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When Logan stops seizing, he wakes up incredibly slowly.
Lights blur overhead, swirling into blotches that dot his vision. His eyes water, lashes sticking together when he tries to blink the haze away. His hearing comes next, the buzz of electricity, the rustling of leather. There’s someone talking over him, rapid-quick, voice shifting and fading into a low, barely-audible hum. Logan can’t make out the words yet.
He groans, and his fists flex uselessly. Touch washes over him as his vision clears, the cold press of cracked concrete against his sweaty back, two leather-clad hands clasped around his shoulders. Red fills his vision, the hum growing louder.
“–goddamnit, you mother fuck…”
Smell is the last sense to hit him, and Logan gags. His arm flies up involuntarily, shoving the person at his side away with a surprising amount of strength. Dirt, stone, sweat, salt, electricity, blood– it all fills his head, coating the back of his mouth and the top of his tongue, seeping out of his eyes. He gags again, and throws himself onto his side, rolling over to throw up all over the concrete.
It’s another smell to add to his extensive repertoire, and that alone makes him vomit again.
“–gan, Logan! I’m gonna fucking rip your dick off–”
Hands grab at his shoulder, one on the top and one under his arm. They yank him up, and Logan gags, head spinning before he’s settled on his ass, sitting mostly upright and leaning against a cold piece of rubble.
“–deep-fry it in a food truck and shove it down your throat. Logan. LOGAN!”
Deadpool swims into his vision, and everything makes sense again.
The Time Ripper. The TVA. Wade pulling on cords full of particles and shit like his life-depended on it, reaching, straining, failing– until Logan clasps his hand and everything goes white. The fuckhead is yammering on about something, hands still firmly placed on his shoulders.
There is a trail of throw-up rolling down his chin, and Logan clumsily wipes it away with the back of his hand. He’s blinked the haziness out of his eyes, and can sort-of make out the word salad that Wade is spitting. Logan isn’t dead.
“Say something, Logan, anything. I can’t fucking shake you– ‘cuz I don’t know if you hit your fucking head, or whatever, but isn’t regeneration supposed to– oh, I don’t know, REGENERATE YOU?! FUCK! LOGAN!”
His yell is crackling and broken, high-pitched and frantic. It hurts Logan’s ears and he slurs, “shut the fuck up.”
He can barely recognize his own voice, gravelly and dry. His lips feel chapped, and he smacks them together. Deadpool crumbles like a puppet with it’s strings cut, sagging, all the air pushed out of his lungs. He falls back on his ass, hands dropping from Logan’s shoulders and into his lap. Logan realizes that Wade is trembling.
“Holy fuck, thank God, or me, since I’m fucking Marvel Jesus. Holy fuck. Holy balls. Holy fuck balls, ohmygod,” he rattles off. He drops his head in his hands, gloves running up his skull. Logan stares.
They both smell salty, but Wade’s mask is damp. He’s rambling, rocking, talking to himself like a fucking nut-job. Logan’s stomach swoops uncomfortably, and he winces, pushing himself up higher with a palm flat on the ground.
Deadpool uncurls, looking right at Logan with those big, white eyes, “look, Wolvie–”
“Fuck off,” Logan grunts reflexively, settling back against the rubble.
Wade mutters something, something like; “dear Stan Lee, dear Disney, I don’t wanna get stabbed a fifty-fucking-eighth time by him–” and before Logan can ask what the fuck any of that means, Deadpool rocks forward and launches himself at him.
Logan’s claws are reflexive, but he doesn’t have his gloves on so they come out an inch or so, spurting blood and shooting blinding pain up his fingers. He’s halfway to bringing his hands up to his chest, but Wade knocks into him.
The force of it shifts the rubble, and Logan falls flat on his back, head smacking onto the floor. He hisses, ready to impale Deadpool where he lies, grabbing his waist hard enough to bruise, cutting the skin on his fingers with his baby claws, and freezes.
Wade lies unmoving on his chest, damp mask pressed into the junction between Logan’s neck and shoulder. There’s a pathetic little sound coming from him, and it takes a second for Logan to realize that it’s sniffling. Wade’s thighs cage his hips, knees pressed on the concrete folded under him. Cool leather presses on Logan’s hot, sweaty skin, an arm wrapped around his waist, the other nestled up his back to hold his shoulder.
Logan waits for the sharp pain of a knife, or the deafening bang of a gun. All he hears though, is gentle breathing. All he smells is sweat and salt and leather, and all he feels is Wade laying on his chest, holding him tightly.
