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"As faaar as the eye can see," Remus squints, over the vast canopies of trees stretching below his tower.
"I do not see my brother."
Logan was attempting to sleep in his chair. He's not sure why Remus bothered tying him up, or even why his chair was situated inside the very slimy walls of some monster's mouth, but the pungent smell and the monster's hot breath had him nauseous, and if he was going to be stuck here anyway, might as well try to get some rest.
Remus was perched on the windowsill, shading his eyes from the sun as he scoured the trees below for anything unusual. Any of his monsters coming to report to him, any screams of a high-pitched particular variety that came from his brother.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Remus sighs, sliding to a more comfortable sitting position, looking over his shoulder to where his captive--
"Hey!" Remus protests, getting off the window ledge. "Wake up! Or I'll stick Leo's tongue up your ear!"
Logan hadn't been very successful in trying to find rest anyway, and at finally having the Duke's attention, he sits up a little. "Remus, might I interest you in a civil conversation? Perhaps, away from this nonsense you call a functioning "duke-dom," maybe in my room? I'm sure Roman wouldn't think to check there--"
Remus gasps, "Inviting me to your room, Lo? I'm sorry, I can't. Mama told me not to follow strangers to their beds."
"...We don't have mothers, and I'm sure Thomas's--" Logan cuts himself off, having caught Remus's faint smile, figuring Remus was trying to annoy him on purpose. "I'm sure Patton would be more than happy to play this pretend-game with you. I'm not sure why--"
"You want me to bring in Pattie-cake for company?" Remus asks, brightening up. Patton always had the best lines for their game. Morality seemed to take going along with the twins as one of his ‘fatherly’ duties. "Sure, that could--"
"No. No, well, I was hoping you could get Patton here, and release me in the meantime--"
"Why would I do that? You're fun to have around."
Logan pauses at this, about to protest. "You mean I'm fun to make fun of."
"Yeah, that too."
Logan's lips tighten, and he figures he's only wasting his own time by providing Remus with any conversation at all. What the Duke wanted was attention, and like any spoiled child... "Let me go, Remus. I do not want to be here."
"Wooooow, geez, why didn't you tell me sooner? If you had, I wouldn't have bothered with all of this," Remus says, making a grand show of walking over and messing with the ropes around Logan's wrists. "Of course your wishes are my top priority, my good sir."
In the end, the Duke simply chuckles to himself, about bored with the conversation now. Maybe he could get Lyde to show up and practice juggling occupied chairs again.
"We could make a deal. It doesn't have to be this way." Logan sighs.
"What kinda deal?" Remus asks, pausing, turning to look back at him. He walks over, and much to Logan's dismay, sits on his lap, an arm around his shoulder.
The extreme lack of personal space was definitely giving him some panic, though Logan wouldn't show that. "The kind of deal where you stop kidnapping me for your game with Roman."
"I'm listeninggg."
"I know Roman's daily sched-- can you get off of me?"
"Oh I'm sorry, am I being distracting?" Remus grins, bouncing a little, his face filling Logan’s vision, his laugh clapping at his ears. "I thought you worked well under distractions."
Logan drew the line about there. "If I ever see you out of the Imagination--"
"You'll do what?" Remus grins, as if amused.
"I will do my best to send you right to the Subconsciousness."
There's the space of a moment there, Remus well-aware he was only strongest on his side of the Imagination, Logan having the upper hand... basically anywhere else. Threatening to send him there was the same as threatening to kill him.
Remus studies Logan's expression, which was further slipping from its usual state to let show some of that fun, boiling anger Remus could always tell was a breath's notice away for the Logical side.
"You wouldn't," Remus grins, testing his luck. "There'll always be a new Dark Creativity. How does the saying go? ‘Better the devil you know?’" Remus leans closer, "And Logan, I know how much you hate uncertainty. Do you really wanna risk--"
"Yes."
Remus pauses. "Oh, you're serious."
"I don't make promises lightly. If you do not let me go within the next five minutes, and I see you outside the Imagination ever again, you are as good as gone."
"Well, I guess it's in my best interest to keep you here for as long as I can, then," Remus says, even though he knows he wouldn't do that. Thomas would hate losing Logan for that long. All the sides would hate losing Logan at all.
Logan looks at him as if he knows all this, like he knows what Remus was thinking, that Remus would never go that far.
Remus frowns at him, "When you regret this, you best remember you're the one who made it this way. I don't take losing lightly."
Before Logan could protest, he was in open-air, surrounded by blue sky, before slamming flat into a soft pile of… garbage.
Logan feels his whole essence ache at the pain, and he's incapacitated for a time, until he finds his way to the surface. He lost his glasses somewhere along the way, but he recognizes where he is. The bustle of city life, the sound of passing cars. Back on Roman's side of the Imagination.
Climbing his way out of the garbage container wasn’t too difficult, and as Logan pulls himself over the lip of the container, he holds his breath.
Well.
That went better than he’d expected.
His feet hit the tarmac, and he collapses in the small alleyway. He doesn’t sit back up again for a few seconds, until he does, and hugs his knees. He really hated the games the twins played. Which is why he hated coming to the Imagination. He hated feeling helpless.