* 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 / 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅

closed for @coughsyrvps· / O_O leaving a gift on ur stoop…

          “see— i see your mouth moving. i can tell you’re saying words. but none of them are making any sense,” is all logan can bring himself to say from where he sits across fern’s desk, not entirely caring to be scolded by the publicist right now. he’s well aware he was nowhere close to his best behavior the night before, but he isn’t he sorry about it! a little annoyed that his fucking eye stings every time he blinks, but he’s dealt with a black-eye before and he’ll be able to do so just fine now.

          (…the blowback from the night’s sponsors, though?…)

         “i mean— what would you have had me do, fern? he had too much to drink and was talking out of his ass— if i didn’t do something, someone else would’ve!” he’s leaving out a generous bit of information there (cough, thattheguywassayingshitaboutfern, cough), but it’s to save face here and— well, fern should be proud of that, right? image, and all. “it’ll blow over,” he waves a hand dismissively, wishing the conversation would change as soon as possible. “it always does.”

           that comment earns him a look, one more deadly than usual. her lip glossed pout pulled into a tight line as her jaw clenched. fern swears she could even feel her eye begin to twitch as she contemplated jumping over the desk to give the current thorn in her side another shiner to match the one whose swelling had just begun to go down; she decided it wasn’t worth the energy or risking manicure, but the anger persisted. she had worked all week with that headache of a club promoter and, of course, logan would take a sledgehammer to all her hard work without a second thought.

           and have the nerve to be blasé about it.

     “  an  inflatable  couch  ?  you  know  that  wouldn’t  last  a  day,  right  ?  it’ll  mold  from  the  rain  or,  even  worse,  get  punctured  and  deflate  and  we’d  have  to  cover  the  holes  with  duct  tape,  ”  she  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  staring  up  at  the  dark  night  sky.  the  lack  of  stars  was  disappointing,  but  it  was  still  fun  to  squint  and  pretend  that  they  were  there.  “  how  have  you  been  ?  i  feel  like  i  haven’t  seen  you  in  forever.  ”

          of course logan’s eyes narrowed at that, “…should we go find out?” he knew the obvious answer was yes, but someone had to be the one to suggest it, right?

“  elijah…  you  did  not  just—  ”  she  burst  out  in  a  vibrant  laughter,  shaking  her  head  as  she  headed  towards  the  back  door.  “  the  fact  that  it’s  the  loudest  game  in  the  arcade  should  be  a  crime.  i’m  thinking  about  accidentally  breaking  it  so  we  don’t  have  to  suffer  anymore.  ”  alycia  took  a  seat  on  one  of  the  broken  chairs,  holding  her  hands  out  to  steady  herself.  “  so,  when  are  we  going  to  invest  in  new  seats  out  here  ?  make  it  more  home-y,  y’know  ? ”

     “  calling  911  is  getting  old,  i  say  we  let  them  fend  for  themselves  -  like  survivor  or  man  vs.  wild,  ”  she  added,  her  tone  of  voice  as  serious  as  they  come.  but  it  goes  unsaid  that  she  was  obviously  joking.  alycia  really  didn’t  like  kids.  it  was  a  wonder  how  she  even  got  the  job  in  the  first  place.  “  hey,  i  need  a  break.  wanna  go  out  back  for  ten  minutes  ?  ”

        “i mean, it kind of does. they painted the stalls in the bathroom the darkest shade of blue i’ve ever fuckin’ seen, so. dick doodles are like in invisible ink in there. the place is basically the palace of versailles now.”

closed for @jawbreakcrs· / sc.

             "you know, i really hoped i’d never see this place again.“

           “don’t people like asses now? the fascination that swept the nation?” a horrible joke — one that would’ve become even worse if he continued with his follow-up comment about the kardashians. the quality of his response can only be chalked up to fern taking a stab at his ego and succeeding. it killed him to even mentally admit it, but she had a point. if logan was as committed to his career as he claimed to be, he had to act on his long-held-and-ignored realization that he couldn’t just party forever. god, just the mere thought of still having to promote shitty tequila at forty-years-old made him want to throw up his lunch. the only way to avoid that nightmare was to get serious when necessary; all in all, to cut the bullshit. maybe fern was a pain in the ass, but she was the only one capable of productively getting him in line. it was half the reason he sat there silently as she continued to make point after point. well, silent for the most part — he couldn’t help but let out a snort at the mention of ‘tacky’. “i thought people stopped saying tacky in 2006,” he muttered under his breath, not too far off from sounding like a child who kept running his mouth in time-out.

         turned out he could listen for five seconds — if his mood wasn’t partially soured now, he would’ve obnoxiously interrupted after counting five seconds to himself. instead, he was forced to talk business. he could handle instagram stories; he could pop those things out in his sleep. he already willingly posted more than necessary on his own volition, might as well have some cash kicked at him for them. the concept, on the other hand, was enough to have him choking on his own spit. all he could takeaway was ‘public street’, ‘paparazzi’, and ‘nothing but underwear’. he laughed out loud — the outburst surprising but entirely genuine. again, another missed opportunity for a joke along the lines of ‘if you want to see me stripped so bad, all you have to do is ask’, but for good reason. there was a solid chance that saying such a thing would earn him a stapler getting thrown at the back of his head, so. better safe than sorry. but, fuck, he did not want to agree. he knew fern had done well — or, more specifically, had done exactly what he was hoping she’d do (excluding quitting, of course). they were all fun choices; so much so that he was getting preemptively irritated with the way she’d rub her victory in his face. so, he didn’t hand it to her. didn’t give her the satisfaction by any means. instead, he just looked over his shoulder, “are you going to be around for all of these? or am i trusted enough to not need a babysitter around?”

          the eyeroll that followed logan’s comment was instinctual, she couldn’t help it nor did she bother to hide it. ‘well, we are not landing a netflix special anytime soon.’ fern thought to herself,  deciding to save him from her internal monologue. “maybe, but most people don’t want to hear hard truths from the people they pay. – everyone wants their egos coddled.” she added, an edge of disdain hidden in her voice. that would be the one part of the job she didn’t always like, the sugar-coating and the bullshitting. fern was good at it, of course, but she didn’t like it. she learned the hard way that some people most in need of a reality check, weren’t always very open to one. it wasn’t as though she feared logan’s wrath or anything in the slightest, the pulled punch was out of habit at work. “next time, i’ll use some more colorful vocabulary for you.”  his reaction to the brand’s concept was as expected, a seeming moment of shock followed by one of slightly juvenile glee, and logan didn’t need to say it for her to know she had done particularly well that week. “oh, of course i will be, and of course you’re not.” she laughed, airdropping him the schedule for the week as she did.