zhydoesart - Tumblr blog

zhydoesart · 8 months ago

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"when the rain stops" (acc version)

for @kieraelieson for @tsspromptmonth 2024 Sleepy Bean Cafe event.

Prompt: Logan is an Ancient being of some kind, who's never needed things like 'companionship' or 'affection' or 'physical touch'. Until a human ever so gently breaks down his barriers to give him those things revealing he's been in desperate need of them all along.

AO3 version (with stylized section breaks)

Logan has been dead so long he can hardly remember what it was like to be alive.

He stopped counting after the first couple hundred years, once the memories of his human life had begun to fade, and, worse, he’d stopped mourning their loss.

The vampires in stories always lived out in big old mansions in the middle of dark forests. That’s half true of Logan. He does live in the middle of a forest—the trees provide good cover, both to hide his home and him, and to shield him from the sun which irritates his skin—but he doesn’t need a mansion.

Logan’s home is a sturdy old house made of dark wood. It has two stories, and some of the details are too finely crafted to be anything other than hand-carved. He supposes he must have known a builder, must’ve somehow convinced them to build this house for him, either through money or favors… but he can’t recall anything about them.

Logan’s house has two bedrooms. His own is set toward the back of the house, taking up much of its small second floor. Its westmost windows look out over, of course, the forest. Beyond the forest, on the horizon, lie the mountains, their snow-coated peaks rising up beyond the feathered tips of the sea of dark pine trees spanning as far as he can see.

He doesn’t have much in the way of furniture, but the room is small enough that it still feels cosy rather than empty with just a bed, desk, and two bookshelves. The furniture he does have is made from the same dark wood as the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the bark of the trees outside. Each shelf is filled neatly from one end to the other with perfectly pristine books—Logan has read each and every one at some point during his… extended life. He’s read several of the more compelling works of fiction more than once.

His bed, in the corner nearest the big window, is made, dark sheets pulled neatly up, tucked under his pillow. His desk, too, is clean. (In fact, not a single surface in the room, nor the entire house, has even a spot of dust.) Stacked in the corner is a small pile of paper scraps, on which are his late-night scribblings. Some of them are poetry; some of them are journalistic observations; some of them are ill-advised, and even poorer-executed, attempts at creative fiction. Over his long life, he’s tried his hand at many things, the majority of which did not stick.

Some of them had stuck, though. Paintings of landscapes decorate the walls of the hallway. Logan had been taken completely by surprise when he’d attempted to recreate the view of the mountains from his window and found that he was calmed by the smooth strokes of the brush. By his own standards (which are, admittedly, not up to par of those of an artist), the paintings aren’t bad. He doesn’t have much use for art, but he finds them pleasing to look at, so he hangs them on the wall.

The second bedroom has another bed. As far as Logan remembers, it’s never been anyone’s, and he wonders why it’s there. Had it been made for someone, once?

Logan likes when it rains. For one, because of the cloud cover, he doesn’t have to worry about the sunlight if he chooses to go out. He doesn’t mind the sharp drop in temperature whenever it rains, either, because he can huddle beside the brick fireplace with a book and a blanket, and the tapping of the rain on the wooden roof makes for the perfect white noise while he reads.

Logan’s mind tunes it out the first time, but the second time, it’s much louder. He lets out a minute exhale, setting his book aside on the coffee table. His joints protest—they always stiffen when cold weather rolls around. He shrugs the blanket off, laying it neatly over the back of the couch.

Who on earth would it be knocking on his door, in the middle of nowhere, in the pouring rain? As far back as he can remember, he’s never had any visitors, not even the accidental traveller who got lost in the forest. He’s so far from civilization that someone would have to come here on purpose… or else they are very, very far out of their way.

The door sticks in the frame as he tries to open it, having swollen from the humidity of the rain. Finally Logan manages to open the door wide enough to see the person standing on his doorstep.

The first thing he notices is that they’re absolutely drenched, from their bedraggled purple hair, hanging in their eyes and dripping water onto their cheeks, to the visibly soaked black leather boots that stop midway up their shins. They stand, stance uneven, hands tucked as deep as they can go into the pockets of their jacket, but it’s clearly not waterproof either, judging from the way their whole body shakes when they shiver.

