[trigger warnings: suicide/suicidal thoughts/mentions of drug ab/use]

LOGAN

"Blake."

Blake groaned and pulled away from where Logan was calling for him in his ear. "Stop," he mumbled and shoved his face deeper into his pillow.

Logan didn't take that as a no. "Blake!" he said more fiercely, pulling at his arm.

Blake looked up at him through sleep-squinted eyes. "What?" he moaned.

"Come on," Logan said, pulling away his blanket. "Get up. We have to do something today."

Blake snatched the blanket back. "Why are you being so weird?"

"Just get out of bed."

"It's a Saturday. Can't you let me sleep?"

"We can only do this today." Logan took hold of Blake's hand and pulled. "Come on, Blake, please. It's for Olivia."

Blake shoved his face into the pillow. "Don't lie just to get me to get up and make you pancakes."

"We're going to go visit where she used to live today."

"Logan, I swear if I get up and you only want pancakes-"

"Just get out of bed and think up that threat later."

"Can I drive the bike?"

"No."

"Then I'm not coming."

"It's too far for you. It's half an hour from here. Once we get to town we'll switch off and I'll let you have a go on the small roads. Okay?"

Blake grumbled something that sounded like an agreement and made to roll out of bed. Logan took a step back and Blake's elbow and hip hit the ground hard as he collided with the floor.

"You're an evil older brother. You know that right?" he groaned.

Logan rolled his eyes. "We're leaving in half an hour. And if you're making pancakes, make me some too."

"It's like I'm Cinderella and you're Drusilla!" Blake yelled after him as he left the room. "Because she's the uglier one of the two stepsisters!" As an afterthought he added, "And that makes Elijah Anastasia!"

*****

Blake talked Logan's ear off about anything and everything as they rode.

"And then after Nick went out with Hillary, Brandon almost killed him in the locker room. You should've seen him. It was a bloodbath! The principal even finally came out of his high and mighty office and-"

Logan listened to Blake go on for the full half hour it took them to get there. It didn't matter that he could barely hear the words through the helmets they were wearing. It didn't matter that Blake was blowing his eardrums in an effort to be heard over the wind whipping against the helmets. Logan was just content to have his little brother hanging onto his waist and his voice constantly in his ears. He would never admit it, but he loved listening to Blake exaggerate his stories, animatedly bringing even the most mundane of encounters to life.

When he was fifteen, Logan often thought he was going to die. When he turned sixteen, he knew he was going to die, constantly had ugly thoughts about death and dying - except for those moments when he would slip into Blake's room at night and lay there on the floor, listening to the sound of his stuffed-full-of-life brother's gentle, easy breaths, and just that bit of normalcy would calm down his angry black thoughts for a few hours and convince him not to do something he would regret later. He would never be able to sleep through the night, but at least he managed to make it till morning.

Blake would never know, but back then, he managed to save him day after day with the lopsided smiles that never dimmed no matter what angry things Logan said, the goofy, endless stories, his seemingly silly and random but perfectly timed declarations of love.

That wasn't to say Elijah had no hand in his being alive today either. After the incident, he had refused to send Logan away to any facility that the doctors had suggested. Instead, day in and day out, he took him to therapy, hugged him hard when Logan had convinced himself there was no longer any point to being held, yelled at him, begged him, cried over him.

One day, Logan had snuck out of his therapist's office with the intention of going down the road and waiting at the cafe until Elijah came back to pick him up instead of listening to Dr. Chandler poke and prod him with her awful questions, only to find their Toyota still parked on the side of the road, Elijah sitting in the driver's seat with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with sobs.

Needless to say, Logan had forced himself to turn around, walk with unwilling legs back into the therapist's office, and bear the woman's words for the full next hour.

The tapping on his helmet visor brought his attention back to the road. "Hey, Logan!" Blake hollered so he could hear him clearly through the two layers of helmets.

"What?"

"You have to take the next exit! I thought we almost missed it but then I noticed at the last minute that your phone was vibrating and here - here, get off the highway here!"

"Alright, alright, I heard you the first time."

