A Little to the Left

The day wound on without incident. The team members on grocery duty returned with food and supplies, greeted by plates of sandwiches with veggies from the garden. Their anxieties were put aside for the afternoon, and any onlooker would think it was an ordinary gathering.

They traded tales from their respective universes, with the only hitch being that Logan was the only representative of his, leaving the man to talk at length as he was known to dislike. They would point to photos on the wall, and he would tell them all about the occasion they'd been taken on with perfect memory, betraying how much he really did pay attention and care in spite of his callous attitude. Everyone fawned over the photos of Hank and Kurt as normal humans, with the former having aged exceptionally well into the professorial look and the latter having hardly aged at all. Scott recognized one of the pictures as being among the first he noticed when he arrived, featuring Logan and the man he now recognized as Kurt both looking remarkably drunk with their arms across each other's shoulders.

Logan's phone also did the rounds between members, with many of his friends from his universe wanting to ask questions of their alternate selves. At one point a video call was made to Remy and Anna Marie in their Louisiana home, where they introduced their two kids and three cats. It seemed almost as busy as Logan’s house was when his dogs and cats got worked up, and Scott wondered if somehow the two had inherited the quality from him.

“It's a shame our Remy isn't here to see y'all,” Their Rogue had told the pair. “But his last trip went so bad he demanded to stay home.”

“Ah, but he looked so nice in that ballgown…” Kurt reminisced fondly.

The younger Logan was still acting grumpy and distant, but he lingered at the edges of rooms to listen in. Every time Scott looked at him, he was broadly unreadable in his body language, but he still smiled along to the sweet stories and laughed at the jokes, so whatever was eating at him seemed to be loosening its grip as the day passed them by.

Night came, cold drinks were cracked, and soup was ladled out. A board game no one had ever heard of and probably didn't exist in their universe was unburied and loudly argued over. Jean made them put it away when a debate over the rules came to a head, with Rogue tackling Kurt so hard the couch was thrown over backwards and the sword cabinet door was knocked open, spilling its contents across the floor in a comically hazardous pile. Scott didn't even need to say anything about it to the older Logan, just shot him an I-told-you-so look and trusted that his other self had, in fact, told him so. Logan denied it was his fault by way of bossing the two adoptive siblings to clean it up. Piotr took mercy on them and stepped in, using his metal arms to scoop the blades up without getting hurt.

Seemingly the only one to remember that they had to hit the road the early next morning was Scott, who took it upon himself to try to make sleeping arrangements for everyone. There were ten people and not enough beds, so he had to seek out the older Logan.

He found the man drinking beer in the kitchen with Ororo and Kurt. The blue mutant was gleefully running his fingers through Logan's beard while Ororo watched happily at his side, likely finding amusement in the way Logan resembled a dog getting its chin scratched.

“You two are being weird.” Scott scolded them.

“Mein freund, you are just jealous!” Kurt exclaimed. “Do you expect me to believe you haven't thought about touching it once?”

“I haven't thought about it.” He lied with deadly seriousness.

“Do you want to?” Logan asked, mischievous as he looked down his chin at him from across the room. Ororo looked between the three with raised eyebrows and an intrigued smirk behind her bottle.

Having no patience for this nonsense, Scott redirected. “We need to figure out where everyone is sleeping.”

Logan groaned and made Kurt stop by grabbing him in a headlock. He pet his curly hair like a cat to keep him occupied while he had him restrained. Kurt seemed okay with the arrangement, and Scott's opinion of the two being weirdos remained unchanged. Ororo reached over and gently rearranged Logan’s facial hair back into tidiness, like she was the one married to him.

“Two people can fit in our room, two people in the guest bedroom.” said Logan from his center of the strange scene. “Couch is a pullout, you could fit two people on it easy. There's the recliner. Uh… if you pull up the footrest, someone could probably sleep in the other chair like that. How many is that?”

“Eight.” said Scott.

“How many we got?”

“Ten.”

“‘Our’ room?” asked Ororo, missing nothing.

“Oh! ‘Our’ room?” Kurt parroted, BAMFing out of Logan's grip.

“The pullout is pretty big, you might be able to squish three people there. Just put Pete somewhere else.” Logan continued like they hadn't said anything.

