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Leo groaned in his sleep, twisting and turning over, pressing his face further into his pillow. His eyebrows were creased, a confused pout on his face as he tried to ignore the pounding in his head. He sighed when it stopped and wrapped himself further into his covers, shuffling so he was further down the bed.
He barely managed to nod off again before the pounding started again, and he huffed, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. It wasn’t going away. But he stopped suddenly, keeping as quiet as he could, ignoring the creaks coming from his half-broken desk from the wind coming through his jammed window that the caretaker had yet to come and fix since they returned from Thanksgiving break. The pounding wasn’t coming from inside his head, someone was outside his door.
He grunted, pulling himself away from the warmth of his bed and stumbled over to the light twitch, searching blindly for it along the wall. He winced when the brightness hit him and he rubbed at his eyes, blinking the remains of his sleep away. The knocking kept coming, and Leo was surprised no one along their hall had poked their head out yet to tell them to shut up.
“‘M coming, ‘m coming, stop bangin’,” he mumbled out, almost inaudible, but the noise stopped and he could finally hear himself think again.
He undid the locks on his door with uncoordinated movements, muttering under his breath about lack of sleep and yanked the door open, ready to tell whoever was there to shove off. It was still dark in the hallway, the lights always turned off by ten pm every day, and Leo had to squint to see who was there.
“Leo,” the person sighed, almost in relief and he allowed the confused expression to take over his face.
“Logan?” His voice was muffled by a sudden yawn, and the older boy shoved his way through Leo’s door before he had time to even invite him inside. “Yeah, okay, please, come right in.”
He relocked the door behind him, not before sticking his head into the hall to check for anybody out there, and turned back into the room, facing the boy now sitting on his bed. He was a lot more awake, seeing him fully dressed with a bag slung over his shoulder, cap perched on his head and thick jacket wrapped around himself.
“What the hell are you doing?” He asked, walking back over, settling himself beside him. “Going out for a walk?”
Logan shook his head and Leo couldn’t help but watch the curls fall loose in front of his face. He coughed to himself and shook his head. “No, I’m leaving.”
Leo froze, turning his head slowly so he was fully facing his best friend. “What do you mean you’re leaving?”
Logan shrugged, tightening his grip on his bag. “I can’t stay here for another day. I’m going, right now. And you’re coming with me.”
He just kind of sat there for a second, still staring at him, with wide eyes and a tilt to his head. He coughed, looking around the room before turning back to Logan. “You’re not…serious, are you?”
“Leo, look at this place,” he pointed around, almost like he was in disbelief. “Look at your room. You want to stay here?”
“Well, no, of course I don’t want to stay here. But we can’t leave. You can’t leave. Where will you go?”
“I…” He gulped, shifting where he was sitting, looking down at his hands, twisting them together. Two of them were bruised, from an accident three days ago that Leo wasn’t there for. He pushed them away. “I don’t know. I don’t care. But I need to leave. We can’t stay here, no with the way they treat us. Leo, you saw what they did last night. You know what they did to me. I watched what they did to you last week. Have the bruises cleared up yet?”
Leo winced at the mention of the incident, hand automatically coming up to rest on his ribs over his sweater, trailing the edges of the worn bandage that was still there, covering the blotches of black and blue, the scrapes just barely healed. He shook his head, swallowing harshly, and then Logan’s hand was there covering his, bringing his hand away and pulling up the edge, bringing it into view.
“Logan…” he whispered, almost choking on the words, shaking slightly when his hand ghosted over the middle, almost as though he was debating what to do with it.
He loosened the knot, gently unravelling the darkened bandage, muttering under his breath words that Leo couldn’t understand, couldn’t make out whether they were French or English. When it fell away, landing in Leo’s lap, he had to turn his face away, not able to face Logan when he saw.
“Leo…” his words were rough and shaky, his hands cold when they pressed on his side. “Do you have another bandage?” He nodded over to the drawer with no handle and Logan just sighed again, bringing it out.
