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logically-asexual · 1 year

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One more time with feeling

summary:

Part one of this series is 'I can tell I've rotted in your brain', about Logan being slowly pushed away over the years until one day he is kicked out of Thomas's conscious mind and becomes the orange side.

This is part two, about Logan finally coming back.

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Chapter 5

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words: 2630

Logan sat next to Thomas in the office, as Thomas mentally prepared to talk to his employee —not coworker, as Logan had corrected him.

“Repeat after me:” Logan said, “I am the boss.”

“I am the boss.” Thomas repeated.

“It is my job to make the decisions, and it is their job to help me fulfill them.”

Thomas echoed everything his Side said.

“Good.” Logan nodded. “Now, the purpose of your agreement with these people is for you not to overwork yourself and create more, correct?”

“Yes.”

“If they do something that makes you work more instead of less with no further gain or profit, the purpose is not achieved. Therefore a part of the process is wrong and must be fixed.”

“Right.”

Thomas seemed determined for now. This was the third time they tried to fix this problem, but at every attempt Thomas chickened out and ignored Logan’s instructions. Logan could only hope it would finally work this time.

“It is our job to make the decisions and theirs to help us with them.” Logan repeated. “What decision did we make?”

“We’re… returning the stuff they ordered and they will try to find a sponsor to make up for the money lost.”

“Correct. Now all you have to do is tell them to do it.”

Thomas nodded and stood up.

He did it. It wasn’t as hard as he expected, the other person listened and agreed to do what Thomas told them. Logan decided to take advantage of the success and try one more thing.

Thomas gathered the few people working in the office at the moment and asked them for feedback to their communication channels, if there was a way they would rather receive the important information from meetings they missed. A few agreed that the summaries Thomas emailed to them were fine. He didn’t miss, however, how one person in particular rolled their eyes.

“Danny, what do you think?” Logan managed that Thomas’ tone wasn’t angry, but firm, just like a teacher’s.

The employee shifted in their place. At least they had the decency of being embarrassed while everyone stared at them. Not so brave now, Logan thought.

“I guess my inbox does get kind of crowded,” they muttered, “and things are easy to miss.”

“Oh, alright.” Thomas smiled. “Would it help if I sent you a text message instead?”

The other just nodded, not looking Thomas in the eye. Logan was beaming with pride. Now they didn’t have an excuse to ignore Thomas, and everyone else here witnessed the agreement.

Thomas said goodbye to his employees and left the office for the day, leaving them to finish setting up the place for filming their new video soon. He sat in his car, with Logan in the passenger seat.

“See, that wasn’t so—“ Logan was about to remark on how well things had gone when a loud cry made him jump. “Thomas?”

“That was horrible!” he yelled. “I am horrible!” He hit the steering wheel with the side of his closed fist.

Logan frowned. “How can you say that? We set goals to achieve today and we did that successfully, what—“

“I am a terrible person, they’re all going to hate me. What am I going to do?” He hid his face between his hands.

“But— But everything went according to our plan.”

“Didn’t you see their faces? I was supposed to build a good working environment and instead I abuse my power to humiliate someone in front of their coworkers—“

“Thomas, control yourself.”

Thomas pouted at him, but stayed quiet.

“You’re an adult. You were behaving like one.”

“No, I was behaving like an assho—“ Thomas stopped himself when he saw the way Logan’s eyebrows raised. “No, sorry I wasn’t trying to insult you, it’s just that… I don’t… That didn’t feel like myself at all!”

“Well, duh, that’s predictable when you’ve repressed this side of your personality for two years, to the point of forgetting it existed!”

“I thought that we had been over this and now you were going to help me!”

“I am helping you, but it is too hard to tell if you actually want my help, or if you’re going to keep whining every time I make a suggestion.“

“Hey don’t talk to me like that!”

Luckily for Thomas, the windows of his car were up and anyone who happened to pass by would think he was having a heated discussion over the speaker.

“Okay nevermind just…” Thomas tried to relax as he started the car. “I don’t want to think right now, I just want to get home.”

Logan took a deep breath in. “We’re not going home yet.”

“What?”

“We’re going to buy a work desk for your apartment.”

“What?! No! Do you know how expensive furniture is these days? And where am I going to put an entire desk? I can’t change the arrangement of the first floor, that’s where I film!” Thomas’s head was reeling, suddenly finding it hard to believe this was what his life had become.

