2019-02-27 - A Hard Homecoming.

A year, give or take. Not exactly to the day, since life is seldom that poetic. Emily and a vase of flowers walked out the door and, as far as Logan was concerned, disappeared off the face of the map. Her parents slowly but firmly severed ties with him as their own lives unraveled, both of them slipping away from town over the next few months, and her phone never got shut off or anything, but any outreach fell into a void.

Still.

There's a connection. Somewhere, in the way back of minds that don't work the way normal minds do, synapses fire every now and then at random - and she knows Logan never slit his throat, and he knows she never drove her car off a cliff. For the past day or two, those synapses have been hyper-active, and today - after a tree-lashing storm fought through town all morning and afternoon, fading into a heavy-dropped rain at nightfall - Logan would've known something was afoot. There was that them feeling in the air. And around ten o'clock at night, the phone rings. Assuming he's not the kind of asshole that deletes contacts, the phone informs him that it's Emily Harris; now pick up.

A year can feel like a very long time, or over in the blink of an eye. For Logan, this year was a bit of both. There were the bad days that felt like months, the good weeks that passed by in seconds, and only one thing ever remained consistent. He was still here, as was Lucy, always there in the peripheral and sometimes at the center of it all. It hadn't been much of a blow, the loss of her parents; it had felt almost natural, the sudden severance of contact, silence on the other end. Not that he went to see them ever. There was a span of about a month where he didn't even leave the house, content to be trapped with a ghost and the bottles of bourbon kept hidden in the pantry closet.

But Emily's absence had cut deep, a fact he'd likely never admit. Those first few months, he'd sit at the edge of the bed and stare at her contact file in his phone, or the group chat where the very last text had been from Lucy herself. She might've seen the effort, a pulsating '...' on very late nights in the chat, but no message ever came. He never tried to call, but it was the thought that counts, right?

Still, he persisted. There were apparently five stages of grief, and Logan had been through the first four several times over now. Acceptance hadn't ever come, and he existed now in some weird nebulous stage between anger and depression. A plain rug now lay over the spot where Lucy bled out on the floor, and a sign outside the building rebranded the house the 'Lonely Goose Bed & Breakfast'; it had been a last ditch attempt at an income after he'd lost his job at the diner and spent the life insurance on paying off the mortgage. Now it was a temporary home for many, and a permanent place for him and his ghost, though Lucy was not a fan of his new bedroom down in the basement.

But tonight, the house was quiet. No tenants creaking the floorboards upstairs, and Lucy's scent was gone for the evening. He was halfway into the new bottle of bourbon, about to chase down a few oxy with it to escape that feeling of pressure, that feeling of them. The buzz of the phone drew him out of whatever thoughts he was having; he knew who it was before he even saw the name on the screen. But it took five rings before he hit 'answer', his voice scratchy: "Hey."

Five is a lot of rings. Five is time enough to second-guess, and he's a half-ring away from getting a red [End Call] pushed in his ear when - "Hey," comes back. There's a long breath on the other end of that line, though the background is otherwise quiet, muffled. "You okay?"

Look! A short pose!

It was such a stupid question, what comes through on the other end of that line. What answers is a dry huff of a laugh, no heat to it, as he picks up his glass of bourbon and sinks back into the kitchen chair. She can probably hear the clink of the glass as he takes a sip. "Mm. I guess. Yeah." Another drink. "You?"

"No." What? She picks up the phone after a year to be telling lies? Please. Point of order, the fact that he lied about it is irritating enough to have clipped her own response, biting the end of that one little word. Before there's time to dwell on that irritation: "Are you alone?"

There was nothing in reply to her single word, just a sharp inhale of air that's exhaled around the glass that he drains. He sets it down, and she can hear the ice rattle again; the glug of more bourbon as it spills into the cup. All the way to the rim now. He takes a mouthful straight from the bottle, glances aside to the empty chair that used to be Lucy's seat at the kitchen table, and swallows. "Yep," he says into the phone. But there was unspoken uncertainty. Surely she was here, somewhere, maybe admiring the new rug he put in the spot where she died. "Are you Alone? Wherever it is you are."

