Title: Anywhere's A Better Place To Be
Author: modulegirl
Rating: NC-17 (since I felt my last effort wasn't nearly smutty enough, I hope that this one does not disappoint :-)
Pairing: Hank/Logan
Universe: Comicverse (specifically Wolverine 164)
Archive: Sure? Let me know, 'kay?
Disclaimer: They're Marvel's; they don't belong to me, bub. But I promise I'll put 'em back the way I found 'em, sweaty and a hell of a lot happier than they are in the book.
Feedback: Oh, yes, please! modulegirl@hotmail.com
Notes: Eil issued the challenge to put some X-Men in prison and get them to have sex with one another. Easier said than done! Lady Amalthea wanted Hank and Logan since there seems to be a dearth of it out there, so much so that *I've* never seen *any*. So it's their faults, not mine! The title is a line from a Harry Chapin song "A Better Place To Be". It just seemed to fit; like I've said before, titles are a bitch and if I've got to cop 'em from songs, I'll at least give credit where credit is due.
Acknowledgements: To pax who beta'd and thereby made this a better story. I heeded many of her suggestions and clung, in mule-headed manner, to some things rather than change them. Anything you don't like is therefore entirely my fault. <eg> To Mechele and Rhonda, friends in RL who read this stuff and don't think I'm some kind of truly bizarre pervert.
Summary: I don't really think a summary is necessary, people. Hank and Logan. In prison. Sharing the same cell. 'Nuff said.

~X~

And if you want me to come with you
Then that's all right with me
'Cause I know I'm goin' nowhere
And anywhere's a better place to be

A Better Place to Be -- Harry Chapin

I awoke to find Logan sitting on the floor of our cell, back to the wall, near the bars. His knees were drawn up into his chest, arms crossed on top, chin digging into his forearms. The adamantium-lined restraints he'd been fitted with in order to prevent the extrusion of his claws, gleamed dully in the light from the corridor. His face was a mask, pensive and withdrawn as he thought his private thoughts.

A month ago Logan had been suffering nightmares about murder and mayhem. When Senator Drexler Walsh turned up dead with Logan caught on video standing over the mutilated body, my teammate had decided he stood his best chance by attempting to elude the long arm of the law long enough to determine the true nature of his involvement in the crime. I came along for the ride and to serve as Logan's sounding board. Eight days ago, our luck finally ran out and we were captured by some young turk from S.H.I.E.L.D. Held without charges, waiting for the public furor to die down, we'd been shipped to the Cage, a secret island prison that serves as the final dumping ground for the most incorrigible of both mutant and human criminals. Surrounded by a dampening field that negates the effects of mutation, both natural and artificial, the Cage makes California's Shoe prison block look like a Sunday afternoon in the park.

The top bunk squeaked as I stirred and sat up. Logan looked my way as I clambered down, awkward and unused to the weight and bulk of my own body without the extraordinary agility that is my birthright by way of my mutation. The Cage's dampening field suppressed the agility and the strength endowed me by nature, but it had also caused me to revert from the blue-furred Beast appearance, which has long been my trademark. As I hit the floor, I caught my reflection in the distorted sheet of tin above the sink in the corner of the room. The face I was quite accustomed to as it matched the one I was born with and had been looking at for years when the image-inducer was in place. Still, as familiar as it was, seeing that smooth white skin was still a shock, one that I fervently hoped I would not have time to get used to.

Stiff but moving as quietly as I could, illumination provided by the dim corridor lights, I crept to Logan's side and slid down the wall to settle beside him.

As a result of the mutation neutralization, I had spent the afternoon fighting a failed boxer turned criminal called by the ridiculous apellation Crusher Creel. Apparently, he ended up in the Cage following a run-in with my former teammates, the Avengers. Though I am no longer affiliated with that esteemed super-hero group, Creel chose to vent his pent-up hostility on someone he correctly perceived as an easy mark. Only Logan's timely intervention had prevented Creel from following through on his threat to "pound me into the ground."

