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greenninjagal-blog · 2 years ago

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Screaming Six Feet Under (ch2)

2 years ago I started a story about Virgil being kidnapped by a serial killer. Now I bring you the next chapter!

Summary: FBI Logan Ackroyd is chasing after a serial killer, but... why does he feel like he’s already failed to save the latest victim?

Words: 10292

Quick Taglist: @alias290 @chelsvans @coyboi300 @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @mrbubbajones @musical-nerd18 @nonasficcollection @penguins-penguins @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws

Read on A03 || My General Writing Masterlist

“This place?” Remy Alyan asks. “You sure, babes?”

Logan’s nose twitches as Remy comes around the hood to stand next to him while clicking the button on his keychain that activates the locking mechanism in the car with a chirp. He’s still wearing sunglasses- those ridiculous, unprofessional aviators- despite the fact that it’s overcast and showing signs of quickly becoming a rainy day, and he’s finishing some caramel iced coffee concoction topped with so much whipped cream that the globs of it had overflowed the dome lid and he’d had to lick it off while navigating the mid afternoon traffic.

Logan does not believe in miracles, but he finds himself wondering every day how Remy has not managed to get himself brutally murdered in a horrific accident that would have been completely avoidable if he’d just had one single ounce of self control.

“Yes,” He says, in response to Remy’s unnecessary question. Logan would not have directed them to the wrong building. Not when time was of the essence now and he had wasted three hours with the less-than-helpful landlady who refused to come out here and then instead mailed him the keys to the building which had taken three more days to arrive.

Remy swirls the dregs of his drink in thought-- or at least Logan hopes it’s in thought. Sometimes he can’t tell if Remy actually thinks at all. He has a table in the back of his pocket notebook where he complies evidence for and against the argument: he was thinking when he managed identify the serial bank robbers they were chasing after, but he most definitely was not thinking when he announced that information to Logan as he was cashing a check and the bank robbers were directly behind them.

“Woulda thought that the heir to a billion dollar corporation would have picked a place a little less….” Remy says, “...ravaged.”

“He’s not the heir,” Logan responds, starting for the door to the apartment complex. “Come on, if this is a lead, we’ve already wasted enough time.”

He hears Remy hum something under his breath, a mutter that could have been anything from a complaint to a prayer, but by the time that Logan reached the green faded door Remy was right behind him again, eyeing the sidewalk and surrounding buildings like he was expecting them both to be gunned down and wanted to protect Logan until he could make it into the building.

Which, Logan thinks, should not have his heart fluttering. It’s utterly ridiculous: both the notion of them being gunned down in this neighborhood and the idea that Remy is doing anything that he wouldn’t do for any other member of the FBI. It doesn’t matter if it’s Logan inserting the key the landlady had given them, or if it was Kai, or Mitchell, or Elliot; Remy would have all their backs because that is who Remy is and Logan would do much better remembering that at his age.

Inside the building is just as dismal as the outside appearance, which Logan is not exactly surprised about. He’d shown up at the landlady’s house waving his badge and the woman had barely looked away from her TV. If a literal FBI investigation couldn’t get her attention, he doubted that the complaints of her tenants rated very high on her To-Do list. There’s an elevator but Logan and Remy share a single look and both head for the creaking wooden stairs instead.

They pass a few people in the narrowness: a woman with her teenage daughter, a young man on the phone, a few kids laughing at a joke and who stare after Remy with ogling eyes that makes Remy wink at them despite Remy being twice their ages. Logan tugs him by his sleeve up another flight before he can stop to chat while he’s on the clock, as helpful as any information gleaned about the person they're about to visit might be.

“You think there’s any reality where this is a totally unrelated thing?” Remy asks, conversationally, using the railing to help him up another step.

Logan crinkles his nose.

Remy snorts, teasing his straw between his teeth. “Yeah,” he says, like Logan had humored him with an actual answer. “I thought as much, too.”

“You’re welcome to stay in the car,” Logan says, and it’s not… he doesn’t mean it to come out as cold as it does. Remy stutter-steps so quickly Logan almost misses it entirely, but the other man covers it up quickly with faux laughter and a smile that he’s practiced in every mirrored surface he’s come across.

“What, and leave you to do all the work?” Remy swirls his drink in the air and darts forward the last several steps ahead of Logan. Their arms brush in the movement and Logan’s whole limb tingles in a way it definitely should not. Remy turns back to face him, offering a honey-sweet grin, and Logan stops two steps short of him. He can’t see Remy’s eyes because of the glasses, but he imagines the deep coffee brown of them are harboring the mist of memories he prefers to pretend don’t exist.

Logan is acutely aware that he never liked coffee before he met Remy, that he never paid attention to the amount of sugar and cream he takes until Remy was asking what he wanted because he was stopping at a place before work, that he never appreciated the bitter taste or the short bursts of energy it gave until he was sitting at his desk beside Remy at three in the morning finishing that paperwork in a comfortable silence. He knows that the smell should have made him nauseous, but whenever he’s close to Remy he finds the scent of roasted beans comforting and real and familiar. He knows he needs to stop taking these facts of his and shoving them in a box in the back of his mind to deal with never, but for now he counts the inches between them, inhales the aroma of coffee, and thinks of those allusive brown irises he’s only gotten to see thrice before.

“You can handle the kid,” Remy says, because he’s not the one distracted by eyes of all things. “I’ll go routing through the bedrooms and find all the fun stuff, okay babes?”

He leans back and pushes open the door before Logan can remind him that Remy doesn’t have the authority to make those calls between the two of them.

If it were anyone else…

Logan sighs to himself and follows after his partner. The third floor of the apartment building is decent, the floorboards creak and it’s more narrow than Logan would have settled for in an optimal location for a home. They can hear bits and pieces of the separate lives behind the doors as they walk towards the door they need: music playing, kids screeching, the hum of an extremely loud vacuum, laughter, loud arguments--

Remy jerks his head towards their target, where there’s nothing but cold empty silence behind it. Logan rolls his shoulders, steps up to the door, and knocks thrice on it.

“Ekans residency?” Logan Ackroyd asks the moment that the door opens. He’s wrong, of course; the apartment, even on the lease, is still Ekans and Storm, and still effective until next week. Logan had learned early on that getting one fact wrong about the case could tell a lot about the people he was dealing with.

The person at the door is Janus Dante Ethan Ekans, who looks less like his yearbook photo than Logan would have thought he might: where the file has him with bright golden hair and a dangerously coy smirk, the real thing has dyed black stripes along his layers and a weary expression that makes him appear several years older than he actually is. There are shadows under his eyes that speak to his recent lack of sleep, and a hollowness to his face that whispers of his new diet of just not eating things.

Logan also guesses that he’s wearing the same outfit that he has for the past three days, based on the wrinkles and the casualness of it. His cheeks are a light pink, still raw from tears, which Logan would have thought he’d stop shedding by now. Curious.

“It’s Ekans and Storm,” Ekans says in a tone that Logan believes is supposed to be haughty but it comes out as more tired. “What do you want?”

Behind Logan he can hear his partner slurp on the last dregs of his whipped cream monstrosity, and he does his best to keep his face clear of his personal annoyance. He holds up his badge for the young man in the doorway to see and hopes that Remy is doing the same, so that they might appear at least a little coordinated.

“FBI, wow,” Ekans says unimpressed. He leans against the door as if to hide his exhaustion but it only furthers Logan’s assessment of him: he hasn’t been sleeping, barely been functioning since the start of the process. “What can I do for you, agents?”

The politeness is fake. Their presence makes him upset. Although Logan thinks if they traded proverbial shoes, he would also be upset at the FBIs presence at his door slightly after four in the afternoon on a Saturday.

