Chapter Text
Logan, after a particularly horrible mission working for the Feds, has a sudden memory flux and refuses to continue working. Rorke sends him to a base just on the edge of No Man’s Land, to “get his scrambled brains together again”.
So he’s sitting in a dank dark cell, basically error 404ing, trying to piece together his jumbled memories after they’d broken the floodgates. He’s a little banged up but he figures it’s all par for the course. Doesn’t care much anymore.
And then out of some dark corner comes you, skittering around the corner, eyes trained behind you as you press yourself to the wall.
You, who’s been getting by on your own in No Man’s Land ever since Odin first struck. You, who doesn’t know that there is a giant wall with civilization just behind it. You, who is fully convinced and at peace with the fact that everyone you know is dead and the world ended 10 years ago.
You, who snuck into the base as naturally as a stray cat, just because you wanted to steal some supplies.
A soldier stomps past your hiding spot and walks away, leaving you unnoticed. When you relax and turn round, your mouth drops as you catch his wide eyes behind the bars. He’s astonished anyone has snuck through, least of all someone who looks as squirrelly as you, clothes ragged and dusty bag thrown over your shoulder.
“Woah.” You whisper. Stare for bit. Tilt your head. “D’you wanna get out of here?”
He manages a nod, although he’s fairly certain you won’t be capable of getting the keys.
“Ok. Wait here.” You say, then cringe as you realize he can’t really do anything besides that. Your social skills had seriously deteriorated over ten years.
He waits, curious, but not all that hopeful that you’ll be back. But, lo and behold, not even five minutes later you’re creeping back into view and unlocking the door.
“Can ya walk?” You ask. He nods, climbing to his feet. He grunts in pain as he does so, but ignores the stabbing pain- he’s surprised when you slot into his side, urging him to lean on you. He does so hesitantly, and follows you as you lead him out through an old crumbling dried out pipe system underneath the base. Surely it would be a labyrinth for anyone else, as it seems even the feds had left it alone due to its decay and dead ends, but you get through it as though you know it like the back of your hand.
You help him out of the system into a forest, and then through the forest into the old remains of a city he knows all too well. He may not remember exactly what it was called or how he spent his days here, but he feels in his very bones that this is his childhood city.
You pause on a ledge overlooking the city to catch your breath, rummaging through your bag for a water canteen. He doesn’t know why, but a heavy weight settles in his gut, a horrible sadness at the sight of the city.
“Yeah, it’s a far cry from what it was.” You say in response to his forlorn look over the city. “Hey, I guess now that we’re in the clear we can have introductions?” You say it like a question, then state your name with an awkward smile.
“Logan.” He rasps. He hasn’t used his voice in so, so long, but he feels he at least owes you a name after you got him out of that hellhole.
“Logan. That’s a nice name! Ok, Logan, so here’s what we’re gonna do, right? There’s not much out here ever since the bomb attack, but there’s enough to get by. We’re gonna go to the hidey hole I’ve got near the seven eleven on that edge of town.” You point to the east side of town and Logan glares against a memory surge-
“Pleeeease, dad! It’s just one slushee, Logan and I can share!”
The glare of the sun, the smell of gasoline, a musty gas station… a brightly colored seven. The feeling of peace, and joy, and excitement.
“Alright, son, fine -just one, and you two’re sharing , understood?”
You babble on, ignoring his sudden glare at the city. “-And we’d better get going, it’ll take a fair while to trek down there and the sun’s coming down awful fast nowadays and I’d really hate to use my flashlight.”
And so you lead him through the city streets, agile as a cat and awfully knowledgeable of each and every turn, until you come to a little house across the street from the seven eleven. All the while you’re chatting at him, so eager to talk to someone after all this time you don’t even care about the word vomit, and Logan listens on without complaint, happy to hear someone refer to him without a single mention of a mission or the ghosts or the federation.
“You can stick with me for as long as you’d like, I sure wouldn’t mind the company and the extra pair of hands.” You say as you climb a strange, specific path up the rubble. And Logan sure likes the sound of that. He can’t imagine returning home after all that he’d done, all that’s happened, and he certainly isn’t keen on going back to the Feds. He needs time to get his head together. Maybe indefinitely.
