to turn around again, only for you to pinch lightly at one of her loosening knots, tutting.

“stay still and i’ll tell you the story.”

she stills, though her breath is still short, and the hand that had so recently been lolling against your knee is now stiff, her fingers wrapped around your limb as if to brace herself for what you’re about to say next.

“most people don’t know this, but i’m actually from the undercity — all my earliest memories are of the brothel, the girls there braiding my hair, or letting me sit on their vanities, smearing bits of lipstick on my cheeks as rouge. i think my mother must’ve been one of those girls once but… i never knew her. and it didn’t really matter anyway — i think… i was one of the lucky ones. at least i always had water and a hot bath when i wanted it.”

vi’s fingers tighten on your thigh before she lets up her grip, sighing as she presses her back more firmly against you.

“i’m sorry.”

you shrug, shifting a bit of hair from one shoulder to the other as you continue to dig your meticulous fingers into her weary muscles.

“don’t be. like i said, i was one of the lucky ones. but… i always knew that we were living a hard life. sometimes, one of the girls would vanish and… we’d never know where she went. sometimes, a guest would get a bit too rough and —” you let out a tiny laugh, “well i got pretty good at patching up cuts and bruises.”

you flatten your palms against her skin, running them along the expanse of her shoulders before pushing down her arms to squeeze at her firm biceps.

“there. how’s that feel?”

vi sits up, rolling her neck and shoulders with a loud groan.

“damn. that feels amazing but —” her expression softens as she reaches for you, running tender thumbs along the bend of your cheek.

“you — you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to.”

“i know.” you catch her hand in yours, fingers curling in. all around you, perfumed mist hangs light in the air, hazing out the already diffused lighting. “but i want to.”

vi smiles, nodding.

you take another breath. your interlaced fingers sink into the murky water.

“when i turned thirteen, they started teaching me the ropes — massages first —”

“thirteen,” vi’s voice is harsh in the mist-hung room, the syllables cracking as they reverberate against the slick tiles.

you lilt your head, “how old were you when you ran your first job?”

vi stares, her mouth agape, “b-but — that’s — that’s different!”

“is it?”

she sputters for a few more seconds before deflating, shaking her head, tugging her hand from your grasp to splash water into her face, running both hands over her eyes with a groan.

somehow, she could picture it perfectly, you with your sweet smile and darling eyes, running deft fingers over the shoulders and necks of the unnamed girls at babette’s as they talk you through how to press just so, how to lull someone into your lap, and later, into your bed.

“but like i said… i was one of the lucky ones. really, really lucky — because one day, while i was refilling the water and tidying up the rooms, a guest heard me singing and… he offered me a gig topside.” you let yourself sink into the slowly cooling water, your hair flowing in a soft halo around your shoulders.

vi watches you with an inexplicable expression on her face — half-sadness, half-wonder.

“and the rest, well —” you flick a bit of water towards her; she blinks it away before pulling you into her chest, “you know the rest. or, i mean, i don’t know if you watched that entire 100-questions video —”

“i did.”

vi loops her arms around you, hooking her chin over your shoulder.

and once again, the quiet settles around you both, hanging solid in the air like so much dissipating steam.

“all that to say…” you murmur, turning slightly to face her, searching her eyes with your own, “you don’t have to pretend with me. not with me. not when it’s just the two of us.”

you watch her eyes widen ever so slightly, watch as her lips part and she hesitates over the words hanging at the tip of her tongue.

“thanks,” she finally manages, “for… for telling me this.”

you smile, pulling back to reach for the white can, unscrewing the top.

“okay. sugar-scrub time.”

by the time the pair of you leave the bath, the water’s cooled to a tepid chill at best. you offer vi a fluffy towel, wrapping one around yourself as you pad from the room in search for some clean loungewear.

you return with a large t-shirt and some shorts, which vi eyes for a second before pulling on, her cheeks darkening as she sees you watching her.

“quit looking at me like that…” she huffs as you tug on a loose shirt yourself, pulling on a pair of pink, lace-trimmed panties.

“like what? like you deserve to be looked at?” you ask, voice even as you run a towel over your damp hair. vi crinkles her nose, frowning down at her dirty clothes, piled in a lump on your bathroom floor. you shrug.

“leave it. that’s a tomorrow-problem. c’mon, bed-time.”

vi sighs, ruffling at her hair with the white towel, staring at the gray streaks she leaves behind. she glances up to find you standing by the bathroom door, a hand outstretched behind you, waiting.

she licks her lips before tossing the towel over her pile of clothes and reaching out to take your hand.

your bedroom is dark, lit only by the scatter of city lights from beyond your windows. through it, the city is a pulsing maze of tiny lights and spectral towers. you pause, glancing towards the skyline with a sigh.

“it’s a beautiful view,” vi says, coming up to stand behind you, looping an arm around your waist. you lean into her touch, her warmth, turning slightly to find her eyes just as faraway.

“yeah,” you grin, reaching up to touch her cheek, “you are.”

she turns, blinking at you for a second before your words register. she groans even as you laugh, the sound fizzling through her till her skin prickles with warmth and goosepimples.

“c’mon. bed.” she says, and you grin, allowing yourself to be led to your own bed, pulling back the silken covers, slipping beneath and watching as vi inches in next to you, pillowing her cheek on her arm. you angle your body towards hers, letting out a long, steadying breath.

she mirrors you — one breath, then another, then another.

“thanks, princess,” she says, after a few long moments.

you shuffle forward beneath the blankets, reaching out to wrap an arm around her waist. she closes her eyes, bending her head till you’re nose to nose.