“I'm Agent Ackroyd and this is my partner Agent Alyan. We have some questions regarding the Missing Person’s report you filed. I was wondering if we might come in for a moment,” Logan says.

Ekans snorts, “What, you think I tied him up and am keeping him under my bed as we speak?”

Remy shifts to lower his aviators and look the guy over. “Babes, I don’t think you could keep a pet rock under your bed right now, with how little you’ve been taking care of yourself.” Ekans stiffens and glares at him, but Remy just swishes his empty plastic cup and straw at him. “Come on, cutie. Let’s have a little talk.”

Logan wants to be infuriated with his lack of professionalism, but Remy just has that magic touch. He can see the moment that Ekans gives in, where he accepts that they aren’t going to go away and let him be miserable in peace, the way his guarded expression flickers and gives hints of the hurricane of anger-fear-worry. Ekans stands back in the hall and opens the door for them to come in.

Perhaps that is why he and Remy have been paired together so often, Logan muses to himself. His own steady adherence to the rules makes him unapproachable to the common person and Remy’s utter inability to hold himself accountable makes him dismissible to their superiors. Together they managed to work out a balance, a Rosetta Stone of sorts: They learned enough of each other’s languages to be interpreters in their respective worlds.

Logan wonders if he will ever stop feeling like an alien race when talking to Remy. Three years sounds like a long time in theory, but Logan still finds Remy entirely perplexing.

The inside of the apartment is tidy and neat. Logan can appreciate the calming pale tones of the walls and the order of the place even if it makes it appear as if it hasn’t been lived in at all. There are picture hooks in the front hall but no pictures in sight, the front closet is partially open and has too many hangers for the two jackets hanging in it. Ekans closes the door behind them before herding them further in.

It’s a nice apartment. At least, it’s nicer than Logan had had when he was in his last year of college: the kitchen has a stove, a sink, a refrigerator and a microwave. The counter has a coffee machine that has seen better days and a toaster that Logan doubts is up to fire code. The sink is full of dirty dishes, and there are sticky notes on the fridge door and a few that have fallen to the ground, a single cabinet is still open showing an empty pantry except for what looks like a generic store brand of granola. But there’s no sign of pests or leakage and that in itself makes it better than what Logan had ever had in college. Past the kitchen is a long hall with a door on either side and ending in what Logan assumes is a bathroom.

More presently, Ekans points them to the living room. There’s a grey sofa that doubles as a pull out bed facing a TV that has the news playing at a volume so low it might as well have been muted. There are a handful of blankets thrown in a mess on one end of the couch, with a pillow on the other and an empty bowl on the coffee table next to three separate mugs with varying levels of tea in them that don’t look like they’ve been touched in a while. There’s an empty vodka bottle hiding around the foot of the couch, just out of sight and it’s gone entirely when Ekans manages a flick of his toe. There are three separate bookshelves in the room, filled with novels and manuscripts and binders marked in the same penmanship and Remy gravitates towards them immediately without more than a glance towards Logan, flicking his aviator glasses up to settle in his dusty blond curls. His hand goes out to rub on the spines of a few of the novels, but--

“Don’t,” Ekans says almost desperately and Remy tosses a casual look back at him with a questioning raised eyebrow, and in the same motion he flicks the glasses back over his eyes.

“These yours, babe?”

Ekans’s nose crinkles before he can smooth out his expression. His eyes flick towards Logan, like he’s calculating how much information he is willing to give up. Curious, yet again. Logan expected it, predicted it really, from the files they had on Ekans and his short yet considerably reckless run-ins with the police as a younger man.

“No, they’re Virgil’s,” Ekans says finally, with a sour note in his tone. “He doesn’t like anyone touching them.” He picks up a blanket from the couch and folds it in half and then in half again just to have something to do with his hands. “His room is the door on the left.”

Remy glances towards Logan, and he nods. The other man slips back from the bookshelf and heads in the direction that Ekans had pointed out, pausing only when Ekans snakes an arm out and snags Remy’s upper arm, to hold him in place and letting the blanket in his other hand drop unceremoniously to the floor.

Remy’s eyes flick from the grip to Ekans’s face. “Problem?”

“Cup,” Ekans says shortly.

The plastic coffee cup with the straw hovers in Remy’s hand, looking mostly like Remy himself had forgotten he was holding it. Logan recalls dozens of crime scenes where he had picked up after the other man, who tended to leave his cups on desk, tables, the floors, and even once in an unlit fireplace while he was investigating a lead-- on two separate occasions he’s had to stop one of the forensic scientists from collecting it as part of the evidence.

Still Remy with coffee was better than a Remy without: he was surly when he didn’t have caffeine, prone to headaches, and got reckless with his decisions. Logan tolerates his atrocious habits in the name of keeping the sanity of everyone else, and has long since decided he isn’t thanked enough for it.

Neither of Ekans nor Remy says anything for a solid minute; Logan waits quietly as they talk with everything but words. A tilt of Remy’s head, a flick of Ekans’s lips, a shift of weight, and a clench of fingers and then something flickers in both of their expressions for a moment, something more vulnerable than Logan thinks either of them mean it to be. Like ripples in a puddle, gone before anyone is there to realize how significant it is.

Remy lets him take the coffee cup and Ekans stares at the spot Remy had been for another twenty seconds after the man has disappeared down the hall and into the room that supposedly belongs to the victim, whistling a made up tune as he does.

((Logan thinks the whistling oversells the bit; Remy has a habit of trying too hard to act like he’s not bothered, not affected, not emotionally compassionate, not caring at all and every time Logan thinks about telling Remy about his tell, his stomach twists with a fluttering feeling he resolutely won’t name.))

Logan lets Ekans have his moment, at least, before he clears his throat. Ekans’s head snaps up and he sets his piercing gaze on Logan.

“I didn’t kill him,” Ekans says immediately.

Logan blinks at him, slightly disconnected. “Was I supposed to believe you had?”

“That’s what the rest of your people believe,” Ekans says. He kicks the blanket by his feet back behind him with the empty vodka bottle and heads into the kitchen where he opens the floor corner cabinet to reveal a trash can and throws down the plastic coffee cup with more force than is strictly necessary. It bounces and nearly falls back out on account of how full the can is already, but Ekans’s pretends he doesn’t see as he kicks the cabinet closed again.

“Curious,” Logan says, adjusting his glasses to get a better look at the young man in the glare of the artificial light. “My people?”

Ekans waves a hand in the air, possibly dismissive as he grabs a rag from a dish next to the sink and runs it under water. “Your people, the police, the FBI, the CIA if they decide to drop in as well. They questioned me.”

“It's standard procedure to question the families and friends of a missing person.”

Ekans snorts, turning off the water and wringing the rag. He wipes down a counter with his back pointedly to Logan, and Logan can’t decide if it’s because he doesn’t want to look at Logan, or if he’s trying to hide his own expression.

“They weren’t really asking questions. They already decided that I killed Vir….” Ekans trails off and clears his throat as he makes a large swipe with his rag. “That I killed Virgil. Needless to say, they weren’t exactly the most helpful this past week, Agent Ackroyd. What reassurance do I have that this won’t be another round of ‘Pin It On The Roommate’?”

Logan watches him scrub at a spot on the counter, “I see. I apologize on their behalf. I’m sure that was quite frustrating for you.”

Ekans freezes. Logan watches as he folds at the elbows and leans over the counter, with his head bowed and lets out an audible shaky breath. “I don’t want your half hearted apologies.”

