#this is why you don’t sell faulty products you sick fucks

[susie-dreemurr]

D:

[greenninjagal-blog]

The Rumor Mill Game (pt4)

I swear I didn’t forget about this au. This chapter is just....long.

Welcome back to this mess of an au :) If you need a refresher, you can find Part Three [here!] Or if you’re new check out the first part [here!]

Summary: Logan is...dealing with the fallout of him and his coworker, Remus, having created a rumor about them being married and now apparently having a kid except not because Logan screamed at the top of his lungs that Virgil wasn’t his kid. His boss has a different definition for what “dealing” actually means. 

Words: 8292 (Holy shit remember when this au was 2k words)

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

When Logan had seen his boss after he made Virgil cry, he hadn’t expected it to end up like this.

Granted when he hadn’t exactly been expecting anything. He hadn’t been looking ahead, hadn’t been making plans, hadn’t been thinking at all. Which was most likely how he ended up outside the bar in the first place. 

Logan could, of course, count the number of times he had been drunk on one hand. College had been a time for experimenting, and of course for his twenty-first birthday his friends at the time had been insistent that he needed to imbibe an unholy amount of alcohol in one night. They had turned it into an experiment, where Logan documented exactly what he was feeling after each drink and he still had the notes in his desk at home, despite the fact that his handwriting had become illegible after the fifth drink and someone had spilled an orange soda based tonic on the third page. The notes themselves were worthless, but they served as a memoir to people who he no longer associated with and a younger version of himself who had still been learning.

And Logan did have a soft spot for that imbecile: Twenty-one-year-old Logan Ackroyd who still believed in the goodness of people and who wanted to change the world and who could fall in lov--

Logan pitied him-- that kid he used to be-- which he was certain that his younger self would be indignant about. Logan always did hate when people pitied him. Those emotions had rarely ever been genuine, rarely ever been helpful, rarely been productive. What was he to do about people feeling bad for him? About others being disappointed? About others making assumptions about him and how he felt?

He didn’t need pity, and he didn’t want it. Not when he got rejected to his first three colleges, not when flunked that English class and had to pay to retake it the next year, not when he had bought that ring and gotten down on one knee and made a whole carefully edited speech and--

And he’s not nearly drunk enough to deal with these types of thoughts. Or any thoughts for that matter. Wouldn’t it just be great to stop thinking? 

Then he wouldn’t have to remember the looks on his coworkers faces when he storming into the office less than fifteen minutes after initially leaving for lunch and demanded that Beatrice turn in her overdue spreadsheets in twenty minutes or he’d have her fired before slamming his office door hard enough to crack that frosted glass, or the look on Remus- fucking- Prince’s face when he tried to act like everything that had happened was not his fault and that Logan had taken the game to far by himself without any sort of prompting from Remus, or the look on Virgil’s face when Logan lost his self control.

Like an idiot. Like an asshole. Like someone who doesn’t think before he acts.

Like someone who should be alone for the rest of his life, because he can’t seem to get a hold of those useless emotions of his. 

And Logan wanted so very badly to blame Remus Prince for this whole endeavor, the whole production, the whole catastrophe. He wanted to say that without Remus he never would have gotten that angry, wouldn’t have had that conversation, wouldn’t have even gotten Thai today. 

Logan wanted to say that, but really it's his own fault. If he had just dismissed Remus’s rumor in the beginning, if he had just told Jen and Quin that his personal business was his own, if he had just ignored the urge to get coffee and finished the spreadsheets without getting up that last night.

His fourth finger itched around the base, the area where that little silver ring had been sitting for less than a day. It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, because Logan had never worn a ring before and now suddenly the absence of it caused his skin to crawl in a most unpleasant, unproductive way. 

Distantly Logan realized that by gifting Remus such a wonderful present, he had also thrown away four hundred dollars. And perhaps ironically Logan noted that he feels annoyed about it-- four hundred dollars had been sitting in a pocket of a dress jacket in the corner of his office for over nine months and he had tossed it aside in a fit of impulsive anger.

Logan had not been hurting for money recently, with how decently he was paid, and the amount of overtime he worked, and how little time he had taken off since that disastrous night.

But perhaps he might have been able to return it to the jewelers and weathered the terrible, awful pitying looks they would give him when he requested about their refund policy or a location where he might be able to sell it himself. It was a ring that was worth four hundred dollars and he had given it to Remus, and isn’t it funny that that’s farther than he got with the one for whom the ring had been originally intended?

And as Logan downed his next rum and coke of the night, he hoped that Remus found a better use for it. Newton knows it hadn't done any good for Logan. 

(Its stupid, Logan knew, to blame a ring for the way that he had screeched “He’s not and never will be our son!” Its stupid, Logan knew, to blame a ring for the way that Remus had hummed mischievously “I think I enjoy being fake-married to you, Logan." Its stupid, Logan knew, to blame a ring for the the way his last partner had said “We should see other people”. Its stupid, stupid, stupid--)

“Hmmm,” A voice behind him said, “I thought I would find you here!”

Logan didn’t realize he had closed his eyes until he heard the voice and felt every atom in his body figuratively threaten to combust. He wasn’t drunk enough to be thinking about him, and he most certainly wasn’t drunk enough to turn and look at the incessantly, perky man that had decided to sit down next to him.

Logan waved at the bartender and ordered another rum and coke and watched his freshly emptied glass disappear like the handful of others he didn’t bother to keep count of.

“And I’ll have two waters, please!” Patton Hart added with one of his peppy, happy, insufferable laughs, before turning to face Logan. “Hiya, Lo! It's been so long since we’ve seen each other!”

“Not long enough,” Logan disagreed, with a rueful smile that should very clearly, very precisely detail how much he does not want company at the current moment. “Don’t you have things to be doing tonight, Mr. Hart?”

Patton hummed, pressing his lips together as he thought-- a monumental task for someone like him, surely. Logan was partially convinced that if he removed his glasses he might be able to see the squirrels beginning to run on that rusted wheel in the other man’s brain. If Logan was of a less logical mind he might even be brazen enough to call this the first time Patton had used his brain all week.

