Work Text:
The door creaks open, an old industrial thing worn with rust. A man stands, silhouetted against the streets in a faded duster and brimmed hat, the skin of his jaw wrinkled and weary. The crowd shifts, murmuring softly, but otherwise pays him no mind as he tromps his way to the nearest bar stool, falling into it.
Tugging the hat from his head reveals a shock of salt and pepper hair, matching the shadow of fuzz across his face. Curling his fingers into the hat, he lays both on the counter, saying nothing. “Evenin’” The bartender, a portly man with narrow wire frames over his eyes, says genially, wiping down a glass, “What’ll you have?”
Logan grunts, glancing to the metal shelves and the menagerie of handwritten signs pasted along the bar back. “Whatever won’t kill me,” He decides, and the bartender nods, humming. Carrying a collection of glasses, he dips from view, circling back a few moments later to plop something in front of Logan.
Nodding his thanks, Logan down a swig, lips pursing at the burn. Leaning back, he takes in the room idly. It was nothing usual; industrial walls, an eclectic collection of faded tabletops, likely chosen because the walls were largely undamaged and the pipes still functional. Deeper than it is wide, just enough for a small wooden platform cobbled together out of scrap, a mess of chords shoved into a ball near two large, crackling speakers.
There was a decent sized crowd, but that was hardly unusual. “Crowded,” Logan grunts, aiming the comment over his shoulder, “Thought karaoke died with everything else, though,” He adds, eyeing the little wooden platform dubiously. Calling it a stage was generous, and calling it stable even more so.
The portly fellow chuckles. “Hey, gotta make a living somehow,” He returns playfully, and Logan snorts into his cup, the sound not unkind. “Besides,” The bartender added, piling several glasses onto a stained tray, “The kid won’t make your ears bleed, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
They were young then. Well, if music was all that was happening, then Logan would at least know he wasn’t among the worst. “We’ll see,” Logan says instead, tipping his head back to take a long, slow pull from the glass. The California sun wasn’t kind, and it left every inch of him stretched thin, a faint pulse in his skull that never quite went away. Licking his parched lips, Logan’s lids fall shut, taking a slow breath through his nose. Around him the crowd picked up, gossip, fixes, and bad ideas all mixed in with sweat and laughter. God, crowds reeked sometimes.
Overhead the lights dim, the crowd shifting and murmuring in their seats. Logan pays them no mind, rifling through his pack until a stack of papers slides out. A map, a journal with stained pages, a list of locations because addresses were to proper for what most of the derelict buildings had succumbed to. Flattening the map, Logan squints at the paper, tapping his finger along the dotted lines. There were rumors of a mutant haven somewhere in Doom’s territory. Logan wasn’t sure if he believed it, like everyone else, mutanity had scattered after the fall of everything, slipping back into the shadows from whence they’d come.
It was a long shot, but it was all he had. Two territories away and thousands of miles in between. “Ain’t the worst idea I’ve had,” Logan mutters, sketching a new line along the trail. Parker had a daughter at some point, the original web-slinging smartass was long since dead, but the last sighting of them had been in Kingpin’s territory.
The faint memory of his face makes Logan pause, an ache curling its way around his chest. Before Logan can lose himself to more memories however, the floor creaks, and a smattering of hoots and hollers ring out. “Come on honey!” One calls out, slapping his knees, “Show us what that pretty face can do!” Logan scowls, side-eyeing him. Dirty blonde hair and a drunken grin, too old to be that shade of sloppy drunk.
Logan spends the next few minutes scribbling notes in the margins of the map and ignoring the eager shuffling of the crowd. It’s only as he’s taking a swig from the now refilled glass that he hears it, a slow growing piano tune drifting from the staticky speakers.
“How ‘bout a dance, what do you say?” A voice croons, sweet and slow and honey smooth. The crowd cheers, swaying and laughing as the ragtime ritz picks up. “I’ve got some moves that I’d love to show ya.” Light steps drift over the din to Logan’s ears, carrying a scent that sends a burst of ice into his gut. Images of swaying brunette hair and fine hands, the humming voice overlaid by a garage radio, replaced by the distorted husk of a corpse left in its wake. Logan boggles over the memory, mouth flopping uselessly, clutching the glass in his hands so hard it creaked. Something in his chest ached, and he realized belatedly that he’d stopped breathing, choking out a raspy breath as a ghost croons right into his ears like some nighttime terror, “Let’s find a spot and dance the night away.”
“Oh, don’t that sound nice,” One stranger comments, swirling her glass. Logan doesn’t reply, staring blankly at the back of the bar, lost in hazy brown bottles and the sway of hanging glasses. Scent and sound congeal, sweat and dust and smacking lips, and Logan takes a shallow breath, nearly gagging.