At least this time, it's not a 'choke him through the phone' tone. "No." So that bottle? He's about to lose a fight with it. The thing doesn't become heavier, there's no palpable shift in its weight, but it rivets to the table, fastened there with a stubbornness that even an alcoholic can't win against, yanked away from his mouth with a slosh and then rendered immobile. On the other end of the phone, there's a car-door sound, a rain-sound, breathing-sounds. Not a question: "Where do you think I am."

Logan's jerked along with the bottle, smacking his side into the table's edges, his gray eyes darkening as he stares at the bourbon as though it's become sentinent and betrayed him. He knows it's a futile effort, but he makes a passing go of attempting to pry it from the table, slurring curses under his breath in the process. And then there's the slam of the car door, the statement - not a question - on the other end, and he gives a silent middle finger to the bottle as he pulls himself to his feet. The phone's left to clatter on the table, he doesn't even end the call, scratching at the day-old scruff on his chin as he staggers towards the front of the house. The smell of rain rushes into the foyer as he tugs open the door, and leans into the frame, arms across his chest.

There's the car out front, parked on the street, and there's its owner, crossing in front of it and under the big tree with an upward glance against the rain. Emily's hood's up, and the phone-light dimly outlines the shape of her cheek before she actually does end the call, dropping the phone into her pocket in the last few hurried steps, like walking faster means she'll get less rained-on (Mythbusters did a whole episode on it; running means you just get wetter). She looks... roughly the same, though her hair is lank and lusterless right now, and her jeans have a five-days-straight dustiness, and the green raincoat was obviously meant for someone with several inches on her. So it's a little brave of her, standing at the edge of the porchlight and eyeing Logan in the doorway, to say critically, "You look like shit."

It was the truth though, the criticism. He did look like shit, particularly bathed in the dim yellow glow of the porchlight. The 'UW Seattle' sweatshirt he wore was too baggy, the matching black sweatpants decorated with at least three half-dollar sized grease splatters, the bags under his ears too dark. He was probably too drunk to focus properly and yet there was nothing wavering in his razor-sharp gaze upon her as she runs through the water to meet him there at the doorway. But once she was close, there was a flicker of something else. Relief, perhaps? It lasts only a second. "I was working on fixing that," he mutters as he steps aside, turning back to the kitchen. She might be able to see him deflate as he releases a breath, his shoulders sagging. "But someone thought it'd be funny to glue my bottle of bourbon to the table."

She might notice the lack of curtains on the front window. They never got replaced, the ones they tore down. Instead, they were replaced with panes of glass that have the blinds in them, raised and lowered by a remote that was around here somewhere.

"You gonna fix that and have a drink with me?" The question fades the further into the house he gets, but he does look back over his shoulder before he completely disappears. "There are other bottles. You're not gonna be able to hold them all down, Em."

Someone thought it'd be funny - but that same someone has a humorless smile to pair the guilty-as-charged shrug, failing to look even a little sorry for divorcing him from his bourbon. Emily might notice the lack of curtains; she might notice a lot of things, once she summons the strength of will it's going to take to pass under the eaves of that house and into it, but even when Logan's going inside? She's still in the same spot, still getting rained on. Despite that cold trepidation keeping her in place, her voice has a wry certainty behind it. She's not gonna be able to hold them all down? "Try me."

But he's going inside. And it's dark. And it's raining. And there's... something... else. It's a cold finger that drags up her spine, so how much worse has it gotta be for Logan? If it's enough to make her come in after him, quickly despite this being a house of death? She shuts the door. With her hand. She locks it. With her dread. "Nice rug." Oh, the mundane~

A year and some change ago, those two words would have made him laugh. This whole house would have been filled with laughter. Now, instead, there's nothing more than a dry scoff, a scratch of stubby nails against the thick scruff on his jaw. He shadows the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, the look cast over his shoulder back to her stuck when he sees her unable to pass over the threshold. It is that sight that softens him, sobers him, the sadness in his eyes a palpable thing now. "Please," it's a quiet request, one that croaks out of him, trembling with need. He needs this, Emily, what's in the bottle. "Please." That repeat comes with a twitch of his fingers, a coaxing wiggle of the index digit, a gesture for her to cross. Because he needs that, too, someone tangible and real. Maybe even as much as he needs the bourbon.

