April 24th, Sensory Overload | Don’t Yell At Me… Please

[plotbuni]

Relationship: Logan & Original Character(s)

Additional Tags: whumpster-dumpster's Whumpril 2025, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Sensory Overload, Original Character-centric

Word Count: 660

Summary

Lily-Anne's developing mutation comes with a lot of sounds and smells.
For Whumpril 2025 Day 24 - Sensory Overload

Read on AO3

She hates being a mutant. Hates, hates, hates it! It came with so many problems that probably no one knows how to solve. Like just how loud the world really was.

Lily-Anne’s always been sensitive to sound. Always seemed to hear a bit more than others. It was awful.

But now? Now she really could, and it sucked ass. Not to mention the smells. Grass, asphalt, the rubber of the balls being passed around, and about three dozen sweaty kids.

She feels like crying. Or screaming. And as the kids around her continue on with their games, making so many noises that she just can’t stand, she needs to get away.

She gets up from where she was sitting on the side of the basketball court and runs, hands covering the two round ears on the sides of her head that were ruining her life. She can already hear the kids whispering about her, probably laughing and making fun of her. Like all the other kids at her old school did.

She’s glad the property of the mutant school is so big. It’s easy to get far away from everything. Easy to just find a spot far away and tuck her small body between the branches of a tree.

It’s only when she knows no one can hear or see her that she lets herself cry.

---

Lily-Anne’s calmed down a bit, her sobs and crying now quiet sniffles and tears slowly running down her face. Just a few more minutes to pull herself together, and she’ll get back to class.

Footsteps. Getting closer. Heavy. Smells like leather and smoke.

She turns her head, seeing one of the professor’s approaching. Wolverine, if she remembers correctly. She’s never directly interacted with him before, but she always hears kids talking about him and how cool he is.

He stops beneath the tree and looks up, right at her. She tries to obscure herself more. “Lily-Anne. That’s your name, right?”

Shit. She’s going to get yelled at. Of course she is, how could she think for a moment that she could just run off and hope to simply sneak back in. She’s so stupid, of course this was going to happen. Sooner or later she always got yelled at for having running off, or having one of her tantrums, or both.

The tears start again. Lily presses herself up against the trunk of the tree, her spotted tail wrapped tightly around her waist. “D-Don’t yell at me… Please…”

“I’m not going to yell at you, bub.” Wolverine’s voice is rough and raspy, but it’s also gentle, calm. “Come on down, I have somethin’ for ya.”

Lily looks over to him, slowly revealing herself from her hiding spot, and thinks it over for a moment before deciding to come down. She climbs out onto one of the branches and prepares to slide off of it. “Need any help there?” She shakes her head, then drops down, landing on her hands and knees.

She looks up at Wolverine, whose pulling a hand out of his pocket. Now that she’s this close, he’s a lot bigger than Lily first thought.

“Here.” He holds out a pair of earplugs to her. She looks at them for a moment, glances up at Wolverine, before quickly moving to grab them. “There’s some mutations that are more common than others. Like enhanced senses. Hank’s been tryna find something to help mutants like us. Those aren’t perfect, but he’s gotten it down pretty damn well.”

She places them in, cringing slightly at the feeling, but once she gets settled, all the background noise disappears. She can only just make out what Wolverine’s saying through the earplugs. She takes them back out, her ears flicking automatically. “Thanks.”

He nods. “You ready to get back now? I can show you some of the quieter routes.” Wolverine offers his hand out to Lily, who nods with a murmured ‘alright’ and lets him guide her back.