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jowritesthingss · 4 years

Text

a moment of relief

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): Loceit (Logan | Logic + Janus | Deceit), romantic or platonic

Rating: Teen (for some swearing)

Content Warning(s): unhealthy hyperfocusing, burnout, sickness, mild swearing, potentially dissociation?? (Lo kinda experiences it bc exhaustion, although he doesn’t put a name to it)

Length: 2,243 words

Brief Summary: Logan is hot. Janus is not.

TS Masterlist + AO3 Links

It is hot in Logan’s room.

Blisteringly hot. Unbearingly hot. Unshakingly hot.

It’s the type of hot that slaps you on the face on a bright summer day. The type of burning hot that causes relentless sweatstains and heatstrokes, the type of sweltering heat that beckons for you to tear off your shirt like a buffoon. Normally Logan would not attribute such comparisons to something, but he has been working for so long that he is no longer certain that his brain actually works at all.

He has been working hard all day, all night, and all day again, with barely any breaks for dinner with the others, and none whatsoever to get any rest. Perhaps that is the reason why his thoughts feel like they are swimming through dense lava within the confines of his brain. Perhaps that is why he finds his tongue loosening, muttering aimless literary devices and frilly confessions aloud to himself that he would not typically be “caught dead” saying.

Perhaps that is why Logan can feel the incinerating effects of burnout licking all around the edges of his weary, frenzied figure.

And perhaps he should have caught on earlier—he usually does, and acts accordingly—but Thomas, bored to tears during quarantine, finally decided to listen to his endless requests that they take an online class or two (or ten). He can’t help it if, in his overenthusiastic hyperfocus, he tried to complete an entire month’s worth of coursework in the span of two days, can he?

A thudding sound interrupts the incessant scratching of his pen on paper. He barely pauses to look up and figure out the source of the sound. The door. Someone is knocking on his door.

Logan intends to shout at them to go away, that he is busy, but his tongue trips over itself, and an incoherent stream of babble makes its way out instead.

The knocking sound falls silent, and there is no response from whoever is on the other side of the door. They must have left. That is what Patton did, when he came to inquire about Logan missing breakfast that first day, and he hasn’t come back since. The same had been true when Roman banged on his door, whining about some simplistic problem in the Imagination, and for Virgil, who had quietly tapped on the door for some unknown reason at what Logan thought was two in the morning (or was it four? time always seemed to blur together that early in the morning, especially when he was figuratively “on a roll” like this).

Honestly, by now the others should know not to bother him when he’s like this. They so, so rarely listen to him, but! Thomas is listening to him now! Thomas is taking classes again now! He is learning more now! Logan must do his absolute best to ensure maximum learning potential is reached. He must do as much work as he can. He must, he must, he must.

“Well, isn’t this a delightful sight to see,” a voice drawls from behind Logan.

Logan whirls around in his seat, surprised, his fist clenching and snapping his pen in two. Dark blue ink cascades over his fingers, but he absent-mindedly wipes it off on a corner of his already-stained black polo, eyes narrowing behind his glasses as he glares at whoever it is that dares interrupt his study session.

He squints around his bedroom, frowning at the somewhat...muted quality of it all, as if someone had slapped one of Roman’s ridiculous Instagram filters over it all. Is the blurriness caused by his eyesight failing, or is there a haze throughout the entirety of his room?

There, standing in the doorway of his now-grainy room, is someone dressed in all black, with a dash of yellow around the corners. A mismatched pair of eyes stares faux-casually at Logan where he sits at his desk.

Logan opens his mouth to speak. It takes him a few tries to get the wrods rout wight. “Ah, Janus.” He reaches to push his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, misses, pokes his forehead instead. He tries again and hits the left lens, but pushing that adequately situates the glasses further up on his nose, so aside from the smudged inky blue fingerprint now on the glass, he deems the result satisfactory.

“I must say, Logan, you’re looking quite well-rested,” Janus purrs.

Logan looks up at him, woozy. Janus...he...snake. Deceit. The backwards thing. The lie thing. Correct? “That....” He moistens his lips. Everything is so hot and dry and scratchy. He should ask Roman to snap him some chapstick after...after all this. “False...hood?”

