oof yall this is part one of a collab with the amazing, brilliant, showstoppingly talented @aliferous-ly that we’ve been working on for,,,, a while,,,,, hope you enjoy! i wrote this chapter, ollie’s gonna reblog with part two
summary: He knocked three times. The door swung open and he spoke before taking in the sight of the man before him, spurred on by sleeplessness and anger. “My apologies for bothering you, but your incessant need to belt Disney songs at three in the morning is getting to be a nuisance. Could you perhaps…”
He glanced up finally, his eyes meeting the eyes of the man before him, and — oh. Oh no. Oh no.
pairing: Logince, soulmate AU where the world is black-and-white until you meet your soulmate, but also with the prompt of “my next-door neighbor won’t stop singing at three in the morning and i have to go confront him oh wait hecc he’s actually cute”
He’d gotten home at a reasonable hour — seven PM, to be precise. He’d eaten a healthy dinner, gotten ready for bed, turned off the lights and climbed into bed at a perfectly normal hour… and was struck with the sudden light of inspiration.
Logically, he thought, an hour of work couldn’t hurt. The night remained young, being just after nine; he’d work for a small while — simply outline his new idea — and be back in bed before his sleep schedule could be impacted. He had a clear, concise plan. Nothing could go wrong.
Technically a falsehood. In fact, everything could go wrong. In fact, he’d find himself still wide awake, hours later, still typing away as night drifted into morning. In fact, he’d forget all about his “sleep schedule” in favor of getting his idea down on paper, in favor of researching and planning and outlining and writing. And now…
He sat hunched over his laptop, sipping occasionally from a cup of coffee laced with five-hour-energy, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Inspiration was normally such a fickle thing to come by; really, could he be blamed for acting on it? Even if it was three in the morning. He was perfectly capable of repairing his sleep schedule later on, after all. The hour dragged on, creeping later — or rather, earlier
It began at three-thirty.
“Someday my prince will come!”
It was loud and boisterous and oh-so-shocking after hours of silence, the song that filled his room, muffled by his bedroom wall. He jumped at the sudden noise, nearly spilling coffee across his desk. Roused from his work and stolen from his moment of inspiration, he glanced around the empty room with narrowed, bloodshot eyes.
“Someday I’ll find true love!”
It was three in the morning and someone was singing. To be honest, he felt almost relieved; at least he wasn’t the only one with such an atrocious sleep schedule. Now that the moment of shock had passed, he relaxed back into his seat, his fingers slowly beginning their tired journey across the keyboard once more.
The singer’s voice was melodic and cheerful, brimming with confidence; it broke the silence quite nicely and offered something for Logan’s wandering brain to focus on while he worked. The mellifluous song floated through his room and he let out a breath, quickly clicking between tabs as he got back to work, the singer switching to another song.
A mini concert was unexpected, to say the least… but it wasn’t exactly bad. In all honesty, the songs worked as a comforting backdrop to an otherwise silent night. No, this wasn’t bad at all. He could handle this.
He could not handle this.
Three days later and three AM once more, Logan remained cognizant. Not because he wanted to be awake — in all honesty, he’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour, and had fallen asleep quite quickly — but rather because his loud neighbor decided that three AM was once again the perfect time to practice his endless belting.
“I can show you the world!”
The voice came from the room on the other side of his bedroom wall, but they sounded so loud that they might as well have been in the room. It was no longer the comforting backdrop it had been a few nights prior; it had transformed into an endless torture device, an infuriatingly loud annoyance, keeping his sleep at bay.
“Shining, shimmering, splendid!”
He groaned, glaring blearily up at his ceiling through a veil of darkness. His eyes burned with the effort it took to stay awake, yet his brain refused to allow him sleep when Sir Sing-A-Lot refused to allow him quiet. Who sang at three in the morning anyway?
Well, surely he couldn’t allow this to go on for any longer. He required at least some sleep to be able to function normally, after all; logic could not persist through sleeplessness. He’d have to confront his inconsiderate neighbor.
It was four AM when the singing finally stopped.
It was six AM when Logan’s alarm went off.
He dragged himself to the kitchen feeling neither well-rested nor okay, his eyes bloodshot and his hair a bedraggled mess atop his head. A frustratingly catchy tune from some Disney film played over and over in his head, the man’s cheerful early-morning singing stuck deep within his brain.
“Dude? Lo? You, uh… you okay there?”
It was ten AM, and he sat inside a crowded coffee shop, staring deep into the dregs of his coffee as if it could banish this saccharine song from his head. Why had his neighbor chosen to sing Frozen last, of all things?
“I am… I am perfectly fine, Virgil. No need to…” He yawned widely, then blinked at Virgil with bleary eyes. “No need to worry.”
Across the table, Virgil raised an eyebrow, taking a disbelieving sip of his coffee. “Mhm. Yeah. You’re fine. And I’m Mickey Mouse.”
“Exactly. Didn’t you sleep at all last night?”
Logan dragged his hand over his face, wishing desperately for the caffeine in his coffee to kick in. “I know what you’re thinking, Virgil, but this is not my doing. My neighbor was up all night, singing.”
“Singing?” Virgil asked, incredulous. Logan nodded, taking a gulp of scalding hot coffee without so much as a flinch. He’d transcended pain; his exhaustion transcended feeling.
“Yes. Disney songs, all throughout the night. I can hear him through my wall.” Logan didn’t notice the way Virgil’s eyes narrowed slightly, one eyebrow raising as if to say “I can’t believe it.”
“…Lo, did this guy have a really loud, overly-dramatic voice? Like…” He quickly sang the first line of a song, his voice hushed but so boisterous, so dramatic, so much like Logan’s neighbor that he shuddered, yawning widely once more.
“Yes, that’s exactly like it. Don’t tell me you know him?”
Virgil let out a long, drawn-out sigh, and took a long sip of his coffee. “Rest in peace, Logan’s sleep,” he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “I know him, dude. And you’re screwed.”
It was 2:56 in the morning and he stood outside of his neighbor’s door, his eyes bleary and his mind sluggish from exhaustion. A day of work had left him too exhausted to fight, so he’d gone to bed without confronting his annoying neighbor — but a night of singing had left him too annoyed to not fight, so he’d left his house and gone to complain.
Virgil had given him all the information he’d needed, and he felt confident that he’d be able to coax silence out of the annoying neighbor. He wouldn’t allow this illogical singing to go on for any longer; it needed to come to an end.
His neighbor was an emotional man, as Virgil had said — not as emotional as Virgil’s boyfriend but enough so that Logan should have no problem getting a promise from him. All he had to do was look exhausted — check — and explain how much this was affecting him, and probably the man’s other neighbors as well. Play to his good nature.
But he was also a stubborn man; impossibly so, judging by the crinkling of Virgil’s nose and the frustration in his voice. Logan readjusted his tie and pushed his glasses further up his nose, prepared to stand his ground if need be.
He knocked three times. The door swung open and he spoke before taking in the sight of the man before him, spurred on by sleeplessness and anger. “My apologies for bothering you, but your incessant need to belt Disney songs at three in the morning is getting to be a nuisance. Could you perhaps…”
He glanced up finally, his eyes meeting the eyes of the man before him, and — oh. Oh no. Oh no.
The world snapped into focus, into color, and it was so shocking that he nearly fell over, stumbling away from the man. It seemed the man had been met with the same, sudden blast of color; his grin grew wide and his face grew flushed.
And Logan, for all he boasted of his loquaciousness, could only say two words to the man he now knew to be his soulmate, his other half, the “color in his world,” as they said.