Logan: *intensely praying for a guardian angel*

Troye didn't expect either more or less from Logan.

There he was, sprawled across the couch with one arm over his head and the other awkwardly slung over the edge of the couch, veins popping out with the surge of blood due to gravity. Troye found it... easy on the eyes.

It was clearly not a large enough piece of furniture for anyone to sleep in, especially for a messy sleeper like Logan. However, Troye couldn't get Logan to leave, so all he could do was make sure Logan was as comfortable as possible. Which was also not saying much since Troye could barely afford the couch itself, and the best he could offer was a thin sheet and a single pillow taken from his own bed.

It was another early start for Troye, luckily nothing too strenuous as he is only required to be out for a few hours before he could come home and go about his merry way with some sort of hermit activity that required no social interaction and burnt no calories.

Just as any other early morning after Logan's stay in his humble apartment, Troye scribbled down a note for Logan. Troye didn't expect to see Logan by the time he was back, but he found that it was a courteous gesture to avoid any sort of morning haze panic.

The first stop was to purchase coffee, which he could no longer ask for the barista to fill up his plastic mug, because he had lost it. With that thought, Troye left with a frustrated sigh, hoping that the rest of the day would only look up from there.

Among the quiet streets and made up dreams in his head. Troye was able to find a single thread of encouragement. One day, everything will be alright. He would wake up in the morning, look in the mirror with an I-got-this kind of smile.

Logan, shortly thereafter, started to stir in his sleep. He sat up with a full head of unkempt hair, slightly crumpled clothes and very heavy dizziness that didn't help with his desire to wake up and go home.

As always, he had slight hope that Troye was still sleeping and they could go on another bro-date to have breakfast, but seeing the fluorescent yellow sticky note plastered right on the edge of the coffee table, Logan was yet again disappointed.

Since the day they met, Logan had felt compelled to be close to Troye. It wasn't necessarily a romantic attraction, Logan didn't usually connect with others in that way. He just thought that Troye was a bit of a lost cause in some areas of life and needed a little - a lot - of guidance out of his comfort zone.

Logan found one of the joys of life was to explore outside his comfort zone, sure it could be very uncomfortable, and more often than not, he would hate the outcome of trying something new. However, there were always novelties that made him happy he had this mindset. And meeting Troye, befriending him and maintaining the strict friendship was a proud example.

He smiled. One of those I-got-this smiles.

~A few months ago~

Deadlines. Fucking deadlines.

The infamous 'D-word' was to be spoken by no one but those who wished to perish in a life of boredom, Logan thought. He was absolutely repulsed by the idea that he had to actually do something for once.

It wasn't his fault that he was trying to live life to its fullest. Academics came second to his personal hobbies and none of said hobbies was spending hours on his laptop and not for the purpose of whack-off material.

It was the end of the semester, and given the circumstances, of course Logan hadn't handed in his report which was due in an hour. In fact, it was just barely completed before he had picked up his laptop and ran straight from his dormitory to the nearest available printer.

Of course, on days like this, many other tasks were due and, of course, no one thought to print it even a day before the due date. Therefore, every single printer was occupied with at least a dozen other impatiently waiting students.

Logan was smart though, it would be a poor display of himself in front of strangers, but it wasn't as if he hadn't already embarrassed himself in the public eye numerous times already. He had a contingency plan in case all other printers on campus were taken up.

As physically fit as he was, running and avoiding pedestrians while protecting his laptop was a whole other full body workout that required mental clarity as well.

Finally, Logan reached the nearest place that looked like it would have some sort of printer in it. The local stationary or department store would have had paid printing services available. However, Logan only ever said he had a contingency plan, not that he had planned the route and everything in between before carrying it out. Even if he was certain it would have to come down to his plan B.

His heavy breathing sounded more like a wheeze than anything, but that was only because he was shameless in making himself known.

Looking up, there was no one at the front desk, and he realised that there was a printer right behind the front desk. Score. Logan thought, but then he looked around him in a slow twirl. It was a real estate agency.

