Chapter Text
“Damn it!”
Logan glared at the open panel of his prosthetic leg as if it had offended him personally. Arguably, it had. He’d been trying to see what needed to be repaired to stop the delay in the mechanism when he was walking on it and it was only the result of one little screw being missing.
It was an annoying fact of working with technology and machines. It only took the slightest misstep to completely throw a project completely off track. Now he had to use his crutches in place of said prosthetic to go to his workshop and see if he had any replacements for the tiny screw.
He usually did, so he wasn’t worried about that, but he absolutely hated using his crutches.
It was the principal of the matter more so than anything. Logan hated his crutches simply for the way people stared at him with pity upon seeing them. At least with his prosthetic they usually were distracted by the engineering of it and on the days he felt more self conscious, it was easy to cover. He hated the pity: he’d lost his leg, not his life.
Shuffling on his crutches, Logan made it to his workshop and he wedged his left crutch against the wall so he could look through the drawers with a free hand. He had quite a few to sift through considering he had supplies for his prosthetics and personal projects too. Screws, nails, bolts, metal scraps…
It took a solid 10 minutes of searching before he ceded defeat.
There were all manner of screws and nails, but none were the size he needed and he clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. Now he had to order some more.
“How inconvenient. I thought I had a few left,” he murmured, scribbling a quick reminder on a post it note and sticking it to his workbench. He would just have to deal with the crutches for now, apparently.
Grabbing his other crutch again, he huffed and went back to his room where he’d left his leg. He set aside his crutches as he sat before the prosthetic.
Logan went to close the panel of the leg to stop any dust getting into the mechanisms only to see the very screw he’d been sure was completely missing set innocuously on the table next to it. Picking it up, he brought it up to his face, scrutinising it heavily.
It really was the exact screw he needed.
Surely he would’ve noticed it laid out in the open like that? Humming, he brushed it off, picking up a screwdriver, quickly replacing the missing screw.
With the screw in place, Logan picked the prosthetic up and attached it back to the socket, making sure it was properly connected. The artificial muscles flexed perfectly in time with his mental image of the intended movements and he smiled in satisfaction.
Take that, crutches!
Still, he obviously had to stock up on his parts if missing one single screw put him back on crutches. But that was definitely a problem for future Logan.
Current Logan had things to be doing.
“Roman, you are one of the stupidest people I know!” Virgil hissed as he grappled down the table. The thudding of the approaching human spurred him to rip his rope free in an uncharacteristic moment of carelessness. He darted underneath the table just in time for Logan to come back into the room.
“How was I supposed to know that one of those teeny screws was so important?” the other borrower demanded, voice low as he crouched to tug up the trap door, ducking into the tunnel beneath it.
Virgil followed with an inaudible sigh.
“We all agreed that anything from his workroom is off limits,” he said, closing the hatch quietly behind him, making sure it was properly covered by the carpet before turning down the tunnel after Roman. “We don’t know what’s important and what we can borrow without it being noticed!”
Roman rolled his eyes, “I know but we need those screws-”
“Just count yourself lucky we could replace it. You know how grouchy the human gets when he doesn’t have his leg.” Virgil couldn’t imagine how frustrating that must’ve been. To have his prosthetic put out of commission because of one screw? It sounded annoying.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Roman rolled his eyes and Virgil was tempted to continue on his tirade, but he knew the other borrower was embarrassed enough from the way he thumbed over the red pearl of the pin he carried on his belt. After a moment of contemplation, he decided that he’d said enough on the subject.
“Good.” Nodding firmly, Virgil entered behind Roman into the main area of their home in the walls.
Styled like a human abode, it had knickknacks hung on the walls ranging from a ticking watch face to the many hand drawn posters strung up along each wall. The decorations split into six separate nooks for each occupant.
Virgil’s own area was cozy with fabric scraps and amongst it a half-finished hoodie made of his signature dark purple and black patchwork. He set aside his bag and tossed himself onto the pile, letting his aching muscles relax. Being even close to the human always left him wound up tighter than a rubber band.
“How did your trip go?” Janus asked, glancing over at where Roman had started emptying out their satchels. He laid it all out in a neat row: crumbs of food, new thread and…
There were the screws they needed to add to the climbing system they were setting up.
If only they’d known they were the last of the kind the human needed, then they wouldn’t have taken them in the first place. Borrowers had their rules for a reason and the more important the item, the more suspicious a human got when it was taken. Obviously, putting back more than one would be equally suspicious so they’d decided it was better to keep them.
“Everything went fine for the most part. We accidentally borrowed something important,” Janus’ eyes widened, “but we made sure we replaced it, don’t worry. The human isn’t suspicious.”
Sighing in relief, Janus smiled. “So long as the human didn’t notice, it’s fine.”
Logan couldn’t stop thinking about that one screw going missing only to suddenly reappear. He was certain he’d checked his desk thoroughly and it was right next to his prosthetic so he had to wonder how he missed it.
And then he realised he was completely out of those screws, which wasn’t usual of him. He tended to keep on top of things like that with how important even the smallest parts could be.
Upon checking his supplies for maintaining his leg and his other projects, Logan realised he was running out of all his materials. He hadn’t been going through them that quickly, had he?
After ordering more of the parts and screws, he settled in a chair, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the desk, eyes narrowed in thought.
He couldn’t be using that many parts and Logan had never been in the habit of losing things. Where could they have been going? And why?
Sighing, Logan shook his head and pushed his glasses up to massage the bridge of his nose. He was being absurdly paranoid about this and he probably had just been careless. Screws and other small parts were easy enough to lose.
At least it was a good excuse to keeping an inventory of his maintenance supplies. He’d been putting that off for months and now was as good a time as any to start.