#I’m tired of putting to smallest amount of banana in smoothies and having it somehow still taste mostly like banana

[whimsyprinx]

banana is too op, we need to nerf banana

[almostviki]

pursed

mmmmmm hello ya’ll. shit’s been wild. um this is 1-2 days late for this exchange (let’s see if this goes up after midnight or not) so I’m incredibly sorry to @swlotakulady34 34 on tumblr for the delay! anyway this is a shortened version of the original concept because i could not get the ending to work out the way i wanted it to so i just cut out the whole thing lmao. the editing’s a bit jank and i swear i’ll fix it later and also probably addd a sequel bc this is mad unfinished and weirdly enough, i feel like this doesn’t even actually answer ur prompt that well because i’m so bad at writing fluff but anyway here’s ur hurt/comfort fic i hope you like it and that everyone else does too!

Title: pursed

Genre: Angst (I really tried to make it fluffy but it wasn’t working out)

Word count: 3,184

Summary: The situation is this: Logan and Patton have been dating for two years and three months when they meet Virgil and Roman. Six months later, Patton asks Logan permission to date them, and Logan reluctantly agrees. Two months after that, the nightmares start again.

Or: Logan is insecure and bad at communicating his needs. 

Ao3 Link!

   Patton shoved his wallet and phone in his back pocket and bustled around the kitchen, searching for his keys.

   "I don't know if I'm going to stay the night," he said. "I'll text you later if it looks like I'm staying."

   "Alright." Logan was stirring soup in a pot, eyes fixed determinedly on the individual bubbles rising and popping, the surface of the water rising and falling as steam expanded, and tried to suppress the feeling of his own hot gas rising in his chest. This wasn't Patton's first time visiting Roman and Virgil's apartment. He went there with enough frequency that he had a small stash of his own clothes at their place, a fact which unsettled Logan in a way he didn't want to analyze. 

   "If I stay, I'll be back tomorrow morning, so we can go to lunch before your calculus class because isn't your test tomorrow?"

   "Yes. It's at eleven."

   "I'll be back by ten, then." Patton stopped rushing around in time to shoot Logan a reassuring smile. "You'll do great though. I know you will."

   Logan knew, too. If there was one class he wasn't worried about failing, it was mathematics. He returned Patton's smile with one of his own and turned off the heat on the pot.  

   "Don't worry if you're late," he said, taking in deep breaths to disguise the unsureness of the words. "I'll understand if you'd spend the morning with them."

   "No, I'll be on time. You're still important to me, Logan. I said we're having lunch together and we are." Patton sighed, running his hands through his hair.  "I don't get the feeling that you're comfortable with this. Do you need me here tonight? Maybe I shouldn't go."

   Logan was either very good at controlling his facial features or he had grown too tired to emote regardless, because he didn't think any of the truth of Patton's words showed on his face.  

   "You didn't manipulate my actions, Patton. I want you to go on this date because it would make you happy. As your boyfriend, it's part of my job to support you."

   "But I don't want you to think I'm not putting you first. I'm going to call them and cancel."

   Logan grabbed Patton's wrist before he could reach behind him to get his phone. "No, you won't. I'm not an egocentric child. I can handle having my boyfriend go on dates and I can handle spending the night alone. Don't alter your plans because of me."

   "Logan, I just-" Patton stopped mid-sentence, searching Logan's eyes for answers. "Are you sure you're okay?"

   "We're okay," Logan said, and if Patton noticed he didn't answer the question he didn't get the opportunity to pry. Logan turned Patton by the shoulders and pushed him in the direction of the door. "Enjoy yourself. Tell Virgil I said hello."

   "What about Roman?"

   "I have nothing to say to him."

   Patton cracked a smile and kissed Logan gently on the cheek. "Be nice. I love you. See you in the morning." He picked up his backpack from the door and was gone.