Logan’s predisposition to be annoyed at a total stranger encroaching on his space vanishes as he takes in exactly how pathetic they look, sopping wet and helpless as they drip onto his porch.

“I assume you’re seeking shelter?” he says, although it’s really more of a statement than a question.

“P-please,” the human pleads through chattering teeth.

Logan sighs. “Alright, come inside.” He ushers them in. He has to push harder on the door than usual to get it to close, as it again sticks in the frame, but it latches, and he throws the lock into place.

Logan turns to the human. “Take those off.” He gestures to their boots and their jacket. The human complies, pulling back their wet hair out of their face, and he catches a glimpse of two heterochromatic eyes staring at him in green and purple. (Alright, perhaps not completely human—he’s never seen a full-blooded human with purple eyes.) He examines their shirt, which is marginally drier than their coat had been, but not by much, and it’s probably better to simply get them into a fresh change of clothes than expect them to dry naturally. “Stay here.” They nod, settling into a sitting position on the floor of his living room.

Logan returns a few minutes later with a bundle of dry clothes picked from his own closet. “The bathroom is upstairs. Enter the first door on the left.” He hands it to the human.

They smile with what he imagines is probably gratefulness. “Thank you.”

Logan takes his place next to the fire once more, picking up where he left off in his book.

He smells them before he sees them. Being a vampire has awarded Logan with a keen sense of smell, but the rain had made it difficult for him to note their scent. He picks it up now, a pleasant, a strong scent of woodfire with hints of… hm, cinnamon. They approach tentatively, socked feet muffling their footsteps to an almost silent quality. They take a moment too long to figure out what to say, and so Logan looks up from his book.

“Better?”

“Uh, yes. Thanks.” The human tries unsuccessfully to conceal their shiver with a shrug.

“This blanket is big enough for both of us.”

Their eyes widen. “Oh, uh, thanks.” Their face reddens. “I guess I wasn’t hiding that very well, was I?” They sit on the floor next to him.

“Not at all,” Logan says with a small smirk. He wraps the blanket around their shoulders. “What brings you here?” he asks after a few minutes pass in silence.

“I was… out looking for herbs. I live in a village that’s on the edge of this forest. Uh, one of them. Somewhere.”

Logan raises an eyebrow. “From your apparent lack of herbs, I take it you were unsuccessful?”

The human groans. “Yeah, I, uh, I lost my bag in the forest somewhere. I slipped and fell in the rain trying to find shelter and I didn’t notice I dropped it.”

“What were you looking for?” Logan asks.

“Oh, well, I have anxiety, and I have trouble sleeping sometimes. When I make heather into a tea, it seems to help.” They look away.

“Witch?” Logan says.

“Who’s asking?” They side-eye him suspiciously.

“Vampire,” Logan supplies helpfully.

To his surprise, they don’t back away, and they don’t flinch. Logan doesn’t have much contact with humans, but he’d assumed all humans were taught to be scared of vampires. Instead, their gaze takes on a shade of understanding. “Ah. Yes, then, witch.” They offer their hand out to him. “I’m Virgil.”

“Logan,” he offers in return. Virgil’s hand has a slight roughness against his palm.

“So, Logan, what brings you here?” Virgil asks with a half-smirk.

“I don’t… recall.” Unbidden, his brows furrow. “The human mind is only equipped to hold on to a finite amount of information, memory included, and I’ve lived for long enough that my oldest memories have been discarded.”

The look of understanding in Virgil’s eyes deepens, and something about that, being known and understood, makes Logan vaguely uncomfortable. “How much have you forgotten?”

“I only recall the past few hundred years of being a vampire. I don’t have anything from when I used to be human.” Logan aggressively averts his eyes, choosing not to acknowledge that Virgil is perceiving him on a level he’s never experienced.

“Oh. That sucks.”

“I suppose.” Logan gazes at the flickering fire. “I don’t know what I’m missing, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

“Are you alone here? Not that it’s… well, any of my business.”

“Yes. And, when the rain ceases, I will be again.”

Virgil seems to understand the implication, falling silent, and Logan’s eyes return to his book.