You pull back a board that allows entry into the attic, an opening he wouldn’t have spotted if not for you leading the way. You let him duck inside first, then close the board behind you as you follow him in.
Inside the attic space is a surprisingly cozy residence. Though one side is rubble and the ceiling is low, there’s a snug cot pressed into the corner, absolutely overflowing in blankets and pillows, and a desk pushed into the other corner, covered in all sorts of bobs and bits. Pushed up against the end of the bed is the largest beanbag he’d ever seen, and strewn all around the room are a plethora of baskets and boxes, some with clothing, others with food items, more with paints and yarn. Underneath the bed is a wall of canned foods, and stretched along the ceiling is a string of drying jerky.
“Take a seat, I’ll get us some light.” You pat the bed in invitation, then head towards the window where the last rays of the sun shine through. You pull a blackout curtain over the window, then fumble around a little with… a switch, maybe? He can’t really tell in the dark. “You ready?” You ask excitedly.
With a click, the place lights up with the dim glow of fairy lights, that he hadn’t noticed were hung along the edges of the ceiling and climbing all over the rubble of the eastern wall, wedged in between each chunk of concrete and wood to create a beautiful kaleidoscope of light.
He turns wide eyes to you, who’s grinning proudly, and then turns back to the wall of light.
“The world may have ended, but life goes on, you know?” You shrug, settling down next to him as he stares in awe at the lights. “Gotta find little ways to make life more colorful.”
You let him sit there for a little while, and then you get up and rifle through a desk drawer, glance up at him once, scrutinizing, and then opt to just take out the whole drawer. As you come closer he sees it holds a variety of first aid equipment.
“Alright, where does it hurt most?”
————-
After patching him up, you tell him to take the bed, and you settle down in your bean bag. The next few days you let him stay inside your little home while you go out and about into the city, following your typical daily routine. It slightly unnerves you when you find him sat in exactly the same position as you left him each day, sat on your bed, his knees pulled up to his chest, a single blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
Mostly though, it pulls at your heartstrings, especially the way those pain-filled eyes of his stare off into nothingness. You can’t even begin to imagine all the horrors he must have been through at the hands of those soldiers, the invaders of your homeland, the folks that orchestrated the end of your world all those years ago.
You’ve had your fair number of run-ins with them yourself over the years, lost some of your only partners to the bastards early on, earned a couple scars. But you got smarter. Learned their patrol routines, kept multiple shelters stocked all around the city, nabbed a radio and learned the channel by heart. Over time, and with a couple books you’d found in the wreckage that was the library, you learned bits of Spanish, and could now tell well enough where they’d be patrolling based on their radio chats.
You had almost convinced yourself you’d be spending the rest of your life alone in this wreckage. After the ten year mark had been crossed, you became bolder. A little more careless. You’d lived so long by yourself, you’d become certain this was all that was left. It was part of the reason you’d dared to enter the base. Sure, you needed supplies, but you also wouldn’t have minded much if you’d gotten caught.
But now that you’d found Logan, a new spark filled your chest. There was someone else counting on you now. Someone else who’d only suffer more if you were gone. You were determined to make life a little easier for him, as he’d made it a little bit more worth living in for you.
When a week had passed and he still hadn’t moved much besides sharing food with you and listening to you babble his ear off, you decided it was time to attempt to get him out of the house.
“Ya wanna come with me today? Maybe we’ll see some wildlife!”
Slowly, he shook his head no. You let it be.
———-
“Come with me today? We might find some new books to read?”
He shook his head. Not today then.
————
“Come with? I haven’t seen the stray cat around lately, I’m gonna look for him.”
He wordlessly handed you a can of tuna. You smiled brightly and patted his shoulder. Not today.
————
“Come with me today? I’m gonna go down to the city mall, see if I missed anything.”
————-
“I’m looking for some more yarn today, gonna stop by Hobby Lobby. Wanna see it?”
————
“I’ll go get those plants I saw earlier. You coming?”
———-
A week of you asking if he’d come along, and each time he’d answer in the negative. You had high hopes though, as with each passing day you’d see him moving around a little more. One day closing the curtain for you and turning the lights on himself, another reaching for your stack of books, the next silently helping you clean your gun (you never went anywhere without it). Today, you decided to stay in on account of the heavy rain that had started early in the morning and didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon.
