#brook writes

There had been a couple times where Virgil had imagined this sort of future, though he had never allowed the thought to linger. He had been so sure that Roman would have left by now, just like everyone inevitably had and does. Letting someone in and then having them leave without a word was one of the most painful things that could happen to someone. To be entirely honest, he wasn’t sure what would be better; to have that explanation or be stuck wondering what you did wrong.

But of the few times he had allowed the thoughts to linger…they were always warm. They had brought a sense of safety and security along with them. As cliche as it was, it was nice to think that maybe, just maybe, he could be happy too.

Virgil rolled over onto his side, propped up by his elbow, his eyes scanning Roman’s face. His gaze followed every dip and slope of his sharp features, before his eyes met Roman’s. “To be honest, I don’t really know what I thought.”

Roman’s smile widened into something bright, genuine and unabashed, though Virgil could also see the hint of something glittering behind his eyes. “I may be a hopeless romantic—”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“But, I knew there was something different about you,” Roman continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “I don’t exactly know what it was. The broody attitude, the snarky exterior, perhaps the fact that you fought with me on every little thing that literally did not matter—”

Virgil snorted. “You say that as if you didn’t do the same thing,” he leaned a little closer to his fiance. “As if you still don’t argue with me about stupid shit that doesn’t matter.”

“You are such a mood killer, mi amor,” Roman lamented, though his tone of voice betrayed him. Besides, Virgil knew he wasn’t really all that upset about it. “The point I’m trying to make is that there was something about you that just made you different. I knew we would be different.”

Virgil hummed. He reached over and brushed a stray strand of hair from Roman’s eyes, only for his hand to be caught by said man’s and held gently in place. Soft enough that he could pull away if he truly wanted to. His fingertips brushed against the slight stubble lining Roman’s jaw. “Are you trying to tell me you saw us getting married?”

“No,” he said, watching Virgil’s eyes with earnest. “But I hoped we would.”

Virgil found himself laughing. It wasn’t loud or mocking, but surprised. “You’re absolutely disgusting.”

“I know.” Roman released his hand, but before Virgil could take it back, he felt Roman’s arms snake around his waist and pull him right down. Close enough that their noses nearly touched. Heat immediately flushed into Virgil’s cheeks at the proximity, nevermind how many times they’d been this close before. “But I know that somewhere in that dark little soul of yours, you like it.”

Virgil didn’t answer him vocally and instead leaned down to steal the next words from Roman’s lips. When they parted a moment later, Roman gave him a grin that said he knew exactly what he had been doing. And he’d pretty much gotten exactly what he wanted from it, too.

“Besides,” Roman then said, his breath warm. “I look really good in a tux.”

“Oh fuck off,” Virgil pushed away from him and Roman laughed. He returned to his previous position on his back. “You call me a mood killer. You’re such a hypocrite.”

The quiet held for a moment more, but it didn’t take long for Roman’s hand to find his own and their fingers interlaced silently.

In fact, most of them greeted him warmly. Asking about his classes earlier, wishing him a good weekend and giving a teasing reminder to study for the upcoming midterms. None of these conversations lasted longer than a few minutes and normally, Logan would have been glad to speak with them. But as of that moment, the longer he was stuck there standing with them, the larger the chance was of him being found out. He knew his professors were very well trained in spotting things that seemed off—an example would be students sitting in the very back row, the furthest away from the lecturer and still getting called out for not paying enough attention.

Long story short, if Logan got caught he was risking his entire future in this field.

A part of him still questioned if this whole thing was even worth the risk. Humans got hurt all the time in his practicum; especially when other students weren’t being careful enough. It happened, so why was this one any different?

Why was the human that had looked up at him with wide frightened eyes any different than the others?

Still, whether or not it was worth the risk, Logan was too far into it now to backtrack. Retracing his steps back to the lab may be considered suspicious, so it was all or nothing whether he wanted it to be or not. Besides, he was also positive that the doors would be locked anyhow, so backpedaling would be pointless. Not that he didn’t have a key to get back in if he truly needed to.

Logan ducked around another professor expertly and he went unnoticed, as the professor in question seemed to be engaged in a particularly interesting conversation.

Or so he thought.

Just as he was about to push the door to the building open, he heard the man bidding his quick farewells for the night before easily catching up with the student.

“Logan,” his professor greeted him with a grin, pushing the other door open before Logan had the chance to escape.

“Dr. Coleman,” he replied after a moment, shouldering his book bag a little more securely.