“Well,” Patton said, carefully settling himself on the stool next to Logan. “I was graciously informed by my son that he would be enjoying the perks of being a teenager with no bedtime tonight and along with where exactly I could shove my homemade lasagna.�� He laughed lightly, “Kids, these days! He really does keep me on my toes!” 

Logan did his best not to roll his eyes. “I do not know the whereabouts of your son, Mr. Hart.”

“Patton,” He said easily, “And I’m not here for my son. I’m here for you, Logan.”

“If this is about the glass in my door, you are very capable of taking that out of my paycheck.” Logan told him.

The bartender placed Logan’s new rum and coke in front of him and he reached for it almost immediately, only stopping when Patton’s hand landed on his forearm.

“Mr. Hart--”

“Patton,” Patton corrected with that smile that Logan suspected was the worst thing in the world. Worse than Virgil’s blank expression when he told them to get out, worse than Remus’s smug one when he suggested that Logan did indeed enjoy the ability to manipulate his coworkers, worse than Beatrice faulty excel sheets, than broken glass of his door, than a ring he never wanted to see again and yet he still felt like it was missing from his finger.

“Mr. Hart,” Logan said again, “I am going to get horrifically drunk tonight, and I will be calling out sick tomorrow, regardless of what you say. So my advice to you is, say anything of importance now, before I am too incoherent to register and respond accordingly.”

“That doesn’t sound too smart there, kiddo!” Patton said, like he was any older than Logan was.

“I do not feel like being smart right now,” Logan said snippily. Because being smart involved thinking, and Logan had done quite enough thinking for the day. He was tired of thinking, tired of memories, tired of the lump in his chest that had formed during his lunch break and hadn’t dissolved in the eight hours since. He was tired.

“Would you like me to be smart for you?” Patton asked.

Ah.

Yes, Logan remembered suddenly with just a few words why he hated Patton Hart so much. Why he hated those too-wide brown eyes, those stupid freckles, that soft smile. Why he hated the way that Patton had tracked him down despite the fact that he had turned off his phone, the way that Patton had ordered two waters, the way that he hadn’t taken off his jacket. The way that he had taken out his keys and put them on the bar counter between them and Logan could pick out his own house key from the jumbled mess of bits and bobs.

“I heard something pretty interesting today,” Patton said, when Logan didn’t reply because he was too busy remembering why he hated Patton so much.

“Please don’t pretend like you didn’t know about my so-called affair before I did.” Logan snapped. “Honestly, Patton!” Logan dropped his arm from the glass and instead pressed his knuckles to his forehead. “Playing dumb about your own company is my least favroite thing about you.”

“I thought you hated my laugh the most.” Patton looked at him, letting the smile slip into something more serious.

“I hate everything about you.” 

“Pay for the drinks, Lo.” Patton told him, “And I’ll take you home. We can have some of my lasagna and watch a space documentary, like we’re twenty years old again.” 

Logan hated Patton and hated the way his chest ached at the offer. His knuckles bore into the side of his head, jabbing the frame of his own glasses into this temple. He hated the way that Patton was looking at him, soft and sweet and naive.

He hated the way his fingers itched to take Patton’s hand and go home.

“And after all that,” Patton continued so lightly, “You can tell me all about how Remus Prince got under your skin.”

 Logan’s hand slammed on the counter, so suddenly he surprised himself. Patton, however, didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink, didn’t react other than to hold that smile. 

“I am not drunk enough to be talking about Remus Prince,” Logan spat. “Especially not to you, Patton.”

Patton was quiet and at first, Logan really had thought that he had won something-- he thought that perhaps Patton would grant him mercy and let him drown his sorrows alone and miserable in a bar until he forgot his own name. But Patton was too good of a friend and Logan really should hate him less for that.

“You know,” Patton said with a cold type of humor that doused Logan with awareness. Bad awareness. The type of awareness that sunk it’s metaphorical claws into Logan’s chest and pierced straight through his heart before Patton finished what he was saying. “I think….yeah that does sound familiar. Do you remember the last time you said you weren’t drunk enough to tell me something?”

Logan did.

Logan couldn’t forget if he tried. 

And he had tried so very hard for so very long-- except that Remus Prince had waltzed into Logan’s life, had called him a Robot, had smirked at him and run their coworkers around like cattle with pretty little words. Except that Remus Prince had gotten bored and decided that the only logical next course of action was to mess with Logan’s personal life. 

Except that Remus Prince had played along with the rumor game, and smiled at him, and kissed him, and---

And Logan had started thinking---

And Logan’s mouth had started moving--

And Virgil face had--

Logan reached for the glass in front of him, reaching for the cool ice and the spritzy carbonation and the burn of the rum.  

Patton watched him, blinking in the long, slow, dumb way of his that had fooled just about every person that he had come in contact with. With the goofy smile and the habit of deliberately misunderstanding key phrases and making puns and jokes when things were tense, it was hard to see him as anything other than a rich son who became CEO via thinly veiled nepotism. 

Logan knocked back the drink, blinking back the burn behind his eyes that were from the alcohol and definitely not from the lump in his throat that had started dissolving.

He didn’t want to close his eyes, because he knew what he would see when he did: a nice suit, a fancy dinner, a walk to the bridge dotted with fairy lights of all things. He’d see that stupid ring, that stupid face, that stupid end of the night that everyone had told him would be nice, and perfect, and everything he would ever want! 

And he didn’t want to think about how it had not been nice or perfect or anything either of them had ever wanted!

He didn’t want to think about how years ago he had come to a bar just like this, and tried to get so drunk he could pretend that it hadn’t happened, and Patton had shown up then and offered him a job and--

“He wants to go by Janus now,” Patton said, picking up one of the waters and taking a sip.

Logan squinted at him and tried not to be happy about the distraction from his own thoughts, “Who?”

“My son,” Patton said, like it was obvious he had switched back to a neutral topic. “He told me earlier during our phone call he wants to go by Janus, now. He said he’s hated the name Dante for forever. Can you believe it, Lo?”