“for what?”

vi lets out a puffed laugh, her lashes fluttering open again.

“for… letting me in.”

you press you lips, your eyes searching her’s. and here, in the dim moon-lit night, her eyes shone like twin stars, bright as firelights. you inch just a bit closer, letting your foreheads press as she shifts an arm to slip around your waist as well.

you hook your ankle over hers, shimmying till you’re hip to hip, your bodies arched into each other, bend for bend. she bites down on her lip, if only to stop it from quivering. you graze your hand up her arm to rest on her cheek.

“you know you’re always welcome here.”

vi laughs, the sound strangely watery as she blinks away the hot prickle biting up the back of her throat. it’s been so long since she’s had anywhere to come back to. and here you are, offering it up to her on a gold-gilded platter.

“yeah?” she says, even though her voice shakes and she has to swallow hard over the lump in her throat as she coaxes your chin up, angling your lips towards hers, “careful… i might actually take you up on that.”

“whatever’s mine is —” your breath hitches high as vi tugs you into her, crushing your lips to hers, a thick groan working it’s way through her chest. you taste salt on your tongue, even as she trails her mouth along your jawline to suck a dark, blossoming hickey into the side of your throat.

“— yours.” you finish, spearing your fingers through her hair to pull her back, your eyes soft in the gathering darkness. vi lets out a tiny, pitched whine as she buries her face in your chest, her body curling in on itself. you rock her against you, letting her grapple her fingers into your nightshirt, clutching you to her even as you sooth your palms over her head and neck, shushing her gently.

“fuck, princess…” she says, her voice slightly muffled, “you’re tryna spoil me rotten, huh.”

you smile, letting her pull back just far enough to catch a glimpse of your face.

“well, someone’s gotta do it.”

vi chuckles, the sound rumbling from her chest to yours.

“yeah well… i’m glad you’re the one angling for the job, sweets.”

you hum, letting your eyes fall shut as vi’s grip on you loosens, and the pair of you sink into the liquid warmth of each others bodies.

vi shifts, tucking you deeper into her arms as you content yourself with sighing into her skin, and it’s an almost automatic spin-click of both your bodies, your limbs settling into and against each other, your torsos turning to just the right spot, just the right angles to fit against one another.

you settle, and feel the world settle around you — time itself seems to breathe and slacken, the evening-shaped seconds and minutes ticking each into its own place, like the teeth on a set of cogs, catching one rung into another, spinning one after the other till everything starts to hum into place.

sleep slips its gossamer gauze over your eyes and vi shifts, her lips ghosting your forehead.

“whatever gods up there that put you in my life…” she whispers, her voice tight, you make a soft noise, like a question, or perhaps a confirmation, leaning up to level your faces once more. your eyes open and vi finds her own reflection staring back at her, the shape somehow softened by your gaze, and she wonders, not for the first time, what you see in her, what you’ve always seen in her, that makes you so…

“there’s already a shrine set up for them in the living room,” you murmur, and for a second, vi stares, her own mind quiet for the first time in a long while. you smile sleepily at her confusion, nuzzling her nose with yours, “what, you didn’t know? i’d been thanking them for you since the first day we met.”

vi makes a sound like a hiccup, shaking her head as warmth bubbles through her, a champagne-colored shake-fizzle-pop of emotions welling up behind her eyes, making her head spin.

“well shit —” she grins, tugging you ever closer, “you’re always one step ahead of me, aren’t you princess?”

you hum, carding your fingers through her hair as she settles against you once more.

“mhm,” a tired little yawn, “and maybe tomorrow morning, if you’re feeling up to it —”

“yeah?” vi’s voice is soft, is sweet, is almost reverent as she kisses the skin of your sternum, her lips lingering right beneath your collarbones.

“i could show you some of the other things i picked up at the brothel.”

vi groans, her fingers digging into your hips at the tantalizing thought.

“mm, you mean other than giving people amazing shoulder massages?”

you laugh, and outside, a large neon sign flickers off, tossing the room into a deeper, richer dark.

“yep. but for now…”

“sleep?” vi asks.

you nod, watching as her eyelids flutter shut, and you let yours do the same. your fingers find hers beneath the blankets; your palms press and she gives you a tiny squeeze. you squeeze back and smile.

“sleep.”

---

omfg /pos

my soul to keep ♡ vampire!leon kennedy x virgin!reader

nsfw (18+) - minors. dni or i will call ur mom. and also the cops

word count: 6.4k

tags/warnings: romantic vampire leon, virgin/innocent f!reader, leon turns reader into a vampire, some religious allegory, bloodplay (obviously), gravedigging, some gory descriptions but not a whole lot, one instance of overeating (reader's learning, leave her alone </3), manipulation kinda, praise, fingering, p in v, creampie

description: leon creeps into your village at night for a quick drink, only to find himself infatuated with an angel like you. it's a good thing he possesses the means to preserve you for himself.

a/n: yes this is the vampire leon fic i started like a year ago don't look at me <33 i'm just proud of myself for getting it finished before halloween this year AAAAAAAA

divider by @saradika-graphics !!!!

my masterlist ♡

my ao3 ♡

fic under the cut, thanks so much for reading and i hope u enjoy ;w;

-venus ♡

The last time Leon remembered feeling this alive, well… he was still living, and that was a long time ago. When lonely and undead as long as Leon has been, it can be difficult to show restraint upon first contact with anything that evokes such emotion. 

But he did, for a while. You were just too cute, he thought as he stood over your slumbering body that first night. It wasn’t something he liked to make a habit of, but a light hunting season for him meant starvation through the winter, and he didn’t have much choice but to go wandering into the nearby little village for a quick bite to eat. 

