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Every single time Logan had gotten detention in his life, it was Kendall's fault, so of course it was Kendall who brought down Gustavo's wrath on them all, too. Kendall was the one who talked back to Gustavo, which was basically like poking an alligator with a stick. Kendall missed the signs that Gustavo was going to blow his stack -- or, more likely, who just didn't care -- and Kendall just kept pushing until Gustavo locked them all in the sound booth, screaming something about practicing harmonies until they went hoarse so SOMEONE couldn't TALK BACK TO HIM ANYMORE, and no water and no breaks and no sitting down.
"I'm pretty sure this violates some statutes of the Geneva Convention," Logan mumbled, as Carlos smacked the back of Kendall's head. Kendall rolled his eyes at them both, because he didn't even have the good grace to look guilty at getting them into this.
James, on the other hand, lazed against the equipment stacked in the corner looking fairly content, his t-shirt pulling tight across his shoulders and chest as he made himself comfy. Logan suspected James secretly enjoyed this particular inhumane punishment. James loved music, and he could definitely sing circles around Logan and Carlos. Heck, for all Kendall had The Fire, Logan thought that when it came down to it, James could out-sing him, too. He certainly could when they when it was like this, not about dancing and charisma and being a pop star, but just about --
"THE BASICS," Gustavo roared, loudly enough to cause speaker feedback. Logan winced. "C MAJOR. GO."
He plucked out the first note on a keyboard, letting it ring through the speakers. They all echoed it, and worked their way up the scale slowly. This part was fine, this part was easy. Logan actually smiled a little, sneaking another glance at James, who he remembered singing Do-Re-Mi at the top of his lungs on the playground in first grade.
They finished making their way through the scale, and then Gustavo had they break it down into harmony. Logan winced as he heard his own voice warble into the right tone. He knew perfectly well how it should sound, he just couldn't actually hit the note clearly on his first try. He always, always started flat and had to slide up into it.
Which was, of course, not acceptable. That was the whole point of hours upon hours of practice. Gustavo wanted them to be able to hit the notes purely, dead on, no warbling allowed.
It took them ten minutes to get the simple harmony down to Gustavo's satisfaction. Then they moved on: another scale, another breakdown. More warbling, more yelling, more time spent on it, and then right on to the next. Logan's throat was starting to hurt and he wanted to sink into the floor a little bit, because he knew he was the holdup. Gustavo wouldn't let them go until they were all perfect (or too hoarse to sing, which had happened repeatedly during their first few months of practicing together), and Logan was always the last person to hit the note. Always.
So he wasn't surprised when Gustavo started just shouting at him, striking keys and yelling, "WHEN I HIT THE C, YOU SING A G. WHEN I HIT THE A, YOU SING THE E. WHEN I HIT THE B, YOU SING --"
"The F-sharp," Logan interrupted, cheeks flaming. He knew what he was supposed to sing. That wasn't the hard part.
"AND WHEN I PLAY AN F-SHARP, YOU SING --"
"A C-sharp, I know."
"AND WHEN I PLAY THE C-SHARP --"
"The G-sharp, I know, Logan groaned.
There was a weird pause, then Gustavo played something discordant that made them all wince, and demanded: "Why do you know that?"
"I know how scales work," Logan squeaked.
"THEN WHY CAN'T YOU SING THE NOTES?"
Logan swallowed, his throat dry and already aching. It was going to be a long afternoon. Darn Kendall's stupid loud mouth, anyway.
--
"Knock, knock!"
Logan pulled out his earbuds and looked up from his math homework. He swiveled in his chair and croaked, "Come in."
James pushed the door open and presented Logan with a steaming mug of tea. "How's your throat?"
"Scratchy," Logan admitted. He accepted the mug and James did that thing he always did, where he just sort of settled in, making himself comfortable in whatever his surroundings were. In this case, it was Logan's and Kendall's bedroom, and he leaned casually against the post that held up Logan's lofted bed, glancing down at Logan's desk. Logan blew over the cup, sending fingers of steam curling into the air, and added, "Thanks."
