Cecelia Reyes, the mansion's resident doctor, had offered Teva a sedative after getting her squared away. She'd turned it down, not wanting to give up that much of her lucidity. Painkillers were a different story; ibuprofen wasn't going to cut it.
Xavier came down to check on her and their newest residents.
The three girls had apparently decided that Teva was their savior, if the way they clustered around her was any indication. They'd been wary of anyone else until she'd told them it was okay.
The eldest was Rosie, an eleven-year-old telepath with telekinesis who had manifested recently. She'd been kidnapped off the street on her way home from school. She was unsure how her abductors had even know she was a mutant and they'd never revealed the reason. They'd effectively tortured her to find out she had younger twin sisters.
The man hurting her had been very excited to find this out and began talking about testing them, too, seeing just how much of the X gene was hereditary. One day she'd woken up to find her sisters there and she hated herself for giving up that information.
The man had forced them to manifest, Rosie wasn't sure how or why. Sara and Cara were six years old and telepaths, too, and they spoke very little, choosing to communicate almost exclusively through telepathy or mere gestures. They seemed to have regressed because of what had been done to them to trigger their mutations.
Teva found herself in tears once she'd been released. The girls had been sedated so that they could rest more easily, though they fought it until Teva promised they were safe and she'd come see them in the morning. The thought of what had been done to them made her angry, rage boiling up inside and she knew for once how Logan felt, at least partially.
She'd promised him, too, that she'd come see him after, but she needed a shower first. Her clothing ended up in the trashcan, either ripped and bloody beyond saving.
For a long moment she stared at herself in the mirror, counted the bruises left by the bullets the body armor had caught. They stood out starkly, purple splotches on her pale skin.
Once she was in the shower, though, everything came crashing down the way it hadn't on the way home. The frustration of trying to wash the blood and ash out of her hair with only one fully-functioning arm left her choking on tears, shoulders shaking as she leaned against the wall of the shower and quietly fell apart.
She didn't hear him come in but she wasn't startled when he gathered her in, deft fingers working conditioner through the tangles in her hair and then rinsing it out.
The only thing she had the energy left for was to lean against him and let him wash the rest of the dried blood off her skin. She moved on autopilot, zoned enough by the painkillers that by the time she came back to herself, he'd wrapped her in a towel and carried her to her bed.
"Y'okay?" he murmured. He sat behind her, holding her up while he toweled her hair dry.
Teva breathed in shakily but nodded. "Aye, just…"
"Yeah."
She appreciated the relative silence, the lack of need for words she'd always felt with him, at least until he finished with the towel and began gathering her hair back.
"I did'nae expect you to ken how to plait hair," she said with a soft laugh.
"I'm just fulla surprises," he said, reaching for a hair elastic she'd left on her nightstand to secure the braid. "Y'need sleep, Tev, we can talk in the mornin'."
She turned to catch his hand. "Don't-"
"I ain't goin' anywhere," he said. "Didn't think you'd wanna be alone tonight."
"No."
He watched her for a long moment. "Y'want some clothes, or…?"
"Genuinely dinnae care, Logan, just… Please." She hated how plaintive she sounded.
Finally he nodded, shifting her so he could pull the blankets down and help her get comfortable. He took the damp towels back into the bathroom before he climbed into bed behind her.
Teva didn't realize she was trembling until Logan pulled her in against his chest, murmuring something to her in what she thought was Japanese. Whatever it was, it helped, as did his fingers twining with hers, giving her something to ground herself with between that contact and his body solid and warm at her back.
Instead of falling asleep, though, she was restless, mind and body unable to settle.
She felt Logan shift and then he was kissing her shoulder, his arm tightening around her.
"Logan?"
"You're projecting," he said, murmuring it against her skin. "I'd ask if you want me to stop but-"
She cut him off by turning as much as she could and kissing him. He moved so she could lay on her back, his hand cupping her jaw, growling into her mouth when her fingers sank into his hair and pulled.
"Listen, are you sure?" He pressed her down for a moment, forcing eye contact. "You're still drugged, I can feel it. Ain't worried about you regrettin' anything, just wanna be sure you're with me."
Teva blinked, surprised to find tears welling up.
"Darlin'-"
"Logan." Her short nails dug in along his scalp and she savored the way it made him shudder, a low growl rumbling in his chest that was felt more than heard. "I'm here, I want - no, I need this. I need you. We keep going round and round but earlier it felt like we finally stopped. We finally saw each other."
She felt his acceptance a moment before he leaned down and kissed her again.
He startled a gasp out of her when his teeth nipped just under her ear, a low chuckle following when she tilted her head in a silent request for more.
"Startin' to think you like pain," he said, reaching down to pinch one of her nipples, increasing the pressure when she whimpered.
"Like I said before," she breathed out, "only thing is that I bruise eas- ah!" She cried out as his hand clamped down on her thigh and he hauled her closer, ending with her in his lap straddling his legs. His hands gripped her ass, made her moan and rock her hips when she felt his cock pressed between them.
Teva shuddered and reached out to dig her fingers into his shoulders, hissing when he fisted his hand around her braid and kissed her, teeth catching her lower lip before demanding entrance. His stubble was a rasp against her chin that was probably going to hurt later but right now it was another thing to make her feel instead of think, keep her from dwelling on what had happened.
With his mouth next to her ear, he murmured, "I can smell you, darlin', how much you want this." He nipped her again. "An' I can feel it, it's leakin' out over the link, like you just can't control it."
"That's because I cannae, ye bastard. Fuck," she hissed when his mouth found her shoulder and sucked a strawberry mark there, teeth leaving faint indents. "I cannae hold on to it, not like this, not with you… pushing so hard at it."