Until he found you. 

You looked like a cherub sleeping there in your plush little bed, buried beneath a quilt he could only assume you made yourself. Precious, fragile. You looked especially fragile. 

And humans are so fragile, he thought. You smelled so sweet, it made his teeth ache just standing there staring at you without acting upon his festering need to sate his appetite, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t want to scare you, or worse, lose control of himself and kill you. 

He wandered silently around your little cottage in hopes of learning more about you. It was tidy but lived in, well-kept in a way that made him think you were probably a good homemaker. Your old leather boots sat by the door, dirtied by years of garden work and general wear. There was a little handmade ceramic candle holder on your bedside table, the candle in it burned nearly down to the base, and he wondered if maybe you’d held onto it because the piece was sentimental to you. Carefully arranged bouquets of flowers were strung together and hung up above the cracked window, likely to dry them out and preserve them. 

And suddenly he realized that maybe he would like to preserve a flower for himself. 

He couldn’t allow himself to feed from anyone in your village that night. If word spread around about a vicious animal attack or some other form of brutality, it would only hinder his ability to ultimately get to you, and he couldn’t risk that. Weak and delirious and ravenously hungry as he was, Leon forced himself to bid you adieu and stalk off into the night, back to his crumbling old castle in the middle of the woods… but not before leaving you a gift. 

His gift. The gift.

Your lips parted in a dreamy sigh as you slept, rolling over onto your back. He admired your face for a moment before he couldn’t take it anymore— if he didn’t leave now, you were going to become dinner, and he couldn’t have that. Hastily, he bit down on the meat of his palm and squeezed, watching as his old crimson blood bubbled up to the surface, and then he held it up over you.

Drip. Right between your rosy, plush lips. Even in your slumber your face scrunched up at the foreign taste, your heavy arm coming up to swipe at yourself like you were just trying to get your hair out of your eyes.

And just like that, he was gone, having taken his leave through the very same open window that gave him the idea. 

He wasn’t a monster, of course. He kept an eye on you as you experienced the very same pain he felt decades ago. 

The next day, you woke up later than usual feeling quite lousy. Your whole body was sore and weighty and, reasonably enough, you chalked it up to poor form while tending your garden the day before. It was an easy mistake to make from time to time, after all. But as the day dragged on, you only felt worse, so you retired to bed right after supper that evening. 

The day after that, you woke up in the early afternoon feeling awful. Your head was screaming with a migraine and your heart was beating slow and hard in your chest. You were sweating and shaking and could barely even open your eyes because the light hurt so bad. A friend stopped in to check on you after noticing how late of a start to the day you were getting, and almost as soon as she stepped in the door, she was rushing back out to the apothecary, begging the village healer to come check on you. 

The village healer loaded you up with tricks and tinctures and anything she could think of to break your fever or at least ease your pain. Dried herbs and poppyseeds and fungus ground up in the mortar and pestle, the paste slathered under your nose, on the bottoms of your feet, steeped into tea that was too hot for you to drink. None of it worked. At a loss for advice to give, the village healer urged you to drink plenty of water and rest, and to quarantine yourself. Couldn’t risk passing whatever you had to the rest of the community. 

You woke up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night and didn’t even have time to throw your quilt aside as you doubled over the side of your bed and vomited. This continued for a few moments until you could barely breathe, tears dripping from your eyes as your face reddened with strain and you inwardly resented yourself, knowing you would have to drag your sick body out of bed to clean up the mess you’d just made. You struck a match and lit the candle at your bedside and hesitantly peered down to survey the damage, only to be met with the image of your beautiful wooden floors drenched in blood. Reaching up to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand yielded the same result. 

As you stared at your own blood in horror, Leon stared at you in adoration from the other side of the window. For a moment your bleary eyes caught on the glass and he wondered if you saw him, but if you did, you didn’t react. 

Even at a distance he could hear your heartbeat continuing to weaken. Soon enough you would be just like him, a beautiful preserved flower, and better yet, you couldn’t be harmed. You wouldn’t change, you wouldn’t grow, you wouldn’t die.

Although your village certainly thought you did. It was a dreary, overcast day when the village healer decided to stop in and check on you, only to find you completely lifeless and splattered with blood where you laid. She had to be the one to break it to your family that you had lost your battle with whatever illness plagued you. Leon watched from the shadows as your father lifted your limp, blood-soaked body from your bed and held you close, sobbing, hesitating to admit to himself that you were gone.

By the end of the afternoon, as the sun went down and the drizzling rain refused to let up, the entire village was standing over your grave, watching you get lowered into the soft, soggy ground. 

Once everyone had paid their respects, Leon watched them all retreat to share a drink in your honor, hushed whispers revealing just how unsettled everyone was by your untimely demise. You were so young, they said, so bright and healthy and undeserving of your fate. They wondered what it meant for themselves, and only Leon knew it didn’t mean anything at all. Your illness wasn’t going to spread because he had what he wanted now, and that was you. 

As soon as the final candle was blown out for the night, Leon took a shovel from your garden and began to dig, the metal piercing easily through the soaked earth until it revealed the handmade box you’d been laid to rest in. He popped the top off and looked at you, your arms still crossed delicately over your chest with a beaded rosary tucked beneath your palms, a pale flower in your hair. Your family didn’t need to know they’d be spending the rest of their lives praying over an empty coffin in the ground. 

Leon scooped you up into his arms, cleaned up after himself and set off into the woods with you clutched to his chest like a princess.