So when she finally does come through, when she locks the door behind her, there's another sag to his shoulders. This one is relief, even if it doesn't last very long. The comment on rug doesn't even draw a glance that way though; instead, he tilts his head back to the kitchen. "Yeah," he says in reply. "Really ties the whole room together."

Maybe it's the please that makes her move. But probably it's the terror. She toes the corner of the rug, lifting it with a scoot of scuffed sneakers, because you always have to look. It folds back, and she nudges it, and it rolls back some more, and it really ties the whole room together, and she stops looking, moving hastily now to intercept him before he hits that kitchen and all the liquid forgetfulness therein. There's something important on her face when Emily stands in the entrance to the kitchen, putting her arm in front of her, palm out flat, stop.

"Logan, I - " Don't want to rely on you, don't want to ask, don't want to be here. " - need your help." Her turn, "Please."

Maybe she can look at the rug. Approach it, stare at it. Nudge it with her sneaker. Logan can't, he can't even look at her when she's in the vicinity; instead, he turns his attention back to the kitchen. He could see the bottle on the table, standing immobile, practically begging to be released from that invisible hold so it could be drunk from again. Or maybe that was the alcoholism speaking. Maybe he could pick the whole fucking table up and drink it that way, maybe she was too busy fucking with the stupid rug to worry about him anymore. He gets two steps in before she's between him and the bourbon, his face a shadow as he stares down at her, frozen in step.

The words are met with silence, except for the huff of an exhale. "Really?" It's not much of a question. He glances over her shoulder, she's really too short to stop him from looking, locking eyes on the bourbon again. "Why?" Not what for. But why. Why him.

Why now.

Emily can't read minds, so let's chalk this one up to body language. "I will flip the whole fucking table if I have to." It gives a warning teeter, the bottle still rooted firmly in place so the contents slosh but never spill, while the enactor stands there, teeth on edge. A slow exhale later, she waits, lowering her hand to apply it to the business of taking off her raincoat. Since he's a terrible drunk host and didn't suggest she take it off or anything, way to go. "Why does it matter why? Because you're living in this house still, and you're drinking yourself to death? Because you're the only one?" She's not the most demonstrative person, physically, but she'll catch his chin then, pull his attention away from the goddamn bottle and he better look at her or she's seriously gonna table-flip; "Because you need my help, too." So there.

Either of Logan's hands ball up into tight fists when the table starts to weeble-wobble, his jaw tightening as his knuckles turn white. Or. Well. Whiter. He was getting considerably pale in this house. At the very least, he doesn't bowl her over in a mad scrabble to save the booze, though all that tension seems to hit something of a breaking point when she reaches for his chin. How long had it been, since there'd been anything more physical than a handshake? It was a shock through his system, soft fingers in his beard, trembled through his shoulders and left him not recoiling away .. but dropping his chin more firmly into her hand, tuning all his attention away from the bottle and back to her. "I'm drinking myself to sleep, actually," as though that somehow makes it better. "But okay. Fine. I'm here. What do you need?"

For a second, Emily just looks sorry. It's in the cloudy green-blue of her eyes, beneath the draw of her brows, and the way her lips twitch at the corner halfway between a true frown and a sad smile. Her hand only stays there for a second or two, long enough to thumb beneath his chin, and then she pats his cheek with the cup of her palm, and she takes her hand back, rubbing it across the other one. All of that to order her thoughts and not dwell on the fact that he's drinking himself to sleep, 'cause that's pretty fucked up. "I was," afraid but determined, "chasing something." She looks up at him, then away, through him. "And now. I think. It's chasing me instead. And I can't stop, but I can't run any more."

