:January 13th, XX47; Monday.

:LOSE EVERYTHING.

•~~~~•

"Oh, good, there's parking today."

"Damnit," Remy mumbled to himself. He and Emile were currently sitting secretly in the backseat of Logan and Patton's car, as the latter two were going to the store after work, and quite honestly, Remy just wanted to watch what went down.

...but you guys understand that. you read the title, didn't you? i was just there to watch my half-brother's life go up in flames. really wish that could be literal. lmao.

Patton parked the car, and him and his husband exited it, the ghosts exiting after them and Remy stretching a bit once he was outside. He started following Logan and Patton, Emile catching up soon. Remy glanced at him.

"...You look confused," Remy raised an eyebrow at his husband. Emile sighed.

"I'm still trying to figure out what's going through your head, y'know. If you're gonna do this, I... I want you to do it safely. And it would really help me if you would just let me set aside an hour where we can do thera-"

"Nope. Not this again. Emile, I control the plot events. I'll make sure that never happens."

"And I'm trying to convince you to change your mind on that," Emile put a hand on his arm, softly. "I'm just asking you to talk to me. It would really help both of us. Even for just five minutes."

"Sure it would," He rolled his eyes, glancing ahead. "Welp, they're about to get in the store, so let's never talk about that again, mhm?"

"Remy, wait-"

Remy grabbed Emile's hand, not wanting to leave him behind but also not in the mood for talking, and began to speed up his walking pace. He was sure Emile was going to try other methods to get him to say stuff now, but as he had discovered recently, it was a lot easier to avoid talking about your emotions when you can create distractions by practically snapping your fingers.

The four entered the store then, Logan grabbing a cart and Patton beginning to push it. Remy checked his watch as they began walking towards an aisle with fruit in it.

"This is gonna be good," he mumbled, smirking.

"What is?" Emile asked.

"You'll see."

The two watched as Patton picked up an orange, examining it and then putting it back down with a sigh. He walked back over to Logan.

"What else do we need from here?" The former asked.

"Eggs and milk, I believe. That should be in the dairy section."

"Ah, okay. Can you look in here for fruit? Will you be fine if I go off for a minute to get that stuff?"

Logan bit his lip, but after a moment he nodded. "Yes, I'll be fine. We're in a public area. Go ahead and take the cart so you don't have to carry anything."

Patton smiled. "Thanks, honey. I'll be back in a jiffy."

"Alright."

Patton began to walk away. Remy checked his watch again.

"We're following a timed sequence of events here, now, shit's really going down," he said aloud. "Alright- Patton walks away. Logan's eyes catch on the apple display."

Both ghosts looked up at Logan just as he saw the apples. He raised his eyebrows, and then it was very clear he began to get nervous.

"Aisle clears of anyone else. Logan is alone."

There seemed to only be one or two people in the aisle with Logan at that point, but as Remy had said, they walked away. After a quick glance around, Logan looked to the floor and then patted the backpack he was wearing, which he usually had with him after leaving work because it often carried his lunch among other things.

"Zoning out now. He mentally calculates how many apples he could fit in that backpack."

Logan's eyebrows furrowed, and so did Emile's at that moment. After almost a full minute of standing, staring at the floor, he glanced up again, and looked right into a security camera that was near him. He sighed.

"And... you have that figured out, too?" Emile asked.

"That thing is going to shut off in- uh... yep. Three, two, one-"

Remy pointed. It sparked and then drooped, the light on it going dark. Logan's eyebrows raised and he looked back to the apples almost with haste.

"Now, I've left this part up to him, because I thought it would be nice to let him have a smidge of control here. I'll let him get caught by his husband if that's how it's gonna go... but as soon as he touches one of those apples, he only has a minute until Patton gets back."

Logan eyed the apple stand.

"Honey, you know you can still stop him from doing any of that at all, right?"

Remy stared at his husband with a blank face. His watch ticked. And right as Logan's fingers grazed the first apple he'd be grabbing, Remy laughed.

And so, the minute began. In Logan's mind, his only chance of doing this right was just to get forty or more of these apples into his backpack before Patton returned. He knew his backpack was large enough to fit that number, and he could possibly go with thirty-five if he had to but this would all be much more effective with forty-five instead. He worked with haste. A part of him almost wanted to not be able to do it, though- he didn't really want to do this. He wasn't even sure what it was he was doing, he was acting on an impulse he knew he'd regret later. But if he got caught... he'd have an excuse to ignore all of it.

Meanwhile, Remy stood watching, watching the time on the watch. And miraculously... Logan got forty-three into his bag before he heard a cart approaching the aisle, and quickly zipped up his now very heavy backpack, beginning to stare blankly once more at the apple display, hoping his husband wouldn't notice how full his backpack then seemed and how the apple stand was half-empty. Since... if it wasn't obvious enough already, he wasn't paying for those.

Remy just chuckled.

Patton got back to Logan, eggs and milk in the cart, and he smiled at him at first until he realized he seemed to be zoned out. With a gentle hand to his shoulder Logan blinked and looked back at him.

"Did you find any apples, or something? Or some other fruit?

Logan didn't say anything. Patton suddenly raised an eyebrow.

"...Do apple seeds have cyanide in them?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Let's walk away now, come on."

Patton grabbed Logan's hand and began pushing the cart to the check-out aisle, not knowing he- in Logan's standards, at least- had already been too late to stop this from happening.

•~~~~•

"Shoot- Logan, do you know what time it is?"

Remy shivered as he got out of Logan and Patton's car once again once they were home, raindrops dropping from the sky through his body. Emile instinctively covered his head, but of course, it did nothing.

"It's almost three, why?" Logan responded as the two began to quickly get their groceries out of the car before the rain got too bad.

