One last part
Last part of the Logan/Weevil slash fic. Booyah.
Part Four
Eli woke the next morning to the sound of Logan stubbing his toe on the bedside table. “Fuck,” he hissed, pulling his naked knee up to his chest, bent in pain. “Shit.”
Eli took a minute to admire the curve of Logan’s pale ass before saying, “You could’ve turned on a light.”
“It’s fine,” he replied, dropping his foot back to the floor and feeling around for his pants.
“Where are you going?” Eli asked, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Out.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this your room?”
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Stay-I’ll make it worth your while.” The silence that met these words made Eli regret them instantly. He watched Logan yank on his pants, viciously buckling his belt.
“Look,” Logan began, and though Eli couldn’t make out the expression on his face, he could see the tension in Logan’s shoulders. “This-didn’t mean anything, all right. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake.”
“Oh, please, Weevil, don’t pretend like-”
“That’s not my fucking name, Echolls,” Eli snapped, sliding out of bed and picking up his pants from the floor.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were on a first-name basis.”
“Evidently we’re not.”
“Oh, come on, man,” Logan scoffed. “I don’t think you’re in any position to act so sanctimonious, here. Seems to me it was only a few days ago you were telling me you weren’t into fucking guys.”
“Maybe I was,” Eli ground out, pulling his pants up around his hips. “But didn’t pursue someone like a fucking life goal, only to turn tail and try and run away in the morning. What’s the matter? Milk wasn’t good enough to convince you to buy the cow?”
“I hardly think buying the cow is on the table.”
“You can talk all night about all your queer conquests, but if, when it comes down to it, you can’t even stand to look me in the face, what good are you?” He got a glimpse of the frown twisting Logan’s mouth and laughed. “I should’ve expected as much.”
Logan was standing in the middle of the room, fixing him with an intense stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eli finished dressing and picked up his jacket before looking Logan in the eye. “It means: any time you get ahold of a good thing, you manage to let it go. Good luck with that.” That said, he shrugged on his jacket and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind himself.
Logan didn’t see any more of Eli. He spent the better part of the next week in Neptune, but even when he went to pick up his car, Eli was nowhere in sight. Avoiding him, Logan figured.
Logan wasn’t sure what made him want to see Eli again, other than pure masochism. But-he’d been thinking about what Eli’d said that morning in the Grand, and, though he hadn’t been able to reach any conclusion, he didn’t think he wanted to leave it at that. The accusation had the ring of truth to it. Lilly-Veronica-Hannah-every other man and woman since . . . Maybe Eli’s words had a little more than a ring of truth. They had something more akin to an alarm. But it didn’t matter anyway, because Eli wouldn’t see him and wouldn’t answer the phone when he called.
It was like being sixteen again, calling Lilly over and over again to apologize for some stupid thing he’d done. He kept calling and the phone kept ringing, and everywhere he looked, it seemed like Eli had just left.
Ultimately, though, there was no sense in hanging around trying to get something he couldn’t even resign himself to wanting. Logan loaded up the Cayenne and drove back to Sacramento. He settled back into his house, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and exposed redwood beams. He brought people home night after night, sleeping in each of his five spacious bedrooms in turn. He even stooped to seducing one of the younger, more impressionable landscaping boys, fucking him on the cold limestone floor of the cabana beside the Olympic-style pool. But none of it had any savor. He started drinking each day by noon and wrote his columns half-tanked at three in the morning before deadline. Any time he started to think too hard, he tried to write his restlessness off as mere ennui and had another beer. He was living the consolation prize, the half-life waste of time he’d settled on when he walked out of Neptune without forcing Eli to see him again. In short, it was shit, and Logan knew it.
So called Howard, his old economics professor, and the next morning found him gunning the Porsche down to LA to meet Howard for lunch. A strange sense of relief washed over him when he spotted Howard’s thick salt-and-pepper hair in the crowded open-air plaza of the restaurant they’d agreed on. He’d told Howard he was in town on business, and had dressed accordingly more to please Howard, who’d always liked to see him in a suit, than to perpetuate his lie. The man stood when Logan arrived at the table and they shook hands warmly before sitting back down. They chatted comfortably enough until their food arrived, at which point Howard said, “I’m sure you didn’t think I’d believe you were actually in town on business.”
“You always could read me.”
“You must be in real trouble this time.”
“How do you figure?”
“It’s a long way to come just to catch up,” Howard said.
Logan smiled tersely. “Some people are really worth catching up with.”
“And,” Howard continued pointedly, “you never did come around unless you needed something.”
For a moment, Logan was silent. He took a swallow of his water and said, “Did you ever think I was ashamed of our relationship?”
