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[suchmiracles]

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[suchmiracles]

how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

[wwrench]

In the evening Wrench wraps strips of moose inside broadleaf plantain and garnishes it with chicken mushroom. He presents the foraged tacos to Kurt with a mugful of steeped wintergreen, and looks for a time truly proud. Even on the small plate the helping looks particularly meager, but the quick jaunt into the woods surrounding Jim's cabin has proven profitable and he hesitates to set himself gone for a longer stretch. Wrench knows that Kurt doesn't need him there to hover like a shadow and fawn like a housemaid, but setting himself to a tangible task with a material outcome feels like it gives something to the day. A purpose, perhaps, if such a word can rightfully be used in conjunction with this place.

Wrench thinks that by the time Jim comes around, he can have replenished the stock on most things, save the gin. Maybe he can even add to the stockpile, if he spends a little more time each day up the path toward Lake Tomie. But the cabin has become a space to recuperate and wait. Even when he and Kurt are simply existing in parallel -- watching the television, reading Jim's worn copy of The Art of War, or organizing the cupboards -- the loneliness doesn't feel quite so profound.

Bellies fed, he gestures to Kurt's shirt in indication of the bandages beneath, wanting to check them for their saturation. It's no coincidence that Wrench has remained the same level of dressed since his arrival: thermal long-sleeved shirt, long-sleeved button up, jeans and boots.

[suchmiracles]

As they move through the day, Kurt has to admit to himself that he had not expected the other man to stay. The word had come easily the night before, blurred by soft touches, by grief and pain, but he had put no requirements on it save the immediate ones. As he watches the tall man move around the cabin with increasing confidence, Kurt catches himself wondering if he should remind him that he can leave, if he wants to. But something holds him back -- selfish gratitude, perhaps, or just the look on Wrench's face when he presents him with dinner -- leaving the words unspoken, unwritten.

Kurt spends his time carefully, gripping the coins of his strength close to his chest. His body, he knows, will heal quickly, but not if he continues to push himself past exhaustion. From what little he has learned about the process of returning, he knows that it will be difficult on Logan, and marshals himself to face that challenge. So he forces himself to nap on the couch while Wrench reads, comforted by the presence of the other man.

It's easy, he discovers, to put his trust in Wrench. There's a surety to his movements, the keen interest in his eyes and the concise gestures of his fingers as he guides Kurt through the basics of signing, talking as he works -- cup, table, book, chair, window, tomorrow, yesterday -- that bolsters Kurt's own occasionally wavering conviction. Though they still know relatively little about each other, he doesn't hesitate to put himself, literally, in the man's hands.

Rising from his seat, he tugs off his shirt -- which is actually one of Logan's, loose enough on him to not interfere with his bandages -- and folds it neatly before draping it over the back of the chair.

Better? He asks, a hint of his usual playfulness in the arch of his eyebrows and the curve of his mouth.

[wwrench]

For years now he's been nowhere, and anywhere at all. "Home" is a concept that's left Wrench now, even if his grasp on the fragile sentiment had been tenuous at best all along. He wonders about the company that Kurt keeps here and the company that he's used to keeping. A former priest, a man of great faith, who stands vigil for another with blades in his hands. It relieves him, Wrench realizes, to know how little this man must understand about the company he keeps. He imagines the narrowing of Kurt's golden eyes, the swish-and-flick of his tail turned hostile. He thinks of the words the man might say if he were to learn where Wrench was bound. That the only place he'd been expecting to go was to prison.

The universe must be intolerably indifferent. Who can find reason for a man bound to confinement to find himself now moving about a cozy little wooden shack by the edge of a lake, fishing freely, interacting quietly with men he's been classed too dangerous to live among, and occasionally fighting for his life against horrors from the pages of story books? Somewhere, Wrench hopes that someone is laughing.

Curiosity makes him wish he could see himself through Kurt's eyes, though concern tells him it's better not to wonder. Wrench's evaluating gaze is distracted by the man's signing, and he nips his own smile back before responding in kind. Better. Not the best. The emphasis on the upward movement shows the difference, a reiteration in the concepts of magnitude he'd been playfully teaching as he cooked. How do you feel? Wrench gingerly palpates the area and watches Kurt's shifting expression with a furrowed brow. He gathers fewer supplies tonight, but still motions his intent to change the bandages. This time there's no scalding water, no bite of pure alcohol, and no demanding palm hitching up against internal organs. Wrench is efficient and careful.

[suchmiracles]

Not the best, Kurt repeats back, his grin faltering a little as Wrench's hands move across his abdomen, making him pull in a sharp breath as they find a particularly sore spot. He follows Wrench's fingers, touching the back of his hand lightly to stop him in a couple of places. Still hurts here.

These, too, had been necessary words to learn. Pain, dizziness, nausea, headache. The vocabulary of a patient or, as Kurt prefers to think of himself, a friend in need. He hopes that these words will be least used between them, but the pragmatic part of himself -- which always sounds like Logan in his thoughts -- notes that probably isn't going to happen.

