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The headache starts behind his left eye, tension gathering in the muscle. He first notices it sitting at Coffee A Go-Go, across from the girl he’s interviewing for this story on the fight for same-sex parental rights. She’s talking about her mothers – Irene, Raven, his notes say – and Scott’s holding his pencil so tight he can feel it start to snap, all in effort to keep from touching the skin below his eye that’s starting to twitch and strain.
He hopes the girl – Anna Marie, he chides himself, forcing himself to glance down at the top of his notes, where he’s written ANNA MARIE ADLER COFFEE A GO-GO, 12 P.M. – hasn’t noticed the twitching. Scott’s never been able to figure out if it’s as noticeable as he thinks it is. Jean always noticed, when they were kids, and later when they were…
Scott swallows and sets his pencil down to take a long pull from his coffee. Caffeine’s a natural muscle relaxer. It won’t do shit for him once this really gets started, but a futile attempt to stem the tide is better than nothing. At least he’s recording, so when he eventually has to stop writing because looking at words, even through his glasses, even on yellow legal paper, will be impossible because his broken neural relays have chosen this moment to betray him, he’ll be able to salvage the interview.
Anna Marie’s accent is a dense grove of lemon trees and crab grass and when Scott first met her, he’d been impressed by her retention of it, considering Anna Marie’s story includes escapes across the country and abroad, her mothers seeking a home where their family could be safe – together.
(“Your mothers must love you very much,” Scott had said.
“They sure did,” Anna Marie’s reply was tight. She stirred her tea with one gloved hand. “Irene’s dead now. Without her, ah…” She shrugs. “Raven ain’t exactly the most reliable of parents. Ya know?”
Scott nodded. “I’m a little familiar.”
Some of the tightness left her expression. Her eyes landed on Scott’s. “Ahm sorry t’hear that.”)
Still. He holds it together; maintains a decorum of professionalism even as the sounds of the cafe – the foaming of milk, the growl of the coffee grinder, the musician in the corner with harmonica and a guitar giving their best effort to Maggie’s Farm – slowly start to pitch up and out into a high whine of white hot noise.
He thanks Anna Marie for her time, her candor, and tells her that he’ll be in touch. They don’t shake hands and that’s alright – preferable, even, if Scott’s being honest – and he spends the subway ride home with his head pressed against the cool metal of the pole in the middle of the car, his eyes closed, as the jerking and sputtering of the train tosses sweaty shoulders and elbows into his sides.
Something Scott learned the hard way, as a teen, was that lights that flash against the train car as it rocks and thunders remind him too much of the crash and the hospital; the press of unknown skin against his, the orphanage. They make the headaches worse. But he can’t afford the Lyft, so he closes his eyes and bears his weight onto the metal.
He draws the blackout curtains; heavy fabric assembled by Jean for their first apartment after leaving the school; when they’d broken up, she’d made sure they were packed with his things, a note slipped between the folds of the canvas: they were a gift. He makes sure his water bottle is filled, as are the two others in his fridge. He takes his medication, and for twelve hours, falls into black, blank sleep.
But the headache continues. It bears into him, a two-pronged spear splitting open his skull from behind his eyes.
Scott lays in silence. He turns on the brown noise machine he’s had since he was a teenager.
He tries to sleep. Thinks about taking the sleep medication next to his mattress, but doesn’t – it leaves him feeling nauseous when he wakes and this headache will last at least another two days, complete with its own nausea. He doesn’t need to help it along.
Knock-knock.
The sound crashes through Scott’s skull, fist-on-wood-grating-on-metal-ouch-hell-knock-KNOCK. He jolts to consciousness, reaching for the pocket knife under his pillow as he does. The room spins, but he manages to trip the lever on the knife and the metal jumps up, flashing in the dark.
“Slim, it’s me.” The voice behind the door is rough, loud, and Scott can’t place it, fuck, he knows the voice, but can’t think of the name, and the handle of the pocket knife grinds into his palm. “– I mean, it’s Logan. C’mon. Jean gave me your address.”
Scott swings open his door – when had he reached it? – and stares down, squinting around the light of the hall.
Logan’s looking up at him. He’s got a streak of grease across his cheekbone and wears stained, navy coveralls under a shearling lined denim jacket, like he’s just come from the autoshop. He’s holding a white paper bag in one fist.
“Logan?”
“Hey, Slim,” he replies, ducking under Scott’s arm to enter the apartment. He strides confidently into the dark, making a beeline for Scott’s kitchenette. “Close the door and put the Boy Scout knife down.”
Scott closes the door, but doesn’t put the knife down. Instead, he closes his eyes and presses his forehead into the wood. He wants to lay down.
“Logan, I can’t do this right now –”
“Your head, I know,” Logan finishes.
Scott’s eyes fly open. He turns and takes in the scene before him in the low light.
