PALIMPSEST.

(James will leave him, like Logan did. Victor can't stop it). And it makes him all the more possessive.

"Ain't you sweet," Victor growls. They'll sing a different tune one day, everyone always does.

Victor paws at James' chest, an idle gesture. Claws scraping but so light as to do nothing more than draw thin, almost feather light lines along the sculpted ribs and abdominal of James'. Pretty marks to make James his. His attention is taken by the feel of James' hand, cupping his jaw and even pricking thumb on fang. It's such a tender touch that Victor turns his head into it, like a cat does leaning into a good scratch. The noise that comes out of him is a grumbled grunt, a suppressed purr he strangles in his own throat. It's so gentle and easy, fills Victor with a wholly new longing that makes his chest ache. Immediately, he's eager to avoid and escape, unable to trust that it's real. So, he catches James by the wrist and nips at the meat of his palm, then licks between calloused fingers. Victor slips the tips into his mouth, lips stretching over knuckles. Savoring the salt, catching James eyes before working his way down wrist and arm, mouth languishing wet attention to every scrap of skin.

Until Victor reaches his prize, the crux of shoulder and throat where James' scent bundles. He grabs their jaw, grip firm, to lift their chin and give access to their throat, biting, sucking, licking the skin molted pinks and reds. His, his, his. Victor's lips are slick with spit when he kisses James, arm braced on the floor beside their head. There's a scrape of teeth and then, something in Victor softens, and everything is hot and wet and tastes like James. His tongue is in James mouth and he rocks into the space between his legs, his weight bearing down on the smaller man. So, he can feel the friction points between them. Victor's shirt and jeans, the bulge of James' boxers. He moans soft, almost needy.

the last time they'd done this willingly had been with dmitri, one of their zephyrs, who only mingled about their memory in watercolor strokes now. he wasn't quite as big as victor, but bordered on his impressive stature, and he'd been so gentle, so reverent with the winter soldier, despite how his hands could meet near the smallest point of their waist and remind them of their frail humanity. even as victor closes a hand about their windpipe, they don't struggle or startle, trusting that the grip wont tighten and sever their flow of blood and oxygen. their confidence is well placed: instead, james is awarded with a needy expression of desire, bites and laps that brush a near tawdry pink across the span of their jugular. the colors will bloom into a sunset of red and purple before they heal over, but at least victor's ministrations will remain evident for longer than mere moments.

Sometimes, Clint wondered if he wasn't so much a lover to Bucky as a living sex toy, like one of those lifelike vinyl doll-boyfriends sold out of the back of lingerie shops he could simply get his jollies on and then shove back in a cedar chest so nobody knew the twisted ways he liked to get himself off. He knew, deep down, there was no way Bucky could love him -- who the fuck could love Clint Barton, almost as famous as Tony Stark for his ill luck in romantic entanglements. He certainly belonged to an exclusive club of 'lovers who'd tried to kill him', but Clint often mused that Bucky ought to get it over with already and just save them both the hassle. Because Bucky never came to him unless he wanted something, unless he had some craving that needed satisfaction.

And God help him, Clint could never say no.

Case in point: he'd just been minding his own business. Working out in the late night hours, when he could tune his hearing aids to his phone to listen to some music and focus on his routine. Had just finished up a set on the rowing machine and was in the locker room, debating between finishing with a run around the grounds or a few laps in the pool, when a hand crept around his middle and dove straight down his pants. He'd flailed for a moment, trying to tap the settings over on his hearing aids, because he could feel Bucky's voice where his lips were pressed against the back of his neck, but couldn't understand the words. When he finally succeeded in tuning them back in to reality, two and two -- the hand down his pants and the supple words -- came together as easily as he found himself pushed against the lockers.

Pinned, Bucky's hips against his own, both their pants hitched down and the assassin's hand -- flesh, never metal -- gently stroking over both hardened cocks.

It's impossible to overstate how far Dane has come. It wasn't long ago that he couldn't even accept his own sexuality. Now look at him, encouraging his boyfriend to put on a borderline slutty skirt so they can have a night on the town.

Lucas can understand that Bucky doesn't like to be prodded and checked. He doesn't like it as well, and he knows better than impose in his motions, although he grunts his annoyance whenever his partner flinches away.

"Big words coming from someone who's bleeding like that..." he mumbles, reaching for the bandana around his neck to fashion some kind of bandage for Bucky. It will have to do until someone more skilled in field medicine can patch him up.

' what, i don't look hot? ' it's just a joke, a sordid brand of humor typically employed by known jokesters among their colleagues--a red-and-purple hawkeye, nursing a busted nostril and a litany of smart remarks, or the disjointed thought streams that poured out of deadpool's gnarled mouth. bucky doesn't have it in him to tote around his baggage behind walls of ironic humor, always serious--

A discontent rumble rolled through Victor; the slight vibrations of a growl as his hands reflexively flexed, and his claws unsheathed. Black crescents, mean and sharp. Pa used to cut 'em off at the knuckle and the scrutiny scratches at an old scab, that's never quite healed for Victor. But he learned to be good for these kind of inspections. Roll over, show his belly, earn his little bit of affection.

So, he lets James.

a soft intake of air follows victor's grumbled promise, somewhere between amusement and elation, a sickness that slumbered in them longing for a bit of pain. yet, their inquisition ends, turning his hand over instead to affectionately smooth their natal fingers across the knob of his wrist, the sturdy oak of his digits. ' i wanted to see what muscle controls them. ' their interest had been purely academic, yet not so pressing they would've harmed him.

For all his untamed, animalistic tendencies, Logan was still human, capable of controlling his baser instincts. And often this was how he went about his days; he didn't devolve to a ravening, slavering beast unless the situation absolutely called for it. To protect his people he'd unleash the beast, bathe in the blood of anyone who would dare threaten those he cared about and the life they'd built. The violence was the hardest to contain, though; others he could simply ignore, for the most part. He ate red meat because he could pick it up from the grocery store, there was no need to hunt down his own meals unless it was for fun.

His sex drive, he could stifle almost entirely. A randy old beast wasn't the kind of role model those young mutants needed around.

Except now, he had Bucky. Rarely did Logan meet someone with as insatiable lust, who seemed to always be ready, willing, and eager when Logan showed the slightest interest. Who didn't mind if he loosened the leash he kept on himself now and then…

Who'd spent an entire day teasing him and was now getting exactly what he wanted.