It was a few days before you finally roused. Leon had barely taken his eyes off of you the entire time you slept, and admittedly, he was a bit grateful it had taken you so long, for your own sake. He watched over you and cared for you as the last of your body heat drained out and your fangs descended behind your lips. From what he remembered, that was the most painful part of the transformation, and you were lucky to have slept through the worst of it. 

When your eyes finally shot open, he could barely contain his excitement. In one swift movement you sat up on the couch, bringing one hand up to clutch at your pounding head, the other massaging your sore jaw as your worried eyes darted around the room to drink in your surroundings. Then and only then did your gaze finally land on Leon. 

The fright and confusion on your face were evident. He knew you would have a lot of questions, and he was prepared to answer them. 

“There you are, darling,” he greeted you warmly, the first words he’d ever spoken to you. “How are you feeling?”

"W-Where am I?" You rasped, throat sore and shot from vomiting up blood the other day. Once your new condition fully set in, you would heal, but for now you were still a touch miserable. "Who are you?"

“I’m Leon,” he was gentle in introducing himself, taking your cold, shaking hand in his own so he could brush a polite kiss over your knuckles, “and this is your new home.” 

You blinked slowly at him, brows furrowed as you mulled over what he meant, and you came up short. Tears welled up in your bloodshot eyes and you hesitated for a moment before asking him a question you were afraid to know the answer to; “Am I… Did I die?” 

Leon wasn’t quite sure how to answer that at first. He imagined that question being posed much later in the conversation, so it sort of caught him off guard. He took a breath and then replied gently, “Something like that, yes.” 

“Huh?” 

“Shh, don’t worry,” he whispered, kneeling on the floor beside the couch so he could get on your level, his cold, pale fingers tracing gently over your lifeless skin. “You’re safe, your family is safe, your village is safe. I’m just here to take care of you, my beloved, to guide you in this tricky space between life and death. Do you trust me?” 

Strangely enough, you did-- or, rather, you felt compelled to. 

But that didn’t make the implications of your condition any easier on you. You were such a frightened little lamb, your cheeks hollowing and your eyes glowing like rubies and your skin tone taking on more and more of a pallid quality by the day as you refused to feed. He knew you would have some difficulty with this at first— after all, you were just far too sweet to kill anything— but he also knew you would only become weaker and more agitated if you continued to starve, and perhaps more grim, you would remain stuck in this odd limbo between death and vampirism. 

He tried everything he could think of. You wouldn’t drink animal blood, from the body or in a glass, and you certainly refused human blood in either form too. Every time he broached the topic of sating your hunger you would cower away from him and shake your head, eyes screwed shut as you continued to deny the reality of your situation. Starvation brought forth only misery, that much Leon knew, misery and longing and weakness and worse, everything he didn’t want for you. 

For two weeks you pushed back on the topic, insisting that if you couldn’t truly die, you would rather starve than take the life of another. As much as it pained him to see you this way, Leon appreciated that you could be so stubborn about your morals. He just wished it wouldn’t come at the cost of your own well-being.

He left you at the castle one night to go hunting himself. It wasn’t often he’d stumble into humans in these woods, especially during the winter, but he hoped he would get lucky for himself anyway. Leon burned a few hours stalking through the trees and all he had to show for it when he returned home was a few small animals that wouldn't last him more than two light meals, but it was better than nothing, he thought.

Then he stepped through the creaking castle doors and his nose perked up to the familiar rich scent of human blood-- thick and heady in the air, cloyingly sweet and indulgent. Intoxicated by it for the moment, it didn’t really dawn on him immediately what that meant… until he followed the scent from the foyer to the living room and found you. 

You were on your knees in front of the fireplace, hunched over the writhing body of the village healer, her eyes wide and glassy as she choked out gurgled sounds of agony and clawed weakly at you to let her go. You didn’t even seem to notice Leon as he entered the room, a concerned grimace on his face, though it was accompanied by a tangible sense of relief that you were finally feeding. 

“Sweetheart,” he said lowly, causing you to blink with confusion and look up at him through your lashes, the poor village healer’s carotid still clenched tightly between your teeth. “Easy now, you’ll make yourself sick.” 

Your brows furrowed and you bit down a little bit harder, siphoning out a few final greedy gulps from the woman before dropping her from your grasp, your eyes still trained on Leon as her weak body flopped limply to the floor. His eyes softened with empathy as he looked you over, gore dribbling down your chin and the front of your white dress, your stomach puffy like an engorged tick. Now that you weren’t feeding anymore it would seem you made the same realization he had, the fog of desire clearing in your brain to make room for the shame and discomfort. With a soft whimper, you reached for him with both arms outstretched, but otherwise didn’t move. 

Leon gave you a nod of understanding before scooping you up into his arms, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead as he carried you out of the parlor. “My poor baby,” he sighed softly, “It gets easier, I promise. I’m so proud of you.” 

He ran a hot bath for you and left you to soak for a while as he got to work cleaning up the mess you’d made. The village healer was barely clinging to what remained of her life, and while he was extremely tempted to nurse her back to health and keep her around to continue feeding on, he knew it would hurt you. He could already tell you hated yourself for victimizing her in the first place, the very same woman who’d tried so hard to save your life just weeks ago and who was responsible for ensuring the health of the entire village, which included your friends and family. 

So he mopped up the blood, bottled what he could and wrapped her wounds to the best of his ability before compelling her to forget, dumping her just at the edge of the trees outside the village so someone would find her in the morning.

When he returned again, tired and dirtied from hauling an unconscious woman through the woods on your behalf, you were still relaxing in the tub. The water was tinted pink from all the blood and you still looked a bit swollen in the middle, but the color was returning to your skin and the expression on your face was one of such complete exhaustion that he wasn’t sure if you were actually conscious at first, until your gaze fluttered up to meet his. 