“You seem to be in quite the rush,” Dr. Coleman said, pulling his coat closer as the cool autumn air swept in through the doors. “Mind if I join you to the parking lot?”

As if he had a choice. Logan only gave a nod.

The squirming in his pocket started up again, this time with more vigor. Slightly paranoid that the little motions would show through the soft fabric, Logan make the quick decision to fully wrap his hand around the human—keeping it still and silent. While that stopped the slight movement from the outside, he could still feel the terrified motions pushing helplessly against his fingertips. Trying fruitlessly to budge his fingers. Of course, to no avail.

While he did feel bad about physically restraining it when it was so obviously in distress, Logan really couldn’t risk being found out this far into the endeavor.

He only hoped the little thing’s heart wouldn’t stop entirely.

However, during the entire ordeal he kept his features mindfully neutral, careful to keep from alerting Dr. Coleman of his current plight.

Dr. Coleman didn’t say anything for a long moment, his eyes flickered over the student and Logan pretended not to notice. Acting off would only make the professor suspicious. Something he really did not need right now.

The professor only hummed softly before turning his attention forward, toward the cars sitting silently under the streetlights illuminating the parking lot in a warm yellow glow. Logan must have spent more time in the lab than he had meant to, if twilight was already falling.

“Busy night tonight, I assume?” Dr. Coleman finally broke the silence and Logan only shrugged nonchalantly.

“You could say that,” he relented. While it technically wasn’t untrue, it wouldn’t be school work like the professor would assume.

Dr. Coleman snickered, reaching into his pocket to draw out his car keys. He clicked the buttons and his car’s headlights flashed in response. “Getting some studying done?”

In a way.

Logan forced himself to relax a little, knowing that the professor had no idea of his little stowaway. “Certainly. Can never be too over prepared for an exam.”

“True,” Dr. Coleman stuck his hands into his pockets. Logan felt relief wash over him when the professor reached his own vehicle. This was the very type of interaction he had been trying so hard to avoid. “This is why you’re one of my favourite students, Logan.”

The praise was nice, but really not what he needed right now. “I appreciate that, Dr. Coleman. But I really do have to get going, as pleasant as this conversation has been.”

As stinted as it had been too, it seemed. Usually, talking with Dr. Coleman didn’t take that much energy. He had engaged the professor in many heated debates over his four years of study. And he would be glad to engage in those types of conversations once more! Just as soon as the human was no longer on his person and in range of being confiscated, only to be placed right back into the same area where it had gotten hurt in the first place.

Whether or not this whole thing was the correct course of action, Logan was sick of witnessing humans getting injured and then being disposed of as if their injuries made them completely useless.

If given the proper treatment and time to heal, they would have a far less percentage of humans succumbing to their injuries or illnesses.

It was unfortunate that so many of his peers thought of the small creatures as disposable. While, no, it was not difficult for professionals to retrieve more right out of their lives on earth, it didn’t make the practice any less morbid or underhanded. Anthropology students should be learning how to assist humans in healing and recovering, not tossing them the minute they were no longer “perfect” in their eyes.

“Fair enough,” Dr. Coleman said, stepping back and placing a hand on the door handle of his car. “I won’t keep you from your studies any longer. Have a good night and take care of yourself. Don’t you be pulling all-nighters, understand?”

“I understand,” Logan repeated back as if on instinct. It wouldn’t stop him from doing it, but it was…nice, he supposed, to know that the professor cared.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have friends that wouldn’t check up on him, he did, but it was different when it was someone that was higher status than you were. Held more sway over what happened in the department. Dr. Coleman was the dean of the anthropology department and he had a lot of power.

The professor nodded his head with a grin, before pulling open his car and stepping in.

Logan let out a breath and turned on his heel. Quickening his pace to his own vehicle, he fished in his bag for his keys. He found them after a moment of struggling one-handed and unlocked his car. He slid inside just as Dr. Coleman’s headlights flashed over him and the professor pulled out of the parking lot, disappearing over the hill leading down to the highway.

Letting his head rest back against the seat’s headrest, he finally released the human from the confines of his hand. Using his now freed one, he ran them through his hair before pulling his glasses off.

What was he even doing?

So what if there was a cruel practice going on at the school underneath everyone’s noses? Just because he was privy to it didn’t mean he had to do anything about it. He was just one person. Logan had friends that were very much human rights activists and into studies and politics concerning the creatures, but none of their campaigns had really gotten the traction necessary to make a true difference. It was a difficult field of study to be in when there were people opposing everything you did.

While Logan always made sure his interactions with the creatures were careful and calculated, a part of him wished he could say the same thing for his classmates.

