#ts logic

The hotel was quiet.

Peaceful even. 

The check in process had been easy, and he had smiled when he needed to smile and talked in what had apparently been convincing enough to get a room.   

Logan had never stayed by himself at a hotel before, but then again he had also never stolen, run away, and lied like this before either. The room was nice, he had to give it that. But he also was quite sure what to do now. 

He had left the others, for the first time…ever. Left them in a way that even Virgil hadn’t done before, he had abandoned them and just… left. Maybe it was just to prove that he could, to see how far he could go without the others’ voices persuading him to come back once again, to see if…

Something, he supposed. 

All of it was illogical, he knew that. 

That was a hurdle he had long since jumped over before getting to this point, he’s had to deal with that when it came to taking Thomas’ ID and wallet for this very room. Just talking himself up to leaving he had come to terms with this, or maybe he hadn’t. It was an experiment after all, to see…

Something, he supposed again. 

His fingers itched to do something, to fiddle with his tie that he was no longer wearing, to look in the mirror and see if he had a reflection, to make note cards, to just do something. 

“What do I do?” He asked himself, standing awkwardly in the middle of the hotel room, not sure whether he should sit on the bed or the one chair next to the window. He wasn’t used to his mind being so quiet, without having to fight for control as to what he should do. 

It honestly left him a little baffled.

How was he supposed to decide?

If he slept would he just appear back in Thomas’ mind? Probably not, since the receptionist had actually seen him, talked to him, and commented about his lack of glasses on his ID. 

So he was… real?

What even was real?

He should cut his hair. 

Or.. or 

Was this what Virgil referred to as a manic episode?

Logan held himself tight, so tightly that he felt sure that he would bind himself so much that he wouldn’t move an inch. 

He was alone, fact. He could do… things, also a fact. His elbows hurt from where he was digging his nails into them, fact.  

He should probably breathe, fact. 

A deep rasping breath pulled into him with the weight of an undertow of the ocean, and closing his eyes Logan saw only darkness for a moment as he settled back into himself with the certainty that a figment of logic was supposed to have.

Why was he here?

“To test the boundaries of how far one of us can go without negatively impacting Thomas.” He told the wall to his left deftly avoiding looking in the mirror in front of the bed, a lie. A bitter sour one, and even he knew it. He was almost surprised when Janus didn’t show up, all smug confidence underlying with the terror of being known to others than himself. “To…” Logan swallowed thickly, something inside him stinging with a sharpness that came with being hurt. 

To see if they’d notice.

To see if they’d care. 

To see if…

Logan jerked his head to the side, avoiding the train of thought that came with those feelings. He took in another inhale, and let the air leave his lung with an exhale that took no weight from his shoulders. 

He settled on the bed, and with a gentleness he didn’t feel Logan grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. 

It didn’t stay on for long, as he set the remote gingerly back down on the side table next to the bed. 

“Okay,” He announced to the room, “I’m done.” 

The world became awash, like watercolor paints dripping down ricepaper. 

It swirled and twisted, until…

He was back.

Staring into the black void that was the mirror hanging in his own room, a mirror that only reflected the ghost light of stars that he would never see with his own eyes.

He checked the watch on his wrist.

Four days. 

Four days he had been in here, in his own room playing pretend.

A very convincing lie he told himself.

Standing, he stretched and felt the phantom crack of bones as he readjusted.

Logan walked through Thomas’ mind, retracing old memories like lingering scars. He wandered, looking in on where the others would congregate. The living room where they would watch whatever Thomas had already seen, the kitchen where aromatic smells would bring them out of their rooms for whatever Patton had decided to make for them, and the corner of the imagination that Roman allowed them to join without ever complaining. 

They each loved each other in their own way, that should have been obvious enough. 

But then… then why did Logan feel so cold when wandering through these places? Why didn’t he feel like he should have? What was so wrong with him that he didn’t feel at peace here?

Everything else was the same, so… 

It was him wasn’t it?

Almost as if on autopilot Logan’s body took him to Virgil’s room.

With a knock and a turn of the doorknob he was in. 

Virgil’s room was as messy as ever. Hoodies thrown in the corner of the room, whether they were clean or dirty Logan had no way of knowing. A pile of socks, a sewing kit, and other odds and ends littered the floor, just about covering every inch of the carpet in Virgil’s room. Even the anxiety here felt duller than it did the first time. Ordinarily Logan would have nudged some stuff around in an attempt to make a clean patch for himself, or even picked a few things up to neaten up the space. 

Now, he didn’t feel the point to. 

“Hey Lo,” Virgil jerked his head in a nod as he greeted him from the beanbag, his posture slouched into himself and a controller for some game in his hands as his fingers pressed buttons without ever once looking up at him. “Do you need something?” 

Tightness. 

Stinging tight pain grasped his throat with the force of being silenced. He would have rather been slapped, hit, or cut.

Anything but this. 

Of course they didn’t notice.

His mouth opened, and he found himself almost asking the question that had been gnawing at him since he had decided to do his experiment. 

A hot tightness in his throat, scorching that question into oblivion.

“No,” Logan choked out, in a way that he almost hoped sounded normal, but also didn’t. 

“No, I’m fine.”