Chapter Text
The floor was gross.
Wade adjusted the crooked sign in the shitty car lot window for the third time today. It kept tilting to the left. Like it knew. Like it was insulting him. Rude .
He squinted through the glass at the rows of beat-up sedans basking in the golden hour light. A ‘98 Honda Civic winked at him in that I’ll die the moment someone turns the key kind of way. Honestly? Mood.
Wade leaned his forehead against the cool pane and let out a long sigh. Not a dramatic, tragic hero sigh—he wasn’t trying to win an Oscar. More like the kind of sigh that says, Yep. This is my life now.
The world kept spinning. Bills still existed. Al still yelled when he left the fridge open too long. And Logan—Logan still lived in the other room like some grumpy bear.
They never talked about that night.
Not once.
Not a single word. No “Hey, remember that time you almost offed yourself in the restroom and I broke down the door like a fuckin’ romcom hero?”
Silence.
Wade liked it that way.
No, —he needed it that way.
Because if Logan said anything — anything — Wade wasn’t ure he could keep pretending it didn’t happen. And pretending was what he was good at.
He tugged his sleeves down on reflex.
They itched lately. Healing always did that—knit together the flesh like it was sewing a new version of him. Didn’t matter. Still felt the same inside.
Still freaky. Still loud. Still too much.
So fucking obnoxious.
But hey, he hadn’t tried to die in checks fake watch … twenty-four days, counting. Not bad. Not great. Not headline-worthy. But a win’s a win, baby.
The bell above the front door jingled.
Time to close.
He flipped the sign to “CLOSED” and grabbed his Hello Kitty lunchbox off the counter. (Don’t judge. It was vintage collector’s item. It also it made Al irrationally angry and that was reason enough.)
Outside, the air was brisk in that late-autumn, please wear a jacket way. Wade did of course. The world didn’t want to see that face.
He liked the cold though. It reminded him he could still feel something.
As he started to walk home, feet kicking at stray gravel, his mind drifted—where it always did these days.
Logan.
The way he didn’t look at Wade too long anymore. The way he hovered nearby but never said much. The way he always, always made too much food and pretended it was a coincidence.
And God, those cowlicks.
Those stuipd little tufts of hair that stuck out in the mornings like the angry kitten that he is. Wade would absolutely cuddle that man to death. He would die smiling .
But alas… Logan is straight.
Probably. Maybe. Ugh .
Wade didn’t know. He didn’t ask . Didn’t dare .
Because even if he was wrong —even if there was a version of this where Logan wasn’t built entirely of repressed grunts and man-pain— it didn’t matter.
Logan stayed that night.
That was enough.
That was everything.
And yet, walking home now, streetlamps flickering overhead, Wade couldn’t help but let the tiniest, stuipedest thought creep in through the cracks:
What if he stayed because he didn’t want to leave?
Not out of guilt. Not out of some moral hero complex. But because he wanted to.
Because he cared .
Wade shook the thought out of his head.
He needed to stop living in his head.
He needed to stop hoping.
But still…
He picked up his pace.
Logan’s straight. He’s pansexual.
Fuck…
…He wishes.
Normally, he’d have violated someone like that already . But… Logan… He has respect for the man. Even if he doesn’t feel the same.
Logan treated Wade like a human, no, a
person
. And Wade will do the same.