Logan slowed the bike on the exit ramp and got off to let Blake scoot forward and take the handlebars. Blake squealed like a five year old. Logan rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, princess, try not to crash us both."

The old address Elijah had gotten from the social worker led them to a huge complex of apartment buildings. Blake stopped in front of the correct one and they both got off. Logan toed the kickstand down as Blake walked up to the front door.

Logan would have said the apartment had seen better days, but that would be a lie. It looked like the buildings had been built badly in the first place, with misaligned windows and beams that were probably breaking several home inspection and safety laws. The rickety porch groaned under their combined weights as they inspected the buzzers and the names scrawled next to them.

"Two thirty-two," Blake said, putting his finger next to the correct buzzer on a name that was no longer Olivia and her mother's. "Looks like someone else moved in now. Ms. Amy Richardson. Probably having a fine time in her first class luxurious apartment. Do you think they have cockroaches? Hailey told me old apartments always have cockroaches." He shuddered. "You think Olivia's ever slept with all those cockroaches in there?"

Logan grimaced and backed off the porch. "That would explain her lack of fright at that creepy bug infestation movie you said you two watched."

"Please, don't remind me of it," Blake wailed, then proceeded to bring up every gory detail. "It was the creepiest movie ever! I hated all those giant beetles with their skinny legs and the centipedes with all their millions of crawling legs and - oh my god - those huge, squishy worms. And then when that spider ate the girl - I swear I almost died."

"I can't believe you watched that crap. And made someone watch it with you."

"It was a work of art!" Blake pulled at the front door and it easily swung open. "Not even a lock."

Not for the first time, Logan wondered how the sister who used to live with them ended up leading such a wildly different life.

"You do know we're breaking rule number seven, right?" Blake said. "'You can't ever go visit where I used to live?'"

Logan dragged a hand down his face. "Blake, why the hell are we talking about those rules? Those rules are why we're looking for answers."

"Okay, but why are we looking for answers at her apartment? She doesn't live here anymore. She hasn't lived here for a whole year."

"We're just going to ask around about them and scout out her neighborhood."

Blake groaned. "Ask around? Scout out her neighborhood? You still think she's involved in dealing, don't you?"

"Blake, listen to me." Logan put his hands on his shoulders and turned him to force him to meet his eyes. "Her mom ODed on a drug you don't find at a pharmacy. Even if Olivia wasn't involved, her mom still got those drugs from somewhere. I know you and Elijah don't like to think about these things, but can you take this seriously? How else did her mom get that much cocaine?"

"Maybe...she was a nurse?" Blake suggested weakly.

"Nurses have morphine, not crack! And she was a bartender!" Logan frowned and he suddenly gave Blake a little shake. "That's right. The bar."

"What about the bar?"

"We'll go to the bar later."

"I've always wanted to go to a bar."

Logan rolled his eyes. "You are only seventeen years old."

Blake grinned. "And you? You're not legal yet either."

"How many times do I have to try to tell you that I don't drink?"

"I know, I know." Blake waved a hand dismissively. "You want to go inside her apartment?"

Logan shook his head. "I can't leave the bike here."

"Come on, no one's going to steal it."

Logan glanced down the road at a couple of guys standing idly at the corner of the sidewalk, eyeing him. He was loath to let Blake go inside by himself, but he couldn't leave his bike out in the open in this neighborhood either.

"How about you go inside, ask the people some questions, see if they know if Olivia and Mom were up to anything, and I'll stay out here with the bike," he told Blake.

Blake hesitated. "You sure you'll be okay out here by yourself?"

"Blake, seriously, just go inside. I'll be fine."

He looked like he wanted to argue, but Logan gave him a shove towards the door. With a backwards glance, Blake slipped inside.

Logan leaned against his bike, watching the people on the street give him stares as they passed. He couldn't stop thinking about how Olivia had looked when she came home the night before, eyes red like she had been crying. Was it because of something that had happened here?

A black car with dark windows slowly drove by, too slowly. Logan slipped his hand inside his pocket, feeling for the pepper spray. He had taken it from Olivia's desk on a whim, thinking that if she had had it with her when she lived here, she probably had good reason. Who was to say he wouldn't need it too?