Logan couldn’t actually. Because he had known Patton since they themselves were teenagers, since before Patton had brought up how empty being a CEO was without anyone to come home too, since Patton had first invited him to Sunday brunch and introduced him to the child he called “son”. Logan had babysat Dante when Patton had business trips and Dante had always been proud of himself, of his better-than-the-status-quo lifestyle, of his name that held power and prestige and weight.

Dante had been practicing saying his name in the mirror since before his voice cracked. Dante Hart, future CEO. Dante Hart, son of Patton Hart. Dante Hart. 

“He’s a teenager,” Logan said, “He’s rebelling.”

“Maybe so!” Patton laughed, and it dwindled down to something that was easier felt in the air than definable in terms Logan was familiar with, “Gosh, I love him so much, Lo. My baby! He’s growing up so fast now! The other day he told me he had a boyfriend. He’s at that stage where he doesn’t want me to help him anymore!”

And despite the buffoon having not had a single drop of alcohol, Patton was tearing up. Logan gritted his teeth at the implications of a weepy, teary, so-full-of-emotions Patton. He had spent enough time in college trying to console him as he figured out the whole “Why does it always have to be about sex? Why can’t I just love hugging someone, Lo? Why does everyone make me feel so broken?” Logan hadn’t been any good back then, and he definitely hadn’t gotten better with time. 

After that disaster with the last guy, Logan had decided that feeling things, frivolous things, emotion-like things, were not something he was into anymore.

Logan learned from his mistakes, after all.

Even the mistakes that started with “R” and ended in a $400 ring being thrown away.

“Is that why you’re here, Mr. Hart?” Logan asked, in that way of his that told even Patton with his squirrel run brain that it wasn’t actually a question at all. “You can’t baby your son anymore so you’ve moved on to the next best thing?”

Patton stuck his tongue in his cheek and set his water back down. “Patton.” He stressed. “And I’m not here to baby you, Logan. I’m here to be your friend.”

He said “friend” like it was a word in the dictionary Logan didn’t know. It was infuriating: the insinuation that Logan had never cracked open a dictionary before, that he was so unknowledgeable about the concept of a friend that Patton was about to show him the online Oxford dictionary definition, like someone who played dumb all day and peppered his windows with sticky notes in the shape of a game of Frogger knew more about something than Logan who had clawed his way up from nothing and was constantly needing to prove how he earned his position.

Patton nudged the second water in Logan’s direction.

Logan stared at it, at the condensation on the glass, at the ice cubes, at the refraction of the low lights from the bar counter. He stared at it like it was a portal back through time that would allow him to slam some sense into poor, pitiful twenty-one-years-old Logan before he let himself fall in Love.

Before he bought a ring or stopped taking days off unless Patton tromped down to his office himself. Before Remus Prince borrowed his cup and before Logan got it in his head that he was serving revenge rather than idiocracy. Before he let himself think too little and say too much and hurt a kid that had never deserved to be upset before in his life.

“If my son wants to be called Janus, I’ll call him that,” Patton says softly. “Because even if it doesn’t make sense to me, it means something to him. And even if my friend is struggling with emotions that don’t make sense to me, I’m still gonna try to help him, Lo.”

Patton ducked his head just a little, just enough that he managed to catch Logan’s strategically averted gaze and make something out of it: a swell of guilt, a sense of hope, a pinch of safety and unadulterated kindness.

His throat was dry, but it was the type of dry that couldn’t be fixed with a glass of water.

“I made a kid cry,” Logan said, because self loathing is a coat he had thought he’d outgrown but he can still fit his arms in the sleeves.

Patton nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that.” He sipped his water. “I think we all have at one point or another.”

“See, the distinct difference that you are missing here, Patton, is that you are a father.” Logan snapped, “And your son will cry at the drop of a hat if he thinks he can get something out of it. And you would never harm a child! Not for any reason in the entire world!”

“And you would?”

“I did.” Logan felt himself sink into the chair, sink like an anchor in the ocean, sink like the floor below him had turned into a blackhole. “I did, I did it. What type of person does that make me?”

“I hate to break it to you, Lo,” Patton said, as kindly as he could, which Logan knew was truly, sickenly nice. He wanted to choke on the sentiment but he found that he couldn’t quite make his chest hurt the way he wanted it too when it came to Patton’s pity.

 “But that just means you’re a normal person.” Patton smiled dumbly, tilting his head and shrugging. “Everyone says things they don’t mean sometimes.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” Patton countered gently, “Like when I hired Beatrice before realizing that she had lied about knowing how to use Excel.”

“Fuck, Beatrice,” Logan agreed, because if he closed his eyes too hard he thought he might still see grid patterns as much as he might see Virgil’s hurt expression and he hated it so much. So much. 

“I also told-- Janus once that I would get him anything he wanted for his birthday, and he asked for a snake.” Patton shuddered, almost comically, “And you saw how that turned out.”

“I’ve always been impressed with his ability to sneak things into the school buildings,” Logan sighed. “I doubt anyone has ever forgotten that Show-and-Tell.”

Patton chuckled quietly. It was almost lost in the buzz of the other patrons in the bar. He drew a smiley face in the condensation on his glass and Logan reached over to wipe it away, like he had done a hundred seventeen times since college.

“So….Lasagna?” Patton offered. “We can make some garlic bread too.”

“I regret ever meeting you,” Logan said, even as he picked up the keys on the counter between them. He wished that Patton didn’t look so self satisfied, so pleased, so smug when the words tumbled from his lips, but Patton had never been one to pertain to the wishes and whims of Logan like that.

Settling his tab was quick; a pile of bills from his wallet that he didn’t actually check, but decided the bartender deserved anyway and then Patton linked their elbows together so that Logan couldn’t walk off the way that he used to when he would agree with Patton just to get him to shut up. Logan snagged Patton’s glasses from his head and fogged them up with his breath, before taking on the tedious task of cleaning the fingerprints off the lens meticulously while walking in a wobbling straight line. 

