MYTH OF A MIRROR EXPLOSION

It had been a long forever, and Logan knew that. He felt it in each molecule of his being.

The first time it happened, it was the start of their sophomore year and Dick was (unsurprisingly) drunk off his ass. Logan didn't have the energy for really doing anything – the debacle with Veronica and the video last year had zapped all the energy out of him. There was a brief time, right after, when they both thought that he had made things better by beating Gory up – then she remembered how to be her, and was furious at him for putting himself in so much danger. Somewhere Logan knew that Veronica was only worried about him – given how much she had lost, he couldn't blame her – but he couldn't help but resent her for it anyway.

Dick's father had been forced to go to prison a month or so back, and Dick pretended he didn't care. Logan knew better, but said nothing – in high school, Dick floated through life so unaffected by his surroundings that Logan wondered how he would react is something that forced him to care happened. Now Logan knew: Dick would just not deal with it. He saw that for the months – almost a year – before Dick Snr. came back, as Dick laughed and drunk and fucked under the same roof that the Beav had stepped off and splattered all over the sidewalk.

They were both alone now, and Logan knew that – he wasn't sure he even had the motivation to care. Dick just kept on being Dick: parties and booze and many, many idiotic mistakes – Logan could sense the dishonesty in the way Dick acted, but he let it go. At least Dick wasn't just locking himself in his own personal cell, like Logan was.

Logan couldn't define what was brewing in Dick's eyes, but that might have been the booze (and his desperation for things not to get more fucked up) fogging up the sight for him. He wasn't really sure how they got from point A to point B; because one moment Dick was on the couch across from him as normal. The next, he had his friend draped over his lap and pressing their lips together clumsily, almost as if he didn't understand how to – even though Logan knew this was hardly knew territory for Dick.

"What – what the hell, Dick?" Logan asked, letting it get muffled against Dick's lips. There was something strange to this whole situation – even beyond the usual what-the-fuck-ery of Dick Casablancas kissing him, for no real reason.

"Come on man," said Dick, quirking a smile. "Why the hell not?" he said, pressing his mouth to the side of Logan's neck. Logan couldn't help but laugh; short, sharp and bitter. He had been dragged away from everything he dared to care about, and now the one person who hadn't left – if only just because he didn't have anywhere else to go – was just dragging it all to sex. Logan wasn't all that surprised, even when feeling the brief sting of betrayal.

Dick was still his friend, and Logan liked him. But Dick had offered up his power – in ways he couldn't possibly imagine – and Logan was suddenly overcome with a compulsion to use that against him. Maybe because he felt Dick was trying to use him, or maybe just to prove there was still someone he could affect.

He placed a hand on the back of Dick's neck, pulling him closer with a smirk. "Okay."

There was a boy in Logan's economics class with the last remnants of a black eye. He got into a fight with that guy a few weeks back; he doesn't even remember why. The guy said something stupid and Logan overreacted. He realized with a vague sense of annoyance what he was trying to do. Trying to affect the world around him however he could; trying to bring pain to something or someone, even if (especially if) they didn't deserve it.

The guy said something stupid again this class, and Logan was struck by the urge to hit him again. He didn't; just balled his fists and waited until class ended. Then he ran home so he could throw Dick against the wall and get off on something real.

He knew it was a cliche; using sex in the place of violence and using them both to feel. He thought of Duncan, who had been so numb after Lilly died – it terrified Logan, that he might have turned into that. The pain of missing his long-gone best friend (and girlfriend) still occurred when he thought about it, but the ache was dull and scarred now and he wondered if there was enough room left in him to feel the sort of agony he felt after Lilly's death again. Then he blocked those thoughts out of his head, because there was no point to them and it probably wasn't right to think of one of his best friends while trying to fuck the other.

It was the way it always was with Dick, rough and fast; Logan left bruises on hips and bitemarks on shoulders, not that Dick minded. Big fucking surprise, thought Logan bitterly.