“That still leaves one.” said Scott

“I don't need to sleep.” Logan's voice said from directly behind him.

“Jesus Christ!” Scott leapt out of his skin and swiveled around to face the younger Logan. “How long have you been there?!”

He took a sip of beer instead of answering.

Scott turned back around. “Okay, great, if that's settled we should-”

“Or the two Logans can share a bed, and someone can sleep between them. Like a sandwich.” Kurt suggested enthusiastically and unhelpfully.

“That is a sacrifice I am willing to make.” said Ororo, not even bothering to hide the interest in her tone.

“I can let you do no such thing.” Kurt put a saintly hand over his heart. “Rock paper scissors for it?”

“Nonsense. I would gladly share the burden with you.” she dipped her head in a noble declaration of duty.

“Friendship is such a beautiful thing.” Kurt sighed dreamily.

“I take it back. All three of you are freaks and I'm leaving.” Scott said and pushed past the young Logan.

“Not four? Don’t insult me like that, Slim. I'm right here.” he said as he moved to let a rapidly withering Scott through.

“I think he's counting us as one.” The old Logan’s voice faded behind him as he left the quartet to their own devices, perhaps unwisely.

Jean and Piotr helped him round everyone up to decide who goes where, a task not dissimilar to herding stray cats. As frustrated as Scott wanted to be, they'd all been working hard lately to run the school while moonlighting as heros, so he couldn't bring himself to blame them for wanting to get the most family time they could.

It was already midnight by the time everyone was settled in, but the night's activities had people tired out and falling asleep quickly. Ironically Scott, who had slept in, was the only one who wasn't ready to turn in yet. Jean reached out psychically and bid him a good night from the guest bedroom with Ororo.

He ended up sitting outside for another hour or two and enjoying the peace, quiet, and warm late-summer night air. He hadn’t meant to get tipsy himself, but it was hard when your friends were practically shoving a beer in your hand to get you to loosen up.

The two days he'd spent there felt more like a vacation than it did a mission with life or death stakes. He was worried that he'd been lulled into a false sense of security, and things would take a quick turn for the worse while his guard was down. Then again, he felt that way on and off throughout most days of his life. Occupational hazard, he supposed.

It didn’t escape him that the Scott in this universe didn't have that problem. He lived his whole life like this. In this small house with Logan and the animals, eating homecooked meals made from homegrown ingredients every day, seeing his friends for no reason other than to enjoy their company. Loving without fear that the next day they'd be gone. Sleeping in a home that was safe every night.

It didn't feel fair, but what did?

And then, after some indulgent self-pity, he remembered what he had that this other Scott didn't: Jean. Alive and well at his side, too powerful to keep down for long. The dense fog in his chest gave way to warmth. This world may be peaceful, but she wasn't in it. That's not a trade off he would ever make. Whatever happened, he had to decide it’d be worth it.

Feeling better with that resolution, he stood up from the lawn chair and stretched, then tried to open the back door as quietly as he could on reentry to the kitchen. He was surprised to find it empty; he'd expected the younger Logan to be there passing the time until daylight.

Being mindful not to make too much sound, he crept through the living room to make his way upstairs. Everyone there was asleep, or at least peacefully appearing to be. Piotr was in the recliner, mouth open and arms limp over the side. Kurt was on the other soft chair, not even needing the footrest in his curled-up position across the arms. True to Logan's estimation, they were able to fit three people on the pullout; Kitty, Rogue, and Bobby were all giving each other as much space as they could on the thin mattress (which wasn't a lot). They'd had no qualms about the co-ed arrangement; all the X-Men had shared enough cramped sleeping situations on various occasions for anyone to make an issue out of it. Also, Bobby was gay anyway.

Scott peeked through the curtain to the front yard, but his world’s Logan wasn't there either. If there weren't still a couple bottles of beer in the fridge, he'd be concerned that the man had already run off to find a bar.

When he turned back around, he noticed a dog’s paws peeking out from behind the chair, making him realize the dogs hadn't come running to the door. He stepped over slowly so as not to disturb anyone and looked around the back of the furniture.