The rain does not cease the next day, nor the day after that. It’s been hundreds of years since Logan last saw rain this heavy in these parts of the woods. Whatever material had been used to seal the wood together must be miraculously hardy, because it doesn’t leak.

Virgil keeps to themself, having taken up residence in Logan’s spare bedroom. They keep the door open, and a few times he’s walked past and caught a glimpse of Virgil, well, doing magic. He’s met witches before, but they tend to be somewhat secretive, and whatever relationships he’s maintained with them have tended to be strictly business, so their displays of magic are few and far between. With Virgil, however, it seems to flow out of them as naturally as they expel carbon dioxide from their lungs when they breathe.

“I’ve seen you watching me.” Logan jumps, turning suddenly to see Virgil smirking at him from the armchair in the corner of the living room. “You’re curious about my magic, right?”

“Yes,” Logan admits, adjusting his glasses. No point in pretending after Virgil caught him red-handed.

“I can show you?” Virgil tilts their head in a come here? gesture. Logan sits on the sofa. “I’m not really that powerful or anything, I’ve just got, like, the basic magic talent, but I guess that’s impressive to anyone who’s not a witch, right?” As they speak, their hands begin to glow faintly purple, and the light reflecting almost makes it look as though their eyes are glowing too. Virgil holds out a hand to Logan, who stares at it. “Here, take my hand for a second? Trust me.” Logan cautiously takes the extended hand, and he shudders as a small shock of warmth instantly shoots through his body, involuntarily pulling away. “Cool, right?”

“I…” Logan pauses. “It is… interesting.”

“Do you have any special powers or anything?” Virgil asks, twirling around their still-glowing hands in a mesmerizing pattern that draws Logan’s gaze as if he was hypnotized. “You know, as a vampire?”

“Nothing you wouldn’t expect,” Logan answers, and then wonders why he’s telling all this to a complete stranger. “I have rudimentary dark vision. I don’t need to sleep every night, and I have the ability to go much longer without feeding than most creatures do, but the limit seems to be around two weeks.”

“Let me guess, you’ve tested it?” Virgil says, and while their tone is teasing, Logan gets the impression that they genuinely want to know.

“Yes,” he responds, more flustered than he would prefer to acknowledge that this human has been able to read him like a book.

“Why am I not surprised?” Virgil laughs. The sound is pleasant. “Vampires don’t actually burn in sunlight, right? That seems… really inconvenient.”

“Ah, no. That is a common misconception. From my experience, I simply tend to sunburn much more easily than the average human.”

“I can relate,” Virgil says, gesturing to their exposed skin, which is quite pale.

The conversation has rolled to a slow stop, and Logan fishes around for something else to say before it gets awkward. “Have you been sleeping alright?”

Virgil blinks, frowning. “Oh, uh, yeah. I didn’t think you’d remember that? When I said I have insomnia. I thought you said your memory was bad?” They raise one eyebrow.

“Unfortunately, that only applies to autobiographical memories. When it comes to objective fact, my memory is perfect. …How have you been sleeping?”

Virgil plays with the sleeve of their jacket. “Oh, you know… Not well,” they admit. “But it’s, it’s fine, y’know? I’m used to it.”

“You shouldn’t have to be,” Logan says with a gentleness that surprises even himself. “I would prefer for you to be able to go home, but, as the rain doesn’t seem as though it will cease anytime soon—as long as you are under my roof, I would like for you to be comfortable. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Virgil tilts their head as they look at him, like his confession has shifted something in the way they think about him. “Uh, nothing I can think of at the moment. I used to have a cat, once, and I think having something else breathing and warm next to me helped… but I’m not asking you to, uh, cuddle with me or anything. I, uh…” Virgil sighs. “No, nothing I can think of.”

“Alright.” Logan studies Virgil. “Is there anyone waiting for you in your village?”

“No, it’s just me. I’m all alone. Kinda like you, I guess.” Virgil offers Logan an awkward half-smile. “Guess we can be, uh, alone, together?”

Logan mirrors with an equally as awkward half-smile. “Yes, I suppose.” Sensing the conversation had come to its end, he gets to his feet. What was it again that he had come down the stairs to do…?