Logan laughed, low and rough. "Oh, is that what I'm doin'? Am I makin' it hard for you?" He emphasized that with a thrust of his hips.
Teva choked out a laugh, rising on her knees until the head of his cock pressed into her just slightly.
He used his hand around her braid to stop her, his grip tightening and making her whine. "Uh-uh, baby."
She groaned in frustration, teeth gritted. " Logan." She felt tears pricking her eyes again. "I'm not kidding, I cannae hang onto it much longer, it's… slippery."
"Then stop hangin' on." The next kiss was strangely gentle, his hand now cradling her head instead of gripping her hair. "It's gonna happen, may as well be now. Let me inside, all the way."
She hesitated for a moment, meeting his eyes long enough to see the truth instead of just feeling it.
"Let go."
She bit her lip when she sank down onto him, whimpering at the slight ache of him stretching her, and that last little bit was enough to make her lose the fight in insulating the link.
It burst up between and then over them, an electric wave that made Logan jerk and thrust up as far as he could. His hand on her hip left bruises.
Teva cried out, her hand smacking the wall behind the bed and then bracing there, shuddering when Logan dragged his hand down her spine.
"Fuck, that's it," he said, pressing against her lower back as he rocked against her. "Talk to me, darlin'."
~I cannae~ she said, realizing belatedly she hadn't said that out loud, and his response in kind felt like he'd reached into her and touched every nerve ending she had, that low chuckle of his that made his chest rumble when he did it for real.
It took her a few moments to center herself, pulling back just enough that she could keep herself mostly separate. When she opened her eyes she found him watching her intently.
She still didn't have words so she began moving instead, slowly riding him, focusing on the feeling of him inside her. He was thick enough it wasn't easy, and she'd been celibate long enough that his abrupt thrust had left her aching, but in a good way.
With the link solidified she kept slipping into his mind, experiencing it from his perspective. It left her shaking and breathless when his strong hands cradled her hips and he took over the motion, fucking her slowly, unhurried. Each catch and drag of his cock inside her pulled a whimper from her, a drawn-out, wrecked little sound from the back of her throat.
Logan pulled her closer, kissing her jaw and then her neck, moving down until he met the curve of her left shoulder where he'd already left a bruise. He bit her there gently, barely enough to leave a mark, but what he wanted was clear as day to her.
Teva's left hand slipped between them, fingers finding and working her clit to get the friction she needed. Otherwise she let him have control, fatigue creeping up on her.
His arm came up across her back to hold her still, keeping up the slow pace in a way that told her he could keep that up for hours.
"I gotcha," he said a moment before he kissed her shoulder and then bit her.
She cried out again, hips stuttering briefly but she was already close, the pain of his sharp incisors breaking her skin enough to shove her over the edge and then drag him after her.
It cycled over the link between them, her pleasure pushing his and then looping back until she had to pull away. It would be too easy to lose themselves there.
Before she could say anything she was overwhelmed by tears again, her head dropping onto his shoulder.
~I'm sorry.~
~Hush. I ain't goin' nowhere.~
Logan's hand on the back of her neck grounded her, gave her something to focus on while she got herself back under control.
"You got a first aid kit?" he asked after a long moment, letting his hand fall to stroke her back. "Gotta clean up your neck."
"Bathroom, under the sink." Teva winced as she got off of him and sort of collapsed against the pillows, groaning.
Logan left, then came back with the kit, a glass of water, and her bottle of painkillers.
"Gotta be worn off by now," he said, handing her the latter.
"Mmmm, you're no wrong." She weakly protested when he made her sit up again.
He cleaned up what little blood there was with gauze and antiseptic, kissing her forehead when she sucked in air at the sting. "S'not too bad," he observed. "You're okay?"
Teva nodded, yawning and then downing a couple painkillers with the water. "Did'nae stop you, did I?"
"Teva…"
"You dinnae like that urge, do you?" She didn't make him meet her eyes when he looked away, busying himself with bandaging her shoulder the way he'd done her arm earlier that evening. "I wanted it, I like the thought of carrying this mark."
That got her a sharp look, one that was a little confused.
"Dinnae ask me to explain, Logan. I dinnae understand it myself." She reached for him, dragged her fingernails down his arm and watched the marks fade instantly. "Pity I cannae mark you the same way."
"Darlin', I…" He shrugged uncomfortably. "You keep surprisin' me."
She bared her teeth in a fierce smile. "So long as the novelty never wears off."
That got the laugh she wanted, the easing of tension in his shoulders. He left the first aid kit and the wrappers on the nightstand and pulled her back into bed with him.
"Welp, sleeping is going to suck for a while," Teva said, trying to get comfortable. She ended up on her left side, her head resting on Logan's shoulder with his arm around her.
He turned his head to nuzzle at her hair, a happy sort of growl rumbling in his chest beneath her cheek.
"Are we - Are you -" Teva shook her head, feeling cloudy now as the painkillers took effect. "Goddammit."
"I'm okay," Logan replied, sensing her question. "I'm okay with the link, didn't tell you to anchor it just because I got caught up in the moment." He pressed his lips to her hair. "Meant it then, mean it now, still gonna mean it in the mornin' when we wake up."
And that was what she needed to hear, to know . It was enough to make the rest of the tension in her leak out, to make her stop fighting the fatigue and the adrenaline crash from earlier.
"Get some sleep, I'll still be here tomorrow."
She nodded, finally closing her eyes.
~Tha gaol agam ort~ she said over the link.
He was quiet for long enough she figured he hadn't understood her, but then he said, "Love ya, too, darlin'."