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The monster whistles Max had installed years prior purred and squealed overhead, concealing the sound of his and Logan 142’s footsteps as they trudged down the long road to Portia. They skirted along the wall, hoping the occasional steel beam supporting the tunnel would provide them enough cover should they be met with Duvosian soldiers further in.
Just as Max was starting to hope that the road was unoccupied, he heard voices, their echoes bouncing off the walls in the pair’s direction. Quick thinking where it counted, Logan tapped Max’s arm and pointed toward a group of crates pressed against the wall, gesturing that they should hide within one of them. The first one Max checked was nailed shut. The second, full of some kind of metal scrap. Max’s heart was thundering in his ears, panic starting to set in when Logan suddenly grabbed his arm, pulling him toward yet another box. 142 lifted the top, climbing inside and holding the lid open for Max to scurry under.
The crate was cramped to say the least, despite it having been empty before their arrival. Half-lying at the bottom with his legs scrunched against one side, Logan’s tall, muscular frame took up most of its volume. Max was forced to kneel over him and press himself to the man’s chest with his head tucked down into the crook of Logan’s neck just so the lid would close. Not having anywhere else to put them, Max looped one arm behind Logan’s neck and the other behind his back.
It was almost completely dark; only one sliver of light pierced from between a gap in the wooden sides, slicing a thin line over Max’s shoulder. Had Max been tasked to build this box, he would have considered this flaw in its construction to be grounds for a redo. Now, however, he found himself grateful for the creator’s more lax standards, as the pair might’ve soon found themselves fighting to breathe otherwise.
Two Duvosian voices drew closer, their tones relaxed, bored even. Max inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. At the very least, it appeared that the soldiers hadn’t seen them struggle with positioning. Logan, on the other hand, seemed to be getting more agitated. His heart was pounding hard enough for Max to feel it against his own.
Max could feel the man’s finger guns resting on his hips, a testament to just how ready Logan was to defend them. It was comforting knowing that even with how different 142 was from his Logan, some things would always remain. That fierce protectiveness that he’d always admired was here to stay.
“Did you hear something?” One of the voices asked just as the two soldiers’ footsteps reached where Max and Logan were hidden. Max held his breath and froze, feeling Logan do the same.
“Peach dammit, Clark,” The other voice exasperatedly responded. “For the fortieth time, no, I didn’t hear anything! You’re so jumpy today! What’s going on with you? Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Ugh, you don’t get it, man!” Clark replied, his voice filled with nervous tension. “You weren’t there! That builder… he’s scary, okay? I mean, I watched him kill five of my platoonmates in like three seconds flat and just keep running like it was nothing! The other two dudes with him barely did anything! I only made it out because I was hiding… like a coward.”
Max felt Logan react, though it wasn’t clear exactly what his reaction was. He wondered if this information was surprising to him. The man had shown up out of nowhere, seeming to know things about him, but maybe not as much as Max had assumed. Max had already gotten the impression that things had gone differently in timeline 142, so maybe that timeline’s version of himself hadn’t done the same thing? There was too much to speculate on, and no way to ask Logan at the moment, so Max set those questions aside for now.
“Hey, man, you’re not a coward. You’re a survivor.”
Clark let out a shaky sigh. “Yeah, I know. I’m just worried about running into him again. I don’t think I’m gonna be so lucky a second time.”
“We’re not gonna run into him,” ‘Not’ Clark assured Clark. “He’s probably dead, and if he’s not, he’s long gone.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Why don’t we just pause for a bit, okay? We can talk about something else, take your mind off of things, and then when we get back, we can get you a nice bowl of cabbage soup.”
Logan 142 groaned, physically rather than verbally, his head rolling back and shoulders exaggeratedly sagging in defeat. Max pressed his nose and mouth into Logan’s neck to stifle his laugh. It seemed all Logans were impatient.
The two soldiers dove into a rather lengthy debate regarding the advantages and disadvantages of bringing the water to a boil before adding the cabbage when making cabbage soup. At one point, ‘Not’ Clark began leaning on the crate next to the one Max and Logan were in, causing it to make subtle creaking sounds as the guy spoke. Apparently, he used his hands a lot when he was talking.
The rather boring nature of their conversation wasn’t enough to hold Max’s attention, allowing the thoughts he’d been trying to shoo away to push themselves into focus. Thoughts about the man he was currently straddling. The man whose muscular body was pressed up against his own, whose large hands had abandoned their gun-like posture and were now cupping his thighs. He wasn’t Logan, but at the same time, he very much was. He was just as dangerously beautiful, his eyes just as soul-piercingly intense, and his drawl still vibrated Max’s bones the same way Logan’s had.