He looks down at Wrench's hands as they pass over him, noting not for the first time the small scars that stretch across his knuckles. They are not the hands of a man who has had a peaceful life. Kurt remembers the way Wrench had gone for his weapon, the first time they'd met, and again when Fern had surprised them. The actions of someone who is used to defending himself, used to being attacked, so much so that he can do it as easily as breathing.

A second chance. Kurt looks up to meet his eyes and wonders what the first one cost him.

The unwound bandages reveal fur that's cleaner than it was and gauze only a little spotted by blood, though Kurt still makes a face of mild disgust at the sight of it all. It reminds him of too many times when he's been laid low and vulnerable, a feeling he doesn't much like.

He shivers a little as Wrench's fingertips move through his fur, and touches the back of his wrist to get his attention.

"Ticklish," he murmurs, accompanying the word with a wriggle of his fingers in the air, a wry smile on his face.

[wwrench]

But better? Wrench finds it easier than expected to tease. The humor of a man who earns his living through such violence would seem quite logically to either fall morbid or nonexistent, but he bites back a knowing grin that conceals some delight at the wisdom inherent in their little game. The teaching holds the reality at a distance, if only for a time. It allows Wrench to unwind bandages and check the temperature of Kurt's skin without thinking what put those punctures there. The kinds of things this word seems bound and determined to turn them into. Instead he feels what it's like to know something, to have and possess it and hold it out like a treasured gift. Wrench watches it land in Kurt's hands and knows the man means to treat it with its due importance.

Your skin is warm, he notes of the space around the injuries. Warm, like the mug of tea meant to settle Kurt's stomach and ease his headache. Warm, like the pan on the stove, or the steam from the shower that morning. A string of associations that build meaning when reiterated. It's good, he thinks. It means that Kurt is healing. Wrench parts the fur between his careful fingers and examines the base of skin directly around the cuts. He's learning from the other man, too. Coming to understand his unique physiology and the benefit of his body. Learning, too, when his own tendencies become too overbearing. Wrench still feels embarrassment for what happened earlier that morning, with Fern.

The fingers on his own draw his gaze upward again, and he shakes his head good-naturedly at Kurt's complaint. I'll be quick, he promises. A swipe of a sterile wipe, the reapplication of more antiseptic, and fresh gauze to the site of the injury. Wrench reaches for the other man and guides his hand into place to hold onto the gauze until he's bound him in, white bandage a shock of contrast against the blue. He checks his work, and steps back to look the man over. Feel O-K? Too tight?

[suchmiracles]

Kurt leaves his hand on his stomach after Wrench releases him, fingertips brushing over the rough fabric of the bandages, his face hidden for a moment under a fall of increasingly unruly dark curls as he looks down at himself. Blue, white, blue, then the soft flannel check of the pyjama pants rescued from the thrift shop and darned into usefulness, mostly in the tail area. He passes his hand across the site where Laura's claws had killed him, for a moment, and wonders if there will be a scar or two. Not that anyone will be able to see it under his fur. Like Logan, he can hide the cost of his bravado. Or his foolishness.

He lifts his head and looks at Wrench, already smiling. O-K, he replies. Thank you.

The gratitude is wholehearted, and though he thinks the words aren't necessarily required every time Wrench does something for him, he says them anyway. Fastening them in his memory, so the gestures become as fluid as a tumbling trick.

Now you. This, he knows, will be trickier. The man hasn't so much as shifted his shirt since arriving, at least not in front of anyone except himself. He doesn't give Wrench room to argue, pointing at his shoulder, where he had touched and felt the other man flinch away when Fern had arrived. You're hurt. Let me see.

[wwrench]

There's no sign to say "you're welcome" in American Sign Language. There's an expression to welcome someone, or to make them feel welcomed in your space. But to excuse someone's gratitude from them takes a different kind of pronouncement. A thumbs-up, perhaps, or a wave of a hand to dismiss the very gesture. Or, in Wrench's case, the same amount of thanks given back. He expresses it no less earnestly, the touch of his fingers under his chin and the extension outward. Thank you, he says in turn. For trusting me, for not turning me out. For seeing in me something more than I feel capable of showing.

Wench means to move away. Perhaps to the table, to clear their mugs or to deal a hand of cards. Or maybe to the couch, where he's left The Art of War opened to chapter nine: the movement of troops through enemy territory. Kurt's hands stop him, and he watches with curiosity as the man shapes the vocabulary he's learned into sentences. The gesture towards himself makes Wrench seize up. He draws back, turning his shoulder protectively away from the other man. As eagerly as he's wanted to help and as quick as he's been to take up the job on Kurt's behalf, he struggles here. Wrench's reflex is still that of a skittish animal, poised to oppose to quick a movement over its own head.

