Chapter Text
Patton had asked for him. Had requested his input. He had called him up. And in a moment had decided he was done with him.
Barely had the words “Skip All” flashed yellow and intrusive across his vision, then Patton had selected it, without thought or hesitation. Odd. Logan hadn’t recalled creating such a button. He might be mistaken except he wasn’t. Betrayed perhaps, was a more accurate word choice. Yellow.
Something cold and unyielding wrapped around Logan’s throat. Someone made a strangled, choking, distraught cry that was quite unbecoming, undignified. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Except that he was moving. Falling into blackness, drowning, careening, dragged away his thoughts generously yet belatedly supplied.
Dragged far far away. Out of reach where he couldn’t make such a nuisance of himself. He pondered if that’s what Patton had hoped for at the press of that button.
Panic welled up in him as he repeatedly tried and failed to take in air. He didn’t technically need to breathe he supposed, after all he was only a representation of a person not the real deal. Yet that did not stop him feeling the pain and terror of suffocation. It didn’t stop him from flailing and clutching at his neck, trying to claw the offending metal away. Yes indeed, quite unbecoming.
It only stopped when he did. Or more accurately, when he crashed into the ground with considerable force, sprawled in a wincing, ungainly heap. For the moment, he hardly cared about that due to the simple fact that the hook had removed itself upon his landing. Immediately he drank in gulp after gulp of precious, sweet air. Although in truth, the air around him, wherever he was, tasted rather more sterile. But that reality mattered little to Logan as he lay gasping and spluttering and coughing.
Unconsciously, Logan brushed his fingertips across his neck, as if to ensure himself that the hook was gone. His skin felt hot and tender under his touch.
“My my, that certainly didn’t go very well for you, did it?” a voice above and to the left sounded, smooth and sultry.
A spike of shame shot through Logan at the thought that his undignified, graceless struggle had been witnessed. Instantly he fought to suppress the next cough and school his breath back to some semblance of control. He sat up quickly. He’d been aiming for “ramrod straight” but as dizziness took him over, he settled for leaning back slightly, steadying himself with his right hand against the floor.
Logan looked up. Yellow. The obvious answer. Such a foolish oversight on his part. “Deceit.” he prided himself on sounding almost as if he hadn’t just been strangled. “Then this is your doing, I take it?” No surprise. No outrage. Just a cool statement of the facts. Exactly as he was meant to be.
Deceit was leaning languidly, serpentine against his staff. His hooked staff. More accurately a play on a standard shepherd's crook, meant for the purpose of herding, reigning in a wayward flock.
Deceit grinned. White, white teeth. “Why, not at all, Logan, and I object to the implication.” The feigned shock of innocence. “All I did was provide the button. It took the deliberate action of others for you to come to this…” he waved a dismissive, gloved hand over his counterpart on the ground, “...misfortune.” Deceit left the statement hanging heavily in the air.
Logan minutely tensed and untensed his hand. Deceit was attempting to goad him, bait him into a reaction. It was an almost laughably broad attempt. “You manipulated the situation to your benefit, a particular talent of yours.” Logan supplied flatly, stiffly. He rose from the ground, focussing all his effort on doing so steadily, without the slightest sway or stumble.
If it were possible, Deceit’s smile seemed to widen, sharpen. A stalking predator preparing for the strike. He pushed himself off his staff, twirling it playfully like a baton in his fingers. Logan’s whole body tensed. Enough, he told himself. Deceit used the hook for the specific purpose of removing me from the picture. He iss not about to arbitrarily attack another side. His body did not relax.
“Yet Patton chose to press the button.” Deceit was not smiling anymore. He was gazing unwavering at Logan. He looked almost sober for a moment. “And you would not be here if he didn’t.”
“I would not be here if you hadn’t dragged me here.” Logan countered immediately. He didn’t allow for any pause, any hint of uncertainty to creep into his voice. His neck burned, his throat rasped.
Deceit’s gaze turned hard, cold. That sly, mocking smile returned smaller than before. “You are choosing to obfuscate the truth of the matter with minutiae, my friend.” His eyes glittered. “A particular talent of yours.” His last word trailed off in a soft hiss.
Logan blinked. He refused to be left at a loss for words in front of this adversary. “We have yet to establish an amicable rapport insofar as to establish a ‘friendship’.” The words were escaping his lips faster than he intended now. “Furthermore, your behaviour at this moment certainly does nothing to improve your standing with me in that regard.”
Deceit laughed. “Why Logan, there’s no need for hysterics! Why so upset? Does the truth hurt?” As he spoke he sauntered up close to Logan, reaching out a graceful hand in mock concern. Logan stepped back out of his reach.