In the corner of the room that had been blocked from his view before, Logan was sleeping on the floor. He was pressed up against the wall like he'd been sitting against it before slumping over. He had one dog in the crook of his legs, one between his arms, and one under his head as a pillow. Scott had to shove a knuckle in his mouth to keep from laughing, barely containing his own excitement at the sight.

The old gray tabby was perched on his side too. Next to it, where he didn't initially register anything because of the darkness, there was another little black cat.

Why are there two cats. he yelled internally.

How can there be another animal in this house. Does the other Logan even know it's here? Or does he just leave the door open and keep whatever wanders in? Where the hell was it hiding this entire time? And how on this planet earth did Logan ever convince me to go along with it?

Scott just shook his head and snapped a few pictures from different angles to show to everyone when they were awake. He doubted Logan would even be embarrassed, though.

“Don't need to sleep”, huh? You're passed out on the floor, you lunatic. We could have given you a pillow and blanket. You didn't need to use an entire pack of animals.

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Still, he looked comfortable there. Perfectly natural, like he did it every night. For all Scott knew, maybe he did. He already knew Logan- the “grown man”, with a heavy supposedly in front of each part of that statement- would run off into the woods and live there for a while when he got too stressed. As Scott watched, he snuggled his face further against the ever-patient Daffodil’s side, the latter of whom woke up without opening her eyes to wag her tail and heave one of those sleepy big dog sighs.

Scott decided his very first impression of Logan was right, and he never should have changed his mind about him. He was a crazy person, plain and simple. Beyond reason. Just silly.

Whatever.

Scott went to the closet he'd found spare blankets in earlier and pulled out another small one. He threw it across the sleeping man’s legs, as high up as he could without disturbing the cats. He did this not out of concern for his comfort, but as an unavoidable statement for when Logan woke that he had been seen and unquestionably judged for this.

Taking one more picture of Logan (Now with Blanket), Scott laughed inaudibly through his nose with another shake of the head and made his way upstairs.

-

When Scott walked into the bedroom, the lights were off with the exception of a small bedside lamp. The other Logan was looking out the window and leaning hard on the sill, one hip cocked from putting his weight on it. His shirt was off, thrown on the bed, but his jeans were still buckled on his hips. It seemed that he'd started to get undressed and changed his mind. Scott wondered if he'd ever get used to the look of all the scars across his body, because they hadn't failed in catching his attention every time. The obviously self-inflicted ones were just visible in the low light.

Most importantly, there was a half-empty bottle of booze in the hand that Logan wasn't using to support himself. Scott watched as he brought it to his mouth and chugged.

Then he remembered that no healing factor meant Logan was actually drinking that much alcohol.

“Woah, woah!” Scott jumped as he realized and walked over to his side. Logan lowered the bottle but didn't look his way, eyes transfixed out the window.

“What's going on?” He asked with concern. He wouldn't blink twice if it were his Logan, but it seemed out of character for this one. “Did your talk with Jean go badly?”

Logan took another swig. “It was fine.” He said tersely. “Really good.”

“Okay…” Scott said with suspicion. “I want to believe you, but this feels like denial.”

“I think they call it a relapse.” He corrected with grim humor as he drank again. Scott's heart sank for him at that. He’d seen the man drinking beer downstairs too, but it just seemed social at the time. He had no idea what he was supposed to say.

Logan's face remained undisturbed. There was a slight sheen to it.

“Scotty would be so mad.” he said, like it was funny. “Or disappointed. Or both.”

“Logan-” Scott tried to interrupt, his skin crawling.

“Dunno. He isn't here.” He swirled the liquid around in the bottle, his voice bitter. “Just you.”

It felt like a punch.

“...Yeah.” Scott looked away. “Just me.”

He felt himself wanting to argue that it wasn't on purpose, or that he had no choice, but he didn't. Maybe the other Scott would be angry. He couldn't say. but the other Scott would at least know how to help him. He didn't have that ability. All he could do was watch.

“I know I'm not him, but… if you want to talk about it, I'll listen.” Scott said carefully.

Logan didn't say anything, and Scott wasn't surprised. Logan didn't talk about the things that hurt him, most certainly not if it was bad enough to get drunk about.

But after a few moments, he broke the silence.

“The talk with Jean went great.”

“Then, what's up?” he said softly, sitting on the windowsill, facing opposite to Logan so he could see his face.

