#but I am just so thankful to the universe (and I guess foibles too) for throwing us together bc guess what: I'm so happy

[loumauve]

..

[legobiwan]

I was the one who asked that last question about the light vs dark and i loved the answer you gave. I hope you don’t mind me asking another. What do you think makes the darkside so difficult to turn back from? Speaking from my own personal experience with mental illness (depression, anxiety, diagnosed anger issues. All of this from birth) in know that all those things can send a person to a very dark place. 1/

Not literally like with the force, but it can do that to anyone and it’s like doing a muscle man marathon to get out of it. It takes incredible strenth to dig yourself out of it and sometimes it’s easy to NOT want to get out of that suffering, painful state because you get so used to it. 2/

I subscribe to the idea that force sensitives constantly have enotions being filtered back at them, even their own which is why they all have to be in control of their their emotions, because if they let emotions like rage and hate and fear and pain and grief and all those things you frequently feel when dealing with those kinds of things, it gets reverted back at you and you are stuck in a cycle of all these negative things the dark side feeds on. 3/

Imagine dealing with all of that as a normal person and then having this echo chamber of it directed back at you and some, i’m guessing, semi-sentient dark side that feeds on that and tries to bring you down deeper. I think another part of it is 1.) Sunk Cost Fallacy and 2.) as you said about Anakin fir example: “well, i ate two cookies, might as well eat the whole bag”. 4/5

I’m sorry this turned out WAYY linger than i originally intended. I’d like to hear your thoughts (i always do) about maybe why the dark side is so hard to pull away from. 5/5

Oh hello again, friend! You ask such intriguing questions, thank you for stopping by!

First off, mental illness sucks and I am sorry that it is something you have had to contend with. I won’t profess to know exactly what you have gone through, but when I was a younger Lego, things got pretty dark for a while, so I do know of that bottomless pit to which you refer and the absolute wrenching struggle it is to dig one’s self out, tooth and nail.

Now, there are a few ideas at play in this question so I want to start with the idea you float about how Jedi feel emotions in the Force as a kind of feedback loop, make one or two detours before getting around to why it is so difficult to come back from the dark side.

“The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”

Yoda basically lays out the Force for us in ESB, describing as an invisible energy field that for me, resembles the way we describe the energy between (and in-between) molecules. And subscribe to the theory that all sentient are at least a little Force-sensitive, if they are able to lower their own barriers enough to listen for that heartbeat, that rhythm and song of the universe (music of the spheres, in a way.) But for the Jedi, well, they are on a whole other level, and to my mind, that barrier I just referred to is a whole lot more permeable, no longer a dense, velvet curtain, but a gauzy, diaphanous veil separating two planes of existence - the one we know and some unseen dimension of energies made, if not visible in the strictest terms, visible to the mind’s eye by metaphor.

In this little scenario I have set up, then, let’s say our Jedi is happy. Simple happiness. If our reality is a glass of water, this one emotion is a drop of food coloring, let’s say green, which, when dripped into the water is coalesced around the focal point of the droplet (the droplet being the emotion within the Jedi) and then branching outwards with its tendrils, beyond the Jedi themselves. In this way, the Jedi can almost see their own emotion outside of themselves. But, of course, at some point, the food coloring will overtake the water and turn the entire glass green, in which case the Jedi has been subsumed by their own emotion unless they can erect some particular carriers around themselves. This, in Yoda’s words, would be control. (A vaguely problematic term that I will get to in a little bit.)

But without that barrier, it does become a bit of a feedback loop, the Jedi (or Sith) broadcasting an emotion which then clouds (aha!) everything around the Force-sensitive who can then feed off that cloud and repeat the entire cycle ad nauseum. And well, we know where that can lead. And so, in a way, that semi-sentient voice that is whispering poems of power, words draped in seductive scarlet into our Jedi’s ear is really their own voice, turned back on them, taking this outside form as a separate being because of this strange feedback loop.

The seeds of our own destruction - and salvation - lie wholly within us.

And so to escape the dark side’s pull, its suffocating cloud, one must, in a way, come out of themselves. Which is what leads us to the Jedi idea of detachment and control, to build that barrier which I referred to earlier, that space of nothingness where our green dye is repelled by that shadow of oxidation, where it can exist on the outside without feeding back, so one might be able to look at it as a scientist might - without passion.

