It was rare to wake up surrounded by warmth and the plush touch of blankets. More elusive, still, was to smell anything other than the putrid scent of decay that simply came with living in the bowels of Blue Fields. No one ever mentioned the city beneath the city, but it was there all the same, and Logan begrudgingly called it home.

The clients from the night prior were some of his most aggressive. They never wanted to meet somewhere warm and comfortable because they got their kicks off of fucking heroine addicts in the darker recesses of alleyways in the middle of the day. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of doing something terrible in plain view, or the power over someone helpless to do anything.

Logan didn’t ask. He never did. Money was all he needed out of the exchange. Drugs worked, too, but he preferred money. It bought more than drugs and helped negate his desire to forget everything instead of putting food in his aching belly.

Despite the comfortable warmth around him and the pleasant smell of woodsmoke and cinnamon, Logan felt sick to his stomach as he forced open tired eyes. This room definitely didn’t belong to any of his regular clients, not with how the beige of the walls were truly beige and not some grimy, smoke-stained slab of concrete. The carpet, too. A rich cream color neglect of any stains or trash. A few dirty clothes seemed to hang off of the dresser but that was it in the otherwise tidy, minimalist room.

Painfully sore and worried about who exactly picked him up from the streets, Logan carefully crept out of the bed he’d been laid on and quietly made his way to the bedroom door. Through the crack of an opening Logan hesitantly made for himself, he saw a small, unassuming living room with an equally small kitchen. Like the bedroom, neither were particularly decorated to any extent that would tell Logan who he was dealing with, so he shut the door and began going through the items tucked away in drawers and the closet.

He’d just picked up the dirty shirt and seen the Blue Fields Fire Academy logo when the nausea slammed into him without mercy and sent him crumpling to the floor. It felt like vomit had gotten stuck in the middle of his throat and his nose began to run with rivlets of snot and drivel. Heat and cold flashed across his exposed skin and he felt himself craving the tip of a needle.

But why? For all the bullshit the hound had brought down upon Logan’s life, for all the times it kept him from escaping this hellhole with the sweet release of death, it had always been the anchor to keep Logan from becoming a full on addict while he numbed the pain it caused. Get him drunk enough and he’d even boast about his inability to properly get addicted. He knew it was fucked up to say in the presence of people who couldn’t live without it but he couldn’t say he dwelt very long on the guilt before slipping into bliss a minute later.

Now, without mercy, the withdrawals slammed into him. Sickness blotted out his sight until the only thing he knew was that he desperately needed a hit…and that someone had come and picked him up from the floor. Logan felt the carpet disappear from under him for only a moment before he felt the softness of the bed greet him once more.

“..ing thr…….thdraw…..wish I…….do more…………n’t………..to….hospital…………….”

The voice was vaguely familiar even though Logan had zero idea what it was saying. All he knew he knew through feeling. The warm hands that had slipped under his body, lifting him and returning him to the plush comfort of the bed. A cool towel gently trailing over his forehead, his fever recoiling at the cold. A sigh of relief escaped his lips and the towel paused its motion for a moment before continuing its course.

In place of the suffocating heat came a liberating one. The shakes faded, taking with them the crippling nausea. If the withdrawal attack hadn’t taken every ounce of energy from him, Logan would have found himself opening his eyes to see the face of his caretaker. But the darkness took him, first.

The next time he awoke was far less pleasant than the first, though not because it lacked the same comforts.

The creature looked down upon him with those familiar, sorrowful orbs of glowing red in the otherwise dark sockets of its skull. Behind it, a split tail drooped limply over Logan’s leg as its small paws kneaded nervously against his battered chest. With ears pinned tight against the creature’s thick neck, Logan understood that something was wrong with it. While it wasn’t necessarily the most pleasant of things to look at, the creature still held an air of elegance and melancholic strength whenever it made an appearance; strength it seemed at a loss for. Logan knew next to nothing about it, outside of its consistent desire to torment his mental state of mind, so he hadn’t a single idea as to what was making it so skittish.

“What is it?” he asked shakily, “What do you want?”

The creature cocked its head and pointed its snout in the direction of the door before looking back at Logan.

