WHO: Logan and Ethan WHEN: 7 November ( late night ) WHAT: Angry boys commit crimes instead of talking about their feelings.

They find a bar two towns over that is lively in a way Roco’s isn’t. It’s only Thursday night but the space is packed, and the pair of them blend into the college-aged crowd with seamless ease. The slight buzz from the 40 they’d downed at the parking lot before they’d walked over is kept going by a row of tequila shots, courtesy of the credit card he’d nicked from his mother. 

It’s reminiscent of the start of their friendship, the memory of the pair of them grinning at each other over their ice cream cones, paid for with money that he’d taken from his mother’s purse, blurring into the moment in the present as he knocks his shot glass against Ethan’s.

This time, the grin they share is wry, weighed down by all the years spent growing up in a town like Riverside. There are no words exchanged, but they’ve never really been the talking sort, anyway, driven by action instead—and tonight, they’re out for blood. Like sharks in the water, both their gazes circle the bar for prey. 

Maybe it would be better if they’d just talked—both Merrick and Holly have tried to get him to do it enough, and sure Ethan’s been on the receiving end of the same brand of concern—but it’s easier to do this, to let the rage within them simmer until it threatens to boil over, and then finding catharsis in a fist to the face. Whose fist, and whose face—those are secondary details.