He sat beside him, closer this time, and gently pulled his head over to look at him. Leo didn’t realise he had let any tears slip down until they were brushed away with the pads of his thumb, rough against the softness of his skin. He took in a shuddering breath and nodded again. Logan turned his attention back to his side and Leo could have cried again when the gentle hands moved with precision and utmost delicacy, wrapping the gauze around him and wrapping it together again as if attempting to heal his wounds with just the heat coming off them.
When the edges were tied, the hands lingered and Logan leaned down. Leo sucked in a breath, trying to relax his body as he leaned closer. He imagined Logan going right up close to his ribs, imagined him mouthing along the edges of them, soothing the wounds gently, heat escaping from a different part of him than his hands. He willed the thoughts to go away, closing his eyes firmly, head turned away again.
“Leo, we can’t stay here. I won’t let you stay here and risk going through that again. God, what they did to you…” he trailed off and sat back, reaching down under Leo’s bed and throwing the backpack up onto the mattress. “Pack up, right now, Le.”
He sat there, just staring at him as Logan went around and opened up his drawers. He glanced around at his room again, the room that had been his for his entire education. He could easily stick it out until the end. It was December and he was nearly nineteen, Logan nearly twenty. They could both stay at the year-round boarding house until their education was finished. If they let them leave, that is. He had seen people around over the years that he knew had finished their final years. They had never left. So really, this may be their only chance of getting out.
He sighed, standing and stretching before grabbing the bag and walking over to Logan. “Alright. But you better have a plan for where we are going by the time I’m finished or I swear, Logan I’m not coming with you.”
Logan rolled his eyes, grabbing a handful of clothes and dumping them in Leo’s arms. “Say that all you want, Peanut. You’ll never let me leave this place on my own,” and Leo hated how right he was.
“Do you have an idea of where you’re going to take me?” He took the clothes, folding them into his bag. They moved over to his drawers and Logan moved over to the window, glancing outside.
“I might have,” he murmured, and Leo turned his attention away from where he was shoving the remainder of his items in his bag and instead looked towards Logan.
His head was extended, eyes cast down, leaning over the window sill and staring out of the broken window. His features were hard but delicate and Leo’s breath caught in the back of his throat at the sight of him, basking in the moonlight. His hair, rumpled and flared up around the edge of his cap looked silver-dipped, glowing at the edges, making it softer and ethereal. He couldn’t take his eyes off him and the way the older boy’s own eyes, pools of gorgeous green were bright with excitement and hope, captivating and mesmerising.
He sighed, closing the last drawer and walking over to where he was still hunched over, propping his bag up against Logan’s. He bumped their shoulders together, smiling when he saw that familiar tilt of his lips curve up into a smirk.
“You ready to go?” He asked, grabbing both of their bags and slinging them over his shoulder. “I might have a place to go. Whether or not it will stick, I don’t know. But I have some money, enough to last us for some time. After that…after that, we’ll have to see. But we will never come back here again,” he said fiercely, and Leo smiled again, taking his bag off of Logan and slung it over his own shoulder.
“Well, we better get going then, shouldn’t we?” His voice was soft and he turned around, walking backwards to the door, cracking up an eyebrow at Logan, who grinned back, heading towards him. His back hit the door and he reached for the handle, watching Logan stalk up to him, nodding. He swallowed, twisting the handle. “Go on then. Lead the way.”
*
The night was gorgeous. The sky was clear and bright, lightened by the moonlight and dotted with stars. Leo was almost dragged along the path, eyes stuck on the view above them. He knew that he had a soft look on his face, jaw slack and mouth open in a silent gasp. The path they were taking was long and winded, the area around the still deserted and away from civilisation, much like how the boarding house is, away from people.
“How much further until we reach, like, an actual building?” He asked, pulling his eyes away and over to Logan, staring at what must have been a map on his phone.