"No problem. Mrs. Knight added honey, she says it'll help."
Logan nodded a little and took a tentative swallow. It burned the whole way down his throat, but actually felt kind of good. He relaxed in his chair a little and paused his music with his free hand.
"Hey," James said suddenly. "This afternoon, when Gustavo was screaming at you... how did you know all that? About the scales?"
Logan blinked. "Why?"
James just shrugged. "'Cause I took piano lessons for five years, and I barely remember which scales get which sharps and flats and whatever. And you don't even care about music that much."
Logan bit back his instinctive response, a sarcastic comment about how James could barely remember to tie his shoes most days, let alone memorize things like scales. James had brought him tea, after all, so that would have been pointlessly mean. Instead, he said, "When we moved out here, I figured I should learn something about music, at least. And it turns out it's all just patterns and math, so..."
"What?"
"What what?" Logan set down his tea and frowned up at James, whose confused expression mirrored his own.
"Music isn't math. Music is art."
"Music is nothing but math." Logan grabbed his pencil, flipped to an empty page in his notebook, and began sketching it out in his notebook. "Major scales are just a pattern -- an easy one -- see? Two whole steps, a half, three wholes, a half. So it's not hard to reason out what note you should be singing, if you know where you started."
James blinked at him a few times, then smirked a little. "Okay, so if you know all that, why can't you sing it?"
"Because theory and practice are two different skills," Logan snapped, scowling into his tea as he lifted it back up to swallow.
"So what good is the theory if you can't do it?"
Logan clenched his mug a little bit harder. He didn't exactly need the reminder that he was the weak link in the band. Gustavo had made that very, very clear all afternoon. He snapped, "If you know the theory you don't have to rely on rote memorization you forget a year down the line anyway. At least I know why we're singing what we're singing."
"Yeah. Well, enjoy your tea." James lifted himself away from the bedpost and stalked towards out door.
--
Two days later, James sat down near Logan on the couch, arms stretching across the back like he owned it, one hand jostling Logan's shoulder. "Okay. So scales are whatever. What do you mean, music is math?"
"Are you still on this?" Logan asked, muting the TV.
"Math is stupid and music is awesome." James smirked at him.
"Math is awesome and you're stupid," Logan returned with a smirk of his own.
"Yeah, yeah." James gestured imperiously. "So explain it to me, genius."
"Explain what, exactly?"
"How is music anything like math? I mean, sure. One pattern. Scales, whatever. That's not the same as --"
"It's exactly the same," Logan said. "All noise travels in sound waves. But with music, each pitch is a frequency. The way an octave works is you start with your frequency, and double it. That doubled frequency is exactly an octave above where you started. Then take that original frequency and cube it, and you've moved up three octaves. The fourth power -- that is, sixteen times the original -- that's four octaves, and so on."
James just stared at him. "Uh, you lost me."
Logan shrugged. "It's just multiplication. Oh, and ratios. There are a lot of ratios in music, too, like --"
"Okay, okay, never mind," James interrupted.
Logan scowled, almost able to hear the whooshing noise as James took the wind out of his sales. He'd just been getting going, but he should have seen this coming. James didn't really have the attention span for theoretical discussions of anything related to math or science, since Logan refused to count comparative hair gel studies. Really, he had no idea why James had asked in the first place.
So he said, "Why did you even ask me, then?"
James nudged his shoulder again. "I don't know. I thought it might be kind of cool, but turns out, it's boring."
Logan crossed his arms. He should have known James didn't really care. James only asked him about math and science stuff if he was trying to get Logan to do homework for him. "Well, next time you think something's kind of cool, look it up yourself," he snapped, got up, and headed for his room.
James called, "Wait, Logan!" but didn't follow him.