Patton laughed like silver bells and it alone brightened the entire street with a type of magic that Logan had long since given up on trying to scientifically explain. The poet in him that Logan had buried under Calculus classes and Statistics courses and a Business degree and only let out when the alcohol out weighed the blood in his system, whispered that it was because it was Patton and his aloofness, and his kindness, and his generosity that never made any sense, and wasn’t that reason enough for the universe to lighten up?

It was drizzling outside, scattered raindrops and dark heavy clouds that whispered of a thunderstorm later. Patton skipped, Logan rolled his eyes and let himself be dragged towards the familiar pale blue punch buggy. It was the same exact car from their college time together, if one ignored the frankenstein replacements of just about every single component in it. Patton clung to the car the same way he had clung to the delusion of Logan being a good friend; sticking close through every breakdown, excusing every letdown, and spending far too much money on it when economically it would have been more beneficial to just let them go.

A wave of self loathing wrapped over Logan again when he pulled on the car door. Patton was genuinely a good person, a good friend. He was stupid at times and he made decisions that made Logan was to strangle him, but he cared so much more than other people. He offered fourth and fifth chances when Logan would have stone-walled his offender at one. 

Not to mention, he had come out in the rain to find Logan specifically, probably traversing through three other bars to find the one that Logan had chosen to be his misery echo chamber.

By some sort of lucky happenstance, Logan had originally walked far enough to hail a taxi  to get to this bar, leaving his car in the safety of the parking garage where Patton’s company paid a nice sum for security. Logan had tried to argue about that expense with him back in the day, but Patton had pulled out a picture of his toothy grinning son-- Janus-- and said “Lo!! What if my son comes to visit when he learns to drive?! I don’t want to worry about him getting attacked in the parking garage!” 

Logan had brutally pointed out that his son would never visit him during work, and so far he had been correct in that assessment, but that didn’t stop him from feeling the slightest bit guilty about his bluntness even so much time later.

Patton had always looked for the best in people, had more strength than most of humanity, had more hope in happy endings that Logan had trust in fact and numbers.

“Is your son okay with me calling him Janus? I’m unsure of etiquette on this. Should I wait until he tells me his preference or should I just make the switch and not bring it up to him?” Logan asked with a sigh as Patton pulled out of the parking spot and set them towards Patton’s house on the other side of town. Unobstructed and following the driving laws, it would only take them about fifteen minutes, and yet Logan wondered about the possibility of Patton having Advil in the car.

The back of his head was already aching from the days events: banging his head on the keyboard all morning leading up to his disastrous lunch date, Remus, Virgil, squinting at spreadsheets until he couldn’t make out the numbers anymore, and the of course stumbling his way to the bar and dealing with Patton.

Patton giggled. “Oh yeah! I asked him earlier if it was okay to tell you. He said he wanted you to call him Janus now. He also said to tell you, you can take a hike.”

Knowing Janus, it was probably something more volatile than “taking a hike”. Most likely it had been something that might have required him to put a full five dollars in the swear jar that they kept on the counter next to the cookie jar. Not that it would matter much. Logan had stayed over at their house dozens of times and every single time he had come across Janus taking that money back out of that swear jar.

As far as Logan was aware, the swear jar had never actually been full. Patton must have noticed at some point-- probably that very first time Janus had taken the money back out-- but he was irritating insistent that he play dumb about it. Thus, Janus continued to swear in excess, Patton continued to make him put money in a swear jar for no real reason, and Logan continued to never understand either of them.

The radio in Patton’s car had been broken fifteen times since Patton had gotten it, but Logan assumed from the silence of the drive that it was now sixteen. He rested his elbow on the window and watched the drizzle turn into a steady rain and the windshield wipers flutter across their vision to occasionally bring them clarity.

The night life was somewhat dreary. The driving pace was slow, and they hit every single stop light in the city because that was just Logan’s luck. There were a few people running around in the rain: a family with a small child who was jumping in every slowly forming puddle on the sidewalk, a couple sharing an umbrella walking so close together they appeared as if to be one misshapen form, a group of friends chatting outside a 24 hour dinner in raincoats, and a few smokers huddled under an alcove with embers burning just enough for Logan to make out their forms through the downpour. 

Logan realized almost immediately that the pit in his stomach was much more bearable if he instead focused on the raindrops on the window that are much easier to look at, much less representing something that Logan had always expected he might one day have, much less accusatory in wondering what is wrong with him that he can’t act like a normal human being, this isn’t working, who wants to marry a robot like you--

That was the reason why he wasn’t expecting the sudden jerk of the car coming to a hard stop at a yellow light that they absolutely could have made. 

“PATTON!” Logan yelled.

The car behind them blared it’s horn and Logan rubbed his neck and reset his glasses from the sudden movement, ready to question what exactly Patton thought he was doing, because truly of all the things Logan was not in the mood for, this was one of them. 

Except that before Logan could get any words out, Patton had put the car in park and whipped off his seatbelt to kick open his door. A wave of rain came pouring into the car as the man threw himself from the driver's seat like there was something wrong with the car, and for a second Logan entertained the absurd idea that they were going to blow up.

Which truly, would have just been a fitting end to his horrific day.

“Patton!” Logan hissed, grabbing after the other’s coat to pull him back inside before the rain soaked into the seats. “Get back in th--”

The other man ignored him, frantically waving to someone in the rain. “REMUS!! MR. PRINCE!! OVER HERE!!”

If Logan knew slightly less about human biology he might have been inclined to say that his heart jumped straight to his throat and climbed its way up his esophagus to strangle him. He wouldn’t have recognized the figure on the street corner on his own: Remus Prince was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans with holes in the knees. He was soaked to the bone, without an umbrella, and his usual bouncy brown curls were matted to his head, as if he had been walking out in the rain for much longer than the rain had been sweeping through the city.

He was standing with the smokers under their minimal tarp, although he, himself, was without a cigarette at all. When he turned at the call of his name, there was only confusion and exhaustion in his face. None of the smugness, or the ego, or the energy that he usually had.

