Chapter Text
Logan knew it was a Not Good day before he even got out of bed. A very Not Good day. But he didn’t have time for a Not Good day, because he had promised to meet Patton, his boyfriend- his boyfriend, His Boyfriend, his boyfriend- for breakfast. So, with a bit too much anger he pressed his phone screen harshly to stop it’s too loud screeching. He usually set his alarm on vibrate, but he must of messed it up the other day somehow.
The first thing Logan did when he got out of bed was shove his headphones over his ears. Which made getting dressed a pain, but Logan needed the silence. He just needed it. He allowed himself a hiss of frustration and wrung his hands, but exited his dorm anyways. If he didn’t leave now, he would be late. And he had promised to meet Patton for breakfast.
It became an Even Worse day the minute he stepped into the cafeteria. There were just so many people and so many noises. Logan shut his eyes tightly and resisted the urge to scream and curl up into a ball. He couldn’t do that right now. He had promised to meet Patton for breakfast.
He wasn’t exactly sure how he ended up with food and seated at a small table with Patton in the corner of the room, but suddenly, there he was. And Patton was talking to him. And now he was looking at him.
Logan opened his mouth, desperate to say something, anything. But found that he couldn’t. He couldn’t say anything. Why couldn’t he say anything?
Patton gave him a look, but Logan was much too tired to even attempt to decipher his meaning. Then, Patton reached out to grab his hand. And that was the last straw.
Blindly, Logan leaped up and ran. He raced out of the cafeteria, out into the yard, through the dorm buildings, and eventually to the edge of the quad where His Tree was. Once he settled beneath it, he finally screamed.
When he came back into awareness, Patton was sitting ten feet away from him, watching him with wide eyes. Logan rubbed his own and yawned. He was more than a little exhausted.
“Hey,” Patton said gently, “How are you doing?”
Logan just blinked at him owlishly.
Patton frowned, and scooted towards him slightly.
“It’s- You don’t have to say anything,” he offered, “Can you- Maybe just hold up fingers on a scale from one to five? One being good and five being the worst you’ve ever felt?”
At those words, Logan froze. He didn’t exactly know where or why the intense fear appeared in his body appeared, but suddenly blood rushed to his ears and his heart pounded. He felt like in a deer and headlights. And with that fear he finally forced his voice to work for just a few more words.
“Leave me alone!” Logan demanded, before standing once more and racing off.
When Logan was five he entered kindergarten. He knew is teacher’s name was Ms. Lobel and that she liked the color purple, because her nails were always that color. He also knew that even though Ms. Lobel was his teacher, he spent most of the day in Ms. K and Ms. A’s room. Along with the Helpers, Ms. P and Ms. Jack.
He wasn’t sure why all of them except Ms. Jack went by their initials, but when he had asked they had told him not to worry about it. When he asked again he was told it was time to do something else. When he asked a third time he was warned that he wasn’t Being Good, and if he kept being Not Good, he would get in trouble. When he asked the fourth time he was sent to the corner and was told to put his feet on the floor and his hands on his knees and stay there.
At two minutes into his punishment he was shifting from side to side. At five minutes in he was playing with his hands. Ms. K saw him and walked over, firmly grabbing his hands and telling him to stop and be still. At the sudden sensation he stood up and screamed, ripping his hands away from her. She responded quickly by grabbing his shoulders and forcing him to sit down, holding him there until he stopped moving and screaming. He sat there for another twenty minutes. He never asked about their names again.
One day, a paper was taped to his desk. It wasn’t supposed to be there. He was always told to keep his desk clean. So, slowly and surely, Logan began to peel it off, making sure not to leave any of the sticky remains on the table. The sticky remains felt the absolute Worst.
“Logan!” Ms. P said sharply, and quick as possible Logan stopped what he was doing and dropped his hands to his desk. Neither hand touching the other, palms flat against the desk. Quiet Hands. Just like he was supposed to.
“What are you doing?” Ms. P asked him.
“There’s something on my desk,” Logan explained.
She walked over to it and sighed loudly, shaking her head. She reached over and touched his desk- his desk! His personal space! He didn’t like the intrusion. She smoothed the paper back down before stepping away.
Logan relaxed slightly once her hands were off his desk, but he refused to relax completely in her presence.
“That’s supposed to be there Logan. We’re going to learn a new skill today.”
Logan almost frowned before remembering he wasn’t supposed to do that. He didn’t like new skills. The last new skills had been Quiet Hands and Don’t Be Bad. Logan didn’t think they made much sense and he didn’t like doing them. But he knew he had to Listen to the Teacher, so he did them anyway.
