obligatoryass | OOM: No reason to move.

OOM: No reason to move.

Logan's still asleep. He couldn't tell you what time it is - nor does he particularly want to. He'd much rather just keep his eyes closed and pretend yesterday didn't happen.

Yesterday, when he swan dived off a balcony into a dance floor at a frat party. Yesterday, when his ex-girlfriend poured him into a cab and sent him home in disgrace. From a frat party.

It's hard to leave a frat party in disgrace.

Logan groans and burrows under the covers, hiding from the sun. And everyone and everything else.

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Trina probably got the first phone call before Logan made it home, from her ex-boyfriend of all people, properly apologetic but-think-you-should-know, that her little brother had hit YouTube very very drunk.

There were more after that, and e-mails, and this morning, early, one from Parker Lee, who thought someone needed to know what had happened and should check on Logan, and she was sorry, but she didn't know who else to call.

Also, she still had Logan's car keys, and what should she do with them?

So Trina, seven and a half months pregnant, got in the car and drove down to Neptune this morning, went to Hearst to get her brother's keys from Parker, and has now let herself into her brother's apartment.

Things have not improved since she was last here, that's painfully obvious.

"LOGAN."

Logan wants to pretend that Trina's voice is a bad, bad dream.

He really, really doubts that, but burrows under the covers as deep as he can, hoping he's wrong.

It's way, way, way too loud to be a dream.

"Goddammit, Logan, if you make me come in there . . ."

Well, she'll think of something.

In the meantime, she begins rounding up anything Logan isn't legally old enough to be drinking and pouring it down the drain.

Logan stumbles out of bed. "Trina? What're you doing here?"

He then stumbles into the bathroom, takes one look at his bruised face and groans. "Never mind."

Splashing cold water and his face and brushing his teeth seem like things Trina ought to wait on. "Be out in a minute."

Trina will not wait long, or with good grace, but she will wait.

And she should be grateful she's getting at least a clean-toothed Logan. His mouth tasted like something died in it.

He wanders out, clad in track pants and a long-sleeved tee, perfectly presentable, if you ignore the fact that it has unidentifiable stains on the edges. "Hi."

"Don't you 'hi' me," says Trina.

She throws his keys in his general direction.

She doesn't really expect him to catch him.

"Of the idiotic stunts you could have pulled . . ."

"I didn't do it on purpose," he said feebly, ignoring the keys, which hit him somewhere around his knees.

A few more bruises on his legs won't matter, anyway.

"Jesus Christ, Logan, you could have put yourself in the hospital.

"You're all over the internet, I'm getting calls from anyone and everyone who thinks they need to break out the show of concern, and then your ex called to tell me she put you in a cab and maybe I should check on you and oh by the way, what should she do with your keys?"

"Parker's a good egg," he says, and that's all he says while he processes the rest.

"Um. I was urged not to enroll in classes here next semester."

Might as well get it all out at once.

"Yeah, I know."

If Logan thinks his older sister hasn't been keeping tabs on him, he's an idiot.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Logan?"

Wait, he just found out yesterday? How does Trina know already? She must have spies everywhere.

"Not much," he says.

Trina has her ways.

"Figured. You never do. You never have."

Trina sighs and sits on what appears to be the cleanest chair in the apartment.

"What are you gonna do now?"

"There isn't really anything to say," he points out. Except that he's a perennial screw-up. But that part, she knows.

"I don't know. Get a job, I guess."

"Could you try to be slightly less woe-is-me, please?"

It doesn't work on Trina, anyway.

"Don't really feel like making the effort," he says flatly.

Trina glares. "There's a shocker, someone alert the media."

She passes one hand over her eyes.

"How badly are you hurt?"

"Not very. Twisted my ankle, but I was too drunk to notice I was falling until I hit bottom. Never tensed up."

There's a special Providence for fools and children, they say, and from Logan's life, it's probably true.

"Hmmph.

"Logan, I do not know what to do here."

"That makes two of us, I guess," Logan says. "Look, I'm useless. I have no appreciable skills, I think college is for people with direction, and I have none. Not even a little bit. It's wasted on me."

"Don't even start," she says.

"I have absolutely had with the poor little rich boy shit from you.

"That's an excuse, and it's not even a good one."

"Oh? What should I be doing, dear sister?"

Because whatever else may or may not be true, the fact that he has absolutely no idea or direction or skills is indisputable.

"What do you want to be doing?"

"Absolutely as little as possible."

Again, indisputably true. Useless as a goal, but true.

"Well, then, I'd say you're succeeding."

There's a long moment, while Trina makes a decision.

"If you want my help, little brother, this is the time to ask for it. Because otherwise I'm gone, and you're on your own."

"Yeah, but as a life goal, I don't really think it's enough."

He sighs, thinks for a long moment. "I'm asking. I don't know what else to do, Trina, and I need help. I need to be in a place that's not here."

"All right," she says. "All right. I will make some calls, and call in some favors and you will stop drinking so damn much, and keep your antics off the internet.

"And I'm not kidding when I say you have to get yourself together, Logan. Because in a month and a half, you can no longer be my top priority."

Nodding, his eyes stray to her stomach, then back to her face.

"I get it."

And he does, as much as he can get anything at the moment.

"I hope so.

"Because right I'm a little afraid that the next time I see you, you'll be in prison or the morgue."

He could have wound up in either, if Parker hadn't taken his keys last night.

"And this absolutely the end, Logan. I will help you find a job, but you screw up and lose it, I'm done."

Those are the terms. Take them or leave them.

Logan's been luckier than anyone deserves. Luckier than he knows, most days. And it's time to stop relying on it.

Logan extends a hand. "Fair enough."

Trina shakes his hand.

"I'll call you, when I've had a chance to talk to some people.

"It's probably not going to be glamorous or easy."

She can pretty much guarantee that it won't be, in fact.

Logan shrugs. "Easy I'm accustomed to. Glamorous...not so much."

He offers her a tiny, tentative smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome.

"Please don't make me regret this."

Logan shakes his head. "I won't."

Except...well. It's Logan. He doesn't have much faith in his ability to manage that.

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OOM: No reason to move.

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