Leon let out a deep, sweet sigh, sitting on the bench beside the porcelain clawfoot bath as he took your hand in his and whispered, “What am I going to do with you, huh?” 

“I-I’m sorry,” you said just as quietly, bottom lip quivering as you continued to drift back down from your blood-induced daze. “I d-didn’t want to h-hurt her…” 

“Shh, shh, I know, darling,” his other hand came forward to pet gently through your wet hair. “She’s going to be alright, I made sure of that. But this can’t happen again, okay? I’ll help you get control of your urges, I promise, but you have to listen to me.” 

You were nodding along as he spoke, clutching his hand and shivering in the hot bath. Even transformed you were still fragile. Leon wanted nothing more than to care for you like the fine china you were.

It was fun watching you learn how to walk, so to speak. You were like a baby deer, taking careful steps and looking back at him for reassurance after each one, like his guidance was all you could think to cling to. While your gingerly approach to things was incredibly endearing, he loved watching you grow to love your new abilities with an innocent sense of excitement that he hadn’t seen in a long time, not in himself or in anyone else, really. 

You’d taken to exploring the rafters and the view of things from the ceiling, leaving the candles in your room unlit all night just so you could bask in how odd and cool it felt to see so well in the dark. It scared the moonlight out of him every time, when he would scour every inch of the castle in search of you just to find you perched criss-cross on the ceiling, lost in a lengthy novel in a pitch black room. 

But he would never scold you, never tell you ‘no.’ In his mind that was a very important lesson for you to learn, one that would open you up to endless possibilities and happiness in an otherwise bleak state of consciousness. 

So, when your small voice chimed in from the parlor ceiling one night and startled him more than he’d like to admit, and you asked him a deceptively simple question– “What now?”-- he knew exactly how he wanted to respond. 

“Indulge,” he said just as simply, sitting calmly down on the chaise lounge to look up at you, hanging from the rafters by your knees. “Let me ask you this. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?”

You took pause, humming in thought for a moment. All your life you were never much of a forward thinker because you didn't really have to be. You lived your little old life moment by moment, taking extra special care to appreciate the here and now. You had good friends, a loving family, a beautiful community, food on your plate and a warm bed to return home to every night. That didn’t leave you wanting for much.

Finally, you spoke shyly, "I guess I always wanted to fall in love."

It was so quiet, if he was still human, he wouldn’t have heard you. But he wasn’t, and he did. The corner of his lip tugged up into an endeared and somewhat amused expression, baring the sharp edge of his right canine. 

Leon adjusted his posture, sinking back into the couch to gaze up at you, trying to pretend like he wasn’t looking between your legs where your upside-down position left your skirt flipped up nearly to your waist. He cleared his throat softly and cooed, “You poor thing, you’ve never loved before?” 

Your face burned and you avoided his eyes, stretching your arms out toward the floor just to give yourself something to do. “N-No,” you began, smoothing your skirt out over your thighs just to watch it ride up again. With a short huff of breath you pulled yourself back up into a normal sitting position on the rafters, staring up at the ceiling. “I guess I just never had the chance.” 

“What, not enough fish in your little pond?” He teased, quirking an eyebrow at you. 

You laughed, appreciating the way he eased the tension, but he wasn’t exactly wrong. “I mean, yeah, the dating pool made for a better puddle.” 

“I figured as much.” 

A comfortable silence blanketed over the parlor, broken only by the gentle crackling of the fireplace. You swung your feet idly back and forth, watching the warm flame as you asked aloud, “So… What does it feel like, then?” 

“What does what feel like?” He responded, but he knew what you meant. He just wanted to hear you say it. 

“Y’know…” You kicked your frilly socked feet, “Love?” 

“Well, sweetheart, that’s quite a broad question,” Leon began, patting the space next to him in an attempt to beckon you down from the rafters, and to his delight, the gesture succeeded. You dropped gracefully to the ground and fixed your skirt before curling up beside him on the other side of the couch, your legs tucked up beneath you. You couldn’t possibly be more adorable if you tried.

As you situated yourself at his side, he continued, “There are many different kinds of love. You love your family, and you love your friends, but you don’t love your family in the same way you love your friends, and vice versa. Correct?"

He watched your expression for a moment to ensure you were following along, and surely enough, you were. Your posture was relaxed but you remained dutifully at attention, just like a good little doll should.

Leon felt a pang of pride when you nodded.

“It’s the same thing, just a different kind of love. I’m not sure I know how to describe it, really,” he said, tracing his fingertips along your knee casually. “But I could show you?” 

“Show me?” Your head tilted with that innocent curiosity he loved so much about you, and his heart melted all over again. “Show me how?” 

He said something lowly and it took you a second to register it because right after, he took your chin in his hand and drew you in for a kiss. Only after your lips collided did your brain recognize his words as, ‘Like this.’ 

With one hand cradling the back of your head and the other still tracing little shapes on your leg, Leon’s embrace felt all-consuming and overwhelmingly safe. Through it all, you really did trust him. Your fangs knocked together as he pulled you closer to deepen the kiss, making your head spin and your brows furrow in concentration. It felt incredible, unlike anything you’d ever experienced before, but the nerves kept you tense and you couldn’t help but fear you were doing a poor job. 

So you let him lead. You resigned yourself to the feeling of his cold lips on your own and his tongue exploring your waiting mouth, his broad hands keeping you pressed against him and feeling slowly up the length of your thigh. His touch made you shiver and tingle in unfamiliar but exhilarating ways and when he eventually pulled away, you were left panting for breath and wanting for more. 

