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The warm weather had finally broken over campus and the damp chill of mid-October settled over campus. Despite the grey skies overhead, the orange leaves blew around and off branches in stark contrast. Rain had just started to tap against the windows, and Logan, from where he was laying on his bed, could see darker clouds rolling in. He found rain calming; the ambient noise suitable for studying and relaxing.
Patton was also with him, currently lying at his side with his head on Logan’s chest, which calmed him even more. Logan was supposed to have two classes today. On a regular day he would have just returned from his final class of the day. However, it was cancelled, so he and Patton (with Patton doing some convincing) decided to meet in Logan’s room under the guise of “studying together”. What started as actually that turned into Patton and Logan promptly cuddling and drifting in and out of consciousness.
Logan usually would have chided himself for being so easily influenced, but he couldn’t remember a time when he was so relaxed. With Patton’s head on his chest and rain hitting the window, he was completely at ease.
“It’s so peaceful, isn’t it?” Patton asked, his blue eyes following Logan’s out the window.
“Just what I was thinking,” Logan said, smiling. He took Patton’s hand, which had been tracing gentle circles on Logan’s chest, and intertwined their fingers. “This was truly the perfect day to do this.”
“I’m glad that you’re relaxing,” Patton said, his voice soft. “You really had me worried, honey.”
Logan nodded. He didn’t need to clarify what Patton was talking about. With his… outburst two weeks back, it had taken him some time to fully collect his thoughts and feelings into order. Even after his issued a needed apology to his friends, he still found it difficult to properly give himself a break.
But it was getting easier. Roman and Virgil kept him in check, both finding ways to distract him when he was letting himself sink too deeply into his stress, and Patton was there to pull him back up to surface so he could breathe properly.
Logan couldn’t be more grateful to have such amazing, compassionate friends in his life.
“I’m sorry for making you worry,” Logan said. “There were so many ways I could have handled that situation better.”
“Lo, you don’t need to apologize,” Patton said. He turned his eyes up to Logan. “You reacted how you did because you were stressed, and we weren’t angry at you. Sure, maybe you ruffled some of Roman’s feathers-” Patton let out a giggle and Logan couldn’t help but smile at the sound “-but we were all just concerned about you. We all want the best for you, but don’t dismiss what you felt.”
Logan looked down at Patton. “Thank you, though, for all you did,” he said. “I… truly appreciate your help.”
Patton smiled. “Of course, Logan,” he said and craned his head up to press a kiss to Logan’s jaw. “You know I’ll always be here for you, as your boyfriend, but also as your friend. All three of us are.”
“All three of you are here for me as my boyfriends?” Logan asked. He arched an eyebrow and smirked.
“Well, Roman and Virgil have to talk about some stuff first, but after that? Absolutely!” Patton joked, beaming. “But also, all three of us are there for you as your best friends! We will all be there for you and with you, one step at a time.”
Logan nodded and squeezed Patton’s hand. “I just felt bad how I took it out on you guys, especially Roman and Virgil. They’ve seen me stressed, even almost to that caliber, before. I shouldn’t have turned it on them.”
A couple moments of silence passed before Patton asked, “Do you get stressed like that a lot?”
Logan thought for a minute. “Not exactly like that, no,” he said. “But I do admit that stress is a typical part of my daily struggle. I have certain standards that need to be met, and stress is what pushes me to reach them, and then go further.”
“You should still cut yourself some slack, though,” Patton said. “It’s not good to always be so tense and worked up. There should be times when you let yourself just sit back and enjoy life around you.” He then smiled warmly. “Like right now, and when you, me, Ro, and Virg all go out. Those should be times filled with happiness, not stress over what you have to do tomorrow.”
Logan nodded. “I know just… sometimes it gets difficult. I was never really accustomed to relaxing and just letting time pass, so to do it now just goes against what I’m used to.”
“How come?” Patton asked, but then quickly added on, “Only if you want to tell me. There’s no pressure from me.”
Logan shook his head. “No, it’s fine. It only makes sense for you to know, as well. I’ve already talked to Roman and Virgil about this a while ago, so it’s fair for you to know.”