Howard laughed, his handsome mouth twisting up into a smirk.
“What?” Logan asked, suddenly unsure of himself.
“Well, it’s just-It almost sounds as if you thought it wasn’t perfectly obvious that you were totally humiliated by it.” After considering Logan’s face for a moment, Howard’s smile relaxed. “Oh, I see.”
“I wasn’t-humiliated . . .”
“Weren’t you?”
Logan squinted out into the bright street. Some narrow-hipped fashionista was walking her little dog across the street. After a minute, Howard seemed to take pity on him, because he said, “I never blamed you for it, of course. It was clear from the beginning that you weren’t looking for a meaningful relationship.”
Logan swallowed against the thickness building in his throat and took another sip of water. “What if-what if I was looking, and I just managed to screw it up?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“I mean . . . what if-every time I found something that was worth keeping, I managed to fuck it up so badly that it became unsalvageable?” Logan felt his face get hot as he realized just how pathetic this all was. Here he was, nearly thirty, perpetually drink, seducing impressionable youths in the pool house just like his father had, and asking his former lover for advice about his relationship with an ex-con gas station attendant because he didn’t know anyone else he could ask. If that wasn’t the definition of the word, Logan wasn’t sure exactly what qualified.
Howard gave him a slow, calculating look. “Are you still talking about your relationship with me?”
“Not specifically. Just-in general.”
“I can’t say that I’m not biased. I never deluded myself that we had anything more than an extended fling. But it always seemed to me, Logan, you tended to ruin your relationships instead of trusting yourself to sustain them . . . that by the time you got what you wanted, you’d convinced yourself that you didn’t deserve it.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“Sometimes, undoubtedly, you didn’t. But other times, when you did, perhaps, deserve it? It always seemed more like self-sabotage than good thinking.” Howard studied him for a long moment before adding, “Does that sound fair?”
“I don’t know-maybe.”
“So what’s the trouble now? Have you been seen much of Veronica lately?”
“Oh-God, no. I did see her recently, actually, but-No. I don’t know what’s up, really. I guess maybe I need to think about it.”
“You do that. A little introspection never hurt anyone.”
“Tell that to Emily Dickinson,” Logan said as the waiter arrived with the bill. “I’ve got this one.”
“Really, I insist-” Howard began.
“No. Consider it payment for the therapy session.” Logan paid for the meal and beat a hasty exit. If he hurried he could make it to Neptune without getting caught in any rush hour traffic.
Eli was relieved to finally take off his oppressive polyester Gas & Sip shirt and change into his own clothes again. He checked in on Tim behind the register one last time and waved good night. He was just heading around to his car when he noticed a familiar silver Porsche parked at Pump 3. Despite his better judgment, he felt his feet slow, and he stood still on the pavement, waiting for the inevitable to happen.
Sure enough, Logan got out of the car, looking smart in a grey suit. Before Eli could make the mistake of giving Logan an inch, he said, “What the hell do you want, Echolls?”
There was a minute twitch in Logan’s face-was it hurt, Eli wondered-before he let out a heavy sigh and said, “I wanted to talk to you.”
“That’s not what we’re doing?”
“No, I mean . . . about . . . us. That-thing.” A corpulent man in a trucker hat gave Logan a disdainful look as he passed on his way into the store. “Look, do you think we could-go somewhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, Echolls. Anything you want to say to me you can say right here.”
Logan glared at him, lips tense, but Eli just stared him down and finally he broke. “Fine. I-I really fucked the dog this time, OK?”
“If you have unnatural feelings towards your pets, that’s something you need to take up with a licensed medical-”
“No, I mean I fucked up. All right? I fucked it up between us. That night-I just got to thinking . . . I got to thinking it couldn’t possibly work out. And I just felt-But I don’t know. I mean, I have no idea if it’d work or not. It could be the worst fucking mistake of my life, but I just don’t know. And-What there was . . . It was good. I liked it.”
“Do I look like Meg Ryan to you?”
“Eli, I just-“ Logan looked away, shaking his head. He shoved his hands back in his pockets and looked back, his expression startlingly earnest. “I want to give it a try. I don’t want to write it off before I even get a chance to know you.”
And then Eli knew it was futile. Try as he might, he couldn’t resist the offer. “So . . . what?”
“I don’t know . . .” Logan took a couple of hesitant steps closer. “I guess-we see how it goes. No promises.”
“No promises.”
“Just see what happens.”