Logan, in his own opinion, has been doing well at ignoring the nagging pain in his temples. It tends to occur when he's particularly hungry and has gone too long without eating. He’d been running low on blood before the storm had hit, but he’d assumed he would’ve been able to obtain more before he’d gotten to the “starving” stage. He was incorrect, and the pain had been getting worse every day in the last week. But he’s doing fine.

Which is why it comes as such a surprise when he wakes up on the floor of his bedroom to see Virgil peering down at him.

“You okay?” Virgil asks uncertainly.

“What happened?” Logan asks. At that moment, he’d been trying to sit up, and simply finds that he cannot—he’s too weak.

Virgil’s eyes narrow. “I’m going to hazard a guess, based on how pale you look right now, that you haven’t eaten the entire time I’ve been here, for whatever reason, and you just collapsed from hunger. Does that sound about right?”

“Perhaps,” Logan admits reluctantly. “But I'm fine.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Virgil says as Logan fails to sit up a second time.

“I don’t need help.” He manages to very slowly clamber to his feet, but the moment he takes a step forward, he teeters again, and, to his embarrassment, Virgil catches him.

“Yeah, you do,” Virgil says with the most firmness Logan has heard them use. “Why haven’t you eaten?”

Logan, accepting that he can’t excuse his way out of this—for some reason, Virgil seems to care about his wellbeing—sighs. “I ran out.”

Virgil’s eyebrows rise. “Oh, great, I can help with that.” In his relatively ill state, it takes Logan a moment to realize that Virgil pulled their jacket down off of their shoulder and is baring their neck to him.

“No,” he says, forcefully pushing away from Virgil and attempting to seem as though he’s found his balance.

“Why not?” Virgil is the picture of innocence, eyes big and head slightly tilted to one side.

“Because…” Logan growls in frustration.

“Got some internalized vamp-phobia in there?” Virgil prods gently.

“I do not wish to harm you,” Logan says softly.

“Have you hurt somebody before?”

“Well, no…”

“Then why do you think you might hurt me?” Virgil gets closer.

“I’ve never fed from a living being before”—as far as I know—“how can I be sure I wouldn’t hurt you? What if I couldn’t control myself?”

“Logan.” Virgil snorts. “I’m a witch. I may be pretty low-level, but I can defend myself.” They hold up their finger, and a small flame erupts out of it before extinguishing. “If it came down to it, I’d stop you before you hurt me.” Virgil once again exposes their neck, and Logan tears his eyes away from it and back up to theirs. “Logan. You’re starving. Let me help you.”

“Fine,” Logan says finally. “But we should move to somewhere more comfortable.”

“I’m ready whenever you are.” Virgil, for once not wearing their jacket, waits patiently on the couch. Logan nods, sitting next to them. In such close proximity to Virgil’s neck, he can feel his fangs extend in his mouth. He takes a deep breath before biting.

Almost immediately, Logan gets a rush of energy, and he reminds himself that he needs to pay full attention to what he’s doing to ensure that he can control himself.

Virgil, to their credit, doesn’t make a single sound the entire time Logan is drinking their blood. Their eyes open slowly and alight on Logan with a drowsy sort of languidness, not quite focused.

“Are you alright?” Logan asks softly.

“Hm?” Virgil stares at him for a moment. “Oh, yeah. That didn’t hurt as badly as I was expecting it to.”

“No?” Logan’s brows furrow.

“No, it was kind of nice,” Virgil smiles. “Is there some sort of calming agent in that vampire saliva of yours?”

“I, I’m not sure.” It isn’t something he’d ever considered before, but it certainly would make it easier for a vampire to feed.

Would that mean it was a form of nonconsensual drugging? He certainly hadn’t gotten Virgil’s permission for that, only to feed from him to keep Logan from starving. Surely this then went beyond the bounds of that agreement—

“Hey.” Virgil lightly pats Logan’s hand. “What’re you overthinking about. I know that look. I own that look.”

“Do you feel violated?” Logan blurts.

“What?” Virgil laughs. “Logan, what are you talking about?”