"You okay, Hank?" he asked, whispering in order not to incur the wrath of the guards stationed at the end of the hallway, a hard lesson learned at the business end of an electric prod.

"I am well enough, Logan," I replied, resolutely ignoring the myriad aches and pains that whispered insistently in my muscles and bones.

He sniffed disbelievingly and turned his gaze back in on himself.

I knew Logan worried about me. As well he might. I certainly hadn't done well in the fight Creel had picked earlier. Without the advantage of my mutation, I was merely a big man with little knowledge of how to use that bulk to my advantage in a straight fight. Crusher Creel had more than lived up to his moniker and Logan had been kicking himself all afternoon for letting it happen, though we both had agreed that it was for the best that I stand alone, as my own man. Logan couldn't watch out for me every moment, but I was beginning to have grave doubts about my ability to take care of myself in this environment. I kept my suspicions to myself, however, as Logan's guilt about my involvement in this venture was ballooning apace with the length of our incarceration.

"Why aren't you asleep?" I asked. If I was doubting my ability to maintain life and limb in the Cage, I was just as worried about Logan. The gnawing suspicion that he might well be Senator Walsh's murderer, the burden of responsibility that he had insisted on shouldering when I chose to accompany him on his run, the haunting conviction that whatever was happening to him was in fact due to the period he'd spent as Apocalypse's First Horseman, Death, all of this was taking its toll on Logan. Add to that the dampening field and the shots the infirmary provided daily in order to counteract the effects of incipient adamantium poisoning and I was truly beginning to fear for my friend's health and sanity.

Logan shrugged. "Dunno. Restless, I guess." He pushed his mouth hard into his forearms, his brow knit in concentration. "I'm sorry, Hank. God, I'm so sorry," he muttered. The misery in his tone nearly broke my heart. He'd blamed himself for everything without once stopping to think that if I hadn't been a damned fool, intent on enjoying a lark, heedless of the very real danger of the situation, I wouldn't be in this predicament and he might not be presently incarcerated. He'd often derided Scott's all-consuming sense of responsibility for the fate of the team at the risk of his own well-being, but, for my money, he'd recently taken the lead in that race and looked to be ready to run himself into the ground rather than admit that most of the events of the last few weeks fell far outside his purview.

Seeking to offer comfort where I knew it would not be accepted readily, I put my hand to his shoulder. Even within the Cage, he was hard and well-muscled, still the epitome of an X-Man. Beside him I felt quite soft, rather like a doctor who had spent much of the past decade in a lab and not like a superpowered outlaw hero at all. I suddenly wondered just what Logan thought of me, how he saw me. As a friend and confidante? Or as a clown and a jonah? Had my presence on this odyssey been more of a hindrance than a help? Given the opportunity, would he have prefered to see me out of harm's way or was my company the one thing that had enabled him to remain focused on the task at hand? The past month had been rife with situations, emotional and physical, that had thrown Logan and I into closer, more isolated proximity to one another than we had ever experienced before. Always before, there had been the buffer of the team; within that familiar dynamic, we knew each other well, could anticipate and support the other's movements and reactions. Alone, with no Cyclops or Xavier to lead us, no Jean or Rogue or Nightcrawler to fall back on, we had struggled with a drastically altered perception of one another and ourselves in relation. Within my own mind, Logan had become a closer friend and a stronger teammate. I had no idea at all what Logan might think.

Try as I might, I could think of nothing to say that hadn't already been said, so we sat there, each alone in our own thoughts.

Eventually, it became apparent that at least two of our fellow inmates were also awake. They, however, were not keeping each other company with a mutually introspective silence. Muffled moans and sighs began issuing into the corridor, echoing off the rough-dressed stone walls. I looked at Logan from the corner of my eye and caught the dawning amusement in his. He valiantly suppressed a grin as the slap of skin against skin became louder and much harder to ignore. As it went on and on and we had no choice but to listen, we both sat there wondering just when it was going to end. One of the... lovers began to emit a high-pitched whine at some point near the end of the proceedings.

