Victor was less than pleased when Stryker called him and told him at the last minute that Wade was coming with them.

That meant that the collar would have to stay behind, and Victor didn’t know if he trusted Jimmy that far yet. But Victor was almost completely positive that he and Wade would be able to chase Jimmy down if the fool should actually try to run.

Victor was also worried that Jimmy’s new… personality might lead to some problems where Wade was concerned. He’d be damned if he let that psychotic shit torment his little brother. He had worked too hard to get Jimmy this close to being just right.

But Wade was being uncharacteristically silent when the two brothers boarded the plane taking them to Europe. Victor silently mused that Stryker must have threatened Wade’s porn collection with a fiery death to get that kind of prim behavior out of the usually garrulous assassin.

At first, Jimmy sat very close to his brother as the plane took off. He watched Wade with a great deal of distrust, his occasionally curling in disgust. Other than the brief mission with North, Jimmy had no other human contact than Victor in months.

Logan, sensing this may prove problematic, started coming back to the front. Knock that shit off, boy. You have a mission to do now. You know what will happen if the wrong people notice you doin’ weird shit.

But I don’t like Wade. He’s annoying, and he’s been staring at me for the last hour. I want him to go away.

Not going to happen, so you need to suck it up and find a way to make him tolerable.

With barbeque sauce would be best.

And even Logan couldn’t quite disagree with that one. But he still gave Jimmy the silent warning to either get along with Wade, or he would have to take over.

“What’s with all the mumbling?” Wade asked, biting off a piece of jerky and cocking his head to one side.

“Excuse me?” Victor responded, glaring. He had been enjoying the silence and was just about to fall asleep when Wade had insisted on starting to talk.

“Not you, fluffy,” Wade said, waving the remaining jerky at Jimmy. “You. Why are you mumbling to yourself? Don’t you know it’s rude not to share, even your conversations with your inner squirrel?”

Jimmy and Logan both frown. “What are you talking about,” Jimmy muttered, resisting the urge to burrow under Victor’s arm. “I wasn’t mumbling.”

“Yeah, you were.” Wade’s eyebrows shot up. “Aw, hell, have you gone crazy or something? Like Sibyl? Do you have some thirty personalities running around in your head?” He looked pointedly at Victor. “I sure hope one of those personalities isn’t a psychotic axe murderer who wants to rape us in our sleep. You boys sure are a lot closer than I remember.”

“We worked out some issues,” Victor replied drily. He is thankful at the shift in Wade’s attention. Victor hadn’t noticed anything wrong with Jimmy’s behavior these past weeks. So what if he was mumbling to himself a little bit? But Victor didn’t need Wade to upset Jimmy.

Wade continued bouncing from topic to topic. Victor quickly shut him out. Jimmy shut down soon after.

But Logan was more watchful. He noticed there seemed almost to be a pattern to Wade’s rambling. Whenever he would start a spurt of conversation about sex or killing, he would watch Logan very closely. So, is this your own personal interest, Wilson? Or has Stryker said something to you?

Five days later, and Victor decided that he must be in hell. Clearly they had crashed and died when they landed, now he was suffering for everything he had ever done in life.

He had been trapped in a small hotel room with Jimmy in the asshole of Berlin. A room that had Wade Wilson in the other room adjacent to theirs, which meant no intimate contact between the two brothers at all.

Well, no intimate physical contact.

The first two days were fine, as the three men waited for the clearance to make the move on their target. By day three, Jimmy was clearly suffering from lack of sex as well and had become a damned tease.

Out of the blue, Jimmy would stretch on his bed, deliberately thrusting his hips into the air.

On day five, Victor was contemplating gutting Wade like a fish, blaming it on just about anyone, and then fucking his brother into next week.

And speaking of their teams’ unwanted third member, Wade wasn’t helping. He would pop into their room at the most random intervals to discuss whatever little bit of nonsense had popped into his head.

One time, Wade had even dared to hop on the bed with Jimmy. Which Victor could have over looked, if Wade hadn’t rested his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder just a little too long and a little too lovingly. A slow touch that ghosted down Jimmy’s arm a scant few inches, before Wade’s hand was quickly pulled back into a safe place. There was definitely a challenge in Wade’s eyes as he glanced at Victor over Jimmy’s shoulder.

But just as quick, Wade had shimmied back into his own room, leaving Victor to wonder what the hell that was all about.

Finally, it was time to go.

This was just the basic snatch and go mission. All the three men had to do was break into some scientist’s house, and bring said scientist back to Stryker, a man named Dr. Essex.

Logan had to school his features carefully when he heard that name. He sensed something was off, but he wasn’t sure what. Now was not the time to worry about it. There would most likely be a high body count with Victor and Wade on the mission. But the lives of the humans meant little right now to Logan. What matter was keeping himself alive and, in turn, Jimmy safe. He had to trust the fool to keep his silence for now to let Logan handle the job at hand.

As before, breaking in was almost painfully easy. Logan bristled at being forced to stay at the back, but that also meant that neither Victor nor Wade had him in their direct line of sight. There was a strange comfort for Logan in that.

The three men moved like a well oiled machine, as if they had never been apart all these long months. They slipped in and out of shadows, twining around corners, staying out of sight of guards.