Rolling his eyes, he straightened up from his bent form trying to get oxygen into his bloodstream. Being in a real estate agency meant one of two outcomes, there would either be severe judgement and rejection when he mentioned the reason he was here, or someone would try to make him lose time by hard selling apartments and houses that he couldn't even dream of affording.

He honestly had half a mind to just creep around the desk and man the machine himself to get what he wanted, but that wasn't very legal and the last thing he wanted was to get arrested, which would affect a whole lot more than his grades.

"... Thank you. See you later." A guy, probably around Logan's age, walked out of one of the offices. There is a God. Logan thought to himself.

The young man turned after the door shut with a pile of paper cradled in his left arm which Logan thought was an unorthodox way of transporting stacks of something but he supposed that it was all personal preference.

Without knowing it, Logan was staring and digressing from the original intent as he was exploring the other options for carrying a sum of paper, such as the one in the young man's arm.

The young man stepped past Logan with a slight smile, seemingly unfazed. At that, Logan snapped back into motion. He straightened up completely, surprised to find that the young man was a fair amount shorter than himself.

"Look, buddy, I have this thing I have to submit in..." He took a look at the clock on the adjacent wall, "40 minutes, my professor is a massive dick and made us hand in hard copies. Please tell me that you can print it out for me."

Logan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, preparing himself for some sort of safety alarm to go off. However, the young man only wiggled his arms out of Logan's death grip and stared wide eyed. Seeing as his new 'buddy' is in a petrified state, Logan ran his hand through his hair and made a loud groan.

"C'mon, bud, please just help a student in need." Logan clasped both hands together in a begging formation, his laptop clamped between his arm and the side of his chest.

Prayers flew through Logan's head when the stranger nodded and walked around the front desk feeling more than just a little confused.

Logan, with his arms crossed over the desk fumbled with his arm hair. He contemplated speaking, or even just to politely introduce himself as his saviour pushed buttons on the touch screen behind the desk. However, he decided against it, he knew that he was pushing boundaries for someone he didn't know at all, and the fact that he got help was a miracle in its own.

"What do you want to print?" The stranger spoke. His voice had a resonance that was lost in Logan's own chesty voice.

"Oh... umm... this." Logan pulled up the document on his waiting laptop. He could  have honestly just grab the stranger's face and kiss him senseless when he heard the beautiful symphony of moving gears. He never thought that he would be turned on by the sounds a printer made.

Troye. Was written across a plastic coffee mug, snuggled against the side of the stranger's backpack. Logan had surmised that it was the guy's name, he thought he looked more like a Daniel, Michael or Gabriel.

"Thank you so much Troye-" Troye turned around, faster than lightning, looking mortified yet again.

"How do you know my name?" Logan smirked inwardly, he quite enjoyed seeing his new friend look flustered, perhaps he can repay Troye with a little wine and dine, then a night between the sheets.

"My name's Logan. Nice to meet you..." Logan leant forward, showing off his facial features a little more. "Again."

Troye, meanwhile, apart from being slightly spooked, was also thinking that he had forgotten the name of someone he had potentially met before. However, that could not be the case since he rarely got out of his dinghy apartment and he had never seen this person in any of his classes.

Without a single hint, Troye continued to stare into Logan's face. He had very angular features, blue eyes and blonde hair... Maybe it could be Lennard from high school, but last he heard of him, Lennard had gotten himself into 'medical marijuana' and more high school drama than Troye cared to acknowledge...

"Don't take me too seriously, bud. We've never met." Logan stretched his arm out for a handshake, "Logan."

Troye took the hand, sort of haphazardly introducing himself, "Tro- Wait, that doesn't explain why you know my name." He was sceptical, in fact, there was a sort of predatory gaze that beheld Logan's eyes.

"It's on your coffee mug," Logan pointed at the container.