Well, at least the feeling was mutual. 'Sorry' was in his eyes, too, downcast but still on her. It was in the way he tilts his head into the cup of her palm so that it's not just a pat, it's a press. And it's in the quiver of a sigh that leaves him after her hand does, his own fingers lifting to scratch his fingers into the thick of scruff on his jaw. "Oh," he replies, tired eyes widening as she speaks. That hand of his lifts higher and shoves through his hair, flattening it with a swipe of his palm, before it claps back down to his thigh. "Shit." Because really, what else was there to say? He really needed that drink now. "Sit. Talk to me," it was not a request, he motions towards the kitchen. "Why were you chasing anything, Em? Why were you doing that alone?"

"Christ, just fucking - " Emily, with threadbare patience, slops her jacket over the back of a chair and moves the bottle, with her hand, to the corner of the table closest to Logan. She tilts her forehead toward it, knock yourself out, and sits, looking around while her arms cross and some shit is just written all over her face: this is so fucked up, sooo fucked up. "Because I had to. Why are you. Living here. Like this?" Shrugging, she tries for a second to make this come across anything but combative, breathing a short, sharp exhale and looking at him. Hard. "How often do you see her, Logan? Is it constant?"

Checkmate, he wins. There's no gloating when she finally pushes the bottle to the edge of the table, though there is a fleeting twitch of a smile. For the bottle, of course, no smiles for her. At least he's kind enough to pull another glass from the cupboard before he sits, pouring a double for her and a full cup for him. He pushes her cup to her with the tips of his fingers and then cradles his hands around his, caressing the glass with slow strokes of his thumbs. This was pretty fucked up. "I told you I wasn't leaving, Em," he lifts the glass, though the questions that she asks him after require him to fully drain the contents before he's lubricated enough to speak. "Not anymore," regarding whether or not it is constant. "She comes, she goes. She sits there," he casts a look to the empty chair. "She stands at the bottom of the stairs. She doesn't go into the basement," that actually gets a faint grin out of him. "Pretty sure she hates that I'm sleeping there."

Then Emily will just say that. "You're fucking depressing, Logan." Having rolled up in a rainstorm in the middle of the night afterr ditching out for a year on the day of her sister's funeral? She would know from depressing. He may be able to down this shit like a boss, but the little sip she takes makes her face screw up for a second. But she doesn't put it down, so. "Cheers. I guess." No glass-clink, just a head-shake and a long silence afterward.

A long one. Where he's going to have to sit there and suffer being looked at by someone that cares and is hurting and gets it and came back and is not enjoying this drink but gets more down anyway. She puts the empty glass down, fingertips it over toward the bottle, and is maybe waiting for him to continue? But also totally judging him, and no pretending otherwise.

It catches him off guard, at least. There's a blink, gray eyes lifting from the cup to her.. and he laughs. It's dry, there's very little humor in it, but it rolls steadily out of him, gaining heat as he refamiliarizes himself with the process of laughing. "Yep," he agrees, one side of his mouth lifting in a smirk, "Cheers to that." His glass was empty, but the sentiment was there at least. The sound of laughter dies swiftly.

The sound of silence follows that moment. She's plying him with judgmental looks and his own focus on her is swimming, but he's trying not to look away. He's trying really hard. Until the sound of the glass scraping across the table from the nudge of her fingertips, and well. It's back to the bottle. Judgment or no, he pours her another, and the rest of the bottle goes into his cup. "She came after you left," he licks his lips, hoisting the glass back up in his fingertips and raising his eyes to her again. "I told you she would. It's why I couldn't .. can't leave. She needs help, too, Em. That's what she said," he winces at the memory, swallows it back down with a gulp from his glass. "She just hasn't told me why yet. But she will, at some point."

That silence goes on, but it's a readable one now, in the way she shakes her head a tiny bit at him; he thinks the why is coming, but Emily thinks otherwise, and she holds that denial in her eyes until they drop to the bottom of the glass. It still goes down hard, but she doesn't cringe afterward, just chases it with another sip. And one more. And the tell-you-a-story tone is completely out of place when she says, "I keep finding these fucking funeral roses everywhere. These white ones. Like I took with me, after Lu's funeral, you know? Like, I walked into this Motel Six in some really shitty town in Arizona, and there's this vase of perfect white roses. Just sitting on the table. Like they belong there."

He said there are more bottles. She gets up to find one. They're in it now, why stop. Hey, she probably even knows where to look - unless he's hiding it from guests or something. Which would be weird.