What do you want? Logan doesn’t ask the question, but then again, he doesn’t exactly need to. He might not be approachable like Remy, and certainly never anyone’s first pick for casual conversation, but he can see the poetic hollowness to Ekans’s movements, the clipped tension in his words, the sorrow swelling in the things Ekans doesn’t say.

And even if Logan couldn’t see it from Ekans himself, he’d only have to look around the apartment made for two and lived in by one.

Logan takes a few steps so that he’s inside the kitchen area as well. Ekans doesn’t turn to look at him, doesn’t pick up his rag, doesn’t breathe at all.

“Ask your questions and get out of my apartment,” he says in a voice that is too empty to be fooling anyone, much less Logan. An agent of twenty years and a fool for none of them-- or perhaps a fool for all of them, he supposes when he still caught himself pacing after Remy took a bullet to the shoulder, the gut, the calf, and he had to remind himself that the placings were non-lethal and Remy was going to be fine and there was no reason to feel disappointed when he had to learn about Remy’s discharge from an agent on another team who found out before him.

“Very well,” Logan says, clearing his throat, and waving away memories of Remy’s scream piercing the air. “In your report, Mr. Ekans, you mentioned that you’re unsure of the time of his disappearance. Why?”

“As stated in my report, agent, because I hadn’t seen him for nearly twenty four hours before I realized he was missing. It took another three hours to collaboratively work out that no one knew his whereabouts, and who exactly talked to him last.”

“Ah yes,” Logan says calmly. “Anton Diemos. A close friend of Storm’s. Good Kid.”

“Sure.”

Logan watches over Ekans’s frame for a moment. “You don’t sound to be in agreement.”

“Anton and I didn’t hang out. I only ever heard about him when Virgil was complaining about something he did.”

“Was that often?”

“I’m not going to incriminate someone just because I didn’t enjoy his bland lifestyle choices and misguided declarative actions of loyalty.” Ekans says with a huff, “He took an hour to get back to me when I had texted him, and the first thing he did was threaten to block me. That’s all.”

“That was because of the argument?”

Ekans freezes, “What argument?”

“The one that had you running to spend the night somewhere that wasn’t your own apartment,” Logan says.

“I didn’t say anything about an argument. Here or in my report, agent,” Ekans says, coldly.

“But you had one.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

Which is the admission Logan had been waiting for: an opening that he latches on to with all the ferocity he’s known for. He settles back on his heels and folds his arms behind himself. “What was the argument about?”

“It’s unrelated to the case.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Ekans spits whirling around, Logan thinks he knows why the police thought that they had been looking at a murderer. “It is, agent. We were roommates. We get into tiffs and occasionally one of us leaves for the night and doesn’t return for twenty four fucking hours.”

He’s shaking, Logan notes. His expression is promoting all the anger he can, but underneath it, his hands are wringing the washcloth in a motion that speaks only of regret and fear. It makes him feel old, Logan realizes. Ekans is so young, barely starting out his life, barely knowing what he wants to do, barely done anything and yet their paths have crossed and Logan’s line of work very rarely follows with a happy ending.

Ekans must have realized that when he saw the badges, or perhaps even before that when he saw them at the door and realized it wasn’t Virgil coming back with some type of apology on his lips.

“Your lease was expiring,” Logan says and Ekans flinches so hard his leg slams into the cabinet under him with a bang. Logan pretends he doesn’t notice. “I talked to your landlord. Storm renewed; you did not.”

“His name is Virgil, agent.”

“Was your argument about the lease?”

Ekans snarls, “what do you think?”

“I think that you and Storm did not discuss your lack of renewal beforehand, thus leading to an explosive argument that incorporated dozens of other aspects of your time living together. When you got tired of arguing you left for the night, and Storm was alone for most of an evening in a location that reminded him of you to the point where he drove himself to leave it. From there he went to a location that was less likely to remind him of you, met someone who looked and acted nothing like you, and then proceeded to make an unfortunate, but entirely understandable misjudgement.”

Logan tilts his head slightly watching Ekans’s expression crumble to bits and pieces, shattering like glass when a bullet hits it, falling to so many pieces that there’s no chance of putting that facade of his back together.

“Is that the conclusion you also came to, Mr. Ekans?”

The air figuratively simmers between them, hot to the point where Logan suspects Ekans finds it hard to breathe. His calm and tired personality is gone and Logan finds himself face to face with the true Janus Dante Ethan Ekans: the juvenile delinquent whose rich parents cut him off and sent him away to school at the ripe thirteen years old, and who had since taken his anger at the world out on everything. Three accounts of driving while intoxicated, another two from loitering and littering, and records of being difficult and foul mouthed with the police for every instance he could; Logan had read over the report on his phone the entire drive and still suspected that several details and instances had been omitted from written record.

“Why did you come here to ask me questions you already know the answers to?” Ekans hisses. “Is this a joke to you, Agent Ackroyd? Are you finding this funny?”

“On the contrary,” Logan says. “I’m finding it informative.”

Predictably, Ekans throws the rag at him. Logan barely moves to get out of the way and it lands with a wet flop on the carpet of the living area.

"Wow, new record, Lo," Remy calls from the doorway to Virgil Storm's room, gently pulling off his white surgical gloves. "Usually it takes them ten minutes to start throwing things at you."

"I'd hardly call that an achievement," Logan says. "How's the room?"

"Looks like my college dorm from back in the day."

"When was that? Seventy years ago?" Ekans says acidly. Logan is almost surprised he doesn’t start frothing at the mouth.

"Ouch, kid," Remy says flippantly, because he’s always been the sort to brush off insults and digs and backhanded compliments like water off a duck’s back.

((That was the reason why they had been paired together to start off: their superiors had hoped that Logan’s stiff adherence to the rules would make Remy wilter under their scoldings, and instead Logan’s heart had learned to jumping jacks at the sound of Remy’s brash dismissals.))

“Mr. Ekans,” Logan says.

“Get out of my house.”

Remy leans against the wall stretching his used gloves in his hands, until they snap. “Babes,” he says, and Logan ponders for a second if he’s talking to their host or to him.

“I said get out!” Ekans yells.

“You really don’t want us to do that, cutie,” Remy says. “You think anyone else is gonna stop by with the answers to all the questions you have?”

“Is that what you’re claiming to have?” Ekans shoots back. He grips the counter behind him so hard that his knuckles turn white. Logan would be impressed with his self control to keep himself from launching at Remy and ripping out his throat, but instead he can see the shaking of Ekans’s legs, his buckled knees, his short sharp breaths and makes a note that the only thing between Ekans’s and the floor is that grip on the counter.

“Answers?” Ekans laughs, before Remy says anything. His smile is sharp and lethal and Logan thinks that for a child that grew up hundreds of miles from his parents, he sure seemed to have picked up their shark-like smiles. “No, that’s not what you have. You’re here to tell me he’s dead, aren’t you? He’s dead or good as dead now. You’re here, in my home, in his room, and you have the gall to tell me you have answers when all you have are half baked assumptions and shiny little badges! Get out of my house and don’t come back until you have Virgil Raiden Storm.”

The room hums and buzzes with emotions, something watery and angry and heavy enough that Logan feels it settle over his own skin. It’s cold and oppressive, strangling and familiar, so very different from the sizzling heat and not different at all: Ekans radiates with grief so strong that it flavors the air and makes it hard to breathe for any of the three of them.

Logan is well acquainted with the emotion: a victim by proxy of it. How many families had he had to break the news too? How many tears had he seen shed, fists raised, mouths spitting with angry denial? How many times had he been required to tell someone that they person they had been clinging to desperately to, the person that Logan was supposed to save, the person that never deserved it, the person that was always gone too soon, too young, too violently-- how many times had Logan had to say that their beloved wasn’t coming back to them?