Logan rubbed the gooseflesh from his arms and looked back up at the apartment building, willing Blake to come out so they could get the fuck out of there already.

The black car slowly passed and Logan glanced at the three guys who had been standing at the end of the sidewalk, except that they were now walking down the street towards him. He looked away and began fiddling with the gas tank, cursing himself for letting what should be ordinary things send his heart racing.

He was just beginning to wonder if he was going to take the chance to run inside, grab Blake, and drag him outside real quick when his brother came out of the building, frowning.

"What?" Logan asked.

Blake put his helmet back on. "It was so weird. I asked that lady who lives there now - Richardson - and she told me she didn't know the people who used to live there, except she practically tried to shove me away from the door. Then I asked one neighbor if she knew where I could find Maria Jones, and she literally slammed the door in my face." He laughed nervously. "At least the third lady had the decency to whisper to me that she had no idea where they were and then slam the door in my face."

Logan reached around to start the bike for Blake. "Well, now we know that something was going on."

In a morose voice, Blake said, "I don't think I want to know what it is anymore."

*****

"I think I saw someone dealing pot back there."

"Blake, that was not pot. That was two guys just hanging out. And I can't believe you went from thinking Olivia isn't a dealer to thinking that every single person in this complex does drugs. That's the seventh false alarm you've asked me about."

They had taken a winding, circuitous route out of the apartment buildings because Logan wanted to get a look at what the rest of the residents were doing. Blake hadn't let up pestering him ever since they started.

"They were smoking!" Blake protested.

"They were smoking cigarettes."

"That could have been weed, what do you know?"

"Blake, we literally passed two feet away from them. I'm pretty sure you would've smelled it if it was weed."

"I mean-"

"Just turn right here," Logan cut him off. "We're going to go to the bar now."

Blake did as he asked. "So, did you see anything suspicious, oh great enlightened one who knows what pot smells like?"

Logan rolled his eyes. "Aside from all the stares and glares we were getting, not really. They really do not like strangers in that neighborhood."

They pulled into Madame Cobra's, an ordinary looking bar in the center of town. This early in the morning, Logan didn't expect anyone else to be in the bar, but there were a few middle aged men and women in the window seats, nursing large mugs and sour expressions. Behind the bar was a petite black woman in her late twenties or early thirties with her hair done in dozens of little braids.

Before Logan could stop him, Blake had sauntered up to the bar and seated himself on the stool directly opposite of where the woman was drying glasses. He turned on his thousand dollar smile and read the barmaid's name tag. "Hi, Jordan," he said.

Logan sighed and went after him.

The barmaid flashed an equally brilliant smile back at him. "Hey, cutie, what can I get ya?"

Blake leaned forward on the bar and looked at the menu posted up on the wall behind Jordan. "Can I get an Old Fashioned...Mojito?"

Logan covered his mouth and looked away, snorting into his fingers. The waitress's voice was amused as she put her forearms down against the bar and leaned right up to Blake, their noses inches apart. "Well, is that an Old Fashioned or a Mojito?" she asked.

"They're two different things?"

"Very different."

"Oh." Logan composed himself enough to see that Blake's grin hadn't disappeared just yet. "Then an Old Fashioned for me and a Mojito for my brother."

Jordan made no motion to move from where she was. Her bemused smile only grew wider. "And just how old do you think you are, honey?"

"I'm twenty two."

Jordan threw back her head and laughed. Logan felt his own mouth curl up at his brother's audacity. There was no way Blake could ever hope to pass for that old. He doubted Blake even knew what he was ordering.

When Jordan had caught her breath, she ruffled Blake's hair. "Honey, you ain't a day over eighteen. You want a soda?"

Blake was undeterred. "Come on, Jordan," he persisted. "You won't do this for me?"

Jordan shook her head and smiled. "You're cute, I'll give ya that." She set a Coke down in front of Blake and turned and gestured to Logan with a glass she was wiping. "And what about you, cutie's brother? You havin' anything?"

"My name's Logan," he grunted. Unlike Blake, he had no inclination to make anyone like him.