I'm fine, his hands say, but Kurt's finger is still held there, gesturing to his shoulder like he knows better. Wrench pins him in his steady, unblinking gaze for several seconds before finally relenting. He unbuttons the long sleeved shirt and slings it over the back of a near chair. Again at the thermal top he hesitates, but that comes over his head eventually as well. The man underneath the garments is not so broad after all. His skin still holds the color of the sun, radiating a golden warmth save for the places where the scarring has taken hold. There worst of it is centered around his abdomen, where the skin puckers just northeast of his navel. It's a wound that could have only been caused by the entry point of a hollow-tipped bullet. The embedding and expansion still lives there in the hollow. Other spots of scarring are faded -- patches of light across a tan landscape -- but numerous nonetheless. Along his right bicep, one of the newest stretches and is pieced together with a dozen stitches of fishing wire. At his back, near the shoulder Kurt's grasp meant to reassure, another laceration is haphazardly patched.

Wrench watches Kurt watch him, and can only think of one thing to say: It doesn't matter. Tools aren't meant to be revered.

[suchmiracles]

The way Wrench backs up away from Kurt's reaching hand is familiar. Kurt has seen it before, in friends and strangers alike, mutants and humans who have found their way to the care of the X-Men. Heroes who refuse to peel back the layers of their uniform so their friends don't have to see the extent of the bruising rippling around their ribcage; children who cry when asked to show the burns that their new powers have made on their hands. It is the movement of a scared, hurt animal, who fears to be hurt again.

Kurt's heart aches to see it -- aches worse to be the cause of it -- but he steels himself with the necessity and ignores Wrench's attempt at a lie that his face betrays as easily as his hands say it. He glances away, though, as the man begins to undress, turning slightly to the table to arrange and examine the medical supplies. He's no Hank McCoy or Dr. Reyes, but he is a trained field medic -- they all had to be, in those early days, all of Xavier's children -- and deftly sorts through what he judges he needs.

When he turns back, Wrench is undressed, somehow taller and less so without the layers of fabric bulking him out. Kurt's gaze travels over his scars, not hiding the concern and unhappiness in his expression at seeing the man's body so torn about. The cut along his arm looks bad and Kurt almost recognises those stitches -- another unasked question answered by the ghost of the man whose space they inhabit -- and the slice across his back is worse, if only for being so clearly worked on by someone who can't quite see what he's doing.

Wrench's hands rise and fall; Kurt watches him and sighs. "Oh, mein Freund."

He takes a step forward, then brings his right hand to his chest, extending his left to hover near the other man's arm. Not touching, not yet, not without permission. Please.

[wwrench]

Wrench knows what he fears and what he hates when he sees the expression cross the face of his friend. The scars themselves are a fact, and each one tells a story in the long and meandering take of his short but brutal life. It's not the sight of them that turns his stomach or makes him naturally want to fold his arms across a hollow and hungry chest. Wrench doesn't care much about the sight of himself laid bare, except that what he feels Kurt sees when he looks at him is a veil of inability.

He's not sorry for his old scars. The puckered wound he earned being gunned down in the blanket of a snowstorm. The punctures and slices from scuffles won, doubts squashed, and tasks accomplished. But twice now since his arrival he's been patched up by hands he should not have put to the task. The first of those belonged to a man who hadn't asked Wrench to darken his doorstep. The second, worse yet, to a child. He feels the hard knot of disgust moving up from the pit of his belly and settling heavily at the base of his throat. It's his own foolishness that shames him, and the fear he feels in the face of another man's tender pity that tells him he's failing himself.

In service of the other man, he's gone to Kurt easily. Wrench has reached for him without being asked and folded himself into the spaces at his back. He's tended to wounds, fixed meals, and rubbed the man's feet with no hesitation or sense of need for reciprocity. In fact, he's been glad to do it. It's given him the opportunity to feel useful. More than that, to feel as though he belongs to something. To someone even. But now he shivers under the evaluating gaze and measures a step toward the hand that reaches for him.

I'm fine, Wrench insists again. I will be fine.

[suchmiracles]

It's a hard thing for someone like Kurt, who places so much store in making others happy, to have to force his way past barriers of pain and fear when they stand so vulnerable in front of him. His heart tells him to stop and to let go, to accept the easier lies that Wrench offers, to do whatever is needed to make the little space they've created comfortable again. Once, perhaps, he might have done it. Might have allowed the other man to put his shirt back on and cover up those jaggedly healing cuts. But that would have been long ago, before he met Logan and the X-Men, and learned the value of doing what's difficult and necessary. And what it costs you to look away.

No, you're hurt, he insists right back, more complex arguments falling victim to his lack of vocabulary. With a frustrated twitch of his tail, he turns back to the table and takes up the pad and pencil, writing quickly before turning back and presenting it to Wrench:

Do not make me watch you die too.

[wwrench]

So little time has passed, it doesn't seem right that Wrench should forget what it's felt like to need this method. He watches Kurt take up the pencil, and there's enough earnest interest in the tall man's expression that his feet shuffle forward almost involuntarily. He's leaning in to read those words even as his companion is putting them on the page, and when the pad of paper is offered up towards him, Wrench's motion towards it only seems to increase the velocity with which those words hit him squarely in the gut. They lack none of Kurt's sentiment. Static and flat on the page, they still somehow sing with all the earnest force of his plea.