Lucy was the telepath, but Logan didn't have to read minds to understand the look in her eyes. "You're wrong," is all he says to her denial, swirling the remnants of the bourbon in his cup and knocking back the rest of it. There's an expectant look to the empty chair once the bourbon was gone, as though he expects to see here there now with the same judgmental look upon her too-pale face. She wasn't though. It was just the two of them, at least for now. He has nothing more to say and nothing more to drink, so he just sits back in his chair and refocuses on Emily, an increasingly difficult task. Maybe there was three of them, she certainly seemed a bit blurry. Her tale earns her a slow hike of his brow - not disbelief, never. But hesitance to accept. "Maybe the owners were just trying to class up the place," he quips, the tone all wrong for a joke. "Where else?" It's a leading question.

When she gets up in search of another bottle, he points a finger at the pantry. "Bottom shelf." Helpful Logan is helpful. There is a lot of alcohol down there.

"Everywhere else. I go to a diner, and my waitress is the only one wearing a flower. Pinned to her name tag, you know? And it's a white rose. They get delivered to me in hotel rooms. Just randomly. From no one." Bottom shelf, cool, she crouches and gets one and rocks back on her heels for a second, that's a lotta booze, bro. But Emily straightens, closes the pantry, sits back down, opens the bottle. "I sit in waiting rooms, and Alice in Wonderland is on, and it's always the same part, they're always painting those roses red. Random people just give them to me. They're stuck under my windshield wiper. It's been getting worse. And worse." She pours. "And worse."

So she takes a drink, hissing across her teeth. "Lucy would never do that to me. And she would never do this." Pass him the bottle. Alcohol poisoning is fun for the whole family! "To you."

Logan's a good listener. Sure, he might be tapping his fingers against the side of the glass in anticipation of her grabbing another bottle (and really, there are many down there Emily, so just fucking pick one), but really listens. He doesn't interject, he doesn't even add a 'hmm' or a 'huh' to her words. But towards the end, his brows start to twitch, furrowing to the bridge of his nose. "No, Lucy wouldn't do that to you," at least they can agree on something. The bottle is his salvation, and he watches the liquid spill out of it and into his cup. He's so anxious to get another drink, he almost spills some of it out of the cup in the effort to lift it to his lips. But he doesn't, phew.

He is quiet as he drinks, finishing the glass in record time. Really, it helps him think, stop being such a judgey mcjudgeyface, Emily, jeeze. "You said you were chasing something. Someone?" he can't remember, so much for being a good listener. "Who.. what was it? That you were chasing. Maybe this is part of that." Notably, he does not comment on what Lucy would do to him. Mostly because Emily is wrong.

"Monsters. I was chasing monsters." Emily's smile is small and brittle, like a doll that's been left in the sun too long, fading and cracking and distorting. It withers against the drink she takes, and it withers in the look that holds him while he takes a drink, and then it's gone away entirely. "You know that overused Nietzsche quote? He who fights with monsters should be careful of becoming one?" She paraphrases, 'cause two and - well, now three glasses of bourbon later, precision is slipping. She puts the glass down on the table in front of her, and she folds her arms, leaning against the back of her chairs. "I think Lucy fought with monsters."

She shrugs, resigned, and watches him like he's something novel for a moment, something on display; perhaps he'll pass out or throw up. Hmm. "They're using her. To hurt you - us. Making us open up like flowers, and all this? Misery and bourbon and whatever the fuck else you've been taking? Is their nectar." Quietly, "I wanted to rip the wings off the insects, I thought. But they're strong. That's why they took her, because she was stronger than us." Deep breath, get off the bus to Crazytown, Em, and just shrug again.

Logan was halfway into refilling his cup when she speaks, that word catching his slurred attention. Monsters. He tilts the bottle back up, cutting off the flow of bourbon, and slowly sets it upright on the table. Whatever made it to his cup is tossed back, down the hatch - but he doesn't reach for the bottle again. Instead, he shifts into the table, squinting to bring the two of her into one central image, propping his chin onto his fist so that he could keep himself steady. It helps with the sway. Kinda. "Monsters. You think Lucy fought with monsters," he repeats, not precisely dripping with disbelief .. but it was there.