Now, the thing is - and if I may go on a tangent for a moment - the Jedi, especially the Jedi we know during the Republic, refer to this too often for my taste as control, and prefer to totally bleach out any of the dye rather than observe from the outside. To my mind, the Order had become a bit polarized in the wake of Ruusaan Reformation, eager to stamp out any bit of dark side rather than to acknowledge each being’s duality - something Yoda himself rally only came to when he had his adventures with the Force priestesses. It also explains, to a degree, why he is so laissez-faire in The Last Jedi - finally, he has come to true balance, and knows that the universe swings on a pendulum of energy, that light and dark will settle and unsettle again. I know TLJ gets a bad rap in some circles, but I personally adore the way they approached Force philosophy and the Jedi, because balance, to the Republic Jedi - was good, good only. Which is why it was referred to as control.

But seeking control in a universe where we can never control, ultimately, is an of fear, which leads to anger, and etc. 

However, your question is not about the foibles of the Jedi Order, but rather the dark side. Let’s take Anakin as an example. Anakin falls prey to his worst tendencies (and he is powerful in the Force, his connection with that other plane perhaps too strong, his ability to influence it unprecedented but also that open conduit making him more susceptible to everything I mentioned above.) He’s angry, he’s upset, and he turns that first on himself and then takes that fear and turns it on others, burning down the outer world with his inner. But he saves Luke. A fantastic act, but only a single act. Does one life saved balance out the atrocities of the previous twenty years? 

To my mind, no. It’s like those studies they’ve done on reform, where it is often found that behavior changes before mindset. Meaning Anakin has to go through the motions before he is truly redeemed. That, to my mind, is one of the hardest parts, because you can’t just flip a switch and say, hey, I’m light now! Look at Ventress - it took her a while just to get to morally grey and she wasn’t nearly as full-fledged dark as Anakin got. Look at Dooku, who started out grey and through his actions, through his own need for control, fell further and further until he walked right into his own demise. (And this is astounding for a man so intelligent.)

Note, I’m not even touching on that unearthly drug, adrenaline, that anger can unleash, sparking up all those dopamine receptors and as a Force-sensitive, this is only going to be multiplied by a thousand. It’s probably like doing hard drugs and there’s a reason they say the dark side is addictive. And we all know addiction is one hell of a beast to fight, that even in the throes of anger, the hangover must be brutal, emotionally and to give that up to turn light? 

Not easy. Not easy to do alone and the problem is as a Sith you have basically pushed everyone else away so who going to be your support if you even want to recover? (Note how Dooku was always trying to connect with his students. It says something.) And you know, if Anakin hadn’t died on the Death Star, despite everything, I think he would have had the best chance at redemption because Luke would have been there. It would have been a terrible, exhausting experience for all involved (not to mention Leia, who did not have Luke’s soft spot for her biological father, and for very good reason.)

Although after going on about all of this, I will say that from an author’s perspective, exploring a character’s fall and struggle is such an opportunity, narratively. But then again, I love to joke that writing is cheaper than therapy :D 

[lovelylogans]

marionette

epilogue

warnings: blood mentions, food mentions, shoving. please let me know if i missed any!

pairings: none/read as you like

words: 5,034

notes: wow. 36,338 words later, huh? this was originally supposed to be a oneshot, you know? but then everyone kinda screamed at me and well. plot sprung forth. thank you for sticking with this, even through the bizarre twists and turns. 

...and, well. one more thing. this ending. gotta end how i begin, right?

read:

all on ao3 | previous chapter | all on tumblr

roman

As soon as they all touched earth again, Virgil was dropping his hand from the stack and, as soon as he’d visually confirmed Deceit had managed to vanish in their ascent, crossed over and shoved Roman.

“What the hell was that?!” He demanded, and jostled him again, wild-eyed, his dripping eyeshadow making his eyes look even wilder.

"Whoa, whoa,” Patton interceded, voice finding some of its parental sternness for the first time since before Roman had smashed the medallion, stepping between them and raising his hands. “We’re out, aren’t we? We’re home?”

He’d directed that question to Logan, pleadingly.

“I’ll check,” Logan said, and dropped out of sight for the briefest moment, before rising back up and giving him a curt nod.

Patton slumped in relief, and then resumed his stance between Roman and Virgil—a cautionary hand held up in the universal sign for stop at Virgil, a hand loosely gripping Roman’s wrist.