Too many times. Logan is too old, and he feels his bones ache in a way that can’t be fixed with vitamins and posture stretches.

“Please,” Ekans says, in a tone so raw it feels like something that Logan should not be hearing. “Get out. Let me hold on to my hope a little longer.”

“Gurl,” Remy says, utterly unmoved, utterly unimpressed, utterly Remy-like. “Hope is dimestore temporary replacement shit. You hold on to that all you want; we don’t want it. We’ll get you the real thing soon enough.”

Ekans wobbles. His expression is lost. His head swivels between Remy and Logan stiffly, robotically, hesitantly and he doesn’t blink as if he’s under the ridiculous notion that blinking will make either of both of them disappear from his house the same way that Storm had. Or perhaps he’s waiting for Logan’s refute-- a correction maybe? If he’s waiting for Logan to say they don’t intend on getting Virgil Storm back to Ekans’s mundane apartment, he’s going to be waiting for a long time.

A long time that they don’t have.

“You have questions,” Logan says. “As do we. I propose a short game: You ask one question and Agent Alyan or myself will answer as honestly and accurately as we are allowed, and in turn we will ask a question and you will answer as honestly and accurately as you can.”

Ekans blinks slowly, swallows harder, squeezes the counter with his left hand and uses the right to rub his neck down to his collarbone.

“Will this…” He says, softly. “Will this help you find him?”

“Undoubtedly,” Logan says. “I’m not in the habit of wasting time when there are cases to be solved.”

“I’ll say,” Remy mutters with a crooked smile that doesn’t match his tone. Logan thinks for a moment he imagined the words slipping out of the other man’s mouth at all, but Remy waves his fingers in a dismissal at Logan’s confused look.

Ekans is quiet for a second longer. Then he exhales explosively, and his other hand lets go of the counter. He teeters on his feet uneven and out of place in his own kitchen. He looks around like he’s not sure what he’s doing at all, but then he meets Logan’s gaze again and steels himself.

“Okay,” He says. “Okay.”

Remy offers a smile, and Logan thinks if he were any less better at reading Remy’s expressions he’d believe it was genuine. Not that Remy isn’t being genuine, that he doesn’t care, that he’s just humoring them both, but Logan picks out the tension in his body even from a room away.

“Couch, babes,” Remy says, in a way that should have been a suggestion if it hadn’t nearly sent Ekans to the floor. “All the best secrets come out on the couch.”

((It’s not often that Logan wonders what he missed in college, when all his friends were going to parties, getting drunk, and making the most of their lives without their parents breathing down their necks, but Remy certainly makes him think about it. What secrets had Remy’s alcohol laden tongue told while sitting on a couch long before he’d become the man he was today? What secrets would Logan have been willing to tell him if they had met all those years ago?))

Ekans swallows and nods at them both, waving a hand in the direction of the living area again and waiting patiently for Remy to saunter down the hall, and Logan to mercifully turn his back. He pretends that he doesn’t hear Ekans’s sharp inhale or the wobbling two steps that it takes him to find his balance after all this.

Logan situates himself on the floor, with his back to the TV, and the door to the apartment in the corner of his vision. His knees whine and groan with his age, because he’s old now, and his body is withering much faster than he’d been told it would. Remy plops on the couch, throwing his arms up and leaning casually back in a motion that has Logan’s traitorous eyes following the arc of his biceps and the tug of his shirt teasing out of the tuck. His glasses reflect back the TV screen up until Ekans plucks the remote from another cushion and turns off the TV altogether.

The silence that follows is as close to oppressive as Logan thinks silences could be. The buzz of the TV hadn’t been noticeable, but the lack of it was impossible to ignore.

“Well?” Ekans asks, sitting delicately on the sofa opposite of Remy, with a generous amount of space and a dozen blankets in a pile between them. He looks small, young, hurt as he curls up and pretends not to be small, young or hurt. Logan wonders who he’s pretending for. “Who goes first?”

“Our turn first,” Remy replies easily. “Who else knew about your lease disagreement?”

Ekans’s fingers wring again without anything solid to hold onto. Logan’s eyes flick to the abandoned wet rag on the floor to their left, before settling back on the young man.

“I don’t know.”

Remy’s mouth opens back up, but Ekans shoots him a glare. “I truly don’t. The only person I told was an acquaintance of mine, Missy, who I was… am… planning on staying with when the lease expires. She was the one that I stayed with the entire night that Virgil went missing, and she had been the one that drove me to the apartment to help me pick up my stuff when we realized that Virgil wasn’t there. If you want to throw around technical terms, she’s my alibi and she’s not above spitting in the face of detectives who keep trying to accuse me of murder.” He doesn’t look at either of them, instead finding the bland carpet interesting. “Virgil didn’t know until that day, and when I contacted his friends, they knew that we had gotten into a row, but not what it was about, but that doesn’t mean that Virgil hadn’t told them, or that Virgil hadn’t shouted it at the rooftops at some point.”

Logan watches Ekans curl and uncurl his fingers for a moment in thought, but when he opens his mouth what comes out is not more information.

“You said you’d answer my questions completely honestly,” the younger man notes.

“I said I would answer to the best of my ability, yes,” Logan says, because it’s not the same thing, and Ekans is aware of that. He feels ridiculously like for a moment he’s on the stand in front of a jury presenting his evidence for court-- which he’s managed to avoid having to do personally for a whole year now. Curious.

“Why is the FBI interested in Virgil?” Ekans asks.

Remy raises an eyebrow, mouthing out a series of words that Logan recognizes as a meme but not enough to make any sense of it. Remy crosses his slender legs in smooth motion and settles back like he’s debating napping.

“I don’t suppose you’ve been following the news recently Mr. Ekans,” Logan says back straight, waiting for the miniscule shake of his host’s head before he continues on. “About a year ago there was a report of a girl missing without a trace two towns over. Young, scholarly, she’d been out with friends at a bar and when her friends were wrapping up to go home, they couldn’t find her. Several months later, a young man in the physics department at the local community college also went missing without a trace from a bar, one town over. Three months ago another young man interning with the historians society in this town went missing without a trace. From a bar in town. One month ago another girl from--”

“Jericho,” Ekans whispers, faintly. Logan thinks that is a good thing he’s sitting down now because he doesn’t look like he would be able to hold himself up much longer. “She was the TA for a psychology class I took freshman year. She graduated last year. I...She was....”

Logan meets Ekans gaze, mulling over his next words. “Do you recall the rainstorm from two weeks ago?”

Ekans’s jaw clenches so tightly Logan doubts they’ll get him to speak another word the entire night, but he nods all the same.

“The bodies of the first two victims were found in a shallow grave along the hiking paths two hours outside of this city, when the rains half washed the top layer away. The third victim was found a little deeper a few yards away. The fourth, Jericho Kale, hasn’t been found yet.”

“Y…you,” Ekans croaks, “You think whoever took them… took Virgil.”

Logan glances at Remy in a rare moment of weakness he wishes he didn’t have to take. Remy’s eyes are focused on the shelves of books intently rather than the conversation.

“We don’t think,” Remy says, reaching up to assure his glasses are still in place. “Ackroyd and I are part of a specialized team of FBI profilers. Not to brag or anything but we tend to be decently good at our jobs, sweetheart. We’ve been working on this case since the bodies were discovered and we’ve built this nifty little thing called a geographic profile of our kidnapper. This apartment is right in the sweet spot of this creep’s comfort zone. There is some good news, though.”

“Which is?” Ekans croaks.