You huffed as you settled onto the bed next to him.
“Miserable weather, that. I used to like it because I could stay out of it, but these days it ain’t nothing more than a pain in the neck.” You grabbed your latest knitting project and got to work, clicking the needles rapidly as you yapped away. You hoped he wouldn’t get tired of you chatting his ear off, but you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself if you tried, having grown used to talking to yourself to keep sane, and if he’s not going to fill the silence, you will. He certainly hasn’t indicated he wants you to shut up yet, so you go on. “Can’t go out without an umbrella, but not much I can do with an umbrella in one hand and a gun in the other, you know? I did find a poncho once, hella useful that was, but I left it in a different hide away -my vacation home, so to say.”
You chuckle quietly at yourself, all the while clicking away at your needles. You tilt them more towards him when he stares questioningly for a while at your project, explaining, “I’m making a sweater, see? This is only the first part of it so it doesn’t look like much, but it’ll keep you cozy when it gets colder.”
His eyebrows raise at that, confusion written all over his face.
“Yes, you. I don’t have much stockpiled in ways of men’s clothing, or anything that’ll really fit you, but I did find some things here and there while I was out. I figure you wouldn’t want to stay in that military garb the whole season. I couldn’t find anything warm and intact your size though, so I’m starting in early on that problem. The cold’ll creep up on you when you least expect it, and nothing quite keeps it out like a good knit sweater.”
You hum happily as you continue on your project. He leans in a little, eyes fixed on your hands. It’s quite companionable, sat together like that on your cot, the rain a pleasant melody in time with your clicking needles.
You pause for a moment as a thought hits you, and turn to him.
“D’you wanna learn how to do it?” You ask, already reaching into your craft box to find another pair of needles and a ball of yarn.
He seems pleasantly surprised when you hand them to him. You show him how to make the first few stitches, then let him have a go at it, returning to your own project.
You slow your fingers down when you catch him glancing at your hands, demonstrably looping the yarn around and pulling it through. He seems to get the hang of it after a few tries and a couple moments of staring intently at your movements, eventually copying them fairly well.
He huffs, sounding pleased as he figures it out, and leans into you. You lean right back into him, returning to your happy humming.
You like rainy days a little more after that.
———
Eventually he agrees to go along with you on your journeys into the city, and you let him know with great passion that the extra pair of hands is vastly appreciated. He follows you through crumbling buildings and over cracked ridges that used to be roads. He watches as you expertly maneuver around the rubble of the city, and he tries to push down the memories that come up at each turn he vaguely recognizes.
He’s determined to not face his jumbled memories anytime soon. A week trying to piece it together just got him more confused and hurting than before, so he admitted defeat and decided to push it all down until such a moment came that he needed to sift through his thoughts. For now, he simply enjoyed tagging along with you. You certainly made living in this rubble seem awfully cheerful, and it made even him feel hopeful of getting through life without facing his demons.
A couple days now he’d been joining you to scour through the city. It seems your routine would be to check specific spots for signs of a patrol, leave a snack in an alley for the stray cats, then set up on the edge of the forest for an hour or two to see if you could spot some deer. Then you’d check your rabbit traps deeper in the forest, and after that you’d go about doing whatever it is you set your mind to for the day. Some days you’d sift through the rubble of a building, setting chunks of concrete aside in hopes of finding more books or clothes. Other days you’d trek to the other side of the city, “just to see what’s what over there and get my steps in”, you’d say. Still others you’d spend toiling away at a little farm you’ve got going on a rooftop. You claim the height keeps unwanted critters and soldiers away.
Today, you’d brought along your spray paints, all rattling in the bag you’d slung over your shoulder, and you had declared you would be going to the bus stations. It had piqued his curiosity, but he didn’t bother asking. You had quickly chattered on about the next thing on your mind, so he let it go, figuring he’d find out eventually.
It was a fair distance to the bus stations, something he wouldn’t have bothered walking if he were in a working city, behind The Wall. But as it was, he didn’t mind stretching his legs out. Certainly kept him fit, at any rate.