“It’s an investment for your work and to save us the future medical bills for the back problems you’re getting from that terrible habit you have of working on your couch or your bed.”

“And where do you suppose we get the money for that, Mr….” he didn’t have energy to think of some nickname, “Serious Adult!?”

“Perhaps you could sell some of the useless toys you have laying around the house, and that way you would also make space for the desk.”

Logan looked so arrogant like this, Thomas thought, sitting there looking so satisfied with his own reasoning, staring straight through the windshield, his jaw set.

In hindsight, listening to the old Logan seemed so much easier.

A few hours later they made it back home with a list of possible desk and chair models, their brands, and prices. Thomas walked into his living room and immediately crumpled the list in his hands and threw it across the room.

Logan sank out directly to his bedroom. He let himself fall into the bed. Then, he reached for one of the heavier books on the bedside table and lifted it above his forehead. Before he could use it to test the strength of his skull, a yellow-gloved hand got in the way.

Janus took the book from him as Logan sat up, his hands following it.

“Devolving to your old healthy coping mechanisms, I see…” he drawled as he held the book behind his back, out of Logan’s reach.

Logan didn’t speak, but the narrowed eyes with which he looked up at him and the redness around them told Janus everything he needed to know. His pupils seemed to shine brighter at the moment.

“Come on.” He stretched a hand, “let’s take a break.”

Despite Logan’s current feelings of annoyance at the world, he took Janus’s hand and walked with him to their living room.

Once there, Janus encouraged him to sit down on the couch, and pulled an… interesting object. It was a small, flat, rectangular piece of wood, with three wooden poles pointing out of it, all in a line. Several disks in different colors and sizes were placed in a pyramid, the largest disk at the base, the smallest at the top, with one of the sticks going through the center of all of them.

Logan remembered Thomas had read something about this puzzle, the Tower of Hanoi, a few days ago. The goal was to transport the pyramid from one pole to another, moving only one disk at a time, and never placing a bigger disk on top of a smaller one.

He thanked Janus, took the object from his hands, placed it on the coffee table, and began trying to solve it.

Janus sat back on the couch next to him, reading. Logan experimented, moving the disks around and trying to find a system. He got frustrated a few times when he accidentally undid his progress, when his actions led him to inevitably return the disks to where they started. Eventually, though, he began to notice a pattern. Soon he was moving the disks from one pole to another swiftly, carefully keeping track of his past moves to determine the next one.

Just as he was making the final moves, Virgil barged in.

“Logan,” he breathed, “I need your help.”

Logan’s forehead wrinkled, but he didn’t look up from his task.

“Roman is–”

“Don’t you see he’s busy?” Janus interrupted Virgil, also not looking up from his book as he turned the page.

“Shut up, you slimy piece of—“

Seeing Virgil was about to pick a fight, Logan interrupted. “I’m sorry, Virge, I think I’ve complicated things enough for one day,” he said as he placed the final disk on top of the rest, successfully completing the puzzle.

“You’re going to give up just like that?”

“Give up?” Logan slowly repeated, finally looking up. “Excuse me but I don’t believe you understand—“

“I understand everything and you’re such a coward!” Virgil groaned. “Of course things would get complicated! We knew that but the only way out is just getting through it.”

“I know, Virgil, but I think the process can be postponed until tomorrow when everyone is more accessi—“

“I hate to break it to you, but that’s not going to happen. They're not going to magically become open to what you say, you have to keep insisting.”

“It’s not that simple, I—“ He stopped, closing his eyes and drawing his eyebrows together.

“What?!”

“I fucked up, okay?!” Logan stood. “I fucked up today as I knew and told you I would!”

“What are you talking about? What happened?“

“I just wanted to make it clear to Roman that this fairytale he has Thomas believe he’s living in is a waste of time and energy that will lead him nowhere in life. I wanted to work with him to help Thomas because he can’t go on like this. He’s— he’s daydreaming instead of working, he’s working instead of sleeping, he’s sleeping instead of eating,—“ he began pacing around the room— “he’s got everything backwards! And then Roman just fucking dares try to insist that this is what Thomas needs and that soon enough he’ll be ‘living the life’ whatever that means—“

Virgil began following Logan around, as the other took off his glasses and gestured with them while walking in circles. “Lo…”

“No, I get it.” Sounded like a response but Logan was mostly talking to himself, “Thomas wants this unconventional lifestyle and I must support it but I can’t allow that he’s treated as if he were indestructible. But, again, it’s my fault that what should be a debate devolves into fights and a never-ending stream of childish insults coming my way; my fault and no one else’s. It’s what I should expect, after all, I can’t get one single fucking thing right—“

“Logan!” Virgil called as Logan’s grip on his glasses tightened enough to break them.

