Maybe Not, by Glacis. Rated NC17, no copyright infringement intended. Spoilers for X Men United. Sequel to Maybe.

Walking through the halls, hearing the cheerful voices of the children and the lower, calmer voices of the adults, one would never know that only a year ago the school had been a shell, wrecked with bullet marks and shattered glass and splintered wood.

And blood.

Mustn’t forget the blood.

On this bright Spring morning the polished floors and polished paneling gleamed, the windows sparkled, the paint was crisp and fresh on the walls. The shadow of their past could still be seen in the haunted eyes of the children, but then most of them had been hunted long before they came to the school. The most recent attack might have hit hardest because it came to them in a place of safety, invaded their haven, and left them frightened, off-balance for months. For the most part they were back to normal, though. Kids were resilient.

Scott wasn’t so sure about the adults. Knew for a fact he wasn’t normal, even what passed for normal for him. The days were a parody of normalcy with great gaping blank spaces in them. The nights…

The nights were his own haven. His own form of unreality. The only thing that got him through the hell of his days with any balance at all.

Logan was a more integral part of the school than Scott ever thought he’d be. Much more integral part of his life than Scott ever expected. At times that realization still shocked him.

Not when he woke up in the morning with Logan’s arms wrapped around him, a leg tossed over his hips, bristly face buried in the back of Scott’s neck. Not even when he walked into his room, saw the bed where Jean should be still sitting there empty, and turned away to go to Logan’s bed. Every night, through the quiet corridors. Every night, for a year.

No, the shock came in the middle of the night, when Scott reached out, and found broad shoulders and heavy muscles and the smell of leather instead of soft skin and softer hair and the scent of irises clinging to the sheets. Scott would freeze, Logan would twitch and settle around him, gathering him up and holding him close. Until the warmth Logan threw off thawed Scott out again, and he remembered where he was, and why.

In the morning, Logan would look at him, and Scott would kiss him, and they wouldn’t say a word.

Charles knew, of course. Charles knew everything that happened in that house. He didn’t mention it, but he told Scott it would be all right. There was a knowledge in Charles’ eyes that Scott didn’t share, and he didn’t ask. Maybe Charles was right.

Maybe not.

The older kids still looked at him with pity in their eyes, particularly Bobby and Marie. Scott had to force himself to stay open, not clam up and shut them out. Hard work, but worth it, as the two youngest members of the X Men were turning out to be a great advantage to the team. The younger kids didn’t really understand, and treated him exactly as they had before, and that was the only other thing keeping him close to sane.

Scott made it through his classes that day, wondering if somehow his students could see it. A brand of black across his soul. A year to the day, and Storm had wanted a memorial, but Scott thought that was morbid.

His grief was his own. Theirs, they could share, if they wanted. No one could have his. No one could understand it.

Except Logan.

So when they gathered in the garden after dinner, and the clouds rolled in, and the temperature dropped, and Kurt muttered prayers under his breath while Charles spoke poetry, Scott very quietly walked away.

Walked back into the mansion. Went to their bedroom, packed his clothes and his spare visor and his shaving kit, walked out of their bedroom. Closed the door. Narrowed the beam from his eyes to a fine laser, and melted the lock.

Logan was waiting for him. Scott leaned his duffel bag against the wall and looked at him. Bright blue eyes stared at and through him, then Logan strode forward. Picked up the bag, tossed it into the corner on the far side of the bed, then reached over and wrapped his hand around the back of Scott’s neck.

Like fire against his skin. The imprint of those long fingers pulling him close, the burn of coarse hair against his cheek, the softness of the lips opening his own. All things Scott associated with Logan, and only Logan; all things that scrubbed the pain and the past away until there was only the heat and the present.

Scott’s hands buried themselves in Logan’s hair, as he returned the kiss and took it a step further, angling his head until the gentleness gave way to fierce hunger. Logan growled, deep in his throat, and Scott moaned in response as he felt his shirt give way under Logan’s hands. Friction burned at the side of his neck as the material was ripped away.

He moaned again as Logan’s tongue left his mouth to travel along his jaw to sooth the reddened skin. Scott tried to return the favor but his hands were shaking too badly to catch hold of Logan’s shirt. Teeth sank into the muscle at the juncture of his shoulder and neck, and Scott whimpered.