“Then let’s just—take a second, okay?” Patton said, glancing between the other three. “Let’s do four seconds, yeah?”

Obligingly, the other three sides sucked in air for four seconds, Patton a moment late, out of sync.

Seven held. Eight out.

“Everyone’s okay, right?” Patton said, directing a watchful eye to each of them. “Any injuries I don’t know about?”

He looked at Roman, who shrugged. Virgil was scowling, drawing his hood up over his head, bangs brushing over his eyes, as if he was trying to draw himself into his hoodie to sulk in solitude.

“A few cuts,” Roman said. “Nothing serious—the rest of you? Logan, I saw your arm—”

Patton flinched, and let go of Roman’s arm. Roman’s brow furrowed.

“We’re all... all right, physically speaking,” Logan said.

“We nearly couldn’t have been,” Virgil snarled, beginning to pace, like a caged animal. “We nearly couldn’t have been. How could you have trusted him?!”

Roman felt some kind of retort rise up in his chest.

But it died somewhere on the way; maybe it was Virgil’s frenetic pacing, still ready for a threat to pop up just when they’d thought they were safe. Maybe it was Logan, discreetly attempting to hide the bitemark from eyesight. Maybe it was Patton, who looked like a lost, half-drowned little kid, eyes too big and too watery and lip just barely trembling, arms wrapped around himself.

Instead of saying anything, he sank into the nearest armchair, and braced his elbows on his knees, burying his face into his hands.

Even without seeing him, he could hear the way Virgil’s feet stopped; he imagined, distantly, the foot caught mid-drag on the floor, the surprised look on Virgil’s face.

A Roman who didn’t want to fight at the precise moment they’d have probably needed it. One more way he was useless.

He might have felt bitter if he didn’t feel so bone-achingly exhausted.

“Roman,” Patton said, and his voice was hushed. “Oh, Roman, honey, it’s okay. You got us all out of there.”

Patton must have sat down on the arm of the chair; Roman could feel Patton’s arm wrap around his shoulders, a tentative tug of an invitation to bury his face against Patton’s chest, to hide from the world a little bit.

It was the most appealing thing he’d heard all night.

But the bitter, angry thoughts from the lighthouse began to bubble up in his brain. So instead, Roman cleared his throat, dragged his hands down his face, and awkwardly nudged Patton into the chair properly as he stood upright again.

Why would they want to deal with me? That nasty little voice repeated, and Roman instead put his hands behind his back—and yes, Virgil was still hunched over in his hoodie, glowering.

“I asked,” Roman said, hating the pleading edge in his voice. “I asked if anyone had any other ideas. I didn’t want to trust him, not after—“

That maddening riddle. That Herculean walk from the beach.

That little girl with the sky-blue ribbon in her hair.

“Not after everything,” Roman finished feebly. “And I don’t. I still don’t.” 

“But,” Virgil bit out.

“But he is a side.”

Virgil threw a hand up in frustration, and there was the distant noise of a door opening. Roman glanced at it.

Logan cleared his throat, and waved the first aid kit. “Some of your cuts are still bleeding. If you’d come with me.”

“Right,” Patton said, glancing towards Virgil. “Maybe some time to... cool down, a little? Ease up?”

Logan turned and went; Roman followed.

They waited until they were in a separate room.

“Roll up your sleeves,” Logan said.

“What happened?” Roman said, and at last let that pleading tone come through. “What am I missing, here?”

Logan paused, and said again, “Roll up your sleeves.”

Roman did, and allowed his scratched forearms to come to rest on a little table as Logan pulled up the other chair, doused a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol.

“This will sting,” he said, robotically. Roman gritted his teeth in anticipation. And equally as robotically, Logan began to describe their long walk through the forest, the puddles of water.

The oasis.

Roman sucked in a breath that was only partially due to the sting of rubbing alcohol as Logan described Patton: granted, in Logan’s usual flattened tone, but Roman could imagine it, the gleam of the water reflecting in Patton’s eyes, going glassy, going captivated. No wonder Patton had looked so squeamish about the bitemark—Roman would have been too. Poor guy.

“—so Virgil and I came to the conclusion that one of us would have to go after him.”

Roman wrenched his arm back to himself, clutching at it.

“Too much?” Logan said, inspecting the fifth cotton ball, as if it was something as minimal as too much rubbing alcohol could bother him after a reveal like that.

“You went in after him?!” Roman demanded.