I won't die, Wrench refuses. It's another vocabulary word in their bank. Two flattened hands presented out, one palm-up and the other palm-down. He flips them so the palms face opposite of where they started, like the shovel of a gravedigger turning the soil. Distance closed, Wrench presents himself in front of the man with arms raised gently from his sides in a gesture of uncertain defeat. He doesn't seem put out by the earnest request for his cooperation, but Wrench has the look of someone who scarcely knows what to make of himself, or how to fashion himself into something useful for Kurt. He thinks on it for a moment and finally settles into a chair at the table where they've passed so much of their time, where he can take up the pad of paper and the pencil.

It's blunt distraction, too overt to be anything but. Just a means of soothing himself by ignoring some immediacy. Wrench puts the pencil to the pad and sketches something out:

____
|
|
|
|
|
|
|_______

-- --- --- ----

the glaciers made you and now you're mine - cw: nsfw from the start

[suchmiracles]

In the days after Logan's return, sleep becomes a scarcity for the occupants of the cabin. Though for some it's merely a continuation of a lifetime's habitual wakefulness -- and in one case supplemented by a supernatural amount of stamina -- for Kurt it proves to be something of a test. A light sleeper who has, through the erosion of years, been forced to become someone who can doze through everything from rowdy students thundering past his door to bed partners who have at best a very tenuous grasp on what constitutes "peaceful", he's not unused to a rapidly changing living situation. He's even become somewhat used to waking up to Logan thrashing and snarling beside him, fighting his way through the deep undergrowth of nightmare horrors that Kurt can't even begin to fathom. But between the early fall humidity and the onset of Logan's death flu symptoms, as well as the many adjustments of the three of them getting used to sharing such a small space, even that ability to cope has been challenged.

He falls back on a habit of cat napping (or "elf napping", as Kitty always used to call it), snatching an hour or so at a time stretched out on the couch, often with his head or feet in a warm lap, hands rising and falling against his thighs and stomach in comforting staccato. Once or twice he even resorts to curling up in the sun on the roof of the cabin. It's enough to keep him upright and mostly functional during the day, but he can't deny the longing for a simple night's rest.

So it's with perhaps a little frustration that he finds himself pulled gently out of the drifting, skimming edge of sleep by fingertips drawing gentle channels in the fur of his belly. The air in the room is heavy and close, the bed is almost too warm, sheets rumpled and kicked off onto the floor. Thunder grumbles overhead, accompanied by the steady drumbeat of rain against the roof, occasionally rattling the windows as the wind shifts and changes, as unsettled as the occupants of the small homestead.

Lightning flashes, casting grey shadows into the room as Kurt opens his eyes, thin slices of gold, to look at the man whose hands are now exploring, in long slow circles, the velvet curves of his hips and further down, moving with long-practised patience.

"You're incorrigible," he breathes, the fondness in his tone and the smile on his lips stripping the words of any actual irritation. Not that he's particularly willing to do anything to stop him; the gentle touch has already stirred the embers of desire in him, making him rise into Logan's hand, moving with languid heat through his body. He makes a small soft noise as Logan finds a particularly sensitive spot, letting his eyes close again.

Well, if he isn't going to sleep, he might as well enjoy himself.

with your soft fingers between my claws - cw: nsfw all the way down

[howlett]

He hasn't counted a single night since he first woke up here again that hasn't been interrupted by his own mind. Nightmares old and new invades his sleep. Some so old all the starring players belong to people long since dead and some so new they feature such unfamiliar faces that dissolve from his forebrain the moment he wakes up, leaving him with nothing more than a prophetic feeling and an empty silhouette. Sometimes they wake him up violent. The crack tank gun, the pull of a trigger or the butt of an AK colliding with his brow. Some wake him up silently, and he's glad that he wakes alone when his temples are damp with tears he thought he only dreamed of shedding. This time it was the thunder and his dreams didn't get far enough to startle him awake. Which is for the better, he thinks, when the man currently occupying his bed took a lead role in this one. He doesn't know where it was headed, but he has no desire to find out what kind of misery his mind wanted to put Kurt in the middle of.

He lies awake awhile, watching the rain and the way the lightning exposes the details in the trees for just a moment. It's pretty, but quickly pales in comparison to the somewhat feline fellow stretched across the bed next to him. He positively melts into the shadows between those scattered strobes of light.

At first it was a game. And, he would argue, a far better way to pass the time than counting sheep. The objective is simple. Earn a flickering of that tail without waking the subject. A touch. A breath. A kiss. Anything is fair game. sometimes he watches for it. Sometimes he merely feels that velvet soft spade pat against his leg. In any case, his mission quickly takes a back seat when he realizes he can make the man stir in other ways as well.

"You started it," he mutters the response against Kurt's stomach. Before Kurt can even ask how a sleeping man can be accused of such instigation Logan seems to have answer for that too. "Your tail wanders in your sleep," he says, dragging his thumb along the ridge that divides Kurt's hip from his stomach and biting him softly at the top of his thigh. The fur obscures some of the firm lines of his body. But Logan knows where they are. Knows them by feel.

