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I want to read long love letters but I don’t think he loves me. My body is melted wax, it is bent, it is a spill no one wants to clean up. I don’t think he loves me. I have razors under my tongue. I’m sorry I cut you, I’m so—so sorry. Your laugh is a thunderclap, you love like surgery.
...
Logan isn’t sure how he ends up mouthing words to himself in front of a mirror.
He isn’t sure how the words end up going from I to love, and why he cuts off there and stomps away in a flustered heat is completely beyond him. He returns to try again a few hours later, hands gripping the sink a little too tightly and a weight persistent on his tongue.
It should be easy enough. He’s said the words to other people before- hell, perhaps a few times too many. But this is Julian. And the last time the phrase had been uttered between them a goddamn building had been on fire and one of them ended up in a coma so, all things considered, that shit left some issues.
He’s not sure how to even begin to approach the topic, to be honest.
Sure, they kiss and watch stupid television shows together at equally stupid hours of the night, and sometimes they even hold hands and nudge (or occasionally kick) each other’s feet under the table, but the L word has yet to appear again.
And Logan thinks it’s about time it does. But then again, he could be completely wrong.
Great.
Either way, he’s getting irritated at himself- both because he feels ridiculous for doing this in the first place, and even more so because he can’t do it- so he leaves the bathroom and spends the rest of the evening finishing up homework in the common room. Julian joins him and steals his eraser about five or fifteen times, and eventually it gets lost somewhere in the couch cushions so they both resort to being extra careful with what they write down, neither wanting to get up to find a new one.
As per usual, they end up veering off topic, Julian telling some story about his latest filming set. Logan listens silently because he likes the sound of Julian’s voice and the way he tells stories when he’s sleepy and comfortable- they roll off his tongue neatly like excerpts from a story book, each word chosen with a certain amount of care and it’s just nice, alright.
He almost opens his mouth a few times, tasting the three words on his tongue, and it’s fucking insane how close he is to saying them and how terrifying the prospect of it is.
He doesn’t say it.
Julian’s smile is soft and warm when Logan tells him goodnight a few minutes later, hand brushing against the back of the couch and fingertips grazing Julian’s shoulder as he passes.
...
God damn tree branches. Damn them straight to the depths of hell. The wind was terrible that night and apparently scraping against his windows at ungodly hours of the night and producing sounds akin to those that might escape a mutated seagull was at the top of their to-do list.
He looks at his clock, the glowing numbers reading 3:11 AM, and hisses under his breath, closing his eyes in concentration. And there it is. Again. “Jesus Christ!”
Okay, so maybe he’s stressed. Very stressed. He has a test the following morning and a paper due after lunch and coffee can only do so much and trees are fucking bastards and, in that very moment, he hates every last one of them.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have an axe at his disposal and the Windsors would have a field day if they spotted him wandering around the grounds in his pajamas searching for one, so instead he settles for climbing out of bed, sending one last withering look towards his window before exiting his room and padding down the hallway towards Julian’s, the floorboards creaking quietly under his feet.
He pauses at Julian’s door, and there’s a twinge of guilt that stops his hand from knocking for a moment, because although the other boy seems content and at ease with most things nowadays, there are still times Logan catches him forgetting to eat and sleep at normal hours because he’s too occupied with going over scripts or finishing essays.
And sometimes Logan can’t stop looking at him when no one’s looking, like he’s learning every inch of him without even touching, noticing the slight shadows underneath his eyes that are lesser now but still darken the skin there, the ones that nobody ever sees in movies and magazine tabloids. Sometimes he wants to burst apart with it, whatever it even is, when Julian wakes up in the morning, eyes chestnut and glassy with sleep, glaring at anything that moves until he’s had a cup of coffee or two.
He’ll look at him and try to ask himself how he feels but then his thoughts go everywhere, flying in a multitude of all sorts of directions, and he ends up convincing himself that he can’t do it, that he’d fuck up, that they’re not ready, that he’s not going to half-ass this and that’s probably all stupid but he doesn’t want to drag someone down with what he feels again, like he has one too many times before.
All that doesn’t matter right now, though. It’s 3 AM. His emotional crisis can wait. He knocks quietly, once, twice, and a third time.
Julian groans from the other side of the wooden oak door, the sound muffled by what is probably pillows and a tangle of blankets, and Logan smiles despite himself but then he remembers the god damn scraping against his window and the god damn test and god dammit-
The door opens. Logan steps inside so quickly that Julian rubs at his eyes, and then he watches as Logan paces briskly up towards his window and peers out, muttering about ‘asshole trees’, and he doesn’t ask about whether or not he’s taking his medication but he does instead close the door and pad back into bed, drawing up the covers around his waist and sighing.
