:January 11th, XX47; Saturday.

:LOSE EVERYTHING.

•~~~~•

Logan was zoned out in his car outside his mother's home with a knife in his lap.

He honestly wasn't sure exactly how he had ended up there, though- the last thing he remembered was hearing a loud shatter as his son dropped something in his room upstairs, and Patton telling Logan to come with him to check it out, but clearly Logan had not followed that command. Patton had gotten up the stairs before him and then suddenly Logan was in his car, and there was a kitchen knife in his lap.

And it just so happened that it was his mother's birthday... so of course he had to visit her.

Patton was likely still at home, but panicking, to say the least. He'd likely make sure Joe was asleep and then begin pacing the downstairs waiting for his husband to return home since he had let go of him for a second and Logan had taken that opportunity and bolted.

He felt quite bad putting Patton through this stress... but Logan was feeling some of it himself. He blinked, and he analyzed his surroundings, coming to terms with what he had the materials to do. His mother never got security systems because she always claimed they were being used by the government to watch her. She was likely stupid enough to leave her door unlocked, too. There was an oven mit that had been thrown hastily in the backseat behind him, not the best glove he could use but it was mostly new and all he could get in the few seconds he had.

And then, of course, there was the knife. The weapon. It certainly wasn't his first choice, he would've rather chosen something where he wouldn't have to get his hands dirty, but this was clearly the easiest thing to grab since the only place he could gather supplies from was the kitchen.

So... was he going to do this, then?

...

No.

Yes, actually- or, was he? It was a tough question. He supposed he should've decided on whether or not this was a good idea before he left but it was too late to go back now.

...And if it was truly too late to go back he might as well go through with it.

But also, it wasn't too late. He could go home and tell the truth to his husband that he didn't go through with it, and then Patton would be happy with him and perhaps then they could leave this all behind. With her still alive, of course. But that still seemed to be the persisting issue with all of this.

With a sigh, Logan dragged his finger over the handle of the knife, tracing circles and swirls all around the edges. The weapon was a delicate thing, really- it wasn't a butter knife but that didn't mean it was ever meant for murder. A knife like that was more for chopping up things like ham and other meat, or thickly skinned fruits like cantaloupe or dragonfruit.

But that also didn't mean seeing the blood of his mother dripping down the edges wouldn't fill him with satisfaction.

With a groan, Logan leaned back in his seat. The car was still running- he could leave. He planned to keep it running just so he could make a quick escape, but to avoid the deed all he needed to do was grip the wheel and drive.

...And yet, he was still fiddling with the weapon in his hands. So perhaps that was his sign to just go for it.

He reached behind him and grabbed the oven mit he'd brought- it fit his hand nicely but it still made for an awkward grip of the handle. It was far more important to cover up his tracks, though, and so he decided he could deal with it. He slipped the weapon into the front pocket of the hoodie he had already been wearing when he got in the car, and then he was walking up to her doorstep, breathing slow and steady but his heart still racing.

He hadn't entered this house in twenty-eight years. Before, Logan had wished to never enter it again, and he fully expected to be hit with a wave of emotion upon seeing the inside- but he held his breath and reached for the door handle, knowing that his mother could very well be on the other side of it already if she wasn't inside her bedroom at this time.

The door opened- quietly. He stepped inside quietly, and the house was dark, but he could see the entrance to the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom and the room that used to be his father's office very clearly. He sighed as the door closed, remembering fondly the memories he had in that office, when he would have days off school and sit in there with him while he worked. Having a day of no school during the week when Logan was elementary never excited him because he didn't have to go to school, no- it excited him because it meant making more memories like those.

His lips began to twitch into a smile, but he remembered what he was there for and the reason those memories were soon taken away from him, and so he kept walking, over to the stairs.

The stairs. His old bedroom and the master bedroom, along with a few other rooms, were up them. He used to be able to tell apart his mother's and his father's footsteps very easily. The latter's were very light, and Logan enjoyed hearing them because every once and a while his father would poke his head into his bedroom to ask how he was doing. But his mother never did that- her footsteps were loud, and they were angry, like she was punishing the stairs for disobeying her. And then every once and a while he would hear a third set of footsteps that didn't match the others, but they always seemed to resemble how a drunken man might walk. And those were the nights when Logan left his room and went somewhere else.

And so, up the stairs he went now. Empty picture frames ran along the walls of the upstairs hallway, some having before been filled with pictures of his parent's wedding day or pictures of himself. But soon they were all taken out, the frames growing dark and dusty when no new memories were made to replace them.