When Kurt rolls his hips, Logan smiles and breathes a soft warm breath against skin. Pressing the younger man's prick between his palm and Kurt's belly as it comes to life a little faster than Kurt does. "My appetite's coming back," he purrs, hands stretching across Kurt's tight stomach. "And you look good enough to eat."

the sky was dark but you were clear - cw: watch out for voyeurs

[wwrench]

For a man as big as he, Wrench needs remarkably little space. He's well-adapted to fitting his long limbs into the hollows of corners left by others. Ice fishing huts, tents pitched under the boundless expanse of a night's sky, attics and cellars, and once or twice even the narrow backseat of a a rental car. Despite the introduction he gave Jim's headache when he first crawled out of the canopy of trees, he knows how to be quiet too. It takes a considerable effort, and there are times it must be apparent to the two other men who occupy this space how hard he's trying. The way he swallows back his own breath and moves like every footstep is laced with his intentionality is almost comical, but he's trying. Not to shrink himself away or to disappear. Wrench hasn't done much to concern himself with the open invitation he's been handed. But he's fashioned himself with the respectful posture of a man who must hope to be understood as less than he appears, and more than he's been taken for.

It feels wrong to appreciate the quiet of those lingering days when another member of the cabin is suffering, but Wrench finds relief in caretaking like he might never have known. Anything seems better than the Deerington that waits for them beyond the dead-bolted door, but steeping leaves for tea and running cloths under cool water makes him muse over what else his hands are capable of. Wrench has only considered them in two dimensions before: tools of aggression, and weavers of language. Now he finds his energy in watching how they can draw out a smile, or move a grimace towards something more relaxed. He knows he's a fool to hold this place in any sort of regard. It's captured them, tortured them, and now it's made the most impervious among them weak and sick with its illness, but it's still a far cry from the wandering dark of the woods or the creeping realization that a lifetime of captivity is all that's waiting for him elsewhere, too.

Wrench barely sleeps. It comes as no surprise to Kurt, he's sure, and he doubt Jim minds the restlessness that keeps their bed a space of limited occupancy. The hours the two men spend fighting their demons for precious moments of rest, he reads, devises puzzles on the sheets of paper that once contained their written conversations, and stalks the area around the cabin for what he can trap and gather. A few times Wrench has put his mind to cleaning or shuffling cabinets, but a harsh word from the man whose head still pounds quickly put an end to the more enthusiastic of his activities.

He doesn't always keep his distance, though. Sometimes he's overt about it, and once or twice Kurt has stumbled out of bed to find Wrench curled up on the floorboards. Even more often, he takes refuge with them on the sofa and traps them both with his legs or his arms wound around them, refusing to see any protestation. But usually it's enough just to know where they are, to keep them in his easy sights should he look up from a page and find himself wanting in the moonlight. He's drifted on and off a few times already tonight. The change in barometric pressure and the heavy streaks and trembles across the night sky might keep others awake, but to Wrench they're a beckoning lullaby in his chest. When he startles awake for the third time he sits up from the couch, passes a hand over his lips, and turns to peer from the back of the furniture towards the bedroom.

cw: nsfw

[suchmiracles]

It hasn't been easy to see Logan unwell. Not only because of the disruption it brings to the cabin, but also the way it awakens difficult memories, times that Kurt would rather forget. Times when the health of the strongest of the X-Men was not only a personal fear, but the barometer for the safety of their entire species, too many fates resting on those weary shoulders. It brings back most strongly the reminders of those final days before Logan had disappeared for the last time, before they'd all learned that he was gone for good. As it had been then, it's hard to watch him carefully measuring out his strength as if he's feeling every year of his age, suffering through the days and nights, and knowing there's nothing anyone to help.

So when Logan suggests he's feeling better, even as a joke, Kurt is all too eager to seize upon it and hold the gruff words close in his heart. If Deerington has taught him anything, it's that moments like these are meant to be savoured, talismans to grip in the face of whatever's waiting in the future. He's too aware, now, of how quickly it can all be taken away, or changed for good into something warped and strange.

He lets out a long, shivering breath of gratitude and pleasure as Logan digs his fingertips into his fur. He shifts on the bed, lifting his legs up so he can put his knees over Logan's wide shoulders, an easy position for a lifelong gymnast and a familiar one besides. The wandering tail in question slips down between them, the tip of the spade trailing slowly down the muscled curves of Logan's stomach.

"I don't know where you learned these terrible lines, Liebling," he points out, his voice low and soft, "but you had better not stop there."

cw: nsfw

[howlett]

He knows Kurt worries. Even now. It's all in vain he suspects, but you can't talk a man down from his concern for others. Even if you're the other in question. There's some amount of guilt on Logan's shoulders for that too. Beyond the hurt and fear he caused some days ago the helpless he knows Kurt feels now isn't much better. It's hard not to feel some responsibility for that. The way the man seems more tense now. More prone to startle. Doing something to ease the man's tension seems like the least he can do. Especially, if it's not exactly selfless work.