He even smelled like Logan, kinda. Logan if he had smoked cigars. And been caught in a thunderstorm, maybe. There was something pleasant but unusual there that Max couldn’t quite place. Regardless, Logan 142 wasn’t lacking any of the natural magnetism that Max 1’s Logan had possessed.
Of course it hadn’t escaped Max’s notice how attractive 142 was. It stood to reason that other versions of Logan would be. There was something a little… extra spicy about him. Maybe it was the whole silver fox thing he had going on. Max wasn’t sure. But something was stirring in him now that hadn’t been moved in a long time, something he’d thought had died with Logan.
Max’s heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest as heat began prickling his cheeks. He was far too close to this man. Logan was utterly intoxicating, and the intimate contact, as unintentional as it may have been, was starting to cloud Max’s faculties. Max slowly inched his nose up Logan’s neck to the sweet spot behind his ear, desperately fighting the impulse to test if 142 tasted like Logan, too. Logan shivered, his head twisting ever so slightly toward Max, a silent indication that he was not opposed to Max’s closeness.
Gingerly Max allowed his tongue to trace the sensitive spot just below 142’s ear, lustfully exhaling at his somewhat familiar taste. The salt of his sweat, the smokiness, that ever-present musk, along with something lightly sweet and almost dangerous; all of it was driving Max past the point of reason. He spread his knees, inching himself down Logan’s lap until his arousal met the heat of something very firm straining against 142’s fly, something with a shape Max knew intimately.
Logan choked back a gasp, his hands grazing up Max’s legs until they met with his hips, which he firmly squeezed. Unclear if this was out of need or warning, Max, with the softest whisper he could manage, asked, “This okay?” He rocked his hips in demonstration of what he meant, his clit grinding against 142’s erection. He felt Logan swallow before he nodded, his hips rising to meet where Max pressed against him.
Max threaded his fingers in 142’s hair, gripping the base of his skull as he teased Logan’s earlobe between his teeth. Max tongued the outer edge of Logan’s ear as he rocked his hips, stopping short when the muted clinking of their belt buckles together broke through the silence they were trying to maintain. He clutched Logan close, waiting with bated breath for the lid to be flung off; for their inevitable exposure and the ensuing scramble for combative dominance.
“You’re boiling it either way, it’s not going to change anything,” ‘Not’ Clark insisted, lighting a spark of hope in Max’s chest that the soldier might keep poor paranoid Clark distracted.
“It changes everything! The textural differences alone are extremely noticeable," Clark responded to Max’s immediate relief. The recruits were too absorbed in their bland discussion to have noticed his mistake.
Logan skirted his hands between their bodies, neatly disentangling Max’s belt from his pants, using Max’s shirt to muffle the sounds. Max sucked in a mouthful of 142’s neck as he pulled a fistful of Logan’s hair between his fingers, eliciting a sharp inhale from him. Logan unclipped and pulled his own belt loose before grabbing Max’s waist and insistently pushing him back down onto himself.
Emboldened by their remaining undiscovered, Max undulated his hips, grinding his clit along the length of Logan’s dick. Despite the pleasurable heat building between them, Max was only growing more frustrated at the multiple layers of fabric preventing the contact he so desperately needed. Max tilted Logan’s face toward his, grazing his lips along that strong jaw until they met with those luscious lips he so longed for.
Logan wasted no time, parting his lips to allow their tongues to meet, his breathing ragged against Max’s cheek. Logan 142 tasted almost exactly the way Max remembered his Logan to have tasted, with the addition of the heady taste of his cigars. The half familiarity of it fueled the flames of Max’s passion. It had been far too long since he’d felt Logan’s lips against his own, and far too long since he’d felt the inferno their chemistry inspired within him. Max was nearly burning out of control, barely able to keep down the needy moans that threatened to escape his throat.
Logan evidently felt the same drive; his hands hunted over Max’s body like a predator seeking out the most sensitive parts of his prey. 142 tugged, twisted, and wrenched at Max’s pants until finally his demanding fingers made their way down the back of them, plunging inside Max’s slickened entrance immediately upon finding it.
Max was shocked, both literally and figuratively, when he felt an electric pulse shoot down Logan’s arm, culminating inside himself. The sensation was utterly delicious, the static tingling along his inner walls and reverberating through his core. More pulses followed the first as 142 circled his fingers against the sensitive spot within, sparkling pleasure cascading through him with every motion. Clearly this man knew what he was doing with whatever powers he possessed, and it was driving Max wild.
“Thanks, Brody, I feel a lot better,” Clark said as Max narrowly stifled another moan. He pulled at the arm trapped behind Logan, desperate to get his fingers around the cock twitching beneath him.
“Good. How about we go get some of that cabbage soup? We can boil the water first. I gotta see what you’re on about.”
Max’s now freed hand fumbled with 142’s zipper, finally snaking it within the confines of Logan’s pants. His fingers closed firmly around the object of his desire, that thick, veiny dick now throbbing in his grasp.
