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Wade Wilson considered himself an extremely observant person, despite what the nature of his character type would otherwise suggest, and in the few months that Wade has known this version of The Wolverine, he’s picked up on the fact that Logan has a lot of weird habits and mannerisms. Not that Wade himself was any better, not by a long shot, it just caught Wade off guard, considering the grumbly, macho exterior Logan put on.
Out of the bad ones, obviously there was the alcoholism, which has, somehow, actually lessened since Logan moved into the crack-den of an apartment with him and Al, and their little princess Mary. He wasn’t going through cases of beer and whole bottles of liquor every day, mostly just having two or three beers around dinner, and maybe a strong drink on a bad day. And then the smoking, which thankfully he preferred to sit on the fire escape or the roof of the apartment complex and do, rather than inside the building. They weren’t getting the security deposit back anyways, but Wade didn’t need to get any more formal complaints from the landlord.
There was also the fact that after a particularly rough night of sleep or an awfully annoying comment from Wade, he'd end up with up to six new holes in his body. This, the stabbing and lashing out, also wasn’t surprising. He knew that a man who lost his whole chosen family and fought in multiple wars would most likely suffer from pretty bad nightmares and a short fuse (hello, undiagnosed PTSD).
But beyond the standard substance abuse and violent tendencies that you’d expect from someone like Logan, were the mannerisms that Wade deemed just a little bit odd and probably out of character for anyone who only knows the Fox version of The Wolverine.
Wade noticed almost immediately that the moment Logan seemed to relax and accept his new living situation, he sat and slept in what most people would consider extremely uncomfortable positions. For instance, during one of their “movie nights,” as Wade flopped down on the couch with a heaping bowl of popcorn, he frowned, seeing that Logan had chosen to sit on the floor in the tight space between the couch and the coffee table. His knees were drawn tightly to his chest, and he had one of their ratty spare blankets wrapped around his shoulders.
“You know that we allow dogs on the furniture right?” he said, leaning forward to look at the other man’s face. Logan rolled his eyes, and turned to look back at Wade. “No shit bub, I’m just getting comfortable.”
“There’s not a chance in hell that’s a comfortable spot for you peanut, you’re like 400 pounds and over six feet tall-” Logan cuts him off with a scoff, “I am not 400 pounds.”
“Regardless honey badger, wouldn’t it be much comfier on the couch? I promise to keep my hands to myself, scout’s honor!,” he put one hand on his chest, the other raised in the air as you would when being sworn in at court, “You can just pretend I’m not even here, unless you want to, I wouldn’t mind if you got a little handsy with me.”
Logan rolled his eyes at Wade’s usual perviness, “Nah, I’m good down here, now just shut up and play the fuckin’ movie.”
Wade relented and hit the play button, having chosen some low rated horror movie from the bottom of the list on their chosen Subscription Service (we’re not giving out free advertising here!). As the movie progressed and the popcorn levels began to dwindle, Wade couldn’t help but study Logan as he fidgeted on his spot on the floor.
He watched as Logan absentmindedly picked at the skin of his lips and pulled ever so slightly on the scruff of his beard. He decidedly did not comment on it due to the risk of A) claws to the face, and B) Logan becoming aware of his actions and stopping completely. Because, c’mon this was riveting stuff! And besides, it was pretty clear that Logan was absorbed in the shitty movie (as un-scary and predictable as it was) and he definitely didn’t want to make the other man lose his focus, that’s just rude. So Wade sat, silent, and continued to stare.
The next thing that Wade picked up on was that Logan was 100% a stomach sleeper, and would toss and turn for hours if he wasn’t on his stomach. Perhaps he refused to lay that way before due to the incessant innuendos that came from Wade, mentioning something about Logan’s “voluptuous ass” but must have eventually said ‘fuck it’ after realizing Wade had some understanding of consent, because every night now, Logan would be asleep within minutes of hitting the pillow of their shared pull out bed.
Call him a creep, but Wade loved to watch Logan as he slept. Not in the way that some people stand at the end of the bed with their dicks in their hands and watch the vulnerable sleeping person, obviously (you sick fuckers), but in the normal way a friend would watch their other friend sleep.
Yep. Very normal.
Wade was just fascinated by the position the other slept in. It almost looked like he was rock climbing. He had one arm under his head, hand turned in at an unnatural angle. The other arm was pulled up to his chest, loosely fisting the thin blanket he slept with. One leg stuck out straight down and poked out from under said blanket, while the other was more bent. His face had lost that signature scowl and actually seemed relaxed, for the most part.
