"Hey Pat, would you like to go on a walk with me?"

Patton looked up from his spot on the couch to see Logan standing in front of him, smiling gently. Patton smiled back, slowly standing up and slightly confused.

"Uh... yeah, sure! Why?"

"Well, I used to go on walks by myself more often some weeks ago and I thought that it would be... healthy, for us to do that again. Right? We're in a situation where we shouldn't leave the house too often, but it's good to get some fresh air every once and a while, right?"

Patton's smile widened ever-so-slightly as Logan took his hand and they walked to their front door.

"Yeah... you're right."

He's always right.

The two walked out the door, hand-in-hand, and started walking down their street. They were silent as they passed trees and parks and buildings, just swinging their hands in between each other.

Let's just say that when Patton left for this walk, he was expecting it to be calm and docile. He wouldn't be feeling that way by the time he got home.

Sure, he was already mildly stressed from trying to find the location of Logan's three "friends"- Chase, Jacob, and Stephen- but something else happened that pushed those three momentarily out of Patton's mind.

The three were in the back of his head because now, suddenly, there was a fourth.

As Patton and Logan walked on the sidewalk, suddenly a guy began to walk past them. He was taller than Patton but shorter than Logan, wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. But as he started to walk past he stopped, and started to stare at Logan with a small smirk on his face. Logan stopped walking too in his confusion.

Patton glanced worriedly between the two, awkward silence filling the air.

"...Can I help you?" Logan mumbled, raising an eyebrow.

The guy suddenly smirked even wider, looking Logan up and down. "You can."

Oh god. Patton could see where this was going.

"How..?"

Patton gently nudged Logan in the side, mumbling "Lo, he's trying to flirt with you," underneath his breath. Logan himself let out a breath of realization, but by then it was too late.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe givin' me a call sometime, we could go out to that one bar down the street from here. You're pretty handsome. And you've got a nice a-"

"I'm very sorry sir, but it seems you haven't noticed I'm holding this man's hand right now. I'm holding his hand because we are married, and have been for three years now." Logan held up their hands in the air, and Patton almost swooned at how protective he was being. Patton wasn't even the one being flirted with. "We do not have an open relationship so I'd rather not engage with you."

The guy let out a huff. "Eh, I tried."

He walked away. But Patton still felt weird.

"That was... sudden?" Patton commented as the two started to walk again. Logan sighed.

"Yes, it was. He almost appeared out of no-where, too."

Patton frowned and looked behind him, but the guy was gone by now. Patton kind of wished Logan could have gotten his number... he was suspicious.

What if he was working for Remy, too? What if the three guys were just a distraction and he was the real person trying to take Logan?

It was all so confusing...

Hmm. Patton might just have to kill all four of them.

But how can you kill someone when you don't even know their first name..?

Logan and Patton made light chat for the rest of the walk, but ended up turning around to go home pretty soon after their strange encounter with the one guy. Both were very tightly and protectively gripping their lover's hand the entire time that they walked home, just in case.

When they got home Logan sighed and scurried inside. Patton followed, closing the door behind them.

Lock it.

Right- Patton locked the door, and began to turn around.

Lock it.

He furrowed his eyebrows when he suddenly got the urge to lock the door again. He... he just did, right?

Lock. It.

"Okay, okay, jeez..." Patton mumbled underneath his breath. He turned around and locked the door, again.

Again.

Why was Patton even doing this? The door was locked.

If you don't, Remy will come inside and take him.

...Oh. Right.

Patton locked the door again, and one more time for good measure. He finally felt the urge leave him, and he sighed, finally walking away. Now maybe he could focus on the other urge that he had, to try and track down the guy that had flirted with his husband.

He walked over to the couch and sat down, noticing that his husband was in the bathroom. Patton got out his phone.

He raised an eyebrow when he saw he had a notification, in his messages. He quickly opened the message.

Unknown
4:20 PM

<Name: Allen Bently Carter
Age: 27
Location: https://rb.gy/uqumr0
Yes, that is a real link. I know it
doesn't look like it.

Who is this?>

<He's gonna be out of the house
at the same bar Richard posted
about on his Facebook until
around nine. I'd suggest sneaking
out around ten, after Logan's gone to bed.

I think you have the
wrong number, sorry>

<I don't, Patton, darling.
Listen to me. I'm trying
to help you, so don't ask
questions, mkay?
<Get to him late at night, I'll cut
the surveillance cameras as
I've been doing.

Who is this?? How do
you know my name??>

<Go get his address from the
link I sent and then delete this
conversation from your phone.

...Does your name start with an R?>

<Good luck.

Hello??>
Read 4:26 PM

Patton started for a few moments at his phone, his eyes wide and his eyebrows furrowed. He tried sending a few more texts, trying to figure out who the person was, but he kept getting left on read.

It could... no. It couldn't be him.

Wait. Oh, god, someone knows Patton's been doing all this. Of course someone does, Patton's horrible at keeping secrets. But he hadn't told anyone! So who knew, and why weren't they trying to get him arrested?

After a few moments of nothing Patton quickly copy-pasted the link the person has give him into Google. It brought him to a street view of a house he was pretty sure he had driven by before, and he could see the house number from the street. After a few clicks he got the street name, too. He wrote it down in a notes folder and then deleted the text conversation from his phone, honestly hesitating before doing so.

...

It was help. You can't just deny help, can you?

Patton turned off his phone and slipped it into his pocket as he heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and the sink turn on. Seems like he'd be sneaking out again tonight, wouldn't he? He just had to hope that address was correct and a complete stranger didn't just randomly hire him as a hit man without pay.