Logan swallowed a lump in his throat. “Am I-am I in danger?”

The hound stood to its feet and shook the tension from its body. It whined at the door as the shadows of a set of feet stood starkly against the light. Someone had entered.

“Oh my god, you’re awake,” the voice behind the shadowed figure said with a flooded tone of relief.

Again…that vague recognition.

The hound vanished as a soft orange light broke up the evening darkness.

“Is the light too much?”

Logan shook his head. The orange was soft enough that his eyes were adjusting, albeit slowly.

He should have said yes.

“A-Aden?” he stuttered with a veil of pain rapidly taking over his confusion. “Is-is that you?”

The man’s slow motions made his immediate apprehension clear and Logan had his answer as soon as he’d asked the question. If only he could sink further into the bed, so far he dropped beneath the floorboards and the ground beneath them.

Despite his cautious apprehension, Aden’s lips turned slightly upwards and the light that touched those amber eyes ignited them. Logan remembered once the adoration he held for those eyes and the imaginations he entertained of their gentle glow in his shroud of darkness. Logan had nearly forgotten that warmth, but it filled him with nostalgia so strong he doubted he ever would have succeeded in the endeavor.

“Aden…” Logan swallowed the bile building in his throat. His inner elbow throbbed and the withdrawal symptoms where swelling again. “I can’t be here.”

Just as the murmur left his lips, Aden moved to block the door. “It’s here or the hospital.”

Logan froze at the idea of stepping foot in a hospital. The nearest one was owned by the Kellingtons. He felt like he was going to throw up.

“You’re severely malnourished and dehydrated, and that isn’t even counting the withdrawals you’ve been going through,” Aden said with furrowed brows.

“And?” Logan questioned shakily. This can’t be happening to me. You aren’t supposed to care.

The single word response caused Aden’s body to tense. He pulled himself together just as quickly, the only remnants of his upset being the rigid way his jaw was set.

“I’m sure you’re a little disoriented—maybe confused—”

“I’m not confused,” Logan hissed, his beloved anger finally bubbling to the surface. There was a way out of here yet, he just had to remember how to inflict the necessary pain. “I know exactly who you are. Sure, I don’t know why you brought me here, but maybe it’s best that I don’t. Who knows what you’ve done.”

Aden’s tension returned all at once and Logan could see the immediate agonizing fury blazing in his eyes. He looked hurt, betrayed, angry, sorrowful….defeated. Logan should have felt victorious in his endeavor to inflict this very pain.

He didn’t. It cut him just as deep.

Even still, Aden’s composure didn’t falter. “I offered to take you to the hospital. You didn’t want to go, but you were hurt. Badly,” Aden explained in a surprisingly controlled tone. “They must have caught your head on a dumpster or the fire escape you were under because you needed several stitches.”

Logan immediately lifted his hand and felt for the sutures. Sure enough, they were there with a scab already healing over them.

“I brought you here and washed you up. You had…gone through something horrific. I didn’t want to leave you in that filth.” Aden pointed to the shirt Logan wore. “My friend Henry leaves some of his shirts here every now and again—”

The name sounded familiar though Logan didn’t really dwell on it as Aden continued speaking.

“—and his clothes fit you better than mine. You’ve been in and out of sleep the last four days. I helped you to the bathroom when you needed it, and there were a few times you woke up in a cold sweat and wanted a bath…” Aden’s eyes briefly met Logan’s and his composure finally chipped. “I-I-I’m sorry if that was a, uh…invasion of privacy. I just-you needed the proper medical care and you didn’t-you refused to go anywhere near a medical facility. You only asked for some kind of…slum doc? I think that’s what you called it.”

It was.

Aden grew more flustered. “But I didn’t know what that meant or who that was supposed to be; quite honestly, I didn’t even like the sound of that kind of ‘medical professional’,” Aden emphasized with finger quotations. “So…I took care of you the only other way I could. And…I’m sorry.”

Logan felt butterflies he long thought had died flutter back to life, weak as they were. But they were there, and they shouldn’t be. “I have to go,” he reiterated more firmly, pretending he wasn’t having a panic attack as he strode toward Aden blocking the door. “Let me go.”