“Fuck,” Logan muttered against his skin, “so fuckin’ good,” as he unbuckled Scott’s belt, lowered the zip on the fine woolen trousers, “love the way you taste,” as his hands shoved Scott’s boxers down his thighs, leaving skin bare to the cool air and the heat of his mouth. Down over Scott’s shoulder, rubbing his whiskers against Scott’s chest until the skin was flushed and reddened. Stopping for a little while to nip the line of muscle, the softer flesh of nipple, to pull at the fine hair, and all Scott could do was bunch his hands in Logan’s shirt and hang on.

Every day he chose his armor, his button-down shirts and heavy cardigans and visor, the shell that covered what was left of the man. Only with Logan did that shell ever crack; only with Logan did Scott let himself bleed out from the mask of Cyclops. So strange, that only with Logan did Scott allow himself to be himself.

There was power in being half naked, his shirt hanging in shreds baring his chest, his pants and shorts pooling around his feet, as Logan mapped and marked him, still fully dressed, the rasp of denim and brush of cotton as erotic as the bruising hands and the biting teeth. There was power in surrender, a power he didn’t dare touch outside this room. He only trusted Logan with this. Maybe this is what Jean intended when she left them to one another.

Maybe not.

But it was what he had, and it was more than he’d ever expected to have, when he lost everything.

Just as Logan had.

Scott’s breath hitched and he choked, trying to say yes, trying not to scream as he came in Logan’s mouth, bucked against Logan’s hand, fingers buried inside him, as his knees gave out. Logan caught him, as Logan always did, and Scott tugged Logan’s head up until they could kiss.

He tasted like salt. Like Scott, and like tears. He always did. A constant in an insane world.

He lifted Scott to the bed, still half-tangled in the remnants of his clothing, not bothering to strip him off the rest of the way. Without a sound he climbed up behind Scott, turning him onto his side, rubbing his hand from Scott’s shoulder to his hip. Logan needed this, Scott knew, as much as Scott did. A year ago Scott had lost his anchor, his best friend, his love.

Logan lost his hope. And Logan hadn’t had much to begin with. Yet another thing they now shared.

Heat licked along Scott’s spine as Logan curled behind him, shifting his left leg forward until Logan could push inside. Relaxed from orgasm and emotional exhaustion, Scott lay there and let him, hands limp on the covers, face turned into the pillow. He breathed in as Logan withdrew, exhaled as Logan thrust in, the rhythm echoing his heart rate. Slowly, then faster, and harder, and deeper, until Logan made a noise like a dying man and shoved hard into Scott.

Liquid heat within him, matching the solid heat around him. Harsh panting breath against his back, arms oddly gentle around his chest, heavy body a welcome blanket of warmth seeping into Scott. He hadn’t gotten hard again as Logan fucked him, not completely, but his nerves were singing and he wasn’t finished yet.

Lifting Logan’s hand to his face, Scott rubbed the back against his cheek, fingers weaving together. This wasn’t something they’d done, and perhaps this would be the line Logan wouldn’t cross, but Scott needed this. Touch, connection, not the usual suck and fuck and hold him together as he fell apart that they’d been doing all year.

Scott shifted until Logan’s softened cock slipped from him, then slowly turned in Logan’s arms. He took his time, giving Logan every chance to say no, every opportunity to shut him down and turn away.

He didn’t.

He lay quiescent, eyes tracking Scott’s movements with the innate wariness of a wild animal tempered by the unexpected gentleness he usually only showed to the children.

And to Scott.

But only in bed.

At the first brush of Scott’s hand against his cheek, Logan shivered. “Cyke?” He sounded uncertain. Scott smiled. “You’re not… there’s no light comin’ out of your visor. You okay?”

Scott’s smile muted. “Maybe not,” he admitted. He traced the line of springy hair up to Logan’s temple, then back down again, fingertips mapping out the wide brow, the arch of bone and softness of lid, the flutter of lashes. A stroke down the length of nose to the dip above the upper lip, then along the slope to the corner of his mouth, around the curve of chin and up the jawbone to end where he began.

“Whatcha doin’?” Logan asked tentatively.

“Looking at you,” Scott answered very softly. Beneath his fingertips he felt a dimple appear beside Logan’s mouth.

“Guess ya don’t need these then, eh?”

A hand rose and an instant later his visor was gone. A clunk of metal on wood told him Logan had put it on the side table, in easy reach. It was Scott’s turn to freeze.