“Not much longer,” he murmured. “You see those lights over there? Yeah, that’s where we are heading, a little town called Gryffindor. There’s a small inn…or a hotel I guess it might be now, that I stayed in a couple of years before I was dropped off at The House. It might have grown by now, I don’t know.”
He watched Logan tense up when he mentioned the past, the way everyone at The House did. They were dropped there, either by not having another choice, or by not having a reason as to why they were there. Logan didn’t know, Leo knew that. Logan was just there one day, eleven years old without any idea about what was happening. Leo had been there since he was eight. There was no choice for him, both of his parents passing. This was the only place that the rest of his family would willingly take him. They didn’t want him.
“Hey,” he nudged him. “I know the memories are going to hurt. Let’s make our own there, okay?”
Logan straightened up, smiling and nodding. The walk was considerably shorter than he had believed it would be when he set his sight on the lights of the town. The town was very small and Leo loved it, spinning in circles to get a good look at the place. There weren’t many houses, maybe a hundred, more perhaps. The shops were small, only half a dozen, with a church in the middle, fountains surrounding the town centre. He saw the hotel Logan must have meant and by the look on his face, it had grown significantly.
“Is it how you remember it?” He shook his head. “Good. This experience…this is just for us. No bad memories.
Logan smiled again, and led them over. “The front didn’t look like this last time, and that restaurant wasn’t there, either. It’s all different,” he said, almost in disbelief.
“Well, let’s go grab a room. We can go down there to eat after we’ve settled, and you can show me around the town.” The two of them smiled and they walked through the doors and away from the cold chill that was starting to ache in his bones from the five o’clock weather.
Leo felt Logan tuck himself further towards him and Leo ignored the ache in his chest when he realised and moved away, plastering on a smile and walking towards the front desk.
“Hi,” Logan started, talking to the man in front of them. “Can we get a room for two, please? For as long as this can get us,” he fished out a wad of cash and Leo’s eyes widened as he took out a section and placed it on the desk, putting the rest away.
The man nodded, searching around and grabbing them a key, taking the money and telling them the room number. “Okay, so you need to go to the elevator up to the second floor. Turn left and then head down the hall until room 120. It’s a room with two single beds, and you have the room until the end of the month. The restaurant closes at 10 pm, and breakfast starts in two hours. The bar opens at 3 pm and closes at midnight. Let me know if you need something and you can call down to the desk at any time from your room. Enjoy your stay.”
They thanked him and took the key, following his directions over to their room, unlocking it and collapsing inside. There were two beds, one by the window and on the other side. Logan threw himself onto the farthest bed and Leo dropped his bag on the other, heading straight to the bathroom.
When he walked back into the room, face washed and hair pushed away from his face, Logan was unpacking, placing items on the bedside table. He heard him walk in and turned, smiling softly. “So, we’re here until the beginning of next year. At least we have a nice room. I was thinking…these beds are really small, and you’re going to fall right off the end of it,” he huffed out a laugh, dropping onto the mattress. “Can we push the beds together?”
Leo froze from where he leaned over to grab his back and swallowed hard. “Yeah…yeah if you want to.”
It was a team effort to get Leo’s bed over to the window, pushing away the tables and the lamp and settling them next to each other. “Ah, this is so much better,” Logan sighed and flopped back down, patting the side of him, beckoning Leo over. “We have a couple of hours until we should head down for breakfast. I know how bad your sleeping is and I know I woke you early. Why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll wake you up at eight, yeah?”
He let his eyes flutter closed and hummed, shuffling closer unconsciously. “Mhm, yeah okay. You try and sleep too, though, okay? You need sleep. We’ll go to breakfast when we both wake up.”
He heard Logan move around and he snuggled closer into his pillow. He sighed, eyes squeezed closed and froze when he felt movement directly beside him, Logan’s head right beside his on the pillow. He cracked an eye open and watched him sleepily, turning to try and get comfortable. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat and Logan shifted to face him. He silently lifted his arm and nodded his head towards the area next to him, smiling when Logan, hesitantly, crawled under his arm and rested against his shoulder. Leo closed his arm, resting his hand gently on his shoulder and wrapped his other around his waist, pushing closer and resting his head on top of his curls.