There’s Logan, the bag set down on the counter, his jacket set next to it. He’s rolling up the sleeves of his coveralls, revealing broad, dark-haired forearms. Moving to turn on the sink. He starts scrubbing his hands, matter of fact.
The water looks as black as the oil being rinsed from his hands. The soap – some lemon scented, cheap thing Scott had gotten for a dollar from the bodega – burns his nostrils.
“Logan, what –”
“Hadn’t seen you around,” he says in typical – infuriating – flatness. He turns off the sink and dries his hands with the towel hanging off Scott’s oven (another Jean remnant, one Scott’s actually sure he didn’t pack, which means she left it at some point over the last two years). “Jeannie said it was your head.”
Scott watches as he opens the bag. The smoky-yet-spicy smell of phō floods the air. Scott’s stomach grumbles despite himself – he usually can’t keep anything down when his headaches start – while Logan confidently reaches for the mug drying in other side of the sink.
He haunts Scott’s kitchen like he’d been invited. Like he’s been there before and knows exactly where everything is; exactly what he’s supposed to do.
The sloshing of broth roars over Scott’s eardrums. His skull feels heavy, pressure bearing into the front of his head, against his eyes.
“Go lay down,” Logan says, suddenly close. The steam coming off the hot mug in one of Logan’s hands (gripped in his palm, which Scott knows from experience must hurt) rushes towards Scott’s nostrils and his hunger writhes in earnest now, coupling with the leaden weight of his head. He’s not long for standing – whether that’s in protest of Logan’s presence and orders or, quite literally, being vertical – and when Logan uses his other hand to touch Scott’s arm, it’s somehow enough to send Scott slinking back towards his bedroom.
It’s a chance of grace that Scott doesn’t fall onto the mattress on the floor. Logan crouches beside the bed, setting the pocket knife – when did Logan take that from him? – on the floor near Scott’s pillows and offering soup with the other.
Scott accepts the mug, cupping the top between two palms – he was right, it’s hot enough to sear skin – and settles it between his legs on the bed. He slumps forward over it, letting the steam heat his face.
He doesn’t know how long he sits like that, bowed over the phō, but slowly the heat rising off the broth has loosened the straining sinew in his temples to once again speak to Logan. Scott glances up, finds Logan gone and the light from the range above his stove casting shadows in the open doorway to his bedroom.
“Logan?” Scott repeats, hairline fractures of panic creaking into his throat.
His shadow replies to Scott’s call; stretching across the floor, taller than Logan himself, followed by the sound of boots. Scott looks up again. Logan doesn’t look back. He’s got the dish towel in his hand. Gives it a surreptitious sniff, one nostril twitching. Then a shrug, as if to say, I guess.
“What is this?” Scott demands.
Logan looks at him, finally, and grunts. “Phō. Drink.” He punctuates his words by gesturing with the towel to the mug between Scott’s knees. “M’sure you could use something in your stomach.”
As Logan crosses the room, his heavy footsteps cutting a clear line across Scott’s bedroom for the bathroom attached, Scott shakes his head. “I know what phō is, Logan. What’re you doing here?”
In reply, Logan chuckles. It’s that low, dry rumble that seems to dole out annoyance and fondness in equal measure. To Scott’s endless frustration, it’s how Logan replies to most things. He turns on the tap in the bathroom. Lets it run.
“What’s it look like?” he says, letting the water run over his fingers. “Helping your sorry ass out, Slim.”
Scott scowls. Grinds his teeth as his facial muscles spasm and protest the expression. “I’m not asking for it. I don’t need it.”
Logan sighs. Pulls his fingers back from the water and extends the towel under the stream. “I’m gonna teach ya’ somethin’, bub –”
Scott scoffs. Logan looks over his shoulder and gives Scott a long, dry frown that he’s seen Logan turn on few other people. Usually Daken. Sometimes Bobby. He turns off the faucet and only lightly wrings out the towel, just so that it goes from soaping to wet. He starts to walk back over to Scott’s bed.
“Just ‘cause you don’t need help, don’t mean you can’t get it.” He crouches down next to Scott and glances down at the mug of soup in his hands. Sighs. Drops into a sitting position with more poise than Scott thinks he had in him. He barely makes a sound. “Alright, Slim,” he says, sounding as though he’s yielding – though to what, Scott certainly doesn’t fucking know – “Gimmie the mug.”
With a furrowed brow, he does. Logan takes it in his free hand and sets it down.
“Here,” Logan says, holding out the wet towel. “Tie it over your eyes, tight enough it’ll push back against that brain a’ yours, Summers, but not too tight it’ll hurt.”
Scott stares at the towel in Logan’s hand.
Logan stares back. “What, like a wet towel’s gonna kill ya?” he sighs. “You really think I came all the way Queens to murder ya with a towel? Left my kid with Quire so they could plot an actual assassination?”
Well. He supposes Logan’s got a point there.
He obliges.
