Work Text:
Logan didn't have much before the graveyard, but now it has swallowed him up refusing him to be let back out. Sure before he had astronomy club and his parent's garden he’d work after school but that was it. No friends, no life (as far as he could tell), it was just, Logan. “The quiet one”, “The nerd”, “who?”.
It was only after the incident that he felt like things had changed. (For better or for worse.) He had not only gained friends but also family. From strangers to the only people he knew he could rely on and could understand. Days he spent eating lunch alone, turned into daily hangouts after school. Regular beatdowns diminished into the occasional snarky comments. Because of this, his self-confidence soared; He felt more like himself than he ever had in his life. This however was dragged down by the sleepless nights and near-death experiences he gained on the regular; the phantom realm was doing a number on his sanity and he wasn't sure how to feel about it. It was almost like a fair trade-off-
“GUYS PLEASE I'M GOING TO DIE!!!! HELP MEEEEE...” Logan stops writing mid-sentence…
“Dude,” Ashlyn sighed, seemingly regretting even coming. “We've only been working on this for like an hour at most, get yourself together.” Ashlyn was the one who took over the leadership position when this whole mess started. Her long orange braids flowed behind her back as she bickered with Aiden. Logan was secretly grateful that she took charge. Compared to everyone else she seemingly had a natural gift for leadership and was definitely the reason they had even made it this far in the first place.
“Can’t I just copy off one of you guys,” Aidan wines, shifting into a more comfortable position. “I can just reword it to make it sound cooler and more like I wrote it” Adien seemed more tense than usual. Was that even the right word?? Never mind, antsy was a better word. He starts ripping bits of paper off his essay seemingly wanting to do anything to keep his mind occupied. His red eyes darted back and forth on anything that could distract him, complementing Ashlyn's red hair. Like they matched.
“This is a personal narrative essay dumbass. What, you also play baseball during your free time?” Tyler remarks as if he has got anything done at all. He pretends he is better than Aiden but in reality, he only has a few sentences more than he does. Logan finds this a bit funny and ironic to be honest. Tyler’s arms twitched, ready to strangle Adien in an instant.
Taylor interrupts him trying to redirect the conversation, “Hey come on guys stop that.” Taylor saves them, again, as the voice of reason. No shame to Ash but Taylor is best at being a peacekeeper, though who knows how long she can keep this up because even Logan is getting fed up with their bickering at this point. “If we finish early we can take a break and watch a movie or something like that.”
“Ooh like a horror movie” Aiden suggests, already listing off potential candidates off the top of his head.
“I'm not sure if Ben would be up for that though,” she replies, looking towards Ben for confirmation.
Ben nods his head agreeing with Taylor vigorously. Despite being very tall and intimidating, he’s the quietest of the group. Aiden had recently told them the reason for this and Logan couldn't help but feel sorry for him. The group had recently tried learning sign language to better communicate with him though it also came useful at night when they had to communicate something without making much noise.
Logan tries piping into the conversation as well. “Yeah, I second that. I'm not a huge fan of horror movies either.” “What are you scared or something??” Aiden teases looking menacingly at him. Logan manages to squeak a response. “Yes actually… very… mostly of you.” “Aww come on I expected you guys to have at least some tolerance to things like these. Especially with the near-death experiences that we go through. Every. Single. Night.”
“Aiden knocked it off already Logan already said no so why don't you just lay off already.” Logan doesn't know whether to be grateful or envious. How can Tyler just come up with a comeback that fast? He's always looking out for him, even the little things… How come he can't do a simple thing like that?
“Okay Okay sorry I was just teasing,” Aiden apologized. “Didn't know you were also a chicken” whispering so only Tyler could hear.
And there it was. Before Aiden can even react Tyler has him tackled onto the floor. Everyone else gets up, frantically attempting to drag them away from each other.
Oh yeah, Logan almost forgot who he was dealing with probably the most chaotic group of people he's ever known. He was going to have to rework his essay later, his writing seems to be mentioning too much about the phantom realm and he would rather not be pulled into the counselor's office in the middle of class. Knowing them, they will probably forget about doing the work anyway…