grammarwoman: (Default)
[personal profile] grammarwoman
Title: ...who needs anemones
Author: [livejournal.com profile] grammarwoman
Rating: NC-17
Fandom, Pairing: Dark Angel, Logan/Alec/Max
Word Count: 2750

Summary: Sometimes the stinging was worth it when it felt like coming home.

Author's Notes: This was written for [livejournal.com profile] oxoniensis's Fall Fandom Free-For-All for [livejournal.com profile] amory_vain. She requested "Logan/Alec/Max, wherein Alec angsts that he's just a tool for them, a way for them to be close despite the virus. Points if Alec has (hinted at or otherwise) unrequited feelings for Logan." Hope this works for you. Additional notes after the story. If you're curious, the title is a convoluted stretch from the phrase "With friends like these..."


...who needs anemones

Alec sauntered up to Max's door, did a quick check of his breath, and shoved his usual misgivings about The Arrangement into the mental box labeled "Shit to deal with later." (He'd created the box early on at Manticore, trying to make sense of the day-to-day outrageousness that everyone else seemed to accept without a qualm. He wondered sometimes if Ben had never hit upon the same idea, and that's why he went off the deep end. Other times he worried that one day the box would overflow, and he'd have to beg Max to put him down, too.) He knocked, a picture of casual disdain.

The door whipped open. Max grabbed his jacket and yanked him inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

He chuckled. "Got your signal, Max. Who's on the menu tonight?"

Max took a quick glance at Logan, sitting on the bed against the far wall. He nodded. She spun Alec around and shoved him towards the bed.

"OK, no foreplay, understood. Do I at least get the floor show?" Alec pouted, puppy-dog eyes on full display.

"Shut up, Alec, and wait your damned turn," Max growled. He backed away with his hands up, still all smiles, still good old Alec, ready to play.

Logan stood up, his eyes locked on Max. He pulled a vibrator out of his pocket and tossed it to her. She snatched it out of the air. "I even managed to scrounge up some batteries for it," he said. "Hope they're good."

Max flicked the switch and it thrummed to life. "Let's party." She turned it off and set it on the loveseat beside her.

Alec could smell her arousal even before she started stripping off her clothes, all hot musk and wet velvet. (He'd smirked at her once that he could tell she had feline DNA, because when she got all revved up, she stank like a cat in heat. She decked him and flounced off. He didn't tell her he thought it smelled good. After all, Manticore left nothing to chance.)

Logan mirrored her disrobing, piece for piece: shirt, pants, shoes, socks. They paused when they were just down to underwear, Max's nipples tight and hard through her tank, Logan's erection trying to lift through the front of his boxers. Alec could pick up Logan's scent now, too: pure male human lust. (He never let Logan know he could smell him even through his clothes, or how it went straight to his dick.)

Watching the two of them lost in each other, Alec knew better than to say anything, but gave in anyway. (The careful act of being Alec meant only, always, and obviously being it in for himself, fully aware he'd piss people off. Even when he craved their approval.) "Don't mind me, guys, I'll just be over here when you need me."

Two hands rose simultaneously and flipped him the bird, and their voices chorused, "Shut UP, Alec!"

He mimed an exaggerated zipping of his lips and turned to take off his own clothes. Not that they would notice, anyway, but he'd hate for them to see how carefully he had to undo his pants, his dick already hard and pressing painfully against the button fly. (Alec went commando, because it was impractical and arrogant and exactly what people expected of him. It didn't hurt that it cut down on the size of his pile of dirty laundry.) He settled on the bed fully naked, idly stroking himself as if he were just catching up.

Max and Logan were still down to one layer each, but Max was running her hands over her breasts, lifting and squeezing them, pinching and rolling her nipples through the cloth into engorged peaks. Logan reached over his head and pulled off his shirt with one hand, tossing it behind him. It landed near Alec, sending off a concentrated aroma of warm skin. Alec gripped the base of his cock to fight off an early release.