“I loved Jean. Still do.” he said.

Scott balked. His Logan didn't touch the L-word with a five-foot pole.

“I mean, she was family.” Logan said. He sounded like he was mostly talking to himself, but Scott nodded along anyway.

“It's …” Logan was obviously struggling to find the words. “When me and Scotty got together, it was… Jean was in the past. More or less. Y'know, there was… was so much that happened, that led things to working out how it did. And I didn't question it. Didn't make sense to.”

He swallowed hard and swayed a little. “I'm not like you. I don't sit around and think about everything that could have happened if things were different. I take the hand I'm dealt, and I do the best I can with it.”

Logan was slurring his speech a little, but he was slipping from a state of being uncomfortable with trying to express his thoughts to letting the words slip out.

His finger tapped the bottle, antsy. “But with Jean here, it's just another reminder.”

“Reminder of what?” Scott asked gently.

“If she never died, you wouldn't have thought twice about me.”

He'd shifted back from talking about his spouse as if he wasn't there, to “you” being the stand-in. He'd reeled back at the statements at first, but Scott knew he was right. In what world would he wind up with Logan if Jean were still there?

“Hell, with the way everything went down… we'd probably never see each other. No more than the family gatherings, anyway. You two would be the ones happily married with kids in some suburb or whatever, and I'd be… fuck, I don't know. Probably still drunk at the bottom of a ditch somewhere. Dead. Who knows. Doesn't matter.”

He raised his hand higher on the sill so he could rest his forehead on the back of it. “I ain't nobody's first choice, and it ain’t nobody's fault but mine.” he took another sip and Scott had to fight the urge to snatch the bottle away from him. He didn't want to get decked.

“I'm not a good choice. I know that. I always known that. I'm not-… I'm not… I’m not worth the trouble. I know it. Whatever anyone thinks of me, I know it.” he wiped the back of his hand down his face and took a deep breath. “It's just… not easy. Seeing you two. Having to remember that.”

Scott was lost with this self-deprecating version of Logan. It was galaxies away from what he knew. His Logan never spoke about himself this way. He barely spoke about himself at all. He would never show this much weakness, and if he'd ever had these feelings before he’d certainly never admitted them to Scott.

Just like he'd never try to talk things out after an argument like this one had, or go sober like this one had. Or do their shared work so Scott could sleep in like this one. Or hide his doubts to keep Scott from worrying like this one.

“I don't know your Scott.” He said. “but I think you're wrong.”

Logan's eyes flicked over to him for the first time and he raised his head from where it was resting on the windowsill. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked miserable. Scott moved closer and put his hand on his shoulder.

“For however much it means coming from me,” Scott continued, not quite sure how to get where he was going with grace. “even if you don't think you're ‘worth it’, I-...”

Logan’s eyes were so uncharacteristically filled with sadness it hurt to look at. Scott was rarely at such a loss for words, but words never meant as much to Logan as actions did anyway.

Logan had stepped out of his comfort zone for him. He could do the same.

Scott moved his free hand to Logan’s other shoulder to anchor himself, and pulled him into a hesitant kiss. He could feel Logan's muscles tense in surprise.

I think you're worth it, he tried to say with the gentle meeting of their lips. Logan stopped leaning and stood up straight.

You’re not a disappointment, he said as he cupped one hand on his cheek and Logan relaxed into the contact.

I know you're doing your best, he said when his lips parted open and their kiss deepened. Logan’s hands grasped desperately at his waist. It was like he finally realized what was happening and sprung into action. Scott could taste the whiskey on Logan's mouth and thought that's exactly how he should taste.

And I'm only stopping because I have to, he said when he forced himself to pull away before it turned into something they'd both regret.

Scott kept his eyes shut. He wasn't ready to face what he'd just done. He felt untethered, like he was completely out of his own control. He had no idea what he was doing and was starting to doubt he ever had. His only saving grace was that Logan might be too drunk to remember it in the morning.

He popped his eyes back open with a sharp inhale and grabbed the bottle out of Logan's hand before he could get a look at his face. He capped it, then paced around to his side of the bed and set it on the ground.

“This stays here the rest of the night.” he commanded, refusing to look back around at him.

