It’s The Same each and Every Night
Logan hadn’t slept in almost a week at this point. His eyelids felt so heavy. Like there were iron weights pulling them down. He could barely keep them open.
Correction: he wasn’t actually sure how long it had been since he last slept. He couldn’t have fallen asleep recently. He would know if Logan fell asleep. Besides, the shadows in the corners were curling towards him, trying to grab him. He was hallucinating this and that was a side effect of sleep deprivation. How long had he been awake though?
He had lost count of the days.
But he couldn’t sleep. He had to be productive.He had stacks and stacks of work to do. It was for Thomas!! He had to work for Thomas!
Besides. He would get mad if Logan slept. He would know. He would find out. He always found out.
He only wanted the best for Thomas. And Logan working was the best.So it was ok. Logan kept repeating that to himself. It was ok. He was ok.
Logan’s head began to droop. He was just so tired. He needed a rest. He couldn’t rest. Not yet. But somehow, the table was starting to look more and more inviting.
Then came to rest on a stack of papers.
Logan didn’t hear the door open.
He did notice when he came up behind him.
A hand ran along Logan’s shoulders, making him startle awake.
“Hey babes. You weren’t planning on sleeping were you?” A voice sounded in his ear, deceptively playful, “You know you have work to do”
Logan shook his head, “No sleeping unless you say so” he repeated a rule that had been told to him long ago, “I know that. I wasn’t-” His voice faded at the end of the sentence, his eyes fluttering shut.
A sharp slap came, disrupting him.
He towered over him, his hand raised to slap Logan again.
Logan raised a hand to his stinging cheek. There was a bit of blood and a gash in the shape of his signature ring, the imprint of a stylized R clearly visible on his face.
“I apologize” Logan looked away from him, “I did not mean to” Maybe he could fix this before everything went south.
He hummed, “I forgive you babes.” Logan felt relieved. Maybe he did have a chance after all. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt him so bad.
“But,” He raised a finger, “I have to make sure you will never ever do that again, mmk hun?” A drink was put aside and Logan focused on the green Starbucks label, not wanting to focus on anything else at the moment.
He braced himself for the next slap.
And again and again and again.
By the end Logan’s lip was split and both his eyes were bruised. His face was a network of cuts, a jumbled alphabet made up of half legible ‘r’s.
“You ready to get back to work now hunny bunny?” His voice was sickly sweet and Logan had no choice but to nod numbly.
“Good” A kiss was pressed to Logan’s cheek, smearing the blood across his face.
Logan could feel him leave the room, and could hear the door shut behind him. He let a sigh, and stood up to wash off his face.
After he got cleaned up, Logan went back to his desk, pulling out a new stack of paper,s and started on them, too scared to fall asleep.