"Em.." he starts, stops, looks to the bottle and then back to her with a sigh. "Nobody took Lucy, Em. She fell down the stairs," it hurts him to say it, it makes him wince as though he were physically wounded. But he says it anyway. "We buried her, Em. We.." He licks his lips, struggling to keep his focus on her, because it keeps wanting to go right back to that stupid bottle. "Nobody's using her for anything. Nobody's here but me and her." He pauses, then tips his empty cup towards her. "And now you."

Hey, maybe Emily's one of the monsters, too! Maybe she showed up outta the blue to help finish him off, and that's why she so helpfully got another bottle, and why she so helpfully now puts more into his glass for him. "You live in a haunted house, and you wanna deride me for talking about monsters? No, Logan, you don't get to be the voice of reason. But by all means, drink up. What's the worst that could happen." She's still sober enough to say that pretty meanly, her voice'll still hold an edge nice and sharp.

She leans forward after that refill, her hands on the edge of the table, lowering her voice like it's some secret she's telling him. "She fell down the stairs. We buried her. She's dead. So why's she still here, Logan? To turn you into this?" There's a cold, brief laugh. "To kill you, drop by drop? To make me insane, one white rose at a time? You don't have to believe that it's Lucy, but you have to believe that it's something. I need you to believe it's something."

"Jesus, Em.." he utters in response, flinching at her words. He wasn't drunk enough for the sharp edges not to cut; he may never be drunk enough for that. Yet his fingers twitch towards the glass as though they were moving of their own accord; he wasn't anywhere near aware enough to notice that the tiny hairs on his arms were standing upright, to feel the chill that races down his spine. Honestly, what was the worst that could happen? He'd fall asleep. Maybe he wouldn't dream about her again. He sinks lower in his chair, dragging the cup to the edge of the table, likely looking as miserable as he felt in the moment.

"She's still here, Emily, because she needs to be here. Because she needs help," the slur of his words takes away the sharpness of the response, "I believe that. I believe she'll tell me what she wants. But monsters, Em? Monsters leaving.. white roses? Why?"

"She needs help? But she's dead, Logan. She fell down the stairs. We buried her. What could you possibly help her with?" She shakes her head, still leaning into this conversation like she's trying to fall right over the edge of it and drag him down with her. "Maybe she needs you to help her escape. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's why all the white roses, because they make me feel guilty. Because I left you here, because I hate you for enjoying your misery so much, and I hate myself for hating you." It's all a whisper, shhh, her eyes too bright, not insane but sure as shit having seen some things, man. "She kept you here, and she sent me back here to find you. To help you help her." Drink the Kool Aid; it's delicious.

"You're talking to the same guy who saw his dead dad for years after he blew his brains out in our trailer, Emily. You two helped me with that, don't you dare act like I'm fucking crazy now," the words come out in a rushed, angered tumble. There's that level of mourning, the sudden flare-ups of heat that burst in the midst of depression. He snatches the cup of bourbon, liquid sloshing and spilling out over the edges, burning into the little cuts skittered across his knuckles from the last bit of repairwork that he did on the house. It just makes him even more mad. "There's no ecaping from death, Emily, none. This isn't some Greek saga where we go into the seven layers of hell and rescue her and bring her back," take a drink. "And if you hate me so fucking much, why bother? Why listen? White roses, fuck it, who the fuck cares? Leave me here to drink myself to death, and we'll both be better off." Down the hatch the bourbon goes.

Oh yay. Let's get angry. Emily swats her hand on the table, a nice slap to counter all that furtive whispering. "That's not my fucking sister! She would never. Do this to you!" She's no help with the burning cuts, doesn't rush to get him a towel or try to calm him down or... anything, really. "I'm not trying to bring her back, I'm trying to let her go. Whatever - " Articulating this is hard. Articulating it while half-drunk to a person whose drunk^10th? Even harder. " - pieces of her they have, however it is that they're torturing us, I want to make this stop. And I'm so close to it, and it was cornered, but it wasn't. I was and - " She stops, takes a breath, watches him knock back that drink, and pushes back from the table, taking up her coat. She's about to flip the table.