There was silence behind him as Scott started tearing his clothes off and changing into his pajamas.

Then, quietly: “Thanks, Scotty.”

“No problem.” he said curtly.

He got into bed and listened as Logan approached with unsteady steps and sat down. When he finally turned to look, the man had laid back onto the pillows without taking his pants off. Scott lightened in spite of himself.

“Hey.” He tried to keep himself from sounding like he was making fun of him. “Don't fall asleep in your jeans.”

Logan looked down and blinked. “Oh yeah.”

He unbuckled his belt and peeled his pants off, leaving Scott to have to very quickly accept and move on from the fact that Logan would be sleeping next to him in his underwear tonight. He rolled over, the two of them now facing each other on their sides, making eye contact and saying nothing. Logan still seemed heavy, but a little less so. He looked like he was expecting something, but Scott wasn't sure what. They were both just watching.

“Hey.” Logan said casually.

“Hey.” Scott replied, matching him.

And Logan followed it up with nothing. Scott didn't know how long they spent staring like that, trying to make sense of each other. It couldn't have been more than a minute or two, but it felt longer.

“I'm sorry that your Sco- uh, your husband isn't here while you're going through this.” he offered. It hadn't gotten any less clumsy to talk about his alternate self, especially when he hadn't yet internalized that it was really him.

Logan shrugged. His features softened a bit. “You're not so bad.”

“Neither are you.” he responded somewhat lamely, but Logan didn't seem to mind. He reached out and grabbed the hem of Scott's shirt, rubbing it between his fingers and tugging at it lightly. Scott was not sure what the purpose of that was, but with the way Logan was acting, he probably didn’t know either.

“I probably should have put pants on. Before… lying down.” he struggled, the alcohol clearly getting to him.

“I don't mind at this point.” he could feel himself starting to smile, which sparked something devious in Logan's eyes.

“Careful sayin’ things like that. You could give a guy the wrong idea.” Logan dropped the end of Scott’s shirt and his hot hand slipped up under it to grab his bare hip.

Scott’s body didn't reject it like it should have. “You're lucky I know you're joking.”

“You sure about that?” Logan toyed with a head tilt.

“You're drunk and I'm an intruder in someone else's body. Neither of us is sinking that low tonight.” he replied patiently.

Logan pulled his hand back and snorted. “You got me.”

“Also, you're married.”

“To you?” his face faltered. “...Sort of.”

“I'm not ready to answer the ethical implications of that tonight.”

Logan wobbled his head in agreement and rolled onto his back. He turned the lamp off, and as soon as Scott's vision adjusted to the darkness, he saw that Logan's face had hardened again.

Scott must have been riding some kind of leftover high, because he shifted over across the bed, wrapped his arm around Logan's bare chest, and rested his head on his shoulder. The smell of what was left of his deodorant mingled with the man's natural smell to create something surprisingly pleasant. Which was good, because Scott had braced himself for something a lot worse. Logan laughed.

“Whatever happened to ‘I'm with Jean in my world’? Or whatever.” Scott could feel the vibrations of Logan's voice rumbling through his chest.

“We're not doing anything wrong.” He stretched his head out further on top of Logan's shoulder to get more comfortable. “If it bothers you, I'll tell her tomorrow.”

“Only if I can be there when you do.” He reached his hand up and ran his nails lightly up and down Scott's back. He shivered at the sensation.

His knees bumped up against Logan's thighs when he pulled them in. He could feel himself quickly ready for sleep again, probably due in large part to not having a stack of papers to grade looming over him and in small part to the alcohol he'd consumed. His fingers wandered across a scar on the chest he was calling his pillow, and mindlessly traced the edges until they were running through the thick blanket of hair that spread across the body beneath him.

Eventually the breathing under his head steadied out and the hand fell away from his back. He immediately missed the massage-like soothing, and drowzily his own hand slid down through the thicker stomach hair until he was idly stroking his fingers through it. It was closer in texture to the thick, oily fur of a dog than that of human body hair. Which seemed strange, given that Logan didn't have his mutation anymore.

Oh, right. It was Logan’s happy trail he was playing with. Oops.

Well, Scott was the only one awake to know it happened anyway, and even then, he was barely holding on to consciousness.