Chapter Text
The first metaphorical red flag was the fact that Remus slipped into the living room silently.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done so before, but before it had always been with some sort of ulterior motive, some underlying malintent and unpleasant machination in mind. He’d jumpscared all of them at one point or another—from behind the TV, from under the table, from the ceiling, and so on. Janus was the one to never really react, but Logan wasn’t sure if he was genuinely unphased or if he’d just learned to hide his shock well. Both options were respectably plausible.
They’d usually hear the manifestation of Thomas’s dark creativity charge in screaming, or pop up out of nowhere and start screaming about sex and drugs and manslaughter and whatnot. It was pretty standard, overall. They made a habit out of paying him no heed, or at most tossing him a brief, courteous greeting as they skirted around his sometimes metaphorical, sometimes literal path of destruction.
But today he’d come in quietly, Logan discovered. He’d descended the stairs to the first floor of the Mindscape apartment in the morning to find the living room empty, but upon leaving the kitchen a few minutes later with coffee in hand he’d found Remus draped in a messy sprawl over the couch, his face wedged into the space between the seat and the backrest. His morningstar was nowhere to be seen, and his green-and-black outfit looked more disheveled than usual, what with the way he was arranged awkwardly against the cushions.
It had put Logan on alert, of course, but as he navigated his morning routine no sound had come from the living room. The others had meandered their way downstairs over the next hour or so; even Janus came stalking in from the hall to arrange an unnecessarily extravagant breakfast for himself with the ingredients left out from Patton’s pancake-making spree. Virgil and Roman both threw superfluous glances at the couch, but other than this there were no disturbances whatsoever.
No screaming. No crashing. No profanity. Nothing melted or broken or set on fire.
It was almost disturbingly quiet.
Logan wasn’t inclined to incite an altercation, however, so he didn’t look into it. He had a schedule to organize, tasks to complete, problems to solve. If someone was going to figuratively prod the allegorical sleeping bear, it wasn’t him.
Apparently, it was Patton.
Logan couldn’t say he was incredibly surprised. He’d heard Roman muttering at the table at breakfast—“…any clues what knockoff Beetlejuice is up to today?”—and a half-concerned hum from the moral Side in answer, which proved indicative of his feelings on the matter. Patton had been trying to engage with and open up to Remus more—inviting him to events, complimenting his handiwork, and so on—but the results had been thus inconclusive. It was a little hard to tell what positive feedback was from the personification of intrusive thoughts, after all.
Logan was tidying the kitchen when he heard a quiet, hesitant voice close to the doorway. “Hey…Remus? Buddy? There are some leftover pancakes from breakfast—would you like me to leave you any?”
Logan listened in, but didn’t stop what he was doing. If it was attention Remus wanted, there it was. Logan would only step in if things got violent.
There was silence for a moment, then a quiet sound like shifting and a muffled groan. The water running in the sink drowned out the rest of the exchange. Footsteps approached after a little while and Logan looked back, meeting Patton’s eyes as he made his way into the kitchen.
The paternal Side shook his head, his lips pursed in worry. “Nothing. He said no, I think. I feel…I feel like something’s off.”
Logan sighed. “In my opinion, Patton, it would be wise to let him be. The best way to find out is to let Remus tell us himself. He is…the only one who knows what he wants.”
“I don’t know…” Patton ran a hand through his hair, his eyes fixed somewhere on the pale floor tiles between them. “He’s just been so quiet today.”
“I imagine we need only give him time,” Logan returned, his voice dry. “If anything, the quiet is a welcome change.”
Patton hummed, still looking uneasy. He wandered off after a little while to put away the pancakes.
• ✎ •
The next metaphorical red flag was that Remus didn’t interact with Thomas at all throughout the day.
Thomas summoned Logan and Roman a few times to chat during the late hours of the morning, and even asked Janus’s opinion alongside Patton’s about a talk he was planning to have with Quil. Virgil jumped in every now and then to offer his thoughts, and overall the day was going very smoothly.