Wade did wonder though, how heavy of a sleeper was Logan? When Logan had nightmares, it was usually hard to wake him up from them, but if Mary Puppins decided she needed to go outside to potty at 3 am, Logan was usually up the second she started whining and pawing at the front door.
So of course Wade had to figure it out.
As if in slow motion, he began to reach over towards the sleeping Logan, deciding to try and touch his hair. It just looked so soft and in all the other fanfics where Wade got to pet Logan, he’d literally purr. It was just too tempting for Wade to resist. Eventually, he did get there and very gently, Wade began to card his fingers though Logan’s hair.
It was soft, softer than he expected from someone Wade would have assumed to use 3-in-1 shampoo, and he actually was able to pet him for all of thirty long, blissful seconds before being met with a scowl from the apparently light-sleeper and immediately pulled back, almost falling off of the cramped bed. Shit.
“Oh- uh… Hey, peanut. What are you doing up at this hour?” He glanced over at the clock on the wall. 10:47 pm. “You should totally be asleep right now, a big handsome boy needs his beauty sleep, y’know. So just lay your pretty little head back down and go back to sleep, please” Smooth, Wilson. Smooth.
Logan rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying and failing to rub the sleep out of them (adorable). “What the fuck are you touching me for?”
“I wasn’t touching you,” Wade said, matter-of-factly. “I was petting you.” Wade had meant to lie to Logan, tell him that he was dreaming and definitely wasn’t being pet, but his mouth had once again betrayed him (gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss… yeah, right).
A sigh, and a long-suffering look, followed by a yawn so wide Wade swore he could hear the other’s jaw crack.
“Well if you’re going to touch me while I’m sleeping, at least don’t keep touching the same spot over and over. It’s uncomfortable.” And with that, Logan simply rolled back over into his previous position, and closed his eyes. What the fuck? Wade, dumbly, just stared at the back of his head where his hands had once been, at those stupid fucking cowlicks that only seemed to stick out more from sleeping on low-quality sheets.
Wade didn’t even realize he was talking at this point, voice tight and strained. “What the fuck was that? You wake up to me petting you like some creepy old guy as you sleep, and you just tell me ‘oh, hey, not like that’,” he says, trying and definitely not failing at impersonating Logan, “and then just go back to sleep like it doesn’t warrant you stabbing me in the dick? Did Al fucking drug you? Or did you maybe get your brain scrambled a little too hard by that last lame supervillain wannabe from that mission we got sent on yesterday?”
A muffled chuckle came from where Logan had his face partially covered by the blanket. “I’m not exactly some helpless maiden getting preyed on here, bub. If you’re going to be a perv, which you will, at least do it right.”
Okay, yeah, Wade was definitely losing his fucking mind right now. Is this what psychosis feels like? Is this the culmination of his cancer ridden brain giving him one last little thing before finally ending him? Maybe he’s been straight up hallucinating Logan all this time. People did, in fact, seem to think he was schizophrenic. But… he absolutely wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity that was handed to him on a goddamn silver platter, regardless of what handed it to him. Wade was just a man, after all. So he just… returned to petting him, deliberately not touching the same spot for more than a few seconds at a time. Like it was totally normal and not at all causing his heart to beat out of his fucking chest.
The other thing that Wade had noticed about Logan, he found out under some pretty stressful circumstances, unfortunately. The day after the whole ‘Logan letting Wade pet him without trying to cut his arms off’ thing, the two had to make a run for groceries. They hadn’t been in a few weeks and living on instant ramen and beer just wasn’t sustainable. And Al, bless her, said that if she didn’t “get some real goddamn food” soon, she would kick them both out of the apartment and change the locks.
So, here they were. At the grocery store. Together. After not talking about it. And Wade felt more nervous being alone together now than he would have felt if they got wasted and fucked instead (and isn’t that just a lovely thought).
It wasn’t that Wade was trying to avoid the topic, he really wanted to talk about it, but talking about it with Al around wasn’t an option. So he asked Logan to come shopping with him, thinking that it would give them ample time to discuss it, but ever since they had gotten to the grocery store, Logan was acting really strange.
Logan very much was the opposite of whatever a ‘social butterfly’ was (perhaps, anti-social moth?), Wade knew that all too well. But this was different. Logan seemed almost on-edge, as though he were about to launch into full-on fight or flight mode. He was gripping the shopping cart like it killed his friends (too on the nose?), knuckles turning white like he was about to pop his damn claws.
