@stilltheworstwolverine cont. from here
Often since the death of his friend, Kurt had found himself lost on a wave of grief and longing for something gone, something that could never return. He'd gone through every stage over the course of the several years since Wolverine's passing, each agonizing and long-suffering. He'd lost a friend, a drinking companion, and someone whose honor and power he'd respected. A man he thought, just maybe, thought too lowly of himself regardless of how overboard he could go in fits of anger.
In denial, he'd convinced himself that surely there were no way such an unstoppable force of a man could be gone. Kurt had seen the metal of his skeleton exposed and healed over again more times than he could count and that had never stopped him. How could anything grind that dogged determination down until he was sent psalmless into eternal slumber?
In depression, Kurt would often allow himself to believe that somehow it was his fault. Were he a better friend, he would have been there. His heart ached. The empty bar stool beside him on weekends caused him to bristle and fight the urge to openly weep into his beer. The locked door to Logan's room did naught to stop him teleporting inside to curl up in his friend's scent, tail wrapped around himself like a vice, and lament with gut-wrenching and private sobs over the loss he couldn't contain. When caught with a far-away stare and questioned, Kurt's voice would break like stormy waves around the words, "I miss my friend."
In anger, he fought harder and more recklessly. He was more wild, pulled his punches less, lost focus and sight of the mission enough to be chastised by Scott in a way that only keyed him up further. Injured, unable to be pinned down to a hospital bed in the X-Men's medical bay, he'd lick his wounds privately and think perhaps he was being a bit too much like his friend to make up for the loss of him.
In bargaining, Kurt spent hours sprawled on his back on tree branches or the glorified jungle gym Wolverine had often teased him for training on in the Danger Room, and asked himself whether he could have prevented it. Had he been there, had any of them been there, could they have saved him? Together the X-Men had stopped so many tragedies, even undone them.
Acceptance was the knowledge that it was done. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. A dismissive phrase used by those who could not conceive of such grief even over a friend, who would use God to run from offering true comfort. There would be a day that they would meet again, Kurt could only hope, but Wolverine - Logan Howlett - was gone.
Suffice to say, were they to exchange words on the matter, and they might should either of them find those words in their mouths and the strength within them to utter them, Kurt understood at least partially the grief that this Wolverine felt upon seeing the X-Men. Feeling him tense under his arm wasn't shocking, nor offensive. It was to be expected, and somehow drew Kurt to lean himself just the slightest bit closer as if he could chase away both their grief with the contact. He was tactile, and would always seek to chase away pain with physical comfort where it was welcomed.
Seeing this version of him was like looking at a ghost at times, a spirit rendered so raw as to be restless for all eternity. So when Kurt smiled at him over their connected shoulders, it was strained and barely containing the mixture of concern and desperation to know this version of his friend so that they might both fill that void of loss.
How was he? He wondered...
"Better, I think." Though Kurt did not elaborate on those words, they were true. Different though he was, having some version of Logan back with them again was relieving. "I was thinking... we could get drinks, ja? It would be nice to get out."