Heat presses against Scott’s weary skin. It forces his features to unfurl; something it usually takes him at least a half an hour to do on his own. He doesn’t even mind the warm water slowly dripping down his neck, under his t-shirt and along his spine. He exhales.
The darkness – eyes closed under the damp blindfold – is both welcome and sinister, all at once. His features relax, no longer fighting the pain in his temple; but the pressure, familiar as an old song once thought forgotten, it reminds him of hospitals, of not knowing if he’d ever see again, of fear, of, of, – grief.
Scott fists his hands in the sheets of his bed. Listens to the rumble of Logan’s breathing. Remembers where he is.
Which is when his hands – now hanging, wrists propped against his knobby knees – are suddenly prodded by one calloused paw and Logan, suddenly closer than Scott remembered, radiating off heat and the smell of motor oil; his cigars, ashy and bitter; and something clean, like pine, under it all, pushes the mug back into his palms.
Phō?
His hand is off Scott’s as soon as he’s got a grip on the mug. “Open up, Slim,” Logan grunts and uses one hand to push at the bottom of the mug between Scott’s hands.
He’s feeding him soup. He’s feeding him soup?
Scott lets him. Lets Logan steer his hands towards his mouth and parts his lips for broth. It’s hot and sharp and tangy and delicious.
Then Logan is leaning away. Scott lowers his hands again. His wrist fall back against his knees. “First time I met Frank Castle,” Logan starts, talking over the movement of his hands, once again tilting the mug Scott’s hands towards his mouth. “I thought he was crazy. Asshole freaked me out. Drink.”
Scott does.
Logan continues, “He had these freaky fucking scars. Big ones, on his skull. ‘Ventually his hair grew out over ‘em and by then, he’d already started hanging out where me n’ Laura were sleeping most nights. Didn’t freak me out so much.”
As Scott starts to lower the mug from his mouth, Logan’s hand falling away, he speaks again, “Fucker wasn’t always all there. But he was good people. Drink.”
It should worry him, how easy it is to fall into a rhythm. How quickly he acquiesces to Logan. To Logan’s hands guiding his own. He can’t remember the last time someone’s held food to his mouth and waited for him.
But Logan doesn’t allow for Scott to sink into his thoughts; instead, he keeps talking. So Scott listens.
“Sometimes he’d be gone for days. Once it was longer than usual. So Laura n’ I went lookin’. Open.”
The broth is warm and Scott can feel muscle and tendon in his face relax and furl; no longer taut, stretched out in pain.
“He was holed up in some squat; tent pulled up over him…” Logan trails off – there’s a tightness in his voice that Scott feels in his sternum. Logan stays quiet and Scott takes the moment to breathe. “Looked like someone was covering up a goddamn corpse.” He grunts. Then he’s back, just as level and reticent as before. “Drink.”
“Frank don’t get laid up like this often, not like Jeanie says you do,” Logan continues. Scott nearly opens his mouth to demand to know why Logan’s been talking to Jean about him. But Logan presses on before he gets the chance, “More common for him to get these… seizures, I guess ya’d call ‘em. Scary fuckin’ things if you ain’t seen ‘em before. Drink.”
Scott wants to ask how old Logan was. Remembers how Warren and Bobby reacted to Jean, the first time she had a seizure in front of them. Scary fuckin’ things.
Instead, Scott swallows a mouthful of soup.
“So I figure it ain’t the same, but there’s shit that just plain helps. Maybe not for real, but relief’s relief, even if it’s… y’know, psychosomatic or some shit.”
There’s a faint clatter; Logan taking the now-empty mug from his hands and setting it on the floor. The heat is fading from the towel tied over Scott’s forehead. Rapidly cooling water runs down his cheekbones, his throat.
He reaches for the knot at the back of his skull. Finds himself moving slow; not asking for permission so much as waiting to be stopped. He isn’t. His fingers push against hair damp with water and days-old sweat as he unfashions the knot.
The light in the kitchen’s still on, casting Logan mostly in penumbra. His eyes are dark clouds of amber. It’s the first time, Scott realizes with a dawnlike thought, that he’s looked at Logan without his glasses on. In the almost-dark, the shadows play across Logan’s broad features, turning the strange tufts of Logan’s hair downy, something Scott’s fingers ache to touch.
He turns the towel over in his hands. Water trickles between his knuckles. “You’re telling me you fed Frank Castle soup?”
The tender dark shatters. Logan snorts. “Fuck no.”
When Scott wakes up, really wakes up, his dish towel is hanging over the shower curtain and his mug (a gift from Bobby, years ago, that cheerfully screams I’LL SEE YOU IN HELL (Michigan) in red letters) is sitting, clean, on the counter in the kitchen. Underneath it, a note.
The handwriting is atrocious.
Slim –
Didn’t want to wake you. More soup in the fridge. EAT IT. Saltines in the cupboard. EAT THOSE, TOO.