Logan didn’t know why that bothered him. He was hurting from earlier; that was good. 

After all, it was Remus’s ridiculous game that he had dragged everyone else into. 

((Logan’s finger itched and he dug his nails into his skin so deeply he was afraid to glance down in case there was blood pouring off hands.))

Remus ventured out to meet them, dodging across the lanes of traffic without a care in the world, or perhaps with a death wish. Remus didn’t seem particularly like he would mind getting run over by the way that he opened the back door, climbed in, and shook the excess water out in the interior of the car like some type of undomesticated dog. 

“Is this a kidnapping?” He asked, rain dripping down his face. “A murder? Do I get to know your name before you dismember me, cutie?”

Patton laughed joyfully, even as Logan felt his face screw up at the sound of Remus calling their boss “cutie”. It was beyond unprofessional, even if Remus was apparently unaware that his career hinged entirely on not insulting Patton. It took a lot to make Patton angry enough to fire someone-- his patience was the best and worst thing about him, as Logan had been reminded every time they interacted-- but once Remus crossed that line, not even a cockroach like him would be able to drag himself out of the metaphorical wasteland Patton would make out of his life.

Cutie, honestly. Who calls anyone they’ve just met cutie. Logan could understand Remus having called him Lovebug and Lolo, but cutie? 

For Patton?

Patton climbed back into the car, snapping on his seatbelt and managed to get out of park at the very same moment as the light turned green. He wiped his sleeve along his glasses, and brightly said, “I’m Patton! And you already know Logie here!”

“Logie?” Remus repeated, sitting back against the seat taking in Logan for the first time. “Oh shi--”

“Do not call me that,” Logan said. “Patton, you can drop me off at the next corner. I will walk home.”

“Don’t be silly!” Patton said, in the same tone that he had used during their college days to coax Logan into driving him to the nearest grocery store after he had successfully managed to pull two all nighters in a row. Logan hated that tone, and Patton knew that well.

“If you do not stop the car, I will throw myself from it while it is still moving.”

“I can get out, actually!” Remus said far too loud for the small car. Logan resisted the urge to turn around and scowl at him. Surely, his pea-sized brain had managed to figure out that he was the point of contention here and that his best move would be to shut up, so why had he decided to open his mouth? “I need to get home anyway. Big day tomorrow and everything.”

“Oh?” Patton said delightedly because Logan would not ever play into subject changes willingly. “What’s tomorrow?”

“I’m getting fired,” Remus said with a nonchalant shrug.

Patton blinked for a moment-- his squirrel-run brain jamming at the sudden twist of the words because whatever he was expecting from his visitor it was not that. Logan resisted the urge to reach over and give him a shake at the shoulders: of course he wouldn’t be able to expect anything with Remus Prince. The man was insufferable and illogical and he wrought chaos for fun. 

With everything that had happened, did Patton really think that there was an exaggeration in there?

Remus wanted attention. And he said whatever he needed to in order to get it: a fake affair, a fake divorce, a fake child-- Of course he would say he was getting fired tomorrow if it got Patton to have to use all of his meager brain cells to figure out how serious he was.

“Is that something to celebrate, Mr. Prince?” Logan cut in coldly. “Getting fired?”

“And here I thought that you would be happy, Ackroyd,” Remus said. “Unless you think you’re going to miss me.”

“If only I would be so lucky,” Logan said, digging his phone from his pocket, and turning it back on. The screen was blindingly bright and Logan’s eyes ached just glancing at it in the corner of his vision. “Patton, pull over. I am not doing this tonight. Or tomorrow. Or ever again.”

“I’m not going to let you walk home after however many rum and cokes you had, Logan.”

“Patton,” Logan snarled. “If you continue to treat me like you treat your son, I will tender my resignation tonight. Pull over now.”

Patton opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was swallowed up in Remus’s empty voice speaking. 

“You went drinking?”

“Do not talk to me, Mr. Prince.”

“You’re not even yelling.”

Logan wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, which may have irritated him more than the fact that he was so insistent about continuing to talk when Logan was liable to push the car to crash and kill all three of them. Remus was already staring at him, his expression dark and serious in the passing car lights and somehow Logan thought that he looked vulnerable. 

Logan gritted his teeth as his headache pulsed behind his eyes. 

“Shut up,” he said. “And put on your seat belt.”

“Or what? You’ll divorce me?” Remus pushed forward between the seats until he was just a few inches from Logan’s own face, grinning with all his teeth. It was at once the same smile that Logan had catalogued through every week of working with him and also something completely foreign.

Remus had pulled him into a kiss earlier that morning, and Logan remembered the taste of pickles on his lips just as well as the smirk he kept as Logan walked away. But this expression is somehow inverted, somehow shifted, somehow a weapon more than a challenge.

“Boys,” Patton said. “Please don’t fight in my car!”

“If you did not want us to fight, why did you invite him in this car?” Logan asked. “You, of all people, know my opinions on--”

“Logan, you’re drunk.”

“What does that have to do with this?!” Logan bit out. He glared at his phone: there were three missed calls from Patton and a handful of text messages from him that Logan couldn’t actually read in the combination of the bright phone light and darkness around them. His eyes were blurry even with his glasses on and the frustration of not being able to read only heightened as he made out the notification for his email which meant that Beatrice had managed to finish her work (allowing Logan to be able to go fix it) or that news of him yelling at a child made it around the office and now he was going to harassed by them as well.

All because of Remus Prince’s inability to shut up. 

 Patton threw a hand out and grabbed Logan’s phone from his hand and carelessly tossed it over both their shoulders to Remus.

“Patton!” Logan hissed, rubbing the irritated tears from his eyes. “Remus, give it back!”

Remus, however, was just staring at the phone in his lap like it was some type of bomb. Logan’s phone locked itself and the screen went dark, and still Remus sat inhumanely still in the seat, staring at it, with a type of blank expression that Logan oftentimes related to their coworkers when Logan asked them to perform any sort of math without a calculator.

“Remus,” Logan said again.

