Chapter Text
"What the —? Ugh, gross!" Logan spits, sitting up from where he'd been melting into the couch, soda in hand. Some of it sloshes onto the floor when he gestures violently to the TV screen with his can. "What fucking channel is this? Are you seriously watching fetish porn right now?"
Wade gives him an incredulous look, as if he can't imagine what's so strange about a commercial for adult diapers. That on its own wouldn't be too bizarre, granted, but this commercial is geared toward adults acting like babies, all shots of grown men and women crawling around in diapers, suckling pacifiers, being scooped up into the arms of other adults who, like Wade, seem to think this is some kind of normal.
"Fetish porn?" Wade grimaces. "That's a commercial for diapers, are you kidding? It doesn't get more innocent than that, weirdo."
"But it's — look at it!" Logan gestures again. He feels like he's going insane, or, alternatively, like he's the only sane person alive. "That's not fucking normal! Y'know, I'm starting to think your whole universe is as batshit as you!"
Logan thinks of a few other less-than-normal things he's seen since he moved in last week. Since he started leaving the apartment three days ago, once to locate a decent bar and buy a beer (non-alcoholic; he's in the process of getting his shit together) and again yesterday to walk around the block. The bar endeavor was uneventful enough, but on his walk yesterday he passed a park where a grown man was running around playing as if he were a toddler. A woman was sitting on the bench, splitting her attention between him and the book in her lap. Logan thought it was odd, but decided there must've been a little kid playing somewhere out of his eyeshot, behind the slide or something, the two adults being their parents, the father just playing along with some game. Now he thinks maybe he was wrong about there having been a kid there.
Wade just stares at him for a moment, open-mouthed. "Oh," he says. "You... You don't have classifications in your universe, do you?"
"Classifications?" Logan bristles at the word, and the meaningful way Wade says it. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Okay, wow. Um." Wade laughs as if in disbelief, and grabs the remote off the coffee table, turns off the TV. "Sorry, peanut, you must be so confused. Uh... I don't really know how to explain this, honestly. Imagine if I showed up in your universe and I'd never heard of pizza before. You know about pizza, don't you?"
"Yes, I know about fucking pizza!" Logan scoffs. "Just tell me why the fuck you think it's fine and dandy for grown adults to act like — like that. Because where I'm from that shit wouldn't fly for a second."
"Because they're little," Wade says, in a "duh" tone.
"Little? A little what?" Logan asks. A little demented?
"No, that's their classification." Wade smiles, eyebrows raised, as if Logan's the one being ridiculous. "People who are classified as little spend most of their time — y'know, little."
Logan growls. "No, I don't fucking know —"
"Okay, okay, jeez.” Wade holds up his hands, placating. “It means they regress into their little headspace, and that varies from person to person. A little classification usually comes with an age range, and that's the age they are when they regress. The littles in that commercial were babies, for example. Not all littles are babies, but most are younger than twelve. Is this clicking for you, peanut? ‘Cause I feel like I'm explaining how to breathe, I knew all this when I was still in diapers."
"I — I don't —" Logan cuts himself off with a groan of frustration, at the outer limits of his patience. "Okay, whatever, littles, fine. Are there any other, uh, classifications?"
"Two more, yeah," Wade says. "There's 'caregiver,' that means you're kind of hardwired to take care of a little. All littles have a caregiver, there's a whole series of laws about that. Pretty much every caregiver has a little, and if they don't then they're definitely looking, 'cause being without one is basically torture, you end up swaddling pillows and crying yourself to sleep at night about how much you..." He trails off, and shakes his head, grinning again. "Anyway! And then there's 'neutral,' that means you're not a caregiver or a little, you're just kind of boring and in the background. Like betas in A/B/O fics."
Logan balks at the thought that there could be yet another layer to this insanity. "Betas, what? I thought you said there were only three?"
"There are, sorry. I was just referencing another realm of fanfiction culture, don't mind me." Wade pats Logan's back, smiling as if to console him; Logan glares and shifts away. "There's just littles, caregivers and neutrals here, that's all."