"I don't want Joe walking home in this. We should probably go pick him up. I'll text Roman and see if he wants me to pick up Sage, too."

Logan pursed his lips, clearly remembering the forty-something apples in his backpack that he wanted to turn into a murder weapon.

"Yes, you should go do that."

They got inside and wiped their feet on the inside doormat, ghosts on their trail. Patton raised an eyebrow at his husband.

"You mean us?"

Logan didn't respond. He walked to the kitchen and laid out the groceries he had brought in, itching to just open his backpack and get the preparation over with already. Remy took to leaning against the kitchen doorframe, watching.

"Remy."

He raised an eyebrow himself and turned to look down at his husband next to him. "Hmm..?"

Emile sighed. The two stared at each other for a few moments, Logan and Patton talking and putting away groceries in the background. "I... It's frustrating me that you're still going through with this and ignoring what I'm trying to tell you and I'd really appreciate it if you listened to me for a second."

"There's that therapy language I love to hate," Remy smirked.

"I'm being serious. Remy, you have a god complex and you need to let it go. I'm being completely honest when I say that this won't work out if you keep trying to control everything."

Remy laughed. "What is this, exactly? My plans?"

"Yes. And, just... everything."

Remy blinked to himself, and his face went blank. Surely he wasn't talking about them... right? God- that's what he got for falling in love with a therapist who's probably getting tired of putting up with his toxic, semi-manipulative tendencies.

Both of them sighed. They really did love each other. And Remy knew he was being an asshole. But it was just so fun.

"...Fine. I'll- no, I'm not gonna stop completely."

"I-"

"Wait. Compromise. Right? That's what you always propose," He thought for a moment. "Okay. I was planning on making it so Patton got stuck in traffic when he went to go pick up the kid, but I'll leave it up to fate again. Logan'll have maybe fifteen minutes to half an hour to prepare whatever it is he's gonna do. I was going to have him bake the seeds into bread, but that would take ages so blending them together might have to suffice."

It was a difficult decision. But Emile looked half-proud of him after that, and that was all Remy needed.

"...Alright. You promise you won't tamper with fate in this situation, then?"

Remy glanced over to Logan and Patton. They were clearly having a difficult discussion over whether or not Logan should go with Patton to pick up their son. He sighed, getting out his phone to delete the traffic part out of the current chapter's plot line.

"Cross my heart and hope to live, Emile."

With a small smile, he put away his phone and turned his attention to the previously mentioned conversation.

"-and plus, if I stay here by myself for just this short time period then it'll just help to get me used to being alone again. We can't keep doing this forever, Patton."

Patton sighed, looking very conflicted. "I... I don't know, Logan."

"You're going to have the car. And it's raining, why would I ever use our bike in the rain?"

Remy couldn't help but snort. Logan seemed to realize then the flaw in his sentence.

"...Er, why would I ever use our bike in the rain a second time, I suppose I should say."

"Hurry up, this chapter is already more than 1800 words at this point," Remy then mumbled.

"...I- Okay. Okay. You're right, Logan- you're right."

"So you'll go pick him up by yourself?"

"Yeah. Please don't do anything, I'm begging you, honey."

The thought of throwing out all the apples likely crossed Logan's mind then... but he sure as hell would not be doing that.

"...I won't."

Time seemed to quicken after that. Patton texted Sage's parents, and then he texted Joe, and then suddenly he was leaving the house to go pick both of the kids up. And as soon as the car was out of the driveway, Logan got to work.

He got out their blender and dumped all of the apples he had stolen onto the counter, finding a pair of cleaning gloves and putting them on. He rinsed the apples under water and then began to very, very sloppily cut them up, so only their cores were showing. He dumped each and every one into the blender as he went, mixing them all together and praying that it would be enough to break the seeds and that the "apple" part of the apple wouldn't tamper with the cyanide since he didn't have time to individually remove and crush all of the seeds like was the proper method.

"He's actually a bit impressive," Remy mumbled, watching Logan work. "Really going for it."

"How long has it been?" Emile asked.

"Don't know. I doubt he has much time left, though. But all he's gotta do now is get the mixture in some sort of container and clean up all the extra bits."

And Logan did just that- somehow. Remy was a bit surprised that it was going this well. The former poured the hastily-made smoothie into a water bottle, taking care to not get his fingerprints on it at all, and then dumped all of the rest of the apples down their garbage disposal, slowly, so it wouldn't clog. When the kitchen began to smell like apples he found an air freshener and sprayed it, right as a car door was heard outside.

He stuffed the water bottle into his backpack, the gloves going in as well. And right when he began to put on a facade of putting away groceries, the door opened.

"We're home," Patton called out, and Logan stuck his head out of the kitchen, hoping his husband wouldn't notice how nervous he felt. But Patton smiled as soon as he saw him, which meant that he was in the clear.

"How was it?"

"Muddy," Joe mumbled, beginning to wipe his feet on the doormat, glancing up and realizing his uncles were there but deciding not the question it. Patton walked to the kitchen and gave Logan a kiss on the cheek.

"We were talking about getting together with Roman and Virgil for my birthday, as usual, how does that sound?" He asked. Remy perked up.

"Oh- goodness, I almost forgot. Patton's birthday is... what, today's the 13th? It's this Wednesday."

"That'll be nice for him," Emile said. Remy noticed how quiet he sounded- likely because of Logan's success. But, hey- a compromise is a compromise.

"Well. Happy early birthday, dearest Patton... your marriage is now headed for the fucking gutter."

•~~~~•
can someone tell emile i'm sorry for being a badass bitch🙄✋ goddamn /j

see you soon, babes.🥤
    ~remy(remember kids, whatever haircut you have when you die is the haircut you'll have forever; unless the afterlife works differently there idfk)