Troye immediately felt humiliated, he didn't want to be doing this... human interaction ordeal. So, he turned around, gathered the pile of paper with a poorly formatted report printed onto it. He gave the stack a staple and thrusted the pile and the laptop back at Logan.

Feeling the warm paper in his arms was almost like he was holding his first-born child. Proud, accomplished and grateful...

Logan made an effort to thank Troye as he walked backwards to the glass door, attempting to push when the door was clearly not supposed to open that way. "I owe you one, buddy! Thank you so much."

At least Troye can now phone home to his parents and say he spoke to a guy his age.

Not that his parents were a fanatic about his progression in life.

~The present~

"Did you like the flowers?" Troye asked as he stepped out of the flight of stairs leading up to the streets from the depths of the metro.

"They are... great." Came a reply, "Now will you tell me why the hell you decided to send your father flowers, son?" Troye's father questioned his son's logic. He appreciated the gesture, sure, but there were better things to gift a father than a bouquet of assorted floral goodness.

"Why not? Mom likes them." Troye chuckled under his breath, relieved to have received such a response from his semi-gag gift.

"I didn't know children could play favouritism too..."

Troye couldn't have flown back home since it was the middle of the semester. Truthfully, he wouldn't be able to afford a plane ticket even if he did have time to spare, and flowers were basically the only thing he could have afforded.

With a sigh, Troye squinted his eyes, maybe he should really look into getting a new job or even a second job. The pressure was paralysing. The freedom of his current part-time job was good in its flexibility but it paid next to nothing. Just enough to cover his rent, and barely enough for food. "Sorry, I just wanted to do something nice since I'm not home this year..."

The numbers in his bank account was really causing a dip in Troye's mood, after the flowers, he was down to triple digits, just enough for the next few weeks until his pay check came.

Troye's father felt bad for making Troye feel like his gesture wasn't enough, "We needed another bouquet in the bedroom anyway... Right?" The older man asked his wife, who was too busy reading the card that accompanied the gift to give an elaborate answer.

After a moment of conversation between his parents, Troye decided to give his mind a rest, "I'm heading home now, you guys take care." Troye bade, feeling slightly worse than moments ago. He knew his father wasn't the most reassuring figure in his life, but he knew deep down that both his parents cared for him.

"Uh... yeah... you too."

The call ended with a slight bit of awkward tension. It was always like that though; Troye's parents were both strong people and emotional connection was a little far-fetched in the family. Troye didn't like blaming his upbringing for his personality, but he knew that somewhere in between adolescence and adulthood, he had learnt that connections were superficial. Even familial connections.

Troye pondered his options for new sources of income. He could definitely pick up another job as a waiter at the cafe he frequented, but he was fairly certain that exposure to the same place all the time could lead to a cognitive downturn. Beggars can't be choosers though, and Troye was fairly familiar with begging nowadays. Begging for time to stop, for more smiles, for less stress.

Just as Troye stepped into the lift, his right hand went to fish out the coffee mug from the side of his backpack. When he felt that it wasn't there, he nearly screamed out in frustration.

He was in the wrong frame of mind to be dealing with this extended storyline of misfortune, and the universe seemed to be flipping the pages for him in the most cunning way possible.

Before he knew it, his tolerance had bottomed out. Troye lifted a hand to his mouth, sucking in irregular breaths as his tears fell. It was rare that he ever pitied himself in such a way. However, he saw no other way to take the load off of himself apart from crying helplessly.

The lift came to a stop swiftly after he started to sob. He went to take his keys out, thinking to the set of keys, you might as well fuck right off too... Fortunately, that wasn't the case and Troye was able to get back into his apartment with minimal struggles.

That is, until he heard the shower going. It had been barely 2 hours since he left, and although he didn't expect it, Logan could very well still be here, but Troye wasn't ready to deal with anyone.

He walked straight into his bedroom, knocked on the bathroom door aggressively until he heard the water shut off. Troye wiped futilely at his eyes, sleeves pulled over his palm. He supposed that it was one of the perks of not crying often as his tears had run dry by now, his eyes didn't know how to cry for prolonged periods of time. That was what Troye believed in his moment of hysteria.

