browngirl

Title: Romance Of A Rose
Fandom:X-Men: First Class
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Hank/Raven (Beast/Mystique)
Summary: "How did you know it was me?"
Content Advisory: Post-movie.
Disclaimer: This fanwork has been created for pleasure only and not for profit.

Small, Raven thinks, clinging to the sense of her current dimensions under every gasping thrust, clinging to Hank's pillows as rising pleasure laps at her control. Small and pale and smooth, a petite redhead like and utterly unlike her natural form: a bittersweet joke to wear when she asked Hank out for a cup of coffee, a match in falsity for his image emitter.

He's changed in ways she hadn't anticipated. He smiled at her, charmed her, brought her back to his place, slipped off her shoes and kissed her instep and nearly every other inch of her as her skin tingled under the whisper of hidden fur and her scales prickled against emergence with every brush of his disguised pink mouth. And now -- she moans, clutching the heaped pillows, Hank over and in her, blunt and hot and perfect, a rippling blanket of fur and muscle all down her back, the tiniest points of teeth pricking her shoulder as he pants against her false skin.

He moves smoothly, firmly, clawed hands curled so delicately around her thighs she feels nothing but the pads of his fingers, parted lips laying hot openmouthed kisses along her neck and up behind her ear. He's learned what he's doing, with his tongue and his hands and his dick and himself, and Raven hangs her head, gasping a laugh, feeling the next gathering wave surging to overtake her as heat streams down her skin. She's learned too, she can keep her shape through an orgasm if she can just concentrate, digging her fingers into the pillows, curving her spine into Hank's raspy-soft body.

Hank tightens his hold just slightly, just enough for her to feel five faint pinpricks along each thigh as he nips her earlobe, a long tooth sliding along her skin like a shiver-inducing blade; Raven moans, clenching her fists, squeezing tighter, trembling deliciously under Hank's soft growls in her ear.

He inhales, his tongue a hot rasp over the smooth curve of her borrowed skin, and breathes a word into her ear. Her name. Not her disguise, 'Tricia,' not her operative identity, 'Mystique.' Hank rumbles, "Raven," and Raven's eyes fly open. She tries to twist around to face him, but he swivels his hips, and radiating pleasure snaps her spine into an arch and drives her forehead into the pillow; hot ecstasy crashes through her, pouring over her in a molten transformation, her bones sprawling and her skin rippling into truth, dense and spiny and blue.

Hank growls feral satisfaction, denting her real skin just so with his broad fingers, pulling her into his thrusts that much harder, his teeth curved blades behind her nape. "Hank," Raven gasps in her own voice, shuddering and shocked and crackling with sensation, "Hank?" He growls again, long and low with a broad-tongued swipe across her nape as he tenses; as he starts to come, sunk balls-deep in her, he wraps one arm around her thighs to hold her where he wants her. She gulps once and holds her breath against the ache in her ribs, listening to his as he pulses inside her, panting into her hair.

Eventually he sighs, smearing his gasping mouth down her neck, and with a deep whooping inhale she collapses onto the pillows. Hank follows her down, blanketing her with his fluffy damp warmth, and when Raven curls a hand behind her to stroke his side, tendrils of fur catch and lightly tug on her scales.

Her heart thuds in her chest, satisfaction beating counterpoint with alarm. She hasn't lost her control so completely in over a decade, and Hank has her essentially pinned, even if all he does is shift to slide from her and tuck his arm up around her ribs so both his seamed palms cradle her skin. She should be trying to get away... but her body settles, warm and lax and weighted by his comfortable bulk, and it feels next to impossible to move.

So all Raven moves is her mouth, half-buried in the pillow. "How did you know it was me?"

The breeze of Hank's slow breaths stirs her hair. "Your scent," he murmurs, sliding a hand up over her pounding heart as he kisses her shoulder. "You've always smelled like roses."

Raven huffs. "Oh, come on." She squirms a little against Hank wrapped all around her, because that's just perfume and bullshit, even though she can't really get anywhere.

"No, you do." Hank curls his handlike foot around her ankle as he peels his arm away, tipping sideways enough to lean on his elbow and face her, showing her he turned off his image emitter. Raven's eyes widen, her skin tightens with cold she usually doesn't feel; she wants to curl up against his chest, wants to yank her legs from between his and run away, wants to grab the emitter and smash it. She looks up at Hank's true beauty, his topaz eyes and ivory fangs and all his warm blue fur, and watches the way his lips ripple as he smiles into his explanation. "I'm not talking about your perfume, either. I've always thought that you smell like a rose would if it were a mammal."

Warmth bubbles inside Raven's chest, threatening to overflow in a giggle. She doesn't, but she lets herself smile to match Hank, reaches up and slides her fingers over his claw-tips as she entwines their hands. "That might be the weirdest thing I've ever heard you say," she tells him, and for this one moment nothing's changed at all from the first time she kissed him.

Especially when his smile tilts bashfully and he looks just like the bespectacled boy she first met. "I know. It's... I don't have the vocabulary to describe it without resorting to organic chemistry." Raven wrinkles her nose. "But there's a sweetness in your scent, a musk, a depth and a freshness." Hank pulls their hands up to his chest, pressing Raven's over his heart; she can feel it thump steadily if faintly through fur and muscle and bone, and hers slowing to match. "As soon as you came inside five feet of me... I could smell you. I could taste you. Raven. I've missed you."

"Hank," Raven sighs, and gives in to the urge to curl up on him, tucking her head beneath his chin; he curls around her, cocooning her in his fluffy, redolent warmth. "I missed you too," she mumbles into his chest. "But that doesn't mean I can stay," she makes herself tell both of them, tensing just a bit, just in case.

Hank doesn't argue, doesn't try to change her mind. He kisses her forehead and pulls one hand's claws through her hair like a living comb. "I knew that, too, the moment I smelled you."

Raven buries her cheek in Hank's fur. "I need to be gone by morning."

Hank gives her hand a gentle squeeze. "Roses are fleeting."

"Don't go all poetic on me." But Raven snuggles that last bit into Hank, relaxes that last inch, and when he smiles over her skin she smiles over his heart, telling herself, just for tonight.