"Okay, so." Logan tries to wrap his head around this, as impossible as that seems. "I guess that would make you a, um. Neutral, right?"
"Wrong!" Wade laughs. "I'm a caregiver. Al, too."
"Oh." Logan thinks of what Wade said, how it's torture. "But you don't have a little." He pauses. "Do you?"
Wade shakes his head and sighs. "Vanessa was my little, before she, uh. Well.” He clears his throat. “She decided she'd rather have someone else be her caregiver."
"Oh!" Logan says again, shocked. "Wait, so. Vanessa wasn't your girlfriend?"
"Girlfriend? Of course not!" Wade seems disturbed by the thought, the same way Logan might expect someone to react to being asked if they'd dated a child. "And being little most definitely is not a 'fetish' thing, by the way. Seriously, you will go to jail if you try to hurt a little like that, and I'll be the one to put you there."
"You don't gotta worry about that. Damn." Logan barks out an astonished laugh. "I'm not touching that shit with a ten-foot pole. No offense, but that's disgusting."
Wade frowns at him, looking almost hurt enough for Logan to feel guilty. Almost. "Okay,” Wade says slowly. “But just so you know, the bond between a little and their caregiver is more sacred than Stan Lee here, so expect to be ostracized if you ever say that in public."
"In my book, it's a good thing to be ostracized by a bunch of freaks," Logan says mildly, and snatches the remote from Wade's lap so he can put on something that won't make him throw up. Wade falls silent, and Logan doesn't bother to check his expression. Doesn't bother to check himself, that word turning his stomach. He's a freak, too — but not like that, fuck.
He resolves to think nothing else of it.
"Hey, doc," Logan says when the woman finally gets into the exam room. Her nurse left him here what feels like forever ago, and he's been fidgeting around on the table ever since, crinkling the sanitary paper. His stomach jolts; he's nervous, but that's no surprise, doctors tend to have that effect on him. Mostly he's just annoyed to have to be here.
"Hello, Mr. Howlett!" She carefully closes the door behind her, and comes smiling over to Logan. She doesn't touch him — yet; he knows it's coming, and he's dreading it hard — or falter when he can't quite meet her eyes. "I'm Dr. Reyes, but you can just call me Cecilia if you'd like! I understand you came in today for a physical?"
"Mhm." He finds himself picking at an edge of the sanitary paper and quickly stops, scowling at himself. "Sorry, I, uh. I'm trying to get a job at the lumber yard, but they won't take me without a physical. So."
"I see. We'll definitely get that taken care of for you today," Dr. Reyes says. "But before that, I was wondering if you could clear up some confusion for me. You..." She pulls up a stool and sits, leveling Logan with a look of gentle concern. "You don't seem to have ever been classified. My nurses and I have been checking and double-checking and triple-checking. That's what the wait was about." She smiles, tilts her head. "But there's nothing on file for you."
"Oh." Logan starts up picking at the sanitary paper again, unable to help it. "Well, um. I — you know I'm from another universe, right? Maybe I didn't explain that well enough to the receptionist."
"No, no, I understand, you did fine," she soothes. "You're not the same James Howlett who used to live here. Actually, I already knew." She quirks her mouth, chuckling. "Thank you for saving the world, by the way."
"I didn't — I had some help." Logan clears his throat, fidgets some more. She's far from the first person to recognize him. Apparently the Time Ripper Incident had more news coverage than he thought, and it's always uncomfortable, especially when Wade's not there to absorb half of the attention. "But, um. See, in my universe, where I'm from, there's no such thing as all that, so I guess if you could just put it on file or whatever that I'm exempt, that'd be good."
"Hmm." Dr. Reyes nods, looking thoughtful, then apologetic. "Actually, hon, we're going to have to get you classified today."
Logan stiffens. "What?"
"There's just no getting around it. I could lose my license otherwise," she says. "Here, it's the law that everyone receives a TC, that's temporary classification, at twelve, and then an FC, final classification, at eighteen. As your new primary care physician, which I'm very honored to be." She smiles kindly. "It's my responsibility and my privilege to classify you. You have nothing to worry about, classifications are my specialty."