"Fuck you. You don't see her, every god damn day. You don't get to say it's not your fucking sister. That it's not my fucking wife!" This felt better, didn't it? The anger, flaring red hot through him, until he was shouting at her across the table. At least it was better than the silence that was usually here. At least it was noise. His heart was beating heavily in his ears, and he slides his chair back to get out of it, but there's nothing smooth or precise about his motions. He nearly falls to the floor, catching himself on the table and kicking the chair out as he goes; it falls onto its side with a clatter. It only pisses him off more. "What are you even fucking talking about, Emily? You cornered what? You were and you what? Why did you even fucking leave in the first place?"

"How are you not understanding this!" The person that hasn't made any sense demands of the person that's falling over drunk. The table doesn't flip. But she does fix the chair for him, in the most violent way possible, slamming the damn thing back into place so hard that it knocks into the table. "Lucy would never - " But she said that already, so she clips it, and she pulls on her coat roughly, and she looks at him... regretfully, the heat all gone in the second between one breath and another. "The question isn't why I left. The question is why I came back. You can't help me. You can't help Lucy. You can't help yourself, Logan. Just. Open your throat. It's faster."

"How are YOU not understanding this?!" That's right, screaming the same question back to the person that asked it will get the question answered at some point, right? "Maybe I don't want to fucking let her go! Maybe this is all I fucking have. And what do you fucking care? You left. You didn't give two fucking shits, you just walked out the door and you didn't even call, you didn't text, you didn't.." There was more, but the chair was slamming back into position and sending him scrambling back, knocking over his glass in the process. It shatters onto the floor, a hundred slivers of glass upon the hardwood. She didn't even have to flip the table. And then she says what she does, and he lifts his eyes to look at her - hollow, his eyes were hollow, empty. There wasn't near enough expression to convey how those words hurt. There was nothing more sobering than being told to kill yourself, really. He swipes the bottle off the table and just stares at her. "Okay," he shrugs, and just like that, the screaming was over. "Okay."

Emily should apologize. The awareness that she should apologize shows in the one step she starts to take, then stops when the cup shatters and bits of glittery glass come flashing across the floor toward her feet, waiting until the pieces still before she moves again. But apologizing is really hard, even harder than explaining, so that apology is going to have to be limited to the tangible. She takes the bottle out of his hand, physically if she can and - well, she has other means if he's trying to be stubborn. "I left because it's fucking excruciating for me to be away from here. You're drowning your pain, and I was chasing mine, because I was trying to - lure them, to make one find me so I could find it. I wanted to hurt something, and then I realized that - I knew that - if the roses were happening to me, what were they doing to you?" She looks at the bottle, a pretty solid answer. "And it got. Confused. And I'm slipping, and you're dying, and - " That's all. She's slipping, he's dying, she crunches across the glass a last step and touches his arm and that's all.

Emily was thinking of apologizing and Logan was trying to figure out which drawer he kept the knives in. From somewhere far off in the distance yet somehow right behind his ear, he could hear the whispering, something dark and twisted. Maybe she was right, maybe he should just get it over with. Was it the third drawer from the left? Two from the right? Would the butcher knife work, or should he use the boning knife? Ohhh, the serrated knife for grapefruit, that would certainly cut deep. By the time she got to him, she'd probably see that he was shaking, the liquid left in the bottle sloshing around vigorously. Those whispers wouldn't stop, they almost drowned out her own words, he had to force himself to look back at her. "You left," he whispers, it made no sense in the grand scheme of everything she was saying. "You left and I needed you. She died and I needed her. Em --" he shudders as she touches his arm, and he drops his head to her shoulder. "I don't want to die," he whispers.

Emily can't hear the whispers. That's not her thing. She says, "I know," after each of those periods of his, nodding faintly. And she could totally just telekinesis that bottle somewhere out of the way, but the kitchen's already wrecked, so why not just drop it on the floor and let it glug out over the broken glass, landing with a hollow thud and tipping over at her feet. It leaves her free to slip her arms around him, a hand to the back of his neck, holding carefully. "Don't die, I don't want you to die, we don't have to, you can be alive and okay and we can make it out of this," and talk very fast and hold very tight.