Max's face lit up with a slow, sultry smile. She grasped the bottom of her tank and lifted it up, each lingering inch revealing more smooth skin and tantalizing curves (such a contrast to Max herself, all sharp words and hard edges). She stopped when she reached just underneath her breasts, suddenly wary, still leery of exposure. (No one told Max that she gave herself away every time she looked at Logan when he couldn’t see her, hunger and longing written across her face.)

“Max,” Logan breathed, hands twitching with the obvious urge to take over, to touch, to feel for himself.

Max took a brief step back, shaking her head in warning even as she finished removing her shirt. She dropped it and kicked it in back of her. (Another unfortunate legacy of her feline ancestry: even her dander carried the virus, so Logan couldn’t touch her clothes until they’d been sterilized. Manticore’s technology sucked both coming and going.)

She swung her legs over the loveseat and perched on the top, splaying her legs wide to Logan. She put two fingers to her swollen lips (bee-stung, Joshua’s trashy romance novels called them, because “built for blow-jobs” wasn’t flowery enough, but every man who looked at her pictured those lips stretched around his cock) and slid them into her mouth. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked on her fingers. Logan let loose a soft moan.

Her mouth let go with a sudden pop, and she trailed her nails down her belly and into her panties. Alec turned his face away, but he could still see the outline of her hand pressed up against the fabric as she slipped those fingers into herself, sliding in and out, a thumbnail flicking against her clit.

“God, Max,” Logan groaned. His hands clenched at his sides, straining to keep still.

“Talk to me, Logan. Tell me what you would do if you could touch me.” Max’s strong musk was filling the room. Alec could hear her breathing speeding up, matching the pace of her strokes.

Logan’s voice barely rose above a growl as he spoke of lips and teeth, tongues licking and circling, fingers rubbing and filling. Alec closed his eyes and tried to shape Logan’s words into a seduction for his ears alone, straining to pick out Logan’s scent. (He wished that easygoing, anything-for-a-laugh Alec could get away with grabbing Logan’s shirt, but that would come too close to being sentimental. Everybody knew that Alec didn’t have feelings, not like that. It was why Max and Logan had approached him in the first place: no worries about Alec getting attached or weird. Alec was fine on his own, preferred it that way. Just ask anyone.)

Max came with a stifled cry and slid down to the seat, panting and grinning. “Damn, boy, you’ve been practicing.”

“Don’t want you getting bored,” Logan rasped.

“Looks more like you’re stiff as a board,” teased Max. “Ready, Alec?”

Alec took a moment to pull on his amiable face and turned back towards them. “Sure thing, boss. Anytime, anywhere.”

Logan smiled at Max. “What would you like?”

Max thought a moment. “Well, as long as you got me this shiny toy to play with…” She caressed her fingers along the vibrator. “I think we should get to fucking.”

Alec nodded, all loose and nonchalant. “Right. You brought the stuff?”

Logan pointed at the bedside table. “In the drawer. You need any, ah, help?”

“Nah, I got it.” Alec leaned over and retrieved the goods. Like many other luxury products in post-Pulse Seattle, condoms and lube were harder to find, not to mention expensive. The bottle was half-full; the wrapper was creased but still intact. He held out the condom to Logan, tucked back into his palm, so Logan had to nearly shake his hand to retrieve it. (And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss, whispered a stray voice in his head. He shoved the thought into the box.)

Logan paused and lifted a curious eyebrow. “You’re sure you’re good with this?”

“Alec is always good for this, Logan,” replied Max. “Can we please get on to gettin' it on?”

“Of course,” said Logan. “Just keep your pants on. No, wait, strike that -- get your pants off.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Max skimmed out of her panties and dumped them behind her. “Next!”

Logan shoved his thumbs into his waistband and eased the boxers over his cock. It sprang free with a merry bob.

Alec realized he’d been staring when they both looked at him expectantly. “Oh, right, sorry. Just give me a minute. Talk amongst yourselves.”

