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This was… surreal. Remus spent a split-second gawking at the familiar figure standing at the ice machine for the motel he was staying at. This, Remus had not been expecting. True, he had taken to staying at places like this when trying to track down Logan because he knew it was the type of place Logan stayed at when on the run, but it had been more about getting into the right head space. He hadn’t expected to stumble upon the man himself while wearing sweats and a t-shirt 10 minutes before he was planning to go to bed.
He’d lost Logan’s trail once again 2 days ago when Logan had ducked out of the research lab he’d been working at for the last month (with a few electronic souvenirs) and had yet to pick it back up. It hadn’t been a surprise after the last 6 months, but it had still been unbelievably frustrating. Logan always seemed to be 2 steps ahead of Remus and 5 steps ahead of everyone else.
Remus had taken it upon himself to personally track down ‘Logan Berry’ after he’d been drugged and left on a kitchen floor by the criminal. His boss seemed inclined to give Remus free reign especially after he’d managed to catch that first trail a couple of months into the investigation where no one else had gotten anywhere close.
‘Logan Berry’ was good. There was a reason he was called “The Ghost of the Dark Web.” He could easily disappear in a moment from the internet and, as Remus had quickly found out, real life. He could fade into the chatter of everyday life in a moment and he could do it incredibly well. This had been made clear as Remus dug into the identity of Logan Berry.
The thing about Logan Berry was he looked so real. It’s why when he’d originally been sent to look for the hacker and eco-terrorist, everyone had thought he was looking for Virgil. Virgil who had no one in his life but dead parents and a roommate, lacked a college degree, and worked a bunch of odd jobs, many of which had paid cash. It was a laughable thought now that Remus had gotten to know Virgil and contextualized his history, but at the time he’d seemed like the obvious cover story for a cybercriminal.
Logan Berry, on the other hand had two living parents that lived in the next state, had spoken at many colleges around the world, and had a string of connections from his undergraduate professors through his PhD advisor. Clearly, he was real.
He was not real.
Remus would find with a bit of digging that the nice couple whose names were on Logan’s birth certificate had never had any children. The degrees and references were mostly fake, though he had actually presented at many colleges and he did seem to know his stuff. Remus had a theory that he had gotten a degree under a different name at some point.
The only person who seemed to actually know him as more than as a passing acquaintance was Virgil, and Remus was convinced at this point that Virgil was completely in the dark when it came to Logan’s criminal activities.
Knowing all of that, he was sure to have slipped away and created another just as good cover within a week of the drugging incident. The trail had run cold. Or, so it would seem, but Remus was nothing if not stubborn. He’d found just the lightest trail after months of looking in the form of a name Virgil had mentioned in passing once. That name had ended up being an alias of Logan that had gone dormant two days after Logan fled the first time, but it had given him something. He’d dug his teeth into that something and had managed to track Logan down, but he’d slipped away into the night once again. That had set off a vicious game of cat and mouse between Remus and Logan that had spanned the last four months.
The cycle had been doomed to repeat again when he’d lost him a couple of days ago. In defeat, Remus had retired to this little motel in a nearby town to regroup. When he had, he had not anticipated this.
Logan’s back was to the door giving Remus a few precious seconds to think. He darted back to his room next door to grab his wallet, car keys, and handcuffs. Everything else, he could come back for later. Remus heard footsteps as Logan left the ice machine area. He walked past Remus’s open motel door, likely to return to his own room. Remus dashed out behind him and grabbed his arm. One of the cuffs locked around his wrist before he could even think to react.
There was a single second of shock as he jerked his head around to look at Remus. Then, in the next second, a bucket of ice was brought down onto Remus’s head. He did not let go of Logan’s wrist as the other man was surely hoping he would. Instead, he gritted his teeth and yanked him closer.
They wrestled for a few minutes; Logan was not a fair fighter. He instantly went for the eyes, nose, and groin, but Remus somehow managed to subdue him. The other cuff snapped closed around his previously free wrist, but he was not finished. He reared back and bit Remus’s shoulder as hard as he could, drawing blood. Remus shoved his head away with a curse and began the process of dragging him to Remus’s car. He fought to get him into the car, and, not wanting to give him free range of the backseat of his personal car, Remus struggled with him until he was hooked to the interior grab handle.
The small town they were in didn’t even have a police station, so Remus started his car, intending to drive to the slightly bigger town 10 minutes away. Logan spent most of the drive cursing, rattling his restraints, and contorting himself to try to kick Remus despite that risking killing the both of them.
“Would you stop that?” Remus snapped. The answer was a sharp kick to the back of his seat. “I’m going to ask them to put you in one of the dog kennels instead of the jail cell if you’re not careful,” he threatened.
“What?”
“Yeah… the county sheriff department and the pound are in the same building. We are not in the city anymore. Guess it makes sense though. Doggy jail. People jail. Eh.”