--
James didn't apologize, but then, Logan didn't expect him to. He wasn't sure why it bothered him so much, anyway. So he really wasn't prepared for it when James waltzed into his room a day later and demanded, "Explain light."
Logan blinked a few times, then said, "I know it confuses you when the sun goes away, James, but don't worry, it'll be back tomorrow morning, and we have these electric lamps that are pretty amazing in the mean time."
James kicked his chair, rolled his eyes, and perched on Logan's desk, half-sitting on his homework. Logan snatched his textbook out from under James' butt. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
"I meant... okay, don't laugh. But I, um, was looking up some stuff. About, you know, music. Or whatever. And I saw this thing about --"
"You were looking something up?" Logan interrupted, eyebrows rising against his will.
"I told you not to laugh!"
"I'm not laughing, I'm just surprised." James scowled at him, and Logan coughed guiltily and added, "Sorry. Go on."
"I was looking up this thing about sound waves on Quirkipedia, and accidentally clicked a link about light waves, and I didn't really understand it, but it went on and on about how light is a particle and a wave, and what does that even mean? How can it be two things at once? I mean, how can it be anything at all? It's light!"
Logan gaped a little, his mind scrabbling for a way to answer James' questions when James clearly only barely knew what he was asking. Then again, the fact that he was asking anything at all was kind of weird. Since when did James care about science?
"Well, light is... light is complicated." Logan gestured around uselessly, wishing he had a way to explain it that made sense. "See, sometimes it acts as a particle, and sometimes it acts as a wave. You can see the differences -- if you shine light through a series of slits and look at the pattern that it casts, you see wave-style interference patterns, just like water wave. But waves all have frequency patterns and things you can calculate based on them, and light doesn't always follow those patterns. And there's the photoelectric effect to consider. Shining light at a metal surface causes it to eject electrons, which is particle behavior, because it's not continuous like a wave, it only happens in short bursts. Plus it has momentum. But that's about as much as I know. I was going to take AP physics this year, but, uh, we moved here instead, and Miss Collins doesn't really teach advanced stuff, so..." He shrugged.
James gaped at him. Like, actually gaped, his mouth hanging a little bit open and his eyes wide.
"What?" Logan asked, when James didn't move. Or blink.
"That's all you know? I don't even know what most of those words meant, but you're saying you don't know enough? How did you even learn all of that?"
Logan looked away, his cheeks going a little red. "I guess I just stumbled over it awhile ago. I was looking up some Einsteinian theory and ran across the Planck constant and... one thing led to another... I really don't know much about it at all."
"Yeah, but... man." James reached out and tapped Logan's forehead with two fingers. "You've got a lot going on up there, huh?"
"I guess."
"No, seriously," James said. "I don't even know how you can keep track of all that."
Logan ducked his head, feeling a real flush in his cheeks now. "I just like to look up things that interest me. I mean, you do, too. You read fashion magazines and stuff. We're just interested in different things."
"Yeah," James said, and glanced down at Logan's notebook. "You're interested in smart person stuff, and I'm interested in fashion. But I'm not smart and you are, so that makes sense."
"Hey." Logan elbowed James' leg. "You are so interested in 'smart person stuff.' You were interested enough in the wave-particle duality to ask me about it."
"I guess." James didn't sound convinced, but he did sound... Logan couldn't put his finger on it. Definitely not upbeat, but Logan couldn't think of a single reason James would be unhappy.
"Seriously," Logan said, suddenly wanting James' voice to perk back up. "Next thing you know, you're going to want to come with me to the library."
James chuckled and kicked his chair again, lightly. "Yeah. Like that'll ever happen."
--
"So how do I get a library card?"
Logan dropped his spoon into his bowl of Hideyh-O's.
--
They were under 18, so Mrs. Knight had to go to the library with them to sign the library card application. She kept cooing about how sweet it was, and how proud she was of James, and James looked torn between embarrassment and annoyance. The librarian who handed them the form knew Logan on sight and gave him a rundown of new books they'd gotten in, which made James laugh at him.