"But — but —" Logan feels himself spiralling toward panic, wanting to make a run for it, claws pricking the insides of his knuckles as they try to unsheathe. This isn't why he came here, this wasn't the plan. He's trapped. Not like Alkali Lake, he thinks in an attempt to stay calm; nothing like that. "I thought you specialized in mutants, that's what it said on — on the computer."
"Mutant classifications, that's right." She nods, her voice pitched low and obviously meant to soothe. "You're okay, sweetie. It won't take long, it'll be quick and easy, the results are immediate. Oh, and no needles! These days we just use a swab, and when we're done you can pick out three candies from the rewards chest. Doesn't that sound like fun?"
It's at this point that Logan realizes he's being treated as a child. Or, not a child — a "little." That's one of those classifications she's talking about, and there's also caregivers and neutrals. Wade explained it all to Logan his second week here. After that commercial.
That explanation was a month ago, and Logan's learned firsthand that the whole bizarre thing goes a lot deeper than that. It's like an element of the culture here, everyone's so serious about it; there are "little" playgrounds and "little" stores Logan has to duck his head and scurry past, "little" TV shows Logan always scrambles to switch off, "littles" everywhere, usually being led around by the people who take care of them, "caregivers." There was even one in the waiting room, a middle-aged woman curled up in a man's lap, sucking her thumb and whining while he tried earnestly to soothe her. He glared at Logan when he caught him staring incredulously, and Logan flinched to look away.
It's fucking freaky, and Logan wants nothing to do with it. He made that much clear to Wade a few weeks ago when Wade tried urging him to get classified, but what is he supposed to do now? He had to strangle Wade to shut him up about it, he can't exactly do that to a doctor.
"But." He bites his tongue against a whimper. He wishes so much suddenly that he'd brought Wade with him, that he hadn't just rolled his eyes when Wade offered to come. "But I'm still James Howlett, so maybe — can't we just say I'm whatever he was? What was he?"
"He was a caregiver, but you're not him," Dr. Reyes says, very soft. "You're your own person, Logan, and you deserve to have your own classification."
Logan feels struck in the skull by that, and he doesn't know what to say anymore. In shock more than complacency, he drops open his mouth when Dr. Reyes produces a vial and Q-tip from her pocket.
"Hey, Wade, you'll never believe what just happened!" Logan says around the lollipop in his mouth, bursting into the apartment. He's furious and in need of commiseration, so blind with it that he almost trips over Mary Puppins, who darts to the door to yip at him and prance around his feet. "Wade!" Logan slams the door and scoops her up, feeling guilty but also wanting to hold something warm, on his way into the living room. "Wade, where —!"
He freezes in his tracks, too stunned to stop Mary Puppins from licking at the lollipop in his slack mouth. Wade's standing in front of the coffee table beside Al, both of them staring at Logan, Al with more accuracy than usual. Logan's been the victim of surprise interventions before, always in regards to his drinking, usually with Jean as the well-intentioned but painfully condescending ringleader. This time it's Wade, who steps forward with his hands out placatingly, a gentle smile on his face. He knows.
"Oh my god," Logan says, groaning. Disgustingly more doting after she returned to the exam room with the results, Dr. Reyes wouldn't let him leave the clinic until he agreed to let her call a cab for him. She even walked him out, and that was bad enough, but at some point she must've... "She fucking called you!"
"You put me down as your emergency contact, peanut," Wade says in an infuriatingly soft tone, a tone suited for children. Littles, whatever. "I wanna just start off by saying —"
"No, fuck you, I'm not letting you say shit!" Logan whirls and heads for Wade's bedroom, stomping his boots on the floorboards. If he had a bedroom of his own, he'd storm into there, but he sleeps on the couch. "Motherfucker!"
"Logan!" Al calls. "You get back here, honey! We have a lot to discuss."
"Discuss my ass," Logan grumbles, kicking Wade's door shut behind him with a bang. He's still holding Mary Puppins, and he hugs her more tightly now, feeling increasingly set-upon.