The door opened, and Troye grabbed Logan's left arm and started dragging him toward the bedroom door. Logan showed resistance of course, but Troye was still ignorant to the fact that the man was half way through washing up and his hair was sopping wet with suds of soap around his ears.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Buddy, how desperate are you to fuc-"

"Get out." Troye shoved at Logan's chest once they were close to the door. The larger of the two refused of course, sensing the palpable negativity that misted the room.

"Let me rinse off, at least." Logan felt slightly offended at Troye's lack of courtesy.

"Get out!" Troye pulled the door close on Logan, struggling to get his way as Logan could easily push Troye over with just one arm and a single exhale.

They wrestled for a while, with Logan seriously concerned for his friend's mental state. They hadn't known each other for long, and they haven't known each other well enough to call themselves best friends, so this was all new to Logan. In fact, emotional outbursts were all new to Logan either way since he hadn't had sentimental friends in the past.

Logan decided to shove a little harder and the door opened up just wide enough for him to slip through. He saw Troye, sliding down the door, with his face hidden in his arms and knees, clearly struggling to take in a steady breath.

"Bud, what's wrong?" Logan knelt down, one hand holding his towel in place. He used his other hand to touch Troye's shoulder, fully grasping the magnitude of despair now.

There was no response though. Troye was humiliated enough to have lashed out like that, on top of pulling his friend away mid-shower and shoving him out the door. Although embarrassment was at the front of his mind, it wasn't enough to shadow over the absolute helplessness. It wasn't a crime to act like a badly tempered boy once in a while, right...? Troye reasoned with himself, which only caused another sharp intake of air.

Seeing as Troye wasn't going to tell him what was wrong, and he certainly didn't seem like he was going to move, Logan went to fetch his friend a glass of water. The man had some sense of hygiene, but at present, the only cup available was the half rinsed plastic cup Troye used for brushing his teeth. Logan quickly took the chance to wash out the rest of the soap suds under the tap then put on his used clothes.

The idea of being an alpha male had always been subconsciously present in Logan's mind, he liked the feeling of being in control, turning heads and getting down with whoever he had wanted. However, until moments like this occurred, he didn't have the self-awareness to acknowledge how ignorant to emotions he really was.

Meanwhile, Troye could only imagine the worst case. He was calculating rough estimates on how much he would have left by the time his rent was due. He came to the conclusion that first, his internet was going to go down, then his phone plan, then the water and electricity was going to cut off. He had half a mind to just fly back home and brood his way through his now obvious financial struggle.

Troye had previously tried very hard to ignore the fact that he had close to no money, he didn't like discussing money since it always led to some sort of argument during his childhood. However, it seemed like it was time for him to revise his strategy in finances.

Just as Troye was regaining some semblance of motivation, Logan came back with a cup of water. Troye tilted his head up slightly, then blushed profusely at how much of a brat he had been.

Logan crossed his legs in front of Troye, not acknowledging personal space at all. At least he wasn't speaking though, Troye would have imploded all over again if Logan uttered a single word.

It was a stalemate, but Logan felt like he learnt a lot more about himself. He learnt that he should have more empathy.

Perhaps he would stay at Troye's apartment for a while longer. Until his buddy was feeling better.

Published 21/4/2018

A wild chapter appears!

Life has been busy, but I took some time out to edit and write today and it was very cathartic. It reminded me of the reason why I bother being creative at all.

Poor Troye, he's got a lot of isolation happening. Mostly because of his defence mechanisms but who is truly to blame here? We will meet Troye's family more in the future, and certainly Logan and Romero's families as well. I'm trying to broaden my writing to encompass more side characters and not just nail in on the main characters and have no diversions in between.

The characters chapter has also been updated with photos of Romero, go look at it, although I'm sure you know who David Beckham is and how he looks like lol!

Hope life has been treating you well, and we can chat in the comments!