"Alright, Logan," Jordan said, genial as ever. "What can I get ya?"

"A sprite."

She raised an eyebrow. "Nothing stronger?"

Logan wondered if Jordan offered because his expression looked like one of the guys at the back of the bar, drinking things too strong on an early Saturday morning for everything to be okay. "I don't drink. And I'm underage."

Jordan gave him a smirk. "Alright there, Boy Scout, I'll get ya your sprite."

While Blake talked to Jordan, Logan sipped on his sprite and answered Elijah's texts about where they were, telling him they had gone out to the city. It wasn't that he didn't trust Elijah - far from it. Logan knew he had an angry, rebellious streak in him sometimes, but that didn't mean he wouldn't do anything he asked if his big brother was serious about it. He just didn't know if Elijah was going to panic and demand that they come back home.

He put his phone down to see Jordan laughing at something Blake had said and cleared his throat loudly. He knew Blake had a certain charm that made everyone love him, but if he had to sit and watch the thirty year old waitress flirt with his little brother for one more minute, he was going to vomit.

"Jordan," he cut in, and the woman leaned away from Blake and began wiping the smudged glasses again. "We're actually here looking for someone who works at this bar. She's a friend of our mother's."

Jordan looked at him and waved her dishrag expectantly. "Well, go on, cutie's brother, I know just about everybody who works here. What's her name?"

"Maria Jones."

Jordan's fingers fumbled with the glass she had in her hand and it fell with a clinking noise against the counter. She inhaled slowly and turned away from them to put the glasses away on the shelves behind her.

"I'm sorry to tell you boys this, but she don't work here anymore."

Logan knew full well why she didn't work at the bar anymore, but he said, "What happened? Did she change jobs?"

Jordan hesitated, then said, "She's dead."

"Dead? Since when?" Blake asked.

"Last year."

"Was it an accident, or was she sick, or - how did she die?"

There was a moment's pause, then Jordan whispered, "Killed herself."

Logan didn't miss the short, clipped answers Jordan was giving, the way she wouldn't turn around to face them. Even after she finished putting away the glasses, she wouldn't look at them. She began rearranging bottles of wine that, as far as he could see, looked like they hadn't been rearranged in ages.

"Was she depressed or - or hurt? Why would she do that? My mom always talked about her like she was the happiest person alive," Blake said. Logan raised an eyebrow behind Jordan's eyebrow at his lie-spinning, but Blake didn't seem to notice. He was chewing on his lip as he watched Jordan take bottles from holders and replace them in the same ones seconds later.

"She was," Jordan said shortly. "Now if you don't mind, I gotta get back to work."

"I think my mom would really like to know what happened to her friend-"

"Look, you two," Jordan cut in. For some reason, Logan found it even scarier looking at her stiff back than her face. "Don't be asking about her no more, alright?"

"Jordan, we just want to know-"

Jordan's face was utterly devoid of her initial cheerfulness as she whirled around to face them and put her hands flat against the bar, leaning into their faces so they could see her dark eyes, intense and a little bit frightened, flickering nervously to something behind the two brothers.

"That's enough," she hissed. "Now you listen to me, and listen to me good. If you want to live, go back to where you came from, tell your mama some lie or other to keep her happy, and don't say her name ever again. You hear?"

Blake opened his mouth, but Logan grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him off the bar stool. He put money for the sodas and tip down on the counter.

"Thanks, Jordan. Thank you. We'll leave and let you get back to work." Logan dragged Blake out of the bar and into the sunlight.

"What was that for?" Blake whined, rubbing the back of his neck. "We were really getting somewhere."

Logan didn't answer him. He looked across the street at the black car idling on the side of the road. The windows were tinted too dark to be legal, too dark for him to see inside the driver's seat. A shiver ran down his spine.

He grasped Blake's arm and pulled him to the bike. He put his helmet on, jammed Blake's helmet on his head, and sat in the front, kicking the engine to life. "Come on, Blake, we're getting out of here."

"Wait, we didn't find out why she was depressed-"

"She was fucking murdered, Blake, and if you don't want to end up like her, get on