Janus rolls his eyes. Watching his slitted, snakelike eye do that is surprisingly intriguing. Logan could—what is the phrase? He could figuratively get “lost” in that eye—in either of Janus’ eyes, really. All of the sides have the same eyes, but nevertheless, they’re just so fascinating on Janus.

Janus strides into the room, shutting the door behind him. Logan really should tell him to leave, but his tongue is too big in his mouth.

“Now, is there any particular reason you decided to experiment on sleep deprivation using yourself as a test subject?” Janus asks him, penetrating Logan with that intense gaze of his. Maybe it’s just the state he’s in, but gosh, Logan really likes that intense gaze. He wishes it would stay trained on him more often.

“The others are not worried in the least,” Janus says offhandedly. “You missed breakfast and lunch, and you turned them all away, so they sent me to...take care of you.” His expression is...Logan would dare to say it’s almost...lascivious. Dear lord, Logan hopes he doesn’t make that face around the others. They would melt. Is Logan melting?

“I am hot,” Logan abruptly announces.

Janus’ eyes dart down, running leisurely from Logan’s untied shoes up to his half-tucked-in shirt to mussed-up hair. Logan supposes he should feel embarrassed over his unkempt appearance, but the haze hovering in his room seems to have permeated his brain as well. Any embarrassment (or any other...feelings he should have, for that matter) seem strangely distant.

Janus looks Logan in the eye, heterochromatic brown and yellow matched with glazed brown. His forked tongue slithers out of his mouth, licking his lips, and for some reason Logan feels himself shudder at the sight. “Yes, you are hot.”

“I...that is what I just stated, yes.” Logan blinks owlishly at the snake-like side.

Wait.

Snake-like.

Snakes are cold-blooded. Cold. Cool.

Is Janus cold-blooded?

Well. There is only one way to find out isn’t there.

(Perhaps there are other ways, such as, just maybe, actually asking him, as Logan will later reflect. But in his current state of foggy disarray he can think of only one action moving forward.)

At some point he must have stood up. Logan doesn’t really remember. He makes use of this newfound state of existence, though, and he moves forward on rubbery legs. He crowds himself into Janus’ space, staring intently into the other side’s slitted yellow eye.

“Uh,” he hears Janus stammer. “This is a very, um, normal position. This isn’t strange at all.”

Logan raises his right hand, cupping the scaled side of Janus’ face with a sweaty palm.

The sweet soothing relief of something cool touching him is instantaneous. “Oh,” he mumbles, leaning still closer. “You...your skin is cool.”

“Of—of course. It’s not like I’m a cold-blooded snake or anything,” Janus chokes out, his expression extremely odd as he gapes at Logan.

“’s nice,” Logan assures him, mentally shoving away the instinct to collapse in the other side’s arms. He brings his other hand to cup the more human side of Janus’ face, pleased to find it alleviates the burning in his palms equally well.

Janus carefully pushes Logan an arm’s length away, and Logan fights the urge to whine at the loss of contact. Janus’ closely-guarded expression is as incinerating as Logan’s nerve endings feel—that is to say, very. However heated his expression may be, though, Janus’ skin is so nice and soft and cold, and Logan wants, but he mustn’t, he mustn’t—

Only...why has he been fighting that instinct, anyway? It sounds like such a nice idea....

Logan collapses forward onto the other side.

He feels Janus hastily throw up his arms, struggling to support the deadweight that is now Logan. A muted part of his brain supposes that this is not a good sign, but he is too overwhelmed by his senses screaming Janus, Janus, safe, cool, comfortable, sleep.

“Um—Logan—” A voice rumbles near his ear, his name absorbing through the heated skin of his neck. “Shit, you’re—heavy—uh.”

Through his rapidly tunnelling sense of self, Logan feels the cool surface he is resting on stagger, then he is being deposited on something soft. Something warm. And his source of cold has disappeared.

Quick, quiet footsteps echo through his ears, then the sound of a door opening and shutting.

A pathetic whine works its way out of Logan’s half-open mouth.

