:November 7th, XX46; Thursday.

:SIMMER DOWN.

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Remy ruffled the hair of his husband as the latter hummed along to the theme of Steven Universe, which was playing on their TV in front of them. It was a relatively slow day, Emile had only had one appointment earlier and Joe was at his tech week rehearsal so there wasn't much Remy could do and he sure didn't have time to talk to him when all Joe wanted to do was stare at his now-boyfriend, Oliver.

"We should re-watch She-Ra when we're done with this," Emile glanced up at him. "We haven't watched that in a bit."

"That's true," Remy hummed. "We also could maybe indulge ourselves in our nibling's interests a bit. He still wants us to watch Schitt's Creek."

"Are you saying you don't wanna watch cartoons with me?" Emile raised an eyebrow, smiling a tad. Remy rolled his eyes but smiled too.

"Of course not, babes. You know that."

"I do."

Remy wrapped an arm around Emile's shoulders, and the latter shuffled closer to him. Glancing down, Remy watched as Emile's lips slowly moved along with the lines of the episode they were watching, them having watched through the entire series so many times at this point that they both knew some of the episodes almost or entirely word-for-word.

Emile glanced back up at him and smirked. "What, do you wanna kiss me?"

"I always do. But I'm not set to kiss you in-book until the epilogue. It's supposed to be symbolism or something, I guess."

"And how would you have that information?"

"...I don't." Remy glanced up. "But, really- it's just cute seeing you mouth the lines along with the show."

Emile hummed, leaning his head on Remy's shoulder. "Well, thank you."

The two were silent for a bit. Remy sighed and tapped his feet.

"I'm bored."

"And that's why we're watching Steven Universe."

"Or we could go see what the idiots are up to."

"What do you mean?"

"Logan's thinking about his mom, she texted him on our shared birthday. She wants to meet back up with him."

"Well, obviously he's not gonna go through with that, Remy. She caused him a lot of pain."

"Hah. He's lucky to even have a mother. Sure, she's also mine, but the only women I considered my mothers were the girlfriends my dad came home with every once and a while. A very stable household, I lived in. Wonder if he still remembers I exist. Or that I'm, y'know, a dead serial killer."

Emile frowned. "See, I don't understand why you think you don't need therapy. It's clear you do, and we both know you're just repressing your emotions underneath a layer of comedy and sarcasm to keep up your usual persona when in reality you're-"

Remy stood up. "Not talking about that," he grabbed Emile's hand and pulled him up with him. "Come on. We're going to their house."

Emile sighed with a smile. "Fine, fine."

And so, the two got set on their way, pausing the TV and making their way to the sidewalk that lead to the Croft house soon enough.

"I wonder how my brother is dealing with that one teacher that keeps harassing him," Remy pondered aloud. "Say- what do you think he's gonna use to eventually kill her?"

"We don't know if he's gonna kill her or not, I mean, based on the plot of the other two books I'm sure people expected that one kid Joe thought had a crush on Oliver to be dead by now but Joe's forgotten he ever existed," Emile responded, taking Remy's hand into his. "Maybe something will happen and Logan will just let it go."

"Hah. That's not gonna happen, and y'all know it," Remy looked up at you for a moment, smirking. "So. What do you think, Em? Knife? Poison? Usually the first murder of every book is food-themed. But maybe it'll change this time, we don't know. Maybe she won't even be the first in this one."

"We still don't know if she'll die or not."

Remy rolled his eyes. "Right, right. I'm just saying, though. Maybe if she dies, the two idiots will finally have a strain on their relationship." He looked up at you again. "And, I'm not saying I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure they get divorced, but... well..." he trailed off, looking back down at his husband, "...nah, that's exactly what I'm saying."

"You're not allowed to make them get divorced," Emile said. "Besides, I don't think there's much of anything you could do to make that happen regardless."

"Sure there isn't."

The two came up on the Croft house just then, and entered by phasing through the front door as they usually did. They found Patton standing nearby the stairs, seemingly watering a plant, while Logan sat on the couch on his phone. Emile smiled a bit.

