Logan looked up. "Patton, are you alright?" He already knew he wasn't but checking up on people had become one of his increasingly common traits since he'd gotten his soul back.

"No one ever believes me." Patton said as an answer. "I thought at least Virgil would but he doesn't and now I have no one."

Logan picked at one of his markings high up on his arm. "You have me." He said. Patton smiled a little.

"Yeah. But that's not much good when no one believes me about you." He said with a sigh. "If they could just talk to you-"

"I doubt they'd give me the time of day, even if everyone on this vessel was alive." Logan realised that this was still a sensitive topic for Patton and moved on swiftly. "But they wouldn't give me the time of day, Patton. They'd either kill me, talk over me or rile me up to a savage state. Whichever way you look at it, they end up solidifying their beliefs that I'm an immoral beast."

Patton looked down at his feet. "Maybe if they understood that you were a human too..." He trailed off. It was pointless, even if anyone believed that Logan really had been Patton's friend when they were kids, they'd think he was too changed, even now. "It really is hopeless, isn't it?"

Logan looked at Patton in almost surprise. Patton had never spoken with so much despair in his voice, so much hopelessness. Logan leaned against the back of his tank.

"Yes." He said. "Unfortunately, it is. But it might not have to be."

Logan didn't meet Patton's eyes and Patton looked at him curiously. He'd kept this idea to himself for too long and it was tied around his heart like a weight on an iron chain, heavy and weighing him down.

"At least not for me." Logan looked up but didn't look past his cage. Instead, he looked at the deep crevasses he'd scratched in the metal bindings of his tank. Deep but useless. "I have to leave, Patton." He said, his eyes still fixed on the scratches in the metal. "I have to escape. And I know you're probably not going to trust me when I say this but if I escape, I'm not going to hurt you." Now he did meet Patton's eyes and, with a sinking heart, he saw the worry and uncertainty in them. "I'm not like Remus, no matter what so many people think."

Patton looked down for a split second like he didn't want to look at Logan anymore but his eyes shot back up to Logan's. Logan tried to keep his face blank and open, no matter how much he wanted to close it off. If he closed away from the world, Patton might think he was lying. That wouldn't help either of them.

"How can I trust you?" Patton asked. "Because I want to trust you, Logan. I really do. Because I want to trust the people I care about."

Logan hesitated. "I don't know how you can trust me. Or even if you can." He tried to will Patton, both with his eyes and his voice, to believe that he was telling the truth and believe that he could be trusted. "But I promise you, I would never hurt you. Nor do I ever want to."

*feels the old spark of Story Excitement inside me*
*giggles and taps my desk like a madman*
So, yeah, that happened. Finally!
Bye,
Blaize