"But your classification!" Wade's quickly outside the door. He doesn't test the knob, and Logan's relieved about that if nothing else, because the doors here don't have locks. "C'mon, buddy, let me in. I know that came as a shock, but there's nothing wrong with being a little! It's totally normal, it's all about biology and stuff you can't help. The doctor said you're in the four-to-six age group —"
"Oh, shut up!" Logan snaps. "How the fuck can you get that from spit!"
"Hey, peanut, I don't write the fanfic, I just live in it," Wade says, as if this makes sense. "And you live here, with me and Al, and we're both caregivers, so you can't expect us not to have a reaction to this."
"I'm moving out," Logan says decidedly. He sets Mary Puppins down on the bed, gives her the lollipop — he has two more in his pocket anyway — and sets to pacing. "I'm packing my shit and leaving this whole fucked up universe, don't try to stop me. I'm taking the dog."
"C'mon, you're not going anywhere!" Wade protests. "You belong here, you're happy here, and I bet you'll be even happier now."
Logan growls, a rumbling based low in his throat. His claws fly out. "I bet I'm about to fucking kill you."
"If that's what gets you to open the door, it's fine by me —"
Growling more viciously, Logan rips open the door, only to have Wade draw him into a disarming hug. He doesn't even flinch when Logan stabs him in the sides, just sighs softly and rubs between Logan's shoulders. Logan melts a little without meaning to; he likes hugs from people he trusts, weak for the contagious warmth and grounding pressure, and Wade's right at the top of that list even now.
No, Logan's not going anywhere.
"I always wanted a little boy," Wade says dreamily, then yelps when Logan twists his claws.
"Okay, so," Wade begins. "First things first, we need to set up a headspace schedule."
"You can say whatever bullshit you want, I don't care," Logan says, eyes on the ceiling. He feels like he's in therapy or something, lying on the couch while Wade and Al sit in their respective chairs and watch him. Or, listen to him, in Al's case. "I've decided I'm just gonna pretend I never went to the doctor, except for the physical. Tomorrow I'll go down to the lumber yard and get my job."
"Um," Wade says. "Well, I guess you can work there part-time, if you really want. It can only be one day a week, though, for four hours. Littles in your age group can't work more than that, and you can't work at all if you're regressed. You have to do a test once every hour that you're there, to prove you're still big."
Logan just sighs, drained and past the point of shock. "You people are fucking demented."
"Your caregiver also has to be on-site the whole four hours," Al says. "Don't forget about that one."
"Oh, yeah! I guess I'd bring a book or something," Wade says, chuckling when Logan groans. "It's just because we're in Canada and things are great here. In the States little labor laws are more lax. I think it's, like, six hours a week there," he says before Logan can announce again that he's moving. Shit.
"Well. If I can't work, I'll just get back into drinking," Logan says, halfway serious. "Wade, go out and get me some whiskey."
Al snorts.
"Haha," Wade says flatly. "Can we please start over now? I had a whole speech prepared when you got home and you didn't even let me start it."
Logan groans again, and turns his head to share an "isn't this asshole fucking crazy?" look with Mary Puppins where she sits in her bed. Mostly, though, she just looks like one of those rubber toys whose eyes pop out when they're squeezed. "Fine," he says.
"Thank you." Wade clears his throat. "I wanna just start off by saying I understand this is totally weird and alien for you. You were probably expecting to be classified as a neutral, because classifications aren't a thing where you're from, but you know what? You as a little makes a lot of sense to me."
"'Cause I'm short?" Logan guesses, rolling his eyes.
"Because you do that thing where you act all tough, like you don't need anything from anyone, when actually you desperately need to be hugged and never let go of," Wade says. Logan turns his head to fire a glare at Wade, but falters when he catches the way Wade's looking at him. It's not quite pity; it's something softer, more genuine and full of affection.
"That's true," Al says. "And you're in denial about it."
"Oh, yeah," Wade agrees. "In denial all the way up to your sweet little kitty ears."