"I'm a bit fascinated by the amount of plants Patton is able to keep alive," he said, looking around. "I know you don't like him but you have to give him credit for that, mocha."

"Hmm. It's just a coping mechanism, from what I remember. Not that impressive."

Remy walked up behind Patton and flicked the back of his neck. Patton blinked and then rubbed it before going back to his watering.

"Don't be mean," Emile walked up to his husband and gently held both of his hands. Remy rolled his eyes, glancing over at Logan before slipping out of Emile's hold and making his way over to him. He stood over him for a moment, before smirking and waving his hand around Logan's hands a bit. Logan raised an eyebrow and put his phone at his side, feeling his hands that were now likely cold.

Logan pursed his lips. He glanced up at Patton, and then stood, slipping his phone into his pocket. He walked over to where his husband was standing and gently tapped his shoulder. Patton looked at him.

"Are you cold?" Logan asked. Patton thought for a moment and then shrugged.

"My hands just very randomly got cold... I'm not sure what happened," Logan continued.

"Maybe it's your phone?" Patton took Logan's hands into his.

"I do not know. I'm just going to go plug it in upstairs since I'm sure you want to get started on dinner soon."

"Okay. Can you grab my hearing aid while you're up there? I took it off when we got home from work."

"Yes, I noticed. I will."

"Thank you," Patton leaned forward and gently pecked Logan's cheek. Remy grimaced.

"Ew," he mumbled. Logan started towards the stairs, and Remy watched him walk. Emile looked back to Patton as he began walking to the kitchen. He followed behind him.

He didn't usually like to talk about it, since he knew it upset Remy, but Emile kind of could see the similarities between himself and Patton. Of course they were there, though, that was the reason Remy had wanted to date Patton back in XX18. Quite honestly, Patton didn't seem like that bad of a person now. Well- he was technically a murderer, but if Emile was married to one then he could tolerate another. If he had stayed alive and gone to high school with Remy, Patton and Emile probably would have ended up being friends. It did upset him that Patton was the one that killed his husband, but Emile was used to working with people's emotions so he was at least able to understand where he was coming from.

He sighed. It didn't matter then, there wasn't any reason to believe Patton would be able to see ghosts in the future so it wasn't really something to ponder over. Emile turned back around and exited the kitchen, but as soon as he did so he stopped dead in his tracks.

Logan had never gone upstairs- no, he was standing frozen in front of them, eyes likely widened, his back turned to the kitchen. He was standing like this because Remy was right next to him, and he had leaned close to his ear, mouth moving and him whispering very slowly with a smirk on his face. Logan's breathing began to speed up ever so slightly, but Remy was practically holding him in place, hands pressing down lightly on his shoulders. Emile blinked a few times before furrowing his eyebrows and speed-walking over. He grabbed Remy's arm and pulled him away abruptly.

"-...Huh? Oh, hi, Em."

"Remy, what were you just doing?!" Emile looked back and forth from Remy and Logan. Remy pursed his lips.

"Uhm. Nothing?"

"You were doing something. You were telling him something."

Remy scoffed a bit. "I- Why would I ever want to talk to him, huh?"

"...Let's go outside, come on."

"...Fine."

Emile slid his hand down to Remy's, and the former led him outside. Once they were in the front yard, Remy crossed his arms while Emile stared up at him.

"...So? What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Remy."

"Nothing."

"Look-" Emile sighed. "...I know you don't like talking about the things you feel. But I'm worried about you. Whatever you were just telling him isn't healthy. You're trying to put yourself in a position of power you're not meant to have. It would be a lot better for you to just leave this story alone than try to influence it yourself."

"...Leave it alone?" Remy raised an eyebrow. He looked up at you, and then let out a disgruntled huff.

"That sounds like a great idea."

(i'll be back. later. bye.)
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f

see ya in the next chapter!🧍
~Maxx(SanderShipper)