Chapter 6
His own will was not enough. The call of the narcotics, of no pain, grew as the pain did.
An hour had passed since he was dropped off at the mansion, and in that time, the rush of adrenaline that had kept him moving through the chaos of the mission began to fade. As the world slowed, the agony surged back into his body like a flood breaking through a dam. He cursed inwardly, his mind running back over the events of the mission. Jumping out of the plane had seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to run from the conversation and to throw himself into the battle. A reckless, spontaneous move, but now, as the pain clawed at him from every direction, he knew it had been a mistake. The fall had jarred his entire body, brutalized by the impact with the ground.
Logan sank to his knees in the center of his room, unable to stand any longer. His body trembled with exhaustion, the weight of his injuries settling deep within him. He reached into his drawer, undoing the flase bottom, his fingers trembling as he fumbled for the small lock-box. He had promised himself, over and over again, that he wouldn’t resort to this. But now the pain was too much, and his will already worn thin from constant battle, faltered. His breath came ragged as he dug through the bottles and vials, searching for the one he had only used once before, the one that would provide the kind of relief he so desperately craved.
Carfentanil.
It had taken Logan a long time to track down the drug, a careful and methodical search, but in the end, it had been worth it. Fentanyl, the opioid he relied on to dull his chronic pain, worked wonders—but it never lasted long enough. The relief usually faded within thirty minutes or so, leaving him to chase the next dose. That was fine because Logan really only used Fentanyl to break the pain cycle caused by his adamantium. As long as it wasn’t a chronic attack, fentanyl did the trick. But Fentanyl wasn’t enough when the pain source was different. When the agony lingered, when the damage to his body was more than just the constant strain of his healing factor fighting the adamantium. The echoes of a fresh wound, the kind that burned and gnawed and refusing to be ignored, something so large that it made a gunshot seem trifle. When he couldn’t silence the pain with his usual methods. He needed something stronger, something that would go beyond the surface of his pain and numb the sharpest edges. That’s where Carfentanil came in.
The first and only time Logan had used Carfentanil was during a mission that had gone sideways. He’d been on his own, a lone operative deep behind enemy lines, when he found himself trapped in a warehouse set ablaze by enemy forces. His healing factor had allowed him to survive the initial chaos, but the fire tore through him with an intensity he hadn't anticipated. By the time he’d escaped, his body was a map of burns, third-degree over his arms and chest, fourth-degree in some areas. His skin had been blackened and charred, and even his healing factor couldn’t erase the torment fast enough, and even after healing, the echoes had been so severe. In desperation, Logan had turned to Carfentanil, knowing it would give him the release he needed to escape the pain, even if just for a few hours. He’d never taken it before and tried not to make the decision lightly, but in that moment the unbearable suffering left him no choice.
It worked. The pain vanished almost instantly, and for nearly five hours, Logan was blissfully numb. The relief was like a drugged haze, wrapping around him like a warm, dark cocoon, and for the first time in a long time, he could breathe without feeling like his body was being crushed under the weight of the agony. But the price was steep. The drug wasn’t meant for humans, immediately causing an overdose. His body went into a vicious cycle, overdosing and healing at the same time. His mind became foggy, barely able to keep track of time, and his body trembled uncontrollably, caught between the drug’s effects and the desperate attempts of his healing factor to fix the damage. He’d been catatonic, his thoughts slipping through his fingers like water, leaving him unable to process anything around him.
At least when Logan drowned himself, he was never out for too long. Sure he was technically dead, but it rarely lasted more than fifteen to twenty minutes. Even then his mind would remain tethered to the surface of consciousness, vaguely aware of himself and the slow drift into nothingness, but still able to summon the will to climb his way back faster than normal, to return to the world with a gasp of air.
But Carfentanil wasn’t like that.
When he used the drug, everything slipped away. The numbness didn’t just take the pain, it took his awareness too. For those hours, Logan was a passenger in his own body, locked inside a haze so thick he couldn’t reach out. The connection between mind and body was severed, like a machine operating on its own with no pilot to steer it. The darkness would come over him, swallowing him whole, leaving him helpless, unable to fight against it.