“I can’t help but think you may be onto something with the saliva hypothesis…”

“Aaand now you think you drugged me? You didn’t know.” Virgil leans up against Logan, more in the way a pet wants to be near its owner than in a struggling to hold themself upright way. “Not your fault.”

“I… suppose…” It’s taking most of Logan’s concentration to string together words into sentences with Virgil’s warm body up against his much colder one. “What are you… doing?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?” Logan repeats.

“Oh.” Virgil notices they’ve pressed themself up against Logan. “I wanted to be… near you?” they say shyly. “I think, like alcohol, vamp saliva can’t really make me do anything I didn’t already want to, just makes me less anxious about it. Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Logan says quickly, mind stuck on Virgil wanting to be near him. “You’re warm.”

Virgil smirks. “Let me guess, you’re cold-blooded?”

“Perhaps,” Logan replies, a small smirk of his own slipping unbidden onto his face.

“That works just fine for me.”

Logan’s book is still on the end table where he’d left it last, and he can just barely reach it from here. Virgil grumbles softly when he jostles them, so he does his best to stay still once he can hold the book on his lap.

After about half an hour, it occurs to Logan that Virgil has been very quiet and very still. Sure enough, they've fallen asleep tucked into his side. He has the very bewildering realization that, not only does he enjoy Virgil’s warmth, not only is the pressure of Virgil’s body against his own calming, but a part of him feels some sort of affection for this human that he's known less than a week. And… he realizes he's going to miss them when they leave.

Virgil ends up sleeping for four hours—they must have really needed the rest. Logan’s finished his book and is a few chapters into rereading it by the time they begin to stir.

“Did I fall asleep?” they ask, voice rough, and Logan is overtaken by an unprecedented surge of… fondness?

“Yes,” he says, resisting the urge to kiss their forehead—what is happening?

Logan has never needed anyone else, he has been fine on his own this entire time, and he will be fine again when they leave.

“And you let me do that?” Virgil cranes their neck around to look at him, clearly perplexed. If Logan had to guess, judging by their demeanor, he would say that the calming effects of his saliva have worn off at least most of the way, if not entirely.

“You're warm,” he says again.

Virgil shrugs. “Fair enough, I guess.” They settle again, this time with their head on his shoulder. Their soft purple hair brushes against his neck in a pleasant way. “Feeling better with some blood in your system?”

“Yes, thank you.” The fang marks on Virgil’s neck are crusted with dried blood. “I would like to clean your neck.”

“Oh, yeah, alright.”

Virgil sits on the closed lid of the toilet, and Logan runs warm water over a rag. They wince, hissing slightly through their teeth when he touches the bite marks, and he pulls away.

“Tell me if I'm hurting you,” Logan says, making sure to look Virgil in the eye.

“Yeah.” They nod, and he wipes away the crusted blood as gently as he can. “Hey, Logan?”

“Mm?”

“I think one of my ancestors knew you.”

Logan’s hand stills for a moment. “What?”

“Her name was Cassidy. Do you…?”

Logan shakes his head. “Like I told you before, I don't have many memories from before I was on my own. …Why do you think she might’ve known me?”

“My mother used to tell me stories, passed down on her mother’s side of the family, about a strange, kind man with gray eyes who came from the woods. She was a witch, much more powerful than me. You were her friend, I think. Helped her with potions and stuff, back when the villagers came to her asking for her to heal their sicknesses. Now we have modern medicine, y'know, so I mostly practice for, well, myself…” They trail off.

“It's possible.” The odds are probably low that there's another kind gray-eyed vampire living in these woods. “It's likely.”

Virgil stays quiet for the few minutes it takes Logan to finish cleaning the wound. “That's not really necessary,” they attempt when he reaches for the bandages.

Logan raises an eyebrow. “I don't want you getting an infection because of me.”

“Yeah, alright,” Virgil relents in an exaggeratedly begrudging way. “If you insist.” They sit still, allowing him to loosely wrap a length of bandage around their neck. “Satisfied?”

“Yes,” Logan says.

That night, while Logan is painting, Virgil appears in his doorway, blinking in the low light.

“Hey. Sorry.”

“What is it?” Logan turns away from his canvas.