“Eventually,” Logan said, awkwardly holding the cotton ball. He gestured for Roman’s arm back, which he did reluctantly, and resumed gritting his teeth against the sting. “Virgil had taken a long period of time. I’d deduced he’d come to a risk of drowning, too. So I went in.”

Logan’s voice was studiously even and calm. Less... blunt. Than usual. Roman frowned, and looked at him.

He seemed... paler. More drawn. A bit less prone to confrontation.

Roman supposed he was too. But Logan?

“...did you land in a dream?” Roman asked, and Logan shrugged with a nod, a studiously blasé motion.

“What was it?” Roman asked.

“Does it matter?” Logan asked, not looking up from Roman’s arm. 

Roman paused. 

Logan. Unemotional, logic-worshipping, outbursty Logan. Trapped in some dream world of his own creation. A world where he was the most valued side? A world he’d be studying chemistry and space and all the sciences to his nerdy little heart’s content? A world where maybe, just maybe, he was a touch more sentimental than the way he presented himself here?

A world where Roman and Patton and Virgil, with all their doubts and foibles and illogical ways, were gone?

No. Logan wouldn’t dream that.

Would he?

“Guess not,” he said.

Logan summarized the rest, wrapping Roman’s arms in gauze, and Roman almost wanted to start laughing; guess Patton was right and saving Lysanderoth wasn’t so bad after all.

“And you?” Logan said.

Roman took a deep breath in, and took for a new cotton ball, dousing it. He took hold of Logan’s arm, inspecting the bitemark.

“I didn’t know what I expected when I smashed the medallion,” he began. 

patton

Virgil was still pacing. Patton wanted to walk over and still him, but he had a feeling Virgil would plow him right back over again.

So. In the armchair he kept sitting, then.

“It can’t have been that simple,” Virgil said. “He wouldn’t have had us all meet up for a confrontation only to let us go because Roman started talking about the magic of teamwork.”

“If he set it up,” Patton couldn’t help but say, and Virgil grimaced.

“If he had the power to get us all trapped in the dreamscape. If it was even the dreamscape at all. If he had the power to send Roman away. If, if, if—”

“Breathe,” Patton chided him, and Virgil glowered at him before sucking in an over-exaggerated breath.

Patton paused, before he said, soft and quiet, “Thanks. For saving me.”

Virgil. Stops. He glanced towards Patton, before at last coming to sit, almost timidly, on the couch.

“Are you, um,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?” Patton asked, because that had been niggling at his brain for the whole night, ever since they’d found Virgil tied up in that field.

Virgil angled a wounded look at him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t—“ Virgil waved a hand half-heartedly, and at last tugged his hood off his head. “Don’t do... that thing you do. The.” He waved a hand. “The setting-aside-your-own-problems-and-ignoring-them-by-handling-other-people’s-first thing.”

“Oh,” Patton said, and blinked, before half-heartedly nudging his still-wet hair out of his eyes. “I—I wasn’t trying to. I’m not, I don’t think, I just—I want to know. You’re okay. That... that everyone’s okay.”

Patton fidgeted with the sleeves of his cat hoodie, and muttered, “That I didn’t... mess it up.”

“Oh,” Virgil said, and moved off the couch, kneeling in front of Patton’s armchair in a way that clanged and echoed unpleasantly in Patton’s head, reminding him of the dreamscape, of wracking his mind to recognize his best friend. So he slid out of the armchair, too, to sit on the ground instead of let that keep happening in a way that made his head ache.

Actually, his head had been aching dully most of this night, especially since he’d gotten out of the oasis, but. Even more.

“Hey, no. No no no, you didn’t—you didn’t mess it up, it could have happened to any of us—”

“It didn’t, though,” Patton said, and the bitterness in his voice surprised him and Virgil both, Virgil blinking, Patton wincing as soon as it came out of his mouth. 

“Sorry,” Patton said, patting Virgil’s wrist. “But I just—you’re okay, right? He didn’t hurt you before you got there, and you’re... you’re okay. Right?”

He was distantly aware that his hands and voice were shaking. Virgil’s hand covered his own, and then he put his hands on Patton’s wrists, slowly sliding them down so he was holding his hands, looking Patton dead in the eye.

“I am okay,” Virgil said, and his voice low. “We’re all okay. Bumps and scrapes. That’s it. You didn’t do anything wrong. Okay?”