Once that was done, they wandered the shelves a little aimlessly. "So what exactly did you want to look up?" Logan asked.
James shrugged. "I don't know. I guess that... music stuff. Ratios or whatever it was. If you don't think that'll be too hard for me."
Logan bit down the sarcastic answer that tried to force its way up his throat. James sounded awkward, whispering in tones that were more intimidated than just library-appropriate quiet. He had his hands shoved in his pockets and was hunched over a little bit. James, who was comfortable in front of crowds, who kicked butt on the ice, who could get any girl's number, looked out of place for the first time that Logan could ever remember. No, worse than that. James looked like he felt out of place.
"Let's check the catalogue, see what we can find," Logan said, and led James towards the computer bank.
"Yeah," James said. "Okay. We don't need to use those little card thingies, do we?"
"Card... oh," Logan chuckled. "No, they don't use the card catalogues anymore. Wow, you really haven't been in a library in a long time, huh?"
"I'm too pretty for libraries," James said.
"Then what are you doing here now?"
James shoved him a little instead of answering. Logan laughed and led him to the bank of computers that were designated for the library catalogue, where he parked James in the chair and made him type in keywords himself, guessing until they found a few call numbers for books that looked interesting. James jotted them down in his messy, loopy handwriting and then looked at Logan helplessly. "So where...?"
"I'll show you. And, uh, you know... you know if you have questions about any stuff you read, you can ask me, right?"
"Yeah?" James gave him a wary look. "Promise you won't laugh at me?"
"I promise," Logan said, crossing his heart, guilt gathering in his stomach. Of course he wouldn't laugh at James. Or at least, he wouldn't mean anything by it. He never had before.
Then again, James had never seemed really interested in stuff like this before.
--
At first, Logan didn't see James read anything. James still seemed to split his free time between tanning at the pool, video games with Carlos, and going out with girls. Logan didn't know why that bothered him, since he hadn't really expected anything different. The whole library thing was an anomaly, one of James' random whims that he'd forget about a day later. Nothing ever really stuck with James, except music, hockey, and girls. He'd probably lost the two books he'd taken out, anyway. Logan would bug him about it once they were due, and then let him deal with the overdue fines or replacement fees himself. Whatever.
Except that a week later, James burst into his room while he was writing an essay for history, perched himself on his desk, and said, "You want to hear something cool?"
"If it's about how Tina Sharpe let you get to second base in the pool shed, no thanks."
James rolled his eyes, but the enthusiasm on his face didn't dim. "Pythagoras was the triangle guy, right?"
Logan blinked. "Yeah."
"Yeah, well he wasn't only about triangles. He loved music. He, like, invented music, practically. He was the one who discovered that strings... I guess he built a guitar or something, because he realized that a string can be a note, and that if you cut it in half, like, you get the same note, just higher. And -- and that's, like, the whole thing with guitar frets, isn't it?"
Logan smiled. "Yeah, it is. They're the intervals that play the same tone at different frequencies."
James practically beamed at him, bright as the sun. "I don't know why they only talk about triangles or whatever with this guy. The music stuff is way cooler."
"The triangle thing is pretty important, though," Logan said. "I mean, whole disciplines of math are based on it."
"Yeah, but how many times do I have to tell you? Math is stupid, and music is awesome."
"Music is math," Logan reminded him. "And math is awesome, and you're --" He cut himself off abruptly, biting his tongue. James wasn't stupid, not really, he just didn't usually care about anything even remotely academic. Now, apparently, he did. Logan sure as heck wasn't going to discourage that. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, "Did you read about the music of the spheres?"
"The what?" James asked, leaning forward eagerly. If his legs hadn't been long enough to reach the floor and brace himself, he might have fallen off Logan's desk entirely.