“I can't sleep,” they admit. One of their hands grips the doorframe as they squint in the direction of his voice in the dark.

Logan carefully sets down his paintbrush. “You would like me to stay with you.” It isn't a question.

“Uh, yeah. Please? If that's alright.”

Logan brushes past Virgil, taking their hand to lead them down the hallway to the spare bedroom. It simply makes the most sense, considering he can see in the dark and they cannot.

The next day, the rain stops.

Virgil joins Logan at the kitchen window. “Storm’s finally passed, you think?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Logan says. “I should walk you back to your village.”

“Aw, you wanna make sure I get back safe?” Virgil smirks.

“Yes,” Logan says with an honesty that surprises himself. He refuses to look at Virgil, and they ascend the stairs a few minutes later to grab their meager belongings.

It takes the both of them to figure out the way back to Virgil’s village. With the wet ground, they each have at least one moment where they almost slip in the mud and have to grab onto the other for purchase. Logan marks the trees with a dab of bright blue from his paintbrush as they pass so he can find his way home.

“Well, here’s me,” Virgil says, gesturing to a small hut. Judging by its size, it only has a single room, and it’s not run-down, exactly, but it’s not in the best shape either. The heavy rain lasting the past week clearly hasn’t helped. “Thanks for, well, everything.”

Logan nods stiffly, and Virgil smiles at him before turning away.

“Wait.”

Virgil freezes. They turn slowly to look at him, and Logan realizes it’d been himself who’d spoken.

“I don’t… want you to go,” he admits with great difficulty.

“No?” Virgil asks softly. Logan almost thinks they sound hopeful.

“I thought I was fine being on my own, because I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t been, but now that I have to go back to it… I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Logan, eyes fixed on his shoes, is taken by surprise when Virgil throws their arms around him, but it’s a pleasant surprise, a relief.

“I don’t really wanna go back either,” they mumble into his shoulder. “I thought that’s what you wanted, and I was gonna go back to the village for you, because I thought that was what you wanted.”

“I want you to stay with me,” Logan says into Virgil’s hair.

“That works just fine for me.”

#sanders sides #ts analogical #analogical #sasi #sasi au #written as a qpr but you can interpret however you want !#sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfiction

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zhydoesart · 11 months ago

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(screen-reader friendly version) Two Sides of the Same Coin - Chapter 12: unfortunate

Logan and Remus are talking quietly on the other side of the room when Virgil sits up with no warning.

“Acorn!” he yells, and poor Patton jumps.

“Excuse me?” inquires Logan, one eyebrow raised.

“My frog. I left him in my room. I hope he’s okay, but I can’t leave him there.” Virgil struggles to get up. He pushes away Patton’s hands as he attempts to help, but as Virgil tries to stand, he makes a strangled sound and clutches at his left eye. He doubles over.

“Virgil?” Patton says, face scared.

“M… my eye…” His head pounds again, and he’s no longer able to block it out, but on top of that, there’s a sharp pain that jabs at the back of his eye, persistent and excruciating.

After a minute, the pain has subsided. Virgil pulls his hand away from his face, eye still closed, and, to his utmost horror, there’s some kind of black tar on his hand that’s awfully reminiscent of the exact shade of black of his sclera. He glances at Logan and then at Remus, hand tilted down so they can see why he’s so frightened. He can feel himself starting to cry, and he rubs at his open eye, only to find that even his tears are black. “Oh, oh god, what…?”

“Virgil.” Virgil forces himself to look at Logan. “I promise you I’ll figure out what’s happening to you. It might take me a little longer, but I will figure it out.” He rubs at the bridge of his nose. “I’ll get Acorn for you. It would be unwise for you as you are now to leave this room. I will be back soon.”

The hallway is empty when Logan steps out of Remus’ room, to his relief. He strides across the hall to Virgil’s door.