Patton smoothed his thumbs silently over Virgil’s knuckles, staring at the warpainted, streaky eyeshadow. He’d cried. Virgil had cried. Virgil, of all people—dark and stormy night had cried.

Because of Patton.

“Most of what happened was me before was me being tied up and talked at,” Virgil continued. “I’m okay.”

He’d come so close to not being okay, though. His lips had gone blue, so blue, and if Logan hadn’t stormed in when he did, they’d have—

They’d have—

“Are you?” Virgil said, and Patton blinked, trying to cling to the thread of the conversation.

“Are you okay?” Virgil repeated, and Patton took a breath in.

If Roman’s gamble hadn’t worked, if Patton hadn’t thrown himself into the water, if Deceit was even the one behind all this—

if, if, if—

Patton smiled, bright and false as pyrite.

“I will be,” Patton said. “I am.”

logan

Rubbing alcohol, adhesive tape, bandages. Gauze that Logan was carefully rolling into formation, making sure everything was ship-shape.

Maybe procrastinating a little. Maybe that.

But there were only so many times a man could unroll and re-roll gauze, arranging it by type and size, before he at last had to set it all carefully back into place.

There was a click, and very practiced, Logan did not allow his shoulders to hike to his ears.

“Sorry,” a voice said, hushed, and Logan carefully pressed on the lid so it latched, so it was shut.

“That’s all right,” Logan said. “I was just... tidying up.”

He turned.

Patton was futzing with the electric kettle. “Do you want a mug?” Patton asked, timid. “It seems like the kind of night for tea.”

...Logan could put things off a bit more.

“All right,” Logan said, and stowed the first aid kit back under the kitchen sink. “Is there anything I should fetch?” 

They ended up making sticky, triangular peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the jelly so overloaded it leaked onto their fingers, with stacks of misshapen, leftover, cracked and broken cookies, a bowl of thinly-sliced apples between them that crunched pleasantly under Logan’s teeth, edging out the tannin-wrought bitterness of the tea he used to unstick the peanut butter from the roof of his mouth.

It was an irreconcilably childish meal. For once, Logan didn’t particularly mind the comforts of the past.

For once, he didn’t deny that he needed them.

Patton was absent-mindedly sorting the cookies—by type, then by wholeness—and they were studiously not talking about it, until Patton allowed his pinky to linger on one cookie in particular. He took a breath in.

“Is...” Patton looked at Logan, and said at last, “Is it just us that’s affected by all this? Did it affect...?”

The question hung in the air as Patton gestured minutely with his head, in a way that Logan took to mean out there, in the real world.

“No,” Logan said, soft and careful. “No. He was asleep, I think. Didn’t see a thing. Was rather confused by me popping up in the midst of what he thought was a perfectly normal night.”

Patton let out a slow breath of relief, and nudged the cookie back into line, muttering, “Well, that’s a silver lining, at least.”

Logan picked up what looked like the crumbliest, smallest, stalest cookie, one that had surely been left to languish in pursuit of newer, fresher packages. A mouthful of tea softened it only slightly.

Logan was on his fourth of systematically working through what were the worst cookies; the broken, tiny ones, the ones that looked incredibly old, the ones that made a dull clanging sound against the plate when Logan tapped it.

Patton, oddly, scowled more and more with each cookie. By the time Logan was reaching for the fifth, Patton’s hand came down on it instead, scowling.

“Stop that,” he said. 

Logan blinked. “Stop what?”

“Stop—” Patton said, and gestured with the cookie. “Stop eating all the bad cookies. You deserve the fresh cookies.”

Logan scowled back, and instead reached for the sixth he’d mentally listed. 

“It seems prudent to start with the less desirable cookies,” Logan said waspishly. “If anything, you should have the fresher cookies. You enjoy them more than me.”

Patton looked... irregular, scowling. He had expected this to make Patton slightly happier. It seemed to have done the opposite.

“I have cookies more than you,” Patton said mulishly. “So you should be able to have the fresher ones.”

“That would go to show that you’ve developed more of a palate for cookies than I have,” Logan snapped. “And I enjoy tea more than you do, which at least softens the cookies to some degree.”

Patton mutinously shoved the cookie into his mouth, and Logan’s hand shot out to cover the next, and Logan saw Patton’s hands move before he could blink.

Quick, Patton had stacked the next three in swift succession, and immediately shoved them into his mouth.