Wade was just about to ask him what his deal was, when Logan suddenly stopped in his tracks and announced “I need a fucking cigarette,” and all but ran for the exit.
He blinked, mouth still open to ask Logan ‘what’s up, buttercup, why do you seem like you’re about to freak the fuck out’. He managed to wait all but two seconds before abandoning the shopping cart and running after Logan (sorry, minimum wage workers).
Making it out the doors, he looked around for a moment until he caught sight of the man sitting on a bench across the street, lit cigarette hanging from his mouth. Logan was rubbing his hands up and down his thighs as though his hands were dirty, brushing over the rough denim of his jeans. Tension radiated from his form, and it makes something in Wade’s chest clench.
He made his way across the street and after a moment, with a lack of a ‘fuck off’ or ‘leave me alone’ from Logan, sat on the opposite side of the bench. He waited until the cigarette was finished before turning to face Logan, who was lighting another one, and struggled to come up with what to say.
Logan beat him to it.
“I’m fine, Wade. Go finish getting the groceries.”
“Nuh-uh, what the hell was that princess, you totally freaked out in there!” Wade would not be deterred this time. He was a total dick, and a perv, and mostly spoke nonsense, but underneath all of that, he considered himself a loyal friend. And he’ll be damned if he lets Logan deal with… whatever this is, without a little support.
“I said I’m fine, just needed to not be somewhere so loud for a minute,” Logan said, in his general direction, but not quite looking at him, which he tended to do a lot. He cracked his knuckles, and began to pick at his fingernails. Still giving off that tense energy, but a little more subdued.
Wade was even more confused now. “Loud? Honey badger, there were like four other people in the whole store, including the cashier. I don’t think I heard anything?”
Another sigh. Another long-suffering look.
Logan turned to actually face him now, visibly exhausted. “Yeah, I figured…” he trailed off, and Wade could see him thinking. He took a long drag of the second cigarette before continuing, “I don’t know if it’s because of my mutation or what, but everything is so fucking loud sometimes. Like in there,” he points to the store, “I can hear every little squeak of the wheels on the cart. I can hear bags crinkling from three aisles over. And the fucking A/C system blowing and the misters for the fresh produce. God, and those stupid fucking loud ass fans that come on every time someone comes in or out of the motherfu-”
His voice was growing more strained the longer he went on. The picking of his nails turned into digging into the skin of his cuticles and scratching at his knuckles where his claws emerge from.
Wade couldn’t take it.
“Woah woah woah, hey, stop,” he cuts Logan off, hands up in front of his chest as if not to scare the other man away with the sudden movements. “Just, breathe for a second babygirl, catch your breath.”
And Logan does, much to Wade’s surprise. He takes a long, almost shaky breath in, holds, and lets it out. He actually looks Wade in the eyes for a moment, and then turns his eyes back to the store. He looks so defeated and it brings back that aching feeling in Wade’s chest.
“Look…” Wade starts, and Logan looks towards him again, “I’m not going to sit here and say I get it, because I don’t think I do, but if you want, I can go back in and just get whatever groceries we left in that cart, and then we can go straight home. I won’t make you go back in there, because it’s obviously stressing you the fuck out.” He reaches out and tentatively pats Logan on the shoulder. “It’s no biggie, we’ll just tell Al something about inflation and not getting paid enough this week which is why we didn’t get everything on the list. We already got the important stuff, so you just sit tight and I’ll come back in like five minutes. Sound good, peanut?”
A tense beat of silence.
And then, almost so quiet you couldn’t hear it, Logan says, “yeah, sounds good. Thanks.” A small smile made its way onto his face (2008’s most adorable man alive).
That awful ache faded away almost instantly, and Wade positively beamed at the sight. “Awesome!” He hopped up from his seat on the bench, “I’ll be back before you finish your third cigarette, sweet cheeks! Promise!”
And true to his word, Wade actually did manage to come back about halfway through Logan’s third cigarette, arms loaded up with their bags of groceries. “Fuck, princess, do you mind carrying some of these? This shit’s heavy as fuck!” He played it up a little, staggering slightly and letting his arms droop lower. He wanted to make sure Logan wasn’t still thinking about his little meltdown moment inside the store, so in typical Wade Wilson fashion, he needed to act a little bit goofy (out of every word you could have chosen… goofy?).
