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Breeze drifts easily along his body, curls at his toes and whips around, swells against his waist and dissipates into nothingness again, waiting for the next gust to arrive instead. The air is chilled, racks bumps along his skin and he shivers, the warm body beside him only negating the cold along his back. Try as he might, escaping Wade’s sleep slackened body is no easy feat, usually he'll snuffle half-heartedly and wiggle closer, wrap his arms tighter. Logan can't say with certainty that he's opposed to the limp warmth behind him, but the air is stuffy and the abused springs inside the pullout dig tight coils into his hip.
It all calls for a drink, maybe three, as he shifts out of Wade’s grip easily enough, huffing as sleep wraps around the edges of his vision, eyesight murky and muddled, and he stands from the makeshift bed while it groans it's protest. Logan turns back, catches the way Wade’s hands wriggle searchingly, finding Logan’s pillow and tugging it tight, face dipping into it and sighing with content. Logan smiles, knows Wade won't see it but he smiles, only barely there but his gut feels warm at the domestic display.
He can't get used to it.
Padding to the kitchen, socks muffling the sound of his movements, he delicately opens the fridge in just the right way so as to not rattle the glass cased bottles inside, collecting three bottles of beer from the lowest shelf. Wade had insisted he slow down the drinking, and when Logan had chucked a hissy fit, shouting and overturning furniture because how dare he care, Wade had compromised. Bought cases of beer for Logan to, albeit slowly, chug down on every now and again to make the bar visits fewer. Something about controlling your environment, yadda yadda, boring stuff that Logan had more than preferred to let fly in one ear and out the other, undeniably taking a liking to his drink rather than recovery.
Nights like these, where sleep comes with a struggle and a half and more than likely concludes with his claws sunken into one body, be it furniture or Wade himself, the drink comes in handy. Dampens the thoughts, visions, memories, his mind supplies, they're real, you lived through these. Maybe that's the problem: he lived. He shouldn't be alive, goes against every law of nature. It's in his nature to defy.
He'd defied that sickness as a boy, spent most of his days riddled with coughs and hiccups, sweating buckets into the soft linen he lay on, and it'd all left him as the claws made their entrance. Defied the years upon years of conditioning, training, sent overdrive only to forget it all and be sent out again like an obedient animal. He wouldn't remember what they did to him, what he did to those he was sent to kill until years later when the memories rose up like bloated bodies along a river's surface. He'd forgotten so much, wishes he still did.
Logan had defied the X-Men, left them time and time again until there were no X-Men to abandon, just himself.
Was in his nature to leave.
Logan twists to look at Wade, soundly sleeping, taking advantage of the space Logan left in his wake. Thinks about why he hasn't fled yet. To say he hasn't tried would be to lie, because he has. In the beginning, when the familiarity of coming home after working and kicking up his feet to rest and nurse a can of beer settled uneasy in his gut and began to feel too much like a bliss he'd experienced few times before, he packed a bag and left overnight. Wade found him the next morning, tutting and disciplining him like a misbehaved dog, hand scrunched at the scruff of his neck as he dragged him along smelling of the dumpster he slept in.
Stepping out onto their cramped balcony, only allowing the space of two lawn chairs and a round glass table with a flower pot and ashtray, Logan takes a seat and grumbles. The night is cooler out here, breeze gently whipping his short tufts of hair, whisking factory scented air against his nostrils. The city is bleak; the sky empty save for the full moon beating down against the skyscrapers and rooftops. It's nothing compared to the mountains he resided in before, nothing but open, wide landscapes and the scent of pine needles and freshwater. Or the school, he thinks, twisting the cap of a bottle off with his canine tooth, which had a collection of smells like perfumes and colognes, new books and varnished wood. Like Jean, like Scott.