He watched your face in an attempt to gauge how you were feeling, and it was evident you enjoyed it. Leon felt a rush knowing he had effectively just turned a new leaf in your training. 

You had finally learned to walk. Now it was time for you to sprint. 

Leon brushed your hair away from your shoulder, baring your neck to him. He’d waited so long for this moment, for the chance to sink his teeth into you. He wished he could have tasted you fresh, when you were still living, but he would settle for the alternative, and truthfully, it didn't even feel like settling. Especially not when your syrupy sweet blood hit his tongue and pulled a deep, guttural moan from the core of him, his pearlescent eyes rolling back in a display of momentarily mindless rapture. It was unexpectedly hot to see him react to you in such a way. No one had ever expressed such intense need for you, and you were so hung up on it that you barely noticed your thighs subtly shifting together.

But Leon was observant as ever, of course, the movement in no way making it past his keen attention-- you were too precious, too virginal for your own good. He wanted to ruin you, he wanted to tear you apart piece by piece and savor you like holy communion, to pump your undead heart with his own two hands until the end of time, his beautiful baby, his fragile little doll, his corpse bride, his darling and beloved consort.

You were both gasping for breath as he pulled away from your throat, remnants of your tart cherry blood smudged around his pallid lips. Blessed be the gift of undeath, Leon thought to himself, for it granted him the ability to feed from you without consequence-- and vice versa-- to strengthen your bond in the most intimate way imaginable time and time and time again. It still made you dizzy, of course, light and a bit tingly all over, but Leon didn't see that as a bad thing, and as it stood, you didn't seem to either. 

He was just trying to come up with a smooth way to tempt you into tasting his own blood, but found himself pleasantly surprised by your initiative. 

"Can I try?" You practically purred, your sweet voice all hushed and breathy as your dainty little hand crept up his shoulder, palm coming to rest at the leftmost side of his strong neck. 

As you caressed the pad of your thumb over the icy expanse of his skin, you couldn't help but notice the faint, scarred over marks that were dotted about, barely-there dips and craters telling a story that suggested decades of indulgence like this, decades of past lovers, and your heart inexplicably clenched in your chest. Suddenly you were overtaken with the desire to leave your own mark there, much more prominent and recent than any of those faded old others. 

Leon was quick to give you his consent, of course, and that was all it took for your mind to snap into a completely different mode of function. The highest points of your mouth were flooding with saliva and the lowest points were pooling with it, slicking your puffy lips as your tongue fell forward to drag a deep, wanton lick up the length of his cold carotid. Then, as anticipated, you helped yourself to a healthy bite of him. 

And just like that, you had discovered a new infatuation, as he knew you would. You were bonding yourselves to one another in real time, creating a connection that not even true death could break. 

You nearly went weak with how overwhelming it felt, like drinking down pure heaven, hardly even noticing you were moving for a moment as you crawled mindlessly into his lap to straddle him, grinding deep and slow. The pheromones in his sap made your head spin, bringing about the kind of spontaneous sensuality that you'd only ever felt after one too many glasses of mead, the kind that loosened your bones and tinged at your cheeks, the kind that called warmth to bloom at the pit of your stomach. 

The flavor of him was coppery and rich, but balanced, a bit dull from undeath but otherwise magnificent. That it was faint only made you want for more. 

"Easy, easy," Leon grunted quietly in your ear, reaching a hand up to card through your hair at the back of your head. "Don't drink too fast, little princess... just breathe..."

But it would seem you weren't really listening to him, and that needed to change. Thankfully, Leon knew just the way to grasp your attention. 

Letting one arm slip between your two bodies, he wedged his hand down, down, down, until it dipped beneath your skirt to close his palm over the sticky cotton of your panties. That you were already leaking through the fabric like a busted faucet was perfect. You were an absolutely perfect little untouched virgin, and thanks to him, your body would remain that way forever, ripe for his plucking.

Bringing down some pressure on your clit with the base of his palm, testing your reaction, he reveled in the way you whimpered on his throat and unlatched to finally suck in a breath, rutting to meet his attention without a second thought, so easily captivated by such slight stimulation. He couldn't wait to show you more, but he'd need to work you open first. He didn't want your first time to be painful, after all. 

Leon took you at the waist and moved to put you on your back, hovering above your spread out form on the chaise lounge and pinning you there in the most delicate way possible. Every bit of that attention to detail paid off. 

"My precious doll... my most delicate princess," he sighed reverently, stooping low to breathe you in at the neck again, laving his tongue over the bite he'd left just moments ago. "This is what true love feels like, and I wish to share it with you for eternity..." 

He let you ponder that as he continued, working you carefully out of your clothes, finding it cute how you seemed to shift and arch along with him to help him get you naked, like you just couldn't wait. In your pretty doe eyes, your undead life had just begun. 

It was a bit strange at first, feeling his finger sink into you, but it wasn't long before Leon was seeking out your soft spots and doing an excellent job of it, no less. He curled and pumped one finger carefully in you until he was sure you were comfortable, until he felt any remaining tension in your muscles melt away, and then he introduced a second. You were so wet and so absorbed by the feeling of it all that you almost didn't notice at first, but that delicious stretch was impossible to miss. 

"O-Oh," you quivered, head falling back against the plush velvet beneath you as you bucked into his hand. 

With an appreciative hum, Leon allowed himself to become a little less careful with his ministrations, watching your reactions with interest as he worked you open on his fingers, his infatuation with you growing more and more with every moan and whine, every flutter of your silky walls. 