Logan was close now, close enough that Eli could smell his sweat over the tang of gasoline. He smiled a little, and Logan’s lips lifted up at the corners in answer. “I think I could live with that.”
end
Part Four
Eli woke the next morning to the sound of Logan stubbing his toe on the bedside table. “Fuck,” he hissed, pulling his naked knee up to his chest, bent in pain. “Shit.”
Eli took a minute to admire the curve of Logan’s pale ass before saying, “You could’ve turned on a light.”
“It’s fine,” he replied, dropping his foot back to the floor and feeling around for his pants.
“Where are you going?” Eli asked, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Out.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this your room?”
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Stay-I’ll make it worth your while.” The silence that met these words made Eli regret them instantly. He watched Logan yank on his pants, viciously buckling his belt.
“Look,” Logan began, and though Eli couldn’t make out the expression on his face, he could see the tension in Logan’s shoulders. “This-didn’t mean anything, all right. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake.”
“Oh, please, Weevil, don’t pretend like-”
“That’s not my fucking name, Echolls,” Eli snapped, sliding out of bed and picking up his pants from the floor.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were on a first-name basis.”
“Evidently we’re not.”
“Oh, come on, man,” Logan scoffed. “I don’t think you’re in any position to act so sanctimonious, here. Seems to me it was only a few days ago you were telling me you weren’t into fucking guys.”
“Maybe I was,” Eli ground out, pulling his pants up around his hips. “But didn’t pursue someone like a fucking life goal, only to turn tail and try and run away in the morning. What’s the matter? Milk wasn’t good enough to convince you to buy the cow?”
“I hardly think buying the cow is on the table.”
“You can talk all night about all your queer conquests, but if, when it comes down to it, you can’t even stand to look me in the face, what good are you?” He got a glimpse of the frown twisting Logan’s mouth and laughed. “I should’ve expected as much.”
Logan was standing in the middle of the room, fixing him with an intense stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eli finished dressing and picked up his jacket before looking Logan in the eye. “It means: any time you get ahold of a good thing, you manage to let it go. Good luck with that.” That said, he shrugged on his jacket and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind himself.
Logan didn’t see any more of Eli. He spent the better part of the next week in Neptune, but even when he went to pick up his car, Eli was nowhere in sight. Avoiding him, Logan figured.
Logan wasn’t sure what made him want to see Eli again, other than pure masochism. But-he’d been thinking about what Eli’d said that morning in the Grand, and, though he hadn’t been able to reach any conclusion, he didn’t think he wanted to leave it at that. The accusation had the ring of truth to it. Lilly-Veronica-Hannah-every other man and woman since . . . Maybe Eli’s words had a little more than a ring of truth. They had something more akin to an alarm. But it didn’t matter anyway, because Eli wouldn’t see him and wouldn’t answer the phone when he called.
It was like being sixteen again, calling Lilly over and over again to apologize for some stupid thing he’d done. He kept calling and the phone kept ringing, and everywhere he looked, it seemed like Eli had just left.
Ultimately, though, there was no sense in hanging around trying to get something he couldn’t even resign himself to wanting. Logan loaded up the Cayenne and drove back to Sacramento. He settled back into his house, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and exposed redwood beams. He brought people home night after night, sleeping in each of his five spacious bedrooms in turn. He even stooped to seducing one of the younger, more impressionable landscaping boys, fucking him on the cold limestone floor of the cabana beside the Olympic-style pool. But none of it had any savor. He started drinking each day by noon and wrote his columns half-tanked at three in the morning before deadline. Any time he started to think too hard, he tried to write his restlessness off as mere ennui and had another beer. He was living the consolation prize, the half-life waste of time he’d settled on when he walked out of Neptune without forcing Eli to see him again. In short, it was shit, and Logan knew it.
So called Howard, his old economics professor, and the next morning found him gunning the Porsche down to LA to meet Howard for lunch. A strange sense of relief washed over him when he spotted Howard’s thick salt-and-pepper hair in the crowded open-air plaza of the restaurant they’d agreed on. He’d told Howard he was in town on business, and had dressed accordingly more to please Howard, who’d always liked to see him in a suit, than to perpetuate his lie. The man stood when Logan arrived at the table and they shook hands warmly before sitting back down. They chatted comfortably enough until their food arrived, at which point Howard said, “I’m sure you didn’t think I’d believe you were actually in town on business.”
“You always could read me.”
“You must be in real trouble this time.”
“How do you figure?”
“It’s a long way to come just to catch up,” Howard said.
Logan smiled tersely. “Some people are really worth catching up with.”
“And,” Howard continued pointedly, “you never did come around unless you needed something.”
For a moment, Logan was silent. He took a swallow of his water and said, “Did you ever think I was ashamed of our relationship?”