“I do not get ups-”
Deceit’s outstretched hand twisted back towards him as he closed his hand into a fist. Unheralded, Logan’s hand flew up and clamped itself down over his mouth. Logan nearly imagined he was choking again.
“Lies.” Deceit’s eyes almost glowed in their intensity, looming out of the darkness of whatever forgotten part of Thomas’ mind they were in. “Careful Logan, you’re beginning to encroach on my territory.”
His demeanour softened a minute degree. “This is your problem, dearie.” He cooed. “You utterly refuse to use all this passion to aid your persuasiveness. It really doesn’t seem to be doing Thomas any good at all.”
Logan ripped his traitorous hand off his mouth with his other hand. “Falsehood,” he spat fiercely. The word burned in his throat. “You removed me, silenced me for your own selfish ends. That is the truth that you attempt to obfuscate with these tedious attempts to manipulate me.” Logan could feel himself slipping, descending into unacceptable behaviour. He turned his back on Deceit, spinning sharply on his heels. Trying to find anything else to focus on.
“Oh Logan, you wound me ever so harshly,” Deceit whined from behind him. Logan did his best to ignore him. There was a door a few feet away. A tall, heavy door that looked to be carved ornately from some sort of oak. Baroque, almost Rococo in design. Logan approached it, straight-backed and intent. He had elected to terminate this pointless debate. He reached out to the golden, gilded handle and attempted to grasp it and turn it firmly. Instead his hand swept uninterrupted through nothing but air. The illusion of the handle and the door it was attached to rippled and shimmered out of existence.
“I’m afraid all the doors have been removed for the moment.” Deceit supplied sweetly from behind him.
Logan let out a slow, controlled breath through his nose. “I presume that attempting to leave from so deep in your domain will prove a futile effort until you choose to allow my exit?” It was a statement, not a question. Monotone and measured.
“Futile?” Deceit echoed, slithering up from behind. Odd how Logan could never hear his footsteps. “No, of course not. Not entirely at least.” Logan finally turned back to look at him. Deceit gave him what might pass for an encouraging smile. “I may become just distracted enough for you to scramble your way out eventually…” Deceit flashed him an almost feral grin. “...After all, I’m about to be quite preoccupied.”
The question Logan began to form turned to ashes in his mouth. Deceit was melting away, the yellow flowing off of him like molten gold. His skin took on a warmer hue, the hat melted, streaming down his face, framing his eyes (both brown now), re-shaping itself into a different facial accessory. The cape neatly wrapped itself around his upper arms, his collar became folded prim and proper. The two-headed snake emblem became white and rounded. And last of all, his hooked staff shrank down, down and curled itself softly, elegantly around his neck, spiralling into a striped blue pattern, tied neatly and cleanly at the collar. A necktie. The right one this time.
Logan blinked and blinked again. This shouldn’t come as a shock, it was hardly the first time. This instance had no reason to be uniquely perturbing. His throat had no reason to feel tight again, pained again, strangled again. As if his own tie was really the hooked staff around his throat… Logan bit down these illusory sensations. That was all they were.
“What precisely do you hope to gain in my form, Deceit?” he asked, attempting to present a certain detached disdain. “It seems quite clear that my presence is not wanted nor heeded.”
“Well then, I shall just have to try and be a little more persuasive.” Deceit replied with his stolen voice that sounded somehow far more schooled and sober than Logan’s at the moment.
“Deceit.” Logan had been going for stern but instead it came out sharp, almost snapping, “It is unacceptable to detain me here. Moreover, it is unacceptable to use my form for your devices.” His voice was rising against his will. “My input is crucial to Thomas’s-”
“Falsehood.”
It had been said so quietly yet it stopped Logan cold.
Deceit in Logan’s body smiled again and this time it almost appeared genuinely apologetic. “Forgive me sweetie, but you don’t seem to be one for ignoring the evidence laid out in front of you.” Deceit’s voice was becoming clearer, stronger, more emphatic with every word. “The simple fact is that if your input was so “crucial”, I never would have been able to get that hook around your neck and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. That’s the logical conclusion to be drawn.”
Somehow Deceit had closed the distance between them during his speech until they were standing nearly nose to nose. Deceit reached towards Logan with his seemingly ungloved hand and Logan flinched, unable to mask the reflex. Deceit rested a hand on Logan’s shoulder, right below the long red welt across his neck.
“It’s time for someone else to take the wheel.”
“Deceit, wait-” Logan felt like he was choking on his own words as Deceit pulled away.
“Sorry Logan,” and Logan almost imagined he meant it. “But it's time to make Thomas listen.”
“Deceit!”
And he was gone.
And Logan was alone.