There was a pause. “You are taking me to a police station?” Logan asked.
“Well, I’m not taking you to a Chuck E. Cheese,” Remus scoffed. There was a heavy silence following that statement. Remus glanced back at him. “What?”
“I just… After the circumstances of our first meeting, the ferocity with which you have pursued me, and the fact that we’re driving into the countryside, I had assumed I wouldn’t survive this encounter, at least on your whim.”
“What?” Remus said. “Jesus fuck, dude.”
There was nothing but sincerity in his tone when he said, “It is a reasonable prediction from what I have observed.”
“Well, I don’t know what you think you’ve ‘observed,’ but while you’re lucky I don’t drug you out of your mind and make you ride in the trunk, I’m not going to murder you and throw your body in a ditch.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” he asked, and the tone of his voice had Remus’s foot lifting off the gas. The car rolled to a stop at the side of the road.
He reached down to put the car in park. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Remus said. He turned in his seat to meet Logan’s eyes. “Look, you’re a bastard and I’m pretty pissed about the whole drugging me thing, you being two steps ahead of me for months, and the fact that you bit my shoulder a few minutes ago, but this is just an arrest.”
There was something jagged in his eyes that spoke of being wronged, and Remus wondered for the first time in his single-minded mission to bring the man down if there was something more to his story than just being a ruthless hacker and competent criminal.
“Hey,” Remus said softly. “How about something to drink?”
“Is this the drugging me out of my mind portion of the day?” Logan asked skeptically.
“Nah,” Remus replied. He leaned over the center console to the cooler he kept under the passenger seat. “I’d use a needle for that, much faster.” He sat back up. “How do you feel about iced coffee?” He shook the bottle at him.
He arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking me to a police station?”
“Always time for a nice drink.”
“I believe that ended badly for you last time,” Logan pointed out.
“I’m trying to be nice, Logan.”
“Fine,” he agreed after a moment, still eyeing Remus cautiously.
Remus gave him a toothy smile and opened the top of the iced coffee bottle with a pop.
“You first,” Logan insisted. Remus rolled his eyes and took a sip himself before offering one to Logan.
“So, where’d you disappear to in Detroit, anyway. I’ve been curious. I thought I’d lost you permanently there.”
“I have safe houses all over the country,” Logan divulged as he watched Remus take another sip. “You’d never find them.”
Remus hummed and offered him another drink. “I bet you thought I wouldn’t find you either.”
“Lucky break,” Logan replied, “and only after months of being a persistent gnat.”
“Mosquito please,” Remus requested. “At least let me be able to do some damage.”
“So, you’re a malaria carrier?” Logan asked.
“Yellow Fever. I’m a classy mosquito.” He almost chocked on the sip he was taking and Remus grinned. “Careful, if you get snot in the coffee… I’ll probably still drink it, honestly.” Logan gave him a look that teetered somewhere between amused and disgusted.
“You should probably be more careful about what you drink,” Logan said sweetly, leaning close to him so their noses almost brushed.
“And you should probably learn to not be so cheeky,” Remus said, poking him in the cheek for emphasis. He startled at the action, but then smiled a bit.
They continued bantering until the drink was finished, and then Remus tossed it into the backseat opposite Logan.
“You should get a garbage bag for your car,” Logan said, frowning down at the trash.
Remus rolled his eyes.
“I hope you know this doesn’t mean I’m not going to screw you over at the first opportunity,” Logan said lightly.
“Looking forward to it,” Remus said.
“Don’t bother.” He was vaulting over the center console into the front seat in the next moment; somehow, he had picked the handcuff lock. He went straight for the pressure point on Remus’s collarbone, but he managed to jerk back and away. Remus struggled to get the car door open and they went tumbling out. They rolled around in the grass for a few long moments before…
Click.
“Shit,” Remus said, doing his best to pull himself and the wrist with the one cuff on it away from him, but the next second he was on his stomach with a knee pressed into his back. The other handcuff snapped around his other wrist.
“How?” Remus spat.
“If it’s any consolation, I would have still gotten free without stopping. You just allowed me more time and a stopped vehicle.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Remus grumbled into the mud.
Logan rolled him over and helped him sit up. Remus glared at him. He just turned back to the open car door and searched it for a few moments before coming back out with Remus’s phone in hand.
He walked over to Remus and looked at him for a moment.
“I’m unsure if your kindness will continue if we ever meet again,” Logan said. His eyes flickered a bit and he leaned forward to press a kiss to Remus’s cheek. “I do appreciate it though and not because it allowed me to escape.” Remus blinked at him in surprise, speechless as he dialed something on Remus’s phone and then pressed it against his ear. Remus scrunched up his neck to keep it there as he heard the sound of the phone ringing. Logan turned to walk back to the car.
“911, what’s your emergency?”