Remus jerked at the sound of his voice, snapping out of whatever fit the phone had put him in almost meekly-- if Logan could describe anything Remus did as meekly without it being a blatant falsehood. “Meekly” itself had never seemed to be a word in Remus’s vocabulary which was another irritating fact about him that made Logan break out in figurative hives.

Logan knew how Remus was.

He knew Remus.

It didn’t matter that he had never talked to Remus before today, that his thinly veiled contempt for his coworkers kept him from being willing to stand in their presence more than he was being paid to, that this fake affair was the first stupid relationship of any kind he had gotten outside of Patton and his son since his last boyfriend had dumped him on the night he was going to propose and hadn’t he thought he’d known him too? Isn’t that what led to all this? 

It didn’t matter. 

Logan was smarter, now. Logan was better now. Logan was--

“I don’t…” Remus said, trailing off as he stared at the messages popping up on Logan’s phone and Logan wondered why it felt like his lungs had shrunk right in his chest. “I don’t think you should be reading these right now.”

“He definitely should not!” Patton said, with a very convincing amount of forced happiness. “Hold that for him will you, Remus? Oh and why do you think you’re going to get fired tomorrow?”

Remus looked up at Logan and then at Patton and then back at Logan, like Logan was supposed to know what that meant in addition to every other stupid look he’d given Logan all evening. Logan shoved his glasses up to his hairline and rubbed his aching eyes, and yet somehow that still didn’t fix the pounding in his head or the exhaustion hollowing out his bones. It also didn’t make Remus disappear from the backseat, which was equally annoying, even though Logan hadn’t truly thought he was a shared apparition for him and Patton.

“You didn’t mention anything about today to your… what are you a fuck buddy?” Remus said.

And Patton laughed. 

Logan grabbed the door handle and yanked on it, but of course the ridiculous safety locks were engaged, and Logan had spent far too many sober years getting locked in this car to try to puzzle out the broken locking system in order to drunkenly throw himself out of the car. He was not in the habit of wishing for miracles, or even believing in deities, but he imagined that some powerful entity was finding ruining Logan’s life to be semi enjoyable.

“See this is why I can’t fire him!” Patton said through giggles and Logan thought maybe he was being addressed for this. Patton met Remus’s gaze through the rearview mirror and shook the last bit of water from his damp hair. “You make everything so entertaining!”

“What?”

Logan grit his teeth and yanked on the door handle again. “Remus, meet Mr. Hart, the CEO and your boss. Also put on your seatbelt.”

Remus blinked at them both, leaning between the seats and definitely not putting on his seatbelt. Logan counted backward from ten, reminding himself that one of the hiring requirements for Patton’s company has always been must be the stupid beyond belief. He’d known for a while that his coworkers were idiots on a good day, hazards to his health on bad ones, and yet somehow in the whirlwind of the day he’s had, Logan had forgotten that Remus counted as a coworker still.

“I’m not… getting fired?” Remus said, acting much like a computer after being turned on. “Why do you know my name then?”

Patton shrugged, flicking on his blinker to change lanes before the next light. “You have interesting ideas for your advertising strategy! Of course I would know your name! I’m sorry about vetoing that last one. I know Logan liked it, but I wanted to stick to the family-as-a-whole angle.”

“Patton,” Logan warned with an edge.

“Logan liked…?” Remus echoed, before turning towards Logan with a look of bewilderment that annoyed Logan far more than it had any right to. “You actually look at my shit?”

“Put on your seatbelt, Remus,” he said, because wasn’t it obvious that Logan looked at his things? Before the whole Robot incident Logan hadn’t had a problem with Remus at all: he was effective and efficient and the rumors were irritating but below him to indulge in. Before Remus had dragged him figuratively kicking and screaming into this mess, Logan approved the budgets that came with the projects Remus created.

He still did that, just with more anger than before. Petty feelings for Remus himself aside, his work was objectively good. 

Logan knew that about him.

“So!” Patton said over both of them, with his signature grin that Logan suspected he would still be wearing even if Logan decided to kill him right now. It must be the by-product of being controlled by rodents running on a wheel. “How was your volunteer work Remus?”

Remus froze in the back seat, going unnaturally still again. “Are you some kind of stalker-- uh sir?”

“Will you knock that off?” Logan snapped, which only made Remus’s shoulders jump straight to his ears. “And put on your seatbelt.”

“Just curious!” Patton said, ignoring Logan entirely. “Darlene is a good friend of mine! I make sure to send monthly donations to the organization since I don’t have a lot of free time to jump over and help.”

Remus didn’t say anything to that. He swallowed audibly and leaned back against the seat, dragging fingers through his wet hair and then tucked his arms in his own armpits. Logan pressed a palm to his forehead watching the street lights bend from behind his eyelids because that was easier than staring at Remus act like Patton was trying to pull his teeth out.

“You actually do volunteer work?” Logan said. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Ha,” Remus said without any inflection. Logan thought that was the quietest that he had ever been. Where was that stupid ass smirk? Where was the stubbornness that pushed back against everything? Where was that loud voice and that confidence?

“Put on your seatbelt,” Logan said again.

“Why do you care if I wear the belt or not?”

“Remus put on your seatbelt or, so help me Newton, I will climb back there and put it on for you, myself!”

The air simmered from the acid in his tone, making the silence figurative chafe against his ribs. Remus stared at him, blinking slowly, with the street lights casting roving shadows on his face. His dark eyes were just so-- so--

Logan dug his nails into his palm. Why was it Remus Prince could make him feel like this? What gave him the right?

“It’s okay!” Patton said, setting the car to park. “We’re here anyway!”

Logan reached up and pulled his glasses back onto his face properly, but it still took him a moment to realize that they were near a bunch of townhouses, double parked outside one that Logan had considered moving into all those years ago when he had first been looking for an apartment for after college.

Remus too, apparently needed a moment to recognize the area. “We… are at my apartment? Holy shit, you are a stalker.”