“What’s the skill?” he questioned, hoping it wouldn’t be anything too bad.
“Logan! What have we said about tone? It hurts people’s feelings,” she reprimanded.
Logan blinked. He hadn’t even realized he was using A Tone.
“Sorry,” he apologized, though he wasn’t really sure what for. But that was another rule, Say Sorry When You Make a Mistake.
“Very good! Good job saying sorry! That makes me feel better. Now the skill we’re going to learn today is called the Five Point Scale. Are you ready?”
The next day was better. It definitely wasn’t a Good day, but it also wasn’t a Not Good day. It was an It Just Is day. Logan thought about it the previous day for a moment, guilt slamming him full force.
He had told Patton to leave him alone. He probably hated Logan by now.
With that thought, Logan scrambled to his phone, desperate to fix things. His mind raced as he tried to find not only the energy to explain what had happened but also just how and why. Honestly, he still wasn’t completely sure of those things himself.
He turned his phone on, and a few texts immediately filled the screen. Logan gulped and read them. It was probably Patton telling him he didn’t want to be boyfriends, or maybe even friends anymore. Logan had pretty much broken all the rules and skills yesterday. And he knew he had to obey those rules and skills to be Good. And people didn’t want to talk to or look at or go out with Not Good people like Logan had been.
In result of these thoughts, Patton’s texts came as a complete and utter surprise.
Patton: Hey Lo, sorry ur not doing well.
Patton: I’ll leave u alone for now and give u some space until ur ready
Patton: And maybe when ur doing better we could talk about what happened?
Patton: No pressure whatsoever. I just want to understand. lmk. <3
Logan blinked the texts, his free hand coming to rub up and down his pants leg until he caught himself and mentally berated himself. Quiet Hands. He shoved his hand in his pocket and texted the first thing that came to mind.
Logan: You’re not mad?
Once he hit send he left to make himself tea. It wasn’t a Not Good day. Which meant that he had energy. And on all the days he had energy, he made tea in the mornings.
His phone chimed, and Logan stepped away from where he was watching the water heat to grab it.
Patton: I’m not mad
Patton: Can I come over?
Logan thought about it for a moment. He didn’t want Patton to leave him alone for forever, but he really did want him to leave him alone right now. And he wasn’t sure why Patton was so nice. Logan had said mean things and he had hurt Patton’s feelings and-
Logan clenched his hair tightly and screamed.
After a moment he typed out a response.
Logan: Yes
Because Logan really really didn’t want Patton to come over. But Patton was being so nice and kind and patient. And Logan was being angry, and terse, and making a mess out of nothing. And he wanted to still be Patton’s boyfriend. He wanted to still be Patton’s friend. And Good friends, Good people, weren’t mean when their friends were nice.
And so he sent the text.
“What’s the Five Point Scale?” Logan asked. And well, at least the name didn’t sound to bad, even if the pictures on the piece of paper were slightly unsettling.
“Okay, well see here,” she pointed to the green number 1 and the smiley face, “One is for when you’re doing great! When you feel good and you feel happy and your behaving, okay?”
Logan nodded, he did know how to read. Pretty well too. For a kid in kindergarten at least. He had scored a 5.4 on his reading test. At first he thought that meant he did bad, because 5.4 out of 12 wasn’t very good. But when he had talked to other kids in his class, only eight others had even scored on the chart at all. Out of those eight, only two were above a 1.5. All of them were below a 3.5. Logan didn’t really know what the numbers actually meant, but he did know that he could read well for his age.
“Good!” she said with a large grin, and pointed to the next number. “Two is for ‘I am doing OK’. That means you might be a little frustrated or unhappy, but you still do as told and you don’t get angry. Next, Three is ‘I am getting really irritated’. When you feel a three you need to come tell a teacher and take a break from a bad situation. Got it?”
“Really?” Logan asked, eyes wide. A butterfly of hope filled his chest. “If I’m upset I can take a break?”
Ms. P frowned.
“Not exactly. This is for when you get upset like the time you had to sit in the corner. Remember? The corner gets to be your break spot.”
Logan’s hope plummeted. The corner was a punishment, not a break spot. Logan voiced as much.
“Logan,” Ms. P sighed and tutted as she shook her head, “The corner is not a punishment. The corner is where you’re supposed to go cool down when you get angry.”
“I wasn’t angry!” Logan protested, even as a flame inside of him started to burn, “I asked a question and you didn’t answer it and then I got in trouble!”
“You have to learn that you’re not always going to get an answer Logan. Sometimes things just are.”
