#alt title: two bros sitting in the woods five ft apart cuz theyre 'monsters'

[delimeful]

Community Gardens

this is a donation drive commission for @htmlfroggy! based on the prompt: platonic intrulogical g/t & the song ‘community gardens’ by the scary jokes! this is my first time trying a songfic, so i hope its good!

warnings: remus and all the vaguely squicky things he says, illness, misunderstandings, small mentions of body horror

-

Full disclosure, I am a monster A creature of despair, not that that should be a cause for concern If there's one thing I've learned in all my years here It's that despair is less abundant in those who understand How to plant their hearts in community gardens

-

Logan first met his best friend because he was investigating rumors of a human lurking around the border of his forest. 

He had his doubts, of course; ever since he’d personally visited every human settlement on the perimeter of his woods, the ritual sacrifices done to ‘appease the monsters’ had quickly come to a halt, and the amount of angry humans out for vengeance had dropped concurrently. 

When he gently pushed past the boughs of the saplings marking the border, however, there was indeed a human crouched on the ground, seemingly buried up to his elbows in mud. They looked up at Logan’s approach, and the giant was prepared for a number of reactions to his presence. Swearing, screaming, slumping over in a dead faint. 

Plenty had responded to him like this in the past, and plenty more certainly would in the future. It came with being a monstrous giant.

The human offering him a slightly unhinged grin and a mud-slinging wave wasn’t one of the responses he had prepared for.

As such, his reply was uncharacteristically tentative, as though his voice would snap the human out of the peaceable trance they were in. “...Greetings. I am Logan, denizen of this forest. I’m here to inquire into what you’re doing here at the edge of the woods.” 

“Ooh, an interrogation!” The human didn’t stand, craning their neck back at a painful-looking angle to see him properly. “What if I don’t want to say, huh? Are you gonna grind me into bone meal under your heel?”

Logan blinked. The fear that normally would accompany such words was still completely absent. “No. I will not be harming you unless you move to harm those under my protection.”

The human sighed, almost disappointed. “Yeah, I didn’t take you for the type. Oh, well, guess we’re both leaving unsatisfied then.” 

Logan waited a moment longer, and then sighed lowly, before lowering himself to sit amongst his trees. The human cocked an eyebrow, looking as though another inappropriate comment was on the tip of his tongue. 

“If you don’t wish to explain yourself, then I will be supervising your excursions as the guardian of these woods,” Logan announced, sure that his cold gaze would at least give the strange human some pause. 

Of course, because they seemed to delight in proving his assumptions wrong, the human just stared for a moment before a wide, enthusiastic smile spread over his face. 

Logan sighed again, and steadfastly ignored the bright flare of curiosity the human had sparked in him. Most likely, they were simply a thrill-seeker, looking for an adventure like all the epics humans told about interacting with giants. Surely, they’d grow bored soon enough.

-

You'll be fine, you honeycomb Who could ever hurt you? Who could be so cold? You'll be fine, oh honey pie Who could ever hurt you? Who could be so unkind?

-

“Who did it?” 

The half-growl in Remus’ voice was enough that his gaze was immediately drawn away from the Lewisia cotyledon that he had been carefully coaxing root rot from. 

His unruly human acquaintance had apparently gotten closer while he was distracted, abandoning his small plot of freshly-turned soil and haphazard seedlings. It was a break from their typical engagement, where Logan remained in the treeline and Remus remained rooted in his strange, barely-edible ‘vegetable garden’ as they talked. 

“What do you mean?” he replied once he’d processed the strange question. “Is something amiss?” 

“Is your brain made of stone?” Remus shot back sharply, and Logan’s eyebrows drew together automatically at the insult. The human barely seemed to notice, thankfully. “Of course something’s amiss, you’re bleeding out all over the place!” 

He pointed emphatically, and Logan realized what the human was so up in arms about even as he turned to look. On his left side, stretched over his ribs, a long gash was slowly trickling sap-like ichor. The wound had been mostly hidden by his left arm, but in turning to focus on a new plant, he must have accidentally displayed it to the human. “Ah. Do not be alarmed, it’s a shallow wound and will scab over shortly--”

Remus waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t insult me, I know that much from the look of it alone! What I don’t know is: Who. Did. It?” 

Logan frowned briefly. He wasn’t sure why the human wanted to know, but he certainly wasn’t in the habit of denying anyone information. “I wasn’t informed of their name. A Jorōgumo sought sanctuary, which I granted, and approximately half a day later, a human mercenary attempted to breach the forest borders.” 

“And you killed the bastard?” Remus asked expectantly. Logan couldn’t help the minute flinch that traveled through him, the way his face shuttered back to cold neutrality. He’d thought… It didn’t matter. It was his own fault for believing that the man saw him in any other way. 

“No. I warded the forest against them with a bit of their blood. Once they realize the wards are impenetrable, I believe they will move on to an easier bounty.” 

