Chapter One: The First Steps
Note: The titles of these chapters are all going to be pieces of music (mostly piano music because I love and play it myself) that I feel fit the mood of the chapter (mostly)! So feel free to check them out, this first one was composed by Hiroshima Yamazaki. Hope you enjoy!
Pairing(s): Platonic Analogical is one of the main focus', slow burn Prinxiety, and slow burn Logicality
Warnings: Strong language, forgetting to eat/skipping meals
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read Tuesday 8:32am: Good morning, Lo! Remember to take breaks from working today and to eat breakfast. After all, hard boiled eggs are pretty hard to beat!!! You're gonna be amazing!xo
At the usual 'good morning' text, Logan grumbles sleepily, but can't stop the smile that tugs at the corners of his lips. Though the idea of throwing his phone against the wall after reading such a terrible pun does flash through his mind. He truly is lucky to have someone like Patton to wake him up in the mornings. It's certainly better than any alarm.
Sighing softly, he takes a minute or so to gather up enough willpower to slide out of bed, simply staring up at the ceiling and thinking through his plans for the day, which aren't at all out of the ordinary. First, he'll make himself some breakfast, plan to take a shower and then end up not taking one. Then, he'll collapse in his desk chair and work on his newest non-fiction novel until around 11:45PM, which is around the time that his best friend Roman will, inevitably, call him and ask to meet up at their usual lunch place. After Roman has yammered about pointless gossip for an hour or so, he'll hurry back home to finish as much work as he can before Patton barges through the door with a bag of groceries to cook them both some dinner. Logan tends to forget to do so sometimes.
Then, he'll just go to bed. Simple enough. Routine.
Routines are something Logan values greatly. It isn't that he believes change is a bad thing, in fact, he thinks that change is important and necessary for people to grow and develop. However, he often struggles with adapting to change, whether it's a large change or a small change. It may depend on what exactly is changing, but usually, he expects to have a difficult time with it.
Finally finding the strength to push himself upwards, Logan slips out from under the covers, making sure to flatten them down neatly before stumbling to the kitchen. As he expected, he fails to take a shower because he's so desperate to get the first draft of chapter fourteen finished and sent to his editor tonight, but makes himself two slices of toast with butter and a cup of tea. Usually, he'd have coffee, but he ran out yesterday and completely forgot to buy more, so tea would have to do.
Though it's failing at keeping him awake, the tea is soothing to his throat and tastes rich enough that he can almost hear his British mother complaining about the tea bag being left in for too long. He smiles weakly at the memory and shakes his head, fondly realising how much he misses his mother.
As he starts up his computer, he closes his eyes gently, slips his ear phones over his head after plugging them in, and leans back in his chair, waiting to hear the start-up sound that signifies he can put in his password to log in. The light shining above him creates an irritating orange glow and looking up at it for too long, even with his eyes closed, leaves an uncomfortable ache behind his eyes.
He faces forward again and yawns, placing hand over his mouth loosely as he does so, feeling his hot breath dampen his palm slightly with sweat. When he finally hears the bold startup tune blast through his headphones, he flinches and opens his eyes, leaning forward in his chair to type in his password.
For the next few hours, he writes and writes, and writes some more, but only manages to get another seven pages done. It seems like a lot, but to Logan, it isn't enough. He still has at least ten more pages to write until the chapter can be finished.
He reads through the first few of the seven pages again and clicks his tongue, tapping a pen randomly lying on his desk against his bottom lip as he concentrates on the wording of one of his sentences: One misconception many people seem to believe is that seasons such as summer, winter, spring, and autumn, are caused by our Earth changing its distance from the Sun as it orbits it.
Does he really need to list the seasons? He's pretty sure that most people reading his book would know what the seasons are. And now that he reads through it again... is the last part worded awkwardly?
Humming softly in deliberation, Logan narrows his eyes and almost glares at the words that seem to be staring at him from their place on his computer screen. "I don't... 'it orbits it'?" He repeats that section of his sentence to himself a few times before shaking his head. "Doesn't quite sound..."
Right. His voice trails off as he presses the backspace button on his keyboard quickly. It takes a few more minutes of thinking and thesaurus searching (though he would never admit to using one) before he finally finds a way to word his sentence that sounds a little bit better at least. He tries to remember that this is just the first draft and that his editor will help him with the next one.
"Okay... 'One misconception many people seem to believe is that the seasons are caused by our Earth changing its distance from the Sun as we orbit it.' A little better."
