12. “I feel sick…so anxious and sick and like my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest.” intwuwogical 👀 🥺
(Hi, sorry for the delay! Thanks to @subtlereferencetomyinterests for the pun!)
Words: 2951
Logan didn’t expect any visitors.
It was always easy to slip through the cracks after an argument. Everyone was always preoccupied--with grudges, with apologies, with their own accelerated heartrates. It often took days for the situation to resolve itself, and it always went quicker when Logan was there to help.
Maybe Logan should help. But instead, he was in his room, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling.
He’d taken off his tie--he couldn’t stand the feeling of it around his neck--and loosened his collar. The room was a mess of half-finished papers and crumbling corkboards. His hair was unwashed and his glasses were covered in crud.
Logan didn’t want any visitors. But when something banged loudly on the door, he took a second to answer, and the door burst open.
"Hey-hey, Isaac Ass-imov!” Remus grinned at him. He was brandishing a staff, probably the source of the banging. It seemed to be built of several bones, topped with teeth. Fascinating. Had Remus created it himself? “It’s time for dinner.”
What? Logan could have sworn it was only morning.
“Pop-Tart says you gotta come on down!” Remus shimmied his hips. “So get your booty out of bed and eat out with us!”
Logan decided against parsing every innuendo from Remus’ sentence. “And he sent you?”
“Yeah!” Remus slapped his staff cheerily. “I’m persuasive.”
Logan had no doubt of that. He rubbed his arm. He didn’t feel hungry--quite the contrary, his stomach felt rather like the ancient monster Charybdis, as if it would spit out whatever it ingested. However, he knew Patton would be upset at a refusal. More pressingly, Remus would be upset. Logan did not want to find out what Remus did when turned down.
“Who else will be there?” Logan decided to ask.
“Everyone Paternity Test and I can drag out of their rooms!” Remus’ smile, and staff, fell a bit. “Not Ro-Bro, though. Or the emo, if Jay is gonna be there.”
“Jay--” It took a second for Logan to comprehend. “Oh. Janus.”
Remus looked between Logan and the door, then closed the door.
“He--he feels really bad about what happened,” Remus finally said. “They all do. It was a whole big garbage-pile mess, I couldn’t have done it better.”
“You would have improved the situation,” Logan said with a chuckle. “You could have knocked us all out, thus forestalling any crises of morality.”
“That’s what I said!” Remus flopped bonelessly to the ground. His head lolled on the foot of Logan’s bed, his feet pushed at the carpet and the papers drifting by, and he began to fidget with the teeth on his staff. They clinked when he moved them. “Anyway, are you coming to dinner?”
“It doesn’t seem as though either of us are going anywhere,” Logan pointed out, “as you’ve just made yourself comfortable on my rug.”
“Oh.” Remus looked down. “Do you--mind?”
“No,” Logan said, surprising himself. “I don’t, as long as you don’t make a mess.”
“I don’t need to,” Remus said, waving a hand at the papers marooned on the floor. “But yeah, we are going somewhere, ‘cause our Patreon tier gives us free meals now. Nice of him.”
“You’re allowed?” Logan asked.
“Yeah! If I don’t ‘make a nuisance of myself.’” Remus leaned forward confidentially. “Think Patton just wants to have one creative Side around, to make himself feel better.”
Logan traced the edges of the ceiling with his eyes. “He seems to be warming to you.”
“Yeah!” Remus beamed. “Well, Janny likes me, and they’re two peas in a Juul pod now, so he lets me do stuff! Like banging on doors!”
Remus banged on the floor with his staff. The teeth shook.
“Where did you get that?” Logan asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. “Is it made of human bones?”
Remus’ eyes lit up. “Yeah! Femur here, and then some wrist bones here, and a rib, and then a bundle of molars!”
“Where did you get them?”
“Imagination.” Remus’ voice slid into a rambling tone, as if he was gearing up for a long monologue. Logan found it rather endearing. “My side of the imagination is filled with bones. So I made this one last year! It’s a bonk stick.”
“A--” Logan blinked. “A what?”
“It bonks!” Remus raised the stick and twisted around to Logan. Logan barely had time to move before the staff came down on his head. A light tap. “Bonk!”