Howard laughed, his handsome mouth twisting up into a smirk.
“What?” Logan asked, suddenly unsure of himself.
“Well, it’s just-It almost sounds as if you thought it wasn’t perfectly obvious that you were totally humiliated by it.” After considering Logan’s face for a moment, Howard’s smile relaxed. “Oh, I see.”
“I wasn’t-humiliated . . .”
“Weren’t you?”
Logan squinted out into the bright street. Some narrow-hipped fashionista was walking her little dog across the street. After a minute, Howard seemed to take pity on him, because he said, “I never blamed you for it, of course. It was clear from the beginning that you weren’t looking for a meaningful relationship.”
Logan swallowed against the thickness building in his throat and took another sip of water. “What if-what if I was looking, and I just managed to screw it up?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“I mean . . . what if-every time I found something that was worth keeping, I managed to fuck it up so badly that it became unsalvageable?” Logan felt his face get hot as he realized just how pathetic this all was. Here he was, nearly thirty, perpetually drink, seducing impressionable youths in the pool house just like his father had, and asking his former lover for advice about his relationship with an ex-con gas station attendant because he didn’t know anyone else he could ask. If that wasn’t the definition of the word, Logan wasn’t sure exactly what qualified.
Howard gave him a slow, calculating look. “Are you still talking about your relationship with me?”
“Not specifically. Just-in general.”
“I can’t say that I’m not biased. I never deluded myself that we had anything more than an extended fling. But it always seemed to me, Logan, you tended to ruin your relationships instead of trusting yourself to sustain them . . . that by the time you got what you wanted, you’d convinced yourself that you didn’t deserve it.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“Sometimes, undoubtedly, you didn’t. But other times, when you did, perhaps, deserve it? It always seemed more like self-sabotage than good thinking.” Howard studied him for a long moment before adding, “Does that sound fair?”
“I don’t know-maybe.”
“So what’s the trouble now? Have you been seen much of Veronica lately?”
“Oh-God, no. I did see her recently, actually, but-No. I don’t know what’s up, really. I guess maybe I need to think about it.”
“You do that. A little introspection never hurt anyone.”
“Tell that to Emily Dickinson,” Logan said as the waiter arrived with the bill. “I’ve got this one.”
“Really, I insist-” Howard began.
“No. Consider it payment for the therapy session.” Logan paid for the meal and beat a hasty exit. If he hurried he could make it to Neptune without getting caught in any rush hour traffic.
Eli was relieved to finally take off his oppressive polyester Gas & Sip shirt and change into his own clothes again. He checked in on Tim behind the register one last time and waved good night. He was just heading around to his car when he noticed a familiar silver Porsche parked at Pump 3. Despite his better judgment, he felt his feet slow, and he stood still on the pavement, waiting for the inevitable to happen.
Sure enough, Logan got out of the car, looking smart in a grey suit. Before Eli could make the mistake of giving Logan an inch, he said, “What the hell do you want, Echolls?”
There was a minute twitch in Logan’s face-was it hurt, Eli wondered-before he let out a heavy sigh and said, “I wanted to talk to you.”
“That’s not what we’re doing?”
“No, I mean . . . about . . . us. That-thing.” A corpulent man in a trucker hat gave Logan a disdainful look as he passed on his way into the store. “Look, do you think we could-go somewhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, Echolls. Anything you want to say to me you can say right here.”
Logan glared at him, lips tense, but Eli just stared him down and finally he broke. “Fine. I-I really fucked the dog this time, OK?”
“If you have unnatural feelings towards your pets, that’s something you need to take up with a licensed medical-”
“No, I mean I fucked up. All right? I fucked it up between us. That night-I just got to thinking . . . I got to thinking it couldn’t possibly work out. And I just felt-But I don’t know. I mean, I have no idea if it’d work or not. It could be the worst fucking mistake of my life, but I just don’t know. And-What there was . . . It was good. I liked it.”
“Do I look like Meg Ryan to you?”
“Eli, I just-“ Logan looked away, shaking his head. He shoved his hands back in his pockets and looked back, his expression startlingly earnest. “I want to give it a try. I don’t want to write it off before I even get a chance to know you.”
And then Eli knew it was futile. Try as he might, he couldn’t resist the offer. “So . . . what?”
“I don’t know . . .” Logan took a couple of hesitant steps closer. “I guess-we see how it goes. No promises.”
“No promises.”
“Just see what happens.”
Logan was close now, close enough that Eli could smell his sweat over the tang of gasoline. He smiled a little, and Logan’s lips lifted up at the corners in answer. “I think I could live with that.”
end