Logan grinned. "It was one of Pythagoras' pet theories -- I mean, it was totally wrong, but it was still a cool idea. He thought that all of the celestial bodies -- the sun, all the other planets, the moon, even Earth -- were moving in some kind of harmony, that each one had a pitch, and that all of their movements, all of the angles between them, that kind of thing, all of that made some kind of heavenly music that influenced life on Earth."
"Whoa," James said. "But that was wrong?"
"Well, yeah, but it was really influential. All sorts of philosophers and mathematicians studied it, trying to discover how it could work. That was actually one of the major influences in the development of astronomy as a field. Even Kepler thought mathematical harmony was a universal law."
"Even who what now?"
"Kepler -- Johannes Kepler," Logan explained. "He was a math professor and astronomer. He discovered all the laws of planetary motion, and he was a huge influence on Isaac Newton."
"I've heard of that one," James said. "The apple hit him on the head and he invented gravity."
"Well, technically, he didn't invent gravity, he just discovered it. But yeah." Logan laughed a little. "The apple guy."
James smiled, not as broadly or brightly, but just a little. He slid off of Logan's desk and clapped a hand on Logan's shoulder as he walked by. "Music of the spheres, huh? It sounds like a beautiful idea."
--
It became a comfortable, familiar pattern over the next few weeks. Logan always preferred to do homework in his room, where he could block out distractions like the television, dome hockey, and, well, the other guys. So he'd be sitting there, doing work, when James would waltz in and sit on his desk and either start spouting off something he'd learned -- he was slowly making progress on the idea of sound waves and frequencies, though the actual math stymied him -- or to ask Logan to explain something.
The weird part was that he actually listened. Logan was used to the guys trying to get information out of him, but cutting him off if he went on too long or they didn't get it or whatever. He never got to the end of his scientific speeches. Except now when James came in and asked questions, he actually seemed to want to know the answers, even though Logan still hadn't really ever seen him reading.
He figured out that particular mystery a month after their library foray, when he got up to pee in the middle of the night. He walked into the living room and blinked, surprised to find a light on. James was lying on the couch, asleep, his head resting on his arm, which was splayed over an open library book. He even had his glasses, which was such a rare occurrence that Logan had almost forgotten that James had glasses. They'd fallen off his face and were smushed between James' arm and the couch.
Logan bit his lip, watching the small movements of James' body as he breathed. A weird, warm feeling started growing in his chest, like he was breathing around an ember.
--
Logan loved it when Miss Collins announced new science projects. For a couple of seconds, he was the most popular guy at the Palm Woods. Everyone wanted to work with him.
She sighed. "Okay, Logan, why don't we get this out of the way? Who would you like to work with?"
Logan glanced around at the eager faces of his friends. Camille gave him a saucy smile, Carlos shot him a thumbs up, and Kendall just quirked an eyebrow. Of course Kendall probably expected Logan to pick him. After all, Kendall got pretty good grades, and of their friends, he was the only one who would really pull his weight in a project. They'd been science lab partners back in Minnesota, before Logan had switched into all advanced classes. But...
Logan glanced at the next table over, where James was sitting next to Carlos, feet kicked up on a desk, staring into space, nodding in time to some music in his head. Logan smiled a little bit and said, "James."
James whipped his head around to stare at him. "What?"
"Do you want to be my project partner? For science?"
"Seriously? Yeah!"
Logan looked back at Miss Collins, who said, "Really? Well, okay. If that's your final decision... Kendall, how about you?" and moved on with the class.
--
That night, James perched on Logan's desk, brows furrowed. "Don't get me wrong. I'll take the A+++ you always get, yeah. But seriously, you aren't afraid I'll drag your GPA down?"
Logan leaned back in his chair, looking up at James. "I'm not worried about it. But I'm not doing all the work. I know you aren't stupid, so you're not getting out of it." He nudged James' leg. "Even if we have to go to the library."
James looked a little surprised, then grinned widely back at him. "Cool."
--
Logan peered over the roof of the Palm Woods, keeping careful watch of the sidewalk out front. "Gravity is constant and doesn't depend on the weight of what's falling," he explained. "So theoretically, the shaving cream balloons will fall at the same rate as the water balloons. Got it?"
