Work Text:
Prompt: I love when Remus is a lot smarter than he lets on, so I’d love a prompt where Logan is overworking himself and not taking care of himself and one tic of the clock away from either passing out or having a full on mental breakdown (not the type you can recover from in a day). Remus notices the little signs Logan shows, and hears the intrusive thoughts Logan has. Remus really becomes concerned when Logan’s intrusive thoughts start to involve taking breaks, going to eat properly rather than inhaling granola bars, and even sleeping. Remus storms in and is like “Logan tf????” Then gets hella soft once he realizes the state Logan is in
Remus hears a lot of weird shit.
The more appropriate definition would be ‘fucked up like you wouldn’t fucking believe,’ but one of us has a problem with particularly strong language and shit doesn’t have to be censored in a lot of media anymore. Which is so convenient! For some of us!
It’s fucking great.
Anyway. Point being. Fucked up shit.
Intrusive thoughts literally fall under his purview. It’s the fun stuff! The stuff you don’t wanna think about that makes your skin crawl and your eyes pop open at the witching hour and stay awake until the sun rises. That’s Remus’s job.
And it’s like the whole Mindscape is whack-a-mole that he gets to play with! Buttons here and there, squeeze this part and watch the eyes bug out of this part, bap this one on the head, see which one pokes up next. Who’s gonna have nightmares tonight? Who is having a nightmare tonight?
It’s fun.
Point. Right. Right.
It’s normally pretty easy to tell whose intrusive thoughts are whose. They taste different. Patton’s taste like sugar so sweet it’ll fill your mouth with cavities. Virgil’s taste like spiders, crawling around his mouth. Janus’s taste like salt. So much fucking salt. Dry as hell.
Roman’s taste like blood. Problem is, Remus’s mouth normally tastes like blood, so…
Yeah, they gotta work that out.
Logan’s taste like ink. Which is why it took him so long to figure out that Logan was having them. Not just because the nerdy wolverine was so convinced he couldn’t have them—rationalizing them as philosophy principles, come on—but because Remus isn’t exactly an expert on pens. Writing like normal people. Ugh.
Normal people.
What a lie, Janny probably gets a big kick out of those.
No one is normal and normal is boring.
Logan. Right.
Okay, so here’s the thing.
Logan’s thoughts aren’t really…standard? They are to some extent, you don’t really get a whole lot of variety from him—even when Remus has been so helpful in making his room safe for him to be in during bad days, there’s such a lack of imagination there that he wasn’t sure exactly how to feel—but it’s the recent ones that’ve been getting…weird.
Remus chews thoughtfully on the kraken tentacle. He swings up to the chandelier and hangs by his ankles, letting the blood run to his head. Makes it easier to think sometimes.
It hasn’t been very long since they found out…well, since they found out.
Remus frowns. Why is he censoring himself? It’s not like he can’t fucking say self-harm, it’s not like he can’t describe what it was, it’s not like he can’t close his eyes and see it happening again.
Then his mind jumps helpfully to the shocked, panicked look on Logan’s face and the soft, furious resignation on Roman’s, and his jaw snaps shut.
Oh.
Right.
He cares. So he has to be gentle with them.
He growls, swinging himself up to perch on the chandelier proper. He turns the kraken tentacle over and chews on the rubbery side.
The others are delicate. Not that they’re more breakable than any other metaphysical humanoid, but their minds are fragile when it comes to Remus’s side of things. Could they handle the full spectrum of his side of thoughts and shit? Probably, they’re stronger than they give themselves credit for. Should they have to? Hell to the fuck no. But it means that Remus can’t just throw them in the deep end and see if the kraken spits them out whole or in chunks. Could they survive? Absolutely. Would they still be…them? Doubtful.
Remus lets one of his legs go, hanging by one knee as he tips over.
Plus they’re always a little more fragile when it comes to these thoughts anyway. Poking and prodding too much would hurt. Like, the bad kind of hurt.
They’re not supposed to get hurt. Not like that.
So. Gentle it is then.
Right. The others. He has a point, he’s just gotta get there.
Roman…fuck he’s missed his brother. They got—they got so much shit to still work out but they’re gonna do it together and fuck he loves his brother so goddamn much. Roman knows that, he knows that, and he’s always there to pull Remus out of his head when he needs it, hit him with a pillow, or tackle him onto something and hold him tight. He’s—his thoughts taste like blood and Remus hasn’t bitten anything since so that he’ll never miss it again.