They rolled their eyes and shifted their attention back to each other. “Let’s see you fire that thing up, Max,” said Logan.

“Gladly,” she purred, switching on the vibrator and running it across her body.

Alec rolled over onto his knees. He squirted a careful glop of the lube on his fingers and reached back to loosen himself up, sliding first one finger, then two, into his hole. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Logan slowly fisting his cock as Max teased her nipples with the vibrator. His own cock regained an interest in the proceedings, and he rammed home a third finger. He tensed and rocked against his hand, testing the give. It was time.

“Ready, guys!” He wiped his hand on the edge of the blanket.

Max wrinkled her nose. “Nice, Alec. Real classy.”

He shrugged and flopped over the edge of the bed. “Thought you wanted me for my ass, not my class. I can leave any time.”

Logan dropped a hand on Alec’s shoulder and squeezed. “Stay, please. Don’t mind her.”

It took some effort, but he kept his face neutral and nodded. “Never have, never will.” (He wanted to rub his cheek against that hand, roll and trap Logan beneath him, get all of his attention for once. But that wasn’t The Arrangement.)

Alec leaned over and grabbed the frame under the twin mattress, pulling his knees up under him and spreading his legs. They’d learned after that first time, when Alec nearly sprained Logan’s ribs gripping him with his legs, that fucking face-to-face just wasn’t a good idea with the risk of aggravating Logan’s spinal injuries. (Alec had almost blown it, worriedly running his hands over Logan as he grimaced in pain. Max had nearly thrown Alec across the room when she pushed him aside before she remembered and backed away. Alec slunk off and found himself an abandoned car to demolish with his bare hands. Later, nobody questioned his raw knuckles and bruises. Nobody even noticed.)

They’d found, too, that if he wasn’t concentrating and holding on to something else, he could do almost as much damage just thrusting backwards with his arms. Bed frames were a good compromise. (It was common knowledge that Alec really enjoyed sex, so Max and Logan never questioned his response, that maybe he could have controlled himself better. It was nice when Alec’s reputation worked for him for a change.)

Once Alec was securely in place, Logan knelt beside him and ran a hand over his back. “Are we good?”

“Yup,” answered Alec. (In his head, he shivered under the touch and resisted arching up.)

“Last chance to switch, Max,” said Logan.

“And miss out on this brand new toy? I’d much rather have the front row seat.” Max dragged the vibrator between her legs, her hips shifting as she hit the good spots.

Relieved, Alec breathed an internal sigh. He’d been resistant to the idea of having sex with Max that first time he’d met her in her cell with the expectation of breeding her. Manticore never knew how thoroughly the conditioning took, that the X series were his family, his brothers and sisters. You didn’t fuck your sisters. You especially didn’t knock them up to bring more monsters into the world. But orders were orders, and he was a master of pretense and seduction.

He’d been glad when she’d turned him down, though perhaps a little disappointed that his charm and training had failed for the first time. Once he’d left the confines of the compound and gotten to know Max as the prickly, independent woman who’d shaken off her Manticore conditioning and forced him to start making his own choices (even when she hated what he chose), she didn’t feel so much like a sister, or even an annoying distant relative, but of all things, a friend.

When Max and Logan first approached him with their idea of surrogate sex, he’d agreed. They’d thought it was out of boredom, but really he couldn’t shake his sympathy for Max and how thoroughly she’d been screwed by forces beyond her control. He hadn’t expected as he kept playing their game that he’d actually start enjoying himself beyond the basic satisfaction of semi-regular sex. To him, it didn't matter who he was fucking, or being fucked by, being with Max one night and Logan the next. But seeing the brief but fierce elation on Max’s face, helping her achieve a weird kind of intimacy with Logan, felt almost as good as getting off. And when he found himself actually responding to Logan…He was Alec, master of pretense, attached to nobody but himself, and no one would ever be the wiser.

Max continued, “We could always kick him out and make it a private performance.”