Aden’s eyes were filled with a deep, aching agony. “Not again.” He took a deep breath. “‘Sides. You’re still not well enough to move around. Your withdrawals have only just started easing up.”

Logan ignored the silent plea in Aden’s eyes and shoved passed him, heading directly for the front door. A strange warmth seemed to wrap around his wrists and tug at them but he pulled away with relative ease. Still, the action made him dizzy and, for a moment, he lost track of his way out of the place.

“Logan,” Aden said, catching Logan as he stumbled toward the ground.

“Stop touching me!” Logan snapped, though his voice cracked and broke. Beside him, the Shades lingered, their wispy tendrils dancing with restless distress. Uncountable frozen tears thawed and ran over his gaunt cheeks as the memory swept him up and back onto his feet.

Two years ago, Aden had found him after years of separation. Logan remembered the pain like hot steel pressed into his heart as Aden made haste to disappear into the sprawling crowd as soon as their eyes had met. Logan hadn’t even pursued. As far out as he was, Aden would likely be miles away by the time Logan made it to the last place he saw that familiar mop of golden hair disappear. It wasn’t worth it then. It wasn’t worth it now. After all, what the hell changed? Why help now after ignoring Logan then? It made no sense outside of some mistimed guilt tripping Aden up now that he witnessed firsthand what his inaction had caused.

Logan began to tremble. “Why now? Why all of a sudden?”

“Wha—”

Logan didn’t wait for a reply as he took the opportunity Aden’s shock provided and bolted. The door must have been old as it swung crooked out to a staircase that looked just stable enough that Logan chanced his quick departure. Weak muscles groaned at every harsh impact as he skipped steps before his footing finally gave out and he fell, skidding over the hard concrete. Withdrawals aside, Logan had been brutalized less than a week ago and the toll it took on his body was clear as the shock sent pain up bone and cartilage alike.

But Logan had taken worse beatings than this. If there was a time where that resilience were to serve him properly, it was now. He barely acknowledged the smear of fresh crimson he left on the white concrete, nor the sprain he knew had been inflicted on his ankle. The neighborhood was familiar enough that he’d only have to struggle through the pain for another few minutes before he’d be completely free of Aden’s pursuit.

Only once did Logan fear that Aden was drawing too close too quick and he cursed being just slightly slower than his long-legged counterpart. But Aden made the mistake of continuing straight ahead to an inevitable dead end instead of shooting down the narrower alley on the right. Logan’s lungs shriveled at the depravity of oxygen from his impromptu run but his chest flooded with a soothing relief as he slipped through the slender gap in the fence to one of his many safe houses. Although, safe house was a generous term for the vent shaft just big enough for him to crawl around on his hands and knees, a nice stretch of six-by-four feet that gave plenty of room for him to stretch out, even if he couldn’t sit up properly.

Years ago, he’d stashed a set of blankets, a single pillow, and two MREs in the vent space for emergency escapes. If he learned anything from the Crimson Stripes, it was to always have a backup plan and Logan had countless scattered about the city. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that one of them would be located near Aden’s home—Logan already knew Aden lived in Blue Fields—but he still hadn’t expected his safe house to be this close.

Night settled in and Logan attempted to sleep. It wasn’t the discomfort of his crawlspace that kept him up, though the cozy space was by far inferior to the bed Logan suddenly found himself craving.

“What are you thinking,” Logan whispered to himself as his thoughts wandered. “He already made his decision. You know that.”

Still, his mind couldn’t get rid of Aden’s image, the sorrow and guilt hanging miasmic over his head and woven in every grimace. And, as his mind danced to a tune he tried desperately not to listen to, his skin grew warm at the remembrance of Aden’s touch. Even his nose deceived him with the lingering scent of woodsmoke underlined with cinnamon.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The craving for a needle pulsed from deep within Logan’s core as the confusion continued to bloom but the hovering Shades around him calmed the urge before he could act on it. He let out a sigh of relief. Finally, they’d returned. He never thought their absence would cause such distress.

To be continued...