"I think so." James glanced over the side of the roof. "Ready?"
"Ready."
Beneath them, Mr. Bitters stepped out the front door and onto the sidewalk.
--
"Stop looking over my shoulder! You're making me paranoid!" James reached out and shooed Logan away.
"Sorry," Logan said, and paced away from James' little-used desk. He tried not to watch or squint to see what James was doing, though he could tell by the sounds when James paused scratching on his notebook to plug something into the calculator.
James made a slight hmm noise and Logan went tense, but when he started to walk towards James, James waved him off and snapped, "I'm doing it myself."
"Sorry, sorry," Logan said again. He just got kind of tense about grades.
Then came the unmistakable noise of a pencil clattering against a desk and James said, "Okay. Let me see the plans."
Logan resisted the urge to check James' math, instead pulling out the Palm Woods building plans they'd liberated from Bitters' office. He spread them across James' desk, and they both stared down.
"Dude. Can you read that?" James asked, staring at the mess of lines and angles and numbers.
"Yeah, sorta," Logan said. He traced lines with his eyes, then jabbed his finger down when he found the part of the diagram that corresponded to the outside wall, and followed it until he found the building's total height.
He circled it, then looked at James' math work, the height he'd arrived at from knowing the speed of gravity and how long it had taken their balloons to reach the ground (when they'd eventually gotten bored of bombing the people who walked by and did the experiment properly -- it was for class, after all, so Logan had eventually insisted).
The numbers matched.
James blinked, eyes wide. "Is that... did I really do it right?"
"Yeah," Logan said, grinning himself. "You did. I told you you're not stupid -- whoa!"
He broke off as James tackle-hugged him, arms wrapping tight around him, jumping up and down in place.
--
James chewed on his lip, turning it a little bit pink. Not that Logan found that distracting or anything. He cleared his throat, prompting, and James looked down at their experiment.
"So we have to do the experiment with two different kinds of balloons," James said slowly, like he was struggling with it, "so we can make sure what we observe is right. That one is our control, and that one had a different variable. Which I guess means shaving cream."
"Yes," Logan said, grinning at him. "Exactly. See, if you'd actually done your own scientific method project, you'd already know that."
"I was busy," James said, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, what's the big deal about this whole thing. We got it right the first time."
"The big -- James, this is one of the most important pieces of science! It's how you test a hypothesis, it's how you can tell if you're right or wrong. That's what's so great about science!"
"You lost me." James gestured a little, and added, "Explain," in a teasing tone.
"Well, science is just a way to try to understand things, right? So scientists look around and guess what they think is happening, like the idea that gravity is constant, and they come up with a theory to explain it. Then they test that theory, using a control like a balloon with a different weight, so they can make sure they know what's really going on and they can prove it. And then if things don't work out the way they expected, they scrap the theory and start again."
"So why is doing something again and again so great? Especially if all you learn is that you're wrong?"
"Because then you know. Confirmation bias aside, when you test something like this, you have objective proof of how the universe works. You can see what all the pieces do, see how they all fit together," Logan explained.
"How the universe fits together," James said. "Like the music of the spheres. I guess that is kind of awesome." He gestured at their project poster. "So let's do this."
--
Logan didn't mean to eavesdrop, but when James answered the phone his face lit up and he disappeared into his bedroom. Logan was heading down the hall anyway, to go do homework in his own room, and he just kind of accidentally paused by James' door, which wasn't quite shut. It really was an accident, though. It wasn't like Logan cared which one of James' random girls was making him smile like that.
So he was pretty surprised when James said, all in a rush, "Mom! You won't believe it. I got an A in science. An A." Pause. "No, no, Logan didn't do all the work, and I did the math. I actually understood -- I know! I know, and the experiment we did was really cool..."