“How 'bout a dance? It's always fun,” The wood creaks and he’s moving, a few feet behind Logan’s shoulder, a short distance and an entire lifetime away. A step, a creak, the displacing whoosh of fabric, and if Logan focuses enough, he can smell the hot dessert air on the man’s skin, his sweat and the wetness on his lips. “Come over here, let me get to know ya,” He takes a breath, and Logan sways at the minute twitch of his throat muscles, audible in the stillness of chest, as if he could devour the man’s breath right from his lungs. “Can't beat a band to lift your spirits, hon. You look so handsome!”
The last note pops the bubble that surrounded Logan, desperately trying to block out the wreckage it had made of his mind. The crowd cheers, stomping their feet along to the rhythm, whistling merrily. “Sing, sugar!” One voice calls out, a man with suspenders and a shining forehead, and finally, finally, Logan looks, twisting in his seat with near frantic eyes.
God he’s young, younger even than when Logan had seen him last, twisted and bent in the ruins of the school. But he sees Scott in the shade of his brunette hair and the angle of his jaw, in the blank, near sereneness of his expression. Dark pants and a worn through shirt, the ragged ends of some torn cloth tied over his face.
Logan sniffs, once, twice, parsing through the sweaty, inebriated crowd. The scent hits him in the chest with grief, and he blanches, hunched on the bar stool and clutching the small glass like a lifeline, because it’s Scott. He’s here, somehow, miraculously, just a few footfalls away. For a moment Logan wonders if this is another trick, if the walls will burst inwards with the sizzle of weapons just like the Old Days, and as Scott sways lightly on stage, he’s overlaid with the ragged corpse Logan had left behind in Mysterio’s mass grave.
He should leave. Walk out and leave the man behind, simply another ghost of the Wolverine’s fractured mind. But Logan can’t bring himself to look away from the slim body tapping its way across the stage. A hand claps his shoulder, “See somethin’ you like?” The bartender questions cheerfully, sliding another glass his way.
Logan jumps, upending the glass entirely. “Fuck,” He hisses, the liquid dripping along the bar top. “And no, I don’t,” He snaps, blotting uselessly at his soaked pants. The bartender laughs, a sheen to his face. Dark though it may have been, the eager crowd was heating up the room.
“Relax,” The man chides him, sopping up the mess, “You ain’t the only one.” At that, Logan presses his lips together, turning begrudgingly back to the stage where Summers twirls lightly on the balls of his heels. It’s not a grand show. The stage is only so large, and dim lighting can only hide so much of grimy desert air.
“Tonight is the night I've been waiting for,” Summers croons into the mic, waving a hand and stepping once, twice, in a lackadaisical little motion, “Even the moon looks just right.” He turns, the tails of the blindfold swaying, and had it not been in place Logan was sure they would have locked eyes. Something in him heaves at the thought.
“He ain’t bad,” Logan replies, voice rough, “Where’d you find him?” A hand brushes Scott’s ankle, and the man side steps it with ease, damnably steady even without his eyes. He’s thinner now, Logan can spy a hint of ribs through the baggy shirt, the fine line of his wrists flashing in the weak lighting. His Cyke hadn’t been so young, he’d been well into manhood when Logan had come trudging along.
But the scent is the same, warm air and ivory soap, and a sizzle of something alive. It wafts throughout the room, and Logan inhales greedily, eyes stinging. Beside him the bartender shrugs, “Wandered in once, one of the girls put him up to it I think,” He motions to the floor, where several people wandered past the tables, picking up glasses and carrying mismatched trays, “Crowd liked it though,” He adds, popping the cork on a bottle serenely.
Logan nodded, gazing at the arch of Summer’s throat as it tilted back, pale and milky. There’s a hunger to the man now, in his boyish face and rib-thin torso, as if the wasteland had let him crawl out of whatever depths he’d been buried in and left him starving. Or maybe it was Logan, so hungry that even his nightmares dangled like a temptation over his mind. Licking his lips leaves him with the faint trace of sweat and ivory soap, and some part of Logan wants to grip that slim torso, feel the ribs under his fingertips when he squeezed.
On the rickety stage Scott gives another lazy spin, one hand to his chest, the neck of his worn shirt slipping down just enough to spot a flash of pale, thin shoulders. “You’ll lose the blues,” Scott croons, skin sallow beneath the dim lighting, “And you may lose you’re heart.” The crowd claps, drunken cheers and sweat-slicked grins upon their faces. The sounds seem to swallow Summers up whole. Brunette locks slip over his face, a soft shake making the tails of the blindfold sway.
At the bar Logan says nothing, downing another glass and watching the soft “O” formed by pursed lips as Summers' exhales, bowing off the stage.