“There,” Patton said, or maybe he said something else, and Logan couldn’t hear him through the spewing of crumbs.

Maybe it was his puffed-up cheeks, or Logan’s mouth hanging agape. Or maybe it was how truly, truly ridiculous it was that they were fighting over cookies, of all things.

Either way, Logan’s lip twitched. And Patton, chomping angrily, zeroed in on them.

“Wha’s ‘at loo’ su’ose’ ‘oo mea’?” Patton barely managed to articulate around his mouthful, and Logan studiously, cautiously, pressed his lips into a line. 

Patton’s eyes seemed to light up, just a little, and he pressed his hands over his mouth before bending double and beginning to laugh.

Logan, at last, allowed himself a smile, and breathless thing that might have been a laugh. And then Patton started giggling harder, and perhaps Logan was ignoring how that noise, choked off by the cookies, sounded like something between sobs and laughter, and instead chose, for once, to not say anything about it.

When Patton resurfaced after swallowing, he was wiping under his eyes, and Logan chose to believe that it was from laughter.

“Ugh,” Patton said, and grinned. Almost normal. “You’re right, those are better with tea.”

“I have a solution,” Logan said, and divided the cookies into two piles: equal amounts of almost-new and definitely-old. He nudged one pile towards Patton, and tugged the other closer to himself.

Patton looked almost like he was going to argue, but at last, he shrugged, and accepted it.

“Very egalitarian,” Patton said, sounding pleased.

Logan lifted his eyebrows. That’s a big word, he thought, but did not say, because if he did that temporary smile would disappear and with it would go all sense of normalcy.

“What are we doing?” Logan said instead.

“Hm?”

“This,” Logan said, gesturing to the cookies. “This whole... night. It doesn’t make sense. Any of it.”

“I know,” Patton said simply. “Do you want to talk it out?”

Logan paused.

“You’ve got to have some guess,” Patton urged. 

Logan sighed, and said, “Guesses is one way to say it,” he said.

Patton took a bite of another cookie; Logan sipped at his tea.

“Deceit doesn’t have that power,” Logan said simply. “I mentioned this before. There is only one... being with that power, and he wasn’t responsible.”

Patton was shaking his head. “He wouldn’t,” Patton said. “Thomas wouldn’t—”

“Not the things Roman saw, either,” Logan said, and at Patton’s inquisitive look, offered, “Ask him.”

“I will,” Patton said. “Tomorrow, when he’s awake. So...”

“So I’m lost,” Logan said. “Virgil believes that Deceit did it. Roman doesn’t think so. I’ve had enough of impossibilities for tonight.”

Patton surveyed him, and instead of speaking, he nudged Logan’s cookie pile closer.

Logan allowed himself a brief laugh, and took one from the top.

 Patton walked him casually up the stairs, all the way to the doorway of his room, and neither of them said a word about the particular comforts of walking up the stairs alone to a place they’d previously been attacked before.

“Well,” Logan said. “Good night.”

“If anyone’s actually sleeping, I’d be shocked,” Patton said, before he reached out to grip Logan’s shoulder. “Thank you for saving me. From the water.”

“To you in kind,” Logan said, and Patton looked surprised until Logan reminded him: “The vines.”

Patton’s lips parted in a little o of recognition, before he nodded, and patted Logan on the shoulder. 

A mischievous grin broke out on his face as soon as Logan opened the door.

“I hope you didn’t sneak off any of those cookies and forget about them,” Patton said, and the grin widened. “I’d hate for you to have a crumb-y sleep.”

Logan shook his head, still smiling, and repeated, “Good night, Patton.”

He closed the door to Patton’s laughter, and flicked on the light, turning to face his room, only to come to a dead stop, hand still on the knob.

He hadn’t been playing chess before all of this.

Logan swallowed, and released the knob, to further inspect the chessboard left on his desk.

It seemed to have been caught in the dregs of the game; pawns and rooks and knights alike were scattered carelessly about the desk, queens tossed to the ground, with only a ramshackle collection of a lone bishop, a knight to each side, some stray pawns, and the two kings left. 

The black and yellow kings.

Logan swallowed, and crossed over closer, staring at the board. At last, he allowed himself a small smile.

“Checkmate,” he said aloud, and nudged along the black knight into place, taking the yellow one, before tipping over the golden king with one finger, triumphant.

virgil

It was a wonder Virgil hadn’t worn a path in Roman’s carpet yet.