Remy flicks a hand at Logan instead of answering and Logan almost feels apologetic. But they’re low on time already thanks to the police taking their time notifying Logan’s team of the abduction and the landlady’s inability to take her eyes from her TV. Virgil Storm’s life was on the line and Logan unfortunately has a habit of choosing to save a life over comforting a witness.

“In your best estimation,” Logan says, “how would Storm react when his life is threatened?”

Ekans blinks at him, and Logan wonders for a moment if he’s about to launch across the coffee table and send them both tumbling into the TV. He’s sure that will look excellent in his report later; perhaps Remy might even help him wipe off the blood once he’s done laughing at them both.

But the moment passes and the burning in Ekans’s eyes hollows out to an exhaustion that’s even more fierce. He sucks on his lip for a second, breathing in and then exhaling before he manages to get the words to come out.

“He…” Ekans hesitates. “Virgil has generalized anxiety. There are often times when I wake up in the middle of the night and have to coax him from his own head when his fears block out his perception of reality and leave him immobile. But... There was a time, last halloween, we went to a haunted house together and instead of freezing up he fought back. Left a killer clown with a deep black eye and we’re now banned from that haunted house.” Ekans lets out a shuddering breath and wraps his arms around himself.

“If someone kidnapped him… I can’t see him not fighting back once he realized what was happening. Whoever it was would not have gotten out of it without visible bruises.”

Logan nods. He expected as much, and from a glance at Remy, he must have picked up on most of it as well from when he had glanced around in Storm’s bedroom; it wouldn’t have been the first time that they had seen similar victims in their line of work.

That, however, left them with a precarious situation.

“What’s the good news?” Ekans asks in a whisper. It sounds foolishly like he doesn’t want to know the answer, but can’t help asking it.

Logan steeples his fingers. “You are aware of the statistics on adults being kidnapped, yes?”

Ekans’s sharp inhale is just as telling as his expletive.

“According to the analysis of the bodies we’ve found, this guy doesn’t adhere to the usual 24 hours and done,” Remy says. “He keeps his victims alive-”

“For how long?” Ekans asks almost before Remy has finished his piece. “I know it’s not my turn but please. How long?” He swivels so he’s completely facing Logan, leaning forward so that his knees hit the coffee table. “Am I holding onto hope for a corpse, Agent Ackroyd?”

Curious, Logan thinks. It's not often that the families of the victims trust him over Remy’s honey-ed casual tone. Logan, despite his best efforts, has always been the one that prompts grisled cold reality. Remy called it “the rain during a funeral” approach once long ago and Logan still finds himself mulling over it. He told them the truth, the most honest answers, the ones that are expected leaving very little room for anything but their acceptance that this was what had happened-- just like rain during a funeral.

“I don’t know,” Logan says. “It depends on Storm at this point.”

He’d seen the bodies-- both he and Remy had seen the physical corpses at the grave site and the medical examiner’s reports once everything had been cleaned up as well as they could. He’d seen the twisted necks, the fragments of bones shattered so thoroughly that the medical examiners needed a second person to help figure out how to put it back together, the dark sludge of the partially liquefied bodies that were well on their way to being just skeletons. Logan had seen a hundred cases like these before, but he still felt his stomach drop when they matched the dental records to the missing kids.

Real, once living, kids. Who’d barely started their lives. Who had families and friends and dreams. Who hadn’t had a chance to be someone to remember and who were unrecognizable by the time that Logan and Remy were alerted to the case.

“We have time,” Logan tells Ekans. “Not a lot. The examiner’s reports say that our unsub keeps his victims for weeks.”

Ekans opens his mouth and then very smartly closes it again. He looks down at the shag carpet miserably, and Logan thinks that both him and Remy let out silent sighs of relief. He didn’t ask what happened to those kids in those weeks and Logan in his honesty didn’t have to answer with what they knew.

“Hey, doll,” Remy says to Ekans. “Tell us about him.”

Ekans looks a bit like he doesn’t know who Remy is talking about so Remy waves a finger around in a circle.

“What is he? A nerd?” Remy asks. “I haven’t seen this many books outside of a library ever.”

“You’ve been in a library before?” Ekans bites, and Logan wonders if Remy is also remembering that case from three years ago with the serial arsonist who targeted locations on her school campus where her ex boyfriend liked to hang out, and Remy almost died in the fire set in the school library while saving a student. The scent of smoke wafts through the room for a moment but Remy just smiles, like he doesn’t smell it at all.

Ekans lets out a breath and stares at the floor again. “He’s a history major. He collects books in his free time.” Ekans nods to the corner where Remy had stood when they first walked in. “He keeps the first editions over there, signed copies to the left, accurate renditions of history over there and books he always says he wants to burn for their content are under there. He hates when people… when anyone but him touches them. I’m not sure where he keeps getting more, but every other week it feels like he got a new one that he was bringing everywhere.”

Logan hadn’t noticed Ekans’s small smile until it was fading again.

“He… he’s always reading. Would have read straight through lunch and dinner if I didn’t threaten to set any of them on fire. Even when I got him to put the book down he would spend anytime we were together just… talking about whatever he was reading. He spent more time paying attention to those damn books than to….” Ekans blinks hard, fast and he runs his tongue over his teeth so hard Logan is surprised he doesn’t cut himself when he looks at the ceiling.

“He’s smart,” Ekans says. “One of the smartest people I know. But he’s such a stupid dumbass.

“Aren��t they all?” Remy muses with him. “They’re so busy using 100% of their brains that us 10%-ers go basically unnoticed.”

“That’s a myth actually,” Logan says. “Humans use most of their brains all the time, even for the smallest of actions as shown through positron emission tomography, better known as PET, and fMRIs scans. Scientists have yet to find a piece of the brain that humans don’t use.”

Remy and Ekans both continued to stare at each other, as if he hadn’t said a single word. Logan feels vaguely like he missed something despite having been present and paying attention. The corners of Remy’s lips twitch in a way that Logan has always associated with Remy speaking that private language Logan isn’t yet privy too.

“Oh,” Ekans says.

“Oh,” Remy echoes in what could be confused with embarrassed agreement. “Yeah, I get ya. You still think I won't understand what that argument was really about?”

Logan opens his mouth to say something, but closes it before he can figure out what it is he wants to say, what he should say. He knows that this apartment is not a place that he’s supposed to be, but for the first time he feels like a true intruder: the silence is filled with words that Logan doesn’t understand, spoken through movements that Logan can’t see, and coming rapidly to a conclusion that Logan has no way to prepare for.

Remy is still enough to not give anything away, no clues, no hints, nothing.

“What does he do to them?” Ekans asks in a small voice. What is he doing to Virgil?

Remy double taps his shoe. “I think…. That should stay in the case details, hun.”

Ekans hugs himself around his middle, curling ever so slightly.

“We...“ Ekans starts and stops, “During one of those lunches when I actually got him to put down one of his books and we actually talked, we joked about taking over the world. I grew up speaking Japanese, Chinese, and learned Korean for fun once; he had Spanish, French, and Latin while working on German. I printed out a map of the world and we spent the evening bickering over what parts of the world we would take.”

“Is that the one hanging on the ceiling over his bed?” Remy asks.

Ekans blinks something impossibly soft and vulnerable in his eyes. “He kept it?”

“You thought he wouldn’t?”

Ekans swallows hard, refusing to look at them. “Why would I think otherwise? Really, tell me what I was supposed to think after three years of living with him? Nothing I did ever got his attention in any way that mattered.”

Logan’s mouth opens but Remy does a jerk of his head that tells him to shut it. Logan isn’t exactly sure what Ekans means-- pretty decently sure that they’re no longer talking about the sentimentality of a map-- but Remy seems to be tracking, following the unsaid things in the conversation far better than Logan could ever. He’s in his element, and Logan trusts him to handle it.