Logan tore himself away and walked into his own room, smiling widely. Of course James had run off to tell his mom that. Bragging about grades wasn't cool (Logan knew that first hand), and James was cool above all other things. Even if he was, apparently, really excited about proving some laws of physics.
--
James walked up behind Logan in the library. Logan was standing on a stepstool, browsing titles on one of the upper shelves.
"Can I help you?" Logan asked.
"Nope," James said. "But what are you looking for? I can help you. See?" He reached up to the top shelf and plucked a book off. "It pays to have tall friends."
"Shut up," Logan laughed, and shoved him. James shoved back, a little harder than Logan expected, and he flailed, one of his feet scrabbling for purchase. It hit the edge of the stool instead. The world seemed to go into slow motion as he fell --
James snagged his sweater and pulled him forward. He still didn't have his balance and instead of settling on the stool he toppled the other way, crashing into James. His chest slammed into James' shoulder, knocking his wind out, and James grabbed his shoulders firmly, keeping him in place for a moment. Then he pushed Logan back upright, onto the stool, smirking. "You okay, buddy?"
"Yeah," Logan said, feeling his cheeks go red. "Yeah, I'm fine."
James gave his back a pat and chuckled. "Okay. Well, I'm gonna go look up these," he waved a scrap of notebook paper, "call numbers, or whatever you called them. Try not to die, okay? I need you for this science stuff."
He started down the aisle, but glanced back at Logan for a long second, his expression unreadable. Then he walked away.
The ember was back in Logan's chest, now burning hot and bright, a perfect twin to Logan's flushed face.
--
"Hey." James helped himself to Logan's desk like he owned it.
Logan leaned back on his chair, looking up at James' grin, and couldn't actually stop himself from grinning back. "What's up, science buddy?"
"Did you just really call me that?" James kicked his leg. "Nerd."
"If I'm a nerd, so are you," Logan said, kicking back.
"Yeah, yeah. Speaking of which." James cleared his throat, "I need you to come up to the roof. To show me something."
"Show you what?"
"A thing. Please?"
Logan shrugged. It wasn't that he didn't have work to do, but he could finish it later. And he liked helping James with things, anyway. So he said, "Sure, lead the way," and stood up.
James flashed him a bright smile that set off the stupid warm feeling in his chest again, then grabbed his arm and half-dragged him out of 2J, up the stairs, and on to the roof. It was almost 10, and definitely dark out, despite the lights of LA twinkling all around them.
Logan wasn't sure what was happening, but looked around expectantly. "So what are we... What's that?"
James grinned. "What I need help with."
He led the way to the edge of the roof, where a very shiny telescope was set up on uneven legs, lilting a little to one side. When Logan glanced through it, it was totally out of focus. "Where did you get this?" Logan asked, reaching for the twistable knob that would let him adjust the tripod.
"Mom got it for me. She, uh, she asked what I wanted, you know, for getting that A. And I thought... I just thought it might be kind of cool."
"Yeah, it's really cool," Logan agreed, trying to lock down an irrational spike of jealousy. His parents never got him anything for getting good grades. Heck, he got grounded if his average dropped below an 85. Which it only ever had once, all the way back in sixth grade, but still. People just expected him to be smart; no one ever rewarded him for it.
"Can you show me how to use it?"
"I can try." He finished fixing the legs and reached for the focus. "Do you have the manual? It might help."
"Yeah, it's around here somewhere," James said. "Or was. It might have blown away."
"Well... I can probably fudge it. Or we can look it up online." Logan glanced through the telescope again. The view was better, but still fuzzy. "I'm surprised you wanted something like this, though. Since when are you into astronomy?"
"I dunno, it's kind of cool. I know you said that music thing was bunk, but I was reading about that Kepler guy. Everything he wrote about planets and stars is just... wow. There's so much out there. And you seemed to think it was kind of cool. Seeing how the universe works and everything. I mean, that's the universe." James gestured at the night sky.
