Written for comment_fic on livejournal.
"You with your ass in the air."
"My hand over your mouth so I don't have to listen to you talk."
"You actually going a month without needing Eyes Only to be rescued by a brave and impressively endowed young hero."
Alec gave Logan a different answer every time. But the guy kept asking, and Alec could see that his answers were starting to trouble Logan. The affection-diguised-as-exasperation was slowly shifting to something less ... stable.
Alec wasn't Max. He had been there longer, he had been trained to use his body - and mind - for others. It was difficult still to be with Logan - to really and wholly be there.
But making someone come, making someone moan, even making someone emotionally bond -- these were easy. He was trained to be attuned. He was beyond good at reading his partner's desires, the scent of his partner's pheremones, the little motions or trembles that the aroused invariably give you, unknowingly confessing the things they didn't even consciously know they wanted. Alec could respond to these better than any in his series, and due to his talent, he was made to practice to the point of near perfection. And soon, there was no Alec in the room during sex. The partner's desire would encompass him, loud and bright and drowning everything else out.
But Alec tried to make it different with Logan. He had to concentrate, though, had to put every ounce of himself in the moment, in order to cling to his own desire, his own sensations, his own needs. Hardest thing he ever did.
Logan assumed he was concentrating so intently to please Logan. As if Alec didn't know every trigger point on Logan's body like a virtuoso knows his strings.
But he couldn't exactly tell Logan, "Sorry, dude, I have to try really hard to enjoy sex. As me, anyway. I still kind of have trouble telling you and me apart during sex. Because I'm a damaged mutant whore who probably shouldn't be allowed to mate at all. So I have no idea yet what makes me happy besides you and the general principle of friction, m'kay?"
So he thought of new answers to Logan's question.
"You in a wig. Have you considered being a redhead ever?"
"Beer. Lots and lots of beer. And you wearing liederhosen when you serve it to me."
"A dungeon. Rich dudes all have dungeons, right? They can't really have a whole closet just for linen."
But with every half-smile from Logan, Alec could perceive the doubt that lingered behind it. Doubt about him. And Alec knew that it was only a matter time before this was another thing that Manticore ruined, another thing that he would lose because he's too stupidly fucked up to live like a human being. He just hoped the sarcasm and evasion would give him more time, time enough to figure out the damn answer to that question that Logan wouldn't stop asking.