Logan's heart rate began to increase as he tip-toed towards the master bedroom, which seemed to have a light coming from underneath it in the dark hallway. Logan paused outside, hearing Rachel move around on the inside, and he gripped his knife with his oven mit in his pocket, deciding to open the door with his elbow. But even then he waited a few minutes until the light went out, and the bed creaked, Logan imagining how there must be a dip on one side of the mattress where she always slept and no dip on the adjacent side to match it.

This was where he made his final decision. He could leave and go home and forget he ever even considered doing this, or he could go inside and commit the task. Because as soon as Rachel knew he was there, if he left he'd surely get the police called on him for breaking and entering. Which, in his defense, the door was unlocked.

...And so was this one.

With a shiver and a gulp he pushed down on the handle with his elbow and it creaked open, and he held his breath, waiting for Rachel to notice. But, she didn't. He heard a mumble coming from inside the dark room, and that was when he peaked in, finally seeing her laying face-down, sprawled across the bed. There was a broken wine glass on the floor near her nightstand and two empty wine bottles close to it. Logan grimaced- it was her birthday, after all, he supposed it was likely she'd participate in these kinds of activities. Even though she was, what... sixty-something? Seventy, perhaps? It didn't matter.

With a sigh, Logan entered fully the room, and his mother mumbled again, turning over to her side and then her back. He brought out his weapon and slowly began to advance, biting his lip when she began to sit up.

"Mmh... who is that?" She mumbled, squinting, eyebrows knitting. Logan held his breath, debating on whether or not he should answer. He guessed she'd be snapped out of her drunken haze as soon as the pain of being stabbed grazed her chest, so he had to decide while she was still hazy on what exactly to do, and he also had to take a breath and get a hold of himself.

...Along with deciding, once again, if he actually wanted to do this. Perhaps he didn't have as much time as he believed, though.

Was she a good person? No. Was she practically even a person at all? Absolutely not. But, despite all this, did she deserve to live..?

He thought back to the memories he had already had in this house. The arguments. The fighting. The cheating. The pain. And, god- if doing this was how he was truly going to repay his mother for ruining his childhood- no, his life- ...she deserved every second that knife was going to be lodged in her chest cavity.

Logan stood directly in front of his mother, not looking her in the eyes, as she stared up at him like the clueless little devil she was.

"...Good evening, and goodbye."

With a glance to know he was aiming in the right direction, Logan thrusted his arm forward, and the blade pierced through her nightgown and soon her eyes shot wide open. She opened her mouth, but he removed the knife and then stabbed her again closer to her lung, and she only groaned, tears forming in the corners of her eyes as she placed a hand over her own mouth. By the time the knife was removed once more, and she removed the hand, it was stained red.

"I... n- no, you-" she coughed, mumbling. "You're my son. My- you have to fix- Lo..."

She took multiple shakey breaths, and Logan braced himself, ready for a mildly-delayed scream. But... it never came.

Tears rushed down her cheeks but she only laid herself back carefully, gripping the bedsheets beneath her. Her heavy breathing became unsteady and then it began to calm, until her chest didn't rise again, Rachel allowing herself to suffocate on her own blood. Her eyes remained open though she was now fully dead, and-

Oh. Oh, no. She was a person.

Logan's breath caught in his throat and he felt tears begin to form in the corners of his own eyes with his mother's lifeless, bleeding body still laid in front of him. It all had gone so fast. He expected her to fight. He expected her to scream, and to squirm and try to save herself, but she gave up. She practically knew she had it coming and just accepted that it was what she deserved.

And that was bone-chilling.

Yet, she was right. It was what she deserved. And now Logan suddenly felt distraught. There was absolutely nothing he could do to reset his decision.

With a shakey breath, he moved forward again, taking both of her hands one by one and wrapping them around the knife handle he held, and then he laid it next to her, staring at what he had done before looking to the floor and leaving the room, practically too ashamed of himself to witness it for a moment more.

But instead of leaving entirely, he went to his old bedroom.

He wasn't sure why- he just felt he should. For the nostalgia of it all, perhaps. He opened the door with his elbow once more and glanced around, eyes widening a bit when he realized it wasn't even a speck different from how he had left it. She had kept everything there, exactly as it was, from the galaxy-patterned blanket to the note he had taped to his closet the night he left.

Logan walked further in- towards his desk, still cluttered with balled up paper he wished to open and see what he had written. But he didn't have time for that. Instead, he bent down, making sure nothing but his feet touched the floor as he looked to the part of the wall underneath the desk.