   Logan waited fifteen minutes for Patton to forget something and burst back into the apartment before releasing the breath he'd been holding. He wanted so badly to throw his mixing spoon across the room, to dump out the pot on the stove onto the tiled kitchen floor and let the broth spread over the kitchen like a violently expanding oil slick, to turn the burner back on and place his hands directly on top and wait until his skin was charred and his hands and head were finally numb to pain.  Logan hadn't been lying; he wanted Patton to go on dates with other people. He wanted Patton to be happy. He just hadn't known making Patton happy would hurt so bad, feel so isolating. The apartment had never felt emptier. There were still bubbles popping on the surface of the broth, but it felt colder than it had just moments ago. If he tasted it, Logan was sure it would be bland.  

   Dimly, Logan wondered what Patton was eating for dinner. Probably something sweet with Virgil's fingerprints on it. It made Logan want to throw up.

Logan and Patton met in freshman year, when both of their respective roommates dropped out and they were forced to room together second semester. Logan's previous roommate tended to keep to himself, and they mostly only exchanged greetings when coming or going. Patton was decidedly the opposite of that. He was a dance major, and somehow his four-hour practices never depleted his boundless supply of energy. Logan sometimes thought Patton managed to put extra hours into his day, because he was in a borderline excessive amount of clubs and weekend expos but still managed to keep up with his schoolwork and find time to laze around the dorm doing nothing. He was also too nice. He would go out for food and bring Logan something as well and then not let Logan pay him back.  

   "I just noticed you haven't left the room except to go to class," he said, holding out the bag. "Gotta keep your energy up if you want all that studying to mean anything."

   Logan bit back a question about how he could possibly know that when Patton himself had hardly set foot in their dorm since sunrise, but he accepted the food graciously and ate it all, just to please him. He pretends he doesn't notice how their fingers brush in the handoff, or how bright Patton's eyes look when Logan takes anything he gives him.

   Three weeks before the end of term, after a dozen more food runs and late nights, Patton set down Logan's coffee with a smile and turned to head to practice.

   "Hey, Patton," Logan said, unable to contain it anymore.  

   "Yeah?" Patton said, stopping midstep.

   "You know you don't have to buy me coffee, right? The coffee shop is down the street, and we also have a coffeemaker in our dorm, so it's a waste of money."

   "Yes, but the coffeemaker doesn't make it the way you like it," Patton pointed out. "So I take the liberty of getting you something you want."

   "But I never asked you to do that."

   "I want to," Patton said, uncharacteristically tired. "Don't you get it Logan? I want to do things for you."

   Logan didn't know how to handle to excessive emotion in Patton's voice, so he just swallowed and nodded, and Patton breathed out heavily and went to practice.  

   Four days later, Logan set a banana smoothie hesitantly on Patton's desk when he returned from his morning calculus class.

   "If we are expressing affection through the exchange of food," Logan said, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt. "Then I would like to, um, reciprocate."

   Patton blinked up at him, but then his smile stretched so wide Logan worried he'd be blinded.  

   "Thank you, Logan," Patton said. He picked up the smoothie and took a sip.  

   They were good for two years before it all came crashing down.  

   "We need to talk," Patton said one day as they were eating dinner on the couch. He'd made spaghetti, which he only does on days he wants to eat with chopsticks, despite Logan telling him numerous times that these are "not that kind of noodle". Logan froze, then set his pasta down and turned to Patton.

   "Is something bothering you?"

   The look on Patton's face was one of apprehension, and even though Logan has seen Patton nervous over the smallest of things, this fear sits deeper in Logan's gut because it's him Patton is scared of. Logan feels dirty and guilty in equal measure.  

   "I have a crush on Virgil and Roman," Patton finally said

   Logan looked at him for a minute, processing the words over and over and still not able to find the correct meaning.  

   "What?"

   "I have for a while now." Patton didn't look at him; his eyes flit across his food, the TV remote, the door, anywhere but Logan's face. "I thought it would go away but...it didn't." He must've caught Logan's rapidly closing expression in the corner of his eye because he was quick to reassure. "I didn't act on it. I wouldn't do that to you. But I can't hide it anymore so...I just wanted you to know."    

   Logan blinked, feeling as if the piece of his brain that's supposed to tell him how to react to this has atrophied in his skull. "Are you polyamorous?"