That was enough to stop him, giving Virgil enough time to catch up and stand in front of him. He took Logan’s glasses and shook them in his hand, fixing them, before handing them back. Logan finally focused his eyes on Virgil once he put the glasses back on.

Logan’s lips were closed in a thin line.

“Talk to me,” Virgil said.

“I made him cry,” Logan confessed.

Virgil stayed still in stunned silence.

“Patton and Roman… I know they’re so emotive and I can’t keep track and be careful of every single feeling they have because I would become mad just trying to make sense of it all but… I had never made someone cry like that, all on my own. I don’t even know what it was I said.

“Normally that would have been enough as a signal for me to distance myself from them and not come back, but Thomas kept insisting I helped him at work. I couldn’t say no. It took so much effort not to just come back here and hide. I stayed out and did the best that I could. And then that had an unfavorable ending, as well.”

Virgil frowned. “I’m sorry, but I just know that this whole thing will end sooner than you think, if we don’t give up.”

After a pause, Logan continued gingerly. “Virgil. I know you have your own experience with this issue, and there’s a lot that we can learn from it, but not everything in this case is analogous to yours.”

“And what’s different?” He sat down on the couch, and Logan followed.

“When you appeared, you made yourself heard with great resilience, showing a more intimidating and abrasive version of yourself, which was eventually accepted as a meaningful and necessary part of Thomas as it was, in spite of the negatives, because of the positive impact you had anyway. Once accepted, you were able to decide who to be, what felt the most comfortable for you, which was rightfully celebrated and encouraged by everyone.”

Virgil blushed slightly, surprised by the kindness with which Logan described his story.

“In my case, well… I liked who I was before, but I don’t think anybody else did. Despite my efforts to stay that way I was forced into a new unwanted role. I’ve come to terms with the change, and I promised you I would still try to help Thomas, but…”

Both Virgil and Janus were completely silent, focused on Logan. He refused to look at either of them.

“… but you’re asking for me to keep changing, to keep exerting myself just to be able to hold a civil conversation. Thomas wants Logic back as it was before, not me, he wants to pretend nothing is different. If I just were myself —this new me— out there, it would be impossible to even speak. I— I just—“ He sighed. “I’m so tired.”

As he finished, he turned to Virgil, who could now see his eyes were not as shiny as usual, still glowing orange, but too faint, almost back to their usual brown. The bags under them obscuring his appearance even more.

“Lo—“

“If you don’t mind,” Logan said as he stood, “I am going to my room. After everyone gets some rest I… I promise to try again.”

He left no room for argument as he walked up the stairs. Virgil watched him quietly, only hearing Janus turn a page from his book.

“I wish I could help him,” Virgil confessed after a pause.

“He’ll be fine,” Janus replied, and for once Virgil thought he actually believed what he said.

They sat in silence for a while, before Virgil spoke again.

“You know, you could help out, too.”

Janus didn’t acknowledge his words.

“Thomas probably thinks being angry and assertive is selfish and that that means it’s bad. You could help show him that it’s not true.”

Janus scoffed without humor. “Since when do you think selfishness isn’t the devil?”

Virgil bit his lip. “I guess Logan’s absence seems the most direct cause for Thomas’s trainwreck of a life, since he’s been a visible Side of him for so long, but…” He was reluctant to admit it, but he had to keep speaking now. “I know Thomas is missing you, too. Maybe he’s missing a little Remus, even, to get his blood running every once in a while.”

They both chuckled softly at the comment. It felt weird for Virgil. He hadn’t been alone in the same room as Janus for so long without a fight in years.

He didn’t want to stay long enough to ruin it. He stood up and, in an act of bravery, he whispered, “Goodnight, Janus. I hope to see you soon,” before sinking out.

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#a long one!#but i had fun with it hope you do too #thomas sanders #logan sanders #orange side #sanders sides #ts #virgil sanders #janus sanders #one more time with feeling #erase me

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