“Bonk,” Logan repeated, watching the staff. “What does it do?”
“It bonks people into doing stuff!” Remus pulled the staff away from Logan. “I bonk on doors and I bonk on faces and I bonk on walls! Gets people’s attention. When people are stuck in bed and being gloomy, I bonk them into doing stuff! I--used to do that for Jay, sometimes. I’m the one who gets everyone out of bed.” Remus laughed. “Perks of being a bother.”
“You’re not a bother,” Logan said, out of habit. He’d said similar things to Virgil many times.
“If you think that, I’m not trying hard enough.” Remus flipped, knees over his head, and landed on his back on the carpet. His feet kicked up on the bed and l left smears on the quilt. His hair pooled in snarls around his face. “It’s my job, right? I’m the one who bangs pans in your brain until you do something.”
“I suppose that’s one way to put it.”
“But yeah, I know, I’m not usually the ‘helpful’ one.” Remus sighed, though it sounded more like a blown raspberry. “Jay winds me up and points me fun-wards, though! And now I’ve been tugged all the way over to you!”
“Wonderful,” Logan said.
“It is, isn’t it?” Remus tugged at his mustache. “So, you coming to dinner or not?”
Logan let out a breath.
“Come on,” Remus said after a moment of silence. “You can’t just sulk in bed forever. Get moving! Go-go-go! You’ve got no excuse to stay in bed.”
Something angry twisted in Logan’s chest. “Maybe I do,” he snapped.
“Oh!” Remus blinked up at him. “What is it?”
“Um.” Logan hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I’m working right now.”
“You’re lying in bed.”
“I’m brainstorming,” Logan lied. “I often do my best work in silence.”
Remus scoffed. “No one works well in silence.”
“I do!”
“Your room says otherwise.” Remus gestured with his staff at the piles of paper and the dusty desk. “You haven’t been working, Specs and the City, don’t try to bluff.”
Logan bit back a pout. “Then--I’m tired.”
“You’re tired?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s not sleep-time,” Remus said. “You can sleep later! Aren’t you all about those cicada rhythms?”
“It’s circadian rhythms,” Logan said. “And you remember that? You weren’t even there!”
“I’m always there,” Remus said. His grin would have been threatening, if he wasn’t sprawled on the rug with curls flopping over his forehead. “I hear everything. Whether you see me or--” He covered his face and splayed his hands. “You don’t!”
“Interesting,” Logan said. “So...you were there during the argument? About the wedding?”
Remus cringed. “Yeah.”
“Oh." Logan felt a bit embarrassed, which was ridiculous, because Remus was the last person who would judge him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Eh, not my jam.” Remus tossed his staff in the air and caught it. The teeth jingled. “Yadda yadda morality bogus, no fun. I don’t mind callbacks, and I don’t mind weddings if they end in orgies, so I really didn’t care. I’m not really about reflecting. You do what you do, no use getting your panties twisted after it’s over.”
“Huh,” Logan said. “So...that’s how you feel about it?”
“What?”
“How do you feel about it?” Logan asked. He didn’t know why--maybe to deflect Remus’ own questioning, maybe because he was curious, curious to see this unknown variable in action. “How do you feel? Has anyone asked you?”
“I--” Remus looked at him open-mouthed for a moment. Then his mouth slammed shut like a nutcracker’s. “I don’t care about it. Like I said. And--no, nobody has. I’m just the voice in the back of your mind, nothing to worry about.”
Remus was in the back of the mind. What did it mean, then, that he was here? Was this the back--was this the shadows? Was this where voices went when nobody listened to them?
“But you’re getting me off-track!” With a nod, Remus was back to full energy. “No getting off-track. No pileups today. I need to hear why you can’t go to dinner.”
“I don’t want to,” Logan said.
Simple. Sickeningly, achingly simple. The scabs stung around his neck.
Remus actually seemed to be considering it. “Why not?”
“I want to stay in bed,” Logan said. Simple. Truthful. No lies to summon anyone, anything. To just keep the two of them there.
Logan stared at the ceiling instead of Remus. Don’t check to see if he’s gone. That wasn’t how you dealt with intrusive thoughts--they always came back. And he wanted Remus gone.