“Oh, you are in for a treat, my friend!” The box the other Duvoisan had been leaning on creaked as he pushed off of it, gritty grinding of sand trapped between the path and the man’s boots following the sound.
Max inwardly begged the soldiers to hasten their departure as he stroked Logan in time with the fingers circling inside him. Logan trembled under him, the crate vibrating slightly against the road on which it lay. Static pulsed around the dick within Max’s fingers in the same intervals as it shot through the digits whose pace had quickened inside him.
The two soldiers’ footsteps slowly retreated, their friendly banter gradually becoming inaudible. Max waited as long as he could possibly tolerate, firmly kissed Logan 142, and gingerly lifted the lid. He could barely see through the haze of his lust, his breaths heaving as he glanced around. Seeing no Duvosian troops, he carefully laid the lid next to the box and climbed out.
Logan was behind him in a flash, his eyes positively dangerous with desire. He lifted Max by the pits onto the crate Brody had been leaning on, roughly wrenching Max’s pants down over his boots before his own dropped around his ankles. Logan pushed Max’s knees apart and stepped between them, his heavily aroused cock arcing upwards as Max wrapped his arms around Logan’s neck.
Wasting no time, 142 thrust his dick into Max’s cunt. A short, low growl rumbled in Logan’s chest as his ravenous gaze pierced into Max’s. Electricity hummed with every stroke, pleasure building upon itself layer by layer. Max’s long underserved need was growing more and more urgent as Logan’s cock grazed along his most sensitive spots.
“Logan, please,” Max begged as the sound of their bodies slapping together bounced off of the tunnel walls. 142 quickened into Max’s insistence, sweat beading on his neck with the ferocity of his effort. One thumb found Max’s clit and pressed in circles, catapulting Max off of the precipice of his orgasm. He frantically bucked against Logan as he came, heated pleasure roiling and bursting through his core.
“Ah, fuck!” Logan cursed as he wrenched his dick from the clenching of Max’s pussy. Max whined and grasped for him as he backed up, cock in hand as he turned to his right.
That was when Max saw it. 142’s balls were glowing a fluorescent light blue. Max’s eyes widened as the glow brightened, traversing up Logan’s shaft as he stroked. A startlingly bright flash burst from his dickhead, the beam zipping down the tunnel in the direction they’d come from. A singular explosion followed, ringing through the enclosed space in a cacophonic wave.
This man had just narrowly avoided shooting a laser inside him. A laser from his dick. Max gasped as his cunt throbbed; this Logan was deliciously dangerous, and this new development, though it scared him a little, did nothing to deter him. If anything, the threat of it aroused him even more.
Having spent his disastrous payload, 142 reinserted himself into Max’s cunt to deliver a load of another kind. Hot semen spewed from his twitching cock as Logan’s glazed over gaze recaptured Max’s, ragged exhales from the pair mixing together as their noses met. Max’s tongue searched for Logan’s as their lips met once again; a silent affirmation that despite the complicated nature of Logan’s orgasm, Max still was very much into him.
“It came from down here!” A distant shout echoed from down the road.
“Shit,” Logan hissed, grabbing Max around the waist before snapping his fingers. When nothing happened, he cursed again. “Fuck, where’s my belt? I need my belt!”
“The crate!” Max pointed to where they’d hid, pushing himself off the one he was on. He scrambled to where Logan had tossed his pants as 142 hurriedly located the accessory, clasping it around himself without even bothering to loop it through his pants, which he quickly zipped over his softening cock. Logan grabbed Max’s hand as he snapped again, the thin white line of the interdimensional portal spreading open into shimmering blue energy. Logan pulled Max through before himself, muttering something under his breath.
Cold, then searingly hot. Stomach tumbling over itself through pulses of energy that made Max’s hair stand on end. He was being ripped apart. He was being forced back together again. Colors he’d never seen before flashing over his eyeballs both impossibly bright and unendingly dark, until suddenly it all stopped and he fell face first onto a musty, rotted wood floor. Nausea churned his gut as he shakingly tried to push himself to his feet.
“Easy,” Logan 142 drawled as he lifted Max by the armpits, stabilizing him against himself. “Sorry I ain’t warned ya ‘bout that, it ain’t fun yer first time. Not that it gets better.”
Trembling in Logan’s arms, Max looked around the dilapidated building in which they stood. A small, rather hard looking bed with rough rumpled sheets sat next to where they’d landed, mildew staining the edges of the fabric. The nearby table was strewn with papers and drawing implements.
Max glanced back up at Logan, whose eyes carried an unnamed embarrassment. “Where are we?”
“The Peripheries. We’re, uh, in my home,” Logan answered, sweeping his arm out in the squalid space. “Welcome to the jungle.”