"Move on," Logan growls, sitting up to bare his teeth at Wade.
"Yes, sir." Wade clears his throat, shifts in his chair. "Anyway, peanut. I know this is weird for you, but you've been here a couple months now, so you know it's not weird for us, right? Like, at all. Imagine if I showed up in your universe not knowing what tacos were — there are tacos in your universe, right?"
Logan groans. "Yeah, just like pizza."
"So you see what I'm saying, but it's okay," Wade says. "Me and Al are here to answer all your questions, so let 'em rip whenever."
"I don't have any," Logan says, and falls onto his back again, strings cut by exasperation.
"Sure you do," Al says. "This wasn't so personal when you asked questions before, you were on the outside of it then."
"I'm still on the fucking outside," Logan says. "I told you, I'm ignoring this shit. Like it never happened."
"Sounds like an incredibly healthy course of action, honey badger," Wade says gently. "But how about I give you the rundown of what an actually healthy plan for you would be? Just for hypothetical purposes, of course."
"Whatever," Logan says.
"Awesome! Now, four-to-six is the second youngest age group there is, so you're just a little guy," Wade coos. Logan's too exhausted by all this bullshit to explode over it anymore, or else he'd leap up and stab Wade again. "And that means you need more little time than, say, someone in the ten-to-twelve age group. You should ideally be in your headspace five days a week."
"Only five? That's two big days a week," Al says with disapproval. "No, it's better if he's big twice a month, one day every other week, and little the rest of the time."
"But he's never even regressed before," Wade argues. "Don't you think we oughta ease him into it?"
"I think he needs stability, a routine," Al says. "And that routine should only include two big days a month."
Logan just sighs, and directs his incredulous stare at the ceiling. "I'm still here," he says. "Really starting to wish I wasn't, but."
"Sorry, peanut," Wade says, ridiculously earnest. "Um, scratch what I said before. You should be little all the time, with two big days a month. Al's right, two days a week is kind of excessive." Logan scoffs and crosses his arms; does Wade actually think there's a chance in hell of him going along with this? "And when you're little, we take care of you. Well, it'll mostly just be me taking care of you and Al backseat caregiving, 'cause she's old and frail. And blind."
"Guilty as charged," Al says.
A while passes in silence, Logan brooding, and then Wade's out of his chair and kneeling by the couch, brushing his fingers along Logan's arm. Logan turns his head to frown at Wade, who smiles softly back.
"I'll be a good caregiver, I promise I will," he says. "I know I'm kind of a jackass and a lot of people don't think I can take anything seriously — but I'm taking this seriously. I have some experience, um, because Vanessa used to be my little, remember?"
Logan just nods, and looks at Wade's hand on his arm when meeting Wade's eyes gets too uncomfortable. It's like Wade thinks he's being interviewed for a job or something. A job he desperately needs.
"If you really hate it here," he says, sounding broken up suddenly. "You can get a new caregiver, I'll help you fill out the papers and stuff, um. I've done that before, too —" His voice breaks, but he's still smiling when Logan checks, eyes only a little tearful. It puts a crack across Logan's heart. Everyone here takes this shit so seriously, Wade included. "But if you just give me the chance, I know I can be good. I won't make the same mistakes as last time," Wade promises in a stronger voice, close to fierce. "You'll never feel hungry, or ignored, or anything bad ever again."
"Oh," Logan says, disarmed and caught up in that promise, the weight of it.
"So what do you say, honey?" Wade grins, gives Logan's arm a playful shake. "You wanna give me a chance?"
"I, um —" Logan sighs and takes a second, dropping his eyes again. "There's just one problem," he says. "Whatever you have here that makes people act like little kids, I don't have it. That headspace thing."
"Sure you do, or else you wouldn't have been classified as a little in the four-to-six age group." Wade smiles apologetically when Logan growls and rips his arm away. "Sorry, just recapping."
"Well," Al says. "Sometimes you just gotta fake it 'til you make it."
No way, Logan thinks, despite the way Wade's promise swelled his chest, his stupid heart. No way in hell.