“It’s okay, kid,” Logan told him, calloused fingers raising to cup Scott’s chin in turn, before Scott felt a kiss whispered over each closed eyelid. “I trust ya.”

And he did. That was one of the miracles of the last year.

That, and the fact that Scott had survived it.

As had Logan.

Swallowing hard, Scott leaned forward, nuzzling the side of Logan’s neck, then running both hands through the thick hair covering the banded muscles on the wide chest beneath him. He took his time exploring, learning Logan in a way he’d never done in all the time they’d taken together. Fingertips discovered the depth of softness to skin that couldn’t scar, the tensile strength of muscles over adamantium over bone, the burning heat of him that Scott soaked up like a man dying of cold.

Not so far from the truth, really.

Scott worked his way down tensed arms to splayed hands, fingers ghosting over the long line under the skin that would be claws when extended. Logan’s skin shuddered under his touch but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t tell him to stop.

His self-control was incredible. Scott envied him that. He didn’t envy the years of torture, the barely broken wall separating Logan from his memories, the anger that simmered just under the surface, or the pain… he had enough pain of his own, and his strength wasn’t the kind Logan embodied. But he envied the way Logan kept it tied down, used it to fuel him without letting it destroy him.

Scott had a feeling if he ever gave his own anger full rein, it would tear him to pieces. So he channeled it into the moment, the way Jean had taught him, using his body as his eyes and letting his emotions flow out of him. Replacing the loss and the heartache and the endless mental circles with the immediate sensation of hair-roughened skin on sturdy thighs, the roundness of a knee and the hard edge of shin, the arch of foot and the ropy muscle of a calf beneath his hands.

Logan was panting again, hard again, hands fisted in the sheets and claws snicking out an inch into the mattress and retracting again, like some sort of huge jungle cat kneading the linens. Scott wandered back up Logan’s body as slowly as he’d moved down, until he stopped, straddling Logan’s hips, hands sweeping along Logan’s collarbones, until his thumbs met in the indentation at the base of Logan’s throat.

The pulse beat strongly there, thundering under his hand. Scott leaned down and kissed Logan, lips exploring as hands had, mapping the drawn-together brows, the lips pulled back in a grimace, the sweat beading under his jaw.

Reaching behind him with one hand, Scott caught Logan’s cock and steadied it. A startled “Son of a bitch!” broke from Logan as Scott sat back on him, breaking the kiss to arch back and sink all the way down with one long smooth stroke. Scott tried to laugh, but didn’t have the breath.

Instead, he moaned, nestling his ass into the cradle of Logan’s groin, until the stretch eased and left only the heat behind. Then he rocked, up a few inches, down all the way, up again, and down, setting a rhythm that left them both hungry. Logan was whimpering now, another new development, and Scott decided he liked it.

Dropping one hand to his own erection, the other down to roam over Logan’s chest, pinching a nipple, tugging at fur, stroking the heaving line of ribs as Logan gasped for breathe, Scott stroked himself in time with every shifting movement. Too soon, it wasn’t enough, had to move faster. Had to stroke harder, had to hold on tighter. Found himself slamming his body against Logan’s, fucking himself deeper and deeper, until nothing existed but the heat and the darkness and the pain and the sweat and the mind-blowing pleasure surging through his body.

“Fuck!” Logan snarled, spitting it between clenched teeth until it barely sounded like a word, and Scott pushed down as hard as he could as Logan bucked beneath him, nearly throwing him off.

The combination of strength and helplessness, the feel of Logan trembling beneath him, the swelling cock inside him and the scalding heat dripping back out of him undid Scott. His hand clenched around his cock and he spasmed, humping into his hand, back down on Logan, milking the last of the sensation from them both.

All the tension drained from him, his muscles giving out, as Scott collapsed atop Logan, burying his face against Logan’s neck, arms falling limply around the broad, shaking shoulders. He heard a nearly-silent snick as the claws retracted then Logan’s arms wrapped around him. Holding him close. Nuzzling his hair. Keeping his together.

He felt Logan relax beneath him, and moments later heard a soft snore. He couldn’t help but smile, and if there was more contentment than sadness in it for once, he didn’t notice. The only thing he knew was for once, he didn’t feel like he had the weight of the world on his heart. Scott inhaled deeply, sweat and musk and Logan surrounding him, as he drifted off to sleep.

He’d thought his life had ended a year ago that day.

Maybe not.

END