"There you go, little one," he cooed, "you like that, don't you?"

Your response was barely more than an airy nod, but it delighted him anyway. How could it not? You were just too sweet for words, too cute to handle. You could've done or said anything in that moment and he would have adored it all the same. 

Nipping playfully at your throat, fingers still pumping dutifully in and out of your drippy cunt, his lips trailed up to your ear so he could ask in a sultry whisper, "Think you can take more?"

The next several seconds were a blur of impassioned movement, each of you weaving around one another to shed the elder vampire of his own ensemble, revealing his carved marble frame piece-by-piece. You were amazed by the strength in his shoulders, how smooth and soft his skin was from being kept away from the sun for so long, the dark blonde trail of hair that disappeared below his belt, only for its path to be revealed upon the long-awaited removal of his trousers. 

Leon's cock was painfully hard, tip flushed red and weeping with milky beads of precum as he freed himself from his confines at last. He felt the intense need to give it a few strokes with how pent up he was at this point, but he didn't see a point in wasting any time pleasuring himself when you were right there, skirt hiked up to your waist while you laid there panting and leaking your arousal all over his nice furniture. With a pout that pretty, it would be a disservice not to fuck you until you cried. 

He angled your hips with one hand and lined himself up with the other, pushing in slowly. Your expression screwed tight for a short moment as the swollen head of him caught at your hole, an opportune moment of distraction for him to sink in deeper, stretching you out until he hit the root, drawing a shocked cry from your throat that gave way to a pleasured whine just as quickly as it came. 

So he began to move, wanting to draw out that gorgeous sound for as long as you would allow him to hear it. Your cunt was so fucking tight, pulsing and squeezing around his shaft like you were made for it, made for him, delivered to him by fate so that he might just get to fuck you like this forever and ever, and in that moment, he knew he made the right choice in sharing his gift with you. For the first time in recent memory, the future felt bright. 

"L... L-Leon..." You babbled, hooking one leg over his hip for purchase just to find out it allowed him to prod that much deeper. You went boneless at the feeling, finding strength only in your ability to claw at his shoulders for dear life, the faint scent of his blood lingering in the air and making your head spin. "Feels... g-good... so good... don't stop..." 

He wouldn't dream of it. 

Fingertips printing into your thighs, he pulled your legs up to rest over his shoulders instead, driving you down into the soft couch in a firm mating press. You were nose to nose, needy lips catching and fangs clacking between filthy words and gasps for breath as you felt his presence envelope you fully. Leon was in you, on you, around you...

Leon was your home now. Leon was where you laid to rest. 

For the first time in your undead life, you felt your body licking with heat, temperature rising steadily at the pit of you and threatening to hit a fever pitch. Every inch of him lit you up from the inside. 

"Oh, my baby," he groaned, letting go of you with one hand just to swipe his silvery blonde hair away from his face so he could gaze at you like a work of art. "You're getting close, aren't you? Squeezing me so tight like that..."

"Yeah," you whined, even though you weren't fully sure what it even felt like to be close. You weren't dumb, you knew what orgasms were, you'd just never had one yourself, and as such, you had no basis for comparison. 

Leon aimed to fix that, to make damn sure you familiarized yourself with the feeling over the course of your shared eternity. 

His thrusts picked up with renewed vigor, the legs of the old chaise lounge scratching against the hardwood floors with every push forward, and he didn't even care. Everything else about life felt so worthless in comparison to you, the new center of his universe. The whole entire house could collapse and he would still be content, so long as he had you. 

And every time he remembered that he did have you, that you were here with him right now, squirming and rutting on his cock so beautifully, that he was all you had... it just drove him that much crazier, made him that much more determined to make your first time one you would never forget. He couldn't be happier to spend the entire rest of his endless life topping the last performance. 

You were losing your grip, struggling to keep your eyes open and eventually sinking your itching fangs into what you could reach of his throat just to push yourself a little higher, a little closer. The flavor alone made you purr against his skin, jaw clenching tighter, and the delicious sting of it was pushing him forward too. Now his biggest concern wasn't just making sure you came, but making sure that you came first. 

So he withheld, even as his balls drew up tight and ached to release, focusing instead on getting you there. 

"Don't be shy, princess, I've got you," Leon moaned into your ear, "let it happen... just let it happen..." 

Tears pricked at your eyes, the overabundance of stimulation rendering you down into a tearful little puddle, but it wasn't until he spoke up to encourage you that you realized you really were holding back, stalling yourself at the precipice like it was wrong to let go.

But it wasn't wrong. It was divine. It was indulgent.

Sucking back a mouthful of his blood, you unlatched from Leon's neck just to press your forehead against his own, your jaw stuck open in stilted whines and gasps for breath as that molten heat in your belly finally boiled over, and you discovered exactly what it was you were close to. 

Your spine drew up into an arch, toes curling over his shoulders as you came on his length with a cry, thighs trembling with strain. Leon had never been baptized before, but it felt like he was just now. He'd never felt so close to God as he allowed himself to finish deep inside your perfect pussy. 

You collapsed together in the afterglow, the parlor going quiet again as you both caught your breath and your bearings, a heaping pile of mess on velvet.

"Leon," you whispered, kissing some of the excess blood away from his cold skin as you innocently and earnestly admitted, "I... I think I love you." 

He cracked a fond smile at this, if only because he knew you would catch up in time. After all, you still had much to learn, and he didn't want to overwhelm you more than he already had for one evening. 

"I love you too, little one."

---

Arthur never saw himself as someone worthy of love. When he looked into the mirror he saw an old, miserable and pitiful bastard. Self depreciating comments leaving his mouth every time he had to look at his own face.