"John Blake school of pick-up artistry..." he mumbles. Maybe Kurt's never met the guy and it won't mean a damn to him. He can't keep track. But his desire to be a wise ass is a mood that's quickly losing ground to more important things now that Kurt's awake and encouraging what he started.

"fuck..." he mumbles appreciative but absently. Eyes so dark Kurt might see little more than his reflection in them when the lightning washes the room. Kurt's legs folded over his shoulders make for a difficult invitation to ignore for even a moment, but he tries, just for the sake of surprise, as long as his willpower will hold out. Kissing that knee at his ear, he moves away instead of forward, until those thighs are wrapped around his ears and his mouth around Kurt's dick. Burying himself between those legs as he draws Kurt in to just enjoy the way the man's stomach flutters there at the end of his nose when pulls him in deeply and lets his hand follow the curve of his ass to work two slicked fingers inside him.

For a long breathless moments he's unrelenting about it. Intent on making his partner twist and squirm until one of them can't take it any more. This time it's Logan. He's been up too long already, fascinating himself with the man next to him to wait much longer when Kurt's so graciously offered up everything he needs. When Logan sits back it's with a heavy pull for the breath he was getting so little of while buried against Kurt.

He kisses one of the leg's still draped over him and leans in to put his lips to Kurt's. Setting his weight forward finally, like he'd been invited to. Leaning into the backs of those strong thighs and rutting himself against the cleft of his ass. "You're ready?" he asks, not a warning, but a courtesy as Logan holds himself between them, working himself to a point of eager wetness that'll help let him in.

cw: nsfw

[wwrench]

The shapes at the back of the cabin are muted in darkness, and for a time Wrench finds himself chasing illusions along the walls. He watches the patches of deep twist and startle under the crack of lightning and imagines a much more elaborate piece of drama acted out by those shadow puppets. It holds more interest to his weary mind than the disconnected drone of words on a page. Here in the cabin everything hums with life and energy, every action held together by a story all its own he'd like to uncover. Not for a moment has he stopped wondering about the two men with whom he shares the offered space: the one with blades buried up his hands, and the one who can make himself disappear in a puff of ozone. Wrench imagines where they came from and how they found one another, what circumstances conspired to bring them together even before this place, and what's changed for them now that they're here together again.

He watches so long as the thoughts drift in and out of his mind that it takes him by surprise when another errant crack of lighting reveals the figures in bed have moved after all. Their steady drift toward one another has not just been the figment of his imagination. It makes him sit up a little more, watching in the pale moonlight as they pull towards one another in darkened suggestions of action. A leg here, an arm there. Wrench feels his breath increase when the storm reveals Kurt's foot lifted high in shadow towards the window. He bites around his own tongue, but soon finds his own hand disappearing between his waist and the back of the couch, fingers dragging down his zipper to give a little more room to what his thoughts are doing to him.

Wrench has known them both individually. Felt the specific weight of both man's hands in his hair and against his hips. The flush of their skin brushing against his own, and the taste of each one in his mouth. Now he imagines them tasting one another. The beckoning of their bodies towards that center point in the middle of the small bed. He feels the tingle of anticipation in his chest, and takes himself in his own hand, easing himself with a gurgle and a sigh as he begins to stroke.

cw: nsfw

[suchmiracles]

Kurt doesn't need to wait for lightning to be able to watch the dip and curve of Logan's shoulders as he settles between his legs. His night vision casts the room in shades of grey and gold from the glow of firelight coming in through the door; he studies with renewed appreciation the shape of Logan's hands on his thighs. Then Logan lowers his mouth onto him and all thought of visual appreciation becomes secondary to the wave of sensation, the hot wet heat on him, the faintest touch of pointed teeth.

Unable as ever to stay still under such attention, he grabs fistfuls of the sheets and curls forward, moaning and rapidly cursing in German as Logan takes him deeper, then arching his back, helpless, as Logan's hand slides down and pushes into him. Instinctively he pushes his thighs further apart, eager to be pinned between fingers and mouth, crossing his ankles behind Logan's shoulders. Logan is as relentless as his codename and holds him there until Kurt is writhing in the sheets, trying to rock his hips but not quite able to get what he's seeking, waves of heat and pleasure shuddering through his body.

When Logan pulls back he's almost at the edge of losing it, only the desire to make things last for as long as he can holding him back. He opens his eyes and looks up Logan, the man's leaning weight bringing his knees almost back to his chest, his mind spinning and dazed, washed clean of the ability to do anything except croak out: "ja, bitte, Logan."

He moans again and sighs as Logan slides into him, shameless and careless, not wanting for anything besides more of this moment. Though, perhaps, not too much at once.

"Slowly," he breathes, somewhere between a request and a command as he reaches up to run his hands through Logan's hair, holding the back of his neck.

cw: nsfw

[howlett]

There's a bittersweet note to every one of Logan's longest lasting relationships. Namely that he's watched his favourite people in the world grow up or grow old faster than him. But when Kurt's whole body twists like that under his touch. When the man lapses into German when he moans, and bows his back and clings to the sheets he's that same incorrigible young man he was the first time Logan held him down like this in some bed at the estate. And rather than mourn the years that have gotten away from them, Logan a swell of joy for all the years he's spent coming to know exactly what makes the man come apart at the seams.