“Go to sleep, Lo. We’ll wake in a bit.”
*
Leo groaned as silently as he could when he stretched his arm, mindful of the one still trapped under Logan’s head, squeezing his eyes shut. He sighed, lightly threading his fingers through Logan’s hair almost unconsciously, gazing down at him with a soft smile on his face.
He froze when he felt him move, nose scrunching up and eyebrows pulled together. Leo pulled him closer, wrapping his arm around his waist again, smiling wider when he rubbed his face on his shoulder.
“Lo,” he whispered, trailing a hand up and down his arm. He looked over at the clock, noting the time and then back down to Logan, his eyes fluttering open slowly. “Come on, breakfast is open,” he nudged him and laughed when he grumbled under his breath.
“What,” he yawned, stretching up and off Leo’s shoulder and he tried to ignore the chill that crept back into his bones when his weight disappeared. “What time is it?”
“Just after eight. Are you hungry?” He shuffled away from him when Logan sat up, his hair all over the place and eyes still dazed and soft.
“Yeah, a little. Didn’t eat much last night. You didn’t eat at all. Come on,” he yawned again, staring down at him with his head tilted to the side, a curious and wondering look in his eye, reserved normally for when he stared at Leo. It always confused him.
Neither of them moved. Leo stayed rooted to the spot, pushing his hair away from his face as Logan gazed down at him and held his breath as he silently moved back down to lay beside him again. Leo shifted, laying on his side to face the older boy, heart rate spiking as he shuffled closer. Logan continued to look at him, deeply and focused, making butterflies erupt in his stomach and fly up towards his throat.
He flinched slightly when a hand came up to his face and he watched Logan halt for a moment before cupping the side of his jaw. His thumb moved methodically across his cheek and down to the side of his neck, eyes following his strokes.
“Have I ever told you,” Logan started and Leo let his eyes drop to his mouth for a brief second before flickering back up to his eyes. Logan noticed. “Have I ever told you how…how beautiful you are?” He trailed off into a whisper near the end and Leo’s breath caught in the back of his throat.
He swallowed harshly and shook his head, eyes trained on the spot beside Logan’s head, his hand still resting on his face. “No,” he coughed into his shoulder, breaking the contact between them. Logan was quick to get his hand back to where it was before. “No, you haven’t.”
“Well you are,” he murmured, fingers moving across the whole of his jaw, trailing up to rub under his eyes. “Your eyes…merde your eyes are gorgeous. They’re my favourite thing.” Leo felt the heat crawl up his cheeks and he knew Logan could feel the heat if the soft smile on his face was anything to go by. He didn’t stop him from talking, not yet. This was the most Logan had ever talked about his feelings about anyone with him. He wasn’t ruining this.
Logan’s fingers trailed down and traced the pink across his cheeks and nose, focused and delicate. “Your blush, I love your blush. I love how it brings out your freckles. Je les adore,” the French brought a smile to his face and Logan instantly went down to his dimples. “And these…I don’t know what I would do without them but my god they are distracting,” he let out a quiet laugh and moved his face further into his hand. His fingers reached his bottom lip and Leo stopped breathing, eyes watching Logan’s every move.
“Your lips are distracting as well. I always catch myself staring at them without meaning to. Je veux toujours t'embrasser,” he closed his eyes and breathed out slowly onto Logan’s finger. “Leo…”
He cracked open his eyes and Logan was significantly closer than he was before, eyes glancing down at mouth and then back to his eyes, asking a silent question. He moved with him, eyes fluttering closed again and then their lips met. Leo didn’t know what he was expecting to happen, fireworks or thunder. It was neither. It was soft and tender and questioning and Leo surged forward, deepening the kiss and Logan gasped, clutching his face closer. It was so much better. It was like everything fell into place, the last piece of the jigsaw missing for months, the final star joining up in a constellation, a key slotting into the right keyhole after a hundred wrong ones. It was everything he could have wanted and everything he was expecting with Logan, bursts of light going off in his head and a pressure releasing off his heart.