"Christ," Logan very nearly giggled, the back of his shackled hand covering his mouth as he tried to suppress embarassed laughter, "what the fuck are they doing in there?"

I cleared my throat softly and replied, "I think you just answered your own question, Logan."

Logan let out a sharp bark of laughter, which he tried to turn into a cough, nearly choking himself for his effort. I bent over him and patted his back firmly as he struggled to breathe.

When he had gained control again, I sat back against the wall. My hand remained on Logan's back, tracing idle circles through the thin cotton of the t-shirt he'd worn to bed. I felt him shift position and stopped for a moment, my hand flat on the hard muscles across his shoulders. When he subtly flexed beneath me, I smiled and ran my fingers up and down his spine, my touch light and teasing, then applied firmer pressure to the far side of the small of his back and ran the heel of my hand hard up and then back down the other side. He grunted in appreciation and I went back to the lazy circles across his broad back.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the insistent ache in my groin as I grew more and more aroused, listening to the marathon sex session happening just a few feet away. I longed to be touched and to touch in return. It had been longer than I cared to admit since I had found myself in a situation similar in any way to that of the men in the adjoining cell. Now I felt the need that long practice had pushed down surge suddenly to the fore of my consciousness. Logan's warm, animal presence beside me only served to drive home the pleasures of physical intimacy.

Lost in my ruminations, I felt the firm pressure of Logan's hand on my shoulder and then his lips, hot on mine. I was surprised but, despite my startlement, I kissed back, slipping my arm across his back. His tongue pushed between my lips and I opened my mouth. I groaned as his tongue slipped inside, caressing me gently, ready to pull away if I suddenly decided this was something I didn't want to be doing. Not that that was going to happen anytime soon. I put my other hand to the back of his head when he tried to move away, pulling him closer, feeling the heat of him against my side.

Finally, when my head was spinning from the combined effect of lust and oxygen deprivation, I let him pull away. I opened my eyes to look directly into his blue ones only inches away. Without shifting his gaze, he reached out and stroked the neckline of my t-shirt. I shivered at his touch, gentle and longing on my skin, and nodded. He bent forward and kissed the hollow at the base of my throat as his hands went to the shirt's hem and lifted. I sat forward and raised my arms as he slipped the garment up and over my body, slowly, creating an erotic tease as he leaned in to caress my nipples with his lips, removing the shirt at last.

"Lie down, Hank," he whispered into my chest.

Amazed by my own reaction, watching myself from a distant corner of my head, I did as I'd been bid. I'd only ever had one sexual encounter with a same-sex partner. It hadn't been a disaster but it hadn't been able to lead to anything either. Bobby is gay and I am not. As much as I would like to be all things for my best friend and as much as he would like to reciprocate, I am a man who loves women.

All of which made the fervent ardor with which I met Logan's touch that much more puzzling. The way I arched my back when his hands, fingers hot and shackles cool, ran down my sides, over my hips and under my thighs as he knelt between them. The way I folded him into my embrace when he lay himself over me and leaned in to kiss me again, his lips soft on mine and then hot on my neck and gentle against my ear. I cried out softly when his sharp teeth nipped at the pulse point in my throat, then moaned as his tongue reached out and turned that tiny pain into a jolt of electric pleasure coursing along every nerve in my body.

No one had ever touched me like this, as if they knew me intimately the first time and knew exactly what to do at every turn. Bobby's experience had been limited to a few fumbled gropings in the dark corners of bars; he had wanted me to be the first. Thus, neither of us really knew what we were doing and while not unpleasant for me and tremendously satisfying for Bobby in that I was the one he'd wanted, it certainly wasn't memorable for the quality of the sex.