But with Logan...
Logan is…odd. It hasn’t been long since they first found out—or rather, they confronted him about it, and Remus hasn’t tasted ink without it disappearing very quickly or knocking on someone’s door to please go get your fucking nerd, please. But the ink has only written the usual suspects, whispering the theorems in dark corners, muttering about the incompleteness of a set, the need for Logic, not Logan, and how to jump through the little loophole again.
It’s not exactly hard for the others to tell.
Lolo hasn’t been looking great. Sure, he’s all pressed and dressed, glasses perfectly in place, tie done up just so, walking around like everything’s just totally and completely fine, but it’s in his face. Object impermanence aside, normally when Remus bugs him, he reacts in some way.
Sass is an emotional response and you won’t convince him otherwise.
Whether it be a wry comment, effortlessly fixing whatever Remus has done to him this time, or even just a look, Lolo does something.
Not anymore.
Now he’ll just kind of…sigh and move on? He’ll fix whatever it is only if it’s directly interfering with what he’s trying to do, or when Patton or Virgil come round the corner and freak the fuck out because you’re bleeding! Then he’ll fix it.
Remus wouldn’t say he’s bored, but he’s worried.
Mainly because the intrusive thoughts…aren’t what he’d consider intrusive anymore.
Take a shower.
Eat something that isn’t just a granola bar.
Go to sleep.
Ask someone for help.
See?
If those are Lolo’s intrusive thoughts, then what the fuck is normally going on in his head?
Remus waits. Waits. Keeps waiting.
The instant his mouth tastes like ink again, with a question of whether or not Logan should take a break, he sinks straight into his shower. He washes his hair thoroughly, gets every single bit of grime off him he can, and puts on the softest pajamas he has—thank you, Roman—and drops himself outside of Logan’s door.
He strains, mouth still full of ink, to hear anything other than the soft click, click, click of Logan’s keyboard.
He can’t.
Fuck.
He knocks.
“One moment, please.”
Indeed, a few seconds later, the door opens to reveal Logan, looking as annoyingly pristine as he always does, surprised to see him.
“Remus? Did you need something? Why…” he trails off as he takes in what Remus is wearing. “What’s wrong?”
“Can I come in?”
“Of—of course,” Logan stammers, moving aside to let him in, “are you alright?”
“Should be asking you that, Lolo.”
“Remus, you’ve just knocked, first of all, on my door and asked to come inside.” Logan adjusts his glasses as he sits at his desk. “This is extremely out of character for you.”
“Uh-huh.” Remus flops onto the bed. “You know what else is out of character?”
“Not wearing your costume?”
“Not hearing intrusive thoughts.”
Logan’s eyes widen. “Has—is there something wrong? Are you not hearing any? Do I need to get Roman?”
Remus frowns. “Why’s it so easy for you to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Care. Try and take care of me.”
Logan blinks. “Because you deserve to be taken care of, Remus. Your needs are important.”
Remus idly toys with a loose thread on one sleeve. “Why?”
“Why? Why are you important?” Remus nods. “Because you’re—you’re an important part of Thomas, you’re important to us, and we care about you.”
“So it’s easy for you to care for me because…you do?”
“As simple as that sounds,” Logan says with all the softness that should be directed at himself, “yes.”
Remus nods. “I’m not having problems with hearing intrusive thoughts.”
“You’re—you’re not?” Logan sighs, relaxing a little back into his chair. “Then why did you say you were?”
“Because the thoughts that I am hearing aren’t really what I’d consider intrusive.”
Logan frowns. “Like what?”
Glad you fucking asked.
“‘Take a shower,’” Remus says, his eyes fixed firmly on Logan’s face, “'eat something,’ ‘take a break,’ ‘go to sleep.’”
He watches Logan’s face tense.
“Sound familiar, Lolo?”
“You—I—my apologies,” Logan manages after a moment, adjusting his tie, “I did not mean to be an inconvenience. You are correct, those are not intrusive thoughts, I’m not sure why you’re hearing them.”
He turns to his desk and begins to fish around for a notebook.
“That is quite intriguing, I wonder what the possibilities for hearing other types of thoughts are, considering—“
“Lolo.”
Logan pauses, turning back. “Yes?”