Logan started to answer, to explain that he hadn't meant it literally, but forced himself to keep it in. James sounded giddy, excited, and he was weirdly sure that if he said this wasn't what he meant, James would be crushed. Especially if... "Did you ask your mom for this because I think it's cool?"
"No. Well. A little?"
Logan looked away from the telescope and over at James, who had his hands shoved in his pockets awkwardly, and was maybe blushing a little bit. It was hard to tell, since it was dark out.
"Seriously?" Logan asked.
"Well, I thought... You remember camping out in Carlos' backyard when we were kids? You used to point out all the constellations."
"Oh, yeah." Logan nodded.
"I thought that maybe if we find them through there, you could show me. And we could look at the planets. See if we can observe the Kepler stuff."
"Seriously? You're interested in the laws of planetary motion?"
"Yeah," he said. "I guess I am. I mean, I know I'm too stupid to --"
"James," Logan said firmly, looking away from the telescope. "I've told you a hundred times. You're not dumb, so stop saying you are."
"You really think so? That I'm not?"
Logan smiled. "Six weeks ago, you didn't know scales were based on patterns. Now you have a library card, an A in science, and you understand how wave frequencies make up octaves. You were never stupid, you just didn't care."
"I care now," James said, but he said it quietly, as if someone might overhear and JAMES DIAMOND'S SECRET NERD HOBBIES! would show up on the cover of next month's Pop Tiger. "There's a whole lot of stuff out there that I never thought I could understand, but I do. Some of it."
"See, this is what I've been telling you all along," Logan said, smirking. "Math and science are awesome."
"I guess. Or maybe you're awesome," James said, voice still quiet.
Logan laughed. "Thanks." He looked through the telescope again. "So what do you want to look for? Constellations? Planets? Sometimes you can see Venus with the naked eye."
"Venus," James repeated. "That's your favorite, right?"
"Yeah," Logan said. "You remembered that?"
James shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. I looked up some stuff about it, too. It's all covered in volcanoes and craters, right? And it was named for a goddess of love. Right?"
"Right," Logan said.
"I like that the planets are all named for gods and goddesses," James mused, looking up into the sky. "It makes them sound so majestic. You know, like heavenly bodies."
"Well, they are --"
"No, but, like, the kind that would make music. Music of the spheres. I know you said the whole thing is bunk, but it's kind of... just a cool idea. Science is math and math is music and us, we're somewhere down here on Earth, but it's all around us. It ties everything together and it ties us together and..." James was definitely blushing now. "Sorry, that's all just stupid."
"No, no, you're right," Logan said. "It's not literal music, but it's all around us. Yeah, tying us together. I like that. It's poetic."
"You really think so?" James whole face lit up, absolutely beaming.
"I really do," Logan said, half-laughing, not sure why it was such a big deal.
"Good, because I -- Logan, I... don't freak out, okay?"
"Don't what? Why would I --"
He didn't get a chance to finish his thought. James grabbed his shoulder, leaned in close, and kissed him. Logan's eyes flew open wide, startled, but he couldn't move, couldn't pull away -- he didn't want to. It was like James had blown on the ember inside him: it sparked, caught fire, consumed him. He felt white hot all over. James brought a hand up, cupping the back of Logan's head, pulling him closer, and Logan grabbed James' t-shirt, fingers digging in, feeling James' heart beating fast beneath it.
He had no idea how much time had passed before they stumbled apart, releasing each other out of a need for air.
"So," James said, his chest heaving as if he'd just run a marathon. "You should show me Venus. I hear it's the best planet."
Logan laughed, and after a moment, so did James. Logan took James' hand, pulled him back towards the telescope, and pointed with his free hand. "Point it that way. Look for the brightest light you can see." James threw him a questioning look and Logan squeezed his hand. "Don't worry. I'll help you find it."
When James looked up at him, the stars were reflected in his eyes. Looking at them like that, looking at James like that, Logan saw it all: science and art and math, tying them together.
For just a moment, he heard music.