Logan, however, knew exactly what he was doing. His hands roamed over the length and breadth of my chest and stomach, finding those hidden spots that I hadn't even known existed, those places that made me close my eyes and moan softly or snap them open, gasping in surprise and unexpected pleasure. And he found the spots it had taken others months to find, if they found them at all: the bump behind my right ear, the soft fold of skin where my arms connect to my body, the underslope of my trunk, before it becomes my back, where the skin is still highly sensitive. The surety of his touch, as he brought me to life beneath him, made me remember what I had forgotten for a time as the despair of the Cage had taken its toll: that my body, whether blue and fuzzy or, as it was now, stripped of its natural abilities and defenses, was as capable of joy as it was capable of pain.

I felt his hand rest on my erection through the cotton of my underwear, warm flesh almost cool against the intense heat of my arousal. My hips involuntarily rose and pushed into his firm grip. I looked at him from half-lidded eyes, trust implicit in my gaze. He pulled gently at the elastic band and slipped the trunks off when I obligingly lifted my hips and raised my legs.

Then his hands were there fondling the length of my penis, hefting the weight of my scrotum. I felt his breath soft against my sensitive skin, then his tongue as he ran it along the underside of my erection, from bottom to top. Careful of any undue pressure, mindful of the metal restraints across the palms of his hands, he gripped the base firmly and tongued the slit. He knew exactly what he was doing; I came up off the floor with a muffled shout and then flopped back down when he took me into his mouth.

I began moaning incoherently and put my hand to his head, tangling my hand in his hair. His mouth was hot and wet against me and I thought I would climax simply from that, but he then would pull away and swirl his tongue gently over and around my head, applying an almost, but not quite, painful pressure to the weeping slit then pull me back into the confines of his heated kiss.

The pleasure was far too intense for me to take for very long. I was so wound up from his attentions, I felt as though I might burst if he touched me just once more. My breath became ragged and I gasped, "Logan, I'm going to cum." With that, he took me deep into his mouth and began a hard, insistent suck that seemed to pull the very essence of me out through that tiny hole in the tip of my penis, an essence he swallowed with relish until he had seemingly drained me of every last drop of strength and stamina.

I collapsed onto the floor, utterly relaxed as he let me go and, using his tongue to send new shivers of delight through me, cleaned away the last traces of my orgasm.

I could feel the heat of him as he leaned over me again, tracing a path of fiery kisses from the base of my spent erection to my navel, from there to my chest, where he lavished attention on my nipples with mouth and hand, then up to my collarbones and my neck to finally kiss me deep and hard. His mouth was heavy and rough on mine, salty with the taste of my own semen, surprising me as he coaxed me into arousal again so soon after my climax.

"Hank," he whispered, his voice husky with unnamed desire. I could feel his hard length pressing against me, and I knew what he could not bring himself to ask.

"Yes, Logan," I answered, pulling him close to me, burying my face in his neck, taking pleasure from the heave of his chest against mine. For some unknown reason, I wanted him there inside me as I had never had anyone before. The fire that his desire had ignited burned bright within me and I was unconcerned with the whys and wherefores of what we were doing on this strange night. Likely this opportunity to be so close to another man would never come again and, ever the insatiable student, I was suddenly intent on experiencing everything Logan might desire from me.

He pulled away and looked at me, his eyes boring deep into mine as he searched in vain for some hint of apprehension or distaste, some reason to shut away his own desire before it was too late, before he could no longer control his own rush of need. I pushed my hips up against his jutting penis and smiled at his involuntary hiss of pleasure.

His eyes shone as he looked upon me and asked, "Why?"

I thought for only a moment and, realizing the verity of my words as I uttered them, replied, "Because we are both scared, Logan. Because you are my teammate and my friend. Because I trust you." I paused and then smiled again as I ran my hands down his back and over his firm buttocks, gripping tightly and pulling him close, grinding his erection into my abdomen. "And because you got me really horny."