You would think, at a senior level of study, students would be taking it more seriously. Many of them did, but many of them still used this advantage to handle the humans they dealt with rough and carelessly. To which, the creature would get injured and would then be gone by next morning.

The human currently stuck within the confines of his pocket had been one of the unlucky ones. Injured thanks to a student who had been working in the lab outside of class just a few feet away from Logan—who had conducting his own experiments—they’d dropped the human from a dangerous height on accident, causing the little one to cry out.

His classmate had panicked immediately, obviously unsure of what to do or where to go from there. They’d even gone as far as to check over at Logan to gauge if he’d seen anything and snitch. The student had then gathered the human up as if nothing had happened. They’d packed their papers, shoved it all into their backpack and then deposited the human right back into the large glass terrarium in the middle of the lab, just waiting for someone else to find the injured creature in the morning and get rid of it.

Logan didn’t even have any connection to the human currently struggling to right itself in the soft fabric. Hadn’t conducted any studies with it, observed it or anything else of the such. He’d only heard the helpless cry and decided he wasn’t going to let it suffer in its own agony all night.

The move was illogical and he knew that. Yet, he was still risking absolutely everything for this one little human. His future career was banking on the hope he never got found out.

Logan slipped his glasses back on before sliding the keys into the ignition.

“The amount of trouble you could get me in is unbelievable,” he mused after a moment, unsure if he was talking to the human or not. Either way, the only reaction he got for his efforts was more struggling. So, pulling the gear shift out of park, he made his way back home.

—

“Oh, would you stop fighting me for five seconds,” the student groused, quickly managing to corral the human between his hands again without fully touching him. “If I wanted to hurt you, don’t you think I would have done that by now? Or perhaps, better yet, just left you back in the lab’s terrarium for someone else to find?”

The human only twitched away from his hands, just as he had been doing for the past fifteen minutes. Logan really didn’t want to have to pin him down to get the fidgety creature to be still, but he was quickly running out of options and patience.

“I don’t want to restrain you,” Logan’s voice finally seemed to get the human’s flickering attention. However, now the human’s eyes were locked solely on him, with an uncanny ability to follow his every miniature movement with unwavering attention. It was, all things considered, slightly disturbing to be watched so intensely with such obvious fright and distrust. “But I will if you force my hand.”

The human’s face contorted in an expression that resembled a sneer, before he tucked his injured wrist closer to his chest.

Logan pulled his hands back to himself, watching quietly as the human flinched further into himself. It was very much obvious the little one was touch shy and Logan really wanted to refrain from handling him as much as possible– lest he frighten the human so bad his little heart stopped altogether. “You must understand that leaving your wrist like that will only do you more harm than good. I can assist you in starting your healing progress.”

The human seemed open enough to the idea and Logan carefully extended his fingertips forward, a blatant show of nonaggression and allowing the creature to come to him in its own time. Giving the human the slightest semblance of control may make this entire interaction even the tiniest bit easier on them both.

Its eyes flickered uneasily from its wrist back to Logan’s outstretched hand. It twisted to look over its shoulders, as if searching out an escape route. It hadn’t worked before and Logan knew trying to escape wouldn’t work again. His reaction time was much faster than the human’s, so it wouldn’t make it very far anyhow.

The human in question turned back to Logan, almost as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. For him to act like any other careless student that was ready to mishandle him. The human’s wrist was thin as it was, but now that it was injured (and Logan speculated, broken), it was even more vulnerable than before. Giving up a vulnerable piece of you was a frightening thing and Logan could hardly imagine looking at it from any other perspective but his own. Though, he could safely assume that he, himself, would not be very fond of this situation either if their positions had happened to be switched.

Truthfully, there would be nothing about the human’s life Logan would enjoy. Depending on whether or not he came straight from the earth’s surface and nicked directly from his own life, or if he had been born into a breeding facility.

In all reality, he understood the hesitance in letting him assist. If the human had been handled as recklessly as Logan theorized he had, coming face to face with someone that wouldn’t mishandle him purposefully would be unknown, suspicious and daunting new territory.

“I’m not going to ask you to trust me,” he said finally, the human’s eyes flickered up to meet his own. Surprise lingered in those colourful eyes. “I know you’re frightened and that’s alright. It may be hard to believe, but I really can help you. Only if you’ll allow me, of course. Though, I do think you and I both know that sleeping on that hurt wrist of yours would be uncomfortable at least.”

The human’s good hand clenched, showing Logan the inner battle the little one was facing.