And still Remus remained in the living room, silent and unmoving. Patton and Virgil had sat on the opposite couch and the floor, respectively, to watch a couple of Steven Universe episodes in the early afternoon. The intrusive Side hadn’t even turned his head to look, or to snicker at any mildly suggestive jokes and stage-whisper dirtier ones between lines of dialogue. Logan observed this from his place on the recliner, working through a few pages of puzzles in his Sudoku book to take a break from his tasks upstairs.
He was forced to admit that Remus’s behavior was a bit…perplexing. If this were the setup for some kind of elaborate practical joke (or impractical, as was common with Remus), it was taking unusually long to pay off. The duke wasn’t one to draw out his plans very much, anyway; he tended to do what he wished in the spur of the moment. And if he were sulking about something, he was usually far more verbal about it—demanding their attention, insisting they inquire about the woes from which he was unjustly suffering.
Or perhaps he’d misplaced his morningstar, and was too embarrassed to let the others know. Logan couldn’t help but view the whole thing with a lingering sense of distrust, despite the moral Side’s obvious concern.
Patton had tossed more than one furtive look behind him at the prone lump of frills and fabric on the couch. Roman had noticed, and seemed to be getting annoyed; at length the tension broke in the room and the prince leaned back against the pillows with a huff.
“All right, I’ll bite,” he snapped. “What’s wrong with you?”
Logan looked up from his puzzle book, and Patton swiveled quickly to stare at the creative twin in question. There was a moment of silence, only the show playing in the background, and then they heard another muffled noise against the cushions of the couch. It sounded vaguely dismissive, and Roman scoffed.
“You are clearly present for a reason, Remus,” Logan chimed in, after another beat had come and gone. “You may be glad to hear that we are all curious as to what that reason is, and why you have not moved from the couch since this morning.”
“Guys, be nice,” Patton chided softly.
All they were met with was another not-statement, this one a bit more petulant than the first. The duke tensed up and rolled over with a tight breath, at last, flopping onto his back and letting his left arm fall over the edge of the couch.
“I’on’feelgood,” he mumbled, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.
Oh.
Even Roman sat up, looking genuinely shocked. Logan adjusted his glasses, taking in the new data.
The figure before them was, in fact, the duke himself, but there was an odd air of lethargy about him that Logan had never seen before. His silver-streaked hair was mussed and greasy, stark against his pale skin…none of which was particularly unusual, but he normally liked to keep up some sort of appearance around them. Even if that appearance was buck naked and screaming bloody murder.
If the sense of wrongness was strong for Logan, it was stronger for Patton. “Oh—oh,” the moral Side gasped, pausing the TV and turning quickly. He came up to kneel, hovering at arm’s length from Remus’s side. “Oh, kiddo, hey, what—what’s going on?”
Logan watched in silence, wary. Roman tried to mask his surprise with indifference, blinking a few times and turning back to the TV when Remus didn’t answer right away.
“Remus?” Patton prompted, his voice laced with concern. “Remus, what’s wrong?”
The duke was silent for another stretch, then heaved a sigh. “I’unno. Jus’ icky.”
The nasal-yet-throaty screech of his voice was gone, replaced by a sort of thin rasp. He looked…what Logan might actually be able to classify as miserable—miserable and exhausted, really. Patton hesitated a moment, then reached out, projecting his movements, to bring his hand to Remus’s face. The duke didn’t react—didn’t indicate a negative, nor an affirmative—and Patton pressed his palm beneath the sweaty fringe of silver bangs.
“Logan,” he said, his voice low and urgent. The logical Side was on his feet immediately.
“What? What?” Roman demanded, his eyes wide, also jumping up to stand. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s too hot.” Patton moved aside to give Logan room as he stepped over to kneel at the foot of the couch. “Ah, I knew it…I knew something was wrong…”
Logan took over quickly, setting his own hand on Remus’s face, then checking the pulse point on his neck. Notably warmer than himself to the touch, as Patton had indicated…and steady, but a little fast. Logan drew his lips into a line. “It’ll take some more analysis, but it appears that Remus is…unwell. We’ll need to accommodate him and get him comfortable.”