Several flights of stairs later, the three men were standing outside of a laboratory door. Logan felt a strange sense of dread. He had seen the gruesome results of Dr. Essex’s work back stateside. Logan drew back slightly at the small wisps of death that were leaking out from under the door. There was no doubt another body inside with a strange metal skeleton on the other side.

And he could not warn the other two, for fear of Victor finding out about his dalliance earlier for Stryker.

Stryker, you bastard. You knew I wouldn’t be able to warn Victor of what was coming.

Wade quickly picked the lock. The door silently slid open, allowing the three men to slip inside. There were five men inside hovering over an operating table. The walls were covered in more of the same pictures that Logan has seen before. Bodies in various stages of surgery, their metal skeletons exposed to the air, caused Logan’s stomach to clench.

It made it that much easier to let the blood-lust take him over. There was screaming, blood, and bone exposed to air. The animal in him was in its glory. It wanted to gut and kill all of the prey. It wanted to follow the Alpha anywhere, give the Alpha anything he needed or wanted.

Almost as quickly as it began, the lust came to a screeching end with Wade holding a sword point at Logan and Victor, protecting the unfortunate Dr. Essex from the feral brothers. Dr. Essex looked more academically interested in the two snarling men than terrified.

Wade slowly stepped forward, pushing the two brothers back from the man they were supposed to be acquiring. He then insinuated himself between the brothers, while managing to keep them near each other. Victor was too wound up to notice when Wade turned his head subtly towards Logan and whispered just for him, “Easy, Jimmy, wouldn’t want thing to go badly.”

No! No! No! Stop! What are you doing? There was deep rooted terror in Jimmy.

Stop it, you little shit! We can take Wade and Victor. Make Victor inferior to me. Then I would be in control-

NO! That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

Logan and Jimmy noticed Wade watching them slyly. Victor looked confused, like he was trying to work out some great puzzle.

“Jimmy,” Victor asked slowly, “who are you talking too?”

Jimmy was wandering. After Stryker and his cronies came to collect Dr. Essex along with whatever additional information on the doctor’s work they could find, Jimmy started to wander around the building. He soon found himself in the lower levels. Jimmy closed his eyes-

And just like James knew he would find, a sarcophagus was lying in a corner pretending to be discarded. With a pop and swipe of claw, the top was off and inside was a large stash of silver rocks. Just like Romulus promised.

“You’ve done well, my love,” Romulus murmured, emerging from the shadows. Gone were the blue collar clothes of before for a well tailored black suit.

James had long ago grown used to Romulus appearing from nowhere. “Make certain to get these to Stryker,” Romulus commanded, running a loving hand over the rocks. “He will use these to make you strong, my perfect mate.”

James shivered. He knew he had seen only a glimmer of his lover’s plans, but he also knew he would play a great part in them. There would be some pain to be born soon, that much James knows. But Romulus would not give him any more information than that.

But there were more pressing matters than this on James’s mind. “Do we have time?” he whispered to Romulus, drawing in close so that their faces almost touch.

All he saw was a slight smile on Romulus’s face before James was pushed up onto a trunk, his pants dropping to the floor and Romulus had James’s mouth against his own as he pushed two fingers in James. James cried out softly, knowing they must not attract attention from anyone upstairs.

Which was so damned hard when under his lover’s talented hands. “I wish we had more time, my love,” Romulus hissed before removing his fingers and beginning to fuck James. There was no time for any kind of preamble, only quick pleasure. The two ferals clung to each other, grunting and gasping.

“Oh, god, oh, god, oh, yes,” James was panting. He wanted more, oh so much more.

The two men came silently, hands gripping each other’s backs. Heartbeats slow down to a normal pace.

“Victor won’t notice my scent on you with all of the other ones upstairs,” Romulus murmured into James’s hair. “And soon this will all be over. I promise. One more week, my love, one more week and we can always be together.”

James was nodding slowly, groaning at the loss of Romulus as the larger man pulled away. “As soon as this mysterious procedure is over, you will come and get me,” James repeated. He heard it many times while lazing by Romulus’s side in Canada, waiting for Victor to come and collect him.

“There has been a light change in plans though,” Romulus grunted, readjusting his clothing. “Concerning Victor.”

“You want him killed.” James, who had been only slightly aware of the plight of Jimmy and Logan at the hands of Victor, suspected that this would be the outcome.

“Will this be a problem?” Romulus asked, picking up one of the rocks.

“No.” James frowned, refastening his pants. “Why would it be? He’s nothing to me. Yeah, sure, he was my partner once, but that was it.”

Romulus smiled thinly. “Excellent, James. Now, I need you to close your eyes for a moment-“

Jimmy opened his eyes, blinking owlishly. He realized that some time must have passed. He felt strangely…. satisfied. God damn, Logan, what have you done now? Why is my ass sore?

Me? It was you who wandered down here.

“Find something interesting, James?” Stryker asked, descending the stairs. His eyes widened at Jimmy’s find. “Oh, my. Now that is something useful indeed.” He walked over to the sarcophagus in a mild haze, clapping Jimmy on the shoulder. “This is very good, Jimmy. Very good indeed.”

Jimmy was pleased at the praise. A happy Stryker would give good news to Victor.

Logan was weary at the praise. A happy Stryker usually meant more missions and killing… and time spent with Victor.

And James waits in silence. Soon, so very soon.

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