Didn’t he?
“Yeah, okay,” Remus said. “But should you?”
“I’m done worrying about shoulds.”
“Do the others want you to?”
“I’ve spent too much time thinking about them already.”
“Is it good for you?”
Logan huffed. “You tell me. Morality is hardly my area of expertise.”
“Mine either,” Remus said, “but I’m good at being where I’m not wanted. And doing what I gotta do.”
Logan continued to look at the ceiling. Maybe Remus would leave. Maybe he wouldn’t. Schrodinger’s cat, he thought idly--dead or alive, an enigma, an unknown. Anything was possible until you checked to make sure.
“How do you feel?”
“What?” Logan jerked his head over to Remus. “What do you mean?”
“How do you feel about everything that happened?” Remus shrugged. “You just look kinda icky. And you asked me. Fair’s fair.”
“You don’t believe in fair,” Logan said.
“You do.”
Did he? If he allowed himself the possibility, something red-hot choked his chest. Fair meant everyone was listened to. Fair meant everyone’s input was valued. Fair meant he wasn’t pulled away before he got a chance to fix things--
He’d already failed, though. Wasn’t it fair that he didn’t deserve a seat at the table?
“I don’t believe in fairness,” Logan said. “And I don’t feel anything.”
Remus snickered. “Sure.”
“I don’t!”
“Look, I won’t tell anyone.” Remus winked at him and tapped his nose. “I already know, anyway. I know all your dirty little secrets.”
Logan blinked. “You do?”
“Yeah, Jay might hide the secrets, but he needs somewhere to put them.” Remus spread his arms. Sprawled on the carpet, his arms outstretched, he looked like he was being pinned to a cross. “I’m where all the secrets go! All the dirty things you’d never say out loud, I hear them. I’m like your footprints! Or oil sludge--or radiation!”
Logan touched his collar. “Fascinating.”
“I think so too!” Remus bonked the staff on the floor. “Point is, my pointy Poin-dexter, is that I’m not gonna judge. You probably don’t even measure up to the freaky shit I’ve heard some of them think. Glass houses. Say whatever you want, I don’t care, brains are weird and gross sometimes.”
Logan didn’t have a brain, technically. Or he was the brain. Either way, he wasn’t supposed to be weird or gross. Or--fallible. Yet here he was, sprawled on his bed and immovable, a pile of feelings he could barely understand.
“I feel...sick,” Logan said.
Remus was quiet. Maybe he wasn’t there--Logan could monologue to himself, and no one would be the wiser, and Remus wouldn’t be there until Logan looked for him. Remus wasn’t helpful unless someone looked.
“I feel sick,” Logan repeated. “So--anxious, and sick, and like my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest.”
He could feel his pulse, pounding in his neck. Why did he need it? How was this fair? How was it fair to give him a heart to race, breath to steal, a voice to silence? Why did he have to be this?
Things he should be. Things others wanted. Things that were good.
Things he wanted.
Always tangled, always at odds, always disastrously intertwined.
“I tried to help,” Logan pleaded with no one. “I tried to help--I knew it wasn’t my place to interfere, I couldn’t help with their personal issues, but I could still--give information. Help. I needed to help, I’m--I’m the one who helps. And I failed, and it hurt--and he dragged me off and I couldn’t breathe--”
Breathe. His windpipe was closing. Logan closed his eyes and breathed in and out. Four, seven, eight. He’d taught Virgil that rhythm. Why could he fix everyone else’s problems, but not his own?
“I tried to help,” Logan said, weakly. “It wasn’t fair.”
“No,” Remus agreed. “It wasn’t.”
Logan rubbed at the scabs around his neck. Remus’ throwing stars hadn’t hurt him, so everyone assumed he couldn’t feel pain--that he was unflappable, powerful, untouchable Logic. But it was only because Remus didn’t try to hurt him. Everyone could hurt Logan if they tried. Or if they didn’t bother to stop it from happening.
“I feel sick,” Logan said, quietly, like the crook was still around his neck. “And that’s why I’m not going. That’s my excuse.”