Talking to himself used to feel so odd, but over time, he's realised that sometimes reading his words out loud makes it easier to spot any grammatical mistakes. He nods and begins to read through the correction he wrote of the misconception- thankfully, he's happy with it.
It's then that he hears his phone vibrating from its spot on the corner of the desk. Of course it's his best friend, Roman King. How didn't he realise it was lunchtime?
Grabbing his phone, he holds it up to his ear and huffs out an amused breath at the exuberant greeting he receives. "Where are you, Specs? It's time for lunch! Please don't tell me you've finally discovered a way of getting sustenance from just breathing."
Logan rolls his eyes, but decides to play along, smirking lightly. "I'm afraid so."
"Wow. Is this just because I took a bite of your sandwich yesterday?"
A pout appears on Logan's face as he reminisces over the sweet, yet salty taste of jam and bacon sandwich, mourning the loss of that one bite that Roman stole. Yes, most people think it's a strange combination, but they just don't understand. "That was a good fucking sandwich."
"Harsh."
With a soft laugh, Logan simply hums in response, reading through the last page he wrote that day and picking out any edits he can make to it when he gets back home later. Roman's voice soon comes through the speaker of Logan's phone again, a little more irritated this time. "Logan, come on! You need to eat real human food, Tin-man. Not that microwavable stuff you keep buying."
Logan rolls his eyes, trying not to glance back at his fridge that definitely has a shitty Chinese ready meal from Walmart sitting in it. "I ate most of that delicious bacon and jam sandwich yesterday, didn't I?"
"Lunch with me doesn't count," Roman scolds him, "because it was one sandwich and I'll bet you ten dollars that you forgot to eat dinner."
Lips pressing together in a straight line, Logan knows that he's right, but stays silent. He never likes being wrong. Unfortunately, Roman knows him well enough now to be able to read his silence, so an amused scoff bursts through the speaker on Logan's phone soon after he makes the accusation.
Before he can say anything more however, Logan hangs up and huffs out a sigh, barely budging the few strands of dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. When had it gotten so warm? Was his air conditioning broken? He closes his eyes, but hears his text tone go off no more than five seconds later. Despite his better judgement telling him to just ignore it, he picks up the device and taps on the messages icon to see Roman's name brightened to show that he's sent a text.
read Tuesday 11:52pm: Logan, I swear to Beyoncé if you don't get your ass down here right now, you'll regret it.
He types out a reply, one that's a little more snarky than usual. All he wants to do is get back to work and finish this stupid novel.
delivered Tuesday 11:53pm: I don't see how you could make me regret getting my work done.
Once he's seen that Roman has read the message, he begins to read through his work again. He really should have known that Roman wouldn't go down so easily. His text tone goes off once again and he rolls his eyes, opening the text and glancing down at it.
read Tuesday 11:55pm: I'll tell Patton.
Logan freezes. Then, he types out a defeated reply.
delivered Tuesday 11:55pm: You bastard.
delivered Tuesday 11:55pm: Fine, I'm on my way.
Not bothering to check Roman's texts of victory, Logan hurries to drench himself in deodorant, grab his bag that is already carrying his notebook, pen, and wallet, slip on his shoes, and head out the front door.
The first thing he notices when he leaves his apartment building is that the sun is way too bright for his liking. He winces at the sudden blinding light that nearly burns his eyes and shades the top half of his face with his hand. Why Roman loved summer so much, he'd never understand.
Even with his thick leather shoes on, he can still feel the scorching heat of the concrete pavement on the bottom of his feet. He certainly hopes no dog are being taken out for a walk without some form of protection for their paws. Other than the uncomfortable high temperature and humidity of the air, the area around his apartment complex is as ordinary as ever, not that he's complaining.
There's still the old fashioned diner just across the street that nobody goes to, though he doesn't quite understand why; it seems to be aesthetically pleasing enough, especially to those that would label themselves as 'hipsters', and he's sure that the food is decent. It's not like he'll ever go there though, that would be breaking routine.
Of course, the run-down corner store is still practically crumbling away beside the diner, being run by a man who Logan honestly believes spits in the slushies of anyone that bothers to buy from his store. Logan only goes in there if he desperately needs milk, sugar, something like that. Never bread though. Not after the 'Mouldy Bread Incident of 2014'. He shudders just thinking about it.
Town isn't too far from where he lives luckily, especially since he always takes the same short route to get there. Because efficiency. And routine, of course.