Patton giggled, flashing Remus with his blinding smile and reached back to pick up Logan’s phone from his hands. “Thank you so much, kiddo! We’ll wait until you get inside all safe and sound, and I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“You will not,” Logan said. “Tomorrow you have a business deal two hours away to complete and if you miss it--”

Patton stretched back in his seat and let out a hugely exaggerated yawn. “But they’re so boring! Maybe I should bring Janus with me. He always makes my business deals entertaining. I love when he sets his snake on people. He looks so happy and he laughs and--”

Logan squeezed his eyes closed and recited the first twenty digits of pi in his head to keep from grabbing Patton’s squirrel run brain and slamming it into the steering wheel.

“Homicide is wrong,” Logan said.

“I’ll help you vouch for insanity,” Remus said. “I mean, tied together through a murder, and possibly hiding a body is much more juicy than a fake marriage that’s falling apart. We’d be the talk of the office.”

“They would not find any body that I hid,” Logan said. “Nobody would.”

Remus opened his mouth to say something more, but whatever it is he decided against it. Instead he slid over the seats and kicked open the door right behind Logan and stepped out into the night air.

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. Hart, sir,” he said, strangely formal, then squinted and added, “Daddy?” 

“I’m not firing you, Remus,” Patton said. “No matter what you call me!”

Logan ran his tongue over his teeth counting each and every one. Remus looked at him but ultimately finally adhered to that whole shutting up thing. He closed the door to Patton’s blue punch buggy and started towards the door to the apartments.

“Oh,” Remus said, and turned back at the last second. He knocked his knuckles on Logan’s window a few inches from where Logan’s gaze fixed itself on a light. Patton apparently knew more about what to do than Logan because he pressed the window lowering button and Remus reached his entire arm into the window to drop a small object right into Logan’s lap.

Logan caught it mainly due to reaction rather than skill and his skin tingled at the familiar item. Even in the dark, Logan’s fingers roll over the shape of the ring that had always reminded him of the worst day of his life. It was still warm from being in Remus’s pocket.

“I think that should stay with you,” Remus said, like it wasn’t a big deal at all. “You know… for the next boytoy you take to your sex dungeon or whatever nerds like you do on weekends.”

And then he turned around and fled towards the apartment building. Patton turned off the hazard lights and slipped back into traffic and Logan wondered if he would be polite enough to not comment if Logan started crying right then and there.

His throat felt swollen, his tongue too big for his mouth, and the headache thrummmmmmed painfully. 

Logan knew Remus Prince.

“You know that Remus Prince isn’t gonna be like him,” Patton said to fill the silence.

“Remus Prince isn’t like anyone.” Logan didn’t whine. To whine would be unbecoming. And childish. And embarrassing.

So Logan didn’t whine and Patton mercifully didn't call him out on his not-whining.

And neither of them mention the choked tone that Logan had for the rest of the night.

When Logan had seen his boss after he made Virgil cry, he hadn’t expected it to end up with him clutching that ring like a lifeline, but as he ran his fingers around the rim, he wondered if it had fit on Remus’s finger at all.

(Part Five)

[anathemanonymous]

Spilling it in the first person: truths I need to accept

Well, it's not going well. I feel like I am not moving forward,but backward. I held myself back by trying to do the right thing.

I gave you the whole house in trade for my freedom. There was no end date on the agreement. It simply stated you would get the property and all the responsibility of the associated bills. It also stated you would agree to hold me harmless.

Well, that didnt happen.

I'm still stuck 4 years after leaving. The attorney told me not to pay off the foreclosure but I did. Twice. I stopped the process of filing contempt in August. She was livid. She offered me the option to have you removed from the house and I could keep it. Well, I had just signed the apt lease. A one year contract. How was I supposed to afford two house payments? I didn't want that responsibility. I left the house to prove I wasnt married to this man for the money. He refused to leave. So I did.

Both our names remain on the title. Bank cant take me off. You refuse to sell. You cannot afford to refinance.

What are you trying to do here?

As I am being held in place by obligation you insist upon complaining about how it is my fault that you are suffering. How you are refusing to cooperate. Refuse to work or pay bills. Refuse to accept that I left. Refuse to reach out or grow in healthy ways. Refuse to stop drinking or doing drugs. Refuse to try to improve our shitty relationship. Refuse to reach out to your own child. Refuse to sell the house. Refuse to clean it. Trick me into calling off the attorney at the last foreclosure: you say you will pay me back the $5500 and we can fix up the house. I tell you how uneasy I feel about this deal. You tell me to trust you.

I clean and clean on my days off work and you sit and ridicule and drink. You tell me it's no rush. You literally have no money to fix it up. I have gone round and around with Fred at the agency to get him to agree to put the house on the market and how we need to sell to a qualified buyer. How to ensure no consequences from this home being doomed. How to do the right thing. How to honor the promises to the agency and to the bank. Its ridiculous how often I've triaged with your mother. How many phone calls and notes kept on the research of creating a plan to salvage the property and you.

And you. I have given you money. I have paid your debts. I have taken you to the doctor. I set you up for evaluation of ADHD. You cry about your health. You cant get off the couch. You cry about being broke, depressed with no reason to live. When I speak to you, you continue to put me down, to accuse me of never caring. You accuse me of malicious crimes against you for the past 16 years. You claim I just used you. My entire life was built around supporting you. You accuse me of going against you deliberately. You blame for your behaviors of rude comments and refusals to cooperate or participate in anything related to parenting or household chores or budgeting or my feelings. I was threatened by your recklessness. I was doomed to being overly responsible but got nothing but contempt in return.

There wasn't peace. There wasnt love. No support. Constant arguments and blow ups. Constant strife. Constant pain. Carrying your weight twice my size. Trying to rape me. Trying to negate me. Trying to minimize me. Criticizing every fucking thing I did or said or believed. Faking it in front of your friends and parents. Giving nothing but expecting me to provide for your every need on a whim. Needing help with your business books, spending hours only to be discredited and rejected. You put your shit first. You blocked my path with your messiness. You left it all up to me but gave me no credit, no control and no power. Then accuse me of doing the same to you. You ridiculed my hobbies, my goals, my dreams. You chose your friends over me. You drank to the point of black out every day. You stopped working. Your buisness partner abandoned you even after he stole from the business account, you kept him around. You kept giving him your share of our household bills instead of pay our bills. So I paid. You stole my tax returns for years. You were rude and inconsiderate toward how any of your shitty choices affected me and our family. You have withheld love and given only pain. You ignored my feelings and needs. And now you complain and claim to suffer worse than me?