“O-okay—here,” Patton gasped, conjuring a plastic basin of water and a couple of hand towels. He set to work soaking and wringing out the cloths. Roman stayed where he was, seemingly struggling to grasp the scene.
“Excellent. Roman,” Logan called, turning his attention to the prince. A task would provide him with some sense of direction. “If you would, we could use water to drink and a thermometer, preferably digital.”
Roman made a stilted noise of affirmation, and snapped the requested items into existence. Beneath his touch Remus squirmed a little, and Logan pulled away—but then the duke whined, appearing to mourn the loss of contact.
“Don’t move,” instructed Logan, aiming to keep his words at a reassuring cadence. “We are going to help you.”
He took the thermometer from Roman, turning it on and sticking it into Remus’s ear. After a moment the device beeped, and he pulled it out to read the results. 102.3.
Logan felt his frown deepen. “You certainly have a fever,” he observed. “Can you describe your other symptoms?”
“Hnn…’stoo hot,” Remus slurred, his voice muzzy. He seemed to be struggling to process the question, and what was expected of him with regard to it. His dark eyes rolled forward to meet Logan’s, and the latter took note of the glassiness clouding them. “Feel sticky’n’gross.”
Not…incredibly helpful. Logan tilted his head. “Any soreness or stiffness? Exhaustion, headache, nausea?”
Remus didn’t respond further than a halfhearted noise, curling an arm around his stomach. A yes to the nausea, then, possibly. And to exhaustion as well, if he were too out of it to want to talk very much.
By all accounts, he was sick. This was most peculiar.
Patton leaned in to drape a damp cloth over Remus’s face, brushing away his bangs to set it carefully on his forehead. Remus sighed in relief, relaxing minutely, and Patton hummed a comforting noise in answer.
“One of us should check on Thomas,” Logan announced, addressing the group. “I myself did not notice any irregularities in his appearance or behavior today, but if a fragment of his psyche is in…a notable amount of discomfort, we should confirm that he is all right.”
“I’ll do it,” Roman offered, behind him. He still sounded a little rattled. The quiet whoosh of a Side sinking out informed Logan of his departure.
Logan, for his part, summoned a capsule of acetaminophen, unscrewing the lid and shaking out a pair of tablets. He took the cup of water Roman had conjured and gently bullied Remus to a half-sitting position against the cushions, setting the cloth on his face aside for a moment. The tulle ruffles of his outfit scratched uncomfortably against them both.
“Stay calm,” he ordered, at the duke’s groan of protest. “I am giving you medicine. Could you perhaps change into something a bit less…cumbersome?”
Remus groaned again. After a lengthy pause he raised a hand and snapped himself into a green T-shirt and black shorts, both simple and unadorned. It was probably the least remarkable outfit any of them had seen on him. Even the relatively minor effort of switching clothes seemed to sap his energy, though, and he sagged back against the cushions with a high, reedy noise in his throat.
“Much appreciated. Drink,” Logan instructed, tipping the glass against his lips. Remus grunted at the contact, then swallowed once, twice, and Logan pressed the pills into his palm as it lay face-up against the couch. “Good. Now take these.”
Remus did as he was told, his movements sluggish. Logan helped him drink some more water to wash them down before pulling the cup away. Remus leaned back against the cushions with a heavy sigh, looking drained by even the simple act.
“He’s being so…cooperative,” Patton breathed a little ways away, worried.
“Indeed.” Logan leaned back a moment to assess. “I will stay with him for the time being and keep watch.”
“No—no, let me,” Patton volunteered at once, scrambling up. “I’ll take care of him.” He scooted the basin and cloths closer to the foot of the couch and took a seat next to Remus, guiding him carefully to lie back down at his side. He smoothed the damp hand towel back out across his face.
“All right,” Logan said in an exhale, coming to stand. “In that case, I’ll check in with Roman and Thomas. Call us if anything goes awry.”
“You got it, Teach,” Patton confirmed, his eyes on Remus. Logan sank out to the sound of Patton summoning a blanket.