All that bourbon, such a party foul. It was probably a good thing Logan was too drunk and too sad to notice what happened to his alcohol. Thank God there was plenty more where that bottle came from. The whispers tickling at his ear, urging him to find the knife - four drawers from the right, that's the one, use the grapefruit knife it will hurt the most! - seem to grow more frantic as she draws close. But when her hand touches the back of his neck? When she holds him so very tight? They die away in a hiss that leaves him with a throbbing head. He wasn't crying, mind you, her shirt was just damp from the rain. At some point, his hands unsteadily set onto her hips, draw around her waist, and he just hangs onto her. "I'll help you, Em. I'll help you, I promise," he whispers, his breath bone-chilling cold on her neck where he's mumbling. It was like death, that breath. "Just don't go again."

"I know," she says again. "I know you will, because I knew you would," that's why she's here, why the door's locked and why Emily holds him like he's the last tangible thing in the world, her hand cool and shaking against his neck, the other knotting the fabric of his shirt on top of his shoulder. "I won't, I won't go again, I'll stay here, and you'll be okay, and you won't die, because I'll keep you safe, okay? We'll keep each other safe. And everything will be - " Safe and okay! That abject terror is easier to keep at bay with something, someone to hold, even if that someone is prooooobably about to snuff it from alcohol poisoning. That thought will penetrate eventually; for now, she pets him carefully, shivering at the coldness of his breath. And also because damn, that was some tense shit.

"I will. I will," Logan was mumbling between her own words, her assurances that she knew this whole time. His fingers dig into her back, into the fabric of whatever it was she had on underneath the coat he forgot to ask for when she came in; he just needed to feel something real, something solid, something that wouldn't grow thin and empty and turn to nothingness underneath his fingertips. He squeezes, he pulls, his fingers stumble as his body sways into her, his knees weakening. "We will. I'll help you. You'll help me. We'll help her," he whispers that last part, another shudder rippling through him. "You'll help me... Get another bottle, yeah? I think ours is gone," he finally picks his head up, and his eyes are half closed, and he's got a smile for no reason. "You can bring it downstairs, yeah? Bed.. bed would be nice."

Emily lies about getting another bottle, but it's a kind lie, one meant to soothe rather than sting. "I'll help you," she promises quietly, starting right now by shifting her hold on him, scooping an arm under his arms instead of over them, bracing some of his weight with hers and some with that ability to manipulate living objects with the equivalent of a light shove. It's not much help, but every little bit, right? Her steps mince across spilled booze and broken glass, taking it slow, saying small and encouraging things to him - and why downstairs? That penetrates the fog over her own brain, but is she really gonna ask? And would it do any good if she did, in the state he's in? She'll just have to marvel over his waterbed dungeon at some less fraught time. Right now, it's enough to get him there before he collapses, to pour the poor guy into bed. "It's okay now, you're okay, okay?" She'll tuck him in and everything.

"I'll help you, too," mumbles Logan as they start to walk, his arm around hers and her arms around his, and though his steps are staggering and his entire body sways with the effort, he somehow doesn't end up taking the quick way down the basement stairs and spilling his brains out on the floor. It's the little things, really. He's loose limbed by the time he's poured into bed, rolling onto his side with a grunt. But before she gets too far away? While she's tucking him in, he reaches out through the ether to take hold of her hand, and pull her towards him. "Stay here," he doesn't open his eyes, but the words are firm. Not even slurred. "She doesn't come down here. Stay."

That wasn't on Emily's agenda, staying here. What she intended to do from here will just have to remain a mystery, though, because what's she gonna do? Not? "Okay," is the new it-word. She quits her jacket again, and she heel-toes off her shoes, and she settles down carefully, really weirded out by this waterbed, dude, but she muscles through that. She situates herself so that, even with arms folded tightly around him, she can still keep wary eyes on the door to the upstairs, watching it until they burn too much to stay open any more, until she's maybe not convinced that they're really safe, but that they're safe enough. For now. For tonight, anyway.