Chapter Text
When the paperwork comes in under the gap of his door, it’s marked with several stamps on failed deliveries and rerouting addresses. The fact that it’s found him isn’t surprising—he damn well expects the postal service to use publicly available information to give the Wolverine an envelope with his damn name on it, even if they covered it the fuck up with a sticker from Canadian post first. The surprising part, looking over the stamps and addresses he’s inhabited over the years, is the timeline of his life they’ve somehow followed.
Historical records are a mess and three fucking halves when you’ve lived as long as he has, and more so when even autobiographical records can’t be trusted. Not that Logan’s particularly inclined to give any of those records up willingly. Or under the threat of torture. Or under actual torture.
Their efforts, unfortunately, mean the notice he receives is borderline unrecognizable for what it is underneath the markings and stamps. The only way he knows it’s his is because someone else has done the work of bringing it to his room, and opening it first.
Scott didn’t get it because the fucking boy scout wouldn’t have opened the goddamn notice. Which means someone else clearly opened it, read it, and hastily shoved it under the door for Logan to see when he returned.
Logan doesn’t recognize it at first. It is his, though; his name, however hidden, is listed on the notice.
Or, rather, “James Howlett” written there. Courtesy of being surrounded by mindreaders half the fucking time, he assumes, this name is known as him.
…Alright, maybe he’ll actually give the US Postal Service some fucking credit.
Logan sniffs it. They tried to hide their scent by covering the goddamn thing in Axe body spray. Even if it had worked—which it doesn’t—from that alone, Logan would know it was Kurt.
…Dammit. He can’t even stay pissed. Goddamn furball.
He doesn’t get mail often, or ever, so he understands Kurt’s curiosity. Hell, in spite of himself, Logan’s also pretty fucking curious. Who the shit is sending mail to him?
It’s already open, so he doesn’t bother checking the sender. Which he then immediately regrets when he pulls out the paper and sees the arching logo of Submission Oversight And Protection Services—SOAPS, which is both exactly as ridiculous and as ironic as it fucking sounds. The reason that it hasn’t changed in all the years he’s been alive eludes the shit out of Logan.
The fact that, for whatever fucking reason, they’re contacting him?
Yeah. Nah. Fuck this.
He shoves the paper back in its notice without bothering to read it, half-considers setting it alight with his smoke, then thinks better of it.
He’s curious, sure. But not that curious. For all people may think differently, Logan isn’t actually a masochist. A lifetime of more pain than any one person should stand to deal with has guaranteed that. Just because he accepts it as his norm doesn’t mean he’s going to inflict more upon himself for no good fucking reason, especially where the goddamn government’s involved. Fucking bastards.
If you ignore their shit, half the time you’re fine. That’s the rule with jury notice, not that it’s ever been a real concern for him there, and whatever the fuck SOAPS wants from him, he absolutely can’t be bothered to give it.
Logan tosses it onto his desk, and that should be the end of that.
He then immediately turns tail and heads for the gym. Apparently the motorcycle ride wasn’t enough to let off his building steam.
***
People bother less with the gym than the Danger Room, if only because of the habits of training, Logan presumes. Usually at least a couple: students trying to be productive and get ahead, oftentimes, in which case Logan heads to the section upstairs for staff only. Finding people in here during some odd hour, too, is unfortunately frequent. Places like these, normal by all accounts, tend to be useful when the Danger Room feels too real for whoever’s failing to deal with their nightmares. He used to run into Jean here a lot because of it.
Yet another fucking reason he needs to blow off steam. As if he doesn’t already have several lifetimes of reasons.
The gen area is empty when he first comes in. A relief. He can hear the clinging of metal over in the Sub-only zone, Jubilee’s voice above all that counting reps interspersed with bouts of encouragement. Girl’s really taken to her own since being allowed to help teach.
And then he hears a loud yawn, the patter of footsteps, and Kurt stepping inside with his long arms stretching over his head. He stops when he spots Logan, his expression morphing from relaxed to surprise. “Ah, Logan! I did not expect to see you here, mein Freund.”
Logan’s eyes narrow. Kurt has the decency to look a little uncomfortable.
Just as Kurt’s opening his mouth to break the silence, Logan interjects, “Don’t see you ‘round here much, bub.” His tone’s flat enough to not technically be a threat. Though everything he says is always somewhere in that territory.
Kurt’s tail flicks anxiously behind him, and Logan’s eyes immediately follow the movement, his body tense.
Kurt clears his throat, the movement of his tail stopping abruptly. When Logan’s eyes flit back up to meet the other man’s, he looks less anxious and more exasperated, only briefly fiddling with the pin on his shirt indicating being an available Sub.
The furball may be a difficult one to get mad at, sure, but Logan has his temper. Kurt went through his shit. He waltzed in here like he belonged, as if he frequented the fucking gym that rarely ever smelled of him. Not once has Logan seen a strand of blue fur that didn’t belong to Hank in this room. Kurt’s here for him, and what? Thinks Logan’s too dense to make the connection? Hadn’t managed to connect those dots the moment he heard him coming?