What about me??

To top it off: after moving out and returning on a regular basis to check in with you even as you deliberately were harming me financially and emotionally...I get hate when I remove the loaded guns in the house bc you're suicidal from all the drugs and no sleep and not eating and not working and I worry and I feel sorry and I want to keep things normal so I see the mess and try not to do the cleaning, the yardwork.

I play with the dogs and feed them and you always leave when I arrive ...or start an argument until you chase me away.

After 4 years of being ridiculed and blamed....instead of being heard and validated.

I have to actually accept that you are openly and intentionally holding me hostage financially and emotionally. You admit it on text. Your mother claims you were just drinking and you didnt mean it. What will it take to justify my actions?

Its been 4 years of waiting on pins and needles. Of not breathing. Or being stuck. Not to mention the 7 years before I left the house. Trying to fix things.

Looking back, I've never received emotional support from you. Other than to stay away from my family.

I have a hard time accepting the fact that you didn't improve yourself when I left. You got worse. You stopped trying long before I left. And I hoped you would recognize how awful you'd become. I was risking a chance that you would change into a responsible adult. Learn to care for me in real ways. Appreciate me, quite frankly. I was looking for appreciation. Recognition. Acceptance. Acknowledgement. The elements of love.

I left because there was no love.

It was the right thing to do.

Unhealthy relationships are meant to fall apart.

Blame me or blame you. It doesn't matter. It takes two to have a relationship. It becomes one sided.

Wait. It was always one sided. I wanted to believe it was a mutual relationship. I dreamed it. I created the illusion of it. But it could not be felt. Bc it was a mirage. It only looked like something real. It felt empty. Like a shell. Like a home without a foundation. Ready to fall apart like a Hollywood studio prop.

I was lying to myself the whole time.

The only way out now is to tell the truth. To let shit fall apart by not adding to it. To stop putting in.

But it feels wrong to let my house go into foreclosure. It feels wrong to file with a lawyer. It feels so wrong to do nothing to help, on purpose. Yet it is the right way. Right? This world is absolutely ridiculous. Just fucking back breaking and disheartening. People are so viscous. Banks and lawyers. Without hearts. Empty motherfucking shells of humans.

I knew the truth but didn't want to face it. Denial is so powerful. It can change the way you see things. Or exclude what you do not want to see. Or feel.

I wanted to believe love could make my dream come true, become real. Make me real.

All the proof was in your actions. Fighting me every step of the way. Calling me crazy. You're right. It is crazy to live that way. I agree.

So if it's TRUE : then I have to accept the reality that you don't care about me. Either you cant, or you are just unwilling. You say you love me. But what does love mean? It seems you only care that I care for you. How much I can give and prove that I care. Prove by sacrificing my needs, time, money, energy.

Every fiber of my being is going against the fact that the only way out of this situation is divorce and foreclosure of my home. Abandoning you. Why does it feel unethical and immoral? Huge conflict within.

I tried to help you and to salvage my credit, I have spent over $15,000 to bail it out . ..because I'd already put so much into it that I want to keep on the same path. I dont want a different anonymous path. I want to stay where its familiar. But then again, why? I've never been happy on this path. From experience, moving on does not guarantee happiness either.

I'm standing my ground. I'm honoring my values of integrity and refusing to tolerate abuse and nonsense.

But yes it's hard to move on bc I am ever-wanting to keep convincing myself and the world ...proof of how mature and dedicated I am, of my own goodness, my own kindness, my own value.

If my value rests on a successful career in marriage then I have discredited myself. I have failed to be a quality product. Yikes.

..because I hid behind it, and I'd do anything to keep up the facade. I am afraid to be seen as alone, maybe. I am afraid to stand up against the abuse bc it means I have failed. That I am faulty. Not worthy. Maybe I asked for it. Or deserve it.

Shame is a terrible feeling.

By the virtue of which I choose to honor, I thereby become less valuable. I protected your reputation. I kept silent. I protected my own reputation as well. Now I am throwing it out the window. Breaking a promise to myself to never do that again. Yes, I have experienced this all before. Many times. Throughout my lifetime. I had to destroy my own identity.

Because I could pretend I belonged. I could pretend I had a healthy relationship and family. But the sacrifice was too much. And I was so off-balance. I was shut off. Closed down. Depressed. Sick.

You refused to lie for me. So I left. We dont have to keep pretending to play house. Maybe that disappointed me. You want to play cops and robbers. I refused. Lol. Whatever.

And maybe the ultimate cage I try to break free from is being forced to stay small, a repeating pattern from throughout my entire childhood. It is the shame I carry. The unworthy nature of my wounded inner child.

When confronted with opening up I remain skeptical and scared. I beat myself up. I feel rejected, disillusioned, hurt, betrayed, and I am ashamed of showing that I am being harmed. I am am afraid to speak up. When I do, I get shut down by you, your family, my attorney, the court, society.

This triple whammy has knocked me off my feet every time I try to stand up. I feel insulted by the slights of neighbors, the sounds of the outside world. I speak up against emotional manipulation and I feel the feather of rejection like a sledgehammer.

... I am accused of being crazy. I post on social media. I get very little support. The message I'm receiving is: your perception is inaccurate, we all have a human right to happiness and respect but you should be ashamed of exposing yourself like that. It makes you look vulnerable, it tarnishes our code of taboo subjects, think about your reputation, bc we as a society are not comfortable with displays of vulnerability. Call a hotline or something.

You know what? I dont need a fucking hotline. My counselor didnt even recognize me during our last phone session. Fuck this system. I'm on my own. And if I have to become more viscous and bitter to fit in, I prefer to stand alone.