That’s until you came along. The way you held his face in your hands, almost like it was made of glass. Because it, in a sense, was. You showed him the love he thought he was so undeserving of. And when you brushed your thumb over his sunburned, scarred skin you swear you could see the pain in his eyes. How desperately he wanted to pull away, how he tried to convince himself you need someone who’s better than him. But when your lips brushed against his, call him crazy, he never wanted to let him go.

There were two sides of him, one who pushed you away and one who yearned for your sweet touch. The touch that made him see a future where he’s not six feet underground after a failed robbery. He tried so hard to deny himself the pleasure of your company. But he couldn’t. It was an endless fight within him. But it was alright. Because the way you smiled at him and patted the empty space next to you at the camp made it all go away, even if it was just for the night.

---

what the fuck /pos

I absolutely liveee for Logan realizing he's a dom through taking care of you

It begins small and harmless, as most incoragible things do.

Opening the door for you and leading you in with a hand at the dip of your back, ordering your food for you, playing dress up with you whenever the two of you go shopping, giving you his dog tags to wear.

Things he hadn't really even been that conscious of until it clicked for him one evening while the two of you were getting ready to go out to dinner.

He had come up to you while you were struggling with the clip of your necklace, watching yourself in the mirror.

Wordlessly, he takes over for you. Large hands encompassing yours as he guides your hands the right way until there's a 'click' from the clasp.

"Thank you, Lo," you smile at him as you turn around, moving up onto the balls of your feet to meet him in a soft peck.

He nods into the kiss with a smile, humming before he pulls away to kneel on the floor.

Grabbing your shoe from beside you, he helps to slip it over your socked feet, patting the top of his thigh before guiding you to rest your foot there.

The image alone is enough to make you shiver; Logan tying your shoes for you, running a hand through his tufts of hair before placing a kiss to both knees and tapping the top of your shoe as he stands back up.

"There y'go, kiddo." He slips a hand to the dip of your back, leading the two of you towards the front door.

There was something about the moment that you both registered – maybe unspoken but definitely understood between the two of you.

The second time it happens, the two of you are up late at night in the mansion. Invested in a movie marathon and too far deep in to quit though you both know the sun'll be up sooner than later.

Logan was spooning you on the couch, his back against the couch cushions and an arm thrown over your front, gently running up and down the length of your ribs to your hip through your pajamas.

"Y'okay?" He asks ever so often, stroking his knuckles down the nape of your neck.

You nod with a hum, turning sometimes to give each other a peck.

It's more often than not that kissing Logan innocently turns rather venereal no matter the circumstance but there's a subtle demureness to the air that both of you, drunk off eachother already, seem to abide by.

Logan cups a large calloused hand under your jaw, not squeezing or applying any pressure but simply reminding you of its presence amongst him pulling away to press kisses to the curve of your cheek and jaw.

"Hi, baby." He says softly under his breath, kissing the tip of your nose, smiling warmly when you giggle.

Similarly, it's when the two of you are at the island one night that something comes over Logan that has him pulling you from your chair into his lap.

He slides your food over beside his own before feeding you your food the rest of the night, pressing kisses to your shoulder here and there.

"Taste good?" He asks, stroking his hand down your back softly.

You nod.

"Good."

And so it only makes sense that while you're beneath him, ass pressed into his hips and the girth of his cock stretching you open so deliciously that you're nearly delrious with it, that he presses the palm of his hand to the side of your head, turning you somewhat to meet his eyes.

And Jesus, you're so fucked out you can barely focus on him.

The roll of his hips pulls a broken whine from your swollen lips. Brows furrowing and lips parting at the stretch of it.

Logan keeps himself there, curved over the arch of your back and his hand keeping you steady.

Your hand that's not twisted into his pillow case seeks for him by your side, and he slips his free hand into yours, giving your hand a gentl squeeze.

"Daddys here, baby." He hums, and there's little to no sexual undertone to it – something raw about it in its sensitivity makes you keen because the both of you know it's more than just him fucking you that causes that reaction.

A shiver runs down your spine, lips parted in a silent moan.

"Y'close?" He asks, dropping his hand from the side of your head to the bed.

You nod with a hitched whine, shivering as your walls tighten around the veiny girth of his cock.

"Haa... aaa" you sob into your arm.

Logan coos from behind you, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of your head as you unravel beneath him, "There y'go, kid," his voice muffled somewhat by your hair.

He keeps his hand woven with your own, offering you a sense of stability as he fills you with a soft groan.

There's a gentle quiet that passes over his room as Logan pulls out of you and holds you to his chest. It's the type of quiet that envelopes you and feels like the heat of the sun on your skin on a spring day.

The two of you don't wake up until late the next morning, still wrapped in one another.

---

i’m so glad people seemed to really like my loser!ellie x popular!reader post!!! i may have to write a part 2 mwehehehehe >:3

---

hi!!! don’t forget that even though hbo tlou2 promo might be exciting, the creator (neil druckmann) is a zionist!!!!! PLEASE do not give him any more money. do not watch tlou2 when it comes out. do not fund somebody who openly supports genocide.

the themes in tlou are hugely based on israel vs palestine conflicts. not only are there israeli themes and propaganda in tlou2, but neil druckmann also gets money from the show. do not fund a zionist!!!!!!!!

if you’d like to hear more about neil’s zionism, here are some posts by amazing writers on tumblr!! here and here and here.

one final thing, i’m not here to argue. neil druckmann is a zionist. you should not be funding him. and for the love of god, do not start arguments in the comments. this is not up for debate!! thanks!!!!