Sometimes he wondered why you were living this way when you could likely have your own little house and a comfortable civilian life within The Wall. But the longer he lived with you, the more concerned he became that maybe you didn’t even know there was a wall, or even any civilization still standing. You spoke with such certainty about the end of the world and how you were the only one out here, how surprising it was to find someone that still spoke the English language.
What would you say if you knew there were whole cities still in working order, crammed full of civilians happily living their lives just a little further north? What would you say if you found out he had fought for the protection of those cities for a decade? ….what would you say if you learned he’d also fought to bring destruction to the cities, that he’d fought on the side of the enemy?
He shook his head to clear the thoughts away, and turned his attention back to you.
He watched as you set your bag down once you’d reached the bus stations. A big blank wall of the building stood tall, untouched by the bombings. He sat down heavily next to your bag as you set to work on the wall, spray paint in hand as you treated it like a blank canvas. It surprises him how quickly you gave life to the concrete, reds and purples melding with greens and blues to create a beautiful artwork.
He’d seen painted walls similar to this one while going through the city, marveled at the bittersweet beauty of it, a pop of color in a grey apocalyptic world, but it somehow hadn’t clicked that it must have been you who had made it.
You must have been doing these for a long, long while for there to be as many as there were throughout the city.
“Well, whaddaya think?” You turned to him once you finished, grin wide, eyes joyful, hands covered in paint. He shot you a double thumbs up, his own mouth pulling up into a smile. He doesn’t know how you do it, how you can stay so cheerful despite… everything.
Maybe you had unlocked some kind of secret to happiness while you were out here all these years.
Or maybe you were trying hard to stay afloat and find joy in whatever way you can.
Either way, it made him happy to see you happy. He jogged up to you when you called him over.
“Here, you sign it too, so the world knows we were both here. Together.”
Together… he liked the sound of that. He takes the paint can from you and sprays out his initials next to your artistic signature.
————-
He startles awake one day to the sound of insistent yowling just outside the board you use for a door. The sun’s barely peeking through the window, the morning still young and early, and there’s a slight chill in the air- a clear indication of autumn cold soon to come.
Logan shuffles up and out of the bed, glancing over at your prone form in your bean bag. Somehow, you’re still dead asleep despite the loud meowing outdoors.
He blinks any remaining sleep out of his eyes and shoves his boots on. Heads toward the board, then pauses, and turns back to reach for a tuna can. When he emerges outside of your home, he sees a scrappy brown cat, it’s fur sticking out at odd angles, glaring at him with bright green eyes.
This must be the stray cat you’d befriended. If he remembers correctly, you’d named it Missy, short for Missile Launcher, and you’d giggled up a storm when you’d told him.
Well.
This Missy certainly looked fit to launch herself into his face like the world’s smallest missile. She had stopped yowling as soon as she saw him, and was now puffed up angrily, a wary growl kicking up in the back of her throat.
Slowly, he lowered himself into a crouch, and held out the tuna can as a peace offering. Missy had immediately stopped growling, letting out a curious Mrr? at the sight of food, though she stayed in her place, back arched warningly.
He carefully popped open the can and set it down an arm’s length away, then scooched back a bit. Missy watched, glare still evident in her eyes, but once he’d backed off at an acceptable distance, she trounced over to the can and greedily licked it up. Her gaze never once strayed from him.
He inched a hand out, hopeful to pet her now that she had some food, but a warning growl had him pulling his hand back reluctantly.
He wonders how Riley is doing. Is he still on duty? Logan misses him - that dog would take any chance he’d get to cuddle up with Logan, eagerly awaiting pets.
The sound of shuffling behind notified him of your awakening, and it wasn’t long before you were stumbling out of the attic space. He glanced back to catch your eye, and felt a little amused at the bedhead that made up your hair, sleep still thick in your eyes. You paused as you took in the sight before you.
“Oh. Good morning!” You say.
The cat yowls loudly in greeting, and by the time Logan looks back at it, it’s already finished off the can and gone bounding up the rubble towards you.
You giggle as it purrs and rubs against your legs, bending down to give it a scritch.
“I see you’ve met Missy!”
Logan does not pout as he watches the cat cozy up to you.
He’s gonna get to pet that cat someday, he swears it.