He strolls down the street, barely looking around him, too focused on reaching his destination to be very observant. In every other respect, he was rather observant, but when it came to people, he simply didn't care that much (unless it was his family, Roman, or Patton, of course). However, he does take notice of a woman trying to calm down her son, who is obviously very distressed about one thing or another. Logan wants to help, but not only would he not know how to do so, he would also get a long lecture from Roman about how 'being late to a lunch date won't do well for him if he happens to need to hide a body in the future'.
He's had this lecture quite a few times.
A concerning amount of times, actually...
Anyway! He half-regretfully continues down the path, soon reaching the edge of town and spotting the usual charity shop Patton had volunteered in for a while. The only reason he had even stopped going was because he had finally been offered a job working at a better high school than he already was, which would take up more of his time. It was still a great store, the sign on the front of the store being a sweet baby blue -- bright enough to draw customers in, but soft enough to feel welcoming. Logan had actually been in there once or twice, usually just to bring Patton lunch or a drink. But since this is not included in his daily routine, he passes by it and continues forward.
There's a small Subway next to the charity shop, only around four sets of tables of chairs sit inside for only eight people to sit at a time. He's heard a few horror stories about the tuna there making people sick, but has never tried a sandwich from there himself, so he doesn't quite know if they are true. Though, but the sheer amount of people who have had this problem, it's definitely not unlikely.
As he makes his way past, he can smell the rather delicious aroma of cooking meatballs and chicken, along with the somewhat fresh scent of vegetables mixing with it. However, since he's not being very observant, he doesn't really notice it. The smell makes him hungry and he charges forward just a little bit faster.
Once he passes a Walmart and turns the corner, he spots the familiar figure of his best friend standing outside of their usual sandwich shop neither of them could actually remember the name of. He sighs softly at the rare breeze that drifts across his skin and moves towards where Roman is standing, arms folded, head leaned back against the wall, and eyes closed. "Salutations, Roman."
At the sudden voice, the actor is pulled away from his thoughts and back to the present, where he beams brightly at his best friend before pulling him into a brief hug. Logan returns it for a split second before they separate and head into the shop, eyeing the list of sandwiches they had on a menu bolted against the wall behind the counter.
As he expected, Logan receives a scolding on how being late to burying a body could land them both in jail, despite the fact that they would never murder anybody, not that Logan has the strength to do so. He rolls his eyes and picks what he wants for lunch, waiting for Roman to do the same.
They both take a seat at their usual booth in the corner of the shop, away from the windows and away from the counter. This is when Roman, as Logan always expects he will, begins to complain about one of the women working at the same local theatre as him. Apparently she had gotten him in trouble for something she had forgotten to do. What a bitch.
"She took advantage of our manager's forgetfulness and got me into trouble instead of her! And since she's new, he didn't second guess her claim." Roman sighs heavily, glaring down at his sandwich and frowning. "Complete bullshit, I'm telling you."
Logan simply hums and takes a bite of his jam and bacon sandwich, the jam isn't the nicest, but he's used to it and the taste feels so familiar to him that he doesn't really notice how bad it actually is. For a second, Roman eyes him up, suspicious and concerned until he sighs heavily, rolling his tongue irritatedly as he makes a realisation. "You didn't get much sleep last night, did you?"
It's a question, but the tone of his voice makes it sound more like a statement.
All Logan does in response is grunt in a way that somewhat confirms his best friend's suspicion. Roman frowns and rests his chin on his hand, leaning forward on the table to further interrogate Logan. "Specs, you haven't been sleeping much recently. Why?"
Because it's routine. A few weeks ago, Logan accidentally stayed up later than usual and broke his old sleeping schedule, but he figured that he could maybe work on getting it back on track. That didn't work out, so now Logan's daily routine includes a 1AM bedtime.
He thinks about how strange that would be to other people and wonders why he is the only person who thinks that way. Is he the only person who thinks that way? It would, admittedly, be rather bizarre if he was, but he doesn't even understand why he's stuck thinking this way. Why his obsession with routine is so severe that he'd even allow himself to have such an unhealthy sleeping routine. It feels as if he's trapped.
"I've simply been focused on my work."
"Well," Roman mumbles, holding his bottom lip between his teeth nervously, "concentrate more on actually getting some sleep. You matter more to people than your work does. Promise me you'll go to sleep at a reasonable time tonight?"
Hesitantly, Logan nods. "I'll try my best."