Then Logan came with Dick's hand wrapped around his cock, listening to Dick's fast breathing. Dick was nowhere near done, and Logan considered himself generous. But when Logan started to slide to his knees, Dick flashed an odd – almost panicking – look, and dragged him back up by the collar of his shirt.

"Whatever dude," Dick muttered, pulling Logan's lips to his. "It's okay, you know, whatever."

Logan ran into Parker a few days after that. She was the way she had always been – pretty, bright, bubbly. Logan couldn't really understand how she could have gone through what she'd gone through and remained so bright and hopeful. For a moment, he wanted more than anything to be like her. He was so tired of wallowing in his own bitterness and misery.

"Parker?" he asked, and she looked at him with wide eyes. He thought for a second that she looked like a baby gazelle.

"Logan," she responded automatically before an awkward silence fell over them. He looked at her. He could see it still hurt to see him, even though it had been almost six months now – he thought there was a problem with Parker's attitude, and that was she wrapped herself in things so tightly it was agony to let them go. He felt sorry for her; he had broken her heart and ground it to dust, and the annoying thing was – it didn't do him any good. They both got screwed over.

"Parker, hey," he said. "So... how have you been?"

She shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

Pause.

"Well, uh... I'll be seeing you," he said, before he ran away from the buried pain in her eyes.

When he arrived back at the hotel room, he didn't need – or remember how to – say anything. Dick didn't seem surprised.

Somehow something changed, started getting better, and Veronica was standing in front of him. Her face was caught between tears and grinning as she slapped his arm. "Idiot. You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"And you couldn't have?" he replied, and she nodded in concession. He wasn't sure how, but it seemed like the previous months had matured them – Logan remembered the scene outside the River Styx two years or so ago, where he had saved her life and she had screamed at him in return. He had taken it to heart; always such a needy stupid boy, trailing after her with those pathetic puppy-dog eyes and begging for her approval. How she didn't kill him out of sheer exasperation, he didn't know.

Not anymore, however. "Thank you," she whispered and there was a pause. She shook her head, as if to clear it, then she flung her arms around him and embroiled him in a deep, passionate, movie-style kiss. He felt one of the jigsaw-puzzle pieces in his broken mind slide into place, and he couldn't help but hate himself for thinking it wasn't enough.

He told Dick he and Veronica were back together. Dick just shrugged. That night, Dick came to his bed in the middle of the night. He cuddled in close to Logan's side, but didn't do anything more. Logan didn't touch him either. It felt sick that night, somehow.

He and Dick didn't actually stop after Logan and Veronica got back together; Logan just started feeling guilty about it. He had betrayed Veronica enough times before, and this one would kill her – fucking her rapist's brother, never going to help – but he didn't feel like he could stop. Like Dick was a safe outlet for the things he wasn't allowed to think or feel.

It was early January and Logan was watching as Dick writhed under him in the bed. "Fuck, Logan," he whispered as Logan ground down on him harder, and eventually they both came.

Dick went still, and pulled him body away from Logan's. There was something Logan couldn't identify in his eyes, and honestly he didn't particularly care to until Dick spoke:

"He would have been nineteen today."

With that blow, Logan suddenly realized what was going on. All the wind was knocked out of his lungs and his stomach turned, as he was suddenly able to see the boiling, searing pain in Dick's eyes. He felt awful; he had been so stupid, so selfish, so callous. He said Dick wanted to use him, but he had used Dick – and that was the whole point. Dick wanted to be used, to be hurt, to be punished. Logan had done it. Logan knew exactly how much of a mess Dick was, how guilty he felt about what happened to Cassidy – how could he have been so fucking blind? He barely kept the vomit down when he realized that, probably, Dick wanted to know. Wanted to be used like that, just to try and understand what his brother went through.

This wasn't just Dick being horny and Logan being there. Logan wasn't an easy lay, or a toy, or anything he would expect Dick to think.

Logan was the blade Dick was cutting his pretty white skin against.