   Patton shifted uncomfortably. "Can't say I've put a lot of thought into it. I've only been panicking about this for a week or two."

   "What were...what do you want to do about it?"

   Patton's hands dug into his sweater. "I won't do anything about it if you don't want me to."

   What a cop-out.

   Logan had met Roman and Virgil. He didn't dislike them, but he also didn't know them that well. They were Patton's friends, not his. Now he wished he'd gone out more with them, that he'd accepted Patton's invitations to see movies and get pizza, because maybe then he wouldn't have such a twisted, dark-faced image of both of them. His entire being trembled with a foreign and ugly emotion. Patton, for his part, didn't react. He waited, still and silent, for Logan to push back down his frightening emotions and take a deep breath.

   "Thank you for your honesty," he said, "but I need time." His voice sounded painfully formal with how tight it was but if he let a single shred of feeling into his voice he would self-destruct.

   "Of course," Patton said, nodding quickly. "Whatever you need." And it occurred to Logan that Patton thought he'd be angry, thought they might break up over this, but the thought of breaking up with Patton, of living without him, is too bizarre to even consider.  

   "I'm not upset," he said softly. "But this is a lot to process."

   "I understand." Patton matched his volume and tone. He always was a good energy-matcher, great at reading moods and adjusting his own behavior to complement Logan's. Not that this skill comes into play often; Logan made it a habit to always remain as neutral as possible.

   "I love you," Logan tried, and the soft smile Patton gave him evaporates some weight from his chest.  

   "I love you, too."

   And just like that, the decision was already made.

   Roman was loud and brash and stuck too stubbornly to unfounded opinions.  In the beginning it grated on Logan's nerves like nothing else. Logan tried to at least be cordial, to not make this harder than it had to be, but he didn't exactly know what the protocol is for interacting with the people your boyfriend is dating. Roman is taller and louder than Logan and has more arrogance in his pinkie finger than Logan has encountered in the sum total of his life. Patton was enamored by him. Roman's boyfriend, however, was a polar opposite. He was slightly shorter and ganglier than Roman, sometimes looking as if he was swimming in his hoodies and sweaters. He trailed behind Roman quietly most times, but when he had something to say, all he has to do is touch Roman's arm and he'd fall silent, giving Virgil his full attention. Their dynamic is tight, solid like the floors under Logan's feet or the walls around him, and just watching them together, feeding off each other in a perfect loop, made Logan feel immensely off-balance.  

   Logan's phone dinged with a text message from Patton, telling Logan he made it to Virgil and Roman's apartment safely. All the energy in Logan's body went towards sending an affirmative response. He dished out the soup he made for dinner and sat on the couch, letting the hot bowl warm his numb hands. He didn't want to eat, or study, or do anything. Most distinctly, he wanted to not feel like he's being abandoned for no good reason at all.  

   It was only six-thirty but he put his bowl in the fridge and went to bed.

   At midnight, he woke up with a scream on the edge of his lips, sheets damp with sweat. He wasn't crying or shaking or digging his nails into his skin, so it could be worse, all things considered. He can still hear the taunts in the corner of his mind, see the disappointed frown burned into his retinas. Patton's voice echoed in his ears, a mockery of his true tone, yet the words are incisions in Logan's skin, whispers of clingy, indecisive, possessive. It might've been five minutes before he found the strength to get up. It might've been an hour. Logan's grasp on time tends to get a little shaky at times like this.

   As quietly as he can, he stripped from his sweat-soaked clothes and showered, trying not to scrape his skin raw with the stress of his fingernails. and even though the water is scalding he still has gooseflesh on his arms. He didn't cry though. Patton has some kind of sixth sense for when Logan is crying and Logan definitely doesn't want Patton to find him now, definitely doesn't want Patton to ask him what's wrong with those honest eyes of his that make Logan feel guilty for having secrets. So he doesn't cry. He doesn't go back to sleep either. Instead, he walked to their small bookcase and took everything off of it and reorganized it. Up until that point, it was organized by color, but seeing the blocks of red and purple made him sick to his stomach. In the morning Patton would see it, and he'd know that Logan didn't get any sleep, but at right then Logan's biggest concern was quelling the stress building in his chest. He put them in alphabetical order, the correct order, he convinced himself, but then doubted himself and sorted them by date of publication. By the time the sun has risen, his hands had stopped shaking and his heart wasn't beating out of his chest anymore, but he felt as if he'd been awake for much longer than one night.