He had drawn a small rainbow pride flag in permanent marker there the day he realized he was gay... and it was still there. A sign of who he was left on that wall forever. Of course, it could be painted over, but it would have been there at one time. Painting over it would only hide what it had been.

And with that small tinge of nostalgia barely covering up the incoming sense of dread building in his mind, he went back out to his car.

•~~~~•

Despite the fact Logan had just stabbed his mother, he found that pulling into the driveway of his home at 10:30 in the evening was one of the hardest things he had ever done in his entire life. He first noticed his son's bedroom light was off, and all the lights in the house actually were, until the wheels of the car hit the driveway and the living room suddenly lit up, as if it was a reminder of exactly who would be waiting for him on the other side of that door.

Logan didn't have an excuse, and there was no use sitting in his car until he felt he was ready to walk in there, because if he did that, he'd never get out. He shoved his oven mit into his hoodie pocket and, with a shutter, exited the car, fidgeting with his fingers at his sides as he reached the door. He shut his eyes tightly closed and, after a moment of hesitation, got himself through the door, hastily shutting it and keeping his eyes closed through the entire process. As the heat from the house hit his body, he let out a shakey breath, but no words dared to slip from his lips.

Complete silence.

"...There's blood on your hoodie, Logan," he heard his husband say in a quiet voice, somewhere in front of him. Tears re-appeared in his eyes, but he only nodded.

"C- ...Code Black," he finally mumbled. And then he opened his eyes. And one of the worst expressions he's even seen on Patton's face stared back at him.

It was one he recognized- the same as when he had admitted to murdering their classmates in highschool so long ago. Except this version was a bit more toned down, more empathetic and yet somehow more depressing. Patton took a step forward, and Logan's eyes snapped down to the floor, pure guilt filling his senses.

"What's in your pocket?"

"...Oven mit."

"Did you leave the knife there?"

"Yes."

"Can you give me the mit?"

"Y-Yes."

Logan looked up as he reached into his pocket to grab it, holding it out with a shakey hand. Patton walked forward and he began to take it from him, but they made eye contact, and the object dropped immediately to the floor. Very suddenly, Patton sprung forward and then they were hugging. They clung to each other, hot tears finally spilling over Logan's eyes while his husband buried his head in his shoulder, letting out a shakey breath himself, clearly trying to control his own tears. But Logan had lost his control a long time ago.

It took them a while, but eventually they pulled away, making eye contact once more before Logan couldn't bare to look his husband in the eyes for a moment longer. Patton frowned, and his hands trailed down to Logan's, beginning to lead him over to the living room couch. There they sat down together.

"...Are you going to ask me for a divorce, then?" Logan mumbled after a moment.

"Of course not," Patton brought a hand to his husband's cheek and cupped it, forcing Logan to look at him. "This is... well, I'm still trying to process it."

"So am I."

"But it'll be okay."

"You say that so often."

"And I know it's going to come true," he rubbed Logan's cheek with his thumb. "...Can you maybe tell me what happened, then?"

Logan sighed. "She... she didn't put up a fight."

"What do you mean?"

"She didn't scream. She didn't try to get me to stop. When I entered her room she was drunk but she still had a normal reaction to the pain, yet after a moment she just... laid herself back and accepted her fate. It was bizarre. I... I suppose it made me have a bad reaction."

Patton nodded along a bit. "Huh... and then you left?"

"I looked in my childhood room first, and then I did, yes."

"Well, I know this might sound a little weird considering what you just did but, Logan, relapses really are a part of recovery. Yes, this was pretty bad, but-"

"No, Patton. I mean- yes, relapses are a part of recovery, but I had already recovered. I did that decades ago, this- this isn't a relapse. And even if it was, I don't believe relapses exist when we're discussing the murder of another human being."

Patton let out a quiet, sad sigh, staring softly into his husband's eyes. "...You're right."

"Look- I know you're trying to comfort me right now and I already made you promise this but I need you to promise me again. Do not, under any circumstances, let me out of your sight, or even at this point let go of me, whenever we're home."

"But you already did it, Logan, who else-"

"I don't know who else. But there's someone, I'm sure. Perhaps... oh. Oh, no."

"Who?"

Logan gulped.

"...Susan."

And just like that, the cycle had restarted.

•~~~~•
lol, was that my fault? idk, but karma's not the only thing that's a bitch in this plot line😘

see you soon, babes.💕
    ~remy(it's me. i'm the bitch. in case you couldn't tell.)