Logan huffed at that and shook his hands out and began to rock back and forth. The motion was soothing and familiar and the spark inside of him started to calm down.
Ms. P caught the movements and gave him a look.
“Logan,” she started, voice already shredding and grating on Logan’s nerves, “That’s not proper behavior. You know this. Sit Still and have Quiet Hands.”
But Logan couldn’t. This was all he had. And maybe she was right, maybe he did need to take breaks. Because he didn’t listen. And Logan was always so so angry. But he bit his tongue and she carried on.
“Four is for ‘I am getting too angry,’ this is when you get angry enough that you don’t just need a break, but a safe space. And you can go there until you can follow rules and calm down, okay?”
Logan tilted his head, “Where is my safe space?”
“The corner of course,” Ms. P replied, as she gestured to the previous mentioned and truly horrific corner.
Logan made a face. But he didn’t like the corner. He only got sent there when he was Not Good. He didn’t want to be Not Good. Plus…
“If I go to the corner for both a three and a four, what’s the difference?” he asked.
“Well when you’re a three, you’re still behaving well. A four is for when you start misbehaving.”
Logan scrunched up his face further.
“But,” he started, “What does that have to do with being angry? I don’t disobey when I’m angry. I don’t even get that angry. I only get angry when…” he trailed off, unsure how to finish his own sentence.
But what he said was true, he only got angry in very certain situations situations when-
“When you can't behave you get angry and being angry leads to more misbehavior. Remember, you need to follow the appropriate way to do things. If you can’t do that, that’s misbehaving. And misbehaving isn’t Good, and you don't want to be Not Good, right?”
Logan frowned and shook his head.
He definitely did not want to be Not Good. But he didn’t know how to explain the fact that he only got angry when he wasn’t allowed to do things like rock, or hum, or recite songs, or talk about Lego’s, or flap his hands.
But I guess that was Ms. P’s point. He couldn’t follow the rules. And he got angry when he couldn’t follow the rules. Which, according to Ms. P, made him Not Good. And Ms. P would know, she’s a teacher.
Patton opened the door after knocking slightly. Logan nodded from his place on his bed. He sat stiffly, hands flat on his knees, reminding him to not move them and not to play with them. Quiet Hands.
“Hey,” Patton said as he entered.
Logan just gave a nod.
Patton smiled softly and sat down right next to him, his thigh brushing Logan’s own. Logan was wearing shorts while Patton wore jeans, meaning he could feel every fiber of the material against his leg, itching and distracting him. It was very uncomfortable. Logan didn’t move.
“Hey, you worried me yesterday,” Patton told him, taking one of Logan’s hands softly.
Logan wanted to rip his hand away at the touch but forced himself to stay still. Ripping away his hand would be considered rude. And Logan couldn’t be rude. Patton was trying to help him.
“Um, is- is this an autism thing?” Patton asked gently, only slightly stumbling over the words as he tried to figure out what to say.
Logan shook his head.
“No,” he insisted, “It’s just. I just-” he bit himself off with a frustrated groan, and wanted to yell once more.
“Hey,” Patton said softly, as he settled his other hand on Logan’s. With both of his, he held one of Logan’s hands, stroking and petting it softly.
Logan could only guess that it was supposed to be soothing, but in reality it felt like billions of tiny insects crawling over his body.
“Stop,” he whispered.
“Hm?” Patton asked.
“Stop,” he repeated firmer, “Stop! STOP STOP STOP!”
“What’s five for?” Logan asked, mostly just hoping that all of this would be over with soon.
“Five is ‘I can’t stand this. I’m ready to explode’. That's when a teacher actually needs to move you or stop you from doing something because you’re so angry.”
Logan frowned, “Like what?”
“Like when you screamed at Ms. K the other day and wouldn’t sit still so we had to hold you down, remember?”
Logan remembered.
“So that’ll happen again?” he asked, big eyes wide. He didn’t like that.
Ms. P frowned, “Only if you can’t behave. But I think you can behave, right? You can be good at being Good. You only have yourself to blame for being Not Good, right. You just need to try harder.”
Logan frowned. He wasn’t sure about all of this, but if Ms. P said so.
And well, Logan wanted to be Good really really bad. So if that meant he wasn’t allowed to do things like flap his hands or talk about what he liked or doodle or rock or cover his ears at loud noises or get angry, well Logan could learn to do that, right?
Right?
Logan started to scream once more.
“Five! Five! Five!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
He was barely aware of Patton at his side still.
And so he shrieked and cried and shook and Patton just sat there.
Because neither of them had any idea of what to do.