There’s a tank on the far side of the room, situated on a table against the wall, but as Logan draws closer, he sees that it’s empty. “Acorn?” he calls softly—this is silly, would a frog really respond to its name?—searching the room with his eyes. There’s a very quiet croaking sound, and Logan traces it back to Virgil’s bed. He’d rather not do this, but he gets on his hands and knees, and, sure enough, underneath the bed is a small brown frog.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He can’t quite reach. The frog stares at him. “Virgil’s worried about you.” The frog—wasn’t his name Acorn?—takes a small hop closer to Logan. Yes, that’s it. Can he… understand what Logan’s saying? “I came here to get you and bring you to him.” Another hop closer. He holds his breath until Acorn is sitting in the palm of his hand, then carefully wriggles back out from underneath the bed. He adjusts his shirt, which was riding up, tucking it back into his waistband.

He stares back at Acorn. “I… suppose I can see the appeal. Your large eyes create an illusion of innocence, which could contribute to you appearing to most people in a way that could be described as… adorable.”

Logan exits Virgil’s room with no trouble, closing the door with a quiet click.

There’s Remus’ door. He hurries to get inside. The longer he’s away from the other sides and alone out in the open, the more exposed he is.

Wait. No.

This isn’t right. He was just over there, but he's back in front of Virgil's door. He remembers walking to Remus’ door.

The shadows are hungry.

Logan walks to Remus’ door. Again, he's back where he started. Stay calm, Logan. This may be an illogical situation, but it isn’t one you can’t handle.

It’s too dark. This is all wrong.

He can't see the end of the hallway or the place where the stairs are supposed to be. The shadows are too thick, and they move. He knows that after what happened with Virgil it's not just a trick of the mind. He wishes he could summon a weapon like Remus' morning star or Roman's sword, but he's not a Creativity side and he isn't in the Imagination, so he can't freely summon things at will. Instead, he subconsciously pulls Acorn closer to his chest in his cupped hands.

Logan’s eyes dart from side to side in an attempt to keep his gaze on as much of the shadows as he can. What next? If going forward isn’t an option… try going the other way.

When he walks far enough in the other direction, he’s right back where he started. Again.

Well, if Logan can’t reach the others, he should at least go back to Virgil’s room—maybe he’ll be safe there.

If something happens to him, will they even know?

The door is locked. Impossible. It had swung open with ease before, and Logan doesn’t think he’d locked it when he left.

Had he?

The shadows swarm nearer.

Logan tries the door handle again. Pulls so hard it rattles the door on its hinges. Please.

He can feel them—no, it.

[glitchy text] The Darkness. [end glitchy text]

It’s calling to him, and Logan can’t let himself answer.

The door handle still doesn’t turn. Logan takes a closer look, and the gray door is beginning to crack. Not the kind of cracks that come from damaged wood. Not those cracks. No, these are the cracks that cover Roman’s walls. They’re lengthening and deepening even as he watches, and as Logan observes (one hand on the door), one of the cracks touches his hand.

He jerks back as if he’s been burned— [glitchy text] yes [end glitchy text], no, [glitchy text] come to me [end glitchy text], I refuse, [glitchy text] join me [end glitchy text], get out of my head —

What can he do? What is he supposed to do?

Logan turns to face the hallway, his heart figuratively beating in his throat.

Something flickers in front of him, appears on the ground—an enormous yellow snake. It opens its maw, sharp teeth menacing. Is it going to bite him?

The sound that comes from the snake is a hiss. Logan knows that, deep down. But he can understand the one word amidst the hissing.

Run.

The snake is gone.

Logan doesn’t need to be told twice. As panic starts to rise up in his throat—or is that bile—he takes off at a full sprint. Where is he going? Away, just away, if he can escape, behind him the whispers from [glitchy text] the Darkness grow louder and louder [end glitchy text]—

And then Logan runs into something solid. Someone. Instinctively, he knows who it is, even before he lifts his head to look.

(At some point while fleeing, he’d dropped Acorn—maybe he’ll be safe, Logan hopes Acorn will be safer away from him.)

Logan finds himself staring into the face of Roman. His eyes are crazed, and his smile doesn’t seem quite right—it makes it appear almost as if his face is warped unnaturally, like melting candle wax.

I’m sorry, Virgil. I promised you I’d figure it out, but I think perhaps I’m too late.

“I’ve been looking for you.” And there’s a sickening crack and a blossom of pain as Roman brings the hilt of his sword up to hit Logan over the head with it. Then, nothing.

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