Silence. Logan didn’t want to check if Remus had left. He wouldn’t blame him if he did.
“Chicken noodle soup,” Remus said.
“What?”
“That’s what people eat when they’re sick,” Remus continued, springing to his feet. “And, like, toast. And mushed bananas.”
“The b-r-a-t diet,” Logan agreed, still confused. “Bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast.”
“Okay!” Remus nodded. “Yeah, I thought so. I’m more practiced at the make people sick side of things, but this is cool too.”
“What?” Logan asked, hoping that for once, Remus would explain. “What are you doing?”
“Uh, you’re sick?” Remus asked. “So I’m helping?”
“I’m not that kind of sick,” Logan started to say, but he realized that wasn’t entirely true. He did feel flushed. And his stomach churned menacingly. “Why?”
“There is no rhyme or reason to what I do, I just do!” Remus bonked him on the leg. “You gotta eat something, so I’ll grab stuff for you.”
“But you’re eating with Patton.”
Another bonk on the leg. “I can do it another night! Plus, it’s no fun if I can’t be a nuisance.”
Logan smiled a bit, despite himself. “You can’t be a nuisance here, either.”
“Aww!” Remus pouted, sticking out his lip. “Pwease?”
“I’m not hungry,” Logan said, instead of confronting the fact that Remus’ puppy eyes were working. “Thank you, though.”
“Still gonna get you some food, I think it’s kinda necessary for survival.” Remus looked him over. “Yeah, I’ll grab you a plate, so you can eat in here!”
“You’re...” Logan still didn’t fully understand this. “Letting me stay in bed?”
“You said it yourself, you wanna be here.” Remus shrugged. “Sometimes the bonk stick doesn’t work! And sometimes you just gotta work with what you got. So you stay in bed, and I get you stuff you need, and you take a nap!”
“A nap,” Logan repeated.
“You said you were tired!”
“You said it wasn’t time to sleep yet!”
“Sick rules are different!” Remus crossed his arms. “Look, it’s me, or I sic Pat and Jay on you. And they’re gonna baby you something fierce.”
Logan knew that was true enough. “And you're...okay with this? I don’t wish to interrupt any schedules you may have--”
“I’m Intrusive Thoughts, I don’t have schedules.” Remus shimmied. “I do-do-do what I wanna do-do-do! And what I wanna do is help you out here.”
“Help me,” Logan repeated.
“I can be helpful!” Remus protested. “I have a stick!”
The staff jingled in his hand. He looked utterly convinced. And Logan knew it well enough--there was no way to force the Duke to retire a subject of conversation. Or to get rid of him. Or to stop him from trying something out.
And oddly, Logan found he didn’t mind a bit.
“Okay,” he said. “If you’d like to, you can help.”
Remus’ grin stretched almost the full way around his cheeks. “Oh! Really? Oh, this is so cool, usually I only help Jay--I’ll get you some food! Toast and brats and whatever you were saying. And like a temperature thing, stuff to help you out. You should get into some PJs while I’m gone.”
“Okay,” Logan said, after a few seconds. It was often hard to tell when Remus was finished talking. “Sounds like a good plan.”
“Yes!” Remus whooped and tossed open Logan’s door. “Be right back, nerd, and I’d better see some pajamas! Or your birthday suit, if that’s what you’re into!”
The door slammed shut behind him.
Logan stared after him for a second. He wasn’t quite sure how the conversation had progressed as it did. He definitely wasn’t sure if this was a good idea. Or something he should be doing. Or what the others would want.
It was what he wanted, though. Didn’t he get that? Wasn’t that fair?
Two Sides at the back of the mind, two sides of the same coin, leaving each other’s footsteps behind.
Logan touched his collar.
He only wore his onesie when he didn’t expect visitors. But he changed into it now, curling up on the bed, waiting for Remus to come back. For some reason, despite Remus’ unpredictability, he was sure that Remus would. Intrusive Thoughts never truly went away. Like a grease stain, or a mole in a game of Whack-a-Mole. Or radiation.
Logan smiled to himself. Remus was already rubbing off on him.
And for the first time in several days, his heart rate steadied, and Logan could breathe again.
Give me a prompt, and I’ll write a short drabble!