In the car– the van– the Honda-fucking-Odyssey, there was quiet. When they were doing their best to kill each other, all there were was grunts and hisses, no banter, no talk, just rage and blood and Grease. There’s silence now, and Logan keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop.
There’s silence now, and his heart does a little half-beat within his chest. The air thins, and his claws retract. Logan realizes he’s still holding Wade’s waist, and drops his hands. The cuts on his knuckles fade, and Wade has stopped sniffling.
There’s silence, despite the hum and thrum of electricity that crackles through the walls.
Logan digs through his past, through all the drinking and pain, to hazy memories filled with chatter and laughter. In a long-forgotten motion, he gingerly brings his hands up. They twitch, bloodied fingers skimming over cloth.
First, he slowly splays them flat on Wade’s back, feeling the unnatural warmth radiating from his skin. Feeling the gentle rise and fall of his deep breaths. The texture of his suit chafes against the hairs of his arm when he eventually wraps them around Wade’s waist.
He’s never touched Deadpool without the intention of causing extreme bodily harm, and his senses kick into overdrive. Everything feels like not enough, and too much, and Logan has enough experience dealing with himself, so he focuses on red.
Wade isn’t skinny in any sense of the word, but Logan still makes him look small. His arms engulf Wade’s waist, hands holding his sides. He’s built much more leanly than Logan, with a broad chest and narrow waist, small hips and big thighs.
The concrete is hard against his back, against his head. Logan isn’t getting any younger, and yet, he doesn’t want to move. Wade is warm, so, so warm. He’s heavy too, pressing down on Logan’s chest. His breath doesn’t hitch, though, the pressure doesn’t feel tight and claustrophobic. It feels good. Too good. Better than he deserves.
Logan sighs, tensing his abs to bring them both up in a smooth motion. Wade doesn’t startle, but he slides down as Logan fits his ankles under his thighs and sits cross-legged on the stone. Wade sits in his lap, bringing his legs up to wrap around Logan’s waist. He presses tightly into Logan, and Logan prays to whoever the fuck Wade was praying to that what he feels against his hip is one of the Gold-Plated Desert Eagle Mark XIX’s.
There’s another sniffle, and Wade is crying again.
It’s hot, and the Deadpool suit feels good against Logan’s bare skin. That’s what he keeps telling himself.
When he slides a hand up and down Wade’s back, gently rubbing up his spine, listening to him choke on snot and sobs, it feels good.
Like in the van, it felt good to bury his aching claws deep into Wade’s gut. To break his jaw and kick the shit out of any part of flesh he could reach. Spitting venom and relishing in the way silence settled in the car.
Logan, who called him a sad, attention-starved little prick. Who told him that he’d be alone for the rest of his life, who said that he was a worthless piece of shit. Well, the worthless piece of shit is currently clinging to him like he’s his only friend– and goddamn, Logan kind of is. There’s no one in this shithole, the TVA can suck a bunch of cocks, and Wade’s real friends are in his dingy little apartment, none the wiser that he almost killed himself for them. Logan sure as fuck doesn’t have any friends.
So, he hugs back. He rests his face in cloth and leather, breathes in Wade. Everything else fades behind his eyes.
‘You’re the best Wolverine’ and the steady beat of Wade’s heart rings through his head. The voices that are usually there, the scathing ones, the ones he tries to silence with gin and battery fluid are gone.
Logan doesn’t want to try and find them, not anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice thick and rumbly. It rattles through Wade’s chest with the way his breath stutters. It rattles through Logan’s chest with the way the words clench around his heart. “I’m sorry.”
There’s silence again. Logan doesn’t want to continue. He wraps his arms around Wade tighter, afraid that if he might let go, he’ll stab him, hurt him. Fuck up the only working relationship in his life.
Those old memories replay through the air, golden-tinted and warped like a film reel left out in the sun. It’s not being reshot, but it brightens and bleeds red.
Logan continues, “I’m sorry for what I said in the car. Van. Whatever-the-fuck.”
Wade’s voice is quiet, muffled when he speaks up, “it’s the Honda Odyssey,” he sniffles, “it’s a shit fucking car.”
Logan doesn’t laugh, but he breathes out. “Yeah,” he inhales slowly, holding Wade a little tighter. It’s quiet amidst the rubble, and Logan draws gentle circles between his shoulder blades, murmuring, “a shit fucking car.”
There’s silence, and a lot of things feel good for the first time in a long time.