Time passes. He doesn’t know how much. All he knows is that his body is too leaden to move. The blood in his extremities is molten like magma, shimmering red underneath the surface. His head feels like it is about to erupt.

He cannot move, cannot drag himself off of the squishywarmhothothot surface he lies on, but he cannot sleep where he is, so scratchy and blazing and burning and uncomfortable.

Logan vaguely becomes aware of tears, slipping trails down his face, but they provide little relief, for they are just as salty and warm as the rest of himself is.

Eventually, the sound of a door opening and shutting crashes through his brain. He winces, trying to draw his hands up to cover his poor ears—but he’s not entirely sure if they actually make it up there or not. He’s not so sure he can control anything he does anymore.

Soft footsteps patter ever nearer, cutting through the crunchingscraping white noise of his head, and then two cool hands are gently re-positioning his body. A third hand delicately removes his glasses, a fourth rests itself against his cheek in an oddly familiar motion, a fifth and a sixth carefully place something on his forehead—something soft and—and cold.

Logan’s breath stutters out in a hiss, his eyelashes fluttering. Cool. Good. Feels good. Feels very nice. Very good.

“I’m sure it does,” a soft voice murmurs. “Here—drink.”

A pair of the arms gently hoists Logan up, leaning him against a pleasantly cool something—someone? A glass is pressed to his lips.

Grateful, Logan drinks.

The water is sweet and refreshing as it trickles down his throat, calming the raging of the rest of his body. He feels the closest to lucid that he has been in...in hours, at least. Possibly days. He isn’t exactly sure what time even is anymore, what it even means. It’s all made up anyways.

Logan’s eyes flutter open for a moment, but he sees nothing. At some point the lights must have been turned off, and his glasses are off.

Taking another gulp of the water, a corner of Logan’s mind notices an almost chalky aftertaste. Medicine, hopefully, something to help this fevered state. Remus has since learnt that the sides cannot be killed via poison, and if the person helping him is Roman, Logan doubts he would want to repeat the paint water incident of 2016.

Surely it must be medicine, for not long after he finishes drinking the water his brain starts to feel fuzzier once more.

Logan sags down, and whoever he leans against lets him. They—was—is it Janus? It has to be, he’s cool against Logan’s feverish skin, so deliciously cool and he’s always been so, so nice and pretty too—Janus carefully extricates himself from Logan’s weary body.

“N...no,” Logan moans, feeling his most welcome source of chill disappear away from him. He thinks he might reach out, grabbing for it again, but he feels nothing. “Come...come back. Please.”

A long, resigned sigh sounds from above where Logan lies. “Fine, fine,” the voice mutters. The phrasing makes it sound as though the words ought be said more reluctantly, but the tone of the voice saying it sounds more concerned and fond than anything else.

The surface Logan is lying on dips slightly—his bed, it must be his bed—and a cool body slides in behind him, wrapping pairs of arms securely around Logan’s waist, his chest, his neck. Were Logan coherent enough, the arms might feel suffocating, but as it is, their firm grip and the low temperature radiating off of them are strangely comforting.

“Logan.” A cooling breath of air blows into the back of his neck, and he squirms half-heartedly, loving the chill of it against his skin and love-hating the vague heat it curdles in his stomach.

In the morning they will wake, and they will discuss. Janus will turn the tables and lecture Logan about overworking himself. Logan will surprisingly discuss feelings—namely, that warmth in his stomach that lingers even as his fever dissipates. But that is for the morning.

For the moment, there is just the two of them and the now-receding, almost pleasant haze of Logan’s room and mind, just the two of them and their breaths huffing out as Janus whispers, “Sleep.”

Logan sleeps.

Fin

I’m not usually on the “Janus has six arms send tweet” train bc I’m more apt to believe it’s simply a visual effect Remus/the team used in that particular musical sequence, BUT I am jumping aboard for just this one-stop fic bc that means more hug for our poor boi Logan here. And our poor boi Logan here needs more hug.

Also uhhhhh...this is the very first Sanders Sides fic I’m posting, so plz be kind lol. Of course if you have any critiques I’d love to hear them too! ^^ Also, if there are any typos, let me know, cuz I have no friends and my stuff is almost always unbeta-ed. :P

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

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