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Logan’s starting to get pissed off.
You’d think, right, yeah, pissed off when in close proximity with Wade Wilson? Makes sense, tell us something we don’t know and can’t guess.
But it’s not because of the constant yap, it’s not for the jokes or his relatively bad manners while sharing a bed with Logan. It’s because of the constant, aching pain.
Wade feels pain, constantly. If not physically, then he is sad and trying to conceal it with a loud mouth – Logan, however much he wants to, is physically unable to ignore it. Wade’s whole sheet of emotions reek to him, and not even the smell of blood and cancer can block them out.
Now that the buzz of adrenaline has calmed down, and the stress and hypersensitivity of a new environment without alcohol to quiet it down have been stepped on with big, Deadpool-shaped boots, Logan can actually focus on his heightened senses without extreme overload.
It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time.
“Can dogs smell heartbreak?” Wade asks him one night, holding Dogpool in his lap, looking curiously down at her.
Probably, Logan wants to answer. Because I can.
In a way, Logan’s jealous of the dog. Yes, she probably shares Logan’s senses, but she doesn’t have the intelligence to get overwhelmed by them.
Logan doesn’t say anything, trying to keep his whole focus on the TV in front of him. He doesn’t think Wade expects an answer, anyway.
Logan feels a bang of guilt when Wade’s heart skips a sad, pathetic beat – and that, that right there is what is making Logan be pissed off. It’s not the ability to sense in itself, Logan’s gotten used to it after two hundred years, but it’s the need to do something about it every time Wade reacts.
Logan wants to comfort him, for fuck’s sake. That’s what is pissing him off. Between the need to fight Wade until his every sense is filled with blood, and the need to fuck him until the whole apartment reeks of sex, is the quiet but pressuring need to comfort.
Logan dislikes it.
“Vanessa?” Logan asks after a moment of silence. He’s a weak man, gives in to his needs way too easily. Wade’s heart flutters.
Logan’s chest tightens. He needs a drink.
“No,” Wade surprises Logan by saying. “No, I’m not heartbroken over Vanessa.”
Logan’s not sure if he wants to understand, but knows Wade will give him an explanation nevertheless. Logan has to say one, maybe two words and Wade does the rest himself – talks, and talks until Logan’s chest feels lighter and Wade smells like momentary contentment.
“How do you do it?” Wade asks. “Live on, knowing everyone around you dies before you, I mean.”
Logan understands, then, the sadness and the grief. Heartbreak, fitting.
“I’ve not thought about this, before, not a lot,” Wade continues, “because I didn’t maybe realize what it meant to be able to regenerate. And then you, in that fucking Honda Odyssey, reminded me that I can’t die.”
Logan’s been kicking himself over a lot of things he’d said in that car. He’d been high on his senses, low on his self-esteem, picking a fight. He’d felt every drop of Wade’s heart and smelled the anger and hurt he’d caused – he’d gone too far.
Logan picks up a pack of cigarettes from the living coffee table and lights up one. “Do you really think I’m the right person to ask?”
Wade shakes his head lightly.
“That’s what I thought,” Logan grunts.
“I’m afraid to find out if she regenerates,” Wade admits, nodding at the dog in his lap.
Logan thinks back on the time Wade accidentally hit Dogpool with the fridge door, and lets out a small laugh. “I’m pretty sure she does. She’ll still be annoying us in a hundred years time.”
Wade gives a small smile at that. Logan reaches out to scratch behind Dogpool’s ear with his free hand, and listens as Wade’s heart speeds up.
Silence between them isn’t unusual, anymore, so Logan doesn’t get surprised when Wade lets the conversation die after that.
The chef on the TV show is loud and rude. Logan can’t decide if he likes him, or wants to punch him through the screen, and when he turns to Wade to mention this, well, Wade isn’t even paying attention on the show. Wade’s still staring at Dogpool, absentmindedly petting the top of her head.
And there are the flares of anger, again, Logan notices about himself. All he wants to do is cradle Wade in his arms and hold him until all of the tension leaves his shoulders, and the smell of his sadness is replaced with sweetness.
Ridiculous. Wrong. New.
Warning signs flash red in Logan’s brain.
“Stop that,” Logan whispers, annoyed.
Wade blinks in confusion.
“You’re,” Logan can’t quite find the correct word to describe how he’s feeling, “too sad,” he finishes lamely. He tastes the next words in his mouth before continuing, “I can’t handle it.”
Logan feels his blood rush into his ears from the sheer intensity of Wade’s heartbeat speeding up, flapping again.
Wade gives him a crooked smile. “Didn’t know you cared that much, peanut.”
The jokes, always with the jokes.
“Of course I do,” Logan says gently. Wrong, new, stop, his brain screams, danger!
He ignores it in favor of listening to Wade’s heart drop.
“Fuck,” Wade says simply. “Okay.”
Logan closes his eyes, takes a huff of the cigar and then returns to find Wade’s gaze with his own. Wade’s clearly assessing the situation, trying to figure out Logan’s agenda while Logan has none. He just needs, needs, needs something.
“It doesn’t happen in a day, y’know,” Wade murmurs.
“I’m sorry,” Logan says immediately. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“That’s alright.” Wade’s too understanding. “I’ll need you to spell it out for me, here, though. Because I don’t think I understand how me being,” a slight pause, “sad is too hard for you to handle.”
Logan tries to hide behind the anger and realizes it has dissolved completely.
“You asked if dogs can smell heartbreak,” Logan answers. “The answer would be yes.”
“You’re saying –,”
“I can hear you, all the time. I can smell you, all the time,” Logan confirms. Breathes in the cigarette for the last time before dumping it in the ashtray.
“So,” Wade starts carefully, “you can hear my heart, right now?”
Logan nods.
“Focus,” Wade whispers.
Logan concentrates on the heartbeat. It’s still just as fast, getting even faster, and he can hear Wade’s breath hitch. It takes Logan maybe fifteen beats to start to understand what Wade’s making him search for.
“I think,” Wade continues, then, shifting closer to Logan on the already small couch, “that while it will take time, for both of us, we can maybe figure it all out together?”
Logan nods mutely. Wade lets a smile slip on his face.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Wade says. Logan yanks him to his lips before he can make true of his words.
Their kiss tastes healing. Logan lets himself get drunk on the sound of Wade’s heart making cheerful laps around his chest.