Wanting to ease a little more of it’s stress, he quietly urged; “I will not hurt you, you have my word.”

A moment passed and the human hesitantly stepped forward, his wrist extended enough for Logan to start bandaging.

—

“Why’d you do it?”

The sudden voice very nearly startled Logan out of his thoughts. Virgil had been sitting so quietly next to him, that he’d almost forgotten the human was even there in the first place.

When Logan’s attention fell down to said human, Virgil wasn’t looking at him. He was instead focused intently on his wrist, carefully wrapped in bandages and hanging in a makeshift sling, the best either of them could have done. Logan had almost no experience bandaging such a small subject, so getting it done and in a place where he was satisfied with it was difficult. And Virgil had been working one-handed, so getting the sling to hold properly had been a fight all in itself.

Though, the question was what really nabbed Logan’s attention. “Do what?”

Virgil gave him a look—Logan was getting very familiar with Virgil’s looks and they all usually meant something different—which was a mix between annoyance and genuine confusion, as if Logan really didn’t understand what he meant; which was untrue “Smuggled me out of the lab,” he clarified a moment later, his fingers trailing over the white piece of fabric wrapped around his arm and shoulder again. “You didn’t have to do it, we both know that. I just want to know why you did.”

That was the true question, wasn’t it?

An inquiry that had been on Logan’s mind since that night’s ordeal.

In all honesty, Logan wasn’t entirely sure what had metaphorically possessed him in that particular moment. And while he wanted to be able to give Virgil a straight answer, he didn’t have one.

Logan sat back in his chair, hands resting idly in his lap. The silence was thoughtful, if a bit awkward. As far as they had come in their acquaintanceship (maybe even going as far as saying tentative friendship), there were still pauses that felt tense and heavy. Virgil had certainly come a long way from the first time they had met and Logan was grateful for it, since he was no longer having one-sided conversations.

There were, of course, some topics that Virgil was still too sensitive about to really learn anything, but they were getting there. Logan really hoped that he would eventually get to learn more about what it was like for the human, and be able to go off of that firsthand information to do something. However, until then building his trust was Logan’s priority.

“I don’t exactly have an answer for you,” Logan said after a moment’s pause of brief deliberation. He knew that giving Virgil solid answers was more preferable, since it would ease his anxiety. But this topic was one where Logan, regrettably, didn’t have any solid answers to give.

“Oh.” There was that dejected slump of Virgil’s shoulders, a position Logan was also very familiar with when dealing with him. Disappointment was clear in Virgil’s tone, but he made no move to push for further answers.

Logan felt as though he had let him down somehow. Which was certainly not something he would let stand. He took a long moment, carefully mulling over and debating his next words. “I suppose I did what I did because I couldn’t stand the way they were treating you anymore.” Now that seemed to have drawn Virgil’s attention right back up to him, though he had a brow quirked in question. So, Logan continued. “I know we didn’t have a working relationship prior to my thoughtless, albeit successful, actions. Though, I do feel… better, knowing that you’re safe here.”

Going from whatever kind of relationship they had established here now, Logan couldn’t bear the idea of someone else getting their hands on Virgil. Especially if they meant him any harm. While he could be mean and sharp, there was that anxious and unsure side to him, which proved that a lot of his bark was worse than his bite.

It also did give him peace of mind that Virgil was safe in his care. No more mishandling, no more purposeful injuries and no more testing with stuff that shouldn’t be anywhere near a human.

Virgil’s nose scrunched. “That makes no sense.”

“I suppose it doesn’t,” Logan relented, the ghost of a smile gracing his features. He leaned forwards once more, returning to his laptop to type again. “Though, I’m sure it’s nice for you to know your arm will heal properly.”

Virgil shrugged his good shoulder, leaning back on his hand and looking up toward the student. “Still hurts,” he mused.

Logan hummed. “I’d be surprised if it didn’t.”

The two fell back into a more comfortable quiet. It was broken periodically by soft conversation, but it was mostly filled by the sound of Logan’s keyboard click clacking.

“…thanks,” Virgil eventually said, gently enough that Logan had almost entirely missed it. He paused his typing and his eyes flickered over Virgil’s form, whom of which was tucked comfortably into his hoodie, his eyes looking anywhere other than Logan. “For doing it, I mean. Even though you didn’t have to.”

Logan didn’t force Virgil to meet his eyes, as that would only put unnecessary stress on him. “You’re welcome,” he replied, “I find that your company is quite pleasant.”

While the consequences of his actions were still a very real threat, Logan couldn’t find it in himself to regret his decision.

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