He grinned and kissed me again then suddenly froze and pulled away.

"What?" I asked, pulling myself up onto my elbows as he knelt between my inelegantly spread legs.

"We can't," he said.

"Why not?" I demanded, my voice a little louder and higher pitched than I'd intended. I deliberately lowered it and said, "What do you mean, we can't?"

He was the very picture of misery as he replied, "I haven't got any lube."

"Oh, my stars and garters," I sighed as I slumped back onto the damp concrete floor, rather astounded by the depth of my disappointment. "Isn't there anything we could do?"

Before Logan could answer, I heard a hiss from the cell across the corridor and the skitter of something across the floor. I looked up in time to see a small tube hurtle through the bars of our cell and into Logan's outstretched hand.

"Just fuck 'im," came a voice from the darkness, "and let the rest of us get back to sleep."

Logan and I looked at one another and burst into peals of laughter that rang down the corridor. The rough voice of a guard at the end of the hallway shouting a warning silenced us and then there were a few muttered curses about "freakin' mutie homo bastards" and the squeak of a bunk and then quiet reigned on the cellblock once again.

"Should we give them a show?" I asked.

Logan nodded and leaned over me, running the tip of his tongue from my navel in a straight line up my chest, neck and chin. Then he traced the contour of my jaw with light kisses that set me shivering from more than the cool dampness of the floor beneath me. With a final soft kiss to my lips, he knelt up between my legs again.

I closed my eyes in anticipation, not knowing what to expect really. His hands, light on my thighs, were a surprise. "Relax, Hank," he whispered kindly and I realized just how tense I had suddenly become. He ran his hands slowly down the tops of my thighs, under my knees and back up, repeating the movement over and over until my shivering had stopped and I felt the warmth of arousal coursing through me again.

Then he hooked my knees and folded my legs up into my chest. I gripped my thighs and gasped when I felt his hands pull my buttocks apart. The touch of his lips on my skin was followed, on my part, by an involuntary arch up off the floor. I could not believe Logan's soft and gentle touch. In all honesty, I had never given any thought to Logan's possible love-making technique (other than to wonder idly what he did that attracted so many lovers to his orbit), but I never would have guessed that it included this slow and caring approach.

He pulled away for a moment and then I felt his finger, cold and slippery with the borrowed lube, applying gentle pressure. I closed my eyes and forced myself to relax as his warm tongue began to stroke my rising penis and his finger entered me at the same moment.

I wasn't entirely sure of what to expect so this oddly filled sensation came as a rather pleasant surprise. Logan pushed further, then twisted his finger and touched my prostate. I gasped sharply as he stroked that most sensitive male gland while at the same time he took my semi-erect penis into his mouth. I simply groaned, quite beyond speech by that time. He pumped his finger in and out several times then with a slight push introduced a second digit, and used his other hand to deliver much appreciated attention to my now rock-hard testicles.

When he pulled away, slipping his fingers out of my nicely stretched bottom and taking his warmth away from my straining erection, I let out a most un-manly whimper. As I still had my eyes closed, I couldn't see what he was doing but the rustle of cotton told me he was stripping and then I supposed he was making ready to enter me.

"Open your eyes, Hank," I heard Logan whisper as he lifted each of my calves in his firm grip and then slipped his arms under my knees to plant his hands on the floor on either side of my waist.

I opened my eyes to see him hovering above me, long black bangs hanging forward, shrouding his face in shadow. "Logan," I whispered, as I reached up to push away the heavy hair so I could see my friend's eyes. The lust that I had expected to see earlier was there now, an almost painful need that he still would deny if I only said, "No." Words failed me then as they have rarely failed me before. The care, the devotion, the love that he felt for me at that moment could not be expressed in foolish sentiment, only in honorable action. I would not say nay, but neither could I say aye; I could only nod.