Honestly, why had Remy ever insisted on checking out the room instead of talking to Ekans in the beginning?

“Three years is a pretty long time,” Remy says.

Ekans shrugs to himself. “I haven’t talked to my parents in longer.”

“By your choice or theirs?”

“They’re not invited to my graduation if that’s what you’re wondering. I don’t think I could refrain from making it in the tabloids again for punching my mother in the face if that were the case.”

Remy nods, rolling his tongue in his mouth accepting that answer. “Three years, babes… I can’t imagine. I’m only on year two now.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Remy’s lips flicker. “I’m stubborn. What’s your excuse?”

“He’s an idiot.”

Something about that seems as if it should be humorous, but neither Ekans nor Remy smile. Logan trails his eyes over the books on the shelves closest to him just to have something to focus on that makes sense.

Most of them are novels that Logan never had seen, and never would get a chance to read considering that he’s been stuck on the same book for the past six months even through the hours upon hours of endless cross country traveling he’s done for cases. It seemed that every time he had tried to set himself up to read there was something else that had appeared: a report to catch up on, social media posts to sort through, a new movie that Remy demanded he needed to see…

“He said I was selfish,” Ekans says. “For planning to move out. I should have told him right then. I should have…I almost did. But then he called me ungrateful and there are just some words that…well.”

He looks at his hands. “Well, suddenly I was thirteen again and my parents were shipping me across the country and cutting me out of the family.”

Remy didn’t make a face to show what he thought of that at all: carefully neutral and unjudging. “What did you do?”

“Ran,” Ekans says. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you us Ekanss are all cowards? I left him here in this apartment, sitting right where you are right now, Agent. I left because when I was storming down those stairs it was easier to feel like I hadn’t…fallen short again.”

He rubs his eyes, brushing away the beginning streaks of tears before they could truly form. “Billions of romance novels passed through those hands and you’d think-- you’d think he’d…”

Ah. Logan blinks. He recognizes suddenly, uncomfortably, bits and pieces of the hidden language that Remy and their witnesses speak exclusively. His mind decodes the conversation, playing back the grief on Ekans’s face, made only deeper by the lack of his own personal possessions lining the apartment that was a physical manifestation of his life with Storm.

And if Logan also thinks of the taste of coffee or meaningless tally in the back of his personal notebook, well that is his privately to know about.

Instead he looks back at Ekans. “Are you certain that he does not reciprocate your romantic feelings?”

Ekans’s face pales considerably, almost as if Logan had told him that he had Storm’s body in his trunk right now. He grabs the edge of the couch with a white knuckled grip, squeezing until the cloth fabric covering threatens to split at the seams.

"Christ, Logan," Remy squawks, tossing up his aviators so that Logan might recognize the frustrations in his coffee brown irises and Logan knows immediately that he said the wrong thing. "Shoot him in the foot next time, will you? It'll hurt less."

“What? I would never,” Logan protests. “I’ve sworn an oath to protect--”

But then Ekans is laughing. Sardonically and scraping and sound very much as if he wished he was washing it down with the bottle of vodka under the sofa.

“Agent,” he says. “The only thing that Virgil Storm has had any affection for is writing essays about Revolutionary War submarines. I had three years to try to be more exciting than dead people, and I finally accepted that I was not and will never be.”

Logan is not in the profession of digging graves deeper so he wisely clamps his mouth shut and refrains from offering yet another comment that might trespass some social nicety that no one had ever given him a rulebook about.

“You look like you need a stiff drink,” Remy says gathering the boy’s attention back to him. “And frankly once we get this all sorted out and get your boy back to you, I’ll need one too. Where can I go for that, hon?”

Ekans blinks. “...There’s a Glory Days down the road if you’re just looking for a drink. But there’s a cocktail bar in town called Weekend Habit that has decent prices or Bliss if you want to be over charged but have the option to hop next door to Astro. There’s a liquor store by the shopping plaza called Val’s as well.” He glances towards where his own bottle of vodka is hiding. “I have some friends who like to party.”

“Gurl, if I was a business major, I’d also have some friends who’d like to party,” Remy laughs at his own joke. “But you didn’t mention Luxe or Zion.”

Ekans frowns. “I’ve never heard of a Luxe before, but Zion? That’s the bar nearly on the outside of the city, right? I mean if you wanted to go an extra hour and a half for traffic to it then, go ahead and waste your own gas.”

Logan and Remy share a look out of the corner of their eyes, but unfortunately Ekans is just aware enough to catch it.

“What was that? What’s Zion got to do with anything?”

There’s a twitch of Remy’s fingers that signal he’s giving Logan the decision to reveal more or less information. But frankly Logan is far more baffled to consider not following through with this topic change.

“Are you unaware that Zion was the last location we can concretely place Mr. Storm?” Logan says. “Anton Diemos placed him there at nine pm on the day he went missing.”

Ekans glances towards the hall where Storm’s bedroom resides. “Anton wouldn’t tell me that much. Just that he hadn’t received a message back since. Are you certain it was Zion? Virgil hated going outside, much less so far away from his precious books.” His brows furrow further. “It’s not even a good bar!”

“You’ve been before?”

“I told you, I have friends who like to party,” Ekans says blandly. “It was months ago, and Virgil had insisted on staying home when I went out. I remember being annoyed and complaining about it when I returned.”

Remy shifts. “That bad?”

“It just wasn’t my style. I can’t think of a reason why Virgil would go so far away.”

And well, if that wasn’t intriguing to Logan, Logan wasn’t sure what would be. One of the first things they had insisted they got when they had arrived in the city police station and received their small corner for their work progress was a map. It had taken nearly an hour to procure for them-- the entire precinct was tied up in an emergency "twelve year old wandered away from their parents on a camping trip and was now lost in the woods that spanned into two other states", but once Remy gotten it he had hung it up on the wall and started cataloging the previous victims' living locations and last known places to build his geographical profile. Logan had been putting together a victim profile (searching for traits that their killer was looking for in his victims), occasionally glancing up at Remy’s back, and trying to figure out why it felt like he was crossing a line when he was just… noticing the curve of his work partner’s spine.

He’s decently sure Zion hadn’t come up before in their documents, but there’s something suspicious about how a student that never went out, managed to find a reason to be so far from home and to disappear from it.

Logan turns to detail his thoughts to his partner (abbreviated of course for the sake of the company they were keeping), but Remy already has his phone out looking at something.

“Zion was rebranded,” Remy reports. “A little less than a year ago. And get this, it used to be called Luxe.”

Yes, Logan thinks he has a slight idea of several working pieces now: their first victim had disappeared from a bar called Luxe, and shortly thereafter it had rebranded into Zion where another college student has just gone missing. Whether it is a clever attempt to keep the police blindsided or an unfortunate coincidence, it seems as though they have a very good reason to focus their investigation on the bar now. Logan begins to stand, shaking the aching of his knees and the the numbness of his feet out.

“Thank you, Mr. Ekans, for your cooperation,” Logan says. “I apologize that we impedied on so much of your time…”

But Remy is stalling getting off the couch, shaking his head at Logan, in a clear wait, hold off movement that Logan recognized from several instances where Remy had purposely drawn the attention of a criminal to get them their confession of guilt while they still thought they had the upper hand. It made Logan’s heart seem to beat harder and faster and his vision narrow, although no matter how many times he has gone to the doctor, he’s been assured he’s still in top health.

"Do you have anyone to stay with tonight?" Remy asks Ekans. "We can wait until they come."