Always with this shit, treating Logan like nothing more than muscle with brains. It’s not like Kurt to be among them. Fuck him, too, then, if he’s bought into it. “What?” he snarls. The claws don’t break through skin, but they’re at the surface. Too close.
Kurt raises his hands in the air. “I must be… awfully transparent. My apologies.”
The appeasement settles Logan enough to relax his shoulders an inch.
And then he recognizes that, sure, his reaction was maybe a little disproportionate, so he drops back onto the bench with a roll of his eyes. “You sure ain’t discreet. And you’ll piss me off more if you’re runnin’ around with Axe body spray so far up your ass I can smell it from Pittsburg.” He shoots a glower Kurt’s way. “Don’t know what the hell you were thinkin’, actin’ like anything can mask your sulfur from me.”
Kurt tips his head back and laughs, his tail flicking again in wide, relaxed movements just before he bamfs his way to a spot on the bench with Logan, promptly bumping his shoulder and ignoring the way Logan’s hackles immediately raise again.
“Ja, ja, nothing gets past that nose of yours, hm? Silly me.” He grins wide, canines practically sparkling in the man’s mirth. Logan has to resist rolling his eyes again. “I didn’t mean to pry. Er, I mean, I did, but I deeply apologize.” The smile dims, and Kurt turns forward, blinking those yellow eyes of his as he seems to consider his next words.
Kurt is too close. Either Logan shoves him off or moves. His body itches for the former, for the violence that feeds anger, something familiar and actionable, but instead, Logan stands up, moves in front of Kurt, and glares down. “Y’ain’t sorry.” He jerks his chin sharply. “You should know better than to go sniffin’ around my business.”
Kurt’s meeting his eyes again, his expression uncertain, brows drawn in as he wrings his hands together. He’s always been clear with what he was, his emotions sprawled across his face and in his tail near constantly. He eeks his submission, his easy empathies, as though it’s natural to him. Logan doesn’t pretend to understand that. He’s never been the type to seek out that brand of submission, common as it is, and to his part, Kurt doesn’t seem to give a shit one way or another. “Nein, aber temptations still call to me. The crown of life evades me still.” He grins again as if that isn’t weird cryptic bullshit that’s likely once again Catholic in nature. “I do apologize for opening it. And I am sorry about your, ah… brother? I believe it was? I did not know that you, er… had….”
Whatever Logan looked like must have been some cause for concern to Kurt, with the way he curls in on himself slightly, shoulders hunching closer to his ears, tail swishing in short, stiff movements where it hangs off the bench.
His brother.
What the fuck did Kurt know about his brother?
What the hell had been inside that document that Kurt would suddenly be bringing up—
Logan takes two steps closer, managing to loom over Kurt now as the other man continues to make himself even smaller. “What did you see.”
Then there’s a hand against his chest, and Logan’s being shoved forcefully back, away from Kurt at a near stumble from just the surprise. He recovers just as quickly, bristling to find Scott standing in front of him, expression stoic as he looks down at Logan.
Logan’s promptly swiping Scott’s arm off his chest and pushing into the man’s space. “Back off, Slim.”
The only movement from the other man is a brief twitch of his head indicating that he’s looking toward Kurt, then back to Logan. “You know better. Whatever your problem is, you handle it some other way.”
It’s an annoyingly blasé way to say, ‘Don’t go all Wolverine Dom on any of your teammates.’
As if being a stoic fucking Dom like Scotty fucking Summers is somehow any damn better. Dick. Logan scoffs, unwilling to give any of the ground he’s taken from the other man. “Mind your fuckin’ business. This is between me and him.”
“If it’s about Victor,” Scott drawls, “then I’m happy to turn it into something between you and me instead.”
Logan immediately sees red. It’s an asshole move, especially since Logan knows it’s exactly what Scott wants, but the fury previously aimed at Kurt turns onto the man in front of him. His hands ball into fists, claws sniccing out. He registers Scott’s small, slight gesture before Kurt bamfs away, and it’s just the two of them in the gym.
“The hell do you know about Victor?” Logan hisses.
“Only what Kurt told me,” Scott says, similarly unmoving. His voice is too collected for the subject, for him to be talking about him. Logan wants to cut through him, turn the man before him into meat, death, something that can’t talk to him like this, can’t talk about Victor, can’t know any piece of Logan at all. “He shouldn’t have read your mail. He knows that.” His head cocks, some of that brown hair flopping with it. “Would you have told us otherwise?”
“That I had a goddamn half-brother?” Logan scoffs, then, with the self-control decades have taught him, he retracts the claws and paces away from Scott. “Don’t see how that’s fuckin’ relevant to you, Boy Scout.”
“It’s not,” Scott agrees, still watching him. “But you acquiring his Sub that’s being transferred here is.”
Logan’s blood goes cold. Slowly, he turns back. “What?”
“Oh.” Scott’s mouth twitches. “You didn’t read it, did you?”