After a second, Roman grins and continues to complain about the other actors and techies at work, giving Logan a detailed description of how all of them were going to regret the day they decided to 'fuck him over'. And Logan listens, desperate to tune out the voice in his head telling him that he had never actually promised.
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After working on his novel for a few more hours, Logan hears an energetic knock at his door and immediately knows who it is. A soft smile pulls at his lips as he unlocks his front door and let's Patton inside. When they're both standing in his living room, Logan notices that his friend is carrying two plastic bags full of food; possibly two steaks, multiple small bags of vegetables, and another small bag of potatoes. It looks like Patton is going to be cooking for him again.
"Patton, you know you don't have to cook me dinner nearly every night." His tone is fond and the smile on his face matches it perfectly.
The bubbly man in front of his smiles wider and makes his way to the kitchen, surely knowing that Logan will follow. "I know, but I also know that you always forget to make yourself something. Besides," Patton turns his face towards the ground, his voice getting softer with something Logan doesn't quite recognise, "I like spending this time with you."
Logan doesn't really know what to say to that, so instead of saying anything, he smiles and moves to help prepare dinner, cutting the potatoes in half and placing them in a pan of boiling water that Patton had already gotten ready.
They work in silence for a couple of minutes before Patton asks Logan about his day, giggling at the stories involving roman and offering advice with his work dilemmas despite not having any experience with writing himself. Patton has always been an absolute sweetheart, offering help however he possibly can, which includes cooking Logan dinner almost every single night.
Glancing over at his friend subtly, Logan smiles yet again at the content expression settled on his face as he reads the packaging of the steaks, probably wanting to get them perfect. Because despite not being a perfectionist of any kind, he always wants to please his loved ones and make them happy.
When gentle amber meets hazel, he realises that he's been caught unintentionally staring and has the decency to flush lightly in embarrassment. "My apologies. I didn't mean to stare."
Patton's voice gets quiet again, but there's the edge of a smile in his voice. "That's okay..."
For a while, they chatter idly about their days and help each other cook their dinner, rubbing the steaks with butter and grating cheese to sprinkle on top of Logan's potatoes. Apparently, Patton had been yelled at by an extremely rude parent about their child's coat being taken, as if he had stolen it himself. But Patton seems happy enough, so Logan simply offers some friendly advice, an ear to listen, and a glass of orange juice.
After their steaks are done the way they both individually like it, they pile up the salad and potatoes, and then sit down on Logan's sofa, placing their plates down on the coffee table in front of them. Patton grins over at his friend when he hears the sigh of delight leave his nose. "Nice?"
"Extremely."
Patton laughs again and digs into his own portion, smiling happily as the butter on his potatoes causes them to melt in his mouth. They're quiet for a minute before Logan brings up the topic of work, asking for Patton's opinion on the sentence he struggled so much with wording.
Placing his knife and fork on his plate, Patton leans back and asks for Logan to recite the sentence to him. Logan manages to without much difficulty. "Alright, the sentence is: 'One misconception many people seem to believe is that the seasons are caused by our Earth changing its distance from the Sun as we orbit it.' Do you think it can be worded any better?"
"Well, I'm no professional at stuff like this, but it makes sense to me and I don't know much about space." Patton replies, tucking a few stray strands of hair behind his ear and watching Logan's reaction carefully, not wanting to offend him.
Logan nods and thanks him with a grateful smile, taking another bite of his steak. "I appreciate your feedback, Patton." He pauses and feels the weight of an awkward silence smother him. "This steak is really good."
An adoring chuckle slips through Patton's lips and he nods, thanking him quietly and continuing to eat his own dinner.
When the clock strikes 10PM, Patton decides that it's time for him to leave and for Logan to get some sleep. He wraps the socially awkward man in a hug, receiving one tense arm around his waist in return, and then leaves with his usual warm smile.
Logan climbs into bed after changing into some pyjamas, but every time he closes his eyes, an urge claws desperately at his limbs, silently begging him to move and do something productive. Just do something. Anything. He's off routine!
That's how he ends up falling asleep, arms curled around his head on his desk, at 1:13AM.
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The next morning starts like the one before. He gets up, forgets to make breakfast, takes a quick shower, and works on his novel until 11:45. However, instead of going to their usual sandwich store, Roman suggests that they try out a somewhat new coffee shop that opened up just across the street from where they'd usually eat. At first, Logan is hesitant, not wanting to break routine, but Roman somehow manages to convince him to give it a try. Logan now expects to go there every day from now on.
With a sweet tinkle of a bell, the door opens and they step inside.
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