“Not if I get to them first,” Remus replied cheerily, spinning his slightly-rotted wooden trowel in his hand. Logan felt a thrum of alarm at the idea of him getting in an altercation with a mercenary, though he wasn’t sure why. If two outsiders got in a fight, it was technically out of his jurisdiction.

“You most certainly will not attempt to hinder their departure,” he said firmly. “It would be detrimental to all parties involved.” 

Remus visibly pouted, before sighing and throwing the trowel at the ground hard enough to half-bury it. “Fine, Beanstalk, but at least let me—“ 

He stepped forwards, even closer, and Logan stiffened, all-too-aware of how small the human was compared to him. “What are you doing?” 

His voice came out slightly shriller than normal, and Remus jerked to a stop instantly, glancing up at him before turning his head away, something in his expression dropping. 

“I was just… nothing. Forgot for a second,” he muttered, bringing his hand up to inspect his dirt-encrusted nails. He continued before Logan could ask what exactly he’d forgotten that had prompted such a bitter expression. “Anyways, I’m sure you’re tired of babysitting, so I’m heading back. Seeya, Colossus.” 

Logan watched as Remus whistled off-tune as he turned away,  his shoulders drawn just slightly too-tight, and felt as though he’d missed something important.

-

The culmination of man's mistakes came the day The sun ran so hot, it turned the desert to glass If there's something to be learned from all these losers It's that the price that you pay For arrogance and a false sense of immunity Is to face the wrath of a dying star

-

For the next few moon cycles, Remus barely appeared at their-- his makeshift garden, and when he did, he was simultaneously more subdued and twitchier than usual. He almost always left early.

Logan knew, logically, that he should be glad for this development. The human’s basic survival instincts had clearly finally kicked in, and he was distancing himself appropriately from a monster. It was what he’d been expecting from the beginning, and better that it had happened now rather than go on any longer, what with how… worked up he was over it. 

Ridiculous. He sighed through his nose and turned away from the cluster of bleeding Hydnellum he’d found, attempting to force his thoughts away from the human and what his reaction to such a unique-looking mushroom specimen would have been. He needed to focus on his duties as the curator of these woods. 

However, it seemed fate had other ideas, for it was only a few groves later that he was called upon by a Hamrammr, Alda, who had been wearing the form of a large wood grouse for the past few seasons. 

“I have news on your human,” she said, and her tone was urgent enough that Logan forewent reminding her that Remus was not ‘his’ human. “One of my flock saw him dragged into a town jail two days past, and he hasn’t emerged since.” 

Logan attempted to ignore his quickening heartbeat. He couldn’t jump to conclusions. “Which town?”

Alda watched him keenly for a moment. “The populous one to the northeast of our territory. Be careful, Curator. You know the laws of these woods apply to even you.” 

Logan nodded sharply, and then was moving. Once he reached the fields between his woods and the human settlement, he took a deep breath to clear his mind. Barging into the humans’ space like this would hardly be appropriate, seeing as he worked to keep them from doing the very same to him. 

Instead, he folded in on himself like a withering plant, ignoring the painful cracking of wood and bone as he took on a smaller form. A simple glamor to match, and he didn’t receive a second glance as he walked the streets as an average traveler. 

An average traveler could find someone willing to gossip easily enough. And if Remus would fear him less in a reduced form, that was just a completely unintentional bonus.

“Criminals? We don’t have many here, and none with a valuable bounty.” 

“Really? I believed I heard whispers of a recent arrest,” Logan replied, completely truthfully.  

The shopkeep waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, yes, the resident cursebearer was found guilty of conspiring with the beasts of the enchanted wood to try and bring destruction upon our humble town, but as I said, no bounty--” 

“The denizens of the woods are forbidden from attacking nearby towns,” Logan recited automatically, his mind racing. Remus was a cursebearer? The practice of directing all the magical and non-magical curses of a town onto one individual was archaic, barbaric, and… explained a lot about Remus’s behavior, actually. There was a strange pit in his stomach at the thought.

“That’s what the giant told everyone, but how are we to really trust the word of a monster? Besides, the cursebearer was witnessed haunting the edges of the woods, speaking with that very giant!” Logan kept his face carefully neutral as the shopkeep shook his head. “It’s just too suspicious. He could have struck a deal, could already be one of those beasts at this point, and he spent enough time dragging filth through our streets as it is. Good riddance, I say.” 

The shopkeep broke off as he turned away, hiding the crack in his expressionless mask. Logan barely heard the resulting questions as he walked away with sharp steps.

The next morning, the town woke to the sight of half the jail’s roof torn clean off, and one very distinctive prisoner missing. 

-

You'll be fine, you honeycomb Who could ever hurt you? Who could be so cold? You'll be fine, oh honey pie Who could ever hurt you? Who could be so unkind?

-

Logan carefully cradled the human’s limp form in one hand, seated in their usual spot at the edge of the woods. He hadn’t expected to be so obvious in his retrieval of Remus, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, either. 