“It would be a shame to waste this prep, don’t you think?” Alec, propped up on his elbows as he held on, shifted his head back in the general direction of his ass.

“Terrible,” said Logan, his mouth quirking into a grin. He tore open the condom wrapper and rolled it over his cock.

“Hm,” Max answered, lingering over her clit. Her eyes fluttered. “Then get to it.” She shot Logan a challenging stare.

He walked over behind Alec, running his hands under Alec’s hips and angling them upward. “Ready?” he asked.

Alec pushed back. “Yes.”

Max positioned the vibrator directly between her legs. “Yes, dammit!”

“Bring us on home, Max.”

When she slid the vibrator in with one smooth thrust, Logan slowly worked himself into Alec’s ass, clutching at his hips until he was all the way in, balls resting against his skin. “Ah,” he groaned.

“Mm,” echoed Max. “Logan.”

He withdrew and rocked back in, setting up a steady pace. Max matched him with regular strokes, moaning and panting as she got closer to the edge.

In his head, Alec recalled weapon assembly instructions, tactical maneuvers, anything to distract him from how good Logan felt fucking him, shoving in and out. He subtly adjusted the angle, until he felt Logan stroking right over his prostate. He backed off slightly, listening for Max to hit her fever pitch, for Logan to forget himself and dig in with his nails. Just as Max began her keening wails, biting her lip to muffle the noise, Alec canted his hips and reached back a hand to grasp himself, fucking through his fist as Logan bore down on him. He felt his orgasm rip through him, his hole clenching around Logan’s cock. Logan gasped and thrust a couple more times, then collapsed on top of Alec. Alec lowered them gently and eased his cramped fingers off the frame.

Max looked absolutely wrecked, all sweaty and flushed. Alec could feel Logan on top of him struggling to regain his breath.

“Was it good for you?” slurred Max. Alec thought about flashing her a thumbs-up, but decided it would take too much effort. He concentrated on enjoying the sensation of of Logan weighting him down.

All too soon, Logan recovered and rolled off him, removing the condom and disposing of it in the trash. “Can I give you a hand up, buddy?” he asked Alec.

“Just give me a minute, and I’ll be out of here.” Alec pushed himself off the bed and started assembling his clothes. He ducked into the bathroom to swipe himself with a washcloth and get dressed.

When he emerged, Max had brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, smiling up at Logan. He beamed right back at her. Alec waited as long as he could in the doorway, then coughed. “Pleasure doing business with you guys. Be seeing you.” He waved as he walked by them on his way out of the room, but paused with his hand on the doorknob. They hadn’t moved or even looked his way.

“Later,” he mumbled and left. They knew where to find him. Good-time Alec was always around, and if he got lonely, well, there was always the box in his head to keep him company.




Author's Further Notes: No sooner than I got my McShep Happyfic entry posted that I realized I still owed an entry for [livejournal.com profile] oxoniensis's challenge. Evidently my muse was all revved up and ready to go, as I got this written in about 4 hours yesterday (hopefully, the lack of beta isn't too obvious). I think all the porn that was supposed to go into the other story got channeled into this instead. It may even set a new record for being the filthiest thing I've posted.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.

(no subject)

Date: 2008-11-06 03:43 pm (UTC)
ext_1720: two kittens with a heart between them (Default)
From: [identity profile] ladycat777.livejournal.com
Oh, nice. I really, really love Alec and all his complexities and contradictions and you do a good job of bring out the pluses and minuses of those, how he's exactly who he says he is, and isn't, too.

Plus, my god hot. HOT HOT HOT.

Awesome :)

(no subject)

Date: 2008-11-06 07:14 pm (UTC)
ext_42244: 27 times [freaks and geeks] (Default)
From: [identity profile] amory-vain.livejournal.com
Oh, you are my hero. This is amazing! I love your description of the facade Alec keeps up, how the little details like not wearing underwear all go into that image he projects.
Great job. Thank you!! <3
Page generated Jul. 29th, 2025 11:57 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios