NOTE: Loceit, Logan angst, TWs for food, overworking, repression, self-hate

DESC: Janus helps his boyfriend when Logan overworks himself.

You don't deserve emotions.

Logan was like most other college students. Overworked, tired, and bored. He always made sure he had work to do. He figured if he failed something big at some point, he'd have extra credit to fall back on.

And he was tired.

He was crying at the moment. He'd just finished yet another assignment and had three more he had to finish today. He'd asked for them. This was his fault, there was no one to blame but himself he knew he had no reason to cry; he'd asked for this. He didn't deserve to cry. He'd discovered he was unable to avoid the fact that he had emotions, but he didn't deserve them.

Or maybe he did. Maybe it was selfish to wish to never feel because he'd never have to cry. To spend every day exhausted and miserable. Yet, maybe it was fair because he knew he didn't deserve happiness. Maybe it was just the sadness he deserved.

His boyfriend and friends had tried to convince him to stop torturing himself. It wasn't torture, it was insurance. In case he fucked up like he always does at some point. It was worth a good grade.

He wanted this.

He was going to come out of this smart. He'd come out of every step of his education smarter. He needed to. If he wasn't intelligent, gifted, praised, who was he?

Nothing.

Should it have been music? Was it intelligent enough?

He asked himself every day if he made the right choice. Music was an art, more in Roman's vein of interests. Yet, he'd fallen in love with classical music. Was there something wrong with him? Should he be pursuing a science? Trying to discover more about Earth's wonders?

He picked up his cello.

It was selfish, but he needed to distract himself. He was too lazy to finish his work, despite only having four hours to do so. After he did finish them, he'd probably be up until at least 3AM working on everything due tomorrow. He wanted a break.

It doesn't matter what you want. It matters what needs to get done. You have to finish, or you're worthless.

He sighed and put his cello back. That little voice was right, although he was pretty sure he was already worthless. He said he'd finish them at least an hour before the deadline, but look what happened. He'd need at least an hour for the first assignment, two or possibly longer for the second, and an hour or so for the third.

And it had to be perfect.

It was doable. He could get everything right and perfect, he could make all of his work his best work in four hours if he was good enough. It was never perfect, but it could be. It should be. He just wasn't trying hard enough.

Coffee. He needed coffee.

He would've stretched if he thought about his well-being anymore. He left his dorm for a moment to make some coffee in the communal machine and have a bowl of yogurt, which was probably his third bowl today and the only thing he ate at this point.

"Logan, love. You look tired."

"I'm fine, Janus. I can't talk long, I have to get on this assignment."

"How many assignments have you done today?"

He wrapped his arms around Logan's torso from behind, kissing his cheek in the process. Logan wriggled out of his grip, spooning the rest of the yogurt in his mouth.

"You don't eat it with Crofters' anymore. I'm concerned."

"Too expensive."

"I'm buying you some tomorrow."

Logan poured his coffee into a mug Janus had gotten for him, adorned with a bowtie and fez (although his boyfriend wasn't sure he even remembered what Doctor it was referencing anymore). He waved his hand in a goodbye as he headed back in the direction of his room, (without kissing his boyfriend, Janus noticed) coffee in hand.

"I'd rather work alone, Janus."

He followed Logan anyway.

When Logan got back to his room, he went straight to his desk. He'd wasted enough time already. His head hurt, but he didn't have any pain medicine. He was tired, just trying to keep his eyes open at this point. He was hungry, yogurt was not an adequate dinner. And he was exhausted. Not just from the lack of sleep and the normal kind of tired, but the kind of tired that comes from devoting all of your worth to something. Telling yourself it defines your usefulness, your worth, your meaning to other people. He'd keep working through it. He was never going to admit that to himself.

He didn't deserve to acknowledge how he felt. He didn't deserve to smile at things, for people to care about his pain. He didn't deserve to get angry. It was always his fault. If he could keep working, maybe it could at least be his doing that he got a good grade.

Stop debating your emotions and do your work. You worthless bitch.

Worthless.

Worthless.

Worthless.

Something on his lap blocked his vision of the screen where he'd apparently been writing that word for a few moments. He wanted to see it again because it was true. A pair of lips- Janus's- kissed him as his glasses were removed as well. He pushed his boyfriend's face away, despite how much he wanted to kiss him.

"Janus, let me work."

He instead dragged Logan's rolly chair over to his bed and heaved him out of it. He squirmed, attempting to get free, but he'd already set him down and laid horizontally over his torso.

"Mandatory cuddle time. I don't make the rules."

"You've never followed a rule in your life, Janus."

"But you have."

Logan again tried to get up to leave, but his boyfriend only dispersed more of his weight over Logan's chest, grabbing his neck and kissing him again. Logan gave up and hugged him back.

"Can I get back to work now?"

"Not as long as you think you're worthless."

He saw that?

"I won't be if I can just finish my work."

"You're setting your expectations too high for yourself. You don't have to be productive to be worth something. In my opinion, you're already worth more than the entire Earth."

"That's not- I'm not worth more than 8 billion people and almost 200 million miles."

"You are to me. Cuddle time."

"Okay, okay, maybe I'm not worthless-"

You are.

"-but I told my professors I was going to get these assignments done. I can't go back on that."

"They'll understand. They like me. I'll tell them my boyfriend needs a break from all the work he's been getting. Anyway, aren't your grades already over 100% in at least two classes? They know you work too hard. And if they don't believe me, I can get them... replaced."

"No murder, Janus."

"Does that mean you'll keep cuddling with me?"

"At least let me do one-"

Janus kissed him, grabbing his face in the process.

"Sounds like a yes. Now shall we confront your problems with self-worth?"

"I don't have problems with self-worth, I just recognize that I need to get my work done-"

"You think you're defined by the work that you do. I know a liar when I see one, dear."

"Do you want me to get all emotional and spill out my repressed feelings? Because I really don't need any help with them, they don't mean anything anyway. Kinda disa-"

He paused when he realized he was doing exactly that.

"That's exactly what I want you to do. Why are you disappointed?"

He closed his eyes as Janus let go of him and brushed his hair out of his face. "No reason."

"Please?"

"No."

"I won't kiss you unless you tell me."

"Convenient, I won't be plagued with more emotions than I already have."

"I will kiss you until you tell me."

Janus started attacking his face with kisses from the forehead down. He kissed his cheeks that had started blushing and his nose that he tried to turn away. He'd successfully rendered him helpless.

Almost.

Logan kissed him back in retaliation, grabbing his face instead so he couldn't recklessly smooch anymore. He held his lips long, hoping it was enough to subdue Janus's kisses for a while.

"I'd still like to hear about your emotions, L."

"They don't matter though."

"We're getting somewhere."

"I only have two and a half hours left."

"Please, Logan. I'm worried about you. Ignore your work. Focus on you. I can get you some ice cream to cope."

"One, ice cream is very unhealthy, and two, I don't have any reason to need to cope."

Janus crawled off of Logan to grab his laptop, then came back to sit next to his boyfriend. He didn't need to say anything, the screen said it all.

worthless worhtles worhtles worthsles wothslss worthles worthlsess worhtless worhtlsss worhless worthless worhtlwss worhtlwss worhless worthless wothl

"You only stopped typing cause I sat on your lap."

"I, I... wasn't talking about myself."

Janus deleted the paragraph and saved his document, closing the computer and setting it aside. He brushed Logan's face gently.

"You're crying Logan. I think you were."

"I'm- I'm sorry, I- God I should stop crying."

"Why?"

"I don't deserve for people to care about me, I don't deserve to show emotion. I don't deserve anything but-"

He stopped himself from continuing.

"You do deserve that. And it's okay to talk about how you feel. You can go ahead, I'll listen."

"I don't deserve it, I don't need it, I don't w-"

He broke down.

The few tears turned into sobs. His back ached from sitting for so long, he was hungry and tired, so tired. Janus slid down from his sitting position to lay next to Logan and hold him. God, did he want to be held.

"I do want it. I want to tell you what I feel like but it's so hard and- even I don't understand."

"It's okay. You don't have to understand. I just want to help you, love."

Logan took a deep breath. He gazed at Janus for a moment, then turned his head towards the ceiling instead.

"I think... I hate myself."

"I hate myself," he repeated.

"I hate myself, Janus."

Janus pulled him close to his chest where Logan could bury his head in his boyfriend's neck.

"I think that must be why I'm not satisfied with what I do. I'm not satisfied with myself, so I try to make my work perfect because I think that'll make me perfect."

"You don't have to be perfect. No one is."

"I've always been perfect. I can't fuck up. I have to be able to work like a machine. I wish I was a machine, a robot, anything but human. Emotions- they get in the way. I need to be able to work. It's all I'm good for-"

Janus took Logan's hand with one of his own and turned his head with the other so he was looking at him.

"No. You're you and that's okay. You do what you can, what you want. And if what you want is to work and work and work, do that. But I don't think you want this."

"But- it's all I know."

"...When, when you're working this hard, all of the time, you start hurting yourself with it. And you've gotten to the point where you're destroying yourself. You're saying that living like this is what makes you you, but what I see is you... fading away. I miss you. You've become your work, but it doesn't have to be that way. You haven't had free time once this week. You're hurting yourself. So much that you're losing yourself."

"I'm- am I hurting you? Am I fading away and hurting you?"

"Logan, I'm not who's important here. You need to take care of yourself. You need to unlearn that you don't matter outside of your work. You fading away is hurting you so badly, and yes, I hate seeing you so miserable, but you're the one that's hurting. I love you. I want you to be okay and happy. To do that, I want to help you break this awful mindset. You can be okay. You're going to be."

"How?"

"I'll be there to help you learn. But first, we need to e-mail your professors to get rid of all this extra work."

"I told them-"

"No. No extra credit."