“Logan.” His voice is flat and floats softly through the room. “You need to sleep. What’re you doing?”
Logan holds out a hand to silence him, and he doesn’t see the eyeroll sent his way in response as much he feels it. “I can’t believe there’s a tree near your window too!” he hisses, “What idiot was in charge of the design of this place?”
“Logan.” Julian rubs his face tiredly, hair sticking up at the sides. “Come to bed.”
Logan turns around to stare at him through the dark and points toward the window.
“Do the branches of that tree scrape against your window like a fucking tone deaf serial killer?” His hand jabs at the air for emphasis and Julian groans a little, saying his name for the umpteenth time that minute.
“No, now stop,” he whispers firmly, setting his face, and Logan looks at him and at the way his dark t-shirt falls against the base of his throat, collarbone pale in the barely-there light filtering in through the now opened curtains, and swallows.
He’s unable to keep the irritated words from tumbling off his lips even as he approaches the bed. “I’m going to get a shitty mark on that test, hell I’ll probably fall asleep during it and that’ll bring my whole average down, and my dad will just use that as an excuse to-”
“Stop,” Julian repeats quietly. Logan’s words taper off, and Julian reaches over to catch his arm, tugging at it insistently till Logan climbs into the small bed, deciding absently that he likes the way the other’s nose crinkles at the edges when he yawns.
Julian places both hands on either side of Logan’s face, too sleepy to tolerate any more talking, and he closes the space between their mouths swiftly in an attempt to get Logan to shut up, missing his target and landing on the edge of his lips. Logan huffs a laugh at that, traces the soft contour of Julian's side.
A silence follows, not only one in the room and from the window but in Logan’s head too, and this is so simple, so easy. Fluid, like it’s in their bones.
Julian rearranges their mouths, aligns them better with a little brush of chins, and Logan lets his hand rest on the pulse in Julian’s neck, a steady affirmation that they aren’t in the hospital anymore, that they're more than that now.
Somewhere in all of this they kiss, and then rest for a moment, and then kiss again, and again, slow and full, dark spots coloring behind their eyelids, no rush, no hurry. All the time in the world. A hand on Julian’s back rakes upwards and underneath his shirt, nails skimming idly over flesh and all Julian can think about is how Logan’s laugh is different when he can feel it and how he wants to catch it in his mouth and hold it underneath his tongue.
“You need to relax,” he says instead, and Logan makes a sound in the back of his throat that he can’t really decipher but then he’s being pulled closer and shifted down on his side onto the bed, which leads him to believe that his advice was really taken to heart.
“I think this is helping some,” Logan replies against the skin of Julian’s cheek, arms encircling him, comfortable, easy, tugging him closer, body to body, cold feet tangling and the quiet sounds of sheets brushing.
“Whatever, you’re buying lunch tomorrow for waking me, I hope you know that.” In the partial light of the moon Julian’s eyes are heavy-lidded and starry, and Logan hums in agreement although they’ll probably end up bickering about it tomorrow afternoon anyways. He shifts over against the wall to give Julian more room- these beds aren’t meant to hold two- and their elbows knock together inelegantly and something in the architecture of the building pops, perhaps a panel or beam adjusting with age.
“If that makes you happy.”
“You do.”
“Good. Me too. I mean, you do for me too. Make me happy.”
“Lo. Shut up and go to sleep.”
“I love you.”
It slips off his tongue hijacked in a breath, as simple and easy as everything else about them, and Logan’s heart honest to god stops entirely, a cold and heavy weight settling in his stomach at his own stupidity.
A minute drags by, time stretching out like a staccato note held for a moment too long, Julian blinking a few times as they lay in the cramped bed, their hands still in the valleys of each other’s sides.
“I love you, too." Julian pauses, coughs. "Just a little, y'know. Don't get carried away. Quite frankly I still think you suck for waking me up in the middle of the night. ”
Logan grins and then Julian’s expression mirrors his own, smile soft and brightening his tired face, and something eases, lifts. It gives Logan cause to finally close his eyes, pulling the covers around their shoulders and searching blindly for Julian’s hand, covering his slender fingers with his own once he finds them. His thumb rubs circles on Julian’s wrist and in turn Julian tucks his head underneath Logan’s chin, silence settling around them again as if any other words would disrupt some kind of sacred barrier in the air. It’s too late, too dark, too warm for any sort of shocked epiphanies to take place, so they just allow the revelations to be as they are and let the consequences arrive in the morning.
Sleep comes, wordlessly and as all things do, and the tree outside the window probably doesn’t make a noise all night- but even if it does, Logan doesn't hear it.