They broke away, gasping into each other’s mouths and Leo unconsciously trailed after him letting his nose trail across Logan’s and down his face, across his jaw. “You’re amazing,” he whispered out, eyes still squeezed shut. “You’re fantastic. There is so much I could say about you. I could write poems upon poems about your eyes and watch you talk for days on end. You’re gorgeous, Logan.”
They breathed each other in, slowly, basking in the silence and the atmosphere they left around them. “I want to talk about this,” Logan whispered back. “I want to talk about us. I’ve wanted this for so long, Leo.”
“Me too. Me too. I need to know what you want from me, what you want from us. And we will talk about this. But I can hear your stomach grumbling and breakfast is going to close eventually. We can talk over food or we can eat and come back here and talk here,” he trailed off and reached down for Logan’s hand in the sheets, grasping it tightly within his own. He leaned across and pressed their lips together again, sighing into it, and he felt Logan melt into his arms.
He pulled away regretfully, raising an eyebrow at him and smiled as Logan groaned, pulling the two of them up. “I hope the food here is good,” Leo hummed in agreement as they pulled on their shoes, Leo grabbing a sweater from the chair and pulling it over his head before walking to the door, following Logan out.
They made it down the lobby area, smiling at the man at the desk who nodded over at them and walked into the restaurant. It was surprisingly less busy than Leo was expecting it to be, but then again, it had been open for a couple of hours already.
They settled down at a table opposite each other in a corner, away from any prying eyes and turned to the menu. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” he said suddenly and Logan looked up at him from above the top of the page. “This is a little exciting. Really scary, but so exciting. And I’m glad I’m doing it with you. One of many adventures it seems.”
Logan grinned at him and reached over to squeeze his hand quickly before reaching for his phone. “I think after this we should go to the room for a while and then go out into the town. Look around at home for the next three weeks. Right now we don’t need to worry about where our next step is going to be. Right now, me and you are going to enjoy our Christmas away from hell and in this amazing little village.”
Leo nodded at him and sighed glancing out the window at the area around them, the small shops bustling with people who looked overjoyed, to the school over at the other side of the street, children outside getting ready to go inside.
“Hi,” he jumped out of his daze when a voice sounded from above him and he turned, seeing a pair of hands holding a pad and pen.
He heard Logan’s intake of breath when he looked up at the same time as he did and he couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything bad about it. He made the same noise and he knew it. But his eyes were currently glued on the man who stood in front of them, tall and bent over slightly, leaning on the empty table behind them. Leo let his eyes go up to his face, covered in freckles, a small blush on his cheeks from their stares most likely, up to his eyes, almost like melted bronze mixed with gold and then swirled with a dark brown. He landed on a pile of red hair, pulled back by a headband away from his face.
He moved to stand tall and Logan and he turned their faces away quickly, glancing at each other out of the corner of their eyes. “Hi, good morning, I’m your server for the day. What can I get for you?”
He let his eyes glance down at the name tag. Finn. Finn Finn Finn. He looked back up at his face, an amused smirk stretching across his cheeks and he ducked his head down, scanning the menu quickly.
“Um..I’ll have the Breakfast Burrito, please and some water for the table,” he nodded, writing it down before his eyes went to Logan.
“And for you?” He drawled, and Leo watched the moment Logan almost gasped, his body slouching down and his pupils blown wide. “What can I get for you, love?”
“The pancakes. Maple syrup, please,” he managed to get out, and Leo reached his foot out to knock against his, desperate to have some kind of contact with him. “Alrighty. I’ll be right back with that water,” he put his pen away and reached over for their menus and Leo could have sworn he saw him wink at them. His eyes followed him as he walked away and he coughed turning back to Logan who was beet red and glancing at him already with a similar look on his face. Finn .