Logan almost laughed at Wade’s obviously fake struggle, but grabbed his fair share of bags to carry back to the apartment. It was only a block or two away, and even though Wade very much could carry it all himself, Logan didn’t want the bread and eggs being crushed by anything else.
They walked back to the crack-home, as Wade liked to call it, in companionable silence. It was honestly a feat on Wade’s part, he was genuinely trying here for Logan, and it definitely didn’t go unnoticed.
“You know you’re allowed to talk, right?” Logan honest to god smirked at Wade.
“Oh thank god. That was getting unbearable, pookie. Just let me know if you need me to shut up, though, I don’t need you taking off on me again. I really don’t want to have to chase after you with all these fucking groceries- and why the fuck did Al write such a long motherfucking list! It’s like she’s trying to punish us! We obviously don’t have a car to haul these all home in so-”
“I take it back, shut up.”
Wade immediately closed his mouth, almost feeling bad for rambling. That was, until he caught sight of the shit-eating grin plastered on the other’s face. It took a few seconds for his brain to play catch-up and he fully stopped in his tracks when it clicked.
Logan was fucking with him. Bantering. Playing a joke. Yankin’ his chain.
“Oh my god, you can make jokes!” The glee in Wade’s voice was evident. Logan rolled his eyes, but the smile was still there, “Of course I can, you’re usually just not funny enough to joke with.”
Wade let out an obnoxiously loud laugh at that, “Wow, good one! That almost doesn’t hurt my feelings. Here I am, poor old cancer-riddled Wade, the butt of the joke. That was low-hanging fruit, shame on you!” He feigned a hurt look, doing his best to wipe a fake tear from his eye with a handful of grocery bags.
The rest of the short walk was nice, more back and forth between them with only a few empty threats of extreme violence sprinkled in, and they made it back to the apartment. Wade did, in fact, tell Al the lie about the inflation and their budget, which she accepted pretty quickly (Inflation isn’t a joke, it’s a real crisis that affects everyone!).
After dinner and winding down with another bad horror movie (Logan picked it this time), Al retired to bed, claiming she had a ‘busy day’ tomorrow. Wade and Logan shared a knowing look before wishing her a good night.
And then they were alone again, side by side on their lumpy pull-out bed.
The TV was turned down low, as to not disturb Al on the other side of the wall, but continued to play another low-budget thriller that Wade didn’t care to remember the name of. The two men laid there, facing away from each other, and the nervousness began to creep back up Wade’s spine.
He was the first to break the silence.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” was the muffled reply.
“Are you awake?”
“No shit.”
“Cool.”
Logan rolled over with a huff and sat up. Wade couldn’t see his face, on account of still facing away from him, but he could feel Logan’s presence looming over him.
“Cut the shit, out with it.”
Wade let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding and shifted to lay on his back, propping himself up on his elbows, and the words tumbled out of him.
“Thank god! It’s been eating at me all day. Why in the world were you okay with me feeling you up last night? Because I’ll admit it: that was totally creepy of me! Like Ronald McDonald keeping Grimace in his basement levels of creepy. Like I totally understand that you were okay with it, but why? Because six months ago, you would have literally tried to kill me for it, but you didn’t.”
Logan shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “Because I like you.”
“I’m sorry, say that one more time, a little louder, please. Because I’ve obviously lost my goddamn mind because I could have sworn you said that you, Logan, liked me.”
“Yeah, and?” Logan deadpanned.
“Okay, I get that you’re suddenly the master of jokes today but this one really isn’t funny peanut.”
“I’m not joking Wade, and I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t know you felt the same way.”
“I mean… you are absolutely correct in that statement, I’ll give you that,” Wade was somehow struggling with his words again. “But how-... how did you figure it out?”
Another shrug, but Wade could see a tinge of pink in his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“I can hear your heartbeat, so that kinda gave it away... And you’re the only person in this timeline who I think really pays attention and sees me, and you don’t treat me differently because of it,” Logan paused for a long time, but Wade could tell that there was more he wanted to say. “The people I used to know, the ones who didn’t really know me, always took what I said the wrong way so I eventually had to start, I don’t know, acting around them. Pretend to be like them. And it was so exhausting. But I don’t have to do that around you. So-... yeah, Wade, there it is.”
Logan’s heartfelt admission of liking (because Loving is a very strong word!) was met with silence, the words sinking in slowly until Wade spoke, so quietly that even Logan almost missed it.
“I’m going to kiss you now.”
Logan’s wide eyes bore into Wade’s, a silent, pleading ‘yes’.
And so he did.