Constellation

1. Caffeine and other fundamental needs

I wanted From Trees to Trees to end with LAMP / CALM, but I found that with all the abuse Virgil went through in his home, getting them together just a few days later was too quick. The subject of the story was Virgil's marriage, and he still needed much therapy before forming a healthy romantic relationship. So there you have it: a year later...

Skin hunger = touched starved

Logan was in dire need of caffeine.

He was walking up the corridors of the Center, his steps leisurely but efficient - the optimal walking speed, and anyone who disagreed was simply wrong. It was early, the first morning lights filtering through the curtains flanking the winding hallway. The air was still and silent, rustling under the dreams of the many inhabitants of this wing who had yet to be released from sleep.

The place he was heading to, however, was already bustling with activity. He walked along the long tables of the dining room, circumvented the potted plants and entered the kitchen.

"Logan..."

It was almost an hour too early for breakfast, and the young man knew he wasn't technically allowed to be here, but there he was. He just really needed this coffee.

"I know," he said hastily, giving Leonie (the head cook and Patton and Janus' mother) his most contrite look (it was not a puppy-dog face). "I'll stay out of the way, I promise."

He would never understand how she managed to switch so easily from the gaze of a hawk to a gentle smile. He would, poor mortal, only be able to marvel before this ability.

"Alright, go off," she said. "But if I catch you bothering the cooks again, you can go and wait in the dining room, like everyone else."

"I just want a coffee," he assured her.

A light smirk and a floury hand patting his cheek. "Of course, of course."

"Well said, kid!" Remy shouted from somewhere at the back of the room. Logan didn't even want to know what he was doing here. Rumors had it he never slept.

Focused on his goal, Logan walked around the chef and her knowing gaze and sank deeper between the dark wood counters and the yeast-smelling ovens, slipping easily between the cooks, and finally...

"There you go!"

Logan smiled with satisfaction. He reached out for the steaming orange ceramic mug, but his gaze was fixed a little higher.

"Just how you like it!" Virgil happily promised.

"Thank you, dear," Logan replied with a tender smile.

Virgil had changed in many ways during the year he had spent in Sylve-Terre with them. If the physical changes were perhaps the most obvious, there were several others. He had arrived anxious and docile, constantly monitoring his words and expressions, and Logan would never, ever tire of seeing him smile like that, happy and (almost) carefree.

He sat down in the center of the room, on one of the stools surrounding the island, and sipped his coffee with one hand, leafing through the notes from his observational astronomy course with the other. In a few days, his whole class would go on a field trip to the nearest observatory, located on the side of the eastern volcano. Logan took out his diary from a pocket and wrote down 'ask Patton to accompany Virgil to his lessons' under the words 'observatory trip,' which was surrounded by several drawings of stars and planets (which he would deny drawing himself if anyone happened to see them) and several new designs ideas for the clover constellation (objectively the inferior constellation, Logan was just stating the facts).