Ekans nods slowly, appearing dazed and exhausted at the events. Logan would have more sympathy: showing up, dropping such news, gathering information and fleeing to his investigation was not exactly the more careful way to handle everything, but they had already lost another-- Logan checks his watch-- hour here. Logan tries to tell himself he has time, that Virgil Storm has time, even though there is a creeping feeling along his spine that whispers he’s already too late and it will take a miracle for them to save him now.

Ekans fumbles around for his phone. He stares at the screen for a moment, before he pulls up a contact and presses the call button. It rings three times before the person on the other end picks up with extremely loud pumping music.

"Janus?" The caller says, "hold on--"

The music quiets slightly.

"Sorry. Hey, what's up? Did you change your mind? There's a special on margaritas tonight and I'll even pay for your first--"

Ekans breathes in sharply. "Roman…right sorry, your promotion was the other day."

Logan turns away to analyze the picture hooks in the hall, imagining what photos Storm and Ekans had walked by every day for three years before the worst had occurred. At the very least, Ekans seems to relax at the facade of privacy.

"...what's wrong?" Roman, the caller, presumably says. The voice is distorted slightly, but from what Logan can make out they are probably around the same age as Ekans. "Did you get any news about Virgil?"

Ekans exhales heavily. "Not…quite. The FBI came, and I…Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb your night--"

"Well fuck that," Roman says. "That can't be good news. Do you need someone right now?"

"You're having a party."

"I party every Saturday," Roman says flippantly and so very much like a college student that Logan cringes internally for their livers. "I'm coming over. Just uh….let me get Remus. He's my DD tonight, and I probably shouldn't be driving right now. I think he took a step outside, give me a moment to get him--"

"Roman," Ekans says, choked up, "thank you. Really. I know we aren’t even--"

“If you say friends I’m going to find a horribly unflattering picture of you to post online,” The caller sniffs. “Where the fuck did that asshole go? Tch. Just a heads up, it might take us a while to get back to your side of the city. I don’t know what traffic is like right now.”

Ekans frowns, and neither Logan nor Remy can continue to pretend as though they aren’t listening to the conversation at that. “I thought you were bar hopping tonight. You’re not starting in town?”

"Yeah, but Remus found this special going on tonight. Margaritas!” the speaker rolls the R hard and long and then laughs. “You know I’m a weak bitch for--oh motherfuck, did Remus sprint out here to go hook up with som--OH FUCK REMUS!"

Logan frowns as Ekans yanks the phone away from his ear, and the voice on the other end of the phone distorts in panic. His own mouth opens to interrupt, but before anyone can speak there’s the sound of tires screeching, a far distant scream that does not sound like it belongs to the speaker, and a crunch.

Then there is just Roman's voice cursing profusely in a way that has even Remy looking over in concern. “Janus! Fuck! I need--n-need to hang up and call an ambulance. Some assholes just stabbed Remus in the parking lot and then nearly ran him over-- shut up dumbass, I’m trying to stop the bleeding--”

Someone else is talking, choking, gurgling their blood.

“Where are you?” Logan says, although he has a gut feeling he already knows, and from the way that Remy is already grabbing the keys and Ekans is going pale he assumes the others also know.

“The fucking bar on fuck,” Roman says. “Shit, Zion. You know the fucking bar --fuck! Remus stop moving!-- What the fuck is going on?!”

[Next Chapter]

#buried alive au #virgil sanders #janus sanders #logan sanders #remy sanders #FBI Logan #Is bad at recognizing emotions #pour one out for ya boy guys #Rmeus and Roman with a decent relationship? sounds fake #anyway!#sanders sides #anxceit

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greenduvet · 1 month ago

Text

flowers she gave him pt. 1

A/N: Hi loves!! So excited to finally share this story that has been brewing in my head for what feels like forever. I haven’t posted any of my writing publicly for years! So this is a big step for me, and I just couldn’t keep these thoughts to myself any longer. I want to say the biggest thank you to @luiscarrutherss and @galarian-weezing-on-prep for not only reading the early draft but making me feel excited to write and share my story. Also my girlfriend for helping me edit and watching succession. This will be a friends to lovers slow burn, so if that’s your jam like mine stick around! Anyways, enjoy mwah!

The floor was silent. Most people had gone home hours ago, the lights off in most offices. It was always so odd this time of night — looking out over all the different worlds happening just below, life continued on so vividly yet it felt so stiff and halted here.

It wasn’t the plan to have been here this late. Really he should have picked you up hours ago, the dinner reservation that had been made earlier this week now way past check in.

The reservation was Roman’s idea. Maybe a poor attempt at an apology, the only way a Roy knew how to apologize — dance around it yet never letting it fully resolve. You were used to it by now, a lifetime of Roman had made you well familiar. Yet this time felt different. Roman for once in his life was being distant, independent. He would blame it on work, family, stress, but you knew him better than that.

Tearing your eyes from the window, you look at your phone. Still nothing from Roman, not even a heads up that he would be an hour late to the aforementioned reservation. The thought of sending another ignored text filled you with a sense of irritation. Why wait here when you could see him face to face?

Without a second thought you haphazardly throw your things into your bag, muttering softly to yourself. The lights of your borderline clinical office flick off as you shut the door.

The way to Romans office was nearly tattooed in your brain from years of walking back and forth. Though your office was just down the hall, tonight it felt like a dreadful journey into unfamiliar territory. This wasn't how the night was supposed to go.

Turning the corner you could see him through the thick glass walls. He was staring at his computer, full attention to whatever was on the screen. You swear you had never seen him work so hard in his life… or at least pretend to work this hard. With a soft sigh, you walk into the office and stop in front of his desk, his eyes not once glancing from the screen.

“Late night?” The tone of your voice is dry, maybe a bit sarcastic. You weren’t used to this Roman, the detached, focused type. He had always been clingy, willing to throw his work down as soon as you had walked in.

Even standing directly in front of him, his eyes still never move from the screen. Moving his free hand from the desk to run through his already tousled hair, he hums softly, not bothering to give a full response.

Another sigh leaves your mouth and you turn to take a seat on the piece of foam covered in velvet they called a couch, there more for decor than actual comfort.

~~~

While your back is turned, Roman’s eyes glance quickly to you. The perfect image of a long day, he watched as you slowly dropped your bag without a thought. The whole day he had fought the urge to text you and watched the minutes tick past the planned reservation. He didn’t understand why he was doing this, pushing you away and trying to hurt you. Yet he felt like he was the only one hurting here.

As quick as his eyes lingered on you they were back on the screen, looking at the same report sheet he had been rereading for over an hour now. The sight of you settling on the couch out of the corner of his eye made his brows furrow softly. Why was he doing this again?

“Uh, ya know, Dad had me do some stuff.” He mumbles softly in response, his voice high in octave and almost tense. God, he didn’t even believe himself. He rips the hand in his hair down and begins to rapidly type something on the computer, trying his best to sell his stupid ‘busy’ act. You weren’t buying it, but it was unspoken that you and Roman never really did feelings — maybe that's why you were still so close.

~~~

Sighing, you pull your phone out and slip off the uncomfortable shoes you were wearing. It seems like Roman won’t be finished anytime soon, so neither will you.

The two of you work in a tense but comfortable silence, you clearing old emails and roman rapidly slamming keys. It was routine, though it didn’t keep you from noticing that what was once so familiar was now slowly changing. The silence still comfortable, yet more deafening than before.

“We had a reservation for tonight, did you forget?” Your voice breaks the silence, addressing the elephant in the room. Panning your view to roman, you can tell the question makes him squirm. The vein on his forehead bulged, his eyes widening ever so slightly at the screen.