His eyes locked onto mine as he shifted his weight over to one hand and used the other to position his penis. I gasped as I was entered for the first time, my gaze held in his as he pushed slowly into my yielding flesh. "Oh, god," I moaned, raising my hips toward him, letting my body be impaled. I dropped my hands to the floor and clutched at his hard, sinewy forearms, feeling the sweat of his body dripping onto mine as he held his passions in check, moving into me with care, finally coming to rest against my upturned rear end. Bent nearly double beneath Logan, my breathing irregular and my heartbeat pounding loudly in my ears, I could not think, I could not speak, I could only be.

As my breathing leveled off, Logan began to move. Slowly, he pulled out and then gently in again. I closed my eyes and murmured, "Yes," running my hands up and down the length of his arms as he began to pump in and out. Each stroke out caressed my prostate and sent quivers of mindless delight coursing along hyper-sensitive nerves. Each thrust in prodded the same spot and filled me with an aching pleasure that I had never known before.

Finally, I could stand the tease of his lust no longer and opened my eyes. "Faster," I whispered. Logan only smiled and began pushing in and out with more and greater abandon. I slid my hands between my legs and under his arms to clutch at his back, pulling myself up off the floor as I strove to meet each of his thrusts. I succeeded in raising myself enough to put my lips to his neck and run my tongue along the edge of his sideburns. A gentle bite on his chin and he opened his mouth in surprise; I kissed him hard, swallowing his moans of pleasure as our tongues met and twined together, a miniature echo of our bodies.

When I broke away, and let myself slump back to the floor, my hands rocking on his shoulders as he moved over me, my ears were filled with his voice and the whisper of my name. Then he stopped and again that un-manly whimper escaped me.

"Hank," he rumbled, his voice heavy with restrained emotion. I looked up at him, hardly seeing him through the fog of pleasure that shrouded my vision. He moved his right arm out from under my leg, which flopped bonelessly to the side. He did the same with his left then put his hands to the join of my legs to my hips and pulled me up onto his lap as he rose up on his knees. I grunted as this change in position pushed him ever deeper into me.

He began pumping again, except that this time he took my renewed erection in his hand and began stroking it in time with his thrusts. I arched up under his expert touch, my buttocks resting on his thighs, my shoulders hard against the floor as my hands balled into fists. The heat rolled off him in waves, sending currents of delicious delight crashing over my body, flooding my being with heated pleasure, warming me to my core.

Then, suddenly, much too soon, I knew that it was close to finished. I could feel the heat in my groin gathering in to a knot that would soon erupt. "Logan," I hissed, "I can't - oh, god, I'm going to come."

"It's okay, Hank," he whispered, soothing me, answering the rising panic in my voice. His thrusts became deeper and more frenzied and I realized he, too, was nearing climax. Then I was nearly bursting and I came, hard and long, my body rigid with release as the intense pleasure poured over me, drowning me in sensation. Logan captured the spurting semen with his gentle fingers. Before my climax was complete, Logan thrust deep inside me and came with a series of grunts, bent back over his legs as he leaned one hand on the floor, the other still on my penis, stroking it, pulling out of my exhausted body the very last of my orgasm.

At last, I collapsed against the floor. Logan carefully pulled out of my slightly, but oh so sweetly, sore bottom and removed himself from under my hips. He stood up and I heard running water, but I was much too relaxed in the afterglow to care what he was doing.

I looked up when I felt sudden air movement against my naked body and then he was at my side, whispering that I should roll over. I found myself lying atop one of the wool blankets from our bunks and the contrast to the dampness of the floor was lovely against my flushed skin. Then Logan was behind me, wrapping me in his arms, pulling me close to his naked body and wrapping us both in the remaining blanket.

I could feel his breath warm against my neck as he whispered a sleepy good night, but I was being drawn much too quickly into sleep to reply. I could only sigh and shifted closer to his warmth and then we both slept deeply and well at last.

~finis~