   He's no stranger to nightmares. He used to get night terrors all the time as a kid. He'd wake up screaming and crying, with no air in his lungs and fire crawling up his skin. He hardly remembered the dreams then but he remembered the unadulterated panic that followed, and his mother would grab him in her arms and soothe him softly until he wasn't shaking and his heart wasn't beating out of his chest.

   Over time the night terrors lessened into ordinary nightmares, which meant he didn't wake up screaming like he was dying, but on the downside, he remembered these dreams. Formless, plotless, sometimes just swatches of color on a blank background mixing and crashing themselves into a crime scene. When he was nine he woke up and vomited on the floor of his bedroom, hair practically standing on end. That was when his mother's patience ran out.

   "Clean up your mess," she said without emotion. "You really should get a handle on this, Logan. Whatever is troubling you, fix it."

   So Logan cleaned up his own vomit and threw his clothes in the wash and sat on his bed, afraid of going to sleep for fear of waking up again worse than before. He dragged himself out of bed and padded to the living room, where his parents kept a giant bookshelf that was mostly decorative, but the books on it were definitely real. He picked out a random book on sociology and started reading, even though he didn't understand over half of the words in it. As long as he was avoiding sleep, he might as well do something useful with his time.

   Nothing helped. Not village remedies of teas and meditation, not medicines, not simply staying awake until he thought he was too tired to dream. His psychiatrist told him at age thirteen that he was internalizing too many of his feelings and they were now manifesting in a negative light. Logan didn't see how that could be possible. How could he be internalizing feelings when his mother always said he didn't have any?

   Now in his dreams, his mother's pursed lips were replaced by Patton's narrowed eyes, her silent judgment overshadowed by Roman's biting tone and Virgil standing with his hood up, face hidden to shadows. Instead of birthdays, he fears disappointing math tests and home-cooked meals with no one at the table with him. The only thing that stays constant is a door that slams over and over again, a thousand times in his lifetime, and absence of countless figures followed by Patton walking out the door, leaving him and his smoothies behind, telling Logan that he'd always liked the other two better anyway.  

   His fingers itch to call Patton. Logan throws the phone across the room. He's not going to call Patton because Patton is staying the night at Virgil and Roman's apartment and Logan doesn't want to ruin that, and anyway if he calls Patton he'll probably wake up the others and then they'll be asking after him, their fake worry indiscernible to the naked eye from their truthful concern. If he calls Patton he'll be admitting that he's weak, that he can't handle himself, that even though he's twenty years old he still has night terrors that leave him too scared to move or think and then Patton will leave him because he's been wasting his time.

   Even worse: Patton won't be mad. He'll come home and wrap Logan up like his mom used to do before things went bad. Logan will tell him what he's scared of and Patton will reassure him that he's making things up, that he doesn't love Logan any less now that he's also dating two other people, And then Logan will cry, not because he's relieved but because he's nervous and biding his time for the escape. Because it took two years for him to realize how fragile everything is around him.

   He won't call Patton because whether his boyfriend picks up the phone or not shouldn't wreck him the way it will either way.

   Patton makes it home by 9:30 and finds Logan on the couch.

   "You look tired," he said, immediately concerned. "Did you even sleep?"

   "I've been up a while revising," Logan says, and Patton's lips form a thin line. They look just like they do in Logan's dreams.

   "Okay," Patton says, unconvinced. "You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?

   "Of course," Logan says, and crossed out another equation on his notes. "But I assure you I"m in perfect condition. How were Roman and Virgil?"

   Patton's eyes light up as he begins to talk, and Logan thinks of boiling soup, closes his eyes, and holds his tongue between his teeth with all the control he can muster.