Chapter Text
At the party, Wade smiles at him and he feels a wave of unearned happiness wash over him. “Give me the dog,” Logan hisses in Wade’s ear. “Talk to the girl.” He turns to Laura and tries to drown out Wade and Vanessa’s hushed voices. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Vanessa gently grab Wade’s hand and ignores the inexplicable sinking feeling in his chest. Instead, he focuses on Laura as she tells him what she’s been up to ever since those time weirdos kindly transported her out of the void. The TVA had set them up with a generous monthly allowance as a “thank you” for saving their asses and all known universes, which Logan thinks is the bare minimum. Laura’s staying at a motel for now, gracefully turning down the invitation to stay with Logan, Wade and Blind Al at their already too cramped apartment.
Across the table from him, Piotr laughs and Logan allows himself to glance for a split second before turning his attention back to Laura. It feels surreal seeing a ghost from his world enjoying a party, knowing his alternate counterpart’s demise. Next to him, Ellie Phimister is grinning at her bubbly girlfriend. In Logan’s world, Negasonic Teenage Warhead was what the kids described as “gothy” with her pale white face, gaunt expression and gloomy demeanor. She also died when the sentinels wiped out Genosha. A reminder that while some things were very similar in this universe, other things were completely different and alien to him.
Afterwards, when the party’s over and they’re cleaning up, Piotr approaches him. “I can take you to the mansion, if you want,” he says conversationally and Logan freezes for a second before resuming the dishes. “There is always a place for Wolverine with the X-Men.”
“I’m not him,” Logan replies and almost breaks one of the dishes with the force he’s using to scrub it. The last time he saw the mansion, it was completely destroyed by the sentinels the humans had sent to kill the X-Men in their sleep. The last time he was there, he saw the corpses of the family he let down. Jean, Scott, Kitty, Ororo, Kurt -
“You look exactly like him,” Ellie interrupts his thoughts. She looks him straight in the eye in a way his Ellie would never dare to. “It’s kind of creepy.”
“Maybe it’s fate,” Yukio says thoughtfully. “You lost your X-Men, we lost our Logan. Maybe this was meant to be - like destiny.”
Logan has nothing to say to that. After a few more minutes of chatter - that made Logan feel awkward and out of place - they finally relented and let him be. Before leaving, Piotr grasps his shoulder in a firm grip and tells him again: “There is always a place for you with us, Logan. No pressure, though.” Logan simply nods as the last of the group shuffles out of Wade and Blind Al’s tiny apartment. Vanessa’s saying something to Wade and before she leaves, she gives Logan an unexpected hug as well. “Thank you,” she whispers in his ear, “for making sure he came back home.” Logan says nothing to that but nods gruffly as she exits the apartment.
There’s a moment of silence in this dump of a home before the merc with the mouth decides to break it. “Sooooo,” Wade says in a sing-songy tone. “You thinking about leaving this exquisite paradise and going back to the mansion full of screaming, hormonal, fuck-face teenagers?” Even though Wade’s tone is casual, there’s a pinched expression to his face that Logan doesn’t want to analyze right now. So he was listening in on Logan's conversation with the X-Men.
“No,” Logan says after a beat and snorts as Wade visibly perks up. Without the mask, the man is an open book. “Like I said, I’m not their Logan. They’re not my X-Men, and that isn’t my home.” The people who died in his universe could never be replaced. But more than that - Logan knew he didn’t deserve whatever love these X-Men had for him because of his counterpart. While Logan may have had a hand in saving this universe, he wasn’t the man who sacrificed himself to save the future of mutantkind. He was the man who damned mutantkind by being a violent, feral piece of shit drunk.
“Well Peanut,” Wade said, oblivious to Logan’s internal monologue, “I should warn you I’m a cuddler.”
“What the fuck are you talking about,” Logan asked flatly.
“Oh you know, there was only one bed! Classic trope, the readers love that type of shit. Really good for building sexual tension. I’m getting wet just thinking about it.”
Logan ignored that last part. “I’ll just sleep on the couch,” he says tersely.
“Oh my beautiful, sexy honey badger,” Wade says in a sickly sweet tone, “the couch is the bed.”
Logan doesn’t know how Wade managed to finally convince him to share a tiny fucking couch with him, but here he was on the other end of Wade’s makeshift “bed” with Wade’s smelly foot pressing into his face. Logan rationalizes that it must go to show how fucking tired he feels but as he lies on his back staring at the cracks in the shitty cieling, he finds sleep evading him.
The last time Logan shared a bed with someone was before his world went to shit. He remembers the feeling of Kurt pressing into him, the handsome blue beard he decided to grow tickling his face while he whispered “mein Liebling, mein Ein und Alles” as he kissed and bit into Logan’s burning hot skin. Logan, unused to gentle love touches, could do nothing but hold on tightly to Kurt’s lithe frame as the elf took them both over the edge. Afterwards, as they laid in the afterglow of their orgasm, Kurt teased him goodheartedly about being a “pillow princess.” Logan smacked his shoulder in indignation and Kurt snorted, peppering Logan’s skin with soft kisses as an apology. Logan felt like his chest was going to burst with happiness, a feeling he was wholly unaccustomed to. As they drifted off to sleep, Logan had never felt happier.