You wait to hear some poor excuse, something around how it wasn’t his fault or to fuck off… but it never comes. Roman just continues to slam on the keys, the discomfort only growing on his face.

Sitting up, you nearly roll your eyes for what feels like the hundredth time of the night. You didn’t have time to waste sitting twiddling your thumbs to expect a coherent response from Roman when he obviously wasn't interested in giving you one. Slipping on your tight shoes, you grab your bag and rise wordlessly.

You look at Roman, hoping for something. For him to look at you, acknowledge that you were here for him. His eyes remained glued to the screen, though it seems like there is a deeply rooted panic there. 5...10…30 seconds go by and he does nothing.

The voice in your head repeating a mantra of fuck this over and over finally wins, and you turn to the door to leave. Though it hurt, you were tired of this back and forth. That, and your bed sounded much more appealing than the stone couch.

~~~

The second you leave Romans office, his eyes tear from the screen to your disappearing figure. The feeling of panic that had been bubbling in his chest all week started to explode into a deeper fear — you were walking away. He knew he deserved it, but still — what the fuck? Part of him thinks to leave you be and ignore your texts again, but his heart is screaming at him to follow you, chase after you and stop pushing you away like he had been for weeks.

He rises from his desk, leaving his computer unlocked and hastily makes it over to where you’d gone off to.

~~~

It feels like the elevator is taking forever on purpose. Maybe to taunt you for waiting for Roman, or maybe because deep down you had hoped he would come after you. Still, you waited for the doors to open so you could forget about today and the weird feeling in your chest at your best friend ignoring you. Why did it feel like you might actually lose him this time? Roman had seen you through your worst, and you’d seen him through his. But this dynamic was new, and didn’t feel like something you could recover from.

Finally, the high pitched ding breaks you from your thoughts, the doors sliding open to the luxury elevator awaiting you. Stepping in, you scan your badge and wait to be taken to ground level once again. Wine sounded good tonight, lots of it.

The doors begin to close, but before they can shut a hand is shoved between them, forcing them to open. Roman. He was there, face slightly flushed. It was funny, because Roman had never been the one to chase after you originally.

~~~

The sun felt hot – almost scorching. It was the end of June and finally it was starting to feel like summer in the hamptons. The backyard seemed to stretch on forever and was decked in long tables covered in lavish meals. This was a yearly event Logan held for his “partners” and their families — It was for the people who knew where the bodies were hidden. The whole ‘get away’ was to keep them close.

Though the event was mostly filled with adults, a few children were scattered around. A boy almost in his older teens, one a few years younger doing his best to fit in with the adults. An even younger boy with messy hair and big eyes, a young girl with fiery red hair, and lastly another girl who didn’t really fit in with the others. Yet that didn’t stop her from trying.

“Roman! Look at this – it's a worm!” You held out the stick with a worm dangling from it, the soft blue dress hanging on your tiny frame most definitely ruined. The wide grin on your face only grew as Romans eyes widened in disgust as he turned in the opposite direction. You would only start to chase after him again in response, as you had all afternoon.

This was a game between just you and Roman — you bugged, poked, nagged, and in response he would run away, gag, and ignore. For some reason your tiny brain just never got the memo that he couldn’t stand you. Things were easier back then. Innocent.

The sound of a loud bell stops you in your steps, Roman halting ahead of you. Dinner time. Placing the worm gently back to the ground you follow the children you came to know as the Roys.

The feeling of eyes on you from your parents and other bodies burnt like fire on your skin as you approached the dinner table. You hadn’t meant to dirty the dress, but running through the vast yard with the people you called “friends” had made you forget — forget that this was a performance, and that you needed to set a good example so that your family could stand out. Your mother would have words to say about this later.

Each child slid into their assigned seat at their own table away from the adult conversations happening at the other, longer table. You couldn’t help but feel a little relieved — you didn’t fully understand that whole world yet at the ripe age of 5, but you knew enough to be bored. Shiv felt the same way you did, her face more relaxed now than it had been at the sound of the ringing bell.

Roman’s seat was the one next to yours, and it was made obvious by the soft groan that left his mouth when he saw the tag of his name next to yours. Dramatically, he pulled his chair from the table, each action over dramatized and nearly throwing his body into the seat. Though the sour look didn't last long on his face as his eyes panned over to you and your dirty blue dress.

“Mommy and Daddy won’t be very happy with that, now will they?” The sour look fades from his face, a devilish grin replacing it. His tone is teasing and rude. It wasn’t anything new with Roman, though. The only attention he spared to give you was the more unpleasant kind. But it didn’t stop your obsession with trying to break him down and play with you.

You return his comment with a pout and look away from him, your hands finding themselves busy undoing the neatly folded table napkin at your place setting. Gently your fingers pull it apart, corner by corner. Finally you place it gently on your lap, your head high as you reply. “It was an accident. Maybe if you played nice, I wouldn't be messy.”

Roman was almost surprised with the response he was met with, a little smirk filled his lips. He couldn’t help but feel put in his place. He nodded to himself, taking the napkin and ripping the cloth out of its fold. Vastly different from the way you had done it with so much meaning. Maybe you weren’t as annoying as Roman thought.

The dinner was pretty tame. The children made soft conversation about various topics — the summer vacations they had planned, the extracurriculars, the movies they wanted to see. While the adults stuck to business conversation, how it always was and would be. It felt nice though, for once being around other children who somewhat understood your lifestyle. That, and it was a lot better than the company of your au pair.

After dinner, you find yourself with Shiv in the garden playing a game of fairies while running around the well maintained garden of roses. The sound of your feet against the gravel and shared giggles is all that can be heard — a pure moment of childhood innocence. Your dress slowly changed into one more brown than blue, Shiv’s own dress dirtying as well. It didn’t matter though, because for once you were just girls playing.

Logan’s booming voice rips you and Shiv from the moment. You can’t make out anything he is saying, but the both of you know it can't be good. You look to Shiv but her eyes are already on your face, wide and crystal blue. Then you hear it clear as day, the only word that mattered. Roman.

Looking around, you find a flower from one of the many bushes and pluck it gently, making sure to not damage any petals. You didn’t know Roman well yet but you knew well enough that this was normal. The sound of Logan's booming voice most times directed at him, as he seemed to always be the easiest target. Though, there was something about this time that felt worse than the others.

Without a second thought you run off, away from Shiv and the flower garden, carefully cradling the small white flower in your palm. The soft sound of sniffling guiding where to go, eventually leading you to the side of the oversized house.

There he was — sitting on the floor, knees to his chest, and a hand holding his cheek in pain. The spitting image of a kicked puppy.

This was worse than the other times.

Wordlessly you sit next to Roman, eyes not daring to look at him, but glued to the wall with ivy overgrowing. Before Roman can protest or run away, you bring the small white flower into view. A smile fills your lips before placing the flower onto his knee with all the care in the world.

That was the moment everything changed.

~~~

The elevator doors open fully and Roman steps into it with you. Your name falls from his lips as his hands comb through his hair for the umpteenth time that night. “Look– Fuck. Let’s just grab dinner, okay? There’s gotta be someplace still open and half edible around the block.”

You can tell he is trying his best to contain his expression and stay in control of the moment, but he's failing. Miserably.

His hazel eyes watery and nearly pleading, begging you to look at him and forgive him for being a total ass.

Looking him up and down, you hesitate. Maybe to make him sweat or to make him feel how you did all day, you weren’t sure.

“Wherever we go, I want hashbrowns.” You tear your eyes away from roman and click the button that would take you to the lobby. Immediately there is air in the elevator again, Roman’s pleading eyes vanishing. He always seemed to get his way with you.

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