Logan walked out of the bathroom and quickly sat down on the couch next to Patton. Patton thought for a moment, realizing he'd have to do something to make Logan extra sleepy tonight, possibly.

Patton then blinked as Logan pulled Patton onto his lap without warning, resting his head on top of Patton's. Patton giggled, placing his hands over his husband's, which were resting on his abdomen.

"You're awfully cuddly," Patton commented, leaning back into Logan. Logan hummed in agreement, gently kissing Patton's hair.

Patton smiled to himself. This had happened before, actually, after someone had flirted with Logan a few years ago. Back when they were living together but not yet married, actually. Patton remembered definitely being angry and trying not to think about how badly he wanted to punt-kick the idiot off the face of the planet, but the flirting just made Logan extremely cuddly. When they got home Logan pulled Patton onto the couch and just draped himself over him, refusing to speak. A similar thing happened when Patton was the one being flirted with, too, sometime after that. But it was hard to even count it as "flirting" because the guy had stopped mid-sentence when Logan gave him some sort of look that Patton didn't see. Whatever it was, it terrified the dude, and he walked off.

...Logan was probably just extra protective or something. Probably.

But- going along with all of this, cuddles sometimes tired Logan out. Of course, sometimes they would also make him energized, so it was a 50/50. Patton just had to hope.

Patton quickly turned himself around on Logan's lap and wrapped his legs around his waist, his arms wrapping around his upper torso. He leaned his head against his chest, sighing gently.

He just had to wait a couple hours... and soon, he'd be able to take one step closer to making the world a better place for Logan.

Time did pass, slowly. The afternoon was waisted away quietly, Logan and Patton holding each other close and sharing a decently long kiss every once and a while. Eventually, the clock struck nine, and Patton suggested they go to bed.

Logan stood up after the words slipped from Patton's lips, insisting on carrying his shorter husband up to their bedroom. Patton smiled at this, feeling comforted in Logan's arms as he was carried.

They got ready for bed and snuggled up together, Patton trying to remember what he was supposed to do that night so he didn't get too close to his husband yet. Logan kissed him sweetly before very quickly falling asleep, and Patton laid still, remembering that he had to wait until ten.

His phone was on his nightstand, there was a hoodie laying on the ground near his closet, his gloves and knife were safely tucked behind the sink in the smaller upstairs bathroom as they always were. After laying still in bed for he didn't even know how long, he grabbed his phone and checked the time.

9:34 PM

...He might as well get up now. It would take him at least ten minutes to sneak around the house and then leave.

Patton carefully shimmed out of bed and grabbed his phone, eyeing his husband as he walked over to their closet and grabbed a hoodie. He put the hoodie over his head and slipped his phone into his pocket, staring at Logan for a good few minutes to make sure he was definitely asleep.

After making sure he had his gloves and knife, Patton was out the door. He drove quickly but quietly to the address he had gotten from google maps, and once he got there, parked across the street from the house. Walking up to hit he saw that the camera cords were, in fact, cut.

"Thank you to... whoever the heck did that," Patton mumbled as he walked around to the backdoor.

He quietly made his way into the small house, noticing that all of the lights were off. He walked through the house until he heard the faint sound of a white noise machine coming from one of the rooms, and carefully opened the door.

And there Allen was, sleeping. Patton sighed gently and walked up, carefully removing his knife from his pocket.

He decided to stand a bit farther back than he usually did for this one, just to try and avoid getting blood on him. He stood as far away as he could while still being able to stab the guy, and he stabbed the guy. Allen immediately woke up though, and to Patton's surprise, he screamed.

Patton frantically stabbed him a second time and put a hand over his mouth, trying to block out the sound. Allen's muffled noises slowly got quieter and his wide, terrified eyes slowly slipped shut until he fell back against the bed. Patton stabbed him a third time for good measure and then practically bolted out of the house.

He stumbled down the road and into his car as he saw a porch light turn on somewhere behind him. Silently hoping that the dark would cover up his license plate, he hit the gas as soon as his seatbelt clicked into place.

Patton was mumbling to himself the entire time he drove. Jeez, murder was getting harder and harder to pull off each time he did it. First he gets kicked between the legs, and now the guy screams and wakes up his neighbors. He couldn't image what was gonna happen when he finally found the address of Chase, Jacob, and Stephen- something horrible could happen, that's for sure.

Patton had to be way more careful.

When he finally got home he very quickly got into his house, hiding his gloves and knife in their normal place and walking into his bedroom. Logan was luckily still asleep, so Patton threw his hoodie in their laundry basket along with setting his phone on his nightstand and climbed into bed.

Logan opened his eyes. Groggily. Patton's widened.

"Mm... Patton? What are you doing?" Logan mumbled as Patton scooted closer to him.

"Uh, I... I-I was just going to the bathroom, I'm back now, though." Patton whispered, feeling like his heart was about to burst out of his chest. Logan wrapped his arms around Patton's waist, holding him close.

"I thought I heard the front door open though..." Logan mumbled, so quiet you could barely hear him.

"Uhm... n-no."

But Logan was already asleep again.

Patton laid as stiff as a board, terrified. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down, wrapping his arms around Logan's neck.

That was a close one. Unless he remembered more in the morning.

...

Hopefully, that wouldn't happen, though.

•~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~•
Patton needs to take a break with all the murder ngl.

Oh, wait! It's my book, I could totally make him take a break, couldn't I?

...

Eh. Not yet. :)

See ya in the next chapter!☝️