In the morning he woke with Kurt’s head tucked under his chin and a feeling of trapped unease like a caged animal. He quietly extracted himself from his sleeping lover and left the room. He packed a bag with the bare essentials, went down to the garage, took his bike out of the mansion, and only stopped at a bar eight hours out to get shit-faced drunk. And he didn’t stop getting drunk for the rest of the week. By the time Logan mustered up the courage to go back to the mansion, there was nothing to go back to.
Logan sits up from his place on the couch and watches Wade as the merc sleeps. There’s nothing graceful or pretty about the other man. He snores obnoxiously; not even sleep will make him shut the fuck up which should annoy Logan more than it does. He’s splayed out in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable to sleep in and his bare chest should honestly be grotesque to look at.
But Logan feels his troubled thoughts quiet as he watches Wade twitch and snore through his deep slumber. So he sits there and watches, and tries not to think about Vanessa’s hand in Wade’s, their sweet whispers to one another during the dinner party, and how Logan’s days in this shithole apartment are surely numbered.
Wade wakes up to the smell of bacon and coffee and for a split second wonders how Blind Al’s coked out ass managed to cook without setting the place on fire before he remembers his new sexy roommate. He smiles and his heart swells in joy as he pictures the domesticity of Logan making him - him! - breakfast of all things. He bounces off the couch and practically skips towards the kitchen. Logan, back turned to Wade, is indeed cooking bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast. The smells of foods intermingling with the cigar hanging low from Logan’s lips and… beer?
“Okay baby girl,” Wade says and puts his arm around Logan’s waist. He’s feeling giddy and brave. “I know I’m not gonna be on the cover of Men’s Health magazine anytime soon but beer for breakfast is kind of pushing it into intervention territory.”
Logan tenses for a second and then allows himself to relax into the embrace. Interesting. “I mixed it with coffee, so it’s fine,” Logan says gruffly while refusing to meet Wade’s gaze. Wade glances over at the coffee pot he and Blind Al barely use and sees that there’s still enough coffee for two more people. Huh.
“That doesn’t make it better,” Wade says. “I need you to know that mixing your beer with coffee doesn’t actually make drinking beer at 11 AM any better. Please know that. The raging alcoholic thing is super hot but also a little concerning.”
Logan shrugs out of Wade’s hug and Wade can’t help but feel a little sad over it. The Wolverine’s shoulders are tense and he’s not meeting Wade’s eyes. “There’s eggs, bacon, toast and coffee that I made. You can either shut the fuck up and eat or keep talking about my terrible fucking habits.” Despite Wade’s reputation for running his mouth, he does occasionally know when to shut the fuck up. He obediently makes his plate and sits down at their table and Wade fights down a wave of joy at the fact that Logan cooked for him. It was just too cute, even if the food was admittedly subpar and Logan was bitching about inane shit as Wade wolfed down his share.
When Logan’s grumbling dies down, Wade chances a glance at his sexy companion. He notices the dark circles under Logan’s eye and is contemplating saying something about it when Blind Al stumbles out of her room. She sniffs the air. “Someone cooked? It can’t be Wade, he never fucking cooks. Was that you, Logan?” she demanded.
“Yes ma’am,” Logan says. “Let me grab you a plate.” Wade whips his head towards Logan while the other man pointedly ignores him. Blind Al sits down across from Wade, saying something about “finally getting some fucking respect in this house,” as Logan sets her plate in front of her. He sits down and listens to Blind Al complain about what a shit roommate Wade is because he never cooked for her, which, ow. That’s really hurtful. Mary Puppins makes her way to their table at one point. She paws at Logan’s leg and whines pitifully which causes Logan to sigh and pick her up. Blind Al gives her a piece of the burnt bacon that she chokes on. Logan mutters an “oh for fuck’s sake” as she coughs and hacks the bacon back onto the table.
Wade watches the scene in uncharacteristic silence. He thinks back to Vanessa’s words at the party. “You look happy,” she had said.
“I am,” he replied. She was silent for a beat.
“You look happy when you look at him,” she finally spoke again, and Wade found that he couldn’t argue with her words. She gave him a look of understanding and acceptance and Wade felt a stab of guilt at the realization of what they were talking about. “It’s okay,” she had reassured him. “I’m really happy for you” and he could tell she meant it. She took his hand in hers and looked at him with loving eyes.
Back in the present, Logan was looking down at Mary Puppin’s shaking body with mild concern as the pup started eating the bacon it had vomited. “Thank fuck I’m blind because whatever’s happening over there sounds disgusting,” Al muttered under her breath. Wade watched his friends and for the first time in a long fucking while, he felt content. He didn’t know how long Logan planned to stick around, but he’ll take the other man’s presence in his life for as long as Logan tolerated him.
That could be enough for him.