and when i gazed into their eyes (i found myself falling for the first time)
(Or: Three times Logan didn’t realize the others liked him, and the one time he did.)
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2. Roman
Roman threw his hands up in the air, signing over dramatically as he flopped back in his chair. “This is too boring, can’t we do something actually fun, Pocket Protector?”
“…You were the one that suggested we do work,” Logan said slowly, squinting at him.
“Well, yes, but I thought it would be filled with grandeur and marvelous ideas! Not schedules and, I don’t know, thinking.”
Logan rolled his eyes and set his own down, a small fond smile on his face. “What would you suggest then with these ‘marvelous ideas’ of yours?” he put quotation marks around the words, a deadpan expression on his face.
Roman scoffed at the tone with a playfully offended expression. “I’ll have you know that my ideas are marvelous, thank you very much. And we should…” he trailed off, tapping his chin as he thought before a grin slowly spread across his face. Logan felt a familiar feeling of fond dread at that, already mentally preparing himself for whatever Roman was about to say.
Roman spun around in his chair, leaning close to Logan as his smile widened before grabbing Logan’s hand and standing abruptly, tugging Logan with him.
“What are you—“ Logan stuttered, his face beginning to flush. Roman pulled him even closer, gently guiding Logan’s hand to rest on his shoulder before he set his free hand on Logan’s waist.
“Dancing!” Roman exclaimed, letting go of Logan’s hand to snap his fingers for some classical music before grabbing his hand again.
“In your cluttered room?” Logan laughed, shaking his head.
“My room is perfectly fine, you just can’t see it,” Roman leaned his face closer, smiling, “Besides, it just means more fancy footwork!”
He began to twirl Logan around the room, nimbly moving around the mess strewn across the floor from the last time Roman had a brainstorm. Logan yelped, stumbling to try and not fall, shaking his head as he laughed more. Looking down at the ground to avoid tripping and falling, he didn’t see how Roman’s face lit up at getting Logan to laugh.
Roman hummed along to the music, continuing to dance around and tug Logan along with him, sending him into a spin before drawing him in closer, gazing down at him. Logan felt his ears begin to burn at the close proximity and instinctually looked down at the ground to escape eye contact, eyes slightly wide.
“My eyes aren’t on the ground, Specs,” Roman said softly, tilting Logan’s chin up to make eye contact. There was a smile on his face when Logan looked up and the two looked at each other in silence, the blush on Logan’s face growing brighter. Then Patton yelled something to Virgil, calling him over for something and the two broke apart, jerking back at the sudden noise.
They both laughed nervously and Logan cleared his throat, “Um—now that you’ve had your break, perhaps we should get back to work.”
Roman groaned, falling back into his chair. “Or,” he said, drawing out the word, “we could continue our debate on Snow White because Virgil has corrupted you and you can’t see that it’s a romance story!”
Logan raised an eyebrow, sitting down, “The prince quite literally kisses a random woman in the woods without her consent, how is that romantic?”
Roman sputtered, “Okay, that part was, admittedly, problematic. But views were different back then and they thought that was fine! I guarantee that if it was made today, they wouldn’t have that part, Calculator Watch. Besides, the rest of the movie was romance, you can’t deny that!”
“…the stepmother tried to kill her stepdaughter.”
Roman fell silent, trying to think of a way to come back from that. “Fuck.”
Logan snorted, rolling his eyes and leaning back.
“Okay, you know what we’re gonna do since that spectacularly failed?” Roman popped up.
“Doing our work?” Logan suggested hopefully.
“Nope, c’mon, up you go.” Roman hauled Logan up by the hand, dragging him out of the room.
“Why do you all drag me places?” Logan complained.
“Because you don’t follow willingly,” Roman teased.
“Falsehood,” Logan mumbled petulantly, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see!” Roman called out, not looking back.
Finally, they arrived at a door that Roman pushed open without a second thought, leading Logan into it.
“Oh,” Logan breathed out, looking around at the ballroom. “Has this…always been here?” he asked quietly, taken aback.
Roman grinned and nodded. “I created this a while ago. A prince needs to practice his moves!”
“Please never say that again,” was the reply that Logan had.
“Nope. Anyways!” Just like he did when they danced earlier, he snapped his fingers and music came on. “You said that my room was too cluttered, so now we shall dance in a ballroom!” With that, he led Logan into a waltz, sweeping him across the room.
“You’re incorrigible,” Logan muttered fondly.
“Maybe.” Roman grinned fondly down at him.
At some point, Logan didn’t know when, but he found his head resting on Roman’s shoulder as they started swaying instead of actually dancing. In the back of his mind, he hoped that Patton and Virgil wouldn’t be upset by that, but he found that he was too comfortable to bother moving.
“Hey, Logan?” the fact that Roman actually said his name and didn’t use a nickname had Logan slightly confused and worried.
“Yes, Roman?”
“You know I…” Logan felt Roman swallow and sensed that he was trying to compose himself. “I…really like you. A lot.” Logan stuffed down the traitorous feelings as his heart leapt at those words, shoving them down to a point where he could ignore them because he knew that what he wished was not what Roman meant with those words.
Taking a deep breath, Logan lifted his head off of Roman’s shoulder, making eye contact. “I like you too, Ro. We’re friends, after all, no matter how much we may annoy each other.” (Friends, Logan told himself in his brain. A reminder that was very much needed.)
He could see how Roman’s eyes seem to dim slightly and how his smile faltered, but he couldn’t figure out why on earth why they did. He thought he had said the objective truth. Had he said something wrong, perhaps?
“I’m sorry, did I…did I say something wrong? I do not mean to upset you.”
“No,” Roman croaked out and shook his head, “Nothings wrong, Lo. Don’t—don’t worry about it.”
Logan gave him a doubtful look, but Roman just smiled and guided Logan’s head to rest on his shoulder again. As they swayed in place once more, Logan found himself reviewing his words again. Friends, they were just friends, Logan reminded himself. He really shouldn’t be feeling this way about them, they were all in a relationship and they were happy, he needn’t intrude on them. No matter how much he wished to be a part of it because it wouldn’t happen.
Logan really needed to get a handle on these feelings.
a/n: listen im soft for logince dancing
(rbs >>>> likes)
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
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