“You’re going to make your thumbnail bleed if you keep biting it like that,” Roman said wearily from his bed, where Virgil had forcefully tucked him in and refused to let him leave, under the guise of apologizing for shoving him.

Virgil lowered his hand, and Roman sighed in relief.

He brought his other thumb up to his mouth.

“Oh come on,” Roman said, but Virgil didn’t pay him any mind.

Five steps, pivot, five steps, pivot. 

“How hard would you glare at me if I told you to breathe, right now?” Roman asked, and Virgil turned to do just what he said.

“Got it,” Roman said. “That hard.”

“I’m holding back because you’re injured,” Virgil groused.

“We’re all injured, try again,” Roman said, amused.

“Fine,” Virgil said. “I’m holding back because you sacrificed yourself, like an idiot.”

The slight smile dropped off Roman’s face. “Oh,” he said.

“What were you thinking?!” Virgil said furiously. Pivot, five, pivot.

“I was thinking I’d save you all,” Roman said irritably, “does that work for you, Mariah Scary?”

A nickname. Virgil wasn’t sure if he’d ever been so glad to hear one. Five, pivot, five. If he wasn’t still furious at Roman, at the whole situation, of course.

“Not if it comes at the cost of you,” Virgil fumed. Pivot, five, pivot.

“You’d have done it if—!”

“No, I wouldn’t have,” Virgil plowed over the end of his sentence, “because I had it, remember? You stole it off my neck!”

Pivot, five, pivot.

“You wanted us to forget it even existed—”

“Of course I wanted to forget it ever existed!” Virgil bellowed. “We were supposed to stick together and get through it together!”

Five, pivot, five.

“It was a way out!”

“Clearly it wasn’t, we ended up getting all out to-geth-er, didn’t we?!” Virgil demanded.

“Because I took the medallion!”

“We don’t KNOW that!” Virgil screamed back. “We could have lost you, we could have—“

“What does that matter if it meant you were all safe?!” Roman exploded. “What do I matter?!”

Virgil. Stopped.

Roman had frozen in his bed, fists clutching the sheets, and his mouth snapped shut. 

“I,” he said.

The moment broke.

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Roman said in a nervous rush, with a patently fake laugh. “I just meant—I mean, in the grander scheme of things, if you were all safe, then—”

“Not if it came at the cost of you,” Virgil managed to say. “I—not without you, Roman. If we were all safe but without you—”

Virgil had to shake off the mental image—Logan left without someone to quarrel with, Patton left without someone to gush with, Virgil left without an escape mechanism—

Too terrible for words.

“Don’t,” Virgil began, and sighed. “Don’t. Make this weird.”

“Make what weird?”

But Virgil was already plodding over to Roman’s bedside, and fumblingly managed to sit on something squishy, before leaning over and perhaps resting his head a bit too hard on Roman’s shoulder, trying to wrap his arms around Roman like he actually knew how to comfort people, desperately wishing that he was adept as Patton was at this kind of thing.

“Oh,” Roman said. A pause.

“Okay, I know you said don’t make it weird—“

“We haven’t even lasted five seconds.”

“—but how is it possible that, since we have the same body, and I am so thicc, and yet your butt is so impossibly bony?”

Virgil drew back, just slightly, offended.

“It’s like you have daggers down there,” Roman said, serious, belied only by his twitching lips.

“Fuck you, it’s your bony ass too,” Virgil said, before he paused. “Wait.”

Roman began to laugh, and Virgil shoved him aside, sliding off the squishy stuff—Roman’s legs, probably—to the mattress instead.

“Seriously, though,” Virgil said, once the laughing died down. “I... I’m no Patton, but. We need you, you know? You make us better too.”

Roman’s eyes went wide, and then soft, and then he snorted a little.

“You’re stealing my line.”

“Fine,” Virgil said. “How about, ‘I might not have agreed with what you did, but thank you for saving us?’”

Roman smiled—not broad and wide and confident, a tiny, little, real thing.

“It’s my job,” he said simply. He paused, before he added, “Thanks, for, you know. Protecting them when I wasn’t there.”

Virgil let out a tiny snort, and fiddled with his hoodie sleeve.

“Yeah, well,” Virgil said, and slanted a look at him. “It’s my job.”

