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To feel anything deranges you.
To be seen feeling anything strips you naked.
Logan thought there’d be something for him, up in the mountains. He was going to visit for a bit, see how it was, if he’d want to come back and settle here someday with the hope he’d find a place he loved. ( Settle: a laughable thought to an immortal.) But instead, all he found was a gut aching loneliness that came from broken routines and an indescribable loss of familiarity. He blew all his money at the tiny bar in the center of town and the little, 24-hour diner outside his motel.
Here, in this town at the edge of the horizon, he is supposed to feel peace. There’s no wars or fighting; no torture or pain or loss. Or there shouldn’t be. But instead he flips open his phone every five minutes, then three, then two, waiting for a call or text to tell him he’s needed back at the school.
In the early hours of September first, the ninth day he’s spent in this place but somewhere between fifteen and thirty that he’s been away from the school, he wakes up groggy and disoriented. His limbs are slow and clumsy with sleep and hangover as he pats around wildly the bed until he hits the smooth surface of his ringing phone. He flips it open and rubs at his eyes as he waits, hoping only at the back of his mind that it’s Charles.
“Logan?”
It’s not Charles.
It’s Scott. Scott, with his smooth hands and sharp movements, demands and strategy always easily flowing from the soft curve of his mouth. Scott whom Logan has left behind, hidden inside wooden walls and far from the damage of Logan’s claws.
“Scott?” Logan mumbles, his voice rough from lack of use. “What’re you calling me for?”
“Just…” There's a long break of silence as Scott trails off. Logan can just barely make out the faint sound of his breathing; hears the little hitch before he speaks again. “Missed you, I guess.”
What is Logan supposed to do with that? It burns in his chest — Scott is rarely so open and honest about his feelings. Not that he himself is any better, but hearing fearless, leader Scott admit that he feels something negative is a shock of every sort. Logan knows it’s been more than two weeks. He wants to ask how long it took for Scott to miss him. If he really misses him , or if he missed how Logan cooked or how he handled the kids when it became too much for Scott.
“Missed me, eh?” Logan pushes himself to sit up against the headboard, white sheets pooling around his waist. He scratches at his chest, realizing he has no good way to broach what Scott has started. Can’t bring himself to admit the sharpness in his stomach is hunger of a different kind; that it isn’t food he’s craving. That the mountains have only left him with a pull leading back to Westchester. He and Scott aren’t exactly friends, but they’re not not friends either. The lines between them are blurred with late nights and tears and whispered promises.
“Yeah.” It’s silent again. Outside, Logan can hear birds twittering. It’s earlier here than it is for Scott, an hour’s difference separating their lives. The time feels like an unbridgeable gap, the late nights spent together swallowed by its depths. “I wish you’d come back.”
From the immediate catch of breath and slow, controlled exhale Logan hears over the speaker, he knows Scott hadn’t meant to say that. Because that’s something you admit to a close friend or a lover, not to someone who you’ll let hold you to chase nightmares away but spite under the glare of the sun.
It’s not something Logan would have ever said.
“How long has it been?”
“Three weeks,” Scott murmurs. It’s said so softly and with a touch of shame that even Logan’s ears strain to catch it. He can almost see the red of embarrassment he knows has spread over the tips of Scott’s ears and his neck. There’s a layer of vulnerability and tension in every word they speak, as if someone else will hear and condemn them if they admit something too deep.
“Not so long,” Logan replies. It’s not meant to be a dig at Scott, but it almost feels that way. Maybe his subconscious is grating Scott for wanting him back so soon; maybe his own curling shame, resting hot and stinging deep in his gut, is hating that he’s felt the pull to turn around since he stepped through the front door. He hears a quiet rush of breath and can imagine the soft part of Scott’s lips that comes with the sound.
“Too long,” Scott responds. It’s here that he’ll have clenched his eyes shut and the blush will have spread across his cheeks and chest. He’ll draw his hands up to try and cover it and every time Logan will pull them away, guide them to his own face or his hair or his shoulders. Anything to see the beauty of Scott’s lean figure and the way his skin goes such a shade with its paleness that you’d think he’d have gotten hit. “Can’t even sleep, you’ve been gone too long.”
The bed in this motel room is big enough for two. The other half, the side that would be Scott’s if they were sharing, has laid almost entirely untouched. Only once, the first night, did Logan reach over and curl the pillow to his chest, unused to falling asleep without something to hold onto. Logan can feel himself starting to shut down. His walls are always up, but the little door that’s sometimes left open — for Scott only — has been locked and shut up tight. But Scott’s soft admittances, vulnerable in a way that they haven’t ever been face to face, pushes him to try. Just…a little.
“I miss being there.” It’s not quite the same, he hasn’t mentioned that it was Scott, more than anything, that he misses. But Scott hums, low and soft, and Logan knows he understands.
Scott’s always been good at finding what Logan means when he can’t say the words plainly.
“Come back.”
“I…” That’s it, isn’t it? Someone asking him to come back. It’s not like he’s needed — Scott wants him there. Misses him. “I think I can be back in a few days.”
“Okay,” Scott says, the little word coming out in a breath of air.
Logan wants .
Three and a half days later, late into the evening, Loga arrives back at the school. Minutes ago, after Logan had texted Scott that he was on his way, Scott had replied Waiting for you.
Logan spends a solid five minutes pacing back and forth outside, picking at the skin around his nails and fiddling with the zipper of his jacket before he works up enough courage to go in.
It’s warm inside. Logan can hear the crackle of the fire from the sitting room. He strips his jacket off and drapes it over a wayward chair as he comes upon the couch. True to his word, Scott is laying across it, hair tousled and glasses askew and jeans still on, like he’d fallen asleep while waiting up for Logan.
Something fond melts the anxiety in his chest. He rounds the couch and kneels beside Scott’s head, reaching a hand out to correct the placement of his glasses and brushing the hair from his forehead. Scott’s skin is silken against the back of Logan’s fingers. He stirs, pushing his head into Logan’s head.
“Logan?” he mumbles, mouth stretching wide with a yawn.
“Hey, bub.”
“You’re here.” Scott sounds almost awed at the notion, like he hoped for it but wasn’t truly expecting it to happen. The dulcet fire pops and snaps along.
“Just got back.”
“Mm.” Scott relaxes again. His nose must be stuffed — Logan can hear a faint whistling every time he breathes.
“Let’s get you to bed.”
Logan carries Scott bridal-style to his room. It’s warm in here too and Scott’s bedside lamp is the only light in the room. It’s gotten darker out, the sun to be fully set soon. Logan tucks Scott under the covers and flicks the lamp off. As he turns to leave, he feels Scott’s hand wrap around his wrist.
“Stay.” Logan turns around, startled by the openness he can see in every crease and line of Scott’s face. “Please.”
So Logan stays.