Something in his chest twinges, shifted out of place while he swallows down beer. Below him the world continues on through the sound of tyres rolling over tarmac and distant chatter, even as he recalls his old family (he ignores his choice of referring to them as the ‘old family’, as if he has a new one. His mind briefly wanders to Wade, Althea. The dog. Ticks on past that thought just as hastily.) , the way they'd supported him through his inner trials, his alcoholism, which still persists. Logan sighs, breaths short and thick, takes a drag of the bottle and sets it down unnecessarily harshly.
His thoughts get eclipsed when the seat to the right of the table creaks, sat on top of it is Wade, dressed in a desaturated pink cardigan above some nonsense cartoon t-shirt and plaid pyjama pants. Logan looks at him for a second, his expression dubious as Wade huffs and looks at the yawning sky. Wordless, the other man grabs a bottle of beer, struggles with the cap (even with his inhuman strength) before passing it to Logan with a sort of opposition. Logan uncaps it the same way he did with his own, handing it back, fingertips brushing along Wade’s and it sends shivers sprawling along his back. He blames it on the wind.
The silence drags, Wade just rubbing blearily at his eyes and sipping down, uncharacteristically quiet and Logan can't help himself from staring. “Did I wake you?” Logan provides when the other makes no move to rip the silence.
Wade hums, shakes his head no, turning to look at Logan. Wade has interesting eyes, Logan wouldn't admit it to his face, but his irises are a desaturated brown, his pupils milky like an old dogs, like they've got a white filter over the top. Logan can guess it's attributed to the reason the rest of Wade looks similarly unique. “Sorry, I thought we were having a sullen, angsty, stewing in our thoughts moment. Was I wrong?”
Wade’s voice is gleeful, strained with sleep but his teeth poke through a smile when Logan just lets something like a growl of affirmation rumble in his chest and turns back to where they overlook the city. Another sip of beer between the two and Wade clings to his cardigan a little tighter. “So, then. Wanna share your deep dark secrets or should I start us off? You know, I've drank my own piss before.”
Cringing at his words, Logan scowls at him, drinking again before plopping the empty bottle against the glass table, wedging back further into his seat, hand rubbing along the facial hair atop his lip as he thinks about Wade’s offer. A third cap is popped off and Logan begins to sip down on the contents.
“Multiple times, actually. Not my proudest moments believe it or not but it wasn't so bad. Used socks to wipe my ass when money was tight. Amongst other things. The list goes on, actually.” Wade rattles, chin tilted up in thought as he recalls more disgusting things. Logan wants to cut him off, stop the thoughts running rampant in his brain and unfortunately penetrating his own with horrible images of Wade doing unspeakable things, but he knows that would be admitting defeat and getting himself to talk about what is plaguing him tonight.
The thought of that isn't half bad.
Wade makes it easy to talk. For a chatterbox he gets lenient when others have something to say, easing into quietude as they speak and nodding along when it matters. It might not all get through his brain but he eases it out of them anyhow, fetching words from even the most despondent people. Logan’s no less affected by it, but his words are sharper, often more insults than deep talk or mild mannered words like small talk. He's never been one for talking, his anger translates it just fine. When that's all he feels, why should he speak? People take to the visuals better than the auditory. More tactile, leaves impacts.
But he's different. Wade recovers better than the average human, beatings are just another day for him, sparring is a better outlet for him than anything else. Words work best on him, his mind is buzzing with them, Logan can tell, so you have to make him think about yours.
“Well?” Wade presses, voice urging as he looks at Logan expectantly, leaning forward in his seat to catch his eyes. Logan’s fist clenches around the glass bottle, feeling it give slightly under the pressure.
“You know why I'm hated, back in my universe?” He asks, voice gruff as he pointedly doesn't use the word home to describe that place - the only home there was them, and when they left so did his sense of belonging. He finds it easier to exist here, to belong.
“Uhh, yeah? Something about letting down the fam, or something. I think.”
Another sip, clenching tighter, his thigh bounces and his heel pads against the solid floor as he sniffles. He hates the cold, still stays underdressed anyway to feel the bluntness of it as it digs into his pores with rough teeth. “Yeah. Not just that though.”
