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it's when logan lays in his bed staring at his blank ceiling does remus show up.
he acts the same as always. chipper, smirk very apparent. his cheeks are raised. even if logan can clearly tell there's something hidden in remus' arms tucked behind his back, his face alone is a tell-tale sign of potential mischief.
logan, though, returns to gazing at the ceiling. his hands rest on his stomach. he'd like to say he's in a state of calm. not the stereotypical, serene kind, no. it's the kind of calm that fills you when staring at a caked-up corpse inside a coffin. they'd be all fancied up, decorated with the most expensive white lilies.
but then, they're also dead. that's the part logan resonates with the most.
"guess what's behind my back," remus sing-songs, rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet. it's probably sludge. half the time it is, anyway. remus reminds logan of proud cats bringing their owners dead pigeons as some kind of hoorah.
he wonders how remus does it, how he conjures such enthusiasm for life that logan seems to have lost long ago. it's quite unfair. not to logan, no, but to remus who's experienced neglect far worse and far longer than what logan has experienced. decades of isolation. decades of philosophizing what it means to be destined to be horrible.
"hello, earth to logan—"
"do you believe in god?"
well, that wasn't supposed to slip out.
logan hears the rustling of clothes— possibly remus quickly shifting positions out of shock and sheer confusion. logan doesn't look at him directly, but he can see remus staring at him in the corner of his eye. his arms drop, sludge falling onto the ground, as he just stares.
"logan, it's 2pm. it's prank time. like, ice bucket challenge but with slime kind of prank time. where the hell is your mind at right now?"
logan blinks. where is his mind at?
"space," logan replies. his fingers slightly scrunch up his bedsheets reflexively, but quickly loosens afterward. "stars, moons. comets. maybe heaven?"
out of here, he doesn't say. far away from here.
remus stays quiet for a few moments. logan has a hunch remus heard his thoughts. "geez," remus murmurs. it's strange to hear him this soft-spoken. "has it gotten that bad?"
logan feels his eyebrows furrow in surprise. of course remus knows. when he looks at remus, oddly enough, logan feels like he's looking at a mirror.
he wonders if remus thinks the same.
"it smells like rot in here," remus comments, index finger lazily spinning around. if he had the energy, logan would scoff. if only he knew. "did someone die in here, or is it just me?"
logan doesn't laugh. "imagine if we could die," he says instead. remus drops his hand.
"i entertained that thought long ago," remus says, elongating the last few words. "turns out, 'ya can't die. so i just learned how to make do."
logan exchanges gazes with remus for the first time. "by being intrusive thoughts?"
remus scowls. it was reflexive; even his palm rises as if to defend himself from something.
"i didn't choose that," remus snarls. he possesses a kind of scariness that he doesn't usually exhibit.
he's not close with remus, but he knows it. feels it. logan is a master at façades. he is not blind to the array of brick walls remus reinforces to hide the true ugliness festering inside him. logan thinks he's done the same.
logan wants to see that ugliness.
"but you do embody it quite perfectly."
remus glares at him. cold, dark. "like i said, i make do." the slime on remus' fingers drip like wax. "you do too. you didn't choose to be logic and yet you wasted a decade clinging onto a role you can't even fulfill."
logan understands now why remus snarled at his words. sometimes he thinks he can handle the true forbidden fruits of his pessimistic philosophizing, but bitterness courses through his veins faster than he could try suppressing it.
this happens often, this back-and-forth he and remus indulge in. it's venomous, solves absolutely nothing, but it kills time, something he and remus think they have too much of.
"answer my first question then." logan taps impatiently on his bedsheets. "do you believe in god?"
"god has no bearing on us," remus answers quickly. it's as if he's pondered this long ago. "there is only thomas, and the stars he's written for us is laced with failure."
logan sighs shakily. remus clicks his tongue.
"did you expect a different answer?" remus asks.
"not really, no," logan admits. "no," he repeats, because it's true. he did not expect anything else. but something about this, the admission of a truth so vile, makes logan's brain even more scattered and staticky. his limbs feel like they melt into the divots of his bedsheet, and he's just sink, sink, sinking into his mattress.
he wants the world to swallow him whole.
remus' voice, though, cuts through that haze.
"can i ask you a question this time?"
logan hums. half of his brain feels like it's melding together like mismatched clay.
"if you were human, what would you do?" remus asks. he settles down on a spot on the bed, sitting beside logan's torso.
the question brings logan out of his static for a moment as long lost aspirations flash through his brain.
"study hard," logan replies. phantom tastes of black coffee brewed during thomas' college life dance on his tongue. "i'd focus on something related to astronomy, or maybe even environmental preservation. anything scientific."
"to be a scientist?"
"mhm, i suppose so. i could also work in museums, or maybe work as a teacher. maybe even volunteer programs?"
remus smiles at him, the first one he's seen since he's arrived. "that's nice. i feel like i could do that too, but more fucked up."
"you'd be the kind of guy who'd focus on studying animal genitalia."
"you fuckin' bet!" remus replies enthusiastically. "the guy who studied whether or not the proboscis monkey's nose is proportional to his dick is my hero."
logan laughs; the first he's had in months. his throat itches when he does, and that reality settles in his stomach with the rest of his burdensome problems.
"why can't it be this easy anymore?" logan asks. "talking, being normal. laughing." logan thinks he feels tears slipping out of his eyes. slowly, quietly. it stains tracks that previously existed, and the corner of his eyes feel so, so sore. "is there really no more hope for us?"
a hand touches his shoulder. remus gently rubs his thumb there repeatedly as logan cries.
he doesn't respond, though.
so logan thinks. pretends. he thinks of himself as an esteemed professor and scientist renowned for advancing the technology in the astronomy field. by this point, he's given names to three different stars, all of them after his favorite crofter's flavors. remus is his colleague, infamous for his rebelliousness and odd behavior, but also for his acute intelligence. they greet each other in the break room every morning, passing each other packets of instant coffee, sugar, and creamers. they laugh about remus' new discovery on the proboscis monkey.
logan's mind drifts off into a world where it's easy. he thinks remus does too, because that's all they've got.