“Sweetheart, I won’t be offended if you don’t want to tell me yet,” Patton assured. “I know that you, Roman, and Virgil were all super close before you met me, and I know that it’s… hard for you to open up, so there’s really no pressure to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“That’s it, though,” Logan said, gently tracing his thumb over Patton’s hand. “I want to tell you. I’m not very good at opening up to people, Roman and Virgil really being the only ones that I have. But I’m doing this purely off of my own intuition.” Patton still looked doubtful, so Logan continued. “Patton, I trust you. You have been breaking down whatever walls I had around me since the day we met, and quite honestly? It's been amazing. Very rarely am I so comfortable with letting people in, and I want you to be one of them.”
Patton’s expression brightened at hearing that Logan trusted him, and Logan even saw his cheeks flush a light shade of pink. He then nodded and squeezed Logan’s hand. “Well, if you want to tell me, I’m all ears.”
Logan took a few moments to gather his thoughts. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. He was comfortable here, with Patton, with the rain against the windows and warmth of his dorm room. He was going to do this right, he needed to.
“I’ve always had high standards set for me, by myself and by others,” he began. “My parents, especially my mom, were perhaps the ones to initially set them. It made sense from a parental point of view. She wanted her only son, her only child, to do better and go farther in life than her and my dad. I think every parent is like that, that want to see their child do more than they did. But I guess their sense of doing more was a bit… heightened. Ever since I began school, it was studying, it was doing homework, it was rewriting notes if there were any. It was getting perfect scores, and if it couldn’t be that, it was getting the highest grade in the class. I guess that plus me already being a… nervous child in general formed this stressed perfectionist.”
“You were a nervous child?” Patton asked with a frown.
Logan shrugged. “Looking back now, I think so,” he said. “As I said, I already had high standards set by my parents. I didn’t really get to go out much with my peers, but also I didn’t know how . At such a young age, I wasn’t learning the social skills I was supposed to. So with the stress of being the quote-on-quote best along with not knowing how to interact with those around me, I typically just resorted to studying and burying myself into whatever books I could read then. Even during recess, when I wanted to make friends, I would just end up by myself because I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry, Lo,” Patton murmured and Logan shook his head.
“Thank you, but you don’t have to be,” Logan assured. “I have friends now, don’t I?”
“Well, yeah, but I still feel bad,” Patton admitted. “Being a kid is supposed to be… fun! And not that you couldn’t have fun doing what you did but, like, playing with other kids type fun. Falling off the monkey bars type of fun.”
Logan laughed slightly. “Oh, trust me, Patton, I’ve done that before. Broke my arm. Not fun at all.”
“You poor thing,” Patton pitied before quickly following it with. “But you know what I mean.”
“I do, I do,” Logan said and pressed a kiss to Patton’s head in reassurance. “And I really do appreciate your concern, even if it is fifteen years late, but it’s just… how things were.”
“Did you ever try to play with the other kids?” Patton asked.
“They didn’t really want to,” Logan said, probably a bit too naturally.
“Lo, I love that we’re able to talk about this, but every time you drop something like that in such a casual way, I feel my heart break,” Patton confessed. “And, to be quite honest, I did not expect to be feeling things this much.”
“Well, thank you for caring,” Logan said. “But, I mean, it is… fine? Not fine as in it doesn’t affect me anymore, because as we’ve all seen, it does to some degree. But fine in that I’ve moved on from it. Yes, I was a shy, nervous child who didn’t have an overall large group of friends. But I’m here, and I have you, Virgil, and Roman, and I’m a functional member of society. That probably counts for something.”
Patton nodded. “I think it does,” he said. A couple moments of silence passed, and Logan thought that the conversation was over, when Patton continued quietly, “Were the other kids that mean that they didn’t want to be your friend?”
Logan sighed. “Looking back, I don’t think it was genuine meanness, no. I don’t think there was any true malicious intent. It was just… I was a bit reclusive and spent whatever free time we had reading because that was what I thought was right. And because I did that, my teachers admired how mature I was and how skilled I was, because they only thought I was doing it for my own doing. Of course, you know me, I love learning. I love taking in knowledge just for the sake of doing so. But when I am forced to learn, when things are held over my head, that is when it switches from hobby to chore.”