When he’d successfully infiltrated the jail, he’d been subject to an embarrassing lack of control over his magic at the sight of Remus. The human had been barely-conscious, wrists shackled to the wall of his cell and a sickly pallor to his skin. It looked as though what little he’d been fed had been expunged in fits of sickness. 

Worst of all, he’d managed to focus on Logan’s frozen form after a moment, and a haphazard expression of delight had spread across his face. “Itty bitty Logan,” he slurred feverishly, “man, did I die al’rdy? Good. Missed ya.” 

Logan’s grip on his shapeshift had snapped as though he was a youngling again, and somewhere between caving the ceiling in and rusting the cuffs away, Remus had fallen back to unconsciousness. Even now, as the sun rose, he was uncannily still, only the rasps of each shallow breath proving his life intact. 

“I’m unsure what to do,” Logan confessed, studying Remus’s frame. The human was so small without his usual exuberant gesturing. His wrists oozed where the manacles had been, human flesh scabbing over so much slower than Logan’s would have. “I cannot abide the thought of sending you back to live with people who treat you like that, but to bring you into the woods would bind you to them in a way that could not be undone. Bind you to me in a way that could not be undone. I doubt you’d want that.” 

“Are you… stupid?” 

Logan jolted at the voice, mocking but almost a whisper for how loud it was. “Remus?” 

The human was squinting up at him, and even those few words sent him into a fit of coughing. Logan hurriedly drew morning dew up from the nearest saplings and pressed the liquid to Remus’s lips. 

“Don’t waste energy,” he chided; Remus flipped him off. “I apologize for… handling you while you were unconscious, but we cannot waste time. You are seriously ill, and need treatment. Do you have anyone who can provide it? Cost is no obstacle.” 

Remus snorted audibly, and opened his mouth for a heartbeat before his face pinched in with resulting pain. He shook his head with an eye roll. Logan tried not to feel frustration at his friend’s lackadaisical attitude towards his own health, and failed.

“This is not a joke, Remus! If you don’t get immediate treatment, your only options will be making a contract with my forest, or death.” 

Remus held up a finger.

“First option,” he croaked. “Stone for brains.” 

Logan was rendered speechless for a short moment, his fingers curling up around the human. “Wh— Remus, you can’t give up on human treatment so rashly. A contract will change you. You’d be, for lack of a better term, stuck with me until you made a full recovery and paid back the debt at the very least.”

Remus hacked out something that might have been another insult to Logan’s intelligence, and he held up his pointer finger more emphatically. “First option. We’re— ‘m your friend. Not scared of you, big fucking nerd. That’s my final word… maybe liter’lly.” 

And because he was as dramatic as he was vulgar, Remus chose that moment to let his eyes roll back in his head. 

His heartbeat loud in his ears, Logan took a deep breath, pushed all of his concerns and doubts aside, and stepped into the woods. 

-

The years have been hard on this lonely heart If you wanna know the truth There's no more community gardens So I guess I'll have to settle for you

-

“I don’t get it,” Remus mentioned one afternoon, watching Logan finish the last touches of a seal for a dryad’s lightning wound. “If you didn’t know I was a cursebearer, and you didn’t even end up caring I was a cursebearer anyway, why didn’t you ever let me near you when we hung out?”

Logan pressed the seal into the tree and glanced over at him, sighing with exasperation upon seeing him picking at the turmeric leaves ringed around his healing wrists. At least he couldn’t reach the ones working to repair his lungs.

“You’ll agitate your wounds if you do that,” he chided, reaching over to lift him from the mossy, oversized log he sat on. As always, he hesitated a moment before making contact, and as always, Remus leaned up in advance to greet him, as though being carried in the palm of a giant was not only normal, but also the only form of transportation he’d ever accept. 

“Ooh, sounds fun.” Remus grinned mischievously but did indeed stop uprooting the plants embedded in his skin. He laid himself out flat on his back instead, an arm and a leg dangling over the edges of Logan’s curled hand, uncaring of the cool forest air rushing past him as Logan walked. “You still haven’t answered my question, though.”  

“I’m not sure I fully understand it. You’re asking why I didn’t physically interact with you, before, but I believe the answer is obvious.” Logan adjusted his woven sleeve cuff absently. “I simply… found your company enjoyable and didn’t wish to scare you off, I suppose.”

He waited for the typical laughter that came whenever he implied that maybe Remus should be wary around him, since he was by most human definitions, a literal giant monster. It didn’t come. 

Instead, Remus’s face was scrunched up in thought. “So… it was because you wanted to keep being friends. And not because you thought I was gross, or repellant, or better off as juicy blood mulch, or--”

“If anyone wants to mulch you, Remus,” Logan interrupted neatly, “they will have to go through me first.”

“...Not if I get to them first,” Remus responded, a slow grin building on his face. “Since we’re friends and all.” 

“That completely counteracts the point of my protection, but yes,” Logan said, a small smile of his own finding its way onto his face, “we certainly are.”