The breathless way Kurt begs him on is almost enough to make him think the younger man wants to finish this. Then that one word changes everything. The hands in his hair and trailing down his neck hold his focus on Kurt's eyes a moment. "Slowly." He growls. It's an agreement and a promise and a mantra with which to steady himself as he presses his weight forward. Slowly means deeply. Deliberately. Intensely. All of which, a man who enjoys his own personal torment could go on doing all night.

His hands slide up between Kurt's back and the bed beneath him. Rocking his hips forward against Kurt's thighs. Pressing in until he can feel the younger man's prick hot and wet between their stomachs and he can't possibly get another closer to the body against him. His substantial weight holds him there a long, languid moment. A moment Logan takes to relish every inch of himself inside him. He opens his eyes to study the subtlest expressions on Kurt's face. Kissing his bottom lip when his mouth opens in a quiet gasp. "slowly..." Logan growls. A gentle threat for Kurt, a reminder for himself.

cw: nsfw

[wwrench]

People talk of figuring it out like the act of self-discovery has been somehow revolutionary. Of coming out, as if the timeline of life and attraction exists in segments before and after. Wrench has always known, and never said. His sense of what it means to be attracted to men has been colored by his observations more than the language anyone has used for these acts or those who undertake them. It's been shaped by the landscape of the places he's gone looking for experiences, and what he's learned about himself and the world in the process. How he's come to understand the certain uses of his own body, and the expectations of others. As with so many things in his life, there's been a lot of watching here too. Peering into darkened corners to catch glimpses at the things no one brings forward with intentionality in conversation. Learning by acting, and by fucking up time and time again.

Tonight, he lets himself fall into those familiar habits. Into the feeling of holding life itself at a distance, and being privy to the way it shapes and forms for others as he drifts along on a quiet breeze. Wrench fascinates himself with the way the two men come to each other, the simple negotiation, and the way they seem to fit with none of the clumsiness of probing another's boundaries. He feels their familiarity and aches for it himself. Feels desperate to pull it in and claim it as his own, transpose himself in their places and feel the embrace of ghosts. He rolls his hips and fucks his own hand, gasping a breath of hot air and tipping his head toward the ceiling where he can imagine himself in both roles at once, giver and recipient. Wrench's own touch makes him grumble, and his long legs rattle the couch as he finds his pacing.

cw: nsfw

[suchmiracles]

There's a teasing, almost torturous element to Logan's restraint that has always been enough to drive Kurt to distraction, even outside of the bedroom. It's a quality that he himself has had to learn, being more used to launching into the center of the ring to tackle whatever wants his attention. But Logan can sit by and wait for as long as he has to, marshalling his silence and his strength for the perfect opportunity. Those who don't know him, who expect him to be a brute and a thug, would perhaps be surprised to learn which of the two of them is more capable of patience. Kurt knows that it amuses Logan to prove people wrong, and especially amuses him to use his skills to make Kurt regret every syllable of his request as he stops moving, deliberately, and rumbles his own words back to him.

Kurt shivers underneath him, a soft pleading noise in his throat, almost a whine, unable to stop himself rolling his hips, chasing more of what he wants and can't have. What he needs and doesn't want. It's part of the game, he knows, like the way they used to play tag in the forest. The hunt, the stalk, the give and take of who gets to win this time and who ends up buying the beer. Still, it's infuriating, and that's why Kurt loves it.

He tugs Logan's head down to return the glancing kiss he received, tasting himself on Logan's tongue, groaning into his mouth when the other man starts moving again. He knows how long this can go on for, how long Logan can hold them both on the edge; the anticipation winds through his limbs, making his hips stutter, his cock sliding against Logan's belly.

Slowly, he'd requested, and Logan seems more than happy to fulfill that. Kurt releases him to fall back against the pillows, wanting room to stretch out and let the building rhythm of their joined bodies roll through every inch of him. He takes a breath and a little of the world outside comes back, the sound of the rain and the scent of the fire in the wood stove, and overlaying that Logan's heavy breathing, his own soft helpless noises, the steady creak of the bed. And another sound, which he recognises, but it takes a moment for him to remember where he heard it. In this bedroom, a different night, shaped by gentle hands and the sharp breathless heat of new discoveries in each other.

Kurt opens his eyes, peering past the curve of his own arm crooked above his head, and sees out in a pool of fire-limned warmth a book discarded, long outflung limbs and the column of Wrench's throat as his hand moves in his lap. For a few heartbeats Kurt just watches him, suspended between the weight and fullness of Logan moving inside him and the long silent wood-walled distance between himself and Wrench. The thrill of knowing that Wrench has been able to see them this entire time, that he's been driven to slake his own need through witnessing theirs, sends a spark of redoubled desire shivering down Kurt's spine.