It terrified him, the thought of being lost that way, no control, no awareness of time or space, of anything but the numbing pull of the drug. There was a part of Logan that knew he was running out of options. The numbness felt like an easy escape, but it came with a price that scared him.
Logan didn’t care at this moment. All he could feel were the raw, lingering echoes of his body tearing itself apart—the sensation of skin splitting, flesh pulverizing, and organs rupturing and shifting, displaced from their natural place inside him. And even after healing, he could feel the flutter in his gut that indicated his intestines were still realigning themselves. It made him feel nauseous and Logan wanted nothing more than to feel nothing. The temptation of Carfentanil was right there in front of him. It came in a small, inconspicuous bag full of blotter papers, something so easily overlooked. His hands shook as he fumbled with the bag, the need for relief overpowering every rational thought in his head. His fingers trembled as he tore open the bag, tearing at the corners with a desperate force that betrayed just how much he needed the escape it promised. He didn’t care about the consequences, didn’t care that soon Scott would be back from the mission in a few hours, that he would want to speak with him.
Logan wasn’t staying.
Logan grabbed a single paper and clenched it tightly in his fist, the familiar feel of the drug a reminder of the relief he so desperately craved. He quickly tucked the small bag of Carfentanil away, ensuring the false bottom of his drawer was placed back with care. He stood slowly, using the wall as a crutch. The temptation to take it now still gnawed at him, insistent, begging him to give in. With shaky hands, he pulled out his comm device and pinged Kurt. It took a moment before Kurt replied.
“Yes, mein Freund? I’m sorry about earlier, but Scott-”
“Kurt, I’m cashin’ in that favor you owe me. Now.” Logan’s tone was sharp, curt, a harshness in his voice that made his stomach churn. He hated that he had cut Kurt off, hated the roughness of his words, but all he could focus on was the agonizing pain surging through his body, an unrelenting wave that threatened to tear him apart. He could barely stand, his legs trembling, but he forced himself to hold it together, to seem as normal as possible.
Kurt was silent for a moment before replying, “Where are you?”
“My room.”
There was another beat of silence, then Kurt appeared in Logan’s room in a soft puff of smoke. Logan glanced at him quickly but immediately looked away, knowing he probably looked like hell. The exhaustion, the pain, it was all visible on him, and he didn’t want Kurt to see it.
“Logan, mein Gott, you look terrible. Are you ok? That fall from-”
Logan growled, cutting Kurt off before the words could fully leave his mouth. Kurt frowned, but gently placed a hand on Logan’s shoulder, as though he was trying to steady him.
“The same place, Ja? The one you showed me before?”Logan nodded, his body rigid, and with a quick jerk, Kurt’s teleported them both. The familiar disorienting sensation hit Logan’s chest as the world spun around them. When they landed, Logan staggered slightly, his boots sinking into the wet, slushy snow of the clearing, the remnants of spring’s thaw underfoot. The forest around them stood silent, disturbed by their sudden presence.
Around a year and a half ago Logan had saved Kurt’s life in a mission gone wrong and the man had demanded to pay him back, so Logan had taken Kurt here to show him this one clearing so it could be in his memory. The favor was that no matter when or where, if Logan asked, Kurt would take him here. Just once, no questions asked, no mention to the team. Logan hated using Kurt like this. He was one of his best friends, and yet here Logan was, taking advantage of his trust and willingness to help. If Logan could speak without feeling like his body might tear itself apart from the force of his pain, he would thank Kurt, would tell him he was okay. He would let Kurt know that he understood what had happened at the end of the mission, that it wasn’t his fault.
But he couldn’t do that. Not now. Not when the pain was too much, and all he could focus on was the searing agony clawing at him from every direction. So, he stood there stiffly, his body rigid, waiting for Kurt to leave.
Kurt looked around the clearing before glancing as Logan. He opened his mouth to speak but then seemed to think better of it and left without a goodbye. As soon as the smoke from Kurt’s teleportation vanished, Logan dropped to his hands and knees and crawled into a den he’d dug out a few years back under the roots of a tree nearby. He crawled inside, the earth cool against his skin, and curled up tightly, drawing his knees to his chest, trying to shield himself from the world. With trembling hands, he brought the blotter paper to his mouth, hesitating for just a moment.