“And that was what was happening?” Patton asked.
“I think so,” Logan confirmed. “And there was a whole chain of events, as you’ve seen. The perfectionism, the studying, the loneliness, it all lead to me being… not so in touch with my emotions, or others, for that matter. I didn’t understand the petty childhood arguments or the over-sensitivity, so to the children that had a better grasp on emotions, or empathetic, for a lack of a better word, didn’t see eye to eye with me. I don’t think that any of us were particularly mean or cruel. I, despite having a more logical, level-headed mindset, was not a cold child. Just more of a misunderstanding one. And the other children weren’t alienating me for the sake of being mean, they just found someone who they didn’t… understand, lets just say, and, like how most children would, they wanted to be with their peers who they were similar to. Eventually, I just started keeping to myself for a lack of a better option.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Patton noted.
Logan nodded. “I’ve had the time to,” he said. “This trend continued after elementary school into middle and high school. Of course, with teenagers comes hormones and uncontrollable feelings, but at that point I was so used to keeping everything inside that I just dealt with everything myself. Not that I didn’t have acquaintances. I had many people in my classes who I was friendly with. But nothing substantial, no one who I was comfortable enough with to voice my thoughts to. And, even after that, the fear of letting my parents down and breaking every mold that had been made for me, logical, level-headed, ‘robotic’, as some might say, just made me sort of… lock everything up.”
Logan then sighed and continued, “And that’s… basically it? I was a nervous child who didn’t really understand how to express my feelings properly who became an even more nervous teenager who definitely did not know how to properly express or understand my feelings. And now I am here.”
Patton was studying him. His blue eyes were scanning over Logan’s face intently and Logan raised an eyebrow. “I think you’ve improved a lot,” Patton finally said.
Logan blinked at him. “Even after that display a couple weeks ago?”
Patton nodded. “You let your feelings out which, even though I didn’t know you back then, it didn’t seem like you would have done that in high school. And we’re talking about this now and you’re not shying away from it. And you have me, Roman, and Virgil in your corner to help you, to understand you, to be your best friends. So, yes, I think you’ve improved, and I’m proud of you.”
Hearing those words from Patton, Logan felt his heart clench and his eyes prickle. Patton, who didn’t even know Logan prior to the semester, saw improvement in something that he himself never thought he could do better at. Patton appreciated Logan opening up to him, and constantly reminded Logan that he had the three of them to help him with everything when the world was getting too much. Leave it to Patton to do this to me, he thought.
But he wasn’t surprised. Logan had expected his college life to be just him, Roman, and Virgil for all four years. They were the two friends he held closest to his heart. They were the first two people Logan had known who really understood him, and Logan found himself understanding them.
And then Patton came along. Bright, kind Patton who fit in with the three of them as if he had always been friends with them. Patton, who fit well with Logan, who fit well with all of them. Now, Logan could not imagine his friend group without Patton in it, not even as a boyfriend but as a friend , and he was sure Roman and Virgil could say the same.
(Not the boyfriend part, though. They still had some stuff to work out between the two of them.)
Logan didn’t know why he was so taken aback. He had said it to Roman himself: people naturally gravitate to those who share similar interests, those who can help them as much as they themselves could do to the other. Patton helped to complete the three of them, not because they were lacking something without him, but because their lives were better with him in it.
“Thank you, Pat,” Logan was finally able to say after swallowing the lump in his throat.
Patton beamed at him. “Of course, sweetheart,” he said before sitting up in the bed. “I’m just really glad we were able to talk. And I’m especially happy that you opened up.”
Logan sat up, too. “I feel comfortable with you,” he said. “So of course I’m going to.”
Patton grinned and kissed Logan, softly and quickly, before standing up. “I think the four of us should get something to eat tonight,” he said, reaching his arms up and stretching. “It’s a rainy day, so I’m sure we could find something for takeout. We could do a movie night! I’m sure we can find a movie that both Roman and Virgil can agree on.”
Logan nodded, sitting back and watching Patton talk and walk around the room with a smile on his face. “I’m sure we can,” he said.
Yeah, he was definitely happy that the three of them met Patton.