 Virgil almost thought that sneaking out of Roman’s room without waking him up was just about the most nerve-wracking thing he’d done all night.

Almost.

If it weren’t for, you know. The subconscious mind trying to attack them with things they barely understood.

Virgil found himself wandering back downstairs, and tidying up the remaining detritus of a midnight meal—jam pointed to Logan, but the scattered remains of old cookie containers pointed to Patton. Maybe together. Maybe separate. He’d ask in the morning. Maybe.

But regardless, he rinsed off the plates and stuck them in the washer, and got himself a glass of water while he was at it, and wiped down the counters with a wet cloth, and got another one to wipe free the streaky eye makeup, leaving his face clean and unpigmented. He dawdled over whether or not he should bust out the broom and dustpan too before he was forced to acknowledge he was just channeling nervous energy into something else, and so he left the room.

In the living room, he tidied up the pillows and blankets, and put the remote back where it could be easily located. There wasn’t much wrong here—just the normal mess of the mindscape, of their lives.

Normal. Easy to fix. 

Something Virgil needed right now. Something all of them needed right now.

In the morning, Patton would probably make some kind of breakfast in an attempt to distract himself. Logan would probably start reading a new book and hounding them about the subject matter. Virgil wouldn’t be surprised if Roman tried to fill another notebook for the collection.

And he was just... anxiety. He didn’t want their days filled with a pounding heart and sweating and chest pain and shaking and the rest of it, so instead he used that for something else.

Virgil began to rearrange the pillows instead of focus on that particular line of thought.

Eventually—when he’d straightened things in the main area as much as he could without running the risk of waking the others—he was forced to admit defeat, and instead go back to his room, to find something else to occupy his brain.

Or, in his wildest dreams, actually manage a decent night’s sleep.

Virgil spun his phone in his hand, a practiced tic, as he walked down the hall, refusing to give in to the urge to keep turning and checking over his shoulders.

It’s over, he told himself firmly. It’s over. You’ve gotten through it, and it’s over, and it’ll be better in the morning.

If only he could believe it, that’d be just swell.

Roman had been snoozing, but Virgil still cracked the door to check.

Yes. Fairy lights dimly shining showed Roman, still flopped on his side, mouth inelegantly open, making noises that would surely progress fully to snoring. Virgil smirked and closed the door with hardly a click.

Patton’s door, then—Virgil wasn’t surprised to see that a few stuffed animals had joined the fray tonight, including one that had been knocked to the ground, something that would surely upset Patton if he woke to see it there. He nudged off his shoes in the hall, and crept into Patton’s room in socked feet, bending to pick up the bear and straightening.

The bags under his eyes looked much more pronounced, from this distance.

Virgil frowned and carefully set the bear behind Patton, as if it was giving him a hug, before he crept back out into the hallway. He picked up his shoes, rather than put them back on again—Logan was the lightest sleeper of them all.

Logan’s lights were fully off, so Virgil had to sneak in closer and squint in order to see Logan’s closed eyes, the blankets hiked over his shoulders, the even rise and fall of his chest, and the distant glint of pieces on the desk.

Huh. Virgil didn’t know Logan was getting into chess again.

Virgil tore his glance from the chess board, and focused his attention on nudging Logan’s glasses further onto the nightstand, so a flailing hand in quest of shutting off an alarm wouldn’t knock them to the ground, and smoothing a wrinkle in the bedsheets before he crept out again.

Something in his chest had died down at the sight of them, safe and soundly asleep. He wondered if it would let him get some rest in kind.

At last, his room. Virgil dropped his shoes by the door, and let his shoulders relax gradually at the sight of his room. 

His bed unmade, some clothes strewn on the ground, closet door flung open. All was well.

All was well. Why couldn’t he make himself believe it, then?

Not while he chanted it to himself while changing, or brushing his teeth, or getting the last few swipes of eyeshadow off his face. Not while he tossed his dirty clothes in the hamper and shut the closet door, at last groaning and leaning his head against it.

It’s over, he told himself firmly. It’s over.

Almost as if to specifically contradict him, Virgil felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Virgil swallowed, throat dry.

It’s over, he told his clenching fists. It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, he told his knit brow, his thundering heart, his heavy shoulders.

His body knew before he did, he supposed.

He couldn’t even be surprised when he turned and saw the Virgil marionette sitting on his bed, with a wide, garish, unnatural grin in a way it certainly hadn’t been before.