Beckoning with his eyes, Wade squints, resting back and settling into the atmosphere Logan sets. He feels his teeth grind in his mouth, scents blood, a question in the air.
“After I.. lost them. Let them die, too drunk to even hold myself up let alone be there when it was most important. I was so angry, still am,” Logan says, laughs dryly when he thinks back on that petulant rage, the way it festered in his gut and built on the inner turmoil of grief, made it violent. “Easiest emotion for me to embrace, I ‘spose. But anyway, after that, when I didn't.. cope, couldn't cope, I, err, started killin’.”
Wade’s gaze doesn't falter. His eyes are still trained on him, he doesn't even feel a scent change when he admits it, but he supposes Wade understands killing better than anyone he knows.
Wade has interesting eyes, Logan thinks he might tell him one day, they gleam with some underlying sorrow, glassy, liquid like milk on top of the soft hazel. They brighten when he smiles, they're animated even with a lack of eyebrows and lashes.
Coughing, Logan starts back up. “Killed the fuckers who killed the mutants. Killed all of those bastards, downright mutilated them. Couldn't tell one from another when I was done. Deserved it.” He blinks, sluggish, remembers the tang of blood on his tongue, the slickness that covered him for weeks as he tracked them all down, a thirst he couldn't quench even when they all had been slaughtered. “Didn't stop there, though. After they were all dealt with, I didn't feel like I accomplished anything.”
His ribs feel like they're tightening, constricting and cramping down on his lungs, ready to snap. His gut is sour, feels it all the way in his throat, too. Wade frowns with his eyes, lips quirked down as he listens. Might be the longest he’s spoken to Wade in days, and he can tell the merc is drinking it in like it's only the finest wine offered, even if it's tainted by the truth; by Logan’s truth, what makes him so frowned upon. No one else had given him the time of day, let him dribble on about his sorrows and grief because it was unjustified. Had he not wanted those feelings he should've been present, should've fucked those shitheads up before they could ever think of laying a dirty paw on the kids at the school, on his friends.
Logan’s throat quivers, failing under the truth that bores down, he has to turn away from Wade when he feels liquid prick at his eyes. “I began killin’ people who looked at me wrong. Or whoever would say the wrong thing about them. Women, men, young or old. They didn't do anything inherently wrong. I'm just a jackass who couldn't get myself in line. Didn't care when they spoke ill of me. Deserved that.” He let them do it, it got his rocks off in bed when he had to fuck everything but the anger out, when he fucked with his anger. Everything else felt out of place inside Logan, like a jigsaw piece that slots in right but it's the wrong print, it wasn't designed for him. Not then, maybe not now.
The beer in his hand is empty again, moves to place it next to the other, the bottle Wade is swivelling sits half empty. Logan wants more, needs to drown every inkling of emotion in his body with the liquor, wants to feel it burn in his chest and his gut, to feel the violent tug of it resurfacing when he vomits it out an hour later, rinse and repeat. He found comfort in that routine of being perma-drunk, sobriety was too heavy on his mind, it made him feel like his skin was ill fitting. Next to him Wade blinks, understanding, swallowing what Logan allowed him to hear slowly like he's making it last.
“You really don't play about the angst, do you? You poor, damaged man.” Wade sighs, hand to his chest like Logan’s pains and struggles were a personal attack to himself, and Logan has to fight the grin that wants to smear across his face at Wade’s ability to find his signature unseriousness even after Logan admits to his wrongdoings. “That was deep. Thank you, Logan, for letting me hear. You need therapy, though. I know a lovely woman, her name is Linda.”
He sounds sincere for a moment there, eyes soft as his lips look. Wade takes a last swig of his beer and offers it to Logan who takes it with no questions. The wind tugs along, gentle like kisses, wisps along his neck and sends shivers along his spine as he continues to watch Wade.
“You have interesting eyes.” Logan tells Wade with an air of finality, done talking for tonight, eager to let the liquor have some sway on his sleeping habits. Those eyes peer at him then, confused, jittery, crinkling at the edges as a smile plucks at Wade’s lips.