Remus fixes him with a look, getting up and walking toward him. “They are intrusive thoughts, Logan. The issue is that your intrusive thoughts are about you taking care of yourself.”
Logan freezes.
“W-well, I’m sure that it’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“So either you can admit that was a lie or Janny’s about to get summoned.”
“Remus,” Logan sighs, “it’s fine. As you said, these aren’t what are traditionally considered intrusive thoughts, it’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“No, Lolo, it is,” Remus argues, “because it means that the thought of you taking care of yourself is so foreign, so fucking out of the ordinary that not only does it happen to cross your mind—“ he takes Logan’s chair and spins it around— “but you try to force it out.”
Gotcha.
Logan looks anywhere other than Remus’s face and tries to stand. Only to wobble and crash back down.
“Easy,” Remus says quietly, resting a hand on his shoulder, “you haven’t eaten in a while.”
“But I have work.”
“But you need food.”
“Remus—“
“Logan.”
At Logan’s honest-to-fuck pout, he sighs, dragging the poor nerd up and out the chair and sitting him on the bed.
“Why do you think you don’t deserve to be taken care of?”
“I didn’t say that—hey!” Logan blinks up at him, scandalized and covering his stomach. “Why did you poke me?”
“’S what I do when Janny won’t tell me the truth.”
“I wasn’t—okay, okay!” Logan covers his stomach protectively as Remus readies another poke. “I just…I’ve already asked for help for this before. I shouldn’t have to again.”
Remus sighs and lightly flicks the side of his head.
“Hey!”
“Virgil tries that too.” He stares hard at Logan. “Come on, Lolo, you can do better.”
“It’s not your jobs to take care of me.”
For fuck’s sake…
Remus reaches out and tugs gently on Logan’s tie.
“Remus, what—“
“You taking more books outta Patton’s library now?” Remus tilts his head. “You don’t have to beat around the bush, Lolo, just be honest.”
“I am being honest!”
“You’re not lying, but you’re not being honest.” At the poor nerd’s confusion, he sighs and fixes his glasses on that cute nose. “Just talk to me, Lolo.”
“I—“ Logan sighs and oh fuck why does he look so tired?
Well, because he hasn’t been sleeping.
Or eating.
Or taking care of himself.
Unbidden, part of his conversation with Roman flashes into his head.
“Self-harm can be self-denial too.”
“Lolo?”
“It’s bad enough that I’ve made you all worry about me,” Logan says finally, “I would hate to be a burden.”
Oh, Lolo. “You and Roman, huh?”
Logan looks up warily. “What do you do with Roman?”
“You know what I do.”
Logan sighs. “May at least take my glasses off first?”
“You might wanna change too, I’m not letting you up for a while.”
Logan stretches to place his glasses on the nightstand and poofs himself into a t-shirt and boxers. He sighs and opens his arms.
Remus takes two running steps and tackles the poor nerd onto his bed.
“Ah!”
“Am I hurting you?”
“No, no, just—just a little startled.”
“Mm.” Remus snuggles closer into Logan, his arms wrapped tightly around him. “So. Wanna try one more time?”
Logan sighs, deflating them both to the bed. His head lolls to his left, eyes on his open computer screen. Remus follows it, barely suppressing a growl as he stretches his arm out to save whatever’s on screen and shut it.
“I know what I’m supposed to be doing,” Logan whispers, “I understand the process, I am aware that healing is not a linear concept, I know it’s going to take time, I—I understand.”
Remus looks down, giving him an encouraging squeeze. “But?”
“It’s hard,” comes the soft confession.
Oh, Lolo.
“I know,” he murmurs, leaning down to hug him properly, “I know, Lolo, I know it’s hard. But you can’t try and do it all yourself, you’ve gotta remember that we’re here for you, we care about you.”
“But why?”
Remus smiles and cuddles him tighter. “You said it yourself, Lolo. We care because we do.”
“O-oh.” He feels Logan’s throat work as he swallows. “Thank you, Remus.”
“Of course, Lolo. I’m guessing that sinking us to the living room so everyone else can spoil you is a bad idea, right?”
“Yes.” Finally, finally, he feels Logan shyly tighten his grip on him. “Can we just…stay like this?”
“Do I have your permission to hold you hostage until you fall asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Then go to sleep, Lolo,” Remus murmurs, “I’m not going anywhere.”