His breathing grew shallow and ragged. He could feel the weight of the drug in his hand, the temptation to take it, to lose himself and escape the pain, but something in him rebelled against it. He sat there, breath coming in short gasps, torn between the relief the drug promised and the reality of what it would cost him.
With a scream that tore from deep within his chest, Logan slammed the blotter paper into the moist earth below him, grinding it into the ground. He couldn’t do it. Even as the agony of his body was breaking him apart, and the last of his resolve snapped, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take the drug. The small paper lay there in the dirt, useless now, rejected.
In the wilds of northern Canada, hundreds of miles from the nearest town, Logan screamed and sobbed, the rawness of his emotions spilling out in ways he couldn’t control. He couldn’t outrun the pain. He couldn’t escape the reality of his existence.
Logan wasn’t sure how long he had been lying there, drifting in and out of consciousness, the sharp edges of pain gnawing at him like waves crashing against a helpless shore. Time had become a meaningless concept, slipping through his mind like sand. The world around him had dissolved into a blur of fleeting moments, a constant cycle of pain and faintness. If he had to guess, he’d say it had been about four days. His body, battered and bruised from his reckless actions, had been running on nothing but fumes, and the pain had pushed him to the very edge of his limits. Each wave of agony came like a crashing tide, only to fade and return again, relentless, unforgiving. It was an odd sensation, fading between the depths of pain and a disorienting numbness, where his mind felt detached from his body, as though he was observing himself from afar. Even without the aid of the Carfentanil, his body had begun to shut down in protest. But even then, if pushed hard enough, Logan was certain that he could have clawed his way to full wakefulness, something he’d never be able to manage while under the haze of the drug.
Eventually, the pain began to fade, its echoes retreating as if it had finally grown tired of tormenting him. In its place, a deep, overwhelming exhaustion settled in, one that felt all-encompassing and more profound than anything Logan had experienced in years. The kind of sleep that took hold of him, not just physically, but mentally, like an oppressive darkness that covered every part of him. For the first time since that reckless leap from the plane, Logan fell into a sleep so deep that it felt like a true escape. It was more a rest for his mind than for his body, a reprieve he’d desperately needed but hadn’t been able to find in weeks.
When he awoke the next morning, it was like surfacing from a long, submerged dive. The pain was still there, but it was no longer a sharp, biting force; it had faded into a dull ache that seemed almost manageable in comparison. He stretched his stiff limbs, the cool earth beneath him grounding him in the present moment, the familiar smell of the forest filling his senses. As he inhaled deeply, he couldn’t help but smile. The dense woods, the quiet surrounding him, felt like home in a way that nothing else could. For all the chaos in his life, this was the place where he felt truly himself.
Another deep breath brought something else to his attention, a scent that made his heart quicken and his smile widen. The forest around him wasn’t just a sanctuary; it was home to one of his closest companions, a bond that stretched far beyond the usual connections Logan had with people.
His eyes flicked toward the entrance of the den, and there, peeking curiously through the roots of the tree, was a large, wet black nose. The nose snuffled and snorted, pushing its way in as if to say hello, unafraid and inquisitive. Logan chuckled softly under his breath.
Pushing himself up with effort, he gently nudged the nose away, his rough hand meeting the soft fur of the animal’s snout in a tender but firm motion. He reminded the animal to give him space. The animal backed up a few steps, its huge frame shifting with graceful strength, and Logan crawled out from beneath the tree roots and onto the wet earth. He stood to his full height, stretching as his muscles groaned, feeling the cool morning air against his skin.
The animal before him was enormous, towering at around four feet tall on all fours. Its reddish-brown fur was thick, its shoulders marked by the large, powerful hump that signaled its strength. Its eyes, a soulful honey-brown, met Logan’s gaze with an understanding that only years of familiarity could breed. The grizzly bear sat down on its haunches, its massive paw swiping at Logan’s shoulder in an affectionate, playful gesture. Logan laughed, a sound that felt strange coming from him after so much silence and pain. The bear pulled him in, gently tugging at his shirt sleeve with its jaws, and began to chew on it, its teeth soft despite their size.
“Sasha!”