"Lo.. Logan," he breathes, lifting his head to kiss his partner's neck, licking the salt of sweat from his skin, "we.. ahh.. we have an audience."

cw: nsfw

[howlett]

That give and take of control and restraint, tension and relief, desperation and satisfaction is what Logan craves about these moments. No matter how urgent or slow it is, the push and pull they wrestle one another though demands as much from their bodies as it does from their minds. Logan's version of slow can border on tantric. Languid and meditative, he moves against Kurt in a way that luxuriates in everything the younger man gives him. His forehead fallen to feel the plush of Kurt's chest. His open palms feeling for the way his back flexes. His focus fighting for all of those slight sensations above and beyond the singularly encompassing feeling of Kurt's body around him. It all puts the instinctual and intellectual into such stark relief in a way that few things do. In a way that makes him feel more uniquely human than almost anything else he knows.

He's certain he can feel when Kurt is lost in it too. And when he's trying to postpone that sensation that threatens to drown them by relaxing himself. Pulling in a breath of cool air not heated by the body of the other man. Logan tries to relax with him. Pulling back from the void that they stumble towards when they start writhing against each other with every muscle taut.

He slows to a lazy rocking. Holding himself up with his palms against the mattress to give Kurt enough room to breathe.

"I know..." he the words rolls from his chest on a growl, but he gives no indication of how long he's been aware and either unperturbed, or perhaps emboldened by their onlooker. "You're not shy, are you?" even the way his lips curl to ask proves Logan already knows the answer to the question he goads him with.

"Do you want him to watch?" he asks instead. Sitting up on his knees he kisses that leg draped over his shoulder and his hand make an admiring pass over Kurt's stomach. "Or do you want him to touch?"

birthday morning

[wwrench]

Since his return in the late hours of Halloween night, Wes has ambled around the cabin like a shell of his former self. Thanks for that is owed one part to the common symptoms of the Deerington death flu, and one part to the creeping realization that what he does not know about his life and history is not a matter of fact. Virtually everyone in the cabin realizes something about Wes that he doesn't know for himself, and it is being kept from him with intentionality.

For all of which he is uncertain, there are certain things he could never forget. Kurt's birthday, of course, is chief among them. Some deep part of Wes feels a familiarity in disregarding those dates entirely, but the stronger voice reminds him of how important it is. How every moment here exists without guarantee, and sharing any of these special dates with any of them is a real gift.

Besides, Kurt deserves to be celebrated. He is the glue that binds so many of them so strongly. Kurt Wagner means so much to so many, and gives of himself near-constantly. Wes feels drawn more than ever to show him that nothing this town might throw at them could diminish his love for his partner.

He has the money and the means, but tangible gifts have had no place in the man's life. It's hard to think of what to provide outside of necessity. So he gives of himself instead. That feels familiar. It seems to fit with a history Wes can't quite recall, and a sentiment inherent in the cabin.

The morning of Kurt's birthday, he is already waiting in the bathroom. The countertop has been assembled with a few combs -- some with deeper teeth and others with bristles glistening -- as well as some bottles, a set of clippers, hot towels, and a steaming bowl of water. Wes smiles like he's been caught in the act of something far more shameful.

I thought you might want me to help brush you.

[suchmiracles]

Over the years, Kurt has had little reason to make a conscious effort to avoid his birthday. The work of the X-Men is seemingly never done, and he can often count on being busy enough fighting for his life or the lives of his friends, being bounced around various dimensions or just up to his pointed ears in teaching duties to keep his mind off the auspicious date.

It's not that he minds aging, specifically -- though he's still not entirely sure he wants to think too much about whether that particular mark of humanity will even be available to him, the child of a shapeshifter and a seemingly immortal ruler of the underworld -- but the fact that his birthday has frequently been the lodestone which has drawn bad luck and worse down on his head and those of his loved ones. Margali and her schemes are a long way behind him now, but he can't get past the habit of avoidance, or at least a certain amount of wilful ignorance.

When the day comes, he finds himself in a contemplative mood, already stacking tasks ahead of himself. He greets the dawn out in the forest, working himself hard through his usual exercise routine that's as meditative as it is essential, until the burn of the cold air has settled deep into his muscles. Returning to the cabin, he heads towards the bathroom already pulling his sweat-damp t-shirt off over his head, then blinks in surprise when he finds Wes waiting for him.

His gaze takes in the assembled items and the slightly sheepish smile from his partner and feels, suddenly, both foolish and immeasurably grateful. An answering smile wreaths his expression, letting his love for the man in front of him show in his face. In some ways it's still something he's getting used to, having the uniqueness of his body not just tolerated but appreciated, admired, longed for. To be reminded of that, to be offered without question a space where he's cared for, salves an old ache that he hadn't realised was tugging at him.

I would like that, he replies, without hesitation, dropping his shirt onto the floor and stepping in to the warm oakmoss and leather scented space around the taller man. The yoga pants that Wes himself gifted him last Christmas are the only thing he has on as he sways into him close enough to brush his hands against his chest when he continues. I love having your hands on me.